What Are You Reading Weekend

I have just finished reading, in audiobook format, Richard Glover's The Land Before Avocado, a witty and generally warm-hearted look at the cultural history of Australia in the 60s and 70s - with tentacles extending a decade or so either side.

I need to cogitate on it some more before reviewing properly, and I may need to get a library hard copy to pin down citations. One story which really stuck with me, and which was very difficult to dig up as, it turns out, the names in the newspaper report were pseudonymous: two gay men, dubbed John and Lindsay in the Age newspaper report, who were effectively sentenced to transportation to South Australia, for having freely confessed to the crime of, as it stood in 1975, buggery.

There's some details on the case in ALGA report, starting page 10. As a result of an anonymous tip-off, which they attributed to a friend jealous over one of the pair, the two were visted by police. Erroneously believing that homosexual relationships were legal behind closed doors, the two candidly described their household to police. According to the transcript of the radio interview which Glover replicates, the magistrate harrassed their lawyer throughout - but rather than a jail term, he sentenced them to move to South Australia, where homosexual relations in private WERE legal at that time.

There's so much more that I would like to know about this case than either Glover or the AGLA report tell me. For instance: did they plead guilty, or did their lawyer attempt to argue they were innocent on account of not knowing that their acts (in private) were illegal? If, as the radio show says, the magistrate harangued their lawyer, demanding to know how he could do anything but give them a jail term, what changed his mind? And why have I never heard of these blokes? Wikipedia has no info. The AGLA report is remarkably slim. Glover seems to have done his own primary source work, not drawn on eastablished gay historians (because he does cite key secondary sources). He reports that he looked for the two men in SA archives and found nothing - although perhaps that was because the names printed in the Age were pseudonyms.

Another (un)fun fact: it is still possible to be charged with buggery in the state of NSW. Because there was no specific crime for sexual assault upon another male, only different sorts of buggery and indecent acts, prior to 1984... well, that's the charge they have to use for historic offences. Some poking around on caselaw.nsw.gov.au for judgements which are part of the public record leads me to believe that many of these are now run as judge alone trials (see MacIver, sentenced by N Williams DCJ), and Anning, sentenced by S Norrish SC DCJ). Both of those I just linked to, and the severity appeal judgements in Pritchard thread a fascinating legal tightrope between the law as it was (no reference to consent), current sentencing rules (especially re minors, there are complex privisions in the Sentencing Act for historical offences against minors), and shifting community standards. I note, upon digging into these, that Pritchard included both buggery as assault upon men (over 18), AND bestiality, which really does drag out that historical muddying of the waters.

At any rate, I think judge alone trials - unless the accused is found unfit to stand trial and it goes to special hearing rather than full trial - can only happen at the request of the accused. One can see why one might opt for such a hearing, for historic cases of this sort. But goodness, it must get muddy when they adhere to their right to a jury. I would... really like to read some incisive queer legal studies work on this, but have no idea where to start looking.

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Currently Reading:
Fiction: Lara Elena Donnely, Amberlough. Sort of space-age-ish but sort of 1940s-ish detective noir. Narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, and I'm enjoying it, but it's a genre I don't often do by audio so it's a bit odd.
Non-fiction: Marion Turner's "Chaucer: A European Life". I have learned all about the wool staple, and also that Chaucer's "littel lewys" was not living with him at the time he wrote the treatise on the Astrolabe. Nor did Chaucer see much of his wife (a courtier herself), or his daughter, at this time. It just... I dunno, adds an interesting texture to the biography that I hadn't picked up on myself.
Magazine etc: Still puttering through the Lapham's issue on Friendship. I'm also most of the way through a special issue of Post45 journal, on heteropessimism.

Recently finished:
Actually fairly recent:

The October Man by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I really liked this. Is it the case that my fresh nostalgia for the wine-growing bits of Potato Europe overrides my frustration with copaganda? Possibly.

I really appreciated the narrator framing of one character's account of a past sexual assault, both for its realism (I mean, I'm not a cop, but it struck me as accurate for many authority figures: sometimes people need to talk, and you're better off calmly listening than giving a reactive response to the Tragic Content) and the way it deftly functioned as a built-in content note.


What Abigail Did That Summer : A Rivers Of London Novella by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was told I should try this if the copaganda level of the Peter POV is bugging me, and indeed, it was refreshing to see a POV that actually understands the police are not Friends. Except Abigail DOES mostly think of Peter and Nightingale as friends, or family; the tension there was nicely played out.

I really appreciated the interlace of multiple foil characters in this one. Abigail-Paul-Simon-[spoiler].


Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


0.25% of credibilty restored on account of the wry "I wouldn't just invite the police into my home, and I AM the police" line. Also, I am easily lured by historic aeroplane content.


Winter's Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Well that handled several things better than NUMEROUS urban(/rural) fantasy / supernatural books I've read set in the US. I really like Kimberley's POV, especially re her religious background, and I particularly appreciated where the "vengeful(?) native spirits" plotline went.


