The Ancient Mariner & Christabel by Coleridge (1800)

Found this 1907 printing that includes The Mariner, Christabel, Kublai Khan.

The mariner was no big deal but I really liked Christabel!

The Christabel poem is beautifully written, it just flows of the tongue.

I didn't bother with Kublai Khan because after the disappointing (abrupt) ending on Christabel and researching Coleridge's inability to finish just about anything I decided enough was enough.

He lived near Wordsworth and his wife so there is an interesting real life story here. 

The lesbian overtones in Christabel are delicately rendered.

The Canterbury Tales by Chauser (1478) Illu. Rockwell Kent

Wow, a difficult read; maybe a different translation would have helped but I doubt it.
Some parts are simply slow and tedious,  and I have read some tedious stuff!

I still like the Candide Kent renderings the best but I now have a small collection of books illustrated by him.

There are however some outstanding life lessons in several of the tales, others are just sophomoric humor.

In general the prose is rarely enjoyable, however there are a few very good portions. 

I especially like The Manciple's tale; regarding your closest friend's Love interest you must keep your advise to your self.

The Parson's "tale" is simply unbearable, I could not help but skim thru it, something I never do.

The Summoner's Tale illustrates that the hypocrisy of the clergy was as prevalent then as now.

The African Queen by C. S. Forester (1935)

Well the movie has a substantially better ending than the book.
But Rose is a much stronger woman in the book, has lots of internal dialog, and the narrator adds much more too than in the movie, thus making her far more interesting.
Actually Kate could have played her just as written, she had played many strong and resourceful women, but I guess the producers wanted a more post war "wife"?  But you can always tell when you are in the middle of a John Houston movie; it just moves from scene to scene; not a minute wasted. Bogart is amazing; his facial expressions are brilliant!

I think we have to remember that writing in the 30's was beginning to experiment a little more on the racy side; and so the character became something that would have been unthinkable in the previous century.

When finally on her own out from under the men of her own family Rose comes into her own for the first time in her life. She however understands how men work and how to manipulate them too. Charlie is a man that needs a mission, direction, and a goal, that's all. He is a capable man that can make, fix, & repair anything. In the 30's he would be the equivalent of today's twenty something that can do anything with any media devise.

Got this cool 1st ed. from Abe.

This was my first Forester foray, and I have to say that it seems like he simply got tired at the end and threw the manuscript on the floor, "done." Without the brilliance of the movie ending it is a let-down. The reading is quick and easy and makes a great companion to the movie.

Passages I like:

Forester describes Rose' approach to the next rapid. "where the hand had to be steady and strong and subtle and the will resolute."

Rose' take on "men." "She could not conceive of a man finding anything impossible in his world, as long as he was not bothered, and given plenty to eat."

The naivete of Rose is described as such: "She did not yet know she could scold; she had never tasted the sweet delights of giving rein to ill temper."

 Here we get Forester's German jab: "Allnutt's contact with the German nation had been unfortunate; the Germnas were a race it was easy to hate if hatred came easily, as it did in those days."


Forester is writing while looking directly into the teeth of the Nazi raise to power.

An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad, (1896)

An Outcast of the Islands starts out slowly, I waited and waited for the story to pick up the pace and about a 3rd of the way thru it really started steaming along. At first I thought I was reading Victory or Lord Jim over again until it took on a life of it's own. I think that this, of the 4 Conards I've read is by far the most "Descriptive" in writing. He has whole pages devoted to a few seconds in real time, as well as pages devoted to a single human emotion, belief, or status. This book more so than the others dives deep into each character not once but several times; each time we get a look into the rational for the their latest actions.

I see Willams as an opportunistic thief with little forethought as to either the long or short term effects of his actions have on others. Like an addict he blames anyone else for his own misdeeds.
Many of Conrad's characters are familiar; a big tough guy afraid of no one, a clever opportunist looking to make a fast lot of money, and the subservient Women.

I am certainly getting the Conrad view of the world; a world that has the EuroWhites (those who are the type to go out "There" and Take) dominating the world. As I see it the type of person with this desire is the very person that posses the insatiable appetite for riches as Conrad describes them. This then is the singular type of person that "represented" EuroWhite to the rest of the world; the greedy, impatient, lawless type.

