Stoned Thought #43

I've never met a woman who didn't expect you to read her mind.

Men are guilty of many, many sins...but not of that one.

DDR: Sergeant Nikola: A Novel of the Chetnik Brigades by István Tamás

9 years ago I read The Students of Spalato and fell in love with István Tamás. I tried to find more of his work, but there wasn't much out there. I finally found another novel--

--and ordered it, but for reasons unknown I never got around to reading it. 

Until today.

311 pages of Hungarian wonderfulness begin to infiltrate my brain today.

Day 1 (DDRD 3,224) August 31, 2026

Read to page 22. 

I'd only read a few (8) pages before I found this:

Which is interesting because just yesterday I found out that István Tamás had written a movie called Cafe Moszkva, (1936), and after searching for it on various platforms I found it on YouTube (HERE) and started watching it. Yet another odd coincidence, my friends.

"...had he been born into a wealthy family, he probably would have been a great musician. But the accident of birth made a shoe-shine boy out of him."  (20)

I don't know if this is going to be the masterpiece that The Students of Spalato was, but even just 22 pages in, I must say that reading this book is just delightful. I really wish there was more István Tamás work out there. In English.

Just to be clear...69 IS too old to learn Hungarian, right?

Day 2 (DDRD 3,225) September 1, 2026

Read to page 75. It's looking like a masterpiece. And it's amazing how effortless it is to read this book. It's more like watching a movie, actually. You just sink into the words, see the scenes play out, and when you look up to blink twenty pages have gone by.

I need more István Tamás in my life.

Of Belgrade, where this novel is set: "Belgrade is one of the most destroyed cities due to its strategic location, which has led to it being battled over in 115 wars and razed to the ground 44 times throughout its 7,000-year history." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrade) 

Yowza.

Day 3 (DDRD 3,226) September 2, 2026

Read to page 156. Which--how dud that happen?--is the halfway point.

115 pages in...and not yet finished for the day...and it hits me that just a short while ago, the very able soldier Nikola was a boy and a would-be writer. Talk about growing up fast. And then I remember that once I was a 19 year old soldier, and though not at war, it was often a frightening and stressful slice of life.

Once you've entered Jacqueline's World, there's no escaping Saint Lucy.

I've only been abroad four times--three of them to Ireland--but I have been to Frankfort-am-Main.

"The peasant combs the earth with wooden harrows, like a mother combing her child's snarled hair." (145)

Day 4 (DDRD 3,227) September 3, 2026

Read to page 311, The End. A truly spectacular book. I can't even begin to tell you how much I want to read more from this great writer.

Sigh.

Sindbad's Prayer Vis-à-Vis Women

 

from The Adventures of Sindbad by Gyula Krúdy

To which I can only say... 

A-fuckin-men.

Again, László Krasznahorkai: A Cry For Help

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the 21st Century, right? And my beloved László Krasznahorkai just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, correct? So how is it possible that The Quiet Prophet: László Krasznahorkai's Journey Through Chaos and Grace by Camille F. Arden, which was just published last year, is not available ANYwhere but here:

 

?

I've checked everywhere I can think of, and come up with nothing. 

What the fuck?

DDR: The Adventures of Sindbad by Gyula Krúdy

 

This has been on the Been Meaning To list for a very long time...probably since I first "discovered" Central European Classics, which has turned into one of my favorite imprints. (Some of whose titles have migrated to New York Review Books, another favorite imprint.) 

xxiv + 208 = 232 pages...so a quick one (while he's away).

Day 1 (DDRD 3,220) August 27, 2026

Read to page 20. This hasn't really caught me up yet, but there have been some nice bits of writing, so here's hoping.

Day 2 (DDRD 3,221) August 28, 2026

Read to page 65.

"...he thought of the man whom women had cheated, stolen from and discarded, men whom women had watched with interest, wondering when they would put a bullet through their brains...." (33)

Not very nice (👆), of course, but...you know.

And isn't this lovely?

"Then suddenly her expression brightened and a timid, hopeful smile transformed her whole expression: it was as if two fireflies had raised their wings in the pupils of her eyes." (61-62)

I'm getting into this now. Krúdy has some great, odd descriptions...and some VERy odd plot twists...as when Sinbad dies and chooses to come back as a sprig of a plant. BTW, this book was translated by George Szirtes, who did one of Krasznahorkai's books (maybe more than one).

Day 3 (DDRD 3,222) August 29, 2026

Read to page 101.

Mmm-hmm.

"She almost had more to do with the other world than with the present one…" (97) Said of an old servant who had seen her employer's pass away "one by one." It reminds me of a comment that William Blake's wife said about him:  "I have very little of Mr. Blake's company; he is always in Paradise." Kind of true of my daughter, Jacqueline...and at least a little bit true of me as well.

Sindbad, who is still dead, has returned to visit a former lover. As he is speaking to her we are told that his voice sounded "of leaves and shadow" (98), and when he strokes her brow "she felt it like an autumn breeze." (99) This reminds me of something I say to Jacqueline and Joe. I don't want them to be frightened when I die or to miss me too much, so I tell them that when I die I will go to heaven and that they can still talk to me anytime they want to, but I won't be able to answer them directly. However I will be able to hear them, and I will place my hand on their shoulders, and they'll be able to feel it and know I am there and watching out for them.

