recent reading

[heresluck]

Only after posting the poll asking what you all are doing reading this blog did it occur to me that, though that I blather quite a bit about books in the abstract or in relation to teaching, I don't usually post much about what I'm reading For Fun. (Which, I note with amusement, didn't prevent quite a few kind people from saying they read the stuff

Comments

[coffeeandink]

I don't think I do reviews either.

I didn't think of Portia as not-bright; maybe I should I read. The first time I read it I was younger than she was, and more knowledgeable than she was in the way late-20th-c urban kids had to be more knowledgeable than mid-20th-c urban kids, but also in some ways even more clueless, which naturally shaped my reactions. I think this is one of Bowen's two best novels, with the caveat that I haven't read all of them yet. The other is The House in Paris, which is by no means perfect but which gets right some very particular unusual things about children's view of adults.

She is probably best at short length. I particularly recommend "Midsummer Night."

[heresluck]

I actually thought of Portia as v inquisitive and observant (how Anna hates having her there, witnessing everything)...

Hmm. I didn't see her as all *that* observant, and in any case I don't think "bright" and "observant" are quite the same thing; she sees things, but she doesn't know what she's seeing (which does go along with your point about being socially naive). I also read Anna's reaction to her as saying more about Anna's problems than about Portia herself.

But then I also would not have described Bowen's characterization of Eddie as innocent, so I suspect we're zeroing in on significantly different elements of the text.

[heresluck]

I don't think I do reviews either.

Well, I imagine you know more about the genre of book reviews than I do, so I should probably take your word for it; but your notes on books usually do quite a lot of the things I expect reviews to do: introduce characters, explain premise, provide general assessment of the text itself and some discussion in terms of author's other works and/or genre conventions and/or other authors/texts.

They also usually make me want to buy things, but that's not an inherent quality of reviews, just something that makes me happy.

[heresluck]

It's not that I don't love and appreciate the library; I just never think to actually GO. Must work on this.

[heresluck]

Hey, are we still on for lunch today? Is noon good?

[jcalanthe]

Oh yay, I always like to see more love for The Secret History. I read it almost by accident, in 1993 when I was a Quality Paperback Book Club member, and it makes me happy to see people still discovering it. There's even a bit of fanfic floating about - possibly from the rare fandom challenges?

I found it to be especially acute about a type of neurotic, slightly obsessive, kinda messed-up but basically stable personality that manifests in particular ways in guys but that cuts across sex and gender lines.

Thank you for saying this! I haven't read the book, but I got so very tired of hearing all the "insight into The Minds of Men" nonsense around the movie. Cuz obviously all men are the same, and women are all from a different planet... *sighs* It's nice to see someone seeing beyond the gender binary on this. I'll probably pick up a copy next time I see it second-hand, since you rave so much. :)

Belated thanks btw for mentioning Stir Fry, which I finally tracked down and read recently. Definitely an enjoyable book, and yay,

[heresluck]

It's nice to see someone seeing beyond the gender binary on this.

Well, the "insight into men!" thing is just such a gross oversimplification of the book. The narrator does occasionally make fairly sweeping generalizations about men and women, but they're usually tongue-in-cheek to some extent, and the characters themselves work against those generalizations: the men are *not* all the same, and neither are the women. The book is smarter than its critics. *g*

And yay for Stir-Fry! It's one of the few books I routinely pick up spare copies of to give away. Not Donoghue's best book (that would be Hood), but so charming, and just exactly the right thing for a lot of my 20-year-old students.

[ide_cyan]

I think I'm going to bump The Secret History higher up on my mental To Re-Read priority list. I bought the paperback a couple of years ago, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I read it in French back when I was in high school, at it made college life seem so ineffably cool back then...

[renenet]

Nick Hornby op-ed from the other day. I'm dl'ing tracks as I type. Only one on hand yet, so it's hard to tell about the band in question. But reading the piece as a whole, I kept thinking as I read, "is this h.l in twenty years?" This comment may really belong on your recent music post, but the Nick Hornby connection was enough to locate it here.

[dualbunny]

Ok, I didn't ask the question when you first posted this, because I didn't want to jinx the vid, but since it's done, I figured what the heck. Just wondering if The Last Unicorn might have seemed familar, because you saw the movie at some point?

Probably not, but for some strange reason, that question was refusing to leave me alone...

[heresluck]

I've seen about four minutes of the movie, long ago. So no, that wasn't it. I think Beagle was just tapping into (and in some cases subverting) a number of fairy tale tropes that were familiar to me.

I'm still going to watch the vid, though. *g*