Howling Frog Books

 February's stories are "The Pearl of Price," a Parker Pyne story, and "The Affair at the Bunglalow, featuring Miss Marple. "The Pearl of Price" is set on a group tour of Egypt, a nice little closed group of people who do not know each other well and who come from all over.  The rich American's daughter has valuable screw-on pearl earrings, which she is forever losing.  Pretty soon one of the pearls is lost, and though it ought to be easy to find...it isn't there. Who took the pearl and where did they hide it?  Parker Pyne figures it out. This is a fun short piece, and brings up the eternal question: how does anyone ever stand wearing screw-on earrings?  I've tried them!  They hurt! In "The Affair at the Bungalow," we have a dinner party that includes some retired military and police men, a lovely and famous actress, and a clever modern writer along with his elderly aunt.  As they trade stories of crime and try to fool each other, the ...

 Well, I've spent most of this month doing things besides reading.  I guess you could call it a reading slump.  But I did read Ozma of Oz, which was a familiar book of my childhood! In this installment, we go back to Dorothy, who is accompanying her Uncle Henry on a voyage to Australia for his health -- an amusingly transparent method of getting Dorothy on a ship, since there is no way a Kansas farm family would send anybody to Australia when they could just go to Florida or someplace.  Nevertheless, to Australia they go, and Dorothy is swept overboard in a storm.  Luckily she manages to cling to a chicken coop, and pretty soon she and the chicken come to shore.  The hen starts talking, so we know that we're somewhere near Oz! Dorothy and Billina discover that they're in Ev, a land next to the desert that surrounds Oz, and they find the mechanical man Tik-Tok and wind him up, so he joins the team. The queen and all her children have been captured by the Nom...

  The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by John R. Neill Dorothy has gone home, but the land of Oz continues!  Baum was inundated with letters begging for more, so he wrote a sequel, in which he introduces a whole slew of new characters.  I remember this story very well; I must have read it many times as a kid.  It was fun to get an adult perspective on the story. We start off with old Mombi, a would-be wicked witch whose ambition is held down by the local Good Witch.  (Mombi lives in the land of the Gillikins, which is all purple.)  She has a boy, Tip, who she uses as a slave, and when she's gone on a trip, he makes a jack o'lantern, gives him a body of sticks, and sets his pumpkin man up to scare Mombi on her way back.  She turns the tables on him by using her new Powder of Life to bring Jack to life, and then imprisons them both.  Tip and Jack escape and figure they might as well head to the city of Oz, and on the way Tip bri...

 Fanda at ClassicLit is doing a fun thing this year, and I'm going to join in.  It's the Agatha Christie Short Stories of 2024!    She has picked out two short stories to read each month. The January stories are "The Coming of Mr. Quin"  and "The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman," an early Poirot story, and there's plenty of time for you to join in. "The Coming of Mr. Quin" was published in 1923 (says my book; Fanda says '24) and was Christie's first published short story.  All the Quin stories feature him and Mr. Satterthwaite, who provides the point of view.  When Mr. Quin arrives, he doesn't solve a mystery; he simply asks a few questions and inspires others to solve the problem.  In this case, several people are gathered at a country home where, ten years ago, a friend of theirs killed himself.  Why?  The answer is crucial to two other people staying in the house... I always like Quin stories.  They're fun, and very differ...

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum   It's such a long time since I read this story, but I remember all the illustrations so well!  I must have read it many times as a kid. I think we all know the story, so I won't repeat it, except to point out that there is about three times as much material in the book as there is in the movie.  I'm not a huge fan of the movie -- I didn't grow up on it like so many people did -- so I won't say a lot about it either.  But Baum puts in a whole lot of hazards and side-trips that couldn't fit in the film version! L. Frank Baum was wanting to write an imaginative, fairy-tale type of story for the new America.  Forget all those princes and princesses, and especially all the violence, death, and heavy-duty moralizing of 19th-century children's literature!  This was going to be a fun, quirky story for a vigorous, expanding America, and it was going to star some familiar sights for an American child, like scarecrows, fa...

 Lory over at the Enchanted Castle has had a fun idea: reading all 14 Oz books from December 2023 - January 2025 .  If you can't take that much Oz, the first six are the main titles and you can just read those. I remember reading many of the Oz books when I was a kid, including several of the later titles.  But I haven't read them at all since then (except of course the first one, which I aloud to my kids).  So it would be quite interesting to do an adult readalong and see how they hold up and what I missed before.  I had no idea that Baum was making fun of General Jinjer, for example; I thought she was great. So I'm going to do it and read at least the first six books.  We'll see how it goes! First up!

