The ludicrous Magnum Opus of one of my favourite authors, The Brightonomicon is one of the greatest works of written comedy I have ever read. It is truly mind-bogglingly brilliant, and after reading it one may never see croquet, taxi drivers, or even the world itself, the same way again.
Set in Brighton in the specific time period of 'the swinging sixties', the teenaged protagonist loses his memory when his life is saved by the great Hugo Rune, the self-proclaimed Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, the guru's guru, the perfect master, and the reinventor of the Ocarina. The protagonist, renamed Rizla by the Perfect Master, becomes Hugo Rune's acolyte for the duration of the next year while he searches to uncover the secrets of the Brightonomicon, the Brighton Zodiac 'discovered' by Rune when he traced the outlines of twelve people and animals along the roads of a Brighton street map, in order to save the world from the sinister machinations of his arch-enemy.
Over the course of twelve short-stories, Hugo Rune and Rizla face a number of challenges, or 'cases' as Rune treats them, in which the mystery of each of the Brighton constellations is uncovered. The 'Hangleton Hound', the 'Moulsecoomb Crab', the 'Bevendean Bat' and the 'Withdean Wiseman' all play their part in aiding Rune to his ultimate goal, albeit most tenuously as possible. While the Hangleton Hound involves the theft of a dog from an address in the Hangleton area of Brighton, the 'Coldean Cat' merely involves the mention of a cat called Coldean who plays no real part in the completion of the case.
Robert Rankin is an author who claims to write in his own genre, which he calls 'far-fetched fiction', meaning that if ever there were rules in writing, he would do his utmost to ignore them. I like to think that once upon a time, Rankin was reading a sensible novel by one of the classic writers (Arthur Conan Doyle, or perhaps one of the Brontes), nodded his head approvingly and muttered: 'Very good,' before tossing the book into an open fire, getting blind drunk and sitting down at a typewriter to hammer out the first things that came into his brain. When he came round in the morning, he saw the depraved nonsense that he had created, involving the secret Ministry of Serendipity who controlled the world from an underground train station, small screws breeding uncontrollably in order to take over the world, a Victorian Computer Age overthrown by the Elephant Man, notions that wheels could not possibly exist, that the world was hollow and that everyone was living on the inside so they wouldn't discover that the other planets in the solar system were inhabited by giant starfish and that it was quite possible to breathe in space, that hedgehogs actually lived in the upper atmosphere until they popped and fell to the ground which explained why there are always dead hedgehogs splattered at the side of the road, that Rankin's native London suburb of Brentford was actually the cradle of history and civilisation which was really the site of the Garden of Eden, and that the London A-Z actually meant 'Allocated Zones' and hid more than they showed, covering up hidden areas of the world into which slipped all the lost pens, socks, tickets and things and could only be accessed by playing an unknown extra note on the reinvented Ocarina. He then turned it into a series of novels, the seven-book long Brentford Trilogy, and his masterpiece The Brightonomicon. I very much doubt it happened like this, but it's what I like to think.
Rankin's comedy (this is Robert Rankin still, not Ian Rankin who is completely unrelated) slips back and forth between the surreal and the groan-inducingly gag-laden, a style that might not have worked anywhere near as well had it not been for the incredibly formal tone of the narrative and dialogue. He describes the most bizarre of conversations in tones perhaps a little reminiscent of British comedy from the earlier parts of the twentieth century. Alas I cannot claim among their charms that Rankin's works are especially well-written, and that many of his characters sound very similar in their choice of words and speech patterns, but then I never claimed to see Rankin in terms of literary merit. The thing to be sure of with Rankin is that his books are mad to the extreme, and he seems to take a great pleasure in breaking as many of the rules of writing as he can. I like to indulge myself in that sort of thing occasionally, just as sometimes a person who appreciates fine food might one day walk into a Fish-and-Chip shop and order deep-fried Mars bar, just because they know it is wrong in so many ways (and because it's wierdly delicious at the same time. So wrong, but so tasty).
In terms of the brilliance of The Brightonomicon there is so much to say, so I will try to keep it brief. Hugo Rune is an amazing character, one of R. Rankin's best - he appears in many Rankin novels, but it is here that he plays the central role. Rune styles himself as the Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, being particularly big-headed and arrogant about it, but he has stones to back his claims up; he has lived for thousands of years, met many of the great people of history (artists, inventors, Dalia Lamas, explorers), and was responsible for guiding humanity on its course, inventing Heavy Metal, and saving the world on countless occasions. In his particularly 'Hugo Rune' fashion, he refuses to pay for anything, claiming that he has given the world so much that the least it can do is cover his expenses, even if no-one sees his point of view. He avoids paying rent, gets free meals by smuggling rat-bones into the finest eating establishments, and repays taxi drivers by clubbing them unconscious with his stout stick upon reaching the destination. Hugo Rune is a terrible yet wonderful creation by Rankin, and stands as a shining star amongst his works. If Sherlock Holmes were more of a self-idolizing bastard.... one with seemingly magical abilities.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand, my other favourite thing about this book is another brilliant character, Fangio the Barman. Whenever Rizla enters a new pub or bar, he realises that it is crewed by the same barman as the one from the pub next to his home - Fangio. Every chapter Rizla and Fangio 'talk the toot', meaningless and bizarre conversations that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the plot, whole pages are whiled away in idle chit-chat as they discuss the ales on offer, the schizophrenic refurbishment policies of the pub, and Fangio's attempts to become a gay icon, dyslexic, and then a Carry-On film style of innuendo giver. It is beautrifully irrelevent, and it happens every chapter.
And one last note, there is a formula to each case, in which they usually start with a decent breakfast at Hugo Rune's rooms, before embarking on their initial investigation of the case at hand, there is usually a paragraph about the taxi-cab which conveys them to their destiation, in which the driver is introduced by first-name, along with their favourite football team, and some weird metaphysical theory is breifly described. There is usually a chance run-in with Fangio the Barman, and toot is talked, and towards the end Hugo Rune solves the case because he secretly knew from the beginning what the answer was, and just lets events run their course. There are significant variations on this formula during the book, especially for the last four cases, but these are the common elements that go to make the whole thing brilliant.
Robert Rankin still maintains his position as one of my favourite writers, though there are some of his novels that I am less keen on than others. I would reccommend anything from the Brentford Trilogy or Cornelius Murphy Trilogy, particularly Raiders of the Lost Car Park, and another favourite of mine is The Greatest Show Off Earth. They are all weird and wonderful in their own way, but Rankin's style does sometimes drag a bit, at least I have found so on occasion. But that is a minor criticism. Undoubtedly the best is The Brightonomicon because it contains all the best elements of Rankin's work.
