Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

After having the book out of the library for literal months (I may have actually checked it out before lockdown), I have AT LONG LAST finished Nadezhda Mandelstam’s memoir Hope against Hope. It focuses mainly on the four years between her husband Osip Mandelstam’s first arrest in 1934 and his second (and final) arrest in 1938, a grace period which she frequently refers to as “a miracle,” although it’s also clear that the hopes raised and repeatedly dashed during this reprieve were in effect a part of the state persecution designed to grind them down.

When I used to read about the French Revolution as a child, I often wondered whether it was possible to survive during a reign of terror. I now know beyond doubt that it is impossible. Anybody who breathes the air of terror is doomed, even if nominally he manages to save his life. Everybody is a victim - not only those who die, but also all the killers, ideologists, accomplices and sycophants who close their eyes or wash their hands - even if they are secretly consumed with remorse at night. Every section of the population has been through the terrible sickness caused by terror, and none has so far recovered, or become fit again for normal civic life. It is an illness that is passed on to the next generation, so that the sons pay for the sins of the fathers and perhaps only the grandchildren begin to get over it - or at least it takes a different form with them.

Otherwise most of my reading this week has been proofreading for Her Magical Pet, which should be coming out… tomorrow! I’ll be sure to post a link, it’s got loads of amazing stories. (And also a link to the companion volume, His Magical Pet, but I didn’t proofread that one so the only story I have read in it is my own.)

What I’m Reading Now

Still working on Mary Renault’s The Charioteer I’M SO SORRY I meant to read this faster, I know at least five of you want this review. Life has gotten away from me this week. On a logistical level Ralph/Laurie is clearly going to be way easier to swing than Andrew/Laurie, and also Ralph is pushing for it REALLY HARD; he just showed up at Laurie’s mother’s wedding to be Moral Support for Laurie, Ralph you are so extra, tbh Ralph’s ex-boyfriend Alec has a point when he says that Ralph takes too much on himself.

But because of Ralph’s tendency to take control of things in this lordly manner, I find myself on Team Andrew, logistical difficulties be damned. Maybe Andrew has actually had sex with five hundred men and Laurie will nearly die when he realizes that his innocent sweet Andrew is actually practically a sex god and once he has recovered from the shock they will live happily ever after.

I’ve also begun reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s Catriona! So far, Davie Balfour has spent the day wandering Edinburgh running errands. No sign of Alan Breck Stewart yet, but we have met the titular Catriona, full marks to Stevenson for promptitude on that one.

...Also I’ve abandoned the possibility of actually including an excerpt from my leads’ Kidnapped fic in my book, because there is no way that I can do the Lowland Scots dialogue. Readers will have to rest content with an enthusiastic discussion about the plot point where David Balfour and Alan Breck Stewart get tossed in a dungeon and the guards beat Alan for cheeking them (you know he would) and David cradles Alan’s battered head in his lap.

What I Plan to Read Next

Should I wait for the library to get Megan Whalen Turner’s Return of the Thief, or should I bow to the fact that I will inevitably want a copy and just buy it now?

Comments

[asakiyume]

I'm just knocked out by that quote. It feels, viscerally, so true. It's like what people say about slavery warping everyone who participated in it--the whole society. We're warped by what we live through. I feel warped by what we're going through now.

[osprey_archer]

I was reading another book recently about Mississippi during the 1960s (didn't post about it here because I mean to give it it's own post) and I think that's something you can really see there, too, the way that the slavery had warped the whole society even a hundred years after it was abolished.

I've done some reading about the differences in Reconstruction in the South versus the reconstruction of Germany after World War II, and why, basically, the South remained so much more fucked up than Germany did, and IMO it was because the South had so much longer to be warped. Nazi Germany was awful, but it lasted only twelve years; there were living people who remembered how to live another way. Slavery in the South lasted 250ish years.

[asakiyume]

Wow yeah. There's probably an academic paper in that .... you know, since you're an assistant professor of history and all....

[osprey_archer]

I've been watching the academic job market (particularly in history) crash and burn this year, and wow, did I EVER make the right choice getting out when I did. Not that I did it because I had any inkling this would happen; it was based on luck plus the realization that academia wants academics to extrude their history research into papers, while what I really wanted to do was extrude it into novels.

