Bruno Schulz

This summer in Ukraine was the 5th annual Bruno Schulz festival.  I'm terribly embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of this writer before. A friend of mine gave me a incredulous look when I asked her if she knew who he was. Of course. He was Jewish, wrote in Polish, and lived in a Polish town that is now part of Ukraine, Drohobych.  He is claimed by all three groups: things were a bit complicated back then. He was shot by a German SS officer in 1942.

Since this summer, I've read bits and pieces of his short stories. A passage always jumps out at me and I think to myself that this is an author I'd really love.  There is a website with many of his short stories translated into English. One day ... But glancing through this evening I discovered a new word:

Peripeteia: a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation especially in a literary work

I need to find some way to work this into my dissertation that I may or may not ever get around to writing.

RIP Review: Rosemary's Baby

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

Most of you probably already know the plot; a happy young couple moves into a new apartment building and soon discover they are pregnant.  Maybe there are some strange stories about the history of the building, and yes, there is a tragic death soon after they move in, but really there is nothing to worry about. And those neighbors, perhaps a bit odd, but aren't they the nicest old people ever? So helpful, so caring ... 

Honestly, I expected to like this book more. I enjoy rather dark horror, but I also enjoy subtly creepy tales too (for instance Shirley Jackson).  I thought this book was well-written and it reads like a screenplay with exact details ("It was 4pm"). I could picture quite well their apartment and their neighbors, and I thought the dialogue between Rosemary and Guy was pretty realistic.

But it is not particularly suspenseful and even though there is this element of uncertainty about whether or not Rosemary can tell reality from fantasy, I thought the end fell too firmly on the side of reality.  So I was disappointed. There is one small section of the book towards the end right before she has the baby that I thought was very well done. Rosemary is ostensibly quite calm as all her suspicions coalesce , but there is this fascinating restrained hysteria lurking right at the edges that worked for me.

Now if you would have asked me two weeks ago if I'd seen the movie, I would have said "Of course, what sort of question is that" I love horror films; how could I not have seen Rosemary's Baby. Well, as it turns out, I guess I haven't because it was not familiar to me in the least, and from what everyone says the film is exactly the book.   So when I'm back in the states I have some catching up to do. 

_____

And Ladies and Gentlemen  I actually completed my R.I.P challenge! And wrote all the reviews! Here's to setting realistic goals for yourself. Actually, I read a few other books too. I started The Devil in Silver, which has been getting rave reviews, but has only managed to piss me off. I also read the first two books in Del Toro's vampire trilogy The Strain and The Fall.  If I find time (which might be on a 5 hour train ride to Kyiv at 6am after an all night Halloween party) you might get a bonus short story review. Something Lovecraftian-- actually, I want to reread "The Color Out of Space."  

RIP Review

My Life as a White Trash Zombie 

by Diana Rowland

Drug addict and "loser" Angel Crawford wakes up in a hospital room with some vague memories of a car crash that the nurse tells her could not have happened because there were no injuries on her anywhere.  Angel tries to figure out the truth as she begins to experience confusing and unsettling new cravings.  In the midst of some new discoveries, she also must deal with a slacker boyfriend and alcoholic father.

I promise that I did not read this just because it was set in my place of birth Louisiana, however, that might have been one small reason.  The book is pretty short, easy to read, and at times laugh out loud funny.  I wouldn't really say it is horrifying in any way though there are a couple of stomach turning scenes to be expected in a book about zombies.  The plot was a bit of a let-down. The mysterious communications via notes left on her car at the beginning had more potential to go somewhere interesting.  Also I found the ending to be over-the-top ridiculous. The last scene literally made me roll my eyes.  On the plus side, I thought the relationships in the book were well-scripted, the dialogue was believable, and Angel was an entertaining protagonist.

If you really like zombie novels, then sure pick this one up.  If you are looking for something in the horror category, I'd go elsewhere. I'll give it 3 stars out of 5 as it was decent, but not anything I'd ever want to reread.

RIP VII: Peril of the Short Story

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"Nethescurial" by Thomas Ligotti in The Book of Cthulhu Ross E. Lockhart (ed.)

A quick summary; the narrator finds a manuscript in the form of a letter/confession that reveals the existence of a cult to Nethascurial. Nefarious activities extending back centuries are revealed within the manuscript. The narrator ends up penning his own letter/confession about his experiences as he reads the manuscript and what happens later as a result.