Monday 31 December 2012
Saturday 22 December 2012
Venetian Bird, by Victor Canning
My forays into the action-thriller genre have always been met with some amount of disappointment. They're generally all-right, from my experience, but for something labelled as a thriller I've always found them a little dull for my tastes.
Not so for Venetian Bird! Of all the books of this genre I've ever read, this is undoubtedly the best so far. For most writers, the stock 'exotic locations' where they set their stories tend to feel more like a nice photograph for the story to take place in front of, whereas Canning has provided so much rich detail of postwar Venice that the location is an indespensible part of the story. The characters are all good, each one worth an entire 'cannon-fodder' crew from MacLean, and for a story which is about a man wandering around a city, I thought it was exceptionally good. It took until over half-way through the book before anything really resembling an action-thriller took place, but I was quite happy with this. MacLean was all about the plot and the action, whereas Canning seems to write about more normal, everyday things, which helps his story to be a bit more believeable.
The best part of this book, that thing that puts it head and shoulders above every other thriller I have read, is the way that Canning writes. His observations are gorgeous, describing scenes with a handful of nicely-pruned sentences, painting an incredibly vivid picture of the city that makes it feel quite alive. The characters as well have been given a certain special treatment, being more than a mere stock-face and role to play in the plot - the introduction of the protagonist, Mercer, stands out in my mind because of the way he is presented, absent-mindedly tapping his spoon against a glass, which accidentally summons a waiter who himself is also bored.
Other than that, there's not much more I can say about it. I really liked this book, I like Cannings writing style, I liked the story, I really liked the characters, and the setting was amazing in its presentation.
Not so for Venetian Bird! Of all the books of this genre I've ever read, this is undoubtedly the best so far. For most writers, the stock 'exotic locations' where they set their stories tend to feel more like a nice photograph for the story to take place in front of, whereas Canning has provided so much rich detail of postwar Venice that the location is an indespensible part of the story. The characters are all good, each one worth an entire 'cannon-fodder' crew from MacLean, and for a story which is about a man wandering around a city, I thought it was exceptionally good. It took until over half-way through the book before anything really resembling an action-thriller took place, but I was quite happy with this. MacLean was all about the plot and the action, whereas Canning seems to write about more normal, everyday things, which helps his story to be a bit more believeable.
The best part of this book, that thing that puts it head and shoulders above every other thriller I have read, is the way that Canning writes. His observations are gorgeous, describing scenes with a handful of nicely-pruned sentences, painting an incredibly vivid picture of the city that makes it feel quite alive. The characters as well have been given a certain special treatment, being more than a mere stock-face and role to play in the plot - the introduction of the protagonist, Mercer, stands out in my mind because of the way he is presented, absent-mindedly tapping his spoon against a glass, which accidentally summons a waiter who himself is also bored.
Other than that, there's not much more I can say about it. I really liked this book, I like Cannings writing style, I liked the story, I really liked the characters, and the setting was amazing in its presentation.
Thursday 6 December 2012
Where Eagles Dare, and other stuff by Alistair MacLean
Obviously, I have read Where Eagles Dare, but this is not the first MacLean I have digested over the course of my life - just the most famous. Probably. I also read Force 10 From Navarone, a sequel of The Guns of Navarone, of which I have only seen the 1962 film, and River of Death, which is about Nazi war criminals in hiding. River of Death was the first I read, confusing me royally, but it did prepare me for MacLean's style with the others I have witnessed. As such, I'll be reviewing the author more than any particular novel of his, because they share more similarities than differences.
The first thing to mention about MacLean is that it is impossible to trust any of his characters to tell the truth; in short, they always lie, and the protagonist is always hiding something, even right at the end. This has the effect of making the plots of each book twisty and confusing, and a lot of the time I find myself more baffled than shocked. The plots can generally be summed up as this: a team is assembled (there's always the team, filled by various non-descript, blank-faced people whose main purpose are to get slowly killed off one by one as the story progresses, and then at the end the survivors get killed in one great clump) and has to embark on a daring mission, of which the future of the free world is at stake, only to discover as time goes on that there is a secret purpose for the mission, one which only the protagonist/team leader is aware of, and that their mission briefing was just a cover-up for the real goals. By the time I picked up Where Eagles Dare, my fourth MacLean story, I thought I was wise enough to guess what the hell was going on - it turned out to be even more bewildering than I had anticipated. It was almost ridiculous, but MacLean does seem to perform well in his own element.
The characters, unfortunately, prove to be the weakest part of the books, due to a distinct lack of development. The protagonists of each book are all cynical, ruthless, and secretive, good for the stories they're in, but they can easily be transplanted from one to another. As an example, Mallory from the Navarone stories has, at least for me, no discernable difference of character to Smith of Where Eagles Dare, and this problem is made all the more apparent by the fact that both of them have wisecracking, sarcastic sidekicks. The sidekick characters of Miller and Schaffer respectively are a little more interesting, owing to their stark contrast to the dour, secretive protagonists, but again it was their similarities between books that bugged me. It just makes me wonder that if MacLean liked writing these sorts of characters so much, then maybe he should have written using the same people, rather than just giving them a quick scrub and a change of name; if he had done this, then maybe he could have developed the characters a bit more between books. I read on Wikipedia that he only uses recurring characters once, and that was between the two Navarone books.
My final point about the characters brings us to 'the rest of the team', that group of people with interchangeable names who end up getting killed, one or more of whom turn out to be traitors, who then get killed. They're always introduced in a bunch at a time, making them very difficult to distinguish from one-another, and in many cases the only interesting thing about each one individually is when precisely in the plot they end up dying. None of them are sufficiently developed enough to warrant anything more than apathy at their passing, or a shrug when they turn out to be bad-guys, or slight annoyance when they quite rightly accuse the team leader of witholding information from them.
Now that my major gripes about the characters are out the way, I can mention some of the things I like about MacLean. Despite what I said about the main characters being recycled and under-developed, I do like them for the fact that they are calculating no-nonsense ruthless bastards, and they don't let anything get in the way of their jobs (which, of course, only they know the whole truth about). This is a good quality for characters to have in thrillers such as these, because MacLean will always make sure the challenge is impossible, something that only a character as hard as nails has any chance of surviving, let alone succeeding.
The plots of the stories are intense, and MacLean pulls every trick he can in order to increase the suspense - he knows a few tricks, but alas he uses all of them every single time, making the books a little repetative from time to time. The characters are put through terrible trials of endurance and intelligence, many of which test their abilities to bluff their way out of impossible situations; just put on a German uniform, act as though you know best, and the enemy troops will believe you're their superior officer. And when all else fails, explosives will solve everything - there are very few problems in MacLean novels that can't be solved by blowing them up.
