Archæology

The assorted finds of Artefact Publishing

Book questions

So Stephen has nominated me to answer some questions about my book tastes. I don’t think in this instance I can be both honest and interesting, let alone esoteric, so I shall go with one.

1. You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

   I am unclear as to whether there is any particular aim implied by the question, such as to be able to educate or entertain others. For best reading aloud, either Winnie the Pooh or Spencer’s The Faerie Queene — sure, the latter drags on a lot, but it also has the line “whose fall did never foe before behold,” and I can forgive a lot for that. I tripped over it when I first came across it (I was reading aloud), and then immediately repeated it several times out of delight with it.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

   Nope.

3. The last book you bought is:

   Verlyn Flieger’s Splintered Light : Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World (revised edition). When reading the first edition the writing style initially put me off through being somewhat clumsy, but it overcame that and is thoroughly excellent. I am hoping that the revisions improve the original as much as has been said.

4. The last book you finished is:

   John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider. I hadn’t read it for years, though it is probably the book I have read most often. It was what made me look for Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language (though I did not know that it was that book I was after), for which alone it deserves my thanks, though I could say many other good things about it.

5. What are you currently reading?

   Verylyn Flieger’s A Question of Time : J. R. R. Tolkien’s Road to Faërie and various articles in Tolkien and the Invention of Myth : A Reader. Yes, some might say I was overdosing, but it is both interesting and professionally relevant.

   Oh, and tombstone inscriptions from ancient Rome.

6. Five books you would take to a desert island.

   The one-volume collected works of A. A. Milne, The Wind in the Willows, The Lord of the Rings, A Pattern Language, and The Shockwave Rider. I love rereading, and do far more of that than I do reading.

   I would like to put Crime and Punishment on the list (and the ending is fine, if only because Dostoevsky was skilled enough to pull off something which would usually be lame and insulting), and महाभारत (Mahābhārata), and Aeschylus’s Ἀγαμέμνων (Agamemnon). But then that list could be continued on for some time; I stand by my first five.

7. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

   Michael, because he reads too much and will be thrown into a flurry of indecision; Stuart, because he won’t be able to resist talking theoretical physics; and Morgue, because he is broad-minded where I am narrow.

Posted by jamie on April 14, 2005 22:23+12:00

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