#leftenantjopson

[faustandfurious]

Currently suppressing a very strong urge to title my final essay for my Austrian history seminar that I’m writing on Roth and Zweig with a grand Budapest hotel quote

Why on earth would you suppress that urge?

If microbiologists can do this, you can use a GBH quote for your essay

[radetzkymarch]

Blease tell me your url is a reference to the book because it slaps so hard

(The piece of music is good too though)

It is!

[sea-changed]

Disclaimer that I technically read Scranton’s PhD thesis that total mobilization is adaptare from because that’s all I could find through my library, but I definitely agree with what you said that he’s mad at a canon that doesn’t really reflect history, but at the same time, he doesn’t really spend much time talking about catch 22/sh5/naked and the dead at all. Most of my thoughts right now are that despite how he says he’s focusing on the “trauma hero” until 1975, I feel like he barely touches on the shadow of the Vietnam war, which can be deeply felt in works such as catch 22/sh5 and postwar writing in the 60s-70s as a whole. I also felt that even though I acknowledge you can’t talk about everything in one book, he also overlooks any serious discussion on race and gender, because I feel like you can’t talk about trauma and violence without it. He devotes so much time to doing nitty gritty literary analysis (ex. “The structure of the first stanza of this poem implies x”) that doesn’t really feel necessary with the result of skipping more of the important historical context

There are some parts that I do agree with, but most of those were about the aesthetics of violence and sacrifice, especially re: the bomber war. But I still can’t believe that there’s a line that says “When the American trickster is conscripted as a war hero, he turns the irresistible seductions of consumer capitalism into a weapon of empire” and it’s about Bugs Bunny, not Milo Minderbinder, who isn’t brought up at all

That last part made me laugh out loud, thank you.

(This is all in reference to this post.)

This is interesting, thanks for sharing--this seems to conform more or less to where I saw the book going based on the part of it I read (and, personally, suggests that I indeed would not have gotten a lot out of it, as I predicted). Especially in re: your note about literary analysis--literary analysis is fine and even indeed good! But it seemed like he was going to focus on literary over historical analysis which, when you're making a specifically historical argument in your literature book, may get you in some trouble.

(Not the least of which being of course that our modern idea of "trauma" is itself historically informed in a way that I think makes it difficult to project backwards like this--which is not to say that WWII soldiers didn't get PTSD and that that wasn't processed--or not--personally and culturally, but that you need to engage at least a little with the thing you're writing about didn't exist in the cultural lexicon of the authors and characters you're discussing.)

[nedlittle]

I will never not be unwell about your post about Alyosha that you tagged “when you lose someone you love like that you have to create a way for them to never die” because HE. Also where did the whole idea of Alyosha kills the tsar come from? I read the book over a year ago so there might be some stuff I’m forgetting

i had to go back and find that post bc i was shocked that i was coherent enough about fedya d to articulate a single thought

in the author's preface, dostoevsky says "that while i have just one biography, i have two novels. the main novel is the second one--about the activities of my hero in our time, that is, in our present, current moment." (page 3 in the p&v translation)

the first novel is tbk proper, which takes place 13 years ago, placing it in 1866. our main source for tbk 2: alyosha kills the tsar comes from an article by james l. rice called "dostoevsky's endgame: the projected sequel to the brothers karamazov" which references a letter dostoevsky wrote during the novel's serialization:

"i can only say that aleksei in time becomes the village schoolmaster and, influenced by some sort of special psychological processes at work in his soul, he actually arrives at the idea of assassinating the tsar."

of course, dostoevsky died months after tbk was published in its complete form, at a time when people were trying to assassinate alexander ii, like, every two weeks. so that's our source for tbk: electric boogaloo existing. the other big source is from a guy named aleksei sergeevich suvorin, one of dotoevsky's friends, whose diary was published in 1923. here's him on the subject:

"he [alyosha] would commit a political crime. he would be executed. he would have sought the truth and in those seekings he would, naturally, have become a revolutionary."

we also know that the provisional title for tbk 2: who gave the baby a gun was "the children", referring to the titular boys of book 10 of tbk. according to dostoevsky's widow anna, alyosha "was to endure a complex psychological drama with lise [...] marry [her], then leave her for grushenka"*. there's more about how this sequel would work on a thematic and psychological level in the article and its sister article "foreshadowing the karamazov sequel" (also by rice). this isn't relevant but rice essentially diagnosis alyosha with victorian woman disease by calling him a "textbook case of male hysteria," which i enjoy.

so that's all we know about the hypothetical sequel, and i think about it a lot regarding a biographical reading of the novel because i think it's so interesting to take a character, based on your son who died of a hereditary disease you gave him, who you say is "like an angel, nothing touches [him]," and then plan a sequel where he is not untouchable and undergoes the same disillusionment and trauma as you experienced as a young man, only he dies in the end. and that's not even getting into the other biographical details like dostoevsky's own father dying under mysterious maybe-murder circumstances in 1839! or the fact that he looked at the loathsome father-figure he created for tbk whose hereditary "stain" he passes down to his sons as a black smear over their name and was like yeah i'm going to name him after ME. fyodor what was going on in your head.

i don't know, i sort of want to make a whole other post about this. he created a world in which his son survives and is loved so desperately by everyone he meets, but even still cannot save him, even in fiction. something something sons doomed to become their fathers.

tl, dr:

*this is from the rice article but is specifically referencing nina hoffman's interview with anna in 1898.

