December 2021 Reading Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
An Informal History of the Hugos by Jo Walton. Very entertaining look back at Hugo winners from the award's inception to the year 2000. In What Makes This Book so Great? Walton claimed discomfort with literary criticism, which I believe, and yet her appreciations of those books and stories she cares for seem to me quite insightful, even though I think our tastes only overlap a little. That continues here, with her trying to judge just how representative of s.f. as a whole the Hugos are year by year, taking into account nominees as well as winners. Perhaps the conclusion that because readers focus so much on novels the answer is indeterminate -- popular novels/novelists do get nominated -- was foregone, but with commentary included from Gardner Dozois, Rich Horton and James David Nicoll, among others, the surprise comes from the representation of the state of s.f. by shorter form fiction.

Not a book, I think, to read cover-to-cover but rather one to dip into; expect your to-read list to-grow.
 
This one now :)

Screenshot_20211205-183841.png
 
I read A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell. To say that this book did not rise to the level of 1984 or Animal Farm is apparent in the first few pages. It is his second novel and reads very much like a book written by someone looking to find his voice. Roughly a fifth of the book reads like a script for theater production. But for all of that you can see that this was from the author of the other two justly famous works. The ending is far from satisfying, but makes you think, and wonder if he's onto some deep truth that most of us close our eyes to. Read as a person who served the Church as a "clergyman" for forty years, I would say that he has hit on something, but has ignored the copious evidence to the contrary.
(3 stars) mainly for the poor writing form.

I'm now reading

Station Breaker.jpg


It has me very interested, in an absurd way. I'm about half way through the book and the present part is an escape so improbable it had me laughing out loud. But I still intend to finish it.
 
@Parson
Station breaker by Andrew Mayne
I read one of his a couple of years ago that got a bit absurd and improbable:-
Public Enemy Zero, it's maybe just his story telling style.

TBH I prefer such tales to ones that are very formulaistic, at least the writer is trying to be novel
 
I’m finishing up Micro by Michael Crichton. A horrific novel about being the size of an ant among the carnivorous insectoid beasts of Hawaii. I found this book in a “Little Free Library” a few days ago, and what luck that I found a Michael Crichton. Personally, he’s one of the very best.
 
Parson said:
I read A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell. To say that this book did not rise to the level of 1984 or Animal Farm is apparent in the first few pages. It is his second novel and reads very much like a book written by someone looking to find his voice. Roughly a fifth of the book reads like a script for theater production. But for all of that you can see that this was from the author of the other two justly famous works. The ending is far from satisfying, but makes you think, and wonder if he's onto some deep truth that most of us close our eyes to. Read as a person who served the Church as a "clergyman" for forty years, I would say that he has hit on something, but has ignored the copious evidence to the contrary.
(3 stars) mainly for the poor writing form.
Click to expand...

I read that a couple of years ago, Parson, and struggled to finish it, and I don't think I'd have given it your generous 3 stars. A brief note I made at the time:

Dorothy Hare, sexually repressed, down-trodden and wholly passive daughter of a domineering and snobbish rector, undergoes a bout of amnesia for no good reason, which allows Orwell to strip her of everything and send her out into the world in borrowed clothes and 2/6, the latter of which she promptly loses to 3 Londoners and petty thieves who adopt her as they make their way to the hop fields of Kent. She encounters destitution but a kind of comradeship there, is then shipped back to London where worse destitution follows, and – thanks to titled relatives helping and despite having no ability whatsoever – ends up teaching at a crummy private school, before someone comes and collects her and returns her to the parish, but with no longer any religious faith, only ritual. A polemic against poverty and the lot of women that might have been more hard-hitting if she wasn’t such a complete wet blanket all the way through, with no ideas or semblance of wit or intelligence.​

Actually, with that "no good reason" I was perhaps being unjust, since there's a hint that a sexual assault has traumatised her, but that didn't help endear me to the plot, either. As you can see, though, I approached it from a feminist angle, not the religious -- I don't know enough about Orwell's take on religion to grasp whether he was also making a point about the Church of England and some of its pre-war clergy, but I certainly think it was the poverty aspect that was to the fore, as in his other work.
 
Danny McG said:
Apocalypsis immortuos by Marco de Hoogh.

Books 1&2 of a zombie pandemic
Click to expand...
ah current affairs i see. i've reading the JET series by russel blake. i thought i would quickly put aside but frankly it keeps grabbing my interest. And the thing is i'm not sosure that what he writes is not at least plausible.
 
Trying a sample of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and um..
So
Well written.
Clever
Atmospheric
Imaginative
Very narrated
Witty in the depiction of the characters, their motivations and their misunderstanding of others
Victorian feel (or is it Georgian I've lost track)
Has a slightly Trollope quality etc.
And I'm getting bored as I just don't gel with Victorian/Georgian tributes of this type and none of the characters are people I can warm to. Honestly, they all have a broad streak of plonker, to put it politely.

How did others do with this?
 
Montero said:
How did others do with this?
Click to expand...
Took me a while to get into it, many years ago. I think it was the arrival of the "gentleman with thistledown hair" that hooked me, but I can't remember how far in that is. I keep thinking I ought to reread it.
 
Montero said:
Victorian feel (or is it Georgian I've lost track)
Click to expand...
It's Regency, if we use that in its wider/looser definition, since the book starts in the early 1800s and goes into the mid 1810s through the Peninsular War and Waterloo. (The actual Regency, ie when the Prince of Wales was Regent, was from 1811-20).

