I've read some of Bukowski's poetry long time ago, when I was not much into reading poetry (you need to get old for that), so I soon forgot about it until recently (somehow) I remember him again and decided to read a novel from him - his first novel.
He wrote it in less than a month, and it is pretty short. It probably would not have published today where publisher expect 700-page novels because they sell better to half-brained customers who do not know better. It is pretty good though.
Pretty much everything in the novel is scaled down to the absolute minimum. It reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk's writings, but without the agenda. The novel describes the 10 or so years that he spent working for the US Post Office and all the ins and out of job plus all the ladies he shacked with during that time. The US Post office is described like something from a Kafka or Orwell novel, employing imbeciles with imbecilic rules and dark career prospects. He describes how he was assigned the worst routes, because he always gave lip to his supervisors and never gave a damn about their imaginary authority.
His descriptions of the women he lived with are very rudimentary, as he wasn't fully aware who they were. That's probably true since he was drunk most of the time when he wasn't working and most of the working time he was hungover, so very little mental capacity remained to get to know someone deeper (except himself), besides the default biological, physiological and companionship needs.
I enjoyed his curt and to-the-point style, though, nowadays so much extreme garbage has been written, his expressions don't seem all that edgy anymore.
Monday, June 22, 2020
Saturday, February 29, 2020
"12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" by Jordan Peterson
I read this book after watching many hours of JBP's videos and reading the blog on his web site. A couple of weeks ago I saw the video from his daughter Mikhaila that he is going through a chemical detox in Russia, and I wish him all the best. He has some great things to say, and should definitely be allowed to speak, although I don't really agree with everything he puts forward. I am especially peeved by the frequent and extensive recourses to Biblical stories. Not because they are not important, after all, many of us spent hours upon hours during our teenage years going to Bible School, but because those same things could have been said through a different reference, and there have been many of those in the past 2,000 years. Although the Bible contains plenty of common sense wisdom, there are also plenty of cringe inducing passages, especially in the Old Testament, like the one where it is OK to rape a girl as long as you pay 50 shekels of silver to her father (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). No, it doesn't make it better that the passage tells the rapist to marry the girl. Who wants to marry their rapist??? Passages like that one make those of us who were born and raised in Christianity look for answers to life's questions outside the Bible.
I thought the book started very strongly. I really enjoyed the allegory with the lobsters. I read some criticisms as to why he chose lobsters, and JBP actually answered that in the book - he was looking for a species that is as low as possible on the evolutionary scale while having serotonin as a regulatory mechanism, similar to humans. Some people just don't pay attention to what they read, if they read at all. There was this lady who wrote a review of this book for the "National Post" and it was blindingly obvious that she only read the first couple of chapters and then just the titles of the following ones. Yes, the book is 450 pages, but if you're going to write a review for a national newspaper, you better suck it up and read all of it! She didn't understand the points of the later chapters because JBP intentionally uses playful titles that are only tangentially related to the content of the chapter, in order to punish careless readers.
I liked the next few chapters as well. Pretty strong points and references from JBP's life and clinical practice. The middle of the book disappointed me though, with all the Bible stories and long winded explanations, most of which are not explained in his trademark straightforward language and go in circles for too long. The book picks up again towards the end, and I especially liked the last "Coda" chapter where he talks about how he got the idea to write this book and about the "Illuminated Pen" and the conversations with God that he was having. I am sure Catholic Priests would not approve of the JBP's version of the Biblical God, but maybe it is a good sign that he pisses off people on both sides of the spectrum.
I am going to leave the criticism there, and the below chapter-based content is my attempt to summarize what I got out of each of the chapters.
1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
Physical posture is important for emotional well being. Maybe you cannot control your emotions but you can control your physical body. Do it.
2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
It is easy to give way to the nihilism of your internal critical voice. Don't. Think of yourself as of a someone who you like and would like to help.
3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
Often friendships happen just because you are at the same time at the same place. Don't choose your friends by proximity and convenience, but choose those who actually want you to succeed. There won't be many.
