In which there are ads and fads
- Watching two advertising posters for Malvern Water that I saw hung in a cafe toilet in Herefordshire: "Malvern, not quite middle England." ("Black Swan Green", not exactly Malvern, lol).
- Reading junk mail: I’ve been sent a flyer for a theatrical production of Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, from the same box office which presumably has my last purchases listed as theatre tickets for George Bernard Shaw, experimental adult theatre, and Tom Stoppard. I’m not sure whether their marketing is useless or desperate. Although I admit there might be some resemblance between Tom Stoppard and Dr Seuss, lol.
- Reading, books 2015, 49.
44. Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. A funny and dramatic novel of thirteen chapters about thirteen calendar months in the life of a thirteen year old boy. Think Adrian Mole, also partially set in 1982, but as a better human being in a better novel [/awaits pro-Mole hatemail, lol]. Mitchell has all the skills, obv, but is especially outstanding at writing dialogue that conveys realism, in word-choice and rhythmic patterns, while also being extremely readable. Not many novelists could persuade me I want to spend over 350 pages inside the head of a fairly average white middle-class thirteen-year-old English boy* but Black Swan Green is so good I’ve read it twice. (4/5, warning for casual disablism and racism and homophobia, some examined and some not)
- Our protagonist is a stammerer who also regularly uses "spaz" and "flid" as insults but asks in relation to bullying about his own stammer: Who decides which defects are funny and which ones are tragic? Nobody laughs at blind people or makes iron lung jokes. [It probably goes without saying that some people do laugh at blind people and/or make iron lung "jokes".]
- On LotR: 'And as for that Sam, and his "Oh, Master Frodo, what a bootiful dagger you’ve got" - well! They shouldn’t let that sort of homo-erotic porn near children.'
- On pointed conversations at family mealtimes: 'In my exam today,' Julia twisted a strand of her hair, 'this term I'm not totally sure about, “pyrrhic victory”, came up. Do you know what a “pyrrhic victory” is, Dad?'
- On English seaside towns in summer (Jane Austen iz ded): Lyme Regis was a casserole of tourists. Everywhere smelt of suntan oil, hamburgers and burnt sugar.
- The protagonist has a full thirteen card set of a dinosaur postcard panorama, of which I had about four when I was a kid. ::ENVY::
* Note for any concern trolls calling the WAHmbulance because I’m supposedly missing out on all those bildungsromans: nope! I was forced to read shed loads of literary coming-of-age novels about WHITE BOYS when I was at school including all those given namechecks in Black Swan Green and more. Y’know, such as Cider with Rosie (ARGH!), Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Huck Finn. Even Romeo and Juliet is mostly about boys. While on the female coming-of-age side we were forced to read less than half the number of books and those were all romances, most of which were satirical against young women, and iirc the complete compulsory list was Jane Eyre, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. SO, during Black Swan Green the author could obliquely refer to many literary works in the same genre with confidence that his readers would be aware of them, whereas if an author tried to write a similar bildungsroman about a female character she could confidently refer to… [patriarchal cultural VOIDs not filled by What Maisie Knew].
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/527785.html and has
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- Reading junk mail: I’ve been sent a flyer for a theatrical production of Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, from the same box office which presumably has my last purchases listed as theatre tickets for George Bernard Shaw, experimental adult theatre, and Tom Stoppard. I’m not sure whether their marketing is useless or desperate. Although I admit there might be some resemblance between Tom Stoppard and Dr Seuss, lol.
- Reading, books 2015, 49.
44. Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. A funny and dramatic novel of thirteen chapters about thirteen calendar months in the life of a thirteen year old boy. Think Adrian Mole, also partially set in 1982, but as a better human being in a better novel [/awaits pro-Mole hatemail, lol]. Mitchell has all the skills, obv, but is especially outstanding at writing dialogue that conveys realism, in word-choice and rhythmic patterns, while also being extremely readable. Not many novelists could persuade me I want to spend over 350 pages inside the head of a fairly average white middle-class thirteen-year-old English boy* but Black Swan Green is so good I’ve read it twice. (4/5, warning for casual disablism and racism and homophobia, some examined and some not)
- Our protagonist is a stammerer who also regularly uses "spaz" and "flid" as insults but asks in relation to bullying about his own stammer: Who decides which defects are funny and which ones are tragic? Nobody laughs at blind people or makes iron lung jokes. [It probably goes without saying that some people do laugh at blind people and/or make iron lung "jokes".]
- On LotR: 'And as for that Sam, and his "Oh, Master Frodo, what a bootiful dagger you’ve got" - well! They shouldn’t let that sort of homo-erotic porn near children.'
- On pointed conversations at family mealtimes: 'In my exam today,' Julia twisted a strand of her hair, 'this term I'm not totally sure about, “pyrrhic victory”, came up. Do you know what a “pyrrhic victory” is, Dad?'
- On English seaside towns in summer (Jane Austen iz ded): Lyme Regis was a casserole of tourists. Everywhere smelt of suntan oil, hamburgers and burnt sugar.
- The protagonist has a full thirteen card set of a dinosaur postcard panorama, of which I had about four when I was a kid. ::ENVY::
* Note for any concern trolls calling the WAHmbulance because I’m supposedly missing out on all those bildungsromans: nope! I was forced to read shed loads of literary coming-of-age novels about WHITE BOYS when I was at school including all those given namechecks in Black Swan Green and more. Y’know, such as Cider with Rosie (ARGH!), Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Huck Finn. Even Romeo and Juliet is mostly about boys. While on the female coming-of-age side we were forced to read less than half the number of books and those were all romances, most of which were satirical against young women, and iirc the complete compulsory list was Jane Eyre, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. SO, during Black Swan Green the author could obliquely refer to many literary works in the same genre with confidence that his readers would be aware of them, whereas if an author tried to write a similar bildungsroman about a female character she could confidently refer to… [patriarchal cultural VOIDs not filled by What Maisie Knew].
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/527785.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.