Booky Things

Although the book opens with the World War II setting, the Blitz is more scene dressing to emphasize the themes of the Arthurian retelling than anything else. The real plot and most of the action is with Nimue, not museum employee Elaine. The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood is definitely not a story about King Arthur running around smiting German pilots or something. The influence of Elaine's modern setting on the Arthurian plot is much more subtle. I hadn't realized that the agonizing over the inevitability of war in TH White's retelling was so closely inspired by World War II, and Parry is clearly paying homage to that link. And even as a standalone narrative, the Nimue chapters are an excellent interpretation of the character in their own right. There's a strong sense of the inevitability of story capturing people in its wake, and a certain melancholy lent by Nimue entering the story so late, only a year or two before Arthur's fall. While I'm a little disappointed that Parry didn't have much to say about the modern timeline other aside from in reflection, I've always been a sucker for yet another good Arthurian retelling, and the book delivers on that front. Recommended, if not as much as the glorious tragedy of A Far Better Thing.

Happy National Book Lovers Day! 📚

Tea with Matisse, 2025 by Shims Seng (Chinese); Acrylic on canvas, 30x40 in.

Wislawa Szymborska

See you at booth 1544 if you're in Minneapolis!

"The Never Ending Story," (2025) by Frances Featherstone (British, b.1976)

Source: Letters of Note

like, i think the most obvious one is slapping/hitting. in real life, there is basically no situation where that is acceptable, unless you're actively defending yourself/someone else. but fiction is inherently larger than life, its about how it feels, subjectively, over what actually happens, literally. sometimes a character who has never before been violent will hit someone, and it's intended as like, an indicator of how fucked up everything is. that shit is going down. or, a character will trash a room, throwing things and destroying everything in their path. and then its never mentioned again, everything just continues as if they HADNT destroyed their own and other people's property in a frankly terrifying display, because it was just a cathartic moment to represent the storm of emotions the person was feeling. and when i see people like 'this character is an abuser, the story needs to address this,' i think maybe its actually okay for fictional characters to do shitty things and not have it framed as shitty, by the story itself or even on any sort of meta level, with the intended audience reaction. sometimes the point is just to resonate with your emotions, not to dissect the literal sequence of events.

and in real life, obviously, someone deciding to blow up the moon because their relationship melted down or wife died and now they'll never look at the moon with her again would be Bad. Duh. But it's a story and it's fucking fine because it's not the real moon, so for a moment you can go yes, that's right, I want everyone in the world to feel this grief with me tonight.

"We are the books we read and the things we love." — Cath Crowley, Words in Deep Blue

By Charlotte B. Plumb.

Lectores