Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Diana Pavlac Glyer’s The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, which I quite enjoyed. I am a total sucker for books about writers groups/writers friendships in general, and the Inklings in particular, and I recommend this for people who are interested in either.

As often happens after reading a book about the Inklings, I feel a strange urge to read one of Charles Williams’ novels, even though every description I have ever read of them - even the most affectionate - note that his prose is super opaque and unclear and all around difficult to read. No, self, don’t do it!

I also finished Miss Read’s Village School; the Miss Read books continue to be lovely and restful. This book had the added interest of a sequence where the characters put on a British history pageant, starting with the Romans and working their way onward from there. It reminded me very much of Rosemary Sutcliff’s books & the sweep of history that they cover - I somehow always assumed that this was Sutcliff’s own unique conception of history (probably because it’s so different than what one might call a popular view of history in the US), and discovering that it actually ties to a vision of history that was popular at the time makes it even more interesting to me.

What I’m Reading Now

Still slogging through the final Obernewtyn book. I still feel like there’s a good story in here struggling to break free of the morass of unnecessary logistical detail with which it has been cumbered - no, we don’t need a step-by-step description of how Elspeth gets every place she goes! (spoiler alert: there’s a lot of walking) - but damn. That’s a lot of morass.

In happier news, I’m still reading The Collected Raffles, which continues to be delightful. Raffles and Bunny have just spent a week living in someone else’s house on the sly while owner is away on holiday, possibly for no better reason than because Raffles wanted to read the owner’s collected volumes of Kinglake. (Kinglake, the magic of wikipedia informs me, is a Victorian travel writer.) He has been neglecting Bunny disgracefully in favor of Kinglake, in fact, and Bunny decides to retaliate by… cross-dressing in the clothes of the absent lady of the house? Clearly that will get Raffles’ attention! The slash is still practically writing itself.

What I Plan to Read Next

My “read a book that won a Pulitzer” challenge isn’t till December, but I’ve picked out a book for it when it comes: Tom Reiss’s The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, which is about Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. How could I resist that?

Comments

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Oh, Bunny. <3

I didn't know anything about Charles Williams, so I took a skim through Wikipedia, and those novels sound hella interesting. Maybe I'll give on of them a shot once I meet my "read the books I already own, damn it" goal.

. . . which is about Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. How could I resist that?

More to the point, why would you want to? I'll grab a copy for myself when the time comes! (books I already own be damned).

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I feel like I am constantly reading you off the straight and narrow path of reading books you already own. There are just so many books in this world! And so many of them need to be read!

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I've long since come to terms with the fact that I'm never going to be as 'virtuous' as I'd like with my reading. I think of my path as being more twisty-turny, like a labyrinth.

Come to think of it, trying to plot someone's reading list would probably be an entertaining application of chaos theory. You could make predictions based on various factors: what are their general preferences? what books have they already bought? what have they just finished reading? how many other books on the subject have they read lately? do they like to specialize, or are they a dilettante? what's their general mood that day? is their life fairly calm, or in a state of upheaval? are they taking any classes that have required reading? (Just to name a few.) But ultimately, we probably wouldn't be able to be more accurate than we are with the weather -- say, a "68% chance of Sedaris" or a "mostly L'Engle with a chance of Voltaire". (It would very rarely be more than a chance of Voltaire, at least with anyone who has any experience of Voltaire.)

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Ack, I meant Milton, not Voltaire. Somehow I always get the two mixed up. I remember reading a somewhat snarky quote from a contemporaneous academic about how Paradise Lost is one of those books that everyone wants to say they have read, but almost nobody actually can get through. Sorry, Voltaire!

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I knew that Lewis and Tolkien were friends, but I had no idea they had their own named group. How delightful!

I read The Chronicles of Narnia many times as a kid, and The Screwtape Letters in high school (though I don't think I had a lot of context for it at the time). I keep meaning to read more by Lewis - though I'm not possessed of anything like his faith, he and I have similar humanist leanings, as well as interest in archetypes and the necessity of story to human existence. Someday I will get there.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

I'd like to put in a rec for the Space Trilogy, Lewis' (sort of) science fiction, if you haven't already read it. It's geared toward adult readers rather than children, and is sometimes beautifully and sometimes uncomfortably weird. Definitely worth reading if you like Lewis!

