Forrest > Recent Status Updates

"Holding Out at Castle Von Lohe" is a mixed bag. It's like watching a marathon runner who stumbles every couple of miles, even falling down once or twice. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, either. I'm firmly in the middle on this one.

Solnit is making me want to take a pilgrimage, whether I need to or not. I suppose my planned hike in Teutoburger Wald in May will be kind of a pilgrimage, given my mostly German, but partly Italian genetic makeup. My genes reflect the battle: Germany won. Funny that I'm studying both German (brushing up at least) and Latin at the moment. So, yeah, I'll count that hike as a pilgrimage.

Solnit's anecdotes about discussions with anthropologists regarding the very earliest walkers is, by turns, insightful, funny, irreverent, and tear through some of the most commonly held misconceptions about early hominids (some of which I held). It's an interesting start and necessary, I guess, but I question the need for it. I'll know by the end of the book, I guess. Is it just a vestigial tale?

I think I fat-fingered my progress update last time. I did not read over 300 pages of Solnit's work in a couple of days. Man, I wish I could read that fast. Actually, no, I don't. I like the walking pace of Solnit's prose quite a bit, come to think of it.

"A Scientist from the Darkness" follows the predictable thread of a techno-utopian society in the making with the un-astounding revelation that it was all a trick of a cosmicly-horrific deity who watches all with an immense eye. This time, my wife was listening to a podcast in the other room, so I had to read aloud to keep my concentration - and it was horrible. The prose is so overwrought as to be inscrutable.

Just got the edits for my upcoming short-story collection. Excuse me while I dance with the red pen of quality craftsmanship.

In what could be a sanitized, clinical exposition on the setting of the Traveller RPG, Marc Miller takes a different tack, posing questions about what one would do if one had uninhibited authority, including the ongoing questions about the needs of the many versus the needs of the few. The humanity here is never lost, with all the attendant good, evil, and indifference that this infers.

Who else remembers when you didn't have to pay to give away your book on Goodreads?

Walking as a means of modulation isolation is a highly-intriguing concept for me. When I look back, that's been a cruise, especially when I am walking in far-off places where I don't know the culture or the people yet.

Quoting Kierkegaard: "It is the accidental and insignificant things in life which are significant". These are the things we encounter while walking.

"A Walk in the Morning" is a highly effective story. As enjoyable as the last story was laughable. This collection is a bit of a roller-coaster ride. But the restraint and clever shift of perspective make this one a great short story. Bravo!

I absolutely love the framing of walking as an actor subversion against modernity, as defiance to the imposition of so-called efficiency.

My Latin reading is going to slow to a crawl for the next couple of months, as I bone up on my German for an upcoming work trip and vacation to Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium (mostly Germany).

I'm glad I'm familiar with the Traveller universe. Yes, I could read this without it and still understand what's happening, but having been steeped in the lore for over 40 years now, I have a much clearer understanding of the impact of the events being portrayed here.

"Pacific Atrocities" was, well, an atrocity. All the devolving nazi practitioners of the occult and floating kraken in the world could save this story. I hated it. Waste of reading time. If there's another this bad, I might just lem the book.

Apparently, the purpose of life, according to "Extinctor Fortis," is to serve . . . as a meal. Yes, one might say, of the entire history of humanity, "it's a cookbook"!

"3:33" is a tale of forced possession and instinctual murder of the ritualized sort. What if you are your own worst monster, unable to control the urges and actions that impel you forward to soul-less-ness?

"Transgressive" is the overused academic word for the ending of The Jade Cabinet, whether it is the transvormation of Etherea or the union between Memory and Tubbs. Just when one thinks they have found a resolution in the writing, Ducornet tears through the page and reveals a sudden shocking depth of character that sends expectations reeling. It is a truly stunning end.

Slowing down on Latin for a bit because I have a trip to Germany coming up in May. Need to brush up on my Deutsch!

The gun has appeared.

There are echoes of Dhalgren in Grains hurtling-toward-the-collapse story "Our City at Night," but with a strong injection of occult forces. At this point, I am confident in saying that I prefer Grains at longer word counts. It gives his voice needed breathing space and makes the flourishes more emphatic and impactful. I'm glad there are some longer pieces left in this collection.

Poor, mad Baconfield. Why do I find him such a sympathetic character (at least at this point of the novel)? Probably because I'm sorry his insane journey into transcendence has been irrupted by the appearance of the Hungerkünstler.

In a timeless vision, or, rather in a vision where time is all-at-once, "Anima M" is revealed as the narrator's utmost desire. But getting what you wish for doesn't always lead to clarity. On the contrary, the culmination of desire here reveals a nightmare of boschian disjunctures, time run amok into pure chaos.

"Eternal Advent" tries hard to be syncretic. Alas, too hard. The symbols and metaphors of Christmas and Babylonian myth and the ubiquitous recounting of a deluge that destroys the world congeal together (notice I didn't use the work "combine") in a sort of ur-mythic clump of . . . I dont quite know what. Something seems to have unraveled in this story; the elements do not cohere.

It's intriguing and horrifying to see a man completely break under the weight of his own broken character. But no one deserves to be undone like poor Tubbs.

"Forest of Monsters" was . . . adequate. Somewhat. There was potential there, and an interesting ending that was so interesting that it didn't fit with the rest of the story, even if one was to treat it as a story of time travel, which was never really clear. All in all, I was left . . . confused and disappointed? Three stars. I didn't hate the story, but I just barely liked it. So much wasted potential.

A self-admittedly unreliable narrator is not something one often sees in literature, but the self-deprecating notion actually adds a depth to the narrative here. We simultaneously see the curtain and what is behind it.

Slow reading because I read, then practice, then reread, then practice again . . .