Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Frans de Waal’s Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, which has made me want to read his other books, of which there are many… because if there’s one thing I need, it’s a new author to follow, right?

I put off reading Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place because I got the impression somewhere that it was a self-righteous tract about how lying is always a sin, even if you’re lying to the Nazis to protect the Jews hidden in your attic. But now that I’ve read it I’m pretty sure this is actually just the way some Evangelical readers interpret the book, because Corrie had some relatives who followed this philosophy and it worked out for them, through either divine intervention or luck, depending on your view.

Corrie herself lies when necessary, although with pangs of conscience, because she had been raised in the belief system that lying is always wrong. But she doesn’t only lie when forced to it, but actually practices lying: the family shakes her awake at midnight to simulate a possible arrest by the Nazis, so she’ll have practice answering “We have no Jews here” rather than mumbling, groggy and disoriented, “Oh, they’re behind the false wall.”

Willa Cather’s My Antonia is another book I put off reading, in this case because I had the impression that Antonia gets raped at some point in the book, which also turns out to be incorrect. Maybe I should try to stop gathering impressions of books that I haven’t read, although probably it’s not entirely avoidable.

But actually in this case the delay worked out well, because I don’t think I would have appreciated the book as much when I was younger. It’s a slow book, with a lot of description of the Nebraska prairies and the different immigrant groups settling the country and not a lot of action: the narrator, Jim Burden, is often an onlooker rather than a participant, a little bit in love with Antonia and some of her friends (also strong immigrant girls), but not so much that the book ever becomes a love story. Or rather, it’s about love of a time and a place rather than a person.

What I’m Reading Now

The very first chapter of Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women burnt up my hope that maybe the heroines would remain friends for the entire book, but it also got me all invested so I kept reading. All of See’s books seem to have this ur-scene where the heroines’ friendship shatters when they confront each other over some great betrayal - I don’t know why she feels the need to repeat it over and over, but I should probably just accept it and stop hoping for something else.

And although it does share this tic with See’s other work, this book is one of her best - perhaps not quite up there with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but then that is the first See book I read so it may have an unfair advantage. The Island of Sea Women is set on Jeju Island, where women deep sea divers are traditionally the main support for their families, and this portrayal of a traditional society where women have a lot more power and freedom than in many traditional societies is so interesting.

I’ve also been reading Dorothy Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, which is an unexpectedly delightful look at office culture in interwar Britain. Lord Peter has taken a job as a copy writer for an advertising firm in order to investigate a murder, using his two middle names, Death Bredon, and yes Dorothy Sayers did in fact give her detective the name Death, Lord Peter is the Most Extra and I love it.

What I Plan to Read Next

evelyn_b, we had talked about maybe reading Kristin Lavransdattar in tandem. Are you still interested? I’ve acquired a copy, so we could start whenever is convenient for you.

I’ve also realized that Andrea Cheng’s The Year of the Book, which I read last year, is in fact the first book of a five-book series (although alas there will be no more after that: Cheng died a few years ago), so now I want to read them all.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

Murder Must Advertise is one of my favorite Sayers novels! I always find it delightful when authors write from their own little niche, in Sayers' case because she actually worked in advertising in the 1920s.

[kore]

I thought I wouldn't like it, from what I'd heard, before I read it (in keeping with the theme), but it really was quite funny.

[osprey_archer]

Yes! I'm sooo curious if any of the side characters at the advertising firm are actually expys of any of her former coworkers, although probably not actually curious enough to read a Sayers biography to find out.

[troisoiseaux]

According to Wikipedia:

Most of the action of the novel takes place in an advertising agency, a setting with which Sayers was very familiar as she had herself been employed as a copywriter at S. H. Benson's agency, located at Kingsway from 1922 to 1931. In chapter 12 of the novel she quotes the slogan "Guinness is good for you", from her own jingle "If he can say as you can. / Guinness is good for you / How grand to be a Toucan / Just think what Toucan do". Her colleague Bobby Bevan was the inspiration for one of the characters in the novel, Mr Ingleby.

[evelyn_b]

The highly successful advertising campaign (for cigarettes, oops) you'll encounter at the end of the book is also an expy of a real Sayers campaign (The Mustard Club).

And you may notice that Death Bredon immediately recognizes and appreciates a fellow author-insert when he encounters Miss Meteyard.

[osprey_archer]

Slightly belated reply but YES I wondered if Miss Meteyard, the lone female copywriter, might be a Sayers self-insert. DOROTHY SAYERS NEVER CHANGE.

[kore]

lying is always a sin, even if you’re lying to the Nazis to protect the Jews hidden in your attic

//FLASHBACK to reading Kant at SJC

(at the student show one year, someone came up with a musical parody, something like "If Jewish people fill your cellar, when comes a-knockin' a Nazi feller, should you tell a lie?" Only it was, well, funny).

I only read My Antonia and O Pioneers because they were assigned in an advanced AmLit class, but I really liked them for all that. Cather's short stories are great.

There's a new translation of Kristin L out, right?

[osprey_archer]

I should probably read O Pioneers sometime but I also feel that I may have hit my Cather quotient for, like, the year, so that may have to wait for 2020.

My entire knowledge of Kristin L comes from a single paragraph that I read in a blog post one time, so I have no idea if there's a new translation out. I bought the one that was on the bookstore shelf.

