READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

This article was first published in Eureka Street online, on Thursday the 3 rd of March 2022  here:  https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/tolstoy-s-war  One of the most memorable scenes in Russian literature relates the thoughts of a man lying on the ground staring at the sky in the middle of a major European battle. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is wounded. He is placed in a situation where, instead of running, fighting, and thinking every moment might be his last, he is suddenly met with silence, grandeur, tranquillity. Instead of everything being horror, deception, and emptiness, he sees only peace and infinity, and for this he is grateful. His desire for life is affirmed.   Nor does he forget his experience when caught in a place of extreme vulnerability on a battlefield. Later, when Prince Andrei as it happens encounters the architect of Austerlitz in person, he finds Napoleon wanting, “so petty did his hero with his paltry vanity and delight in victory appear...

  As said in the Denise Levertov essay on this site, really the Opening to this collection of records and responses to the death of Max Richards (1937-2016),   I have been spending time thinking about Max’s long interest in religion, of faith lost or found. He taught on this subject as an English Professor at La Trobe University, but it's challenges were always personal and he had both a serious and a bemused consideration of what it might all mean. As for example in this brief exchange of emails, prompted by his awareness of my keen interest in the writings of Lesley Chamberlain, especially her work on Russian spirituality and philosophy. The Les in “the big les discussion” is not a reference to Chamberlain but Les Murray. That month I conducted a reading group at the Carmelite Library on spirituality in his poetry . 4/15/13, Max Richards wrote: Van Gogh and The Joy of Living Posted on January 24, 2013 by lesleychamberlain at http://lesleychamberlain....

A recent local Facebook thread invites us to list ten favourite novels. Novels are not my main reading and I have no system for how to read novels. However, here are ten novels I have read at times in my life when they made a significant impact. Each has a one sentence comment. The list does not even begin to describe my passion for Italian literature, let alone what has come out of say England or the United States since Samuel Johnson. I will return for a second or third list anon. Australia The Magic Pudding (Norman Lindsay): My grandmother gave me this book when I was six, its rumbustious Ballarat-types fighting over a scrumptious possession as though someone (boat people?) would take it from them. The Vivisector (Patrick White): Sometimes we find the book that meets a need, as in my 20s I read this sprawling story of a Sydney painter, which spoke in infinite and caring detail of my own country. Russia Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy): From the opening scenes at the ice...