Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

The Snow Maiden and Other Russian Tales, translated and retold by Bonnie C. Marshall, is not the most enlivening read - the tales are told in a very bare-bones, stripped down style - but I did learn some useful Russian werewolf tidbits from one of the stories, wherein a man transformed into a wolf doesn’t eat raw meat because if he does, he would remain transformed forever. This feels like a good detail to work into my Little Red Riding Hood story. (He also transforms back after someone puts a caftan on him, which may not fit in the story so well, but perhaps…)

And I finished Enid Blyton’s In the Fifth at Malory Towers! The girls are putting on a pantomime inspired by Cinderella, which sounds completely delightful. Also! The other shoe has FINALLY dropped for Gwen: at last she’s realized that the reason she’s so unpopular with the other girls is that she’s self-absorbed and petty and completely uninterested in anyone but herself. Will she manage to parlay this realization into actual behavioral changes and make a real friend??? There’s one more book to find out!

What I’m Reading Now

At last I’ve had the opportunity to carry on with The Shadowy Horses, Susanna Kearsley’s book about an excavation of a possible marching camp for Rome's Ninth Legion. It’s readable enough, but I must admit my main emotional reaction so far is a sudden burning desire to reread Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth.

What I Plan to Read Next

Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory is waiting for me at the library! And also POSSIBLY are my two interlibrary loans on Ilf and Petrov’s book about their American road trip (I couldn’t tell if they both contained the photographs, or if one was just photographs and the other had the text, so I requested both American editions), although they may not have made their way to my branch from the Central library yet. LET’S HOPE SO.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

I thiiiiink it's not so much caftan-specific as the fact that it's a piece of human clothing (in ye olden days, Russian peasant men wore caftans), but tbf my knowledge of Russian fairy tales is not that extensive so maybe there is something special about caftans. In any case, I'm having trouble imagining why Masha might drop a piece of clothing on a wolf whom she has no reason to suspect is a werewolf.

I can only imagine that One-Storied America will be a TRIP in all senses of the word. Do not disappoint me, library!

[ancientreader]

Oh, of course, duh. I can be so literal sometimes -- though, as you say, the mystery of why someone would drop any garment at all on a random wolf remains. I suddenly got all wild-eyed and imagined dropping underwear on a wolf's head. STOP, brain, just STOP.