It's Been a While... April Reading
May. 12th, 2004 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseI could study. Or hammer away at makeup work. Or post this book list, only halfway through May.
Note to self: remember how much of that makeup is for english? Admit it, you only like writing about books not read for class. Running away to become an english major isn't so much counterproductive as academically suicidal. Stick to nattering in your journal.
Notable patterns this month: two new books, by familiar authors; four novels reread. Spoilers under the cuts for pretty much everything except Cigar-Box Faust; extensive spoilers for the MZB novels and Contact Imminent.
Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures (Michael Swanwick): Collection of Michael Swanwick's short-short stories. Some of them are less than a page. I like Swanwick, so I liked this; it's a little expensive to run out and buy if you're looking for an introduction to Swanwick's work. I'd suggest reading his periodic table or checking out one of this novels.
Thendara House (Marion Zimmer Bradley): Reread. Free Amazon Jaelle n'ha Melora and her oath-daughter Margali n'ha Ysabet, aka Magda Lorne (Terran, Sort Of) spend half a year living in each other's societies, as a sort of cultural exchange. TH is one of the fun '70's feminist Darkover novels, with lots of women loving women, woman-angst, and not so subtle reflections on then-contemporary culture. This is a fairly weighty novel, for MZB, but I kind of enjoy this as an unintentionally nifty historical document. It's so very rooted in MZB's socialization and the culture of her times. The Terrans are supposed to be relatively egalitarian, but display some harsh homosexuality taboos and address Jaelle as "Mrs. Peter Haldane," a form of address I don't think I've seen used by anyone in my entire life except maybe to my paternal grandparents, once. The entire mindset - characters' expectations about each other, especially in the Peter-Jaelle dynamic - is so unequal sometimes it's hard to keep smiling and nodding in time with the story. Magda's plotline is less prone to annoying me like that because Darkover is supposed to be fairly backwards; it's easier to nod along with the worldbuilding.
There's a couple weird themes in here that also crop up in other books and annoy me. MZB's take on "destiny" thing and how Cleindori's presence (meta-presence?) in history is handled always bugs me. In the (by publication order) early novels like The Bloody Sun she's a revolutionary and a reformer; by TH she's Destined To Be the Bringer of Change. Or something. The movement from a fairly human characterization to the sort-of epic characterization doesn't work well for me. Also, Madga's attitute toward rules - "I understand why they're here, but they don't apply to me or my situation, so I'm going to break them anyway" - annoys me. In the context of the story, when Magda sneaks out alone after Jaelle and Alessandro Li, she endangers herself and the people she's trying to help because she snuck out like a kid evading curfew. Silly Magda.
City of Sorcery (Marion Zimmer Bradley): Fast skim/reread. Purchased on impulse years ago, read and hated. Many of the quibbles I have with Thendara House are multiplied, and a few new annoyances pop up. The characterization's erratic (how did Magda become perfect and Rafaella Evil?), the plot's fairly contrived, and I still hate the Priestesses of Avarra thing on so many levels. Isolated groups of women controlling the Destiny of the World really doesn't work for me. Thematically, I'm not fond of secretive groups with strong hierarchical structure linking initiation into the Mysteries with rising through the hierarchy. It screams "creepy cult!" to me, especially since the center of the group is located about as far from any population centers as it can get. On a more material level, I don't see how these people survive. If you're living way above the snowline, how are you getting food? Fuel for fires or other heating sources? Water? You can't haul everything in. What do you do when someone gets ill, on top of a rocky mountain?
Also, there's some serious characterization problems with the villains. Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean they're Evil. And the Evil Sorceress was just obnoxious.
Besides, this is the book in which MZB killed off Jaelle n'ha Melora, and that stung more than I expected. Grr.
Contact Imminent (Kristine Smith): I'd just like to say now that this is going to be the most silly and spoiler-stuffed "review" ever. Because, well. Jani Killian and John Shroud. Theirloveissoalliterative! I'm waiting for it to fall apart, with or without Lucien's influence. It didn't work out twenty years ago; the issues seem to still be there, fairly unresolved. On the other hand, it has been twenty years. And John's doing the hybridization thing. (Which isn't known to help short tempers.) Maybe this time they'll talk their differences into compromise. Or have frequent and fantastic make-up sex.
Meet the Austins (Madeleine L'Engle): Vicky Austin's life is complicated by her family's fostership of spoiled orphan Maggie Hamilton. I picked this up during a L'Engle splurge sometime between ten and thirteen, after reading A Ring of Endless Light. The only thing that stuck from the first read was the ice storm, which (paradoxically) seems more frightening at twenty than it seemed at ten-or-thirteen-or-so. The novel doesn't really have a central conflict, but sort of moves from incident to incident, and wraps up just as I start to wonder how long this is going to go on. Fairly minor, but pleasant, and something I'd definitely give to my kids.
