Farmer Giles of Ham: Ægidii Ahenobarbi Julii Agricole de Hammo Domini de Domito Aule Draconarie Comitis Regni Minimi Regis et Basilei mira facinora et mirabilis exortus, or in the vulgar tongue, The Rise and Wonderful Adventures of Farmer Giles, Lord of Tame, Count of Worminghall and King of the Little Kingdom by J. R. R. Tolkien
Embellished by Pauline Diana Baynes
80 pages
Published 1949
Read July 30
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
A pleasant fable of faux-medieval shenanigans, anticipating the comical fantasies (and, naturally, the wordplay) of Terry Pratchett and Peter S. Beagle. I'm not sure what to add that wouldn't be mere plagiarism of the Wikipedia page; it wasn't until I read that source that I even considered the satire of class relationships inherent in the interaction of Master Giles and Chrysophylax Dives, so if I began picking into subtext now, I'd just be recycling what I just read there. As it stands, merely transcribing Tolkien's original Latin and vulgar subtitles just about doubles the length of this review. I will say it's something of a treat to read a "fresh" (to me) Tolkien free of the ponderousness of tone and worldbuilding of Middle-earth -- though, honestly, Ham strays too far toward weightlessness to linger in the mind or have remotely equivalent impact.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Friday, July 29, 2016
2016 read #60: The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Robin Hobb.
The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Robin Hobb
184 pages
Published 2013
Read from July 28 to July 29
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
So soon after declaring how glad I was to have a break from the Farseer family line, here I am again, this time with a prequel that is equal parts inessential and inoffensive. At long last the truth is revealed about the Farseer pedigree, and how "beast-magic" entered the bloodline, and while it makes for a mildly diverting little fable, the faux-historical chronicle narration leaves the tale feeling somewhat bloodless, from an emotional standpoint.
184 pages
Published 2013
Read from July 28 to July 29
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
So soon after declaring how glad I was to have a break from the Farseer family line, here I am again, this time with a prequel that is equal parts inessential and inoffensive. At long last the truth is revealed about the Farseer pedigree, and how "beast-magic" entered the bloodline, and while it makes for a mildly diverting little fable, the faux-historical chronicle narration leaves the tale feeling somewhat bloodless, from an emotional standpoint.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
2016 read #59: Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane.
Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane
342 pages
Published 2015
Read from July 22 to July 28
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
Much of the critical coverage I've seen relating to this book emphasized its role as a "word-hoard." At least one review gently chided Macfarlane for producing what at times amounts to a topographic dictionary; I put off reading Landmarks for months, in fact, persuaded that it sounded more apt as a reference volume than an edifying read. The word-hoards, however, make up only half of the raison d'être of this volume. Landmarks is equally if not more so a wayfinding exercise through Macfarlane's influences as a writer, a protracted argument by example in support of a particular school of nature writing. Many of the chapters began life as introductions to the foundational texts (and authors) Macfarlane visits. The visits range from moving epitaphs (the chapter on Roger Deakin) to cursory overviews that quickly veer away to different authors altogether (the "North-Minded" chapter begins as an ostensible examination of Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams but spends far more words introducing Peter Davidson). Macfarlane produces some of his most precise and elegant prose in pursuit of these authors, but its beauty is often pulled up short by his subject matter -- a guided tour of a writer's favorite books, no matter how elegantly worded, is always going to carry the stigma of a listicle.
The word-hoard, in its turn, is fascinating, but so loaded with Gaelic words and regional synonyms for general terms that its usefulness to an outside writer is limited, except in its role as a prompt to imagination and specificity. Which, after all, is Macfarlane's central argument throughout Landmarks. Great nature writing demands precision of meaning; the culture-wide drain of that precise awareness of the natural world is what Macfarlane, in his own way, hopes to avert, or at least delay.
