Stiobhard > Recent Status Updates

The proofreader at Ace was asleep on the job when this came out. Inconsistent punctuation, spelling that flips for no reason between US and UK usage, and words that are just outright misspellings. I can forgive the made-up contractions and dialect speech because that at least has a purpose even if it is too much like {author:Joel Chandler Harris|7320] But the rest I wish they had had a more attentive proofreader.

Some odd choices in the typography. I am confident they are meant to be that way, but what they mean is not clear to me.
resiliance rather than resilience, grey instead of gray, single quotes and double quotes used interchangeably (noting different speakers maybe? Not sure.) Surely the proofreader at Grosset & Dunlap spotted these but its too subtle for me to sort out the intent but too obvious to be an accident.

Origins of sexism, Protestantism. Great Man Theory. hypocrisy of neo-raphaelites/ Victorian mediaevalists. Travels of Margery Kempe.

Suffragettes and mediaeval studies. Joan of Arc. Julian of Norwich.

I still do not know how to read a massive tome of 8 line snippets. What do people in lit courses do? I got this to read along with the TV series, which made sense as each ep seemed built around a single poem. But it became more muddled. They never stopped quoting her poems but it was less clear what poem were in focus. And as she wrote more earnestly in later episodes the poems were more in the background than s1.

I do not have time for this. I will read it later.

So I gave the Witchfires of Leth a pretty dismal review, so to be fair I thought I'd buy at least one more book in the series just to have more than one book to base my opinion on. I chose this one because I thought it'd inspire me to get to the other three Lynn Abbey books I own but have never actually read. Only thing was that trying to order this book from Half Price Books has been so excrutiating. Really, now.

I have no idea how to read a book like this. 1,775 separate texts by one author between two covers. But since I bought this book yesterday it has followed me around wherever I go. Maybe I will figure it out.

There were tons of these on shelves in December then after the holidays they all vanished! :( Well I finally found one and it is in pretty pristine condition.
I still have a lot of questions about what Middle English is and what makes it different from the modern English of Shakespeare and the King James Bible. I understand in broad abstract terms but when I read actual texts the difference is a lot muddier to me.

Having just watched recently "Around the World in 80 Days" with David Tennant, this seems timely.

Spanish edition. It's published in Barcelona so I have already spotted one use of "vosotros".

Rather long introduction relative to the rest of the book and while all the manuscript references and dates is somewhat mind boggling, there is interesting stuff here. How much is in question about the person of Marie de France and the political and also the literary context of the 12th cent. In particular her approach to the theme of Love is discussed. Having read some of A Cappellanus, some of that rang a bell.

Finished the last story. "The Unholy Grail. Another solo-ish adventure about Grey Mouser and Ivriel as a wizard's apprentice. My overall feeling of this is the secondary characters... Ivriel and Duke Janarrrl are more interesting and nuanced than The Grey Mouser. Still with the choppy narrative that leaves the reader confused when critical things happen. I am still unclear at what actual events lead to the ending.

I read "The Snow Women" the longest story in this collection. Its also the best. A real Conan sort of tale but the confusing narrative style has several jumps that make you go wait a minute! What just happened? I think I missed something. This is a solo tale with Fafhrd (and Vlana who we know from Ill met.. Im not sure I like the chron order of stories but here is a reason not to read these stories in reverse order)

I was worried that this version might be incomplete... but the stories listed on wikipedia are the ones included here so I guess thats right... Though earlier translations listed on archive dot org seem to have considerably more stories in them so I do not know where those are from... maybe other works by Marie de France? I think she had other poems and fabliaux in her repertoire.

Who's the king in the prologue?

I found this while looking for something else at the bookstore. This copy is not in terribly good shape. But the pages are relatively unmarked so Ive seen worse. I read some translation of some of these stories before, eliduc in my college literature class from the norton anthology, and a collection for children of these stories I found at the library one time.

Finally finished "Ill Met in Lankhmar" Are the other stories in the collection worth reading? These short stories are not as it turns out so short. They could be broken up into chapters or something.

I am disappointed with Norman Davis choices which will effect my eventual review. I understand it applies modern spelling but it does not read like Middle English. I have another book of Tudor era letters (The Lisle Letters) and I see little difference in the use of language. I understand these were written 1450-1503 but I still think there ought to be more discernable examples of how people used English at the time.

first things first... the book is only 288 pages but I guess the editor's introduction and front matter adds about 32 pages to that number. So its only a brief sampling of the large collection of letters.

Just one chapter to go!!