her soft words like musical notes, her carefully composed sentences like verse chorus bridge refrain... she writes a song; the song is this book. thisher soft words like musical notes, her carefully composed sentences like verse chorus bridge refrain... she writes a song; the song is this book. this is a song for compassionate Patroclus, the best of men. this is a song of his lover Achilles, otherworldly yet knowable, loveable, even scornable, at times. this is a song of his friend Briseis, brave and vulnerable and lovelorn. all three are so beautifully made. this is a song against war and for love; this is a song about the stupidity of ego and the power of memories. at first I found the melody a bit off, distancing; the tone felt strange, oddly alien. but then, somehow and somewhere, the song took me over and I became entranced, enchanted. the archaic became timeless and I came to live in this sweet song. I did not want the song to end. I cried when it did. when can I go back?...more
this felt a bit long for what was basically a Scooby-Doo murder mystery. still fun though. enjoyable setting on a big boat, entertaining plot, lively this felt a bit long for what was basically a Scooby-Doo murder mystery. still fun though. enjoyable setting on a big boat, entertaining plot, lively characters, and the reveal of the puppet masters behind it all was amusing (I guessed the first but not the second). this is a Scooby-Doo episode turned into a big-budget, live-action Netflix miniseries with all of the trimmings; it even left room for an ongoing sequel series. very bingeable....more
effective novella detailing the dwindling of a French Foreign Legion garrison stationed in the Moroccan desert, shortly before the start of The Great effective novella detailing the dwindling of a French Foreign Legion garrison stationed in the Moroccan desert, shortly before the start of The Great War. this is less of a ghost story (supernatural elements are minimal) and more of a study of the fatalistic mood that comes to soldiers trapped in a situation not of their making, destined for lonely deaths far from their compatriots. empty forts, desert winds, hostile Arabs on the attack, and an overwhelming feeling of resignation and despair. an evocative and depressing tale....more
Have you heard of the Ukrainian city named Chernivtsi, located in Bukovina, a region which is now split between Romania and Ukraine? This book is a poHave you heard of the Ukrainian city named Chernivtsi, located in Bukovina, a region which is now split between Romania and Ukraine? This book is a portrait of the Chernivtsi of a certain time, between the world wars. It was a place of many cultures and many peoples, past and present: Ruthenians/Ukrainians, Moldavians/Romanians, Austrians (the novel's narrators), Hungarians, Russians, Romany and Jews of diverse backgrounds. It was a crossroads city, of sorts, and frequently conquered. Here the laughing city is given a different name: Czernopol.
This dense and dizzying kaleidoscope of a novel was an enchanting experience. So many lives examined, and with a certain amusement. But maybe the word "enchanting" gives the wrong impression, as there is dirt and grit in this story, characters of flexible morality and axes to grind, melancholy fates and tragic endings, and a cosmopolitan outlook that combines a shrug with a laugh. There is an urbane, nonchalant quality to much of the cast and, especially, to the storytelling - one of my favorite tones of voice in narration. A rather surprising urbanity, given that the story is narrated by children. Perhaps the only character who completely lacks that rather decadent sophistication, that moral flexibility - and who is the object of the children's obsession - is the rigidly honorable Major Tildy, the book's tragic central character. Poor Tildy! Always immaculately dressed, always correct. So tightly wound. He did not bend like a reed to all those around him. And so he fell like an oak...
The book's Proustian narrative can feel random, chaotic. So many different characters, so many lives, so many stories to tell within the greater story, so many digressions. Is there even a greater story? One could get lost in the mix. But there is a method here and all of the book's many effects weave together to form a tapestry of a place, a city that is always changing, always laughing at its tragedies. The complexity of the narration itself is a remarkable achievement, when taking a step back from the book to analyze its construction (hard to do - this is an immersive experience). We start with a narrator that is often a "we": a group of children from a well-off bourgeois clan. They narrate the stories of the many lives around them, most of all the adults, fascinating or frightening or sometimes both. As they get older, the "we" often becomes "we" + Tanya - the oldest of the children, and the first of the group to achieve individuality. Near the end, the "we" finally alternates with an "I" and so we at last meet our true narrator, a boy who has carefully observed the world around him while growing up, a young man who is no longer a child, no longer of the group.
Key to this novel's concerns are the idea of "losing face" (the very phrase terrifies the children) and the way we create identities that prop us up, that serve as shields or provocations, that are sometimes all that we have left after everything else has been taken away.