342 pages
Published 2015
Read from July 22 to July 28
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
Much of the critical coverage I've seen relating to this book emphasized its role as a "word-hoard." At least one review gently chided Macfarlane for producing what at times amounts to a topographic dictionary; I put off reading Landmarks for months, in fact, persuaded that it sounded more apt as a reference volume than an edifying read. The word-hoards, however, make up only half of the raison d'être of this volume. Landmarks is equally if not more so a wayfinding exercise through Macfarlane's influences as a writer, a protracted argument by example in support of a particular school of nature writing. Many of the chapters began life as introductions to the foundational texts (and authors) Macfarlane visits. The visits range from moving epitaphs (the chapter on Roger Deakin) to cursory overviews that quickly veer away to different authors altogether (the "North-Minded" chapter begins as an ostensible examination of Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams but spends far more words introducing Peter Davidson). Macfarlane produces some of his most precise and elegant prose in pursuit of these authors, but its beauty is often pulled up short by his subject matter -- a guided tour of a writer's favorite books, no matter how elegantly worded, is always going to carry the stigma of a listicle.
The word-hoard, in its turn, is fascinating, but so loaded with Gaelic words and regional synonyms for general terms that its usefulness to an outside writer is limited, except in its role as a prompt to imagination and specificity. Which, after all, is Macfarlane's central argument throughout Landmarks. Great nature writing demands precision of meaning; the culture-wide drain of that precise awareness of the natural world is what Macfarlane, in his own way, hopes to avert, or at least delay.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
2016 read #58: The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip.
The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip
247 pages
Published 1995
Read from July 13 to July 26
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
After The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, which showed gleams of promise beneath the shabby cliches of its time, I was intrigued to discover more of McKillip's back catalog (which is both extensive and loaded with awards and nominations, which makes me all the more surprised I hadn't really known of her work before). I wanted to see how she grew as an author, how she shook off the dust and formulaic trappings of '70s fantasy and realized her potential (or not) in the more expansive, vital, and creative genre fantasy became over the ensuing decades. The blurb-froth coating her later volumes also helped snare me -- Stephen R. Donaldson (whom I've never read) makes the bold claim that "There are no better writers than Patricia A. McKillip." None. Whatsoever. Throw away the Man Booker Prize, burn the Pulitzer, turn your back on Nobel, here comes McKillip to show you losers how it's done.
I reserved my skepticism, of course, but a claim like that deserves an investigation. I chose Wolfe on the grounds that, well, it was there on the shelf. Also it was a slender volume, something I craved after the growing wordiness of Robin Hobb. And it had something to do with a Queen of the Wood -- my unabashed love of faery is growing more abashed of late, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for that sort of thing.
As it turns out, there is a lot going on in this book -- a lot to unpack, a lot that no doubt went over my head, and a lot I find hard to articulate. Right from the start Wolfe feels in many ways still caught in the '70s fantasy mode: There are warring kingdoms that seem like little more than a single castle surrounded by some fields; there is a school for wizards on the slope of a solitary mountain, as if built on the ruins of Sybel's keep from Beasts of Eld; most damningly, the characters are little more than paper cutouts or archetypes. Other facets of Wolfe derive from the fashions of '80s fantasy: There's the Queen of the Wood and her leafy companions; there's the general tone of Romantic loss and luxurious sorrow; there are the themes of war, of power misused, of survivor's guilt, of trauma, of the loss of identity. What it draws from the trends of the '90s is, perhaps, the attempt to couch the story in highfalutin' literary prose, an emphasis on the esthetics of language -- though that, for all I know, is more of a McKillip thing. This is, after all, only the second book of hers I've read, and the first was a kids' book from 1974.
