dogmatix

This discussion is really heating up , but ARgggghhhhhh I'm stuck in DC at a surgical conference and haven't anytime to read, or discuss. I'll be back in the fold by Saturday. The good news is I'll be visiting the American History Museum today. I'll be sure to pay close attention to anything related.

That is such a sweet memory.

His childhood is a precious jewel, isn't it? I'd like to talk a little bit about Mademoiselle and Switzerland. I just finished up chapter five (1st read - I'll reread tonight). Am I reading his distaste for Switzerland correctly? Am I missing something here? Oh by the way I love how he finishes up the chapter with a comment on memories and how age and history can completely remodel them: "Huddled together in a constant seething of competitive reminiscences, they formed a small island in an environment that had grown alien to them....One is always at home in one's past, which partly explains those pathetic ladie's posthumous love for a remote and, to be perfectly frank, rather appalling country, which they never had really known and in which none of them had been very content. Talking nature Pontalba; how about the description o the swan near the end of the chapter? So poignant.

Wow, very cool. Here where I live you pretty much only get it at Japanese Restaraunts on top of sushi.

I just don't think I could eat a heart Galactic, I do love sage and onion with meat though. I think the weirdest thing I've ever eaten was sea urchin. I do love foreign food (foreing to the US that is). Thai, Mexican, South African, Japanese (as long as it's not moving on my plate), South American, and definitely Middle Eastern. I was a very strict vgetarian for about 11 years or so and that really helped to open my horizons to new foods and ethnicities. What brought my vegetarianism to a crashing halt: A damn hot dog:motz: . Are those really meat....?

The writing style is unusual. When I first started reading Saramago I struggled with it a bit. However once I became accustomed to it I felt it helped immerse me in the story. I reads with the same flow as we think or talk; without the distraction of punctuation.

Painterly - what a great word to describe his writing.

Loved that. Particularly liked that he felt the need to drill into the pencil to see if the lead went all the way. I soooo would have done that!

Perhaps I will;) but right now I'm getting excited about Russian history so I'll be reading Ten Days..... and re-reading Nicholas and Alexandria. Then there's the BOTM, Frankenstein and I promised Sophia I'd read Seeing and then there's......... well you get the idea:lol:

One passage that I enjoyed is his description of Mademoiselle's arrival. He's speaking of creating a memory from a non-experience. To do this he describes himself as an invisible spy present at her arrival, since in actuality he was not there at the station nor in the carriage. It's a beautiful descriptive passage and without his admission of creative license it is indistinguishable from his "true" memory

I love the description of the sucession of nannies/ teachers.

IMHO the teacher makes so much difference in whether I enjoyed a book or not Some I remember loving were: The Grapes of Wrath The Trial (just reread that last month) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

So basically I've settled into rereading each chapter as I go. Just finished up with chapter 4 X 2. Nabokov's relatives; how interesting to have so many important relatives at such a crucial time in world history. I learned all about Puskin today. I also bought a new dictionary:mrgreen: Nabokov takes pains to explain the exact origin of his ideas, a color, a sound, a piece of furniture, a dog and I loved his explaination of the loss of or dilution of those memories as he assignes them to the characters in his books. So wonderful. This has been touched on before but it just goes to show that you don't need to have a terribly painful and dysfuntional childhood to be inspired to write about it.

Here's a link to explain it all. When you get there search: coconuts. http://www.intriguing.com/mp/

Ordered it today Muggle. I'll have to go check out page 39 now

Oh an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point. Yes, but African swallows are non-migratory. Ah yes. Look supposing two swalows were to carry it together?

You've got two empty halves of coconuts and you're banging them together! So what? Coconuts are tropical, this is a temperate zone......

I'm enjoying the maturation and diversions this thread is taking. I'm getting so much more out of this book then I ever would on my own. Plan on finishing my re-read of chapter 3 today and hitting chapter 4 (and possibly 5). I'll be picking up a copy of The Ten Days... too. How are you getting along Muggle?

Smoking Loon Merlot last night. Not great but it was the best bottle they had at the local country store. I kid you not!

You brits have some crazy names for the food you eat. Very creative and sometimes makes me chuckle. Re. beer: My favorite is a Check beer- Pilsner Urquell, my second a German - Warsteiner

"Foot water" I love the sound of that. Very cool!

Thanks for the delicious sounding recommendation Sofia. A Portugese red; I mean COULD it get any better? I'll be checking for this one at Total Wine tommorrow. By the way I gave several bottles of the Vinho Verde as gifts to my docs last week. They were much appreciated.

It's eerie almost...

Sweet link. Thanks Pontalba.

I'll check out your link, I'm on Wikki right now. I did manage to get a nice timeline jammed into my brain and an idea about who the Bolsheviks were and the relationship betwen Stalin/Lenin and the fall of the Tsars. Great stuff! I may need to reread Nicholas ad Alexandria again one of these days, and then there's The Communist Manifesto, and some nice biographies........ Whew, what a can of worms you've opened Pontalba.