Okay I’ve fallen a little behind on my reviews because of school, I’ve read a bunch in August and instead of writing individual reviews I want to write a bunch of short thoughts on them here so that I can get it out of my brain and feel like I can move on to other ideas.

I had a bit of an emotional breakdown the other day over “memory”, and I’ve been listening to a lot of the Grateful Dead because of a flash drive my dad sent me with some other documents. I want to ge to those soon.

Here we go:

Tower of the Swallow:

When thinking about the way that I would want to write a story of my own, I have found The Witcher to be the series that I would most want to “influence” me when it comes to style, story structure and tone. I love the frame story in this book, but not in the next one. I love when the camera stays in one spot for a while, but not when the camera is on secondary or unidentified characters for long stretches. I chew threw large portions of the book in long sittings when I was locked in on Geralt or Ciri… and I felt like I had to slog through boring exposition stretches with characters like Dijkstra. Beautiful character moments with Geralt and Cahir, devastating characterization of Bonhart who was awesome. I liked this one, but not as much as Baptism of Fire

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I loved this novel. I am fascinated by Mark Twain’s style and I want to read other novels by him recommended by friends. I was hooked by Huck’s strange sense of morality that he grows into by the end of the book. He knows that helping Jim is the right thing to do, even if the culture goes against it.

The Stranger

I was enamored with this story. Wonderful imagery and style by Camus. I’m haunted by Meursault’s character. He is obviously repressed. He doesn’t mourn the death of his mother. He doesn’t mention the existence of a father in his life and he feels nothing for anything around him. He can be infuriating in the moments where instead of acknowledging emotions he should be feeling he complains about being hot, or tired. The outburst of violence is inevitable, but the continued repression of emotional response or even acknowledgement of what he’s done is gross. I don’t know what Camus’ purpose is for such a character. Should we loathe him? Write him off as a loser who doesn’t deserve our sympathy because he’s too stupid and self-absorbed to recognize the consequences of his actions? Have grace on him for his heart of stone? I don’t know. The final pages of the book that describe the “liberation” he experiences when he blows up on the priest is interesting. Religion constantly asks him to find meaning in the world around him, but he can’t. He can find no meaning in any of it. And that set’s him free to die.

The Lady of the Lake

I struggled with this one. I didn’t really like it. I would rather have had a satisfying conclusion to Ciri and Geralt’s story than what feels like a forced emulsification with Arthurian Legend. Sure, I get it. Geralt and Yennifer get to live on in Avalon and their legend continues whatever. I don’t really care about that. I don’t really care that Ciri get’s to live with the knights of the round table, that doesn’t matter to me. It matters that they are able to salvage their world and bring it to justice. The frame story for this book doesn’t work for me. It changes nothing in the story that Nimue and Cataboran-whatever are trying to recall the legend of Ciri and the Witcher. The lens is pulled back so much that it feels like the characters we care about and have spent 1000 pages with are sidelined for Lancelot and Galahad. Geralt is in all of 75 pages of this 550 page fantasy novel called The Witcher. One of the best fantasy protagonists I’ve ever read is murdered by republicans in the last 15 pages of the book. And the world that they fought so hard to save doesn’t change in the end! The Battle of Brenna is awesome! But Nilfgarrd doesn’t fall, the north doesn’t fall, and the political landscape of the continent doesn’t change. After all that war, nothing was achieved. Which I suppose is the point. Man I did not like this book.

I’m still thinking about the Ernest Hemingway short stories.

have no fear,

C. Randir