Off to Paris!
Jun. 7th, 2024 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerTomorrow evening I am off to Paris! I will be meeting littlerhymes there, and we will be traipsing through the City of Light for a little over a week. We will walk the paths in Giverny! Admire the art in the Louvre! Eat one extremely fancy lunch! Probably also eat our weight in various French pastries!
I'm not taking my computer, so I won't be posting till I return, but I look forward to regaling you all with stories of our adventures when I get back.
Have just discovered that I have misplaced my adaptor plugs (?!), so if they don't turn up I suppose I will be going to Target tomorrow to buy a replacement. Annoying! But such is life. And while I was searching for them I found a beautiful notecard that I thought I had lost forever, so this wee little cloud had a silver lining.
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Also, in the interest of clearing the decks of all before-the-trip book reviews: I finished Herbert Best's Garram the Hunter: A Boy of the Hill Tribes, illustrated by Best's wife Erick Berry, author of Winged Girl of Knossos, one of my favorite finds in the Newbery Honor Project.
Garram the Hunter is not destined to join the list of favorites. It's a boy's own adventure story in that classic mode where there's a lot of adventure and very little character development, which is not my thing. However, kudos to Best for writing, in 1930, an adventure novel set in Africa featuring all African characters (from a couple of different ethnic groups that are clearly quite distinct), no white people at all, and almost no racial theorizing behind the offhand comment "Cruel the African native may be, but he loves a joke." (Does this not simply describe humanity?)
There's also something of a theme about The Importance of Maintaining Military Preparedness Even After Years of Peace, in which the modern reader, blessed with hindsight, sees the looming specter of World War II. But 1930 is perhaps too early for Best to be worried specifically about another war with Germany.
littlerhymes there, and we will be traipsing through the City of Light for a little over a week. We will walk the paths in Giverny! Admire the art in the Louvre! Eat one extremely fancy lunch! Probably also eat our weight in various French pastries! I'm not taking my computer, so I won't be posting till I return, but I look forward to regaling you all with stories of our adventures when I get back.
Have just discovered that I have misplaced my adaptor plugs (?!), so if they don't turn up I suppose I will be going to Target tomorrow to buy a replacement. Annoying! But such is life. And while I was searching for them I found a beautiful notecard that I thought I had lost forever, so this wee little cloud had a silver lining.
***
Also, in the interest of clearing the decks of all before-the-trip book reviews: I finished Herbert Best's Garram the Hunter: A Boy of the Hill Tribes, illustrated by Best's wife Erick Berry, author of Winged Girl of Knossos, one of my favorite finds in the Newbery Honor Project.
Garram the Hunter is not destined to join the list of favorites. It's a boy's own adventure story in that classic mode where there's a lot of adventure and very little character development, which is not my thing. However, kudos to Best for writing, in 1930, an adventure novel set in Africa featuring all African characters (from a couple of different ethnic groups that are clearly quite distinct), no white people at all, and almost no racial theorizing behind the offhand comment "Cruel the African native may be, but he loves a joke." (Does this not simply describe humanity?)
There's also something of a theme about The Importance of Maintaining Military Preparedness Even After Years of Peace, in which the modern reader, blessed with hindsight, sees the looming specter of World War II. But 1930 is perhaps too early for Best to be worried specifically about another war with Germany.
