A pilgrim marches into March (2021)

March

✓1. The Alcoholic's Brother (short story) by Aleksei Panteleev (trans. by Andrew Glikin-Gusinsky) (2 pages) - 2 stars
✓2. The Coward (short story) by Aleksei Panteleev (trans. by Andrew Glikin-Gusinsky) (2 pages) - 1.5 stars
✓3. Hey, driver (poem) by Vladimir Vysotsky (trans. by Andrew Glikin-Gusinsky) - 3 stars (in Russian)/ 1 star in translation
✓4. Blackthorn Winter by Liz Williams (350 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓5. Earth to Earth: A Natural History of Churchyards by Stefan Buczacki (illus. by Felicity Price-Smith) (160 pages) - 3.5 stars
6. Darkness on his Bones by Barbara Hambly (250 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓7. The Hand (short story) by Guy de Maupassant (4 pages) - 2 stars
✓8. The Foundling by Georgette Heyer (308 pages) - 4 stars
✓9. ♪♪Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard (13 hours & 5 minutes; 340 pages) - 4.5 stars
✓10. Obsidian Shards (novelette) by Aliette de Bodard (33 pages) - 3 stars
11. Beneath the Mask (novelette) by Aliette de Bodard (44 pages) - 4 stars
12. Safe, Child, Safe (short story) by Aliette de Bodard (7 pages) - 3 stars
13. Snake Agent by Liz Williams (412 pages) - 4 stars
✓14. ♪♪Ship's Brother (short story) by Aliette de Bodard (44 minutes; 7 pages) - 4 stars
✓15. Star Ka'ats and the Plant People from Star Ka'ats by Andre Norton and Dorothy Madlee (48 pages) - 1.5 stars
16. The Melody of Death by Edgar Wallace (188 pages) - 3 stars
✓17.Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated (poem) by Mark Twain (2 pages) - 3 stars
✓18. ♪♪The Poetical Policeman (short story) by Edgar Wallace (abridged by Neville Teller, narr. by David Horovitch (28 minutes) - 3 stars

April

✓1. ♪♪The Man in the Ditch (short story) by Edgar Wallace (narr. by Edgar Wallace) (7.5 minutes) - 2.5 stars
2. Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin (trans. by Andrew Bromfield) (352 pages) - 5 stars
✓3. Crownbreaker by Sebastien de Castell (545 pages) - 4 stars
✓4. Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather (160 pages) - 3 stars
✓5. Thin Red Jellies (short story) by Lina Rather (26 pages) - 2 stars
✓6. A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Lighthouse of Quvenle the Seer (short story) by Lina Rather (8 pages) - 3 stars
7. The Dragon (play) by Evgeniy Shvarts (trans. by Yuri Machkasov) (62 pages) - 4 stars
✓8. ♪♪Carry On, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (narr. by Jonathan Cecil) (7 hours, 4 minutes) - 3 stars
✓9. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (356 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓10. A Blink of the Screen by Terry Pratchett (363 pages) - 3.5 stars

May

✓1. ♪♪The Hobbit (abridged) by J. R. R. Tolkien (narr. by Nicol Williamson) (219 minutes) - 3 stars
2. How to Survive a Pandemic: Life Lessons for Coping with Covid-19 by John Hudson (22 pages) - 4 stars
3. Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee (370 pages) - 4 stars
4. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia by Peter Pomerantsev (285 pages) - 3 stars
5. ♪♪ Digital Polish: Unit 1, Phase 1 by Pimsleur - 1.5 stars
✓6. ♪♪ An Introduction to James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson by David Timson and Peter Wickham - 3 stars
✓7. The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson - 3 stars
8. Pelagia and the Black Monk by Boris Akunin - 5 stars
✓9. The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson (388 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓10. Merlin's Mistake by Robert Newman (173 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓11. Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers (188 pages) - 2 stars
✓12. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (588 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓13. ♪♪The Booktaker by Bill Pronzini (narr. by Nick Sullivan) (87 minutes) - 1.5 stars
✓14. Be Ready: An Approach to the Mystery of Death by Hieromonk Gregorios (trans. by Michael Monos) (58 pages) - 4 stars
✓15. Palestinian women detainees in Israeli prisons by Jerusalem Center for Women (52 pages) - 3 stars
✓16. The Search for the Tinker Chief by Bríd Mahon (96 pages) - 4.5 stars
✓17. The Serpentine Road by Paul Mendelson (313 pages) - 4 stars
✓18. Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne (337 pages) - 2 stars
✓19. The Girl With the Green-tinted Hair: A Miraculous Fable (novella) by Gavin Whyte (55 pages) - 2 stars

Currently Reading


Orthodox Study Bible - OE with some NKJV prepared by the Academic Community of St Anasthasius Academy of Orthodox Theology (publ. by Thomas Nelson Publishing)
Started: 9/2/2021


The Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (trans. by Keith Bosley)
Started: 11/3/2021


The Fur Hat by Vladimir Voinovich
Started: 24/3/2021


Memento Mori by Peter Jones
Started: 11/5/2020

Kindle


Orthodox Prayer Book by Rdr. Symeon Campbell
Started: 21/8/2020


Miracles of our own Making: History of Paganism by Liz Williams
Started: 8/3/2021


The Cossacks by Philip Longworth
Started: 16/2/2021


Pandemic 1918: The Story of the Deadliest Influenza in History by Catherine Arnold
Started: 31/3/2021


Disability and Spirituality by William C. Gaventa
Started: 1/4/2021


Party Time: Raving Arizona by Shaun Attwood
Started: 14/2/2020


Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz
Started: 19/5/2021

Audiobooks


Shibumi by Trevanian (narr. by Joe Barrett)


Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (narr. by Lloyd James)


The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
Started: 5/5/2021

Viewing

March
1. Stargirl: Season 1, Episodes 1-8 (2020, English(American))
2. Monkey: Episode 1 (1979, English (Japanese))
✓3. Yolki 3: 4G (2013, Russian)
4. Detective Anna: Season 1, Episodes 43-45 (2016, Russian)
5. Apparitions: Episode 3 (2008, English)
6. The Making of the Mob: Chicago: Episodes 3-4 (2016, English (American))
✓7. The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017, English (American))
8. Wolf's Rain: Episodes 1-10 (2003, Japanese)
9. Lethal Weapon: Season 2, Episodes 1-2
✓10. Aquaman (2018, English (American))
11. Andromeda: Season 1, Episodes 2-10 (2000, English (Canadian))

April
1. Yancy Derringer: Episodes 1-3 (1958, English (American))
✓2. Chinese Zodiac (2013, Mandarin/English/Russian/French (Chinese))
3. Jeeves and Wooster: Season 1, Episode 2 (1990, English)
4. The Prisoner of Zenda (1952, English (American))
5. Journey to the West: Season 1, Episode 1 (1986, Chinese)
6. Detective Anna: Season 1, Episodes 46-51 (2016, Russian)
7. The Magicians: Season 1, Episodes 4-6 (2016, English (American))
8. Lethal Weapon: Season 2, Episode 3

May
1. Detective Anna:: Season 1, Episodes 52-54 (2016, Russian)
2. The Magicians: Season 1: Episodes 7-13 (2016, English (American))
✓3. Shazam! (2019, English (American))
4. The Magicians: Season 2: Episodes 1-13 (2017, English (American))
5. Lethal Weapon: Season 2, Episode 4
✓6. American Yakuza (1993, English ((American))
7. Leonardo: Season 1, Episodes 1-2 (2021, English)
8. The Dawns Here Are Quiet: Episode 1
9. Shtrafbat: Episodes 1-2
10. Flambards: Episode 1 (1979, English)
11. The Magicians: Season 3 (2018, English (American))
12. The Magicians: Season 4, Episodes 1-3 (2019, English (American))

Starred!

>1 -pilgrim-: White Rabbits to you, too!

>1 -pilgrim-: Hare we go again.

-pilgrim-, there was a thread where you described a Russian author trying to present himself as a good member of the Soviet Union rather than a person of aristocratic background. I said it was a different approach to that taken by Vladimir Voinovich. You asked if Voinovich had written about himself and what was his approach.

I have searched and failed to find that exchange as I want to give you a broader answer so I have decided to post my comments here.

Firstly, my comment that it was a different approach to that taken by Vlaidimir Voinovich meant that Valdimir Voinovich openly satirised the Soviet System; he did not bend over backwards to appear compliant. You are correct that it was not as dangerous a time as when the author you were writing about existed, and Voinovich did not have the aristocratic background to hide (as far as I know), but his satire did prove sufficient to have him exiled from the country.

In terms of writing about himself, I suspect a certain amount of The Fur Hat is autobiographical, or at least informed by personal experience.

>8 pgmcc: There is an interesting discussion as the introduction to Mirra Ginsburg's collection of The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire (which I read and reviewed in January) about what were the safe, approved topics for satire in each era.

Beaureaucracy, corruption, elitism, the foibles of the intelligentsia and the stupid errors of those who were not yet fully "social conscious" were the safe topics to attack.

So it depends what you mean by "the Soviet System".

Reading the summaries, it sounds like The Fur Hat is attacking academic elitism, and The Ivankiad bureaucratic corruption - both approved, safe targets.

On the other hand, although The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin is ostensibly targeting the safe subject of "the stupidity of the not fully socially conscious" - such as where our Ivan asks the question of the commissar that gets him posted to that guard duty - there are other scenes - such as the wonderful one where the mayor orders his men to disperse the crowd of villagers who have spontaneously gathered in the square because "I have not given the order for the 'spontaneous gathering of the people'" (and which he proceeds to do as soon as the crowd has dispersed). That is an attack on political authority, and genuinely subversive.

My comments about Zoshchenko playing it safe in his second autobiographical piece were in contrast to the flippant, open declarations of how often he had been in trouble with the authorities in his 1922 version:

Here is a dry table of the events in my life:
arrested -- 6 times,
sentenced to death -- 1 time;
wounded -- 3 times;
committed suicide -- 2 times;
got beaten up -- 3 times;
All this happened not because of adventurism, but "just like that"--no luck.

.
Then he was confident enough to mock himself, even if he risked being seen as a maverick in consequence.

Zoshchenko wrote "sketches" of everyday life, rather than novels. They are written in demotic Russian, and intended for publication in satirical magazines.
Try "Honest Citizen": http://sovlit.net/honestcitizen/
It is "publishable" because it is "about the evils of samogon". But of course it is really an attack on the endemic denunciation culture - not at all a safe complaint.

>7 pgmcc: Aren't you leaping to conclusions?

>6 hfglen: Thanks Hugh. (I knew I could rely on you!)

>10 -pilgrim-: And there the pun trail dies. I don't suppose anyone wants to lever it back into use?

>12 -pilgrim-: I am too busy at work so I will have to hop it.

>12 -pilgrim-: Should I suggest you hop out for a bunny chow?

March #1:

The Alcoholic's Brother (a short story) by Aleksei Panteleev (trans. Andrew Glikin-Gusinsky) - 2 stars
1/3/2021

I blame pgmcc. Our discussion about Soviet satire led me to look up the link to an online copy of one of my favourite Russian short stories, on a denunciation for moonshine manufacture (as mentioned in >9 -pilgrim-:).

So I when I found on the same page a link to another short story about another denunciation about alcohol, I had to read it.

It is funny. But it is very tepid humour compared with Voshchenko's.

Maybe it does not seem funny to me because I have dim recollections of doing the same thing myself! I think there may have been an occasion when a very young -pilgrim-, on being asked "Does your Mummy drink?" and replying "Yes" (referring to the small sherry with Sunday lunch!) I thought at time the question was quite logical, and that the other child's parent was trying to ascertain whether my mother was a teetotaller and thus would be offended by an offer of a drink. Heaven knows what she actually thought...

>12 -pilgrim-: lettuce refrain from going there...

>16 fuzzi: I think that there are enough people here who enjoy rabbiting on.

Thew puns in this place multiply like ... er ... oh dear, can't remember ...

March #2:

The Coward (a short story) by Aleksei Panteleev (trans. by Andrew Glikin-Gusinsky) - 1.5 stars
1/3/2021

So, I tried another short story by Aleksei Panteleev, with the same translator. It was even worse; trite, and so politically correct that it is painful. No human weaknesses allowed in the glorious USSR! (In other words, this is a morality tract disguised as a story for children.)

>19 -pilgrim-: ew. I don't mind morality in a story, but subtly done.

>20 fuzzi: I am not sure whether I am exactly comfortable with what the "moral" of the tale is. The punchline, as it were, is that cowards are always greedy too.

I know that this was published at the Soviet Union's darkest hour, in the year that World War II started for the USSR. So I suppose the need to inculcate virtues of courage and selflessness in its future warriors was necessary. Context explains a lot, but still...

March #3:

Hey, Driver (a poem) by Vladimir Vysotsky (trans. by Andrew Glikin-Gusinsky)
- 1 star (in translation)
- 3 stars (for the original)
1/3/2021

But then I noticed that the same translator had also translated a poem by Vladimir Vysotsky. He was a singer songwriter whom I admire greatly, but I had not read much of his poetry.

This version placed an English text alongside the Russian. I read in English first. It touched the usual themes of Russian shanson: list prisons the narrator has been in, express regret for the past (in this case that they are gone, so he cannot reunite with old friends), and hope that Russia will be a better place someday. Very standard, very anodyne - a pale shadow of what I would expect from Vysotsky.

Then I read it in Russian.

I read it out loud. It rolled off the tongue with the distinctive growling resonances of Vysotsky's lyrics. The speech rhythms were as clear as in his songs; and the slang of the underclass was the voice he is speaking in.

The translation was very "free"; the translator obviously prioritised making his version rhyme, and used sentences with roughly the same intent as the original. This approach would be tolerable if he had also captured the driving rhythm, the power of the language, instead of substituting banal doggerel.

And what is worst of all, he misses the register completely; the translation is in standard English, with a few colloquialisms. As Andrew Glikin-Gusinsky is a long term resident of New York, he could at least have tried rendering it into a New Jersey or Brooklyn dialect!

The result:
(i) I love Vysotsky as much as ever.

(ii) I wonder if I may have misjudged Aleksei Panteleev (>15 -pilgrim-: and >19 -pilgrim-:). What I took for anodyne writing may simply just be bad translating. If Panteleev also wrote in a dialect that has been expunged from the translation, then much of the point had probably been lost.

I tried to find out some more about Alexei Panteleev. I could find nothing about him in English, but also nothing on Russian Wikipedia, which is surprising.

But what I found was this: Leonid Panteleev was a famous Soviet writer of the right period. But this was a pseudonym - actually a klichka.

Aleksei Ivanovich Eremeev was the son of a Cossack officer, who had been ennobled for his service in the Russo-Japanese War, and executed, by shooting, by the Bolshevik government in 1919.

His mother fled to Yaroslavl, and to help support his family, Aleksei became involved in criminal activities. For his daring, his comrades-in-crime nicknamed him after the St. Petersburg gangster, Lyonka (i.e. Leonid) Panteleev. (The original Panteleev was himself using a pseudonym; HIS real surname was Pantelkin. He was shot dead in 1923.)

The authorities caught up with Aleksei, and he was put in an orphanage for "hard cases", where, despite the brutality in the environment, he also acquired an education. After leaving the orphanage he and a fellow inmate, Grigory Georgievich Belykh, wrote a book, The Republic of ShKID, based on their orphanage childhood., which has also been made into a film. The book was published under the pseudonym "L. Panteleev", which he maintained throughout his writing career.

They both feature as characters in the film of the book:
Grigoriy is Grigoriy Chernykh, nickname "Yankel".
Aleksei is Aleksei Panteleev, nickname "Lyonka".

Given that Leonid Panteleev appears to have been making a deliberate attempt to obscure his origins - better a professional criminal than the soon of a Cossack officer! - to the extent that his tombstone reads "Aleksei Ivanovich Panteleev-Eremeev", I do wonder whether "Alexei Panteleev" and Leonid Panteleev are the same writer.

(Certainly the website sovlit.net uses Leonid's photograph for Alexei.)

And although those two orphanage boys actually got a surprisingly good education there (including literature and foreign languages), the Republic of ShKID is full of nicknames and slang.

So I do not see any reason to assume that "Aleksei Panteleev"'s short stories were written in bland, standard Russian.

I think that my readings of his short stories tell me more about the translator than the author.

And I now want to read the Republic of ShKID. There are a lot of books around about "kids from tough backgrounds make good after meeting inspirational teacher". But they are usually from the teacher's viewpoint, not the recipients.

March #5:


Earth to Earth: A Natural History of Churchyards by Stefan Buczacki
23/12/2020-9/3/2021

I started this book last December, to fulfil the "a book about biodiversity" category in the 2020 Helmet Reading Challenge. It has been slow going because I knew a lot more about the subject already than the author seemed to expect; I have spent a lot of time wandering in churchyards, both rural and urban, so a lot of the information was already familiar to me.

That is not to say that there was not new information there; it was just a bit padded with things that I already knew.

What kept me going was the illustrations. They are wonderful. Felicity Price-Smith is a really talented artist. There are churchyard scenes, and studies of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fungi, flowers, trees and lichen. Some are sketches, most are watercolour. The style is not precise and detailed, but more flowing, often with vivid splashes of colour.

Quotations are interspersed throughout the book. Some are from studies by naturalists of earlier centuries; others are poems, by authors old and new.

There are a lot of photographs. They do not illustrate the text; they are simply there as an example of the peaceful idyll.

The book starts with a brief history of churchyards, and some statistics. There goes chapters on the various types of fauna and flora that are to be found there. The final chapter is an impassioned plea for the user of churchyards as Wildlife Conservation habitats, with a lot of practical guidance on what funding can be sought, and where to go for advice.

I did thoroughly enjoy this, in the end. The images were ideal to come back to and relax to after a stressful day, treating the text as a little extra information to add to understanding.

This is one book where reading on a Kindle Fire did not have any problems with image display. However it is so beautiful that I would recommend that anyone interested should seriously consider getting the hardback version.

I gave this book 3.5 stars as a reflection of my personal level of interest. For anyone who does not already have the real thing to enjoy, five minutes walk from their doorstep , I would say this should be a solid 5 stars.

March #4:


Blackthorn Winter (sequel to Comet Weather) by Liz Williams - 2.5 stars
22/2/2021-7/3/2021

This was a slog. I had to keep pushing myself to go back to it; yet again the interesting parts did not really start until 80% of the way through, when what is going on started to come together.

It started well; I liked the introduction of Ace, as he calls himself. But then we seemed to be getting slowly introduced to the four sisters all over again. Only this time, they are spread out all over the country, which gave the story a more disjointed feel.

I did not have the same problem with how magic was handled here as I did with Comet Weather; there is both "natural" magic and magic by ritual practitioners, but the distinction between those to whom it comes naturally (the Fallow family, who are descended from a star) and those who have chosen it as a field of study (Ace)) is clearly drawn.

But I have come to the conclusion that Liz Williams is simply not that good a writer. Her ideas are interesting, but her technique is too obviously gleaned from Creative Writing classes; you can see her following the approved recipe.

The padding is description. This is obviously intended to make the story feel "grounded". But, even though she is describing areas of England that I know well, the detail never really evokes them for me. There are dreamy sequences, as time slips, to contrast, and so to show that the characters are "real people" from our own time and place, they say "Fuck" a lot. Their ordinariness (despite peculiarities of background) is demonstrated by endless, pointless descriptions of every meal.

Like the previous book, Blackthorn Winter slips between the viewpoints of the sisters, with each chapter carefully labelled, so the that you can tell which sister it is without having to rely on the characterisation.

To try to build up tension, when there actually is none, the author repeatedly resorts to ending chapters with "little did she know, that..." (and similar abysmal clichés).

The male characters are better handled this time; Ward at least appears to have an actual personality. Sam continues to be described as a resourceful loner type whilst actually doing nothing more than tag around after either Luna or his nan. And, after a second book, we are still no further into his "I'm not actually a Romany, we have been here much longer than them" background. Yet again I feel that the author has a strong worldview built up in her head, but fails to appreciate that this is not enough; she has to convey some of it to her readers.

And there is definite tokenism on how Ward is handled. He is bisexual. We know this because Serena, who was in a relationship, tells us so, in her convenient thinking through of his history. (It makes no difference to how she - or any other character - feels about him.) At no point does he demonstrate any attraction to any male character; the love triangle is between Serena and his recently ex-girlfriend.