Perhaps the most important part of the novel, the message that the author wanted to communicate above all, is the awful ease in which anti-semitism can be normalized. The terrible yet almost offhand way that contempt for Jews is a part of the fabric of many societies. In the past, certainly, but perhaps in the present as well. Here is the passage where our narrator(s) finally comes to an understanding about Jews, after meeting and befriending them at a new school:
But, as I say, the most important thing was that we came to converse with our friends in the first place, and only later - quite a bit later - did we find out that they were Jews. So we didn't make the usual discovery that Jews are also people, but rather the reverse, that people are sometimes also Jews. This was one of the most beautiful of the invaluable discoveries that we owed to Madame Aritonovich and her Institute d'Education, as well as to our parents' temporary inattentiveness.
In this way we learned that what these people known as Jews shared was not so much a common character, but rather common forms of expression: in other words, that there were no "typically Jewish" traits, but rather a characteristically Jewish way of expressing traits that were simply human.
Sadly but alas predictably, once the adults learn how rife their children's new school is with the Jewish kind - a kind those adults have been quick to scorn - the children are eased out of that school. Late in the book comes a pogrom targeting the Jews of Czernopol. And, of course, after all of the stories have reached their various ends, the characters meeting their often predetermined fates (or not!), after the book itself has ended, there came World War 2......more
in honor of Gay Pride month, I thought I'd read a book about sailors eating each other. sadly, The Wager features shipwreck, mutiny, and murder, but pin honor of Gay Pride month, I thought I'd read a book about sailors eating each other. sadly, The Wager features shipwreck, mutiny, and murder, but precious little man-on-man cannibalism. which frankly I found to be rather homophobic. the passionate hunger a sailor might feel for his fellow shipmate(s) is only mentioned glancingly, kept in the closet. as a society, I really thought we had moved past this kind of erasure. *sigh*
the writing is crisp, brisk, and efficient, similar to a well-paced Wikipedia article. I really appreciated how David Grann made sure to repeatedly remind ignorant readers like me that colonialism and slavery were actually bad. the murderous, micromanaging Captain Cheap (great name) has some similarities with my boss; I often wonder who she'll kill or micromanage next. I should put this on her desk.
okay, clowntime over. the book was fine and was certainly a pleasant way to spend a couple Sunday afternoons. the many hours of research David Grann clearly put in really showed up on the page, but never in a dry, pedantic way. this is a very readable book. it was interesting to learn that common phrases like 'under the weather' & 'toe the line' & 'pipe down' & 'piping hot' & 'scuttlebut' & 'turn a blind eye' were all originally nautical terms. the details about press gangs infuriated me. I loved reading all about the resourceful Kawésqar, an indigenous people living in Chilean Patagonia. and the verdict coming from the court martial at the end of this whole misadventure was very surprising! unfortunately, SPOILER, a delicious dog does die....more
this story of an especially appalling death in 1930s India is dense with detail and characterization. we come to deeply understand this small family othis story of an especially appalling death in 1930s India is dense with detail and characterization. we come to deeply understand this small family of English colonials: father, mother, stepdaughter, son, and his governess. the first of the novel's three parts gives the reader a chapter from each of their perspectives. depths are mined and the book transports its reader fully into its settings (late-period colonial India and then WWII England). and yet what makes the book so successful, and the mystery both so hard to parse and so satisfying when explained, is that there is an entire plotline that lives outside of the book's narrative. therein lies the mystery and the reason for the death. a parallel narrative that took me completely by surprise when it was revealed, a thrilling story with its own ups & downs, its own passions and heartbreak, a story that impacted everyone, and yet is never explicitly mentioned except in the book's melancholy closing pages. that this hidden history didn't feel like a cheat when finally laid out was an impressive achievement. my reaction was Ah! Of course! rather than WTF! it all made perfect sense, the clues and the tells were there all along. Francis King is a formidable writer, a magician when it comes to what he shows and what he chose not to show. the magic is happening, but off-stage....more
the effort is clear, the intelligence is obvious; the results are uninteresting. this is a supposedly atmospheric literary murder mystery, set in Pragthe effort is clear, the intelligence is obvious; the results are uninteresting. this is a supposedly atmospheric literary murder mystery, set in Prague on the verge of the turn of the 16th century into the 17th. but "atmosphere" is not describing an entire city as, well, yucky. "atmosphere" is not just describing gross food or the pustules on the back of a page's neck. atmosphere brings me to a place, makes that place real. for a setting like this one, it would be cobblestones and fog and eccentric architecture and the sounds of young partisans in the streets and coffeehouses; you know, the way a city looks and feels and sounds at a certain point in time. not just the way it smells! and not just the things that the author finds repellant. characterization was likewise uninspired. all of the suspects are Machiavellian gargoyles and it was surprisingly hard to tell them apart. I mean, one is really tall and another is a dwarf and a third is a High Steward and a fourth is a High Chamberlain, but they are all mysterious, condescending manipulators who barely give our unremarkable, equally flat protagonist the time of day. this does not make for a compelling murder mystery, especially when figuring out the murderer's identity is relatively easy. the literariness of the endeavor is perhaps signalled most strongly by its title, a musical term that makes little sense when used as a description of our pallid, ineffective hero.
