(no subject)
Recently read:
Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle Earth (new edition, which incorporates the recently published supplementary materials and includes an appendix on the films): What I like about this is the way Shippey contextualizes Tolkien's work -- first in his career as a philologist, and it helps that Shippey is a philologist as well and gets why it matters that Tolkien was obsessed with words and language. It's probably particularly interesting if you've done some historical linguistics, because the way one moves from language to culture to history and back to language there is very significant for Tolkien's creative process. The second contextualization is the notion of Tolkien as very much a twentieth-century novelist, and part of a group who come out of the experience of the first and second world wars and respond to them in very particular ways. Shippey takes Tolkien's claim to not be writing allegory seriously, but he also looks carefully at what Tolkien might mean (and not mean) by "allegory," and the fairly complicated ways in which what Tolkien writes relates to the experience of Britain (or perhaps just England) in the twentieth century. In this context, Orwell makes a particularly good comparandum.
One very amusing thing in this is Shippey's treatment of critical responses to Tolkien's work; as an academic (and a philologist) himself he's not much daunted by the writers of literary criticism, but he also takes the practice of literary criticism seriously. His point that the modern critical toolbox is not well stocked to deal with the literature that is most widely read is a valid one, and the habit critics have of dismissing that literature is a sign of a problem in them, not in the books. His point that most critics are bad readers and (frequently) outright liars when they have to deal with works that don't meet their presuppositions is just funny. And true.
This is the best book about Tolkien that I've ever read, although I don't read a lot of books about Tolkien. Obviously, it suits a lot of my prejudices, because Shippey is a philologist in the old sense, and an academic, and he both loves Tolkien and takes him seriously.
Boris Akunin, Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog: This is a mystery set in Russia in the late 19th century. It's kind of fun, but it has a strange authorial voice, because Akunin is concerned to make the narrative style suit the period. So it reads like an extremely conservative work, as you'd expect, perhaps, considering that the main characters are a nun and a bishop and a set of local officials. Of course, I'm not sure what the original is like, because this is a translation, but I would assume that the translator is trying to copy the author's style. I recall a bit of talk on lj a while ago about characters in historical novels who seem anachronistic, but the characters here are very much of their period, which can sometimes be a bit unsettling, especially when it comes to female and non-Russian characters. That's part of the point of writing historical fiction, though -- it would be odd to find an Orthodox bishop in late 19th century Russia with the prejudices of a modern American, or even a modern Russian, and would make for a bad book. Akunin is careful to keep the sense of distance without ever allowing the characters to become too offensive to (my) modern sensibilities, and that's a delicate line to walk.
This is a light book, ultimately, but not a bad one. Actually, the way Akunin handles the historical context is what keeps it from being complete fluff.
Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch: Another translation from the Russian. This is the novel (or set of three novellas, really) which provided the inspiration for the movie of the same name; the movie covers the first novella, but there are enough significant differences between the two that it didn't seem repetitive. And those differences mean that the next two films are likely to be even greater, so you won't spoil yourself by reading the book.
The style here is not as pronounced as Akunin's, presumably in the original as in the translation, but the book deals with more serious material -- what a ceasefire between Good and Evil (or Dark and Light) would look like, and how difficult it is, in the midst of that ceasefire, to tell the difference between the two sides. So it becomes quite a murky story, and unfortunately at times the actual plot developments get lost in that murk as well; the author ends up holding his cards a little too close to his chest, although that's also due to the fact that his narrator is being manipulated by older and more powerful Others most of the time, and he doesn't always know what's going on and what it all means.
Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black: As the title implies, this is by no stretch of the imagination a light or fluffy book, but it is a very good one. Oddly enough, it's about a medium named Alison, but similarities to anything you've seen before end there. This is sort of a ghost story, and sort of not a ghost story, because the ghosts are by no means the most frightening things in it (although they are certainly frightening at times). It's also a kind of mystery, as Alison tries to understand the way her past determines her present; I'm not sure I'm entirely satisfied with the way the ending played out, but it didn't take away from the power of the book as a whole.
I don't want to say too much about this book, but I recommend it highly. I could barely put it down.
Just started reading:
Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora: A truly dire opening paragraph, but the first chapter is shaping up nicely, and at the moment I think I will like this. [ETA: I am now a third of the way in and do like it well enough.]
Recently put down:
Lindsey Davis, See Delphi and Die: Oh dear. You know, I really enjoyed the early Falco novels (and reread a couple earlier this summer), but the series as a whole just doesn't stand up well. I'll probably finish this, eventually. Or maybe not.
Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle Earth (new edition, which incorporates the recently published supplementary materials and includes an appendix on the films): What I like about this is the way Shippey contextualizes Tolkien's work -- first in his career as a philologist, and it helps that Shippey is a philologist as well and gets why it matters that Tolkien was obsessed with words and language. It's probably particularly interesting if you've done some historical linguistics, because the way one moves from language to culture to history and back to language there is very significant for Tolkien's creative process. The second contextualization is the notion of Tolkien as very much a twentieth-century novelist, and part of a group who come out of the experience of the first and second world wars and respond to them in very particular ways. Shippey takes Tolkien's claim to not be writing allegory seriously, but he also looks carefully at what Tolkien might mean (and not mean) by "allegory," and the fairly complicated ways in which what Tolkien writes relates to the experience of Britain (or perhaps just England) in the twentieth century. In this context, Orwell makes a particularly good comparandum.
One very amusing thing in this is Shippey's treatment of critical responses to Tolkien's work; as an academic (and a philologist) himself he's not much daunted by the writers of literary criticism, but he also takes the practice of literary criticism seriously. His point that the modern critical toolbox is not well stocked to deal with the literature that is most widely read is a valid one, and the habit critics have of dismissing that literature is a sign of a problem in them, not in the books. His point that most critics are bad readers and (frequently) outright liars when they have to deal with works that don't meet their presuppositions is just funny. And true.
This is the best book about Tolkien that I've ever read, although I don't read a lot of books about Tolkien. Obviously, it suits a lot of my prejudices, because Shippey is a philologist in the old sense, and an academic, and he both loves Tolkien and takes him seriously.
Boris Akunin, Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog: This is a mystery set in Russia in the late 19th century. It's kind of fun, but it has a strange authorial voice, because Akunin is concerned to make the narrative style suit the period. So it reads like an extremely conservative work, as you'd expect, perhaps, considering that the main characters are a nun and a bishop and a set of local officials. Of course, I'm not sure what the original is like, because this is a translation, but I would assume that the translator is trying to copy the author's style. I recall a bit of talk on lj a while ago about characters in historical novels who seem anachronistic, but the characters here are very much of their period, which can sometimes be a bit unsettling, especially when it comes to female and non-Russian characters. That's part of the point of writing historical fiction, though -- it would be odd to find an Orthodox bishop in late 19th century Russia with the prejudices of a modern American, or even a modern Russian, and would make for a bad book. Akunin is careful to keep the sense of distance without ever allowing the characters to become too offensive to (my) modern sensibilities, and that's a delicate line to walk.
This is a light book, ultimately, but not a bad one. Actually, the way Akunin handles the historical context is what keeps it from being complete fluff.
Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch: Another translation from the Russian. This is the novel (or set of three novellas, really) which provided the inspiration for the movie of the same name; the movie covers the first novella, but there are enough significant differences between the two that it didn't seem repetitive. And those differences mean that the next two films are likely to be even greater, so you won't spoil yourself by reading the book.
The style here is not as pronounced as Akunin's, presumably in the original as in the translation, but the book deals with more serious material -- what a ceasefire between Good and Evil (or Dark and Light) would look like, and how difficult it is, in the midst of that ceasefire, to tell the difference between the two sides. So it becomes quite a murky story, and unfortunately at times the actual plot developments get lost in that murk as well; the author ends up holding his cards a little too close to his chest, although that's also due to the fact that his narrator is being manipulated by older and more powerful Others most of the time, and he doesn't always know what's going on and what it all means.
Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black: As the title implies, this is by no stretch of the imagination a light or fluffy book, but it is a very good one. Oddly enough, it's about a medium named Alison, but similarities to anything you've seen before end there. This is sort of a ghost story, and sort of not a ghost story, because the ghosts are by no means the most frightening things in it (although they are certainly frightening at times). It's also a kind of mystery, as Alison tries to understand the way her past determines her present; I'm not sure I'm entirely satisfied with the way the ending played out, but it didn't take away from the power of the book as a whole.
I don't want to say too much about this book, but I recommend it highly. I could barely put it down.
Just started reading:
Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora: A truly dire opening paragraph, but the first chapter is shaping up nicely, and at the moment I think I will like this. [ETA: I am now a third of the way in and do like it well enough.]
Recently put down:
Lindsey Davis, See Delphi and Die: Oh dear. You know, I really enjoyed the early Falco novels (and reread a couple earlier this summer), but the series as a whole just doesn't stand up well. I'll probably finish this, eventually. Or maybe not.