A delightful retelling of the princess-in-a-tower fable that comes alive in Moira Quirk's reading. I've been a fan of Tamsyn MuiRating: 3.5-3.75 stars
A delightful retelling of the princess-in-a-tower fable that comes alive in Moira Quirk's reading. I've been a fan of Tamsyn Muir since I first cracked Gideon the NinthGideon the Ninth but I would also recommend any Quirk narration. She's quite good.
If my nieces were 10 0r 12 years younger this would definitely be in someone's Xmas gift pile....more
I rarely laugh out loud when reading but I couldn't help myself when I read the following bit of absurdity (context: a man is returning to his lover fI rarely laugh out loud when reading but I couldn't help myself when I read the following bit of absurdity (context: a man is returning to his lover from a sea voyage but impatient he leaps overboard and begins to swim toward the dock when he sees her waiting):
Her fair companions one and all Rejoicing crowd the strand; For now her lover swam in call, And almost touch'd the land.
Then through the white surf did she haste To clasp her lovely swain; When, ah! a shark bit through his waist; His heart's blood dy'd the main!
He shriek'd! his half sprung from the wave, Streaming with purple gore, And soon it found a living grave, And, ah! was seen no more.
("Bryan and Pereene," James Grainger [1721-67])
It reminded me of that scene in "Deep Blue Sea" when the mutant shark leaps out of the water and attacks Samuel L. Jackson. Could the screenwriter have been a Grainger fan?
Here's another verse that takes a decidedly unexpected turn from the pen of the infamous Edward Bulwer-Lytton's son Robert:
I dream'd that I walked in Italy, When the day was going down, By a water that silently wander'd by Thro' an old dim-lighted town,
Till I came to a palace fair to see, Wide open the windows were. My love at a window sat; and she Beckon'd me up the stair....
When I came to the little rose-colour'd room, From the curtain out flew a bat. The window was open; and in the gloom My love at the window sat.
She sat with her guitar on her knee, But she was not singing a note, For someone had drawn (ah, who could it be?) A knife across her throat....more
Mark Lilla argues that while the idea of revolution and the revolutionary have been studied ad nauseum, the idea of reaction and the reactionary have Mark Lilla argues that while the idea of revolution and the revolutionary have been studied ad nauseum, the idea of reaction and the reactionary have been neglected to our harm as a wave of reaction is becoming predominant in our modern world. The reactionary mind – the titular “shipwrecked mind” – does not describe the social/cultural conservative or the demagogue who takes advantage of the electorate’s fears to seize power. It refers to the intellectual movements that inform society’s fear of change, the other, economic stability, etc. and tries to make sense of them.
The summary provided on the book sleeve of the NYRB edition of The Shipwrecked Mind explains it nicely:
The reactionary is…someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motivated by highly developed ideas….
We live in an age when the tragicomic nostalgia of Don Quixote for a lost golden age has been transformed into a potent and sometimes deadly weapon.”
The book is divided into three sections containing essays (most originally published in the New York Review of Books). In “Thinkers,” Lilla looks at the lives of three intellectuals: Franz Rosenzweig, Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss. I had only heard of the latter. Among those of us left of center, Strauss is a bit of a bogey man; the intellectual grandfather of think tanks like the Heritage Foundation or The Federalist Society. Lilla’s treatment of these three is very sympathetic. He doesn’t agree with them but he explores their thought and how they reached their conclusions, and doesn’t dismiss them as simply cranks like, say, Jordan Peterson.
“Currents” comprises two essays of intellectual history tracing reactionary thought & its response to how modern society has developed since the Middle Ages.
“Events” is an essay that begins with the Charlie Hebdo massacre of the staff of a French satirical magazine in 2015 by Muslim fundamentalists and moves on to an examination of the writings of two flavors of French reactionary thought: Éric Zemmour’s Le Suicide français and Michel Houellebecq’s Submission. Of the two books, the latter is the more intellectually hefty but both come to the same conclusion: Western civilization erred when it bet “that the more they extended human freedom, the happier they would be.” (129)
I found these essays informative and insightful and I would recommend this book....more
It’s 1943 and Georgina Vitay is a 14-year-old girl growing up in war-time Hungary. Her mother died when she was littleRating: 2.75 or so, rounding up.
It’s 1943 and Georgina Vitay is a 14-year-old girl growing up in war-time Hungary. Her mother died when she was little and subsequently she and her father have developed a close and loving relationship. Unfortunately, her father, a high-ranking general who opposes the country’s alliance with Germany, has shielded her from much of what’s happening. Gina’s isolation leaves her very immature and naïve, and she’s utterly shocked when her father reveals that he’s sending her to a remote Christian girls’ school, St. Matula. Gina can only explain this shake up of her world by attributing it to her father getting married to a woman who doesn’t want her around. This despite the fact that there’s no evidence that such a malevolent presence exists.
But the general’s will prevails, and off she goes to St. Matula, a strict Protestant academy where the students’ lives are highly regimented. They’re not allowed any personal effects, every hour of their day is planned, and any communication with their parents restricted (censored letters, monitored phone calls, etc.). And forget about interacting with anyone outside of the community.
It’s Gina’s worst sort of nightmare. She reacts badly, immediately alienating her fellow students and getting on the bad side of the school’s director, Gedeon Torma. The depths of her despair reach such a point that she attempts to run away. This incident forces her father to visit, risking exposing his daughter, and revealing somewhat the situation he and she are in. The meeting sobers Gina (a bit) and she subsequently settles into her new life, tries to make the best of it, and begins her excruciatingly slow maturation.
