Slogging through Proust's "In Search Of Lost Time," a/k/a "Remembrance of Things Past"

By Jack Brummet

I am beginning the final volume (7) of Proust's Remembrance Of Things Past. 3,031 pages, and 1,267,069 words. It's has been beautiful and infuriating and puzzling at times. I'm glad I did this with our book club because I would have probably weaseled out otherwise. it is also pretty interesting to be in a book club with three philosophy professors, a lawyer, two cool and smart professional women - one of who is a philosopher too-and one knucklehead, yours truly. So, this sentence from book five is pretty typical, and illustrative of why this book is such a slog. It gets way more dense, but never more Hemingwayesque. I've found I need to read three other books between each Proust volume (with at least one of those being some trashy genre fiction) to cleanse the palate.

---o0o---

Zabibah and the King: Saddam Hussein's strange romance novel

By Jack Brummet

In 2000, Saddam Hussein wrote Zabībah wal-Malik―a romance novel, originally published anonymously in Iraq in 2000.  It was a best seller, selling over a million copies. The Iraqi publisher stole four paintings by a Canadian artist, Jonathon Earl Bowser, for illustrations, including putting his "The Awakening" painting on the cover. 

---o0o---

Gadsby, the novel without the letter "E"

By Jack Brummet, Literature and Poetry Editor

Have you ever heard about the novel "Gadsby"?  It is a 50,000+ word tale, written by in 1939 by Ernest Vincent Wright.  It reads fairly normally actually, but when you think about it as you read, it really does change the feel of the language.  In the first sentence here, I used an "e" 22 times. I'm not saying go read the book (it's rather dull), but it is online, and you can at least sample it and see what I mean.  


If you like language, it's pretty interesting to read a chunk of this to feel English without the "E"  He uses surprisingly few awkward constructions (you know the -ed verbs had to be really tough work around).  But the lack of "e's" surprisingly changes the sound of the language--both, by the lack of the "e" itself, and by the "A's" and "I's" and "O's" becoming more dominant visually, and in the sound of the language.

Click here to read Gadsby online. 

Youth cannot stay for long in a condition of inactivity; and so, for only about a month did things so stand, until a particularly bright girl in our Organization, thought out a plan for caring for infants of folks who had to go out, to work; and this bright kid soon had a group of girls who would join, during vacation, in voluntarily giving up four days a month to such work. With about fifty girls collaborating, all districts had this most gracious aid; and a girl would not only watch and guard, but would also instruct, as far as practical, any such tot as had not had its first schooling. Such work by young girls still in school was a grand thing; and Gadsby not only stood up for such loyalty, but got at his boys to find a similar plan; and soon had a full troop of Boy Scouts; uniforms and all.

---o0o---

Ren Cummins is giving it away!

By Jack Brummet, Language Arts Editor

Steampunk author Ren Cummins takes Crazy Eddy one step further.  He's not practically giving it away, he IS giving it away.  The first novel--Reaper's Return--in his Young Adult series Chronicles of Aesirium is available as a free download at the site below.  It is available in various e-book formats from plain text to Kindle, Palm Reader, Nook, etc.

Naturally, he hopes this generous taste will drive you to actually buy the rest of the series.

Click here to obtain your copy of Reaper's Return.

---o0o---

Nano-Plasm by Stephen Clarke-Willson--a very good read

Speaking of Stephen Clarke-Willson, I finished his new book tonight. As much as I love it and live it, I suck as an actual reviewer of art. That said, I give Nano-plasm two thumbs up...it's a rollicking tale of nano-technology gone seriously awry, and the colliding interests of business, insurance companies, and the public welfare. With a touch of mad science and scientists, and a dose of lust, ambition, and madness. Nano-tech, the framework for the book, is explained in some detail, but mostly just enough to completely creep you out.

Did I mention the novel is set on an island? Islands often seem to harbor mad scientists and mad science in other works of fiction like Conan Doyle's The Lost World, and The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. Thinking of those books and the movies made from them, and their island locales, I have to conclude this book is made for the movies. The scenes at the facility on the island would be CGI sensations...

I have no idea whether what he writes about nano-machines is real or pure confection. I suppose I could look it up, but come on. . .it's a novel; a work of fiction. And in a work of fiction, all things are permitted--at least in my world.

I have been baffled by the people who demanded refunds from the publishers for the book by James Frey (remember the bogus autobiography Oprah annointed, which was exposed as fake?) or Margaret Seltzer's recent fake memoir Love and Consequences: A Memoir for Hope and Survival. How that last book even got published is beyond me--I remember Keelin Curran and I read excerpts in the New York Times before the scandal broke, and we both thought it sounded totally bogus. But what do you expect? Isn't a memoir just a work of fiction told with a patina of truth? So, I have now completely digressed.

Stephen Clarke-Willson's book is such a page turner that you don't really care about the verisimilitude of the nano machines. It's a good story! Read it free here, or buy it from Lulu.com. Your President wants you to spend more money!

---o0o---

A novel by Stephen Clarke-Willson: Nano-plasm—a large nano-tech project goes astray

Stephen Clarke-Willson has written a novel titled Nano-Plasm" in which "a major nano-technology product roll-out goes horribly wrong." He has published a trade-paperback edition, which you can (and should!) buy at Lulu.com. They sell the paperback for $13.08. You can download it for $6.25. Or, you can read it free on the Nano-plasm blog, one chapter at a time. There is even a 'bot that will email you the new chapters when you've caught up. They're up to Chapter 18 right now. He's got it covered—put it on your electronic reading device or smart phone for half-price, read it on line free and get the rest emailed to you. If you're a greybeard, or just like books, you can actually just buy it!

I used to work with Dr. Clarke-Willson, and I remember when he started this novel on a business trip. He wrote the first chapter in the air, in transit, on a Palm Pilot. I read the first chapters years ago...he released a chunk of the novel early on, and then went back and finished it.

"But it was going to take more than a forensic expert to figure out how Smythe’s brain and eyes and a portion of his spinal column had been removed from his head intact, and placed two feet away on the floor."

---o0o---