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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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This was a beautiful book, purportedly by an anonymous author around 1535, about the adventures of a certain Rupprecht, who following a campaign in Italy and years in "New Spain" returns to the Old World and meets all manner of historical (and otherwise) figures in his adventures about Germany, including Agrippa of Nettesheim, Iohann Weier, Doctor Faustus, Mephistopheles, amongst many others.
It is beautifully written (criticisms would include: although I noted, on the second reading, a few clumsy turns of phrase that could be better addressed or corrected in a new edition, without affecting the quality of prose or style, and translations for the Italian, German and Latin would be appreciated, footnotes or an appendix to seperate the invention of the author from real people, places and events -eg. the many hostels he names, personages he references, etc, etc. While I knew quite a few it is presumptive to expect the reader know them all. And perhaps a map to guide us on his travels.).
IN any event it tells of the various adventures of our narrator, Rupprecht, who exists in a sort of spiritual limbo, accepting at once the Catholic Faith, A humanist who while denouncing the Inquisition yet himself attempts to subdue demons, who believes in a Kind, Just and Merciful God yet bears witness to and narrates the most improbable and impossible of miracles, all narrated as if these were the most ordinary things in the world...
And this is the trick, to provide the reader with a variety of ways to interpret his story - and no one solution, which - in a nutshell, captures his ambiguity about everything that he experiences.
Formidably well researched, Briusov has taken great pains to explore the struggle of the protagonist, this person exists, or existed in the character of the author himself, the tortuous romantic triangle depicting reflecting his own relationship with Andrei Bely and their shared lover, the nineteen-year-old Nina Petrovskaya.
It reminds me of nothing so much as one of those more contemporary war movies, where it becomes impossible to sort out the heroes from the villains and you follow an inadvertent spectator or participant through a perpetually shifting moral and spiritual landscape. Liminal Spaces.
In finishing it - even upon the second reading, I am cast into the slough of despond, afflicted with a profound melancholy. It is odd that it is so out of print, and doubly odd that the translation available has not been better proofed. Still a masterpiece, one that directly inspired "The Master and Margarita", and completely up my alley. A great book that recommends me to a thousand others...
And a happenstance, a lucky find at "The Wee Book Inn" on Whyte in Edmonton.
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A mercifully short (perhaps an hour all in) book, about a group of murderous brothers bent on recovering their stolen bowling trophies.
Humorous, lyrical, after "The Fiery Angel" all I could perhaps stand.
On that note, my review for that is pending, but 5 stars surely...
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This was a long read, although easy.
A formidable tome of contemporary Urban Legends, thorough, told very much in the breathless style of the invariable narrator of such bollocks.
While very definitely not a fan of the style, a few things I did note:
That the legend often preceded the atrocity, not as a result; incidents for example of Wartime Atrocities in WWI often ascribed to the enemy (but didn't take place) were later enacted in the second War, and did in fact happen.
That reality invariably trumps fiction, overreaches it even, and I recognize many of the legends from headlines, (the reality of the incident is not the point, the point being that they are over-repeated, an attempt to personalize extraordinary events, and whereas an odd thing might happen once there's no way it's happened as often as it's been told).
And that the news - specifically Fox and Reuters, and Paul Harvey ("The Rest of the Story) - have frequently fallen for them, a good headline beating the most remedial of fact checking. Although to be fair most news agencies and media outlets have fallen into the "no fact checking" bracket at some time or another.
Anyways, I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as I thought, and time would have been better spent on Snopes.
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Icelandic Sagas, of which I am not too familiar (Beowulf I've read, the rest, not so much so.)
Curious, in that they record the family/tribal history of the first Norse settlers, and in the tone that they're related, where the narrator gives details he/she could not have known, and recites the history in a manner that while concise leaves you to decipher (??) - assign the motives to the characters from the events and their words.
So, bereft of "tone" in the sense that the descriptions of events are lacking in emotional adjectives such as "rage" or "pleasure" or "love", rather the narrator uses others to describe the exterior events and the reader to discern the interior lives of the characters. And good, in that equal attention is given to the strong female leads.
Interesting, and a little different from my usual fare, and good to read (some of) Tolkien's source or inspirational material.
Also interesting, in the sense of community justice, outlaws, the running feuds (and how they're rarely forgiven), and - something I didn't know (but should have) - Iceland when first settled was somewhat (25-40%) forested. It was those damned Vikings that made it the grassy knoll we all think of today.
Anyways, from then on to my next read - Jan Harold Brunvand's "Too Good To Be True" - a compilation of Urban Legends. The same author as wrote "The Vanishing Hitchhiker", and what a change in tone!. Fortunately it's a simple read, I'm looking forward to some more substantial fare.
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Lectures, in published form, on the meta of fiction, involvement of the reader, etc, etc, by Umberto Eco.
I would probably have preferred to sit in on the lectures, interesting, engaging, fortunately slim (which is why I picked it to read first).
I enjoyed, many wouldn't.