Wednesday Reading Meme
Mar. 27th, 2013 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I Just Finished Reading
I just finished a compilation of essays about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, most of which were interesting and useful and one of which was a literary analysis of erotic discourses in the book - you know, in the way that academics use the word “erotic” to mean “any emotion other than indifference.” Because if there’s one thing that Freudian literary analysis has taught us, it’s that anything can be interpreted as a metaphor for sex.
It occurs to me that academia shares this tendency with fandom, right up to the impulse to shout “This thing that is clearly not canon is totally canon!” I’m pretty sure that if you have to argue about whether it’s canon, it’s not canon.
AT ANY RATE. I draw the line at Tom/Eva, because she is like seven when she dies (which the article interprets as a narrative punishment for symbolic sexual transgression, which...I think is missing the entire point of everything). And also Tom/St. Clair, given that Tom is St. Clair’s slave, and just no.
Which is kind of making me side-eye my Esca/Marcus fics, because really, does the fact that it’s in ancient Rome make it that much better?
(I think the fact that ancient Roman slavery doesn’t really shape modern American society, while the legacy of the plantation system totally does, adds an extra level of potential gross to Tom/St. Clair, though.)
What I’m Reading Now
Still Sherwood Smith’s Danse de la Folie. This is just the speed I read things when I’m at school, you guys.
What I’m Reading Next
Given the rate I’m going, I’ll probably still be reading Danse de la Folie next Wednesday. But I’m thinking about reading Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Shield Ring afterward, or maybe Sun Horse, Moon Horse, because those (IIRC) are the last two Sutcliffs the library has that I’ve heard are worth the reading for their own sake and not merely completeness. (I also want to read Mark of the Horse Lord, but the library doesn’t have that one.)
Or! Or I should read Jane Austen’s Sanditon, so I’ll know what’s going on in the LBD sequel. Yes, I think that probably has to come first.
I just finished a compilation of essays about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, most of which were interesting and useful and one of which was a literary analysis of erotic discourses in the book - you know, in the way that academics use the word “erotic” to mean “any emotion other than indifference.” Because if there’s one thing that Freudian literary analysis has taught us, it’s that anything can be interpreted as a metaphor for sex.
It occurs to me that academia shares this tendency with fandom, right up to the impulse to shout “This thing that is clearly not canon is totally canon!” I’m pretty sure that if you have to argue about whether it’s canon, it’s not canon.
AT ANY RATE. I draw the line at Tom/Eva, because she is like seven when she dies (which the article interprets as a narrative punishment for symbolic sexual transgression, which...I think is missing the entire point of everything). And also Tom/St. Clair, given that Tom is St. Clair’s slave, and just no.
Which is kind of making me side-eye my Esca/Marcus fics, because really, does the fact that it’s in ancient Rome make it that much better?
(I think the fact that ancient Roman slavery doesn’t really shape modern American society, while the legacy of the plantation system totally does, adds an extra level of potential gross to Tom/St. Clair, though.)
What I’m Reading Now
Still Sherwood Smith’s Danse de la Folie. This is just the speed I read things when I’m at school, you guys.
What I’m Reading Next
Given the rate I’m going, I’ll probably still be reading Danse de la Folie next Wednesday. But I’m thinking about reading Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Shield Ring afterward, or maybe Sun Horse, Moon Horse, because those (IIRC) are the last two Sutcliffs the library has that I’ve heard are worth the reading for their own sake and not merely completeness. (I also want to read Mark of the Horse Lord, but the library doesn’t have that one.)
Or! Or I should read Jane Austen’s Sanditon, so I’ll know what’s going on in the LBD sequel. Yes, I think that probably has to come first.
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no subject
Date: 2013-03-28 08:05 am (UTC)*joins you in side-eyeing own fic*
no subject
Date: 2013-03-28 01:46 pm (UTC)