Rusalka, by C.J. Cherryh. Be careful what you wish for...

Just ask Sasha Misurov. At five years old, he wished that his father would not beat him anymore. Soon thereafter, a fire burned down his house, claiming both his parents’ lives, and damning him in the eyes of the community of Vojvoda as a dangerous jinx- because nothing in Pre-Christian Russia ever happens by chance. That such a good-hearted innocent kid could be regarded as a danger is almost laughable, until you realize that his wish did indeed come true.

Not that Pyetr Kochevikov believes in such nonsense. Or that Pyetr had had a better relationship with his father, either. Born in the gutter to a notorious thief who kept trying to lose him, Pyetr had to rely on his wits and an uncanny ability to figure the odds in order to rise up to the social stratum he now enjoyed, befriended by youth of the nobility and, increasingly, wives of the nobility too.

But when one such wife needs to cover her own tracks regarding a suddenly and mysteriously dead husband, Pyetr goes from being her illicit lover to being the scapegoat. Charged with murder by sorcery, teenagers Pyetr and the practically complete stranger but supposed accomplice Sasha flee the city; Pyetr suffering from a horrid sword wound, and Sasha wishing they would make it safely to help.

The tail end of winter is no time to be running around Russia without so much as a coat, much less if you are bleeding to death and being chased by the tsar’s law. Taking a shortcut through a long-dead forest is probably not a good idea either. They don’t have much choice, however, and Sasha’s wishing pays off as they finally come across a cabin on the river, and the only thing that can help the dying Pyetr at this point: a sorcerer. A sorcerer with an even worse relationship with his father, and, oh yes, who was not such a good father himself.

(One does wonder about CJC’s relationship with her father, even though most likely she just took a theme and ran with it.)

This sorcerer has spent the last hundred years trying to reconcile his failed relationship with his daughter, who was drowned trying to run away, and who became Rusalka: a vengeful spirit who desperately wants to avoid death, and who does so by draining the life out of those around her.

And of course it follows that Pyetr, who thinks there is a rational explanation for everything, and Sasha, who imposes no such qualifications on reality, grow increasingly more and more entangled in a struggle neither of them understand, in a place where nothing and nobody is what it seems, where no one can trust anyone else, and where someone must die for a wish to come true.

Indeed, a Rusalka is itself just a wish, a rather innocent wish, with very bad consequences: a wish to live.

Don’t worry; that’s just the set-up for the story, with no real spoilers. It’s just the beginning. I didn’t give away any of the rest, involving raising the dead, battles with river demons, a desperate attempt to escape, a climactic showdown between master and apprentice, and snake-handed elephants. :p

a few quotes:

”... aunt Ilenka came flying out of the kitchen waving her spoon and calling on the Sun, the tsar, and all his magistrates.” (pg. 1)

“He’s over all kinder than sane folk know how to be.” (pg. 39)

“Once at hours like this, Pyetr told himself, he had been lazing about in a soft, warm bed no magician was goig to chase him out of.” (pg. 252)

That being said, it’s really not so much of a ghost story as, er, a traditional ghost story. It just happens to have ghosts etc as characters. :D Case in point, the cover blurb:

A grim but warmly human story of courage, sacrifice, and desperate love between a tormented spirit and a mortal man.

And no, it’s not that kind of love. That’s over in the romance department, I’m sure. Look for the vampire on the cover.

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The Overcoat, and The Nose, by Nikolai Gogol. rating =5.

Some have called The Overcoat the greatest short story ever; certainly it is one of the best from the Russian tradition. It vies in its own way with The Metamorphosis.

These stories are so short that you really need to read them; I’d hate to give more away than I already have. Gogol is prodigious at the absurd and the everyday; it is not only his wit, but the depth behind his wit, that provokes readers everywhere.

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The World According to Mister Rogers; The Mister Rogers Parenting Book. 4

There is more to this man than many people know; I invite you to investigate. He has a way of saying things that you might take for granted, but that in many ways go against the dogma of our modern American society: it isn’t a good idea to maintain a cheerful facade all the time; people feel freer to be themselves when they are assured of rules and boundaries than when they are allowed to do anything with no responsibility; every now and again you need to stop and recharge and rethink- you can’t keep going 100% all the time.

There are many things to stop and think about from a man who dedicated his life to helping future generations develop their potential to the fullest and recognize the connection between all human beings.

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Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian. rating = 5

You know, when you read a really, really good book, you are quite afraid to read the sequel sometimes, for fear that it will not be as good. Not only is Post Captain as good as Master and Commander, some might say it’s even better.

Most of the book actually takes place on land, hopefully dispelling the myth that these books are only about sailors who like to drink and shoot cannons at other ships. Aubrey and Maturin are spending some time in the countryside of England following the peace agreement which ended the war, but an amazing amount of trouble soon falls upon Cptn. Aubrey, whose prize agent has run off (the modern equivalent of one’s tax preparer running off with money you owe the govt), making Aubrey responsible for an enourmous sum which he does not have. This blow comes at a particularly bad time for Aubrey, who has no ship during the peace and is not earning an income, and who has also fallen in love with a local girl and wishes to marry. To make things even more complicated, he ends up falling in love with another girl as well (oh it’s complicated I tell you ;) ), who has also caught the eye and heart of Dr. Maturin.

Fleeing England, only to arrive in France right before Napolean declares war again, and so forced to flee France incognito, they end up in Maturin’s holdings in Spain before making it back to a port where Aubrey can beg command of a ship, to help pay off his debts. That is only the first half of the book and I will not reveal more, just know that it twists and, yes, there are ships, and battles, and an attack in a dark alleyway, a betrayal, and more lovelorn twists to come. O’Brian sets up the romantic follies especially well (I am not one for romances much), and things are not always what they seem. Indeed, many people are not what they may seem, either.

a couple of quotes, but the entire book is worth quoting, line by line:

”... Oh, wish me joy!”

“Why, so I do,” said Stephen, wincing in that iron grip, “if more joy you can contain- if more felicity will not make your cup overflow. Have you been drinking, Lieutenant X? Pray sit in a chair like a rational being, and do not spring about the room.”
p.199

“There are days,” he reflected, “when one sees as though one had been blind the rest of one’s life. Such clarity- perfection in everything, not merely in the extraordinary. One lives in the very present moment; lives intently. There is no urge to be doing; being is the highest good. However,” he said, guiding the horse left-handed into the dunes, “doing of some kind there must be.”
p. 350

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what a little gem

I’m the kind of person who can take a lot of stress, you know, and I seem fine with big, important matters, for a long time, and then something stupid sets me off, and people wonder how that could get me in a lather. and that’s what this is. it’s just the last straw for all the recent days, is what.

right now, though, it seems like the author is a troll. (so I shouldn’t let it get to me, right?) if it is trolling, then I can almost understand Discover magazine running it, but then Utne picked it up too? if Utne thinks that is balance… I used to subscribe to them, years ago, but they’ve got way too much crap lately. they used to do a better job, I thought. maybe I was just even more naive…

science fiction is obsolete

really, the author amazes me. stereotype, stereotype, stereotype… I’m surprised he didn’t finish the article with a round of wedgies…

oh, haven’t you seen it? well, probably that’s for the better. I advise you to avert your eyes, in order to spare you.

this is a jock VS nerd fest. he uses dripping sarcasm throughout, with no professionalism at all, and this is supposed to be made okay by the few instances in which he turns the sarcasm inside-out (re Jules Verne and the launch of the Columbia)(and aren’t we so impressed that he knows Jules Verne’s middle name?). Fictional Reality indeed, the man lives in a world of stereotypes and indoctrination.

has the quality of science fiction gone down since Wells and Verne? well, sure… when you average all the science fiction works of the year together! when there was only Wells and Verne, both masters in their own way, of course the median standard of the genre was higher than now when we have all kinds of things being published under the scifi umbrella. god save us all; math, did we learn math in school? now if you compared the works of two current masterminds with that of Wells and Verne, I think you’ll find the quality to still be much the same.

not that Maddox would probably know; once he gets past Wells and Verne, he draws solely on… Michael Crichton for examples!

Would we even be bothered by the proliferation of surveillance cameras if we didn’t recognize the phenomenon as “Orwellian” and know, therefore, that it is bad? Probably, but I think you see my point.

ok, the point of all science fiction is not to predict the future, but apparently he has missed this. he thinks that because Wells did not “correctly” predict the future of the Soviet Union (????) 1984, that the work was a failure. did he get nothing of the essence at all?

and ARE WE any different than the citizens in 1984? examples abound, people, they truly do. they had a propoganda division called the Department of Truth. because it was called the Department of Truth, well, it must be telling the truth, right? we have legislation that undermines the human rights of Americans and non-citizens, and weakens the framework for promoting human rights internationally. but it’s called the Patriot Act, so, well, it must be a good, wholesome thing designed to protect the citizens as long as they are patriotic. and if you argue against it, you must be unpatriotic. and yet, I don’t see Bruno Maddox bothered by this at all…

For one, it was around that time, the mid-1990s, that fiction— all fiction —finally became obsolete as a delivery system for big ideas.

this is along the lines of: “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Charles H. Duell, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, in 1899. it is as ridiculous and small-minded as almost anything I can think of, and I’d never be caught dead saying such a thing, much less attach my name to it and publish it across the country.

can you imagine anyone saying: Music is obsolete as a delivery system for big ideas. Art is obsolete as a delivery system for big ideas. ??? I hope not. and yet it’s the same stretch… how blatantly wrong and exacerbatingly ignorant can a person be?

