Jon - Yeh, 'Life, the Universe and Everything' contains large recycled bits of 'Doctor Who: The Krikkitmen' (aborted script). Oddly enough, I felt those were the duff bits. There's a reason that script never got commissioned.

And to be fair, 'The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul' isn't rehashed Who, at least not to my knowledge. 'Holistic Detective Agency', on the other hand, is almost entirely rehashed Who...



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.

I am so happy that I am not the ONLY one that thought the Hitchhiker books trailed off. I even went to see Douglas Adams talk in the hopes that he could explain them to me, but it didn't seem to help, and only made me more confused.

Ah, but you got to hear Douglas Adams talk live, which I'll never do now :o(

Has anyone read Last Chance To See?



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Do something pretty while you can...

Teacher ---

Thank you.

I re-read 'Im Westen Nicht Neues' over the weekend, as thinking about it raised so many feelings. Sadly I have to read it in English, but it seems to be a very good translation. 'Revenge is black pudding,' says one of the group that take revenge on Himmelstoss, 'mysteriously'. I wonder if the comment 'mysteriously' was Remarque's, or whether it was the translators' way of saying, 'This is an untranslatable German joke'. Not being a black pudding afficionado, is it eaten cold? Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, and black pudding is blood. Perhaps this is the meaning of the line.

After that I briefly got out a book of British war poems, and with memorable exceptions they seemed inadequate by comparison. Perhaps it is easier to make a case for war being a bad thing if you have been seen to 'lose'? But surely everybody lost.

The saddest thing for me is the transition from Paul Baumers' view in chapter 7 that after the war the young men who were ruined by it would have a purpose and change society (we shall march --- against whom, against whom?) becomes later ---

'Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experiences we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way any more. --- We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered; the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.'

I am amazed at the other book you quote, but most of all by the ability of modern Germans to be honest about the past. It would be easier to hide from the existence of Herr Jünger. There are those who respond to an experience of brutality by embracing it rather than facing the unpleasant pain, and Ernst Jünger seems to be one of these. The attitudes you describe seem to be the product of a remorselessly terrible father.

It was interesting for me to read Wilfred Owen's 'Apologia pro Poemate Meo' after IWNN, which shows that there were those in Britain who thought just as Baumer's father and acquaintances did. To those who mistake the seeming virtues brought on by war and fail to see what terrible things bring on an outer appearance of mirth, Owen writes:

'Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.'


I was actually wanting to talk about Dylan Thomas' poem which begins
'Remember the procession of the old young men'
describing the rootlessness of unemployed British soldiers of Baumers' generation. I am entranced by this poem, which cannot be spoken without hearing the sound of drums. Sadly it is nowhere to be found at present. Avid Fforumites will know I am angry about 'Do not go gently' --- I have been present when others died. But here Thomas' ability is evident.

I remember from childhood, when there were more of them, old men who had been gassed in WW1. You could hear the sound of their breathing fifty years after; medicine has not provided an answer to chlorine and such things. But I never heard them speak ill of the 'enemy'. Neither would they complain. They came from a different world, it seems. For the common soldier on either side it seems to have been a game that the soldier could not win, a game of mass extermination that no one had the will to stop, and to this day I cannot clearly see what anyone was fighting about, other than the greed of national governmants at the time, about which I freely admit I know nothing and blame no party above another. I cannot help but remember these old men, who did not complain and were not bitter; perhaps others met those with a different view, and if so I do not mean to offend. But talking here to Germans today helps me to think about the German soldiers of WW1, rather than just the characters in a German work of fiction; and to hope if I met one of those few that remain, that his gassed lungs or missing legs would grieve me in just the same way.

Dave Rainbow -

Just a quick one since I am away for a couple of days to Brussels. A lot of food for thought and I will get back to this definitely.
Now I can only answer (or partly answer) the black pudding bit. It is a German saying translated literally. The saying goes: 'Rache ist Blutwurst' (revenge = Rache / Blutwurst = blood saussage i.e. black pudding). I have no idea were it comes from and it not really funny. It actually means that revenge is sweet and that one has to revenge evils done to oneself. How this relates to black pudding ... hm ... your idea is not too absurd. I'll have to check that somehow. Let's see what our libraries are worth. Maybe somebody else (the Germans) has an idea?
One possible connection: Blutwurst is something that is usually only served when a pig has recently been slaugtered. I don't think it keeps well. So it is a special dish which you can't have every day ... only on feast days, when there has been a slaughtering. But then it comes in abundance ... the dish is called 'Schlachtplatte' and contains piles of Blutwurst on Sauerkraut ... so, rare (you have to wait for it) but plentiful when served? It also has to do with blood of course ...

