June Reading Summary

Bulmer's Dray Prescott adventures just go on and on.  At least they are quite entertaining.  #31 in the series is called Masks of Scorpio, from 1984.  Dray has been reunited with his wayward daughter, and they are beginning to have father/daughter adventures on the planet Kregen.  The masks of the title refer to masks worn by the religious cult that Dray and Pompino are trying to eliminate, as well as masks worn by others who oppose the religion.  Once again Dray saves a little girl from sacrifice, and another temple gets burned.  But Dray gets sidetracked as Pandahem gathers a fleet and prepares to attack Vallia.  Dray and his daughter musts somehow stop the fleet before it gets started. 

Each novel contains at least a dozen separate adventures, along with plenty of camaraderie among Dray's followers, both men and women.  There is intrigue, savage fighting, and plenty of eating and drinking and even some singing.  The adventures continue and I couldn't be happier.

 

E C Tubb's Cap Kennedy #9 Earth Enslaved is from 1974 and is 128 pages long.  It's not really Earth, and it's not really enslaved.  But I quibble.  My main concern here is a male SF writer who, for most of his prolific writing career, has been a sexist beast (as opposed to a sexy beast, which I am).  In this story of an alternate Earth captured by aliens, woman are dominant and men are meek and subserviant.  Fine.  We've seen this a hundred times before in pulp SF, especially in Edgar Rice Burroughs' writing.  Here is my peeve with Tubb.  When all is saved and getting back to normal, Cap Kennedy (the strong and very manly type) tells the main effeminate male hero from this alternate Earth that it's time that men and women become equal partners, rather than have one sex dominate the other.  Certainly a very admirable statement from Cap (and Tubb).  The only problem is that Cap is returning to his own universe now, probably the most sexist one ever invented by any pulp writer.  I mean it's 1974 as he writes, and women have nothing but minor and subservient roles in all of Tubb's stories.  Cap works with an all-male team, led by an all-male administration, in a pretty much all-male dominated stories.  So where is the equal partnership that Cap was encouraging others to take up?  Or was it merely that he couldn't stand to see women bossing men?  Pray, readers, do not preacheth unless one practiceth. 

 

Moving on now to three novels in the Kindle Delphi Classics series, I begin with Oscar Wilde's first comedy play.  Lady Windemere's Fan is from 1891 and was a big hit in London when it came out.  The theatre manager asked for more, and Wilde was able to oblige him.  Though silly and perhaps even a bit fluffy, the play is often outrageously funny, with one liners popping up from stage left and stage right in often unexpected ways.  Sometimes they go by so quickly that one barely has time to laugh.  At least reading the play one can put aside the book for a moment or two before continuing (and with Kindle, proceed to highlight relevant sections).  One of Wilde's most memorable lines occurs in Act 3: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."  Not just funny, but truly profound!  Also from Act 3:  "There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman.  It's a thing no married man knows anything about."  One final example, from Act 1: "I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."  I could quote pages of this stuff.  Priceless.  The plot concerns a woman who believes that her husband is being unfaithful to her, and though she never learns the complete truth (which I find quite sad), everything ends well.

 

P.D. Wodehouse wrote a series of pulp novels about life at an English boys boarding school.  The books are easily read and nearly as easily forgotten.  They mostly concern sports, either cricket or rugby or football, but these are often used as props for the character situations that arise during the story.  In this one a bad egg tries to bully his way onto the first squad of rugby, despite his being a very poor player.  He goes to extreme lengths to get his way, and it says something about the boys who endure this mischief that things get settled on their own, without teachers or headmasters.  The Golden Bat is from 1904 and can be read very quickly.  It does have some lasting value and no doubt teaches all the right things to boys who read it at the time.  Wodehouse has many humourous situations and characters in the story, but there is enough nastiness to make it seem real enough.  On the lighter side are boys who smoke in secret, and two others who secretly have pet ferrets and visit and feed them in their hideaway.  On the darker side we have study rooms being wrecked and precious photos shredded, and a boy being framed for mischief to a statue that he didn't do.  Oddly enough the book could probably still be read by high school boys and enjoyed.

 

With the 1922 Jacob's Room, Virginia Woolf begins her ascent (or descent, depending on one's view) into the hierarchy of avante garde writers.  While the novel is a far cry from Ulysses, it's also a far cry from her first two novels.  While Jacob may be the central character of the novel, much more is written about London, the English landscape, Paris, Athens, and at least a dozen other characters.  Some of these other characters are close to Jacob, such as his mother and his best friend.  But others are just on the periphery of his existence.   We seem to learn more about them than we do about Jacob.  What we do learn about Jacob comes from these side characters, who observe him and tell us snippets of information about him.

Ultimately I felt let down by the novel, though I do give the author full marks for attempting to diverge from the age-old story telling method.  While the novel isn't close to being as challenging as even a single chapter of Ulysses, I found my attention drifting quite often.  There are many fine passages to come across, but they are pretty far apart.  One of them talks about how straying for only a moment from one's path may lead to an entire new adventure.  Others are descriptions of what one might experience or feel, for instance at the Acropolis.

Overall, however, there is little to really engage a reader.  I rely on curiosity to keep me reading a book.  What might this character do next?  Or, now that this has happened, how will the character deal with the new situation?  Storytelling is probably the oldest cultural tradition we have, and it still engages most people, at least from time to time.  Throughout the book I had very little interest in Jacob, and even less in the people who knew and interacted with him.  I had nothing to grasp hold of.  Ultimately I came to the final page and was glad at my arrival.

