Wednesday Reading Meme
Nov. 6th, 2013 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, which I thought was going to be all about horses and friendship and going to a school that is kind of like a year round summer camp - God, the book I thought it was going to be was so awesome, let me pause to mourn its nonexistence.
Okay. Pause over. Yonahlossee is in fact a train wreck. Our heroine Thea had disturbing love affairs in both the “adolescence in Florida” and “later adolescence at Yonahlossee” storylines.
In the flashbacks to her Floridian youth, she’s having a romance with her cousin. Cousin romances qua cousin romances don’t bother me - I love Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins books, where the basic plot is “Which of her cousins will Rose marry?”
But The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls has this dirty/bad/wrong Flowers in the Attic feeling to it, which I find unpleasant to the point of actually repulsive. No, really, Thea, it’s kind of gross that your cousin is feeling you up under the dining room table at Thanksgiving dinner. It would be gross even if he were a non-blood-related boyfriend, but the fact that he’s your cousin who was almost like your brother makes it even grosser.
And in the Yonahlossee portions, Thea boinks her married headmaster. I’m not sure if I find the “married” or the “headmaster” part more disturbing. Possibly they feed off each other for maximum disturbingness?
The novel basically argues that it’s just ducky to leave a trail of destruction in your wake as long as you get yours.
This would be one thing if Thea’s sufferings came about purely because her parents found out about her affair with her cousin and sent her away as damaged goods. But no. They send her away because - this is a little involved - Thea had sex with her cousin, which was consensual but left her feeling so totally violated that when she ran into her brother and her cousin the next day she started sobbing hysterically and screaming “Don’t touch me!” Her brother hit her cousin over the head with the butt of his gun, leaving the cousin permanently and severely brain-damaged.
Her parents don’t send her brother away, which Thea considers a sign that they love him more, which it may well be. But given that he spent the days after the event basically catatonic with shock, it might just be a sign that they were afraid his mental health would shatter completely if they sent him away.
She makes a big deal about the fact that she's getting away from her parents and their expectations, which would make more sense if her parents gave any sense of having harsh or unreasonable expectations for her. But no, they basically let her spend her whole childhood riding free and untrammeled on her pony through their ridiculously large Floridian estate. Thea describes her childhood as idyllic, and I think we're meant to feel that she's realized that actually it wasn't - except every description she gives suggests that her childhood perception was accurate, her life really was Edenic. Her cousin was the snake who not only got her cast out, but destroyed Eden itself.
Because, aside from Thea, everyone else is basically wrecked by the event. Her cousin’s, of course, especially given that he eventually dies young from the wound; her aunt and uncle, who watch their only child die a slow and wrenching death; her mother and father, who are forced to leave their Floridian paradise, which results in her mother’s nervous breakdown; and her brother, who stays in Florida for his whole life. I’m not sure why this means he’s permanently damaged, but it’s not the choice Thea made, which means that she interprets it as wrong.
I suspect from her brother’s perspective, the fact that Thea flees Florida means that she’s the one with the permanently damaged life. Thea, however, plumes herself on “leaving this swathe of destruction” in her wake but coming out smelling of roses herself. Her headmaster-boyfriend told her that life is just “a series of events,” you know, so there’s no need to assign blame or feel guilty for cheating on one’s wife or bashing one’s cousin over the head and leaving him with severe brain damage.
Remind me never to read a mainstream novel with a blurb describing it as “sexy” ever again.
What I’m Reading Now
Psmith in the City! I decided that I needed something light to reward me for slogging through The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls. And indeed, Psmith is delightful! I find the cricket bits completely incomprehensible, but that’s all right, they’re rather short and most of the book revolves around Psmith being hilarious. Thanks for the recommendation,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
surexit!
What I Plan to Read Next
Between The Language of Flowers and The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, I’ve lost most of my enthusiasm for the whole “grown-up books for grown-ups” project, but nonetheless I’m going to give it one last try with Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child. The main couple lives a bazillion miles from anyone, so unless there’s a super sexy werefox stalking the wilderness there is no way they can have any affairs.
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, which I thought was going to be all about horses and friendship and going to a school that is kind of like a year round summer camp - God, the book I thought it was going to be was so awesome, let me pause to mourn its nonexistence.
