Love on the Rocks (March Reading)
Apr. 6th, 2007 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseIf I do not post this now I will never finish it.
The Vagina Monologues (Eve Ensler): The play which gets annual stage time on college campuses (and youtube). Since it's a play, it really should be seen, not read, to get the full effect. However, I keep brilliantly noticing it's playing about a week after the performance(s).
Too much girly feelings-sharing makes me nervous. I know I have schizophrenic trust issues, and I mostly accept this. The Vagina Monologues are all about sharing your feelings, and getting a little TMI, and safe spaces, and it probably says something that my favorite piece was "Because He Liked To Look At It", which is one of the funny pieces, not one of the Deeply Tragical monologues. (Links: YouTube - and it says a thing that I only got one hit on that monologue - and text.) Letting it all hang out goes against my grain, unless it's done with courtesy, intelligence and humor that cuts sharper and quicker than rage.
Star Wars: X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar (Aaron Allston): Wedge Antilles breaks up with girlfriend Qwi Xux, and is conveniently assigned to a diplomatic mission on a pilot-lovin' planet with which the New Republic would really like an alliance. Recommended after romance complaints for Wedge-and-Iella content. Complete fluff. Allston has a weakness for repetition that drives me nuts, and could really use a copy editor to clean up sentences like, "she was beautiful, but it was not her beauty that jolted Wedge - not her beauty that made him feel as though he had taken a punch to the gut."
The romance: it was a B-plot in an action story and did what it was supposed to, which is give two secondary characters a happy relationship. I was surprised by how little bearing it had on the A-plot; "Wedge and Iella in love" could have been "Wedge and Iella in best friends forever land" with much the same impact on the main action story.
Plot comments: pilots, no Jedi. Flying, no fathers. Comedy, not tragedy. Deep like the puddles you happily splash through in your small yellow rainboots. If there's a message or theme, it is that you should treat people with respect and honor, and they'll reward you with courage, love, and gaudy cloaks you want to burn. And nothing don't mean nothing if it ain't free.
Edit: Shoutout to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scifantasy for being a total fanboy and correcting the title.
Farthing (Jo Walton /papersky): A prominent politician is murdered in 1949 Britain, eight years after a peace settlement with Nazi Germany.
By the way, this is alternate history.
I've read most of Walton's novels to date, because how can you not root for an author whose usent sig reads, "I kissed a kif at Kefk"? Walton tends to take a known source and put her spin on it. Since I'm usually not as familiar with the source as I should be, I generally savor the whooshing rush of references going right past me. King's Peace and King's Name - Urdo is who? (My understanding of Arthurian legend starts and stops at the Disney version of The Sword in the Stone.) Tooth and Claw is generally understood to riff on the Victorians; let's talk about how many 19th century novels I have successfully avoided reading. Farthing is an AU riff on history I should know; it might also be a take-off of the murder mystery genre. I have read enough that I recognize Farthing's broadly mystery setup. Man dies mysteriously; Scotland Yard detectives investigate; Mr. Detective Protagonist figures out who done it. I greatly enjoyed Carmichael laying out the pieces for his boss and having his boss say, "that's all very nice, but now I'm going to blackmail you and your - whatever. Inspector."
The story is told from two perspectives: the breathless first person voice of Lucy Kahn, who threw away her place in Society to scandalously marry a Jew, and Carmichael's third person narrative. It didn't occur to me until someone else pointed out that Lucy's bits could easily be a beyond-the-grave Anne Frank sort of thing, which goes to show how much attention I was paying. (In my defense, I finished the novel at 3:30 in the morning. If you'll ignore the time and focus on the implicit fuzzy brain, please.) Elizabeth Bear has issues with some aspects of the book, especially Lucy as sweet narrator; I am not as bothered because Lucy strikes me as a fluttery type with the occasional unexpected depths. For people who have read Laurie King: think of the several energetic "Mary's age cohort" flappers who have appeared in the Mary Russell novels. Also, she steals her mother's jewlry with ruthless practicality. In the name of a higher cause, but her complete lack of qualms says something about her. I liked Lucy, in the way I would like someone, but not trust them to show up to appointment on time. Carmichael does not amuse me in the same way, but is an interesting semi-reliable narrator, and gets the short end of the stick in that scene with boss-guy. He's asked to sacrifice someone else's essential liberty for a little temporary security. And he does. (In some ways, I would consider those two sentences a summary of America in Iraq, 2002 to the present. Please hold for the Omelas rant.*)
I am not as familiar with 1949 Britain as I probably ought to be, so I can't comment on how extreme the historical divergences are, but I completely missed the significance of the political totalitarianism right up until the last 75 or 50 pages, when the atmosphere slid from obnoxious classism and racism straight toward Orwellianism. The change in status from "hypothetically precarious" to "we're going to Fascism" makes the off-screen horrors the reader intellectually understands much less intellectual and much closer to vivid knowing.
