Another 20 pages. The Marwitz drama is hitting its climax, and Fritz is about to start getting upset about the Erlangen journalist. :(
Since I'm doing 20 pages with very little effort, and I'm not actually making myself do more than that, cahn, let's raise my weekend quota to 30 and my weekday quota to 25? We all know I'm capable of doing 50, but as my concentration improves, I'm trying to do some things besides German, and of course salon calls. :) Among those non-German things is The Club, which I'm currently reading at the suggestion of the Amazon recommendation algorithm. I don't know how accurate it may be, but since practically everything in it is new to me, I'm finding it very engrossing. At the very least, it's a good starting point for "Who are these people whose names and sometimes works you know, but not much more?"
All of which is to say, I'm no longer spending 100% of my free time on German, but I also don't want to lose my momentum, because I'm SO. CLOSE. But I'm so far that if I stop, what little command I do have will be gone before I know it.
Speaking of reading non-German books, I've finished "Domestic Enemies", and it is indeed very good. (Though I suspect only partly applicable to the German states within the same period.) And hooray on you reading a book featuring my guy Boswell (among others)! (No, I haven't read this one, but you might say I know the cast. *g*)
Speaking of reading non-German books, I've finished "Domestic Enemies", and it is indeed very good. (Though I suspect only partly applicable to the German states within the same period.)
Indeed, which is why all my beta emails to cahn were heavily caveated with "This is France! The author even points out that England and Italy and the Netherlands were different! And who even knows with FW and SD. Expectations for servants probably changed depending on who was in residence on a given day!"
And hooray on you reading a book featuring my guy Boswell (among others)!
I have to admit the author doooooes noooot like Boswell. Well, as an author, yes. But as a person, not so much.
you might say I know the cast. *g*)
And quite an extensive cast it is! Boswell and Johnson, of course, but also Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, Frances Reynolds, Thomas Sheridan, Elizabeth Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, David Garrick, Fanny Burney, Hester Thrales, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Charlotte Lennox, and others.
So far, Garrick is my favorite. The history of acting was *fascinating*.
It is, and I've always felt that someone should write a novel about Garrick's big Shakespeare festival at Stratford which was the single event most responsible for changing Shakespeare's status into a national treasure. Also, compared with moody superstar Edmund Kean who came after, the sheer, well, normalcy of Garrick's life style when not on stage is amazing. He just seems to have been a nice person.
As to the author not liking Boswell as a person, well, it happens. I mean, I've written an entire post as to why I like him, so I won't repeat that all here, but limit myself to a few bullet points not related to Boswell as an author:
- for all his celebrity seeking outs, Boswell is also the guy who defends luckless thieves of sheep, gets his guy off the first time but not again eight years later for the same offense, and then stays with him in his last hours so he isn't alone and comforts him; this isn't a famous highwayman, just a poor Scotsman named John Reid unkown to anyone (and who would be unknown to us, too, if he wasn't in Boswell's journal)
- (Boswell also defends convict and ocean crosser Mary Bryant when she makes it back to England, but since the ocean crossing won her fame, I don't suppose that counts in the same way)
- when his little daughter Veronica decides there is no God and pronounces this out loud, Boswell, religious 18th century Protestant Scotsman with a very strict authoritarian father he's on bad terms with, does not react by punishing his daughter or admonishing her or frightening her with outwardly shown disapproval/shock. First he seeks consults a self help book checks whether there are any parenting books advising what to do. Not finding any to his satisfaction, he next decides to ask Veronica how she got the idea, not aggressively (we know because he gives us the entire scene in dialogue), and finding she decided because she got told God took *dead person X* if there was no God, there would be no dead people, patiently explains this would not be the case, so Veronica is good with God again
- when Johson and the other guys in the club think you could be happy with any random woman in marriage, Boswell - who can't stop having casual sex, but also loves his wife, disagrees: I have a strong imagination that I could not have been so happy in marriage with any other woman as with my dear wife. I cannot tell why, so as to give any rational explanation to the others. I only know or fancy that there are qualities and compositions of qualities (to talk in musical metaphor) which in the course of our lives appear to me in her that please me more than what I have perceived in any other woman, and which I cannot separate from her identity.
- Boswell comes off way better than Hester Thrale (in particular) or several of Johnson's other friends when it comes to Francis Barber, Johnson's black servant who also was Johnson's main heir (with which Hawkings and Thrale and several others, but not Boswell who liked and supported him, had a problem); more about this in my review of Francis Barber's biography here, and as you know, I think that how you treat those below you in the hierarchy, especially if you yourself have fallen on hard times, is one of the best testimony's of character.
It's amaaazing and hilarious how Damrosch, by and large, manages to give those same anecdotes while putting completely different spins on them.
I think that how you treat those below you in the hierarchy, especially if you yourself have fallen on hard times, is one of the best testimony's of character.
Damrosch agrees with this, but chooses radically different examples of how Boswell behaved toward the people below him in the hierarchy. If I have more time after I finish the book, I'll share some examples.
I'm under no illusions that I'm getting a balanced portrayal of these people, but much like with Bodanis' romanticizing bio of Voltaire and Émilie, I'm learning whole bunches of things I didn't know, and that's very useful. As recently agreed, we all started out with random unsourced anecdotes about Fritz! You have to start somewhere. :D
I've put the Barber book on my maybe list, thank you. My kingdom for more time! (Currently working on fix-it fic.)
the sheer, well, normalcy of Garrick's life style when not on stage is amazing. He just seems to have been a nice person.
