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Confused in Causewayhead

This street should be as famous as any in Dublin. Why Dublin you might ask. Having read some Toibin recently on Wilde’s Father, Yeats’s Dad and Joyce’s pater- I feel the streets, alleyways and denizens deserve their eulogy too.

This town can be irritating and it’s inhabitants as well, what can one say? People muttering into mobiles so difficult to tell apart from those sadly suffering from Tourettes. Those with dogs an extendable leads are the most dangerous to those, like myself who are short sighted. Causewayhead though is always in some sort of flux. The colours of the one and only greengrocer/ delicatessen today offering purple pomegranates at the reasonable rate of three for a pound. Can I find the energy to google in what succulent dish they might be served?

Where oh where is the travel agents gone?How can I erase the sad memories of this lively street looking depressingly empty during Covid? What are these strange new stores with handtowels priced with West End prices? Have enough rich folk moved in to afford the strange articles here on sale? A book about East End interiors going for 30 quid for instance. At least the cash and carry shop is open and supplying cheap torches so that I can read the fortune I seem to have spent with Scottish Power.

Well despite some incipient grumpiness, I have managed to find another book for 50p in the charity shop. Instead of a trip to Hampstead or a herringbone Irish jacket, I have found a biography of H.G.Wells by Michael Foot. It will doubtless join the pile of to be read books cluttering the lounge.

So what next after this Cappuccino in the relatively quiet Cinema cafe? Not really up for another bacon sandwich at the Smugglers so probably the Oxfam shop, reconsider the pomegranates and then the bus back to read Christopher Reid. 📚

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Books I’ve Enjoyed Recently in Photos

You probably know that the Duras has been made into a film now available as a DVD

Courtenay Schembri Gray's avatarCourtenay's Corner

The Lover by Marguerite Duras

The Lover by Marguerite Duras — I’ve said it once, and I will say it again. The French know how to write! This book has been considered the Anti-Lolita. Lolita is my favourite book of all time, so any book that is somehow tied to it will be going straight on my list.

Hating Olivia by Mark SaFranko

Hating Olivia by Mark SaFranko — This book is criminally underrated. It’s also unfortunately difficult to get hold of. I got my copy from Amazon, but there are some on eBay. Mark, the author, follows me on Twitter, and we had an enlightening discussion about the industry.

Page 7 of Hating Olivia

Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky

Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky — This book is absolutely fascinating. A totally unique take on the science fiction genre. Aliens have been and gone…

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Meditations on “In-Between-Ness” by MJ Lourens

These are terrific images but I can’t see the purpose of the pixellations.

Tulika Bahadur's avatarOn Art and Aesthetics

MJ Lourens.

Day and night, urban and suburban, presence and absence, here and there—the notion of “in-between-ness” significantly characterises the paintings of South African artist MJ Lourens. Executed with photorealistic precision, the artworks seem like quietly powerful representations of the liminal and the peripheral, of the process of transformation.

The light (blue making way for soft splashes of pink or orange or red making way for grey) creates a dreamy mood. The landscape features expanses of almost wild earth punctuated by structures of industry—wire fences, factory towers—erected and organised with a sense of confidence and the promise of progress.

The viewer is left to meditate on the fading and arrival of things, and wonder what is being lost and what gained.

Born in Pretoria, in 1973, Lourens studied Fine Art Sculpture at the University of Pretoria from 1992 to 1996. His body of work includes paintings, sculptures and film, having…

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Real life

vgeorg's avatarЖивотът е изкуство, а изкуството е вечно

Танго, маслени бои, художник Русалина Михайлова/ Tango, oil on canvas, artist Rusalina Mihaylova

Реален живот

ще ти кажа нещо обикновено

аз винаги творя по вдъхновение

и като реален живот

награждавам всяко търпение

искам да те чета постоянно

има истина в твоя поетичен свят

това ще е танц на думи

и сърцата ни ще се изпълнят с благодат

© ВГеорг 2022

Real life

I will tell you something ordinary

I always create by inspiration

and like a real life

I reward every patience

I want to read you constantly

there is truth in your poetic space

it will be a dance of words

and our hearts will be filled with grace

© VGeorg 2022

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Caught, by Henry Green

Wow! You read so amazingly fast! I recently read a book about Green, Greene and Elizabet Bowen in The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War- brilliant read!

