The days have slain the days / and the seasons have gone by...

[malsperanza]

...and brought me the summer again;
and here on the grass I lie
As erst I lay and was glad
ere I meddled with right and with wrong...

~William Morris (the rest of the poem is pretty awful, though)

The annual meeting of the July 4th Weekend Literary Critics Circle:

Me: So there is going to be a sequel to Tithe.

12-year-old: Cool.

Me: What do you think will happen in it?

The Monster 5-year-old (who has not read Tithe, and whose outlook on life has not changed much in a year): There should be Blasting Robots. And a sword that stabs through them.

12-year-old: There should be a trip to the Underworld. Kaye should go to the Underworld and bring back Janet's soul.

Me: Have your parents been reading you Homer at bedtime again?

12-year-old: Huh?

Me: Nothing.

8-year-old (the one with spectacular red hair, fantastic freckles, and green green faerie eyes): There is going to be a movie of Spiderwick.

Me: I know. I am the one who told you that.

8-year-old: Well, I am going to be the first person to see it.

*heated debate on the question of Who Will See Spiderwick First*

Other 8-year-old (she who is in a snotty supercilious phase): I bet you don't know how to pronounce "Roiben."

Me: I do so know how to pronounce "Roiben."

12-year-old: Only because she just told you.

*I dump both of them off their raft*

*I am viciously attacked by smallish killer whales*

The two visiting sisters, 8 and 10: What is Spiderwick? What is Roiben?

Us: *pitying looks*

Me: So the Underworld, eh? Where did you get that?

12-year-old: I think stories should always have a trip to the Underworld, if at all feasible.

Me: "feasible"? What have your parents been putting in your breakfast cereal?

12-year-old: Huh? You are even weirder than you were last year.

*I tip him into the water; everyone else joins the melee*

*pause while we regroup on the rafts in new configurations*

Me: I like the Underworld idea. There is an Underworld scene in Lord of the Rings, you know.

The whole lot of them (*pitying looks*): Well, duuhh.

8-year-old: I don't think Janet should have died.

12-year-old: Me neither.

Me: But last year you didn't mind that Sirius died. And you wanted Dumbledore to die.

8-year-old: Totally different. They were old.

Me: Right, OK. Sirius was about half my age, but never mind.

8-year-old (gazing dreamily to starboard): We should invent characters for books. I like Nellie Flair.

The visiting sisters: Who is Nellie Flair?

8-year-old: She is clever and lives alone, by the shores of Lake Michigan. She has magical abilities and a friend named Peter Sandman.

The sisters and the other 8-year-old (looking toward the shores of Lake Michigan): Who? Where?

Me: "Nellie Flair" is good, but you can't use "Sandman." There is already a character named that.

8-year-old: Really? In what book?

Me: In a lot of books. He is the King of Dreams. You would like him.

8-year-old: Will you give them to me?

Me: No, because they are full of explicit sex and graphic violence.

12-year-old: Uh, Tithe?

Me: True. Not to mention the Iliad, also that shocking play one of you was in last year. Even so, the Sandman books are for next year, or the year after.

8-year-old: I was in Midsummer Night's Dream.

Me: That's the one.

The redheaded 8-year-old: I have read the Iliad.

Me: My point exactly. And did you like it?

8-year-old: Some of it. I liked Hector and the battles.

Me: Then you should not go to see Troy, which makes a bollocks out of the battles.

8-year-old: How?

Me: The saddles have stirrups.

*Everyone sneers at the stirrups*

12-year-old: Do some of the Iliad.

Me and 8-year-old: Spears! Great-hearted Achilles! Lots of ships! More spears! The weeping of women!

The Monster 5-year-old: But the Blasting Robots do NOT care!

12-year-old (losing interest): I liked Nephemael.

Me: Yes, he would have fit in well in the Iliad.

8-year-old: Now you are being silly.

Mum: I am thinking of shaving my head.

Me: Good idea, because what you have right now is the world's worst combover.

12-year-old: And then you could polish it.

8-year-old: That would be cool.

Me: And you could get a tattoo on top, and then when your hair grows back, it would be a secret tattoo.

*Heated discussion of the best sort of tattoo for a secret top-of-the-head tattoo. Opinion is evenly divided between a butterfly and a Blasting Robot. I hold out for "Mom" but am shouted down*

12-year-old: Sirius was half your age?

Me: Slight exaggeration.

12-year-old: Eeww, how old are you?

Me: Getting older by the minute


Flew home through thunderstorms and flashes of lightning beneath the belly of the plane, to hot, resentful cats and no dinner. As usual, the milk for the coffee had gone sour.

On the plus side, the literary critics and I collected a great many of the fossil jointed crinoid stem segments called Indian Beads. They are really prehistoric sea lilies, related to the starfishes, I learn. I will make necklaces of them for the Critics.

And I was given a handsome drawing of a Blasting Robot. It has a tinfoil sword that stabs through it.

Oh, and the fireworks were excellent.

