Pedro
What a crazy good book!
Dawkins rhetoric is brilliant and the prose unexpectedly uplifting, way distant from the vocal activist he seems to take nowadays. For something written in the 70s it feels fresh and pertinent.
I rob him of a star for not being (entirely) convinced by some arguments, like the gameta differentiation for instance. Also, for lacking a proper conclusion.
Favourite quote:
“And here is a case history to provoke more Freudian anxiety than the Peter Pan beetles - parasitic castration!”
Sem dúvida a melhor obra de Saramago e tenho medo de ler o resto que receio não chegue ao mesmo nível.
No Evangelho, Saramago atinge a mestria não só como escritor mas também como filósofo. Talvez pelo seu legado de ateu inveterado, escreve mais sentido o texto e mais honesto cada argumento.
Por casualidade, duvido que qualquer cristão com o mínimo de pensamento humanista não se sinta apaziguado perante um Cristo tão sofrido e tão próximo da dor humana.
Sooooo... Do you want to read porn?
The good kind of course, not that literary disaster which is “Fifty Shades of Gray”. No, of course not, I don't want you to be part of that sorry group who reads bad books, when you can get the same erotica in this good ol' classic with the added seal of Literature with capital L stamped on it.
Actually, let me get that out of the way. In this book you can find, in no specific order: rape, gangbang, BDSM, torture, gay porn, orgies, incest, pedophilia, cumshot, fetish, bukake, golden showers and cropophagia (all forms of fluid consumption really) with a dazzling ensemble cast of outlaws, physicians, judges, friars (obviously), females aged 10 to 40 in all stages of sexual maturity, including pregnancy, carved with such a degree of elaborate paraphilia that makes child's play out of RedTube and turns “The Human Centipede” into a mundane attempt at gratuitous horror. Now wrap it all up in a delicious prose that tastes like “vanilla” as some critic put it, probably thinking of how it would spread nicely on “tender meats”, and adorn it with a flowery euphemism that only an 18th century France could conceive. Let me give you some examples. Objects of desire become idols, sexual enablers are altars, sperm is incense (LOL) and feces are eggs. Go for your omelet now. I won't even describe the hilarity of anal sex.
Never mind, this is to amusing. Here's a morsel of what he can do, anally speaking: “The impure monk uninterruptedly occupied with me in like fashion, then tells me to give the largest possible vent to whatever winds may be hovering in my bowels, and these I am to direct into his mouth”. And flatulence ensues. The fore-father of proctology, what visionary! I bursted into laughter while in a public library, but thankfully no one around knew me.
Triple-socket Justine (or The Misfortunes of Virtue) is a bipolar book. Half is porn and half is philosophy justifying porn and pretty much all other conceivable forms of deviant behavior. The (very) thin plot follows Justine separated from her sister when fate robs them both of parents and fortune. Claiming an hedonistic lifestyle and the pursuit of pleasures as the only means fit to succeed in the world, the sis makes her way up the social ladder and before long is a wealthy baroness. Justine, on the other hand, pious and devote and ever-believing in virtue and the equanimous justice of Providence is forced to wade through the worst imaginable kind of shit, most of the times as a consequential reward to her steadfast beliefs.
Sade is a clever man. He's barbarous, perverse, inclined to the most hateful kind of debauchery but nonetheless clever. In Justine, he has managed to paint the dark face of humanity with the most somber oils. Not only its obscene primal nature, selfish, self-gratifying and destructive but also its logic, twisted, that justifies every possible atrocity. He has single-handedly built the framework for the philosophy of libertinism (and a tab in all pornographic websites), where humans are naturally selfish, greedy, prone to inflict hurt as an augmenter of pleasure and utterly submissive to their dark lusts. Aristoteles, Rousseau, it doesn't matter. Man is horrible. Man is grotesque. No holds barred.
Luckily, he was wrong. Although, admittedly, too complex to summarize in just a few paragraphs, much of his thesis rests on the premise that nature always trumps nurture. We are born with a personalized subset of impulses from which there's no going around, though there is one we all share: the need to serve those very same impulses. Had he been born a couple centuries later, Sade, given his noble background, would have been taught on things like evolutionary biology, biological altruism, mirror neurons and other quirky topics which essentially say that if you want food in the pantry or not end as hyena meat you might as well tag up.
