felis_ultharus

As usual, poking my head up for a rare update.

The death of Jack has been the big unhappy event lately. I didn't know him well - I had the pleasure of working with him a handful of times briefly, and I really admired his work.

Jack Layton really was as nice in real life as he was on camera. He only saw me a handful of times across the years, but - in spite of the thousands he met - he always remembered me, and remembered I was bad with crowds. Four months before he was dead, he was checking up on me. Funny, isn't it?

They used to say that Robert Stanfield was the best prime minister Canada never had. That title's been officially ceded.

Other than that, my own life has been going quite well. I increased my writing input, and I'm prepping myself mentally for a massive send-out to pretty much any Canadian publishing house I think might accept. That'll likely happen in October.

I've had a social life lately, too. Most recently at jenjoou's wonderful party on Saturday.

A lot of friends have been going through bad times, but because my own life's been going well I think I've been able to be there for most of them.

Anyway, for today's review, The King Must Die by Mary Renault.

( Review continues, with some spoilers )

So I said I'd review some of the books I've been reading.

I finally got around to Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur this summer. I chickened out and read it in translation - I've got some Old French on my to-read pile, but I wasn't ready to tackle something as long as Malory yet.

For those of you who don't know, Le Morte D'Arthur is the version of King Arthur that inspired pretty much every movie, TV show, novel, and video game you've ever seen. It's not the oldest version - people had been telling King Arthur stories for about 1000 years before Malory - but it's been the most influential.

I've read most of the older surviving stories now - The Mabinogion, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, countless French romances, Chrétien de Troyes, among others. So I have a pretty good idea of what Malory put in and what he took out.

( Cut for length - no spoilers for anyone who grew up in Western Civilization, unless they were raised in a Skinner box )

I'm on a semi-regular schedule at work this week, so I'm going to try and get caught up on my writing. My goal was to finish today. That's not going to happen, but if I hurry I can maybe make it tomorrow.

So I just read American Gods, being the last geek in the world not to have read it.

At first I was disappointed with it. The plot seemed unfocused and rambling. About halfway through, it turns out that a lot of the aimlessness was misdirection, and he brings it to a brilliant reveal-type conclusion -- very Rowling-like, when Rowling is at her best.

So it was a brilliant plot. And a fun read. Most of the characters were interesting and fun. Too bad that in order to make his thematic arguments, he pretty much has to build a whole universe out of straw.

( Review continues, with spoilers -- a long review because it hit a few nerves )

Wow. My reviews are getting longer and longer. Could it be I actually miss English lit? These things are turning into term papers. Of course, I couldn't say most of that stuff in a term paper.

I still recommend the book. It's entertaining. It just gets messier and messier the more you think about what it's trying to say. Another bad habit I carry over from English lit, although maybe a good one for my own writing.

So, to clarify, I think as usual the party will be kind of a drop-in, since afternoon is better for some, and evening for others. I was thinking about opening the doors around one in the afternoon on Sunday ^_^

I've been offline for the better of three days, the beginning of my usual internet detox period. If anything crucial has been happening, I apologize for not noticing.

Writing progresses. I'm trying to hold myself back to two pages a day -- that is, re-writing two, then editing them two to four times before progressing. This is the best way to ensure I don't force passages that shouldn't be rushed. It seems to be working -- my improvement in some areas is much greater than it usually is.

It also means I'll be able to integrate suggestions from my editors before I get too far in.

In the meantime -- with all the extra time that normally goes to writing and internet -- I'm reading Beowulf and trying to muddle through the Anglo-Saxon without cheating by looking at Seamus Heaney's translation.

I find that by drawing on archaic English vocabulary, my intermediate (and very rusty) German, and knowledge of the runes, I can sometimes get the gist of a sentence. I've also been able to figure out some words from context, like ymb (around) and ellen (force or power).

I'm also about halfway through the poaching sidequest in Final Fantasy Tactics, which has made my characters too powerful for any of the story-battles to last more than a minute.

A quiet day in the office. As always when I work on Saturdays, I'm listening to CBC, and contemplating campaigning for a memorial statue dedicated to the victims of Brent Bambury's Go.

I'm reading Children of Húrin right now. You have to admire J.R.R. Tolkien -- I hope I have the stamina to keep writing thirty-four years after my death.

As a fantasy novel overall, it's okay so far, but the racism has really astonished me. Not that it's there -- anyone who's read Lord of the Rings as an adult can't miss it -- but as the book was ghostwritten by his son in 2007 from his father's manuscripts, you'd think someone would've pointed out during the editing process that parts of it read like British National Party propaganda.

It's not even just a moral issue but also an artistic one -- it really detracts from the unfolding of a story to predict how good a person is going to be by how pale they are (dark skin = evil, dark hair but white = imperfect or unstable, blond = good).

On the other hand, the way some of the scenes are written, I have to wonder if Christopher Tolkien is playing to a slash-writing audience. I may post some of these another day.