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dorinda: From a French postcard of 1902: a woman in hat, coat, cravat, and walking stick writes on a pad of paper. (writer)
I ran across a cool-looking post on tumblr, a bingo card for "2025 Book Bingo". And I thought that would be a fun way to help me shake up my reading choices this year...I always have some book or other on the go, but often when I don't know what I feel like reading next, I fall yet again into a re-re-re-re-read of some old favorite. (Nothing wrong with old favorites, of course, but sometimes I overdo and am not re-reading out of an active choice but purely because I feel stuck.)

I posted a little report on my first book for the bingo on tumblr the other day, but once I was ready today to post my second one, I found myself strangely hesitant. Not sure why, and I did eventually post it...but for some reason it feels too weird for me to post things like that over there.

Maybe it's because I almost always just use tumblr for 1) browsing pictures, and 2) reblogging other people's posts?? I initiate very few posts--iirc, probably mainly fic announcements. Hmm. I really don't know why, honestly, but there's something about a set of personal book reports that feels more Dreamwidthy for me.

In any case, that's how it feels, and who even knows how my brain works, so I figure I'll put them over here. (Maybe I'll crosspost them on tumblr? Maybe the practice will help me feel more comfortable with it?? Maybe???)

This is the card I'm working from:

A 5x5 bingo card of different book categories
dorinda: Hands reach for two identical glasses, which are labeled "half empty" and "half full". (halfemptyhalffull)
Apropos of little, other than the idea that I should actually post here sometimes instead of just imagining writing posts but seldom doing it--

I've been re-reading the novel Jaws lately. Listening to it, really, as I saw an audiobook in the public library and checked it out onto my phone. I don't think I've read it since around the time the movie came out, when I was a child who read above my station in life (and also saw the movie, technically too young but definitely untraumatized).

And you know, seeing the movie back then, and many times since (I find it a masterpiece), has erased the memory of much of the actual contents of the book. Meaning, mostly, that I remembered the book as being, like the movie, mostly about shark attacks and battling/overcoming the beast. The movie is Man Vs Nature, with Man only barely succeeding.

The book? Pretty much Man Vs. Capitalism. Or maybe Man Vs. Money, if we want to separate the workings of mob-backed loan sharks from capitalism proper, but I don't separate them, so.

Like, the ongoing, ratcheting strain of 'I'm closing the beaches!'/'Martin, don't close the beaches!'/'I'm not gonna re-open the beaches!'/'Martin, re-open the beaches!' is about human life from Martin Brody's point of view, sure. Basically. But from literally everyone else's, it's about money and business, to an exhausting degree. The book goes into a lot of detail about the fragile economy of a summer resort town, and how it works on a tenuous boom-bust cycle, and how the presence of the shark basically knocks down the town's financial, real estate, and business structure prop by prop, until everyone is speculating very seriously that Amity itself will shortly die.

All v. interesting to someone, I have no doubt. But frankly, I'd rather hear a story about a shark.

Also, unfortunately, Martin Brody can be SUCH A PILL in the novel. I'd forgotten that. Irritable, hapless, uncommunicative, chip on his shoulder, constantly bickering with his wife. No wonder she sneaks off for a nooner with Rich Young Blond WASP Matt Hooper in the book, in a lengthy bid to recapture her lost upper-class identity. Thank goodness the movie removed that subplot and also changed Brody and Hooper's characterizations, plus cast them the way it did. Dodged a bullet there.

And man, listening to the audiobook narrator gamely proceeding through a very 1970s-gender-opinions sex scene, while I am on the train to work...awkward!

Definitely going to have to rewatch the movie to clear my palate.
dorinda: Cary Grant, in "Bringing Up Baby," clutches his head beneath the letters "OMG WTF". (WTF_CaryGrant)
Hoh man. Serious insomnia last night, my standard sleep hygiene routines fell down around my ears, so I'm at work on about 3 hours sleep. Kind of floating around behind my face like a gurbly balloon.

On the bright side, nice things going on at work, the powers that be actually ponying up money for something we really really needed, yay. But will I be glad to get home and eat a cracker and go to bed before sunset.

My current library audiobook is really fretting me. It's Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and I had heard about it eeeverywhere. Highly spoken of. And a good long book, so I was excited to jump in.