If I were more familiar with them, I would comment at length on the mystery conventions upheld and violated. (If I were another sort of person, I would have gone into english or women studies. Instead of beating my head against science, I would focus my scholastics on considering genre and feminism, and be able to do whole posts about how [author] used [convention] to do [message].) What I can mention is the casual effacement of heteronormativity (and how often do you get to say that with a straight face?). Much has been made of this elsewhere, so I'm going to pass over this with little comment. Except - does this make Farthing a queer text? Discuss in comments.
Walton has said she wrote Farthing fast and furious (start and stop), and, thanks to LJ, conveniently provides us with a lot of meta.
*Thank you for holding. I despise the artificial dichotomy presented by Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas": stay, and be complicit in one being's suffering, or leave? By leaving, do you not become complicit in the suffering of individuals in the next community you join? And is their suffering any less than that you left behind? My answer to the Omelas dichotomy is that people need to get involved with their local, state and federal government more often. Reformists do not abandon their society, they get in its face and change it.
This has been the Omelas rant. Thank you for your patience. Have a pleasant day in your representative democracy. Don't forget to write your House representatives and your federal senators if you live in the United States.
Glasshouse (Charles Stross): A postop memory surgery job decides to participate in a psychology experiment simulating pre-Acceleration social dynamics.
I disagree with the Singularity people from square one. New tech is going to explode in our faces, that's what it does, but I doubt we'll fracture into godlike haves and peon have-nots overnight because of superaccelerated development. I don't think the materials science is there. This gives me serious suspension-of-disbelief issues when I read Singularity novels like Stoss'. I nearly put down Glasshousebefore I got to the end of the second chapter, and I'm glad I didn't. If it helps, consider the pre-experiment chapters as a prologue. I was shocked to realize I sort of enjoyed the novel. (It helps to know that my last Stross was "Lobsters", which I hated. I found the plot fairly incomprehensible, trending toward boring, and then there was out-of-left-field non-con. Ew.)
The multibody memory-editing "easy modification" universe Stoss posits would be a fun way to explore the nature of identity, but it felt like it cropped up pretty late in the book, as more of a character point than a Great Big Theme. I'm on a theme kick at the moment, which is probably a cue to read more nonfiction.
Petty comments before I digress into un-expanded notes: I understand the logic of converting messy Earth timekeeping units to a digital system, but I am displeased with how often I had to flip to the time conversion cheat sheet. Failure to inclue well? See also "historical" parallels: "history of witch-hunts in preindustrial Europa and Merka". Yeah, beat us over the head with your mob psychology 101, Stross.
The things I wanted to think about more - and didn't get around to - follow.
Themes: identity, power (Cass), retiring warhorses (memory/identity). Gender-bending plot-integral?meril conversation - culture shock, not gender roles; Hugo maybe, Tiptree absolutely not. Deus ex machina of Magic Matter Maker.
Humor: "...there's potential for abuse in this atomic relationship thing..." (p61, nuclear family)
Conclusions? Rec for the SF crowd; not running down the street trying to shove this down people's throats. Adequate storytelling.
In the Bleak Midwinter (Julia Spencer-Fleming):
Live son of dead girl:
detective complications.
Snow sweeps Millers Kill.
A baby on the church steps brings together Police chief Russ Van Alstyne and Episcopalian priest Clare Fergusson in an investigation that points at the most and least respected families of small town Miller's Kill. (Together, they fight crime!) Kill is an example of borrowing from Dutch, and refers to a creek. The doubled English meaning is merely convenient for mystery writers.
I hated the UST, which shall be discussed below. The series setup is fairly obvious, but compelling, because the "they fight crime!" duo have a number of similar and contrasting experiences and attitudes: the town son long returned vs. the new Southerner, the priest vs. the atheist, the 'Nam GI vet vs. the young Army helicopter vet. Interesting stuff. The novel touches on several issues (teenage pregnancy, rural poverty) and draws them into setting up the central whodunit. I would have liked a little more full-blown thematic development, but it's a personal preference stemming from my very literalist, concrete perception of the world. You have to really smack me upside the head with theme before I notice it's there. I am very sad that the boyfriend didn't make an onscreen appearance until fairly late, and that his dad didn't get enough screen time for me to recall his name. (Fowler. Yes, I did look it up.) I am a fan of villains who are lead astray by the courage of their convictions, and have to live and live and live in jail with their stupid mistakes. It's a thing.
