Booklog 11: Another new word at the top of the world for whoever can break through the ice
Because it is now - and how did this happen?! - December, here's a booklog.
- Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis
The two latest in Connie Willis' time travelling historians universe! I was really looking forward to reading these and I'm not 100% sure what I think of them.
I'm glad I waited to read them together; they are very definitely one book in two covers and wouldn't make any sense whatsoever out of that context. They take a long time to get really going, but even in the slow bits (which, ironically, are mostly about people being very busy: I spent a lot of them feeling terrible for the historians' administrators because OH MY GOD PEOPLE WHEN ADMIN TELL YOU SOMETHING THEY USUALLY HAVE A GOOD REASON) are very readable. I did get engrossed, even when the minutae got a little My Research Let Me Show You It.
(And even when the research could have been a bit better - er, St Paul's and Barts are not two miles apart. I am no Londoner and I know that. I am pretty sure that without being very high up it is pretty much impossible to see two miles in London at all. But.)
It's funny and charming and does, I think, very well at talking about what it's like to be living through things with no idea how they'll turn out: which, of course, is something we all do every single day, but most of the time people try not to think about it. It's also about the impossibility of knowing the millions of tiny ways our actions can and do influence everything about the world we live in, and how simultaneously wonderful and terrifying that is. I think as far as that goes, and as far as getting you interested in what's going to happen to the characters, it's really good.
I am not as sure what I reckon to using World War II to do it, though. I mean, not that stories about that are, could be or should be off limits or anything, obviously. And I don't believe that only people who count as 'insiders' to an event or society should be able to write about it. It's just that this is - very clearly and up front - an outsiders perspective, and it's maybe just a little too much Their Finest Hour about it in a way that makes me ever so slightly uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortably reminded of what native tribespeople might think of the kind of books certain kinds of travellers wrote about noble savages and how TRUE and UNSPOILED they were and stuff: it's obviously on nothing like the same scale and without a lot of additional factors, but it gives me the ick in a similar kind of way. But then I also just thought it was a little odd to find the "they're all heroes!" stuff in a book which also has a theme that people at any point of history, however famous and dramatic, are also just people.
Hmm. Despite all that, though, I did enjoy it! The ending worked, despite being guessable, and I loved that it had different choices all being right ones. Though I do suspect that their theory about the mystery is actually still wrong, somehow...
- Desolation Island and The Fortune of War by Patrick O'Brian
My favourite fake-Irish historical novelist! ♥ It is the season for reading O'Brian, I think, he is best read all cuddled up with something hot to drink, and I LOVE THESE SO MUCH. Jack and Steeeephen, in all their hilarious and moving and unfortunate and brilliant and realistic glory... delightful. It's just like going along with them in their lives, for better and for worse, and I love that.
There is sadness for them, though. There's a really harrowing description of being becalmed for weeks while an epidemic of gaol fever breaks out and kills most of the crew: MARTIN dies, even. It's so sad! And then the ship-almostwreck and they get stuck on Desolation, which Stephen likes because of the nature. (Of course he does. Aw.) And then they've only just got back from that when their good run ends in EXPLODINATION. This, kids, would be why you don't smoke on a ship made of wood. Oy. And then the War of 1812 breaks out and Stephen's poisoning of the information well comes back to haunt him.
- Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
TEMERAIRE FTW.
I could probably just leave it at that by now, but I'm not going to because this one set up SO MUCH. More than anything else, this is the beginning of the next saga, the Story Of Lawrence And Temeraire In Australia. Nothing was actually resolved, really, but we got - Lawrence's adoption having consequences! New dragons, at least one of whom is very clearly Stealth Awesome!
I loved that one of the new dragons is just obnoxious, too, and that this means he gets on really well with his new captain who is also obnoxious. Hahah. I was a little sad we didn't get any native Australian dragons, but I still have my suspicions: the references to the aboriginal Australians seemed to be setting up Stuff there, especially with them being so involved in the smuggling. And the - can we call them 'sand dragons' or whatever? - and the mer-people also seemed full of potential. Eeee.
