Author Archives: Craig

Hispaniola Reviews

Through a set of coïncidences, I read three Hispaniola-connected works in rapid succession (the middle work overlapped, I think, both of the others). I chose Oscar Wao from a list of starred Publishers Weekly reviews. While I was reading it, the folks at my house watched Muppet Treasure Island, which caused me to wonder yet again how close it hews to the Stevenson story. This time, I wondered long enough to go check on Project Gutenberg, and it was (of course) there, so I started reading it online. About that same time, my hold on Pirate Freedom got to the top of the list, completing the weird Hispaniola trifecta. Given the common connection, I’m opting to combine the reviews in one entry.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz. Yes. Memory has faded somewhat, but I do recall enjoying the story, and the writing, greatly. Very character-driven, with many shout-outs to the nerd community. Much of the action takes place on Hispaniola.

Treasure Island, Stevenson. Yes. YA fiction used to be a great deal bloodier than it is now. According to Cecil, Stevenson became the standard for pirate depictions, and I have to believe that it’s due to the strength and durability of his narrative. The Muppet version is admirably close, differing mostly for comic effect or brevity. The Hispaniola is, of course, the treasure ship.

Pirate Freedom, Wolfe. Yes. Reading Wolfe makes me wonder why I don’t read more Wolfe. I expect it may be, as with Davies, that he’s so good I have to pay a lot of attention. This was a much lighter work than his multi-volume epics, but nonetheless great for that. Not all that much of the action takes place on Hispaniola, but between the action there and the piracy, it clearly fits in this fortuitous group.

Lyre of Orpheus Review

The Lyre of Orpheus, Davies. Yes. Davies is extremely good, and I suspect it’s mostly because of the large amount of attention I have to pay that I haven’t read much more. I read the Deptford Trilogy some time ago (before I started reviewing everything I read), and also enjoyed it despite Davies’s habit of including extensive background information (Jungian psychology in Deptford, opera in Orpheus—KCLS refers to the former work as “didactic fiction”). I was surprised to see in the KCLS listing that Orpheus was a sequel. I’ll likely have to get to What’s Bred in the Bone one of these days.
Davies correctly uses “whoever”, bless him, which is only to be expected from Canada’s prose laureate. He does not, however, seem to have an ear for American speech: “That’ll do to be going on with” is not something I would expect to hear from a Californian grad student.

Fisherman of the Inland Sea Review

A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, LeGuin. Yes. There’s not a whole lot more to say about LeGuin than “yes.” This collection includes some relatively early works, and it shows to the extent that there is less subtlety than in her later works. We’re not talking Tepper-blatant, natch, but she was clearly refining her craft. Sometimes my attention span isn’t sufficient to the task, but Ms LeGuin is always worthy of my effort.

The Road Review

The Road, McCarthy. Yes. Since this was the first Cormac McCarthy book I read, I had imagined that the setting—which is to say, the implied event that brought the story about—had affected the style. The movie ad would go something like this:

In a world with punctuation gone mad: apostrophes only before esses (“wouldnt”, “couldnt”, “two day’s time”), and quotation marks have been lost. where people and objects rest within the floor (regardless of the floor’s condition) and sometimes within other objects, but sometimes atop similar objects (“in a … sofa” “on the bed”).

But it turns out McCarthy has chosen to write that way all the time. Oy. Clearly his style is beyond my meager powers to grasp, so I shan’t be reading any more of it.
Its own merits are decent, though it was really a genre work written (I imagine) by someone who disdains genre, and was therefore unwilling to thoroughly commit to it. The August 2007 issue of Fortean Times contains a review with which I largely sympathize, expressing surprise that this work has been praised by a community that rejects the genre that the work most represents (the reviewer has a different genre in mind from the one that I classed the work within, but I nevertheless believe it’s a parallel argument to mine).

Have Mercy on Us All Review

Have Mercy on Us All, Vargas. Yes. This was an enjoyable, briskly moving read. The only item I found truly remarkable was the perfect use of the objective case:

Up and walked with my little boy (whom because of my wife’s making him idle, I dare not leave at home) … to excuse my not being at home at dinner to Mrs T; who I perceive is vexed because I do not serve her in something against the great feasting for her husband’s reading in helping her to some good penn’orths, but I care not.

Turns out it was not Vargas (or her translator), but Pepys who understood the language (though I don’t think Vargas or her translator got it wrong anywhere, either). I haven’t chosen to read any more Vargas, but I have nothing against the idea in principle.

Theme park notes

So we went to Anaheim recently to visit the mouse (this entry has been in draft state for almost exactly two years—and here I thought I was behind on my book reviews!—so some of it was written while the trip was fresh in my mind, but most of it was thrown together based on some scribbled notes). Here are a variety of observations:

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