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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2009 10:06:56 GMT
Catastrophe is yet another collection I don't have, but if the rest of the stories are as pessimistic and miserable as these then Dino Buzzati (1906-1972) is way up there with Charles Birkin (and Pierce Nace) on my list of all time top authors. Like Birkin at his best/ worst, his approach is very much that of a detached journalist reporting from the scene of some atrocity: In Something Beginning With 'L', Shroder, a prosperous timber merchant, loses all after forcing a ragged man to help push his cart out of a ditch. His actions were certainly little regrettable, but the true horror of the story is in the craven behaviour of Dr. Lugosi and the sadistic glee Sheriff Valerio takes in the stranger's ghastly fate. Seven Floors is even better. Lawyer Giovanni Corte, suffering from an unspecified but non-life threatening illness, is admitted to the brilliant Prof. Dati's private hospital. It's an impressive building, seven stories high where the relatively healthy cases are lodged on the top floor and the terminal cases the bottom. Due to a series of "administrative errors", Corte descends floor by floor despite assurances from successive doctors that there's nothing much wrong with him. Finally, Just The Very Thing They Wanted is plain nasty. Antonio and Anna arrive in town on a sweltering hot day. Despite appearances to the contrary, they are told that all the hotels are full. This they can bear, but Anna has to cool down. Exhausted, they arrive at the public baths, but the queues are massive. When Anna arrives at the kiosk, the officious attendant won't accept her money as she's lost her ID card. By now thoroughly dejected, they wander into a park and ... there's a fountain! Anna joyfully wades in but the adults begin yelling at her that it's for children only. She tries to reason with them ... and incites a riot. "This was a heaven sent opportunity. There was no longer anything to stop them pouring out their very souls, from ridding themselves of that whole load of filth and evil that piles up inside one for years and that no-one really notices is there." Anna and Antonio have indeed given the crowd "just the very thing they wanted" - an excuse to take out all their loathing on two helpless individuals. Horrible stuff, but Hell, is it effective.
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Post by thecoffinflies on Jun 8, 2015 15:53:40 GMT
The week before last I stopped in the charity shop of Northwick Park Hospital ( I was being blood-tested for DVT which it turns out I don't have - which I had already told the doctor, who seemed unconvinced...anyway) - I checked out the second hand books and found
"Dino Buzzati - The Tartar Steppe"
Sadly, not a collection of stories but a novel. Haven't started it yet.
I tried to explain to someone why this was exciting ("Seven Floors! Something Beginning With L!") and got nowhere, so wondered if anyone on Vault knew anything about him, and sure enough here's this putative Dino Buzzati thread.
Anyone read The Tartar Steppe?
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Post by dem bones on Jun 10, 2015 7:04:39 GMT
Afraid not, so I'd be very interested to hear what you make of it.
****** Northwick Park. Dear God, I saw the most awful band play the college next door. Traumatised for life. ******
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Post by pulphack on Jun 10, 2015 7:16:37 GMT
Oh God, you've reminded him of Greenslade! Quick, get out the Martian Dance 12", it'll make him feel better! Just don't think about the two keyboard players and the bass solo, whatever you do! Ah, shouldn't have mentioned that...
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Post by dem bones on Jun 10, 2015 10:23:45 GMT
Oh God, you've reminded him of Greenslade! Quick, get out the Martian Dance 12", it'll make him feel better! Just don't think about the two keyboard players and the bass solo, whatever you do! Ah, shouldn't have mentioned that... They eventually found me staggering amongst the graves of St. Mary's churchyard, a gibbering, unkempt, yellow-eyed wreck of a man, begging for death's merciful release or, failing that, directions to the nearest off licence. Or perhaps that was after the Basil Copper A Life In Books launch? Anyway, believe me, Dino Buzzati would know all about bestial cruelty and degradation if he'd been in the audience at Harrow Tek that night ....
