Wednesday Reading Meme
Jan. 19th, 2022 08:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Alex Beam’s Broken Glass: Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight over a Modernist Masterpiece is not quite as delightful as The Feud: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the End of a Beautiful Friendship, but that’s a very high bar to beat and the book is still pretty fun. Edith Farnsworth was a doctor specializing in kidney research, for whom Mies van der Rohe designed the Farnsworth House, an ethereally beautiful summer cottage which turned out to be practically unlivable because (1) the walls are mostly windows made of single-plane plate glass, so the house is a greenhouse in the summer and an icebox in the winter, and (2) van der Rohe situated it on the flood plain.
I looked at pictures of the Farnsworth House and I regret to inform you that it is every bit as beautiful as every fawning architectural critic ever gushed. It does, however, raise yet again the question of whether modernist architects were designing houses or beautiful sculptures that people regrettably lived in.
(Farnsworth eventually got tired of dealing with Farnsworth House and moved to Italy, where she resided in a sumptuous villa and translated Italian poetry.)
Also Dana Simpson’s Phoebe and Her Unicorn and Unicorn on a Roll: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure, which I’ve meant to read for ages now and it just seemed like the right time. It’s sort of Calvin and Hobbsian, except about a girl and her unicorn instead of a boy and his tiger, and it’s light and delightful and I will probably read the next eleven books of it.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m struggling with Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave. I didn’t know it was possible to struggle with a Mary Stewart book! But Merlin keeps meeting so many mean people (his new tutor just turned out to be a member of a cult that practices ritual human sacrifice, LIKE YOU DO), and there’s so much casual misogyny. I know it’s the characters and not Stewart’s, because I’ve read so many of her other books and it’s not present there… but I’m still just not in the mood for it right now.
I hate to abandon a book when I’m almost halfway through, but reading it in this mood is just not doing it justice. I’m going to put it aside and tackle the quartet another time.
In cheerier news, I’ve begun Charles Boardman Hawes’ The Great Quest, which I approached with dread because his book The Dark Frigate is probably the most boring book that ever won the Newbery Medal. But to my surprise, The Great Quest has been reasonably entertaining so far! Astonishing. Of course Hawes still has two-thirds of the book to get boring, but perhaps he’ll manage to stay interesting!
What I Plan to Read Next
Planning to burn through the rest of the Phoebe and Her Unicorn series.
Alex Beam’s Broken Glass: Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight over a Modernist Masterpiece is not quite as delightful as The Feud: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the End of a Beautiful Friendship, but that’s a very high bar to beat and the book is still pretty fun. Edith Farnsworth was a doctor specializing in kidney research, for whom Mies van der Rohe designed the Farnsworth House, an ethereally beautiful summer cottage which turned out to be practically unlivable because (1) the walls are mostly windows made of single-plane plate glass, so the house is a greenhouse in the summer and an icebox in the winter, and (2) van der Rohe situated it on the flood plain.
I looked at pictures of the Farnsworth House and I regret to inform you that it is every bit as beautiful as every fawning architectural critic ever gushed. It does, however, raise yet again the question of whether modernist architects were designing houses or beautiful sculptures that people regrettably lived in.
(Farnsworth eventually got tired of dealing with Farnsworth House and moved to Italy, where she resided in a sumptuous villa and translated Italian poetry.)
Also Dana Simpson’s Phoebe and Her Unicorn and Unicorn on a Roll: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure, which I’ve meant to read for ages now and it just seemed like the right time. It’s sort of Calvin and Hobbsian, except about a girl and her unicorn instead of a boy and his tiger, and it’s light and delightful and I will probably read the next eleven books of it.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m struggling with Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave. I didn’t know it was possible to struggle with a Mary Stewart book! But Merlin keeps meeting so many mean people (his new tutor just turned out to be a member of a cult that practices ritual human sacrifice, LIKE YOU DO), and there’s so much casual misogyny. I know it’s the characters and not Stewart’s, because I’ve read so many of her other books and it’s not present there… but I’m still just not in the mood for it right now.
I hate to abandon a book when I’m almost halfway through, but reading it in this mood is just not doing it justice. I’m going to put it aside and tackle the quartet another time.
In cheerier news, I’ve begun Charles Boardman Hawes’ The Great Quest, which I approached with dread because his book The Dark Frigate is probably the most boring book that ever won the Newbery Medal. But to my surprise, The Great Quest has been reasonably entertaining so far! Astonishing. Of course Hawes still has two-thirds of the book to get boring, but perhaps he’ll manage to stay interesting!
What I Plan to Read Next
Planning to burn through the rest of the Phoebe and Her Unicorn series.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-19 02:06 pm (UTC)Yes re: Farnsworth House. Beautiful and unlivable. It's like those architects don't want to be tied down by the constraint of having to make a place actually habitable--and like, my friends: you understand that you have to be tied down by the constraints of your materials, right? Like you don't try to use a bendy material when you need it to be stiff or vice versa, so why not wrap your head around the constraint of human-friendliness. But somehow THAT is lowering themselves. IDK. Yeah: there should be a special category of sculpture called house-sized sculpture, maybe. I mean you could make a sculpture that looked like a sink and faucet, but if water wouldn't flow properly through it, you can't really consider it a working sink and faucet, so on that criterion if fails, and same with these houses.
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Date: 2022-01-19 09:40 pm (UTC)Farnsworth House is a gorgeous sculpture that I would love to visit, but it sounds basically unlivable - and not particularly designed to be lived in. I left out the part where the roof wasn't properly sealed and it pulled away from the walls so during one rainstorm water went streaming down the inside of the windows. This got fixed, but it sort of encapsulates van der Rohe's approach to the house.
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Date: 2022-01-19 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-19 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-20 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-20 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-21 02:57 pm (UTC)Speaking of Newbery Medals, I saw this article and thought you might be interested!
no subject
Date: 2022-01-22 03:09 pm (UTC)