tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post9067230372400857593..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Curzio Malaparte: The Technique of Coup d'Etat, 1931Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-30633468713106354292010-11-14T22:32:19.137-08:002010-11-14T22:32:19.137-08:00Chaz, Malaparte rather adroitly managed to never q...Chaz, Malaparte rather adroitly managed to never quite be contained in any sphere other than his own. <br /><br />In fact his name was Erich Maria Suckert, his father was German, his mother Tuscan. He was educated in Italy and fought in (decorated for valor) in the Italian army in WW I. He then became a journalist, and renounced his German name, in 1925 (he was 27) in favour of a self-invented moniker: "Malaparte"= "he of the bad place," a pun on Bonaparte.<br /><br />After all his wars and perils he ended up becoming a Communist as he lay dying of lung cancer, and left his worldly goods to Chairman Mao.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85353735200922175712010-11-14T16:34:12.882-08:002010-11-14T16:34:12.882-08:00I suspect Malaparte would not have
lived so well
q...I suspect Malaparte would not have<br />lived so well<br />quite as long or have written<br />quite as much, had he been of the<br />German sphere rather than the<br />Italian sphere of the Axis.<br /><br />60,000,000 to 100,000,000 people<br />died in WWII...the counting was<br />inconclusive in Russia and Asia<br /><br />the "class analysis" failed to<br />account for his evil genius and<br />will and of course the madness<br />in some in human race that it<br />produced<br /><br />again I make the point that<br />the poets and philosophers and<br />the writers and artists did not<br />stop Hitler...it fell to the common<br />men who were soldiersElmo St. Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01588245143022651357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2414681159856731682010-11-10T10:28:53.065-08:002010-11-10T10:28:53.065-08:00Curtis,
Well, obviously you are married to a surv...Curtis,<br /><br />Well, obviously you are married to a survivor.<br /><br />And Danny... we used to see him now and then when he slouched out to Bolinas on R&R.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63743276010145637932010-11-10T09:47:36.711-08:002010-11-10T09:47:36.711-08:00Interesting. I really need to read Kaputt and Mala...Interesting. I really need to read Kaputt and Malaparte's other books in their entirety. If I could just clear some (mental and physical) space. Thank you for posting the Ramones footage. Caroline's second job was working in the publicity department of ABC Records in New York, which distributed Sire Records, and she worked very closely with the Ramones on their first three albums. At that point ABC/Sire was the only US label willing to sign punk rock acts and the Ramones were the first. Their material was very, very funny and their performances were intense, gripping and also funny. When it came time to prepare the first big trade advertisement for the band, the marketing department had the pleasure of being able to pull quotes exclusively from extremely partisan reviews -- pro and con. No one sat on the fence, which along with Danny Fields black and white band portrait, made for a memorable (actually, frameable) ad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-48427366596994137782010-11-09T08:12:54.217-08:002010-11-09T08:12:54.217-08:00Curtis, here is Chris Marker's comment (well, ...Curtis, here is Chris Marker's comment (well, he's commenting on the post, not on the Ramones):<br /><br />"Yes, a famous example of future's misreading by an otherwise sharp mind... In the book, he adds an 8-page postface to bring some nuances: yes, Hitler may be a threat, but M is confident the German society is strong enough to resist it. Amusing also to compare with Kaputt's chapter 4 ('GOD SHAVE THE KING') where in Cracow the Gestapo chief reminds him he wrote that Hitler was a woman--or so he says, for like Chateaubriand and Malraux, this great writer was also a great liar."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89857251749036065772010-11-09T03:45:12.105-08:002010-11-09T03:45:12.105-08:00Oh, my.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP9BBUK7LvA" rel="nofollow">Oh, my</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75525844409125101452010-11-09T03:13:50.041-08:002010-11-09T03:13:50.041-08:00Perhaps you remember the amazing Ramones song &quo...Perhaps you remember the amazing Ramones song "Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-86672841734054446382010-11-08T19:42:50.342-08:002010-11-08T19:42:50.342-08:00And Europe, unfortunately, became his runway.And Europe, unfortunately, became his runway.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-74856794395823320302010-11-08T11:44:41.712-08:002010-11-08T11:44:41.712-08:00I have been living with this for days (carrying it...I have been living with this for days (carrying it around and rereading sections whenever I can) and will continue to do so. Malaparte's writing and point of view (I hesitate to say conclusions; the prose seems to speed along too quickly to come to that kind of resting place) is fascinating and gripping. Mostly what I keep noticing (and this ties in in some way, I suppose, with Malaparte's gender and sexual references) is how Hitler resembles a high-fashion model in all of the photos. I'm not sure what that means, but the fashion model's talent is mysterious and unfakeable.ACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-21288248006923306292010-11-04T11:47:05.356-07:002010-11-04T11:47:05.356-07:00There is also a chapter on Mussolini in this book,...There is also a chapter on Mussolini in this book, and it does not go easier on Mussolini than this chapter does on Hitler. It is therefore hardly a matter of surprise that shortly after the publication of the book, Malaparte began a period of six years in prison and internal exile.<br /><br />Malaparte, who was a journalist, had lately returned from assignment in Germany. In this chapter from his book he presents a fascinating class-analysis of Hitler's rise to power, including some information he had picked up from German officers, who seem to have been rather surprisingly open about their leader. (With Malaparte one cannot ever quite tell where the actual candor and the fictional candor leave off or begin.) <br /><br />"The extremists of his party are not wrong in judging Hitler as a false rebel, an opportunist, a “man-of-law” who thinks he can make a revolution with speeches, military parades and parliamentary threats and blackmail. Since his brilliant political victory when about a hundred members of his party were elected to the Reichstag, an opposition has developed in the very core of the party which rejects Hitler’s opportunist tactics, and is more and more definitely in favor of active insurrection as a solution to the problem of conquering the State. Hitler is accused of being insufficiently courageous to face the consequences of revolutionary tactics and of being afraid of revolution. A captain of shock-troops told me in Berlin that Hitler was a Julius Caesar who could not swim, and stood on the shores of a Rubicon that was too deep to ford."<br /><br />In any case, should there be curiosity as to what happened next in Malaparte's survey-from-within of the events at dark cores of European dictatorships and totalitarian empires, some of that story can found, in his words, in the following: <br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/curzio-malaparte-aeolian-greyhound.html" rel="nofollow">Curzio Malaparte: An Aeolian Greyhound</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/curzio-malaparte-rose-from-executioner.html" rel="nofollow">Curzio Malaparte: A Rose from the Executioner</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/curzio-malaparte-dis-infernal-city.html" rel="nofollow">Curzio Malaparte: Dis, the Infernal City</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/curzio-malaparte-girls-in-wheatfields.html" rel="nofollow">Curzio Malaparte: Girls in the Wheatfields, Romania, 1941</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/curzio-malaparte-high-tide-ukraine-1942.html" rel="nofollow">Curzio Malaparte: High Tide: Ukraine, 1942</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/curzio-malaparte-naked-men.html" rel="nofollow">Curzio Malaparte: Naked Men</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/curzio-malaparte-smell-of-scorched-iron.html" rel="nofollow">Curzio Malaparte: The Smell of Scorched Iron: Ukraine, Summer 1941</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com