FFB, THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT, Barbara Hambly

This is the only novel about vampires I ever read and it was awarded the LOCUS Award for Horror. You would expect I would try Anne Rice next but she was too gothic for my tastes.

 

From wikipedia.  

Somebody is killing the vampires of London. Against the wishes of his fellow undead, Simon Ysidro, oldest of the London vampires, seeks the assistance of Oxford professor James Asher, former spy for the British government. Ysidro gains Asher's cooperation by threatening the life of his beautiful young wife, Lydia.

Unbeknownst to Ysidro, Asher enlists the help of his wife, a physician with a keenly analytical mind. Asher prowls the streets and crypts of London with Ysidro, entering the dark underworld of the undead, as Lydia combs property records and medical journals for clues as to who might have the means and the motive to carry out the slaughter.

Asher's theory is that the killer must be a vampire himself, one able to remain awake and active in the daytime. Lydia develops a theory as to how such a vampire might come to be. Together Asher and Ysidro travel to Paris to seek out the mythical eldest of all vampires, Brother Anthony, who might be either the killer himself, or the key to the killer's undoing.

What they discover is a threat to the living as well as the undead. A scientist seeking to artificially endow British agents with the powers of vampires is behind the killings. The scientist's son has been transformed into a hybrid vampiric monster who can walk in the daylight, but craves the blood of other vampires to arrest the degeneration of his body. Asher and Ysidro, aided by Brother Anthony, destroy the hybrid vampire and end the threat. Ysidro leaves Asher and Lydia in peace and vanishes from their lives.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Birds" Daphne DuMaurier

 

Almost a novella, this is quite different from the Hitchcock movie. The story concerns the reaction of a young family to the attack from the birds. The father immediately senses danger and begins boarding up windows. They hear reports on the radio that this is a country-wide phenomena. The birds seem to come and go with the tides so there is time between attacks although they are just as savage as in the movie. There is no romance in this version. It is about the father trying to save his family. It ends ambiguously. I don't remember if the movie did too. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

FOR SOME REASON, I CANNOT PICK UP LINKS.  

Monday, Monday

A very enjoyable movie. Wonderfully acted and filmed. Nice seeing Cape Cod again. I also saw the Spanish film, Romeria, about a young woman trying to put together her parents' story.

I enjoyed having Megan here and watching Josh and her have time to spend together.  We went to three good restaurants and took Megan around Detroit. It seems like an ode to sports with four stadiums with a few miles of each other. Julie and Kevin were able to join us for dinner. Kevin got a job at Wisconsin referring intramural soccer games. 

We went to two great used bookstores and I bought two Jim Thompson novels. Also hit an antique store or we were too tired by then to take purchasing seriously.  

I am really enjoying JOHN ON JOHN. Douglas Stuart can really paint a picture of Scotland. 

TV: MY BRILLIANT CAREER. LANTERN, THE HEART GUY.

How are you? 
 

I'll Be Back on Monday

 

Monday, Monday

                                                August, 1978: Ocean City, NJ
 I saw THE ODYSSEY again. This time on an IMAX screen and enjoyed it even more. The night before I attended a lecture on the film, which made certain things stand out. Also saw THE END OF OAK STREET, which didn't do much for me. Hard to understand why Anne Hathaway chose this one. 

Finished WHISTLER by Ann Patchett, which was likable it not as good as TOM LAKE or DUTCH HOUSE. Reading JOHN OF JOHN (Stuart) which seems very good.

The Dream Cruise took place this Saturday. The 30th year and a bigger crowd than ever lining Woodward Avenue. Over a million people attended to see the classic cars race up and down a sixteen mile stretch that spans nine communities. 

TV-not too much. Hoping LANTERN on HBO will be good. Starting MY BRILLIANT CAREER on Netflix. 

How about you?  

 

 

FFB: KARNAK CAFE, Naguib Mahfouz

( From Ron Scheer on Buddies in the Saddle in 2015) 

Naguib Mahfouz, Karnak Café (1974)

Bit of a change today at BITS, from West to Middle East. This short novel by Nobel-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz is a sadly melancholy story of the crushing of youthful hope. Set in the 1960s around the time of the 1967 war with Israel, it describes how a generation of young Egyptians, the children of the revolution of 1954, were betrayed and lied to by their government, while being subjected to interrogation and imprisonment by secret police.

Their story is told by an older man (and stand-in for the author), who befriends a gathering of them who are regulars at a Cairo café, Al-Karnak. There they talk of politics and express their idealistic aspirations, both for themselves and their country. Abruptly disappearing for periods of time, they return shaken and demoralized. While in police custody, kept in windowless cells, they have endured harsh treatment and false accusations.

Eventually it’s revealed that they have been coerced into becoming informants, which corrodes their trust in each other and eventually leads to the death of one of them. Two, a loving couple at the story’s start, are driven apart by their guilt and shame.

Karnak Café is a troubling vision of life in a modern police state, and it sheds light for Westerners on the recent struggles in Egypt for freedom and justice. Novella-length, it takes a stand somewhat distant from political events, while clearly throwing its sympathies to the young people who speak on its pages.