Monday, 24 September 2012
Kurt Andersen, 'True Believers'
You can get this book here. I can't tell you that much about the plot without spoiling it, but be assured that it is a cracking read. It's set in the 1960s, not among hippies but among radicals, of a kind, in America, who are very young. It is about friendship, and memory, and lies. The writer is a man, and has created a terrific female lead character, a kind of sexy grandma. Perhaps the book, when it is not a political thriller (which it is, a lot of the time) is a study of the danger of being certain about what is and what is not. As an aside, kind of, I discovered from this book that only one film has ever been made entirely in Esperanto. It was called Incubus, and starred - William Shatner. You can see a clip here. Looks terrific. Although I object to Esperanto as pointless.
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2 comments:
I'm sure you expected some reaction to your comment that "I object to Esperanto as pointless." In what way, pointless?
Esperanto may not be perfect, but I've used it successfully in Africa, South America and Europe, and it does the job.
I would like to argue the case for wider use of Esperanto. It is, as I suspect you know, a planned language which belongs to no one country or group of states.
Readers of your blog should take a look at learn.esperanto.org.uk
Esperanto works! I've used it in speech and writing in about fifteen countries over recent years. I recommend it to any traveller, as a way of making friendly local contacts.
I didn't, particularly, I was just expressing a point of view. I don't speak Portuguese, and I don't speak Esperanto, so if someone from, say, Brazil came to speak at an event I was attending their speaking Esperanto would be no help to me. I get the impression that Esperanto is used at conventions of people who are keen on Esperanto. If I wanted to communicate with people in Brazil I would learn Portuguese, not Esperanto. I suspect I'd reach more of them that way.
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