Kings
Richard Magrath
thread or not, but I have decided that I shall apply to Kings College,
should my AS level results turn out all right. I was wondering if
anyone from this newsgroup either goes (went?) to Kings, or else has
anything they can tell me about the college that I couldn't tell from
my visits to it two weeks ago (there were very few students about
then, and obviously I couldn't go inside). Also, if I get an
interview, is there any chance I can persuade them to let me see room
H3 in the Gibb's Building?
The teacher at my school who deals with all things Oxbridge kindly
told me that I was the most promising Cambridge applicant the school
has ever had. Of course, I take this with a pinch of salt because (a)
the school has never had a successful Cambridge applicant before, (b)
she has no idea of my actual standard of work in the subject I wish to
apply for (in hindsight I really should have brought that up with my
English teacher before school broke up for summer) and (c) she told me
this at the Upper Sixth Leaving Dinner, where a lot of liquor was
consumed by all parties, and perhaps she was also dazzled by my
looking rather suave and posh in a dinner suit (to quote my
next-door-neigbor, I "scrubbed up well", or something like that).
On the downside, my plan to read all the classics of 19th century
European literature over the summer hols has been thwarted by a
compulsory (or near-compulsory) reading list that just appeared out of
nowhere in the last week. So now I need to read through How Green Was
My Valley, Coming Up For Air (by Orwell), Animal Farm, Selected Essays
of George Orwell and Goodbye To All That for English Lit,
Sociolinguistics (by Peter Trudgill) for English Language, and
Relativity (by Einstein), The Character of Physical Law (by Feynman)
and A Brief History of Time for physics (which I suppose serves me
right for choosing black holes as the subject of my big investigation
thing, on the grounds that it was the most difficult topic). Plus I
want to use the summer to get my reggae/punk/indie/dance band off the
ground, write an essay on Robert Chambers and get it published
somewhere with a smidgen of reputation and finish my short film about
the death of George Formby.
Rich
Ian/Cath Ford
wrote:
>nowhere in the last week. So now I need to read through How Green Was
>My Valley, Coming Up For Air (by Orwell), Animal Farm, Selected Essays
>of George Orwell and Goodbye To All That for English Lit,
>Sociolinguistics (by Peter Trudgill) for English Language, and
>Relativity (by Einstein), The Character of Physical Law (by Feynman)
>and A Brief History of Time for physics (which I suppose serves me
>right for choosing black holes as the subject of my big investigation
>thing, on the grounds that it was the most difficult topic). Plus I
>want to use the summer to get my reggae/punk/indie/dance band off the
>ground, write an essay on Robert Chambers and get it published
>somewhere with a smidgen of reputation and finish my short film about
>the death of George Formby.
Sod that for a laugh, I'm away down the beach meself :-)
But seriously, homework during the holiday is a bloody daft idea imo.
Sure, if you *want* to or if it's something you could have done in
term time but haven't finished yet, but not for the sake of appearing
to keep the munchkins busy. No ta.
Ian
--
Ian, Cath & Eoin Ford
The view from Beccles
Support clubs against Carlton & Granada: Boycott ITV world cup coverage.
You know what to do: delete the dots but leave the .s to reply to us.
Becky Loader
"Richard Magrath" <ltri...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:d7983a51.02071...@posting.google.com...
> On the downside, my plan to read all the classics of 19th century
> European literature over the summer hols has been thwarted by a
> compulsory (or near-compulsory) reading list that just appeared out of
> nowhere in the last week. So now I need to read through How Green Was
> My Valley, Coming Up For Air (by Orwell), Animal Farm, Selected Essays
> of George Orwell and Goodbye To All That for English Lit,
> Sociolinguistics (by Peter Trudgill) for English Language, and
> Relativity (by Einstein), The Character of Physical Law (by Feynman)
> and A Brief History of Time for physics (which I suppose serves me
> right for choosing black holes as the subject of my big investigation
> thing, on the grounds that it was the most difficult topic). Plus I
> want to use the summer to get my reggae/punk/indie/dance band off the
> ground, write an essay on Robert Chambers and get it published
> somewhere with a smidgen of reputation and finish my short film about
> the death of George Formby.
You are quite the most precocious person I have come across on Usenet.
My brother, who's pretty bright himself, is your age, but there could be
years between you.
