a moody and thoughtful novel about the pressures and problems two young men face after World War II. the deliberate pace, rigorous honesty, and atmospa moody and thoughtful novel about the pressures and problems two young men face after World War II. the deliberate pace, rigorous honesty, and atmospheric prose are all laudable, but it is unlikely that most modern readers - outside of Paul Scott completists like myself - will find much of interest in this book.
but you're not like "most modern readers", are you?? you're better than that. embrace your inner special snowflake and read this poor unsung book! or don't. *shrug*
I walked towards Sloane Street and thought of a child; something substantial, something definite to look forward to: a male child, a projection of yourself in flesh into a future you would not otherwise know.
perhaps not the most admirable of reasons to have a child, eh?
I read for entertainment, for pleasure, rarely for edification. different books bring different pleasures to me. specifically, three sorts of pleasures. a book with a strong, tight, sharp narrative, a narrative like a trap, will hold me captive and I'll think of nothing else but the story of the book. a looser book, say one with a wide sweep and/or a lot of fascinating speculation and/or a world that is being carefully built, will often give me the space to inspire my own book-making: I will think of what it would be like to live in that world, who else would live there, how it would feel; I will think of similar worlds and populate that world with my own ideas, inspired by the book I'm reading. the third sort of pleasure - and I'm not sure if "pleasure" is even the correct word - arises with books whose strongest traits are their interiority, in particular around characterization, and their resonance, mainly due to the book's themes and my connection to those themes. these books force engagement with my own life, and the people who are or who have been in it.
A Male Child provides "pleasure" of the third variety. when contemplating sickly, too-thoughtful Ian Canning, his hesitancy and his questioning of life and his lack of affect, I often thought of myself and my own experiences: of the barriers I've created between me and others, of the frequent futility of "trying to do the right thing" and of truly understanding other people, as well as the quiet, sometimes lonely satisfaction that trying to live the life you want to live can bring. when reading about his friend Alan, an equally kind man who is everything Ian is not (and vice versa) - physically robust, a guy's guy, just about the opposite of an intellectual - I thought of my fraternity years and the surprise I'd feel when realizing a guy I had pegged as nothing more than a simple-minded, horny jock, was not just those things but also a genuinely good person; and the resulting realization that one doesn't have to be thoughtful or clever to be decent or kind. a no-brainer now, many years older, but not so much when I was young and thought I understood everything about everyone.
when reading about Alan's mother, the fascinating monster Mrs. Hurst, and Alan's attempt to be a supportive son to her despite all of her malevolence, I thought of my neighbors: the eccentric older lady and her teen son, the image of them 15 years ago when I first met them, and then what they've become today: an alcoholic old woman disabled physically and mentally yet capable of whining, screaming fits of rage, self-pity, and petty meanness; a no longer young man who has let himself remain captive for those 15 years, looking after her carefully, bathing her, measuring her drinks, the most common word I hear from him: "Patience." it's a heartbreaker; at times I close my window to avoid hearing their voices. and lastly, when letting the theme of A Male Child resonate with me, when considering that theme carefully, I saw myself in Ian again: a character who sees the stories surrounding him, curious as to how those stories began and how they will finish, sometimes fascinated by the narratives, other times bored, or appalled; a person who sees the world and the people in it at a certain remove: characters in the book of life, a world viewed as a novel is read. one can live in that novel alongside those characters, feeling their emotions, and then shut the book, close the window, separate and ensconced. they are just characters after all. distance can be maintained; the world can be safely enclosed; the reader can remain protected - and apart....more
Imagine Holden Caulfield. All of the angst, all of the questioning of society's bullshit, all of the contempt, insecurity, honesty, and occasional kinImagine Holden Caulfield. All of the angst, all of the questioning of society's bullshit, all of the contempt, insecurity, honesty, and occasional kindness. Now imagine that he came from a far worse home, one where his PTSD-driven father torments and beats him while his mother turns away. Imagine Holden getting bigger, stronger, turning the tables on the father to torment and beat him in turn; imagine Holden turning into a monster. He kills a man "in a fog of despair" (thanks, book synopsis). This Holden sees red when he encounters fakeness and hypocrisy; he flies into a murderous rage, laying waste to innocent and guilty alike. He goes to jail. This Holden yearns to not just escape the hypocrisy of society, he yearns to escape the literal bars enclosing him; he tries and tries again. This Holden becomes a predator, a manipulator, a person to be feared, a survivor. This Holden clings to another man, to remind him that decency still exists, that warmth between two humans can survive it all, that escape is possible. Poor Holden Caulfield Kirk Whelan! He is destined for disappointment.
Frank Hilaire apparently wrote this while he was serving time. If my digging online can be trusted, he's out now and has perhaps been out for a while. He lives south of the border. He's still writing. God bless the guy.
The book is intense, to say the least. Hilaire writes in an emotionally escalated style and Kirk Whelan is capable of surprisingly poetic trains of thought. At times there is a certain self-indulgence to the writing, a pretension to the prose, a hackneyed quality to Kirk's questioning of moral standards. But that's often the case when the young are aged before their time and begin lashing back at the ways of the world. Portentousness is a part of the package. And so Kirk is a nihilist, a smart and uncompromising one. The reader roots for him while nervously awaiting his next bleak smile, condescending put-down, or worst of all, his red haze when he just wants to smash, pulp, and kill. Fellow prisoners must be careful what they say around him; he has the brawn, brains, and vindictiveness to hurt them in all sorts of ways. But no matter: the reader roots for Kirk still. Watching Kirk's friendship develop with the pretty, kindly, very queer Leslie is incredibly endearing. Kirk's words are insensitive; the reader, much like Leslie, must put up with a hell of a lot of "stupid fag" and "little fruit" type comments. That's the way Kirk talks when mad, sad, glad, or just relaxing with his best friend. And later, his lover. Kirk himself is not queer. But prison will make of you what it will. The reader sees this relationship develop and roots for them, for tenderness and a place free of bars, for an escape to something better. The reader is destined for disappointment....more
(1) This is a story about a man, his two daughters, his drive on an interstate freeway, and a random drive-by shooting that leaves his youngest daught(1) This is a story about a man, his two daughters, his drive on an interstate freeway, and a random drive-by shooting that leaves his youngest daughter dead. Maybe.
(2) This story is told in eight versions. In most of the versions, the youngest daughter is slain. In one version, it is the older daughter. In another, both live.
(3) Stephen Dixon channels the modernist tradition in this work. Each chapter is a plunge into the deep streams of consciousness of the narrator, the father. The prose can be extremely challenging. This is not a book that relaxes; the reader must be fully engaged and must be able to absorb a lot of information and must be very patient. Or at least be able to adjust to the flow, to swim in its fast currents. This intense writing can be very exciting. It can also be incredibly tedious.
(4) The first story is phenomenal. Incredibly moving and incredibly sorrowful. The prose entranced me, so much that I dismissed any issues I may have had as minor and trifling. I was in awe at what Dixon accomplished. The realism of the emotional palette on display. The terror then alienation then rage of the father. The horror at such a meaningless death. The sadness of a life - the father's - that itself becomes meaningless due to the rash decisions he makes and the lack of caring eventually shown to him by his adult daughter; the sad reality illustrated of how people cut other people out of their lives. I cried at the end over the awful loneliness of the man, at his neediness that goes ignored.
(5) The so-called reality of this review is that I am writing it in-between working on work emails, emails where I have to use a more formal style depending on who I'm writing to, or emails with at times excruciatingly finite details that feel meaningless but are important to the person I'm emailing, ugh, and I just finished an email to a person who is now at a very high level of government and I have to sort of kiss his ass because I want him to speak to a council that I represent and I can't help but remember that the last time we met, when he was in another position, years ago, he literally lied to my face, but I will try to forget about that, but what I can't forget is that one of my favorite staff led sort of an insurrection of community providers against this guy's decision, Karl was the name of my staff, I really enjoyed that guy, I personally hired him, and then I changed positions and then the bitch who replaced me demoted him, actually put someone that Karl hired in a position to be Karl's supervisor, and then Karl of course left my agency because no one should be treated like that, he left and we tried to stay in touch, we tried we really tried, I would think of books and tv shows and actors he liked and I'd remember Oh Karl! I'm going to call him now! but I rarely did, and then he went and died, all alone in his apartment, the police had to break in his door after this agency reported that he hadn't appeared for a couple days, and there he was dead, alone, and why was he alone and why did it take two days and why didn't I stay in better contact with him, he was my friend and I loved him, why did the end have to happen that way and why did he have to be alone that way and why does anyone have to die alone and why and why and why and I'm crying and I don't know why.
(6) Unfortunately those issues that I had dismissed in the first story came to dominate my experience of all the subsequent stories. Namely: the stream of consciousness began to feel too stylized. Perhaps even stilted. I began to think to myself: but people don't actually think this way, do they? Of course that is a very subjective, perhaps myopic perspective. But I began to be annoyed. That annoyance became distancing. I began to dread reading the book. Inevitably, not only did the thought process of the narrator begin to sound irritatingly artificial, but the way the children talked as well. Kids don't talk like that was a constant thought. And then: police don't talk like that, doctors don't talk like that... people don't talk like that. Etc. I don't yearn for realism in my fiction, but the artificiality began to get in the way of my empathizing with the narrator and was a block in my connecting to the book's themes. Interstate began to lose resonance for me; by the end of the novel, I was relieved that the experience was finally over.
(7) That said, there was still parts that I found fascinating to contemplate in stories 2 through 8. Particularly within the last two stories. A treatise on the evolution of violence, on a personal level, from the shove or smack of a father to a daughter, to road rage, to the simple randomness of violence occurring anywhere, everywhere. A portrait of the depth of love a father can have for his children. The basic stream of consciousness inherent in living your life, filled with small moments and memories, love and sex and chores and food and fantasies and idle thoughts and thinking of what happened then while ignoring what is happening now.