critiques aside, the writing was actually quite good, in its way. it's like a talented artist was given a commission to paint a cityscape in bold, dramatic colors but mulishly decided to draw a black & white sketch instead. the result is a disappointment but the talent is still clear....more
You will now read my story. My story will help you and guide you into Cairo. Every time you read my pages, with every word and every phrase
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You will now read my story. My story will help you and guide you into Cairo. Every time you read my pages, with every word and every phrase, you will enter a still deeper layer, open and relaxed and receptive. I shall now count from one to ten. On the count of ten, you will be in Cairo. I say: ONE As you focus your attention entirely on my tale, you will slowly begin to relax. TWO As you consider your role in this tale, your identity as a spy, your body and your mind become warmer, sleepier. THREE The sleepiness becomes a dreaminess. The dreaminess becomes a dream. The dream becomes a story. The story becomes many stories. Are you in these stories? Are you the protagonist? Who is the storyteller? FOUR Who are the characters in this story? Are they spies like you? Are they friends and lovers, are they enemies and conspirators? Their identities are beginning to blur. My stories are beginning to blur. FIVE The blurriness is spreading to the whole of your body, your memories, your reality. What is the waking world and what is the dreaming world? What is this place called Cairo? What is there? On the count of six, I want you to go deeper. I say: SIX You are bleeding now, from your face, from your mind. This is the sleeping sickness, the Arabian Nightmare. Your body is beginning to sink. SEVEN You go deeper and deeper and deeper, you sink into this dream within dreams. Are you lost in this story? EIGHT I am the storyteller and I am dead. Who is telling this story? Perhaps you are now the storyteller. Who are these characters around you? Perhaps they are projections of your own self, splintered and separated. What is this sick dreaming, this dreaming sickness? Perhaps the dream is your reality. With every breath you take, you go deeper into this dream reality, into your sickness. NINE You are dreaming you are awake. You are bleeding your self. You go deeper into these stories, into the Arabian Nightmare. On the mental count of ten, you will be in Cairo. Be there at ten. I say: TEN
If you're reading this so-called review, you are different from many of the people around you: you are a reader. Apparently, reading for pleasure is dIf you're reading this so-called review, you are different from many of the people around you: you are a reader. Apparently, reading for pleasure is declining; it has increasingly become a niche activity. Your niche does not make you better, but it does make you different. You are, in this particular way, outside of the mainstream - despite how well you may blend in with that stream. Pleased to know you, brother or sister outsider! The criminally underread Ken Greenhall is solely concerned with illustrating the outsider perspective. You should read him. He gets you.
Except for this excellent historical novel, Greenhall is primarily known - if he is known at all - for writing quasi-horror. His outsiders are either quirky mystery-solvers (Childgrave, Deathchain) or psychopaths (Hell Hound, Elizabeth, The Companion). No matter the health of their mental state, all of his narrators hold the mainstream world and its denizens at arm's length. These narrators often comment ironically on the bizarrely boring behavior patterns of normies; depending on the book, they then will shrug and ignore them, or easily manipulate them, or scornfully reject them, or sometimes just kill them.
Lenoir is another of Greenhall's outsiders: a black man in 17th century Europe, first a slave to art dealer/swindler Mr. Twee, then a freedman able to travel on his own. And travel he does - but still saddled with the friendly, gay, utterly amoral, extremely self-interested Twee, who has treated the enslaved and then freed Lenoir as, basically, his friend. Lenoir, an artist's model and occasional practitioner of juju (white magic only though!), starts in Amsterdam, travels briefly with an actor's troupe to Rotterdam, and ends the novel in Antwerp. The book is less about adventure and more about a fish out of water who wouldn't go back to his first home even if he could (despite his longing for it, and for his children); it is about a black outsider looking at the strange world of white Europeans, consciously and continuously rejecting being a part of that world, but still of it, still in it. Much to his frequent wonder, or amusement, or confusion, or chagrin. As the saying goes, white people are crazy.