 

Susanna Clarke's Piranesi is from 2020.  After reading the first chapter, a number of other authors popped into my head, sometimes a good thing.  Mervyn Peake, James Ballard, Iain Banks, Umberto Eco, and even Edgar Pangborn spring to mind.  Those are among my favourite authors, and while each has left their own unique literary footprint behind, they seem to share something about one's view of the world.  Clarke writes sparsely but well, though she tends to tie up too many loose ends--it would be nice to leave a few of them dangling at the end.  Her plot is concerned with "transgressive ideas", meaning those that are usually outside the limits of the modern definition of science.  The labyrinth also plays a major role in her philosophy, in this case an endless oversized house with gigantic rooms peopled with innumerable marble sculptures.  Characters are able to shift between one reality and one other one, though the author never defines exactly how this is done.  The novel is easy to read, leading us slowly and carefully through her story.  It begins like a great puzzle in which we do not have many pieces, and builds gradually until the last piece is found and put into place by the solitary main character.  Banks' The Bridge offers readers a similar experience, though much more intense and troubled, and the ending is more prosaic in its explanation.  Umberto Eco's The Island of the Day Before offers a third variation on the puzzle theme, and of course Peake's Gormenghast is probably the great grandfather of all such books.  Piranesi is an very enjoyable read, and is recommended if you like any of these others novels and authors mentioned.

 

I read the Kindle edition.
 

Cornell Woolrich was a novelist who had many of his stories and novels turned into major Hollywood films.  Cover Charge, from 1956, was his first published novel and it is quite a fun book to read.  The story begins in New York near the end of the first World War.  The first part of the book follows Alan and his climb from the gutter to considerable fame.  During the war there was a notable dearth of men, and he was soon earning a good living by working at jazz clubs as a dance partner to rich and often beautiful women.  Because of a heart defect he was ineligible for military service, though dancing all night doesn't seem to cause much of a problem.

The second part of the book follows Veronica, a woman he is destined to meet and later marry.  We first hear of her as a fifteen year old wannabe flapper.  She and Mary, a younger sister, live with their older brother and a grandmother in a rundown apartment in NYC.  She is soon living the high life, getting by on her looks and fun, outgoing personality.  The final section of the book deals with their eventual falling out, and what happened to each of the couple afterwards.

While the book has a somewhat confusing beginning, it quickly hits its stride and captures the reader, throwing him into a world of endless parties and drinking and dancing.  Woolrich is a colourful writer, and his novel includes many fine quips that reminded me often of Oscar Wilde.  When Veronica is asked for her thoughts on being a wife she replies, "It feels like when you get vaccinated," she said, "you're not sure whether it'll take or not."  Later another great one-liner pops up: "She was pure as the fallen snow, only she drifted."  A woman, describing Alan, has this to say:  But oh, his eyes; they make you think things that you shouldn't.  They're enough to make a good girl bad and a bad girl worse."

One more quote, discussing Veronica her girlfriend at 18 years old.  "Veronica and Rosalie are of an age, between them they discuss men and women and the world in general. They are in favour of men, skeptical about women, and not particularly interested in the world in general."

I look forward to reading many more books by Woolrich.

 

A group of about fifty poems by W. B Yeats was next.  The Wind Among the Reeds was published in 1899 and contains several of Yeats more notable works.   Included are Song of the Old Mother, The Fiddler of Dooner and The Song of the Wandering Aengus.  I also much enjoyed Into The Twilight and Aedh Tells of the Perfect Beauty.  A very worthwhile collection to have sitting around the house.

 

Finally comes an epic novel by Iain Banks.  Whit is from 1995 and is yet another display of the author's ability to tell a good story well.  Banks can be frustrating times.  The novel is very slow to get started, and the first half of the book suffers terribly from story interruptus.  Isis is the name of the heroine.  She is 19, innocent and naive.  She is at the centre of a religious community founded by her grandfather, and because of her unusual birth date (Feb 29th 1976) will eventually become leader of the group.  She is sent on a journey to find her female cousin, who has left the flock.  The girl who leaves the farm is a woman by the time she returns a few days later, and she soon experiences and learns that all is not healthy at the commune.  Banks fills in so much backstory in the first half of the book that the actual story of Isis' journey to London and beyond doesn't really get much chance to develop, as it constantly interrupted by pieces of backstory.  The book was probably put down unfinished by a lot of readers, and I would not blame them.  However, I am very glad that I stuck it out, because once the story is allowed to play out it just gets better and better.  For the second time Banks has made a female character the centre of the plot and the most important person in the story.  She is a strong character in the beginning, but her strength continues to grow as she encounters information that totally upends her world.  She proves herself many times over, and comes out ahead after all.  The book has a lot of subtle humour as Isis encounters the "real" world for the first time, managing to navigate it quite well despite her initial ignorance of how things actually work beyond the commune.  A terrific book, and a long one.  But the second half flies past when Banks lets loose his writing skills and fertile imagination.  Highly recommended.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

June Readings

 The reality of trying to make a living as a professional writer in the 1960s is on full display in this Robert Silverberg 1965 soft-core porn novel Killer, originally called Passion Killer.  For a decent SF writer to have to resort to writing this stuff is not only sad, but also not very surprising.  Its 156 pages contain a short story about a hired killer about to double cross the man who hired him to kill his wife, but in the end someone else also gets double crossed.  The actual story is about 40 pages long; the rest consists of people having sex nearly every which way.  And the top heavy females, who just love to have sex, consist of a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.  All bases covered.  The basic story is okay, similar to any number of crime story plots from so many novels and or films.  The sex described in the book, which was probably sold under the counter in those days in certain types of book shops, is likely milder than in most best sellers of today.  Some may call this progress.  I call it something else.