But now I'm just about halfway through, and am considering just stopping and returning the dang thing. It's a constant low-level irritation.

A major reason, unfortunately, is the reading. It's read by Donna Tartt herself, and there are few writers who I think should be audiobook readers. No shame, it's just...audiobook narration is a specific and underestimated skillset, and I vastly prefer to hear a professional do it. Just because you wrote the book doesn't mean you'll be good at reading it aloud.

She has a very low vocal energy, dipping into long croaky vocal fry a lot at the ends of sentences, because she doesn't know how to speak softly but also firmly/powerfully at the same time. A professional knows how to support their voice even when they're speaking right up against a microphone. For the same reasons, her voice scarcely changes timbre, staying in a repetitive, cyclical, muttery range, again because she doesn't have the skill at speaking quietly, on a mike, yet varying in tone and timbre and energy.

And to cap all that off, for some godforsaken reason she gives the character Bunny a distinctive "voice", high and very nasal and singsong, like she's doing some kind of puppet show. AUGH! No one else gets something like that. A professional audiobook reader--a good one, anyway--doesn't "do voices" like that. But here I have to listen to Bunny nasally-squeaking away right and left.

So it just rasps on my ears. It's likely that had I read the book in print, it wouldn't have felt like such a hard, irritating row to hoe--her reading has heaped a lot of difficulty onto the text that has taken extra work for me to disregard.

However--I can't guarantee I would like it, even if it had a good reader. Not just because all the characters are tedious to spend time with in a lit'ry-fiction/anachronistic/wealthy-spoiled-boring way, though that's sure the case. Nor that she seems to have given them banana levels of smoking habits mainly so she has actions to describe to break up big long speeches. Characters are forever lighting another cigarette or pouring another whisky (they all smoke and drink like thirty year olds in 1958, though they're supposed to be 20 year olds in the 1980s...I mean, I think even snotty old-rich Vermont college kids in the 80s drank dumb college booze like everyone else.).

That's kind of petty, I know. Worse I think is what feels to me like a complete overdetermination of Bunny Corcoran )

Granted, I'm only halfway through--maybe the second half of the book addresses this weird approach it seems to have committed to. But because the listening experience is not very pleasant, I'm not sure if I can stick it out.

Anyone who's read it, I'd be more than happy to hear your advice!
dorinda: Cary Grant, in "Bringing Up Baby," clutches his head beneath the letters "OMG WTF". (WTF_CaryGrant)
Has anyone else out there read the first detective novel by "Robert Galbraith" (revealed to be J.K. Rowling), "The Cuckoo's Calling"?

Because I just finished the audiobook yesterday--read by one of my favorite audiobook readers, Robert Glenister (actor, brother of Philip)--and am a bit grumpy about it. (Though Robert Glenister does a terrific job, as always. ♥)

The thing is, it's full of cliches (which granted I might call "tropes" if I liked 'em better) that feel so worn out and negative. Not that an old trope is a bad thing--detective stories are a big old trope in action!--but I don't know, things felt old in a tired/irritating way, not in a classic/familiar way.

The one that bugged me maybe the most (other than the identity of the killer, which will be under cut) was the whole setup and dynamic with Cormoran Strike (detective)'s new assistant. She's a young woman, who ends up basically caretaking and mommying him, cleaning up the office, making him tea, asking what's wrong, following & nannying him when he gets smashed-aggressive-drunk, managing his feelings. It's kind of like Effie from The Maltese Falcon, except with decades upon decades more time and more books having gone by so the stereotype is both exhausted and exhausting. (Also, Effie is a bit more feisty.) A naive young woman being an older man's pretty-but-off-limits-mommy, BLEAAHHHHHHHHHH.

Also, I was baffled by the identity of the killer, GIANT SPOILERS )

In short, wah. I was hoping I'd really like the book, partly because there are more in the series now (of course), and the audiobooks are all read by Robert Glenister. Also, it's being filmed for TV, with Tom Burke (Athos on The Musketeers) as Cormoran Strike, and that might very well be enjoyable.

