Forfatter: Mirthful

How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World – Francis Wheen

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I found Francis Wheen’s How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World heavy going at first, but once I warmed to it I practically flew through. For some reason I had expected more of a language discussion and less of a political discussion – probably because we purchased the book at the same time as Melvyn Bragg’s The Adventure of English. However, the political stuff is pretty informative and entertaining – occasionally laugh-out-loud funny – too. A few favourite quotes:

‘Keep an open mind!’ broadcasters pleaded when they screeened the bogus Roswell video. The Daily Telegraph, one of the few newspapers which spotted the film as a fake from the outset, had the best riposte: ‘If you open your mind too much, your brain may fall out.’

And Wheen seems to feel about the «England’s Rose» version of Candle in the Wind much in the same way I do myself:

According to Elton John, singing his heart out in Westminister Abbey while mixing metaphors with glorious abandon, she was England’s rose, a candle that never faded with the sunset when the rain set in (as candles so often do) but strode off across England’s greenest hills, its footprints preserved for eternity.

The one thing that’s wrong with the book – and which really got my goat – is that Wheen makes a point of the importance of source-checking regarding David Irving on pages 98/99 (Harper Perennial, 2004, 4th printing), but is himself amiss in this regard. I’m the sort of reader who actually wants super-whatsit numbers next to every quote and a foot- or endnote saying Ibid. the fiftieth time a source is quoted (giving the page number, naturally). On page 85 Wheen quotes Eagleton, but there are no notes for page 85. On page 86 there is a long quote from Eagleton’s essay ‘Where Do Post-Modernists Come From?’ duly noted in the back, but there is no real indication whether the quote on page 85 is from the same source or not – Eagleton not being the least prolific of writers, if it’s not, how do I set about finding it? So while this endnotes-with-page-references may make the text easier to read for people not used to academic papers, I’d have appreciated a properly source-checkable text myself.*

But, it’s worth reading, definitely.

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* The observant reader will have noticed that I have myself omitted page numbers for the two quotes above. I am acutely aware of this and will remedy it asap – it’s just that Martin’s run away with the book.

The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom

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pillars The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom contains the three novels about von Igelfeld so far published, Portugese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (which I’ve read before) and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances. Neither of the other two, PIV or AVRC, are quite as laugh-out-loud-funny as TFPSD was, but they are quite unmissable none the less. The mixture of self-importance and petty academic squabbles von Igelfeld and his colleagues present with the sheer humanity of their actions in finer moments makes one want to nod and shake one’s head at the same time (a form of movement which makes it quite difficult to keep reading, I can tell you).

Books read 2004

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Do Not Pass Go

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In which we play Monopoly.

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Do Not Pass Go was a delightful discovery. I cannot honestly claim to have ever been really bitten by the Monopoly bug, but of course I’ve played it, and the basic premise of the book was therefore perfectly familiar to me. And any book that sets out to investigate London (or, indeed, any part of Britain) in such an eccentric fashion has notched up several points in its favour before I?ve even turned the cover. Neither does Moore disappoint. He is charming in a quietly humourous way and funny in a quietly charming way and all that a good travel writer should be. Hurrah. And I’ve got another of his books in my tbr pile, a fact which I only realised half way through Do Not Pass Go. Hurrah, hurrah.

Strong Poison

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A bout of rereading again. In a few short weeks I got through Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, Busman’s Honeymoon and Thrones, Denominations. As delightful as ever and still touching me deeply, though in a somewhat different way than before (and yes, Martin is to blame for that).

Under en hårdere himmel

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Chilling reading in these warmongering times, though the main point Bjørneboe attempts to make deals with the aftermath of war (WW2), rather than war itself. Still, it’s hard not to hear echoes of current argumentation when he states that facts, and even opinions, lost all significance, the only argument anyone was interested in was which party you belonged to. «You say two and two makes four? Where do you pledge your allegiance? I knew it! Keep away from me with your propaganda!»

And both (all) parties are equally guilty.

I am, as usual, reminded that there are piles of books in Norwegian I have neglected in my anglophilia. And as usual I promise to make amends. Let’s see if I stick to it for once…

The Dark Room

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I once had an Indian pen-pal who sent me two of R. K. Narayan’s novels, The Guide and Waiting for the Mahatma, both of which rather impressed me. I picked up The Dark Room second-hand somewhere, and finally got around to it when picking a book to read this weekend. It was a bit of a disappointment, frankly, nowehere as good as I remember the two others to be (which makes me think I probably ought to reread those). I think it will probably not survive the next move.

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

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sausage_dogs I was planning to wait and read The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs only after I’d got my hands on Portugese Irregular Verbs and so read them in the proper order, but it was lying so handily nearby when I was looking for a new book to start that I decided to be improper, just this once.

This, incidentally, is a book of the Laugh Out Loud variety. There is the unfortunate incident of the sausage dogs and the lecture and then there is the even more unfortunate incident of the sausage dog and the veterinary institute and towards the end there is the rather catastrophical incident with the sausage dog and… Oh, but that would be telling, so I’d better not.