Passages that I like:

Comparing the Sea to a Women:
Like a beautiful and unscrupulous woman, the sea of the past was glorious in its smiles, irresistible in its anger, capricious, enticing, illogical, irresponsible; a thing to love, a thing to fear. It cast a spell, it gave joy, it lulled gently into boundless faith; then with quick and causeless anger it killed.

 An interesting take on fatalism:
  Fatalism is born of the fear of failure, for we all believe that we carry success in our own hands, and we suspect that our hands are weak.

Powerful men in a lawless world:
He had removed an enemy once or twice before, out of his path; he had paid off some very heavy scores a good many times. Captain Tom had been a good friend to many: but it was generally understood, from Honolulu round about to Diego Suarez, that Captain Tom's enmity was rather more than any man single-handed could easily manage. He would not, as he said often, hurt a fly as long as the fly left him alone; yet a man does not live for years beyond the pale of civilized laws without evolving for himself some queer notions of justice. Nobody of those he knew had ever cared to point out to him the errors of his conceptions. 

The fate of so many:
He would be dead. He would be stretched upon the warm moisture of the ground, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, knowing nothing; he would lie stiff, passive, rotting slowly; while over him, under him, through him—unopposed, busy, hurried—the endless and minute throngs of insects, little shining monsters of repulsive shapes, with horns, with claws, with pincers, would swarm in streams, in rushes, in eager struggle for his body; would swarm countless, persistent, ferocious and greedy—till there would remain nothing but the white gleam of bleaching bones in the long grass; in the long grass that would shoot its feathery heads between the bare and polished ribs. There would be that only left of him; nobody would miss him; no one would remember him.  

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (1912) Illu. Douglas Duer

What a great read. Many parts had my heart pounding. It took me a short while to get the hang of Zane's style and I think I learned a valuable lesson in "Fast - Slow" reading; when you come to the descriptions you have to dial it way back. Some of it was quite sad, the loss of what you have and had because you can't see the truth. The things that we do and say and think are part of the continuum that sets up the rest of our lives. Every step we take slowly limits and slowly creates what we are to  become.

Many criticisms could be laid upon this book but if the bottom line is "I can't put it down" then it passes well.

I had for a long time thought that I would not bother with a "pulp fiction writer" such as Grey but found a 1st Edition for $3 at an Estate sale a year ago and put it onto the "to be read pile."

The annual trip to the Lake was coming up and I had already finished my favorite writer for the summer JFC so while rummaging thru the pile it finally took my hand.

Summed up; it is two separate yet crossing love stories interwoven with Mormon hating, detailed horse riding, and the very grand and very purple scenery of the West.

Our writer was very familiar with both the outdoors and the love affairs, so he speaks from experience. But the "thing" that Writers do; describing the view be it from the eye or from the heart is what sets each of them apart. Initially I was put off by it but once you get into the rhythm it is a fun place to be; Zane can describe with the best of them.

I rarely include pics other than from my own copies but this dust cover painting is captivating.

 The copy I have is an I-N Printing so according to the ZGWS it is a Harper & Brothers, NY 1912, code letters I-N (September 1913) copy although it says 1912.

 Once again I find the most interesting illustrators may be some of the forgotten ones. Douglas Duer is great with drama in a very old but story relevant style. There are some good references on the endless web.

The section regarding the shooting of the Masked Rider includes some creative "Old-timey titillation" otherwise the modesty of the time leaves you deciding when or if they touched each other.

Some of the passages that spoke to me:

I think only a man who had ridden and talked Horses most of his life could envision this. By 1912 Henry Ford had irrevocably changed the landscape of the East but for those who longed for the outdoors I think you could leave the "Modern" world far behind.


Elements of eternal feminine... yes indeed!

In this exchange Bess is immediately jealous; by accounts Grey may have had several occasions to experience the jealous woman. Elements of eternal feminine... yes indeed!

Men were Blood Spillers!

I'm not sure that on this planet we can change this?

