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Short takes on fiction I've read over the last couple months. What? -- I do still read prose, you know. Sometimes.
Men of Iron, Howard Pyle - A reread, though I was young enough when I'd read it that I forgot just how much of a boy-book this is -- and hadn't recognized that the first Alana book and most of Protector of the Small are in dialog with it. It is also much better, or at least more compelling, than Stevenson's The Black Arrow, though that may be an unfair comparison, as this is set a couple generations earlier than the War of the Roses -- for Myles's father was attaindered when Bolingbroke decided the name Henry IV had a certain ring to it. Anyway, the story -- right. Myles grows up in hiding and in training, is accepted by one of his father's former friends as a squire on the quiet, fights hazing in a not at all quiet way and so becomes leader oflower school younger squires, manages to make his acquaintence of the earl's daughter and niece -- and then politics goes medieval on him. For a boy-book of the late 19th century, pretty good.
One wonders whether anyone's done a comparative study with Stalky and Co. and the like. Ah, well.
The Hour of the Dragon, Robert E. Howard - It turns out that Howard is a better writer than E.R. Burroughs, at least on the sentence and paragraph level. Who knew? As a yarn-spinner, I rate them about equal, but the prosecraft means that Howard's first (and only) Conan novel goes down easier than, say, Barsoom or Tarzan if you come to them older than twelve. As pulp adventure for the brain that's turned off, it's not half bad if not much better. Sexist as hell, of course, and nearly as racist -- and even more anachronistic. And now I don't have to read any more Conan.
More Than Somewhat, Damon Runyon - Let me just say that I really appreciate that Runyon renders New York accents* without any attempt at what may be called the phonetics -- it is all done with diction and syntax. The diction is familiar, at least in these here States, from any number of pop-culture artifacts of the Prohibition Era -- dolls, Roscoes, and speaks, or if he is feeling a need to be more formal speakeasies, abound. Though of course pop-culture is an imperfect medium of transmission: no one packs any heat, leastwise that I notice -- later slang? Hollywoodism? -- and the frequent use of potato for money looks to survive only in "small potatoes." The syntax part is really interesting: locutions like the titular postpositive slip easy into the patter ("he was angry more than somewhat"), and some of the circumlocutions are a marvel of colloquialism. More striking, though, is that the first-person narrator rarely uses contractions and always uses present-tense indicative verbs only -- even for conditionals, subjunctives, and what would most times be the past perfect. It is a very story-teller effect taken to extremes.
Said narrator is, of course, not entirely reliable: he frequently makes claims about himself that he almost immediately contradicts by his actions, but while it is clear he is more familiar with the underworld of speakeasies and craps games, as well as the bootleggers and heavies that run them, than he wants you to believe, does not admit to any criminal activity more serious than drinking booze or scalping tickets. A hustler, not a gangster. He is on friendly speaking terms with all the dangerous people, and tells their stories, but does his level best to keep his distance from them (while still getting pulled into events). It is a nice game on Runyon's part: the lies he immediately exposes make us overlook the deeper lies.
The stories themselves are more or less effective as stories. Tales where the resolution hinge on the sexism of the narrator and his world are the weakest, generally speaking, and on account of how just about every female we meet is either a doll or a wife, there is not much in the way of good women characters -- and all of thems are spinster heiress types. Possibly the worst is Little Miss Marker,** but that may be as much from a treacle-barrel sentimentalization of childhood as sexism. (There's also period racism, but it grates the teeth less. Or my teeth.) The stories shine best when they stick to those parts of the Jazz Age underworld where almost everyone is male -- the places where a guy does what he can to put together a couple of potatoes to defray his expenses, even if it means actions the cops consider illegal more than somewhat.
Into the Procelain Pillow, trans. Zhang Guangqian - A selection of 101 tales from Records of the Taipang Era, a massive collection compiled in 978, at the start of the Song Dynasty, of 7000-odd short prose stories mostly written during the Tang Dynasty, but also cribbing from Han/Six Dynasties materials. The genres range from what today we'd call myths through tales of the supernatural, horror, adventure, and comedy to vignettes of daily life. There's also a brief section of stories about women being awesome, which is awesome. Expect encounters with gods, ghosts, fox-vampires, and fairies even in the stories not labeled as supernatural, and there's even a woman who after several years of marriage puts on her old tiger-skin and returns to the mountains. Also, Toaist sages (half of them frauds) and Buddhist priests (ditto).
Most interesting to me was a time-slip fantasy, tho' the translator was more taken with the proto-SF journey to the moon (as part of an abortive courtship by a/the moon goddess). The collection predates the creation of the wuxia shared-world, but I did catch one reference to a kung-fu trope, of weightless movement.
This edition, btw, is from the same Chinese publisher as the 4-volume paperback box sets of Journey to the West and Three Kingdoms, and it uses the same thin paper (so there's more than it looks like to this slim paperback). The proofreading, however, is a LOT better than either of those.
--
* These stories are from the late '20s and early '30s (the years) and are mostly set around mid-town Broadway, in the 40s and 50s (the streets).