Although a fictional creation, Lenoir himself is based on actual person: the model for Rubens' Four Studies of the Head of a Black Man (1883).
The story is both lightly comic and deeply melancholy. As always with Greenhall, the prose is superb. Despite this being a historical novel, this is not a lush portrait of a fascinating era in Europe. The details are often there, but this is a rather stripped-down and streamlined narrative, as detached and distant as Lenoir himself - but as thoughtful and as soulful as well. Despite two extremely tragic murders, the book is also highly amusing. Lenoir both understands and misunderstands the people around him regularly: he sees the heart of them, but often can't fathom why they must do the things they do. The novel is a study of an outsider who sighs rather than shouts at life and its fortunes and catastrophes. Sometimes that's all a person can do....more
Her whole existence dwindling down to a lone, barred cell. Why did chemists manufacture medicines that awoke people, when reality was dismal and hopelHer whole existence dwindling down to a lone, barred cell. Why did chemists manufacture medicines that awoke people, when reality was dismal and hopeless?
the author is a talented artist; her prose, the atmosphere, the style... she is in complete control of her effects. but what does that artist do here? she starts by painting a black hole, an unsympathetic heroine, dull supporting characters, vindictiveness from all directions. she chooses additional colors: the grey of an overcast sky, shit-brown. with those colors she paints an insane asylum, an ugly village and an uglier countryside, a factory, a decrepit mansion. there is no contrast, there is no difference. all is ugly, all is dark. she paints a tragic backstory, a neglected child, bodies burned, a horse slain, wives kept down, bad mothers, madness, molestation, murder. all is ugly, all is dark, the whole world apparently. the artist swirls the black and the gray and the brown together; soon even those unappealing shades can barely be discerned as colors, they are just a mass of dreary darkness. a monotonous palette. a monotonous experience. if everything, everyone, everywhere is horrible, then specific horrors meant to horrify become drab, meaningless.
also: while the Silent Companions themselves were often effectively creepy, they did feel like sillier versions of the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. ...more
spoilers follow. but what is a spoiler? a component revealed. is that component reflective of the whole? is that component the heart of the book or isspoilers follow. but what is a spoiler? a component revealed. is that component reflective of the whole? is that component the heart of the book or is it just another part of its body? is it a totem that represents the book's secret meaning?
the boy goes back in time to visit the girl. into the garden he goes, the changing garden. he feels safe and free in this garden. "there is a safe house at every dream level, which gets populated with the innermost thoughts and secrets of the Subject." he meets the girl in the garden. the girl shows him the clock. the girl will wind the clock. the old woman has wound the clock. "Totems are objects used by the characters to test if they were in the real world or a dream, and they all had specially modified qualities which made them very personal." the old woman dreams. the boy dreams. the brother dreams. they all dream together. you dream, I dream, we all dream together. "...a.k.a. unconstructed dream space existing within untouched subconscious..." the clock strikes the hour. the boy hears the clock and goes through the door, into the midnight garden. there he will meet the girl, again and again. the boy moves forward in time to finally meet the girl, at long last, as they have met many times before. "Inception is the act of inserting an idea in a person's mind which will bloom in a way making the Subject think it was their idea." the girl is an old woman; the boy is a boy. they hug, for the first time, their dreams a reality. a happy ending and beginning are achieved.
Let's go back in time with the esteemed Mary Renault... back to Ancient Greece! Where people thought and battles were fought and women were seldom seeLet's go back in time with the esteemed Mary Renault... back to Ancient Greece! Where people thought and battles were fought and women were seldom seen and men were busy being gay with each other. Renault provides an amiable and sympathetic protagonist, the actor Nikeratos, witness to the palace intrigues of Syracuse in Sicily, acquaintance to lord of philosophy Plato and austere, stoical Dion and wretched idiot King Dionysios the Younger. Although much of the book details Nikeratos' day to day life moving up the ranks of tragic actors, as he travels through various nation-states of ancient Greece and Sicily, those anecdotes are more the context provided than the actual purpose of the story.
