August 5, 2021 at 10:37 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Recommended, Surprises)
Tags: COVID Reading, discoveries, fantasy, praise, reading lists, Russian writers, summer
Even though he was carrying a very thick briefcase, he lacked the power to just house me wherever he pleased, but he did offer me the empty quarters of the Central Bank, where 260 rooms stood like pond water, quiet and empty.
— The Ratcatcher, The Big Book of Classic Fantasy
He just tosses these sentences off like they were so many bon-bons.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
August 5, 2021 at 9:33 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Recommended)
Tags: COVID Reading, discoveries, fantasy, reading lists, Russian writers, translation
As for firewood . . . in those days, many ventured into the attics, and so did I — walked along the slanted darkness of the roofs like a thief, listening to the wind blaring in the chimneys, and spying a pale splotch of the sky through the broken window as the snowflakes settled over the debris.
— The Ratcatcher, Story # 73 in The Big Book of Classic Fantasy
There is such an immediacy to his voice.
Kudos to translator Ekaterina Sedia. According to the Editor’s note, this was the first English translation of The Ratcatcher.
Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.
August 5, 2021 at 7:27 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books)
Tags: COVID Reading, fantasy, humor, reading lists, Russian writers, short pieces, summer, translation
The thing about this anthology, it is just TOO LONG. How can one properly appreciate stories when the text is so dense and infinitesimally small, and the pieces are mostly short, so there is a pattern of same-ness that tends to dull the appetite.
Nevertheless, self has encountered a treasure in the latter stages of this book! And that treasure’s name is Alexander Grin!
He is represented by two short stories, and they are completely different from each other. One is about a house spirit with a tooth ache (In Russian, the house spirit is known as a domovoi). The second story (Story # 73 of this anthology) is about a ratcatcher and begins this way:
Wow, she loves that opening!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
August 5, 2021 at 6:00 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Food and Drink, Lists, Surprises, Women Writers)
Tags: COVID Reading, fairy tales, fantasy, reading lists, summer, translation
Skimming! Whoa, self is skimming!
Story #50, The Hump, is by Fernan Caballero (1796-1877), a Spanish writer who self has never heard of. Her real name was Cecilia Bohl de Faber and she wrote about Andalucia, “although she was not raised there.”
August 5, 2021 at 2:27 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Lists, Recommended)
Tags: COVID Reading, fairy tales, fantasy, humor, Irish writers, reading lists, summer
This is self’s favorite story so far in The Big Book of Classic Fantasy. It’s Story # 27. Kudos, Oscar Wilde!
LOL
August 5, 2021 at 6:00 am (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Flowers, Lists, Recommended)
Tags: COVID Reading, fairy tales, fantasy, favorites, Irish writers, reading lists, summer
What a relief to encounter Oscar Wilde in this monster of an anthology (The Big Book of Classic Fantasy).
His “The Remarkable Rocket” is Story # 27, and I read a Tolstoy story, “Ivan the Fool,” before getting here, and that story is nothing compared to “The Remarkable Rocket.”
An excerpt:
August 5, 2021 at 12:00 am (anthologies, Books, Surprises)
Tags: COVID Reading, fantasy, humor, reading lists, Russian writers, summer
“The women began to rain down bombs onto the army like borax upon cockroaches.”
— The Story of Ivan the Fool, Story # 24, The Big Book of Classic Fantasy
Whew, this story! Another multi-chap, the second one so far in this anthology. She doesn’t like these long fables as much as the short ones. In fact, the only long fable she liked was one of the early ones in this volume, the excerpt from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker. The Jules Verne multi-chap was just painful to slog through. And even though she read it only a few days ago, she’s already forgotten the title.
August 4, 2021 at 12:52 am (anthologies, Recommended, Surprises, Women Writers)
Tags: COVID Reading, fairy tales, fantasy, reading lists, short story, summer, translation
The floors of the passageways were decked with poppy-petals, so that the queen’s feet would tread on purple only.
— Furnica, or the Queen of the Ants, by Carmen Sylva (1843 – 1916), translated by Gio Carval
The Jules Verne story, Master Zacharius, was extremely silly.
The next story, by Louisa May Alcott, was something cute-sy about fairies and the Frost-King.
Self flew past Stories # 16, 17, 18, and 19.
She liked the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Will-o-the-Wisps Are in Town, but it did not slay.
She didn’t read the Lewis Carroll excerpt from Through the Looking Glass because she already knows that book intimately.
She was on the point of cherry-picking (instead of reaching each story in order) until she got to Furnica, or the Queen of the Ants. She hasn’t finished reading it yet, but it is soooo charming.
Furnica got to be Queen of the Ants because: 1) She is an orphan; 2) She is virtuous; and 3) She is extremely hardworking. The ants just love her. After becoming Queen of the Ants, she takes her job so seriously that she “visited the pupae every evening, to test the softness of their cots.” She is a just Queen, banishing recalcitrant ants and even condemning a few to death, though her heart bleeds as she watches “the merciless stabbings” carried out.
Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.
August 3, 2021 at 5:36 pm (anthologies, Books, Lists, Surprises, Women Writers)
Tags: COVID Reading, fairy tales, fantasy, reading lists
These were the dullest stories ever. How does self know? It took her a full day to read “Feathertop,” and now self is stuck reading “Master Zacharius,” which is about a clockmaker in Geneva.
“Master Zacharius,” by Jules Verne (!!!), is divided into chapters (Oh no!) and the most momentous and scary things happen at night (No, not really) and the dilemma is: should Master Zacharius give his beautiful and virginal daughter Gerande to an ugly, wizened old man? What to do, what to do?
SHUT UP, give her to the old man!
There’s some nonsense about a clock not being allowed to strike midnight because Satan . . .
Whoa! By judicious skimming, self has reached THE END OF THIS STORY!
The next one is by Louisa May Alcott, and even though this one will probably not slay, because it’s about the Frost King, and self doesn’t think fairy tales are Louisa May Alcott’s specialty, it is, mercifully, short.
Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.
August 2, 2021 at 10:21 pm (anthologies, Books, Conversations, Surprises)
Tags: COVID Reading, fantasy, folk tale, humor, Mondays, reading lists, short story, summer
Story # 13, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is far from self’s favorite, why then has she been stuck reading it for a full day?
Anyhoo, Feathertop the scarecrow has been dressed up in fine clothing, has been taught how to smoke a pipe, and is directed by his fond creator (a witch) to go about. He immediately bewitches the prettiest girl in the village, who fancies herself in love with him. Alas, they happen to walk past a mirror, the girl glances at it, and sees — she is walking with a SCARECROW! A SCARECROW! A SCARECROW! She faints.
A figure burst headlong into the cottage door . . . It was Feathertop!
“What has gone wrong?” demanded the witch. “Did yonder sniffling hypocrite thrust my darling from her door? The villain! . . . Did the girl scorn my precious one? . . . I’ll cover her face with pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front teeth shall drop out!”
Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.
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