The day-to-day bleakness of their lives spurs the girls into ingenious ways to play, gossip and act like typical teen-agers, all under the nose of their teachers. But the teachers aren’t uniformly ogres. Szabo paints them as people who do care about their charges, and the students reciprocate that love (for most of them).
One of the safety valves that keep things functioning is “Abigail.” She is a statue in the school’s garden. For a generation of students, if you have a problem you write it down and put it in a pitcher the statue carries, and it gets solved. By someone. Speculation about Abigail’s identity is rife but no one pushes it too far for fear of ruining things. And though she toys with it, even Gina doesn’t try too hard to find out, keeping it to safe speculation.
After returning from the meeting with her father and a fortuitous air raid where the world starkly intrudes on the girls’ isolation, Gina begins to reconcile herself with her classmates. And it becomes apparent, too, that Abigail has far greater reach and concern for the students than suspected. For example, doctoring files to hide fact that some of St. Matula’s children have questionable genealogies – i.e., Jewish.
Dissatisfied with the commitment of its government to the war, in 1944, Germany occupied Hungary and instituted a far harsher, far deadlier regime. The last quarter of the novel ratchets up the drama and action as we learn Gina’s fate and Abigail’s identity.
I enjoyed the novel. I found it moved along briskly. The school-focused center of the story could have easily become tedious but Szabo spends just the right amount of time showing the girls’ lives, how they come to accept Gina, and how Gina matures (IMO). What keeps it from technically reaching three stars is a flaw other reviewers have mentioned (the 2-star ones, generally). The book comes across as a bit frivolous considering its context. The school scenes could easily provide fodder for a largely comedic coming-of-age novel but they’re embedded in World War 2 and Nazi atrocity. When Lt. Kuncz comes to kidnap Gina the reader cares enough about her to wonder how far is Szabo going to take this before she escapes. But you’re not sure – it could be farcical or it could be truly horrific as she explores just how depraved fascists could be.
I didn’t give Abigail a full three stars so I’m not going to recommend it but I’m still interested in reading more of Szabo’s work, considering the reviews I’ve read, and I hope to come to appreciate her more....more
I thoroughly enjoy reading this pseudo-science trash. For me, it's the equivalent of watching a good bad movie like Plan 9 From Outer Space.
I picked uI thoroughly enjoy reading this pseudo-science trash. For me, it's the equivalent of watching a good bad movie like Plan 9 From Outer Space.
I picked up this little gem at the library while browsing for something to read as I went to bed, and so far it's been a hoot (and I'm only on page 30!).
And the author has discovered a brilliant new argument for proving one's point: "For the sake of argument, we shall put ourselves at the point in time when the compiled evidence is so strong that it leads science to conclude that life originated elsewhere in space." (10)
If I'm reading this correctly, all one has to do to prove an argument is imagine a point where you've accumulated enough evidence to prove it. QED!
I'm only up to page 31 and he's already covered nearly every trope found in this genre like "humans evolved from chimps" and pyramid architecture appeared "suddenly" with the creation of the Giza complex in Egypt.
For the foreseeable future, I'm going to look forward to going to bed and drifting off to sleep with this "book."...more
SETTING: The Treble Kingdom was colonized 17 centuries ago by STL generation ships; three relatively close stars with habitable planets. As the book oSETTING: The Treble Kingdom was colonized 17 centuries ago by STL generation ships; three relatively close stars with habitable planets. As the book opens, the Kingdom is a fascist theocracy, worshipping the Godfire. A fragile polity governed by the Hands: the secretaries, the executive body and bureaucrats; the clerics, the faith’s priests; and the cloaksaan, the assassins and secret police of the regime. They rule in alliance with the powerful families who run the day-to-day affairs of the various colonies.
The colonists of Ma’kess discovered an ore – jevite – that powers FTL gates which make the Kingdom possible. The naturally occurring ore has largely run out but the Nightfoot family developed a synthetic version – sevite. Not quite as powerful but sufficient to maintain the gates & making them one of the wealthiest families.
The death of the Nightfoot matriarch and rumors of the existence of information damaging to the family upset the delicate balance that has obtained for several decades and leads to the crisis of authority that is the central plot of the book.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: (the four chief ones at any rate) Esek Nightfoot: A relatively minor scion of the Nightfoots, she parlays her position as a cleric into becoming extremely important to the clan. She is utterly ruthless, brutal and amoral but exercises a powerful charisma that make many people devoted to her, including people who should know better.
Like Chono, one of Esek’s apprentices before she became a full cleric.
Jun Ironway: A caster – freelance computer hacker and information broker – whose destiny gets entwined with Esek’s and Chono’s when she tries to acquire the incriminating information mentioned above.
Six: Once upon a time, Six was a student studying to join the Hand. On the day Esek showed up at the training school, however, her destiny was permanently altered. She became devoted to destroying Esek and, more broadly, ending the Kingdom’s tyranny.
I enjoyed this first book in the series and look forward to the sequel, On Vicious Worlds (coming in October, fingers crossed). I’d recommend it with the caveat that it doesn’t really break any new ground. My enjoyment was in a well-told story (IMO) and an interesting world and characters....more
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