That Hideous Strength: Review

That Hideous Strength is the final book in the space trilogy written by C. S. Lewis. Only this time our space traveler, Ransom, is staying firmly at home on earth...where the battle between Good and Evil will rage in the middle of English village life. While Ransom (or the Director as he is now known) plays a major role, our story focuses on Jane and Mark Studdock--a recently married couple whose married life has already begun to sour. Soon Jane and Mark will be drawn into opposite sides of the battle without realizing quite what they're choosing. Before the very grim (and sometimes quite violent) action is over, we'll be introduced to Mr. Bultritude (I won't spoil it by telling you who/what he is), Merlin brought back from the grave, and a quite literal Talking Head. Lewis also gives us a quite delightful scene straight from the Tower of Babel.

This book was written in the years just prior to and during World War II. This would be apparent to anyone who knows anything about that time period. It is quite scary to see how easily the N.I.C.E. Organization (read the Nazi Party) insinuate themselves into every area of British life and take over everything from the government to education to the police. They talk a line of patter that quite effortlessly brings in those who "just want to belong." And that is at the heart of the matter--we all want to belong. We want to feel that we're part of something important and in the "inner circle." We're going to help make things happen; we're going to be in the know; we're one of the "cool kids." And that's how the evil forces can get control. They make it sound so good.

Once again, Lewis has written a good book. I found myself liking it better than Perelandra--it "drew me in" and made me want to keep on reading. But I still feel some of the beautiful language he used in Out of the Silent Planet is missing. Perhaps it's difficult to write quite so beautifully about the battle of Good and Evil. The action is a bit slow towards the beginning, but it picks up about half-way through and is superb once Merlin is brought in. I'm definitely glad that I've finally managed to read this series (chalk up another plant for the Victory Garden!). Three stars.

This book counts for several Challenges--particularly the Off the Shelf Challenge and featuring as this month's book for the Read Your Own Library Challenge (I'm at the Running Behind Level). It's nice to clear off books that have been looking at me reproachfully for oh, um, ....twenty years or so. In January I'm going to attack My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny. That's another book that's been sitting on my shelf since my last major science fiction binge.

Dragons of Light: Review

Dragons of Light by Orson Scott Card (ed) is a collection of short stories with (surprise) a theme running to dragons. Thirteen authors bring us stories, legends, folk tales and rumors of dragons and their doings from Ireland to a Native American settlement; from somewhere very like ancient Asia to the deep South. Thirteen illustrators are also on hand to give the authors' visions visual life.

"The Ice Dragon" by George R. R. Martin is a story about a young girl who was born during one of the coldest winters in her land. The bitter weather was said to have killed her mother and to have made her a winter child. The cold did not affect her and it even seemed that coldness had become her nature. Because of her unusual gifts, she is able to make friends with a rare ice dragon. Her family is unaware of her friend and, when their king's enemies come to pillage their land--using traditional fire-breathing dragons--it is Adara and her ice dragon who save her family...at a great loss. A lovely story about friendship and sacrifice.

"The George Business" by Roger Zelazny: Just in the last year I have started reading Zelazny again. I'm wondering why I ever quit. He writes so well and with great humor. This little gem tells the story of how a knight named George and a dragon strike a little business deal....The first two attempts don't quite work out as planned. And then they have an idea that should make both of them happy.

"One Winter in Eden" by Michael Bishop. This one doesn't do a darn thing for me. Basic story line: there's this teacher in the deep south who has a dragon hidden inside him. Well, okay. Isn't that nifty? Do we know why? Nope. Does it matter one iota for the story, really? Not that I can see. The teacher has recently arrived at the school. He's taken the place of one of the few black teachers who have worked there. He's an outsider. There's another black teacher who is now considered an outsider too. Did the hidden dragon have anything to do with any of this? Can't say that it did. When the dragon popped out at the end (sorry if that spoils it for you), did that seem to be important? No, not so much. I mean the dragon could have burned the evil school board members to a crisp or eaten them up or something....but nope. Nothing. Nada. The end.

"A Drama of Dragons" by Craig Shaw Gardner. This is another humorous story. It's about a wizard who can't really practice his magic anymore because he's under a curse that causes him to sneeze uncontrollably every time something magical is in the area. Dragons are magical. A dragon shows up and threatens a local duke and the wizard needs to ward off the dragon. In a nifty twist, the dragon helps the wizard....or does he? Nicely done.

"Silken Dragon" by Steven Edward McDonald. A well-told tale that has the feel of a folk tale or fable. There is skulduggery afoot as a thief plans to steal the kingdom's treasure. He doesn't much believe in the rumors that the treasures are guarded by the curse of the silken dragon. Nor in the ability of a woman warrior to help stop him. By the end of the story both the dragon and the warrior show him that a little faith in what he didn't understand just might have been a good thing....