(Even while being scary - the mer-people being used as weapons was genuinely freaky.)
And I loved that Temeraire is getting more conscious about his politics - like, he already was instinctively political, but he's getting more analytical and deliberate in his thinking about it and embracing it and I love that. I love that Lawrence is getting dragged along with him, of course, but also comes more and more to see Temeraire's point of view because he loves him. It reads very true to me as an illustration of how affection can lead to empathy which can lead to much deeper changes in thought and behaviour than would otherwise have been likely.
Oh and I also loved that Novik so clearly had fun with the Australian history stuff. There's some gold there, and I think we're going to be in for a treat with the next two books. Bring it on!
- Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
This is possibly my favourite Jeeves book, if only for "Tinkety-tonk, then," I said. And I meant it to sting., which remains one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life. Could anything be more perfect, more like the encapsulation of funny in amber or a joke crystallized into a jewel? I don't think so. Love it.
This one is also notable for Madeline Bassett calling Bertie "Lancelot" and Jeeves being even more than usually brilliantly nefarious in his resolution of the various messes Bertie's friends and Bertie's well-meaning interference have landed them in. It's just totally delightful, and perfect pick-me-up reading.
Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses from Myth to Reality by Helen Scales
This is a charming and geeky book about seahorses: the author is, basically, a seahorse geek, and this book is a bit about how the world has seen seahorses, and what their behaviour and habitat and current situation are. I always love stories about how people came to be geeks about whatever it is they happen to be geeks about, and this is a really good one with lots of fun anecdotes and details. Enough to make up for referring to Manchester as being in the "British Midlands", which it is not, humph hump humph!
And a bunch of horrific ones. The book does do its best to be positive - even managing to discuss traditional Chinese medicine and the ways it's terrible for ecology without being judgemental - but there's a description of what trawler fishing does to the ocean floor that made me want to crawl under a rock and never come out again. It also does a really good job of describing how delicate a balance the ocean ecosystem has, and how even if we're not headed for outright catastrophe, there's pretty much no chance the ocean in 30 or 50 years will look the way it does now, and we don't know what that's going to mean.
- His Face All Red, by Emily Carroll
Brilliant comic, available here on the interwebs for your reading pleasure. Something about the combination of the starkness of the story and the understated cute brilliance of the artwork ends up equalling really, seriously, incredibly creepy. It may not seem much by the size but it packs one heck of a wallop. Genius.
- The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death by John Kelly
After re-reading Doomsday Book I wanted to read something about the plague, as you do, and this was the most interesting looking one the library had. It's got the sort of geeky anecdotes I love - have I mentioned lately that I basically have a mind like a magpie? - but it also goes into some of the arguments historians have about the plague a bit and I maybe love that even more. It talks about some of the debates people have had about the plague itself: how it started, whether it's actually the same as later things called plague given debates about symptoms, that sort of stuff. I found it really fascinating; the author's opinion was clearly stated but enough of the alternative views were put forward that I'd love to see some more of the evidence and discussion.
It did have its fair share of gross anecdotes, but I've got a pretty strong stomach for that sort of thing when I'm finding it weirdly compelling (and I don't have to see it). But the most fascinating bits were the quotes from people writing at the time. People writing wills, and the evidence we have from all the people sorting out estates after people died, particularly - and the sheer numbers of people not turning up to argue their claim against an estate because they themselves then died of the plague speak for themselves. Craziness. No wonder people thought it was the end of the world.
- Chronicles of Avonlea and Anne's House of Dreams by LM Montgomery
Chronicles of Avonlea is by far the better of these! I don't know whether it's just because House of Dreams was never one I obsessively re-read as a small child, or whether Anne growing out of her tendency to get into ridiculous scrapes did make it so much less snarky that it's as schmaltzy as it comes over. I think it really is more schmaltzy: it came over very like Montgomery felt the jokes wouldn't be appropriate with older characters who are facing stuff like losing a child and setting up a home and so on, but I think that even then there's totally potential in people like Captain Jim for snark that never happened. Come on! Like Anne would grow entirely out of the ridiculous scrapes! And while I do like Gilbert, their relationship as married people isn't dealt with nearly as well.