4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
Comparison disease is a recipe for misery. You don't know how other people got where they are, so don't compare. The only person you know everything about is you, so only compare yourself to who you were yesterday.
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
For young parents: don't allow your children everything. Don't think they are allowed to do whatever in the name of some creativity or similar bullshit. Discipline them when they disobey.
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
Often "changing the world" is an excuse not to deal with your own problems. Deal with your own problems first. Run as fast as you can from people and groups (cults) who claim they want to "change the world".
Often "changing the world" is an excuse not to deal with your own problems. Deal with your own problems first. Run as fast as you can from people and groups (cults) who claim they want to "change the world".
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
Basically don't do what is easy and immediately available. Delay your pleasure. Delay your fulfillment until it is bigger and more meaningful.
Basically don't do what is easy and immediately available. Delay your pleasure. Delay your fulfillment until it is bigger and more meaningful.
8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie
This is probably the most difficult one. Often we don't know what the truth is because we lie to ourselves so much and so constantly. At least try to tell the truth. Not your truth. THE truth.
This is probably the most difficult one. Often we don't know what the truth is because we lie to ourselves so much and so constantly. At least try to tell the truth. Not your truth. THE truth.
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't
This is difficult because we're always engaged in an unending monologue in our heads. It is very difficult to actually listen as opposed to just waiting for your turn to speak.
This is difficult because we're always engaged in an unending monologue in our heads. It is very difficult to actually listen as opposed to just waiting for your turn to speak.
10. Be precise in your speech
Don't ramble. Don't just chatter like a broken machine. Stop. Be silent. Think. Formulate a proper, truthful response. Then speak.
Don't ramble. Don't just chatter like a broken machine. Stop. Be silent. Think. Formulate a proper, truthful response. Then speak.
11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
Let your children take risks. Don't overprotect them. Let them make mistakes no matter how painful it is for you.
Let your children take risks. Don't overprotect them. Let them make mistakes no matter how painful it is for you.
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
Your life is NEVER going to be all fine. Don't wait for that moment. Take things as they happen, good and bad. Set aside time to deal with the bad, but don't brood and spend every waking moment on them. Enjoy the little moments you can even when surrounded by horrible circumstances.
Your life is NEVER going to be all fine. Don't wait for that moment. Take things as they happen, good and bad. Set aside time to deal with the bad, but don't brood and spend every waking moment on them. Enjoy the little moments you can even when surrounded by horrible circumstances.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I've had this book as a required reading in High School and never read it. I always hated reading "required" readings. Then I saw it mentioned through many other books, not the least in Dan Simmons' works (sci fi, of all things!) and still didn't read it. Does that mean that I have some kind of resistance towards Russian writers, like many in the west (even without admitting it)? Maybe, but maybe I was just lazy, and I was to busy reading the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, and wanting to be a Witcher, as a liberation from the chains of western industrialized society and the expectations thereof.
Finally, Dr. Peterson's constant reference to the works of Solzhenitsyn made me reach for the kindle version of Ivan Denisovich, since the multi-volume, thousands-of-pages, "Gulag Archipelago" seemed too intimidating to start, with family and work obligations and all that jazz. It is a short book, but powerful. It reads very easy in English translation, and I guess, the same is true for the Russian original. It is a shocking book. Ivan Denisovich Shukov is in a 'special camp' in Kazakhstan, working outside, with the other prisoners, 14 hour days in -40C temperatures, and they are only allowed to have a thin coat as a protection, bad boots, and no heating from a stove.
It all happens in one day, from waking up in the dark before dawn, to coming back to the barracks, long after dark. The details are striking. The thin stew that is the highlight of the day because everybody is trying to get more. The way the prisoners wrap themselves in rags and pieces of discarded cloth just to protect from the instant frostbite, even though they never get to be really warm. The random beatings, the "cells" where the rule breakers are sent, and which mean almost certain death from cold and starvation. The real horror of the communist gulags is revealed without making any accusations, any argumentation, just plain describing the objective reality of the daily life in these degenerate products of the sick human minds.
