Bill Bryson - At Home: A short history of private life
Quite entertaining - and I enjoy his way of telling little stories/anecdote, even if this approach tends to be somewhat superficial (but it encourages to find out more, IMO)
Bill Bryson - At Home: A short history of private life
Quite entertaining - and I enjoy his way of telling little stories/anecdote, even if this approach tends to be somewhat superficial (but it encourages to find out more, IMO)
I'm reading (finished everything but the second appendix) "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell.
This is the second of his books that I've read so far, the first being "Animal Farm".
I've enjoyed both of them, there're both about communism and his tone is both lighthearted and serious at the same time.
Last edited by JagRoss; 11-15-2011 at 15:57.
Am now halfway through Wraith Squadron, the fifth book in the X-Wing series.
I'm almost enjoying it more than the previous books (the ones written by Michael A. Stackpole), which comes as a pleasant surprise. There's a lot more humor in this book, and the characters are definitely quirkier. Aarron Allston's writing style is noticeably different from Stackpole's, but I'd say no less inferior (at least so far).
Last edited by Martok; 11-16-2011 at 12:40.
"MTW is not a game, it's a way of life." -- drone
Finished A Feast for Crows.
Going to get a A Dance with Dragons soon.
Wikipedia says that there are two more books left after this. Considering the number of loose ends and unanswered questions though, I cannot see how GRRM can tie them all up in just two books, satisfactorily.
Pretty intriguing names though.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
Going through Snow by Orhan Pamuk at a leisurely pace. If you've read My name is Red, you should pick Snow up as well, in spite of the chronological gap.
Oh and rajpoot, I actually went through the whole ASoIaF series while on a two-weeks vacation this summer. On the porch of the small mountain lodge we rented, it made a great read! The first fantasy series to have laid my hands on to date, I thought I should after seeing the HBO release.
Personally, I enjoyed A Dance with Dragons as well, because I actually enjoy the world-building side-details the most.
Yet to be honest, only the first two books maintain a solid narrative. From A Storm of Swords onwards, the plot just stumbles into some gaping non sequitur issues it never recovers from and the presence of fantasy elements is increased too much for my tolerance level.
The series is definitely not tripe however, despite the genre.
I believe I read in an interview Martin wished initially to stay well clear of fantasy, and simply create an alternate world.
A pity he did not follow up on that, I think he would have come very, very close to Maurice Druon's Les Roi Maudits. In fact, the vivid medieval world ASoIaF depicts seems to me to have been very much modelled on Les Roi Maudits and A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings could have very well taken place in Druon's setting, while a host of Martin's characters were almost transposed from the French historical novel - compare Martin's Tywin Lannister to Druon's Phillipe the Fair for an exact mirror. Plus, despite it being a historical novel, Druon takes great care to render the collective mental horizon of the age by illustrating belief in magic as an element almost as present and real as it seemed in Martin's first two books. But I'm totally rambling off-topic by now, apologies!
The series is definitely not tripe however, despite the genre.What do you say to that?So, several years back, I asked myself what genre of fiction was most universally despised by literature professors, reasoning that this was where literature was most likely to happen. So I started with fantasy...
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I would say that I perceive 90% of fantasy to be tolkienesque.
And to why that is utter tripe, I would reply with:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
That might be one of the most articulate and insightful reviews I've ever read. If you make a post without pointing out the flaws in his reasoning, you are the one who seems to simply not like what his "revision" taught you about the author and who decides to dismiss without being able to disprove it.
Lets be fair
I think this is where we disagree. He of course wishes to express his thoughts. Those being overly critical, they may seem to cut deep, yet I cannot see how he could develop his train of thought or how is he claiming the infallibility you write of.Originally Posted by GC
I also think nothing there talked about Tolkien’s fault for not producing the very best fantasy; it addressed the shallowness of the cultural anxieties expressed in his prose and the corrupting influence those had on the genre.