So apart from the flaws, Alistair MacLean thrillers are all right really if you just want action, suspese, more action, insane plot twists in which you can't even trust the protagonist. The characters are, for me, the main let-down, but I think that this is due to the author's obsession with the plot; he keeps it moving, whether you like it or not, too quickly to keep track of, and he will not let anything get in the way of that. To this end, the characters are plot-devices more than anything else, something to oil the wheels of the narrative. These are thrillers, after all.
The first thing to mention about MacLean is that it is impossible to trust any of his characters to tell the truth; in short, they always lie, and the protagonist is always hiding something, even right at the end. This has the effect of making the plots of each book twisty and confusing, and a lot of the time I find myself more baffled than shocked. The plots can generally be summed up as this: a team is assembled (there's always the team, filled by various non-descript, blank-faced people whose main purpose are to get slowly killed off one by one as the story progresses, and then at the end the survivors get killed in one great clump) and has to embark on a daring mission, of which the future of the free world is at stake, only to discover as time goes on that there is a secret purpose for the mission, one which only the protagonist/team leader is aware of, and that their mission briefing was just a cover-up for the real goals. By the time I picked up Where Eagles Dare, my fourth MacLean story, I thought I was wise enough to guess what the hell was going on - it turned out to be even more bewildering than I had anticipated. It was almost ridiculous, but MacLean does seem to perform well in his own element.
The characters, unfortunately, prove to be the weakest part of the books, due to a distinct lack of development. The protagonists of each book are all cynical, ruthless, and secretive, good for the stories they're in, but they can easily be transplanted from one to another. As an example, Mallory from the Navarone stories has, at least for me, no discernable difference of character to Smith of Where Eagles Dare, and this problem is made all the more apparent by the fact that both of them have wisecracking, sarcastic sidekicks. The sidekick characters of Miller and Schaffer respectively are a little more interesting, owing to their stark contrast to the dour, secretive protagonists, but again it was their similarities between books that bugged me. It just makes me wonder that if MacLean liked writing these sorts of characters so much, then maybe he should have written using the same people, rather than just giving them a quick scrub and a change of name; if he had done this, then maybe he could have developed the characters a bit more between books. I read on Wikipedia that he only uses recurring characters once, and that was between the two Navarone books.
My final point about the characters brings us to 'the rest of the team', that group of people with interchangeable names who end up getting killed, one or more of whom turn out to be traitors, who then get killed. They're always introduced in a bunch at a time, making them very difficult to distinguish from one-another, and in many cases the only interesting thing about each one individually is when precisely in the plot they end up dying. None of them are sufficiently developed enough to warrant anything more than apathy at their passing, or a shrug when they turn out to be bad-guys, or slight annoyance when they quite rightly accuse the team leader of witholding information from them.
Now that my major gripes about the characters are out the way, I can mention some of the things I like about MacLean. Despite what I said about the main characters being recycled and under-developed, I do like them for the fact that they are calculating no-nonsense ruthless bastards, and they don't let anything get in the way of their jobs (which, of course, only they know the whole truth about). This is a good quality for characters to have in thrillers such as these, because MacLean will always make sure the challenge is impossible, something that only a character as hard as nails has any chance of surviving, let alone succeeding.
The plots of the stories are intense, and MacLean pulls every trick he can in order to increase the suspense - he knows a few tricks, but alas he uses all of them every single time, making the books a little repetative from time to time. The characters are put through terrible trials of endurance and intelligence, many of which test their abilities to bluff their way out of impossible situations; just put on a German uniform, act as though you know best, and the enemy troops will believe you're their superior officer. And when all else fails, explosives will solve everything - there are very few problems in MacLean novels that can't be solved by blowing them up.
So apart from the flaws, Alistair MacLean thrillers are all right really if you just want action, suspese, more action, insane plot twists in which you can't even trust the protagonist. The characters are, for me, the main let-down, but I think that this is due to the author's obsession with the plot; he keeps it moving, whether you like it or not, too quickly to keep track of, and he will not let anything get in the way of that. To this end, the characters are plot-devices more than anything else, something to oil the wheels of the narrative. These are thrillers, after all.
Wednesday 21 November 2012
The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan
Here we have an Edwardian Action Thriller; plain and simple.
The protagonist is a perfectly ordinary British chap (by which I mean a fairly wealthy middle-class London-dwelling Scotsman whose main problem in life is boredom) who gets himself embroiled in a sinister plot against the Government of Great Britain! Hannay (our ordinary chap) ends up with an allied spy being murdered in his flat, and takes the initiative to flee to his native Scotland to avoid being arrested for the murder. With the sinister 'Black Stone' organisation on his tail, Hannay flees across the wilds, sleeping rough, and pulling every trick he knows in order to escape detection by the Black Stone and the police. The Black Stone, it transpires, are a group of German spies who are collecting information for the Kaiserreich in preparation for the First World War, and the only thing Hannay can truly rely on is his unwavering sense of patriotism.
It could have been awful, but it wasn't. I have heard a lot about the invasion literature of the Edwardian era, when a lot of writers took advantage of the popular anti-German paranoia of the age and wrote stories about how Germany had spies planted all over Britain and were preparing to invade and destroy the British nation forever. The most famous example of this is The Riddle of the Sands by Robert Erskine Childers. It is a curious thing that the First World War took nobody by surprise when it eventually happened, what with so many books being written about it before 1914. But anyway, this is about fiction, not history, so back to Hannay's incredible adventure and how he saved Britain.
I make it a rule of mine to know as little about a book as possible before I read it, so that I have few preconcieved notions to alter my appreciation of the story. I went into The Thrity-Nine Steps virtually blind, having only heard the title before, and hearing my Grandfather saying about how film adaptations significantly altered the plot. When I was reading it I had no idea what it was going to be about, aside from that it was a thriller, and so it took me a good deal of time to realise precisely what time it was meant to be set in. It was only due to a few very small clues in the text that gave me the impression it was pre-First World War, some time between 1912 and 1914, but altogether I found the lack of help from this front to be a minor concern. I have only just discovered from Wikipedia that it was written during the war, so that helps put it in context.
I wasn't that impressed when I first started reading it, but as Hannay got deeper into the Scottish counrtyside it began to grow on me. I quite liked his sense of being on-the-run, that his adventure was fuelled largely by paranoia, but in this case 'they' really were out to get him. Occasionally he would stop at an isolated cottage and beg lodgings with them, and eat at their tables, but the lovely rural Scots were always too polite to accept his payment for their kindness, every single time! On later occasions he would have to argue them into taking his money, which would leave him feeling a little rotten for forcing them to accept his thanks. It just feels terribly British for some reason.
So yes, I would recommend this book. It's not a hard slog, and I quite enjoyed the ending. Go back to spy novels from before Ian Fleming, where spy-work was practically a fee trade. And for those who want to know a shocking historican truth, the British Secret Service was formed due to concerns that German barbers living in Britain were actually agents of the Second Reich. I kid you not.
