📽️ The Royalty Cinema, Harbourne, Birmingham. A grand and lavish Art Deco venue built in the 1930s, witness the golden age of cinema. Lost to arsonist flames, now only a memory.
...this volume of essays by Camus first published in 1938.
I don't follow IVE closely enough to know if Liz is actually reading this book. It could well just be a prop, although I would be delighted to discover that the book is hers.
'The University of New Hampshire Library has completed the digitization of thousands of photographs taken by renowned photographer Lotte Jacobi during a 1932-1933 trip to the Soviet Union and Central Asia.'
Although there has been small revival of interest in John O'Hara in recent years, as can be see by the 2019 appearance of a Library of America edition of four of his novels, he is never going to regain the attention he enjoyed in the thirties, when he was a regular in the "New Yorker" and both the 1934 "Appointment in Samarra" and the 1935 "BUtterfield 8" were best sellers.
Amongst the many reasons for this decline is his stylistic weaknesss compared to his now more highly esteemed contemporaries; his prose cannot match the lyricism of Fitzgerald, the allusive brevity of Hemingway, or the distinctive modernist idioms of Faulkner or Dos Passos.
Nevertheless, his ability to create convincing dialogue is one of the strengths of "BUtterfield 8" and his acute ear is of a piece with the other observational powers at work is this novel of New York in the early years of the Depression. O'Hara had a sharp eye for the markers of social class and status, racial and ethnic prejudice, and the power of alcohol with Prohibition still in force. Notab
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BUtterfield 8 -- John O'Hara
Although there has been small revival of interest in John O'Hara in recent years, as can be see by the 2019 appearance of a Library of America edition of four of his novels, he is never going to regain the attention he enjoyed in the thirties, when he was a regular in the "New Yorker" and both the 1934 "Appointment in Samarra" and the 1935 "BUtterfield 8" were best sellers.
Amongst the many reasons for this decline is his stylistic weaknesss compared to his now more highly esteemed contemporaries; his prose cannot match the lyricism of Fitzgerald, the allusive brevity of Hemingway, or the distinctive modernist idioms of Faulkner or Dos Passos.
Nevertheless, his ability to create convincing dialogue is one of the strengths of "BUtterfield 8" and his acute ear is of a piece with the other observational powers at work is this novel of New York in the early years of the Depression. O'Hara had a sharp eye for the markers of social class and status, racial and ethnic prejudice, and the power of alcohol with Prohibition still in force. Notably, an unprurient candor about sex might surprise the reader of today and probably accounted at least in part for strong sales in the past.
The novel, revealing as it is about the Depression and the cafe society component of the metropolitan middle classes, is more than a document in social history. At its heart is the search of its young protagonist Gloria Wandrous for both love and freedom and her uncertainty about what these might be. This search and uncertainty are shown at work in her adulterous and abusive relationship with the older businessman Weston Liggett and the unconsumated yet deeper romance with commercial artist Eddie Brunner. She never finds what she is looking for, and these unresolved tensions are perhaps mirrored in the novel's conclusion, which has struck many critics as clumsily unsatisfying.
Although I recognize the literary weakness of the abrupt ending of the narrative, I found myself impressed by "BUtterfield *" both in regard to its social observation and psychological insight. I would recommend it to readers with an interest in the twenties and thirties and to those who would like to understand better how the rapidly changing role of women was portrayed at that time.
Many years ago I enjoyed "Appointment in Samarra". Now that I've read "BUtterfield 8", I'm going to give some of his short stories, his 1938 "Hope of Heaven", and 1940 "Pal Joey" a try.
One might think of Anthony Powell as a quintessentially British novelist, so the importance of the USA in his first novel, the 1931 "Afternoon Men", might come as a surprise.
The USA makes itself felt both in the novel's content and in its style. The publisher Scheigan is the stereotyped American abroad, while the USA itself is mentioned continually throughout the novel as a place where people can go to either make or hunt fortunes. Making up the bulk of the text, the clipped dialogue of the novel seems indebted both to Hemingway and the new American popular culture form, the talkie.
I also noted Powell's depiction of Jews in the novel. Although "Afternoon Men" does not promote antisemitism as a central theme, a current of unfriendly suspicion is nevertheless detectable.
Although the novel was published in 1931, the social, romantic, and occupational misadventures of the mostly youthful characters smacks of the decade preceding the great depression. Comparing it to Waugh's "Decline and Fall" and "Vile Bodies", I found the co
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Anthony Powell -- Afternoon Men
One might think of Anthony Powell as a quintessentially British novelist, so the importance of the USA in his first novel, the 1931 "Afternoon Men", might come as a surprise.
