Reading Wednesday
Oct. 23rd, 2013 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
India: A Sacred Geography by Diana Eck. This is a nonfiction book about sacred sites (mostly not temples, but rather holy mountains, rivers, and other natural features) and pilgrimage in India. India, given its size and diversity (14 official languages!), has a long history of people claiming it has no inherent unity, no reason to be a country (Churchill famously said, "India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the Equator."). Eck disputes that, arguing that the way people have long seen the connections and meanings of these holy sites, plus the physical reality of people crisscrossing the land on pilgrimage, have made the space that is India a single entity for as far back as we have written history.
A good idea! I like the theory. But I'm not sure Eck really makes as deep an argument for it as could be. She flips between providing almost unnecessarily basic information (I'm pretty sure anyone bothering to read a 500-page academic text on Hinduism knows the plotline of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, or what bhakti means), and not explaining more obscure references (I definitely could not tell you what the Advaita Vedānta philosophy is without the help of google).
She also drops a lot of distracting references to the current Hindutva movement (a right-wing movement that can be incredibly simplistically summarized as "India for Hindus only"; it has some ties to violent extremists, such as Gandhi's assassin, but also has ties to relatively mainstream political parties like the BJP, who is currently seen as likely to win the prime minister election next year). Eck's engagement with Hindutva in this book is basically just, "Look at this thing they did! It was bad." To which I say, no duh you don't like Hindutva; what Western academic does? I don't like the Hindutva movement either. But if I was going to publish a book with my thoughts on it, I would hopefully come up with something deeper to say. How does the Hindutva movement engage with these holy places and pilgrimage? How are they different and/or similar to earlier philosophies? How does this effect their political fortunes? Etc.
Overall, fairly interesting, but not as good as I wanted it to be.
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. A novel that does some really interesting stylistic things: it pretends to be a self-help book, telling the story of its characters under the pretense of giving advice and a life-path to follow, and it does the whole thing in second person. Also, none of the characters have names. The main character, a poor boy who goes from rags to riches, is just addressed as "you", while other characters include "your brother", "your wife", "your son", "the pretty girl" and so on. I don't think I've ever read a novel in second person before! It actually worked very well, which I would not have predicted.
This is the first book by Hamid I've read, though he's pretty well-regarded. I liked it very much; it was a quick read, but effective. I'll be looking out for more by him.
The Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff. OH MY GOD THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING I WANTED OUT OF LIFE. Canon gay! Alcoholic womanizer prince with major self-worth issues who covers it by being a braggart! Thief who is really skilled at pretending to be other people, but who has suicidal impulses! Intellectual woman who is constantly having to prove her value and has developed a complex about it! Court politics! Culture clash! So much tending to one another's wounds! Weeping in one another's arms! This is seriously like all of my story kinks wrapped up into one novel. And it is AMAZING.
(Also: Arranged marriages! Literal soulbounds! Super fucked up family dynamics! None of which are my story kinks, but I suspect they may appeal to some of you.)
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold. Another in the Vorkosigan series, which I am continuing to deeply enjoy. I liked this one quite a lot. The beginning section, in which a cold island represents everywhere terrible, appealed deeply to my id, as I hate the cold. (And speaking of, ugh, it is so cold today, and going to be cold all the rest of the week.) This is the first one of the series in which Gregor was a real character, and I quite liked him; I also was so happy to see Elena again! I hadn't been sure if she would reappear. I also adore Tung the Aral-fanboy.
What are you currently reading?
Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm loving this one! I like all the Cetagandan culture stuff.
And that's it for the moment, since I finished How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia this morning and haven't started a new India book yet.
India: A Sacred Geography by Diana Eck. This is a nonfiction book about sacred sites (mostly not temples, but rather holy mountains, rivers, and other natural features) and pilgrimage in India. India, given its size and diversity (14 official languages!), has a long history of people claiming it has no inherent unity, no reason to be a country (Churchill famously said, "India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the Equator."). Eck disputes that, arguing that the way people have long seen the connections and meanings of these holy sites, plus the physical reality of people crisscrossing the land on pilgrimage, have made the space that is India a single entity for as far back as we have written history.
A good idea! I like the theory. But I'm not sure Eck really makes as deep an argument for it as could be. She flips between providing almost unnecessarily basic information (I'm pretty sure anyone bothering to read a 500-page academic text on Hinduism knows the plotline of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, or what bhakti means), and not explaining more obscure references (I definitely could not tell you what the Advaita Vedānta philosophy is without the help of google).
She also drops a lot of distracting references to the current Hindutva movement (a right-wing movement that can be incredibly simplistically summarized as "India for Hindus only"; it has some ties to violent extremists, such as Gandhi's assassin, but also has ties to relatively mainstream political parties like the BJP, who is currently seen as likely to win the prime minister election next year). Eck's engagement with Hindutva in this book is basically just, "Look at this thing they did! It was bad." To which I say, no duh you don't like Hindutva; what Western academic does? I don't like the Hindutva movement either. But if I was going to publish a book with my thoughts on it, I would hopefully come up with something deeper to say. How does the Hindutva movement engage with these holy places and pilgrimage? How are they different and/or similar to earlier philosophies? How does this effect their political fortunes? Etc.
Overall, fairly interesting, but not as good as I wanted it to be.
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. A novel that does some really interesting stylistic things: it pretends to be a self-help book, telling the story of its characters under the pretense of giving advice and a life-path to follow, and it does the whole thing in second person. Also, none of the characters have names. The main character, a poor boy who goes from rags to riches, is just addressed as "you", while other characters include "your brother", "your wife", "your son", "the pretty girl" and so on. I don't think I've ever read a novel in second person before! It actually worked very well, which I would not have predicted.
This is the first book by Hamid I've read, though he's pretty well-regarded. I liked it very much; it was a quick read, but effective. I'll be looking out for more by him.
The Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff. OH MY GOD THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING I WANTED OUT OF LIFE. Canon gay! Alcoholic womanizer prince with major self-worth issues who covers it by being a braggart! Thief who is really skilled at pretending to be other people, but who has suicidal impulses! Intellectual woman who is constantly having to prove her value and has developed a complex about it! Court politics! Culture clash! So much tending to one another's wounds! Weeping in one another's arms! This is seriously like all of my story kinks wrapped up into one novel. And it is AMAZING.
(Also: Arranged marriages! Literal soulbounds! Super fucked up family dynamics! None of which are my story kinks, but I suspect they may appeal to some of you.)
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold. Another in the Vorkosigan series, which I am continuing to deeply enjoy. I liked this one quite a lot. The beginning section, in which a cold island represents everywhere terrible, appealed deeply to my id, as I hate the cold. (And speaking of, ugh, it is so cold today, and going to be cold all the rest of the week.) This is the first one of the series in which Gregor was a real character, and I quite liked him; I also was so happy to see Elena again! I hadn't been sure if she would reappear. I also adore Tung the Aral-fanboy.
What are you currently reading?
Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm loving this one! I like all the Cetagandan culture stuff.
And that's it for the moment, since I finished How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia this morning and haven't started a new India book yet.