The protagonist is a perfectly ordinary British chap (by which I mean a fairly wealthy middle-class London-dwelling Scotsman whose main problem in life is boredom) who gets himself embroiled in a sinister plot against the Government of Great Britain! Hannay (our ordinary chap) ends up with an allied spy being murdered in his flat, and takes the initiative to flee to his native Scotland to avoid being arrested for the murder. With the sinister 'Black Stone' organisation on his tail, Hannay flees across the wilds, sleeping rough, and pulling every trick he knows in order to escape detection by the Black Stone and the police. The Black Stone, it transpires, are a group of German spies who are collecting information for the Kaiserreich in preparation for the First World War, and the only thing Hannay can truly rely on is his unwavering sense of patriotism.
It could have been awful, but it wasn't. I have heard a lot about the invasion literature of the Edwardian era, when a lot of writers took advantage of the popular anti-German paranoia of the age and wrote stories about how Germany had spies planted all over Britain and were preparing to invade and destroy the British nation forever. The most famous example of this is The Riddle of the Sands by Robert Erskine Childers. It is a curious thing that the First World War took nobody by surprise when it eventually happened, what with so many books being written about it before 1914. But anyway, this is about fiction, not history, so back to Hannay's incredible adventure and how he saved Britain.
I make it a rule of mine to know as little about a book as possible before I read it, so that I have few preconcieved notions to alter my appreciation of the story. I went into The Thrity-Nine Steps virtually blind, having only heard the title before, and hearing my Grandfather saying about how film adaptations significantly altered the plot. When I was reading it I had no idea what it was going to be about, aside from that it was a thriller, and so it took me a good deal of time to realise precisely what time it was meant to be set in. It was only due to a few very small clues in the text that gave me the impression it was pre-First World War, some time between 1912 and 1914, but altogether I found the lack of help from this front to be a minor concern. I have only just discovered from Wikipedia that it was written during the war, so that helps put it in context.
I wasn't that impressed when I first started reading it, but as Hannay got deeper into the Scottish counrtyside it began to grow on me. I quite liked his sense of being on-the-run, that his adventure was fuelled largely by paranoia, but in this case 'they' really were out to get him. Occasionally he would stop at an isolated cottage and beg lodgings with them, and eat at their tables, but the lovely rural Scots were always too polite to accept his payment for their kindness, every single time! On later occasions he would have to argue them into taking his money, which would leave him feeling a little rotten for forcing them to accept his thanks. It just feels terribly British for some reason.
So yes, I would recommend this book. It's not a hard slog, and I quite enjoyed the ending. Go back to spy novels from before Ian Fleming, where spy-work was practically a fee trade. And for those who want to know a shocking historican truth, the British Secret Service was formed due to concerns that German barbers living in Britain were actually agents of the Second Reich. I kid you not.
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne
I am not generally a fan of Victorian literature, as I find that it is usually long-winded and humourless. Fortunately Jules Verne is not like this; this novel of his has a sensible pace and an enjoyable story, giving it two things lacking from others of its period.
Just as a side note, one of my least favourite books of all time is Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham. It is not quite a piece of Victorian literature, having been written at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it possesses many of the things I most loathe and detest about reading, things that I associate with the Victorian writers; incredible length, a distinct lack of humour, and writing that bores to tears. I know I'm not doing Maugham's work justice here but I'm just presenting a brief view here to contrast with Around the World in Eighty Days, which does not do any of this.
So then, the story can be briefly summarized as follows; an eccentric Englishman by the name of Phileas Fogg, a reserved gentleman even by the standards of the day, accepts a wager from some colleages of his that he can circumnavigate the world in no more than eighty days. After betting half his fortune on the venture, Fogg drags along his newly hired French valet Passepartout for the ride and uses the other half of his money to oil the wheels of the journey.
Most of the time they spend riding on trains and ships, but there are brief times when they have to resort to more exotic forms of transport, namely an elephant and a sledge. There was no hot-air balloon; that was an invention of the movies. There is a brief paragraph in which the idea of a balloon is discussed, in the later chapters, but it is dismissed as a stupid idea.
What is good about this book? As I said before it is easily digestible, and the writing has a certain amount of humour about it; particularly in its descriptions of Fogg's lack of sociable characteristics. Much of the first chapter is devoted to listing the many fine organisations and clubs in London, saying that Mister Fogg belongs to none of them. Fogg's sole intention for the journey are to prove that such a feat can in fact be achieved, and as such he makes no intention to see the places that he visits, leaving the sightseeing to Passepartout to do for him. In fact, Fogg's only real pleasure in life is the popular card game Whist, the only reason that Fogg has for socialising; he spends most of his idle time during the jouney playing the game with his fellow passengers.
Another thing I like about the writing of this book is the good-natured stereotyping of English and Americans by Verne. In one section, Passepartout is watching the engine aboard one of the many ships, and remarks to himself:
"Those valves aren't properly weighted!" he cried. "We aren't moving! That's just like the English! Oh, if this were an American ship, we might blow up, but at least we'd be going faster!"
Ah, it brings a smile to my face to hear both the English and Americans being spoken of in that way by the French; just a casual, good-humoured jibe, one of the things that I love about Asterix, as it happens. Maybe the French just have a natural knack for this sort of thing.
One final good thing worth mentioning about Around the World in Eighty Days is that it is a celebration of progress; Jules Verne was primarily a science-fiction writer, but here it is a case of 'The Future is Now,' in the Nineteenth Century. At the time of the writing of this book, the world had only just seen the changes necessary in order to see such a trip become possible. A trip round the world, in 1872, was invariably a tour of the British Empire. We are used, nowadays, to viewing the British Empire and the growth of the United States in a negative light, but in the time of the Victorians there was something to be said for having railways that spanned continents, and ports which served as the mixing pots of new cultures.
So then, in conclusion, I enjoyed this book. I liked the character of Phileas Fogg, who is single-minded enough to get around the world in the alotted time no matter the cost, but who is honourable enough to throw everything away in order to rescue his faithful valet from capture, or an Indian princess from certain death. And he knows that a hot-air balloon is not a speedy form of transport. I like the way that he embarks on the journey not for the money, but in order to prove that it was possible. I like Verne's writing style, closer to Jerome K. Jerome than to W. Somerset Maugham, so I might well seek out more of his works after this; a compliment I very rarely bestow on a writer.
Just as a side note, one of my least favourite books of all time is Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham. It is not quite a piece of Victorian literature, having been written at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it possesses many of the things I most loathe and detest about reading, things that I associate with the Victorian writers; incredible length, a distinct lack of humour, and writing that bores to tears. I know I'm not doing Maugham's work justice here but I'm just presenting a brief view here to contrast with Around the World in Eighty Days, which does not do any of this.