Dammit, book! Be more good!
dorinda: In "Brideshead Revisited" (1981), Sebastian and Charles, arms around each other, look out to sea. (Brideshead_sea)
It's out at last! Yay! Keiko Kirin, who wrote the m/m novel "Safety Net" (about guys who meet in college on the football team, and find friendship as well as love and careers), has a new book out, The Provinces of Touch. The blurb for this one reads:

Jun, a healer with an unpredictable gift, yearns to overcome his troubled past. His solitude is shattered by the arrival of Tlar, a wounded young man from a distant land. Helping this stranger opens up new worlds filled with adventure -- but also brings shocking danger and tragedy. Can Jun finally find true friendship and love? Or will his actions cause a catastrophic invasion and the extinction of his people?

Here's her announcement post for The Provinces of Touch, as well as the Amazon page and the Smashwords page.

I also recommend this extra piece of promo art.

Full disclosure: I got to read an earlier draft. I highly recommend it, and am looking forward to reading my new copy of the final novel! It's gentle, thoughtful, character-driven fantasy, with interesting cultures and worldbuilding, and people I want to get to know all over again.
dorinda: In "Brideshead Revisited" (1981), Sebastian and Charles, arms around each other, look out to sea. (Brideshead_sea)
I was talking recently with [livejournal.com profile] lynndyre about this, but haven't mentioned it otherwise--I finally, FINALLY have been reading the Aubrey-Maturin books!

I haven't finished the series, but I'm well along--in the middle of The Letter of Marque, which is 12 of 20 (or 21 if you count the final unfinished book). It's utterly weird that it took me so long--I've always loved Age of Sail as a setting, I first fell for the Hornblower books at age 10 or 11, I've read many true historical tales of sailors' lives. Heck, I've even read AND enjoyed Moby Dick, more than once! Add on top of that how much I absolutely love the Master & Commander movie, and you'd think I'd have read them all long ago.

But no! It took me soooo long to get my figurative teeth into them. I tried Post Captain (book 2) first, sometime in the later 1990s--the idea was that it started out more like a landlocked comedy-of-manners, which would give me a head start before going to sea and having to face a lot of complicated terminology. And I've read and enjoyed Austen, so, why not this?

But I kept bouncing off Post Captain, over and over. I owned the paperback, and every year or two would open it again and give it another try, but even once I had made it through, I never felt connected to it. And the sea terminology was not the problem! (Hornblower had given me some of the basics, plus just a general absorption of knowledge from everything else age-of-sail-related I'd ever read or seen, plus the O'Brian books do a good job of contextualizing the technical terms even when they're complex).

But then early this year I think, or late last year, I went back and tried the first book in the series, Master and Commander. And click! I connected, I fell right in, and then I kept going, and read/enjoyed Post Captain this time, and then proceeded onward.

I think what in retrospect was a problem for me trying Post Captain first, was that Jack and Stephen are at odds--and such serious odds!--for so much of the book. And because I hadn't thought to stop and try Master & Commander first, I didn't have a foundation for their friendship, as a starting point before seeing the issues with Diana almost bring them to a deadly confrontation.

Once M&C had given me their first meeting, and then how quickly they get over that and bond together, I had an anchor to support me through the tribulations of Post Captain--and then when they are reconciled later in Post Captain, I could bracket off the near-duel as the aberration it was, and sail merrily off to bask in Jack-and-Stephen (and Jack/Stephen) through all the books to come.

I am so totally loving them. And some I've already read twice, first in print and then listening to the audiobook. (Fellow audiobook listeners--it's funny, at first I thought I'd never get comfortable with Patrick Tull, with the heavy thickness of his voice and his idiosyncratic rhythms with such long pauses--but now he is absolutely my jam. And when I've had to listen to Simon Vance, when he's the only one I can get my hands on, I sigh wistfully all the way through and wish for Tull. I thought Vance would be my favorite, as I've heard him narrate the Temeraire books--but no. He does such a comic-walrus Jack, and a completely non-Irish Stephen, and just in general doesn't suit me the way Tull does. Go figure!)

Anyway, I thought I'd mention it, in case anyone else out there ever wants to talk about 'em! I haven't finished Letter of Marque yet, but it's already made me literally mist up and get teary, and I think you know which scene that was. SNIFF!
dorinda: Randolph Scott smiles at Cary Grant. (Randolph_Cary)
I belong to a Nero Wolfe community on Dreamwidth called [community profile] milk_and_orchids. And we were having a discussion of all the books in order, which paused a couple years ago. [personal profile] aris_tgd suggests we start it up again, and I am all for it!

