Meanwhile, speaking of policy, of which Trump has none, J.D.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm Yes, he was a prolific rider who had a strong sense of the importance of shaping public discourse from the standpoint of the social gospel values espoused. That movement fell by the wayside as the 20th century got underway, especially after World War I. There were aspects of it that were naïvely progressivist, naïve, in the sense that they believed progress was ineluctable. But I think it still had something important to offer and deserves to be studied.
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Elizabeth S.replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm Not a scholar, but I'm enjoying listening in to this conversation. In high school it appeared to me that to major in English would mean having to dissect everything in a clinical way and I wanted reading to be fun, so I got a BA in European history. (A choice probably founded on my early love of cobalt blue and gold art in the medieval galleries at the Met, where we were taken as children.) (As I say, not a scholar!)
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Elizabeth S. last edited by
@jinglepostman @KarenStrickholm What you have to say is wonderful, scholar or no scholar! And there are all kinds of scholars in the world, after all. I loved literature and reading, and when I did my B.A. in English, I fully anticipated going on to do graduate work in that field, but the professor in college I most admired daunted my enthusiasm by telling me the field was glutted with graduates. And I hve to say that studying literature academically also daunted my enthusiasm.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @jinglepostman Now I read randomly. Sometimes dive into an author, read everything. Enjoy low brow mysteries by stealth subversives (ex. Charlaine Harris's True Blood). Novels that explore society (ex. Alison Lurie, David Lodge). Feature magazine and newspaper writing. Veer into moving media (ex. TV news, BBC series, reality TV (Shetland, Love After Lock Up). In worst of my medical battle, I only stared at walls. How about you all?
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Same with me. I binge-read David Lodge's hilarious academy send-up novels and one or two about the absurdity of his Catholic tradition's insistence that the rhythm method was the way for him and his wife to go. And I read Charlaine Harris' novels right through, too, since she's from the corner of south Arkansas and north Louisiana where I grew up. Love the Shetland series, though it can be dark.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Off on a tangent, interrupting a very intelligent conversation, I do love Rene Magritte! Pardon me. -
lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
I'm intruding again, just because storytelling is many thousands of years older than literature. The importance of oral histories of families, societies and peoples were the bases of so many of our greatest stories/books. Who isn't drawn to a good story or raconteur?! I know my maternal history because of stories passed down by the women. -
@lolonurse @wdlindsy A. You are NOT intriding!
B. Was just thinking maybe we could hashtag this convo. I enjoy both of you!
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@KarenStrickholm @wdlindsy
Hash away! I likewise enjoy both of you️ -
William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Thank you so much.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Not intruding in the least! Yes, what would literature be without a story? Homer surely didn't create his story out of whole cloth, but was telling stories long handed down. The earliest Irish literature — same thing. I love Amy Tan's work because it preserves and retells stories told by women in her culture.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Not interrupting at all. He's someone I should educate myself about more. I have always liked his "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" after encountering it in literature courses in college, and thinking, "What the heck? What does that even mean?" When I finally got the point, a whole world of insight opened up.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Native Americans, Mauri, Mongols, Ethiopians, and ........... the Jews! Books like The Source and Exodus and The Physician, to name a few, draw from stories told for centuries and millennia that give us insights into how people lived, interacted & thought. I love archaeological/anthropological/historical stories, including novels. (And yes, when it came out, I gobbled up Clan of the Cave Bear - willing suspension of disbelief.️ ) -
Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Totally. We are created inside stories, our social stories of who we are.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @lolonurse I love the way of putting that point. I love this line from Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union: “The story, Detective Landsman, is telling us. Just like it has done from the beginning”
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Yes, absolutely. Right now I'm reading Abraham Verghese's The Covenant of Water, and it shows the deep importance of storytelling traditions in the Mar Thomas community in India and its branches in Ethiopia. And, yes, such a strong storytelling tradition in Yiddish communities and other Jewish communities. It has long tugged at me as a reader.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Good book!
My family didn't/doesn't know Yiddish, but having been German for 700 years, French before that... there are a lot of historical family stories that happen to be about Jewish Germans, etc. My family members were shocked by Hitler, bc they saw themselves as Germans who happened to be Jewish, as opposed to Jews in Germany. -
Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Bookmarked it thanks ️
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@lolonurse @wdlindsy Yes that was so true. If you ever meet someone with Spanish heritage whose last name is a city name, it is highly likely they were descended from conversos, the Jews who had to convert or get out, when Ferdinand and Isabel finished conquoring the country. Interestingly there are still families here in rural New Mexico that light a candle every Friday night. They don't know why, just that it is a tradition still honored. Descendants of conquistadores.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Yes, I'm enjoying Verghese's book very much. In traveling in Germany, again and again I've seen monuments in German villages to the fallen of WWI and noticed that they include Jewish names that would, in WWI, be dishonored, with members of those families murdered by the Nazis. One of my professors in grad school was from a Jewish family in Berlin that was totally assimliated to German culture, making real contributions in WWI — and was targeted by the Nazis.