Thank you, your thoughts all seem to give greater meaning to the feelings of Haie Westhus. I become the more convinced that the word 'mysteriously' is the result of the translator not being sure of the way the phrase was used. (End of chapter three).

I remember the phrase 'Kaltblutige morder' (sorry about any missing umlants or whatever); cold blooded murder is an English expression too, but it occurs that it may not be the same in other countries. Revenge and blood have unfortunately got obvious connections, as for the coldness that may be more a cultural thing?

Have fun in Brussels.

a loud "STOP!" at this very point..

"Rache is Blutwurst" is, at least from my point of view, not meant seriously.
It rather makes fun of such things as revenge and vendetta. Now don´t ask me where it comes from, but it is not meant seriously and means something like "don´t take revenge seriously/ forget about it/no use in it"
..it cannot be taken seriously, so when somebody says "rache ist blutwurst" he just means "Forget it!"..therefore, all the possible interpretations are rather unfitting..greetings

santuris

Hi Santuris,

Haie looked round once again and said wrathfully, satisfied and rather mysteriously:
'Revenge is black pudding."

I'm not wanting an argument, but 'wrathfully' and 'forget about it' don't go together well. It certainly looks funny from an English point of view though, just as many English sayings must seem strange or humorous in translation. 'Mysteriously' indeed. Without claiming any level of expertise, perhaps this saying has meant different things to different people at different times.

hello! (again)

well, it may indeed be a question of time and region. but so far, I have not been really able to ask people...or better: I just asked two people so far, one replied that she did not even know this slogan at all and the other one stated that she´d think the same.
so, there is no real solution.
Obviously, in your case it has to mean something along "revenge is sweet" no doubt..maybe we got a case of bad translation or the meaning of this already mysterious "rache ist blutwurst" has changed over the time...well
we will hopefully find out someday. have a nice day

santuris

Are we into black pudding now? I keep losing track... The last internet bill nearly shocked me into silence. Or it did at least temporarily.

I have no idea what the blutwurst question is all about, but teacher's explanation sounds sensible. I hate Blutwurst, by the way...

Sorry, I can't think of anything witty now, too tired to think...

But what I wanted to ask before - anyone into mystery/detective novels?



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

Don't Thrusdays books count as mystery/detective novels? In which case, we all are

Er, are we all something that got cut off, or did you just run out of punctuation? ;o)



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Do something pretty while you can...

too lazy to hit the full stop button.

Dave R.

First of all, I think I've found the Poem you referred to:

Remember the procession of the old young men
From dole queue to corner and back again
From the pinched, packed street to the peak of slag
In the bite of winter with a shovel and a bag
With a drooping fag and turned up collar
Stamping from the cold at the ill lit corner
Dragging through the squalor with their hearts like lead
Staring at the hunger and the shut pit head
Remember the procession of the old young men
It shall never happen again'

It was published 1940.

The next thing I wanted to say, is that I don’t think, that the question whether the war was “lost” or “won” is relevant for the writing of successful war or anti-war literature or poetry. In my opinion this depends on the personal experiences of the author.
Owen and others have written amazing poetry, which – at least for me as I can only write about my own feelings about them – is very realistic and shows how cruel war is to anyone involved, without asking for the reason why this or the other war is fought.
I can’t say whether English war poetry is less successful than German, the poems I’ve read in my opinion showed the cruelty and terror as good and successful as the German novels and short stories I know. Those which were written by authors or poets who experienced war as soldiers themselves show this terror no matter if this war was “lost” or “won” for their nation, as all of them lost something and had to live with the images of what they’ve seen when they went to war.
This can for example be seen when you look at how the attitudes of the different writers towards war changed after it has begun. I’m not sure whether it was Sassoon or Owen (maybe both?), but one of them was in his early writings as enthusiastic and pro-war as for example Rupert Brooke, whose poem “The Soldier” (If I should die, think only this of me…) makes me sick every time I read it. I hate this poem, because it is a bloody brilliant piece of poetry which promotes an absolutely wrong doctrine. Poems like this have been written by poets of any nationality in any war and are the result of the blind enthusiasm someone had for his country and the belief to fight for the right case. Sadly enough ideologists have always been able to convince people that dying for the “right” case would be a good, a romantic death, also by using/abusing these kinds of texts. And those who haven’t seen the horror of war mostly just were lead to believe this because they couldn’t know better before they had experienced it themselves. As far as I know Brooke died, before he had ever been in a battle. So we can’t know whether he would have gone on writing such poetry or would have changed his attitude like other war poets did when they had experienced war.
It doesn’t matter on which side they fought, at the moment they’ve been in battle they fought for their own lives and not for politics. And the suffering of a person is no less suffering, just because those who sent him there were the good or the bad guys. At least that’s what I was told by veterans of WWII, e.g. my grandfathers hardly ever talked about their own experiences, probably they didn’t want to recall it, but when they talked about it, they said that they were not really interested in the reasons politicians had to send them there, they didn’t hate the soldiers of the other side, because they’ve just been sent there as well, they just wanted to survive the war and come home. I can only talk about two personal accounts, but I think this applies to most of the soldiers involved and fits to the stories I’ve read.
Anyhow, thank you for this posting, I think it is most important to remember that in war everyone is a victim, and it is good, that now more than 50 years later we can talk about the sufferings of either party without just asking who is to blame for what.



