Almanac: C.S. Lewis on the moral threat of “insiderism”
“To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which ‘we’—and at the word ‘we’ you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something ‘we always do.’”
~ C.S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring” (lecture, King’s College, University of London, 1944)
~ C.S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring” (lecture, King’s College, University of London, 1944)
Günter Kunert (1929-2019)
German -- first East, then West -- author Günter Kunert has passed away; see, for example, the (German) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung piece
He wrote an extraordinary lot -- and a lot that was very good. Among his recent publications is the novel Die zweite Frau, which he wrote 45 years ago but could not publish in the GDR; see also the Wallstein Verlag publicity page.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: “Craft Whiskey” Sucks. Here’s Why.
German -- first East, then West -- author Günter Kunert has passed away; see, for example, the (German) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung piece
He wrote an extraordinary lot -- and a lot that was very good. Among his recent publications is the novel Die zweite Frau, which he wrote 45 years ago but could not publish in the GDR; see also the Wallstein Verlag publicity page.
LEXUS: A million miles.
A blast from the past as George Murray has revived his long dormant Bookninja weblog -- great to see one of the literary blogs from the early days back up again.
Winston Smith was unavaliable for commment …
Well, some publisher ought to pick it up. It's already getting a lot of pre-publication publicity.
The world seems to going nuts.
Like a child insisting that onions make you beautiful, Freud's Interpretations of Dreams, kept telling lies till they became true. And like a child convinced that eating fish makes you a good swimmer, he grew up thinking that crossing the Iron Curtain would help overthrow the government. That is why he behaved as he did.?
Like a child insisting that onions make you beautiful, Freud's Interpretations of Dreams, kept telling lies till they became true. And like a child convinced that eating fish makes you a good swimmer, he grew up thinking that crossing the Iron Curtain would help overthrow the government. That is why he behaved as he did.?
He was staying in a friend’s cabin; he’d been there a month. It was after what people called ‘his breakdown’, or what those closer to him called ‘one of his breakdowns’. He just thought of it as ‘normality’. It was a feeling he always had, hovering, just out of reach. Every few years it would swoop down, grab him by the shoulders and carry him away
Graffiti That Helps You See Through Walls
For some of his latest street art, Portuguese graffiti artist Vile has been creating optical illusions of his name “cut” into the walls of buildings.
Inspired by the sping weekend - John Irving of The Cider House Rules fame: “He had in abundance youth’s most dangerous qualities: optimism and relentlessness. He would risk everything he had to fly the plane that could carry the bomb within him.”
It’s Only 2019, But The Guardian Has Made A List Of The 100 Best Books Of The 21st Century
Agree, disagree, tick off the ones you’ve read on a list … whatever, here they all are, from nonfiction to poetry to doorstop novels to graphic novel memoirs to everything else that won the approval of the British newspaper’s reviewers. (We hesitate to imagine the epic meetings and battles that took place to decide on number one.) – The Guardian (UK)
You heard it from a publican: Cormann was decisive in the putsch against Turnbull
Writing in Fairfax media, Max Koslowski gives another perspective of the Dutton – Morrison ousting of Turnbull, namely the decisive role played by Mathias Cormann. He draws his article from former frontbencher and colleague of Turnbull, the publican Craig Laundy, who was launching David Crowe’s book Venom: Vendettas, Betrayals and the Price of Power.
