No end to the making of books

[flemmings]

Finished Mythago Wood sometime in the last few days, rather pleased by its outside-the-boxness. These days what one hopes for, usually vainly, in a fantasy is the unexpected, and the whole tenor of MW was certainly that, in that it did very little of what I thought it would and many things I'd never have considered. And ohh is it English. All those trees with all their connotations, assumed to be as familiar to the world as foodstuffs and weather phenomenon. Me, I can barely tell an oak from a linden. Beeches? What are they?

Today I was tooling along Bloor in my post-migraine fashion (read: spacey) and found me at the Blue-and-White used bookstore, and remembered I'd intended to see if they had any more Aubrey/ Maturin and to ask about their buying policies. So I looked for the first and found instead Monsieur Beaucaire, and asked about the latter and found they want most of my library. Have I said that most of my library is already there, even though someone else sold it to them? It is. I bought back my, or someone's, copy of Nifft the Lean, and a hardback Mask of Apollo to replace my disintegrated paperback from ohh 1970 was it? And Good Omens to see what the fuss is about, and The Lantern Bearers because Sutcliffe is cool, and Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing, because she can't be worse than Pearl Buck.

And I despair: why am I buying books when I have stacks unread at home? The answer of course is that reading books isn't the pleasure: buying books is the pleasure, and I have distinctly enjoyed buying these.

Also got a Dutch phrasebook because Dutch has always charmed me. The only langauge that's really cognate to English: more than certain varieties of English itself, I sometimes think. "Which is the best road to...?" becomes "Wat is de beste weg naar...?" "What is your address in Amsterdam?" = "Wat is uw adres in Amsterdam?" When first encountered I thought it terribly Mission: Impossible; then like the ending of that Bradbury story where time travellers can go back and hunt mastodons in the past, as long as they kill animals that died anyway, but one guy strays from the path a bit and steps on a butterfly and when they get home the signs are all different. And now I think Dutch sounds like cat macros. Without offence to any Dutch people here, of course.

Also read the last story in PMT2. Actually comprehensible the first time through- Ima is losing her touch- and as ever leaving deep confusion as to Saburo's feelings for Young Dork. Aru? Nai? To say nothing of Dork's feelings for Saburo. Sorry, I just don't buy all that 'Be mine!!' routine. The... flashiness/ shallowness/ whatever of it feels more and more like Detective Bluecat; and the stronger the feeling I get that what we're seeing is the same manga drawn by different mangaka. Ima's character's aren't normally shallow at all, but PMT's guys fail to convince. What other reason can there be than that she's drawing Motoni's series?

Comments

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

And Good Omens to see what the fuss is about
I await commentaries with trepidation!
(I know, I know. Angels are supposed to be sexless, and what is thees sexless slash they keep brandishing over there in that ship called Aziraphale-Crowley? And then there is Shadwell... [snipped by spoiler police]

buying books is the pleasure
Which I miss a lot. But I learnt my lesson. No home ownership, no book ownership!

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Ahhh the pleasure IS in the buying isn't it?

*agrees wholeheartedly!* ^__^

[incandescens]

What is the shore that fears the sea?

. . . wait, wrong series. ;)

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

And Good Omens to see what the fuss is about

You enjoy neither Terry Pratchett nor Neil Gaiman, and you bought a book they co-wrote?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

No home ownership, no book ownership!

But when you have both, the road to hell opens before you.

Though I thought your Daddy-state forcibly relieved you of chunks of your income precisely so you would have a home some time? Over here- or in this town at least- the prospect of owning your own home is getting fainter and fainter. I was lucky to have got in before prices went berserk, though they seemed berserk when I bought.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Of course there's the regret afterward: money gone on fleeting pleasure, duty to read remaining. Kind of like starting an affair for the fun of it and then having someone sitting around the house looking reproachfully at you.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Had to google that, it's been so long. A series I dislike increasingly over time: 'what a lot of very unpleasant people.' The bad guys do everything but go Bwah-hah-hah!! And sometimes they do that too. The only subtlety I can find, and I'm never sure if it's deliberate, is that the Good Guys aren't. Thye're ham-handed bumblers.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I've read little by either of them, and I do want to see what the fuss is about, though I strongly suspect it's a Weiss Kreuz fuss ie fanmade from whole cloth. Also, I don't like Paul McCartney's music and I don't like John Lennon's music but I'm very fond of the Beatles' music.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

though I strongly suspect it's a Weiss Kreuz fuss ie fanmade from whole cloth

And you would be exactly right. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

Though I thought your Daddy-state forcibly relieved you of chunks of your income

Me is an orphan.

(And I don't lose [much] sleep over creasing the library's properties.)

[incandescens]

Are we talking about the same series? I was thinking Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising, where it's one of the riddles asked in The Grey King. If it's come up elsewhere, then I don't think I've seen it.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

We're talking about the same series. The good so high-handed and *wrong*, and the bad so eeeeevil and obvious. If you're going to have people seduced to The Dark Side, it helps if the DS looks seductive. Otherwise your characters seem feeble-minded.

[incandescens]

Point. Still, better than the new film in any case (which I do not intend to go to see).

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

I echo your 'do not want to see' sentiment.
My heart broke when I saw the trailer.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

I am all about the pleasure of book buying.
And paper buying.
I just love paper products.

I keep telling myself my schedule will slow down soon so I can read all the books and comics sitting around in piles but then I remember it won't be until at least mid-December that I am free and even then I am already planning my next book. ;_;

I sort of miss riding the bus every day where I'd get a good two hours of reading time in.