Becky
Flexiblegoat
Hmmmm. Yes, I was wondering whether i don't just read aua to make
myself feel bad. I can't even think who Robert Chambers is, I spent
today in my chinese dressing gown trying to seduce someone's cat (she
brought her kitten to see me later) and flicking between Quincy and
Ally McBeal. On the other hand, I get much better reading lists than
does Mr Magrath (for the moment at least). That said I've got two
modules' work to do for next term and all the work i was too lazy for
last term to do :(
_
well I realise that i've been hypnotised, i love you MOONPIG eyes
... i love you MOONPIG eyes
AR
> thread or not, but I have decided that I shall apply to Kings College,
> should my AS level results turn out all right. I was wondering if
> anyone from this newsgroup either goes (went?) to Kings, or else has
> anything they can tell me about the college that I couldn't tell from
> my visits to it two weeks ago (there were very few students about
> then, and obviously I couldn't go inside). Also, if I get an
> interview, is there any chance I can persuade them to let me see room
> H3 in the Gibb's Building?
>
> The teacher at my school who deals with all things Oxbridge kindly
> told me that I was the most promising Cambridge applicant the school
> has ever had. Of course, I take this with a pinch of salt because (a)
> the school has never had a successful Cambridge applicant before, (b)
> she has no idea of my actual standard of work in the subject I wish to
> apply for (in hindsight I really should have brought that up with my
> English teacher before school broke up for summer) and (c) she told me
> this at the Upper Sixth Leaving Dinner, where a lot of liquor was
> consumed by all parties,
Mine was like that to -we're one of the only schools in the area not to be
banned from every hotel within 25 miles...
Except I didn't go, 'cause I was on a ten hour shifting turning bottles of
mineral water into twin packs of mineral water, with lovely bits of
cardboard. Incidentally, all brands of mineral water seem to be made in that
one factory in the middle of nowhere.
> On the downside, my plan to read all the classics of 19th century
> European literature over the summer hols has been thwarted by a
> compulsory (or near-compulsory) reading list that just appeared out of
> nowhere in the last week. So now I need to read through How Green Was
> My Valley, Coming Up For Air (by Orwell), Animal Farm, Selected Essays
> of George Orwell and Goodbye To All That
Has anyone read a better autobiography than Goodbye to all That? I usually
just read biographies to circumvent all the "wasn't I brilliant" flim-flam
that most people write about themselves. But, Graves lets rip. He's quite
revealing and anti-establishment. It's hard to believe he was writing in the
'20s. His picture of WWI is even more disturbing because he was
"semi-German", which brings up incidents like one of his school friend's
killing his cousin (or something like that) and his having to bear the
anti-German felling in Britain. The account of his school days is quite
interesting. Why Sassoon omitted stuff like this from the "Sherston Memoirs"
puzzles me. It might be an idea to read these, although the third one,
"Sherston's Progress" is less enjoyable, but still interesting for finality.
Since you have such a lot to get through it might just be an idea to pick up
random pages from Sassoon's account, because it seems to major on "Oh my
God, cherrio Edwardian, middle-class England", but is nonetheless
interesting for the social context.
I had to do some stuff on Graves; you can see some of his poems at
bartelby.com, extracted from the original book they were in. It's entitled
"Fairies and Fusiliers" which I think is fairly O.K. at summing up the
poetry. They really aren't in many books, apparently because Graves
suppressed their publication, fearing them worse than Owen's and Sassoon's
poems.
for English Lit,
> Sociolinguistics (by Peter Trudgill) for English Language, and
> Relativity (by Einstein), The Character of Physical Law (by Feynman)
> and A Brief History of Time for physics (which I suppose serves me
> right for choosing black holes as the subject of my big investigation
> thing, on the grounds that it was the most difficult topic). Plus I
> want to use the summer to get my reggae/punk/indie/dance band off the
> ground, write an essay on Robert Chambers
I'd like to say I'd heard of him and haven't just done a google search...
Sorry about the rambling, Al.
Richard Magrath
<snip>
> >
> >You are quite the most precocious person I have come across on Usenet.