We only know that he is bisexual because the author tells us so. It is completely irrelevant the plot; the only purpose in declaring it is so that the author can prove how OK she is with bisexuality. It is like the ubiquitous "gay friend" of eighties popular fiction and TV; their sexuality is not part of the story, but nevertheless has to be declared in other to display the author's liberal credentials.

Any author who resorts to telling their readers about their characters' sexual orientation is simply making a political point. If it is relevant, it should come out in the story; if it is not, why should we know? Just as real life, that is not information that you automatically know about strangers, it should not be about fictional creations. It is as clumsy as the way novelists in earlier eras used to label their characters by their origins, for no particular reason. It is an effort to provide "characterization" by labels rather than attempt the more difficult task of actually portraying the character.

I thought the author has some interesting themes in her first book, and hoped the clumsiness was going to be temporary, as a result of trying to introduce her characters.

But it is just the same again, only at more length. There are some interesting ideas, but nothing is fully developed.

Portentous hints in the first book turn out to be damp squibs.

I doubt that I will read more of this series.

>24 -pilgrim-: Nice review. I make no promises of purchase, but I wouldn't say no if it stumbled across my path. :)

>26 MrsLee: Looks to me like you are hiding a wound and are trying to slip away without admitting you have been hit.

The Hand (radio play) by Michael Robson - 2 stars
Dir.: Derek Hoddinot
(adapted from The Hand by Guy de Maupassant)

I listened to a short radio play, in which the narrator meets an English former officer, Sir John Rowell, who is living in retirement in Corsica. He used to be an avid "big game". hunter, but states himself to be now being hunted himself by "the most dangerous animal of all".

The story follows the standard structure of the Gothic horror story: the narrator makes a new acquaintance and gets on well with him, the acquaintance tells him something strange that he finds horrifying and incredible, then, at a future point, that which the acquaintance spoke of comes fruition.

It was completely unexceptional.

The play was based on The Hand by Guy de Maupassant.

I have only read one short story by Guy de Maupassant before - The Necklace. It had a major impact on me.

So I was surprised to think that he could have also written something so trite. Then I found an online review of de Maupassant's story, and how the creepiness of the object was increased by its origins being left unexplained. Since this story mostly consisted of the backstory of the object, and the anticipation built up by this, I have to conclude that this is another example of an adaptation misconstruing the original author's intent.

The play therefore has to stand or fall on its own merits. As such, it is a fairly standard example of gothic horror.

>28 -pilgrim-: I cannot remember reading Maupassant’s The Hand but I have read many of his stories and would be surprised if he wrote a story that proved trite.

I am off to scan the contents of my Maupassant volumes to see if I have The Hand.

I have four books of his stories and The Hand is not in any of them. I must begin a hunt.

https://americanliterature.com/author/guy-de-maupassant/short-story/the-hand

Oddly, I don't remember this one either, although I reread my Maupassant anthology several times over the years. This sounds more like Lovecraft than Maupassant to me.

>30 pgmcc: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3082

>32 -pilgrim-: That was going to be my next port of call.

>33 pgmcc: And I have now read it. And to be honest, I was not impressed.

Meredy? Peter? Your thoughts on it?

ETA: Actually, I think the play was better.

>34 -pilgrim-: It is a simple, fireside spooky story, designed, I imagine, to be told in exactly the type of situation described in the story. The target audience would be the genteel ladies of the assembly and the story is intended to trigger the reader's, or listener's, own imagination, as Hitchcock would claim, the best tool for scaring someone. People in those days would not have been as sophisticated as people of today.

Guy de Maupassant's stories are often more intricate than The Hand. I suggest you try a few more of his stories before you dismiss him out of hand. I suggest you try, The Duel* and Boule de Suif.

My wife and I owe M. Guy de Maupassant a debt of gratitude in relation to his being the reason for our receiving excellent service on three evenings in a little bistro in Combourg, Brittany. The bistro is located right next to the Chateau de Combourg which was the home of François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, the person the beautiful beef dish is named after.

We entered the establishment just after its opening time of 7:30pm. Two ladies were running the dining area. One, the older of the two, was getting the complicated looking coffee contraption ready for the evening as we entered. She looked at us and obviously made us for tourists. She grabbed two menus and brought us to a table near where she had been working with the coffee machine. It was clear she did not speak English and was quite surly with us. It would appear she thought us English and this did not impress her. After leaving us to our table she returned to her work at the coffee machine while we looked at the menus.

Having identified what we wanted to order my wife and I discussed various things including what we were reading at the time. As it happens I was reading a collection of Maupassant's stories and said, "I am reading a collection of stories by Guy de Maupassant." I of course pronounced Guy in the appropriate French way.

The lady at the coffee machine had been making some comments to her colleague and we realised these comments were about us. "Ils sont anglais." was one of the phrases we heard. However, after I mentioned Guy de Maupassant we heard a whispered comment, with an impressed tone, to her friend, "Oh! Maupassant." She appeared to lighten her mood at that point and very quickly came to our table to take our order. She was no longer surly.

Making polite conversation she said, "Vous êtes anglais? Non?". When we told her we were Irish she got positively friendly.

We ordered Kir to start with. Now, the menu had three versions of kir:
Kir - white wine with blackcurrant liqueur
Kir Royale - champagne with blackcurrant liqueur
Kir Breton - Breton cider with blackcurrant liqueur

She asked which type of kir we wanted and I responded, "Kir Breton, bien sûr!" (Kir Breton, of course.)

She was extatic. She was obviously an enthusiastic Breton and from that moment on we were long lost relatives and were treated as such. We ate there on two more evenings and on our return trips we were greeted with great cheer and fussed over all night. They made us feel like cousins calling in after a long absence.

Merci, M. Maupassant.

And this post is the result of your not liking a play.

*Touchstones not working well on this one. When I click 'other' I am provided with a list of possible stories. When I click the story by Maupassant the resulting touchstone takes me to a story by Chekov. This process has been repeated twice with the same results. I must agree with Mr Einstein that to do the same again and expect a different result would be madness.

>35 pgmcc: love your story!

>35 pgmcc: Guy de Maupassant's stories are often more intricate than The Hand. I suggest you try a few more of his stories before you dismiss him out of hand.

You appear to have missed the part of >28 -pilgrim-: where I wrote:

I have only read one short story by Guy de Maupassant before - The Necklace. It had a major impact on me.

I AM British (albeit not very English). I do "do understatement". By "had a major impact" I meant:
I read this when I was fourteen, in a magazine (yes, in my day, this short of thing was included in a magazine aimed at young people). I found it devastating and it haunted me for years afterwards. But the apparent callousness of the narration towards the protagonists - particularly the husband, who appears to suffer through no fault of his own - chilled me to such an extent that it has taken me until now to revisit this author.

How is that dismissing the author - as opposed to this little story - "out of hand"?

As a horror tale, I was judging The Hand not so much by the standards of modern works in that genre (which I don't tend to read), but the likes of M. R. James, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens, who are more or less his contemporaries.

Certainly I hold to my opinion that the The Hand (1883) is trite compared to say, Whistle and I'll Come to You (1906), The Withered Arm (1888) or The Signalman (1866).

But then again, the translation I read was anonymous. We have discussed before how much difference the translator's work makes, and I had a recent lesson (>22 -pilgrim-:) in how much damage a poor translator can do. It may have suffered similarly.

>3 -pilgrim-: What did you think of Carry on, Jeeves? I've listened to the Jonathan Cecil recording too... I do like P G Wodehouse and the plumbiness of the way they're read.

>38 Tane: I am taking a chapter at a time, rather than continuously, since they are really independent short stories. I do not usually get on well with audiobooks

But I think Jonathan Cecil is absolutely PERFECT here. He makes Bertie likeable, whilst Hugh Laurie's portrayal (in the TV series) made him so idiotic as to be simply irritating. Cecil brings out that he is a fundamentally good-natured ass.

March #14:

♪♪Ship's Brother (a Xuya Universe short story) by Aliette de Bodard - 4 stars

This is my first return to the Xuya Universe since the first story that I they read by Aliette de Bodard, The Tea Master and the Detective.

This is a culture, Vietnamese in origin (like the author), where human mothers give birth to Minds, that are then symbiotically joined to a ship that has been prepared for them by engineers, thus becoming a sentient ship, capable of the long journeys through Deep Space. A ship can project an avatar of itself outside itself, and thus, for example, attend a family party, yet they are much longer-lived then humans, as no longer bound by human biology.

In The Tea Master and the Detective, we saw this concept from the point of view of a ship. Here we see it from the outside, in a letter addressed by a mother to her son, about his relationship with his sister, a ship.

The author has created a richly detailed society, of which here there are only glimpses. The strength of this story is in its portrayal of family relationships, and a gifted young man who is nursing a deep, secret anger.

Having read several of her works set in pre-colonial Mexico, and now in the Xuya Universe, I find it hard to understand how she could also have written the Dominion of the Fallen sequence. The heartlessness at the centre of those stories contrasts strongly with the warmth of emotion in her other work. In these, she writes of very alien cultures but invests her characters with real personality, depth and feeling.

I listened to this first as an audiobook, a Clarkesworld Magazine podcast, then skimmed the text to get things like the spelling of names.

(I am trying to overcome my aversion to this form of storytelling, as it would be more convenient at present, and I am inspired by YouKneek's example.)

>40 -pilgrim-: Do you mean you're trying to listen to more audiobooks? I am as well, and sometimes it works better than others! Are you using earbuds or speakers or what?
Best of luck.

>41 clamairy: Yes, because with an audiobook I can move around. Nothing as fancy as earbuds or speakers - just leaving my phone on my desk, set to "play".
(Speakers could be a good move, if I manage to acclimatise to this.)

I agree that the narrator's voice makes a significant difference to how acceptable the process is.

>42 -pilgrim-: For years I used the plug-in kind of earbuds, not fancy at all. (They came free with the phone.) I did get into a few tangles with them when working outside. 🤣 Learned to keep the wire inside the back of my shirt. (Which only works if the shirt is not tucked in.)

>43 clamairy: From which I discern that clamairy primarily wears trousers. ;-) (I tend to wear dresses more myself, as it seems easier to get the hem of the length that I prefer, that way. Trousers are no longer really practical.)

No, my objections to ear buds is that I have never found them comfortable - they tend to take the skin off, and make my ears bleed. The whole personal music device thing passed by for that reason.

>42 -pilgrim-: Narrators can make or break audiobooks. I hope you find some narrators that work for you.

I have wireless ear buds that let me move around the whole house no matter where I've left the phone which is quite handy as I like to listen to books while I clean. That doesn't sound like it will work for you though. Maybe an arm band like runners use for your phone? Then you could change rooms and keep your hands free while keeping your phone in listening distance, if that was a concern.

>40 -pilgrim-: I hope you’re able to get the audiobook thing to work for you! It really does have a lot of benefits when it works out, although it will never be my preferred format.

March #15:


Star Ka'ats and the Plant People: Book 3 in Star Ka'ats by Andre Norton and Dorothy Madlee - 1.5 stars
5/2/2021-24/3/2021

This is the third book in this series that I have read and will probably be the last. Despite being so short, it was a slog to get through, because the themes were so repetitive of those in the previous books.

This was not so patronising towards Elly Mae; she was not timid, as in the previous book, because she was more upset than Jim about the dreadful harm that they unwittingly do. It is also noticeable that the authors seem to have got bored with trying to write "black speech". There is less difference in how the children speak, with occasional throwbacks to something extremely idiomatic.

But the same method of problem-solving that they have used before remains the preferred method: "if you find something that you do not understand, try smashing it".

And my unease about how the Ka'ats treat the children remains. Although the children obviously love and idolise the individual Ka'ats by whom the children are claimed as "kin" (which means "I take responsibility for", essentially a form of adoption), I never felt this was reciprocated. Given the history of the relationship - the Ka'ats were spies on Earth who cozied up to the children because "human young are more easily manipulated" and they needed a base of operations and information sources; they then kidnapped the children, partially because Earth was about to be destroyed, but also, I think, because the children having followed them meant that they knew too much - it seems very reluctant on their part. There are no mentions of them spending any time in the company of the children for pleasure. They are obviously in a parental rôle, since the Ka'ats in general consider the children to come from a very inferior species, yet they show no real concern for their welfare and safety.

The children are often sent into dangerous situations alone, because the problem is better dealt with by human rather than Ka'at physique, whilst it is continuously instilled into them that they are inferior because they do not have any telekinetic skills, and are weak at telepathy compared to the Ka'ats.

There seems to be a double standard running, that the children are subject to control as juveniles, but continually expected to justify their worth, as inferior beings graciously permitted to live in Ka'at society.

The positive point in this story are the sentient plants. The idea that just because they have neither mammalian physique nor speech did not mean that they lack either intelligence or feelings is a good one. Even when the children establish communication, it is as the level of sharingemotions; there is never any approximation to speech. When this story was written, in the seventies, it was still common to correlate alien "worth" to how humanoid they appear, so this is a nice development.

It is not an attitude shared by the racist Ka'ats of course. They are reluctant to accept that the plants' feelings should be of any concern of theirs. They only take an interest when the fact that children CAN communicate with them means that they can see a way to profit from them. The children are praised for their finding a resource for the Ka'ats to exploit. The idea of revising their xenophobic attitudes is never mentioned, because the Ka'ats assumption that they, and their society are superior to everyone else is never questioned. There is no joy in encountering strangers who are different, and experiencing different ways of living; the "other" is only of interest as "how do we profit from this?"

The Ka'at attitude mirrors the stereotype of how Americans regard the rest of the world. (That attitude undoubtedly exists, but I seriously doubt that it is actually ubiquitous.) It is uncomfortable to wonder whether Andre Norton really shared that worldview. Given the way she treats racial and species difference in the Witch World and Moonsinger I find this hard to believe, and am inclined to attribute these elements to her co-author. However, given that Dorothy Madlee was a schoolteacher, I find it worrying to think that she was promulgating these elitist attitudes in her classes.

Or are the Ka'ats allowed to be racial supremacist because they are close kin to cats, and we all know that cats think like this?

March #9:


♪♪Servant of the Underworld: Book 1 of Obsidian and Blood by Aliette de Bodard (narrated by John Telfer) - 4.5 stars
2/6/2020-19/3/2021

This story is set in the year One-Knife in Tenochtitlan, capital of the Mexica Empire. Its narrator is the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, whose preserve is the dead.

This novel is set in 15th century Mexico, as it was before the Europeans discovered it, with one major exception: this is the world as the Aztecs believed it to be. The gods are real and they are not benevolent. Each of the previous Four Worlds was first created and then destroyed by a god. The work of the priests is to propitiate these beings and prevent the end of the Fifth World.

It is essential work, and Acatl chose to devote himself to this field. Helping the dead find their way to the appropriate destination gives him a sense of satisfaction; what makes him frustrated and unhappy is the frequent assumption - particularly by members of his own family - that he must be a coward, otherwise he would have tried for glory and honour as a warrior.

He does not enjoy court politics in the slightest, and is frustrated that it was the manoeuvrings of Ceyaxochitl, the elderly Guardian, and servant of the Duality, that got him appointed High Priest - and hence involved him in such matters.

He is thus irritated when Ceyaxochitl summons him, from the middle of the funeral rites that he was performing, to investigate the disappearance of a priestess from the girls' calmecac (a sort of school). Why involve a priest? Well, of course Acatl has links to Mictlan, the realm of the dead. And magic may be involved. Because it is not just the gods, all the weird and manacing creatures that the Aztecs believed in are real too. A priest's powers make him similar to a magician, in some senses.

This took me a long time because I was "reading" it via audiobook. That was possibly not the best choice for a story with a large cast, many of whose names do not trip easily off my tongue. On the plus side, John Telfer does a wonderful job of portraying Acatl as a rather sad man, weary with the pettiness he sees around him, yet quietly determined to do his best to avoid what is right.
(My eventual solution was to listen with a copy of the text, borrowed from Kindle Unlimited, handy, and use that, firstly to get the characters clear in my head, and then to read over the more complicated scenes. The hybrid approach worked.)

I have ranted before about "historical" novels that have no sense of the culture in which they are supposedly set, featuring protagonists with inanely modern attitudes. This is the complete antithesis to that approach.

Paradoxically, this "historical fantasy" is a lot more historically accurate than many historical novels. The setting in terms of lifestyle, legal system etc. is as accurate as the author could make it. (She lists the texts that she used for her research at the back, along with notes of the few deliberate assumptions that she made without evidence.)

It takes the Aztec world view seriously. The characters do a lot of things that we would consider revolting, and the bloodshed is incessant. But it is simply accepted, by everyone, as essential to prevent the world from ending. And the religious beliefs are taken seriously too. There is no anachronistic assumption that the priests are inventing a religion to manipulate the masses - they may be politically manoeuvring for a good position at court, but their religion is genuine; and after all, manoeuvring for power takes place amongst the gods too.

What makes this book for me is the way that it brings to life characters that live in a society very different from ours, whose hopes and beliefs are those of their time and place, not ours, yet still have the same human relationships and emotions as we do.

Although a supernatural mystery story, at heart this is a story about family relationships: about misunderstandings, personality clashes, obstinacy, jealousy.

I ended up caring about Acatl and his family - even that arrogant idiot, Neutemoc.

That is the genius of this novel: it takes people whose lifestyle, baldly described, sounds horrible, and turns them into real human beings, with whom we can empathise, by accepting their worldview and evaluating their actions in that context.

I find it hard to conceive that this is the author who created the cold, unempathetic characters of Dominion of the Fallen (although the same attention to detail in world-building is present there). It is a return to the form of The Tea Master and the Detective - the short book, set in the Xuya Universe, that first introduced me to the richness and humanity of her writing.

>48 -pilgrim-: Glad to see you enjoyed this. That's a very high rating for you, isn't it?

>49 clamairy: Yes, it is. To get a 5 a book has to have some permanent impact. This is just a very good novel, that I have no criticisms of. (And you know that I have nit-picking tendencies!)

Come to think of it, it was refreshing to have a protagonist who has no romantic involvements, attachments, or regrets. He is a celibate priest so it simply does not come up.

Re: Servant of the Underworld:

Like most societies of that era, the Mexica Empire had considerable social inequality. This novel makes no attempt to hide this. Peasant existence is miserable; particularly when there is famine - as there was a few years before the start of the book. Slavery is commonplace - and selling yourself as a slave may be the best solution to starvation or poverty, since the master is responsible for the well-being of his household.

The story necessarily focuses on the upper classes, because they are the only people with sufficient free agency, not either obeying orders or working all hours just to get by. But that does not mean everyone else is just a cipher. Each character, whatever their social status, is described as carefully and with equivalent detail of personality, as any other.

I find it ridiculous when anachronistic modern attitudes are given to people who had never considered that any other structure of society was possible. It is by treating all characters as equally worthy of attention, because they are all people, whatever their social status, that we affirm that we do not share the view that"only some people matter".

I cannot help contrast how slavery is treated here with is portrayal in Washington Black, which I read in June last year. That was a book that purported to be about the injustices of slavery; yet it was the white characters that occupied centre stage, their appearance and behaviours described in detail, while many black characters were sketchily delineated, their personalities ciphers. In its focus, it treated slave characters as secondary - inferior.

In Servant of the Underworld, no character suggests that there is anything wrong with slavery (or with human sacrifice, or flaying people alive, for that matter). Yet it is implicit, in the way social status does not determine the importance of the character. That is what demonstrates fundamental human equality. We are all people.

I complain a lot about inaccuracy in historical fiction. This book is an excellent example of how it is perfectly possible to portray unpleasant ideologies without in any sense buying into them.

March #10:


Obsidian Shards (an Obsidian and Blood short story) by Aliette de Bodard - 3 stars

I read this immediately after completing Servant of the Underworld. It is the first story that Aliette de Bodard wrote about Acatl, Priest of the Dead, and, being first published in 2006, it may actually be her first published work. (I can find nothing earlier than 2006 in her bibliography.)

Its setting is earlier in the life of Acatl too. Here he is a simple priest in Colhuacan. His temple is a simple affair in a back street, where those who are grieving come to learn of their loved one's intimate fate, and seek resolution.

In this story he is consulted by a local magistrate, who has found something strange in the death of a local dignitary.

There is more background here for the somewhat ambivalent feelings Acatl has for his patron deity, and what happened to his apprentice, Payaxin.

>48 -pilgrim-:, >51 -pilgrim-: You've expressed perfectly what it is that I like so much about these books, and what may turn some readers off. The characters are so very much of their world, not 21st century inserts who criticise what they see around them. As you say, the author manages to subtly critique the system without resorting to blunt methods. I very much like Acatl as narrator and protagonist; he is so calm and persistent - a refreshingly mature hero. And now I will have to track down the short story from >52 -pilgrim-:.

