WE Jones meets Alistair Maclean meets Ruth Rendell with maybe a touch of Michael Campbell . Imagine those authors writing one thriller (!) and the reaWE Jones meets Alistair Maclean meets Ruth Rendell with maybe a touch of Michael Campbell . Imagine those authors writing one thriller (!) and the reader will gain a good impression of what The Night of the Twelfth is like without having to read it. The strengths and weaknesses of the first three writers are mixed together to produce a hard to digest, decidedly second rate novel.
There are two stories between the beginning and end of this book. The main story is a murder mystery about a particularly unsavoury serial killer of young boys. The other story relates the attempted kidnap of the son of the Israeli ambassador and the seizing of hostages. The two stories have nothing in common with one another. The Israeli hostage and kidnap story is a subplot without the redeeming feature of a subplot, for it offers no comic relief at all. Both stories are focussed on the same prep school and take place in the same school term. Plausibility is not Gilbert's strong point. The highly unlikely Israeli adventure adventure is soon cleared up, and the search for the serial killer (the discovery of a body is at the beginning of The Night of the Twelfth) a totally different story, continues. Both stories have their epicentre in the same school in the same term. The concentration of dramatic events in a private school in just one term is the Michael Campbell contribution. Unfortunately however, Michael Gilbert has none of Michael Campbell's humour but like Michael Campbell but far less convincingly, presents himself as someone who understands the psychology of small boys. His boys are pleasant, intelligent and well aware of what is going on around them. A precocious lot of sixth formers? Not so old at all. I had to double check that this is supposed to be taking place in a prep school, for the boys who are aware of everything around them and worldly wise are 10 or 11 years old. They must have been a bright lot in the schools where Michael Gilbert taught! I needed to dismiss all thoughts of plausibility to get to the end of this book.
WE Jones is omnipresent in the shape of a teacher who is really an undercover policeman (there are two undercover policemen in the same school!) called Kenneth Manifold. Manifold is virtuous, daring, dedicated, too good to be true, I suspect Manifold is how Michael Gilbert viewed himself, and is like Bulldog Drummond. I'd bet a bag of Sherbert or Mary Anne Creamy Toffees that our Manifold is modelled on Buldog Drummond. Michael Gilbert even seems to share the Bulldog penchant for disguises and the school play is of course (title and disguises!) Twelfth Night. Alistair Maclean is present in the determination to ensure that this book is what used to be called a “pot boiler�, with dedication to action outstripping the potentially but not much explored themes which arise in the course of the adventure(s). In MacLean's Satan Bug for example, the action of the novel completely overcasts the much more interesting potential of the science fiction and dystopian possibilities of gain of function research and biological weapons which could have made of the Satan Bug a much better story than it proved to be. Similarly, in The Night of the Twelfth, the thriller and “whodunnit� element overcasts the touched upon but little explored psychological aspects of the book. Talking of psychology: here is the part which recalls Ruth Rendell this book is “psychology for dummies� making the reader think there is something of deep intelligence going on, when all that is happening is that characters throw off a few more or less acute observations about criminal psychology. Psychology dominates the whodunnit aspect of the work rather than hunting for motive and clever techniques to avoid detection. As in Ruth Rendell, there is a strong element of finger wagging and moralising throughout the book. Michael Gilbert obviously fancies himself as a school master.
The book does have some moments of lively dialogue and the characters are colourful and not the cut-outs who sometimes flit across the stage of the typical British “whodunnit�.
There is one other positive feature of this story which in my view takes out of one star to two stars, almost to three stars. (The Goodread descriptions for the stars are misleading for me. I did NOT find the book ok whatever it means to say a book is "ok" but one star seemed too harsh a judgement) The clue as to the identity of the killer is not only provided but is a fair clue, which an intelligent reader might be able to pick up before the police. I am not bright enough myself and I missed it, but it can be done I think. This is in contrast to the usual oh-so-smart Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and others who lecture not only the protagonists in their “reveal it all� speech at the end but also the reader about everything was simple and elementary for them, when the clues were not proper clues at all, the reader had no chance but is made feeling small and miserable at the end. It was all so elementary, the reader just had to use “the little grey cells� but the reader, like Hastings, like Doctor Watson, is made to feel how superior is the intelligence of the great detective. Michael Gilbert does not do that, because the clue (or maybe other clues which I missed entirely!) is a fair one which the discerning and well awake reader might discover and correctly interpret. If Gilbert does that in his other thrillers (The Night of the Twelfth is the only book by Gilbert which I have read), without the weaknesses of The Night of the Twelfth which I have adumbrated, then his other thrillers may be much better than this one. According to the Wikipedia entry, Michael Gilbert had an eventful and fruitful life. Apparently, he wrote his novels while commuting to and from London (he practised law in Lincoln's Inn). His varied and interesting life is mirrored in this book in indigestible lumps, but the book can be enjoyed if it is read in the spirit it was written, namely to pass time on commuter journeys in the train....more
Grenzgänger des Geistes ist eine Sammlung von wie es im Klappentext heißt „verkannte und verfemte Schriftsteller� geschrieben von Werner Olles. SämtliGrenzgänger des Geistes ist eine Sammlung von wie es im Klappentext heißt „verkannte und verfemte Schriftsteller� geschrieben von Werner Olles. Sämtliche Aufsätze wurden schon in verschiedenen Publikationen, die meisten erst in der Junge Freiheit erschienen. Werner Olles ist im deutschen Sprachraum ein gut bekannter konservativer und katholischer Journalist und schriebt seit vielen Jahren Rezensionen für diverse meistens konservative Publikationen, vor allem Die Junge Freiheit..
Die viele Aufsätze hier sind alle sehr kurz und dienen als kurze Einleitung des jeweiligen Schriftstellers. Viele der hier beschriebenen Schriftstellern sind tatsächlich heute von der Öffentlichkeit vergessen, verkannt oder verfemt worden aber beileibe nicht alle. Albert Camus, Günter Grass, Samuel Huntington, TS Eliot, Evelyn Waugh genießen bis heute die größte Anerkennung und Bewunderung. Der Buchtitel ist insofern irreführend.
Mit einer Ausnahme schreibt Werner Olles mit großer Empathie und Enthusiasmus für jeden in diesem Buche thematisierten Verfasser. Die Ausnahme ist Günter Grass, für den Olles nichts übrig hat. Es wäre interessanter zu wissen was Olles denkt beziehungsweise über Heinrich Böll geschrieben hätte, da Heinrich Böll, der wie Günther Grass zu den „anti -nazi Pflichtlektor� der Nachkriegsjahren der neuen Bundesrepublik gehörte, aber wie Olles und im Gegensatz zu Grass, ein überzeugter Römisch-Katholiker war.
