Well, this has officially been the most mismanaged literary deathmarch of the 21st century. In fact, I don’t mean to brag, but I recently received a notarized letter letting me know that this is the most mismanged literary deathermarch of the 21st century. Which doesn’t happen every day. Is all I’m saying.
Clearly: it’s high time we bring it all home. Let’s wrap this puppy up by next Tuesday. Them what have already finished, legion that you are, feel free to begin end-game banter on this thread, using a little gentle-loving kindness toward those of us who still have the one-last-push to go with regard to your revelation of unexpected zigs or zags.
As for me, I finally caught up but yes, the very day I caught up, OK, I lost my copy. So clearly some powerful cosmic force doesn’t want me to finish this book. And I respect that. But I’m pretty sure I won’t be beat.
I continue to enjoy the book, which veers from wildly entertaining to fairly entertaining to slightly tedious and then back to wildly entertaining. As much fun as I’m having, it’s easy to imagine it all ending in an unsatisying way, as some has already suggested. One thing I’m starting to wonder is, how much am I missing by not being a scholar of classic Irish lit and myths? I suspect tons.
For example, I happened to pick up a Seamus Heaney collection this weekend and came across an aside about Heaney’s Sweeney Astray “a translation of the medieval Irish work Buile Suibhne, which tells of the penitential life led by Sweeney after he was cursed and turned into a wild flying creature by St Ronan at the Battle of Moira.” Which, ya know, sounds a little familiar. Is all I’m saying.
Next week: See ya back here for the grand finale.
I just passed page 250 and am finding this part of the book highly entertaining and easy going – almost too easy; I sit down to read 5 pages and find myself reading 20. I’m trying to slow down now to keep it from being over.
This is my favorite kind of writing – writing that pulls you along despite yourself. Although it doesn’t make for much of a deathmarch.
You have been reported to the Homeland security book section. Deathmarch is now under Marshall Law. All deathmarches (which sound a bit terrorist like) are now banned and or regulated by the FCC (Frippin Cecil cracked) .
I’ll loan you my “Early Irish Myths and Sagas” and “The Irish Reader” as companion materials. Yeah, I hadn’t really stopped to think about what ASTB would be like without a background in Ireland and Irish lit… and now that I consider the proposition, I think I would like ASTB a lot less.
You know what happened to me on this one? I think I needed to read it in three or four big goes. Totally get into its world, deal with the slumps and bravura scenes (because it’s really a series of scenes strung together, not a plot slicing forward through time), let it take me over for a week or two in that special way only a novel can.
Instead, I paused to keep within the weekly limit, then stopped a week for catchup, and haven’t picked the book up since. I’ll work this weekend to finish it in time for Tuesday’s close–I’ll probably fall in love with it all over again.
I’ve been (re-) reading along in fits and starts, but I always enjoy it. I’ve got a nice guide to Irish mythology I could lend ya too, Cecil.
One thing I love that I didn’t quite get the first time I read all this was the way the cowboy cattle rustling theme is a direct update of the cattle thieving plot of the Tain Bo of MacCool et al.