>53 Sakerfalcon: The short story (and others) are available through links on the author's website.

>54 -pilgrim-: Thanks! I will have a look on my lunch break

>51 -pilgrim-: Your review of Servant of the Underworld was so interesting because I agree that the historical setting and character relationships were done very well. I was rather disappointed in the climax of the story, though. Towards the beginning of the story, I loved how the fantasy elements were subtle and grounded in myth, but the climax took those fantasy elements too literally and made them ... sort of un-magical, to me. It was definitely a worthwhile read (thanks, Sakerfalcon -- I believe you originally recommended it to me!) but I really didn't feel like continuing on in the series if that was the type of ending I could expect.

>56 Kanarthi: I think I see what you mean. You would have preferred it if the reality of the gods had been more ambivalent, rather than such a direct intervention into the Fifth World?

Have you tried the three short stories, beginning with Obsidian Shards? I am curious as to whether they would be more to your liking?

>57 -pilgrim-: Hmm, it's been maybe two years since I read it, so my memory is imperfect, but... oh, heck, let me go peek at the last two chapters again. Okay.... it wasn't just going into the Fifth World, it was also that the confrontation involved such physical aspects -- fighting against water and trying to swim, grabbing the child, using a knife. It seemed like it was a scene from an action movie or television series, not a fantasy novel. I also enjoyed the family drama earlier in the novel but thought that it intruded on the climax. If the struggle were supposed to be primarily physical, you didn't really feel any of the sensations because there were so many dialogue interruptions. I like the idea of dead family members interfering with the main character, but I felt that the ideal tone would be more dreamlike. There were a lot of different elements being tossed around, but the main character didn't have any special insights, spiritual or personal. He just tried really, really hard and did action-hero things, and that was sufficient. None of the elements of the struggle (spiritual, interpersonal, physical) made a strong enough impression. I also vaguely remember being dissatisfied at the scope of the gods' plans, which didn't seem to match the rest of the story, but I can't remember enough details. Half of that might be me misremembering or misreading now, but that's my honest impression.

I have not tried any of her short stories. I could check them out, as you mentioned that they're free online, but I'm not a big fan of the short story format in general. I will say that I quite enjoy her twitter presence!

>58 Kanarthi: I think you meant Mictlan, rather than the Fifth World, there. I am intrigued by your summary because it is such a different reaction to my own. For me, Acatl did have real depth as a character, as a man who has made his own life choices, yet is unable to throw off his family's characterisation of them as "cowardice". I think the almost casual involvement of Acatl in the action heroics at the end is a necessary plot development, because it demonstrates to the reader that he is just as brave as his warrior brother - he just has no urge to "win glory". He performs brave actions simply because they are necessary, to preserve the Fifth World (the one we live in).

I said in >51 -pilgrim-: that the narrative undercuts slavery by how it treats slave characters; this aspect likewise undercuts the warrior ethos - not by overtly critiquing it, but by showing the bravery that exists apart from the warriors' sphere. Acatl is not an aberration, "a priest who should have been a warrior", as is shown by the way that almost all the priests of the Dead volunteer their skills for the final conflict.

Acatl is a mixture of insecurity and bitterness, as a result of how he has been treated by his family. Feelings of unworthiness have caused him to shirk his rôle as High Priest. The conclusion helps him realise that he Is where he ought to be, and shoulder all aspects of his rôle (confirming Ceyaxochitl's judgment of him). I would characterise the story as a "hero's journey" - a personal development narrative.

ETA:Acatl is so troubled by his family's condemnation of his choices, and resentment towards the brother who embodies his parents' ideal for their sons, that he has never realised that Neutemoc is himself struggling with the demands of the warrior ideal, and that the Jaguar Kinght's judgemental attitudes stem from his own insecurity.

Meanwhile their little sister is actually the most skilled at magic - yet is choosing to reject the path of priestess, at which she seems likely to be extremely successful, because her ambition is motherhood. Both brothers have been neglecting HER, so I am intrigued as to how her relationship to Teomitl is going to progress. Family is at the heart of this story.

Why I found your reaction so interesting is that I disagree totally, when applying it to Servant of the Underworld, but it pretty accurately matched my complaints about her The House of Shattered Wings (the first book in the Dominion of the Fallen sequence) .

One other aspect that I like about Servant of the Underworld is: it is refreshing to find an author who understands what can motivate a person to become a priest, and make those sacrifices, without assuming that they are a cover for other ambitions. Priests in novels tend to be either idealised, or hypocrites - or priests only in name, because that is what the author designates them.

It was refreshing to find a portrayal of one as an ordinary man, with a vocation to serve humanity (even if, in his case, this is by becoming a priest of the Dead).

A lot of writers take it as given that modern society is superior in every way to those of the past. In Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard has a much less smug approach. Without ever glossing over or denying the horrific aspects of Aztec society, she also presents the ways in which it was superior to our own:

It was a genuine meritocracy. Usually when politicians claim a meritocracy today they mean that you can buy privilege instead of inherit it.
In the Mexica Empire, the son of peasants could become a member of nobility through service to the state. Conversely, a noble could become a slave, as a result of his crimes.

There was not "equality in the eyes of the law" - but not in the way that we are accustomed to expect. Instead of privilege buying milder punishment or exculpation from offences, Aztec society equated higher rank with greater responsibility; the higher your social status, the more severely you were punished for a crime.

It does not outweigh all the violence and inequality, and I certainly have no desire to have lived there then, but it is nice to find an author neither romanticising the past nor patronising it.

>62 -pilgrim-: interesting take on the society. I dislike how some proclaim that the current is the most advanced and best society ever.

>63 fuzzi: And usually that means the speaker's own society, with little comprehension that multiple societies, with different structures and values, actually currently coexist!

>64 -pilgrim-: no disagreement here.

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 8

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

March Summary

Average rating: 3
Weighted average: 3.49
Audio book weighted average: 4.36

15 fiction:
Novels: 2 urban fantasy, 2 historical fantasy, 1 historical novel, 1 crime fiction
Novella: 1 children's science fiction
Novelette: 2 historical fantasy
Short stories: 2 humour, 1 historical fantasy, 1 horror, 1 science fiction, 1 crime fiction

2 poems

1 non-fiction: 1 biodiversity

Original language: 14 English, 3 Russian, 1 French

Earliest date of first publication: 1915 (The Melody of Death)/1883 (The Hand) (short story)
Latest: 2020 (Blackthorn Winter)

7 website, 5 Kindle, 3 audiobooks, 2 hardback, 1 paoerback, 1 PDF

Authors: 7 male, 7 female
Author nationality: 6 American, 5 British, 2 Russian, 2 French
New (to me) authors: 5 (9 familiar)

Most popular book on LT: The Foundling (1,251)
Least popular: Earth to Earth (12)/The Alcoholic's Brother/The Coward (short stories)/Hey Driver/Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated (poem)(only me)

No. of books read: 18
From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 2
Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 2
No. of books acquired: 24 (21 ebooks, 3 paperbacks)
No. of books disposed of: 1
Expenditure on books: £32.28

Best Book of March: Servant of the Underworld
Worst Book of March: Star Ka'ats and the Plant People/Hey, Driver (poem)

April #1:
♪♪The Man in the Ditch (short story) by Edgar Wallace - 2 stars

Rather unexpectedly, this is about London hand warfare having spilt over into rural Oxfordshire.
The narrator is driving in the country, acts as the Good Samaritan, and finds it a more dangerous occupation than he anticipated.

This was first released as a 78rpm.record in 1928, and the narration was by Edgar Wallace himself. It is a nice reminder that although he is often referred to as a "working class author", he spoke like an average Englishman. (The "cor blimey gov" speech, beloved of Hollywood movies, never was genuinely representative of working class speech.)

>39 -pilgrim-: I agree - I think he does a great job of making Bertie likeable.

March #18:

♪♪The Poetical Policeman (short story) by Edgar Wallace - 3 stars
Read by David Horovitch
Abridged by Neville Teller
Radio 4 Extra (2007)
28 minutes
30/3/2021

A quiet, intelligent detective works for the Public Prosecutor. There is a bank robbery, and the police think it is a simple case, because their suspect has a prior conviction.

Being observant, Mr. J. G. Reeder disagrees. Neat, logical solution, but the explanation of the crime itself was ingenious.

David Horovitch's quiet, calm narration suited Mr Reeder's understated manner very well.

Another enjoyable crime mystery.

I am rather stressed at the moment, and with little time to read. Hence the rather eclectic short reads, such as this poem:

March #17:

Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated by Mark Twain - 3 stars

I can't across this while I was researching Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Howe, apropos of a title of an Andromeda episode. I half-remembered it from my school hymnbook - yes, my very English grammar school did sing a version very American hymn (with gusto)!

In the process I discovered this satirical rewrite by Mark Twain, first published posthumously, in 1958.

Its attack on America's war aims in "the East" as being motivated by "greed" is similar to many that I have heard over the past couple of decades. But this was written in 1900!

Its context was the Filipino-American War - of which I had never previously heard - which resulted in the American overthrow of the First Philippine Republic and subsequent occupation of the islands.

It is fascinating to see how current accusations were first being made (by an American citizen) over 100 years ago.

It was not what I expected from Twain at all. My previous impression of him has been of a somewhat aggressive idealisation of America and its motives. This was a new side of him, for me.

>71 -pilgrim-: I'm a little surprised you hadn't heard of this previously. I'd love to discuss it further, but I'm not sure we can without getting into politics. It was the Spanish-American war that got the US control of Cuba and the Philippines, it seems likely that is what Twain was opposing, at least the Treaty terms that ended the war.

>71 -pilgrim-: There is a gap in my school history between the reign of James II (which we had reached by the end of the 3rd year, and which did cover some of the early colonisation of the Americas) and "the causes of the First World War", which is where my GCE "O"-level history syllabus started. My history teacher took the causes back to the Franco-Prussian War, but really what was going on across the Atlantic had no bearing on that. My private reading fills in gaps, but there will be omissions.

My previous experience of Twain's writing has been The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court and Pudd'nhead Wilson - plus the odd short.

I am interested in what you have to say on the topic. You could send me via private message if you feel what you would write would come too near political themes.

I deliberately kept my review to how this caused me to revise my impression of Twain for that reason, but any further context that you can provide would be most welcome.

>73 -pilgrim-: Thanks, I'll do that. It is a bit late for that, so I'll get to it tomorrow, likely.

April #4:


Sisters of the Vast Black (novella) by Lina Rather (160 pages) - 3 stars

I cannot remember who fired this BB.

This is a novella about a community of ten Roman Catholic nuns sailing amongst the remotest colonies of the known universe in a living ship.

The plot moves from their being troubled by a theological issue regarding the rights of their ship to self-determination to a rather more familiar ethical problem, as we move from the realm of theological debate to politics, and the conflict between vows and moral duty.

The characterisation was nicely done, particularly of the sisters. But the "twists" of the plots were all so well signposted that there were no real surprises (except the final one, which succeeds by merely by being inconsistent).

The sense of community is done well, as is the understanding of the variety of reasons for which a woman may become a religious.

However, I felt the understanding of Catholic belief was rather weak. One nun is known to the Mother Superior to be weak in faith, and to have joined for motives that involve a desire to do good, but are not specifically religious. The Mother Superior forbids her to carry out baptisms, marriages or funerals because

Those are sacred duties and I will not have them cheapened

Now the first two are sacraments that, in current thinking, can be carried out without a priest's presence. The first can be done by any believer and the second by the couple themselves, with either unless that is impossible (although in both cases one should wait for a priest unless the situation is urgent). A funeral is not in itself a sacrament, although the usual form is a funeral mass (and the mass is a sacrament that only a priest can conduct).

Instead this nun is to "comfort the dying", which presumably includes the administering of the Vistacum and the sacrament of Extreme Unction.

The novella states the position after the Fourth (and fictional) Vatican Council as

A century ago the Fourth Vatican Council had allowed sisters of the religious life to perform every sacrament but confession, confirmation, and ordination. There weren’t enough priests out in the black to do it. And anyway, that was how it had been in the beginning.

It seems to be odd that someone would be enabled to administer Extreme Unction, which involves the absolution of the sins of the dying person, but not confession, which involves absolution of the sins of the person confessing. (One can make confession to anyone, it is the power to absolve the sins so confessed, in God's name, that is reserved to a priest.)

The administration of the consecrated host can be done by a lay person, when no priest is available (and is often done this way nowadays in remote religious communities). Since the sisters in the novella collect shipments of "communion wafers" presumably they are actually collecting consecrated elements and following the same practice. So these nuns would be able to administer the Viaticum.

But it seems perverse to forbid the nun whose faith is weak to perform the sacraments which only social convention ascribes to a priest, and give her the roles that most need a priest - both sacramentally, an acting as the conduit of God, in administering absolution, and theologically, in providing spiritual comfort and guidance to the one passing.

There is another throwaway statement about Sister Ewostatewos that does not make sense: Her father was an Ethiopian Orthodox and her mother a Catholic, which she intimated was a strange partnership. Lately, Sister Gemma had wanted to ask her how she had come to pick one over the othe,. Since the Coptic Orthodox Church did not accept the marriage of its members to those who are not full members of that Church, the decision will have been made by her parents in order to marry. She would have been brought up one thing or the other.

Obviously, since this is set in the future, the author may have decided that the doctrines of the Coptic Church have changed. But why then is she expecting her readers to know what Catholic doctrines are in the future? Why should they not have changed too?

The author has stated that this novella was partly written to "work through" her own feelings towards Catholicism. Once you make a religion a central point of your story, I feel you are obligated to represent it fairly, whether you agree with it or not. If you want to invent a new religion for your purposes, that is fine, but it is disingenuous to give it the name of a current one (without somehow stating the changes that you are making).

The physics was likewise somewhat poorly thought through. It is emphasised how the economics of space travel for them is borderline, and that they have to calculate carefully regarding food and oxygen supplies and can carry little baggage. The difficulties of communication are also emphasised - messages can take months to be relayed via intermediate stations and vessels, and can arrive out of sequence or may be lost altogether.

I find the time scale of "months" odd. Four solar systems are are mentioned. The means of propulsion are not covered, other than the fact that living ships function more efficiently than "dead" (i.e. mechanical) ships. There seems to be no "faster than light" travel (such as "hyperspace") evoked. Without that, the timescales for travel from earth to the fourth solar system should be longer; with it, why such delays?

But, given these assumptions, the following is inconsistent: the story has a man sent to join the convent community. When they meet him at a space station, he is not surprised when told that the community has not received notification of his arrival. Nevertheless, he simply goes on board - with considerable quantities of luggage. How the ship is to cope with this significant extra burden, with food supplies (both for inhabitants and the ship itself) ordered on the basis of the original occupants, is never addressed by anyone.

However the load is inconsistently described. Sister Gemma is described as having to monitor the ship carefully as "ten human lives strained it", even though there are only seven nuns on board at the time.

The author attempts to be inclusive - the cook on another ship is of non-binary gender, but it remains that although not all male characters are evil, all the evil characters are male. Combining this with a plot about an evil president using the all-male Vatican hierarchy as an instrument of his evil schemes, this novella seems to have a deliberate subtext regarding the dangers of patriarchy.

But a war criminal, an extremely competent woman, who excuses her actions with "I only did it to please my husband" undercuts this. Equal authority must imply equal culpability.

Furthermore, the author's habit of not thinking things through leads to another hypocritical conclusion. MAJOR SPOILER: The nuns decide that their ship is a sentient being, and as such should be allowed to choose its own mate.
Nevertheless no one feels any criticism, or even qualms or sorrow, when the Mother Superior when she uses electrical compulsion to force the pregnant ship to commit suicide because its kamikaze attack run may enable the sisters to save some humans (from other humans).

And the illogicality, both in the theology and the science, were things that I found rather irritating. If the story were more original, I should have been more likely to discount them.

However, the political warnings were argued rationally enough, if you have not heard them before.

This was well enough done that I don't feel I wasted my time, but it could so easily have been a lot better. It is however, the author's debut novella, so I will probably try more of her work.

And I did love this aphorism:

He was very well-meaning, and like most people who were well-meaning and ignorant, he bulldozed through everything in his way with not even a thought.

(Revised)

Re Sisters of the Vast Black:
I found the three section headings rather oddly chosen. The second was certainly apposite, and the third, although not particularly apt, had some, relevance, but the first?
Orate Fratres - literally, Pray, Brothers! is the Incipit addressed by the celebrant to the people before the Secrets i(the consecration of the elements) in the Roman Mass. It is answered: "May the Lord receive the sacrifice from thy hands to the praise and glory of his name, and for our benefit also and for that of all his holy Church."

What relevance does the literal meaning have in a happening of nuns, or the metaphorical context of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and the office of a priest, to theological debates which at that section of the novella have neither relevance to the sacrament nor a Christ-like sacrifice.

I don't get it.

April #5:

Thin Red Jellies (a short story) by Lina Rather - 2 stars

This is the short story from the point of view of a young woman whose lover is terribly injured in a car crash. There is the possibility of uploading her personality into an artificial body.

However she needs to be temporarily stored in a person - because the personality will degrade if stored in electronic arrays but not in neurons.

One part of the story is about struggles with the American healthcare system - which were fairly impenetrable to me, since the author is writing with the assumption that her readers know how that works - and the other about the timeless issue of how serious injury forces a choice. Either you commit more deeply than you otherwise would, or you walk away, knowing that your departure will have catastrophic consequences for someone you thought you loved.

I came to strongly dislike both of the young women. They were incredibly self-centred and petty.

There is the same ruthlessness towards other sentient beings that I commented on in Sisters of the Vast Black. Only here there is absolutely no necessity for the killing; they decide to do so to give themselves a spare location to enable them to have some "time out". It is pure killing for convenience. We are allowed to kill animals for food (and other specifically regulated purposes) but to kill a pet because they decide to, would get you arrested in the UK now. Either the author is deliberately trying to say that she expects American morals to degrade in the future, or she is simply not thinking things through again - she only cares about her central characters.

But they are just as nasty to each other. Who would be so petty as to resent one person's request that, whilst they temporarily share, they avoid ONE food? I have lived with people with majorly restricted diets, and considered it a matter of course to follow their diet, rather than give rise to the cost and effort of cooking separate meals. But these young women are so self-centred that giving up avocados for 9 months is seen as an intolerable imposition!

And, when irritated with each other, they deliberately destroy the other's memories.

What gave me a chilling feeling was the impression that the author felt her character's reactions were normal; that they were how she would behave and expected others to. But with such self-centred characters, I found I had little sympathy for the loneliness at the end. It seemed the obvious result of their personalities and mores.

It might be that the protagonist is, in fact, being abused by her partner. If I understood the financial implications of their insurance I would be clearer on that point.

I think this is intended as a serious look at the issues raised. Since the couple are lesbian, there are no tasteless "how do I use unfamiliar anatomy"-type jokes. But I found their personalities so unrelatable that I found it impossible to get deeply involved.

April #6:

A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Lighthouse of Quvenle the Seer (short story) by Lina Rather - 3 stars

The form of the narrative is that of a pilgrim reading a guidebook, which is phrases in the second person present.

The lighthouse is at the furthest point in space, and predates humanity. The seer is the explorer who discovered it.

Yet again the science is hand-waved, and the rationale of the alien civilisation is not given a second thought; the real point of the story of about relationships. Again.

The seer can only predict unusually bad things that are going to happen to you. How? Why? The author is not interested

The point being made is that people feel more comfortable knowing the worst, rather than fearing something that might happen. She attributes to them a self-righteous triumph over those who have tried to reassure them.

But really this is a somewhat trite story about bereavement.

This story made a couple of good points, but the lack of logical thought in setting up these scenarios, and the persistent concentration on relationships, in which the participants seem only interested in how it affects them, is wearing me down. I just do not like the outlook of these characters, which seems to be that of the author.

I am really not in the mood for stories that deal with death in a glib manner at the moment. When the protagonist was talking about being in continual pain since a precise date, I thought she meant real, physical pain that affects function and cannot be overridden. But no, she was simply referring to the loss of a loved one. I am older than the author. I have lost everyone whom I have loved and who had loved me. I am far from alone in this. But we go on.

This seemed the melodramatics of a young woman who has discovered that life will not always be as one wants it, and is angry that it is "not fair". She has years of happy marriage to look back on, and is sufficiently wealthy to be able to afford this journey. Not everyone has that.