(8) Story 1: a qualified 5 stars Stories 2-6: 1-2 stars Stories 7 & 8: 3 stars...more
Synopsis: a portrait of an upper class extended family and their circle, immediately before, during, and some 50 years after World War II; portrayedSynopsis: a portrait of an upper class extended family and their circle, immediately before, during, and some 50 years after World War II; portrayed with little pity but a good amount of compassion and dollops of tragedy and humor.
Mary Wesley tells not shows, and that's perfectly fine. She was 72 when she wrote this and she could damn well do as she pleased at that age!
The telling rather than showing is ideal for this story. This is a book about remembrance, about a handful of characters recalling their lives during an incredible period. Recollections come and go; exciting times of the past are relayed in the present tense with little ado, quickly followed by musings in the actual present about those terribly exciting days, by characters older and usually wiser. This back and forth between many different time periods and many different characters made for a dynamic experience that encapsulates and literalizes what this novel is about: memories of a defining time. The book was hard to put down but also such a richly human experience that I wanted to draw out my reading of it.
Many other things to admire:
- The strength of the women and the frankness when it comes to their sexuality. I particularly enjoyed reading about the ménage à trois (with twin airmen!) that starts out on the down-low but lasts so long that the fact that it is a genuine, loving relationship is eventually just accepted by everyone.
- An empathetic but never gooey understanding of how emotion drives so much decision making. And how that's not a bad thing. The sole negatively-depicted character (everyone else is in shades of grey) is defined by his lack of emotion and emotional connections. Fortunately we spend very little time with him.
- The steely exteriors masking those deep wells of emotion; I suppose this is that fabled "stiff upper lip" of the British. It was endearing seeing the many forms this stiff upper lip took. It also made for a particularly moving realization that one character is indeed deeply in love with another, despite everything she says and does.
- For me, one of the best depictions of the homefront during wartime era UK since watching the film Hope and Glory. Here's a great quote from the author describing herself during that war:
"too many lovers, too much to drink... I was on my way to become a very nasty person"
I'm glad Mary got a hold of herself!
- The incredible character of Max: a quirky, intense musician and Jewish refugee and father fearful for his son (trapped in a concentration camp) and married man in an open marriage (before there was even such a term) and a kindly lothario who gets up the skirt of nearly every female character in the book. His is one of the few perspectives that we don't really enter: he is mainly seen through the eyes of everyone else. He is lifeblood personified. And such a scamp!
- A maybe-happy-ending-after-all for two characters in their 50s and 60s that is so minor note and true that it skirts easy sentiment and became the perfect ending for me.
Reading The Camomile Lawn was like slowly going through an old photo album, being able to plunge into a picture and live that scene, then withdrawing out of it, contemplating it. And then turning the page....more
Ugh, argh! I tried, I really tried. Stopped halfway through when I remembered I wasn't going to live forever, unlike poor Melmoth.
The author's wonderfUgh, argh! I tried, I really tried. Stopped halfway through when I remembered I wasn't going to live forever, unlike poor Melmoth.
The author's wonderful prior book, The Essex Serpent, was one of my recent favorites. I was prepared to love this one. Certainly the writing remains quite beautiful; Sarah Perry has talent to burn. And burn it up she does.
First complaint, the lesser one, is that the title character in question held very little interest, and wasn't remotely intimidating or fearful or awe-inspiring. Perry is a fabulous writer, but one gap in her array of formidable skills is any ability to create an atmosphere of smoldering horror. I can't put my finger on the reason for the lack, but I'm not sure I need to. The basic fact of the matter, for me at least, is that dread was missing. And frisson. It didn't help that the entity in question - poor, weepy, immortal Melmoth - is a bit schizophrenic. Is she haunting anyone who despairs, or just those people whose apathy and complacency have led them to a self-flagellating despair? I dunno.
Second complaint, the major one, is regarding the author's inexplicable decision to provide a cast of characters who are specifically defined by their incredible drabness. She really outdid herself in illustrating these awfully blah characters and their blah lives. If not blah, then toxic. Sometimes both at the same time. If not blah and/or toxic, then pitiful. In all cases, uninteresting. And so a book about completely uninteresting people ended up... completely uninteresting? No surprise there, I guess. The book was a chore to read. Maybe it gets better, but I'll never know. Perry fills her novel with charming, often gorgeous prose, and a narrator who sounds like they are recounting a fairy tale. To what end though? It was like getting served a bowl of gruel with a delicate chocolate sauce ladled on top. The inspired prose actually served to make the book even more intolerable.
Because I loved The Essex Serpent so much, I decided to remind myself of how insightful a writer she can be when writing about things that are interesting, or that she makes interesting. For example, this award-winning travel piece:
She visits the Philippines, the land of my birth. She does no disservice to the people or place. I know the people she describes and they are in that piece, as alive there as they are in my life. An excellent and moving article....more
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle basically states that "nothing final can be known about anything". This principle allows both hope and ruin to be cHeisenberg's uncertainty principle basically states that "nothing final can be known about anything". This principle allows both hope and ruin to be constant variables. This principle certainly rules over this book as well, and all of its characters, all of their fates.
This is a strange, often comic, often eerie story of a small group of rich guests in a hotel on an island off of the coast of Spain. We have our hostess, a voluble lady rich in anecdotes and affection, and her friends who despise each other - an uptight, virginal professor and an uptight, virginal schoolteacher. We have an intensely masculine painter and an intensely feminine actress. We have a pleasant pair of newlyweds, deeply in love and deep into making love; one of them a psychoanalyst not particularly interested in psychoanalyzing his fellow guests, but often put to work. And we have a Countess and her charge, a woman of much lived experience and unknown depths, and a lad of brief but dark life experience with the face of an angel. Together they all dance: a dance of life, death, sex, and dreams. All's well that ends well? Think again. This is less of a dance and more of a mean game of musical chairs. An absurd game, and a deadly one.
The flower called the valdepeñas blooms only once in seven years. It resembles vulva and penis. It a beautiful flower, and an obscene one, to some. It does not exist.
The fly called the geistata buzzes and stings only two weeks a year. The rest of the time it lives in a closed hive, one hard as concrete and impossible to open. It does not exist.
Richard Lortz was a playwright and his skills shine through: most of the novel is dialogue. And what dialogue! It spins off of the page, these glorious sentences dancing a lively dance, the asides and stories and retorts sounding simultaneously real and artificial, much like the guests themselves. Lortz's background as a playwright also informs how the dialogue is a commentary on the themes of the novel itself. And not in a too-clever meta way, but with a subtlety and finesse that made me stop and realize, many times, that what I was reading in these conversations was both the discussion of the topic at hand, and a discussion of the characters themselves, how they live and how they view the world, what they connect to and how they define themselves, their obsessions and what they consider truly meaningful. Seeing all of the layers was entrancing.
The book was first issued under the title "A Summer in Spain" and given a hilariously inappropriate cover image, complete with a hilariously incorrect summary of the story on that cover. I smile at the thought of readers led astray, first into a shallow, refreshing pool full of quirks, and then, finally, into unexpectedly deep and chill waters.
The Valdepeñas is a fascinating novel. Easy to read; challenging to contemplate. The last chapters in the book's fifth part (the book has six sections) have a haunting and hallucinatory twilight horror to them, one quite different in tone from the champagne sparkles and blazing sunlight of what preceded. And that last part, that ending! I've rarely seen tragedy delivered with such warmth, serenity, sadness, and absurdity....more
- and the impression is given of a monumental but neglected folly, built by a sequence of playful potentates for their own amusement down the centurie- and the impression is given of a monumental but neglected folly, built by a sequence of playful potentates for their own amusement down the centuries.
travel writer Jan Morris composes a requiem for all of her favorite places and cultures, casting them in the imaginary setting of "Hav" - a country similar to Turkey in style and to the cities of Istanbul and pre-civil war Beirut in its cosmopolitan juggling of cultures. the result is a beautifully written and melancholy trifle. the mournful tone comes from the notion that Hav is a country in sleepy decline, of course, but also from Morris herself, rueing the cultural erosion of such places by inevitable change agents. there is a mystery in the book: what exactly is about to happen to Hav that will change it utterly - and terribly? and why? it is a compelling mystery to wonder over; fortunately, Morris leaves many clues hidden throughout her concoction. overall this is a minor but still intriguing work. I was at first surprised at what I saw to be a central weakness: Hav is defined as a crossroads of many cultures - but apparently has no specific identity of its own. this seemed like such a strange oversight; even places like Malta that have experienced a succession of cultural influences from a range of countries still have their own unique identities. fortunately, Morris recovers - somewhat - from this lapse in creativity when she finally visits the troglodytic "Kretev", a curious race of Havian aboriginals who appear to be descended from ancient Celts, are the sole proprietors of fabled "snow raspberries", and house the endangered Hav bear within their network of caves and caverns. they are a fascinating creation; I could have read a whole book about them!...more
Alack and alas, another example of evanesence: William Sansom: banker, firefighter, writer of short stories... buried and forgotten. He mused on the,Alack and alas, another example of evanesence: William Sansom: banker, firefighter, writer of short stories... buried and forgotten. He mused on the, er, evanescent qualities of love and identity, and on the hustle & bustle and dread & paranoia of the modern world. Today his career as a writer is mainly remembered - if remembered at all - through the regular inclusion of a couple of his more well-known stories in various horror anthologies, including The Weird.
The Passionate North, first published in 1950, is actually not a work of horror; it is concerned almost solely with love. (And Evansecence, of course. Also that's a great band.)
