The Spirit of Corps(e)
These three men who hated him spoke his language and wore his uniform, but he saw their loveless faces set immutably into cramped, mean lines of hostility and understood instantly that nowhere in the world, not in all the fascist tanks or planes or submarines, not in the bunkers behind the machine guns or mortars or behind the blowingflame throwers, not even among all the expert gunners of the crack Hermann Goering Anti-Aircraft Division or among the grisly connivers in all the beer halls in Munich and everywhere else, were there men who hated him more. -- Heller
I spoke last week about Jarhead and Rememberence Day, about the corrosive form that such requires, the parabola of destruction that must always return home to roost.
I have read a great deal today, browsed articles about Vollmann, and pondered the merits of the lit blog. I read some russian femme fatale's blog the other day, as she and I both have a passion about steppe literature and so forth. She is also a xenophobe who beleieves that "pot-smoking Jihadists" should be shot dead in the streets of France, that such would be just desserts for the ingratitude to Europa's hospitality. I am writing these words in a strange time, when the CIA's policy is "unique, but legal", that again, we don't torture.
I wrote Roger that I plan on finishing Volume Two of the Foote by Sunday.That is indeed my plan. I don't know what right and rigor will ensue, however. Ed appears excited about the Solzhenitsyn and rightly so. I have also bought all of the existing Vollmann for his Seven Dreams project. I hesitate to browse the list I constructed last December about my plans for 2005.
I spoke last week about Jarhead and Rememberence Day, about the corrosive form that such requires, the parabola of destruction that must always return home to roost.
I have read a great deal today, browsed articles about Vollmann, and pondered the merits of the lit blog. I read some russian femme fatale's blog the other day, as she and I both have a passion about steppe literature and so forth. She is also a xenophobe who beleieves that "pot-smoking Jihadists" should be shot dead in the streets of France, that such would be just desserts for the ingratitude to Europa's hospitality. I am writing these words in a strange time, when the CIA's policy is "unique, but legal", that again, we don't torture.
I wrote Roger that I plan on finishing Volume Two of the Foote by Sunday.That is indeed my plan. I don't know what right and rigor will ensue, however. Ed appears excited about the Solzhenitsyn and rightly so. I have also bought all of the existing Vollmann for his Seven Dreams project. I hesitate to browse the list I constructed last December about my plans for 2005.
posted by jon faith at
5:18 PM
1 Comments:
You have had a very busy November! You wouldn't know I was a litblogger reading the last few posts on my newer blog, I must say.
I have read a few things - one of them was a recent Australian prize winner which I took notes on, intending to write something a tad disparaging. However now I've decided those notes need reviewing, and there's some other writing to be done, so not much about my reading at present.
Wow - Vollmann, Foote, Pynchon, Solzhensityn, looks like it's all happening!
To answer your question on the old blog, I thought Kureishi's Black Album was good enough to pass on to the husband. I particularly enjoyed the older brother Chili's role at the end and his fearsome declamation,"Bring them to me!"
( this of sundry jihadists). Much of the emigrant politics described in this book reminds me of the little Rushdie I've read too - the Westernised parents and the rootless youth. I love all Hanif's books, he could address an envelope and I would read it.
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