Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Ysabeau S. Wilce’s Flora Segunda, which is a bit messy in both its plot and its worldbuilding, but worth it because of Flora’s voice. Flora is on the eve of her Catorcena, which she is dreading because, in between taking care of her giant magical house and her father, who was driven insane by his stint as a POW in the Huitzil empire, she doesn’t have her dress or her speech or her tamales ready, but even more so because after her Catorcena Flora, like all members of the Fyrdraaca clan since time immemorial, will have to join the army.

Flora’s mother, who is the general of the Califan army and also responsible for banishing the magical butler who ought to be taking care of the giant magical house, is very strict about this. But what Flora really wants to do is be a Ranger: a scout and a spy. And when she hears that one of the last Rangers has been captured and is slated to be executed, she decides it's up to her to save him...

What I’m Reading Now

Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is indeed better than her book Agnes Grey (I will never get over Agnes’s complaint that she wasn’t allowed to beat her charges as they clearly deserved). But there’s a reason why her sister Charlotte is better remembered.

Also Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur, which I’m listening to on CD. I tried to read this once before and bombed out, but it turns out that it works way better when you hear it read aloud. I am now envisioning nineteenth century families gathering around the kerosene lamp, Ma knitting, Pa whittling, and the younger children gazing into the lamp flame as the oldest sister reads to the whole family.

Oh, oh! And I’ve picked up Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin again: I’ve gotten to the chapter where Thomas is all “Hamlet is alien and alone and nobody understands him! And when I say Hamlet, I mean me,” and his buddy is like, “But he has Horatio! By whom I mean me.” Janet, who does not yet realize that Thomas is her romantic endgame, is not yet fretting about her possible Ophelian tendencies.

What I Plan to Read Next

asakiyume’s Pen Pal!

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I am Asakiyume and I approve of this upcoming reading matter!!

(And I'll be interested in your thoughts on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which I thought was pretty interesting.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I've gotten to the part where (name redacted for spoilers) was executed, and I had to put the book down for a bit because it made me tear up.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

*I* still get all torn up thinking about it. It's pretty horrible of me to say I'm glad that that feeling conveys. . . but I'm glad that feeling conveys.

And this is weird, because I was just on the other side of this equation with Ann Leckie and Ancillary Justice…. Her scene was even more intense, because it doesn't occur offstage. I sent her an email saying Nooooo, and she wrote,

saw a blog post a couple days ago where someone said "why did you have to do that to that character????" or similar in all caps. And I thought, "Oh, I'm sorry! But I had to!"

But she said writing it made her cry. I'm sure you've had similar experiences, writing.

[ursula]

Hmmm. I was not a fan of Tam Lin when I read it in seventh grade (my verdict at the time was "too much scheduling; not enough magic"), and I have wondered since how my thoughts would change on a re-read. But that sounds like the sort of romantic lead I grow impatient with quickly!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Right now Janet is going out with someone else, so Thomas is tolerable, but he may grow tiresome if the book starts focusing on him more.

It's rather an odd book. It's more interesting than likable, exactly, but it is interesting.

[littlerhymes]

Flora Segunda! ♥ /deep commentary

I'm pretty fond of Anne Bronte but, yeah, her books are pretty understated. They don't really have any "reader, I married him" or out on the wild and windy moors moments to leap out and hit you in the face.

I have mixed feelings about Tam Lin. I agree, interesting more than likable. And, ymmv of course, but no one I've ever met spoke like those characters. At all, anywhere, at any time.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I was just discussing the way the Tam Lin characters speak with a friend today! We're both huge lit nerds, but our conversations have never been peppered with literary quotations from anything, and on the rare occasions when we do get a quote in, it's almost always a little bit mangled.

Whereas the Tam Lin characters all happily spout off reams of poetry to each other at the drop of a hat. I suppose Janet's English professor father might have forced her to memorize tons of things, but why can the rest of them recite like this?

[anomilygrace.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, I LOVE Tam Lin. Like to the point where I can't even really talk about it rationally because I love it so much. I love the heightened reality - the spouting off reams of poetry and tiny hints of magic before Janet really figures out what's going on.

And I'm pretty sure the multi-page digression about a performance of Hamlet is one of my favorite ever.

It's just so ODD, and Dean completely doesn't care. I love it.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I'm curious to see if the Hamlet performance has deep metaphorical significance later. Will Thomas go in deeper with his identification with Hamlet? Will Janet, in fact, get in touch with her inner Ophelia? Or did Dean just really, really want to talk about Hamlet?