As some of you may be aware, cats read books
by means of a complex process using minute organs located along the ventral surface (of the feline, not the book). In fact, one reason so many cats are unhappy having their bellies rubbed is their fear these minute, delicate organs will be irreparably damaged. The best scientific minds to have studied this problem still aren't sure how it works; given that cats can do it even when the book is closed, it may involve sonar, or a process not unlike computerized tomography (as in CT scans), or magnetic resonance imaging.
Yes, it's true: the cat's not just lying on the book; the cat is in fact reading the book. They have to lie on it to do so, so it just looks like more random feline lounging.
Now, chez nous, we lack neither books nor cats, so the cats manage to get quite a bit of reading done, and when they aren't dealing with more pressing matters, ours occasionally talk about what they've been reading. I found out about this when I came home at lunch today, and found them examining the book I'm working on now. Zaza was perched on it, right where I'd left it on top of the dining table.
Z: The Normans and Their Myth--anyone know if this is any good?
Jemmy: Fidelio was reading it in the tub the other night--I gave it a quick look when it fell on the floor--it looks pretty academic, and maybe a little dry. Maybe if you're really into Normans it's interesting.
Minerva: Why, I would have thought the Normans would be right up your alley, Jemmy. They were the descendants of Viking pirates, after all.
Z: (sings softly) Mamas, don't let your babies
Grow up to be Normans;
They're never at home,
They're always off
Stealing somebody's lands...
J&M: Huh?
Z: It's something Sugartoes used to sing--I think it's an old SCA filk.
J&M: Whatever.
Z: I guess we'll just have to wait and see on this one. Anybody read anything else good lately?
M: The Children's Blizzard, which is about the Great Blizzards of 1888.
J: That the one by David Laskin?
M: The very one.
J: Any good?
M: Great! Major natural disaster, lots of what they call human interest, pathos, drama, chilling descriptions--
Z: National Weather Service politics--
M: That too. Of course, reading in August when we were having that heat wave helped.
Z: Too true. I think it would satisfy your horror reading quotient if you read it in winter in bad weather.
J: I thought The Riddle and the Knight was pretty good. It was all about that Englishman, Sir John Mandeville, who wrote a book about his travels around the world and maybe didn't really go anywhere.
M: What did you think?
J: I thought there was an awful lot of authorial insertion, although it's not nearly as bad as Simon Winchester, who will never be as remotely interesting to me as he seems to be to countless other readers. Or himself.
Z: That seems to be a British genre--travel writing where the author takes a trip to find out about a historic subject and some of it's about the historic subject but a lot of it is mostly about the person writing the book. I think Fidelio has some others like it around here somewhere. A Fool and his Money was one, although that author only let herself into the book in small doses, and I think there's another one around here--I can't recall the name just now.
Belle (who has skulked her way into the kitchen): In Search of the Robber Baron. I checked it out a few years ago when Fidelio was dusting the bookshelves.
M: Fidelio dusts?
J: Amazing! I had no idea significant housecleaning activities ever took place around here.
Z: So what's it about?
B: The subject is Robert Guiscard, ostensibly.
Z: A Norman, oddly enough.
B: But it's mostly about the English ditz who's the author, and her trip around Italy looking for sites connected with Guiscard.
J: Any good? I'm up for climbing the bookshelves if it's worth the effort.
B: Better than Winchester, but not as good as the one about the hoard of money.
J: The Mandeville was pretty good; at least the parts about Sir John were good. I might care less about the author's lost luggage and other adventures traveling in the Middle East, but it's unlikely. I may see if there's a copy of Sir John's own book around here, though. What are you doing in the kitchen, anyway, Belle?
B: Looking for something to eat.
J: Spare your paws; if there was anything, Simon would have had it long since.
B: Damn. I guess I'll go back to lurking under the bed.
J: See ya, wouldn't want to be ya, you old bat.
B: Can it, punk. And see if you can get Fidelio to swap the copy of The Ghost Map that's in the bedroom for something else. It's putting me off drinking water, which is unhealthy at my age.
M: Hey, I liked that one.
B: I've read it three times now, since Fidelio put her copy of The Tale of Genji out of reach, and won't let me at most of the other stuff in there.
Books about the transmission of disease are not good reading if you're as paranoid as I am.
Z: I managed to get through The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes weekend before last. It was pretty entertaining, although I had a little trouble making the connection between Stripes and Checks BAD in the Middle Ages and Stripes and Checks TOTALLY COOL in the modern world.
M: I read that one a while ago, and had the same problem; Let's face it, the concept Stripes = EVAL is not we're going to be able to get behind; we're cats, we don't do self-loathing.
J: True dat.
Z: What did you think of it otherwise?
M: The bit about striped toothpaste was amusing, but I thought the syntax of the translation was lame like a lame thing.
Z: So it wasn't just me, there.
