Fine and Dandy

As readers of this blog know - and, for that matter, anyone with whom I have had a conversation of any length - I have a rather quirky vocabulary. One I am not shy of using to its full potential. There are several factors to account for this. The first is that I have a Californian father, and a Midwest mother. The idiom of my speech reflects this, as I am as likely to say "okie dokie" and "alrighty then" as I am to say "cool". The second is my penchant for picking up words from books - and the books I read often contain a rather antiquated vocabulary. The last is the Irish/Scots influence. My go-to music is Irish/Scots. I watch a fair amount of British film and TV. I have a Scottish friend. The result is that, in addition to an unplaceable (and vaguely Newfie) accent, I have acquired a deal of non-American slang and idiom. And I am like to use words from any of these influences within a single conversation, and frequently within a single sentence.

At this point, the people who are around me on a daily basis take my singular manner of speaking in their stride. No one even blinked, for example when I used "felicitous" this morning to describe the happy outcome of a rather vexing situation. I forget that I don't exactly talk like everyone else. So when someone sees fit to comment upon my choice of words, I am a little surprised by the notice.

In a recent email exchange at work, my correspondent remarked, "I delight in your adjectives, as of late." I paused, and looked back at the last email I had sent. There was this sentence, the only one employing an adjective: "That's dandy." I stared at it for a while, suddenly and acutely aware of the fact that "dandy" is one of those words that I take for granted, and that take others by surprise. The longer I looked at it, the odder that word seemed. Where did "dandy" come from anyway?

As it turns out, no one knows. As far as anyone can tell, "dandy" in the sense I had used it - and in the phrase "fine and dandy" is a slang word of Scottish origin. Beyond that, it is an philological orphan, albeit, tentatively related to a number of other "-dand-" words throughout various European languages. And to make it even more difficult, all of those "-dand-" have indeterminate origins.

Curiouser and curiouser! Furthermore, there is apparently a sub-level of etymology of which I had hitherto been in ignorance: extinct slang, which (apparently) dies out, leaving only unexplainable words (hello, dandy!) to show that it had ever existed. Why the idea of secretive etymology should delight me so much, is a mystery, but I am hugely intrigued by this.

And, if you have made it through all my mandering to this point, I take it for granted that you have had your curiosity piqued as well. In which case, by all means, read this dandy article. It is fascinating and fun. 

Rambling From a Distracted Blogger

It is that time of year - almost fall, with an edge to the wind, a smell in the air, a gilding of yellow showing through the the foliage.... Autumn, the time of adventure, the time when I feel that I must take to the hills, fight trolls, slay dragons, bring home pots of gold to donate anonymously to good causes. I love autumn, but it makes me hugely restless. 

So I attempt to placate this restlessness by walks, in which I collect feathers, and bits of glass, and pretty rocks. Sometimes, I get all creative and draw things:

Le Steller's Jay Feather

Sometimes, I get all introspective, and attempt poetry. Mostly, I have not been having much luck with that, though occasionally, I manage to finish something before the wind sends wanderlust rushing through my veins, and I decided that all is straw:

When they, ravening, gather round me

With keen-edged words that cut me sore;

When I, in anger, and alone, 

Hold the the heart they broke in two - 

May I remember Calvary:

The wounds and words which once Thou bore;

Forgive - as Thou, Who died alone - 

Those, who know not what they do.

Mostly, through, I just read. Sometimes, I even find a book that makes me so happy, that for a time I forget all about going adventuring, and just enjoy my book,

The Moving Toyshop is one such book - and idiotic, farcical romp of a mystery. The detective: one Gervase Fen, an Oxford don, who exclaims, "Oh, my fur and whiskers!" when he is deeply stirred. Who freely, and without warning quotes from various works of literature and the Classics, Who drives at breakneck speed, a horrific vehicle, which he calls Lily Christine III. He is slightly mad, hugely well-read, impulsive, and totally unconcerned about the opinions of the world at large. 

The book itself just bowls along from one ridiculous situation to another. It is a very light work, but it contains a huge amount of literary illusion in it. I don't always get the references, but when I do, I snicker, for they are generally very witty. Even if one is not well-read enough to catch all the illusions, there is plenty of humour to be found. Take, for example, this scene, in which our intrepid investigator, hot on the trail of a Person of Interest, has crashed a choir practice, and is attempting to blend in:

Fen's voice, though penetrating, was neither tuneful nor accurate.