Why would I spend my money on a book about amazing-but-fake technology when we’re only a few weeks away from Steve Jobs unveiling a cell phone that doubles as a jetpack and a travel iron?

yes, because scifi is just about predicting the future and blinding us all with technogadgetry.

the Utne article actually is shorter but has some different passages in it (?). among the first thing that upset me was his complaint that the convention was not being held in a futuristic pavillion, etc, etc, no; and he then went on to complain how the salsa was being served directly out of the jar… don’t think I am taking only those comments, but, to sum up, the whole mood behind it all made it clear that he honestly didn’t see the point of anything less than a phantasmagorical, materialistic, consumeristic display of wealth and priviledge and American-style corporate jet-setting… that anything less was a sign of failure. truly, he’s still entirely entrenched in the doctrines of the industrial revolution! the environment doesn’t matter, other cultures and people don’t matter, even the disadvantaged of one’s own culture don’t matter. that was the underlying vibe. plus an amazing misunderstanding of science itself and scientists as people…

this is exactly the type of mind that needs to be broadened by literature. the kind that eschews not only science fiction, but also fiction, and indeed even science itself. but he was never taught to appreciate it in school; and apparently there’s enough people all across the country to agree with him and give him an audience.

:\

ok I’m going to chuck e cheese now.
really I’m fine ;)

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The Hamlet, by William Faulkner. rating = 5

I could go on, maybe I shouldn't. really, the man did not win a Nobel prize for nothing. I'm sure you already know why I liked it :)

but I've got to share with you some of this absolutely magnificent description! wow, what descriptions!

41. The horse made one swirl, it looked round as a ball, without no more front or back end than a Irish potato.

105. It was a forensic face, the face of invincible conviction in the power of words as a principle worth dying for if necessary. A thousand years ago it would have been a monk's, a militant fanatic who would have turned his uncompromising back on the world with actual joy and gone to a desert and passed the rest of his days and nights calmly and without an instant's self-doubt battling, not to save humanity about which he would have cared nothing, for whose sufferings he would have had nothing but contempt, but with his own fierce and unappeasable natural appetites.

205. He was not wild, he was merely unbitted yet; not high-spirited so much as possessed fo that strong lust, not for life, not even for movement, but for that fetterless immobility called freedom.

211. Geography: that paucity of invention, that fatuous faith in the distance of man, who can invent no better means than geography for escaping; himself o fall, to whom, so he believed he believed, geography had never been merely something to walk upon but was the very medium which the fetterless to-and fro-going required to breathe in.
(I wonder what the atevi would make of that remark...)

231. For an instant he saw it, spinning slowly. Then it splashed, not sinking but disintegrating amoung that shattered scurring of broken stars.

277. The pear tree across the road opposite was now in full and frosty bloom, the twigs and branches springing not outward from the limbs but standing motionless and perpendicular above the horizontal boughs like the separate and upstreaming hair of a drowned woman sleeping upon the uttermost floor of the windless and tideless seas.

Ah, the South. the story? the story is of a small little crook in the road really, in Mississippi, right at about the time of the beginning of the Great Depression. not that anyone there knew it was the Great Depression; they were too poor to tell. When your entire worldly belongings consist of one set of clothes to a person, one set of mismatched shoes for five people to share, a pot, a brush with no handle, and a hammer head with no claw tails set upon a stick of firewood... yeah, well, Wallstreet is nothing but a name to you. literally ;)

there is not really a main main character, but ostensibly one could claim this is the chronicle of the origins of Flem Snopes, a crusty frog-like individual who raises himself from an incredibly impoverished and common enough beginning to the highest possible level in that society, by way of his own bootstraps and heartless, almost soulless, manipulation of other people and their expectations. since the trilogy is called the Snopes trilogy, and since the last scene of the book includes Flem and his new wife and child leaving to set up in Jefferson, I'm pretty sure I'm justified in saying so.

oh, and yes I did pick up the accent again just by reading the books. I found myself saying "Sholy" several times in the past week or so. although this is not as noticeable as when, after a long stint of Bronte, I was cut off in traffic and shouted, "dog in the manger". /embarrassed to death...

70. "Here. Bring me a piece of pie while I'm waiting."
"What kind of pie, Mr. Bookwright?" the counterman said.
"Eating pie," Bookwright said.

Arrow of God, by Chinua Achebe. rating: 5

right now I have a fever and all I can say is, Chinua Achebe is awesome. I’ve read three books by him (Things Fall Apart, Anthills of the Savannah, and Arrow of God) and they are all first-rate, #5, everyone should read these books.

repeating myself:

the man is amazingly talented with words, world-building, and characterization. he can be very economical in his writing, straight to the quick and every word, every image is exactly what is necessary to convey his meaning and carry the story. he can also be very philosophical and soul-searching, when his characters are and when the situation calls for it. his stories are very human and real--- there's no real heroes or villains or any "correct" viewpoints involved (though a character might think of his viewpoint as supreme) or preaching of a moral. you feel as if you know the people personally somehow, as if they are quite real, and correspondingly complicated without being constructedly so. you come to understand the world they populate in a short time, as if you've been there, as if you could put the book down and find yourself there.

amazingly talented.

Arrow of God is told primarily from the viewpoint of a chief priest of an Igbo village (Umuaro; several villages as one, really), but also from that of the British man on the spot and his subordinates. the reality each person experiences (not only each side- ie, white/black- but also, yes, each person) is very different, and yet as they interact more and come to their own (often bizarre yet predictable) understandings of each other, their realities began to converge. not that either side ever really fully and truly understands each other, but they go from being separate entities to sharing in a common future.

Achebe's thorough discussion of the events brings the reader to realize many aspects of life and truth in the story. for just one example,the book documents the disintegration of the traditional religion (again, not total disintegration, but the toppling from its dominance in the community and taking a diminished and quite secondary or even forgotten role) , and in a way that makes total sense in the context of that religion (and the accompanying culture). not just, the Christians came and the Christians shone their truth forth and yeah verily we all converted. no, we get the real, complicated story of how the priest and even the god itself misstepped and fell from power, with the white religion as a context, but not as the defining factor.

he's such an engaging writer. I actually picked this book up after I had already started The Hamlet (see next), and I couldn't put it down. even though I had already started in on William Faulkner! yes, if I may be so bold, I think Chinua Achebe is the William Faulkner of Nigeria. truly great, truly great.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (4.5-5)

I’d read Jules Verne before (Journey to the Center of the Earth esp), but you think I’d have read the other author who founded the field of science fiction as well. but I’d never read The Time Machine, or The Island of Dr. Moreau, or The Invisible Man. good gravy, what have I been up to all these years?!

ok. I’d seen the movie. even the recent movie that by Wells’ descendant that scandalized everyone. but I’d never read the book.

it’s not the same (shock!) as the movie; of course I knew that, but I didn’t realize how much they added in the movies. I didn’t realize they’d added the clothes shop bit with the changing manequin. and I hadn’t thought about it, but of course they added the part where the stopped during a World War (can’t remember which movie, but the old one I guess)- the book was written long before the World Wars.

in the book, he doesn’t stop at all before he reaches the land of the Eloi & Murdocks.

I didn’t realize they’d cut out part of the ending, either. he actually goes further into time and sees the ultimate fate of the planet, in the book.

and Weena’s fate is a bit different, as well.

his prose is intriguing and engaging. here are a couple quotes to show you what I mean, and I’ll leave you with an urging to read the book:

(1) ”...there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought runs gracefully free of the trammels of precision.”

(78) “Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into an unknown future.”

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The Stranger, by Albert Camus (5)

from the back cover: “A terrifying picture of a man victimized by life itself”

wow. apparently the reviewer/publisher missed the point of the book. ???

the French philosopher (and great writer, btw) Albert Camus gives us a main character, the narrator, who feels no attachment to the world, no real emotions to speak of at all. he is a man that lives entirely in the present, with hardly any thought to the future, and no real thought to the past. he is very “in the moment”, or rather, caught up in the physical sensations of the moment, and, even though he is an educated, intelligent, hard working man- he does not reflect on his world or his actions or his own self.

and because of this, his life takes what at first seems to be a dramatic turn, leading to his ultimate undoing. looking back, however, it was hardly inevitable after all.

