What Are You Reading

[Harp]

Du glaube nicht? Und warum ist das mein freund? Having touched nuclear missile warheads undoubtedly gives a personal impression; although fanaticism added to this scenario exponentially tends increased concern. Best that neither shield nor sword lower, nor mankind slip solipsist indifference devil angels of our human condition.

 

[Turnip]

Compared to what this planet and any creature living on it is about to experience by climate change it will not help having petted a thousand nuclear warheads.

And in opposite to any alliance to be or to come who might or not pull a trigger, Mr. Carville‘s poison is already taking irreversible, devastating effect and is trumendously accelerating.

It‘s a bit like with that HC4000 in Pforzheim some days ago. Biut this time it will blow up sky-high anyway, no matter whether you thrash on it with a sledgehammer or you wait for the acid detonator to do it‘s job.

 

[Harp]

Mark Paul, The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told; A true tale of three gamblers, the Kentucky Derby,
and the Mexican Cartel

A side piece to Sarah Bakewell's At The Existentialist Cafe, concurrent mind ballast while awaiting
Belmont Stakes result.

 

[TheEnglishSwede]

I wasn’t expecting to find a thread about books on a hat forum.


I thought I’d mention the books I’ve read over the last two weeks. I recently broke my arm and spent some time in the hospital, so it was nice to finally finish a few books I’d had on the go.


Kärlek i hönsgården (the Swedish translation of Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse) — I’m not a huge Wodehouse fan, but I use his books to strengthen my Swedish. It’s also nice to read something with a bit of English humour. When I get stuck on translations, I often ask my colleagues at work. I especially enjoyed this edition because it was translated in 1936, which meant I had to wander around the department asking several different people before I finally got an answer to some of the older expressions.


The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester — My father loaned me this one, and I brought it along as an extra book during my hospital stay. I’m very glad I did, because I couldn’t sleep much due to the pain after my operation. The book tells the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, focusing on Dr. William Minor — a US Army surgeon in the Civil War, later convicted of murder, who contributed thousands of definitions from his prison/hospital cell.


I’m currently reading Röde Orm by Frans G. Bengtsson. There was a film adaptation in the 1960s called The Long Ships. The book follows a Viking who is captured and taken as a slave to the Mediterranean. After seven years he and his companions are freed, becoming guards for a local king in what is now Spain. After several years of service, they return to the Nordic countries. I’m reading it partly to strengthen my Swedish, but also because it was extremely popular when it was first published so it is nice to strengthen my culture ties to sweden.


/Mike

 

[Harp]

I wasn’t expecting to find a thread about books on a hat forum.


I thought I’d mention the books I’ve read over the last two weeks. I recently broke my arm and spent some time in the hospital, so it was nice to finally finish a few books I’d had on the go.


Kärlek i hönsgården (the Swedish translation of Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse) — I’m not a huge Wodehouse fan, but I use his books to strengthen my Swedish. It’s also nice to read something with a bit of English humour. When I get stuck on translations, I often ask my colleagues at work. I especially enjoyed this edition because it was translated in 1936, which meant I had to wander around the department asking several different people before I finally got an answer to some of the older expressions.


The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester — My father loaned me this one, and I brought it along as an extra book during my hospital stay. I’m very glad I did, because I couldn’t sleep much due to the pain after my operation. The book tells the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, focusing on Dr. William Minor — a US Army surgeon in the Civil War, later convicted of murder, who contributed thousands of definitions from his prison/hospital cell.


I’m currently reading Röde Orm by Frans G. Bengtsson. There was a film adaptation in the 1960s called The Long Ships. The book follows a Viking who is captured and taken as a slave to the Mediterranean. After seven years he and his companions are freed, becoming guards for a local king in what is now Spain. After several years of service, they return to the Nordic countries. I’m reading it partly to strengthen my Swedish, but also because it was extremely popular when it was first published so it is nice to strengthen my culture ties to sweden.


/Mike

Welcome to the Lounge Mike. The Surgeon of Crowthorne intrigues me and I am glad you mentioned this.
Minor seems a rather remarkable fellow; all the more so by his conviction. I will scout around for Winchester's book on Amazon's shelf.

 

[Fading Fast]

I wasn’t expecting to find a thread about books on a hat forum.


I thought I’d mention the books I’ve read over the last two weeks. I recently broke my arm and spent some time in the hospital, so it was nice to finally finish a few books I’d had on the go.


