KEV67
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Posts posted by KEV67
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Only two more chapters of Dracula to go. I looked up its score on Goodreads yesterday; it was 4.00. I wondered whether there was some software error, because they have updated the Goodreads website recently. However I added up all the scores and averaged them out, and it did come out to 4.00 to two decimal places. 4.00 is a pretty good score for Goodreads. I would not have said it was as good as that. If two stars = 'it was ok', and three stars = 'I liked it', I'd say it was somewhere in between.
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I wondered whether Penny Dreadfuls were forerunners or served a similar readership as comics. They are obviously more wordy, and they do not have as many pictures. Then I wondered whether it was pulp fiction for its day. I read a pulp fiction book recently. It was almost self-parodying, but I still think it was better written than The Frozen Crew, at least more skilfully written. I gather a lot of pulp fiction was serialised in magazines. In 20thC America I think pulp fiction was usually sci-fi or crime. In 19thC Britain it seems to have been horror and crime. I think the readership was similar, but I suspect the readers of Penny Dreadfuls were a bit younger.
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Yes, that's the one. There are a couple of sell-service checkouts at that branch of W H Smiths. So I can buy it without having to show it to the cashier. So there are some benefits to progress.
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I am thinking of buying Bonjour Tristress. I keep seeing a copy of it in a branch of W H Smith next to the railway. Judging by the picture on the cover of a young woman sunbathing, I am guessing it's a chick's book.
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I have read quite a few military memoirs, and I plan to read some more. My favourite military memoirs is Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser, who is also my favourite author overall (depending on how I feel at the time). Another great book, which is fiction but obviously based on the author's experience is Winged Victory by WM Years. It is about a first world war RFC pilot.
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54 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:
I have changed my Penny Dreadful to Carmilla by J Sheridan le Fanu because I've got a better chance of finishing it before the end of October and a female vampire intrigues me. I'm five chapters in and it's marvellous!
I wouldn't call Carmilla a Penny Dreadful, but fair enough.
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In East Lynne, one of the characters is criticised for a fancy shirt. It cost him 25 shillings. I have often wondered how much money was worth then compared to now. Twenty-five shillings is £1.25 in today's money. Usually I multiply Victorian money amounts by 100 to get a relative value, but it does not always work. I think the hundred multiplier sort of works for middle class, but not for the working class or upper class.
In chapter 2 of my Penny Dreadful, the pirate ship, El Malachor, has picked up a one-eyed man from a raft. Initially there were fifty men on the raft, but thirty-seven died of thirst and hunger, and another dozen died of the miasma from the rotting bodies.
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On 16/10/2021 at 10:33 PM, megustaleer said:
Do you mean Lady Audley's Secret, the C19 novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon?
Yes, a bit of a typo there.
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19 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:
Tell us why you don't like it (life is too short to read a book that you are not enjoying, btw. Imho)
I have read lots of books I have nor understood or not enjoyed, even books with little bragging value.
Dracula just seems to have gone off the boil. That is the main reason. I liked the grandiloquent style of speech back in Transylvania when Dracula was speaking it. I'm not digging it now it's transferred to London. I don't like the gang that much: Dr Seward, Lord Goldalming, Quincy Morris and Van Helsing. I have not warmed to Van Helsing, and his circumlocuting, cod-courteous Dutch/German manner of address. He is not Peter Cushing. Spoiler. I am not a feminist or white knight, but
SpoilerI thought cutting Lucy's head off and stuffing her mouth full of garlic was a bit unnecessary. They had already staked the poor woman through the heart. And did Lucy's mother really have to expire of a weak heart just as Lucy became undead, not that anyone was worried about her, although she could only have been in her mid forties.
In yesterday's chapter Mina was asked to stay out of harm's way, because she was weak woman and too valuable to risk. However, I expect that's a plot device. The incidents seem a bit random. It's as if Bram Stoker thought wouldn't it be a great book if the most powerful vampire in Transylvania relocated to London, and then, I don't know, gets defeated somehow.
Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu worked. That was somewhat shorter and it was all situated in eastern Europe. Most the Hammer House of Horror vampire films were set in Transylvania.
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Dracula started well, but it has deteriorated. Perhaps that's why film and TV adaptions do not follow the book. If I had not committed to reading it, I think I may have put it down.
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I read the first chapter of my penny dreadful, The Frozen Crew of the Ice Bound Ship by anonymous. It's about a pirate ship, the captain of which is Paul Jones. I do not know how bad he is yet, but he is a big, strong man with a beard and good teeth. The night previous to the story opening, the crew spotted The Flying Dutchman. I was never sure whether The Flying Dutchman was a steam train or a ship. Apparently, it's a ghost ship. If you see it once, you will see it a second time before your doom.
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Go on then, what did you think?
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I think Bram Stoker lays the erotic allusions on a bit thick. I wondered why Van Helsing did not bring a lantern with him rather than lighting candles. It was so the hot sperm could fall on the coffin. He could have used an oil lantern, or a wax candle, maybe a tallow candle, but he had to use a candle made of spermaceti. It was a superior candle, but all the same.
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Things have started happening in East Lynne. I think it was partly down to the three volume structure Victorian novels used to follow. The first volume sets the scene. Things move on in the second volume. Everything is tied up in the third.