[bl00dline]

@leftenantjopson tagged me to spell my url with songs! thank you for tagging me, this is one of my favourite things to be tagged for :) i'm going to do the same thing as you and not repeat any bands, but if i tag you you don't need to do the same thing :)

v- vienna by ultravox

i- insight by joy division

c- change by tears for fears

t- two divided by zero by pet shop boys

o- only you by yazoo

r- relax by frankie goes to hollywood

i- if you want by depeche mode

a- a forest by the cure

n- new rose by the damned

c- cuts you up by peter murphy

r- red guitar by david sylvian

y- you've got everything now by the smiths

p- promised you a miracle by simple minds

t- the chauffeur by duran duran

i- in our angelhood by the cocteau twins

d- death or glory by the clash

feel free to do this if you'd like! @cherubina, @nefarious-nightjar, @alfred-st-john, @havves-other-cat

[randlemartin]

Can you please fetch me the band of brothers is haunted post 🥺

the two major ones i can find rn are the frank john hughes/matt leitch description of playing the characters and the real dick winters seeing them for the first time

and this one about webster (but also all of them) being preserved as young and alive in the show forever even when we know they are dead/going to die

hopefully either of these are the ones you're looking for!! <3

[kafkaesquegf]

Finished catch 22 a few weeks ago and it made me insane so I’m so excited for you to also go insane over it. Also shoutout to the person with the url of “whatsgoodforthesyndicate” hanging out in the notes of a mash post, because that person has good taste in war media

IT'S SO GOOD i somehow never clocked that this book was a comedy in all the many times i had heard of it so i was quite pleasantly surprised!!!

[wellntruly]

Read Corelli’s Mandolin during August 2020, and you’re right that it’s such a summer book, especially for those late summer afternoons. No exaggeration that I think about “Since I encountered death, met death on every mountain path, conversed with death in my sleep, wrestled with death in the snow, gambled at dice with death, I have come to the conclusion that death is not an enemy but a brother…he likes the young and beautiful, he wants to stroke out hair and careless the sinew that binds our muscle to the bone…” all the time

It makes me so happy to hear this

Have you read Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernières's novel this time located around the First World War in Turkey? It is also for the warm seasons!

[focsle]

Harry Lloyd as Lawrence is absolutely excellent

Harry Lloyd in Great Expectations has such Lawrence energy…

[6thofapril1917]

So as I was saying, I need a gif set of Paddy’s “at the end of the desert we’ll be walking hand in hand” from episode 3 because it made me feel emotions that don’t exist

FOR REAL it makes me feel shrimp emotions!!!! i think someone’s made one?? but i will tag @cloudyfacewithjam because they’re like. thee sas rogue heroes gifmaker

[faustandfurious]

I am once again going insane over how The Grand Budapest Hotel (movie of all time) is inspired by Zweig, because that explains so much about why the “there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity” line exists

Also, do you have any other recommendations for media that have the same “I did not return to Europe for many years. It was an enchanting old ruin, but I never managed to see it again” vibes? The Radetzky March is already on my list, but I’ve yet to find it easily available here in the us

Oh The Grand Budapest Hotel is really one of those films I could rewatch once a week and never get tired of, even before I read Zweig, but in hindsight the connection is obvious.

I know exactly the feeling/vibes you're talking about, unfortunately I'm not sure I have that many recommendations for books that really fit with it, but I'll try (with the fear of repeating myself with some of these).

Ilja Pfeijffer's Grand Hotel Europa seems promising, drawing inspiration from both The Magic Mountain and The Grand Budapest Hotel, but I can't really vouch for it yet as I'm only about 50 pages in. Miljenko Jergovic too captures that Europe-before-the-war nostalgia, except it's the Yugoslav Wars and not the World Wars. Start with Sarajevo Marlboro and work from there. For nonfiction, there's Volker Weidermann with Dreamers and Summer Before the Dark, dealing with the 1918-19 Bavarian Republic and Zweig, Roth et al. respectively. Julian Barnes' The Noise of Time also fits in here thematically I think.

I hope you manage to get hold of a copy of The Radetzky March (and I need to finish reading my copy - so much to do, so little time).

I'd love more recommendations similar to these, so everyone feel free to add yours in the notes.

[goldnnavy]

Thank you for the tag, @leftenantjopson !!

I'm going to tag @icarusinfreefall @a-french-guardsman @benjhawkins @pentecostwaite @world-of-bitchcraft @syzygytaylor @herrpadda @clove-pinks , all of my other mutuals (you know who you are ;] )!!

[sea-changed]

Can we talk about slaughterhouse five and catch 22 please please please

Always! My thoughts are perennially consumed.

[nedlittle]

3, 22, 13 👀

3. What were your top five books of the year?

a wizard of earthsea by ursula k le guin (review)

a little devil in america: notes in praise of black performance by hanif abdurraqib (review)

good bones by maggie smith (review)

braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants by robin wall kimmerer (no review yet)

take what you can carry by gian sardar (no review yet)

13. What were your least favorite books of the year?

i posted my shitlist earlier and while i think i read more worse books by quality in 2022, i think the worst books of 2023 made me madder in more incomprehensible ways. there are authors on that list who i think i would maul in the street if i'm being honest

22. What’s the longest book you read?

the weight of ink by rachel kadish clocking in at 576 pages! i could do better tbh. review here

[bl00dline]

tagged by @leftenantjopson! thank you so much bestie <333

i don’t listen to anyone on your bingo 😭😭

tagging @alfred-st-john @themimegirl @nefarious-nightjar @madame-karenina @iwantaboyformybirthday @vampire-reanimator <333

[henrylevesconte]

I hope you know that I think about your “what was in the lunchbox? Treats” post that you did with Francis and James all the time

😎😎😎 thank you