dhampyresa

Three books for part 3, heh.

L'Arpenteuse de rêves ("The dream strider"[1]), by Estelle Faye: The heroine has the power to walk into people's dreams and bring things out of them. Following a tragedy, she uses an illegal drug to never dream. Years later, an epidemic of killing dreams starts spreading through the city and she has to investigate if she wants to save her adopted little brother. This leads her to unravel secrets deep in the foundation of her city. I really liked that the central f&m relationship stays platonic throughout -- in fact the heroin gets a f/f romance. The worldbuilding was really interesting! The themes of exploitation of the working class and of the environment (and the parallels between) were not subtle but they were well-handled. The main character belongs to an ethnicity that is marginalised in ways very reminiscent of anti-Romani sentiment (I cannot speak to how well this was handled). I did like that the ending wasn't just "Yay we killed the bad guy now Class Warfare is over and our crops are watered" but a much more involved (if offscreen) process.
[1] I am SO ANNOYED I couldn't find an English word with the right connotations for "arpenteuse" -- "arpenter" means to roam with purpose.

Les Éblouis ("The dazzled"), by Aylin Manço: I should have DNF'd this book. It was so fucking boring and was clearing trying to Say Something but had nothing to say. I did like the descriptions of the tree and the mirror. Worst book I read in French this year.

Mers mortes ("Dead seas"), by Aurélie Wellenstein: This book is A WILD FUCKING RIDE and I loved every minute of it. Post climate apocalypse, an exorcist is kidnapped by sky pirates trying to stop the ghost tides by resurrecting the dead seas. It's a roadtrip over thousands of kilometers, from the south of France to Greenland and we get to see various ways in which people have adapted to the facts that (a) all seas and oceans and any other open air water has disappeared and (b) at intermittent intervals, the vengeful ghosts of sealife come into corporeal form to tear the souls out of people. Meanwhile, the PoV character gets to know the sky pirate crew -- and fall in love with the captain. It's m/m enemies to almost lovers and it is delightful! Speaking of which. This book has a love triangle over two and a half species and three different types of (un)life/death. We have: an alive human, a ghost dolphin and a half human half ghost shark guy (he's corproreal and he eats souls). Trust me when I say I never saw the resolution of said triangle coming, but it made perfect sense. (I wrote about this book before.)

I really recommend L'arpenteuse de rêves and Mers Mortes -- I've only read the one Estelle Faye so far, but Aurélie Wellenstein is my favourite SFF French author (I wrote about her La Mort du Temps before.)

It will take the time that it takes, but I will post about everything I've read in 2023 (that I have something to say about, at least).

French non-fiction books (2)

J'accuse ! ("I accuse!"), by Émile Zola: I dunno I guess I just felt like rereading it. It's really cathartic, what can I say.
Biggest take-away: GET 'EM ÉMILE

Le Guide des fées : Regards sur la femme ("Guide to fairies: perspectives on women"), by Audrey Cansot and Virginie Barsagol: This was much less in-depth than I excepted and several of the conclusions were not well supported.
Biggest take-away: Titania in Elisathean and Jacobean literature and theater is a "mirror" of Elizabeth I of England -- which makes me wonder what a fairy mirror of Liz2 would be like.

"J'accuse!" 100% is the best.


English non-fiction books (8)

2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, by Rachel Aaron: This was a reread. I've been having trouble writing, well, anything, for the past couple years, so I thought it might helped. I'd found it helpful in the past, but this time it wasn't really. Probably a combination of me having gotten what I needed out of it already and it being about how to write more and not just write at all -- but then again expecting one book to Solve Depression is a bit much, innit?
Biggest take-away: Brainstorming a scene before writing it is useful. I outline pretty loosely, for example my outline might just read "Hannibal talks his sister" and brainstorming what that conversation actually entails before doing the actual writing is helpful.

Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America, by Barbara Ehrenreich: This book came out shortly after the 2008 subprime crisis, so some of the specifics are probably dated, but I still found it quite interesting as a case study of the destructive effects of toxic positivity.
Biggest take-away: Thinking everything is already perfect closes you off to constructive criticisms and improvement.

