Reading Wednesday

[brigdh]

What did you just finish?
Quarantine by Rahul Mehta. A book of short stories about gay Indian and Indian-American men. Pretty much every single story has as its main character a gay Indian-American from West Virgina who moves to NYC and then upstate New York to become a writer. In a shocking coincidence, this is also the biography of the author! Who would have guessed.

If you want to write about yourself, cool. Write essays, write memoirs, write journals and auto-biographies! But I cannot understand the impulse to write fiction that is so clearly barely fictional. Apparently this is a personal peeve of mine, though, since a great deal of the literary fiction genre consists of just this sort of story. It just seems so irritatingly solipsistic to me, as if the effort of imagining a story other than your own is too much effort. As if the only author is only interested in themselves. Ugh.

Anyway, the stories themselves are fine, and I might have liked them better if I had encountered them individually. But having the same story over and over again, when it's a story that I particularly dislike, just was not for me.

When Dreams Travel by Githa Hariharan. A sort of sequel or retelling of A Thousand and One Nights. This book starts decades after the original, when Shahrzad– or Scheherazade– has died of an illness, or possibly been murdered, or possibly escaped to some unknown place. It focuses on her sister, Dunyazad, and her servant, Dilshad, as they seek to define themselves in and out of Shahrzad's shadow, and tell stories of their own. Very mythological, with singing monkeys and evil jinnis and ghouls and palace rivalries, and the constant question of chastity or betrayal, love and violence. I did like this, but not quite as much as I wanted to.

Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is actually just a collection of three short stories: The Mountains of Mourning, Labyrinth, and Borders of Infinity. They're all fairly disconnected from one another, in time and tone and plot, although each is about Miles alone having to solve a problem. 'The Mountains of Mourning' is very very good, dealing with infanticide and long overdue justice; Labyrinth is much lighter (AND HAS WEREWOLF SEX I AM NEVER GETTING OVER THAT) and deals with a assassination mission that turns into a rescue attempt; Borders of Infinity starts with Miles in a POW camp, completely naked and with no resources, and is the story of how he gets back out. I really love Borders of Infinity and didn't see the twist at the end coming at all. I feel like I need to reread it to pick up on all the little clues early on.

Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold. AHH VERY GOOD. I love getting to see Earth in this universe, though I sort of wish we had seen more, or that there had been more world-building changes. The London we do see is not that different from London today. I like Galeni (I knew he wasn't the bad guy!) and I like even more Galen, who is a very compelling bad guy, the sort that's fun to root against. I like, as always, Ivan, especially the dramatic rescue at the end. I love Quinn (though c'mon Miles, do not propose to people you haven't even slept with yet). I love that we finally get the story behind the "Butcher of Komarr" title! I've been waiting ages to figure that out. The living cat blanket is SO CREEPY but such a perfect sci-fi detail. And Mark! I love Mark. I really love that Miles decides not to treat him as a enemy to be defeated, but as a brother to be rescued.

I've been reading these reviews of the Vorkosigan series on Tor.com, and one of the most fascinating things is how very different the publication order is from the internal chronological order. This was only the second Miles book! That's amazing! How did Bujold do that? Reading them as I have, I never would have been able to tell that they weren't written straight-forwardly. I can't think of another published series that has jumped around in time like this, though I suppose fanfiction authors do it often enough. It's just fascinating to me.

What are you currently reading?
Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold. More Mark! More Bel! More Taura!

I just finished When Dreams Travel this morning, and so do not have another India book yet.

Comments

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

I can't think of another published series that has jumped around in time like this

Ellen Kushner - I can't get over how Jessica was so fully realized as a character in The Fall of the Kings long, long before TPOTS. Sophia, too, though "The Death of the Duke" was written in 1998, so she had a pretty good understanding of her before TFOTK.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's very true! And of course having Richard and Alec's first meeting in "The Duke of Riverside", which came out recently, much much later than Swordspoint itself. I can't believe I forgot that.