You'll know this quote, but I have to share it with cahn. For context, Garrick was an acclaimed actor:
When Boswell tried to get a rise out of him by suggesting that Garrick was too vain about his reputation, Johnson retorted, "Sir, it is wonderful how little Garrick assumes. Consider, Sir: celebrated men, such as you have mentioned, have had their applause at a distance; but Garrick had it dashed in his face, sounded in his ears, and went home every night with the plaudits of a thousand in his cranium. … If all this had happened to me, I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody that stood in the way."
and finding she decided because she got told God took *dead person X* if there was no God, there would be no dead people, patiently explains this would not be the case, so Veronica is good with God again
OK, I love all these stories, but this one is just lovely <3
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Since I'm doing 20 pages with very little effort, and I'm not actually making myself do more than that,
All of which is to say, I'm no longer spending 100% of my free time on German, but I also don't want to lose my momentum, because I'm SO. CLOSE. But I'm so far that if I stop, what little command I do have will be gone before I know it.
So 30 pages tomorrow or you yell at me!
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Indeed, which is why all my beta emails to
And hooray on you reading a book featuring my guy Boswell (among others)!
I have to admit the author doooooes noooot like Boswell. Well, as an author, yes. But as a person, not so much.
you might say I know the cast. *g*)
And quite an extensive cast it is! Boswell and Johnson, of course, but also Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, Frances Reynolds, Thomas Sheridan, Elizabeth Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, David Garrick, Fanny Burney, Hester Thrales, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Charlotte Lennox, and others.
So far, Garrick is my favorite. The history of acting was *fascinating*.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
As to the author not liking Boswell as a person, well, it happens. I mean, I've written an entire post as to why I like him, so I won't repeat that all here, but limit myself to a few bullet points not related to Boswell as an author:
- for all his celebrity seeking outs, Boswell is also the guy who defends luckless thieves of sheep, gets his guy off the first time but not again eight years later for the same offense, and then stays with him in his last hours so he isn't alone and comforts him; this isn't a famous highwayman, just a poor Scotsman named John Reid unkown to anyone (and who would be unknown to us, too, if he wasn't in Boswell's journal)
- (Boswell also defends convict and ocean crosser Mary Bryant when she makes it back to England, but since the ocean crossing won her fame, I don't suppose that counts in the same way)
- when his little daughter Veronica decides there is no God and pronounces this out loud, Boswell, religious 18th century Protestant Scotsman with a very strict authoritarian father he's on bad terms with, does not react by punishing his daughter or admonishing her or frightening her with outwardly shown disapproval/shock. First he
seeks consults a self help bookchecks whether there are any parenting books advising what to do. Not finding any to his satisfaction, he next decides to ask Veronica how she got the idea, not aggressively (we know because he gives us the entire scene in dialogue), and finding she decided because she got told God took *dead person X* if there was no God, there would be no dead people, patiently explains this would not be the case, so Veronica is good with God again- when Johson and the other guys in the club think you could be happy with any random woman in marriage, Boswell - who can't stop having casual sex, but also loves his wife, disagrees: I have a strong imagination that I could not have been so happy in marriage with any other woman as with my dear wife. I cannot tell why, so as to give any rational explanation to the others. I only know or fancy that there are qualities and compositions of qualities (to talk in musical metaphor) which in the course of our lives appear to me in her that please me more than what I have perceived in any other woman, and which I cannot separate from her identity.
- Boswell comes off way better than Hester Thrale (in particular) or several of Johnson's other friends when it comes to Francis Barber, Johnson's black servant who also was Johnson's main heir (with which Hawkings and Thrale and several others, but not Boswell who liked and supported him, had a problem); more about this in my review of Francis Barber's biography here, and as you know, I think that how you treat those below you in the hierarchy, especially if you yourself have fallen on hard times, is one of the best testimony's of character.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
I think that how you treat those below you in the hierarchy, especially if you yourself have fallen on hard times, is one of the best testimony's of character.
Damrosch agrees with this, but chooses radically different examples of how Boswell behaved toward the people below him in the hierarchy. If I have more time after I finish the book, I'll share some examples.
I'm under no illusions that I'm getting a balanced portrayal of these people, but much like with Bodanis' romanticizing bio of Voltaire and Émilie, I'm learning whole bunches of things I didn't know, and that's very useful. As recently agreed, we all started out with random unsourced anecdotes about Fritz! You have to start somewhere. :D
I've put the Barber book on my maybe list, thank you. My kingdom for more time! (Currently working on fix-it fic.)
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
You'll know this quote, but I have to share it with
When Boswell tried to get a rise out of him by suggesting that Garrick was too vain about his reputation, Johnson retorted, "Sir, it is wonderful how little Garrick assumes. Consider, Sir: celebrated men, such as you have mentioned, have had their applause at a distance; but Garrick had it dashed in his face, sounded in his ears, and went home every night with the plaudits of a thousand in his cranium. … If all this had happened to me, I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody that stood in the way."
:D
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
OK, I love all these stories, but this one is just lovely <3