This book is exquisite. ‘Voices: The Final Hours Of Joan Of Arc’ has brought life once again to one of the most unforgettable and extraordinary female warrior icons. Everyone knows her name, but do they know her story?

Told in verse, in different medieval forms of poems, ’Voices’ is so unique (some stanzas are shaped like the subject that is ‘speaking,’ ie the sword or the crossbow). David Elliott has written such a compelling account of Joan’s short life from her beginnings in Domrémy, to her visions of the Saints, the battles she led against the English, and her eventual capture and execution. The encroaching ‘Fire’ poem that repeats throughout the novel is particularly clever and impactful.

Back then in 1430 France (when she was captured and put on trial), Joan was viewed with suspicion and as an affront to the Crown because she dressed in armor and wanted to ’look like a man’. She didn't believe she should have to stay at home ’to sew and mate’ when a war was being fought, simply because she didn't want to, never mind her sexuality. Her story has always been known as one of the earliest examples of a woman standing up against misogyny, against a patriarchal system that didn't make sense to her, and because her beliefs simply wouldn't allow her to sit down and accept what was happening around her.

Joan’s voice and perspective come through clearly in the novel as brave and courageous, with the right bit of stubborn. She questions the system and pursues her objectives, which give the novel an obvious ambiance of inspiration throughout. I only really wanted more from the novel when it came to the trial and perhaps the very end of her life.

Joan became a Saint after her death and was declared a martyr for everything she gave for ’God and country’. I did appreciate the epilogue and author's note at the end of the book; it seems this work was a labor of love and I enjoyed reading about its inception.

Joan of Arc is a historical figure who is infamous because of the brave, short life she lived, with such a tragic death, and I think Elliott has written something brilliant here that can draw many people in to learn more about her.

So...I had difficulties with this one.

I've never read any Lovecraft before (unless you count a desultory look at "Polaris" a couple of years ago), and this anthology of some of his stories was kind of a revelation. His Dream-Cycle stories in particular nail something that I've been trying to get at for years: the evocation of a place or a country so strange and wonderful that it's actually kind of terrifying. Stories like "Polaris" and "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" have an imaginative power entirely different from anything I've ever read. Possibly the longest of these stories, "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (over 100 pages long), suffers from its length, as previously terrifying creatures become familiar and no longer a threat; but on the whole these are fantastic stories.

Even the more prosaic stories are powerful and scary: I loved the title story, "The Haunter of the Dark", though it took a while to get into, and "The Shadow out of Time" was really interesting (although if this is Lovecraft's idea of a perfect race I wonder about his home life). But it's these "real-world" stories that are really problematic for me, because, to put it baldly, Lovecraft is deeply racist. In stories like "The Horror at Red Hook" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", fear of the foreigner is only thinly disguised as fear of green monsters with teeth, and horror is brought by immigrants from the East. He's also quite mean to Polish people in "The Dreams in the Witch House". And in "The Thing on the Doorstep" he literally says that men have better brains than women.

It's worth noting that Lovecraft was writing almost a hundred years ago, but should this make any difference to how we judge him? I certainly think his racism goes beyond being a product of his time, in that it seems more extreme than that of other authors from his era. So currently I'm veering between "OMG this is awesome" and "Fuck off, Lovecraft. You are an idiot." What do you guys think? Is it okay to like something this problematic? Or should the world boycott Lovecraft? And would doing so be any different from boycotting modern authors with objectionable views - like, say, Orson Scott Card?

Oooooooooh, ich liebe Finn!

Das könnte daran liegen, dass ich diese Situation nie am eigenen Leib erfahren habe (mal abgesehen von den eigenen Wutanfällen, als ich in dem Alter war).

Finn ist sauer. Und das ist für Mama, Papa und Hund in etwa so wie eine Naturkatastrophe. Flutwelle, Schneesturm Blitz und Donner wälzen sich durchs Haus - und das Buch. Es braucht dabei nicht viel Text, die großartigen Bilder von Timothy Basil Ering sagen alles ... Mama klammert sich an die Vorhänge, der Hund fliegt gemeinsam mit den Tellern durch die Luft ... bis dann plötzlich wieder alles vorbei ist! :D

Ich liebeliebeliebe dieses Buch, in das man unter http://www.klett-kinderbuch.de/fileadmin/fotos/Material_zum_Download/Finn/book2look_Finn.pdf reinschauen kann.

:D