tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80474880768131478852024-02-06T22:25:50.718-06:00Parsing the DragonAdam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-3221173688208267212019-01-17T21:41:00.001-06:002020-11-22T22:23:30.516-06:00Sleeping in the Forest: RIP Mary Oliver<br />
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<i>Tell me, what else should I have done?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Tell me what it is you plan to do<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>With your one wild and precious life?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day"</div>
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Mary Oliver was that rare oxymoron – a bestselling modern-day
poet. Mass popularity in poetry is often not a sign of
distinction or skill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All too frequently it
denotes a sort of pop sentiment that propagates and fades in a moment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is not the case with Oliver. There is something in her apparent
simplicity and accessibility, in her earthy subject matter and powers of observation,
in the primitive wisdom of quiet selfhood and oneness with nature that strikes
a chord with the modern crowds of busy professionals and car-bound helicopter parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She sings us back to a human
root that stretches beyond ourselves and into the earth, into an earlier version
of thought where the earth was not a “resource”, not a mine to be stripped and
plundered of its riches, but a great and menacing and wonderful mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her poems embrace that mystery, and the
mysteries it echoes in ourselves.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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I first encountered Oliver in a junior college Creative Writing
class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of her poems was given as an example
(of what I don’t recall, natural imagery perhaps). It was a watershed moment. Up to that
time my experiences with late 20<sup>th</sup> century poets had been
neutral and disinterested at best. I had formed the opinion (on precious little experience) that it was pretentious stuff, mostly experimental
and avant-garde in ways that alienated rather than attracted the reader.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The poem was “Wild Geese”, which remains one of her best-known
and most ubiquitous poems, now almost a cliché in itself. But at the time it
walloped me, and still does. The vibrant imagery – “the soft animal of your
body”; “the sun and the clear pebbles of rain”; “the wild geese, high in the
clean blue air” – sang of wildness and connection and human imperfection in a way
that I had never encountered.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Oliver was a garden door that led me to discover there were
many other incredible poets of that era – Seamus Heaney & Robert Bly, Wendell
Berry & Raymond Carver; Maxine Kumin & Lisel Mueller, to scratch just
the surface. I might never have ventured beyond the perimeter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But it is Oliver I still come back to more than any of the
others. She’s half sage, half wood nymph, going out to commune with the earth
and somehow carry it back to the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
quiet tree-songs soothe my soul, and that may be the greatest purpose that
poetry can have.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>"When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver (<o:p></o:p>© 1992)</b></div>
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When death comes<o:p></o:p></div>
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like the hungry bear in autumn;<o:p></o:p></div>
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when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his
purse<o:p></o:p></div>
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to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;<o:p></o:p></div>
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when death comes<o:p></o:p></div>
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like the measle-pox;<o:p></o:p></div>
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when death comes<o:p></o:p></div>
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like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,<o:p></o:p></div>
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I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:<o:p></o:p></div>
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what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?<o:p></o:p></div>
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And therefore I look upon everything<o:p></o:p></div>
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as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and I look upon time as no more than an idea,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and I consider eternity as another possibility,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and I think of each life as a flower, as common<o:p></o:p></div>
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as a field daisy, and as singular,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,<o:p></o:p></div>
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tending, as all music does, toward silence,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and each body a lion of courage, and something<o:p></o:p></div>
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precious to the earth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When it’s over, I want to say: all my life<o:p></o:p></div>
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I was a bride married to amazement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder<o:p></o:p></div>
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if I have made of my life something particular, and real.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,<o:p></o:p></div>
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or full of argument.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-40560286225187939402019-01-12T19:31:00.000-06:002019-01-12T22:01:46.241-06:00Wintering Heights<br />
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So winter has finally arrived here in the Upper Midwest, at
least for the present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had been
something of the “winter that wasn’t”, two solid months of clouds and mud and
bare ground with scarcely a flake of snow and only the morning frost to show
the season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t complain, mind
you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not a tremendous fan of biting
cold and weekly snowstorms that bury the roads, but this whitewash of weekend
snow is a welcome one.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We live in the countryside, miles from the nearest town, and
there is nothing lovelier than a cold fresh blanket of white over the landscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It clings to the trees, mounds in the lee of
buildings, sculpts itself into gravity-defying curved wing shapes jutting from
the eaves. It gives contrast to the variety of trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The oaks are dark brown and red, still
clinging to hundreds of rustling parchment leaves, while the snow lies like a
narrow spine along the thick windward branches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hickories are leafless
skeletons, splaying drooping phalanges outward and down as though reaching to
scoop a palmful of powder.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW3ZrshuyHGgZpZN_fGh6nnuu3EK0i0GSs5zaZWLtFYfl38weF567hevSfUwP0mOJeqZKlTnt3OyRk0YaGcKmk6HyhNvoyYqmgdoEaDi2R9cmqvtUZm5IyHmo9LW8fXdkhTwyg26r_H2E/s1600/DSC_1077.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1064" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW3ZrshuyHGgZpZN_fGh6nnuu3EK0i0GSs5zaZWLtFYfl38weF567hevSfUwP0mOJeqZKlTnt3OyRk0YaGcKmk6HyhNvoyYqmgdoEaDi2R9cmqvtUZm5IyHmo9LW8fXdkhTwyg26r_H2E/s320/DSC_1077.jpg" width="212" /></a>The pines and spruce are the loveliest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They capture the cascading flakes in their
coat of needles, a frosting layer against the green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their limbs hiss in the wind and lean under
the weight of their load, not so onerous today since the snow has a fine dry crispness
to it rather than an overbearing sticky wetness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll shake the snow slowly over the next
few days, like a dog climbing free of the bath, but for now they’re powdered
sugar confections, a Christmas cliché come long past its time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I stand at the kitchen window, making coffee and watching
the snow swirl and drift from the garage roof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The birds are in a frenzy at the feeders, bright as berries against the
white. They come out <i>en force</i> in the snow – the winter-tawny goldfinches vying for
a spot at the thistle feeder; the downy woodpeckers with a spot of crimson dark
as blood on their heads; the gray and cream juncos crowding and hopping about in
the snow, leaving shallow footprints as fine as hairs; the
cardinals, electric scarlet and glowing like a Christmas bulb against the absence
of color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flaring red coals, it seems
almost preposterous these last should be able to hop softly about in the cold
snow without leaving puddles of meltwater.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My son has been out already, leaving traceries of footprints
amongst the drifts. He’s piled a pointed witch’s-hat of snow from the driveway in
the front lawn and hollowed out the middle, creating a small triangular igloo, safe
shelter from the wind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I miss the days
when the simplicity of such a structure felt sufficient for my own needs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tomorrow will be time enough to deal with the petty inconveniences
of the snow. There will be time to wrap myself in layers to scrape clean the
sidewalk and prep the mower to plow the looooong potholed driveway to the road
for myself and the nearest neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This particular storm had good enough manners to arrive on a Saturday, when
I could spend the day reading and bird-watching and soaking in the scenery beneath
a warm blanket, mentally preparing myself for a few hours of unhurried snow clearing
on a Sunday.<o:p></o:p></div>
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How wonderful when life can be taken at your own unhurried
pace!<o:p></o:p></div>
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I just hope the next snow observes such decorum and etiquette.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-64892970866748314722019-01-09T21:25:00.003-06:002019-01-09T21:25:33.378-06:00A New Year's Resurrection<br />
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“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new
year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is that we should have a new
soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unless a particular man made New Year
resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about
things, he will certainly do nothing effective.” G.K. Chesterton, The G.K.
Chesterton Calendar<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions, at least not
the sort you crow about to friends and family and write down in shopping lists
to take to the supermarket. They’ve always seemed a pseudo-commitment, the sort
of “well, if it works out…” type of pledge that’s doomed to fail because it
starts with the theory that a new year means somehow our less enlightened and
motivated former selves have been shuffled off like old skins.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The truth, of course, is that a date on the calendar means
nothing vastly significant in either the outer world or our inner one. Unless,
as Chesterton mentions, we give it significance. Because nothing new starts
without a first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or a second.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or a third.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So I’m resurrecting this little blog with a simple goal in
mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To use it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For book reviews, travelogues, reminiscences, fleeting thoughts,
reflection, trolling, social experimentation, and to push my fringe right-wing
agenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, so those last three are lies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the others…<o:p></o:p></div>
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Maybe, just maybe, this will help energize me to write a
little more often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But either way, as Chesterton says, a man must "start afresh".<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-39723344292249014212013-10-27T14:23:00.001-05:002013-11-02T15:17:20.380-05:00The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: A ReviewI first read Markus Zusak's <i>The Book Thief</i> seven years ago, directly after it was first released in the US. I had never heard of Zusak at the time, so it was pure coincidence that I decided to pick the book up at all. It was on display at a local Barnes & Noble as I was buying a coffee. I liked the cover art (domino edition) and read the inside cover flap. <i>Hmmm...</i>I thought, so I bought it and a few days later read the first chapter on a whim (without any real intention of diving in as I had any number of other books clamoring for my attention).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihHUH4mrUBD7DgTa3E-SQPDBIT0TyXGqpLK8UMj0ZupLj2X7APZxI80o4bLG_GoZ_657TonufTOtv8Lo5-ypuZrIVerdgzPSnLSAZTCHNpHYB5RjCXADLnyt5kyNVQaPphj4z5N0UGvwQ/s1600/Zusak+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihHUH4mrUBD7DgTa3E-SQPDBIT0TyXGqpLK8UMj0ZupLj2X7APZxI80o4bLG_GoZ_657TonufTOtv8Lo5-ypuZrIVerdgzPSnLSAZTCHNpHYB5RjCXADLnyt5kyNVQaPphj4z5N0UGvwQ/s320/Zusak+1.JPG" width="320" /></a>Three days later I emerged from Zusak's color-laden pages, bathed in tears and with a heart swollen to the size of a hearse. I can think of few other novels that have ever affected me in quite an intense and emotional manner.<br />
<br />
But I'll stop there and back up, because I think some context for a review is in order.<br />
<br />
I recently selected <i>The Book Thief</i> as the October reading for my fantasy book group. To begin with, this novel has very little fantasy about it, but I'll be damned if that was going to stop me.<br />
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It is narrated by a comical, lovable, anthopomorphic Death. So it's fantasy. I won't be naysayed on this. It's also great book for discussion, and we have an eclectic group of readers in my group who can bring some interesting perspectives on both the historical and literary viewpoints of the novel.<br />
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Also - for those who live beneath a rock like I do - there's <a href="http://www.thebookthief.com/" target="_blank">a movie coming out</a>. What better time to get others to pick up the book <i>first</i>? A movie changes the perception of a book (for better or worse) forever. I wanted a second reading without a changed perception, or at least not one beyond the change in myself over the intervening years.<br />
<br />
So, <i>The Book Thief,</i> take two.<br />
<br />