I think I am going to give up on this author here. It is with a little regret, as she does she does show some promise. Maybe she will mature in a decade or so.

But I find I am getting irritable with trite points being solemnly made with great fanfare, as if no one has ever written them before. The only "new" aspect that she brings is that her characters are female. But while that, in itself, can be a refreshing change, it alone does not make an old story new.

And the relentless selfishness wears me down. This seems the writing of an author who has never truly loved anyone. There seems to be a definition of "love" that is based on the self: "this is how that certain person makes ME feel, and I base the measure of how much I am 'in love' with how happy that makes me, of how unhappy their absence makes me". Real love is based on the concern for the happiness and well-being of the OTHER person.

In real life, people sometimes die to save the people that they love. In cases of severe illness, many couples have partners who voluntarily give up their hopes, dreams and plans to care for their partner. It IS s great sacrifice, but if one truly loves, one cannot bear to see the person whom one loves suffer, without doing everything possible to allieviate it.

I have done that. I can't sympathise with a character who thinks giving up avocados temporarily is too much of an imposition. Nor can I envisage deliberately doing permanent injury to a "loved one" in retaliation. In this author's world even vows have no meaning, they simply mean "I promise to do this until there is something I want more".

I find these characters, who are meant to be human women, too alien to relate to.

>79 -pilgrim-: I don't think I'd like being around that person...

>80 fuzzi: My comments were a conglomeration of various characters, but as these traits seen to be in all her characters, I suspect that they are in the author as well, and hence what she considers normal and "relatable".

>79 -pilgrim-: I can see why you gave up on those books, that attitude would bother me as well. What you were describing sounds like someone who feels no sense of duty towards others at all.

>82 Karlstar: The strange thing is the choice of protagonists. They are mostly people who one would assume have a strong sense of duty - nuns, someone who volunteers to help a terribly injured partner, and so on. The nuns are living in a happy community, not one riven by internal discord.

But I think it is the writer's (lack of) sense of duty that is the problem. So the concept of making any sacrifice is continually a big thing for her characters.

I have been listening to recordings of interviews with Prince Philip, and people who knew him. That was a man who gave up his rank, his religion, and his name, in order to marry the woman he loved. He knew then that he would have to give up his (brilliant) professional career in order to support his wife's own obligations - and when that turned out to be doing decades earlier than they could have expected, he simply got on with it. No complaints. Having decided to make this marriage, he just accepted the consequences. The result: a love match that lasted 73 years.

That is the sort of behaviour that I can understand and relate to.

April #8:


♪♪ Carry On, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse - 3 stars
Narrator: Jonathan Cecil

This was an unabridged audiobook version of the short story collection. Jonathan Cecil was a superb narrator. All the stories, except the last, are being told by Bertie Wooster, and he does a wonderful job of making him a likeable character.

Bertie may be "as thick as two short planks", but he is extremely good-hearted, and willing to put himself out for his friends. Something I had not appreciated before is that, although he is part of a circle of idle, feckless young men (the "Drones"), unlike most of the others, he does appear to be living off his own money, rather than sponging off elderly relatives while waiting for them to die, as many of his friends are. He is also disarmingly aware of his intellectual inadequacies (which somewhat explains the fact that a lot of the humour is at the expense of brilliant young women who want to do something with their lives,).

The language itself is wonderfully used, as haydninvienna has said, so this was relaxing listening.

But by the end, I was starting to find Jeeves a rather sinister figure. Although Bertie idolises him for his ability to extract him and his friends from awkward situations, it struck me how often the situations has actually been caused by following Jeeves' advice - often after Bertie had rebelled against Jeeves' sartorial diktats, or when Jeeves' disagreed with his choice of girlfriend.

The final story, which is told by Jeeves, increased that impression. Jeeves' is undoubtedly extremely intelligent. But I have started to doubt whether it is "the young master's" interests that he has at heart, or simply his own.

I have started visualising him as the sinister manservant portrayed by Dirk Bogarde in The Servant (without the sexual overtones, of course!)

I know a lot of people love the Jeeves and Wooster books. Has anyone else had that reaction to Jeeves?

April #10:

A Blink of the Screen by Terry Pratchett - 3.5 stars
22/4/21-23/4/21

This is an anthology of Sir Terry's short fiction, starting from 1963, when he was 13. The latest is from 2010.

There are 21 pieces, mostly extremely short, that are not Discworld related, but including short stories that evolved into The Long Earth and The Carpet People. Mostly they are fantasy, or supposedly humorous social satire. The few science fiction pieces were, I thought, amongst the best.

There were 11 Discworld pieces, but they tended to be longer.

If this seems rather a low output for decades in the business, and in comparison to 41 Discworld novels, 22 other novels, and multiple Discworld related books, then the author's repeated mention, in the introduction to several of these stories - for he puts each in its context - of how much the short story form 'makes him sweat blood' becomes relevant.

And frankly, a lot of this is not that good. It is unfair, perhaps, to expect squibs written to order, to promote a convention or a marketing launch, to match the quality of a writer's intended work.

Being funny to order is not easy. I remember being on a Bulletin Board (yes, I predate the World Wide Web and can be a dinosaur about graphical interfaces if I choose!) when the late Douglas Adams posted, soliciting popular opinion regarding a particular trend in his books. This was followed by a slew of posts intent on "proving" that he was an imposter. Some tried intricate manouvres involving timestamps, locations and the broadcast of interviews, but most relied on a patronising "Good attempt. But this is obviously a fake; you are just not funny enough"! It was fascinating watching Douglas Adams realise that he was being demanded to prove that he was himself - luckily he just found it amusing, as mentioned in a subsequent interview. (And no, he was not fool enough to attempt to oblige the self-appointed gatekeepers.)

That digression is simply to illustrate that "being funny" may "come naturally", in the sense of random spurts of inventive imagination, but no one is permanently in that state. And the raw idea then has to be crafted into the prose that we read.

A lot of these shorts felt like Terry Pratchett trying to pastiche Terry Pratchett: that he knew what it should be like, but it was being written without the genuine madcap inspiration being there.

Some of the best were short sketches for ideas that he intended to turn into a book "some day" - and now, sadly, never will. I would like to have read his time/universe-slip take on Camelot - with a Mervin/Merlin who owes a lot to a certain Connecticut Yankee, and a woman whose name means "bear"...

I think many families have a hilariously funny relative (not just one who thinks they are). He or she is the life and soul of social gatherings, and maybe amateur theatricals. But they never attempt a professional career based around this skill, because they recognise that the success of their humour depends on knowing their audience, and having a shared experience with them.

Several of the early pieces felt like that; they were probably much funnier in the time and place for which they were written.

I admire Sir Terry's openness in here giving us a tour of his development as a writer, even when it is clear that he feels something was not very good.

I actually really liked the story that he had published in his school magazine, aged 13. It is, unsurprisingly, technically comparatively weak in pacing and structure - but also very clear why people immediately encouraged the kid who produced it to write.

My other favourites were:

Final Reward

Turntables of the Night

The High Meggas

FTB

The Sea and Little Fishes.

I read most of this whilst running a fever, and thus not really capable of following a complex plot. As such it suited me well, but may mean that I missed some subtle references.

In general, I would stay that there is enough good material here to make it worth reading for Pratchett fans - particularly if you have not met elsewhere the stories that I listed.

But I would not recommend this to anyone as a introduction to his work; there is no room to demonstrate the skill so evident in his longer novels. (The exception is The Sea and Little Fishes, which is brilliant, but which works so well because we already know the personalities of Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax.)

Going Dark (radio play) by Marcella Evaristi - 3 stars
Dir.: Bruce Young
BBC Scotland
28/4/2021

This play, by the Scottish actress Marcella Evaristi, is about a trio of English actors, and their loved ones, during the Protectorate.

Apparently the trio - Michael Moon, Walter Clune and Charlie Heartbreak - are based on real people. Theatre was banned during Cromwell's rule (although opera was not), yet these three friends not only survived the intervening 18 years, but made a triumphant return to the stage in 1660.

I do not know how much of the events of what befell them during these years are factual, and how much invented.

I found the history covered fascinating. I am well aware of the atrocities committed by Cromwell's forces in Ireland, but I had not before heard of the atrocity after the battle of Naseby - where the women and children who followed the Royalist army were systematically killed or mutilated. (Subsequent research shows this to be genuine, but it was limited from how my school history lessons covered the Civil War!)

The actual style of the play was merely adequate. I dislike intensely when people supposedly of an earlier era are made to speak in 21st century idiom, and the jarring effect is worsened when this is mixed with 17th century terms.

In my opinion, you cannot use "let go" (as a euphemism for "dismissed from employment") AND "swive" in the same production. I would prefer the avoidance of anachronistic language, but if you are going to modernise, then you ought not to also throw in archaisms.

I enjoyed this more for the history than for the actual performance.

>85 -pilgrim-: I hadn't realized that Pratchett wrote very much outside of the Discworld universe, until I got a copy of Dodger, which is a historical fiction set in London. I enjoyed it quite a lot, and might have to give this collection you mentioned a try also.

>88 Darth-Heather: It is not his best work, but if you love the Discworld then it is definitely worth reading.

I have not read Dodger, but I have read Good Omens, the Bromeliad, the first Johnny Maxwell book, and his science fiction trilogy. With the exception of Good Omens they all seemed very firmly aimed at younger readers. As such they were clever, but rather simple and hammered their points home rather heavily.

But most of those were early works. One of the things I appreciated about A Blink of the Screen is that the pieces are arranged chronologically, with explanations of when and why they were written. He lets the reader follow his development as a writer.

April Summary

Average rating: 3.25
Weighted average: 3.69
Audiobook average: 3.0

10 fiction:
Anthologies: 1 humour, 1 fantasy
Novels: 1 historical crime fiction, 1 fantasy, 1 science fiction
Novella: 1 science fiction
Short stories: 2 science fiction, 1 crime fiction

1 play: fantasy

Original language: 8 English, 2 Russian

Earliest date of first publication: 1925 (Carry On Jeeves)
Latest: 2019 (Sisters of the Vast Black)

4 Kindle, 3 website, 2 audiobooks, 1 paperback

Authors: 6 male, 2 female
Author nationality: 3 British, 2 Russian, 2 American, Canadian
New (to me) authors: 3 (5 familiar)

Most popular book on LT: Dragonflight (7,810)
Least popular: The Man in the Ditch (audio)/Thin Red Jellies/A Pilgrim's Guide to the Lighthouse of Quvenle the Seer (short stories) (only me)/The Dragon (play) (16) /Crownbreaker (57)

No. of books read: 10
From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 5
Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 0
No. of books acquired: 24 (20 ebooks, 4 paperback)
No. of books disposed of: 3
Expenditure on books: £48.09

Best Book of April: Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog
Worst Book of April:Thin Red Jellies (short story) / Dragonflight

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 6
Books awaiting review from April: 4

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

May #1:

♪♪The Hobbit (abridged) by J. R. R. Tolkien (narr. by Nicol Williamson) - 3 stars
5/4/21-1/5/2021

This was a version of The Hobbit that has been abridged to fit onto 4 LPs.

I would not recommend the abridged version over the original to anyone for their first "read" of the story. However I last read The Hobbit several decades ago, so this proved a pleasant way to revisit Middle Earth.

I find it difficult to follow audiobooks. If I find them my undivided attention, that are to slow, but if I listen while doing something else, I tend to lose my place. Revisiting an old friend like this worked very well; there was enough that I had forgotten for it to be worthwhile, whilst the familiarity stopped me getting lost.

I chose this version because there is music. Not songs, but short interludes. It was a nice addition.

I am in two minds about Nicol Williamson's narration. On the one hand, his narrative sections were beautifully done, with lots of nuanced expression, but subtle.

However I disliked his voice characterisations. Bilbo was a Mummerset yokel, Thorin sounded like a cliché Northern mine owner, and the Elven King had a lisp. (Why? Presumably because elves are somewhat androgenous in appearance , and therefore "must be" effeminate, and therefore to be played like a 1970s gay stereotype? Or maybe because he is a king, and the stereotype is about aristocrats?) I hope I am wrong, but it seemed some rather nasty reasoning was behind the style choice. This recording did date from the seventies, after all.

I cannot judge this harshly for outdated attitudes - purely on the behalf of the narrator, there is nothing in Tolkien's text to support this reading. But it did make me cringe at times while listening.

>92 -pilgrim-: Of course you are familiar with the esteemed Donald Swann's song cycle, The Road goes ever on. I once had a recording of it sung by a gentleman with the excellently appropriate surname of Elvish.

>93 hfglen: I have not heard it for a long time. I had hoped that they were going to be used here.

>93 hfglen: I think I may still have that LP. Goodness knows what sort of state it's in though.

April #9:


Dragonflight: Book 1 of Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey - 2.5 stars
11/4/2021-20/4/2021

I started with this book, the beginning of the Pern cycle, after a discussion with fuzzi and Karlstar. After a few pages, I realised that it was in fact the novel that I had read before - the "random book" that I referred to in that discussion - was in fact this one... and hence the first in the series! However, I realised that I could remember nothing from my reading in 1996 about how the plot developed, so I continued.

I found it interesting enough to finish, but the author's fundamental moral orientation was unpleasant enough to distance me from her hero and heroine.

It is certainly a world in which it is a bad thing to be a woman. But that has been true at many times through history, and there is no sense that this is the way things ought to be. It is just how things are in this setting; I have no issue with that.

Or did I find the dragon riders having sex as their dragons mate to lack consent.

The dragon-rider relationship is like a love affair. It gives all the emotional feedback of romantic attachment, but it is consensual. Just as one can choose not to act on the impulse of romantic attraction - because one feels morally impelled to vows of marriage or celibacy, or because the other party has declared that they do not reciprocate the feeling - one can choose to walk away from the intense dragon-bond. It is an emotional experience, not a magical compulsion.

And when the emotions of the dragon spill over and are shared by the rider, then yes, the riders also become sexually aroused. But there is neither a magical compulsion nor any societal obligation for them to also have sex.

The suggestion that lust - the hormonal physical attraction - is a compulsion is the self-justification of the rapist. Just as anyone CAN stop themselves raping (and indeed, have a moral obligation to do so!), a dragonrider couple can chose whether to act on the (dragon-induced) lust that they feel, or not. If they choose to go along with the shared emotion, that is their choice.

What I did find repellent was the ingrained, total and all-consuming selfishness of both the romantic leads.

Both of them play childish, manipulative and selfish games of lying to each other and withholding information, in order to deliberately arouse jealousy. And they continue to do so, even when the lack of information-sharing puts the entire world at risk. I cannot care about characters who are themselves so self-absorbed that they don't care if they destroy the world, as long as they get the petty satisfaction of inflicting a little pain on the person they supposedly love.

I felt that although this was bring presented as a romantic fantasy - using fantasy in its general "not like real life" sense, rather than as a genre leben - this was very far from a portrayal of actual love. There was simply lust, and a revelling in having power of another human being, because of the effect that having them care for you has on them. Each party was simply manoeuvring to make sure the other party cared more, and was so the weaker in a power imbalance.

Also this story is yet another case of a "lord" - in this case a woman - who has no sense of what it actually means to BE a lord. With rights come obligations, and the foremost duty of a lord is the protection of their people, both in European culture and in that of Pern. But a selfish young woman, who is willing to do deliberately inflict suffering on "her" people, in the course of her revenge, and towards the goal of retaining her "rightful place" does nothing but prove how she does not deserve the post that she is trying to gain, any more than the usurper does. She is willing to cause people who have never done her any harm to starve, to be whipped for no fault of their own (as Fax punishes them for the craft failures that she causes). Fax may be a truly horrible person - particularly if you are a woman whom he notices - but he does less harm, as ruler of the Hold, than she does.

Fax's abuse of women cannot be used to justify Lessa's behaviour either, given that she is willing to cause the death of an innocent woman and her unborn child - a woman who has already suffered more than Lessa ever has - just to hurt Fax. She does seem to feel a little guilt over the mother 's death, but only ever expresses disappointment that the child, in fact, lives - because the baby is an obstacle to her schemes.

In reality, there have been plenty of bad lords. It is not that I think the behaviour implausible. But Anne McCaffrey appears to expect her readers to applaud this behaviour as "determined" and "ingenious". Certainly the bronze rider, F'lar, seems to find this cute.

I suspect the age issue is relevant. At what age are the Pernese considered adult? From Fax's behaviour, I would guess that it is puberty. But the author seems to be running a double standard. In the opening chapter. Lessa is described as if she were a child - as she would be regarded on our world. But a few days later she is in the Weyr, the egg hatches, and she is being treated like an adult, including in matters of sexual maturity. So she is allowed to be wilful and selfish and stupid because she is "only a child", whilst given the powers of an adult.

According to the biography included,

During the worst of the Battle of Britain when 'the Few' were all that stood between the English and imminent invasion, Anne developed a sense of rapport with the plucky young Princess Elizabeth who, with her family, endured the German 'Blitz' on London - Anne being just twenty days the Princess' elder. And with that was planted the seed that would grow into Dragonflight.

It is unclear who wrote the "About the Author" section. It may be the "Literary Trustee", Jay A. Katz.

But if those really were Anne McCaffrey's views, then the hubris is astonishing. I very much doubt that a 14 year old, living in rural America, would have the slightest idea of what it was like to live under the nightly bombing raids in London, even if she came from a military family. (Certainly even British adults, who were not living in cities themselves at the time, did not. Censorship prevented news covering the full horror.)

I am not commenting here on whether or not a monarchy is a good thing (since that is a political issue). But, considered simply for her personality, not her position, to claim the young woman who, on her 21st birthday, made the following vow:

There is a motto which has been borne by many of my ancestors - a noble motto, "I serve". Those words were an inspiration to many bygone heirs to the Throne when they made their knightly dedication as they came to manhood. I cannot do quite as they did.

But through the inventions of science I can do what was not possible for any of them. I can make my solemn act of dedication with a whole Empire listening. I should like to make that dedication now. It is very simple.

I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

was the inspiration for a selfish, brattish character, who never once speaks of her duties, except as an irksome chore to be shirked, and talks only of her rights , which in her eyes justify trying to harm her people rather than serve them, and engineering the death of an innocent pregnant woman, is a travesty.

The science fiction aspects of the plot were intriguing enough that I finished Dragonflight, and might continue the series, the characters themselves were either cardboard clichés or rather unpleasant people, which was a disappointment.

Also, on the plot side: there is time travel. It is not a plot device that I am fond of, but it can cope in two basic ways - recursive loop or infinite branches. I can intellectually child with the latter, but the "A causes B, when the causes A" infinite loop kind offends my physicist brain.

May #6:


♪♪ An Introduction to James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson by David Timson and Peter Wickham - 3 stars

This short, free audiobook gives a brief overview of James Boswell's background, and dramatises a few excerpts of witty exchanges between him and Dr. Samuel Johnson.

By pointing out the intrinsic unlikelihood of their friendship, but how they were nevertheless drawn to each other's friendship by mutual respect for the other's intelligence, this description has greatly increased the likelihood of my ever reading Boswell's work.

The bons mots that I have heard quoted from Dr. Johnson have never caused me to warm to the man. And I had only seen Boswell portrayed as a toadying sycophant, hoping to rise in his patron's coattails.

I had not realised that Johnson respected Boswell's artistic productions. And the motive given here for Boswell's biography was that he wanted to correct the false impression of his friend that was being given by other, hastily written biographies.

It was a different perspective on a famous friendship.

May #7:


The Devil in the Marshalsea (Book 1 of Thomas Hawkins) by Antonia Hodgson - 3 stars
8/5/2021-10/5/21

This debut novel is the first in a series about a young rake in Georgian England, but stands perfectly well on its own.

Thomas Hawkins, at the start of the book is a young man, living in London in the 1720s, supporting himself by gambling - at which he is reasonably competent. He is a divinity graduate, but estranged from his father, who intended Tom to succeed to his living at a small Suffolk parish. Instead Tom, rebelling against his father, is living a life of drinking and whoring and gaming - but his luck has run out. His landlord is threatening with a writ for non-payment of rent, and he is facing the debtors' prison, the Marshalsea.

This is not the Marshalsea of Little Dorrit, but an even more fearsome place, located in Southwark (not then part of London). The problems of a gentleman imprisoned there are twofold: how to raise enough money to settle his debts and obtain release and secondly, how to obtain sufficient income to pay for his food and a cell in the part of the prison allocated for gentlemen, and not be transferred to the Common Side.

