A Certain Slant of Light

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I treated myself to Sherwood Smith’s The Poignant Sting last weekend - I always enjoy her Austen books (silverusagi, do you do ebooks? If you do, you might want to give Sherwood Smith’s Austen books a try) and I was particularly smitten with the idea of an Emma book, as that’s one of my favorite Austens. And this one has a gentle fantastical element, too! Miss Bates (yes, Miss Bates who never stops talking) has a touch of telepathy in her blood.

Also I thought Frank Churchill’s decision to hire the most! moddish! physician! to oversee Jane’s lying-in was the most Frank Churchill thing to do, good Lord man maybe next time you shouldn’t hire a guy whose favorite medicine is calomel? JUST A THOUGHT.

I also finished John Cacioppo’s Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, which I read because I’ve seen it referenced in a bunch of books. Sometimes when you go back and read the book all the other books are based on, you find out that the source book is so rich and dense that the other books have not been able to tell you half its glories; other times you go back and you discover that the source book was an important first step but considerably more steps have risen since then. This falls more in the second category.

And I read Evelyn Snead Barnett’s Jerry’s Reward, because Barnett was one of the founding members of the Louisville Authors’ Club which produced such bestsellers as The Lady of the Decoration, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, and the Little Colonel series… all of which were written by authors other than Barnett, who was one of the least successful members, probably because (judging by Jerry’s Reward) she just wasn’t that good of a writer. Maybe she had a better head for editing/business? Because her club certainly did midwife (as it were) a lot of writers.

What I’m Reading Now

Winifred Holtby’s South Riding, which I found unexpectedly absorbing. The title is extremely apt: the book is the story of a place, the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire in 1933, and a great cross-section of the people in it. Sometimes books with an enormous cast feel baggy to me - like I’m reading two or three different books that have been poorly stitched together - but in South Riding the local government provides the delicate web of connection that binds characters as disparate as an overwhelmed science teacher at the girls’ high school and a struggling insurance salesman whom bad times have forced on the dole.

Holtby’s mother was one of the first female alderman (maybe, in fact, the first?) in Yorkshire, so she writes from inside knowledge. Indeed the character of Mrs. Beddows is based on her own mother, and is one of the most vivid and interesting characters in a book positively bursting with clear individual portraits. You feel that you could meet these people - perhaps not today, because they are so very much of their time and place, but if a time machine took you to Yorkshire between the wars, you’d meet them.

What I Plan to Read Next

Oh, God, I have so many books. I think I’d better push Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye to the top of the pile to make sure I get to it in February.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Unread Book Club update: Last Wednesday I finished Gildaen, as I didn’t want to leave it hanging when I went away to Miami. If you looking for a fun magical cod-medieval adventure starring a rabbit, I quite recommend it.

While I was in Miami I read A LOT because there were a couple of days when we were more or less trapped inside by thunderstorms, but most of it was NetGalley books which I like to give their own separate post (I finished… five…) and also When Marnie Was There which I also want to give its own separate post because I liked it so much, AND ALSO I still need to review Megan Whalen Turner’s Thick as Thieves which I read before the trip and - say it with me now - wanted to give its own post because I enjoyed it so much…

Oh, but I did read E. W. Hornung’s Mr. Justice Raffles on the trip! Which is the fourth and final Raffles book, a novel rather than a set of short stories like the others, which I thought might be why it often gets shunted to the side in Raffles discussions - perhaps Hornung just wasn’t good at novels?

But actually he does perfectly fine at novels; Bunny and Raffles are in as fine a fettle as ever, and there’s also a totally badass girl who engages in plucky pre-dawn canoeing. But the villain is a Jewish moneylender, and while he does not reach Svengali levels of anti-Semitic caricature, there’s definitely enough of that about his characterization to justify the fact that the book is generally shunted aside.

What I’m Reading Now

Sherwood Smith’s Fair Winds and Homeward Sail: Sophy Croft’s Story, which is the story of a side character from Jane Austen’s Persuasion and quite charming. I really like all of Smith’s Regency romances: her pastiche is good, and you can tell that she knows the period really well because she wears her research so lightly - especially impressive in a book like this, which is stuffed chock full of characters in the navy and could easily bog down in infodumps about naval terminology.

I’ve also started reading Elizabeth Warren’s This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (for my reading challenge: “a book of any genre that addresses current events”), which is good so far but also sort of a bummer to read because I know that as long as Trump is president and the Republicans control Congress we’re not going to make progress toward any of these goals; we will at best be fighting a holding action, if we can manage that.

