Author: katenepveu

Posted on

Gabaldon, Diana: (105) The Fiery Cross

Read The Fiery Cross last night; yes, all of it; no, I don’t remember what time I went to sleep.

I suppose I should explain about my reading habits. For me, What Happens Next can be a worse addiction than that of chocolate (which I have been craving fiercely all semester, now that I’ve been trying not to keep it on hand. But anyway.). Mostly I experience this with long-awaited continuations of a story, as with this book, though it also happens if I fall headlong into a new story. So the first read tends to be very fast (how fast? Well, I generally read, very roughly, about a hundred pages an hour—and I know it wasn’t that late when I went to bed).

So that’s the first craving assuaged, when I know what’s happened. (Does Bonnet come back, how’s Ian, what happens with the Regulators? Etc.) But some details are obviously a bit blurry around the edges, and the book isn’t properly settled yet. That is, events within the book haven’t necessarily found their place in relation to each other, the structure, or subtler themes; and the book as a whole might not have settled—when I assess works, I tend to think of them as though they were arranged in spatial relationships to one another inside my skull, and the book might not have found its place in that array yet. Which means I put the book down, take a deep breath (or get some sleep), and start re-reading immediately.

Is this efficient? Probably not. Can I help it? Well, I don’t know. I was realizing, while reading The Fiery Cross, that I do regret my lack of willpower. Not so much gulping it down; in a way, I kind of like getting both the roller-coaster ride and the slow unfolding. But there are a bunch of excerpts on Gabaldon’s website from this and other forthcoming books, and while I tried to make myself actually read them when I came across them in the book, it was sort of a weird experience. (I do find it interesting to note small changes in the texts along the way; no, I don’t compare line-by-line, but I have a good memory for text. Also, just whether the excerpts make it into the book is interesting; one from the web page and one from the Outlandish Companion don’t.) It was as though I knew part of the framework of the book, and was seeing the flesh put on it. (Like “The Parliament of Rooks” issue in Sandman, though I don’t find this disturbing in the way actual flesh would be.) The excerpts makes it harder for me to take the book as a whole on the first read, but I don’t know if I could stop myself from reading them. And maybe it’s not such a big deal, when I re-read as much as I do.

(Something similar happens when first chapters get put up. For instance, I started reading Lois McMaster Bujold’s latest novel, The Curse of Chalion, from where the sample chapters left off. I remembered them quite well, but on reflection I think that it would have been better to read the book as a whole the first time, because the plot’s so tightly structured.)

I realize I haven’t said much about the actual book. Well, I will re-read it, slowly, over meals and before bed, and hopefully I will have more useful things to say about it then. Now? Let’s see. Book five of six is a rotten place to start reading a series, in case anyone of you out there were tempted (start with Outlander). In another way, this is book two of three; the series is split into an Old World trilogy (in which the pivotal event was the Scottish Rising of 1745) and a New World trilogy (in which the pivotal event will be the American Revolution). The Revolution hasn’t started yet, but the stirrings are starting to affect our characters already—and leftover business from the ’45 keeps showing up, and not just the Scottish immigrants’ attitude toward the English crown. Speaking generally, the books are about time, history, and change on the one hand, and marriage and love on the other; Gabaldon’s observation of each is still acute. And, well, it’s seriously compulsive and entertaining reading; I was up way past my bedtime. What else do I need to say?

No Comments

Posted on

Gabaldon, Diana: (104.5) Outlandish Companion, The

I’ve also been reading in piecemeal fashion The Outlandish Companion, by Diana Gabaldon. As the title suggests, this is a companion to her Outlander series, published (oddly) before the series was over. I didn’t buy it when it first came out, but most fortuitously found it used a few days ago. It has some interesting things, like why characters are mushrooms, onions, or hard nuts, a character list, and frequently asked questions, and some less-interesting things (astrology characters for the two main characters?). There are also synopses of the then-existing books, though I didn’t read those because, well, I just did. It would probably be interesting to see what the author thought the main points were, though.

Anyway, I didn’t read every word of this, but it did well for dipping into. It also contains something called the “Methadone List,” books that might scratch some of the same itches raised by the series. I’m a little dubious about some of the titles in it, but that’s fine because I used the book itself as my methadone—and, joy of joys, I have The Fiery Cross, book five, sitting in front of me right now. So, I’ve got my fix, and don’t expect to hear from me for however long it takes me to read all 979 pages of it . . .

No Comments

Posted on

Heyer, Georgette: Arabella

Took the MPRE today, so needed something small to bring along. Georgette Heyer’s Arabella seemed to fit the bill just fine; lightweight in both senses of the word, just the thing for a possibly-stressful day. (Turns it out wasn’t, though knock on wood.) This burbled along in typical amusing Heyer fashion for most of it, but upon reflection I rather think the male protagonist was a bit of a jerk at the end. It wasn’t anywhere near as annoying as The Toll-Gate, though.

