Reviewing H. Rider Haggard’s "Cleopatra"

Don’t let the title of the book—and, consequently, this blog post—fool you. As its subtitle (Being an Account of the Fall and Vengeance of Harmachis) suggests, this is the story of Harmachis, priest of Isis and last heir of the ancient royal line of Egypt, and how he betrayed the hopes of his family, his country, and himself when he found his fate intertwined with that famous Ptolemaic queen.

 His narrative is written in the first-person perspective, nested within a story of British archaeologists finding his remains and the scrolls he had written. Before the reader can say "Imhotep" this nesting story has introduced all the promising components for a thrilling tale of pseudo-Egyptian history.*

Unnerving Short Stories by Rudyard Kipling

I have known for a long time that there are two basic views of Rudyard Kipling:

1.      Rudyard Kipling the author of The Jungle Book and Just So Stories…thus, a children’s author.

2.      Rudyard Kipling, author of The White Man’s Burden…thus, a racist.

The Kipling I met when reading the collection Rudyard Kipling’s Tales of Horror & Fantasy (edited by Stephen Jones) was bits of both, yet neither.

While I prefer novels where I can really settle into a world and get to know the people that live there, I have recently begun to appreciate one aspect of short stories: collections of one author can showcase the broad spectrum of their talents, and thus reveal more of themselves.

Reviewing "No Beast So Fierce" by Dane Huckelbridge

When putting books on hold at my library, I often choose them on a whim. The cover, the title, even the font on the spine may induce me to put a book on hold. It’s an adventurous feeling, not really knowing much about a book before reading it.

And it makes for some odd “Why did I put this on hold, again?” reactions when the book finally comes in (often months later) and my confused expression makes the desk librarian wonder whether she gave me the right thing.

Some libraries sponsor an event called a “blind date with a book” where they cover random books with brown paper so you can’t tell anything about them (apart from the size) until you check them out and start reading.

My method is more like internet dating. I saw the book’s profile pic and name and decided I’d like to meet it in person.

No Beast So Fierce by Dane Huckelbridge was just such a book. The cover has a cool tiger photo, and the title intrigued me. I don’t think I saw the smaller words under the title (they were too small to see on the thumbnail in the library’s online catalog), so I didn’t know until I had the book in my hands that I saw the book was subtitled The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Animal in History.

Reviewing "Bog Bodies Uncovered" by Miranda Aldhouse-Green

My curiosity about bog bodies was piqued when I read Snow-Walker. As I mentioned in my review of that, there’s a section in the third book where the main characters encounter a tribe of people that live in a swamp. Although initially welcomed into this community, it soon becomes clear that the swamp people have a nefarious ulterior motive for keeping the heroes there. Sure enough, a “festival” turns into a ritual of human sacrifice, and one of the main characters is nearly killed and put into a bog. (It’s okay; he survived.)

So I went to my default place for information when I have a passing curiosity about something: Wikipedia. But Wikipedia’s page was so skimpy, I soon turned to the more robust resource of the library, and it was there that I found Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe’s Ancient Mystery. Miranda Aldhouse-Green addresses this subject so thoroughly, meticulously, and…let’s face it…gruesomely, that my curiosity was more than satisfied. I don’t think I’ll need to read anything more on the subject, thank you very much.

Poetry Thoughts 2018: Robinson's "Eros Tyrannos"

A common poem assigned in lit classes when I was in college was My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. In this poem the narrator is a Duke who is giving a tour of his home, points out a portrait of his “last Duchess” (which means she hasn’t been his only Duchess), and the rest of his monologue makes it clear that he not only counts the portrait among his many trophies, but also the woman who holds that position. It’s a rather creepy, sexist, socially critical poem, and despite its morbid subject matter I liked it for addressing a part of life that often gets swept under the carpet.

Eros Turannos by Edwin Arlington Robinson is the first poem since college that has given me the same sort of vibe. When I searched for a translation I found the title means “Love the King” in Greek, though I would interpret it more as tyrant than king, taking the poem’s contents into consideration. In fact, from my one semester of New Testament Greek I took in high school (thanks, Mom!) I would say that it should rather be interpreted as "tyrant love."

Reviewing "Marie" by H. Rider Haggard

 

Pretty early on in reading this Allan Quatermain novel I considered stopping. More than any of the other Quatermain adventures I’ve read, Marie is rife with racism, both in the characters’ dialog and the overall narrative.

This was not simply racism of Europeans against Africans (although there was certainly plenty of that!), but of different ethnicities of the same color. The French hate the English, the Dutch hate the English, the English hate the both of them, and all them hate—or at least mistreat—the Africans. There is even a jab at Jews—even though there aren’t any Jewish main characters to be seen!

