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Anyone who can expertly discuss both helicopters and consciousness deserves a read!
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I would love to see it back in print. Few books since have imprinted themselves as deeply on my soul.
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to wipe away tears of laughter. A proper, laugh out loud riot
that takes the Arthurian legends, and adds a new perspective
to the myth and magic .. lusty maidens, beggars, a overbearing
oaf as the Lord of the Manor, a priest who 'shrives' the sins of
the Lady and her Daughter by trials of the flesh ...it's not what
Errol Flynn portrayed at all. Imagine the 3 Musketeers films
(the ones with Olly Reed & Michael York), and the humour is in
a similar vein to these cinematic classics. If you like your
olden day heroes untarnished, clean and honourable, then don't
read this book. I'll never think about the Knights of the Round
Table in the same way again. Very funny, very well written with
some memorable phrases that I have used to good effect in the
years since reading it. Not recommended reading for funerals
or other such solemn occasions. Messrs Pratchett and Adams have
written some excellent books (I've read the lot) but they pale
when compared to this 'laugh until your face hurts' masterpiece.
At the risk of waxing quotidian, my only regret is not having read this piece of literature sooner. This is an irreverent, audaciously humorous send-up of Arthurian history -- albeit Arthuriana's numerous manifestations and interpretations (and those are just the "ations," as Trevanian would say.)
Chaucer finds a more than worthy if not altogether brilliant extension of his idea in Seare's work.
The novel, in classic Trevanian-esque jest and joust (similarly used in Incident at Twenty Mile) purports to have had a solid foundation in history -- Rude Tales and Glorious claiming to be a contemporary translation of the author's ancestor's work.
Set in a Welsh knight's castle on a wintry evening, two beggar's claiming to be Launcelot and the Lady Elaine(of 600 years past) regale the dinner party with tales of the "real" Arthurian history in exchange for the orts and leavings of the feast -- "generously" given by a tale-thirsty lord.
Completing the cast at dinner are the typical suspects of this genre; the bungling knight and his warped-sense of valor (along the liberal democratic tradition), a hypocritical lothario of a priest ( also along the same liberal democratic tradition), lusty maidens (thus given to same previously-mentioned political affinity), and the servile servants (as they should be..being of the conservative republican staff). All complemented with similarly-inclined characters in the tale (of Arthur) within a tale.
All this is told in melliflous euphony evidenced in the English gentry's pedant in vocabulary and Twain's subtle comedy. Existent too, are Seare's/Trevanian's distaste for his perpetual foe -- the merchant, coupled with light-hearted jabs (though painful enough) at the Academic Illuminati of which Seare/Trevanian/Whitaker was, for a considerable portion of his life, a part of.
The entire body of work is prefaced with the autumnal sentimentality that Seare/Trevanian allows to epiphanize quite rarely though elegantly (inspired, no doubt, by the aesthete on poetic melancholy, Kawabata Yasunari) in his other works.
The tale is charmingly irreverent, and the telling is valiant and inspired!
Hope everyone has the opportunity and the pleasure to read this fine work.
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pilot and copilot, and most of the passengers, are affected
by food poisoning. The flight crew and the passengers affected by it had ordered the beef. The rest ordered chicken. One of the passengers was a pilot in the war. He
has to take over when the pilot becomes incapacitated. When the copilot becomes ill, the head stewardess, yes, that's what they were called in the days before political correctness, has to take over for him. However, the passenger who takes over for the pilot, hasn't flown in years and has to be talked through it by another pilot on the ground. Another review compared it to Airplane! Airplane! was a spoof of those '70s disaster movies. It wasn't based on this book.
The only problem is that it's hard to read today without thinking of the movie "Airplane!"; this book was one of the primary sources of inspiration for that parody, and at key moments in the drama of "Runway Zero-Eight" you may find yourself being reminded of one of the absurdly silly scenes in the movie. Just suppress those thoughts and enjoy the story.
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The only thing that scares Amazon Pirate Captain Nancy Blackett (well, "Ruth", properly, but Amazon Pirates are ruthless) is the Great Aunt.
Great Aunt Maria Turner, who raised Nancy & Peggie's widowed Mother and their Uncle Jim, is a formidable maiden lady of firm opinion, unbending will and repressive manner. "Having fun" is not on her list of summer tasks that well-brought-up children need to perform during the Summer Holidays. And dressing in comfortable shorts, knit shirts and red stocking caps is hardly suitable for Young Ladies in their early teens.
Not that this is particularly worrisome in the normal frame of things, because she lives Far Away.
But somehow Aunt Maria gets word that Ruth and Margaret are to be alone for a goodly part of the Summer Holidays as Uncle Jim (Captain Flint) takes their mother on a cruise for her health... and decides to visit Beckfoot for most of that period and make sure that Nancy and Peggie don't get into trouble.
