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I was really hoping to like this more. Jerusalem really left a mark on me, and the setup of this seemed like it would be able to repeat at least some of those tricks. But I'm not entirely sure it does.

Of course, the idea of a different, realer city under/inside/beyond the actual city has been done before; Gaiman, Jemisin, Lovecraft... and late 40s London is obviously a great place to discover it. (This very much feels like a post-Covid, post-Brexit novel; what happens when a society has been ripped apart, what happens when people have to readjust to each other after all the old structures have been shown to be made up...) And as long as it stays in that/our London, it's not a bad novel. Dennis Knuckleyard has one of the greatest names in literary history even if he's a fairly standard character himself. But the novel is off-balance; the few excursions into the other London so brief, so intense, so overloaded on acid-trip imagery that it's hard to make sense of what it's even doing in the story.

The shining star here, of course, is Moore's prose, which is as mad as ever, even if it rarely reaches the extremes of Jerusalem. But at some point in the back half of the 310 pages, I find myself wondering if the prose doesn't deserve more meat to the story. Yes, this is part 1 of a planned pentalogy, there are several hints at future seeds being planted, and it's easing us into the setting. Maybe if I read the other parts, everything here will reveal itself. But I feel like part 1 should probably draw you in more to even get you to read the upcoming bits.

"Stinas jojk är inte färdig än."

Sure, it's a Vietnam allegory (if not a perfect one). But that's the least interesting thing about it. LeGuin uses it all to talk language - what new concepts do to language, what new words do to old concepts. Once you've turned someone into "creatures" and their villages into "warrens", what can you do but turn a "police action" into "genocide"? Once you've adopted terrorism in the name of freedom, can you ever go back or is this who you are now? Unlike some of the others in the cycle, it's over in just 169 pages with no clear conclusions to be drawn; once you're that far apart, once you can no longer agree on what words mean, how do you even begin to contemplate coexistence?

Good thing this was only ever applicable in the early 70s.

Well, it is a Christmas story.

Young Gawain wants fame. No one's asking him to lop off a head, but violence is how a knight earns respect, right? And how else to prove your bravery than by killing your enemy on your free shot so he can't retaliate? Except then he can. Ooops.

Gawain is certainly a rich story, more than I'd expected being familiar with just the Lowery film (which I now retroactively like a bit less). He kills ogres and dragons and trolls offscreen, because we already know Arthurian knights can do that and who cares. Instead we spend entire stanzas on his clothes and what they signify, what he thinks he stands for versus what his actions actually accomplish. We never get a pure hero here; just a guy trying to figure exactly what this "bravery" and "chivalry" thing actually means. And it might be bullshit.

Man, the rhythm of this thing. Regardless of translation, that weird structure - free-form alliteration, then slamming on the breaks at the end of each stanza and shifting time signatures like the Feature just stepped in to drop a chorus. But not just the rhythm of the poetry (Armitage calls alliteration the "warp and wheft" of the story, I like that), there's the way the author uses it to tell the story; the introduction of the Green Knight, that magnificent Fitt 3 where they throw us back and forth between the hunting and seduction scenes... Also, yeah, Tolkien calls Gawain "gay" nineteen times and I refuse to believe he didn't know what he was doing because, yeah.

Ah yes, translations. Out of the two I've tried, I think I slightly prefer Armitage over Tolkien. Where Tolkien does... well, Tolkien, and everything ends up sounding like something out of the Silmarillion; stately, eternally ancient, full of ivied Oxford brick walls. It doesn't ever not work unless you already hate Tolkien (and this will never be anyone's first exposure to Tolkien). Armitage's take on it is both more straight to the point and takes more chances. Yes, there are bits where his contemporizin' make you go "Yeah, this is a 2007 translation"
and in the other hand held the mother of all axes,
a cruel piece of kit I kid you not:
while never committing completely to the bit like Maria Dahvana Hedley did with Beowulf. But seriously, the sheer percussive way it hits.

Tolkien:
The pentangle painted new
He on shield and coat did wear
As one of word most true
And knight of bearing fair.

Armitage:
So bore that badge on both
His shawl and shield alike.
A prince who talked the truth.
A notable. A knight.

