Archive for gothic novels

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a journal of the Hugo year

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life, Wines with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2026 by xi'an

Read (over the past months) books I forgot to record in the Journal series namely, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, by Sofia Samatar, a rather terrible take on Wells’ Time Machine where exploited live in the darkest parts of a space-ship and upper classes in the nicest places. With an unconvincing trio of characters and a paper-thin scenario, including an unconvincing pastiche of academic pettiness. Quite the disappointment! The latest Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London novel, Stone & Sky, a rather nice instalment in the series, if only because it is set in Northern Scotland (where I read it!), but with some weaknesses in the plot and a puzzling two-voice narrative that sounds unbalanced (in favour of Peter vs. Abigail). Plus a wee bit caricaturing Scottish people, methinks! And then, being a Hugo voting member for 2026, several books and short stories that I receive as part of the LACon package, like The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson read first because I love ravens! Especially the fantastic Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr. I had trouble beginning the book, but once the setting was established, I could follow the main character more easily. The character is enticing but the universe building is shaky and the scenario weak on many planes, making the central issues of solving a murder and finding a new emperor/ress more of a summer camp challenge than crucial problems. Plus an all-too-common fixation on meals and drinks consumed by the characters… It is getting worse towards the end. Likely my (first and) last volume in the Eternal Path Trilogy! Not high in my Hugo ranking then. And the (Murderbot) novelette “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells. Frankly disappointing. I do love the Murderbot series, but this short story highly disappointed me. Between feelings of déjà vu and annoyance at the constant bickering between the characters that reminded me of the nadir of the relationship between my two kids! Absolutely worth ignoring! Even in the Hugo ranking.

Due to repeated travel, plus a heat wave, I did not cook much besides salads and fruit purées, but enjoyed a haggis pie on Skye. And two (local versions of) pissaladières in Marseille. I also had to transfer my olives of the (2025) year into new jars as some had started to grow mould. Fortunately. most of them remained edible if somewhat sour. Thanks to Omiros’ expert advice, they are now maturing in olive oil.

Watched Sins of Kujo, inspired from a popular manga series, which is quite puzzling for its moral and ethical ambiguities.

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a journal of the Aregenua years

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life, Wines with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2026 by xi'an

Read The Moth Diaries, by Rachel Klein, presumably following a recommendation in The Guardian or on Tor’s Reactor blog. This is a 2002 book, labelled as gothic horror by the review I read then. However, there is little horror in the novel and much more of a  diffracted snapshot of a perturbed pupil at a US boarding school, traumatised by the suicide of her father. As the story is told through and only through the diary of that pupil, most facts being reported second-hand and not always coherently, it becomes quickly impossible to separate truth from fantasy, especially the veracity of another pupil being a vampire. Or just the new best friend of the narrator’s former best friend. Which makes the book much more interesting, if unsettling. (Especially regarding how a sexual assault by a teacher on the pupil is not reported by her as such.)

During a May 01 trip to Caen, if not for the half-marathon, next month!, I visited the nearby fish market in Courseulle, where I tasted fantastic, local, oysters, possibly at the height of their growth, despite the warning to avoid oysters in months without R’s! I also taught a restaurant waiter how to make affogato! And visited the amazing archaeological site of Aregenua, in the tiny village of Vieux, of which I had never heard. This Gallo-Roman city was the centre of local power in the early centuries, when Caen hardly existed, with 5000 inhabitants, temples, a forum and a theatre. All of which gradually vanished in the Dark Ages… The site is now protected from pilfering, but a large fraction remains un-escavated. (Too bad the museum boutique was not selling garum!)

Watched some episodes of The Night Agent (2), rather efficient copycat of the Bourne movies, but also requiring a huge suspension of belief in its accumulation of coincidences and the ability of the agents to operate in completely new environments. With a completely implausible reception at the Iranian Embassy. (And a DGSE agent with an awful French.) But the tension in the cat & mouse “game” is there, to the point I had to split episodes when it got too intense!

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a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and Gothic death year

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2024 by xi'an

Read novellas by Aliette de Bodard, The tea master and the detective, and Seven of infinities, which involved a “mindship” as a central character and mysteries attached with a second central character, set within a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation (still enjoying tea!). Easily forgotten mind candy but not unpleasantly so.  And Legacy of Evil by James W. Peyton, which had been recommended by the Crime Book board of Libé, which proved terribly predictable, cliché, borderline (!) sexist and racist, and unrealistic, plus loads of unnecessary political reminders about the dire state of Mexican politics and policing, and the impact of the recent US policies about migrants.

Made my first kimchi, with chards, red onions, and radishes for the basis. Which proved much easier (and messier) than expected. It even worked (!) in that fermentation took place with no major disaster and in that the outcome is definitely eatable, with approximately the right spiciness. Made good use of the jar  for cooking within a fortnight. But the bitterness of the chard had not gone away, so next round will be with more traditional cabbage. And more gochunjang. Still on the food side, met two occurrences when a shop absurdly refused to sell (or give) me a product (previous day bread and spelt levain) that was just out of date, when no equivalent product was available… Absurd waste.

