I had grand blogging plans for today but those plans have been tossed. We have people arriving soon for Easter dinner. A turkey is in the oven and sides are going in soon. It’s been a busy morning but a good one so far.
If you’re celebrating today, best wishes for a happy Easter with family and friends.
Tomorrow, blog things will happen!
I’ve never read Lovecraft; I always had good intentions though. Time got away from me and I kept saying I would get to it. I never did, until recently that is. I found a story, this one in fact, while browsing the Gutenberg Project website. It was the only Lovecraft story they had listed and I thought why not, I always meant to read one of his stories.
An abandoned house sits on Benefit Street in the New England town of Providence, Rhode Island. The house, empty for years, is the source of many rumors, and many of these rumors have easily been explained away by most of the town’s people. Then one man and his uncle decide to finally put an end to the rumors. Both have a very strong interest in the house and have been actively researching it for years. They plan to spend the night in the basement of the house and discover the source of the supernatural rumors.
For a short story, about 35 pages, The Shunned House packs in so much. I loved the rumors, all neatly explained away by stoic New Englanders, the research done on the house and all its inhabitants, and the guesses as to the source of the possible supernatural on-goings at the place. It had a great creepy feeling, yet, having read it at lunch, it didn’t scare me much but I’m not sure if I’d go in for reading this while cozy in bed. At least not without all the lights on…but that would be a great way to read Lovecraft, if you aren’t attached to sleeping at all.
The Shunned House
By H.P. Lovecraft
A Gutenberg Project Ebook
Smith wakes up to find himself dirty and in an unknown place. Realizing the gravity of his situation, he decides he must get to the nearest town to clean up and find out what has happened. He begins his journey but recognizes nothing along the way. When he comes upon a group of people, a funeral in fact, he makes himself known and they take him home with them. During his time with the people kind enough to take him in, he begins to fall deeply in love with a woman named Yolette. His inability to understand his new situation and new home, lead to dire consequences.
It’s a great anthropological sort of story. Smith doesn’t understand the culture he’s now a part of. In some ways, he doesn’t want to understand it either and makes no attempt to figure things out with the exception of basic language skills. What he’s learned is all to his advantage though, it’s not to understand or even be able to thank the people who have taken him in, fed him, clothed him, and cared for him. He makes no effort to embrace this new life even after it’s clear that he isn’t going back to his world or time. While there, he becomes obsesses with a woman named Yolette. The love he professes to her is more an all consuming obsession and possession which she doesn’t understand, and by all rights, should feel uncomfortable with. I was uncomfortable with his weird obsession with her as the reader and wouldn’t want to be the receiver of those types of feelings. Smith, however, doesn’t think any of his actions are outside the bounds of normalcy.
There’s no explanation as to how Smith got to this new place or what happened to his old world. Smith doesn’t seem overly curious about it either which is rightly frustrating. He wants so much for things to be what they were but he doesn’t seem to miss the old place just what was familiar and understandable to him. He’s a very odd character that way which is frustrating because it would have been wonderful to see this world through his eyes. Instead we’re stuck with his complaining and pining for what he knew.
I kept thinking of The Left Hand of Darkness with the anthropological aspects and the story of an explorer who comes to a new land that is very different from his own. I liked that Smith was somewhat interested (even if it was only to get something to his advantage) but didn’t on some level have the ability to understand whereas the character in The Left Hand of Darkness did understand but didn’t, to me anyway, seem interested as he was supposed to be observing and not getting involved per se.
The ending, while not giving it away, is a total cop out. In dealing with his feeling for Yolette, Smith succumbs to a depression. The black wolf that follows him and waits patiently for him to wake each morning to become his shadow is the physical embodiment of this depression. It’s effective but letting that get the better of him felt wrong to me. It’s also a matter of his ignorance and the culture he has become integrated with. All around, Smith was a frustrating character and somewhat unlikeable.
It’s an interesting story though and I’m glad to have picked it up even if I can’t say it was a great book. It has its moments and there were more than enough appealing bits to keep me reading.
A Crystal Time
W.H. Hudson
Gutenberg Project Ebook
When a book comes highly recommended, I want to love it. Sometimes I like the book just fine but I don’t love it but I wholeheartedly wanted to. This is the case with The Anubis Gates. It’s a good book, don’t get me wrong, but I had such high hopes for it that I think it just didn’t live up to my very high expectations.
So what’s this book about? So many things. The contentious relationship between Britain and Egypt in the very early 19th Century, powerful Egyptian gods, time travel, body swapping, magic, and a few historical literary figures all mixed up in a plot that can go anywhere.
