pigeons are evil, they killed my plant

– it was only a sprouted onion –

but forget it i sha’n't.

o owlet i spotted,

o small owl so dotted,

what’s up?

kites are scary, they attacked my dog

– it was barking quite loudly –

eyes gleaming in the smog!

o owlet composed,

o bright yellow nose,

what’s up?

the paradise flycatcher was a flash of white,

the bulbuls were cheerful but dim-witted,

the crow pheasant’s full of spite.

o owlet so wise

o terrifier of mice

what, i say, what’s up?

with a boot in her ear

and hair that swooped on end.

she carried some mice

some feet, some ice,

and galloped round the bend.

o girl o girl,

o boot, o ear,

the other other mice squeaked and carrolled,

do not leave us

all alone,

                     with your cousin harold.

Also: there be spoilers here. Many. Maybe. I’ve not written ‘em out yet, but I did draw a spoiler dragon that I’m dying to put up somewhere.

First thing: What a thoroughly excellent book The Crippled God is. Steven Erikson is such a nice man: he doesn’t clear his throat, stick his nose in the air (as well he might, as the writer of many millions of really good words) and be all “Ahem. Here is my existential treatise you guys. It’s full of doom and gloom with brief flickers of hope and some redeeming moments of compassion. Make sure you accord it proper respect.”

Instead he writes it into this tightly-plotted, suspenseful story that’s bursting with strange characters, random machinations, giant battles, creepy bits, funny bits (The first time Tehol Beddict shows up, in a Brys flashback, I giggled so loudly that the auto guy slowed down on the Ring Road so as to turn back and look worriedly at me.) and insanely miserable bits. He even manages to sneak in bits so maudlin Dickens would be iffy about them. And it is fully awesome.

Over the last nine books, Erikson has introduced us to about eight hundred characters, each oozing all kinds of kindness and nastiness and plans and general coolth. Shoving them all into this book’s giant convergence means that whoever your favourite ones are, you probably feel a bit short-changed. I, for one, would’ve gladly skipped most of the other sub-plots if it meant more Quick Ben/Kalam, Hellian/Urb and Shadowthrone/Cotillion. The vast amount of plot also means fewer jokes, and less random sitting around and complaining — I’ve read lots of reviews of Malazan over the years, that are less than thrilled with all the verbal back-and-forthing in the series, but I’ve always loved Erikson’s conversations. He is at his best when he has two characters playing off each other. There’s a reason all my favourites come in pairs. Then there’s Erikson’s sibling thing – eighty percent of everyone’s troubles have to do with their siblings, somehow. I was a bit disappointed we didn’t see Quick Ben’s sister in this book, actually. He’s so loony and untouchable, and she’s one of the few characters who really upsets him, that you know them hanging out together would’ve been priceless.

I was also slightly let down by the great coming together of all the plot points – mainly because I didn’t want them to. I love the way the series is full of these loose canons randomly ricocheting off each other and somehow getting stuff done. The knowledge that some of them were actually, to some extent, controlled, made them much less fun, I thought. The other reason this upset me is ‘cos I liked Shadowthrone and Cotillion being snide, devious, awful people – retrospectively, their greater cause, while noble and all, made every time they appeared in the previous books cackling ominously a little bit childish.

*  *  *  *  *

Kaminsod (the crippled god’s real name) is my new favourite word. It’s a sneeze and an oath. “Kaminsod that cook,” the Duchess might say elegantly to Alice, choking on her soup and shunning her baby. “Why’d she put so much pepper?”

Or: “Kaminsod and bebother those dwarves!” Bilbo Baggins could huff when Thorin and co. invade his house and eat all his food.

Or: “You and your kaminsodden collection!” one could whuffle at one’s favourite dust-connoisseur friend in a moment of anger.

a fly of pomp and fibre

a fly of stench and food. take care

never to offend her.

dear terribly hairy fly! dear fly,

don’t scruple to ignore me.

i have no social status, i

but have a nose most sneezy.

the terribly hairy fly – no fly

was ever quite so furry -

took my words with but a smile,

and flithered away bravely.

i haven’t seen her since, oh woe!

i haven’t sniffed her stink.

but when my nose with sneezes flows,

somewhere she’s sniggering.

a purple day for dustpans, a purple day askance -

a day of days for tapirs,

is a day of deep sunshine.

for tapirs are so full of fluff

they speak in sparkling wine.

