![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricWhat Are You Reading Wednesday:
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
What are you currently reading? I've put aside all of my leisure reading in favour of a somewhat strange selection of texts that are assigned for high school exams here. Currently I'm reading Steinbeck's The Pearl and am surprised to find I like it.
What did you recently finish reading?
All of these are high school texts:
Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I really do not like Carver and his stories about bored, boring men and their bored, boring lives and their boring dicks. Really. Gratuitous *boring* masturbation scenes, pointless 'and then he had sex with his wife who wasn't into it', frequent uncritical abusive treatment of said wives... UGH.
The only two stories I liked were the two from female POV or shared M&F POV, funny that. I do really like 'So Much Water So Close To Home', I think that's a very moving use of Carver's sparse realism. I was also actually engaged by the short story about the couple with a dying son and the forgotten birthday cake - I think when Carver deigns to treat women as human, not just furniture in his men's heads, his realism is, well, a lot more realistic.
Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a delightful, women-centred play, with a nuanced and sympathetic ethical critique as well as Wilde's trademark social satire. It questions the notion of *goodness* and of what makes a good mother, as well as poking at the currents of loyalty, jealousy, and insecurity that lie under fashionable social networks. It was fun! I would love to see it on stage.
Salome by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Now this I did not like. It was overblown, melodramatic and lacking in Wilde's typical wit. I suspect the dialogue may have been more appealing in the original French.
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
On the dot plot of 'novels that integrate historical investigation and modern plot', draw a line between Dan Brown and A.S. Byatt. This line represents actual quality. Draw an X halfway between them. Now imagine Dan Brown and AS Byatt are both fairly high on the 'denseness / convolution of plot and prose' axis. Move this X down that axis to a level that's on a level with, say, Nicholas Sparks, if Sparks wrote about historical investigation.
That X represents this book. It is composed of clear and readable prose, and engages with an interesting (fictional) historical investigation and an interesting (fictionalised) set of historical issues or questions. However, the prose is BORING. There's no lyricism, no spark, and remarkably little chemistry between any of the characters. First person narration, in the modern plot, is used as an exucse to show, not tell. In the early modern plot, the protagonist is well-realised but appears to exist in a bubble that prevents her having meaningful interactions with anyone else around her. It's hard to feel moved by her growing fear of her husband, when she never seemed to have any connection with him in the first place. Her sense of isolation in Switzerland is notable, but she didn't seem *connected* to anyone in France either.
Also, even Dan Brown has a better idea how manuscript research works. Conservators don't just GIVE you 16th century bibles to cuddle and keep. I liked that E. encountered dead ends in her research, but her 'successes' were implausible. I was also personally offended by the binarism of 'men's evidence' and 'women's intuition'.
What will you read next?
More Steinbeck. Some Jamaica Kincaid.
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
What are you currently reading? I've put aside all of my leisure reading in favour of a somewhat strange selection of texts that are assigned for high school exams here. Currently I'm reading Steinbeck's The Pearl and am surprised to find I like it.
What did you recently finish reading?
All of these are high school texts:
Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond CarverMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I really do not like Carver and his stories about bored, boring men and their bored, boring lives and their boring dicks. Really. Gratuitous *boring* masturbation scenes, pointless 'and then he had sex with his wife who wasn't into it', frequent uncritical abusive treatment of said wives... UGH.
The only two stories I liked were the two from female POV or shared M&F POV, funny that. I do really like 'So Much Water So Close To Home', I think that's a very moving use of Carver's sparse realism. I was also actually engaged by the short story about the couple with a dying son and the forgotten birthday cake - I think when Carver deigns to treat women as human, not just furniture in his men's heads, his realism is, well, a lot more realistic.
Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar WildeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a delightful, women-centred play, with a nuanced and sympathetic ethical critique as well as Wilde's trademark social satire. It questions the notion of *goodness* and of what makes a good mother, as well as poking at the currents of loyalty, jealousy, and insecurity that lie under fashionable social networks. It was fun! I would love to see it on stage.
Salome by Oscar WildeMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Now this I did not like. It was overblown, melodramatic and lacking in Wilde's typical wit. I suspect the dialogue may have been more appealing in the original French.
The Virgin Blue by Tracy ChevalierMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
On the dot plot of 'novels that integrate historical investigation and modern plot', draw a line between Dan Brown and A.S. Byatt. This line represents actual quality. Draw an X halfway between them. Now imagine Dan Brown and AS Byatt are both fairly high on the 'denseness / convolution of plot and prose' axis. Move this X down that axis to a level that's on a level with, say, Nicholas Sparks, if Sparks wrote about historical investigation.
That X represents this book. It is composed of clear and readable prose, and engages with an interesting (fictional) historical investigation and an interesting (fictionalised) set of historical issues or questions. However, the prose is BORING. There's no lyricism, no spark, and remarkably little chemistry between any of the characters. First person narration, in the modern plot, is used as an exucse to show, not tell. In the early modern plot, the protagonist is well-realised but appears to exist in a bubble that prevents her having meaningful interactions with anyone else around her. It's hard to feel moved by her growing fear of her husband, when she never seemed to have any connection with him in the first place. Her sense of isolation in Switzerland is notable, but she didn't seem *connected* to anyone in France either.
Also, even Dan Brown has a better idea how manuscript research works. Conservators don't just GIVE you 16th century bibles to cuddle and keep. I liked that E. encountered dead ends in her research, but her 'successes' were implausible. I was also personally offended by the binarism of 'men's evidence' and 'women's intuition'.
What will you read next?
More Steinbeck. Some Jamaica Kincaid.