Pigments and Pages

Book Blog! Current read is the pfp. There's nothing more friendly than the sight of bookshelves

[scholasticbookfaire]

Hello!

It's @a-mythologynerd 's book blog! It's mainly gonna be book reviews, intertextual analysis and aesthetic photos, both mine and reblogs! (I'll also occasionally be reblogging bookish fanart). The types of books will be just as varied as my reading taste so if you're a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, archaeology, dark academia, classical literature, Jane Austen, and many many more I hope you stick around and join the conversation :)

[pontiuspilatesprincess]

Best moment of Katabasis so far is when they meet the cohort of dead students who voluntarily stay in Hell when they don't have to, because they'd rather stay charred ghosts if they're the charred ghosts of prestigious Oxbridge attendees rather than risk reincarnation as a farmer or laborer. That bit is C.S. Lewis-worthy.

[yourgoodfriendjh]

just finished katabasis and i genuienly think that all the people who complain about this book being bloated and poorly paced and dragging along just don't like flashbacks or character exploration or learning new things. im sorry but i had a fantastic fucking time with this book and even when parts of it were slow it was very necessary

[scholasticbookfaire]

I really wish the samples for audio books were like just 5 pages longer. It's always five more minutes after the sample that I realize the book is not for me. It's scary how consistent the "nah" hits and it's always just past the sample! Foiled

[scholasticbookfaire]

Dark Academia books make me WEEP. I started Blood Over Bright Haven. I remember feeling that feeling of wanting to prove myself and a confidence of just give me the challenge because I can do it. Let me show you what I can do, before the doubt and anxiety set in and it makes me weep for who I once was. She was so brave. She asking me still to be.

[scholasticbookfaire]

I really enjoyed a History of Tea: The Life and Times of the World’s Favorite Beverage by Laura C. Martin. So much so I just drank four cups of tea while reading it…excuse me…

[a-mythologynerd]

Just finished The Familiar and it was very fun! Definitely captured my imagination and I adore Leigh Bardugo’s historical and modern fantasies. She does such a great job of evoking those themes of injustice and the grey morality of being locked in systems and corrupt power structures. I’ll probably talk more on this later but if you’re a fan of her work (especially the Alex Stern series) I’d give it a read.

[scholasticbookfaire]

Okay so I am going to come back and revisit this one. At the time I felt I could only say generally positive things online and I don’t think that’s truly honest to what I felt. I love Leigh Bardugo’s writing a lot and while the positives I listed were true, I wanna come back critique the books for real.

[scholasticbookfaire]

Book Review Mistborn: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

The Well of Ascension had a slow start but the Sanderson avalanche HIT.

I adored Vin and Elend's relationship. While I understand Zayn's place in the narrative it was infuriating to read and not just because of Zayn's personality. One of the key aspects of Vin's character that is highlighted over and over again is her suspicion of other's and her continual effort to learn to trust those around her. With this in mind, Vin's almost immediate trust of Zayn to the point of not at least confirming his occasional intel or double checking his intent was completely out of character. Not enough to make me more than frustrated but enough to snap me out of the narrative on occasion. This was compounded by Vin's care? crush? on Zayn that felt unearned given her POV narration.

However, I really really loved the rest of the novel even when I despaired for the characters and where their arcs were implied to be going. It's a good book that makes scream "NO" out of emotion while also defending the author's choice to have made you scream "NO" in the first place because it's right for the narrative. My heart broke for Elend, Sage, Clubs, and Vin. The world building continues to intriguing and delight me. The sequence at the end with the Well was incredibly well done, enough that I stayed up two hours over my bed time just to see how it would all end. As sequel books and the middle of a trilogy goes, I can say Mistborn continues to delight and captivate more than it disappoints. I wanna be an Allomancer in the mists so bad.