Upon initial read, “Nethescurial” delivered the right amount of creepiness with a satisfactory ending. I knew that I wanted to write about this story for the RIP VII challenge, but it took quite a bit of pondering to pin down what exactly about Ligotti's piece drew me in (and lingered). A few weeks later as I was reading a different anthology of Lovecraft inspired stories, I came upon a quote, which coalesced my scattered thoughts. The introduction to New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird Paula Guran (ed.) lays out some themes in Lovecraft's fiction, and quotes from China Mieville's introduction to At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition.

“'Traditionally genre horror is concerned with irruption of dreadful forces into a comforting status quo...By contrast, Lovecraft's horror is not one of intrusion but of realization.”

Keeping this quote in mind, we can go through Ligotti's story.

“'In the rooms of houses and beyond their walls—beneath dark waters and across moonlit skies—below earth mound and above mountain peak...behind the faces of the living and the dead...'” (2) 

The narrator is quoting from the manuscript. He notes that the ideas encompassed in this quote are a theme throughout the document. In Ligotti's story, this quote also functions to tie the entire story together, occurring at the beginning and at the end albeit in a slightly different form. It also gives a sense of immensity, of the cosmos, of the “several worlds” that is a recurring element in Lovecraft's fiction. As Lovecraft himself stated, his stories contain “'the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large,'” (as quoted in Guran, introduction).  Later sections in Ligotti's story support this theme, “Imagine all of creation as a mere mask for the foulest evil, an absolute evil whose reality is mitigated only by our blindness to it.” Not only is the evil unquantifiably vast, permeating everything in existence, humans are powerless before it, are insignificant in fact, and can only cope because they do not grasp its presence.

And the narrator initially continues to be blind to the truth, he dismisses the manuscript as a pedestrian fiction, something he has encountered many times before – until he has a dream. Now if you have read much (any) Lovecraft you know that dreams are important, and in later works by other authors imitating the style, dreams-as-gateways continues to be a significant theme. The dream here that afflicts our narrator lingers well into waking. “I tried to invoke the gods of the ordinary world – calling them with the whistle of a coffee pot and praying before the icon of the electric light.” As maybe we can guess considering the rules of this universe, the everyday, the ordinary has no power over the evil that lies beneath. The ordinary cannot drive away something that is a fundamental aspect underlying it. As Mieville stated above, it is not about intrusion, but about realization. 

“It seemed to be in possession of my house, of every common object inside and the whole of the dark world outside. Yes – lurking among the watchful winds of this and the several worlds … I could feel every damn thing squirming, not excluding my own flesh. And I could also see what was squirming beneath every surface … It was that dark color from the dream, I could identify it clearly now. Dark and greenish,”

Ligotti's use of color throughout the story to convey horror, to convey the presence of unimaginable evil really impressed me. I could see exactly what he was describing, the fungal menacing “singular” green of Nethescurial. And it was unsettling.

At this point, the narrator is haunted, he can't sleep, he is restless, the things revealed to him permeate every second of his life, every object he encounters. In his wanderings, he comes across a puppet show. Puppets are always creepy. “Their misshapen heads titled, and their glassy eyes stared straight into mine.” As he stands there watching and listening, he realizes that they are chanting the quote from the beginning, “In the rooms of houses and beyond their walls...” This encounter provides him with the answer to set everything right again. A moment of illumination. Or so he thinks.

He has gone from blindness to revelation (realization); he now knows what lurks within the watchful winds and the several worlds, but he tries to convince himself that he can go back to a state of unknowing. As he writes while putting his plan into action, he denies what is happening, as a litany across the last few pages. Clearly his plan isn't working; things get worse. He goes back to the thematic quote, “It is not in the rooms of houses and beyond their walls” [not] “beneath dark waters and across moonlit skies,” [not] “below earth mound and above mountain peak.” As if reversing this incantation will negate what he is seeing (or not seeing).  

I won't spoil the exact ending for you, but it is safe to assume that events don't really turn out the way that the narrator had hoped they would.

So my ultimate assessment is that I really liked this story because it is spot on Lovecraft at his finest, just written by Thomas Ligotti. What Mieville notes about Lovecraft's fiction, what Lovecraft himself identifies as themes, are present in full force in this story. If you like your horror to be blood and guts, then “Nethescurial” might not be for you. But if you appreciate a subtle sort of terror and can be disturbed by a description of a menacing shade of green, then Ligotti delivers.

1. Photo at the top taken by me at a famous cemetery in Ukraine. I have more and they'll accompany all  of my RIP posts.

2. No page numbers because I'm Kindle illiterate and can't figure out how to find them. When I do figure it out, I'll add them.

