Book Commentary
January 29, 2010
By Michael
Another copy of The Tain came in; Thomas Kinsella's wonderful translation of the Tain Bo Cuailnge: The Cattle Raid of Cooley. When you find a copy of it at all, it's usually the Oxford edition, in association with the original publishers, Dolmen Press of Dublin. I've never seen the Dolmen edition. The Oxford one is handsome enough, with a pleasant, spare font, and a smattering of red ink on the maps and some chapter headings. The text is illustrated by black and white brush drawings by Louis le Brocquoy. Kinsella's Tain is a fine read, something of an Irish Mahabharata in this edition's handling.
I had no idea that Napoleon's jailer on St Helena had been responsible for the burning of the White House, earlier during the War of 1812. Kenneth Mason was a fine small press in the south of England some years ago; I likewise have no idea if this is the same Kenneth Mason who was a noted geographer in the early 20th century. But here we have it: a biography of Sir George Cockburn, who eventually became a member of parliament and First Naval Lord before he died. Very nice production: cloth boards, good heft, well-reproduced black-and-white illustrations.
Steampunk, that fabulous subgenre of science fiction, was invented by Michael Moorcock in the 1970's, with the introduction of Oswald Bastable, a time-travelling character (cribbed from E. Nesbit's children's stories) in the novel The Warlord of the Air; not by Bruce Sterling, or William Gibson, or some other person. Moorcock's intention was to parody the Boy's Own genre of the turn of the century. Perhaps best exemplified by Kaja and Phil Foglio's wonderful Agatha Heterodyne: Girl Genius ongoing graphic novel (please: check it out), Steampunk is a mixture of costume drama and retro Victorian science, with a leavening of mayhem and melodrama. Well, the better ones do. The latest Sherlock Holmes film is treading pretty close. I haven't read Jay Lake's Escapement (it just came into the store the other day) but it looks promising: airships, Queen Victoria still ruling over New England, and Earth still turning on God's great brass gears of Heaven. There seems to be something of a girl genius in this one, as well.
The Tain, translated by Thomas Kinsella. Oxford University Press, 1979. Trade paperback, $12.
The Man Who Burned the White House: Admiral Sir George Cockburn 1772-1853, by James Pack. Kenneth Mason, Emsworth, Hampshire, 1987. Hardcover, $15.
Escapement, by Jay Lake. TOR, New York, 2009. Mass market paperback, $5.