Review: Agincourt

Agincourt, Bernard Cornwell


Harper, Hardcover, 2009
ISBN: 978-0061578915
464 pages


Trade Paper edition available December 29, 2009


On October 25, 1415 King Henry V led 6,000 archers and men-at-arms against a French force of 30,000 at Agincourt—and won. According to Cornwell's notes, only Hastings, Waterloo, Trafalgar, and Crécy rival Agincourt in renown. It is a gore-fest even by Cornwell's standards, and I don't recommend it for those with sensitive constitutions.

Unlike many of the English-French sweep-and-plunder skirmishes during the Hundred Years War, Henry's purpose was to "rightfully" regain the crown of France. Despite the odds against him, Henry never faltered in his belief that he would win because God told him so. From page 395:

"Henry of England was filled by a God-given joy. Never, in all his life, had he felt closer to God, and he almost pitied the men who came to be killed for they were being killed by God."

That quote bothered me because how many millions of people have died over the ages because of the same belief?

Cornwell, as usual, uses a fictional character for intrigue, to carry the story, and to have access to the bigwigs for strategy and whatnot. In Agincourt it is Nick Hook, a master archer. Anyone who has read the Grail Quest series will notice a lot of duplication about archers in this book and will be reminded of Cornwell's excellent description of the battle of Crécy.

The battle of Agincourt (Azincourt in French), does not take place until the last quarter of the book. In addition to the story's set-up and some dawdling by Cornwell, the majority of the book is about the siege of Harfleur in Normandy. Expecting a swift victory over the small walled city, the French fought brilliantly for over two weeks—decimating many of Henry's force with cannon, tunnels, and dysentery. To me, the siege of Harfleur was as interesting as the title battle.

Overall, this stand-alone book is a Cornwell festival and will please fans of historic battles and strategy.


[A belated thank you to Harper Books for the advance finished copy]

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COMING January 19, 2010:


The Burning Land, Bernard Cornwell


Harper Books, Hardcover
ISBN 978-0060888749
352 pages


This is the fifth book in the Saxon Chronicles series.

Happy Birthday to Martha

"Maxine"

Today is Martha's birthday.

She is fifty-six, but she still looks like the girl I married thirty-five years ago.

She disagrees.

"Do you think I look like Maxine?" she asked, and I'm pretty sure she was serious.

"Of course not," I said. And I was serious. She smiled.

But you know me and my hoof-in-mouth disease. "You've got the crabby part down cold, though," I added, one of those truths that is best left unsaid.

Smile disappeared. And she's been crabby ever since.

That 55-gallon drum of "Oil of Gulag" vanishing cream I ordered from Jimmy B. hasn't arrived yet.

Perhaps duct tape would work better for hoof-in-mouth.

But no worries.

Tonight, when I sneak up on her in bed and give my birthday girl one of my excellent back rubs, she'll start purring.

And then tell me to go screw myself.

Wimmin, Baseball, & Foot Fungus

Scribble, scribble, scribble . . .

Wimmin, Baseball, & Foot Fungus

This is Susie, my very first girlfriend. Even at the tender age of three, older women were attracted to my boyish good looks and devil-may-care attitude. Susie was a mature woman of four and a sucker for a little kid in a sloppy uniform. Never mind that I couldn’t hit the side of an elephant with a bat—it was the uniform and rakish tilt to my cap that made her swoon.

You know, it’s eerie about the baseball thing. When Susie grew up, she married a real ballplayer. When I grew up, I fell down a whole flight of steps at the ballpark in my frenzied haste to catch up to the beer guy.

And then there was the day Susie and I played a spring training exhibition game behind the outfield bushes in our shared back yard. “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,” she said, and I was . . . game.

We were innocents, of course, but somehow we knew that one does not push one’s pants down in public to satisfy one’s curiosity. We weren’t too intelligent, though, because it never occurred to either of us to hide from the lady who lived in the house behind the bushes we were hiding behind.

As luck would have it (and of course we had none), the lady who lived in the house behind the bushes we were hiding behind was the neighborhood snoop and town crier. Within minutes, everyone within fourteen blocks knew about the two village idiots. If we’d had a neighborhood newspaper, Susie’s and my mugs would have been on Page 1, above the fold, with this headline in 36-point bold type:

BOY, 3, SHOWS HIS TO GIRL, 4, WHO IN TURN SHOWS HERS TO BOY, 3!

Justice was swift in the world of small people in 1951. Arrest, booking, arraignment, trial (with no defense counsel), automatic verdict of “guilty” (with no chance of appeal), and automatic sentencing to death row (with no chance of appeal) were all carried out by Judge Mom in less than fifteen seconds.

Death was equally swift. My pants weren’t up for more than ten minutes before they were right back down again so Mom could spank my little fanny. The irony of exposing myself because I exposed myself was entirely lost on me, but I remember thinking that, at the rate I was going, the elastic band in my brand-new baseball pants wasn’t going to last even half a season: up, down, up, down . . .

But even though the whole sordid and tawdry affair with Susie was traumatic, I learned two valuable lessons from it:

1. Never play any game more dangerous than solitaire with a woman—and make damn sure it isn’t strip solitaire.

2. Never go behind any bush, shrub, hedge, evergreen or nevergreen, tumbleweed or standingstillweed, potted plant or sober plant with a woman, even if she is your wife and she is screaming at you.

