Benutzerprofil

This short-story collection is ideas-driven, not character-driven, and very good. In a way, it feels like a throwback to the 1950s anthologies I read in my teens, minus any trite cliches or stereotyped characters. And the ideas presented in Chaing's stories are exciting. What if in ancient Babylonia, you could buil a tower to heaven? What would the logistics be? What if the letters used to activate a golem was like its DNA? What would the world be like if biblical angels came to earth fairly regularly? And that other one, about beauty - excellent food for thought.

The book does what the title says: It presented me with a largish number of socialist fairy tales (late 19th/early 20th century), a genre I didn't know existed - looking back, it makes perfect sense, though. - I can't say how comprehensive this overview is. The stories were all a bit similar and mostly not very good. I don't want to hold this against the book, so I'm unsure how to rate the book.
I know little about socialism and I actually learned some theory from the book; still, I would have preferred fewer stories and more about the authors, the audience, how these works were received and what influence they had. There is a foreword addressing just these points, true, and I guess I could always go to a history of socialism in the UK to find out more.

The novel is not as surrealistic as I expected; there is a plot, of sorts, and it is easy to follow. But people say and sometimes do things that would strike you as unreasonable in a realistic novel, and nobody seems to mind. 3 1/2 stars, rounded down.

For me, the novel took off in the second half. At a good 150 pages, the sudden intrusion of 30 pages of found narrative right out of Dan Brown/Foucault's Pendulum/Indiana Jones/Knights Templar came as quite a surprise. It's straight horror-adventure fare, told in documents, not surreal at all. Or am I just so used to this kind of fiction that it doesn't strike me as odd anymore? Very enjoyable to read. From then on, the book takes an even weirder turn into apocalyptic winter.

Very much what A.D. Jansen said in their Goodreads review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1341638505
(Couldn't have put it better myself. Not recognized enough; Borges; little variation but genius at what she does.)

Weakest stories: "Tempests" and "The Ring". Most fun & light-hearted story: "Ehrengard". Best stories: "Babette's Feast" and "The Immortal Story" - the last almost a parody of an O. Henry story, or of the darker origins of an O. Henry story, maybe.

Band 1 und Band 3 des Orient-Zyklus haben mir gut gefallen, der Rest weniger. Auch hier wird wieder zu viel geschlichen und belauscht, aber es werden weniger Gefangene befreit (und keine Gruppenmitglieder dabei). Schöne Orte sind der Khan des Schut und vor allem die Köhleranlage. Diesmal tut Kara Ben Nemsi keiner Zufallsbekanntschaft einen Gefallen und wird von dieser später mit einem tollen Tipp belohnt. Die Entlarvung des angesehenen Schut doppelt sich ein wenig mit der des Mübarek in den Bänden zuvor, aber neu immerhin die Situation, dass die Gruppe einen Gefangenen innerhalb einer eher feindlichen Ortschaft hat. Bis auf den unnötigen Anhang relativ wenig plumpes Christentum.

Die drei Sterne gibt es, weil ich als Kind dadurch gelernt habe, was ein Köhler ist, und Phosphor.