BookWords Blogg

Continuing along the lines of books and the words found in them, here we encounter a Facebook discussion of Scrabble and made-up words, and two books about art. The latter includes one artist who has influenced my own writing of books (including my use of made-up words). Bosch and Breughel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life by Jospeh Leo Koerner When I first encountered the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch as a kid, my reaction seemed appropriate enough: shock and fear. Later I learned that many of the seemingly bizarre details were drawn from popular idioms and expressions of the day, and so the paintings were rather like Gary Larson cartoons — and the appropriate reaction (at least of viewers during Bosch’s time) was laughter. (A couple of them are still funny today if you know the joke: “The Conjuror” and “The Hay-Wain”.) This book, however, brings into focus at least two other, deeper (and much darker) layers of meaning: one, that Bosch was aware that his paintings them...

In this post, I write three mini-reviews of books that take place in alternate realities, and then I explore a world that’s all too real now (though not in a too terribly tragic way): the world of malapostrophicated writing. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez Fascinating history of a fictional family in a fictional place; full of pathos, existential horror, comedy, and a large dose of "magical realism". Yes, there are a lot of sordid and shocking details; but if something is to be a "true" chronicle then the bad must be included with the good. The prose style is a little heavy-handed and awkward at times, though this may be simply the result of translation; the full flavor of something written in one language can seldom (if ever) be carried over into another. Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler In this quasi-science fiction novel, the author of “Kindred” spins a dark tale about survival in a near-future American Dark Age. Th...

Reviewing three collections of "Tales" this time. The theme of racism has to come up, though it was not intended originally. Also, let's start a conversation about possible alien languages. Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy There are quite a variety of tales in this book, ranging from Tolkienesque stories of elves and dragons to horror “The Baumoff Explosive”, comedy “The Dragon Tamers”, satire “Chu-Bu and Sheemish”, paradoxically violent children’s folktales in the Brothers Grimm mode “Puss-Cat Mew “, mythology “The Golden Key”, imaginary histories “The Story or Alwina”, strange little existential gems “The Thin Queen of Elfhame”, as well as a rather unsuccessful attempt to shed fantasy of its European roots “A Zulu Idyll” (which is nonetheless told from the view of a European). Many of them combine two or more of these ideas. Some of them ring with the type of epic grandeur and deliberately archaic language that characterize Tolkien’s “High Styl...

Two adventure books feature in the blog this time around. One is somewhere in Faerie, and the other is in this world as it was a couple of centuries ago. The Bane of Ashkirith, by Ariel Paiement From the beginning of this YA novel, we’re immersed in a strange world where archeology, adventure, and myth intertwine. That in itself is perhaps not new (we’ve seen it in the Indiana Jones movies, of course), but what is new is the setting for this kind of tale: this is a detailed imaginary world where archeological discoveries, technology, myths (and later, magic) are all bound up in the made-up cultures. There are surprises. There is danger. There is truth to be uncovered and millennia-old lies to be debunked (and you can be sure that the status quo will not look kindly upon the debunkers). There are strange animals: some cute and some mysterious. There are new civilizations to be found, and the reader is taken along on the journey. I also liked how the echo of Lovecraft is wor...

This Week: Three Short Reviews of Rothko, Rock, and Finnegan Mark Rothko: A Biography by James. E. B. Breslin A giant tome, but fascinating. A look at the life and art of one of the greatest American abstract painters. It also analyzes the artist's work, including some of the late "blank" canvases where analysis would not seem possible. Worth a read for anyone interested (or not!) in art. Future Days: Krautrock and the Birth of A Revolutionary New Music by David Stubbs A fascinating chronicle of a time when there was no distinction between "popular" and "experimental" music. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce Unreadable nonsense or an epic/mythic/philosophical/comic masterpiece? Answer to both: yes. If you try to read it as a "regular" novel, it may seem too dense to bother. Or not. If you read it out loud, it transforms into an epic, poetic masterpiece. If you try to analyze it and pick apart its multiple puns, neologisms, and othe...