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Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales

Auf dieses Buch stieß ich bei Twitter in einem Tweet von Diane Duane und sah es sofort bei Amazon nach - Märchen kann ich nun einmal selten wiederstehen. Märchen hat es hier wirklich satt, lange und kurze, witzige und langatmige Epen, aus aller Herren Länder. Einige kannte ich schon, wie die aus Grimms Märchen und aus der norwegischen Sammlung und fand es interessant sie in Englisch zu lesen (besonders 'Clever Gretel' und 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon'). Alles in allem ein echter Fund, auch wegen des langen und interessanten Vorworts, das Angela Carter noch kurz vor ihrem Tod fertigstellte.

The history, sociology and psychology transmitted to us by fairy tales is unofficial - they pay even less attention to national and international affairs than do the novels of Jane Austen. They are also anonymous and genderless. We may know the name and gender of the particular individual who tells a particular story, just because the collector noted the name down, but we can never know the name of the person who invented that story in the first place. Ours is a highly individualized culture, with a great faith in the work of an art as a unique one-off, and the artist as an original, a godlike and inspired creator of unique one-offs. But fairy tales are not like that, nor are their makers. Who first invented meatballs? In what country? Is there a definite recipe for potato soup? Think in terms of domestic arts. 'This is how I make potato soup.'
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I haven't put this collection together from such heterogeneous sources to show that we are all sisters under the skin, part of the same human family in spite of a few superficial differences. I don't believe that, anyway. Sisters under the skin we might be, but that doesn't mean we've got much in common. (See Part Six, 'Unhappy Families'.) Rather, I wanted to demonstrate the extraordinary richness and diversity of responses to the same common predicament - being alive - and the richness and diversity with which femininity, in practice, is represented in 'unofficial' culture: its strategies, its plots, its hard work.

(Angela Carter, Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales, 1990/1992)

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Julian Barnes, The Only Story

Wie fast alle Bücher von Barnes stimmte mich dieses meist wehmütig. Und nachdenklich. Und wie immer finde ich es einfach nur bewundernswert wie gut er Erinnerungen, Situationen, Zeiten und Gefühle beschreibt, so gut, dass ich mich kaum davon losreißen konnte und - mal wieder - versucht bin das halbe Buch hier zu zitieren.

We tend to slot any new relationship we come across into a pre-existing category. We see what is general or common about it; whereas the participants see - feel - only what is individual abd particular to them. We say: how predictable; they say: what a surprise! One of the things I thought about Susan and me - at the time, and now, again, all these years later - is that there often didn't seem words for our relationship; at least none that fitted. But perhaps this is an illusion all lovers have about themselves: that they escape both category and description.
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Sad sex is when she is sober, you both desire one another, you know that you will always love her regardless, just as she will always love you regardless, but you - both of you, perhaps - now realize that loving one another does not necessarily lead to happiness. And so your lovemaking has become less a search for consolation than a hopeless attempt to deny your mutual unhappiness.
Good sex is better than bad sex. Bad sex is better that no sex, except when no sex is better than bad sex. Self-sex is better than no sex, except when no sex is better than self-sex. Sad sex is always far worse than good sex, bad sex, self-sex and no sex. Sad sex is the saddest sex of all.
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He had shocked his parents with his sexual behaviour. Now he was shocked when sex was so often portrayed as mindless, heartless, thoughtless shagging. But why the surprise? Each generation assumes that it has got sex just about right; each patronises the previous generation but feels queasy about the succeeding one. This was normal.
As for the wider question of age, and mortality; no, he didn't think he felt a panic at the shutting of the doors. But maybe he hadn't yet heard their hinges creak loudly anough.
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(Julian Barnes, The Only Story, 2018)

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Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

Der Band paßte gerade noch in meine Lesezeit bevor das neue Buch von Julian Barnes auf dem Paperwhite eintrudelte. Immer wieder schön: das ungleiche und unharmonische Team Detritus und Cuddy - schade, dass es nur für dieses Buch reichte, aber im Grunde verständlich.

It was the way he wore the place. You expected him any moment to break into the kind of song that has suspicious rhymes and phrases like 'my kind of town' and 'I wanna be a part of it' in it; the kind of song where people dance in the street and give the singer apples and join in and a dozen lowly matchgirls suddenly show amazing choreographical ability and everyone acts like cheery lovable citizens instead of the murderous, evil-minded, selfcentred individuals they suspect themselves to be. But the point was that if Carrot had erupted into a song and dance, people would have joined in. Carrot could have jollied a circle of standing stones to form up behind him and do a rumba.

(Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms, 1993)

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Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

Vielleicht hätte ich doch mit 'Men at Arms' weitermachen sollen, aber jetzt ist es zu spät, und wenn man die Serie schon so oft gelesen hat, spielt es auch keine Rolle mehr...

He could hear his granny speaking, 'No one's too poor to buy soap.' Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit the world, and what had the poor bastards done to deserve that?
Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren't quite obeying them.
People said there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigible lawless. All the laws and the rules were for those people stupid enough to think like Cockbill Street people.

(Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay, 1996)

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Jojo Moyes, Still Me

Okay, nur einen Tag, solange hielt das Buch vor, weil ich mich mal wieder - wie immer - nicht davon losreißen konnte. Das lag auch daran, dass dieser dritte Band in der Serie um Louise Clark mindestens genauso gut, wenn nicht fast besser ist als seine Vorgänger. Der Blick auf New York und speziell den wirklich exklusiven Teil rund um Fifth Avenue aus den Augen einer Provinzengländerin macht einfach nur Spaß während ihre Erlebnisse ohne Umwege direkt ans Herz rühren.

Once upon a time there was a small-town girl who lived in a small world. She was perfectly happy, or at least she told herself she was. Like many girls, she loved to try different looks, to be someone she wasn't. But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all.

(Jojo Moyes, Still Me, 2017)

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Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

Dieser Band in der Tiffany Aching Serie musste noch sein - aller guten Dinge sind schließlich drei. Und ich wünschte oft, dass Pratchett es bei den drein belassen hätte, aber seis drum. Mittlerweile ist das neue Buch von Jojo Moyes endlich auf dem Paperwhite aufgeschlagen und damit erübrigt sich die Frage welcher Discworldband als nächstes dran ist erstmal für ein paar Tage.

That's Third Thoughts for you. Wehn a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an ingneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith, 2006)

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Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky

Wie das so geht, Band 1 der Tiffany Aching Saga zieht fast zwangsläufig Band 2 und 3 nach sich. Vor allem wegen der neuen Charakteren darin, hier vor allem die gute Miss Level mit ihren zwei Körpern, und mit dem Hiver eine ganz neue Art von Monster. Mit Band 4 muss ich mir noch überlegen - kann sein, dass mir da ein paar weitere Sam Vimes Bände lieber sind, wie Feet of Clay und/oder Thud.

Do you? Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it 'opening your eyes again'. But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no est, just endless... endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call ... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song, it went "Twinkle twinkle little star..." What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!

(Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky, 2004)