** Yes, the movie is based on a Runyon story. So are The Lemon-Drop Kid, Guys and Dolls, and several more movies.
---L.
Men of Iron, Howard Pyle - A reread, though I was young enough when I'd read it that I forgot just how much of a boy-book this is -- and hadn't recognized that the first Alana book and most of Protector of the Small are in dialog with it. It is also much better, or at least more compelling, than Stevenson's The Black Arrow, though that may be an unfair comparison, as this is set a couple generations earlier than the War of the Roses -- for Myles's father was attaindered when Bolingbroke decided the name Henry IV had a certain ring to it. Anyway, the story -- right. Myles grows up in hiding and in training, is accepted by one of his father's former friends as a squire on the quiet, fights hazing in a not at all quiet way and so becomes leader of
One wonders whether anyone's done a comparative study with Stalky and Co. and the like. Ah, well.
The Hour of the Dragon, Robert E. Howard - It turns out that Howard is a better writer than E.R. Burroughs, at least on the sentence and paragraph level. Who knew? As a yarn-spinner, I rate them about equal, but the prosecraft means that Howard's first (and only) Conan novel goes down easier than, say, Barsoom or Tarzan if you come to them older than twelve. As pulp adventure for the brain that's turned off, it's not half bad if not much better. Sexist as hell, of course, and nearly as racist -- and even more anachronistic. And now I don't have to read any more Conan.
More Than Somewhat, Damon Runyon - Let me just say that I really appreciate that Runyon renders New York accents* without any attempt at what may be called the phonetics -- it is all done with diction and syntax. The diction is familiar, at least in these here States, from any number of pop-culture artifacts of the Prohibition Era -- dolls, Roscoes, and speaks, or if he is feeling a need to be more formal speakeasies, abound. Though of course pop-culture is an imperfect medium of transmission: no one packs any heat, leastwise that I notice -- later slang? Hollywoodism? -- and the frequent use of potato for money looks to survive only in "small potatoes." The syntax part is really interesting: locutions like the titular postpositive slip easy into the patter ("he was angry more than somewhat"), and some of the circumlocutions are a marvel of colloquialism. More striking, though, is that the first-person narrator rarely uses contractions and always uses present-tense indicative verbs only -- even for conditionals, subjunctives, and what would most times be the past perfect. It is a very story-teller effect taken to extremes.
Said narrator is, of course, not entirely reliable: he frequently makes claims about himself that he almost immediately contradicts by his actions, but while it is clear he is more familiar with the underworld of speakeasies and craps games, as well as the bootleggers and heavies that run them, than he wants you to believe, does not admit to any criminal activity more serious than drinking booze or scalping tickets. A hustler, not a gangster. He is on friendly speaking terms with all the dangerous people, and tells their stories, but does his level best to keep his distance from them (while still getting pulled into events). It is a nice game on Runyon's part: the lies he immediately exposes make us overlook the deeper lies.
The stories themselves are more or less effective as stories. Tales where the resolution hinge on the sexism of the narrator and his world are the weakest, generally speaking, and on account of how just about every female we meet is either a doll or a wife, there is not much in the way of good women characters -- and all of thems are spinster heiress types. Possibly the worst is Little Miss Marker,** but that may be as much from a treacle-barrel sentimentalization of childhood as sexism. (There's also period racism, but it grates the teeth less. Or my teeth.) The stories shine best when they stick to those parts of the Jazz Age underworld where almost everyone is male -- the places where a guy does what he can to put together a couple of potatoes to defray his expenses, even if it means actions the cops consider illegal more than somewhat.
Into the Procelain Pillow, trans. Zhang Guangqian - A selection of 101 tales from Records of the Taipang Era, a massive collection compiled in 978, at the start of the Song Dynasty, of 7000-odd short prose stories mostly written during the Tang Dynasty, but also cribbing from Han/Six Dynasties materials. The genres range from what today we'd call myths through tales of the supernatural, horror, adventure, and comedy to vignettes of daily life. There's also a brief section of stories about women being awesome, which is awesome. Expect encounters with gods, ghosts, fox-vampires, and fairies even in the stories not labeled as supernatural, and there's even a woman who after several years of marriage puts on her old tiger-skin and returns to the mountains. Also, Toaist sages (half of them frauds) and Buddhist priests (ditto).
Most interesting to me was a time-slip fantasy, tho' the translator was more taken with the proto-SF journey to the moon (as part of an abortive courtship by a/the moon goddess). The collection predates the creation of the wuxia shared-world, but I did catch one reference to a kung-fu trope, of weightless movement.
This edition, btw, is from the same Chinese publisher as the 4-volume paperback box sets of Journey to the West and Three Kingdoms, and it uses the same thin paper (so there's more than it looks like to this slim paperback). The proofreading, however, is a LOT better than either of those.
--
* These stories are from the late '20s and early '30s (the years) and are mostly set around mid-town Broadway, in the 40s and 50s (the streets).
** Yes, the movie is based on a Runyon story. So are The Lemon-Drop Kid, Guys and Dolls, and several more movies.
---L.