23 Comments
User's avatar
Benjamin Yeoh's avatar

We were at school together!

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Henry Oliver's avatar

My “Ben knows literally everyone” hypothesis confirmed again haha

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Benjamin Yeoh's avatar

Ha. I like to think we have good taste, and tend to bump into one another!

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Victoria's avatar

Ha yes! Hello Ben. Funnily enough I just had an email from Dora a few minutes ago.

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Benjamin Yeoh's avatar

Haven't been I touch with Dora for a while. Will send here a message. (email me - I messaged your substack a while ago - how is Paris and life etc. - nice podcast!) Let's catch up.

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Victoria's avatar

Oh dear! Sorry if I didn't reply. It took me a while to notice the messaging feature on substack so some early ones got lost, and for comments the notifications are not always reliable I find. (Something they should try and sort out actually.) Would love to know what you are up to.

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laura thompson's avatar

Completely brilliant but I'd have been AMAZED if it hadn't been! Get well Henry - thanks to you and Victoria...

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Henry Oliver's avatar

Thanks :)

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Ancci's avatar

This is a really interesting conversation, Henry. Love it to bits.

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Henry Oliver's avatar

I felt the same. Such breadth of knowledge!

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Ancci's avatar

Such breadth indeed. Wow.

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Colin B Gallagher's avatar

great stuff man

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Henry Oliver's avatar

yeah I thought Victoria was splendid

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Metrical Poet's avatar

Thank you for having Victoria on. I’ve enjoyed her essays at Horace & Friends for some time, before venturing properly into Substack. It was interesting to hear her answers and also good to have some names of unfamiliar poets to follow up on.

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Martin Hayden's avatar

Was there a recommendation of an anthology of religious verse there somewhere? I had a little trouble keeping up! Would be very grateful for details..

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Victoria's avatar

Hello Martin. I think I mentioned Donald Davie, "The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse". That's just Christian poetry, obviously, but I think it's the best anthology of religious verse I've read. Very different, but I also quite like the one Rowan Williams did recently, with his own brief intros to each poem. The explanations for his choices are interesting.

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Martin Hayden's avatar

Thanks!

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Jamie Warner-Lynn's avatar

Okay. Why did you choose that particular translation?

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Henry Oliver's avatar

It was available at the library and i liked it — I had waited for the new one having read that SM wasn’t so good but it’s it just splendid

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Jamie Warner-Lynn's avatar

Henry, did you read Proust in translation? If so, which one?

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Henry Oliver's avatar

I am reading Scott moncrieff

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Henry Oliver's avatar

I should say I think this translation is a sublime piece of work, and that Proust translates into English very well, perhaps because of how seriously he read Ruskin, but I know a lot of people dislike Scott Moncrieff

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Victoria's avatar

I read a fascinating essay somewhere a few months ago comparing all the English translations. I’ll try to remember where I saw it.

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