Wednesday Reading Meme
Feb. 21st, 2018 08:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I finished Mary Downing Hahn’s Stepping on the Cracks, and ultimately I did mellow about Elizabeth, The Meanest Best Friend Ever, although I’m not sure if it’s because Elizabeth grew as a person or because Hahn didn’t actually intend her to be that mean in the first place and didn’t quite notice she’d written her that way. But in the end I think Hahn’s ghost stories are better: Wait Till Helen Comes still haunts me.
I also mellowed on Kathleen Norris as I went along in The Cloister Walk, not least because she has a few good and thoughtful chapters about the virgin martyrs, whom no one ever properly appreciates even though they are the most badass saints.
I think the idea that they’re dying for their virginity trips people up (and “it’s better to die than be raped” is certainly the spin the patriarchy often gives their stories), but there’s more to them than that: they’re not dying just for virginity or even just for bodily autonomy but for autonomy, full stop, for the right to live their lives according to their own beliefs rather than bowing to the rules of society. The virgin martyrs are the ultimate nonconformists. They’re suppose to get married and have children whom they will raise to die for the glory of Rome, and they say, “Nah, fuck that.”
Like action heroes cracking wise as the bad guys beat them up, the virgin martyrs remain smart and sarcastic right up until they get their their heads cut off - and sometimes even decapitation doesn’t stop them. In fact, in a wider sense decapitation never stops them, because the virgin martyrs always win the ultimate victory both in the sense that they ascend to heaven and because their torments generally win dozens of converts within the story itself.
In fact, sometimes they convert the first bad guy, who is duly martyred too by the next round of bad guys.
But also sometimes the virgin martyrs just keep talking post-beheading. As a true badass does.
However, I still found Norris tiresome whenever she started talking about poetry. There’s something about the way she talks about the importance and majesty of poetry and the sacred calling of the poet that reminds me of Plato’s decision to have his perfect republic ruled by philosophers, just like him. Yes, of course people just like you are the most important and also the most intelligent and spiritually evolved people in society. Of course.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m listening to Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park on audiobook and YOU GUYS, why did I deprive myself of this book for so many years? It’s been on my reading list forever! And it’s so good! And I only just now got to it! But on the other hand this means that I have cleverly saved myself a treat to help ease myself into my new job, so that was awfully nice of past me, now wasn’t it.
I’m also reading Aunt Dimity and the Duke, which like all Aunt Dimity books is delicious popcorn (possibly I should substitute something more British for popcorn. It’s a delicious chocolate-dipped digestive biscuit?), and also What Katy Did Next, in which Katy Carr of What Katy Did fame goes to Europe. It’s a bit too much of a travelogue for my tastes but we’ll see where it goes.
What I Plan to Read Next
carmarthen sent me Rosemary Sutcliff’s Simon! I AM PRETTY EXCITED.
I finished Mary Downing Hahn’s Stepping on the Cracks, and ultimately I did mellow about Elizabeth, The Meanest Best Friend Ever, although I’m not sure if it’s because Elizabeth grew as a person or because Hahn didn’t actually intend her to be that mean in the first place and didn’t quite notice she’d written her that way. But in the end I think Hahn’s ghost stories are better: Wait Till Helen Comes still haunts me.
I also mellowed on Kathleen Norris as I went along in The Cloister Walk, not least because she has a few good and thoughtful chapters about the virgin martyrs, whom no one ever properly appreciates even though they are the most badass saints.
I think the idea that they’re dying for their virginity trips people up (and “it’s better to die than be raped” is certainly the spin the patriarchy often gives their stories), but there’s more to them than that: they’re not dying just for virginity or even just for bodily autonomy but for autonomy, full stop, for the right to live their lives according to their own beliefs rather than bowing to the rules of society. The virgin martyrs are the ultimate nonconformists. They’re suppose to get married and have children whom they will raise to die for the glory of Rome, and they say, “Nah, fuck that.”
Like action heroes cracking wise as the bad guys beat them up, the virgin martyrs remain smart and sarcastic right up until they get their their heads cut off - and sometimes even decapitation doesn’t stop them. In fact, in a wider sense decapitation never stops them, because the virgin martyrs always win the ultimate victory both in the sense that they ascend to heaven and because their torments generally win dozens of converts within the story itself.
In fact, sometimes they convert the first bad guy, who is duly martyred too by the next round of bad guys.
But also sometimes the virgin martyrs just keep talking post-beheading. As a true badass does.
However, I still found Norris tiresome whenever she started talking about poetry. There’s something about the way she talks about the importance and majesty of poetry and the sacred calling of the poet that reminds me of Plato’s decision to have his perfect republic ruled by philosophers, just like him. Yes, of course people just like you are the most important and also the most intelligent and spiritually evolved people in society. Of course.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m listening to Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park on audiobook and YOU GUYS, why did I deprive myself of this book for so many years? It’s been on my reading list forever! And it’s so good! And I only just now got to it! But on the other hand this means that I have cleverly saved myself a treat to help ease myself into my new job, so that was awfully nice of past me, now wasn’t it.
I’m also reading Aunt Dimity and the Duke, which like all Aunt Dimity books is delicious popcorn (possibly I should substitute something more British for popcorn. It’s a delicious chocolate-dipped digestive biscuit?), and also What Katy Did Next, in which Katy Carr of What Katy Did fame goes to Europe. It’s a bit too much of a travelogue for my tastes but we’ll see where it goes.
What I Plan to Read Next
carmarthen sent me Rosemary Sutcliff’s Simon! I AM PRETTY EXCITED.
