![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricCurrently Reading: "Funeral Games", the last of Renault's Alexander novels; "Something Special, Something Rare", an antho of Australian short stories; and "Welcome to Nightvale", which is still like eating prawn crackers: crunchy, tasty in small doses, but utterly lacking in substance.
Recently Finished:
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was a re-read, but for the first time in a long time. I hadn't noticed, when I read Snuff, how much of Snuff was a reprise on themes from this one.
Things that are good about this book: Carrot. Bless his little socks, he's perfectly and earnestly genuine in his praise of Angua's brother, the *prize winning* sheepdog. But he's not actually simplistic: he has a carefully sorted out set of priorities and values that aren't merely adhering to simple rules or regulations. I'd forgotten that he'd resigned his post in this one.
I really liked seeing so much of Cheery from Vimes' POV. Pratchett skates very close to tropey transphobic/drag-phobic places at times, especially with the red spangled dress. But the narrative manages to keep its shit together by virtue of Vimes' combination of uncuriosity (he doesn't *care* about the "mix-and-match" approach taken to sex and gender in parts of the Shades) and sensible conclusion that it is the business of dwarf ladies to decide how dwarf ladies ought to dress. Sybil's polite acceptance of all peculiarities is also notable.
I'm still trying to figure out the edges of this thought, but I have been developing a suspicion that *class* plays into Cheery/Cheri's character and the humour thereof as much as trans/drag stereotypes do. I was trying to explain to someone on tumblr a while ago that "cheri/sheree" is a class-coded name in UK context (imagine: Rose Tyler's mum telephoning Sheree-who-insists-on-Cheri to catch up on gossip), and that goes for Cheery's out-of-place dress choices for state functions, too. (This is not distinct from trans/drag stereotypes, of course: those stereotypes formed around poor or socially marginal queer subcultures, AND drag also has a tendency to emulate classist-sexist stereotypes about particular kinds of women.) But I don't feel like, insofar as Cheery's femininity is a class-inflected stereotype, Pratchett is being unthinkingly classist here, either. She's never simply the butt of the joke, I think, is what saves it.
A Modern Way to Eat: Over 200 Satisfying, Everyday Vegetarian Recipes by Anna Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Haven't actually cooked anything yet, but from reading, impressions:
I’m pretty happy with this cookbook. It’s a bit fussier than I usually am (i see no reason to purchase quinoa, or chestnut flour), but more practical than, say, Yottam Ottolenghi.
On the other hand, it got my hackles up right from the introduction, where Jones explains her food choices in terms of “too much healthy food leaves me miserably hungry, but equally I don’t like to rely on a lot of heavy carbs or dairy...”. I just... if it’s leaving you miserably hungry then it is not a healthy diet! OK so you don’t like heavy carbs, fine, but your definition of “healthy” needs rethinking. I’m also not keen on the fetish Jones seems to have for feeling “light” and praising foods as “light”. On the one hand... ok, many people have a personal preference against rich or carb-laden foods, for reasons of digestive comfort or whatever. But fact is fetishising “light” food translates to performing food virtuosity and implied thin-ness.
The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I... don't know what to make of this. It was interesting. The characterisation was interesting. The description was interesting. The interlace of 18th c cultural and political issues was interesting.
Problem: there wasn't really a plot. It's a short novel, but such plot as it had would be better suited to a short story.
Close to Spider Man by Ivan E. Coyote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Now this, I really enjoyed. It had two of my most favouritest things: a strong sense of place, and queers.
The only reason I didn't give it five stars was that I found myself *irritated* by the fact that it's short story collection, memoir, and novel all at once. The use of first person means that few of the stories have a named protag, although in all of them she's a gender-nonconforming AFAB person. In one she's named Ivan. It seems logical to read them all as the same person, but in that case, is it fiction or essays?
That confusion is probably part of the Art. But it annoyed me.
Also finished: a short romance novel, and the ST:TFA prequel novella thing.