I found I hadn't remembered the details precisely, but my second experience with the book was every bit as moving as it had been the first time. I must admit, Death is a bit overweening at first. He inserts himself too powerfully - and at times too flippantly - into the narrative. But that fades, and the story comes into focus.<br />
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The first and greatest of the novel's many assets is the characters. Liesel leaps off the page - an orphaned girl in Nazi Germany, thrown in with poor foster parents. Her foster mother is frightening, cantankerous, and foul-mouthed. Hans Hubermann, her foster father, takes shape slowly, and before you realize it you are every bit as enamored with him as Liesel. Rudy Steiner, the neighbor boy with the "lemon-colored hair", whose greatest desire is a kiss from Liesel, and whose heart is larger than Himmel Street itself. Max Vandenberg, the <i>Mein Kampf</i>-toting Jewish refugee with hair like feathers and a gift for handmade stories. Even Rosa Hubermann herself, rough-tongued and fierce, finds a way into the reader's heart.<br />
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There's little real suspense. Death gives you the penultimate scenes right up front. <i>This</i> <i>is how it will happen</i>, he says (there was some discussion in our group over Death's actual gender, but I refer to Death as he only for convenience's sake). Surprisingly, that doesn't make it any less affecting to the reader.<br />
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<i>The Book Thief</i> reminds me in many respects of a landscape or urban photograph in sepia tones - browns, ochres, grays, khakis - with a few punches of vibrant color made all the brighter by the contrast to the surrounding landscape. This is true of the visuals in general, but to a larger degree of the personalities and souls of those those Himmel Street denizens that inhabit the Nazi landscape of aggression and hate.<br />
<br />
This is a novel of one of the darkest periods in human history. It sets itself in the center of that poison, spreading outward across Europe like a plague, and yet it balances that blackness perfectly. There is beauty and horror in almost equal parts, and the horror only increases the poignancy of the beauty.<br />
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Zusak's writing - his imagery and metaphors - encompasses this balance beautifully.<br />
<br />
<i>"The last time I saw her was red. The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness."</i><br />
<br />
<i>"When he turned on the light in the small, callous washroom that night, Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. There were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver, melting. Liesel, upon seeing those eyes, understood that Hans Hubermann was worth a lot."</i><br />
<br />
His writing can also deliver a quick, debilitating punch to the gut:<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>"Summer came. </i><br />
<i>For the book thief, everything was going nicely. </i><br />
<i>For me, the sky was the color of Jews."</i><br />
<br />
I almost don't know how to wrap up my thoughts on this novel into a neat package. It encapsulates mankind - "pity this busy monster..." - and it brings into focus the power of words. Words incited the madness that was Nazi Germany. It was Mein Kampf and "heil Hitler" and shouted oratory and Joseph Goebbel's poisonous propaganda. It is also words - stolen words, Max's words, Hans' words, even the book thief's own - that carry Liesel through. They are powerful, and carry within them the seeds of both our destruction and our hope.<i> </i><br />
<br />
This book is painful, rich, impactful, and incredibly beautiful. I cant' recommend it highly enough. It is the type of novel that can change a reader's perspective on life afterwards. The novels that can claim that are few and far between. I can only hope the movie does justice to the book. Geoffrey Rush will play the role of Hans Hubermann, and for small kindnesses such as that we can be thankful.<i> </i><br />
<br />
I'll finish up with the words of Death, as they seem so fitting:<br />
<br />
<i>Come with me and I'll tell you a story.</i><br />
<i>I'll show you something. </i> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-10974074680377903182012-07-13T00:54:00.000-05:002012-07-21T16:11:22.919-05:00Review: The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany<br />
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<br /></div>Lord Dunsany, writing in the early years of the twentieth century, was a pioneer in the fantasy genre. His stories of the fantastic, in the tradition of writers like George MacDonald and William Morris, set the stage for Tolkien & Lewis & Peake and the other writers that would follow. <P>Prolific as he was, Dunsany wrote few actual novels. He was a master of the short form and wrote a number of plays, as well as poetry, essays, a travelogue of Ireland, and several autobiographical collections. Dunsany remains most well-known for his short stories, many of which – thanks to Del Rey & Wildside Press & a plethora of anthologies – remain in print. <P><I>The King of Elfland’s Daughter</i> is his best-known novel. It was reprinted in 1969 by Ballantine Books as part of their <i>Ballantine Adult Fantasy</i> series and again in the late 1990’s by Del Rey and Gollancz. I have the most recent Del Rey version, sporting a lovely Pre-Raphaelite cover depicting <I>La Belle Dame Sans Merci</i> and an introduction by Neil Gaiman. <P>“…trust the book,” Gaiman says. “Trust the poetry and the strangeness, and the magic of the ink, and drink it slowly.” <P>Gaiman is right. Here be poetry and strangeness and magic. Dunsany’s language, so wonderfully poetic in his short stories, can quickly overwhelm the reader if it’s swallowed whole. Sentences can last a page. Paragraphs can last two. Drink slowly, indeed. <P>The lushness of the prose is an end unto itself. It distills the beauty and magic of Dunsany’s “Elfland” into human language without diluting its wonder with the dull light of the everyday. <P><UL><i>And so it became a magical sword. And little magic there is in English woods, from the time of anemones to the falling of leaves, that was not in the sword. And little magic there is in southern downs, that only sheep roam over and quiet shepherds, that the sword had not too. And there was scent of thyme in it and sight of lilac, and a chorus of birds that sings before dawn in April, and the deep proud splendour of rhododendrons, and the litheness and laughter of streams, and miles and miles of may.</i> (6-7) </ul><P>That is just a small sample of it, like a tangle of rose bushes through which the reader must press forward, receiving a prick or two, snagging one's clothing. But smelling the flowers too. And feasting eyes on the blossoms. <P>The brief (and terribly simplified) overview is this: Alveric, the King’s son, travels beyond the twilight border of the mundane world into Elfland, bringing back the King of Elfland’s daughter as his bride. They have a child, Orion. Lirazel, his innocent bride, is ill-suited to her new role as mother and wife. She returns home. Alveric tries to follow her, but the way to Elfland is no longer open to him. “This is no country for old men,” as Dunsany’s friend W.B. Yeats would write two years later. <P>There are two distinct problems with the novel, and they are intertwined. Problem A is the plot. Or, I should say, the lack of one. <P>Problem B is the glacial pacing, which is partially due to Dunsany’s rich writing style (which I do not find fault with and thoroughly enjoyed), but mostly due to Problem A. <P>Let me clarify. I am not a reader that requires continual action, or a linear plot, or even complete resolution of a tale. Slow pacing in itself is not necessarily a problem, if a book has other redeeming qualities, as this one obviously does. <P>The problem is a lack of direction. Main characters – specifically Alveric – disappear for long portions of the narrative, wandering aimlessly in quest of faerie. There is one short chapter, “Lurulu Watches The Restlessness of Earth” where <I>nothing happens</i>. A character sits in the pigeon loft and watches things going about their course. For seven pages. We’re not even talking about a main character here. <P>What the novel felt like to me was a short story drawn out to novel length. Dunsany’s short stories are often dressed in finery and elegant language, but they are rarely lacking in substance. <I>The King of Elfland’s Daughter</i> seems to be exactly that. Mostly frosting, with only a little cake beneath. <P>This has often been my experience with pre-Tolkien fantasy novels. George MacDonald’s <I>Phantastes</i>, for example. Or E.R. Eddison’s <I>The Worm Ouroboros</i>. They lose themselves in a swamp of language and imagery that drowns the story. <P>Many post-Tolkien novels, on the other hand, exhibit an opposing problem, where subtlety and elegance and nuance are discarded at the expense of plot, often to the detriment of the story. <P>Despite its obvious flaws, <I>The King of Elfland’s Daughter</i> is well worth reading, especially for those interested in the roots of the fantasy genre, and those who enjoy prose edging toward poetry. Many authors have written of Elfland. Dunsany is one of the few to have obviously visited. His words on Elfland, and on magic, ring true. <P>I’ll leave you with a little sample cup of Dunsany’s “rich, red wine” (as Gaiman so aptly calls it). It has aged well. Whether or not to buy the bottle is up to you. <P><uL><I>And as the hunt went on, the daylight faded away, till the sky was all prepared for the coming of stars. And one or two stars appeared, and a mist came up from streams and spread all white over fields, till they could not have seen the unicorn if he had been close before them. The very trees seemed sleeping. They passed by little houses, lonely, sheltered by elms; shut off by high hedges of yew from those that roamed the fields; houses that Orion had never seen or known till the chance course of this unicorn brought him suddenly past their doors. Dogs barked as they passed, and continued barking long, for that magical scent on the air and the rush and the voice of the pack told them something strange was afoot; and at first they barked because they would have shared in what was afoot, and afterward to warn their masters about the strangeness. They barked long through the evening. </i>(127) </ul>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-86525954074756287982012-07-09T02:14:00.000-05:002012-07-21T16:12:10.785-05:00Review Schedule & A Writing UpdateI’ve once again allowed the blog to lapse into purgatory for a while. Little spindly-legged spiders are building cobwebs in the corners. There is a fine layer of dust on the page ends of the books. <P>I have quite a few books queued up for review, awaiting my pleasure. Too many, in fact. I tend to read books at a quicker pace than I review them. But I’m thinking that perhaps the best way to ensure certain books get reviewed is to lay them out on a schedule, hence ensuring I get them written and posted in a timely manner. <P>So, here’s the next few weeks’ schedule: <UL><LI><B>Friday, July 13th - <I>The King of Elfland’s Daughter</i> by Lord Dunsany <li>Wednesday, July 18th - <I>The Curse of Chalion</i> by Lois McMaster Bujold <li>Thursday, July 26th - <I>Solstice Wood</i> by Patricia McKillip </B></ul><P>That works out to one per week for the next three weeks. The books have already been read. That shouldn’t be <i><b>too</i></b> strenuous. I hope. <P>In writing news, my short story “Trail of Stones” will appear in the premier issue of <a href="http://www.whatwonderfulthings.net/" target="_blank"><I>The Golden Key</i></a> this fall. Head on over to their site. It’s beautifully designed, and the blog is regularly updated with interesting posts. Plus, they're open for submissions until July 31st, so get your stories in. <P>That, officially, leaves only one story from 2011 without a home. It is still out, wandering the fine spec magazines. And, since I’ve only written one short story in 2012 (really, just one), that means I have only two lonely stories currently making submission rounds. I kinda miss the constant anticipation of replies in my inbox. I may have to gear myself up for a few new stories. <P>The novel, on the other hand, has been moving along nicely of late. Chapter 19 is nearly complete, putting the manuscript at around 62k words. There’s a light somewhere far down this tunnel. I can see it. <P>Unless it’s a train.Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-13484379425726110812012-06-15T15:45:00.000-05:002012-07-21T16:11:55.547-05:00Review: The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiExbF-0ovISYTE7QFZR0y-LG7abvWCFWXhY9goMboLd7ZuDVAViMyD7wlYDbzMv6LiZj2Z1pDAjebSosIKn-SJJqoAs-49DlJ0eZd5hj_LfYDFZ0SSIl2CNj7U6o8EfKyGVk7NjaKo8ss/s1600/drowning+girl+kiernan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiExbF-0ovISYTE7QFZR0y-LG7abvWCFWXhY9goMboLd7ZuDVAViMyD7wlYDbzMv6LiZj2Z1pDAjebSosIKn-SJJqoAs-49DlJ0eZd5hj_LfYDFZ0SSIl2CNj7U6o8EfKyGVk7NjaKo8ss/s320/drowning+girl+kiernan.jpg" /></a>I find that few writers do slipstream well, especially at novel length. Murakami. John Crowley. Neil Gaiman. Stephen King. Jonathan Carroll. It’s a difficult, subtle tightline to walk, mixing the fantastic with the everyday, making the reader <I>believe</i>. More often than not, I find myself disappointed. <P>Add Caitlín R. Kiernan to the group listed above. <I>The Drowning Girl</i> is fantastic – a gorgeous, fractured tapestry of a novel. <P>But I’m getting ahead of myself. <P>India Morgan Phelps – Imp to her friends – is schizophrenic. Her grandmother was schizophrenic. Her mother was schizophrenic. Both committed suicide. <P>If you think this sounds like a grim opening to a novel, it is, but much less so than you might think. Imp’s charisma, her sharply-drawn personality, shine through on nearly every page. Imp narrates her story through flashbacks, journal entries, analogies. These snarl into a tangle of contradictions, odd coincidences, and broken timelines that Imp can’t quite reconcile. <P>She knows, rationally, they can’t all be true. But she believes in them – in each of them – wholeheartedly. To quote the Radiohead song - "There There" - that Ms. Kiernan cites as an inspiration: <I>Just cos you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there</i>.<P>Imp has obsessions. <i>Hauntings</i>, she calls them. <P>One is a painting she sees at a local exhibit when she’s eleven. It’s called <I>The Drowning Girl</i> by Phillip George Saltonstall, and features a girl walking into a river or pool, and peering back over her shoulder at a dark, eerily dark, patch of wood. It isn’t just the painting, of course, that obsesses her. The reader comes to understand that Imp has a long-standing obsession with mermaids and fairy-tales, and that <I>The Drowning Girl</i> merely crystallizes that obsession, becomes a focal point. <P>The second is another painting, seen years later at another exhibition. It is called <i>Fecunda ratis</i>, and features a blurred Impressionistic rendering of a young girl in a red tunic, “surrounded by a circle of dark, hulking forms – the wolves – and the wolves, in turn, are sitting within an outer circle of standing stones, a looming megalithic ring.” This, of course, represents a form of “Little Red Riding Hood”, a fairy tale Imp calls her “least favorite”. <P>The two paintings, and the two fairy-tales, become the nexus around which the story revolves. Nightmare and dream. The two tales wrestle over Imp’s mind, ply each other for dominance. They become <i>her</i> stories. <P><ul><I>A dark country road in Eastern Connecticut. Another dark road beside a river in Massachusetts. A woman who called herself Eva Canning, who might have been a ghost, or a wolf, or maybe a mermaid, or possibly, most likely, nothing that will ever have a name.