The setting seems to be reasonably well researched - it was the author's period of specialisation both at 'A'-level and during her English Literature degree, so this is not too surprising, although there were times when I thought she had got some details wrong, which made me reluctant to trust her unreservedly.

As is so often the case, it is ignorance of religious regulations that is the most obvious flaw. She has the local Church of England minister envy Tom his divinity degree, saying that lack of funds prevented him studying for the qualification. In that case, how could be be ordained in the Church of England when he does not possess the requisite qualification? In that period it was mandatory - and only Oxford or Cambridge degrees were acceptable. That was why Tom's father would have sent his son to university.

I also had minor quibbles with her language choices. She, on the whole, chose a natural, modern style, but her pattern for including archaisms was not consistent. She included a discussion at the start on why she thought the use of the "f-word" was appropriate; but it struck me as odd to use it solely as an expletive, and swyve for the act itself. Her justification was the fact that Georgian English included a lot of expletives - but then she completely ignores the fact that the era had a far richer offensive
vocabulary than modern English (which relies mainly on f**k and c**t) - as a brief perusal of Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (from 1785) will demonstrate.

I appreciated her inclusion of the black waitress (a known historical figure) at Moll's coffee shop, as an example of the diversity of 18th century London, but that made the inclusion of stereotypical portrayals of "gypsies" all the more uncomfortable. (The narrative is told by Tom, and it is, I suppose, not really surprising that he has the prejudices endemic in that period - but hearing him reiterate attitudes that are still frequently voiced now towards that people made the careful reference to Betty as "black" (rather than using the racial terminology of that era - which would be intended offensively if used now, but was neutral then) a selective adjustment that felt hypocritical.) I found the lack of consistency in language slightly jarring, and impairing immersion.

Many of the characters in the book were real historical personages, and the behaviours attributed to them fitted the charges made against them in subsequent trials.

This was not the use of famous personages, being libelled in order to make a "good story", that pgmcc and I periodically complain about. This was the use of a fictional framework to recount real, horrifying events.

I think the problem is that I read The Newgate Calendar in my youth, so neither the 18th century laws nor the prison conditions were new to me. And I think these were the real point of the book.

The plot itself was amusing, in the way Tom persistently blamed every culprit but the correct one, at every term. Isuppose this is plausible, given that he is a rather rash young man, with a tendency to drink far too much, even when the need for a clear head is obvious. However I found them rather predictable; I could usually guess the real culprit at each point, well in advance.

But the plot hinged too much on various characters withholding information from each other for no discernible reason. That is why I found it ultimately not terribly satisfying.

Nevertheless, it was refreshing to see a new author attempting to be true to period in attitudes as well as lifestyle details. Hence I continued with the series.

March #8:


The Foundling by Georgette Heyer - 4 stars
9/6/2020-17/3/2021

This was a book that I inherited from my mother. It was a slow read not because it was not addictive, but because wartime printing economies meant that the font was small and the line-spacing narrow. Hence I could only read it when my eyesight was at its best (which eliminated several months altogether!)

I had not been prioritising this, because I am not really into "romantic fiction", and that is how I had mentally classified Georgette Heyer.

However I have been getting frustrated a lot recently with books supposedly set in past eras, that have zero grasp of the lifestyle and minimal comprehension of the social attitudes. I had read some of Georgette Heyer's novels in my teens, and remembered her a having an excellent grasp of Regency manners and attitudes. So I thought I would venture in.

I had a very pleasant surprise. Although there is some romantic interaction, this is not at all the theme of the book.

Gillespie Adolphus Vernon Ware, 7th Duke of Sale was orphaned at an early age. At the age of 24, he has recovered from a sickly childhood, but his aged family retainers are used to cosseting and protecting him from every conceivable risk. Although he is one of the richest men in England, until he comes of age (at 25) his affairs are actually in the hands of his uncle and guardian, Lord Lionel Ware. Although Lord Lionel repeatedly lectures "Gilly", as he has decided to refer to his nephew, on the importance of taking some responsibility, in practice he dismisses out of hand any attempts by Gilly to do so.

Gilly is further alarmed to learn that there has been an "understanding" between his uncle and the Ampleforths that he will marry their daughter for the past five years. He has always liked and got on well with Lady Harriet, a childhood friend, but is aghast to learn that she is awaiting his proposal.

And this is the first point at which the book diverged from the plot one might expect. Lord Lionel is neither a bully, nor does he harbour any designs on his nephew's estate. He has genuinely done his best for his young relative, and the marriage arrangement is all part of this solicitude. He has in fact paid rather more attention to Gilly than to his own son, because of the former's sickliness. But the latter, now a Guard's officer, never resented this, and the two young men are the best of friends. Lord Lionel only means the best for his charge, and makes it clear that if Gilly really has an alternative preference then he will try to make it possible - and of course, "wild oats" are perfectly normal, although he hopes Gilly will be a gentleman and manage his mistresses discreetly, so as not to embarrass his wife.

Gilly is a very nice young man, who cannot bear to hurt anyone's feelings. That is why he submits to his servants and to his uncle. Although up to this point he has neither has any romantic entanglements, or felt the lack of any, for the same reason he cannot conceive of declining to make the proposal once he realises that it is expected, and his friend will be humiliated socially if he does not make it.

Lady Harriet, meanwhile, is being advised by her mother how fortunate she is to be becoming the Duchess of Sale, and lectured sternly that she must not be so childish as to expect her husband's love, merely his discretion, and that she is fortunate in that Gilly's temperament is so kindly that he will probably have no objection to her discreetly entertaining bel amis of her own.

Gilly does feel trapped by his circumstances and the weight of everyone's expectations. He is also somewhat insecure, wondering whether he is actually capable of looking after himself, and whether he would be capable of making it as plain Mr. Dash of Nowhere in Particular. So when a cousin comes to him, as titular Head of the Family and a probable sympathetic ear, with an embarrassing scrape he had got himself into, Gilly decides to prove himself, to himself, and sets off, incognito and without entourage, to solve it.

In the course of this Gilly encounters the eponymous founding, which considerably complicates his problems; the story follows both his adventures and those of his concerned relatives and retainers, as they worry about what has happened to him.

Although the novel does end with all relationship issues resolved satisfactorily, its primary theme is a young man discovering a sense of self-worth that is not predicated on his title or his wealth.

What I particularly liked about this novel is that all the characters - with the exception of a few incorrigible rogues! - are decent people. Usually in coming of age stories like this, either the protagonist starts off as an awful person and gradually learns better behaviour, or is hopelessly gullible and consequently preyed upon. This story follows neither of these tropes.

The conventions portrayed did make me wonder how on earth it was possible for young people to find marital happiness. I know couples for whom arranged marriages were the norm, but at least in their background there was not the added strain of the expectation of marital infidelity!

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 3

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

>99 -pilgrim-: I've read several Heyer books and have been pleasantly surprised at how much meat there was within the story: lots of character development and not TOO much description. My only Heyer read that I did not care for was one of her mysteries.

>101 fuzzi: I think I should read some more. Any suggestions as to where to start?

>102 -pilgrim-: I loved Sylvester and Frederica, and enjoyed A Civil Contract. False Colours is good, too.

>101 fuzzi: - I agree with you, I've really enjoyed most of Heyer's books, except the mysteries.

>103 fuzzi: Thank you. Suggestions noted.

The Nine Tailors: BBC radio dramatisation by Alistair Beaton from the book by Dorothy L. Sayers - 3 stars

I have been intermittently following the series of BBC radio dramatisations of Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, in which Ian Carmichael plays Lord Peter.

This was interesting in that I read the book, back in the seventies, but all I could remember if the plot was who did it. Nothing else. Listening to the play did not jog my memory at any point, so it turned out to be fresh to me, and I cannot compare it with the book.

Here Lord Peter helps out with ringing a set of changes on the bells of a rural church, to celebrate the New Year, when one of the intended bellringers falls ill. After a succession of further tragedies in a a titled family resident there, a murder is discovered, and the local police ask him to help investigate 'as locals might be more forthcoming when talking to him'.

Lord Peter seems to be now treating detecting as his "profession". But he also seems to be distinctly uncomfortable with the inevitable conclusion: those who he identifies as guilty will hang (subject to jury concurring). This play dodges the moral dilemma by having person who (unintentionally) caused the death die heroically shortly after the outdoors is unravelled.

The fact that the issue of whether the "murderer"is morally culpable, in an instance where the "victim" turns out to have earlier committed an offence for which they would have been hanged, is debated at all is an example of why I prefer Dorothy L. Sayers to other exponents of the mystery genre. Her stories never descend into mere intellectual puzzles. The consequences of the crime for victim's family, for the perpetrator and their family, and the moral strain on the detective who, our of curiosity, meddles in matters of life and death, are all kept in mind.

In the dramatisation of the next two books, I complained that Lord Peter and Harriet Vane were being portrayed increasingly unsympathetically, as indifferent to the feelings of those from lower social classes. There was none of that here, despite the dramatisation again being by the Alistair Beaton.

There was a happy coincidence with the last book that I read, Doomsday Book.

The largest bell in the church in Nine Tailors is called "Tailor Paul", and had the inscription Nine Tailors Maketh A Man.

Thanks to Doomsday Book I was aware that a bell was tolled 9 times to mark the death of a man (3 times for a woman, and once for a child).

And presumably the name "tailor" for a bell is itself a corruption of "toller" - the bell that tolls the knell.

>106 -pilgrim-: This was on Radio 4 Extra a couple of weeks ago.

>106 -pilgrim-: The Nine Tailors was the first Dorothy L. Sayers I read. The Ian Carmichael adaptations would have been my earliest introduction to Sayers.

My review of The Nine Tailors is below. It is spoiler free but it adds an added dimension to the story that has not always been noticed by readers.

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

My introduction to Lord Peter Wimsey was via the 1970s TV series staring the excellent Ian Carmichael as the aristocratic sleuth. I recall my mother and I being amused to see Ian Carmichael in this role when we thought of him primarily as Bertie Wooster in the original 1960s TV adaptation of Jeeves with Dennis Price playing the unflappable valet.

In my mind the Lord Peter Wimsey tales were simply cosy crime stories. That is how I perceived them in the TV show and that is how I thought of the novels until reading The Nine Tailors.

I have to confess that this is the first Dorothy L Sayers novel I have read. It did not disappoint but until my curiosity was aroused by a few un-sleuth-story-like allusions I did not think the tale was anything other than a cosy crime novel.

My reaction to the book on the cosy crime story level is that it very much fits the bill of the golden age of crime novels and is enjoyable in that context alone. I must admit the book brought out the aristocracy element more than I had recalled from the shows and I was finding myself a bit annoyed at the deference shown to someone with a title on the basis of nothing other than their privileged position. Lord Peter did, of course, have his reputation as rather a good sleuth.

The first thing that raised my suspicion that Sayers was doing something more than writing a detective story was the mention of Abbot Thomas. The name “Abbot Thomas” rang bells (how apropos) at the back of my mind. “Of course,” thought I, M. R. James. He has a story called The Treasure of Abbot Thomas. There’s a coincidence. I wonder if Abbot Thomas was a real person and his tomb is in the fens.”

Next I found intricate descriptions of carvings on the pews in the parish church. This reminded me of M.R. James’s story The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral.

I was subsequently amused to see a chapter starting with a quote from Wylder’s Hand by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the nineteenth century writer of horror stories whose tale, Carmilla, is considered to have influenced Bram Stoker in his writing of Dracula. Le Fanu’s work is not as well known generally as it deserves to be so I was intrigued at Sayers quoting one of these pieces.

My curiosity roused I turned to the omnipresent Google. I entered, “The Nine Tailors Abbot Thomas Le Fanu”, and clicked the search icon. The first result of my search was:
https://irishgothichorror.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/helenc2a0conradc2adobriain...

The link took me to a paper in the academic journal, “The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Stories”.

This paper is entitled:
“Providence and Intertextuality: LeFanu, M. R. James, and Dorothy Sayers' The Nine Tailors”

It was not just my imagination. I was not the first one to notice the links. It appears Sayers was a great fan of the Gothic tale and very fond of works of Le Fanu and M R James. Being a fan of these tales too I found another level of pleasure in reading The Nine Tailors. Finding out something about an author’s interests can open up an entirely new dimension of enjoyment when reading their work.
You can read the academic paper for yourself. I will not repeat the way it explains how The Nine Tailors is structured as a Gothic novel and how it contains many of the tropes that define the genre. I had been wondering about the inclusion of the final part of The Nine Tailors as it was not necessary to resolve or explain the crime. The academic paper demonstrates that this section serves the purpose of finishing the story in the style of a Gothic novel.

I had been thinking that while I enjoyed reading this novel I probably would not deliberately chase down more stories by Dorothy L Sayers. Now that I know she has hidden Gothic allusions and structures in her works I am more enthusiastic about reading more of her books. As it happens, my wife is a great fan of Sayers’ novels so we have a few of them around the house. I wonder if my wife knew she was reading Gothic stories.

Since writing the above review I have tracked down all the Lord Peter Wimsey novels and short stories and am about half-way through them. I find Dorothy L. Sayers and her career fascinating. The work she was proudest of was her translation of Dante's Inferno. Umberto Eco hailed her translation as one of the best around and wondered why it was not better known.

>107 hfglen: Yep. Did you enjoy it?

>108 pgmcc: Ooh, yummy. I am afraid that dramatisation removed a lot of the allusions that you mention; you have motivated me to revisit my paper copy (when I can find it!)

Dorothy L. Sayers and G. K. Chesterton are the only two purveyors of this type of mystery that I have any time for (so far). I think it is because both have interests beyond the genre.

Have you read her translation of Dante?

>109 -pilgrim-: Yes indeedle, especially having read the paper version several times.

>110 -pilgrim-: Yes. IMHO it is the only readable translation of Dante. What is even more remarkable is that the join between her own work and that of Barbara Reynolds, who completed her translation of Il Paradiso is essentially undetectable.

>111 hfglen: I must try to find that translation.

I have just found a copy of the theatre production of Guards! Guards! on YouTube. It is a version authorised by Sir Terry, and the video was uploaded by the director, in the hope of raising enough money to revive the production. The video is not great quality, as it was originally made to record blocking etc., rather than for public showing, but it is still father fun. Paul Darrow plays Captain Vimes.

>112 -pilgrim-: Should be fairly easy: it was published in Penguin Classics, in 3 volumes.

>113 hfglen: The current Penguin Classic translator for the Divine Comedy is Robin Kirkpatrick. Finding an edition that specifics an earlier translator will be interesting

>114 -pilgrim-: Here in the US, Amazon has the Penguin Classic, vol. I, translated by Sayers in Trade Paperback for $16.00. Volume II is $15.00, and volume III is $15.34. Used copies are about half those prices.

Having never read The Divine Comedy, I'm tempted...

>115 ScoLgo: Check the translator: here in the UK the current Penguin Classic edition on Amazon UK is the translation by Robin Kirkpatrick.

I have checked 3 different Penguin Classic covers: 2 are Kirkpatrick and 1 does not specify the translator.

Still looking.

>116 -pilgrim-: The listings here definitely specify Sayers...



Using the 'Look Inside' function also seems to confirm it...



EtA: I searched Amazon for "Sayers Dante".

>117 ScoLgo: I get that cover as a 2005 edition (not 1950), with no translator specified (and no"look inside" option).

Since they have not specified a the translation, and Amazon are known for displaying different cover images to the edition sent, that makes it a bit of a of a pig in a poke for me.

ETA: The results if the "Dante Sayers" search for me are
1. A single Penguin volume of Paradise
2. A paperback by Sayers about Dante
3. The blue and white Penguin editions from the fifties at £35+

The blue and white sometimes have Kindle versions at reasonable prices, but if you download a sample, you get a different cover and no named translator.

May #9:


The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins (Book 2 of Thomas Hawkins) by Antonia Hodgson - 3.5 stars

This book opens with Tom riding the cart on his way to be hanged for murder. He is not popular with the crowd because he has refused to confess.

The story intersperses third person description of Tom's journey to Tyburn with his own narrative of recent events, which we eventually learn was written in his Newgate cell.

This sequel is an improvement on its predecessor. It is still immersed in the realities of Georgian London, but the behaviour of its characters is more plausible. Tom still makes idiotic decisions, but they are believable from a drunken young hothead. He has been settled comfortably with his girl for 3 months, and he gets bored... Not of her, but he craves excitement.

The characters are all well-drawn here. Betty is no longer simply a 'poster-girl' for London's diversity, but an intelligent and sympathetic character in her own right - even if Tom, with typical masculine dismissiveness of his era, blames her for the consequences of his ignoring her advice! I hope to see more of her.

Tom himself I find a more ambivalent character. There is no real harm in him, but his thickheaded inability to learn from his experiences is wearing. He is also culpable of the main implausible action in the book: I can quite believe he is impetuous to confront a possible enemy without having a planned exit strategy, but not when the inevitable result of this conversation is to expose Kitty to probable murder (on the assumption that she may know what he demonstrates that he does). Taking enormous risks to protect her is one of the positive aspects of his personality. I can also understand that gratitude is not enough to make him return to the career path his father wants for him, but it seems odd that, after realising he has misjudged his father, he should not want to at least visit his father (and beloved sister) and reconcile fully after their estrangement.

I particularly liked the portrayal of James Fleet, the gang captain. This is no romanticisation of a professional criminal, but a chilling portrayal of how much of a mistake it is to meddle in the affairs of gangsters, however friendly they might be. There is always a price - even if they like you.

Two other points struck me as implausible:

Tom forgets the penalty for petit treason (the murder of a superior - one's master (for a servant) or one's parent. Although it is a defunct concept that is not particularly well-known nowadays, the occasional gory public execution should mean that Londoners of the period would know the law well enough.

The cross that Tom was given by his mother is now described as a crucifix. Ignoring the fact that these are two different objects - and the distinction in those days was clearly noted. he explanation given - that his mother had been a 'papist before her marriage" - seems to me to be extremely implausible. This is less than 40 years after the Glorious Revolution. Any suspicion of Catholicism might cause a clergyman to be expelled from his living by a patron anxious to demonstrate his loyalty to the Protestant Hanoverian succession. This is not about religious doctrine but about political allegiances. Such a mixed marriage would be scandalous, and have lasting effects on the children. It would not be something Tom mentions only now, as a casual comment to explain his supporting a Catholic contender in a fight.

I studied history of religion, so I notice such things. But if it is not a theme that interests you enough to learn the facts, why keep bringing it in? There are less clumsy ways of explaining why Tom picked the Irish contender. Since she is later described as an "invert" (i.e. lesbian) then his broadmindedness would be as good a reason, and more plausible.

Again, having read The Newgate Calendar, I was familiar with a lot of the information that the author wishes to inform her readers of. But the scandal that forms the centre of the plot was one of which I was completely unaware. I do appreciate the author's enthusiasm for bringing interesting to episodes from history to the fore - and am currently enjoying that aspect rather more than her fictional contributions. (I have been making notes of her source material.)

I am looking forward to what comes next.

Incidentally, Tom is the narrator. But his beloved is no shrinking violet, and arguably more competent than he. (This is not a novel where women simply provide the audience. Women's opportunities are portrayed authentically, but they are realistic in characterisation also.) It also gives a more positive portrayal of Queen Caroline than I have seen before.

>118 -pilgrim-: >117 ScoLgo: But I am having better luck with Abebooks

>120 -pilgrim-: I tend to think that Abebooks is more reliable about editions. I’m vague on the details now, but I know that when I was looking for a copy of Beyond the Blue Horizon by Alexander Frater, I bought it from Abebooks rather than Amazon to be reasonably sure of getting the right edition.

>111 hfglen: I have the Signet/Mentor versions, translated by John Ciardi. I thought they were readable, I wonder how they compare?

>121 haydninvienna: The Abebooks traders appear to have gotten their heads and systems around Brexit now. I just checked and the shipping prices have returned to normal. In the months immediately after Brexit took effect any orders I tried to order from them incurred shipping prices of over £50. They were obviously not ready to fill in the customs declarations they would have to complete to send items into the EU. I have been avoiding the website for that reason.

>122 Karlstar: Dunno. Sayers somehow managed to produce an apparently accurate translation in verse, using the same rhyme scheme, metre and stanza breaks as the original. And making one want to go on reading. I consider that to be major if not unique achievement.

>120 -pilgrim-: I'm glad to hear that you are having success with Abe Books.

>121 haydninvienna: One nice tool that Abe, (and Biblio.com also), provides is 'Search by ISBN'. In my experience, that is the most accurate way to ensure one is getting the correct edition. The book photo in the listing is often a stock image and can't be trusted, (found that out the hard way once upon a time).

