Czasy, które nadejdą Andrzej Pilipiuk ![Krzysztof - awatar](https://cdn.statically.io/img/s.lubimyczytac.pl/upload/default-avatar-32x32.jpg)
Krzysztof
ocenił(a) na 544 min. temu Po naprawdę kiepskim zbiorze "Przyjaciel człowieka" załamałem się ostro dołującym stanem intelektu autora i odpuściłem go sobie. Przeszły kolejne tomy "Światów Pilipiuka", do których nie zamierzałem już zaglądać. Jednak ostatnio przed moimi oczami na bibliotecznej półce z nowościami niespodziewanie pokazały się "Czasy..." - i żadnych innych ciekawych alternatyw. Mimo sporych w��tpliwości, postanowiłem jeszcze raz spróbować.
No i... czyta się. Jakoś.
W pominiętych opowiadaniach musiały się pojawić jakieś nowe drugoplanowe postacie. Tu są tylko wspominane, więc nie przeszkadzało to w odbiorze.
Remedium
Pilipiuk zdaje się być nieuleczalnie i nierozerwalnie przykuty do schematu: "dobry Car, źli bojarzy". Zwykle - jak tu - w wersji *prostej* (bo i nic prostszego nie da się już wymyślić...) a czasem w *odwróconej* (duchy Poveglii).
No i pomyśleć, jak niewiele brakowało, by doktor Skurzewski został "polskim Flemingiem". I to pół wieku wcześniej od rzeczywistego! Już można by radośnie ryknąć na całe gardło: "Polska-a-a, biało-czer-r-r...". Tylko ot - taki tyci przypadek mu w tym przeszkodził. Jest wielce charakterystyczne i symptomatyczne, że Pilipiuk postanowił nie wspominać o trochę niepasującym do (jak zwykle) pompatyczno-patriotycznej narracji tycim szczególiku tego tyciego przypadku - że on również miał polski rodowód i nazwisko: Ignacy Hryniewiecki...
Klementynka
Pilipiuk zawsze był "miszczem" dialogów, ale w Klementynce przeszedł samego siebie. Robotyczna drętwota i sztuczność kwestii wypowiadanych przez bohaterów tego opowiadania wprost wyciska łzy z oczu. Brzmią jak stworzone (i wypowiadane...) przez jakieś pra-pra-chatboty (v. 0.0.1) *quasi-steampunkowe* - na komputery ZX Spectrum z początku lat 80. XX w. - czyli z czasów akcji opowiadania.
To, jak Pilipiuk sobie te czasy wyobraża, już samo w sobie jest niewymuszenie ironiczne dla ludzi, którzy je po prostu pamiętają. Ale nie dość było mu tego i umieścił w nim jeszcze perełkę mimowolnego humoru... geograficznego: "Wujek niejedno mógłby opowiedzieć. Bo i pod Monte Cassino był. I Holandię zdobywał. Jechali na wschód... ciągle na wschód."
Siódma armata
Opowiadanie o armatnio-romskich perypetiach Storma jest - na swój niepowtarzalny, Pilipiukowy sposób - nawet czasami lekko zabawne. Chyba najlepsze w tym zbiorze - prawie jak dawniej...
Profesor Śmierć
Czyżby wykluwała się nowa seria: "Kroniki młodego Indiany Jo..." - ehem, znaczy - "Kroniki młodego Kuby Wędrowycza"?
Niestety, rozbicie opowiadania na trzy plany czasowe niespecjalnie mu się przysłużyło. Podobnie jak odgrzewanie bredni Witkowszczyzny. Najbardziej jednak przeszkadzają liczne bzdurki kłujące w oczy - efekt nieodrobionej pracy domowej. Pilipiuk dowodzi, że nie ma pojęcia o:
* Konwencji Haskiej z 1907 roku - nieustannie bredząc o "przestrzeganiu konwencji";
* stopniach wojskowych - Feldfebel to nie "oficer";
* tym, że słynni bywalcy Szkockiej we Lwowie jej nie "rezerwowali" na swoje przybycie (właściciel poszedłby z torbami; oni zresztą też...). Po prostu mieli tam "swój" stolik, wiecznie zagryzmolony ołówkowymi obliczeniami, bo nie nosili przy sobie pustych kartek ni notesów (nie miało co "szeleścić"). Dopiero po latach jedna z żon się zlitowała i kupiła im szkolny zeszyt, który został słynną Księgą Szkocką.
