Wednesday Reading Meme
Aug. 23rd, 2017 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
The long voyage, with its comparative peace, was behind them: ahead was only war, and all that it might mean to the boys. The whole world suddenly centred round the boys. London was nothing; England, nothing, except for what it stood for; the heart of Empire. And the Empire had called the boys.
A quote from Mary Grant Bruce’s From Billabong to London. I don’t even believe in the Empire and this gave me goosebumps; I can only imagine the effect it must have had on readers in 1914 for whom the Empire seemed a great and glorious thing.
I also finished The Chestry Oak, which really was not that harrowing after all. Of course it’s not a walk in the park either - it is set during World War II - but Seredy skips over most of the really harrowing bits. In fact I was disappointed, which is really quite unfair of me given that I put off reading the book on account of the harrowing possibilities - but it does seem a bit like cheating to simply skip from Michael’s birth family to his adoptive family and leave out his year as a displaced child almost entirely.
And also The Motor Girls On Crystal Bay. The most exciting thing about the book was finding a long-forgotten piece of graph paper - left there no doubt by one of my ancestors - containing a string of nonsense words. What do they mean?
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve started Edna Ferber’s Great Son, which is going on tiresomely about spinsters - which is especially irritating as Ferber was a spinster herself. For goodness sake, Ferber, show some solidarity.
The book starts just before the beginning of World War II (and was written in 1945), and has already set up a quartet of Japanese characters (the family servants and their two children, who are studying at the University of Washington) and a German Jewish refugee girl who I’m pretty sure the son of the house has just fallen for - so I’m curious to see how that develops. Total trainwreck or actually pretty good? We’ll see!
What I Plan to Read Next
Two books arrived fromevelyn_b! Ngaio Marsh’s Final Curtain and Death in a White Tie. My next day off will be dedicated to at least one of these beauties.
The long voyage, with its comparative peace, was behind them: ahead was only war, and all that it might mean to the boys. The whole world suddenly centred round the boys. London was nothing; England, nothing, except for what it stood for; the heart of Empire. And the Empire had called the boys.
A quote from Mary Grant Bruce’s From Billabong to London. I don’t even believe in the Empire and this gave me goosebumps; I can only imagine the effect it must have had on readers in 1914 for whom the Empire seemed a great and glorious thing.
I also finished The Chestry Oak, which really was not that harrowing after all. Of course it’s not a walk in the park either - it is set during World War II - but Seredy skips over most of the really harrowing bits. In fact I was disappointed, which is really quite unfair of me given that I put off reading the book on account of the harrowing possibilities - but it does seem a bit like cheating to simply skip from Michael’s birth family to his adoptive family and leave out his year as a displaced child almost entirely.
And also The Motor Girls On Crystal Bay. The most exciting thing about the book was finding a long-forgotten piece of graph paper - left there no doubt by one of my ancestors - containing a string of nonsense words. What do they mean?
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve started Edna Ferber’s Great Son, which is going on tiresomely about spinsters - which is especially irritating as Ferber was a spinster herself. For goodness sake, Ferber, show some solidarity.
The book starts just before the beginning of World War II (and was written in 1945), and has already set up a quartet of Japanese characters (the family servants and their two children, who are studying at the University of Washington) and a German Jewish refugee girl who I’m pretty sure the son of the house has just fallen for - so I’m curious to see how that develops. Total trainwreck or actually pretty good? We’ll see!
What I Plan to Read Next
Two books arrived from
evelyn_b! Ngaio Marsh’s Final Curtain and Death in a White Tie. My next day off will be dedicated to at least one of these beauties.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-23 02:12 pm (UTC)What were the nonsense words? ... or ... have they now evanesced from the graph paper?
no subject
Date: 2017-08-23 11:29 pm (UTC)The nonsense words are:
Mrtaia
Fdera
Ktea
Croa
Bses
Belel
Ltoite
Balnha
Ltoite looks like it might be misspelled French of some variety, but goodness knows about the rest of them. Was my ancestor trying to create a code? Invent names for fantasy characters? WHO KNOWS.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-23 11:54 pm (UTC)I notice that all but Belel start with two consonants.
They all could be pronounced, more or less. Fascinating.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-24 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-24 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-24 09:16 pm (UTC)look:
BSES - BESS
BELEL - BELLE
KTEA - KATE
FDERA - FREDA
CROA - CORA
LTOITE - LOTTIE
(I have no brain tonight, so it's falling over and giving up at the others, but I think that's a bit too much of a coincidence to be wrong.)
ETA: Also, wow, the names used are v. early 20th C - how old is the book?
no subject
Date: 2017-08-24 10:39 pm (UTC)The book was published in 1914, so the timing is right, too!
no subject
Date: 2017-08-24 03:42 pm (UTC)I hope if Great Son is a trainwreck, it's at least the interesting kind. It sounds like it has some potential for Historical Interest at the very least.
but it does seem a bit like cheating to simply skip from Michael’s birth family to his adoptive family and leave out his year as a displaced child almost entirely.
Why does the story skip it? Is there a reason given (or implied)? Does Michael just not want to talk about it?
no subject
Date: 2017-08-24 09:01 pm (UTC)The story is told in third person, so whether or not Michael wants to talk about it is a moot point. I think the story skips it at least in part because it would make the book too long, though - the lost year is clearly quite eventful even from the brief mentions we get of it (he starts out in the hospital & then shuffles between orphanages and refugee camps and somehow meets an American soldier who manages to arrange for his family to adopt Michael in the US) and it could easily just go on and on.