On reading

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House on the Feast of St. Pachomius

Reading team7's latest set of book recommendations reminded me that I've been working on this reading mix:

Metafiction: books about books
The Club Dumas, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte - extreme bibliophilia, the pleasures of fannish obsession, the art of the serial...
Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco - an iffy choice, more about vanity presses and publishing than reading per se
The Counterfeiters, by André Gide - another iffy choice but considerable musings on how to write a novel suspiciously like the one being read
Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder - well, if we're going to include books that play with self-referential devices...
If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino - epitomizes the theme

To be posted to reading_mix once I actually write up annotations. In the meanwhile, any suggestions? I know I'm definitely missing at least one title that I intended to put on the list.

Also need to actually post up this mix someday. Oh yes, that reminds me...I reread Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm on Project Gutenberg the other day and realized all over again just what an awful cliffhanger it has for an ending. There's supposed to be a sequel of sorts, called New Chronicles of Rebecca, but it seems to be more a collection of short stories rather than a continuation. It's available on Project Gutenberg as well. What's intriguing though is that there appears to be another sequel titled More About Rebecca published in 1930 (much later than New Chronicles, which was published in 1907). I'm trying to figure out whether it's a different book or simply an alternate title. There is also mention of a "concluding volume" in the Wikipedia entry written by a distant nephew of the author's, but alas, the closest title I can find on Amazon looks singularly unpromising. Whatever happened to Rebecca and her Mr. Aladdin?! Someone needs to create a community for children's literature fanfic (other than yuletide, I mean).

A tangent: it's odd because I tend to wrinkle my nose at large age differences in romantic relationships in real life, but I have a not-so-secret fondness for them in fiction. I suppose it comes back down to the principle that generally the relationships I like reading about in books (or watching in dramas or movies, for that matter) are usually not relationships that I would actually like to have. There are certain exceptions, but it holds true for a lot of my shoujo OTPs. (Prime example: Tsukasa/Tsukushi.) It's interesting because so many shoujo and BL relationships focus on some sort of power differential (social status, age, or even just emotional dependence), and it is exactly that sort of dynamic that fascinates me (as well as a million other fangirls), but the flip side is that I grow more and more convinced that I want to avoid all such fascinating relationships in real life. My personal romantic ideal is humdrum mundanity! As I keep saying whenever I finish watching a K-drama, "desire is the root of all suffering," etc. (New path to Nirvana! Gorge yourself on melodramatic shoujo or BL series and K-dramas, until you reject the world of illusions and start seeking enlightenment.)

Anyway, back to books. Finished The Wasp Factory (which failed to squick me although I did enjoy the plot twist at the end, despite the fact that it didn't really explain anything) and Murder Must Advertise (loved the mystery plot even if I spotted the culprit earlier than usual, loved the advertising agency, loved Wimsey). Now reading Neuromancer to get me in the mood for cyberpunk. My backlog is already too long; I really need to update my reading blog soon.

There is no more delightful feeling than walking back from the library on a warm, sunny afternoon with a book in your hand.

Yours &c.

Comments

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

Haha, was that me singing or Nan?

[troisroyaumes]

'Twas you! :D

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. Me and my German tunes ~

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

George Gissing - New Grub Street

The two main characters are like the two halves of the author's psyche, one writes easily for money, the other tortuously for art. There's some stuff about the artificiality of the three-book novel form that has especial power since New Grub Street is itself a three-book novel. Towards the end it becomes a tale of woe and doom as the artist-writer suffers YEA UNTO DEATH. It's pretty awesome.

[troisroyaumes]

Sounds pretty interesting! Adding it to the list. I should look for it at the library as well.

[meril.livejournal.com]

wasn't worldserpent discussing the metafictional aspects of The French Lieutenant's Woman a few weeks back? it's been about 12 years since I've read it, so no input there.

thanks for using reading_mix btw. I know, my comm, Tin's idea, both of us too busy to post in it ^^;

oh, good, so you're the other person I know who was not squicked by The Wasp Factory. any interest in reading more Banks? I have his new book, unread of course.

[troisroyaumes]

Hm, I'll have to take a look at it then. ^_^

I tend not to get squicked by descriptions of violence and animal torture, for some reason. Although I think the mostly calm and detached tone of the narrator probably helped. What other books by Banks would you recommend? I wasn't too impressed with The Wasp Factory, to be honest, but worldserpent keeps talking about his Culture series, so I'd like to give him another try.

