Review: Death and Taxes

Have you ever wondered how everyday life - history, violence, and environmental negligence - weighs on the immortal mind of Death himself? Death and Taxes by Simon Whitmore is a droll look behind the veil of eternity into the inner-workings of the mind of the Grim Reaper. Spurned to striking off  his duty to ferry souls to judgement (largely due to a mayan miscalculation of Doom's Day), Thanatos (WORD NERD ALERT- this is the Freudian term for the death instinct) decides to take some time to himself. The only problem is that while he's on holiday... someone else decides to try on the cowl and scythe. How are people dying when death is on vacation?

Whitmore's writing is clever and succinct. His use of imagery, word play, and pop culture weave together to form a reality where the supernatural not only observes the "normals", but they also have a part to play. There are few if any immortals sitting out on the bench with such heavy hitters as St. Peter, Persephone, Gabriel, the Ferry Man, and the Lord himself making appearances. The question is which divine is  attempting to replace Thanatos? Whitmore has us suspecting them all.


I am particularly fond of his personification of Death. Whitmore fleshes out the Angel of Death's bones with a penchant for humorous expletives (My favorite was, "Great rancid apples of discord."), a passion for Lepidopterology (the study of butterflies), and an all around cantankerous attitude toward humanity and their basic disregard for the sanctity and innate beauty of the Earth.

This is Richmond from The IT Crowd, but you get the idea. Death with flesh. :)

However, Whitmore doesn't leave Death as the unchanging, unavoidable partner to taxes. We see Thanatos grow to appreciate and understand humanity through his relationship with a young boy. Already a card in Thanatos' inbox, the boy should have been taken but is spared due to Death's unexpected hiatus. Through him Death comes to say, "You taught me how to live - or at least to appreciate the beauty of life, and not just its flora and fauna. It's difficult for me in this position you know, but I'd like to thank you."

Well written, charming, and full of logic and lore- Death and Taxes is worth perusing for those who like a little intrigue and endearment along with their dose of demise.

On the bluestocking scale, I rate this book a 4 for Darned Good.

Posting in Repose...

Whew. I must admit that I took a brief --but well deserved-- reading hiatus after my seafaring sprint through Melville's Moby Dick. My noodle was well and truly baked, and since I do all of my reading on my Kindle, I decide we both needed a respite to recharge our batteries.

I have joined a fun group of authors and reviewers on Facebook. I have already compiled a list of books to read and review which means I am book-rich instead of book-bankrupt at the moment. Through this group, I have already snagged my next read, Death and Taxes written by Simon Whitmore. Just picked it up, and I am already digging the author's voice and imagery.

So here is a snippet (or two) that I really enjoyed so far:


"The aperture of the heavy cowl, where the face should be, showed nothing but blackness, a bottomless pit of pitch. If there was a face in there, then none of the three men could see it. Faceless?"
Whitmore, Simon (2012-04-27). Death and Taxes (Kindle Locations 114-116). SDW. Kindle Edition. 


Death may be faceless, but he isn't nameless-

"The message from Thanatos was clear: Death had visited you, Death had taken you. It was now time to be judged."
Whitmore, Simon (2012-04-27). Death and Taxes (Kindle Locations 226-227). SDW. Kindle Edition. 



Shiver me timbers! A window into the person, persona, and personality of the Grim (or not so grim, we'll soon find out) reaper... This is going to be a good book!

Review: Moby Dick One Whale of a Tale

The radio made its grand appearance in 1895; the television coming along after that in 1929. Before these more modern forms of entertainment, books were king, being mass produced and widely distributed as early as 1454. And Herman Melville's Moby Dick: or, The White Whale is the king of books written for the king of whales (Whales as in sperm whale, not whales as in well -- the country Wales: a part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain.)


"Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale    
In his ocean home will be    
A giant in might, where might is right,      
And King of the boundless sea."   —WHALE SONG.

The journey of the Pequod

Brief:
Moby Dick is the tale of a man so consumed with vengeance, eaten up with hatred and driven by madness that he goes to whatever ends of the earth, exhausts all possible means, and sacrifices many on the alter of his passion in the pursuit of the infamous Moby Dick. Read aloud this book unlocks it's many secrets and subtle tones. To quote Jim Henson," When people told themselves their past with stories, explained their present with stories, foretold the future with stories, the best place by the fire was kept for... The Storyteller."(My husband enjoy hearing this book read voices and all by yours truly.) The tale is told by a man who bids us call him Ishmael, a newly ordained whaler off on his first voyage -- what a trip that turned out to be!


Melville uses his nautical knowhow and grasp on whaling vernacular to paint some beautiful maritime images. In this book, Melville hopes to illuminate the many darkened corners of everyday life aboard a whaling ship, a feat not many have had the opportunity to experience. (I was surprised by some of the goings on. Who would blaze a forge aboard a wooden boat in the middle of the ocean? Doesn't seem wisdom to me.) His tale is a fish tale told by a witness, too big to be believed, but too thrilling not to pass along. Chock full of tantalizing foreshadowing, exquisite imagery, lofty questions that harken even to the foundations of the universe: it is no surprise that this is a classic and should remain so for some time to come.


In Depth:
Written in 1851, Moby Dick didn't come into notoriety until much later, the 1920's, in fact. However, I don't believe that a work of genius loses its luster simply by being looked over for a few dusty decades. Moby Dick was still the peculiarly good book then that it is now, even without the recognition. 


