Wednesday Reading Meme
Jan. 27th, 2021 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
rachelmanija’s review of Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow intrigued me so much that I immediately put the book on hold. It’s such a different kind of post-apocalyptic novel. Unlike many recent post-apocalypses, which tend to posit total community breakdown after the apocalypse, Moon of the Crusted Snow focuses on the tension between continuity and disintegration at the remote northern Ashinaabe community after some apocalyptic event (we never learn what) destroys cell service and the power grid and leaves more southerly (and more reliant on modern technology) communities in chaos.
rachelmanija compared it to Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, which is also a closely observed portrait of a community (in that case, a community of nuns); it also reminded me of a sort of post-apocalyptic Cranford.
I did have one question about the ending… Did Evan die at the end? Scott shoots him, and we know that Scott’s a crack shot, and we never see Evan again afterward… But we also don’t get absolute confirmation of his death, and in the epilogue Evan’s girlfriend tells their children that they’re going to see Daddy, which is pretty dark if he is, in fact, dead.
I finally finished Jeff Dickey’s Rising in Flames: Sherman’s March and the Fight for a New Nation. I wish I had taken notes, because I’m thinking of using this campaign as part of Russell’s backstory in Sleeping Beauty - I think it would be really useful for the book to have him be part of an army that actually marched through the Deep South, so he could see slavery up close. However, I’ve got a lot more research to do before I’m ready to work on the book again, so maybe I’ll just reread Rising in Flames later.
What I’m Reading Now
Wilkie Collins’ Armadale so far has FIVE characters named Allan Armadale (but don’t worry, three of them are dead by the end of the preface).
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve meant to read Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow for ages and I am FINALLY going to do it.
“The world isn’t ending,” she went on. “Our world isn’t ending. It already ended. It ended when the Zhaagnaash came into our original home down south on that bay and took it from us. That was our world. When the Zhaagnaash cut down all the trees and fished all the fish and forced us out of there, that’s when our world ended. They made us come all the way up here. This is not our homeland! But we had to adapt and luckily we already knew how to hunt and live on the land. We learned to live here... But then they followed us up here and started taking our children away from us! That’s when our world ended again. And that wasn’t the last time. We’ve seen what this... what’s the word again?”
“Apocalypse.”
"Yes, apocalypse. We’ve had that over and over. But we always survived. We’re still here. And we’ll still be here, even if the power and the radios don’t come back on and we never see any white people ever again.”
rachelmanija’s review of Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow intrigued me so much that I immediately put the book on hold. It’s such a different kind of post-apocalyptic novel. Unlike many recent post-apocalypses, which tend to posit total community breakdown after the apocalypse, Moon of the Crusted Snow focuses on the tension between continuity and disintegration at the remote northern Ashinaabe community after some apocalyptic event (we never learn what) destroys cell service and the power grid and leaves more southerly (and more reliant on modern technology) communities in chaos. rachelmanija compared it to Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, which is also a closely observed portrait of a community (in that case, a community of nuns); it also reminded me of a sort of post-apocalyptic Cranford. I did have one question about the ending… Did Evan die at the end? Scott shoots him, and we know that Scott’s a crack shot, and we never see Evan again afterward… But we also don’t get absolute confirmation of his death, and in the epilogue Evan’s girlfriend tells their children that they’re going to see Daddy, which is pretty dark if he is, in fact, dead.
I finally finished Jeff Dickey’s Rising in Flames: Sherman’s March and the Fight for a New Nation. I wish I had taken notes, because I’m thinking of using this campaign as part of Russell’s backstory in Sleeping Beauty - I think it would be really useful for the book to have him be part of an army that actually marched through the Deep South, so he could see slavery up close. However, I’ve got a lot more research to do before I’m ready to work on the book again, so maybe I’ll just reread Rising in Flames later.
What I’m Reading Now
Wilkie Collins’ Armadale so far has FIVE characters named Allan Armadale (but don’t worry, three of them are dead by the end of the preface).
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve meant to read Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow for ages and I am FINALLY going to do it.
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Date: 2021-01-27 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-27 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-27 05:40 pm (UTC)XD As I said, "the eponymous character" in Armadale is... complicated!
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Date: 2021-01-27 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-27 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-27 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-27 10:18 pm (UTC)I have had Gentleman in Moscow on the TBR pile for forever....
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Date: 2021-01-27 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-28 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-28 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-29 12:12 am (UTC)