What I've been reading.
Jan. 24th, 2004 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyFrom my recent haul.
The Winter Prince. Beautiful. Also twisted. But no version of the Arthurian mythos that has any honesty to it at all can be anything other than twisted, really.
Flowers from the Storm. Boy howdy does this book hit a lot of my angst-kinks.
The Idylls of the Queen. Strange. But in a good way.
Concourse. Rozan does good hard-boiled. Will definitely keep seeking out the series, mostly because her gimmick is (a.) brilliant and (b.) not a gimmick.
Silent to the Bone, The Diamond in the Window, The Young Unicorns. YA, two I'd loved as a kid and one I read for the first time. And about which I think I have stuff to say. So.
Silent to the Bone is not, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
juliansinger said, quite as good as it could have been. It was a little too obvious and a little too tidy to make the Evil Au Pair the only serpent in the garden, and I didn't particularly like the implicit contrast between Connor's mother and Tina, both second wives with careers, both having children much younger than their husbands' first children, but oh look. Connor's mother puts her career on hold for her child, and we get our (extremely likable) narrator; Tina insists on continuing to work and we get the Evil Au Pair.
But I liked the way Konigsburg dealt with the complicated dynamics of Connor and Margaret and their various parents. And I liked the open acknowledgement of sexuality, and the way that no one in the book (with the exception of the Evil Au Pair) was either entirely good or entirely bad.
The Young Unicorns was preachier than I remembered (as was A Wrinkle in Time the last time I reread it), and reading as an adult, the fact that the bishop isn't really the bishop (gasp!) is painfully obvious. And I don't like Vicky Austin any better as an adult than I did as a child. But the things I remember liking are still there: Emily, and her music, and for some reason the cathedral. And I do like Canon Tallis, even though he's the worst kind of deus ex machina.
I read The Diamond in the Window while taking a hot bath this afternoon and was interested to note that, while I remembered most of it quite well, I'd completely blocked out the parts that reinforce patriarchy, like Edward making a difficult choice between Trebor Nosnibor and the President, and Eleanor, presented with options like being a doctor or an artist or a poet or a teacher, opts uncomplicatedly for being a mother (which apparently precludes all those other options). (And none of Edward's options include fatherhood). Or the fact that Eleanor (like Nora before her) gets special "girl" dreams (the doll and the wedding dress), while there's apparently no need to give Edward special "boy" dreams. Or the apparent belief that the best way to do honor to Louisa May Alcott is to marry her to Henry David Thoreau. Or the fact that while Ned's frantically studying for college exams, Nora's helping clean house to prepare for Lily's wedding. Or the fact that all the people adding their light to Truth's are men.
I'll stop now.
There are other things that, as an adult, I dislike about this book: the simplistic adulation of the Transcendentalists, the cartoonish stereotyping surrounding Prince Krishna. But I loved as a child and loved now the idea of the dreams as games and riddles and the way that Jacaranda twists Krishna's gentle whimsies against him. I don't find the solidifying bubbles as terrifying now as I did as a child, but Krishna's entrapment is the first thing I think of when I see a garden gazing globe.
And for some stupid reason, the love story between Lily and Krishna works for me. Krishna himself, as a character (leaving aside the ridiculous backstory), charms and delights me, and probably if I can figure out why, I can get a story out of it.
The Winter Prince. Beautiful. Also twisted. But no version of the Arthurian mythos that has any honesty to it at all can be anything other than twisted, really.
Flowers from the Storm. Boy howdy does this book hit a lot of my angst-kinks.
The Idylls of the Queen. Strange. But in a good way.
Concourse. Rozan does good hard-boiled. Will definitely keep seeking out the series, mostly because her gimmick is (a.) brilliant and (b.) not a gimmick.
Silent to the Bone, The Diamond in the Window, The Young Unicorns. YA, two I'd loved as a kid and one I read for the first time. And about which I think I have stuff to say. So.
Silent to the Bone is not, as
juliansinger said, quite as good as it could have been. It was a little too obvious and a little too tidy to make the Evil Au Pair the only serpent in the garden, and I didn't particularly like the implicit contrast between Connor's mother and Tina, both second wives with careers, both having children much younger than their husbands' first children, but oh look. Connor's mother puts her career on hold for her child, and we get our (extremely likable) narrator; Tina insists on continuing to work and we get the Evil Au Pair.But I liked the way Konigsburg dealt with the complicated dynamics of Connor and Margaret and their various parents. And I liked the open acknowledgement of sexuality, and the way that no one in the book (with the exception of the Evil Au Pair) was either entirely good or entirely bad.
