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rushthatspeaksStill temping. Have proved to own satisfaction that I can, in fact, hold down a regular, nine-to-five, some effort required-type job, which had been worrying me. I don't think I could have done it even a month ago. Even now, everything else in my life has gone right out the window-- not watching stuff, not on the Net much, not getting enough sleep, and I ache all the time. Hopefully, in a couple of months things will have improved such that I can have a job without it wringing me out like a dishrag. As it is, it's a good thing this one's temporary.
I have been doing some reading, because one can do that on the T.
John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory
A traditional fairy tale with entertaining wordplay, odd metafictional overtones, and a sense of deeply buried allegory-- given that, I find it odd that I didn't terribly like the book. I suspect that my trouble was that much of the principal conceit is the idea that traditional narrative, such as ballads and traveler's tales, becomes true in the land the story's set in even if it didn't start out that way. Old songs are always true, while new ones tend to shape events such that they become true, over time. This is a great conceit, but it meant that, since the story was not actually about a poet or minstrel (who would have been my choice of protagonist-- what power), but instead starred the classic fairy tale protagonist, I never had even one measly instant's doubt about who was going to win or why or how or when. And said protagonist didn't come enough alive to me as a person for me to care about his actions despite their incredible inevitability. If it had been a tragedy, maybe I'd have cared more, seeing a three-dimensional human being caught in that kind of force of causality-- but I knew it would all End Happily, and I was bored. The book gave me a real sense of potential wasted. I prefer Spindle's End.
Ian McDonald, King of Morning, Queen of Day
It's a rare book I can't finish. This was a rare book. I actually gave up after less than a hundred pages, cussing and whimpering. Look, if a book's going to be set in pre-WWI Ireland, it might, just possibly might, be a good idea to give an idea of the historical differences of that place and time from now in more ways than place- and poet-name dropping and a lot of detailed mention of what day of the month it is. It might be a good idea to think about the language and customs, the land and the people, the history, the economics, the general state of the world-- this book has a setting so thin you could poke a finger through it, and look through the hole at the battle between myth and psychoanalytic theory on the other side. And that's a battle been fought more intelligently, too. In addition, if one's going to have a heroine who writes much of the story as a diary, and if she's going to be terribly, terribly romantic and dreamy and write bad Celtic-Twilighty poesy in the bloody frontispiece and go on and on and ever on about Lugh and the Old Gods and how much she loves Yeats and how Wonderful Fairie Folke Are and how badly she needs to get laid before her capital letters ooze any further-- it might be a good idea to indicate in some way, through one of the other narrators, perhaps, or through a sense of detached irony, that there is authorial knowledge that the heroine is a silly little drip, because otherwise this particular Gentle Reader might suspect the author of believing that his heroine really does have some Mystical Connection To The Otherworld Through Her Childlike Innocence And Faith, and this particular Gentle Reader would then very desperately desire to go after the heroine with an extremely large blunt instrument. Not to mention the author, who must never be allowed within twenty feet of a copy of Frazer's Golden Bough as long as he lives, because I don't want to know what he'd do with it. I've heard good things about other works by said author, but I think I would now require a deal of convincing to try any of them.
Lots and lots of John Bellairs's books for children with relatively indistinguishable titles
These are very entertaining and highly enjoyable and go down just like popcorn, quickly and easily. I wish I'd read them as a kid when they might have actually scared me, but although I saw them in libraries when I was younger, I mistook them for some kind of written-by-committee formula series because the titles were so interchangeable and so reminiscent of the Hardy Boys Fight Zombies. I was wrong about that, thankfully, but I have missed the age when they would have been fresh and new and exciting to me instead of delightfully nostalgic and sweet and cosy. There is just no hope of this sort of thing scaring me nowadays. How're you gonna keep a reader in the haunted house, once they've seen Yog-Sothoth? (Assuming you aren't Shirley Jackson.) But they're beautifully researched and wittily written and perfect for a nice relaxing half hour. As an additional nice touch, a lot of them have Edward Gorey plates. I need to try Bellairs's adult book, The Face in the Frost.
I have been doing some reading, because one can do that on the T.