It does still seem like a relatively unusual thing to me, and I wonder why. I actually quite like the time-skipping effect.

[weirdquark]

Steven Brust's Dragaera books were also published out of internal chronological order.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting! I've read the first three or so books in that series, but then got distracted. I've been meaning to read the rest.

[cloudsinvenice]

If you want to write about yourself, cool. Write essays, write memoirs, write journals and auto-biographies! But I cannot understand the impulse to write fiction that is so clearly barely fictional. Apparently this is a personal peeve of mine, though, since a great deal of the literary fiction genre consists of just this sort of story. It just seems so irritatingly solipsistic to me, as if the effort of imagining a story other than your own is too much effort. As if the only author is only interested in themselves. Ugh.

And when you read a bunch of them in a row it really highlights how unimaginative they can be - you start to see the bones, and become conscious of it as a literary trend rather than being able to enjoy either the individual intent or the effect. And a lot of them ARE incredibly samey because certain experiences (the sheltered creative person moving to the big city/some other more sophisticated environment) are common to a lot of writers, and I suspect it starts to feel like a type of story that every writer has to tell as a rite of passage...

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yep. I took a creative writing class in college that was run workshop style, and nearly every single one of the other students had written one of this type of story. I think there definitely is an attitude in some circles that this type of story is "real" writing. It just gets so boring, over and over again.

Plus, it's often paired with the idea that genre writing is less realistic, or meaningful, or deep. Which is always annoying.

[lavode.livejournal.com]

I have to start reading Bujold! I'm taking a break from A Song of Ice and Fire and trying to read more SF, especially feminist/gender-related books, and this series seems perfect.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, do! It's very good.

It's interesting to compare it to A Song of Ice and Fire, because they're really, really different. But both series do pay a lot of attention to ethical questions and the expanding repercussions of small actions, and issues of power/leadership/how to rule. But the Vorkosigan series is much more hopeful and ultimately has a positive view of humanity, and characters who tend to do the "right" thing, while A Song of Ice and Fire... well, you know how that goes. I don't know if I'd quite call it feminist, though; the first two books, maybe, but since then the series hasn't really engaged with issues of gender/women/etc one way or another (though of course I still have more to read). It's certainly not offensive or anything, though, and does have some very good female characters.

[lavode.livejournal.com]

One of the thing I love about ASOIAF (I just finished the fourth book) is that the characters often make the "wrong" choices and do the things that the reader doesn't want them to do - it makes the story less predictable and more realistic, I think. (Although there is that fact that most people who are too good or too bad don't last long - apparently you have to hit just the right balance of good/evil/cynical/genre savvy to have any hope of making it to the finale. That may not be terribly realistic.)

expanding repercussions of small actions

And that's another thing I like in writing - limyaael (http://curiosityquills.com/limyaaels-rants/) calls it "ringing the changes". I'm definitely picking this series up.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I actually like that aspect of ASOIAF a lot too. It tends to depend on what sort of mood I'm in, if I want to read about characters who are more ethical, or ones who are more cynical. But I can really enjoy both worldviews.

Oh, that's a great link; thank you!

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

YES! DO!

Like Brigdh said, it's in a very interesting contract with ASoIaF. One of the main themes of ASoIaF is duty-vs-passion and whenever characters choose between the two, they tend to choose wrongly.

Whereas Bujold states that duty and passion can be the same thing - and that really happiness can be achieved when you care both for your society and for the ones you love.

[lavode.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an interesting, Star Trek-y perspective. Do you mind if I friend you?

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

I most certainly don't mind - LET'S BE FRIENDS!

I don't know much about Star Trek, but, according to this, Bujold certainly does:
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Lois_McMaster_Bujold

ETA: I most certainly can spell.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

OMG ARAL IS A KLINGON IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

[lavode.livejournal.com]

That's something she has in common with Hambly, then.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

If you want to write about yourself, cool. Write essays, write memoirs, write journals and auto-biographies! But I cannot understand the impulse to write fiction that is so clearly barely fictional. Apparently this is a personal peeve of mine, though, since a great deal of the literary fiction genre consists of just this sort of story. It just seems so irritatingly solipsistic to me, as if the effort of imagining a story other than your own is too much effort. As if the only author is only interested in themselves. Ugh.


