vertellerpaul's reviews
223 reviews

Nice stories, some classics, others average. Quite enjoyed it.

Lovely short stories., most are in fact very short. O.Henry writes lovingly about every one of his characters.

A collection of short stories, some funny, with twist endings. O.Henry's style is witty, but sometimes difficult to understand. He often introduces his stories with his view on American history and society, which is not always easy to understand for the modern reader. The stories are inventive and creative. A nice discovery.

Fun, bizarre stories. The author clearly loves his eccentric characters. All stories have a great beginning and build up very nicely, but then they end. They just end. You expect a twist ending or some sort of closing, conclusion or whatever. But it seems as if the author just stopped writing at some point. That said, the stories were a nice read, reminding me of Roald Dahl, O. Henry and even Edgar Allan Poe.

This is a book that takes its time. A summary of all the important actions and events in the book would take less than a single page. DuMaurier uses many, many words for descriptions and especially expectations, thoughts, hopes, dreams, opinions and memories of the nameless, unreliable narrator of the story. And that's perfect. This is a book to read with a big cup of tea and a fire in the fireplace on long winter nights. DuMaurier brings you to Manderley in this book that starts off as a romantic love story, changes into an account of an unhappy marriage and then becomes a mystery, almost a whodunnit, ending on a fine note of gothic suspense.
Some of the revelations and twists are fairly predictable: the affair of the masked ball, for instance. However, knowing (or suspecting) what's going to happen, makes the irony of the preceding passages and the double meaning of what the characters say even stronger. The characterizations are fine: you either love the characters or you love to hate them. And you have to adapt your opinion about the characters several times.
This is the first book in a long time that kept me up.

Eerder las ik Phantasamnesia van dezelfde schrijver, een boek dat geplaagd werd door heel vreemde zinswendingen en een ernstig gebrek aan eindredactie: veel te veel taal-, stijl- en typefouten. Bovendien was het een erg traag boek waarin van alles gebeurde zonder dat het zin of functie had in het verhaal.
Dit boek is heel wat beter: in taal en stijl is Olde Heuvelt een stuk volwassener geworden en het verhaal is samenhangender en veel leesbaarder. Laten we eerst vaststellen dat de aanduiding "fantasy" én de fantasy-achtige titel zeer misleidend zijn. Dit is eerder magisch-realisme dan klassieke fantasy. Het boek speelt zich af in een zeer recent verleden, maar magie en bovennatuurlijke wezens spelen een grote rol. Gezien enkele zeer gruwelijke scenes zou het boek ook onder de noemer "horror" kunnen vallen. Ook het thema: leven, dood en onsterfelijkheid past in het genre van magisch-realistische horror. Verwacht dus geen boek over rondhupsende elfen en baardige dwergen.
Zo lang ik het verhaal nog kon volgen (tot en met "deel vijf") vond ik het een spannend, nieuwsgierigmakend boek vol verrassingen (en verassingen, vergeef me de woordspeling). Veel ellende, in bloederig detail beschreven ziekte en dood, maar allemaal in een duizelingwekkende maalstroom van een verhaal. Het geniale gegeven dat Don Fuego verspreid was geraakt over heel veel lichamen in Amerika was een geniale vondst, bijna John-Irvingachtig in morbiditeit. Heel jammer dat dát niet verder werd uitgewerkt.
Toen raakte ik in "deel zes" (op ruim driekwart van het boek) de draad kwijt. Er was daar een of andere revelatie, een onthulling over de wensen die Travis beter niet had kunnen doen, het feit dat Don Fuego in hem zijn zoon had gezien, de rol van Luke en Sharon, de anorgs en hoe Travis uiteindelijk precies het verkeerde bleek te hebben gedaan. Deze onthulling had voor mij geen enkele logica (net als, overigens, de onthullingen aan het einde van Phantasamnesia). Voeg daarbij dat er de nodige visioenen worden beschreven en het op het eind niet meer duidelijk is wat nu droom en werkelijkheid is. Wat is de rol van de schelp, die in de opmaak van het boek zo'n grote rol speelt? En van de Tijuana Sloughs? Wat staat symbool voor wat?
Ik wilde het boek vier sterren geven. De ene ster ging eraf door soms wat onlogische dialogen, waarin iemand iets vraagt dat hem eerder al duidelijk was en vanwege het grote aantal overbodige anglicismen. Het beperkte repertoire, met name aan metaforen en vergelijkingen ("zijn tong voelde als as", minstens vier keer), hielp niet mee.
Door het ondoorgrondelijke einde verliest het boek helaas een tweede ster.
Het was meeslepend, mysterieus en ik ga zeker van dezelfde schrijver ook Hex lezen, maar ik hoop dat ik die tot het einde toe zal kunnen volgen.