In what way? I actually wonder sometimes (or worry, rather) that I
haven't done enough, read enough or written enough for someone of my
age. I have a friend who is into reading Joyce (only the later, more
difficult stuff of course) and Wittgenstein and writing plays and
things like that, and I often dwell on how unknowledgeable I must be
in comparison (though ironically enough he tends to get much lower
grades in his exams than I do). Then again, I think he likes to appear
clever and 'artistic', and this perhaps led to the bit of an argument
we had on Thursday, when he was acting all anguished and exhausted,
over which was the more tiring task: writing a play (him) or carrying
big 7.5kg sacks of potatoes around school followed by three continuous
hours of scrubbing the muckiest grill in existence with wire wool
(me)...
But I digress.
> >
> >My brother, who's pretty bright himself, is your age, but there could be
> >years between you.
I just have a lot of free time, that's all it is. Even then there are
*loads* of things I've wanted to do that I haven't done yet (which is
why I'm going to try and do them over the summer).
I hope I haven't come across as trying to seem more intelligent than I
actually am, as that's something I really try and avoid in Real Life.
My aforementioned friend, for example, seems to quite alienate people
with his arty facade.
> >
> >Becky
> >
> Hmmmm. Yes, I was wondering whether i don't just read aua to make
> myself feel bad.
One of the things that struck me about a.u.a upon first reading it was
how many people here seem to be attending top universities, getting
straight As in their exams and studying Super Ultra Hard Maths (with
Advanced Thermodynamics). Or else they are *teaching* Super Ultra Hard
Maths at top universities! There was a definite period when I wondered
if I was just reading a.u.a to feel humbled by other peoples'
brilliance.
I can't even think who Robert Chambers is,
Less than a classic author, Chambers was a late 19th century, early
20th century writer of pulp romantic fiction. Wrote a few good stories
in a more fantastical vein, most of which were collected in the
anthology The King in Yellow (1895) (which inspired the seminal SF
author HP Lovecraft and, interestingly enough, Raymond Chandler, who
borrowed the title for one of his stories). Chambers' best work is
considered to be the short story The Repairer of Reputations, and
which my essay will be about.
I spent
> today in my chinese dressing gown trying to seduce someone's cat (she
> brought her kitten to see me later) and flicking between Quincy and
> Ally McBeal. On the other hand, I get much better reading lists than
> does Mr Magrath (for the moment at least). That said I've got two
> modules' work to do for next term and all the work i was too lazy for
> last term to do :(
Better as in less, or better as in higher quality books? I don't mind
reading any of the texts on my list, many of them I'd very much like
to read anyway. I just wish there weren't so many of them - come
Cambridge interview time (the chap at Emmannuel - musn't make the
mistake again of spelling it like the porno film as I did when
labelling my photographs - said that in the past however many years,
no-one was actually turned down for an interview at that college, so
now I'm fairly sure that I'll at least get an interview) I won't have
as much reading outside the syllabus to dazzle the interviewer with,
simply because the syllabus seems to cover every single book ever
written...
>
> _
> well I realise that i've been hypnotised, i love you MOONPIG eyes
> ... i love you MOONPIG eyes
New sig line? For some reason that would be too ungentlemanly to state
here, whenever I read your references to Moonpigs I always think of
Jade from Big Brother.
Rich
BTW - my single of the week is definitely Goodbye by The Coral. I tip
them for big things!
Ian/Cath Ford
wrote:
Becky L (iirc) wrote:
>> >You are quite the most precocious person I have come across on Usenet.
>
>In what way? I actually wonder sometimes (or worry, rather) that I
>haven't done enough, read enough or written enough for someone of my
>age. I have a friend who is into reading Joyce (only the later, more
>difficult stuff of course) and Wittgenstein and writing plays and
>things like that, and I often dwell on how unknowledgeable I must be
Calm down a wee bit then - there's more to life than all that stuff.
I worry sometimes that I've got so many things to cook that I'll never
get through them all or that I'd like to walk up more mountains, but
when it comes down to it I'm doing fine most of the time so I don't
worry about it. If I did then I'd hear more voices than I do anyway
and things could get nasty.
Enjoy it - if reading stuff *because you want to* is enjoyable then
read it; if it's only because you think you *should* or because you're
trying to be someone you don't want to be, then don't. Make jam
instead (that's what I did today - although I also went to a beach and
shared ice-cream with my boy. Let me tell you: it's hard to get any
better than that when it comes down to it - you should add it to your
list.....)
