Books de Kai
This week i finished two books which Kai gave me: The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge by Brad Strickland, and The Destiny of Isabelle Eberhart by i know not whom and even google doesn't know. - Which is ironic in the light of Isabelle's own book, The Oblivion Seekers.
The beast is a sort of harry potter/lemony snickett/encyclopedia brown melange which frankly, Brad, you don't write so good. There's many young adult books which are much better written. However, i did of course enjoy the HP Lovecraft mythology at the books core, even tho you misquoted several of the dark incantations. (Who the hell is Yog Shuggoth ?? It's Yog Sothoth you unread cretin! Shuggoths are servant creatures of the Old Ones, der.) The best part of the book, which is the reason Kai got it for me, is the jacket, which features two very nice Gorey drawings.
The Destiny of Isabelle Eberhart of course comes during Kai and mine obsession with you-know-whom, which was itself spawned by Jolie Holland's song Old Fashioned Morphine. It's a biography of IE. I think both the biography could have been slightly better written and the life significantly better lived, but i loved it. Isabelle Eberhart is sort of the quintessential dreamer who has absolutely no sense of practicality or the future. So her story is both inspiring in presenting the personal freedom one can attain in life and spirit, but also a good deal tawdry and depressing because a large part of her is the everyday pedestrian unthinkingness which i certainly have loads of and which will surely someday bring me to destitution as a dock-worker in Marseilles too! Um, i don't really want to go too much into a summary of IE's life, because if you're at all interested, you're going to read this book. It's short and decent. The really exciting part is that i happened to visit Marseille while just finishing it up, and well, it was saturating. To think that i walked down alleys where a mere hundred years ago IE may have also trudged! Soon to be read is IE's own The Oblivion Seekers, which Kai also has. Yay Kai! Photos of Marseille will appear here pretty soon.
In other news, i'm still reading Eco's Baudelino, but i don't think i'll finish it. I think I'll move to Foucault's Pendulum instead.
The beast is a sort of harry potter/lemony snickett/encyclopedia brown melange which frankly, Brad, you don't write so good. There's many young adult books which are much better written. However, i did of course enjoy the HP Lovecraft mythology at the books core, even tho you misquoted several of the dark incantations. (Who the hell is Yog Shuggoth ?? It's Yog Sothoth you unread cretin! Shuggoths are servant creatures of the Old Ones, der.) The best part of the book, which is the reason Kai got it for me, is the jacket, which features two very nice Gorey drawings.
The Destiny of Isabelle Eberhart of course comes during Kai and mine obsession with you-know-whom, which was itself spawned by Jolie Holland's song Old Fashioned Morphine. It's a biography of IE. I think both the biography could have been slightly better written and the life significantly better lived, but i loved it. Isabelle Eberhart is sort of the quintessential dreamer who has absolutely no sense of practicality or the future. So her story is both inspiring in presenting the personal freedom one can attain in life and spirit, but also a good deal tawdry and depressing because a large part of her is the everyday pedestrian unthinkingness which i certainly have loads of and which will surely someday bring me to destitution as a dock-worker in Marseilles too! Um, i don't really want to go too much into a summary of IE's life, because if you're at all interested, you're going to read this book. It's short and decent. The really exciting part is that i happened to visit Marseille while just finishing it up, and well, it was saturating. To think that i walked down alleys where a mere hundred years ago IE may have also trudged! Soon to be read is IE's own The Oblivion Seekers, which Kai also has. Yay Kai! Photos of Marseille will appear here pretty soon.
In other news, i'm still reading Eco's Baudelino, but i don't think i'll finish it. I think I'll move to Foucault's Pendulum instead.
posted by good old o at
3:28 PM
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