H.G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, 21 september 1866.
(following the Google UFO mystery)
The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds was an early science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, describing an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines, equipped with advanced weaponry. It is one of the most famous scifi novels.
Illustration of tripods by Warwick Goble for The War of the Worlds as published in Pearson’s Magazine, 1897)
Free text of The War of the Worlds at Project Gutenberg
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, musical, and ballet. The term “libretto” is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata. Libretto (pl. libretti) is the diminutive of the Italian word “libro” (book).
Image: Front cover of the original 1899 libretto of the Tosca opera. Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Victorien Sardou’s drama, La Tosca. The text of the Tosca libretto can be found here.
Cosette
Illustration of Cosette from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Cosette is the nickname of Euphrasie Tholomyès, a character in the novel. The portrait is by Émile-Antoine Bayard (1837-1891).This image which appeared in the original edition of the novel in 1862, was also used on posters promoting the musical version of Les Misérables.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne – 111 illustrations by Riou (24, the first eleven chapters) and Alphonse de Neuville (86), engraving by Hildibrand (1871). This is the title page illustration by Edouard Riou, a pupil of Charles-François Daubigny and Gustave Doré.
See Zvi Har’El’s Jules Verne Collection for (I think) a complete overview of all illustrations.
Why do vampires still thrill?
“Unclean, unclean!” Mina Harker screams, gathering her bloodied nightgown around her. In Chapter 21 of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” Mina’s friend John Seward, a psychiatrist in Purfleet, near London, tells how he and a colleague, warned that Mina might be in danger, broke into her bedroom one night and found her kneeling on the edge of her bed. Bending over her was a tall figure, dressed in black. “His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.” Mina’s husband, Jonathan, hypnotized by the intruder, lay on the bed, unconscious, a few inches from the scene of his wife’s violation.
Joan Acocella studies vampire books and movies.
Additional links:
- Vampires
- Vampire literature
- Vampire films
- Journal of Dracula Studies
- Dracula by Bram Stoker (for free here: book – audio)
- The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
- Nosferatu, a 1922 German Expressionist vampire horror silent film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok
People of the screen
The book is modernity’s quintessential technology—“a means of transportation through the space of experience, at the speed of a turning page,” as the poet Joseph Brodsky put it. But now that the rustle of the book’s turning page competes with the flicker of the screen’s twitching pixel, we must consider the possibility that the book may not be around much longer. If it isn’t—if we choose to replace the book—what will become of reading and the print culture it fostered? And what does it tell us about ourselves that we may soon retire this most remarkable, five-hundred-year-old technology? Continue reading…
– Chirstine Rosen in the New Atlantic.
Death takes a holiday
Death with Interruptions centers around a country in which nobody dies over the course of one New Year’s Day and how the country reacts to the spiritual and political implications of the event. How does Saramago come up with such ideas ?
James Wood has written a review in the New Yorker.
Dream story
Dream Story (German: Traumnovelle) is a 1926 novella by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. It details the thoughts and psychological transformations of Doctor Fridolin over a two day period. In this short time, he meets many people who give a clue to the world Schnitzler is creating for us. This culminates in the masquerade ball, a wondrous event of masked individualism, sex, and danger for Fridolin the outsider. In 1999 the book was adapted into the film Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick
Popular science books
Jennifer Ouellette put together a great list of pop-science books. Of course wikipedia has an extensive list of notable science books as well. My three favourite books are:
- The Feynman Lectures on Physics – Richard Phillips Feynman
- Philosophical Investigations (German: Philosophische Untersuchungen) – Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB) – Douglas Hofstadter
Anathem
July and August have been busy months and posting frequency on the low side… but we’re back. One of the things I missed was Anathem, a new novel by Neal Stephenson, to be published on September 9, 2008. Steven Levy of Wired wrote a nice informative post about the sci-fi author and hacker-hero and his new novel “Anthem”.
Shopping
To buy tomorrow:
Jackie Brown
Tonight I’m seeing Jackie Brown, a 1997 motion picture written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film stars Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton. This movie follows Tarantino’s success directing Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) which also stars Jackson in a lead role (both these movies were selected for my movie list). The screenplay is based on the novel Rum Punch by American novelist Elmore Leonard, although Tarantino made significant changes to the story and characters.
New classic monsters list by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman gives us his list of the new classic literary monsters from Hannibal Lecter to Stephen King’s ”It”
Zadie Smith on Kafka
In a literature special, writer Zadie Smith embarks on the trail of the quotidian Kafka, the one who is so difficult to imagine as a “tall, handsome, elegantly dressed man; an unexceptional student, a strong swimmer, an aerobics enthusiast, a vegetarian; a frequent visitor to movie houses, cabarets, all-night cafes, literary soirees and brothels; the published author of seven books during his brief lifetime; engaged three times (twice to the same woman); valued by his employers, promoted at work.”
“This last Kafka is as difficult to keep in mind as the Pynchon who grocery-shops and attends baseball games, the Salinger who grew old and raised a family in Cornish, New Hampshire. Readers are incurable fabulists. Kafka’s case, though, extends beyond literary mystique. He is more than a man of mystery – he’s metaphysical. Readers who are particularly attached to this supra-Kafka find the introduction of a quotidian Kafka hard to swallow. And vice versa. I spoke once at a Jewish literary society on the subject of time in Kafka, an exploration of the idea – as the critic Michael Hofmann has it – that ‘it is almost always too late in Kafka.’ Afterward a spry woman in her nineties, with a thick Old World accent, hurried across the room and tugged my sleeve: “But you’re quite wrong! I knew Mr. Kafka in Prague – and he was never late.’”
Literary perspectives
Eurozine’s series Literary perspectives provides an overview of diverse literary landscapes, describing the current literary climate in specific European countries, regions, or languages. The articles in this series are published bi-monthly. Written by renowned literary critics and authors based in the respective countries and regions, they will also represent different critical traditions and practices. Have already been published: Hungary, Northern Ireland, Slovenia, Ukraine, The Netherlands, Estonia and Austria. A very interesting series !
Reading list
My sun turns 14 in August and he likes reading. Unfortunately I don’t have that many books in my library that are suited for his age. So, tomorrow I’m going to do a little bit of research to make a list of books that he might like. Ideas would be appreciated (eh… not Harry Potter or The Golden Compass, those are old news for him). A start…
- The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Earthsea series, e.g. The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Eragon by Christopher Paolini (ok we got this one and Eldest, the second book of the Inheritance Cycle).
- (…)
Update: of course I will take him to some bookstores so he can have a look for himself.
Related to Tolkien
If you like reading The Lord of the Rings, than I would suggest also:
- Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
- Stephen R. Donaldson: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever
- David Eddings: The Belgariad
- Eric Rücker Eddison: The Worm Ouroboros
- William Morris: The Wood Beyond the World
- Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast trilogy
Only a small selection of course. Therefore see also the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library and the Fantasy Masterworks.
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