The October reading project

I may not have read all of the possible Halloween books that were on the pile for October, but I started the month with Dracula and finished with Something Wicked This Way Comes as planned.

Four books, which sounds really lame and is not up to what my standards were many years ago. But it isn’t bad for me these days. I’m really happy that I got in the two re-reads that I wanted to do and that I bracketed the month with them. It’s also nice that the re-reads were both satisfying and not disappointing at all.

Now on to November. I have nothing planned in the reading department – except for all of the books that I didn’t read while focusing on October.

And then, of course, there is NaNoWriMo.

Let the insanity begin. It’s a good kind of crazy though.

Magic

I finished Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Another first re-reading for me.

I was worried about the book holding up to my memory of it but I shouldn’t have. It doesn’t really matter that it’s been more than 40 years since I read it or that the book is even older than that. The setting is really a character in itself and the book can be read as an historical novel so it doesn’t feel outdated.

My memory of the details was incomplete, which also didn’t matter. More important was that my memory of the sense of wonder was accurate and rewarded by the re-read. I can get as much out of it as I did as a 10 year old because there is still a message in the story for me. And it is such amazing, unabashed and barely restrained fantastic literature that the magic just can’t be contained.

And really, I shouldn’t have worried anyway because the book is all about memory.

The characters and the setting are archetypes of reality revealed in a memory of one essential time and place. It’s set in one year, represents all of time and is anchored in the present – that memory of the all important now is what is essential. The present is composed of the past and our memories of it, we can’t escape it nor should we try.

Of course the story is also about desire and fear and the corruption and predation of life. But in that it is a history of humanity that holds an admonition not only to recall the lessons of the past so that we will not succumb to its deceits but also to remember our own nature.

Read the last line of the book. We may live in cities now but we came from the wild and that is still in our blood. It must be recognized and controlled. We forget who we are and our past at our own peril because the memory of our own dark past flows in our veins.

And no one can write this sort of thing like Ray Bradbury.

Pins dropping, too

There is an old Peanuts strip – so old that I think Snoopy still looks like a dog and hasn’t had flying lessons yet – where Snoopy shows up instantly when there is food and Charlie Brown says that Snoopy can here you eating marshmallows.

I have a cat that can hear you open the bagon a loaf of bread.

He also knows all of the sounds associated with making a sandwich and will appear if I begin to make any of those sounds, even if I am not, actually, making a sandwich.

I think that this is rather clever. It can also be very annoying at times since he is under the impression that I am making him a sandwich. Why would he think that? He doesn’t even like bread.

Third October book read

I finished Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard. It is eccentric, shameless, filled with references to books that inspired it and dark. Some parts were written with tongue planted firmly in cheek, I would say more like early Piers Anthony than Douglas Adams, but it is not a light-hearted story.

The protagonist is a self-centered, murderous, anti-social ass. That is not a spoiler. He’s an anti-hero and a jerk and it shows from the start. There is nothing to recommend this man as a decent human being. He leaves a wake of physical and spiritual devastation behind him with cold and cruel abandon. Why, then, did I read it? Well, it starts out with dark humor and I was curious as to how the plot would be resolved. By the time it got really nasty – no blood or gore, just evil – I wanted to see how it ended and it goes pretty quickly.

There are flaws – it’s too fast in places, not focusing on some plot points fully enough, and it lets a few threads get away and doesn’t let others develop fully. That could be the author or required editorial changes. Regardless, they weren’t catastrophic. To the author’s credit he managed to make a book with exceedingly dark themes and an unredeemable protagonist entertaining.

Definitely this was a book for October and Halloween.

And now, Bradbury.

So that’s where the year went

Since the beginning of the month I was wondering how it got to be the beginning of this month. I think I finally managed to figure out where this year went. I was sick. Between actually suffering from viral and other infections and recovering from them, I was sick for more than 12 weeks.

It started in mid-June and kept going until the end of September so I was sick for basically the whole summer. Which explains how it got to be October so fast. That sucks, but at least it makes some sort of sense.

Time sure flies when you’re not really having any kind of fun at all. It does when you’re having fun as well, so back to the reading.

