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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 15, 2006 10:11:54 GMT -6
Childish, name-calling tantrum to fawning obsequity in record time. Typical. Still, I suspect you misread her civility for praise, which speaks again to misreading. Unlike me, she doesn't review books she hasn't read. We'll wait for reviews from people who've 1.) read it, and 2.) are objective and neither shills nor publicists. Or, we'll see how your Manutius handles it.
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Post by weir on Jul 15, 2006 14:23:36 GMT -6
Where did you read I had any interest in a review of the book or in your point of view ?
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 15, 2006 16:17:58 GMT -6
Never read it, wouldn't matter if I had as I don't claim it. I trust IP numbers in the stats to my site, though. Hard to argue with those, isn't it?
We'll wait for the reviews.
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jul 15, 2006 21:14:45 GMT -6
West, we only have two members who live in France, and our Canadian members are all Anglophones. I don't think we'll help the book sales very much.
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Post by armand on Jul 16, 2006 5:15:36 GMT -6
Hello everybody, As an expatriate American who lives and teaches in France, I could venture a review of the new book. On the lighter side, I just published (in French) a detective novel about an erstwhile Pinkerton detective and LBH survivor who is sent to Paris in 1904 to find a very Frenchified Sioux brave (yes, he's even an opera fan),formerly from B.Bill's show, who has been abducted by a group of thugs. Naturally, the key to the mystery dates back to the battle, with cameo performances by Keogh, Rudio, and a fictional Dr Moriarty-style mastermind who left the Seventh after loosing too many card games to the Custer boys (reminds you of anybody?). There are also references to Teddy Roosevelt's rancher days and his rivalry with the French aristocrat and rabble-rouser De Morès. Those with fond memories of Alice Roosevelt-Longworth will also be contented (I hope). Any aditional impressions - good or bad - I'll leave to a very special person here who's received his own special copy!
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 16, 2006 8:11:30 GMT -6
Be still my heart. Exclamation points and a "special person." All under the fireglow of Thoughts of Libby.
It's DeRudio. There is a difference between "lose" and "loose." Aspinwall makes a lousy Moriarty, given his father bailed him out. At least, that's the one guy we know who got taken by the clique at cards. He 'reminds.' He reminds.
Fortunately, all in French. A treasure forever locked to me.
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Post by armand on Jul 16, 2006 12:48:42 GMT -6
Well I'll be durned! So I did let loose instead of simply losing. But I'm adamant about Rudio: there are several spellings to be found, and if we wish to be polite to him, it should be De Rudio, in fact. But he was also called "Old Rudy". About the Aspinwall connection, actually I was wondering, purely in terms of fiction,how a nice guy, popular but hardly tough enough to withstand the rigors of campaigning and the malevolence of the clique (as you call them) could harden with the years and end up as a sort of warped genius. Apart from that, I made out my character to be a former buddy of Keogh's during the Italian campaigns. But 'nuff about it.
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 17, 2006 0:21:36 GMT -6
Not quite 'nuff. Could you give us the title? Sounds like fun reading to me.
(And no, I'm not claiming I can read French particularly well myself ...)
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Post by armand on Jul 17, 2006 1:09:47 GMT -6
Thanks for your interest. The title is Le Sioux des Grands Boulevards: "Boulevards" in the title refer to the Opera area in Paris that was very fashionable in the nineteenth century. My detective is a former cavalryman and Pinkerton agent who once lived in Paris as a teenager when his dad, a Confederate colonel, left New Orleans to escape the Yanks. As for the Sioux brave, he works as a riding instructor while living the life of a Montmartre Bohemian. Central to all this is the Keogh connection (remember his fancy Papal medals?) via De Rudio, since they both fought in the Italian wars, albeit on opposing sides. I never got to read Welch's last novel on Charging Elk, but I did discover that Parisians were wild about anything Western at the time through dime novels and newspaper "feuilletons", to the extent that the bad boys of the Paris underworld were nicknamed "Apaches". I'm working on the sequel right now, and it should be published in the winter.
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 17, 2006 1:25:50 GMT -6
Sounds great! Thanks. With the Keogh connection, I can't resist this ...
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Post by weir on Jul 23, 2006 12:23:18 GMT -6
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 23, 2006 12:46:25 GMT -6
Nice, West. That'd make me order it, if I hadn't already done so! Sounds as if it's got everything.
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Post by weir on Jul 23, 2006 12:51:05 GMT -6
what's great with this novel is that "armand" really got the spirit of the times... It sounds like the author was alive in 1904 !
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Post by Tricia on Jul 23, 2006 13:41:02 GMT -6
I also have Armand's book and with my French, it'll be sloooow going! But I have always been impressed by his sensitivity when dealing with such a cantankerous subject as Custer and that he's not afraid to think beyond Saint Autie depictions ...
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Post by armand on Jul 25, 2006 4:08:27 GMT -6
Thanks to all for your kind words: I'll try to buckle down this summer and dash off a version of my tale in English. I've just read David's book on LBH in French and will try to give you a summary and evaluation over the next few days. To produce such a hefty and readable piece of research at such a young age, is, well, pretty Autie-like come to think of it. Which also means spirit and a willingness to take on various villains in the story-you can all guess who-with as much flare as GAC wasting the Belknap crowd. Here are my first impressions. Very pleasant to read: David's reliance on NA accounts and frequent use of actual phrases and sentences in Lakota, along with the usual comments, descriptions and accounts by soldiers gives the reader an uncanny familiarity with all the characters. Without going into details, his pitch is as follows: - The NA were not as numerous as has often been said: 1500 warriors at the most. Thus GAC's battle plan was sound, especially since he caught the village by surprise. - There was no panic nor rout except at Reno's flight to the ridge. The annihilation of Custer's command was protracted and bloody business, and had R. and B. followed orders, the battle would have been won. - From Weir Point what the officers saw was not the final moments of the struggle, but the battle in progress, which left them time to come to the rescue if Reno and Benteen had wished to do so. - NA casualties were far higher than has often been written (estimated at 190k and 200w). -To conclude, David sets the blame squarely on Reno (drunk all along) and Benteen (voluntarily slow and refusing to follow orders). More about this later.... Oh, and by the way, I WAS around in 1904: remember: "There can only be one..."
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