The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens By Lord Dunsany

Last night I finished reading Dunsany's first Jorken's book. I have to say I was a little dissapointed, I've read three later Jorkens books and enjoyed them. What was missing from this one though was the beauty of Dunsany's prose. I thought perhaps it was my imagination, as the stories progressed they did get a little more interesting. There was a story about an egyptian princess who had a funeral and was buried so she'd cease to exist in the eyes of the gods and could marry a goatherd, there was a story of a man's trip to Mars (not nearly as enjoyable as the sequel in Jorkens remembers Africa), there was a fascinating story about a man haunted by psychosis, as he referred to it, the rat, who went traveling in India and Tibet in search of a cure.

The last story of the collection was by far the best. In the second to last tale Jorkens had married a mermaid, he stole her from a hotel where she was being exhibited. Rather than thinking it was wrong for a person to be enslaved, he thought it was wrong of himself to have stolen someone else's lively-hood and property and after a few weeks of marriage decided he should return her to the hotel. The mermaid wasn't having that though and escaped to sea. In the last story Jorkens feeling despondent found himself in magical woods where he met a witch. This story was by far the best of the book. It had all the style and beautiful prose that I have come to expect from Dunsany. It was simply amazing. Jorkens went in search of the witch and was drawn to the magical world repeatedly. Eventually he found his way to her cottage where she made him tea and they sat and stared at the fire together. It was such a lovely portrayal of two different worlds and how they met. It was a story full of sadness and regret and very beautiful.

A Shabby Genteel Story by Thackery

This story was a short novella included in the front of my copy of Philip. It was like a hundred page long version of Vanity Fair. While the story was quite different, the style and the type of characters, and abover all the humour, were very similar. Needless to say I enjoyed it immensley. It told the tale of a woman who fell on hard times and had to open a boarding house. The main part of the story focused on two of her lodgers who fell in love with her youngest daughter. The first was "an artist and a poet" with all the mockery that should be suspected to entail. The secound was a bit of a rake, who had befriended a member of the gentry so everyone thought very highly of him. When the earl or lord (I can't remember which title he held) he was highly foppish with a terrible lisp. The book was definitly more about amusing stereotypes rather than acutal characters but it was most enjoyable. It ended in a duel and marriage. I look forward to reading the novel that follows, though with the stack of books I have to read at the moment that might be awhile.