Last Update 2/27/10

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, Picador, 2000  

I hadn’t read any of Michael Chabon’s novels until relatively recently, and plan to catch up in due course.  This one is very different than the last I read, set during World War II.  The title refers to two young men who combine to create a number of comic strip characters, evoking the golden era of comic books and the world in which it happened.  It is also, of course, about Kavalier’s attempts to get his family out of Nazi occupied territory, Clay’s coming of age, and a number of other subjects.  There are elements of fantasy, but that’s really not what the book is about except in the sense that the comic strips are used in a kind of battle against the forces of evil in the world.  The prose is superb and even though there’s not a lot of physical action in the story, or even a particularly strong plot, you probably won’t notice the absence as the author brings his setting and his characters to vivid life.  Of course I should have read this years ago, but better late than never. 2/27/10

Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885  

I recently re-read the better known books by Stevenson and was so impressed that I’ve been picking up his lesser work.  This was his third novel, a romantic adventure set in an imaginary German principality.  Prince Otto goes incognito and discovers that he is considered a wastrel, a cuckold, and a fop.  He returns to his home and decides to mend his ways, but finds a villainous adventurer effectively in control of the company, with Otto’s own wife as his unofficial consort. Otto discovers that a war of aggression is being prepared and demands that it cease, which prompts the conspirators to consider secretly imprisoning him. What might have been a rousing adventure becomes a quieter story of court intrigues, however.  Otto refuses to resist, and a countess with connections to both sides finally intercedes and reveals the doublecrosses and treacheries involved.  Not up to the quality of his better known work, and occasionally bogged down in detail, but not at all bad. 2/11/10

The Atlantis Fragments by D. Sidney-Fryer, Hippocampus, 2009, $25, ISBN 978-0-9824296-5-5

The Outer Gate by Nora May French, Hippocampus, 2009, $15, ISBN 978-0-9824296-6-2

Collected Poems by H.L. Mencken, Hippocampus, 2009, $15, ISBN 978-0-9824296-3-1 

I confess that I dipped into these rather unevenly.  Although I have several favorite poets, I have to be in the right mood to read them – and this mood is not a common one.  I tried the Mencken first because his name was obviously familiar to me, and probably also because it’s the slimmest of the three. The humorous ones worked the best for me, even though some of the satires were obviously dated and I wasn’t familiar with some of the references.  These are, I believe, all from very early in Mencken’s career and it’s probably a good thing that they’ve finally been brought together.  I had never heard of French, whose complete poetry is here.  She committed suicide while still quite young. There are extensive notes for this one.  The editors assert that she had much in common with Clark Ashton Smith, but it wasn’t immediately obvious to me.  Most of the poems are quite short and several of them were quite pleasant, but I didn’t encounter any that were particularly memorable.  The Sidney-Fryer collection is by far the largest – over five hundred pages – and I actually read a good portion of the book.  I found the shorter poems generally more interesting than the longer ones and the subject matter was of more interest to me.  More devoted fans of verse will undoubtedly have more reason to get excited about these three, all of which are handsomely produced. 1/30/10

King of Paris by Guy Endore, Simon & Schuster, 1956  

This was one of Endore’s two noteworthy novels, the other being The Werewolf of Paris.  This one is a fictionalized biography of Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and other classics.  Since this is fictionalized, I have no idea of Dumas actually led the kind of swashbuckling life portrayed here, although I imagine the basic facts are correct.  That he was an egotist, there is little doubt, although Endore avoids the many charges that he plagiarized or hired people to ghost write his books.  He comes across as a larger than life figure.  The relationship between him and his family is probably the high point of the novel, much more complex than his ordinary interactions.  I was plodding a bit after the half way point because I really didn’t find him to be that interesting a character, but other readers may feel otherwise. 1/24/10

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton, Harper, 2009, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-192937-3  

This posthumous novel reminded me at times of Rafael Sabatini.  Charles Hunter is a British privateer who leads a crew on a clandestine mission to disable the guns of a Spanish fortress and steal a treasure ship out of the now unprotected harbor. They run into considerable bad luck, including being captured by the Spanish even before they reach the island, but they escape, complete their mission, avoid being captured by a ship that pursues them, and then survive a hurricane at sea.  On the trip back, they have to rescue a woman from cannibals and fight off a giant squid with a taste for human flesh.  And when they finally get home, they discover a new governor who wants to hang them all as pirates.  Hunter is not a particularly deeply drawn character, and many of those he encounters are less than savory, although a few members of his crew are admirable enough.  I thought a few of the scenes were a bit rushed but overall it was quite a nice adventure story. 1/1/10

 

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