The writing is gorgeous. Sansom's narratives have been considered Kafkaesque but I did not see much of that here. Instead are mournful tales of fleeting love and untimely death, snapshots of everyday life filled with irony and just a smidgen of tenderness, people crossing paths and recrossing them years later. The title is perfect: all of these stories take place in the northern haunts of Scandinavia or Scotland; the wintry and often bleak atmospheres are wonderfully evoked and serve as striking parallels or counterpoints to the various chilled or ardent hearts on display.
Particularly strong is "To Greenland, To Greenland..." in which a sailor leaves his girl for work in Greenland, and she realizes that physical comfort from other men during his absence doesn't actually mean her heart is straying from her one true love. Realism and romanticism, expertly juggled.
The longest story - basically a novella - is "The Death of Baldy". Although not a complete success, this dryly acerbic recounting of all of the factors and all of the characters involved in the titular occurrence was both fascinating and frustrating. An admirable experiment, and the only place where I saw Kafka's shadow.
My favorite story was the first in the collection: "A Wedding". This tale-within-a-tale has a fable-like quality in its description of an eerie wedding in Lapland attended by sinister aristocrats, a perhaps fated death, and the mysterious gentlemen who makes a discomfiting annual visit to the village where he was married. Alas and alack, all love ends in death... or does it? Beautiful and ambiguous, like each of the stories in The Passionate North....more
5 stars for all six of the connected stories from The Leaning Tower. Taken separately, they are each wonderful. "The Source" and "The Old Order" detai5 stars for all six of the connected stories from The Leaning Tower. Taken separately, they are each wonderful. "The Source" and "The Old Order" detail the last years of a strong-willed grandmother, matriarch of her clan, and steerswoman for their fortunes. Moving and often endearing. "The Witness" and "The Last Leaf" portray the waning years of two ex-slaves who served her. Also quite moving and endearing. Porter's ability to navigate and explore the complications of race and former slavery in a way that doesn't ignore how uncomfortable and often awful the topic is while always providing humanity and dignity to her characters was very, very impressive. The later two stories are a needed match to the first two stories, balancing out those tales of a strong and humane former slaveholder with the very separate lives of the idiosyncratic, misanthropic, (forcibly) married couple who have been with her since childhood; without the latter two stories, the lack of balance and the lack of black voices would have felt not just lopsided, but really problematic. The remaining two stories detail key moments in the life of Miranda, granddaughter to the matriarch. "The Circus" and "The Grave" are strange stories, bold and unsettling in their imagery, darkly comic at times, and resonant in surprising (and somewhat unpleasant) ways. Miranda's inexplicable display of hysterical fear while at a circus and her nearly unwilling recognition of a circus performer as a human being felt odd yet also made an odd kind of sense. This story is the first step in Miranda's move towards truly understanding the world around her. And the second step is made in the unnerving second tale (and the last of this cycle), which paints a portrait of Miranda the tomboy, exploring the lands around her with her brother, and having new and disturbing feelings after seeing the dead babies of a mother rabbit shot by her brother. I have never read the likes of either story; they were uniquely affecting experiences.
Taken apart, each story is a marvel of economy, wit, and depth; they say so much, and so distinctly and even eccentrically, and they waste no time saying it. Beautiful prose with resonant themes. But taken together: truly a marvel. A portrait of a certain time and place; a log of an extended family's trials and tribulations; an exploration of multi-faceted and often surprising human nature; and a prologue to the powerful novellas of Miranda as an adult: "Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider"
1-2 stars for the following three stories. I'm not sure what caused such a distinct change in Porter's outlook on life and her views on the human condition in between writing the earlier stories from "Flowering Judas" and the latter stories I've written about above. Something deepening must have happened in that decade or so, because these early stories lack most of the virtues and all of the wisdom of those six stories. The prose is top notch, of course: Porter was an ingenious writer even then. But "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" and "He" and "Magic" lack humanity in their morbid, at times vindictive, often pathetic tales of three deluded, venomous women who add nothing to the lives around them and barely have lives of their own. I just don't dig portraits of monsters. I want shading. If there's cruelty and poison, I also want grace and an antidote.
4 stars for "Old Mortality". I detailed my feelings about this novella in my review for Pale Horse, Pale Rider....more
A beautiful collection of stories. Diverse in tone and varied in subject. Despite the frequent and welcome scent of old school decadence that perfumesA beautiful collection of stories. Diverse in tone and varied in subject. Despite the frequent and welcome scent of old school decadence that perfumes many of these tales, what makes them resonant is Schwob's clear empathy. It is the unifying factor amidst so much that is unalike.
The book and the stories within are well-known for springing from sources other than their author's mind. Schwob often lifted entire sections from the archaic originals. And so they are not original - and yet they feel original, thanks to his own force of personality, visible in his elegant style, the free-floating sense of longing and melancholy, the noted empathy, and the sardonic wit.
"He believed that all had been said, and forgotten," ... "His art was the gift of choice and amalgamation. He found the origin of all his books. He was not unaware that his were made of the debris of many others."
Highly recommended for admirers of Borges and the like.
"The King in the Golden Mask" - in his decadent court, the king masked in gold wonders what lies beneath; sadly, he comes ill-equipped for the disease called reality.
"The Death of Odjigh" - at the end of time, Odjigh the wolf-slayer searches for signs of life; happily, life will often spring from death.
"The Terrestrial Fire" - as the world burns, two adolescents flee to the sea, huddling in a barge; happily, love is born, and baptized with flame.
"The Embalming Women" - in the Libyan desert, two brothers find a strange oasis populated by odd women; sadly, a corpse's kiss is cold comfort indeed.
"The Plague" - two Florentine youths leave their plague-ridden city in search of adventure; sadly, an old jest becomes less than comic.
"The Faulx-Visaiges" - across the countryside, masked bands of men enact various depradations and atrocities; happily, torture can have therapeutic value.
"The Eunuchs" - in ancient times, drinkers of pink wine ruminate on their bucolic past lives, young and free, before slavery; sadly, what has been taken seldom returns.
"The Milesian Virgins" - in Miletus, a wave of suicides: virgins found hanging from rafters; sadly, Athena's mirror has supplanted the promises of Aphrodite.
"52 and 53 Orfila" - in an institution for seniors, passionate rivals coo and flirt over a doddering gent; happily, enforced exile remains the best way to handle a tramp, of any age.
"The Sabbat at Mofflaines" - a knight is invited to attend a merry dinner celebrating His Infernal Majesty; sadly, small minds will seek to curtail such merriments.
"The Talking Machine" - an invitation to attend upon a certain machine is issued by a talkative old crank; happily, a machine may choose to make its own pronouncements.
"Bloody Blanche" - in an evil Count's lair, a child-bride over-indulges in food and wine; happily, gouts of blood - and schadenfreude - will prove a nutritious supplement.
"The Grand Brière" - in the swampy French countryside, a hunting party sets out; happily, one member of the party finds she can hunt more than birds.
"The Salt Smugglers" - on board a slave galley, an opportunity for escapes arises; happily, for some, slavery is where the heart is.
"The Flute" - on board a pirate ship come a blind man and his eerie flute; sadly, reminders of childhood and now-empty lives will seldom turn a pirate's frown upside down.
"The Cart" - during a moonlit night, two knaves review their latest misdeeds; sadly, blood is a stain that is difficult to remove.
"The Sleeping City" - from the Jolly Roger come crew and captain, to a silent city full of once-living statues; sadly, nostalgia and tribalism will increase this city's population.
"The Blue Country" - in a dark and dreary unknown city live a lively young lass and her hunchbacked little friend; happily, a dream country can become a destination.
"The Return to the Fold" - in haughty Paris, colorful circus performers from the country invade a dance hall; happily, the countryside lacks both haughtiness and Parisiennes.
"Cruchette" - during the heat of the day, two convicts on a chain gang consider escape with a water bearer; sadly, escape from labor does not mean escape from jealousy.
"Bargette" - spying a barge heading South, a dreaming maid departs in search of flowers and other wonders; sadly, the grass is ever greener wherever we do not go....more
Aubrey - country-born, smart-mouthed, and 15 years of age - makes his way from the backwoods of Epping Forest to Londontown in 1598. There he will fulAubrey - country-born, smart-mouthed, and 15 years of age - makes his way from the backwoods of Epping Forest to Londontown in 1598. There he will fulfill his rather less than glorious destiny: he shall briefly become a "pander" - those honey-tongued serpents who lure naive country lasses into brothel work; he shall toil for two criminal houses - led by rival brothers; he shall marry and have a son with a fellow member of the criminal underclass - the redoubtable, sensible Jenny; he shall be a messenger for secretive religious fanatics - a lucrative albeit dangerous venture; and he shall befriend Shakespeare - and so develop a love for the theater, despite Jenny's objections that such things are for boys. All of this shall come to pass before he reaches 18.
Three Years To Play was a marvelous adventure and slice of life, warts and all. I doubt that most novels featuring a frank detailing of the life of a pander in the slums of London would ever be described as pleasant. And yet very pleasant it was. Breezy and merry, openhearted, and generous in its characterization, while never turning a blind eye to the dirtiness and deadliness of its time period... the book was a delight from start to finish. Aubry and London during the turn of the 16th century really came alive. The book was a rich experience, and a sweet one, so I prolonged my reading of it for as long as possible. It is a book in love with living, and so I fell in love with it as well. The melancholy ending - mournful for those that have passed, and for the passing of time itself - was the bittersweet cherry on top. It is a new favorite and one of the very best books I've read all year.
I've been waiting for this book for a long while. Colin MacInnes' most famous book, Absolute Beginners, is an absolute favorite. Over the years I've been working my way through his titles, hoping to recapture that magic. My time in his oeuvre has been a mixed but mainly pleasant one, but it wasn't until Three Years to Play that I felt that same feeling: I was again reading a vibrant, charming, utterly realistic yet surprisingly hopeful story of a young person finding himself, reveling in the strange wonders of a new life in the big city, discovering the world's harsh realities, embracing difference, looking for adventure (and cash, and love), and always moving forward. I laughed a lot while Aubrey learned a lot; I shed tears in the end alongside him.
