July's Jesuitical Journeyings Through Literary Juxtapositions

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Currently about 3/4 of the way through The Swordswoman by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. A fairly typical hero's journey narrative on the one hand, but shot through with ethical and spiritual questions that raise it above the ordinary, as well as a truly original secondary world, despite the presence of giant insects. I read her Orientalist fantasy, Tomoe Gozen, last month and was most impressed by the sheer imagination as well as the willingness to uncompromisingly examine the ethical ramifications of action-heroism as it is traditionally portrayed. All this with some nice turns in a High Weird mode.

Also reading the delightful Picnic On Paradise by Joanna Russ.

 

[Lord Soth]

Still ploughing through Twisted Metal by Tony Ballantyne - its lost some of its initial sparkle now and im not sure if I'll continue the series.

However, due to my car having a broken radio I have also been listening to audio books (via audible). I must say I really enjoy this, the last one I have finished was Hamilton's Judas Unchained ( massive listen!) and am now on to Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch - a grown up, witty and funny cross between Harry Potter and The Bill (UK TV reference sorry). Really well read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, recommended.

 

[bluespider100]

I finished reading the last book on the new second foundation trilogy, Foundation's Triumph, Good to say that I'm now hooked in the foundation universe created by Isaac Asimov and set my self to buy the original foundation series and the subsequent series but for now I'm reading Genesis by Ken Shufeldt, reading the first few chapters is somehow disappointed there was almost no details only full of conversations, I keep finding myself lost as to where the settings are at.

 

[Talysia]

After searching for a long time, I'm finally able to finish Mark Chadbourn's Dark Ages trilogy, with The Hounds of Avalon.

 

[Fried Egg]

Just finished "Grey Area" by Will Self which was an excellent collection and now about to start "Rendevous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke although I will have to fit in some time to read some technical manuals for work which is a bit of a drag...

 

[Connavar]

Currently about 3/4 of the way through The Swordswoman by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. A fairly typical hero's journey narrative on the one hand, but shot through with ethical and spiritual questions that raise it above the ordinary, as well as a truly original secondary world, despite the presence of giant insects. I read her Orientalist fantasy, Tomoe Gozen, last month and was most impressed by the sheer imagination as well as the willingness to uncompromisingly examine the ethical ramifications of action-heroism as it is traditionally portrayed. All this with some nice turns in a High Weird mode.

Also reading the delightful Picnic On Paradise by Joanna Russ.

She has become interesting target for me after fellow REH fans has recommended hers Swordswoman strongly.

Also i have read an essay by her talking about Howard sword woman Dark Agnes. She wrote very interestingly asking how a young man in the 1930s could write proto feminist heroine like Agnes,understand issues like that when modern fantasy,other modern writers of the male gender dont write like that.

 

[D_Davis]

Started this morning...

Oh man, I can tell that Finney and I are going to get along swimmingly. This book has a lot of "goddamns," "hells," and sexual-content for a genre book first published in 1935. Must have been somewhat risque with it was first released.

I also recently started a new literary project. I'm going to read all 70 of the Pocket Penguin books as I buy them, starting with the small Muriel Spark collection, The Snob.

 

[Connavar]

Started this morning...

Oh man, I can tell that Finney and I are going to get along swimmingly. This book has a lot of "goddamns," "hells," and sexual-content for a genre book first published in 1935. Must have been somewhat risque with it was first released.

I also recently started a new literary project. I'm going to read all 70 of the Pocket Penguin books as I buy them, starting with the small Muriel Spark collection, The Snob.

http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/static/minisites/minimodernclassics/index.html


Look at those mini 50 years special Modern Classics Penguins if you want short stories a few in a row by important modern classic writers. Its very impressive list of writers and not just the big famous ones. Chesterton, Borges, Calvino,Dorothy Parker and many lesser known greats.

Some that you would like you like Spark. Many witty, original authors. Plus its so cheap. Like

 

[Diggler]

I finished In The Drift by Michael Swanwick. Great little periodic tale of an alternate history, post meltdown Pennsylvania after the Three Mile Island incident.

I've now moved onto The Lathe of Heaven. It's my first foray into Ursula Le Guin's work, and this is a dreamy, hypnotic little book (no pun intended) that I find myself falling into a lull while reading.

 

[bluespider100]

Just finished reading the light novel titled Genesis by Ken Shufeldt, now going to flip the pages on Flowers of Algernon by Daniel Keys.

 

[GOLLUM]

http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/static/minisites/minimodernclassics/index.html


Look at those mini 50 years special Modern Classics Penguins if you want short stories a few in a row by important modern classic writers. Its very impressive list of writers and not just the big famous ones. Chesterton, Borges, Calvino,Dorothy Parker and many lesser known greats.

Some that you would like you like Spark. Many witty, original authors. Plus its so cheap. Like

I can concur on this comment. I like the way I get to sample new names at minimal cost.

I was lucky enough to have a couple of bookstores in town that stocked the entire set, so I've already picked the eyes out of this collection. Key writers I had never sampled before include Eudora Welty, Margaret Drabble and Robert Coover.

