Cybele, with bluebonnets

Ron Crown · 06 Aug 2003, 14:53 · from urth-v0308.mbox · original

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From: Ron Crown <crownrw at SLU.EDU>
Subject: (urth) Cybele, with bluebonnets
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 09:53:05 -0500
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Has anyone read this book by Charles Harness (published by NESFA Press)?=20
  I mention it because it's reminiscent of There Are Doors--written in a=20
kind of magic realism with classical allusions, the same themes of lost=20
love, death, and transcendence, etc., etc.  Which may explain why Gene=20
Wolfe was asked to provide a blurb which he did in highly laudatory=20
fashion ("There are perhaps a thousand wonderful books.  Most of us are=20
fortunate if we so much as hear the titles of them in the course of a=20
lifetime.  Very few of us ever touch the covers of more than half a=20
dozen.  This is one of them.")  Exaggerated but it's still a delightful=20
little read.  It's also a lot more overtly (ostensibly) autobiographical.

I especially enjoyed the hilarious description of the Battle of San=20
Jacinto--the first person narrator is a Texan (as are both Harness and=20
Wolfe, for that matter).

Ron Crown
Saint Louis University

--=20

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