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Archive for the ‘Death’ Category

Terry Pratchett–Maskerade (1995) [Discworld #18] [Witches #5]

Posted in Agnes Nitt, Cook Book, Death, Death, Discworld, Fairy Tales, Funny (ha ha), Granny Weatherwax, Greebo, Magic, Magrat Garlick, Nanny Ogg, Phantom of the Opera, Terry Pratchett, Unfinished series, Violence, Voodoo, Witches on January 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 2022] Maskerade

The Discworld Witches are back for another story.  But things are different, and I didn’t remember this happening at all.  Now that Magrat is firmly established with King Verence, she is no longer witching.

And everyone (even Granny Weatherwax) seems to now that Witches work better in trios than duos (although the duo of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg is pretty formidable).

So who would be best to be their new third?  Why, that nice Agnes (once Perdita) NItt had a lot of promise.

But Agnes has no intention of becoming a witch.  She knows what the life of a Witch is like.  Plus she has a VOICE!  (The description of her voice is wonderful).

Agnes has set out for Ankh-Morpork to be an opera singer.  Agnes is very fat and there’s rather a lot of jokes at her expense, which comes across as pretty mean, Terry.  There’s a very fat man as well (this being the opera and all) and there’s jokes at his expense too.  It’s surprisingly mean spirited.

But aside from that, the story is pretty great.  Terry opens his book with some jokes/comments about how he never expected the opera to be a fruitful subject.  Until he talked to his friend in the opera who said the opera was full of crazy stories and superstitions. (more…)

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Dustin Bates / Peter David–The Prox Transmissions [graphic novel] (2017)

Posted in Corporate skewering, Death, Dustin Bates, End of the World, Environmentalism, Graphic Novel, Outer Space, Peter David, Sci-fi, Science, Sex, Starset, The Future, Violence on January 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 15, 2021] The Prox Transmissions

I had recently seen Starset live and decided to check out lead singer Dustin Bates’ books (which I had gotten for my son for his birthday and I think he hasn’t read).

All of the CDs have a theme and the story of the Prox Transmissions is meant to tie into the album called Transmission.

My understanding was that the graphic novel was an adaptation of the novel.  I couldn’t find the novel in his room, but I did see the graphic novel, so I started with that (even though I’m sure it would have ben smarter to read the novel first).

The most impressive thing about this to me was that it was published by Marvel.  Not because I’m a Marvel fan boy but because I just assumed it was self published.  That being said, I think a thing or two was lost in the abridgement.

There are double crosses and possibly triple crosses and seemingly minor characters come to have major roles without a very satisfying explanation.  Basically it feels like a story that has has a lot removed (which it is).

The actual story line is pretty cool though. (more…)

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Anita Roy–Gravepyres School for the Recently Deceased (2020)

Posted in Adventure, Anita Roy, Boredom, Children's Books, Corporate skewering, Death, Fears, India, Set at School, Supernatural, Vultures on January 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 10, 2021] Gravepyres School for the Recently Deceased

I found this book at work and was instantly intrigued by many things.  The title Gravepyres sounded unusual to me.  It also seemed like a children’s book (which it is).  Plus, it had a stamp that said “For sale only within the territories of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.”  Which I found pretty fascinating.

Even more so because this is a children’s fantasy book about being dead and the kind of “life” that you can have “there.”  I thought it might be quite different than an American book.

The book opens on Jose who has just died.  He has no idea that he just died and as he is trying to get his bearings, he is greeted by a small, bossy girl named Mishi.  She brings him to Gravepyres School for the Recently Deceased.  She tours him around the place, scolds him for his poor clothing (she provides him with a tunic) and tells him to get ready for classes..

Of course there is school when you are dead!  There is mathamythics.  Where the seemingly simple question 6+4= is not what one expects.  None of the students answered until finally one of them said four hundred and sixteen.  Jose chuckled, but the teacher said “Good, excellent.”  Other seemingly correct answers were ninety seven and a half, eight thousand, fifty two, even twelve.  But when Jose said the answer is ten, Professor Styx said Oh dear. not quite.  The rest of the classes made the same amount of sense.

Like Scare Studies from Madam Morte and Seeing from Dr Chiplunker (who wore the most outrageous spectacles he had ever seen).  Can you See the pencil in front of you?  Look closely.  Look at it for an hour.  Jose decided it was the most boring class he had ever heard of. (more…)

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Marguerite Yourcenar–“How Wang-Fo Was Saved” [Belgium] (translated by Alberto Manguel) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #25] (1963/translation 1983)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Artists, Belgium, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Hingston & Olsen, Marguerite Yourcenar, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Violence on December 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 25, 2021] “How Wang-Fo Was Saved”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

So here’s yet another story translated by Manguel.