Is it right to read a book with racism in it? Or does it seep into one’s thoughts and attitudes? On the other hand, does pretending that racism doesn’t exist leave one open to ignorance? Is it possibly helpful to read a book one doesn’t agree with, to mentally argue with it, and thus sharpen one’s mind and feelings against occurrences of racism in the real world?

The horror, the horror!

"The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there--there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were--No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it--this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity--like yours--the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you--you so remote from the night of first ages--could comprehend."

- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

It’s easier to tear down than to build up, and so it’s easier to criticize someone else’s writing than it is to actually write something better. There it is, in black and white, an author’s hours upon hours of work, sweat, and tears. It’s placing their heart and mind on a pedestal for others to swing a stick at for any minor malfeasance.

This is why I normally try to talk about books I recommend. I’ll point out flaws, but an honest review is better than hyping up something only to disappoint you when you read it. I read a vast amount of books I don’t end up reviewing at all because it would be merely me with a stick in my hand. Life is too short to waste it on reading books you don’t love, and my life is too short to waste it on blogging about those books.

This entry is an exception, because another thing I like to do is go over classic literature with new eyes. Classics are hard to do this with, because most of us—even those who haven’t read them—have an idea how we should feel about a book from what teachers or other sources have implied. One of the most “preconceived” pieces of literature I encountered in my education and critical readings was Heart of Darkness.

H. Rider Haggard's "The Mahatma and the Hare"

A Mahatma, as H. Rider Haggard explains in the first pages of this story, means “Great Souled,” and is a person with a sort of sixth sense or at least an ability to transcend the usual human’s sense of reality.

A hare, on the other hand, is a sort of rabbit.

The narrator starts by talking about Mahatmas and also some passing acquaintance known as Jorsen. The narrator then U-turns into another topic, of how his wife and daughter died and the shock and heartbreak drove him to drink himself into a stupor and contemplate jumping into the river.

Enter Jorsen, who appears at the narrator’s side and knows the entire tragic tale. Jorsen mentions in passing that he knew the narrator in a past life. The narrator’s friendship of Jorsen brings him back from the edge of despair, followed by his studying of a pseudo-Eastern mysticism and a bunch of talk about Pharoahs and kas. At last is introduced a sort of limbo-world called the Great White Road, upon which ghosts must travel on their way to the afterlife. In a dream or stupor or some deep meditation, the narrator accesses this Great White Road and sees his dead child. Attempts to repeat this meeting are in vain, although the narrator meets many other spirits in subsequent visits to the Road.

Little Old Ladies 8: The Nosy Miss Marple

“I’m old and I have very little strength in my arms or my legs. Very little strength anywhere.  But I am in my own way an emissary of justice.”  

Miss Marple in Nemesis, 

Chapter 21: The Clock Strikes Three

While I love Agatha Christie’s writing, and am usually outwitted by her mastery of mystery, I am usually more of a fan of her one-off novels than of her series. I’ve read a great deal of Poirot, all of her Mr. Quin, a few of her Tommy and Tuppence, and then a smattering of Miss Marple. Of all these series, Miss Marple is next to last my least favorite (I really didn’t care for Mr. Quin, but that’s another blog for another time). 

Why do I dislike Miss Jane Marple? She’s so odd, illogical, nosing into all sorts of crimes in a very un-grandmotherly type way. I always feel that it is unrealistic when she starts questioning suspects and these people actually tell her things. If some random lady came up to me and started talking local crime while she was knitting, I would at least equate her with a sort of Madame Defargean lady, especially if she started to rant about evil and seem morbidly fascinated with murder. Also the fact that she seems less than six degrees separated from murder victims would make me paranoid; at best she’s a bad luck charm, at worst a serial killer! 

(Of course Poirot suffers the same bad luck, since every time he goes on vacation a body shows up.  This trend continues from books to television, so much that one wonders why Archie Goodwin ever leaves a client alone since they’re bound to be strangled by Nero Wolfe’s necktie, or why Jessica Fletcher isn’t banned from book tours. Really, unless a detective is a cop or a private investigator, there is no other way of having a sleuth get involved in murder investigations, and even then fictional cops and gumshoes better never take a ride on the Orient Express unless they want to be accessories before or after the fact!)

Deceitful above All Things: Condemnation of Human Nature in “Young Goodman Brown” and "The Mysterious Stranger"

The works of both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain critique the moral conventions of not only historical societies, but that of their contemporaries. Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” and Twain’s unfinished novella “The Mysterious Stranger,” for example, make grim judgments on innate characteristics of human nature. Although their individual aspects differ, both works demonstrate humanity as naturally depraved, hereditarily corrupted, and without any hope of breaking this futile cycle of sin and hypocrisy. Despite the differences between the works, therefore, they communicate a common message about the status of human “civilization” throughout history. 

