National Poetry Month

A Worker Reads History by Bertolt Brecht

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?

Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.
So many questions.

Reading Wednesday

What did you just finish?
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz. This book is so good! SO GOOD! It's very different from Horwitz's other books– more of a straightforward history than a sort of journalistic 'here's how my life interweaves with history' personal account. BUT SO GOOD. If you have any interest at all in the topic, I very much recommend it.

I've also just reread Good Man Friday by Barbara Hambly. Part of my experience having a real office job this month is the commute: between 45 and 60 minutes each way. I commute with someone who works the same job, so we've been having her drive while I read, since conveniently she was already reading the Ben January series (possibly because I talked her into it months ago, but I admit nothing). I really like reading aloud in general, but these books are particularly fun. Each character has such a distinct voice; you can always tell who's speaking just by the dialogue, even without an attribution tag. There's Dominique's quicksilver bubbliness versus Chloe's crisp precision, Rose's coolness, Livia's (who alas isn't even in this book, but I love doing her voice) languid pride, Shaw's accent versus Hannibal's. And Ben by himself does so much code-switching that he's like five other characters. I actually find Shaw's dialogue to be perfectly written for the rural Appalachian accent that matches his backstory; it's the same accent my grandfather had, though his was much milder. Also, he was from West Virgina, not Kentucky. On the other hand, West Virginia didn't exist yet in the 1830s, so I suppose they could still be distant relatives! It's not the same as a Southern accent (like, say, Ephriam Norcum's) and I think Hambly does a great job of portraying it. Also I just like to read it. One of the things about these books is that there's so many accents for the characters– French and British, Southern and New England– and that's part of why they're such fun to read. We did the end of Ran Away as well, but I'm not very good at imitating Turkish accents, so unfortunately I think most of those characters ended up sounding Russian.

Anyway, back to Hannibal's accent: I have no idea what an "aristocratic Anglo-Irish" accent is supposed to sound like. I've been giving him a sort of Upper East Side Private School drawl (it's the accent Alec has in the Swordspoint audiobooks), which does seem to fit the rhythm of his speech. But it's an accent that has such associations of cruelty and condescension that it just doesn't seem right for Hannibal. Alas.

Anyway. Things I noticed about Good Man Friday this time:
*Man, Ben spends a lot of time describing how pretty Mede is.
*I really wish there had been more time for Mede and Luke; I'm interested in what choices both of them might have made, if they'd had more time. I also wonder if Luke is conscious of being Mede's brother, or if it's never occurred to him to put the facts together.
*This book has nowhere near enough Rose and Hannibal. I do like this passage in particular, though:
Waking, he found letters from Rose and from Hannibal Sefton [...] It was wonderful beyond measure to read that Rose had gotten a few small commissions to translate Thucydides for a bookseller in Mobile; that the first of the strawberry-sellers had begun to promenade along Rue Esplanade singing long, wailing songs about their wares; that Hannibal had yet another new girlfriend, a tavern-keeper on Girod Street named Russian Nancy.
Though I like to imagine that it's Rose who writes about his girlfriend and Hannibal who writes about her translations. (They can both write about the strawberries.)
*Ben the baseball player will never not be awesome.
*I like the expansion of Henri's characterization; for all that he's been around since the very beginning of the series, this is the first time we learn much about him. I love that he has a roach collection. I like that he's a scholar too; it makes him a better husband for Chloe, even if his scholarship isn't in math.
*I totally want Ben to be a dashing spy. I wonder if he could be a spy in New Orleans? I'm not sure there's enough there to report on. But maybe that's why he goes to the Caribbean in the next book!
*I want the AU where Hannibal is trapped in an asylum; this line made me think of it: "A friend of mine – a lad I went to school with – had the... misfortune... to be incarcerated there, for drinking and addiction to laudanum." (Or perhaps for throwing himself off bridges.) And then obviously Ben and Rose have to rescue him. Maybe Ben can be a doctor there with qualms about the treatment.

What are you currently reading?
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. (It took me an embarrassingly long time to translate "NOS4A2" into license-plate speak for "Nosferatu".) A horror novel which I'm mostly reading because I have a physical copy of it and we're not allowed to bring e-readers into work. It's good! Though I haven't yet read much.

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan. OMG THIS IS SO GOOD. It's a Victorian Romance in which actual, historical politics are an important part of the plot! There's a disabled character! An Indian character! An asexual character! People are kind to one another and strive to do the right thing! People make friends through hardships and strive to be loyal! People are clever and funny and don't have dumb misunderstandings! IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL.

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye. A.K.A the book I've put on hold ever since Chilla sent me The Heiress Effect. But I have a distressing passage for you all nonetheless! The context here is that Ash and Anjuli are in love, but Anjuli refuses to run away with him because she promised to take care of her younger sister, Shushila:

Ash caught her wrist and wrenched her hand away: "But I love you too. And I need you. Does that mean nothing to you? Do you care so much more for her than you do for me? Do you?" [...] "And my happiness?" demanded Ash, his voice harsh with pain. "Does mine not matter?"
But it had been no good. Nothing that he could say had made any difference. He had used every argument and every plea he could think of, and at last he had taken her again, ravaging her with an animal violence that had bruised and hurt, yet was still sexually skilful enough to force a response from her that was half pain and half piercing rapture. But when it was over and they lay spent and breathless, she could still say: "I cannot betray her." And he knew that Shushila had won, and that he was beaten. His arms fell away and he drew aside and lay on his back staring up into the darkness, and for a long time neither of them spoke.

GOOD JOB ASH! This is totally the way to convince someone to spend their life with you: act like a whiny brat and then abuse them. That's what I like in a romantic hero. I didn't even include the part where Anjuli tells him not to worry, she knows how to make her future husband think she's a virgin, and Ash is disgusted and angry that she knows "harlot's tricks".