</i></ul><P>The narrative moves backwards and forwards in time as Imp tries to reconstruct her thoughts and find the truth of her story. She realizes that fact and truth are not synonymous. Imp says in the opening chapter that she will try to tell the story as she remembers it. “Which is not to say every word will be factual. Only that every word will be true. Or as true as I can manage.” <P>The story comes in broken chunks and flashbacks interspersed with her current life and in little pieces of fiction that she has written. <P>The story is strewn with references to everyone from Charles Perrault to Dante Alighieri. Kiernan peppers the story with odd facts (Imp collects odd facts like shells on the beach), and even fictional references like the painting of “The Drowning Girl” felt real enough that I needed to search to ensure it didn’t really exist. This gives the novel a feel of authenticity, a believability that never, even in its strangest moments, dissipates. <P>Capturing the skittering thoughts and images of Imp’s mind must have been a daunting task, but Kiernan’s style brings it off beautifully. It varies between extremely lucid and straightforward or surrealistic and dreamlike, dependent upon Imp’s state of mind. It is most powerful in its surrealistic state, especially Chapter 7, which centers around that number and reads like a strange opium dream. <P><ul><i>This is my ghost story of the wolf who cried girl. The murdered wolf ghost who roamed centuries after a musket blast, without other wolves, except other wolf ghosts, for company. And somehow she forgot she ever was a wolf, deprived of others of her kind to provide perspective. She forgot. </ul></i><P>The story doesn’t tie up neatly into a little bow. It remains fractured, just as its narrator remains fractured. Imp can control her illness through medication. But there’s no cure, just as you sense there’s no easy solution to her story. What happened, on a factual basis, is far less important that what is <I>true</i>. Imp realizes this central tenet to storytelling. It is why fiction is so much more important than non-fiction. There are truths contained therein that will never be found in a dry collection of facts. <P>I’m reminded of the lines from Yann Martel’s brilliant <I>Life of Pi</i>: <P><Ul><I>“Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?”</i>.</ul><P><I>The Drowning Girl</i> is certainly a better story with the animals. And it’s one of the finer books I’ve read this year.Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-10236139895814237752012-05-14T20:09:00.000-05:002012-07-21T16:12:10.783-05:00Subtle Persuasion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisstQ-lEn8aTZp_c8SxtjqayDT8l8ao-_4YuXKtxtCAlrtzV9AAznK6jIkl3lMhVmV5-amXOZSs5Nyv7q7H1ea3GGlC6MNvogZDHvHkqj11sgdiQ6ksyH3stoLUBWJRucFHMt1J2TEd_g/s1600/Tsunami-Breaking-on-the-Shore-of-Hawaii-1800s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisstQ-lEn8aTZp_c8SxtjqayDT8l8ao-_4YuXKtxtCAlrtzV9AAznK6jIkl3lMhVmV5-amXOZSs5Nyv7q7H1ea3GGlC6MNvogZDHvHkqj11sgdiQ6ksyH3stoLUBWJRucFHMt1J2TEd_g/s320/Tsunami-Breaking-on-the-Shore-of-Hawaii-1800s.jpg" /></a></div>Well, as usual I'm a few days behind on posting this. I have an excuse this time. I was out of town. Really. No kidding. And since I remain one of perhaps three individuals in the western hemisphere without a smartphone (or an iPad, or a Kindle Fire, or a...you get the idea) I was unable to write a proper update. <P>So, without further ado, I would like to point out that my flash story, "The Deep", has been published in the May edition of <a href="http://www.flashfictiononline.com">Flash Fiction Online</a>. <P>At a mere 1000 words, you've got time. Five minutes. Maybe seven. <i>Max.</i> Click on over. Have a gander. Leave a comment if you're so inclined. You know you want to. <P><P>................<P>................<P>You've scrolled too far. There's nothing down here. The link is up above. The blue word clicky-thing.Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-55715405186406066302012-05-08T20:24:00.000-05:002012-07-21T16:12:43.610-05:00Writemotivation May<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbzYoexibaWAcQoehVnsuXWPMOiykmuPeLxGvsT0wTYtKmTKxP3geqPS_QLjup_sDCWJwqWns0SUtUomSGGfEWe0OYa16qNfLCRReS9fE7fleHrnhcRmU8r7mEWcua1PGHxCsOOrQx7_Y/s1600/Procrastination.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbzYoexibaWAcQoehVnsuXWPMOiykmuPeLxGvsT0wTYtKmTKxP3geqPS_QLjup_sDCWJwqWns0SUtUomSGGfEWe0OYa16qNfLCRReS9fE7fleHrnhcRmU8r7mEWcua1PGHxCsOOrQx7_Y/s320/Procrastination.jpg" /></a></div>This month I joined a group of other writers in something like a writer’s support group. The intention is to set goals for the month of May, and do our damnedest to meet those goals. Sort of an AA group for writers. <P>So, with that in mind: “Hello, my name is Adam, and I am a shameless, weak, feeble-willed, indolent procrastinator.” Whew! At least <I>that’s</i> out in the open. I hate speaking in front of people. <P>I’m hoping this works in two ways: <BR><UL>A.) To actually set some concrete writing goals for the month. <BR>B.) To let other people know about those goals. </ul><P>Those necessarily have to work together. I set myself goals all the time, and often fail to reach them. But whose problem is that? Mine. Because no one else knows about them. And though I feel bad about not reaching personal goals – very guilty, in fact – it doesn’t always give me the extra motivation I need. So I’m thinking perhaps the fact that other people know about my goals gives me some incentive to meet them. Hey, every little bit helps. <P>At the very least, it helps to know that I’m not the only easily-distracted, restless, attention-deficient writer on the planet. In fact, I’m beginning to think that’s the most common kind. <P>My goals for May were thus: <P><UL>1.) Write 1000 words on my WIP on each devoted “writing day”. Minimum of three days per week. (Kind of vague, huh? My writing schedule is at the mercy of my changing work schedule.) <P>2.) Write a minimum of one blog post per week updating my #writemotivation status and / or containing a book review. (And I have so many reviews just waiting to be written!) </ul><P>This constitutes my second blog post of the month. So I’m at least meeting <i>that</i> commitment, if only at a minimum level. <P>The other? Lagging a bit behind so far. I managed about 1,100 words for the week on my WIP novel, and started a new story, on which I’ve completed around 1,750 words. I haven’t a clue where the story is going yet. But it’ll get there eventually. Wherever <i>there</i> is. <P>For those mathematically-challenged readers, that’s a mere 2,850 words for the first week of May. Thank God I don’t have to make a living at this stuff. Starvation and exposure would have set in a long time back. <P>I hope all of my fellow #writemotivation writers are plugging along a bit more gainfully. Like my mysteriously meandering new story, we’ll get there eventually. <P>P.S. - The wonderful image above is from writer/artist Richard Krzemien. Check out <a href="http://www.thewriteratwork.com/site/index.asp">his website</a> for more great comics.Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-52880884523518229972012-04-30T21:38:00.000-05:002012-07-21T16:12:43.608-05:00Around the May-Pole: A Nearly-Coherent Writing Update<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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May is shaping up to be an exciting month. Three of my short stories will appear in some seriously awesome magazines. I learned yesterday that my story, “Deerslayer”, has been accepted by <a href="http://readnine.com"><I>Nine Magazine</I></a>, and will appear in their second issue to be released in late May. (You can get the nine fantastic stories in Issue One <i>now</i> for $5. It’s totally worth it.) <P>This is in addition to “Flatland” - which is scheduled to appear in the May issue of <a href="http://jabberwocky-magazine.com"><i>Jabberwocky </i></a> - and “The Deep”, which will appear in the May issue of <a href="http://www.flashfictiononline.com"><I>Flash Fiction Online</i></a>. “The Deep” is my first (and thus far only) professional-paying sale. <P>Needless to say, I’m chuffed to see the words I’ve sweated and bled over (not literally…perhaps) get into the hands of readers. I’ll put a note up here when each of the stories are available. <P>Submitting short fiction is an exciting, excruciating, time-consuming, obsessive process. If I’d tallied the number of times I checked my email for replies, I’d have covered the desk, walls, and possibly the carpet with faint pencil lines. The road from initial idea to rough story to finished story to rejection to acceptance to actual, honest-to-god publication is potholed, meandering, and stretches way, way back into the heat-blurred distance. <P>It has been an educational, and often frustrating, experience. But it has also been an awful lot of fun. <P>In secondary news, I completed the fifteenth chapter of my novel WIP this past week, which means I've struggled my way very close to the halfway point (per my outline, which is rather vague and liable to morph into different shapes altogether). Either way, it’s a milestone, and one I’m satisfied with. Though I’m struck with a faint disquiet that not enough is <i>happening</i> at this point in the book. Ah well, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed in revisions.Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-89445136343429696392012-04-08T19:37:00.003-05:002012-07-21T16:13:35.681-05:00Review - The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DqkAx3E52AMHngElUMMD1lWKVREq7Ilpx3IYGH6bf_X-7IW0o8_TWWI7BbbiIKaB9K0GUshWvvH61L2ckMrb0HY2jsOmJaR_gT2VQz0rYGbWMA3IKwmogWmvobaCjPqsWocO-0j897M/s1600/Rollrock+Island.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 280px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DqkAx3E52AMHngElUMMD1lWKVREq7Ilpx3IYGH6bf_X-7IW0o8_TWWI7BbbiIKaB9K0GUshWvvH61L2ckMrb0HY2jsOmJaR_gT2VQz0rYGbWMA3IKwmogWmvobaCjPqsWocO-0j897M/s400/Rollrock+Island.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729201104466085602" /></a>There are very few writers that leave me so eagerly anticipating their next novel that I will rearrange my schedule to read it. Years ago, I rushed to the bookstore to snatch up the latest Robert Jordan or Tad Williams installment the moment it hit the shelves. These days, with literally <I>hundreds</i> of patient, unread books on the shelves whispering “read <i>me</i>!”, and my tastes constantly evolving, very few authors receive immediate readings. <P>Hell, even <I>A Dance With Dragons</i> and <I>The Wise Man’s Fear</i> - and let’s admit it, ongoing series tend to receive some priority, since the story is incomplete – waited a few months from release before I cracked their spines. Anticipation, after all, whets the appetite. <P>But there are exceptions. When I learned some time in January that Margo Lanagan was releasing a new novel, I sat up very straight in my chair and began fishing around online for release dates. I devoured her first novel – World Fantasy Award Winner <I>Tender Morsels</i> - and found that her short story collections served to whet my appetite for the next novel quite enough, thank you. I didn’t intend to wait. <P> Then I discovered, to my chagrin, that the Australian & UK release dates were set for mid-February, while the US edition wouldn’t be released until September. <I>September!</I> <P>Waiting I would be, it seemed…because I have this phobia about paying for shipping. There are many, many things I don’t mind paying for, but shipping falls into the painful gray area of “utterly wasted money”, and international shipping…well, even the thought makes me shiver. There’s a great UK-based bookstore called The Book Depository that ships free worldwide, but it kept telling me the book was out of stock. <P>I’m nothing, however, if not persistent. I finally found a new copy on Abe Books – fulfilled through the Book Depository. Does this meandering backstory have a point? Not really, other than to tell any other anxious readers that you can find your own international copies in that way if you don’t want to wait until September. <P>And you shouldn't. <P><I>The Brides of Rollrock Island</i> is a novel based on the author’s novella from 2010, “Sea Hearts”, which won the World Fantasy Award for that category and went on to appear in <I>The Best Dark Fantasy and Horror of 2010</I> anthology. I hadn’t read the novella, mainly because it originally appeared in an Australian anthology that was difficult to come by in the US. <P><I>The Brides of Rollrock Island</I> is an unfortunate title, and the UK edition that I purchased has underwhelming, stock-YA cover art. The Australian version of the novel kept the <i>Sea Hearts</i> title but the UK and US versions opted for <i>Brides</i> instead. Who knows why marketing departments make the decisions that they do? <I>Sea Hearts</I> is a far more fitting title, certainly. One that reflects the many nuances and conflicts that Lanagan portrays. <P>My disappointment in the presentation faded quickly once I began the opening chapter. I slipped into Lanagan’s fictional world like a selkie back into its skin. <P>The story is narrated by six different characters, though the bulk of the action revolves around only two, separated by a generation – Daniel Mallett, a young boy from the village; and Misskaella Prout, an outcast girl who becomes the means for drawing women from the seals. For a novel this short – it clocks in at just under 300 pages – you might think this method would hinder the ability to build character, but somehow the tale, and the characters themselves, emerge as distinct and greater than the sum of their parts. <P>The basic premise of the novel is this: On a lonely island, Misskaella is a witch with the ability to draw women – beautiful, enchanting women – from the seals that return to the island to breed and bask each spring. The men become so enchanted by the seal-women that they take them as wives – even those that already <i>have</i> wives and family – and drive all of the “human” women to the mainland. <P>That, of course, is only the bird’s-eye view. A cover blurb that doesn’t come close to capturing the novel’s heart. The novel has at its center a number of ideas – a contrast between real flesh-and-blood women and their idealized, submissive selkie counterparts; the effect of the absence of real female presence on the men and children of the island; an evocation of the tensions, jealousies, and bonds that form in an isolated community; but perhaps more than anything the underlying instinct – the drive – of both human & selkie alike to return home. The selkies rejoice to return to the sea; no less does Dominick Mallett rejoice on his return to Rollrock, after many years away. Nostalgia, in part. But also an old glove that fits the hand. <P>Lanagan’s prose is an absolute pleasure, utilitarian and poetic at the same time. It rarely bogs down or draws attention to itself, but builds on very specific details that reflect the setting and move the story forward without sacrificing style. Spare, where sparseness is required. Like Rollrock Island itself. Full of wonder at other times, teeming with the wild magic that lies beneath a bluff exterior. <P><UL><I>When the wind was a particular strength of nor’-easter, Toddy and I would run up towards Windaway Peak. There was a blade of land there, up which funneled all the airs from Gambrel Wood to Oaten Share, and we stood on it with our toes curled over the rock like eagle-claws, and spread our arms and were held up by the wind. It would push and sluice around us, and overbalance us back down towards the path, or desert us so that we fell forward into a shallow little tumble-room on the south side, and make us laugh.