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The real difficulty in watching the film version of An Education is working out why the film makers added so much anti-Semitism to the original memoir which is available in now in a book of that name. It has no anti-Semitism.
The talk with the headmistress re-affirms David's nature. “Jews killed our Lord” and are therefore evil. The audience waits for this “truth” to be undercut but it is affirmed at the climax. David is from those who killed our Lord—the symbol of goodness who came to save us. He is the betrayer, the Judas.

We don't know if any of the other characters are Methodist, Anglican, Protestant, atheist, etc. and wouldn't know unless that was chosen to be highlighted. His use of "shwartzeh" for black, rather than just saying "blacks" or "negroes" (considering the time), seems as if they are making it more of a slur.

His Jewishness was emphasised throughout the entire film—from his comment at the beginning and then many more times throughout in case one kept missing it. Jenny is redeemed at the end by going to Oxford and, of course, the headmistress is then shown to be right.

Jews are, as a voting bloc, ultra-liberal and sympathize with socialism. They are intelligent and successful but are they, as a group, dishonest and corrupting? This film gives that impression.

David is the only Jewish character in the film and it is part of his self-image. There are no external signs of Jewishness-- no kippah, no ethnic look or clothing so, if one didn't know—if he or someone else in the film wasn't continually pointing it out, he would be a character like the others rather than the embodiment of an ethnicity. He is a corrupter of innocence; a fraud, a thief, a liar, a scammer. He is a child abandoner. He has done this before, according to the abandoned wife with child beside her, who is now jaded. He has impregnated other innocent British girls. He lowers property values and ruins society. He steals from innocent vulnerable people and takes the treasures of the culture for himself like the stereotypical money-grubbing Jew.

There is a purposeful link made between the Jew and evil and corruption. It is purposeful because they produced it that way. It is not fair to say, well, the fellow in re

This is exciting - whatever the reservations some of us have about lists of this sort, it's a fantastic means of bringing Spanish-language writing to a wider audience. It would be even more exciting if a future edition included writers working in other languages of the Hispanic world!

This is a wonderful example of literary realism. I have been to Pakistan during the Indira Gandhi-Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto 'honeymoon' politics, that was in the eighties, and in reading the present essay and that sad piece of poetry, I am convinced that things have not changed across the border, and let me assure my Pakistani friends that it is ditto in good old India as well, or, is that Hindustan?!

Le chant des feuilles désolées.

Le calme de
la première
nostalgie m'appelle,
quand le son
de la neige
encore disparaît;
cette image
invente un triste
profil, le chant
du soleil dans
la voix de la
mer....

Francesco Sinibaldi

I think the photo is nice.

Touch of harmony.

With white
colours recalling
sounds and a
sweet sensibility
you touch my
desire, the inner
relief and a
delicate sadness
that covers
the sun.

Francesco Sinibaldi

Very refreshing article.

♥

A spare, fine translation by Aatish Taseer that communicates not just the humour, satire and melancholy of the original, but the tone as well.

Excuse typo in my previous comment, I meant Bina Shah

The lack of electricity and other things in our city and country is producing incandescent work from its writers and artists. A huge bravo to Hina Shah, Mohsin Hamid,Daniyal Mueenuddin, Kamila Shamsie, Bani Abidi, Rashid Rana etc., and to the formerly unacknowledged folk artists who have always painted, embroidered etc. in darkness in such vivid colors. I'm a Karachi escapee living in the dull, organised world outside (Washington DC in my case) and am grateful for working electricity, plumbing and law enforcement but nothing spectacular hits my senses as it did in Pakistan whenever I emerge from my cocoon.

"I’m convinced that if you were to look at Karachi from a great height, say a plane thirty thousand feet in the air, or even a satellite, you would see miles and miles of darkness, and then suddenly a well-lit city, black in some places." As an Indian living in New York that's, in fact, the only view of Karachi I have whenever I fly to India; the plane almost always overflies Karachi. Nice article

A wonderful translation of the master of short story in Urdu literature,Saddat Hussain Manto.Manto has the power to capture the worst in the best form of language.Hats off!

Brilliant,Saadat is one of the finest in his trade.I loved the story,satire at its best.Aatish's translation is equally good.

I want to point out a simple printing mistake.I think,Himmat Khan is printed as Himmat Singh at few places in the story..

A place to be seen...

In a promise
there's the
light that
always remains
like a delicate
leaf in the
dark of a forest,
and there, in
your eyes, I
see beautiful
skies and a tender
relief.

Francesco Sinibaldi

En el abismo.

El sonido del
universo aparece
constante, cuando
el canto del
sol me llama
dichoso: siento
el fervor pasar
suavemente
donde muere
la noche regalando
el amor....

Francesco Sinibaldi

I think those divisions are passé now, both in literature and film, and I would like to change those prejudices.
Most people do believe that Ozu is more Japanese-oriented, but in my opinion, his films are not thrilling because they are concerned with Japanese psyche, but because they are simply good cinema, subject matter aside.
Similarly, you can extract some kind of Japanese-ness from Jyunichiro Tanizaki’s work, but more importantly, his work is exquisite.

I love 'Eight-legged Freaks' so much. Just read it aloud to my mother.

The current thought.

To live in
the country
appears in my
mind like a
delicate thought
near a narrow
profile: there's
a light in the
meadow, and
a luminous care...

Francesco Sinibaldi

I also created an account in order to leave a comment.

I am still in tears over this piece. As a writer it is rare that I find work that I like immediately. Wait, first let me say thank you for writing this piece. Your story spoke to me on so many levels.

Haven't had a good cry like this in a while. I immediately took on the role of the author. There is so much life in this story. I don't want to use words to express how powerful my experience was so I will stop here. Thank you

A lovely piece of writing infused with a love of the people and the memories and a way of life now long gone.

As a one-time cabinet maker - in other words not a real one - this brought back all the memories of the wood and the smells and the mess, oh yes, the mess. And I thought it was just our workshop!

Douceur.

Marcher avec
toi est le
tendre cadeu
qui rappelle,
dans le son
du soleil, le
naturel chant
et la docile
doctrine.

Francesco Sinibaldi

I keep up hope that Bowie will record a new album, though it is a small hope at best.

This story is heat lightning for my heart. Thank you.