Two of those aspects -- the flimsy characters and the attempt at serious literary language -- weaken the book considerably. The interweaving narratives and intense emotional outpouring from each central figure would be totally my thing, if I gave a single damn about any of the people involved. I think it took me at least one hundred pages before I felt any kind of connection with any of the characters; it's no coincidence that I read the last three-fifths of the novel in two days, after dawdling and putting it aside for a week and a half. Without that grounding in character, the emotional intensity drifts weightlessly, meaninglessly, an experiment in pure tone that grows repetitive and boring. As for the prose, there's a reason why I keep saying it attempts to feel literary. What McKillip's language here reminds me of, if I may say so with all due modesty, are my own past attempts to knock together graceful sentences from a halting vocabulary. McKillip snags her words with commas, staggered clauses:
247 pages
Published 1995
Read from July 13 to July 26
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
After The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, which showed gleams of promise beneath the shabby cliches of its time, I was intrigued to discover more of McKillip's back catalog (which is both extensive and loaded with awards and nominations, which makes me all the more surprised I hadn't really known of her work before). I wanted to see how she grew as an author, how she shook off the dust and formulaic trappings of '70s fantasy and realized her potential (or not) in the more expansive, vital, and creative genre fantasy became over the ensuing decades. The blurb-froth coating her later volumes also helped snare me -- Stephen R. Donaldson (whom I've never read) makes the bold claim that "There are no better writers than Patricia A. McKillip." None. Whatsoever. Throw away the Man Booker Prize, burn the Pulitzer, turn your back on Nobel, here comes McKillip to show you losers how it's done.
I reserved my skepticism, of course, but a claim like that deserves an investigation. I chose Wolfe on the grounds that, well, it was there on the shelf. Also it was a slender volume, something I craved after the growing wordiness of Robin Hobb. And it had something to do with a Queen of the Wood -- my unabashed love of faery is growing more abashed of late, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for that sort of thing.
As it turns out, there is a lot going on in this book -- a lot to unpack, a lot that no doubt went over my head, and a lot I find hard to articulate. Right from the start Wolfe feels in many ways still caught in the '70s fantasy mode: There are warring kingdoms that seem like little more than a single castle surrounded by some fields; there is a school for wizards on the slope of a solitary mountain, as if built on the ruins of Sybel's keep from Beasts of Eld; most damningly, the characters are little more than paper cutouts or archetypes. Other facets of Wolfe derive from the fashions of '80s fantasy: There's the Queen of the Wood and her leafy companions; there's the general tone of Romantic loss and luxurious sorrow; there are the themes of war, of power misused, of survivor's guilt, of trauma, of the loss of identity. What it draws from the trends of the '90s is, perhaps, the attempt to couch the story in highfalutin' literary prose, an emphasis on the esthetics of language -- though that, for all I know, is more of a McKillip thing. This is, after all, only the second book of hers I've read, and the first was a kids' book from 1974.
Two of those aspects -- the flimsy characters and the attempt at serious literary language -- weaken the book considerably. The interweaving narratives and intense emotional outpouring from each central figure would be totally my thing, if I gave a single damn about any of the people involved. I think it took me at least one hundred pages before I felt any kind of connection with any of the characters; it's no coincidence that I read the last three-fifths of the novel in two days, after dawdling and putting it aside for a week and a half. Without that grounding in character, the emotional intensity drifts weightlessly, meaninglessly, an experiment in pure tone that grows repetitive and boring. As for the prose, there's a reason why I keep saying it attempts to feel literary. What McKillip's language here reminds me of, if I may say so with all due modesty, are my own past attempts to knock together graceful sentences from a halting vocabulary. McKillip snags her words with commas, staggered clauses:
Talis, his throat burning again with too many words, tried to twist free; the mage pulled hm back, held him against the wood, held his eyes.And again:
"Saro," she said, in the voice out of her dreams, and then grew very still, the bowstring pulled taut, her eye and the arrow's blind eye fixed on Atrix's fate.It certainly shows more polish than, say, what I squeezed out for NaNoWriMo 2008, but it reminds me of my own breathless earnestness, my two-fisted need to wring poetry out of the deeds of mages and bowstrings. It isn't nearly as clumsy as what I have produced, but it shares an unconvincing quality, a sort of amateurishness compared to the prose-poetry of Jo Walton or Catherynne M. Valente. It is, perhaps, as fully literary as anyone could make high fantasy in 1995. It is not by any means the prose of the best writer in the world. Sorry, Stephen R. Donaldson.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
2016 read #57: Wild America by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher.
