I read ten books in November, two from my Avon/Equinox authors and the rest from my vast collection of fiction from Delphi Classics on Kindle.
In the 1985 Storm Over Valia (#35 in the Dray Prescott series) Bulmer lets us in on what has been happening with Dray's #1
son. We have heard a bit about his doings, but he has never had his own
volume until now. Drak is attempting to rid the mainland of Valia of
traitorous enemies. It takes several battles and reinforcements before
he is able to turn the tide in his favour, but then he is kidnapped by
the enemy. #35 in the Dray Prescott series is filled with the usual
amount of fighting, carousing, intrigue, humour and outrageous
incidents, even though Dray is not present. While he has been battling
the witches' plagues, we learn what else has been going on in other
parts of Kregen. While Drak is a mere shadow of his father, he hasn't
had the same amount of time to have his character developed. Drak
shares plot time with Silda, daughter of Dray Prescott's best friend.
Silda is a Sister of the Rose, highly trained in all manner of combat,
and she gets a good chunk of the story to herself and her deeds, too.
In fact, she is a more interesting character than Drak. This is a good entry in the series, allowing the readers to gain a more multi-dimensional view of what exactly is going on.
It's
unfortunate that Tubb is an artful dodger. In his Dumarest series Tubb
never allows his hero to get near the original Earth, as if a change of
direction for the series would be detrimental. And in his Cap Kennedy
series Tubb never allows us to stay long enough to learn more about the Zheltyanians,
that ancient race that has left traces of itself across the galaxy. I
think most readers would like to see Dumarest getting closer and closer
to Earth, and they would also like to see Cap learning more about the
mysterious old ones. But each time they make a discovery, it has to be
destroyed for reasons to do with the main story plot. In Spawn of Laban (1974;
127 pages), Cap and his team have to deal with giant insects, scorpions
and spiders that will be used to devastate Earth in the near future. A
twisted professor is mixed up in the plot, and perhaps his lovely
daughter. It's a good story, except for the blowing up of the Zheltyana
artifacts which are destroyed at the end. It appears that giant wasps
are using one of their ancient structures as a nest. So much for
getting clues from there. Many of Tubb's stories would make fantastic
movies, and this is one of them. Any filmmakers out there listening?
Turning now to Delphi Classics on Kindle, I began the month with an end of the world story by Arthur Conan Doyle. The Poison Belt is from 1913 and undoubtedly influenced writers like John Chrisopher. However, Doyle's story is somewhat spoiled by a chicken-out ending, where everyone wakes up next morning as suddenly as they had passed out and were presumed dead the previous day. This is a Professor Challenger story (The Lost World), and the same team is together again as a poisoned bit of ether seems to have crossed Earth's path. They survive the night with oxygen, and the best part of the story has them heading for London next day in a motor car to see the devastation. And while the ending is a cop out, there has been great devastation as a result of people passing out amidst their duties. There are train wrecks, shipwrecks, completely burned cities and other disasters. So Earth does not get a get out of jail free card without considerable bumps and bruises. If you like the stories of Christopher then you will certainly like this one, from one of the great storytellers.
An interior illustration for Doyle's story.
Edgar Wallace wrote a few books featuring a London detective from Scotland Yard. the first of these novels is The Nine Bears from 1910. A group of men attempt to manipulate the stock market, causing a major London bank to fail if their plot succeeds. T. S. Smith has his hands full in this cracking crime thriller that has a global reach, including a climax at sea. Wallace writes well and craftily, setting up the capture of the group and their leader time and again, only to be foiled and outwitted. There is a master criminal mind behind the whole thing, and even the best at Scotland yard seems to be no match. My Delphi edition had colour plates of a few scenes. Highly readable, with the bad guys finally done in in the end.
Next up was T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, from 1922. This is only the 2nd time I've read this work, and the only time I had a clue as to what is about. My Delphi Classics edition includes the author's notes. The title and much of the mood of the text refers to Jessie Weston's book From Ritual To Romance, about the Grail legend. Eliot claims he was thinking a lot about the Fisher King, his wounded condition and how the landscape reflected that condition. Other influences include Dante, Ovid and Chaucer. The poem is divided into 5 segments, with the 4th being my personal favourite. However, I also love the opening to the 3rd part, and a part of the 5th.
The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.
And....
In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. It has no windows, and the door swings, Dry bones can harm no one.
Jacques Futrelle (real name John Futrell) was an American writer who wrote mystery and crime novels. He was a passenger on the Titanic and died as a result of the sinking. I read his first novel, The Chase of the Golden Plate from 1906. The author sets up a man as being just about as guilty a person could be of committing a crime, with all evidence pointing to him ass the culprit. Of course the man is innocent, and the reader must read on to find out how the author gets him off the hook. Some of the tactics used are a bit much, such as the girl who is engaged to be married to him, and with whom she is eloping the very night of the robbery, does not recognize the fact that she is with someone else. She thinks it is her lover the whole time. Hmmmn. Week, he did have a face mask on. In the story we are introduced to The Thinking Machine, Futrelle's version of Sherlock Holmes. He is a man who uses only logic to solve crimes. It was an okay read, but not the kind of crime novel that I am a big fan of.
Next came a collection of stories by Gogol, an 1835 set of four tales collectively called Mirgorod.
"The Old Fashioned Farmer" is a tribute of sorts to the author's grandparents. Minute descriptions of the house interior, exterior and lands surrounding it are given, painting a wonderful picture of a Ukraine ("Little Russia") homestead at the time. Despite being silently robbed by the workers and overseer, as the old farmer no longer tends to the farm himself, they still get by without enough to keep them happy in their older years. Not so much a story as a celebration of a way of life.