There are a few passages where I simply cannot find any fault in his logic; boldfaced a few
The sort of prose most often identified with "high" fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth-music. It is frequently enjoyed not for its tensions but for its lack of tensions. It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies. (...) It is the predominant tone of The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down and it is the main reason why these books, like many similar ones in the past, are successful.
(...) The great epics dignified death, but they did not ignore it, and it is one of the reasons why they are superior to the artificial romances of which Lord of the Rings is merely one of the most recent.Since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, at least, people have been yearning for an ideal rural world they believe to have vanished - yearning for a mythical state of innocence (as Morris did) as heartily as the Israelites yearned for the Garden of Eden. This refusal to face or derive any pleasure from the realities of urban industrial life, this longing to possess, again, the infant's eye view of the countryside, is a fundamental theme in popular English literature. Novels set in the countryside probably always outsell novels set in the city, perhaps because most people now live in cities.
If I find this nostalgia for a "vanished" landscape a bit strange it is probably because as I write I can look from my window over twenty miles of superb countryside to the sea and a sparsely populated coast. This county, like many others, has seemingly limitless landscapes of great beauty and variety, unspoiled by excessive tourism or the uglier forms of industry. Elsewhere big cities have certainly destroyed the surrounding countryside but rapid transport now makes it possible for a Londoner to spend the time they would have needed to get to Box Hill forty years ago in getting to Northumberland. I think it is simple neophobia which makes people hate the modern world and its changing society; it is xenophobia which makes them unable to imagine what rural beauty might lie beyond the boundaries of their particular Shire. They would rather read Miss Read and The Horse Whisperer and share a miserable complaint or two on the commuter train while planning to take their holidays in Bournemouth, as usual, because they can't afford to go to Spain this year. They don't want rural beauty anyway; they want a sunny day, a pretty view.
Writers like Tolkien take you to the edge of the Abyss and point out the excellent tea-garden at the bottom, showing you the steps carved into the cliff and reminding you to be a bit careful because the hand-rails are a trifle shaky as you go down; they haven't got the approval yet to put a new one in.(...) After reading a good many of these contemporary fantasy stories I remained impressed by the number of authors of adult books who described their characters as children and the number of children's writers who produce perfectly mature and sensible characters who think and act intelligently.
(...) Of the children's writers only Lewis and Adams are guilty, in my opinion, of producing thoroughly corrupted romanticism - sentimentalized pleas for moderation of aspiration which are at the root of their kind of conservatism. In Lewis's case this consolatory, anxiety-stilling "Why try to play Mozart when it's easier to play Rodgers and Hammerstein?" attitude extended to his non-fiction, particularly the dreadful but influential Experiment in Criticism. But these are, anyway, minor figures. It is Tolkien who is most widely read and worshipped. And it was Tolkien who most betrayed the romantic discipline, more so than ever Tennyson could in Idylls of the King, which enjoyed a similar vogue in Victorian England.
Corrupted romanticism is as unwholesome as the corrupted realism of, say, Ayn Rand. Cabell's somewhat obvious irony is easier to take than Tolkien's less obvious sentimentality, largely because Cabell's writing is wittier, more inventive and better disciplined. I find William Morris naïve and silly but essentially good-hearted (and a better utopianist than a fantasist); Dunsany I find slight but inoffensive. Lewis speaks for the middle-class status quo, as, more subtly, does Charles Williams. Lewis uses the stuff of fantasy to preach sermons quite as nasty as any to be found in Victorian sentimental fiction, and he writes badly. A group of self-congratulatory friends can often ensure that any writing emerging from it remains hasty and unpolished.Ideally fiction should offer us escape and force us, at least, to ask questions; it should provide a release from anxiety but give us some insight into the causes of anxiety. Lin Carter, in his Imaginary Worlds - the only book I have been able to find on the general subject of epic fantasy - uses an argument familiar to those who are used to reading apologies from that kind of sf or thriller buff who feels compelled to justify his philistinism: "The charge of 'escapist reading,'" says Carter, "is most often levelled against fantasy and science fiction by those who have forgotten or overlooked the simple fact that virtually all reading - all music and poetry and art and drama and philosophy for that matter - is a temporary escape from what is around us." Like so many of his colleagues in the professional sf world, Carter expresses distaste for fiction which is not predominantly escapist by charging it with being "depressing" or "negative" if it does not provide him with the moral and psychological comforts he seems to need. An unorthodox view, such as that of Tolkien's contemporary David Lindsay (Voyage to Arcturus), is regarded as a negative view. This, of course, is the response of those deeply and often unconsciously wedded to their cultural presumptions, who regard examination of them as an attack.