This sort of group behavior is something so deeply imprinted in our genes, and stretching back so far as Volvox colonies that in self-conscious beings as ourselves it could only manifest as in impulse. Not a thought, not a byproduct of experience or a moral imperative but a very elementary urge. Why then the extreme pleasure at helping a tourist you'll never see again with directions? If the individual suffers without the group's acceptance and integration then any deviant behavior that might throw you to the rims of sociability (like, let's say, rape) either gets squashed with the millennia or pops every now and then with nature's chaotic attempts at diversity, and picks blokes like Sade to be percentile 0,1 in compassion.
There are, of course, some other interesting things to take home. While I'm not sure if intentional or not, there's a progressive desensitization to the crimes professed in the book, even as they get more hideous in nature. Could Sade be trying to prove that, we too, can grow numb to regret if we practice unlawfulness times enough, and chooses to evidence it in like manner? It's weird but there's a palpable attraction towards depravity, a sort of occult submission to the idol of wrongdoing.
There's also the mirror, the metaphorical reflective surface with which Sade accuses society. So much pretty laws and traditions, so much shows of benevolence but, in the end, the powerful are either the product of nepotism or unfettered ambition, and the mass of peasants serves only as scape goats and fodder to keep the gears going.
With all that said, I feel sorry for Sade. I see a soul completely aimless, borne of a restless that will never meet release. Justine lived the martyr's life only to get shanked with lightning, the holy device of smiting. But all pain is justified, the chthonic pleasures are but misdirections to test the faithful, who will be rewarded with everlasting bliss – a joy the Marquis will never reach.
Or maybe he just wanted me piteous and in a “weak” state. Bastard.
“The Golem and the Jinni” is the debut novel of Helene Wecker, another holder of a Masters in Creative Writing diploma. It falls within the urban phantasy/historical fiction mongrel genre, and relates the story of a Jinni, a creature from arabian mythos (think Aladdin), and a Golem from jewish folklore (to the likes of Frankenstein, but made of clay).
Take two improbable beings, throw them into immigrant-swarmed New York at the turn of the 20th century and you get the raw ingredients for culture-clash plot, with the same overall emotional cloth that drapes most of Disney's children classics.
Which is my number one objection: who is the target audience for this book? Seriously. Because never have I felt so much at a loss with the author's plans. The basic morality begins to be suitable for a child coming into adolescence, the awkward mature theme that drills into the narrative every now and then might appeal to the mid-teen at conflict with his emerging desires, and the absence of younger characters makes me think the book is addressed to young adults. So which one is it?
The prose is basic at best, there is an overabundance of useless detail that clogs the narrative to a snail-like pace – innumerable references to places in New York city, parks, monuments, what have you; or little actions or events which truly DO NOT need to be described – contrasting deeply with the setting that is lacking.
The characters bear as much depth as paper cut figures and there is this implied notion that every emotion has to be dissected in its minute parts, lest the reader looses himself in the train of thought. Which is rather pointless and annoying when characters are utterly boring and predictable.
The difference between the Yiddish-speaking community and Little Syria appears to be a predilection for either coffee houses or metalsmithing, and even the expected language barriers are eclipsed by the omnipresent English and the fitting skill at universal speech that both Jinni and Golem possess. Which is sad, cause the varied cultural exposition held a lot of promise – all to waste.
Side characters, save one, are irrelevant and carbon copies of each other, they appear and disappear as MacGuffins to advance the plot and die when the author has no more use for them or, clearly, when their presence might offend the mystical fairy land mentality the permeates the whole work.
After a quick reread I've noticed I failed at smothering my cynicism, so I'll cut it short. Read “The Golem and the Jinni” if you're trying to feel better or you'd rather believe the world was frozen in the image the six-year old you formed. That is ok. Among life's tragedies, looking for comfort is human and I'd be the first the confess it.
But when you try to instill values, as I deeply believe the author tried to, and imbue your work with your own vision it's lamentable and sad to do so under false pretenses, lame assumptions of a sparkly world. Fantasy has always been the means by which life has touched its boundaries, and perhaps dared to cross them, but it's a connection that goes both ways: you cannot dot fantasy with an aura of innocence and expect it to be meaningful for the humans the exist on the earthen side.
Read “The Golem and the Jinni” if you're looking for escapism, but you can drink yourself senseless in less time and (maybe) less money. Read it for the sake of reading pulp fiction, but don't expect feeling you learned much in the end.
Or maybe pay heed to the wise words. Life's too short to read crap.
