Recent reading

[luzula]

I would like to recommend The Oak and the Ash by Annick Trent, a third stand-alone queer historical romance set in the 1790's! Since the author is a friend of mine and I have beta-read the book, I am not at all objective about it, and also I haven't yet read the final version. But you might like it if you enjoy:
- working-class protagonists,
- characters struggling to reconcile their political principles with loyalty to a partner,
- characters being nerdy about science,
- attention paid to the historical and material setting.

Striden må fortgå (The Struggle Goes On) by Gun Hedlund (2023)
I read a Swedish historical novel! It's the story of the author's grandparents' lives during the 1910's: how they met, got married, and had children, but also about their social milieu, political discussions, union organizing, personal and political struggles when food was scarce in 1918-1919, etc. I enjoyed it a lot for the portrayal of a supportive marriage which nevertheless had its differences. Also, this book nails the portrayal of being engaged in a social movement without falling into the trap of writing the characters as being lone heroes engaging only in the cool parts. Yes, they go on strike, but they're part of a larger group which also organizes meetings, needs to do the accounting, has disagreements on tactics and strategy, arranges picnics for families where they take away the alcohol from those who brought it, etc.

Also, this book is set in the middle of the pronoun transition, where singular second person was taking over and the singular/plural distinction was being abandoned when addressing one person, and I enjoyed the attention paid to that. Actually people also used third person pronouns to address each other in formal situations ('Would she like some more coffee?'), which I haven't thought about before.

Proper English by K J Charles (2019)
I enjoyed this and found it page-turney, but I also agree with other reviews in that it didn't have quite the zing and satisfying tropeyness of Think of England, where the male protagonists spend much a longer time wondering if they can trust each other, having personality clashes, and having obstacles in their way.

Re: f/f with more antagonistic elements (which the above book is not), I recall that while I was still in due South fandom, I actually had a great idea for that: a Maggie Mackenzie/Victoria Metcalfe fic where Maggie chases after Victoria to protect her brother. Unfortunately I didn't stay in that fandom long enough to write it.

Comments

[seascribble]

There is a Swede (and a Finn and an Estonian, all who speak some degree of Swedish) in my clone discord, and recently we were talking about gender in Swedish. I guess there's no grammatical gender except for adjectives (sometimes?) and everything is feminine/neutral except in formal contexts? I guess there's also a gender neural third pronoun that was added and is also in wide usage? It was very interesting. We didn't talk about the singular/plural though. I wonder how that timeline compares to the same shit in English.

[luzula]

Swedish used to have masculine, feminine, and neutral gender for nouns, but the masculine and feminine have been collapsed into one (called 'reale'), so now we basically have two grammatical genders for nouns. (Except that some dialects have kept the masculine and feminine genders--my grandma always used to call various objects he and she.)

I guess this is kind of like the masculine and feminine genders collapsing into one in English. Actually IIRC that is the Vikings' fault, because there was a large influx of Scandinavians learning English and simplifying it in the process.

[genarti]

Oooh, The Oak and the Ash sounds very intriguing! Thanks for the heads up about it.

Striden må fortgå sounds extremely cool, and is definitely something I'm not equipped to read, so I'm fascinated to hear your report on it. What a cool and thoughtfully nuanced take on complicated situations in a complicated time, sounds like!

Proper English I read and enjoyed and found very page-turney, but I agree, a bit fluff. (Which is fine! Sometimes one wants a fluffy book.) I haven't actually read any of her other work including Think of England, though, so I can't compare, but that's the general comparison I've heard, yeah.

[luzula]

Oooh, The Oak and the Ash sounds very intriguing! Thanks for the heads up about it.
I hope you enjoy it if you end up reading it! : )

Striden må fortgå was in fact published by my union, so it's not surprising it had that focus, but it was good as a novel and didn't just feel like a history book.

[falena]

Oh wow, you're friends with Annick Trent?!? I didn't know she had a new book coming out, thanks so much for letting me know! I'm extremely picky when it comes to historical queer romance, she's one of the few authors who are automatic buys for me. Must say I enjoyed her books so much I read her contemporary ones which are normally not my cup of tea and ended up liking those too.

[luzula]

Oh cool, I'm so glad you like her books! : D It's funny, when someone likes her books I am almost as happy and proud as when someone likes my fic--I guess it's because we're friends and also I spent a lot of time beta-reading those books.

I have passed your comment on to her! : )

[nnozomi]

It's the story of the author's grandparents' lives during the 1910's: how they met, got married, and had children, but also about their social milieu, political discussions, union organizing, personal and political struggles when food was scarce in 1918-1919, etc.
ooh, I'm sorry this isn't (I assume) around in English! That sounds absolutely fascinating, down to the various small details you describe. (And the pronoun stuff! Would be glad to hear more about that if you feel like writing it up at some point.)

[luzula]

I thought you might have enjoyed it! : ) But no, not available in English.

Hmm, I don't think I know enough about the pronoun stuff to write it up! Like many European languages, Swedish has a plural second person pronoun ("ni") that was also formerly used to address a singular person. Today everybody just uses the singular second-person "du" (like German "du" and French "tu"). The twist compared to French, for example, is that "ni" was NOT a polite way to address somebody (like French "vous" is)! Since I never grew up with it, I don't actually properly understand this system myself, thus my surprise above, but apparently people in the upper and middle classes used various circumlocutions, titles, and third person pronouns to avoid addressing people with second person pronouns at all. It sometimes happens today that young people (working in stores, for example) address old people with "ni" under the impression that it shows respect, but it actually didn't; it was used towards social subordinates, such as servants. Read more on the Wikipedia page.

[nnozomi]

Thank you for the explanation! Oh wow, I read the linked Wiki page and that's fascinating. (Overlaps with Japanese usage to quite a degree, although Japanese would never use the third-person pronoun to speak to someone; names with titles etc., though, definitely.) And interesting that the use of "Ni" can be different between Finnish Swedish and Swedish Swedish, one of those false-friend air pockets... I love the idea of putting all this deliberately into a novel, so much potential.
(Also funny to me because "ni" 你 in Chinese is also the second-person pronoun, probably very easy to remember for anyone who speaks both Chinese and Swedish!)
I will live in hope that somebody decides to translate this novel at some point.

[luzula]

Oh, that's cool about "ni", and the overlaps with Japanese usage!

I just learned that the author of the book died a few days after it was published--she was quite old. Which makes sense, because her father is born in the early 1910's in the book, and so she might have been born in the 1930's. I'm glad she got to see the book published!

[regshoe]

Ooh, I am just about to start The Oak and the Ash! Looking forward to it :D

That was such a sensible thing to do with second-person pronouns. It would have been much better for English to get rid of polite singular 'you' and just keep singular 'thou' and plural 'you'. Anyway, those mundane political details in Striden må fortgå sound really good.

[luzula]

Hope you enjoy--I think you'll like it!

It would have been much better for English to get rid of polite singular 'you' and just keep singular 'thou' and plural 'you'.
Yes! Much more sensible that way.

[chestnut_pod]

Recommendation accepted!

[luzula]

Oh, I hope you enjoy it! Although no obligation to do so, of course. : )