September books
Oct. 15th, 2006 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienBelated, I know -- this is mostly what I was reading in the Birmingham/Romania timeframe.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Reread of something I first read as a teenager. I didn't remember much, except that it didn't end happily for the main character, who was one of the more sympathetic characters in my limited experience of Dostoevsky. The plot sprawls, and everyone seems to be in a chronic state of morbid excitement. I probably didn't appreciate when I was younger that the pivotal female character is how she is because she was effectively raped by her father-figure from an early age. There's a recurring theme of how imminent death looks from the inside, seen in conversations about capital punishment and in the introduction of a teenager dying of TB while still being a teenager and a fairly unpleasant one at that.
Anthony Trollope, The American Senator
More minor Trollope, featuring a man-hunting woman who's treated about as unsympathetically as Trollope is capable of. The titular Senator is a bemused observer of the goings-on of the gentry in and around a small town; there's a lot of hunting. It's interesting that Trollope felt comfortable inventing a completely fictitious American state -- Mikewa. I notice also that the perception of the British that Americans are unreasonably sensitive to criticism from outsiders is a very old meme -- Martin Chuzzlewit has it too.
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
Glorious near-ish future SF, witty and moving and adventurous, but the ending is not very satisfying. The setting is mostly around the outskirts of China in the vicinity of Shanghai, and the date of writing was round about the mid-90's when China was first opening up again; I wonder if the author visited the place. It reminded me of the Shanghai chapters of Winchester's The River at the Center of the World, which dates to about the same time.
Daphne Du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek
A bored married noblewoman romances a Frenchman who's taken up gentleman-piracy as an antidote to his own boredom. It's beautifully written, but the amorality bothers me.
Alma Alexander, The Embers of Heaven
I have a complaint about this book; it wasn't long enough to get me all the way across the Atlantic. Otherwise, it was splendid. The world of The Secrets of Jin-shei goes through its own version of the Communist takeover and the Cultural Revolution. The fantasy elements are subtle, even more so than in the earlier book, and I'm not entirely surprised that they both keep getting shelved as mainstream fiction, but they are there.
Steven Brust, The Phoenix Guards
Fun, Dumas-esque derring-do in pre-disaster Draghaera. I'm not sure how you crochet a coat of arms -- filet, maybe?
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Reread of something I first read as a teenager. I didn't remember much, except that it didn't end happily for the main character, who was one of the more sympathetic characters in my limited experience of Dostoevsky. The plot sprawls, and everyone seems to be in a chronic state of morbid excitement. I probably didn't appreciate when I was younger that the pivotal female character is how she is because she was effectively raped by her father-figure from an early age. There's a recurring theme of how imminent death looks from the inside, seen in conversations about capital punishment and in the introduction of a teenager dying of TB while still being a teenager and a fairly unpleasant one at that.
Anthony Trollope, The American Senator
More minor Trollope, featuring a man-hunting woman who's treated about as unsympathetically as Trollope is capable of. The titular Senator is a bemused observer of the goings-on of the gentry in and around a small town; there's a lot of hunting. It's interesting that Trollope felt comfortable inventing a completely fictitious American state -- Mikewa. I notice also that the perception of the British that Americans are unreasonably sensitive to criticism from outsiders is a very old meme -- Martin Chuzzlewit has it too.
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
Glorious near-ish future SF, witty and moving and adventurous, but the ending is not very satisfying. The setting is mostly around the outskirts of China in the vicinity of Shanghai, and the date of writing was round about the mid-90's when China was first opening up again; I wonder if the author visited the place. It reminded me of the Shanghai chapters of Winchester's The River at the Center of the World, which dates to about the same time.
Daphne Du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek
A bored married noblewoman romances a Frenchman who's taken up gentleman-piracy as an antidote to his own boredom. It's beautifully written, but the amorality bothers me.
Alma Alexander, The Embers of Heaven
I have a complaint about this book; it wasn't long enough to get me all the way across the Atlantic. Otherwise, it was splendid. The world of The Secrets of Jin-shei goes through its own version of the Communist takeover and the Cultural Revolution. The fantasy elements are subtle, even more so than in the earlier book, and I'm not entirely surprised that they both keep getting shelved as mainstream fiction, but they are there.
Steven Brust, The Phoenix Guards
Fun, Dumas-esque derring-do in pre-disaster Draghaera. I'm not sure how you crochet a coat of arms -- filet, maybe?