Chronicles however was totally fun - still on the sappy side a bit, as they all are, but way funnier. There's an embracing of the ridiculous that makes all the difference. My favourite is the one about the man-hating woman called Peter who ends up getting quarantined with a misogynist; them both coming round is entirely cute, and Peter's language ticks could have been irritating but to me came round again into being hilarious. Ironically, it's the bits where Anne is mentioned that ended up being the weakest; apart from the bit where she's actually present, it came over a bit too forced, like she didn't need to be mentioned at all. But I'm glad I re-read this one, even if House of Dreams after ended up being a bit of a waste of time.
- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
This is a big one in the history of SF, so I figured I probably ought to read it. It's very clearly an SF retelling of Vietnam (although apparently Haldeman has tried to argue otherwise at one point, or something?), with a war that goes longer and longer while the people fighting get further and further away from the world they knew before, before finding out that actually the whole thing was pointless anyway.
It's sort of dated weirdly - the beginning where everyone is assigned someone to have sex with at night just seems odd when you see the apparent date for it, like, okay, someone really thought that was what the nineties were going to be like? And changing people's sexual orientation just like that also comes across rather badly these days. But then as it gets more and more disconnected, with relativity meaning they're getting millions and millions of years away from the time they knew, it is creepy and effective. And, despite being all about a war, not at all Military SF-like.
I am not sure what I think of the ending, but overall I think my conclusion is that the combination of faintly ridiculous and sad and unexpected happy works: too definitive in any direction would ring false I think. Hmm.
And now I am going back to huddling against the heater, because my office does not have central heating and it is SNOWING. Before Christmas. THIS IS ENGLAND, WEATHER, WHAT IS THIS SHIT.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/46718.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
- Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis
The two latest in Connie Willis' time travelling historians universe! I was really looking forward to reading these and I'm not 100% sure what I think of them.
I'm glad I waited to read them together; they are very definitely one book in two covers and wouldn't make any sense whatsoever out of that context. They take a long time to get really going, but even in the slow bits (which, ironically, are mostly about people being very busy: I spent a lot of them feeling terrible for the historians' administrators because OH MY GOD PEOPLE WHEN ADMIN TELL YOU SOMETHING THEY USUALLY HAVE A GOOD REASON) are very readable. I did get engrossed, even when the minutae got a little My Research Let Me Show You It.
(And even when the research could have been a bit better - er, St Paul's and Barts are not two miles apart. I am no Londoner and I know that. I am pretty sure that without being very high up it is pretty much impossible to see two miles in London at all. But.)
It's funny and charming and does, I think, very well at talking about what it's like to be living through things with no idea how they'll turn out: which, of course, is something we all do every single day, but most of the time people try not to think about it. It's also about the impossibility of knowing the millions of tiny ways our actions can and do influence everything about the world we live in, and how simultaneously wonderful and terrifying that is. I think as far as that goes, and as far as getting you interested in what's going to happen to the characters, it's really good.
I am not as sure what I reckon to using World War II to do it, though. I mean, not that stories about that are, could be or should be off limits or anything, obviously. And I don't believe that only people who count as 'insiders' to an event or society should be able to write about it. It's just that this is - very clearly and up front - an outsiders perspective, and it's maybe just a little too much Their Finest Hour about it in a way that makes me ever so slightly uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortably reminded of what native tribespeople might think of the kind of books certain kinds of travellers wrote about noble savages and how TRUE and UNSPOILED they were and stuff: it's obviously on nothing like the same scale and without a lot of additional factors, but it gives me the ick in a similar kind of way. But then I also just thought it was a little odd to find the "they're all heroes!" stuff in a book which also has a theme that people at any point of history, however famous and dramatic, are also just people.