Czasy, które nadejdą
Początek irytuje stylem co mniej ambitnych komiksów czy superbohaterskiej twórczości Cwieka.
Dalej już się jakoś czyta, choć *finezja* dialogów usiłuje dogonić →Klementynkę.
Sklepik z marzeniami cz.1 Stephen King ![Kinga - awatar](https://cdn.statically.io/img/s.lubimyczytac.pl/upload/default-avatar-32x32.jpg)
Kinga
ocenił(a) na 71 godz. temu Niestety LC Zlikwidowało "notatki prywatne".
Jest to dla mnie przypomnienie o czym była książka, gdyż mam słabą pamięć.
The story is set in the small, fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, where a new shop named "Needful Things" opens, to the curiosity of the townspeople. The story starts out in first person with the narrator greeting the reader and moves to third-person, introducing each of the book's diverse cast of characters and their complicated histories. Castle Rock's citizens then begin to come into Needful Things, each of them drawn by an item they want more than anything else.
They are all greeted by the seemingly-kind, old man claiming to be from Akron, Ohio[1] (a possible reference to Acheron),Leland Gaunt, and they all ignore the sign hanging in his shop, "Caveat emptor" ("Let the buyer beware"). One person after another buys the treasures he has in stock, paying surprisingly low prices and performing small "favors" (pranks) at his request. The person doing a prank usually knows the target, but has no real quarrel or relationship with him/her. Little by little, the pranks worsen existing grudges between the townspeople until they start turning against each other or themselves, nearly bringing about the violent destruction of the entire town.
The first to enter the shop, Brian Rusk, buys a Sandy Koufax '56 TOPPS card for 85 cents and a prank to be played on Wilma Jerzyck, a bitter woman with a severe dislike of a woman named Nettie Cobb. Brian sneaks to Wilma's house while she is away and ruins her laundry sheets by flinging heaps of mud at them. At the scene, he leaves a note warning Wilma that it is her last warning. Wilma presumes the note to belong to Nettie Cobb due to their rivalry. Wilma warns Nettie over the phone that she will get revenge. Later, Brian is told that he must perform one more prank to finish paying for the card. He is sent to Wilma's house where he destroys her windows, TV, and microwave with large rocks. Meanwhile, the town drunk Hugh Priest buys a fox tail from Gaunt and pays for it by sneaking into Nettie's house and murdering her dog. Another note is left at this crime. The murder of her beloved dog leads Nettie to take a meat cleaver and head toward Wilma's house. At the same time, Wilma has seen the damage to her house and left with a large knife of her own. The two meet at a street corner and brutally murder each other. The gruesome scene is quickly discovered by police.
Ace Merrill (whose uncle "Pop" Merrill appears in the short story 'The Sun Dog' from Four Past Midnight) buys a treasure map from Gaunt, paying by becoming Gaunt's shop assistant. The map supposedly shows several dozen locations in the area around Castle Rock where Pop Merrill buried his fortune before he died. Ace's first job is to bring a large shipment of guns and ammunition from Boston back to Needful Things. The guns, automatic pistols with poison-tipped bullets, are eventually sold to all of Gaunt's customers after his business brings various grudges to the boiling point. Meanwhile, Ace runs all over the surrounding area using the map to find the spots where Pop's fortune is buried. All he finds are rusting coffee and paint cans containing either steel pennies (which an old inmate friend of his says are worth up to $2 apiece in mint condition) or useless trading stamps. When Ace arrives at the last location he finds a hole with a shovel next to it, another empty can and a note from Sheriff Alan Pangborn saying he'd dug up Pop's fortune and kept it for himself.
Nettie Cobb, before her murder, buys a piece of carnival glass. Her payment comes in the form of wallpapering traffic violation warnings over every surface of Danforth Keeton's house while he's away. The violation slips are stamped with the name of town deputy Norris Ridgewick. Danforth "Buster" Keeton, gambling addict and Town Selectman, buys a game that allegedly predicts horse race winners. After seeing the violation slips papering his house, he confronts Ridgewick. Danforth, being a paranoid and mentally unstable man, begins to believe a shadowy cabal authority - "Them" - is persecuting him at every turn. He joins Ace Merrill as an assistant of Gaunt.
Polly Chalmers, lover of Alan Pangborn, buys a "magic" charm from Needful Things in a desperate attempt to cure her severely painful arthritis. Her payment is to plant a letter at one of the X's on the map Ace Merill bought. Ace believes his dead uncle "Pop" buried his riches. Unknown to Polly, the letter is a forged writing supposedly by Pangborn, mocking Ace and telling him that Pangborn got the treasure first. Ace becomes furious and plans to murder Sheriff Pangborn.