So then, the story can be briefly summarized as follows; an eccentric Englishman by the name of Phileas Fogg, a reserved gentleman even by the standards of the day, accepts a wager from some colleages of his that he can circumnavigate the world in no more than eighty days. After betting half his fortune on the venture, Fogg drags along his newly hired French valet Passepartout for the ride and uses the other half of his money to oil the wheels of the journey.
Most of the time they spend riding on trains and ships, but there are brief times when they have to resort to more exotic forms of transport, namely an elephant and a sledge. There was no hot-air balloon; that was an invention of the movies. There is a brief paragraph in which the idea of a balloon is discussed, in the later chapters, but it is dismissed as a stupid idea.
What is good about this book? As I said before it is easily digestible, and the writing has a certain amount of humour about it; particularly in its descriptions of Fogg's lack of sociable characteristics. Much of the first chapter is devoted to listing the many fine organisations and clubs in London, saying that Mister Fogg belongs to none of them. Fogg's sole intention for the journey are to prove that such a feat can in fact be achieved, and as such he makes no intention to see the places that he visits, leaving the sightseeing to Passepartout to do for him. In fact, Fogg's only real pleasure in life is the popular card game Whist, the only reason that Fogg has for socialising; he spends most of his idle time during the jouney playing the game with his fellow passengers.
Another thing I like about the writing of this book is the good-natured stereotyping of English and Americans by Verne. In one section, Passepartout is watching the engine aboard one of the many ships, and remarks to himself:
"Those valves aren't properly weighted!" he cried. "We aren't moving! That's just like the English! Oh, if this were an American ship, we might blow up, but at least we'd be going faster!"
Ah, it brings a smile to my face to hear both the English and Americans being spoken of in that way by the French; just a casual, good-humoured jibe, one of the things that I love about Asterix, as it happens. Maybe the French just have a natural knack for this sort of thing.
One final good thing worth mentioning about Around the World in Eighty Days is that it is a celebration of progress; Jules Verne was primarily a science-fiction writer, but here it is a case of 'The Future is Now,' in the Nineteenth Century. At the time of the writing of this book, the world had only just seen the changes necessary in order to see such a trip become possible. A trip round the world, in 1872, was invariably a tour of the British Empire. We are used, nowadays, to viewing the British Empire and the growth of the United States in a negative light, but in the time of the Victorians there was something to be said for having railways that spanned continents, and ports which served as the mixing pots of new cultures.
So then, in conclusion, I enjoyed this book. I liked the character of Phileas Fogg, who is single-minded enough to get around the world in the alotted time no matter the cost, but who is honourable enough to throw everything away in order to rescue his faithful valet from capture, or an Indian princess from certain death. And he knows that a hot-air balloon is not a speedy form of transport. I like the way that he embarks on the journey not for the money, but in order to prove that it was possible. I like Verne's writing style, closer to Jerome K. Jerome than to W. Somerset Maugham, so I might well seek out more of his works after this; a compliment I very rarely bestow on a writer.
Tuesday 6 November 2012
Robert Asprin's 'Myth' Series
The Myth Adventures by Robert Asprin are a series of comic-fantasy novels that make liberal use of puns and cheap gags. They are short, simple, and quite silly.
I love them.
The plot of the series is quite simple. The main character Skeeve is an apprentice magician in a fairly generic fantasy world, studying and failing to make headway with his magical training. His tutor, a cranky old master sorcerer who lives alone in a wooden hut in the middle of a forest, is killed whilst summoning an evil demon from a far-away dimension, leaving Skeeve all alone in the world; except for the angry-looking scaly green demon who had just been summoned. The demon, Aahz, reveals that he is more cranky than evil, and that being a magician is more about image than actual power; he takes on Skeeve as his apprentice and, after teaching him a few rudimentary tricks (levitation, and a spell to disguise ones outward appearance; and that's pretty much it), they set off in order to con their way through the Magic business.
A 'demon', it turns out, is just a term used to refer to someone who travels between dimensions, people who more often than not are travelling salesmen or con-men. The plot of each book usually involves Aahz and Skeeve getting into a major problem, and with Skeeve having very little magic to call upon, they have to scam their way out of it. In the second book, for instance, Aahz pressures Skeeve into getting a job as a court magician. Having bluffed his way into the job using little more than his disguise spell, Skeeve then finds out that his first duty as court magician is to repel an invading army, using nothing but his own magical abilities and half a dozen down-at-heel mercenaries he accidentally hires in a fast food restaurant.
Robert Asprin is not the greatest writer ever to walk the Earth, and his works are definitely not ground-breaking in the originality department (he openly admits that he 'swipes plots to parody), but this really does not detract from my appreciation of these books. The titles themselves show you the levels of the puns involved, including ones such as: Another Fine Myth, Myth Conceptions, Hit or Myth, and Sweet Myth-tery of Life.
Predictable, but nonetheless hilarious. That's how I would describe these books. And that's why I continue to re-read them. There's nothing to think too long about, if a joke falls flat on its face you just have to groan, and the dynamic between Aahz and Skeeve will keep you going onwards throughout the books. And the wackiness of the plots is something that I love about them with all my heart; a plot in which the hero solves one of his problems by introducing organised crime to another dimension, only to be later hired by the authorities of that same dimension to stop the organised crime that he is responsible for having set up, is a truly magnificent thing, and shame on me for trying to do it justice here.
As a series they work quite well, at least for the first six books. They are short, easily readable, and keep you wanting more. Book 1 is a tad shallow and plotless in comparison with later installments, mostly consisting of introductions to the concepts, characters and skills which will become the bread and butter of the series, all set on a trudging journey to a defeat a vaguely threatening master wizard opponent. With this set in place, the following books can focus more on the plots, which usually consist of a situation spiraling out of all proportions, to a wonderful degree. Books seven to twelve are not quite so good, I have to say; they lose a bit of the essential fun and groan-worthiness that I get from the first six, the plots are a bit more serious, too whimsical, the same characters appearing again and again more by obligation than reason, and the struggle of contract-writing is quite evident on Asprin's style. But they are still worth reading. There are times during reading them that I still find myself laughing, though I find it happens less often during this later period than for the earlier books. There are gems to found, but it requires just slightly more effort during these. And as for the subsequent Myth books, I confess I have not read them; well, I read Myth-Alliances, but it was a far-cry from the wild days of yester-year. Apparently these later installments were co-written with Jody Lynn Nye, and after Apsrin's death in 2008 Nye has continued to write for the series. (Note: Upon providing slight edits to this review years later, I can add that a couple of new Myth books were published in 2013 and 2016. I have still not read anything past Myth-Alliances).