Camus is making a point. it is not enough to live “in the moment”. the moment is connected to the past and future; the moment exists in a greater context with all of time and with all other people in the moment. and emotions play a great role in this; they are our connections to the world.

Meursault (Mer-soh) _{(Camus= ca-moo)} is, from the start, a very odd fellow because of his disconnection from life, even as he is immersed in the sensations of the moment. what he is disconnected from, ultimately, is any kind of purpose whatsoever. he makes choices passively, not kenning moral issues or what most of us would call basic humanity. but he is not a victim. Meursault makes choices, and he faces the consequences of his choices and his actions. to think of him as a victim is to misunderstand as much of Meursault’s life as Meursault did himself.

this is a very thought-provoking piece; if it interests you, you might read also The Fall by Camus (wherein the main character reflects too much and is thus out of balance with his life ina different way). or look up existentialism in general :D

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The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad. rating=4ish

The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad (in same book as Heart of Darkness)

It is a good story, and good writing, if a bit heavily underscored. Joseph Conrad is a bit dark for my tastes (gasp!) but I recommend it :)

The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. rating=5

click above for story

or here: http://www.mala.bc.ca/~Johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm

this is another 5 :)

it’s very short; not even a hundred pages. (and as such I don’t want to quote it much.) it’s a perfect example of the absurd, and of our absurd human tendencies in life.

the story is about Gregor Samsa, who, in the very first sentence, wakes up to find that he has been transformed into a hideous bug.

in fact, it is very like Nikolai Gogol’s story The Nose, in which a man wakes up to find that his nose is not on his face. The Nose is about the man looking all over to find his nose, because he just cannot figure where it has gotten off to, and we are never enlightened as to how this could have come about, really, only that apparently it could happen to anyone. and when the man finally does find his nose, it’s dressed in a uniform [etf freudian slip: I put it was wearing an overcoat; this was the title of another of Gogol's short stories!] walking down the street. the man says, in effect, “Hey, aren’t you my nose?!?”, but, poor fellow, he is of such a low station in life that even his own nose is of higher rank than he is, and it does not deign to stop and talk with him.

in The Metamorphosis, Gregor has been turned into a hideous vermin, some sort of monstrous beetley-cockroach thing, but keeps his human, travelling-salesman, dutiful son and brother mind. and we never know how or why he was changed into a bug, and it doesn’t seem to serve any purpose whatsoever. but Gregor, who has slept through the alarm, what with being changed into a different life form and all, is of course very concerned with the most pressing of urgencies: getting to work and apologizing for missing the early train. and, of course, Gregor is quite depressed and melancholy: about the rainy weather.

the scene where the manager comes to Gregor’s house to find out what’s going on is horrible and amazingly comic: here we have Gregor as a giant roach trying to convince his boss that he really is a good employee, and he’ll be back on the job at no time at all.

the second half of the work is perhaps a bit darker but all the more enlightenting and bizarre. for such a ridiculous prospect, Kafka makes very bold and enduring statements about family, self-identity, alienation, guilt, and literature/ being a writer.

apparently people have built careers around analyzing Franz Kafka’s work, esp this story, and I can see why. I say read it :)

this might come in handy later on --- longueur

The Word of the Day for September 10 is:

longueur \lawn-GUR (approximation -- this word comes from French and has sounds with no English equivalents)\ noun
: a dull and tedious passage or section (as of a book, play, or musical composition) -- usually used in plural

Example sentence:
“This production has its occasional longueurs, but glorious singing and energetic choreography quickly rope us back in." (Rick Rogers, _The Oklahoman_, June 28, 2007)

Did you know?
You’ve probably come across long, tedious sections of books, plays, or musical works before, but perhaps you didn’t know there was a word for them. English speakers began using the French borrowing “longueurs” in the late 18th century. In French, “longueurs” are tedious passages, and “longueur” literally means “length.” The first recorded use of “longueur” in English comes from the writer Horace Walpole, who wrote in a letter, “Boswell’s book is gossiping;… but there are woful longueurs, both about his hero and himself.”

Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian. rating= 5.

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian


ok, I must admit: I just wrote this entire long review about how brilliant the book and the author are, and then the computer froze up and I lost it all and now I'm very frustrated.

I saw the movie in the theater; I loved the detail of the story and how they filmed it. I'd never heard of it otherwise. I realized that my friend had read the books and recommended them, so I put it on my reading list. I didn't know there were over 20 books in the series and that the first was published before I was born! I also didn't realize that the movie was not the same as the book. how innocent I was.

the movie is called Master and Commander: Far Side of the World. there is a book in the series called The Far Side of the World; I thought they had just skipped to that story (ten books in, no less!) and started there. but no, they combined story elements from the first book with places and events from the tenth book. quite ridiculous and totally unnecessary: Master and Commander stands very well on its own, thank you, and needs no cinematic reinterpretation.

here we have the young Jack Aubrey, in 1800, promoted to Master and Commander and given his first ship in the British Navy, right after he has just met the coincidentally Irish Dr. Stephen Maturin, and right away things manage to run quite sprightly. the book follows several trips and tours; battles at sea and on land, both won and lost; as well as a court-marshalling. we get to see the inner workings of several different characters (I of course esp find Dr. Maturin interesting), the development of the haphazhard collection of men into a well-honed crew, the political realities between esp Aubrey and his superiors and equals. for starters.

the detail is damn near immaculate, even if there is a little acknowledged liberty taken, the humanity of the characters is profound, the flow of the story sweeps you up and carries you away just like the proverbial ship. the language is attractive and O'Brian shows such deep insight... read it :)

(and btb, I must add that I love the idea of "calms". oh please do forgive me; I grew up in the middle of the United States, the desert no less, and seafaring terms are a new world as far as I'm concerned. well, if we have "storms", then we most certainly can have "calms". and in fact in my house, a "calm" is just as useful a term as it is rare an occurence. )

173. ... I have had such a sickening of men in masses, and of causes, that I would not cross this room to reform parliament or prevent the union or to bring about the millennium. I speak only for myself, mind - it is my own truth alone - but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman.

177. I have never yet known a man admit that he was either rich or asleep: perhaps the poor man and the wakeful man have some great moral advantage. How does it arise?

250. "You danced?" cried Jack, far more astonished than if Stephen had just said "as we ate our cold roast baby."
"Certainly I danced. Why would I not dance, pray?"
"Certainly you are to dance - most uncommon graceful, I am sure. I only wondered... but did you indeed go about dancing?"

309. ... and after Stephen had been bumped into once or twice and had "By your leave, sir" and "Way there - oh parding, sir" roared into his ear often enough, he walked composedly into the cabin, sat on Jack's locker and reflected upon the nature of a community - its reality - its difference from every one of the individuals composing it - communication within it, how effected.

336. A blur, and a sense of oppression; a feeling more of the x's defeat than of the Sophie's victory; and exhausted perpetual hurrying, as though that were what life really consisted of. A fog punctuated by a few brilliantly clear scenes.

341. He had seen looks of unfeigned respect, good will and admiration upon the faces of seamen and junior officers passing in the crowded street; and two commanders senior to him, unlucky in prizes and known to be jealous, had hurried across to make their compliments, handsomely and with good grace.
He walked in, up the stairs to his room, threw off his coat and sat down. "This must be what they call the vapours," he said, trying to define something happy, tremulous, poignant, churchlike and not far from tears in his heart and bosom.

390. I was strangely upset today, I must confess, and I need what is it? The knitting up of ravelled care?

(and now I'm off to add the other twenty books to my "to-read list". I hope they are all as good as this!)

Next up: Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian.

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

:)

Hammerfall, by CJC

Hammerfall, by C.J. Cherryh
coming soon :)

Rider at the Gate was a sci-fi western. Hammerfall is a sci-fi desert caravan adventure. see, sci-fi doesn't always have to be about robots and tribbles! lol.

the main character, Marak Tain --- I kept reading his name as Mark Twain. which added yet another layer I'm sure. ;)

but here are the quotes already:

110. "It's my choice! It's become my choice, and I may not do choose what they want me to choose!"

340. He tried to call what he felt in his soul responsibility; but it was beyond any sense of responsibility: it was simply doing what he could do, as long as he could do it, like a man walking on his last strength.