Art by the insanely cool Atula Siriwardane.

Much toil by Reena Puri who refuses to get a blog.

Layout and design by Anil, who has similar aversion to blogs.

Colouring by Dhanu and Adarsh.

Lots of hard work I cannot even imagine needed doing by all the people at Amar Chitra Katha.

Script by me.

Tra la la.

ETA:  Please to be reading it? This is where you can get it.

2. It’s official: Bangalore is what causes my permanent cold. All of last week I was an easy-breathing, hankyless person. Not one sneeze. I felt like someone else.

3. So you know how awesome it is that wordpress lets you know intimate details of your visitors’ private lives like where they got their link to you from, and what precise combination of words fed into a search engine led them here? Today (ok, not today today. This post has been languishing in my drafts folder for a while, waiting for me to draw it a suitable animal) I logged in to find that not one but two (two! two!) people got here by using for their search that delicate, evocative phrase “donkey sex lion”.  I hooted hysterically for 10 minutes. I now want to cry, as I imagine all my fond literary aspirations being trampled on by a reputation for bestiality.

4. You know how some people talk about the book that changed their life? Then there are the people who’ve read more than one book.

Books, I have always found, are sociable people, and like company. The important thing is to read and to be reading – a continuous thing, implying that one has read in the past, is doing so nowish, and will continue to do so in the future.

Compare swimming. One doesn’t swim one breadth and declare: I have swum. It changed my life. One swims many breadths, many lengths, perhaps a lake, and says ‘I swim’ – or if you are desperately enthusiastic, ‘I like swimming.’

5. I love listening to Nick Drake on rainy days.

6. When we were small,  my sister and I went to a million music classes. We kept making excuses to stop taking them, on account of how they seemed (at the time) a terrible waste of our evenings. Plus I hated having a high, weedy voice. When I talk, it’s sort of inaudible and nondescript, but when I sing I attract bats. I wanted (still do) a deep bass full of fire and brimstone, something awe-inspiring and magnificent. As ever, my desire for grandiosity was matched only by my complete lack of skill. My singing voice was, I felt, more suited to a rabbit. I’m not sure what my sister’s hang-up was, since her voice was distinctly deeper than mine (but then the squirrel on the tree outside my window has been known to have a deeper singing voice than mine) but clearly she too had some vast singing shame, and we sulked in wondrous togetherness. It was the one thing we always agreed upon. Our lack of enthusiasm must’ve been contagious, because sometimes the teachers also made similar excuses and never came back.

And sometimes, our (oh so cruel!) parents would line us up and ask us to sing at random relatives.  We’d valiantly not look at each other, and start off ok – both of us have a respectable sense of tune. A line later (before the song could go high and my falsetto could sneak out) — and in my memories our embarrassment threshold was so neatly aligned that we never did need to look at each other for confirmation — we would just stop. And one of us would say very firmly, ignoring my parents’ fond promptings: paadiyaach. (“I’ve sung”. Past perfect, indicating that there would be no more singing in the future. We hoped.)

Apparently adulthood has made me no better at ending things.

I have always had a slight case of over-identification with Yudhishtra (indecisive, loves his dog, wimpy, older sibling, likes to argue, thinks of himself as occupying moral high ground, lacks hand-eye co-ordination, dislikes strenuous activities – it’s a terrifyingly long list), especially when my self-respect levels get low, and I start to wonder if a) I am really that pompous and if b)  I should take up gambling.

“Yudhishtra’s not bad,” I said aloud in a would-be-casual voice.

My sister said she preferred Nakula and Sahadeva ‘cos no one seems to like them, not even Vyasa.  (Karna has doomed tragic hero written all over his face in 50 point font, and gets so much pity we disqualified him. We like our heroes petty and mockable. Not that Karna isn’t mockable or anything. He’s just such a sympathy hound that we find him a bit tiring.)  “Pick one,” I insisted.  So she picked Sahadeva, saying “Everyone in the book is always going on about how that stupid Nakula is so pretty! Poor Sahadeva! I’m going to like him best!”