</I> (Lanagan, 273)</ul><P>Lanagan’s novels and stories all seem to take place in a sort of timeless zone, an area just outside of the common world, and <I>The Brides of Rollrock Island</i> is no exception. There are nods toward a modern or semi-modern lifestyle, especially on the mainland – busses, motorboats, electricity – but Rollrock seems to exist outside of these things for the most part. There is no attempt to place the story in a definite time-frame, and I think it would be unproductive to do so. Like fairy tales, Lanagan’s writings take place just off the map somewhere, in that no-man’s land where fantasy and reality collide (Lanagan’s first novel, <I>Tender Morsels</i>, was very much about the collision of fantasy with reality). <P>And yet, despite the timeless feel of the island setting, we get a great sense of the “roll” of time and generations through the novel, seeing the changes through the eyes of several characters, often separated by twenty or thirty years of time. <P>If there was one problem I found with the novel, it was the general helplessness of the men against Misskaella and the sea-wives. <P>Only one male character in the novel manages to resist the lure of the selkies. His ability to withstand what all the others are utterly defenseless against is never explained, and its importance is downplayed. His resistance implies that the men’s choices are not all controlled by enchantment, but (at least in part) by free will. This casts the decisions of the rest of the male population in an unflattering light, to say the least. <P>I found the general weakness and simplicity of the male characters a bit off-putting. The men in this novel are not bad, heartless people, per se, but they are often crude, hormone-driven fools. There is some truth there, but it is far from a universal truth. <P>That qualm aside, this is a vibrant, beautifully-written novel, full of the magic of island and sea and of those things – human and otherwise – that pass between. Highly recommended.Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-62762408238502886002012-03-14T12:52:00.007-05:002012-07-21T16:13:54.283-05:00Drawing on the Green<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOTkNsTL-EYXl1-YYDCsQD0-Ohiy0lC3lw9sF8btk5pupEI_JXY6oQIwvJbulVeWM7M_Y0DrlkjxMpQaH0kEQ_4hoUZEKizyHEPHaqLrv_icWKV1ihcnix8FhnJzawMhwUYKrETKCMrJ4/s1600/P1040830.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOTkNsTL-EYXl1-YYDCsQD0-Ohiy0lC3lw9sF8btk5pupEI_JXY6oQIwvJbulVeWM7M_Y0DrlkjxMpQaH0kEQ_4hoUZEKizyHEPHaqLrv_icWKV1ihcnix8FhnJzawMhwUYKrETKCMrJ4/s400/P1040830.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719885593097523282" /></a><br />Spring weather has cracked open like an egg, and now that I finally have a day away from work I plan to get out into the woods and soak up the sounds and smells. It’s one of those rare spring days here in Illinois – a slight breeze, sun, the odor of damp earth & blooming green. Nice spring days are almost always accompanied by wind, so I’ll take the change while it's here. <P>After working last night and getting to bed late, I woke up around 11 with a folk song playing in my head. It seemed fitting for the bursting free of winter’s chains, for solitude and grey-green rocks. When it comes to this sort of thing, it’s always the fabulous poet Mary Oliver I turn to, because few people can put that yearning so poignantly: <P><ul>But little by little,<br>as you left their voices behind,<br>the stars began to burn<br>through the sheets of clouds,<br>and there was a new voice<br>which you slowly<br>recognized as your own,<br>that kept you company<br>as you strode deeper and deeper<br>into the world,<br>determined to do<br>the only thing you could do – <br>determined to save<br>the only life you could save.<P><I>From “The Journey”, © 1986 by Mary Oliver</i></ul><P>So, with luck, I can get out and clear the mind with a long walk, find a cozy outdoor spot where the glare isn’t <i>too</i> bad on the computer screen and pound out a few pages in my novel – because, really, clearing my head of the static of semis, car exhaust, work, internet distractions, and electronic devices (aside from the one I actually write on) is necessary for the mindset of this novel. Wish me luck. <P>I’ll leave you with a couple of the songs that have been running through my head today. Because, hey, maybe they can help you clear away the smoke too. <P><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/db1IchkKpLw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><P><iframe width="420" height="243" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RzRbxQLBVFA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-6983441058365515182012-01-21T21:51:00.007-06:002012-07-21T16:15:05.974-05:00A Year's Reading<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOR9ZswqZJSr5WRNHWkED56u7AP1mBY1OxVP3eW2HJXS97xsEg55f739Mt2xNSCWGmACQ2g-cVg_ZfjNvIW-QUkED-ycMp6L5Trbmit7ur1YU5bNGYfBvMMEzOBzR8UlLCthNjeROth30/s1600/P1070116.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOR9ZswqZJSr5WRNHWkED56u7AP1mBY1OxVP3eW2HJXS97xsEg55f739Mt2xNSCWGmACQ2g-cVg_ZfjNvIW-QUkED-ycMp6L5Trbmit7ur1YU5bNGYfBvMMEzOBzR8UlLCthNjeROth30/s400/P1070116.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700311719538285314" /></a><br />Reviewing an entire year's worth of reading in retrospect is a daunting task. Looking back, we may misremember what we thought of a given book, or overlook the flaws that were so obvious on first reading. I'm left instead with impressions, random scenes, rather than the coherent whole. But what the hell, I'll give it a try anyway. <P>2011 was a year of mixed reading – a variety of genres, subjects, and styles. I followed through on my resolution to read (and re-read) more classics. I have a deep love and respect for nineteenth-century novels, but I find that all too often I pass them up because of their sheer <i>size</i> and the mental demands they require. Let’s face it, most modern genre novels require less of the reader than Dickens, Tolstoy, Hardy, or George Eliot. <P>Total Books Read in 2011: <B>49</B> <P>That’s down several from the year before, but the difference is due more to the size of the books than anything else. I tackled some real doorstops last year. I’ve never had issues with long books, but I realized something about them last year. <P>Most are pointlessly bloated. <P>I don’t say <i>all</i>. In spite of its digressions, I wouldn’t shorten <i>Anna Karenina</I> by a word. Same goes for <i>Middlemarch</i> and <I>The Adventures of Don Quixote</I>. <P>In some cases, I may even encourage said author. George R.R. Martin – feel free to make the next book, and the one after that, just as long as you like. If some of the narrative is off-topic, so be it. When I open a new volume of <i>A Song of Ice & Fire</I> I’m perfectly happy to spend weeks, months, or years enveloped in the narrative. Though I’ve had quite enough of that Meereen plot-line. Bring everybody home to the Seven Kingdoms. <P>In the bloated department, there are varying levels of severity. Patrick Rothfuss, for example, keeps things interesting and fun in spite of an oversized and meandering narrative. I can enjoy <I>The Wise Man’s Fear</i> in spite of its heft because Rothfuss is a damned fine storyteller. <P>Another one? Connie Willis’s <i>The Doomsday Book</i>. I don’t go in for science fiction, generally, but this is Sci Fi lite. It's about people - about how different, and yet how similar, we are to those who came before. A thought-provoking book. Not a spaceship in sight, thank you. Oversized, and beautiful, and (I thought) somewhat anti-climactic. <P>Going several degrees worse – Ken Follett’s <I>Pillars of the Earth</i>. I’d heard good things about it, and I have a weakness for big historical novels. I found some of the story intriguing…but mostly I thought it was a big, ungainly, sprawling mess. Flat characters and a tiresomely redundant plot. I found myself, six-hundred pages in, thinking “haven’t I <i>read</i> this part already? Surely I did, back on page 324?” <P>One final mention of an over-large book? <I>The Dragon Queen</i> by Alice Borchardt. This was a selection for my book club. Weighing in at only 473 pages, it’s practically a novella compared to the others I’ve mentioned. And yet… And yet it seemed twice as long and painful as any of them. I will say no more on the matter. But be forewarned. <P>Some Highly Recommended Books of 2011: <P>Note: I’ll leave the classics off this list. Recommending a classic seems almost...well...redundant. <P><ul><B><I>Under Heaven</i> by Guy Gavriel Kay</B> – I’ve already reviewed this one here, so I’ll be brief. The latest fantasy-historical by Kay. Asian setting. It matches up well with some of his best works like <i>A Song for Arbonne</I> and <I>The Lions of Al-Rassan</i>. <P><B><I>Lavinia</i> by Ursula K. LeGuin</B> – Another book I’ve already reviewed here. It’s by Ursula LeGuin. What more needs to be said? <P><B><I>Lonesome Dove</i> by Larry McMurtry</B> – I <i>loved</i> this book. Absolutely loved it. Harsh, funny, touching. Whether you like westerns or not (and I’m generally lukewarm on them), read this one. <P><B><I>Green Grass, Running Water</i> by Thomas King</B> – Native American magic-realism. Entwines Native American mythology with modern Native American culture. It’s essentially about stories – their significance, their relevance, and the effect they have on who we are and who we would like to be. <P><B><i>A Dance with Dragons</i> by George R.R. Martin </B>– At this point, giving Martin my recommendation is like spitting into the ocean. Pointless and redundant. But I’ll do it anyway. The man is sadistic. Downright evil. Oh, and genius. <P><B><I>Holiday</i> by M. Rickert </B>– One of my favorite fantasy short story writers, and criminally under-read. This collection came out around Christmas 2010 in a gorgeously illustrated hardcover edition. Weird fiction full of deep ideas, disturbing images, and sudden unexpected glimpses of the wondrous. If you like short fiction, try her. You won’t be disappointed.<P></ul>A Few Disappointments: <ul><P><B><I>The Pillars of the Earth</i> by Ken Follett </B>– Mentioned above. Too long, too wooden. <P><B><I>Something Rich & Strange</I> by Patricia McKillip</B> – I’m a big fan of Patricia McKillip’s books and her lush, lyrical writing style. I purchased this one because it’s a bit of a rarity. The second book in a planned series illustrated by Brian & Wendy Froud that was cancelled after this book came out. This seemed forced and overdone to me. Her images were as lush as usual, but not as clear, and the modern environmental fable didn’t work as a plot device. Stick with McKillip’s other books. <P><B><I>The Stress of Her Regard</i> by Tim Powers </B>– This book seemed almost like a shoe-in on the “loved it” list. Shelley & Byron & Keats and succubae in early nineteenth century Europe. It had everything going for it except its execution. I was never drawn into the story, and I found it unfocused and often confusing. The main character was neither very likeable nor very coherent. I wanted to like it. I really did. <P><B><I>The Marriage of Sticks</i> by Jonathan Carroll </B>- I really enjoyed Carroll's <i>The Land of Laughs</i>, so I had similar high expectations for <I>The Marriage of Sticks</i>. The book had its moments, but the ending seemed both preachy and highly contrived. I was not impressed. I have several more of Carroll's novels hanging around, so I hope this was just a blip on the radar. </ul><P>What was your favorite book that you read in 2011?Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-45802326840642381882012-01-15T20:32:00.011-06:002012-01-18T14:03:07.254-06:002011 Under the Bridge<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzmmU0hHTtH-aH3urN9_rIkKQcnT9QulmWHipwUvMXEa6vUwTsGf-CbwCfD_NR1A_BqWB-a4g45OdtV7aAw1gx0uAIqjbKi6gVYvmawDxJWKYcT5c0xHtJa8thsL1F_qSJA7Fo-RqXkpw/s1600/P1050412.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698054466650916610" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzmmU0hHTtH-aH3urN9_rIkKQcnT9QulmWHipwUvMXEa6vUwTsGf-CbwCfD_NR1A_BqWB-a4g45OdtV7aAw1gx0uAIqjbKi6gVYvmawDxJWKYcT5c0xHtJa8thsL1F_qSJA7Fo-RqXkpw/s400/P1050412.JPG" /></a><br />I’m getting to this a bit late, but an annual review post is almost obligatory, and since this would be my <i>first</i> annual review post, it’s doubly so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This first year of blogging didn’t progress as smoothly as anticipated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To say that it came in small, short-lived bursts would be fairly accurate, and it grew smaller and more short-lived as the year drew on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Life, and laziness, disrupts the best laid plans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And this was not “best laid”, but more along the lines of “seat-of-your-pants”.<p>All told, 2011 was an exciting year for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In a time when so many are struggling, out-of-work, and out-of-pocket (including many close friends and family), I was fortunate enough to remain gainfully employed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My wife and I took a long-planned and long-awaited vacation to England in the spring, which turned out just about as perfectly as I had imagined it might. </p><p>From a writing perspective, it was neither as productive nor successful as I’d hoped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My bare handful of short stories made the rounds of some excellent magazines, with plenty of encouraging feedback but, all told, polite refusal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A glimmer of hope arrived in December with the acceptance of my story, “Flatland”, by <a href="http://www.jabberwocky-magazine.com"><i>Jabberwocky Magazine</i></a>, one of my absolute favorite venues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I’m hoping to carry that momentum of success into 2012. </p><p>The novel I began 2011 with sits (rather comfortably, for the time being, with its feet up and a full pipe of the Old Toby) at a point not far from its ending, but written so firmly into a corner that it may have to gestate there a while longer. </p><p>The good news is that I started a new novel that I’m<a name="_GoBack"></a> damned excited about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It began as a short story, but I quickly realized that the idea was too large to fit within those confines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I started from scratch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And, amazingly, I even have most of the novel loosely mapped out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That doesn’t sound like much, but given my previous methods of writing, it’s re-inventing the wheel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It seems to work, productivity-wise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s a great feeling not to spend the first two hours of every writing session feeling my way ahead blindly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because, I’ll be honest, I don’t have the patience to spend two hours wringing my brain for nothing. </p><p>Within the next few days – I <i>promise</i> this time, no kidding – I will be posting up my 2011 reading year in review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some great books; some not so great books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A wide variety that includes fantasy novels of various types; historical fiction; classics; short story collections; even a western (one that dually classifies as a classic, and rightfully so). </p><p>Looking further ahead - I have ideas for posts on living simply, Charles Dickens, book collecting, and George R.R. Martin’s <i>A Song of Ice & Fire</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p>Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a few of them actually written.