Still not dead

Y'all, I have not been having a good few weeks, so please forgive the paucity of postings. But big hugs to everyone and hey! I am working on fixing the problems! This requires locking Warren Ellis in a keg full of ferrets and a fuse wire; this also offers possibilities for solving the world's energy problems.

To make up for it, a return to Desultory Reviews: The Midwife edition.

I picked up Jennifer Lee's Worth's (nee Lee) book about her experiences as a lay midwife working with a religious order in London's East End after the war on a whim. Turns out, it is not the kind of book that should be taken lightly. It should be used to whack, with great force, the heads and shoulders of people who say that women's history hasn't been hidden, because the book is chockful of social history in an area that's traditionally been considered, let's use the technical term, icky. Because girl parts! And while the book is autobiographical rather than designed to help the reader deliver a baby, the details—how rooms were prepped, what prenatal care involved (boiling urine! Mm!), and how preemies were cared for—are still engaging. Doubly so her description of her fellow midwives. Sister Monica Joan, who proves that half-senile monastics can out-Hybrid the best of BSG, steals the show. Big thumbs up.

There were two complaints worth airing: First, it's not clear that this was intended to be one of a trilogy, so the author's hints about her Forbeeden Luv get a bit wearing, especially when you realize on the final chapter that she's not going to tell you what the story was. And second, the extensive glossary on Cockney pronounciation and slang feels like Worth's hobbyhorse, something an editor should have gently pried out of the book. Less rhyming slang; more Sister Monica Joan!

Covering the topic

I've been rereading Francis Spufford's excellent, illuminating The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading. It's one of those rare books that keeps making me want to yell, "Testify! Sing it! Yes, brother, yes, you are so right!"

On learning to read: "By the time I reached The Hobbit's last page, though, writing had softened, and lost the outlines of the printed alphabet, and become a transparent liquid, first viscous and sluggish, like a jelly of meaning, then ever thinner and more mobile, flowing faster and faster, until it reached me at the speed of thinking and I could not entirely distinguish the suggestions it was making from my own thoughts."

On reading horror and having it get under your skin (or not): "You lay down the Stephen King, give a comfortable shrug, and never think about it again unless you want to, you lucky bastard."

On the nature of addiction: "I don't quite read a novel a day, but I certainly read some of a novel every day, and usually some of several. There is always a heap of opened paperbacks facedown near the bed, always something current on the kitchen table to reach for over coffee when I wake up. Colonies of prose have formed in the bathroom and in the dimness of the upstairs landing, so that I don't go without text even in the leftover spaces of the house where I spend least time. When I'm tired and therefor indecisive, last thing at night, it can take half an hour to choose the book I am doing to have with me while I brush my teeth." By this point I'm hooting with laughter, the pleasure of recognition joined to the knowledge that this is a ridiculous way to live.

I need to hunt up Spufford's book on exploring the Antarctic, but niggling suspicion says that it won't elicit the same desire to shriek amen.

Not even a desultory review

More a two-line comment: I found it hard to take The Pirate Queen: Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire seriously when I realized that the author and/or the copyeditor had decided that the singular of cimarrones was cimarrone, that the Spanish word for god is díos, and that proper antecedents and use of the comma are for the weak. If you can't get the basic spell-checking right, what does that imply about your fact-checking?

To give the book its due, however, it does quote Sir Francis Drake's description of his mariners: They "rejoiced in things stark naughty." That alone is almost worth the purchase price.

Snared

La Mère reports the ultimate success of Project Mothership: my father has been drawn irrevocably into The Book of the New Sun. This represents the culmination of a long strange campaign to bring him into the SFF fold.

Understand, my mother was geek before geek had chic. Seesterperson and I learned to read chapter books with Robert Heinlein juveniles, and we learned the dangers of transgressing the alpha-author system if we mucked with the carefully organized SF bookshelf in the basement. But somehow Il Padre remained above it all. I think at some point in the 70s he picked up an Anne McCaffrey book and was thoroughly put off; suggestions that he might like something in the genre were invariably met with sniffy comments about preferring books where the characters' names weren't seven consonants followed by an apostrophe. (Presumably he also disdains Welsh literature.)

