Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

At last I’ve finished Tom Reiss’s The Black Count! General Dumas’s life was a rip-roaring adventure (there’s a part where he stands on a bridge and single-handedly holds off a whole horde of Austrians until the French reinforcements can arrive) and Reiss writes it well, so it should not have taken me ages to finish this book. But I dragged my feet because I knew going in that the French Revolution was going to degenerate into a bloodbath, and then (after a five year pause of comparative sanity, during which France invaded everyone, so really it wasn’t that sane after all) Napoleon was going to take over and rip the beating heart out of revolutionary ideals, and that’s all just such a bummer.

Also! Also! People familiar with French history doubtless already knew this, but APPARENTLY France crossed the Alps and conquered Italy in 1796-97 - only to lose it again when Napoleon stranded a large portion of the French army in a bitter campaign in Egypt. So all this ballyhoo about “Napoleon crossing the Alps” only became necessary because Napoleon vainglorious self-aggrandizing narcissistic invasion of Egypt ruined France’s previous gains.

Also he was super racist and reinstated a lot of racist laws that the Revolution had overturned and re-legalized slavery in the colonies where it had never successfully been eradicated (it being somewhat difficult to enforce a policy on a colony that is halfway around the world when one’s own government at home is in a constant state of turmoil). Everything I learn about Napoleon lowers my opinion of him. I am heartily sorry that his fellow generals didn’t assassinate him the way that Brutus and Cassius assassinated Caesar when he got too big for his britches.

What I’m Reading Now

Fire and Hemlock! Which I am quite enjoying. It’s definitely got it’s “the past was another country” moments: I can’t imagine anyone today letting a ten-year-old girl go off to London to spend an entire day with a strange man she barely knows, and met when she accidentally gate-crashed a funeral. This seems even weirder to me than the magic, although the magic as yet is still quite subtle.

I missed out on most of Diana Wynne Jones as a child - I read Witch Week 10,000 times so I’m not sure why I didn’t go on to the others; I think I read one of the other Chrestomanci books and didn’t like it as much and that was that? Clearly unfortunate. Must rectify it.

I’ve also started Enid Blyton’s The Enchanted Wood, which sadly I think I would have appreciated it 200% more if I had first read it when I was eight or so and too young to care about characterization and prose style or lack thereof.

In a way this is a relief because it means I’m off the hook for reading Blyton’s 500 other books (that number may not be an exaggeration: she was very prolific), but at the same time she’s a titan of children’s literature so I’m sorry I’m not appreciating her more. I’ll at least finish this book just in case it grows on me.

What I Plan to Read Next

Emma lent me Helen Simonson’s The Summer Before the War, which I really ought to read in time to give it back to her at Christmas.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

You can't always expect a Brutus and Cassius to come along and have stabby shippy tent scenes! It is probably as well in most cases, though.

I can’t imagine anyone today letting a ten-year-old girl go off to London to spend an entire day with a strange man she barely knows, and met when she accidentally gate-crashed a funeral.

Hurrah for it finally arriving! It is a very strange book, though, which is one of the reasons I hesitate to rec it. (I mean, I love it to pieces, it's possibly my favourite book, but I think a familiarity with DWJ is helpful going in.) However, I don't think that is just 'the past is another country' territory - it's a strong indication of how messed up Polly's home life is, which Polly tends to take for granted (and the story is mostly her POV, so it's never explicit for the reader - this is a typical DWJ aspect, which is why I said, it helps to know her particular tics in some ways). (There is a later visit where Granny is involved, too, but Polly is older, knows Tom Lynn better (and Granny has met him and Knows Stuff herself - but Polly's parents are the issue. Unless I'm muddling up which visit Granny gets in on, of course.) But it is a weird book because that's true and, I think, intended, but the child reader takes it in quite happily as much as the Famous Five dashing off on adult-free adventures camping goodness only knows where. Which I suppose is also Now Here/Nowhere for you.

Also also when you have got to the end and it is not a spoiler there is something else I can point out about Polly & Tom and one of the factors in starting off their relationship. But it would be a spoiler this early on.

But enjoy the giant in the supermarket anyway! ;-)


Plus, Witch Week is great, and if you want more like that rather than Chrestomanci, I recommend Archer's Goon and The Ogre Downstairs for starters.

ETA: Sorry about all the editing! And all the waffling. /o\

[landofnowhere]

I was going to come in and say basically what you were going to say!

