Wherein A Tired Inkslinger Takes Advantage of Rare Internet Access

I can't wait until our new home has internet access. It has a sweet little settee (passed down from Mr. Inkslinger's grandparents), and three lovely new bookcases, and even a new book or two (I couldn't resist!), but no internet.  So I've been missing things . . .

I've been reading like the dickens, though, in between tidying up boxes, organizing books and dvds, staring aghast at our lovely, large closet filled with  . . . well, space and comparing it to our sides-a-bursting library (which is suffering from the opposite affliction). Perhaps I should reassess those priorities. But the reassess is highly unlikely. But I digress . . .


I've read or begun a number of good books lately, Practical Jean (a dark comedy by Trevor Cole) was amusing and disturbing and well worth the time (it's about a woman who has recently lost her mother to a lingering illness and decides to get busy making sure her best friends don't suffer the same fate . . . by carefully -- and with much affection -- plotting their murders!). And I've started reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy again. It's September, after all (if not for long), and the 22nd was the birthday of both Bilbo AND Frodo. Just seems like a good time to revisit Middle-earth :).  And I've been enjoying Rosemary Sutcliff's prose in Shield Ring (I'm reading and listening to it on Kindle while I tidy and paint and organize). 


Finally, I've been completely engrossed in Darkmans by Nicola Barker.  I'm nearing the finish line (one hundred pages to go) and loving every minute of it.  Unique, involving, intelligent . . . just a wonderful read so far!  But I'll undoubtedly write more (about this and the others) when the internet is restored to me. Until then . . . I suppose I'll just have to read some more.

There's nothing like a good book after a long day spent with a drippy paintbrush (especially if a certain someone accidentally dripped paint on another certain someone's just-painted wall). So, without further ado . . . 

I recently finished two mammoth-sized tomes of varying enjoyability: Drood by Dan Simmons and Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.  I have to say the latter was (by far . . . oh so far) the preferred reading experience.  Drood was, to put it quickly, absolutely absurd.  Simmons knows how to fashion an interesting character, is familiar with all the triggers that keep a reader wanting to turn over the page and read on . . . but once the 'what happens next' turns to 'you've got to be kidding' the thrill tends to diminish somewhat.   

Drood, loosely based on the friendship and dynamics of collaboration between Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens takes as its starting point the train accident at Staplehurst that nearly ended the life of Dickens and his mistress.  It is here that Dickens encounters (or imagines) the character called Drood, and it is this meeting that creates the fantastical mystery that follows. Collins feels forced to shadow Dickens in an attempt to get at what he's really up to with this creepy, possibly homicidal, creature from London's Undertown (i.e. Drood).  So far so good. And then the plot takes us on a series of twists and turns that threaten to aggravate to the point of book throwing.  And yet this reader just kept turning those pages, willingly following Simmons down the alleys of absurdity.  In my defence I can only say that it is suspenseful and I did find a good deal of humour to enjoy.

Ordinarily, I hesitate over novels that appropriate historical and/or literary figures for their own ends. (Side note: Mary Novick's Conceit is one of the exceptions because the novel really isn't about John Donne, it's about his little known daughter.  Another exception is Fetherling's Walt Whitman's Secret which takes the usual approach to biofiction and turns it on its head.) Simmons' Drood, though, is just the kind of novel that has habitually caused my aforementioned hesitation.   There seems to be something unethical about appropriating known figures to create a story that is out of character for those figures. 

Not so with Gavriel Kay's Tigana.  He has stated his own disinclination for exploiting historical figures for his own fictional agenda (whether that agenda has a political, social, etc, aspect to it)  and, therefore, seems very comfortable working in the realm of fantasy to achieve similar ends without exploitation as the means.  Also, he knows how to weave a tale you don't mind getting caught up in. 

Tigana features violence, sex, identity theft (of a sort), questions regarding tyranny and loyalty, complex family groups, relationships all akimbo. Yes, it's just a great read.

The story centres around a group of characters who have lost their homeland and culture (or, rather, have had it viciously taken away) by means of sorcery.  It is Fantasy after all . . . though, fortunately for some of us (and by 'some of us' I mean me) the Fantasy side of things is subordinate to detailed plot and characterization (i.e. the sorcery is more abstract than not . .. which works for me).  Brandin of Ygrath (sorcerer and, evidently, lover extraordinaire) is the guilty tyrant in question and the group intends on taking him down.  It's a disparate group of musicians, artists, former nobility, and, well, a wizard or two (wizardry is mostly abstract as well which, again, works for me).

It's the kind of story that keep you guessing and engrossed from start to finish without sacrificing significance and while having a point.  It's thought-provoking, which, as you know, is my favourite kind of read.  Gavriel Kay manages to ask relevant questions about the responsibilities of citizenship, the duties of leadership, the dynamics of society by presenting scenarios in an imaginative space that directly relate to our reality.  Great stuff.  Having now read three Gavriel Kay novels (and loved each), I'm now a firm fan.

Since it's been a bustling kind of week, this seems like a great time to sink into a good poem or two. Having recently read a great article by Anne Compton about the poetry of Michael Symmons Roberts in the Summer 2010 issue of Arc Poetry magazine, I would like to indulge in some Roberts (Compton makes an eloquent case for why Roberts is a must read) but, as it will take awhile for me to get my hands on some copies of his work, I had to look elsewhere for an immediate poetry fix. To that end, I've been reading (thanks to the generous people at Nightwood) Triny Finlay's new collection, Histories Haunt Us.  

More on same as soon as the painting is accomplished . . .

my posting life has been overtaken by greens and blues (we're painting a few rooms in our new home).  Lately, in fact, it has been all about painting. I'm thinking green is a nice colour . . . and there are such lovely paint names for it (but are these paint names like lipstick names which inevitably sound so much better than they look?).