Another to buy from Needful Things is Cora Rusk, Brian's obese mother. She purchases a pair of sunglasses said to have belonged to her celebrity crush Elvis Presley. Her friend Myra Evans, also a Presley fan, buys a photo of the man. When each holds their respective item, they enter an illusionary world in which they enjoy progressively kinkier sexual pleasures with "The King". Eventually, Cora discovers Myra in this "other world" and goes to her house to kill her. Myra, however, is prepared for her, and shoots her fatally.
Hugh Priest's car is later vandalized by another Needful Things buyer. A note is left framing Henry Beaufort, the owner of Castle Rock's only tavern. Hugh heads to the tavern - The Mellow Tiger - to murder Henry. At the same time, Henry finds his own car ruined and a note framing Hugh. When they meet at The Mellow Tiger, Hugh is killed instantly by a shotgun blast to the chest, while Henry has a lung punctured by an automatic pistol Hugh purchased from Gaunt and dies slowly. He is rescued later to die in the emergency room.
A man named Lester Pratt has his skull broken open when he attacks John LaPointe at the police station. A photo had earlier been planted in Pratt's car by the stuttering "Slopey" Dodd, leading Lester to think his girlfriend Sally Ratcliffe was having an affair with LaPointe. Before this, a letter and photos were planted to lead Sally to think Lester was cheating on her. She cuts off all contact with Lester without explanation and later hangs herself over the guilt of his death.
Frank Jewett, Brian's school principal, a cocaine addict, and a closet pedophile, finds pedophilia magazines strewn all over his office - Sally Ratcliffe's payment to Gaunt - with a note from his "friend" George Nelson, also a coke addict and pedophile. Frank breaks into George's house and kills his pet parakeet, destroys his various possessions and furniture, then defecates on a framed photo of George's mother. The two meet on the steps of the town hall and prepare to kill each other.
Danforth eventually murders his wife. Andy Clutterbuck's wife is murdered due to a case of mistaken identity. The Baptists and Catholics of the town - already in a religious rivalry - are turned against each other by "favors" performed for Gaunt and a massive, murderous battle breaks out in the middle of town. Finally, Gaunt begins to sell his poison-bullet automatic pistols (which will be used by Hugh, Cora, and Myra, among others). Ace Merrill and Danforth "Buster" Keeton begin, on Gaunt's orders, to plant dynamite around the town. They are caught by Norris Ridgewick who shoots Danforth - and is shot himself - and escapes. Ace, seeing Danforth suffering from the fatal gunshot, shoots him three times in the head as a mercy killing.
Meanwhile, Brian Rusk, tortured by his guilt in playing a role in Wilma and Nettie's murders and maddened by his obsession over the card Gaunt sold him, commits suicide via shotgun after making his younger brother Sean promise to never buy anything from Needful Things. Sean Rusk is taken, in a state of shock, to the hospital in another town. Alan Pangborn, head sheriff of town, has grown increasingly suspicious of the chaos in town and visits Sean in the hospital. After Sean tells him about his promise to Brian, Alan's suspicions about the source of the chaos prove true and he orders Gaunt arrested.
It is explained that Gaunt has, for centuries, been wandering through different countries and selling people useless junk. These objects appear to the buyer to be whatever they want most, and once acquired, have the power to strongly affect their moods. Buyers develop severe paranoia and anxiety if they are not physically holding the purchased items. By threatening to either take away the item, destroy it, or remove its power, Gaunt is able to blackmail, coerce, and intimidate his customers into doing whatever he wants. In the end "he always sells weapons", which everyone eagerly buys so they can defend their property.
Sheriff Pangborn immediately heads back to Castle Rock and enters Needful Things to find it empty, but he finds a videotape on the counter with a note from Gaunt telling him it will reveal how his wife and son died years earlier. The tape shows Ace Merrill running their car off the road into the tree that kills them. Alan leaves the shop to kill Ace Merrill. Polly, who has realized her "favor" to Gaunt has set up Alan's murder, removes the charm she bought and kills the creature inside that was feeding on her arthritic pain before heading to Needful Things. She sees Alan and brings him to his senses only to be taken hostage by Ace Merrill, who threatens to kill her unless Alan gives him the treasure he stole.