So yes, although I am happy to criticize them, I fully recommend Aspin's Myth series. Start at the beginning, with Another Fine Myth, and work your way through them to at least book six, undoubtedly the golden years. Finding them might be a problem, I know I had a bit of trouble hunting down the earlier books, but I consider it more than worth it.
If you want intelligent humour, impeccable writing-skill, originality, or a realistic plot, I can assure you there are better places to look, but if you just want pure and honest fun, characters you cannot help but like, and something you can read just for the pleasure of reading, then these are more than worthy a slice of time.
Bibliography
Asprin, Robert Lynn
- Another Fine Myth (1978)
- Myth Conceptions (1980)
- Myth Directions (1982)
- Hit or Myth (1983)
- Myth-ing Persons (1984)
- Little Myth Marker (1985)
- M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link (1986)
- Myth-nomers and Im-Pervections (1987)
- M.Y.T.H. Inc. in Action (1990)
- Sweet Myth-tery of Life (1993)
- Myth-ion Improbable (2001)
- Something M.Y.T.H. Inc. (2002)
Asprin, Robert Lynn and Jody Lynn Nye
- Myth-told Tales (2003)
- Myth Alliances (2003)
- Myth-taken Identity (2004)
- Class Dis-Mythed (2005)
- Myth-Gotten Gains (2006)
- Myth-Chief (2008)
- Myth-Fortunes (2008)
I love them.
The plot of the series is quite simple. The main character Skeeve is an apprentice magician in a fairly generic fantasy world, studying and failing to make headway with his magical training. His tutor, a cranky old master sorcerer who lives alone in a wooden hut in the middle of a forest, is killed whilst summoning an evil demon from a far-away dimension, leaving Skeeve all alone in the world; except for the angry-looking scaly green demon who had just been summoned. The demon, Aahz, reveals that he is more cranky than evil, and that being a magician is more about image than actual power; he takes on Skeeve as his apprentice and, after teaching him a few rudimentary tricks (levitation, and a spell to disguise ones outward appearance; and that's pretty much it), they set off in order to con their way through the Magic business.
A 'demon', it turns out, is just a term used to refer to someone who travels between dimensions, people who more often than not are travelling salesmen or con-men. The plot of each book usually involves Aahz and Skeeve getting into a major problem, and with Skeeve having very little magic to call upon, they have to scam their way out of it. In the second book, for instance, Aahz pressures Skeeve into getting a job as a court magician. Having bluffed his way into the job using little more than his disguise spell, Skeeve then finds out that his first duty as court magician is to repel an invading army, using nothing but his own magical abilities and half a dozen down-at-heel mercenaries he accidentally hires in a fast food restaurant.
Robert Asprin is not the greatest writer ever to walk the Earth, and his works are definitely not ground-breaking in the originality department (he openly admits that he 'swipes plots to parody), but this really does not detract from my appreciation of these books. The titles themselves show you the levels of the puns involved, including ones such as: Another Fine Myth, Myth Conceptions, Hit or Myth, and Sweet Myth-tery of Life.
Predictable, but nonetheless hilarious. That's how I would describe these books. And that's why I continue to re-read them. There's nothing to think too long about, if a joke falls flat on its face you just have to groan, and the dynamic between Aahz and Skeeve will keep you going onwards throughout the books. And the wackiness of the plots is something that I love about them with all my heart; a plot in which the hero solves one of his problems by introducing organised crime to another dimension, only to be later hired by the authorities of that same dimension to stop the organised crime that he is responsible for having set up, is a truly magnificent thing, and shame on me for trying to do it justice here.
As a series they work quite well, at least for the first six books. They are short, easily readable, and keep you wanting more. Book 1 is a tad shallow and plotless in comparison with later installments, mostly consisting of introductions to the concepts, characters and skills which will become the bread and butter of the series, all set on a trudging journey to a defeat a vaguely threatening master wizard opponent. With this set in place, the following books can focus more on the plots, which usually consist of a situation spiraling out of all proportions, to a wonderful degree. Books seven to twelve are not quite so good, I have to say; they lose a bit of the essential fun and groan-worthiness that I get from the first six, the plots are a bit more serious, too whimsical, the same characters appearing again and again more by obligation than reason, and the struggle of contract-writing is quite evident on Asprin's style. But they are still worth reading. There are times during reading them that I still find myself laughing, though I find it happens less often during this later period than for the earlier books. There are gems to found, but it requires just slightly more effort during these. And as for the subsequent Myth books, I confess I have not read them; well, I read Myth-Alliances, but it was a far-cry from the wild days of yester-year. Apparently these later installments were co-written with Jody Lynn Nye, and after Apsrin's death in 2008 Nye has continued to write for the series. (Note: Upon providing slight edits to this review years later, I can add that a couple of new Myth books were published in 2013 and 2016. I have still not read anything past Myth-Alliances).
So yes, although I am happy to criticize them, I fully recommend Aspin's Myth series. Start at the beginning, with Another Fine Myth, and work your way through them to at least book six, undoubtedly the golden years. Finding them might be a problem, I know I had a bit of trouble hunting down the earlier books, but I consider it more than worth it.
If you want intelligent humour, impeccable writing-skill, originality, or a realistic plot, I can assure you there are better places to look, but if you just want pure and honest fun, characters you cannot help but like, and something you can read just for the pleasure of reading, then these are more than worthy a slice of time.
Bibliography
Asprin, Robert Lynn
- Another Fine Myth (1978)
- Myth Conceptions (1980)
- Myth Directions (1982)
- Hit or Myth (1983)
- Myth-ing Persons (1984)
- Little Myth Marker (1985)
- M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link (1986)
- Myth-nomers and Im-Pervections (1987)
- M.Y.T.H. Inc. in Action (1990)
- Sweet Myth-tery of Life (1993)
- Myth-ion Improbable (2001)
- Something M.Y.T.H. Inc. (2002)
Asprin, Robert Lynn and Jody Lynn Nye
- Myth-told Tales (2003)
- Myth Alliances (2003)
- Myth-taken Identity (2004)
- Class Dis-Mythed (2005)
- Myth-Gotten Gains (2006)
- Myth-Chief (2008)
- Myth-Fortunes (2008)
Wednesday 24 October 2012
Beowulf
I am sure there are moments in everybody's lives when they want to be Vikings. There seems to be some inbuilt love of Vikings that I have seen in many of the people I have known. Is it in the daring ocean exploration that their appeal lies? Is it in the way they discovered America 500 years before anyone else? Maybe it's just the legends about them, the monster slaying, the Epics, and the Norse religion which is so much more exciting than anything one might find in Greece. I'm hoping it's not the whole raping and pillaging aspect of their jobs and the looting of monasteries, because that frankly disgusts me. Just try not to think about it.
