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Entries Tagged as 'quotations'

Romanian Foreign Affairs (I): Rebecca WEST and Antoine BIBESCO

May 1st, 2010 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, PEOPLE, quotations

Rebecca West: in Paris, on her way home, she had a brief affair with Prince Antoine Bibesco (who wore black crepe de chine in bed), a Romanian diplomat married to Elizabeth Asquith, daughter of the Liberal leader. She was to remember her own affair as ‘rapturous’ but at its close felt that some blight still affected her personal life. The evidence suggests that Bibesco’s sophisticated sex inventiveness frightened Rebecca and that she interpreted it as a further manifestation of male hostility and aggression and she continued in analysis when she returned to London this time with Silvia Payne another early Freudian. Neverthelsess the elation of her first days with Bibesco coloured the writing of ‘The Strange Necessity’ in which her meditations on art and literature are embedded in an account of a ’sun guilded autumn day’ wandering through a magically illuminated Paris.

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QUOTATIONS: How other people see us (II) – Harold NICOLSON

April 27th, 2010 · No Comments · Books, Diary, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations

The Harold Nicolson Diaries: 1907-1963
Sir Harold George Nicolson KCVO CMG (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was an English diplomat, author, diarist and politician.
Amongst these diaries there a brief insightful portrait of King Carol II of Romania, whom Harold Nicolson visited in Bucharest:

“He had ordered he said, a purely Romanian luncheon. God, it was good! In spite of my feeling so faint, I gobbled hard. We talked agreeably. He is a bounder, but less of a bounder than he seemed in London. He was more at ease. His Windsor blue eyes were wistful and he had something behind them. He spoke with intelligence about Chamberlain and Eden and the Italian Agreement and the French cabinet and the league of Nations. He was well-informed and most sensible. We kept all debating topics away.”

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Ceausescu and Jonathan SWIFT – The Seditious Captain GULLIVER

April 25th, 2010 · No Comments · Books, PEOPLE, quotations

Surely, the Reverend Jonathan Swift never expected, in his wildest dreams to be ‘excommunicated’ by communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu: not that Ceausescu ever read Jonathan Swift! That was not necessary! Ceausescu did not read ANY books at all – he was instead famous for his semi-literacy and for professing a distinctly basic vernacular Romanian…
Yet, amazingly, in spite of such auspicious circumstances, Jonathan Swift managed posthumously to blot his copybook with the Communist dictator… Read on the problems encountered by an editor in Bucharest in the 1980s who tried to publish Swift’’s Satyres:
Publishing Swift’s satires in 1985, I myself fought a lot with the censor in order to include “A Modest proposal” concerning eating Irish children, which had become subversive here on account of meat shortage in Romania. Faced with the alternative of not publishing the book at all, or doing it without the famous text, I gave it up. The supreme level of censorship was a department of the (Communist) Party Central Committee.
“Publishing Swift’s satires in 1985, I myself fought a lot with the censor in order to include “A Modest proposal” concerning eating Irish children, which had become subversive here on account of meat shortage in Romania. Faced with the alternative of not publishing the book at all, or doing it without the famous text, I gave it up. The supreme level of censorship was a department of the (Communist) Party Central Committee.”

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Book Review: “Once Upon Another Time” by Jessica Douglas-Home

April 4th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Books, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews, Uncategorized, quotations

Once upon another time
by Jessica Douglas-Home.
Quotation from page 169-170;
"the Arbuthnots (British Ambassador to Romania, – LC note) second party took place that evening – a lavish buffet for twenty. As with the first one, people sat in huddles whispering on the stairs and in corners. A gaunt professor of architecture entered and for a time seemed frozen by the sight of the two tables piled high with unheard of delicacies. A waiter broke the spell by handing him a glass of wine from a silver tray whereupon he fell on the food like a starving man.

(LC note- Romanians had next to nothing to eat under Ceausescu in the 1980s, except chicken claws).

I have a picture of Plesu and Liicianu stretching their legs out from the deep velvet sofa, arms clasped behind their necks, their eyes glinting amusedly at me, relaxed and at peace with themselves.

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Sfidarea Idiocratiei (I) – Memorii din Romania si Anglia

December 3rd, 2009 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, Reviews, quotations

CRITERII DE DISCRIMINARE (fragmente):
(…)
Prima tentativa de a obtine un pasaport a fost la varsta de 14 ani, la eliberarea primului meu buletin de identitate, cand am crezut ca in mod automat sunt indreptatit sa obtin si pasaport. Pentru ca aveam niste strabuni cehi,  eram nerabdator sa descopar familia indepartata din Cehoslovacia.
M-am dus la sediul [...]

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Cambridge Memoir (II) – Peterhouse

December 3rd, 2009 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, PEOPLE, Uncategorized, quotations

Cambridge Memoir (II) – Peterhouse
17. Lord Dewar’s rescue
No sooner that I accepted, with great glee, my Presidency of the Peterhouse Grad. Soc. the style of leadership had to change. New blood was needed to inject some tonus in the proceedings and I was determined to encourage more social contacts amongst its members, [...]

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Cambridge Memoir (I) – Peterhouse

December 2nd, 2009 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, Uncategorized, quotations

Peterhouse has the oldest Hall in Cambridge, going back to its foundation, in 1284. The Hall was restored in the 19c century when it was decorated by William Morris. It could take up to over one hundred undergraduates, but as their number grew, two sittings were introduced and eventually a self-service system. Formal dinners got fewer and attendance was no longer compulsory. However, as meals were heavily subsidized from college funds and benefactions,

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Confluente culturale Anglo-Romane – Romancele la Londra

November 28th, 2009 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, PEOPLE, quotations

CONFLUENTE CULTURALE ANGLO-ROMANE (I) – ROMANCELE LA LONDRA
Hotelul Savoy, din Strand, in inima cartierului Westend, era uneori resedinta Martei Bibescu cand trecea pe la Londra si care consemna in jurnalul ei:
Regele mi-a intrerupt visarea cu un mesaj de bun-venit – dar refuz sa fiu deranjata.
Personajul acesta era George al [...]

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Orwell Diaries (ed. Peter Davison, Harvil Secker, London 2009)

November 17th, 2009 · No Comments · Books, Diary, PEOPLE, Reviews, quotations

Orwell Diaries 1931- 1949
Edited by Peter Davison, Publ: Harvil Secker
ISBN 9781846553295
(sourced from ten original diary notebooks)
I bought Orwell’s Diaries thinking that I could glean more information about his philosophical conversion from Spanish Republicanism to what had become later a lucid critic of left-wing dictatorship. It appears, sadly, that two notebooks of diaries [...]

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Romanian-Jewish Topics (Part I)

May 10th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Books, Diaspora, PEOPLE, quotations

Romanian-Jewish Topics (Part One of Two):
Quotations from an Alternative Anthology:
“Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women”
Presented and edited by Constantin Roman, Preface by Catherine Durandin, published by the Centre for Romanian Studies (London), 2009
1,100 pages, 160 biographies, 600 quotations, 4,000 references, credits, discography and URLs , 6 Indexes
http://www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html
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Lauren BACALL,
“Betty” (née [...]

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