The pleasure with which Shukov eats his food is described in such heart-wrenching detail, one instantly feels for the guy, whose only pleasure and hope in life consists of the bite of an occasional piece of dry sausage or sucking the juice from a fish bone. It makes one think how ungrateful we are today just for the fact that our stomachs (for most of us) are always full. Of course, Shukov is Solzhenistyn, who spent 10 years in a "special" gulag, after which he was exiled from the Soviet Union and wasn't admitted back until the SU fell apart.
This book is a definite verdict on the horrors of a communist society, however Solzhenitsyn was not treated all that well in exile in the West, especially the US. The yanks expected that he will be eternally grateful and praise the US society to high heavens, but Solzhenitsyn was a man who speaks his mind without regard to any power that be, and his critique of western society and way of living was just as stinging. He is famous for his address at a Harvard Commencement, criticizing the West for its materialistic ways and slavery to money. It was not well received, and he was never invited back.
Finally, Dr. Peterson's constant reference to the works of Solzhenitsyn made me reach for the kindle version of Ivan Denisovich, since the multi-volume, thousands-of-pages, "Gulag Archipelago" seemed too intimidating to start, with family and work obligations and all that jazz. It is a short book, but powerful. It reads very easy in English translation, and I guess, the same is true for the Russian original. It is a shocking book. Ivan Denisovich Shukov is in a 'special camp' in Kazakhstan, working outside, with the other prisoners, 14 hour days in -40C temperatures, and they are only allowed to have a thin coat as a protection, bad boots, and no heating from a stove.
It all happens in one day, from waking up in the dark before dawn, to coming back to the barracks, long after dark. The details are striking. The thin stew that is the highlight of the day because everybody is trying to get more. The way the prisoners wrap themselves in rags and pieces of discarded cloth just to protect from the instant frostbite, even though they never get to be really warm. The random beatings, the "cells" where the rule breakers are sent, and which mean almost certain death from cold and starvation. The real horror of the communist gulags is revealed without making any accusations, any argumentation, just plain describing the objective reality of the daily life in these degenerate products of the sick human minds.
The pleasure with which Shukov eats his food is described in such heart-wrenching detail, one instantly feels for the guy, whose only pleasure and hope in life consists of the bite of an occasional piece of dry sausage or sucking the juice from a fish bone. It makes one think how ungrateful we are today just for the fact that our stomachs (for most of us) are always full. Of course, Shukov is Solzhenistyn, who spent 10 years in a "special" gulag, after which he was exiled from the Soviet Union and wasn't admitted back until the SU fell apart.
This book is a definite verdict on the horrors of a communist society, however Solzhenitsyn was not treated all that well in exile in the West, especially the US. The yanks expected that he will be eternally grateful and praise the US society to high heavens, but Solzhenitsyn was a man who speaks his mind without regard to any power that be, and his critique of western society and way of living was just as stinging. He is famous for his address at a Harvard Commencement, criticizing the West for its materialistic ways and slavery to money. It was not well received, and he was never invited back.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
"How Love Came to Professor Guildea" by Robert Smythe Hichens
An interesting story, comparable to "La Horla" by Guy de Maupassant about an invisible and one-way untouchable ghostly haunting that seems not to go away until the object of its affection is dead. Professor Guildea is a successful academic who cares only about his research and not a bit about human affection or companionship (he could have done well in 2019) however he strikes a friendship with a priest, Father Murchinson, who becomes his main confidant when mysterious things happen.
Guildea sees a human-looking shadow sitting on a park bench in front of his house (one of the doors to Hyde Park is just in front) and upon checking and finding nothing feels that an invisible presence which seems to be in love with him has moved to his house and has been petting and training his parrot. After discussing and showing signs to Father Murchinson, Guildea goes to Paris to escape but there he is touched by the shadow, erotically, in the midst of his speech and he collapses. Upon return he tells Murchinson that the shadow now follows him everywhere and snuggles against him in the bed and on the stairs. Father Murchinson tells Guildea to give love back to the shadow, but he refuses and one night, while Murchinson also sees a shadow on the same bench, Guildea is dead of a heart attack with a horror expression on his face back in the house.