Let's Talk About Down There: An OB-GYN Answers All Your Burning Questions… without Making You Feel Embarrassed for Asking, by Jennifer Lincoln: This was very interesting. Even the things I already knew were presented in a clear way and I like the authorial voice.
Biggest take-away: That my biology classes skipped over a bunch of stuff it really ought to have covered.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed, by Lori Gottlieb: This was really good. I liked how well the book demonstrated its thesis that hat drives people to seek therapy is not why people need therapy, both through her own and her "patients" experiences. (The author clarifies in the foreword that none of the patients in this are real, but rather that they are composite of real stories.)
Biggest take-away: At one point the author describes anger as "a secondary emotion" and while I can't say I agree entirely[1], looking deeper into why I am/was angry at some things has been enlightening.
[1] I am nothing but a neutron star of rage in vaguely human form.

The War on Everyone, by Robert Evans: The only audiobook I listened to this year and it wasn't even on purpose. The chapters of this audiobook are uploaded on the same youtube channel as the episodes of the Behind the Bastards episodes, which I've been listening to a lot of at work. Which means I can't really remember what was said here vs any other episodes. So have a review of the podcast my friend wrote for me instead: "This podcast made me late to stuff. Not because it's good, I am just often late. 3/5, ok podcast." Also, Evans mispronounces people's names on multiple occasions that I picked up on -- for example, it was only because I knew the rough shape of the events described in the "The (French) Capitol Insurrection" episode that I realised «Jon Joray» was meant to be Jean Jaurès.
Biggest take-away: Fascism bad.

Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout, by Laura Jane Grace and Dan Ozzi: The autobiography of Laura Jane Grace, the front woman of the band Against Me!, includes both current day reflections on her past and excerpts of her diary at the time. It was ok, but a bit too long and muddled.
Biggest take-away: Not sure why, but the image that most sticks with me is her, as a teenager still presenting as male and living in a punk squat, eating birth control pills from her squatmates in the hope they would do something.

Ultra-Processed People: Why We Can't Stop Eating Food That Isn't Food, by Chris van Tulleken: My favourite non-fiction book I read all year! It was absolutely fascinating. I did think there were a couple points where the rhetoric was a bit too scaremongering but overall it was really interesting and well-argued. It framed cooking food as being about connection (to culture, to people, etc) -- vs ultra-processed food being about profit -- and that has helped me framed cooking as even more of a Good Thing for me: it's not just a creative I (have to) engage in almost daily, it's an act of love, from me to me. You don't cook for people you don't love. If I'm cooking for me, that means I'm someone worth cooking for.
Biggest take-away: That I need to check ingredients list more -- one of the first thing I checked, because it was in front of me and I was reading the book during lunch, was made of duck according to the big letters on the front of the packaging, but was in fact made mostly of pork fact.

Unf#ck Your Writing Write Better, Reach Readers, & Share Your Inner World, by Joe Biel, Faith G. Harper: *Gandalf voice* I have no memory of this place.
Biggest take-away: I should take notes on non-fiction books?


My favourite was "Ultra-Processed People", with "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" as n°2.


In terms of things I remember from prescriptive non-fiction I read last year, the thing I got the most use of was Kondo pointing out that making sock balls by turning one of the socks inside out destroys the elastic. So now I just chuck all my socks into the sock drawer without bother to fold them or whatever -- which I guess ties into How to Keep House While Drowning saying there's nothing shameful in making things easier for yourself.

I recently finished reading a French book with the most unexpected love triangle resolution I've ever read. If it turned out to be the most unexpected to ever be written, I would not be surprised.


The book: Mers Mortes (lit. "Dead Seas") by Aurélie Wellenstein.

A one sentence summary of which would be: "Post climate apocalypse, an exorcist is kidnapped by sky pirates trying to stop the ghost tides by resurrecting the dead seas" and a short review "A wild fucking ride. Loved it. Recommend". Book spoilers from here on out.


The love triangle: Dolphin\Exorcist/Captain.

( Explanation )


The resolution: ( Details )


So yeah. I have before encountered a love triangle resolved by "one of the rivals absorbs the cross-species love interest and becomes cross-species friends with the other rival". Have you?

Belatedly (very much so), I bring you the typed up and translated menus/lists for 2022's Pumpkin Autumn Challenge, directly from the French internet to you (via me). Because I am Le Tired and have taken (too) many naps and not fired nearly enough missiles this weekend.

Here is Guimause's, the creator's, explainatory video and the accompanying blogpost. It's all in French, but the gist is to try to read/watch/etc somthing in each category and/or a whole category.

I never participate in any "official" capacity, but it's always fun.

