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I've just read STEKR for the first time, "the author's cut" which is on the ebooks store.
Just had to note two things:
1, a sort of "aha!" moment, that hit me in a way which reminded me of that scene in Sherlock in the basement secret labs of Baskerville where he's moving his hands and making subtle facial expressions and head-tilts, to call up and dismiss things from his mind-palace and suddenly three words slide into place almost as if they've physically stunned him or at least winded him... Anyways in the afterword to STEKR I note that she writes that she considers Till We Have Faces to be the best of CSL's novels: an assessment with which I have concurred ever since I read TWHF in high school. And have had a hard time finding anyone else who has read the thing and wants to talk about it or has been inspired by it in some fashion or other - have had a hard time finding anyone who's read it, and agrees that it's a 'best' novel among his own work...
Anyways, I'm always very happy to know of anyone who has read TWHF, remembers it, and thinks highly of it. Or is willing to read it and wants in any way to discuss it or say anything about it at all, let alone to find that an author whose work I've been able to get lost in when I have the time to sit down and read, is also one of those kindred spirits (I almost wrote 'kindred sprites'... I wonder if there is such a thing... I think I shall have to make them up if they don't already exist...)*
2, also as I'm reading the afterword, she's talking about beauty in TWHF and in JRRT's elves, and I'm suddenly inclined to shelve this book next to several incarnations of Beauty and the Beast. While it's NOT that story, and yet, to use JRRT's metaphor: there are flavors in this ladle of soup which are definitely in the Beauty and the Beast ladle, too. A magical, virtuous rose garden belonging to a noble personage from a sphere alien to the protagonist's (or at least from another social circle, which is sometimes practically the same thing); the idea of stealing those roses - and a lady who MUST see the true person under the exterior, if the story is to end well.
----
p.s. I also like it cause it has L.A. - albeit "Ellay", and Pasadena in it and the MOUNTAINS, and those are MY mountains so, just sayin. Gotta' love L.A. I think JRRT and CSL once said, each to the other (or just one of them to the other?) that there were no stories of the sort they would like to read, so they'd have to write them. Well, DD goes and puts things like space pens and L.A. mountains into her fantastic (read: of or pertaining to fantasy) stories as catalysts or objects or places of interest upon which a major plot point turns or hangs and, well, now I don't have to write stories so I'm free to read them and then go make music instead. :-)
----footnote
*I've just realized I never said WHAT hit me like Liberty Indiana hit Baskerville Sherlock. It was the "oh! OF COURSE the kind of mind that wrote this, and all the young wizards stuff, and the star trek stuff too, is the kind of mind that thinkis highly of TWHF..."
Just had to note two things:
1, a sort of "aha!" moment, that hit me in a way which reminded me of that scene in Sherlock in the basement secret labs of Baskerville where he's moving his hands and making subtle facial expressions and head-tilts, to call up and dismiss things from his mind-palace and suddenly three words slide into place almost as if they've physically stunned him or at least winded him... Anyways in the afterword to STEKR I note that she writes that she considers Till We Have Faces to be the best of CSL's novels: an assessment with which I have concurred ever since I read TWHF in high school. And have had a hard time finding anyone else who has read the thing and wants to talk about it or has been inspired by it in some fashion or other - have had a hard time finding anyone who's read it, and agrees that it's a 'best' novel among his own work...
Anyways, I'm always very happy to know of anyone who has read TWHF, remembers it, and thinks highly of it. Or is willing to read it and wants in any way to discuss it or say anything about it at all, let alone to find that an author whose work I've been able to get lost in when I have the time to sit down and read, is also one of those kindred spirits (I almost wrote 'kindred sprites'... I wonder if there is such a thing... I think I shall have to make them up if they don't already exist...)*
2, also as I'm reading the afterword, she's talking about beauty in TWHF and in JRRT's elves, and I'm suddenly inclined to shelve this book next to several incarnations of Beauty and the Beast. While it's NOT that story, and yet, to use JRRT's metaphor: there are flavors in this ladle of soup which are definitely in the Beauty and the Beast ladle, too. A magical, virtuous rose garden belonging to a noble personage from a sphere alien to the protagonist's (or at least from another social circle, which is sometimes practically the same thing); the idea of stealing those roses - and a lady who MUST see the true person under the exterior, if the story is to end well.
----
p.s. I also like it cause it has L.A. - albeit "Ellay", and Pasadena in it and the MOUNTAINS, and those are MY mountains so, just sayin. Gotta' love L.A. I think JRRT and CSL once said, each to the other (or just one of them to the other?) that there were no stories of the sort they would like to read, so they'd have to write them. Well, DD goes and puts things like space pens and L.A. mountains into her fantastic (read: of or pertaining to fantasy) stories as catalysts or objects or places of interest upon which a major plot point turns or hangs and, well, now I don't have to write stories so I'm free to read them and then go make music instead. :-)
----footnote
*I've just realized I never said WHAT hit me like Liberty Indiana hit Baskerville Sherlock. It was the "oh! OF COURSE the kind of mind that wrote this, and all the young wizards stuff, and the star trek stuff too, is the kind of mind that thinkis highly of TWHF..."
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