Every now and then there comes a book which seems to gather your undivided attention. It is never certain why such a thing occurs, or why that given book should be chosen for the effect, but its presence lingers in the outskirts of your conscience and tends to manifest itself in the most unexpected ways: its spine, no matter how perfect or flayed, seems to stand out whenever you peruse the shelves of the local bookshop; its quotes spring as epigraphs to the kernel of some other publication or adorn the myriad blogues and websites that seem to find solace and justification for life's ways among its words; your friends, your friends' friends and even random strangers seem to pass by you in that precise moment just to utter a loose reminder to that book's existence (as if you had forgotten!) and spur you into a restlessness that urges so unrelentingly to pick up and read that damned thing.
Perhaps I'm just obsessive. But Wuthering Heights is one those books. It has the good fortune to have those perfect two-worded titles whose syllables seem to mimic so skillfully the goings of the book's contents. Read it aloud. Wuuu-the-riiing heiigh-tsss. Yes, I know those are not the actual syllables but bear with me. Can't you just feel the moaning of the wind among the firs, and the eerie tranquility of the bogs? It sounds like a ghastly whisper directly dropped in your ear.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (that reads /bronti/, by the way) is a very naughty and peevish book. Had it not been so elaborately crafted I'd venture to say it had been written in a misanthropic fit to purge away all the accumulated hate towards humanity. Actually, it dreads me to think that she pulled this little slice of hell in her first piece. I wonder what profane Necronomicon her words would have summoned if she breathed for a second round. But one must praise genius where genius is due.
The story follows in a framed narrative thirty odd years of ons and goings of the Earnshaws and Lintons in their farmsteads of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange in the Yorkshire moorland. They would have lived very boring and morose lives, and hardly worth of telling a story about, had not senior Earnshaw happened to bring home a child he found during his city walks. Was it normal in the 19th century to go about collecting infants from the streets as if they were stray shillings, or his he that kind of fellow who fancies two children as too little? We'll never know.
That child was named henceforth as Heathcliff because a proper first name would be to odd (apparently). Now Heathcliff is very tasty personification of the byronic anti-hero, to the likes of Melmoth or Elric, though I failed to ever grow any affection for the devil.
Ok, here comes the awkward family tree (note: it is acceptable to consult Wikipedia from this point on): Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine Earnshaw, daughter to Earnshaw senior, who happens to see herself as his second half, much to her brother's Hindley Earnshaw disapproval. “I am Heathcliff,” she says. However, foreseeing a life of poverty should she wedlock Heathcliff she binds herself instead to Edgar Linton the puny little boy, who happens to be only likable character if not for his capacity to not hate every thing.
As you can expect, the decision was rather unpleasing for Heathcliff who then procedes to make his life quest to utterly annihilate every shred of happiness that either Earnshaws and Lintons could have, sparing neither progenitors or offspring. He debases Hareton Earnshaw, son to Hindley Earnshaw, to a husk of a man. He marries Isabella former-Linton-now-Heathcliff, sister to Edgar, and produces a child out of her, aptly named (sarcasm) Linton Heathcliff, which he also viles. He ends up destroying Catherine former-Earnshaw-now-Linton (whose child is also called Catherine... Linton) and plagues the child as soon as Edgar's dead. Such is the twistedness and unearthly obsession of his character that on her death-bed he utters to his love: “May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you - haunt me, then.”
Wuthering Heights could be vainly called a story of love, or a story of hate, but that would be an imperfect denomination. It is a firm essay on obsession, on the chasms of passion and the tendrils of grief and vengefulness which sprawl and taint beyond its source. Almost no soul escapes unscathed to the corrupting nature of hate and its poison follows through the stems of generations.
So why would I say I adore this book, though I also abhor it? It takes unnatural skill to conjure such precise description of the dark side of life or perhaps, sadly, enough life experience on the matter. It takes even more to make the readers feel like pouring smoldering wrath as I feel now. So much wanton destruction, so unnecessary misery. But looking back on the character, could Heathcliff have opted different? I begin to think that his was but the conduct of the archetype of sorrow, and his body a vessel to that end. He acted because he could act in no other fashion. His grief filled the void when his soul departed.
Wuthering Heights is a warning. Remember the graves by the moors. “Heathcliff.”
Having spent the last few readings with the classics, or other books of deeper emotional caliber, I felt in need of relapsing into the soft, ephemerous embrace of a light novel. Airport literature as I normally call it. Tempted by fantastic themes I started browsing Goodreads lists on standalone novels (the unending horde of duologies, trilogies and sagas!) and, quite suddenly actually, I fell upon a 700-page tome whose name immediately captured by interest.