Dieses Buch ist leicht zu lesen, informativ, und dient als Anreiz, jeden behandelten Schriftsteller zu entdecken. Dank dieses Buches entdeckte ich Herbert Reinecke, der geniale Drehbuch Autor der Fernsehen Serien „Der Kommissar� und „Derrick�.
Diejenige die sich für europäische Belletristik interessieren, der deutschen Sprache mächtig sind und Empfehlungen in diesem Bereich der Literatur suchen, werden nicht von Grenzgänger des Geistes enttäuscht sein....more
In Sparkling Cyanide the reader may expect a Hercule Poirot or a Miss Marple: it the kind of tangled web of deceit which they are so good at untanglinIn Sparkling Cyanide the reader may expect a Hercule Poirot or a Miss Marple: it the kind of tangled web of deceit which they are so good at untangling, but neither makes an appearance. It is a moot point whether that is to the story's advantage or not. Sparkling Cyanide displays in my opinion Agatha Christie's psychological depiction at its best. The plot abounds with false trails and assumptions and suspicions-a citation on the inside cover of my Fontana edition of 1966 from a critic writing in the Daily Telegraph sums that up precisely by describing the writer as “the greatest living expert in the art of misdirection� However, the misdirection here never reaches a point that a reader will lose the thread of the plot. I suspect that this is principally because the main actors are so realistically, graphically and plausibly drawn. The psychological motivation of the characters is harsh, vivid and true to life. In the absence of a colourful eccentric sleuth (the two investigating officers seem to me to be colourless cut out figures) the suspects are all the more vivid. The minor event upon which so much depends seems a little implausible but not entirely beyond plausibility or credibility, (which I would argue is the case if a reader soberly considers the pivotal events in Ten Little Niggers and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd). Sparkling Cyanide strikes a successful balance between the hunt for the killer and a persistent interest in the psychology of all the characters (except the investigating officers) for their own sake. Personally I found the introduction of an espionage sub sub-plot unnecessary and I have the impression that it originated in a totally different book which the writer had embarked upon but subsequently abandoned. Nevertheless, I would still include Sparkling Cyanide among my favourite dozen Agatha Christie novels. The reason for that is the haunting, unsettling portrayal of characters and even the ghost of a character, the contrast between a person's “face to meet the faces that we meet� and the human soul with its fearful concealed passion, forbidden desires, suffering, resentment and dark ambition....more
The number of prominent people who commit suicide in the oh so democratic state of the Federal Republic of Germany is impressive. A few immediately coThe number of prominent people who commit suicide in the oh so democratic state of the Federal Republic of Germany is impressive. A few immediately come to this reviewer's mind. There was Ulrike Meinhof of course, who was apparently so depressed she hanged herself. The authorities later took off her skull for examination to prove to the world that she suffered from some version of bipolar disorder, a contributing factor presumably to her suicide. Ulrike Meinhof was followed a year later by her RAF comrades Gudrun Ensslin, Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe in the “high security� prison in Stammheim where they were held. Raspe and Baader reportedly shot themselves and Ensslin died by strangulation. They were depressed after hearing of the failure of an RAF hostage capture to work their release. This story is widely accepted by the German public. Another public figure whose depression led to suicide according to reports is the former president of the state of Schleswig Holstein Uwe Barschel. This gentleman apparently drowned himself in a hotel bath fully dressed, an eccentric way of ending one's own life, but accepted by the general public as just one of those things. Then there was Jürgen Möllermann, a member of the FDP party (free democrats) who had associated himself with the Arab cause against the official policy of his party and the government, who became “depressed� and “ostracised� to the point that he felt his life was not worth living. Möllermann intentionally failed to open his parachute while indulging his favourite sport of sky diving while depressed. The account of these sudden deaths as case of suicide are accepted by the great majority of a trusting German public. Only a few “conspiracy theorists� are sceptical of these official and state and media approved narratives. It is worth noting that the media financed by a mandatory tax on every citizen of over 200 euros a year in the German Federal Republic work in close collaboration with the political authorities. This has been increasingly evident in recent years.
One of the most implausible suicides of a prominent personality living under the jurisdiction of the West German puppet regime is Rudolf Hess. The account given here is by his son Rüdiger Hess. Rüdiger Hes sis convinced his father was murdered. Hess was interred by the Allies in 1941 for flying to Scotland in the hope of negotiating a peace settlement. He was condemned to life imprisonment with the only possibility of release in his later years if the four powers occupying Berlin (France, Britain, the USA and Russia) would unanimously agree to his release on compassionate grounds. Hess's release had been repeatedly rejected by Soviet authorities. However, President Gorbachev on behlaf of the Soviet Union consented to Hess's release. It was not to be. On Monday August 17th 1987 a “tired� 93 years old Rudolph Hess “with no strength left in his hands� (page 49) took advantage of the absence of his personal guard, who was conveniently called away by a telephone call which according to that same guard proved to have no one at the other end, in that moment the very frail old man, shocked at the prospect of being let free rushed back to his cell, got onto a chair and hanged himself with an electric cord which had been “accidentally� left behind by staff of an electric company, a company which never confirmed they had forgotten any cord.
In this sad book Rüdiger Hess explains the circumstances of his father's death and argues convincingly that Hess was murdered by British Intelligence with the connivance of course of the subservient little German state. Both Britain and Germany were frightened by the possibility that despite his advanced years Hess might act as a political magnet for opponents of the pro Western NATO state of Germany. The German Federal Republic remains then and now a vassal of the West. If this account is to be believed, the submissive little German state will look the other way if instructed to do so, when suicides take place.
