Quotes from Stuff I Like: Davies Part 1

It seems quaint to those whose own personalities are not strongly marked and whose intellects are infrequently replenished. -Tempest-Tost

The Forresters, as they told everyone they met, had "neither chick nor child". Their failure to have a chick never provoked surprise, but it was odd that they were childless; they had not sought that condition. -Tempest-Tost

He had allowed his daughters to use his library without restraint, and nothing is more fatal to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library. -Tempest-Tost

The thought which was uppermost in his mind, when at last Griselda stopped and turned to him, was that his mother never went to sleep until he had come home and that her displeasure and concern, issue from her rather as the haze of ectoplasm issues from a spiritualist medium, filled the house whenever he came home late. -Tempest-Tost

His key seemed to make a shattering noise in the lock. And when he entered the hall, which was in darkness, maternal solicitude and pique embraced him like the smell of cooking cabbage. -Tempest-Tost

And because he had been born to this lot, he accepted it without question; as children always do, and as some adults continue to do, he invented reasons why he should be as he was, instead of seeking for means by which he might be delivered from his fate. -Tempest-Tost

The borborygmy, or rumbling of the stomach, has not received the attention from either art or science which it deserves. It is as characteristic of each individual as the tone of the voice. It can be vehement, plaintive, ejaculatory, conversational, humorous(its variety is boundless. But there are few who are prepared to give it an understanding ear; it is dismissed too often with embarrassment or low wit. -Tempest-Tost

Robertson Davies: Man of Myth ***

*** Robertson Davies: Man of Myth, Judith Skelton Grant, 1994

This sucker has been on my bookshelf for years, travelling around the globe from TX to AZ to CO to HI and finally back to TX. Then it sat on my elliptical trainer for months as I worked my way through it. At 654 pages of biography and another 130+ of end notes, it garners a BLCS rating of rat, and possibly cat.

I discovered Davies in the early 90s and he quickly replaced Graham Greene as my favorite author. I've been saving a few other Davies gems to savor because they're not making new Davies stories anymore and I've read almost everything.

The biography was instructive and entertaining, but I doubt anyone but the most avid Davies fan would take the trouble to read the monster.

Instead, for the next three days you can read some quotes from four of his novels that I read in the 90s.

Do The Math

The Value Proposition: Movie vs Book.

Let's be honest. When it comes down to it, most decisions are about the bang for the buck.

Most people don't think twice about throwing down admission price for the latest blockbuster movie of their flavor of choice. In my area, that's $10 a head for prime time. Of course, the movie experience isn't complete without some kind of concessions, soda, popcorn, candy, hot dog, whatever, at loan-shark prices. Now you're up to around $20 for 2 hours of entertainment, or $10 per hour.

Now let's take a novel. The Passage has been hot this year.It's $16 in hardcover at Amazon.com right now, running at 784 pages. Let's say you read a page a minute (which is pretty fast). That's 13 hours of entertainment, or $1.23 per hour. A movie costs eight times more per hour. Eight times. You can get The Passage in paperback or Kindle at $10, running you $0.77 per hour. A movie costs thirteen times more per hour. Are you getting this?

You can have 2 hours of movie and only get half of Deathly Hallows for $10 plus rapaciously-priced popcorn in a chair next to a stranger who hogs the arm rest, or have 13 hours of book and get all of Deathly Hallows for $7 plus any food your heart desires at sane prices in the most comfortable chair in your home.

Here's the funny thing, the psychology of it. At the movies, you step up to the window and the girl says, "Ten dollars," and you don't blink. At the bookstore, you pick up a book, you see the $16 price tag, and you think, "Really? Sixteen dollars?" and you put it back down.

Does anybody else think that's weird?

Trunk Music ***

*** Trunk Music, Michael Connelly, 1997

Back to to Bosch and some interesting twists. Although I did see the first twist from a long way away. But Connelly is still the king of maintaining tension. I wonder if he gets tired of making Bosch always choose the adolescent, self-destructive way of dealing with things. I kind of felt that when he does something particularly juvenile and his new boss, Billets, asked him "Why don't you grow up and quit these little pissing wars?"

But still good stuff.

The Road **

** The Road, Cormac McCarthy, 2006

As you know, this book won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006.In 2010 the London Times ranked The Road first on its list of the 100 best fiction and non-fiction books of the past 10 years.

That's nice and everything, but I never really got McCarthy. I read All the Pretty Horses in the 90s and didn't get it, either. I guess I'm not sophisticated enough for critically acclaimed stuff. He's often compared to Faulkner, who I also don't get.

The writing was good, but the story didn't grab me. Well, it did, at first, but after a couple hundred pages of a man and a boy walking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, looking for food and encountering 3 or 4 other humans during that span, I had gotten enough to last me for the next decade.

If you're the type who loves McCarthy, great. Enjoy it. I'll enjoy something else.

The Poet ***

*** The Poet, Michael Connelly, 1996

The first non-Bosch novel Connelly did. Rachell Walling from the first novel surfaces, along with a new character, Jack McEvoy, a Denver journalist. I'm not as enamored with Jack as with Bosch, but Connelly still deals from the arm with finesse.

Here's the thing about Connelly:

Opening a Michael Connelly novel is like opening a bag of potato chips. It's very difficult to stop.

With chips, you can fill a bowl, close the bag, and put it away. With a novel, the next chapter is only a page away. Several after-midnight sessions with this one.

Levi's Will **

** Levi's Will, W. Dale Cramer, 2005

I got this book a long time ago because Cramer was chewing through the Christy awards. I thought Bad Ground was OK, but everyone was raving about Levi's Will, so I had to check it out. It's a decent book, but too much front-loaded back story, exposition and on the nose narrative for my liking. YMMV.

The Last Coyote ***

*** The Last Coyote, Michael Connelly, 1995

Great, as usual. However, I detected a small chink in the otherwise flawless armor of the Bosch novels. There were two spots, a few pages apart, where I came across one of the things we all love to hate in whodunits.

You know that thing where the protagonist sees something that could be worriesome, but then dismisses it? Yeah, that thing. Where you say, dang, I'm no cop, but even I know better than to ignore a guy changing his tire right next to my car late at night in an abandoned parking lot, and turn my back on him. Especially when powerful men are looking for me to kill me. And here is a guy who just happens to be next to my car, holding a tire tool.

So, that's one page out of hundreds and no reason to write off Connelly. It mainly serves to let me know he's human after all.

Treasure Island ***

*** Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883

I made a reference to Treasure Island in my current work-in-progress and thought there might be multiple parallels the protagonist, so I zipped through it in a few nights. It's 127 years old and still a quick and entertaining read.

The Concrete Blonde ***

*** The Concrete Blonde, Michael Connelly, 1994

The third Bosch novel serves to demonstrate Connelly's ability to start off at high tension (Bosch the defendant in a trial that could destroy his career) and continue to ratchet it up for hundreds of pages. I practically ripped through this one, reading much later into the night than is proper for a man of my stature in the community. It also ratchets him higher up on the pedestal in my view. Three home runs in a row. From a writing standpoint, he deserves the success he has enjoyed. I heard him speak at the Texas Book Festival last year and he seemed like a great guy, also. Good for him.