Rider at the Gate, by C.J. Cherryh. 4.5

Rider at the Gate

(but first things first: Sheri S. Tepper's premise for Grass (1998) sounds a whole hell of a lot like the basic premise of Rider at the Gate (1995)---"horses" and all! the two are very very dissimiliar in the writing styles etc, and the stories are different too. but my god the basic premise of the planetary situation is not an original of Tepper's at all. boo on Tepper.)

ok, now, Rider at the Gate. it's rather like an old-fashioned western, really, only on a far-away planet with telepathic, bacon-eating "horses". lol. (in fact I jut referenced something from Hank the Cowdog, and it fit right in ;) ) of course they're not horses at all, but the human population just seems to have named the native creatures after the familiar, Earth creatures they most resemble. and the spook-bears, goblin-cats, and nighthorses (as well as all the other native creatures) are different from Earth creatures in a very substantial way: they are telepathic, and use mind games both to protect themselves and to lure unwitting prey to their doom. it's a good thing that the powerful nighthorses are also rather curious, because if they hadn't investigated the human colonists and found them rather compelling, then the colonists wouldn't have had any defense against the other predators. entire villages went insane or were killed off with the help of telepathic manipulation before the nighthorses chose human companions called Riders. the Riders protect the villages, but the people's fear of the beasts outside the village walls includes the Riders themselves, beast-influenced as they are.

the story is about, in short, a late convoy trying to make through the mountains and to a village before winter; a nighthorse gone Rogue- insane- murdering people; a Rider who will stop at nothing to take down the Rogue who killed his partner; history between him and the other Riders converging on the same territory; a kid in way over his head trying to be of help. about not quite ever knowing what is truth, what is a trick, and what is just a dream.

it's a very good read. on a side note, I've been craving (bacon) and thinking in (brackets) for the past few days too lol.

quotes for me:

100- Humans had a need to know the connections of things, and human minds made them up if they didn't get them.

183- You could blame practically any craziness on the fact they didn't know, never knew, only guessed what another man wanted, or what he was about to do.

Hell of a way to live.

294- Burn's rider crossed the last gap above the rocks and mountainside and tottered to a rock-sheltered spot to sit down, dizzy, dry-mouthed with exertion, and feeling his skull trying to explode.

Which wasn't something he'd regret at the moment.

Too Far From Home, by Chris Jones. rating: 2.5-3

ok, the story itself is a 4.5, but I'm not fond of his style at all. his style gets a 2.

Too Far From Home recounts the story of three astronauts (two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut) that were stranded on the International Space Station when the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry, killing all seven aboard. beyond the amazing loss of those seven who died, this left NASA with no vehicle with which to retrieve the station residents for at least two or three years. this is the story of how those station-bound astronauts finally got home.

but more than that, it's a story about the first American astronauts, and how the world viewed them when they returned to the Earth (afraid they would die just from going to space, or that they would give everyone Moon plague picked up from the dust on their boots, etc.), the American and Soviet space race, and the realities of space exploration, both for the spacemen and for those left behind on the ground.

the history provided is fascinating, and often not the aspects you hear in the media, the character background is fine, and the flow of the story is compelling. but. the writing is also very sensationalistic to the point of sounding hokey at times (page 12: "He was a chemical engineer, an inventor, a man who couldn't help wondering how engines worked, why clouds formed, what lived in the hearts of volcanoes. In his endless quest to understand more about the inner workings of the universe, he had tried and failed to become an astronaut three times; the fourth time around, he was finally given the chance to dissect the stars." --- honestly, I'd be ashamed to turn that in to a publisher. "dissect the stars"?) , quite unneccessarily. and he shows an obvious disdain and prejudice against the Russian people, which sounds like a misplaced attempt at drumming up Nationalistic pride, and is completely uncalled for and out of line. imho.

(nationalism is almost always out of line, but this, moreso, since Russia and America get along fine now. the KGB has stopped being the bad guy in all the spy movies; this should clue him in!)

(I mean, I come from Big Sky country myself. as do the Russians, which he completely ignores, insinuating that they are all "cold-souled" robotic slaves of the Soviet state. ouch! the author makes allowances for the one cosmonaut on the ISS (Nikolai Budarin) (in order for us to want to find out how he gets home) by saying that he acts more "American" than the others??? sorry, but I find the stereotypes too cliche and moronic. where's his reality check? has he never been to Big Sky country? esp the little towns in the desert-like surroundings? cultural norms notwithstanding, we from Big Sky ALL have a tendency to appear cold--- to outsiders. to those inside our group, we can be open, honest, fun-loving, and very affectionate. but each to its proper time and place. have you ever seen an old Western where the stranger walks into town and is immediately slapped on the back by people who don't know him? I think not.)

(and no, I don't usually call it Big Sky country. it's too tempting to shorten that to BS country lol.)

ignoring the storyteller, however, it is a great story.

and, hey, the town I was born in was mentioned on page 72! (my "hometown" is now San Diego; I've been a "native" of San Diego since 2001 :) ) also, one person in the book has my surname as well. won't say who, but they work at NASA. silly things, silly things, I know. but in their own way, they are "goldfish moments" too.

116 "Still learning their way, the Americans governed the lives of their astronauts by a high holy document known as Form 24, which structured the course of their mission, minute by minute, day by day." (Form 24 sounds a lot like the schedules my autistic son draws up for us to abide by.)

154-5 "They came to appreciate how their days unfolded exactly as they wanted them to. They liked never having to alter their routine to make room for someone else in it. They were never caught in traffic or in the rain, bumped into on the sidewalk, jostled on the subway, tied to a desk for hours each day. They never caught colds. They never had to keep appoitnments of cut the grass. They were never rushed. They were never late."

also discussed is how Skylab rebelled against ground control, and actually went on strike. on page 178 the astronauts watch their first movie in space and realize how oversensitized they've become to sudden motion, flashing lights, violence, and gore (or how callous they were to it on Earth). when they return to Earth, it is mentioned how they are oversensitive to even a temperature change of a few degrees etc. I read this and thought, "I wonder how many people CJC has inside NASA!" lol

No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu (again) --- 5

No Future Without Forgiveness

***first review of this book (please read)***

when I first tried to read this book, I had just finished a broad review of the history of sub-Saharan Africa (including the complete history of South Africa) and Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (which I just realized I never reviewed! gaah). so I was familiar with the history---the long, sorted history of relations between the Dutch settlers who came to call themselves Afrikaaners, the various black African native peoples, the "coloureds" (of mixed Dutch-African descent from very early in the colony's history), and the Indians (yes, that's the country of India, thank you). I was familiar with apartheid, the resistance to and armed struggle against apartheid, and the amazing dissolution of apartheid and a democratically-elected new government.

after centuries of internal conflict, South Africa could have easily (and indeed was fully expected to) become yet another battleground of the world: like Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Hertzogovenia, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Angola. this kind of conflict does not just go away. even if people try to smooth it over, forget about it, and move on, if you don't deal with the foundations and results of that conflict, it will rise again to drag you back down.

however, if you hold the equivalent of war tribunals or the Nuremberg Trials, in South Africa, well then you'd be hunting down literally thousands of people who participated in apartheid; and running up enormous court and jail costs in a country that had serious economic concerns including food, medicine, and housing; and really then you run the risk of just reversing the oppressed and the oppressor. none of this is conducive to long-term healing of a nation where people have to live and work with each other, and same with their descendants, and their descendants after them. this does not serve the peace.

so South Africa tried a different way. after a new Constitution was approved, one of the first things the new government did was to try to deal with the anger and hurt of people throughout the country by setting up a Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. they made it where if you had committed a gross human rights violation under apartheid (with certain cut-off dates and restrictions), you could apply for amnesty, and if you received amnesty, you couldn't be prosecuted for that offense in criminal or civil court. but. you had to confess in full, in public, and you had to hold yourself accountable.

that way no one could say they "didn't know" any more. the whole country would be made very well aware of what had been going on, and the people responsible would have to accept their accountability, and the people who had not dared ask questions or who had looked the other way had to accept their own kind of accountability too.

victims of apartheid (meeting requirements, because otherwise there'd be just too many people to deal with) could also come forward and tell their stories and receive reparations to help them heal and move on.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the Chairperson of the Truth and Reconcilliaton Commission, and in this very expressive book explains the thinking behind such an experiment, as well as its successes, drawbacks, and crises that almost derailed the whole thing.

I knew this when I started reading, and again I knew what kinds of things had been going on during apartheid (including routine torture and abductions), but when I got to part where the book quoted a person who was applying for amnesty, saying what he had done, and he was torturing someone for information, and shoved a knife up the victim's nose... well, then I felt a knife going up my nose. and I had to leave the book for another time!

finally I have come back to it, with enough distance but not too much, and I'm glad I read it. (and no, it wasn't full of that kind of thing (examples of torture), but of course it had to have some in there so the reader had an inkling of what they were dealing with.) it is a book full of promising ideas and concepts that I hope make people think. it gives options that are too often overlooked in the world today, and sadly they're the options that might just work. nobody is going to say that South Africa is a perfect place now, with rivers of chocolate and fields of lollipops, but they have a peace that is working. and that's saying something.

I give it a 5, because I think it is so important and needs to be read. and thought about. and applied to our lives. I think we could all find a little more peace if we tried.

quotes:

the concept of Ubuntu is introduced on page 31- "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours... A person with ubuntu... has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they are less than who they are."

54 "In the spirit of ubuntu, the central concern is the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships, a seeking to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator, who should be given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the community he has injured by his offense."

