Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor

By terje | Published: March 31, 2009

430 pages.
Robinson paperback.
1992.

72 BCE: While Spartacus is ravaging the countryside of Southern Italy and making all good Romans distrust their slaves, Goridanus the Finder is brought to Baiae on the Cup, what today is known as the Bay of Naples, to find a killer. Lucius Licinius, the cousin of Marcus Crassus, has been found murdered in the villa he manages for Crassus, his skull caved in by a blunt object and the word “SPARTA” carved into the floor tiles beside him. Crassus, lobbying for the command of the next Roman army to be sent against Spartacus, has decided that the perpetrators were two missing slaves sympathetic to the Tharcian gladiator-turned-general. He has also decided that all ninety nine slaves in the villa household should be executed as punishment for the runaways’ deeds, and as a signal to the Senate and the people of Rome that Marcus Crassus is tough on slaves. Gordianus, of course, suspects that the truth is a bit more complicated, and is racing against time to prove this, as the execution of the slaves is set to take place a few days after Lucius Licinius’ funeral — and when Gordianus arrives, the man has been dead for five days already.
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Posted in Literature, Review, Roman stuff | 4 Comments

The Awesome Epithets of European Nobility and Royalty, part 2

By terje | Published: March 30, 2009

Anund Jacob (1022-1050) of Sweden: the Coalburner (Colbrænnæ).
When this Swedish king was elected ruler by the Thing the people objected to his foreign name, and appended an “Anund” to it. When not caring for the balance of power in Scandinavia by supporting Olav Digre of Norway against Knut of Denmark, Anund Jacob enjoyed crusading in southern Finland, where he burned his enemies, a group including many innocent civilians, to death inside their houses, thus naming him the nickname “the Coalburner”. You know, because of the smell.

Posted in History, Norse stuff, The Awesome Epithets of European Nobility and Royalty | 2 Comments

A matter of spiritual kinship — 2009-03-30

By terje | Published: March 30, 2009

Bob goes to church every Sunday, Every Sunday that the fish ain’t biting
Bob never has to have dinner with the preacher,
cause Bob never bothered getting married
He likes to drink a beer or two every now and again,
he always had more dogs than he ever had friends
Bob ain’t light in the loafers, he might kneel but he never bends over

Bob takes care of his mama, she’s the only one he lets call him Robert
She don’t drive anymore so he takes her to the store
and keeps her yard looking just like she wants it
Every week at the beauty shop Bob’s mama hears
of another woman made another man disappear
Robert ain’t exactly scared of women, he’s just got his own way of living

Bob’s still got an antenna on a pole
two channels come in, two more come and go
He used to watch the news but he don’t anymore,
ain’t none of it new it’s the same as before
He figures all any of it’s any good for is keeping every bored
till there ain’t nobody like Bob anymore

Bob takes care of his mama
she’s a mess but he feels like he oughta
How big a mess today? Ask Bob he’ll say,
“She’s a big one and she’s gonna be a lotta”
He likes to drink a beer or two every now and again,
he always had more dogs than he ever had friends
Bob ain’t light in the loafers, he might kneel but he never bends over

— Drive-by Truckers, “Bob”.

Posted in Links, Music, Quote of the day | 2 Comments

The Awesome Epithets of European Nobility and Royalty, part 1

By terje | Published: March 30, 2009

General Introduction

Whenever someone distinguished themselves in olden days, be it positively or negatively, it was customary to give them a nickname (also known as an epithet). Some of these are plain and dull (Haakon the Good, Louis the Pious), but some are more fascinating (Philip the Handsome (an epithet which sounds ridiculously more fun in Norwegian, I should probably mention), Erik Bloodaxe). For your convenience, I’ve tried to collect some of the more interesting ones. For my own convenience, I’ve mostly included those who have a Wikipedia article, as I’ve found it’s too much bother to try and research these things on my own. I will, however, include some nicknames I find too good to exclude. I will also ignore those that are obviously meant to flatter, such as those of Alexander I of Russia, whose nicknames are pretty much just in the vein of “the Blessed, “the Crafty Greek”, “the Talma of the North”, “the Sphinx of Europe” and “the Sphinx of the North”. Likewise, I’ll exclude nicknames that are obviously added just to spite the receiver, without any basis in reality. It would perhaps also be nice to know that the dates given after each object’s name are the approximate time of said object’s reign (this is the case at least ‘till the Es, but becomes a bit more varying after that).

