2018 Year End Meme

[molly_may]

Which TV shows did you let go of in 2018?When I first started thinking about this question, I couldn’t come up with an answer. I’m not watching very many shows right now, and as a result, I haven’t really given up on any of them this year. But after thinking about it, I realized that there’s one genre I’ve nearly completely abandoned: late night

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[wenchsenior]

Your favorite book read this year?

Literary fiction:

George Sauder’s “Lincoln in the Bardo” was crazy and didn’t quite work, but it was fascinating. I can’t imagine how they are going to film it, but apparently they are trying.

The first 2 Patrick Melrose novels were amazing, though the rest of the series wasn’t as sharp.

I expected to love Helen McDonald’s “H is for Hawk,” based on the rave reviews. My husband is a falconer, and the falconry parts were so terrific! Even mentally healthy falconers suffer agonies over the tiniest details of their bird’s behavior, weight, condition, etc. And the passage where she talks about how the ‘feeling in the house’ is subtly different when a new hawk is there verbalized something I've never been able to articulate. But in the end, I didn’t admire the book as much as many reviewers did. The author has obviously got some serious psychological problems that were being skirted around and I felt it made her too unreliable narrator. I had trouble figuring out why she was writing the book, and the parallel stuff about TH White (while fascinating) seemed awkwardly shoe-horned in.

I thoroughly enjoyed Eva Rice’s “The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets” (young Brits in the 50s), which I desperately wish would be made into a Masterpiece Theater miniseries.

Nonfiction, Bob Woodward’s “Fear” confirmed my worst fear: that Trump is not as stupid as all indicators would have one believe, though he IS just as willfully ignorant than he seems.

Genre fiction:

I rarely read romance novels, but I rather enjoyed “A Lady Never Lies,” by Juliana Gray (she seems not terribly well known).

I also dabbled in some old fantasy series that I’d never gotten to back in the day. Most notable was the first of Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series, and OMG! This book strikes me as what people wrote for self-indulgent fanfiction back before they had internet access. I’m not sure what Bishop’s other books are like, but this book (while quite decently written) is just teeming with weird sexual and gender issues that seem a bit eyebrow-raising even today. And I think she writes YA stuff now! I’m not sure what to make of it.

Your fandom that made an unexpected comeback this year?

I’m slightly more interested in the Star Wars universe (childhood fandom), given that I like Solo fine, and I thought Last Jedi was the most interesting franchise installment since Empire Strikes Back. I sure wish they’d give Oscar Isaac something interesting to do, though. Actually, I wish all directors would give Oscar Isaac interesting stuff to do.

The most missed of your old fandoms?

BtVS

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?

I try not to anticipate. The world is so frequently disappointing.

[molly_may]

I didn't read H is for Hawk, but of course I saw all the rave reviews and accolades it received, so it's interesting to hear such a different perspective. Also, I didn't realize that your husband is a falconer; that is so cool!

OMG, I read the first Black Jewels book years and years ago, probably in the same time frame that BtVS was originally airing and I was reading tons of fanfic, and...yeah. It was nuts even in comparison to all the id-driven fic.

[wenchsenior]

Oh, good, glad it wasn't just me that found Black Jewels crazy. I know that series was big back in the day.

My husband isn't flying birds regularly any more. It's not really compatible with his time-demanding job as a biologist/professor (though he's currently on federal unpaid leave and I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned how much hunting he could be getting in while twiddling his thumbs) b/c falconry is SO time consuming during hunting season. But he will occasionally take a friend's bird if it's already trained and the friend doesn't have time to fly it that season. That seems an ok trade-off b/c it takes the really difficult parts of capture, taming, and training the bird out of the equation (and just leaves the "he must hunt with it nearly every day so it doesn't go stir-crazy" demands lol). Last time he did this we had a freezer full of rabbits by winter's end, courtesy of his friend's lethal male Harris' hawk, which was nice.

He does occasionally use falconry birds in his scientific research as well, but he tends to rely on his friends who are flying birds for that.

It's an emotionally demanding sport. Personally, while I love raptors and have worked with them for research purposes, I always worry when he gets geared up to train a new bird. So many things can be stressful and challenging and sometimes heartbreaking (e.g., we had bird electrocute itself in front of us landing on a transformer, and it's also not uncommon for the bird to just be lost when it just up and abandons you and heads for the hills). There's the specialty vet bills, and the specialty permits, and facility inspections, and specialty food, etc. So I tend to mostly experience it from the 'stress and responsibility side', and of course I don't fly the bird, so I don't have the incredible moments of strange communion that keeps my husband hooked. Falconers are a bit of an odd bunch.