Wild America: The Record of a 30,000 Mile Journey Around the Continent by a Distinguished Naturalist and His British Colleague by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher
427 pages
Published 1955
Read from July 17 to July 22
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
In my library's meager science section, there are few books that interest me that I haven't yet read. There are a fair number of primers on space or maths or volcanoes, quite a few pop-science cash-ins from journalists on the mediagenic controversies of the past fifteen years, and of course the inevitable pile of science biographies, but informative and non-sensationalized texts on life science, non-volcanic geology and Earth history, weather and climate, and so on are rather lacking (or, in some cases, merely outdated). It's a systemic problem in modern publishing, from what I can gather; the thirty-seventh book dissecting the personal theology of Charles Darwin will move more copies than an erudite and educational overview of plant and insect coevolution, because general readers are ignorant and have poor taste. (Sorry, the 2016 Republican National Convention just happened, and I'm feeling particularly gloomy about the wherewithal of the common American.)
One of the few interesting books I haven't already gobbled down is called Return to Wild America, by Scott Weidensaul, author of the overly imaginative yet compelling history The First Frontier. Weidensaul's Return was a Bush-era follow-up to none other than this here volume, commemorating its fiftieth anniversary. I'm something of a stickler (or stick in the mud) when it comes to doing my homework; I felt obligated to read Peterson and Fisher before I permitted myself Weidensaul. It wasn't merely a desire to do my due diligence, either -- an ecology book that merited a book-length revisit on its fiftieth anniversary sounded right up my alley, perhaps a classic work up there with A Sand County Almanac (or, at the very least, A Natural History of North American Trees).
Plus, how could I say no to reading a book that shared a title with my favorite PBS nature serial of the late 1980s?
It turns out that Wild America is... not very illuminating. The book is more of a 1950s road trip memoir, something like Travels with Charley but with birds instead of social commentary. The two authors play cute with some minor odd couple hijinks, run a running joke about Coca-Cola into the ground, offer some spiffy gee-whiz optimism about newfangled audio tours in museums and newfangled "rational exploitation" of fur seals in their breeding grounds, and in general careen about like two well-to-do white guys with a brand new car and three months to spare chasing birds for a living.
A good ecology book would tell you, the general reader, something about how each species might fit into its environment or make a broader point of scientific interest from the specific example. Even the aforementioned Natural History of American Trees delved into the ecology and life cycles of its subjects in fascinating ways, despite being little more than an extended index of tree species. Wild America, by contrast, offers little more than lists and basic descriptions of the birds the authors saw. There are times when the description of nature or scenery is evocative, almost seeming to deserve a revisit fifty years later, but for the most part, it reads like a birding checklist padded out with incidents of travel and casual condescension toward women, Indians, and Inuit. The result is very 1950s, like a prolonged National Geographic piece, a curious relic rather than a document with much to say to the present.
427 pages
Published 1955
Read from July 17 to July 22
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
In my library's meager science section, there are few books that interest me that I haven't yet read. There are a fair number of primers on space or maths or volcanoes, quite a few pop-science cash-ins from journalists on the mediagenic controversies of the past fifteen years, and of course the inevitable pile of science biographies, but informative and non-sensationalized texts on life science, non-volcanic geology and Earth history, weather and climate, and so on are rather lacking (or, in some cases, merely outdated). It's a systemic problem in modern publishing, from what I can gather; the thirty-seventh book dissecting the personal theology of Charles Darwin will move more copies than an erudite and educational overview of plant and insect coevolution, because general readers are ignorant and have poor taste. (Sorry, the 2016 Republican National Convention just happened, and I'm feeling particularly gloomy about the wherewithal of the common American.)
One of the few interesting books I haven't already gobbled down is called Return to Wild America, by Scott Weidensaul, author of the overly imaginative yet compelling history The First Frontier. Weidensaul's Return was a Bush-era follow-up to none other than this here volume, commemorating its fiftieth anniversary. I'm something of a stickler (or stick in the mud) when it comes to doing my homework; I felt obligated to read Peterson and Fisher before I permitted myself Weidensaul. It wasn't merely a desire to do my due diligence, either -- an ecology book that merited a book-length revisit on its fiftieth anniversary sounded right up my alley, perhaps a classic work up there with A Sand County Almanac (or, at the very least, A Natural History of North American Trees).