As is somewhat traceable in the above paragraph, written about one and an half year ago, I had originally intended this to be a single, long post. Not having worked on it in a year, though, I decided it was probably best to just start posting some select few, and see where that got me. So, without further ado, I bring you the first post in a hopefully long series: Awesome Epithets of European Nobility and Royalty!

Quintus Fabius Maximus (ca. 280-203 BCE): the Cunctator (the Delayer), Verrucosus (the Warty), Shield of Rome.
Sinking ever more deeply into the quagmire that is interest for the various stages of the Roman Empire, I believe I shall start out with one of my favourite Romans. Quintus Fabius Maximus was a Roman politician and general who commanded the Roman forces in Italy during the invasion of Hannibal in the Second Punic War. He deployed a strategy of harassment and scorched earth against Hannibal, whom he recognized as superior both in warcraft and in military strength. Because of this his enemies in the Senate gave him the epithet “Delayer”, as they weren’t too happy with how he managed the defence. However, after his removal from office his replacements attacked the Carthaginians at Cannae in 216, and after this abysmal defeat even Fabius’ most adamant detractors had to agree that his strategy was the best one under the circumstances. As a result, the derogatory “Delayer” came to be regarded as an honorific. The “Verrucosus” part of his name, meaning “the Warty”, was merely a cognomen, referring to a wart above his upper lip.

Posted in History, My microcosmos, Roman stuff, The Awesome Epithets of European Nobility and Royalty | 3 Comments

Wonderful — 2009-03-29

By terje | Published: March 30, 2009

strange: aberrant, able, abnormal, absurd, alien, amazing, anomalous, apart, astonishing, astounding, atypical, barbarian, barbaric, barbarous, beguiling, bereft of reason, bewildering, bizarre, brainsick, crackbrained, cracked, crank, crankish, cranky, crazed, crazy, crotchety, curious, daft, deluded, demented, deprived of reason, deranged, detached, deviant, deviative, different, disconnected, discrete, disjunct, disoriented, disrelated, dissociated, distraught, divergent, dotty, eccentric, enigmatic, erratic, exceptional, exotic, exterior, external, extraneous, extraordinary, extraterrestrial, extrinsic, fabulous, fantastic, fascinating, fey, fishy, flaky, flighty, foreign, foreign-born, freaked out, freakish, freaky, funny, grotesque, hallucinated, idiocratic, idiosyncratic, incalculable, incognizable, incommensurable, incomparable, incomprehensible, inconceivable, incredible, independent, inexplicable, insane, insular, intrusive, irrational, irregular, irrelative, isolated, kinky, kooky, loco, lunatic, mad, maddened, maggoty, manic, marvelous, mazed, mental, mentally deficient, meshuggah, miraculous, moon-struck, mysterious, new, non compos, non compos mentis, not all there, not right, novel, nutty, odd, oddball, of unsound mind, off, off the wall, offbeat, original, other, out, out-of-the-way, outland, outlandish, outre, outside, passing strange, peculiar, phenomenal, prodigious, psycho, puzzling, quaint, queer, quirky, rare, reasonless, remarkable, removed, romanesque, romantic, rum, rummy, screwball, screwy, sealed, segregate, sensational, senseless, separate, separated, sick, singular, spectacular, stark-mad, stark-staring mad, striking, stupendous, surprising, tetched, touched, twisted, ulterior, unaccountable, unaccustomed, unaffiliated, unallied, unapparent, unapprehended, unascertained, unassociated, unbalanced, unbeknown, uncanny, uncharted, unclassified, uncommon, unconnected, unconventional, uncouth, undisclosed, undiscoverable, undiscovered, undivulged, unearthly, unexplained, unexplored, unexposed, unfamiliar, unfathomed, unheard, unheard-of, unhinged, unidentified, unimaginable, uninvestigated, unique, unknowable, unknown, unnatural, unperceived, unplumbed, unprecedented, unrelatable, unrelated, unrevealed, unsane, unsettled, unsound, unsuspected, untouched, unusual, virgin, wacky, wandering, weird, whimsical, witless, wonderful, wondrous, wondrous strange

— An online thesaurus page on “strange“.