A Ring of Endless Light (Madeleine L'Engle): The Austins spend a summer with almost-sixteen Vicky's grandfather, who has been diagnosed with a terminal cancer. The entire novel is touched with death - the novel opens at a funeral and many of the characters Vicky interacts with, including her three - romantic interests? Swains? - are struggling with death.
A brief study of Vicky's three boys shows some interesting trends. Leo Rodney's father is buried at that early-novel funeral; Zachary Gray's mother died in a car crash before his own suicide attempt; Adam Eddington was involved with a friend's death the summer previous. Each reacts differently, in accordance with their character: Leo feels responsible for his mother and sisters (Ring was published in 1980, according to L'Engle's own biblio, so perhaps this is merely a bit conservative, rather than reactionary and fifty years out of date), Zachary graduates high school and tries to kill himself; Adam soldiers on. Each reaction is indicative of their personalities: two responsible guys and one snake who would abandon a distressed sort-of girlfriend in an emergency room with someone else's dying kid on her lap.
Zachary needs... I don't know. Hopefully he finds it at some point. Git.
Death is a huge player, but religion also pops up as a theme. I tend to get too wrapped up in author-book interaction, but L'Engle's Christianity plays a huge role in her work. It's not the coy religious sensibility that makes the Narnia novels feel a bit self-concious to me. L'Engle's use of Christianity in her fiction feels more integral to her worldbuilding, if that makes sense. It's there, but the author doesn't feel the need to shout this at the world, so much as let characters make statements flowing from their understanding of the world, which happens to include a particular relationship with God. It rings much more true to this recovering collge student.
I was somewhat surprised to discover, while reading this, how much of A Ring of Endless Light had soaked into my brain and settled in for the duration. Nothing flashy, just a sense of the pull and flow of words, of the quiet satisfaction to be found in poetry. L'Engle's influence does not live on in any flashy way, but it's there, a soft trace in a dim corner of my mind.
Speaking of poetry, L'Engle's website has the poem that the book's title is derived from on her website. It's a little earlier than my favorite poems were written, but the imagery does stick, especially the three opening lines.
Note to self: remember how much of that makeup is for english? Admit it, you only like writing about books not read for class. Running away to become an english major isn't so much counterproductive as academically suicidal. Stick to nattering in your journal.
Notable patterns this month: two new books, by familiar authors; four novels reread. Spoilers under the cuts for pretty much everything except Cigar-Box Faust; extensive spoilers for the MZB novels and Contact Imminent.
Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures (Michael Swanwick): Collection of Michael Swanwick's short-short stories. Some of them are less than a page. I like Swanwick, so I liked this; it's a little expensive to run out and buy if you're looking for an introduction to Swanwick's work. I'd suggest reading his periodic table or checking out one of this novels.
Thendara House (Marion Zimmer Bradley): Reread. Free Amazon Jaelle n'ha Melora and her oath-daughter Margali n'ha Ysabet, aka Magda Lorne (Terran, Sort Of) spend half a year living in each other's societies, as a sort of cultural exchange. TH is one of the fun '70's feminist Darkover novels, with lots of women loving women, woman-angst, and not so subtle reflections on then-contemporary culture. This is a fairly weighty novel, for MZB, but I kind of enjoy this as an unintentionally nifty historical document. It's so very rooted in MZB's socialization and the culture of her times. The Terrans are supposed to be relatively egalitarian, but display some harsh homosexuality taboos and address Jaelle as "Mrs. Peter Haldane," a form of address I don't think I've seen used by anyone in my entire life except maybe to my paternal grandparents, once. The entire mindset - characters' expectations about each other, especially in the Peter-Jaelle dynamic - is so unequal sometimes it's hard to keep smiling and nodding in time with the story. Magda's plotline is less prone to annoying me like that because Darkover is supposed to be fairly backwards; it's easier to nod along with the worldbuilding.
There's a couple weird themes in here that also crop up in other books and annoy me. MZB's take on "destiny" thing and how Cleindori's presence (meta-presence?) in history is handled always bugs me. In the (by publication order) early novels like The Bloody Sun she's a revolutionary and a reformer; by TH she's Destined To Be the Bringer of Change. Or something. The movement from a fairly human characterization to the sort-of epic characterization doesn't work well for me. Also, Madga's attitute toward rules - "I understand why they're here, but they don't apply to me or my situation, so I'm going to break them anyway" - annoys me. In the context of the story, when Magda sneaks out alone after Jaelle and Alessandro Li, she endangers herself and the people she's trying to help because she snuck out like a kid evading curfew. Silly Magda.