After he retired, he spent several years reading yet more clergy lit: lives of the saints, liturgics, missals, antique histories. By now we had all long resigned ourselves to the alien in our midst and didn't bother. Different strokes and all that.

Step one in his metamorphosis, oddly enough, was picking up the Patrick O'Brian books, which God knows aren't easy reading but which are rich and beautiful and which had kept La Mère sane on a trans-Pacific flight. "Huh," he said to La Mè, "These are actually pretty good." She forbore to whack him in the head. "What else would you recommend?"

With the careful slow movements of a hunter drawing a bead on a twenty-point stag, she proffered Guards! Guards! Glomph. A month later, the entire Pratchett oeuvre to date satisfactorily digested, Il Padre sat back and said judiciously, "Well, not everything he's done is great. Those early books are not up to spec." No, we agreed, and notice that we'd started him with one of the later titles. "Anyway. What else is good?" We were off and running.

By now he's spent several years getting through the good stuff, the cream skimmed from the 90% junk that Sturgeon's Law so accurately predicts, and we've ended up wracking our brains for ways to keep the beast fed. I was gleeful to remember an old favorite, Poul Anderson's shimmering Three Hearts and Three Lions, that he of course adored; La Mère watched in shock as he finished the entire Cordwainer Smith collection. We were running low on stock, and he was no neophyte. It was time.

"You should try Gene Wolfe. He's good, and you'd probably get some of his more obscure Catholic references."
"I've tried. I can't."
"Well, he's not easy. It took me three good runs, but it's worth it."
"Nope. Can't do it."

We had variations on that conversation every few months; I had basically given up. We knew he would like it, but the learning curve with Mr. Unreliable Narrators FTW is admittedly steep. But leading a horse to water and all that...you can't really force someone to read something they don't like. Can you?

*ring ring*
"Hello?"
"Hey, kiddle. So guess who has been sitting on the couch for the last week, spending every free moment snarfling down the Severian stories?"
"Holy shit! How'd you do it?"
"I left the books lying around, and when he asked why I hadn't put them away I told him I was trying to lure him."
"And he went for it! What's his reaction?"
"He says it was unkind in us not to warn him that it's really just one long book."
"Hee. So very doomed."
"I know. So then I told him that not only is it one long book, you have to reread it afterward to figure out what the hell went on."
"True, true. Aw, our little grasshopper."
"Yup. Now he is the master."

Io Triumphe!

Hurled with great force

The stranger tides that govern all our base the Web are aligning with the Aerial Squash Fandago ley lines this year. Friends, relations, and by now total strangers know of my love for the Yankee Siege trebuchet, which is to my mind the most elegant of the Chunkin engines. Now the RSS feed coughs up not one but two Got Medieval posts on trebuchet-related marginalia in the Maciejowski Bible ("A fmafhing blockbufter of a texte," and yes I stole that joke from Good Omens).

I also wanted to post a link to MightyGodKing's fantastic take on fantasy novel covers—seeing a Mercedes Lackey novel retitled My Little Pony Goes to War set me howling—but it done got slashdotted by the hordes and is unavailable until MGK finds another provider. BoingBoing uses a retitling of Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books (Asshole Leper Hero) as the teaser, setting off a fiery parry and riposte about the series dans les BB comments. I couldn't get past the first chapter of the first installment of that particular series, on account of it was hideously dull and badly written, so I'm indebted to the person who summed up the problems with Donaldson's work by quoting a single sentence: "The horses were almost prostrate upon their feet." I mean, that just ain't right.