What I Plan to Read Next

Angela Thirkell’s The Brandons. If only I’d taken it to Miami with me! Oh well.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I slogged through C. S. Lewis’s An Allegory of Love, and was rewarded by the lovely final chapter about Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, which Lewis clearly adores. I enjoyed the chapter so much that I’m thinking about reading The Faerie Queen itself, although I might bomb out on it just like Pilgrim’s Progress (another allegorical poem that Lewis loved). Has anyone read it? What did you think?

I also finished Anya von Bremzen's Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, which I loved. There are a lot of poignant passages, but the one that really sticks in my head is the one about how the Soviet state had so thoroughly co-opted all the best words - friendship, loyalty, freedom, equality - that it became difficult to use them or even to feel them in a non-Party context without an ironic sneer.

What I’m Reading Now

J. B. Priestley's The Good Companions, a book which will be (Wikipedia informs me) about a choral society, after Priestley spends two hundred or so pages getting the main characters in the same place. They had very different beliefs about pacing in the early twentieth century, clearly, because I can't imagine a major publisher now who would let a writer meander forever like that. I'm not sure how I feel about it myself. I'll get back to you once I've read the book.

Sherwood Smith's Spy Princess, which I've just started. It looks like it's going to be another book with a strong sibling bond at the heart of the story, which is something I always enjoy in her work, so I'm looking forward to the ride.

What I Plan to Read Next

I actually have no plans at this point. The Good Companions is approximately seven hundred pages long, so it may occupy me all next week anyway.

Sherwood Smith's Danse de la Folie! I got about halfway through at the sedate pace at which I generally read novels while in grad school, then threw caution and my GPA to the winds and devoted myself to the book, just for the pleasure of making absolutely sure that Clarissa and Kitty get their happy endings.

I mean, of course they do, this being a Regency romance. But I needed to know! The romances are sweet, and very different, so I think most people will enjoy at least one of them: Kitty’s is more dramatically romantic, while Clarissa’s feels much more Austenian. (Jane Austen remix might be a good way to describe the book, in fact.)

But much as I enjoy the romances, I think my favorite thing in the book is Kitty and Clarissa’s friendship, because they are in some ways so very different. Clarissa is quietly in command of herself, and very much of her time, while Kitty not at all sure about social situations - she seems quite a bit younger than she is, which is not surprising, given what a secluded life she’s led - and, perhaps also because of that seclusion, a little more iconoclastic (without for a moment seeming like a transplanted modern girl).

But they both love books and poetry and have good hearts: Clarissa’s expressed through politeness and delicacy, while Kitty is more apt to go with headlong enthusiasm, but both of them genuinely like people, and they look out for each other, and it’s lovely.

I also think it will appeal to people who like historical fiction but not specifically Regency romance, as I haven’t been able to get into Regency romances myself. I tried to read one of Georgette Heyer’s and didn’t get very far, and also I attempted a Regency written by my junior high English teacher - yes, my junior high English teacher wrote Regency romance. You can bet I just about died of joy when she, a real! published! author!, complimented the retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” that I wrote in her class.

(In my version, the little girl attacked the wolf rather than the other way ‘round. He was stealing her basket of sweets for her grandma! Take that, wolf! The petrified wolf thinks of her as Monster Girl.)

But so anyway: Danse de la Folie. A gentle book, but engaging because of the sharply observed characters and the light but sure touch with period detail: a good cheering read for a rainy day.

I have a new book icon! It seemed like time for an icon spring cleaning, so I've been hunting new icons down. I like to imagine the tiny carriage just sort of sprouted out of the book.

Wednesday reading meme:

What I Just Finished Reading

I...have actually not finished anything new since the last time I posted this meme, not counting books for class that are probably not of much interest to you unless you feel a burning desire to learn more about Charles Willson Peale, an early American artist who named all his children after artists.

Seriously. His sons were Rubens and Rembrandt and Raphaelle and Titian. I bet they didn’t get teased at school at all. (And his daughter - who he also taught to paint - he named Angelica Kauffman, after the Swiss painter.)

What I’m Reading Now

Sherwood Smith’s Danse de la Folie. Now, you may object that I was reading this two weeks ago, as indeed I was, but it is on my Kindle and...I kind of forgot to take my Kindle with me over spring break. O.o

So I am reading it now! Kitty just intervened in an abduction that turned out not to be an abduction at all. ILU Kitty!

