Saturday, January 27, 2024

Tolstoy: Childhood

 

Tolstoy and his grandchildren, c. 1909

The first book in my Tolstoy book group is Childhood.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book! I listened to this Audible version:
The Leo Tolstoy Complete Collection

Childhood is the first in a series of three novels, followed by Boyhood and Youth. Published when Tolstoy was just twenty-three years old, the book was an immediate success. 

Today's discussion was great... and I'm grateful that it didn't go over my head! I was interested to learn that it was semi-autobiographical. 

We will be discussing Boyhood and Youth in the next two meetings. 

Childhood (Tolstoy novel) - Wikipedia

My Tolstoy adventure

 I am embarking on an adventure: reading all the works of Leo Tolstoy. It's part of a Meetup group. We are meeting once or twice a month, so I think it will take about 2 years (!)...

I am reading via listening on Audible. This is the best collection I found:

The Leo Tolstoy Complete Collection
War and Peace; Anna Karenina; Resurrection; Short Stories; Novellas; and Non-Fiction
Written by: Leo Tolstoy
Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble, Malk Williams, Emma Gregory
Length: 186 hrs and 39 mins
Public Domain (P)2023 SNR Audio

Includes:

Novels

  • War and Peace
  • Anna Karenina
  • Resurrection

Novellas and Short Stories

  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich
  • Childhood, Boyhood, Youth
  • Family Happiness
  • The Cossacks
  • The Kreutzer Sonata
  • The Forged Coupon
  • Hadji Murat
  • Sevastopol Sketches
  • The Coffee-House of Surat
  • Master and Man
  • How Much Land Does a Man Need?
  • Alyosha the Pot
  • Ivan the Fool

Non-Fiction

  • The Kingdom of God Is Within You
  • A Confession
  • The Inevitable Revolution
  • What Is Art?

We are doing them in the sequence, in the order he wrote them. Childhood is up first. 

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Artemisia Gentileschi

Today I learned about the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Her work is quite stunning... and very haunting (think Caravaggio!).


Highlights from Wikipedia: 

  • Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by the age of 15. She was also known as Artemisia Lomi.
  • In an era when women had few opportunities to pursue artistic training or work as professional artists, Gentileschi was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and she had an international clientele.
  • Many of Gentileschi's paintings feature women from myths, allegories, and the Bible, including victims, suicides, and warriors. 
  • Gentileschi was known for being able to depict the female figure with great naturalism and for her skill in handling colour to express dimension and drama.
  • Her achievements as an artist were long overshadowed by a trauma as a young woman. I'll let you read about it in Wikipedia




Saturday, September 09, 2023

Gustave Caillebotte's Floor Scrapers

Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers 1875
Musée d'Orsay, Paris (wikicommons)

This is one of my favourite paintings. 

Named in French as Les raboteurs de parquet, The Floor Scrapers was painted painting by French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte in 1875. It was painted in oil on canvas and measures 102 by 146.5 centimetres (40.2 in × 57.7 in).

In the scene, the observer stands above three workers on hands and knees, scraping a wooden floor in a bourgeois apartment—now believed to be Caillebotte's own studio at 77, rue de Miromesnil, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.

This is one of the first paintings of the time to feature the urban working class. Instead of the heroes of antiquity, here are the heroes of modern life—sinewy and strong—in stooped poses that would appear demeaning if they did not convey a sense of masculine strength and honest labor.

Sadly, Caillebotte's magnificent work was rejected by France's most prestigious art exhibition, the Salon, when he first showed it, but this was common of the times, when anything nearing nudity was considered vulgar. The painting received praise from many critics, though.

I first saw this painting at the Musée d'Orsay during my first visit to the city. I was entirely captivated and enthralled, and kept returning to it to look again. The quality of the light and the reflections were stunning. More recently, when I re-discovered the painting (I had lost the name of the artist and artwork for many yars!), I have come to appreciate the artist's use of perspective. 

More about the work on Wikipedia

Musée d'Orsay's write-up on the work

Great description of the work on TheHistoryOfArt.org

Bio of the artist on Brittanica.com featuring the work

 



Saturday, August 12, 2023

When Picasso met Lump

 


Lump didn't start out as Picasso's dog, Lump was David Duncan's dog. David Duncan was Picasso's photographer and wrote several books about Picasso (highly recommended). David brought his dachshund by when he visited Picasso in the south of France, and the two fell in love (Picasso and Lump, that is).

Read the full article below, but here is my favourite quote:

Lump and Picasso remained friends for the rest of their lives.  Lump lived to 1973 reaching the ripe old age of 17. Picasso died ten days later.







Duncan’s Dog meets Picasso - Lewis Art Café (lewisartcafe.com)

Lump (dog) - Wikipedia

Monday, May 15, 2023

Krakow virtual tour

Today I attended a great virtual tour of Krakow Poland with Olga from World Virtual Tours (supported entirely by donations). 