[evelyn_b]

Ok, but consider how difficult it is not to be extra when you bear the noble burden of all of Dot Sayers' imaginary money AND Death is literally your middle name. Maybe you were going to be just an ordinarily extra dude, but your parents, regardless of the fact that your last name was ALREADY "Wimsey," decided the best thing to do was to throw DEATH into the mix. WHAT THEN.

I am 100% still interested in Kirstin, but I'll need another week to get out of this trapped-at-my-desk situation with work. I'll let you know!

(I had the same impression about Corrie ten Boom and avoided it. I'm glad to hear she practiced lying so that she could be more convincing).

[osprey_archer]

Peter was truly doomed from be extra right from the start. I am 100% convinced that he tried to convince at least some of his Eton classmates to call him Death, and this may in fact have been what pushed them to give him the totally non-metal nickname "Flimsy."

Meanwhile, Alleyn stands in the background, hand smacked to his forehead.

I am in no hurry about Kirstin. Whenever you're ready to start is fine by me! (With the minor exception that I will be on vacation Tuesday-Thursday next week and thus away from my Kirstin book.)

I feel like evangelical Corrie ten Boom fans have to be their own worst enemies if they're giving everyone outside their own little niche the impression that the book is insufferably priggish.

[anelith]

I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for a book club, and it scarred me for life. The foot-binding scenes were horrific, as they should be. That kind of heartrending book is just not my thing, though, so I dropped out of that book club.

Someone told me that Wimsey's middle name is one of those weird English ones that are never pronounced the way you think -- they said it was "Deeth" to rhyme with "teeth." Still extra, I think.

[osprey_archer]

I would like to say that See's books are not all like that, but in fact they are ALL like that, if not worse... except maybe China Dolls, but that's probably her weakest book in other respects, so clearly "heartrending" is where it's at with her.

In fact they discuss this in the book! Wimsey (in character as his imaginary disreputable cousin, "Death Bredon") explains that some people pronounce it Deeth but he prefers pronouncing it to rhyme with breath. More dramatic that way.

It's unclear whether this is Peter's own feeling or if he just thinks that's in character for death Bredon the dope peddler, though.

[anelith]

Ah, thanks for the reminder! It's been awhile since I read Murder Must Advertise.

[thisbluespirit]

’ve also been reading Dorothy Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, which is an unexpectedly delightful look at office culture in interwar Britain.

Oh, that's the one I like that isn't Gaudy Night! (I am terribly Wrong about this, but unfortunately I read GN first and could never forgive the rest of the series for being about some annoying aristocratic male detective instead of women in academia. But even so I liked that one!)

[osprey_archer]

Gaudy Night is probably the worst novel to start the Lord Peter books because it is so completely unlike the others that it's practically false advertising. None of the others are like it even slightly.

[thisbluespirit]

They aren't! It was probably a bad move, but I picked it up all unknowing in a charity shop with a train journey ahead of me and it's hard to regret even now.

[genarti]

I've been very vaguely meaning to read (or at least learn more about) My Antonia for ages; I remember seeing it on a bookshelf as a kid, and liking the title and whatever atmospheric prairie-ish picture was on the cover, but having the impression it was a Long Boring Book Grown-Ups Like. And now I am a grown-up who likes long boring-to-kids books, but I didn't really know anything more about this one, and whether it was really worth reading. So I'm very interested by your positive review!

Murder Must Advertise is always great, though. It's not my favorite of the Lord Peter books -- I enjoy the office stuff, but don't love the Harlequin parts -- but it has a lot that's delightful and a lot that's fascinating info about office realities in the period, and I totally understand why it's many other people's favorite.

Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are? is an EXCELLENT title and has me immediately interested in the book just based on that!

[osprey_archer]

My Antonia is definitely one of those books that I think most kids wouldn't like very much. But you might like it now!

So far I think the Harlequin parts are HILARIOUS for how well Lord Peter is playing out a certain romantic fantasy - the Mysterious Man! who appears Out of the Darkness! and seems to be interested in YOU AND ONLY YOU ("you" in this case being "Dian de Momerie"). He's basically Tuxedo Mask. But I hope it's not all going to end tragically for Dian.

[genarti]

It's true, he absolutely and deliberately and hilariously is playing straight to fantasy trope there! Well played, Lord Peter. One wonders how many breathless potboilers he read as background research...

[brigdh]

I've been eyeing Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? for my own tbr list, since it sounds so very good!

I also keep hoping Lisa See's books will be slightly different than they actual are, though in my case it's because I keep hoping they will end with happy lesbian romances. But clearly she and I have different tastes in fiction!

[osprey_archer]

I don't always get the vibe that her heroines are in love with each other (although in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, absolutely yes) but at this point I would settle for absolutely any ending other than the one we always get.

In fact, what is up with the prevalence of "these two women's close friendship is torn apart by a TERRIBLE BETRAYAL" books in literary fiction? So many times I've read the back cover of a book and I'm digging it right up to the last sentence where it's like "...and then their friendship was SUNDERED FOREVER" and it's like come on. How about you just leave their friendship unsundered and they bake cakes together?

[brigdh]

I think it's part of the general trend that literary fiction must be depressing or at least a little grim, or else it's not "realistic" enough. There's very few novels of happy marriages or healthy parent-child relationships in the genre either, after all.

Though now that I'm thinking of it, you probably could get a literary fiction book that ended with unsundered friendship... as long as the beginning was terrible enough. "Two women who struggle past their abusive childhood to find healing in one another" or some such! Although that summary could totally describe several of See's books and the friendship still falls apart, so who knows.