I guess it's two takes on the old authenticity question; Tolkien wants to present a 500+ year old poem that was already about the Long-Ago Age of Myth, and so presents it in (what seems to this ESL speaker) faux-Tudor; old, but still perfectly readable. Whereas Armitage argues that the poet wrote for the readers of their day, and so tries to square the circle of an early medieval plot with a 21st centuy readership. Both with slightly mixed results. One thing I do miss in Armitage is how he plays down the Fair Folk angle and Tolkien plays it up; as far as I can tell both the original text and Tolkien have the Green Knight as "elvish" where Armitage calls him an "ogre". On the other hand, of course Tolkien keeps referring to "middle Earth" where the original has nothing like it.

The Tolkien also has The Pearl by (probably) the same author, and the unrelated Sir Orfeo, neither of which grab me much.

Merry Christmas, and try not to lop off strangers' heads. It never helps.

Well, it is a Christmas story.

Young Gawain wants fame. No one's asking him to lop off a head, but violence is how a knight earns respect, right? And how else to prove your bravery than by killing your enemy on your free shot so he can't retaliate? Except then he can. Ooops.

Gawain is certainly a rich story, more than I'd expected being familiar with just the Lowery film (which I now retroactively like a bit less). He kills ogres and dragons and trolls offscreen, because we already know Arthurian knights can do that and who cares. Instead we spend entire stanzas on his clothes and what they signify, what he thinks he stands for versus what his actions actually accomplish. We never get a pure hero here; just a guy trying to figure exactly what this "bravery" and "chivalry" thing actually means. And it might be bullshit.

Man, the rhythm of this thing. Regardless of translation, that weird structure - free-form alliteration, then slamming on the breaks at the end of each stanza and shifting time signatures like the Feature just stepped in to drop a chorus. But not just the rhythm of the poetry (Armitage calls alliteration the "warp and wheft" of the story, I like that), there's the way the author uses it to tell the story; the introduction of the Green Knight, that magnificent Fitt 3 where they throw us back and forth between the hunting and seduction scenes... Also, yeah, Tolkien calls Gawain "gay" nineteen times and I refuse to believe he didn't know what he was doing because, yeah.

Ah yes, translations. Out of the two I've tried, I think I slightly prefer Armitage over Tolkien. Where Tolkien does... well, Tolkien, and everything ends up sounding like something out of the Silmarillion; stately, eternally ancient, full of ivied Oxford brick walls. It doesn't ever not work unless you already hate Tolkien (and this will never be anyone's first exposure to Tolkien). Armitage's take on it is both more straight to the point and takes more chances. Yes, there are bits where his contemporizin' make you go "Yeah, this is a 2007 translation"
and in the other hand held the mother of all axes,
a cruel piece of kit I kid you not:
while never committing completely to the bit like Maria Dahvana Hedley did with Beowulf. But seriously, the sheer percussive way it hits.

Tolkien:
The pentangle painted new
He on shield and coat did wear
As one of word most true
And knight of bearing fair.

Armitage:
So bore that badge on both
His shawl and shield alike.
A prince who talked the truth.
A notable. A knight.

I guess it's two takes on the old authenticity question; Tolkien wants to present a 500+ year old poem that was already about the Long-Ago Age of Myth, and so presents it in (what seems to this ESL speaker) faux-Tudor; old, but still perfectly readable. Whereas Armitage argues that the poet wrote for the readers of their day, and so tries to square the circle of an early medieval plot with a 21st centuy readership. Both with slightly mixed results. One thing I do miss in Armitage is how he plays down the Fair Folk angle and Tolkien plays it up; as far as I can tell both the original text and Tolkien have the Green Knight as "elvish" where Armitage calls him an "ogre". On the other hand, of course Tolkien keeps referring to "middle Earth" where the original has nothing like it.

Merry Christmas, and try not to lop off strangers' heads. It never helps.

Yeah, this is essentially an extended series of Twitter posts. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I follow Teeuwisse on [current non-Twitter platform] and enjoy her posts quite a lot. But as a book, it's a mixed bag of very specific and very general claims, some of which truly are things that "everybody knows" (and therefore can probably be dismissed just for that claim alone) and others make you go "But why would you even choose to amplify this nonsense?" Besides wanting to get to 101, I mean. And besides (justifiably) yelling at people who think "medieval" covers everything from Alexander the Great to WW1.