</p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-77931035629337968492011-11-09T22:58:00.005-06:002012-07-21T16:16:12.433-05:00Great Fictional Characters<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEfjNl-frUTYyul4chiG24T3t2WItfSD_LuuQirhofTS7uQlv2q8GnftRexzB5QIgNxBJ3krpyLvji9c-f-KBg5CRHyaS7jgFjz4ztOOnFM2GDAZnohiHvLkTITk0xYOkNjz5RUqGHVPc/s1600/Game-of-Thrones-Tyrion-Lannister.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEfjNl-frUTYyul4chiG24T3t2WItfSD_LuuQirhofTS7uQlv2q8GnftRexzB5QIgNxBJ3krpyLvji9c-f-KBg5CRHyaS7jgFjz4ztOOnFM2GDAZnohiHvLkTITk0xYOkNjz5RUqGHVPc/s320/Game-of-Thrones-Tyrion-Lannister.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673228231516632658" border="0" /></a>I am knee-deep in re-reading two of my favorite books - <i>A Game of Thrones</i> and <i>Anna Karenina</i> - and they set me pondering on fictional characters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Both books have a diverse, enchanting, complicated set of characters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That may be the end of any major similarities between the two (aside from the description “epic”, which applies far more to <i>War and Peace</i> than to <i>Anna Karenina</i>). <p>But it’s enough.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>With very few exceptions, the most memorable books are those with memorable characters. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Take Dickens, for example. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Ask readers who love Dickens what their favorite books are. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Eight times out of ten the answer will be either <i>Great Expectations</i> or <i>Bleak House</i> (I prefer the latter<i></i>).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why? <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because Pip, Joe Gargery, Miss Havisham, Esther Summerson, Inspector Bucket, and Mr. Jarndyce are Dickens’ most vibrant (and mutable) characters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>It takes a unique talent to make characters come alive, with all their heroism and eccentricities and faults, their selfishness and doubt and endless crises of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It isn’t always a comfortable situation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However much the reader may criticize her actions, or stand on the sideline sadly shaking our heads, we recognize in poor doomed Emma Bovary – who has always a romantic yearning toward what she doesn’t have – a certain part of ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It may be deeply buried, but it’s there. </p><p>So I began the futile effort of casting about it my head for <i>my</i> favorite characters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There were almost too many to list, but I was eventually able to pare it down to five or so, with a handful of honorable mentions: </p><p></p><ul><li><b>Tyrion Lannister</b>, George R.R. Martin’s <i>A Song of Ice & Fire</i><p></p><ul>From the moment we first meet Tyrion, he mesmerizes us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Tyrion is a dwarf (as in the medical condition, not the prototypical fantasy race).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is also a member of the primary family of antagonists in the books, and perhaps the most arrogant of them all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But he sets himself apart from the common run of enemies with his wit, honesty, and charm.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A complicated character, we come to discover his doubts, his demons, his struggles with ineptitude, his lechery, and his heroism.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But most of all his thirst for life. </ul><p></p></li><li><b>Constantine Levin</b>, Leo Tolstoy’s <i>Anna Karenina</i>. <p></p><ul>It isn’t easy to select one favorite character from Tolstoy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Pierre (from <i>War & Peace</i>) is comparable to Levin.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Anna Karenina and Natasha Rostova are two of the finest female characters in literature.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Stephan Oblonsky, Levin’s easygoing and likeable brother-in-law, demands consideration. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But Levin manages to carry off, through his internal and external struggles, the prize.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His social awkwardness, fierce jealousy, and struggle with faith ring incredibly true, probably not least because he expressed so many of Tolstoy’s own ideas and doubts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In a novel full of sharply-drawn, beautiful characters, Levin stands in as the crowning achievement. </ul><p></p></li><li><b>Elizabeth Bennett</b>, Jane Austen’s <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> <p></p><ul>Most female readers are enamored of Mr. Darcy, and yet I think that Elizabeth Bennett is more than a match for him (or any man).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is impossible, while reading <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> <b>not</b> to fall in love with Miss Bennett.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Her high ideals and sharp tongue are irrepressible, and I often found myself smiling over her words, whether she was dissembling with the comically dim-witted Mr. Collins or bandying insults with Darcy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One would never grow bored with her around, though one might become overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of her wit. </ul><p></p></li><li><b>Augustus McCrae</b>, Larry McMurtry’s <i>Lonesome Dove</i> <p></p><ul>Gus single-handedly manages to lift <i>Lonesome Dove</i> from an “above-average” novel to a great one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Pull Gus from the book and you have the fascinating story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><i>With</i> Gus, you have a complicated saga, complete with humor, wisdom, pathos, and a kind of dusty, gnarled charm. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not only does Gus provide the humor and a large portion of the dialogue, but he provides the kind of counterpoint – the flashlight, so to speak – by which we can better see the depths of the other characters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Woodrow Call, the stoic leader of the Hat Creek outfit and Gus’s friend, would have come off entirely flat without Gus to illuminate him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Great characters can carry a story, and Gus shoulders more than his share of the load. </ul><p><b>Sir John Falstaff</b> William Shakespeare’s <i>Henry IV, Parts I & II</i></p><p></p><ul>How can any list of great characters be complete without Falstaff?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Drunken, lecherous, idle, and yet possessed of such a depth of brilliance that I find new puns and new ways to read his dialogue every time I encounter <i>Henry IV</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is, I think, the only Shakespearean character that can mentally vie with Hamlet, and yet he doesn’t possess the Danish Prince’s nihilism, nor his fascination with death.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Falstaff’s fascination is with life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His zest and laughter is contagious to everyone who reads or watches the play. </ul><p></p></li></ul>There are many, many more that made the short list, but didn’t quite find their way onto the final five – Nabokov’s prosy pedophile, Humbert Humbert; Dorothea Brooke from George Eliot’s <i>Middlemarch</i>; the wizard Ged from LeGuin’s <i>Earthsea</i> books, etc… <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><p>You get the picture. </p><p>Now you try! Please, feel free to share your favorite characters in the comments, and just as importantly, share a few words about why they appeal to you.</p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-52519183192864565452011-07-15T02:18:00.006-05:002012-07-21T16:12:43.606-05:00Review - Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizN_z8wA9Vf8t6Oy29Ed3_3WTbRT-L04khJRGyT21HkgmLwImAl5WIA1GZKdAMjw0XPvhybzu3dCeCku1KNjKOx2U6pt4txKEQAz7m90C7Ht2yI05D_uqNmI3Cn91qzz_Lk1SLBar6rzs/s1600/Under+Heaven+Kay.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizN_z8wA9Vf8t6Oy29Ed3_3WTbRT-L04khJRGyT21HkgmLwImAl5WIA1GZKdAMjw0XPvhybzu3dCeCku1KNjKOx2U6pt4txKEQAz7m90C7Ht2yI05D_uqNmI3Cn91qzz_Lk1SLBar6rzs/s320/Under+Heaven+Kay.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5629475960489589474" border="0" /></a>I said in my “Upcoming Reviews” post that I would review <i>Under Heaven</i> and <i>Across the Nightingale Floor</i> together.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I lied.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I decided <i>Under Heaven</i> deserved its own review.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I’ll get around to <i>Nightingale Floor</i> soon enough.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><p>I hope. </p><p>Prior to the last few months, I’ve read little Asian-inspired fantasy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can’t say exactly why that is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My fascination has always been with European history, myth, and legend.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Native American history and mythology has always had a pull on me as well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>But the Far East has primarily stayed off the radar.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The history of the Silk Road countries – the Middle-East, China, India, etc… – is fascinating, and has an immense bearing on the European history that I confessed an interest in earlier. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Far East gave Europe spices, weapons, slaves, new modes of thought, Ghengis Khan, and the Black Death, amongst many, many other things.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>European history would be far different without them. </p><p>So what, exactly, does it take to draw me to an Asian fantasy novel?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Guy Gavriel Kay, of course. </p><p>Kay is one of the most intelligent, thought-provoking, and moving fantasy novelists writing today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His historically-inspired fantasy novels – particularly <i>Tigana</i>, <i>The Lions of Al-Rassan</i>, & <i>A Song For Arbonne</i> – deserve to be mentioned among the very best fantasy novels ever, in my opinion. </p><p>So when I noticed the release of his newest book late last year, <i>Under Heaven</i>, I knew I had to have it, even if it’s subject was outside of my realm of knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><i>Especially</i> since it was outside my realm of knowledge. </p><p><i>Under Heaven</i> lives up to its promise in just about every way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Kay once again captures the essence of a time period, in this case Tang Dynasty China.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is full of snippets of song and poetry, lyrical fragments that echo the beauty of traditional Chinese verse and is full of recurring Far Eastern imagery:</p><p></p><ul><b><i>Why sir, it is true: on the shores of Kuala Nor<br />White bones have lain for many years.<br />No one has gathered them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The new ghosts<br />Are bitter and angry, the old ghosts weep.<br />Under the rain and within the circle of mountains<br />The air is full of their cries.</i></b></ul><p>The narrative follows the stories of two protagonists: Shen Tai, who has gone to the battleground of Kuala Nor in his grieving time after his father’s death to honor the dead; and his sister Li-Mei, who in Tai’s absence has been given as a bride to the leader of the barbarian Bogü people north of the wall. </p><p>For his work honoring and burying the battlefield dead, Tai is given a priceless gift that sets off a chain reaction of political intrigue, with Tai at the center, and he has to fight to merely stay alive. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Meanwhile, north of the wall, Li-Mei finds herself in mysterious, unexpected company. </p><p>The characters are exactly what one expects out of a Kay novel – fully-rounded, interesting, thoughtful.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Kay’s protagonists are a thoughtful bunch, and Shen Tai and Li-Mei are no exception. </p><p>And as usual, even the antagonists of the story are shown in their many shades of grey.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Self-centered, stubborn, and power-hungry, certainly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But fully human in their desires and goals, as prone to mistakes and miscalculations as anyone else. </p><p>I have read elsewhere online that many were not happy with the ending.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The novel <i>does</i> change pace during the final third of the novel, as if Kay had far too much story to wrap up within a single volume.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The main narrative arc of the novel comes to rest directly <i>before</i> the primary action that the novel has been building toward, and I can see how some might find it anti-climactic. </p><p>I, however, struggle to find fault with it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Can you have a novel that takes place directly before the start of WWII?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Does it then have to encompass WWII, or can it merely encapsulate its events and the parts the characters played in those events?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That is the situation here – wherein the main novel essentially ends prior to a major event – and that event (and our characters’ roles in that event) are wrapped up epilogue-style, as if by a future historian looking back. </p><p>While I don’t find fault with the hurried dénouement of <i>Under Heaven</i>, I did find myself wishing to spend more time in Kay’s alternate China.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I certainly wouldn’t have been opposed to two books to tell the entire tale.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>By turns beautiful and heartbreaking, <i>Under Heaven</i> is not to be missed.</p><b><i> </i></b>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-51937761043443996522011-07-06T14:29:00.000-05:002011-07-06T14:37:05.317-05:00Upcoming Reviews<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh9dzjRsNvSLDS3znjPUxjDDYxh6zg2wZBEzETiw5JSDdk_8d2MYmO5MWVNj0K7bpQDcijSSy6OAJ-A3kC7918oDZA07K7q0Tu_NpeTLroT7kVXgPymFE5TnKYMqwFEL75fSWy0nUcDuk/s1600/McKillip+and+Lanagan.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh9dzjRsNvSLDS3znjPUxjDDYxh6zg2wZBEzETiw5JSDdk_8d2MYmO5MWVNj0K7bpQDcijSSy6OAJ-A3kC7918oDZA07K7q0Tu_NpeTLroT7kVXgPymFE5TnKYMqwFEL75fSWy0nUcDuk/s400/McKillip+and+Lanagan.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626325015783755122" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Due to my general laziness (I may have mentioned this previously), I’m several books behind on my reviewing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I started with the intention of reviewing most of the books I read this year.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>So an idea of what you can expect forthcoming in the next few weeks: </p><p><b></b></p><ul><li><b><i>The Bards of Bone Plain</i> by Patricia McKillip </b></li><li><b><i>Under Heaven</i> by Guy Gavriel Kay </b></li><li><b><i>Across the Nightingale Floor</i> by Liam Hearn </b></li><li><b><i>Howl’s Moving Castle</i> by Diana Wynn Jones </b></li><li><b><i>Red Spikes</i> by Margo Lanagan </b></li><li><b><i>Kafka on the Shore</i> by Haruki Murakami </b></li></ul><p>I probably won’t review <i><b>all</b></i> of the aforementioned books, depending upon time and desire.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Since there are some similarities between them in setting and tone, I will likely do a joint review of <i>Under Heaven</i> and <i>Across the Nightingale Floor</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Compare and contrast, that sort of thing. I feel almost bad to do that to <i>Nightingale Floor</i>, since it was a solid first novel, but very few novels compare well with Kay’s best works. </p><p><i><b>Currently Reading:</b></i></p><p></p><ul><li><b><i>The Wise Man’s Fear</i> by Patrick Rothfuss </b></li><li><b><i>The Doomsday Book</i> by Connie Willis (audio).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></b></li></ul><p>The Rothfuss book will be joining the list of “To Be Reviewed” shortly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Stay tuned.</p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-63380597067131147002011-07-05T16:37:00.000-05:002013-03-02T16:39:19.587-06:00Into a Dark Wood - Reviewing Robert Holdstock<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoz72CrAlle6jAWFiXrYdA13yHWQwXhWF17RHLGYOVBUD-kYXqb-NWNzV9bNwTPDWAy_nc_VMZVgvbkSTqQlAo3sMK0_9ZGUG_6WPSV9Ea_OWyxd3dGmUHgKaG7c6Oi-JIoOP9o0oK1Cc/s1600/Mythago+Wood.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625988564871390194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoz72CrAlle6jAWFiXrYdA13yHWQwXhWF17RHLGYOVBUD-kYXqb-NWNzV9bNwTPDWAy_nc_VMZVgvbkSTqQlAo3sMK0_9ZGUG_6WPSV9Ea_OWyxd3dGmUHgKaG7c6Oi-JIoOP9o0oK1Cc/s400/Mythago+Wood.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 276px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
