Wednesday Reading Meme
May. 25th, 2022 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’m Just Finished Reading
As a traveling companion for The Once and Future Kingskygiants kindly sent Fay Grissom’s Portrait in Jigsaw, a gothic novel from 1975 which is simply A Lot. After the death of our heroine Alisdair’s mother, Alisdair’s grim father had Alisdair raised in seclusion on a remote Scottish estate. But when Alisdair emerges for her debut on her twenty-first birthday, she discovers that her mother Mai is not dead! And in fact is an internationally famous modernist novelist! Whose brilliant novels won a Nobel prize! And also she’s a Thai princess!!!
I kept expecting this last thing to turn into a trainwreck, and there’s definitely a classic 1970s “is this an attempt to critique racism or just plain racism?” moment (which is a huge and intensely convoluted spoiler), but for the most part Mai is a riff on Bohemian Writer of Modernist Novels tropes and generally the best part of the book.
I also read Mary Stewart’s Airs above the Ground, an enchanting book about Austria, and particularly about Lipizzaner horses. (The titular “airs above the ground” refer to certain maneuvers that the horses do: rearing like cavalry statues, jumping in the air and seeming to float, etc.) As is customary with a Mary Stewart book I now desperately want to visit Austria and see the Lipizzaners and try the sachertorte.
As is less customary, we start the book with the heroine already married! She and her husband start the book at odds but swiftly join forces and realize that they have each married someone even cooler than they initially realized.
It was perhaps unfair to Rebecca Serle’s One Italian Summer to read it so close to a Mary Stewart book, because while Serle’s book is a perfectly serviceable novel/travel book, it doesn’t quite achieve the “I want to pack my bags and go there NOW” that Stewart’s books manage so effortlessly. (Or rather, it looks effortless. I’m sure Stewart worked at it quite hard, actually.)
Serle’s book is packed with delicious food descriptions, AND it has a Petite Maman style plot where our heroine Katy meets her own mother from the past, so I expected to love it. But somehow the book as a whole ended up feeling like something less than the sum of its parts for me.
AND FINALLY, after leaving it to languish for a month, I finished Bruce Catton’s A Stillness at Appomattox. The secret seems to lie in NOT reading the book in small pieces, as it is hard to pick back up when I know that we’re going right back to, say, wounded men burning to death in the Wilderness, but to read it in big gulps.
Contemplating whether to have Russell's cavalry unit ride with Sheridan, as opposed to taking part in Sherman's March to the Sea. Sheridan seems to have been one of the few Union officers the men hero-worshipped (the literally turned around a battle by appearing at a propitious moment) and I feel like that would be an interesting phenomena to explain to college boys in the 1960s - in particular, I think it might be good for Russell to have one epic mancrush that is genuinely platonic. However, perhaps this is overegging the pudding...
What I’m Reading Now
rachelmanija kindly linked W. E. Johns page on Faded Page, which has a somewhat random selection of Biggles (read: none of the books that I’ve seen described as particularly slashy), BUT ALSO has the first four books of the Worrals series, about a plucky W.A.A.F. girl pilot Worrals and her stalwart sidekick Frecks. Worrals has been CAPTURED and Frecks is attempting a RESCUE!
What I Plan to Read Next
The next three Worrals books!
As a traveling companion for The Once and Future King
skygiants kindly sent Fay Grissom’s Portrait in Jigsaw, a gothic novel from 1975 which is simply A Lot. After the death of our heroine Alisdair’s mother, Alisdair’s grim father had Alisdair raised in seclusion on a remote Scottish estate. But when Alisdair emerges for her debut on her twenty-first birthday, she discovers that her mother Mai is not dead! And in fact is an internationally famous modernist novelist! Whose brilliant novels won a Nobel prize! And also she’s a Thai princess!!!I kept expecting this last thing to turn into a trainwreck, and there’s definitely a classic 1970s “is this an attempt to critique racism or just plain racism?” moment (which is a huge and intensely convoluted spoiler), but for the most part Mai is a riff on Bohemian Writer of Modernist Novels tropes and generally the best part of the book.