From 1979 comes the next volume in the Dray Prescott series. A Life For Kregen is #19 in the series.  Bulmer seems to be having a lot of fun destroying the country where Dray is now Emperor, and seeing the locals fight to win it back from the enemy.  Vallia always depended on mercenary soldiers to defend its borders.  That didn't work so well when those soldiers were paid higher to revolt.  So now the average Vallian citizen is learning how to fight, something never seen before in the country. 

Bulmer may have created the best longest running fantasy series ever written.  It is essentially a story of battles against evil rulers, and Dray's attempts, often futile, to abolish slavery.  This volume is no exception.  But another theme continually emerges in the later books, that of Dray's family.  His wife and at least one daughter belong to a mysterious women only cult, which trains women warriors, among other things.  Dray rescues Jillian (see smaller cover, below), a new and fun character added to the many friends Dray has made during his stay on Kregen.  But one of his daughters is still out to kill him and help overthrow Vallia, though we don't know why.  She hates her father and thinks he is a coward.  Obviously she does not know him.

Though the book is filled with some thrilling battles and daring rescues, it's often at its best when Dray is thinking about things, wondering why things are happening the way they are, and figuring out how best to proceed with his plans to restore Vallia to its former glory.  The author's sense of humour is now always on display, and the proceedings, though often dire, are often relieved by moments of fun.  The books are more complex than anything I have ever read, with the amount of different countries, cities, mountains, deserts, seas, creatures, birds, and various races of people being very hard to keep track of.  And each book is obviously well planned before it is written.  Bulmer continues to succeed with this fun and everlasting series.  As a final note, once again he is not against killing off an important character.

 

The 4th entry in the SF series Cap Kennedy by E C Tubb is actually quite good.  In #4, Enemy Within The Skull, Cap Kennedy must stop a mad alien from using a powerful new concoction that brings out the worst violent nature in humans when exposed to it.  The alien plans to administer massive doses to people on Earth, in the hope that they will turn violently on each other, thus dooming the human race (not really needed, if he knew anything about humans).  As usual, the alien finds a receptive planet all too willing to believe his lies, which promises them untold power and riches once his plan succeeds.  Not too likely.

This is a lively entry in the series.  Cap usually works with a small team, like Doc Savage, and these people are finally being characterized more deeply as we come to know them better.  One of them is the giant man depicted on the original cover, below.  I think Tubb is borrowing a bit from the Doc Savage team, but not enough that it seems like a ripoff.

 

Cover by Jack Gaughan. 

 

Though better written than the previous Elric story, The White Wolf's Son by Michael Moorcock still has several problems.  In this story, published in 2005 and 339 pages long, Moorcock attempts to unite many of his favourite characters, including Elric, Bastable, Lord Renyard (the fox), Corum, and others from different series.  Oona is back (the Dreamthief's daughter), as is our trusty bad guys, Gaynor and his sidekick Klosterheim.  New to the story is Oonagh, the 12 year old granddaughter of Oona.  It's all quite confusing, especially if you haven't read the Corum series books in a while.  Those same events are seen now from a different perspective.

While Moorcock makes a heroic effort to bring so many previous characters into one book, his plot is still mostly fantasy nonsense.  Of course the bad guys get their way until the final twenty pages or so, and the great climax of the story is a sword fight between Gaynor and Elric (how original, I comments dryly, rolling my eyes).  And the problem of having a 12 year old as the central character, is that we know deep down that nothing bad will really happen to her.  She does lose some blood for a sacrifice, but as she is telling the story, she obviously survives.  She is plucky and smart, and is actually a welcome character compared to the morose people usually found in Moorcock's fantasy novels.

Now for the plot. The two bad guys have worked for hundreds of years for their chance to destroy everything, or rule everything, or something (big yawn).  Their plot can't miss (remember "The Master" from Dr. Who?).  Well, here is a spoiler.  They fail again.  What a surprise ending indeed.

I get the feeling that the author was trying to wrap up his Elric tales with this book.  We shall see....

 

Published in 2007, Barry Malzberg's Breakfast In The Ruins is a direct sequel to Engines of the Night.  Published in 2007, Engines is included (see last month's reading blog) for a total page count of 396.  Each book is thus close to 198 pages.  More essays on SF can be found here, dating from the 80s and 90s mostly.  Often Malzberg's writing does not get to much of a point, while at other times he scores direct hits.  His essay on Ballard is an example of both in one, as the text seems to wander about for a while before zeroing in on why Ballard's writing matters, and what effect it had on later writers.  However, he totally dismisses the early novels, such as The Crystal World, as being too derivative of early British SF disaster writing.  Hmm.  Not quite, Mr. Malzberg.