I stumbled across a recent (and excellent) review / overview of Robert Holdstock’s “Mythago Wood” cycle over at <a href="http://greenmanreview.com/2011/07/03/robert-holdstocks-ryhope-wood-series/" target="_blank">The Green Man Review</a>, and it got me to thinking about the books.<br />
<br />
If you’ve never read them, these books are some of the most mind-blowing, original, puzzling, and under-appreciated novels in the fantasy genre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they’re nearly impossible to explain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re “you had to be there” novels, because nothing I say can clearly capture, or even loosely capture, the essence of Holdstock’s novels.<br />
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Ryhope Wood is a small tract of forest in Herefordshire, England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s approximately three miles across.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could ride around it entirely in a few hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But <i>inside</i>, once you breach its outer defenses, it is both timeless and nearly endless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could travel for lifetimes without reaching the far side.<br />
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What Holdstock does in these novels is capture that most difficult thing in all of writing to capture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean real magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not fireballs and unicorns and all the other stuff genericized by the larger part of the fantasy genre as “magic”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m talking real bone and sinew magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Echoes in the blood magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That fleeting feeling that momentarily comes over you when you hear a snatch of music, or smell a campfire, or feel a sudden kinship – however briefly – with your older, deeper self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The self that still remembers cold nights huddled over smoldering fires in the primeval forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The self that remembers the smell of animal-skin clothing and the taste of rare boar meat.<br />
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These books won’t appeal to everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opaque.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike most fantasy novels, the reader never fully understands the rules of the wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as something starts to become clear, we realize we are walking on quicksand and must move aside and reconsider things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you think you are aware of where one of the novels is heading, there is a good chance that you are dead wrong.<br />
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The books venture into the labyrinth of the subconscious, the hidden parts of our mind that we can’t directly access but are there nonetheless, living fragments of our latent human instincts, remnants of our “survival of the fittest” past when each day was a struggle to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As such, the labyrinth is the recurring theme of the books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mind and the forest are reflections of one another, labyrinths, and each character travels in toward the dark, unmapped center in search of the self.<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
Is there really a collective subconscious?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not a psychologist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I’m certain psychologists couldn’t agree on an answer either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But reading these novels, it certainly <i>feels</i> true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for those with a background or an interest in mythology and mythological symbolism, these books are a treasure-trove.<br />
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These books aren’t without their faults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are unevenly paced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their strangeness is sometime off-putting, keeping the reader at arm’s length.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since they operate on a different set of rules, we don’t often clearly understand the characters’ motivations, and it causes us to mentally question the decisions they make. <br />
These are quibbles, really, in the greater scope of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because these are great, great books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are a reader of fantasy literature and you haven’t read any of the Ryhope novels, you are missing out on one of the truly great series of this (or any other) genre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do yourself a favor and check them out.<br />
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Oh, and start with <i>Mythago Wood</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the right way to introduce yourself to Ryhope.Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-10152845768129240412011-07-04T06:49:00.000-05:002011-07-04T15:21:36.511-05:00Laziness and other VirtuesI’m terribly overdue for a few new posts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve been on silent mode.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mute. <p>Why, you ask? </p><p>It’s complicated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Incredibly, densely complicated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Remember theoretical physics?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Complicated like <i>that</i>. </p><p>I’m lying, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I never took theoretical physics.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And if I <i>had</i>, well…I suppose it’s probably best for my self-confidence that I didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>I haven’t posted because…wait for it…I’m <b>lazy</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is therapeutic, right?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Admission is the first step on the road to recovery.</p><p>I’ve got a long streak of laziness that creeps past my blogging (or anti-blogging as it might be called) activities and into my everyday life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m working to conquer it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m just not working very <i>hard</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s my only pun, I promise. </p><p>This is the bane of my writing life (and also my home- and yard-care regimen, according to mine own dear wife).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, you see, conquering my reluctance to actually <i style="font-weight: bold;">sit down and write</i> is the very reason I started this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wanted to cultivate the <i>habit</i> of writing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Every.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Single.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Day. </p><p>Even when it’s hard. </p><p>Even when I’m tired, or lacking confidence, or distracted, or when I don’t have a single idea what to write. </p><p>That last point was the blog’s intention.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Random thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Spew out my ideas on music, or baseball, or family, or a recent book I’ve read.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve got plenty of them rolling around up there in my cluttered, disorganized mess of a mind.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s about initiating a habit to sit down and allow words to flow onto paper (or screen). </p><p>Because I’ll be honest.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m not the world’s greatest self-motivator.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m not a Type A personality.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My attention span is approximately five seconds, give or take four.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a miracle anything gets done. </p><p>But it does.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Work progresses.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve completed a couple of stories recently, and began another that has outgrown its initial idea.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think there’s a novel there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A <i>damn good</i>, original novel. If I can get it out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s going to be fun to write.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>My current novel is stalled, however.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Twenty-two chapters in, somewhere around the 2/3 point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is (to put it mildly) frustrating.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not <b>over</b><b>whelmingly</b> frustrating.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am not contemplating a belly flop from a high bridge.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><br /></p><p>Yet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>It <b>is</b> damaging to my fragile self-motivation because now – oh now – I have to go back and try to fix it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wrote this far without a script, without any more than a vague plan for an ending.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And now that things are coming to head, I don’t have confidence in the direction it has taken.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It seems contrived, and a bit stale. </p><p>I have no intention of letting it die, but it’s clear to me now that substantial portions of it are going to need to be reconsidered and rewritten.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Frankly put, it’s a mess, and it threatens to undermine my daily resolve. </p><p>So, two things.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>One, back to the blog.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fingers on the keyboard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thoughts on the page.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Habit. </p><p>Two, outline. </p><p>I’m afraid that my pre-planning is a disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wrote myself into a corner because I didn’t plan enough in advance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I let the plot flow with minimal forethought for where the story was going.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sometimes these things work themselves out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In short fiction, they usually do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or, at least, they’re easy to fix.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This novel, on the other hand, is like a river that’s come over its banks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I failed to put up any levees.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Time, I suppose, to get out the squeegee and the wet/dry vac and try to put things back in order. </p><p>My goal is to spend more time on set-up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a fine line to walk, because outlined scenes are simply not the way I write.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I like to allow scenes to proceed naturally from the characters and situation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Outlined scenes so often seem wooden and lifeless, like a scene from a daytime soap.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Characters can surprise you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They grow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They change.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, occasionally, they take you places you hadn’t planned or intended to go.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p>When it happens, and it works, it’s <i>wonderful</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When it doesn’t, you end up with the mess I have now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So it’s become abundantly clear that I need to set a clearer target for my stories, all while staying the hell out of the characters’ way. </p><p>Sounds complicated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But considerably less complicated than theoretical physics.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s <i>something</i>, at least.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ll let you all know how it goes<span style="font-style: italic;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">And</span></span></span>, I'll leave you with a pretty picture. You're welcome.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p><p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioL7Z8ReQEIkhYBHcwb6rZ4SIGcsSABc675gxsjei7qL7aC8q1GdC4uFDjEK_A-8E3y_EI_3ufjJIREeL9YSfM4KqHu1z6KWD6kFQ0JWON5KQEHLmvCJhc1IMz0IhLMTA2AkNcHHGpZMk/s1600/226829_2089147393335_1384724207_32488764_1104351_n%25281%2529.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioL7Z8ReQEIkhYBHcwb6rZ4SIGcsSABc675gxsjei7qL7aC8q1GdC4uFDjEK_A-8E3y_EI_3ufjJIREeL9YSfM4KqHu1z6KWD6kFQ0JWON5KQEHLmvCJhc1IMz0IhLMTA2AkNcHHGpZMk/s400/226829_2089147393335_1384724207_32488764_1104351_n%25281%2529.