felis_ultharus

So, yeah. Among the books I have on my pile to review is the strangest thing I've ever read - and I speak as a fan of manga, and someone who's read Beautiful Losers, Nightwood, and parts of Finnegan's Wake.

I'm talking about The Malleus Mallificarum, of course - the greatest witch-hunter's manual of the Middle Ages.

( Maybe again the Burning Times? Plus, there's no good answer to the question, 'What does a witch do with stolen body parts?' )

So, yeah. A useful historical text, and good for any writers trying to build a realistic Middle Ages. I wouldn't exactly recommend it as pleasure-reading, though.

In infinitely more pleasurable entertainment, I saw the Scott Pilgrim movie last night with good friends. I'll talk more about the series when I get to reviewing the graphic novel, but I will say this - I'm startled by how well they adapted such a potentially hard-to-film work.

I wasn't thrilled with the choice of actors - I was sceptical more for their appearance and voices than their acting talents - but they all interpreted their parts excellently. Kieran Culkin made a (surprisingly) perfect Wallace Wills.

The ending hadn't been written yet when the film was made. The graphic novel ending is much better. But that's a very high bar and the movie was still really, really good. I highly recommend.

Happy belated Ostara to everyone who celebrates it.

It's been a quiet couple of weeks - writing mostly. My big disappointment was that the CBC literary Awards made their decisions, and I wasn't even on the rather large shortlist. I figured that would be the case with my short story, which wasn't very good. But I really thought my poetry was good enough this year.

(I still haven't heard back for my novel.)

I've been reading The Malleus Maleficarum, mostly as research for a fantasy novel I'm working on. It was the main how-to manual for witch hunters in the Middles Ages. And it is strange. So much of it is about sex - how incubi impregnate women, how witches cause impotence. There's also lots of medieval reasoning, lots of medieval science.

(I love medieval science. Did you know the reason that comets foretell the deaths of important people is that they cause them? Turns out that comets are of a hot, dry nature, and the rich and powerful are fed hot, dry foods. Comets passing over cause the already unbalanced yellow bile to turn critical, resulting in death. the more you know!)

Other than that, I've been playing Final Fantasy XIII. Brilliant so far, except for having Anne of Green Gables in my party. Well, specifically, Anne of Green Gables, Destroyer-of-Worlds. All the other characters are great.

I just finished a book entitled Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill. I gave it as a gift once and it seemed interesting, so I bought a copy for myself as well.

Cahill's built a career as the optimist's historian. What interests him aren't the wars, political struggles, glories, and evils, but the remarkable, positive moments -- like how Irish Catholic monks copied and preserved technically heretical Classical texts so as to keep them alive and in memory.

Mysteries is kind of a random sampling of the people and places he finds interesting, and which tend to get forgotten in the modern view of the Middle Ages as a sterile and superstitious age. He covers the City of Alexandria, the first universities, Hildegaard of Bingen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Francis of Assisi, Dante, Giotto, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Héloïse and Abelard, among others.

( Review continues )

So I've been researching Middle English to try and put the words "We're here/We're queer/Get used to it" in perfectly natural Medieval English.

I tried this once before, but without the same rigour. Now I've gone over my Chaucer, my Pearl-Poet materials, online etymological sources, the OED. Plus, this time I've added a Medieval representation of two male Hyaenas embracing. Hyaenas were believed to have the power to change sex, and so they became symbols of homosexuality.

( What to wear to the Medieval queer pride parade, London 1350! )

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

WARNING: Extremely geeky post ahead

Profile

September 2011

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags