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Lewis Szymanski

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Derek Davis

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http://lickhaven.com/

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Literature & Fiction, Science, Graphic Novels

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sun, sometimes rain

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January 2009

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I've published lots of short stories, three novels and a short story collection, written a dozen plays for our local community and have a stack of ideas that get in each other's way.

I live in rural Pennsylvania because I'd spent most of my life in Philadelphia and hated it. Now I'm what passes for happy. Chainsaw wood, watch the sun set and read the news online. Got a Kindle so I wouldn't worry about dropping my favorite books in the bathtub, and I could read all of the 19th century for free. Dropped the Kindle in the bathtub (damn!).

Like almost all music except big bands, opera, Latin and rap, yet go days on end listening to nothing but crickets. I wish I'd picked up that used copy of The History of Meat put out by Armour or Swift in 1915, ...more

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Average rating: 4.45 · 11 ratings · 3 reviews · 4 distinct works

	Gifts of a Dead Man 4.25 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	No Bike it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Back Alleys it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Evolution Unfolding in a Small Town in Western Pennsylvania it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Derek Davis's Blog

Back Alleys

Well, lovers of great literature, the paperback of my short story collection, Back Alleys, is finally available, after a long slog with Amazon over the cover photo.

Here’s my blurb:
From the depths of the human mind to the reaches of extra-galactic space, these stories embrace anything and everything that's human (and non-human). Visit Prester John in his hidden Indian kingdom, Satiety Jones on the Read more of this blog post »

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Published on April 10, 2018 11:19

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Derek is Currently Reading

Derek Davis is currently reading

The Complete Works of Charles Dickens

by Charles Dickens

bookshelves: somewhere-along, currently-reading

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Derek Davis said: " This is a sort of Dickens potpourri, covering three of his novels that I've read in chronological succession, so for those who don't like Dickens (and I know who you are!), just shoo. I do like Dickens, but less for his actual tales, which I admit la This is a sort of Dickens potpourri, covering three of his novels that I've read in chronological succession, so for those who don't like Dickens (and I know who you are!), just shoo. I do like Dickens, but less for his actual tales, which I admit languish along the way more often than not, than for his humor, detail, and caring for humanity.
I won't bother dropping in examples of his humor, for it niggles and wanders, dissecting the overbearing with snipes at their foibles, cuddling the worthwhile under coverlets of love. I've read long paragraphs of his describing a simple scene and been left near suffocating with laughter You get the idea.
Those paragraphs – and others packed with seriousness – live on detail, the bits and pieces of what makes us human, for good or bad, and how those pieces not only define but direct us in our actions. That may sound simple or everyday, but Dickens wanders down into the deepest levels of the immediate to find the caste-off scraps that are, so often, more important than the looming furniture.
Dickens was a reporter – in the general and in the specific sense of being a writer (and righter) of human wrongs. The characters he extols are the downtrodden, the victims of the inequities that come form being alive in a complicated, confused, ill-balanced and often uncaring world. His villains are damn-your-soul sons of bitches that you wait to see devoured by their own evil (which you do get to see!).
All that sounds a bit heavy-handed, doesn't it? 'Tis, but life for so many of us (as the current global situation underscores) is just that – heavy-handed, unsympathetic and bereft of worth.
So those are the pillars upon which I balance my respect for Dickens. But I'm not trying to knight him simply for carrying a lance. There are many times when he seems to be wearing his armor backwards or at least askew
Nicholas Nickleby *****
Not perfect by any means, but strong, stout, direct and unsparing. Nicholas, his mother and his sister Kate are left adrift following the death of his father (you'd be hard-pressed to find a family in 19th-century British novels with both parents alive and functioning). They are overseen, to their disservice, by venal Uncle Ralph, who holds the reins to the family fortune, what's left of it. Nicholas takes an instructor's position in a Yorkshire school which is the epitome of malevolent education. He leaves after beating the crap out of the vicious schoolmaster (Wackford Squeers – another of Dickens' marvelously named villains), then moving the family to London to become a private secretary, constantly undercut by Ralph, who is busy trying, with his equally vile associates, to gain control of a young heiress's fortune.
The action unfolds at the pace it should, when it should. Both Nicholas and Kate seemed destined to have their romantic choices denied them, but of course they win their loves, and Uncle Ralph receives vengeance at his own hand. The broad plot, then, is a standard thing, but not so the handling of feelings and character. Dickens retains some pity even for the uncle who, after all, isn't responsible for his birth as a terrible human being – though Dickens holds nothing back in his verbal evisceration of Sir Mulberry Hawk, a dissolute playboy without the least smidgeon of decency.
The Old Curiosity Shop ***
The outlook here I find too glaringly black and white. It's also confusing that Nell, the central character, is described in her actions as though she's 9 or 10, but is said to be roughly 14. And her determination to lead her failing grandfather on an interminable walk from London into the countryside is downright absurd. But again, Dickens brings such humanity throughout that I can forgive much of this, especially in chapters such as Nell in a churchyard, talking to the sexton – a brilliant study of the joys of life and transience; of the continuation of good and decency no matter what.
No need to badger the plot here, which is stark and unrelenting, but in a sense barely matters. But I found Nell's death near the end an unmotivated tear-jerking cheat that adds nothing; Dickens' apologia for death rings hollow.
Barnaby Rudge ***
What an oddly disjointed and bumbling mess. There's indication that Dickens intended this to be his first novel, but it was published only when, much later, he had established his own weekly, "Master Humphrey's Clock," as a depository for this and similar pieces--including The Old Curiosity Shop (the magazine lasted a year). To me, it reads like two short novels slapped together with verbal Gorilla Glue. The parts don't line up, the plots misalign or disappear, then reappear when you've forgotten what came earlier.
The first half concentrates on the life flowing into, out of and around the Maypole Tavern; the animosity between the Chester and Haredale families; and a murder 20 years back. It's remarkably, amazingly, stunningly tedious. If you're waiting for something (anything) to happen, you will be sorely disappointed. Barnaby – the retarded son of a man who disappeared after the murder and who lives with his mother, is a minor character at best.
The second half deals mainly with a massive anti-Catholic uprising in London in 1780, into which Barnaby, in his dull innocence, is dragged by a reprehensible lout from the Maypole who has an innate ability to lead others to destruction. Once the riots get under way, the action not only picks up but explodes in one of the best descriptions of mob rule ever put together. Dickens zeroes in on both personal motives and the intoxication of mob behavior, when normal inhibitions become absorbed by exhilarating mayhem. He brings remarkable insight to the current situation in America, including the acceleration of the riots by the soldiery's murderous attempts to put them down.
I'm not quite finished reading Barnaby and I will go on. My main problem at this point is not so much wondering how it will all become reconciled, but understanding just what there is to reconcile. Good luck, Barnaby, whatever that may be and wherever it takes you. ...more "

Aug 01, 2020 06:01PM · see review

Derek Davis is currently reading

Delphi Complete Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction

by Charles William Eliot

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Oct 24, 2021 02:02PM

Derek Davis is currently reading

Writings 1902-1910: The Varieties of Religious Experience / Pragmatism / A Pluralistic Universe / The Meaning of Truth / Some Problems of Philosophy / Essays

by William James

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Mar 26, 2019 06:13PM

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Derek’s Quotes

“Things that I useta would do
I don't do no more.”
― Gary Davis

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“Everyone loves something, even if it's only tortillas.”
― Chogyam Trungpa

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“Here I come, Constantinople”
― The Residents

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“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
― Richard Feynmann

tags: curiosity, learning, scholarship

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“You are not a terrible person. But the world is a terrible, HORRIBLE place. What you've got to do is take all that rage and all that hatred that's inside of you and turn it around. You've got to stop trying to destroy yourself. Turn that rage outward, go out and try to destroy the WORLD instead.”
― Jim Knipfel, Slackjaw

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message 2: by Derek

Jan 18, 2017 12:48PM

Hey, thanks. Yes, life is good up here, much better (for me) than back in Philly. And thanks for all the likes on my recent reviews. Enough already! Some of what I write ain't that good. I've never been to Erie.

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message 1: by Majenta

Jan 18, 2017 11:06AM

Hello, Derek! Greetings from Erie, Pennsylvania to....rural Pennsylvania! Sounds like you have a good life. Congratulations on your book! I hope 2017 is getting off to the right start for you. Happy reading, writing, and everything else. Blessings!

Best wishes from Majenta

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