Books: another update
Jul. 21st, 2013 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricI am reading at a great pace at the moment, it seems.
Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho: I listened to this by audiobook, as with the first one. This book was not, I think, as strong as the first in terms of world-building; I missed the river deities, they were fun. But the detective plot was better constructed and held up more suspense, and I was delighted with the depth of character Nightingale gained.
Pleased to see Leslie remained a consistent character, even if from afar. Peter's thinking with his dick continues to feature, but after a while I came to sympathise with him. Simone likes cake AND sex - i too would be powerless to resist that!
Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess), Let's Pretend This Never Happened: Oh, oh my. I don't think I can offer much commentary on this book, save that by the time I was finished, my housemate (the one from whom I hadn't borrowed it) was glad, because my incessant giggling was driving her bonkers.
Naomi Mitchison, Memoirs of a Spacewoman: This was fascinating! It was exactly the kind of thing which I feel is *missing* from classic sci-fi, whenever I go there - reflections on culture, individual identity, and communication with other species.
My chief complaint is that its sixties-ness shows in the treatment of sexuality. "Explores her sexuality with friends and colleagues, including the bisexual Martian Vly!", trumpets the book cover. Hah. For the most part, Mary explores *reproduction* with friends and colleagues - actual sexuality is left right aside. Although the use of genital organs in tactile communication with Martians (who are bigendered) is touched upon, Mary sticks strictly to professional boundaries except when Vly is in 'monosexual' reproduction mode - when male, she ends up reproducing with him; when she finds out Vly has become female and had a child of her own, Mary freaks and avoids thinking about it.
Sigh.
Jack Gilbert, Monolithos: Oh, this was gorgeous. I loved so many things in this collection: Gilbert's frank and genuine love of women; the Yeats Byzantium references; the Orpheus mythology... so many things.
A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden: This was... interesting. If I hadn't read Possession first I might be inclined to praise this more highly, but knowing how good Byatt's writing is yet to get, my appreciation of this one pales a little. Her characterisation work is interesting, deep, fascinating: but it lacks sympathy. Not one of these well-developed characters is really sympathetic. In Possession, Byatt has mastered writing flawed, even distasteful, characters in a way which nevertheless radiates her empathy for them.
Everyone in this book is plagued by a sense of despair, and the course of the narrative doesn't fix that. They grow, yes; but none of them seem to have evaded despair. Only the elusive prologue/epilogue suggests that at least one of them may flourish yet.
And yet: the writing is very good; Byatt's reflections on character, nationhood and the art of playwriting are interesting and worthwhile. It took a little while, but after about 1/3 of the book I was hooked, wanted desperately to see what became of them all.
Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho: I listened to this by audiobook, as with the first one. This book was not, I think, as strong as the first in terms of world-building; I missed the river deities, they were fun. But the detective plot was better constructed and held up more suspense, and I was delighted with the depth of character Nightingale gained.
Pleased to see Leslie remained a consistent character, even if from afar. Peter's thinking with his dick continues to feature, but after a while I came to sympathise with him. Simone likes cake AND sex - i too would be powerless to resist that!
Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess), Let's Pretend This Never Happened: Oh, oh my. I don't think I can offer much commentary on this book, save that by the time I was finished, my housemate (the one from whom I hadn't borrowed it) was glad, because my incessant giggling was driving her bonkers.
Naomi Mitchison, Memoirs of a Spacewoman: This was fascinating! It was exactly the kind of thing which I feel is *missing* from classic sci-fi, whenever I go there - reflections on culture, individual identity, and communication with other species.
My chief complaint is that its sixties-ness shows in the treatment of sexuality. "Explores her sexuality with friends and colleagues, including the bisexual Martian Vly!", trumpets the book cover. Hah. For the most part, Mary explores *reproduction* with friends and colleagues - actual sexuality is left right aside. Although the use of genital organs in tactile communication with Martians (who are bigendered) is touched upon, Mary sticks strictly to professional boundaries except when Vly is in 'monosexual' reproduction mode - when male, she ends up reproducing with him; when she finds out Vly has become female and had a child of her own, Mary freaks and avoids thinking about it.
Sigh.
Jack Gilbert, Monolithos: Oh, this was gorgeous. I loved so many things in this collection: Gilbert's frank and genuine love of women; the Yeats Byzantium references; the Orpheus mythology... so many things.
A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden: This was... interesting. If I hadn't read Possession first I might be inclined to praise this more highly, but knowing how good Byatt's writing is yet to get, my appreciation of this one pales a little. Her characterisation work is interesting, deep, fascinating: but it lacks sympathy. Not one of these well-developed characters is really sympathetic. In Possession, Byatt has mastered writing flawed, even distasteful, characters in a way which nevertheless radiates her empathy for them.
Everyone in this book is plagued by a sense of despair, and the course of the narrative doesn't fix that. They grow, yes; but none of them seem to have evaded despair. Only the elusive prologue/epilogue suggests that at least one of them may flourish yet.
And yet: the writing is very good; Byatt's reflections on character, nationhood and the art of playwriting are interesting and worthwhile. It took a little while, but after about 1/3 of the book I was hooked, wanted desperately to see what became of them all.