Although this is a horror story, just barely out of the Victorian age, and a pretty good one at that, I propose another explanation. Hichens was gay in real life and it must not have been easy for him at the time. He did live a long life (died at 86), but he probably felt many small deaths (not orgasms) during his life as a gay man in Victorian England. Guildea is gay and Murchinson is his love object, but he cannot admit that to himself since gay is bad at the time. So he concocts this shadow which replaces the sexual intimacy that he wants to have with Murchinson. However, the stronger the gay love becomes, the more Guildea denies it and pushes it away, leading eventually to his death (symbolically?) because he denies the strongest aspect of his personality. If this is the case, then Hichens should be getting way more credit for this story than he currently is.
Guildea sees a human-looking shadow sitting on a park bench in front of his house (one of the doors to Hyde Park is just in front) and upon checking and finding nothing feels that an invisible presence which seems to be in love with him has moved to his house and has been petting and training his parrot. After discussing and showing signs to Father Murchinson, Guildea goes to Paris to escape but there he is touched by the shadow, erotically, in the midst of his speech and he collapses. Upon return he tells Murchinson that the shadow now follows him everywhere and snuggles against him in the bed and on the stairs. Father Murchinson tells Guildea to give love back to the shadow, but he refuses and one night, while Murchinson also sees a shadow on the same bench, Guildea is dead of a heart attack with a horror expression on his face back in the house.
Although this is a horror story, just barely out of the Victorian age, and a pretty good one at that, I propose another explanation. Hichens was gay in real life and it must not have been easy for him at the time. He did live a long life (died at 86), but he probably felt many small deaths (not orgasms) during his life as a gay man in Victorian England. Guildea is gay and Murchinson is his love object, but he cannot admit that to himself since gay is bad at the time. So he concocts this shadow which replaces the sexual intimacy that he wants to have with Murchinson. However, the stronger the gay love becomes, the more Guildea denies it and pushes it away, leading eventually to his death (symbolically?) because he denies the strongest aspect of his personality. If this is the case, then Hichens should be getting way more credit for this story than he currently is.
"The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen has been described as one of the last Victorian gentlemen, wearing a cape well into the 1930s. H.P. Lovecraft pays great respect to him in his seminal work about the history of supernatural horror in literature (a must read starting point for any horror lover). Apparently this novel, as appreciated and as glorified today for its thematic, narrative and structural value (often imitated) was denounced and the author harshly criticized, condemned, even on the verge of destroying the author's further career, and all of that because of the "hints" of various sexual activities. These hints of "activities" would barely cause a modern reader to pause, were apparently enough for the stuck up, pole-up-the-rectum Victorian literary critics to foam from their mouths in anger and bile, condemning and vilifying the author.
The novel starts with a crazy professor, Raymond, calling his rational friend, Clarke to witness a brain surgery on a 17 year old girl Mary which will enable her to see the supernatural world. It is slightly implied that Mary is having a sexual relationship with Raymond, and that he doesn't care much about her, considering her inferior. I am sure the modern feminists are getting a fit of blinding rage when reading those pages. Nevertheless, the operation is successful, kind of; Mary "sees" and goes mad. Years later there is a girl of 12 or so, Helen, who is sent to live with a rural family by a rich relative, who turns out to be Raymond (we find at the end of the book - don't read this blog if you dislike spoilers), and Helen is the child of Mary and the Great God Pan, which is not like the actual Pan from Greek mythology (if you read the myths), but more like Lucifer or Satan, and the baby is more like the "Rosemary's Baby."
Well, Helen seems to like having sex with Fauns, Satyrs and other forest thingies, even at a tender age, and involves couple of of other country children in her adventure, some of whom go mad, while other disappear in the forest. Eventually she marries a country gentleman (when she is around 19) and makes him sell all his assets and give her the money which she uses to travel around the world and take part in orgies with humans and others, while her country husband becomes a beggar and dies of hunger and fear, eventually.