With roots back to the Stone Age, today the city's Old Town has been lovingly restored. The city's Wawel Royal Castle was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, one of the world's first sites granted the status. 

After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany at the start of World War II, Krakow became the capital of Germany's General Government. The Jewish population was forced into a walled zone (the Kraków Ghetto) from where many were sent to the nearby Auschwitz extermination camp. If there was any good from this time it is that the city was spared from destruction and major bombing.

These are all high quality Creative Commons images from Wikipedia, so click to enlarge them for exceptional detail.

Wawel Castle (left) and Wawel Cathedral (right)

Kanonicza Street, at the foot of the Wawel Castle


Depiction of Krakow in the 16th century


Paradise Bliss (Jan de Kempeneer's workshop, ca. 1550), one of the Jagiellonian tapestries

The Jagiellonian tapestries, woven in the Netherlands and Flanders, originally consisted of 365 pieces assembled by the Jagiellons to decorate the interiors of Wawel Castle. 

The citizens of Krakow saved the Jagiellonian tapestries during World War II by sending them to Canada
Resources:

Krakow map - a great detailed map that you can zoom in and out of

Evacuation of Polish National Treasures during World War II 


Woodcut of Krakow - from the Nuremberg Chronicle



Sunday, May 07, 2023

The Shakespeare riots

 This was new to me!

The Shakespeare Riot, also known as The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849, at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City.

Its ostensible genesis was a dispute between Edwin Forrest, one of the best-known American actors of that time, and William Charles Macready, a similarly notable English actor, which largely revolved around which of them was better than the other at acting the major roles of Shakespeare.

The riot left 22-31 rioters dead (accounts differ), and more than 120 people injured. 


Interestingly, theatre riots were not a rare occurrence in New York at the time. In the early 19th century, theatre as entertainment was a mass phenomenon, and theatres were the main gathering places in most towns and cities. At the time, audiences treated theatres as places to make their feelings known, not just towards the actors, but towards their fellow theatergoers of different classes or political persuasions. 

As can be imagined, star actors amassed an immensely loyal following, comparable to modern celebrities or sports stars. 

At the time, American theatre was dominated by British actors and managers. The rise of Edwin Forrest as the first American star and the fierce partisanship of his supporters was an early sign of a home-grown American entertainment business. 

It has been said that the riot had been brewing for more than 80 years, since the Stamp Act riots of 1765, when an entire theatre was torn apart while British actors were performing on stage. 

I wish they would record Nigel Cliff's The Shakespeare Riots as an audiobook!




Saturday, April 29, 2023

Recently discovered Roman basilica in Ashkelon

This morning I thought I was attending a live walking tour of Ashdod from World Virtual Tours, but had a very pleasant surprise: due to construction, the tour guide took us instead to Tel Ashkelon National Park. 

The tour started next to an old well from Ottoman times. 

From there, our guide (Anna), walked the site of the recently discovered Roman basilica. While restoration has only just begun (the discovery was just announced in 2021), it was truly fascinating. 








Jorge Novominsky credit

This last photo captures my favourite part, which was the neat restoration they are doing of the statues: they are placing them on pillars, with metal cutouts of the missing parts, so you can visualize how they appeared in ancient times.


All of these articles have excellent pictures (including from the time of discovery):

Israeli Archaeologists Unearth Magnificent Roman Basilica - SciNews







Also interesting:



Ashkelon - Wikipedia 

Tel Ashkelon - Wikipedia (this is what I will be exploring more, so fascinated by archaeology!)







Sunday, January 01, 2023

For the love of throw pillows

Cliff Schorer* recently located a missing painting by Dutch master Hendrick Avercamp after finding an image of it online on an $18 throw pillow. Last year, Schorer used a reverse image search engine to find an image of Winter Landscape with Skater and Other Figures, stolen in 1978 and now worth around $10 million, on the print-on-demand website Pixels.com. By looking at the metadata of the Pixels.com image, Schorer was able to determine that it was taken years after the famous theft. Schorer traced the painting to a sale at a European art fair in 1995 under the name of Barent Avercamp, the artist’s nephew and student. The painting was sold to a Dutch couple, who have since died... [continue reading on Art News].

*Cliff Schorer is the Worcester Museum of Art's former board president, the museum where it was originally supposed to have been donated to. 

Art Collector Cliff Schorer Locates Stolen $10 M. Hendrick Avercamp Painting with the Help of an $18 Throw Pillow - Art News

Saturday, December 31, 2022

A 1-stop Siberian Subway

I wrote this in 2020, but just found it in my drafts. I think it is still interesting!


From 2019: A Russian transit app made a satirical update by adding a map of Omsk, a Siberian city around 1,400 miles from Moscow. The map showed an icon for the local airport, along with a train station on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Interestingly, it also showed a single red dot to mark a local Metro stop. There were no lines connecting it to nearby stations, and information about buying a ticket was nowhere to be found..." [continue reading on Atlas Obscura (from December 18, 2019 post)]. 