Tigana by Guy Graviel Kay (who I discovered extemporary to the reading to be a major assistance in assembling The Silmarillion) is a tale set in the Peninsula of the Palm a land torn between the twenty year-long tyrannical rule of two powerful sorcerers: Alberico of Barbidor in the east and Brandin of Ygrath in the west. But while Alberico's conquest was largely uneventful, Brandin was met with unexpected, and perhaps underestimated, resistance by the kingdom of Tigana which led to the death of his son Stevan of Ygrath by the hand of the Prince. Mad with grief, Brandin laid a powerfull spell which dissolved the name and history of Tigana from the minds of the people of the Palm, except to those who had born in the land who had so defied Brandin.
The narrative follows two interlacing plot: on one hand there is the rising silent rebellion of Alessan, son of the Prince and heir to the Kingdom of Tigana, with his long standing friend Beard. Through all those years of they have schemed to take both rulers in the single blow and free the Palm while restoring Tigana's name. On the other hand, we find Dianora, sister to Beard, who masking her past under a new identity slithers her way into proximity as Brandin's consort, in an ultimate attempt of assassination. But the closeness to the sorcerer and the years of union have twisted her simple hate into a complex amalgam of yearning and sorrow, and Dianora's being lays split between the pledge to her land and the love that has grown for Brandin.
Tigana is a well-written novel, well thought out with good-developed characters, if not for the more-often-than-expected contradiction and deux ex machina. It tackles powerful themes like the importance of the legacy of a people, the value of friendship and camaraderie, redemption and the double-edged blade of love. Which is also where it fails, feeling at times trite and repetitive and ever so pop in it's undertones and dialogues.
Both plot lines are also very distinct in quality, with Alessan's quest the typical campebillian monomyth while Dianora's dilemmas frame a very credible report about the unstable nature of human emotions.
Expecting very little from the beginning (airport literature!), the book makes for a good and enjoyable read, well paced and captivating. I think it stretches the genre as much it can, and where it lacks it does so only out of personal taste.
I was slightly reluctant to pick up this book and so before finally setting my mind in reading it it lied on the shelf for a few months. It was not so much for the considerable physical size or weight (of which it has both), nonetheless desirable traits in print for enthusiastic readers, as for the tethered emotional, social and aesthetical load which inevitably gravitates around a book this Big.
Before actually beginning the review I'd like to situate the peculiar setting which surround my reading of Anna Karénina. I started reading this book is late August or early September, under the ebbing warmth of the Portuguese summer but ended up hauling it with me to my exchange program in Slovenia and wherever I decided to visit in the meantime, which included a classic coffee shop in Vienna. Yeah, nice.
The interesting though, is that reading Anna Karénina closer to its Russian home added a new layer to the experience: as people recognized the book, a nostalgic smile lighted their faces and the eyes ran hazy with dream as a torrent of memories rushed in from the past when they themselves (as part of the school curriculum) read the book. “Ahh, Vronski...” I would hear them say with a sigh.
It's heart-warming, if not slightly unsettling, to get such an ubiquitous reaction. I mean, back where I come from, on a good day you might get a nod of approval at the mention of Queirós, Pessoa or Saramago, titans of Portuguese literature, but more often than not you're greeted with a sardonic smile, the rolling of the eyes and the thought “I'm just glad I'm done with that” printed on the face.
So what's different? What does a book like Anna Karénina have that for over a hundred of years has moved the passions of man and women alike, and is hailed as a masterpiece of world Literature?
To try to encompass this book in a few phrases would be like essaying about all the richness of life, from the particular crinkling and folding of an origami swan to all the varying depths of the craters in the Moon - an herculean task fit to an end I do not necessarily gage the use. But I'll do my best.
Like any classic 19th novel, Anna Karénina follows in detail the story of a good deal of people: Stépan Arkaditch, the easy going official who subsists from the frivolous living and extended debts; Dolly, his poor wife reconciled with the family life and the company of a cheating husband; Kiti, the young, beaming, innocent beauty; Lévin, the rural proprietary enamored with Kiti; Vronski, the military official who follows in the lifestyle of Arkaditch; Anna Karénina, the high class lady who discovers she lives a substandard life when she meets and falls for Vronski; Karénin, the husband to Anna, highly serious and highly cold.
The story unfolds as Anna comes to Moscow to pay assistance in settling a marital disagreement between Stépan Arkaditch, her brother, and Dolly. However, as she leaves the train she meets Vronski and between them an inevitable attraction occurs. In the meantime, Vronski had been courting Kitty, sister to Dolly, and to whom Lévin had been hopelessly in love. But as soon as the adulterous Anna/Vronski relationship enfolds the Lévin-Kiti-Vronski love triangle crashes to the sorrow of Kiti and Lévin. Eventually, a recuperated Kitty and Lévin unite.