In “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Mysterious Stranger,” an ignorant young human comes into contact with a devil-figure and experience supernatural incidents. The protagonists are naïve in their preconceptions of humanity’s moral and social uprightness, while the devil-figures show the protagonists the diabolic character traits in human nature. Through interactions with these supernatural entities, both Hawthorne and Twain illustrate how humanity is so corrupt, even the devil himself “in his own shape is less hideous, than when he rages in the breast of man.”

Play-By-Play Reactions: A Review of Haruki Murakami's "The Strange Library"

An unnamed, unaged, undescribed boy character goes to a library in his new shoes to return his books. He has to be home by 6:00 or else his mother will worry; not long ago he was attacked by a Big Black Dog and ever since then he has never been the same and his mother has always expected him to get home in a timely fashion. The librarian at the checkout counter is a stranger to him.  Checking in the returned items, she asks if there is anything else. The boy says yes, he’d like some books.

Me: Really?  Well from now on, unnamed boy of indeterminate age, I shall refer to you in my blog as Captain Obvious.

Agatha Christie's "Endless Night" - A Review

It’s hard to describe Agatha Christie’s Endless Night without worrying about slipping up and spoiling the ending.  So I am not going to even try. 

 So, um, if you don’t want spoilers, don’t read this.

Surprises and Disappointments: "The Birds of Pandemonium" and "Drood"

After the pleasant surprise of my previous audiobook What If? (which I briefly reviewed last week) I almost though it would be pressing luck to immediately get another random audiobook from my long library queue. However, I’d already clicked “Place Hold” so there was no going back, and before I knew it The Birds of Pandemonium: Life Among the Exotic and Endangered was waiting for me at the checkout counter.

When getting nonfiction books, I often stumble across little pockets of our world heretofore unknown to me. I didn’t know the blog xkcd existed until I read the book What If?, and even now I’m not sure I know how to spell it. 

 

The same thing happened with Pandemonium. The Pandemonium Aviaries is a nonprofit bird sanctuary that started out as a woman taking in unwanted birds, then developed into a breeding program for endangered species. The main characters are the birds themselves, of course, along with the humans who love them. 

"Darkwing" by Kenneth Oppel

It’s the end of an era: the saurians who had been the dominant predator on Earth are dying out due to a mysterious sickness and through the machinations of all the other beasts, who have made a pact to exterminate this common threat by destroying any saurian eggs they find. About twenty years before Darkwing begins, however, a small group of chiropters who reject the pact and go to live on a secluded island as conscientious objectors. 

As our story begins, the young chiropter Dusk is about to make his first leap into the air. He’s a weak newborn, strangely built, and instinctively he wants to flap his sails like wings. As he grows up with his father Icaron, the leader of the island colony, his impulsive sister Sylph, and the rest of his family, Dusk is subjected to a great deal of pressure to conform or risk being shunned by his community. But Dusk is not like the others. Whereas in the story, the chiropters are a sort of pre-bat species (I immediately imagined them looking like sugar-gliders, though later in the book there are illustrations which contradict my mental image), Dusk is a true bat, with the ability to “see” in the dark and, much to the fear and confusion of the rest of his people, to fly. 

Reviewing Kenneth Oppel's "Silverwing" Trilogy

Long ago there was a war between the birds and the beasts. The bats, who shared attributes of both, abstained from taking a side, making them equally contemptible by both. In the present day, in an alternate reality not so far removed from our own, a young bat named Shade breaks the taboo that has kept the peace for years: he gets a glimpse of the sun. By breaking this law Shade brings down retribution from the birds onto his entire colony, and finds himself alone and without a home.

"The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells: A Review

A long time ago when I was just entering adolescence and had spare time to waste on doing nonsensical things, I was trying to construct a pyramid out of marbles. Marbles being round and therefore not exactly conducive to stacking like bricks, this was a laborious and time-intensive goal. Enter listening to audiobooks while I did these sorts of things. In fact, I’m not at all sure, so long after the fact, that these sorts of nonsensical enterprises weren’t created in order to be doing something while listening to audiobooks. Like the chicken and the egg, I’m not sure which came first.* 

It’s a strange thing how sometimes two sensory memories, the sight of marbles, for instance, can be connected to others, such as the sound of The Time Machine being played on cassette. But when I started composing this review, that’s exactly what happened.  Remembering my first experience with H.G. Wells made me think of what I was doing while listening to that audiobook for the first time over ten years ago.

Reviewing Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger"

“It was 1590—winter.  Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever.”