So I thought I'd mention the comm here, in case it piques anyone's interest. You don't have to be any kind of a Wolfe expert or anything, and all kinds of input is welcome, including discussion of the A&E series with Tim Hutton or other adaptations. It's a good idea to be slash friendly, though slashing isn't mandatory.

And give a look-see through past posts! The tone of the group is very much into the characterizational and interpersonal, so I love to see various dialogue and narrative exchanges that get quoted back in people's book reviews and discussions. It also helps remind me, like, which book is it where Archie cherishes the leather billfold Wolfe gave him, which book is it where Archie cherishes the kidskin case Wolfe gave him, which book is it where Archie cherishes the dressing gown Wolfe gave him... :D
dorinda: From a French postcard of 1902: a woman in hat, coat, cravat, and walking stick writes on a pad of paper. (writer)
On the train to work this morning, I finished the audiobook of The Martian (wanted to make sure to get it read before any more advertising for this fall's Major Motion Picture), the book about the guy who gets stranded on Mars. I know [personal profile] mollyamory has read it--anyone else? Want to talk about it?

I better put in a cut here... )

What did you think? Or, if you haven't read the book but you have seen the movie trailers, what did you think of those?
dorinda: From a French postcard of 1902: a woman in hat, coat, cravat, and walking stick writes on a pad of paper. (writer)
I was idly thumbing through my copy of Diane Duane's novel Spock's World last night; it was at the top of a box of books and it reminded me I hadn't reread my Duane Star Trek in a while. She has done some of my absolute favorite fleshing out of the Star Trek universe--the importance and complexities of the rec deck! Harb Tanzer! Naraht! K('s)'t'lk! A diverse crew bustling with non-hominids! I think if I ever write ST fic, it's likely I'd set it in the Duane subvariant.

Something I'd never thought to wonder about the book, though, is where the title came from. Like, I can't help but wonder if she had a different original title. Because the title as-is, and the cover (at least on mine, which is the hardback), are actually kind of misleading. Spock is not a primary character in the story at all. I'd say Kirk is the everyman (he doesn't propel events, but closely observes them, and we get a lot of his POV while he does so), McCoy is the hero (he pushes events along in every respect, on and offscreen), Sarek is the damsel in distress in a way (torn between his duty and his chosen life/family). We get a little bit of Spock POV when he goes to visit [name redacted for spoilers] to follow up on some of McCoy's information, but not elsewhere that I remember. He's in a similar cleft stick as his father and mother, but frankly his decision if Vulcan does secede seems much clearer and less conflicted, since he has already made his home off-world anyway. (As opposed to Sarek, who would be losing much more, in home, status, kinship networks, property, etc... his ties to the planet are much more concrete than his son's.)

Then of course the rest of the story basically has Vulcan, or more precisely Vulcans, as the main character, in the interleaved chapters following the history and evolution of the Vulcan people and culture, up to Surak.

Not that I think it should have had another title, viewed with the clear eye of marketing--Spock is an extremely popular character, I suspect the most popular Star Trek has ever produced. And Vulcan is his world, in a sense (though not his only one). So, call it SPOCK'S WORLD, put a big painting of him and no one else on the cover, and people who might not jump for "a historical-political courtroom drama about secession!!!11!" are likelier to read it--"Hey look, it's Spock." And if they read it, I would bet they would enjoy it.

I mean, I myself am not usually one for a courtroom drama, or in fact politics, but this book nevertheless has me in its pocket. (Granted, I read The Wounded Sky first, which came before and was a bravura performance, but still.)
dorinda: From a French postcard of 1902: a woman in hat, coat, cravat, and walking stick writes on a pad of paper. (writer)
As 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.
dorinda: Hands reach for two identical glasses, which are labeled "half empty" and "half full". (halfemptyhalffull)
Ugh, lately I have been caught in such a cycle of mostly re-reading books I already own, over and over. And there's nothing wrong with a good re-read, but it's getting a little claustrophobic in here, and I hate to dilute the effectiveness of a Very Favorite Book with too much overuse.