Posted in Awe, Quote of the day, Words | 16 Comments

Stranger than Fiction

By terje | Published: March 30, 2009

Watched Stranger than Fiction again tonight, and I was happy to discover that it was as good on the second viewing and in company as it was on the first and alone.

The plot is a bit hard to describe without ruining it all, as discovering what the hell is going on is one of the movie’s main selling points. Briefly, though, it can be summed up by mentioning that the IRS agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), a stupefyingly dull man, one day wakes up to find that a female voice with a British accent is commenting on nearly his every action. Hilarity, of course, ensues, as Crick attempts to find out what is happening to him.

I’m normally not a big fan of Will Ferrell. Usually I tend to lump him in a group with Steve Carell, Jack Black and similar actors who typically just annoy me. I often include Jim Carrey in this group too, when I forget his roles in movies like The Truman Show, Man on the Moon and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (just to mention a few of the ones I can remember having actually watched). Why am I rambling on about this? Because Stranger… is Will Ferrell’s Eternal Sunshine… He displays a range here the like of which I honestly didn’t believe him capable of, and while he isn’t always the paragon of dramatic potatoes, he is never worse than mediocre, and his mediocre scenes are few and far between. Far from his normal screwball roles, Ferrell here executes a sensitive portrayal of Harold Crick. He is still allowed to play on his more typical hysterical reportoire — after all, what happens to Crick would drive anybody at least a little bit crazy — but for the most part he does his thing in a very touching, lo-fi manner.

Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman and Maggie Gyllenhaal all do their part to elevate this movie beyond the merely “good” — perhaps especially Thompson — but it is Ferrell who stands out the most.

The movie’s story is furthermore one of the most literary ones I know of. Its use of foreshadowing is quite good most of the time and exquisite at others; the use of a meta-narrator is a stroke of genious; and the comedy elements fittingly downplayed but nonetheless hilarious from time to time — although I cannot stress enough that this isn’t a traditional laugh-out-loud comedy, no matter what the publishers’ propaganda would have you believe.

Finally, while the move’s morale, or whatever you want to call it — perhaps “its didactic element” sounds less old fashioned and reactionary? — is quite banal, it is delightfully so, and… well, I was just about to spoil the end, so let’s suffice to say that the end will have any normally emphatic person close to tears. Or perhaps that’s just me being not normally but rather pathetically emphatic? What else can I say, but watch the movie and find out!

All in all, I cannot honestly think of anything to deduct this movie any points for. However, my critical sense may have been blunted more than usual by the sheer quirkyness of the movie, and I do seem to remember something about it being a tiny tad slow during the middle parts. So it’ll have to content itself with a lousy 9.5 out of 10.

Oh, and if you’re ever unlucky enough to encounter a Norwegian copy of the DVD of this thing, remember not to read the promotional plot summary on the back, as it pretty much spoils the whole damn story. (I’ve blackened it out with a black magic marker like some other CIA document, myself.)

Posted in A Moistening of the Eyes, A Praise Chorus, Art, Awe, Bliss, Glee, Goosebumps!, Love, Movies, Pimping, Pleasant surprises, Recommendations, Review, Speculative fiction, Television stuff, Yay! | 9 Comments

Roman Blood by Steven Saylor

By terje | Published: March 27, 2009

565 pages.
Robinson paperback.
1991.
First installation of the series Roma Sub Rosa.

Roman Blood sends us back in time to 80 BCE, to the final weeks of the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. The relatively young and unknown advocate Marcus Tullius Cicero seeks the help of Gordianus the Finder in unearthing evidence to help him defend his friend’s client Sextus Roscius, who is charged with the impious crime of parricide. During his investigations Gordianus moves through all strata of Roman society, and of course uncovers a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top of the Roman political hierarchy. Naturally, the truth isn’t quite what it appears to be, either.
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Posted in Literature, Review, Roman stuff | 6 Comments

The First Book of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber

By terje | Published: March 24, 2009

Containing the four short-story collections “Swords & Deviltry”, “Swords against Death”, “Swords in the Mist” and “Swords against Wizardry”, The First Book of Lankhmar is a must-read for any serious lover of Fantasy. Fritz Leiber’s Sword & Sorcery has to be counted among the many who created the clichés of the genre, especially as Leiber to a large degree reinvents the tropes that had become stereotypes already by his time. His Fafhrd, for example, is a subversion of Howard’s Conan to match Moorcock’s Elric. Furthermore, Leiber produced what must be seen as some of the most influential characters in fantasy history in Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, something which is evident if you look at nearly any fantasy rogue, such as Lynch’s recent and lauded Locke Lamora.

