Comments | justice_turtle: More book-related nattering

justice_turtle

More book-related nattering

Oct 13, 2011 15:20

So lost_spook said "yay for having nice books to read!" and I was starting to chatter at her about ALL THE NICE BOOKS (and possibly nice books) that I have found on Project Gutenberg and not read yet, and it began to be... a bit infinitely long. So I moved it to a post! XD

( Cut for the sake of your freedom of choice about whether to read it )

reading

Comments 14

lost_spook October 13 2011, 20:25:06 UTC

That is a good list indeed. :-) (Although you need to find The Woman in White as well as The Moonstone, because of Count Fosco and his white mice and Marian Halcombe, but anyway.)

Also, you are the third person today who has posted something claiming it is at least partly my doing. *guilty* I definitely need to get better and retrieve my life, before I oppress my poor flist to death, or they all do something horrible to stop me.

justice_turtle October 14 2011, 00:34:36 UTC

Got it!

And you need not feel guilty at all. I tend to feel guilty babbling about random stuff that interests me unless somebody on my flist has expressed interest, because I'm all like "I will be cluttering up their friends pages, onoes!" So you see you're giving me an excuse to post. XD

(I am so messed up in my head. *wry grin* Also I have been reading far too much Terry Pratchett and contracted a temporary case of Vimesian over-bluntness, oy. *looks back dubiously at comment box*)

But really, I do not in the least mind being oppressed to read new books. Ask lolmac. XD I like new books, and I am always using them up.

lost_spook October 14 2011, 16:29:03 UTC

Thanks. :-)

And, LOL, babbling about random things is what LJ is all about, isn't it?

sophia_sol October 13 2011, 21:05:00 UTC

Your list intrigues me! There's lots of good stuff on it and lots of stuff I would probably never ever touch. :P

Re: the author of your translation of 1001 Nights, it probably really is anonymous. There are a few translations that are generally seen as the major/important ones, but there were also a lot of other translations, though which generally cribbed a lot from the major ones. So it's probably one of those. But it makes me very happy that you are reading the Nights! I'll look forward to hearing what you think of it!

re: Rose in Bloom, please do give your long rant! I would be very curious to hear it!

justice_turtle October 14 2011, 01:03:38 UTC

Well, it's not massively long. It's just that... for someone who never got married, Louisa May Alcott has this incredible obsession with pairing EVERYBODY off. You see it a little bit even in Little Women - Jo/Bhaer, Laurie/Amy, Meg/John, and Beth doesn't get married because she dies. Which, I mean, it seems perfectly normal; that's how things happen, sometimes.

But then you read Rose in Bloom. Which, if you recall, is the sequel to Eight Cousins: there are seven boys and one girl, okay, and they're all growing up. Four of the boys are old enough to get married, right? So, okay, one of the boys marries the girl, and another one marries her friend who was a supporting character in the first book. A third gets engaged to a random girl introduced for the purpose. And the fourth, who is "fast" and would not really make a good husband? Dies tragically.

And then there is Jo's Boys. It's not quite so obvious, because Nan doesn't get married and Bess doesn't die (although I still get slightly cranky about the "strong women don't get married ( ... )

sophia_sol October 14 2011, 01:28:58 UTC

Huh, interesting! I never really thought about these books from that perspective before. But you make a very good point.

(I'm totally cool with Nan not getting married because she is AWESOME and also I am happy to think of her as ace. And I actually like that there's a lot of random girls, because really most people don't actually marry their childhood friends but people they meet in their adult lives.)

justice_turtle October 14 2011, 02:54:53 UTC

...did you do Yuletide last year? And were you the person who requested ace!Nan? Because if so, I think that might be why I originally friended you. *absent-minded* For it is an awesome idea, and makes me happy! :-) It is much better than "well, there is a strong-minded smart lady and a fluffy sweet homemaker, and strong-minded girls Don't Get Married, for the fluffy sweet ones make better wives" - a trope which has depressed me for many years, as I am not fluffy. ;P

(I don't mind the random girls as much as I do the DEADNESS for everyone who doesn't get married. Except Nan. They just kind of serve to emphasize - "here's a girl for Franz! here's a girl for Emil! here's a girl for Demi! here's a girl for Tommy! Oops, no girl for Dan; he has to go out West and get deaded, for he is Unsuitable for a girl twelve years his junior and clearly there is nobody else for him evar." Sorry, this conversation is obviously making me a bit cranky. *wry face*)

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justice_turtle October 14 2011, 02:18:31 UTC

'Read "King Solomon's Mines" before "Allan Quatermain". They're written to be read in that order, and doing it the other way around would be a Bad Idea.'

Ooh, that's good to know, thanks! *makes note*

Any suggestions for particularly good Verne translations? I've got Project Gutenberg editions at the moment, but I can always ransack the local library if necessary. (They're fairly fabulous at some things.)

clocketpatch October 14 2011, 03:56:50 UTC

I loved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when I was growing up. Except, I did it wrong and read The Mysterious Island first. I love that book. It`s Jules Verne`s attempt to out-Crusoe Robinson Crusoe by having these prisoner`s of war escape on a hot air balloon, and then the balloon gets blown out to sea and starts to sink and they throw EVERYTHING overboard in an attempt to lighten the weight. So when they eventually get to the island they have nothing, not even their pen knives. And then they go about being resourceful and building civilization out of nothing.

Adventures in kindling haikitteh October 14 2011, 14:40:46 UTC

I have so many of these on my kindle too: Moby Dick, Poe, Austen (read them all, but sometimes the fever will grip me to read them again, so they must be with me AT ALL TIMES), and The Invisible Man, though I have The Woman in White instead of The Moonstone.

Recently I knocked off all 673 pages of Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, and felt rather proud of myself. That one had been on my kindle almost since the first day I got it. If you like descriptions of wind, sun, dust blowing into camel's eyes, or the many varieties of desert terrain, this is the book!

If you haven't yet read the Ship Manifesto for Jo/Laurie, you must! There's some fascinating history about Alcott's reaction to the shippers. http://ship-manifesto.livejournal.com/237830.html