A few things that made the experience all the better: first, the bisexual MacInnes' inclusion of perhaps stereotypical queer characters who rise well above stereotype in the depth of their characterization; second, the slowly dawning realization that the plot of the story parallels one of Shakespeare's more famous comedies; third, the language. I can't oversell that third point because it really made the book a unique experience for me. Three Years To Play is written in the language of its time. I've read many of Shakespeare's plays, so I'm familiar with that language, but this is my first time seeing it so completely and successfully accomplished within a novel's format. This is a first person narrative so it is beyond the dialogue: Aubrey thinks in this language as well. The time MacInnes must have spent on perfecting this work blows my mind. Each sentence, each paragraph was worth savoring. As was the entire book!...more
call me by my name, call you by your name; call you by my name, call me by your name. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Acicall me by my name, call you by your name; call you by my name, call me by your name. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Aciman's style is both dreamy and microscopic: lovely long sentences describing a place, a series of feelings, one feeling described like an event, and then the feeling changes; the minutiae of feelings, their twisting and turning, comings and goings, each little feeling or change of feeling described, writ large, then made small again. man you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long. Aciman describes emotions like they are felt when you are young: intensely, so intensely, always on the verge of tears or rage or something unknown, something incredible or terrible just about to happen, but keep it bottled up, keep the face still and the voice artfully sardonic and the actions casual like you just don't care, cover it all up. see how they run... I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying. Aciman writes about identity like it's a cord, a rope, twisting and turning, tangling itself up so that it looks like something so different than the straightforward thing it once was: that cord or rope or identity is one thing and then it is another, it changes as it tangles and then untangles, its purpose changes and yet the essence of it will remain, itself, despite the purposes it is put to, the goals and needs that shape it. boy, you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down....more
Samuel Langhorne Clemens: I shall write a classic novel, full of my customary barbed wit yet leavened with my compassion for humanity. I shall open thSamuel Langhorne Clemens: I shall write a classic novel, full of my customary barbed wit yet leavened with my compassion for humanity. I shall open the tale with a delightfully wry meta-introduction - before "meta" was even a thing! The wryness shall continue throughout what will be an exciting story of bold misdeeds, uncertain justice, and a compelling and surely very surprising trial. We shall end the tale with evil happily circumvented - but it will be an ending that is also dripping with irony and pointed critique. An important fact: as a classic progressive, I have always been morally opposed to slavery and adamantly in favor of emancipation; likewise I firmly believe in enhancing the rights of former slaves and their descendants. This revolutionary perspective will be present in my tale - but it shall be a trifle muted, to allow for brisk sales.
Pudd'nhead Wilson: I am the moral center of this tale and I shall hold that title with much becoming humility. I shall charm the reader with my unusual observations, sly comments, humane nature, and my prescient knowledge and use of finger-printing - all of this despite the derision of my fellows. I am perhaps a stand-in for the estimable Mark Twain. More importantly, I am also what is known as an Underdog. Rally behind me!
The Italian Twins: We came from a discarded story, where we were once conjoined. But this tale has set us free! Pudd'nhead Wilson may be the hero of the piece, but our joie de vivre, pluck, style, and the utter fun we bring to this tale of dark deeds shall surely make us a favorite among certain lady readers - and certain reviewers like mark monday!
Valet de Chambre AKA Tom Driscoll: I am the villain of the piece - but I shall rally against such diminishing, unempathetic designations! I am only human, after all. I shall enrage the reader with my high-handed, bullying ways, my cunning and greedy nature, my cheeky aplomb, my devious misdeeds done in the dark of night. I am what is known as a changeling, a cuckoo's offspring, an interloper. I am an argument in favor of nurture over nature: it is the spoiling, too-generous nurture of my uncle and aunt that shall sour my nature and turn me into a braggart, gambler, and vindictive villain. Or is this truly the case? Even as a babe in arms, I am characterized by my monstrousness... surely this is not due to my blackness, if being 1/32 part black even constitutes "blackness"? Unfortunately, the author could have been rather more clear on where my innately bad nature sprung from. That lack of clarity certainly muddies the water a bit.
Roxie: "I's sorry for you, honey; I's sorry, God knows I is, - but what kin I do, what could I do? Yo' pappy would sell him to somebody, some time, en den he'd go down de river, sho', en I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't stan' it... 'Tain't no sin - white folks has done it! It ain't no sin, glory to goodness it ain't no sin! Dey's done it - yes, en dey was de biggest quality in de whole bilin', too - kings!"
mark monday: I thought this was an admirable tale in many ways, well-written and enjoyable, with a leisurely but exciting narrative. However - despite its good, progressive intentions - the cloudiness at the story's center, its confusion around "nature vs. nurture", made me increasingly uncomfortable. And reading Roxie's dialogue and monologues - despite being true to place and time - was completely excruciating, at least to these modern eyes.
stories for that oft-disputed place, Transylvania. my Hungarian last name, my true one, hungers for its return to the fold; Romanians surely feel othestories for that oft-disputed place, Transylvania. my Hungarian last name, my true one, hungers for its return to the fold; Romanians surely feel otherwise, especially those recalling Greater Romania. ask a Magyar or a Rumanian where Transylvania should belong and many may respond in the same vein: "With us."
the stories are not remotely supernatural, despite their setting in that storied place. nor - despite my nonsensical comments above - are they obsessed with what country Transylvania should be in. they are less about where and more about when, despite their precise sense of place, despite how deeply they are engaged with Romanian history. each, save one, is set mainly during different periods of time in the imaginary Romanian town of Sternbergstadt. they are all concerned with one overriding activity: imagining a time different than the current one. their characters rue the destruction of old things, they plan for a glittering and streamlined future, they long for a terrible past, they dream of a town and country that will take its rightful place as a forward-looking leader in the world. there is much dreaming in these stories - but the wakeful sort, waking dreams and daydreams and the dreams of plans to be made or dreams of trying to understand the past. but time can't be forced backwards or forwards and a place can only be what it is. or what it was, or what it will be. these disparate worlds may intersect and overlap, but never may the three be one.
John Howard is a careful and deliberate writer, somewhat chilly, parsimonious with confrontation or emotional displays. and yet emotions bubble and throb beneath these melancholy and ambiguous tales, and sometimes surface. his endings are particularly distinctive: there are no endings. these pieces close as if there are a number of chapters still left to be read, but why bother to include them - the point has been made and the particular longing under observation has been fully explored. and life goes on anyway, always. I wonder if this is a hallmark of his stories in general. they are ideal endings to these ruminations on nostalgia for times past and future.
the last and longest story "To Hope for a Caesar", set in Germany but featuring a character from Romania, is also concerned with a different time; in this case, the distant past, and an era where a bad man was once less so, or at least an era that is used as a rationale for why he became that bad man. alas, all his sins are remembered but not forgiven. this is the most riveting of the stories but also strangely the weakest. perhaps because it is the most straightforward in its narrative; perhaps because it actually has a distinct ending. it felt so finite after its intriguing predecessors, their doors left open....more
5 Stars for the wonderful opening story "The Repairer of Reputations".
although i wonder if 'wonderful' is the correct word. after all, this is a sƸ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ
5 Stars for the wonderful opening story "The Repairer of Reputations".
although i wonder if 'wonderful' is the correct word. after all, this is a story that opens with a bizarre, sometimes dire alterna-history leading up to a 1920s America where on-lookers gather to contemplate terminally dispirited disportment within suicide-abetting "Lethal Chambers." and after this bit of surprising strangeness, the reader is plunged right into the mind of a classic Unreliable Narrator (the poor lad struck his head after a fall from a horse and was never quite the same again), complete with insanely grandiose ambitions and malicious thoughts of revenge and devious yet doltish plans for his enemies - who are everywhere, simply everywhere! with the added bonuses of various books of ill repute, some surreal shenanigans starring a peculiarly malevolent cat, and the creepy Repairer himself. all in all, it is a bracing and imaginative bit of darkness on the page. and, to me at least, quite wonderful. the style is so breezy, the pacing so brisk, the imagination so fertile and so oddly modern, the experience was pure pleasure. it is hard to believe that this story was written over a 100 years ago.
i also enjoyed the three tales of weird horror that followed, chock-full of dread and formless despair. good stories. interesting and off-kilter and pleasingly sinister. the big take-away is the idea of a monstrous play ("The King in Yellow") that horribly impacts anyone who dares read it, and which is a key element in each of the first four stories.
here's an excerpt from said monstrous play (please don't kill yourself or anyone else after reading):
Camilla: You, sir, should unmask. Stranger: Indeed? Cassilda: Indeed it's time. We have all laid aside disguise but you. Stranger: I wear no mask. Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
if you are at all familiar with this author or classic Weird Fiction in general, then you know the drill. those first four stories (along with Ambrose Bierce's "An Inhabitant of Carcosa") set the template for much Weird Fiction to come, from H.P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith to Karl Edward Wagner and beyond. the names, the places, the idea of fell books of unhealthy influence, creeping dread, hysterical romanticism, humans viewed as repulsive insects... this story-cycle's place at the beginning of it all is well-known.
it is also a well-known disappointment. only those first four could be classified as Weird Fiction. a fifth, "The Demoiselle d'Ys", is an elegant, wispy ghost story/romance - and is also quite traditional. following that is "The Prophet's Paradise" - a collection of bits of ambiguous prose poetry, or impenetrable fable, or snatches from a larger tapestry never completed, or something.
the remaining four tales (each fancifully titled after certain streets) have barely a whiff of horror about them and so have met a chilly reception over the years from Weird Fiction enthusiasts. they are all about living the lifestyle of a bohemian art student abroad in bohemian Paris' bohemian Latin Quarter. think Trilby minus Svengali. they are about romance, art, naive americans, lack of money, enticing but sometimes tragic whores, some bloodshed (at least in one story), a sad and lonely ending (in another story), some unbearable lightness of being... what it feels like to be young and artistic and ready to enjoy life in a bustling and sometimes violent big city. these stories were slim, rather quaint, rather witty, and quite vibrant. i particularly enjoyed "The Street of the First Shell", which plunges the reader into a you-are-there-now account of the milieu itself and then what it feels like to suddenly find yourself in the middle of a bloody, confusing battle full of heretofore-unexperienced chaos, terror, and death.
overall this is an unusual and surprisingly quirky collection of stories. all of them were interesting and a couple really sang....more
exquisitely written bourgeois entertainment. perhaps not the edifying exploration of emotion, identity, and human nature that the author intended - anexquisitely written bourgeois entertainment. perhaps not the edifying exploration of emotion, identity, and human nature that the author intended - and rather a comedown after my excellent experience with his brilliant A Maggot - but a pleasant trifle nonetheless. Fowles has a beautiful hand with the prose; his characterization is deep and nuanced but unfortunately the characters themselves are quite uninteresting, so rather sadly it will be all those pretty sentences strung together that I will mainly remember.
