Reading Wednesday
Jun. 26th, 2013 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
The River Sutra by Gita Mehta. Several short stories on the themes love and religion, linked together by a framing story about a man in spiritual hermitage from the world. This was not very good, heavily saturated with the sort of shallow, vague ~India is so spiritual~ thing that one doesn't generally expect to see in books written by Indians. Of course, considering that I spent a month earlier this year living in walking distance of Osho's ashram, I may just be over-saturated with the whole meaningless spirituality thing. (Osho's ashram: free love means you don't get to go inside without an AIDS test!) I'm also surprised because I've read other books by Mehta before, and don't remember this vibe at all. I think everything of hers I've read was nonfiction though; maybe that's enough to make the difference.
Dead and Buried by Barbara Hambly. In which several people from Hannibal's past show up in New Orleans and Hannibal flips his shit, and Ben tries to figure out what the hell is going on. This one really benefits from re-reading, as I did not figure out the mystery about Hannibal's past until the end, the first time I read it, and knowing who he used to be changes a lot of the information you get in the early part of the book.
Another thing I noticed on rereading is the overload of passing narratives. Including some very minor characters, there's seven different people who count- not all passing in the racial sense, but in the sense of 'assuming new identities'. And of course this is also the book where the Mayerlings show up again, though I didn't count them as part of the seven, since that backstory wasn't directly referenced. I kind of like it, because you get a real diversity in why people are making these choices, how it affects their families, and how their lives subsequently work out.
Anyway, I'm not really going to comment on all the stuff going on about race and slavery in this book, because I don't currently have the depth of thought required, and just say that I like it because it's the one where Ben describes Hannibal as "a man he loved like a brother".
What are you currently reading?
The Shirt on His Back by Barbara Hambly. Murder mystery in 1830s Rocky Mountains.
Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup. Murder mystery in modern-day Delhi. Why am I reading so many mysteries lately? I'm not actually that into the genre. I think it just makes for an easy way to delve into a setting and characters.
Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France by Lucy Moore. Not a murder mystery! (Yet! I haven't gotten to the part with Marat in the bathtub.) Awesome nonfiction about, well, what the subtitle says.
The River Sutra by Gita Mehta. Several short stories on the themes love and religion, linked together by a framing story about a man in spiritual hermitage from the world. This was not very good, heavily saturated with the sort of shallow, vague ~India is so spiritual~ thing that one doesn't generally expect to see in books written by Indians. Of course, considering that I spent a month earlier this year living in walking distance of Osho's ashram, I may just be over-saturated with the whole meaningless spirituality thing. (Osho's ashram: free love means you don't get to go inside without an AIDS test!) I'm also surprised because I've read other books by Mehta before, and don't remember this vibe at all. I think everything of hers I've read was nonfiction though; maybe that's enough to make the difference.
Dead and Buried by Barbara Hambly. In which several people from Hannibal's past show up in New Orleans and Hannibal flips his shit, and Ben tries to figure out what the hell is going on. This one really benefits from re-reading, as I did not figure out the mystery about Hannibal's past until the end, the first time I read it, and knowing who he used to be changes a lot of the information you get in the early part of the book.
Another thing I noticed on rereading is the overload of passing narratives. Including some very minor characters, there's seven different people who count- not all passing in the racial sense, but in the sense of 'assuming new identities'. And of course this is also the book where the Mayerlings show up again, though I didn't count them as part of the seven, since that backstory wasn't directly referenced. I kind of like it, because you get a real diversity in why people are making these choices, how it affects their families, and how their lives subsequently work out.
Anyway, I'm not really going to comment on all the stuff going on about race and slavery in this book, because I don't currently have the depth of thought required, and just say that I like it because it's the one where Ben describes Hannibal as "a man he loved like a brother".
What are you currently reading?
The Shirt on His Back by Barbara Hambly. Murder mystery in 1830s Rocky Mountains.
Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup. Murder mystery in modern-day Delhi. Why am I reading so many mysteries lately? I'm not actually that into the genre. I think it just makes for an easy way to delve into a setting and characters.
Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France by Lucy Moore. Not a murder mystery! (Yet! I haven't gotten to the part with Marat in the bathtub.) Awesome nonfiction about, well, what the subtitle says.
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 12:43 pm (UTC)[Have you read Tana French? She's my favourite mystery writer (whereas Hambly is, currently, probably my favourite writer overall) and her worldbuilding is just breathtaking. Also frequently heartbreaking, so I don't recommend her books for when you need to read something with a happy ending,]
Also, passing! There are so many characters who pass in the series, but they're not... like, either more or less suspicious than everyone else. I think the point when I knew these books were the books of my sooooooul was when the Mayerling reveal happened - and did not particularly reference the whodunnit.
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Date: 2013-06-29 12:37 am (UTC)And yeah, all the passing characters are really interesting. And none of them really fit the 'tragic mulatto' stereotype. Isobel Deschamps comes closest, but then changes the storyline by getting a happy ending and a husband who knows and doesn't care. Drusilla d'Isola also almost qualifies, but again there's a happy ending (well, from her perspective), and you don't get the sense that passing is what defines her.
The Mayerling reveal was SO AMAZING. I didn't see it coming at all, and I love it so much.