Automne Frissonnant | Shivering Autumn
- Ghost Hunt (exorcisme, chasseur de fantômes, possession, enquête) | Ghost Hunt (exorcism, ghost hunter, possession, investigation)
- Le portrait du mal (couverture sur laquelle est dessiné un visage ou une peinture sinistre) | Portrait of evil (cover with a sinister portrait or painting on it)
- Les Sakuma drops au milieu des lucioles (historique, drame, biographie, mémoire, frère et sœur) | Sakuma drops in the middle of fireflies (historical, tragedy, biography, memoir, siblings)

Automne de L’étrange | Strange autumn
- Les mystérieux habitants de Pottsfield (Automne, Halloween, Samhain) | Mysterious inhabitants of Pottsfield (Autumn, Halloween, Samhain)
- La cueillette des champignons (forêt, récolte, poison, petit peuple) | Mushroom picking (forest, harvest, poison, Fair Folk [1])
- In the dark, I hear a call (fantasy, dark fantasy, ambivalence, quête, duplicité, pouvoir, obscurité/lumière, destinée, loyauté, mauvaise influence) | In the dark, I hear a call (fantasy, dark fantasy, ambivalence, quest, treachery, power, darkness/light, destiny, loyalty bad influence)
- Sois vent, rêve, cendre et néant, Sois nuit, noir, âme et souhait (conte, gothique, macabre, sorcière, sauvetage, disparition) | Be wind, dream, ash and nothingness, Be night, black, soul and wish (fairytale/folktale, gothic, macabre, witch, rescue, vanishing)

Automne Douceur de vivre | Enjoyably sweet autumn
- Deux citrouilles en valent mieux qu’une (duologie) | Two pumlpkins are better than one (duology)
- La maison slangster (humour, livre audio, série audio, podcast) | Slangster house (humour, audiobook, audio drama, podcast)
- Il n’y a jamais trop d’épices dans ma Pumpkin pie (nourriture, enfance, famille, transmission, plaisirs non coupables) | There is never too much spice in my pumpkin pie (food, childhood, family, heritage, non-guilty pleasures)
- Chante moi une chanson, Sassenach (mythes et légendes, voyage dans le temps, magie, dépaysement) | Sing me a song, Sassenach (myths and legends, timetravel, magic, homesickness/change of scenery)

Automne rayonnant | Shining Autumn
- We’re all born naked and the rest is drag (LGBTQIA+, amour de soi, diversité, inclusivité) | We’re all born naked and the rest is drag (LGBTQIA+, confidence, diversity, inclusion)
- You cannot eat the money (écologie, post-apocalyptique, anticipation, science-fiction) | You cannot eat the money (environtalism, post-apocalyptic, near future, science-fiction)
- Le don des Merriwick (bienveillance, amour, aider son prochain, guide, sororité, relation, guérison) | The Merriwick's gift (benevolence, love, helping your neighbours, guide, sisterhood, relationship, healing)

I will know take another nap.

What? Sleeping at night is just extra long luxury nap, I will not be taking criticisms.

[1] I chose "Fair Folk" as the translation here. The literal translation would be "little people" but "petit peuple" is used in French to refer to all fairy-esque creatures -- most of the one in French folklore are smaller than humans (lutins, farfadets, korriganed[2]...).

[2] The singulars are: lutin, farfadet, korrigan. The feminie forms are: lutine(s), farfadette(s), korriganez(ed)[3].

[3] Modulo mutations depending on context/preceding words. The mutated forms are gorrigan.ez.ed and cʼhorrigan.ez.ed. (I do not understand the rules behind mutations enough to explain when, why nor how they happen ;_;) (Edit to clarify: these mutations happen Breton/Brezhoneg, not French. You might even see "korrigan.e.s" in some French texts.)

I feel like crap currently :(
Here's an incomplete list of stuff I read since uuuuuh the beginning of the year, I guess?

La Mort du Temps by Aurélie Wellenstein

( French novel )
All in all very reccomended.


Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them by The Lady Of The Manners (Jillian Venters)

It's very nice!

( English nonfiction )

La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu by Jean Giraudoux

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trojan_War_Will_Not_Take_Place

( French play )
Twas good.


My Chemical Romance: This Band Will Save Your Life by Haydn Reinhardt

Because apparently I had this?????

Anyway it was interesting, I shall plunder the images for references for drawing the martian punks, but also it was originally published in 2008 so it's missing the last 5 years of the band, including their last album.


Poésies by Arthur Rimbaud

V good poetry. Me likey.


