Reading Wednesday

[brigdh]

What did you just finish?
The Co-Wife and Other Stories by Munshi Premchand. A collection of short stories by a famous Hindi author, who I had not read before. This- it seemed to me- is a fairly comprehensive overview of the various genres he wrote in, along with most of his most famous stories (Winter's Night, Shroud, Panch Parameshvar). There is definitely a tendency for his stories to read like morality plays. I don't think I'll be seeking out more of his work, though I liked this well enough.

Days of the Dead by Barbara Hambly. OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. *flail* I think this is possibly my favorite of the January books. Or Dead Water. Or The Shirt on His Back. IT'S REALLY HARD TO CHOOSE. But this book is like one long streak of id: Hannibal angsting in handcuffs and Rose dressing up as her "evil twin sister" to go flirt at the Opera before dressing up as a man to go herd cattle and Ben pretending to be stoic while secretly being desperate to protect everyone he loves and then everything comes down to PEANUTS. Bandits! Insane asylums! Cathedrals! Becoming-a-nun parties! Bull fighting! Hannibal in drag! Aztec pyramids! Human sacrifice! Ghosts! Santa Anna is hanging around being a suave asshole! Ugh, it's amazing. I love the setting; I don't think I've ever read anything else set in Mexico City and its outskirts in the 1830s, but this book makes it sound fascinating. There's also a lot of really interesting one-off characters in this one; Valentina and Don Prospero and Ylario and Werther and Cristobal should all make re-appearances, as far as I'm concerned.

Also, I wish I knew more about the Aztecs. I'm pretty familiar with the Mayans, but not so much most of the other Precolumbian Mesoamerican cultures.

Dead Water by Barbara Hambly. Murder on a steamboat! I really like how this book uses the "country house" mystery trope (no one can come, no one can leave), except it's a steamboat instead. This book is just entirely comprised of OT3 feelings for me, from where Hannibal agrees to help because "I love you and Rose too much" to where he throws a pillow at Ben (THEY ARE SUCH 12-YEAR-OLDS) to where Rose kisses Hannibal to where all three of them get in a massive fight about Hannibal risking his life to protect the other two, during which Ben compares himself to a lady and Hannibal to his suitor. The whole duel plotline is so sad and sweet and basically the best thing ever. I want there to be fanfiction about the three of them heading back downstream to New Orleans, in which they are sharing a cabin and- not being busy solving murders- just hang out and play music and dance and drink coffee and have sex.

I also love the blackmail mystery of Jubal Cain ("What's the only thing worse than a slave trader?" made me laugh SO HARD). Note: the first time I read this, I managed to not realize that Col. Davis is the Jefferson Davis until I got to the author's note in the back. Being aware of it this time made for a slightly odd reading experience; he's such a good guy here.

What are you currently reading?
A River Sutra by Gita Mehta. This is turning out to be way more of a ~India is such a spiritual country~ book than I could have predicted from what I've read by the author previously.

Dead and Buried by Barbara Hambly. Hannibal backstory!

Comments

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Excellent point about Ben worrying about everyone, and having abandonment issues - or, rather the-people-you-love-might-be-ripped-away-from-you-at-any-moment issues - which make him, basically, sort people into, yes, those who can and who can't take care of themselves.

He... hmm, he starts out assuming that everyone he loves needs him to be protective. Like, before he even gets to know Olympe, he prays for her soul - - - but when he does meet her, he's ashamed of it, because she is nothing like the lost ~heathen he'd been imagining. And with Rose, it's his recognition of her hard-won autonomy that keeps him from being overprotective, at least at first. (Later, he pretty much automatically considers her an equal partner in adventuring!)

Also, yesssssss about switching into seriousness when Hannibal and MInou are in danger! It's true that they both consciously perform silliness (each for their own reasons) and while Ben is aware that it's partially performance, he is also, like you said, not really able to be awestruck by them. Especially because he cares so much about being taken seriously himself, and only performs silliness when he's roleplaying to fit someone's expectations.

(also, like, it's not even so much about Propriety - Ben definitely cares about being Proper himself but he is okay with Olympe being a most improper voodoo queen and Shaw being a spit-happy scarecrow and Rose being a mad scientist who incites youth to rebellion - it's that he feels very strongly about being professional. Like, his own professionalism is so often doubted, that he kind of... smirky, sometimes, about Minou and Hannibal, because nobody questions Dominique's social skills or Hannibal's musician-prowess the way they do Ben's medical knowledge. But, like, when Minou is moved into a hostile environment, he works really hard to make sure her job as a placee is understood and not derided - and is kind of :\ when Minou points out that people will continue to judge her whatever he says or does about it.)

ETA: And also! When Ben roleplays silliness, he does it to make himself seem less threatening / more easily overlooked. So, hmm, maybe he also semi-subconsciously acknowledges that Minou and Hannibal ENJOY being masked by their quirky/childish mannerisms.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes, Ben is so protective of everyone. He does have to struggle with realizing that sometimes people need to save themselves (or are perfectly happy with how things are and don't need to be saved at all). Hannibal calls him a "knight errant" a couple of times, which is SO PERFECT. He would save the entire world if he could.

And yeah, it's true he does have a lot of "improper" friends! I think he wants to seem proper himself (though yeah, maybe professional is a better word), but when it comes to a choice between being kind/friendly or being proper, he'd always rather be friendly. He cares about people too much to judge them or worry about his own reputation being besmirched or whatever, especially if it's someone he's close to. I suppose a lot of it's upbringing; Livia is clearly someone who puts a lot of value into doing the 'right' thing and being seen the 'right' way (though right in the respectable sense, not the moral sense).

I think he totally gets what Hannibal and Dominique are doing when they're deliberately not serious. He might roll his eyes at something they say or do, but ultimately he knows what they're capable of: that one quote is so very perfect for this! And January saw—as clearly as if he were watching a play at the American Theater in town—that Dominique's reaction to No would be Oh, very well, p'tit, I'll be on my way back to town then. . . . And Scene Two, Act One would be Dominique, heavily pregnant, poling a pirogue through a swamp somewhere trying to make it to Bois d'Argent herself. And yeah, it does make him sad on their behalves when someone doesn't see through the mask and assumes the first impression is all there is. Such as when everyone in Mexico starts accusing Hannibal of being worthless (including Hannibal himself!) and Ben is like ":( no he is my friend".

Thinking about this, I just realized that Ben is sometimes silly for the fun of it when he's in private, with someone he's close to, but Hannibal and Minou do just the opposite; they are almost always silly in public, and will only say something serious if they're alone with a close friend. Like when Minou is worried about Henri leaving her, but is still showing up at parties acting like a social butterfly, and only showing her troubles in private. Rose is more like Ben in that regard, though she doesn't have the same concern for respectability that he does.