Anyway, Cambridge has now launched a free database of endangered languages, giving people access disappearing spoken traditions. I haven’t gotten around to researching it yet, but I hear that in addition to languages in danger, they’ve also included languages that are effectively dead (though still studied and understood) — like Latin. Some of you may know that one of my procrastination rules is “it’s not procrastinating if it’s in Latin”*, so I might as well spend some time on here.

* Now, if only Transformice would launch a Latin version…

Alan Moore’s Voice of the Fire is extraordinary. It’s amazing. It’s also really underrated, probably because it’s not the easiest of books. It’s interesting, scary, funny all in one package. Sometimes even the same passage manages to be all three. It’s no wonder it’s so underrated as it’s not a Mary-Sue-fanfiction-made-book like Twilight, but more people should read the book.
It’s a novel. At least, that’s what the cover claims: Voice of the Fire: A Novel. It’s as much a novel as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando or Flush are biographies; it takes the novel format and turns it into something wholly new, refreshing and truly extraordinary. Each chapter is a story, all of them connected by a common thread.
With Moore’s native Northampton as the background, the book spans a very wide time period, from 4000 BC to the present day. Each character is compelling, each story is as full of surprises and possible interpretations that I’m considering covering my copy in yellow post-its. As you read (especially on the first read), you feel as though something’s escaping you, as though things keep lurking behind the lines you read — things that are hard to pinpoint, even as you squint at them, and they’re laughing at you. The variety of characters is remarkable, and I found myself sympathizing with even the most unlikely culprits, though it’s hard to be sure who you’re rooting for exactly (if anyone at all).
The writing style is extremely appropriate, with each chapter being different from the next. I love novels that use small markings in an otherwise contemporary language to give a different texture to time during which it’s set, and this what this novel does. The opening chapter, Hob’s Hog, is one of the hardest to get through, as the narrator is a prehistoric boy and language is used to convey his thought process in naming things (for instance, pigs aren’t called “pigs”). Another chapter that comes to mind is one set in the 19th century, that does indeed takes a form similar to journals and letters of the time. All of this in great articulation with the personality, mindset and thoughts of each character.
Personally, my favourite chapter is Partners in Knitting, telling the story of two women being burned at the stake for witchcraft, and who are lovers. It made me cry, I’ll confess.
All this said, even the best reviews fall short of this book’s true amazingness. The best way you can understand (maybe) what I’m talking about is by picking up a copy. I’ll lend you mine, and here‘s a preview.
The book is hard to read sometimes, but if you’re stumped, the book’s become a sort of underground phenomenon there’s a number of blogs and online discussions debating certain concepts and useful approaches. It’s basically like a 21st century Finnegan’s Wake, but different. My version also includes a set of notes that is really helpful, but otherwise I’d recommend trying to go for a first reading without any aids. Oh, and a tip? Read it in November.

Some links:
Deciphering Hob’s Hog — a “translation” of the first chapter, some other related and unrelated posts, and a tag that I just noticed saying “crazy etymological theories”.
Wiki page
There’s also a LJ community that had plenty of discussion, but I can’t unearth it now. Googling and poking about will find you different discussions and blogs.

Before I fully descend into acronyms and other such utterances, and counting the days until I receive my order, here’s a list of what I got (in imp’s ears, which are the sample size oil vials):
. Miskatonic
. Glasgow
. Bewitched / Lampades (I accidentally ordered Bewitched because on the notepad document I was listing the scents I wanted on I had originally written down Bewitched, but then decided to get Lampades instead. However, when placing the order I automatically typed Bewitched, but I’ve e-mailed BPAL about it)
. Hecate
. Wolfsbane
.Hetairae

I tried to keep a more or less varied order, so I can try on different scents and decide which notes I like. Yes, everyone, I’m finally making the transition from my lavender cologne. With a scent like “Wolfsbane”, how could I not? I was going to order a Limited Edition bottle of The Byronic Antihero, but I decided to stick to imp’s ears this month and see if I like the products. Next month, I’ll order The Byronic Antihero and A Howl in the Darkness, and in then Samhain 2010 (though there are so many Autumnal scents, and I love Autumnal scents) and a few more imp’s ears. These scents all sound so good! I’m particularly thinking that the Rapaccin’s Garden line will be my thing, but we’ll see.