Mid-snigger it occurred to me that she and I had had that exact conversation before:

Me: John is such a smart-aleck!

Her: And Paul is always so cutesy! And smug!

Me: I like George best. Look at him all passive-aggressively ignoring the Lennon-McCartney hits and writing his weird sitar things and preaching world peace in a self-righteous way!

Her: Poor Ringo! Why does no-one like Ringo? I think Ringo is the coolest!

Several times before, actually. Us watching Justice League:

Me: Superman and Wonder Woman are so bossy!

Her: And Batman and Green Lantern are so busy over-compensating for their random issues!

Both of us: Poor J’onn J’onzz got knocked out again! Bwahahaha. Awww.

Us picking a pup:

Me: I don’t want the white furry one. So cute and smug!

Her: The dark brown one is all sleek and sophisticated-looking.

Me: The small black one looks sort of clever. Look how sneakily it bit Amma.

Her: Poor thing, it’s tiny! It must be the runt. I bet the big ones push it around all the time! It must be hungry, not vicious.

Both of us: We want THIS one!

In the matter of dog we were lucky to find one that was both George and Ringo, both clever-quiet-evil and paavam.

The Ringo Syndrome: The psychological tendency to identify with, or be excessively fond of, the most paavam and over-looked character in a group, out of sheer cussedness.  Symptoms include Beatles posters with John, Paul and George cut out of them; building altars to Bifur, Bofur and Bombur; and Brahma worship. Complications that may arise from the Ringo Syndrome include an obsession with all drummers, a fervid fondness for Branwell Bronte, and a passion for the Thomas Covenant books. (Thomas Covenant is a Stephen Donaldson hero whose primary characteristic is the ability to whine “Leper! Outcast! Unclean!” and writhe in his own pathetic-ness whenever he is called upon to do something plot-related. In his defense, he does have leprosy, and is therefore actually deserving of sympathy. )

My sister has a raging case of Ringo Syndrome.  Her favourite Zeppelin is John Paul Jones. When we play monopoly she always chooses the tragic little iron-shaped counter which we all shun. I also have mild Ringo Syndrome – as when I read the Ramayana, and spend most of it feeling sorry for poor Shatrughna’s lack of plot.

On a mildly less flippant note: G‘s theory is that Shatrughna is the remnant of a once famous folk character whose story has been literally suppressed by the Rama myth. What does that make Ringo I wonder? My – less plausible – theory is that the Shatrughna is a position, a blank blank chair upon which the reader (or listener or viewer) can inflict its own prejudices and personality. It is the empty chair upon which the reader seats themselves, from which she has an excellent ringside view of the action, the narrative equivalent of the filmic camera-narrator. If you are the sort of person who is neither Hero (Rama), nor Sidekick (Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman), nor particularly villainous that day, then you end up having to identify with Shatrughna, that blankest of slates.

When I read the Ramayana, for example, I imagine Shatrughna much like myself: he first suggests that everyone stop making such a big deal about the whole throne thing, then when they continue to angst he rolls his eyes at his family’s melodrama and spends the rest of the epic reading, walking dogs, and honing his sarcasm with Sumitra, his almost equally plot-less mother.

(I mentioned it to my sister. “I always think of Shatrughna as quiet and maths-y and domestic,” she said modestly, “Like me. He probably spends his time knitting hyperbolic surfaces.”)

Research (I asked some friends, ok. Several.) indicates that my sister and my combined ability to pick the most generally ignored person is like a force of nature. Hide your wimpiness and intellectual pretensions as well as you can, but we will sniff you out like neurotic bloodhounds.

But she is better at it than I am.

o bird so rare in feet and form,

o bird that shimmers off the ground.

o birdie fair! o birdie wise!

o birdie birdie, name your price.

oh who will remember the boy in a can?

his teeth are december, his nose a meringue.

his shoulders are slumped in the ease of defeat;

when you speak to him he huddles, trembly as a beet.