Chevaux de foudre by Aurélie Wellenstein

Bit too romance focused and not a fan of the love interest remaining Marcus in the narration after the Dramatic Reveal that he was a slave too and his name was Diego.

Gave good Fuck You Rome and good lightning horse too. Alix is fun character. Nice YA overall but probs won't reread it.


"J'accuse" by Emile Zola

Never read the whole thing before! Zola has no fucks to give with the Army's antisemitisism and incompetence. It is -- and ends with -- him basically shouting COME AT ME BRO to the then-president Félix Faure's face.


a 19th century translation of Sappho into French
Twas [fragment missing] good.

Crown of Ptolemy by Rick Riordan

I know all the demigod series(es?) of Riordan's are set in the same universe, so the crossovers are a thing that makes sense, but THE WORLDBUILDING MAKES NO SENSE ARGH

Was fun other than that.


70 solutions to common writing mistakes by Bob Mayler

Eh. It was a writing how-to book. Not bad, but not mindblowing either.


Breizh v1 by Thierry Jigourel and Nicolas Jarry (writing) and Daniel Brecht and Erwan Seure-Le Bihan (art)

( French comic )


Alix Senator v7 by Valérie Mangin (writing) and Thierry Démarez (art)

( French comic )


Ar-Men, l'enfer des enfers by Emmanuel Lepage (art and writing)

The history/story of "the most inaccessible lighthouse in Brittany, which to say, of the world". In the parlance of French lighthouse keepers, paradis ("heavens") are lighthouses on the mainland, purgatoires ("purgatories") lighthouses on islands and enfers ("hells") lighthouse out at sea.

Really REALLY good use of the comic medium. I am blown away.

Really interesting story (stories) too!

The lighthouse was built in the 19th century on a rock that was only uncovered at low tide during the spring tide so lol it took them 15 years to built the lighthouse.

Also holy shit the art is AMAZING

Also the last panel showing words written inside the lighthouse: "Le feu est clair; tout va bien" (The fire is bright; all is right) made me fucking cry.

1. Me, at the ao3 nomination approval interface: "YOUR CODE IS A HAMSTER AND SMELLS OF ELDERBERRIES"
It has several times lost part or all of my approval slates. >:[


2. I am reading Alain Damasio's La Horde du Contrevent, which I ironically enough got recced while in the middle of an online discussion/argument with someone who seemed to think that there was no such thing as French fantasy tradition. (This was apparently a misunderstanding/mismatch in definition.)

Anyway, La Horde du Contrevent is actually pretty good so far! I'm only on Chapter 3, but I'm really enjoying the worldbuilding so far. It's about a group of people in a planet continually beset the wind regularly so powerful and destructive it levels entire cities. The wind only flows in one direction and the Horde is going upwind to Etrême-Aval, the mythical source of the wind. That's the goal of every Horde and none have managed it. This is the 34th Horde. It will be the last.

Also weird creatures who can do stuff like turn organic matter into bone come out of the wind. Or possibly they are the wind? It's unclear.

I predict: at least half the cast will die, there is no Extreme-Upwind.

Also it has a soundtrack (although it apparently has 17 tracks in CD form instead of the 5 here).


3. I am also reading Magali Ségura's Le Prix d'Alaya. I grabbed it at semi-random off the shelf -- a random fantasy book written in French by a woman -- and it had people riding a sabertooth tiger on the cover so I was like FUCK YEAH! I am also enjoying it so far.


4. Sometimes I want to write posts about stuff relating to Brittany (fun tidbits about Breton, characteristic of Breton names, Anne de Bretagne etc) but then I'm like "no one caaaaaaaaaaaaaaares".


5. I recently saw both Annihilation (2018) and Le Chat du Rabbin (2011) and they are both good movies in vastly different ways, even though they both feature talking animals in some capacity.

Annihilation is a live-action horror sci-fi movie about an all-female group of scientists exploring a one where the laws a reality are... distorted. It's got a lot of body horror and some really pretty cinematography and raises interesting questions about what it means to be human/a specific person. To say more would be spoilery, but if that sounds like your sort of thing, it probably will be.