(...)The commercial genre which has developed from Tolkien is probably the most dismaying effect of all. I grew up in a world where Joyce was considered to be the best Anglophone writer of the 20th century. I happen to believe that Faulkner is better, while others would pick Conrad, say. Thomas Mann is an exemplary giant of moral, mythic fiction. But to introduce Tolkien's fantasy into such a debate is a sad comment on our standards and our ambitions. Is it a sign of our dumber times that Lord of the Rings can replace Ulysses as the exemplary book of its century? Some of the writers who most slavishly imitate him seem to be using English as a rather inexpertly-learned second language. So many of them are unbelievably bad that they defy description and are scarcely worth listing individually. Terry Pratchett once remarked that all his readers were called Kevin. He is lucky in that he appears to be the only Terry in fantasy land who is able to write a decent complex sentence. That such writers also depend upon recycling the plots of their literary superiors and are rewarded for this bland repetition isn't surprising in a world of sensation movies and manufactured pop bands. That they are rewarded with the lavish lifestyles of the most successful whores is also unsurprising. To pretend that this addictive cabbage is anything more than the worst sort of pulp historical romance or western is, however, a depressing sign of our intellectual decline and our free-falling academic standards.
Sounds exemplary of the arrogance of the Eng. Lit. elites.
In what sense does LOTR "ignore" death? Is it literal, referring to the Gandalfian resurrection?The great epics dignified death, but they did not ignore it
That's Tolkien's idea, not necessarily his readers'.Since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, at least, people have been yearning for an ideal rural world they believe to have vanished
It's not parochialism that fantasy readers seem to be motivated by, but rather a thirst for the exotic.I think it is simple neophobia which makes people hate the modern world and its changing society; it is xenophobia which makes them unable to imagine what rural beauty might lie beyond the boundaries of their particular Shire.
The authors' biggest mistake is taking the fact of fantasy as a typically escapist genre, and somehow coming to the conclusion that readers and Roman consumers of pastoralist poetry are identical.
*ahem*This, of course, is the response of those deeply and often unconsciously wedded to their cultural presumptions,
Is there an uncorrupted romanticism? Wouldn't all those 19th c. novels be guilty of "coddling" and "telling comforting lies" as well?Corrupted romanticism
Inspired by Tolkien, but not really like Tolkien. Important thing to note.The commercial genre which has developed from Tolkien is probably the most dismaying effect of all.
What does Watership Down have to do with any of this, though. I remember it as a book concerning the massacre of anthropomorphized rabbits. Doesn't seem to jive with
Neither does LOTR, for that matter. Unless he's merely against happy endings. Hm, maybe that's the problem. Has this guy ever actually read any fantasy?expresses distaste for fiction which is not predominantly escapist by charging it with being "depressing" or "negative"
Meh. While we're dropping 'erudite' essays - this one actually takes the idea of escapism and examines it critically, instead of wailing about WESTERN INTELLECTUAL DECLINE FANTASY BOOGEYMAN.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Oh come on, a little bit more substance
i) Odd, as the man is criticising Tolkien and Lewis, both part of the Oxford literary elite.Originally Posted by Montmorency
ii) He protests against:
J. R. R. Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories": And lastly there is the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape: the Escape from Death. Fairy stories provide many examples and modes of this - which might be called the genuine escapist, or (I would say) fugitive spirit. But so do other stories (notably those of scientific inspiration), and so do other studies... But the "consolation" of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. For more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending.