This is a sad but necessary book for anyone who wishes to be familiar with the trajectory of the life of Rudolf Hess and what he sought for himself his country and the world or who seeks an insight into the hypocritical nature of “democratic� regimes which are loud in voicing outrage at the deaths of dissidents in other lands but ingenuously assure the world when their own dissidents die suddenly and unexpectedly, that it is because they have become “depressed� at their own failings, failures and shortcomings and for that reason put an end to their lives. Honit soit qui mal y pense....more
Towards Zero was published in 1944 and is notable in several respects. Presumably Towards Zero was written during the war but typically for Agatha ChrTowards Zero was published in 1944 and is notable in several respects. Presumably Towards Zero was written during the war but typically for Agatha Christie, the second World War is notable by its absence. Another striking fact about Towards Zero is that neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple are called upon to apply their skills to smoke out the guilty party. The detective in charge of investigating a brutal murder is one Superintendent Battle, a character who would, in novels featuring either Poirot or Miss Marple, have been acting as a slow-witted foil to their acute powers of observation and deduction. Battle does solve the mystery without them however, although by remembering Poirot and his sense of order draws Battle's attention to an important clue. Both Battle and the the reader are aided by the fact that Towards Zero offers a smaller number of suspects to choose from than in most Agatha Christie mysteries.
Because there is no Captain Hastings, Inspector Japp, Poirot, Jane Marple to distract the readers' (or the writer's) attention, the novel is especially strongly focussed on the psychology of the different suspects. Towards Zero reminds me a little of the novels of Iris Murdoch, a dark Iris Murdoch: characters with absorbing passions which they do not show to the world. On the exterior they present to the world the picture of steadfast albeit extreme characters, yet under the surface they are seething with despair, fear, love, resentment. This was a time when people did not wear their passions on their sleeve or announce their foibles to the world.
Many of Agatha Christie's tales have a moral lesson to them, but nowhere I think more strongly than here. Towards Zero in my eyes is a Christian morality tale. A man tries to kill himself, is saved when he does not want to be, because God has other plans for him. It reminds me of the morality of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful World.
As is the case with a great many Agatha Christie stories, the reader may struggle with disbelief accepting the motivation to kill in this story. From early days certain people may be in the grip of something truly terrible. The murderer has character tendencies from early life that only need the right trigger to make the person homicidal: Agatha Christie, as she frequently opines in her different novels, especially through her alter ego Miss Marple, believes that a “bad un� remains a “bad un� a whole life long and modern psychology tends to miss the signs. Seemingly extraneous scenes and information in Towards Zero may help the alert reader to decide who the murderer is. The book includes an unusual dedication to Robert Graves, something which offers quite a mystery challenge in itself, although I see no parallel between the characters in Towards Zero and those in Graves' life, unless perhaps the very progressive headmistress of the school which Superintendent Battle's daughter attends is a sketch of Laura Riding? This is the dedication to Robert Graves:
“Since you are kind enough to say you like my stories, I venture to dedicate this book to you. All I ask is that you should sternly restrain your critical faculties (doubtless sharpened by your recent excesses in that line) when reading it. This is a story for your pleasure and not a candidate for Mrs. Graves' literary pillory!�
My edition of John Vanbrugh's The Relapse is in the New Mermaids series published Ernest Benn Limited and is edited by Bernard Harris. Harris providesMy edition of John Vanbrugh's The Relapse is in the New Mermaids series published Ernest Benn Limited and is edited by Bernard Harris. Harris provides a brief but insightful introduction which includes such fun facts as that John Vanbrugh was “the ninth child and first surviving son of the nineteen (!!) children of Giles and Elizabeth Vanbrugh�. Vanbrugh's grandfather was Flemish, a Protestant refugee. John Vanbrugh was not only a playwright but an architect, displaying an uncommon combination of talents. He was also a soldier.
The Relapse is a typical Restoration play, that is to say vivacious, absurd, hilarious, light-hearted, even when violence ensues. It is perhaps insufficiently recognised that much of Restoration drama is written in reaction to and repudiation of Jacobean and Elizabethan drama. We have moved from the Age of Spain, a fact which the Spanish critic Salvador de Madariaga famously stressed as being crucial in properly understanding Shakespeare's Hamlet, to the age of France, from repression, puritanism and revenge tragedy to display, concealment, immoralism and farce. Sexuality is more important than love (in Shakespeare for example the reverse is true) and revenge and resentment are regarded as characteristic of low minds. Gentlemen and ladies move on. The Restoration memory, in stark contrast to the Jacobean memory, is a short one.
The principle plot of The Relapse concerns the efforts by two brothers, Loveless and Sir Foppington (the contrast between two brothers a persiflage of Shakespeare's King Lear perhaps) for fortune and standing and that of course includes marrying the woman most advantageous in that respect. Vanburgh's views on love and marriage and the relationship between the sexes is very cynical. Love and duty are merely instruments or charades. Both in their time and subsequently, Restoration dramatists have been accused of offending morality and in his introduction Bernard Harris gives an account of the dispute and rivalry between John Vanbrugh and one Colley Cibber concerning the morality of drama. Harris writes “Collier was what Laurence Whistler (Sir John Vanbrugh, Architect and Dramatist-1938) has called an example of that curious and undesirable type, the high-church Puritan�. It seems that Cibber was keen to take drama in the direction of the sentimental and didactic. Restoration comedy was primarily concerned with providing entertainment free of moral conundra. The Relapse, a typical Restoration drama, is brutally realistic about the driving force are sexual appetite, pecuniary interest and social standing. The play, it seems to me, is closer to the spirit of the 1970's than to that of the 2020's and I suspect that revived Restoration drama would probably come under pressure to censor characters such as Lord Foppington and Loveless more severely than the author probably intended. It is worth noting that Lord Foppington, the elder brother who suffers unjust indignities, not comparable to be sure to those suffered by Edgar in King Lear; nevertheless his is ambushed, bound and thrown into a cellar when he appears as a suitor and is mistaken for a “stroller� suffers this injustice without great resentment. In our day and age, where everyone expects to be treated with scrupulous respect, his treatment would have been followed by a flurry of charges and indemnity claims made by his lawyers on his behalf.
Don't take anything too seriously is the underlying message of the play but it is of course true that the play will have no truck with any serious matter, poverty, famine, exploitation, slavery, fiscal corruption and other scourges of the time. “The greatness of your necessities..is the worst argument in the world for your being personally heard� as Sir Foppington himself puts it when his brother applies to him for financial assistance. As for the notion clearly conveyed in this play, that women enjoy slap and tickle even when they protest for the sake of appearances that they do not, as for example when Loveless seduces the willing/unwilling Berinthia, this would not be tolerated for a moment in real life by the amazons of the contemporary metoo generation.
Dramatically, the play works extremely well, moving forward at an exciting pace, each act with many short scenes, outrage, anger and intrigue reduced from their perilous dimension in Jacobean and Elizabethan drama to the occasion for hilarity, farce and a vivacious and rapid dialogue.
