Obscurorant 2.0

Very few writers manage the trick of creating characters who become true immortals, characters that live apart from the author’s work and continue long after the author’s death, characters that entire into the culture apart form the author, almost as if they were living, breathing people. Interest and fascination with these immortals never end: other writers create new tales with such vivid characters, often in other media such as film.
Dumas accomplished the feat when he sent D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers swaggering through the streets of Paris and Conan Doyle surely birthed a pair of immortals the first time Holmes and Watson sallied forth into the underworld of Victorian London. One could also make a solid case that Ian Fleming’s James Bond has joined the pantheon of fictional immortals. On this side of the Atlantic Tarzan of the Apes, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is worthy of taking a place alongside the others.

All of this is by way of saying that yesterday was the birthday of another author,who happens to be one of my favorites: Robert E. Howard, who also created an immortal…

Know, O Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyberborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.”

2008 marks the centenary of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame the best book about talking animals ever written.* The entire text of the book is available online in several places, but I like this one due to the old-school illustrations.

*Watership Down being a very close second.

Submitted for your consideration: an experiment, designed to gage interest in reprints of public domain books.  The site allows you to search internet repositories of books no longer under copyright (such as Google Books) and then order a copy. The cool thing is that requesting a reprint does not put you on the hook to buy it, and you can see a pdf preview of the work you requested before making the decision. I haven’t ordered any reprints yet, though I was inspired to search out and add some titles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and John Buchan to my del.icio.us links, for possible use in the future.

If it’s December, it must be time for bloggers everywhere to unveil end-of-year best-of and worst-of posts about movies, books, and whatever catches their fancy. Since I’m not likely to finish any more books this year, here’s a quick $0.02 on what I read in 2007.

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Which it’s another book meme, borrowed from this here site, and you may participate, or not, as you like.

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In one of those weird coincidences life occasionally puts in your path, shortly after starting my second semester of library school and moving into an apartment with a real kitchen in which to cook, I come across Cooked Books, Rebecca Federman’s explorations of the New York Public Library’s culinary holdings. Yes, recipes are posted, both for food and drink. Plus, you can learn about les Dames du Boeuf and LUPEC, groups featuring my kind of folks.

Also, The Girl and I have been thinking it would be fun, as well as beneficial, to take a class in basic knife skills.  Maybe here perhaps?

Coming next weekend - the Annual Fall Book Sale at the Thomas Crane library.  Because now that I’ve culled the collection, fitted ‘em all in the new digs, and have precious little time for (pleasure) reading, it stands to reason that I need a dozen or so new titles.  Fortunately for me at $0.50 a pop it’s a cheap way to scratch an itch.

Anyhoo, maybe I’ll see you there.

Madeline L’Engle died yesterday. Poop.

UPDATE: You can find a nice round up of L’Engle links here.

Which it’s another bookish meme, that I found here.

List some of your favourite words:

Cull. Aeroplane (I love the anachronism). Pockets.

What’s your favourite maxim or proverb?

Is this required to be a literary maxim or proverb? I’ve never been much for quoting proverbs.
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The kindermord culling of the books is complete. Two rather large, and very full boxes were removed.  I am plagued only by a lingering, and no doubt groundless, fear that the remaining titles will not fit into the new place.

Today is the birthday of Dorothy Parker, much famed for her acerbic wit.

Observation

If I don’t drive around the park,
I’m pretty sure to make my mark.
If I’m in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again,
If I abstain from fun and such,
I’ll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

-Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope, 1925

This meme comes to you by way of The Sheila Variations. Consider yourself tagged if such things interest you.

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As of the end of the month The Girl and I will be living together, and in an attempt to make the move easier, I’ve been trying to pare down my possessions - with varying degrees of ease and success.

Get rid of stuff from the kitchen? No problem. My bachelor style mis-matched set of bowls and plates will be shown the door, along with the many coffee mugs I have not ever used. I will retain the important items, namely the pint glasses, martini shakers and knives.

Clothes are pretty easy to sift through as well. Anything that hasn’t been worn in the last year gets stuffed in a trash bag that will go to Goodwill. I did hit a snag when considering the pair of white bucks I’ve owned since high school (last worn at a Halloween party circa 1996, but dodged a bullet by deciding to eliminate two other pair of shoes. The bucks stay, as do the piles of t-shirts I own. I have too many cool tees that I can’t bring myself to throw out until they start to fall apart. Also - socks with holes in them. Those are right out.

Now, the hard part: my books. It is against my very deepest nature to willingly part with a book. Thus the ongoing agony, as I winnow my collection and mark titles to weeded. It would be nice if I could make this move having enough shelf space for all my books, but I do not count on this happening. My criteria for eliminating titles is just not stringent enough.

First, some books get a free pass simply because I love them and find the idea of living without them abhorrent in the extreme. I will always have at hand a copy of The Lord of the Rings or the twenty-odd volumes of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Mathurin series. Then there are books which I will keep for sentimental reasons. I may never read Danny, the Champion of the World again, but I’ll always own it.

This leaves a lot of books as candidates for disposal. Some decisions are easy. That copy of A Civil Action? I cannot recall during what fit of madness I brought this home, but let’s face it - I am never going to read this book. Out she goes. Some are difficult. My volumes of Rafael Sabitini - I loves me some Sabatini. But these are also easily available through a library. My conscience and I split the difference - Scaramouche and The Sea Hawk go, while Captain Blood stays. During this process the book in question is removed from the shelf and inspected, perhaps while I dip into its pages and consider ‘important’ questions: will I read this again?* What if I wanted to read it again but didn’t own a copy? Is it still in print?

Still, I’ve done pretty well. Folks will be shocked at the amount of books I am exiling.

* The fact that I’m considering what books to re-read when my to-read pile hovers around 200 or so titles is probably proof that I am a little crazy.

Since summer brings with it a plethora of birthdays in these parts, it seems only right to note a few of the literary variety, such as…
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Books - fiction - where the main characters either is a vampire, or deals with vampires in some fashion.

Honorable exceptions: Dracula, by Bram Stoker, and Anno Dracula by Kim Newman.