I (finally) finished Captain Bluebear. Episodic right to the end, although the author tried to tie everything together by bringing just about every character who'd ever appeared up till that point back for the ending. But it didn't really feel organic -- if any of the previous characters hadn't appeared, it wouldn't have changed the plot one iota. That's probably a failing of the book, but one that doesn't really bother me.
For me, the charm of this book has always been the inventiveness, as Moers throws in one bizarre idea after another. (A professor with 7 brains, a continent that becomes a spaceship, a lying contest, etc). Anything else would be pure gravy, if there were anything else, but there isn't -- this is not a book with a deep plot, or characters, or social message.
I've decided to split up the 3 Kingdoms into 10-chapter chunks. All the characters are hard to keep apart after a while, but I find that after a little break, it's fun again. Maybe it just takes my brain a while to digest everything.
Moving along in the Phaethon story in Ovid. I'm definitely getting more attuned to the rhythm of Ovid's Latin, and it's fun when I can anticipate the commentary. Just today, I came to the end of the Sun's warning to Phaethon, "quodcumque optaris sed tu sapientius opta." And I knew that the string of spondees is there to give solemnity to the warning, in contrast to Ovid's usual more-sprightly dactyls. Made me feel smart :-).
No comments:
Post a Comment