Many writers and editors are discussed, and the name dropping is quite astonishing.  It was a small world indeed for SF writers back in the day when almost all stories were first published in magazines, and everyone knew everyone.  The history of SF writing is not so very complicated, as separate essays on Asimov and Campbell illustrate.  Those two writers/editors largely influenced most of the SF that was written in the 50s, for example.  For anyone well read in older SF, this book will be a treasure to keep and reread.  Highly recommended, especially if you get the edition with both collections.

Engines ended with a fictional short story about a characteristic SF writer from the 50s, as he ages and realizes that what he has done with his life has little or no meaning (written well before Kindle editions of practically everything ever published began to come out).  In Breakfast he writes a sequel to that story, taking the writer to his final bedroom scene, where he exits, forever.  The two stories neatly summarize what it must have been like to have been a SF pulp writer.  One doesn't even need to read the essays to find out.  But do read them.

 

Turning now to (mostly) Delphi Classics, I began with a wonderful novel called Gallantry, by James Branch Cabell and published in 1907.  Each of the ten stories relates an episode that illustrates the title term.  Most of them have overlapping characters, and should be read in sequence, but this is not your ordinary novel.  Cabell at his best (which is pretty much always) cannot really be described well by this writer.  This novel is like being presented with ten of the finest bon bons or aperitifs ever created.  They should not be gobbled down, but rather first looked at, then lightly sniffed, then touched, and finally bitten in to and carefully chewed and swallowed.  And low and behold, those flavours!  Witty delicacies tell only part of the magic that await readers of Cabell.  There is more solid fare, too, but it is delivered in a seemingly harmless and off hand manner, so that the reader must be careful when things appear to become frivolous;  they really are not.  A wonderful collection of examples of men and women fulfilling their roles in magnificently human ways.  A treasure!

 

Next came Robert Chambers' next novel dealing with the Franco-Prussian War.  Lorraine was published in 1897 and comes first in the 3-book chronology.  Previous novels and short stories of his dealt with things from inside Paris.  However, this time we are in Lorraine, a province of France that borders Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium.  The German attack comes through Lorraine first, and it is devastating.  The Prussian War lasted from 1870 thru 1871, and the French suffered terribly.  Chambers mixes in a love story between Lorraine, a young girl raised in a castle, and Marche, an American whose aunt and uncle own a big chateau not far from the castle.  Though he quickly falls in love with the young French girl, she takes a lot longer to fall in love with him.  Lorraine comes with a history, one that she will never fully learn.  She is a very simple character, her childhood formed by having no mother, and a father who chooses to work on his scientific projects rather than spend time with his daughter.  The relationship between Marche and girl, and the girl and her father, are handled well by the author, but it is his recounting of the beginning of the war that really shines here.  Chambers lists his sources and military advisors.  Though overlaid with a fictional plot, the war events are accurate.  The brutality and senselessness of war is brought home time and again, and the civilians and soldiers who survive are left permanently scarred by events, not to mention any wounds incurred.  While a 'happy' ending might seem a bit naive to readers today, this reader was very glad to come across it.  Any war, anywhere, and at any period of history, is a violent and shameful event.  The fact that wars are still being fought in 2024 tells us that no one learns very much from history.  In this case, the Prussians might have 'won' the war, but they too suffered terrible losses.  Despite much gloom and doom, this is a very rewarding novel to read.  Highly recommended.  It can be read for free on-line at Project Gutenberg, but I can highly recommend the Delphi Classics version.

1897 edition. 

 

Jump ahead 42 years and we arrive at Raymond Chandler's crime thriller The Big Sleep, published in 1939.  It isn't a complicated novel, and most actions have an equal reaction.  I've seen both movies many times, the 1978 version staring Robert Mitchum being the most recent screeening.  This film (there is a 1946 Bogart one, too) closely follows the written word, not leaving out very much of the plot.  Philip Marlowe isn't really much of a hero.  He has had experience with life, and has learned to only trust himself.  He is brave, somewhat stupid from time to time, but at least he is on the up and up.  He doesn't take advantage of clients, only charges $25 a day (plus expenses), and seems to keeps his hands off of girls.  He often does not carry a gun, though he ends up collecting some as the story moves along.

An old man hires Marlowe to keeps his two daughters out of trouble.  One is separated from her husband and likes to play roulette.  The other one, much younger, is not only big trouble, but also certifiable as insane. The body count is soon rising.  To my surprise, Marlowe only becomes unconscious once, and is never hit on the back of the head.  Movies and TV detective shows like these sort of tropes, but Chandler doesn't much go in for them.  The story continues to wind like a California Pacific Coast road, taking sharp turns again and again.  It's easy to get lost if you are not paying attention, or have set the book aside for several days.  It's best to read this one quickly.

It's quite well done, though the writing never gets much higher than average pulp fiction standard.  And Marlowe is not a very charismatic hero.  Enjoyable but not essential reading.

 

The Club of Queer Trades is a collection of six stories by Chesterton published in 1905.  The title, as explained in an introduction, examines 6 different and completely unique ways of earning a living.  The prospective member must earn his living in a job never seen before.  It must be different from others in significant ways, not merely a variation on an existing occupation.  We read about six different achievements by members of the club.  Imagine having to come up with no less than six unique occupations, one per story.  The stories are often humourous, and any violence turns out to be mostly unnecessary and quite comic.  The stories show Chesterton to be both highly intelligent and very witty.  He slyly pokes fun at Holmes and Watson, using three main characters that recur in each story.  And at the very end he brings all the characters from each story together for a wonderful conclusion.  Highly recommended fun for lovers of unusual mystery stories, as we never learn the occupation of an individual until the end of each story.

