And you looked so good, sleepy smiling
Aug. 9th, 2020 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12It is baking — or at least, with three consecutive days of more than 30-degree heat, the UK equivalent. Sleeping has been difficult, and tasks requiring a great deal of brainpower have been even more so.
Thankfully, it is the weekend, and other than repotting a herb seedling into the larger container garden outside, and hanging out laundry to sit limply in the still heat, I haven't had much to do that's required any exertion. We did make it out to Grantchester this morning (leaving the house before 8am), when the temperature was still only 16 degrees or so, but other than that I've barely left the wing chair, drinking iced coffee, eating frozen grapes, and reading.
My reading so far has consisted of:
By the Book: Prose and Cons, by Amanda Sellet. This is a YA novel which interweaves the tropes of classic literature and American high school romcoms (a pairing which works very well, given how many of the best films in the latter genre are modern — or at least 1990s — retellings of stories from the former), with a bookish heroine trying to navigate the treacherous waters of high school politics. It is very, very silly, but if you accept the premise, the tropeyness is fun, as is spotting all the literary allusions.
Good Man Friday, the twelfth book in Barbara Hambley's Benjamin January mystery series. This one sees Ben (along with his sister Dominique, Dominique's lover Henri, and Henri's wife Chloë) journey to Washington D.C. to track down Chloë's missing relative, and I enjoyed it a lot. Dominque and Chloë are among my favourite side characters in the series, and I love any situation in which the pair of them are thrown together, and the way they employ their two very different skill sets to solve problems. I always enjoy books in the series which go outside the regular New Orleans setting and shed new light on other corners of the world.
The Chosen, by Veronica Roth. I've never read any of Roth's previous YA novels, and I acquired this one as Matthias noticed it was available cheaply for the Kindle and bought it (we have a shared Kindle library). There is a kernel of an interesting idea here: the teenage 'chosen ones' of various non-existent YA dystopias/fantasy novels survive whatever battles they were forced to win, and, fifteen years later they're in their thirties, traumatised and wondering what to do with the ordinary lives they did not expect to be living. The book is an attempt to interrogate the way such fantasy settings — and the adult/mentor figures within them — turn their heroes into child soldiers at best, weapons at worst, and what that might do to a person. (Indeed it is, I suppose, an attempt to critique exactly the kind of massively popular YA dystopias that Roth herself was so commercially successfuly at churning out.) The problem is that this kernel of an idea is buried in a lot of turgid, formulaic plot and flat characterisation — the author is not equal to the task she has set herself.
Thankfully, the last book I read, Thorn, by Intisar Khanani, was a massive improvement. This is a retelling of The Goose Girl — quite dark, even by fairytale standards — done exquisitely. I am a sucker for a good fairytale retelling, and this is one of the best I've ever read. Some of the more negative reviews I've seen criticise the book for its narrator's passivity — but this passivity makes sense because what she actually is is a survivor of a childhood of abuse and trauma, compounded by the fact that this abuse is minimised, denied, or she is blamed for it. I thought this element was really well written. I realise this makes it sound quite a grim book, but it also has moments of whimsy, kindness, and that kind of luminous, clear fairytale goodness that cannot be crushed, no matter the cruelties and injustices that are piled on it. I absolutely adore stories about characters who fight back against viciousness not with violence or intrigue, but in smaller, quieter ways — carving out spaces of community, compassion, and generosity in the margins, out of sight of those doing the violence. This is definitely one of my favourite books of the year so far, and I will probably write a longer review on my reviews blog at a later point. When the weather is cooler, maybe. One thing I would say is that if my gushing words about this book have made you intrigued, there are certain content warnings that I would probably want to let you know (if you know the original fairytale, you will know what I mean, but if not, and if you have any concerns in this area, ask me in the comments).
The paperback of Thorn also included a short story set in the same world, 'The Bone Knife', which read like a long-forgotten folktale, with familiar beats of mysterious supernatural guests, a humble family showing cautious hospitality, and dangerous bargains with fairies. I loved it!
That's it, in terms of reading for this weekend. I'm going to try to find a very slow, gentle yoga class to do, check out the latest segment of the Lore Olympus webcomic (just released today), and try to avoid melting!
Thankfully, it is the weekend, and other than repotting a herb seedling into the larger container garden outside, and hanging out laundry to sit limply in the still heat, I haven't had much to do that's required any exertion. We did make it out to Grantchester this morning (leaving the house before 8am), when the temperature was still only 16 degrees or so, but other than that I've barely left the wing chair, drinking iced coffee, eating frozen grapes, and reading.
