We like books! And we're reading....

[Darth Moronius]

Unrestricted Warfare
Han Fei Zi

[Ulala]

Laura Dean Keeps Beeaking Up With Me - Marino Tamaki

A lot of people in some groups I’m in have been raving about this. I was a bit hesitant on getting it since when I read the back I wasn’t too sure if I’d like it. So far it’s been pretty good.

[DrFaustus]

I discovered that one of my favorite series got its final entry back in 2018, so I picked it up - The Cloven by B. Catling.

I can't recall if I've mentioned it elsewhere, but the series begins with a book called The Vorrh, and it's a hauntingly surreal fantasy/historical fiction story set in Africa during the early 1900s. The titular Vorrh is a forest that confounds all who enter it, robbing men of their memories, and in many cases eating them alive. It's said the Garden of Eden resides at its center, as does the tree of knowledge and the angels who failed in guarding it from humanity.

The prose is what I love so much. It's the kind of series where I don't always have a vivid image of what's happening in my head, but I know exactly how it feels.

A paragraph from the first book -

"In this second, the officer was given a moment to look at Tsungali's face, which was now still - not in calmness, but more like a single frame taken from a fast-moving film, held in a blur at an unnatural rest. It had been some years since the officer was this close to him. He had been in chains then, manacled to the courtroom floor. The ferocity of that man's face had been in the wild passion of its movement and malice. Now it was formalized."

That's the sort of language used throughout, and it leads to some stunningly beautiful passages that have left an impression on me I can feel in my core even when I can't recall the words. It's a work of darkness and cynicism mixed with incredible beauty.

This applies to all three books.

I'm about a quarter of the way through The Cloven. I've heard the ending left something to be desired, but I feel confident in saying it's about the journey and not the destination when it comes to this series.

[Ulala]

The Book of Mephisto by Asenath Mason

[Passchendaele]

Brideshead Revisited. It is SO funny, in that very English way that some English writers are funny. And no, I never saw the TV series.

You know that disclaimer at the beginning of every book stating "Any resemblance between characters in this book and anyone......"

This is Evelyn Waugh's version: "I am not I. Thou are not he nor she. They are not they."

The guy's a hoot!

[Heretique]

The origins of totalitarianism- Hannah Arendt

The jotunbok- raven kaldera

Unholy alliance- Peter levenda

[Ulala]

Blue is the warmest color - Julie Maroh

[Kore Serpens]

Jeff Vandermeer - Borne
The first time I ever picked up a Jeff Vandermeer book, which happened to be Borne, I flipped out because I swore he could only have written parts of the story by being in my head . It was like he’d peeked into me and then reworked it to disguise for copyright issues. It was both glorious and a bit disconcerting.

Annihilation is a book to movie adaptation of his and is another one I loved. Both Book and movie.

I made an agreement several years back to not read anything (unless agreed upon) while receiving training from a specific entity. It was more involved than that but slowly the restrictions have been lifted and one of the first books I opened was by H.P. Lovecraft because that was an author I was urged not to read earlier. It was another crazy moment where a book mirrors back authentic aspects of self.

My absolute favourite author: Stephen Harrod Buhner and I’m currently reading his Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal realm. The whole series is awesome.

[Passchendaele]

"King Lear" by Shakspear (19th century spelling)

It is a 1846 ( that is, published in 1846. The work was probably begun in the first decade of the 19th century.) translation of the play by a (as was then the practice) un-credited scholar. Back in the day it was enough that the person doing the work (unless he was a famous scholar, or attached to a prestige institution like Harvard or Eton) got paid for doing it. Getting credit for it was not expected. What makes this particular translation so freaking amazing is the amount of scholarship that went into it.

Allow me to quote, verbatim, from just a single footnote :

"The quartos read to intrench; the folio, t'intrince. perhaps intrinse for so it should be written, was put by Shakspeare for intrinsicate which he has used in "Antony And Cleopatra" The word too in the text is substituted for by to by Mr Singer"

I actually had the opportunity to compare two pages of this version to the first folio when a local museum had a first folio on a traveling exhibit. Word for word, it was as Shakspear wrote it. (In honor of the long-dead scholar, I am maintaining her/his spelling)

There is much that does not "mesh" with a 21st century reader. A translation of the translation would be required if this work were to be reproduced for publication. For one thing, many of the footnotes contain references to scholars well known in the early 19th century, that no one has heard of today.

Another thing I learned. Court Jesters literally had a "license" (Royal dispensation from punishment) to tell the truth!!!!! About the king, the queen, ANY member of the court, any prince, duke, count, his person was vouchsafed by The Crown from all harm.....as long as he told the truth in a witty manner. He could make the king look the fool....as long as what he said was agreed by all to be the truth...and it made everyone laugh.

Jesters were WIDELY hated by pretty much everyone connected to the court. And no doubt made a lucrative side line of selling court gossip, and fact! To the "gutter press"

I love every moment of working through this! Shakspeare's own words!

[Mist]

I'm currently reading "I Don't Want to Be an Empath Anymore" by Ora North - at first glance, it seems to be looking at being an empath from a shadow work perspective. I'm excited to delve in.