So, what's the story? (and there are updates!)

Omsk Metro (Russian: О́мский метрополите́н, Omskiy metropoliten) is a cancelled rapid transit line that underwent various phases of construction from 1992 to 2018 in Omsk, Russia. It was to become Siberia's second metropolitan underground railway system after the Novosibirsk Metro which opened in the mid 1980s. The opening date for the first line was pushed back four times, from 2008 to 2010, then 2015, then 2016. There have been recent announcements in 2022 as well.
  • 1960's: Central planners in Moscow first identified Omsk as a metro-eligible city during the 1960s, due to its length along the Irtysh River and its relatively narrow streets. But after the plan was approved and financed, the planners decided to build an express tram instead, and the money allocated to Omsk was given to Chelyabinsk.
  • 1979: In 1979, a Gosplan commission rejected a plan to build an express tram system since it was predicted to be unable to handle projected passenger flows without severely discomforting riders.
  • 1986: In 1986, metro plans were revisited and financing began, along with the demolition of residential buildings to make way for tracks and a yard.
  • 1992: Construction began in 1992 between the stations Tupolevskaya (Russian: Туполевская) and Rabochaya (Russian: Рабочая ~ Workers' Station). The initial plans involved opening the section between the stations Marshala Zhukova and Rabochaya on the right bank of the Irtysh River to connect downtown to the manufacturing district, and then later to connect the line to the opposite bank of the Irtysh.
  • 2003: Due to poor financial circumstances, by 2003 just the section between Tupolevskaya and Rabochaya was completed (with no intermediate stations). At that time the plans changed and the authorities decided to connect the two banks of the Irtsh with a metro bridge, going between one station on the right bank and three on the left bank.
  • 2005: The combined metro (lower level) and motor-vehicle (upper level) bridge was built and opened to vehicular traffic in 2005. The current phase of construction involves four stations: Biblioteka Imeni Pushkina (Библиотека имени Пушкина – Pushkin Library) Zarechnaya (Заречная – Over the River) Kristall (Кристалл) Sobornaya (Соборная – Cathedral Station) This section is 6.1 kilometers (3.8 mi) in length. The average speed is expected to be 36 km/h and travel time along the entire route is expected to be 10 minutes 12 seconds. Daily ridership is projected at 190,000 passengers and yearly ridership at 69 million.
  • 2014: Since 2014, construction on the system had stalled, but an 84.6 million Ruble contract was awarded to the Russian firm Sibmost to carry out detailed design studies on completing the 7.5-kilometer (4.7 mi) light metro line, from Biblioteka Pushkina to Prospekt Rokossovskogo, with five stations.
  • 2015: On September 9, 2015, it was announced that the construction will continue, in view of the high cost of preserving and maintaining the core structural features of the metro.
  • Construction was suspended by the government of the Omsk Oblast in May 2018.
  • May 2022: the governor of the Omsk region announced: construction works that will enable the use of unfinished objects of the Omsk metro and include them in the tram network of the city may begin in 2024
  • October 2022: the regional government announced that they would try to integrate the unfinished system into the city's tram network
  • Today: only one station is open and serves as a pedestrian subway

This Siberian Subway System Has Just One, Non-Functional Station - Atlas Obscura

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City

Interesting stuff from my reading of Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City, by Edmund Richardson, and a discussion with one of my book groups. My big ah ha: Alexander established many cities named Alexandria!

Charles Masson (1800–1853) was the pseudonym of James Lewis, a British East India Company soldier and reporter, independent explorer and pioneering archaeologist and numismatist. He was the first European to discover the ruins of Harappa near Sahiwal in Punjab, now in Pakistan. He found the ancient city of Alexandria in the Caucasus (modern Begram) dating to Alexander the Great. He unlocked the now-extinct language known as Kharoshthi.

The first book-length biography was published in 2021, Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City, by Edmund Richardson.

Through his wide-ranging travels, Masson built up an extraordinary collection of artefacts largely (although not exclusively) from the modern states of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Numbering about 9,000 objects, they are now held by the British Museum. 

The Fugitive Who Conned His Way Into The Footsteps OfAlexander The Great – And The Quest For His Lost Cities - article about the book

List of cities founded by Alexander the Great

Chronology of the expedition of Alexander the Great into Asia

Great image below - click to enlarge it!



Friday, December 16, 2022

A Moveable Feast

I've been reading a lot of Hemingway lately, as well as biographies about him, so I really enjoyed reading A Moveable Feast for a book club.

A Moveable Feast is a 1964 memoir belles-lettres by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling expat journalist and writer in Paris during the 1920s. 

In November 1956, Hemingway recovered two small steamer trunks that he had stored in March 1928 in the basement of the Hôtel Ritz Paris. The trunks contained notebooks he had filled during the 1920s. Having recovered his trunks, Hemingway had the notebooks transcribed, and then began working them up into the memoir that would eventually become A Moveable Feast.

