Update: Glasses, Health, assorted writing and reading

Alright. Today I finally got my glasses exactly as they should be... I think.
They should've been in order 2 weeks ago, but the people who work on these things had screwed up somewhere so instead I've been walking around with every day another variation of the same headache, alternating between an older set of glasses and the new proscription shades, which were fine and pleasant to walk around with. Pleasant, as besides dampening outside stimuli and so calming me down a little, they somehow also boost confidence or something, making it feel as if there's more of a remove between me and the world, as if the soul behind the eyes can remain hidden and less naked to whosoever takes a look at my face. The observer unobserved.

But, again, the new ones are back and as they're the main attraction I should go and get used to them.  It should be okay now... I think...

*Strains*

Ugh. Okay, more time needed to settle in, really hope I don't need to go back for this stuff again.

Also... the frame is... brown?

Well. Fuck.

Let this be a lesson to you: If you intend to go for a new frame for your glasses, do make sure you can actually see whatever the fuck you're buying. Preferably pick 'em out before the lenses themselves are busted, as that might help.

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I've been exercising more. Eating a whole lot less. 

I'm overdoing it on both of those, and it is exhausting me, But I can't stop because it's the only way that I can look at myself and feel as if I'm going forward. Although I'm starting to eat more again.

The mental issues are still very present, and there is not a day that they don't take their toll.

So, the exhaustion works on that as well, enabling it when I can't fight it. But as I am aware of it, there's no help for it and it all ends up making me feel pretty bad.

And then you have the visual dissonance with the whole glasses thing, and then you find that the world has indeed become a very undesirable place to be in.

Mental and physical exhaustion, headaches, visual impairment.

It's a cocktail that's doing a whole lot of damage for the moment.

But. You know how it goes. Day by day, you go on.

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For the rest, what have I been doing?

In the comic reading department I've been finishing off comics left and right; Northlanders, Gail Simone's Red Sonja, Loki, God Country, and some smaller stuff too which isn't in the picture and mostly anthology stuff (and which generally just isn't good at all...)

And most of the above merit some attention, and I've at least written some stuff on Northlanders because I wanted to share a scan of a particularly bad-ass drawing so that's up next, but I won't be talking about the rest so much.

Dark ark has also been read and though I thought it was very interesting, the story definitely isn't done and will have a continuation so I will have to be coming back to this one in a while when  it's actually done.

As for book write-ups; the main things on my mind now are the Time and the Gods posts, 2 of those,

 and which have lain fallow for too long now, as I've had to wait until I could get some more background for the venerable Lord Dunsany. But that has arrived now and though it's been less helpful than expected, I'll just have to plow on ahead without too much facts and imbue the post with some healthy dose of bias instead. Which, as it is a Fantasy Masterworks post, makes me nervous and hesitant.

and the Gormenghast trilogy post, which is quite a hassle, because there's so much to talk about and yet... also so little.

You could go on and on about the prose but I'm only so descriptive and not fond of hyperbole.

The story is... not so much of a story as it is a slice of life out of the goings-on of a stagnated and insular society built on ritual and veneration. There's a plot, though it's bare, and a drive ends up establishing itself, but if your main character at the end of the first novel is a 1 year old, you already know this is going to be a little different to talk about.

I've almost nothing but kind words about the first two novels though. They're unlike anything I've read and I've fallen in love with them.

But of course, then there's that third novel...

And don't get me wrong here, it's by no means bad, in my opinion. It's just rather different. Wildly different. And as this one was meant to be a bridging novel between the initial duology and whatever Peake had planned next, there's no clean satisfying resolution. Or rather, there is a resolution, but one that is also a promise, an open-endedness that needed a continuation, making Titus Alone a story that, for it to matter, needed to be built on. And that never happened.

It's also a novel where there's more going on behind the plot of 'Titus adrift in the world'; it's a novel with darker themes than its predecessors. A story where madness and identity, and a search for the self a la Sartre, vie with naked sexuality and violence.

There were smatterings of these before, but they feel more close here, more intimate and more rough, less polished and less impressive.

The departure from an almost medieval-like fantasy setting in the first two novels to a story that has helicopters, space travel, guns and cars and so on, is also rather odd.

Titus wanders through a world that is radically different from Gormenghast castle, questioning his past and upbringing, wondering if he's insane or if he's been dreaming, and it's actually quite unsettling to contemplate the dismissal of the beautifully crafted world of the first two novels.

It's a rather difficult novel to talk about without sufficient facts to back one up. Fascinating though.

Here's a link to David Louis Edelman's introduction to Titus Alone; it's an interesting read if you've just finished reading the book in question.

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Red Country also has a very short write-up coming up; one in which I'm still trying to find a middle ground so I don't over craft my write-ups so that I need to spend less time on them in general, and which is still very much an on-going progress.

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For novel reading I've picked up a book that I've had on my shelf for years and years, and which has been on the yearly To Be Read list for just as many years, and which I'm now comitted to as my next read.

Raymand Swanland!!

Glen Cook is a favourite, and though the start of this one is quite odd and a little hard yet to keep track of, it's already quite promising.
The Darkwar trilogy, made up out of Doomstalker, Warlock and Ceremony, was actually written to serve as a sort of prequel to one of Glen Cook's earlier short stories; Darkwar. Which can be found in this maybe-already-hard-to-get but pretty hardcover.

And moar Raymond Swanlaaaaand!

An entire trilogy written to justify a short story? That certainly warrants a read.
There are of course more stories in this one, none of which I've read so that'll be fun at the very least.

These also seem to be about more contemporary or urban fantasy rather than his Dread Empire or his Black Company universes and, they might not even contain *gasp* any fantasy at all.

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Everything's slowed down to a snail's pace because of the various problems but I'm at least interested in doing stuff again. I just wish the glasses wouldn't give me this much pain, as it would ease things a lot.

Maybe I just need to go in for contacts or something... might be less of a hassle, and less of an irritation to the eyes themselves.