Self will aim to read 38 books.
Her 2022 Reading Challenge was 37 books, and she overshot that by a mile. Well, just by 11 books. But it is only November.
Here are her five-star reads, so far 2022:
They were two knives, identical, their blades evilly sharp, with little iron rings along the grips for knuckles to go through and a slender pipelike spout underneath. Killer’s blades.
“Jesus,” whispered Alice, lifting one. “Where did you find these?”
“The Crimea,” said Mr. Harrogate matter-of-factly. “They were taken from a Russian scout. They will be of some use, perhaps, if we encounter Walter.
Mrs. Harrogate slid the blades into her belt. They sat well. Alice checked her Colt Peacemaker and pocketed a fistful of extra bullets like loose change. She saw Mrs. Harrogate take out a little silver-plated pistol from her handbag and check its workings and then tuck it back in and button it fast.
— ordinary monsters, p. 420
The dark fog curled around them, drifted past, across the span of Blackfriars Bridge and into the night.
— ordinary monsters, p. 163
Loving Ordinary Monsters. What a book. There is nothing ordinary about its monsters. That said, great title!
Chapter Six: Waking the Litch
Mr. Coulton takes Charlie, the newest talent, to the Cairndale Institute.
“London’s a right stew of folk. I seen every kind there. Oh, I don’t mean just the Cathays and the Moors and the like. I mean card sharps and cutthroats and pickpockets what’ll take a piece off you without your even feeling it. Aye. Heart of the bloody world, it is. And every bloody one of them is free to come and go as they please.”
. . . . . And so, when they arrived at St. Pancras Station, in a roar of steam and smoke, Charlie stepped down and looked all around in amazement.
There was a faint reek of soot in the darkness.
“Hello?” he said. “Is someone there?”
“Mr. Fox,” said a voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“These are my private quarters, sir,” replied Felix sharply. He wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from. “You are here from the Daily Almanac, I presume?”
He sat at his desk and fumbled at the lantern until he’d lit its wick and then he closed the little glass door and peered up. The stranger was standing in the darkness beside the filing cabinet, his face wrapped by a black scarf. Felix swallowed, uneasy. He looked nothing like a small-town reporter.
— ordinary monsters, p. 97
The Daily Almanac? The Daily Almanac! LOL For that alone, the killer should . . .
Self likes Mr. Fox; she hopes nothing happens to him. Alas, self has a penchant for liking the character most likely to be bumped off. For instance, during Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers, self identified closely with ____ and halfway through, NOOOOOO!
Stay tuned.
It’s in the latest issue of The Citron Review.
Notes from Hedwicka Cox, Fiction Editor, on the issue’s Fiction Selections:
So, yes, her story is about magic.
Self has another kind of tale, somewhat different in tone, which came out in Menacing Hedge earlier this year. It’s called Down.
She has another story coming out spring 2023, in J Journal. That one’s about a ship that discovers, completely by accident, a city at the bottom of the ocean.
Much love to all the editors of these hardworking little magazines, for giving her stories space to be shared. These stories are in a collection she’s been entering into contests. But they haven’t made it to the longlist, anywhere. Maybe they are just too different.
Here we go, the climactic battle where, if self remembers her Greek mythology correctly (of course it’s nowhere near Madeline Miller’s level of expertise), Patroclus dies.
It’s so weird: this entire novel is told from his point of view. So if Patroclus dies, that will be the biggest, sappiest death scene in the history of all Greek mythology death scenes.
Anyhoo, self really wants to know how Madeline Miller pulls this one off. There’s only about 20 pages left, and she still doesn’t know if this will end with Patroclus dying and Achilles killing Hector and someone throwing a spear that hits Achilles in the heel (that part, she is 100% sure of)!
This novel, which left self rather unmoved for its first half, really kicked into gear when the Myrmidons got to Troy (a character in one of her favorite reads of 2022, Shards of Earth, is named Myrmidon Solace. Coincidence? Self thinks not!)
Here is Patroclus dressed in Achilles’ armor to try and trick the Trojans into retreating. Patroclus, unlike Achilles, is a very slender man. All he’s supposed to do is wear Achilles’s armor and let the Trojans see him. That is IT.
And off they go: Patroclus in the chariot, Automedon steering (After this, self swears she will name a character in one of her stories Automedon)
Madeline Miller really takes us into the moment:
Patroclus does this weird scream, and “a thousand faces, Trojan and Greek,” turn to him in shock. YIIIIIKES, self almost can’t look! That scream was a bit much, Patroclus. She is sure Achilles has a much manlier screaming voice.
Stay tuned.
Another thing that is striking about this novel (self didn’t notice it as much in Madeline Miller’s follow-up, Circe, the novel that came out three years ago) is that the crimes of the Greeks (rape, primarily) are front and center, but without much comment.
