Reading Wednesday
May. 21st, 2014 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai. A novel about troubled family relationships in an old family in Delhi; the events of the novel are split half between a dramatic summer in 1947 and half in the modern day (though in this case, I think "modern day" is late 70s or early 80s- it was fairly vague). This reminded me a lot of Faulkner: long stream-of-consciousness passages, an old money family fallen on harder times, the tangled ingrown complicated relationships of the family. Less incest, though! And also there's actually a happy ending, which doesn't at all seem like Faulkner.
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. A novel split between two stories, both involving Englishwomen in India. In the 1920s, Olivia is the newly arrived wife of a minor British official; she is attracted to and then begins an affair with the local Nawab, a extremely minor Indian noble who is reputed to be involved with various unsavory scandals. In the modern day (which I think is actually the 1970s, again), the granddaughter of Olivia's husband comes to India armed with Olivia's letters, to try and figure out what happened and why. The two women's stories mirror each other in a lot of ways: both have affairs with married Indian men which result in pregnancy, both feel isolated, both are trying to find themselves. I found the modern (unnamed) woman incredibly annoying, particularly when she starts sleeping with a random Englishman (currently living as a homeless monk) not because she wants to or he forces her, but apparently because she just doesn't care enough not to. WHY?
Nearly everything that happens is subtext rather than text, which is occasionally confusing (it took me ages to figure out that the Nawab was also having an affair with Harry, a random hanger-on). That can work sometimes, but I was left feeling as though nothing had happened and nothing mattered. This book won the Booker Prize the year it came out, and has also been made into a movie, but I wasn't very impressed.
Another Man's Moccasins by Craig Johnson. The fourth in the Longmire mystery series, which I have been (very slowly) reading. In this one, Walt's past as a soldier in Vietnam catches up with him when a young Vietnamese woman is found dead, abandoned by the side of the highway, with no ID and only an old photo of Walt in her purse. I didn't find this one quite as engaging as earlier books in the series, though to be fair this is possibly because of formatting issues (there's a lot of flashbacks in the book, and my copy had no indication of when one started or ended). I also found the ultimate solution to the mystery to be a bit dumb, particularly because it relied on an inexplicable wifi network and yet apparently no access to Google Translate.
Prince of Silk and Thorns by Cherry Dare. This is advertized as dubcon porn, starring a prince and his farmboy slave. It is, however, about as un-dubcon-y as it is physically possible to be, given the premise (it's way less dubconny than Captive Prince, for example, while also being way more porny). The premise really only lasts for about a chapter and a half before the book suddenly decides to grow a plot instead, and from then on we have dramatic court intrigue, assassins, food porn, worldbuilding of a vaguely-medieval-Spain sort, woobie backstories, theology involving Lucifer and warrior angels, and a great deal of h/c, mostly of the 'nursing an injured/sick lover' sort. It's unabashedly fun, and completely revels in being composed almost entirely of tropes and 'cool bits'. It's the perfect book to read if you're looking for something a bit silly but so enjoyable.
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. A reread! Peter Grant, brand-new police constable, finds out that ghosts, vampires, and magic are real, and gets drafted to serve in London's wizard branch of the police department. I didn't like this quite as much as I did the first time I read it, but it's still a wonderful book. Also I can't wait for the fifth one to come out.
What are you currently reading?
Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly. I'M FINALLY READING SOME OTHER HAMBLY BOOKS I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN HANDLE IT. Anyway, vampires, London, lady doctors! I've just begun this so I don't have many thoughts on it.
The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. A novel about an Indian boy's relationship with his cooler cousin. I bought my copy in a secondhand store, and it's full of the oddest notes in the margins. I'm entirely fascinated by them: occasionally they label something really obvious (a scene where our main characters drinks too much and then behaves strangely is labelled "he's drunk"); occasionally they make bizarre interpretive claims (a little girl in a dress with a giraffe print apparently represents "Africa - exotic", while an argument between a man and a woman is an "attack on femininity"); and occasionally the note-taker is just wrong (a character tells another that she won't eat because she's fasting, but the note-taker says "lying - she's too poor to afford food but doesn't want to admit it" when there's absolutely no indication that this is the case, and in fact the character later spends money fairly freely). The notes keep distracting me from the book itself, but I sort of love them.
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai. A novel about troubled family relationships in an old family in Delhi; the events of the novel are split half between a dramatic summer in 1947 and half in the modern day (though in this case, I think "modern day" is late 70s or early 80s- it was fairly vague). This reminded me a lot of Faulkner: long stream-of-consciousness passages, an old money family fallen on harder times, the tangled ingrown complicated relationships of the family. Less incest, though! And also there's actually a happy ending, which doesn't at all seem like Faulkner.
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. A novel split between two stories, both involving Englishwomen in India. In the 1920s, Olivia is the newly arrived wife of a minor British official; she is attracted to and then begins an affair with the local Nawab, a extremely minor Indian noble who is reputed to be involved with various unsavory scandals. In the modern day (which I think is actually the 1970s, again), the granddaughter of Olivia's husband comes to India armed with Olivia's letters, to try and figure out what happened and why. The two women's stories mirror each other in a lot of ways: both have affairs with married Indian men which result in pregnancy, both feel isolated, both are trying to find themselves. I found the modern (unnamed) woman incredibly annoying, particularly when she starts sleeping with a random Englishman (currently living as a homeless monk) not because she wants to or he forces her, but apparently because she just doesn't care enough not to. WHY?
Nearly everything that happens is subtext rather than text, which is occasionally confusing (it took me ages to figure out that the Nawab was also having an affair with Harry, a random hanger-on). That can work sometimes, but I was left feeling as though nothing had happened and nothing mattered. This book won the Booker Prize the year it came out, and has also been made into a movie, but I wasn't very impressed.
