Recent reading

[luzula]

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K Le Guin (1972)
Oh, I think this is possibly my favorite of the three. Gah, it's so beautifully written! I want to give it to tech bros who are trying to live forever. I'd forgotten how royalist it was, though (is it possibly Le Guin's only royalist book?) In a very LotR way, return of the king and all, with the health of the land tied not only to Cob's door between life and death, but to the lack of a king. I do like the relationship between Ged and Lebannen, which feels quite old-fashioned in that Lebannen thinks of "that first romantic ardor and adoration" he felt for Ged without it being in the least sexualized. I like that.

Not sure whether to go on with Tehanu? I remember reading it too young, and that I didn't like Ged and Tenar having sex. There's just no sex or romance in the first trilogy, and it felt wrong to me then to introduce it (I guess you could argue that Tombs of Atuan is an extended metaphor for sex, with the man (with a staff, even) penetrating the dark cave of the woman. But I prefer not to, and obviously I didn't think of that as a kid.) I think I've also read Tehanu as an adult, but it was long ago. *searches journal* Oh wait, apparently I reread all the Earthsea books in 2015. *facepalm*

Sylvester by Georgette Heyer (1957, audiobook)
I have no deep thoughts about this one--it's been years since I read a Heyer, and this one was great entertainment! It's the one with the eyebrows and the in-universe gothic novel. Also a good Heyer to read if you want to avoid her problematic/annoying tendencies. The audiobook reader was excellent.

In other news, I have discovered that this site ships books from the UK to Sweden that somehow don't get stuck in customs! : D I mean, I don't mind paying Swedish VAT, but I do mind that you otherwise always get stuck paying 1) the wrong, higher VAT, and 2) an administrative fee which is often way more than the VAT. I have now bought far too many books, ahem.

Comments

[ysilme]

Yay for discovering this bookselling site for you! I well remember the issues of getting foreign-language books for fair prices - as a result, I came back from every trip to the UK or Paris with a stack of (mostly second-hand) books... (I don't know if this is still true, as I haven't done so since 1994 or so, but back then, there were several good English bookshops in Paris for new as well as second-hand books.)

It's the one with the eyebrows and the in-universe gothic novel.
That's a perfect description! XD I also fully agree about the audiobook reader.
What are Heyer's annoying/problematic tendencies? I've read the novels first as a teenager and later over and over again as comfort reading, but with a few exceptions not for at least a decade or so, so I don't think I'm aware.

[luzula]

I know my problems sourcing books are not important in the scale of things when it comes to Brexit, but it still annoys me! I can imagine Germany is such a large internal market and had so many German books that English books were hard to get because people mostly read in German?

What are Heyer's annoying/problematic tendencies?
Well, there's the antisemitism (you know, caricatured villainous money-lenders and the like). But there are no Jews in this story, so it's not evident. As for annoying: this is a matter of taste, but I don't enjoy the sort of non-con/dub-con kisses where the hero sweeps the heroine up without asking first.

[princessofgeeks]

I loved Tehanu and the other late books! Taken as a whole they make a fascinating sweep.

[feroxargentea]

Thanks for the Heyer rec! I can never remember which one is which, and the last one I picked up at random was a bad choice, problematic-wise, and yet when she's fun she's very fun.

[ursula]

I love Tehanu! But it is very much an adult book, less because of the sex than because of the general contemplativeness.

[sovay]

Not sure whether to go on with Tehanu? I remember reading it too young, and that I didn't like Ged and Tenar having sex.

I am one of the people who does not like Tehanu; I admire Le Guin for writing it as she revisited and rethought her world and I understand that the later Earthsea stories wouldn't exist without it, but in fact one of the elements I loved from childhood about The Tombs of Atuan was its eschewing of the expected romance between Ged and Tenar and therefore I still hate that they get together in Tehanu, especially in a fashion which I find gratingly heteronormative and did even in seventh or eighth grade when I didn't know the word. I love some of the stories in Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind, though, so.

Sylvester is one of my favorite Heyer novels.

[luzula]

I think for now I will stop here, and content myself with re-reading the reviews I wrote in 2015! But yeah, a fascinating sweep for sure.

[luzula]

Oh, which one did you try? So I know to avoid it...

I recommend skygiants' Heyer tag for recs.

[luzula]

Yeah, I don't think the sex would phase me as it did then. Checking back on my 2015 review, I seem to have felt then that it made all the sexism more explicit, but did little to relieve it.

(Also, hi! We seem to have followed each other for a while but not interacted much. I've enjoyed many of your book reviews though. : ) )

[luzula]

I went back to check on my 2015 review, and I seem to have felt then that Tehanu made all the sexism more explicit, but did little to relieve it. I think I won't read it again, at least for now...

[ursula]

Hi! And thank you! I enjoy your book posts, too :)

[feroxargentea]

Thank you for the link! *makes note*

It was Penhallow (not a romance). The characters aren't intended to be likeable, but I didn't find the snobbery, abuse of servants, queer stereotypes etc as amusing as Heyer seemed to.

[chestnut_pod]

*rubs hands together* Lots of new books, you say?

Ah, taste! The Farthest Shore is actually probably my second-least-favorite Le Guin of them all, but my first-least-favorite is even more controversial, so I know it's purely contrarianism!

I see you've decided not to continue on after all -- and that's the nice thing about books, is that they are always at hand if you decide you'd like to go through them all again at some future date.

[luzula]

Of course now I have to ask which is your least favorite Le Guin! : )

Well, I did read Tehanu in 2015 and wrote about it then, so I have taken the shortcut of reminding myself what I thought then...

[chestnut_pod]

Oh the shame… I can’t stand The Dispossessed!

[luzula]

Hee! Don't worry, I like you anyway. : )

ETA: I mean, feel free to elaborate if you want, or not, if you're short on time. I do like it and find it interesting, but I can definitely see how people might want to argue with it.

[chestnut_pod]

What a relief, haha.

I've never got over the handling of the attempted rape scene. I just don't think she managed to say what she wanted to say there (power relations under capitalism producing pathological sexual relations, I assume), and to me it cheapens pretty much all the other theming around sexism in the book. Vea is simply… not a person in the narrative, and I don't think it flies that "it's because Shevek himself doesn't see her as a person;" I have always felt it was a very Doylist failure to make a political point about the objectification of women under patriarchy without just objectifying some women about it. I find it upsetting and counter-productive.

[luzula]

That's a good point! It's been too long since I read it to say what I thought about that scene, but I'll definitely think about it if/when I reread.