 

Next to last came Iain Banks' 2002 novel Dead Air.  Though a bit of a pot boiler, as if the author owed his publisher a book but wasn't really feeling it, the story nevertheless eventually becomes interesting, if a bit far fetched and over the top.  The main character, Kenneth McNutt ("two Ts"), is a type of morning radio show shock jock.  You have to like a character that describes himself late in the book as "a fuckwit with his thumb superglued to his personal self-destruct button."  Don't we all feel that way sometimes.  Ken gets in way over his head when he begins to secretly meet with the wife of a London crime boss for sex.  Yes, he could have chosen a safer partner, but Ceel is one of a kind.  The novel has several characters that are merely there to fill space, so there is no 'dead air' on the pages.  However, one of my favourite characters is a friend of Ken's called Ed.  Ed is a black DJ who lives at home with his mom in a tarted up old house and drives a black Hummer with blacked out windows.  Try to imagine what it might be like to drive a Hummer through the streets of London, or virtually any European city.  In one funny sequence Ken is doing just that with Ed.  The Hummer is a left hand drive, making it even weirder to drive in London.  Ken says to Ed, who is driving, that he is surprised they haven't been pulled over yet by the police.  And Ed replies, "That's cuz they think you're driving, Mate."  The book is a long one, and takes a lot of time to build up steam.  It all takes place in London, and I think Banks was writing for a London audience (and London press reviews).  It would not be a book I would recommend to someone who has never read Banks, but it does allow the author to have his say on many topics, from Nazis and holocaust deniers to what the Jews were doing to the Palestinians (and vice versa) back in 2002.  Banks likely had to go back and rewrite some of it after the 911 bombings, which are part of the backdrop of the story, though not a major part of it.  Though a mediocre effort from Banks, I did enjoy much of the book.

 

The final book of the month was Kate Chopin's second and final novel, The Awakening, from 1899.  It was her final book, since most publishers disowned her afterwards, due to its themes of sexuality and freedom for the female lead character.  And Edna Pontellies is a very troublesome character.  Modern in many ways, more than a little selfish, she is a Kentucky girl who married into a Catholic Creole family.  She lives in New Orleans, but the story opens in Grand Isle, a summer resort on the Gulf Coast for well to do families escaping the summer heat in the city.  Edna is 28 and has two children.  She comes to realize that she does not love her husband, nor wish to be around him very much.  It is fortunate for her that he travels a lot.  She falls in love with Robert, whose mother runs the summer camp on the Isle.  Robert is 25, and very much appreciates the company of Edna.  They become splendid friends over the summer, and Edna slowly awakens to her feelings of love for the young man, the first time she has felt such feelings.  When Robert realizes what is happening, he heads to Mexico looking for work.  We spend a lot of time inside Edna's head, and truly there isn't a lot going on there except confusion.  She certainly has no precedent, so help from friends in any shape or form is not available.  When Robert returns several months later, he does his best to keep his distance.  Edna's passion for him now totally consumes her.

Critics (male) found Edna to be mostly a repulsive character, mostly for not being satisfied with a loveless marriage and her two children.  Though she loves her children, she is happiest when away from them.  Look to Ibsen for similar themes, and much later Woolf.  But a strongly Catholic outlook at the time had no sympathy for a female character like Edna.  Critics were mostly ruthless, though she did find some support, mostly from women.  She never was allowed to publish again.  Another great victory for a patriarchal society tied to the church.  The only revenge we can have today is to read the novel and marvel at Chopin's strength for writing such a story at that time.  And we might also continue to support women writers, film directors, artists, etc.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

August Reading

Last night was a blue moon (the 2nd full moon within a given month) as well as a super moon (the moon being very close to Earth when it appears at full phase).  We try to celebrate each full moon, usually with a round dessert such as a special cake or pie (this time we have cherry pie!).  In addition, we often listen to an opera throughout that day.  Yesterday we listened to a short opera by Haydn, in two acts.  It was written for his marionette theatre at Esterhazy Palace, and is only one of two such operas to survive.  A devastating fire at the palace burned many of his original manuscripts, most of which had no outside copies.  He wrote dozens of operas that were lost forever.  Die Feuersbrunst (The Conflagration) is a comic opera that shows Haydn in a light that many listeners never get to see.  It is a very charming work, and imagining the puppets carrying out the action is part of the fun.  We also saw the super moon, finally rising above our trees around 11 pm.  It was really big!

Turning now to the month's reading, I made it through 10 books.  Five were required reading for completion of my Avon/Equinox project, and five were picked from my endless collection of other books to read, mostly on Kindle and from the Delphi Classics collection.

Robert Silverberg used 3 stories by Asimov to write different versions of them.  The Ugly Little Boy is an early story by Asimov that Silverberg has expanded into a full novel.  I talk about the Asimov story in my May reading blog from this year.  A little Neanderthal boy is essentially kidnapped by modern time travel science in order to study him.  He is assigned a nurse to look after him.  The main difference in Silverberg's expanded version is the addition of "Timmie's" tribe to the story, before, during, and following his captivity in present day Earth.  We get to see the tribe facing a grave danger, and the time spent with them is quite memorable.  As much as I enjoyed reading the Asimov story, I much prefer this version.  The ending is still somewhat open ended, but a lot more optimistic than the original could have allowed.  A good tale, well told and updated.