No Comments

Posted on

McCaffrey, Anne: Skies of Pern, The

I got Anne McCaffrey’s The Skies of Pern out of the library because, while I no longer like the books enough to buy them, I’m still vaguely interested in what’s going on with the world. I mean, I read (counts on fingers) about ten of the things all in a row when I was younger, and while a lot of the content now bothers me, I still feel some attachment to the world.

Alas, this latest book suggests that I shouldn’t bother reading them anymore, I should just find spoilers somewhere. The prose and the tell-don’t-show characters combined to leave me completely unengaged in the story, and the plot is very oddly paced. Also, I really don’t believe that in the hundreds of years since dragons have existed on Pern, a situation similar to the one in the book hasn’t come up.

Anyway. I got it out of the library, so I shall not regret the time spent; I just won’t read books about new events on Pern, as well as old ones (I skipped The Masterharper of Pern because how many times can one really read about the same events?).

2 Comments

Posted on

Gabaldon, Diana: (104) Drums of Autumn

Drat. Finished re-reading Drums of Autumn almost a whole week before the next Diana Gabaldon book is going to arrive. Let’s see, ships on Tuesday, at least a couple of days in transit, but even if it got here before Friday I couldn’t read it, because I have this minor matter of a bar exam to take then (the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam; much shorter than the actual bar, but still have to pass it to practice). Hmph.

Oh well. I should have realized that since I’ve re-read Drums the most recently of the Outlander series, it would go faster even though I’ve been insanely busy. It’s hard to speak of “favorites” in a series that’s an ongoing story (easier where the books are separate stories about the same people, like Bujold’s fabulous Vorkosigan books), but I think you can say which are better done, at least. Drums, like the prior book, Voyager, does reasonably well at not having cliffhangers—unlike the prior two, which is why, while I’m twitching over the release of The Fiery Cross, I managed to restrain myself enough to go for the deep discount at Amazon rather than the instant gratification of walking into the local chain (besides which, I don’t like the local chain, and don’t trust them to get it on the shelves on time. I miss having a Borders nearby.). The books still aren’t self-contained in any meaningful sense, but I find them more satisfying to read when the story is rounded-off, I suppose, coming around to the beginning but leaving the characters at a natural break in their relationships. Also, the minor verbal tics that bothered me in Outlander have gone away, and the varied narrative voices are done quite well. (And did I mention that I really like John Grey?)

Anyway, I will just have to troll Gabaldon’s website looking for excerpts I might have somehow missed to tide me over until the new book arrives . . .

No Comments

Posted on

Wodehouse, P.G.: Something Fresh

It’s hard to convey adequately just how silly Something Fresh, by P.G. Wodehouse, is. Let’s try this.

Like many fathers in his rank of life, the Earl of Emsworth had suffered much through that problem which — with the exception of Mr Lloyd George — is practically the only fly in the British aristocratic amber — the problem of What To Do With The Younger Sons. It is useless to try to gloss over the fact, the Younger Son is not required. You might reason with a British peer by the hour — you might point out to him how, in the one hand, he is far better off than the male codfish, who may at any moment find itself in the distressing position of being called on to provide for a family of over a million; and remind him, on the other, that every additional child he acquires means a corresponding rise for him in the estimation of ex-President Roosevelt; but you would not cheer him up in the least. He does not want the Younger Son.

Or perhaps:

The reason why all we novelists with bulging foreheads and expensive educations are abandoning novels and taking to writing motion-picture scenarii is because the latter are so infinitely the more simple and pleasant.

If this narrative, for instance, were a film-drama, the operator at this point would flash on the screen the words:

MR. PETERS DISCOVERS THE LOSS OF THE SCARAB

and for a brief moment the audience would see an interior set, in which a little angry man with a sharp face and starting eyes would register first, Discovery; next Dismay. The whole thing would be over in an instant.

The printed word demands a greater elaboration.

It was Aline who had to bear the brunt of her father’s mental agony when he discovered, shortly after his guest had left him, that the gem of his collection of scarabs had done the same. It is always the innocent bystander who suffers.

[Mr. Peters yells at Aline.]

How pleasant it is, after assisting at a scene of violence and recrimination, to be transferred to one of peace and goodwill. It is with a sense of relief that I find that the snipe-like flight of this story takes us next, far from Mr. Peters and his angry outpourings, to the cosy smoking-room of Blandings Castle. . . .

It doesn’t seem as packed with plot as a Bertie/Jeeves novel, but it’s extremely entertaining all the same.

