November's Nefarious Navigations of Notorious Novels (and other literary forms).

[Connavar]

I used the university library to get my first collection of poetry for my own pleasure. I choosed Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by William Blake after reading The Tyger,The Lamb in antologies with other near Romantics,Romantic english poets like P.Shelley,Keats,Wordsworth,Coleridge. I found Shelley,Wordsworth to be the most impressive after Blake to read later.

After Blake i plan to read Goethe poems in Swedish and Shakespeare sonnets in Book of Sonnets collection i found. I have time to read books of my own choice this month so i can read classic poetry and other classic lit i find interesting. I loaned books by Ann Radcliffe,RLS.

I never thought i would read poetry on my own time sure you know there were important poets but didnt think i would have so easily to find pleasure,meaning in many different kind of poetry. Easy to like epic poems,prose poems,sonnets but not as easy with the regular verse.

 

[Vertigo]

They have this in our village library, as well as another of his books (Best Served Cold i think)
Is this a standalone or,like most fantasy will I end up chasing up the next book in the series?

Before they are Hanged is the second in a trilogy and you would be completely lost if you hadn't read The Blade Itself first. Best Served Cold is I think a stand alone but I think it is set in the same world and may assume previous knowledge.

To check out series I stongly recommend using this site: Fantastic Fiction

 

[AE35Unit]

Before they are Hanged is the second in a trilogy and you would be completely lost if you hadn't read The Blade Itself first. Best Served Cold is I think a stand alone but I think it is set in the same world and may assume previous knowledge.

To check out series I stongly recommend using this site: Fantastic Fiction

Oh I use FF a lot-its linked to from my blog- but I thought I'd ask you guys first.

 

[gully_foyle]

Next it's a toss up between Way Station by Clifford Simak or Mockingbird by Walter Trevis

Also reading Where late the sweet birds sang by Kate Wilhelm, a fascinating and beautifully written novel about cloning.

I vote for Mockingbird, loved it as much as Where late the sweet birds sang. Both are outright great works of literature.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I finished Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm last night. I thought it was an excellent novel, both an exploration of ideas about human nature (the cloning angle exists mainly as a way for Wilhelm to play out these ideas, I think) and a moving story. The novel is steeped in a rich sense of nature, and part of the implication is that the further we get from our link to the wilderness the more we risk losing hold of our own humanity. It's a bittersweet novel as befits the title and a deserving Hugo winner, I think.

 

[Nesacat]

@Ravenus ... I would like to know what you think about Kadambari.

 

[HareBrain]

I have been thinking a bit about why I seem to find so many fantasy novels disappointing lately (apart from the fact that I do have a preference for SF) and I may have come up with a reason. However I shall possibly post about this on a separate thread (when I find the time) rather than here.

Well, get on with it. I'm curious.

Finished Catherine Fisher's Crown of Acorns -- very good, perhaps the most gripping read I'd enjoyed in over a year, thanks to the multiple intrigues and the sense of something building behind the three interlinked strands.

 

[dask]

Reading the title story in THE FRIGHTENED WIFE collection of crime stories by Mary Rinehart Roberts. Needed a break from VATHEK. Not that it's a terrible read but the character Vathek is so monstrosly megalomaniacal, so callously cruel, enough is enough. I stopped reading Will Durant's The Story Of Civilization because of this type of savagery. Still, I'm impressed with Beckford's inventiveness, his masterly flow of language that I'll get back to it eventually. Right now Roberts, who seems noted for gothic romances is showing she can whip out pulp crime with the best of them.

 

[Zappster]

Finished off Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. Not as confusing as I remember it being the first time around. Quite enjoyable once I got adjusted to the characters and setting. Now on to Deadhouse Gates

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Yes, Vathek can be quite brutal. It can be interpreted as satire, but I've found that Beckford's work is perhaps too complex to attribute any one objective to it in too facile a manner. What's undeniable is the power of his imagination - and research - and its influence on a broad swath of Orientalist and Romantic literature. Byron admired this book greatly, mentioning in the notes to his own Orientalist poem, The Giaour that[FONT=&quot] 'for correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all European imitations, and bears such marks of originality, that those who have visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more than a translation.'

