IRISH TIMES
Francis Muir
double shot of Java and picked up the IRISH TIMES to read. This was the
weekend edition for saturday and it was some outrageous price, well over $3,
but it turns out to be a great paper. First it gave me what I took to be
a full and reasonably balanced view about the arious peace intitiatives in
Northern Ireland and i was a little surprised to find that Clinton's proposed
visit there at the end of this month is generally seen as a useful and even
inevitable thing. There was also some discussion of President Robinson's
visit to the Queen in London and talk of a reciprocal visit. Two women
plotting peace over a nice cup of tea ...
The Weekend Section was dominated by Gore Vidal's new book and an interview
with the man entitled "Of Ego and Eros". Did this first appear in the NYT?
Very, very funny. "Gore Vidal, 'perhaps the best-selling serious writer in
our language', talks to Andrew Soloman about the Kenndy era, about satire,
empathy, his mother, and sex with Jack Kerouac."
What other goodies in THE IRISH TIMES WEEKEND? Well, Maeve's week. Maeve
Binchy of course, who Happy Face gallantly appears at the top of the column
but babe she ain't except in that derived sense which some of us would
prefer.
All in all a great paper and not a thick one. This is one weekend edition
that is quite unAmerican in it compactness - as tho' someone had run it
through Stuffit, or, better, one of those new Wavelet Transform algorithms.
I shall make a point of reading it more often.
Fido
Michael Carley
Forgot to mention that the Irish Times is on the Web at
http://www.irish-times.ie/
--
"You got your highbrow funk, you got your lowbrow funk, you even
got a little bit of your pee-wee, pow-wow funk" (Dr. John)
Michael Carley, Mech. Eng., TCD, IRELAND. m.ca...@leoleo.mme.tcd.ie
<A HREF="http://www.mme.tcd.ie/~m.carley/Welcome.html">Home page</A>
Jason Kalra u
Francis Muir
Forgot to mention that the Irish Times is on the Web at
Thank God! I'm not sure i could swing $4 again ...
Fido
Jan Yarnot
Fido spoke of. Our mail-carrier left the IT that belonged to the people two
doors down, with us, and what I did was carry it to them, unread. So
it's nice to know there's a way to catch up.
--
Jan Yarnot, net.granny, RABbabe, Proud Mom to Stands-With-a-Book, the
Booklist Boy, the IRS Guy, the Tycoon, and Sunbunny.
Growing older is mandatory, growing up is optional.
jya...@netcom.com It's turtles all the way down.
Michael Carley
>Isn't John Banville the lit. ed. of the Irish Times?
Yes he is. And he's a great writer. I got Kepler one Friday
night on the way from work (I'd seen Banville mention it in
one of his articles on something completely different and
I'd been meaning to read him and kept forgetting to get one
of his books when I went into the bookshop and found myself
surrounded by thousands of them, all unread, all waiting for
me, ummm, umm, clean underwear please matron.) and read it
and bought Mefisto on the Saturday morning and I'm hooked.
But I think it must be said---he seems to have a thing about
numbers.
paul ilechko
#>I haven't much liked his novels, but I did see the play "The Broken
#>Jug," which was really hilarious. It's a verse adaptation of a Kleist
#>play with the setting changed to Ireland during the Famine. I was
#>surprised that a verse play worked in performance; it didn't seem at
#>all contrived as a style. The play is a bit of a farce though, so
#>maybe that's why the blank verse works.
#>Which Banville novels do you recommend? I read part of _Copernicus_
#>(not impressed) and one of the early short books. I also heard
#>Banville read from _Ghosts_.
#>Millie.
I wasn't very impressed with "Ghosts", but I liked " The Book of
Evidence". It's a lot more straightforward, without all the (to me)
pretentious attempts to be "poetic" that "Ghosts" displays, as well as
the rather heavy handed Shakespearian allusions. It also really gets
inside the character remarkably well - it's amazing how the Irish have
a knack of making murderers likeable, or at least understandable !
(See: The Butcher Boy as a good example)
Paul
"Nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting
suffering on others. Indeed, it will teach him the way ..."
(Barry Unsworth - from Sacred Hunger)
Jason Kalra u
: #>(not impressed) and one of the early short books. I also heard
: #>Banville read from _Ghosts_.
:
: #>Millie.
(Yeah, double-thread, I know... it's Sunday....)
I've read everything by Banville I could find, including Copernicus
(which I loved). HIs early stuff like Birchwood is a bit crude
and not altogether interesting, though it does have moments. Ghosts was
a slight annoying in parts, but not nearly as outright horrifyingly bad
as the latest one Athena. I'd reccomend Kepler, Mephisto, or The Book of
Evidence (if you can find it...)
Jason
Michael Carley
>I wasn't very impressed with "Ghosts", but I liked " The Book of
>Evidence". It's a lot more straightforward, without all the (to me)
>pretentious attempts to be "poetic" that "Ghosts" displays, as well as
Take a look at `Mefisto'. It's one deeply strange book
but a great read once you accept that this is not quite
the world as we know it. As far as I can tell, it's set
in a sort of warped Wexford.
paul ilechko
#>I've read everything by Banville I could find, including Copernicus
#>(which I loved). HIs early stuff like Birchwood is a bit crude
#>and not altogether interesting, though it does have moments. Ghosts was
#>a slight annoying in parts, but not nearly as outright horrifyingly bad
#>as the latest one Athena. I'd reccomend Kepler, Mephisto, or The Book of
#>Evidence (if you can find it...)
not sure where you are Jason, but Book of Evidence is published by
Warner Books in the US, and is readily available in paperback.
Paul.
I got bored with my last sig, but I haven't thought of
anything witty to replace it yet.
Jason Kalra u
start laughing).. I trust your observastion, it's just that I had a hell
of a time finding it... had to eventuallly special order it. Toronto is
a large book market so I found it a bit strange. Oh well. Might have
been an isolated thing.
Usman Muzaffar
paul ilechko <pa...@superlink.net> wrote:
>kalr...@mach1.wlu.ca (Jason Kalra u) wrote:
>
>
>#>I've read everything by Banville I could find, including Copernicus
>#>(which I loved). HIs early stuff like Birchwood is a bit crude
>#>and not altogether interesting, though it does have moments. Ghosts was
>#>a slight annoying in parts, but not nearly as outright horrifyingly bad
>#>as the latest one Athena. I'd reccomend Kepler, Mephisto, or The Book of
>#>Evidence (if you can find it...)
>
I read that. I thought it was pretty good.
I really think writing credible historical fiction in a way
that avoid sounding like a history textbook is a talent in its own right.
I'm currently reading Updike's _Memories of the Ford Administration_, and
while I find his prose incomprable, it just doesn't work well for his
descriptions of mid-nineteenth cent Pennsylvania.
Who else writes good historical fiction?
-usman
muza...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
Jason Kalra u
:
: Who else writes good historical fiction?
:
: -usman
: muza...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
:
Hmm. It's not really historical-fiction, but I read The Book Of Secrets
by M.J. Vassanji (I believe that's how you spell it...) which sort of
weaves it's way through historical accuracies. Wonderful book, I thought.