Crazy Lanea

The Tain, translated by Ciarán Carson

The Tain, translated by Ciarán Carson. 

When I came across an actual copy of this book during my visit to Chicago, I was almost afraid to buy it.  I had to buy it, of course--it's not often I find real evidence of Celtic Studies works showing up in bookstores, and when I do find titles that fit the bill, I always buy them.  Bookstores need to be supported and congratulated for stocking things that are outside of the mainstream.

I was afraid to read the book because I was convinced that Thomas Kinsella's translation, graced by Louis le Brocquy's genius illustrations, was the only translation I could ever love.  I'm a huge fan of Carson's, so I really wanted his work to shine.  Moreover, a few years ago I had a fraught, life-affirming conversation with Carson about translation and poetry and voice where he convinced me with just a few words that I should keep up my own attempts at poetry in translation.  So I needed his version of this great work to be wonderful.

I needn't have worried.  Carson opens the book with an introduction explaining just how hesitant he was to publish a translation of  the Táin Bó Cúailnge, in light of Kinsella's masterful work.  Carson even calls his translation an homage to Kinsella.  Like Kinsella, Carson used Recension I.  Carson chose not to include the remscéla, or fore-tales, which are some of my favorite bits, but which aren't physically included in Lebor na hUidre or The Yellow Book of Lecan, the two texts in which The Tain survives.

Carson is a wonderful translator.  He's fluent in modern Irish, and he's a musician as well as a poet and writer, and I think those skills combine to enrich his translation.  He is clearly intrigued by the true characters of Cú Chulainn, Medb, Ailill, and Fergus, and by the mores surrounding sex, violence, honor, ownership, land, family--all the big ones.  Having read his and compared it to Kinsella's, I don't think I can read one without the other again.  Both convince me to keep struggling through language and myth that is so distant from my daily life. 

Middlesex: A Novel

Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides.

I try to try to read all of the big prizewinning novels.  I loved The Virgin Suicides, and decided to hold off on reading this one for a little while until I knew I could savor it.  And savor it I did.  I think, with this one, Eugenides has written a defining boom of an age.  I know that sounds ridiculously grandiose, but the novel is astoundingly good. 

The book is an intricate, beautifully researched and written novel about Greece, Smyrna,  family, war, silk, race, civil rights, Detroit, prohibition, gender, sex, and genetics.   The  scope seems unmanageable, but Eugenides pulls it off with grace and compassion and specificity.  I know I'll read it again.  I'm tempted to read it again right now. 

Books books books

Remember when I used to talk about books?  Yeah, me too.  I got very very distracted by Books For Ears and the ABC Along, and the remodel, and stopped talking to you about my regular reading.  But I have been reading,  And I will tell you about it. 

But, for now, I'm packing up my studio , because the guys are going to start installing the floor upstairs tomorrow.  And I'm unpacking my library, which now has a very fetching shade of orange on the walls.  And realizing that we really have a lot of books and a lot of fiber and yarn and fabric. 

And I'm falling hard for the green that's going on the walls in our living room, and trying to puzzle out what color to put on the walls in the stairwell and the small landing upstairs, and the bedroom, and what to paint in the studio . . . everything is about choosing colors and appreciating the work our friends are doing for us.  I feel like a very bad gardener though, and am not sure if I'll be able to make up the time in the dirt I've lost this spring. 

American Gods

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. 

Look kids--I still read!  I know it's been a while since I've reminded you of that.  Thinking about audio book reviews has messed with my regular paper book review thoughts a bit. 

Right, so, my wonderful friend and co-blogger Jeanne has been recommending this book to me for years.  Years.  Over the last year or two I've been going out of my way to listen to my brilliant friends and family when they ask me to read a book.  Because they are brilliant, see, and they're not trying to play tricks on me when they recommend books.  As evidenced by Cryptonomicon, and His Dark Materials, and this book, and god knows how many other fantastic books I learned about through smart people I knew. 

