Three things on a Sunday afternoon

[dolorosa_12]

This is one of those posts about unrelated things, none of which I feel really warrants a post of its own.

I stumbled across this excellent post by Ada Palmer on her blog. On the surface of things, it's about the two recent TV series about the Borgias, but what it's really about is being a professional historian (or someone who has deep historical knowledge about specific time periods), and learning to switch off that part of the brain when engaging with historical fiction. I really love the way Palmer writes — I haven't seen either series, but this doesn't matter, as her writing draws you in, no matter what the subject.

I've hit a bit of a reading slump, and it hasn't helped that the book I was reading, The Library of the Unwritten by AJ Hackwith, sounded cool in terms of concept (a librarian who spends the afterlife preserving and collecting all unwritten books, for the library of Hell), but really didn't work for me in terms of execution. It's the sort of book about books, stories, authors and bookishness that I think I would have adored fifteen years ago, but with which I am swiftly losing patience — the literary equivalent of Oscar-baity films about Hollywood. (Other recent examples of this subgenre of fantasy novel which I also found tooth-gratingly irritating include The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow, and The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (both of which were, indeed, pushed at me by Goodreads when I marked The Library of the Unwritten as 'read'.) I think it doesn't help that these types of stories have a tendency to be extremely twee — this wasn't as bad in that regard as Harrow's writing, but it was still too treacly for my tastes. I wanted more celestial and infernal politics, and less pontificating about the power of stories.

Talk to me about Yuletide! Who is planning to participate this year? What fandoms are you thinking of nominating? Nominations coordination in the comments is most welcome!

Comments

[lirazel]

I scanned that article--I don't have time to read about it all at the moment--and did find it very interesting. I love The Borgias but because I think the casting is so great, I never had any desire to watch Borgia. This has made me curious about it!

The one thing I know I'm nominating for sure is Fiddler on the Roof. I want to find out how Hodel and Perchik fell in love! (Or sister fic. Sister fic would be acceptable.) Other than that, I have a bunch of well-maybes. The canons I most enjoyed this year were ones that were really satisfying and didn't make me want fic, necessarily.

I am considering asking for Crash Landing On You fic, because I still think that show did wrong by Seo Dan, but I have not had the best of luck with kdrama requests in the past, so we'll see.

[dolorosa_12]

I haven't watched either Borgia series, but I enjoyed the article because it articulated something I've long come to realise: historical nitpickery frequently misses the point. Historical fiction doesn't need to be a picture perfect reflection of the past, because often that would lead to a lot of time-wasting due to the need to translate every tiny detail to make it comprehensible to modern viewers. It's enough if the overall attitudes and motivations for the characters make sense for someone of that historical and cultural time period.

Fiddler on the Roof sounds like it would be a good Yuletide fandom, and I bet you'll find people willing to write it. I don't have any personal experience with kdramas and Yuletide, but I'm peripherally aware that Crash Landing On You was pretty popular in Dreamwidth circles this year, so maybe you'll have more luck this time.

[lirazel]

because often that would lead to a lot of time-wasting due to the need to translate every tiny detail to make it comprehensible to modern viewers.

Yes! (The one I always think of this is that "Tiffany is a Byzantine name, but you would never dream of calling a character in a novel set in Byzantium by that name, now would you?" post on Tumblr. I don't even know if it's true, but I like to believe that it is.)

Yeah, I definitely think there are like four people on my flist alone who would be willing to write FotR!

[dolorosa_12]

'The Tiffany Problem' is a real and legitimate thing. The actual name for this phenomenon was coined by author Jo Walton, who is herself a good friend of Ada Palmer's. (Tiffany is a variant on the name Theophania, and it is attested right back to medieval times in England and France.)

[lirazel]

I'm glad to know that's true! And I like Jo Walton very much, but I wasn't aware it was connected to her.