Der Goat scribbled:
>> I can't even think who Robert Chambers is,
>
>Less than a classic author, Chambers was a late 19th century, early
>20th century writer of pulp romantic fiction. Wrote a few good stories
>in a more fantastical vein, most of which were collected in the
>anthology The King in Yellow (1895) (which inspired the seminal SF
>author HP Lovecraft and, interestingly enough, Raymond Chandler, who
>borrowed the title for one of his stories). Chambers' best work is
>considered to be the short story The Repairer of Reputations, and
>which my essay will be about.
Ah, now: HPL and the King. Heck, that brings back memories. I
believe John Tynes wrote the first Dread Page of Azathoth about TKIY
in the first Unspeakable Oath. But I may be wrong - you can read it
online if you go to Pagan Publishing and take a wander or two.
Andrew Hollingbury
> On the downside, my plan to read all the classics of 19th century
> European literature over the summer hols has been thwarted by a
> compulsory (or near-compulsory) reading list that just appeared out of
> nowhere in the last week. So now I need to read through How Green Was
> My Valley, Coming Up For Air (by Orwell), Animal Farm, Selected Essays
> of George Orwell and Goodbye To All That for English Lit,
> Sociolinguistics (by Peter Trudgill) for English Language, and
> Relativity (by Einstein), The Character of Physical Law (by Feynman)
> and A Brief History of Time for physics (which I suppose serves me
> right for choosing black holes as the subject of my big investigation
> thing, on the grounds that it was the most difficult topic). Plus I
> want to use the summer to get my reggae/punk/indie/dance band off the
> ground, write an essay on Robert Chambers and get it published
> somewhere with a smidgen of reputation and finish my short film about
> the death of George Formby.
Note the use of "Near-compulsory".
Forgive the expression, but even if you're an "arty-farty" type (as I'm
guessing from this and your message about your friend), this seems a bit
excessive. I've got two mates who "write plays" and all that etc. (both
totally different), but they do have less...esoteric interests as well!
If you're going to read, just read something you're interested in. Some of
the books won't take long to get through (especially Animal Farm) and you'll
find that you end up having to read them again next year when no-one else
has bothered too anyway. I suspect your interviewers for whatever degree
you're planning on doing (English?) will be much more impressed with
something you're interested in rather than regurgitating knowledge about the
syllabus.
Keep up the band though - it's always good to do a bit of muzak!
Andrew H
(tried doing the whole "intellectual" thing far too early - got half way
through "Notre Dame de Paris" at the age of 11 - but got put off, and can't
cope with literature any more - blame the English teacher who told me not to
read Dickens!)
Flexiblegoat
wrote:
<snip>
>Better as in less, or better as in higher quality books? I don't mind
>reading any of the texts on my list, many of them I'd very much like
>to read anyway. I just wish there weren't so many of them - come
>Cambridge interview time (the chap at Emmannuel - musn't make the
>mistake again of spelling it like the porno film as I did when
>labelling my photographs - said that in the past however many years,
>no-one was actually turned down for an interview at that college, so
>now I'm fairly sure that I'll at least get an interview) I won't have
>as much reading outside the syllabus to dazzle the interviewer with,
>simply because the syllabus seems to cover every single book ever
>written...
I meant better in terms of interesting range, although I've never
heard of many of the ones on mine (doing post colonial lit as one
papaer so go figure). Anyway, I think perhaps the best way to dazzle
with reading is looking at old and middle english stuff and perhaps
beyond the obvious Beowulf/Chaucer thing. If you're looking to eclipse
the syllabus, going back into that sort of thing is probably a better
bet that chasing down obscure Europeans like Lermontov or La Forgue or
Malraux (not necessarily more interesting though).
>>
>> _
>> well I realise that i've been hypnotised, i love you MOONPIG eyes
>> ... i love you MOONPIG eyes
>
>New sig line? For some reason that would be too ungentlemanly to state
>here, whenever I read your references to Moonpigs I always think of
>Jade from Big Brother.
>
>Rich
My post in the first Edexhell thread mades that connection.
>BTW - my single of the week is definitely Goodbye by The Coral. I tip
>them for big things!
They the new Scousers. Haven't heard but read good things.
