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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

In English we got it all in retrospect, but for Hungarian readers the turn to East Asian subjects must have been an interesting surprise.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

I wrote about "Seiobo There Below," which I think is K's most interesting book, in two parts:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2013/11/who-...

&

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2013/03/art-...

But "The Melancholy of Resistance" likely gives a better sense of why he won the big prize.

who can say what is essential and what isn’t - <i>Seiobo There Below</i> - Krasznahorkai's defense of the picturesque

If it took me so long to read the latest László Krasznahorkai book, Seiobo There Below (2008), it was because the novel has, based on the n...

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

I haven't read "Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming" or the short story New Directions published in a nuisance format. You can see "Animalinside," also a nuisance, squeezed in beside the essential "Music & Literature" #2.

Maybe someone will now publish the scattered collectorama in a sensible format.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

A surprising feeling to see the Nobel go to Krasznahorkai. Not only have I read almost everything in English but I have even *bought* many of his books.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

Oh thanks. Definitely a trip worth doing.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

Oh yes read those Gormenghast books!

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

It's a genuinely difficult book.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 1d

Now now. No need for gloating.

Plus you also need the Music & Literature #2 issue.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 2d

My French vacation post with Robert Louis Stevesnson and several donkey photos.

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/10/wher...

Where I Walked in September 2025, and with Whom – The great affair is to move

I walked about a third of the Chemin de Stevenson in southern France, accompanied by eight other intrepid Mainers and three jolly donkeys. ...

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 3d

Well I love reading and am not getting paid for it, so there are two senses of "amateur."

Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 3d

And some thoughts on Elizabethan authorship hooked onto Stephen Greenblatt's new biography of Christopehr Marlowe, which I have not yet read, but will:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/09/a-no...

A note on Elizabethan authorship and Stephen Greenblatt's new biography of Christopher Marlowe, which I have not read

Stephen Grennblatt’s biography of Christopher Marlowe, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Christopher Marlowe , was j...

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 3d

Also, some notes on Marlowe's tragicomic "Dido, Queen of Carthage" (1587?)

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/09/chri...

Christopher Marlowe's <i>Dido, Queen of Carthage</i> - for I love thee not, – And yet I hate thee not.

Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe, a romantic comedy* based on Book IV of The Aeneid , is Marlowe’s first play, or his last, o...

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 3d

NOVELS
Guilt (1936), László Németh
The Ponder Heart (1953), Eudora Welty
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969), Ishmael Reed
The Poacher's Son (2010), Paul Doiron

With notes and a jolly photo of donkeys at the blog:
wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/10/what...

What I Read in September 2025 – A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme

My writing on Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great plays has been hampered by an apparent post-France short circuit in my ability to...

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 3d

TRAVEL
Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879), Robert Louis Stevenson
Le Chemin de Stevenson (2023) &
Le Jura... à pied (2023), TopoGuides

POETRY
How the Stones Came to Venice (2021), Gary Lawless
Blood Wolf Moon (2025), Elise Paschen

IN PORTUGUESE
Zilda (1924), Alfredo Cortez

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 3d

WHAT I READ IN SEPTEMBER

MARLOWE ETC
Tottel's Miscellany (1557)
Gorboduc (1561), Thomas Sackville & Thomas Norton
Dido, Queen of Carthage (1587) &
Tamburlaine the Great, Pt. I (1587? / 1590), Christopher Marlowe
The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1500-1600 (2000)

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 9d

We climbed up a high ridge in the Jura to a scenic point.

After this walk we went to the spa. It's an old salt mining town so the water at the spa is salty.

Anyway the Jura is nice.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 10d

& on the other hand this is also French food. That appears to be a hash brown on top of the burger. I am not saying I am above eating such a thing but the white bun weirds me out a little.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 10d

Some of the babka this morning at La Tresse, the first Ottolenghi-inspired place I've noticed in Lyon. Note the pink praline babka 2nd right, adopting Lyon ingredients. Always good new things in food-crazy Lyon.

latresselyon.fr

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 11d

The donkeys are home & it was a travel day & it did not seem so interesting to photograph the laundromat so here is the jolly Ramen Vert in Lyon. Time for a change from the regional Cévenol country cooking of the past week.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 12d

Feeding oats to a donkey on the summit of Finiels. Not much food for donkeys up there.

Our last day with the donkeys.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 13d

Yes we had a little adventure today. All's well. We all learned a lot about donkey handling.

Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 13d

Very pleasant day to walk in the French countryside with donkeys. Except for the hornet incident. Luckily donkeys stop running eventually.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 13d

They stay at this level for a while.

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Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 14d

With one of our donkeys.

Honestly a little hard to take photos while guiding a donkey.

Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 14d

Folk art Robert Louis Stevenson and Modestine on the Chemin de Stevenson.

For some reason RLS's hat is a crucial part of his iconography here.

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