Ali and Nino, the closest thing that modern Azerbaijan has to a national novel, was first published in German in 1937, sold in various translations, hit US bestseller lists in the early 1970s and bears the name Kurban Said as its author. But the question of the author’s identity had never been resolved. All anyone …
Category: Fabulous Ones
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2007/02/11/the-orientalist-by-tom-reiss/
Nov 28 2006
Stephen Maturin, Drug Fiend
From The Commodore, pp. 187-88 Yet [Maturin] had some faults [as a physician], and one was a habit of dosing himself, generally from a spirit of inquiry, as in his period of inhaling large quantities of the nitrous oxide and of the vapour of hemp, to say nothing of tobacco, bhang in all its charming …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/11/28/stephen-maturin-drug-fiend/
Oct 23 2006
Under the Frog
Novermber 1955: Tired of trying to crack the problem of the informer, Gyuri settled down to think about being a streetsweeper while he gazed out of the window at the countryside that went past quite lazily despite the train’s billing as an express. The streetsweeper was a sort of cerebral chewing gum that Gyuri popped …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/10/23/under-the-frog/
Oct 13 2006
A Pocketful of Pamuk
The definitive(ish) review I’ve been meaning to write for months will obviously have to wait now that Orhan Pamuk has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Here are the AFOE talking points on Pamuk: Snow is the one book to read if you only have time to read one. Ka, the protagonist, is a Turkish …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/10/13/a-pocketful-of-pamuk/
Jul 20 2005
Stasiland
Don’t pick of a copy of Stasiland, by Anna Funder, if you have work to do. I did the first time, and I nearly missed a deadline. I did it again this morning, intending to write a review, and my productivity dropped like a rock again. Consider yourselves warned. It’s not exactly the kind of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/07/20/stasiland/
Jun 24 2005
Joseph Vissarionovich and the People Who Loved Him
Because some of them undoubtedly did, even people who knew him quite well. In his heyday, millions professed their love, sang his praises. Even those he had condemned in show trials, or in no trials, wrote to him of their devotion, wrote of their faithfulness, wrote of their belief. Perhaps they meant it, perhaps it …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/06/24/joseph-vissarionovich-and-the-people-who-loved-him/
Apr 22 2005
Catching up with Greatness
Not mine, of course, the 50 novels from the Sueddeutsche Zeitung‘s list. Since several of my recent book reviews have been negative or lukewarm, I’ll say here above the fold that the latest batch has indeed brought me in touch with literary greatness. In the order I have read them, not of publication or anything …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/22/catching-up-with-greatness/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/02/28/if-on-a-winters-night-a-publisher/
Feb 11 2005
Ray Bradbury
Through a series of stupidities, when I moved from Washington to Germany, I lost a fair number of books. Several hundred, I think, but it’s a little too sad to count them up. There was, and still may be, a list I made when packing. An indulgent winter evening’s thought is which one I would …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/02/11/ray-bradbury/
Dec 17 2004
Halfway There
This spring, the German newspaper whose web site isn’t quite as bad as another’s began publishing a series of 50 Great Novels from the Twentieth Century. It’s an admirable project in many ways — not least a cover price of EUR 4.90 per hardback. Thirty-seven books have been published so far, and I’ve now read …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2004/12/17/halfway-there/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire