lookingland

last night we took a break from work to go downtown to a Borders that is closing and is having a 40% off sale. unfortunately there were no books i desperately wanted (it was getting picked clean since the sale started saturday). but i did get a copy of Far Away, So Close, which i had been wanting, so that's cool. anyone who doesn't know Wim Wenders's work needs to go out and get some. immediately.

one of my favorite scenes in Wings of Desire
(which is the "prequel" to Far Away, So Close) is this one
in which the angel Cassiel listens to the interior
monologues of various people in an immense library.
absolutely gorgeous.
meanwhile, i am loosely doing the

50bookchallenge again this year, i guess. i think i mentioned somwhere earlier that i wanted to focus on fiction, and especially fiction in the era/genre i work in, so i am off to a good start in that regard. catching up on the year's books:

no. 1 ~ Wicked Water by McKinley Kantor. this is a pretty straight-up genre western which made it somewhat disappointing. well-written and page-turner paced, it nevertheless had that sort of fluffy quality that meant i never really cared about any of the characters. i also think, after following the hired killer and the bimbo chanteuse through the first two thirds of the book only to switch over in the end to some new sheriff's pov (Roscoe, no less!), was jarring and somewhat of a cheat. the revelation of the killer's ocd about running water was also pretty lame. a couple of great scenes and otherwise really great writing made this worth while (at least it was mercifully short).

no. 2 ~ Among the Camps by Thomas Nelson Page. here's another one of those writers someone never told me about. i picked up his stuff in the garbage basement at half price books and while it's definitely victorian and rather saccharine, it's right up my alley. this book in particular was a series of short stories about towns under occupation during the war. at least one of them (a Christmas story, no less, called "A Captured Santa Claus") is noteworthy (and might make a great short film). another one about an annoyingly cute girl and her kitten turned out to be really wonderful (shades of Mikhail Sholokhov's "The Colt", but with a happy ending). i'm looking forward to trying on one of Page's novels next go-round.

no. 3 ~ The Judas Field by Howard Bahr. it took me what seems forever to finish this book. not because it was bad, but because it was so good i didn't want it to end and i feared it would end badly. i'm still iffy about the conclusion because i think the way the events unfolded could have (maybe should have) been done differently for it to have been really satisfying. i won't say more because i don't want to spoil it and i Strongly recommend this book to anyone with even a middling interest in this genre (Civil War/Reconstruction). i would also not hesitate to recommend this to people who don't know diddly about it.

Bahr's mostly seamless storytelling is amazing in its "wholeness" without bogging down in the exasperating detail that usually drives me around the bend in books about this era. it's also mostly restrained about the violence (oh, there's violence a-plenty, but he doesn't get so gratuitous that you feel like the book is just an endless excuse to talk about people's heads exploding). finally, one scene in which Cass Wakefield is visited by a priest whose church he has insulted (a scene of note in its own right) is worth the whole read. it's rare i find something that i feel is "startling and beautiful" in a book, and this qualifies: it's subtle and human and poignant (and i don't use that word ever lightly).

while the epilogue does feel a bit long-winded after all that needs to be said has been said, i can't fault Bahr's indulgence too much ~ the rest of the story is pretty spectacular. two thumbs up and despite my grousing about the ending, i wouldn't hesitate to put this on my list of top Civil War fiction written in our own time. easily.

lots of work to do this week. the gears are still spinning in my head around projects. had a long weekend of frustrations, but i am slowly getting the horse back into the paddock for another attempt.
: D