Edmund White, on French non-fiction, from his rather delightful The Flâneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris:
Honestly, instead of ‘like a normal feature of the present’ I almost wrote ‘without ever being inscribed within the interior of the present’. That’s how much I’ve been submerged in contemporary French nonfiction. I frequently have to stop and ask myself how a human being might put the same idea.
Classic extract from Proust’s Within A Budding Grove, the Moncrieff-Kilmartin-Enright translation:
The uncle in question was called Palamède, a Christian name that had come down to him from his ancestors the Princes of Sicily. And later on, when I found, in the course of my historical reading, belonging to this or that Podestà or Prince of the Church, the same Christian name, a fine renaissance medal–some said a genuine antique–that had always remained in the family, having passed from generation to generation, from the Vatican cabinet to the uncle of my friend, I felt the pleasure that is reserved for those who, unable from lack of means to start a medal collection or a picture gallery, look out for old names (names of localities, instructive and picturesque as an old map, a bird’s-eye view, a sign-board or a return of customs; baptismal names whose fine French endings echo the defect of speech, the intonation of an ethnic vulgarity, the corrupt pronunciation whereby our ancestors made Latin and Saxon words undergo lasting mutilations which in due course became the august law-givers of our grammar books) and, in short, by drawing upon their collections of ancient sonorities, give themselves concerts like the people who acquire viols da gamba and viols d’amour so as to perform the music of the past on old instruments.
The uncle for whom we were waiting was called Palamède, a name that had come down to him from his ancestors, the Princes of Sicily. And later on when I found, as I read history, belonging to this or that Podestà or Prince of the Church, the same Christian name, a fine renaissance medal--some said, a genuine antique--that had always remained in the family, having passed from generation to generation, from the Vatican cabinet to the uncle of my friend, I felt the pleasure that is reserved for those who, unable from lack of means to start a case of medals, or a picture gallery, look out for old names (names of localities, instructive and picturesque as an old map, a bird's-eye view, a sign-board or a return of customs; baptismal names, in which rings out and is plainly heard, in their fine French endings, the defect of speech, the intonation of a racial vulgarity, the vicious pronunciation by which our ancestors made Latin and Saxon words undergo lasting mutilations which in due course became the august law-givers of our grammar books) and, in short, by drawing upon their collections of ancient and sonorous words, give themselves concerts like the people who acquire viols da gamba and viols d'amour so as to perform the music of days gone by upon old-fashioned instruments.
Cellar-door as the most beautiful to hear in the English language.
I also like sarcoma, now that I’ve encountered it.
From Paul Kelly’s The March of Patriots, page 188:
Bob hawke once argued that the most important decision in Australia’s first hundred years was to become, from the late 1940s, a nation of mass immigration. Since the program’s inception Australia has accepted about seven million migrants, the highest per capita in the world outside of Israel. At the end of the Howard years, one in four Australians had been born overseas compared with a much lower figure of 10 per cent for the United States, testimony to Australia’s remarkable acceptance of people from around the world.
A very odd state of affairs recounted in Bruce Moore’s Speaking our Language: The Story of Australian English:
In 1949, Labor Prime Minister Chifley, in the Nationality and Citizenship Act, created the term ‘Australian citizen’ (prior to this Australians were merely British subjects), and created an Australian passport to replace the British passport that Australians until then had carried on overseas travel. In 1949, incoming Liberal Prime Minister Menzies revoked the Australian passport, and until 1973 Australians continued to carry a passport labelled ‘British passport’.
The Second Pass lists the books it thinks do not deserve to be part of the literary canon.
I just thought I’d second the following:
Honourable mentions (books that are good but not that good):
I recently re-read Notes from the Underground and stumbled across what must have been the direct inspiration for Kafka’s Metamorphosis at the very beginning of the second chapter:
I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that.
Brilliant article about the brilliant, inbred Icelanders. Here’s an exemplary excerpt:
Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called “hidden people”—or, to put it more plainly, elves—in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.” The other, more serious problem was the Icelandic male: he took more safety risks than aluminum workers in other nations did. “In manufacturing,” says the spokesman, “you want people who follow the rules and fall in line. You don’t want them to be heroes. You don’t want them to try to fix something it’s not their job to fix, because they might blow up the place.” The Icelandic male had a propensity to try to fix something it wasn’t his job to fix.
So this explains the title of Nick Cave’s And the Ass Saw the Angel:
A long and seriously bizarre episode about Moabite King Balak and the seer Balaam. The story goes like this: Balak, fearing the Israelite army, sends messengers to Balaam, asking him to curse the Israelites. Balaam consults with God, who orders him not to help Balak: “You must not curse that people, for they are blessed.” So, Balaam refuses Balak. But the king won’t take no for an answer. Balaam consults God again, who tells him to go to Balak but to obey the Lord’s orders.
At this point, the story is interrupted by perhaps the most inexplicable incident in the Bible so far. God is apparently irked at Balaam for accepting Balak’s invitation—even though God Himself told him to accept it—and blocks Balaam’s way with an invisible angel. Balaam keeps urging his ass forward, but the angel won’t let the animal pass. Balaam beats the ass, who proceeds to open her mouth and protest, “What have I done to you that you have beaten me?” The Lord reveals the angel to Balaam, who apologizes (though not to the ass).
I’ve been vaguely wanting to find myself a simplified and abridged version of the Old and New Testaments. It’s perhaps a little too simplified, but the blogging the bible series on Slate is pretty much what I’ve been after, even if it does stop at the Old Testament.
And from the Exodus reading, here’s this incredible titbit regarding abortion:
Reader Dan Gorin points out that my last entry missed the fascinating law that comes right before “eye for an eye” in Chapter 21. If a man pushes a pregnant woman and she miscarries, but is not otherwise hurt, then the offender pays only a fine to the victim’s husband. This has interesting implications for how we think about abortion—in particular about the claim that killing a 17-week-old fetus is the same as killing a 17-year-old. According to Exodus, it’s not. As Gorin writes: “The text seems to clearly state that the destruction of a fetus is not a capital offense. It is a property crime for which monetary compensation is paid.”