"The Ebony Tower" - 2 stars. Fowles explores the outer life of an elderly painter and celebrated enfant terrible of the art scene, and the inner life of the artist and critic tasked with interviewing him. as noted, characterization was rich and real. unfortunately, I have scarce interest in the life of a tantrum-prone, drunken lecher and even less interest in an angst-filled critic contemplating an affair. the ebony tower of the title is an idea, and a malleable one at that: to the older gent, it is a terrible place where lives art that is all thinking and not feeling; to the younger, it is the dark gulf that lies between what he should do (stay true to his loving, talented wife) and what he wants to do (fuck that young art student living with the older gent). my ebony tower is a place where I'd like to send both characters.
"Eliduc" - 1 star. Fowles recounts a medieval tale of a faithless knight torn between his loving wife and the ardent young lady he'd like to make his own. the story appears to be a self-serving justification for even exploring the conflict of "The Ebony Tower" in the first place. the writing itself is surprisingly lackluster so this was a tedious slog.
"The Enigma" - 4 stars. this is the gem of the collection. an older writer finds himself the captive of an enigmatic young thief who proves to be intelligent, political, disinterested in physically tormenting his cowardly prey, and yet who ends up dealing out the most sadistic punishment imaginable for a writer just about to finish up his labour of love - a book four years in the making about 19th century author Thomas Peacock Love (had to LOL at the choice of subject). the enigma in question is "why would the young man do such a terrible thing - and, dear me, why ever would he flash a thumbs up sign after doing it?" although this wasn't the most absorbing of things to contemplate, Fowles does such a superb job at showing us who this writer is, and he does it so mordantly, that I was fascinated, almost against my will. and when the terrible deed does occur, I found my reactions to be just as horrified as the author, when my inner anarchist should have rejoiced. it is hard to rejoice though when the creative work of even the most bourgeois of writers is mercilessly destroyed. apparently I am not so allied with the revolution after all - off with my head!
"The Cloud" - 3 stars. although featuring the same sorts of characters indulging themselves in the same sort of maudlin navel-gazing present throughout the book, this novella was the most beautifully written of the collection and ended on a disturbingly ambiguous note that was much to my liking. it recounts a balmy afternoon during a vacation in the south of France (of course): five men and women discussing their perspectives on life and art, making occasional feints and jabs at each other, all quite civilized, while one of them is slowly imploding on the inside. vaguely annoying but there were many lovely flights of prose and several rather interesting moments - overall, it was much like the book that contained it....more
A man's body rebels, and dreams itself into something monstrous; his world becomes as alien to him as he has become to the world. Jordan writes some bA man's body rebels, and dreams itself into something monstrous; his world becomes as alien to him as he has become to the world. Jordan writes some beautiful poetry in the form of prose and so The Dream of a Beast is filled with astonishingly surreal imagery. This deeply experimental novel - if it can even be called that - describes a man's search for connection and transcendence from the inside out, from a purely emotional-mental space, where metaphor is reality... and so the entire story is a 103-page dreamscape. Unfortunately for me, I, like many, have to be in the right mood to listen to someone's extensive recounting of their dreams; and so this book was best read in 25-page increments. Despite my detachment from it, on a chapter-by-chapter or even paragraph-by-paragraph basis, the writing is stunning and layered with meaning. Ironically, for a work that is overflowing with beautifully constructed sentences, the first person narrator struggles continually to say what he thinks, and even to speak his thoughts aloud. Although it is essentially about transformation and coming to terms with yourself, that leitmotif of communication breaking down was particularly well-articulated (*chuckle*). I especially enjoyed the sequence where a conversation is portrayed as a series of strange sounds, with a buzzing insect noise coming from the most bothersome of the participants. And the early realization that the connection that the narrator longs for most is with his wife and child made the story surprisingly emotionally grounded, despite its disconnection from any known reality.
And hey, a happy ending, of all things!
☾
Neil Jordan is mainly known as a director, in particular for The Crying Game and Interview with the Vampire. He directed one of my teen years' favorite films: his adaptation of Angela Carter's The Company of Wolves, where his focus was less on that story's exploration of gender in fairy tales and was more about his own fascination with identity and transformation - apparently a hallmark of all of his works. Featuring Angela Lansbury as a formidable Granny and, of course, dreamscapes galore....more
A certain young Englishman named "Smith" travels to the clean yet rather barbaric small town of New York, located on the tip of Manhattan Island, circA certain young Englishman named "Smith" travels to the clean yet rather barbaric small town of New York, located on the tip of Manhattan Island, circa 1746. He has a certain agenda and a certain amount of riches at his disposal. Or does he? The question of his wealth is one of many such questions. And what exactly is his agenda? And background? And motivations? Various new New Yorkers are both eager yet full of dread to discover the secrets beneath this charismatic and chameleonic stranger's pleasant exterior. And all have certain agendas of their own - including this story's very own narrator.
I've struggled to write a review for this little gem without giving away its treasure trove of fascinating little secrets. I suppose I could just use the spoiler tag, but I know that certain people will click on it anyway. So instead I will just say that this novel engages with identity, race, gender, sexual orientation, and (to a lesser degree) class in complex ways that impressed and moved me - while often simultaneously engaging with acting and the fluidity and uses of appearance, in ways that surprised and delighted me.
The novel is elegantly written in the style of its era. The prose has turned out to be off-putting for many Goodreads reviewers, which makes me smile with smug complacency because I love loving things that lackwits find inaccessible. But their responses also mystify me because the writing sings. It sings beautifully! Spufford has dazzling talent. Here is a sample that I particularly loved:
For the first time Smith, dizzy with sparks and smoke, lost the comfortable understanding of size he had brought with him from home, and the awe and the fear of the New World broke in upon him. As if, til then, he had been inhabiting a little doll's house, and misled by its neat veneers had mistaken it for the world, until with a splintering crunch its sides and front were broken off, and it proved to be standing all alone in the forests of the night; inches high, among silent, huge, glimmering trees.
I've also struggled with my rating for the novel, wavering back and forth between 4 and 5 stars. Upon a reread, with all of its secrets known, will I still love it as much? In the end, I decided to view the book as I would a friend: I love them all the more once they've bared their hearts to me. 5 stars!...more
"A. Carleon" (aka author Rohan O'Grady) narrates a short period in her early teen years within the pageI wished it wouldn't end! Such a great feeling.
"A. Carleon" (aka author Rohan O'Grady) narrates a short period in her early teen years within the pages of her super private journal. Ann Carleon isn't the name given to her, but our narrator despises her birth name of Isabel, so if she wants to be called Ann Carleon - after her grandmother's maiden name - then so be it! Ann details her life and the people in it with verve, a sometimes spiteful wit, and a certain amount of cluelessness: her brilliant and lauded but quite unbearable father "He", her equally brilliant older sister "Fatso" (who actually isn't - that's just Ann scoring some resentful points), her mentally unwell mother "She", her school mates, her malevolent elderly friend "The General", various other adults and relatives and crushes and a sweet dog who all play key roles in her various dramas. Ann is a quirky, entirely self-absorbed little thing and not exactly a spreader of love and joy. But she's lovable and certainly relatable to me, or at least the me that was once her age. Sometimes dreadfully maudlin, other times sardonic and wise to bullshit, at all times almost helplessly herself, Ann is both a unique and very familiar creation. It was a pleasure to be in her company.
And poor Ann needs some company! She's an often lonely and iconoclastic young lady (the latter adjective probably explaining the former) with an eccentric family including a mother who has become locked in the past over the horrifying death of her son in the Vietnam War, friends who want to form an exclusive club but perhaps without her, and an obsession with God that leads her to construct a hilariously horrifying pagan idol in an attempt to somehow attract His attention. Because she has some questions she'd like answered. She lives in a small seaside town in late '70s Canada, a town whose charms are rapidly crumbling away thanks to modern development. Ann hates these kinds of changes, really all changes in general, and she hates unanswered questions. Ann could use someone to talk to besides her dog and the misanthropic, flower-obsessed General down the block. Because things can get rather dark at times. Fortunately for her (and her readers), at least she has her journal.
Rohan O'Grady firmly rejects sentimentality but still revels in all of the highs and lows of childhood. Her heroine is vital and real; the way O'Grady so completely lived in her head amazed me. There are a good number of tragic and disturbing things that occur in Ann's life - some of which she barely even recognizes, and others that she purposely avoids thinking about (view spoiler)[but NO sexual abuse, thank God, in case you have challenges reading about that like I do (hide spoiler)] - but O'Grady doesn't make her story a remotely sad one. The book is bubbly, prickly, thoughtful, unpretentious, completely charming, fully alive.
