Solanaceae Posted October 5 Share Posted October 5 A Night in Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny. It's October, so I thought of this title. Did anyone here read it? I enjoyed it very much, it was great fun and well suited to the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 It look cool, I might check it out over the weekend. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 8 Share Posted October 8 I just read the first 9 chapters, I'm really enjoying it a lot, I haven't really enjoyed reading in forever. I love the characters. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 9 Share Posted October 9 I love Snuff's discussion of curses in the first chapter, how "Jack is under a curse from long ago and must do much of his work at night to keep worse things from happening", and how "we are the keepers of several curses and our work is very important". its so interesting to me to think about that. I noticed that sometimes people are first drawn to ideas about witchcraft in the belief that they are cursed. after observing that, i became very dismissive about the whole idea of curses, i got the prejudice that curses may just be a matter of panic. and a lot of times in my own life I've felt like, some situation that i have been in is so improbable that i suspected there might be a curse on me and i think that for me to reach that conclusion was associated with a certain emotionality also, maybe kind of like a fear of being cursed that made me dismiss the possibility. But this is a very different way of thinking of curses, it seems really calm and clear thinking in a way. that a curse may be there and may need to be managed, and it's important to manage it but also its not something to freak out about, it's more a part of life like say.. a chronic illness would be. you know like... not a big deal to be under a curse, just a part of life that takes a bit of maintenance and upkeep. and if you give it that kind of calm attention then it can be controlled effectively. i think that's great, a really refreshing take. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solanaceae Posted October 10 Author Share Posted October 10 Thank you for sharing your thoughts. That is an interesting way to look at it. In my experience, a curse is often an as yet unrealized blessing. I am glad you are enjoying the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 10 Share Posted October 10 13 hours ago, Solanaceae said: In my experience, a curse is often an as yet unrealized blessing. I guess it makes sense that a clever witch should turn things to an advantage. Otherwise what is the point of being a witch! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 11 Share Posted October 11 (edited) I find the sense in the book of being surrounded with other magic people really appealing. Even if they aren't "friends" exactly.. they're a type of community by their proximity, interactions and interests. Edited October 11 by Moly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 13 Share Posted October 13 i just read october 13 chapter on friday october 13. pretty cool ☆ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solanaceae Posted October 13 Author Share Posted October 13 8 hours ago, Moly said: i just read october 13 chapter on friday october 13. pretty cool ☆ That is cool. Since we have had discussions in the 'angel numbers' thread as well, you have probably already considered the potential significance of the number 13 as well, but if not I thought I might take this opportunity to draw your attention to it for a moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 15 Share Posted October 15 On 10/13/2023 at 10:46 PM, Solanaceae said: That is cool. Since we have had discussions in the 'angel numbers' thread as well, you have probably already considered the potential significance of the number 13 as well, but if not I thought I might take this opportunity to draw your attention to it for a moment. thank you so much ♡ I'll put a note about it there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 19 Share Posted October 19 If anyone is looking for something to read now is a great time to get this on your ereader. It's a page turner and there is plenty of time to catch up to today's date, i have regularly wished that the chapters were longer, it takes about 5-10 minutes to read a chapter. And it's just starting to get really interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 26 Share Posted October 26 I've been mildly lamenting that the chapters are sometimes fairly brief, i could happy spend 2 hours a day reading this but often i read a chapter in under 10 minutes and tomorrow seems forever away. but October 27 had so much super sweetness packed into it that it made the other brief chapters seem to have a purpose. somehow all the previous brief chapters made that one seem even sweeter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted October 31 Share Posted October 31 It was awesome, I loved it. It was the most fun I've had reading in about 10 years and made me want to read more, it made me feel the joy i felt when i was younger and read so avidly. On a witchcraft note, I liked the idea at the end about fire burning in multiple worlds. Thanks for the recommendation Solanaceae 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solanaceae Posted November 1 Author Share Posted November 1 I am very glad that you enjoyed it so much @Moly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moly Posted November 1 Share Posted November 1 it absolutely got me out of bed every morning all month!! i really appreciated how upside-down everything was. just taking the most immediately obvious thing we learn in the first chapter, a story about magical people - but the magical people are not the protagonists, its told from the perspective of their familiars. how weird is that?! completely topsy turvy and it stayed that way right to the end. it was as though it said "as above, so below" without actually saying that. it said that even in the way it was told, like as a story that could be comforting for a teenager (still enough genuine horror to be scary), but the more you look the more you see. i thought it showed amazing mastery of genre all the way through, all the philosophy all lined up perfectly with the style and the form it took. it was a real little masterpiece it reminded me of Tolkien, how Tolkien's narratives are consistently progressively eradicating magic from the world, elves evacuating and the magical objects destroyed etc, this book was philosophically the OPPOSITE of that if that makes sense. it went deep into certain issues about magic and it stayed there. it seemed very pagan to me. im not saying the author was pagan but he treated the topic seriously and respectfully on its own terms. i think it was the last novel he wrote? i read somewhere some critic said that his earliest work is regarded as his best and he didnt live up to the promise of that early work, this novel makes me think that he would have laughed so hard at that criticism. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solanaceae Posted November 1 Author Share Posted November 1 I too found it to be 'a little masterpiece.' Much of his work has a bit of pagan flare, but none quite so overtly I'd say. As far as the criticism, I think these are probably more people expecting that artists will keep producing more of the same, without taking into consideration that people grow, evolve, and change, and therefore so does their work. It's a deviation from his early work, that's for sure. It's my personal favourite of his that I have read, for whatever that is worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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