Craig Fothergill
>them for big things!
How about Hanging By a Moment by Lifehouse? Not new at all, but I wonder if
any of you have heard it.......
Craig
Richard Magrath
> "Richard Magrath" <ltri...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:d7983a51.02071...@posting.google.com...
>
>
> Note the use of "Near-compulsory".
In the sense that no-one said "you *must* read A Brief History of
Time", they said "you *must* read some topical text. I recommend A
Brief History of Time". So I wouldn't have to read A Brief History of
Time, or indeed any of the physics books on my list, but if I didn't
I'd probably have great difficulty writing my essay on black holes.
>
> Forgive the expression, but even if you're an "arty-farty" type (as I'm
> guessing from this and your message about your friend),
But I'm not arty though! I'd say my interests are about 50-50 unusual
and normal. I don't write plays or poetry or things like that, if
that's what you mean. Films are different, as they are the lowest form
of communication. :-)Mentioning my friend, I was trying to show how
you have people who are consciously "artistic" on one hand, and people
like myself who just enjoy things like New German Cinema and
surrealism and so on, as well as having more conventional interests.
this seems a bit
> excessive. I've got two mates who "write plays" and all that etc. (both
> totally different), but they do have less...esoteric interests as well!
Totally average interests: the Simpsons. Indie music. Tacky films.
Playing the guitar. Rugby (watching and playing). Wasting time on the
net.
However, this list gives as much an incomplete picture of me as the
above list of more unusual pastimes does.
>
> If you're going to read, just read something you're interested in.
Luckily, I *am* interested in almost all the books on my 'compulsory'
list.
Some of
> the books won't take long to get through (especially Animal Farm) and you'll
> find that you end up having to read them again next year when no-one else
> has bothered too anyway. I suspect your interviewers for whatever degree
> you're planning on doing (English?) will be much more impressed with
> something you're interested in rather than regurgitating knowledge about the
> syllabus.
But the syllabus books must be read. When a few months ago I mentioned
having only read The Handmaid's Tale the once, quite a few people were
dismayed. Anyway, can you really regurgitate the syllabus in English
subjects? The syllabus seems to be mostly "read these books, write an
essay about that one and take exam papers in those two". In physics,
at least one of the teachers discarded the syllabus altogether and
instead taught us things that were actually interesting (quantum
chromodynamics, for example), hence my writing an essay on black holes
rather than anything previous covered by the syllabus.
>
> Keep up the band though - it's always good to do a bit of muzak!
>
> Andrew H
>
Rich
Richard Magrath
Thanks for the info on Graves. I had a bit of a look at Goodbye to All
That - surprising clarity, and markedly different from the nostalgic
prose of How Green Was My Valley (well, the bits that aren't about
socialism).
Rich
Andrew Hollingbury
> "Andrew Hollingbury" <a.holl...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<ahcd87$rl7$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>...
> > "Richard Magrath" <ltri...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:d7983a51.02071...@posting.google.com...
> >
> <snip>
> >
> > Note the use of "Near-compulsory".
>
> In the sense that no-one said "you *must* read A Brief History of
> Time", they said "you *must* read some topical text. I recommend A
> Brief History of Time". So I wouldn't have to read A Brief History of
> Time, or indeed any of the physics books on my list, but if I didn't
> I'd probably have great difficulty writing my essay on black holes.
That would make sense then!
> >
> > Forgive the expression, but even if you're an "arty-farty" type (as I'm
> > guessing from this and your message about your friend),
>
> But I'm not arty though! I'd say my interests are about 50-50 unusual
> and normal. I don't write plays or poetry or things like that, if
> that's what you mean. Films are different, as they are the lowest form
> of communication. :-)Mentioning my friend, I was trying to show how
> you have people who are consciously "artistic" on one hand, and people
> like myself who just enjoy things like New German Cinema and
> surrealism and so on, as well as having more conventional interests.
I think that enjoying New German Cinema is FAIRLY consciously artistic to be
honest! And writing films about people no-one has ever heard of is a sure
fire step to wearing berets and quaffing espresso in coffee houses whilst
spouting about the influence of so and so on such and such.
> this seems a bit
> > excessive. I've got two mates who "write plays" and all that etc. (both
> > totally different), but they do have less...esoteric interests as well!
