But sometimes...

[poliphilo]

I've mentioned our friend John before. He's 90 odd. Tall, distinguished, gentle, humorous- a keen amateur painter. Ailz was asking him about his war service (in the Royal Navy) so he sketched it out for us. He served on destroyers, guarding the Russian convoys, was detailed to attack the Scharnhorst (an engagement that was aborted by the target scuttling back into port) and was second in command of a landing craft in an action he referred to as "D Day and all that rubbish".

I don't really buy into that whole "Greatest Generation" thing- and I'm sure John doesn't either-  but sometimes...

Comments

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Camille Paglia has short shrift for Pound. Accuses him of stringing together lots of past glories rather than writing poetry at all. Link in my blog a few entries down.

The Blueshirts eventually involved into a (moderately) respected political party called Fine Gael. They actually had an honourable reason for starting up - the Garda police force needed reform - but then they went over the top everywhere.

Fascism does not work in Ireland - we don't really have that collective spirit. We're me-feiners (ourselves only!)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read that article of Paglia's. She has a point. There are very few poems of Pound's that stand alone. Or maybe none at all. But I like the purity of his speech. He did the language a favour.

And he enabled other poets- most notably Yeats and Eliot.

Fascism doesn't work in England either. I think we should be proud of ourselves for that.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Yeah - fascism doesn't work well alongside a sense of humour.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ain't that a fact!