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highlyeccentricOne week late, it's What 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? 'House of Leaves', the marvel team-up antho, and 'The Lesbian Premodern'.
What did you recently finish reading?
The School at the Chalet, Jo of the Chalet School, and The Princess of the Chalet School, by Elinor M Brent-Dyer, plus assorted sequels thereof.
Where were these all my childhood (answer: out of print in Australia)? I adored them, although the original conciet bugged me with its classism. Oh noes, too poor to live the lifestyle to which we are accustomed in England - instead of getting a grip, let's move to Austria where everyone's so poor we'll be luxiously upper-middle-class by contrast! That thread runs throughout all the books, but alongside it there is a streak of faith in the ability of teenagers to engage in 'adult' problems of money and morality, as with Jo's involvement in Madge's decisions concerning Juliette. I found the Princess plot hackneyed, and was totally perplexed when the kidnap device was re-used later on. I think I liked The Head Girl of the Chalet School best of the lot, because Grizel was a flawed and difficult character from the outset.
Bush Studies by Barbara Baynton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Huh. These were fascinating: mostly character studies of fragile people living in poverty and isolation. Most were women, but one study concerned an elderly man awaiting the return of the young couple who lived with or near him - his ruminations on the younger man's betrayal of him by taking a wife interwoven with and marked unreliable by his acute fear of the stranger he expected to soon assault him. I was least interested by a study of a rural preacher, and by one of a city woman travelling to become housekeeper on a remote station - the latter was soaked in classism and racism.
I wonder about the fear-of-swaggies-and-tramps thing. When it appears in, say, the Billabong books, I remember registering it as classism even before I had the words for it (at the same time aware that I would do no different), but here the gender/age issues come out. I do really wonder what the actual rates of, eg, theft and assault of women by swaggies in the remote bush were, but of course no one kept count.
Baynton's acute awareness of the factors that bind women to abusive men, though, that was spot on. In one particularly awful study, a couple work together as day labourers, but after the woman is injured, their former employers and colleagues will have nothing to do with either of them, and she ends up living, bedridden, in a cabin behind that in which her partner lives with his new, more traditional, common-law wife.
I wouldn't recommend these stories as *fun* but they are artful, and if you like Lawson's often dismal depiction of bush life then these should definitely be included alongside his.
The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Oh, this was absolutely adorable. Flory, an injured juvenile night fairy, adapts to life in a giantess' garden. Flory's quite a character: she's not nice, nor often kind, but is engaging to read about. Even her acts of generosity don't seem to come as *kindness* so much as determined altruism.
I'm not convinced that the feature of the ending wherein she discovers her wings are growing back was actually necessary. She'd made friends and found several alternative means of mobility - adding 'and also her wings are cured!' doesn't add anything, and does repeat the magically-walking-cripple trope.
The illustratons were wonderful.
What will you read next?
I am expecting Unmade in the post soon, and might also by the most recent antho in which Sarah Rees Brennan was published. Otherwise... it might be time for more Henry James?
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
What are you currently reading? 'House of Leaves', the marvel team-up antho, and 'The Lesbian Premodern'.
What did you recently finish reading?
The School at the Chalet, Jo of the Chalet School, and The Princess of the Chalet School, by Elinor M Brent-Dyer, plus assorted sequels thereof.
Where were these all my childhood (answer: out of print in Australia)? I adored them, although the original conciet bugged me with its classism. Oh noes, too poor to live the lifestyle to which we are accustomed in England - instead of getting a grip, let's move to Austria where everyone's so poor we'll be luxiously upper-middle-class by contrast! That thread runs throughout all the books, but alongside it there is a streak of faith in the ability of teenagers to engage in 'adult' problems of money and morality, as with Jo's involvement in Madge's decisions concerning Juliette. I found the Princess plot hackneyed, and was totally perplexed when the kidnap device was re-used later on. I think I liked The Head Girl of the Chalet School best of the lot, because Grizel was a flawed and difficult character from the outset.
Bush Studies by Barbara BayntonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Huh. These were fascinating: mostly character studies of fragile people living in poverty and isolation. Most were women, but one study concerned an elderly man awaiting the return of the young couple who lived with or near him - his ruminations on the younger man's betrayal of him by taking a wife interwoven with and marked unreliable by his acute fear of the stranger he expected to soon assault him. I was least interested by a study of a rural preacher, and by one of a city woman travelling to become housekeeper on a remote station - the latter was soaked in classism and racism.
I wonder about the fear-of-swaggies-and-tramps thing. When it appears in, say, the Billabong books, I remember registering it as classism even before I had the words for it (at the same time aware that I would do no different), but here the gender/age issues come out. I do really wonder what the actual rates of, eg, theft and assault of women by swaggies in the remote bush were, but of course no one kept count.
Baynton's acute awareness of the factors that bind women to abusive men, though, that was spot on. In one particularly awful study, a couple work together as day labourers, but after the woman is injured, their former employers and colleagues will have nothing to do with either of them, and she ends up living, bedridden, in a cabin behind that in which her partner lives with his new, more traditional, common-law wife.
I wouldn't recommend these stories as *fun* but they are artful, and if you like Lawson's often dismal depiction of bush life then these should definitely be included alongside his.
The Night Fairy by Laura Amy SchlitzMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Oh, this was absolutely adorable. Flory, an injured juvenile night fairy, adapts to life in a giantess' garden. Flory's quite a character: she's not nice, nor often kind, but is engaging to read about. Even her acts of generosity don't seem to come as *kindness* so much as determined altruism.
I'm not convinced that the feature of the ending wherein she discovers her wings are growing back was actually necessary. She'd made friends and found several alternative means of mobility - adding 'and also her wings are cured!' doesn't add anything, and does repeat the magically-walking-cripple trope.
The illustratons were wonderful.
What will you read next?
I am expecting Unmade in the post soon, and might also by the most recent antho in which Sarah Rees Brennan was published. Otherwise... it might be time for more Henry James?
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 02:27 pm (UTC)