This is the book referenced by Liza Picard when discussing the old cliché of Victorian piano legs that I mentioned a few months ago. Her report of the story is a little inaccurate: that particular exaggeration was apparently first used by the Victorians themselves, in reference to the perceived prudery of contemporary America, but was, ironically, modified over the years to refer back to its originators.
Inventing the Victorians is packed with stuff like this, and barely a page passes without some mangy old canard being blown out of the water. (more…)
0 comments 2008-05-28 20:32 Categories: Books, Reviews
Lighthouse at the End of the World was pretty much the last book Verne sent off to his publisher before he died, and William Butcher’s translation comes with an excellent introduction and compendious notes which explain the various problems engendered by this. Verne revised heavily at the proof stage, but Lighthouse never had the benefit of this process, and was instead knocked into shape by his son Michel as part of a settlement with Verne’s publisher Hetzel. (more…)
0 comments 2008-05-20 08:58 Categories: Books, Reviews
Paris in the Twentieth Century is one of Verne’s earliest efforts, written just after Five Weeks in a Balloon, and rejected by his publisher as unbelievable, and for having “a real goose” as a hero. Hetzel wasn’t wrong about Michel, who has all the appeal of a whining sixth-former, but his judgement of the plausibility of Verne’s creations was less perceptive. (more…)
4 comments 2008-05-18 19:36 Categories: Books, Reviews
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Gloomydrome. This week two titans of tristfulness have drawn swords after a combined sixteen years of inactivity, two monsters of melancholia have lined up their newest songs and released, quite coincidentally on the same day, two albums of deepest desolation, facing off, in sadiatorial combat if you will, for the title of Most Miserable Band In Britain. Let’s meet the contenders.
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2 comments 2008-05-04 10:14 Categories: Music, Reviews