I plowed through another couple books in the last month or so. I finished “Pavane” by Keith Roberts. It really picked up steam in the last third and, in retrospect, it was quite good. The first three sections didn’t seem to have a whole lot connecting them but, in the end, it all becomes clear. The last chapter “Corfe Gate” pulls everything together nicely and, better yet, espouses a kind of fatalistic description of the universe that I wholly endorse. It was fun to read this immediately following Phillip K. Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle” because they’re both alternate histories and both doing completely different things with that subgenre. Dick is a bit more “in your face” (an odd way to put it, I guess) with the alt history and Roberts is much more subtle with it, but that’s also because MITHC is only twenty years of alt history where P is nearly six hundred.

I had to proctor an exam last week and managed to polish off the last 2/3rds of Bob Dylan’s “Chronicles” in that time. It’s great stuff and highly recommended for anyone interested in the artistic process: Bob’s, their own, or anyone else’s. What I like best is how he doesn’t write about “Freewheelin’” or “Blood on the Tracks” or his Christian phase at all, but rather his beginnings in New York, “New Morning” and “Oh Mercy.” It’s also very gratifying to find out the songs I like the best off those albums happen to be the ones he likes as well; the ones I thought sucked, he generally thought sucked too. I’m very much looking forward to Volume 2, whenever that may be. I wonder how much of “Chronicles” is God’s honest truth and how much is revisionist history…

Started reading “Grettir’s Saga” a few days ago. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read more sci-fi or pick up one of the last “major” sagas I haven’t read. I decided to go the saga route and the beginning was slow, as is with most sagas, but things are rolling right along now. Good ol’ Grettir (who happens to be a dick most of the time) just robbed a burial mound and killed a dozen berserkers. Lots of poetry and funny lines to keep me interested. “Grettir’s Saga” is quite long but I think I’m going to enjoy it.