Here is an extract from the hilarious scene ( Act IV Scene VI) when Lord Foppington visits Sir Tunbelly to marry the good man's daughter and is mistaken only to be mistakern for a "stroller"
Sir Tunbelly Come, bring him along, bring him along ! Lord Foppingtom What the pax do you mean, gentlemen ! Is it fair-time, that you are all drunk before dinner ? Sir Tunbelly Drunk, sirrah ! Here's an impudent rogue for you ! Drunk or sober, bully, I'm a justice of the peace, and know how to deal with strollers. Lord Foppington Strollers !
John Vanbrugh's The Relapse is an exubert entertainment and distraction from the sombre mood of these early 2020's, a paly in which "infection" means not some bitrre apocalyptic made in China virus, but the sudden twinge of the libido.
Berenthia (Breaking from him) Oh Lard, let me go! 'Tis the palgue and we shall all be infected. Loveless (Catching her in his arms, and kissing her) Then we'll die together, my charming angel! Berenthia Oh God-the devil's in you! Lord, let me go, here's somebody coming.
For those born before 1960, this play written and first performed centuries ago, might evoke nostalgic memories of the amoral, superfiical, lively and adventurous time of younger days, when missionary earnestness and a constant fear of dying were considered weaknesses, not virtues. Ìý ...more
This whodunnit is set in the closed community of a preparatory school, was first published in 1935 and in respect of jargon and social mores, is very This whodunnit is set in the closed community of a preparatory school, was first published in 1935 and in respect of jargon and social mores, is very much a book of that period. It is therefore at the same time a detective novel and a novel about the hot house community of the private school. Who is the victim? One of the boys. An unpopular pupil has been found strangled. As with many detective thrillers, the relative indifference to the victim of everybody under suspicion in "A Question of Proof" is something I find hard to credit. The reaction of the boy's uncle for example-what the murder will do for the reputation of the school-displays a level of callousness which, perhaps naively, I do not believe a majority of suspects would sink to.
The usual tropes are there:suspicious characters with secrets which make them likely candidates for murder, the shock at realising "the murderer must be one of us", the police inspector who works cleverly and methodically but lacks the acumen and imagination of the private sleuth and is finally outsmarted by him, not least because of the latter's sharper insight into the human psyche and tribal values. The plot is well managed and the characters are vivid. The novel is a little out of character for a whodunnit, in my opinion in two respects, one trivial and one less so. In the same way as Ian Fleming (remember that long account of the golf match in "Goldfinger"?) the writer expects the reader to be as interested as he in a sport, in this case cricket, and there is a very long account of a match played (soon after the first murder) which anyone who does not enjoy cricket will find tedious. The second and much more interesting idiosyncrasy of this thriller: the writer seems more concerned with psychology and dark motivation than the uncovering of the "bad 'un" as such. I do not think it is exactly a spoiler to say that I think that the story and the crime itself is a lesson in psychology, or rather, several lessons in psychology. It is psychological insight which leads the amateur sleuth, Nigel Strangeways, to the right conclusion and it is through psychological acumen that he is able to get the murderer to give him/her self away. What is more, the reader gains insight into the psychology, the likes and dislikes of the crime writer himself. At least I don't think I have ever read a whodunnit in which the inherent cruelty of the investigating police is displayed and where the writer clearly has experience of it and it angers him. Condemning the police for cruelty is the one strikingly modern aspect of a thriller which is in most respects quaintly dated. There is an unusual palpablke tension even anger in this tale; the writer's own obsessions and interests intrude. The author's experience and character are hard to ignore. I suspect that a psychologist might be able to make some shrewd hunches about Nicholas Blake's own anxieties, secret feelings and passions just from reading this thriller. The language, both of description and the dialogue, is magnificently of its time. I have read many English language novels from this 1930's; I don't know many which can be so easily dated by virtue of the language alone as this one is. “Damned smart� “Mm rather� “jolly decent of you� “old Pedantic swings a pretty hefty cane� and much more of the same. The boys especially are delightfully colourful period pieces. (The victim's name is Algernon Wyvern-Wenyss!)
The psychology of the murderer is for me the most interesting feature of this thriller. It rings true, albeit lurid and highlighted for the purposes of writing a murder mystery. That motivation explains the comportment and views of many people today and the psychology of the killer is not dated in any way. Far from it. ...more
Recently I took from the shelves a novel which I thought I had read and which I hadn't at all: my late mother's dog-eared copy of The Heart of the Ma Recently I took from the shelves a novel which I thought I had read and which I hadn't at all: my late mother's dog-eared copy of The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene. I thought it was Graham's tale of the whisky priest in a leper colony, but that is another Graham Greene novel, maybe The Power and the Glory. The Heart of the Matter is a massively depressing but incisive novel. A man called Scobie (might that be where Lawrence Durrell took the name for his very different Scobie for the Alexandria Quartet? a sort of anti-Scobie?) works as a police officer on a drenched and diseased African coast, a British colony close to Vichy French territory. Scobie, a devout Catholic, is married and loves his wife, who is disappointed with his singular lack of vocational ambition. Scobie despite his faith falls in love with a young woman who is brought in sick to the colony clutching a stamp collection and they have an affair while Scobie's wife is away. In this dark and guilt obsessed novel, love itself corrupts. Scobie does nothing right. He slips in small things, one sin leading to another until he connives in the murder of his own servant. It is in the nature of sin as represented in this book that it should lead inevitably to more and greater sin. Scobie persists willingly and wilfully in sin in the full sense of his own damnation. At the end of this sorry story he is faced with blackmail. The end is for a Roman Catholic, the ultimate sin.
“What a novel� “I told my wife, “imagine such hell, such misery. To be a convinced communist yet despise humanity, to be entirely attached to the Catholic Faith yet to knowingly turn from God�. My media naranja quickly, acutely: “Sounds like you.� Not quite true but a little true, so why do I not share the despair and sense of rejection which permeates this novel? Maybe one reason is that I do not share and have never shared the writer's pervasive and characteristic puritan joylessness. . Did Graham Greene ever enjoy music? Graham Greene is exceptionally prude and although Scobie is supposedly in love and the love is returned, the reader will be forgiven for finding it hard to believe. There is not only erotic description whatsoever (so the sexual nature of the relationship indeed seems dull and tasteless) but there is no joy or merriment in the relationship. It is as though Scobie is subconsciously determined to suffocate happiness for it receives no oxygen of joy, humour or music. The illicit relationship is as sodden and liable to be contaminated with guilt as mould is likely to take hold of the smallest cut in the skin in the unhealthy tropical climate. In this novel Scobie is impervious to happiness although he is determined to give it to others and fails the more he tries. There is one small exception to his inability to experience happiness. The exception is his enjoyment of the African sunsets which are very beautiful but of short duration. Night falls fast in the tropics. This symbolically is his vanishing hope, hope of salvation, hope of making others happy.
