Reading roundup

[hamsterwoman]

53. The Way of the Wizard, edited by John Joseph Adams -- pretty good collection. One of the things I was impressed by is the mix of famous and new-to-me names, the number of female authors in the anthology (just a little less than half), and the number of non-Caucasian names (still a distinct minority, but more than one normally sees).

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

I do believe Laine is Estonian, right (and I can't remember Kevin's ancestry being mentioned beyond him being Jewish). I don't know how different Jewish Estonian surnames tend to be from non-Jewish Estonian, but this settlement there began in the 19th century, which suggests to me people came with surnames already, and this register of names doesn't have any Laines and has mainly names that sound like regular Ashkenazi names.

So I think I concluded it was a changed-by-immigration-officials thing, and he could have a separate Jewish name (since Kevin isn't one), but there's still the question of "abba", since I would expect that to only be the case if his father were Israeli (since otherwise I would expect that to be something like "papa" or "tate" or however that goes in Yiddish).

It's not even necessarily that this sort of thing bothers me, I just end up thinking way too much about it (obviously XD), where I certainly wouldn't if his background were meant to be something else. See, also, my pondering way too deeply why Vralian Yeshuites would/would not have names like Pyotr and Valentina. More to do with my own quirks than a book's faults, for the most part, but there you have it.

By the way, I'm going to be in the Bay Area in about two weeks for Thanksgiving, if you want to meet up for lunch or something.

We might be leaving town for Thanksgiving weekend, but if not and we are around when you are here, I would love to try to meet up! I'll keep you posted on our plans for the weekend?