From 1976 comes Kenneth Bulmer's 140 page addition to the on-going sea saga of Mr. Fox, #13, Sea Flame.  He is still on land for the first half of the story, fighting the French near Alexandria in a gruesome battle based on historical truths.  Bulmer writes for Fox on land as well as he does at sea, but Mr. Fox makes things very clear that he would rather be at sea.  He has opportunity to capture some French soldiers, including a truly miserable colonel, a man who loathes Fox.  There is also a beautiful young English woman, a prisoner of the French, whom Fox frees and takes under his protective wing.  Returned to sea after the battle, Fox is assigned to take the prisoners back to England, as well as a lot of wounded soldiers.  It doesn't take long for a French ship to find them and attack, and then all hell breaks loose on board, as per normal for Mr. Fox and his crew.  With only one book remaining in the series, I look forward to its conclusion with some apprehension.  My life without a regular fix of Fox just will never be the same.  He is one of the great pulp action heroes of all time.

 

Tubb wrote at least 11 westerns, currently available on Amazon Kindle for $0.99 each!  I bought them all.  Since the Kindle price went way up on his Dumarest novels (from $4.99 each to $7.99), I have halted any further reading in that series until the price returns to something more decent. So get out your old set of spurs, your six gun, and that saddle you haven't used in years, and head out on the lonesome prairie with me for a spell.  The Gold Seekers comes from 1955, and is 117 pages long.  It is a fast read, and a darn good one.  I haven't read a western novel in many years, though I still enjoy many old western films, including the Anthony Mann directed ones (usually with James Stewart).  The hero of our story today is Marc, a former captain in the southern army during the Civil War.  With the war over and his plantation burned and kinfolk killed, he has become a lone cowboy wanderer.  After a saloon adventure (two of them, actually), he is forced to leave town.  He takes the job of scouting for a wagon train of 15 wagons and families, heading for the gold fields in California.  While all the usual western cliches are there, including plenty of Indian fighting, some of the cliches are turned on their heads.  For example, Marc has taken a 12 year old boy under his wing, training him to be a scout.  When the boy's Pa is killed by Indians in a battle, he becomes an Indian hater.  Tubb takes almost a full chapter (in a book of only 11 chapters) to explain to the boy why he shouldn't hate all Indians.  He gives a full and complete picture of the position the Indians are in due to the encroachment of the whites into their territory, including having all their buffalo slaughtered.  The only thing he omits is the giving of pox-filled old blankets to them.  I give Tubb a lot of credit here for presenting the Indian side of things.  This is a rousing good tale, and though the wagon train makes it to California, their original goal has broken apart to the point where none of them head for the gold fields; they take up farming instead.  And less than half of them have made it through the journey alive.  I am hoping his other westerns are as good as this one.

 

The Golden Barge is a dark fantasy novel from 1979, and is 120 pages long (189 pages in the paperback edition from 1979, above).  It is a flawed work by Michael Moorcock, but quite interesting nonetheless.  A man, Tallow, heads down river in a small boat, following a mysterious golden barge.  He can never quite catch it, though, and his adventures along the river make up the bulk of the book.  He sees it one day at home, and soon abandons his mother to follow the mysterious boat.  He comes across a castle and becomes involved there with a beautiful woman.  Later he becomes imprisoned in a city, held "for his own good."  After escaping, his adventures continue, and include becoming involved in a small country's revolution, finding an abandoned baby, kidnapping a young boy who he thinks can help him find the barge, and he even makes a quick journey across dimensions to a mysterious fairy land.

I believe that Moorcock was inspired by Lin Carter's fabulous Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, and if the series had continued no doubt Carter might have published this one as part of it.  A bit like Dunsany and a bit like Fletcher Pratt, and a bit like many others, including William Morris.  In turn, Moorcock may even have influenced P. J. Farmer in his memorable Riverworld series.  What is this strange tale all about?  Firstly, we all make a voyage, and it is called Life.  Along the way we make choices, choices which not only affect us, but others around us.  Tallow makes some very poor choices, some very selfish choices, and he is the cause of much death and tragedy around him.

 

Cover of the month goes to Amano Yoshitaka.  The volume contains short stories, novellas, and a novel, The Golden Barge.  Next month I will report on the shorter fiction.

Tallow seems to be searching for something mysterious, hoping to find it aboard the barge.  What does he hope to find?  Inner peace, for one thing.  His urge to keep searching is so strong that he cannot turn it off after a time, even though he has had more than enough opportunity to do so.  He is a man in search of a soul, in search of his own humanity, which continues to elude him at every bend in the river.  He is so deeply lost that he cannot find his way out, and it is difficult to blame him for the bad things that happen because of his choices.  He is what he is, and seems incapable of change.  Do you know anyone like that?  I'm certain that you do.  They are everywhere among us, causing pain and destruction as they blindly follow their own path, unseeing as they go.  Moorcock has created one of the strangest fantasy characters ever penned.  If nothing else, Tallow is unforgettable once you have met him.

