60, WG51, M36, E60, / NG9, F24, MF0, D0, Frz0, C0, NA2, B4

Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

Das Buch - mit allen Teilen - wird auch immer zu meinen persönlichen Top Ten der Stephen-King-Bücher gehören. Erst hatte ich nur Lust den zweiten Teil mit der Hearts-Epidemie im College wiederzulesen, aber dann las ich doch das ganze Buch, mit ein bißchen veränderter Reihenfolge und war wieder aufs neue fasziniert und tief berührt.
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Hearts can break. Yes. Hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't.
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Medals had a way of seeming less important as time passed, more and more like the award you got in junior high for memorizing a poem or the letter you got in high school for running track and blocking home plate when the throw came home. Just something you kept on a shelf. They were the things old men used to jazz the kids. The things they held out to make you jump higher, run faster, fling yourself forward.
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(Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis, 1999)

59, WG50, M35, E59, / NG9, F24, MF0, D0, Frz0, C0, NA2, B4

Stephen King, Joyland

Auch dieses Spätwerk, obwohl schon dreimal gelesen (und genossen) musste nochmal dran glauben. Es ist aber auch einfach zu schön, wie genau King die Atmosphäre in dem Vergnügungspark am Meer Anfang der 70er Jahre einfängt und wie nah einem Devins Geschichte geht. Das Buch gehört mittlerweile definitiv zu den Top Ten Stephen King-Bücher bei mir.
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When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.
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If you read a whodunit or see a mystery movie, you can whistle gaily past whole heaps of corpses, only interested in finding out if it was the butler or the evil stepmother. But these had been real young women. Crows had probably ripped their flesh; maggots would have infested their eyes and squirmed up their noses and into the gray meat of their brains.
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(Stephen King, Joyland, 2013)

58, WG49, M34, E58, / NG9, F24, MF0, D0, Frz0, C0, NA2, B4

Stephen King, Later

Je öfter ich dieses Buch lese, desto mehr fasziniert es mich. Schon allein wie King mit dem Titelwort spielt, so dass es einen förmlich anspringt wann immer er es verwendet, bis zum allerletzten Wort - schade, dass es nicht das erste Wort sein konnte, aber das wäre vielleicht auch etwas übertrieben gewesen. Dann die Erzählweise, bei der man den noch jungen, nicht allzuviel späteren - ha - Mann praktisch vor sich sieht und der trockene, fast resignierte Humor, die gemählich erzählte Story, die den Horror noch beklemmender macht, alles zusammen ein echtes meisterhaftes 'Spät'werk. Einem, dem ich wohl noch einige Male nicht widerstehen werde können.
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There's always a later, I know that now. At least until we die. Then I guess it's all before that.
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The books really were a saga, in that they told one continuing story with a cast of continuing characters. They were strong men with fair hair and laughing eyes, untrustworthy men with shifty eyes, nobles Indians (who in later books became noble Native Americans), and gorgeous women with firm, high breasts. Everyone - the good, the bad, the firm-breasted - was randy all the time.
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Later I found out a whole lot of writers died at their desks. Must be a Type A occupation.
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Older, taller, and maybe even wiser, but still that same person. We change, and we don't. I can't explain it. It's a mystery.
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(Stephen King, Later, 2021)

54, NG8, F24, E54, B4 / WG46, M30, MF0, D0, Frz0, C0, NA2

Josephine Tey, To Love and Be Wise

Zwischen diesem, dem letzten Band mit Alan Grant, und dem ersten, 'The Man in the Queue', liegen gut 20 Jahre, und das merkt man auch, vor allem an der überraschend unkonventionellen Wendung am Ende. Einzig dass es nicht genug Hinweise für den Leser gibt um mit auf die Lösung zu kommen stört mich hier ein wenig. Dafür macht die Beschreibung der 'Künstlerkolonie' in dem gemütlichen Dorf mit den exzentrischen Charakteren richtig Spaß. Überhaupt bleibt der Ton auch in diesem Buch wieder erfrischend leichtherzig.
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'Perhaps the old saying is true and it is not possible to love and be wise. When you are as devoted to anyone as Serge is to Toby Tullis, I expect you cease to be sane about the matter.'
'Sane,' siad Searle sharply.
'Yes; things lose their proper proportions. Which, I take it, is a loss of sanity.'
..
'Sane,' he repeated, watching the place where the water lost control and was sucked under the culvert.
'I'm not suggesting the fellow is mad,' Walter said. 'He has just lost hold of common sense.'
'And is common sense so desirable a quality?'
'An admirable quality.'
'Nothing great ever came out of common sense' Searle said.
'On the contrary. Lack of common sense is responsible for practically every ill in life. Everything from wars to not moving up in the bus.'
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(Josephine Tey, To Love and Be Wise, 1950)

52, WG46, F22, E52, / NG6, M30, MF0, B2, D0, Frz0, C0, NA1

Tanya Huff, The Privilege of Peace

Im Finale der Serie bringt Huff nochmal alles aus den vorherigen Bänden zusammen in einem fulminanten Showdown - die Silsviss aus dem ersten Band, General Morris aus den ersten drei, Big Yellow aus dem zweiten und die Plastikaliens aus allen außer dem ersten, mit etlichen Nebencharakteren noch dazu. Immer wieder gut ist die Verhaftung des H'San am Ende - wobei ich sie mir immer noch nicht richtig vorstellen kann. Vielleicht ist das auch so gewollt.
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"She's a terrorist. Terrorism can be distillend to violence supporting a belief system. People who believe in things always want to convince you their way is the right way. That they have a good reason for whatever fukkery they're up to. Assholes are a lot less predictable."
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(Tanya Huff, The Privilege of Peace, 2018(

