Wednesday Reading Meme
Mar. 20th, 2019 09:41 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Frans de Waal’s Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, which has made me want to read his other books, of which there are many… because if there’s one thing I need, it’s a new author to follow, right?
I put off reading Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place because I got the impression somewhere that it was a self-righteous tract about how lying is always a sin, even if you’re lying to the Nazis to protect the Jews hidden in your attic. But now that I’ve read it I’m pretty sure this is actually just the way some Evangelical readers interpret the book, because Corrie had some relatives who followed this philosophy and it worked out for them, through either divine intervention or luck, depending on your view.
Corrie herself lies when necessary, although with pangs of conscience, because she had been raised in the belief system that lying is always wrong. But she doesn’t only lie when forced to it, but actually practices lying: the family shakes her awake at midnight to simulate a possible arrest by the Nazis, so she’ll have practice answering “We have no Jews here” rather than mumbling, groggy and disoriented, “Oh, they’re behind the false wall.”
Willa Cather’s My Antonia is another book I put off reading, in this case because I had the impression that Antonia gets raped at some point in the book, which also turns out to be incorrect. Maybe I should try to stop gathering impressions of books that I haven’t read, although probably it’s not entirely avoidable.
But actually in this case the delay worked out well, because I don’t think I would have appreciated the book as much when I was younger. It’s a slow book, with a lot of description of the Nebraska prairies and the different immigrant groups settling the country and not a lot of action: the narrator, Jim Burden, is often an onlooker rather than a participant, a little bit in love with Antonia and some of her friends (also strong immigrant girls), but not so much that the book ever becomes a love story. Or rather, it’s about love of a time and a place rather than a person.
What I’m Reading Now
The very first chapter of Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women burnt up my hope that maybe the heroines would remain friends for the entire book, but it also got me all invested so I kept reading. All of See’s books seem to have this ur-scene where the heroines’ friendship shatters when they confront each other over some great betrayal - I don’t know why she feels the need to repeat it over and over, but I should probably just accept it and stop hoping for something else.
And although it does share this tic with See’s other work, this book is one of her best - perhaps not quite up there with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but then that is the first See book I read so it may have an unfair advantage. The Island of Sea Women is set on Jeju Island, where women deep sea divers are traditionally the main support for their families, and this portrayal of a traditional society where women have a lot more power and freedom than in many traditional societies is so interesting.
I’ve also been reading Dorothy Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, which is an unexpectedly delightful look at office culture in interwar Britain. Lord Peter has taken a job as a copy writer for an advertising firm in order to investigate a murder, using his two middle names, Death Bredon, and yes Dorothy Sayers did in fact give her detective the name Death, Lord Peter is the Most Extra and I love it.
What I Plan to Read Next
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evelyn_b, we had talked about maybe reading Kristin Lavransdattar in tandem. Are you still interested? I’ve acquired a copy, so we could start whenever is convenient for you.
I’ve also realized that Andrea Cheng’s The Year of the Book, which I read last year, is in fact the first book of a five-book series (although alas there will be no more after that: Cheng died a few years ago), so now I want to read them all.
Frans de Waal’s Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, which has made me want to read his other books, of which there are many… because if there’s one thing I need, it’s a new author to follow, right?
I put off reading Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place because I got the impression somewhere that it was a self-righteous tract about how lying is always a sin, even if you’re lying to the Nazis to protect the Jews hidden in your attic. But now that I’ve read it I’m pretty sure this is actually just the way some Evangelical readers interpret the book, because Corrie had some relatives who followed this philosophy and it worked out for them, through either divine intervention or luck, depending on your view.
Corrie herself lies when necessary, although with pangs of conscience, because she had been raised in the belief system that lying is always wrong. But she doesn’t only lie when forced to it, but actually practices lying: the family shakes her awake at midnight to simulate a possible arrest by the Nazis, so she’ll have practice answering “We have no Jews here” rather than mumbling, groggy and disoriented, “Oh, they’re behind the false wall.”
Willa Cather’s My Antonia is another book I put off reading, in this case because I had the impression that Antonia gets raped at some point in the book, which also turns out to be incorrect. Maybe I should try to stop gathering impressions of books that I haven’t read, although probably it’s not entirely avoidable.
But actually in this case the delay worked out well, because I don’t think I would have appreciated the book as much when I was younger. It’s a slow book, with a lot of description of the Nebraska prairies and the different immigrant groups settling the country and not a lot of action: the narrator, Jim Burden, is often an onlooker rather than a participant, a little bit in love with Antonia and some of her friends (also strong immigrant girls), but not so much that the book ever becomes a love story. Or rather, it’s about love of a time and a place rather than a person.
What I’m Reading Now
The very first chapter of Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women burnt up my hope that maybe the heroines would remain friends for the entire book, but it also got me all invested so I kept reading. All of See’s books seem to have this ur-scene where the heroines’ friendship shatters when they confront each other over some great betrayal - I don’t know why she feels the need to repeat it over and over, but I should probably just accept it and stop hoping for something else.
And although it does share this tic with See’s other work, this book is one of her best - perhaps not quite up there with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but then that is the first See book I read so it may have an unfair advantage. The Island of Sea Women is set on Jeju Island, where women deep sea divers are traditionally the main support for their families, and this portrayal of a traditional society where women have a lot more power and freedom than in many traditional societies is so interesting.
I’ve also been reading Dorothy Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, which is an unexpectedly delightful look at office culture in interwar Britain. Lord Peter has taken a job as a copy writer for an advertising firm in order to investigate a murder, using his two middle names, Death Bredon, and yes Dorothy Sayers did in fact give her detective the name Death, Lord Peter is the Most Extra and I love it.
What I Plan to Read Next
evelyn_b, we had talked about maybe reading Kristin Lavransdattar in tandem. Are you still interested? I’ve acquired a copy, so we could start whenever is convenient for you. I’ve also realized that Andrea Cheng’s The Year of the Book, which I read last year, is in fact the first book of a five-book series (although alas there will be no more after that: Cheng died a few years ago), so now I want to read them all.