The memoir was published posthumously in 1964, three years after Hemingway's death, by his fourth wife and widow, Mary Hemingway, based upon his original manuscripts and notes. An edition altered and revised by his grandson, Seán Hemingway, was published in 2009.

The book details Hemingway's first marriage to Hadley Richardson and his associations with other cultural figures of the Lost Generation in Interwar France.

The memoir consists of various personal accounts by Hemingway and involves many notable figures of the time, such as Sylvia Beach, Hilaire Belloc, Bror von Blixen-Finecke, Aleister Crowley, John Dos Passos, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Pascin, Ezra Pound, Evan Shipman, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and Hermann von Wedderkop. The work also references the addresses of specific locations such as bars, cafes, and hotels, many of which can still be found in Paris today.

The title of A Moveable Feast (a play on words for the term used for a holy day for which the date is not fixed) was suggested by Hemingway's friend and biographer A. E. Hotchner, who remembered Hemingway using the term in 1950.

A Moveable Feast is a play on words for the term used for a holy day for which the date is not fixed.

I have always been curious about the phrase A Moveable Feast... and had long discussions about the origins of this term with a friend, so I was glad to find this last tidbit!




Saturday, November 26, 2022

Osiris and Abydos Temple (and Omm Sety!)

Notes inspired by another virtual tour today...

Abydos

Considered one of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt, the sacred city of Abydos was the site of many ancient temples, including Umm el-Qa'ab, a royal necropolis where early pharaohs were entombed. These tombs began to be seen as extremely significant burials and in later times it became desirable to be buried in the area, leading to the growth of the town's importance as a cult site.

Today, Abydos is notable for the memorial temple of Seti I, which contains an inscription from the Nineteenth Dynasty known to the modern world as the Abydos King List. This is a chronological list showing cartouches of most dynastic pharaohs of Egypt from Menes until Seti I's father, Ramesses I. It is also notable for the Abydos graffiti, ancient Phoenician and Aramaic graffiti found on the walls of the Temple of Seti I.

The Great Temple and most of the ancient town are buried under the modern buildings to the north of the Seti temple. Many of the original structures and the artifacts within them are considered irretrievable and lost; many may have been destroyed by the new construction.

From earliest times, Abydos was a cult centre, first of the local deity, Khentiamentiu, and from the end of the Old Kingdom, the rising cult of Osiris. A tradition developed that the Early Dynastic cemetery was the burial place of Osiris and the tomb of Djer was reinterpreted as that of Osiris.

Great Osiris Temple

From the First Dynasty to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, nine or ten temples were successively built on one site at Abydos. The temple was entirely rebuilt on a larger scale by Pepi I in the Sixth Dynasty. In the Twelfth Dynasty, Senusret I laid massive foundations of stone over the pavement of his predecessor. A great temenos was laid out enclosing a much larger area and the new temple itself was about three times the earlier size.

Temple of Seti I (Abydos)

The temple of Seti I also known as the Great Temple of Abydos is one of the main historical sites in Abydos. The temple was built by pharaoh Seti I. A principal purpose of the temple was to serve as a memorial to king Seti I, as well as to show reverence for the early pharaohs, which is incorporated within as part of the "Rite of the Ancestors". The temple of Seti I was built on entirely new ground half a mile to the south of the long series of the earlier temples. This surviving building is best known as the Great Temple of Abydos, being nearly complete and an impressive sight. It includes the Abydos King List.

The Abydos King List (aka the "Rosetta Stone" of Egyptian archaeology)

The long list of the pharaohs of the principal dynasties—recognized by Seti—are carved on a wall and known as the "Abydos King List" (showing the cartouche name of many dynastic pharaohs of Egypt from the first, Narmer or Menes, until Seti's time). There were significant names deliberately left off of the list. So rare, as an almost complete list of pharaoh names, the Table of Abydos, rediscovered by William John Bankes, has been called the "Rosetta Stone" of Egyptian archaeology, analogous to the Rosetta Stone for Egyptian writing, beyond the Narmer Palette.

The helicopter hieroglyphs 

The helicopter hieroglyphs is a name given to part of an Egyptian hieroglyph carving from the Temple of Seti I at Abydos. In paleocontact hypothesis circles, the hieroglyphs have been interpreted as an out-of-place artifact depicting a helicopter (above the nine short vertical bars) as well as other examples of modern technology.

The Osirion

The Osireion is a weird and wonderful structure, unique in Egypt and still baffling for Egyptologiststhearchaeologist.org

The Osirion or Osireion is an ancient megalithic structure located at Abydos, to the rear of the Mortuary Temple of Seti I. Its original purpose is unknown.

