osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2022-10-26 03:09 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2022-10-26 03:09 pm
Wednesday Reading Meme
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
“...they, too, are in love with what happened to them, because it is not only war, but also their youth. Their first love.”
Svetlana Aleksievich makes this comment near the beginning of The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II, and I’ve chewed over it for a long time because left to my own devices I would not have gotten that out of the interviews that make up the backbone of this book. Maybe because I tend to think of “first love” through a romantic haze, as a positive force? When of course a first love can be destructive, albeit not often as brutally destructive as the Eastern Front of World War II.
Maybe “in love with” here means “obsessed with,” which is certainly true. Many of the women Aleksievich interviewed comment that to a great extent they still live in the war, that their memories feel more real than current reality - they can’t stand anything red because it reminds them of blood, they can’t cut up a chicken because it looks too much like human flesh. (One of them comments “maybe I should have had psychotherapy,” but that clearly was just not available at all.)
The story that haunts me is the partisan who was tortured by the Nazis, managed to escape back home, and then could only be soothed by her mother’s presence; she screamed and screamed in agony whenever her mother had to step away to, say, make dinner for the family. Most of the stories aren’t so severe in their outward manifestations, but just the unending agony…
After The Unwomanly Face of War I needed something lighter, and therefore fell on Emily Tesh’s Silver in the Wood, a romance between a man who has become a woodland spirit and a Victorian folklorist. Great forest atmosphere, but I wanted a deeper connection between Tobias and Henry Silver.
What I’m Reading Now
Last Wednesday, I wrote that I wanted to finish Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road, Elizabeth Seeger’s The Pageant of Chinese History, and Mary Renault’s North Face before my vacation begins November 1... and then neglected all three books disgracefully all week. I really ought to prioritize North Face, as it’s an interlibrary loan, but a female English tutor has just started flirting with a man with the coy observation, “We must admit the masterpieces are all by men,” and… must we? Even the Greeks acknowledged the genius of Sappho!
We’re entering the home stretch on Dracula! There are two action-packed weeks left to go, and I for one am I tenterhooks. Will they defeat the Count and save Mina? ONLY TIME WILL TELL.
What I Plan to Read Next
I will be traveling from November 1 - 10, so this is entirely up for grabs. Could be a little! Could be a lot! Who can say?
“...they, too, are in love with what happened to them, because it is not only war, but also their youth. Their first love.”
Svetlana Aleksievich makes this comment near the beginning of The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II, and I’ve chewed over it for a long time because left to my own devices I would not have gotten that out of the interviews that make up the backbone of this book. Maybe because I tend to think of “first love” through a romantic haze, as a positive force? When of course a first love can be destructive, albeit not often as brutally destructive as the Eastern Front of World War II.
Maybe “in love with” here means “obsessed with,” which is certainly true. Many of the women Aleksievich interviewed comment that to a great extent they still live in the war, that their memories feel more real than current reality - they can’t stand anything red because it reminds them of blood, they can’t cut up a chicken because it looks too much like human flesh. (One of them comments “maybe I should have had psychotherapy,” but that clearly was just not available at all.)
The story that haunts me is the partisan who was tortured by the Nazis, managed to escape back home, and then could only be soothed by her mother’s presence; she screamed and screamed in agony whenever her mother had to step away to, say, make dinner for the family. Most of the stories aren’t so severe in their outward manifestations, but just the unending agony…
After The Unwomanly Face of War I needed something lighter, and therefore fell on Emily Tesh’s Silver in the Wood, a romance between a man who has become a woodland spirit and a Victorian folklorist. Great forest atmosphere, but I wanted a deeper connection between Tobias and Henry Silver.
What I’m Reading Now
Last Wednesday, I wrote that I wanted to finish Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road, Elizabeth Seeger’s The Pageant of Chinese History, and Mary Renault’s North Face before my vacation begins November 1... and then neglected all three books disgracefully all week. I really ought to prioritize North Face, as it’s an interlibrary loan, but a female English tutor has just started flirting with a man with the coy observation, “We must admit the masterpieces are all by men,” and… must we? Even the Greeks acknowledged the genius of Sappho!
We’re entering the home stretch on Dracula! There are two action-packed weeks left to go, and I for one am I tenterhooks. Will they defeat the Count and save Mina? ONLY TIME WILL TELL.
What I Plan to Read Next
I will be traveling from November 1 - 10, so this is entirely up for grabs. Could be a little! Could be a lot! Who can say?
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