The Horse and His Boy, by C. S. Lewis Someday I will write a #Narniathon21 post on time, but it is not this day.  April's book is The Horse and His Boy, which I've always liked for all the action and travel.  Plus I just like the title.  This story is also a bit unusual in the Narnia books, in that most of it is set in Calormen or Archenland; Narnia is often described, but not really seen (well, that happens in half the other books too!).  Calormen is the kingdom to the south, across a desert, and it's stated that it is much larger than Narnia, with many provinces, and is growing larger through conquest.  The only reason Archenland and Narnia are safe is that the desert is too difficult to cross.  Lewis doesn't really get any further into this, but I do find it interesting that Narnia is described as tiny and obscure compared to the huge countries elsewhere in the world -- who know nothing of Aslan.   This may parallel the way that Christianity is not...

 The Silver Chair, by C. S. Lewis I've always thought of this as a slightly oddball Narnia story, but that doesn't mean I don't like it.  I like this one quite a bit.  I just feel like it doesn't quite fit the mold. OK, so Eustace is back in school, and his school sounds like a dystopian Summerhill gone wrong, which is funny to me.  Lewis hated his own schooling, but he still seems to have stuck to that model as being the proper kind of education.  This school is co-educational and works on democratic lines, and so it's run by vicious bullies.  (Because boys' public schools didn't have much bullying??)  Eustace runs into Jane Pole and tells her about Narnia, and whoosh, into Narnia they go!  Well, actually, they start off at the top of the mountains that were visible across the edge of the world in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Aslan sends them over the sea.  I like Jill very much.  She's a sensible, tough kid.  But she and Eusta...

 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C. S. Lewis Here we are on volume 3 of the Narniathon readalong.  I think this is often a favorite with readers; I know it is with me.  It's got so many adventures! Edmund and Lucy are to spend the summer with their detestable cousin Eustace, who plans to sneer at them the whole time.  But they are immediately pulled into Narnia instead; they land in the ocean, right near a beautiful little sailing ship.  It's King Caspian X's ship; it's been three years and his reign is going well, so they're mounting an expedition to visit Narnia's island possessions, which no Telmarines have visited in generations.  After that, they plan to sail as far east as they can, to see if they can find the edge of the world.  (Edmund and Lucy are quite surprised to find out that this world is, in fact, flat, and Caspian thinks it's amazing that they're from a round world.) It's a perfect setup for a series of adventures.  I don't kn...

Prince Caspian, by C. S. Lewis The second installment of the Narnia chronicles was published in 1951, just a year after LWW.  I heard after last month's post that Lewis had all seven stories finished by the time LWW was published, and now I'm not sure on that point.  Anyone? It is a year after the Pevensie children's Narnia adventure, and they are in a depressing state: they're waiting at a train station to go back to their boarding schools (Lucy for the first time).  I'm guessing that this makes Lucy about ten and Peter about sixteen, maybe a year younger.  They're magically dragged into a different world, and it takes them a while to realize that this is Narnia -- but Narnia changed by many centuries of time.  You undoubtedly know the story, so I don't need to rehearse it, but I'll just throw in a few observations. As before, Lucy is the innocent one with the most faith.  (Her name means light , after all.)  Lucy has to learn courage, and to do what ...

 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe , by C. S. Lewis A delightful project, to read one Narnia book a month and discuss it.  Chris has posted his first discussion prompt, which I answered there, and now I'm going to set down a few of my more random thoughts about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe . Well, we all know the story, in which four siblings find their way into a magical land ruled by an evil witch, who can only be defeated when the true king, Aslan, arrives and sacrifices himself to redeem the world from her grasp.  It's an exciting children's story that:  contains layers and depths that can be endlessly discussed, that  many people dislike or resent, and which also  features a rather gleeful hodgepodge of elements from every mythos, legend, and sweet shop that Lewis could think of.  I bet Lewis just liked the word wardrobe .   It is a funny and unexpected sort of word, which lends excellent rhythm to the title.  There a...

 Chris at Calmgrove is hosting a leisurely tour of Narnia, starting this month.  Chris writes: ...we’ll be reading all seven titles of The Chronicles of Narnia in publication order, beginning with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950). You will have a month to read each title at your own speed, in your own time, until the last Friday of the corresponding month when you’ll be invited to comment. Here’s the schedule: December. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. January. Prince Caspian . February. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. March. The Silver Chair. April. The Horse and His Boy. May. The Magician’s Nephew. June. The Last Battle . July . Optional read: From Spare Oom to War Drobe by Katherine Langrish. At the end of the month you’ll be invited to join a conversation here — and also on Twitter — about that month’s instalment. If you find yourself at a loss as to where to begin, I’ll pose three general questions which you can either respond to or igno...

