Brief reviews
I picked up after spotting it in a secondhand shop a little while ago a book entitled The Mystery of Arthur Gordon Pym, being the novel by Edgar Allan Poe accompanied by a sequel, The Sphinx of the Ice-Fields (Le Sphinx des Glaces) written half a century and more later by Jules Verne.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is Poe's only novel, and it shows: it lacks coherence, and reads like a series of short stories stitched together, starting out as an adventure story about mutiny on the high seas, then turning into an adventure story about a trip to the then unknown Antarctic, and eventually becoming complete fantasy, as Pym's boat plunges ever faster towards a mysterious cataract and figure at the bottom of the world. The ending is deeply unsatisfying; it would have been all right for the narrative to break off like it does had it been simply Pym's undiscovered journal, but for him to present Pym making it back safe and then dying, suddenly, in unexplained circumstances, without telling us how he does so - or setting up any implications that Dagon manifested and ate him (cf. Lovecraft) - is a bit of a cop-out.
Consequently, I was intrigued to see how Verne was going to deal with the threads Poe left dangling, like the tentacles of Cthulhu after a bit of a night out - this was why I bought the book. The answer was, by writing off all the weirder stuff as the product of Pym's overactive imagination. Still, it's a reasonable adventure story that results, and one I might have got reasonably excited about had I read it at the age of twelve. Nevertheless, it's a bit disappointing, given that I had been hoping for most of the novel that we'd get an explanation for the weirdness.
On a different note, I picked up on impulse in a charity shop today, the CD "Tuva.Rock" by Yat-Kha. As the title implies, the group combines Tuvan throat-singing with western-sounding rock. I'd heard the band once on the radio, but years ago, so buying this blind (or deaf) was a bit of a risk.
Looking for reviews on the web afterwards gave me the impression that this album incorporated more of western rock, and was therefore perhaps easier for western listeners, than most Tuvan throat-singing. (Many of the lyrics, too, were in English.) It was also a bit disappointing in that it didn't seem to feature the famous throat-singing technique of singing two notes at the same time. But still, for £2.50 I can't really complain.
And what it sounds like? Well, imagine Sisters of Mercy singing "Om Mane Padme Hum" and that'll give you a good idea.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is Poe's only novel, and it shows: it lacks coherence, and reads like a series of short stories stitched together, starting out as an adventure story about mutiny on the high seas, then turning into an adventure story about a trip to the then unknown Antarctic, and eventually becoming complete fantasy, as Pym's boat plunges ever faster towards a mysterious cataract and figure at the bottom of the world. The ending is deeply unsatisfying; it would have been all right for the narrative to break off like it does had it been simply Pym's undiscovered journal, but for him to present Pym making it back safe and then dying, suddenly, in unexplained circumstances, without telling us how he does so - or setting up any implications that Dagon manifested and ate him (cf. Lovecraft) - is a bit of a cop-out.
Consequently, I was intrigued to see how Verne was going to deal with the threads Poe left dangling, like the tentacles of Cthulhu after a bit of a night out - this was why I bought the book. The answer was, by writing off all the weirder stuff as the product of Pym's overactive imagination. Still, it's a reasonable adventure story that results, and one I might have got reasonably excited about had I read it at the age of twelve. Nevertheless, it's a bit disappointing, given that I had been hoping for most of the novel that we'd get an explanation for the weirdness.
On a different note, I picked up on impulse in a charity shop today, the CD "Tuva.Rock" by Yat-Kha. As the title implies, the group combines Tuvan throat-singing with western-sounding rock. I'd heard the band once on the radio, but years ago, so buying this blind (or deaf) was a bit of a risk.
Looking for reviews on the web afterwards gave me the impression that this album incorporated more of western rock, and was therefore perhaps easier for western listeners, than most Tuvan throat-singing. (Many of the lyrics, too, were in English.) It was also a bit disappointing in that it didn't seem to feature the famous throat-singing technique of singing two notes at the same time. But still, for £2.50 I can't really complain.
And what it sounds like? Well, imagine Sisters of Mercy singing "Om Mane Padme Hum" and that'll give you a good idea.