purplecthulhu

Mercutio has never been in love. Not unless you count a boy whose face he can barely remember. Not unless you count the world. [loc. 2328]

Mercutio Guertio (yes, that Mercutio) meets Dante Alighieri at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289: they are caught in a freak storm -- where they glimpse spectral armies, and becomes certain that there is a third man with them -- but stumble back to the carnage of the battlefield, and subsequently become friends. Mercurio, though, has been changed: he sees people who are not there, and does not recognise the stars in the night sky. Then Dante, grieving the death of 'his' Beatrice, is pulled into Faerie, where he wanders in a dark wood...

Dear Mr Hammerstein,
It may come as a surprise that I am writing to you, as it appears that the theater industry believes I am dead and can now make up whatever they wish about me... [opening line]

I read this for the prompt 'based on the top-grossing movie in the year of your birth'. Set in 1959, it's a novel about Maria von Trapp and her response to the forthcomming stage musical of 'The Sound of Music': her letter informs Hammerstein that she has 'several ideas about how the script can be fixed'. Hammerstein -- already ill with the stomach cancer that would kill him within a year -- is too busy (and possibly too nervous) to talk to her, so instead his secretary Fran has a series of conversations with Maria.

‘I made it complete so it wouldn’t be treated as rubbish, so it would be respected like other dead people and given a proper burial.’ [p. 27]

Baghdad, 2005: after the American invasion and occupation, just as the sectarian civil war is kicking off. Antique (junk) dealer Hadi, trying to retrieve a friend's remains after a car bomb, finds that body parts at the mortuary are all jumbled together, with little effort to reconstruct each corpse. He begins to assemble a body, picking and choosing from the scraps of anatomy that are in plentiful supply on the streets of Baghdad. ( Read more... )

I was born in a nation at war. I grew up in the shadow of war. And, like everyone else my own age, I had been waiting all my life for "the future war". [Firebird]

Two short novels written for less-confident readers, featuring young female pilots in the Second World War: I listened to the audiobook, read clearly and evocatively by Rachael Beresford.

We’ve been in New Orleans for a few days, enjoying warm weather and eating outdoors— cattitude in particular needed to get away from winter. Not as much interesting food as we’d hoped, but lunch today was at a lebanese restaurant, where we tried Lebanese iced tea, made with rosewater— the server apologized because she thought we had asked for it instead of ordinary sweet tea. My grilled shrimp and rice were also excellent.

Then we wandered through the French Market, and bought hats, a shoulder bag, and a smaller cros-body bag.

We rounded the afternoon off by listening to the drum circle in Congo Square, which has been weekly for more than 300 years. My brother suggested than because our hotel is across thethe street street from the park.

More when I get home ; we’re flying back tomorrow

1. What made you happy this week?
   
   Notification of winning a small summer research grant.
   
   
2. What made you sad?
   
   I was disappointed in a colleague for trying to conceal some serious underperformance when it could have been dealt with easily much earlier on. As it is, now another colleague and I are going to have to put in a lot of effort to attempt to rectify the situation before a deadline next week.
   
   
3. What made you angry?
   
   An academic colleague being outrageously disrespectful to a professional services colleague.
   
   
4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?
   
   Getting that sad piece of work, which should not have been mine in the first place, off my desk at the end of the week.
   
   
5. What are you not looking forward to?
   
   I have to be off-campus for two days next week. I'm not looking forward to the amount of meetings I've had to ram into the other three days of the working week.
   

Audiobook narrated by Steven Crossley

The first Oxford Time Travel book is a collection of short stories, the second is Doomsday Book, read and reviewed earlier this month. This is the third which I was persuaded to try because (unlike Doomsday) it’s supposedly light and frothy, and it also won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1999. And indeed it has elements of Three Men in a Boat meets Dr Who. Ned Henry, one of Oxford’s time-travelling historians, is searching for the Bishop’s Bird Stump, a (fictional) vase lost in the wartime bombing of Coventry Cathedral, in order to please Lady Schrapnell who holds the purse strings of the project to rebuild the cathedral. He’s been sent hither and thither to jumble sales and air-raids that he’s impossibly time-lagged and brain-fogged, so to get him safely out of the way his professor (Dunworthy whom we met in Doomsday Book) sends him back to Oxford 1888 for a relaxing fortnight beside the River Thames. He goes through the veil somewhat precipitously to get away from Lady Schrapnell, ill-prepared and barely taking in his instructions. Thus he makes a mess of his first encounter, fails to do something important and ends up on the river with an Oxford undergrad, Terence St Trewes, and a dotty history professor. Eventually he manages to meet up with his contact (the lovely Verity) and ends up a guest in a country house belonging to a bunch of Lady Schrapnell’s great-great-many-times-great-grands with the beautiful but vapid Tossie who speaks in diddums-diddums baby talk, her goldfish-fancying father and a scarily Schrapnell-like mother, plus the family butler, the Jeeves-like Baine. Thus the romantic comedy is set as Ned and Verity try to put right a variance in the space-time continuum which they accidentally caused in the first place. The Bishop’s Bird Stump is constantly bubbling away in the background as it’s a pivotal object that changes Tossie’s life. The book is light, but not a comedy in the laugh-out-loud sense, more slightly quirky and absurdist. Yes, there’s a dog (Cyril the bulldog) and a goldfish-eating cat (Princess Arjumand). Steven Crossley reads it well in an RP accent, with a good range of voices. You’re never far from hearing Lady Bracknell in a raft of imperious women from the book’s present (2057)  to Victorian England. And, of course, all is well in the end with the bird stump found, and the right lovers paired up, more thanks to time itself than the hapless Ned. Connie Willis captures the Three-Men-in-a-Boat vibe very well