[meril.livejournal.com]

Mainstream fiction: either The Crow Road or Espedair Street, but good luck finding them in the US.

SF: Against a Dark Background (non-Culture) or Consider Phlebas (Culture)

Orbit will be reprinting his older SF in the USA starting in late 2007-early 2008.

[troisroyaumes]

Ooh, thanks for the recs. I'll go look them up.

[phoenixgold.livejournal.com]

Best theme ever. XD For metafiction, basically anything by Jasper Fforde, though I like The Big Over Easy best, because Jack is an adorable protagonist + the murder of Humpty Dumpty! Though for books about lit: Thursday Next's books and the first is The Eyre Affair.

[troisroyaumes]

Jasper Fforde! That's who I intended to include on the list and forgot about. I haven't read The Big Over Easy actually...do you prefer it to the Thursday Next novels? (I got a little fed up with The Eyre Affair, but I really enjoyed Lost in a Good Book. I should get around to reading the rest of the series someday. XD)

[phoenixgold.livejournal.com]

I think Jack is a far more appealing protagonist than Thursday, which makes the book that much better, not to mention I enjoyed reading about nursery rhyme characters than those from Jane Eyre. Mainly because I hated Jane Eyre. XD I haven't read any of the other Thursday Next books beyond that, though I really want to get to Something Rotten as I hear Hamlet's pretty awesome in it.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

How was the Eyre Affair? I've been meaning to read it and I think I might actually have bought a copy of it recently.

[troisroyaumes]

The Eyre Affair was clever and entertaining, but Thursday Next really got on my nerves after a while. The main problem was that Jasper Fforde couldn't seem to decide on a single archetype for her, so she ended up being a very uncompelling protagonist. But the whole idea was very interesting, and I think his writing improves as the series goes on because I remember the second book being better than the first.

[lacewood]

Tell me, what are your feelings about Wuthering Heights? XD But the bit where he makes fun of it is small and I have... forgotten which Thursday book that was in anyway. Hm.

I liked The Big Over Easy better myself, it just seemed more fun and I actually liked Jack, instead of feeling indifferent to Thursday. XD; I think he tried with Thursday, but she was just not as cool in execution as she could've been in idea? Or maybe the first person pov doesn't work so well for him, either one.

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, my main problem with the Thursday Next books was Thursday herself. XD;; For me, it was mainly because Fforde couldn't seem to decide what sort of character he wanted her to be so he made her into everything. I should give The Big Over Easy a try though; it sounds fun. ^_^

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Foucault's Pendulum: BLECHHHHHHH

A book about books: Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. It's about Shakespeare and English literature and acts it out.

[troisroyaumes]

Haha, actually I loved Foucault's Pendulum, although I can see how it would be a hit-or-miss.

Oh, the famous Pamela Dean. (I'm afraid I've only heard about her in connection to Cassie Claire.) Is the book worth reading by the way? You seemed a bit ambivalent in your post about it.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Eco's style in that book drove me nuts. Have you read anything else by him? I'd meant to read Name of the Rose but was turned off by Foucault's Pendulum.

That's where I'd first heard of her, too, at the fandomwank wiki about the Cassie Claire plagiarism thing! And then someone suggested that I read Tam Lin because it's about Classics majors. Which it is, sort of. Ambivalent is a good word, because I thought the book was a hundred pages too long and very uneven in structure and intensity, but I still have this urge to reread it. It's chock full of literary allusions - the sort of conversations I wish I could have, where an apt line of poetry is quoted and everyone understands the reference and what it means. Alas, my life is more pedestrian than that. More vernacular, maybe.

[troisroyaumes]

Eco is rather baroque in Foucault's Pendulum, but it makes a great suspense thriller. I've been meaning to give The Name of the Rose a try, but I haven't actually gotten around to picking up the book yet.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the baroque style so much as the way he created elaborate, monologue flights of fancy to drive the plot. It felt very self-satisfied and "I am a professor! I know lots of things! Admire me!" When things were actually happening, I liked it a lot, but the method he chose to make things happen wasn't to my taste.

I keep trying Name of the Rose and getting distracted from it.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

I mean, Eco's very witty and I liked that a lot at first, but after the first two hundred pages it became tiresome.