January Books Read

January was a good month for reading.  Cold weather will do that for one.  In addition to the 5 books by Avon/Equinox authors, I managed to finish 8 others.

 

First published in 2001 as a three part story in Asimov SF Magazine, Robert Silverberg's The Longest Way Home is the story of a young teenage boy growing up the hard way.  Joseph is the 15 year old eldest son of a Master, on a planet where two waves of humans have usurped the planet from the native inhabitants.  The first wave was mostly simple farmers, and they were struggling when the ruling class came and took over, making things work.  But Joseph, visiting a distant House in the far north, gets caught up in a serious rebellion.  He makes his escape with the help of a servant, and then is basically on his own, marching south to his home at least ten thousand miles away.  On his journey, several times in which he nearly dies of starvation, he encounters allies where least expected.  His journey is a harrowing one, to say the least.  Brought up with a pampered existence, as the eldest son it will be his job to take over his father's great House someday, and manage it.

Essentially aimed at high school aged boys (sorry, girls, yet again), the story is very simple and never very deep.  Boy walks and walks, encounters obstacles, and somehow gets through them.  At least the story is relatively short, and seldom challenges the reader's credulity.  From what Joseph learns along the way, by the end of the story we expect him to be a far better Master than he would have without his journey.  Quite a good story, but far from exceptional.  It almost sounds as if Silverberg took a very old idea from his pulp days and did his best to update it for modern readers.

 

Next comes the 223 page (original 1977 edition) conclusion to Bulmer's Krozair trilogy, in which Dray Prescott loses, then finally regains, his status as a Krozair warrior.  Krozair of Kregen again shows that Dray doesn't take much interest in poetry, art, or music.  He is a savage killing machine, and not much else.  The first part of the book sees Dray yet again serving as an oar slave aboard a Grondin ship.  It takes time, but he finally escapes with the help of several slave companions.  They become pirates for a while, before splitting up and going their own way.  Dray has a score to settle with a certain king who murdered his daughter at the end of the last book.  He ends up defending a besieged city, but not before encountering a monster from the depths, something directly borrowed from H P Lovecraft (see original cover painting to the 1977 edition, below).  Though he rescues a maiden from her doom at the hands of the monster, she more or less disappears from the story immediately afterwards.

Once on land, the remainder of the story deals with the defence of the city where he has chosen to meet the bad king.  In his usual bold manner, Dray takes the bull by the horns, storming into the enemy camp in disguise, capturing the king, and flying away with him.  Since Dray has been hounded (mistakenly, of course) from the membership in the elite warrior class, his three sons have taken to being shamed by him, and they in turn speak words of hatred about him.  None of them recognize Dray as their father, and there is a very funny scene at the end when they finally come to realize that their "cowardly" father is the brave man they have been fighting with all along.  He is reunited with Delia, his wife, his status as a Krozair is reinstated, and they live happily ever after.  Until Book 15.  A good entry in the series, if readers can get past him being a slave for a time, yet again.

 

Cover art by Josh Kirby.  

Originally published in 1955 as "Men of the Long Rifle," The Pathfinders  is not a traditional western novel.  Lasting only 13 chapters and about 120 pages, there are no cowboys here.  The time is 1830.  The East has been settled and civilized, and things are just starting to move towards the northwest.  There are Indians, and some of them are hostile.  There are scattered frontier forts and trading posts, but not much else.  Ben is a mountain man who meets up with young Dan, running from the corrupt law of a small town where he and his mother are farmers.  They are hired to lead a small expedition from the plains over the mountains, as the search is on for good wagon routes west.

According to Tubb, mountain men are real men, not like those sissy farmers that eat vegetables and wheat and stuff like that.  Real men eat meat, often raw, and nothing else.  Hmm.  Wonder how they avoided scurvy.  Imagine going an entire winter and not eating anything but meat.  And real men will kill a man first if needed, and ask questions later.  Talking only makes things worse.  Hmm again.

