Happy Father's Day

As I always do, on Father's Day I think of the wonderful fathers in my life.  My grandfather (who passed away in 2022), my godfather, and of course my father.  And in a special way, I always remember my dear, dear, blogging grandfather, who used to share words of wisdom and comments on this blog, back in its heyday.  I miss you, O.F., and I hope that you're happier where you are now. 

Under the Pyramids (H.P. Lovecraft)

The other day, my assistants asked me if I had ready anything by H.P. Lovecraft before.  And I admitted that I had not.  So, Kilbronson and Ahmed laid this title on my desk--a literary mashup of Lovecraft and Harry Houdini--as in the famous magician, Harry Houdini.  How could I not get excited about that?

Um...

Under the Pyramids by H.P. Lovecraft has two distinctions to its name...first, this is my first foray into Lovecraft territory.  And second, I really hated this story.  I won't lie to you, dear readers.  This was not a good story.

Spoilers Ahead:

I mean, it started off pretty good.  Harry Houdini himself goes on vacation in Egypt, tries to stay incognito and ends up accidentally attracting too much attention when he tries to "show up" a lesser magician.  

The real meat and potatoes, however, occurs when Houdini acts as the "second" in a fight on a pyramid between his guide and another man--and learns that the whole thing was a setup to get him alone in the desert in the middle of the night so that he could be bound and gagged and tossed into a hole in the pyramid.  Apparently, the Egyptians felt that Houdini's tricks were somehow insulting to the ancient magic of their country.

I found Lovecraft's writing to be ridiculously edgy, and everything was like "oh no!  The world is a terrifying dark place full of great elder gods that existed before time and don't even care because we're so pathetically insignificant."  Bleah.  Count me unimpressed.  It wasn't scary, it was just weird, and not in a good way.

I'll be honest and say that I probably won't be reading anymore Lovecraft after this.  If you think I should give him another go, however, please feel free to comment your favorite stories and change my mind.

Lost in a Pyramid or the Mummy's Curse (Louisa May Alcott)

In order to help me find more books to fill my shelves, I hired two assistants--an Arabic Egyptian named Ahmed and a Londoner named Kilbronson.  Together, we hope to track down as many classic mummy stories as we can.  

Within a day, they had already brought me a goodish pile, and this one was towards the top of the list.  It's a little-known gem by Louisa May Alcott (you know, of Little Women fame?).  Now, I'll start this review my admitting that I'm not in love with this book cover.  But, that's the cover that Goodreads used, so that's the one that I'm going to use, too.

So, let's talk about this mummy chiller.  Finally, we have a mummy that's not completely sweet and charming!  Ironically, though, the mummy doesn't do too much on her own.  Of course, as always, there are spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk.

In this story, a man gives his girlfriend some seeds, telling her that he cannot share their origin, because that story is too terrible to recount.  She pushes back slightly and the man folds like a cheap suit and tells her everything.

And everything, in this context, is a story about he and his friend made a bunch of stupid decisions, got lost in a pyramid, and burned a mummy in order to create a smoke signal for their rescuers to follow.  Apparently, the mummy they burned was buried with a small box of seeds close to her breast, and of course, there's not only a curse on the seeds, there's a curse on her, too--because she's a sorceress.

If you're confused, it's okay.  So was I.  Two friends burn an Egyptian sorceress's mummy in order to create a smoke signal and bring about her wrath is not a usual story that you'd expect to find.  But, here's where it gets crazy.  The girlfriend suggests planting the sorceress's seeds.  In protest, her boyfriend throws them into the fire, only to reveal later that he had saved one of the seeds and had his friend plant it.  And the girlfriend reveals that she did the same thing.

Against all better judgement, friend and girlfriend decide to wear their flowers on their person, and the flower's deadly poison (a mummy's curse?) seeps into their skin and kills them.  Shock and horror abound!

I guess I'd have to admit that I saw the ending coming--after a point.  And while I enjoyed this story, it was too short to really sink my teeth into.  The biggest thing that stood out to me is the continual line of terrible decisions being made by all the characters involved.

Cheers to my assistants for starting things off with a bang.  I'll keep you all posted on the other titles they send my way.