The last few stories in this collection just left me feeling unhappy.  I didn’t really enjoy them, and found them mostly tedious.  A lot of them felt like stories that took an idea and kept building on it with more an more examples. Rather than advancing the story, it just reiterated the story.

Yourcenar evidently wrote many

Oriental Tales, stories set in the Near and Far East, a few based on traditional legends and folktales. According to Yourcenar, the story of the painter Wang-Fo and his disciple is her own invention, though inspired by a Chinese Taoist classic. Scholars, however, have pointed out that Yourcenar seems to have taken her inspiration from a collection of Japanese tales collected and retold by the nineteenth-century Greek-Irish scholar Lafcadio Hearn.

So, yes, another old story, which is what this reads like.

First we meet Wang-Fo’s disciple, who gave up his life to follow the amazing painter Wang-Fo.  He was very wealthy and slowly gave up everything so that Wang-Fo could continue to do his work. Everything he painted felt better than life–more vivid, more real. (more…)

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José Saramago–“Reflux” [Portugal] (translated by Giovanni Pontiero) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #23] (1978/translation 2012)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Giovanni Pontiero, Hingston & Olsen, José Saramago, Portugal, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation on December 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 23, 2021] “The Fire Balloons”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This is the kind of story that unfolds itself, proving to be too big for itself.

It is about a king who feared death.  So he ordered a cemetery to be built in the center of the kingdom with very high walls.  Everyone currently buried would be dg up and moved to the new cemetery.

This takes extensive time and involves many years of building a digging (often with one piece sufficing as an entire body). (more…)

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Hans Christian Andersen–“The Travelling Companion” [Denmark] (translated by M.R. James) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #18] (1835/translation 1930)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Denmark, Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Trolls, Violence on December 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 18, 2021] “The Travelling Companion”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I have mixed feelings about including a Hans Christian Andersen story here.  On the one hand, I don’t think I have ever actually read an HCA story (of course I know many of them).  So on the one hand it was interesting to do so.  But, as with Homer, there was no from the last century and a half in Denmark worthy of inclusion here?

In this story a Poor John’s father dies immediately.  So Poor John sets off with his few belongings to seek his fortune.

The first night he slept under the stars and in the morning gave some coins to a beggar.  Later that night, he happened upon a church and made to sleep there for the night as the weather was worsening. (more…)

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Susanna Harutyunyan–“God Has Passed Through Here” [Armenia] (translated by Shushan Avagyan) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #14] (2007/translation 2018)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Armenia, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Hingston & Olsen, Religion, Short Story, Shushan Avagyan, Supernatural, Susanna Harutyunyan, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 14, 2021] “God Has Passed Through Here”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This is a dark story.  As Manguel notes:

The vast shadow of the Armenian Genocide, when a million ethnic Armenians were murdered in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, hangs over every Armenian writer today.

In this story a young girl is to be inspected by The Europeans.

The story starts kind of amusingly with The Europeans having a very hard time getting to the Armenian village:

In about twenty minutes, when the highway ends and we turns right.  Then we’ll take the first side road, it’s about fifteen minutes long, after which… No we won’t come to the village yet…but it will be closer. (more…)

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Geoffrey Drayton–“Mr. Dombey, the Zombie” (Barbados) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #11] (1990)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Geoffrey Drayton, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Zombies on December 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 11, 2021] “Mr. Dombey, the Zombie”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

Mr Dombey was, indeed a zombie.  He travelled the morning train every day and read the daily newspaper for his hounsi.  His hounsi was interested in the latest rapes and murders, but not enough to read the paper herself. (more…)

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Aleksandar Hemon–“The Bees, Part 1” (Bosnia) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #10] (2009)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Aleksandar Hemon, Bees, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Funny (ha ha), Hingston & Olsen, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, War on December 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 10, 2021] “The Bees, Part 1”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I’ve enjoyed Aleksandar Hemon’s stories.  And this one was a huge mix of humor and sadness.

This story begins simply enough.  The narrator and his family are watching a film.  But his father is so annoyed that the film isn’t real that he (and the family) walk out before it’s over.

His father only wants to see things that are real so he sets out to make his own film. (more…)

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Homer–“Ulysses and the Cyclops” [Greece] (translator Alexander Pope) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #5] (8th century B.C,/translated 1725)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Alexander Pope, Canadian Content, Christmas, Cyclops, Death, Greece, Hingston & Olsen, Homer, Sheep, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Violence on December 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 5, 2021] “Ulysses and the Cyclops”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

Obviously Homer is a classic–the classic–poet.  But it seemed an odd choice to pick Homer (from B.C. days) when surely there was a more recent Greek writer who deserved some attention.

I’ve read The Odyssey at least three times.  However, I’ve never read it in verse form.   And I found this form to be very challenging.  I was certainly glad I knew the story already. (more…)

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