 

From 1973 comes Malzberg's Night Raider, the first of 14 volumes about a lone man trying to end the drug scene in New York.  Good luck with that. One would have to be a murderer, a sadist, and a masochist.  Bert Wulff fits the bill.  A former Vietnam vet, he becomes a drug cop in New York.  But because he tries to play it straight, he makes few friends around the department.  He is shipped back to a patrol car, and is called to the scene of his girlfriend's death, apparently killed by an overdose.  He knows that she was not a user, and suspects the cartel of using her to get back at him.  Not likely.  More likely it was the NYPD that set it all up.  This might be made clear later, but in this first volume he goes after the cartel, after turning in his badge.  Malzberg takes us on a journey in this first book, as Wulff begins with the small fry.  The street corner pusher has to pay off his collector.  Wulff captures them both, tormenting them until they give the name of who they report to.  After disposing of them, he goes up the line.  And so on, until he gets the top man that we know of so far.  Six murders later, he still hasn't done much to clear up the street drug trade.  But give him time.  Though he is a lone wolf, he gets some help from a black rookie cop who partnered with him for a time.  Wulff is tough as nails, and reminds me a bit of a loose cannon version of Doc Savage.  The book is filled with violence of the vigilante kind, and moves along smartly.  It is an easy read, and follows a logical path up the chain of command.  There are virtually no women in major roles in book one.  This is a man's world.  It is a guilty pleasure to see the big men squirm under Wulff's unkindly intentions towards them, after acting so self assured and superior prior to meeting him.  Not great writing, but I'm sure the style will evolve.

 

Moving on to books by non Avon/Equinox authors, I began with F. Marion Crawford's second novel, Dr. Claudius, from 1883.  Approaching 400 pages in length, it is a sprawling tale of love and high seas adventure, in the high tradition of such writers as E R Eddison.  Women are to be adored and waited on hand and foot by men of the highest moral standards, preferably rich ones.  To be called a gentleman is likened to be called one of the gods, and indicates a man of unquestioned moral standards, and usually wealthy to boot.  Though at heart it truly is a love story, in detail this is a very amusing and highly likeable adventure.  It begins in Heidelberg, with philosopher Dr. Claudius living an isolated and scholarly life among his books, living in cheap and crowded rooms.  He comes upon a large inheritance from an uncle living in New York, though he has no plans to change his lifestyle or use any of the money.  Amusingly, this is no grey beard scholar, but a very tall, handsome, and sturdily built Swede.  A chance encounter with a beautiful woman on one of his private walks changes his entire outlook, and, of course, his life.  We get to cross the Atlantic on a steam yacht, and then we spend the rest of the story in New York and close by.  Though this is one of those books where very little actually happens, it encapsulates a lot about life in its humble pages.  Crawford himself was a friend to Isabella Stewart Gardner, and the woman in the story likely represents such a woman.  Rich reading, and rewarding.

The Blessing Of Pan was published in 1927, and is Lord Dunsany's 4th novel.  His first three novels, and many of his short stories, were published by Ballantine in the Lin Carter Adult Fantasy series back in the 1960s and 70s.  Had the series continued, Carter undoubtedly would have also published this gentle fantasy, about a parish vicar trying to save his flock from reverting to Paganism.  Like the other novels by this writer, I seemed to hit spots that were hot then cold.  Sometimes I felt that he was heading in exactly the right direction with the story, when it would take a sudden turn and I thought he was losing the thread.  But alas, Lord Dunsany knew better than me how to write a delicate tale about ancient practices returning to supplant Christianity in one small English village, and by the end of the novel I was convinced I had read something very rare, precious, and unusual.  Think of this as a kinder, gentler "Wicker Man."  The moods that this writer can create, evoking other times and other sensibilities, is most remarkable.  His descriptions of encroaching evening, and of the dawn, are rich beyond what words should be able to conjure.  There is humour in the tale, and much wisdom.  A fun book to read.

 

T. S. Eliot is a long way from Dunsany,  I read his chapbook collection (twice) published in 1917 called Prufrock and Other Observations, which includes 12 poems written between 1910 and 1917.  Born in St. Louis, he moved to England at the age of 25 (1914), settling there and eventually renouncing his American citizenship.  The lead poem of the set is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," a man who seems to be in the skids emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  It can be seen as a devastating look at life in the modern era, and the loneliness and isolation that can ensue.  The opening ten lines seem to encompass an entire modern novel!  And much later:  

"But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter.

I am no prophet--and here's no great matter,  

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid."

 

The other poems don't really compare to the main poem, though a few are humourous ("The Boston Evening Transcript," and "Cousin Nancy," and a few are quite profound, and several have lines that are entirely astounding.  Then there is the bizarre "Hysteria," which is a bit hard to describe, as a man watches a woman have a laughing fit.  The first poem, at any rate, is worth many more readings.

Next came 2 volumes of short stories by Nikolai Gogol.  Published in 1831-32, there are 4 stories in each volume, the whole called Evenings On A Farm Near Dikanka.  Gogol was born in the Ukraine, and grew up there.  These tales of peasant village life are among the best short stories ever written!  Having said that, there are small but blatant examples of anti-Semitism in nearly every story, despite there being no major Jewish characters. 

 

Vol. 1

"The Fair At Sorochinsti" is a straight forward tale about a young girl's first visit to the big wide world, as she, her father, and her stepmother visit the annual fair together for the first time.  Being 18 and sweet to behold, the young girl soon attracts the attention of a handsome young man, who determines that she must be his wife.  However, getting past the wicked stepmother is not an easy task.  A funny tale that keeps one reading until the very end.  The incredible superstitious fears of villagers is introduced in this story, which will blossom forth in future tales.