This is a novel about ideas and conversation and whether art should reflect baseness or should aim higher and whether philosophy should impact government and what makes a good ruler. It is like Renault wrote this while reflecting upon and then mourning the lack of true intelligence (let alone dignity) in world leaders. Her prose is deliberate, sure of its effects, and subtle with the many points she is making. Renault telegraphs nothing, which is particularly laudable given that this is based on historical figures. Her descriptive powers are also excellent - it was very easy to imagine myself in this setting. Those powers were given a showcase near the end, during the sole sequence where lives may be in danger. Her description of the slaughter of Syracusians at the hands of mercenaries while our hero and a friend think outside of the box in saving themselves was a riveting, tense, and surprising sequence.
If there is a flaw in this otherwise splendid experience, it is the lack of women. That is, outside of our hero's friend Axiothea, a fantastic character: a student of Plato who disguised herself as a lad to enter his school and a person who throws herself into danger to support a good cause. In one amusing scene, Nikeratos is chagrined to learn that the fetching young man he's been drooling over is actually, in the modern parlance, a sporty lesbian. (Been there.) Besides Axiothea, women are basically off-page, which is a disappointment because that mainly leaves out anything to do with the interesting and tragic Arete - Dion's wife and Dionysus II's sister, subject of a painting by Perrin. Still, the book is excellent. A rich experience, carefully paced, deeply characterized, and dense with ideas. Full of philosophy to consider, ways of life to imagine, ways of being to ponder, and dudes who spend their free time banging each other....more
The Love Pavilion was built by a Chinese merchant in Malaya. Within the Love Pavilion is an antechamber decorated with friezes of dragons, fish, and bThe Love Pavilion was built by a Chinese merchant in Malaya. Within the Love Pavilion is an antechamber decorated with friezes of dragons, fish, and birds; beyond that room is the Golden Room, then the Jade Room, and finally the Scarlet Room. When the Japanese invaded Malaya during World War II, and held it for 3 years, the Chinese merchant was beheaded. His head was displayed on a pole for all of the villagers to see and so be instructed on the new order. During those 3 years of occupation, depending on the whims of the occupying soldiers, villagers were marched to the courtyard of the Love Pavilion and made to kneel there. 42 villagers eventually lost their heads in front of the Chinese merchant's pavilion. The courtyard became known as the Garden of Madness.
The Love Pavilion was written by one of my favorite authors, Paul Scott. It displays many of the virtues that I loved in his Raj Quartet: dense, sometimes hallucinatory prose full of vivid description - of landscapes, places, bodies, faces; characterization that goes deep, so that a certain understanding of his characters is reached, while still leaving them ambiguous, capable of terrible deeds; themes that are concerned with masculinity and femininity and gender roles, the shifting roles of colonizer and colonized, and the metaphysical: what is the nature of the mind, what is the purpose of existence. You know, light stuff.
The Love Pavilion is about Mysticism versus Rationalism. Mysticism is embodied by Brian Saxby, an adventurer always reaching for higher places, less-traveled paths, ways of existence not bound to tradition or by society. Saxby is first mentor to our protagonist, then symbolic father figure, then a person to be hunted; Saxby eventually becomes something very dangerous, murderous, a threat to those who would move on past the now-ended war, an animal in the jungle that must be put down. Rationalism is embodied by every other male character with a speaking part, not including our protagonist. Rationalism is shown at its weakest, most pathetically sentimental, most understandable, in Major Reid: a Good Man, a man's man, father to his troop of soldier boys, guardian of masculine codes, tormented by an inchoate guilt over his ambiguous past failures, a leader who views the slaughter of supposed enemies as a pleasant daytime activity, character-building for his young lions, much like the enjoyment he provides them in the evening: the whores who shall visit and pamper them in the Love Pavilion.
The Love Pavilion's protagonist is Tom Brent, who must find his own way between these two paths. He is a compelling, frustrating, wounded, relatable character. Although perhaps most relatable to... men. This is a man's book in that all women are viewed through a certain lens of condescension by its characters. They exist to please and sometimes irritate men. A man's needs include sexual gratification and it is expected that the Malay women shall provide this on demand. Even relatable Tom feels this, at one point asking his boss Greystone - another Rational Man - if he could have a girl assigned to him during his time working the land, a village girl who can cook his meals, handle his laundry, service his sexual needs at end of day. He asks this as casually as a person would ask for a towel to dry themselves after bathing. Only one man in this novel does not think of women this way: the murderous mystic, Brian Saxby.