"The May Spoon" is an odd little spoon found by Ann and her sister; Ann recalls the afternoon the spoon was found with clarity, dreaminess, and a certain wonder. It is symbolic of a strangely surreal moment out of time, memorable yet indescribable; similar to déjà vu, but brighter, sharper. A sublime bit of time, one that you remember for no particular reason except the world seemed somehow different, somehow transformed into a beautiful place. I had a May Spoon experience reading this book....more
it's not me, it's you, Stranger Things Happen. what is it the kids say these days? I just can't. I'm just not that into you. but it's not my fault! Goit's not me, it's you, Stranger Things Happen. what is it the kids say these days? I just can't. I'm just not that into you. but it's not my fault! God knows I was patient and I tried to be supportive and I tried and I tried and I tried. a whole long month of trying. I just can't with you though. and not to play the blame game, but seriously it's all your fault, not mine!
you have talent to burn so I don't blame myself for having high expectations. you're like a combo of Aimee Bender and, as others have said, Robert Aickman and Angela Carter. now those are two of my favorite authors (and Bender is pretty great too) so how could I not expect something amazing? or at the very least absorbing. but you didn't absorb me at all, quite the opposite. you were a chore to read, all the quirk and eccentricity and ambiguity curdled into something precious and cutesie-poo and not at all refreshing. your characters felt like they were held at arm's length from me so there was little to draw me into caring about their tiresome, fragile little lives. all of the attempts to tie their trials and tribulations into various fairy tales and fables didn't resonate; it just felt like being clever to be clever, or putting on too much make-up and jewelry instead of letting any inner beauty shine. you made a dazzling first impression (especially that cover!) but I soon realized we had very little to talk about.
still, you're no 1-star relationship. we did have that weekend together, "The Specialist's Hat". it was a wonderful weekend, eerie and endearing and chilling and just the right kind of strange. I loved it! a perfect weekend. for that, at least, you get 2 stars....more
4.5! I think this is the first time I've really wanted a .5 option.
Cronin's concluding volume in his post-apocalyptic vampire saga is a lovely novel.4.5! I think this is the first time I've really wanted a .5 option.
Cronin's concluding volume in his post-apocalyptic vampire saga is a lovely novel. Lovely! Such an odd word to use for a book describing the slaughter of hundreds of thousands and the death of billions more by airborne plague. But this is indeed an often lovely book because Cronin is at this point almost completely disinterested in horror. Or terror, or the darkness in human souls, or the abyss that we look into that looks right back 'atcha. He wants to write about families and the light within souls and the way that people can come together when things fall apart. He wants to write about a bright and shining future that is still a human future - and therefore fallible, uncertain. He wants to understand and humanize and empathize with darkness so that it is no longer so dark, but rather something relatable and knowable. He wants to write about hope. And so he did.
The prior books each included a lengthy, more than novella-sized portion set before the Fall of Man. Each of those prior parts were full of action, blood, and danger. Not so much with the sequence set pre-Fall in this book; this flashback is all about the life of a smart, often disaffected young man with a distant father, going away to college, learning to love, learning the pain of a lost love, and all the while trying to forge his own unique identity. It could have been written by John Updike. This part is all about the man who became Zero - the ultimate villain of the series. And yet it is not about a villain, it is just about a man, and the choices and mistakes he makes in his life. A man who later becomes an undead killer and who purposely brings about the apocalypse in order to somehow fill the gaping hole where his heart used to be. A monstrous horror, but still a man.
Cronin fumbles a bit in his portrait of series protagonist Peter Jaxon, and a bit with the series' heart Sarah. I doubt he wanted to turn either of them into mulishly stubborn assholes who refuse to empathize with their childhood friend's trauma, how their friend sacrificed who she was for the greater good, how she was exploited and abused physically, mentally, emotionally... but that's what happened and that's how they reacted. I really came to dislike the often selfish, stupid person Peter became and was disappointed in Sarah too. Did Cronin want me to dislike them? I just don't think so. Ah well. Humans often fail when it comes to empathy and they amply illustrated that failing.
The book has one genuine horror set piece: an extended attack on humanity's last haven (in Texas, of course). When Cronin wants to bring the terror, he can bring it. That was a hair-raising handful of chapters.
Also worth noting is the lengthy epilogue. Despite being set a thousand years from now, it is basically the story of an older man trying to understand himself, trying to understand his son, perhaps falling in love again, and trying to figure out who he is anyway, after all his years of living. A moving story but perhaps not a unique one. But uniquely positioned. What a surprising epilogue! It has nothing to do with horror and everything to do with being human.
The poetic flourishes that were a key part of the first book but were somewhat lacking (or hackneyed) in the second book return in full force for the third book. Cronin is a beautifully lyrical writer, whether he is writing about the love between mother and daughter or the way a homestead looks and feels or the sadness buried within his undead monsters. The City of Mirrors is beautifully written, with many passages worthy of a happy sigh simply because of the gorgeous artistry of the prose.
Beyond the beauty of the writing is the innate soulfulness of this novel - of the entire trilogy. This may not be my favorite (that would be the 5 star The Passage), but it is still a very impressive achievement. And the impressiveness lies within the novel's delicacy and the way his characters resonated with me, in their longing for community and family and a way of living that feels true and natural and good.
It's funny, I was thinking about this novel over the Thanksgiving weekend, which is an odd time to think about a post-apocalyptic vampire novel. I'm a singleton (and hopefully always will be) but during this holiday, I like to get together with a few families and rent a big place to enjoy each other's company and watch the kids run amok and eat lots of food together. This past Thanksgiving was no different. One night after everyone had retired, I sat on a balcony in a contemplative mood, looking out at the treetops moving in the wind and the stars gleaming above them, the sound of the hot tub bubbling away in the background, a soft chilly wind blowing leaves around the various kid toys and clothes and shoes strewn here and there. I thought of the beasts of this trilogy, dropping from the trees to hunt, their souls still trapped within and longing for relief and release. I thought about how Cronin somehow humanized them, made them symbolic of how all humans have a melancholy longing for understanding and connection, sometimes buried deep within, but always there. I thought of his brave, imperfect human characters, always wanting to be together, always hoping and loving and longing, making bad decisions and making good ones, but mainly acting from a need for connection and from a need to make a life with others, and for others. Cronin sees the best in people, even at their worst. I thought that was an excellent way to look at people: always with empathy, no matter how monstrous or fallible or weak a person may be. Look at people, see them; draw them into your life, go into theirs; be together. It was a good Thanksgiving thought....more
A snake of doubt winds its way through their lives, forked tongue flicking, a subtle sneaking menace. It slithers through the villagers' minds, bringiA snake of doubt winds its way through their lives, forked tongue flicking, a subtle sneaking menace. It slithers through the villagers' minds, bringing their faith low, raising their superstitions high. It slips through chinks in the vicar's armor, built so carefully over a lifetime. It slides into our heroine's life and into that of her friend, the doctor, whispering into their minds when they are at their weakest. Its brother serpent, a snake of indifference, has already claimed its victims: the poor of London, trapped in their tenements, jailed by a class system and government that shrugs and looks away.
But they are merely snakes, both of them! Two of God's creatures - or Nature's, depending on your personal predilection towards or away from faith. No need to fear them. They slither and slip and slide through all of our lives at some point... such things are natural. Sarah Perry knows these snakes, their sly whispers, the damage they may do when allowed to nest in the hearts of men and women; she also recognizes that they are merely little beasts. What frightens in the dark of night becomes less fearful in the day, or in the company of our fellows. The Essex Serpent is no monster, it is merely an idea - or a symbol. Make of this serpent what you will: but do not let it rule you.
❃❁❃
This wonderful book! It had much that enchanted.
❁ A splendidly detailed era; I lived there. ❃
❁ A love of nature and, even more, of curiosity. ❃
❁ A newly independent woman, finally free and embracing the world; she is only one of a whole gallery of idiosyncratic characters who still remain completely real. My favorite: a child who is, in the modern parlance, "on the spectrum"... also perfectly realized and never condescended to, fully understood and respected by the author. ❃
❁ An exploration of faith that never became preachy or dismissive. A study of science that never turned reductive or dry. A romance, of sorts, neither mawkish nor predictable. ❃
❁ Glorious prose that made me smile from beginning to end, just reading those carefully composed sentences, the poetry of Perry's words, the sense that she loved writing them and making sure they said just the right thing, in just the right way. Haunting images rendered with crystalline clarity. ❃
❁ Fascinating themes and ideas woven throughout the narrative, until what seemed like flourishes became a clear pattern, uniting all of the seemingly disparate parts together, transforming them into something beautiful. ❃
❁ An author at ease with her subjects and the story she is telling; despite the perfection of the prose, the happy feeling that the novel flowed out of her in a natural way. The book was never a chore to read and it felt like it was the opposite of a chore to write. A relaxing yet invigorating experience. ❃
❁ An ideal ending: played with surprising but minor notes; lacking wish fulfillment, yet still perfectly satisfying. ❃
That's the word for me when thinking back on The Essex Serpent: satisfying.
(view spoiler)[My favorite part: a man at his lowest, self-flagellating - the snake of doubt having made a home in his heart - begins to enact his suicide plan. What stops him? Imagining his best friend finding him, and what his death would mean to that friend. And then getting annoyed - but not giving in to despair after all. His irritated love for his friend, his concern about making that friend suffer over a loss... anyway, I cried. (hide spoiler)]
The book is sublime.
