What Are You Reading Weekend
Apr. 22nd, 2018 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricSecond weekend in a row, because my backlog of reviews-to-be-written-up is substantial.
Currently Reading: About six different things, the most interesting addition to which is Nurrudin Farrah's Maps, for work.
Recently Finished: Many things, but here are four of them
Mates at Billabong by Mary Grant Bruce
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I can't believe that I, as a child, religiously read and re-read this book which contains a full chapter detailed account of a cricket match. I'm also kind of confused because the opposing town name is that of an area now an outlying suburb of sydney - what were they doing in rural victoria? Etc.
Again, the racisms. MGB keeps describing turban-wearing characters as 'hindu'. That's... not how it works.
Also notable: the sharp shift in gendering in this book. Norah's a bit older, and there's a LOT of emphasis on her 'womanly' traits as counter to her practical tomboyisms. And the demonisation of cousin Cecil! It's basically all 'lack of rugged masculinity = evil and also selfish". Just. I really felt like the death of Bobs the pony was unnecesary here, even given Cecil's established character. A good fall from the horse and a long walk home would've taught him his lesson, and then he could be rebuked for un-permitted pony-borrowing. The death was just excessive, and really only served to prove that the unmanly man was INHUMANE-so-there.
Don't Feed the Trolls by Erica Kudisch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a delightful plane read! I particularly liked its light touch on the gender crisis - while the final scene showed our protag Officially Happy Now, the book /didn't/ spell out in small words exactly what their final gender solution is, and I liked that. For reasons.
HAVING SAID THAT: there was a glaring omission in the gender/language/self-description nexus. And that was: our protag speaks French at home, with their housemates. When everyone switches to calling them 'they' in English WHAT HAPPENED IN FRENCH? Kudisch doesn't even seem to have considered that in non-english languages, gendering extends beyond pronouns and would be a thing you have to deal with.
Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Huh. I remember always being a bit disappointed in this as a child, and can confirm the same remains. The first chapters are engaging, I buy in to the characters, but there are too /many/ of them for the length of the book, and about halfway through the complexity drains out. Judy's abrupt death at the end really stands out as a hack job - the book is trying to be an australian knock-off Little Women, and therefore requires a death. Did it have to be the gender-non-conforming girl? Yes, apparently did it, in an act of redemptive maternal instinct or something.
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. This was an Experience. It's... it's got so much going on that I can't usefully summarise it, but it's a multi-generation family saga type thing, following an interracial couple, James and Materia, in late nineteenth century Nova Scotia, and their daughters.
There's a fair bit of rough stuff in it that I wasn't expecting - brutual family violence, incest - but all, I think, quite well handled. And also unexpected was the f/f subplot, itself delightfully well done.
The book's sense of place is fantastic; attention to historical detail is noteworthy (there's a constant background awareness of miner's strikes and union politics in Sydney, Nova Scotia). Above all, though, what I admire most about this book is the author's grasp over asynchronous narration - prolepsis, analepsis and interlacing. Tense shifts, integration of fragments, etc, all very well done, and all managed in such a way as to effectively withhold some of the key pieces of information until the point in the main plot where the younger daughters' discover them. It's just really really skillfully done.
View all my reviews
Up Next: I really do mean to start Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs d'une Jeune Fille before the end of the month. I promise.
Music notes: no newly acquired albums, because I haven't hit target on the habit tracker since I got back. However, one more Janelle Monae track dropped! I like it, but it's definitely my least fave of the four so far.
Last week's lethargy turned into a hellish cold. I'm still coughing up phlegm at random, despite feeling fine.
Currently Reading: About six different things, the most interesting addition to which is Nurrudin Farrah's Maps, for work.
Recently Finished: Many things, but here are four of them
Mates at Billabong by Mary Grant BruceMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I can't believe that I, as a child, religiously read and re-read this book which contains a full chapter detailed account of a cricket match. I'm also kind of confused because the opposing town name is that of an area now an outlying suburb of sydney - what were they doing in rural victoria? Etc.
Again, the racisms. MGB keeps describing turban-wearing characters as 'hindu'. That's... not how it works.
Also notable: the sharp shift in gendering in this book. Norah's a bit older, and there's a LOT of emphasis on her 'womanly' traits as counter to her practical tomboyisms. And the demonisation of cousin Cecil! It's basically all 'lack of rugged masculinity = evil and also selfish". Just. I really felt like the death of Bobs the pony was unnecesary here, even given Cecil's established character. A good fall from the horse and a long walk home would've taught him his lesson, and then he could be rebuked for un-permitted pony-borrowing. The death was just excessive, and really only served to prove that the unmanly man was INHUMANE-so-there.
Don't Feed the Trolls by Erica KudischMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a delightful plane read! I particularly liked its light touch on the gender crisis - while the final scene showed our protag Officially Happy Now, the book /didn't/ spell out in small words exactly what their final gender solution is, and I liked that. For reasons.
HAVING SAID THAT: there was a glaring omission in the gender/language/self-description nexus. And that was: our protag speaks French at home, with their housemates. When everyone switches to calling them 'they' in English WHAT HAPPENED IN FRENCH? Kudisch doesn't even seem to have considered that in non-english languages, gendering extends beyond pronouns and would be a thing you have to deal with.
Seven Little Australians by Ethel TurnerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Huh. I remember always being a bit disappointed in this as a child, and can confirm the same remains. The first chapters are engaging, I buy in to the characters, but there are too /many/ of them for the length of the book, and about halfway through the complexity drains out. Judy's abrupt death at the end really stands out as a hack job - the book is trying to be an australian knock-off Little Women, and therefore requires a death. Did it have to be the gender-non-conforming girl? Yes, apparently did it, in an act of redemptive maternal instinct or something.
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonaldMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. This was an Experience. It's... it's got so much going on that I can't usefully summarise it, but it's a multi-generation family saga type thing, following an interracial couple, James and Materia, in late nineteenth century Nova Scotia, and their daughters.
There's a fair bit of rough stuff in it that I wasn't expecting - brutual family violence, incest - but all, I think, quite well handled. And also unexpected was the f/f subplot, itself delightfully well done.
The book's sense of place is fantastic; attention to historical detail is noteworthy (there's a constant background awareness of miner's strikes and union politics in Sydney, Nova Scotia). Above all, though, what I admire most about this book is the author's grasp over asynchronous narration - prolepsis, analepsis and interlacing. Tense shifts, integration of fragments, etc, all very well done, and all managed in such a way as to effectively withhold some of the key pieces of information until the point in the main plot where the younger daughters' discover them. It's just really really skillfully done.
View all my reviews
Up Next: I really do mean to start Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs d'une Jeune Fille before the end of the month. I promise.
Music notes: no newly acquired albums, because I haven't hit target on the habit tracker since I got back. However, one more Janelle Monae track dropped! I like it, but it's definitely my least fave of the four so far.
Last week's lethargy turned into a hellish cold. I'm still coughing up phlegm at random, despite feeling fine.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-23 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-23 06:11 am (UTC)