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ReadySteadyBlog

The Times: "One of the best places on the web for clever, wise, sparky book-related discussions and reviews"

Thursday 08 January 2009

Paul West and J.M. Coetzee

Mark Sarvas has been watching Valkyrie (if you want to know more about the plot to assasinate Hitler, the Sunday Times recommends Valkyrie by Philipp von Boeselager, Germans Against Hitler by Hans Mommsen and Luck of the Devil by Ian Kershaw) and it brought to his mind "the related Coetzee/West contretemps of a few years back":


For those who missed it the first time, Coetzee used Paul West's novel, The Very Rich Hours of Count Von Stauffenberg, (he of the failed July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler upon which the film is based) as a leaping off point for Elizabeth Costello's meditation as to whether the depiction of certain kinds of evil lies beyond the boundaries of art (more...)

Posted by Mark Thwaite
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Serendipoetry

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

-- W.H. Auden
Collected Poems (Faber and Faber)

-- View archive

Word of the Day

spinster

1. A woman who has remained single beyond the usual age of marrying. 2. In law, a woman who has never married. 3. A woman whose occupation is spinning. more …

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