83 "The point is that, if perpetrators were to be despaired of as monsters and demons, then we were thereby letting accountability go out the window because we were then declaring that they were not moral agents to be held responsible for the deeds they had committed. Much more importantly, it meant that we abandoned all hope of their being able to change for the better."

141, included in a PBS documentary by Bill Moyers ("Facing the Truth") : "She said she survived by taking her spirit out of her body and putting it in the corner of the cell in which she was being raped. She could then, disembodied in this manner, look on as they did all those awful things to her body, intending to make her hate herself just as they had told her she would. By doing this she could then imagine that it was not she herself but a stranger suffering this ignominy. With tears in her eyes she told Moyers that she had not yet gone back to that room to fetch her soul and that it was still sitting in the corner where she had left it.

263 (a thing I took to heart, even out of this context) "So I told those dedicated workers for peace and reconcilliation that they should not be tempted to give up on their crucial work because of the frustrations of seemingly not making any significant progress, that in our experience nothing was wasted, for in the fullness of time, when the time was right, it would all come together and those looking back would realize what a critical contribution they had made."

270"Forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending that things are other than they are... True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the degredation, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end dealing with the real situation helps to bring real healing."

"There but for the grace of God go I."

guilty as sin --- further comment on Pretender

(review of Pretender, C.J. Cherryh)

so I pick up Pretender, and, yes, Bren-ji is still stuck in that same awkward place I left him. there's nothing for it but just be brave and read. the hard part is... he doesn't seem to think he's in an awkward place. I feel like he's making a monumental fool of himself in some instances, or just that he's not with the program, and he apparently doesn't pick up on this at all. it about kills me. it seems especially bad for this to happen in Pretender, because by now he really should know better... right?

....

especially all his internal postulations involving hiding the heir out of harm's way until everything has been taken care of and decided? Bren does seem to have problems (still) thinking in atevi terms---unless he's explaining the atevi culture to someone else. then, he has little problem. when he is just thinking to himself, however, he doesn't seem to engage that regulatory check, that but-they're-not-human catch, as often as he should.

hmmm. I mentioned that I think of Bren as an ENFJ, because he's so freakin' like me (an INFJ). and guess what? oh yes that's right...

I'm guilty as sin of doing the same thing as Bren Cameron.

now, indulge me, because this is as close as I can get to Bren's situation, okay? but I have two autistic children. when I am advocating for them or interacting with them and the community at large, I have no trouble whatsoever reminding everyone that autistic people think, communicate, and perceive the world differently than neurotypicals do, and that doesn't make the autistic right or wrong or the neurotypicals right or wrong, and that accomodations must be made that honor the intrinsic humanity of both sides in such a way that we can all get along. I mean, I've been living with this reality for nigh-on ten years, so I know this, right?

so why is it when I am alone with my autistic kids, all summer, that this kind of thinking starts to slide away? why do I find myself thinking, "really it shouldn't be so difficult; why do I always have to change everything for them?" I honestly forget, for periods of time, that maybe I make accomodations for them, but that's Nothing compared to the effort they put forward as autistic people in a non-autistic world. it's nothing. and they do try. and I should know that. I do know that. why in the world do I forget? why do I not remember when it seems most critical?

let's see; would this fit the situation?

I seem to have problems (still) thinking in autistic terms---unless I'm explaining autism to someone else. then, I have little problem. when I am just thinking to himself, however, I don't seem to engage that regulatory check, that but-they're-not-typical catch, as often as I should.

my hat goes off to you, CJC. you really know your characters. even if your readers have a hard time putting up with them lol :)

Hunter of Worlds, C.J. Cherryh. rating = 3 (but see review)

I've noticed how, in Cherryh's earlier works, she didn't explain much. she mentioned something a few times and it was up to the reader after that (if she gave you that much of a headstart). these stories tend to be shorter overall: more concise and self-containing.

I've noticed how, in Cherryh's latests works, the opposite is true. she explains the living daylights out of things---but not in a straightforward fashion! she hints and cajoles the reader down certain ways of thinking, towards the next revelation, and re-examines related key issues over and over and over from different aspects, but she never comes out and says what the reader is expecting her to say. that is, of course, one way to keep your readers in suspence. but I'm sure she is quite aware that when her many fans clamour for her attention and beg for more details, they mean they want a more straightforward look at the worlds she creates. the paradox is, if she gave that to them, the effect would be ruined and nobody would want to read the books. so, this giving of many explanations without actually revealing anything that she wouldn't traditionally reveal, is a compromise. an exacerbating compromise, because it puts the reader through the ringer even more so than her earlier works, and Cherryh is very good at putting the reader through the ringer. these stories tend to be longer, and divided into triologies (not three stories in a trilogy, but one story in a trilogy arc that includes three books). tend a bit more towards space opera.

Hunter of Worlds was published in 1977, and fits the first description. in it, we are introduced to an alien universe with three different alien species complete with their own cultures and languages and beliefs. Hunter of Worlds is a bit linguistics-heavy... it is what I call a concept book.

if in some sci-fi, the author coins a word for an alien animal (say, garblio), and we see this word used off and on throughout the book, well, it's expected. there aren't any creatures that look like a cross between an armadillo and a penguin here on Earth, so we don't have a name for that. of course the author has to make up the word garblio. it's best of course if they actually include a picture of a garblio or at least a very brilliant passage describing this creature, but this is all to be expected in much of sci-fi.

if we are asked to learn what a garblio is, that's not a real problem. we can remember that. what becomes confusing is if most or all of the animals there on planet/spaceship X have no Earthly comparisons. yes, it's when the characters make their way through and interact with a field full of garblios, nekwitetters, modoneds, and jesuviars that the reader starts getting lost. which was the man-eating carnivore again? which one was the long-lost pet of the mad scientist?

it's not impossible to learn the new words and keep them all sorted, and in fact for some of us it's rather fun lol, but it is quite a task.

especially when we're not talking about animals but instead symbolic things like justice, honour, beauty, truth, or some combination of those that only occurs in an alien culture (or, well, we might have it but we don't have a word for it, whereas that alien culture reveres it as much as we do our justice). those kind of symbolic words are hard to define and pin down when they're ones we actually know (truth, justice, the american way). but when it's supposed to be an innovative concept... oi vey! a whole new level of challenge.

for example: kastien - being oneself; virtue, wisdom; observing harmony with others and the universe by perfect centering in one's giyre toward all person and things.

oh, wait. what was giyre again? recognition of one's proper place in the cosmic Order of things; also, one's proper duty to another. it is ideally mutual.

but those are just two concepts here, and they're only representative of one species. there are three species (not counting humanity) in the book, remember?

so we've also got arastiethe, shakhshoph, vaikka, elethia... etc. those are (some of) the symbolic words, but we've also got new words for new technology (ex: chiabres), different relationship-types (ex: asuthe, kamethi, nasul, orithain, sra), different place names (ex: Esliph, Kesuat, Kej), and then of course the names of the species (Kalliran, Amaut, Iduve) and the ships and the characters!

there is a glossary at the back of this book. you will need it.

in her later works she is much more skillful about adding the new words in there at a more approachable pace... however, most everything that makes me love Cherryh's writing is there, if not developed to its full fruition. this is a book that you reread, and reread, and then when you realize you don't have to look anything up anymore, then its craft unfolds completely (and not in the satisfying yet broken way it did during all the previous reads).

399:
"I prefer to proceed toward infallibility at my own unhurried pace..."

(and yet, if she had just listened to them and secured the loose cannon, so to speak, that would have kept the obvious from happening. oh, you know it's going to happen, you just don't know when. Cherryh is ALWAYS doing that. just for once can't we lock the psychopath up or eliminate them completely? it's like suspending James Bond over a lake full of hungry crocodiles. for goodness sakes, just shoot him already! at least give him a tranquilizer or something. you know he's going to get away!)

450:
He was bitterly ashamed of the grief his perverted emotion had brought her in all things, for in one private part of his thoughts he knew absolutely what he had done, saw through his own pretenses... The contradictions were madness; they gathered about him like a great darkness, in which nothing was understandable.

Orlando Furioso, by Ludovico Ariosto, translated by Guido Waldman. mixed: 3-5.

Orlando Furioso is an epic poem written in 1532 as the culmination of the chivalric legends of Charlemagne and the Saracen invation of France, and develops three principal stories:
*the knight Orlando(Roland)’s love for the princess Angelica
*the war between the Franks and the Saracens
*the love of Ruggerio(Roger), a Saracen, for Bradamant, a Christian

Voltaire himself said that Orlando Furioso was a combination of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Don Quixote, only better.

what Voltaire forgot to mention was another ingredient here: 1001 Arabian Nights.

have you ever read the original 1001 Arabian Nights? I tried. the university library had the whole set (many multiple volumes) and I thought, hey I should read those. only, it’s really quite difficult to follow. not that it isn’t immensely interesting for the most part, or funny, or witty, but that there’s a story within a story within a story within a dream within another story. literally. and the stories go on and on and on. forever. in sometimes archaic wording in always small print in volumes of 600+ pages.