"Eagle-Worm" by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. A Native American tale in which the eagle-worm (dragon, thunderbird, lizard of fire) serves as a totem animal for a young Native American woman. She is sent on a quest to confront the dragon and to test and see if she is worthy to be the next Tribal Mother. The dragon has more to reveal than she knows. Well-told.

"The Dragon of Dunloon" by Arthur Dembling. A young man comes to Dunloon to record local music and gets more than he bargained for. The citizens begin telling him tales of dragons and soon a sea dragon is spotted off the coast. But when the young man looks, all he sees is a boat. The citizens seem very sincere...are they all crazy? Are they all plotting an enormous leg pull? Or can they really see something he can't?

"If I Die Before I Wake" by Greg Bear. About a dragon that seems to represent growing up. I think. Or maybe not growing up. Not sure. This one didn't do much for me either.

"As Above, So Below" by John M. Ford. "Here there be dragons." Or least there were. A very short story about the day the dragons disappeared.

"Cockfight" by Jane Yolen. A young bondsman steals a dragon and trains it for the cockfights....in an effort to gain his freedom. Another good shorter short story.

"From Bach to Broccoli" by Richard Kearns. A cautionary tale about building and expansion taking over all the places where dragons may roam.

"Dragon Touched" by Dave Smeds. A great magician sets off on a journey to kill two powerful dragons. But what will happen if one of the dragons joins minds with him?

This is a fairly good collection of stories most are good (save for those I have indicated) and some are terrific. My favorites: "The Ice Dragon," "The George Business," "A Drama of Dragons," and "Cockfight." This is another plant for the Victory Garden and my November entry for the Read Your Own Library Challenge. As I mentioned last month, this one has been hanging out on the TBR shelves since July 1999. My best friend gave it to me for my birthday. I tried to read it then, but I just wasn't as into science fiction as I once was. It's nice to finally sit down and read these stories that she loved so much. Having sat on my shelf so long, it also qualifies for the Off the Shelf Challenge. Three and a half stars for the entire collection.


Next up for December's edition of the Read Your Own Library Challenge will be That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis. This is the final book in his space trilogy series and has been hanging out on the TBR pile for more years than I can count. It also will help towards several of the 2011 Challenges that I still have pending, so it's all good!

Savage Beauty: Review

I fell in love with Edna St. Vincent Millay when I was in high school. I borrowed every volume of poetry that the local library had and when I came across a volume of her work while in college, I naturally bought it. According to her biographer, Nancy Milford, falling in love with Millay was something that was very easy to do. She was tiny and luminous, filled with ambition and a sense of her power as a poet...and as a woman. When she read her poetry, she held the attention of the audience like no author had since Dickens had made his tours of America. She captivated and seduced; she entranced and captured hearts....through the written word and in every day life.

Thomas Hardy is credited with saying that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay took the nation by storm: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman. Her poetry became the voice of the young women and men of her time. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay gives us a wonderful portrait of "this passionate, fearless woman who obsessed America even as she tormented herself."

This was a very good biography. There is so much material here that it is difficult to write a summary or even a review. I went into it knowing what a fine poet Millay was. I learned that she not only wrote fine poetry, but she sold prose as well...under a pseudonym...and plays and one highly acclaimed opera, The King's Henchmen. Her opera played at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City to sold-out houses night after night. It was great fun to read about how very dedicated and precise she was in this endeavor. Deems Taylor was her collaborator--he to do the music and she to write the libretto. She did so, providing him with an Anglo-Saxon themed piece. When it came to naming it, he had suggested The King's Messenger and she replied by telegram:

KINGS MESSENGER ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE FOR THIS REASON THE WORD MESSENGER WAS BROUGHT INTO ENGLISH BY THE NORMANS AND I AM WRITING MY ENTIRE LIBRETTO IN ANGLOSAXON THAT IS TO SAY THERE IS NOT A WORD IN THE LIBRETTO WHICH WAS NOT KNOWN IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER IN ENGLISH A THOUSAND YEARS AGO.

When she had her work pictured a certain way, whether it was a poem or an opera, there was simply no interfering with her perfectionist's view. And she was generally right about what worked best.

If you have any interest in Millay, life during the Jazz Age, growing up in Maine, or American Poetry during this time period, then I highly recommend Milford's treatment of Millay's life. Four stars.

*I also get to add this one to my Victory Garden. I started this biography about 5-6 years ago, but just couldn't get into it for some reason. Two plants for the garden...and three cheers for Bev!