>
> Totally average interests: the Simpsons. Indie music. Tacky films.
> Playing the guitar. Rugby (watching and playing). Wasting time on the
> net.
>
> However, this list gives as much an incomplete picture of me as the
> above list of more unusual pastimes does.
It's nice to know that not everyone is as one-dimensional as I am!
> >
> > If you're going to read, just read something you're interested in.
>
> Luckily, I *am* interested in almost all the books on my 'compulsory'
> list.
That's good then. It helps!
> Some of
> > the books won't take long to get through (especially Animal Farm) and
you'll
> > find that you end up having to read them again next year when no-one
else
> > has bothered too anyway. I suspect your interviewers for whatever
degree
> > you're planning on doing (English?) will be much more impressed with
> > something you're interested in rather than regurgitating knowledge about
the
> > syllabus.
>
> But the syllabus books must be read. When a few months ago I mentioned
> having only read The Handmaid's Tale the once, quite a few people were
> dismayed.
Who was "dismayed"? (is that even correct English? Forgive my GCSE level
understanding) Aptitude is what interviewers everywhere look for - not
reading "set texts" until you can quote them and their commentaries.
Anyway, can you really regurgitate the syllabus in English
> subjects? The syllabus seems to be mostly "read these books, write an
> essay about that one and take exam papers in those two". In physics,
> at least one of the teachers discarded the syllabus altogether and
> instead taught us things that were actually interesting (quantum
> chromodynamics, for example), hence my writing an essay on black holes
> rather than anything previous covered by the syllabus.
From what my friends doing A-level English seemed to do, they memorised
"important quotes" they were taught - i.e. most of "hath not a Jew eyes?"
from Merchant of Venice - for the papers without texts, and filled every
page they could of other books with colour coded notes, page references etc.
to what their teachers had pointed out to them. The truly exceptional
English student in our year group, of course, had given most of those notes
to the teachers in the first place, so he was using his own. It doesn't
seem that much different from rote learning language vocabulary or stock
answers to "Describe how you would use a colorimeter to discover the
concentration of potassium permanganate" for 5 marks.
Of course, it may be completely different for other people!
Physics teachers are a dangerous bunch anyway - ours tended to forget to
teach parts of the syllabus altogether every now and again. I believe our
new A-level syllabus for Physics was adopted because "it came with a
CD-ROM", as the head of department said to try and entice us to do A-level.
Andrew H
martina
> On the downside, my plan to read all the classics of 19th century
> European literature over the summer hols has been thwarted by a
> compulsory (or near-compulsory) reading list that just appeared out of
> nowhere in the last week. So now I need to read through How Green Was
> My Valley, Coming Up For Air (by Orwell), Animal Farm, Selected Essays
> of George Orwell and Goodbye To All That for English Lit,
> Sociolinguistics (by Peter Trudgill) for English Language, and
> Relativity (by Einstein), The Character of Physical Law (by Feynman)
> and A Brief History of Time for physics (which I suppose serves me
> right for choosing black holes as the subject of my big investigation
> thing, on the grounds that it was the most difficult topic). Plus I
> want to use the summer to get my reggae/punk/indie/dance band off the
> ground, write an essay on Robert Chambers and get it published
> somewhere with a smidgen of reputation and finish my short film about
> the death of George Formby.
Please stop, you're getting me down :-p
raggae/punk/indie/dance? <non-plussed> I want to hear that.
M.
Richard Magrath
>
> I think that enjoying New German Cinema is FAIRLY consciously artistic to be
> honest!
Watch Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. It's three hours long, but it has Klaus
Kinski acting (if it *is* acting!) mad, which is always entertaining.
And writing films about people no-one has ever heard of is a sure
> fire step to wearing berets and quaffing espresso in coffee houses whilst
> spouting about the influence of so and so on such and such.
>
George Formby is buried in my home town, that's why I'm writing a film
(sort of) about him, plus being a filmmaker is my ultimate ambition.
Anyway, I don't think Formby is the sort of person that
espresso-quaffing types discuss alongside Wittgenstein and Jean-Luc
Godard...
BTW, have you ever read Kingsley Amis' brilliant comic novel Lucky
Jim? Deep down, I'm much more like Jim (who is also from the North
West) than I am like his nemesis: the pacifist, painting Bertrand.
