Books

[sophia_sol]

Eight Cousins, or the Aunt Hill, by Louisa May Alcott

Sometimes when you're having a bad day you just really need to reread a charming, comfortable old friend of a book. Which this is for me. I LOVE IT TO BITS. Education and healthy exercise for girls! Dress reform! Family! Friendship! People who are really genuinely good people or trying their best to be so! People being respected for all sorts of skills, including ones that are usually looked down on! (BREAD AND BUTTONHOLES!!!!) Though I will admit the part on the farm with the children is a little too twee even for me and I usually skip it over.


The Stories of our Christmas Customs, by NF Pearson, illustrated by Frank Hampson

This is a children's informational book from the 60s about the origins of various Western Christmas customs. It is UTTERLY APPALLING. Historical inaccuracies and mythological inaccuracies abound, and lots of ethnocentrism. Although I will admit to a certain degree of surprise that it's actually willing to discuss the fact that a lot of the customs are borrowed from other traditions? BUT THAT IS ONE VERY TINY PLUS IN A VAST SEA OF MINUSES.


Branch: A Memoir With Pictures, by John L Ruth

This was a really interesting and enjoyable book! It's a memoir written by a Mennonite, but from a different part of North American Mennonite culture than me. It's set up such that each two pages has a paired photograph and story about some time from the author's life, organized chronologically -- so it's very episodic as a result, but it somehow works. I particularly loved the old photos and stories from John L. Ruth's younger days, about his parents and the culture they were a part of.

But just in general the whole thing is a fascinating look into what it was/is like to be part of the Mennonite culture in the Salford-Franconia area of Pennsylvania over the last 83 years. So things like, oh, the details of the strings on the women's head-coverings, or the way Ruth's parents wouldn't let him take part in a play about Abe Lincoln at school, or the fact that Ruth's grandmother (or possibly mother? I don't recall, and I don't have a copy of the book with me right now to check) burnt all the old family photos long ago out of a care to not be overly prideful, or that Ruth himself continued to wear the "plain" suit for a long time even as it was growing less and less common. Things like that. (ALSO now I want to learn how to do fraktur art. Add it to the list…?)

Also I liked that in one of the stories Ruth actually talks about the difficult and divisive conversation around homsexuality in the Mennonite church. He talks about one church congregation that got in something of a fight with its conference (the Lancaster Conference) about it, and - idk, Ruth just said things really well and I liked what he had to say. So that made me happy.

The writing throughout the book is good too - Ruth is a good storyteller and the stories are interesting and well-encapsulated. But AUUUUGH WHY DID THE EDITOR NOT CUT HIS USE OF QUOTATION MARKS AROUND WORDS/PHRASES BY LIKE A MILLION PERCENT? There were so many unnecessary quotation marks, to the point where I was starting to feel tempted to take white-out to the book. AUGH. -- but otoh if that's my only complaint about the book, it's doing pretty well, I guess! :P


Rose in Bloom, by Louisa May Alcott

Oh dear, you know, it's been long enough since I last reread this book that I was able to analyze my way of reading it more astutely than I have in the past? Namely, I hastily skim over pretty much everything after Mac falls in love with Rose - EVEN THOUGH I SHIP ROSE/MAC SUPER HARD.

Here's the thing! Mac becomes a different person - and the author and all the characters seem to agree that the "new Mac, wide awake, full of talent, ardent and high-handed" is someone to thoroughly admire. But I'm mostly just made uncomfortable by him? "Ardent and high-handed" - ugh. And the narrator is totally right to describe New Mac that way; he IS ardent and high-handed, but unlike the narrator I DON'T THINK THAT'S A GOOD THING.

I LIKED the old Mac! He was an odd duck in just the right totally-geeky way to charm me, and Rose clearly thought highly of him too. I love Rose, and I love Mac, and I LOVE that the author ships Rose/Mac instead of the more-expected Rose/Charlie (Charlie being the handsome, charming, popular, slightly-bad-boy one who Rose wants to reform through the power of love). But I really DON'T love that in order for the Rose/Mac ship to sail, Alcott found it necessary to remake Mac in the shape of a more traditionally manly-lover-dude. Gah.

ANNNNNNYWAYS I still mostly really love the book! I mean, it fails miserably in lots of places but it is so earnestly trying - like, poor orphan Phebe CAN marry the most promising young man in a well-off and respectable family, but she can only do so after she has Proved Herself Worthy, but it is respecting of female agency because it is entirely Phebe's own decision to wait until she's proved herself. Or like the orientalism with respect to Fun See, the young Chinese merchantman, but he is given space in the narrative to love and woo and marry a respectable white woman. Or - I could go on in so many ways, idkkkk, this duology makes me cringe and hug it tight at the same time.

IN CONCLUSION I think the main conclusion is that I need all the fic about Rose/Mac with Mac continuing to rock on with his odd geeky self.

(But checking on ao3 the only Rose/Mac fic that exists is one that clearly from the summary is making an issue out of the fact that they're cousins, and since the book didn't feel the need to turn cousin marriage into an issue I'm perfectly happy to just go with it and don't have any desire to read a fixit fic over their degree of consanguinity. SIGH.)