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Post by dem bones on Sept 7, 2017 23:11:51 GMT
As for Greenslade - the curse of the three hour bass solo strikes again?? How?? ... it doesn't. But here's the pulse-freezing (i.e., boring, desperately dull) sequel to the above. Apologies for the self-indulgence. It all kind of spewed out. OK, so, this was on April 1st (apt), and it all started so well. A bright, sunny day. Feeling adventurous, so take the tube back to former stomping ground. Check out the old dives (all gone, every last pub, the school, the factory: even the haunted bench has been given a coat of excrement-brown paint. Is nothing sacred any more?). Hit Shiva's Off licence. Down a few cans under the railway bridge. Hold commune with spectres. On to Vale Farm to take in the Spartan Midlands South clash between Wembley F.C. and Welwyn Garden City. Great little stadium. Wembley are a proper grassroots club, with small, amiable fan base (official attendance given at 65, but possibly a few bunked in for second half), impressive social club, stone age hut serving that molten tea exclusive to non-league grounds. Most of all, I'm there to see the artist formerly known as "M------, the man from mars", a dear friend from primary school with whom I'd recently re-established contact. Match report: First 45 were tight, a screamer out of nowhere the difference between two teams who'd otherwise cancelled each other out. Second period, the Lions wore their dogged opponents down. 4-0 was perhaps harsh on the visitors but Wembley fully deserved the win. Now we're enjoying a few quiet drinks in the social club. M ------ suddenly pipes up, "Do you remember that terrible Greenslade gig at Harrow Tech?" Remember it? Would that I could forget that three hours (days? weeks? who knows) of sheer, mind-numbing f**k**g tedium! Hey, wait a minute. Are you telling me that you were there? "Yeah, and it was your fault!" Seems I'd rolled up at school on the Monday, raving about this brilliant gig at same venue on the previous Friday night. Greenslade had been due to headline, but rescheduled at the last minute, whereupon Kevin Coyne and his magic band (the classic Marjorie Razor Blade line up) stepped in. So, (impeccable logic alert), if Kevin Coyne is just a mere last-minute stop gap, imagine how great this Greenslade mob must be! I know. Give us a break, we were kids. By now its dark. Still bemoaning our shared glimpse of the great hereafter (life, only worse, with interminable bass/ keyboard/ drum solo's on a loop), we leave the social club to make for respective homes. Except I never made it out of the ground, not under my own steam, anyhow. Next thing I knew, all these nurses were fussing over me, asking me if anything else hurt. Seems I'd tripped, cut my head open on a bollard, knobbled my knee, knocked myself out. Instant shiner, blood everywhere. Good thing your friend called an ambulance. It's a little after two in the morning, next train ain't 'til seven. I'm concussed, but they need the bed (not that the NHS is in crisis or anything). Didn't even have to ask which hospital. I knew. Northwick Park. Bang next door to Harrow Tech.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 8, 2017 8:58:55 GMT
Good gravy... there truly is a meaning to the seemingly tangled skein of life... It started out so well, and ended up so... perfectly...
And it transpires you have no-one to blame but yourself! Having said that, the logic that got you to Greenslade also fired me into buying some bargain bin cut-outs back in the late seventies (when a teenager, I add) that even now - nearly forty years later - make me wonder what the F*&K I was thinking!
Still, sounds like a good game...
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Post by dem bones on Sept 8, 2017 20:19:28 GMT
Good gravy... there truly is a meaning to the seemingly tangled skein of life... It started out so well, and ended up so... perfectly... And it transpires you have no-one to blame but yourself! Having said that, the logic that got you to Greenslade also fired me into buying some bargain bin cut-outs back in the late seventies (when a teenager, I add) that even now - nearly forty years later - make me wonder what the F*&K I was thinking! Still, sounds like a good game... Thing is, the episode was a bloodier upgrade on what happened directly after previous visit to Vale Farm last November. I think the time has come to drastically revise my opinion of the magnificent Gr**nsl*de. Maybe if I invest in an album or two they'll lay off. Can tell by just the title that their live concept double disc, The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony, was made for me. Worst of it is, the bride of dem failed to see the funny side of me staggering in next morning looking like a refugee from The Plague Of The Zombies, so that's me indefinitely grounded as far as football is concerned. Have been noting down some useful pointers from Colditz in case destiny does the decent thing - i.e., Wealdstone progress in the FA Cup and draw Barnet at their place in 1st round.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 9, 2017 8:11:52 GMT
The Pentateuch Etc Etc actually had a bloody hardback book with it, illustrated by Patrick Woodruffe - I only know this, I swear, because I like PW and still have a book of his art work I bought back in 1979 (his work is probably scattered about here, as he did a lot of SF & fantasy paperback covers in the '70's - I bought the book becasue he'd done some Moorcock covers I adored at 14). Personally, Greenslade are a prog too far for me: I like Dave Greenslade in Colosseum, where drummer and overseer Jon Heisman kept a firm hold on his excesses, and his dad Arthur was a wiz in the big band/BBC orchestra days, but under his own steam... I did get a Greenslade album once. I played it twice, and I swear it was pressed with the hole off centre, as it sounded well out of tune by the time it got to the last track. Not that you you could tell too well as they were getting all polyrhythmic and complex arrangements by that time... the trouble with that kind of thing is that it only works (as in classical and western art music) if you have a really strong theme, or else it descends into pointless chaos. Guess where Greenslade went...
Having said that, there was one good thing about them - the theme from 'Gangsters', a BBC crime series, which was actually dead simple by their standards, and had a strong central melody. Hmm, pity they didn't learn a lesson from that.