Le Chat du Rabbin (The Rabbi's Cat) is an animated historical slice of life movie. In 1920s Algiers, a rabbi's cat gains, then loses, then regains the power of speech as the following happens: the cat attempts to convince the rabbi that he (the cat) should have his bar mitvah, the rabbi takes a test in French ("to preach in Hebrew to Jews who speak Arabic. They're crazy!" sayeth the cat), the rabbi's cousin and his lion come to visit, the rabbi finds a Russian Jew escaping in a crate of books, the rabbi and his friend the cheikh attempt to visit the tomb of their common ancestor, and then they're a roadtrip through Africa with the rabbi, the cheikh, the Russian Jew, a non-Jewish Russian, the cheikh's donkey and the rabbi's cat. It's really really sweet and I heartily reccomend it.

There are better ways to start the year than to be sick for several days, let me tell you. Bleh.

Anyway, having realised that while staring down the barrel of a "stuff read in 2017" meme that I didn't really keep track, I've decided to try and be better at the Reading Wednesday meme in 2018, if only for tracking purposes.


What did you finish reading

A bunch of things! Which I will probably not be talking about because I am starting fresh. Happy to answer questions if anyone has any, though.

Most recently it was either Andrea K. Höst's The Sleeping Life (which I plan on rereading as soon as I find my copy of the first one in the series) or Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase and the Ship of the Dead -- no, wait, I finished Alix Senator v6.


What are you currently reading

La fabrique des corps: Des premières prothèses à l'humain augmenté by Héloïse Chochois: A book about prosthetics, past, present and future as well as the science behind them. The title-nod to Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica is entirely on purpose.

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson: I am making my way through this very slowly. It's interesting but super dense. I seem to have somehow missed a two year timeskip? Ooops.


What are you reading next

This month's theme is "time travel", so I think I'll dig out my copy of Le Déchronologue and do a re-read. (It's great, I've talked about it before.)


Also there is a post-yuletide friending meme if that is of interest to anyone.

My wrist really hurts lately and idk why. I'm hoping it's only temporary and not linked to the back pain. Anyway, going to go easy on posting, I suppose.

And so, I'm cancelling the giant post of all the books I read in 2016 and didn't talk about. Have part of it instead.


What did you finish reading

Cixi de Troy, by Christophe Arleston (scenario) et Olivier Vatine (art): This is a spin-off from Lanfeust de Troy, telling the story of Cixi between volumes 5 and 6 of that series. Same writer as the main series, different artist. A lot happens in quite a short time! I like Cixi a lot and tbh I'd been wanting to know more about that period of time where she was exclusive mistress to omnipotent tyrant by day and DRAGON RIDING VIGILANTE fighting said tyrant by night, which this comics trilogy is at least partly about, so yay! Also, pirates. Also also it makes it canon that Cixi is bi. Way back when I reviewed Mike Carey's Lucifer, I mentionned "it feature[d] the longest roadtrip I have read for someone to get an abortion that they cannot get through other means" -- this book is the basis of comparaison for that. In both cases the fact that outside magical forces prevent these women from seeking an abortion is treated as a violation, fyi. Anyway. I quite enjoyed the friendship between Cixi and her maid, and Cixi and her dragon.


What are you currently reading

A satirical newspaper that comes out on Wednesdays. I'm reading Le Canard Enchainé, Journal satirique paraissant le mercredi, because it's Wednesday and if I'm going to buy a fucking newspaper, I'll be damned if it's a newspaper that isn't independant.


Stuff finished in 2016

( Mostly comics )


Stuff finished in 2017
( Also mostly comics )


What are you reading next

In French: a book on Parisian folklore, a book of first-hand accounts of the Paris Commune (with an eye both to the general history and to writing a Rogue One AU) and a book on Brittany. Also, comics.

In English: fuck if I know, mate.

READING

What did you finish reading

2015

Magnus Chase and the Sword of Asgard, by Rick Riordan: It's been ages since I read this, given that I read it when it came out, way back in October 2015. Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot. Sam was my favourite and I remember being pretty down with the Loki characterisation. (And now I can go buy the sequel.)

The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan: I read this in early 2015! I am so bad at this reading Wednesday thing lately, wow. (But now I've officially talked about everything I readin 2015. Woohoo!) I also enjoyed this, but the worldbuilding didn't work quite as well for me here as it did in the other series(es) of Riordan's I've read. Also, I did not expect as much Isis/Seth shipping fodder as I got (it's my crackship of Egyptian mythos).


Tbh my fellings about both of the above are that they're pretty much exactly what one would expect of "Rick Riordan Does Norse Myths" and "Rick Riordan Does Egyptian Myths" respectively, so for people who like that sort of thing, it is the sort of thing that they like. /is a person who likes that sort of thing, is a case in point


2016

Everything below the cut is stuff I read at various points this year and didn't talk about already. I'm going to try my best to get through the whole list before the end of the year, but if you want to hear about anything in priority, don't hesitate to ask. With the exception of The Grass King's Concubine, they're all comics.