Another Man's Moccasins by Craig Johnson. The fourth in the Longmire mystery series, which I have been (very slowly) reading. In this one, Walt's past as a soldier in Vietnam catches up with him when a young Vietnamese woman is found dead, abandoned by the side of the highway, with no ID and only an old photo of Walt in her purse. I didn't find this one quite as engaging as earlier books in the series, though to be fair this is possibly because of formatting issues (there's a lot of flashbacks in the book, and my copy had no indication of when one started or ended). I also found the ultimate solution to the mystery to be a bit dumb, particularly because it relied on an inexplicable wifi network and yet apparently no access to Google Translate.
Prince of Silk and Thorns by Cherry Dare. This is advertized as dubcon porn, starring a prince and his farmboy slave. It is, however, about as un-dubcon-y as it is physically possible to be, given the premise (it's way less dubconny than Captive Prince, for example, while also being way more porny). The premise really only lasts for about a chapter and a half before the book suddenly decides to grow a plot instead, and from then on we have dramatic court intrigue, assassins, food porn, worldbuilding of a vaguely-medieval-Spain sort, woobie backstories, theology involving Lucifer and warrior angels, and a great deal of h/c, mostly of the 'nursing an injured/sick lover' sort. It's unabashedly fun, and completely revels in being composed almost entirely of tropes and 'cool bits'. It's the perfect book to read if you're looking for something a bit silly but so enjoyable.
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. A reread! Peter Grant, brand-new police constable, finds out that ghosts, vampires, and magic are real, and gets drafted to serve in London's wizard branch of the police department. I didn't like this quite as much as I did the first time I read it, but it's still a wonderful book. Also I can't wait for the fifth one to come out.
What are you currently reading?
Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly. I'M FINALLY READING SOME OTHER HAMBLY BOOKS I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN HANDLE IT. Anyway, vampires, London, lady doctors! I've just begun this so I don't have many thoughts on it.
The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. A novel about an Indian boy's relationship with his cooler cousin. I bought my copy in a secondhand store, and it's full of the oddest notes in the margins. I'm entirely fascinated by them: occasionally they label something really obvious (a scene where our main characters drinks too much and then behaves strangely is labelled "he's drunk"); occasionally they make bizarre interpretive claims (a little girl in a dress with a giraffe print apparently represents "Africa - exotic", while an argument between a man and a woman is an "attack on femininity"); and occasionally the note-taker is just wrong (a character tells another that she won't eat because she's fasting, but the note-taker says "lying - she's too poor to afford food but doesn't want to admit it" when there's absolutely no indication that this is the case, and in fact the character later spends money fairly freely). The notes keep distracting me from the book itself, but I sort of love them.
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no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 01:09 am (UTC)Lady doctors and vampires sound like my sort of thing, actually.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 08:01 am (UTC)(tell me how the hambly experiment goes? i've read her portal fantasy, and while it was okay, i wouldn't have kept on reading hambly if i started with it).
no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 02:21 pm (UTC)It's very good so far! It's set in London in 1907, and the main character is actually neither a vampire nor a lady doctor, but an ex-spy professor (he's the lady-doctor's husband).
no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 02:22 pm (UTC)(I'm liking it so far, but I haven't got very far into it yet. It is hard not to compare to the Januarys!)
no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-22 10:34 pm (UTC)(I'll try to read The Rivers of London when I'm done with my current reading, everyone who's read it says it's great.)
no subject
Date: 2014-05-23 02:27 pm (UTC)You should! It's got great worldbuilding and a fantastic narrative voice.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-24 07:40 am (UTC)I kinda wonder what demographic your margin scribbler was! Mine had definitely been an amused teenager.
I should do a Peter Grant reread to these days! Who do you ship Peter with, btw, if anyone?
OMG MORE HAMBLY BOOKS, I can't wait to hear your verdict.
(also, know what is glorious? woobie!Alar is glorious. Like, the whole book is an amazing exercise in fun and hotness, but, I love how often she made her big bad cruel dom character sweat/cry/near-die. <3)
no subject
Date: 2014-05-25 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-25 04:25 pm (UTC)Ha, I love your 100 Years of Solitude notes! I would have left similar notes, if I wrote in books. I think my note-taker is someone reading the book for a class or book club; I get the sense of "everyone will be so impressed with my deep interpretation!" from them. They write in very messy cursive, but ha, that could be anyone.
I don't really ship Peter with anyone. I mean, I like his canon relationships (that is, Beverly and Lesley), but don't feel that passionate about them. Ha, I suppose this might be the one thing I do like gen (or mostly, at least). What about you?
(YESSS. I love how Garin was so entirely accepting and blase about everything, while Alar has all the emotions and trauma and angst.)
no subject
Date: 2014-05-25 07:28 pm (UTC)I agree with you about Peter's ships! I don't really see him with Nightingale. I crossover-ship him with Mae from Demon's Lexicon, who has a similar sense of humor and a similar approach to life, in a kind of loose arrangement where he still gets to date his river and she still gets to date her demon. I THINK Lesley might be endgame, but who even knows.
(Garin is an imperturbable dude, and Alar is a twitchy kitten, and I am totally demanding them for Yuletide.)
no subject
Date: 2014-05-27 02:29 pm (UTC)I still need to read Demon's Lexicon, but that sounds like a good pairing. I used to assume Lesley was endgame, but the most recent book made me very unsure. Even outside of the ending, I liked her with what's his name, the fairy dude, a lot.
(YULETIDE YES GOOD IDEA.)