Books, continued
Jan. 1st, 2013 03:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricAlso read this Christmas-New Year:
Julia Donaldson w/ Axel Schaeffer (illus), The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child: Oh my, these were *adorable*. My family are on a bit of a Gruffalo kick at the moment, and although I evaded watching the movies, the books caught and charmed me. They read aloud beautifully, and are sneakily funny. The Gruffalo's Child is definitely my favourite: the intrepid girl-gruffalo warms my heart.
Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind This was sweet, and I found myself more charmed by Annie and Liza's romance than I'd expected to be (I wasn't expecting knights-and-ladies play acting!). It does everything right, and reads a little like a manual on 'How To Come Out (To Yourself As Well)'. By and large, that works perfectly for the genre and its purpose. My only quibble is that it felt heavy-handed, with Ms Windeyer's lecture on coming to terms with your gayness being echoed so exactly by Liza's college-era internal monologue. The lack of any plot in the college-era flash-forwards might also hamper things: surely Liza had some input, some new thoughts or discoveries about being gay at MIT?
Sam Starbuck (akacopperbadge), Trace, This was fun, and sweet, and interesting! The world-building was complex but the story itself didn't quite live up to it. The business about Colin's real name needed fleshing out but was sweet nonetheless. The Lise/Colin/Joseph relationship was wonderful, but Colin/Grace/Garbano needed more oomph.
Definitely not Sam's best to date, but worth reading anyway.
Helen Garner, The Children's Bach Well. This was very well written - a masterful execution of wordcraft.
It was also aggravatingly distant - Garner never gives you enough to really like or understand any of the characters, but just enough to make you curious. It's literary, self-consciously so, to the detriment of a sense of humanity.
And what's with desolate literary stories about desolate suburban life, anyway? Gah. I can't see that Athena's plot arc (which seemed to be the 'main' one?) had any redemption in it. She came back dreaming of playing the piano, a metaphor for enjoying life, but *did* she? Did she play, did she enjoy it? Or did life just drag on? I don't think she gained much - certainly not any deeper connection with the members of her family - and everyone else suffered more.
Which brings us to the extraordinary dehumanising treatment of Billy, a child with autism. I think, I *hope*, that his family's callous treatment of him and lack of desire to engage with him is intentionally symptomatic of their inability (and especially Athena's inability) to really see outside of their own heads and engage with anyone else at all. That'd make it 'disability as metaphor', which is overdone, but better than the alternative (Helen Garner actually thinks there's 'no one in there').
L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams: A re-read among many. I'm particularly charmed this time by the way several sub-plots are twined with Anne's life. This book shows Lucy Maud at her best, I think.
Julia Donaldson w/ Axel Schaeffer (illus), The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child: Oh my, these were *adorable*. My family are on a bit of a Gruffalo kick at the moment, and although I evaded watching the movies, the books caught and charmed me. They read aloud beautifully, and are sneakily funny. The Gruffalo's Child is definitely my favourite: the intrepid girl-gruffalo warms my heart.
Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind This was sweet, and I found myself more charmed by Annie and Liza's romance than I'd expected to be (I wasn't expecting knights-and-ladies play acting!). It does everything right, and reads a little like a manual on 'How To Come Out (To Yourself As Well)'. By and large, that works perfectly for the genre and its purpose. My only quibble is that it felt heavy-handed, with Ms Windeyer's lecture on coming to terms with your gayness being echoed so exactly by Liza's college-era internal monologue. The lack of any plot in the college-era flash-forwards might also hamper things: surely Liza had some input, some new thoughts or discoveries about being gay at MIT?
Sam Starbuck (aka
copperbadge), Trace, This was fun, and sweet, and interesting! The world-building was complex but the story itself didn't quite live up to it. The business about Colin's real name needed fleshing out but was sweet nonetheless. The Lise/Colin/Joseph relationship was wonderful, but Colin/Grace/Garbano needed more oomph.Definitely not Sam's best to date, but worth reading anyway.
Helen Garner, The Children's Bach Well. This was very well written - a masterful execution of wordcraft.
It was also aggravatingly distant - Garner never gives you enough to really like or understand any of the characters, but just enough to make you curious. It's literary, self-consciously so, to the detriment of a sense of humanity.
And what's with desolate literary stories about desolate suburban life, anyway? Gah. I can't see that Athena's plot arc (which seemed to be the 'main' one?) had any redemption in it. She came back dreaming of playing the piano, a metaphor for enjoying life, but *did* she? Did she play, did she enjoy it? Or did life just drag on? I don't think she gained much - certainly not any deeper connection with the members of her family - and everyone else suffered more.
Which brings us to the extraordinary dehumanising treatment of Billy, a child with autism. I think, I *hope*, that his family's callous treatment of him and lack of desire to engage with him is intentionally symptomatic of their inability (and especially Athena's inability) to really see outside of their own heads and engage with anyone else at all. That'd make it 'disability as metaphor', which is overdone, but better than the alternative (Helen Garner actually thinks there's 'no one in there').
L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams: A re-read among many. I'm particularly charmed this time by the way several sub-plots are twined with Anne's life. This book shows Lucy Maud at her best, I think.