A Son of the Rock

I don’t know what it is about this song that speaks to me. I just like it.

Bryan Adams: When You’re Gone (featuring Melanie C)

Peruvian author and Nobel Prize winner, Maria Vargas Llosa, the last of the great Latin American writers of the twentieth century, has died.

I have read eight of his books. Though varied in content they all (even his study of the life of Thomas Casement, The Dream of the Celt) deal with the effects of power and corruption: Latin American concerns to be sure but also applicable to the wider world.

I have two more of his novels on my tbr pile.

That still leaves ten of his novels to look out for.

Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa: 28/3/1936 – 13/4/2025. So it goes.

Dumbarton FC’s administrators have given an update on the status of the process.

It seems they have identified a preferred bidder.

This is not quite the good news it may appear as in effect if this goes ahead the club would still be under the ownership of the same company which was in charge when it went into admin – a company moreover not interested in being in charge of a football club but only in the land on which the ground sits as a site for house building. (The fact that the land is not actually suitable for building houses on being neither here nor there apparently.)

And what is to prevent Pendragon Group from further running down the club after the administrators hand it back?

Since the creditors are to be paid in full the administrators will have done their duty to see the best deal for them but a settlement like this is not in the best interests of the club for the future.

Penguin, 2015, 446 p. Translated from the Turkish Bit Palas (Meris Yayinlari, 2002) by Müge Göçek.

This, Shafak’s debut novel, has similarities with Aala Al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building – both are concerned with the inhabitants of a block of flats – but was originally published in the same year so these will be coincidental.

From the outset it is clear that things will not be entirely straightforward: the narrator – accused of having a fanciful mind; ie talking nonsense – riffs on the differences between truth (conceived of as a horizontal line,) deception (a vertical one,) and nonsense (a circle.) This is as a way to approaching story, a circle can be entered anywhere; but it isn’t a beginning, nor is it an end.

We are then given the history of the building, Bonbon Palace, from ‘Before’ and even ‘Before Before,’ it was built on the site of an old Christian (Armenian) cemetery.

The inhabitants of the various flats within the building are Musa, Meryem and Muhammet; Sidar and Gaba; hairdresser Cemal and Celal, twins who were not actually brought up together; The Firenaturedsons family; Hadji adji Hadji, his Son, Daughter and Grandchildren; Metin Chetinceviz and HisWifeNadia; Me; The Blue Mistress; Hygiene Tijen and Su; Madam Auntie.

Already that running together of words in Firenaturedsons and HisWifeNadia signal the otherness of the narration, that heightened sense which comes from a slightly surreal take on fiction and can be a signature of non-Anglophone literature. The whole thing would seem to be narrated by the ‘Me’ occupying Flat 7 as his are the only sections written in the first person. Chapters of the book focus on and return to the flat-dwellers’ various lives in no particular order. The circumstances under which he wrote this account are not revealed  until the end.

Another surreal touch is that Bonbon Palace has an accumulation of rubbish around it which keeps being added to despite the attentions of bug fumigator Injustice Pureturk. This forms the core of the plot as, in an attempt to prevent people adding to the rubbish piles, ‘Me’ paints on the enclosing wall a sentence declaring a saint is buried inside the premises.

All serious novels are attempts to sum up the world in microcosm. Limiting the story to such a small part of the world highlights this. Not all of human life is here but a good portion of it certainly is.

An initial surprise to me was the use in the translation of the word wee in the Scottish sense (‘a wee bit of clarification,’ ‘one wee bit,’ ‘a wee bit of sadness’) – and the fine British term nutter (‘a good-for-nothing nutter’.)

Peppered throughout are some adages such as, “Men committing adultery find quality significant: they enjoy receiving from another woman love that is in essence different from what they receive from their wives. Yet women committing adultery find quantity significant: they enjoy receiving from another man love that is more than that which they receive from their husbands.”

The narrator’s assertion that “Life is absurd, at its core lies nonsense” is as good a justification for the deployment of magic realism – or exaggerated reality – in a novel as you could get.

Then again he says, “Deception turns truth inside out. As for nonsense, it solders deception and truth to each other so much so as to make them indistinguishable.”

So does fiction.

The Flea Palace is as accomplished a debut novel as anyone could wish to write – or read.

