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Showing posts with the label Franny Moyle

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...

Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites by Franny Moyle

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This book came into my hands as a direct link to the Poldark series. I was looking at youtube and found this BBC drama from 2009 via Aidan Turner (Ross in Poldark). It is about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, their lives and deeds in 19th century England. I had never heard about this group, but as is usual, once you hear about something it pops up everywhere. I downloaded the book and found a fantastic, real life story of passion, love, fanatism and a quest for the perfect painting. The group consisted of seven English painters, poets and critics who formed the initial "brotherhood", and the aim was to reform the art. They did not agree with the teachings of academic art at the time, and wanted to go back to older ways of painting, where much more detail was shown, the colours were more intense and more complex compositions from the Quattrocento Italian art.