It's the parallel tracing between the two couples of Anna/Vronski and Lévin/Kiti that makes the central plot and moral analysis of the story. Each marriage represents the poles of human bonding: superficial/genuine, self-centered/family-oriented, carnal/transcending and, in Tolstoi's austere values, bad/good and miserable/happy.
More than that, each individual is an embodiment of the nature of their relationship. Anna, despite her motherly dedication, chose to forfeit the barren honoured life for that of passionate adultery. It is hard not to feel some degree of compassion for Anna - after all, all she wanted was happiness. Vronski, on the other hand, is the guilt-free hedonist who has trodden all the leisure walks of life before meeting Anna but now wanting something more serious. But despite the good intentions and desire at a successful marriage both share, the unlawfulness of the relationship is the taint that ultimately leads to their ruin.
Quite opposite we have Kiti, once sullen and sorrow-stricken after the pairing of Anna and Vronski (for whom she had strong feelings), goes full circle and overcomes her lament, innocence lost but ready to face the vicissitudes of life; and Lévin, the oh so great Lévin, the disciple of Tolstoi and ultimately my favourite character. He too churned through his grief at the corresponded wooing of Vronski at Kiti but digging deep into his books and his work he rose above. And so, the marriage between Kiti and Lévin is, in Tolstoi's eyes, the perfect marriage, the balance between the self, the family and the community, away from the tempestuous city life and immersed in the solace of countryside living.
Filling in the gaps of the plot we find other important themes: the satirical depiction of high classes in Moscowian and Saint-Petersburgian society, built from appearances, flocking to the opera house only to discuss other people's lives; the rising concern on morality and ethics that the author imprints through Lévin: in fact, Tolstoi etches the first traces of the “non-violent resistance” doctrine that he went to develop further in the influential “The Kingdom of God is Within You”, which Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. would use as centerpiece for their cultural and political movements.
And ultimately, there is the aesthetical beauty which is Anna Karénina. The sheer genius beyond some passages defies the usage of the word perfect, and I fear if I'll ever read something as close-to-what-life-is-all-about as this. The plethora of emotions that circled me throughout the book is so vast and so reaching, that it felt like I had a lifetime of experience from the read. In other words, in some weird way I couldn't but feel it all: every sun's ray amidst the hay fields, every drop of sweat on the muzhik's brows, every laughter in each soirée.
There's a famous quote that pops up frequently in the internet, about that moment when you read something meaningful to you and it's like having someone, through the ages, touching your hand with his. Reading Anna Karénina was like that, only a step further. It was like having someone taking hold of every muscle of your body and plunging you into a journey of existing, into the very concrete and definite (and also the abstract) amount of things that make up living.
Of all the books I have ever read, and I admit they might not be so many, there were so far two which I treasure above the rest: The Lord of the Rings for what it means to dream and the Unbearable Lightness of Being for mind-blowing capacity to evoke. Anna Karénina now sits proudly next to these, as the ultimate meaning of what is to write, that is, the timelessness of living.
I came upon this take on the Arthurian legends by recommendation by someone dear to me and by the lure of pretty covers, an indulgence to which I'm joyfully guilty. Contrary to perhaps many of the readers, I do not see myself as an Arthur fan but that I think may have added to the magic of the story.
“The Warlord Chronicles” by Bernard Cornwell is a set of three books comprising “The Winter King”, “Enemy of God” and “Excalibur”, which take on the trodden but timeless story of Arthur, a leader of the Britons when England laid swarmed by the invading Saxon at the end of the 5th century. The tale is framed narrative told by Derfel Cadarn a shield-brother to Arthur during the length of his life-long campaign against the Saxon.
Though best described as historical fiction (not withstanding the questionable authenticity of historical Arthur), The Warlord Chronicles mix a tint of the fantastic namely under the hands of the pagan Druids, whose conflict with the rising Christianity make a good deal of the venomous web of intrigue, running side by side with the political struggle between the petty kingdoms of Britain. The story also includes the anachronistic but iconic Merlin and Lancelot, both presented with a personality twist that adds great flavour to the tale.
Cornwell is a prolific writer having written the Sharpe novels along with others tomes of historical fiction. He is a skilled man, capable of weaving fierce page turners and, perhaps more rewarding, of digging deep into History to portray as accurately as possible the customs of the time – something he probably acquired during his career as a journalist.