( List )

What are you reading now

Have made no progress on:
Contes et récits de l'histoire de Carthage by Jean Defrasne
Paris fais nous peur: 100 lieux du crime, de l'étrange et de l'irrationnel, by Claudine Hourcadette et Marc Lemonier
Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa
La Controverse de Valladolid by Jean-Claude Carrière

However! I have been re-reading Les Quatre de Baker Street in preparation of buying volume 7 soon (thoughts forthcoming) and I have missed these kids (+ cat) so much! There are so many great moments, but I think my favourite(s) is Charlie being the one to see through Holmes' disguise(s). At least in the first 3, which is as far as I've gotten this re-read so far. Volume 5 has my favourite panel, in which Billy and Charlie as scrambling out the window in a desperate move and run into Tom, who is just casually entering through the window. AS YOU DO.


Sophonisbe, by Pierre Corneille: CORNEILLE WROTE A PLAY ON THE SECOND PUNIC WAR AND NOBODY TOLD ME?! Anyway, I listened to the production on the France Culture website and daaaaaaaaaaamn that is one hella good play. In places I had to refer to the text on Wikisource, because I'm not great at voices. (All translations below by me.)

The play follows the broad lines of history. Before the play, Sophonisba (daughter of a General of Carthage) was going to marry Massinissa (Numidian king) and they were in love with each other. Unfortunately, Massinissa allied himself with the Romans, which lead Sophonisba to follow her head over her heart and marry Syphax, a Numidian king allied with Carthage, instead. The amount of choice she had in making this decision is something she doesn't always think of as the same. Within the play Sophonisba encourages Syphax to fight Laelius' army, allied with MAssinissa. Syphax loses, Massinissa and Sophonisba sort-of maybe get married and things degenerate.

I guess you could say it's a play about how far people are willing to go/what they're ready to sacrifice for love, power or pride.

This play gave me an even better appreciation of Sophonisbe and quite frankly everybody in it is a flawed and complex human being, but her most of all. *adopts characterisation wholesale*

I was surprisingly fond of Laelius. He starts off a lot harsher than I usually think of him, but then it becomes obvious that he's trying to be 'bad cop' (to Scipio's presumed 'good cop') and at one point he stops that and starts trying to make everyone happy, or failing that, making sure they stay alive.

Neither Hannibal nor Scipio appear in the play, but their presence is felt. Scipio's especially.

I liked that there seemed to be a fundamental cultural misunderstanding between the Romans and the Carthaginians/Numidians. The latter take it as read that Syphax' capture makes his marriage to Sophonisba null and void while the Romans are like "Married's married, what the hell?".

(Also, I ended up shipping Laelius/Massinissa and Massinissa/Scipio -- Sophonisba literally tells him "Vous aimez Lélius, vous aimez Scipion" / "You love Laelius, you love Scipio" OKAY -- and Scipio/Sophonisba -- idk, there's this whole thing about getting Scipio to marry Sophonisba himself to keep her safe and what if.)

The entire thing's in verse and there are more rhymes with Carthage than I expected! My favourite is "suffrage". But I also really love "En un mot, j’ai reçu du ciel pour mon partage / L’aversion de Rome et l’amour de Carthage." ("In one word I have received as my lot from above / From Rome dislike and from Carthage love") because oh, Sophonisba.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the amount of SICK BURNS in this play. Seriously, it is fucking savage by moments. At the end of Act 1, for example, Sophonisba has this to say to Syphax: "Je vous répondrais bien qu’après votre trépas / Ce que je deviendrai ne vous regarde pas" ("I would tell you that after your demise / What happens to me is for you to surmise"). Damn girl, find you some chill.

The line that's been stuck in my head since I listened to the play is from Laelius (to Massinissa), though. "Ce n’est qu’à leurs pareils à suivre leurs exemples ; / Et vous ferez comme eux quand vous aurez des temples". Laelius is referring to the gods with "leurs" so it translate more or less to "Only their equals can follow the gods' examples / You might do the same if you had temples". (NOBODY HAS ANY CHILL.)


I also listened to Neil Gaiman's How the Marquis Got His Coat Back, a short-ish Neverwhere sequel. It was okay. The plot twists/reveals could be seen from space, though.


