Reading Wedne– Thursday
Aug. 13th, 2015 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired Stagolee, John Henry, and Other Traditional American Folk Songs by Richard Polenberg. I was so excited for the premise of this book, and so disappointed by the actual execution. Although I don't think it's the author's fault; I'm not sure anyone could make an interesting book from the stated goal. See, the fun thing about murder ballads (which are the majority of the songs covered in the book) is how over the top they are. The evil guy is the MOST EVIL, sometimes literally the devil. The innocent girl is the MOST INNOCENT and also always beautiful. The crime committed is the MOST HORRIBLE thing you have ever heard. Ghosts and hell and omens and other supernatural elements may also appear. To take that and instead tell a story about what case the lawyers made at the trail and how many appeals it went through and how many people signed a petition and the guy served this many years but then got released for good behavior... it's just boring. How could it not be? The truth is if you strip out all the melodrama, there's not a lot left, and what there is is pretty repetitive from one song to the next.
I'm also a bit biased against the author who, in the prologue, makes the claim, "I have deliberately omitted songs that are fictitious or even lack a credible basis in reality" but then proceeds to include songs like 'House of the Rising Sun' and 'John Henry', which seem quite likely to have no specific 'true story' origin. Even in his own chapter on John Henry, Polenberg gives multiple possible origins covering wildly varying time periods and people, and taking place in four different states and two countries. Which, you know, I would consider such a multiplicity of stories itself good evidence that it's just a folk tale.
I was also annoyed that Polenberg didn't include lyrics for any of the songs he covered. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he might have done so because of copyright law, but come on, they're folk songs. There's got to be at least one version out of copyright. This forced me to stop reading at the beginning of each chapter so I could go do a google search on the song, just to know what he was talking about.
There were a few interesting tidbits of history in here, but overall the book was too tedious for me to recommend.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
The Orphan Master by Jean Zimmerman. This book is advertized as historical fiction, with some elements of romance and mystery. So I was pretty shocked when, on page 5, there was a graphically described murder of a child, complete with rape and cannibalism. Okay, I thought, I read a lot of horror, I wasn't expecting this but let's go with it.
Friends, I should have stopped there. This is the sort of mystery where it's hard to figure out who the murderer is not because everyone seems too nice to have done it, but because multiple characters have already been introduced as pedophiles, and another two as cannibals. All of the cannibalism, by the way, is tied into the Native American mythology of the wendigo, except it's always referred to as "witika" instead, because why not use some obscure term instead of the one everybody knows! Gotta show off that historical research!
Meanwhile, in an entirely different tonal register, Blandine is a young merchant in the colony of New Amsterdam in the 1660s. Blandine is the worst Mary Sue I have read in published fiction in quite some time. She's an orphan, see! With a super tragic backstory! But she's super tough and smart and therefore is now a wealthy and independent adult, unlike all the other orphans. She's also friends with the colony's black community, because of course she is, despite the fact that these supposed friends only seem to show up when it's plot-relevant. One of the black men has appointed himself her bodyguard and follows her everywhere, and literally every single time he appears on page, he's described with some variant of "giant", "continent-sized", "gargantuan", etc. DO YOU GET IT? THE BLACK GUY IS REALLY BIG. LET ME DESCRIBE HIS SIZE A FEW MORE TIMES IN CASE YOU DIDN'T GET IT. Despite all this emphasis on him, he has no personality and conveniently disappears from her side when it's time for her to hook up with her new boyfriend. That's Edward Drummond, a spy for the English. The relationship between him and Blandine makes no sense. It jumps from one state to another with no transitions in-between: at their first meeting she's vaguely annoyed by him, but without the situation having changed, they decide to team up to investigate the murders going on. Slightly later, again with no indication of their feelings having changed from vague I-guess-we're-allies, she literally just takes off all her clothes while he's not looking and waits for him to notice. Then they have sex for FIVE WEEKS WHILE IN AN ABANDONED CABIN IN JANUARY. I like a good Canadian shack story, but come on. There is explicitly nothing to do in this cabin, not even more than one book to read, nothing except to have sex and wait for Blandine's convenient Native American friend to bring them supplies of food.