Throughout the novels and in the first two book in particular, one can almost feel the structured nature of his prose, how the complex chronology and every unfolding event seems to have been meticulously thought out long before any actual writing – a trait common to organized and proficient writers. But, alas, it also robs the story of its mystery as much of what passes is utterly predictable.
Don't take me wrong. The prose is extremely well-written (if not slightly over-descriptive) and the characters are expertly drawn but for the most part the books lacks the rabid flurry of inspiration. But I guess that is probably something to expect from historical fiction.
Luckily, however, the third book seems to echo the nature of the author more strongly, as characters are more willing to discuss and reflect upon themes likely committed to the (un)consciousness of the writer and the action unfolds more franticly and more on the brink of the unexpected. It is in the final book, I think, that Cornwell speaks more truly as if he had dropped his notes on Annales Cambriae and Historia Brittonum and let the keystrokes run their course.
The series is a rewarding read, profoundly instructive and imaginative and by the time it was over my heart ached and mourned for Arthur, The Once and Future King.
It has been said that a man lives for as long he has something to live for, as if some deeper yearning fuels the engines of his fabric and binds the bones, muscle and sinew in a being of definite and concrete boundaries - an aspect of some primordial fire whose nature it is to burn its true and only flame before self-consuming its conflagration.
A man as such is Hénrik, center character and narrator, an hermit in his own castle-house deep in the forests of Hungary. He waits as a hunter waits his prey for the imminent return of Konrád, a friend whose departure has left him with forty-one years of reflection about the nature of his hasty farewell. But there is one question that has been left unanswered.
Sandór Marái's “Embers” is an engrossing novel about the significance of human relationships in its many facets, the joys and bitter agonies of friendship and romantic love, portrayed in the dialogue between the two friends who recollect over sixty years of shared existence, even when living on the other side of the world. As Marái explores the relationship between the two characters, the more one understands the almost antagonistic nature of their personalities.
Hénrik is the wealthy son of the Officer of the Guard, the soldier, the man whose worldview permits only the orderly disposition of things, as each man and woman, every peasant, nobleman and king fall into their proper places in the hierarchy of the world, each of them a cog that spins the machine of sensuality and soft delights.
Konrád, on the other hand, is the product of the ambition of his poor parents whose senseless life has demanded that they craft of the young boy what they themselves could not achieve for them. Alas, Konrád is different, he lingers in the substance of music, the raw, serious tune which can instill the breadth of passion and sorrow.
But as much as Hénrik is the light of civilization and Konrád the darkness of the earth, the reader soon follows that none of them exists wholly without the other. Hénrik longs for the primal jungle, the scent of moist leaves as dawns breaks before the hunt - the kill is the ultimate ritual and the ultimate mark of manhood. Konrád envies the wealth of his friend, not because he truly desires riches but because it was its lack which tumbled his parents into enrolling Konrád into military school, at the high cost of Konrád's free and unseasoned living, dedicated to the pursuit of his lyrical passions.
As the novel softly settles to a close, a new understanding dawns in Hénrik. As all the fury and anger erupted by the leaving of his friend lessened with the years and gave way only to acceptance and tranquility, a change also took him, an ineffable knowledge that when the wick is black, it is only passion in its tempestuous nature that can justify a life.
I came upon this take on the Arthurian legends by recommendation by someone dear to me and by the lure of pretty covers, an indulgence to which I'm joyfully guilty. Contrary to perhaps many of the readers, I do not see myself as an Arthur fan but that I think may have added to the magic of the story.
“The Warlord Chronicles” by Bernard Cornwell is a set of three books comprising “The Winter King”, “Enemy of God” and “Excalibur”, which take on the trodden but timeless story of Arthur, a leader of the Britons when England laid swarmed by the invading Saxon at the end of the 5th century. The tale is framed narrative told by Derfel Cadarn a shield-brother to Arthur during the length of his life-long campaign against the Saxon.
Though best described as historical fiction (not withstanding the questionable authenticity of historical Arthur), The Warlord Chronicles mix a tint of the fantastic namely under the hands of the pagan Druids, whose conflict with the rising Christianity make a good deal of the venomous web of intrigue, running side by side with the political struggle between the petty kingdoms of Britain. The story also includes the anachronistic but iconic Merlin and Lancelot, both presented with a personality twist that adds great flavour to the tale.
Cornwell is a prolific writer having written the Sharpe novels along with others tomes of historical fiction. He is a skilled man, capable of weaving fierce page turners and, perhaps more rewarding, of digging deep into History to portray as accurately as possible the customs of the time – something he probably acquired during his career as a journalist.