Let’s start at the beginning… The early 1980s, an aging billionaire discovers a gate, for lack of a better word, that allows him to travel back in time. He organizes a trip with several other wealthy individuals, and a lone English professor, to attend a lecture by a well-known poet. A magician who happened to open the time travel gates way back when, happens to spy the travelers and kidnaps Brendan Doyle, the hapless English professor brought along for some educational tidbits. Brendan ends up stranded in 1810. Completely unequipped to deal with life in 1810, he ends up a beggar, a rather bad one at that, in a beggars guild, and manages to get caught up in a body swapping scheme being perpetrated by the billionaire who brought him back in time. In a new body, Brendan, now a well-known poet, or at least a poet who will become well-known, lives out an unexpected life.
I hope you understand that description because that damn thing took forever to write. There are so many plot lines in this book that at one point I needed to go back a chapter just to figure out who was in what body and, well, what the hell was going on. Now, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t entertaining, it was (there are many good things about this book), but there was more than one time when I found myself confused. To be honest, I read fast sometimes and I think this was one of those moments when that habit didn’t help me at all.
I want to say read this one because there are some really great parts of this book. And I think I will say that because I wasn’t disappointed with this book, but I think I picked it up at the wrong time and we weren’t a good fit.
One thing I loved about the book, and the reason I’m telling you to read it, is the way the travel was incorporated into the story. Having magical gates that transport people in time is just cool and I want one. I also liked the body swapping for all that it threw me off at one point in the story. I guess at that point if you’re going to go with time travel, why not swap a few bodies too.
So tell me, is there another Tim Powers book I should read? I want to give him another try.
The Anubis Gates
By Tim Powers
An Ace Book
ISBN: 9781101575895
Frank Mackey is a man who has purposely avoided his family for years. He ran away as a teenager and never looked back. When he gets a call from the one sister he speaks to telling him that information regarding his long lost girlfriend, Rosie Daly, has surfaced, he doesn’t know if he should run to his family or run further away. A man who has gone to extraordinary efforts to stay away from his family, he soon finds himself back home in Faithful Place; a neighborhood full of people with long memories and people that doesn’t easily offer forgiveness. After 22 years of trying to forget Rosie, his childhood, and in some ways his own family, he’s back home fighting with his mother and siblings, and thinking of ways to once more run away. When a favorite brother dies, and Frank’s only daughter is drug into the mess, he begins to realize just how deep he’s in.
The character of Frank Mackey was in The Likeness, French’s second book, but he’s much more intense in Faithful Place. His family and childhood home can never be described as a happy or content place and illustrate clearly just how much he’s managed to escape over the years and reinforce his actions, in his mind anyway. His very rosy memories of his missing girlfriend, which were buried deep by the years, come back full force and with his teenage romance memories come buried family memories, and he starts to drown in life.
Tana French is an amazing writer and I’ve started telling everyone I know they need to read her books. True story. In fact, when possible, I’ve shared my copies with anyone willing to read them. And that has been a benefit to me. You see, this was a borrowed book. I shared In The Woods and The Likeness with a co-worker and he went out and bought Faithful Place and gave it to me when he was done. He also plans on picking up Broken Harbor and promised to lend me that too. Sharing just works out in your favor some days.
French writes stories you don’t want to put down. She’s great at twists and turns, but I did figure out the killer early on in this one. I promised my co-worker I wouldn’t read ahead to find out who the killer was which was incredibly hard for me not to do. I ended up in his office asking questions instead. I can guarantee he won’t me ask me to promise that again. Anyway, he ended up telling me I had the right person but I think he was annoyed I figured it out. But, I think it was meant to be seen by the reader. You see, it was Frank that needed to work it out not the reader. You see him trying to do just that and I wanted to yell at him and that’s where French is so good. She brings the reader into the story and you end up investing so much in the characters and story that it’s draining but all in a good way. I love books that leave me feeling that way in the end. Reading should be an experience.
If you’re curious, my thoughts on French’s first two books In the Woods and The Likeness.
Faithful Place
By Tana French
Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143119494
I’ve been slow on the writing front but today the words are all working. Not only did I wake up with something already written in my head, I actually got out of bed and wrote it down on paper. And I finagled three reviews out of my brain. They’re in rough shape but the words are on a page. I call that progress.
Reading has been slow this week but I have managed to get a lot done personally so I’m willing to call it fair play and move on. It’s not even the reading, which is good, it’s just being busy and somewhat tired and I went with sleep this week. Sometimes it’s the only choice.
I’m in the process of going through several bookshelves in the house with the ultimate goal being that one of the shelves will leave the house at the end of the project. This is not an easy task and I didn’t realize how many books actually call that shelf home. There are probably a few hundred books there. It’s going to be a while before this project can be called done. However, progress has been made, slow though it is, and some books will be leaving the house in the next few days.