Norris Ridgewick, who had been prepared to commit suicide before realizing he still had his duty as a police officer, arrives a distance away and prepares to shoot Ace, until he sees Polly blocking his shot. At this time, Gaunt is preparing to leave. Alan, ignoring Ace, quickly confronts him and steals his briefcase which, Alan correctly believes, contains the captured souls of everyone who bought from Needful Things, holding them under Gaunt's power. While Ace is distracted by the confrontation, Polly escapes his grasp. Norris, now having a clear shot, kills Ace with a bullet straight to the head. Gaunt becomes annoyed, agitated, then furious, and attacks Alan. Alan avoids the potentially fatal strike and produces a bouquet of paper flowers from a magician's trick he carries with him. The bouquet emits a blinding white light which appears to harm Gaunt, causing his human facade to melt away and reveal his true form as a slightly reptilian, dwarf-like humanoid. His car, parked nearby, transforms into a carriage pulled by a single deathly-white horse with glowing red eyes. The words on the side of the carriage read "Caveat Emptor" ("Buyer Beware"). Leland Gaunt leaves town in the carriage, which flies, and the town is destroyed by mass riots, murder, and numerous explosions of dynamite. Those who have survived the entire harrowing ordeal find themselves facing an uncertain future in what is left of Castle Rock.
The novel ends as it began, in the first-person welcome to the reader as a new person in town. The beginning and end of the book are almost word for word with the only real difference being the setting and the name of the store. In the beginning of the book, the reader was welcomed to Castle Rock, noting the new sign for Needful Things. In the end, the narrator welcomes the reader to Junction City, Iowa, noting the new sign for the store "Answered Prayers" - suggesting that Leland Gaunt has set up shop someplace else to begin his business cycle all over again.
W Pełni Rozkwitających Drzew M.W. Jasińska ![Życie_Książką_Pisane - awatar](https://cdn.statically.io/img/s.lubimyczytac.pl/upload/default-avatar-32x32.jpg)
Życie_Książką_Pisane
ocenił(a) na 81 godz. temu Ksawery von Zierotin staje się właścicielem zamku w Kemnitz. Dla lokalnej społeczności jest on strasznym dziwakiem, bo prowadzi tylko życie nocne, dlatego wielką sensacją staje się jego małżeństwo z piekną i młodziutką Elaine.
Kiedy miasto nawiedza fala dziwnych zgonów mieszkańcy stają się coraz bardziej podejrzliwi i zaczynają się zastanawiać, czy nowi właściciele zamku są na pewno ludźmi.
Gdyby ktoś mi kiedyś powiedział,że spodoba mi się książka o takiej tematyce, to bym nie uwierzyła, a tu proszę.😁
Pierwszy raz sięgnęłam po ten gatunek i jestem pod ogromnym wrażeniem, tym bardziej, że jest to literacki debiut autorki. Na pochwałę zasługują przede wszystkim piękny język, świetna fabuła i mroczna atmosfera.
Trochę przestraszyłam się tego określenia "romantasy", ale na szczęście okazało się, że nie jest to ckliwy romans osadzony w gotyckiej scenerii, ale historia o samotności, wyobcowaniu i wewnętrznej walce otoczona światem wampirów, czarownic i nadprzyrodzonych mocy.
Sam Ksawery jawi mi się niczym postać hrabiego Draculi. On jednak nie do końca wie czym się stał i próbuje odnaleźć sie w nowej roli. Jest także potwornie samotny i nieszczęśliwy i cały czas toczy ze sobą walkę o to kim jest, a kim chciałby być.
Czuć tutaj także inspirację "Wywiadem z wampirem", o czym informuje zresztą sama autorka.
Elaine również nie jest zwykłą kobietą, ale istotą obdarzoną niezwykłymi darami i umiejętnościami, a jej moc działa na Ksawerego bardzo kojąco. Polubiłam ich obu, chociaż Elaine była dla mnie zbyt mało wyrazista.
Czytaniu towarzyszyła mi cały czas mroczna i gęsta atmosfera, tak jakby cały czas coś wisiało w powietrzu i właśnie ta atmosfera sprawiała że od książki nie można się oderwać. Genialna!
Jestem zrozpaczona z powodu zakończenia, bo liczyłam na coś zupełnie innego, a tu taka sytuacja. 😫😫😫
Mam nadzieję,że będzie więcej takich historii i z niecierpliwością czekam na następną książkę @m.w.jasinska