Read this last year as it was published by Galley Beggar and I really liked his book based on Lucia Joyce - very much outside of my genre zone. Not read something so plot heavy for a very long time. Kind of gripping and propulsive but also rather silly - at times felt more like YA fiction. I’ll be interested in volume 2 so I guess he’s done his job.I'm reading a new fantasy thing called Mordew by Alex Pheby. Just read a review and thought it sounded good so I grabbed it.
The obvious comparison is Gormenghast, a weird and horrible gothic world with disgusting slums drowning in 'living mud' which randomly gives birth to deformed 'dead life' half creatures which die after a few minutes. Something really properly grimey about it which I really like, reminds me a little of Hard To Be A God in that respect, but at the same time it also somehow reminds me of the Narnia books, or at least how I remember them being after a lifetime of not reading them.
You are absolutely right there, at times it does put me in mind of a children's book - despite being a bit too nasty for that (or how I imagine a YA book should be, perhaps I am out of date with my feelings here). I simply didn't want to say that in my post describing it as I thought it would be perceived as a negative characteristic which might dissuade people from being interested... perhaps rightly so. Maybe if your protagonist is a child it's likely that the narrative will have some childish elements to it.. but no, there is more to it than that, it can't be denied.Read this last year as it was published by Galley Beggar and I really liked his book based on Lucia Joyce - very much outside of my genre zone. Not read something so plot heavy for a very long time. Kind of gripping and propulsive but also rather silly - at times felt more like YA fiction. I’ll be interested in volume 2 so I guess he’s done his job.
"He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith."
In 2003, award-winning science fiction author Michael Swanwick said: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning."
O'Leary has said: "Forget 'Speculative Fiction.' Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period. And as Wolfe once said, 'All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.' No comparison. Nobody – I mean nobody – comes close to what this artist does.
Ursula K. Le Guin is frequently quoted on the jackets of Wolfe's books as having said "Wolfe is our Melville."
personally i didn't like the dashiell hammett one i read. all i can remember is he was always drinking brandy to cut the phlegm. yes i know he really was a private dick but he's not a stylist like ross mcdonald or (obviously) raymond C. maybe i'll give him another go.red harvest by dashiell hammett. brilliant. proper hard-boiled degeneracy
red harvest is his best imo. chandler tends to get swallowed by his own convoluted threads, marlowe was always a better character when adapted onscreen - prefer dorothy b. hughes.personally i didn't like the dashiell hammett one i read. all i can remember is he was always drinking brandy to cut the phlegm. yes i know he really was a private dick but he's not a stylist like ross mcdonald or (obviously) raymond C. maybe i'll give him another go.
i just got a load of 4-novels-in-one-volumes by Jerome Charyn, Horace McCoy, Cornell Woolrich, looking forward to digging into those.
I just started reading the Juliette Society by Sasha Grey, I guess none of you know who she is....
That passage reminded me of the suicides encased within trees in Dante - then I googled it to find Blake had done a series of illustrations- drawing two of your themes together. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wood_of_the_Self-Murderers:_The_Harpies_and_the_SuicidesI just finished Ashley blue's autobio a couple weeks ago. Pretty good. She did a lot of gak.
Stated up til 4 reading a really good comic last night, the hunting accident. Made me wanna get hold Dante's Divine Comedy, cos it's a big part of the story, gets staged in a prison.
Anyone read it? I like this extract
Tree branches described as spray, that's class.
Also got Suzane Simard's book about mother trees on the go, its a bit ploddy tho, just keeps repeating her insights over and over and going on about her frontier family. Bit repetitive.
Much better is Jenn Ashworth's "Notes made while falling", which I've had about the house fof ages but only now picked it up.
Sort of a record of descent into mental illness, but coupled with tight literary theory and memoir about growing up Mormon. Few levels. Like Maggie Nelson (who she mentions) but from Preston.
And then finally, I started John higgs Blake bio. It's actually pretty readable, he's breaking everything down in quite a straightforward way, particularly about Blake holding two contesting ideas in his head at once.
And I never knew about the apparent symbolism of the brain as God's cloud background in Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel, as a sneak way of saying its all in yr head.
I don't. It's alright, but not one of my favourites. @linebaugh really likes that one though.@version rates TCoL49 highly, so maybe I'll tackle that next.