It's hot and humid here in Massachusetts, and the crows are standing around on people's lawns with their beaks open, panting to keep themselves cool.  Time for a little escapism.

At the reading on Monday night, I was talking with nineweaving , and I mentioned that I read her books, most of all, for their plot and the characterization that feeds the plot.  I associate them with Gothic fiction because they give me the same sense of intrigue and enjoyment of strong, bizarre imagery that I get from the kind of novels I refer to as "Gothic".  Nine was a little surprised, and asked me to go into it in more detail, and then something else came up and we both got distracted.  Here's my attempt to explain what I meant more clearly.

If I claim the Cloud cycle as Gothic fiction, first of all I'm going to have to define what I mean by "Gothic".  That's a task that may be beyond me.  All I can say for sure is, "I know it when I see it!"  Here is a list of fiction, in no particular order, that I call Gothic.  Old-dark-house mysteries, family sagas, ghost stories, crime fiction--they all have certain elements in common.
( Everyone is invited to add to this list if they feel I've overlooked something. )

I'm going to set down a list of Gothic elements, in no particular order, and see how many correspondences I can find with characters, plots and scenes in the Cloud series.

( Comparisons. Cut for massive spoilers for entire Cloud & Ashes series. )

Whew!  And I've only scratched the surface!
One of the fun things about the Cloud series is the number of ways in which you can read it.  I don't mean this entry to say that when you look at Unleaving, you're going to instantly start comparing it to Wuthering Heights.  There is honestly nothing out there that's more than a little like the Cloud series.  I love the series for what it is, not for the ways in which I can compare the stories to other books.  But the comparisons are there, too, at the back of my mind; they just seem so natural that I'd never thought to remark on them before.

Yesterday, I had a very satisfying evening out.  I drove to Connecticut for nineweaving 's reading from her new book, Cloud & Ashes.  It was nice to see that there was a good big crowd there, very relaxed and happy and enjoying the reading.  Nine, as always, read wonderfully well.  The way I initially became involved in her world was when I heard her read aloud at Boskone a few years ago, and I think a lot of other people would say the same. 

Cloud & Ashes contains a short story, "Jack Daw's Pack", a novella, A Crowd of Bone, and a novel, Unleaving.  Are you aware of Cloud?  If not, you can get started here.  I became a fan right after A Crowd of Bone came out, and that's really the story that won my heart and left me wanting more.  'od's 'ooks, it's been made free online!

More on this next time.  In the meantime, here's your limerick at last, Nine!

I devoured a volume of heft
And left half my brain in its weft.
The songs of Apollo
Are a hard act to follow,
So I made like a tree and unleft.

Along the highway
The broad leaves droop in July
I miss all my buds.

Posting from class:

This past month was apparently National Poetry Month.  I missed it myself, because last year I posted a poem every day all through April, and I got burnt out.  I've enjoyed reading everyone's poetry posts this month, though, and I was starting to feel left out.  Here is one part of The Waste Land  that I like.

Also, I've been reading and writing too many business plans lately.  


Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

Happy New Year!

This isn't an apocryphal-life-of-Jesus song, it is instead a ballad with some resemblances to the story "The Monkey's Paw", but it happens at this time of year and I first heard it between Christmas and New Year's Eve.  N.B: It's called "The Wife of Usher's Well" even though there's no well in this version of the song, because that's what the best-known version is called in the anthology English and Scottish Ballads, by Francis James Child.  Notes taken from John Roberts and Tony Barrand's Dark Ships in the Forest.

 Warning: gruesome slapstick violence.

As it fell out on a bright holiday,
Small rain from the sky did fall,
Our Saviour asked his mother dear
If he might play at ball.

"At ball, at ball, my own dear son,
'Tis time that you was gone,
But don't let me hear of any doings
Tonight when you come home..."

Happy Christmas!  

Lord, I have slept well! 
I am as fresh as an eel;
As light I feel
As leaf on tree.

In recognition of the day, here is my favorite piece of God fanfic and my favorite play ever.  

The Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play

I've loved this ever since my drama teacher handed me an anthology of miracle plays so that I could read "Everyman".  That was a lot of fun in itself, but then I idly paged onwards and found the first lines of this play and I was instantly hooked.

Lord! but these weathers are cold! and I am ill-wrapped.  
I am near-hand dold, so long have I napped.
My legs they fold, my fingers are chapped.
It is not as I wold, for I am all lapped
In sorrow.
In storms and in tempest,
Now in the east, now in the west,
Woe is him has never rest,
Mid-day nor morrow!



Over the twelve days of Christmas, I'll be posting more ballads and scripts that I consider Nativity fanfic.  I may be an atheist, but I'm a singin' atheist and I know a good story when I hear one.

...Hail, sweet Saviour, who dear hast us bought!
Hail!  I kneel and I cower.  A bird have I brought
To my bairn.
Hail, little tiny mop!
Of our creed thou art crop.
I would drink of thy cup, 
Little day-starn.

Everybody have a look at this thread, apropos of the poem "Unwelcome".  lignota has just made my day.