Book whining update (subset: nonfiction)
Sep. 8th, 2014 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorindaAs per this post, I got ahold of the two nonfiction books I thought I might dive into while I do some fact-finding into some possible fiction (and thanks by the way for the recs!).
So I checked out James Lord's My Queer War, and Mary Beard's book about Pompeii (the US title being The Fires of Vesuvius).
Really good so far! I've already learned basic facts about Pompeii I had either never learned or had forgotten (for instance, that there's disagreement about the actual date of the eruption, for one thing--I think I had assumed that Pliny the Younger's eyewitness account had that nailed down, but then she talked about potential mistakes in that text's transmission via successions of scribes over the years. Interesting!)
My Queer War is a solid entry in the WWII-era-gay-memoir niche, and gives fascinating glimpses not only into his mindset at the time, but also at his interactions with other men both admittedly gay and not (including the way he develops this passionate, intimate friendship with a fellow soldier, who he keeps going on road trips with and sleeping in the same bed with, but who he's never quite able to figure out). There's also an extended section about his introduction to gay life and subcultures, which is interesting. The story does get a little startling much later, when he's all besties with Picasso and dropping in on Gertrude Stein...I can't help but wish for a little, you know, confirmation of any of that. (It's awfully stodgy of me, but I prefer a memoir of reality as the author can best remember it, rather than vigorous helpings of confabulation. Confabulation I can get anywhere; actual factual personal experience, not as much.)
Anyway, there you go. I shall cease my whining.
FOR NOW.
So I checked out James Lord's My Queer War, and Mary Beard's book about Pompeii (the US title being The Fires of Vesuvius).
Really good so far! I've already learned basic facts about Pompeii I had either never learned or had forgotten (for instance, that there's disagreement about the actual date of the eruption, for one thing--I think I had assumed that Pliny the Younger's eyewitness account had that nailed down, but then she talked about potential mistakes in that text's transmission via successions of scribes over the years. Interesting!)
My Queer War is a solid entry in the WWII-era-gay-memoir niche, and gives fascinating glimpses not only into his mindset at the time, but also at his interactions with other men both admittedly gay and not (including the way he develops this passionate, intimate friendship with a fellow soldier, who he keeps going on road trips with and sleeping in the same bed with, but who he's never quite able to figure out). There's also an extended section about his introduction to gay life and subcultures, which is interesting. The story does get a little startling much later, when he's all besties with Picasso and dropping in on Gertrude Stein...I can't help but wish for a little, you know, confirmation of any of that. (It's awfully stodgy of me, but I prefer a memoir of reality as the author can best remember it, rather than vigorous helpings of confabulation. Confabulation I can get anywhere; actual factual personal experience, not as much.)
Anyway, there you go. I shall cease my whining.
FOR NOW.
