Matt Yglesias

Sep 5th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

Friday Airport Blogging

Oprah has good taste:

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In other Tolstoy news, I feel like Hadji Murad should be talked about more. Kind of a precursor to the Anbar Awekening / SOI strategy we’re currently employing in Iraq.






34 Responses to “Friday Airport Blogging”

  1. Eric Says:

    And… I know we don’t care much about it any more, but a presage to Chechnya and the century’s-old revolt of the Caucasus against Russia.

  2. King Rat Says:

    As long as there’s no Resurrection-blogging, anything Tolstoy related is good with me…

  3. amorphous Says:

    “…All Republicans are corrupt in their own way.”

  4. 24AheadDotCom Says:

    Perhaps when he gets where he’s going, MattY could consider correcting/”revisiting” a couple recent posts where he completely bought anti-Palin smears without spending even a split second trying to figure out whether they were misleading or not.

    First up is this; see the comments for why it’s wrong:

    yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/palin_and_special_needs_children.php

    Next up:

    yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/life_begins_at_conception_and_ends_at_death.php

    With that story, the WaPo sunk to DailyKos level.

  5. Yon Says:

    Pick up the Kurt Vonnegut book.
    It’ s a nice read.

  6. UberMitch Says:

    Dostoevsky > Tolstoy

  7. Alex Says:

    I’d go further: Hadji Murad should be required reading in every high school.

  8. m.croche Says:

    Happy bookclubs are happy all in the same way. Unhappy bookclubs are unhappy each in their own particular way.

  9. thehova Says:

    Dostoevsky > Tolstoy

    Really?!?!

  10. blah Says:

    One hesitates to value Hadji Murad over all of Tolstoy’s other achievements in the short novel, a genre in which he excelled, and which includes works as remarkable as The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Master and Man, The Devil, The Cossacks, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Father Serguis. Still, not even the first two in that listing haunt me as Hadji Murad has since I first read it more than forty years ago. It is my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world, or at least the best that I have ever read.

    Harold Bloom, The Western Canon, pp. 335-36.

  11. scott Says:

    I’m blown away to see that Oprah has chosen Anna Karenina as
    summer reading. I can’t wait to get down to the beach, volume
    in hand.

    Damn, I took The Magic Mountain by mistake. So much for a
    good tan with light reading.

  12. thehova Says:

    Damn, I took The Magic Mountain by mistake. So much for a
    good tan with light reading.

    Scott, come on now.

    I love Tolstoy.

    BUT DON’T IGNORE MANN’S MASTERPIECE. That book changed my life.

  13. scott Says:

    thehova,

    I’ve read them, and I am glad you had the response you indicated.

    Both Tolstoy and Mann should transform your mind and soul.

    My post was Irony 101 and was aimed at Oprah’s pretensions.

    All the best.

    Scott

  14. thehova Says:

    Ha, yeah Scott, looking back it, your post was ironic. I blame alcohol.

    Mann is def. an underrated author.

  15. AssForAHeadDotCom Says:

    See, I can shit in any thread I like, because I’m a sad no-life dogfuck.

  16. That Fuzzy Bastard Says:

    Oprah’s book club won me over right at the start, when she chose Beloved as the first selection. Now there’s a book that should be required reading for every American.

  17. tom c Says:

    Oprah had Cormac McCarthy’s The Road on her book club list. That was really all I needed to give her taste in books that benefit of the doubt.

  18. msw Says:

    Why is Confederacy of Dunces in this picture?

  19. nolaboyd Says:

    A proper sense of theology and geometry, msw. Why else?

  20. Levi Stahl Says:

    Glad to learn you’re a Hadji Murat fan, Matthew. I’ve been pushing it ever since I came across it a few years ago, writing about it frequently at my blog and putting copies into the hands of anyone I can. Aside from its perpetual topicality due to the problems in the region, it’s a wonderful introduction to Tolstoy, as if he’d been boiled down for our convenience, allowing us in a mere 100 pages to sample nearly all his tricks and much of his glory.

    Viktor Shklovlsky may be overdoing it a bit when he says, “Among his great works, Tolstoy has one that’s the best. It’s Hadji Murad.” But he’s not far off.

  21. Alex F Says:

    If Oprah had taste she would also recommend that Vonnegut book, or any Vonnegut book. GO READ MOTHER NIGHT NOW!

  22. Gabe Says:

    ‘Anna Karenina’ was Oprah’s selection in May 2004.

  23. Trevor Says:

    “All actuality is in deadly earnest, and we must not be true to the guileless unrealism of our youth.” (Thomas Mann)

  24. Ben Cronin Says:

    HADJI MURAD is unbelievably good. Turned me on to the whole wide world of Tolstoy. The best part is near the end when Mary Vasilievna tells the men “you’re cuthroats, all of you — cuthroats.” Or something along those lines.

    THE COSSACKS is also very good, and THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN may be one of the saddest, strangest and most relgious books I’ve ever read. Great on Europe’s collective irrationality and suicidal tendencies tied in with WWI.

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