Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner

Being historical

Posted by Sari

Lately, I have mostly been reading historicals. Well, Tom Holland’s Rubicon is not a novel, but such a well written piece of popular narrative history that it was quite as exciting as one. The much lauded book is a story of the downfall of the Roman republic. First few chapters outline the birth and rise of the Republic into a major player in the Mediterranean and then Holland wittily, excitingly and lucidly narrates the events of the last fifty or so years of the republic from Marius and Sulla to the triumph of Caesar Divi Filius Augustus. Obviously – as Holland states in the preface – the sources are limited and biased and interpretations events and motivations of participants can fluctuate widely, and obviously we can’t know what the great men of Rome thought or felt with any certainty. A book geared for more scholarly audience would have had to be more careful, more pedantic and would propably have to sacrifice the pace and tension of the narrative in order to bring out the evidence and agrument more. But as a piece of narrative popular history of the tensions, events and persons that ruled the stage during that turbulent period, this is bloody brilliant, even though the exit of Cicero somewhat flattens the  last chapter.

As a companion piece I was reading Saylor’s A Mist of Prophecies which though not one of his best works was still an entertaining read. Here we are living year 48 B.C. Caesar is chasing Pompey’s numerically superior army in Greece, and back in Italy Milo and Marcus Caelius are fermenting trouble. In Rome, Gordianus tries to find out who has murdered Cassandra, a strange girl from Alexandria claiming to be a seer. In course of his investigations Gordianus visits a number of powerful women in Rome who had all shown up at Cassandra’s funeral and they each reveal a bit of the mystery. The detective story, I though, was ok but no better, and the structure of the novel was a bit mechanic. Even so, Saylor writes well and at least I had the bacround well in hand...

Third historical was Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth, a grail novel which happens partly in Modern time and partly in 13^th century Pays D’Oc. The modern day heroine Alice, a volunteer on an archeological dig, stumbles on a cave with two sceletons in it. Suddenly, people start dying, police and mysterious lawyers, and other people start chasing her, all because they think she has something from the cave. In the historical part Alaïs, daughter of the Castellaan of Chateau Comtal becomes a guardian of the grail secret after his father and fights to save it from the ravages of Albigensian crusades. This was easy, predictable fluff which was saved by the fact that Mosse quite obviously loves the landscape and history of Languedoc and this bleeds through in her narrative. Much, much better than the ridiculously and clumsily simplistic daVinci Code, but a bit too long and predictable. I loved tha fact that all the main protagonists – villains and heroes – were women, though.

Siis ihan oikeasti...

Posted by Sari

Blogin 1,4 lukijalle on aikaisemmista postauksista varmaan käynyt ilmi että minusta sisustussuunnitelijat ja arkkitehdit elävät jonkinlaisessa rinnakkaistodellisuudessa jolla ei ole mitään tekemistä tavallisen ihmisen asumisviihtyvyyden kassa. Joskus kuitenkin edelleen tartun toivoa täynnä kaupan jonossa johonkin sisustuslehteen katsellakseni josko niistä löytäisin jotain kiinnostavaa. Vaan ei kuulkaa enää, uusin Glorian koti oli sellainen pohjanoteeraus että minä luovutan.

Yllätysten olohuoneet -sivuilla (oletan tämän oleva jonkinlainen sarja jossa esitellään olohuonetyylejä) esiteltiin sisustusideana "kodikas kirjasto". Esittelyteksti sanoi seuraavaa: "Kirjailijat Beatrix Potter ja Jane Austen ovat syksyn romanttisten ensi-iltojen sankarittaria. Elokuvat inspiroivat olohuoneen englantilaistyylistä, lämminhenkistä sisustusta jonka pääosassa ovat kirjat".

"No mutta! Vihdoinkin" minä kuulen teidän sanovan. On jo aika että kirjasto jossa on kirjoja on sisustusvinkin kohteena. Onpa kiva nähdä miten kirjojen värikäs sekamelska ja kirjahyllyn massiivisuus saadaan istutettua kodikkaaseen englantilaistyyliseen sisustukseen. Vaan kuinka väärässä ihminen voi olla? Itse kahden aukeaman kuvasarjassa kirjoja on mukana yksi sohvapöydällä teekupinalusena ja  kymmenen kirjan pino tuolilla maljakonalusena. Ne pääosassa olevat kirjat? NE ON TAPETTI! Tämän kirjastovinkin vinkki on harmaa samansävyisistä kirjoista hyllyssä koostuva TAPETTI. Ei voimasana voimasana voimasana... Nyt kyllä tekisi kovasti mieli vedellä Suomen kulttuurihistoria 3:lla toimittaja Aromaata päin näköä.

Stentorian silence

Posted by jukkahoo

Yes, yes, yes. Silence. Perhaps not that stentorian, but looming overhead kindasorta.

I'm heading to Copenhagen this Friday morning, to take part of this year's Eurocon. Should be fun, interesting and informative. And we're also hoping to get the eurocon-title for Finncon 2009. Fingers crossed. Over twenty other Finns are also heading that way. Wow! What is this sudden urge to go to conventions outside Finland?

Last year saw some 15 of us at Swecon, which was like, well, unexpected, but brilliant. We Finns are usually not really active foreign-wise, but recently it seems that there just might be new interest in international fandom. I think that the Glasgow Worldcon helped a lot. And fen saw that is was and is good. And certainly Åcon played a part as well. (Remember, Åcon2 is coming next year, you know you want to be there!)

My check-ups checked fine. Actually, I didn't even meet a doctor. They just sent me a letter to home, saying everything is hunky dory. A letter! Am I now supposed to believe black on white, instread of a person sitting in front of a computer, wearing long, white doctors coat. (Well, when I worked at the hospital, I also wore long, white doctors coats...) I guess I'm all right, though. I also got the time of my next appointment: September 8th 2008. Should be the last one.

Sigh. Not that I don't think it's perfectly OK to call those check-ups over and done with, but seeing doctors, taking tests and whatnots, CAT-scans etc. has felt soooooooo safe. Alas, no more.

After Eurocon, it's time for the Book Festivals. Turku is the first weekend of October and Helsinki the last. Talking about Oktober, this is a rather nice version of Sekret Oktober. But I digress. I'm actually doing quite a few gigs at both Festivals: moderating panels as well as interviewing authors. Be sure to check out Juha-Pekka Koskinen's new historical novel Seitsemäs Temppeliherra (Seventh Templar) and Anne Lainonen & Eija Lappalainen duo's new YA-novel Devoted Souls, gaming and apparently some fannish stuff: Finncon and mafia-meetings! You could be in a novel! And then there's Päivi Honkapää's Viides tuuli (Fifth Wind), which is personally something I feel somewhat proud of as it is a book I read quite a few years ago for the first time for the publisher and it is finally coming out! It's a very good YA-fantasy that will hopefully find an audience it deserves.

I've been listening a lot of Talk Talk recently and I'm exceedingly leaning toward the proposition that it may well be the Best band that ever came out of the 1980's popmusic circles. (Adam and the Ants, Japan and David Sylvian are of course 1970's product, ahem...) Perfect pop band, which later turned into very ambitious and interesting experimental group. The lead singer/songwriter Mark Hollis managed to put out one solo before retriting to the English coutryside, never to be seen again in the limelights. Sigh. Great music.

Better get some zzzzzzz's now. I hope to be able to write a report of the con afterwards, but one never knows these things. Good intentions and so forth.