😢

Day 4 (DDRD 3,223) August 30, 2026

Read to page 167. So tomorrow is probably going to be it. Although I'm actually wanting to read more today, so today might be it.

"...that long-extinct volcano, his heart...." (126)

I met some friends for coffee this morning. They'd recently returned from a trip to Canada and were talking about the mountains and glaciers they had seen and how beautiful they were. Somewhere in the course of the conversation Craig made reference to tarns ("A tarn (or corrie loch) is a mountain lake, pond or pool, formed in a cirque (or "corrie") excavated by a glacier." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarn_(lake) ). After we parted I went home and started reading Sindbad and almost immediately read this:

And I'd never heard or seen this word before Craig mentioned it. Do do do do, do do do do.

"Is it not the case that everyone would soonest hear the story he believes in his heart of hearts, the one where he dreams his own life?" (151)

Day 5 (DDRD 3,224) August 31, 2026

Read to page 208, The End.

"'Life,' thought Sindbad. 'Frivolous, holy, holy and wearisome life! How nice it would be to start again!'applies.

Yep.

"Any man who places his trust in women is a fool...." (178)

Which is of course--as have other previous quotes shared-- more than a little bit misogynistic. And I do sincerely hate misogyny. So why is it that when I read statements like this it causes a tremor of acknowledgment and a chuckle of recognition? Maybe  I've just been unlucky enough to encounter women to whom this applies Come to think of it, though, it applies to every woman I've been romantically involved with. Hmmmm.

On a happier note, this: "What you have loved remains yours: all that caused you unhappiness, that for which you cried in your pillow for, which you died...." (185)

Well...happier....

There were three small sticky notes on the last page of this book:

Kind of hard to read, but it looks more like summary than commentary. Why would someone do that, I wonder?

I think I need more Hungarian in me.

Asimov Fucks Up Again

 

I finished Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan this morning, and while it wasn't great, it was good enough for me to think that I'd like to read another Asimov annotated book. These are the others:

Asimov's Annotated Don Juan (1972), Asimov's Annotated Paradise Lost (1974), Familiar Poems, Annotated (1977), Asimov's Annotated Gulliver's Travels (1980), and Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan (1988). In the same category but not really "annotated" in that the full text isn't reproduced with the notes are Asimov's Guide to the Bible in two volumes (1968 and 1969) and Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare in two volumes (1970). In the Beginning: Science Faces God in the Book of Genesis (1981) should also be included (though it doesn't look like anyone on the internet has done so) as it comments extensively on the first eleven chapters of Genesis--and also reproduces the text of those chapters. 

So depending on how strict you are with the definition of "annotated" and "volume"), Asimov has between 5 and 10 annotated books. I've read 5 of the 10 so far (       ), and after finishing off G&S I thought I might (please, sir) have some more. I wasn't in the mood for the long works, though, so I had a peek at Familiar Poems, which is available through Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/familiarpoemsann00asim/mode/1up). Or you can buy it for about 60 bucks. 

I opted, as you probably guessed, for Internet Archive. The table of contents included many poems I didn't know, but as the first one listed was "Ozymandias," I had a look at it.

I got to the second annotation and encountered a problem. Well, two problems, actually. 

Problem the First: The "another woman" referred to in the first paragraph is Mary Shelley. This is obvious in the second paragraph when it refers to the fact that she wrote Frankenstein, but why on earth isn't she identified either time by name? Seems to me a bit misogynistic.

Problem the Second: Asimov tells us that "Ozymandias" (which should not be italicized, btw) is a portion of a longer poem entitled "The Revolt of Islam." I was surprised by that as I've been reading this poem for about 50 years and had never heard that before, but being be the wily and suspicious old man that I am, I found the full text of the poem--quite a long one, so I didn't want to read it all--and did several word searches using keywords from "Ozymandias."

No results for any of them.

Inescapable conclusion: Asimov fucked up. Which isn't a huge deal, of course, but this is something that could easily have been checked, even in those pre-internet days. Yet neither Asimov nor his proofreaders(s) nor his editor(s) did so, and that's a sign of laziness which irks me...and undermines my trust in the work. So I decided to put this one back on the shelf, so to speak, and have another think on it tomorrow, when I choose my next Daily Devotional Reading. 

🤔

Um...excuse me, Amazon, but I think something's off here....

 

Hey, Seychelles!

 

Lots of visits* from Seychelles of late. What's up, guys? Thanks for stopping by.

* 1.15K visits in the last week.

Welcome Back, My Friends

2

Picked this up from the library on a whim, as I'm not really all that into Prog music, and know nothing about this David Weigel fellow. But after just a few pages, I was sucked in, and I ended up reading this book in just a few days. It was quite delightful,  chronicling Prog music from Franz Lizst to yesterday at 4 pm. (Thus invalidating, the title.) Lots of interesting characters along the way: ELP, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Robert Fripp, Adrien Belew, David Bowie, Todd Rundgren, and many, many others. Something for everyone!

Paul Pope! THB!!

I'm sorry to say that it's been a while since I've seen any work by Paul Pope. Thus, I was quite surprised when I ran across an ad for something called Total THB Volume 2. I got to work immediately and found that there were 2 volumes available already and a third volume would be coming in December. I started to order them from Amazon, then thought, "Why the heck am I doing this?" and went to Thrift Books. Both volumes pretty much the same price as they were on Amazon (actually 10 cents cheaper), so placed my order. They're on the way. Details to follow.

😄