Chapter Twenty-Five finally focuses on one of these victims:
Agamemnon (who, in this novel, keeps getting shown up by Achilles, even though Agamemnon is a King, the leader of the Greek army, and Achilles only a boy of sixteen) declares “I take her for myself. Then he pulled her from the dais, leading her roughly to his tent . . . and Odysseus finished the distribution.”
“The distribution”? Oh, ugh. That’s nasty. Odysseus seems completely callous (come to think of it, he’s also callous and unlikable in Circe) And this has been going on for how long now? Nine years?
Self is trying her best to remember the name of Agamemnon’s wife, but it’s not coming to her.
A month later, the girl’s father shows up in the Greek camp with wooden chests filled with gold and other treasures and tries to ransom his daughter. He describes her as “a slight girl . . . with fillets in her hair.” Uh, she has completely disappeared! Vanished! Into thin air! Is no longer a character worth mentioning! What?
Many bad things happen to the Greeks after, but it’s the casual erasure of that girl that really sticks to self’s mind. Hopefully, self will know her fate before this novel ends (though there are only about 50 pages to go, so not likely)
Stay tuned.
The high comedy of seeing Achilles pretend to be a dancing woman (His mother forced him, to hide him from the Greeks who were assembling an army to lay siege to Troy) is behind. The Greeks send Odysseus to find him, and find him Odysseus does.
Now, Achilles prepares for battle.
pp. 188 – 189 of The Song of Achilles:
Peleus (Achilles’s father) pays for “a small fortune in armor”: “hammered bronze breastplates . . . horsehair plumed helms, a silver-forged sword . . . and two-light-wheeled chariots. With this came a four-horse team, including the pair given to Peleus by the gods at his wedding: Xanthos and Balios . . . and their eyes rolled white with impatience whenever they were not free to run . . . ” as well as “a charioteer, a boy younger than we were, but sturdily built and said to be skilled with headstrong horses. Automedon, his name was. Finally, last of all: a long spear, ash sapling peeled of bark and polished until it glowed like gray flame. From Chiron, Peleus said, handing it to his son.”
Self was not that engaged by this novel’s beginning, but the novel has continued to chip away at her expectations and now that battle is soon to be joined (self knows Achilles will have a very heroic death, but self is very much looking forward to reading Madeline Miller’s take), she is ALL IN.
Stay tuned.
The reading pace has picked up! Self finished Olga Zilberbourg’s short story collection in four days. The stories in Like Water and Other Stories were absolutely fascinating: not just a record of an immigrant mother’s life in San Francisco, but an indelible record of Russian life in St. Petersburg. It was published three years ago by a small press, Why There Are Words, and is a really good example of why we need small presses.
Self’s current read is The Song of Achilles. Anyone who’s read The Odyssey knows about the tragic end of Achilles and his lover Patroclus (Self is wondering how the author is going to pull that off, since the point of view is Patroclus’s, in first person. In The Odyssey, Patroclus gets killed first, so who is going to narrate the death of Achilles, which happens soon after? She also hates novels with a first-person narrator who dies in the end. It seems like the biggest cheat. But for some reason, she is still reading The Song of Achilles)
As usual, the earthiness of the descriptions of gods and goddesses is part of what self finds so arresting about Madeline Miller’s writing. Achilles’ mother, the sea nymph Thestis, is downright scary. Much taller than any mortal, with eyes that are entirely black, flecked with gold. YIIIIIKES. And self always thought sea nymphs were supposed to be delicate and airy. NOT SO!
Chiron the centaur is huge, too, and the place where horse becomes human — that exact point where horse hide becomes human skin — is given such solidity in the descriptions. Achilles and Patroclus spend three years living with Chiron in a cave. Given how huge Chiron is, it’s a wonder he can move around in there, especially after the two boys move in with him, but move he does, because the cave is also his kitchen, and he cooks all the boys’ meals.
In one scene, Achilles is spirited away by his mother (because she knows about the hanky panky taking place between him and Patroclus in Chiron’s cave, after Chiron’s gone to sleep, LOL), and she hides him on an island that is ruled by a decrepit King and a very nubile Princess. Patroclus comes to the island in search of Achilles, and is entertained at dinner by the Princess and her dancing women. The Princess dances suggestively with one of the dancers in particular, and not until the dance is over and the women go up to the guests does Patroclus realize that the tall dancer is actually — yup, you guessed it: ACHILLES!
HAR HAR HAR!
Achilles immediately falls on Patroclus and introduces him to the Princess as “my husband.” Then Achilles reaches up and tears “the veil from his hair,” whereupon the Princess sets up the most infernal screaming, and the old King turns out not to be that decrepit because he looks dangerous, suddenly.
Self honestly does not know how Achilles got away with pretending to be a woman — isn’t he supposed to be covered with muscle, especially his chest? That scene is pure high comedy!
Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 