Plus, how could I say no to reading a book that shared a title with my favorite PBS nature serial of the late 1980s?
It turns out that Wild America is... not very illuminating. The book is more of a 1950s road trip memoir, something like Travels with Charley but with birds instead of social commentary. The two authors play cute with some minor odd couple hijinks, run a running joke about Coca-Cola into the ground, offer some spiffy gee-whiz optimism about newfangled audio tours in museums and newfangled "rational exploitation" of fur seals in their breeding grounds, and in general careen about like two well-to-do white guys with a brand new car and three months to spare chasing birds for a living.
A good ecology book would tell you, the general reader, something about how each species might fit into its environment or make a broader point of scientific interest from the specific example. Even the aforementioned Natural History of American Trees delved into the ecology and life cycles of its subjects in fascinating ways, despite being little more than an extended index of tree species. Wild America, by contrast, offers little more than lists and basic descriptions of the birds the authors saw. There are times when the description of nature or scenery is evocative, almost seeming to deserve a revisit fifty years later, but for the most part, it reads like a birding checklist padded out with incidents of travel and casual condescension toward women, Indians, and Inuit. The result is very 1950s, like a prolonged National Geographic piece, a curious relic rather than a document with much to say to the present.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
2016 read #56: Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb.
Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb
692 pages
Published 1997
Read from June 23 to July 12
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
My first review typed on our new laptop! Milestone!
Assassin's Quest is preposterously long. I have read longer fantasy tomes -- though this one is a hardback, with lots of small print packed onto each page, so it is likely longer than the mere page count would suggest -- but rarely one that lingered in a single POV for so long. Between this book, Royal Assassin, and Assassin's Apprentice, we have spent over 1600 pages within the thoughts and perspective of FitzChivalry Farseer, privy to all of his annoying obsessions, repetitive ruminations, stupid decisions, and obvious mistakes, not to mention his daily routine and the usual fantasy series emphasis on his dinners and his clothes. There is no running off to catch up with other favorite characters, no breaks for when we cry out for a change of scenery; we've been stuck with him for the long haul. And as fantasy-series bloat settled in and stretched its legs and left its stuff all around the house, it got to be a little much.
There is some terrific stuff in here, emotional payoffs and tragic scenes all the more moving for having spent so much time getting to know these characters, but there is just as much if not more ridiculous crap defying the bounds of reader interest and good storytelling. Much like the recent sixth season of Game of Thrones, the contrivances of plot demanded that our characters take stupid-pills and blunder into the worst possible decisions in order to take the plot where the author wanted it to go. For instance: Say that you've just discovered that your enemy, wielding prodigious psychic powers, can readily access the mind of your friend. Then your friend proceeds to act bizarrely for the next few days. Out of the blue, your friend presses you to reveal the whereabouts of your wife and child, whose location you have kept secret from your enemy. So you... just go ahead and spill all the beans to him?
Stupid as that is, it doesn't even lead to an appreciable payoff. When a much smarter character subsequently points out how thoroughly FitzChivalry goofed, his revelation is met with a narrative shrug, as if Hobb herself couldn't be bothered to follow through on it. Other plot threads, such as the supernatural menace established surrounding the "White Ship," kind of fizzle. Nothing gets lost, per se, but events get built up and built up, and then turn out to be nothing. The worst example of this is when Fitz, caught in a reckless strike against his enemy and with no other way out, cuts himself with a poisoned blade... only for nothing to happen. The poison, you see, got wiped off through various stabbings and blade cleanings, and not enough was left to even turn the resulting scar ugly. Once again, a sound cue is necessary to convey this narrative coup.