Anyway, the basic story is a good one, and it's fun to read a novel about the time before cattle, pony soldiers, and any kind of well travelled trail.  Most travel was done by river in barges, rafts, and canoes.  Only the mountain men ventured much beyond the rivers, trapping and trading to make their way in the world

There is a lot to mull in this book.  With the urge to settle in the west growing, was there a different way of handling things then the way it was done?  A British/Canadian captain near the end does suggest a different way, the way it was done in the north.  In the end, though, Canadian Indians did not fare much better than their American cousins.  The whole thing turned into a disaster, not only for the Indians, but also for the wildlife and vegetation.  Cattle grazing (over grazing, to be precise) has decimated western lands to this day.  One could make a list a mile long to see what went wrong.  Today, we face newer problems, as people from less fortunate areas of the world try to press their way into safer and more prosperous areas.  While they cannot be blamed for wanting a safer and more prosperous life, the strain upon resources, both human and natural, goes on and on.  The planet must be getting tired by now.  And still we ask more from it.

 

From 1981 comes Michael Moorcock's 1981 epic novel Byzantium Endures, the first book of a most promising series.  My hardcover edition runs 373 pages, with large pages and small printing.  The very best books that deal with historical events are sometimes not the ones that deal with overall views and after-the-fact analysis; sometimes the best books about history are from the 'man on the ground,' so to speak.  Biographies are often useful in learning about certain places at certain times, as are autobiographies.  What Moorcock has achieved with his fictional "Colonel Pyat" character is to perhaps invent a new kind of historical fiction.  Born in Kyiv in 1900, this first book follows the young boy through one of Russia's darkest times, up to about 1920.  He lives through the Great War, the Revolution, and the Russian Civil War before finally fleeing from Odessa to Constantinople at the end of this first book.

By confining his hero to Russia and Ukraine in the first volume, readers are able to digest a lot of history as it happened.  Despite being a fictional autobiography, the events depicted were real, though of course not all the details.  Pyat is an engineer, interested in all things mechanical and modern.  He grows up in Kyiv, moves to Odessa on the Black Sea to live with an uncle for a time, who then sends him to a school in Petersburg to gain an engineering degree.  Of course the war interferes with plans, and he is never able to gain his piece of paper, though he does pass his exams with flying colours.  Back to Kyiv, and then, through a very long sequence of mostly bad events, makes his way again to Odessa.

The character of Mrs. Cornelius (to be Jerry's mother in a different series of book) becomes a veritable guardian angel to the young Pyat.  She is a truly inspired creation, and totally unique in the history of literature.  Readers will either love her or hate her; this reader loves her.  The present story is told by a very old Pyat, who operated an antique shop in Portobello Road in London until his death.  He and Mrs. Cornelius remained good friends all their lives, and we can look forward to more of their adventures and meetings in the next three volumes.

I learned more about early 20th C Russia and Ukraine from reading this book then anything else I have ever read throughout my life.  It is a time of great darkness, despair, cruelty, extreme hardship, and, to put it most simply, a time of complete chaos.  I finally understand what makes a Russian tick, as well as that of a Ukraine citizen.  This is a very fascinating book, one of the best historical fictions I have ever read.  Highly recommended.

 

Boston Avenger is a direct continuation from Burt Wullf's San Francisco adventure, the 3rd book in a long series about a lone wolf crime fighter trying to take on the drug lords of America.  This time the mayhem he causes happens to be in Boston.  A good story, this 155 page novel is from 1973, as Malzberg cranks them out but maintains a unique style and definite narrative flow.  Wulff is only able to accomplish what he does through his belief that he is a dead man anyway, so taking huge risks is never a problem if there is a chance they might come off.  One of the more riskier tricks he pulls off is to retrieve a briefcase filled with heroin from a convoy of four police cars on their way to the downtown station with a suspect in custody.  The entire action scene is a complete movie setup.  We have seen so many police chases in movies that it's not difficult to visualize this madcap adventure, which, however, ends quite differently than a movie chase.  This ends up being one of the better parts of the book, and does convince us at last that Wulff is a madman after all.  Lots of killing and shooting, it runs along similar lines to many Samurai and gangster films.  A good addition to the extended book series.  At the end of the book Wulff is on his way back to New York, possibly to look for his girlfriend's murderer.  Stay tuned for more adventure. 