John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory
A traditional fairy tale with entertaining wordplay, odd metafictional overtones, and a sense of deeply buried allegory-- given that, I find it odd that I didn't terribly like the book. I suspect that my trouble was that much of the principal conceit is the idea that traditional narrative, such as ballads and traveler's tales, becomes true in the land the story's set in even if it didn't start out that way. Old songs are always true, while new ones tend to shape events such that they become true, over time. This is a great conceit, but it meant that, since the story was not actually about a poet or minstrel (who would have been my choice of protagonist-- what power), but instead starred the classic fairy tale protagonist, I never had even one measly instant's doubt about who was going to win or why or how or when. And said protagonist didn't come enough alive to me as a person for me to care about his actions despite their incredible inevitability. If it had been a tragedy, maybe I'd have cared more, seeing a three-dimensional human being caught in that kind of force of causality-- but I knew it would all End Happily, and I was bored. The book gave me a real sense of potential wasted. I prefer Spindle's End.
Ian McDonald, King of Morning, Queen of Day
It's a rare book I can't finish. This was a rare book. I actually gave up after less than a hundred pages, cussing and whimpering. Look, if a book's going to be set in pre-WWI Ireland, it might, just possibly might, be a good idea to give an idea of the historical differences of that place and time from now in more ways than place- and poet-name dropping and a lot of detailed mention of what day of the month it is. It might be a good idea to think about the language and customs, the land and the people, the history, the economics, the general state of the world-- this book has a setting so thin you could poke a finger through it, and look through the hole at the battle between myth and psychoanalytic theory on the other side. And that's a battle been fought more intelligently, too. In addition, if one's going to have a heroine who writes much of the story as a diary, and if she's going to be terribly, terribly romantic and dreamy and write bad Celtic-Twilighty poesy in the bloody frontispiece and go on and on and ever on about Lugh and the Old Gods and how much she loves Yeats and how Wonderful Fairie Folke Are and how badly she needs to get laid before her capital letters ooze any further-- it might be a good idea to indicate in some way, through one of the other narrators, perhaps, or through a sense of detached irony, that there is authorial knowledge that the heroine is a silly little drip, because otherwise this particular Gentle Reader might suspect the author of believing that his heroine really does have some Mystical Connection To The Otherworld Through Her Childlike Innocence And Faith, and this particular Gentle Reader would then very desperately desire to go after the heroine with an extremely large blunt instrument. Not to mention the author, who must never be allowed within twenty feet of a copy of Frazer's Golden Bough as long as he lives, because I don't want to know what he'd do with it. I've heard good things about other works by said author, but I think I would now require a deal of convincing to try any of them.
Lots and lots of John Bellairs's books for children with relatively indistinguishable titles
These are very entertaining and highly enjoyable and go down just like popcorn, quickly and easily. I wish I'd read them as a kid when they might have actually scared me, but although I saw them in libraries when I was younger, I mistook them for some kind of written-by-committee formula series because the titles were so interchangeable and so reminiscent of the Hardy Boys Fight Zombies. I was wrong about that, thankfully, but I have missed the age when they would have been fresh and new and exciting to me instead of delightfully nostalgic and sweet and cosy. There is just no hope of this sort of thing scaring me nowadays. How're you gonna keep a reader in the haunted house, once they've seen Yog-Sothoth? (Assuming you aren't Shirley Jackson.) But they're beautifully researched and wittily written and perfect for a nice relaxing half hour. As an additional nice touch, a lot of them have Edward Gorey plates. I need to try Bellairs's adult book, The Face in the Frost.
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King of Morning, Queen of Day
Date: 2005-03-14 05:40 pm (UTC)Re: King of Morning, Queen of Day
Date: 2005-03-14 06:31 pm (UTC)Re: King of Morning, Queen of Day
Date: 2005-03-14 06:35 pm (UTC)Re: King of Morning, Queen of Day
Date: 2005-03-15 07:17 am (UTC)Re: King of Morning, Queen of Day
Date: 2005-03-15 07:30 am (UTC)I am pretty sure I read it after having first read about it, so I never took Emily as a reliable narrator. I also didn't think she was so much a complete drip as pretty much me at fourteen or fifteen, but I expect I was much fonder of wispy fantasy romances than either you or
My issue with the third part wasn't worldbuilding so much as what seemed like the ill-thought-out insertion of a trendy gritty element in fantasy and other fiction at the time. I still like the idea of dealing with the three stages of "Irish fantasy"--Celtic twilight, modernism, cyberpunk--and attendant political implications.
Re: King of Morning, Queen of Day
Date: 2005-03-15 11:29 am (UTC)Re: King of Morning, Queen of Day
Date: 2005-03-15 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 07:11 pm (UTC)I can't wait til you get around to reading Dorothy Dunnett. Also you might enjoy Robertson Davies, for something lighter? I hope you and Ruth are well!
Love,
Elizabeth
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 11:30 am (UTC)