I'm currently reading The King Of The Swords by Michael Moorcock and a re-issue of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carre which I've been sent to review for a local paper.
[/FONT]

 

[dask]

Yes, Vathek can be quite brutal...What's undeniable is the power of his imagination

Beckford could very well be the Jack Vance of the 18th Century.

 

[Connavar]

Beckford could very well be the Jack Vance of the 18th Century.

What quality of his make you think that ?

I have wanted to read Vathek since its pretty known novel in its field. I choosed Ann Radcliffe to try first. I liked how you described the main character as monstrosly megalomaniacal hehe.

 

[dask]

What quality of his make you think that ?

I have wanted to read Vathek since its pretty known novel in its field. I choosed Ann Radcliffe to try first. I liked how you described the main character as monstrosly megalomaniacal hehe.

Like J.S. said above: "the power of his imagination." More than once while reading this quest over a bizarre and unnerving landscape I was reminded of Vance's Dying Earth, paritcularly THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD. Can't pinpoint why, just a recurring feeling I got. Plus, Beckford weilds the English language like few others I've come across, maybe not Vancian by today's standards, but by 18th Century standards, I think so.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Finished the first three books of GRRM, so now, for a change of pace, grabbed something random off my bookshelf. So now I'm gonna read The Beetle: A Mystery by Richard Marsh.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Like J.S. said above: "the power of his imagination." More than once while reading this quest over a bizarre and unnerving landscape I was reminded of Vance's Dying Earth, paritcularly THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD. Can't pinpoint why, just a recurring feeling I got. Plus, Beckford weilds the English language like few others I've come across, maybe not Vancian by today's standards, but by 18th Century standards, I think so.

THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD is an excellent comparison. It's the downright self-serving lack of scruple of both Vathek and Cugel combined with the inventive settings and plot elements.

 

[Lord Soth]

Have just ploughed through the first 3 books in Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series and need a small break, so am now reading Twelve by Jasper Kent.

 

[Connavar]

THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD is an excellent comparison. It's the downright self-serving lack of scruple of both Vathek and Cugel combined with the inventive settings and plot elements.

Heh interestingly enough the first character i thought of when dask described the main character of Vathek was Cugel in Eyes of the Overworld.

 

[j d worthington]

Plus, Beckford weilds the English language like few others I've come across, maybe not Vancian by today's standards, but by 18th Century standards, I think so.

Actually, that's Samuel Henley, rather than Beckford. Beckford, though English, wrote the novel in French; Henley translated it, though not accrediting Beckford at the time -- claiming, instead, it was taken directly from an Arabian manuscript! There has, however, been a more recent edition, byKenneth W. Graham, which goes into the very complicated history behind all this, as well as including the "Three Episodes of Vathek" (which Beckford originally intended as part of the novel, leaving them out in order to get his French edition into print -- in response to Henley's unethical behavior -- as the final one was unfinished). I haven't got this edition, which is from Broadview Press (2001), but Douglas Thomson thought highly of it in his entry to the Supernatural Literature of the World entry....

 

[dask]

Actually, that's Samuel Henley, rather than Beckford. Beckford, though English, wrote the novel in French; Henley translated it, though not accrediting Beckford at the time -- claiming, instead, it was taken directly from an Arabian manuscript! There has, however, been a more recent edition, byKenneth W. Graham, which goes into the very complicated history behind all this, as well as including the "Three Episodes of Vathek" (which Beckford originally intended as part of the novel, leaving them out in order to get his French edition into print -- in response to Henley's unethical behavior -- as the final one was unfinished). I haven't got this edition, which is from Broadview Press (2001), but Douglas Thomson thought highly of it in his entry to the Supernatural Literature of the World entry....

You're right, of course. David Stuart Davies even mentioned this in his introduction, which I seem to have forgotten (imagine that) until what you said activated my cerebral carillon. Evidently Beckford did translate the manuscript himself earlier but felt "his English prose to be too Gallic" and so hired Henley. I wonder, did the sneaky Reverend write fiction himself? Gothic perhaps?

What! There's more Vathek out there? Not sure I can handle anymore, at least for awhile. Maybe in a couple months if I can locate a copy of Graham's book. (Don't think I'll leave no stone unturned though.)

 

[Rothgar]

Finished off The Towers of Midnight. Back to Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Wierd Stories.