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Book News
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Ten of the best visions of hell in literature Aeneid by Virgil Aeneas travels to the Underworld, guided by the Sybil. The hellish bit is Tartarus. "From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains / Of sounding lashes and of dragging chains." The unrepenting are made to confess their crimes, and sent down into a pit, guarded by the Hydra, where the Titans wallow in impotent violence. Piers Plowman by William Langland The medieval dreamer finds himself before the gates of Hell, where personifications of Peace, Mercy and Truth are gathering, and where he meets a thoroughly anxious, defeatist Satan. Christ arrives and "all the bars of Belial burst asunder, and the gates flew open in the face of the guards". Hell is harrowed. Inferno by Dante "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate." In Dante's nine deepening circles, sinners get what they have deserved. The lustful are blown forever in tormenting storms; corrupt politicians simmer in bubbling tar; professional flatterers are bathed in excrement. Paradise Lost by John Milton Tumbled out of Heaven, the rebel angels find themselves in a bad place: "A dungeon horrible, on all sides round / As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames / No light; but rather darkness visible / Served only to discover sights of View guardian article
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sulcus
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Club 18-30 in Kavos, Corfu by Marc Nash in "A, B & E"" Instead of putting daylight between me and Damon, I’ve been plunged into Cimmerian gloom. Playing muff-ti hostess to the invading host of my juvenile compatriots. All of us here, are out on license from mothers or child-hood sweethearts. Pitch(fork)ed forward by our inner daemons. Pissed and peevish. Thereby consigned in Acheron, I will pluck out and tear at my own liver from the inside thank you very much. Spraying my throat daily. Til my urine turns agented orange. A spot of defoliating the lapsed marital paradise. A toxification of my own future landscape. Mutating all non-forthcoming progeny. I need to catch somebody’s cyclopean eye here. "
This post was last edited by sulcus, 24 Apr 2010, 10:30
"A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."
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Assignment Robot
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Quote: sulcus, Saturday, 24 Apr 2010 10:28Club 18-30 in Kavos, Corfu by Marc Nash in "A, B & E"" Instead of putting daylight between me and Damon, I’ve been plunged into Cimmerian gloom. Playing muff-ti hostess to the invading host of my juvenile compatriots. All of us here, are out on license from mothers or child-hood sweethearts. Pitch(fork)ed forward by our inner daemons. Pissed and peevish. Thereby consigned in Acheron, I will pluck out and tear at my own liver from the inside thank you very much. Spraying my throat daily. Til my urine turns agented orange. A spot of defoliating the lapsed marital paradise. A toxification of my own future landscape. Mutating all non-forthcoming progeny. I need to catch somebody’s cyclopean eye here. " I don't think that's in their brochures.
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sulcus
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Quote: Assignment Robot, Saturday, 24 Apr 2010 12:49Quote: sulcus, Saturday, 24 Apr 2010 10:28Club 18-30 in Kavos, Corfu by Marc Nash in "A, B & E"" Instead of putting daylight between me and Damon, I’ve been plunged into Cimmerian gloom. Playing muff-ti hostess to the invading host of my juvenile compatriots. All of us here, are out on license from mothers or child-hood sweethearts. Pitch(fork)ed forward by our inner daemons. Pissed and peevish. Thereby consigned in Acheron, I will pluck out and tear at my own liver from the inside thank you very much. Spraying my throat daily. Til my urine turns agented orange. A spot of defoliating the lapsed marital paradise. A toxification of my own future landscape. Mutating all non-forthcoming progeny. I need to catch somebody’s cyclopean eye here. " I don't think that's in their brochures. Every day I am compressed behind the cordon sanitaire. Transfused directly into the heart of the contagion, that is my people abroad and away from home. An epidemic that used to be just about held in check back in Blighty by flimsy anti-rabidity restrictions, but now unleashed here under grant of charter holidays. Disposable income, disposable attitude to other people. Across the Square from me, right over there, is the sort of cut glass they don’t show in the tour brochures. Have you read the novel then Assignment Robot? Way ahead of you on that one...
This post was last edited by sulcus, 24 Apr 2010, 12:53
"A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."
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annswinfen
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Well, Ted, you've obviously spent the morning filleting the Guardian - the Review section is always my Saturday morning reading over a coffee at a local coffee shop.
I thought the last Vision of Hell was the best, the one by Terry Pratchett, though it's a bit too near real life.
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Athene
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They missed both my favourites: Philip Pulman's version of the Harrowing of Hell in "His Dark Materials," and Tom Holt's in "Faust Among Equals" in which Hell is rebranded as the EuroBosch theme park, designed and managed by Heironymous "Ronnie" Bosch.
Scias te fortasse Romanum esse si animal convivialissimum arbitreris esse caprum (Henricus Barbatus) my website
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AntCity
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AntCity was here.
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papa stas
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Quote: AntCity, Sunday, 16 May 2010 00:49AntCity was here.
Hell is too many ants in one place -
Like, let’s take a picnic blanket.
Just you and your lover - .
a bottle of wine –
some fried chicken –
a big chocolate cake
(especially if your lover’s a gal named Tempy)
and then they come.
Pinching ants!
When they get on you, they don't bite at once.
They climb up inside your clothes,
and you never feel them.
They seem to give a signal,
and suddenly they ALL start biting at once.
They have huge pinchers,
and they grab hold and don't let go.
papa
stas (who thinks it makes for an interesting picnic)
The difference between a CHAMP and a CHUMP is U.
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10 best visions of hell in literature
24 Apr 2010, 10:04
