Back to Gotthelf! I have already mentioned that I re-read Gotthelf's novella about the five young women who were ruined by drink. Last week I also re-read the second of his two early novellas tackling the problem of rural alcoholism, Dursli, der Brannteweinsäufer, oder Das heilige Weihnachtsabend ( Dursli the Brandy Drinker, or The Holy Christmas Eve ). This story also warns against the pubs springing up all over the Emmentaler countryside and their consequences for the rural poor. But it is also--even more than I had remembered, in fact--set in the broader political context of the times. Gotthelf begins the novella, in fact, before he ever even introduces the main characters, with about a 10-page discourse on the problematic reception in Switzerland of the ideas of the French Revolution. Its call for equality and freedom, he says, is naturally interpreted by the poorer classes not in terms of true Christian equality and freedom, but rather as a ...
Random Musings on Culture, Morality, and Politics, from a college emptied of its students

The more enduring question is this: Is it black tea or green tea? 🤔☕
ReplyDelete(Assuming black tea???)
Correct! Black tea it is.
ReplyDeleteI am going to be honest, I thought you were drinking coffee the whole time. In fact, this maybe the first time I've witnessed a professor drinking coffee in the morning (I don't remember well who else drink tea when I was a Freshman or Sophomore).
ReplyDeleteThere is a first time for everything!
ReplyDelete