A Safari Of The Mind Book

And what exactly is this "Food of Death"?

Let's be specific here because enquiring minds want to know:

- White bread
- Tinned meat with a pinch of salt
- Cheap Indian tea
- Champagne
- Food "recommended for invalids"
- Milk & borax!

Thus fed, Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities.

Er... yay? Maybe 'tis not for the best to feed Death. Also, besides the champagne, I can't say I'm a big fan of the Death Diet. Sounds like a recipe for staying hungry.

So these fifty-one tales are prose poems by one of England's great classic writers, the fabulous Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. He died in 1957 and more than 90 of his books were published in his lifetime. He held the second-oldest title in Irish peerage, lived in Ireland's longest-inhabited castle - Dunsany Castle, of course - and was married to the same lovely lady for the entirety of his life, Beatrice Child Villiers (and thank you very much for all of that, Wikipedia). Here are photos of the charming couple:



I love that non-expression on her face!

Back to the work under inspection. Unfortunately I was usually bored. Perhaps it is the very nature of prose poems that bores me? I dunno. I have loved Lord Dunsany in the past: a big fan in college and, much later, I was fascinated by The King of Elfland's Daughter. He is a gorgeous stylist, his sardonic detachment spices up his dreamy nature, and he spins yarns full of mythic fantasy and ambiguous horror... all of which should make him automatically up my alley. But these fifty-one tales didn't surprise me and often caused eye-rolling. They are mainly little parables about Death walking about, grumpy, and the North Wind winding down, even grumpier, and Pan dying then waking up, probably horny, and various poets mooning over various things, and other similar sorts of fables. The whole collection felt so twee and so obvious. Yes, Man will fall. Yes, Nature is beautiful. Yes, industrialized civilizations are awfully dirty and societies will inevitably turn to dust, as shall we all. Yes, yes, and yes. Got it. Despite the loveliness of his writing style, the obviousness killed me. Fortunately it did not kill my interest in the good Lord, who I will be reading again. One strike does not equal an out.

There were a couple pieces that I rather enjoyed. "Furrow Maker" has two birds discussing the fortunes of that notorious furrow-maker, Man (and his companion, that "nasty fellow" named Dog). And "True History of the Hare and the Tortoise" exhibits a fun mean streak from the author: after being quite impressed that the Tortoise beat the Hare in a footrace, his fellow woodland creatures decide that the speedy Tortoise is best-suited to warn a forest's residents that a terrible fire is approaching. Oops. Not a great call, woodland creatures.