>124 hfglen: I have heard nothing but good things about the Sayers translation so that is the one I am interested in acquiring.

In all of the discussion of translations of Dante, nobody has mentioned Clive James’s version, which supposedly had readability as a major objective. I have it and have read it, but I rather think I still prefer Sayers’s. I also have Prue Shaw’s book Reading Dante, but haven’t read it yet. Of course Prue Shaw was James’s wife, and I recall an offhand remark by him to the effect that she had a poor opinion of Sayers’s translation. I don’t know how Prue Shaw’s opinion balances against Umberto Eco’s.

>124 hfglen: Just from your description, that sounds like a better translation than the one I read. Not sure I'm up for a re-read for comparison quite yet, though.

>126 haydninvienna: I don’t know how Prue Shaw’s opinion balances against Umberto Eco’s.

On the face of it one would think this an unfair match, but having just looked at Prue Shaw's achievements and academic career I do not think her opinion on the matter can be dismissed out of hand. Not having read Dante, or having any immediate plans to do so, and having no knowledge of Italian, I do not consider myself qualified to pass judgement on any of the translations available. I am merely a conduit for the comments of others; a mouthpiece for the thoughts of writers I have read.

>128 pgmcc: I suspect this may boil down to differing theories of translation.

We know that Eco dislikes footnotes, and is of the school of thought where you replace the actual word in the text with one that the translator thinks will have the same resonance to the reader (cf. his essay Mouse or Rat?).

I have no idea what Prue Shaw's point of view is. Does anyone here know?

>129 -pilgrim-:
Perhaps when @hadyninvienna has read Reading Dante he may be able to enlighten us on the subject of Shaw’s points of view on translation.

>130 pgmcc: Do you think if we pester him enough, we can persuade him to bump it up his reading list?

>130 pgmcc: >131 -pilgrim-: not after the day I’ve just had, you won’t. I lost most of a day’s work—not sure whether because of a Microsoft problem or finger trouble. I do know though that Microsoft Word has developed a weird habit of losing the paragraph styles if you move text around. Since we use a lot of custom styles, this is a big deal. So no Dante for me tonight

>132 haydninvienna: Sorry to hear that. I know the feeling.

>131 -pilgrim-: It looks like we will have to wait until tomorrow for Dante.

>132 haydninvienna: I sympathise. Which Circle of Hell do you think that counts as?

May #11:


Mary Poppins (Book 1 of Mary Poppins) by P. L. Travers - 2 stars
16/5/2021-17/5/2021

I have found some books from my childhood and have been looking through them. I know that I read this when I was little, but when I tried to remember it, only the film came to mind (which I think I first saw some time after reading the book).

So I reread it. I did not remember being particularly fond of it as a child, although I also have the first sequel. I was curious as to whether that had references for adults that I missed when very small. I was wrong; there was nothing like that.

Superficially, this is very similar to the E. Nesbit stories that I loved then, and enjoyed again on my rereads. Children, without much parental supervision, experience fantastical adventures.

This time it is their nanny who gives them the unusual experiences. The Mary Poppins of the book does not resemble the film version very closely. She is not a likeable person. She is vain. She is moody, often snapping at her charges for no reason. But that, by itself, does not really explain why I was unimpressed by this book - both as a child, and again on this reread. The Psammead is grumpy and the Phoenix is vain, after all.

I think one factor is the lack of characterisation of any of the other characters, apart from Mary Poppins (and her fantastical friends). There are four children: Jane and Michael, and the Twins (who have their first birthday in the course of the book). Michael's age is not given, but he does not yet go to school, and is younger than Jane, who "will be an adult in fourteen years", and so I presume is 7. The twins are a boy and a girl, but otherwise indistinguishable. Jane and Michael have no distinguishable personalities either.

When I was 16, after exams were over, those of us who were going to stay on into the 6th form were given lessons 3 days per week, school trips 1 day, and the other day was to be spent on "public service", until the end of the summer term. I chose to volunteer as a teaching assistant at my old junior school. For most classes, I worked with small groups, and got to know the children quite well, but when it came to the 5 year olds, I was simply given the entire class and told to supervise their play time. Children of that age have their own interior life, and with 30 to supervise, I had little chance to get to know them individually. They were small, incomprehensible beings in worlds of their own. And that is how P. L. Travers seems to view young children. I was not surprised to learn that she had had no children of her own, and only adopted a boy late in life. She seems to treat her protagonists as ciphers, with no consistency of character or motivation. But whereas it may be excusable that I, faced with thirty, and only a couple of hours, did not really get to know that class, I find it inexcusable for an author to write for children without getting to know some!

Mary Poppins frequently denies to the children the events that have just happened, often leaving them confused. Are we supposed to assume that they are not real, but simply occurring in the children's imagination?

Yet the stories are told by an omniscient narrator, such that the second chapter involves only Mary Poppins and her beau, and no children at all. And magical events occur as much in that chapter as any other.

It is this lack of internal logic and consistency that I found frustrating.

Whereas in the E. Nesbit stories there is an explanation for parental absence - and even though those stories were written 30 or more years earlier, the Mother in those stories plays a far bigger role - the behaviour of Mrs Banks is simply bizarre.

The intermittent parenting from Mr Banks is understandable. Given that he works 6 days a week, and does plan outings with his children, his involvement level appears normal. But Mrs Banks, although she appears to be a kind and loving mother, is neither one that the children can confide in, nor does she have any involvement in their lives other than kissing them goodnight.

At one point she seems to spend all day on writing a single letter! Although the story is presented from a child's point of view - thus Mr Banks "making money in the City" is interpreted literally. - so that their not knowing what their mother does all day is perfectly plausible, I really have no idea how she is supposed to be spending her time.

P. L. Travers had an alcoholic father, which must have put a large workload on his wife. It seems as if, having given her protagonists a good father, she has no idea what to give the wife of such a man to do.

There is a misogynistic undercurrent that I found quite surprising in a female author. All females, except Mary Poppins, are described as either silly or shrewish - or both.

I have the impression that it is Mary Poppins whom the author identifies with. But as a character, she herself is inconsistent.

The vanity of an upper servant, constantly admiring herself in the latest finery that she has been able to purchase for herself, is a realistic portrayal of a woman who has to work hard to be able to afford her luxuries, and works such long hours - Mary Poppins is exceptional in getting 1 afternoon off every 14 days! - that she spends most of her time among children and has little chance to garner admirers, and thus has to get her satisfaction from admiring herself.

But when she can produce all different flavours from a medicine bottle, travel around the world freely, and has so many powerful friends, expecting her to share the outlook of someone who genuinely has to scrimp and save is rather odd.

For that matter, why is she a servant at all? The theme of coming to rescue the family, as present in the film, is completely absent in the book. No one's situation is improved - the children have magical fun, but they were not in any way unhappy before (in fact just somewhat badly behaved - and that does not appear to change). Is this simply authorial snobbery - she is a servant because she belongs to that class, and therefore, no matter how unusual she is, there is nothing else she could possibly be?

There is also a vein of cruelty running through the stories that I really did not like.

Another mother, who bullies her daughters, is treated as comic. She is a friend of Mary Poppins and the children like her because she gives them sweets; the fact that her daughters are clearly portrayed as being extremely unhappy does not matter.

A man who finds the death of his aunt hilarious (because her umbrella survived when she did not) is treated as a good chap - laughing at other's misfortune is something the children join in on.

And it is "amusing" that the old woman who sells breadcrumbs cannot say anything more than the one phrase.

I was not expecting a moralising tale, where everyone behaves perfectly or it catches up with them. But the encouragement to mock the less fortunate was such a persistent attitude that it made me uncomfortable. There is so little kindness in this book. Its absence is treated as the norm.

>135 -pilgrim-: That is a great critique of Mary Poppins. This appears to be a case where the film is better than the book.

>136 pgmcc: Given how much P. L. Travers is supposed to have hated the film, it appears to be much closer to the book than I was expecting (if my memory is serving me correctly). And it is definitely superior, in that it adds a theme and purpose, and small acts of kindness.

I do not think I would give the book to a young child to read alone. The callousness is mild, but insidious, and not an attitude to be accepted without discussion.

>135 -pilgrim-: There's a movie, Saving Mr. Banks, that describes Travers' early life in flashback and suggests that her Aunt, who helped raise her after her father's death from alcoholism and before her mother committed suicide, was the main inspiration for Mary Poppins.

>138 jjwilson61: I have certainly heard that "Spit-spot!" and other such phrases originated with the aunt.

>138 jjwilson61: I had not heard of her mother committing suicide. According to a biography of P. L. Travers, her mother attempted suicide, but was rescued, after which her aunt moved in to help run the household.

I found it interesting that one of her reasons for hating the Disney version of her book is that she did not intend Mary Poppins to be a nice person; she was meant to be "short, thin and vain".

She had also previously expressed a strong dislike for Walt Disney's earlier works, for giving a saccharin and unrealistic outlook on the world.

May #10:


Merlin's Mistake (Book 1 of Merlin's Mistake) by Robert Newman - 3 stars
16/5/2021

Having gained access to a crateful of my childhood books, I have been exploring. On finding this, I remembered the title, but nothing more, so that I was drawn to reread. (Apparently there is a sequel, but I knew nothing of this as a child; this story is completely self-contained.)

The setting is somewhat odd. It is set in King Arthur's Albion, but neither the King or any of his well-known knights appear in this tale. The protagonist is a sixteen year old called Brian, of noble birth. He is an only child, with a father who is missing, presumed dead, having never returned from a quest. When his castle is visited by a slightly younger boy on a quest, he decides to join him, in the hope of finding a quest of his own.

The visitor, Tertius, is an odd character. Merlin failed to turn up at the christening of his two elder brothers, so when he appeared at Tertius', he decided to make up for his omissions by endowing Tertius with all possible knowledge. But, possibly because he is already slightly befuddled by Nimue, this turns out to be all future knowledge. This means that he knows about lasers and computers - the room-filling kind, since this was written in the seventies! - but cannot do the simplest magic.

This is an interesting idea, but not much is really done with it; it is mainly used as a device that enables Tertius to explain things - even Latin, which one might expect Brian to have some knowledge of The focus is on Brian, although later on the journey they are joined by an old crone, who they accept, because Tertius explains that meeting helpers early into a quest is quite traditional.

I was talking, in another thread, with @ScoLo recently, about how much familiarity with Arthurian legend was considered normal in my childhood. This turns out to be an illustration of this, despite the author being American, not British. The story assumes that the (child) reader is familiar with the conventions of Arthurian chivalry. It also used the vocabulary of 14th arms and armour, and furnishings.

I did enjoy this. This was set in Albion, not England, so I could forgive our questers travelling from the east coast (and the Cambridgeshire fens) to an elevated, rocky peninsular on the south coast (!) through weeks and desolate country (despite that part of England being populated since pre-Roman time (This was a version that clearly placed Arthur and his knights with mediaeval accoutrements.)

What did annoy me was that the author clearly stated that to be an armiger meant the right to bear arms, and was a distinct category from a knight, and that only knights could have a heraldic device on their shield. And this was a major plot point.

In fact, armiger specifically meant the right to bear a heraldic achievement - a coat of arms (an honour reserved to a knight). That is why we have the phrase "arms and armaments": Armaments referred to weapons, and arms originally to the defensive equipment, the shield on which the heraldic device was displayed.

It was refreshing to see as book for children that did not talk down to its audience, but expected them instead to explore the terminology, if they were unfamiliar.

But I am unhappy with a book that teaches children a false definition of a technical term, even within a fantasy setting. The setting is clearly modelled on 14th century England, so to redefine a word, that is still in use today, with a false but plausible definition, and invent a false distinction that the reader could easily assume was a real one, is extremely unhelpful.

The idea that ordinary people in England were not permitted to arm themselves against wildlife is ridiculous. There were statutes forbidding the carrying of weapons within towns, but the usual restriction on weapons was the cost - both in manufacture and training time. If you were a professional, you could afford it, if you simply wanted to defend yourself in time of need, it was better to have a tool that you used in your daily life, the handling of which was familiar, that could be used in combat if needed.

There were some nice touches in this story. But the idea of Tertius' future knowledge was mostly wasted, and peddling misinformation always annoys me. So my overall reaction is mixed.

There was one computer reference I did not understand, and would appreciate some help with the interpretation: Tertius meets a speaking computer. When he is about to name it, he is told to give one of its many names. He draws 3 : symbols: the 2nd is a triangle with the point downwards and the 3rd is 3 wavy lines, that seen to depict three long-necked birds flying (cranes?)

This was written in the seventies, so knowledge of the computer industry in that era might be useful. Jim53? Karlstar?

May #16:


The Search for the Tinker Chief by Bríd Mahon - 4.5 stars
26/5/2021

This is another reread from my childhood. It was written by a woman who worked for the Irish Folklore Commission. Initially her gender restricted her to working as first a stenographer and then office manager, whilst using their records to carry out research of her own, but she ended her career as Senior Research Lecturer in the folklore department of University College, Dublin.

This story is steeped in traditional customs - such as raking over the coals of a fire in the shape of a cross before going to bed - included without comment or explanation. Although the cover illustration seems to set the story in the early seventies, when it was published, the setting within the story is far more vague; it is a timeless rural Ireland, where children get the day off school to cut turf, and ballad singers roam the roads, their pockets stuffed with broadsheets.

When I read this as a child, I understood "tinker" to mean itinerant tinsmith, such as still occasionally came door to door. I did not realise that it was then used to describe Irish Travellers - an ancient, nomadic people with a lifestyle similar to that of the Roma, although they are unrelated. And, like Kalderash Roma, they have a tradition of working as tinsmiths.

The title of the book is unfortunate, since "tinker" is now considered to be a pejorative term, like "gypsy". However the author's portrayal of "tinkers" is neither hostile nor patronising. The Tinker Chief of the title could be considered the main antagonist, but he is "wild" rather than evil. The heroine, Kathleen, is also a "tinker"; she is both proud of her background and a little defensive of it, but Conor's grandmother's attitude is simply that "they are people". Tinkers in this story are a little scary, in that they represent the Other - people with a different culture and lifestyle - not because that makes them bad people.

The epigraph to the story is a summary of the tale of the Children of Lír - one of the Three Great Sorrows of Ireland - and the story of the swans is one of the themes of this book. Fairly early on, someone tells the story (from the Nine Invasions of Ireland) of how the Tuatha De Dannan () were defeated by the invaders from Spain and, rather than leave their beloved Ireland, walked into its hills, and long there still. This is not a book in which fairyland is somewhere else that you go; the Good Folk live in the hills, and you may interact with them if you are lucky.

Not all the people that the children meet on the road are human; some are clearly not, and some are only pretending to be. They receive a lot of kindness from strangers, with much hospitality given and received; however not all the strangers mean them well, and some they have to flee from in terror.

Conor has a dog called Bran, who finds something of value in an ancient lake. When it is stolen from Conor, with Kathleen's help, he sets off with her, and Bran, to get it back.

There is an absence of parents in this story. Kathleen states that she does not have a father or mother, but Conor's are never mentioned. And he sets off in the middle of the night, simply leaving his grandmother a note to explain.

People speak in riddles and quote songs. Music is a language of communication. There is no technology in this story at all (or books).

People socialise with spontaneous music-making or doing, and a good musician can get the whole crowd singing. It was comfortingly familiar for me.

The story of the swans is one of the earliest that I can remember reading (aged about 3). There are differences (such as the number of brothers and the final conclusion). In other stories things also sometimes differed from what I remember, and some songs were completely unfamiliar.

I think that I actually appreciated this book less as a child than I do now, because it is set among myths with which I was already familiar.

But it has a wonderful dreamlike quality, as talking animals, leprechauns, and even Aenghus himself, wander in and out of the story.

And Conor and Kathleen are nice children. They can get tired, frustrated and grumpy, of course. But that are fundamentally unselfish, kindly people. It makes a refreshing change from the intrinsic selfishness of so many modern protagonists that I have read recently.

The book says that the illustrations are by William Bolger. The internal illustrations are in the pen-and-ink style that was so ubiquitous in my childhood.

But the cover does not match the internal illustrations. Kathleen on the cover has fair hair, and her extremely short skirt sets the story firmly as contemporary with the book's publication. Such a skirt would, I think, be strange in a conservative Traveller culture. (I was raised in a conservative tradition, where skirts above the knee were not allowed - despite all the mini-skirts around me.)

Inside the book, Kathleen is taller than Conor, has long straight black hair, and her skirts are always modestly below the knee (just!)

It is also noticeable that the author's name is given (correctly) as Bríd on the fly leaf, but anglicised to "Brid" on the cover.

I am curious as to whether this 1971 edition is a reissue by a different publisher, who has replaced the cover. But I can find no mention anywhere of an earlier version.

There is a lot of vocabulary in the book that is both unfamiliar to me and unexplained.

I am familiar with boreen, for example, but what is "bonaveen"? (From context, I am guessing "runt".)

Sentence structure demonstrates Hiberno-English idioms. From the fact that some of it sounds half-familiar, I suspect it is Irish, with an Anglicised spelling. (cf. musha and wisha as exclamations, and Loo and Beg as names for two leprechauns)

None of this bothered me when I first read this, but I find the convention a little frustrating now, as I have to try to reconstruct the Irish Gaelic spelling, before I can look anything up.

(ETA: I do not know Irish at all, I have to work simply from knowing a very little Scottish Gaelic, which has a similar pronunciation.)

I would recommend this to anyone who would enjoy a story for children that does not follow modern genre conventions.

This was a gem among my rereads from childhood, and has left me with the urge to also seek out the author's non-fiction books.

May #19:


The Girl With the Green-Tinted Hair: A Miraculous Fsble by Gavin Whyte (55 pages) - 2 stars

This 55 page novella is a self-conscious effort to create a fable. As such it has the repetitive structure, the systematic imagery, the evolving doggerel. I found it quite pretty, but rather trite.

The premise is that a boy indulges his loneliness by going to a tree to tell it how lonely he is. (I say "indulge" because he does not want company - his first reaction on finding someone is there is to be angry.) What follows at first send rather pretty, but also, if thought about, somewhat disturbing The tree spirit, as a girl his own age, comes to play with him. They play together all Spring, but at the beginning of Summer he does not recognise her, because she is now a young woman. In Autumn she is motherly and wrinkled, and at the beginning of Winter she is dying.

It is emphasised that the boy is too young to respond sexually to the young woman's beauty. Nevertheless I found the way he saw no difference in his friendship with women of different generations, somewhat uncomfortable.
They all cuddle him and thus comfort him. It is a very one way "friendship"; her rôle is to make HIM feel better, to the extent of comforting HIM when SHE is dying, because he doesn't want to lose her.

The idea that it is the dying female's job to comfort those inconvenienced by her death does anger me. Even at her death, it is the male's feelings only that matter. And yes, a mother would want to comfort her child. But it is emphasised throughout that they are friends. So this is a concept of friendship where the female's experience is irrelevant; all that matters is that the boy can go to her with his trivial problems, and she does whatever he needs to make him feel better. He cares about losing his source of comfort, never about her.

The "message" is that change is inevitable and one should relax and go with it, because the outcome will always be fine.

The author is influenced by Buddhist ideas (which do not resonate with me).

This is intended as a YA book. It may be fine for readers who are worried by nothing more serious than the pressure of deciding their career path. To those who have genuine, serious troubles, like being bullied, being ill, or having a sick relative, "Don't worry, just enjoy yourself and be happy and it will all turn out all right in the end" will be a cruel delusion. It is perfectly possible to delude oneself that one has problems, when they are trivial, and at such points a reminder of the beauty around us is good. But real problems cannot be wished away.

However I also do not feel that "do whatever makes you happy" is good career advice, unless you also have relatives whom you can plan to sponge off as a fallback plan. Life does not always turn out as we would like.

And this felt, to me, for the reasons given in the "spoiler section", to be a very selfish male fantasy.

The cover image was by far the best thing about this book. The illustrator is Monika Zlamalova. The fact that she did not get a credit, but is simply thanked for her "wise words, support and illustrations" is somehow what I would expect from this author.

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 3
Books awaiting review from May: 11

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

>144 -pilgrim-: demonstrates that I really am not on top of things right now!

>108 pgmcc: I didn't know all that information about Dorothy Sayers, wow!

The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club (BBC Audio Crime)
adapted by Chris Miller from the novel by Dorothy L. Sayers - 3 stars
2/6/2021

This was a radio play based on a Lord Peter Wimsey novel that I do not think I have ever read. It dates from 1995 and has Ian Carmichael playing Lord Peter.