My reading so far has consisted of:
By the Book: Prose and Cons, by Amanda Sellet. This is a YA novel which interweaves the tropes of classic literature and American high school romcoms (a pairing which works very well, given how many of the best films in the latter genre are modern — or at least 1990s — retellings of stories from the former), with a bookish heroine trying to navigate the treacherous waters of high school politics. It is very, very silly, but if you accept the premise, the tropeyness is fun, as is spotting all the literary allusions.
Good Man Friday, the twelfth book in Barbara Hambley's Benjamin January mystery series. This one sees Ben (along with his sister Dominique, Dominique's lover Henri, and Henri's wife Chloë) journey to Washington D.C. to track down Chloë's missing relative, and I enjoyed it a lot. Dominque and Chloë are among my favourite side characters in the series, and I love any situation in which the pair of them are thrown together, and the way they employ their two very different skill sets to solve problems. I always enjoy books in the series which go outside the regular New Orleans setting and shed new light on other corners of the world.
The Chosen, by Veronica Roth. I've never read any of Roth's previous YA novels, and I acquired this one as Matthias noticed it was available cheaply for the Kindle and bought it (we have a shared Kindle library). There is a kernel of an interesting idea here: the teenage 'chosen ones' of various non-existent YA dystopias/fantasy novels survive whatever battles they were forced to win, and, fifteen years later they're in their thirties, traumatised and wondering what to do with the ordinary lives they did not expect to be living. The book is an attempt to interrogate the way such fantasy settings — and the adult/mentor figures within them — turn their heroes into child soldiers at best, weapons at worst, and what that might do to a person. (Indeed it is, I suppose, an attempt to critique exactly the kind of massively popular YA dystopias that Roth herself was so commercially successfuly at churning out.) The problem is that this kernel of an idea is buried in a lot of turgid, formulaic plot and flat characterisation — the author is not equal to the task she has set herself.
Thankfully, the last book I read, Thorn, by Intisar Khanani, was a massive improvement. This is a retelling of The Goose Girl — quite dark, even by fairytale standards — done exquisitely. I am a sucker for a good fairytale retelling, and this is one of the best I've ever read. Some of the more negative reviews I've seen criticise the book for its narrator's passivity — but this passivity makes sense because what she actually is is a survivor of a childhood of abuse and trauma, compounded by the fact that this abuse is minimised, denied, or she is blamed for it. I thought this element was really well written. I realise this makes it sound quite a grim book, but it also has moments of whimsy, kindness, and that kind of luminous, clear fairytale goodness that cannot be crushed, no matter the cruelties and injustices that are piled on it. I absolutely adore stories about characters who fight back against viciousness not with violence or intrigue, but in smaller, quieter ways — carving out spaces of community, compassion, and generosity in the margins, out of sight of those doing the violence. This is definitely one of my favourite books of the year so far, and I will probably write a longer review on my reviews blog at a later point. When the weather is cooler, maybe. One thing I would say is that if my gushing words about this book have made you intrigued, there are certain content warnings that I would probably want to let you know (if you know the original fairytale, you will know what I mean, but if not, and if you have any concerns in this area, ask me in the comments).
The paperback of Thorn also included a short story set in the same world, 'The Bone Knife', which read like a long-forgotten folktale, with familiar beats of mysterious supernatural guests, a humble family showing cautious hospitality, and dangerous bargains with fairies. I loved it!
That's it, in terms of reading for this weekend. I'm going to try to find a very slow, gentle yoga class to do, check out the latest segment of the Lore Olympus webcomic (just released today), and try to avoid melting!
no subject
Date: 2020-08-10 12:49 pm (UTC)I wouldn't really say Thorn reinvents the fairytale — it stick pretty close to the arc of the original sotry. What it does is flesh that story out — fairytale characters don't tend to have any emotional/psychological reasons for doing the things they do, they just do them because that's what the story requires (or because they are generically 'good' or 'bad') — but Thorn ascribes motives and personalities which explain the choices characters make. And so the heroine is happy to make a political marriage to a stranger because her family are abusive and she sees the marriage as a way to escape the abuse, the servant (or rather aristocratic lady in waiting) who tricks everyone into thinking she is really the princess does so because the princess ruined her life several years back, and so on. There's also an added strand about the impossibility of the poor and dispossessed residents of the kingdom getting any form of justice from the authorities, and turning to their own networks of thieves and criminals to dispense justice instead (and generally about the nobility/royalty being so removed from the people they rule that they are incapable of addressing their concernes), and another strand about intergenerational trauma, and the degree to which people are responsible for the injustices perpetuated by their ancestors. But I wouldn't say that any of that reinvents the fairytale — just bulks it out.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-17 10:03 pm (UTC)