Semi-recent, ie, this year:

This first one, I present notes from March, as I have failed to re-read:

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Insta review notes, to be fleshed out later. I used an audio book so I’ll need a library copy to properly review.

Overall: medium good to great. Many YES this, but without hard copy or e copy I haven’t taken screenshots. I like the overall structure - thematic rather than historical or regional.
Particular issues: super hisss about the use of “The Lauras”; epilogue a massive fail with police analogy and a long run of sympathy for queer police instead of articulating the difference between history as a discipline and policing as an institution. Not ENOUGH European “spiritually agender” examples, not enough poking at the PNF’s land acquisition. No non-white Xn examples i can recall although I’ll have to double check. Coverage of Hijra pretty good but too nonbinary-invested over transfemme.

DID give me a number of examples I’d never heard of including transfemme ones.

Excellent coverage of internment camp drag / theatre / gender fluidity.
Excellent nuance on Roberta Cowell.

Rating might go up to 4 when I revisit, but not down. Audiobook technically smooth, some mispronunciations.


Son of Sin by Omar Sakr

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I enjoyed this very much for its sheer Sydney-ness. However, what had been a tight narrative through to the protag's finishing high school just... unspooled. There was no clear plot arc OR the kind of crafted commentary arc one might expect from a memoir.

It felt like this should have been either a memoir, or cut further loose from the author's own experience. Maybe I'm in an odd position, having followed him online and read his non-fiction and poetry for some years without knowing him in person - an odd parasocial relationship from which to read barely-fiction. Some scenes stick with me months later (and facts! I did not know that urinary positions were so hotly debated among Muslim men. My key takeaway from that is that men's bathrooms should have more stalls, not just for the benefit of trans men but for the benefit of those who follow the Prophet's example in not peeing standing up). And yet I was dissatisfied with the novel overall.



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Significantly Backdated (Dec 21):

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If you gave me this book sight unseen and told me I knew the author I would guess Freya wrote it. I enjoyed it and will read more, but I did come away feeling like I was going to like the author's subsequent work, once the meticulous groundwork had been done, much more. Which is probably a net win: this is a Book 1 that makes me think Book 2 will be better, not a victim of Second Book Syndrome.

Cleanness by Garth Greenwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Oof. I think the reason I rated this 4 and not 5 is that it felt a little repetitive after What Belongs To You. Perhaps a little too polished, as well.

Gospodar, the chapter included in the anthology Kink which occasioned so much outrage: I loved it. I remember phrases from it still, two years later. I'm not sure that it would have the same nuanced effect extracted as it does in context, however. I can't remember WHAT was in the preceding chapter, but I remember being glad, as I read the chapter in question, that I had the preceding chapter or two and indeed the previous book as context.


Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theatre by Elin Diamond

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Honestly surprised how much of this I remember years later. It was dry reading, full of both theory and texts I wasn't familiar with, but it grapples with a core tension that I am very interested in: when is realistic representation of women's pain Good (TM) and when is it not?



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Online Fiction:

L Chan, The Death Haiku of the Azure Five. This was very good, but I swear I only counted four haiku, and it's driving me batty.

AS Bayatt, Dolls Eyes, reprinted in Electric Lit

Azareen van der Vliet Oolomi, Adopt a cat for the global collapse, in Electric Lit

Recently Added To The TBR:

Ernest Hemmingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls. I have mostly known of Hemmingway as a laughingstock, the epitome of dudebro lit. I actually encountered something which described the plot of this book, today, and now I wish to read it.

Felicia Davin, The Scandalous Letters of V and J. Probably the opposite of Hemmingway in all ways.

Lucy Grealy, The Autobiography of a Face. Found via the same link tree that lead me to the Hemmingway, oddly enough.

Gillian Rose, Love's Work: A Reckoning With Life. I think I saw this as a sort of disrecommendation, as a book which deals with love and sex without grappling head on with desire as a thing women actually feel. But I liked the look of the book and hence it is on my TBR now anyway.

Mike Brown, How I Killed Pluto and why it had it coming. A++ title there, sir.

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A few links!

Adora Svitak, How do we write about love of cock, in the aforementioned Post45 issue on heteropessimmism. Here it is! A bi woman's essay on heteropessimism and the weirdness that is being bi, being into dudes, and being surrounded by heteropessimist straight women! It's academic, rather than personal - although the bits that veer into personal, such as when she recounts reading passages from Garth Greenwell to her male lover, are Good, Actually.

Timmy Broderick, Evidence undermines rapid onset dysphoria claims. No new news here, but it is well written.

Garth Greenwell, A moral education: in praise of filth. I appreciated the nuance with which he talks about shifting ways of moralising, or de-moralising, art. I felt like several bits were grasping at something I have seen better pinned down in relation to 12th century poetry, but hey, that's standard for me.

Hannah Wang, The age of anesthesia, in the above mentioned post45 issue. In which Wang takes issue with various forms of cynical, fatalistic expression as modes of feminist "relatability", including but not limited to the heteropessimistic.