Bibliography

[the_lady_lily]

'Casting the runes' and other ghost stories - M. R. James

A rather suitable thing to pick up off the shelves given the adaptation of "The Tractate Middoth" for Christmas television, but the first time I have ever read any M.R. James. However, I had heard a lot about his writing that was very positive, and figured that it was worth seeing what happened. The answer is that these are wonderfully donnish ghost stories - James' protagonists are searchers after old books and secret architectural knowledge, people who appreciate fine woodcuts and stained glass, but who often find themselves tripped up by the dark humour of the long-dead. Lovely stuff, with a terribly intellectual flavour, and suddenly I understand precisely why everyone has been telling me I'd get on well with it for so long.

The New Men - C. P. Snow

Well, of all the places I was expecting Snow's Strangers and Brothers series to go, I think I can safely say that I wasn't expecting cutting-edge nuclear research during the second world war. But here we are. This book focuses on the narrator's brother, a hitherto unrealised presence in the world that has been steadily building up around the books, but one whose character is... not repellent, precisely, but admitted of a certain level of moral ambiguity with which the narrator (and thus by implication the reader) feels somewhat uncomfortable. Because, you know. Nuclear bomb. A completely new direction, and I'm rather wondering what happens next.

Insurgent - Veronica Roth

The second in the Divergent sequence, which I read on with following the recommendation of ghoti. I'm pleased I did - it was unexpected, I like the directions in which the main protagonist is being allowed to develop, and the twist at the end of the novel opens up some fresh territory for the third and final book. It's really nicely paced, and also captures some of the 'oh, for heaven's sake' weirdness of being a hormonal young person. Whilst you are also being shot at, obviously.

New year, new beginning!

Parade's End - Ford Madox Ford

Not one but four books, the Parade's End series was, of course, serialised on television, and otherwise I would not have known it existed. It is an appropriate very-large-book to read at the start of the year, as it is set in the first world war, and this is its centenary; it gives a very different view of the war from a lot of other things. Mainly, it is about administration - we're not looking at incompetence or complacency, we're looking at sheer chaos and three different orders of the same status turning up at the same time ordering completely contradictory things, and nobody being able to get information to anybody useful, and... general confusion. Which ends up as well as one would expect. Also, total failure of morals by quite a lot of people. My breath is taken away with the ease with which Sylvia tells dreadful fibs about her husband. It just... the mind boggles.

G made a good point about this - it paints a world that is passing away, but that world's time is done. It is not a nostalgia; it is a memorial of a thing outgrown. Which is the general feel of the whole piece, really.

Railsea - China Miéville

Another Miéville, this one about an alternative universe where we don't have sea, we have railways. And we don't have Moby-Dick, we have a bloody big albino mole. Amongst other things. It's well-paced, very silly, typically learnedly allusive, and a good read. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it afterwards - it doesn't seem to have particularly stuck with me in any way. But it was an entertaining enough read. I think part of the problem was that the ending was a bit weak - a bit pat, a bit 'down all capitalists', not quite developed or interesting enough following the build-up. An anti-climax. But the world-building was good.

Oh Dear Silvia - Dawn French

Now, this was an 'oooh, on holiday, I can read daft things!' pick off the shelf, and to start with, I really wasn't terribly impressed - there were some thin stereotypes, some uninteresting personal dynamics, all a bit... well, a bit run of the mill. Despite the rather clever device of having the central character, around whom everything pivoted, be in a coma, and have each chapter focalised by one of her visitors. But it got quite a lot better and deeper and more complex as it went on, and I did have a tear in my eye as it ended. Don't get me wrong, there are some problematic issues here about gender and race and similar, but it turned out to be rather a lot better than I was expecting it to be.

Comments

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I love Parade's End, and in particular the first 50 or so pages of the first book. I like the way it simultaneously celebrates the myth of the passing of a by-gone era and casts doubt on the whole construct. Ford's vision often is like a prism--so many conflicting ideas at once, each stated as if unwavering.