Because of course Blandine is also friends with the local Native Americans, despite being the only one clever enough to escape from an attack by them a few years earlier wherein all the other white women were raped to death. This friend in particular she even cured from delusions of being a wendigo (how did she do this? Who knows, because it happened off screen. Because obviously dealing with psychosis in the 17th century would not be an interesting or character-revealing incident that should actually be included in your book at all), but not quite cured all the way, because he still has to eat the real killer at the end of the book. Because retributive cannibalism is just the kind of cheap fake-dark note The Orphan Master chooses to end on.
...I really, really need to break my habit of buying all the historical fiction just because it has a pretty cover.
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner. A book I actually enjoyed! :D I was very grateful after the last two.
This is a Regency romance set in Sussex; Phoebe is a widow whose remarriage will give her husband the right to vote in her small town's election. When her young unmarried sister ends up pregnant, Phoebe decides to sell her marriage to whichever political party will help her sister. The Whigs hook her up with Mr. Moon, who owns a bakery. He's sweet and determined to make her a dessert she'll love (there's a lot of awesome food porn in this book), but not really to her taste. The Tories arrange for her to meet Mr. Gilchrist, who she likes – except when he talks about politics. Meanwhile, she's falling in love with Nick Dymond. Nick is a recently returned solider who walks with a limp due to being injured in battle and is pretty severely depressed over it (I spent the first half of the book thinking he had actually lost his leg, but no, it's not quite that serious of an injury), who's from an upper class family and so doesn't need her vote.
This was funny and sweet and had a serious look at both how you can love your family and how they can tear you down. I liked so many of the minor characters and situations, and I really liked the setting. I have no idea how accurate its depiction of Sussex is (having never been there), but even the attempt to depict something other than featureless, generic Historical England is enough to set a book apart in this genre, sadly. (Plus there's some femdom in the sex scenes! A+ choice, Ms. Lerner.)
What are you currently reading?
Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea by Jeff Koehler. Another NetGalley book. I requested way too many and am now trying to keep up.
Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired Stagolee, John Henry, and Other Traditional American Folk Songs by Richard Polenberg. I was so excited for the premise of this book, and so disappointed by the actual execution. Although I don't think it's the author's fault; I'm not sure anyone could make an interesting book from the stated goal. See, the fun thing about murder ballads (which are the majority of the songs covered in the book) is how over the top they are. The evil guy is the MOST EVIL, sometimes literally the devil. The innocent girl is the MOST INNOCENT and also always beautiful. The crime committed is the MOST HORRIBLE thing you have ever heard. Ghosts and hell and omens and other supernatural elements may also appear. To take that and instead tell a story about what case the lawyers made at the trail and how many appeals it went through and how many people signed a petition and the guy served this many years but then got released for good behavior... it's just boring. How could it not be? The truth is if you strip out all the melodrama, there's not a lot left, and what there is is pretty repetitive from one song to the next.
I'm also a bit biased against the author who, in the prologue, makes the claim, "I have deliberately omitted songs that are fictitious or even lack a credible basis in reality" but then proceeds to include songs like 'House of the Rising Sun' and 'John Henry', which seem quite likely to have no specific 'true story' origin. Even in his own chapter on John Henry, Polenberg gives multiple possible origins covering wildly varying time periods and people, and taking place in four different states and two countries. Which, you know, I would consider such a multiplicity of stories itself good evidence that it's just a folk tale.
I was also annoyed that Polenberg didn't include lyrics for any of the songs he covered. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he might have done so because of copyright law, but come on, they're folk songs. There's got to be at least one version out of copyright. This forced me to stop reading at the beginning of each chapter so I could go do a google search on the song, just to know what he was talking about.