Pedant’s corner:- the print looks  as if was photocopied and on some pages is slanted, quantative (quantitative,) “raise to the ground” (raze to the ground,) sprung (several times, sprang,) “café chantants” (cafés chantants,) “she had suddenly ran screaming” (she had suddenly run screaming,) sunk (sank,) “the gage of their nature” (gauge. ‘Gage’ for ‘gauge’ appeared once more,) a missing full stop, “you might may well start to believe” (has a ‘might’ or a ‘may’ too many?) “where he had laid down” (lain down,) “in spite of our eating in hoards” (in hordes,) “as they silently drunk” (drank,) “of the ‘The Oleander of Passion’” (that first ‘the’ is not needed,) “had all ended up in flop” (ended up as flops,) “a unfussy end” (an unfussy end,) “raised to the ground” (razed to the ground,) shrunk (x 2, shrank,) tealeaf (tea leaf,) dopey (dopy,) “he would lay in the corner” (he would lie in ….,) “as if hadn’t been him” (as if it hadn’t been him,) “they always go through their houses as if they had never gone through it before” (‘houses’ therefore ‘them’ not ‘it’,) “chaise long” (chaise longue,) “and before you it, know” (before you know it,) gamma-amino-butiric-acid (it’s not spelled butiric, it’s gamma-amino-butyric acid,) “no sooner had they given their consent that an objection was voiced” (than an objection,) “the saints existence” (the saint’s existence,) “he fished from the thrash” (from the trash,) “the end of last the century” (end of the last century,) “I laid next to her” (I lay next to her.) “All though this period” (All through.)

From the upper floor of Niebert Windmill you can walk out onto a hexagonal platform circling the windmill. However parts of it are sectioned off so that you cannot fully walk round it.

This video of the sails shows why access is restricted. They could take your head off or throw you off the platform:-

A view from the platform:-

Another view, showing flag of Groningen Province:-

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 12/4/25.

Well, that’s the unbeaten run over.

Not surprisingly really. They had more to play for and we made eight changes from last week, so selection bingo didn’t work this week.

Kristian Webster got the goal.

Niebert is a village in Groningen Province, The Netherlands. Its windmill also had an open day while were were there last June.

Windmill:-

Sketch of how a windmill works:-

I spotted these in a display case inside the  Windmill. At first I thought they might be cigarette cards but no. They are matchbox cards:-

Interior:-

Gearing wheel:-

Stairs. These were quite scary to ascend:-

And to descend!:-

Upper floor:-

https://flic.kr/p/2qVMjui

Clem Burke, the driving force behind Blondie’s insistent sound, died last week.

While singer Debbie Harry grabbed most of the attention it is doubtful if Blondie would have achieved the success they did without Burke’s powerful drumming propelling them along.

This was their second UK hit.

Blondie: (I’m Always Touched by) Your Presence, Dear

Clement Anthony Bozewski (Clem Burke:) 24/11/954 – April 6/4/2025. So it goes.

Solaris, 2023, 339 p.   Reviewed for ParSec 12.

This is a collection of fiction of mostly fantasy stories, perhaps in keeping with Nordic traditions but there is a sprinkling of Science Fiction. They are split almost equally between translations and stories which first appeared in English, though they do contain a surprising number of Scottish terms. None of them would appear out of place in any speculative fiction anthology though, in most, character or place names display their provenance.

The book’s contents are ordered by the authors’ countries of origin.

Sweden:

She by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy from the Swedish, Hon, has an epigram from Nathan Wahlqvist to the effect that “a haunting is dependent on a series of highly unlikely coincidences,” and so inherently rare. This tale of the haunting of a house newly built on the site of an older one relies on the facts that the owners, a couple trying to embark on parenthood, sourced its materials on the cheap and the grandfather of one of them had done wrong in the past.

Lost and Found by Maria Haskins, translated from the original, Vindspår, by the author tells of the mental disintegration of the survivor of a crashed escape pod from a ship surveying exoplanets for possible terraforming. Or was there really something out there?

Sing by Karen Tidbeck is set on a planet whose human inhabitants are strangely affected by the rising and setting of the system’s moons. Most can sing when a particular moon is up but our narrator can’t. She is also physically impaired and hence not fully part of the society. A visitor finds the planet’s parasitic ecosystem strange and is shocked by the method through which the singing is acquired.

Denmark:

The False Fisherman by Kaspar Colling Nielsen, translated from the Danish Den falske fisher by Olivia Lasky, concerns a man who did not take up fishing till he was over forty but nevertheless gets himself all the correct gear. He never catches anything (apart from one whopper.) This story could quite easily be read as having no speculative content at all – except for perhaps one sentence.

