tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post8299904814121789594..comments2024-03-28T07:13:10.797+00:00Comments on TONE DEAF: Boxes ticked and untickedRoderick Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-74316127179478765102017-02-19T07:46:19.562+00:002017-02-19T07:46:19.562+00:00HKatz: All those patronymics and diminutives, I kn...HKatz: All those patronymics and diminutives, I know the problem. The first time I read War And Peace it came with a bookmark listing all the characters' names, nicknames, etc. The perfect mobile solution; much better than providing the info on a fixed page in the book.Roderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-89237660049290366052017-02-19T05:30:59.274+00:002017-02-19T05:30:59.274+00:00I started reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot a wh...I started reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot a while ago and made the mistake of putting it down for a while. Picked it up again, to realize I'd mixed up most of the characters' names and lost the plot (all I remembered was a blur of misery and heavy drinking). I plan a second attempt at some point.HKatzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17653570160517335758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-25165827764475882992017-02-16T07:34:25.130+00:002017-02-16T07:34:25.130+00:00Marly: Not all the unticked boxes in my life are f...Marly: Not all the unticked boxes in my life are fit to be revealed. What must also be acknowledged is the conflict between being factual and the need to entertain; facetiousness, a tendency to tease, self-mockery, metaphors and non sequiturs are all strings to my bow. After all, unpredictability seems to be working for DT. Roderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-84716876568678938842017-02-16T03:15:58.667+00:002017-02-16T03:15:58.667+00:00I wasn't thinking of details so much as other ...I wasn't thinking of details so much as other things--things completely left out. But if you've hit all the major elements, well, I think you have done pretty well!marly youmanshttp://www.thepalaceat2.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-54518185469584389732017-02-15T07:21:59.115+00:002017-02-15T07:21:59.115+00:00Marly: You're right of course. Complete honest...Marly: You're right of course. Complete honesty would have required more words, but do we think about ourselves in tons of words, as if we were writing a balanced learned paper? Take university: at the time I started in journalism (1951) experience, yet to be achieved, was king, nobody had a degree and the idea was pooh-poohed. Now nobody lacks a degree and I found myself as editor interviewing job applicants who'd been to Oxbridge. (And, parenthetically, being acutely irritated by their ignorance of the outside world). But the fact was I was a terrible learner at school and would never have qualified for university anyway. At this distance in time university is simply an intermittent itch and here I'm scratching it in public.<br /><br />Even more ironic was my inability, in Yorkshire, to find a young woman with shared interests and capable of taking me seriously. I suffered agonies of uncertainty. Yet this was the time of adolescence and for many young males histrionic suffering went with the territory. The irony arrived decades later when on mature reflection I realised there probably were one or two young women I knew who were sympathetic but who so over-awed me that I lapsed into incapacitating timidity. And such women are now appearing in my novels all of which have women as central characters. So here's public and private scratching.Roderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-65550931551060424022017-02-15T04:06:03.981+00:002017-02-15T04:06:03.981+00:00Can a person do this sort of inventory with comple...Can a person do this sort of inventory with complete honesty? Or is it the answer, "Of course not?" If you are honest here, I admire your lack of grave regrets and serious errors.<br /><br />Most people should go to university at a later age. I'm not sure that many people get out of it what we would like to imagine. And how many who went to college have read Proust multiple times? Congratulations on the genetic accident (hair) and on having a lively moving-about sort of life. It all looks interesting and pleasant from here.<br /><br />Why shouldn't you improve if you pursue? And you do pursue still, don't you?<br /><br />marly youmanshttp://www.thepalaceat2blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-48986055444337210082017-02-14T10:29:11.118+00:002017-02-14T10:29:11.118+00:00Sir Hugh: How about fearful prayer when young (see...Sir Hugh: How about fearful prayer when young (see My Crutch); also singing in Idle Parish Church choir? However, I am changing the headlineRoderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-78637911855144408472017-02-14T07:59:53.001+00:002017-02-14T07:59:53.001+00:00I don't think you "went into the house of...I don't think you "went into the house of the Lord" - if you did you came out again.Sir Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17908756392825206914noreply@blogger.com