This one is easy: Harry Potter. I wish it had gone on longer. Not that I didn’t think that the last book wasn’t perfectly timed, the suspense and the scenes built up and set to that point. I just thought it was sort of strange that, well, Hogwarts has seven years and Harry learns about Voldemort during his first year and beats him during his seventh. Overlooking that, though, there’s the main reason why I wish it had gone on longer (or ended with the seventh year): the Epilogue. I know a lot of fans hate it or love it, and I’m on the former group. After all, there’s a number of reasons why we think that epilogue was badly constructed; to me personally it feels like J. K. Rowling was writing more of fanservice by then. I can understand some of the pairings, because they got together during the rest of the series anyhow, but the baby names were atrocious and it just felt like badly written fic. I almost expected there to be a “Diabolo” and a “Ebony” by that point. Why not just leave the fans with the question of what happened after Hogwarts? Or maybe include it as promo material somewhere else? The most obvious pairings got together anyway (Harry/Ginny and Hermione/Ron), so there wouldn’t be question as to that. The rest could have been written, but much better and much less hurriedly.

As for a book series that I wish would just freaking end already (as, apparently, my thoughts after the last chapter of Deathly Hallows don’t count), I’d have to say the Uma Aventura series. They’re a Portuguese series that is basically a rip-off of The Five and similar books. They started in 1982, and apparently there will still be a release of a new book in 2011, presumably accounting for the slacker legislation one of the authors is putting into practice as the new Portuguese minister for education*. Basically, the series follows a group of kids and two dogs matching the predictable tropes: there’s the hero without any specific talents but keeping the group together (João), there’s the brainy guy (Pedro), the strong guy (Chico), the pretty worthless but cheery girls (the twins). There’s even the two dogs, one that is fierce and has some Lassie-language thing going on with João and one that is basically fluffy and cute. They were fun when we were in elementary school and read the old beat-up copies, but even then as we progressed in the series they started becoming more and more like those excessive sequels of 1980s horror films — they’re entertaining, but they’re not good and might even ruin the source material for us readers. They have had the eponymous adventures everywhere from the-middle-of-nowhere, Portugal to old palaces, but you know the authors are running out of places they haven’t been when they send the characters to Egypt, the Amazon Forest and (apparently) a desert island. That said, I’ll always hold the series as special to me.

I found this at the book_memes community of LJ (by the way, if you have a livejournal and haven’t added me yet, feel free to do so over at quercivorous. Which, by the way, is the word I adopted at that Adopt-a-Word thing a while ago).

Day 01 – A book series you wish had gone on longer OR a book series you wish would just freaking end already (or both!)
Day 02 – A book or series you wish more people were reading and talking about
Day 03 – The best book you’ve read in the last 12 months:
Day 04 – Your favorite book or series ever
Day 05 – A book or series you hate
Day 06 – Favorite book of your favorite series OR your favorite book of all time
Day 07 – Least favorite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise
Day 08 – A book everyone should read at least once
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – A book or series of books you’ve read more than five times
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book OR current favorite YA book (or both!)
Day 14 – Favorite character in a book (of any sex or gender)
Day 15 – Your “comfort” book
Day 16 – Favorite poem or collection of poetry
Day 17 – Favorite story or collection of stories (short stories, novellas, novelettes, etc.)
Day 18 – Favorite beginning scene in a book
Day 19 – Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)
Day 20 – Favorite kiss
Day 21 – Favorite romantic/sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 22 – Favorite non-sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 23 – Most annoying character ever
Day 24 – Best quote from a novel
Day 25 – Any five books from your “to be read” stack
Day 26 – OMG WTF? OR most irritating/awful/annoying book ending
Day 27 – If a book contains ______, you will always read it (and a book or books that contain it)!
Day 28 – First favorite book or series obsession
Day 29 – Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)
Day 30 – What book are you reading right now?