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that does sound intriguing. Thank you!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I have always meant to read the Space Trilogy and never gotten around to it. Someday!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love The Screwtape Letters. They're sort of an inspiration for How to Be a Better Dictator, actually, the letter format and the wise old mentor explaining How to Evil Properly to a protege.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I credit them at least in part with inspiring my interest in intrigue and human nature, although I remember fairly little of them - it was more of an "I want to be able to understand better what's going on here!" feeling. I should really reread them now, two decades on.

[thisbluespirit]

This book had the added interest of a sequence where the characters put on a British history pageant, starting with the Romans and working their way onward from there.

It's something that crops up a lot when looking into local history of the 1930s (in particular, but also the 20s and sometimes after) - schoolchildren putting on pageants of the history of their town from whenever it started to the present day. It seems to have been a thing, although often covering the popular story type of history. (I think they're putting one on in a minor Streatfeild novel I read once as well, which might well have been a bit later, but then she was writing in the 30s too.)

He has been neglecting Bunny disgracefully in favor of Kinglake, in fact, and Bunny decides to retaliate by… cross-dressing in the clothes of the absent lady of the house?

LOL, Raffles. I think there's nothing 'practically' about it: the slash is there. Tell me when they actually kiss at the end. ;-D

Inklings always do make me curious about Williams's writing too, but it does sound like a pretty bad idea at the same time. Still, maybe someone should find out...

The Dumas one sounds interesting! I know a little about Dumas's father, but on the wikipedia level and not properly.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The Miss Read books were written in the fifties, but they're set in a country school so perhaps the history pageant trend has only just arrived there.

Bunny's crush on Raffles is visible FROM SPACE and 100% canon IMO; the real question is whether Raffles returns his feelings. Is he fond of him in his odd way? Or does he just keep him around as a useful duffer? Certainly he's not slow to leave Bunny behind when they get caught and Raffles sees a chance to make a break for it.

[thisbluespirit]

No, it was no doubt still going - as I said, it crops up a lot in local histories (i.e. in the country!) and Streatfeild's got a 1950s one. It does seem to have been a particularly big 1930s school thing, though - as with most things, it probably started before and continued on for a while!

Poor Bunny! He should have gone with McKenzie to the dark room instead. Or, hmm, maybe not, lol.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

HDU, Bunny is clearly going to be FOREVER TRUE to his one true love, Raffles, even if Raffles may never love him back. No dashing off with McKenzie to cheat in the dark room!

[thisbluespirit]

But he's so keen!



(When I first started looking up stuff about James Maxwell, I found that the wee Raffles fandom on tumblr speculated that maybe he hadn't been asked back for the series because he was too gay when clearly there is no such thing as too gay for 1970s TV Raffles anyway. (No#1 actual most likely reason is just that he wasn't available; he was busy founding a theatre in Manchester at that time.) But anyway, quite the achievement, eh? :lol: I'm pretty sure this gif set came labelled "Stranger Danger.")

[sovay]

He has been neglecting Bunny disgracefully in favor of Kinglake, in fact, and Bunny decides to retaliate by… cross-dressing in the clothes of the absent lady of the house? Clearly that will get Raffles’ attention!

Well, that's delightful.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Victorian literature! What can I say?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I liked Black Count a lot! It's a really fascinating period of history, and I learned so many new things.

I haven't read any of the Raffles story, though I have a general idea of them through cultural osmosis, but this:
Bunny decides to retaliate by… cross-dressing in the clothes of the absent lady of the house? Clearly that will get Raffles’ attention!
is AMAZING.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think we're meant to assume that Bunny is going to get Raffles attention by pretending to be the lady of the house and giving Raffles a fright that they've been caught, but his actual plans are never specified. BUNNY. WHY. WHY DON'T YOU FIND YOURSELF A BOYFRIEND WHO DOESN'T IGNORE YOU 3/4 OF THE TIME.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

BUNNY. WHY. WHY DON'T YOU FIND YOURSELF A BOYFRIEND WHO DOESN'T IGNORE YOU 3/4 OF THE TIME.

Don't be silly. If Bunny had a boyfriend who did not ignore him 3/4 of the time, Bunny would have a boyfriend who was not Raffles. QED.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to argue. Oh Bunny.