I can also recommend for anyone who may not be as familiar with the following names...Robert Musil, Donald Barthelme, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Hans Fallada, Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), Primo Levi, Eileen Chang, R. K. Narayan, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Isaac Singer, Saki, William Trevor and Stefan Zweig.

 

[Vertigo]

Read Bujold's Shards of Honor. I wasn't totally thrilled with this and still have reservations about whether I really want to read more of her stuff though it wasn't really bad so I shall probably try another one or two. Basically I had been expecting something of a much more military SF slant from her books but the first I read, Falling Free, whilst good was certainly not military and this one was really a bit heavy on the romance form my tastes. Also once again (as in Falling Free) there was absolutely no ambiguity about the villains; they were simply evil with no redeeming features whatsoever.

Also red Scalzi's third book in his Old Man's War trilogy; The Last Colony. Which was a good read though not as good as the first book which was excellent.

Think I will read Hamilton's book of short stories: A Second Chance at Eden. Which will (finally) finish off my reading of all his Night's Dawn books.

 

[D_Davis]

The Circus of Dr. Lao....wow! What a discovery! Cannot believe I stumbled upon Charles G. Finney and Wellman in the same year; the literary gods are definitely smiling upon me.

Dr. Lao is one of the most bizarre and strange things I've ever read, and it is so well written. For the life of me I can't figure out why Finney isn't more popular now; once again I discover a new favorite author who's works are sadly OOP and somewhat hard to find.

The book doesn't really have a plot. It's about a circus that comes rolling into a small Arizona town (I think most of Finney's books take place in a fictional Arizona, and are more like weird westerns than anything else). The circus is unlike anything the town folks have ever seen.

The first 20 or so pages focus on the circus parading around the town and introduces the reader to the main characters. Then the remaining pages detail an encounter each of the characters has with Dr. Lao or one of the many sideshow freaks like a gorgon, Apollonius the magician, the hound of the hedges, a satyr, a werewolf, etc.

Written in the early 1930s, I imagine the book was considered extremely risque; there is open talk about deviant sex, and lots of "hells" and "goddamns." It also deals with xenophobia and fear of the other; Finney was way ahead of the game.

I'm not done with the book (about 1/4 left to go) but I know it will end up being one of the very best books I'll read this year, and I cannot wait to read more from Finney.

 

[Vertigo]

Unfortunately looks like you are not going to get an awful lot more of him; only four novels and a collection of shorts that I can see, other than a lot of religious evangelist writing which is still in print! The only ficitional work from him on Amazon seems to be your fried Dr Lao!

 

[D_Davis]

Unfortunately looks like you are not going to get an awful lot more of him; only four novels and a collection of shorts that I can see, other than a lot of religious evangelist writing which is still in print! The only ficitional work from him on Amazon seems to be your fried Dr Lao!

I'm a big reader of theology, but that Charles G. Finney is a different Charles G. Finney, a relation, his great-grandfather.

As of this morning, I have ordered all of Finney's fiction except for the stories he had printed in various magazines including The New Yorker. However, I will be tracking those down as well.

 

[Vertigo]

I thought he looked to be from the wrong era to have been writing in the 30's

 

[j d worthington]

And also unfortunately (though you may have a different reaction), I found most of Finney's other work sadly lacking in comparison to Dr. Lao -- which I agree is a treasure. It wasn't quite as off-the-wall as you might expect for the era, though... don't forget this was the period when such pulps as Spicy Stories and the like purveyed their brand of sado-masochistic sexual fantasies disguised as horror or action fiction......

 

[D_Davis]

It wasn't quite as off-the-wall as you might expect for the era, though... don't forget this was the period when such pulps as Spicy Stories and the like purveyed their brand of sado-masochistic sexual fantasies disguised as horror or action fiction......

What is striking me most is that there is an air of maturity to how the bawdiness is used - it seems to have a point beyond titillation or simple crassness. It is an extremely confident and elegant novel.

 

[J-Sun]

And also unfortunately (though you may have a different reaction), I found most of Finney's other work sadly lacking in comparison to Dr. Lao -- which I agree is a treasure. It wasn't quite as off-the-wall as you might expect for the era, though... don't forget this was the period when such pulps as Spicy Stories and the like purveyed their brand of sado-masochistic sexual fantasies disguised as horror or action fiction......

And in film the Hayes code had only just set in and, in general, the Roaring 20s would have probably still been lingering in some peoples' sensibilities.

 

[j d worthington]

What is striking me most is that there is an air of maturity to how the bawdiness is used - it seems to have a point beyond titillation or simple crassness. It is an extremely confident and elegant novel.

Yes; it's an elegant novel in its way; and certainly much more thoughtful than I think most people were expecting. It has certainly remained a fairly popular work through the years, especially the various editions with the Boris Artzybasheff illustrations. (I once had a copy of the first edition, which included these. They were particularly fitting to the feel of the novel. I wonder what ever happened to that volume....?) In this one, at least, Finney proved he could write a work of true genius, however quirky.

And in film the Hayes code had only just set in and, in general, the Roaring 20s would have probably still been lingering in some peoples' sensibilities.

Indubitably.....