Wednesday Reading Meme
Sep. 8th, 2021 08:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
When I was in elementary school my friend Micky and I bonded over our mutual loathing of Cynthia Voigt’s Dicey’s Song, so it was with some dismay that I realized I was enjoying the sequel, A Solitary Blue. Who even am I as a person? Maybe it’s just that I’m an adult now; maybe Voigt is one of those children’s book authors adults tend to enjoy more than children.
A Solitary Blue gives us the backstory of Dicey’s boyfriend, Jeff Greene. Jeff’s mother Melody abandoned the family when Jeff was seven, leaving Jeff with his emotionally distant absentminded professor father and a boatload of abandonment issues. A few years later, Melody invites Jeff to come stay with her for the summer, and at first Jeff is bowled over by her warmth and charm and ability to make him feel like the center of the universe just by looking into his eyes. Slowly, however, as instances of Melody’s selfishness and unreliability mount, Jeff realizes that the ability to make someone feel seen and loved in the moment is not the same as actually seeing and loving them as a whole person, and that Melody does not and perhaps cannot love him that way.
The rest of the book is about Jeff slowly learning how to trust and reach out to other people again. It’s also about Jeff’s father realizing that he’s been emotionally absent from Jeff’s life, and learning how to be present. He has a dramatic wake-up call when he almost fails to notice that Jeff has come down with a virulent fever, but his reformation afterward is understated. He simply begins making an effort to be present, to pay attention to Jeff, and he does this so calmly and quietly and reliably that slowly both Jeff and the reader come to understand that this change is here to stay.
I also knocked off Wayne Vansant’s The Red Baron: A Graphic History of Richthofen’s Flying Circus and the Air War of WWI, which was meant to be research for… a book I am not writing right now after all… but time spent reading about World War I fighter pilots is always time well spent, I suppose.
What I’m Reading Now
Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic! I’ve had a long Mary Stewart hiatus, because I save Mary Stewart books for trips (that way I know I’ll have something enjoyable, fast-paced, and reasonably light to read on the journey) and of course there haven’t been many trips for the past year and a half… but over Labor Day weekend I went to Tennessee to visit a penpal, so Mary Stewart has returned! This book is set in Greece, and I always think that Stewart’s books in Greece (The Moon-Spinners, My Brother Michael) are particularly strong. She must have found the country inspiring.
For a few months I took a break on Anthony Beevor’s Stalingrad, because I couldn’t handle anymore about the poor civilians of Stalingrad (the evacuation, such as it was, was extremely late and half-hearted), but now I’m back in the saddle. The tide of battle has turned: the Soviet armies have encircled the Germans, who are clinging to the thought that Hitler will save them by Christmas, unaware that Hitler doesn’t even intend to try.
What I Plan to Read Next
On my trip I spent a happy hour trawling a used bookstore, and found Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s And Condors Danced. A Zilpha Keatley Snyder I haven’t read yet! So excited.
When I was in elementary school my friend Micky and I bonded over our mutual loathing of Cynthia Voigt’s Dicey’s Song, so it was with some dismay that I realized I was enjoying the sequel, A Solitary Blue. Who even am I as a person? Maybe it’s just that I’m an adult now; maybe Voigt is one of those children’s book authors adults tend to enjoy more than children.
A Solitary Blue gives us the backstory of Dicey’s boyfriend, Jeff Greene. Jeff’s mother Melody abandoned the family when Jeff was seven, leaving Jeff with his emotionally distant absentminded professor father and a boatload of abandonment issues. A few years later, Melody invites Jeff to come stay with her for the summer, and at first Jeff is bowled over by her warmth and charm and ability to make him feel like the center of the universe just by looking into his eyes. Slowly, however, as instances of Melody’s selfishness and unreliability mount, Jeff realizes that the ability to make someone feel seen and loved in the moment is not the same as actually seeing and loving them as a whole person, and that Melody does not and perhaps cannot love him that way.
The rest of the book is about Jeff slowly learning how to trust and reach out to other people again. It’s also about Jeff’s father realizing that he’s been emotionally absent from Jeff’s life, and learning how to be present. He has a dramatic wake-up call when he almost fails to notice that Jeff has come down with a virulent fever, but his reformation afterward is understated. He simply begins making an effort to be present, to pay attention to Jeff, and he does this so calmly and quietly and reliably that slowly both Jeff and the reader come to understand that this change is here to stay.
I also knocked off Wayne Vansant’s The Red Baron: A Graphic History of Richthofen’s Flying Circus and the Air War of WWI, which was meant to be research for… a book I am not writing right now after all… but time spent reading about World War I fighter pilots is always time well spent, I suppose.
What I’m Reading Now
Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic! I’ve had a long Mary Stewart hiatus, because I save Mary Stewart books for trips (that way I know I’ll have something enjoyable, fast-paced, and reasonably light to read on the journey) and of course there haven’t been many trips for the past year and a half… but over Labor Day weekend I went to Tennessee to visit a penpal, so Mary Stewart has returned! This book is set in Greece, and I always think that Stewart’s books in Greece (The Moon-Spinners, My Brother Michael) are particularly strong. She must have found the country inspiring.
For a few months I took a break on Anthony Beevor’s Stalingrad, because I couldn’t handle anymore about the poor civilians of Stalingrad (the evacuation, such as it was, was extremely late and half-hearted), but now I’m back in the saddle. The tide of battle has turned: the Soviet armies have encircled the Germans, who are clinging to the thought that Hitler will save them by Christmas, unaware that Hitler doesn’t even intend to try.
What I Plan to Read Next
On my trip I spent a happy hour trawling a used bookstore, and found Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s And Condors Danced. A Zilpha Keatley Snyder I haven’t read yet! So excited.
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Date: 2021-09-08 10:00 pm (UTC)Dicey's song I read but didn't love -- I wouldn't have recommended it as a place to start.