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petroniaHappy birthday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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 OsheagaI'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.