No Comments

Posted on

Lackey, Mercedes: Arrows of the Queen

Horrible insomnia last night, so dug out a brainless comfort book, Mercedes Lackey’s Arrows of the Queen. This was her first book, which shows in the little awkward fluctuations in narrative voice; it’s also firmly within certain subgenres, the confluence of which I am much less sympathetic to these days (namely the abused, completely beaten down child, the hopelessly naive fish out of water, and a girl and her horse). Though it kicks off a trilogy (and then a gazillion-book series), it actually stands fairly well alone, which is good because the next two have gratuitous torture and One True Destined Love angsting, so I shall not re-read those. There is a small comment about Skif that I hadn’t noticed before that almost makes me want to read the new book focused on his origins; perhaps the library will have it.

No Comments

Posted on

Bryson, Bill: I’m a Stranger Here Myself

I took the train from Albany to Boston yesterday, which reminded me of this passage from Bill Bryson’s I’m a Stranger Here Myself (a.k.a. Notes from a Big Country), about fall in New England:

Forgive me if I seem a tad effusive, but it is impossible to describe a spectacle this grand without babbling. Even the great naturalist Donald Culross Peattie, a man whose prose is so dry you could use it to mop spills, totally lost his head when he tried to convey the wonder of a New England autumn.

. . . Peattie drones on . . . in language that can most generously be called workmanlike . . . but when he at last turns his attention to the New England sugar maple and its vivid autumnal regalia, it is as if someone has spiked his cocoa. In a tumble of breathless metaphors he described the maple’s colors as “like the shout of a great army . . . like tongues of flame . . . like the mighty, marching melody that rides upon the crest of some symphonic weltering sea and, with its crying song, gives meaning to all the calculated dissonance of the orchestra.”

“Yes, Donald,” you can just about hear his wife saying, “now take your medication, dear.”

Even though towards Albany most of the leaves were off the trees, it was still an astonishingly pretty trip. Further into Massachusetts, more of the trees had their foliage, turning the rolling hills of the Berkshires into beautiful tapestries. The oft-leisurely pace of the train gave me ample time to consider the scenery, while taking breaks from reading Criminal Procedure (hey, I read over 200 pages of my textbook yesterday, my eyes deserved some breaks). I particularly liked the red fire hydrant sitting by all itself in a small grassy clearing in the woods; as best I could tell, the closest house was a quarter-mile away—on a pond. And the rusted farm equipment was more than compensated for by the thirty or so buffalo peacefully grazing in a field . . .

(The train ride itself was surprisingly pleasant, even for me—I usually prefer trains because I can read on them, whereas it’s even odds that just looking at a map in a moving car will make me ill. Because, I think, it was continuing from Chicago, there was even more leg room than usual, plus little footrests attached to the back of the seat in front of you and leg rests that flipped up from the edge of the seat bottom; it was basically a reclining chair without the remote control. I particularly liked this because I’m shorter than average and, consequently, most seats are a little longer than is comfortable. There were even curtains on the windows—and free soda and sandwiches. Granted, we were two hours late, but one can’t have everything.)

I flipped through the rest of Bryson’s book while looking for that quote. There’s some good stuff there, but the thing about collections of a weekly newspaper column is, as Bryson notes in the introduction, the column has to be written every week. This often shows. In particular, a few columns have that forced, trying-to-give-Dave-Barry-a-run-for-his-money feel, which doesn’t really work for me. A Walk in the Woods remains his best work, which I recommend to everyone.

No Comments

Posted on

Gabaldon, Diana: (103) Voyager

Completed the re-read of the third of Gabaldon’s Outlander series, Voyager. This catches us up on what Jamie and Claire did after they separated, Jamie intending to die on the field of Culloden and Claire going back to the 20th century to bear their child. (I like this bit particularly because we get to see one of my favorite characters, Lord John Grey, at some length).

This volume also includes Claire & Jamie’s reunion, which I think is done pretty well. I have a couple of minor quibbles—Jamie gets them all out of trouble one time, and it’s never explained how he was able to—but there’s a lot of good bits (“Never smile at a crocodile”) and I like how the ending comes full circle while being new again.

Since I’m reading pretty slowly because I’ve been busy with other things, hopefully I’ll finish my re-read of the fourth just as Amazon delivers the new volume to my door^Wpost office box . . .

No Comments

Posted on

Howard, Linda: Open Season

Read Linda Howard’s latest hardcover, Open Season, yesterday. This was fluff and far from her best effort, but still entertaining in a lightweight, don’t-think-about-this-too-hard kinda way—except that the last two pages were really, really weird, verging on revoltingly so. Eww.

No Comments