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I am now intrigued by Mina Harker's knowledge of railway timetables. She tells Van Helsing that if he gets the 10:30 train from Exeter, he will get to Paddington by 2:35. I sometimes have to travel back via Exeter St Davids by rail to Reading, which takes about two hours. You would have to add about another half hour to get from Reading to Paddington. However, I expect the 1897 train stopped at more stations. After Taunton the modern service does not stop until Reading. Van Helsing always stays at the best hotels, so I expect he travels first class in one of those six seat compartments. Probably a good call if he could afford it. In second class, he would not be subject to other passengers' interminable phone conversations and noise from their electronic devices, but there were probably just as many noisy buggers on the trains, and probably more kids.
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I wonder whether Dracula was as erotic a book as could be published in 1897. The following is slightly spoilery. Yesterday I was thinking that all Lucy's three suitors had transferred their bodily fluids to her, as had van Helsing. Then I wondered whether I was reading a bit too much into that, not having a degree in English literature or cod psychology. Then today I read Lucy's fiance say he regarded himself as having married her after giving blood to her. Dr Seward and van Helsing resolve not to tell him about the other transfusions. So in effect Lucy had been figuratively gang-banged by her male friends. I hope her blood group was AB+; otherwise she would probably have reacted badly to one of her blood transfusions, unless they were all 0-, which is unlikely. There was another steamy bit where Dr Seward and van Helsing put Lucy in a warm bath to warm her up. Dr Seward writes that they put her in the bath as she was, which I assume means in her nightdress, but then her nightdress would have gone transparent. Then he writes that they dried her off with a towel, so they must have taken her nightie off then. Of course Dr Seward and van Helsing are medical men, not dirty, old men like me. They would not have been affected by the sight of Lucy's beautiful, nineteen-year-old body as I would have been.
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I am beginning to find East Lynne a bit dull. I hope someone succumbs to temptation soon. Either that or they make some progress in uncovering the mystery.
With Dracula I am getting turned on by the thought of Lucy Westenra in her night gown. That aspect of the book is fairly Hammer House of Horror. One odd thing is that for all the film adaptions of Dracula I have seen I don't think any have stuck to the book. There was the film with Winona Ryder and Gary Oldman, but I am not sure they stuck to the story neither.
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3 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:
It says here : The Edwardian Era: 1901-1910 – Lillicoco that : After Queen Victoria’s death, her eldest son Prince Edward VII immediately ascended to the throne. His brief reign lasted only nine years (1901 to 1910) but the Edwardian era is seen by most historians to include both his tenure as Prince of Wales (starting from 1880 when he rose to popularity given Queen Victoria’s absence from the public) until the start of the First World War in 1914.
Somewhat fluid in the dates there.
Oh you so are going to enjoy it, it's fabulous!
Really, that's the first time I've heard that! I can understand extending the Edwardian era to 1914, but myself I would not extend it into Victoria's reign.
I read Lady Audley's Secret last year. At first I thought it was just entertainment, but I found it quite thought provoking by the end.
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20 hours ago, Hayley said:
Although we do tend to talk about the Victorian era as the literal reign of Queen Victoria, a lot of people would say the Edwardian era doesn’t start until about 1914. So you’d be safe with that still!
King Edward VII was dead four years by 1914. How could the Edwardian period start then? Books started to change after WW1. You get all those Modernists and experimental writers. Edwardians seem different to Victorians in that they have motor cars, although in other ways Edwardians seem more like late Victorians than late Victorians seem like early Victorians, at least in literature.
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I thought I would be able to read a Penny Dreadful online for nothing, but I am having difficulty finding anything, particularly Spring Heeled Jack, which I planned to read. Also, Philip Pullman has written a version of the story, which I want to avoid. I think I managed to read the first chapter of Spring Heeled Jack and I thought it was bobbins. I have been looking on Amazon. I considered Claude Duval, but that came out in 1902, therefore Edwardian. Then I considered Black Bess, but then I ordered The Frozen Crew of the Ice Bound Ship, Or The Terrors of the Arctic Regions.
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Dracula has arrived in Whitby. I last went to Whitby during a cycling holiday. I visited the ruined abbey mentioned in the book. The bookshop had lots of fancy editions of Dracula.
I am a little surprised at the extent of Dracula's powers. It looks like he can raise storms, sail ships by himself, and shape shift into a giant dog. I am aware of their reputation for turning into bats, but not dogs. Perhaps he is a werewolf as well as a vampire. However the report was definitely of a dog, not a wolf. The three witches in Macbeth could control the winds, but I was unaware vampires could. Vampire powers and limitations are never entirely consistent. The three girl vampires could just appear or disappear in a room at will. They did not need to open any windows or doors.
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I have just been wrong-footed by East Lynne; as wrong-footed as Billy Wright was by Ferenc Puskas in the 1953 international friendly between England and Hungary.
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Tut, tut, a bit of antisemitic stereotyping in East Lynne.
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Omnia Romae venalia sunt. - All things in Rome are venal (or up for sale).
Victober
in Reading Challenges
Posted · Edited by KEV67
I had to add The Frozen Crew of the Ice Bound Ship to the GoodReads database. My edition was published in 2020 by Gannet Games. I wonder if that means it has not been in publication since 1868. At the back it says it was printed by Amazon. I know you can publish your own stuff on Amazon. I once bought a book on heat pumps just to find it was a student's MSc dissertation. It was rubbish.