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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The Voice of the Fire

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:08 / 08.02.07

Yeah, cheers, that's fascinating. I believe I said upthread that my favourite part was stilty-heron-dude, so it's great to have some background and avenues for further reading.

13:48 / 08.02.07

A pleasure guys!

I suppose I'll have to go out and read it now. Sadly its one of those books that NEVER turn up 2nd hand anywhere.

I did look through part of it in the shop, but it was the chapter where you had the old 'Virgin/Mother/Hag' triumverate at work.

Obviously its a very ancient and important 'meme' - (is that the word?) but I thought that after Gaiman's Sandman and Slaine and even MacBeth's 3 witches, that it was kinda tired. The actual POV character's narrative was chilling towards the end, I'll grant you, but glancing at it I just thought 'ho hum, the 3 witches again.' So if I was thinking of buying it that time, I put it back on the shelf.

I just thought someone as awe-inspiring as Hairy Al would have done a little more than that. It seemed that his 'big reveal' in the story was that these 3 impoverished, seemingly powerless women were channeling the fundamental 3-as-one female godhead, giving life and also....

I know it's a bit cheeky to base an appraisal of a book on a few pages snatched on my way to check out whether the latest 'Superman Showcase' has arrived yet, but how did you feel about that story? Perhaps it opens out a bit viewed in conjunction with the other stories in the collection? As a stand-alone short story it seemed like a prose version of one of those great EC 'Tales from the Crypt', but not much more.

Perhaps, just as Mr Moore made his name using the techniques and structures of prose in comics, he is here transposing a comicbook tale into prose?

14:18 / 08.02.07

it's great to have some background and avenues for further reading.

Stoatie, I could not reccomend 'At Swim-Two-Birds' to you highly enough. This book is seriously 'laugh-out-loud in the train' funny and he does stuff mixing contempory pop-culture, 'literature' and mythology in it that pre-figures Gaiman and Morrison, except he wrote it in the thirties. The writer even had several fiction-suits long before they were profitable or popular - 'Flann O'Brien' was one for a start.

I remember telling a friend when I was first reading 'At Swim...':

"You know when you are reading a book that you really love and you don't want it to end, so you read it very slowly? Well this book is so good that I don't read it AT ALL!"

I would envy anyone sitting down to read it for the first time.

To keep this thread-relevant, I will say that Sweeney's entire history is related in the book and vast swathes of his melodious verses are translated for your enlightenment. O'Brien has a lot of fun showing up the linguistic differences between Gaelic and English in the Sweeney translations. eg The word for 'Naomh' in Gaelic can mean Saint, holy or heaven, hence 'The saint-bell of the sainty saints'

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:23 / 08.02.07

It's been on my "to-read" list forever. Maybe I should bump it up a few places.

06:58 / 13.02.07

Perhaps it opens out a bit viewed in conjunction with the other stories in the collection?

you better believe it buddy, and then some.

its uncle alan after all.....and its not just some collection of short stories he thought might go together nice.

nothing that happens/links/means is really a surprise, if you are aware of alans non-comics work, but the way he weaves it, and that voice, of the fire, my gods...

"the smallest gesture leaves its traces in the air behind,with a descending arm instead become like shimmering pinions, fanned and splendid. they are talking, but i can no longer tell the sense of what they say...their words are from a glossary of light, lips moving silently as if beyond the scrying glass and in my ears the singing has achieved a perfect clarity, the rounds and phrases of it now resolved. above the roaring of the altitudes each foreign syllable is bright and resonant, is achingly familiar in its alien profundity, a layered murmur echoing in everything. i know this song. i know it."

06:59 / 13.02.07

and that poor nun, with the vikings.

he pulls you down into the darkness to allow the light to shine even more brightly.

so he does.

21:14 / 15.02.07

"You know when you are reading a book that you really love and you don't want it to end, so you read it very slowly? Well this book is so good that I don't read it AT ALL!"

This was exactly what happened to me with Voice of the Fire. I kept on packing it on long trips, and kept on holding off, until finally I reached a Mooreish critical mass, and dove in.

In some ways, I still regret reading it, because now I no longer have it to look forward to.

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