The reason for this neglect is summed up in a critic's review upon the novel's release:
       
 "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed."-Henry F. Chorley, in London Athenaeum, October 25 1851


Ouch, that is a harsh but not entirely inaccurate review.
 Here's how:
1.The book is a hodgepodge of the epically awesome thrilling narrative of a vindictive whaling revenge story gone awry, AND it's a not so accurate antiquated whaleology (Cetology is the technical term, but you know...) dissertation.


And I know what you're thinking..."OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." And along with Rudyard Kipling you'd be right. Who would have thought of mixing science and fiction? (snicker, snicker... sorry) I am of course meaning literal science or at least the preconceived notions on whales from the time period . Moby Dick contains a wealth of knowledge and first hand whaling experience from Melville's life, but he doesn't just write it into Ishmael's tale. It is splattered haphazardly throughout the book educating the reader while disrupting the flow and pacing of the story. 


This is... well it's distracting, and well, it's infuriating! The story builds. As a reader, you are getting keyed in and keyed up. Then -- WHAM! Let's pause for this PSA on the differing types of twine used on whaling ships with an additional three pages on the species of whales this book is NOT about.

More whaling, less waxing on whaling, please!

From what I have gleaned about the book, it was not the current writing style of the times to marry fact with a tale of fiction -- however, woeful and whaleful it may be. But as much as it is a detriment to my attention span, this odd writing style also strokes my inner nerd and evokes my intellectual yearnings. I found myself continually questioning his information. Googling about whales -- heck, I even watched Blue Planet for some additional information. 


2. Now we come to the mad English bit. Melville uses either some extreme creative license or some heavily buried nautical colloquialisms to further embellish his maritime account. There are words in this book that only a sailor at sea cut off from civilization could conjure up. I remember looking at some words, and searching for them with my Kindle's dictionary. I cannot begin to relay the frustration that the phrase "No entries found" causes me now.  It had me continually worried I wasn't understanding the story as it was meant to be understood.


But beyond all this wordage and pacing, the story of Captain Ahab is intensely engaging. Long before you meet the whale (He doesn't make an appearance till the last 3 chapters out of 135...), you know things aren't going to go well for the captain or his crew. And it is these early portentous notions, that have you flat flying to the end of the book. You just have to know if Captain Ahab has his retribution or if the white whale exacts yet more torments on the already tortured commander.


On the Stocking Scale, I give it a 4 for Darned Good. It is looooooong, and takes a commitment to read, but I don't believe you'll regret the decision in the end. And should you want to skip the whaling tutorial and get down to the gritty tale itself, well -- read the abridged version. 

That book's a classic!

I am still in the process of reading Moby Dick, so I thought I would write a fun post as a little filler.

I decided that I would blog today about my love of classic literature. Now many of you will say the classics are too wordy, too long, too dated, too (insert your own personal negative response here). But I would like to argue on their behalf using a fun comparison.

Reading classic lit is like dating an older man. (And we all know how good those are; I married one!) Here is how:
The 6 benefits of older men, I mean books...

• Men age gracefully. So older could very well mean...ahem, better. 
• A good book 100 years ago, could very well be a good book today. (IF you give it a chance.) Most phenomenally wonderful stories will stand the test of time because, truthfully, it's the time passed that makes them appealing. The past, even the fictional past, can be a wonderful place to escape the current reality.
• Older men are better conversationalists. They KNOW how to talk to a woman. (Talk to me and not about your phone, game, or car!)
• A book can be a window into a myriad of different places, times, and people. But, a classic story will also be well written, well edited, and well crafted. Seasoned novels are wordly wise. The written word hasn't changed much over the years, but the study of writing, the exercise of writing, the process of being published has all been well and truly turned on its head. Classic books have been around; seen by millions of eyes, they have had the opportunity to be reworked to near grammatical syntactical perfection.
• A man long in the tooth is not short on... confidence. Secure in his uniqueness, he is free to be himself.
• An established book doesn't bend to the collective social pressure. It doesn't feel the need to jump on the literary bandwagon and toe the proverbial line. (How many different ways can you tell a vampire love story?!?- I don't know but I'll probably read all of them!) Classic literature is the trend setter not the minion of some other person's imagination.
• A mature man offers stability. They offer considerable support, even financially. (read sugar daddy)
• A classic book is a free book(most of the time) on your kindle! (Yay for having survived long enough to become public domain.) You can also find these books at the local library, a friend's bookshelf, or a free bin at a book exchange. FREE!!! If that isn't supporting me financially, I don't know what is!?! 
• Older men are more romantic at heart.
• Some of the world's greatest love stories are classics. I have not seen or read many modern books that come close in comparison. (Maybe The Princess Bride, le sigh) Written in a time where people used words and flowers to express their feelings for one another instead of focusing on their hormones using sexts and plunging necklines, classic literature romance speaks of love not lust, and what could be more romantic than that!!!
• Older men are not only more willing to commit, they can make you more willing as well! (Commitment-phobe no longer, I am hearing wedding bells!)
• Classic stories have more engaging plots (You see what I did there?); however, it could take some time to reach "the end". Some of these books are lengthy (like 135 chapters long Moby Dick!). Therefore, it may take no small commitment on your part to finish them. But who ever complained about spending time curled up with a good man... I mean book. :)

I hope you at least giggled at this. :) So get out there and get you an older man who loves classical literature! (The best of both worlds in one; you betcha!)