THIS SO MUCH.

I have great respect for the ancient and most noble genre of self-inserts; I've read some beautiful life-changing self-insert fics and I assume it can be written just as well in original fic. But the author-filing-the-serial-numbers-off-his*-life genre is so uncomfortable. It demands a particular kind of dishonest voyeurism of its readers. It always reminds me of that one Big Name Early 20th Century Hungarian Author who wrote a novel about a girl who was so ugly that she never married (because she was ugly, did he mention she's very ugly) and she lived with her parents whose life was ruined by her being and they all basically secretly hated each other and were obsessed with her overwhelming ugliness... and when he published it, his parents and unmarried sister publicly denounced/disinherited him and, like, GEE I WONDER WHY.

*or her. or their. but you know. mostly his.

Borders of Infinity is EVEN BETTER on a reread. I quite liked the gender stuff in it too! And the overwhelming creepy presence of their captors.

OH MY GOD I'D FORGOTTEN THE CAT BLANKET. It's an amazing haunting little detail. Also Miles being interrogated is one of my favourite scenes everrrrrrrrr - he is just such an excellent example of a warrior who is conniving and well-read but ALSO great with action scenes.

AND AJIASIJSAJIS MARK'S NAMING SCENE IS SO SO GOOD. I didn't much like Galeni initially - he's just too stoic for my taste - but I warmed up to him in time!

I can't wait to hear your thoughts on Mirror Dance. This and Memory are usually considered the very best Bujold books! (They're not my very favourites but that's because I'm a sap and prefer Aral/Cordelia's love story - I still adore them though).

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, yeah, it's interesting: self-inserts don't bother me nearly so much. I suppose because if you're imagining yourself in Middle Earth or as a vampire or whatever, you're not just retelling your life story. The character's personality might be based on you, but everything else is different.

That is an amazing story, and yeah, no wonder his family was not pleased.

I think I like Galeni because I just kept thinking "Miles! He is clearly not guilty! Pay attention!" so it made me sympathetic.

OMG MIRROR DANCE IS SO GOOD AND FINALLY CORDELIA AND ARAL HAVE MADE A REAPPEARANCE I AM SO HAPPY.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

THERE IS SOMETHING SO GLORIOUS ABOUT ARAL AND CORDELIA AS OLD MARRIED THAT I CANNOT EVEN.

Galeni just cannot resist Miles's charm and it IS really endeating. I don't think I've ever read Galeni/Miles fic though, which is a damn shame.

You're right about Middle Earth vampires! I think I could love magical realism autobiographies as well - I think I've read one? Though maybe it was just allegorical. But when it's just thinly-veiled retelling, hhhhyyyyyyyeahno.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

HE STILL CALLS HER 'DEAR CAPTAIN'. SHE STILL CALLS HERSELF A BETAN. A+++++++

Galeni/Miles could be interesting! I was picturing Galeni as at least a generation older, but now that I'm actually thinking about it, I'm not sure that's right.

Magical realism autobiographies should totally be a thing! I can't think of any I've read, but I like the idea.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

SHE IS VERY MUCH A BETAN for all that Barrayar has changed her. (not that she ever was a typical Betan - too fond of romance and mystery)

I think he is a generation older, but hyperactive Miles with a distinguished older boyfriend could be very fun.

[lavode.livejournal.com]

There was one, right? Thuringwethil, who's either a vampire or a werebat or both, or something, and works for Morgoth.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

YES!! I'd forgotten but Morgoth definitely had a female bat-winged minion (although I think she worked for Sauron specifically). I think Luthien went undercover dressed as her? Which, like, OH MY GOD LUTHIEN COSPLAYED AS A VAMPIRE, that is so cool.