 I hope you've been following Lizzie and Chris' Witch Week events over on Lizzie Ross Writer !  There have been some wonderful posts and today is the last day of Witch Week (which, as we know, ends on Guy Fawkes' Day). I participated in two of the posts; we had a really nice readalong discussion of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book .  I hadn't read it in a long time, and this time I got the graphic novels too.  I also contributed a post about the works of M. R. James, which was a nice experience for me.  I'm grateful that Lizzie and Chris were willing to have me as a guest blogger! I do so enjoy so many aspects of Gothic literature, and have loved reading all of the posts.  Go visit for yourself.    

I've done it!  I finished!  That was fun, despite Emily's inability to make it across a room without leaning on every available piece of furniture for support.  That girl needs a stronger spine or something. So, Emily believes Valancourt to have gotten into some very bad habits, including heavy gambling and being a gigolo.  Valancourt admits his lack of worthiness, and they're both very sad.  A lot of this volume involves Emily meeting Valancourt -- by his request or accidentally -- whereupon they both get very upset and leave each other again, and Emily writes melancholy poetry.  Emily is staying with her friend Blanche, and an elderly servantwoman won't stop commenting on how much Emily resembles the late Marchioness, who died tragically young.  Emily, remembering her father's mysterious papers, begs for the story.  (Meanwhile, back at Udolpho, Montoni is captured!) The Marchioness was a lovely and good woman who was badly treated by her husband...

 Wow, this is taking a long time!  We're almost to the end of summer and I am on track with my reading, which means it's going to take, I think, another three months.  Still, I think this is the best way for me to be reading it; three chapters a reasonably easy weekly assignment to fulfill and I would probably give up in despair if I tried to read it all at once.  Since I fell behind on the notes, I decided to just take two weeks off, and I'm going to start back up now. Boy these sections had a lot of examples.  This is all about popular folk-customs of the harvest (now mostly gone), and obviously those customs varied slightly according to the region.   XLVI.  The Corn-Mother in Many Lands. The Corn-Mother in America:  Native American customs around maize (short). The Rice-Mother in the East Indies: So many examples of customs around rice. The Spirit of the Corn Embodied in Human Beings:  That last ceremonial reaper is often considered t...

The Mysteries of Udolpho Readalong I've finished Volume II, so it's time for an update!  I'm keeping up with the schedule -- I'm really a bit late with this post -- and enjoying this leisurely read of a very long novel In Volume II, Emily is whisked off to Venice, where there are a lot of parties.   Her aunt, the new Madame Montoni, thinks everything is going to be great, but she is very wrong.  Montoni has a bit of a gambling problem, his friends are sketchy as all get out, and all of them will do anything for money.  Maybe it wasn't such a hot idea to marry this guy after all. Among all the parties and boat excursions, Montoni's friend Count Morano is paying a lot of court to Emily, which she is not happy about one bit.  No matter how often she tells him she's not interested, he keeps pursuing her.  Montoni is pressuring her to marry him, and eventually comes up with a trick in which he 'understands' her to have accepted the suit.  He's determ...

I've been reading along just fine, but finding time (and motivation) to blog isn't so easy.  But here we are, just about halfway through!  Much of this chunk was specifically about Adonis/Attis/Tammuz worship. XXXI. Adonis in Cyprus.  Cyprus looked pretty good to the Phoenicians, and Paphos was the center of Adnois worship.  Dubious-sounding pre-marriage practices involving "sacred harlots."  Story of Cinyras.  Music in worship, with references to Saul and David. XXXII. The Ritual of Adonis.  Adonis festivals involved a lot of mourning for the death of the god, who was often carried out to burial in water, and they would sing about his future revival.  Offerings of fruit, flowers, cakes -- the date of the ceremony is not known but probably summer.  Red flowers were said to have been dyed by his blood.  Once a society became agricultural, the focus shifted from general fertility to specifically grains/cereals.  XXXIII.  The Gard...

This is such a weird summer.  It's both boring and stressful.  There is almost nothing to do, which is kind of restful but also no fun.  I've decluttered a bunch of areas, though, so that is nice.  And this week my oldest is coming home for a visit and a birthday! So what has Sir James Frazer been up to?  I read chapters 25-30 in the last couple of weeks. XXV.  Temporary Kings: So, instead of getting killed while still in the prime of life, in order to preserve the land at full strength, some kings figured out ways to get around it, such as installing a temporary king who has to go through a mock execution, or some other such dodge.  Here are various examples of temporary kings. XXVI.  Sacrifice of the King's Son: Often those temporary kings do have to come from the royal family, in order to represent the king properly.  Who better than the actual son?  [I see some potential problems with this, actually...]  Frazer cites a legendary...