48, NG5, M29, E48, / WG43, F19, MF0, B2, D0, Frz0, C0, NA1

Julian Barnes, Elisabeth Finch

Jedesmal wenn ich einen neuen Barnes lese, merke ich wie sehr ich ihn vermißt habe und dass ich ihn wirklich öfter lesen sollte. Nicht nur wegen des eleganten Sprachstils und wie er es schafft jedes Buch schon nach den ersten Zeilen fesseln zu lassen, auch wenn wie hier sowohl Erzähler als auch die Titelfigur immer geheimnisvoller und undeutlicher werden, je weiter man im Buch vordringt. Eine begnadete Lehrerin, ein Schüler, der sie so bewundert, dass er nach ihrem Tod den halbherzigen Versuch wagt eine Biografie zu schreiben obwohl er noch nie in seinem Leben ein Projekt zuende geführt hat, und eine interessante, neue Denkansätze fordernde These (um Julian den Apostat, von dem ich bisher nichts wusste), die Finch beinahe zum Verhängnis wird, all das ergibt eine richtig gute Geschichte - aber was kann man von Barnes auch anderes erwarten.
Und ja, was mich besonders freute waren die Stellen über die heilige Ursula und die Frage, ob es wirklich 11000 Jungfrauen waren in ihrem Gefolge, nicht nur aber auch weil es mich an Jürgen Beckers Version der Geschichte erinnerte.
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Linda, who often seemed to be suffering from what she quaintly called 'heart trouble', asked anxiously, 'What have you got against monogamy? Isn't it how most people want to live? Isn't it what most people dream of?'
'Beware of dreams', Elizabeth Finch replied. 'Also, as a general rule, beware of what most people aspire to.' She paused, half-smiled at Linda and addressed the class through her. 'Enforced monogamy is as much to say enforced happiness, which we know is not possible. Unenforced monogamy might seem possible. Romantic monogamy might seem to be desirable. But the first normally collapses back into a version of enforced monogamy, while the second is liable to become obsessive and hysterical. And thereby lies close to monomania. We should always distinguish between mutual passion and shared monomania.'
We were all silenced, taking this in. Most of us had had the average sexual and amatory experience of our generation: that's to say, far too much in the opinion of the preceding generation, and pathetically little in the view of the next, pressing generation.
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Here's another thing: the dead can't tell you that you are wrong. Only the living can do that - and they may be lying. So I trust the dead more. Is that bizarre, or is it sensible?
And further to this: why should we expect our collective memory - which we call history - to be any less fallible than our personal memory?
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'It's a recurrent delusion that a change of government will make a difference.'
'That's a counsel of despair.'
'No, it's a counsel of realism. Do you see me despairing?'
'No. But I also bet you have voted in every single election.'
'In the sure knowledge that it will effect little.'
'Then why do it?'
'Civic duty. It is expected.'
At which point I slightly lost it. 'That sounds incredibly patronising.'
'To whom?'
'To... well, the rest of the electorate.'
'You mean that I am meant to share fully in their hopes and dreams and subsequent disappointments? A politician's main function is to disappoint.'
'That sounds incredibly cynical, you know.'
'I disagree. I am not a cynic.'
'What are you then?'
'I am not vain enough to attach a label to myself.'
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And then there is the inevitable third stylisation - of posthumous memory. Leading to the moment when the last living person to remember you has their very last thought about you. There ought to be a name for that final event, which marks your final extinction.
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'You know how she was,' Anna began. 'A mixture of utter candous and sudden concealment. Also, utter sympathy and occasional distance. Talking to her was completely different from any other woman I've talked to in my life. Most women tell you How We Met' - she did air-quotes - 'and What Went Wrong and How It Ended and What I Learnt From It All. I'm not disparaging that: I do it myself - turn my life into a story. We all do it. EF wasn't like that. She'd give you a conclusion but not the narrative. Why? The obvious, normal reason would be a sense of privacy, of discretion. But I decided that it was also perhaps something bigger: a sense that a life, much as we would like it to be, does not amount to a narrative - or not a narrative such as we understand and expect.'
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(Julian Barnes, Elizabeth Finch, 2022)

46, WG42, F18, E46, / NG4, M28, MF0, B2, D0, Frz0, C0, NA1

Tanya Huff, Valor's Trial

Der vierte Band enthält mit den Teilen im unterirdischen automatisiertem Gefängnis die wahrscheinlich mit Abstand düstersten und bedrückendsten Passagen der Serie. Am erschreckensten ist vermutlich wie so nah wie nie Torin hier dem Ende ihrer Kraft kommt.
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Kyster stopped listening. The argument didn't actually have anything to do with him; they were arguing for the sake of having something to talk about. Humans sucked at sitting in silence. So did Di'Taykan, but they usually found a quieter way to pass the time. He spent a while wondering what a Human would have done out in the tunnels all alone - besides die - and figured they'd have ended up arguing with themselves.
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From what she'd seen, Big Yellow - well, the component parts of Big Yellow, and that was still easier to say than polynumerous molecular sentient polyhydroxide alcoholydes with an agenda - was certainly capable of setting up this kind of a system, but it seemed like an awfully complicated load of rubbish to go through just to ... what? Study a few hundred captive Marines?
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(Tanya Huff, Valor's Trial, 2008)