It is an integral part of Seti I's funeral complex and is possibly built to resemble an 18th Dynasty Valley of the Kings tomb. The site contains a stone-paved island in the centre, chambers in both wings and, around the island, a water basin of yet undetermined but no less than 10.4m depth which was probably used as a well. Access was via a 69m stone lined passage. In the whole of Egypt, there is no architectural equivalent to the Osireion with its massive blocks, numerous trilithons, extraordinarily narrow and regular joints as well as a lack of round pillars except for the Valley Temple in Giza.

Other learnings and tidbits:


Dorothy Louise Eady
(1904-1981), also known as Omm Sety or Om Seti, was born in London and is known for her belief that in a previous life she had been a priestess in ancient Egypt. After falling down a flight of stairs at age 3 and briefly appearing to be dead, she began exhibiting strange behaviours, asking that she be "brought home". She had also developed foreign accent syndrome. 
After being taken by her parents to visit the British Museum, and on observing a photograph (of Seti I) in the New Kingdom temple exhibits room, the young Eady called out "There is my home!" but "where are the trees? Where are the gardens?" She ran about the halls of the Egyptian rooms, "amongst her peoples", kissing the statues' feet. After this trip she took every opportunity to visit the British Museum rooms. There, she eventually met E. A. Wallis Budge, who was taken by her youthful enthusiasm and encouraged her in the study of hieroglyphs. To make a very long story short, in 1931, she moved to Egypt, kissed the ground and announced she had come home to stay. In 1956, she moved to Abydos, which had special significance for her, because it is where she believed Bentreshyt had lived and served in the Temple of Seti. I want to learn more about this very interesting woman!

On 14 February 2021, Egyptian and American archaeologists discovered what could be the oldest brewery in the world dating from around 3100 BCE at the reign of King Narmer. Dr. Matthew Adams, one of the leaders of the mission, stated that it was used to make beer for royal rituals.



Saturday, November 19, 2022

Abu Simbel

Today I attended a virtual tour of the Abu Simbel temple in Egypt. I learned a lot, the biggest part being the remarkable relocation of temples in the region the 60's (the Abu Simbel temple was previously located 65m below current location). Lots of insights to the markings and meanings as well. Keeping these notes for myself really...

CREATION

During his reign, Ramesses II embarked on an extensive building program throughout Egypt and Nubia, which Egypt controlled. Nubia was very important to the Egyptians because it was a source of gold and many other precious trade goods. He, therefore, built several grand temples there in order to impress upon the Nubians Egypt's might and Egyptianize the people of Nubia. The most prominent temples are the rock-cut temples near the modern village of Abu Simbel, at the Second Nile Cataract, the border between Lower Nubia and Upper Nubia. There are two temples, the Great Temple, dedicated to Ramesses II himself, and the Small Temple, dedicated to his chief wife Queen Nefertari.

Construction of the temple complex started in approximately 1264 BC and lasted for about 20 years, until 1244 BC. It was known as the "Temple of Ramesses, beloved by Amun".

DISAPPEARANCE

With the passage of time, the temples fell into disuse and eventually became covered by sand. By the 6th century BC, the sand already covered the statues of the main temple up to their knees. 

REDISCOVERY

The temple was forgotten until 1813, when Swiss researcher Johann Ludwig Burckhardt found the top frieze of the main temple. Burckhardt talked about his discovery with Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni, who travelled to the site, but was unable to dig out an entry to the temple. Belzoni returned in 1817, this time succeeding in his attempt to enter the complex. A detailed early description of the temples, together with contemporaneous line drawings, can be found in Edward William Lane's Description of Egypt (1825–1828).



CAMPAIGN

In 1959, an international donations campaign (PDF) to save the monuments of Nubia began: the southernmost relics of this ancient human civilization were under threat from the rising waters of the Nile that were about to result from the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

RELOCATION

The salvage of the Abu Simbel temples began in 1964 by a multinational team of archeologists, engineers and skilled heavy equipment operators working together under the UNESCO banner. Between 1964 and 1968, the entire site was carefully cut into large blocks (up to 30 tons, averaging 20 tons), dismantled, lifted and reassembled in a new location 65 metres higher and 200 metres back from the river, in one of the greatest challenges of archaeological engineering in history. Some structures were even saved from under the waters of Lake Nasser. (The overall relocations in the area were completed in 1980).

TODAY

The Abu Simbel complex consists of two temples. 

The larger one is dedicated to Ra-Horakhty, Ptah and Amun, Egypt's three state deities of the time, and features four large statues of Ramesses II in the facade. 

The smaller temple is dedicated to the goddess Hathor, personified by Nefertari, Ramesses's most beloved of his many wives. 

Today, a few hundred tourists visit the temples daily. Most visitors arrive by road from Aswan, the nearest city. Others arrive by plane at an airfield that was specially constructed for the temple complex.

MY LEARNINGS... 

In the virtual tour today, I learned:

The temples were relocated in the condition they were found in. If you look at the four seated figures at the front of the main temple, the two on the left (with partially missing heads) appear with rubble at their feet. This collapse of the structures was believed to be from an earthquake at the original site. When the temple was moved, they reconstructed them in the state they were found in.