Heather Country by Jakob Drud is set in a world after what is always referred to as the impact, in a Jutland run by the NeuroClan a pair of whose investigators (both mortgaged to the Clan’s system of debt of body parts) stumble across a threat to the production of fuel from the local genetically modified heather.

The Traveller Girl by Lene Kaaberbøl, translated from the original, Rakkerstøsen, by the author, again has only a tangential relationship to the speculative. A man hoping to inherit land by marrying the landowner’s daughter is startled by the humanity he finds in the gypsy girl he encounters one day. Her group comes there so that their horses’ foals may be born on land that confers on them strength, sturdiness and speed.

The Faroe Islands:

The Abyss by Rakel Helmsdahl, translated from the Faroese, Dýpið, by Marita Thomsen, as a story, seems to be a metaphor for Limbo as our narrator climbs up and down and traverses across a never-ending series of iron bars too rigid and close-set to pass through, before deciding to fall into the abyss of the title and further adventures.

Iceland:

The Dreamgiver by Johann Thorsson. A child’s nightmares are relieved by a dreamcatcher hung up by her bedroom door. One night when our narrator, the child’s mother, carries out the daily task of emptying it she is startled by the Dreamgiver, who is not best pleased that his dreams are being discarded.

Hamraborg Babylon by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmson. Translated from the Icelandic Sódóma Hamraborg by Quentin Bates.

This Hamraborg is a tower dominating its city, Kópavogur. A woman penetrates its nightmarish depths in search of her brother. The story doesn’t quite deliver on the promise of its first two pages.

Norway:

As You Wish by Tor Åge Bringsværd. Translated from the Norwegian Som du Vil by Olivia Lasky. Brageson works in Mine-Blue 4 on the planet Nova Thule where the company provides all its workers with an idunn. Created from local crystalline sources these are not-quite-android simulacra of women with a highly developed sense of imitation. Their signature question is, “How do you want me?” –  a question which haunts Brageson as he struggles to accept his idunn’s presence in his life.

The Cormorant by Tone Almhell has more than a few similarities to Scottish Folk Tales. Not surprising really, given the same harsh northern climate, the salience of fishing as a means of earning a living and the overbearing presence of the sea. The story sets its stall out early when the narrator says she is a cormorant and if she spreads out her wings death will follow. She has been brought up without her father, who had mysterious origins anyway, and lives with her secretive mother on an island across a stretch of sea from the town of Grip. The townspeople view both her and her mother with suspicion. Possibly with good reason.

The Day Jonas Shadowed His Dad by Thore Hansen. Translated by Olivia Lasky. Jonas, whose mother has died, is intrigued by the vagueness with which his father describes his work, so decides one day to follow him. In a cottage in the woods he descends into a tunnel which leads to somewhere brighter and, to Jonas, more intriguing. Overall, though, this is a little underwhelming to regular readers of SF and Fantasy.

A Lion Roars in Longyearbyen by Margrét Helgadóttir. Global warming and migration have led to Longyearbyen becoming a destination city for its December light festival. One of the (unheard number of two) lions in its zoo – thought to be the last actually born in the wild – has gone from its cage. In the midwinter darkness a human hunter preparess to stalk it.

Finland:

A Bird Does Not Sing Because It Has an Answer by Johanna Sinisalo. A human monitors an extremely slow moving avatar suit overseeing the nesting site of a pair of (by now incredibly rare) flycatchers while not being supposed to intervene in natural processes. In the meantime, Central’s coordinating AI is decoding the meanings of birdsong. The story’s last word is devastatingly apposite.

Elegy for a Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi. In a world where most humans have disappeared into some sort of upload heaven, once and would-be poet Kosonen roams the woods with his talking bear Otso. Both like booze. He is visited by an avatar of his former wife who wants him to retrieve an object which fell into a firewalled city dominated by plague gods. Their lost son also happens to be in there.

