Booklog 1: It's called research!
I haven't read much (for me!) this month: I've been super busy, and also I started reading Les Miserables, and I am not counting that until I've finished it or given up. Which may be in, like, ten years time, because HOLY CRAP PEOPLE THAT IS ONE MASSIVE BOOK.
Anyway. :D
- The Map That Changed The World by Simon Winchester
This is a really interesting biography of one of the earliest (and arguably single most important) geologists. He also had one heck of a life, so this is really very readable, even if I disagree with Winchester's choices sometimes. Mostly, I thought it was very obvious that Winchester really cared about his subject and had very strong views about why people should care about this guy and his contribution to the world, and his enthusiasm communicated itself really well. I felt really bad for Smith, and I am irrationally pleased that he is now the first William Smith listed on wiki's disambiguation page. It seems fitting, because his insight really was extremely important and shaped the face of science forever, to the point where it seems just completely bonkers that he could ever have been in danger of being forgotten.
I also didn't know until reading this book that British geology specifically is so important! I mean, I knew we had fossils and a lot of geologists, but that there were actual geological reasons why *British* geology could provide the source for insight in ways literally nowhere else on the planet could... I didn't know that, and I find I like the idea of there being something actually important and unique about this little island in the North Atlantic. Like, that is an ACTUAL thing to boast about, people who want to boast! We have awesome rocks! Feeling that way is a little absurd and a lot ridiculous, and yet I do. :)
- Melusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Corambis by Sarah Monette
This was also the month I read the whole of the Doctrine of Labyrinths series, which is a fantasy saga where the main heroic journey is to recover and heal and love each other. Which is something I approve of!
I started off not at all sure what I thought - if anything ever needed a trigger warning, it is this series, omg there is a LOT of really nasty stuff that happens to the main characters. Everyone who gets to narrate is traumatised in one way or another, and for good reasons. I spent a while trying to work out if I thought it crossed the line from 'telling a story where terrible things happen to people' to 'torture porn'. But I ended up becoming more and more convinced by the argument that all that was functioning as a comment - it was saying, here are some traditional backgrounds for fantasy heroes (prostitute, trained assassin, spy, wounded soldier), but THIS is what they might actually be like. It would suck. It would really suck and it would fundamentally change all the other aspects of your life. (I think there is a further element in it of, these things are considered terrible by most of us when they happen to real people, and don't we owe it to them to The important bit wasn't just the actual bad things themselves, it was also how the characters made lives for themselves in their own way afterwards.
And I think it does that really well. It's superbly readable. And once the bit I found really difficult had finished (Felix in the lead up to and experience of having a complete psychotic break), I was engaged enough with the characters (MILDMAAAAAAAAAY) that I had to finish it. AND, every narrator speaks in a distinctly different way, which is so nice! The further apart the people grew up, the greater difference in their GRAMMAR, even, which is sadly rare.There is no way you'd get confused with whose point of view you're in, and oh my god I love that. I also really love love love the difference between how each character thinks and how they seem to others so much, even though I spent a lot of time flailing and wanting to sit Mildmay and Felix down and make them tell each other how they actually feel.
(And that's serious impressive considering that I am not a fan of in incest plotlines. I think what saves it is the realism - having an inappropriate and unrequited attraction to your brother isn't hot, it's just AWKWARD. And they acknowledged it as such, and the whole thing was about them being messed up rather than kinky.)
I also love that for the difficult bits, you get payoff. It was actually an immensely satisfying read: seeing how far the characters had come became really moving in just the way I wanted it to be. It was really earned. And I loved what she picked - Mildmay learning to read! (I love that learning to read is one of the big triumphs.) Felix teaching! (The bit where he gets all happy because he gets to explain research was great.) And I loved that there's enough ladies to pass the Bechdel test: more of that would be better, almost certainly, but I don't think that that was an accident... I felt more like, that's the way the stories she's talking about go, and the women we see are, as well as being interesting and worthwhile characters, there to say that the women are still there and it's not at all because they're inherently uninteresting that the main focus of most fantasy isn't on them.