The baboons shown in the temple signify time. This comes from the fact that baboons urinate hourly, so a baboon represents 1 hour. A god presenting a baboon is presenting a gift of a clock. 

Very much enjoying these virtual tours, funded by donations/tips.


Friday, November 11, 2022

Kurt Vonnegut at 100

 Apparently Kurt Vonnegut would have been 100 today. 

I believe I have just read my first Kurt Vonnegut work, Slaughterhouse-Five. I actually listened to the audiobook version, for a bookclub today. I didn't know it was about the bombing of Dresden in WWII. And interesting to be talking about this today, on Remembrance Day. So much I didn't know...

Kurt Vonnegut would have turned 100 today — his war novels are relevant as ever - NPR

What Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” Tells Us Now (Salman Rushdie New Yorker essay on the novel from 2019) 

Listing his works here, for myself, as reminders:

Novels

  • Player Piano (1952)
  • The Sirens of Titan (1959)
  • Mother Night (1962)
  • Cat's Cradle (1963)
  • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
  • Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
  • Breakfast of Champions (1973)
  • Slapstick (1976)
  • Jailbird (1979)
  • Deadeye Dick (1982)
  • Galápagos (1985)
  • Bluebeard (1987)
  • Hocus Pocus (1990)
  • Timequake (1997)

Short fiction collections

  • Canary in a Cat House (1961)
  • Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
  • Bagombo Snuff Box (1997)
  • God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
  • Armageddon in Retrospect (2008) – short stories and essays
  • Look at the Birdie (2009)
  • While Mortals Sleep (2011)
  • We Are What We Pretend to Be (2012)
  • Sucker's Portfolio (2013)
  • Complete Stories (2017)

Nonfiction

  • Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974)
  • Palm Sunday (1981)
  • Nothing Is Lost Save Honor: Two Essays (1984)
  • Fates Worse Than Death (1991)
  • A Man Without a Country (2005)[66]
  • Kurt Vonnegut: The Cornell Sun Years 1941–1943 (2012)
  • If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice to the Young (2013)
  • Vonnegut by the Dozen (2013)
  • Kurt Vonnegut: Letters (2014)
  • Pity the Reader: On Writing With Style (2019) with Suzanne McConnell
  • Love, Kurt: The Vonnegut Love Letters, 1941–1945 (2020) Editor Edith Vonnegut

Plays

  • The First Christmas Morning (1962)
  • Fortitude (1968)
  • Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)
  • Between Time and Timbuktu (1972)
  • Stones, Time and Elements (A Humanist Requiem) (1987)
  • Make Up Your Mind (1993)
  • L'Histoire du Soldat (1997)

Children's books

  • Sun Moon Star (1980)

A new word to me: prolepsis

From Wikipedia, about James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room:

After a year in Paris, penniless, he calls Jacques, an older homosexual acquaintance, to meet him for supper so he can ask for money. (In a prolepsis, Jacques and David meet again and discuss Giovanni's fall.) 

A prolepsis is a scene that temporarily takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story.




Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea

Was just in a book club discussion about Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, so jotting a few notes for my own reference to come back to.

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it tells the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba.

Written in 1951, The Old Man and the Sea is Hemingway's final work published during his lifetime. 

In 1953, The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was cited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to their awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954.

In 1954, Hemingway wanted to donate his Nobel Prize in Literature gold medal to the Cuban people. To avoid giving it to the Batista government, he donated it to the Catholic Church for display at the sanctuary at El Cobre, a small town outside Santiago de Cuba where the Marian image of Our Lady of Charity is located. 

I listened to the Audible version (narrated by Donald Sutherland!). I have a lot more Hemingway to read before I feel like I really know this author (why have I not read him more until now?).

Hemingway selected works

  • (1925) In Our Time
  • (1926) The Sun Also Rises
  • (1929) A Farewell to Arms
  • (1937) To Have and Have Not
  • (1940) For Whom the Bell Tolls
  • (1952) The Old Man and the Sea



Monday, August 29, 2022

In Search of Lost Time

I have stumbled into reading Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time and am now part of a book club that will continue for 2-3 years. 

In Search of Lost Time, also known as, Remembrance of Things Past, is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. The series follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century high-society France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world. I listened to the Audible version, with each book being about 15 hours (!). 

A few interesting things I have found (and I'll just keep updating this post for myself as time goes by).


Paintings as a companion

Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time by Eric Karpeles 

With some 200 paintings beautifully reproduced in full color and texts drawn from the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation, as well as concise commentaries on the evolving narrative, this book is an essential addition to the libraries of Proustians everywhere. You can buy it on Amazon here (which I will do!). 


