More on hussar uniforms…

[erastes]

There’s a section in “Pyramids” where Pteppic “tools up” for the assassins examination and having collected all his stuff, promptly falls over because he can’t carry it all.  The hussar uniforms kind of remind me of that. They have so many accoutrements I’m surprised they can stand UP let alone ride a horse and swing a sword. I think I will waste the rest of the day making myself uniform-porn icons.

I was thinking about re-reading “At Swim Two Boys” (because I haven’t dared do a review yet for Speak Its Name) and found this excerpt on line.  What touches me about this (and perhaps you have be raised Catholic to really “get it” – is that the Priest brushes aside the greater sin here – Jim confesses that he went to the pier and got involved with someone, the priest assumes it’s a woman, and blames the pier itself for being a Protestant invention for luring good Catholic boys to sin.  Even when Jim insists on confessing the whole of it, the priest repeats that the soldier must look to his own salvation and that Jim must pray for him.  There’s a dark, black humour here too as the priest says that the soldier must have been a Saxon or worse, an Ulsterman, both lost to God.

The book is a challenge, and I have to be in the mood to start it, but it’s been about four years since I read it, so I think I really need to immerse myself in it again. Even if it’s only to remind me what fabulous writing is really like.