Hmm. Despite all that, though, I did enjoy it! The ending worked, despite being guessable, and I loved that it had different choices all being right ones. Though I do suspect that their theory about the mystery is actually still wrong, somehow...
- Desolation Island and The Fortune of War by Patrick O'Brian
My favourite fake-Irish historical novelist! ♥ It is the season for reading O'Brian, I think, he is best read all cuddled up with something hot to drink, and I LOVE THESE SO MUCH. Jack and Steeeephen, in all their hilarious and moving and unfortunate and brilliant and realistic glory... delightful. It's just like going along with them in their lives, for better and for worse, and I love that.
There is sadness for them, though. There's a really harrowing description of being becalmed for weeks while an epidemic of gaol fever breaks out and kills most of the crew: MARTIN dies, even. It's so sad! And then the ship-almostwreck and they get stuck on Desolation, which Stephen likes because of the nature. (Of course he does. Aw.) And then they've only just got back from that when their good run ends in EXPLODINATION. This, kids, would be why you don't smoke on a ship made of wood. Oy. And then the War of 1812 breaks out and Stephen's poisoning of the information well comes back to haunt him.
- Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
TEMERAIRE FTW.
I could probably just leave it at that by now, but I'm not going to because this one set up SO MUCH. More than anything else, this is the beginning of the next saga, the Story Of Lawrence And Temeraire In Australia. Nothing was actually resolved, really, but we got - Lawrence's adoption having consequences! New dragons, at least one of whom is very clearly Stealth Awesome!
I loved that one of the new dragons is just obnoxious, too, and that this means he gets on really well with his new captain who is also obnoxious. Hahah. I was a little sad we didn't get any native Australian dragons, but I still have my suspicions: the references to the aboriginal Australians seemed to be setting up Stuff there, especially with them being so involved in the smuggling. And the - can we call them 'sand dragons' or whatever? - and the mer-people also seemed full of potential. Eeee.
(Even while being scary - the mer-people being used as weapons was genuinely freaky.)
And I loved that Temeraire is getting more conscious about his politics - like, he already was instinctively political, but he's getting more analytical and deliberate in his thinking about it and embracing it and I love that. I love that Lawrence is getting dragged along with him, of course, but also comes more and more to see Temeraire's point of view because he loves him. It reads very true to me as an illustration of how affection can lead to empathy which can lead to much deeper changes in thought and behaviour than would otherwise have been likely.
Oh and I also loved that Novik so clearly had fun with the Australian history stuff. There's some gold there, and I think we're going to be in for a treat with the next two books. Bring it on!
- Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
This is possibly my favourite Jeeves book, if only for "Tinkety-tonk, then," I said. And I meant it to sting., which remains one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life. Could anything be more perfect, more like the encapsulation of funny in amber or a joke crystallized into a jewel? I don't think so. Love it.
This one is also notable for Madeline Bassett calling Bertie "Lancelot" and Jeeves being even more than usually brilliantly nefarious in his resolution of the various messes Bertie's friends and Bertie's well-meaning interference have landed them in. It's just totally delightful, and perfect pick-me-up reading.
Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses from Myth to Reality by Helen Scales
This is a charming and geeky book about seahorses: the author is, basically, a seahorse geek, and this book is a bit about how the world has seen seahorses, and what their behaviour and habitat and current situation are. I always love stories about how people came to be geeks about whatever it is they happen to be geeks about, and this is a really good one with lots of fun anecdotes and details. Enough to make up for referring to Manchester as being in the "British Midlands", which it is not, humph hump humph!
And a bunch of horrific ones. The book does do its best to be positive - even managing to discuss traditional Chinese medicine and the ways it's terrible for ecology without being judgemental - but there's a description of what trawler fishing does to the ocean floor that made me want to crawl under a rock and never come out again. It also does a really good job of describing how delicate a balance the ocean ecosystem has, and how even if we're not headed for outright catastrophe, there's pretty much no chance the ocean in 30 or 50 years will look the way it does now, and we don't know what that's going to mean.
