Classics Considered

“I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a story.” A great Chesterton quote from a book of his I've yet to read ( What I Saw in America ).  It is easy enough to view people through the narrow lens of our interactions with them, but to view them in the context of their own life story is another thing.

If the title brings to mind a song by the classic tenor Charles Aznavour , you wouldn't be far off from the theme of H. Rider Haggard 's book.  The song's tender, yet at times worshipful lyrics could be one way to describe the "spell" which She , Ayesha, inspires in those who are privileged (or cursed) to look upon her unveiled face.  As might be expected, those who do so find their lives bound to hers, and, like a drug, she compels them to love her, in spite of her unpleasant ways. But let's start at the beginning.  It's the late 19th century, and young Leo Vincey learns from his adoptive father Horace Holly that he is heir to a special family heirloom, comprised chiefly of an ancient piece of pottery.  The pottery is covered in writing, which tells a grim tale of Leo's ancient ancestor, Kallikrates, being lusted after and then murdered by a mysterious, white sorceress, who lives in Africa.  Kallikrates' wife urges her descendants to seek out Aye...

An ancient family heirloom - and a mother's call for vengeance - sends young Leo Vincey and his adoptive father on a quest to find a mysterious sorceress, Ayesha, or She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed .  In this episode, I review H. Rider Haggard's She , a novel which influenced the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Sources / Further Reading: How to Pronounce Ayesha? (Sci-Fi StackExchange discussion) Biography of H. Rider Haggard "The Annexation of the Transvaal" ( The Spectator archives) - Haggard directly participated in this political event. "Fawcett's Deadly Idol" Article on Percy Fawcett's disappearance (The History Channel) The Lost City of Z , by David Grann - My parents read and were fascinated by this nonfictional story of Percy Fawcett and his obsession with lost cities.  We also watched the movie by the same name , but it wasn't very well done... skip it and go straight to the book!

Sneak-peek at an upcoming review... Recently I found these wonderful page/line markers at the local Daiso.  For those unfamiliar with Daiso, it's a Japanese $1.50 store (only in a few U.S. states, unfortunately).  They're just the right amount of sticky to be reusable but not damaging to paper.  I've found these work great for marking lines in a book that I want to return to later. This method of line-marking has been my habit for quite a few years now, but sometimes I wonder if I'm missing out on something by being so careful.  Is it important to keep books looking pristine, or is part of the reading experience lost by not writing notes in books? When I was a kid, I grew up on library books and family books, so being careful was ingrained in me.  I remember one particular horror story (to my perceptions, anyway) of my mom lending a book to someone and the book being returned in, shall we say, lesser condition.  I really intended all my own books to last ...

"The sea doesn't belong to tyrants. On its surface they can still exercise their iniquitous claims, battle each other, devour each other, haul every earthly horror. But thirty feet below sea level, their dominion ceases, their influence fades, their power vanishes! Ah, sir, live! Live in the heart of the seas! Here alone lies independence! Here I recognize no superiors! Here I'm free!" A memorable scene from a science-fiction classic, Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea .  This is the excellent F. P. Walter translation, which you can find on Project Gutenberg . That said, I actually prefer the more succinct version of this quote from the 1954 Disney movie.  James Mason's suave, measured enunciation brings out the introspective side of Nemo here and less of the passionate (though that he demonstrates elsewhere in the film).  "Think of it. On the surface there is hunger and fear. Men still exercise unjust laws. They fight and tear one ano...

Faulkner's portable typewriter - Gary Bridgman [ GFDL , CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons Every so often (e.g. while watching Jeopardy! ), I get a reality check and remember there are so many classics I haven't yet read.  As with geography, there are whole regions of classics that are entirely unfamiliar to me, or only half-explored.  This year I've taken a step in the right direction by reading an author brand-new to me, and that author is William Faulkner. Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is one of his most beloved novels, and it seemed like a good choice for a newbie.  The story describes the decaying fortunes of the Compson family, once prestigious Southern landowners who now live in dwindling esteem in the 1920s.  What they have left to their name is essentially a whole lot of problems: a sickly, haughty mother, an aloof father, and four children with varying degrees of affection for each other and their parents.  Intermingle...

In this episode, we meet William Faulkner through one of his most famous novels, The Sound and the Fury . Resources: Faulkner Pronouncing "Yoknapatawpha"