City of Sorcery (Marion Zimmer Bradley): Fast skim/reread. Purchased on impulse years ago, read and hated. Many of the quibbles I have with Thendara House are multiplied, and a few new annoyances pop up. The characterization's erratic (how did Magda become perfect and Rafaella Evil?), the plot's fairly contrived, and I still hate the Priestesses of Avarra thing on so many levels. Isolated groups of women controlling the Destiny of the World really doesn't work for me. Thematically, I'm not fond of secretive groups with strong hierarchical structure linking initiation into the Mysteries with rising through the hierarchy. It screams "creepy cult!" to me, especially since the center of the group is located about as far from any population centers as it can get. On a more material level, I don't see how these people survive. If you're living way above the snowline, how are you getting food? Fuel for fires or other heating sources? Water? You can't haul everything in. What do you do when someone gets ill, on top of a rocky mountain?
Also, there's some serious characterization problems with the villains. Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean they're Evil. And the Evil Sorceress was just obnoxious.
Besides, this is the book in which MZB killed off Jaelle n'ha Melora, and that stung more than I expected. Grr.
Contact Imminent (Kristine Smith): I'd just like to say now that this is going to be the most silly and spoiler-stuffed "review" ever. Because, well. Jani Killian and John Shroud. Theirloveissoalliterative! I'm waiting for it to fall apart, with or without Lucien's influence. It didn't work out twenty years ago; the issues seem to still be there, fairly unresolved. On the other hand, it has been twenty years. And John's doing the hybridization thing. (Which isn't known to help short tempers.) Maybe this time they'll talk their differences into compromise. Or have frequent and fantastic make-up sex.
Meet the Austins (Madeleine L'Engle): Vicky Austin's life is complicated by her family's fostership of spoiled orphan Maggie Hamilton. I picked this up during a L'Engle splurge sometime between ten and thirteen, after reading A Ring of Endless Light. The only thing that stuck from the first read was the ice storm, which (paradoxically) seems more frightening at twenty than it seemed at ten-or-thirteen-or-so. The novel doesn't really have a central conflict, but sort of moves from incident to incident, and wraps up just as I start to wonder how long this is going to go on. Fairly minor, but pleasant, and something I'd definitely give to my kids.
A Ring of Endless Light (Madeleine L'Engle): The Austins spend a summer with almost-sixteen Vicky's grandfather, who has been diagnosed with a terminal cancer. The entire novel is touched with death - the novel opens at a funeral and many of the characters Vicky interacts with, including her three - romantic interests? Swains? - are struggling with death.
A brief study of Vicky's three boys shows some interesting trends. Leo Rodney's father is buried at that early-novel funeral; Zachary Gray's mother died in a car crash before his own suicide attempt; Adam Eddington was involved with a friend's death the summer previous. Each reacts differently, in accordance with their character: Leo feels responsible for his mother and sisters (Ring was published in 1980, according to L'Engle's own biblio, so perhaps this is merely a bit conservative, rather than reactionary and fifty years out of date), Zachary graduates high school and tries to kill himself; Adam soldiers on. Each reaction is indicative of their personalities: two responsible guys and one snake who would abandon a distressed sort-of girlfriend in an emergency room with someone else's dying kid on her lap.
Zachary needs... I don't know. Hopefully he finds it at some point. Git.
Death is a huge player, but religion also pops up as a theme. I tend to get too wrapped up in author-book interaction, but L'Engle's Christianity plays a huge role in her work. It's not the coy religious sensibility that makes the Narnia novels feel a bit self-concious to me. L'Engle's use of Christianity in her fiction feels more integral to her worldbuilding, if that makes sense. It's there, but the author doesn't feel the need to shout this at the world, so much as let characters make statements flowing from their understanding of the world, which happens to include a particular relationship with God. It rings much more true to this recovering collge student.
I was somewhat surprised to discover, while reading this, how much of A Ring of Endless Light had soaked into my brain and settled in for the duration. Nothing flashy, just a sense of the pull and flow of words, of the quiet satisfaction to be found in poetry. L'Engle's influence does not live on in any flashy way, but it's there, a soft trace in a dim corner of my mind.
Speaking of poetry, L'Engle's website has the poem that the book's title is derived from on her website. It's a little earlier than my favorite poems were written, but the imagery does stick, especially the three opening lines.