There were a few interesting tidbits of history in here, but overall the book was too tedious for me to recommend.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
The Orphan Master by Jean Zimmerman. This book is advertized as historical fiction, with some elements of romance and mystery. So I was pretty shocked when, on page 5, there was a graphically described murder of a child, complete with rape and cannibalism. Okay, I thought, I read a lot of horror, I wasn't expecting this but let's go with it.
Friends, I should have stopped there. This is the sort of mystery where it's hard to figure out who the murderer is not because everyone seems too nice to have done it, but because multiple characters have already been introduced as pedophiles, and another two as cannibals. All of the cannibalism, by the way, is tied into the Native American mythology of the wendigo, except it's always referred to as "witika" instead, because why not use some obscure term instead of the one everybody knows! Gotta show off that historical research!
Meanwhile, in an entirely different tonal register, Blandine is a young merchant in the colony of New Amsterdam in the 1660s. Blandine is the worst Mary Sue I have read in published fiction in quite some time. She's an orphan, see! With a super tragic backstory! But she's super tough and smart and therefore is now a wealthy and independent adult, unlike all the other orphans. She's also friends with the colony's black community, because of course she is, despite the fact that these supposed friends only seem to show up when it's plot-relevant. One of the black men has appointed himself her bodyguard and follows her everywhere, and literally every single time he appears on page, he's described with some variant of "giant", "continent-sized", "gargantuan", etc. DO YOU GET IT? THE BLACK GUY IS REALLY BIG. LET ME DESCRIBE HIS SIZE A FEW MORE TIMES IN CASE YOU DIDN'T GET IT. Despite all this emphasis on him, he has no personality and conveniently disappears from her side when it's time for her to hook up with her new boyfriend. That's Edward Drummond, a spy for the English. The relationship between him and Blandine makes no sense. It jumps from one state to another with no transitions in-between: at their first meeting she's vaguely annoyed by him, but without the situation having changed, they decide to team up to investigate the murders going on. Slightly later, again with no indication of their feelings having changed from vague I-guess-we're-allies, she literally just takes off all her clothes while he's not looking and waits for him to notice. Then they have sex for FIVE WEEKS WHILE IN AN ABANDONED CABIN IN JANUARY. I like a good Canadian shack story, but come on. There is explicitly nothing to do in this cabin, not even more than one book to read, nothing except to have sex and wait for Blandine's convenient Native American friend to bring them supplies of food.
Because of course Blandine is also friends with the local Native Americans, despite being the only one clever enough to escape from an attack by them a few years earlier wherein all the other white women were raped to death. This friend in particular she even cured from delusions of being a wendigo (how did she do this? Who knows, because it happened off screen. Because obviously dealing with psychosis in the 17th century would not be an interesting or character-revealing incident that should actually be included in your book at all), but not quite cured all the way, because he still has to eat the real killer at the end of the book. Because retributive cannibalism is just the kind of cheap fake-dark note The Orphan Master chooses to end on.
...I really, really need to break my habit of buying all the historical fiction just because it has a pretty cover.
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner. A book I actually enjoyed! :D I was very grateful after the last two.
This is a Regency romance set in Sussex; Phoebe is a widow whose remarriage will give her husband the right to vote in her small town's election. When her young unmarried sister ends up pregnant, Phoebe decides to sell her marriage to whichever political party will help her sister. The Whigs hook her up with Mr. Moon, who owns a bakery. He's sweet and determined to make her a dessert she'll love (there's a lot of awesome food porn in this book), but not really to her taste. The Tories arrange for her to meet Mr. Gilchrist, who she likes – except when he talks about politics. Meanwhile, she's falling in love with Nick Dymond. Nick is a recently returned solider who walks with a limp due to being injured in battle and is pretty severely depressed over it (I spent the first half of the book thinking he had actually lost his leg, but no, it's not quite that serious of an injury), who's from an upper class family and so doesn't need her vote.
This was funny and sweet and had a serious look at both how you can love your family and how they can tear you down. I liked so many of the minor characters and situations, and I really liked the setting. I have no idea how accurate its depiction of Sussex is (having never been there), but even the attempt to depict something other than featureless, generic Historical England is enough to set a book apart in this genre, sadly. (Plus there's some femdom in the sex scenes! A+ choice, Ms. Lerner.)
