Vulpes Libris is a site for people with an appetite for books
which is so voracious and acute that it carries a hint of the fox's enthusiasm for a nice fat rabbit. As the owner of around 3,000 books, which represents a fraction of the books I've actually read (I'm too proud to keep on display the various sordid romances and pulpy noirs I've consumed over the years), I can count myself a member of that select group. These articles, first published on the site, take three books which contain a common theme and attempt to show how writers use these motifs in different, but equally effective ways.
Three Books about Ghosts
It’s that time of year again. The time when we find ourselves seated in front of a rerun of the Great Escape, paper hat askew on our heads, torn wrapping paper round our ankles and ask ourselves (tearfully because of the sherry) about the true meaning of Christmas. Is it really a celebration of the birth of Christ, we rage as Nigella shows us how to make improbably perfect mince pies? Or is it just an opportunity for the perfume and toy industries to part us from our hardearned, we mumble, peeling another satsuma?
Actually Christmas is neither of those things. Go back a thousand years or so and the winter solstice was celebrated in a very different way.
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Actually Christmas is neither of those things. Go back a thousand years or so and the winter solstice was celebrated in a very different way.
more
Three Books about the Sea
Writers write about everything. I’ll bet if I scanned the virtual fiction shelves of Amazon long enough (and some sad evenings I do pretty much nothing else) I could find a novel about teapots*. Someone wrote one about clouds. Federico Moccia used padlocks as a theme in his novel about love in Rome. We know this because now the bridges of Italy are weighed down with imitative ironware, clicked in place by tragic, romantic Romeo and Juliets-in-training.
But OK, let’s be reasonable for a moment. There aren’t many books about teapots, or Black and Decker workmates (I’m not counting American Psycho here) or even pink stiletto heels, although going by the cover of books labeled “chick lit” you might think there’s a whole class of fiction devoted to nothing else but magenta footwear. Books on such abstruse subjects are oddities. They don’t tell us much about the writing process except that some people are very fond of padlocks, or find purple feathers weirdly inspiring. It could be more interesting to think about the subjects writers choose often and ask why these clusters happen. Wouldn’t we learn something from that?
more
But OK, let’s be reasonable for a moment. There aren’t many books about teapots, or Black and Decker workmates (I’m not counting American Psycho here) or even pink stiletto heels, although going by the cover of books labeled “chick lit” you might think there’s a whole class of fiction devoted to nothing else but magenta footwear. Books on such abstruse subjects are oddities. They don’t tell us much about the writing process except that some people are very fond of padlocks, or find purple feathers weirdly inspiring. It could be more interesting to think about the subjects writers choose often and ask why these clusters happen. Wouldn’t we learn something from that?
more