I also listened to a bunch of podcasts but idk if these fit here or in the Watcing Monday posts or somewhere else or what.


What are you reading next

( To-read list )

Je suis le capitaine Henri Villon et je mourrai bientôt.

Non, ne ricanez pas en lisant cette sentencieuse présentation. N’est-ce pas l’ultime privilège d’un condamné d’annoncer son trépas comme il l’entend ? C’est mon droit. Et si vous ne me l’accordez pas, alors disons que je le prends.

I am captain Henri Villon and I will die soon.

No, don't smirk when reading that pretentious opening. Isn't it the last priviledge of the condemned to proclaim their death however they wish? It is my right. And if you don't grant it to me, then let us say I'm taking it.

That's how the story starts. Or ends, rather.

Le Déchronologue is the story of Henri Villon, a pirate captain in the Carabbeans of the 17th century. The story is told in non-linear order, jumping from 1653 when those first lines in the prologue are penned to 1640 when the first chapter starts. From Villon on his futuristic timeship being blown up to Villon as pirate captain investigating maravillias is quite a jump, but it's not the story's greatest jump.

Every chapter begins by telling you when and where it's set, for example "Archipel inexploré de la Baja Mar (CIRCA 1652)" ('Unexplored archipelago of the Baja Mar (circa 1652)') a chapter which immediately follows "Désert du Yucatan (FIN DU TEMPS CONNU)" ('Yucatan Desert (END OF KNOWN TIME)').

That's right. We're travelling to THE END OF TIME. #YOLO

So that's the structure of the book. A book that jumps around in time, because it's a book about timetravellers fucking with the timeline and the tenacious pirate captain who decides to fuck back.

The entire book (excepting epilogue) is told via Villon's journal of the last 13 or so years of his life, written on the eve of the last battle (where he gets blown up in the prologue). Villon is uncompromising with his faults (or other people's), a right bastard at times, an honourable man more often, utterly devoted to his quest for knowledge about what the maravillias are and what they can do, moody, tenacious, with a sharp wit and sense of irony, stingy on backstory and, very importantly, a survivor of the Siege of La Rochelle.

Villon's not just French, he's a Protestant Huguenot -- you can imagine how much that endears him to the Catholic Spaniards chasing him.

That Villon is a survivor of the Siege of La Rochelle is one of the first thing we learn about him and it informs SIGNIFICANT parts of his characters. It may not look like it at first, but Villon is deeply self-hating, bordering at times on nihilism, and has massive issues regarding women and children. In fact, his very drive to figure out the maravilias is born of what he did/was complicit in the Siege of La Rochelle.

If you don't know what happened at the Siege of La Rochelle -- or you're like me and you learned about it in school and later you forgot -- it's eventually revealed in text what happened. It comes in the book after several ominous references to it -- Villon at one point has a very bad acid rip and hallucinates the screams of the children, that sort of thing -- and in the specific scene after he's been pushed about on both the fact that he's a Huguenot and that he researches the maravilias. This is what he has to say about it:

— Moi j’y étais, au siège de La Rochelle, au nom de la Réforme et de la foi. Et je fus de ceux qui en chassèrent les plus faibles quand la famine fut sur nous, pour gagner encore un peu de temps et préserver les assiégés en état de combattre. Je les ai vus et entendus, ces malheureux, bannis sur nos ordres, errer et agoniser chaque jour un peu plus, piégés entre nos murs et les rangs de l’armée de monsieur de Richelieu qui avait refusé de les laisser passer. Et si c’est diablerie que de promouvoir des moyens de conserver boissons et aliments des années durant sans risquer de les voir se gâter, si c’est diablerie de produire de la lumière sans flamme, de soigner l’incurable et de s’efforcer de sauver son prochain, alors Satan est mon maître et je suis son serviteur, et je compisse vos gueules de rats putrides !

"I was there, me, at the siege of La Rochelle, in the name of faith and the Reformation. And I was one of those who drove out the weakest when famine was upon us, to win a little more time and keep the assieged able to fight. I saw and I heard them, those poor souls, banished on our orders, wander and die slowly every day a little more, trapped between our walls and the ranks of Richelieu's army who refused to let them through. And if it is the devil's work to promote ways to keep drink and food for years without risking that they'll rot, if it is the devil's work to produce light without flame, to heal the incurable and try to save your neighbour, then Satan is my master and I am his servant, and I piss on your stinky rat faces!