Much of the first half (or more) of the book consists of disconnected incident, complication piling upon complication without significant impact upon the trajectory of the plot or the state of the characters -- Fitz gets to where he was going by a more circuitous route, and that is all. Long dull trudges across make-believe geography are interspersed with hectic, flailing action, in which our hero never loses for long. I do appreciate how the fights are never romanticized or pretty, and seldom feel heroic; one senses thematic continuity with Hobb's (a.k.a Megan Lindholm's) PTSD-scarred Vietnam vet in Wizard of the Pigeons. But the victories are all a bit too easy, the success of our heroes rarely in doubt, which makes all the extraneous toing-and-froing doubly pointless. Especially since the cover art essentially spoils the goddamn ending. (Spoiler: The Elderlings are dragons, and the good guys find them first.)
With all those complaints in mind, nonetheless I can't quite bring myself to dislike Quest. There's a tolerable fantasy trilogy capper encased in there, entombed in roughly 300 too many pages. I cared about the characters, and even find myself mildly drawn to continue down the numbingly long series Hobb has continued laying out, trilogy by trilogy, these last twenty years. (There appear to be fifteen novels set in "The Realm of the Elderlings," divided amongst various trilogies and tetrads, plus an additional standalone novella, and more forthcoming.) For now, however, I'm just glad to have a break at last from the sorrows of young Fitz.
692 pages
Published 1997
Read from June 23 to July 12
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
My first review typed on our new laptop! Milestone!
Assassin's Quest is preposterously long. I have read longer fantasy tomes -- though this one is a hardback, with lots of small print packed onto each page, so it is likely longer than the mere page count would suggest -- but rarely one that lingered in a single POV for so long. Between this book, Royal Assassin, and Assassin's Apprentice, we have spent over 1600 pages within the thoughts and perspective of FitzChivalry Farseer, privy to all of his annoying obsessions, repetitive ruminations, stupid decisions, and obvious mistakes, not to mention his daily routine and the usual fantasy series emphasis on his dinners and his clothes. There is no running off to catch up with other favorite characters, no breaks for when we cry out for a change of scenery; we've been stuck with him for the long haul. And as fantasy-series bloat settled in and stretched its legs and left its stuff all around the house, it got to be a little much.
There is some terrific stuff in here, emotional payoffs and tragic scenes all the more moving for having spent so much time getting to know these characters, but there is just as much if not more ridiculous crap defying the bounds of reader interest and good storytelling. Much like the recent sixth season of Game of Thrones, the contrivances of plot demanded that our characters take stupid-pills and blunder into the worst possible decisions in order to take the plot where the author wanted it to go. For instance: Say that you've just discovered that your enemy, wielding prodigious psychic powers, can readily access the mind of your friend. Then your friend proceeds to act bizarrely for the next few days. Out of the blue, your friend presses you to reveal the whereabouts of your wife and child, whose location you have kept secret from your enemy. So you... just go ahead and spill all the beans to him?
Stupid as that is, it doesn't even lead to an appreciable payoff. When a much smarter character subsequently points out how thoroughly FitzChivalry goofed, his revelation is met with a narrative shrug, as if Hobb herself couldn't be bothered to follow through on it. Other plot threads, such as the supernatural menace established surrounding the "White Ship," kind of fizzle. Nothing gets lost, per se, but events get built up and built up, and then turn out to be nothing. The worst example of this is when Fitz, caught in a reckless strike against his enemy and with no other way out, cuts himself with a poisoned blade... only for nothing to happen. The poison, you see, got wiped off through various stabbings and blade cleanings, and not enough was left to even turn the resulting scar ugly. Once again, a sound cue is necessary to convey this narrative coup.
Much of the first half (or more) of the book consists of disconnected incident, complication piling upon complication without significant impact upon the trajectory of the plot or the state of the characters -- Fitz gets to where he was going by a more circuitous route, and that is all. Long dull trudges across make-believe geography are interspersed with hectic, flailing action, in which our hero never loses for long. I do appreciate how the fights are never romanticized or pretty, and seldom feel heroic; one senses thematic continuity with Hobb's (a.k.a Megan Lindholm's) PTSD-scarred Vietnam vet in Wizard of the Pigeons. But the victories are all a bit too easy, the success of our heroes rarely in doubt, which makes all the extraneous toing-and-froing doubly pointless. Especially since the cover art essentially spoils the goddamn ending. (Spoiler: The Elderlings are dragons, and the good guys find them first.)
