Wednesday Reading Meme
Feb. 22nd, 2023 07:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Maylis de Kerangal’s The Cook: A Novel (translated from the French by Sam Taylor) is a novella that reads like an unusually in-depth magazine profile: a character study of a young Frenchman who bops around the French food establishment (while also pursuing a degree in economics), starts his own small restaurant, then throws up the restaurant because it has become his entire life, which is what he had hoped to avoid in becoming his own boss. Gorgeous food descriptions.
I also finished Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield! Dickens has been hit or miss with me in the past, but this one I really enjoyed: very pacy, lots of whump. Dickens clearly lives on the tears of his readers and wrings out your heart every fifth chapter, and you know what, I can respect that. (Mostly. It was a little excessive when Little Em’ly’s former fiance Ham drowned trying to save a man from a shipwreck… and that man was Steerforth, Little Em’ly’s seducer! At least Steerforth died too: if he had lived and Ham died it would have been TOO CRUEL even for Dickens.)
On the whole however I felt that Dickens played fair with the heart-wringing in this one: the tragedies feel like real tragedies that could happen to real people (particularly the Murdstones and the way they squash all the heart and spirit out of David and his mother) and Dickens mostly lets them stand on their own. It’s not like Little Nell’s death in The Old Curiosity Shop where he made me cry but I was angry about being manipulated into it as he wrung every living drop of bathos out of the situation.
What I’m Reading Now
In The Yellow Poppy, the Duc de Trelan and his ragtag band of Chouans stand alone against the forces of Napoleon! All the other Royalist forces have fallen and been treated with leniency, but Napoleon may wish to make an example of this final holdout… Were the Duc and Duchesse reunited only to be torn asunder by the winds of history? If they’re doomed, at least let them die together!
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve been on the fence a while about Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism (it sounds so good but I’m such a baby about horror), but now my friend Becky has recommended it so I’m going to give it a try.
Maylis de Kerangal’s The Cook: A Novel (translated from the French by Sam Taylor) is a novella that reads like an unusually in-depth magazine profile: a character study of a young Frenchman who bops around the French food establishment (while also pursuing a degree in economics), starts his own small restaurant, then throws up the restaurant because it has become his entire life, which is what he had hoped to avoid in becoming his own boss. Gorgeous food descriptions.
I also finished Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield! Dickens has been hit or miss with me in the past, but this one I really enjoyed: very pacy, lots of whump. Dickens clearly lives on the tears of his readers and wrings out your heart every fifth chapter, and you know what, I can respect that. (Mostly. It was a little excessive when Little Em’ly’s former fiance Ham drowned trying to save a man from a shipwreck… and that man was Steerforth, Little Em’ly’s seducer! At least Steerforth died too: if he had lived and Ham died it would have been TOO CRUEL even for Dickens.)
On the whole however I felt that Dickens played fair with the heart-wringing in this one: the tragedies feel like real tragedies that could happen to real people (particularly the Murdstones and the way they squash all the heart and spirit out of David and his mother) and Dickens mostly lets them stand on their own. It’s not like Little Nell’s death in The Old Curiosity Shop where he made me cry but I was angry about being manipulated into it as he wrung every living drop of bathos out of the situation.
What I’m Reading Now
In The Yellow Poppy, the Duc de Trelan and his ragtag band of Chouans stand alone against the forces of Napoleon! All the other Royalist forces have fallen and been treated with leniency, but Napoleon may wish to make an example of this final holdout… Were the Duc and Duchesse reunited only to be torn asunder by the winds of history? If they’re doomed, at least let them die together!
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve been on the fence a while about Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism (it sounds so good but I’m such a baby about horror), but now my friend Becky has recommended it so I’m going to give it a try.
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Date: 2023-02-22 01:16 pm (UTC)YAY. I'm glad you enjoyed this one! It's not my favorite Dickens (that's still Great Expectations, for me, although Our Mutual Friend gave it a run for its money and I'll always have a soft spot for A Tale of Two Cities) but it is a good one.
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Date: 2023-02-22 03:32 pm (UTC)It's not that I had anything against Pip personally, even, I just felt that his suffering restored balance to the Force after all that poor Hettie went through in Adam Bede.
Still haven't read Our Mutual Friend. Maybe that should be my next Dickens...
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Date: 2023-02-22 04:40 pm (UTC)The big selling point of this one, imo, is that there are no less than (iirc) seven young women characters of (more or less) significance.
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Date: 2023-02-22 04:48 pm (UTC)I know some people criticize Dickens' female characters but on the whole I find them delightful. Who else could have given us the gift of Miss Havisham?
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