"We STAAAAY not," he came in suddenly, "but WAAAANDER." Several of the basses in the front turned round as if someone had struck them in the back. "We grief-laden," Fen pursued unconcernedly, "grieee-EEEF-laden mortals!"

Or this scene, in which Fen felt the need of an alias, whilst laying low at a public house, close to Oxford, and filled to the gills with literary folk, and is summon the the phone my a porter:

“Telephone call for Mr. T. S. Eliot!” he piped. “Mr. T. S. Eliot?”

To everyone’s surprise, Fen said “That’s me,” got up, and went out, pursued by the interested gaze of the other persons in the bar

Or the mad chase scene towards the end, where everyone even remotely connected with the case, joins in pursuit of a suspect - a pursuit on foot, as they have all be drinking rather freely, and the suspect was the only person to come equipped with a wheeled conveyance:

In any event, just as Fen was wasting his breath in chanting (rather inappropriately) "but with unhurried chase and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy..."  he ran down the lane that leads to Parson's Pleasure, abandoned his bicycle, flung sixpence and the gate-keeper and disappeared inside.

There is even a passing reference during that chase, of the throng passing The Bird and Baby - a reference that made me wildly delighted. The Bird and the Baby is a public house, properly named The Eagle and Child, which was the gathering spot of the Inklings, back in the day. The Moving Toyshop was published in the 40s, which was when Tolkien was labouring over his first drafts of The Lotd of the Rings (Strider was still a hobbit named Trotters at the time.) In my mind, Tolkien and the Lewises were forgathered in the pub while Fen and his cohorts rushed past, but were so busy making the sort of scenes that they always made in public, that they did not notice the ruckus going on outside.

The Moving Toyshop is probably one of the most satisfactory things I have had the pleasure of reading in a long time. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who is in need of a good laugh, and a darned good read

And on that note, I sink back into the ether. Good night, all!

We Haven't Done A Library Post In A While

If I had to choose one picture - and one picture only - to summarise the last week or two or three..... or five.... or maybe, the last few months at the library, this one would be it. It ias been crazy...... craaaaazy.... And if coconuts truly are the epitome of craziness, I would have to say that the library is full to the roof of crazy-as-a-coconut people. 

There are all the usual suspects, of course: shady and somewhat mentally diminutive elderly fellows, who suddenly feel obliged to say weird things your's truly, in such a tone and with such a look, that I cannot tell if they have mistaken me for someone else - someone with whom they have an intimate relationship, or if they are attempting to be sexy and pick up a cute young thing, or if there is a bit of genuine 'interest in you as a person' going on. There are the year-round, semi-indigents, who have been such regular customers, that there are times when we (the legitimate library staff) must remind them that they are guests, not branch managers.There are the poor folk whose mental state is shaky at best, who hang about all day long, for days on days, and with whom one has a motherly relationship. ("Have you taken your medication today? No? Well maybe you shouldn't drink any more of that 16 litre Coco-Cola until you've done that. You're going home to do that now?  Splendid!") 

And then, there are people who tell you stories like this:

"Hey... I got a sea story  to tell you!"

Boss and self, finding that we are cornered, assume looks of polite interest. "Oh, yes?" we say.

"Yeah! It was is a story about the Atlantic! I was in Louisiana, near the coast... "

(Self becomes distracted, trying to come up with anyway for Louisiana to be on the Atlantic Ocean.)

".... You know, the coast around New Jersey..."

(Self begins to feel unequal to the task of maintaining a politely interested expression. Self also biting tongue, so as not to correct a lunatic's geography.)

"Yeah, so I am sitting there on a beach, you know, watching the waves and the sand. Livin' the moment, you know...."

An expectant pause... Boss and self nod in complete understanding.

"And then, you know, there's this hole. Just like that. Right in front of me. A hole. And as I'm sitting there, livin' the moment, I start to notice that it's spurting water out. And then it goes all quiet again and I forget about about... and then there is water spurting out again."

"Tide coming in?" Self inquires, in an effort to speed this story along. (If Pippin, from the movie version of The Two Towers had heard me, he would have told me, "Don't talk tae it, Mahri, don't encourage it!")

"So then, this totally hot babe goes by. Dressed in high heels... Fur coat. Classy babe. And I say, 'Hey! Look at that hole! There's water shooting out! Do you have a watch? I want to time how often it happens.' And so she sits next to me, and holds out her diamond encrusted Rolex, and we time it together... and... and it is five minutes apart....."

A prolonged silence. Storyteller's face convulses. Boss and self remain polite for a few more moments. Denouement not forthcoming, boss says, "Yes?"