Watched The Fall of the House of Usher, a modern variation on the most well-known short stories of Edgar Allan Poe (who seems in high demand on Netflix shoes, witness the recent The Pale Blue Eye where he was a character by himself, during his cadet year[s]). Like the Gold-Bug (little connected), the Pit & the Pendulum (imperfect), The Telltale Heart  (predictable), the One-Eye cat (duh), the Red Death (closest) &tc. Other characters have names taken from Poe like Rue Morgue‘s Auguste Dupin, Arthur Gordon Pym and Rufus Gimwort. I could not trace an Annabel Lee (one of the very few luminous characters of the show) to Poe’s works and life… The whole setting is very Gothic(-chic) and saturated, not only in the colouring, but so are Poe’s stories. Actually, I remember enjoying these stories very much as a teenager, Poe being presumably better known in France than in the US, but I am unsure I would still uniformly do in the current time, esp. in stories that are droning on the melancholic feelings of some old nobility characters or the vague prescience of an horrifying event. (As an aside, I regret I never found the time to visit Poe’s museum in Philly.) The characters of the show also are uneven, possibly getting more structured with the episodes, especially the Usher elders, but with little suspense (everyone dies!) or logic (a supernatural being being the deus ex machina). The reconstitution of the 1980’s atmosphere is remarkable, though, if unconnected with the Victorian Gothic!

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the Frankenstein chronicles

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2019 by xi'an

Over a lazy weekend, I watched the TV series The Frankenstein Chronicles, which I found quite remarkable (if definitely Gothic and possibly too gory for some!). Connections with celebrities of (roughly) the time abound: While Mary Shelley makes an appearance in the first season of the series, not only as the writer of the famous novel (already famous in the novel as well) but also as a participant to a deadly experiment that would succeed in the novel (and eventually in the series), Charles Dickens is a constant witness to the unraveling of scary events as Boz the journalist, somewhat running after the facts, William Blake dies in one of the early episodes after painting a series of tarot like cards that eventually explains it all, Ada Lovelace works on the robotic dual of Frankenstein, Robert Peel creates the first police force (which will be called the Bobbies after him!), John Snow’s uncovering of the cholera source as the pump of Broad Street is reinvented with more nefarious reasons, and possibly others. Besides these historical landmarks (!), the story revolves around the corpse trafficking that fed medical schools and plots for many a novel. The (true) Anatomy Act is about to pass to regulate body supply for anatomical purposes and ensues a debate on the end of God that permeates mostly the first season and just a little bit the second season, which is more about State versus Church… The series is not without shortcomings, in particular a rather disconnected plot (which has the appeal of being unpredictable of jumping from one genre to the next) and a repeated proneness of the main character to being a scapegoat, but the reconstitution of London at the time is definitely impressive (although I cannot vouch for its authenticity!). Only the last episode of Season 2 feels a bit short when delivering, by too conveniently tying up all loose threads.

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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell [book review]

Posted in Books, Kids, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 12, 2016 by xi'an

I do not remember precisely for which reason I bought this book but it is most likely because the book popped up in a list of suggested books on a Amazon page. And I certainly feel grateful for the suggestion as this is one of the best books I read in the past years. And not just the best fantasy or the best Gothic book, clearly.

Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was published in 2004 and it soon got high-ranked in most best-seller lists, winning the same year both the Hugo and the Locus prizes. But, once again, while it caters to my tastes in fantasy literature, I find the book spans much more, recreating an alternative 19th Century literature where fairies and magic plays a role in the Napoleonic Wars, including Waterloo. The tone and style are reminders of Dickens, the Brontës, and Austen, but also Gothic 19th Century masters, like Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley. Even the grammar is modified into archaic or pseudo-archaic versions. But more importantly and enticingly the beautiful style reproduces some of the light irony of Dickens about the author and the characters themselves. Utterly enjoyable!

The story itself is about a new era of English magic launched by the two characters on the cover, after centuries of musty study of magic without the power or the will of practising any form of magic. (The book enjoys close to 200 footnotes documenting the history of magic in the past centuries, in a pastiche of scholarly works of older days.) While those two characters can manage incredible feats, they seem to have a rather empirical knowledge of the nature of magic and of what they can do about the ancient magicians of the fairy kingdoms that border Northern England. There is no indication in the book that magical abilities are found in other nations, which is most advantageous when fighting the French! A central axis of the plot is the opposition between Norrell and Strange, the former hoping to take complete control of English magic (and buying any book related to the topic to secure them in a private library), the later freely dispensing his art and taking students in. They also clash about the position to take about the fairy or Raven King, John Uskglass, from excluding him from the modern era to acknowledging his essential role in the existence of English magic. They separate and start fighting one another through books and newspaper articles, Strange leaving for Venezia after loosing his wife. Eventually, they have to reunite to fight the Raven King together and save Strange’s wife, even though the final outcome is somewhat and pleasantly unexpected. (Mind this is a crude summary for a novel of more than 1,000 pages!)

While it seems the author is preparing a sequel, the book stands quite well by itself and I feel another book is somewhat unnecessary: Dickens did not write a sequel to David Copperfield or another perspective on (the Gothic) Great Expectations. But in any case Susanna Clarke wrote there a masterpiece a feat that I hope she can repeat in the future with an altogether book. (And while I liked very much the Quincunx for similar reasons, I deem Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to be far far superior in its recreation of Victorian Gothic!)

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