Bibliography
Jul. 15th, 2012 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilySnuff - Terry Pratchett
This is the latest-sort-of Pratchett, and essentially follows the good old pattern of putting Samuel Vimes somewhere where something bad is happening and seeing how long it takes him to work it out. It also, frankly, does a Very Odd Thing about trying to incorporate the history of African slavery into the world of the Disc in the context of using goblins to harvest tobacco. There are Issues with this. Really Big Issues. Starting with 'erm, did you think through the racial outplaying of this quite thoroughly enough?', but that only came after I'd finished the book. The actual problem was the sense through certain passages of 'and lo! here is a very lightly veiled history lesson! only the names have been changed!', which kind of isn't what usually happens when Pratchett tries this sort of thing.
I'm also less than convinced by Vimes' relationship with Lady Sibyl, which seems to have changed over time and doesn't quite seem to have evolved organically here. Don't get me wrong, the dynamics are brilliant, but they don't feel as if they quite evolve directly from previous books. Ditto the character of the butler Wilikins, who is mainly engraved on my memory from Jingo and appears to have grown several extra unlikely dimensions since.
I suspect part of the problem is that I actually don't remember Thud!, upon which large segments of the plot are predicated, very well. There are shifts that I think a better working knowledge of Thud! would help, but again, that's also a little unusual in terms of Pratchett's usual output - each book normally stands fairly well alone without too much extra help.
I am, possibly, at this point sounding a little churlish. The ideas and the themes explored in this book are the usual ones that surround Sam Vimes - questions of inherited power, life on the street vs. life in the aristocracy, the assumption that class means exemption, the defense of the defenseless, that sort of thing. And there are, as usual, some passages of lyrical brilliance that had me giggling. But the whole doesn't quite hang together as well as it could, and I suspect that's because a desire to shoehorn in certain material doesn't allow the development of a full narrative thread as well as it might.
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
A surprisingly quick read, but a very good one - providing you omit the prefatory essay "The Custom House", in which Hawthorne talks about his experience in the Salem Custom House, in which he supposedly discovered the manuscripts telling the story of The Scarlet Letter. I'm afraid I rather lost patience with this, mainly because it's hardcore social commentary grounded in contemporary reality, it goes on at length, and I wanted to get to the novel.
The novel itself is tightly structured and goes on at a fast pace, telling the story of Hester Prynne and her illegitimate child; Hester is forced to wear a scarlet A as an adulteress, despite her husband not being present in the colony - except he appears on the day of her display and punishment, and decides to live in the town under an assumed name, tormenting the man he suspects (rightly) of being her lover. The story eventually comes to a head with the revelation of that lover's identity and his immediate death - which makes a nice change from suffering female heroines dying dramatically, I will say.
Hester, meanwhile, manages to bring up her child to a comparatively good end (although its final details are unknown), and continue a life of good works and penitence, bearing her scarlet letter proudly and bravely, and making of her shame a space for virtue. She is far more heroic than any of the male characters, and thus rather more interesting to read than a lot of the women characters of the period. Yes, she's in a position which only a woman could be in, and the dreadful nature of the double standard is part of the novel's thematic interest. The question of morality, the place of Hester's actions in the situation in which she found herself, and the impact of her subsequent behaviour in comparison to that of others in the town also combine in interesting ways.
It's actually a really good read, especially if you skip The Custom House, and I'd thoroughly recommend it.
This is the latest-sort-of Pratchett, and essentially follows the good old pattern of putting Samuel Vimes somewhere where something bad is happening and seeing how long it takes him to work it out. It also, frankly, does a Very Odd Thing about trying to incorporate the history of African slavery into the world of the Disc in the context of using goblins to harvest tobacco. There are Issues with this. Really Big Issues. Starting with 'erm, did you think through the racial outplaying of this quite thoroughly enough?', but that only came after I'd finished the book. The actual problem was the sense through certain passages of 'and lo! here is a very lightly veiled history lesson! only the names have been changed!', which kind of isn't what usually happens when Pratchett tries this sort of thing.