"And that's all I got." He turned on his heels and left without another word.

Well, the library being the library, and the sort of clientèle we serve, being what it is, we were soon up to our ears with other curious incidents, nor overly bothered at being left in suspense as to the nature of the water-spouting hole, in Louisiana... or New Jersey, as the case may be. The next couple days were spent in waking up people who had fallen asleep at the computer and drooled all over the keyboard. Or in telling the human snail with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that he cannot store the entirety of his possession in our meeting room. Or listening to stories about the increase in fairy abductions. Also, there is the fielding of inappropriate inquiries -  "do you know what I am thinking now?" with a leer. "I choose not to delve too deep into a strangers' mind", self says, cleverly extricating herself... And let us not forget the woman who had scribbled tattoos all over both arms with a Sharpie, who came charging up to unsuspecting people, placed her face uncomfortably close to their, and demanded that they sell her a cigarette. When they, fearing for their lives, back up, averring that they had no cigarettes, she answered, mysteriously, "Well, then, you're not him." Then she stalk away muttering, "Did you see that? Something's wrong.... People are getting annihilated all over the place here. She was, quite frankly, rather terrifying, and as none of the Mental Health services were available, we called the cops on her. She obligingly lunged at the officer and was taken away in handcuffs...

Indeed, so much drama occurred in the time between the cliffhanger, and the return of the storyteller, that he had quite nearly been forgotten.... He was not the forgetting type, however. A couple days later, he marched in and without preamble announced: "One word: think sand crabs" before walking back out again.... and that was the end of that story.

At present, I am rather tired of people. All people. Crazy people in particular. I feel that if I have to be around them much longer, I too will be crazy as a coconut.

At least my car still runs.

A Harvest of Days

Well, for all of you who find my calamity stories so funny: I am sorry. Today, you do not get a funny story. My car, I am happy to report is still running. The jury is still out as to whether it will truly "run forever" as the English mechanic avers, but it has run for a whole week without the need of boiling water or jiggling wires. And I have taken it off the hill thrice. So perhaps, it shall whinny with us for some months longer.

At present, I am sleepy, so if there are any glaring errors is spelling, grammar, or punctuation in this post, you will know it is because I have scarcely been to bed in 2 days. It is not because I am ailing - oh no, not at all! Quite the contrary. I have not had so splendid a set of days in some time. The dratted White Dog of Life has been distracted for the time being, and I find that I can stand up in the puddle of my existence without being bowled over. The World Pipe Band Championships took place on Friday and Saturday, and as usually, there was a live stream of the proceedings, for those who wanted to observe the event in real time. I, obviously, was amongst that number, so I dragged myself out of bed at 2 ack emma, so that I might have the pleasure of gluing myself to a computer screen for the next 7 hours, and listening to band after band play the most astonishing music. 

Here is quite a low-quality picture of the blogger, taken
with my pathetic wee phone camera. It is about 3 am,
and I am drinking coffee from an appropriate vessels, whilst
wearing my Inverary and District Pipe Band shirt.

Last year's competitions were quite exceptional, and there were a few sets that were mile-markers. This year... Oh, this year! The piping was transcendent. By the time a mere handful of bands had played, the bar had been set so high that you began to feel as if this could not possibly be mortal men, standing there in a circle on Glasgow Green. Perhaps the Fair Folk had come out of the Hollow Hills and were enchanting us all with fairy music.... Do not mock. At 3 in the morning it seemed a very real explanation for the quality of music we were being treated too. I have no idea how the judges were able to produce a winner, the puir men, nor did I envy them the task. Suffice it to say, the title of Champion, after dwelling with Field Marshall Montgomery these last three years, has gone back to Scotland, With Shotts and Dykehead taking the honours, and my two favourite bands, St. Lawrence O'Toole and Inverary and District, coming in 2nd and 3rd, with only a point between them. I have had as near to my fill of piping as I have ever had, and the world is Good.

Here the blogger, having been out of her bed for 5 hours,
is treating herself to a pre-breakfast glass of Laphroaig,
whilst cheering on her favourite bands

Add to that, the unexpected treat of having Mass on the Feast of Our Lady in Harvest (otherwise know as the feast of the Assumption) and a splendid dinner of barbecued corned beef, with potatoes and carrots (also prepared on the grill as we DO NOT turn on the indoor cooking equipment in this weather) not to mention the luxury of two extra days off from work, and you have yourself one well contented blogger. If only every weekend could be like this!