And yet...for some reason I don't even know what to try next. What do I want to read? I DO NOT KNOW.

Dorinda chews on books and is fretfully unmoored )
dorinda: Cary Grant, in "Bringing Up Baby," clutches his head beneath the letters "OMG WTF". (WTF_CaryGrant)
Oh good gravy.

I was reading a review of Stephen King's newest book "Mr. Mercedes" on the A.V. Club.

The review is mostly pretty positive, but in a list of the book's problems, it includes this:

"But even when he’s being surprising, he’s also bringing in predictable King-isms, including an Internet-savvy black teenager who for some reason loves to speak in a “yas massa” Southern slave patois"

...WHAAAAAAAAAAT

WHAT WHAT WHAT. WHAT. W.A.T.

Why can't he stop doing that. Just stop. Doing. That. Someone make him stopdoingthat. I would chip in for a team of mercenaries if they could make him stop doing that. If his editors are unable to knock him down and tie him up long enough to make him stop, or his wife, who by King's account is a sharp take-no-shit first reader, I wish they could tell me WHY NOT.

I mean, it's like he has a compulsion. It's like there needs to be an intervention. Sometimes he has a "reason" in his books for that bullshit, like in the Gunslinger books where it still always bugged me. And Richie Tozier is a white kid thoroughly steeped in the racism of his time period (though whether King realized that is unclear). And John Coffey is simple, and Mother Abigail is old, and and and. Nevertheless, I just don't care, by now it is completely ridiculous and he needs to cut it out.

In short: X________X
dorinda: Cary Grant, in "Bringing Up Baby," clutches his head beneath the letters "OMG WTF". (WTF_CaryGrant)
Sometimes I get in a mood to read historical novels, especially mysteries. And I'm interested in World War One and the British home-front and the aftermath.

So, I've been reading the first in a series of mysteries by Jacqueline Winspear, "Maisie Dobbs", which starts about ten years after the war and deals with the lingering physical and mental effects of the war on all kinds of people (including Maisie herself, who had been a nurse at the front and is now a private detective of sorts).

I just wish I liked it better. Because there's a series! If I like the first book of a series, it's like winning a book-lottery, with a treasure trove in front of me. Buuuut, not so much. It's not a bad book by any means, and I like the acknowledgement of the lingering scars the war left on people and how they're still dealing with it a decade later.

But there are some style choices that, for whatever reason, I find myself unable to get past. First and foremost: THE NAME PROBLEM. People use each others' names ALL THE TIME, as does the narrative voice. You'd think no one had ever heard of PRONOUNS.

For instance, second paragraph of Chapter 24 (TWENTY-FOUR, so it isn't like we need to be introduced to either our main character or her faithful sidekick anymore!):

Billy Beale sat in the chair in front of Maisie Dobbs, his hands working around and around the fabric on the perimeter of his cap, which he had taken off when he came to answer Maisie's call. Maisie had lost no time in telling Billy Beale why he had been summoned, and how she needed him to help her.


I mean COME ON. He doesn't go by the full "Billy Beale" as a stage name or something, like an inverse Cher. And Maisie's first three dialogue sections after this paragraph all go:

"Yes, I do, Billy. [...]"

"Billy. You don't need to be a toff. [...]"

"It's taken care of, Billy. [...]"

(And "It could be risky, Billy" and "The sooner the better, Billy". OH GOD WHAT'S YOUR SIDEKICK'S NAME AGAIN I MIGHT HAVE FORGOTTEN.)

Sometimes I think the British class system is the best thing that could have happened to this author, since then she has a great excuse for constantly having Billy (Billy Beale!) end every line to Maisie with "Yes, Miss", "Thank you, Miss", "Can't say as there is, Miss".

Sigh. I'm up to page 246 out of 292 and I know nothing is going to change, but I guess I imagined I might get adjusted to it. (SPOILER: NOPE.)
dorinda: A black-and-white portrait of a little girl that gradually shifts to look demonic. (demongirl_animated)
Hey, have any of you read Joe Hill's new book NOS4A2? (Titled NOS4R2 in Britain.) I'm interested in hearing personal recommendations or disrecommendations, if you have any.

