Finished, The 10pm Question by Kate de Goldi

The 10PM Question by Kate De Goldi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars (aka 10/10)

Read 2 July 2011 to 7 July 2011

I can’t think of what I want to say about this book, and since the point of this blog is to share my enjoyment of books without stressing myself out (and today has already been highly stressful for other reasons), so I shall leave my comment simple.

Read this book!

Kate de Goldi has written a wonderful book that creates a delightful set of characters and addresses difficult issues (anxiety and mental illness) with tact and respect.

Frankie is just a delight. His worries are well drawn and understandable and the ending is perfect. There’s no magic, happy ending, but things are going in the right direction and Frankie is making progress.

This isn’t my usual sort of book, but it was beautiful. I loved Frankie’s interactions with his family and friends and I loved Frankie so much. I just wanted to take him home and make it all better for him.

It’s also one of the simplest but best descriptions I’ve read of the start of a panic attack. Been there, done that, and I felt just the way Frankie feels in the book.

A lovely, lovely book. Do give it a try.

A well deserving 10/10.

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Finished, The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay

The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars (aka 10/10)

Read 2 times. 
Last read June 26, 2011 to July 2, 2011

29 June 2011
With sorrow and wonder both, he followed the sound of a harp to another door and, opening it, bade all three of them to come back with him, one for the God, one for the Goddess, and one in the name of the children, and for bitterest love.
— The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay, Chapter 7

29 Jun 2011
“The Pariko,” Loren repeated. “The Giants. They were here, and the Wild Hunt rode the night sky. It was a very different world, or so the legends of the lios tell. Shadowy kings on shadowy horses that could ride between the stars and between the Weaver’s worlds.”
–The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay, Chapter 9

29 Jun 2011
When the Wandering Fire
Strikes the heart of stone
Will you follow?
Will you leave your home?
Will you leave your life?
Will you take the Longest Road?
–The Wandering Fire by Gavriel Kay, Chapter 9

2 Jul 2011
And he lay down with a goddess, in the green, green of the grass.
–The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay, Chapter 15

2 Jul 2011
Paul was on his knees, weeping for the captured souls. For the voices of all the bright lios alfar who had set sail to their song, to find a world shaped by the Weaver for them alone.

Not one of them would have gotten there, he now knew. For a thousand years the lios had set forth, singly and in pairs, over a moonless sea.

To meet the Soulmonger of Maugrim. And become its voice.

Most hated by the Dark, for their name was Light.
–The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay, Chapter 15

REVIEW
I’m so glad I carried on reading The Fionavar Tapestry with The Wandering Fire. As I said in my little gushing post a couple of days ago, these books are still pure magic for me. Part of it is the stories themselves and another aspect is the way their interact with my own reading history and where I was in my life when I first found them.

I acknowledge that to a certain degree, the books are a fairly simple tale of young people from our world being called into another world to save it and everyone turns out to be special in some way. That’s a trope that’s considered fairly old hat these days and even looked down on to some degree. Back in the 1980s, it was still new and this was a very good example of it.

If the folklore that pervades a lot of speculative fiction these days relates to vampires and werewolves and zombies, back them in was Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend. I loved them both. (I still do and will always check out books with that kind of inspiration even if I will be more discriminating these days about what I’ll actually choose to read.)

This is the book that introduces Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot into the narrative (although we had met one of them already and didn’t know it) and it works beautifully for me. Like everything in the story, it is bright and full of pain both as fate and combined history play out towards tragedy all over again.

It is, as Kay calls it, Saddest story of all the long tales told, and yet there is something beautiful in that sadness and it adds a great richness to the tale. And not only in the Arthurian part of the story; Fionavar, first of all the worlds, stands to fall to the Dark and so many will have their parts to play before the end of the story, often also bright and painful.

Bittersweet. There’s a bitter sweetness in much of what happens and the reader has to have faith in the author to maintain the balance between the two and let the reader and the characters have some joy, some redemption to counter the pain.

I’ve read the next book (and I’m looking forward to reading it again). I know I can indeed have that faith. That the balance Kay choses as characters come to their fates works for me and give me a set of books I love.

I’ve already said I’ve been afraid to reread the trilogy for fear it would stand up across over 20 years, but it has for me. I think I may often be reading it again in the future now that I know I’m safe from that kind of disappointment.



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 I want to get all my book reviews in one place, so I'm going to try doing some copying into this sadly under-loved blog. We'll see how it goes.