But yeah, now that I think of it, before one of the early visits (when she's 12 at the oldest, I forget) Polly calls up Granny to say "Mr Lynn asked me out and all my nice clothes are too small!" and her response is "did he ask you out, or did you ask him out?", and then leaves it at that.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, but by that time, it's not the first visit, and Granny (unlike her mother) has met Tom, even if only briefly, and, of course, Granny Knows Stuff about That House. But, yeah. It's not the past, it's Ivy.

[osprey_archer]

Cassius and Brutus didn't even manage to save Rome from tyranny in the end, so probably assassinating Napoleon would have been a non-starter too. Kicked off another wave of Terror, perhaps?

I suspect a Polly's-grandmother's-eye-view of this book would be an interesting read. She's sitting back there, rather cranky, not wanting to get too involved, but also watching Polly get involved with this disturbing possibly magical house (Polly has just snuck into it and heard a conversation that didn't happen there) - while at the same time Ivy gets so absorbed in her own problems that she literally forgets to wash Polly's hair for months on end... That's a pretty impressive level of self-absorption.

I also loved the bit where Polly sees her mother's lodger/new boyfriend chatting with another woman (presumably his other girlfriend?) and totally doesn't understand what's happening - but jumps on it when he offers her the money for a trip to London. Oh Polly. Someday that's suddenly going to make sense.

[thisbluespirit]

Cassius and Brutus didn't even manage to save Rome from tyranny in the end, so probably assassinating Napoleon would have been a non-starter too. Kicked off another wave of Terror, perhaps?

It would never end well, that's all we can say. ;-)

And as regards F&H, yes, yes, basically. (And, lol, it is the worst book for talking about partway through. It is a perfectly straightforward read in many ways, and humorous and kind of charming, and then afterwards, rather like POlly sorting through her recovered memories, you can spend forever pulling everything inside out and back again. Including how differently everything must look from different POVs.)

And seconding everyone else on Enid Blyton not being for adults. I read and re-read everything of hers I could growing up, and I did my uni dissertation on her writing and I can respect her achievement, but, yeah, not for adults! If you really want to do a couple to cross her more satisfactorily off the list, then Malory Towers, or one of the Adventure series will probably be a bit better to get one with, or the Naughtiest Girl, as the school's kind of interesting at least. But she is someone you need to encounter at the right age, and she was pretty racist and classist, too. I mean, worse than most. She just had a really really good knack of getting to the child-id, possibly more than anyone else has ever managed. (She was v strange; I can't help but find her a bit fascinating. I read the biogs when doing my dissertation and also have watched the film Enid, which might perhaps be better for you than trying to read the books, if you can get hold of it. It includes a lot about and from the books, as well as being interesting, I mean. I can't, at this late stage, swear to how accurate it is or isn't.)

[osprey_archer]

Enid Blyton was the one who did automatic writing, didn't she? Just poured out something like 10,000 words a day sometimes? My mind just boggles. How her hand must have cramped!

[thisbluespirit]

Yep, although I think she had a typewriter!

[sartorias]

Yeah, sadly the Blyton window fairly firmly closes after age twelve, if you are at all sensitive to prose.

I adored her books as a fourth grader, and to hold those memories, I don't reread the books.

[osprey_archer]

Ah, well. I guess nobody can read everything there is to read.

[sartorias]

Another thing, the casual, even complacent racism, though common at the time, will toss you repeatedly right out of the story.

[sovay]

So all this ballyhoo about “Napoleon crossing the Alps” only became necessary because Napoleon vainglorious self-aggrandizing narcissistic invasion of Egypt ruined France’s previous gains.

HANNIBAL DID IT BETTER.

[osprey_archer]

BUT HANNIBAL LOST, I'm sure Napoleon would say. Whereas Napoleon won! Which clearly makes Napoleon better than Hannibal! Never mind that Hannibal used goddamn elephants, while Napoleon crossed the Alps on a mule.

[ladyherenya]

Fire and Hemlock! I don't really have anything to say - or rather, there's lots I could say (because, Fire and Hemlock) but figure I should wait until you've finished it.

I had a similar experience with the Chrestomanci books - I spent years rereading the two I liked over and over (The Lives of Christopher Chant and Witch Week) rather than trying to find Jones' other books.

I was completely obsessed The Faraway Tree books and the Wishing Chair books when I was six or seven. And then, a few years later, I read a bunch of Blyton's mysteries and boarding school stories, which I think had slightly better characterisation. I still own a few Blyton books, but can't ever see myself reading any of them again... Maybe if I was reading them to a small child.

[osprey_archer]

The Faraway Tree would clearly be amazing if I were six or seven. Alas!