For me the appeal of Vikings lies in their favourite drink: mead! I am more than a little fond of this drink, for the warm, sweet taste, the way it dulls your sensibilities in mere minutes, the deep amber colour of the stuff, the way that it's not the most easy alcoholic drink to get hold of. But it's also the history of mead that I enjoy, that it harks back to a time before the Battle of Hastings, when Saxons and Danes squabbled over the lands. Mead belongs in a wooden hall by a roaring fire, with drunken barbarians who know that they're heroes, swearing drunken oaths to equally drunken chieftains and comrades, before finally settling down for a kip in the corner.
So anyway, onto Beowulf. In this Seamus Heaney translation we find much drinking of mead in said mead-halls, oaths of kinship, the battling of great and terrible monsters, hordes of sea-creatures, voyages over the sea in longboats, battles in the mists of time, great heroes of old, sagas within a saga (postmodernism?), and woeful sorrow. Aside from that it has a nice pace, some of Mister Heaney's choices of language are quite good, verging on the poetic, and I found the story rather involving and satisfying. I found the Christian spin on the story interesting; we're quite used to the Norse gods being involved in this sort of thing, yet we find multiple references devoted to a single God and certain Bible references. Not something I was quite expecting from a Viking saga.
If you have any love of Vikings in your soul (which no doubt you will), then there is some reason for you to read this millennium-old story. If you can read the old-English version then so much the better, but from what I've seen and heard of it you'd be better off finding one of the widely available translations; as I say, Heaney's is quite good. It only took me three reading-days to read the whole thing, and I was going slow, so it's not an impossible task like War and Peace, or the Bible.
For me the appeal of Vikings lies in their favourite drink: mead! I am more than a little fond of this drink, for the warm, sweet taste, the way it dulls your sensibilities in mere minutes, the deep amber colour of the stuff, the way that it's not the most easy alcoholic drink to get hold of. But it's also the history of mead that I enjoy, that it harks back to a time before the Battle of Hastings, when Saxons and Danes squabbled over the lands. Mead belongs in a wooden hall by a roaring fire, with drunken barbarians who know that they're heroes, swearing drunken oaths to equally drunken chieftains and comrades, before finally settling down for a kip in the corner.
So anyway, onto Beowulf. In this Seamus Heaney translation we find much drinking of mead in said mead-halls, oaths of kinship, the battling of great and terrible monsters, hordes of sea-creatures, voyages over the sea in longboats, battles in the mists of time, great heroes of old, sagas within a saga (postmodernism?), and woeful sorrow. Aside from that it has a nice pace, some of Mister Heaney's choices of language are quite good, verging on the poetic, and I found the story rather involving and satisfying. I found the Christian spin on the story interesting; we're quite used to the Norse gods being involved in this sort of thing, yet we find multiple references devoted to a single God and certain Bible references. Not something I was quite expecting from a Viking saga.
If you have any love of Vikings in your soul (which no doubt you will), then there is some reason for you to read this millennium-old story. If you can read the old-English version then so much the better, but from what I've seen and heard of it you'd be better off finding one of the widely available translations; as I say, Heaney's is quite good. It only took me three reading-days to read the whole thing, and I was going slow, so it's not an impossible task like War and Peace, or the Bible.
Tuesday 23 October 2012
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
I said last post that I would move onto less theologically-laden stuff, yet I found myself re-reading The Da Vinci Code. I can explain this: The Da Vinci Code is a novel, a work of fiction that says, at the beginning, that it is a work of the author's imagination - it shouldn't upset or annoy anybody unless they are in any way religious, historically-minded, or possess any intelligence whatsoever. There. Problem solved.
Except it isn't, because Dan Brown - the writer with a name so generic that it's almost impossible to remember - has wrapped the entire thing in what he claims is fact. For instance one of my partiuclar issues with it can be found in Chapter 28, page 173, where we have Mr. Brown's summary of the Witch hunts in Early Modern Europe: 'During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women', outlining the reasons as solely misogynistic. This is a common account of this period of history that many people find attractive: the Church burning countless numbers of women because they hated and feared them.
I might mention that few witches were burned alive; most would have been executed beforehand. Then I can add that the Church, and to a large extent the Inquisition, were the ones keeping the death rate down; the secular courts were more likely to sentence defendants to death. If the Inquisition or Ecclesiastical courts found people guilty of witchcraft, their preferred tactic was to try to reconvert the defendent back to Christianty.
A more accurate estimation of the death toll, according to Brian P. Levack, was around 600,000 witches, of both genders. Gender ratio was 90/10 for females/males in Britain, 70/30 in Germany, where most of the prosecutions took place, and 50/50 in France. In some areas, Normandy and Iceland to name but two, it was only men who were prosecuted for witchcraft. And there is a big difference between people 'tried' for witchcraft, people 'prosecuted' for witchcraft, and people 'executed' for witchcraft; The Spanish Inquisition, over the 16th and 17th centuries, tried a lot of people for witchcraft, prosecuted a fraction of them, and sentenced a minute number of them to death (the number was less than 20, if I remember rightly). Oh yes, and some of those were acquitted before they were actually executed.
This is the stuff lurking at the back of my brain since I myself studied the topic of witchcraft; which Dan Brown certainly did not. I'm not saying that the figures I give here are totally accurate, because this is not an essay, but just a small look at the sort of things you can discover if you actually look at the topic in question - rather than just take Dan Brown's word for it. Good old Mr Brown shoves this little nugget of outright nonsense in amongst a bewildering array of other historical fictions, so that by the end of the book you end up more than a little incredulous.
However, despite its numerous historical and factual inaccuracies (see: untruths, lies), I can only conclude that it is okay. I don't hold that it is, in the words of Stephen Fry, 'complete loose stool-water', and 'arse-gravy of the worst kind', even though I admire the sentiment. It's just a cheap thriller that got way too much exposure, covering its nonsense with a veneer of 'This is all True!'. It feels as though it is completely constructed of cliches, but at the end of the day everyone loves a massive conspiracy theory, especially one involving the Vatican and two thousand years of history. But it's a novel, something written to entertain, and I am sorry to say it entertained me, even if it was for entirely the wrong reasons.
The story: What's to tell? A dull, somehow sexy author-surrogate figure who is presented as being as grey as a brick (even making Tom Hanks boring, which is a feat in itself) ends up mixed up in a murder-suspect/conspiracy theory about... something to do with the art of Leonardo di Vinci supposedly holding hidden clues about the identity of the biological descendents of some chap called Jesus who apparently did stuff a couple of thousand years ago - wasn't he a guy in the last book I reviewed? - and something something about Swiss bank vaults and how they have to get away from the police and find the buried treasure that could spill the beans on what the Catholic Church don't want everybody to know about. And an albino monk who was the one what did it. And the Knights Templar. Yeah, that's the plot.
