Recent reading
May. 7th, 2020 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaIn Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan (2017)
For my fannish book club, obviously, why else would I be reading things that are unrelated to Flight of the Heron? This was page-turney YA fantasy, but the narrative voice grated on me after a while. It is also extremely slow-burn--it was obvious to me from the start who the main character would end up with, but he spends much of the book being mean to him, so I started feeling like maybe the love interest guy could do better...
Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 by Allan I. Macinnes (1996)
Ha ha, back to form. My research reading is getting ridiculous. *facepalm* This was a very good complement to other books I've been reading, though--it's about social and economic issues. I guess you could say that it's about the transition between two social systems, neither of which I would like to live in? The main thesis is that the clan elite abandoned their old social obligations to their clans as they were integrated more and more into the other British upper classes and into the proto-capitalist and colonial economy, with consequences like rent-raising and, later, the clearances.
Here are some random interesting points:
- I was reading about the Restoration of Charles II and wondering why exactly so many clans thought the Stuarts were so great, because they weren't really faring that well under most of his reign. And then along came James VII/II to be, who before getting on the throne spent four years in the Highlands being all 'let's cooperate with the clans to suppress banditry, instead of blaming the clans for it and repressing them with military force'. Oh, okay, I get it!
- From a modern religious tolerance POV, toppling a king because he thought it should be okay for people to be Catholic if they want to is rather mind-boggling. But asgaronne pointed out, the issue was probably that Catholics are perceived as being loyal to a foreign interest (the Pope) and maybe not the actual religious differences.
- The role of poetry among the clans is interesting. There was an older form of Gaelic poetry with basically the purpose of extolling how great the chief was, by a poet under his patronage. But in the latter half of the 17th century there arose another genre (Gaelic vernacular poetry) that functioned as a public sphere of debate. A common subject was reproaching chiefs for raising rents and being absent and spending money in Edinburgh and London (I mean, it's not wholly their fault that they were absent, because the government often required them to be, obviously as a strategy to shift their priorities). Many of these poets were for the Jacobite risings.
- OMG, the Campbells. Uh, good job wrangling private gain from public offices, I guess?
- I like the word 'outwith'. Seems to be Scottish--I've seen it in several books now.
I also wrote out various stuff from this book in the comments here.
For my fannish book club, obviously, why else would I be reading things that are unrelated to Flight of the Heron? This was page-turney YA fantasy, but the narrative voice grated on me after a while. It is also extremely slow-burn--it was obvious to me from the start who the main character would end up with, but he spends much of the book being mean to him, so I started feeling like maybe the love interest guy could do better...
Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 by Allan I. Macinnes (1996)
Ha ha, back to form. My research reading is getting ridiculous. *facepalm* This was a very good complement to other books I've been reading, though--it's about social and economic issues. I guess you could say that it's about the transition between two social systems, neither of which I would like to live in? The main thesis is that the clan elite abandoned their old social obligations to their clans as they were integrated more and more into the other British upper classes and into the proto-capitalist and colonial economy, with consequences like rent-raising and, later, the clearances.
Here are some random interesting points:
- I was reading about the Restoration of Charles II and wondering why exactly so many clans thought the Stuarts were so great, because they weren't really faring that well under most of his reign. And then along came James VII/II to be, who before getting on the throne spent four years in the Highlands being all 'let's cooperate with the clans to suppress banditry, instead of blaming the clans for it and repressing them with military force'. Oh, okay, I get it!
- From a modern religious tolerance POV, toppling a king because he thought it should be okay for people to be Catholic if they want to is rather mind-boggling. But as
garonne pointed out, the issue was probably that Catholics are perceived as being loyal to a foreign interest (the Pope) and maybe not the actual religious differences. - The role of poetry among the clans is interesting. There was an older form of Gaelic poetry with basically the purpose of extolling how great the chief was, by a poet under his patronage. But in the latter half of the 17th century there arose another genre (Gaelic vernacular poetry) that functioned as a public sphere of debate. A common subject was reproaching chiefs for raising rents and being absent and spending money in Edinburgh and London (I mean, it's not wholly their fault that they were absent, because the government often required them to be, obviously as a strategy to shift their priorities). Many of these poets were for the Jacobite risings.
- OMG, the Campbells. Uh, good job wrangling private gain from public offices, I guess?
- I like the word 'outwith'. Seems to be Scottish--I've seen it in several books now.
I also wrote out various stuff from this book in the comments here.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-10 04:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-11 04:35 pm (UTC)Can't find a Scandinavian connection, but there appears to be a Dutch one.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-11 11:03 pm (UTC)