I have also been attempting to apply myself to my arts lately. (My, aren't we preening!) I have produced a few passible little miniatures over the last month or so:

There us this beehive:

And this curious little medieval dragon and border:

There is this painting. There is a marshy bit of meadow, a couple miles from my home, where a little river comes out to the lake. We've been in a drought for long enough, that the grass comes down nearly to the lake in a wide swath of marsh grass and wild flowers. I like to walk down there if it is cool enough in the evening, and watch the sunset. I came home from one such jaunt and made a paint sketch of it - free hand. No preliminary drawing, just wet washes laid down quickly on top of each other, and a bit of drier painting on top for detail:

And lastly, there is this ladybird beetle - otherwise known as a ladybug in the US - painted up yesterday, for the feast of the Assumption, this particular insect being named for Our Lady:

And lastly, I have been trying to write poetry. I am not entirely sure why I am struggling so much with it. I have attempted four poems in the last month, and none of them have made it through the creative process. I still think the ideas behind them are quite good. I just can't get them out on to paper. This one came to me a couple days ago. The weather has been a bit warm of late, and the summer sun here at nearly 6,500 feet, is piercing, but the nights are getting the least bit cooler, and there is a bit of autumn in the wind. So I wrote this:

Turning From the Sun

The air lies heavy still, with heat

And still too fiercely burns the sun -

Too bright the blue, unclouded sky,

Too hard the earth, for want of rain.

But winds have come now, edged and sweet,

And copper needles, slanting down,

A chill curls where deep shadows lie,

And clouds give hope of green again.

Maybe we will finally have a proper winter here on the West Coast, and the drought will ease, if not leave entirely. I miss snow in winter, and green growing things in summer. 

Semper Gumby

See this thing:

From Wikihow

That is a car battery terminal. That is where you clamp the red or black wires to the car's battery. Everyone who has ever had cause to open the hood of a car and glimpse the battery, knows what a terminal is, even if they don't know they know it. 

Here's the thing about battery terminals - they are subject to corrosion. And corroded terminals are a bloody nuisance. They cause your car - which has had its alternator replaced twice in one week - to lose its charge as it sits in your driveway overnight with the engine off, so that when you go out a bit early, intending to run an errand before heading off to work...You find yourself subjected to that increasingly familiar experience of sitting in a car that is so dead, even the dashboard lights quit on you when you attempt to start it. 

And Your mechanic is then subjected to the weekly wail of a stranded and very fed-up female.

"What's your car doing?" the laconic and unflappable English voice demands.

"Its not doing anything. Its just sitting there, and won't start."

"All right, Lovely, I'll tell you what you do. Just pop up under the hood, and look for the black wire on the battery terminal and give it a bit of a jiggle."

"Battery terminal" you repeat dutifully, walking out, phone in hand to the car.

"Right. It will be the one on the right - right up there under the fender. Just give it a bit of a jiggle."

You obediently pop up under the hood and jiggle the black wire on the terminal - which you already knew how to find - it being, after all, the only jiggleable black thing on the battery. Then you try it again - upon which the car gives you a wheezy cough before lapsing back into a coma.

"It didn't start." you say.

"Riiiight. Ok, then. Here's what I want you to do. Boil up some water, right? It needs to be boiling...."

"Right." 

"And then you pour it all over the terminal. Got that? Boiling water. All over. Give it a jiggle. And it will start right up and run forever."

"Right."

"And be really, really careful not to get any of the water that will come pouring off on to your clothes. Because anywhere it splashes.... it will leave a little hole."

"O... K....."

"Right. Give me a call back if it doesn't start. That's all it needs - well a new terminal really, but I can't do that from here. My arms aren't long enough. So just pour boiling water all over it and that will be you."

So, after vowing to replace the terminal as soon as possible, you take yourself off to boil water and fetch it back. You pour boiling water all over the terminal, taking care to avoid splashing little holes on to your clothing. You gingerly give the black terminal wire another bit of a jiggle and sit behind the wheel, feeling something like a mad scientist, about to test his newest theory. To your relief, the car does start right up, as though its brush with death never happened. Whether it will run forever remains to be seen, but so far, it has carried through the day. You might not have to hit it with a hammer after all.

And you know a new trick. Fancy that.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Yes, yes. It has been too long. And I should be ashamed and make it up with a long witty post, Alas and alack, that is not going to happen. Nor am I going to explain why. I shall merely leave you with this gif, and allow you to draw your own conclusions:

Sumer Is Acumen In...

Lhude Sing..... oh blast.