Except it isn't, because Dan Brown - the writer with a name so generic that it's almost impossible to remember - has wrapped the entire thing in what he claims is fact. For instance one of my partiuclar issues with it can be found in Chapter 28, page 173, where we have Mr. Brown's summary of the Witch hunts in Early Modern Europe: 'During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women', outlining the reasons as solely misogynistic. This is a common account of this period of history that many people find attractive: the Church burning countless numbers of women because they hated and feared them.
I might mention that few witches were burned alive; most would have been executed beforehand. Then I can add that the Church, and to a large extent the Inquisition, were the ones keeping the death rate down; the secular courts were more likely to sentence defendants to death. If the Inquisition or Ecclesiastical courts found people guilty of witchcraft, their preferred tactic was to try to reconvert the defendent back to Christianty.
A more accurate estimation of the death toll, according to Brian P. Levack, was around 600,000 witches, of both genders. Gender ratio was 90/10 for females/males in Britain, 70/30 in Germany, where most of the prosecutions took place, and 50/50 in France. In some areas, Normandy and Iceland to name but two, it was only men who were prosecuted for witchcraft. And there is a big difference between people 'tried' for witchcraft, people 'prosecuted' for witchcraft, and people 'executed' for witchcraft; The Spanish Inquisition, over the 16th and 17th centuries, tried a lot of people for witchcraft, prosecuted a fraction of them, and sentenced a minute number of them to death (the number was less than 20, if I remember rightly). Oh yes, and some of those were acquitted before they were actually executed.
This is the stuff lurking at the back of my brain since I myself studied the topic of witchcraft; which Dan Brown certainly did not. I'm not saying that the figures I give here are totally accurate, because this is not an essay, but just a small look at the sort of things you can discover if you actually look at the topic in question - rather than just take Dan Brown's word for it. Good old Mr Brown shoves this little nugget of outright nonsense in amongst a bewildering array of other historical fictions, so that by the end of the book you end up more than a little incredulous.
However, despite its numerous historical and factual inaccuracies (see: untruths, lies), I can only conclude that it is okay. I don't hold that it is, in the words of Stephen Fry, 'complete loose stool-water', and 'arse-gravy of the worst kind', even though I admire the sentiment. It's just a cheap thriller that got way too much exposure, covering its nonsense with a veneer of 'This is all True!'. It feels as though it is completely constructed of cliches, but at the end of the day everyone loves a massive conspiracy theory, especially one involving the Vatican and two thousand years of history. But it's a novel, something written to entertain, and I am sorry to say it entertained me, even if it was for entirely the wrong reasons.
The story: What's to tell? A dull, somehow sexy author-surrogate figure who is presented as being as grey as a brick (even making Tom Hanks boring, which is a feat in itself) ends up mixed up in a murder-suspect/conspiracy theory about... something to do with the art of Leonardo di Vinci supposedly holding hidden clues about the identity of the biological descendents of some chap called Jesus who apparently did stuff a couple of thousand years ago - wasn't he a guy in the last book I reviewed? - and something something about Swiss bank vaults and how they have to get away from the police and find the buried treasure that could spill the beans on what the Catholic Church don't want everybody to know about. And an albino monk who was the one what did it. And the Knights Templar. Yeah, that's the plot.
Dennis Wheatley did a similar thing with claiming Fact at the
beginning of some of his novels; he said that there were real Satanists
and Black-Magic practitioners at work across the world, and that he had
witnessed them himself. Somehow this seems about as credible and necessary as everything that Dan Brown did.
The Bible: Overview
With the finality of Revelations, my quest to
read the entire Bible (cover to cover) has been a success. It only took
me a month, as well.
And by the 'entire' Bible, I mean the 66 books and Epistles one normally finds in most versions; none of the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books. I should correct that after a break.
Yes, much of the Old Testament is basically painfully detailed descriptions of the Ark of the Covenant, and the Tabernacle, and of the tedious rituals the priests were meant to perform. This lasts from about halfway through Exodus, all the way through Leviticus and Numbers, until he end of Deuteronomy. Joshua and Judges were a bit more interesting, but they get a bit repetitive after a while. There are good bits in Kings 1&2, but again it gets repetitive, and Chronicles was just a summing-up, as far as I could see, because there was very little new material. Ezra and Nehemiah I really enjoyed; maybe because King Artaxerxes of Persia has a guest appearance, and Ruth was short and sweet, so I liked that one. I found Job quite interesting, Psalms to be a little drab, but pleasant nonetheless, and Proverbs was quite good, if that's how you like your literature, and Ecclesiastes was an unexpectedly amazing find. It is, as far as can work out, a Nihilistic essay on the meaning of life, something I never expected to find in the Bible of all places.
The rest of the prophets I found difficult to understand, except for Daniel; I quite enjoyed that one. I'm still trying to make up my mind on the new testament. The Gospel of Matthew was my least favourite, I'll reveal that much. I think Luke or John were the better ones, and I found Revelations to be quite 'trippy', if I could use that expression for any bit of the Bible. Lots of weird imagery That Could Be Interpreted In A Number of Different Ways.
Anyway, this was my trail of thoughts after reading through the Bible for the first time. Parts of it are worthy of re-reading, but I'll move onto less theologically-laden stuff for the immediate future.
And by the 'entire' Bible, I mean the 66 books and Epistles one normally finds in most versions; none of the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books. I should correct that after a break.
Yes, much of the Old Testament is basically painfully detailed descriptions of the Ark of the Covenant, and the Tabernacle, and of the tedious rituals the priests were meant to perform. This lasts from about halfway through Exodus, all the way through Leviticus and Numbers, until he end of Deuteronomy. Joshua and Judges were a bit more interesting, but they get a bit repetitive after a while. There are good bits in Kings 1&2, but again it gets repetitive, and Chronicles was just a summing-up, as far as I could see, because there was very little new material. Ezra and Nehemiah I really enjoyed; maybe because King Artaxerxes of Persia has a guest appearance, and Ruth was short and sweet, so I liked that one. I found Job quite interesting, Psalms to be a little drab, but pleasant nonetheless, and Proverbs was quite good, if that's how you like your literature, and Ecclesiastes was an unexpectedly amazing find. It is, as far as can work out, a Nihilistic essay on the meaning of life, something I never expected to find in the Bible of all places.
The rest of the prophets I found difficult to understand, except for Daniel; I quite enjoyed that one. I'm still trying to make up my mind on the new testament. The Gospel of Matthew was my least favourite, I'll reveal that much. I think Luke or John were the better ones, and I found Revelations to be quite 'trippy', if I could use that expression for any bit of the Bible. Lots of weird imagery That Could Be Interpreted In A Number of Different Ways.
Anyway, this was my trail of thoughts after reading through the Bible for the first time. Parts of it are worthy of re-reading, but I'll move onto less theologically-laden stuff for the immediate future.
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