Reading The Heart of the Matter, two writers I was reminded of are, paradoxically given their political views , Pierre Drieu la Rochelle and Henry de Montherlant, but their writing too is overshadowed by the same high reaching faith, the same immense yearning, the underlying darkness, for Montherlant a literal darkness as his eyesight began to fade but a darkness of faith too. Both Drieu la Rochelle and Henry de Montherlant took the Roman way to resolve what they felt they could neither face nor endure, the failure of the world to be in any way their world and the failure of the world to provide them with that fulfilment which only a peace of soul can give. Scobie in The Heart of the Matter is obsessed with the same despair and helplessness and the weight of betrayal but blames himself for everything and will allow no outside forces to take any blame for his own misery. He blames nobody but himself for his own damnation. This is Christian guilt written very large indeed. He is also, unlike the two French writers but like the Calvinist poet Jack Clemo, an unsentimental Christian, mindful of the reproach of Christ's sufferings. What Graham Greene novel does not deal with the ugly prospect of betrayal? For the devout Christian, all human beings are born in a state of betrayal, a state of sin for having betrayed God. Betrayal led Judas to kill himself. I remember stories that Graham Greene used to entertain or distract himself by playing Russian roulette in solitude. The Heart of the Matter is a very well written novel but it is austere and anything but comforting. We cannot I think approach it with the “willing suspension of disbelief� enjoined by Coleridge. We have to acknowledge our own attitude to the faith of the writer. It is as if we his despair his embrace of unhappiness with the unhappiness she causes all those around him and everything he touches he writes warning us against the traps of a religion whose message is love but whose fruits are so often persecution, delusion, cruelty and despair and shame. It would be ironical if this novel were a deterrence rather than inducement to return to a faith which in this novel offers little hope....more
The Crab with the Golden Claws is the ninth Tintin adventure, in which Tintin meets his close friend-to-be, Captain Haddock, for the first time. The aThe Crab with the Golden Claws is the ninth Tintin adventure, in which Tintin meets his close friend-to-be, Captain Haddock, for the first time. The adventure begins, as Tintin adventures usually do, with a mundane event which rapidly develops into a dangerous adventure. Snowy cannot extricate himself from a tin of crab he had been sniffling. Soon afterwards, Tintin recognises a scrap from a crab tin found on the body of a drowned sailor from the Armenian merchant ship Karaboujan as being the scrap from the tin of crab which snowy had caught his muzzle in. If the Karaboujan is “Armenian�, the “Armenian� flag is a flag of of convenience, since Armenia has no coast line and Armenia was in any case not independent at the time of the story. The story has a number of unexplored channels which later Tintin amplifications have filled out, rather in the way black and white films are turned into technicolour. I prefer to keep with the original story which I read with delight when I was eight years old.
Captain Haddock is an alcoholic (in Red Rackham's Treasure he receives a doctor's report warning him of the parlous condition of his liver) but in no other Tintin adventure is his alcoholism as chronic as in The Crab with the Golden Claws. While Captain Haddock is always accident prone, in The Crab with the Golden Claws his is not only clumsy, he is also when in the clutches of drink, dangerous. This story is noticeable for having the only mention of any family member of the main characters in a Tintin story, namely Captain Haddock's old mother. “What would she think of him if she saw him in his drunken state?� Tintin admonishes Haddock, at which point Captain Haddock bursts into tears of grief at the memory of his old mother.
The Crab with the Golden Claws has more sombre undertones than most of the Tintin adventures. The first stage of the adventure is the discovery of a drowned sailor, who it later emerges was murdered. Alcoholism is not a subject of humour, as it is in later adventures, but a drug which can destroy self-respect and lead someone to commit acts of violence and extreme stupidity. The crime of the protagonists is opium smuggling and gun running. Captain Haddock is flogged and would presumably face worse treatment than flogging if Tintin did not arrive in time to save him.
The meteorite causes no harm after all but lands in the Arctic Ocean. One charmingly eccentric Professor Phostle ("tell me young man, do you like bullseyes?") has identified a new metal in the meteorite and the remaining story is a tale of adventure as two ships race to the Arctic. The first to land a person on the island which the meteoroid in the Arctic ocean has become, will claim the metal. (It is doubtful that this accords with international law but the adventures of Tintin are not concerned with the niceties of international law). Tintin, Professor Phostle and Captain Haddock are in one ship. The rival ship is he property of Mr Bohlwinkel “a powerful Sao Rico financier� and he will stop at nothing to prevent Professor Phostle from claiming the meteorite. The new metal has strange other worldly qualities. It increases the size of living organisms (but not, illogically, of Tintin or Snowy) and a small spider morphs into a monster. So the end of the story with its monstrous spider recalls the early scene where Tintin mistakes a small spider for a monster spider as it crawls over the lens of Professor Phostle's telescope.
A first class children's book a nod at the panic of humans facing “the end of days�, an understanding of the machinations of big money, a superb adventure story, a science fiction fantasy, a humorous depiction of human foibles and weaknesses: The shooting Star is a masterpiece....more
Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is not a novel at all, albeit it calls itself a novel. At least it is not in the traditional sense of the word as uVirginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is not a novel at all, albeit it calls itself a novel. At least it is not in the traditional sense of the word as understood by everyone up to the beginning of the twentieth century. It may well have been with fellow Bloomsbury luminary Virginia Woolf in mind that EM Forster famously wrote in Aspects of the Novel indirectly disparaging those who saw the matter differently, that the business of the novel is to “tell a story�. The word novel etymologically means new tale and To the Lighthouse is “not much of a story� . It has no beginning, no middle no end no chapters except three parts called enigmatically “The Window� “Time Passes� and “The Lighthouse�. The characters are ghost like, the major events of history such as the First World War incidental not germane only relevant in being associated with time and in having caused the death of a Ramsay child. To the Lighthouse is not however a stream of consciousness "novel" in the manner of James Joyce's Ulysses or William Faulkner in As I lay Dying, since the thoughts of the protagonists are controlled by the author and given precise shape and short utterance. The construction of To the Lighthouse is an inversion of that standard narration in which actions are described that are carried along or explained by occasional thoughts. In To the Lighthouse it is on the contrary, the thoughts of people which constitute the plot, carried along and supported by the (very) occasional action.