The Love Pavilion's love interest is Teena Chang, biracial, mistress of the whores of the Love Pavilion, a whore herself. Teena has two faces that she displays to signal how she will be engaging with her clients: her European mood and her Chinese mood. These faces, these moods, are alternately Rational and Mystical. She puts them on and takes them off as she sees fit. Teena, unlike each and every other male character, recognizes that such moods, such ideas, should not be the sole attribute of any person, they should be adopted as needed, and discarded in the same way. Teena's world is a small one, purposely so; a world that is not concerned with the loftier goals of Mysticism and Rationalism. Of course, Tom falls quickly and deeply in love with Teena. Of course, Teena must die. There is only room for binary thinking in the great big world of men, the men who would create and use the Love Pavilion as they see fit....more
A violently intense Victorian romance, if you can even call it a romance. This book is up there with As Meat Loves Salt & Endless Love & The Silver DeA violently intense Victorian romance, if you can even call it a romance. This book is up there with As Meat Loves Salt & Endless Love & The Silver Devil when it comes to its horrifying, over the top antihero, the over the top emotions on display, and its lack of interest in making its readers comfortable. While still being a rich, nuanced story set in a believable milieu and featuring prose that is sometimes elegant, sometimes eccentrically mannered, always literary. Wow bob wow.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book contains rape.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book has a very explicit and lengthy rape scene that comes out of nowhere and is not made remotely sexy because it depicts an actual physical and emotional assault, not a fantasy of a bodice being ripped and a girl saying no when she really means yes. this is a beating and a sexual assault, not a ravishment. the girl in question vomits at the end of this scene. because who wouldn't.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book lives in a world full of understandable, frequently relatable, often amusing characters in a Victorian setting where manners are as important as class status, marriage prospects, and money. it's all so delicate and subtle, so very Jane Austen. and yet TRIGGER WARNING! this book is full of deeply broken hearts and minds, brutal rape and dreams of revenge, of murder. and yet these characters tease and banter with each other, do comic and adorable things, play with children and animals, support each other through hard times, just like regular human beings do, and despite the fact that one of them was raped and another is the rapist. because no person is just one thing, even victims, even monsters.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book has a spilled glass of lemonade that leads to much else. is the lemonade to blame, or the humans spilling those glasses of lemonade, or the society that created humans who treat each other as far less than human, less than a glass of lemonade?
TRIGGER WARNING! this book has a woman who is a rape victim but who is not a victim of life. she does not 'get over' this rape but it also does not define her. this woman fights with all the tools she has at her disposal, she holds grudges, she doesn't excuse her rapist, she is bitter about the injustice of her experience. that bitterness does not magically turn into understanding in order to satisfy any reader who just wants her to move on and see the man inside the beast so that they can have a happy sexy romance; nor does that bitterness turn into the sole motivation for her existence so that the reader can have a satisfying revenge drama.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book has a man who is a monstrous rapist but who is not a monster in life. he recognizes that what he did was not just out of character, it was evil: an act for which he needs to atone. and yet he continues to act cruelly, as cruel as he was before the rape, because recognizing that an act is evil does not automatically change a person. he wants to atone but he has other things that consume him: he is living in a revenge drama of his own, he wants to rush past atonement because he has not recognized that devoting his life to destroying a villain is in fact destroying his own life by becoming a villain.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book does not paint its lead characters as victim or monster. each person is capable of kindness, of cruelty. each human is the sum of many parts.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book is not really about a woman falling in love or a man carrying out revenge or vice versa, although all four things are roughly the plot of this book. it is not really about the terrible abuses that happened in the childhood of a man and in the adulthood of a woman. it has other things on its mind. sometimes you don't get over the things that happened to you but you can make sure that those things don't define you. you can grow and transform who you are, even if that transformation is internal. and you may be able to change yourself but it will be harder to change another person, let alone change the world, because TRIGGER WARNING! this book is also about how sometimes we don't get what we want, not right away, maybe never, maybe not in the way that we wanted. but sometimes a person can forgive, if there is actual atonement. sometimes a rapist can become worthy of love. and sometimes a villain doesn't get their due. life isn't a revenge novel and the bad guys often don't get punished and injustices sometimes remain injustices. TRIGGER WARNING! this book is about how a life can't be lived solely by living inside of your head, by continually revisiting your sorrows and anger and trauma. you have to live for other things; that is how a person who has been abused learns to cope with life. understanding that lesson is how our abused heroine and our abused hero eventually find grace, with each other and most importantly, within themselves. that is what this physically and emotional brutal book is all about.