Because, he argues in a salient paragraph:
Moderation was the rule and it is moderation which ruins Tolkien's fantasy and causes it to fail as a genuine romance, let alone an epic. The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are "safe", but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are "dangerous". Experience of life itself is dangerous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable subsitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference.
The Lord of the Rings is much more deep-rooted in its infantilism than a good many of the more obviously juvenile books it influenced. It is Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic. If the Shire is a suburban garden, Sauron and his henchmen are that old bourgeois bugaboo, the Mob - mindless football supporters throwing their beer-bottles over the fence the worst aspects of modern urban society represented as the whole by a fearful, backward-yearning class for whom "good taste" is synonymous with "restraint" (pastel colours, murmured protest) and "civilized" behaviour means "conventional behaviour in all circumstances". This is not to deny that courageous characters are found in The Lord of the Rings, or a willingness to fight Evil (never really defined), but somehow those courageous characters take on the aspect of retired colonels at last driven to write a letter to The Times and we are not sure - because Tolkien cannot really bring himself to get close to his proles and their satanic leaders - if Sauron and Co. are quite as evil as we're told.
iii) Great, as he is arguing against Tolkien and his generation in that paragraph after all.
I have to remark time and again the amazing skill of so many posters of criticising an opinion without reading it. Quite astounding. In this case (iv)
He very precisely defines his usage of the term:
“corrupted romanticism - sentimentalized pleas for moderation of aspiration which are at the root of their kind of conservatism. In Lewis's case this consolatory, anxiety-stilling "Why try to play Mozart when it's easier to play Rodgers and Hammerstein?" attitude extended to his non-fiction, particularly the dreadful but influential Experiment in Criticism.”
If you believe 19th century romantic authors to have made “sentimentalized pleas for moderation of aspiration”, I imagine quite a few are right now turning in their grave.
v) A second case of disagreement based upon the critic not having read the material he is berating. Adams was quoted in very different context:
Another variety of book has begun to appear, a sort of Pooh-fights-back fiction of the kind produced by Richard Adams, which substitutes animals for human protagonists, contains a familiar set of middle-class Anglican Tory undertones (all these books seem to be written with a slight lisp) and is certainly already more corrupt than Tolkien. Adams is a worse writer but he must appeal enormously to all those many readers who have never quite lost their yearning for the frisson first felt when Peter Rabbit was expelled from Mr. Macgregor's garden.
You are giving me pause. The chap comments on dozens of specific passages of fantasy literature taken from the works of a score of authors, and you accuse him of not having read fantasy.Originally Posted by Montmorency
The actual mind-bending irony is that the critic is a Nebula prize award winning author himself, one of the most influential fantasy aficionados in the world, was the editor of publications focused on the genre for decades and one of the original promoters of the “New Wave” current in the ‘70s: Michael Moorcock
I suppose anyone who shakes one’s cosy feelings of yearning for bad fantasy literature is to be dismissed as one who never read any of it, of course...
As to your jab on “ ‘erudite’ essays”, what’s next, condemning well-read persons for being “intellectuals”?
Ubik. Philip K. Dick.
V.good.
#Hillary4prism
BD:TW
Some piously affirm: "The truth is such and such. I know! I see!"
And hold that everything depends upon having the “right” religion.
But when one really knows, one has no need of religion. - Mahavyuha Sutra
Freedom necessarily involves risk. - Alan Watts
Hmm, I personally agree with you, but I have a feeling he would also want to provide a solid alternative on the same bookshelf. Otherwise, I do not think he would want Tolkien to be ostracized by young readers.In the end, though, I think even he would agree that reading Tolkein is essential for establishing a young reader's literary foundation.
Oh and you guys, what about The Man in the High Castle?!
