Wednesday Reading Meme
Jul. 12th, 2017 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I galloped through Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night, and enjoyed them so thoroughly that I lent them straightaway to Emma and therefore cannot quote from either of them, more’s the pity. Although in the case of Have His Carcase this is not such a problem, because it’s easy to discuss its virtues without reference to direct quotes: it has one of the most perfect twist endings to a mystery that I have ever read. Everything’s a horrible muddle up to the end, and then one little detail comes into focus – absolutely unexpected and yet perfectly foreshadowed – and all is illuminated.
Gaudy Night, though, could bear quoting, and extensive quoting, and I want to read it again and bookmark the relevant quotes about the contemplative life – the life of the mind vs. the life of the heart (insofar as they are set against each other) – the way that this thematic argument intertwines and somewhat obscures the mystery (at least to Harriet’s mind) and yet is integral to it.
…also, I want a story where Harriet Vane and Agatha Troy meet. They have so much in common! They’re both prickly artists, both pursued by detectives who are tragically awkward about love (although Alleyn at least has the dignity not to propose to Troy every five minutes), and both at one point in their lives murder suspects, although Troy only sipped of the cup that poor Harriet drank nearly to the dregs.
Perhaps Peter commissions Troy to paint Harriet’s portrait. (Harriet doubtless hates the idea, but acquiesces on the ground that if she must be painted by anyone, it might as well be Troy.) Murder, inevitably, ensues.
What I’m Reading Now
I spent most of yesterday reading C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life sitting either on a lakeside bench shaded by a weeping willow or in a white wicker rocker by the open window, and it has proven itself more than equal to both settings. I ought to write more about it; perhaps later.
And I’m about halfway through a reread of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, and alas it is still no more than moderately pleasant. I had thought that perhaps I read it before I was ready for it, but maybe it simply was never going to be the L’Engle book for me. It just spells everything out, emotionally speaking – Meg meets Calvin and almost instantly there’s absolute trust and he’s pouring his heart out to her – and I guess I want more emotional tension between characters, never mind they’ve got cosmic evil to fight.
What I Plan to Read Next
Busman’s Honeymoon is next in queue!
And then, I think, I shall have a crack at E. Nesbit’s The Railway Children. I am a little concerned that one Nesbit will lead to another – and with Nesbit there seem to be absolute piles of others for it to lead to – but after all there are worse things.
I galloped through Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night, and enjoyed them so thoroughly that I lent them straightaway to Emma and therefore cannot quote from either of them, more’s the pity. Although in the case of Have His Carcase this is not such a problem, because it’s easy to discuss its virtues without reference to direct quotes: it has one of the most perfect twist endings to a mystery that I have ever read. Everything’s a horrible muddle up to the end, and then one little detail comes into focus – absolutely unexpected and yet perfectly foreshadowed – and all is illuminated.
Gaudy Night, though, could bear quoting, and extensive quoting, and I want to read it again and bookmark the relevant quotes about the contemplative life – the life of the mind vs. the life of the heart (insofar as they are set against each other) – the way that this thematic argument intertwines and somewhat obscures the mystery (at least to Harriet’s mind) and yet is integral to it.
…also, I want a story where Harriet Vane and Agatha Troy meet. They have so much in common! They’re both prickly artists, both pursued by detectives who are tragically awkward about love (although Alleyn at least has the dignity not to propose to Troy every five minutes), and both at one point in their lives murder suspects, although Troy only sipped of the cup that poor Harriet drank nearly to the dregs.
Perhaps Peter commissions Troy to paint Harriet’s portrait. (Harriet doubtless hates the idea, but acquiesces on the ground that if she must be painted by anyone, it might as well be Troy.) Murder, inevitably, ensues.
What I’m Reading Now
I spent most of yesterday reading C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life sitting either on a lakeside bench shaded by a weeping willow or in a white wicker rocker by the open window, and it has proven itself more than equal to both settings. I ought to write more about it; perhaps later.
And I’m about halfway through a reread of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, and alas it is still no more than moderately pleasant. I had thought that perhaps I read it before I was ready for it, but maybe it simply was never going to be the L’Engle book for me. It just spells everything out, emotionally speaking – Meg meets Calvin and almost instantly there’s absolute trust and he’s pouring his heart out to her – and I guess I want more emotional tension between characters, never mind they’ve got cosmic evil to fight.
What I Plan to Read Next
Busman’s Honeymoon is next in queue!
And then, I think, I shall have a crack at E. Nesbit’s The Railway Children. I am a little concerned that one Nesbit will lead to another – and with Nesbit there seem to be absolute piles of others for it to lead to – but after all there are worse things.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-12 09:17 pm (UTC)Great. Now I want this, too. Can you make it happen?
I am so glad you are enjoying Sayers.
and I guess I want more emotional tension between characters, never mind they’ve got cosmic evil to fight.
How do you feel about A Wind in the Door? That's the one that left the strongest impression on me.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-13 02:23 pm (UTC)Oh, this is a terrible idea. But I still kind of want to.
I did read A Wind in the Door, but I have no memory of it. I'm not sure I even read the third one, where Charles Wallace goes on the adventure without Meg - I think I decided I didn't care enough about Charles Wallace to read about him Megless - and I know I didn't read the one about Sandy and Dennys.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-13 06:57 pm (UTC)Do it do it do it.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-13 11:48 pm (UTC)As mentioned upthread, I felt that the book held up well when I listened to it on audio ~5 years ago. I may be biased by that, but it's also one of the ones that I remember most vividly (though I remember much of A Swiftly Tilting Planet fairly well despite not having read it since I was a teenager). The Mr. Jenkins sequence you mentioned is one of the most memorable bits, but also: the opening where Charles finds what he thinks are dragon droppings but turn out to be cherubim scales grabs me more than the opening of Wrinkle, Proginoskes is my favorite non-human L'Engle character; the farandolae stuff; Echthroi is a great name (and I was excited when I learned that "echthros" is actually the greek for "enemy").
no subject
Date: 2017-07-14 06:02 am (UTC)You're welcome!
As mentioned upthread, I felt that the book held up well when I listened to it on audio ~5 years ago. I may be biased by that, but it's also one of the ones that I remember most vividly (though I remember much of A Swiftly Tilting Planet fairly well despite not having read it since I was a teenager).
I do have a surprising stray amount of Planet in my head. The bits that don't work really don't work, but I think passages of it are more ambitious than anything else in the Murry novels, like the broken poetry of the chapter from Chuck's brain-damaged perspective. I learned "Saint Patrick's Breastplate" from it.
Proginoskes is my favorite non-human L'Engle character; the farandolae stuff
Yes! On both counts. The green-black heart-beating abyss of Yadah.
Echthroi is a great name (and I was excited when I learned that "echthros" is actually the greek for "enemy").
Yes! And specifically a personal enemy: a πολέμιος is a political enemy, someone you might be sent to fight, but an ἐχθρὸς is someone who hates you. Someone who is hateful. "Sky tearers. Light snuffers. Planet darkeners. The dragons. The worms. Those who hate." The only part of that I object to is the calumny against dragons, though I know how L'Engle means it.
All of that book just works.