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)

ahhmm..well, only part of crimi-novels..i once liked sherlock holmes..but that is really some time ago. some looong time...waht do you understand under mystery novels? rather fantasy or something like "X-Files"?
If you are referring to the last one, I´m out...

santuris

I used to like Agatha Christie, for a brief period around the age of 14, but she soon started to p*ss me off. Her books are now just sitting in my old bedroom in Sussex, waiting to be sold on second-hand. Likewise similar upper-crust-detective-solves-parochial-murders novelists (Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers). Since then, however, I've read a few science fiction novels that cross the line into detective/thriller (please, please see Jonathan Lethem's 'Gun, With Occasional Music', David Brin's 'Kiln People', Michael Marshall Smith's 'One Of Us', and Jon Courtenay Grimwood's 'Arabesk' trilogy), with the result that I'm now discovering a hankering for hardboiled Chandleresque pulp.

Oh, and Sherlock Holmes. Can't go wrong with Sherlock Holmes.



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.

Thanks Violet. Nice to see those evocative words again, though I'd not remembered the context of them correctly. Thomas is surely talking about the 1920's, at which time many of those young men would have been ex-servicemen, though he was writing in 1940; he was born in 1914.

One of the great things about the internet is it enables people from different countries to talk to each other without their governments controlling them. And that makes it all the harder for them to convince us of the necessity of fighting for them just because they think it important when we may not.

The visit of the Kaiser is particularly revealing, the troops being given smart new uniforms, only to have them taken back once the inspection has taken place! That is just as believable over here as in Germany. My father worked on the railways through WW2, and the Royal Train used to pass through his depot. One day a workman brought a pan from the Royal Train to show everyone what 'Royal ****' looked like; or as Tjaden said, "I simply can't believe that an emporor has to go to the latrine the same as I have."

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"That's right," says Kat, "you've said something for once, Tjaden. State and home-country, there's a big difference."

Perhaps the confusion of one with the other leads to all the trouble. It's a pity that Brooke's beautiful words translate into seeing a need to enter into a futile exercise in mass slaughter where the generals seem really to have believed that if they could exterminate the other side and lose 80% plus of their working population, it could have been called a victory. Such people are not worthy of anyone's affections, and are most certainly not the same as one's 'home country', whatever that means.

"A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France." (Tjaden again).

The saying 'lions led by donkeys' has been used of British troops in WW1. I'll bet there are similar sayings in Germany.

By mystery novels I was thinking in terms of Agatha Christie (as one of the old ones, like Dorothy L. Sayers) and the contemporary women mystery writers, I've gone all through Elizabeth George and Martha Grimes, now I've started P.D. James and will then proceed to Deborah Crombie.
Sure, Thursday's a detective in some way, but I meant the "real-world" detectives, mainly. TE is a bonus on the side, so to speak :-)

I was just wondering, because I've had people wondering that a literature student enjoys reading such trivia as mystery novels.
But with all those classics, you need some easy reading every now and then, don't you? :-)

*jumps up and down happily* Today is my last day at Uni for this term, one more exam and I can do nothing but read WOLP and the other 3 books I've been avoiding to look at for months!! *grin*



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

I really like historical novels, and that includes historical mysteries. Cadfael is the one that got me started on that genre, but I like Matthew Bartholemew as well as Sharon Penmans (so far rather short) series. I adore the Claudia Seferius series set in 13BC Rome, and I love the Penn-Dutch mysteries, which aren't historical mysteries, just a really good laugh.

Read the Flashman Papers by George MacDonald Fraser.

The authors website has some unprintable jokes, though.



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.