 

The first book read this month not related to Avon/Equinox authors was called Castle Crespin, a medieval adventure story taking place around in France in 1225.  Francis of Assisi has began influencing religious monks, and two of them are featured in this tragic tale.  Written in 1982 by Allen Andrews, it also features talking animals.  Oddly enough the two monks cannot understand them, but the girl Adele can.  Aside from talking animals, this well written story tells of the evil perpetrated by a rogue knight, a traditional all round bad guy, when he stops to visit a local castle.  Though he gets it in the end, as all bad guys should in a good story, he takes a lot of good folk, human and animal, down with him.  

The story begins with a fox getting what he can from a farmer's poultry collection, driving the man nearly mad in his outrageous attempts at killing it.  We gradually meet other animals and people, quite a few, actually, in a well thought out exposition.  The story builds nicely to a major and devastating violent climax.  There may be talking animals, but this does not seem in any way to be a children's book.  There is a good deal of humour as some of the animals complain of the things Nature has them do to keep their species populations vibrant and growing.  Wolves, bears, rabbits, boars, birds of prey, a hunting beagle and the fox make a worthy team against the evil knight and his minions.  

This is the second such book by this author.  Deb found this book in a London charity shop, and paid 50p for the hardcover edition, complete with full colour dust jacket.  A good bargain indeed.

Jacket art by Martin White. 

 

Next came some poetry by Edgar Allen Poe.  I don't exactly have a love affair with 19th C poetry.  I read four collections of Poe's.  The first three (very early) left me glassy eyed.  His earliest collection was published when he was 19, which might explain a lot.  He was heavily inspired by Byron.  Tamerlane and Other Poems came out in 1827.  Tamerlane is an epic poem about the dying conqueror.  It would end up being republished and revised for the next two collections as well.  In 1829 came the publication of Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Other Minor Poems.  Tamerlane is shorter now, and considerably more readable.  Al Aaraaf is Poe's longest poem, inspired by a 1572 supernova.  The star supposedly lies between heaven and hell.  In this purgatory there is no punishment, and also no fulfillment.  To this reader it seems unintelligible.  Both Tamerlane and Al Aaraaf are reprinted again in 1831, in Poems.  Even the revision does not help me with Al Aaraaf, but Tamerlane has once again been improved.

In 1845 came The Raven and Other Poems.  Now we are getting somewhere!  Poe was paid $9 for the original publication of what has literally become the world's most popular poem.  He worked hard at it, and it certainly is a great little piece of writing.  My Delphi Classics Kindle edition comes with three illustrations, two of them by Dore.  Also included in the collection is Lenore, The Conqueror Worm, and Eulalie.  The latter is mentioned in case a reader should come to the conclusion that all of Poe's works are about death.  Left for next time are many uncollected poems.  The above are the ones that were published in actual volumes during his lifetime.

Gustav Dore's illustration to Poe's The Raven. 

