Recent reading

[luzula]

The 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 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!).

Comments

[landofnowhere]

You might like Stevenson's The Wrong Box, co-written with his stepson. It's not a very deep book, but it is highly entertaining, and the LibriVox recording is good!

[luzula]

Thanks, I'll check it out! : )

[ashelterofpages]

I read The Deep a couple of years ago and while I can absolutely see how it might not work for some people, I did enjoy it. The thing is, I'm super easy for anything that plays with memory and identity, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so I was already primed to be into it, even if it didn't make much sense.

[luzula]

I was actually more into the whole idea of the mermaid civilization, how it came about, how it would work, and what its relationship would be to the surface-dwellers than the memory/historian aspects, so I can see how you would be primed to enjoy it more!

[regshoe]

Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed An Inland Voyage! It is charmingly rambling. :D That's disappointing about Treasure Island, though. Perhaps those reviewers of Kidnapped who were so inconclusive about whether or not Treasure Island was better did not have such good taste...

I am just making my way through the later chapters of 'They Can Nearly Talk'—I love the reinterpreted Herriot and the Valinor worldbuilding :D

[sanguinity]

I personally have never understood why Treasure Island is the more popular book. There is a lot of affection out there for it! But notwithstanding the handful of images/moments that I find compelling, the story as a whole has never really spoken to me.

[luzula]

Since Treasure Island is such a classic, I'm just wondering what I missed, and whether I shouldn't have enjoyed it more! It just felt more...flat to me than Kidnapped. Oh well.

[osprey_archer]

I've always felt that way about Treasure Island too. It's a classic! So many people love it! But I just couldn't get attached to the characters because I found them dull and flat.

[luzula]

Oh well! I'm glad it's not just me.

[sanguinity]

I'm in very much the same place. But I wonder if Jim's youth and solitude (for lack of a better word!) makes the difference? I also tend to wince a bit over how everyone but Smollett is so credulous about this crew and voyage -- it's almost as if everyone is ten, and not just Jim.

[luzula]

The credulity, yes. And also just how willing Trelawney is to just up and hire a ship (which really can't be cheap or easy!) on the hope, which might or might not be realized, of pirate treasure.

[sanguinity]

Trelawney has more money than he knows what to do with, and obviously more time, too. One suspects he has read all of Dampier's books, and Woodes Rogers, and A History of Pyrates, and every other damn thing he could get his hands on. He was a man looking for an excuse, and then one dropped in his lap, as neat as could be...

[luzula]

Since Treasure Island is such a classic, I'm just wondering what I missed, and whether I shouldn't have enjoyed it more!

I am just making my way through the later chapters of 'They Can Nearly Talk'—I love the reinterpreted Herriot and the Valinor worldbuilding :D
Yes, it meshes so unexpectedly well!

[chestnut_pod]

I feel very fancy, up there next to Rivers Solomon and Robert Louis Stevenson! Thank you!

The Deep struck me in much the same way, especially having read the (imo) stronger An Unkindness of Ghosts first. It felt like it couldn't quite decide if it wanted to go full allegorical or stay in a more plot-forward mode. Did you listen to the clipping. song it's based on? That is a really amazing 5 minutes.

[luzula]

I do like putting book-length fanfic and published books on the same level in my book-logging! : )

Yes! I did listen to that song, and found it much more compelling than the book.

[chestnut_pod]

Extremely deserving of its SFF awards tip! -- great music and a great story. I thought it handled the ambiguity of the destruction very well, all the more so for the sparseness of the lyrics.