I actually am turning over an idea where I might be able to fit in a little wild-ass theoretical compare and contrast between the American South and Nazi Germany. Have you gotten my most recent letter? (I suspect this one hasn't arrived yet.) It's the one I talk about in that.

[asakiyume]

I haven't yet--maybe tomorrow or Friday.

And hugs re: whatever the personal stuff is.

PS That's part of the reason I got out of academics too

[kore]

That is some quote. What a brilliant explanation of systemic trauma.

Maybe Andrew has actually had sex with five hundred men and Laurie will nearly die when he realizes that his innocent sweet Andrew is actually practically a sex god and once he has recovered from the shock they will live happily ever after.

OH BOY.

[ancientreader]

I have never read this fanfic of The Charioteer and now I desperately want to, despite my soft spot for Ralph's lordly caretaking; osprey_archer should get right on that, don't you think?

[evelyn_b]

1000% agreement from me.

[troisoiseaux]

Thirded!

[osprey_archer]

This book is FULL of great quotes, I'm almost sorry that I didn't read it slower so I could post more of them, but also there comes a time when you just have to finish a book.

[minutia_r]

I can kindle-loan you my copy of Return of the Thief, if you want, just let me know what email address is associated with your Amazon account, if it's not the one I already have?

Also, consider: if there's no way you can do the Lowland Scots dialogue, is it possible that your characters have a similar lack of confidence in their ability to write Lowland Scots dialog and have decided to write the fic without it?

[osprey_archer]

I have come up with a third option, which is buying myself a copy to celebrate once I finish the novella that I am accidentally writing somehow??? and obviously this prospect will be a more potent carrot if I haven't read it beforehand.

TBH I'm also not sure there's a good place to wedge a wodge of Kidnapped fanfic into the book. (In any case, the characters are not writing their story down, just talking it out before the fire.) However, I am filing this away as something that I might have characters do in a future book - not necessarily Kidnapped fic, but fic for something.

[azdak]

Hello, just dropping in to say that I adore "Kidnapped" but "Catriona" is, alas, a very disappointing sequel, even after Alan Breck eventually shows up.

[osprey_archer]

I had a suspicion about Catriona based on the fact that I had never heard of it before, but the characters reference it in the book that I'm writing so I want to have read it if only so they can hate it with proper passion.

[azdak]

That's the best reason for reading Catriona that I've ever heard!

[rachelmanija]

That quote, wow.

[osprey_archer]

Right? Generational Trauma, The Quote.

[troisoiseaux]

I’M SO SORRY I meant to read this faster, I know at least five of you want this review.

Being one of the at least five, I hope you don't feel pressured to finish it quickly for our sakes! I'm excited to hear what you think but, like, obviously I'd hope you enjoy reading it rather than feeling pressured or rushed.

[osprey_archer]

Well, it's not that I feel pressured to finish it quickly so much as I made barely any progress this week at all. Life Stuff happened and I didn't feel up to having feelings about fictional things. It's so irritating when life gets in the way of books...

[evelyn_b]

No pressure from me! Seconding the hope that you take your time and enjoy.

(as someone who LOATHES Ralph/Laurie with my whole heart and will be Team Andrew for life, I doubt that Andrew has had sex with five hundred men; he is too busy doing good works, but I DO think Laurie underestimates his capacity for self-awareness and equanimity and does the both of them a disservice.

You know who DOES NOT care about preserving the dewy innocence of precious baby pacifists? And is happy to pick up anyone's leavings at the first opportunity? Bunny. Have you met Bunny yet? He is a Negative Caricature, but would probably still be my favorite even in the AU where I can stand Ralph).

[aurumcalendula]

Have you read MildredMost's Golden Age?

[evelyn_b]

I have not! Thanks for the rec; I'll check it out when I get the chance.

[osprey_archer]

Perhaps Andrew views sharing his sex god abilities as one of his good works for the world? However, five hundred is A Lot, and anyway it would probably blow Laurie's mind if Andrew had had sex with even just one man before.

I have met Bunny! And possibly Bunny is less horrible when you meet him in a situation where he does not walk in on his boyfriend wooing another man behind his back? Few people show at their best in that siutation.

[evelyn_b]

Bunny is never less horrible. That's why he's my favorite.