Happy Halloween

Something on the side of macabre...

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

-- Edgar Allan Poe

The Book Post: The Graveyard Book

Yes. I chose the kiddy cover

As a toddler, the night his family is killed, Nobody Owens* ( aka Bod) manages to wander into the neighbouring graveyard, where he is then raised under the relative safety of its ghostly citizens. The killer, meanwhile, remains undeterred from his unfinished task...

My most charming reader,

I must take this opportunity, while I am on another of my frequent, if short bouts of haitus from my essaying to introduce you to this lovely book. The author, Neil Gaiman, needs no introduction. He is afterall, the well known writer of Stardust, American Gods, and the Sandman series of graphic novels. He didn't draw the last one; Dave McKean, and some others did. Dave McKean also needs no introduction here; he illustrated the so-called "Adult" version of The Graveyard Book (as if different versions matter to the story, and is as such, a marketing ploy which I have been successfully suckered into), which in my opinion anyway, has a less exciting cover. Sorry, Mr McKean.

Back to Neil Gaiman. The Graveyard Book marks his return since awhile to fiction for younger readers, and much as bookstores have placed several copies of Stardust on the children's bookshelf, I am absolutely certain that this is the heavily edited version with several naughty bits snipped out of it. And so, technically, no, Neil Gaiman hasn't written anything for teenagers (and below) for some time.

Reading The Graveyard Book, this might have come as a surprise. After all, the book pulls you in quickly, thus keeping the attention deficit child of the Internet Age hooked quickly. The book has an easy prose, a likeable protagonist and quirky, endearing characters. It doesn't condescend to the child, and neither is it overly sentimental, which might put off the older reader. All in all, it's a book that manages to keep the balance in its readership.

One slight thing of note, which would be totally negligible if this is your first Gaiman book, is that there is the sense that Gaiman is repressing some of the grislier details. Understandable. This book is meant for a more general audience than say, Neverwhere, or American Gods. But this means the villains aren't very well fleshed out. There is a rather vague sense of menace that rolls off them, but they aren't seriously terrifying. On the other hand, as the book is more or less from a child/teenager's perspective, the lack of background information might be because a child, even one raised in a graveyard, would not have access to this kinds of knowledge, though the ending builds a promise of changing this, I think. I hope I haven't spoiled the book for anyone. But then, a well-spun story doesn't really need to go all out to make its point.

Overall: 4.5/5

*spot the pun?

The Neverending Cyber War, or Angsty Stream of Consciousness

UPDATE:
OK. It decided to work after all. After I worked up the nerve to swtich it on again that is. Don't know how long it'll last though.

At the risk of sounding like a choric extra out of some homeric epic, The Fates are against me. I had a nasty feeling when I saw the windows update prompt about downloading a new service pack just as I had sat down finally to do planning for the SEA Lit essay. In any case, this being an important looking update, I let it get down to whatever it (it, here being my laptop) had to do and I proceeded to do what I had to do. So, after coming to a rut in the planning, which from the beginning has been a painful and mind-freezing affair, I checked the service pack installing thing and it had hung. Typically. As per usual. Something had to go wrong at the wrong time.

Now. How did I know it had hung. I knew it had hung because the installing bar wasn't moving one peep. Having wisened up to the incredible and seeming incompatibility with me and all things electrical, I saved my work in my thumbdrive before forcing a restart, only to have that stupid blue screen staring belligerently at me. Only this time it had words on it, which went somewhat along this line: Your system configuration installation is incomplete (duh. whose fault? not mine. not exactly). Rebooting to previous configuration.

Am now sitting panic stricken in front of the desktop. I am absolutely certain that there is unsaved data in the laptop. Which at this moment looks unretrievable, because the stupid creature is still rebooting. The first step, as gd ol' lappie proclaimed is successfully complete. The second, which it is calling a rollback, is still in the midst of being completed. And has been for the past half an hour. Someone let me know if I should be pulling the plug yet.

Why why why now. Now. When I have essays. It could have been last week. Or the week before. Anytime would have been preferable to this week. I can't lug my desktop to school... or to work... I am so forwarding my plans to buy a laptop before I graduate to sometime soon.

Thank You

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made
(Robert Browning)

Thank you for the drinks
Thank you for the fun
Thank you and you, and you.

Thank you for all the letters
Thank you for the dinners
Thank you, and you and you.

Thank you for being there
Thank you for being everywhere
Thank you to you, and you and you.

Thank you for the help
Thank you for the advice
Thank you for being nice.

Thank you for msn
Thank you for all these times
Thank you, all of you.

Thank you for the kind words
The encouragement
Thank you, and you and all of you.

Thank you for the good times
Thank you for the care
Thank you for
You;
And for more Thank Yous.

Notice

My damned phone (and may it rot in hell) died today. Will be completely uncontactable for a while. Watch this space for updates.

UPDATE:
It decided to work, mysteriously, after all...