Thursday, December 8, 2011

Fine Compliment

"He was nearly fifty years old, but he was very fresh; he only colored his mustache and limped a little on one leg."
—from Goncharov's Oblomov


I'll be discussing the standing metaphor in the novel at a new blog on the metaphor of standing, Homo erectus in the culture of Homo sapiens:


http://onstanding.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/oblomov-standing-vs-lying-down/

3 comments:

SUMMA POLITICO said...

One of Beckett's favorite books, no surprise there as is EFFIE BRIEST being his all time favorite. I loved Oblomov when I read it as a teenager. Maybe ought to take another look at it.

Scott Abbott said...

The new translation is lively, intelligent, very good English. It's a slow book, as you know, slow and easy like Oblomov's character, perfect for a read in the sun today.

Bought time I read Effie Briest again.

What are you reading at the moment?

SUMMA POLITICO said...

left this comment at your son's site: as a friend of your father's and collaborator in matters handke, ben, i suggest you pick up a copy of Handke's A SLOW HOME COMING and read the first chapter of the title novel. i spent nine wonderful months in alaska after grad school, first as a fire fighter, working out of the airport road center, then as an assistant geological surveyor. it was odd to be fightin fires in the brooks range, north of the arctic circle, and oh boy did i get to know the dangers of fighting fires in forests with permafrost, always glad not to have had a foot blown off or a tree at the edge of the yukon, near galena, fall on me, actually it was a whole bunch who had been liberated of their surface root system and that came crashing down. so what we need to save the world, is a new little ice age??? i got to know fairbanks quite well between expeditions, and spent some of the best times of my life at a place called THE TIMBERLINE, south fairbanks, a black jazz joint with its own still in back. > http://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref=name
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