Up Next: I have the ST:TFA novelisation on my kobo. Tempted to fix my "haven't seen all the prequels" problem via the novelisations.
Recently Finished:
The Fifth Elephant by Terry PratchettMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was a re-read, but for the first time in a long time. I hadn't noticed, when I read Snuff, how much of Snuff was a reprise on themes from this one.
Things that are good about this book: Carrot. Bless his little socks, he's perfectly and earnestly genuine in his praise of Angua's brother, the *prize winning* sheepdog. But he's not actually simplistic: he has a carefully sorted out set of priorities and values that aren't merely adhering to simple rules or regulations. I'd forgotten that he'd resigned his post in this one.
I really liked seeing so much of Cheery from Vimes' POV. Pratchett skates very close to tropey transphobic/drag-phobic places at times, especially with the red spangled dress. But the narrative manages to keep its shit together by virtue of Vimes' combination of uncuriosity (he doesn't *care* about the "mix-and-match" approach taken to sex and gender in parts of the Shades) and sensible conclusion that it is the business of dwarf ladies to decide how dwarf ladies ought to dress. Sybil's polite acceptance of all peculiarities is also notable.
I'm still trying to figure out the edges of this thought, but I have been developing a suspicion that *class* plays into Cheery/Cheri's character and the humour thereof as much as trans/drag stereotypes do. I was trying to explain to someone on tumblr a while ago that "cheri/sheree" is a class-coded name in UK context (imagine: Rose Tyler's mum telephoning Sheree-who-insists-on-Cheri to catch up on gossip), and that goes for Cheery's out-of-place dress choices for state functions, too. (This is not distinct from trans/drag stereotypes, of course: those stereotypes formed around poor or socially marginal queer subcultures, AND drag also has a tendency to emulate classist-sexist stereotypes about particular kinds of women.) But I don't feel like, insofar as Cheery's femininity is a class-inflected stereotype, Pratchett is being unthinkingly classist here, either. She's never simply the butt of the joke, I think, is what saves it.
A Modern Way to Eat: Over 200 Satisfying, Everyday Vegetarian Recipes by Anna JonesMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Haven't actually cooked anything yet, but from reading, impressions:
I’m pretty happy with this cookbook. It’s a bit fussier than I usually am (i see no reason to purchase quinoa, or chestnut flour), but more practical than, say, Yottam Ottolenghi.
On the other hand, it got my hackles up right from the introduction, where Jones explains her food choices in terms of “too much healthy food leaves me miserably hungry, but equally I don’t like to rely on a lot of heavy carbs or dairy...”. I just... if it’s leaving you miserably hungry then it is not a healthy diet! OK so you don’t like heavy carbs, fine, but your definition of “healthy” needs rethinking. I’m also not keen on the fetish Jones seems to have for feeling “light” and praising foods as “light”. On the one hand... ok, many people have a personal preference against rich or carb-laden foods, for reasons of digestive comfort or whatever. But fact is fetishising “light” food translates to performing food virtuosity and implied thin-ness.
The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary MantelMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I... don't know what to make of this. It was interesting. The characterisation was interesting. The description was interesting. The interlace of 18th c cultural and political issues was interesting.
Problem: there wasn't really a plot. It's a short novel, but such plot as it had would be better suited to a short story.
Close to Spider Man by Ivan E. CoyoteMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Now this, I really enjoyed. It had two of my most favouritest things: a strong sense of place, and queers.
The only reason I didn't give it five stars was that I found myself *irritated* by the fact that it's short story collection, memoir, and novel all at once. The use of first person means that few of the stories have a named protag, although in all of them she's a gender-nonconforming AFAB person. In one she's named Ivan. It seems logical to read them all as the same person, but in that case, is it fiction or essays?
That confusion is probably part of the Art. But it annoyed me.
Also finished: a short romance novel, and the ST:TFA prequel novella thing.
Up Next: I have the ST:TFA novelisation on my kobo. Tempted to fix my "haven't seen all the prequels" problem via the novelisations.