A very short guide to the conscious or unconscious method of producing ideas. In short the argument runs like this:
An idea is a combination of existing elements. To produce an idea one must know the subject of the idea as well as possess a significant amount of general knowledge.
First: one gets to know the subject
Second: one consciously tries to combine elements from the research in step 1 and comes up with partial ideas.
Third: one lets it rest, relaxes and waits.
Fourth: an idea will present itself.
Fifth: the idea needs to be shaped into a useable form.
This is a very recognizable description of any creative process, written by someone who combines practical experience in the field of advertising with a lot of knowledge, both general and specific. It can serve both as a description of existing processes and as a guide to follow.
It's a quick read, well written, witty at times, quoting examples from Sherlock Holmes stories and other unlikely, but very pertinent sources. Highly recommended if you're (trying to be) a creative person.

Never judge a book by its cover. The cover on this book is hideous, garish colors and a really bad thumbs-up picture of the author. What were they thinking?! The layout of the book matches the poor cover: large pages of grey text, wide lines and a fairly ugly font (especially in the titles).
That said, I found the contents really quite useful. A very practical analysis of the uses of storytelling in semi-formal settings, mainly the classroom. Settings where usually the story itself is not the goal, but stories are told with a specific teaching purpose in mind. The author provides easy-to-use steps, tips and ideas for any teacher aspiring to be a storyteller in their classroom (as every teacher should be!) As an unexpected bonus, the author provides a wealth of information for teaching storytelling to a class. There are many exercises, some good, others less than spectacular, but still useful.
Haven is clearly not a teacher. His chapter on the purposes of classroom storytelling is incomplete and not entirely systematic. He himself seems to be aware of that.
I find myself disagreeing with Haven on two key points (and that's where the book loses a star, apart from the cover and layout):
1. It's a myth that non-verbal communication is 70% of the message, whereas the words convey only 30%, as Haven claims. He gives the often-repeated example that when you say "I hate you" in a soft, purring voice, that will shift the meaning of the message 180 degrees. He's right. Yet changing the words to "I just repaired your car" changes the message a lot more.
2. Stories are not character driven, as Haven claims (many others do too, by the way). While characters are very important, a story with one-dimensional, unknowable or very general characters, but with a very strong plot (most jokes, horror stories, just-so stories, folk tales and fairy tales) are very enjoyable. A story in which we learn everything there is to know about a character, but without any actions or events (I.e. without a plot) is very boring. Unfortunately Haven doesn't give us many tips and ideas on plot construction. He does however say very sensible things about character construction. For plots we'll turn to Robert McKee's Story.

Don't read this book, just read the final chapter. Armstrong, having almost no knowledge of myth, wrote a book for people without any knowledge of myth. She makes broad, sweeping and utterly unprovable statements about myth and ritual in prehistoric times, shows very little understanding of classical mythology and tries to impose a full historical story on the development of myth. My main conclusion is that it is utterly impossible to write a "short" history of myth.
It's only in the final chapter that Armstrong comes into her own. There is still some nonsense there (Luther was depressed because of his rational approach to religion?!), but her essay on the essential value of mythology as an art form and the way other art forms may take its place is brilliant and earned the book a whole extra star.