I think I gave myself a mild case of sunstroke yesterday. Or it could just be that this, the first truly hot day we've had thus far, triggered the heat headaches I generally get during this time of the year, when the rest of the world is lhude singing "cucu" and I am considering moving to Antarctica. Or it could be that I had a restless sleep last night. I remember waking at least once to strange dreams. Though I remembered nothing of the dreams when I crawled out of my bed in the pale grey of early morning... I hope all of you Sun Worshippers are pleased. 

But that was a digression. I did not come to lament the passing of clement weather. Not to complain about heat headaches. No! I Came Burdened With Glorious Purpose. I came with a plan. I came to review books! 

I have been making more of an effort lately to read things. I know that such a statement, coming from the mouth of a legitimate book person, must smack of irony. But I am in earnest. I have not been reading nearly as much as I like, and this grieves me. The trouble is twofold: One, that my own predilections in literature are rather quirky, and run very counter to popular trends in books these days. And two, that I have a remarkably low toleration for the style of writing in most popular fiction, coupled with an intense dislike of the obligatory tough female romantic interest (and all the paragraph-skipping nonsense that goes with it) which current storytelling finds impossible to dispense with. The result of this is a discouragement that quite puts me off reading for a while - a state of existence which my teenage and young adult selves would have found inconceivable. It is most unpleasant, as I miss the singular satisfaction that come with immersing oneself in a good book. So I have been making more of an effort to find things to read. The results have been mixed:

The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck

I did not have very high hopes for this one. I dislike Steinbeck, mostly on principle, and doubt I shall every read another one of his books again. However, once or twice a year I try to read something nominally 'classic' that falls outside of my comfort zone, and had stumbled upon a review of this particular work that made me think it worth a shot. I was pleasantly surprised.

The action takes place some time after the close of WWII, and France's dozens of political parties are so at each other's throats, that they are unable to elect - much less keep - a government in power. Once they have all argued themselves hoarse, they decide on a most unexpected course of action. They decide to re-instate the monarchy. What they are looking for is a patsy. What they get is Pippin Héristal, legitimate heir to Charlemagne and amateur astronomer, whose sole ambition is to gaze upon the heavens in peace… and who astonishes the nation (and himself) by taking the job of monarch seriously.

It is a very light work, and the satire is merely farcical, not mean-spirited. Pippin is a rather endearing. Like many good kings of myth and story, he goes out to meet his people, incognito. In Pippin’s case, this means dressing in his oldest clothes, and dashing about on his little motorbike. He talks to the people and he listens to what they have to say. The story bubbles along, cheerfully pitting the unworldly Pippin against the self-interested modern world he has been dragged in to. There is a chapter near the end that gets a bit bogged down with the sort of political ideology that makes me so leery of Steinbeck, but it is brief, and gentle, slightly bittersweet ending makes up for it.

Would I recommend it? Well I wouldn't exactly go around shouting its praises. The Napoleon of Notting Hill takes the idea more seriously. The Mouse That Roared is more fun. Still it is quite charming, and Pippin is such an altogether nice man that I quite enjoyed my time with him. So, yes. If you are looking for some pleasant reading for an evening or two, give Pippin IV a try.

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

This might be the one and only time in my life that I have completed a book by a popular author. I was going to say that it is the first bestseller that I ever got all the way through, but due to the vagaries of human nature, both Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society were on the bestseller list. So let it be noted that I am capable of enjoying popular fiction. But Dean Koontz falls into a category of author I avoid with almost snobbish superiority. To a man, these authors churn out books with impossible frequency, and write with a curiously voiceless prose that serves merely to tell the story. There is nothing special about it, nothing to give pleasure to the inner ear of the reader. It is a vehicle, nothing more.

Why, then, you might well ask, would I bother with such a book at all? Well, in part so that I could say that I had actually read one of those authors that everyone else seems to love, and that, having tried, I can be honest in my dislike. And in part, because I had read a review about the Odd Thomas series, extolling its orthodox Catholic underpinnings, and I believe that much good can be accomplished by weaving traditional philosophy and theology into a popular story in a modern setting. So I took the plunge and read the thing.