TRIGGER WARNING! this book has a happy ending....more
what happens when a hunky barbarian traveling home to the land of Franks meets a sexy senorita from Constantinople on a super secret spy mission? Byzawhat happens when a hunky barbarian traveling home to the land of Franks meets a sexy senorita from Constantinople on a super secret spy mission? Byzantine fireworks! this historical was a lot of fun. Cecelia Holland writes calmly, gracefully, somewhat somberly, and so - rather sadly - there is not even a whiff of camp to be found. but that's fine. this is not a trashy adventure but instead an enjoyable drama, detailing the internecine politics taking place during the reign of the last (and only) Byzantine Empress, the formidable Irene of Athens. poor Theophano just wants to serve her queen. poor Hagan just wants to avenge the murder of his brother. poor Nicephorus just wants to do his job as royal treasurer and keep the empire solvent. poor Ishmael just wants to finally beat that bastard Prince Michael in the races and finally earn the precious belt of gold. and mean Irene just wants her city strong and her enemy humiliated - namely, the sadistic nobleman John Cerulis, a really hissable villain.
it'll all end in sorrow, screaming, and slaughter because hey this is the Byzantine Empire and despite their love of opulence and taking it easy, the Byzantines can definitely get real when it comes to hatching plots that lead to everyone killing each other. all of the major characters have a winning appeal to them, even the thin-skinned charioteer with his brief descent into religious fanaticism, ugh gross, and maybe least of all our tow-headed fighting machine of a hero. but fortunately the most interesting of all these mainly sympathetic characters is the ruthless Irene. the author really nailed it with her portrait of this very colorful, larger than life, yet still very layered character - one who has been the victim of misogynist historians throughout time. although her bad reputation may also be due to her decision to have her annoying son's eyes gouged out at the dawn of her career. not that I'm judging, he sounded like a pretty uptight kinda guy and plus a queen's gotta do what a queen's gotta do when they get down to claim that crown....more
Beautiful little jewels of stories, of varying hue and setting. Fanciful mini-biographies, richly imagined, of diverse tone and mood. The masks of TraBeautiful little jewels of stories, of varying hue and setting. Fanciful mini-biographies, richly imagined, of diverse tone and mood. The masks of Tragedy and of Comedy, sometimes interchanged within the same tale. Wee concertos of shifting arrangement, from the Renaisance style to the Baroque, to the Classical and then to the Romantic, and on to Modernism. Marcel Schwob may have been taught in the Modernist school but his music embraces all movements, all lives, imaginary and otherwise.
These stories, or essays, or trifles, or charming, knowingly plagiaristic oddments, were written near the end of the 19th century and collected in 1896. And yet their irony and romanticism, their frequent nihilism and their occasional hopefulness, feel so modern.
They are all excellent, but my favorites were the sardonic yet mind-expanding "Lucretius" and the bit of fabulist whimsy "Suffrah" and the mean-spirited, frequently over the top "Cyril Tourneur" and of course the four pirate tales that close the book on a mordant and distinctly anti-piratical note. The final story is also excellent, if rather self-excoriating: "Messrs. Burke and Hare" implicitly compares the author's recounting of "imaginary" lives to the dark deeds of a pair of murderers who induce their victims to tell the story of their lives before murdering them, and later, changing tactics, enjoy making a dramatic miming mockery of those lives while murdering them.
I beg to differ, Marcel! Surely you're not as bad as that.
♪ ♫ ♬
"Empedocles" - in Ancient Sicily, a healer and resurrectionist is worshipped as a god; inevitably, the flames of Mt. Etna shall prove he died a mortal.
"Herostratus" - in Ancient Ephesus, an angry virgin shall bring fire to the temple of Artemis; and so proceeds to an evitable conclusion of torture and erasure.
"Crates" - in Ancient Thebes, a philosopher shall live as a dog in the streets; as with all good dogs, he shall rank affection over hygiene.
"Septima" - in Ancient Hadrumentum, a spurned slave shall beg the dead to intercede; as with all such lovelorn lovers, only death can cool their heat.
"Lucretius" - in Roman Times, a Stoic nobleman loves a murderous African; a lesson is learned about atoms swelling and joining and retracting, much the same as love and life.
"Clodia" - in Roman Times, a noblewoman is accustomed to influence and incest; a lesson is learned about how the toxic will poison their own stock, their own selves.
"Petronius" - in Roman Times, an aesthete moves from languour to spinning tales of adventure to wanderlust; a lesson is learned about how life is fullest when at its dirtiest.
"Suffrah"- in Fabled North Africa, a wizard tricked by Aladdin reads signs in the sand; alas, the gift of immortality may mean a living death.
