Reading Wednesday
Aug. 10th, 2016 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
The Gentleman by Forrest Leo. A comedy novel set in Victorian London (...sort of. It's not remotely historically accurate, though to be fair, it's really not trying to be) about a shallow feckless poet who marries for money, loses his muse when he realizes that having to spend your life with someone you can't stand sucks, accidentally sells his wife to the Devil (yes, the literal Devil), is overcome by the realization that he actually is in love with her, and sets out to rescue her with a zany cast of supporting characters that includes his super-competent butler, an Arctic explorer, the inventor of a flying machine, and an overly curious 16-year-old girl. Also the whole book is being edited by the poet's disgruntled cousin-in-law, who frequently butts in via footnotes to critique the poet's style or disagree with his assertions.
That's a lot of stuff for one novel! Unfortunately it ends up being merely a bit silly rather than laugh out loud funny. The blurb made comparisons to Wodehouse and Monty Python, and while I can see their influence, this book isn't quite up to either's standard. But that said, it was a fun read and kept me turning the pages; it's certainly not at all a bad debut.
There was one thing that annoyed me. I hate to single out Leo for this, because it does show up everywhere, but this was such a blatant example of it that I couldn't skim past it:
Lancaster and I give voice to our displeasure. Lizzie stamps her foot again. There is as much threat in the stamp of that little foot as in the negligent handling of two loaded weapons.*
* This is unquestionably the case. I have become very dear friends with Miss Savage, and I do not think she would be offended to hear me say that her anger, on the rare occasions it is displayed, is more frightening than anything I have yet witnessed.—HL.
No, it is not unquestionably the case. A sixteen-year-old throwing a tantrum is not as threatening as a loaded weapon, and it is unbelievably patronizing to pretend otherwise. (This isn't the only time Lizzie is described this way. It appears over and over again throughout the book, by everyone who meets her – though again, she is a normal, unarmed, not particularly aggressive teenage girl.) It is not a compliment to women to pretend to be afraid of them; actually, I find it just the opposite – an insult bordering on outright misogyny. If you want to write female characters who are scary, do so. Don't act like a stomped foot or raised voice is the equal of actual violence, or would be enough to make reasonable adults cower. It's an over-the-top exaggeration that suggests you don't take women's real anger seriously, and it irritates me enormously every time I see it.
Anyway. The rest of the book really is fine! I just couldn't let that go. Overall it's a pleasant way to waste an afternoon, if a bit forgettable once you've finished.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present by Alison Matthews David. An academic book on dangerous clothes, focusing on the late 1700s to the early 1900s in western Europe and America. Most of the stories here are fairly well-known – arsenic green, mad hatters, flammable clothing, body lice, Isadora Duncan's scarf, the health issues of workers in textile factories – but David tells them with a great depth of detailed research and an engaging prose style that makes the book worth reading even if you're familiar with the topic. Fashion Victims was written in conjunction with a museum exhibit, which for the reader means there are lots and lots of pictures. And not just photos of the items of clothing themselves (which are not always the most interesting thing, to be honest), but of historical advertisements, postcards, political cartoons, and more. These vary from hilarious to strangely disorientating – the past is a different country indeed, as radium hospital blankets, asbestos yarn, and lucky lice make clear. Though despite that, David does an excellent job of pointing out that it's easy to laugh at the past, and fashion today is not nearly so safe and blameless as we might like to believe.
If the topic sounds interesting at all, this is definitely a fascinating read. Highly recommended!
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane: A True Story of Victorian Law and Disorder: The First Unsolved Murder of the Victorian Age by Paul Thomas Murphy. That is too much subtitle, dude. But at least it conveys everything you could possibly need to know.
The Gentleman by Forrest Leo. A comedy novel set in Victorian London (...sort of. It's not remotely historically accurate, though to be fair, it's really not trying to be) about a shallow feckless poet who marries for money, loses his muse when he realizes that having to spend your life with someone you can't stand sucks, accidentally sells his wife to the Devil (yes, the literal Devil), is overcome by the realization that he actually is in love with her, and sets out to rescue her with a zany cast of supporting characters that includes his super-competent butler, an Arctic explorer, the inventor of a flying machine, and an overly curious 16-year-old girl. Also the whole book is being edited by the poet's disgruntled cousin-in-law, who frequently butts in via footnotes to critique the poet's style or disagree with his assertions.
That's a lot of stuff for one novel! Unfortunately it ends up being merely a bit silly rather than laugh out loud funny. The blurb made comparisons to Wodehouse and Monty Python, and while I can see their influence, this book isn't quite up to either's standard. But that said, it was a fun read and kept me turning the pages; it's certainly not at all a bad debut.
There was one thing that annoyed me. I hate to single out Leo for this, because it does show up everywhere, but this was such a blatant example of it that I couldn't skim past it:
Lancaster and I give voice to our displeasure. Lizzie stamps her foot again. There is as much threat in the stamp of that little foot as in the negligent handling of two loaded weapons.*
* This is unquestionably the case. I have become very dear friends with Miss Savage, and I do not think she would be offended to hear me say that her anger, on the rare occasions it is displayed, is more frightening than anything I have yet witnessed.—HL.
No, it is not unquestionably the case. A sixteen-year-old throwing a tantrum is not as threatening as a loaded weapon, and it is unbelievably patronizing to pretend otherwise. (This isn't the only time Lizzie is described this way. It appears over and over again throughout the book, by everyone who meets her – though again, she is a normal, unarmed, not particularly aggressive teenage girl.) It is not a compliment to women to pretend to be afraid of them; actually, I find it just the opposite – an insult bordering on outright misogyny. If you want to write female characters who are scary, do so. Don't act like a stomped foot or raised voice is the equal of actual violence, or would be enough to make reasonable adults cower. It's an over-the-top exaggeration that suggests you don't take women's real anger seriously, and it irritates me enormously every time I see it.
Anyway. The rest of the book really is fine! I just couldn't let that go. Overall it's a pleasant way to waste an afternoon, if a bit forgettable once you've finished.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present by Alison Matthews David. An academic book on dangerous clothes, focusing on the late 1700s to the early 1900s in western Europe and America. Most of the stories here are fairly well-known – arsenic green, mad hatters, flammable clothing, body lice, Isadora Duncan's scarf, the health issues of workers in textile factories – but David tells them with a great depth of detailed research and an engaging prose style that makes the book worth reading even if you're familiar with the topic. Fashion Victims was written in conjunction with a museum exhibit, which for the reader means there are lots and lots of pictures. And not just photos of the items of clothing themselves (which are not always the most interesting thing, to be honest), but of historical advertisements, postcards, political cartoons, and more. These vary from hilarious to strangely disorientating – the past is a different country indeed, as radium hospital blankets, asbestos yarn, and lucky lice make clear. Though despite that, David does an excellent job of pointing out that it's easy to laugh at the past, and fashion today is not nearly so safe and blameless as we might like to believe.
If the topic sounds interesting at all, this is definitely a fascinating read. Highly recommended!
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane: A True Story of Victorian Law and Disorder: The First Unsolved Murder of the Victorian Age by Paul Thomas Murphy. That is too much subtitle, dude. But at least it conveys everything you could possibly need to know.