I have no doubt in my mind that if I sat down and read one story a night for the next, um, 1001 nights, that I would be thoroughly entertained. but I just couldn’t ever finish it otherwise.

it’s the same with Orlando Furioso. I wondered why it ook Ariosto over 20 years to write this epic poem (translated in my version into English prose), but once I started reading, I wondered no more. there are over 40 Cantos, something equivalent to chapters for the sake of our discussion, and each of them could be a full-fledged novel in its own right. details and details and action and plot twists and then checking up on the other knight, so-and-so, who when we left him last was battling a magician astride a flying horse. several decades of intertwined stories ago.

in Ariosto’s time, the stories of these knights were more than well-known; as well-known as the legends of Arthur and the Round Table were then and even more well-known than those legends are known today. so the details, to readers in the 1600s, were not something they had to absorb upon first hearing. they were just expounding on what legends everyone already was familiar with.

and they are interesting stories, and they are funny and smart. and I love the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Don Quixote. heck I love 1001 Arabian Nights, just not quite as much. so yes I do enjoy Orlando Furioso. but it might take me a thousand years to remember and understand all the twists.

for light reading, no, no, no. definitely not light reading.

for my purposes of enjoyment, it rates a 3 (worth reading).

for appreciation of the poet’s genius, it rates a 5 (don’t miss it). so, if you’re going to study literature for a course, I’d suggest this. if you’re just looking to pass the time, you might want to keep looking, unless you’ve got a thousand years to spare ;)

See more progress on: read all the books on my lists

more on A Rage To Live by John O'Hara

this one has spoilers.


*******


do I need to say, just because I think a book is well-written and enjoyable, it does not immediately follow that I am in league with the characters and their questionable behavior? I hope people already know that. I applaud a writer who can make a work of fiction seem, well, not like fiction but, instead, real. and if the work seems real, then it's usually because the characters seem like real people. and real people make mistakes and behave badly, some moreso than others.

it bothered me that Sidney died when he did. it honestly didn't affect Grace much, as she had lost him anyway. Sidney did not deserve to die; but perhaps it was more merciful to die than to have his means of leaving-with-cover (army/navy) withdrawn from him, or for him to go on living in his incredibly lonely, alienated way, completely disillusioned now with the one thing in his life that had made him happy. or maybe that's just an excuse; I mean, getting over it and moving on (no matter what "it" is) is always hard, but it is doable and there are great rewards for success.

Grace, no I do not think that Grace was just an independent soul blah blah blah. she knew the rules of the game, esp back then, and she broke them, and went on breaking them. she knew the price and she kept on. I know she says she couldn't help it, but just because something is hard isn't an excuse to stop resisting. in fact, that's when you need to resist the most. honestly I think Grace was spoiled more than independent; she never seemed to think much for herself at all, and even less did she think about other people. she never learned how to restrain her id, and never tried. you can't be independent if you're not even in control of yourself. that's just being a different kind of slave. I have no real respect for Grace; if she hadn't money, then she and more importantly her children could easily have ended up in destitute circumstances.

not to say that the men in the novel were angels, either. I think there is something to the idea that Roger Bannon was homosexual, and trying to compensate. he certainly was full of hate for women (I'm not saying that gay men are all misogynists) which seemed to stem from an unconscious hate of cultural expectations regarding gender roles, or hate for himself for failing to naturally want what his culture expected him to want.

Hollister... ot, that name had me thinking of The Happy Hollisters all the way through the book... I'm not sure what was his problem. he seemed full of hate as well. why? he had the wife and kids that he always set out to have, and the job that he'd always wanted too. he had the respect and the attention of the community and into the wider world. maybe he did just get a swelled head, thinking that he was not just better than everyone else but that they were beneath him, because he surely set out to have it all, including wife and mistress. but at the same time, he knew that he was destroying his relationship with his wife, kids, and that whole side of the family, and that he was ruining the future of a girl he sometimes claimed to love--- he seemed determined to destroy them, and in so doing, destroy his reputation, his means of livelihood, and himself, utterly. it seems to simple to say that power corrupts. maybe power did corrupt, and he hated himself for that, and turned against himself in the end. although we never know what happened to them in the long run, no matter how that turned out, the damage was done, irrepairably.

all that blarney about "principles"---coming from Jack Hollister! a man of no principles at all! and Amy's father trying to believe it, because he thinks he's supposed to? does it make you a better person when you knowingly let people use you? do you think the kids ought to grow up knowing that that's okay, that's the way to go? bah. oh I know, I know, believe me I know. most male-dominated cultures have (in the past at least) taken that line. the woman is not the authority and no matter what the man does, she should forgive him and try to make him a better person through her own example (or butt the hell out, either way). the man-man connection here in this context (trying to get Amy's father on his side just because they're both men)(and damn it, did it not work?) always reminds me of something Charlotte Perkins Gilman might say---why should the males compete against the males when it's so much easier for the males to compete with and dominate over the females instead?

moving on.

Sidney now, what a sad one. did he actually believe in this courtly love? seeing her at first sight and wanting nothing else but to worship her and give her everything she wanted? did he actually think that? that's very sad to me. that is the source of his loneliness more even than his foreigness to Fort Penn. did he choose that for himself, this exclusion from the world, knowingly? he wanted a fantasy life, and in order to have that, the real world must always be far away.

Charlie Jay and Brock, my goodness. what is there to say? who could be worse except maybe Miles, Roger's friend. how can you be friends with someone who rapes your sister or beats the mahen hell out of an unarmed woman, for no reason? don't you have to believe in the kind of person your friend is, in order to actually be real friends? I'm not saying people in general shouldn't have the chance to be forgiven and to have a second chance, in general... but if those crimes stem from an innate part of the personality or a still-cultivated mindset, etc, if, in short, the wellspring of the trouble is still well and sprung (if you'll forgive me), then you know damn well what kind of "friend" you have there, don't you? how can you be friends unless you are just as bad and, furthermore, don't care? what, nobody wants to be a better person anymore? everyone is so disillusioned and full of apathy and dislike for themselves and their fellows that this is acceptable?

the other women characters confound me. oh, I understand Amy Hollister, all right (maybe not the part about going back, but that's a difference in our times; I'll give her that). but the others... Connie, I can see how she ended up in a relationship with another woman. I wondered why the hell she always hung around Grace like that; who would? she didn't really seem to be wanting favor or priviledge; it was probably just a crush (or maybe a bit more, since it lasted so long). but in short the other women sound like the apathetic bunch I just mentioned. we really do talk ourselves into believing whatever we want, don't we? ("you keep on building the lies
that you make up for all that you lack")

well, 700 pages. I'm sure there's more to say. but for nowI should probably wrap this up. I know when I start to quote lyrics--- that's my cue lol

Bambert's Book of Missing Stories by Reinhardt Jung, rating =4/5.

lovely, lovely little book about 175 pages. very reminiscent of The Little Prince in some ways and A Wrinkle in Time in others. written for children, but a great read for adults too!

since it is such a short read, I’ll save it all for you to discover on your own.

See more progress on: read all the books on my lists

A Rage to Live, by John O'Hara. rating = 5.

I couldn’t sleep, so I put the Encyclopedia on hold for a while :p and finished A Rage to Live.

wow.

there is an introduction in my edition here, which states that O’Hara was considered in the same circle as Faulkner and Hemingway and Fitzgerald during his time. I was immediately intrigued, as I’m a huge fan of Faulkner, and of course I’ve studied Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but I hadn’t so much as heard of O’Hara.

more’s the pity! what an excellent author! I should have known; the read was suggested by none other than John McWhorter , who also suggested The Murder of Helen Jewett . I loved that book as well. they’re not the same kind of book, by any means, but this linguist knows his literature!

thank you Professor McWhorter ;)

A Rage to Live is an epic, to say the least. 700 pages. but more than just length… it’s not just length that blabs on and on and on and tries to impress the reader with big words or endear its characters by means of archetypal dramas. no, this is 100% pure, real Americana. straight-forward, undiluted, real people, the way real people act, talk, and go about their lives justifying their actions and their behavior to themselves.

the setting is the turn of the century, 1900, Pennsylvania. I’ve never been to Pennsylvania, and pardon me but I’ve never thought much about it either. not that I think much about New York or Vermont or the West Indes. it just hadn’t come up. but O’Hara puts you there. and the vista from which you experience it is not just from the upper class, not just the middle class, not just the poor and the servants. you experience life from all levels, and it’s just like you’ve grown up there watching it unfold before your very eyes. from life on the farm to life in the city, perfectly natural. from the eyes of the craftsman to the eyes of the newspaperman to the eyes of the idle gentry. from the native’s perspective to the foreigner’s perspective. from the Irish view point to the Pennsylvanian Dutch view point to the Black American view point. from the child to the adult.

if there is a universal truth about Americans, it is that we are all so darn independent and we all have our own views, independent from each other (comparatively, considering other cultures in the world), and that there are so many different kinds of us. O’Hara captures this perfectly and conveys it in a straight-shooting manner that makes no character evil or pure (but sometimes both); in other words: real.

the Caldwells are a prominent, practically the founding, family in the fictional Pennsylvanian capital of Fort Penn. (O’Hara’s replacement for Harrisburg.) to sum up very very quickly, the story covers their daughter, Grace Caldwell, from early childhood to her later life, and documents the events leading to the inevitable fall of the Caldwell family; and also how at no point in time does Grace herself ever consider herself fallen or defeated, or even, one might interpret, responsible. O’Hara starts the narrative in media res, and then, when our attention has been seized by the collar, backs up and explains things (very deftly) while building up momentum towards the revelation of secrets we just almost guessed and, even though we see where it all must lead in the end, we read on in apt fascination.

highly recommended!

