KEV67

I don't think Ayn Rand would have approved of that. She would rather the mooches die off.

Huckleberry Finn. I loved Tom Sawyer, and I thought Huckleberry Finn would be more of the same. I got at least ten chapters in, but it was more serious and it did not have Tom Sawyer in it. I read it about forty years later and I thought it was a great book, probably the best American book I have read. The only bit I did not like were the last six chapters, in which Tom Sawyer reappears and is very annoying. Huckleberry nearly slipped to second place behind Moby Dick in the Great American novel charts.

You read that as a child!

He made the Booker shortlist once or twice. Goes to show you can he a superb writer and twenty years after your death, hardly anyone has heard of you. If an old footballer, not a superstar, just a solid pro, had died. Plenty of people would remember who he was.

Sir Walter Scott was very good at Latin. I am enjoying trying to parse the Latin phrases. It used to frustrate me when I came across Latin in books and I could not work it out, despite three years of incredibly boring Latin classes at school.

The Knights Templar are not coming across too well in this book. I thought Brian de Bois Guilbert was bad, but this Grandmaster Beaumanoir takes the biscuit. I used to work in a village called Templecombe in Somerset. There is a railway station in Bristol called Temple meads. I thought there was a Temple Cloud somewhere in between. They were all associated with the Knights Templar. I have not heard of a Templestowe, mentioned in the book. I thought King Henry IV of France, also called Henry the fair, was being jolly unfair when he persecuted the Knights Templar, but maybe he had the right idea. Regarding my previous query, who was prettier, Rowena or Rebecca. I reckon it must have been Rebecca, because Brian de Bois Guilbert has seen both and prefers Rebecca.

Anyone heard of Paul Bailey? I am just reading an article about him in The Critic. He was supposed to be ++good. John Self in The Critic says his masterpiece was Gabriel's Lament. I never heard of him before.

Wind in the Willows.

Ivanhoe is one of those 19th Century books that deals with Jews in England. Others I have read include: * Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens, * Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens, * Daniel Deronda, George Eliot, * The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Ivanhoe is a good addition to the subgenre.

I wonder what it's like having killed that many men. I haven't even killed one yet.

Jack Reacher is a bit blood thirsty in this one. I have lost count of the people he has offed. I don't suppose it matters, because they were all bad men.

Sir Walter pours it on a bit thick in this book. Some of it is close to pantomime. Sir Reginald Front de Boeuf is a good laugh though. P.277 "In the name of St. Bennett, the prince of these bull-beggars," said Front-de-Boeuf, "have we a real monk this time, or another imposter? Search him, slaves; for an ye suffer a second imposter to be palmed upon you, I will have your eyes torn out, and hot coals put into the sockets."

Is Sir de Bracy as bad as the other two? Time will tell, no doubt. Also, who is prettier: Lady Rebecca or Rowena, the Jewess?

I don't like that Baron de Front-Boeuf. I hope he gets his. I don't like Sir Bois de Guilbert either. I think he gives the Knights Templar a bad name.

All this description of Jewish money-lending, and the meeting of a gang of robbers similar to Robin Hood and his merry men, reminded me of something I read years ago. I cannot remember the book, but the author said if Robin Hood ever lived it would be more likely to be in the reign of Edward I, after his expulsion of the Jews from England. There are no Robin Hood tales of Jewish money-lenders being robbed.

I am getting into it a bit more. It still seems somewhat far fetched. I wonder if it was true anyone passing by could just rock up to a nobleman's manor and be fed and sheltered at no cost for the night.

Only chapter 3, but, so far, not up to his usual high standard. I hope it improves. At the moment it reads like one of Ernie Wise's plays.

I have started reading. First I read a fictious letter by the author, purporting to be another author, outlining his reasoning for writing the book. Then I read the introduction. Often I avoid reading the introduction, because they give away spoilers, but this introduction was by Walter Scott himself. He said he did not want to write only Scottish novels, so he was branching out into an English one. He said it was trickier, because the wild men of Scotland were still in living memory, while England had been a civilised country a long time. I am only two chapter in, but, so far, I do not think it is as good as Waverley.

I think he also re-edited most his past novels. He made quite serious changes to at least one of them - Tess of the d'Urbervilles. As far as Jude goes,I think Hardy went too far. There were enough commonplace tragedies in the 19th Century without thinking up freak horror stories, which just do not happen in real life.

No, an I am not going to. I watched the film with Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston. It was quite a good film up to the horrible bit.

I was glad nothing really horrible happened. I never liked it when writers like Joseph Conrad or Thomas Hardy did the dirty on their protagonists.

My take was that humans, being knowledgeable, know when they are doing wrong. Therefore, humans can sin. Animals do bad things to each other, but they are following their instincts. Therefore animals do not sin. Some sins can be forgiven, but some are so bad that only God could forgive them, because the victims are not in a position to. That is my opinion of original sin.

Steppenwolf reminded me of Kafka and Camus. Kafka had a bit more humour. Camus was drier. The protagonist in L'Etranger lacked empathy. Maybe he was tired of life. Maybe he was upset with the death of his mother, but did not process it very well. He had some sort of personal code, but he did not articulate it. The protagonist in The Trial by Kafka was an everyman. He was drawn into a nightmare world, through no fault of his own. The protagonist of Steppenwolf had political and philosophical views and judgements. He was self-conscious and self-critical. He was suffering from some sort of deep depression or alienation. He is a generally moral person, but has relapses, but apart from perhaps drinking too much or being unsociable, they did not seem too bad to me. His alienation is more like the protagonist's of L'Etranger. Apart from Kafka and Camus, the ending reminded me a lot of David Lynch, the film maker, because of its nightmarish aspect.

I think Lorna Doone would have met one of the YouTube's Victober challenges. There is a bit of religion. Lorna's a Catholic and John Ridd is an Anglican. I expect it is not an unsurmountable problem.

I finished Steppenwolf at last. The last section is like something out of Twin Peaks.