I also read Mary Stewart’s Airs above the Ground, an enchanting book about Austria, and particularly about Lipizzaner horses. (The titular “airs above the ground” refer to certain maneuvers that the horses do: rearing like cavalry statues, jumping in the air and seeming to float, etc.) As is customary with a Mary Stewart book I now desperately want to visit Austria and see the Lipizzaners and try the sachertorte.
As is less customary, we start the book with the heroine already married! She and her husband start the book at odds but swiftly join forces and realize that they have each married someone even cooler than they initially realized.
It was perhaps unfair to Rebecca Serle’s One Italian Summer to read it so close to a Mary Stewart book, because while Serle’s book is a perfectly serviceable novel/travel book, it doesn’t quite achieve the “I want to pack my bags and go there NOW” that Stewart’s books manage so effortlessly. (Or rather, it looks effortless. I’m sure Stewart worked at it quite hard, actually.)
Serle’s book is packed with delicious food descriptions, AND it has a Petite Maman style plot where our heroine Katy meets her own mother from the past, so I expected to love it. But somehow the book as a whole ended up feeling like something less than the sum of its parts for me.
AND FINALLY, after leaving it to languish for a month, I finished Bruce Catton’s A Stillness at Appomattox. The secret seems to lie in NOT reading the book in small pieces, as it is hard to pick back up when I know that we’re going right back to, say, wounded men burning to death in the Wilderness, but to read it in big gulps.
Contemplating whether to have Russell's cavalry unit ride with Sheridan, as opposed to taking part in Sherman's March to the Sea. Sheridan seems to have been one of the few Union officers the men hero-worshipped (the literally turned around a battle by appearing at a propitious moment) and I feel like that would be an interesting phenomena to explain to college boys in the 1960s - in particular, I think it might be good for Russell to have one epic mancrush that is genuinely platonic. However, perhaps this is overegging the pudding...
What I’m Reading Now
rachelmanija kindly linked W. E. Johns page on Faded Page, which has a somewhat random selection of Biggles (read: none of the books that I’ve seen described as particularly slashy), BUT ALSO has the first four books of the Worrals series, about a plucky W.A.A.F. girl pilot Worrals and her stalwart sidekick Frecks. Worrals has been CAPTURED and Frecks is attempting a RESCUE!What I Plan to Read Next
The next three Worrals books!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-25 01:43 pm (UTC)We had a picture book showing types of horses, when I was a kid, and I remember seeing the Lippizaners. Am I right in remembering they start out dark-colored and get white as they grow up?
Regarding effortlessly or not-so-effortlessly inducing you to want to visit Austria, are you able to dissect what makes the Mary Stewart book produce that feeling more than the Serle book does? I suppose different details would do it for different readers, but can you identify what produces that effect in you? ... I 'm trying to think, for myself, but I'm having a hard time with cause and effect.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-25 04:09 pm (UTC)Alisdair is aware that she looks Different but apparently never thinks "Hmm, perhaps my mother was Foreign." I found this a bit of a stretch to be honest, especially given that later on someone recognizes her based on the resemblance, but also people can be quite stupid about things if no one has mentioned that such a thing is a possibility? It just seems surprising that no one had made such a comment on her looks, ever - she's isolated but not a princess in a tower.
I don't remember if Stewart mentioned re: Lipizzaner foals, but I looked it up online and YES. They are SO dark - it's so striking next to the white grown-up horses.
I'm contemplating your last question, and I'm not sure. Obviously vivid and enticing descriptions are important to create this effect, but on their own they don't tip the scales. Maybe vivid and enticing descriptions plus an immersive story? Not that I expect that I'm going to stumble upon the Mystery of the Stolen Lipizzaner like the heroine, but it feels like something exciting COULD happen.