lonesome nights in october

[jazzfish]

Thursday night I finally started something I've been meaning to do for over a decade now: reading Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October at the rate of one chapter per day.

Lonesome October, for those of you who've not yet read it, is a day-by-day narrative of events taking place during an October in the late 1800s, as told by Snuff the watchdog. Snuff's master is Jack, a mysterious knife-wielding gentleman, who's in competition, or maybe cooperation, with a number of other intriguing folk: the druid Owen, the Count, the Great Detective and his bumbling assistant, the mad monk, the Good Doctor and his giant awkward servant, and various others who you may or not recognise. It's one of my very favorite books, not least for Gahan Wilson's delightfully grotesque illustrations.

So far this exercise is mostly kind of frustrating: the early chapters are no more than a few pages each, and I keep wanting to read ahead and get to the good parts. All in good time.

Comments

[lizthefair.livejournal.com]

J and I have been doing this each October for several years. Makes for a nice bedtime story.

Enjoy!!!

[jazzfish]

oh! I'd not thought of that. :) Perhaps we shall do that next year.

[vond.net]

I've done this several times in the past. Looks like thanks to this post Lisa will be doing it this year :)

[jazzfish]

Yeah, I remembered you having done it at least once, and thinking "oh, that sounds like a neat idea, i should do that next year," and then repeatedly never remembering until like the second week in October. (I wouldn't have this year except I happened to be staring at the Zelazny on Thursday night.)

[mrstickman.livejournal.com]

After all these years, I'm still pissed at myself for not liking that book. I should try it again.

[jazzfish]

Eh, if it's not your thing it's not your thing. I don't require that everyone like the things I'm into. (Well, except for JMF's Janus sonnet, which is both technically and artistically somewhere north of amazing.)