Recent reading
Jan. 27th, 2024 11:42 amThe Deep by Rivers Solomon (2019, audiobook)
For book club. The premise of this is intriguing, but I wasn't that gripped by the writing. The society as first presented struck me as dysfunctional: only one person remembers the traumatic collective past, and everyone else has forgotten it, except for once a year when they get to viscerally share it. But their memory functions so weirdly: between times, they completely forget even the bare facts of their collective past, and they also only have vague memories of their own personal past (how would a society like that even function?). Well, the book also thinks this is dysfunctional, and it does change at the end.
An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson (1878, Librivox audiobook)
I began to listen to Treasure Island, which I don't think I've ever read, but I wasn't that into it and stopped about 25% in. I feel like Jim has less personality than David Balfour, and I wasn't particularly gripped by the setting or the rest of the characters either. So instead I listened to the travelogue An Inland Voyage, which![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
regshoe recently recced, where RLS and a friend journey by canoe in Belgium and France. And I did like this better! It's rambling, but it has more charm. Sample: "The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a charge of drawing the fortifications: a feat of which he was hopelessly incapable. And besides, as I suppose each belligerent nation has a plan of the other’s fortified places already, these precautions are of the nature of shutting the stable door after the steed is away." Like regshoe, I was charmed by the author's habit of referring to himself and his friend by their canoe's name.
They Can Nearly Talk bychestnut_pod (2024)
An unexpected but felicitous crossover: the James Herriot books with the Silmarillion! I would never have thought of the premise of this, but it works beautifully--Hyamessë Heriel is a Vanya and a veteran of the war in Beleriand, where she served as an animal leech. She replies to an advertisement to become a junior partner in a countryside practice outside Alqualondë. And then follows various episodic and charming (or tragic!) tales of animals and their ailments, but we also follow the growth of the relationships with the people around her. I particularly enjoyed how the story fleshed out the worldbuilding in Valinor, and how we see the consequences in personal relationships of the historical strife between the elves (who of course have long lives!).
For book club. The premise of this is intriguing, but I wasn't that gripped by the writing. The society as first presented struck me as dysfunctional: only one person remembers the traumatic collective past, and everyone else has forgotten it, except for once a year when they get to viscerally share it. But their memory functions so weirdly: between times, they completely forget even the bare facts of their collective past, and they also only have vague memories of their own personal past (how would a society like that even function?). Well, the book also thinks this is dysfunctional, and it does change at the end.
An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson (1878, Librivox audiobook)
I began to listen to Treasure Island, which I don't think I've ever read, but I wasn't that into it and stopped about 25% in. I feel like Jim has less personality than David Balfour, and I wasn't particularly gripped by the setting or the rest of the characters either. So instead I listened to the travelogue An Inland Voyage, which
regshoe recently recced, where RLS and a friend journey by canoe in Belgium and France. And I did like this better! It's rambling, but it has more charm. Sample: "The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a charge of drawing the fortifications: a feat of which he was hopelessly incapable. And besides, as I suppose each belligerent nation has a plan of the other’s fortified places already, these precautions are of the nature of shutting the stable door after the steed is away." Like regshoe, I was charmed by the author's habit of referring to himself and his friend by their canoe's name. They Can Nearly Talk by
chestnut_pod (2024)An unexpected but felicitous crossover: the James Herriot books with the Silmarillion! I would never have thought of the premise of this, but it works beautifully--Hyamessë Heriel is a Vanya and a veteran of the war in Beleriand, where she served as an animal leech. She replies to an advertisement to become a junior partner in a countryside practice outside Alqualondë. And then follows various episodic and charming (or tragic!) tales of animals and their ailments, but we also follow the growth of the relationships with the people around her. I particularly enjoyed how the story fleshed out the worldbuilding in Valinor, and how we see the consequences in personal relationships of the historical strife between the elves (who of course have long lives!).