The essential characteristic of To the Lighthouse is that it is not a story at all, in the sense at least that the reader wishes to know what actions ensure from what actions and what the next action will be. To the Lighthouse portrays thoughts and memories and what the next thoughts and memories will be. But on what do we base thoughts and memories? Essentially two aspects of human consciousness: words and images. To the Lighthouse is not so much a story as a poem and a painting, or if one will a painting described poetically. The sea, the sky, here and there figures, three people on a beach, a boat, perhaps going to a lighthouse. The changing sky. The shadows. Then there are memories. A woman here today, no yesterday. How time takes, how a strong presence leaves a shadow, an influence. Images encourage us to speculate on histories, the history of a house, of a figure, a chair, a boat, a lighthouse.
Memories and images are intensely personal. This particular painting/poem represents two holidays to The Hebrides. The reader si introduced, ina haphazard sort of manner to the Ramsays, an upper class, but not very wealthy highly artistic and intellectual family , Mr and Mrs Ramsay and their eight very shadowy and lightly sketched children. The moments captures are moments of elegance even if the elegance shows signs of decline, nevertheless elegance, and to the degree that it would never have permitted itself to refer to Virginia Woolf curtly as “Woolfâ€� as so many Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ commentators disobligingly do, thus putting on show their extreme distance from the kind of society depicted here. The images are steeped in the memories of a leisured but simple style of living and the references underline leisure, wistfulness, delicacy, a moment in time, a class society, something which was unique, time bound, place bound. Here is the decline of the Edwardian upper class and artistic class still equipped with considerable and compelling presence, especially as symbolised in the practical and romantic personality of the beautiful Mrs Ramsay, whose ghost like influence on the reader and the descriptions here, reminds me strongly of that of Mrs Wilcox throughout EM Forster's “traditionalâ€� novel, Howard's End.
The novel surely is a failure as novel but if we regard the writing as poetry it is very lovely indeed. Here is an example of such poetry simulating prose:
“What after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollows of the wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen; they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flesh of tattered flags kindling in the doom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore. �
A central character of To the Lighthouse is Lily Briscoe, the very symbol of the artist, a female artist for this the writer after all of A Room of One's Own who believed strongly that a woman needed a room of her own to show that artistically she was as capable as a man and this writing is dominated by Lily Briscoe's art and Mrs Ramsay's double character, three aspects of women succeeding, as efficient mother, as beauty, as artist; whereas Mr Ramsay is an irascible seeker of admiration (unwittingly assuming a female role, for all his masculinity, for he bestows praise and seeks love, Virginia Woolf has turned the Edwardian understanding of masculinity on its head) appears as something of a failure. What is the sense of art? From this book it would seem to be this: to link the momentary to the eternal. Artists too are "foredefeated challengers of oblivion" (Robinson Jeffers) but still they strive and this is how the story ends, when Lily Briscoe completes her painting, for after all, didn't we know it all along, this book's little secret, that To the Lighthouse is her painting:
"Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? She asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps,; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision."
Dieses Buch ist ein Sommernachtstraum. Wenn man verliebt ist, erlebt man das Leben als ob man sich in einer Traumwelt befindet.
Die Geschichte findet sDieses Buch ist ein Sommernachtstraum. Wenn man verliebt ist, erlebt man das Leben als ob man sich in einer Traumwelt befindet.
Die Geschichte findet statt in Dresden kurz nach der "Wende". Junge Menschen treffen sich, quatschen, spielen, malen, schreiben, überall hört man Musik. Wenig passiert in diesem Roman. Die Handlung ist wie in vielen Leben, sagen wir bescheiden, alles anders als ereignisreich Der Roman wird durch Bilder in der Sprache erleuchtet. Die Zweit ist wichtig;man ist voll Hoffnung. Die Menschen der DDR glaubten wirklich im Westen wäre alles frei und die Demokratie tatsächlich funktioniert in der BRD wie in den Bücher beschrieben. Ach ja etwas „Flower power� in der Luft. Ein Sommernachtstraum. Gisela Hoyer schrieb in der Leipziger Volkszeitung, mit selbst einem schönen Ausdruck der dem Verfasser würdig ist, "Tellkamp will ein Verhältnis des Betrachters zur Welt, in dem niemand und nichts verfügbar gemacht wird sonder Ehrfurcht waltet." Genau so empfinde ich diesen schönen kurzen Roman. In diesen trüben Zeiten der Hysterie (ich schreibe diese Zeilen im Jahre 2021) schenkt den einen oder die andere diese sehr poetische gemalte kurze Liebesgeschichte vielleicht Trost. Es fehlt an bösen Kräften im Buch; nach so viel schlechtes und berüchtigt und böses auch in der Belletristik das darf wohl wie eine Linderung und Erleichterungen vorkommen. Nur ein Hauch Melancholie verweilt. Wie kann es anders sein? Alles ist vergänglich, auch die Liebe, besonders die Liebe. Ich erinnere mich an wenig. Der Roman ist wie ein Stuck Musik oder ein Duft. Ein Roman den ich vielleicht irgendwann wieder lese. ...more
Diese Erzählung der Legende von Parzival von Will Vespers, basierend (ich gehe davon aus ohne ganz sicher zu sein) auf der Geschichte Parzivals von WoDiese Erzählung der Legende von Parzival von Will Vespers, basierend (ich gehe davon aus ohne ganz sicher zu sein) auf der Geschichte Parzivals von Wolfram von Eschenbachs, ist eine gelungene Darstellung einer alten Legende, kurz und bündig und klar und bunt. Dank Vespers Kunst als Erzähler und dank der Kürze dieser Erzählung (wenn man mit Eschenbachs 16 Buch Heldenlied vergleicht) ist die Legende dem Kind wie dem Erwachsener zugänglich. Obwohl diese Geschichte in der Art und Weise einer Kindermärchen geschrieben wird, und mit Vollseite Farbbildern bebildert, scheut der Verfasser nicht davor, die Leidenschaften, Versuchen, Eifersucht der Welt von Erwachsenen in der Geschichte unseren Helds einzuschließen und anzuerkennen. Wie in Vespers Kurzgeschichten, geistert hier ein unüberhörbares Leitmotiv der erotischen und leidenschaftlichen Begierde umher. Um unser Held geht es nicht ganz um ein Einfaltspinselheld, ein Grünschnabel, auch wenn die Erzählung hier um Parzival sich handelt. Will Vespers ist es gelungen, was in Wagners Parsifal ich nicht gut verstand, warum der "heiliger Narr" aus Montsalvatch ausgestoßen war. Seine Sünde liegt daran, daß er nicht mitfühlen kann, mitleiden, wir würden heute vielleicht sagen, es mangelt Parzival an Empathie. Sein Leben muss ein Lernprozess sein. Parzivals Lernprozess? Parzival in Vespers Augen ist Jederman.