"Taras Bulba" is the tale of a Cossack's life back in the good old days. It was a manly man's world, leaving wives and young children behind to live in a large permanent encampment upon the steppes of central Asia. Everything you have wanted to know about Cossack's is here, and perhaps everything you did not want to know. I would equate the true Cossack to its modern equivalent of the football (soccer in North America) hooligan, out looking for trouble for no real reason other than to prove 'manhood.' In the famous story, which is quite a long one, Taras introduces his two sons to the life of a Cossack. The eldest lad takes to it quite well, but the youngest is a bit soft on the emotional side and ends up falling in love with a beautiful woman. Silly lad. Several films were made from the story, including a famous Hollywood one.
"Viy" is a supernatural horror tale, one of the best! A young seminary student, a philosopher, has a life or death meeting and struggle with an evil witch. When he bests her and she dies his troubles begin. This is a such a great story that I hesitate to give any of the plot away. Last March we watched the 1967 Russian film version, which, as it turns out, closely follows the story and has incredible effects for the time. (see my review from the March 23rd/25 blog). A must to read for horror fans.
"The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled With Ivan Nikiforovich" is a tragic/comedy story about two very close friends who have a serious falling out and are unable to reconcile. The story follows the men as their differences escalate into a court drama, and shows the negative effects it has on their aging and quality of life. Told with humour, it is a good story that would also make a good film.
Carson McCullins' Clock Without Hands (pub. 1961) is the 2nd story by her I have read. The lives of four male characters intertwine much like themes in polyphonic music, though decidedly in a minor key. J.T. Malone is a small town pharmacist in southern Georgia, a man who failed to pass his second year of medical school. Now 40, he blames Jewish students for his failure. He soon finds out that he has leukemia and has just over one year to live. One of his close friends is Judge Clane, a widower whose lawyer son committed suicide many years earlier. The judge is a southern bigot, and his big scheme to become even richer than he is, is to get the federal government to redeem confederate money. The time is the early 1950s. The judge weighs over 300 pounds and has type two diabetes. He hires Sherman, a blue-eyed young Black man, to help him administer his shots and to be his personal secretary, writing the letters dictated by the judge. Sherman's blue eyes attract the judge's grandson, Jester, a homosexual young man yet to act on his leanings. Sherman can also sing really well, and play piano. The relationship between Sherman and Jester, between Sherman and the judge, and between Jester and his grandfather form the basis of the book, with Mr. Malone and his terminal illness providing a 4th narrative line. They keeps the book interesting from start to finish. There are a lot of f-bombs dropped during the tale, as well as liberal use of the n-word. This is the deep south of the the 1950s, and it isn't a pretty place for Black folk. But it's a time of change, too, and more Blacks are speaking up for their constitutional rights, though few are receiving them. Malone himself is the main 'clock without hands', a man who cannot find himself in life until he is upon his death bed. But none of the characters really know or understand what they are doing. The judge fights for whites, in the end separating himself from Sherman. His son who died by suicide had attempted to defend an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman, and this really put a chasm between the father son relationship. The same thing happens with Jester, the judge's grandson. Once Jester figures out what his grandfather really stands for, he rejects him and goes his own way. Sherman finally finds a cause and a reason to stand up for himself and his race, but it is a useless sacrifice. Though depressing in many ways (as a piece of music in the minor key can be), it is nothing but an honest glimpse at life in those "good ol' days" white Americans like to think about, the golden age of the 1950s. I didn't like the book quite as much as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, though I am left with similar feelings after reading Clock. Definitely a book worth reading, as this woman is a terrific writer.
Next came a collection of eight stories of childhood by Kenneth Grahame. Dream Days was first published in 1888, and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish in a 1902 edition (the one I read). Of the eight stories four of them are excellent, with one of these being among the best things ever written regarding childhood. It is a follow up collection to his remarkable Golden Days of 1885. My four favourite stories are "Mutabile Semper," where our young hero meets a new girl his age and what befalls their brief affair. Funny and poignant at the same time with an irresistible point of view. "The Magic Ring" opens with a warning to adults to be careful what they say aloud when children are present, illustrating perfectly how a broken promise can affect a child. Again our hero becomes momentarily infatuated with not one, but two different females as he unexpectedly is brought to see the circus, after finding out that he would not be going with his parents after all. We get to experience the lowest and highest points of childhood in one short story. "The Reluctant Dragon" is one of the most famous stories of all time, and certainly worth reading. Filled with dry humour and life lessons for accepting others as they are, the tale is a story within a story. Two of the children, our young hero and his youngest sister, follow what they imagine might be dragon tracks in the snow. It eventually leads them to the garden of a well known local man who works in the circus. Once he discovers their mission, he offers to walk them back home, as it is now dark and very chilly. Along the way he is prompted to tell a story, and out comes the tale of the reluctant dragon. A beautiful package, indeed. The final story of the set is the best of them all. "A Departure" is the story of how the children parted with their toys once they had officially, though not emotionally, out grown them. As they are packaged up to be delivered to a sick children's hospital, the two youngest, observed by the eldest, undertake to save at least a few of the precious and once-loved toys and give them immortality. Very touching and moving if read by anyone that had well loved toys as a child. Like the previous Golden Age stories, this set is indispensable reading.
The Man In The Moon watches as the children say good bye to a few of their old toys.
I finished up the month with a detective story by Anna Katherine Green. XYZ--A Detective Story is a very readable novella about a detective hunting down a gang of counterfeiters, but inadvertently getting mixed up in another crime instead. From 1883, the story involves a father estranged from one of his sons, and the efforts the other brother and a sister make to reunite the family. When the father is murdered, however, the detective,thanks to several mix ups and misunderstandings, is right on the scene, and it doesn't take him long to collar the criminal. Easy to read and quite a fun story.
Mapman Mike
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