I read Hill's book of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts; I liked it fine, as far as I remember, but I don't remember it very well (even when going through the titles/synopses on Wikipedia just now) and have never felt the urge to check it out again to re-read any of them.

In a fit of optimism, I bought Heart-Shaped Box, and to my surprise and regret I really for-reals did not like it. In fact, I stopped reading it maybe 3/4 or a bit more of the way along. Not out of hatred or revulsion or anything... partly because I just never got to like the book, which created a steady, irritating boredom. The main character feels like a rootless cipher to me, a lot of signifiers of "rock star" that don't coalesce (is he a Mick-Jagger style historic rock and roll god from the 60s who's still always in the public memory? An old-fashioned 1970s country-rock-hippie gone recluse? An '80s rock and roll Bob Seger-style throwback? A '90s goth scare-meister Marilyn Manson? An industrial/machine-music Trent Reznor-type? WHO KNOWS, and I don't feel like the book does, either.). His string of super-power-imbalanced relationships with troubled young girls is like the last thing I have any sympathy for, and yet the book seems entirely on board with this. The tedious figuring-out of the "rules" of the supernatural wotsis going on is not an interesting means of propelling the story. I don't even care about the dogs, and when I do not care about the dogs, your novel has lost me, bro. (I also have figured out by now that the climax will involve the dogs, and since I don't care about them, I feel certain the book has no surprises to offer me to get me emotionally involved at this 11th hour.)

So, that was a total downer, because I had blithely expected to like it. It gets good reviews, as far as I've seen! People speak highly of it! Sigh.

I haven't read the next one yet, Horns--the premise is kind of offputting and doesn't grab me, although if a reliable someone were to recommend it, I wouldn't necessarily rule it out. Full disclosure, though: I'm pretty spoiled for what happens in it (because it didn't grab me, at some point I did skim the Wikipedia synopsis), and just judging from the synopsis, it seems like the "solution" of the premise ends up pretty labored and byzantine and not a draw. (Not fair to judge a book by its Wikipedia article, though, I know.)

NOS4A2 just sounds more interesting to me all round, and potentially more creepy. But I haven't read a lot about it, in order to avoid plot spoilers. So, if anyone out there has read it and has an opinion, I am very interested in your thoughts!
dorinda: A barechested man holds a spear upright in front of him; the spearhead casts a shadow on his chest. (spearman)
No writing done today. >:[ New place ate some of my time, but also the family members I'm staying with while the new place gets fixed up had an unexpected (by me) dinner-party and guests, which soaked up all of the late afternoon and evening with thoroughly tedious conversation and about eight million dishes. I have never seen someone use this many dishes just to serve "some sandwiches". Gah. I mean, it was nice food and all. But...y'all gonna use this many dishes to serve your byzantine mealparts, I want to see a Bunter or a Jeeves all up in here or something. (Mmmmm...Bunter and Jeeves. ♥ )

(Full disclosure: I feel like a big baby, complaining like this while some of you are writing and posting and whatnot while caring for actual...babies. Feel free to roll your eyes at me.)

I was thinking today about my latest lunchtime re-read, Jo Graham's Stealing Fire, a historical/fantasy set after the death of Alexander the Great. (I haven't read her earlier books in the same nominal "Numinous World" series yet--I figure I'll enjoy them, but I have to confess, I'm waiting to read Black Ships [the first one] until I've actually read the Aeneid. I have to admit I never have! Yet.) (Which reminds me...I was kind of on the lookout for an unabridged reading of The Aeneid, because I like to listen to The Odyssey and The Iliad so much. But then I was thinking, well, Aeneid wasn't created in/for the same kind of oral culture as Odyssey and Iliad, so maybe I should just read it. Any opinions or suggestions?)

Anyway, I enjoy Stealing Fire on its own terms. But I was thinking today about how I also enjoy its fanfictional aspects--or at least, aspects that make it feel fanfictional to me. There's something about it that feels for all the world like a followup to Mary Renault's books about Alexander's life, Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy. Alexander and Hephaistion are in it (in flashbacks), paired as lovers just as in Renault. Bagoas the eunuch is in it, serving as Alexander's lover/favorite/de facto chamberlain, just as in Renault. Ptolemy is in it, as Alexander's illegitimate older brother, trustworthy and honorable, as in Renault.