Not that this, even so, would be worse than Unpleasant... except that their friends, Dick & Dorothea Callum ("the D's") are to be staying at Beckfoot... and it's a sure bet that the Great Aunt would visit a devastating scold on their Mother if she found out that they were having other guests their own age to stay, to be supervised only by Cook.
And so, quicker than you can say "Are you sure this isn't a Bad Idea?" Dick and Dorothea, city kids with limited experience at camping and fending for themselves, wind up ensconced for the length of the GA's visit in "the Dog's Home" -- a one-room stone forester's hut in the woods up above the lake.
And, since a number of people know that they're supposed to be at Beckfoot, and don't know it's a secret, and because Dick is supposed to be working with Captain Flint's friend on Captain FLint's houseboat on some chemical analysis of samples from a mine they discovered in the previous book and because Murphy's Law applies to everything in life, from there the story becomes more and more complex and full of hair's-breadth escapes and humourous adventures and close calls (the burglary at Beckfoot being particularly fun).
In the end, of course, all is (relatively) well, the GA gone, the D's have their own boat to race with "Swallow" and "Amazon" and the Swallows are due to arrive any day and most of the Summer still stretches ahead.
Like all the rest of the series, humourous adventure fiction for the YA age group. (And perhaps a bit younger; since they were mostly written for British juvenile audiences, and sixty to seventy years ago to boot, the "Swallows & Amazons" books may contain references and language that today's younger readers may have some problems with. OTOH, i first read "Swallows & Amazons" [the first book] at age eight or nine and i had no problem with it.)
Which is not to say that adults can't enjoy them -- many do. Buy them for a son, daughter, nephew or niece and give them a try before you pass them on; Ransome has a huge adult readership worldwide, even today.
Sail with Dick and Dot on their new boat--the Scarab--in this funniest of Arthur Ransome adventures through the Lake District.
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Father Flye, born in 1884, lived a a full century--more than twice as long as Agee--with uncommon relish. It's clear from the recollections that Hampton has gathered that Flye had a lasting effect on everyone who met him, from the mountain boys he taught to the New Yorker writers who visited him at his cluttered apartment in Greenwich Village.
And now, when our country is presented with unprecedented challenges, the story of Father Flye-who knew history, loved humanity, and endured with strength-is especially relevant.
Father Flye's story is not without heartbreak and loss. It's about life, after all. But a remarkable and exuberant life. The stories collected in this book are mostly transcribed radio interviews and letters. They focus on the particular, and that's what makes them so charming.
Father Flye was married at age 30 to Grace Houghton, a quirky portrait artist 10 years his senior. His first parish assignment was in Milledgeville, Georgia. After that small disaster, he took a temporary job at St. Andrew's School on the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. The school was founded by monks of the Order of the Holy Cross to teach local mountain boys who came from extremely primitive circumstances. Father Flye, a Yalie, and Grace, who had had a studio in Italy, stayed at St. Andrew's for 36 years.
The Flyes had no children, but the St. Andrew's students were their boys. Grace painted their portraits and sewed their clothing. Father Flye gave them elocution lessons. He taught them history. He punished them for trying to flush a frog down the toilet by making them stand outside and recite poetry. He gave them self-respect, respect for learning and life, and futures. "Piffle," they called him. His antics left them wide-eyed. His love filled their hearts. His poetry settled in their minds. He corresponded with them for decades after they left St. Andrew's.
Readers looking for intriguing history, biography or "something inspirational" will love Father Flye and his quirky wife, Grace. Grace was "no bigger than a bar of soap after a hard day's wash." A victim of Addison's disease, she became more reclusive with age. Father Flye was a vegetarian. Grace, anemic, ate a little meat. She saved tea bags to shred to make nests for the mice at her "Noah's Ark." She moved her broom to different locations on the porch as a signal to her neighbors that she was fine, still alive. She is listed by the Smithsonian as one of America's finest portraitists.
In a recent memoir published in American Places, historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown writes affectionately that the Flyes were unquestioned intellectuals. He describes them entering the chapel in their black robes, looking like nothing so much as "a pair of underfed crows."
The book is "Mr. Holland's Opus," "Music of the Heart," "Dead Poets' Society," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," the Mitford books, and a costume drama. Its two eccentric protagonists will warm the hearts of readers as the Flyes warmed the hearts of those they befriended, from Appalachia to Greenwich Village.
Mr. Hampton, a retired radio announcer, was one of the lost boys that Father Flye saved.
And through this book, Mr. Hampton has saved Father Flye for us.
Hampton has magnificently woven a rich mosaic diffused with both light and darkness of the life of a man whose pilgrimage as an educator of both young and old minds from, "the Mountain" of Sewanee to the streets of the City of New York, was always filled with enriching the lives of those he met on his way with great compassion and love.
In this expansive work of love, in which the meticulousness of historic detail is in itself a wealth of knowledge, Bill Hamptom has shared not only an unusual story but years of wisdom and grace that are not often found in an ordinary life.
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