Okay. Pause over. Yonahlossee is in fact a train wreck. Our heroine Thea had disturbing love affairs in both the “adolescence in Florida” and “later adolescence at Yonahlossee” storylines.
In the flashbacks to her Floridian youth, she’s having a romance with her cousin. Cousin romances qua cousin romances don’t bother me - I love Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins books, where the basic plot is “Which of her cousins will Rose marry?”
But The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls has this dirty/bad/wrong Flowers in the Attic feeling to it, which I find unpleasant to the point of actually repulsive. No, really, Thea, it’s kind of gross that your cousin is feeling you up under the dining room table at Thanksgiving dinner. It would be gross even if he were a non-blood-related boyfriend, but the fact that he’s your cousin who was almost like your brother makes it even grosser.
And in the Yonahlossee portions, Thea boinks her married headmaster. I’m not sure if I find the “married” or the “headmaster” part more disturbing. Possibly they feed off each other for maximum disturbingness?
The novel basically argues that it’s just ducky to leave a trail of destruction in your wake as long as you get yours.
This would be one thing if Thea’s sufferings came about purely because her parents found out about her affair with her cousin and sent her away as damaged goods. But no. They send her away because - this is a little involved - Thea had sex with her cousin, which was consensual but left her feeling so totally violated that when she ran into her brother and her cousin the next day she started sobbing hysterically and screaming “Don’t touch me!” Her brother hit her cousin over the head with the butt of his gun, leaving the cousin permanently and severely brain-damaged.
Her parents don’t send her brother away, which Thea considers a sign that they love him more, which it may well be. But given that he spent the days after the event basically catatonic with shock, it might just be a sign that they were afraid his mental health would shatter completely if they sent him away.
She makes a big deal about the fact that she's getting away from her parents and their expectations, which would make more sense if her parents gave any sense of having harsh or unreasonable expectations for her. But no, they basically let her spend her whole childhood riding free and untrammeled on her pony through their ridiculously large Floridian estate. Thea describes her childhood as idyllic, and I think we're meant to feel that she's realized that actually it wasn't - except every description she gives suggests that her childhood perception was accurate, her life really was Edenic. Her cousin was the snake who not only got her cast out, but destroyed Eden itself.
Because, aside from Thea, everyone else is basically wrecked by the event. Her cousin’s, of course, especially given that he eventually dies young from the wound; her aunt and uncle, who watch their only child die a slow and wrenching death; her mother and father, who are forced to leave their Floridian paradise, which results in her mother’s nervous breakdown; and her brother, who stays in Florida for his whole life. I’m not sure why this means he’s permanently damaged, but it’s not the choice Thea made, which means that she interprets it as wrong.
I suspect from her brother’s perspective, the fact that Thea flees Florida means that she’s the one with the permanently damaged life. Thea, however, plumes herself on “leaving this swathe of destruction” in her wake but coming out smelling of roses herself. Her headmaster-boyfriend told her that life is just “a series of events,” you know, so there’s no need to assign blame or feel guilty for cheating on one’s wife or bashing one’s cousin over the head and leaving him with severe brain damage.
Remind me never to read a mainstream novel with a blurb describing it as “sexy” ever again.
What I’m Reading Now
Psmith in the City! I decided that I needed something light to reward me for slogging through The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls. And indeed, Psmith is delightful! I find the cricket bits completely incomprehensible, but that’s all right, they’re rather short and most of the book revolves around Psmith being hilarious. Thanks for the recommendation,
surexit! What I Plan to Read Next
Between The Language of Flowers and The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, I’ve lost most of my enthusiasm for the whole “grown-up books for grown-ups” project, but nonetheless I’m going to give it one last try with Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child. The main couple lives a bazillion miles from anyone, so unless there’s a super sexy werefox stalking the wilderness there is no way they can have any affairs.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 06:57 pm (UTC)The word that kept coming to mind for me was "adolescent," in a way that a lot of books actually written for teenagers (and a lot of teenagers themselves) aren't. The main character's moral understanding of the world shows that she hasn't quite realized that other people have feelings or that those feelings really matter. The world doesn't revolve around Thea quite as much as it revolved around Victoria in The Language of Flowers, but there's still a sense that other people only exist in relation to Thea.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 07:59 pm (UTC)