Now, I'm not at all saying Graham is being derivative of Renault, or anything negative. And I mean, the things I mention above that feel Renaultish, Renault herself derived from historical deduction (that Bagoas could have served as a sort of chamberlain to help the Persians and Alexander adapt to each other, for instance), so it's fair game.

But still. It has a nice Renaultish tang to it, with the same take on who the heroes and villains are; and hell, Lydias not only is in hero-worship/love with Hephaistion (and gets some intimate time with him), but he also has a sweet affair and friendship with Bagoas. That can't help but feel fanfictionish to me (not to negative Gary Stu levels, but lightly along those lines).

Although--perhaps the biggest difference in tone between Graham and Renault is the fantasy aspect of Graham's historical/fantasy...she brings out magic, gods, demons, etc., and has them running around directly talking to and influencing people. It's fine, that's Graham's universe and enjoyable enough, but I have to admit I actually prefer a slightly more toned-down take. Renault, even in the more primitive world she paints in early settings like Theseus's Bronze Age in The King Must Die, always walks a razor's edge between actual magic/spirits, and magical/spiritual thinking. It isn't that I think Graham needed to remove the fantasy from her historical, down to Renault levels...but I was thinking I'd prefer if maybe it was toned down a tad, or given more possible ambiguity (e.g., having Lydias be the only one we see having the direct experiences, instead of having other characters, like Ptolemy, be right in there during very drastic magical experiences).
dorinda: Shot from MST3K short "Mr B. Natural," showing a white boy from the 50s, with "CONFORM!" superimposed several times. (mst_conform)
I've read a whole lot of Stephen King's books. Been reading him for a very long time. I love some of them, and like a whole lot of them. There's something in much of his writing I really enjoy.

But I think it's because I like his work, and keep coming back to it, that some of his particular habits and fetishes can get on my nerves SO MUCH. If I didn't care, then I could just shrug and skip the stuff and therefore avoid the "STEVE WHY DO YOU HAVE TO KEEP DOING THAT". It feels like some of his own habits get in the way of his work being better--at least, better in my point of view. Or at least, less bothersome sometimes, which to me feels better.

I was talking about this at Vividcon with [personal profile] mollyamory, since I'm just now reading King's time-travel book 11-22-63, and mostly enjoying it while also getting poked by some of those old tendencies/habits of his that I don't care for.

One of the habits on my mind right now is... Okay, it's like, I think SK's heart really is in the right place regarding marginalized people, and politically we have a lot in common. But he can just really be...such a straight white guy. You know? I mean, not just by accident of birth, but--stuck in there, solidly, and having all kinds of unexamined conclusions from within his goggles, despite the writer's charge to see through other people's eyes including those who do not share your given position.

For instance, in 11-22-63...

Spoilery spoilers that spoil...although they don't spoil the whole book, because I'm not done yet. More about tone and approach, not plot. )

In the end it feels like a book written by a straight white man who cannot NOT automatically filter everything through that mighty powerful position without noticing, and that's frankly disappointing. It seems like such an opportunity to poke at the filter, to honestly question the common nostalgia-syrup including his own use of it.

(It also, I have to add, feels like a book written by a smoker. Smoking is of course everywhere in the book's past, but even though Jake is supposedly a non-smoker, and in the present lives in a time when smoking is vanishing from public buildings and increasingly from society as a whole, it never ever affects or bothers him. He doesn't notice, doesn't care, and seems to like the smell of smoke he notices on Sadie's breath. As a nonsmoker myself, older than Jake and thus growing up with more exposure to smoke, someone who loves its usual absence these days (and was stuck behind someone on a long train-station escalator today who just had to light up and poof big clouds on me all the way up), I think the past as described in the book would make me bananas. But Jake fits right in--because he's not really a younger character with his own context and filters at all, but solidly stuck in SK's own filter as an old man who smoked heavily and still does on occasion. Seems symptomatic of the problem.)