Tristram Shandy: Review

Pardon me a moment while I do a little victory dance...I'm done with Tristram Shandy!!!!!!!

OMG. Was there ever such a book? I am pleased as all get out that I can say that I'm done with the thing. It's behind me and I'll never be tempted to pick it up again.

What is Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne about you might ask--and well you might and maybe if you ever read it you might figure it out better than I; because I, well, I got all distracted by the INCREDIBLY long sentences and odd punctuation--when there was any to be had; and the major digressions. Do you see what I mean? But, anyway, as far as I can tell, dear Reader, this long-winded novel--if you want to call it that--is supposed to be about Shandy's life and opinions, yet a great deal of it would seem to be about Shandy's birth; but, wait, I can't tell you about that just now--that would be putting the cart before the horse. There's also a story about the midwife to tell and you won't believe what that's about--but wait, I forgot, I need to tell you about the parson and his horse. And Shandy's father's hobby-horse, as well as Uncle Toby's. And speaking of Uncle Toby we also have his little affair of the heart with the Widow Wadman--but I can't go into that now because I have to tell you about Aunt Dinah. And Noses (which are really noses, no matter what anyone says). And the importance of Names. And the doctor's thumb. And the Inquisition ("No one expects the Spanish Inquisition." And I can assure you, I certainly didn't.) And we have to go up and down stairs several times talking all the way before we get back to Shandy. And, oh look, he's born now. But the parson has christened him with the wrong name. Oh no! What shall be done? Well, we'll apply to the church fathers--but while that's going on we'll have a little incident with a hot chestnut. And--hold everything!--I forgot to tell you--oh dear Reader, how could I forget such a marvelous story which was told right in the middle of everything about Diego and his marvelous Nose? It was such a wonderful Nose that it set a whole town on its ear. And I'm not even half done telling you about the book yet.

And now that we've gone on to the second half of this extraordinarily long and disjointed reading experience, I need to tell you that there is also a great deal about the Shandy family luck--or, rather, I should say, their lack of it. Nothing seems to go right for them. From naming poor Tristram to the loss of the firstborn to Tristram's loss of his...... (oops, Sterne doesn't actually write it "out loud" shall we say, so I better not). Oh, and there's a great deal to be said about sieges and battlements. And buttonholes and chambermaids. And did I mention hobby horses? I think I did, but we'll throw them in again just to make sure. And, of course, there is that ultimate question: Is a white bear better than a black one? Now really, if I had kept that up for over 450 PAGES, wouldn't you be ready to throw my review out the window (or at least hit "delete")? And that was the main temptation that I had to fight the whole time. The back of my edition says that

The purpose of Tristram Shandy, beyond entertainment, seems to be to open the reader's heart and feelings....[as the text says] 'When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.' This is the lessen of Tristram Shandy, if lessen there be. There is innate goodness in man, and if he follows his heart, that goodness will become operative in the world. Sterne wants us to use our hearts.

Um. Okay. If you say so. As far as I can see, what Sterne wants is to say whatever the heck comes into his head at any given moment and then to either bore us to tears with it or just kind of mention it, but then think of something else and promise to get back to the first thing later--after coming up with about 14 other things to talk about too. Laurence Sterne would seem to be the great-grand-daddy of the stream of consciousness writers. And I think we've discussed before my feelings about that (see my Intruder in the Dust review). Sure I can see that this was a really influential book--where would Faulkner be without stream of consciousness? And there are even some humorous parts in there but 400 pages of long drawn-out digressions? It just made me want to scream. I don't even know that I can rate this book. So I don't think I'll try.

I suppose I ought to mention that there were two parts that I really liked:

1. Toby's apologetical oration (justification of his own principles and conduct in wishing to continue the war).
2. Tristram's definition of love (when telling us about Uncle Toby and the widow):

Love is certainly, alphabetically speaking, one of the most

A gitating

B ewitching
C onfounded
D evilish affairs of life--the most
E xtravagant
F utilitous
G alligaskinish
H andy-dandyish
I racundulous (there is no K to it [nor J, apparently]) and
L yrical of all human passions: at the same time, the most
M isgiving
N innyhammering
O bstipating
P ragmatical
S tridulous
R idiculous--though by the bye the R should have gone first

And, of course, true to Shandean form--he doesn't complete the alphabet. But I still like it--even though some of it doesn't make sense. Just like love. In fact, as I think over my reading of this book, I find that the best parts are all Uncle Toby. It is just about worth 400 pages to finally get to the amorous campaign upon which the widow embarks and how Toby responds in kind.