- His Face All Red, by Emily Carroll
Brilliant comic, available here on the interwebs for your reading pleasure. Something about the combination of the starkness of the story and the understated cute brilliance of the artwork ends up equalling really, seriously, incredibly creepy. It may not seem much by the size but it packs one heck of a wallop. Genius.
- The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death by John Kelly
After re-reading Doomsday Book I wanted to read something about the plague, as you do, and this was the most interesting looking one the library had. It's got the sort of geeky anecdotes I love - have I mentioned lately that I basically have a mind like a magpie? - but it also goes into some of the arguments historians have about the plague a bit and I maybe love that even more. It talks about some of the debates people have had about the plague itself: how it started, whether it's actually the same as later things called plague given debates about symptoms, that sort of stuff. I found it really fascinating; the author's opinion was clearly stated but enough of the alternative views were put forward that I'd love to see some more of the evidence and discussion.
It did have its fair share of gross anecdotes, but I've got a pretty strong stomach for that sort of thing when I'm finding it weirdly compelling (and I don't have to see it). But the most fascinating bits were the quotes from people writing at the time. People writing wills, and the evidence we have from all the people sorting out estates after people died, particularly - and the sheer numbers of people not turning up to argue their claim against an estate because they themselves then died of the plague speak for themselves. Craziness. No wonder people thought it was the end of the world.
- Chronicles of Avonlea and Anne's House of Dreams by LM Montgomery
Chronicles of Avonlea is by far the better of these! I don't know whether it's just because House of Dreams was never one I obsessively re-read as a small child, or whether Anne growing out of her tendency to get into ridiculous scrapes did make it so much less snarky that it's as schmaltzy as it comes over. I think it really is more schmaltzy: it came over very like Montgomery felt the jokes wouldn't be appropriate with older characters who are facing stuff like losing a child and setting up a home and so on, but I think that even then there's totally potential in people like Captain Jim for snark that never happened. Come on! Like Anne would grow entirely out of the ridiculous scrapes! And while I do like Gilbert, their relationship as married people isn't dealt with nearly as well.
Chronicles however was totally fun - still on the sappy side a bit, as they all are, but way funnier. There's an embracing of the ridiculous that makes all the difference. My favourite is the one about the man-hating woman called Peter who ends up getting quarantined with a misogynist; them both coming round is entirely cute, and Peter's language ticks could have been irritating but to me came round again into being hilarious. Ironically, it's the bits where Anne is mentioned that ended up being the weakest; apart from the bit where she's actually present, it came over a bit too forced, like she didn't need to be mentioned at all. But I'm glad I re-read this one, even if House of Dreams after ended up being a bit of a waste of time.
- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
This is a big one in the history of SF, so I figured I probably ought to read it. It's very clearly an SF retelling of Vietnam (although apparently Haldeman has tried to argue otherwise at one point, or something?), with a war that goes longer and longer while the people fighting get further and further away from the world they knew before, before finding out that actually the whole thing was pointless anyway.
It's sort of dated weirdly - the beginning where everyone is assigned someone to have sex with at night just seems odd when you see the apparent date for it, like, okay, someone really thought that was what the nineties were going to be like? And changing people's sexual orientation just like that also comes across rather badly these days. But then as it gets more and more disconnected, with relativity meaning they're getting millions and millions of years away from the time they knew, it is creepy and effective. And, despite being all about a war, not at all Military SF-like.
I am not sure what I think of the ending, but overall I think my conclusion is that the combination of faintly ridiculous and sad and unexpected happy works: too definitive in any direction would ring false I think. Hmm.
And now I am going back to huddling against the heater, because my office does not have central heating and it is SNOWING. Before Christmas. THIS IS ENGLAND, WEATHER, WHAT IS THIS SHIT.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/46718.html. Please comment there using OpenID.