Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Another one bites the dust

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Plot Bunnies

Music Monday: Natasha Bedingfield

Someone on YouTube commented on the US version of ‘These Words’ that ‘old songs are like tattoos – they stick forever; new songs, starting at 2010 to 2011, are like stains – easy to wash away’.

I’m not sure of the whole sentiment (old songs were new once, and every new song needs its time to prove its staying power), but I definitely reach for these two songs every time that NaNoWriMo draws close. With ‘These Words’ being about inspiration and writer’s block (it’s the same for words as for music) and ‘Unwritten’ reminding me that living to the full is what replenishes inspiration (not to mention the stunning library video), either can be my official NaNoing theme. Or both, ideally.

I’m going to be repetitive and include both UK and US versions of both songs. There’s so much beauty and sunshine packed into the videos that I don’t want to choose.

Wordless Wednesday: NaNoWriMo prep

Labyrinth

I’m going to start by stating that both snippets on the cover of this book (the tagline, ‘Three secrets. Two women. One Grail.’ and Val McDermid’s comment, ‘Eat your heart out, Dan Brown, this is the real thing.’) are quite accurate. This hefty 700-pager belongs in the emergent tradition of pseudo-historical, pseudo-metaphysical scribbles that litter bookstores in recent years, offering fodder to the conspiracy theorists who see hidden ancient lore everywhere. It has even been called ‘the Da Vinci Code for women’. It’s nothing like that. For one, it’s better.

The plot: Alice Tanner is a volunteer in an archaeological dig in the Sabarthès Mountains, in southern France. On her last day there, literally by accident, she uncovers a cave with two skeletons and a labyrinth pattern on the wall. That finding gets her into trouble she could not imagine, but also leads her to gradually uncover a lot about her own past, and the fate of her ancestor, Alaïs Pelletier, who, in the 13th century, found herself guarding the secret of the Grail.

Apart from the obvious appeal of the women protagonists and Mosse’s writing skill, the reader will find here some meticulously researched history – the storyline’s background is the Albigensian Crusade, from the siege of Carcassonne in 1209 to the fall of Montségur in 1244 – and a convincing theory about the Grail. No spoilers here, except for this: It’s not the Holy Grail. Hint, hint.

I enjoyed the flow of the story, although I kept getting impatient through the modern bits and wanting to go on with the historical ones already, up until the missing link (literally!) turned up and the two began to come together. There are a couple of slips, but nothing egregious (unless you’re a religious scholar). Plus, it has injected me with a curiosity to go down there in the Midi and see the places for myself, particularly Carcassonne itself, and with an itch to research the charming, resurrected Occitan language, which is liberally sprinkled over the story. Here goes the linguist geek again, but even if you’re not one, this is very highly recommended.

Originally published February 2010

Tigana

Guy Gavriel Kay’s first independent book (after the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy) came out in 1990 and has already acquired modern classic status. The reason is easy to figure out: it’s a brilliant story.

Some people would call Tigana thinly veiled historical fantasy, seeing in its development either the Spanish Reconquista or the Resistance against the Axis forces. However you slice it, though, it’s a story about a handful of downtrodden people who eventually triumph over their formidable oppressors, against terrible odds and at an even more terrible cost.

The Peninsula of the Palm is under occupation; the eastern part is under the rule of warlord-sorcerer Alberico of Brabantior, while the western one is governed by sorcerer-king Brandin of Ygrath. Alberico is pretty much a run-of-the-mill barbarian warlord relying on brute force more than magic, but Brandin is more refined in his cruelty, and he reserves a special kind of it for the province of Tigana, where his only son was killed during the invasion: He has placed Tigana under a curse that erases its name from living memory; only those born there before the invasion can hear or pronounce the word, and when every one of those dies, it will be as if Tigana had never existed.

Alessan, Prince of Tigana, disguised as a simple musician, wanders the provinces with a small troupe of other refugees, each one with their own demons to exorcise in the process, gathering allies in order to mount a counterattack on Brandin and release his homeland. Eventually he does… but there are enough ‘buts’ to turn the triumph bittersweet.

The viewpoint characters are the minstrel Devin, who falls in with Alessan’s troupe after a series of coincidences and digs up a few things about himself and his past over his time with them, and the concubine Dianora, who engineers her selection into Brandin’s harem with a view of assassinating him, only to fall in love with him. The latter has perhaps the most tragic subplot of any character in the novel.

It is obvious that Kay put a lot of work into creating his world and his people: both are richly detailed and multilayered, nothing and nobody is exactly as they initially seem. Emotions run high throughout, and after 700 pages, I was left nearly breathless with overload. Very strongly recommended as a sample of high fantasy at its best, ideally accompanied by an equally epic soundtrack (mine was Blind Guardian’s A Night at the Opera, which is now and forever linked to Kay’s imagery). A great stocking filler for the avid reader.

Originally published December 2009

2010 in Review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 75,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 3 days for that many people to see it.

 

In 2010, there were 308 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 677 posts. There were 338 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 29mb. That’s about 7 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was April 20th with 2,442 views. The most popular post that day was The Ten Commandments of the Heist Movie.

 

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were stumbleupon.com, wordpress.com, facebook.com, blogsurfer.us, and solzemli.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for hug, coq au vin, godzilla, beast quest, and heavy metal.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

The Ten Commandments of the Heist Movie April 2010
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2

The Mystery of the Green Man May 2010

3

The Perfect Cup of ‘Chi’ May 2010

4

Dragon Fire May 2010

5

Ring Out the Old December 2009
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