November 2010
15 posts
The ending to the Confessions of Zeno
I was thinking about the strange ending to Italo Svevo’s wonderful 1923 novel Confessions of Zeno and thought I would copy them out here: be warned, this is the last paragraph of the book, so, although it doesn’t give anything away, you might not want to read any further if you haven’t read it.
When all the poison gases are exhausted, a man, made like all the other men of flesh...
Storm of Steel
All this talk of WW1 made me think of Ernst Juenger’s Storm of Steel, probably the most sanguine and disturbing book I’ve read about war: although Junger is sensitive to the horror and destruction he sees, he seems certain that war represents the proper activity and true test of modern man. The book contains many graphic accounts of fighting and recounts Junger’s own injuries...
Francis Ledwidge and the bittern cry.
Francis Ledwidge was an Irish poet who fought and died in the First World War; he came from a very poor Catholic family and left school at 13 to work as a labourer. He managed to educate himself and by the time he enlisted he had hopes of permanent employment as a clerk as well as patronage, as a poet, from a local landowner. He saw action in Gallipoli and Serbia before being killed by a shell...
A conversation about wearing a poppy.
I had an interesting exchange on twitter the other day about wearing poppies, A has recently moved to England, B has one on his avatar and I am C. I have merged tweets and swapped a few around to thread the conversation, I have reversed a few abbreviations, corrected a few spellings and removed a few “buts” which make more sense on twitter.
A: What’s up with the poppy? Genuine...