It was satisfyingly convoluted, even if I did guess the culprit fairly early.

I was impressed by a very sympathetic portrayal of a man damaged by shell shock, far more badly than Lord Peter. The negative attitudes around in that period towards single women who were perceived as unattractive were chillingly portrayed. And the dramatisation did an excellent job of showing how a certain character's brattishness was derived from deep unhappiness.

One social response did surprise me: attempted fraud resulted in nothing worse than social censure, and at a level where his close friends appeared to readily forgive the attempt.

But this is yet another story where Lord Peter seems saddened by the consequences of his successful investigation. Why does he continue? This is a relatively early story.

And, if I am honest, the ending was rather convenient. It was very convenient that the murderer could be persuaded to confess. They were not making their own position any worse by doing so. But they had committed several ruthless acts, so why were they now so helpful?

I was also uncomfortable with how many characters made it clear that they did not sympathise with the general: the opinion that it is indecent of the old to persist in inconveniencing the young by continuing on living, and denying their heirs their "rightful" expectations of unearned wealth was rather nauseating. I have met that attitude in real life, and liked it no better there.

So, although I enjoyed this, there were flaws. Did they exist in the original, or were they introduced by the adaptation, and the need to abbreviate explanations?

May #18:


Ink & Sigil (Book 1 of Ink & Sigil) by Kevin Hearne - 2 stars
30/5/2021

This was a light read, in the sense that nothing very complicated or inexplicable happened. It was a good choice for high levels of pain and consequent difficulty in concentrating.

BookstoogeLT, Karlstar and others, in discussion with YouKneek, seemed of the opinion that although the Iron Druid series started well, it went on for a long time, rather repetitively. So I thought another book, set in that world but with different characters, would be a good way to test whether I liked this author's style or not.

The premise had promise: as a former calligrapher, I was attracted to a form of magic based on the careful drawing of sigils which, in order to be effective, need to be drawn with the correct ink, which usually itself requires careful preparation from hard to obtain ingredients.

The protagonist, Aloysius "Al" MacBharrais, is a sigil agent in his sixties. That might sound boring, but since his work consists of drawing up contracts that involve gods, and sealing them with sigils that inflict appropriate punishment on those who break such contracts, in some senses he is actually an enforcer for Brigid, First of the Fae, which can make his life rather exciting.

There are only five sigil agents in the world. One in North America, another covering the southern US, Central and Southern America, one in Taipei and another in Australia. Al's remit is “The European continent, the Middle East, and the various countries that comprise Northern Africa” - which should keep him rather busy!

I am also unclear as to who is covering the rest of Africa, Asia and, specifically Russia, The latter being particularly relevant, since an American launches a supernatural attack on "Russian agents in Crimea" in the course of the book. Since “The gods are all made up, but the making is no joke: They’re also real, given the ability to manifest when they reach a critical mass of faith", I can see no reason for these regions to be exempt.

It may be relevant that Brigid created sigil magic and gave it to mankind in the 19th century, whilst the Chinese practitioners follow a Taoist tradition. So does this explain the uneven spread? Can someone who has read the Iron Druid series help me out here?

Note: the Iron Druid does make a cameo appearance in this book, but it is rather pointless, in that it is a flashback that contributes nothing to advance the plot. Maybe it is a recall of an encounter described elsewhere from the other perspective, and means more there?

The supernatural entities that appear in this story are a rather haphazard mix of two cultural traditions that have no common history: thus there are English type fairies serving Celtic type Fae - who are here conceived of as being a specifically Irish phenomenon - despite the story being set entirely in Scotland (apart from a brief trip to America).

Later in the books, events take place in "Kercz in Crimea". They are referred to as taking place "in a village in Ukraine", according to a newspaper report. I find it inconceivable that a Scottish newspaper would refer to a Crimean city by its Polish name, or refer to a place with a population of nearly 150,000 as a "village'. Furthermore, the British press are well aware of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Any Russian agents there are hardly "infiltrating Ukraine".

Since there are repeated verbal attacks on the "current" political situation in the USA (this was written in 2020) - with the brief assertion that Britain is "as bad" - I am unclear whether the author intends to imply that the CIA are so incompetent as to have not noticed the events of 6 years previously, or whether he himself is that ignorant.

Certainly his minimalist interest in understanding the world around him is apparent from the introduction, where he attempts to explain Weegie - the Glaswegian dialect. I knew it was going to be bad as soon as he started describing it as if it were a dialect of English. (It derives from the admixture of Scots and Scottish English.) He has evidently seen some of it written - so that he explains how to pronounce tae and nae (which he writes thus) - but he has no comprehension that the sound at the end of gonnae is exactly the same, so, because he drives it from the English gonna (rather than from the Scots gaun tae), and so writes it "phonetically" as "gonnay"! Then, to compound it, he decides that he is not going to be consistent in writing Weegie for the dialogue of his characters, but only throw in a few words "for flavour". Thus we get the travesty of "tae Glasgow" (as said by no one, ever)! Glesgae rhymes with tae - and no Weegie would ever pronounce the "ow" on the end as in English.

The whole effect is as ridiculous as writing a character who speaks standard English, but inserting "Yee haw!" and "yer varmint" to remind your readers that they are meant to be American. The use of a few of the more colourful Weegie insults, and some specifically Scots vocabulary is fine, but this mockery of a dialect, spelling a few words phonetically and then returning to standard spelling, is deeply patronising - and offensive.

It is also incredibly jarring. The purpose of writing in the voice of a character is supposed to give the reader a feel for the character, their personality and their background. But the way that Al switches register multiple times in the same paragraph, even the same sentence, while either talking to the same person or in his narration, is so unrealistic as to remove any ability to identify what is meant to be being portrayed in his speech.

And potentially, there was a lot to like about Al. It is refreshing to see a hero who was not young and good looking, and was not an alcoholic mess after his wife's death, but neither was he womanising. He still misses her, but is nevertheless getting on with his life, despite the loneliness, and doing something that he perceives to be extremely worthwhile. He has a strong moral code, knows which lines he will not cross, and sticks to them, without any noticeable quantity of angst.

It is a pity that such poor characterisation lets this book down. It also has a delight in juvenile obscene insults, which fit well with a hobgoblin, but hardly with an older man. (I do not mean to imply that an older gentleman cannot indulge in extensive, and inventive, profanity, but they are usually capable, when sober, of something more creative then the "your mother" obscenities genre of the playground.)

I was uncomfortable with how the violence was treated. What the police refer to as "life changing injuries" were here treated as trivial, an unfortunate side effect, maybe even humorous. There seemed to be no comprehension of the levels of pain would be involved (and we are also talking about human characters here, with no magic amelioration).

Human trafficking was also brought up, as a peripheral issue. Why our hero becomes involved is a nebulous urge to do good - he simply pays a hacker for some information, and then passed it to the police. This cheap gesture on the character's part seems to be a mirror of the author's. He says at the end that he has read the same book as his character does in the novel - which explains why a Scottish character chooses to research human trafficking in America, rather than picking a book that focusses on the same problem country that he is in, and is actually relevant to the issue at hand!

It is a cheap way for both character and author to demonstrate what good people they must be, by expressing appropriate moral outrage, without actually expending any effort in doing something to help. Paying for some information, name checking a book - I am underwhelmed.

The cavalier treatment of the Weegies, to whom this book is dedicated, is also explained in the Afterward. Apparently the author really enjoyed his holiday in Glasgow, and having been shown around by some friends, evidently thinks that means he knows all that he needs to know. No - simply name checking a few bars that actually exist does not that you have got to know the feel of a place.

The mythology is likewise a grab-bag of motifs, with no consistency.

The "deep" political themes are extremely trite, and export American concerns into British scenery for no plausible reason. The British intelligence services apparently do not exist, and so could not notice a clumsy CIA operation (without magical cover) -and including the construction of an underground lair!- being carried out on British territory.

And the question that is posed in the opening chapter - how did Al manage to choose such a morally reprehensible apprentice, without ever noticing anything wrong?- is never answered.

And that is in addition to the deliberately open-ended question to set up the next book.

This is lazy writing about a generic plot. The formidable female sidekick is of course both goth and lesbian - because all non-gender-conforming women "must" be lesbian too (it seems).

The only really original character is Saxon! Codpiece! (that is how he spells his name), a hacker whose cover employment is as an online sex worker - which explains both why he has extensive electronic equipment, a hard to find workplace, irregular cashflow, and a reluctance in those acquainted with him to enquire too closely into his activities. That itself is a clever idea - and also gives an example of the smut level of the book.

I felt this was lazy writing that could easily have been a lot better. I liked the premise and the protagonist enough that I would possibly pick up the next book if I see it in a sale somewhere.

I would not recommend this book to any Scot.

Pretty cover though.

>146 fuzzi:
I was amazed when I uncovered the details. One thing led to another and I was well down the rabbit hole before I was aware of it. I really enjoyed learning these things about her.

>148 -pilgrim-: If you want some rune based magic stories, I'd recommend the Arcane Casebook series.

>150 BookstoogeLT: Thanks for the suggestion - I had never heard of those.

The delight in the history of inks was the one feature that I really enjoyed here. I was learning calligraphy, before my hand was crippled.

May #17:


The Serpentine Road (Book 2 of Colonel Vaughn de Vries) by Paul Mendelson - 4 stars

I read the first book in this series several years ago, having found it in a remainder bin, and was impressed. I kept intending to seek out the sequel, but never got around to it, until I found it being offered on Kindle in its deals.

This is even better than the first book.

Although this is a police procedural, it is also much more than that. The crimes are never predictable, and these novels are without clichés, even in the minor rôles. The descriptions are vivid; the landscape is lovingly detailed, and those of characters are short, but clearly visualised.

This novel was written, and is set, in 2015. But there are flashbacks to events in 1994. The story covers politics, both then and current. The author never lectures the reader; as he states in his introduction, the views expressed are those of the characters, not the author. And he portrays the outlooks of various people from different sections of South African society. Many attitudes are not nice; their portrayal does not condone. This is a novel that tries to provide a realistic portrayal of how things are, not a projection of how they should be.

The first book dealt with how the "old boys' network" of white privilege could backfire on the class that supposedly benefited. This one does not shy away from either the current situation of women in Africa, or the South African white underclass, currently experiencing reverse discrimination and high levels of unemployment.

The main protagonist, Colonel Vaughn de Vries, is an interesting character. He is not a likeable man. He does not easily respect women; he tends to start from an assumption that they are less competent than a man, and he prefers casual sex to a relationship (since that would deflect his concentration on his work). He is also a racist; he has a tendency to make generalisations about people from other races according to certain stereotypes.

However - unlike the protagonist of The Booktaker - there is never any suggestion from the author that these are "acceptable foibles".

De Vries acknowledges to himself that he is racist - and he dislikes it in himself. Not so much from a moral/political standpoint, but because having such preconceptions makes him a worse policeman.

And that is what de Vries actually cares about - doing his job well. NOT "having a successful career" , but bringing justice. He joined the police, in the apartheid era, because he wanted to fight to make his country a better place, not fight "against terrorists" in an internal war. He resented his government using the police as a paramilitary organ of suppression - a viewpoint that did not endear him to his colleagues.

And now, in the post-apartheid era, he is an anachronism. Old, white policemen are reminiscent of the old order; politically it would look better for the serious crimes to be policed by young educated black men. De Vries has kept his job because he is good, tenacious and incorruptible; he is needed. Nevertheless he has always one eye looking over his shoulder, wary of the political manoeuvrings against him.

And his hatred of corruption, and of political expediency, means that he has as few friends as before.

De Vries' justice is colour-blind; he does not care who you are. If you commit a crime, he will come after you, regardless of your connections or your history. And if he thinks that he can trust that you are likewise committed to justice, you are one of "his" - and he will risk his life, his career, and everything else to protect you. Because once, when he was young, he bowed to pressure, and did not take the correct action. And he is not a man to forgive himself that.

His sidekick, Warrant Officer Don February, is Cape Colored. He has had to struggle to get to where he is today. The previous book, The First Rule of Survival, had February and de Vries working their way towards and understanding. They now have a working relationship based on mutual trust and respect. February values de Vries' strengths and knows how to accommodate his weaknesses. February himself is what de Vries is not: a good husband, a Christian, and a patient, empathetic interviewer. He is also well aware in what ways his personality traits make him a better policeman than de Vries.

These two make a successful partnership because they can see how their differences complement one another. It is an excellent portrayal of two men, who are too different in personality to ever become friends - I doubt that they will ever go out for a beer together - who have a strong relationship, built on trust, respect, and shared values.

We follow the story sometimes from de Vries' viewpoint, and sometimes from February's.

There is a third major character: de Vries' only close friend, John Marantz. He played a larger rôle in the previous book, but he is still significant here. But he is a shadowy figure, we rarely see what he is thinking. Marantz is an Englishman. He was a member of the British intelligence services, until the kidnap of his wife and daughter, years ago, took him "out of the game". He knows that they are probably now dead; it is the uncertainty that tortures him. Heis on indefinite leave, living in limbo in Cape Town, supporting himself by gambling. (Professional card-playing is a trait that he shares with the author, who is also an Englishman resident in Cape Town.)

No character in this book is perfect. But these three each do have a strong moral code (not the same one). A strong theme seems to be how life forces moral compromises; the issue is to decide which values you have to sacrifice, in order to maintain others, that you think more important.

This is not a novel for readers who like their "good guys" and "bad guys" to come with convenient labels. Everyone has a reason for what they do, and believes that they are the "good guy".

It is also not a book where you can second-guess the plot well in advance. Its twists and turns do not arise from bizarre events, but simply because real police work does not have all the information conveniently immediately available.

I am not in a position to comment on the accuracy of this novel's portrayal of South Africa, but I found all the characters psychologically plausible.

One thing I particularly liked is that characters are not static. I do not mean the cheap tactic of having them struck by major events that alter their personalities, but neither do they behave as if they learn nothing from their experiences. For example, General Thalani was a superior for whom Dr Vries has nothing but contempt in the first book; here we also see his virtues, and get a clearer idea of his motivation.

I would recommend this highly, and am looking out for the next in the series.

May #13:


♪♪ The Booktaker (Book 46 in The Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini - 1.5 stars
Narrated by: Nick Sullivan

Apparently this is a late episode in a long-running series. I found the clues so clearly signposted that there was no difficulty in working out how the crime was committed, well before our narrator-hero.

Who was the culprit was not predictable since there were arguments towards each suspect and all were clichés. But that was true of the entire story. I was never entirely clear whether this was another routine entry in the noir genre, or intended as a pastiche of the style.

The narration was somewhat robotic at the start, but then settled into a "Philip Marlowe" style. That was obviously the intended reference of the author - the unnamed protagonist even used "Jim Marlowe" as his pseudonym whilst undercover, staying that it was a reference to a favourite fictional detective.

The voice used for the British character was that peculiar accent that I have never heard in real life, but is beloved of American actors. It would have been offensive, if it were not that the "aggressive drunk", "camp obsessive" and "bitter and spiteful" characters were equally crudely characterised.

A "doctor's waiting room" book: there were no major flaws in execution, but neither was it particular interesting. I would not deliberately pick up another book by this author.

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 3
Books awaiting review from May: 8

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

May #12:


Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - 2.5 stars
12/5/2021-18/5/2021

Having been hit by several BBs, I have to say that this was a major disappointment. I am astonished that it turns out to have won so many prestigious awards.

It had several likeable characters, and - unlike a lot of SF - the characters were not cyphers or types, but clearly drawn people. But that is not enough to make it a good novel.

The introduction to the SF Gateway edition, by Adam Roberts, warns about the mistakes in the historical setting and that the science did not interest the author, so that she hand-waves the time-travel. However he also refers to her "detailed research", so this was still much worse than I was expecting.

The parts that are set in "future Oxford" never ring true. The atmosphere of academic infighting is timeless, and well portrayed. But the ambience as a whole is very peculiar - it seems to be a mixture of the jargon and behaviours of the Oxford of the 1950s with American customs. It is as if the author has actually just watched a few black and white movies, then arrogantly assumed that the customs of her native land are going to be exported to England. Slang evolves, and I don't expect the Oxford of the future to resemble either that of my youth or of the present day, but I can see no obvious reason why discarded language should be readopted, nor why American customs should take over. It is bizarre to see Dunworthy's assistant addressed by his surname, but a mere boy addressed as "Mr". The traditional rules are that one earns the title of "Mr" by being (i) over 21 and (ii) either a graduate or a landowner (outright, not mortgaged). Finch probably fails to qualify because of (ii), but Gaddson, being under 21 (since no mention is made of him being a mature student), fails (i). Those niceties are not widely observed now, and it is perfectly plausible that Future Oxford would not make them, but in that case, I would expect Finch to be "Mr Finch".

Similarly, I find no reason for the author's assumption that academic standards would have so badly deteriorated. Although in the 1950s it was possible to hold a lectureship without a doctorate, it was very rare by my own day, and I find it odd to assume that none of the heads of department even have PhDs, whereas one would expect them to have Chairs. Instead they are ALL simply "Mr."

The technical assumptions are equally bizarre. The idea that the UK would happily demolish the ancient buildings of central Oxford in order to install the ventilation systems and stations of an Underground line is insulting; it is also a weird idea to assume that digging endless tunnels through the Thames Valley would ever be considered an economic way of constructing a transport link. (I am also curious as to how one can simply "turn round" and send back a Tube train, on meeting a blockade, and get back to London in a few hours, without being blocked by the continuing normal operation of the scheduled runs between unaffected stations. I would assume considerable more disruption than is portrayed, as the train first has to wait for their timeslot of its return journey, then cope with the chaos of it returning full to stations where it would normally arrive mostly empty, and so on. )

I suppose this is on a par with the author's assumption that roads in 14th century England magically clear themselves of snow, or that the Oxford academics are so ignorant that they believe there was a risk of cholera in England 400 years before it first came to the British Isles!

Her ideas of the evolution of religious denominations also do not ring true. That there would be some new denominations is completely plausible. That ALL the current ones would have vanished, or renamed themselves, is not. Out of the 70% of the English population who classify themselves as Christian, less than 10% of them belong to churches that are Presbyterian in structure; the rest, being either Anglican or Roman Catholic, belong to international churches that believe themselves to have apostolic succession, and thus cannot fragment without repudiating core beliefs. Such changes occur very rarely.

In short, neither the future nor the past settings ring true.

The whole idea of the automatic translator struggling to cope with the difference between "Saxon" and "Norman" pronunciation (on which considerable time is spent) is rather ridiculous. Is it supposed to have been built for use specifically with the rural Oxfordshire dialect? How were they sufficiently familiar with that evolution of that particular regional dielect to tune for it? Even in the 20th century, the dialects of different regions of England varied from another sufficiently to be at times mutually unintelligible, with variations of grammar and vocabulary reflecting their different linguistic roots (unless the speaker deliberately moderates their speech towards Standard English). Six hundred years earlier, with minimal travel for the lowe classes, the regional variations are going to have been more, not less. The inhabitants of a single village will have been mutually intelligible, even if the different classes spoke with different pronunciation. So why can an interpreter, presumably built on a synthesis of regional Englishes (since we usually do not know which regional variant a given mediaeval author spoke), cope with that broad range of grammatical, vocabulary and pronunciation variation, but not a slight difference in accent?

The basic theme seems to be to demonstrate that the people of the 14th century were "just like us" in their emotions. But has anyone sensible ever believed otherwise?

Gilchrist is made to espouse the idea that "because death was common in the mediaeval period, people did not feel bereavement as we do". I know throughout the book he is being set up to appear am idiot compared to the hero, Dunworthy, but it is a complete "straw man". I remember one of my more ignorant (and very young) junior school teachers trying to argue this, but even then I knew it was rubbish - from talking to elderly relatives who has lost multiple siblings in childhood. To observe how people react in situations of high mortality rates one need only look at those countries who are currently blockaded from access to modern pharmaceuticals. It is again, rather ridiculous and insulting to ascribe such an attitude to an academic who one would expect to be conversant with the views of the historians of the author's own day, let alone 60 years later.

This book was written in the 1990s, yet it repeatedly assumes that academics sixty years later are more poorly educated, and stupider than those contemporary with when it was written - yet no explanation for these assumptions is ever given, and the tone implies that research etc. has advanced in the intervening period.

The cause of the "modern" pandemic is the case in point par excellence. The most obvious source for an influenza variant radically different to those currently known is clear from chapter 14, yet no one even thinks of investigating this until 10 chapters later.