Helen becomes Mrs. Beaumont later in life and a great staple in London High Life, with the small detail that everyone she fucks commits a suicide afterwards. Several "high born" gentlemen (who don't mind fucking around, apparently) end in this way until the hero of the book, Villiers, with another guy, Austin, who is there just to fill empty space it seems, confront Helen with a noose telling her to kill herself or they will expose her to the police. As improbable as it sounds, she does kill herself, and her body changes forms between female and male, beasts, half-beasts, etc. until finally rests in an amorphous form of black jelly. Now we see where Lovecraft got his inspiration for the Shoggoth.
It is a well written novella with very frequent uses of "unspeakable", "indescribable" and similar Lovecraftian exaggerations of things that today would be considered very mundane compared to the sick psychological horror that causes mental trauma and pathological conditions in the modern readers.
The novel starts with a crazy professor, Raymond, calling his rational friend, Clarke to witness a brain surgery on a 17 year old girl Mary which will enable her to see the supernatural world. It is slightly implied that Mary is having a sexual relationship with Raymond, and that he doesn't care much about her, considering her inferior. I am sure the modern feminists are getting a fit of blinding rage when reading those pages. Nevertheless, the operation is successful, kind of; Mary "sees" and goes mad. Years later there is a girl of 12 or so, Helen, who is sent to live with a rural family by a rich relative, who turns out to be Raymond (we find at the end of the book - don't read this blog if you dislike spoilers), and Helen is the child of Mary and the Great God Pan, which is not like the actual Pan from Greek mythology (if you read the myths), but more like Lucifer or Satan, and the baby is more like the "Rosemary's Baby."
Well, Helen seems to like having sex with Fauns, Satyrs and other forest thingies, even at a tender age, and involves couple of of other country children in her adventure, some of whom go mad, while other disappear in the forest. Eventually she marries a country gentleman (when she is around 19) and makes him sell all his assets and give her the money which she uses to travel around the world and take part in orgies with humans and others, while her country husband becomes a beggar and dies of hunger and fear, eventually.
Helen becomes Mrs. Beaumont later in life and a great staple in London High Life, with the small detail that everyone she fucks commits a suicide afterwards. Several "high born" gentlemen (who don't mind fucking around, apparently) end in this way until the hero of the book, Villiers, with another guy, Austin, who is there just to fill empty space it seems, confront Helen with a noose telling her to kill herself or they will expose her to the police. As improbable as it sounds, she does kill herself, and her body changes forms between female and male, beasts, half-beasts, etc. until finally rests in an amorphous form of black jelly. Now we see where Lovecraft got his inspiration for the Shoggoth.
It is a well written novella with very frequent uses of "unspeakable", "indescribable" and similar Lovecraftian exaggerations of things that today would be considered very mundane compared to the sick psychological horror that causes mental trauma and pathological conditions in the modern readers.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
"Season of Storms" by Andrzej Sapkowski
This is the last book about the Witcher Geralt of Rivia. It was written in 2013, the previous volume, "The Lady of the Lake" being finished in 1999 (half a decade before the first Witcher game by CD Project RED was released). Since the plot logically finished in "The Lady of the Lake", Sapkowski went back and wrote this timeline somewhere between the different stories of "The Last Wish", just after Geralt and Yennefer broke up, and a couple of years before they get back together (in another story in "The Last Wish"). Ciri is barely mentioned.
Geralt and Dandelion find themselves in the kingdom of Kerrack, where some political games are being played, and of course there is a sorceress involved, Coral, and her beautiful assistant Mozaik. Geralt is being framed by Coral, and he gets imprisoned, and his Witcher swords stolen. Eventually she frees him (it was a 'game') and has sex with him for several weeks.
He gets used by a local criminal to fight a beast in the arena for others entertainment and gets sent to a wizards castle where they manufacture different 'inventions' like half-trolls-half-dwarves and different giant lizards and spiders to be used as guards. Unfortunately the wizards in the castle are mostly crazy psychopaths who kill over 40 people in surrounding villages for their own entertainment, having their dwarf trolls tear 5 year old children in half.
