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the_lady_lily) wrote2013-09-08 05:39 pm
the_lady_lily) wrote2013-09-08 05:39 pm
Entry tags:
Bibliography
Memento Mori - Muriel Spark
I quite fancied a Spark for this process of house moving, because she's light and witty and not too intellectually demanding whilst also being quite rewarding. Memento Mori is apparently the book which brought her to public notice for the first time. It is a strange little thing - elderly people begin to get telephone calls in which an anonymous speaker tells them "remember you must die". And that's it. No further action is taken, no further threat offered. Just that wee phrase, and the voice of the speaker differs depending on who takes the telephone call.
The plot follows a group of elderly people who know each other as they try to work out who on earth could be calling them up like this (one woman going so far as to disconnect the telephone and bring in a retired police inspector). The actual answer, in good Sparkian supernatural fashion, is metaphysical in nature - but that's rather less interesting than watching the behaviour of people who have been issued this warning, and whether they pay any attention to it. In some ways, it's a morbid book, not least because a number of the protagonists are killed off in ways natural and unnatural - but in others, it's a fascinating character sketch that evokes the occasional dark chuckle.
Rome Noir - edited by Chiara Stangalino and Maxim Jakubowski
A short story from this book was included in a list of the ten best pieces of fiction set in Rome (or something like that) - it's taken me a while to track it down, but it appears to be one volume of a series of City Noir collections that invite writers of a certain nationality to write a short story set in a significant city in that country - so all the writers here are Italian, and thus all the stories are in translation. Other examples include Istanbul Noir, Trinidad Noir, Lagos Noir, as well as a whole host of American cities. So in one way I'm very glad I've discovered this volume, because it seems to me to be a Good Thing in encouraging both a sub-genre of fiction and national writing in an interesting and versatile way.
However, we do hit a bit of a bumper here, because (let's be honest) I'm not a great fan of Noir. Some of the stories really captured my imagination and were innovative and interesting; others just made me wince and read through fast because they were engaging with elements of the noir tradition that I just don't find that engaging. I suppose that's a feature/risk of any short story collection, though.
One thing I found interesting was that only one story decided to go full out on the whole ancient Rome element - in some ways it felt like one of the weaker contributions to the collection, but in others it was neatly streamlined and elegant. It also picked up on gladiatorial culture as the most noir-ish element of ancient history, which was in and of itself a fascinating thing to play with.
So, an interesting discovery, but not one I think I would have chosen under usual circumstances.
41 - Lavinia - Ursula Le Guin: to be reviewed Elsewhere.
The Zanzibar Cat - Joanna Russ
Another collection of short stories, this time sci-fi/fantasy and by a woman writer, which I really bought just for the one story in the collection (the eponymous Zanzibar Cat, which is a Hope Mirrlees homage/pastiche). I needed to read that story for an article I really should be working on already, but I read the rest of the collection as well for obvious reasons of book-related completism. I rather enjoyed it - I don't know much about Russ' writing although I know I should, and I don't know as much as I should about SSF, but Russ strikes me as one of those authors who is pleasingly aware of the problems and challenges with the genre, and uses the short story format to explore them in miniature form.
I quite fancied a Spark for this process of house moving, because she's light and witty and not too intellectually demanding whilst also being quite rewarding. Memento Mori is apparently the book which brought her to public notice for the first time. It is a strange little thing - elderly people begin to get telephone calls in which an anonymous speaker tells them "remember you must die". And that's it. No further action is taken, no further threat offered. Just that wee phrase, and the voice of the speaker differs depending on who takes the telephone call.
The plot follows a group of elderly people who know each other as they try to work out who on earth could be calling them up like this (one woman going so far as to disconnect the telephone and bring in a retired police inspector). The actual answer, in good Sparkian supernatural fashion, is metaphysical in nature - but that's rather less interesting than watching the behaviour of people who have been issued this warning, and whether they pay any attention to it. In some ways, it's a morbid book, not least because a number of the protagonists are killed off in ways natural and unnatural - but in others, it's a fascinating character sketch that evokes the occasional dark chuckle.
Rome Noir - edited by Chiara Stangalino and Maxim Jakubowski
A short story from this book was included in a list of the ten best pieces of fiction set in Rome (or something like that) - it's taken me a while to track it down, but it appears to be one volume of a series of City Noir collections that invite writers of a certain nationality to write a short story set in a significant city in that country - so all the writers here are Italian, and thus all the stories are in translation. Other examples include Istanbul Noir, Trinidad Noir, Lagos Noir, as well as a whole host of American cities. So in one way I'm very glad I've discovered this volume, because it seems to me to be a Good Thing in encouraging both a sub-genre of fiction and national writing in an interesting and versatile way.
However, we do hit a bit of a bumper here, because (let's be honest) I'm not a great fan of Noir. Some of the stories really captured my imagination and were innovative and interesting; others just made me wince and read through fast because they were engaging with elements of the noir tradition that I just don't find that engaging. I suppose that's a feature/risk of any short story collection, though.
One thing I found interesting was that only one story decided to go full out on the whole ancient Rome element - in some ways it felt like one of the weaker contributions to the collection, but in others it was neatly streamlined and elegant. It also picked up on gladiatorial culture as the most noir-ish element of ancient history, which was in and of itself a fascinating thing to play with.
So, an interesting discovery, but not one I think I would have chosen under usual circumstances.
41 - Lavinia - Ursula Le Guin: to be reviewed Elsewhere.
The Zanzibar Cat - Joanna Russ
Another collection of short stories, this time sci-fi/fantasy and by a woman writer, which I really bought just for the one story in the collection (the eponymous Zanzibar Cat, which is a Hope Mirrlees homage/pastiche). I needed to read that story for an article I really should be working on already, but I read the rest of the collection as well for obvious reasons of book-related completism. I rather enjoyed it - I don't know much about Russ' writing although I know I should, and I don't know as much as I should about SSF, but Russ strikes me as one of those authors who is pleasingly aware of the problems and challenges with the genre, and uses the short story format to explore them in miniature form.