Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 15th, 2021 06:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
When I read all the Newbery Medal winners years ago: I left two off my list: the 1922 winner Hendrik Willem van Loon’s The Story of Mankind, and the 1940 winner James Daugherty’s Daniel Boone, on the grounds that nonfiction books that old were surely outdated and probably racist.
But as I’ve been reading all the Newbery Honor books, it’s been nagging me that I really ought to complete the project, and as Daniel Boone is a svelte 90 pages I decided to give it a try. To my surprise, it’s actually really good! Given the time period, it’s surprisingly respectful and culturally sensitive…
HA HA HA, sorry, I just can’t keep it up any longer. In actual fact, Daniel Boone is somehow even worse than I expected, never mind that I thought my expectations were rock bottom. The back cover depicts what Daugherty repeatedly calls an “Indian varmint,” a distortedly muscular figure in a style reminiscent of Thomas Hart Benton. (Daugherty did his own illustrations for this book). Similar figures adorn the endpapers (where they are, of course, wrassling with backwoodsman) and the illustrations within, which accompany a text which is exactly what you would expect given the illustrations.
Attroisoiseaux’s recommendation, I read Anne Boyd Rioux’s Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, an eminently readable book that I zipped through in two days and occasionally disagreed with vehemently. In particular, I thought her final chapter about The State of Girls’ Books today takes too dim a view of things (and also seemed outdated even for its own time of publication; the book came out in 2018, but the books it discusses are mainly 2000-2010). Yes, Little Women is great, but it doesn’t need to be better than everything else to be great, you know? It can be one of many fine books now available.
I did absolutely agree with Rioux’s assessment of the discourse about "Boys won't read books about girls," though. American culture has somehow managed to become more sexist on this topic than it was in the 1870s, when boys and men eagerly devoured Little Women (including our buddy William Dean Howells, by the way). It’s ridiculous.
What I’m Reading Now
Continuing my Alex Beam journey with American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church. Joseph Smith had just declared himself a candidate for president because of course he has.
Buwei Yang Chao’s How to Cook and Eat in Chinese has arrived through interlibrary loan! It has TWO introductions, one by Pearl S. Buck, who hopes that this book will convince American housewives to stop rinsing their rice after they cook it. I don’t know if Chao’s book was personally responsible, but the idea of rinsing cooked rice shocked my roommate and me TO OUR VERY SOULS, so someone must have gotten through to the American public.
What I Plan to Read Next
I am distressed to inform you that, despite my trials with Daniel Boone, I still feel that in the interest of completeness I ought to read The Story of Mankind. The library, conveniently but unhelpfully, has the original text - all six hundred odd pages of it! - in ebook form. Lord preserve us.
However, I will resist as long as possible! My hold on Amor Towles’ new book, The Lincoln Highway, has come in at last. (Still waiting with baited breath to see if Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice makes it to me before Christmas.)
When I read all the Newbery Medal winners years ago: I left two off my list: the 1922 winner Hendrik Willem van Loon’s The Story of Mankind, and the 1940 winner James Daugherty’s Daniel Boone, on the grounds that nonfiction books that old were surely outdated and probably racist.
But as I’ve been reading all the Newbery Honor books, it’s been nagging me that I really ought to complete the project, and as Daniel Boone is a svelte 90 pages I decided to give it a try. To my surprise, it’s actually really good! Given the time period, it’s surprisingly respectful and culturally sensitive…
HA HA HA, sorry, I just can’t keep it up any longer. In actual fact, Daniel Boone is somehow even worse than I expected, never mind that I thought my expectations were rock bottom. The back cover depicts what Daugherty repeatedly calls an “Indian varmint,” a distortedly muscular figure in a style reminiscent of Thomas Hart Benton. (Daugherty did his own illustrations for this book). Similar figures adorn the endpapers (where they are, of course, wrassling with backwoodsman) and the illustrations within, which accompany a text which is exactly what you would expect given the illustrations.
At
troisoiseaux’s recommendation, I read Anne Boyd Rioux’s Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, an eminently readable book that I zipped through in two days and occasionally disagreed with vehemently. In particular, I thought her final chapter about The State of Girls’ Books today takes too dim a view of things (and also seemed outdated even for its own time of publication; the book came out in 2018, but the books it discusses are mainly 2000-2010). Yes, Little Women is great, but it doesn’t need to be better than everything else to be great, you know? It can be one of many fine books now available. I did absolutely agree with Rioux’s assessment of the discourse about "Boys won't read books about girls," though. American culture has somehow managed to become more sexist on this topic than it was in the 1870s, when boys and men eagerly devoured Little Women (including our buddy William Dean Howells, by the way). It’s ridiculous.
What I’m Reading Now
Continuing my Alex Beam journey with American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church. Joseph Smith had just declared himself a candidate for president because of course he has.
Buwei Yang Chao’s How to Cook and Eat in Chinese has arrived through interlibrary loan! It has TWO introductions, one by Pearl S. Buck, who hopes that this book will convince American housewives to stop rinsing their rice after they cook it. I don’t know if Chao’s book was personally responsible, but the idea of rinsing cooked rice shocked my roommate and me TO OUR VERY SOULS, so someone must have gotten through to the American public.
What I Plan to Read Next
I am distressed to inform you that, despite my trials with Daniel Boone, I still feel that in the interest of completeness I ought to read The Story of Mankind. The library, conveniently but unhelpfully, has the original text - all six hundred odd pages of it! - in ebook form. Lord preserve us.
However, I will resist as long as possible! My hold on Amor Towles’ new book, The Lincoln Highway, has come in at last. (Still waiting with baited breath to see if Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice makes it to me before Christmas.)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 12:14 pm (UTC)I'm glad you at least partially liked it! I found it less persuasive the more contemporary it got— I washed my hands of the State of Girls' Books Today chapter halfway through, because I'd liked the historical context chapters so much I didn't want to ruin it by getting needlessly annoyed at her takes.
I was more gobsmacked than I should be that the 19th century reception of Little Women was less gendered than it was today— and that they taught it in schools!
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 04:11 pm (UTC)My understanding is that the barriers between books for adults and children, or books for men or women, or whatever, weren't as set in stone as they're often treated today. People might read Little Women and think "This will appeal especially to eleven-year-old girls!" but there was no accompanying "...and it is therefore off-limits to EVERYONE ELSE."
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 02:34 pm (UTC)Also I have just had to explain to him that a particular individual is not real. Not who you might think at this time of year: I read him his first Sherlock Holmes short story last night and he adored it but then we had a slightly confusing conversation in which it gradually became clear that he thought Holmes was a real person and this was a historical document...
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 09:34 pm (UTC)Joseph Smith :-/ What a total self-involved wanker he was.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 09:58 pm (UTC)I must confess that Joseph Smith is giving me Trump vibes, which makes the book less of a frolic than, say, the book about the quarrel between Nabokov and Wilson.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 10:00 pm (UTC)....I hadn't thought about Smith re Trump, but ughgh, you're right.