This is one of those novels that patronises the reader. It tries to give them the satisfaction of being "cleverer then the experts" by making the ostensible experts actually extremely stupid.

The other main storyline is how badly Gilchrist prepared Kivrin for the trip, compared to Dunworthy. But Dunworthy's advice is equally flawed.

He is obsessed with the risk of her being burnt as a witch - despite the fact that burning was not the usual English method of executing witches, and the witch-hunting craze did not really start in England until after the arrival of the Black Death, when the attempts to explain the disaster turned to blaming the Other (Jews, "gypsies", foreigners, witches and so on).

She is at far greater risk of being executed as a heretic, since he has not bothered to instruct her in the fundamental beliefs of the people with whom she is attempting to merge.

And for all we are TOLD that Kivrin is an extremely bright pupil, who had prepared herself diligently for her role, she had actually done nothing to prepare herself to mimic the religious mindset of the people she is copying. Sir Richard Burton was able to infiltrate a Haj in the 19th century, because he knew what his fellow travellers believed (and had a good cover story for why his Arabic was not perfect). Why is a 21st traveller not learning from such long-established examples?

She memories the Latin Mass - which is a completely unnecessary exercise, since before the Reformation, one heard mass rather than participated in it. Yet the fact that she considers a bishop's permission thatin extremis people should confess to one another if no priest is available to be "a bureaucratic matter" demonstrates that she has no understanding of what the Church taught of what a priest is.

By the doctrine of the Church, the sacrament of ordination endowed a priest with the ability to act as "the vicar of (i.e. substitute for) Christ", meaning that he was given (by God), God's power to absolve (i.e. forgive sins) and thus prevent the person who confesses to him from being punished in Hell for the sins that they confessed. (He also received the power to consecrate the Host - to turn the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.)

It does not matter whether the character (Kivrin), the author, or the reader believes in any of this, or not. But in the 14th century, this was the uncontested view of what it meant to be a priest. It was crucially important to anyone with even the slightest belief, because the priest was seen as able to prevent you bring punished for your sins. When death appears imminent, and apparently impossible to prevent, that is going to be a topic on everyone's mind.

Kivrin is equally ill-prepared on the subject of socio-economic history, and displays ignorance greater than the average schoolgirl. She sees lots of unused, open countryside in Oxfordshire, and fails to immediately realise the extreme social disorder that this implies.

People did not clear the ancient woodland that covered that part of the country for amusement, and she has travelled back to before the great expansion of the English navy changed that face of the English countryside. Land that was cleared was farmed. Empty fields imply that the villages that cleared them have been dramatically depopulated, by either war or disease.

The fact that she fancies that she should be able to see London from Oxford, before remembering that it is this period "fifty rather than twenty" miles away suggests that she believes that the Chilterns did not then exist, this confusing historical and geological timescales.

Since this story has no scientific accuracy or accuracy of setting, I assume its point is to show the humanity of people in the 14th century. But to demonstrate that, one has also to accept that the prevailing beliefs then were not the same as the prevailing ones now. We do not have to agree with them. But we must accept them for who they were, and take seriously the matters that were of concern to them, even if they do not bother us.

To write a book whose subject is how a village handles the trauma of a plague in the 14th century, whilst not taking seriously their beliefs about sin, absolution and the hope of Heaven, is an insult to our ancestors - and a waste of time to read. This book spent its time attacking straw men.

To repeatedly sneer at Gilchrist for his incompetence in preparing his student, is unreasonable, when her preferred tutor, Dunworthy, is equally negligent, and the supposedly bright and enthusiastic student remembers so little basic history as to render it astounding that she was ever accepted to read history at Oxford at all. That he cannot be bothered about the science is, of course, particularly negligent - but the critique is invidious from an author who herself is so careless about technical plausibility.

The conclusion was obvious from the premise: if the paradoxes do not let through the net anything that will change the past, then Kivrin cannot "help" the villagers. So there was no dramatic tension.

I was waiting for a "twist", something to occur that was not clearly signposted. It never came. I correctly guessed who lived and who died.

It was a long book, with nice characters, so I kept waiting for something novel to happen. But it never did.

May #15:


Palestinian Women Detainees in Israeli Prisons by Jerusalem Center for Women - 3 stars
25/5/2021-27/5/2021

I recently visited a craft shop that sells Palestinian products. Given the recent news regarding renewed Palestinian/Israeli conflict I was looking for information regarding the Palestinian viewpoint. Instead their library contained this rather dated report, written in 2004, regarding the situation at that point in the Intifada.

I realised that most voices on these issues that I have heard have been male, and so I was interested in reading about the female experience.

It is important to recognise that the book focusses narrowly on the conditions in prisons, police cells and detention centres. It does not attempt to discuss the political causes of the situation. Although the statement is made that Since the beginning of the 20th century, Palestinian national strife including women's was directed against Judaization and Jewish immigration to Palestine, in actual fact specific historical detail starts in 1967.

The book comprises:

a brief summary of events only as they pertain to numbers arrested

treatment of women detainees

testimonies from named female detainees, still in detention at the time the report was compiled.

Section IV of the 4th Geneva Convention: Regulations for the Treatment of Internees (Prisoners)

a bulletin issued by the Mandela Institued sic@>for political prisoners in April 2004 (this appears to be a statement by Palestinian political prisoners)

an article on the health of a 2 year old who is in detention with his mother, who was still awaiting trial at the time of publication (having been born in prison and denied all medical treatment)

a report on meetings with relatives of prisoners

Note: the individual women whose testimonies were given ranged in age from their forties to early teens. In background they ranged from university students from wealthy family to a woman raised in an orphanage and married at 14. Where the women have been charged with a crime, the charge is given, and the sentence, if she has actually appeared in court. There is no discussion as to whether or not they are guilty of the offences (with the exception of a couple of cases where a schoolgirl speaks of being arrested whilst taking a knife to school for at class, and another where the young woman's description of the number of family members she has lost in the previous week, and her hysterical state, incidentally implies that she committed the offence with which she was charged - although a plea of temporary insanity would probably have been lodged in another country's court).

The terminology of "martyrs" - in a way that is unclear whether the person referred to has been killed by Israeli soldiers or airstrikes, or as a suicide bomber - means that the language the women use cannot be considered impartial. But that is only in the testimony section.

The purpose of the booklet is to discuss whether this treatment of prisoners is acceptable, not to excuse their actions or beliefs. It is about women in a First World country should be denied any medical treatment other than Aspirin, even when suffering from cancer, and whether the babies that they give birth to there should be denied the vaccines routinely given to children in that country. It is about what sleeping accommodation, food are needed, and whether prayer should be permitted. It is about whether it is acceptable to detain someone not for anything that they have done, but because of charges against their male relatives. It is also about torture*.

However it also makes it clear that the cruel treatment described have caused the women to band together. The educated teach those who have had little access to education. And those who were politically active before their imprisonment pass on their beliefs.

Although these women consider themselves political prisoners, the mental comparison that I was making as I read this was simply with the penal systems of other countries of comparable wealth.

Although this never discussed the politics of the conflict, and the situation described is over a decade old, I felt it provided useful background to the current situation. If someone his through such an experience, it is going to have a long term effect on them and their attitudes (even if they are eventually found to be innocent).

One other factor that struck me was how often the women detained were there because of the actions of the men in their lives, rather than their own. Even when not detained simply in order to put pressure on relatives to give themselves up, the charge was often of "sheltering" someone. I could not help wondering how much real choice they had over that action.

Not a cheerful read.

*In a BBC documentary interview that I saw a while back, a senior representative of the Israeli forces proudly described the interrogation techniques that he had introduced for use on female suspects. He was proud of them because they "got results", without doing permanently physical injury, although he admitted they resulted in permanent psychological damage. Since his descriptions tally with the allegations made by the detainees, I do not think it controversial to accept their statements.

>155 -pilgrim-: Thanks for that review, I've had that book sitting on my (short) TBR pile for ages, hesitating over whether to read it or not. I will not, I would be annoyed by many of the same points that bothered you.

I wonder why it won so many awards?

>157 Karlstar: I have been pondering that question. I think the answer lies in the concept of genre fiction.

Thus the people who are widest read in science fiction are often those who ONLY read science fiction, and a lot of the people who read history never read science.

Because the style is detailed, those reviewers who know nothing about a particular field assume that the details she gives have been researched, when in fact her assumptions are just appalling, lazy guessing in those fields too.

Thus the introduction to my copy, which is marketed as part of the "S.F. Masterworks" series, has an introduction, by the series editor, which admits that she 'handwaves' the science in a not particularly logical way, and gets her medical history severely wrong, but tells us that we should not be focussing on these flaws, but read it for its "characterisation" and historical detail. Thus a science fiction enthusiast tells us that the science is bad, but it is (supposedly) accurate in other fields.

I notice that the only BRITISH award that the novel has received was from S.F. afficionados, who I suspect of thinking as above. The more general praise came from abroad.

I remember in GD recently a discussion about our houses, in which I was amazed to learn that American houses are often (usually?) built of wood! My default image of a house, unless otherwise specified, is of brick, with stone being the most likely alternative. This seemed to similarly amaze a lot of American Dragoneers.

The point is that I know Oxford. Until relatively recently I used to go there several times a year, often from the direction of London. I know the basic history of my country, including which areas were densely wooded until the Tudor naval expansion, and so that anywhere in those regions that is not woodland has been explicitly cleared. England is not currently a densely wooded country, but that is not how it appeared 6 centuries ago.

Also, I suspect that my knowledge of my own country's history would be rather better than an American default, given that you have all of Europe to consider in that era, as well as that of your own land.

And indeed, I have dined in an Oxford college.

By which I am saying that there is an awful lot that is glaringly wrong, that is obvious to me without having to do any research (ignoring the other facts that minimal research proves to be equally bad).

If I sat down, right now, to write a novel set in the USA, without researching the exact setting that I had chosen thoroughly, the result would probably be something that any American reader would find ridiculous. But would its British readers? Perhaps not.

Yet we are probably more casually aware of your urban and rural landscapes than you are of ours. Hollywood output is greater than that of the British film industry, and a lot of our output is smaller scale in scope.

Nevertheless, a lot of American authors seem to think they can set a story in the UK with zero or minimal background research. And this is a sufficiently common phenomenon that a lot of American readers may not detect egregious errors, because they have unwittingly garnered their impression of Britain from other authors who are equally lazy and ignorant.

I would likewise not expect German, or other European readers, to necessarily have the automatic background knowledge to detect factual flaws. They can likewise be suckered into the trap of "if it's detailed it must be accurate".

Connie Willis graduated in English in 1967. That, I think, explains why she has such a naive concept of what academic research is like now (or even in the nineties, when she wrote this) - let alone extrapolated into the future.

And I think films, again, are the reason why the portrayal of academic life, so central to the novel, is so bad. I have seen enough American films and TV set in schools and colleges to know that both your educational system and its ethos is very different from ours. But there are very few relatively British films (as opposed to TV dramas) with an academic setting - and they mainly date from the fifties and portray an even earlier era.

A lot of features in the novel seem to come from those films and are appropriate to Oxford in the thirties - and the rest from the American system. You don't have to be American to fall for that mix as plausible. All it requires is not to have attended a British university; otherwise why should you be aware that Oxford does not emulate America, but HAS changed somewhat since the Second World War?

And why should anyone whose has not entered a research faculty be familiar with how researchers actually think? The science fiction audience would be likely to pick up n that flaw - but the characters are historians, so I presume that science graduates are accepting of the portrayal of arts lecturers as fools who do things differently.

In short, I think that the novel has gained traction by being cross-genre. Those who vote in awards tend to be readers who specialise in the genre that the award is appropriate for, and may have less breadth of knowledge.

If you are only accustomed to hard science, then you recognise that historical detail is greater than most time travel stories.
If you know nothing about the history of linguistics, you only notice that it takes language evolution more seriously than most time travel novels.
If you come from literary fiction, and know nothing about England, then it deals with the science and medicine in more detail than mainstream literary fiction (and assume that the history and geography is correct).

You have to have a grounding on both science and history not to assume that the detail in the fields unfamiliar to you is not actually evidence for (non-existent) detailed research. And, once thus misled, why should anyone not be suckered into believing that it is a plausible portrayal of unfamiliar cultures, as opposed to a "straw man" portrayal of a worldview that never existed and another that is unlikely to evolve from the current situation?

Continuing:
Religion is another point where cultural expectations are different. Growing up in England, I spent an entire school year studying Tudor history and the Reformation. Given the effect that the Reformation had on the course of our history, it is hardly surprising that the main features of pre-Reformation belief were covered in detail. So even if one is atheist, or another religion or denomination, then history will give a grounding in Catholic tenets. (I happen to have a Diploma in Religious Studies at university level, so my basic grounding is much wider.)

But if, as the author does, one comes from a different country (which may not study European wars of religion in such detail) and a religious tradition that does not claim Apostolic Succession, there is less reason to have background knowledge of anything other than your own culture. Whilst it is a failing of the author not to have done basic research, it is not a failing in an atheist (or indeed a Protestant) readership not to detect it.

I emphasised the misrepresentation on that topic because, to my mind, it destroys the whole point of the novel - which is about how a group of mediaeval characters respond to imminent death.

But it is the least detectable flaw, because it requires a reader who is either Roman Catholic, or has been taught Catholic doctrine. And such readers are not likely to be in the majority of a Science Fiction consensus.

May #14:


Be Ready: An Approach to the Mystery of Death: Book 2 of The Spiritual Life by Hieromonk Gregorios (trans. and ed. by Fr. Michael Monos) - 4 stars

I reviewed the first book in this series in March last year and much of what I wrote there applies to this book also.

It is uncompromisingly a book of Orthodox theology. It is meticulously referenced - so much so that it is a surprise to come across a sentence not thus supported - but the author quotes the Church Fathers in support of his views, as often as he references biblical texts.

Taken seriously, it presents a heavy challenge regarding how to live.

Yet, given the very different perspectives, it is interesting to note that the conclusion drawn seemed to have similarities to that in the book on death by a Buddhist author that Meredy reviewed recently: the importance of living in the moment, and making one's choices as if that day were to be one's last.

April #3:

Crownbreaker (Book 6 of Spellslinger) by Sebastian de Castell - 4 stars
5/4/2021-7/4/2021

I really liked the premise of this series, felt it lost its way a little in the middle, but this book brought it to a really satisfying conclusion.

The protagonist, Kellen, is a lot of things by the beginning of this book: born into the culture of Jan'tep mages, by this time he is also initiated into how to use the shadowblack with which his grandmother infected him, has some idea how to use the castradazi coins he has been given, been appointed Tutor of Cards by the Queen of the Daroman Empireand, above all, is now an Argosi - the Path of Wandering Stars. But there are still an impressive number of people who are trying to kill him.

I had begun to feel that each book was a repetition of: Kellen goes to a new country, picks up a new magical skill, and maybe a new female friend. Then at the end of the book, he moves on.

I had also become rather uncomfortable with the ease with which Kellen was killing. Given he is not yet nineteen, the glibness of the author's attitude to the trail of bodies that Kellen has left behind. This was why I did not rush to read the last volume in the series, when it finally came out.

However, thus book brought all the themes together into an extremely satisfying whole.

Throughout the series there has been building a sense of disquiet amongst the Argosi that war appears to be coming, whatever they try to do to prevent it; now it seems that it is almost here.

The Berabescq are the most numerous people on the continent. And fanatically devout. However, they have six religious codices, and are too busy debating (peacefully) among themselves which version of their god is the true one, to coordinate and attack anyone else. But now their god has been born (and is growing at a miraculous rate).

All the other nations that Kellen has encountered are involved in the response to this - but primarily the Daroman Empire, whose queen he now serves, and the Jan'tep, his own people, who are now ruled by his father.

A lot of people think that the situation is best resolved by Kellen killing the god. (And plot had good reasons why he is best-placed to do so.) But Kellen is not sure whether this is really a thousands of years old being in human form (he has already met one such, so this is not intrinsically implausible for him) or a child being manipulated for political reasons?

The storyline has Kellen accepting that his moral compass has been going rather awry recently, but this ethical issue brings him up short and makes him face that.

The long-running storyline regarding his relations with his family is also finally resolved.

This book keeps the humour, pace and inventiveness that has characterised its predecessors. It also addresses some of the aspects that I have previously had issues with.

One the strengths of this series is that very different cultures are portrayed. But we see the strengths and flaws of each - there is no sense that one group are better, and that their way is "the right one". The Argosi come closest to this, but are shown to have flaws in their approach too.

In the past the Berabescq have seemed to be wild-eyed, violent fanatics in service to an expansionist, monotheistic faith that has seemed uncomfortably reminiscent of jihadist Islam (and an Arab-style cultural setting - although without gender segregation). But here they too are given a more nuanced portrayal, with the violent fanaticism shown to be only one interpretation of their religion, with other codices advocating other paths.

I definitely enjoyed this, and would thoroughly recommend the series. But there are still flawed.

I have never liked Reichis, the squirrel-cat "business partner of Kellen. He is violent, immoral, a thief, and his favourite part-time is eating eyeballs (whether or not the owners were dead at the time). Kellen excuses anything Reichis does with the "but he's my best friend" trope. The readers seem to be expected to do the same, because he is furry and therefore "cute". But he has human-level intelligence, so I dislike the implication that cuteness justifies murderous immorality.

And the attitude to killing remains too glib. MAJOR SPOILER: Kellen resolves his conflict with his family by engineering a situation where he forces his extremely powerful 15 year old sister - who is torn between him and their father - to kill their father! The father is pretty ruthless, but it is revealed that he is genuinely trying to do what he thinks is best for his family and his people. So a "happy ending" that involves his 15 year old daughter having to murder him (because otherwise Kellen will die, as he is attempting suicide in front of her) shows the author has still a decidedly peculiar attitude to acceptable behaviour. There is still a sense that the designated hero, Kellen, and his sidekick, should not be held accountable to ordinary standards, and the feelings of anyone other than the "hero" do not really matter.

Kellen may have good reasons for not liking his family. But this seems to transfer to an attitude towards other people and their families - the idea that losing loved ones is a trivial event that you should get over in a day or two. Shalla is treated as if being upset at the denouement is being sulky, and another character continues to make a pass at Kellen, even after she learns he killed her father (despite her having devoted spending much of her life to hunting the ostensible perpetrators!)

This seems to be a blind spot with some young authors. Presumably they have not yet lost a anyone they cared about, so they treat killing as trivial.

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 2
Books awaiting review from May: 5
Books awaiting review from June: 4
Books awaiting review from July: 4
Books awaiting review from August: 9

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

>161 -pilgrim-: I'd been wondering if this series was worth checking out. Sounds like it is. The first one is going on my wish list.

>163 Narilka: It is YA - which means no sex scenes, and the focus is on teenage protagonists. But there is no insta-love, and the adult world continues to be there, and not overly respectful of them. (Kellen spends most of his time frantically trying to stay alive!)

>164 -pilgrim-: It is YA - which means no sex scenes,

I am confused. I read Neverwhere and it struck me as a children's book with some sex added in so it would qualify as YA.

>165 pgmcc: Given what Punk 57 was like you may well be right.

May Summary

Average rating: 3.0
Weighted average: 3.25
Audiobook average: 2.47

12 fiction:
Novels: 3 historical crime fiction, 3 children's fantasy fiction, 1 science fiction, 1 crime fiction, 1 urban fantasy
Novella: 1 crime fiction, 1 fable

7 non-fiction:
1 self-help
1 information science
1 autobiography
1 language learning
1 biography
1 theology
1 social issues

Original language: 17 English, 1 Russian, 1 Greek

Earliest date of first publication: 1934 (Mary Poppins)
Latest: 2020 (Sigil & Ink)

8 paperback, 7 Kindle, 4 audiobooks

Authors: 15 male, 5 female
Author nationality: 8 American, 7 British, 1 Australian, 1 Greek, 1 Irish, 1 Israeli, 1 Russian, 1 South African
New (to me) authors: 14 (7 familiar)

Most popular book on LT: Doomsday Book (6,932)
Least popular: Palestinian Women Detainees in Israeli Prisons (report) (1)/The Search for the Tinker Chief (5)

No. of books read: 19
From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 7
Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 3 (all rereads)
No. of books acquired: 45 (37 ebooks, 4 audiobooks, 2 paperbacks)
No. of books disposed of: 6
Expenditure on books: £47.14

Best Book of May: Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk
Worst Book of May: Digital Polish (audiobook)/Mary Poppins