 

"St. John's Eve" is a story about the devil and how he was able to talk a young man into doing his evil deeds, in exchange for enough gold to wed the village girl whom he loves.  The story is framed humourously, but the tale itself is a classic horror one, with a very sad ending.

"May Night" nails down several aspects of Ukrainian village life.  Courting a girl is given top priority in this tale, as are the village night pranks of youths, both male and female.  Another supernatural tale makes its way into the narrative, and capturing an evil witch finally allows the village headsman's son to marry his girlfriend, Hanna.  Obviously Gogol is writing down some of the tales he heard growing up, preserving them for future generations, and building his narrative around such tales.  Wonderful atmosphere, with simple and direct writing.

"The Lost Letter" is another tale of the devil and witchcraft, and again not without humour.  A village man is given the task of delivering a letter to the Czarina in the capital city, and rides his horse towards completion of his goal.  He encounters the devil on the way, and has a very funny conclusion to his first attempt at delivering the letter, ending up back at his house, but up on the roof.  His second attempt is successful, however.  A grandfather tells this story to his grand kids, after much coaxing, as he does not relish the memory of it happening to him.  A gem of a tale.

Vol. 2

"Christmas Eve."  Many of these stories (this one is a novella) are very much like paintings by Marc Chagall--they are colourful, bizarre, folk-like, whimsical, and different from most other short stories in many ways.  This one might have been called 'The Enchanted Blacksmith,' as a young man goes far out of his way to win Oksana, the girl he desires.  His mother is a witch, the devil helps him get the Czarina's slippers, and all of this (and much else, including a lot of mayhem) takes place on Christmas Eve.  Expect the unexpected in these totally delightful early tales of Ukraine village life, seemingly unchanged from medieval times.

"A Terrible Vengeance" is a serious novella lacking any humour, and featuring some truly evil deeds.  A warped sorcerer wants to marry his beautiful daughter (I warned you), even though she is already married and has a baby son, and he goes to some pretty sick lengths before disaster strikes one and all.  An epilogue explains how it was that the sorcerer finally met his doom.  Grim but fascinating reading.

 "Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt" is an incomplete novelette about a shy man retired from the army who returns to his family farm to work on it.  His aunt has been looking after things for him, but she can no longer manage it on her own.  She wants to see him married, but he is too shy and doesn't want anything to do with it.  The story ends abruptly, hinting at a continuation which never came.

"A Bewitched Place" is a short story about a place where nothing will grow.  Fully expecting to find a treasure beneath the ground, a man finds an old urn.  With great effort he brings it forth and rolls it home to unpack his treasure.  What was inside?  Mud.

Espedair Street, from 1987, is Iain Banks' fourth novel.  It is a mock autobiography of a fictional Scottish lad who becomes a very big rock star.  This tragi-comedy is a very fun thing to read, all 361 pages of it. Daniel Weir (as Weir, D. on his school record, and thus nicknamed "Weird") thinks he can write hit songs, and goes looking for a band to play them and make him rich and famous.  Low and behold, he finds a band and they soon land a record contract for an album.  The album turns into a great seller, and they sign a three album contract.  The tours begin, and the money pours in.  All the cliches of rock band tours are here: the fast cars, the alcohol, the drugs, the mansions and parties, the deaths.  But they are handled with Banks' usual flair for writing, leaving readers amused, shocked, and saddened, sometimes all on the same page.  Danny is 6' 6", quite homely and clumsy, and mostly likes to stay in the background.  This makes him a much more likeable character than if he'd been an egomaniac rock star, looking at himself in the mirror over and over.  We also get a nice peek at some backstreets of Glasgow, where Danny grew up.  This is a very entertaining and highly readable novel.

A Strange Disappearance is from 1880, written by mystery writer A. Katherine Green, her second novel.  The novel features Inspector Gryce, who featured prominently in her first novel.  He has a large role in this story, too, but a younger inspector relates the story and really gets the credit for solving the mystery of a young woman's disappearance.  I found this story easier to swallow than the first novel by Green, though it also suffers from that fear of scandal that seemed to foretell doom to influential families in stories from this time period and later.  For one thing, the novel is shorter and much more tightly written.  There is very little, if any, extraneous material, and much of the action takes places in two houses in close proximity to one another.  However, we do get outside of New York for a fascinating trip to Vermont, where a further mystery and adventure awaits the young inspector.  For another thing, we get to meet a young woman whose father and brother are criminals to their core, yet she remains clean and decent despite her upbringing.  They are truly ugly characters, and the mysterious disappearance comes directly from their actions.  One strange thing, though.   A girl was kidnapped, apparently for ransom, and is kept hidden.  However, no clear way to offer her up for ransom ever emerges.  Were they going to just keep her there forever, always having to guard her?  Anyway, a short and enjoyable mystery novel awaits curious readers.

In conclusion, I continue to make progress on two long term reading projects.  Joseph Jacob's 1750 page volume Complete Fairy Tales is a treasure worth seeking out.  It not only contains a ton of tales, but it is also a scholarly work where he discusses the sources and different versions of each story, and comments upon them.  I am about 60% of the way through.  My Kindle edition cost me around $3.  I am also slowly making my way through 70 Wonders of the Ancient World, a book purchased many years ago in London.  I read I through back then, but am rereading it now.  It's well worth tracking down.

An older purchase, this is a fascinating book.  I am on my second time through it.

 

An indispensable volume for lovers of fairy tales.  I am taking my time with it. 

 

Mapman Mike