Gaiman is pretty clearly a mythology buff, so I was intrigued from the start.  I don't want to give much away, because this is certainly a plot-driven work, but the story revolves around a newly-released convict who gets wrapped up in some very strange work for a mysterious stranger who calls himself Mr. Wednesday.   That's a clue I wish had been more oblique, but it might not be so obvious to all readers.  As the novel progresses, we learn about Shadow, his parents, his wife, human belief, and on and on. 

I think the real genius of the book is displayed by how Gaiman blends and borrows from so many mythos and wraps them all up in a modern package.  There are a few things I wish the author had done differently--I don't really need the "my woman ruined my life" trope anymore, thankyouverymuch.
So it's not a perfect book, but it's a very fun read, and it certainly strikes some lovely notes for myth-buffs like me. 

A blogger's (silent) poetry reading

This is one of the best annual traditions in the blogosphere.   I've been thinking of ancient poetry and myth a lot lately, because I need to get to work on some new translations.   Etaine got all smarty-pants on us, like she does, and came up with a great name for our Bardic Trio.  Swag and website to come.  In the meantime--read, well, some of the oldest extant Celtic poetry there is. 

Song of Amergin
    by Amergin, Translated by Robert Graves

I am a stag: of seven tines,

I am a flood: across a plain,

I am a wind: on a deep lake,

I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,

I am a hawk: above the cliff,

I am a thorn: beneath the nail,

I am a wonder: among flowers,

I am a wizard: who but I

Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

I am a spear: that roars for blood,

I am a salmon: in a pool,

I am a lure: from paradise,

I am a hill: where poets walk,

I am a boar: ruthless and red,

I am a breaker: threatening doom,

I am a tide: that drags to death,

I am an infant: who but I

Peeps from the unhewn dolmen, arch?

I am the womb: of every holt,

I am the blaze: on every hill,

I am the queen: of every hive,

I am the shield: for every head,

I am the tomb: of every hope.

More Books For Ears

Just a little prod to remind folks to check out Books For Ears.  We're listening to Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, James Fennimore Cooper, Vladimir Nabokov, Marilynne Robinson, Lemony Snicket, Jon Krakauer, Louise Erdrich . . .

Bookshelves

Sallyjo suggested this great meme, and I was excited to participate: post a photo of a bookshelf that is revealing about your self.   

Well, really, this is pretty darn easy for me.  I apologize for the flash-induced greasiness.  But there are the opening shelves of our library, and the beginning of my Celtic Studies collection.  It takes up, well, a lot more than these shelves.  On top--a bleached buck skull and an antique fiddle I can't play.

First shelf: my songbook (I made it), a drinking horn (Shrew made it as a custom piece for me) and a bunch of mythology and a few large-format books. 

Second shelf: a photo of me standing on top of a dolmen on the grounds of Blarney castle, an antler I picked up from the side of the PA turnpike, a Brigid's Cross I brought home from Brú na Bóinne, a bobcat skull some dear friends us as a wedding present, and one of those fake distance signs.  Behind, more mythology and a bunch of history books.

Third shelf. a photo of me that you can't make out, some travel, history, and poetry books, and the beginnings of my linguistics section.  Those small blue books are all Middle Welsh myths and poems I've translated, and the red ones are Old Irish.  The white book next to them rewired my brain a while back--it's Thurneysen's A grammar of Old Irish.  And it was the key to a language my brain needs like food.

Snippets

On the way home from work today, the woman sitting next to me on Metro asked me about the needles I was using to knit my kilt hose (wooden Options), and we struck up quite a conversation about knitting, Britain, knitting in Britain, kilts, and the like.  And, as if that weren't good enough, the woman sitting directly behind me piped up about how glad she was that my seat mate asked about the needles because she was curious too.  And then she added knitting in Peru, Andean spinning techniques, and yarn types to the discussion.  So the three of us talked on the Metro (people don't talk on Metro) about knitting all the way to Vienna.  Knitters rock.