O’Hara was highly praised for his short stories especially; I’ll have to go read them all now :D

some of my favorite quotes, trying for no spoilers…

page 25: They would all go on doing what they wanted to do and what they didn’t want to do, without him, for the next few minutes and for as long as the war would last, and afte the war when he came back he would try to fit himself into the place he had occupied before the war, but that would be easy and impossible. It would be easy because there had been no place for him and because there had been no place for him it would be reimpossible for him to reinstate himself in the place he had occupied before the war.

page 143: Emily Caldwell, an Episcopalian by membership, held the private opinion that churches got between the individual and God, and she was not at all sure that she did not regard Christ as part of the Church and therefore in the way. Her religion was between herself and God the Father, with whom she felt on good terms.

page 157: the important weddings in Fort Penn always had followed the system of taking care of the sheep and the goats by inviting the persons of goat status to the church but not to the reception.

page 324: ...so I walked in here and immediately am accused of doing something that’s so against my principles that it’s as though you never knew me. As though we’d never had any intimacy of body or mind, Grace. I don’t know how many million words we’ve spoken to each other, but apparently not one word, or not ten million word had the effect of showing you what I believe in. All this time you haven’t been listening! Nothing I said, or did! for that matter, has taught you what kind of person I am.

page 341: But there it is, the fact that you need one other person, just one, that shows that—-well, I tell you what it does. It breaks the ice. It breaks the illusion of satisfactory solitude.

page 395: Billy turned his face away from them and put his head in his arms and lay on the floor, weeping in the inconsolable, desperate, eternal way of a child who no longer is a baby but has not yet grown up into anything else. There is nothing to say to him, nothing to do for him, nothing that will stop him, and until he does stop it is the most awful sound we can hear because it is the eternal cry without hope, plea and protest to nobody and nothing.

the death on page 415.

page 421: The world’s still one-sided, in favor of the men, because the women like it that way too. They like the men to fetch and carry and make the money, and it’s a small price the women pay, to be taken care of after they lose their prettiness and their teeth and run to fat.

page 604: She smiled. “My normal self? I wish I knew what that was.” / “Now, now, now,” he said. “Now, now.”

agh! the audacity and hypocrisy of 665,666. planned, no doubt; a commentary, a message to those who would hear. but agh!

page 688: It was like a small circle, the mouth of the pistol, getting larger and larger. Invisible, but you knew it was there. It got bigger and bigger until we were all in it. Not only the three of us, but [“X”] too. And that was the world. <--- this is friggin brilliant

page 693, for the linguists! ”...to bear the brunt of the whole thing,” said Brock. / “What is this brunt?” said Renee [from France]. / “To bear the brunt,” said Brock. “It’s an expression, like, uh, carrying the load. At least that’s what I think it means.” / “A brunt is a load? A brunt of coal, for instance?” said Renee. / Brock stood up. “God damn it, this is the way I’m learning to speak English. I say something I’ve been saying all my life, and she wants to know what it means and I have to look it up in the dictionary. Edgar, do you know what a brunt is? How many tons in a brunt? How many cubic yards in a brunt of sand?”

5= must read

See more progress on: read all the books on my lists

a word on the Brontes; esp the novel Shirley

obviously there are more books to go; I have not read all the Bronte novels... but a couple of brief comments in general.

the prejudice towards other nationalities in the books are not to the Brontes' credit. I did not comment on them in the reviews because I dismissed them out of hand, but I don't want anyone to think I in any way agree with that nonsense.

I was greatly surprised to find that er the whole world seems to like Jane Eyre the best, and then Villete, which they consider to be a masterpiece, and they dismiss Shirley as badly-written due to the death of Emily during its completion.

wow. I wonder what planet they are all on... but then again, it's probably me, and I'm on Anuurn, or the earth of the Atevi, by default.

they seemed to think that naming it Shirley even though Shirley was not introduced until several chapters into the story was an indication that Charlotte had changed her focus (as if the book were intended at first to be "Caroline") midway through the writing. um, no. it seems obvious to me that she titled it Shirley and then made us really want to find out who this Shirley was by delaying her entrance. it piques the curiousity. Caroline is the foil. she is the Normal. she is the Typical nineteenth-century English female. and we get so caught up in Caroline that when Shirley does come into play, we can't help but at least temporarily believe that it isn't for the better. Shirley is the Atypical here.

yes, Caroline is (said to be) like Emily. but Charlotte is not a simpleton; she is not going to just write a book about her sister. she instead makes a statement by comparing the Typical with the Atypical, and what better foil for Shirley (a powerful, wealthy, independent woman unafraid to stand up for herself) than Caroline/Emily? Charlotte paints the Typical first so that we can truly appreciate the Atypical!

and what was this business about how the other readers seemed to be bothered when ~ "they were dragged out of matters of the heart and into the riots"? what are they talking about? Charlotte did an Excellent job of placing her characters into real history. every love story has a background, people. all those "matters of the heart" don't just float around in nothingness. and I think Charlotte described the action scenes in a very attention-getting way. no, the girls did not join the fray or anything (alas, that would have been interesting! but Shirley is no Pyanfar or Jago), but it was realistic and exciting. especially for the kind of novel it was.

Jane Eyre has real flaws to me. she just happens to fall ill outside of her long-lost cousins' house? she just happens to come into a fortune? Bertha just happens to commit suicide? Her blind husband just happens to partially regain his eyesight? or, moreso than that, he happens to be so wounded in the first place as to bring him down a notch into her economic class? to say nothing of St John! bah. (her father, Patrick Bronte, went to a seminary called St John's... I wonder---no, I hope, I believe, she was making more of a pointed reference to that and to religion in general... but god that St John was enough to kill it for me.)

Villette.... as I said, it doesn't even have an ending! that is a serious crime to me. ok, so Dead Souls didn't have an ending, but part of the manuscript was missing; and in any case, you KNOW what happens. in Villette, you don't. you can guess, but either way you guess would be equally valid. it's just very odd. it would have been much better if Charlotte had ended it right as Paul Emmanuel left on the voyage and Lucy was setting out on her new employment. we wouldn't have known for sure THEN either, but it would have been more artfully done than saying his ship was returning but did it run into storms or did it come safely into the harbor? well, I'll let you guess, dear reader. ... obnoxious.

and I understand about Lucy wanting to find a husband that would be a good life partner for her, but all her other heroines had that going on as well. it's not a new concept.

of course in all the books, the girl ends up married anyway (or, in Villette, engaged to be married). which is so beyond the current experience that it is hard for me to really be happy for them... Wuthering Heights, well, they had an abominable time of it, for sure, but, it ended with a marriage and a happily ever after.

so, basically, Shirley is the best :p and I need more sleep

The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte. rating = 3.

this is the first book that Charlotte Bronte ever wrote. it was submitted for publication at the same time as Emily's first book, Wuthering Heights, and Anne's first book, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. what a loss that Emily and Anne did not live long enough to write more than they did... sigh. Wuthering Heights as a first novel? I will forever think that is impressive. especially when you take into account that, as great a novelist as Charlotte became, her first book, The Professor, was refused for publication.

The Professor was only published after Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre etc, more as a favor to her public who were by then curious what her first novel was about.

it IS a nice book; I do recommend it. but it is obviously her first book, and the pacing is off, and the storytelling needs work, and some things seem rather odd. she uses many of the same themes in her other, successful novels, which means that there is substance here, but she handles it much better in her later works. this is also the only novel where Charlotte writes from the perspective of a man. when she writes as a woman, it is so much more natural and she can do more with it, comfortably and fluently.

favorite quotes:

how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a half-idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my equal---nay, my idol---to know that I must pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathising with what I felt! (1106)

I went to bed, but somoething feverish and fiery had got into my veins which prevented me from sleeping much that night. (1108)

God knows I am not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I can no longer trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings are of the vacillating order---they are not of that sand-like sort where impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my friend's disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he is indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles, and I dissolve the connection . (1108-Charlotte is perhaps an INFJ? lol)

Fate! thou hast done thy worst, and now thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade. Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I still hope. Pagan demon, I credit not thine onmipotence, and so cannot succumb to they power. (1118)

"Down, stupid tormentors," cried she; "the man has done his duty; you shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and certain evil; he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path." (1149)

(and yes this now completes my reading of the omnibus Charlotte and Emily Bronte: the complete novels. I want to see The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Agnes Gray, etc, but that might have to wait a while...)