- The Golden Road by LM Montgomery
I read this because I felt some cuteness was about what was needed, and I had never actually read this sequel to The Story Girl. It's very very very much in the same vein as that, but that's not a bad thing: if you like Montgomery, you know what you're getting, and this is it. Sweetness with just enough snark to make it palatable is sometimes what the world needs. And this is pretty good. The early Anne books remain my fave of hers, but this was exactly what I wanted it to be.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/103709.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Anyway. :D
- The Map That Changed The World by Simon Winchester
This is a really interesting biography of one of the earliest (and arguably single most important) geologists. He also had one heck of a life, so this is really very readable, even if I disagree with Winchester's choices sometimes. Mostly, I thought it was very obvious that Winchester really cared about his subject and had very strong views about why people should care about this guy and his contribution to the world, and his enthusiasm communicated itself really well. I felt really bad for Smith, and I am irrationally pleased that he is now the first William Smith listed on wiki's disambiguation page. It seems fitting, because his insight really was extremely important and shaped the face of science forever, to the point where it seems just completely bonkers that he could ever have been in danger of being forgotten.
I also didn't know until reading this book that British geology specifically is so important! I mean, I knew we had fossils and a lot of geologists, but that there were actual geological reasons why *British* geology could provide the source for insight in ways literally nowhere else on the planet could... I didn't know that, and I find I like the idea of there being something actually important and unique about this little island in the North Atlantic. Like, that is an ACTUAL thing to boast about, people who want to boast! We have awesome rocks! Feeling that way is a little absurd and a lot ridiculous, and yet I do. :)
- Melusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Corambis by Sarah Monette
This was also the month I read the whole of the Doctrine of Labyrinths series, which is a fantasy saga where the main heroic journey is to recover and heal and love each other. Which is something I approve of!
I started off not at all sure what I thought - if anything ever needed a trigger warning, it is this series, omg there is a LOT of really nasty stuff that happens to the main characters. Everyone who gets to narrate is traumatised in one way or another, and for good reasons. I spent a while trying to work out if I thought it crossed the line from 'telling a story where terrible things happen to people' to 'torture porn'. But I ended up becoming more and more convinced by the argument that all that was functioning as a comment - it was saying, here are some traditional backgrounds for fantasy heroes (prostitute, trained assassin, spy, wounded soldier), but THIS is what they might actually be like. It would suck. It would really suck and it would fundamentally change all the other aspects of your life. (I think there is a further element in it of, these things are considered terrible by most of us when they happen to real people, and don't we owe it to them to The important bit wasn't just the actual bad things themselves, it was also how the characters made lives for themselves in their own way afterwards.
And I think it does that really well. It's superbly readable. And once the bit I found really difficult had finished (Felix in the lead up to and experience of having a complete psychotic break), I was engaged enough with the characters (MILDMAAAAAAAAAY) that I had to finish it. AND, every narrator speaks in a distinctly different way, which is so nice! The further apart the people grew up, the greater difference in their GRAMMAR, even, which is sadly rare.There is no way you'd get confused with whose point of view you're in, and oh my god I love that. I also really love love love the difference between how each character thinks and how they seem to others so much, even though I spent a lot of time flailing and wanting to sit Mildmay and Felix down and make them tell each other how they actually feel.
(And that's serious impressive considering that I am not a fan of in incest plotlines. I think what saves it is the realism - having an inappropriate and unrequited attraction to your brother isn't hot, it's just AWKWARD. And they acknowledged it as such, and the whole thing was about them being messed up rather than kinky.)
I also love that for the difficult bits, you get payoff. It was actually an immensely satisfying read: seeing how far the characters had come became really moving in just the way I wanted it to be. It was really earned. And I loved what she picked - Mildmay learning to read! (I love that learning to read is one of the big triumphs.) Felix teaching! (The bit where he gets all happy because he gets to explain research was great.) And I loved that there's enough ladies to pass the Bechdel test: more of that would be better, almost certainly, but I don't think that that was an accident... I felt more like, that's the way the stories she's talking about go, and the women we see are, as well as being interesting and worthwhile characters, there to say that the women are still there and it's not at all because they're inherently uninteresting that the main focus of most fantasy isn't on them.
- The Golden Road by LM Montgomery
I read this because I felt some cuteness was about what was needed, and I had never actually read this sequel to The Story Girl. It's very very very much in the same vein as that, but that's not a bad thing: if you like Montgomery, you know what you're getting, and this is it. Sweetness with just enough snark to make it palatable is sometimes what the world needs. And this is pretty good. The early Anne books remain my fave of hers, but this was exactly what I wanted it to be.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/103709.html. Please comment there using OpenID.