September is starting. I feel it in the air; I always feel like there’s something special and different about September. The Summer is dying away, the days are still warm but there’s that golden sunlight that filters into old dusty classrooms. I think the perfect way of capturing this is my Introduction to Literary Studies class last year, at some point I would look out of the window at the dying day and the sun would be illuminating all these old, dusty books in German.

I like university. I like the way it smells (am I weird for associating a particular scent with universities? Maybe BPAL should create an “Academic” scent. Add some hints of sea to it and you’ve got “Miskatonic”. Then again, I’m sure a scent by the latter name already exists in their gamut), it reminds me of my childhood of waiting outside lecture halls for my parents or sitting in my father’s office looking at the walls, at the strange things on the shelves, at the notices. I feel it in my university too, mostly in the morning or in the late afternoon, in times when students aren’t there or when they’re too busy with lectures. I sometimes feel it at night, when I go to to the bathroom down the hall from the drama group’s rehearsal. I feel it right before tests and exams, when I’m pumped, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pen in the other. I don’t know if anyone agrees with me here, but I guess if anyone among my friends would that’d be Jane.

I’ve always (mostly) liked the beginning of the school year. There’s buying new pens, new books, new paper. There’s meeting new people, re-acquainting ourselves with old spaces, new challenges. Of course, I’m a little afraid I’ll get demotivated halfway, and I always end up quite stressed around exam season, but I do like university. I (obviously) like holidays, of course, but there’s something about learning that makes it so satisfactory. I lost touch with it by the end of last semester, really. Lately, flipping through some new Greek grammars and declining Latin before sleep, I realized how awesome it feels when you’re searching for cases and words and tenses in your mind to translate a text, when you’re in class and you *know* something already, when something new is revealed and suddenly a lot of pieces fit. Yes, I like university.

1. Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack? I sometimes do. I’m not very fond of eating, and often I end up eating more by eating small portions through the day than big meals. When I snack while reading, I love gummi bears or ginger thins, but lately I’ve been really enjoying the Terra vegetable chips. Or would, if my widsom teeth weren’t causing a lot of pain in my mouth.
2. What is your favorite drink while reading? It depends on the book. When reading Rimbaud, for instance, it’s more likely I’ll drink alcohol than when reading Hans Christian Andersen. It depends on my mood, the weather.
3. Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? It also depends. I’m not fond of writing in books, I usually just make the mental notes. When the book calls for annotations, I either use a pencil or post-it notes (at some point of my life, I used pens as well). If it’s textbooks then I use highlighters a bit too much.
4. How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ear? Laying the book flat open? If it’s just for a few minutes, like say, getting some water or answering the phone, I’ll lay the book flat open. I seldom dog-ear. I rarely bookmark, though sometimes it’d be handy. I usually just remember where I left off.
5. Fiction, Non-Fiction, or Both? I like Fiction better most of the time but I also like Non-Fiction. It depends more on the subject, really.
6. Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere? I prefer reading to the end of the chapter (or phrase, or paragraph) but over the years I’ve grown used to stopping anywhere if needed.
7. Are you a person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you? If the author really irritates me, yes. Or if a particularly big spider shows up.
8. If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away? I usually try to decipher the word. Then if I need I look it up.
9. What are you currently reading? I’ve been reading System of the World by Neal Stephenson and some of the Moomin books by Tove Jansson (I recently ordered most of the books for old time’s sake because it’s a series even adults can enjoy and smile). I’ve also started reading Dreams in the Witch-House by H. P. Lovecraft, and I’ve been reading a few online stories by friends or even strangers. Sometimes we find really good works-in-progress or even completed novels that are fascinating and insightful but haven’t been published on paper yet. It’s wonderful if we can sift through the emo stories on quizzila.
10. What is the last book you bought? Probably the lot of Moomin books mentioned above.
11. Are you a person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one? I read more than one! Sometimes this delays progress, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I’m mostly reading one book — as is the case with the Baroque Cycle series, when I pick the books up I can’t put them down so easily.
12. Do you have a favorite time/place to read? I like reading outside, for example at my mother’s house where I have a swing on my balcony. I also like relaxing by taking a long bath with a good book and maybe scented candles. Or sometimes in a café with a chocolate milkshake. Or tucked into bed with ginger thins. It really depends.
13. Do you prefer series books or stand-alones? I really like series if the author can pull them off. If I really like a book, I tend to get attached to the characters (and I don’t always read fanfic to make up). Series are good for this because we can follow the progress of characters, but sometimes series end up feeling exhausted and overdone and that lingering feeling of missing the characters is good.
14. Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over? I cannot recommend the Baroque Cycle enough. I can’t say there’s a particular book or author, though obviously sometimes I like reading books I enjoyed when I was younger — the HP series, Moomins, Fairy Tales — for nostalgia. I think mostly Keats and Dorothy Parker, though, in the sense that whether I’m feeling heartbroken or nostalgic or thoughtful or any other emotion, I can always relate and find a poem that speaks to me.
15. How do you organize your books? By genre, title, author’s last name, etc? At my flat I don’t, I organize them however feels good and according to space. At my mother’s house, it’s mostly time period/theme/series.

