The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún review

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is an eminent addition to J.R.R. Tolkien’s preeminent body of work. Here we have two marvelous tales from Norse mythology, the Lay of the Völsungs and the Lay of Gudrún, retold by a renowned philologist. These are no mere translations; indeed translation is not possible when the extant sources are piecemeal variants and prose summaries. Tolkien painstakingly recreated these tremendous poems much like Regin reforged Gram, the sword Sigurd used to slay the dragon Fáfnir. Written in the old eight-line fornyrðislag stanza, these lays are illuminating. A hero who was more highly anticipated for his prowess in the after-life than in mortal life, Sigurd is thus descried by a sibyl:

“On his head shall be helm,

in his hand lightning,

afire his spirit,

in his face splendor.

The Serpent shall shiver

and Surt waver,

the Wolf be vanquished

and the world rescued.”

Reading Tolkien’s poetry is like reading him for the first time again. His son and faithful editor Christopher Tolkien once again provides foreword, midword, and afterword. Yet unlike the insightful commentary he provided for The Children of Húrin (see review posted 02/08), here his notes are overly thorough and clutter up the work. These may be the very challenges that his father overcame in writing the lays, but he performed that feat in order to spare others from the ordeal. The exhaustive notes point more to a need to add length to the book than they do to an understanding of the story being told. I read them all and gleaned some gold from the dross, but I wouldn’t do it again. I would gladly read the lays many times over and I’d be a better storyteller for it.

Book Buyer, pt. 2

Becoming a Book Buyer has had steady hits over the past 15 months, making it one of the top five most viewed posts on my blog.   Enter the phrase as a Google search and my post is one of the top results.  Given the level of interest shown and the economic downturn, I decided to post an update.

According to an Association of American Publishers report book sales dropped 17% in March and are down 6.8% year to date.  Many stores are surviving by cutting costs, and a few are even thriving.  No, I’m not talking about Barnes & Noble, which had a net loss of $2.1 million in the first quarter.  Books-A-Million fared better, with a net increase of $2.1 million, although their sales were a tenth of Barnes & Noble’s and they were not obligated to pay a CEO her salary during that span.  But regardless of first quarter performance, there aren’t many options for becoming a book buyer at a corporate bookstore.  I am talking about the independent bookstores that have developed unique identities and are located within communities that have rallied around them.  These stores won’t compete with the chains when it comes to total sales volume, but they do offer the best opportunities to become a book buyer.

A successful independent bookstore will already have a qualified book buyer who is instrumental in the store’s success.  Ideally one would become an assistant buyer in such a store, learning the trade from an experienced hand as a modern apprentice.  There aren’t many openings for assistant book buyers in this market, not when stores are forced to scale back on inventory and personnel in order to offset declining sales.  The trade book department in our store had to cut two full-time positions, including the buyer position.  As such I am being reassigned as a textbook buyer.  I am fortunate to work in a store with that option, as opposed to the limited alternatives other stores are currently facing.  When I started working in the store there wasn’t a trade book buyer position.  Now that it has become untenable I’ve been given another book buying opportunity.  I’ve only had these opportunities because I was hired to run the candy counter.  You have to get your foot in the door, even if that means working as a barista in the cafe.  You may need to gain some experience working in a chain store before moving on to an independent store.  You have to work your way up.  In my case that is both figurative and literal, as the textbook department is on the second floor of our store.  I’ve gone from one end of the conveyor belt to the other!

Blood And Ice review

In his writing workshops Brandon Sanderson talks about strange attractors.  This entails taking two familiar yet dissimilar story elements and combining them to create an original story that is still accessible.  The best examples are movies: think The Lion King meets Gladiator.  Are you not entertained?  Blood And Ice by Robert Masello is another excellent example.  Vampires at the South Pole.  Is that a strange attractor or what?  A journalist (like Masello himself) is sent on assignment to a research station in Antarctica.  While there he inadvertently discovers two people, a man and a woman, frozen in the ice.  The couple is brought back to the station for examination, but all is not as it seems.  Though they have been frozen for over a century, they aren’t dead.  They’re undead.  They are also primary characters, with full histories and psychologies.  Even vampirism is approached scientifically at a research station, and this adds another interesting angle to the vampire mythos.  Ranging from the British Empire to the Crimean War in the past to the Pacific Northwest and ultimately to Antarctica in the present, this is a well researched vampire tale.  An editor should drive a wooden stake through some deplorable phrases of the “it was a challenge, and he liked a challenge” variety, but this is an interesting and entertaining story of the vampire variety.  ‘Blood And Ice is a good yarn’ may sound a bit strange at first, but then most strange attractors do.

And In The Third Book He Arose

The third book in my recent spate of men brought back to life books, A Madness of Angels: Or, The Resurrection of Matthew Swift was just as “dark fantastic” as The Dark Volume and The Watch. In The Dark Volume blue glass alchemy brings a man back to life, whereas in A Madness of Angels blue electric angels do the trick. The Watch reminded me of lines from U2’s “No Line On The Horizon;” A Madness of Angels reminds of these lines from “Breathe”:

Nine 0 nine, St. John Divine, on the line, my pulse is fine
But I’m running down the road like loose electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease

The band in Matthew Swift’s head are the blue electric angels, incorporated with him upon his resurrection, and their tease is “come be we and be free.”  Swift is an urban sorcerer, one who draws upon the power of the city around him, but returning to mortality two years after his murder is not the work of any of his spells.  Someone has summoned him back, and the blue electric angels have come with him. The spectre that killed him before is after him again, but this time it has competition from both the blue electric angels as well as other factions that want to subject or destroy the angels for their own purposes.

Kate Griffin, otherwise known as YA author Catherine Webb, breathes life into an eclectic, electric debut.  I was so drawn into this story that I missed my bus stop.  When I belatedly stepped out into the rain I felt like the air was charged with power that could be tapped.  Swift tells his comrades in arms that sorcery is just a different point of view, a unique way of viewing the world around them,  and there just may be something to that.  This book is certainly unique and unpredictable, and there is certainly something to be said for that.