Graphic novel version

In what renowned translator Arthur Goldhammer says might be "likened to a piano reduction of an orchestral score," the French illustrator Stéphane Heuet re-presents Proust in graphic form for anyone who has always dreamed of reading him but was put off by the sheer magnitude of the undertaking. This graphic adaptation reveals the fundamental architecture of Proust’s work while displaying a remarkable fidelity to his language as well as the novel's themes of time, art, and the elusiveness of memory.

In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way by Stéphane Heuet/Marcel Proust – review of the graphic novel version

It can be purchased here on Amazon.



Laocoön and His Sons

This sculpture, Laocoön and His Sons, was mentioned in a book chat I was in today about Marcel Proust's Swan's Way. One of the participants brought it up as a metaphor for all the tangled serpents of time that he is weaving together. 

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506. It is on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, a part of the Vatican Museums.

It is very likely the same statue that was praised in the highest terms by the main Roman writer on art, Pliny the Elder. Pliny attributes the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus, but does not give a date or patron. 

In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition, but it is not known whether it is an original work or a copy of an earlier sculpture, probably in bronze, or made for a Greek or Roman commission. It was probably commissioned for the home of a wealthy Roman, possibly of the Imperial family. 

The figures are near life-size and the group is a little over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height, showing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents. The group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art. The suffering is shown through the contorted expressions of the faces, which are matched by the struggling bodies, especially that of Laocoön himself, with every part of his body straining.

Although mostly in excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts, and analysis suggests that it was remodelled in ancient times and has undergone a number of restorations since it was excavated. 

The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. 

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture
– near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the Sette Sale

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Upon reading Animal Farm

I had a chance to talk about Animal Farm by George Orwell in a book club today (it's great, there are participants from around the world). This is another chapter in my goal to 'read the classics'.

One of the most interesting aspects was who the characters in Animal Farm represent. Loved the book but I wasn't aware of this backstory, so I am posting this for my own reference - and food for thought as I learn more history....

Who the characters in Animal Farm represent


Pigs


Old Major
– An aged prize Middle White boar provides the inspiration that fuels the rebellion. He is also called Willingdon Beauty when showing. He is an allegorical combination of Karl Marx, one of the creators of communism, and Vladimir Lenin, the communist leader of the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet nation, in that he draws up the principles of the revolution. His skull being put on revered public display recalls Lenin, whose embalmed body was left in indefinite repose. By the end of the book, the skull is reburied.


Napoleon
– "A large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way". An allegory of Joseph Stalin, Napoleon is the leader of Animal Farm.

Snowball – Napoleon's rival and original head of the farm after Jones's overthrow. His life parallels that of Leon Trotsky, although there is no reference to Snowball having been murdered (as Trotsky was); he may also combine some elements from Lenin.

Squealer – A small, white, fat porker who serves as Napoleon's second-in-command and minister of propaganda, is a collective portrait of the Soviet nomenklatura and journalists, such as of the national daily Pravda (The Truth), able to justify every twist and turn in Stalin's policy.

Minimus – A poetic pig who writes the second and third national anthems of Animal Farm after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned. Literary theorist John Rodden compares him to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, although Mayakovsky neither wrote anthems nor praised Stalin in his poems.

The piglets – Hinted to be the children of Napoleon and are the first generation of animals subjugated to his idea of animal inequality.

The young pigs – Four pigs who complain about Napoleon's takeover of the farm but are quickly silenced and later executed, the first animals killed in Napoleon's farm purge. Probably based on the Great Purge of Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, and Alexei Rykov.

Pinkeye – A minor pig who is mentioned only once; he is the taste tester that samples Napoleon's food to make sure it is not poisoned, in response to rumours about an assassination attempt on Napoleon.

Humans

Mr. Jones – A heavy drinker who is the original owner of Manor Farm, a farm in disrepair with farmhands who often loaf on the job. He is an allegory of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 and was murdered, along with the rest of his family, by the Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918. The animals revolt after Jones goes on a drinking binge, returns hungover the following day and neglects them completely. Jones is married, but his wife plays no active role in the book. She seems to live with her husband's drunkenness, going to bed while he stays up drinking until late into the night. In her only other appearance, she hastily throws a few things into a travel bag and flees when she sees that the animals are revolting. Towards the end of the book, Napoleon's "favourite sow" wears her old Sunday dress.

Mr. Frederick – The tough owner of Pinchfield Farm, a small but well-kept neighbouring farm, who briefly enters into an alliance with Napoleon. Animal Farm shares land boundaries with Pinchfield on one side and Foxwood on another, making Animal Farm a "buffer zone" between the two bickering farmers. The animals of Animal Farm are terrified of Frederick, as rumours abound of him abusing his animals and entertaining himself with cockfighting. Napoleon enters into an alliance with Frederick in order to sell surplus timber that Pilkington also sought, but is enraged to learn Frederick paid him in counterfeit money. Shortly after the swindling, Frederick and his men invade Animal Farm, killing many animals and destroying the windmill. The brief alliance and subsequent invasion may allude to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Operation Barbarossa.