Geralt finds the truth, and kills some of the greatest offenders, but leaves the castle with the rest of them, to go back to Kerrack for the wedding of the old king, because he was blackmailed by the kings younger son, who tries to kill Dandelion. The king learns about the plots agains him by his sons, and exiles them both, however the third son comes back and kills his father becoming king.
Coral runs away from the kingdom, and Mozaik has about two weeks of sex with Geralt, before he leaves her alone in their bed one morning, never to return. Yennefer buys Geralt's sword which were auctioned in Novigrad, and Geralt continues on his adventures with Dandelion. Oh, Nimue is in the book too, 105 years after Geralt's death in 1378, just going on her way to Aretuza to become a sorceress.
Geralt and Dandelion find themselves in the kingdom of Kerrack, where some political games are being played, and of course there is a sorceress involved, Coral, and her beautiful assistant Mozaik. Geralt is being framed by Coral, and he gets imprisoned, and his Witcher swords stolen. Eventually she frees him (it was a 'game') and has sex with him for several weeks.
He gets used by a local criminal to fight a beast in the arena for others entertainment and gets sent to a wizards castle where they manufacture different 'inventions' like half-trolls-half-dwarves and different giant lizards and spiders to be used as guards. Unfortunately the wizards in the castle are mostly crazy psychopaths who kill over 40 people in surrounding villages for their own entertainment, having their dwarf trolls tear 5 year old children in half.
Geralt finds the truth, and kills some of the greatest offenders, but leaves the castle with the rest of them, to go back to Kerrack for the wedding of the old king, because he was blackmailed by the kings younger son, who tries to kill Dandelion. The king learns about the plots agains him by his sons, and exiles them both, however the third son comes back and kills his father becoming king.
Coral runs away from the kingdom, and Mozaik has about two weeks of sex with Geralt, before he leaves her alone in their bed one morning, never to return. Yennefer buys Geralt's sword which were auctioned in Novigrad, and Geralt continues on his adventures with Dandelion. Oh, Nimue is in the book too, 105 years after Geralt's death in 1378, just going on her way to Aretuza to become a sorceress.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
"The Lady of the Lake" by Andrzej Sapkowski
Nimue, as the Lady of The Lake says her real name is, appears as a major character in the first Witcher game by CD Projekt Red and you can even bed her if you do the right sequence of actions and dialogue options. Not, so in the book. The Lady of the Lake together with a oneiromancer lady, a few centuries in the future, are trying to figure out the exact events that happened around the lodge of sorceresses, Ciri and the wars, as in their time they only exist as archaeological evidence and in well-censored books. They are able to discern most of the events as they really happpened, not as the censored books describe them, and pinpoint the exact time that Ciri will pass through their time and space, as Ciri can travel through both. They both witness Ciri appearing in the sky above their lake for the moment, and then disappearing again in another timespace jump. Nimue has regular sex with the King Fisher in the book, while in the game that is only vaguely hinted at. Maybe so Geralt doesn't get offended? As every man likes to think that the women he's ploughing waited their entire lives just for him, and no other did even come close to qualifying.
In another world Ciri meets Galahad who wants to take her to Camelot to meet King Arthur. Borrowing much? Seems like a ploy to increase word count. Hey Sapkowski, isn't it enough that you lifted a gazzilion things straight out of Tolkien and Moorcock? And you had the guts to ask CD Project Red for more money, after you declined any profit and merchandise sharing outright and asked to be paid fully in advance? You didn't think Polish devs could whip out an amazing game? Better than the books, that's for sure! And that crappy Polish movie and series (let's hope Netflix doesn't completely screw it up, like with Altered Carbon).
Anyway, I digress. Everything here is just my personal, non-binding, time-specific opinion, in any case. So we go back to where we left things in the other book. Leo Bonhart is now at Vilgefortz' castle, and it seem the two of them are sharing the role of the 'main villain' in this series. But fear not, our heroes get to the castle eventually, but not before Ciri, who somehow just walks in (???) and surrenders her weapons, so that Vilgefortz can expressly tie her to the "raping chair" and proceed to tell her how he will impregnate her with his own sperm, but through a glass apparatus, as she's not worthy to receive his penis inside, and then cut out her placenta while she is still alive and pregnant. Bonhart wants to rape her here (he had many chances before), but Vilgefortz shushes him away.