"Fra Dolcino" - in the Holy Roman Empire, a monk takes the apostlic path; alack, the Lord's Word will not protect a band of thieving apostles.
"Cecco Angiolieri" - in Renaissance Italy, a malcontent nurses grievances against his father and against Dante; the nature of Chaos shall provide him a tumultuous life.
"Paolo Uccello" - in Renaissance Italy, a painter devotes all of his attention to creating the perfect series of lines; the nurture of Order shall provide him a life devoid of life.
"Nicolas Loyseleur" - in Medieval France, a judge tricks and lies to Joan of Arc; torture is his recommendation but it is the judge himself who shall end tormented.
"Katherine the Lacemaker" - in Medieval France, a woman's life is a downward spiral of degradation; a tortured life shall end in mud, in murder.
"Alain the Kind" - in Medieval France, a child of war shall become as those who kidnapped him; a life of thievery and murder shall eventually end in torture.
"Gabriel Spenser" - in Elizabethan England, a brothel's brat becomes a fetching drag actor; fate will declare that identity may change, but death comes to all.
"Pocahontas" - in the New World and the Old, a king's child becomes rescuer then captive then honored guest; destiny will decide that identity may change, but death comes to all.
"Cyril Tourneur" - in Jacobean England, a dramatist's life shall be dramatised; it is clear that Marcel Schwob had much admiration but little love for this strange moralist. LOL!
"William Phips" - in treacherous waters, a treasure hunter shall attain his goal; pity the man who achieves their goal and still has some life yet to live.
"Captain Kidd" - in treacherous waters, a gentleman shall become a predator; pity the pirate's victims, and pity the pirate himself, haunted by his prey.
"Walter Kennedy" - in treacherous waters, a roustabout shall become a pirate captain; pity the impatient corsair who minces words with a patient Quaker.
"Major Stede Bonnet" - in treacherous waters, a gentleman of Barbados shall become as his idol Blackbeard; pity the fool whose childish dreams encounter an adult world.
"Messrs. Burke and Hare" - in treacherous London, two knaves listen to stories and end those storytellers' lives; and so this author Schwob finds certain... commonalities....more
The slice of life is a guide, an instruction manual to understand a life. It is a bore at first, like many such manuals,
"Do you know what I mean?"
The slice of life is a guide, an instruction manual to understand a life. It is a bore at first, like many such manuals, like many such lives, when looking at the minutiae, when looking from the outside in. The life moves forward in stops and starts, decisions are made, love lives and dies and death is imagined then made real. The life goes on, and so starts another life, and then another..
"Yes," she said. "It's like a... dance somehow, a minuet or a pavane. Something stately and pointless, with all its steps set out. With a beginning, and an end..."
This is our world, and another world, the past world, and the world of the future. Life cycles on, history repeats itself, religion gives and takes away, the individual rises and falls while unaware of their place in that cycle, the causality of actions small and large, the rippling effect of one human upon many other humans...
"sometimes I think life's all a mass of significance, all sorts of strands and threads woven like a tapestry or a brocade. So if you pulled one out or broke it the pattern would alter right back through the cloth.
The author inhabits the characters and their descendants, this world and its antecedents. No attempt is made to make the experience an easy one for the reader, to make a described life come alive for any but the characters he has created, to make an envisioned world make sense for any but the residents of that world. And yet the characters come alive, as any life becomes understandable upon close and patient review, using that intangible tool empathy. And yet the world comes alive, as any world becomes comprehensible after living in it, after seeing that world in terms of not just differences but commonalities. Time marches on and time folds back in upon itself, the folds make something large seem small; but unfold that little world and its characters, and see how big it all becomes...
"Then I think... it would make just as much sense backwards as forwards, effects leading to causes and those to more effects... maybe that's what will happen, when we get to the end of Time. The whole world will shoot undone like a spring, and wind itself back to the start..."
Kinda hard to enjoy a "farcical tragicomedy" when it features an actual genocide. Tone deaf much?
Not a bad book by any means and the author clearly haKinda hard to enjoy a "farcical tragicomedy" when it features an actual genocide. Tone deaf much?
Not a bad book by any means and the author clearly had good intentions. The sort of good intentions that many bougie white intellectuals have when deconstructing race, personal tragedy, and large-scale atrocity. Too bad he didn't understand that playfulness is sometimes a bizarrely inappropriate and unempathetic approach to take when examining these sorts of topics. Especially when all three are combined into one rollicking adventure! ugh...more
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