Like many layman history books, it's at its most interesting when it takes the initial claim as a jumping-off point to put a claim about history, and by extension the people making the claim today, in a context. When the story isn't just "OK, this was photoshopped by a bored college student in 2011" but "This thing kinda happened but it's more complicated and more interesting when you look at the whole story!"

A good book to keep around for reference and fact-checking examples. Or just follow her on [current non-Twitter platform].

Well, that's... harmless.

Thought this would be a good holiday read, and for a while, it is. Fluffy, silly, going down almost ridiculously easy. Yes, it's extremely anachronistic (ostensibly set in, what, the 12th century and reading like 21st century high school students at a ren faire) but A Knight's Tale is a thing and it can be done. And for the first third or so, it mostly manages to balance the light tone and the snipy characters, promising that this could lead to some shenanigans.

Then two things happen: The two romances just... happen and the writer discovers that they need a plot, and the book just becomes a slog (though still a quick-read slog). With no depth to the characters, and absolutely zero worldbuilding beyond "they have, like, dresses and castles and swords and some people don't like the king", there's nothing to support the sudden plot and it all just sinks in the mud.

Fun idea, though. Hope there are better takes on it.

And we're off; with the introduction of Sam Vimes and his crew, the Discworld is truly in gear. Once again, Pratchett goes back to the well of The Rightful King Returns, only this time with even less respect for the idea as anything but a cheap trick at best and full-on fascism at worst. (It's a story about a wannabe power player who summons an uncontrollable evil that rules through absolute lawless repression and violence; in other words, pure fantasy and completely unrelated to anything in the real world.)

And in its way, just a bunch of underpaid civil servants who really don't want to be in its way: a handful of disillusioned cops and a librarian. Because hero isn't something you are, it's something you do for 30 dollars a month, even if it has a million to one chance of actually making a difference.

"Do you believe all that, sir?“ he said. "About the endless evil and the sheer blackness?”
“Indeed, indeed,” said the Patrician, turning over the page. “It is the only logical conclusion.”
“But you get out of bed every morning, sir?”
“Hmm? Yes? What is your point?”
“I’d just like to know why, sir.”
“Oh, do go away, Vimes. There’s a good fellow."

Ack ja, den Gamla Goda Tiden då Svenska Värderingar rådde. När vi hade Hårda Tag mot brottsligheten. När tredje domen för stöld var livstid på fästning om polisens vittnen tjänade mer, och därmed var mer trovärdiga, än dina. När polisen i praktiken hade rätt att göra vad de ville och du kunde bli inlåst som lösdrivare på obestämd tid utan rättegång bara för att någon landsfiskal inte gillade din uppsyn. När föräldrar, präster och arbetsgivare fick dela ut ett rejält kok stryk när det behövdes, och mottagarna var tacksamma för att det gjorde folk av dem även om, OK, de hamnade ändå på livstidsstraff. När det krävdes pass för att gå till fots till nästa stad, och stämde ditt pass inte åkte du dit. När landet fortfarande stod på krigsfot, och det alltid fanns behov av straffångar på försvarsanläggningar. När å andra sidan ingen var så överförtjust i det här nya påfundet "polis" och den som bara stal från de rikare inte hade gjort OSS något ont, när den som var dum nog att bli bestulen fick stå sitt eget kast i allmogens ögon, när förfalskning av pass var en smidig inkomstkälla om du var skrivkunnig, när klyftorna var så stora att en enda handelsresande kunde ha en hel årslön för en arbetare på fickan, när du ändå antagligen skulle dö vid 50 oavsett om du slet 14-timmarsdagar sex dagar i veckan eller stal en gång i månaden och festade upp det.

Clementssons upplägg här, att följa ett dussinish livstidsdömda från 1840-talet genom deras utförliga självbiografier, ger en fascinerande inblick i ett samhälle som ligger så nära men ändå är så långt borta. Jag kan ibland tycka att det blir rätt repetitivt, med samma anekdoter som återkommer var 20:e sida för att hon ska få in varenda detalj i rätt del av sin översikt, och hade gärna sett ännu mer översikt utifrån fångarnas berättelser snarare än ett ibland lite okritiskt återgivande av dem. Men för en tid där vi fortfarande ofta bara har födslar och dödslar för att beskriva hur folk faktiskt levde på den Gamla Goda Tiden som så många vill tillbaka till vill man ändå applådera att såna här vittnesmål förs fram.