Wednesday Reading Meme
Sep. 13th, 2017 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I finished Edna Ferber’s Great Son, which remained disappointing right up until the end. The misogyny remains strong to the last page, and she doesn’t even do anything interesting with her Japanese characters. There are some vague feints in an anti-racist direction: the one openly racist character is Vaughn’s prudish wife, who we are supposed to despise, and in response to one of her complaints about “Those Japs are all alike,” Vaughn mutters, “Nobody’s all alike.”
But the son of the Japanese family attempts to steal Vaughn’s grandson’s plane on the morning of Pearl Harbor, presumably with the intent of… flying to Hawaii to join in? Suicide bombing Boeing? WHO KNOWS. In any case he fails, and soon after the family is “whisked away to a secret place,” at which point Vaughn’s wife trumpets “didn’t I always say I always felt there was something I never did trust?” - and that’s the end of it.
I also finished Nancy Bond’s A String in the Harp, which I enjoyed in a mild way, although I was disappointed that neither of Peter’s sisters ever get to see any visions from Peter’s magical harp key. Well, I guess they sort of do, because the visions start spilling over into the real world - most notably in the form of a wolf who slides out of time into modern-day Wales and has to be hunted down - and I did really like that aspect of the key’s magic, actually, that blurring of times. But still. The girls’ role is to believe or disbelieve and neither of them gets to see.
What I’m Reading Now
Julia L. Sauer’s Fog Magic, which I might have read before. I remember reading - something - about a girl who found magical adventure by walking into a fog bank - and this might be that story; and yet it doesn’t seem quite the same, the details don’t really match what I remember, and it doesn’t feel familiar to me as I read.
Does anyone else know of another book about a girl walking into the fog and finding something magical? Or is my memory just playing tricks on me?
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve almost finished the Unread Book Club! There are only three left: Duncan Wall’s The Ordinary Acrobat: A Journey into the Wondrous World of the Circus, Past and Present, Elyne Mitchell’s The Silver Brumby, and Dorothy Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon. Victory is within my grasp!
Although it has occurred to me that I have a whole nother box of hundred-year-old books that I inherited from my grandmother that I still haven’t touched. Maybe those will be my project for next year.
I finished Edna Ferber’s Great Son, which remained disappointing right up until the end. The misogyny remains strong to the last page, and she doesn’t even do anything interesting with her Japanese characters. There are some vague feints in an anti-racist direction: the one openly racist character is Vaughn’s prudish wife, who we are supposed to despise, and in response to one of her complaints about “Those Japs are all alike,” Vaughn mutters, “Nobody’s all alike.”
But the son of the Japanese family attempts to steal Vaughn’s grandson’s plane on the morning of Pearl Harbor, presumably with the intent of… flying to Hawaii to join in? Suicide bombing Boeing? WHO KNOWS. In any case he fails, and soon after the family is “whisked away to a secret place,” at which point Vaughn’s wife trumpets “didn’t I always say I always felt there was something I never did trust?” - and that’s the end of it.
I also finished Nancy Bond’s A String in the Harp, which I enjoyed in a mild way, although I was disappointed that neither of Peter’s sisters ever get to see any visions from Peter’s magical harp key. Well, I guess they sort of do, because the visions start spilling over into the real world - most notably in the form of a wolf who slides out of time into modern-day Wales and has to be hunted down - and I did really like that aspect of the key’s magic, actually, that blurring of times. But still. The girls’ role is to believe or disbelieve and neither of them gets to see.
What I’m Reading Now
Julia L. Sauer’s Fog Magic, which I might have read before. I remember reading - something - about a girl who found magical adventure by walking into a fog bank - and this might be that story; and yet it doesn’t seem quite the same, the details don’t really match what I remember, and it doesn’t feel familiar to me as I read.
Does anyone else know of another book about a girl walking into the fog and finding something magical? Or is my memory just playing tricks on me?
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve almost finished the Unread Book Club! There are only three left: Duncan Wall’s The Ordinary Acrobat: A Journey into the Wondrous World of the Circus, Past and Present, Elyne Mitchell’s The Silver Brumby, and Dorothy Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon. Victory is within my grasp!
Although it has occurred to me that I have a whole nother box of hundred-year-old books that I inherited from my grandmother that I still haven’t touched. Maybe those will be my project for next year.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 01:11 pm (UTC)That's eye-rollingly stupid about the Japanese son stealing the plane. Sheeesh.
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Date: 2017-09-14 12:39 am (UTC)The plane thing is particularly maddening because the book brings it up and then just drops it, so we never do find out if young Will Nakaisuki genuinely thought he could... join in on Pearl Harbor somehow... from Seattle. Why even throw that in there if you're not going to do anything with it, Edna Ferber??? It's two throwaway lines that take the book from "less racist than you'd expect really" to "THE JAPANESE ARE ALL SPIES ALL OF THEM ALL OF THEM!!!"
no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-14 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 03:57 pm (UTC)Oh, Edna Farber, no!
Does anyone else know of another book about a girl walking into the fog and finding something magical? Or is my memory just playing tricks on me?
Andre Norton's Steel Magic (1965, also known as Gray Magic) involves time-travel in a mist, although it also involves three children and magical utensils. I suspect there are others that match more closely.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-14 12:45 am (UTC)I think I would remember magical utensils! And also I'm pretty sure I only ever read one Andre Norton book (I can't remember anymore which one). I didn't like it, so I never went on to any others.
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Date: 2017-09-13 04:52 pm (UTC)Well done! \o/
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Date: 2017-09-14 12:46 am (UTC)Of course, as I have been reading down the original stack, I've gathered a small clutch of new books that I haven't read. The Unread Book Club never truly ends.
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Date: 2017-09-13 07:18 pm (UTC)I'm curious about what you'll think of it. It's . . . not really a good book in the traditional sense. But it's the source of all my powerful convictions re: why you should never marry a detective, so. . .
"whisked away to a secret place,”
D:
no subject
Date: 2017-09-14 12:47 am (UTC)From Poirot I have learned that you don't even need to marry the detective. Just being his friend will make murders interrupt every holiday ever.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-14 01:15 am (UTC)Murder is Contagious is probably already the title of several books.