R.I.P VII

This year since I'm technically doing research abroad you might think that I would skip the R.I.P. fun? But no.  Just last night my friends and I came up with an epic idea for Halloween costumes.  So clearly I've already been thinking about my favorite holiday. And then I remembered to check stainlesssteeldroppings.com this morning to see if it was time for R.I.P and it is!! Oh the joy.

Here is the link to the explanation. There you will find some cool artwork, a group read challenge (including The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman), and lots of links to blogs that are participating.

This year I can't do the Peril on the Screen challenge (alas), because I don't have access in Ukraine to a lot of movies.  I will, however, do Peril the Second where I read two books that I feel fit with the R.I.P theme.

Acceptable genres include Mystery, Suspense, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror ... but really anything that you think works.  The rules are very flexible, which is good because I'm a bit limited by what I can find for free on my Kindle this year.  

Some potential candidates, but suggestions are always welcome:

1. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
2. The Damned by Algernon Blackwood
3. Off Season by Jack Ketchum

The other one I'll do is Peril the Short Story.  I'm not actually a big short story fan.  But I recently found a few books of modern Lovecraftian fiction, so I'm going to work through those. Though who knows what else I might find.  

Crochet in Ukraine

I managed to successfully navigate the craft store today. I count the day a win even though the saleswomen there thought I was Polish. This is what I bought:

The color is way off for some reason for the yarn on the right; it is much more purple than pink.  I wanted to buy just two skeins of that one, but they were out. Then I found the other, so I ended up with three total.  Not quite sure what I'm going to make though I was looking up patterns today for a hooded scarf.  I think I found one that is manageable. I'll let you know if I end up finishing anything.

I know, as if I need more things to do other than getting my research done.

Kindle Love

I just want to gush a bit about how much I love my Kindle. I got it last year and hardly ever turned it on. But then I moved to this other country for the year and I've come to really appreciate it. Not only can I get lots of free books from Amazon (I don't even have to pirate!), I can still check out books from my library. How freaking cool is that?

For some reason, being in Ukraine makes me want to eat a lot of chocolate and sleep all day. I swear I'm not depressed! It also makes me totally willing to read whatever horribly edited free book I find on Kindle. I've been reading a lot of English. I know I should of course be doing work and learning the language etc, but me and my Kindle have become best friends. I wonder if I would read books in Ukrainian on it if I could find them .... probably not.

Many thanks to my parents who decided to buy it for me as my Christmas present.

Life on Pause

Since my academic trajectory has been temporarily derailed due to international drama, I've been doing a whole lot of watching t.v., crocheting, and reading.

Mainly in the watching t.v. category I've been catching up on past seasons of Supernatural. I used to watch it regularly then quit for several seasons.  One day a friend mentioned on Facebook she was very sad about the demise of certain characters on the show including Castiel.  Who? I asked. "The angel on Supernatural. You will love him."  So then I had to go back and watch all the episodes I'd missed.  I've made it almost to the end of season 6.  And I do love Cas.  Clearly the universe decided to keep me in the U.S. so that I could enjoy the show more fully. If I'd gone to Ukraine in December I'd have never watched season 5, which is by far my favorite.

Crocheting: My brother bought me a book for Christmas**. It has been a wonderful guide - not so much for patterns, but for the basics I never bothered to learn. I've always said that I can't read patterns, but now I think it is more that I don't like patterns.  For instance, the hat I made (pictures below) I started from the pattern I used on the last hat* but only for the first 5 rows. Then I just played around with the stitches and accidentally learned how to make ruffles.  So there you go.  The daisy on the hat I did learn to make from the book.  The scarf also posted below is probably my favorite of everything I've ever made.  I've been wearing a lot of black as an excuse to wear the scarf every day. 

Possibly too cute, not sure if I'll ever wear it anywhere, but since I made it up all by myself I'm pretty proud.

Braided some yarn to make a "ribbon." This is functional as well as aesthetic. The hat was a bit too floppy so the yarn works as a drawstring to tighten it up around my head.

A daisy.  This was surprisingly easy. Only messed it up once ;)

Not sure how well you can see this here, but it sparkles!

As far as the reading part goes, its mostly been non-academic (see previous post). I did, however, make a trip to the library for some books on theory.  I'm not sure if I'll ever read all of them, they are mostly by French authors and therefore dense. Its mainly stuff I should have read more of a long time ago. 

On a positive note, as my co-worker said the other day "everything happens for a reason." I think the reason I've been foiled in my fieldwork attempts is because it was way too cold at my fieldwork site and I would have died. Or starved. Or been a hermit for three weeks at least.  The universe is just waiting for it to warm up over there and then I can go. 