I'm ticked about the romance setup. I 'spoiled' myself a bit and read the blurbs for the (currently) four books that follow this one, and I don't like where they go. I remember the X-Files seven seasons of UST, thanks much, and I just don't care anymore. I think ItBM missed a major opportunity by casting Linda Van Alyne as Mrs. Not Appearing In This Novel. It sets up an artificial barrier to the romantic spark the author is setting up. If you plan to do a multi-novel romantic arc, do it and I will applaud you. However, I want drawn-out UST based on what I consider reasonable reasons, like being in a committed relationship you enjoy, or at least respect enough not to break out of without putting in your couples therapy first. Or adults realizing that one of them is an Episcopalian priest and the other is a committed atheist who may have some ambiguous feelings about playing the parts expected of a pastoral spouse. To pick two non-random examples. What I would really love is a BFF dynamic, but apparently, deep platonic feelings have gone the way of the triceratops. This is a shame, since both characters are ex-military, and probably could say something about philia under fire.
Speaking of - I am assuming the Reverend Fergusson was not born yesterday. However, some of her actions contradict this. How massively idiotic do you have to be to run through a stream during a snowstorm? I understand the "Southern gal goes North" concept, but the south gets ice storms, so Clare should have a clue how ugly winter can get. Not a large one, but some vague awareness that people should, you know, respect the hazards and avoid the possibility of losing feet to frostbite. (This may be a personal quirk, because I deal poorly with temperature extremes, and try to pack accordingly. Call me paranoid.) I am done with flashy stupidity. I can find that in real life.
It's interesting to compare the end of ItBM with Farthing's conclusion. One of these novels is conforming to genre conventions and putting on lipstick and eyeshadow for their boyfriend, and one of them is putting lipstick on their boyfriend.
Conclusions: I would rec this to romance readers looking for a mystery; I might rec this to mystery readers who don't mind romance; I am saving the rest of the series for trashy travel reading, or any time I want an excuse to displace some yelling about characters flying in the face of sense. The blurbs are compelling, and the characters given sufficient backstory and depth that I am curious about what happens next ("together, they fight crime!"), but my curiosity is tempered by the occasional character idiocy.
The Vagina Monologues (Eve Ensler): The play which gets annual stage time on college campuses (and youtube). Since it's a play, it really should be seen, not read, to get the full effect. However, I keep brilliantly noticing it's playing about a week after the performance(s).
Too much girly feelings-sharing makes me nervous. I know I have schizophrenic trust issues, and I mostly accept this. The Vagina Monologues are all about sharing your feelings, and getting a little TMI, and safe spaces, and it probably says something that my favorite piece was "Because He Liked To Look At It", which is one of the funny pieces, not one of the Deeply Tragical monologues. (Links: YouTube - and it says a thing that I only got one hit on that monologue - and text.) Letting it all hang out goes against my grain, unless it's done with courtesy, intelligence and humor that cuts sharper and quicker than rage.
Star Wars: X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar (Aaron Allston): Wedge Antilles breaks up with girlfriend Qwi Xux, and is conveniently assigned to a diplomatic mission on a pilot-lovin' planet with which the New Republic would really like an alliance. Recommended after romance complaints for Wedge-and-Iella content. Complete fluff. Allston has a weakness for repetition that drives me nuts, and could really use a copy editor to clean up sentences like, "she was beautiful, but it was not her beauty that jolted Wedge - not her beauty that made him feel as though he had taken a punch to the gut."
The romance: it was a B-plot in an action story and did what it was supposed to, which is give two secondary characters a happy relationship. I was surprised by how little bearing it had on the A-plot; "Wedge and Iella in love" could have been "Wedge and Iella in best friends forever land" with much the same impact on the main action story.
Plot comments: pilots, no Jedi. Flying, no fathers. Comedy, not tragedy. Deep like the puddles you happily splash through in your small yellow rainboots. If there's a message or theme, it is that you should treat people with respect and honor, and they'll reward you with courage, love, and gaudy cloaks you want to burn. And nothing don't mean nothing if it ain't free.
Edit: Shoutout to
scifantasy for being a total fanboy and correcting the title.Farthing (Jo Walton /
papersky): A prominent politician is murdered in 1949 Britain, eight years after a peace settlement with Nazi Germany. By the way, this is alternate history.