~Opening lines of The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

Theodor and his two friends, Nikolaus and Seppi, live in a small village in Medieval Austria.   One day they meet a mysterious stranger, a youth named Satan. This Stranger makes comments that lead one to suspect he is an angel—or something like an angel, as he admits he was named after his “uncle” the Devil—and he has special powers over the forces of nature, such as generating fire or constructing tiny people. 

Reviewing Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw"

For the past few weeks I’ve been posting reviews of stories that range from slightly unsettling (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) to outright horror (Dracula). Now I’ve come to the story that still has me spinning in circles: Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. 

It is a ghost story, told Russian-nesting-doll-style: The unnamed narrator is at a Christmas party in an old house, and a man named Douglas tells a story that was originally told to him by his sister’s governess, a heroine who thinks she is Jane Eyre but is more romantic and paranoid than Catherine Morland.

"The Hound of the Baskervilles": A Review

It seems hardly necessary to summarize Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s best-known Sherlock Holmes novel.  Not only is it so familiar that even those who haven’t read the book can give an adequate outline of the plot, the plot itself is not the most complex of the Holmes adventures. 

The beginning of The Hound of the Baskervilles takes place, not with Holmes and Watson ‘round their hearth at 221b Baker Street, but actually outside.  I mean outside the book itself.  See, prior to writing Baskervilles Doyle had committed the perfect crime: he had murdered Sherlock Holmes in front of the entire world, right there, plain in black and white.  And there was nothing anyone could do about it.  Doyle got away, scot-free (which, since he was a Scot, explains how he knew how to do it in the first place…).

Doyle was faced with a Frankensteinian issue some authors encounter when they achieve the popularity they’ve desired for so long: their characters come to life, the public loves them more than the author, and the author can’t get on with other projects because their audience is always clamoring for more of their old characters. Fellow mystery writer Agatha Christie had the same problem with Poirot. L.M. Montgomery got stuck writing an entire series about Anne Shirley. And A.C. Doyle thought his historical novels were his best works, but they were constantly being overshadowed by Holmes! So what was he to do but to kill him off to make room for Sir Nigel and the White Company?*

Unfortunately for him, Holmes adventures meant big bucks, and he needed the money.  He didn’t want to resurrect Holmes from the dead (just yet). So, in order to capitalize on Holmes’ name, Doyle wrote a novel set before the incident at Reichenbach Falls.  Using a story and setting that were too good to pass up, Baskervilles is set in Dartmoor, in the southern county of Devon. 

Sir Charles Baskerville has died of a heart attack, but the local doctor James Mortimer suspects some sort of foul play, partly due to a story of an ancient curse on the Baskerville clan: that a giant hound roams the moors around Baskerville Hall, seeking revenge on the entire clan for an act of violence done by one of their forefathers. Dr. Mortimer hires Holmes to protect the new Baskerville heir from an untimely death. Holmes sends Dr. Watson as bodyguard for Henry Baskerville as they journey into the eerie moors of his estate. 

Because Holmes is absent—working behind the scenes, as it were—for most of the narrative, Doyle allowed himself some distance from his over-popular creation. Instead, it is almost a spin-off novel, starring Watson as the bemused and wary protector of clueless and reckless young man.  It is Watson who gathers the clues, thought Holmes puts them together in the end.  And in the end, as in every self-respecting Holmes adventure, the solution is not so much mystical as it is methodical.

 

*Doyle was wrong, by the way.  I’ve read a few of his historical fiction and, while they’re not bad, they don’t ring with the same quality prose or endearing characters as in Holmes. His Challenger books, The Lost World and The Poison Belt, however, could have done with a few more entries, in my humbly biased opinion.

Reviewing Bram Stoker's "Dracula"

This book is best served on a dark and stormy night. Unless you, I don’t know, want to sleep at night or something. Written as if it were the combined accounts of several witnesses, Dracula begins with a young man, Jonathan Harker, who gets lost in a Transylvanian village. Finding shelter in a solitary castle with its lone inhabitant, an enigmatic Count, Harker soon finds himself in a living nightmare, captured and used as a source of food by three female vampires. Harker barely escapes the castle and rushes home.

Meanwhile Dracula senses a richer hunting ground in England than in his Romanian homeland. He ships himself—dead, in his coffin—over the channel and infiltrates London society. There he makes the acquaintances of Wilhelmina Murray (Harker’s fiancée) and her friend Lucy Westenra. Mina is an intelligent, accomplished, and modest lady who symbolizes pure womanhood. Lucy, on the other hand, is beautiful, vivacious, impetuous, and rash—all things looked down upon in a female during the Victorian Era. It is Lucy’s very immodesty that seals her fate. Dracula makes her his first victim, and slowly she herself becomes a vampire: wasting away by day and attacking children and stalking around parks by night.