Why certain books

After that last post you might be wondering why I read books by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. I didn’t exactly rave about him, so why bother? Well, for one thing, his books are intriguing and I want to see where some of his stories go. But it might just be that I had one of his books next to the bed when I first got out of the hospital – no, it’s not going to be one of those posts. Maybe I want to read more of his stuff because one of the first books I read that October was by him – specifically The Fencing Master.

The very first book I read was Tim Powers’ The Drawing of the Dark, which was another one that had been on the bedside pile for a while.

These days neither of those books strikes me as particularly appropriate for someone still hazy under the influence of anesthetics and the depletion brought on by 2 months in the hospital. For all I know I only read one word in seven and don’t even know the stories.

Go look up some descriptions of Tim Powers’ books and you’ll see how crazy it was to read one of his just then. Hey, it was close at hand and I didn’t know what I was doing. I actually kind of like Tim Powers. Some of his books are stronger than others (whose aren’t?), but they’re fun in a weird sort of way. A very weird sort of way.

Now back to the October reading list.

A surprisingly familiar plot, with twists

So I’m reading this book, The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, that I picked up because it had some good reviews and I kind of liked other things I’ve read by the author. His books are a bit eccentric but intriguing enough to be interesting. This one isn’t my favorite of his that I’ve read, but it isn’t a bad book.

Part of the problem may be that, as I read, I realized that I knew some of the story because I had seen parts of a movie based on the book - ‘The Ninth Gate’ starring Johnny Depp (I looked it up). I haven’t seen the entire movie, and it only has part of the story – not unusual for a movie made from a book – so it is very different. I’m not sure it isn’t better for that, or could have been (again, haven’t seen the whole thing so I don’t know). To be fair the parts of the plot the movie used are much more complex and nuanced in the book. There’s also an entire plot the movie ignores.

Though the book has plot complications that are there for reasons I do not know and can’t get from the reading. Maybe I’m too dense, or maybe the plotting is too arbitrary and self-indulgent. I get the feeling that it’s the latter. Whatever.

This is the first non-swashbuckler I’ve read by Pérez-Reverte, and I’ll read others to see what they’re like. I’ve read mostly earlier work and I want to see how his books develop. I may have to try to find out more about how and why this one was written. It seems to explain a lot about his other books, though, as in revealing the books the author loves and his influences.

And it does fit the October theme.

Still reading

I’ve re-read Dracula. It’s been about 25 years and I was surprised by both how much I remembered and how much I did not remember.

I know that this is a hard book to like for a lot of people. For one thing there is the language, which is old and deliberately formal. It is also, for some people, of a different country as well as culture. Then there’s the style which is not a typical narrative. Put all that together and this can be a slog for some people to read. It is a slow-reading book. I understand how that puts people off. For some reason, though, I like the way that Stoker does it and I think that he pulls it off.

I was, however, more critical of it this time than when I first read the book. I let the novelty of it carry it through the rough spots. Plus, finally reading what I had seen interpreted so many times was a lot of fun, which is a strange thing to say about that book. I still enjoyed it, though it is not a book that I would re-read for pleasure very often.

I might return to it as a study, though. I think Stoker handled the structure well, which is not to say that I don’t see some flaws in it. Maybe I’ll write some more about it later.

Right now I am a little behind on the October reading list, so back to the books.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Read it. None of the movie versions that I’ve seen follow the story or really capture the essence of it. Remember that it’s from the late 19th century, maybe get an annotated version to explain some the arcane or esoteric parts, and enjoy it.

Another book for Halloween

So today I remembered another book that I have that can fit into October: I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett, which was an impulse buy. It’s the third, I think, in a series and I haven’t read any of the others, but it was on sale.

I like to read series books in order, but I don’t think it matters in this case so I may make an exception. I suppose this fits for Halloween – that’s when I found it in the store, last year. So, one more book to add to the seasonal list and it’s been on the pile for a while now.

And, yes, I do have Poe and Lovecraft and some other Stoker that would fit as well. I think I will either save all of that for later or just pick them up if I need a short story to fill in between novels.

This is going to be a busy month with books. I am courting, well, not disaster, exactly, but something. What am I thinking?

One more on that topic

When I commuted to work I had a lot of opportunity to see all sorts of things on the road. Once, back when I worked 50 miles from home – the first time, not the most recent time – I saw a truck amongst the traffic that caught my eye. There was not, to be sure, anything particularly special about the truck itself. It was a nice truck, of the sort that a small business owner would use, which was very appropriate as that is exactly how it was being used.

