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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A mercifully short (perhaps an hour all in) book, about a group of murderous brothers bent on recovering their stolen bowling trophies.
Humorous, lyrical, after "The Fiery Angel" all I could perhaps stand.
On that note, my review for that is pending, but 5 stars surely...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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This was a long read, although easy.
A formidable tome of contemporary Urban Legends, thorough, told very much in the breathless style of the invariable narrator of such bollocks.
While very definitely not a fan of the style, a few things I did note:
That the legend often preceded the atrocity, not as a result; incidents for example of Wartime Atrocities in WWI often ascribed to the enemy (but didn't take place) were later enacted in the second War, and did in fact happen.
That reality invariably trumps fiction, overreaches it even, and I recognize many of the legends from headlines, (the reality of the incident is not the point, the point being that they are over-repeated, an attempt to personalize extraordinary events, and whereas an odd thing might happen once there's no way it's happened as often as it's been told).
And that the news - specifically Fox and Reuters, and Paul Harvey ("The Rest of the Story) - have frequently fallen for them, a good headline beating the most remedial of fact checking. Although to be fair most news agencies and media outlets have fallen into the "no fact checking" bracket at some time or another.
Anyways, I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as I thought, and time would have been better spent on Snopes.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Icelandic Sagas, of which I am not too familiar (Beowulf I've read, the rest, not so much so.)
Curious, in that they record the family/tribal history of the first Norse settlers, and in the tone that they're related, where the narrator gives details he/she could not have known, and recites the history in a manner that while concise leaves you to decipher (??) - assign the motives to the characters from the events and their words.
So, bereft of "tone" in the sense that the descriptions of events are lacking in emotional adjectives such as "rage" or "pleasure" or "love", rather the narrator uses others to describe the exterior events and the reader to discern the interior lives of the characters. And good, in that equal attention is given to the strong female leads.
Interesting, and a little different from my usual fare, and good to read (some of) Tolkien's source or inspirational material.
Also interesting, in the sense of community justice, outlaws, the running feuds (and how they're rarely forgiven), and - something I didn't know (but should have) - Iceland when first settled was somewhat (25-40%) forested. It was those damned Vikings that made it the grassy knoll we all think of today.
Anyways, from then on to my next read - Jan Harold Brunvand's "Too Good To Be True" - a compilation of Urban Legends. The same author as wrote "The Vanishing Hitchhiker", and what a change in tone!. Fortunately it's a simple read, I'm looking forward to some more substantial fare.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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Lectures, in published form, on the meta of fiction, involvement of the reader, etc, etc, by Umberto Eco.
I would probably have preferred to sit in on the lectures, interesting, engaging, fortunately slim (which is why I picked it to read first).
I enjoyed, many wouldn't.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The is, in essence, every New-Age help-yourself philosophy ever, contemporized for 1954.
"Change yourself and you change the world, discipline your thought, go-get-it man, where's your get up and go? You can do it, there's always a way, visualize, telepathy? Why Not?" The Jargon, phrasing, right out of some bad 50's movie about beatniks, but it hits all the bases - healing, self healing, body a reflection of mind, visualize it and it will come, it has to, ridiculous examples of dialogue and "case histories", all circa 1954, examples of recreated self-defeating dialogue, all this, the oldest of truths paraphrased and new to every generation, but the medium in a fashion is the message, we relate to people best in the language of our day.
That said, the message, the oldest one in the world, really, merely contemporized for the American Beat Crowd. I was amused.