Reviews for The food of death

The average rating for The food of death based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-02-10 00:00:00 Lori Zennario Final review, first posted at www.FantasyLiterature.com: This is a collection of ― hardly even short stories ― more like brief vignettes, for the most part just a few paragraphs in length, by Lord Dunsany, an Irish baron who wrote fantasy in the first half of the 20th century. He is one of the earlier authors to write fantastical literature and is considered an influence on J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft, among other respected twentieth century fantasy authors. These fantastical tales, first published in 1915, are mostly written with a foreboding, portentous voice, and tend to be gloomy in tone. Dunsany liked to personify abstract things like Death and Winter, talk about the foolishness and transience of modern civilization, and start most of his sentences with the word "And". I didn't think most of this collection was particularly memorable, but there are several gems among the group, including "The Hen" and "The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts)" (which I've copied below since they're conveniently out of copyright). In another striking story, "The Raft-Builders," Lord Dunsany compares authors to "sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships."When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else… Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first. There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen.Jo Walton aptly stated about Lord Dunsany, "What he could do, what he did better than anyone, was to take poetic images and airy tissues of imagination and weight them down at the corners with perfect details to craft a net to catch dreams in." These tales may be best appreciated in small doses, and aren't always remarkable, but as a part of the early history of the fantasy genre, they're worth checking out. This collection is available for free on Gutenberg. A couple of favorites: THE HEN All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind waiting. And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone spoke of the swallows and the South. "I think I shall go South myself next year," said a hen. And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed the departure of the hen. And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a more than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our cities and small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and homeless sea, and steering by grey sea-currents went southward with the wind. And going South they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands lifting their heads above them; they saw the slow quests of the wandering ships, and divers seeking pearls, and lands at war, till there came in view the mountains that they sought and the sight of the peaks they knew; and they descended into an austral valley, and saw Summer sometimes sleeping and sometimes singing song. "I think the wind is about right," said the hen; and she spread her wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on to the road and some way down it until she came to a garden. At evening she came back panting. And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone South as far as the high road, and saw the great world's traffic going by, and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the stubble upon which men live, and at the end of the road had found a garden, and there were roses in it'beautiful roses!'and the gardener himself was there with his braces on. "How extremely interesting," the poultry said, "and what a really beautiful description!" And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by, and the Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again. "We have been to the South," they said, "and the valleys beyond the sea." But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the South: "You should hear our hen," they said. ***** THE SPHINX IN THEBES (MASSACHUSETTS) There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx. So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore they went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert places, and yet could find no sphinx. And she would have been content with a little lion but that one was already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search the world again for a sphinx. And still there was none. But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, and took her westwards with them and brought her home. And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city. And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle of the woman. And the woman could not answer, and she died. And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do. ***** Thanks to Margaret for the heads up on this book and Jo Walton's quote, and on Lord Dunsany generally!

Review # 2 was written on 2019-03-22 00:00:00 Carl Liptscher 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.