For me, I loved it from the start -- the language, the wit, the footnotes -- but then I enjoy reading about the Georgian and Regency era. The characters weren't particularly amiable or personable, but that didn't worry me, since they seemed authentic and of their time, which for me is more important.

But if it's not grabbing you and you've given it a fair chance, put it down. It's far too long to read it under sufferance!

The TV series wasn't bad, if you can get hold of it, and you might perhaps find that more appealing as it moves at a fair clip and the characters don't come over quite as badly. (Though I hated the gentleman with thistledown hair in the series, which would have put me off if I read the book with that actor in mind.)
 
Montero said:
Trying a sample of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and um..
So
Well written.
Clever
Atmospheric
Imaginative
Very narrated
Witty in the depiction of the characters, their motivations and their misunderstanding of others
Victorian feel (or is it Georgian I've lost track)
Has a slightly Trollope quality etc.
And I'm getting bored as I just don't gel with Victorian/Georgian tributes of this type and none of the characters are people I can warm to. Honestly, they all have a broad streak of plonker, to put it politely.

How did others do with this?
Click to expand...

All of that was enough for me to enjoy the book, but I agree with Harebrain that the appearance of the "gentleman with the thistle-down hair" raised the interest of the book considerably, as did his interactions with Stephen Black.
 
@HareBrain @The Judge, @Randy M. Thanks all.
I've got a bit past the statues in York Minster (or should I say cathedral as they prefer) becoming animated which was impressive.
Not yet reached the gentleman with the thistledown hair.
I love authenticity and I don't doubt they are authentic, but I could do with someone I have some sympathy with (perhaps a servant given what I think of the quarrelsome, puffed up, inconsiderate gentlemen). I find the way they bustle around being busy in other people's business most irritating. We have the TV series on the hard drive, all except the first episode that we missed recording and are waiting for it to come back round......
So I think that is me quitting. I read to relax, not be irritated by characters. I do tend to immerse myself in the world, so get rather involved.
Question - do you need to have read this before trying Piranesi, which is also being much admired?
 
The Judge said:
I read that a couple of years ago, Parson, and struggled to finish it, and I don't think I'd have given it your generous 3 stars. A brief note I made at the time:

Dorothy Hare, sexually repressed, down-trodden and wholly passive daughter of a domineering and snobbish rector, undergoes a bout of amnesia for no good reason, which allows Orwell to strip her of everything and send her out into the world in borrowed clothes and 2/6, the latter of which she promptly loses to 3 Londoners and petty thieves who adopt her as they make their way to the hop fields of Kent. She encounters destitution but a kind of comradeship there, is then shipped back to London where worse destitution follows, and – thanks to titled relatives helping and despite having no ability whatsoever – ends up teaching at a crummy private school, before someone comes and collects her and returns her to the parish, but with no longer any religious faith, only ritual. A polemic against poverty and the lot of women that might have been more hard-hitting if she wasn’t such a complete wet blanket all the way through, with no ideas or semblance of wit or intelligence.​

Actually, with that "no good reason" I was perhaps being unjust, since there's a hint that a sexual assault has traumatised her, but that didn't help endear me to the plot, either. As you can see, though, I approached it from a feminist angle, not the religious -- I don't know enough about Orwell's take on religion to grasp whether he was also making a point about the Church of England and some of its pre-war clergy, but I certainly think it was the poverty aspect that was to the fore, as in his other work.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure we see it much differently. I would only give 1 or 2 stars if the book were totally misrepresented and/or the language was horrifically profane and/or the sex was gratuitous. Three stars is basically as low as I go. I would say that we were looking at the story through very different lenses. Mine was primarily the religious aspect and secondarily the feminist* angle. I agree that there was a hint of some sexual assault because she could never "do THAT." But an assault isn't clear unless you extend sexual assault to what the people of the 18th and 19 centuries would call "handsy." In our age it definitely qualifies, but I'm not sure that in the early 20th century it would have been the common understanding. If you use the modern understanding than she definitely was.

I saw him as striping religion of all meaning. When Dorothy Hare** suffers what I would call a Psychic Break. She loses all sense of her faith and her regular way of seeing the world. In each of her following experiences she finds both good and bad people. Some who help her and some who try to take advantage of her, but morality is never more than "What seems good to me." In the end, although she no longer believes she continues with the ritual for the sake of the ritual, which to me is the saddest possible ending. But it's hopeless sadness is very little different than the same hopeless sadness at the end of the Animal Farm and 1984. I wouldn't call it an important book, but it's a book which is likely to stay with you and for that it deserves more than a little respect.

*In this context "feminist" for me means treating each person as a valuable human being, a wonderful creation, and someone worthy of respect.
**I wonder if Orwell wasn't making some play on hare for the last name. She's hunted and prey but never hunting.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
elvet November / December 100 Word Anonymous Challenge 2024 Poll Workshop 0
nixie Discussion Thread---December 2024---75 Word Writing Challenge. Writing Challenges 34
Ursa major POLL -- December 2021 75-word Writing Challenge -- CAT'S CRADLE WINS! Writing Challenges 0
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- December 2021 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 154
The Judge DECEMBER 2021 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO CAT'S CRADLE!! Writing Challenges 41

Similar threads


Back
Top