Remember the linen quilt?  Well, that small version with the black leaf-printed blocks is sitting upstairs with a back on it, fully machine-quilted.  All it needs is some binding and a home.  And, after months of searching, I found something to sash the big version with.  It's amazing what I can get done when I only have to go to work a few days a week. 

Coincidentally, the second in the pair of kilt hose is now as far along as it was when last I ripped it, so it looks much like it did in that post with the linen quilt.  And the edging on the sock yarn blanket is moving along quite well.  I'd show you, but I don't know much about sunlight these days.   I keep whining about that, I know. Remind me about missing the sun next summer when it's trying to cook me again.

Also, I made bags and then shipped bags to their new owners.  I don't think I'm approaching the online sales thing with the right mindset--sellers grief must be pretty rare, right? 

I am, however, approaching Books for Ears with the right mindset.  I added a review of The Master Butcher's Singing Club and Jeanne added one for Anansi Boys.   I hope people are reading, but I don't have a clear idea of the stats yet since the site is new.  I hope it goes over well, though. 

Books For Ears

Last New Year, I decided to take a long break from buying books.   And, not so coincidentally, during the last year I bought an iPod with a lot of memory using my unspent book money, and then developed an obsessive audiobook habit, supported entirely by my local library.  My perennial dilemma--knit or read on the metro?--evaporated.  Knit and read is a much better option.

Two of my dearest friends are also obsessive book listeners, and one suggested an idea, and conversations bloomed, and suddenly: Books for Ears.   It's still embryonic, but I have a feeling it's going to be a lot of fun.  I just added a review for Oryx and Crake. 

Happy New Year.

Spots of Blue

Before I blather on about unimportant minutia . . . my friend Scott Hull is in desperate need of a liver again.  He is now in the number one slot of the liver transplant list at John's Hopkins.   His cousin Marcus donated a big healthy chunk of liver to Scott last fall, but transplants don't always go as planned, and Scott needs a full donor liver, and he needs it now.  Please send him good thoughts as he waits for a liver--it's a strange thing to pray for someone else to donate an organ, I know.   If you are an organ donor, thank you.  I owe you some cookies.  If you're not a registered organ donor, please consider becoming one to help wonderful people like my friend and his family. 

And now I'm going to blather on about unimportant minutia, because I can't actually go to the liver store.

Those bags I'm making?  I've been trying to churn them out,  and using scraps counts as cleaning, so that's a plus.  Anyway, I listed one that I really really really wanted to keep, but figured it was more important to fill my Etsy shop than to keep something I could reproduce, at least in a similar form.  Yep. I'm that dumb.  It sold (yay!) so I had to send it off to its new owner, who is not actually me (sigh).  Godspeed, perfect little spiraled batik bag.  I hope your new owner is kind to you.

And then there was an issue with a small experiment and a leaky iron.  I dyed some twill ages ago to make something for my husband, but the resultant fabric was far too bright for him.  And I wanted to figure out whether or not the abandoned fabric would make a good inner base for the bags--I hate to waste fabric.  But I worried the fabric would crock, so I planned to make a pale bag and machine wash it--to see if Synthaprol could save the day, and so I could definitively answer any questions that arise about washing the bags.  If fabric crocks in a washing machine, it's easy to make sure the dye doesn't set on the other fabrics near it, don't cha know.  But when a crocking fabric is soaked by a puddle from a leaking iron while a person is off making lunch, well, the damage is harder to erase. 

Doh!  It  now has a blue cast in spots.  Whoops.  I guess that twill needs another purpose.  The bag is still cute, though.  I guess I could list it as a second.  Or keep it. 

While we're speaking of blue . . . a better photo of those imperfect  socks:

With a bright teal  toe.  Thankfully they're decently photographed now and I can finally wear them.  Sunlight is a rare thing here, these days.