I've read most of Walton's novels to date, because how can you not root for an author whose usent sig reads, "I kissed a kif at Kefk"? Walton tends to take a known source and put her spin on it. Since I'm usually not as familiar with the source as I should be, I generally savor the whooshing rush of references going right past me. King's Peace and King's Name - Urdo is who? (My understanding of Arthurian legend starts and stops at the Disney version of The Sword in the Stone.) Tooth and Claw is generally understood to riff on the Victorians; let's talk about how many 19th century novels I have successfully avoided reading. Farthing is an AU riff on history I should know; it might also be a take-off of the murder mystery genre. I have read enough that I recognize Farthing's broadly mystery setup. Man dies mysteriously; Scotland Yard detectives investigate; Mr. Detective Protagonist figures out who done it. I greatly enjoyed Carmichael laying out the pieces for his boss and having his boss say, "that's all very nice, but now I'm going to blackmail you and your - whatever. Inspector."
The story is told from two perspectives: the breathless first person voice of Lucy Kahn, who threw away her place in Society to scandalously marry a Jew, and Carmichael's third person narrative. It didn't occur to me until someone else pointed out that Lucy's bits could easily be a beyond-the-grave Anne Frank sort of thing, which goes to show how much attention I was paying. (In my defense, I finished the novel at 3:30 in the morning. If you'll ignore the time and focus on the implicit fuzzy brain, please.) Elizabeth Bear has issues with some aspects of the book, especially Lucy as sweet narrator; I am not as bothered because Lucy strikes me as a fluttery type with the occasional unexpected depths. For people who have read Laurie King: think of the several energetic "Mary's age cohort" flappers who have appeared in the Mary Russell novels. Also, she steals her mother's jewlry with ruthless practicality. In the name of a higher cause, but her complete lack of qualms says something about her. I liked Lucy, in the way I would like someone, but not trust them to show up to appointment on time. Carmichael does not amuse me in the same way, but is an interesting semi-reliable narrator, and gets the short end of the stick in that scene with boss-guy. He's asked to sacrifice someone else's essential liberty for a little temporary security. And he does. (In some ways, I would consider those two sentences a summary of America in Iraq, 2002 to the present. Please hold for the Omelas rant.*)
I am not as familiar with 1949 Britain as I probably ought to be, so I can't comment on how extreme the historical divergences are, but I completely missed the significance of the political totalitarianism right up until the last 75 or 50 pages, when the atmosphere slid from obnoxious classism and racism straight toward Orwellianism. The change in status from "hypothetically precarious" to "we're going to Fascism" makes the off-screen horrors the reader intellectually understands much less intellectual and much closer to vivid knowing.
If I were more familiar with them, I would comment at length on the mystery conventions upheld and violated. (If I were another sort of person, I would have gone into english or women studies. Instead of beating my head against science, I would focus my scholastics on considering genre and feminism, and be able to do whole posts about how [author] used [convention] to do [message].) What I can mention is the casual effacement of heteronormativity (and how often do you get to say that with a straight face?). Much has been made of this elsewhere, so I'm going to pass over this with little comment. Except - does this make Farthing a queer text? Discuss in comments.
Walton has said she wrote Farthing fast and furious (start and stop), and, thanks to LJ, conveniently provides us with a lot of meta.
*Thank you for holding. I despise the artificial dichotomy presented by Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas": stay, and be complicit in one being's suffering, or leave? By leaving, do you not become complicit in the suffering of individuals in the next community you join? And is their suffering any less than that you left behind? My answer to the Omelas dichotomy is that people need to get involved with their local, state and federal government more often. Reformists do not abandon their society, they get in its face and change it.
This has been the Omelas rant. Thank you for your patience. Have a pleasant day in your representative democracy. Don't forget to write your House representatives and your federal senators if you live in the United States.
Glasshouse (Charles Stross): A postop memory surgery job decides to participate in a psychology experiment simulating pre-Acceleration social dynamics.
I disagree with the Singularity people from square one. New tech is going to explode in our faces, that's what it does, but I doubt we'll fracture into godlike haves and peon have-nots overnight because of superaccelerated development. I don't think the materials science is there. This gives me serious suspension-of-disbelief issues when I read Singularity novels like Stoss'. I nearly put down Glasshousebefore I got to the end of the second chapter, and I'm glad I didn't. If it helps, consider the pre-experiment chapters as a prologue. I was shocked to realize I sort of enjoyed the novel. (It helps to know that my last Stross was "Lobsters", which I hated. I found the plot fairly incomprehensible, trending toward boring, and then there was out-of-left-field non-con. Ew.)
