My only criticism is the same one I have with all fantasy: deus ex machina. The plot twists are unexpected appearances of magical things unrestrained by any logic or rules.
Tam had come to Europe with her daughter who’s doing a semester in Spain.
Cal and Maria are starting their 3rd year living in small villages near Bern.
The first two years they lived in Solothurn, a lovely place popular with Swiss but almost unknown by foreign tourists. Population is about 17,000 with 20% of those being resident foreign nationals.
St. Ursus Cathedra, Solothurn.
We enjoyed a terrific meal in Solothurn. It was Tam’s farewell. She flew home to Seattle same day.
I stayed the night with Cal and Maria, learning much about Switzerland. It’s a unique place which many other nations should study.
Muriel Spark’s Loitering with Intent (1981) was published when she was 64.
The novel is written in the first person, framed as a memoir, as Fleur Talbot, the celebrated writer, looks back, “in the fullness of [her] years”, to the weeks and months of winter 1949-50, when she was working on her first novel, living in a bedsit, supporting herself by working in secretarial jobs.
Hassan, the “storyteller” of Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya’s … novel, is more than just a narrator: he is a guide, a witness, a showman, a chronicler of Moroccan legend and lore.
His stage is the central square of Marrakesh, Djemaa el Fna, where the myriad wonders of this great, red-walled city surround and inspire him. …
On this particular night, however, Hassan is concerned with only one mystery: the story of a foreign couple, a beautiful French-American woman and her Indian partner, who vanished from the square one evening a few years earlier. …
But the hike that most intrigued was a ridge walk out of Interlaken, Switzerland. A climber, Brendan Leonard, claimed the Hardergrat, or Brienzergrat (“grat” = ridge) was the best hike in the world. I’d never even heard of it.
But his photos could not be denied. This looked amazing.
So I flew to Zurich, my first trip back since the World Gymnastics Gymnaestrada 1982. It did not look familiar. My memory is terrible.
Trains in Switzerland are super efficient, super expensive. It’s easy and costly to zip around. After a day in Zurich, I hopped the train to Interlaken East.
Interlaken is a tourist trap filled with rich Arab, Asian and Indian suitcase tourists. But it was worth staying just to enjoy one of the best hostels in Europe – Backpackers Villa Sonnenhof. In fact, I can’t recall any hostel with more amenities.
On arrival at the hostel I asked the girl at the desk about Hardergrat. She cursed Brendan Leonard. Told me he’d single handedly popularized a very dangerous route. AND they’d hiked it in the wrong direction. All locals KNOW you should do it starting in Brienz, finishing Interlaken. She gave me some good advice.
A really long, tough day, I made it. Almost 10 hours with only very short breaks.
As I did in 2009 while I was here, I reread the Eiger Sanction by Travanian (1972). It holds up pretty well. Lot’s of violence and murder and politically incorrect sex. Clint Eastwood directed and played the starring role in the 1975 film.
Did you see the 2007 film Golden Compass with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman?
Rick McCharles 