"So unselig-selig strebt jeder hier, so lang er lebt. sucht und drängt nach seinem Gral: Jeder Mensch ist Parzival."
Ich würde es begrüßen, wenn jemand diese schöne und schön erzählte Geschichte, neu veröffentlicht wäre. Für jene Kinder welche nicht schon unwiederbringlich von Klingsor-Elektronik verdorben worden sind, ist diese Erzählung bestens geeignet als Nachtgeschichte zu dienen, ab 7 Jahre alt. Dieser Satz am Ende der Erzählung kann jeder schätzen und aufbewahren: „Aber niemand kann die Welt vollkommen machen. Es ist genug, daß jeder an seinem Teil tut, was er zu tun berufen ist."...more
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers plays out among the “dreaming spires� of Oxford. I first read it ten years ago and was disappointed, because I had beeGaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers plays out among the “dreaming spires� of Oxford. I first read it ten years ago and was disappointed, because I had been expecting a conventional “whodunnit� on the lines of an Agatha Christie or even Dorothy L Sayers' own Whose Body? This novel is detective fiction to be sure but is it really a whuddunit of the classic sense? That is to say, is the focus and interest of the tale on unmasking the culprit? Opinions may certainly differ on that, since an assessment in that sense is necessarily subjective, but for me, the focus of the story is not the bringing of a criminal to bay. The fascination of the tale and its qualities lie for me elsewhere, firstly in the portrayal of the relationship between Harriet Vane, the heroine of the tale and the famous aristocrat Lord Peter Wimsey, whose very name alone Edmund Wilson apparently found embarrassing. Unlikeable women, frightened women, protective men who are envied and in a sense their own worst enemies, the sense of feeling out of place, not belonging to an environment into which one marries or to which one aspires, these are strongly present in Gaudy Night. They are not the usual stuff of traditional detective fiction. They rather call to mind the plots of Jane Eyre or Rebecca. I obtained for under a fiver a hardback edition from the 1930's and am spared the money making puff from second rater Elizabeth George. It is worth scouting second hand offers online to avoid encouraging publishers in the cheap trick of louring purchasers by posting a name to write a few bland and unenelightening lines at the beginning of a book. That is exactly the kind of money making trickery which I feel fairly confident the author of Gaudy Night and Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey, who are the stars of this book, would have despised. The obsession of the novel, surely its principle focus upon which the crimes being investigated is hung, is the relationship between Harriet and Lord Peter.
The story which takes place in Shrewsbury College, a fictional all ladies college at Oxford, is centred on a succession of destructive and increasingly sinister outrages committed by an unknown person against the dons, the students and the property of the college itself. The author's own sympathy is strongly in favour of the equality of the sexes, the rights of women to study at the highest seats of learning with no prejudice on grounds of their gender, their right to devote themselves to academic study to prove themselves equal to men in what had hitherto been an exclusively male domain, and not be subject as the weaker sex to the dictates of “Kinder Küche Kirche� the social precepts which being imposed by the then ruling or shortly to rule regime in Germany (the novel was written in and takes place in the 1930's and the reader is several times reminded of the fact, the wave of destruction even suggesting the anti-academic thrust of Germany's national socialists ). At the same time, the author is equally devoted with an unstinting love, to the principles of elitism and learning. It is rather like a barbarian tribe crossing the Rhine settling in the Roman Empire and becoming that Empire's most loyal and fanatical defender. This strong combination of belief in the quality of the sexes and the inequality of man is a peculiar characteristic of the novel and makes the motivation of the culprit not merely personal but in the broadest sense of the term, political.
Dorothy L Sayers is a learned writer and has no qualms in showing it. The story abounds with classical references, quotations, many from the Elizabethans, whose love of paradox and puzzles must have appealed to the writer. Lord Peter Wimsey is the source of several of them. He is obviously a reflection of and riposte to P.G. Wodehouse's recently created post-war unemployed blueblood, Bertie Wooster. The same aristocrat of the post-war years, the same courtesy, the same self-deprecation, accompanied both by a wise and devoted servant, but what a difference in intellect! Bertie Wooster is like Lord Winsey if Lord Wimsey had suffered irreparable brain damage at an early age. The creation of Lord Peter Wimsey is a masterpiece of detective fiction arguably greater than that of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot because the writer has set herself in the creation of her hero a harder task than Agatha Christie set herself. Lord Peter Wimsey is not simply known to us in relation to his solving of crimes but also as a human being, great and flawed with a family history and family attachments and other attachments too. There is in my opinion a major weakness of the novel and perhaps to all of all Dorothy L Sayers' fiction. Gaudy Night, like most novels in the detective fiction genre, abound with a variety of characters. However, the characters in Gaudy Night are with few exceptions singularly colourless and unmemorable. They have characteristics attached to them, especially ideas and prejudices, but those attachments are labels. The members of the SCR in Gaudy Night are a series of names with labels “historian� researcher attached to them but not a face not an idiosyncrasy that can be remembered after closing the book, or even while still reading it. There are a great many suspects in this story but the suspects do not come to life at all. They are names and I challenge any reader from reading the book alone to put faces from the imagination to those names. The failure to portray many characters in a lifelike and believable way is the great failing of Gaudy Night . 483 pages are many pages to go through with so much labelling and referencing to do to remind oneself, if one is minded to do so, who is who. This is all a bit abstract and dry, what we might expect from an academic not a crime writer but Dorothy L Sayers was both. Dorothy L Sayers tends to apply abstract theory to individual instances by labelling those instances instead of reacting to them empirically, which was, was it not, a criticism which Goethe levelled against Schiller? That could be a suitable conversation hare for one of Worcester College's postprandial discussions!