I'm also less than convinced by Vimes' relationship with Lady Sibyl, which seems to have changed over time and doesn't quite seem to have evolved organically here. Don't get me wrong, the dynamics are brilliant, but they don't feel as if they quite evolve directly from previous books. Ditto the character of the butler Wilikins, who is mainly engraved on my memory from Jingo and appears to have grown several extra unlikely dimensions since.
I suspect part of the problem is that I actually don't remember Thud!, upon which large segments of the plot are predicated, very well. There are shifts that I think a better working knowledge of Thud! would help, but again, that's also a little unusual in terms of Pratchett's usual output - each book normally stands fairly well alone without too much extra help.
I am, possibly, at this point sounding a little churlish. The ideas and the themes explored in this book are the usual ones that surround Sam Vimes - questions of inherited power, life on the street vs. life in the aristocracy, the assumption that class means exemption, the defense of the defenseless, that sort of thing. And there are, as usual, some passages of lyrical brilliance that had me giggling. But the whole doesn't quite hang together as well as it could, and I suspect that's because a desire to shoehorn in certain material doesn't allow the development of a full narrative thread as well as it might.
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
A surprisingly quick read, but a very good one - providing you omit the prefatory essay "The Custom House", in which Hawthorne talks about his experience in the Salem Custom House, in which he supposedly discovered the manuscripts telling the story of The Scarlet Letter. I'm afraid I rather lost patience with this, mainly because it's hardcore social commentary grounded in contemporary reality, it goes on at length, and I wanted to get to the novel.
The novel itself is tightly structured and goes on at a fast pace, telling the story of Hester Prynne and her illegitimate child; Hester is forced to wear a scarlet A as an adulteress, despite her husband not being present in the colony - except he appears on the day of her display and punishment, and decides to live in the town under an assumed name, tormenting the man he suspects (rightly) of being her lover. The story eventually comes to a head with the revelation of that lover's identity and his immediate death - which makes a nice change from suffering female heroines dying dramatically, I will say.
Hester, meanwhile, manages to bring up her child to a comparatively good end (although its final details are unknown), and continue a life of good works and penitence, bearing her scarlet letter proudly and bravely, and making of her shame a space for virtue. She is far more heroic than any of the male characters, and thus rather more interesting to read than a lot of the women characters of the period. Yes, she's in a position which only a woman could be in, and the dreadful nature of the double standard is part of the novel's thematic interest. The question of morality, the place of Hester's actions in the situation in which she found herself, and the impact of her subsequent behaviour in comparison to that of others in the town also combine in interesting ways.
It's actually a really good read, especially if you skip The Custom House, and I'd thoroughly recommend it.
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 02:30 pm (UTC)I suspect part of the reason is he's no longer able to write the books, only to narrate and someone else writes it all down. It follows therefore that he's no longer able to self-edit. =(
I remember quite liking The Scarlet Letter, which I read for an English course; it was a college-level course I was taking despite being in high school, and I was ecstatic to be there. We spent an hour and a half minutely examining the first two paragraphs, dealing with the description of a rose bush next to the church door, and extrapolating symbolism to foreshadow all the rest of the novel just from those two paragraphs. At one point a fellow student looked up and said "You all realize this is in our heads and Hawthorne almost certainly didn't intend the meanings we're finding here, right?" and we all shushed him because we were having too much fun. Ahhh, English studies.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 06:33 pm (UTC)I'm trying to take account of this, I really am, and to be grateful that he's still writing anything at all. But it feels like there are some bigger problems with approach and the world-building that haven't quite worked that go beyond the practical aspects - but then, I don't know whether self-editing would have made a difference.
Yay for outlandish textual criticism and the Death of the Author!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 08:05 pm (UTC)Huzzah!