I shall be honest right off the start and admit that the protagonist, the premise, and the way the story plays out, reminds me a bit of Matt Murdock and Neflix's Daredevil. It is possible that I would have enjoyed Odd Thomas more, had I not already seen Daredevil - and had Daredevil not done it better. It did have some good things going for it. The story itself was not bad at all, though a bit too much like a popcorn film. There was enough conscious morality to save it from banality. The titular hero is a 20 year old fry cook, whose first name really is Odd. (Odd is actually quite a popular name in Norway. It comes from an old Norse word meaning a sharp edge.) Our Odd can see dead people, as well as a creepy sort of spirit which he terms bodachs, which are heralds of coming death. They bear only the slightest resemblance to the bodachs of folklore - it is simply the word Odd uses for them. Because of his ability, he is about to assist in the solving of old crimes, and in preventing new ones. Odd himself is a very good character, old for his age, wise and wry - given to an entirely understandable discouragement at times, but retaining a sturdy hopefulness. He tries to be virtuous and is honest about his weaknesses. He doesn't bother with whether his ability is a blessing or a curse. It is merely a responsibility, and it makes him selfless. Odd regularly goes out in to dangerous situations, in an attempt to use his gifts for good, and often comes home quite the worse for wear. I really like Odd a lot, and if I ever read another book in this series, it will be solely on account of himself. It was refreshing to come across such a wholesome and principled character.

The writing is what killed this one for me. For the most part, it was merely bland. It disappeared into the landscape, and so long as it stayed that way, it was bideable. However, it occasionally lapsed into a hard boiled attempt at something vaguely poetic. Every time it did that, I was pulled violently out of the story, recasting the phrase in my mind, trying to twist it into something that wasn't trying so hard. The short, taut chapters made it easy to keep turning the page and reading "just one more" before getting on with the rest of the day, but I think the momentum fell off a bit about halfway through. By the end, I was just frustrated with the pat way the story covered all the points. There was nothing superfluous in the writing. It was very economic, which is not a bad thing, but... well, for me, at any rate, there was no joy in the telling. The story was just there. 

Would I recommend it? You actually get a caveated answer. I would not recommend it to my friends, as their taste runs similar to mine, and they would probably all be as frustrated with it as I was. However, it was an entirely decent book - a good deal is made about the chastity of an important couple's relationship - and I can see what the author was doing with it. I wanted to like it. It just didn't suit me. But, I would have no qualms whatsoever in recommending Dean Koontz to librarian patrons, who are fond of that sort of thing. Indeed, it is rather nice to know that I have that option now.

Vango by Timothee de Fombelle

I have been trying to read more books for adult, and get away from YA stuff - mostly because I like a certain amount of maturity and thoughtfulness in my reading - even when I am reading for fun. That is not to say that I don't read a fluff. I do. I have, indeed, been reading far too much fluff and I am a bit tired of it. Vango, however, sounded intriguing  "....In a world between wars, a young man on the cusp of taking priestly vows, is suddenly made a fugitive..." The first chapter opens with Vango, laying on the ground with other young men, at the beginning of the ordination ceremony, and ends with him climbing the Gothic carving of the cathedral face, to escape a gunman who is inexplicably shooting at him... and catching a ride on the zeppelin which miraculously appeared at that very moment. From that point on, we get an understated, old-fashioned story, full of chases and shadowy men, mystery, intrigue, and adventure. The book is set between the wars, and the tone of the book matches the time period. It is impossible to give any sort of a summary without spoilers, so I shan't try. The downside of it, to get that out of the way, is that this book is apparently the first in the series, and ended without any real resolution, which disappointed me. But the book itself.... Well, for all the familiar feeling of an old-fashioned yarn it had about it, I can't remember the last time I read anything quite like this - certainly nothing that has been recently published, and definitely no other YA book that I can bring to mind. There is a hidden monastery on an island, that figures largely into the plot, and I doubt that anyone else has ever come up with such a swashbuckling reason for a monastery to be hidden. I want to live there. Vango is believable as a young man who wants to be a priest, but he is not annoyingly pious or faultless - quite the opposite. He is sweet, quiet, meek, obliging - and also stubborn, reckless and impetuous. I really want him to be a priest... but there is a dashing young woman in the book too, who is not a love interest yet, but shows every indication of turning into one in the next book. I didn't want to like her for that reason, but she is so spunky and fun, that I do like her. Quite a lot. I just would rather she remains Vango's sisterly friend. 

Would I recommend it? Oh, come on. There is a zeppelin. And a hidden monastery. And Italian islands. And a hidden treasure. And a young man on the run. Of course I recommend it.... I should however, in fairness, point out that Vango tells its story on its own terms. It is not a fast paced book, for all the drama and suspense it generates. The author has an easy affection for the story, and easy affection for his characters, and a delight in the landscape and time period he has set the story in. I keep using the phrase "old fashioned" to describe it - and it is. But sometimes, old fashioned hits the spot, and on that level Vango delivers. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.