Throughout the novels and in the first two book in particular, one can almost feel the structured nature of his prose, how the complex chronology and every unfolding event seems to have been meticulously thought out long before any actual writing – a trait common to organized and proficient writers. But, alas, it also robs the story of its mystery as much of what passes is utterly predictable.
Don't take me wrong. The prose is extremely well-written (if not slightly over-descriptive) and the characters are expertly drawn but for the most part the books lacks the rabid flurry of inspiration. But I guess that is probably something to expect from historical fiction.
Luckily, however, the third book seems to echo the nature of the author more strongly, as characters are more willing to discuss and reflect upon themes likely committed to the (un)consciousness of the writer and the action unfolds more franticly and more on the brink of the unexpected. It is in the final book, I think, that Cornwell speaks more truly as if he had dropped his notes on Annales Cambriae and Historia Brittonum and let the keystrokes run their course.
The series is a rewarding read, profoundly instructive and imaginative and by the time it was over my heart ached and mourned for Arthur, The Once and Future King.
If modern theatre is considered an intellectual pastime not fit for the consumption of the casual viewer, then Tchékhov's plays strike at the heart of drama's subtetlies. And rightly so for the plays, filled with undersayings, carve a complex structure out of the amalgam of thoughts and feelings that litter the human psyche.
It would be unfair, though, to describe the pieces as an unintelligible rant. In fact, the plots and characters are robust and strongly developed and despite the apparent mayhem of an histrionic burgoise there is a very fine message that's never openly uttered but which lingers in the air and, as if poetic mist, hazes the dramatic landscape before settling on the heart of the reader.
Perhaps what struck me the most is Tchékhov's insistence on the otiosity inherent to the country life, described as a sort of malingering miasma which clouds the human drive and sucks even the steadfast into a state of idleness and bestiality; poles apart from the city life, the vanguard of knowledge, reason and achievement - a perspective curiously contrary to Tolstoy's worldview and ascetic preferences, to whom Tchékhov was contemporary.
Despite the regret-filled thoughts that the characters have or acquire throughout the plays, I feel there reads a text other than the prophecy for the dark doom of humanity: a beacon, hiding among the words, lighting the path and calling the reader to embrace the rational him, the only tool fit for crossing the dark waters of sloth and reach the greatness to which he is bound.
I came upon this take on the Arthurian legends by recommendation by someone dear to me and by the lure of pretty covers, an indulgence to which I'm joyfully guilty. Contrary to perhaps many of the readers, I do not see myself as an Arthur fan but that I think may have added to the magic of the story.
“The Warlord Chronicles” by Bernard Cornwell is a set of three books comprising “The Winter King”, “Enemy of God” and “Excalibur”, which take on the trodden but timeless story of Arthur, a leader of the Britons when England laid swarmed by the invading Saxon at the end of the 5th century. The tale is framed narrative told by Derfel Cadarn a shield-brother to Arthur during the length of his life-long campaign against the Saxon.
Though best described as historical fiction (not withstanding the questionable authenticity of historical Arthur), The Warlord Chronicles mix a tint of the fantastic namely under the hands of the pagan Druids, whose conflict with the rising Christianity make a good deal of the venomous web of intrigue, running side by side with the political struggle between the petty kingdoms of Britain. The story also includes the anachronistic but iconic Merlin and Lancelot, both presented with a personality twist that adds great flavour to the tale.
Cornwell is a prolific writer having written the Sharpe novels along with others tomes of historical fiction. He is a skilled man, capable of weaving fierce page turners and, perhaps more rewarding, of digging deep into History to portray as accurately as possible the customs of the time – something he probably acquired during his career as a journalist.
Throughout the novels and in the first two book in particular, one can almost feel the structured nature of his prose, how the complex chronology and every unfolding event seems to have been meticulously thought out long before any actual writing – a trait common to organized and proficient writers. But, alas, it also robs the story of its mystery as much of what passes is utterly predictable.
Don't take me wrong. The prose is extremely well-written (if not slightly over-descriptive) and the characters are expertly drawn but for the most part the books lacks the rabid flurry of inspiration. But I guess that is probably something to expect from historical fiction.
Luckily, however, the third book seems to echo the nature of the author more strongly, as characters are more willing to discuss and reflect upon themes likely committed to the (un)consciousness of the writer and the action unfolds more franticly and more on the brink of the unexpected. It is in the final book, I think, that Cornwell speaks more truly as if he had dropped his notes on Annales Cambriae and Historia Brittonum and let the keystrokes run their course.
