Books: an update
Mar. 24th, 2013 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricMy rate of reading has slowed down abruptly since uni started! Or recreational reading has, at least. Here's some from my 'read' list on Goodreads, from early Feb onwards...:
Michelle Lovric, The Undrowned Child
This book was at once fantastic and frustrating. Lovric does a great job with the worldbuilding, especially the swearing, curry-eating, hopscotch-obsessed mermaids. The characterisation of Teo and Renzo respectively is solid, and the world could use more adventurous heroines and studious boy sidekicks.
But. But. I wanted to love this book, but the *plotting* just doesn't live up to the worldbuilding. The outline of a good plot is here, certainly, but there's no suspense - friends and enemies quickly declare themselves, no ambiguity is sustained.
All I can say is that this is Lovric's first book - I expect her fourth or fifth will be fantastic.
Tishani Doshi, The Pleasure Seekers
This book was lovely - warm, wide-ranging, and with a strong sense of place. The key themes - homesickness, travel, belonging and 'what to do with the space your loved ones leave behind' - are embroidered with different emphasis in each character. By far my favourite was Ba, the semi-mystic great-grandmother of the clan.
I was charmed by the emphasis on similarity between Sian and Babo and their respective families. England isn't Sian's homeland into which she welcomes Babo: she's an exile there as much as he, an escapee from rural Wales.
Someone else reviewing on Goodreads was pleased that the book doesn't showcase 'cliche' racism, but I'm not so convinced. I find it utterly plausible that Babo would either be so fortunate as to evade any racism, or so genial as to fail to notice it. I think it's telling that Sian is far more aware of the potential discrimination their family might face in England than Babo is. But I find it odd that Bean never thought about race in her years in England. Perhaps she had the good fortune never to be on the receiving end of racism, but not to notice it at all? That I find hard to believe. This is Bean, hypersensitive to all suffering, from the poor to ghosts, and she's not noticing racism around her? Odd.
And I'm unsettled by the shifting and largely westernised terminology Doshi uses to refer to Ignatius, the hijra who lives with Ba. I don't know enough about the Hijra to know what's respectful terms of reference and what's not, but there you go. Ignatius *was* a delightful character, although I was slightly creeped out by the way his devotion to Bean's child was written - a decision he apparently took without consulting with her, determined to be a father whether she liked it or not.
Henry James, The Ambassadors Wow, I finally finished this! Uhm... I'm not sure what to say. James' writing is dense but beautiful. Strether is a doofus. I found James' habit of writing about how Strether had, say, reached a decision without saying what that decision was to be most infuriating. But nevertheless, I enjoyed it; it is, I think, a long meditation on what is important in life - what sort of relationships, what sort of experiences are worth investing in, and whether it may be better to grow than to be secure.
Michelle Lovric, The Undrowned Child
This book was at once fantastic and frustrating. Lovric does a great job with the worldbuilding, especially the swearing, curry-eating, hopscotch-obsessed mermaids. The characterisation of Teo and Renzo respectively is solid, and the world could use more adventurous heroines and studious boy sidekicks.
But. But. I wanted to love this book, but the *plotting* just doesn't live up to the worldbuilding. The outline of a good plot is here, certainly, but there's no suspense - friends and enemies quickly declare themselves, no ambiguity is sustained.
All I can say is that this is Lovric's first book - I expect her fourth or fifth will be fantastic.
Tishani Doshi, The Pleasure Seekers
This book was lovely - warm, wide-ranging, and with a strong sense of place. The key themes - homesickness, travel, belonging and 'what to do with the space your loved ones leave behind' - are embroidered with different emphasis in each character. By far my favourite was Ba, the semi-mystic great-grandmother of the clan.
I was charmed by the emphasis on similarity between Sian and Babo and their respective families. England isn't Sian's homeland into which she welcomes Babo: she's an exile there as much as he, an escapee from rural Wales.
Someone else reviewing on Goodreads was pleased that the book doesn't showcase 'cliche' racism, but I'm not so convinced. I find it utterly plausible that Babo would either be so fortunate as to evade any racism, or so genial as to fail to notice it. I think it's telling that Sian is far more aware of the potential discrimination their family might face in England than Babo is. But I find it odd that Bean never thought about race in her years in England. Perhaps she had the good fortune never to be on the receiving end of racism, but not to notice it at all? That I find hard to believe. This is Bean, hypersensitive to all suffering, from the poor to ghosts, and she's not noticing racism around her? Odd.
And I'm unsettled by the shifting and largely westernised terminology Doshi uses to refer to Ignatius, the hijra who lives with Ba. I don't know enough about the Hijra to know what's respectful terms of reference and what's not, but there you go. Ignatius *was* a delightful character, although I was slightly creeped out by the way his devotion to Bean's child was written - a decision he apparently took without consulting with her, determined to be a father whether she liked it or not.
Henry James, The Ambassadors Wow, I finally finished this! Uhm... I'm not sure what to say. James' writing is dense but beautiful. Strether is a doofus. I found James' habit of writing about how Strether had, say, reached a decision without saying what that decision was to be most infuriating. But nevertheless, I enjoyed it; it is, I think, a long meditation on what is important in life - what sort of relationships, what sort of experiences are worth investing in, and whether it may be better to grow than to be secure.