osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2015-10-28 09:09 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2015-10-28 09:09 pm
Wednesday Reading Meme
What I've Finished Reading
Eugenia Ginzburg's Within the Whirldwind, the far-less-harrowing sequel to Journey into the Whirlwind. It's less harrowing both because a good half of the book takes place after Ginzburg's release (being released from the gulags came with its own problems, mind, but it's still better than actually being in a gulag), and also because in the first half of the book, she meets the man who becomes her second husband, whose presence irradiates her life.
I guess love really can bring light to the darkest of places. Or perhaps not the darkest - they meet when Ginzburg becomes a nurse at a gulag tuberculosis hospital, which in gulag terms is a pretty cushy position, although by any ordinary standard it's horrifying - but certainly in places much darker than one might imagine.
What I'm Reading Now
L. M. Montgomery's The Story Girl, which is fun but rather slight. All of her books are pretty clair, but there's often a half-hidden darker edge (not so hidden in the Emily books) which doesn't seem to exist so much in The Story Girl.
I've also just started Sarah Vowell's Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, which is about... well, the Marquis de Lafayette and the American Revolution and the French Revolution and also, possibly, just about revolutions in general, although we'll see how that develops. I enjoy Vowell's work because she has this tendency to bounce all over the place, drawing in things that are perhaps only tangentially related to her main subject but fascinating in their own right.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'm thinking about going on a bit of an L. M. Montgomery binge: the sequel to The Story Girl, The Golden Road, and perhaps also the two Pat books. There are still a few others that I haven't read, but I don't want to go and read them all at once.
Eugenia Ginzburg's Within the Whirldwind, the far-less-harrowing sequel to Journey into the Whirlwind. It's less harrowing both because a good half of the book takes place after Ginzburg's release (being released from the gulags came with its own problems, mind, but it's still better than actually being in a gulag), and also because in the first half of the book, she meets the man who becomes her second husband, whose presence irradiates her life.
I guess love really can bring light to the darkest of places. Or perhaps not the darkest - they meet when Ginzburg becomes a nurse at a gulag tuberculosis hospital, which in gulag terms is a pretty cushy position, although by any ordinary standard it's horrifying - but certainly in places much darker than one might imagine.
What I'm Reading Now
L. M. Montgomery's The Story Girl, which is fun but rather slight. All of her books are pretty clair, but there's often a half-hidden darker edge (not so hidden in the Emily books) which doesn't seem to exist so much in The Story Girl.
I've also just started Sarah Vowell's Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, which is about... well, the Marquis de Lafayette and the American Revolution and the French Revolution and also, possibly, just about revolutions in general, although we'll see how that develops. I enjoy Vowell's work because she has this tendency to bounce all over the place, drawing in things that are perhaps only tangentially related to her main subject but fascinating in their own right.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'm thinking about going on a bit of an L. M. Montgomery binge: the sequel to The Story Girl, The Golden Road, and perhaps also the two Pat books. There are still a few others that I haven't read, but I don't want to go and read them all at once.
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L. M. Montgomery claimed that The Story Girl was her favorite of her books, and it's easy to see why -- it was easy to write because so much of it had already been written in one form or another, and she was in good spirits generally. It was a fun, low-pressure project after the huge success of the first two Anne books and the unsatisfying ordeal of churning out Kilmeny for a demanding publisher.
The Pat books have a similar structure -- with many, many stories told by Judy Plum between RL incidents. The bulk of them is very cozy for the most part, but with Pat's anxiety always seeping in. They're set in their own present day, rather than a nostalgic past like The Story Girl, but of course they're drenched in pre-emptive nostalgia anyway.
I'm sorry for my inability to shut up about L. M. Montgomery, but obviously not enough to actually ever shut up about L. M. Montgomery. Anyway, I completely approve of this binge, and hope you don't hate Pat too much :(
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