Recent reading

[luzula]

I went through my DW circle and unfollowed some people that I probably followed in friending memes at some point, but that I then haven't interacted with at all. But going through that list also made me a little melancholy: there are so many people there that I used to be friends with, who are now just gone. : ( I wonder what they're doing now?

Couching at the Door by D K Broster (1942)
Broster’s collection of stories that are dark/weird/creepy/supernatural. Some of these also appear in her other story collection A Fire of Driftwood, which I had read before. This is not a genre that I read much in otherwise, so I don't have much comparison, but I quite liked these stories. Broster’s prose is as enjoyable as usual, and it's interesting to see her apply it to other subjects than historical novels. I was wondering what she would do with the Persephone story, but that was one of my least favorite stories--it only very tangentially touched on the myth, or perhaps I was just too dense to get it.

The Catalans by Patrick O’Brian (1953)
I was wondering what O'Brian wrote when he wasn't writing boat books. This is a contemporaneous story set on the same stretch of coast near the border between France and Spain that Hornblower blasted with cannons in A Ship of the Line; apparently O'Brien lived there for a long time. I like his writing style, and the setting is vividly drawn in a way I admire and enjoy, but on the whole I didn't enjoy this like I do the Aubrey/Maturin books. It just doesn't have the same warmth, and I didn't connect with the characters the same way.

Comments

[luzula]

It's not that I'm especially into the Persephone myth, but that it's always interesting to see what authors do with various myths? I think I would have enjoyed that story more without that expectation, since as far as I can see, it didn't have much to do with the myth. Also, I loved the idea of going into the past by going into a cave that was inhabited in the past, but the past felt like it was only about the danger of the cave bears--I felt like more interesting things might have been done with that. Like, what if they met people instead?

Anyway! Like you said elsewhere, The Pavement was quite good, with the obsession that led the main character to destroy what she loved rather than let someone else have it--and yes, it does have femslash potential. In Couching at the Door, I didn't like the main character (nor was I intended to), but it was a such a well-drawn portrait of a pretentious man, and the fur boa that just wants to follow him around and snuggle him was so vivid. From the Abyss had an interesting premise, but I never quite connected to the characters. OTOH, in The Promised Land it was creepily easy to sympathise with Ellen, murdering her overbearing cousin who is ruining Italy for her! I liked The Window, with its ties to Broster's French history interests, but rolled my eyes at the last line.

[regshoe]

I see—I suppose she meant more to use the ideas and aesthetics of the myth rather than doing a take on the story? I rather liked how the lack of other people in the past added to the mystery of the events and the characters' isolation, but there would certainly have been more interesting narrative possibilities in them meeting some cave people too!

'The Promised Land' is so brilliantly chilling. I really like seeing Broster's writing style and talents employed in such a different way from what she usually does in the historical novels, and it's cool to see her bringing her favourite historical stuff into that as well, though I agree about the last line of 'The Window'.