To have it published at that point in time must've been groundbreaking; as in, opening the dialogue.
Although I didn’t agree with the I Ching bits he inserted and overall influence, I found the book awesome! Have it as audio, still among my picks during a long drive.
The literary in-crowd is riddled with exclusive and highly specialized cliques who have become "out of touch" with everyone and thing outside: that's the point.Odd, as the man is criticising Tolkien and Lewis, both part of the Oxford literary elite.
Physician, heal thyself! But I'm cool with it if you are. :SI have to remark time and again the amazing skill of so many posters of criticising an opinion without reading it.
Nice strawman, bro.I suppose anyone who shakes one’s cosy feelings of yearning for bad fantasy literature is to be dismissed as one who never read any of it, of course...
Moderation of aspiration in fantasy? Where? *Don't actually reply to this, please. It's rhetorical, and is addressed below-low. *If you believe 19th century romantic authors to have made “sentimentalized pleas for moderation of aspiration”, I imagine quite a few are right now turning in their grave.
As for romanticism: this should make it clearer -
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
"But that's Tolkien!", you might protest. Sure is - I'm just making myself understood. Do not take this as alignment with Lovecraft's aesthetic sensibilities!
Tolkien was more influential. This is irrelevant. The point I should have made is that this guy restricts his analysis to a very specific subgenre of fantasy, as demonstrated by what he quotes.The actual mind-bending irony is that the critic is a Nebula prize award winning author himself, one of the most influential fantasy aficionados in the world
I'd love to pick on some of his lines, as they are, standing alone, but I'd also rather not belabor this (too much). So...
As to your jab on “ ‘erudite’ essays”, what’s next, condemning well-read persons for being “intellectuals”?Interesting. Discredit those you disagree with by repackaging their words as anti-intellectual. Useful trick. Will have to get that one down.
I'm surprised you didn't remark on the essay in the spoiler. It uses similar premises as yours, but takes them somewhere more interesting than the latter does, with its hackneyed this make society dumb wraghghg message.
is equivalent to a wet fart in the shower. What you call the ambience, I call the miasma.the Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable subsitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference.
But look, we've clarified this: that I find Moorcock's conclusions hysterically silly, and particularly disagree with his view on the motivations for reading 'Tolkienesque' fantasy.
Moorcock: Tolkienesque is taken to mean 'pastoral'.
I think it is simple neophobia which makes people hate the modern world and its changing society; it is xenophobia which makes them unable to imagine what rural beauty might lie beyond the boundaries of their particular Shire.
Me: Tolkienesque is taken to mean something closer to 'hack-n-slash', or 'adventure'.
It's not parochialism that fantasy readers seem to be motivated by, but rather a thirst for the exotic.Take it or leave it, that's what I'm trying to get across. However, maybe I'm off the mark in even the specially highlighted respects!Inspired by Tolkien, but not really like Tolkien. Important thing to note.
Bakker: Maybe corroborates Moorcock! In a way. Then again - read it for yourself.
Sample:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Oh boy, you’re opening yourself so much that I find myself feeling in the mood for a handful of very biting remarks pertaining to your style and reasoning, yet at the same time I cannot, in good conscience, do that when I believe we simply started on the wrong foot somehow.
I mean, look at this It is the core of our disagreement.Originally Posted by Montmorency
Moorcock criticizes Tolkien and the ones who subsequently copy him. He never confused this “subgenre” with fantasy on the whole, and for every author he comments on negatively in his essay, he mentions another fantasy writer which in his opinion treats the genre with the respect he thinks should be given to it.
What he does assert at one point, and which may have confused you into thinking the above, is that this subgenre had gained such a following that it was, at the time of his writing, the most visible.
I also know a score of Tolkien readers, a few of them Brits, who would very much disagree with Tolkien being read as a “hack-n-slash”, and these chaps are really hardcore, they read The Hobbit every year. They are actually very much rejoicing in the cosy miasma (I may be using the term unrelated to the concept which you expressed) of the book. Certainly Tolkien’s apologists disagree with you, I am sorry to say, “hack-n-slash” are really not the virtues they extol in his works.
