The Invisible Library

#49 is still Gormenghast, which I’m still reading. But I took a few days off to reread one of my desert island books. #48 is The Hearing Trumpet, by Leonora Carrington. It’s got everything: little old ladies, werewolves, fights for the Holy Grail, Pagan Nuns, pole shifts.

Way back in July ‘03, I had this to say about The Hearing Trumpet:

A coven of little old ladies, with the help of a pack of wolves, a nest of bees and a freelance mailman named Taliesin, steel the Holy Grail from the descendants of the Crusaders and return it to the Goddess from whence the Christians stole it in the first place. While illuminating the pagan roots of the Christian Mythology, Leonora Carrington also admonishes the church for its historically cruel treatment of women, especially the elderly variety, as second class citizens. But more then that, Carrington, a surrealist painter and writer, manages to evoke a brilliant sense of dreaminess and real emotion, something conspicuously absent from most surrealist writings. Personally, this is one of my all time favorite books.

And I haven’t changed my mind. More on Gormenghast later.

Hay, you want to read something weird? I found this while looking through my archives for that bit about The Hearing Trumpet.

My wife heard form her sister in Iraq. The base’s water has been cut off for a few days now and next week, during the elections, the PX will be closed. But not to worry, they do have a Pizza Hut (and plans for a bowling alley). The good news is, Naomi and her battalion will be setting out for a three day convey to Kuwait for their debriefing and she’ll be on her way back to the states in early March.