tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720858203931120530.post3404861128295618129..comments2023-12-28T16:38:26.304-08:00Comments on ACravan: Greeenmantle (Kara Gubek)ACravanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720858203931120530.post-11353299328569981042012-01-07T05:52:35.157-08:002012-01-07T05:52:35.157-08:00Lineages are indeed funny. Some lead (crookedly) ...Lineages are indeed funny. Some lead (crookedly) from William the Conqueror to Prince Charles and others to the Buchans. I'm in the middle of Frozen Desire and it really is terrific. I've just returned from driving Jane to a robotics competition in Norristown, PA and on the way home listened to some very crude, propagandistic anti-capitalist screed on MSNBC (on satellite radio) that bothered me a lot because it was so poorly done and showed such contempt for its audience, regarding them merely as buttons to be pushed. Then there's James Buchan. John Buchan, his grandfather, also possessed the major brain, and although his fiction isn't faultless (whose is, I guess?), its high points are pretty lofty. I think his final novel, Sick Heart River, is his best. He writes so well about nature, i.e. trees, plants, climate, weather. I remember our visit to the Scottish Highlands and I really did feel that I'd been there before through his books. His illustrations through his characters' behavior of the vicissitudes of professional life are also acute. His other polymath accomplishments never fail to impress, stir and make me feel like a time-waster. I remember reading a story about how Henry Green's mother sent Buchan (with whom she had some personal connection) a sample of Henry's youthful writing. Apparently, Green thought (and described) Buchan's note as a put-down. Eventually, I read it and it was nothing of the sort. In fact, it was a thoughtful, encouraging response from an established writer to a younger one, containing some pretty sharp comments. I wonder about lineage a lot because I feel I really have none, in terms of pre-existing, relevant bloodlines. I'm hoping Jane feels differently as she grows up. And that she continues to like me -- those robots are SCARY. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720858203931120530.post-88073192907956965052012-01-07T04:13:41.292-08:002012-01-07T04:13:41.292-08:00Curtis,
Odd how the lineages work: John Buchan (a...Curtis,<br /><br />Odd how the lineages work: John Buchan (along with T.E. Lawrence) was the great hero and role model of the "Angleton generation" of Company spooks. Dan Ellsberg (one of that crew) told me they all studied the books and tried to emulate the men who had writ them.<br /><br />Interesting that Buchan's son James kept that great Scots line of authorship (if not of spycraft) alive by writing the best book ever done on money, Frozen Desire.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com