Frederica, by Georgette Heyer

The other day I was staring at my bookshelves trying to decide what to read, and all of a sudden I noticed "Frederica" by Georgette Heyer sitting on one of the shelves. OH DUDE I'VE BEEN WANTING TO READ THAT FOR AGES, SWEEEEET, I thought, and then I was like WAIT. Because dude, clearly I own it and clearly I've owned it for a while if I didn't even remember buying it, so WHY HAVEN'T I READ IT BEFORE??? The perils of being me!

ANYWAYS then I read it and INTERNETS, YOU HAVE BEEN TELLING ME FOR AGES THAT FREDERICA IS A STELLAR EXAMPLE OF HEYER AT HER BEST AND YOU WERE NOT WRONG.

It is a great book!

( cut for spoilers )

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

So I just reread The Great Gatsby for the first time since my grade 11 English class, lo these many years ago. I utterly hated it at that time.

My opinion now: well, I can see its virtues. On a word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence level the writing is rather good. And the whole thing is very evocative of time and place and mood. But wow, I still hate every single character in this book! And am completely unsympathetic with their problems! And just wish they would all shut up and go away!

I guess my problem here is that I am really really really not into that particular genre of "literary fiction" that is all about horrible people being miserable. It is a celebrated genre and many people are into it and there are lots and lots of books in it published every year but I am NOT THERE. (see also: why I hated Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" so much, because it was written in the patterns of that genre despite being also a fantasy novel. NO GET YOUR LITERARY MISERY OUT OF MY SFF PLSKTHX)

So I think the highest praise I can give The Great Gatsby is that it is a really excellent example of horrible-people-being-miserable literary fiction? Because it is! BUT I STILL HATE IT.