Book Discussion: The Eagle's Mate

[cereta]

I mentioned recently that I have several bookshelves worth of books from my grandmother's storage room (which means I have books from about four branches of my family). Among the second grade readers and early poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes are what I can only call potboilers: the Danielle Steel novels of their day. In fact, it's kind of

Comments

[darthfox]

You are totally valid!

Please keep things here instead of moving them to Vox. I hope that will remain only a last resort ...

[cereta]

Hee. Valid is good. I like writing these up, but I genuinely wanted to know if others found them interesting.

[ltlj]

Anemone? I'm trying, but I can't get past that.

(I'd be interested in the book write-ups, too.)

[cereta]

Yeah, I stumbled over it a lot. I kept going to that scene in Finding Nemo when Nemo was try to say that he lived in an anemonen...an amenome...an...you get the idea.

[ltlj]

Though really, I bet to most people in 1914 it would have been just a pretty word, which makes it a more understandable choice for the author.

[lilacsigil]

Anemone? Of the mountains? Something's fishy here... Fisher and Lancer? Oh dear.

I love to hear about these books, especially the ones with confused Good Christian Messages.

[cereta]

If there was a good Christian message, it escaped me, because it sure seemed to be siding with the mountain moonshiners and their lawless ways, and I'm usually the first person to cry, "Fuck, that's Christian symbolism, isn't it?" I suspect if it were, Fisher would have been a better guy ;).

[amelia_eve]

Whoa, a romance novel plot ripped directly from the pages of The Book of Ruth. I love it!

I would definitely enjoy reading more reviews of pop fiction from days gone by. My own focus is usually more on the interwar period. Last year I was delighted to read the original novel Now, Voyager after seen the movie a gazillion times. I'd never realized it was part of a series, and not even the best known of the bunch. It was reissued by Feminist Press as part of its Women Write Pulp series.

More recently, I read The Northbury Papers by Joanne Dobson. The author is a professor who specializes in mid 19th Century women's fiction, and she's written a mystery novel about a made-up New England author and her long-lost story about her secret lover on the Underground Railway. It's really a commercialized sort of fan-fic, with a Mary Sue protagonist who's just my cup of tea. (Instead of violet eyes and auburn curls, she has a Ph.D. in English and a daughter she's raised alone.)

So, erm, yes, more book reviews, please!

[cereta]

Oooh, those sound fascinating. The first of these books I read were a 2-book series by Emma Southworth, who was a sort of proto-feminist. Very much in the sentimental novel vein, but interesting.

[amelia_eve]

Actually, Emma Southworth was the main inspiration for the fictional Serena Northbury in the Joanne Dobson novel. I have to admit that Dobson's prose is not brilliant, but I was sufficiently charmed by her themes to enjoy the book quite a lot.

Well OK, it was sort of a low rent Possession, but a very likable commute book.

[cereta]

Oh, nifty! And yeah, the Southworth Ishmael books were...how shall I put this? To the extent that I believe "Mary Sue" has meaning outside of fanfic, Ishamel was one, to a scary degree, but I still found myself fascinated.

[cereta]

I'll take that as a yes ;).