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stoutfellowI finished reading that history of Brazil yesterday. It was interesting, but I don't think that it was all that well written. Specifically, the organization left something to be desired. Still, I learned a fair bit, I think.
On the lighter side, I read Dunsany's Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley earlier in the week. It's fun, with Dunsany's usually ornate language and a rather arch tone; he indulges in rather more "Dear Reader" asides than he usually does. The story is rather picaresque, as the hero, armed with a sword, a mandolin, and a vivid imagination, sets forth to find the wars, so that he may win a castle. He falls in love from afar, picks up a Sancho Panza-like companion, finds the wars, and acquires a castle (although not quite in the way he expected). The chapter in which he engages in a duel under the balcony of the fair Serafina is quite funny. On the whole, though, it doesn't seem quite as good as my memories of his later novels, The Charwoman's Shadow and The King of Elfland's Daughter, but it's been a while since I read those. Maybe I should go back to them. (Aside: the preface claims that Dunsany's name is pronounced dun-SANE-ee rather than DUN-s'n-ee. I've been mispronouncing it for the last thirty years...)
Lawrence Watt-Evans's "Ethshar" stories are fluff, but they're fairly entertaining fluff; I reread his Ithanalin's Restoration after finishing the Dunsany. Like many of the books in that series, it's a coming-of-age story; a magician accidentally disperses his spirit into various items of furniture, and it's up to his apprentice to restore him. First, she has to retrieve all of the newly-animated objects, which requires a good deal of ingenuity. Watt-Evans has a penchant for wordplay, but he's fairly sparing with it, and it's more subtle and cleverer than that of, say, Piers Anthony. (I know, that's not saying much, but LWE has a light and deft hand which Anthony conspicuously lacks.)
My current light reading is Cabell's notorious Jurgen. It's too soon for me to comment yet.
By the way, something odd is happening on my friends list. The final segments (music, mood, comments) of three posts (so far) have come detached and, lacking a date, have floated to the top of the list. I'll have to see whether the same thing occurs on my office computer...
On the lighter side, I read Dunsany's Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley earlier in the week. It's fun, with Dunsany's usually ornate language and a rather arch tone; he indulges in rather more "Dear Reader" asides than he usually does. The story is rather picaresque, as the hero, armed with a sword, a mandolin, and a vivid imagination, sets forth to find the wars, so that he may win a castle. He falls in love from afar, picks up a Sancho Panza-like companion, finds the wars, and acquires a castle (although not quite in the way he expected). The chapter in which he engages in a duel under the balcony of the fair Serafina is quite funny. On the whole, though, it doesn't seem quite as good as my memories of his later novels, The Charwoman's Shadow and The King of Elfland's Daughter, but it's been a while since I read those. Maybe I should go back to them. (Aside: the preface claims that Dunsany's name is pronounced dun-SANE-ee rather than DUN-s'n-ee. I've been mispronouncing it for the last thirty years...)
Lawrence Watt-Evans's "Ethshar" stories are fluff, but they're fairly entertaining fluff; I reread his Ithanalin's Restoration after finishing the Dunsany. Like many of the books in that series, it's a coming-of-age story; a magician accidentally disperses his spirit into various items of furniture, and it's up to his apprentice to restore him. First, she has to retrieve all of the newly-animated objects, which requires a good deal of ingenuity. Watt-Evans has a penchant for wordplay, but he's fairly sparing with it, and it's more subtle and cleverer than that of, say, Piers Anthony. (I know, that's not saying much, but LWE has a light and deft hand which Anthony conspicuously lacks.)
My current light reading is Cabell's notorious Jurgen. It's too soon for me to comment yet.
By the way, something odd is happening on my friends list. The final segments (music, mood, comments) of three posts (so far) have come detached and, lacking a date, have floated to the top of the list. I'll have to see whether the same thing occurs on my office computer...
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Date: 2004-06-30 10:22 am (UTC)This is usually caused by some mal-formed piece of cut-and-paste HTML code that is memeing its way around. The current one seems to be "Which generic smut novel character are you? (With somewhat relevant pictures!)"
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Date: 2004-06-30 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-30 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-30 01:30 pm (UTC)