*That failed to fit me. I posted about it.  It has, I'm happy to say, found a new home with a friend of mine who wears it all the time!
** In case anyone cares, this is the book Teach Yourself Visually - Crochet

Malazans!

I made it to the end of Book 6 of Erickson's epic* fantasy series Malazan Book of the Fallen.  There are 10 books, which today isn't entirely abnormal for a series, but these are so loooong.  And exhausting.  I've actually only read 5 because I skipped one**.  It has taken me a while to develop a definitive opinion on the series, but finally here's what I think:

There are too many characters.

It is kind of lame to boil down 1000s of pages into 5 words, so I'll try to explain. Erikson and his pal Esslemont spent years - in between being archaeologists and other stuff - developing the Malazan world for the purpose of role-playing games.  They score points here for being seriously devoted, for putting in so much time, and for being anthropologists***. One cannot fault the Malazan books for being rich on details.  There are a variety of distinct cultures spanning millions of years many of whom have developed mythologies and histories. 

Up to a certain point I am fascinated with the different groups; humans, non-humans, gods, monsters, etc.  Unfortunately, many of these people are practically immortal (even when they aren't gods) so instead of these ancient races being relegated to the backstory, they all keep running into each other.  Many of them have issues with each other - conflicts, unresolved crises, lost loves etc.  Furthermore, lots of them have a multitude of aliases.  And our writers are intimately familiar with these stories that span millions of years and thousands of characters because they spent decades inventing them.  But the reader (i.e. me) does not have such depth of knowledge and so these complicated plots become quite confusing.

I can, in fact, totally sympathize with this problem though from an academic point of view.  When writing grants I often alluded to things in my research that I was intimately familiar with and that seemed super obvious to me, until a kind reader pointed out "hey actually I don't know anything about the Austro-Hungarian Empire maybe you could explain this with a couple more concrete sentences."  In contrast, Erikson and Esslemont are writing characters.  Therefore the problem of the super-obvious not, in fact, being so obvious is that conversations between characters can become extraordinarily opaque - particularly if these characters have been around for a long time (being nearly immortal).  No actually I don't remember that brief episode you are vaguely referring to that happened 10,000 years ago with one of those tribes on one of those continents.  Don't mind me muddling through your insinuations that turn out to be (3 books later) important revelations and crucial to understanding the over-arching plot.  Sorry.  

Beyond the issue with time-depth, the other problem is that the very structure of Erikson's novels requires dozens of characters.  In most books, something happens called a convergence.  This occurs when things in the Malazan world get heated up, there is extra excitement, the gods are meddling more than usual and so on.  People all over the empire are affected by different aspects of this turmoil seemingly at random until you realize that everyone is actually headed in the same direction (to the same city, battle, temple, or what have you).  Therefore in order to get a whole world stirred up and to convey the grand-scale of this conflict many characters are needed.  In addition, much of the action is war-oriented.  There are many (oh so many) battle scenes and Erikson likes to write these scenes from the points of view of the armies - not just one soldier, but several that are usually in a squad together.  Its nice on the one hand because you get a feel for the bantering camaraderie of these army buddies, but on the other hand I just can't keep up with the sheer number of them.

Now I should point out that Erikson's fans have come through and have created an encyclopedia.****  And I have multiple times had to consult this reference guide because I can't remember who is who, when, or why.  Honestly, I feel sort of cheated that I have to do research in order to read these books, in order to understand where the story is going (and where it has been).  See, its exhausting. 

Ok, so now you ask "why don't you stop reading?"  Well, several reasons.  1) I have nothing better to do at the moment 2) I like some of the characters and I do want to know what happened to them 3) Its nice to be able to read an epic fantasy series that is actually finished! 4) I've invested a lot of time in them and since I don't hate the books I might as well keep reading while I still have time to read things for fun*****




*of unusually great size or extent
**I skipped book 5 b/c the storyline diverges from book 4, but in order to read further I have to go back and read it b/c book 7 combines the two plots.  See its exhausting.
***I'm only a little biased. 
**** I'm actually pretty sure there are two, possibly more
***** Before I become a real anthropologist. 

Random Fact of the Day

Did you know that HP Lovecraft was neither claustrophobic nor agoraphobic but rather some strange mixture of the two?  He was terrified of large enclosed spaces*. This makes so much sense if you've read enough Lovecraft. Seriously horrible things happen to people all the time as soon as they find a yawning dark cavern that is seemingly infinitely vast. 

I learned this from reading The Roots of Horror in the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft by Barton Levi St. Armand.  

*And not just caves because that's only ordinary speluncaphobia.