Reading Nation

I tore through both The Graveyard Book and Nation this weekend, a double dose of literary smack that is an excellent definition of being spoiled for choice. The former, ostensibly a book for the younglings, is a satisfyingly disturbing version of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, complete with adoptive family (ghosts not wolves), strange guardian (a [redacted] in place of a panther), and wonderfully creepy villains (both the monkeys and Sher Khan have analogs here). By the bye, anyone who has not read the original Kipling entire has missed out so bad I can't even say; it holds up for adults and you should look well, o wolves, to your local booketeria for a copy. As always, Gaiman's writing gives the sense that the inside of the man's head is something of a fantastic library, full of Victorian children's clothes and strange mythologies. The Graveyard Book is scary without being gross; it sends a fine elegant shiver down the back and is perfect autumn reading.

Nation, now, I'm not sure I can explain my reaction clearly. It's the first of Pratchett's books in a long time not to be set in Discworld, and based on things like Johnny and the Bomb I wasn't sure how it would be. The Johnny books are good, but they haven't had the fine edge that some of the Discworld books have had. The Post's review was glowing, though, and reading it was never in question. I thiefed the family copy and opened it up.

Honestly, I can't say whether it's up to spec, because I spent a goodly share of the book in tears, which is not the typical reaction to Pratchett's writing. The book is passionately angry and joyful and curious about the world and our role in it, especially about who we are when disasters like flu pandemics and tsunamis hit us where we hurt (which is in our people); the man who wrote it is facing a disease that will probably strip away his ability to ask those questions as he watches. All of the anger that you feel at that kind of news is channeled here, into the lives of the two protagonists, but so is the fierce joy in life that makes the diagnosis stand in such sharp relief. People have commented that some of the recent Discworld books, including Nightwatch and Thud!, have been stronger for their darkness and the intensity of the characters' convictions; Nation is all of that without the Vimes, so it's both kinder and a lot more painful. Nation is no-foolin' on the short list for Books of the Year, but I'd be surprised if I were the only one sniffling at the end.

To my Shadow and Claw co-obsessives

There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men—all are dead....Who can say how intently they listen as we speak, or for what word?

Allow me to greet you on the day of the martyr Thecla (steady reppin' Old Calendar style). Reports of her life bear little resemblance to that of the Chatelaine's, which is a bit of a surprise considering that Wolfe used a very recognizable Catherine as the Guild's patron, but then the conventional St. Severian was a bishop and never climbed the Andes either, so maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.

Brought by the lee

So it turns out that my 95% certainty is worth very little. This is an object lesson: Don't expose yourself to ridicule by approaching possible celebrities in person. Do it on the internet; it allows a much larger group of people to enjoy your mistake.

Least I didn't lend the guy money.

It's turtles all the way down, young man

Terry Pratchett will be online on Wednesday to chat on the Post's website from 11:00 to noon. Michael Dirda mentioned reviewing Nation when I talked with him on Saturday, but I didn't expect the review to run the very next day. Now it seems even more certain that the man himself was at the signing, managing the neat trick of going undercover by not wearing one.

To fill the time before I get my mitts on The Graveyard Book and Nation, I've picked back up with Who Murdered Chaucer, a tasty popular history that underlines the idea that the Monty Python guys were smarter than the average sketch comics. As someone whose knowledge of medieval political affairs is drawn largely from Shakespeare's Richard II and the inimitable Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog (currently being guest-hosted by H. Bolingbroke: "O, stop yower bullmerde about Chaucer and Kyng Richard. Kyng Richard will retourne whan it is good for the realm. I and the othir lords appellant are loial to the Crown of Engelonde and the Kyng who beareth yt. I haue no intencioun to evir taak the crown from Richard. I haue too much CRUSADING to do first."), I'm finding it a gripping tale of revenge, betrayal, and clerical skullduggery. The book ys, indeed, rad, a term rarely applied to discussions of the Lollard heresy. And its size makes it convenient for smacking elevator doors open with an authoritative whump, so it's got that going for it too.

