Books: Silver John
Okay, I liked that. I can't remember how I found it, I think I saw the name mentioned on a random stroll through TV Tropes, but I did like that.
I've just read through a book of short stories by Manly Wade Wellman (hell of a name) called "John the Balladeer", about a man named John, just John, who wanders around the Appalachian mountains post-Korean war with his silver-stringed guitar, encountering and fighting various spirits and magic men/women, usually with music. It's ... I liked it a lot. It hits a couple of my favourite motifs, the mystic minstrel, a-la the Pied Piper, and the wandering exorcist, a-la Kusuriuri/the Medicine Seller from Mononoke. John is interesting, a polite, soft-spoken, perpetually penniless musician who's too curious for his own good, always moves to help people if he can, and has a bit of a vindictive streak with people he doesn't like.
A lot of what I liked about the stories, though, are the descriptions, of the mountains and the people and the food (he talks about food a lot, hot damn, I was starving after reading this and I don't even like pork that much) and the music. There's a sense of place and rhythm and mystery in the stories. I really do like them a lot. Very folklorish, and a familiar kind of folklore to me too, like something not too far from what I'd read in a book of the Irish ghost stories I grew up with. There's moments when the stories really feel out of time, like they could have happened any time in the last three centuries, and it's only when John or somebody starts talking about the war or radar or the doppler effect that you can date them again.
I might look up more by this guy now. He's interesting.
I've just read through a book of short stories by Manly Wade Wellman (hell of a name) called "John the Balladeer", about a man named John, just John, who wanders around the Appalachian mountains post-Korean war with his silver-stringed guitar, encountering and fighting various spirits and magic men/women, usually with music. It's ... I liked it a lot. It hits a couple of my favourite motifs, the mystic minstrel, a-la the Pied Piper, and the wandering exorcist, a-la Kusuriuri/the Medicine Seller from Mononoke. John is interesting, a polite, soft-spoken, perpetually penniless musician who's too curious for his own good, always moves to help people if he can, and has a bit of a vindictive streak with people he doesn't like.
A lot of what I liked about the stories, though, are the descriptions, of the mountains and the people and the food (he talks about food a lot, hot damn, I was starving after reading this and I don't even like pork that much) and the music. There's a sense of place and rhythm and mystery in the stories. I really do like them a lot. Very folklorish, and a familiar kind of folklore to me too, like something not too far from what I'd read in a book of the Irish ghost stories I grew up with. There's moments when the stories really feel out of time, like they could have happened any time in the last three centuries, and it's only when John or somebody starts talking about the war or radar or the doppler effect that you can date them again.
I might look up more by this guy now. He's interesting.
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