The Wings that Slice the Sky by Emmi Itäranta. Translated from the Finnish Taivasta silpovat sivet by the author. Judging by the Author’s Note this seems to be a take on the Finnish epic Kalevala. Louhi, a woman with magical powers, marries into the well to do family which lives in Pohjola in the north. One day she rescues a shipwrecked man from the south and nurses him back to health. In return for a horse to take him back south she asks for a Sampo, a device which will ensure Pohjola will never again want for anything. The bargain is also to include one of her daughters. He sends a blacksmith to forge the Sampo but he in turn spreads the fact of Pohjola’s existence and soon many visitors arrive. Men being men – even (especially?) with magical powers – things don’t end well.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- some of the translations are into USian. Otherwise; Fin (Finn.) “None of these alternatives were appealing” (‘None …. was appealing’ and, strictly, there can be only two alternatives, not three,) “hockey cards” (being set in Sweden these would more likely be ‘ice hockey cards’,) Janosz’ (Janosz’s,) laying (x 2, lying,) “a wee bit of sarcasm” (a wee bit? The author must have spent time in Scotland.) “None of them were armed” (None … was armed.) “The only movement along its streets were those of plastic bags and battered tin cans” (The only movement … was …,) “to such a prophesy” (prophecy,) smothes (smooths,) Douglas’ (Douglas’s,) “the less electromagnetic emissions the better” (the fewer … emissions the better.) “She sat down …and swung its legs” (either, ‘It sat down …and swung its legs’ or, She sat down …and swung her legs’,) sprung (sprang.)

Gollancz, 2020, 605 p.

This exploration of a far future Solar System travel through which is powered by solar sails with auxiliary rocket powered launches for shorter journeys continues the adventures of the Ness sisters, Adrana and Fura, after the events of Revenger and Shadow Captain. The readjustment of the economies of the Congregation following the sisters’ agglomeration of a cache of quoins – which resulted in their values changing – is in full swing but they are in flight from a squadron representing the banks and commerce, led by one Incer Stallis. In search of a bone skull (skulls are a kind of mystical communication device only accessible by adepts) to replace Revenger’s defunct one, they take over another ship, the Merry Mare and split the two crews.

Adrana’s promise to an alien, the Clacker, Tazaknakak, to take him to the spindly habitat known as Trevenza Reach gives her an objective. Meanwhile Fura’s ongoing succumbing to the glowy threatens to completely debilitate her while crew member Strambli has been taken over by ghostie stuff.

Adrana’s suspicions about Lagganvor – whom they picked up in Shadow Captain – multiply while her curiosity about the Congregation’s history (the so-called Occupations which have been recurring at increasing intervals and in whose thirteenth instance they all live) grows.

The scenario’s resemblance to (post)Napoleonic era naval encounters adds a swashbuckling feel to proceedings as does some of the terminology. In a sense this is old boy’s adventure stuff with SF trappings – except of course the adventurers are women.

Fura realises quoins are drawn to the Old Sun, and it is revealed they are really little machines, (or vast machines yet mostly hidden,) healing angels designed to descend into the ailing fires of the Old Sun and make it youthful again. Each is a sort of engine in its own right, “‘not quite existing in the same plane of space and time as we do’” robbed from their true purpose, manipulated by aliens who needed humans to retrieve them from baubles.

In a somewhat hurried coda (in terms of what has gone before) they find the source of the recurring Occupations, an artefact called the Whaleship. A reference to Moby Dick?

While I found this conclusion a touch unsatisfactory the ride Reynolds takes us on in this trilogy is an attractive one. The Ness sisters are good company.

Pedant’s corner:-  “into the open top of the one of the central tanks” (into the open top of one of the central tanks,) “the epicentre of the console” (the centre of the console,) maw (many times. A maw is a stomach; not a mouth,) “being stirred around in bucket of cement” (in a bucket of,) Werrenwell (elsewhere always Werranwell,) “can’t fix in jiffy” (in a jiffy,) “presented with lavishly-wrapped gift” (with a lavishly-wrapped gift,) sprung (many times; sprang,) “‘a number of enter[rising successes to his success’” (clumsy double use of success,) “positioning it within cradle at the focal point” (within the cradle,) fit (fitted,) “had called in to the warn her” (had called in to warn her,) an extraneous opening quote mark within a piece of dialogue, “the intervals between volleys was much reduced” (the intervals … were much reduced,) “at that great long tableaux” (tableaux is plural: tableau,) “faded but not entire disreputable café” (but not entirely disreputable,) “back out from under overhang” (under the overhang.) “‘Why not eh.’” (is a question so ‘Why not, eh?’,) “Stallis’ face” (Stallis’s,) “urging them to not to delay” (urging them not to delay,) “even if none of the sizes were an  ideal fit” (even if none of the sizes was an ideal fit,) “as yet the wounds were little too raw” (were a little too raw.)