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625469902358517426" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></p><p><a name="_GoBack"></a></p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-53391293874779830872011-04-18T15:40:00.000-05:002011-07-06T00:44:57.442-05:00...On Thomas Hardy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfWaV5EpjnokXSNtVaz3hxeK7G-FE7euzGkmSBbl4F7AcvpyeSEb4I1XpSwQ-_4cs6v699WkerMOejEbaEKYez9t9H0fxKB9VFr5ZD30kAuZAFXwgi1YPbKBLA39ce6sJgU65gmCHPswU/s1600/ThomasHardy.gif"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 219px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfWaV5EpjnokXSNtVaz3hxeK7G-FE7euzGkmSBbl4F7AcvpyeSEb4I1XpSwQ-_4cs6v699WkerMOejEbaEKYez9t9H0fxKB9VFr5ZD30kAuZAFXwgi1YPbKBLA39ce6sJgU65gmCHPswU/s320/ThomasHardy.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597029980902537650" border="0" /></a>Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite novelists, occupying a place at the top of my list with Tolstoy and Tolkien and very few others.<span style=""> </span>There, I’ve said it.<span style=""> </span>I <i>enjoy</i> Thomas Hardy and his peculiar brand of pessimism. <p>Having admitted Hardy is among my favorite novelists, I’ll admit something else.<span style=""> </span>I’ve only recently read <i>Tess of the D’Urbervilles</i>.<span style=""> </span>I can’t say why it is that I’ve waited so long to get around to reading what many consider to be Hardy’s masterpiece, except to say that Hardy isn’t someone whose entire oeuvre you swallow whole.<span style=""> </span>He needs to be digested in bits and pieces – for the reader’s sanity, at least. </p><p>It also reminds me of an essay by the very funny and acute Nick Hornby, who wrote in response to his first (late) reading of <i>David Copperfield</i> (Dickens is Hornby’s favorite writer):</p><p></p><ul><b>“Even the snootiest critic/publisher/whatever must presumably accept that we must all, at some point, read a book for the first time. I know that the only thing brainy people do with their lives is reread great works of fiction, but surely even James Wood and Harold Bloom read before they reread? (Maybe not. Maybe they've only ever reread, and that's what separates them from us. Hats off to them.)”</b></ul><p>Hardy’s novels, however, test the very reasons that we read.<span style=""> </span>Why do we read?<span style=""> </span>To discover?<span style=""> </span>To explore?<span style=""> </span>Escape?<span style=""> </span>Learn? </p><p>Few people, whatever their reasons, read specifically to be depressed.<span style=""> </span>Unless a novel is really spectacular in other ways, if it depresses me I will eventually put it aside and probably not return to it.<span style=""> </span><i>Crime & Punishment</i> was that way for me.<span style=""> </span>In spite of an interesting plot, halfway through I found that I dreaded picking it up again.<span style=""> </span>A few of Faulkner’s novels have affected me this way - <i>Sanctuary</i>, to name just one. </p><p>Hardy doesn’t depress me.<span style=""> </span>His novels plummet unerringly toward the tragic.<span style=""> </span>Poor Tess Durbyfield is doomed.<span style=""> </span>Nearly everyone who picks up this novel understands that before reading the first line.<span style=""> </span>Most of Hardy’s novels work in similar fashion – tragic character flaws bring about a downfall; circumstances conspire against happiness; selfish (and even well-meaning) secondary characters contribute to the effect. </p><p>I think it is a mistake to think, however, that all this adds up to a sum total of gloom.<span style=""> </span>It does not.<span style=""> </span>Aside from one particular instance in <i>Jude the Obscure</i>, gloom often suffuses the books but never dominates them.<span style=""> </span>Hardy was pessimistic about human nature.<span style=""> </span>He was also well aware of nature’s ambiguous attitude toward humanity.<span style=""> </span>Nature the sheltering hand, the ever-nurturing mother, does not exist in Hardy.<span style=""> </span>Nature is nature – beautiful and treacherous and altogether enigmatic. </p><p>This ambiguity and general pessimism does not supersede beauty, which you find literally <i>everywhere</i> in Hardy’s novels and stories.<span style=""> </span>Beautiful people, magical moments, and – more than anything – an incredibly vivid and breathtaking landscape, are ever-present. </p><p>Hardy’s prose is poetic in the extreme, and more visual than just about any other writer I can think of.<span style=""> </span>That is something the three novelists I mentioned in the opening have in common.<span style=""> </span>Hardy, Tolstoy, and Tolkien all create some of the most vivid scenes and landscapes imaginable.<span style=""> </span></p><p>One thing that great art does is allow us to see things more clearly than we could with our own eyes.<span style=""> </span>Hardy’s “Wessex” is that way.<span style=""> </span>Everything down to the smells, colors, and sounds of that country are indelibly impressed upon the mind, more so that if we had walked that country ourselves.<span style=""> </span>Consider this passage, describing Tess and Angel’s rambles into the morning pastures around Talbothay’s dairy: </p><p></p><ul><b>Or perhaps the summer fog was more general, and the meadows lay like a white sea, out of which the scattered trees rose like dangerous rocks.<span style=""> </span>Birds would soar through it into the upper radiance, and hang on the wind sunning themselves, or alight on the wet rails subdividing the mead, which shone like glass rods.<span style=""> </span>Minute diamonds of moisture from the mist hung, too, upon Tess’s eyelashes, and drops upon her hair, like seed pearls.<span style=""> </span>When the day grew quite strong and commonplace these dried off her; moreover, Tess then lost her strange and ethereal beauty; her teeth, lips, and eyes scintillated in the sunbeams and she was again the dazzlingly fair dairymaid only, who had to hold her own against the other women of the world. (136-137) </b><br /></ul><p>Hardy’s novels (and short stories) are absolutely brimming with scenes like this, which makes the reader long to walk into the story however poorly things are bound to turn out. </p><p>I consider myself an Anglophile with a particular love of the English countryside – thatched cottages, rolling English hills, stone fences, a thousand years of history at every turn.<span style=""> </span>For someone with an interest in that sort of thing, Hardy supersedes even the charm of Dickens or Austen, who are less pastoral in their approach. </p><p>That is not to say that Hardy’s novels are not flawed, in some respects.<span style=""> </span>The overarching doom of the protagonists seems almost contrived rather than naturally-occurring.<span style=""> </span>There are so many little moments of hope and possibility for these characters, and yet always there is that chance meeting that destroys all, the one comment left unsaid.<span style=""> </span>Hardy is often keen to point these moments out with comments like – “If she only would have appealed to --”<span style=""> </span>Of course she does not, the road to happiness goes untaken, the fate is unfortunately sealed. </p><p>Quibbles, really.<span style=""> </span>Because like the best travels, the point of Thomas Hardy’s writings is the journey, not the destination. </p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-37360799888524854502011-02-27T20:51:00.000-06:002012-07-21T16:17:52.384-05:00Review - Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-G53boMsuYKzqlWf8V9WE5NZyPIE9nTLSQqXBHlR1zSzaNZB2fIhIpKb0xI3MLqPqVhxL3slJwM6tayUaHqS7qOjy7xpPodFXIoNAVv35UQW-HP4JvEqzAPxjQIDwzXrCA4gYVuwZktc/s1600/bitterseeds.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-G53boMsuYKzqlWf8V9WE5NZyPIE9nTLSQqXBHlR1zSzaNZB2fIhIpKb0xI3MLqPqVhxL3slJwM6tayUaHqS7qOjy7xpPodFXIoNAVv35UQW-HP4JvEqzAPxjQIDwzXrCA4gYVuwZktc/s320/bitterseeds.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578568856973998306" border="0" /></a><i>Bitter Seeds</i> is Ian Tregillis’ first novel, though a reader would never guess that.<span style=""> </span>It is a dark, troubling, ambitious alternate history retelling of World War II.<span style=""> </span>As alternate histories go, this era is perhaps more commonplace than any other.<span style=""> </span>It is the fulcrum of modern history, and as such gets appropriate attention.<span style=""> </span>And those greedy Germans make for perfect villains. <p>To his credit, Tregillis finds a way to stake an original claim on this period of history.<span style=""> </span>His Germans a suitably villainous, though not the complete foil that so often appear.<span style=""> </span>The English come off as at least as shifty and dislikable, since they are willing to do just about anything – pay any price – to avoid being taken by the Germans.<span style=""> </span></p><p>In this WWII, the Germans have scientifically-engineered a limited number of individuals with incredible talents – one individual is able to create (and clothe himself) in fire.<span style=""> </span>A second can make himself essentially a ghost for limited periods of time with the ability to walk through walls and allow bullets to pass through him. <span style=""> </span>The process by which this set of characters is created is left shadowy throughout, though we are led to know that the procedure is incredibly cruel. </p><p>By contrast, the English have discovered a way to fend off the almost-unstoppable German surge.<span style=""> </span>Magic.<span style=""> </span>A small subgroup of Englishmen has the ability to negotiate with a race of cosmic godlike creatures.<span style=""> </span>This sounds strange, but it works within the construct of the story. </p><p> The story’s villain – one thinks, though we’re never entirely certain – is Gretel, one of the re-engineered Germans whose “gift” or superpower is an ability to see the future.<span style=""> </span>She is an enigmatic character whose motives are always in doubt, and whose foreknowledge plays an intricate role in the unfolding of the plot.<span style=""> </span>She is also an apparent sociopath with little or no concern for other lives, and often a blatant disregard for them. </p><p>The protagonists are two Brits; Raybould Marsh, a secret agent, and William Beauclerk, a friend of Marsh and a noble schooled in the secret arts of a warlock.<span style=""> </span>When Marsh discovers the Germans’ secret weapons, he turns to his old friend as a way to counter the threat. </p><p>The British magic is, in its way, reminiscent of the magic in Susannah Clarke’s <i>Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell</i>, though I don’t think it this novel ever achieves either the believability or potency of Clarke’s alternate England.<span style=""> </span>Tregillis’ magic exacts a terrifying cost, though the ground rules for its use and the reasons for that cost are not well explained.<span style=""> </span></p><p>Marsh and Beauclerk, as protagonists, I found rather lacking.<span style=""> </span>They certainly change throughout the novel – as anyone who endures their suffering would – but at no point do they truly strike me as <i>human</i> characters.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps it is because the reader does so much skipping around through the various characters’ heads, but their transformation and decision-making rationale throughout the novel never seems fluid or well-defined. <span style=""> </span></p><p>Marsh, as the primary protagonist, should be understandable.<span style=""> </span>Accessible to the reader.<span style=""> </span>And somehow he never is.<span style=""> </span>His grief, his regret, his pain.<span style=""> </span>They are implied, but seldom <i>felt</i>.<span style=""> </span>Beauclerk, at least, translates as a troubled and pain-ridden character, haunted by the things he’s done.<span style=""> </span>Even by the novel’s end, Marsh is still an alien subject for me, and I’m left with only a vague distaste and repulsion. </p><p>That is the novel’s primary weakness. </p><p>For me, the most compelling of the novel’s characters was Klaus, one of the gifted superhuman Germans whose conscience and understanding slowly emerges throughout the course of the novel.<span style=""> </span>He is the most realistically-drawn, the most relatable, of the novel’s characters.<span style=""> </span>Gretel – the strange, sociopathic “precog” – is Klaus’s sister, and yet we realize that he understands her no better than we do.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps less so. </p><p>Some aspects of the real WWII are notably missing, though whether this is through omission or Tregillis' alternative vision is unclear.<span style=""> </span>Though we are constrained by viewpoints, the Final Solution to the Jewish Question – the pogroms and concentration camps and cattle-trains full of Jews – is scarcely mentioned.<span style=""> </span>The Russian front – and how the Red Army succeeds against the invading Reich – is left hazy.<span style=""> </span>Some answers are given, but they remain unsatisfactory.<span style=""> </span>It remains to be seen why, if the war in the east was going so poorly, the Nazis did not employ their team of superhuman soldiers on that front.<span style=""> </span>It seems likely that the Reich would use every weapon at its disposal to turn the tide of a war that had begun to go against them. </p><p>These are legitimate problems with the novel.<span style=""> </span>Its strengths, however, are many.<span style=""> </span>The prose is fluid and clear, at times excellent.<span style=""> </span>The settings are vividly drawn and believable.<span style=""> </span>Tregillis has done his research, and that gives this fantastic premise the ring of believability.<span style=""> </span></p><p>We are tragically drawn into the pain and loss of the war and the gut-wrenching decisions involved.<span style=""> </span>Given a decision between two evils, what choice do you make?<span style=""> </span>What price is too much?<span style=""> </span>We are drawn back to Churchill’s dictum: <i>Never, never, never, never give up</i>.<span style=""> </span>Sounds like great advice, in hindsight.<span style=""> </span>What does that mean, when we examine it in more detail?<span style=""> </span>When we put a human face, a human cost, on the balance? </p><p>This novel raises that question, but we are left to draw our own conclusions.<span style=""> </span>As the first novel in a trio, perhaps the author’s stance will become clearer in later books.<span style=""> </span>We are left instead with a pessimistic vacuum at the end of this novel, an unsettling ending that leaves an acrid flavor in the mouth, as the novel’s title suggests.<span style=""> </span>There is very little human joy, little thought of redemption remaining.<span style=""> </span>Only an echo of <i>Babies. Monsters.</i> caroming through my brain. </p><p>All the same, this is a novel worth reading.<span style=""> </span>I’m afraid I haven’t done a suitable job of selling that conclusion, but it is the truth. <span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>I am interested in knowing where the next two novels are going, and I will be hitching along for the ride.</p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-82870588399134840902011-02-11T13:21:00.001-06:002012-07-21T16:18:34.193-05:00Review - The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplGl03rCXsxWje5tHXUxOjCidO8hpubZBMJau0KctgcZBEMabFY_sJvRwfTXRh10ZCg20GUYmu2Wjgd8axQTADtq5POqFSgKwkpLmmqDyGl1S9rFbdQWsZ-B0PI4pGNApbZ3EZSWp1IY/s1600/InnkeepersSong.JPG"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplGl03rCXsxWje5tHXUxOjCidO8hpubZBMJau0KctgcZBEMabFY_sJvRwfTXRh10ZCg20GUYmu2Wjgd8axQTADtq5POqFSgKwkpLmmqDyGl1S9rFbdQWsZ-B0PI4pGNApbZ3EZSWp1IY/s320/InnkeepersSong.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572514623036684210" border="0" /></a>I finished this book a few weeks back but I’m just now getting around to the full review. I'll give the disclaimer that this was a re-read, not my first experience with the novel.<span style=""> </span><p>Peter Beagle’s <i>The Innkeeper’s Song</i> is not a new book.<span style=""> </span>Far from it.