Another thing that had always been a question of mine: back long before cell phones a hiker had to REMEMBER the trail. For the 1st time in my readings Zane makes it clear that in fact a wanderer had to actively commit to memory a brain-photo of what it was that he/she needed to know for the return trip. This is and was a life & death matter when there was no way to click it and forget it like we can now.

The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale by Robert Louis Stevenson (1889)

The Master is a real page turner; RLS makes the most readable stories, this is an extremely engaging story.
The story begins 1745 when two brothers flip a coin to see which one will go to the Jacobite rebellion and which will go to the crown. The family is attempting to hedge their bets during the uprising the end result is the splitting of it.

My 1918 printing has a Preface written by RLS' wife and describes the story of his trials and their travels while finishing this story.

A rough copy but all there.

I really like the cover leaf patterning.
This story takes place over more than 20 years and this family is one dysfunctional mess. The older brother "The Master" with all the gifts; looks, charm, education, hates his younger brother. The younger "steady Eddie" has none of the advantages of birth other than the wealthy family. The Master is an insane risk taker, the younger brother stays at home to rescue the family fortune.

I really recommend looking into this story because of the outstanding stories sub stories, and side stories.

The one passage I set aside that speaks directly to my visions goes something like this:
"Hard by, I told myself, was the grave of our enemy, now gone where the wicked cease from troubling, the earth heaped for ever on his once so active limbs.  I could not but think of him as somehow fortunate to be thus done with man’s anxiety and weariness, the daily expense of spirit, and that daily river of circumstance to be swum through, at any hazard, under the penalty of shame or death."

The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (1840)

The Pathfinder may well be the best of the three Leather Stocking series I've read so far.
Extremely typical of JFC writing in that it may take a page or two to define a small point but what are we reading for anyway?

Being from Michigan and having spent 1000's of hours on the Great (and other) Lakes I really enjoyed the sea fairing parts.

This book even more than the others has Natty constantly describing everyone's "nature." JFC living in a time and place where this must have been the only way of dealing with the Melting Pot that the North American Continent was (hmmm, still is.)

Just as in "The Last of the Mohicans and The Dearslayer we have Hawkeye delivering distressed white men & women from the dangers within the sparsely inhabited North American Continent. Much less warfare in the writing and much more sailing and danger in place.
We talk so little about this time in American history, its as if American History started with the civil war.

I have also come to believe that JFC was trying to create a desperately needed America myth. It hasn't stayed with us the way that Wister's "The Virginian"did however.

My copy is abused, maybe from the 30's.

Some of the Passages I like:

Mabel looks out upon Lake Ontario for the fist time...

Part of the reason I love this old writing is the Grandeur that that was everywhere, the sense of small that one had when adventuring. Now its a bit different; when I flew to Oregon it was the world that was small.
And again; to have a world laid out in front of you that was Endless, and there for the taking. Now its a bit different...

 Here we have a scene from the Fort where the Men have a shooting contest...

JFC certainly nails the deception of the young by the old in this passage. The belief that fairness and for an outcome as dictated by providence is what we have when we are young. It is later that we notice a finger on the scale.

The character of "Cap" is a wonderful "blowhard" from the East, your classic "expert at one thing knows and applies it to everything sort of load mouth." A great piece in the story's puzzle.

Its the last sentence that illustrates JFC's insightful and humorous snap at the end of a moment sharpening the human side of the scene.

In a long passage we witness Mabel's father dying of wounds received thru indiscretion of impatiences (as pointed out by Cap several times.)

My takeaway however relates to the inevitability of our parents leaving us alone on this earth.

In this scene The Pathfinder is resolved to give Mabel (whom he has every wright to) up to Jasper.

The part that strikes me has been a favorite subject of mine (one that doesn't interest others to talk about)  Its the way in which we aggrandize our friends; we give them all sorts of superior powers over and above other mortals, we wish only the best for them and excuse every transgression.

Ultimately The Pathfinder falls victim to the very thing he adheres to most; his insistence in "one's nature" this is the reason that he cannot take Mabel for his wife. And so with all kindness hands her over to Jasper for the all the reasons that are natural.