What I’m Reading Next

Probably Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History, because we read about it in one of the books I read for class and it sounds fascinating. It’s about pride and hubris and original sin!

I also mean to read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, mostly because it is short, and also because hopefully it will make me care more about my Postcolonial Theory class. We actually had a vote yesterday on whether to read more Homi Bhabha, and everyone in the class but me voted yes. WHY GOD WHY?

Last five things meme post! Except that cordialcount asked if she could ask me five questions about Lily & Nina from Black Swan, and I take any and all excuses to talk about Lily and Nina all the time, so I will be answering those.

(Actually, that should be a meme! Ask me five questions about a character (or characters) you know I like! Repost to your journals. A chance for infinite squee!)

But! I shall finish up the Five Things meme first. carmarthen asked for the top five books I would like to see adaptation into faithful, high production-values miniseries. I have been repeatedly reminding myself that miniseries doesn’t have to equal costume drama, although that’s what I first think of: Anne of Green Gables, the recent Sense & Sensibility and Romola Garai’s luminous Emma...

Mansfield Park, though. It gets no love, because everyone in the world but me hates Fanny Price, and therefore she is always portrayed as infinitely spunkier and more tomboyish than the actual Miss Price, because it’s not like being continually belittled, bossed around, and neglected by pretty much everyone at Mansfield Park except Edmund would have had some kind of deleterious effect on Fanny’s self-esteem.

( Mansfield Park, Ella Enchanted, Crown Duel, the Queen’s Thief books, Code Name Verity )

And finally, cordialcount: Five favorite children-- whether they be fictional, real, or metaphorical? I am not sure what a metaphorical child is, but nonetheless I shall persevere.

( Phoebe in Wonderland, A Little Princess, the Little House books, Matilda, Barbara Newhall Follett )

Okay, I’m doing this late, but I like Sherwood Smith’s books so better late than never. I’m not sure how much blogging this will help, given that a significant portion of my f-list already reads Sherwood Smith (I should friend more people. Hey, universe, friend me!) but I’ve been meaning to write more about her books anyway.

I’ve already reviewed Inda and The Fox, which are the first two books in a sprawling and epic quartet about pirates and war and a cast of thousands. I have trouble keeping track of them all.

Inda et al are very impressive books, but I prefer her stand-alones, which display excellent characterization against less convoluted plots and more convivial backgrounds.

The world-building is excellent. Crown Duel, which is probably Smith’s most famous book (and my favorite, although I like Senrid a lot) takes place in a country marginal to her other stories; yet the detail is rich. There’s a section where the main character, Meliara, has to buy proper clothes for court, and the young lady helping her gives a short, complete, fascinating overview of a thousand years of Remalnan history through the medium of clothing.

Every time I reread I find bits of character depth or world-building that I’d missed before. The world-building especially, because she has so many other books set in the same world that it’s cumulative, so you can go back to the earlier books and find all these neat connections, and it all hangs together like a tapestry.

Crown Duel has a prequel-thing that just came out, Smith’s newest book, A Stranger to Command. I’ve read it only when she posted it on the LJ group (a great thing about being a Sherwood Smith fan: she gives away more stories than anyone but the Shadow Unit people) but it was lovely there. It’s set in Marlovan Hess, like the Inda series and Senrid, which I mentioned earlier.

Senrid suffers from an overly rambling structure (I think Sherwood Smith works better with a strong editor) but it has great characters. My favorite is Kyale, one of the main characters, who is a horribly spoiled brat. She’s like the anti-Mary Sue; her flaws are enormous and exasperating (although she has endearing qualities, too; a sense of drama, the desire to be liked coupled with a crippling lack of social skills—she’s like a theater geek), and the narrative goes out of its way neither to excuse them nor condemn them.

One of the things I love about Sherwood Smith books is that there’s a sense of compassion for the characters—character X isn’t merely an obstacle for the heroine and nothing more; the characters are all people. They have plausible (if sometimes unpleasant) psychologies. The narrative is not going to ramble vindictively out of its way to punish anyone; if the unpleasant characters’ stories end badly, it’s a natural consequence of their behavior, not auctorial intervention.

These books take me to my happy place. I think one of the reasons I’m not fond of Inda—character problems aside—is that it’s a much harsher book than the others. They aren’t fluff, but they have an essentially positive view of human nature and the potential of humans to learn to behave in a civilized manner.