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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?
According to the all-encompassing wisdom of Goodreads, I'm still going on the French of A Little Princess (little progress this past week) and Perrault's Contes. I've got just a wee bit of Yasmina F-J's monograph to finish, and have started a collaborative monograph entitled 'Thinking Through Chrétien de Troyes'. Oh, and I'm working quickly through Thomas' Tristan. My leisure reading at the moment is Barbara Baynton's 'Bush Studies', which I'm finding fascinating - every bit as good as Lawson, entirely different to Patterson, and why don't I have a collectors edition of HER stories to go with theirs?
What did you recently finish reading?
LOTS OF THINGS. For work, Reddy's 'The Navigation of Feeling', Hunter (ed), 'Love, Friendship and Faith in Europe 1300-1800', and Lisa M. Gee 'Friends: why men and women are from the same planet' (mediocre). For funsies, 'Fat is a Feminist Issue' and Sedaris' 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'.
Proper reviews will show up in later posts - see below for catch-up reviews from last fortnight.
I gave up entirely on two books: 'The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas', which wasn't, it was an annoying panegric to Gertrude Stein's social circle; and 'Baby Remember My Name: New Queer Girl Writing', which after 3 stories failed to hold my interest. I would've liked it at 15, or even 20. But I'm bored with narratives in which the protag's identity is the only thing that matters, and with excessive use of second person in lieu of actually establishing bases for the reader to identify with the protag.
What do you think you'll read next?
Lots of reading for article-fixing purposes. Not sure about fun. What's fun?
Reviews of books finished July 27-Aug 5 214:
Closer To Home: Bisexuality & Feminism by Elizabeth Reba Weise
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a book I very much needed to read. As with all the other 20th c bi writing I've read lately, it did annoy me for its almost total ignorance of trans* issues or even existence. HOWEVER. This book deserves major points for actively engaging not only with the travails of being bi in the lesbian community, but for several essays which look for specifically bi, feminist ways of thinking about dating men. I note in particular Vashti Zabatinsky, 'Some Thoughts on Power, Gender, Body Image and Sex in the Life of One Bisexual Lesbian Feminist'; Amanda Udis-Kessler, 'Closer to Home: Bisexual Feminism and the Transformation of Hetero/Sexism' (tasty tasty structuralist criticism!); and Rebecca Kaplan, 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Bisexual Existence'. I liked the last so much I scanned you a copy.
Although trans* existence was not on the radar at all for this book, there were some interesting essays on other intersections - one on race, by Brenda Marie Blasingame, and one a very interesting essay on class by Elizabeth McKeon.
The Best Australian Poems 2013 by Lisa Gorton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was good, and many of the poems were good - but I found the A-Z by title organisation offputting and lazy. My engagement with this book dropped drastically when I finished my Poem a day for 2013 project, but that does not mean I didn't enjoy it all the same.
The Grey King by Susan Cooper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Delightful, as usual. It was interesting to see Will both on his own, and more confident than in book 1. His dawning awareness that the 'light' are as manipulative as the 'dark' is also interesting, although I doubt the series will push that too far. I liked Bran as a character, and the weight the narrative gave to him and his father.
There were very few women in this book. That was a bit of a bummer.
Almodis the Peaceweaver by Tracey Warr
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Oh now THIS was delightful. Warr manages a really believable level of daily-life detail (ignore the terrible cover), and in some ways I think narrative is the best antidote to the temptation to read dynastic history as that of vague political forces rather than *individuals*. Almodis grew up with a grandfather she loved - and who held her hostage. The back-and-forth alleigances between her family, her grandfather's family, and Guy's faction, are in many ways more comprehensible as personalised narratives than in a conventional historical recount.
I got disproportionately annoyed at the recurring references to Anglo-Saxon cultural phenomena that shouldn't have any valence in Provence (Beowulf! Not a character anyone in Provence had heard of!), and the peace-weaver idea given prominence as if that was a phrase in common use. And I think Jon Jarrett's right about the politics of Barcelona getting short shrift compared to Toulouse. Still. A+, would read again.
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
What are you currently reading?
According to the all-encompassing wisdom of Goodreads, I'm still going on the French of A Little Princess (little progress this past week) and Perrault's Contes. I've got just a wee bit of Yasmina F-J's monograph to finish, and have started a collaborative monograph entitled 'Thinking Through Chrétien de Troyes'. Oh, and I'm working quickly through Thomas' Tristan. My leisure reading at the moment is Barbara Baynton's 'Bush Studies', which I'm finding fascinating - every bit as good as Lawson, entirely different to Patterson, and why don't I have a collectors edition of HER stories to go with theirs?