With all those complaints in mind, nonetheless I can't quite bring myself to dislike Quest. There's a tolerable fantasy trilogy capper encased in there, entombed in roughly 300 too many pages. I cared about the characters, and even find myself mildly drawn to continue down the numbingly long series Hobb has continued laying out, trilogy by trilogy, these last twenty years. (There appear to be fifteen novels set in "The Realm of the Elderlings," divided amongst various trilogies and tetrads, plus an additional standalone novella, and more forthcoming.) For now, however, I'm just glad to have a break at last from the sorrows of young Fitz.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
2016 read #55: Master of the World by Jules Verne.
Master of the World by Jules Verne
Translator unknown
111 pages
Published 1904
Read from July 1 to July 2
Rating: ★½ out of 5
Progress: While Master of the World is utter garbage, it is at least not vile, hateful, despicable, racist garbage, so we're already a step above its predecessor, Robur the Conqueror. Master also breaks with the established Vernean formula, at least in the early chapters; the conceit of a federal police inspector arriving in the mountains of North Carolina to investigate potential volcanic activity is laughably naive (the USGS had been in existence for 25 years by the time this book was published), but the scenario seems practically Wellsian in comparison to the brain/brawn/manservant triad populating most of the Verne narratives I've read to date. These early chapters provide most of Master's meager entertainment value, reminding me of serial cinematic shorts like Radar Men from the Moon. I find the notion of the entire Eastern Seaboard being menaced by a fantastic future-car -- capable of driving in excess of 120 mph! -- adorably quaint. Verne's Master seems poised to take over the entire world with no more than the transportation technology freely available to any dickhead in the Hamptons today.
The narrative falls apart once our intrepid police inspector gets inadvertently Shanghaied by Robur's car-boat-sub-plane. Robur's character never develops beyond a single dimension, and gets foiled by his own hubris when he attempts to reenact a much more compelling scene from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The ending can only be conveyed via sound cue.
Translator unknown
111 pages
Published 1904
Read from July 1 to July 2
Rating: ★½ out of 5
Progress: While Master of the World is utter garbage, it is at least not vile, hateful, despicable, racist garbage, so we're already a step above its predecessor, Robur the Conqueror. Master also breaks with the established Vernean formula, at least in the early chapters; the conceit of a federal police inspector arriving in the mountains of North Carolina to investigate potential volcanic activity is laughably naive (the USGS had been in existence for 25 years by the time this book was published), but the scenario seems practically Wellsian in comparison to the brain/brawn/manservant triad populating most of the Verne narratives I've read to date. These early chapters provide most of Master's meager entertainment value, reminding me of serial cinematic shorts like Radar Men from the Moon. I find the notion of the entire Eastern Seaboard being menaced by a fantastic future-car -- capable of driving in excess of 120 mph! -- adorably quaint. Verne's Master seems poised to take over the entire world with no more than the transportation technology freely available to any dickhead in the Hamptons today.
The narrative falls apart once our intrepid police inspector gets inadvertently Shanghaied by Robur's car-boat-sub-plane. Robur's character never develops beyond a single dimension, and gets foiled by his own hubris when he attempts to reenact a much more compelling scene from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The ending can only be conveyed via sound cue.
Friday, July 1, 2016
2016 read #54: Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne.
Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne
Translator unknown
142 pages
Published 1886
Read from June 29 to July 1
Rating: ★ out of 5
Jules Verne was among my earliest favorite authors. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth were two of the first unabridged books I ever read, and even after I became more of a Wells partisan, I was always open to more of Verne's classic works. I remember, as a kid or young teen, reading in a preface to one of his books about Verne's increasing cynicism and concern that the wonders of science would be put to dangerous, malevolent uses, and Robur the Conqueror was singled out as an example of this gloomier phase of Verne's career. I don't believe the term "grimdark" had been popularized yet, but I had all a tween boy's enthusiasm for grimmer and darker (confusing the two, as certain demographics still do, for synonyms of "better" and "more compelling"). Robur, then, has long been one of my sought-after reads.