"I have you all now ... I have you all here now, sweethearts: be with me now before I go."
artists will always revisit their pet themes, and I know I've said this before, repeatedly, so I suppose amateur reviewers will do the same. perhaps iartists will always revisit their pet themes, and I know I've said this before, repeatedly, so I suppose amateur reviewers will do the same. perhaps it is just a part of the human condition - oh I hate the number of times I've used those two words - to repeat the things we know and to listen with ears tuned to things we want to hear and eyes peeled to things we want to see, to make the world and its happenings into patterns we understand. Angela Pneuman revisits the same themes across eight stories. her characters try to make patterns out of disorder and search for themes in the scrapheap of life. themes that are often meaningful only to themselves but still affect those around them; themes that often maintain them within the same old comforting pattern, themes that will sometimes force them to find a new pattern. but hey maybe there's no real pattern, maybe that's how we force logic onto an illogical word? so says the atheist. the atheists are few and far between in Home Remedies. or maybe they are all secret atheists, characters who have adopted a theme that they barely believe in.
Pneuman is a lovely writer: the patterns she weaves are pleasing to the eye and engaging to the mind, although perhaps not particularly nourishing for the soul. macaroons aren't nourishing but they are certainly lovely and pleasant to eat. "All Saints' Day" was the loveliest of all and my favorite story in this collection; that story did nourish me. but macaroons are sweet and these stories are made of salt and copper, tears and blood. and then cooked in the grease of human disappointment? now I'm really overreaching with my metaphors, but hey I have a pattern of doing that in my reviews; perhaps that overuse of metaphors is a hallmark of a major theme in this boy's life.
each story reminded me of the prior story but the effect was less of repetition and more of an accumulation. an accumulation of evidence. the verdict: guilty as charged, humanity!...more
or maybe i did - i was only able to get to page 212. 212 often very excruciating pages.
so the Boy Detective lives in a postmodernthe book fails too.
or maybe i did - i was only able to get to page 212. 212 often very excruciating pages.
so the Boy Detective lives in a postmodern world of amazing crimes that can be solved by boy detectives to much public acclaim, featuring villains without faces (or memories), buildings that disappear, a shadowy conspiracy, adorable but lonely children whose pet cat has been beheaded, a sister who has inexplicably committed suicide, etc etc. The Boy Detective Fails is many different things: a comic told in prose; an empathetic deconstruction of what "mental illness" really means; a Kafkaesque office comedy; a surreal love letter to 50s adventure serials; an actual puzzle box; an elegy to lost youth; and most of all, a forlorn mystery that is concerned with big questions such as Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People, Why Do People Go Away, Why Do People Change, Why Do I Feel So Alone. the novel is jaunty and wistful and creative and haunting. it should have been perfect for me.
sadly i must report that all of the jaunty wistfulness, all of the haunting creativity, all of the quaintness and wittiness and sweetness... just drove me right up the wall. it was all so precious and cutesy. so twee. so saccharine. sugar overload!
it also has no internal logic. i get that this is not intended to be a remotely realistic novel, obviously. but even unreal narratives, even works that are the great-grandchildren of the postmodernist novels of olden times, need to make some sort of sense between the pages. even if it is its own kind of sense. but The Boy Detective Fails reads more like a collection of dreamy, half-baked non sequiturs rather than something that has been carefully put together to create a certain kind of world. the result for me was a sad recognition of the book's superficiality - one that i was at first loath to see because the author's good intentions are quite clear. but there is no there there. which unfortunately belies the seriousness of what Meno is trying to say and explore.
still, the book has a whole lot of heart. an extra star for that.
The celebrated painter goes to a zoo to view some animals and paint some pictures. He paints these pictures to make some bucks, sure, but above all thThe celebrated painter goes to a zoo to view some animals and paint some pictures. He paints these pictures to make some bucks, sure, but above all things he's an artist, and so the paintings are indeed works of art. His technique amazes: images that flow into each other like thoughts, a graceful juggling of light and shadow and pure dark, a way of turning a grim and bleak landscape into something beautiful, even sublime. This is a painter who knows his subject. A master of his form. This is an artist!
There is much hushed conversation at the art gallery opening. What are these wonderfully realistic yet often inexplicable images? What are these animals doing? In one series of linked paintings, an animal looks trapped, surrounded by other animals, fleeing here and there, finally cornered. A brave society matron approaches the celebrated painter and asks him about this particular series - what exactly is it depicting? The artist replies, "That is a young female, confused and alone while among others of her species, and in that particular painting she is being raped with a corncob by that unusual-looking beast. Later, she will imprint upon her rapist and so they form a couple; but because he is physically unable to mate, he allows another male to mate with her. He later kills that male." "But of course," replies the matron. "It becomes so much more clear upon closer inspection!" The artist smiles a secret smile, and murmurs, "And as you'll see in this final series, I've depicted this impotent male's strange and violent childhood. He is certainly an unusual fellow! His story is quite worthy of both high society and the masses' contemplation."
And so it goes. The gorgeous and ambiguous imagery illustrates a host of terrible things within settings that are strikingly rendered yet also resolutely banal. The beauty of the images enhances the experience - particularly for those viewers who appreciate mastery of technique and persistence of vision - and the bleakness of the settings allow the viewers to feel as if they are understanding something basic and primal about these animals. Such depressing lives these sad creatures must live! The guests at the art opening may not have been "entertained" per se - outside of their appreciation of style and virtuosity - but they do leave the gallery quite edified. It has been an educational experience and they will have much to discuss at the next dinner party.
One lone straggler remains. He eventually approaches the celebrated painter and after first praising his works, rather timidly says, "In the end I must admit I am left wondering... how do you actually feel about the animals in these paintings? What is your own personal perspective?" The artist dryly replies, "They disgust me. If I could, I'd slaughter them all."...more
a thing doesn't have to be perfect to be perfect, right? Ray Bradbury's first collection of short fiction, Dark Carnival, is certainly far from perfeca thing doesn't have to be perfect to be perfect, right? Ray Bradbury's first collection of short fiction, Dark Carnival, is certainly far from perfect. some stories function as little more than shaggy dog stories ("Skeleton" in particular was not the wisest choice for a second story), others as contes cruel written by a particularly mean-spirited misanthrope ("Let's Play Poison" and several others). both sorts of stories have a thinness to them, a smallness of purpose, that can be rather eye-rolling to a reader like myself who is always looking for resonance over effects and startling climaxes.
and that's about all I'm going to say that is critical regarding this book. despite the occasional flaws, Dark Carnival is pretty much perfect to me. the darkness interwoven with light, its homeyness, the soft glow of its prose and the sinister playfulness of its narratives, its folksy charm and mordant wit, the strange and often longing spirituality right alongside its sharp and bracing cynicism, its many moments of sadness and terror, tenderness and melancholy... it feels like it was written just for me! it has everything I want in a story collection.
hard to believe it is Bradbury's first. Dark Carnival was published in 1947 by Arkham House, and kudos to them. it showcases a writer who appears fully-formed, with decades of life experience under his belt. his prose is sublime. prose like poetry, as they say. his descriptions of scents! surely one of the hardest things to truly capture in words; Bradbury, with ease, uses the smell of things and people and places as just one more tool in his very large toolkit to help his reader fully enter his worlds. his way with words constantly surprised me with its willingness to follow tangents to places I wouldn't expect. I love that feeling of starting a paragraph or sentence and not knowing where or how it will end. at this point in my life, I've been a reader for several decades, so surprises come not as often as I'd like in my readings. I was frequently startled throughout this book.
Bradbury really flexes his stylistic muscles throughout and within the stories. from the eerie and ominous death-fable of "The Scythe" to the arch black comedy of "The Smiling People" and the broad black comedy of "There Was An Old Woman" to the homespun, supernal musings of "The Jar" to the weird romantic longing of "The Lake" and the off-kilter romance between the living and the maybe-dead of "The Dead Man"... I was impressed at how often Bradbury switches up his game. you can't fit him into one box. the only thing consistent throughout the stories is the darkness.
often I was surprised at how dark Bradbury was willing to get. this is definitely a book of horror. the opening story "Homecoming" felt at first distinctly familiar: a tale of a supernatural family and the poor son who is basically normal. it's cute and sad but mainly cute. I almost read past the brief scene where the little boy is talking to his sister who can travel throughout any being's mind (...and make them do things...) without realizing what actually occurred there: she drowsily travels into the mind of a lonely wife awaiting her husband's return home; by the time she leaves, the woman has killed herself. was it even the wife's decision or was it some prodding by a supernatural little girl who has come for a short, idle visit in her head? who knows. Dark Carnival will have me hunting for another of his collections, From the Dust Returned. apparently that book collects all of The Family stories; Dark Carnival includes the cutely vicious "The Traveler" and the sweetly charming "Uncle Einar" in addition to Homecoming.
but back to the darkness. "The Emissary" has such a sympathetic, such a brave little boy, sickly and longing for companionship, and his equally brave and sympathetic dog. the dog is often out and about, bringing people home to visit the lad. and this lovely story suddenly ends with the sickening feeling that this child is about to experience something horrible beyond imagining with the latest visitor the dog has brought home. sweet Jesus, no! bad dog! don't dig those sorts of things up! "The Small Assassin" is perhaps the most famous story in the book, about an infant born to kill. I promise you it is not remotely cheesy despite whatever funny image may have popped in your head. the story is somewhat amusing, sure, but in its downward trajectory and its mother's fear and disgust sounding so similar to postpartum depression, the story itself is grueling. in a good way! the closing piece "The Next in Line" is also the longest, and grueling is a good word for this story as well. it is the best description of a nervous breakdown I have ever read. this vaguely unsympathetic American wife abroad in a small Mexican village, with an increasingly detached and irritated husband, frustrated me at first. a perfectly done Ugly American. but as her mind began to shatter, I moved from frustration to dread to sadness in a matter of pages. and it was all so beautifully written, a terrible kind of beauty. my favorite was "The Man Upstairs", which features a wee lad morbidly obsessed with the taking apart of bodies. in any other story, he would be the villain - probably some sort of nascent serial killer. in this story he is the hero, and his interests come in very handy when dealing with the bizarre supernatural killer who is renting a room upstairs.
the most striking story for me was the brief "The Night", written in second person, and basically the story of a little girl and her mother's moments of terror while looking at a ravine in the dark, not hearing a boy who should have been home hours ago. over the course of its eight pages, it perfectly captures the fear of the unknown and the terror of losing our loved ones that lives in all of us, something that can never be comforted or hugged or loved away.