Like, wow, okay, Villon. OKAY. I understand perfectly, but at the same time, it is hilariously enough not the only time in the book where Villon calls himself Satan's servant/footman.

So that's Villon.

The book is populated with a very varied cast, from the nigh incomprehensible Féfé de Dieppe to the Baptist, who ends literally able to walk through time. Also Brieuc. I really like Brieuc, who is probably the kindest person in the entire book -- something Villon really admires (I ship them) -- and dies for his trouble. The most prominent of the secondary characters, however, are Sévère, Mendoza and Arcadio, all of whom are both interesting in their own right and have fascinating relationships to Villon.

Sévère is not her real name. She's a timetraveller who is no longer allowed to timetravel and so has to rely on Villon. Well. She doesn't HAVE to, but she does. Villon is madly in love with her, something he realises is a great weakness -- but he saved her and as I've said above, he has massive issues about not being able to sav women -- and it's something she finds... useful, I guess. She doesn't dislike him and she's not just using him, but she is using him and they both know it. She likes him, even, by her own admission but "not like that" and Villon respects that. He can't stop himself from hoping she'll love him back, but he respects that she doesn't.

Mendoza is a Spanish corsair. You can imagine how he (Catholic, Spanish, corsairr) feels towards Villon (Protestant, French, pirate) when they first meet. It does not go well! Mendoza basically tortures him and they remain hilariously polite towards each other. The next time they meet, Mendoza helps Villon escape from jail, sort of. Then Mendoza tries to go back to Spain CROSSES HIS OWN TIMESTREAM somehow survives with his sanity sort of intact and becomes Villon second-in-command as well as the owner of the journals we're reading. (I ship it.)

Arcadio is Villon's one-time cellmate who forms an unlikely friendship with him. The most important thing about Arcadio, though, is that he's a Maya. Specifically, he's an Itza from Noj Peten. As such he has a bone to pick with the Spanish Empire and the Itza having been granted, via the vagaries of timetravel bullshit affecting the world in the story, the means to fight back against the Spanish, they fight back. They fight back with gusto, because the Spanish Empire might be the Spanish Empire, but it doesn't hold a candle to machine guns and time cannons or even something as simple as easy long-distance communications via radios. The Itza are presented as entirely justified in wanting revenge from the Spanish -- by no means are Spanish atrocities glossed over, from the first chapter we are introduced to the idea that the Spanish have resorted to human experimentation to figure out the maravilias, including deliberately exposing captives to malaria -- but as time goes on Villon starts to see that the religious zeal of the Itza reminds him far too much of La Rochelle.

There is one more thing to talk about and it's THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. Spoilers, it's not actually the Flying Dutchman, it's actually AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER. Specifically, the USS George Washington.

Because see, while all the radios and boxes of quinine and machine guns and mp3 players and history books (lol forever at Villon's reaction to learning about Mary Read and Anne Bonny) and cheap IKEA furniture is being thrown back to the 17th century for anyone to grab, sell and use, so has a mysterious vessel that pirates and corsairs of the time alike decide to call the Flying Dutchman, because it is unlike anything they have ever seen both in firepower and mode of propulsion.

In the climax/end of the book, Villon and what's left of the all the fleets, pirate or not, of the time (plus some timetravelling pirates, like François le Clerc and SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, not even kidding), all go up against the Flying Dutchman. They have a plan. It's a great plan! But in the end they're 17th and 16th century pirates and they're going up against a fucking nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

They die. They all die. Including Villon, who told us so right there at the beginning and Sévère who dies in his arms before the ship gets blown up.

But.

But Villon's ship isn't just a 17th century pirate ship, is it? It's Le Déchronologue, which has been equiped with time cannons by one of the various parties of time travellers fucking with the time stream. And so in the end, in what is for me one of the most striking images in the book, a flurry of time displaced Déchronologues appear and then disappear through a tear in time, taking the Flying Dutchman with them.

We're told of this by Mendoza, who had been told to stay behind. Having met the Americanos during their short-lived alliance with the Spanish, it was decided he'd be best able to save the city if all else failed.

I won't say I'm not sad Villon died, because I am, but I was a fitting end and could have ended no other way. He tried so hard to convince everyone, even himself, that he wasn't a hero, but he was, in the end. And he was never going to let an injustice stand or let predetermination win out over free will.


(And now I shall go re-read the book in chronological order.)

APPROPRIATE ICON IS APPROPRIATE.