I worked too much this month, but still managed to read a bit.
The Song of Roland, translated by Frederick Goland - Another one pulled from my wife's history master's bookcase, though she has no recollection of owning this or reading it. I would swear it was her copy--there's notes about wanting a dog and getting a power wheelchair and calling out all the whatever might pass for romantic moments in the text, but she'd also sooner put a knife through her hand than write in a book so I guess I have to believe her.
Goland's introduction is a text in itself. An efficient primer of French pre-history with a summary of the song, and then a really gripping few pages of how a modern reader can try to understand the nigh-mythic history among the "religious time" the song lays out. I read The Bright Ages earlier this year and that was an important primer to this concept. Then we whiplash to a lesson on poetic meter that I tried to carry forward into my reading but, hey, sometimes medieval French syllabaries don't carry into modern English perfectly.
Now, the song itself. I read it in two minds. As a D&D player, I cast my mind back a bit to the 70s, and earlier, where this might be a place you could get heroic two-handed swords (repeatedly) shearing through shields and skulls and hauberks. You can worry about supply lines! You can be operatic! The oliphant! The linens and silks strewn under the bowers for war councils! Really, if you can divorce yourself from the slaughter, the imagery is lovely.
But it's also a propaganda text. It's about the creation of a state and the glory of dying for your lord, who will be so very sad for your sacrifice. But now that you've martyred yourself, he's free (and obligated) to abduct the heathen queen you've liberated. Thousands of people die in "glory", but Charlemagne gets to be great!
Horses and swords and shields all get cool names though!
The Three Imposters and Other Stories, by Arthur Machen - I started reading this in October, in line with Halloween goals. For whatever reason, though I'd read this a couple times before, this collection really shone this year for whatever reason.
Now, I could write a whole post about each section of this book, and I started to, but there are only so many hours. Here's what stands out: The whiplash of each story's plodding Victorian pacing and the sudden, shearing terror that cuts through the moments of revelation.
Here again we have the impossible drug from a weird chemist formula, btw.
I wish I was a little better tracking characters across stories. "Inspector" Dyson is here several times, and I think the joke is that he's worthless but lucky? Not sure, I'm bad at this.
There's a wordy introduction by Joshi here too but eh, this guy.
That poor man with the spectacles. Should have shaved.
Atlantis and Other Lost Cities, by Rob Shone, illustrated by Jim Eldridge - This is just a kids' book I found in a little free library, but look at this cover. This cover is awesome, if I were 11 when I found this I would be obsessed with lost cities all my life.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/2fEAAOSw0Z1fqKrp/s-l1600.jpg
The Goon Library Volume 2, by Eric Powell - Let's read more The Goon! It's like 80% great and 20% embarrassing!
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