The last time I got my hands on a Verne book I hadn't yet read, it didn't work out so well. Bad translations and racism far more virulent than I remembered conspired with a dull travelogue narrative to sap all enjoyment out of the experience. I feared much the same from Robur, but this was a book I'd wanted to read since I was 10 or 12. The reality, alas, was even worse than I'd feared.
Imagine 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but instead of the compelling antihero Captain Nemo, make the voyaging inventor a total dick without backstory or motivation. Switch Consiel into a vile and hateful racial stereotype played for comic effect. Eliminate the characterization and implicit conflict between Professor Arronax and Ned Land, get rid of the professor's internal conflict between admiration for and horror of the antihero inventor, and substitute bland protagonists who agree on everything and want to kill the inventor and everyone aboard -- not because of any ethical qualms, but because Robur kidnapped them for a nice vacation. Get rid of any plot or interesting incident in favor of a generic Vernean travelogue, hitting up various geographical highlights for no other reason than to portray them (crudely and stereotypically) for his young readers. That, my dears, is Robur the Conqueror.
This was not worth waiting two decades for. And aside from some business with flags on national landmarks at the beginning, none of this alleged motif of "technology suborned to evil purposes," which so captured my preteen imagination, even shows up. Perhaps the author of that preface was thinking more of Master of the World, an even slimmer novella packaged in with my copy of Robur. I guess I'm resigned to reading that next, but I am not looking forward to it. At least it can't be any worse, can it?
Translator unknown
142 pages
Published 1886
Read from June 29 to July 1
Rating: ★ out of 5
Jules Verne was among my earliest favorite authors. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth were two of the first unabridged books I ever read, and even after I became more of a Wells partisan, I was always open to more of Verne's classic works. I remember, as a kid or young teen, reading in a preface to one of his books about Verne's increasing cynicism and concern that the wonders of science would be put to dangerous, malevolent uses, and Robur the Conqueror was singled out as an example of this gloomier phase of Verne's career. I don't believe the term "grimdark" had been popularized yet, but I had all a tween boy's enthusiasm for grimmer and darker (confusing the two, as certain demographics still do, for synonyms of "better" and "more compelling"). Robur, then, has long been one of my sought-after reads.
The last time I got my hands on a Verne book I hadn't yet read, it didn't work out so well. Bad translations and racism far more virulent than I remembered conspired with a dull travelogue narrative to sap all enjoyment out of the experience. I feared much the same from Robur, but this was a book I'd wanted to read since I was 10 or 12. The reality, alas, was even worse than I'd feared.
Imagine 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but instead of the compelling antihero Captain Nemo, make the voyaging inventor a total dick without backstory or motivation. Switch Consiel into a vile and hateful racial stereotype played for comic effect. Eliminate the characterization and implicit conflict between Professor Arronax and Ned Land, get rid of the professor's internal conflict between admiration for and horror of the antihero inventor, and substitute bland protagonists who agree on everything and want to kill the inventor and everyone aboard -- not because of any ethical qualms, but because Robur kidnapped them for a nice vacation. Get rid of any plot or interesting incident in favor of a generic Vernean travelogue, hitting up various geographical highlights for no other reason than to portray them (crudely and stereotypically) for his young readers. That, my dears, is Robur the Conqueror.
This was not worth waiting two decades for. And aside from some business with flags on national landmarks at the beginning, none of this alleged motif of "technology suborned to evil purposes," which so captured my preteen imagination, even shows up. Perhaps the author of that preface was thinking more of Master of the World, an even slimmer novella packaged in with my copy of Robur. I guess I'm resigned to reading that next, but I am not looking forward to it. At least it can't be any worse, can it?
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