Despite this shortcoming I can warmly recommend Gaudy Night to anyone who attracted to the world of excellence, of the quest for beauty, of intelligent and learned discourse, and not for justice itself, a detective fiction a nostalgic tour of an Oxford college then new now old and who enjoys a novel with a story, for, as EM Forster reminded us, a novel should have a story to tell. Gaudy Night most certainly has a story to tell....more
Diese Erzählung der Legende von Parzival von Will Vesper, basierend (ich gehe davon aus ohne ganz sicher zu sein) auf der Geschichte Parzivals von WolDiese Erzählung der Legende von Parzival von Will Vesper, basierend (ich gehe davon aus ohne ganz sicher zu sein) auf der Geschichte Parzivals von Wolfram von Eschenbachs, ist eine gelungene Darstellung einer alten Legende, kurz und bündig und klar und bunt. Dank Vespers Kunst als Erzähler und dank der Kürze dieser Erzählung (wenn man mit Eschenbachs 16 Buch Heldenlied vergleicht) ist die Legende dem Kind wie dem Erwachsener zugänglich. Obwohl diese Geschichte in der Art und Weise einer Kindermärchen geschrieben wird, und mit Vollseite Farbbildern bebildert, scheut der Verfasser nicht davor, die Leidenschaften, Versuchen, Eifersucht der Welt von Erwachsenen in der Geschichte unseren Helds einzuschließen und anzuerkennen. Wie in Vespers Kurzgeschichten, geistert hier ein unüberhörbares Leitmotiv der erotischen und leidenschaftlichen Begierde umher. Um unser Held geht es nicht ganz um ein Einfaltspinselheld, ein Grünschnabel, auch wenn die Erzählung hier um Parzival sich handelt. Will Vespers ist es gelungen, was in Wagners Parsifal ich nicht gut verstand, warum der "heiliger Narr" aus Montsalvatch ausgestoßen war. Seine Sünde liegt daran, daß er nicht mitfühlen kann, mitleiden, wir würden heute vielleicht sagen, es mangelt Parzival an Empathie. Sein Leben muss ein Lernprozess sein.
Ich würde es begrüßen, wenn jemand diese schöne und schön erzählte Geschichte, neu veröffentlicht wäre. Für jene Kinder welche nicht schon unwiederbringlich von Klingsor-Elektronik verdorben worden sind, ist diese Erzählung bestens geeignet als Nachtgeschichte zu dienen, ab 7 Jahre alt. Dieser Satz am Ende der Erzählung kann jeder schätzen und aufbewahren: „Aber niemand kann die Welt vollkommen machen. Es ist genug, daß jeder an seinem Teil tut, was er zu tun berufen ist."...more
This book was given to me as a birthday present in 1986 and it has been a faithful companion ever since. It provides an excellent overview of West EurThis book was given to me as a birthday present in 1986 and it has been a faithful companion ever since. It provides an excellent overview of West European insects with an uncanny gift in choosing the species which the amateur entomologist is likely to encounter. The illustrations are accurate and excellent, the name of the insect is always provided in Latin and also in English where the English name is commonly known and accepted. The illustrations are always on the right and descriptions on the left page, so there is no cumbersome shifting from one part of the book to the other looking for the same insect. Distribution is indicated by a series of symbols, necessarily approximate but providing maps would have considerably increased the size of this handy book which packs an astonishing quantity of information in a small space. There are even a few pages devoted to arthropods. It is difficult to fault this book. Perhaps it would have been enhanced by a few addresses, notably the source of authority for Latin names, a thorny question. This book was published for example just after Bombus agrorum was changed to Bombus pascuorum (why? who decides these things?) but before the genus Psithyrus was abolished (I do not agree withe removal of a specific genus for the cuckoo bumble bee myself). Is this book still in print? I believe it is revised from another publisher (very surpising if so becuase it must be a winner) It certainly should be and it is very regrettable that to my knowledge (I may be wrong) the only language into which it has been translated to date is German. The fact is that this book is so well written and so well illustrated that it serves as an introduction to insects even for those who previously had no interest. It therefore serves the admirable purpose of increasing the circle of those who care for insects, especially those so often summarily despised, such as the flies. Many people are unaware of the huge variety of flies and modify their dislike when they learn of the astonishing variety of different species of fly. Perhaps revised editions will or have discarded all mention of collecting insects, which in many areas of etomology no longer serves a useful purpose and replaced that with tips about how to attract insects. Indeed, that lack (describing how to attract insects) might be my sole criciticism of this book, but with the internet and you tube "how to" videos, that criticism too becomes less important. I can't praise this book highly enough. ...more
Jean Raspail est attire par les perdants de l'histoire. Dans tous ses contes on trouve de grande sympathie pour les gens qui sont renverse et vaincu par la marche des temps.
I came across “A German-English Dictionary of Idioms� about a quarter of a century ago in Cologne for the then heft price of 28 marks. The key idioms I came across “A German-English Dictionary of Idioms� about a quarter of a century ago in Cologne for the then heft price of 28 marks. The key idioms are listed simply and very conveniently by taking the key word and if there are two key words then the first. So for example the idiom “auf Heller und Pfenning� is listed as an “H� idiom. . Each idiom is put in a context. In this example just given: “Mein Schwager hat die ihm geliehende Summe pünktlich und auf Heller und Pfennig zurück gezahlt.�
Alternatives for the same idiom are listed, as for example:
Herr der Lage sein cf. Fest im Sattel sitzen (I would question whether those two idioms mean exactly the same, however).
English equivalents sometimes more than one are provided. Some of the sentences will strike a twenty-first century user of the book as quaint, even antiquated and not far from archaic. For example “Can't you see that my brother is smitten with love (gone on) your sister?� The German idiom for which this is offered as an equivalent is not archaic at all however: “Merkst Du denn nicht, daß mein Bruder in Deine Schwester verschossen ist?� For this reason and because a there is a tendency to be a little cavalier in the understanding of equivalent meanings, the English equivalents need to be treated with a certain amount of caution and awareness that they are sometimes only approximations.
This book would be even better if old fashioned antiquated or almost archaic idioms were marked as such. Very common idioms rub shoulders with unusual and very seldom used idioms.
There is an aura of sadness hanging over this book so far as I am concerned. The impoverishment of modern German, especially as spoken by anyone under forty years of age is such that many of these expressions will be entirely unknown to many young German speakers and many more never used. That of course is not the authors' fault! For anyone who speaks fluent German and wishes to enrich their spoken German and make it more colourful, I can highly recommend this book. It will also be useful for teachers of German who want to highlight some common idioms and don't have to scratch their heads thinking of good examples or checking out the internet for them. ...more
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