What made it special was that this truck was used by a lightning rod salesman.

Being me I naturally made a connection to that book I posted about recently. I have always loved that character – Tom Fury, a man with secrets, knowledge and wisdom. He sets the tone for the entire story, and his back story intrigues the ever-loving heck out of me.

I saw that truck a few times over the years and, even though I doubt that the day-to-day of that business is anything like the fantasy, it always reminded of the book. I told you that it was stuck in my head.

Being a lightning rod salesman isn’t really like that book, right?

Specialty TBR List

I don’t often re-read books – there are too many that I haven’t read even once yet. But there are two that I do want to re-read sitting in my to-be-read pile, which is actually several stacks of books. But I wanted to save them for October because that seemed to be the right time for them. You can probably guess one of them – the two are Something Wicked This Way Comes and Dracula, so, you know, Halloween books.

Then I noticed some similarities in a few other books in the larger pile: The Historian, The Club Dumas and Johannes Cabal: Necromancer. They seem to constitute a distinct subset. So I’ve put them all together, along with the first two, as a special October pile. I now have a Halloween reading list.

Considering the ponderous tome that is The Historian, not to mention just the number of books, these 5 are pretty much outside my norm for a single month these days, but it will be fun to try.

That Bradbury post

A bit flowery, perhaps, but the first memory of that book has never left me. Whatever I may feel after I read it again I will never lose that sense of reality it gave me. I may have felt wonder at the book itself, but the story seemed to be revealing some truth about the way the world really was.

Sure, I was young and I wanted things to be that way – a world with secrets, though not as dangerous. I wanted that mystery to really be in the world and I wanted to discover the secrets myself. I still want that now that I’m older. One way to explore the secrets is through books – reading and writing them. All the mysteries of the world and more are there for us.

Pretty cool, huh?

The Lightning Rod Salesman

When I was around, I think, 8 years old, I picked up a book to read while waiting for something or other. After I had read a few pages I had to put the book down to go do whatever it was I had to do. But in that brief time I was drawn in by the lyricism of the narrative voice and captured by a sense of wonder that took me instantly and deeply into the story. I was suddenly so thoroughly in a place where magic walked out of storm and down a quiet October street that I could smell the turning leaves in the fall air and taste the ozone bite of lightning on the wind. I could feel around me the unseen forces abroad in the very real world that lived in the pages of that book. The opening of that novel was so compelling and intriguing that I could not forget it. I needed to read the rest of the magic; I had to experience the words.

Then my brother gave the book back to the friend he had borrowed it from.

The book hadn’t had a cover and I didn’t notice the author or title at the top of the page. For years I did not know what the book was. It literally haunted my memory.

Then one day I picked up a book. I don’t remember if it was in a library or a bookstore, but I knew immediately that I had found the book. It was like finding Shangri-La, King Solomon’s Mines, the Maltese Falcon, the Golden Bippy – name a coveted prize and that is how I felt finding that book on the shelf.

I held in my hands Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

{“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?” Inserted as an aid for those readers who may find this necessary.}

I love Ray Bradbury’s writing and this book is very special to me. It could be that at the time I was about the age of the main characters, and one of a pair of best friends – one dark, one light – as in the book. It was easy to identify.

But more than that, and the tease I had of it, is the book itself. The vision and the language, the characters and setting, the blending of reality and magic within the world and the intrusion of the otherworldly into our lives – all of these are woven into a fabric of Autumn wind, shadows and darkness tempered by friendship, dreams and love. The story conjures chill night air and dangers that manifest from shadows and human desire. We are tempted, threatened and rescued from and through the magic. Words and deeds are powerful, life itself is an adventure and human life is the prize because our humanity is wherein lies our strength.

It has been decades, more than a lifetime really, since I read the book. I don’t remember many details but the essence of it resonates in my mind. There is always the question of whether a book can live up to the memory of it. Can an adult feel the same about the book as the child who first read it? I have nothing in common with any of the characters anymore. I am no longer a child, and while I am now more the age of the father I have no son. I do share the oppressions of age, perhaps not the best of similarities to share. I’m even older than the author was when he wrote the book.

But can Bradbury disappoint? And it is October, the season is right, and I need to re-read this book regardless of the risk. I wonder what I will find in it now.