The Illustrious House of Ramires , by Eça de Queirós. A novel about an ineffectual nobleman writing an historical novel about his heroic ancestors. Queirós has been called the Portuguese Flaubert. Large Fees and How to Get Them : a book for the private use of physicians , by Albert V. Harmon, M.D. If you practice early 20th medicine and want large fees, this book is essential reading. If you don’t, there are still lessons in its amusing and unsentimental discussion of various topics, like in the chapter “The Bugbear of Ethics”, where Harmon advises “ethics in its place is a good thing...But there is such a thing as overdoing the ethical proposition”. Histrionics: Three Plays and Over All the Mountain Tops , by Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard once said “I despise actors, indeed I hate them, for they ally themselves at the least sign of danger with the audience and betray the author and completely identify with stupidity and feeble-mindedness. Actors are the destroyers and exte...
It occurred to me: what if the story contains a typo, and really the containers lost en route to Hamburg were packed with “shoes, aluminum briefcases, toys and Hamburgers”?
ReplyDeleteI hope amidst the plenty of shoes and toys someone remembered to take care of the container of smuggled Chinese.
ReplyDeleteThis does clear up the myster why I hardly see aluminum briefcases anymore: they've all been imported to Hamburg.
ReplyDelete