While I am determined to maintain the habit of the monthly review, I can’t say I take much pride in the contents of this one. Naturally, I have only myself to blame for both the results, and my own disappointment. Judge all you want, I’m not particularly concerned about the course of public opinion. And, if that obviously defensive introduction does not deter you, read on for the month of March.
The documents spilled out onto the table like the dusty entrails of some juridical shark. This archival immortality preserved the acts of violence and legal manipulations of a dozen noble gentry. He leaned over the ancient indictment:
…felonice interfecerunt et murdraverunt…
The thought occurred to him that one were careless enough to be caught, this was a nice way to become part of the fabric of history. But he had been very careful, and it saddened him to think of students not yet born, cursing the nameless perpetrator of some insignificant murder, unrecorded in the archives. The feeling quickly faded. (Oxford Noir: Close Roll, Open Corpse)
“Oxford post-grads frequently mistake Kafka’s The Castle for a cleverly written version of the History Faculty Handbook.” (Further fragments from Oxford Noir).
“I’m not sure how the second part of the cliché works in Oxford, but when they close a door, they take the literal approach.” (The Lost ‘Oxford Noir’: Fragments Recovered from the Shredder)
Pre-Publication Purgatory, or, what bibliographies tell you about publishing that they don’t want you to know.
There isn’t much of a mystery here—more a curious discovery of a bibliographic nature.
Pen, Book, Sword. 