In short: OH STEVE. >:(
dorinda: Nathan Wuornos (from Haven) presses a plastic fork hard against his palm. (Haven_nathan)
In the interests of morale-building and self-comfort and whatnot, lately I have been listening to an unabridged audiobook of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. (...what? Seriously, that's the sort of thing I find immensely comforting. *g*) I had forgotten that I never did read the book; I only saw the play (all 9 hours, split into two nights, done at the University I went to back in the day), which perforce is abridged.

And then of course today I run into this scene with Nicholas and Smike, the abused youth he ran away with from the corrupt Yorkshire 'school'. Nicholas has had to abandon his mother and sister, to try and keep them safe from retribution by his wicked uncle. He gets back to his shabby garret and cries on his bed, until Smike comes home and finds him.

Smike says that he feels terrible, being a burden to Nicholas and the cause of his trouble, but wasn't able to leave him without a word. He lays his hand on Nicholas's, weeping. And then:

"The word which separates us," said Nicholas, grasping him heartily by the shoulder, "shall never be said by me, for you are my only comfort and stay. I would not lose you now, Smike, for all the world could give. The thought of you has upheld me through all I have endured today, and shall, through fifty times such trouble. Give me your hand. My heart is linked to yours. We will journey from this place together, before the week is out. What, if I am steeped in poverty? You lighten it, and we will be poor together."

BRB SNIVELING.

...Yeahhhh, sometimes I suppose I just gotta have a scene like that, or the sickbay in Star Trek: The Motion Picture or something. Huggin and cryin, I Love You, I Love You Too, *violins* *Dorinda dabs her eyes on the train*

(...Um, not that I use the train as a handkerchief. Ow.)

Not that I've found myself willing or able to write such demonstrative things, to my memory. But then, maybe that's what Charles Dickens is for.
dorinda: Kale Ingram, from "Rubicon"; half his face is in light, and half in shadow. (kale_shadow)
You might have heard about the new British film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy coming out, with Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, John Hurt, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong... *passes out from simply too much awesome*.

I'm really looking forward to it (see above), and I figured in preparation, I'd read the book. I never had read it, which was weird, since it's right up my alley. I'd only ever read one John le Carré book, in fact--Our Game, which I picked up used. I remember liking it fine, but it didn't stick with me.

So, I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, expecting, I suppose, the same thing.

Oh, my, not the same thing.

I knew le Carré wrote a good, convincing spy story, and the details and jargon were just as interesting and satisfying as I had hoped... but for some reason I never expected the book to be as touching as it was. It moved me, and I didn't see that coming.

In and among the mystery and the espionage, he draws some wonderful characters, and has a fine and restrained hand with powerful emotion. I was particularly surprised, in fact, at...

Okay, here's a small spoiler for one of the background subplots, but I won't be using names or giving away the book's big mystery!

Read more... )

I wonder if any of that is going to make it into the new movie? They'll really have to cut the book down to fit the short running time, so it remains to be seen. Perhaps subtextually, at least.

I never did see the original miniseries with Alec Guinness as Smiley, either. Does anyone know if that part of the subplot made it in there? Or was it just too much the 70s (or, conversely, hard to put in there without seeming plainly negative about it?)?

Anyhoo. Short version: book: recommended!
dorinda: Vintage orange crate label, "Dorinda" brand (Dorinda_label)
ETA: All gone! Thanks!

I have some books and zines (plus a few records, D&D items, and a lunchbox) of potential fannish interest, which are all up for grabs for the cost of shipping. I wish we had transporters, so people could just swing by and pick what they wanted, but alas, not yet.

All of these items were enjoyed, but I have to reduce my belongings by a drastic amount in the immediate future. Don't worry about anything left over--they'll all find a good home, one way or another, be that a local book/comic/game shop, or (for the zines) the Fanzine Archives at the University of Iowa.

Anyway, browse, enjoy. If you see something that strikes your fancy, comment or email me at dorinda at thechicagoloop.net, and it's yours.

BOOKS
Homicide: Life on the Street )
Star Trek (TOS & a smidge of TNG) )
Starsky & Hutch )

FANZINES (almost all slash; a couple of the ST zines also include het and gen)
Multifandom )
Star Trek: TOS )
The Professionals )
Quantum Leap )

RECORD ALBUMS
Star Trek (TOS) )

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS MODULES
Dungeons & Dragons modules )

LUNCHBOX
Mystery Science Theater 3000 )

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