Recent book reading + movie watching
Oct. 2nd, 2013 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaHa, once again doing it on the right day. Go me.
Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood
I started this for a reading group that I joined at my new workplace, but I only read about a third of it, because then I realized I'd miss the discussion meeting and I didn't enjoy it enough to finish it anyway. I liked the sense of setting, but I never really cared enough about the protagonist--I got a sense that she was drifting through life being unhappy without really knowing how to go about doing anything about it. Which, fair enough, that happens. But it just...wasn't what I needed to read right now, I think, and I got the sense that dark family secrets were going to, well, surface, in the rest of the book. Also, wow, the endless comma splices. I guess it must be a stylistic choice, perhaps to make the narration sound more like colloquial speech? But it annoyed me and made the book feel disjointed to me.
China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen McHugh
I loved this book! It was such a fascinating and lived-in world, and I totally cared about the main character (and many of the other characters as well, especially Martine and Alexi). I admit to being slightly disappointed that Zhang did not end up on Mars--I'd somehow gotten the impression that he would. The ending was totally not predictable to me? Zhang's story felt a lot like RL to me: it meanders and ends up someplace where you wouldn't have known. And the setting details felt a lot like RL, too--I completely love those sorts of science fiction worlds that pay attention to daily life details. (This book had some comma splices, too, but somehow they did not bother me. *g*) Have now ordered two more of the author's books.
Oh hey, and I went to the movies last week, too: I was in Trondheim to visit a friend this weekend, and we'd meant to go watch Pacific Rim, but it wasn't on that day. So we watched Elysium instead. I really enjoyed the setup and the first 2/3 of it (except for the shaky cam, arrrgh), but the ending was a bit too testosterone-soaked for me, and the "happy ending" felt completely tacked on. Also, what is the deal with the shuttles just being able to fly right into the human living habitats on Elysium?? Elysium is IN SPACE! You'd need to dock and then go through an airlock. If all those houses and lawns had no barrier between them and space, all the air would escape. *science rage* Anyway, I kind of want an exoskeleton? That looked cool. I want an exoskeleton that you could attach wings to and fly with.
Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood
I started this for a reading group that I joined at my new workplace, but I only read about a third of it, because then I realized I'd miss the discussion meeting and I didn't enjoy it enough to finish it anyway. I liked the sense of setting, but I never really cared enough about the protagonist--I got a sense that she was drifting through life being unhappy without really knowing how to go about doing anything about it. Which, fair enough, that happens. But it just...wasn't what I needed to read right now, I think, and I got the sense that dark family secrets were going to, well, surface, in the rest of the book. Also, wow, the endless comma splices. I guess it must be a stylistic choice, perhaps to make the narration sound more like colloquial speech? But it annoyed me and made the book feel disjointed to me.
China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen McHugh
I loved this book! It was such a fascinating and lived-in world, and I totally cared about the main character (and many of the other characters as well, especially Martine and Alexi). I admit to being slightly disappointed that Zhang did not end up on Mars--I'd somehow gotten the impression that he would. The ending was totally not predictable to me? Zhang's story felt a lot like RL to me: it meanders and ends up someplace where you wouldn't have known. And the setting details felt a lot like RL, too--I completely love those sorts of science fiction worlds that pay attention to daily life details. (This book had some comma splices, too, but somehow they did not bother me. *g*) Have now ordered two more of the author's books.
Oh hey, and I went to the movies last week, too: I was in Trondheim to visit a friend this weekend, and we'd meant to go watch Pacific Rim, but it wasn't on that day. So we watched Elysium instead. I really enjoyed the setup and the first 2/3 of it (except for the shaky cam, arrrgh), but the ending was a bit too testosterone-soaked for me, and the "happy ending" felt completely tacked on. Also, what is the deal with the shuttles just being able to fly right into the human living habitats on Elysium?? Elysium is IN SPACE! You'd need to dock and then go through an airlock. If all those houses and lawns had no barrier between them and space, all the air would escape. *science rage* Anyway, I kind of want an exoskeleton? That looked cool. I want an exoskeleton that you could attach wings to and fly with.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-02 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-02 07:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-03 04:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-02 07:46 pm (UTC)I have no urgency to read Atwood's Oryx/Crake/Vanilla Cake series. I did adore Cat's Eye, which brilliantly captures how horrible middle-grade girls can be to each other. Of particular relevance to your interests, Alias, Grace looks at the class differences in frontier Canada in the 1850s. Finally, Bodily Harm is the creepiest fucking thriller ever, featuring white women's tears, cancer, and discovering just how much one disintegrates in the custody of strangers.
I want an exoskeleton with limbs that can grow 5 meters in length to walk over annoying won't-stop-for-me traffic.
Zhang's not ending up on Mars was more of the quotidian for me. I loved how ramshackle Mars is, although I think in RealLife™ surviving in that atmosphere would require more anal-retentiveness and lots more money.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-03 04:53 pm (UTC)Zhang's not ending up on Mars was more of the quotidian for me. I loved how ramshackle Mars is, although I think in RealLife™ surviving in that atmosphere would require more anal-retentiveness and lots more money.
I think I wasn't expecting the other POV characters at first, and since I thought Zhang was only POV character, that meant he'd go to Mars, since the back cover promised me Mars. : ) But you're right, it does fit with the quotidian atmosphere. And yeah, I loved the ramshackleness, too, although I agree that living there would probably be a lot more precarious than the book lets on. I can't think that it would be productive if you only threw human labor at it, the way the book seems to suggest (since people are sent there for resettlement).