Anyway, all this to take your mind off being barred from footy for the foreseeable. Blaming a dodgy prog band won't work. Making yourself a sacrifice on the altar of cross-polytonal dualling kepyboard solos will be no appeasement to the Gods of Prog. Don't do it. Trust me - if even I won't go near them, then they are too hideous to contemplate.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 9, 2017 14:44:11 GMT
The Pentateuch Etc Etc actually had a bloody hardback book with it, illustrated by Patrick Woodroffe - I only know this, I swear, because I like PW and still have a book of his art work I bought back in 1979 (his work is probably scattered about here, as he did a lot of SF & fantasy paperback covers in the '70's - I bought the book becasue he'd done some Moorcock covers I adored at 14. Thought I recognised the name (I'm sure David's Riley and Sutton do!). Mr. Woodroffe provided cover art for at least four of Orbit's Abraham Merrit reissues, and, in a rare-ish full-on horror moment, David A. Sutton's The Satyr's Head. Also a couple of Creepy's, one of which recycles the 'Satyr's Head' painting. Making yourself a sacrifice on the altar of cross-polytonal dualling kepyboard solos will be no appeasement to the Gods of Prog. Don't do it. Trust me - if even I won't go near them, then they are too hideous to contemplate. Seeing as I've a choice, think I'll stick with the curse.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 25, 2021 21:15:41 GMT
This thread went a bit off track .... Dino Buzzati - Catastrophe and Other Stories (Alma, 2018) The Collapse of the Baliverna Catastrophe The Epidemic The Landslide Just the Very Thing They Wanted Oversight The Monster Seven Floors The March of Time The Alarming Revenge of a Domestic Pet And Yet They Are Knocking at Your Door Something Beginning with “L” The Slaying of the Dragon The Opening of the Road The Scala Scare Humility The War Song The Egg The Enchanted Coat The SaintsBlurb: This volume brings together twenty of the best stories written by Dino Buzzati — author of the celebrated novel The Tartar Steppe and one of the most original voices in twentieth century literature — stories which show the Italian master's taste for the bizarre and the humorous, and for exploring the darker recesses of the human psyche.
From The Collapse of the Baliverna, where a man is racked with guilt at the thought that he might have been responsible for the loss of many lives, to The Epidemic, which describes the spread of a "state influenza" contracted only by people who don't step into line with the government, and Terror at the Scala, where the higher echelons of Milan society are gripped with the fear of an impending revolution - these stories show how strange and unexpected events can creep into everyday life and draw ordinary people towards mystery, disquiet and, ultimately, catastrophe.Essentially Catastrophe: The Strange Stories of Dino Buzzati (Calder & Boyars, 1965; trans. Judith Landry/ Cynthia Jolly) with added E. R. Low translations of The Egg, The Enchanted Coat, and The Saints. Here's one for Covid conspiracy theorists. The Epidemic: "Believe me, not even we have any idea of the brilliance of the Chief who leads us ... a magnificent idea for taking the country's pulse ... State Influenza! Don't you think its wonderful? Influenza which attacks only pessimists, sceptics, opponents, enemies of the country lurking all over the place ... while the devoted citizens, the patriots, the conscientious workers are untouched." Each morning Shrinzel, a government department secretary, gloats over the rising absentee list as yet another of the Chief's detractors fall foul of the virus. Those infected are duly spirited away to location unknown. Colonel Ennio Molinas, by now desperately ill, faces a stark choice. Either drag his weary bones to the office each day or face exposure as an enemy of the state.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 27, 2021 20:46:35 GMT
This next is as brilliant as Seven Floors and Just The Very Thing They Wanted.
Catastrophe: Even as the luxury express speeds North, there is a mass exodus in the opposite direction. Desperately the evacuees shout warnings and wave newspapers to alert the startled passengers to their danger, but the train hurtles on toward the place of catastrophe as though the driver has dropped dead at the controls. At last they pull into the empty station ...
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Post by dem bones on Feb 4, 2021 18:39:58 GMT
The Collapse of the Baliverna: Narrator fears that his attempt at scaling the unsafe wall of a decrepit, 17th century monastery squatted by the desperate and destitute, caused its collapse, with appalling loss of life. Now, two years on, the public inquiry. Will he be contacted? Will any eyewitnesses testify against him? Another of the author's helpful reminders that we are always one tiny misplaced step away from destroying our lives. And we all have someone will take obscene delight in our downfall.
Oversight: Ada Tormenti has the nagging concern that, prior to leaving on holiday, she inexplicably forgot to leave her four-year-old daughter at her aunts. Surely she's not left the child locked in alone for ten days during this sweltering heatwave? Racked with doubt, Ada boards an express train home. Let's hope she's worrying over nothing!
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 4, 2021 18:54:21 GMT
If possible, please give the original titles of the stories, especially "Oversight." I only have the gigantic collection in Italian, SESSANTA RACCONTI.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 4, 2021 19:06:42 GMT
And by the way, if you have not already done so, you really should try the stories of Paul Bowles, who is like Birkin, but less heart-warming and cheerful. Start with "A Distant Episode" or "The Delicate Prey." The latter involves, in passing, the unusual sexual practice that is maybe called pedicadio.
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