What did you recently finish reading?
LOTS OF THINGS. For work, Reddy's 'The Navigation of Feeling', Hunter (ed), 'Love, Friendship and Faith in Europe 1300-1800', and Lisa M. Gee 'Friends: why men and women are from the same planet' (mediocre). For funsies, 'Fat is a Feminist Issue' and Sedaris' 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'.
Proper reviews will show up in later posts - see below for catch-up reviews from last fortnight.
I gave up entirely on two books: 'The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas', which wasn't, it was an annoying panegric to Gertrude Stein's social circle; and 'Baby Remember My Name: New Queer Girl Writing', which after 3 stories failed to hold my interest. I would've liked it at 15, or even 20. But I'm bored with narratives in which the protag's identity is the only thing that matters, and with excessive use of second person in lieu of actually establishing bases for the reader to identify with the protag.
What do you think you'll read next?
Lots of reading for article-fixing purposes. Not sure about fun. What's fun?
Reviews of books finished July 27-Aug 5 214:
Closer To Home: Bisexuality & Feminism by Elizabeth Reba Weise
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a book I very much needed to read. As with all the other 20th c bi writing I've read lately, it did annoy me for its almost total ignorance of trans* issues or even existence. HOWEVER. This book deserves major points for actively engaging not only with the travails of being bi in the lesbian community, but for several essays which look for specifically bi, feminist ways of thinking about dating men. I note in particular Vashti Zabatinsky, 'Some Thoughts on Power, Gender, Body Image and Sex in the Life of One Bisexual Lesbian Feminist'; Amanda Udis-Kessler, 'Closer to Home: Bisexual Feminism and the Transformation of Hetero/Sexism' (tasty tasty structuralist criticism!); and Rebecca Kaplan, 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Bisexual Existence'. I liked the last so much I scanned you a copy.
Although trans* existence was not on the radar at all for this book, there were some interesting essays on other intersections - one on race, by Brenda Marie Blasingame, and one a very interesting essay on class by Elizabeth McKeon.
The Best Australian Poems 2013 by Lisa GortonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was good, and many of the poems were good - but I found the A-Z by title organisation offputting and lazy. My engagement with this book dropped drastically when I finished my Poem a day for 2013 project, but that does not mean I didn't enjoy it all the same.
The Grey King by Susan CooperMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Delightful, as usual. It was interesting to see Will both on his own, and more confident than in book 1. His dawning awareness that the 'light' are as manipulative as the 'dark' is also interesting, although I doubt the series will push that too far. I liked Bran as a character, and the weight the narrative gave to him and his father.
There were very few women in this book. That was a bit of a bummer.
Almodis the Peaceweaver by Tracey WarrMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Oh now THIS was delightful. Warr manages a really believable level of daily-life detail (ignore the terrible cover), and in some ways I think narrative is the best antidote to the temptation to read dynastic history as that of vague political forces rather than *individuals*. Almodis grew up with a grandfather she loved - and who held her hostage. The back-and-forth alleigances between her family, her grandfather's family, and Guy's faction, are in many ways more comprehensible as personalised narratives than in a conventional historical recount.
I got disproportionately annoyed at the recurring references to Anglo-Saxon cultural phenomena that shouldn't have any valence in Provence (Beowulf! Not a character anyone in Provence had heard of!), and the peace-weaver idea given prominence as if that was a phrase in common use. And I think Jon Jarrett's right about the politics of Barcelona getting short shrift compared to Toulouse. Still. A+, would read again.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-20 01:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-20 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-20 04:09 pm (UTC)Hello from the my dissertation, where as you know I am in the depths of making more or less this argument as concerns monastic patronage and various other aspects of aristocratic experience!
Edited to add: Except that I'm trying to make my dissertation the anecdote, and not narrative. But maybe one day I'll write William of Dol, abbot of Saint-Florent de Saumur, fighting crime!
no subject
Date: 2014-08-20 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-20 04:48 pm (UTC)That should have said "make my dissertation the antidote," not "anecdote." I may have worked too hard yesterday.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-20 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-21 01:45 am (UTC)I think it's partly the uneveness of tone in the different books. Cooper might have done that deliberately, to emphasize the difference between the Drews as normal humans who get entangled in the affairs of the Light, Dark, & Wild Magic, as contrasted with the eldritch and powerful Old Ones, Dark Lords, and magical creatures. But I'm not sure even Cooper knew what she wanted to do with her characters until she was done with them-especially Jane, all those mysterious, frustrating hints, and then boom, story's done. ~scowls