So what do I usually do? If you’re a feel-good-rebel like me, here are some tips:

1. Listening to really loud music, really loud. Okay, it’s not healthy for your eardrums. On the other hand, it’s not really healthy for the planet to use so many kleenex as I do when moping and it hurts my self-esteem to look in the mirror with puffy red eyes. So when I feel sad, I turn up the music. It can be anything from a song from The Lion King to The Cure to some secret 1990s musical pleasures. Anything I feel like listening that will help me, be it by telling me to grow some ovaries or to hug my pillow and cry my heart out.

2. Bad television. There’s nothing better for the ego than bad TV. I particularly like adolescent series, like Pretty Little Liars, but anything from MTV reality shows to TV movie specials on the ScyFy channel will do.

3. Shopping. Or at least window-shopping. Even when I’m just getting a new binder for my Latin vocabulary lists, it helps. It’s called “retail therapy” for a reason: it can be as pricey as therapy, but when I go to the therapist I don’t end up buying a new pair of shoes.

4. I’m not a big eater but I have to say Comfort Food. I’m the sort of person who would live off a diet of gummi bears, because most other food doesn’t quite appeal to me. Many people think I don’t really eat (I do, I just do it in slow-motion). However, when I’m feeling down there’s nothing like tucking in to some chocolate mousse or onion rings. Once I went to the supermarket and my aunt tagged along, and commented that my pile of food was very typical of someone feeling down.

5. Jogging. When things get really bad, I pick up a pair of sneakers and run until I need to faint. Exercise is basically happy hormones in a can, and I like jogging with Eye of the Tiger playing really loud.

6. A long bath. When I’m in Avoidant mode, I pull a Margot Tenenbaum and lock myself up in the bathroom, usually with a good book that will fit my mood.

7. Making a plan. When my head is clear, I then look at everything that is troubling me, where to start dealing with stuff, and then I do it. I don’t like putting off tasks that are bothering me, or cutting away any part of my problems. I analyse them instead, and after all the previous 6 steps I either have a new perspective, or feel renewed energy to act.

At any rate (not to insult you, sis), it turned into a discussion of stupid rebellious things we all did in our days. Like writing on walls, or places where it’s probably illegal or forbidden to write. And I confess, when I was in high school, I wrote on the bathroom stalls. I wrote this poem like it was nobody’s business. At some point, I memorized a big part of Oscar Wilde’s “The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name” speech and would write it with fluorescent markers on desks, along with green carnations. Or a very impressionistic version of green carnations. At any rate, I was vandal with refined tastes. Now that I think about it, as I liked The Catcher in the Rye (sorry to disappoint you, readers. But I was 15 and thought I was so deep) I could have written the f-word as an ironic gesture in Holden Caulfield’s face.

I may have also written “I LOVE LORD BYRON” on the back wall of the gym. Back then, I thought approprite to express my Lord Byron fangirlishness everywhere. That was me, when I was 16 and silly. Now I would have probably done on the totally random glass wall in my apartment.