Recent reading

[luzula]

Hild by Nicola Griffiths
Oh, what lovely lovely prose! And characterization. And worldbuilding. And nature descriptions. I just wanted to roll around in this book and never wanted it to end. Highly recommended. That said, it's not a quick and easy read--it's a dense book and took me some time to get through, but it was very rewarding. I was so invested in it emotionally, and also it was so interesting and rich. Yes, I think rich is a good word to describe this book. I could write lots more about it, but I have to go to bed now (although do talk to me in comments about it!)

Skogspraktikan - varför vi bör gå över till naturnära skogsbruk by Jentzén, Kullgren, and Hultén [a Swedish book about close-to-nature forestry]
This is a great book, although probably of little interest to the readers of this journal. I'm used to seeing forestry from the environmentalist's POV, and this is from the small forestry owner's POV. The section on economics is particularly interesting to me, because it shows that the small forestry owner doesn't necessarily have the same interests as the forest industry.

Stoner by John Williams
For my book club at work. This was...not bad, I guess, but rather bleak. And I do wish the author hadn't made the main character's wife so very shrewish and unlikeable.

Comments

[seascribble]

Hild was recommended highly at a panel about female characters at MJ, and is on my reading list for after thesis. (speaking of which, are we doing April book club? Am I supposed to send emails?)

[luzula]

Yeah, it has great female characters! It's not just the main character; there's a whole web of female characters who have interesting relationship with each other.

I know we talked about a date for the next book club, but now I've forgotten it and I can't find any emails about it. Maybe make a Doodle, or ask if anyone else remembers which date we decided on?

[jesse_the_k]

Hild has been highly recommended, to the point I'm reluctant to start it (maybe the "take your medicine" problem?) I can enthusiastically recommend absolutely everything else Nicola has written.

Hild question: could you squint and call this SFF?

Are there still forests managed in common anywhere in Sweden?

[luzula]

Hild question: could you squint and call this SFF?

No, it's a historical novel, tinted with SFF only by association, because the author has previously written SFF. But I do think it appeals to readers of SFF.

Are there still forests managed in common anywhere in Sweden?

Depends what you mean. There are forest-owning organizations called commons (allmänningar) but really they are more like economic organizations with restricted membership (although big international forest companies have also bought shares in them) that nowadays use modern industrial forestry. They were created around 1900 in an attempt to slow down the land grabbing of corporations.

We used to have village commons similar to Britain's, but the big agricultural land reforms in the 18th-19th century took care of that.

[feroxargentea]

Argh, Hild was on my christmas list and nobody picked it and now it will have to stay till next christmas because of To_Read_Shelf Embargo which I am officially not at all officially breaking, and you and everyone else reccing Hild is NOT HELPING at all :P

[luzula]

Hee. So you have too many books on your to-read shelf? : )

Subliminal message: reeeeead iiiiiit.

[feroxargentea]

Nooooooooooooooo *hands over ears*
Someone did lend me the audiobook. I was holding out for the paperback though....

The shelf is double-stacked and *bending*. It's got a definite curve in it.

[calvinahobbes]

I am someone who started Hild and found it way too chewy - I guess what you call dense. It went so slow for me, and I was somewhere between 10-20% in and felt like I had been reading forever and absolutely nothing was happening. Also it felt vaguely ominous, like bad things were going to happen. Do bad things happen?

[luzula]

Yeah, I can see how that could happen--it is chewy, and if you don't enjoy the style for its own sake then I see how the plot could be too slow for you.

Not really? I guess some bad things happen, but on the whole it's not a dark book at all. It is tense, though.

[cahn]

HILD I LOVE HILD SO MUCH. Ahem. I just. Everything you said. It's definitely very dense and chewy -- there were lots of bits I had to read twice, and many times I could not read it at all because I wasn't in the right frame for dense and chewy -- and there are people I would Not Recommend It To At All because of that -- but I loved it so, so much.

That being said, I think I need to read it again because I feel like at the time I had many things I wanted to talk about, and now I don't remember any of them except that I want the next book NOW and Hild's husband is so dead in the next book...

[luzula]

Hild, yessss! It even made me ignore my usual dislike of the subplot of children growing up together who become lovers--and here they're even half-siblings.

I loved the variety of bonds between people, and how not-simple they were. Hild and Gwladus, that was really well done. And Hild and Begu--I was so rooting for them to become gemacce, and that was a pretty great emotional payoff. And Hild and her mother. Like, I thought in the middle book that Hild's mother would become a sort of bad guy, or at least bring about bad things (Osric), but no, that did not happen, and she turned out to be more complex than that.

Hild's husband is so dead in the next book...

You know this or you predict this? I mean, it would not surprise me, but I wouldn't have thought to predict it. The marriage at the end came out of the blue for me.

[cahn]

Yes!! I really loved how everyone was so complex, as you say. And Hild and Begu BEST GEMACCE FOREVER.

I predict it -- it did come out of the blue for me too, but it also seemed pretty clear to me, when it happened, that there was a lot of tension and danger associated with the marriage and with the secret that apparently everyone knows now (in particular, Edwin) except Cian himself. It seems like a very precarious position for Cian to be in.

Though I'll be extremely pleased if this turns out not to be the case!