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Recent reading
Oct. 6th, 2016 10:13 pmBlood of the Martyrs by Naomi Mitchison
I would've never read this book if I just saw the cover and didn't know the author: it features a manly Roman man protectively holding a woman. Both of them look like they're rich. In the background there are some martial scenes and also Jesus on the cross. Ha haaa. I have no idea who that couple is even supposed to be.
Anyway, I loved this book; I think it's my favorite Mitchison besides Travel Light and Memoirs of a Spacewoman. It was published in 1939 and is about the early Christians in Rome, and has a large cast of characters which get thoroughly introduced one by one in the beginning. That pays off for me; I like how much it's an ensemble story. And it plays into the themes of the book, too, because it's all about solidarity between people who are poor or enslaved. For them it's not the Kingdom of Heaven but the Kingdom on Earth that they're struggling for; they want to change the world. Obviously the author is writing from a socialist perspective and I have no idea how historically correct it is view the ancient Christians that way. But it feels alive to me; it doesn't feel like she's copy-pasting her own time onto ancient Rome, even as there as parallells that really strike home. The main plot is about the increasing political/religious persecution of Christians under Nero, and also about Beric from Britannia, who is fairly priviliged but isn't a Roman citizen, and how he's torn between his more priviliged life and the community he finds among the Christians. I guess I have a weakness for characters who struggle to do the right thing and who find community and solidarity, so obviously this book was going to appeal to me.
Den ärliga bedragaren by Tove Janson (in English as The Honest Liar)
Huh, this is an odd book. It's about two women, one of whom is exactingly honest yet worms herself into the other woman's life and profits by it, and the other who wants to keep her illusions and in that sense deludes herself. And how they both get under each other's skin until neither of them is what they were. It's a good book! And not much like the Moomin books.
I would've never read this book if I just saw the cover and didn't know the author: it features a manly Roman man protectively holding a woman. Both of them look like they're rich. In the background there are some martial scenes and also Jesus on the cross. Ha haaa. I have no idea who that couple is even supposed to be.
Anyway, I loved this book; I think it's my favorite Mitchison besides Travel Light and Memoirs of a Spacewoman. It was published in 1939 and is about the early Christians in Rome, and has a large cast of characters which get thoroughly introduced one by one in the beginning. That pays off for me; I like how much it's an ensemble story. And it plays into the themes of the book, too, because it's all about solidarity between people who are poor or enslaved. For them it's not the Kingdom of Heaven but the Kingdom on Earth that they're struggling for; they want to change the world. Obviously the author is writing from a socialist perspective and I have no idea how historically correct it is view the ancient Christians that way. But it feels alive to me; it doesn't feel like she's copy-pasting her own time onto ancient Rome, even as there as parallells that really strike home. The main plot is about the increasing political/religious persecution of Christians under Nero, and also about Beric from Britannia, who is fairly priviliged but isn't a Roman citizen, and how he's torn between his more priviliged life and the community he finds among the Christians. I guess I have a weakness for characters who struggle to do the right thing and who find community and solidarity, so obviously this book was going to appeal to me.
Den ärliga bedragaren by Tove Janson (in English as The Honest Liar)
Huh, this is an odd book. It's about two women, one of whom is exactingly honest yet worms herself into the other woman's life and profits by it, and the other who wants to keep her illusions and in that sense deludes herself. And how they both get under each other's skin until neither of them is what they were. It's a good book! And not much like the Moomin books.