Not to worry, Geralt and company are here, after spending a great time in Touissant (go play Witcher 3, Blood and Wine DLC for a feel), the land of wine, sex and some honey. Of course, our little fellowship from last time goes head-first into Vilgefortz castle and most of them manage to get themselves killed in the process. Ciri kills Leo, but it is a bit of anti-climatic, since it doesn't last long, and Ciri is definitely not vengeful (or deranged) enough to make this passage more entertaining. After all, that animal Leo Bonhart was one of the most vicious, cruel and deranged murderers in the entire series of books, which do not lack deranged murderers, quite on the contrary. Well, Ciri just slashes his throat and walks away not even watching him die choking on his own blood.
Neveryoumind. Geralt eventually reaches Vilgefortz, which is very unimpressive as villains go, and after some mediocre fight, with Yennefer, cuts him in half. Regis dies unfortunately. So also do Milva, Cahir and Anguilleme. Sad.
The book continues for another 50 pages after the defeat of Vilgefortz and it is mostly about political intrigue, the lodge of sorcerresses, politics, Ciri and Geralt trip of revenge and reward, etc. Geralt and Yennefer get killed at some peasant uprising (after surviving pretty much the entire world of monster and enemies in the last 7 books). Ciri maybe revives them. Maybe not. At the end Ciri leaves with Lancelot for Camelot. Or does she???
In another world Ciri meets Galahad who wants to take her to Camelot to meet King Arthur. Borrowing much? Seems like a ploy to increase word count. Hey Sapkowski, isn't it enough that you lifted a gazzilion things straight out of Tolkien and Moorcock? And you had the guts to ask CD Project Red for more money, after you declined any profit and merchandise sharing outright and asked to be paid fully in advance? You didn't think Polish devs could whip out an amazing game? Better than the books, that's for sure! And that crappy Polish movie and series (let's hope Netflix doesn't completely screw it up, like with Altered Carbon).
Anyway, I digress. Everything here is just my personal, non-binding, time-specific opinion, in any case. So we go back to where we left things in the other book. Leo Bonhart is now at Vilgefortz' castle, and it seem the two of them are sharing the role of the 'main villain' in this series. But fear not, our heroes get to the castle eventually, but not before Ciri, who somehow just walks in (???) and surrenders her weapons, so that Vilgefortz can expressly tie her to the "raping chair" and proceed to tell her how he will impregnate her with his own sperm, but through a glass apparatus, as she's not worthy to receive his penis inside, and then cut out her placenta while she is still alive and pregnant. Bonhart wants to rape her here (he had many chances before), but Vilgefortz shushes him away.
Not to worry, Geralt and company are here, after spending a great time in Touissant (go play Witcher 3, Blood and Wine DLC for a feel), the land of wine, sex and some honey. Of course, our little fellowship from last time goes head-first into Vilgefortz castle and most of them manage to get themselves killed in the process. Ciri kills Leo, but it is a bit of anti-climatic, since it doesn't last long, and Ciri is definitely not vengeful (or deranged) enough to make this passage more entertaining. After all, that animal Leo Bonhart was one of the most vicious, cruel and deranged murderers in the entire series of books, which do not lack deranged murderers, quite on the contrary. Well, Ciri just slashes his throat and walks away not even watching him die choking on his own blood.
Neveryoumind. Geralt eventually reaches Vilgefortz, which is very unimpressive as villains go, and after some mediocre fight, with Yennefer, cuts him in half. Regis dies unfortunately. So also do Milva, Cahir and Anguilleme. Sad.
The book continues for another 50 pages after the defeat of Vilgefortz and it is mostly about political intrigue, the lodge of sorcerresses, politics, Ciri and Geralt trip of revenge and reward, etc. Geralt and Yennefer get killed at some peasant uprising (after surviving pretty much the entire world of monster and enemies in the last 7 books). Ciri maybe revives them. Maybe not. At the end Ciri leaves with Lancelot for Camelot. Or does she???
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