Reading Wednesday
Jul. 22nd, 2015 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Frog Music by Emma Donoghue. This novel is based on the true story of the unsolved murder of Jenny Bonnet, a woman frequently arrested for wearing male clothing, in 1870s San Fransisco. That's not really a spoiler, since the murder happens literally on page 2. The main character is instead Blanche, a recent immigrant from France who's a relatively well-off sex worker. After that book-opening murder, the plot jumps back in time by a month to show how Blanche and Jenny first met, and then continues to intersperse Blanche's life leading up to the murder with her life after it, as she attempts to figure out who did it and to get justice for Jenny. Normally I hate this sort of plot structure; it's like the opposite of dramatic irony – the characters know something that the readers don't – and it always strikes me as cheating. If the book had just been written in a straight-forward style, the readers would know the secret all along, and there'd be no mystery to solve. Frog Music gets away with it because it eventually turns out that there is no secret being hidden, but that does still leave open the question of why Donoghue chose to tell the story in such an overly complicated way.
Anyway. Despite being marketed as a murder mystery, Frog Music is clearly way more interested in being general historical fiction, and in showing off Donoghue's research with long side-trips into a smallpox epidemic, baby farms, a race riot, and especially folk music. There are so many songs in this book, you guys. SO MANY. The author even put together an 8tracks mix of the songs she used, which is amazing and now I want all the official author playlists. As in Donoghue's previous historical fiction books, she's most interested in the grossest, smelliest, most depressing aspects of history, from piss to garbage to pus. Which, to be fair, I get annoyed at the scrubbed-clean wholesome version of history in the stereotypical sort of Regency romances too, but Donoghue goes so far in the other direction that it ends up being just as tiring.
All of which makes it sound like I disliked the book, but I actually found it pretty enjoyable. It's a great evocation of a specific time and place, and Donoghue has clearly done unbelievable amounts of research. It's just a book that probably has a relatively small audience of people who're into what she's trying to do.
Darkness on His Bones by Barbara Hambly. This book was amazing. AMAZING. Okay. It's the sixth book in the James Asher series, which are about spies and vampires in pre-WWI Europe. That might seem like a weird combination, but it actually works quite well; the vampires are repeatedly positioned as a type of weapon, an amoral killing force that various governments seek to control as part of their efforts to gain any advantage over one another. The parallel to actual weapons, both then (mustard gas, long-range guns, tanks) and now (atomic weapons) is obvious and well-handled.
However, Darkness on His Bones has now become by far my favorite book in this series. Which is quite a feat, as it's got a really weird premise. James Asher is found in Paris in a coma, having suffered serious head injuries; he remembers nothing of the previous months, not why he came to Paris nor what he'd done since arriving. Lydia, his wife, comes to Paris to help him, and she calls on Don Simon Ysidro, a vampire and their sometime-ally, to protect her and James from the Paris vampires, who probably were the ones who injured James. While the three of them attempt to figure out what James had been doing, World War I is declared and the Germans gradually come closer and closer to Paris, forcing them to race against the clock, needing to flee before Paris itself is bombed while also needing to wait until James is well enough to be moved. A great deal of the book takes place in dreams, mostly James's during his coma and in his subsequent sickness, which are full of half-remembered memories, both James's of recent events and of his childhood and early years as a spy, and Ysidro's, mostly of his experiences in Paris in the early 1600s when he was caught up in the Catholic vs Protestant wars, participation in which he believed might be able save his soul. None of the dreams are entirely trustworthy, and all have that fluid, changeable quality of real world dreams, which gives the whole book a very distinct feel.
The central mystery of what James was doing in Paris is very intriguing and well-done, but what I found even more compelling were the themes: the gradually growing horror of war as it becomes more and more clear that it won't be a short or easy fight, which is a fantastic parallel to the eventual ending of the book, which is super creepy; the possibility of impossible things, which sometimes includes redemption and trust; patriotism and idealism contrasted with the terrible things done in the name of country or God. It's just a great book in all sorts of ways – well-written, well-structured, full of compelling characters. Just, wow. I can't wait to read it again.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen by Philip Dray. This one really says it all in the title. I've apparently decided to work my way through the American history books I've collected chronologically: first I did the Underground Railroad book, then this one, and I've got another one waiting set around 1900.