The USA makes itself felt both in the novel's content and in its style. The publisher Scheigan is the stereotyped American abroad, while the USA itself is mentioned continually throughout the novel as a place where people can go to either make or hunt fortunes. Making up the bulk of the text, the clipped dialogue of the novel seems indebted both to Hemingway and the new American popular culture form, the talkie.
I also noted Powell's depiction of Jews in the novel. Although "Afternoon Men" does not promote antisemitism as a central theme, a current of unfriendly suspicion is nevertheless detectable.
Although the novel was published in 1931, the social, romantic, and occupational misadventures of the mostly youthful characters smacks of the decade preceding the great depression. Comparing it to Waugh's "Decline and Fall" and "Vile Bodies", I found the comedy less broad but more perceptive about British society and individual ambition and romantic aspiration.
Decades have passed since I last read "A Dance to the Music of Time". I wonder how that cycle would strike me now that I am acquainted with Powell's 1931 novel of comedy and class.
I read this 1933 novel a little while ago. It's a long, one might almost say sprawling, fiction of an Armenian community's 1915 resistance to the genocide enacted by the.Young Turks.
The narrative of a community under siege is gripping, but the novel also deals with complex themes of identity, community, and nationality. As one might expect from a German speaking Jew who grew up in the capital of the Czech lands of Austria-Hungary, Werfel's treatment of the themes of nationalism and cosmopolitanism are, thankfully, never simplistic.
Obviously , much of the book's significance rests on it being an early literary response to the Armenian genocide. I'm sure that a horrified desire to learn about this campaign of persecution, exile, and killing accounts for much of the success that this book achieved in the US market on its publication in 1934. A readiness to learn about a gruesome episode in the "war to end all wars" probably played a part too in boosting sales.
I would also hazard a guess that fo
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The Forty Days of Musa Dagh -- Franz Werfel
I read this 1933 novel a little while ago. It's a long, one might almost say sprawling, fiction of an Armenian community's 1915 resistance to the genocide enacted by the.Young Turks.
The narrative of a community under siege is gripping, but the novel also deals with complex themes of identity, community, and nationality. As one might expect from a German speaking Jew who grew up in the capital of the Czech lands of Austria-Hungary, Werfel's treatment of the themes of nationalism and cosmopolitanism are, thankfully, never simplistic.
Obviously , much of the book's significance rests on it being an early literary response to the Armenian genocide. I'm sure that a horrified desire to learn about this campaign of persecution, exile, and killing accounts for much of the success that this book achieved in the US market on its publication in 1934. A readiness to learn about a gruesome episode in the "war to end all wars" probably played a part too in boosting sales.
I would also hazard a guess that for many readers in the thirties, the novel's story of a community's survival, albeit at a terrible price, could be seen as a parallel for the survival by individuals,families, and cities of the unprecedented hardships and upheavals of the Great Depression. The success of "Gone With The Wind" comes to mind.
Another parallel that now seems eerily prescient is that of...
Kangaroo Jumps Rebound Shoes From the 1930s. Kangaroo jumps (or rebound/jumping shoes, also called “moon shoes” or spring-heel shoes) from the 1930s era refer to early spring-loaded footwear toys or devices, precursors to modern rebound boots like Kangaroo Jumps. vintag.es/2026/07/kangaroo-jum… #globalmuseum #shoes #footwear #Fashion #1930s
Standing Female Nude -- Theodor Kern (1900–1969) -- Oil on canvas -- 1939 Wardown House, Museum & Gallery
Kern was born in Salzburg, when that city belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire. He studied art in Vienna, France, and Italy. He settled in England in 1939 and lived there until his death thirty years later.
Does applying a national label to his art make any sense?
Nieuws uit Nederland @Nietlientje has just posted this 1932 photo from the Schiedam municipal archives of the Hygiea gymnastic association.
There's a rich history, of which I know too little, of gymnastic and calisthenic movements during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- Swedish gymnastics, the "Battle of the Systems" in the USA, the Sokol movement in the Czech lands...these Dutch women belong to that history.
From which socioeconomic class or classes did associations like this draw their membership? Was this association enclosed within one of the three "pillars" - Protestant, Catholic, and social democratic -- of Dutch society at this time? Did this kind of association survive into the second half of the twentieth century? I suspect not.
I was also struck by the women's unshaven underarms. How pleasing to see a world in which axillary depilation has not yet become a norm!