The series is a rewarding read, profoundly instructive and imaginative and by the time it was over my heart ached and mourned for Arthur, The Once and Future King.
O ye old blind master of tale thus long
Though in darkness sole left but not of light
Removed: what heavenly orient beam
Must lone hath shone upon the intellect
Of thine and spring divine inspiration.
O weaver of the story of man: in
A single narrative alone it stands
But encompassing all the theatre
Which is humanity: what is the fall
Of fair ancestral couple first if not
The fall of every human thence: all spite
And malice, Pandemonium's domain,
Lay dormant not but endlessly renewed
As each day trial over trial's heaped.
But meekness twined along obedience,
A foul conscription fated, shatters soon:
To yearn for more than what allotted is
To tempters ever inner found transgress
Is destiny and doom to man reserved,
If self-caused doom it be for who but God
Hath tilled lone action impious upon
His seed most pure and made of guilt first free?
Can thus be sin among the offspring found,
Amid the serpent's bruisers, children all
To Eve, if she of Adam's rib was bred
And he in turn creation prime of God?
Is one fit perfect ergo capable sole
Of art imperfect? Proved thus false, decreed
The godhead then perdition void of flight.
Of tyrants chthonic is this fair land plagued
At length; what need exists of petulant
Unearthly lords? Be gone creator sad!
In mischief made, in mischief we thus fell.
But leave to us this all corrupted plane:
Though our poor beating hearts in darkness cast
With hope never brightest glimmer still
That holy edifice be built from ruin.
To free will bound, to freedom our not lost.
O father high who hath forsaken us
In our raw hour of need! So, tarry not
In cause thence solitary, made next strong:
Within ourselves long godhood we soon found.
On heaven earth and earth in heaven's gone,
Left unregainable, but I tell thee
A paradise as such is better lost.
(Thank you for reading that! Actual [practical] review: beautifully crafted verse, Milton's a true master when it comes to developing eternal characters. If you're even remotely interested in epic poetry please be kind to yourself and read this.)
“I obscenity in the milk of thy mother.”
‘What?', I though to myself. ‘Surely the .epub is corrupted! What manner of twisted syntax is this?'
Robert Jordan is a former Spanish teacher from Montana traveling to Spain to meet the fascist opposition during the Civil War. As an experienced dynamiter, he finds himself fighting behind enemy lines, along with a group of guerrilleros with a single purpose in his mind - to blow up a bridge.
Were it that simple.
Hemingway, himself a journalist in Spain during this period, managed to create a very personal account of the hardships the common folk face with the tidings of war: when you are forced to execute people you have known all your life, people with whom you shared long summer nights, because of clashing political ideologies; when you witness your father and your son being shot in front of you, your mother and your daughter being raped and then shot - the amicable and stale temper of the Spanish boils and nothing but an unending escalation of violence lays waste to the country.
The plot is interesting and most of characters are fairly well developed and captivating. However, the book lacks somewhat when it tries too hard to create an archetypical love story and just ends up with a one-dimensional female character who, though sweet and all, feels as hollow as a bucket.
Nonetheless, the jewel in the crown (or downfall to some) is the prose: you either love it or you loathe it, it seems. The book reads a lot like a Spanish text distastefully translated to English and I repeatedly heard the voice inside my head talking like a Spanish before an English-speaking audience. A fine example of this would be the sentence above: it's a transliteration of the saying “Me cago en la leche __” which means something like “I don't give a crap about __” or “What the hell!” - you get the idea. Within the context of the book it's amusing and imbues it with a certain idiosyncrasy that made me giggle inside every time I read it.
The slow momentum of the dialogues with innumerable repetitions mirrors well the easy-going, almost lazy way Hemingway attempts to portray the Spaniards and their lifes, but I understand why some might find it unsettling, if not unappropriate, to have war feel so mundane when you are in the middle of it.
It's a book worth reading and some of the passages are truly spectacularly writen: the fascists' bane in Pilar's village in the beginning of the revolution, as recounted by her; the bullfights; Sordo's last stand.
Recommended.
“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.”
I've only read a handful of graphic novels, so I perhaps lack the experience with the genre to give a more sensible review. With that said, I enjoyed the artwork alot, the noir style reminded me a lot of the Cohen's “Blood Simple”. On the other hand, the story felt ok, and a bit too straightforward for my taste, and the characters are not very interesting. Still, worth the read.