Heaven in a black leather jacket and 90% humidity

Notwithstanding the gharstly heat and humidity of the morning, I did make it to the National Book Festival this AM for the annual fix of hangin' with the bookfolk. Last year's mobscene around the Terry Pratchett reading was still in memory green, so I got there early enough to get a good spot and ended up hearing a couple of other authors speak. One, who writes picture books about historical figures in the African-American community, would be a first-rate presenter for little kids, but I get the squirms when someone demands that there be audience participation, especially if it involves singing. The second was more my speed; although he writes mainly for teens, he seemed to notice that the pavilion was rapidly filling with adults, so he ramped up the technical content about researching primary sources and Native American languages. I had never heard the term "agglutinative language," but now I know that Abenaki is one. ("Like German and Russian," said BK, who I was surprised to find sitting just behind me. "But Turkish is considered the classic agglutinative tongue." I hadn't expected to see BK at the Festival, still less at the Gaiman event, but it turns out that his girlfriend got hooked on Sandman at 16 and has been a hopeless fan ever since. Clearly a woman of taste and sophistication.)

The tent was entirely packed by the time Michael Dirda took over from Ron Charles (bah) and introduced Neil Gaiman, who despite the heat was wearing his usual leather jacket. In trying to describe his interaction with his fans to IE, I settled on saying that he's treated as our favorite uncle, who happens to be a rock star. He probably wishes he weren't so widely recognized, but he deals with it gracefully. He read a bit from The Graveyard Book and answered some questions. Best line, in talking about how he'd stolen a book idea from something his son had said, "I told my five-year-old son that he had to go to bed, and he said furiously, 'I wish I didn't have a dad! I wish I had a...,' and you could see him trying to think of things you could have. 'I wish I had...some goldfish!' And I thought, what a good idea. He has never seen any of the royalties." Best I-think-it-was sighting: Terry Pratchett, who without his signature hat can blend into a crowd better than Alec Guinness, but who I think saw me eyeing him.

We decided not to risk the storms just for the chance to stand in an endless signing line, but as the crowd was streaming away, I took the chance to thank Mr. Dirda for returning to his column at Book World and especially for his righteous ticking-off of Neal Stephenson's latest crypto-brick (for the record, I ripped through Snow Crash with glee, liked The Diamond Age despite its random ending, enjoyed Cryptonomicon but struggled with its overload of math lectures, and threw Quicksilver across the room after three pages). Technical material and research is all very well and good in its place; its place is not in 500 pages of your 600-page novel.

A very pleasant lunch at Brasserie Les Halles (baked brie with cracked black pepper and honey, and a salad with apples and sugared walnuts), and thence homeward. Neil is probably signing still.

Two years

And still I miss Mike Ford, despite the minor fact of never having met or spoken to him. I eventually forgave him for naming a madam in The Last Hot Time Chloe Vadis, though getting to that point took a certain amount of agonized writhing on my part. Let's hope that wherever he is they appreciate him. In the meantime, fire up the heavy artillery in his memory: Infernokrusher Romeo and Juliet!

Ro-Mo. Your windows are still mirrored; taunt me not,
But show your colors, dare to challenge me,
These lips are two shaped charges, primed and hot,
That wait the go-code for delivery.
J-Cap. The flag is to the deadly, not the loud,
Yet aim as well as posing shows in this;
The worthy throwdown's always to the proud,
And hammer down is how the hard girls kiss.
Ro-Mo. My draft is stopped; I struggle toward the clutch.
J-Cap. And would a charge of nitrous make thee run?
Ro-Mo. Too much; but what else is there but too much?
Let me take arms, and elevate the gun.
J-Cap. Small arms but hint what demolitions say.
Ro-Mo. Then, gunner, gimme one round.
J-Cap. On the way.

[H/T, of course, to Making Light]

Do we rage or do we lol?

Cognitive dissonance: econocrushboy Paul Krugman catches one scary-ass quote. Is the correct reaction to swoon or to curl up in the fetal position and shiver?