“Hey Charlie, c’mere and look at this! I think I found the source of your disgusting toe fungus! HEEEEY, CHARLIE!”

“I hear you, I hear you, but where the hell are you?”

“Back here, behind the bushes.”

“AARGH!”

One interesting fact, however, is worth mentioning. You know the bushes Susie and I were hiding behind, the ones where the circus could have been in full swing and we would never have known it? They were the dreaded pukeberry bush, the same ones my wife found in our yard and the reason I’ve had this disgusting toe fungus for nigh on sixty years.

Try Not to Look UP!

With no disrespect to the famed Black Watch of Scotland and its illustrious history since 1681, I present this Candid Camera-style clip of a Scotsman sans his underwear.

(TIP: Lower the volume control before playing the clip—it is quite loud.)

Review: Dolan's Cadillac (Audiobook)

Dolan's Cadillac and Other Stories, Stephen King


Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition, 2009
ISBN: 978-0743598200
Number of Discs: 5
Running Time: Approx. 5 hours


Just in time for Halloween! Oh. Wait a minute. Halloween was the other day. Well then, just in time for next Halloween!

In 1994, King published a book of short stories titled Nightmares & Dreamscapes. 912 pages of short stories, including a non-fiction piece about his son's baseball team (Steve is a big fan of the sport). The entire book was never released on audio cassette; Highbridge Audio claimed an unabridged collection, but it was really just a few unabridged selections from the book.

In July, Simon & Schuster changed that with the release of six audiobooks on CD. And they did it up right: each story is read by a famous person, mostly actors, who give the stories their actorly best. To me, the readings were similar to recording the soundtrack for an animated film: lively, different "voices" for different characters, and just plain fun.

Dolan's Cadillac is the first in the series, and this is the lineup (a bow to baseball):

1. King reads his Introduction.

2. A school teacher discovers her students are not what they seem in Suffer the Little Children, read by Whoopi Goldberg.

3. In Crouch End, read by Tim Curry, a woman fears that supernatural events may have led to her husband's disappearance. (Curry is excellent!)

4. In Rainy Season, read by Yeardley Smith, a young couple is forced into the ultimate battle of Man vs. Nature when torrential rain turns deadly.

5. A widowed husband spends seven years plotting revenge for his wife's murder in Dolan's Cadillac, a long story read by Rob Lowe.

I like S&S's modular approach to this big book of King's tales. The CDs are packaged nicely in a fold-out similar to some DVD sets. Each module retails for $10.19 (US) at Amazon, or they can be dowloaded from Audible.com if you're a member. If you like King, like short stories, and commute, one of these sets may strike your fancy.

The following links take you to the other five sets (with a major reader) for your perusal: Chattery Teeth (Kathy Bates), Sorry, Right Number (a full cast), It Grows On You (Grace Slick), The End of the Whole Mess (Matthew Broderick), and The House on Maple Street (Robert B. Parker).

* * * * *

Story lines (numbers 2-5) are from Amazon.com product information for Dolan's Cadillac.

[A note to WC: I know you don't "do" King, so don't waste a perfectly good comment to tell me you don't "do" King.]

Happy Halloweenie!

Sex

Okay, it's time for another one of my silly scribblings.

Sex

I don’t want to talk about it.





Now there’s a brilliant essay for you. Seven words. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Period. It reminds me of an essay I did in grammar school titled, “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.”

“My family and I went to the mountains for two weeks. We stayed in this crummy log cabin with about a million spiders, and Dad kept yelling at me not to scream and throw his good shoes at the walls. The bathroom was in this old house outdoors, and Dad kept yelling at me because I wouldn’t go in there and sit down. I didn’t do my business for three whole days. Mom yelled at me too when she caught me whizzing on some lady’s flowers. We came home ten days early because Mom and Dad were tired of yelling and I really had to take a dump. We had fun, but I just don’t want to talk about it.”

The reason I don’t talk about sex is because I don’t talk about sex. I could care less about other people’s sex lives. The same goes for celebrities and pseudo-celebrities (although I thought the Monica and Bill thing was amusing). The same goes for gays and lesbians. What people do in private is their business—not mine.

So whether my sex life is between Martha and me or just between me, it’s none of your business. If I am straight, bi-sexual, gay, or any combination of the three, it’s none of your business. If I’m a cross-dresser or get dressed in the crosswalk, it’s definitely none of your business.

I will tell you one thing, though. I didn’t marry a good Catholic girl.

A GOOD CATHOLIC GIRL

“Okay, Charlie, I’ve taken both my oral and rectal temperature—”

“—I hope you took the oral temp first—”

“I’ve counted backward fourteen days, counted forward fourteen days, computed the mean, median, and mode, checked the Xs on the calendar, and I’ve been watching the moon on the Weather Channel. Everything is favorable, which means we can have sex within the next twelve minutes.”

“Gee, honey, you didn’t have to go through all that for a simple quickie. You sound like Mission Control.”

“A QUICKIE! Do you think I’m having sex with you for FUN? This is for making a little Mary or a Benedict XVI."

"Great. We can call him Bennie. Or ExVeeEye. Or better yet, 16. 16 Callahan—I like it."

"Now turn off all the lights before I take off my clothes—and don’t you dare try to peek at me either, you filthy pervert.”



This just in! A memo from Martha:

“Thank you for keeping your big trap shut for once and respecting my privacy and womanly dignity. You’re right: the story about you trying to put a conundrum on in the dark is nobody’s damn business."