My brain has used the starting point of “kinda chill Lovecraft” to arrive at humans encountering the Great Old Ones as enacted by Budweiser “wassup” commercials.
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I’m reading Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World by Mark Miodownik, which is really good.
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I totally get that. And I wasn’t ready for the whiplash from the Wayfarer to not the Wayfarer myself. It almost didn’t feel like a sequel.
That stated, it’s a very gentle kind of sci-fi. Very humanist and considerate in its approach to body dysphoria. And heartbreaking at times.
Anyway. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but I did enjoy it. Really looking forward to tackling the third after I finish my exam (anyone care to explain how Marxism explains the central conflict of King Lear? Anyone? I’m tempted to jump straight into Althusser and be all like “Lear is a prison made of other prisons that are the State”, but I should probably take the exam seriously).
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Yeah, I’d also expected more of the same people, but while some of the people do carry on from one book to another that’s really not what the books are about.
Aha, what you need to read is Appropriating Shakespeare by Brian Vickers. He covers Marxist and Christian criticism in the same chapter, because both of them start off by knowing the message that they’re going to find, and then examining the work to find it.
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I mean, when you start with the statement “Everything exists as a class struggle between the rich and the working class”, it’s pretty easy to extrapolate what the central conflict of King Lear is (spoilers: class struggle between the rich and working castes).
The real hiccup I’m having is finding good Lear quotations that apply to the situation, and/or Marxist quotations. Gosh it’s a slog. But whatever, I’m not complaining… this is my first ever take-home exam, and I’ll be honest, I’m a big fan.
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Is it unreasonable to ask who in King Lear is of the working class? 
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“Consider him well.”
Lear, after getting booted out of power by his (understandably upset and often demonized) daughters wanders around the countryside and makes many, many observations about what a s&^t ruler he was. He laments that nobody cares about the poor, that the storm rages over him now that he lacks power… that Poor Tom is wiser than the nobles because he is poor and filthy and honest… etc… etc… etc…
There can also be an argument made for the daughters and their treatment of their father now that he is not bourgeoisie show Marxist inclinations towards seizing the means of production since Lear doesn’t control the army any more. I’ll probably make that argument.
Anyway. Yes. There are working class elements, although no working class characters (Poor Tom, of course, being a noble pretending to be poor and insane).
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Any assignment about King Lear sounds like an excellent excuse to watch (or re-watch) Ran.
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I haven’t seen it, but I don’t like Lear. The story infuriates me (why is Cordelia waging war? Lear doesn’t want the throne, he just wants to be taken care of! Take him to France, be done with it, live happily ever after! Gods people are idiots). Regan and Goneril are petty, sure, but who cares!? Gah, the whole story is stupid.
I will agree that when acted well, the five most devastating words in the English Language is damned moving, though. Anyway, yeah, not a fan of Lear.
This exam is murder, for the record. It’s not hard, but trying to write it is like pulling teeth. The holiday season is such a horrible time, just in general.
I have, however, started Record of a Spaceborn Few, and I’m enjoying that so far (only a few chapters in). Oh, and I started reading The Necropolis Empire (book two of the Twilight Imperium trilogy) at work. Also enjoyable! Man, I forgot how much I love reading for work (as a sci-fi author) as opposed to school (for an English degree).
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After months of reading Drizzt novels, I have taken a break to read Timothy Zahn’s latest Star Wars entry, Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil. Trying to remember exactly what happened in the previous entry, which is mostly coming back to me.
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That reminds me, it has been over a decade since I read a novel with Drizzt… The Thousand Orcs, perhaps?? I admit I got a bit tired of it all. I will have a look see how busy Bob Salvatore has been since…
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I think I had finished that trilogy and then read one of the following books following Jarlaxle and Entreri and that was it. Main reason I’ve been (re-)reading the series is because I got the entire Legend of Drizzt series (minus the first 6 books) in e-format in a Humble Bundle for really cheap. I’ve still got something like four more to go, I just needed a break!
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Yes, I lost a bit of steam with them after Uni (2001…) It was a period where I was shifting to “heavier” fantasy and other genres. Before that, I hardly read anything that wasn’t Fanatsy, Sci-Fi or Historical.
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Man, I remember the old Dragonlance/Forgotten Realm books like I read them yesterday.
I’m old enough that I read “Darkwalker on the Moonshea” before it became a trilogy… and I read the original Icewind Dale trilogy before it was clear that Drizzt was the only character that was going to carry forward.
I think I’ve only read the first 6 novels with Drizzt in them (The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, and The Halfling’s Gem, followed by the 3 prequels… those ones I don’t remember the names, but they were about Drizzt when he still lived in the Underdark). Those, and the first three Dragonlance novels (Autumn Twilight, Winter… something, and Spring Dawning) I don’t think I’ll ever be able to revisit. They’re too… steeped. They meant to much to me when I was growing up, they’re too formative. I couldn’t ever be even remotely subjected to them being less than great.
Oh, and the Majoram trilogy… gosh, that’s not what it’s called, but the ones with Raistlin and his brother, Caramon. Or something like that. It’s been a while since I read them. There is no way they actually hold up, but I couldn’t stand knowing that for sure.
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Dragonlance Legends - Time of the Twins, War of the Twins, Test of the Twins (I think). I read them before the Chronicles and I was absolutely blown away. I reread them maybe 10 years ago and although I can see more flaws they’re still bloody great. Chronicles are good but read a bit like an RPG campaign until the last book. Legends are proper stories with /gasp/ actual character development, pathos and redemption. They’re bloody brilliant and I’ll die on that hill.
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I’m the same on Dragonlance, can’t go back now. I had at least the first three trilogies, and also the Darksword, Rose of the Prophet and the 7 Deathgate books.
OH - I just remembered I also read Weis’ amazing junior Star Wars thing “Star of the Guardians”.
I did read a lot of fantasy, huh.
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That’s because the books were greenlit as part of the overall Dragonlance project for AD&D, so they were closely following the adventure modules to start with. Autumn Twilight is the worst offender, the descriptions of Xak Tsorath sounding like a GM running a party through the ruins.
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Yes, I’m aware of the genesis of the books; I agree the first book and the first half of that book really struggle with it, after that they both find their feet as authors and the third book is really starting to move away from the structure. I’m glad I read Legends first as they’re much more confident and character-driven. I was a little disappointed when I read Chronicles.
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I am the opposite. I am glad I read the Chronicles first, as the regression in the writing style would have stood out a lot more. Legends was excellent, though it probably also helped that they did not need to keep track of and regularly check in with 20 different characters like they did with the Chronicles.
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Oh agreed, the much smaller cast is a great improvement. Weis and Hickman have to also receive credit for making Tas far less irritating (to me, at least) than he really should be on paper (no pun intended), although I did find Fizban (and his various iterations in their other works i.e. Zifnab in Death Gate) annoying and self-indulgent. Maybe I just encountered Tas at a point in my life (11 years old) where I thought he was funny rather than an obvious comedy character, but I always liked him.
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