Daryl

A copy of La Nausée by Jean-Paul Sartre in the Éditions Gallimard Folio edition (the cover illustration is Mélancolie by Albrecht Dürer) is shown next to a cup of tea.

Reading Sartre in the market, which is probably performative but the chatter is about a)the rain and b)the dire prospects at the stadium this afternoon (unless, of course, you're Scottish in which case...), so who am I kidding!

Cover of English edition of Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil, showing a man in Roman toga holding a laurel crown and a scroll.

Time to make a start on this particular piece of Austrian modernism: Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil (1945). It has a Joycean flavour, apparently, so this should be interesting.

“Corruption is a great power in the world, and talent is scarce” — why thanks, Honoré.

Tonight's reading turns to the Balzac classic, Le Père Goriot.

In that sense an arrest would have been the lesser. Being sent into exile, he was effectively found guilty and punished.

Edward VIII was, in effect, exiled for being a Nazi.

It has taken me a while to find my way into Toibin's fiction, but now that I have I find his closely observed studies in character very good indeed.

After an afternoon digging through eighteenth-century parish registers and wills for a thing on material aspects of society, which does nowt for the eyes, I managed to finish Madame Bovary (still very much a 10/10) and have made good headway in Colm Toibin's early novel, The Heather Blazing (1992).

The cover of Clare Carlisle, Philosopher of the Heart, showing the distinctive face of Søren Kierkegaard.

Well, I enjoyed this book (illustrated below) very much, a lovely reminder that, once upon a time, on some dark winter evenings long ago, I sat down in my room in Oxford and read through as much Kierkegaard as I could. Some repetition is long overdue.

Spending the evening with Søren Kierkegaard, either/or should I say Clare Carlisle's 2019 study, Philosopher of the Heart.

Was I alone in thinking this was about chocolate...?

I love that my best performing, err, what are they, tweets, okay posts on this site are about Flaubert and Musil. I couldn't ask for more, to be honest.

You have the most approachable speaking voice and engaged and engaging delivery, Jamie, and can entertain and educate everyone from a youngster bowled over by exploding cola to franchise super fans to parliamentarians producing legislative frameworks and policy. That takes real skill.

Oh, very much so. Here she is:

Such fate befalls all those of us who write, eh!

It may not console Emma, but may yet cheer Charles, to learn that her tale was still full price in English.

Nice enough in a 1960s sense: 19th century portrait of a voluptuous heroine.

Found a sixty year old Livre de Poche edition of Madame Bovary at the bookstall in the market today, for a pound. A true bargain.

I've read several English translations in the past, so it is a delightful (and fulfilling) challenge at last to read the French original.

They're my go-to audio companions if I'm starting afresh on one of those novels, and I am always grateful!

Free Thinking - Breaking Free: Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities - BBC Sounds William Boyd, Margaret Drabble and Matthew Sweet discuss Musil's The Man Without Qualities

Now reading Robert Musil's Man Without Qualities, guided in part by one of the very best of @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social's Free Thinking episodes. Barometer at the ready... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

And so I turn the final page of In Search of Lost Time. A wonderful experience (ignoring volume two, which almost ruined it for me) and highly rewarding. Ciao Marcel, à la prochaine.

Almost finished volume four of In Search of Lost Time, which is not so much a speed read as an indication of how easily I got absorbed in the story. Why did I not read this before?

I know, I just haven't been very personable, maybe once these tests have been carried out and I know what the future offers.

Trying to pick myself up after quite a lot of bad news in recent weeks. I thought I might run away from here, but perhaps I shall stay and post about books and things instead. To that end, I'm finishing off my read through of À La Recherche and then it's time to tackle Musil's Man Without Qualities.

This was back when I did English A Level. He was on Casualty then, I guess, as the consultant. Tall, as I recall, graceful, in the way that you would expect.

I met him once at the Bristol Old Vic, not to make you jealous or owt.

But more seriously, click bait populism, rooted in social media, is bad for us all.

Who cares about them!?

Oh, I don't think we need to concern ourselves with the press any more. There are more Scots than newspaper readers in the UK.

Oh they'll be back, but it will take this current moment of populism to burn through. Trouble is boring politics, which is what it should be, doesn't drive clicks or sell advertising, and that is what capital (yes, even the ex Lib Dem now "Green" bit of it) wants right now.

Bad timing, I know, but I think they are on there for the rest of this year, so no rush needed!