Rich
Richard Magrath
newsgroup where I can find out about it (other than the official
Cambridge University website and the CUSU Alt. Prospectus website,
which I've seen)?
Rich
Flexiblegoat
wrote:
>"Andrew Hollingbury" <a.holl...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote in message news:<ahf9eh$gus$1...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>>
>> I think that enjoying New German Cinema is FAIRLY consciously artistic to be
>> honest!
>
>Watch Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. It's three hours long, but it has Klaus
>Kinski acting (if it *is* acting!) mad, which is always entertaining.
Oh God! We had to watch Kausper Hausen (i think its by the same dude)
to discuss in a Romantics seminar. I'd walked in a went to sleep after
10 minutes (which, as any York student will tell you, is a great feat
considering how uncomfortable that room is). My (lovely) tutor was
very understanding about me missing the seminar, so i'm guessing i
snored quite loudly.
> And writing films about people no-one has ever heard of is a sure
>> fire step to wearing berets and quaffing espresso in coffee houses whilst
>> spouting about the influence of so and so on such and such.
>>
>
>George Formby is buried in my home town, that's why I'm writing a film
>(sort of) about him, plus being a filmmaker is my ultimate ambition.
>Anyway, I don't think Formby is the sort of person that
>espresso-quaffing types discuss alongside Wittgenstein and Jean-Luc
>Godard...
>
>BTW, have you ever read Kingsley Amis' brilliant comic novel Lucky
>Jim? Deep down, I'm much more like Jim (who is also from the North
>West) than I am like his nemesis: the pacifist, painting Bertrand.
Ginne like that.
Josh Smith
> just read biographies to circumvent all the "wasn't I brilliant" flim-flam
> that most people write about themselves. But, Graves lets rip. He's quite
> revealing and anti-establishment. It's hard to believe he was writing in
the
> '20s.
Goodbye To All That is a great book. His account of his time at Charterhouse
is the best bit of the bio in my view.
>His picture of WWI is even more disturbing because he was
> "semi-German", which brings up incidents like one of his school friend's
> killing his cousin (or something like that) and his having to bear the
> anti-German felling in Britain. The account of his school days is quite
> interesting. Why Sassoon omitted stuff like this from the "Sherston
Memoirs"
> puzzles me. It might be an idea to read these, although the third one,
> "Sherston's Progress" is less enjoyable, but still interesting for
finality.
> Since you have such a lot to get through it might just be an idea to pick
up
> random pages from Sassoon's account, because it seems to major on "Oh my
> God, cherrio Edwardian, middle-class England", but is nonetheless
> interesting for the social context.
I agree with your regarding the "Progress" being less interesting than the
two "Memoirs," and I too prefer GBTAT, but it should be recognized that they
are both quite different books. I would recommend reading the whole series,
because otherwise the story of Sassoon's decline doesn't make much sense. I
don't think Sassoon's work was "wasn't I brilliant flim-flam;" as the books
shows, Sassoon really did hate himself at times. Graves never really enjoyed
the war, whereas Sassoon did and was an exemplary officer. For this he felt
very guilty.
It's worth noting that while both Graves and Sassoon made a big whoo-ha
about the Great War during the twenties, they both went to great extremes in
an attempt to get field commissions in WWII. Neither were granted them.
> I had to do some stuff on Graves; you can see some of his poems at
> bartelby.com, extracted from the original book they were in. It's entitled
> "Fairies and Fusiliers" which I think is fairly O.K. at summing up the
> poetry. They really aren't in many books, apparently because Graves
> suppressed their publication, fearing them worse than Owen's and Sassoon's
> poems.
They were IMHO. Owen, in particular, is a fantastic poet. As far as Graves
is concerned, I'd recommend "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God." They
combine his eminently readable prose and his mastery of antiquity.
To address the original post, I'd implore you to read "Goodbye to All That."
It's a wonderful book. The only others I've read off your list are "Animal
Farm" and "A Brief History of Time." I enjoyed them too, although I didn't
fully understand the latter because it's not really my bag.
Josh
Chris Share
said...
Surprised no-one else has mentioned this...
I think there's a few Kings profiles on www.oxbridge-info.org.uk and
it's probably a good idea to look all the profiles in your subject
anyway.
chris
martina
M.