 

Arthur Ransome is a new addition to my collection of Delphi Classics complete works.  I will begin with his lone solo non-children's novel from 1915 called The Elixir of Life.  Written in St. Petersburg when the author was a war correspondent, the story concerns a young man who becomes involved with an evil man who kills people to continue living longer.  The events take place in 1716, and are retold 20 years later.  The book has a promising beginning, and the ending at least brings a fitting conclusion to the story.  But beware all those pages in between.  Ransome obviously read his Poe and especially Lovecraft.  By saying that his book is at least as good as some of Lovecraft's writing is not necessarily a compliment, as for the most part Lovecraft was a man with some fun ideas, but he was quite a terrible writer.  Ransome's novel suffers from lack of originality, as there are no ideas here new to 1915.  It also causes its readers to suffer from boredom, as nothing much happens in the story, and everything important takes place in one location, a large house with a rose garden.  In addition, the young hero is actually quite stupid.  Of the five main characters, three of them end up dead, as well as some horses and villagers.  The elixir itself is a preposterous concoction that seems to know when someone has been killed, thus strengthening it mysteriously and magically.  It is not very sophisticated thinking for a 1915 reading audience.  Needless to say the book met with virtual silence upon publication.  I am looking forward to his S & A books next time around.

P. G. Wodehouse's earliest novels are his so called School Stories Books.  This past month I read the second in that series, called A Prefect's Uncle, published in 1903.  It is a mere trifle of a book, barely amusing, and 90% of its content has to do with cricket.  It's another book for boys in boarding school, who it seems must love sports or die of nothing else to do.

Moving on.  The Dragon in Shallow Waters is Vita Sackville-West's 2nd novel, from 1920.  It's a bit of a gut wrenching story centred on two brothers in a dingy and poor factory town in Lincolnshire.  Silas Dene is blind, and very very angry about it.  Gregory is deaf and dumb.  Silas murders his own wife, then tricks Gregory into believing that his wife is cheating on him.  Nan is Gregory's wife, and she is caught between the two brothers, who live in attached but separate cottages.  Silas is the main focus of the novel, his outrageous outlook on life affecting nearly everyone in the village.  Most people stay clear of the Denes.  Nan is bullied mercilessly by both brothers, finally finding words that give her a weapon to use against Silas.  His long hoped for downfall is well written, and well deserved.  Like most evil characters, Silas is rather unforgettable.  However, he does finally do a good deed for Nan before his final fall.  He ends up saving her from a fate worse than death (staying married to his brother).  Coming from Silas, that is a rather good deed.  A very strange tale, but it has  its rewards.

The Philanderer is a play by Shaw from 1893.  However, due to censorship issues it was not produced until 1902.  It is the first of his early plays that reveals his wit, as we recognize the writer that he was to become.  There are several very funny scenes in the play, which is in four acts and is still occasionally mounted on the stage today.  Shaw deals well for his time with the women's movement, as he shows us characters (fathers and daughters) who are caught between the old world view of what a woman is and should be, and what the modern world now demands of the fairer sex.  The young philanderer himself, however, doesn't seem to be affected by any changes around him, and seems destined for bachelorhood.  A very readable play, and it would be fun to see a live production.

Carson Mccullers wrote her first novel at the age of 23.  Born in the southern US, her writing is imbued with hot, sultry days and nights, and characters so real that they seem to leap off the page into one's room while reading.  The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter is from 1940, with the title being suggested by her editor, from a poem, The Lonely Hunter, by Scottish poet William Sharp (as Fiona MacLeod).  The working title for the novel was The Mute.  This novel has probably had a lot of essays and reviews written about it, and for good reason.  It is a fantastic novel.  After so much reading and film watching, this writer can only conclude that the best fiction tells simple stories about average people.  Life and people can be very complicated, so it takes a very special talent to be able to simplify things enough for readers or film viewers to understand exactly what is happening to a character, why it is happening, and where things are likely headed for this individual.  Though there is a very good film version of the story, the book is far superior.