Comments

[tromboneborges.livejournal.com]

There are robot dogs in Ironwood Tree. But they, I suppose, do not blast and they are not stabbed through with a sword. More's the pity.

Also, how many possible ways are there to pronounce Roiben? I am merely curious.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Mere curiosity killed the meerkat, you know.

As to the actual correct pronunciation, I defer to Roiben's creator. How does Holly say the name?

This was actually the subject of another Heated Discussion amongst the Critics, but I edited it out because it wasn't funny.

My nephew the redheaded Critic is Belfast-born; he and his parents have firm views on the proper pronunciation of the Oirish tongue. Of course, this depends on whether "Roiben" is a transliteration into English (as McCoy or Maeve ) or original Irish (as McGaughey orMedbh). And depending on whether one is adhering to Ulster or Munster pronunciation, and a great many other dependings as well. But the lang and the shart of it is that, roughly speaking, the diphthong "oi" is pronounced "ee." This renders the name Reeben.

My supercilious niece and I reject this idea; we consider Reeben just plain silly, and decidedly infra dig. We have therefore opted for our own reading, which is more or less Robin. We like the implied reference to Robin Goodfellow; my niece in particular is fond of the Puck, due to having made her professional acting debut in his very own Play a couple of years ago.

On the other hand, one of my stepbrothers claims that the correct pronunciation is Reuben, but the rest of us ascribe this bizarre idea to his fondness for greasy corned beef and sauerkraut sandwiches, hold the mayo.

Dead yet? No? There remains the possibility that the name is pronounced as written, and rhymes with "soybean," more or less.

Am back in NYC, btw, so give a call anytime, or if my phone # was on your gizmo what died, then email.

[tromboneborges.livejournal.com]

I hate to be the bearer of Occam's tidings, but Roiben is pronounced, by Holly, "roy'-ben," with a schwa for the "e." The reference to Robin Goodfellow, whether intended by the author or not, will have to remain an morphological, and not phonetical, reference. I note for the benefit of the Redheaded Critic (and, if he's reading, the Redheaded Stranger) that I feel that Holly's faeries have been in the US for a very long time, long enough perhaps to lose whatever non-American accents they might once have had, and in fact long enough that it is I suppose possible that Roiben is second- or third-generation and merely of immigrant stock, as it were. So names may have become Anglicized over the years.

Your phone # was indeed on the gizmo what died, but if you send it again along with when would be a good time to call, a call may be forthcoming. :)

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Only a fool is unhappy to be corrected. Roy-ben it is. It may take me a few decades to adjust (am still processing Keleborn instead of Seleborn), but I'll do it. Can't say I hold out much hope for the Literary Critics, though. Opinions formed in youth are rarely amenable to revision, and this crew is not shy to form opinions. The term "pigheaded" springs to mind.

Well, but if he's American, what's he doing with a name like Roiben? Any American with that name would rapidly acquire the nickname Buddy. Or Ace.

Or Doc.

Unless he's a baseball player, in which case he'd be known as Oil Can.

I'm just sayin.

Will email you.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

the Redheaded Critic (and, if he's reading, the Redheaded Stranger)

*squints*

Aha! a reference either to Willie Nelson or "Death in Venice."

Or both, of course.

[tipgardner.livejournal.com]

Sounds like they are some very critical critics! I went to a reading on Tuesday (Elizabeth Brundage reading from her debut novel, The Doctor's Wife) and last night heard Hannah Tinti read from her most recent collection of short stories, Animal Crackers. I don't think there are any trips to the underworld *OR* blasting robots, but there are lots of animals, so that's something.

Okay, I have to go back to sneering at horses with stirrups now.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

sounds lovely. Did you like the work? I don't know either author. Recs?

In my family, sneering consists of physically illustrating the phrase, "She [or he] threw back her head and laughed: HA! ha-hah!" We do this either solo or in teams. If possible, one places fists on hips first. The model is Errol Flynn in "Robin Hood"--the only actor ever to make this odd and unlikely gesture look plausible.

[tipgardner.livejournal.com]

The reading was very fun and the Doctor's Wife seems like a decent thriller and Elizabeth was a fun reader. Especially humourous was the Italian gentleman, and I do use that term loosely, heckled her by asking, "why do writers read their own work? Writers aren't actors. They shouldn't read!" Not sure I would recommend it, but it seems like a good read; I just haven't read it yet - it's on my bed table. Animal Crackers is a definite recced read! It's in the literature/fiction section I think. Hannah is a great author and person.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

That's it. I am going to put a Trip to the Underworld in the next marketing proposal I write. Preferably under "Selection and Qualification of Subcontractors."

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

By "marketing proposal" I expect you mean "feasibility study." Or so my nephew would have me say. After all, a Trip to the Underworld should only be essayed if feasible.

The literacy of that child terrifies me.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Bah. If we waited for feasibility studies, we'd never get anything done. Promise the world, and hope the tech people can keep up. Do you think Odysseus conducted feasibility studies?

The nephew sounds like a very promising person.