Your belief in your private world is shattered. You feel Mother tremble. Why? Is she, too, doubtful? But she is bigger, stronger, more intelligent than yourself, isn't she? Does she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of darkness, that crouching malignancy down below? Is there, then, no strength in growing up? no solace in being an adult? no sanctuary in life? no flesh citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights? Doubts flush you. Ice-cream lives again in your throat, stomach, spine and limbs; you are instantly cold as a wind out of December-gone.
You realize all men are like this. That each person is to himself one alone. One oneness, a unit in a society, but always afraid. Like here, standing. If you should scream now, if you should holler for help, would it matter?
Alas, probably not.
(view spoiler)[the price for this book is absurd. upwards of $300! fortunately most of these stories are collected in The October Country and several other collections (check Wikipedia). but if you are desperate to read this collection, are one of my Goodreads friends, and have an e-reader... message me. (hide spoiler)]...more
a bed of roses should have been sweet Felicity's place of repose, herself an English rose, one more delicate thanreview for Armed with Madness here.
a bed of roses should have been sweet Felicity's place of repose, herself an English rose, one more delicate than that often hardy breed, but English through and through. a certain kind of English - to the manor born, as they say, but destined to live out her life in a country cottage. alas, poor Felicity! too good for this world, too fragile, too in love with the idea of love, with the idea of a world of beauty; too easily wounded by the thorny realities of both. farewell sweet Felicity, dainty flower, found dead in a muddy ditch.
a manor full of English flowers, last seen Armed with Madness, now finding themselves bereft of weapons altogether. poor little flowers! trapped in their little world.
what can a flower do against encroaching evil, the banality of it? how can a flower halt construction? the taking away of English countrysides, the slow push from callow, selfish men and women with small, small minds and a desire to take and take and take. how can a flower solve the mystery of even one woman's lonely death? a flower bobs with the breeze, turns to the sun, wilts from the lack of it... how can a flower protect its surroundings or save a person from their fate? they are trapped in their English dirt. such flowers can only hope for the best, huddling close to each other and dreaming their flowery little lives away.
four years passed before this strange and often lovely book followed its predecessor, Armed with Madness. that novel's cast of characters has been trimmed, all the better to place in this glassy narrow vessel. Mary Butts' relationship to her characters has changed as well: what were once a flock of chattering, untrustworthy birds have become transformed: those that remain are as perfect flowers in a perfect English garden, frail and exquisite, symbols of all that is good and kind. and yet their scent is not an overly intense one, nor cloying, their goodness and kindness wispy and ineffective but still a pleasure to experience. it is as if all of that noisome thoughtlessness and backstabbing, their preening and posing, were but a stage in their development, a brief stop along their way to adulthood. I far prefer these winsome, sheltered flowers to those troublesome birds.
poor Mary Butts, to the manor born, a writer of prickly talent, a lover of men and women, friend to Jean Cocteau and Ezra Pound, acolyte of Aleister Crowley, a modernist of sublime but wayward talent, now forlornly obscure.
a repulsive obsession with The Problem of the Jew, creeping quietly through her story, delicately broached at first, a comment here and there, a slight slight, and then becoming increasingly bold, the Jews a symbol to Butts of all that is coarse and grasping in the world, her anti-Semitism unfolding like a malicious flower of evil. best to stamp out such poisonous blossoms! alas, Mary Butts, such a rare mind and yet one held back by its own smallness, the toxic quality of her prejudice decaying the beauty of her talent.
but talent will out and Mary's talent blooms beautifully from this book, despite the rancid garbage smell wafting from her moronic malice towards the Jewish kind. her delightfully off-kilter way with words, the love of country and cottage, her sharp and peppery dialogue, the palpable distaste for crudity and unkindness, her skittish narrative perfectly matching her high-strung characters, the sentimental but never mawkish love of England. her tenderness when revealing the inner lives of her favorites and the melancholy ruminations of those creations, full of wonder at how little they truly know. the halting, flowing rhythm of her prose. and, as with Armed with Madness, an ending replete with shocking but coolly described violence, coming from a minor character in the preceding work, now a central one in this novel. cruel and careful Boris, an outlier among these flimsy flowers! his violence was quite a refreshing tonic, an exciting exclamation point at the end of a long and winding sentence.
poor Boris, a Russian exile, trapped beyond his means in a bed of English roses, an amoral young man hardened by his life, once a delicate flower himself before the White Russians were driven out by the Red. he is a far more interesting interloper than the American abroad of the first novel. Mary Butts is at her best when spending time with this amusing, brooding, unpredictable, nakedly vulnerable, coldly ambitious, hungry, greedy fellow. the mystery of poor Felicity Taverner's death may never truly be solved, but sweet, heartless Boris will exact his revenge nonetheless.
into an exaltation of larks rides a lone ranger, an American abroad; into the mouth of modernism flew Mary Butts, an author now sada flight of birds:
into an exaltation of larks rides a lone ranger, an American abroad; into the mouth of modernism flew Mary Butts, an author now sadly obscure. five fanciful English, young and feckless and rich and poisonous; more than five streams of consciousness and Butts balances them all, their thoughts and motives and reactions ebbing and flowing and creating patterns melancholy and frustrating and possibly tragic.
an unkindness of ravens swarm and mock and toy with the poor American, or at least that is the situation from his rather limited perspective; Butts makes certain the reader understands the untruth of that point of view, the myopia, as well the fragility of the situation itself: five childish English who barely understand themselves, let alone each other, living in a castle made of snowflakes.
a siege of herons... a lamentation of swans... or perhaps more appropriately, a clattering of jackdaws... these sheltered, self-absorbed English birds frustrated me to no end. I did not enjoy learning about their lives. overlaying their antics with a veneer of mythic mysticism only served to make those antics appear all the more foolish. but I did sense intentionality in that decision. and I enjoyed Butts' marvelous prose! winsome yet coolly precise, detached but at times vibrantly alive. her appreciation of the absurd, of silly misunderstandings and even sillier egotism, made the experience rather fun. her references to primitive ritual made the telling of the story constantly intriguing, despite the banality of the characters themselves.
in the end, at last, after all of the ambiguous banter and unspoken words and la-di-da betrayals, all of the flights of poetic, hermetic navel-gazing... a murder of crows come to visit. but perhaps the less said the better. here's a lesson for the fanciful English: if played with too roughly, your toys will break, cut, and infect. inevitably, shit will get real.
he is neither soldier in the armies of the Lord nor adherent to the Day Star, son of the morning. he is his own creature, bound to earth.
oh sweet angehe is neither soldier in the armies of the Lord nor adherent to the Day Star, son of the morning. he is his own creature, bound to earth.
oh sweet angel, caught between ice and fire; oh sweet prose, liquid and lapidary; oh sweet story, sinuous and subtle, that says so little yet feels so much.
this big fat pillow, you just sunk your head right into it, mark! you slept there for days!
i don't know if it's the kind of pillow that everyone wouldthis big fat pillow, you just sunk your head right into it, mark! you slept there for days!
i don't know if it's the kind of pillow that everyone would love. but who cares about everyone. you loved it and you know you'll rest your head on it again.
it's a big fluffy pillow, one of those pillows with two sides that look and feel like they came from two separate pillows. on one side is an intricate pattern, an arabesque. you got lost in its design: India of the Company days, on the edge of that era ending. so many details! the heat, the human throng, the tide of history only barely felt by some and an inexorable force for others, the perfectly captured interiors and exteriors, the politics, the characters both insular & British and unknowable & Indian; the touch and the scent and the taste and all of the sights and sounds. the lavish description put you right there - you were living in that world. you loved the perspective on that world: one that didn't necessarily take sides, but still clearly recognized the culpability of colonials in all of the blood, death, and horror that awaited them. that side of the pillow was gorgeous in design but not exactly comforting to lay your head on. a rough texture, and yet one quite appropriate for the time period. such designs should not necessarily provide comfort. so not exactly a comfy place but a beautifully crafted, perfectly balanced, and completely fascinating one nonetheless. a pattern to die for!
a hard pillow to recommend: those who love one side may be automatically opposed to the other.
and so the other side: a design more romantic in nature. more careful in its scope, its patterns less byzantine, its colors more muted, the feelings it evoked more basic, even predictable. I loved that side just as much. a romance of the old school and yet many of the little details felt so timeless, both modern and classic, and so in keeping with the sorts of patterns that I personally (and politically) respond to. a strong, independent heroine - and yet still prey to the outmoded systems of her era. a heroine I could admire while still hoping she could move beyond herself; a far cry from a character based on wish fulfillment fantasies that would have made no sense in her era. and a strong, independent hero - yet still fallible, still recognizably human despite his admirable qualities. not the sort of laughable modern alpha male who wants to conquer a woman, body and soul; rather, a hero who yearns for a woman who is equally independent, equally capable of critical thought. can a man - for example, this reviewer - say he identified completely with the heroine and fell head-over-heels for the hero? yes, he certainly can!
but back to the pillow, this wonderful pillow that i rested upon for what felt like days on end... i'm not in a hurry to let others enjoy it. it would bother me to see a person enjoy one side over the other. to judge one of those sides because they prefer historical sagas over romance, or vice versa. it's a special pillow and i'd have to be confident that you could see the beauty of both of its sides before i let you get near it; otherwise, i'd be happy to keep this pillow all to myself. after all, it's the only pillow Valerie Fitzgerald ever made....more
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