The main character in this novel is Mr. Singer, an intelligent deaf mute who works in a jewellery shop in a small southern US city, repairing watches and clocks, as well as doing beautiful engraving.  Mr. Singers best friend is also a deaf mute.  He and Antonapoulos share a room together, and though the latter character is a simpleton who loves food more than anything else, the two get along really well.  They both talk with their fingers, but Singer does most of the talking, pouring out his thoughts to his friend, who really doesn't listen and usually doesn't really care.  But at least Singer has someone with whom to talk.  It is this theme that is most prevalent in the novel--having a listening ear when you need to talk.  Singer ends up, after Antonapoulus is sent to a care home for causing his uncle a lot of trouble in town, being the person who has to listen to everyone in town who needs an ear for their thoughts.  He can lip read, though he does miss a lot of context.  But after many repetitions, he is able to get the drift.  But like his friend, he doesn't really have much interest in what people tell him.

 

Dr. Copeland, a Black medical doctor, often turns to Singer.  He is the only white person the doctor has ever met that seems to understand his people and the causes the doctor is trying to undertake on their behalf.  Likewise, an alcoholic drifter by the name of Jake Blount finds that Singer is a good friend who listens and understands what he is trying to achieve.  Blount is a Marxist and tries to bring about change in the attitudes of poorly paid and overworked cotton mill employees in town.

 

The most tragic character of all is Mick Kelly, a 13 year old girl who lives in the house where Singer boards.  She, by far, is the book's most interesting character.  She lives and dreams of becoming a musician and composer and conductor.  Her limited experiences with hearing classical music are among the greatest writing on the topic one could imagine.  After watching the filmed version of the book, it was her character more than anything else that eventually drew me to read the novel.  There are some obvious autobiographical elements to her character, as the author herself wanted to become a concert pianist.  Those plans ended when she lost her tuition money somewhere in the New York subway.  Likewise, it is financial matters that keep Mick from ever hoping to achieve her goals.  Her family is dirt poor, and she eventually, at age 14, has to take a job at Woolworths and drop out of school.  Poverty is another huge theme that runs throughout the novel, in addition to loneliness.  American poverty, especially in the deep south, is second to none anywhere else in the world.

There are other themes and many other characters, and the author treats them all in enough detail to make them live for readers.  The town and the people in it become very real, even after a few chapters.  By the end of the novel we feel that we have lived among these people, blacks and whites.  Many black critics have said that McCullers completely gets the Black experience and is able to write about Black characters better than any other white writer.  The short climax hits the reader like a sledgehammer, and with no warning.  Loneliness, frustrated ambition, poverty, and doing what one must do might sound like a rather bleak read.  It isn't.  This is one of the finest novels I have ever read, and I highly recommend it to one and all.

Lastly, I finally finished The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World: The Great Monuments and How They Were Built.  A Thames and Hudson book from 1999, edited by Chris Scarre, I bought this on a journey to London many years ago. This is my second reading.  With 333 illustrations, 140 in colour, the book also has plenty of text.  The 70 chapters are grouped as follows: The Seven Wonders; Tombs and Cemeteries; Temples and Shrines; Palaces, Baths & Arenas; Fortifications; Harbours, Hydraulics & Roads; and Colossal Statues & Monoliths.  Though most of the amcient works are centred on Mediterranean countries, there are still plenty elsewhere spread across the globe.  We have visited the three sites discussed in the US, and 2 of the 4 in Mexico.  That's about it for us.  A trip to Rome would add a lot to our list, so it might just happen.

A multi-month reading project was finally completed. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

Rain Has Arrived

It's been raining all day Sunday, something we needed badly 5 months ago.  But it has finally rained and broken the jinx.  We will have had about 1" of rain when it is all over, the most rain we have had since early June.  And it's been a mild week, and I was able to snag two perfect nights for deep sky astronomy!  November and December are our two cloudiest months, so if I get even one good night between those months I am surprised.  Of course these are not normal times for climate;  we've had plenty of sunshine this month, and mild air.  Looking ahead, Dec. 1st returns us to the world of more normal weather.