It was my opinion, expressed in this thread in passing, that most fantasy literature of not very long ago was dominated and defined by the epigones of Tolkien, or at least they were the most commercially successful; through their tripe they suffocated quality prose within the genre until a few, like Martin, finally obtained wide accolades from the public. That doesn't mean quality fantasy was not being written in the period, yet it simply didn't survive commercially near the former - in most cases. Moorcock cites more than a handful of writers who did just that in his essay.
I can’t honestly say you made a dent in this conclusion, and I am really not writing this to provoke you.
EDIT: Oh and "picking on his lines", as you put, is exactly how you should always argument your positions, as opposed to generic judgements.
As to the essay you linked, it was the smartest piece I read today by far (and I read it whole; more than ten hours ago; it simply did not contradict any of my arguments), and I thank you for introducing me to its author and I thank its author for introducing me to Koselleck, I’ve enjoyed it so much reading it over lunch today that I ordered both
The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Cultural Memory in the Present) and
Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.) without even researching his biography – if you’d know me in life, you’d know why this is a big deal, I’m the type of neat freak who doesn’t even download a movie without reading its reviews for two hours. Wish I had read him six years ago during my Semiotics and Imagology courses.
Last edited by Nowake; 12-05-2011 at 23:26.
Tolkienesque.I also know a score of Tolkien readers, a few of them Brits, who would very much disagree with Tolkien being read as a “hack-n-slash”, and these chaps are really hardcore, they read The Hobbit every year. They are actually very much rejoicing in the cosy miasma (I may be using the term unrelated to the concept which you expressed) of the book. Certainly Tolkien’s apologists disagree with you, I am sorry to say, “hack-n-slash” are really not the virtues they extol in his works.
That should do it.Inspired by Tolkien, but not really like Tolkien. Important thing to note.
What Moorcock does not like is the bold. I get that. That's done, then?1.Resembling or influenced by the works, ideas, or literary style of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973).
Dare I say that it wasn't warranted? :PI can’t honestly say you made a dent in this conclusion, and I am really not writing this to provoke you.
EDIT: Oh and "picking on his lines", as you put, is exactly how you should always argument your positions, as opposed to generic judgements.
But I wasn't hoping to provoke a debate about the social impact of Tolkien, so that's fine.
Our entire exchange has been a mechanism of control designed to influence you into following this path.As to the essay you linked, it was the smartest piece I read today by far (and I read it whole; more than ten hours ago; it simply did not contradict any of my arguments), and I thank you for introducing me to its author and I thank its author for introducing me to Koselleck, I’ve enjoyed it so much reading it over lunch today that I ordered both
The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Cultural Memory in the Present) and
Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.) without even researching his biography – if you’d know me in life, you’d know why this is a big deal, I’m the type of neat freak who doesn’t even download a movie without reading its reviews for two hours. Wish I had read him six years ago during my Semiotics and Imagology courses.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
"Hope is the Last to Die" Russian Proverb
Finally finished Snow by Orhan Pamuk last night, as I was reading it in parallel to Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, at GC's recommendation. As I wrote in an above post, if you've read My name is Red, you should definitely pick Snow up as well, in spite of the chronological gap.
So, to comment on Quicksilver, leaving aside that its prolonged excursions into the debates of the day have exactly the type of detail you feel too many other novels only glance into, I find the vividness of the world depicted amazingly well done. You won't regret giving it a chance.
Any recommendations for good medieval, historical fiction novels?
Ja mata, TosaInu. You will forever be remembered.
Proud
Been to:
Swords Made of Letters - 1938. The war is looming in France - and Alexandre Reythier does not have much time left to protect his country. A novel set before the war.
A Painted Shield of Honour - 1313. Templar Knights in France are in grave danger. Can they be saved?
Perhaps I could throw in my two cents.
