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Wednesday Reading Meme
Jul. 20th, 2016 09:25 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I finished Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley! Which was good for about a third of the book in the middle there - or perhaps I should say relevant to my interests, as that is the part of the book which is about Caroline and Shirley’s friendship - and then abruptly changes focus to documenting Shirley’s budding romance with her former tutor.
This is necessary for Bronte’s design, which is to end the book with a double wedding (where Caroline and Shirley marry two brothers, no less, and thereby become sisters themselves), but the abrupt shift is not artful. And to add insult to injury - or perhaps injury to insult - I didn’t particularly like Shirley’s relationship with her suitor. It reminded me of Bronte’s other unsuccessful novel, The Professor, which also has a romance narrated in the first person by the man, and in both cases the first person narration made that man seem terribly unpleasant to me.
I also think that Bronte finds “hot for teacher” an irresistibly romantic dynamic in a way that I don’t share, which probably makes me a hard sell when she writes romances of this type. Although I suppose there are elements of this in Vilette, and I really liked the final couple there...
I also read Frances Hodgson Burnett’s In the Closed Room, because it was free on Kindle and written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a combination which made it utterly irresistible to me. It turns out to be an absolutely forgetable ghost story, though - nothing like the power of Margaret Oliphant’s The Open Door (also beguilingly free on Kindle! Much worth reading!).
I find that ghost stories are either fantastic or totally forgettable and there’s not much in between.
What I’m Reading Now
At the Art Institute I found a totally charming book called Chicago By Day and Night: The Pleasure Seeker’s Guide to the Paris of America, which is a reprint of a travel guide to Chicago published just before the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Did I buy it? Of course I had to buy it. It’s just as charming as I hoped, too.
You know what I should write? A Chicago World’s Fair romance. I’ve read so much about it, and so much about the time period, I wouldn’t have to do much extra research, and there’s a built in audience for all things Chicago World’s Fair, thank you Erik Larson.
What I Plan to Read Next
Ngaio Marsh’s Death of a Peer. I much prefer the UK title, A Surfeit of Lampreys, but what can you do?
I finished Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley! Which was good for about a third of the book in the middle there - or perhaps I should say relevant to my interests, as that is the part of the book which is about Caroline and Shirley’s friendship - and then abruptly changes focus to documenting Shirley’s budding romance with her former tutor.
This is necessary for Bronte’s design, which is to end the book with a double wedding (where Caroline and Shirley marry two brothers, no less, and thereby become sisters themselves), but the abrupt shift is not artful. And to add insult to injury - or perhaps injury to insult - I didn’t particularly like Shirley’s relationship with her suitor. It reminded me of Bronte’s other unsuccessful novel, The Professor, which also has a romance narrated in the first person by the man, and in both cases the first person narration made that man seem terribly unpleasant to me.
I also think that Bronte finds “hot for teacher” an irresistibly romantic dynamic in a way that I don’t share, which probably makes me a hard sell when she writes romances of this type. Although I suppose there are elements of this in Vilette, and I really liked the final couple there...
I also read Frances Hodgson Burnett’s In the Closed Room, because it was free on Kindle and written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a combination which made it utterly irresistible to me. It turns out to be an absolutely forgetable ghost story, though - nothing like the power of Margaret Oliphant’s The Open Door (also beguilingly free on Kindle! Much worth reading!).
I find that ghost stories are either fantastic or totally forgettable and there’s not much in between.
What I’m Reading Now
At the Art Institute I found a totally charming book called Chicago By Day and Night: The Pleasure Seeker’s Guide to the Paris of America, which is a reprint of a travel guide to Chicago published just before the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Did I buy it? Of course I had to buy it. It’s just as charming as I hoped, too.
You know what I should write? A Chicago World’s Fair romance. I’ve read so much about it, and so much about the time period, I wouldn’t have to do much extra research, and there’s a built in audience for all things Chicago World’s Fair, thank you Erik Larson.
What I Plan to Read Next
Ngaio Marsh’s Death of a Peer. I much prefer the UK title, A Surfeit of Lampreys, but what can you do?
