UBC # 17: Black Powder War / UBC in progress

[truepenny]

UBC #17
Novik, Naomi. Black Powder War. New York: Del Rey-Ballantine Books, 2006.

I've been dithering about what to say about this book for a couple of days now. Because on the one hand, I liked it; on the other hand, I thought it had more flaws than the previous two books; on the gripping hand, although I do not--quite--know naominovik, we have friends in common, and she may or may not be reading this blog.

(This is where the whole living genre thing gets very very weird. I'm used to talking about people who've been dead for 400 years. So, you know, if I say I think Timon of Athens kind of sucks, I don't have to worry that Shakespeare will see it. And, yes, I think it is something to be mindful of.)

So, yes, I enjoyed it, but I did think it had problems. Mostly to do with the fact, as I have said before, that travel narrative is hard.

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I'm currently reading a couple of books at once. scott_lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora (which is so far shiny and very clever), and Angus Fletcher's Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode. (Mr. Fletcher for the table, Mr. Lynch for the bedroom.)

I'll have a great deal to say about Allegory when I've finished it, but for now I want to offer an artifact of 1964, which is when it was published. He's talking about the use of animals in the doubled plots of allegory:

A popular novel like The Strange One runs two parallel stories at once, one telling of miscegenation between a white boy and an Indian girl, the other describing the mismating of two different species of geese.
(Fletcher 192-93)

To which I can only say, as I said in the margin, "!"

A footnote tells us that The Strange One was written by Fred Bodsworth and published in 1959. Has anyone ever heard of this book? Can anyone report back on whether it's truly as awful, muddle-headed (species and race are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CONCEPTS, thankyouverymuch), and offensive as it sounds?

Morbid curiosity is possibly the worst kind.

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WORKS CITED
Fletcher, Angus. Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode. 1964. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Comments

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Worse than that: they've been taught to look for didactic intention.

The number of students who assured me Shakespeare wanted us to learn things from his plays ...

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

Nngh. I've heard that one, too. Or the students who read Austen at face value, without recognising the irony, and then tells me she wants to teach us whatever about love or marriage...