Kärlek i hönsgården (the Swedish translation of Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse) — I’m not a huge Wodehouse fan, but I use his books to strengthen my Swedish. It’s also nice to read something with a bit of English humour. When I get stuck on translations, I often ask my colleagues at work. I especially enjoyed this edition because it was translated in 1936, which meant I had to wander around the department asking several different people before I finally got an answer to some of the older expressions.


The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester — My father loaned me this one, and I brought it along as an extra book during my hospital stay. I’m very glad I did, because I couldn’t sleep much due to the pain after my operation. The book tells the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, focusing on Dr. William Minor — a US Army surgeon in the Civil War, later convicted of murder, who contributed thousands of definitions from his prison/hospital cell.


I’m currently reading Röde Orm by Frans G. Bengtsson. There was a film adaptation in the 1960s called The Long Ships. The book follows a Viking who is captured and taken as a slave to the Mediterranean. After seven years he and his companions are freed, becoming guards for a local king in what is now Spain. After several years of service, they return to the Nordic countries. I’m reading it partly to strengthen my Swedish, but also because it was extremely popular when it was first published so it is nice to strengthen my culture ties to sweden.


/Mike

Welcome. I hope your arm heals quickly. I read Wodehouse from time to time (if you scroll back or search you'll find a few of my comments on his books) – I like but don't love him.

 

[Harp]

I will scout around for Winchester's book on Amazon's shelf.

So said and done. Ordered under title, The Professor and The Madman.

Looking forward to reading this dictionary genesis tale.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@TheEnglishSwede
Welcome and get well soon!

 

[Fading Fast]

The Old Maid by Edith Wharton, first published in 1922


Until TV, there was a mass market for serialized fiction published in the large number of periodicals sold back then. A story would be told over several editions, bringing readers back each week or month for more. People will read if it's that or stare at the walls.

That is how The Old Maid by Edith Wharton started life: as a serialized story in "The Red Book Magazine" in 1922. Later it was combined with three other Wharton serialized stories into a compilation titled Old New York. Today you can buy it either way.

It's really a novella, but of course, with Wharton wit and insight, it packs quite a punch. Set in the 1850s in the rarified air of New York's upper-class society, where strict social rules and customs circumscribed behavior, even small breaches of etiquette had significant meaning.

Having a baby out of wedlock was more than a small breach, but if you contorted enough, there was kind of a way to squeeze that in and still remain in society...but at a cost. The Old Maid is a short tale of how that cost can never fully be paid.

Charlotte Lovell has a daughter out of wedlock with a man who was the cast off love of her cousin, Delia. Delia truly loved him, but he was penniless and in her time, women like her made "good" marriages, like she did to the wealthy and proper James Ralston.

To keep her daughter, Charlotte creates a ruse involving a charity for foundlings. Fast-forward and Delia takes Charlotte and one of her foundlings into her home to keep Charlotte and her baby together and to be kind by proxy to the man she once loved and left because he was poor.

After Delia's husband dies young, Delia's household is her two biological children – a boy and a girl – plus Charlotte and "the foundling," Tina. They are all raised as Delia's children with "Aunt Charlotte" providing additional parenting and support. What could possibly go wrong?

Bumpy as all heck, this oddly modern family moves forward, with "Aunt Charlotte" aging into a strict, taciturn old maid and Delia getting to be the fun parent of her children plus Tina. Resentment is building up.

That resentment breaks out in Wharton's searing style in the climax that has each parent – Charlotte the biological one and Delia the de facto one – emotionally fighting for control of Tina who is getting married and leaving the home anyway.

There is a neat twist that drives it and a powerful scene that you want to read fresh, as small gestures, nasty one-liners, and viciously trudged-up memories are heat-seeking missiles in this flash war that breaks out of nowhere other than two decades of pent-up resentments.

Wharton, a member in good standing in the upper echelon of New York society, could nevertheless expose the hypocrisy and brutality of the rigid rules of her world with scorching insight. She creates real people crushed by rigid social order.

Authors like Wharton and books like The Old Maid were early shots in the war against these brutal social rules and rituals. It took decades until they eventually broke so far down that one now wonders if a little decorum would be a bad thing to add back into the mix.

Wharton is rightfully considered one of the giants of American literature. She knit close to the world she knew, abiding the old saw of "write what you know." She used that playground to expose eternal truths about human nature, which explains her enduring popularity.