There is one announcement of great importance I must mention and that is The Shadow of the Sun Read Along which is all part of the Mercury Retrograde Press bloggy love project taking place this year. Here’s the schedule if you want to join us and you can find more information on Dab of Darkness. Needless to say, I’m really excited about this book and can’t wait to get started.
April 1st post: 1-7 (pg. 95)
April 8th post: 8-15 (pg. 187)
April 15th post: 16-21 (pg. 275)
April 22nd post: 22-28 (pg. 386)
April 29th post: 29-END (pg. 483) and then there’s a few pages of glossaries.
For as much as I want to keep telling you things, I did say it was a words day and there are other things to do and write so I leave you for today to do some posting and editing.
I like to read the last page of a book. Sometimes, I do this before I start a book, but most times, I read the last page before the end of the first chapter. Sometimes I read even more than the last page. You see, I like to know how things are going to turn out. I’m not good with spoilers. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll all agree. Some people tell me this habit ruins the story, but for me, that isn’t the case. I like to see how an author is going to get me there. It not how it ends, it’s the journey to the ending that I want.
So, I’m reading Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell, the third book in the Saxon Tales series, and Uhtred, my favorite character, is in trouble. I get nervous. But I don’t read ahead. In fact, when I come to the end of the dreadful chapter, I put the book down and don’t read for the rest of the night. I could have read ahead, and in most cases, I would have but something stopped me. I wanted to let this one play out and see what would happen. Instead of quelling the anticipation, I let it build. This might be a first for me people. That’s why I’m telling you all this.
I think it’s because I like this particular character so much. Uhtred is a Saxon, raised by Danes, in 880s Britain. He’s brutal, but loyal, shrewd but bullheaded, brilliant in battle, and an excellent battle strategist, but somedays he doesn’t stop to think. And that gets him in trouble, and in this particular case, it lands him in a boatload of trouble. I like that about him though. He’s an unpredictable character but a great narrator. He knows he’s flawed but he’s got one hell of a story to tell and all you want to do is listen.
Maybe that’s it then. Maybe my habit has not been broken. It’s not that I can’t read a book without looking ahead, I have, but I like the knowing. The knowing is a good thing for me. But I’m playing this one fast and free. Any bets on how long I can hold out before reading the end?
In anticipation of a major snowstorm that was supposed to hit my city last week, I went to the library to pick up a few things thinking I would be spending a whole day stuck in the house with loads of reading time on my hands. That storm turned out to be nothing (other places did get snow, just not my city), and I spent the day at work like any other Wednesday. I was disappointed as all hell but I still have some good books to read so there’s that.
Side note: Funny how I didn’t run to the grocery store for milk, bread, and toilet paper but went to the library for books instead. To be fair, I had all of the above. Also, I grew up in an area that got a lot of snow so snow panic doesn’t set in for me.
Oh, the books.
Lord of the North by Bernard Cornwell – I started this series probably two years ago and I’m finally getting back to it. It’s the third book in the Saxon Tales series and pretty good. I’m flying through it. Also, I just finished up Mary Stewart’s second book in her Arthurian legend series, The Hollow Hills, last week and wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this setting so this seemed like a good place to start in on the library haul.
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson – I blame Elizabeth over at Dark Cargo for this one. She was talking about it, evangelizing really, and it made me want to read it. My library, which doesn’t always have a great selection of science fiction (it’s getting better or I’m just discovering new authors, not sure, but either way it makes me happy) had a copy. Thanks to an early flip through the book, I can say it looks really interesting.
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft – I read my first Lovecraft a few weeks ago. It was The Shunned House and so, so good. I needed more and it turns out my library had this one. Also, it has an introduction by China Miéville! China Miéville, people! And it takes place in the Antarctic. I think this might be the next to tackle in the library pile.
Swamplandia! By Karen Russell – I don’t read much contemporary fiction but this is one I’ve wanted to read for a while. But since it was on the bestseller lists and everyone was loving it, I had to avoid it. I’m like that. I don’t like to read books on bestseller lists or books that everyone seems to be in love with at any given point in time. So, I avoided. Russell had a new book out, everyone is raving about it again, and for as much as I want to read it, I’m avoiding and going back to the first one I didn’t read. We’ll see how it goes.
I’m now going to step outside and run some errands. My husband’s conference is in town this weekend and he’s been working non-stop the last two days and I’ve barely left the house. But, on the bright side, I did clean many things and read like a fiend ** so there wasn’t much reason to leave. However, the sun is out and it’s warm so I think I’m going to get some vitamin D. Besides, I hear books can be read outside.
Happy Sunday.
** I’m also reading Clockwork Phoenix 4 edited by Mike Allen and while I’m only a few stories in, I can’t wait to tell you more about it because you’ll want to read it too.
Just Book Reading 