<span style=""> </span>It was initially published in 1993.<span style=""> </span>I read it years ago and it has remained one of my favorite fantasy novels. </p><p>When my turn arrived to suggest a book for my fantasy reading group (a weighty responsibility) I considered and sorted through twenty-odd novels before settling, not without great trepidation, on <i>The Innkeeper’s Song</i>.<span style=""> </span></p><p>The problem with suggesting a favorite novel read in the past is that they often fail to measure up to your initial impression.<span style=""> </span>Few novels that I read ten years ago or more retain the same charm they had upon their initial reading. We all grow more critical - more <i>jaded</i> in some ways - as we age. </p><p>Thankfully, this was not the issue with this novel.<span style=""> </span>In fact, I found that it had grown upon me since my last reading.<span style=""> </span>Beagle is a masterful stylist.<span style=""> </span>I’d recently rediscovered much of Beagle’s short fiction due to an anthology titled <i>Mirror Kingdoms</i> released last year by Subterranean Press.<span style=""> </span>So the high quality of the writing was no surprise to me. <span style=""> </span>Full of wonderful, unexpected metaphors and a subtlety that relies upon the intelligent reader to make connections. </p><p></p><ul><b>Lilies, corpses, ghosts – if these are white, then there must be another word for that woman’s skin.<span style=""> </span>It seemed to me, gaping in the road, that her color was the color of something inside her, some bright, fierce life thumping and burning away with no thought at all for her body, no care or pity for it at all. </b></ul><p>His narrative style jumps from character to character, allowing us to see each individual chapter from a different character's viewpoint – a style that George RR Martin adopts in his <i>Song of Ice & Fire</i> series of books.<span style=""> </span>Some points-of-view work better than others.<span style=""> </span>The Fox – a shapeshifter – is marvelous throughout, one of my favorite characters in all of fantasy literature. </p><p><b></b></p><ul><b><i>Pigeons</i>.<span style=""> </span>Lift up my nose, no ceiling, no rafters between us.<span style=""> </span>Close my eyes and see rumblysoft pigeon dark, juicy wing-beats filling the air with dust and grain, fluffy little under-feathers drift down.<span style=""> </span>Much talking, much shifty-shuffly on their nests, restless with me.<span style=""> </span>Close their pretty eyes like drops of blood, they see me, too.</b></ul><p>The plot is not as strong as the prose itself.<span style=""> </span>There is one long stretch of subplot involving two characters that is entirely unnecessary to the novel as a whole, other than to buy time and create some sort of quest adventure.<span style=""> </span>It reminds me of a similar piece of unnecessary subplot in Patrick Rothfuss’s <i>The Name of the Wind</i>.<span style=""> </span></p><p>Some characters – most notably Tikat – come across a bit flat, or at least fail to entirely capture the reader’s imagination.<span style=""> </span>Tikat is the first character we meet in the novel and it is assumed that he will be the primary protagonist.<span style=""> </span>That is not the case.<span style=""> </span>He is the least fleshed-out of the characters and the reader never really identifies with his motivation. </p><p>All that said, the novel overcomes its shortcomings so incredibly well because of Beagle’s skill with language.<span style=""> </span>Chapters are given in first-person POV.<span style=""> </span>Beagle flows effortlessly in and out of stream-of-consciousness.<span style=""> </span>This gives the narrative a breathless, headlong speed – like a train rolling downhill – when it’s needed.<span style=""> </span>In places, a fierce musicality. At other times the tone is slower, more reflective.</p><p>There were a number of instances I found myself - alone in my reading chair - whispering the words aloud to myself as if I were chanting a song. The song of the Fox, of the stable-boy Rosseth who is so charmingly and realistically drawn. The song of Lal-Alone, of Nyateneri and the Man Who Laughs. The innkeeper's song. My own.<br /></p><p>I was asked several times during the course of the group discussion why I’d chosen that particular book.<span style=""> </span>My answer was simple.<span style=""> </span>Some books you love because they’re wonderful, magical, exciting, poetic, even all of the above.<span style=""> </span>Some books you simply wish you’d <i>written</i>.<span style=""> </span>This is one of those, for me.</p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-46858975536783146372011-02-06T21:33:00.000-06:002011-02-06T21:39:17.592-06:00Early February Writing Update<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Hmm.<span style=""> </span>I realized that I stated in my first post that this blog was going to be primarily about my writing.<span style=""> </span>One month in…nothing.<span style=""> </span>So, time for an update I suppose.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Current submission log = four stories.<span style=""> </span>Three spec fiction stories and one literary story out right now.<span style=""> </span>I’m feeling cautiously confident.<span style=""> </span>One story, “Deerslayer” (not, incidentally, by James Fenimore Cooper, yuk), has been out to a major magazine for about sixty days.<span style=""> </span>I received an email about twenty days in that my story had been shortlisted and sent forward to the primary fiction editor, who happens to be a well-known and fabulous writer.<span style=""> </span>So, fingers still crossed on that one.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I like to think with each day that passes “Deerslayer” has survived another round of cullings.<span style=""> </span>Probably not true, but I amuse myself in this way.<span style=""> </span>It may be that upon receiving the manuscript the aforementioned editor immediately burned and spread its ashes on the four winds while cackling maniacally.<span style=""> </span>It’s a distinct possibility (and a great image).<span style=""> </span>But one I try not to dwell on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">My output for January?<span style=""> </span>Meh.<span style=""> </span>Two new short stories, the second of which bled into the first couple days of February.<span style=""> </span>They are two stories I’m very happy with, however.<span style=""> </span>They surprised me. Almost wrote themselves, once I started the snowball rolling.<span style=""> </span>I love it when that happens, especially when things don’t go the way I plan them.<span style=""> </span>I love to be surprised.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The first of them is making the rounds of the magazines.<span style=""> </span>The second is “in utero” so to speak, receiving some first-reader feedback and undergoing preliminary edits.<span style=""> </span>I’ve already made some major upgrades.<span style=""> </span>Hopefully it will be ready for submission later this week.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The novel?<span style=""> </span>Slow.<span style=""> </span>I finished a few chapters during January.<span style=""> </span>But it’s been hard-going, primarily because I want to have a better idea where things are going before I move too far ahead.<span style=""> </span>When a short story takes you to unexpected places, its easy to adapt.<span style=""> </span>When a novel does…major reconfiguration.<span style=""> </span>There are many threads that have to knot together into a coherent whole.<span style=""> </span>But I’m getting there.<span style=""> </span>Just don’t wait up for me. </p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-80342056944496279132011-01-23T11:05:00.000-06:002011-01-23T18:07:02.184-06:00A DilemmaFirst, the good news.<span style=""> </span>My lovely wife bought me a new pair of barrister bookcases for the den as an early anniversary present. <p>On the downside of this is the fact that while I’m always in need of new bookcases, I’m officially out of available space for them without some major redesigning of the room.<span style=""> </span>I was able to shift a bunch of stuff around and squeeze one of them in along the wall.<span style=""> </span>The other…?<span style=""> </span>No clue.<span style=""> </span>I don’t have enough books to fill the second yet anyway, so I’ll put that problem off into the indeterminate future. </p><p>As of right now, everything is in disarray as I pull books out of storage and rearrange them all <i>again</i>.<span style=""> </span>It’s a time-wasting and comical event that occurs every time a new bookcase arrives.<span style=""> </span>There's a method to my organization, after all. <br /></p><p>I'm beginning to think the haphazard, <i>stick-em-where-they-fit</i> approach might be better. Two days and many hours later, the new bookshelf has finally been filled. </p><p>Now I just need to figure out how to turn the room into Mary Poppins’ satchel. Or perhaps the Weasley’s tent.<span style=""> </span>Now <i>that</i> would be an item worth owning. If anybody knows the spell for that, let me know.<br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCiqGZiqRbV173rm1MCxCZCAUTmoj_fIgd6dXzFgZkFu1Wk9H0VY8YnONznn4siwr-ErUBviQPoA_qAadngSDtAdjpGEMZl0QiqPc-8TCCXGqm1B2LxZZkPjTUL_OL_krf1Gt6PV8yU0g/s1600/P1050307.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCiqGZiqRbV173rm1MCxCZCAUTmoj_fIgd6dXzFgZkFu1Wk9H0VY8YnONznn4siwr-ErUBviQPoA_qAadngSDtAdjpGEMZl0QiqPc-8TCCXGqm1B2LxZZkPjTUL_OL_krf1Gt6PV8yU0g/s320/P1050307.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565430767803684210" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE60soGcLsHcxSXqwN5374kCy4QjlJwF0zxIag09v1RCoB2Amd_gYKHmXhOftmKR6TnwdrFAsOFaBlNTNeP7U-LGHMQE8WvRzTziiZMmlZU1gBAA_ZyrK_ByKr_LH9JNFxLTSQewhV64s/s1600/P1050308.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE60soGcLsHcxSXqwN5374kCy4QjlJwF0zxIag09v1RCoB2Amd_gYKHmXhOftmKR6TnwdrFAsOFaBlNTNeP7U-LGHMQE8WvRzTziiZMmlZU1gBAA_ZyrK_ByKr_LH9JNFxLTSQewhV64s/s320/P1050308.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565430513021479314" border="0" /></a>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047488076813147885.post-55352587364547048902011-01-19T10:20:00.000-06:002011-01-19T10:35:52.789-06:00Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBuGn1PxcAlicTZ7SvF6UZK2ze71ABgwIoLuiaTdOw5MKGrVpmu1RBsEM28w_uLQVmIQDpA8cESpBybhyphenhyphen2F888RLi-n8dE_3AO_PxSeJzur0nknZE20OwTteGRamd7DbmA3WeezmhovQ8/s1600/lavinia.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBuGn1PxcAlicTZ7SvF6UZK2ze71ABgwIoLuiaTdOw5MKGrVpmu1RBsEM28w_uLQVmIQDpA8cESpBybhyphenhyphen2F888RLi-n8dE_3AO_PxSeJzur0nknZE20OwTteGRamd7DbmA3WeezmhovQ8/s320/lavinia.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563933212485880722" border="0" /></a>Ursula Le Guin is probably the most lauded and widely-respected speculative fiction writer alive, and for good reason.<span style=""> </span>I’ve been working my slow way through her various novels and short stories over the past several years, and she continues to surprise and delight. <p>Her <i>Earthsea</i> books are among my favorite fantasy novels.<span style=""> </span>Few other novels deserve to be in the discussion.<span style=""> </span>Her short fiction is full of little gems that I come back to over and over – “The Poacher”; “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”; “The Author of the Acacia Seeds”.<br /></p><p>Her novels disdain the plot-driven mechanisms so typical to speculative fiction. They are powered not by great battles or endless action, but by the hero's or heroine's internal journey, a journey toward self-discovery. That is not to say her novels are devoid of action - they're not - but that they do not depend upon it. Her characters go where they go and do what they do based upon their internal logic. They are not dragged along like marionettes without wills.<br /><span style=""> </span></p><p>I’ve just completed <i>Lavinia</i>, her novelized account of Vergil’s <i>Aeneid</i>, told from the perspective of Aeneas’ Latin wife of that name.<span style=""> </span>Lavinia is an afterthought in the great poem, a mention in passing at the end of the epic.<span style=""> </span>Le Guin felt the need to expand on Lavinia’s role, to give her the voice she was denied.<span style=""> </span></p><p>Le Guin’s writing is always spare, but perhaps even more so in this book.<span style=""> </span>That is not to say that it does not have splendor.<span style=""> </span>One doesn’t need an ornate writing style to convey poetry.<span style=""> </span>The simplicity just makes it appear effortless. </p><p>Of all the great writing qualities that Le Guin possesses, the most evident is her restraint.<span style=""> </span>It is the gulfs of silence, the meaningful glances, the interior dialogue that suggest such emotion and humanity.<span style=""> </span></p><p>Her characters struggle against both internal and external forces, and Lavinia is no exception.<span style=""> </span>She is wonderfully self-aware as a character.<span style=""> </span>She tells us in the very first chapter: </p><p></p><ul><b>No doubt someone with my name, Lavinia, did exist, but she may have been so different from my own idea of myself, or my poet’s idea of me, that it only confuses me to think about her.<span style=""> </span>As far as I know, it was my poet who gave me any reality at all.<span style=""> </span>Before he wrote, I was the mistiest of figures, scarcely more than a name in a genealogy.<span style=""> </span>It was he who brought me to life, to myself, and so made me able to remember my life and myself, which I do, vividly, with all kinds of emotions, emotions I feel strongly as I write, perhaps because the events I remember only come to exist as I write them, or as he wrote them. </b></ul><p>So her story begins.<span style=""> </span>As a King’s daughter in a primitive culture, she is pawned out to suitors, none of whom she intends to marry.<span style=""> </span>She visits the sacred wood of her people to seek guidance from her ancestors.<span style=""> </span>Instead, she meets Vergil.<span style=""> </span></p><p>He is nothing but spirit there, a dream.<span style=""> </span>He tells Lavinia the story of Aeneas as he has seen it.<span style=""> </span>His arrival, the war that will come, their marriage.<span style=""> </span><i>The Aeneid</i> has already been written, in that far-off future.<span style=""> </span>Having now met Lavinia, Virgil is morose, disillusioned about his great work – <span style="font-weight: bold;">“…what I thought I knew of you – what little I thought of at all – was stupid, conventional, unimagined.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">I thought you were a blonde!...I will tell them to burn it.” </span></p><p>Le Guin’s gift is an incredible insight into humanity, particularly of her female characters.<span style=""> </span>Lavinia is a worthy successor to Tenar, the heroine of Earthsea.<span style=""> </span>Le Guin captures the complexities, the struggle between the domestic and the sacred, the everyday and the timeless. </p><p><b><ul>“Who was my true love, then, the hero or the poet?<span style=""> </span>I don’t mean which of them loved me more; neither of them loved me long.<span style=""> </span>Just sufficiently.<span style=""> </span>Enough.<span style=""> </span>My question is which of them did I more truly love?<span style=""> </span>And I cannot answer it.”</ul></b> </p><p>Ursula Le Guin gives us speculative fiction writers something to aspire to, something to look upon and say – aha! So <i>that’s</i> how it’s done!<span style=""> </span>We can hope she continues to churn out her timeless writings for many years to come.</p>Adam M. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12174171725951187454noreply@blogger.com0