 

My two clear nights, Wednesday and Friday last, were both very different.  Wednesday was quite damp (and chilly), and I ended up driving home through some very atmospheric fog for a time.  Friday night was dry as can be.  Both nights were good for observing distant and faint galaxies, though I always pepper my sessions with a few show pieces, to place things into perspective.  I have been working late autumn skies the past few years in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).  It covers a vast area of sky, much of it low on my horizon, making it very challenging to see faint objects.  But my windmill site is perfect for this sort of thing, with dark skies pretty much down to the horizon.  I just finished writing up my field notes today.  Hopefully I will get a night or two in December, but being realistic, I am probably done now till March.  My warm clothing is good for several hours at temps down as far as 25 F, with little to no breeze.  It got down to 29 F Friday night, but I had no problems.  Dressing for cold weather is quite different when you are going to spend that time standing or sitting in one place.  One has to dress for temps about 20 F below what they actually are to remain warm.

 

Practicing is going well, though I have been off a bit in my schedule this past week.  All of the pieces are playable, though not yet ready for any type of performance.  They are, however, ready for a lesson from Philip, if I can squeeze one in there before the holidays.  It is a lot of fun to play so much Bach, more than I have ever done at once before (7 pieces).  I have always loved to play Bach, and I am getting a good workout this time around.  I haven't played any Grieg since about 1974/75, so it was about time I took on a series of his Lyric Pieces.  The influence of Bach (and others) can be seen and heard throughout these pieces.

 

Our nightly listening program continues to progress, always in three directions.  We are continuing our complete Beethoven project, and have nearly completed his middle period works.  We are also alternating Haydn's Paris Symphonies with Schumann's complete piano music as the 2nd part of our program.  The third part consists of playing through all of our Baroque LP records.  This used to be a favourite time for the cats, too, who are always sorely missed.

 

Turning to viewing news, we have finished watching the 8 episode season of Tales From the Loop.  The series is uneven in quality, but when it's good, it is really good.  Our favourites were episode 1 (which we are going to rewatch now), episode 5, and episode 7.  The final episode was really good, but relied on a poor choice of plot interference to kill off one of the characters.  There were so many better ways this could have been done.  The series has links to each episode through characters, especially a young boy, Cole, though each story is pretty much independent.  The series leaves a lot of mysteries untouched, including what research goes on at the Loop itself.  No season two has been announced, but it would be a shame if no others were ever made.

 

Three movies from Criterion we watched were The Daughter of Dawn from 1920, Deep Cover from 1992, and The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, from 1968.  Daughter is a recent rediscovery of a silent film made entirely with a cast of Native Americans, and tells a story of trouble between the Kiowa and Comanche tribes.  Entirely filmed in Oklahoma, it is the only film that shows Plains Indians in the true plains where they lived.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Deep Cover features Jeff Goldblum and Lawrence Fishburne in a stylish noir.  Fishburne plays an undercover cop trying to take down some drug middlemen, as he is told not to touch the top echelon.  But he goes all the way up, and a good script and some fine acting make the time fly past.

Showing on Criterion for three more days. 

 

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a touching and sad film from the deep south starring Alan Arkin as a deaf mute.  To be near a deaf mute friend who has become institutionalized, who is also mentally challenged, he moves towns and takes a room with a family suffering through its own hardships.  A teenage girl at first abhors the thought of a "dummy" living in their house, but soon becomes enamoured with him, and comes to love him as a dear friend.  She wants to become a classical pianist, and loves music.  He buys her records and she tries to describe music to him as it happens.  Their friendship becomes very touching.  The book by Carson McCullers is something I would like to track down via Kindle, and read soon.  Painful at times, mostly due to white against black racism.  A very good film, and highly recommended.

 

Showing on Criterion for 3 more days. 

 

I'll finish up with another great Van Gogh painting visiting Detroit during its unparalleled exhibit.  This is one of several works sent to Detroit by the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.  Thank you Amsterdam!

One of two Sowers in the Detroit exhibit, this one from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum.

 

I'll be back in a few days with the November reading summary. 

Mapman Mike.