Blood of Tyrants, by Naomi Novik

Whoops so it turns out I skipped a book accidentally? I haven't been following along with the releases of the Temeraire books and I was like, "yeah, the Australia one was definitely the last one, and now there's the amnesiafic one out, I should read the amnesiafic." And then I started reading it, and shortly was all like, "Wait, Hammond has a South American dragon? When did that happen? Was that just an unimportant offscreen event in the Australia book? Was it an ONSCREEN event in the Australia book and I've just forgotten like I've forgotten basically everything from it because I have a terrible memory?"

And then I was like, "No but mmmmaybe I missed a book?" because I did recall maybe hearing something about a South America book maybe being a thing - and yep. Book number 7, Crucible of Gold, featuring South America, came out like a year and a half ago and I totally missed it. OH WELL. I'll have to go back and read it at some point.

IN THE MEANTIME here are my thoughts about Blood of Tyrants! I had gotten it out of the library kind of out of a sense of duty, like, "oh, here's the next Temeraire book, I should PROBABLY read it or something," and then proceeded to read other things for more than a week. But then I was like NO I SHOULD DEFINITELY READ IT and resolutely brought it to work with me as my lunchtime reading so that I would HAVE to read it or go bored at lunch.

So I started it, and was immediately like OH RIGHT THIS IS WHY I AM A FAN OF THE BOOKS, THEY'RE GREATTT, and then I proceeded to have all of the feelings for the next 300 pages. Unfortunately the book is longer than 300 pages. The last 120 pages or so? Reminded me why Black Powder War is my least favourite book in the series: SO MANY BORING BATTLES, YAWN FOREVER.

But the first 300 pages are REALLY REALLY GOOD YOU GUYS. I spent pretty much the entirety of those 300 pages gleefully screeching silently to myself about everything and also occasionally clutching my face. It was everything I could have wished for in a Temeraire amnesiafic! Namely: EVERYTHING ABOUT THE LAURENCE-TEMERAIRE RELATIONSHIP WAS PERFECT! And Laurence being all Laurency and totally horrified at his more-recent-self's life choices! And the way Laurence just wants desperately to understand how he must have felt in order to have made the decision to commit treason! And Laurence and Temeraire being stiff and uncomfortable with each other and not understanding each other and making tentative overtures of friendship with the reading of the Principia Mathematica, and then aaaaaaahhhhhhhh that convo where Temeraire's like "maybe I should stay in China" and takes it as read that of course that means Laurence would stay too, but LAURENCE TAKES IT AS THAT TEMERAIRE SHOULD STAY ALONE, especially right after Laurence's ponderings about how maybe it would be the Right Thing To Do to separate himself from Temeraire, and then they're miserable and awkward at each other aaaaaaahhhhh!!!! And then eventually they successfully reaffirm that THEY LOVE EACH OTHER FOREVER THE END, though in slightly less straightforward terms than that because Laurence and being open about his feelings hahahahha.

Also the Japanese dude (Kaneko?) who saves Laurence - the two of them being tragically honourable at each other AWWWWW and then ohhh Junichiro is super great too, SO MUCH TRAGIC HONOUR.

(Yet more tragic honour: Laurence's honour on behalf of his country being OUTRAGED about the British being accused of opium trade and then Laurence gets to find out just how into the opium trade Britain is! Hah, oh Laurence, you always have such shiny ideals and then the world doesn't live up to them and you are sadface forever)

And the brief bits of American news we get from Wampanoag make me very curious about what's going on in American politics in this world because OH HEY PRESIDENT TECUMSEH.

Also THARKAY and lollll it was beautiful that it was upon happening on Tharkay (and also upon acquiring another headwound, hah, I see even profic requires suspension of disbelief when it comes to realistic headwounds) that Laurence regains his memories. And then calls Tharkay by his first name! And everything is beautiful. Tharkay is AMAZESAUCE FOREVER and so is Laurence/Tharkay.

(speaking of Tharkay where are the MANY THOUSANDS OF WORDS about Tharkay's adventures during all the times he's not hanging around Laurence???)

Anyways after all that awesome, the last quarter of the book was really a let-down. I mean, there was some good stuff in it! (eg, GRANBY HAS A BOYFRIEND! which uh apparently I would have learned in the last book if I'd read it. I'd kind of gathered the existence of YAY TEXTUAL QUEER CHARACTERS from fandom but still!) But I had to do a lot of slogging through boring stuff for the few gleams of stuff I enjoyed or found interesting. Which was really disappointing. Because I'd been all ready to name this MY NEW FAVOURITE TEMERAIRE BOOK. And then nope. Sigh.

(I'm trying to decide if it's just that I am personally not into extended battle-related stuff, or if Novik's talents just don't happen to lie in that particular field. I mean, I love the Aubrey-Maturin books, even the bits that are all naval warfare, which demonstrates that I AM capable of enjoying that sort of thing. But is that just that O'Brian is magic? Because O'Brian IS kind of magic. IDK!)