Review 4.75/5 I am filled with only the best sort of dread

[scholasticbookfaire]

I don’t understand people who don’t reread books. I mean if you hated it or didn’t care, sure. But if you liked it and can’t remember parts and are curious, why not?? Please explain

[journoeil]

what bothers me most about Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights is the discourse that continues to be propagated (often by women themselves!) that because it was written by a woman, the novel must reflect the kind of relationship the author secretly dreamed of, that she was quirky, dark, perhaps secretly romantic in a morbid way. if it had been written by a man, everyone would say: “oh, the author is analyzing toxic relationships through these characters. he’s criticizing them.” it always bothered me that Brontë was immediately branded as a weird lovelorn woman, when in reality there is not much in her biography to attest to that. she was just a very intelligent writer who thought about a very intelligent subject like any of her male counterparts.

the canon always sees men as universal observers and geniuses who undertake social studies, but when it comes to women, they are reduced to being mere subjective chroniclers of interiority, supposedly recording their personal romantic fantasies.

many novels contain a romantic thread. among other things, Wuthering Heights opens with one. but most of the book is about revenge, cruelty, trauma, inheritance, generational damage etc. and yet, because it was written by a woman, only the love story is treated as significant.

if Wuthering Heights had been written by, say, F. Scott Fitzgerald, critics would likely praise the ruthless anatomy of obsession. I am just so sick of this. I sure would love to see the day when The Great Gatsby is marketed as the greatest love story ever told, overflowing with loose erotic scenes, rather than the highbrow social critique it’s usually presented as. the idea that women write “from emotion” while men write “from intellect” is still too deeply sedimented in how we talk about art.

[elizabeth-freaking-bennet]

Darcy: Your three younger sisters and your mother are deeply embarrassing people to be around

Lizzy: Hurtful, but I understand

Darcy: Also your dad kinda sucks at his job of being a father

Lizzy, the mirror of Mr. Bennet: You take that back right now you son of a bitch

[mrdarcy]

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

~ Jane Austen

[groovytigger-blog]

Forgive me if I don't state this as clearly as I might.

I'm watching pride and prejudice 1980, when lizzie visits pemberley. This is where it seems that she first truly realizes her feelings for darcy, as she later admits.

We see through the housekeeper that darcy is respected and respectable, his house is well run, his servants and tenants like and admire him.

This responsibility must be especially attractive to lizzie after the way she had grown up with her father - call it "daddy issues". Mr Bennet routinely shows he cannot handle his finances wisely, has little control over his household, and puts in little effort to manage anything in his or his family's life.

It is my supposition that it is not necessarily how grand the estate is, or even darcys marked improvement in gentlemanliness, that truly impacts lizzie. Rather, it is his abilities in contrast to her father, to be a responsible landlord, brother, friend, and potential husband, that first turns her feelings.

She realizes he is truly dependable, and it is that which makes him lovable in her eyes

Thoughts?

[scholasticbookfaire]

Yes to this!

I think there is also the sort of intimacy in viewing his house and grounds that Darcy himself admits to being poor at. A main flaw of his character is his lack of liveliness. This is not to say that there is a problem with being quiet or introverted but rather, Darcy's position requires that others take their cues from him. He is the leader in most sets and therefore, must endeavor to put other's at ease. Refusing to do so because he is uncomfortable or doesn't wish to be intimate with people can become really rude by Regency standards. In fact, it's still rude by our standards.

Getting to view the house and grounds and hear the stories of him from the housekeeper lets Elizabeth actually get know Darcy in a way she hasn't before. Add that once he meets her and the Gardiners, he endeavors again and again to include and get to know those below him, we can see that Darcy is actually all you say and also much changed in character.

My college class on Jane Austen compared it to when you get to see your partner's childhood bedroom. What is a space but a window into your mind, soul, and habits?

[captainjonnitkessler]

Do I have too many books? No. It is my shelving methods that are inadequate

[shetheyslain]

Dahling you simply must read this book! It’s all about this devious little caterpillar who simply gorges himself on all manner of divine things

[catilinas]

"Rhyme is itself a kind of simile. Two unlike things are somehow related; it sets up an equation or an inequality. Rhyme is hyperlocal to a language, its terroir. English gets womb and tomb, breath and death. But English has a problem with love. I mean, what's to rhyme with love? We've got above, dove, of, glove. Other languages have other pairs of words that rhyme. In Greek, for instance, hands and knives rhyme rather conveniently."

A.E. Stallings, The Bat Poet: Poetry as Echolocation

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

~ Louis-Emile Adan, The Reading (detail)

via pinterest