Frog Music by Emma Donoghue. This novel is based on the true story of the unsolved murder of Jenny Bonnet, a woman frequently arrested for wearing male clothing, in 1870s San Fransisco. That's not really a spoiler, since the murder happens literally on page 2. The main character is instead Blanche, a recent immigrant from France who's a relatively well-off sex worker. After that book-opening murder, the plot jumps back in time by a month to show how Blanche and Jenny first met, and then continues to intersperse Blanche's life leading up to the murder with her life after it, as she attempts to figure out who did it and to get justice for Jenny. Normally I hate this sort of plot structure; it's like the opposite of dramatic irony – the characters know something that the readers don't – and it always strikes me as cheating. If the book had just been written in a straight-forward style, the readers would know the secret all along, and there'd be no mystery to solve. Frog Music gets away with it because it eventually turns out that there is no secret being hidden, but that does still leave open the question of why Donoghue chose to tell the story in such an overly complicated way.
Anyway. Despite being marketed as a murder mystery, Frog Music is clearly way more interested in being general historical fiction, and in showing off Donoghue's research with long side-trips into a smallpox epidemic, baby farms, a race riot, and especially folk music. There are so many songs in this book, you guys. SO MANY. The author even put together an 8tracks mix of the songs she used, which is amazing and now I want all the official author playlists. As in Donoghue's previous historical fiction books, she's most interested in the grossest, smelliest, most depressing aspects of history, from piss to garbage to pus. Which, to be fair, I get annoyed at the scrubbed-clean wholesome version of history in the stereotypical sort of Regency romances too, but Donoghue goes so far in the other direction that it ends up being just as tiring.
All of which makes it sound like I disliked the book, but I actually found it pretty enjoyable. It's a great evocation of a specific time and place, and Donoghue has clearly done unbelievable amounts of research. It's just a book that probably has a relatively small audience of people who're into what she's trying to do.
Darkness on His Bones by Barbara Hambly. This book was amazing. AMAZING. Okay. It's the sixth book in the James Asher series, which are about spies and vampires in pre-WWI Europe. That might seem like a weird combination, but it actually works quite well; the vampires are repeatedly positioned as a type of weapon, an amoral killing force that various governments seek to control as part of their efforts to gain any advantage over one another. The parallel to actual weapons, both then (mustard gas, long-range guns, tanks) and now (atomic weapons) is obvious and well-handled.
However, Darkness on His Bones has now become by far my favorite book in this series. Which is quite a feat, as it's got a really weird premise. James Asher is found in Paris in a coma, having suffered serious head injuries; he remembers nothing of the previous months, not why he came to Paris nor what he'd done since arriving. Lydia, his wife, comes to Paris to help him, and she calls on Don Simon Ysidro, a vampire and their sometime-ally, to protect her and James from the Paris vampires, who probably were the ones who injured James. While the three of them attempt to figure out what James had been doing, World War I is declared and the Germans gradually come closer and closer to Paris, forcing them to race against the clock, needing to flee before Paris itself is bombed while also needing to wait until James is well enough to be moved. A great deal of the book takes place in dreams, mostly James's during his coma and in his subsequent sickness, which are full of half-remembered memories, both James's of recent events and of his childhood and early years as a spy, and Ysidro's, mostly of his experiences in Paris in the early 1600s when he was caught up in the Catholic vs Protestant wars, participation in which he believed might be able save his soul. None of the dreams are entirely trustworthy, and all have that fluid, changeable quality of real world dreams, which gives the whole book a very distinct feel.
The central mystery of what James was doing in Paris is very intriguing and well-done, but what I found even more compelling were the themes: the gradually growing horror of war as it becomes more and more clear that it won't be a short or easy fight, which is a fantastic parallel to the eventual ending of the book, which is super creepy; the possibility of impossible things, which sometimes includes redemption and trust; patriotism and idealism contrasted with the terrible things done in the name of country or God. It's just a great book in all sorts of ways – well-written, well-structured, full of compelling characters. Just, wow. I can't wait to read it again.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen by Philip Dray. This one really says it all in the title. I've apparently decided to work my way through the American history books I've collected chronologically: first I did the Underground Railroad book, then this one, and I've got another one waiting set around 1900.
