Reading Wednesday
Aug. 28th, 2013 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Bombay Time by Thrity Umrigar. This was an excellent novel, which I recommend much more highly than the very similarly themed Rohinton Mistry I read last week. This is more or less the story of one wedding party and the various guests (most of whom live in the same apartment building), but the POV switches from one character to another, and includes lots of flashbacks, so it is also the story of these people's lives in the decades from the early 50s to the late 90s. Though it manages to cover a lot of issues through that form (failed vs successful marriages, immigration vs staying in India, religion, widowhood, music, love, aspirations, class), I particularly liked the balance of the mostly middle-class characters with the problem of poverty in Bombay.
Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis by Helen Bynum. I finally finished this book! Which is not at all the fault of the book– which was very interesting and well-written– and more to do with my difficulty in reading about people bleeding from the lungs, especially while I was eating. This book is incredibly informative, and the only complaint I really have is that I would have liked even more information; it's very focused on the European and American history of the disease, and more about Asia, Africa, and the Americas would have been nice. I also (unsurprisingly) was very interested in the bits about the construction of tuberculosis as a Romantic disease in the 1800s, and would have loved to read more on that.
I was horrified to discover that there was a major TB epidemic in NYC in the 1970s and 80s, with Harlem in 1992 having one of the highest infection rates in the world. I don't have anything to say about that other than WHAT THE FUCK, but I just thought more people should know this fact.
What are you currently reading?
Jim Corbett's India - Selections by R.E. Hawkins by Jim Corbett. Essays by a famous hunter-turned-conservationist from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties by Lucy Moore. Nonfiction collection of snapshots of various people and events in America in the 1920s. I started reading this because I had an idea for a Benjamin January Harlem Renaissance AU, but further research has only confirmed my immense lack of knowledge about the period, so that's probably not going to happen. But you should see how much jazz I've acquired this week!
Bombay Time by Thrity Umrigar. This was an excellent novel, which I recommend much more highly than the very similarly themed Rohinton Mistry I read last week. This is more or less the story of one wedding party and the various guests (most of whom live in the same apartment building), but the POV switches from one character to another, and includes lots of flashbacks, so it is also the story of these people's lives in the decades from the early 50s to the late 90s. Though it manages to cover a lot of issues through that form (failed vs successful marriages, immigration vs staying in India, religion, widowhood, music, love, aspirations, class), I particularly liked the balance of the mostly middle-class characters with the problem of poverty in Bombay.
Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis by Helen Bynum. I finally finished this book! Which is not at all the fault of the book– which was very interesting and well-written– and more to do with my difficulty in reading about people bleeding from the lungs, especially while I was eating. This book is incredibly informative, and the only complaint I really have is that I would have liked even more information; it's very focused on the European and American history of the disease, and more about Asia, Africa, and the Americas would have been nice. I also (unsurprisingly) was very interested in the bits about the construction of tuberculosis as a Romantic disease in the 1800s, and would have loved to read more on that.
I was horrified to discover that there was a major TB epidemic in NYC in the 1970s and 80s, with Harlem in 1992 having one of the highest infection rates in the world. I don't have anything to say about that other than WHAT THE FUCK, but I just thought more people should know this fact.
What are you currently reading?
Jim Corbett's India - Selections by R.E. Hawkins by Jim Corbett. Essays by a famous hunter-turned-conservationist from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties by Lucy Moore. Nonfiction collection of snapshots of various people and events in America in the 1920s. I started reading this because I had an idea for a Benjamin January Harlem Renaissance AU, but further research has only confirmed my immense lack of knowledge about the period, so that's probably not going to happen. But you should see how much jazz I've acquired this week!
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no subject
Date: 2013-08-30 08:37 pm (UTC)oh my god. Oh my GOD. That is the most aesthetically pleasing idea ever. And, no, I know precisely nothing about the period either - I've read one autobiography, but it was full of lies and set in Berlin, so really not useful for these purposes. But I'd love to know more, so I can't wait for your opinion on this Anything Goes book!
And that is a really horrifying fact about 20th century TB, but good to know, definitely.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-30 09:47 pm (UTC)According to my very limited knowledge, it works so well!
The Harlem Renaissance is a period of artistic/literary/musical explosion and political consciousness among African Americans, centered in the Harlem neighborhood of NYC, in the mid-to-late 20s. Big connections between France and French-speaking countries to Harlem. You've got terrible racism for the characters to have to deal with; it's not as bad as slavery, but the 10s and 20s were basically the worst time period since the Civil War in terms of racism in the US (the height of the KKK was 1924, for instance). There's dealing with the lawlessness of gangsters/bootleggers/smugglers because of Prohibition to be like the lawlessness of the Swamp. Ayasha could have died in the worldwide 1918 flu epidemic.
Perfect opportunity for characters to work as musicians and talk about music all the time, it's just jazz instead of classical. TB, morphine, and heroin all exist, so Hannibal could basically be the exact same person he is (although maybe it would be better for him to have something other than TB, because by this point people had figured out it was contagious, so that changes the dynamics). Ben could also just be himself-trained as a doctor in France, unable to get hired in the US. Rose could have been involved in the suffragette movement (women got the vote in 1920), and/or struggling to run a girls school. Shaw could still be a policeman in a corrupt force!
I can't figure out if it would make sense for Ben and others to have served in WWI or not. They almost would have had to have fought, but that seems to really complicate things. Also, I can't figure out what to do with Livia and Dominique, since the placee system is gone by this point, and it's not the equivalent to just say they're prostitutes. I could see Livia still being some rich man's mistress, but I don't know if she would have raised Dominique with that intention.
ANYWAY. I have clearly spent too much time thinking about this for something I don't think I'm actually going to write.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-31 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-02 08:24 pm (UTC)Ohhh, I like your idea! I'm pretty sure it would still be illegal for Dominique and Henri to get married (though I'd have to look it up; I think it depends on what state you were in), which of course complicates things. And if he was still married to Chloe. I love Chloe, so I would want her around, but she does make Minou/Henri a more difficult relationship. Although it's interesting to think about how things would work if Henri was married to Chloe first, and then met Dominique after.
If the Janvier family was still originally from New Orleans, I could see Henri meeting Dominique and then moving her up to live in NYC with him; Livia may follow around the same time or slightly later, the 1910's being the time of huge economic migration to the north for lots of black families. So maybe Olympe and her family moves up around the same time for their own reasons? Although it might also be interesting for Olympe to be in Chicago/Detroit/Philadelphia/one of the other big northern cities. And so when Ben returns to the US, he goes to NYC to be near his family. And since Rose canonically went to school in New York, she could still have done so, but decided to stay there after graduation.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-03 07:34 pm (UTC)One part of my brain is fiddling with some sort of Star Trek AU (because January would make a terrific starship captain, and it's my headcanon that Sisko is one of his descendants - he is from New Orleans, IIRC), but I probably won't write that either. (I'll try to post the very few drabbles I've written in this fandom somewhere, though.)
no subject
Date: 2013-09-03 08:18 pm (UTC)I don't think I will write it, but I want to. It would probably help if I had any sort of plot to go with my thoughts on the pretty brownstone Dominique lives in or Ben as a jazz musician.
Star Trek AU! I only know Star Trek from the reboot movie, but I still love the idea as Ben as a captain.
But all of this is besides my main point, which is: OMG YES you should definitely post any drabbles you've written! Please!