Wednesday Reading Meme: Bathroom Grinding Edition
Sadly, "bathroom grinding" isn't half so naughty as it sounds. Whatever the remodelers are doing downstairs, it sounds like they're vibrating the whole damn room apart. But! We're three days in and they've been consistently on time, our project manager has been communicative, and (to my admittedly untrained eye) they appear to be doing excellent work. And they've been super courteous about wearing masks, too. So really, I can't complain. What I've just finished reading Angels & Insects, by A.S. Byatt. Confession time: I noped out about a third of the way through The Conjugial Angel. There was some interesting cultural examination of the various social forces that gave rise to spiritualism (and the ways it allowed women of a certain age/lack of marital status to participate in society in a culturally-sanctioned way), but the farcical characters and lack of anything resembling a plot just Did Not Do It for me, especially when combined with Byatt's heavily-Victorian-esque writing style. It didn't even have Morpho Eugenia's implied-incest subplot to add spice. The Trouble With Peace, by Joe Abercrombie. I forgot to write about this last week because I didn't think about audiobooks, and also because I'd been taking a bit of a break from it. Joe Abercrombie is absolutely masterful at that style of writing where the bulk of the story involves setting up all the individual characters and their histories, connections, abilities, and motivations (overt and covert)—and then, in the third act, flicking one of the dominoes and watching everything fall. It's satisfying as heck in the end, but can sometimes be a little long in the windup. Still, Peace definitely fulfills its promises, and ends on that perfect kind of cliffhanger that I both kicking myself for not seeing coming and absolutely get why I didn't see it coming. Related, I note that his major themes for this trilogy include the shifting of norms in the face of new technology, the breakdown of social institutions in the wake of increasing wealth stratification, and the dangers of fanaticism directly related to increasing polarization—definitely none of which have any resonance with current events whatsoever. Definitely looking forward to the third book, and (at the risk of repeating myself) Steven Pacey continues to do an absolutely phenomenal job performing these books. What I'm currently reading One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. Straightforward almost to a fault, I'm not sure I have a whole lot to say about the story yet. I get that it was a huge deal in its time, since it was one of the first truly honest portrayals of life in a Soviet gulag that was allowed to be published, but given that my previous exposure to Solzhenitsyn had been in the context of his more philosophical work, I guess I was expecting a little more philosophizing? Still, there's some reflection around the edges; I note the recurring theme of "the guards are just as trapped in their roles as the prisoners are in theirs, and subject to many of the same privations", which feels very Russian. Bureaucracy dehumanizes us all. I did note a passage in the Yevgeny Yevtushenko's foreword where he talks of Solzhenitsyn's disdainful attitude towards liberals, artists, and the intelligentsia, as none of their ideals or pretensions are of any use in the camps. He goes on to note that without the aid of the intelligentsia, who rallied under its banner, Ivan Denisovich would likely never have been published, but appears to dismiss this as a "complicated relationship" without going much further into it. Which struck me as more than a little odd; presumably, Solzhenitsyn had some artistic pretensions—you don't generally write a book, otherwise!—even if it was only to portray harsh realities that had been hidden from the general public. I wonder if this is a Soviet cultural thing, wanting to prove Solzhenitsyn's bona fides at writing working-class characters by separating him out from the pretentious elites? I should ask Ksenia about it. Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir. I nabbed this audiobook entirely on the basis of some chatter about it in my writing group, and so far it hasn't lead me astray—I've only really listened to the first sequence and a bit of the following backstory, but I really like the two major characters we've introduced so far. (I'm not sure you're supposed to like Harrowhawk, but given that her name is the title of the second book, I don't think you're supposed to not like her. And I admire her absolute ruthlessness.) I admit that I'm a little concerned about the extensive Dramatis Personae listed at the start of the book—I have a mixed track record with high fantasy/sci-fi stories with large casts that I often lose track of—but if the book can keep up the strength of Gideon's voice, that'll do a lot to keep my interest. What I plan to read next Still looking forward to Tender Morsels! After that, it occurs to me that I have the sequel to Naomi Novik's Uprooted, which I enjoyed immensely, sitting on my to-be-read pile...we'll see! Fanfiction Spotlight ancientreader's "Riddle Me This, Mr. Holmes" is a complete delight, both in its concept and in its execution. Watson, traveling to visit family but concerned about his friend and lover's somewhat fragile mental health, takes to sending him lines of a riddle via telegram and urchin-enacted charade each day. It's precisely the sort of thing you could see Watson doing for Holmes (no matter how you view their relationship); understated, thoughtful, and introducing just that little bit of extra chaos into the buttoned-up detective's life. I was completely and utterly charmed, all the more so by their banter-via-telegram once Holmes cottons on.
