Brief catch up

[dolorosa_12]

This is a bit of a drive-by post about some recent books read and a film watched, as I'm planning to post more extensively tomorrow. I've had the day off, which has given me plenty of opportunity to read, so read I did:

Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames, by Lara Maiklem, is exactly what it says on the tin: a memoir about an adult life spent wandering the shores of London's river, pulling random treasures from its silty mud. The book meanders along the length of the river, and Maiklem uses the objects typically found in each spot to digress about Roman, medieval, Tudor, early modern, Victorian, and twentieth-century history, interspersed with personal anecdotes and information about the weird tribe of people whose hobby it is to hang out on riverbanks searching for artefacts.

Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is exactly what I was expecting, which is unfortunately not a good thing. I found Harrow's Hugo Award-winning short story, 'A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,' to be cloyingly sentimental, filled with damaging vocational awe and myths about librarianship that librarians are actively working to avoid, and very white saviour-y. So I was expecting Doors to be along similar lines, and I'm afraid it is: twee, sentimental, and self-consciously quirky. I don't mind books about the power of stories, escapism, and which adopt a deliberately fairytale (or, in this case, early twentieth-century adventure story) tone, but I want them to have a bit of darkness and bite. I want Frances Hardinge, in other words, but that's not what I got with this book. It's very competently written, and it's good at doing what it set out to do, but it's not to my taste.

In terms of films, Matthias and I went out to see Armando Ianucci's adaptation of David Copperfield. While my opinion of Dickens tends to align with that of George Orwell, I'm generally happy enough watching adaptations, and I am a massive fan of Ianucci's, so I was quite keen to see the film. I found it delightful, very well cast (it is genuinely colourblind casting — not in the sense that Dev Patel is playing David Copperfield, but in the sense that characters were cast with no care as to whether it was believable that their characters were related by blood to each other, merely whether the actor was capable of performing the role well), and generally just an enjoyable film.

In my last post, I mentioned waybackexchange, which is a fanworks exchange for fandoms whose last installment came out ten years ago or more. It's now open for nominations, and you can nominate both individual characters, and pairings. Is anyone else going to be participating?

Comments

[ambyr]

This is the first other response to Ten Thousand Doors of January I've seen--and it more or less matches mine. I found it frustratingly hollow (and, like you, was deeply irked by "A Witch's Guide to Escape." Which is too bad, because I really enjoyed Harrow's earlier short story, "The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage."

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad I'm not the only one, because I thought I was going mad. I often feel that certain corners of the pro SFF community latch onto particular books/short fiction, and opnion about their quality and subsequent awards success becomes an inevitability. It's a kind of herd mentality, and although I often agree with the herd opinion, when I don't it can feel really lonely.

Given that both you and merit recommend 'The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage,' I'll track it down and see what I think.

[naye]

You and lebateleur just posted very similar reviews of Ten Thousand Doors of January, and I'm so glad you've saved me the trouble of checking out if it's worth reading. It has a pretty title and a pretty cover and I am weak to that combination. But I remembered your opinion of the author's short story and so hadn't gotten it in any format yet.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm really glad I'm not the only one with similar feelings about Ten Thousand Doors of January, because I was starting to think there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't reacting in the same rapturous manner to Harrow's writing. That short story was truly dire — and as a librarian I suspect you would spot the same problems in it that I did — and I lost a lot of respect for people who couldn't see its deep, deep and obvious flaws.

[ambyr]

So, I am curious, because I don't know if this is as much of a thing in the UK as it is in the US: my big flailing frustration with "A Witch's Guide to Escape" was that every time the protagonist started talking about overdue fees, I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shout, "Do you know what would be a USEFUL way for you to use your privilege? To join in the now widespread movement among American librarians to eliminate overdue fees on the grounds that they serve as a form of regressive taxation and make it harder for people who are poor to access information." And, like. I realize stories about the slow grind to establishing systemic solutions to systemic problems are less exciting that stories about individuals martyring themselves for other individuals, but it was RIGHT THERE and so glaring that I just ended up deeply annoyed with the protagonist and her self-centeredness.

[dolorosa_12]

I agree 100 per cent! There is a growing movement in the UK against overdue fines, and the university where I work has instituted automatic renewals of books, meaning the only time users get fined now is if they fail to return a book that another user has recalled. Most public libraries still have fines, though. And yes, I guess it wouldn't have made such a flashy story, but abolishing overdue fines would have been of a lot more concrete help than the white saviour-y story we got instead.

[goodbyebird]

I actually fell into watching mudlarking videos on yt last time I was home, covering both the search itself and then the cleaned and fully researched items at home. You can see it's a very small, tightly knit community of enthusiasts, poking around in the mud. There was actually a mention of this book in one of them hehe.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, that's amazing! I did get the feeling from the book that — as in many strange hobbies — it was a small, close-knit community, and the author mentioned several times that she generally knows everyone she bumps into on mudlarking expeditions.

[merit]

You're one of the few people I've seen mention the 'white saviour-y' complex. It was so apparent! I was actually surprised by how much buzz it received, because aside from the complex, I didn't think it was amazingly written.

Though I agree with ambyr - I far more enjoyed her The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage short story. It has bite too, so perhaps there's hope for her future works.

[dolorosa_12]

I think the white saviour thing is more obvious if you're a librarian. There are a lot of discussions on librarian Twitter about the trap of vocational awe (thinking your profession is so pure and perfect and awe-inspiring that it leads to a sort of mythologising that can cover up or excuse poor working conditions, institutional racism, and abusive interpersonal dynamics), so we are hyperaware of stories which paint librarians as heroic saviours. Our work might be enjoyable, personally rewarding, and perform a social good, but it is just work, carried out by human beings, with all the flaws and messiness that entails.

I will try that other short story, given that both you and ambyr recommend it, and see what I think.

[merit]

Ah ok. Sometimes I get tempted to join Twitter because it seems a lot of book!fandom is there but then I also read that Twitter is currently like Tumblr in 2012 and I reconsider adding yet another social media account.

[dolorosa_12]

Yeah, it is kind of exhausting. I've had some interesting conversations, but Dreamwidth is far and away the better platform.