But the stories do of course have value beyond that of historical perspective. Leiber has created a wholesome, solid world which seems almost all too real — a short detour into our own world in “Swords in the Mist” actually feels much shallower and more fictional than does the world of Nehwon. Leiber’s prose could have something to do with this; his style is so evocative and feels so alive, I sometimes had to read the same sentence again and again and again, just to properly enjoy its phrasing.

Of course, as someone who enjoys the more epic and megalomaniac spectre of fantasy, the Lankhmar series didn’t appeal to me quite as much as it perhaps could have. The short stories, while both thrilling in their own right and also often at least decently metaphorical, suffered of the same maladies as all short stories, namely a lack of continuity and a lack of complexity. An author as skilled as Leiber does naturally manage to squeeze in both a bit of continuity and some complexity — admirable amounts of both, in fact — but I often felt that the characters Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser would truly have flourished in a longer narrative, wherein they truly could have showed off their prowess and cunning as thieves (there is disappointingly few thefts in these stories), their skill and strength as fighters, and their boldness and ingenuity as adventurers.

Still, all in all a seriously solid set of stories, filled to the brim with sensual sword and sorcery. Although the sheer amount of willing slave girls could be a bit over the top from time to time. 8.0/10.

Posted in Literature, Review, Speculative fiction | 1 Comment

A brief update

By terje | Published: March 24, 2009

As mentioned somewhere before, albeit probably on my ridiculously short-lived Norwegian blog, I didn’t have access to the Internet where I lived in Athens. I also tended to prioritise other stuff than blogging or the Net in general when I actually had access, and in combination with my well-known erratic posting habits recently, this has pretty much kept me away from my usual haunts in the last three months or so. I tried to keep updated on Amras‘ and Loki’s blogs for a week or so, but as I had to do so in the library reading hall and tended to laugh out loud a lot while reading, I found out that wasn’t the best of ideas. (But you’ll have to agree, Amras and Loki, that it is a most mitigating circumstance that I shunned your blogs because they were to funny, right?)

Anyhoo, I’m back for a spate now, as I’m at home writing (or at least I am supposed to be writing) the home exam papers for the Athens course, and as a consequence of being finished with two out of three and the third being the philosophy one, I tend to procrastinate quite a lot. There’s really few reasons why at least some of that time can’t be spent, like, here or something.

Hey, who knows? Maybe I’ll even get around to do some reviews, too?

(In fact, that is what caused me to come around here tonight; I remember having promised Amras to let him know what I thought of the rest of Fritz Leiber’s First Book of Lankhmar, and as I finished that book last week, I decided to strike two stones with one bird or some such nonsense, and combine the review for Thus Spoketh with the one I wrote for my Facebook Visual Bookshelf thingy. (Yes, I caved, but only for practical reasons, I swear! I did a girl a favour by signing up for the infernal thing, and it proved to be just the vortex of evil I thought it would be, although the company’s not all that bad.) The review won’t be among my best, to say the least, but it’ll be fairly comprehensive and consice, if nothing else. And I will, as always, embellish upon any point desirable. This is, after all, a kind of a service I am providing, and as as a provider of services I do have certain obligations, I guess.)

Posted in My microcosmos | 6 Comments

The friends you keep… — 2009-02-06

By terje | Published: February 6, 2009

“Socrates himself seems not to have been interested in any revolutionary implications of his discourse, but they were not lost on some of the young men who enjoyed watching him dissect the flawed logic of his interlocutors.
(..)
The most vicious of the self-styled Socratics was Critias, not only the leader of the oligarchs who seized control of Athens in 404. but a prolific writer on political-philosophical subjects. His grave monument reportedly featured the personification of Oligarchy setting fire to personified Democracy. His epitaph read: ‘This is a memorial to those excellent men who, for a short time, restrained the arrogance of the cursed Athenian demos.’
(..)
It was in part because the Athenians supposed that Critias had learned his evil ways from him, that Socrates was convicted at his trial and executed.”

— Josiah Ober, “Political conflicts, political debates and political thought”,
in Robin Osborne (ed.) Classical Greece, p. 130.

Posted in Greek stuff, History, Literature, Politics, Quote of the day | 3 Comments