Most astoundingly, considering the male-dominated medieval field, in my opinion the two most superb writers of historical fiction based on the period are two absolutely genial female historians Marguerite Yourcenar and, especially, Zoe Oldenburg. Not a “Get these books, you’ll have a good time” recommendation, rather a “These books will forever shape your views on the era more than any other literary work” and I went through more than a score of the best of them.
The world is not enough is perhaps the most moving of Zoe Oldenburg’s novels, though do not misinterpret it for sentimentality. It simply treats superbly the psyche of the medieval human being.
Yet the ones you should probably start with, and which you will find most gripping, are The Crusades and The Cornerstone, which you will absolutely relish. Oldenburg penetrates so well the minds of the crusading peasants, knights and mercenaries, it outlines so amazingly the horizon of their world and the depth of darkness they perceived to surround them; the experience of going through these two works is unforgettable.
She wrote a seminal novel on the Albiegensian Crusade as well, Massacre at Montsegur: A History of the Albiegensian Crusade, of which I was reminded quite a few times when reading Martin’s description of the war raging through Westeros. I would recommend reading it last however.
Placed towards the end of the Middle Ages, Marguerite Yourcenar’s The Abyss is to the beginning of the Renaissance what Oldenburg’s The Crusades are to the beginning of the millennium. Again, it will shape your thinking and educate your perception of time, not to mention Zenon is a terrific character.
And, because I mentioned it before, you should obtain Maurice Druon’s Les Roi Maudits. To quote myself from a few posts above:
It’s basically Martin’s Game of Thrones without all the fantasy – though you should not understand magic to not be present.I believe I read in an interview Martin wished initially to stay well clear of fantasy, and simply create an alternate world.
A pity he did not follow up on that, I think he would have come very, very close to Maurice Druon's Les Roi Maudits. In fact, the vivid medieval world ASoIaF depicts seems to me to have been very much modelled on Les Roi Maudits and A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings could have very well taken place in Druon's setting, while a host of Martin's characters were almost transposed from the French historical novel - compare Martin's Tywin Lannister to Druon's Phillipe the Fair for an exact mirror. Plus, despite it being a historical novel, Druon takes great care to render the collective mental horizon of the age by illustrating belief in magic as an element almost as present and real as it seemed in Martin's first two books. But I'm totally rambling off-topic by now, apologies!
There is a Romanian translation from a few decades ago for it, yet I would recommend reading it in French if it’s within your grasp. If not, at least get it in English, as ours (the translation) simply isn’t doing it justice.
Multumesc Nowake.
Ja mata, TosaInu. You will forever be remembered.
Proud
Been to:
Swords Made of Letters - 1938. The war is looming in France - and Alexandre Reythier does not have much time left to protect his country. A novel set before the war.
A Painted Shield of Honour - 1313. Templar Knights in France are in grave danger. Can they be saved?
Anyone read 'The Blade Itself' by Joe Abercrombie? It looks quite good based on Amazon reviews. I like my fantasy dark and gritty and it seems that is what it delivers. Anyone have any thoughts?
Rest in Peace TosaInu, the Org will be your legacy
Originally Posted by Leon Blum - For All Mankind
Thoughts yes, a direct answer, mmmmnot really sigh.
That is, after reading ASoIaF I kept bringing it up with some my friends and, since this was literally the first fantasy book I had read, they were falling over themselves to recommend other authors.
In this context, I began reading Abercrombie’s The Heroes – so I can at least attest he’s an able author, I certainly wouldn’t qualify buying one of his books as a waste of money under no circumstances.
On the other hand, I couldn’t finish the book. For no fault of its own I might add.
I also abandoned The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch while having gone through a third of the book or so. Again, for no fault of its own.
