Recently Completed

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

So I finished the Moonlite book. (On the cover it is In Search of Captain Moonlite, on the inside header it is In Search of Captain Moonlight. The latter is how he spelt it, the other how everyone else spelt it.) It was very readable. A somewhat bizarre and yet sad story.

Sad, because it's the story of a educated young preacher with a taste for fine things that he couldn't quite afford who was gaoled for a crime he probably didn't commit, and who spent the remaining years of his life trying to get people to listen to him and acknowledge he'd been mistreated, only to have his actions lead to police harassment, and then to the death of his soul mate and the young men/boys who followed him. Then his death cell letters, of which there were apparently many, never reached their recipients and where locked away until a century later. Frustration, bitterness, despair.

Bizarre because the story doesn't go in the usual directions such stories shuold go in, and Scott's behaviour isn't how sensible men should behave. This is from a combination of both the acts described and the matter of their telling:

According to the Daily Telegraph, as Scott travelled to Cootamundra under the guard of the police who had capture him, he whiled away his time by calculating the drop he could expect when the executioner pulled the lever on the gallows. Eventually, he came up with the comforting estimation that he would fall five and a half feet before the rope brought him up short. Thoughtfully, he came up with similar calculations for his fellow prisoners.

A very readable book, although some of the "foreshadowing" is annoying. Also the author's tendency to run off into a few paragraphs, or more, of background material whenever he introduces a new plater or places is sometimes misplaced. It's OK if short and earlier in the book, where it adds depth. But towards the ends? It gets in the way.

But overall, well, it's the first time that I can recall a non-fiction book that I wanted to keep picking up after I put it down, even when I should have been doing over things. And I read the last half in one afternoon.

Good book. Have a cookie.