Lisa Hill's avatarANZ LitLovers LitBlog

Recommended to me by Proustitute, Henry Green’s fourth novel Caught is one of six of his novels included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 edition).  I’ve bolded them in the list below.

  • Blindness (1926), on the TBR
  • Living (1929)
  • Party-Going (1939)
  • Caught (1943)
  • Loving (1945), see my review
  • Back (1946)
  • Concluding (1948)
  • Nothing (1950), see my review
  • Doting (1952), on the TBR

During the war, perhaps mindful of the possibility of not surviving the Blitz, Green also wrote a memoir called Pack My Bag: A Self-Portrait (1940).  He was in the Auxiliary Fire Service, a poorly equipped and hastily mobilised volunteer force in which 800 men died because it was such dangerous work.  This AFS experience also forms the backdrop for Caught. 

Caught is cited in 1001 Books as an ambivalent novel.

The story examines how people are kept apart by social and sexual differences…

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Autoportrait Day 159~ Cornelia Paczka-Wagner

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The Dream of a Ridiculous Woman

I wonder what your associations are to Russian at this time. The buildings seem to be a theme too- the cold academic atmosphere contrasting with the home you were given, perhaps.

Saint Schmidt's avatarLacanian Scraps

Last night I slept only for a short time because of a recent crisis. I had a dream that woke me and forced me to flee. I got into my car and drove to Cork. This was the dream:

My partner and I were fighting. I knew this because she wasn’t anywhere. I couldn’t find her. I’ve had dreams like this many times. This one was in a large building with many doors and wide hallways. I suppose it to be a university. I went looking for her. A friend, a guy, told me, in a secret way, that she was behind a particular door. He pointed and then walked away. I walked in. I saw my partner dressed beautifully, with the most radiant smile and happiness. She was eating grapes that were being served to her by another woman. The other woman was the woman whose house was offered…

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Hotel novels – a few of my favourites from the shelves  

Thanks for that and can I recommend Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth which I found intriguing on many levels? Of course Grand Hotel was an early film and The Grand Budapest Hotel nodded towards Roth’s patron Stefan Zweig. I’m currently reading Coe’s “Wilder and me” which gives a flavour of being an exile from fascism and antisemitism in Paris hotels in the 30s.

JacquiWine's avatarJacquiWine's Journal

This is a post I’ve been meaning to put together for a while, a celebration of my favourite novels set in hotels. There’s something particularly fascinating about this type of location as a vehicle for fiction – a setting that brings together a range of different individuals who wouldn’t normally encounter one another away from the hotel. Naturally, there’s some potential for drama as various guests and members of staff mingle with one another, especially in the communal areas – opportunities the sharp-eyed writer can duly exploit to good effect.

While some guests will be holidaying at the hotels, others may be there for different reasons – travellers on business trips, for instance, or people recovering from illness or some other kind of trauma. Then there are the hotel staff and long-term residents, more permanent fixtures in the hotel’s fabric, so to speak. All have interesting stories to tell, irrespective…

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Spitalfields E1 from ChristChurch

Very much like the brick red and grey tones- lovely!!

Jane's avatarJane Sketching

I joined a sketching friend for a stroll around Spitalfields. We had coffee at the Cafe in the Crypt of Christchurch Spitalfields, and then sat at the tables outside and sketched the view.

Here is my sketch:

Spitalfields Market E1 from ChristChurch, 7″ square in Sketchbook 12. 1st June 2022

Behind the red-bricked buildings of the Market, you can see the office and residential tower blocks along Bishopsgate. “Principal Tower” in the one to the right.

Here are some on-location photos and a picture of the sketchbook.

Thankyou to the talented artist LA for your company and inspiration on this expedition. It’s fun to sketch together!

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Autoportrait Day 153~ Gertrude Abercrombie