Firstly

[petronia]

Happy birthday, jantalaimon! Only...*checks*... fifty minutes late! I gather you're having fun this weekend. XD <-- is beginning to wish belatedly that she was on the ball re Osheaga

I've just lost four hours reading K.J. Bishop's The Etched City. The Publishers Weekly blurb on the back of this book namechecks - uhh - Stephen King, China Miéville, Aubrey Beardsley and J.K. Huysmans, no shit.** The amazing thing is that it's not too far off. But if we're going to go that route might as well add more names. XD Michael Moorcock, say, or Boris Vian. Or: Max Klinger, Gustave Moreau... I sort of pictured Beth as a composite of Elizabeth Siddal and Fernand Khnopff's sister. AM SPECIFICALLY OVER-EDUCATED IN THIS AREA OKAY. It made reading those parts of the book a lot of fun, whereas I might have been tempted to prefer Raule otherwise. Though her story isn't the main one (and she's the one whose world overlapped Gwynn's due to geographic proximity, not Beth).

Anyway. It's a good book after 100 pages, a very good book after 200 pages, and after 300 pages I was moved to drink several jiggers of the most aromatic apéritif on hand, which happened to be Jagermeister. I recommend this course of action, except of course I've now finished the book and am still drunk on Jagermeister.



** As well as Calvino and Borges, but I'm really starting to get irritated at the namechecking of Calvino and Borges on the back of every book I'm expected to like. The fact of having read Calvino and Borges (almost certainly), learnt something from them (most likely) and gone on to write a good book isn't enough of a justification when the density of the resultant fluid or the emotional ground fuelling its distillation (respectively) differs completely, especially when less lazy comparisons are available (see above). Reviewers try harder pls. I'd respect you more if you noted a passing similarity to Swordspoint. This gripe is prolly the Jagermeister talking.

Comments

[marej.livejournal.com]

I was moved to drink several jiggers of the most aromatic apéritif on hand

and now you really need to explain whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. WHAT YOU THINK, SABINA. NO MORE NAMECHECKING YOU'RE MAKING ME OCD AND MY HAT HURTS!

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I was kind of wondering the same thing.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing, I... guess? I'm describing a personal response, and I tend to count it as positive when I can identify some specific thing that would enhance my reading experience by turning it into a global aesthetic experience, like a genre of music or time of day or place. I'm on the lookout for it. XD

In the case of this book it just started to feel like it called for marijuana or absinthe or something - not just "it'd make more sense if you were drunk", but something herbal and mind-altering, to match the carpet pattern. Jagermeister was the best I could do. XD

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I PRONOUNCE YOU A DISCIPLE OF THE CULT OF KJ. YEY.

What about the Rev, man, the Rev just doesn't get any LOVE.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The Rev is great! (And necessary.) He's sort of grating and endlessly endearing at once, which is prolly the response primed to be struck from anyone who's ever had a drunken argument with someone defending that set of principles. XD It is basically an unwinnable debate, which makes it great if you're arguing for fun.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I really adored the Rev. "Endlessly endearing" would be the term, yes. I also empathised with him immensely, which is very strange, being that I'm an atheist. I think Gwynn would have to be my favorite character in the book, then the Rev, then Beth, then Raule (not that I didn't love her, too.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I really felt sad for him, at the end. Speaking purely for myself, it's that I find the idea of faith sympathetic, even attractive in a sense, because religion is foreign to my system and the only thing to which I can correlate it is art. (Which I'm guessing is one of Bishop's traits, that she grafted onto her protagonist to some extent.) And I think that without the respect for illogic, magic thinking, the numinous etc. that rubbing shoulders with art has taught me, I'd be an intolerable individual. XD

Anyway the Rev's form of faith is probably the most respectable to an atheist, since there's no fear behind it, and to an artist, since it partakes of the mystical.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I think what I identify so strongly with is that feeling that something's gone that should be there, and you think you used to know it, but you're no longer sure it wasn't an illusion to begin with.

[quick2anger.livejournal.com]

...you just described my own feeling about religion.

I just love the way soul-shattering epiphanies come up, in completely unexpected times and places.

And now excuse me, I think I'll go and cry in the corner.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Er, sorry about that xD

For me I don't think it's religion exactly, it's just an ineffable something. The Rev identified it as God (with good reason, considering his past experience,) but I don't - I don't remember any time at which religion filled that hole, for me. I just don't know what the hell it is, or whether it ever existed in the first place, but the feeling of something having been lost is undeniable.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mike/]

Ah, it's true. At this point "y'know, like Borges or Calvino" pretty much describes a genre. Whose bounds most likely contain things that really aren't very Borgian or Calvinoid, but "dream logic for self-described smarty pantses" no doubt sells fewer copies.

That said, I should probably check out the book. ^_^

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

YOU SHOULD.

I want to be JUST LIKE HER when I grow up. KJ Bishop that is.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Hmm, sounds like up my alley as well. XD Will check out the book.

[monotrouble.livejournal.com]

Ha, I drank chartreuse the first time I read it which seemed oh so appropos but I was left with greater memory of the hangover than the book. Fortunately it's become a favorite to re-read.

I was torn on whether I could enjoy the Rev or if he was just too talking-head annoying until the bit with the cocoons which just, oh my god. I'm still not even sure why but something clicked.