The Young Unicorns was preachier than I remembered (as was A Wrinkle in Time the last time I reread it), and reading as an adult, the fact that the bishop isn't really the bishop (gasp!) is painfully obvious. And I don't like Vicky Austin any better as an adult than I did as a child. But the things I remember liking are still there: Emily, and her music, and for some reason the cathedral. And I do like Canon Tallis, even though he's the worst kind of deus ex machina.
I read The Diamond in the Window while taking a hot bath this afternoon and was interested to note that, while I remembered most of it quite well, I'd completely blocked out the parts that reinforce patriarchy, like Edward making a difficult choice between Trebor Nosnibor and the President, and Eleanor, presented with options like being a doctor or an artist or a poet or a teacher, opts uncomplicatedly for being a mother (which apparently precludes all those other options). (And none of Edward's options include fatherhood). Or the fact that Eleanor (like Nora before her) gets special "girl" dreams (the doll and the wedding dress), while there's apparently no need to give Edward special "boy" dreams. Or the apparent belief that the best way to do honor to Louisa May Alcott is to marry her to Henry David Thoreau. Or the fact that while Ned's frantically studying for college exams, Nora's helping clean house to prepare for Lily's wedding. Or the fact that all the people adding their light to Truth's are men.
I'll stop now.
There are other things that, as an adult, I dislike about this book: the simplistic adulation of the Transcendentalists, the cartoonish stereotyping surrounding Prince Krishna. But I loved as a child and loved now the idea of the dreams as games and riddles and the way that Jacaranda twists Krishna's gentle whimsies against him. I don't find the solidifying bubbles as terrifying now as I did as a child, but Krishna's entrapment is the first thing I think of when I see a garden gazing globe.
And for some stupid reason, the love story between Lily and Krishna works for me. Krishna himself, as a character (leaving aside the ridiculous backstory), charms and delights me, and probably if I can figure out why, I can get a story out of it.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-24 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-24 04:35 pm (UTC)Mrow?
Date: 2004-01-24 05:40 pm (UTC)Not that I've read it fifty times. *cough*
no subject
Date: 2004-01-24 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-24 11:17 pm (UTC)Most of the sequels were forgettable, but I really loved the The Fledgling (though not sure I can ever read it again).
no subject
Date: 2004-01-25 06:33 am (UTC)yes, yes, yes.
i reread this one and the swing in the summerhouse not too long ago after not having read them since i was a child. they're sort of good "magical means" ideas in the service of not good plots. or something--it's early and my brain isn't up yet. i started the third one and eleanor was being such a ninny that i couldn't keep reading it.
Re: Mrow?
Date: 2004-01-25 07:18 am (UTC)I don't quite know what else to say about it. I thought the conceit was brilliant, and she did a great job with both the Malory side and the whodunit side. But ...
Tell me why you love it.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-25 08:26 am (UTC)---L.
Re: Mrow?
Date: 2004-01-25 09:11 am (UTC)I loved it for Kay's internal conflict, and for understanding Mordred. I loved it because Kay was closer to the 'original' Cei than the modern Kay--because Cei gets the short end of the stick.
I loved that it worked as a murder mystery.
I loved that she made me care about Guenevere, which I rarely do, and I loved that lancelot was a prick. *g*
Also, she writes pretty.
Re: Mrow?
Date: 2004-01-25 12:52 pm (UTC)And the women are the ones who know what's going on.
Re: Mrow?
Date: 2004-01-25 01:09 pm (UTC)...Guy Kay's has some points of congruence, too.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-25 01:47 pm (UTC)Flowers from the Storm. Boy howdy does this book hit a lot of my angst-kinks.
*numfar does the dance of successful book recommendations*
Oh, wait, you probably weren't watching AtS S2. The joke means nothing to you. I am so sad.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 07:19 am (UTC)Flowers from the Storm. Boy howdy does this book hit a lot of my angst-kinks.
I love Kinsale, and that is one of my number one favorites of hers.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 09:33 am (UTC)---L.
no subject
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