Villette, Charlotte Bronte. rating = 3.5

bah I'm having to type this again. let's hope Netscape doesn't close on me for every passing plane... it puts me out of countenance; it's disconcerting and disheartening to try and reweave all the tangents again.

first I must (since I haven't done so before now) throw out there that it is very nice to be aware of small changes that have taken place in the English language between now and Bronte's time. otherwise one might be confounded when somewhat puritanical characters publicly speak of "making love" etc. the changes are not so great as between now and Shakespeare's time (wherefore art thou Romeo = why are you Romeo? not where are you, Romeo? and silly = innocent and deserving of compassion, not a dingbat; and wit = knowledge, not just clever funny sayings) but they can throw you off if you are unaware.

second I say that it is also very nice to be aware of events in Bronte's life, as much of her work is either autobiographical or at least stems from direct experience. in Villette, a young (English) country girl makes her way to the Continent, to live in the city as a teacher. I knew before hand that Charlotte herself attended and later taught at a school in Belgium for a number of years, and her few visits to London did include watching an Opera, and I was already interested in what she would write of that.

third... I like Shirley better; Shirley was more well-rounded and seamless. Villette is engaging but seems quite disjointed. the main character, Lucy Snowe, does not tell all about her life, and only the interesting bits are relayed, with some gaps in between, and even then I know there are interesting bits that she just never revealed. what happened exactly in the past, in her childhood, to which she often and vaguely refers? I guess we just won't know, as she never says. it's none of our business yet she will taunt us with it. in terms of the basic story, it is as if Lucy is just being mischievous for not telling us certain things and keeping us in suspense, or not letting on that she knows something that the reader (or, indeed, the other characters) would expect her to mention. and (I'm not sure I can forgive her for it) , there is no ending. she takes you right up to the ending, and then says oh it looks like it might not happen after all, but I will just stop here so that the reader can imagine it whichever way they choose. bah!

I do forgive her for it, because I know what she was going through at this time of her life, but I know she could have done better and that disappoints me. I can forgive the author, but I don't think I can forgive the work.

I still say you should read it though; it is still engaging in its own way. Bronte not at her best is better than many others. I am puzzled by the main character, but also by a Mr. Paul Emmanuel. and the first time I saw the name Dr. John, I did a double-take, thinking that St. John had wormed his way back in there somehow! no, I guess he's in India or somewhere, not France, thank God. Bronte turned her talent more towards describing the people in this story, and there was not near as much about nature or weather. the people were interesting, but again just not as interesting (to me) as (or maybe just more at odds with me than) the characters of Shirley.

the story does have a ghost, though. as well as some very witty passages (esp the exchanges between Dr. John and his mother, and esp the turban). and a most awesome quote!

quotes:

so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings and Hope guides us by her star. (800)

got all the above except the wings; Liberty must be off lunching with Human Justice (1000)... I've tried substituting a cape, but with mixed results.

Wise, firm, faithless; secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and insensate---withal perfectly decorous---what more could be desired? (811)

that could almost be discussing the Guild

"Shall I do?" was her question.

"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I don't understand yours." (818)

not a living thing save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam. (827)

"Who is inthe wrong, then, Lucy?"

"Me---Dr. John---me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculpted to bear: me and Fate."

" 'Me' must take better care in future..." (874)

here is the most awesome quote:

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amarnth bloom and the golden fruitage of Paradise. (912)

yes, indeed my friends, Happiness is no potato!

I should give it a 4 just for that quote!

Shirley, Charlotte Bronte. rating = 5

it really isn't about Shirley at all. first we meet three curates, and then the rector, and then the miller, Robert Moore, and then eventually we get around to Caroline, the rector's niece and Moore's cousin. just when we think that Caroline and Robert are becoming close, oops, reality. no time for whims. then enters Shirley, finally, and she brings other people in with her as well. just when you think you've gotten everybody figured out, something new becomes obvious, and the relationships between the characters shift. again. everything, though, is superbly realistic (if sometimes a bit convenient), and all is based and firmly set in historical context.

I don't know; is it just me? I thoroughly enjoyed this book. much more than Wuthering Heights, and more than Jane Eyre too. I wish I had read Shirley, oh, a decade or two ago...

I especially like how the reader has no idea who "Shirley" even is until about? halfway through the book. and, back in Bronte's time, one would assume Shirley to be a man, so that would come as a surprise as well. a brilliant stroke.

there are so many view points and little stories within the story; the tale really comes alive. I can picture this place, which apparently even by Bronte's day was much changed. the social commentary is interesting without being too preachy, as different characters have different ways of seeing things. it rather balances out. Charlotte knows how to write... I wonder, since Wuthering Heights was Emily's first attempt at a novel, how very superb SHE would have become as well. both of them are very inventive in how they spin their yarns.

Charlotte does seem to write very long sentences. she also seems to discuss more about the fine points of nature, both mother nature and the nature of the characters... in contrast to Emily. this is mostly why I prefer her of the two, I suppose.

I definitely liked the ending of Shirley (romantic as it is) over that of Jane Eyre. I like how the endings suited the characters... as this story isn't just about one person, but several. actually, a whole slew of them ;) it is slightly eyebrow-raising when people turn out to be/ end up related to each other... I think though that Charlotte pokes fun at that a bit herself, when Robert teases Caroline that Shirley's mysterious lover must be none other than Caroline's uncle, and that they will soon be married, and Shirley will be her aunt.

here are some favorite quotes. the page numbers are from the omnibus I'm reading Charlotte and Emily Bronte: The Complete Novels.

"Against legitimacy is arrayed usurpation: against modest, single-minded, righteous , and brave resistance to encroachment, is arrayed boastful, double-tongued, selfish, and treacherous ambition to possess. God defend the right!"

"God often defends the powerful." (462)

"I mean to say nothing: but I can think what I please, you know, Mr. Helstone, both about France and England; and about revolutions, and regicides, and restorations in general; and about the divine right of kings, which you often stickle for in your sermons, and about the duty of non-resistance, and the sanity of war, and---" (463)

imagination discussed (sarcastically, I do hope) on 467.

"You seem a fine fellow," said Moore, quite coolly and drily; "you don't care for showing me that you are a double-dyed hypocrite, that your trade is fraud: you expect indeed to make me laugh at the cleverness with which you play your coarsely farcical part, while at the same time you think you are deceiving the men behind you." (511)

from the beginning of Chapter Ten on 528 to "Long may it be ere England really becomes a nation of shop-keepers!" on 529--- sounds way too much like modern capitalist America.

"...other people solve it by saying, 'Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is wanted.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise: they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession creates selfishness. .... Each human being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to happiness and welfare of all, if each knew his allotment, and held to it as tenaciously as a martyr to his creed." (532)

"...I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect, picture-like effects: rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated, and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you." (550)

"Obtrusiveness is a crime; forwardness is a crime; and both disgust: but love!--- no purest angel need blush to love! And when I see or hear either man or woman couple shame with love, I know their minds are coarse, their associations debased. Many who think themselves refinded ladies and gentlemen, and on whose lips the word 'vulgarity' is forever hovering, cannot mention 'love' without betraying their own innate and imbecile degradation: it is a low feeling in their estimation, connected only with low ideas for them."

"You describe three-fourths of the world, Caroline." (603)

"Shirley, you chatter so, I can't fasten you: be still. And after all, authors' heroines are almost as good as authoress's heroes." (620)

"Say, Mr. Yorke!" was the answer, the speaker meantime walking fast from wall to wall of the oak-parlour. "Say? I have a great deal to say, if I could get it out in lucid order which I never can do." (628)

"My consolation is, indeed, that God hears many a groan, and compassionates much grief which man stops his ears against, or frowns on with impotent contempt. I say impotent, for I observe that to such grievances as society cannot readily cure, it usually forbids utterance, on the pain of its scorn: this scorn being only a tinselled cloak to its deformed weakness. People hate to be reminded of ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy: such reminder, in forcing on them a sense of their own incapacity, or a more painful sense of an obligation to make some unpleasant effort, troubles their ease and shakes their self-complacency." (639)

I intend to finish the rest of the omnibus I'm reading before I compare the Bronte novels too much or discuss much else about them... I want to read Anne's The Tenant as well, if I can... I don't have it but it might be available to read online... anyway, I'm trying for just first impressions in these entries here.

ok ok and THEN I'll write something about Deliverer...