But speaking of crushboys, don't forget that this Saturday is the Library of Congress Book Festival. No word that I've seen on whether Michael Dirda will be introducing, though it seems like he rarely misses the event. It's not a terribly strong roster this year, unfortunately, but hey, Neil Gaiman. For added random points, the black-flowered feather-in-the-hat crowd will be smushed in around the Children's pavilion this year. In what appears to be an effort to keep the man's feng shui powers of coolth from focusing too hard in any single tent, they shuffle him to a different area each year—fantasy/SF! fiction/mystery! children/teens! DIY shoggotheterica!—which to date has done nothing from keeping his signing lines from outshowing every other author's by orders of magnitude. Sure, size doesn't matter in theory, but tell that to the seven hundredth person in the Gaiman area looking wistfully at the 50 hardy souls fidgeting in the Rocco DiSpirito queue. We'd repine but it's me legs except that so many of the hardcore fans are at least worth chatting to. Wear the right button and you could even get a date out of it.

Bookplate

Transcription of the bookplate in my father's copy of Quo Vadis:

On the Return of a Book Lent to a Friend

I give humble and hearty thanks for the safe return of this book which having endured the perils of my friend's bookcase, and the bookcases of my friend's friends, now returns to me in reasonably good condition.

I give humble and hearty thanks that my friend did not see fit to give this book to his infant as a plaything, nor to use it as an ashtray for his burning cigar, nor as a teething ring for his mastiff.

When I lent this book I deemed it as lost: I was resigned to the bitterness of the long parting: I never though to look upon its pages again.

But now that my book is come back to me, I rejoice and am exceeding glad! Bring hither the fatted morocco and let us rebind the volume and set it on the shelf of honour: for this my book was lent, and is returned again.

Presently, therefore, I may return some of the books that I myself have borrowed.

I do not particularly care for the book, but I desperately covet this plate.

I ATEN'T DED

(Picture lovingly ganked from the Pratchgan Flickrpool)

Geekly knitters created a collaborative Terry Pratchett quilt, patching together squares that vary from the simple to the astonishing, all imbued with obvious affection for the Discworld, and managed to give Terry the quilt in person. Big ooks to all of them.

H/T BoingBoing.

A life between the covers

Commence official packing mode. This is a stage that would normally be marked by sleeplessness or anxiety dreams about leaving my toothbrush in the Hellespont or some damn thing. Currently, however, I'm taking muscle relaxants for reasons unrelated to travel, and as a result have been sleeping like a dreamless log. Not only that, but fighting off the fog of analgesia leaves me with little oomph to worry too much about the luggaging process. Pack the jeans, don't pack the jeans, whaaaatever.

On an intellectual level, however, it is clear that arriving for a horseback trek sans pants would not be wise, so I've made a list and am carefully checking off items as they go into the monster duffel or my ripstop backpack. (The misfortunes of others have taught me to carry my helmet onto flights rather than putting it and my faith in the checked-bags system, and now I've got a carry-on camping pack large enough to hold the helmet and a change of clothes. Listen well, o wolves: Do explain your intentions to the REI staff before you start cramming one of their boarding helmets into one of their packs to test the sizing, lest they get an understandable wrong impression.) Shirts, shoes, swimsuit, toiletries, Tiger Balm, sunblock, fleece jacket, rain gear, check check check.

The real struggle is choosing solid vacation books. The standard beach reads go far too quickly, the cost of cheesy magazines outweighs their entertainment value, and one vacation with only Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for refuge was enough to cure me of being over-ambitious. I managed well in Argentina, with Foreign Devils on the Silk Road and Tom Shippey's excellent book on Tolkien's linguistic scholarship (my geek flag flies free and proud), occasionally supplemented with a neighbor's memoirs of life in Patagonia in the 1930s and the estancia's enormous compendium of Jeeves and Wooster stories. I'm trying not to dip too far into the current pile of possible contenders—some Oliver Sacks case studies, Drunken Forest, a few books of French history, a couple of Mary Renault novels—or to bemoan the lack of another Patrick O'Brian series. Maybe it's time to crack a gothic novel or two? It is bliss to be so spoiled for choice.