The multibody memory-editing "easy modification" universe Stoss posits would be a fun way to explore the nature of identity, but it felt like it cropped up pretty late in the book, as more of a character point than a Great Big Theme. I'm on a theme kick at the moment, which is probably a cue to read more nonfiction.
Petty comments before I digress into un-expanded notes: I understand the logic of converting messy Earth timekeeping units to a digital system, but I am displeased with how often I had to flip to the time conversion cheat sheet. Failure to inclue well? See also "historical" parallels: "history of witch-hunts in preindustrial Europa and Merka". Yeah, beat us over the head with your mob psychology 101, Stross.
The things I wanted to think about more - and didn't get around to - follow.
Themes: identity, power (Cass), retiring warhorses (memory/identity). Gender-bending plot-integral?
meril conversation - culture shock, not gender roles; Hugo maybe, Tiptree absolutely not. Deus ex machina of Magic Matter Maker. Humor: "...there's potential for abuse in this atomic relationship thing..." (p61, nuclear family)
Conclusions? Rec for the SF crowd; not running down the street trying to shove this down people's throats. Adequate storytelling.
In the Bleak Midwinter (Julia Spencer-Fleming):
detective complications.
Snow sweeps Millers Kill.
A baby on the church steps brings together Police chief Russ Van Alstyne and Episcopalian priest Clare Fergusson in an investigation that points at the most and least respected families of small town Miller's Kill. (Together, they fight crime!) Kill is an example of borrowing from Dutch, and refers to a creek. The doubled English meaning is merely convenient for mystery writers.
I hated the UST, which shall be discussed below. The series setup is fairly obvious, but compelling, because the "they fight crime!" duo have a number of similar and contrasting experiences and attitudes: the town son long returned vs. the new Southerner, the priest vs. the atheist, the 'Nam GI vet vs. the young Army helicopter vet. Interesting stuff. The novel touches on several issues (teenage pregnancy, rural poverty) and draws them into setting up the central whodunit. I would have liked a little more full-blown thematic development, but it's a personal preference stemming from my very literalist, concrete perception of the world. You have to really smack me upside the head with theme before I notice it's there. I am very sad that the boyfriend didn't make an onscreen appearance until fairly late, and that his dad didn't get enough screen time for me to recall his name. (Fowler. Yes, I did look it up.) I am a fan of villains who are lead astray by the courage of their convictions, and have to live and live and live in jail with their stupid mistakes. It's a thing.
I'm ticked about the romance setup. I 'spoiled' myself a bit and read the blurbs for the (currently) four books that follow this one, and I don't like where they go. I remember the X-Files seven seasons of UST, thanks much, and I just don't care anymore. I think ItBM missed a major opportunity by casting Linda Van Alyne as Mrs. Not Appearing In This Novel. It sets up an artificial barrier to the romantic spark the author is setting up. If you plan to do a multi-novel romantic arc, do it and I will applaud you. However, I want drawn-out UST based on what I consider reasonable reasons, like being in a committed relationship you enjoy, or at least respect enough not to break out of without putting in your couples therapy first. Or adults realizing that one of them is an Episcopalian priest and the other is a committed atheist who may have some ambiguous feelings about playing the parts expected of a pastoral spouse. To pick two non-random examples. What I would really love is a BFF dynamic, but apparently, deep platonic feelings have gone the way of the triceratops. This is a shame, since both characters are ex-military, and probably could say something about philia under fire.
Speaking of - I am assuming the Reverend Fergusson was not born yesterday. However, some of her actions contradict this. How massively idiotic do you have to be to run through a stream during a snowstorm? I understand the "Southern gal goes North" concept, but the south gets ice storms, so Clare should have a clue how ugly winter can get. Not a large one, but some vague awareness that people should, you know, respect the hazards and avoid the possibility of losing feet to frostbite. (This may be a personal quirk, because I deal poorly with temperature extremes, and try to pack accordingly. Call me paranoid.) I am done with flashy stupidity. I can find that in real life.
It's interesting to compare the end of ItBM with Farthing's conclusion. One of these novels is conforming to genre conventions and putting on lipstick and eyeshadow for their boyfriend, and one of them is putting lipstick on their boyfriend.
Conclusions: I would rec this to romance readers looking for a mystery; I might rec this to mystery readers who don't mind romance; I am saving the rest of the series for trashy travel reading, or any time I want an excuse to displace some yelling about characters flying in the face of sense. The blurbs are compelling, and the characters given sufficient backstory and depth that I am curious about what happens next ("together, they fight crime!"), but my curiosity is tempered by the occasional character idiocy.