M: The fact that the original language might do some odd things with grammar and syntax is no excuse to drag them over into a language where they just go clunk, clunk like a flat tire. Also, I think the translator should have adapted the heraldic section to English heraldic terms. Much easier for the non-expert that way.
Z: Good thought.
M: I finally managed to finish up Peasant Fires, just before Fidelio re-shelved it.
Z: Slow going?
M: Yes, but I thought it was worth it. It was an exercise in both history and how history gets written, sort of. I really liked this bit where the author explains what he's doing by picking the subject he has:
(quotes) "What I am about to tell is Hans' story, but it is also how we think about Hans and his story, how we make sense of the historical forces that shaped and molded his existence. I have used the story of Hans Behem, the Drummer of Niklashausen, to expose some of the great historical forces, both material and mental, that shaped much of Germany on the eve of the Reformation. The young shepherd boy appears to me as a roughly cut jewel on which a beam of light is concentrated; its irregular facets break up the light to illuminate the surrounding darkness in beautiful and unexpected ways."
J: Nice! But what's it about?
M: An outbreak of religious hysteria in fifteenth-century Germany.
J: Um.
M: It was pretty good; the pacing was nice and when the author pulled a fancy trick; he stopped and explained how he did it and why he thought it was OK to do it.
J: Simon Winchester rides again!
M: No, this was loads better than Winchester. There's none of that flabby, self-indulgent I-am-a-British-man-of-letters-so-if-I-write-about-it-it-must-be-worth-reading BS in there, that gets used to justify everything from childhood reminiscences to stories about old love affairs of the author's to his opinions on foreign food and the World Bank and IMF. For example, he used speeches presumably made by Hans Behem--but then he'd explain they were only reconstructions, and what he used to reconstruct them with, and how and why he felt they were good approximations. And the language was excellent. (Here Minerva writhed about on the floor in bliss, exposing the spots on her stomach for all to view.)
Z: It's over in that little shelf by the window, right?
M: I think so.
Z: Well, maybe I'll look into it later on.
J: It's there, near Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-dark Sea, which wasn't bad, for popularizations of the ancient Greeks. If you like that sort of thing.
Z: So, do you?
J: Sometimes. But I bet Cahill is sorry now for quoting Victor Davis Hanson as if he was a respectable scholar and critic.
Z: Hmph! The man grows grapes for raisins--surely that should be a tip-off.
J: Anyway, Fidelio just got a copy of Peter Green's history of the Hellenistic era and since his book on the Persian invasion of Greece seriously rocked, I thought I'd look into that. I tried to check out Stringwoman's copy of Moda di Firenzi, but she tossed me out of her room.
Z: Let me know how it goes--this book on the Normans isn't all that long, and the cookbooks make me hungry.
Yes, it's true: the cat's not just lying on the book; the cat is in fact reading the book. They have to lie on it to do so, so it just looks like more random feline lounging.
Now, chez nous, we lack neither books nor cats, so the cats manage to get quite a bit of reading done, and when they aren't dealing with more pressing matters, ours occasionally talk about what they've been reading. I found out about this when I came home at lunch today, and found them examining the book I'm working on now. Zaza was perched on it, right where I'd left it on top of the dining table.
Z: The Normans and Their Myth--anyone know if this is any good?
Jemmy: Fidelio was reading it in the tub the other night--I gave it a quick look when it fell on the floor--it looks pretty academic, and maybe a little dry. Maybe if you're really into Normans it's interesting.
Minerva: Why, I would have thought the Normans would be right up your alley, Jemmy. They were the descendants of Viking pirates, after all.
Z: (sings softly) Mamas, don't let your babies
Grow up to be Normans;
They're never at home,
They're always off
Stealing somebody's lands...
J&M: Huh?
Z: It's something Sugartoes used to sing--I think it's an old SCA filk.
J&M: Whatever.
Z: I guess we'll just have to wait and see on this one. Anybody read anything else good lately?
M: The Children's Blizzard, which is about the Great Blizzards of 1888.
J: That the one by David Laskin?
M: The very one.
J: Any good?
M: Great! Major natural disaster, lots of what they call human interest, pathos, drama, chilling descriptions--
Z: National Weather Service politics--
M: That too. Of course, reading in August when we were having that heat wave helped.
Z: Too true. I think it would satisfy your horror reading quotient if you read it in winter in bad weather.
J: I thought The Riddle and the Knight was pretty good. It was all about that Englishman, Sir John Mandeville, who wrote a book about his travels around the world and maybe didn't really go anywhere.
M: What did you think?
J: I thought there was an awful lot of authorial insertion, although it's not nearly as bad as Simon Winchester, who will never be as remotely interesting to me as he seems to be to countless other readers. Or himself.
Z: That seems to be a British genre--travel writing where the author takes a trip to find out about a historic subject and some of it's about the historic subject but a lot of it is mostly about the person writing the book. I think Fidelio has some others like it around here somewhere. A Fool and his Money was one, although that author only let herself into the book in small doses, and I think there's another one around here--I can't recall the name just now.