Both The Heroes and The Lies of Locke Lamora are very, very well written, the plot is masterfully weaved, the personages are vivid and the colour and gritty realistic portrayal of warfare characteristic for this new type of fantasy, introduced in the past decade or so, is there. However smart though, they’re pure adventure books. They lack the in-depth world-building which ASoIaF offers; in Martin’s books you continuously gather details, hints and subplots which allow you to guess the demographics, the economical details, the social interactions, the military potential, the technology available – you discover the world thought of by Martin as a modern day historian would by delving into a chronicle.
Abercrombie and Lynch... how should I put... they build up a world for their characters, while Martin tends to build up characters to populate his world. In the beginning of their books, this difference is merely a nuance, a few chapters in it becomes too prominent to ignore.
Hope this gives you an idea as to where Abercrombie goes with his prose.
I finally finished Starfighters of Adumar (by Aaron Allston), the 9th and final book in the Star Wars: X-Wing novels.
It wasn't my favorite, but it was still a decent enough way to end the series. I'll definitely be picking up the books for myself!
Am now simultaneously reading two books: Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia (which I received as a Christmas present) and George Orwell's classic 1984.
I've never gotten around to reading the latter until now. However, contrary to my expectations -- I'm a little ashamed to admit that there's a lot of classics that I don't enjoy -- I'm actually finding myself quite intrigued with 1984. I'm already at the halfway-mark, and am very curious to see how the rest of the book goes.
Last edited by Martok; 01-02-2012 at 15:37. Reason: grammar
"MTW is not a game, it's a way of life." -- drone
Footprints, the sorta biography of powderfinger, as well as The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin.
I just received and started 'A People History of the United States', authored by Howard Zinn(RIP).
Its considered by many to be the unvarnished version of the history of the Americas, and starts with Columbus's rather complete genocide of the Arawak Indians, of what is now known to be Haiti/Dominican Republic.
And then it on to the Americas...yipee yee haw.
Mans own inhumanity to man, is deeply disturbing, to put it mildly.
Dont want to get too into it, but it seems a pretty interesting read, and I look forward to finishing it.
In his own words Zinn tries to tell the history from the view of the the people who were often oppressed by it.
Its a well known fact that history is wrought by the victors, and they simply don't tell the losers story.
In this book Zinn tries to correct some of these historic imbalances.
If you are interested in the more real history of the USA, and North America in general, you would do well to check it out.
If nothing else it should help me to achieve a more rounded, and complete understanding of our forefathers in the USA.
While I am Canadian, I am a child of history, and especially the more recent history of our world.
We just seem to forget things so quickly nowadays.
Peace all.
Last edited by Graiskye; 01-03-2012 at 21:20.
Just finished 'I kill giants'. Actually it's a short comic series (not a book per se) but the subject, symbolism and pacing was very well done.
Great for a quick read in between bigger volumes.
Originally Posted by DroneOriginally Posted by TinCow
I've got several books going in my post-Christmas binge...
I'm finally reading through Polybius cover-to-cover and comparing him to Livy as I go. This is for my PhD so is likely to be an ongoing project for quite some time.
I'm more than half way through the second part of A Storm of Swords. I think it is the second best book thus far in the series (after the original) - so many huge things happening. That and I really like all of the POV characters.
I've read a couple of chapters of 1813 Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations by Digby Smith. I admittedly know very little about the 1813 campaign and so asked for this as a Christmas present. The book is immensely detailed, but this can slow the narrative somewhat. Still, it uses a lot of fascinating translated accounts, particularly from the Prussian soldiers, that adds a real sense of 'closeness' to the battle.
Rest in Peace TosaInu, the Org will be your legacy
Originally Posted by Leon Blum - For All Mankind
Childhood's End. Sir Arthur C. Clark. In three words: Frantic, haunting, beautiful.
Last edited by naut; 01-13-2012 at 10:29.
#Hillary4prism
BD:TW
Some piously affirm: "The truth is such and such. I know! I see!"
And hold that everything depends upon having the “right” religion.
But when one really knows, one has no need of religion. - Mahavyuha Sutra
Freedom necessarily involves risk. - Alan Watts
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