Mr. Pilkington – The easy-going but crafty and well-to-do owner of Foxwood Farm, a large neighbouring farm overgrown with weeds. Pilkington is wealthier than Frederick and owns more land, but his farm is in need of care as opposed to Frederick's smaller but more efficiently run farm. Although on bad terms with Frederick, Pilkington is also concerned about the animal revolution that deposed Jones and worried that this could also happen to him.

Mr. Whymper – A man hired by Napoleon to act as the liaison between Animal Farm and human society. At first, he is used to acquire necessities that cannot be produced on the farm, such as dog biscuits and paraffin wax, but later he procures luxuries like alcohol for the pigs.

Equines (horses)

Boxer – A loyal, kind, dedicated, extremely strong, hard-working, and respectable cart-horse, although quite naive and gullible. Boxer does a large share of the physical labour on the farm. He is shown to hold the belief that "Napoleon is always right". At one point, he had challenged Squealer's statement that Snowball was always against the welfare of the farm, earning him an attack from Napoleon's dogs. But Boxer's immense strength repels the attack, worrying the pigs that their authority can be challenged. Boxer has been compared to Alexey Stakhanov, a diligent and enthusiastic role model of the Stakhanovite movement. He has been described as "faithful and strong"; he believes any problem can be solved if he works harder. When Boxer is injured, Napoleon sells him to a local knacker to buy himself whisky, and Squealer gives a moving account, falsifying Boxer's death.


Mollie
– A self-centred, self-indulgent, and vain young white mare who quickly leaves for another farm after the revolution, in a manner similar to those who left Russia after the fall of the Tsar. She is only once mentioned again.

Clover – A gentle, caring mare, who shows concern especially for Boxer, who often pushes himself too hard. Clover can read all the letters of the alphabet, but cannot "put words together".

Benjamin – A donkey, one of the oldest, wisest animals on the farm, and one of the few who can read properly. He is sceptical, temperamental and cynical: his most frequent remark is, "Life will go on as it has always gone on – that is, badly". Academic Morris Dickstein has suggested there is "a touch of Orwell himself in this creature's timeless scepticism" and indeed, friends called Orwell "Donkey George", "after his grumbling donkey Benjamin, in Animal Farm". Benjamin manages to evade the purges and survive despite the threat he potentially poses given his knowledge, his age, and his equivocal, albeit apolitical, positions.

Other animals


Muriel
– A goat who is another of the oldest, wisest animals on the farm and friends with all of the animals on the farm. Similar to Benjamin, Muriel is one of the few animals on the farm who is not a pig but can read. She survives, as does Benjamin, by eschewing politics.

The puppies – Offspring of Jessie and Bluebell, the puppies were taken away at birth by Napoleon and raised by him to serve as his powerful security force.

Moses – The Raven, "Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker". Initially following Mrs. Jones into exile, he reappears several years later and resumes his role of talking but not working. He regales Animal Farm's denizens with tales of a wondrous place beyond the clouds called "Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall rest forever from our labours!" Orwell portrays established religion as "the black raven of priestcraft – promising pie in the sky when you die, and faithfully serving whoever happens to be in power". His preaching to the animals heartens them, and Napoleon allows Moses to reside at the farm "with an allowance of a gill of beer daily", akin to how Stalin brought back the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War.


The sheep
– They are not given individual names or personalities. They show limited understanding of Animalism and the political atmosphere of the farm, yet nonetheless they are the voice of blind conformity as they bleat their support of Napoleon's ideals with jingles during his speeches and meetings with Snowball. Their constant bleating of "four legs good, two legs bad" was used as a device to drown out any opposition or alternative views from Snowball, much as Stalin used hysterical crowds to drown out Trotsky. Towards the end of the book, Squealer (the propagandist) trains the sheep to alter their slogan to "four legs good, two legs better", which they dutifully do.

The hens – Also unnamed, the hens are promised at the start of the revolution that they will get to keep their eggs, which are stolen from them under Mr. Jones. However, their eggs are soon taken from them under the premise of buying goods from outside Animal Farm. The hens are among the first to rebel, albeit unsuccessfully, against Napoleon. They are brutally suppressed.


The cows
– Also unnamed, the cows are enticed into the revolution by promises that their milk will not be stolen but can be used to raise their own calves. Their milk is then stolen by the pigs, who learn to milk them. The milk is stirred into the pigs' mash every day, while the other animals are denied such luxuries.

The cat – Unnamed and never seen to carry out any work, the cat is absent for long periods and is forgiven because her excuses are so convincing and she "purred so affectionately that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions". She has no interest in the politics of the farm, and the only time she is recorded as having participated in an election, she is found to have actually "voted on both sides". 

The ducks – Also unnamed.

The roosters – One arranges to wake Boxer early, and a black one acts as a trumpeter for Napoleon.

The geese – Also unnamed. One gander commits suicide by eating nightshade berries.


The above is from Wikipedia