Audiobook narrated by Chris Devon.

Adam Catchpole is a science fiction author whose book sales are slipping. He’s in financial difficulties and spiralling into depression. His agent suggests writing in a different genre, and the popular market trends are spicy romances and Christmas stories. Though he hates Christmas, he reluctantly starts a novel. An odd incident involving a dance and drama school, sets him off reconnecting with the world and he find that as soon as he opens himself up to new experiences and new people, he starts to rebuild himself. There’s also a childhood backstory which reveals why Adam hates Christmas. His own story is that of a Christmas novel – slightly schmaltzy and feel-good. A cosy story, if you’re in the mood. Chris Devon reads it very well. I’m not sure if his accent is Manx (which is where the book is set) but it’s definitely an accent, and the book is all the better for it.

How can we leap back up? Get back on our feet, grab a cart, and start gathering the debris, both physical and emotional. Crush it into small stones, then pulverize them and as the dust settles, dance upon it. How do we do that? By returning to our child self, weathering our obstacles in good faith. For children operate in the perpetual present, they go on, rebuild their castles, lay down their casts and crutches, and walk again. [loc. 2494]

Another memoir from Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and M Train (the latter of which I have not read). Bread of Angels (the title refers to 'unpremeditated gestures of kindness') covers Smith's childhood, her years as a pioneering punk artist, and her 'walking away' from success to have a real life, marrying Fred 'Sonic' Smith and having children.( Read more... )

"There is only one sin, and that is theft... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”

This novel, by an expatriate Afghani author, explores guilt, betrayal and redemption in Afghanistan. The narrator is Amir, son of a wealthy Pashtan father ('Baba'), whose mother died giving birth to him. His closest friend is Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant Ali: his mother ran away when he was little. The Hazara (the ethnic group to which Hassan and Ali belong) are oppressed, discriminated against and mocked. Baba, to young Amir's horror, treats Hassan as well as he treats Amir himself. The boys enjoy the traditional Afghan sport of kite-fighting, and Hassan is Amir's 'kite runner', pursuing the conquered kites with preternatural accuracy.

...here they still were, since they were not the dead ones, under the weary yellow lighting, sharing the unspoken knowledge that, every night the bombers came, ten thousand possible exits from life opened silently, and unpredictably, and without appeal, down which anyone and anything could fall. [loc. 4817]

My initial review: rereading for this 'proper review' was sheer delight, and I am eager to read the second half of this duology.

The story begins in August 1939. Iris Hawkins lives in a Clapham boarding house, works at a City brokerage, and is fascinated by economics. One evening, she flees a disastrous date and ends up at a bohemian dance club, where she encounters the other two protagonists: Geoff Hale, a gawky engineer who works for the BBC, and Lall Cunningham, the icy recipient of Geoff's unrequited love. Iris intends her seduction of Geoff to be a one night stand, but things become more complicated ( Read more... )

"They'll tell stories of you in years to come," Charmion continued.
Centuries. Millennia.
"I hope so."
I did not understand what it was I wished for. I hoped to become a legend, but I forgot what all stories must have: a monster.
I could not have known that monster would be me. [loc. 452]

Cleopatra narrates her own story from a perspective that remains obscure until the end of the novel. The novel begins with the death of Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII and her own ascent to the throne of Egypt as the last Pharaoh: and it ends, of course, with her death.

Cleopatra, in this account, is a clever, learned woman, sometimes ruthless but also driven by love -- and not only romantic love, but also love for her children, her country, and even her siblings. The Egypt in which Cleopatra lives and rules is a magical land: the Ptolemies have been gifted by the gods, each having a birthmark and a magical talent bestowed by their patron deity. ( Read more... )