Belle (who has skulked her way into the kitchen): In Search of the Robber Baron. I checked it out a few years ago when Fidelio was dusting the bookshelves.
M: Fidelio dusts?
J: Amazing! I had no idea significant housecleaning activities ever took place around here.
Z: So what's it about?
B: The subject is Robert Guiscard, ostensibly.
Z: A Norman, oddly enough.
B: But it's mostly about the English ditz who's the author, and her trip around Italy looking for sites connected with Guiscard.
J: Any good? I'm up for climbing the bookshelves if it's worth the effort.
B: Better than Winchester, but not as good as the one about the hoard of money.
J: The Mandeville was pretty good; at least the parts about Sir John were good. I might care less about the author's lost luggage and other adventures traveling in the Middle East, but it's unlikely. I may see if there's a copy of Sir John's own book around here, though. What are you doing in the kitchen, anyway, Belle?
B: Looking for something to eat.
J: Spare your paws; if there was anything, Simon would have had it long since.
B: Damn. I guess I'll go back to lurking under the bed.
J: See ya, wouldn't want to be ya, you old bat.
B: Can it, punk. And see if you can get Fidelio to swap the copy of The Ghost Map that's in the bedroom for something else. It's putting me off drinking water, which is unhealthy at my age.
M: Hey, I liked that one.
B: I've read it three times now, since Fidelio put her copy of The Tale of Genji out of reach, and won't let me at most of the other stuff in there.
Books about the transmission of disease are not good reading if you're as paranoid as I am.
Z: I managed to get through The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes weekend before last. It was pretty entertaining, although I had a little trouble making the connection between Stripes and Checks BAD in the Middle Ages and Stripes and Checks TOTALLY COOL in the modern world.
M: I read that one a while ago, and had the same problem; Let's face it, the concept Stripes = EVAL is not we're going to be able to get behind; we're cats, we don't do self-loathing.
J: True dat.
Z: What did you think of it otherwise?
M: The bit about striped toothpaste was amusing, but I thought the syntax of the translation was lame like a lame thing.
Z: So it wasn't just me, there.
M: The fact that the original language might do some odd things with grammar and syntax is no excuse to drag them over into a language where they just go clunk, clunk like a flat tire. Also, I think the translator should have adapted the heraldic section to English heraldic terms. Much easier for the non-expert that way.
Z: Good thought.
M: I finally managed to finish up Peasant Fires, just before Fidelio re-shelved it.
Z: Slow going?
M: Yes, but I thought it was worth it. It was an exercise in both history and how history gets written, sort of. I really liked this bit where the author explains what he's doing by picking the subject he has:
(quotes) "What I am about to tell is Hans' story, but it is also how we think about Hans and his story, how we make sense of the historical forces that shaped and molded his existence. I have used the story of Hans Behem, the Drummer of Niklashausen, to expose some of the great historical forces, both material and mental, that shaped much of Germany on the eve of the Reformation. The young shepherd boy appears to me as a roughly cut jewel on which a beam of light is concentrated; its irregular facets break up the light to illuminate the surrounding darkness in beautiful and unexpected ways."
J: Nice! But what's it about?
M: An outbreak of religious hysteria in fifteenth-century Germany.
J: Um.
M: It was pretty good; the pacing was nice and when the author pulled a fancy trick; he stopped and explained how he did it and why he thought it was OK to do it.
J: Simon Winchester rides again!
M: No, this was loads better than Winchester. There's none of that flabby, self-indulgent I-am-a-British-man-of-letters-so-if-I-write-about-it-it-must-be-worth-reading BS in there, that gets used to justify everything from childhood reminiscences to stories about old love affairs of the author's to his opinions on foreign food and the World Bank and IMF. For example, he used speeches presumably made by Hans Behem--but then he'd explain they were only reconstructions, and what he used to reconstruct them with, and how and why he felt they were good approximations. And the language was excellent. (Here Minerva writhed about on the floor in bliss, exposing the spots on her stomach for all to view.)
Z: It's over in that little shelf by the window, right?
M: I think so.
Z: Well, maybe I'll look into it later on.
J: It's there, near Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-dark Sea, which wasn't bad, for popularizations of the ancient Greeks. If you like that sort of thing.
Z: So, do you?
J: Sometimes. But I bet Cahill is sorry now for quoting Victor Davis Hanson as if he was a respectable scholar and critic.
Z: Hmph! The man grows grapes for raisins--surely that should be a tip-off.
J: Anyway, Fidelio just got a copy of Peter Green's history of the Hellenistic era and since his book on the Persian invasion of Greece seriously rocked, I thought I'd look into that. I tried to check out Stringwoman's copy of Moda di Firenzi, but she tossed me out of her room.
Z: Let me know how it goes--this book on the Normans isn't all that long, and the cookbooks make me hungry.