What are you currently reading?
Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea by Jeff Koehler. Another NetGalley book. I requested way too many and am now trying to keep up.
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no subject
Date: 2015-08-13 06:05 pm (UTC)That's the kind of fairy-tale-like psychological opaqueness that I might find really interesting if done well. Not smack in the middle of a rape-and-cannibalism fest, though. :(
I can't believe someone wrote a whole book about the stories behind folk songs, but left the lyrics out. Come on!
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 03:12 am (UTC)I can't believe someone wrote a whole book about the stories behind folk songs, but left the lyrics out. Come on!
Right? Of course the book can't have the actual songs, but at least include the lyrics!
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 03:32 am (UTC)That's an unfortunate choice of genres to be indecisive about.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-13 10:02 pm (UTC).... hahahaha wow. This all makes me feel somewhat better about the western I read last night from the Cheap Paperback Pile, which ended with "rocks fall, everyone dies" in the last three paragraphs. At least there was no cannibalism.
Also, BLANDINE? I know it's an actual name, but given everything else about the character, I am giggling inappropriately.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 03:04 am (UTC)That's also an impressive ending! I think it would take me more than three paragraphs to describe a bunch of deaths, much less wrap up the plot too.
Somehow the silliness of Blandine never occurred to me while I was reading it! But now that you've pointed it out, it is amazingly accurate.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 03:31 am (UTC)That cannibal book sounds truly WTF.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 03:51 am (UTC)And yet, the general writing was pretty good, and the characters were interesting! The book's plot, or what eventually coalesces into something resembling a plot by about halfway to two-thirds of the way through it, is about the black residents of a town in Texas, shortly after the Civil War, trying to stop the nascent KKK from preventing them from voting in the county election and running them off their land. The last few paragraphs amounts to a heavily implied "and then the KKK showed up and killed them all".
Historically plausible, certainly, but a little unexpected.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 03:54 am (UTC)I often enjoy reading completely random, obscure books found at garage sales, thrift stories, and so forth.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 04:02 am (UTC)I see that Spielberg bought the film rights… in 1996. I'm sure he'll start shooting any day now.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 04:11 am (UTC)It was a book that managed to tick off every one of the standard cliches for your basic Michael Crichton/Douglas Preston/etc. "scientific expedition funded by rich weirdo looks for the previous expedition that went missing" thriller, without actually being thrilling in any way. Plus, psychic Neanderthals.
I think the point where I started skimming was the part in which the expedition, having found the previous expedition's campsite, discovered in the ruins of a slashed-apart tent the Very Important Journal that the previous expedition had used to detail their harrowing descent into madness and death ... and then read the entries IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER to avoid spoiling the suspense (I'm not paraphrasing, the character reading it actually said this unironically), while having an occasional "eek!" moment as they're stalked by whatever killed the previous expedition, and slowly unearth clues via journal to its true nature. No, I'm sorry, you are too stupid to live.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-13 10:52 pm (UTC)I see what you did there, author.
Also, what is House of the Rising Sun supposedly based on?
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 02:57 am (UTC)It doesn't even really have a plot! How could it have a true story? I mean, there's the general "being a prostitute sucks" message, but there's no "this thing happened and then this thing happened and then here's how it ended". So for that chapter the author just talked about the history of Storyville, which was a neighborhood of legal prostitution in New Orleans from around 1890-1915, despite there being no brothel named "house of the rising sun" known from there.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-15 10:04 pm (UTC)I looked up The Orphanmaster(turned out to be one word) out of curiosity, and it turns out the author is quite famous and the novel has been optioned for a movie. Oh, well.
Psychic Neanderthals? Weird! I'm wondering if it turns out that the modern scientists turn out to be the ones responsible for the wipe out of the Neanderthal species? It sounds like a cliched novel. I see your point about Michael Crichton, though. It does sound like a Crichton ripoff.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-18 11:34 pm (UTC)