Do They Know it's Wednesday?
Dec. 23rd, 2020 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bHello again, Dreamwidth! I didn't mean to stay away so long but one thing led to another. In any case
I Finished Some Books
A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear (by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling) is the book I bought - way back in November - to distract myself from election results, and it did fantastically well, except that I started it on Tuesday afternoon and was finished reading by Wednesday evening and then I had to find another book. It's about the Free Town Project (in which dedicated friends of freedom took over the government of a small New Hampshire town in order to turn it into a tax-free paradise) and its fraught relationship with the local bears. It doesn't offer that much insight into the libertarians in question, who are an eccentric fringe of a fringe of a movement that prides itself on being nothing but fringe, but the bear story is nuanced and disturbing.
For most of the time I was reading it, I honestly couldn't tell if I liked The Three-Body Problem or not. The prose style (in translation) veers from "regular ordinary Tor mediocrity" to catastrophic crashes from the metaphor closet and back again. I thought it was at its worst when it was contemplating man's inhumanity to man and at its best when cardboard characters got together to explain the conceit of the book to each other.
I put off starting A Suitable Boy for years because. . . I'm not sure why? It looks very large on a shelf, and I guess I developed this vague mental picture where the "suitable boy" of the title was a canny young domestic servant who takes up residence in a rich family's home and observes their increasingly desperate dysfunction while his own family falls apart back home. Why did I think that? I have no idea. It's nothing like that. The suitable boy is not a servant, but a suitor for student/sweetheart Lata Mehra, because her older sister has just gotten married and now it's her turn. It hits the ground running with a gorgeously fluffy wedding-and-character-establishment setpiece that gave me absolute confidence in Vikram Seth for any number of pages (this one has about 1500). Was the confidence totally justified in every particular? Maybe not; some parts of this banquet are definitely more satisfying than others. I loved every member of the Mehra family with my whole heart and was overjoyed at every appearance of the wonderful, insufferable Chatterjees and their vicious dog Cuddles. The titular boy is also a sugar-frosted, cinnamon-dusted delight. I didn't manage to care very much about the many self-inflicted trials of Maan Kapoor, alas.
At home, we've started watching the BBC miniseries version, which is very pretty, but lacks the leisureliness of the book (it would need a full-sized series to be as satisfyingly slow). It's already spending way too much time on Meenakshi Mehra (nee Chatterjee), a boring Bad Woman with nothing to do all day but be bad and break her mother-in-law's heart. It's fun to see favorite characters show up onscreen for the first time, though. My favorite introductions so far have been Dr Kishen Chand Seth, Lata's cantankerous grandfather, who comes in lopping the heads of innocent flowers with his cane, and the dread Cuddles. We have decided that Cuddles deserves his own spinoff series, which can obviously be called An Unsuitable Dog.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm trying to finish Mary Beard's SPQR before we give it to my father-in-law for Christmas. I don't think I'll make it. It's good, though.
What I'm Getting in the Mail
Word has been out for a while now that I'm willing to part with money in exchange for print media, so I've been getting a tremendous number of subscription offers over the past few years - some for absolutely nonsensical amounts like "three years for $11!" More recently, I moved onto the list of "people who want free address labels." I can't complain about either of these things; I am a fiend for print and I will use those ugly address labels, thank you. Recently, however, things have escalated. Marketingland has concluded that I am 80 years old and hankering to buy novelty home decor, technologically enhanced bedding, themed porcelain dolls, commemorative coins, Baby's First tablets, and all manner of absolute trash from a never-ending series of catalogs. Do I want this? Mostly not. Am I enjoying it anyway? For now.
(Also, has anyone read Harper's lately? How are they doing? I don't have a good example to hand right now, but every time they send me a subscription appeal, I think, "Harper's, are you okay?" They underline more phrases than a Republican PAC panic flier).
What's Next for Wednesday?
I'm not sure! I asked for Wolf Hall for Christmas, but might get something else entirely. In any case, I'm going to try to get back on the Wednesday Reading train for real soon.
I Finished Some Books
A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear (by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling) is the book I bought - way back in November - to distract myself from election results, and it did fantastically well, except that I started it on Tuesday afternoon and was finished reading by Wednesday evening and then I had to find another book. It's about the Free Town Project (in which dedicated friends of freedom took over the government of a small New Hampshire town in order to turn it into a tax-free paradise) and its fraught relationship with the local bears. It doesn't offer that much insight into the libertarians in question, who are an eccentric fringe of a fringe of a movement that prides itself on being nothing but fringe, but the bear story is nuanced and disturbing.
For most of the time I was reading it, I honestly couldn't tell if I liked The Three-Body Problem or not. The prose style (in translation) veers from "regular ordinary Tor mediocrity" to catastrophic crashes from the metaphor closet and back again. I thought it was at its worst when it was contemplating man's inhumanity to man and at its best when cardboard characters got together to explain the conceit of the book to each other.
I put off starting A Suitable Boy for years because. . . I'm not sure why? It looks very large on a shelf, and I guess I developed this vague mental picture where the "suitable boy" of the title was a canny young domestic servant who takes up residence in a rich family's home and observes their increasingly desperate dysfunction while his own family falls apart back home. Why did I think that? I have no idea. It's nothing like that. The suitable boy is not a servant, but a suitor for student/sweetheart Lata Mehra, because her older sister has just gotten married and now it's her turn. It hits the ground running with a gorgeously fluffy wedding-and-character-establishment setpiece that gave me absolute confidence in Vikram Seth for any number of pages (this one has about 1500). Was the confidence totally justified in every particular? Maybe not; some parts of this banquet are definitely more satisfying than others. I loved every member of the Mehra family with my whole heart and was overjoyed at every appearance of the wonderful, insufferable Chatterjees and their vicious dog Cuddles. The titular boy is also a sugar-frosted, cinnamon-dusted delight. I didn't manage to care very much about the many self-inflicted trials of Maan Kapoor, alas.
At home, we've started watching the BBC miniseries version, which is very pretty, but lacks the leisureliness of the book (it would need a full-sized series to be as satisfyingly slow). It's already spending way too much time on Meenakshi Mehra (nee Chatterjee), a boring Bad Woman with nothing to do all day but be bad and break her mother-in-law's heart. It's fun to see favorite characters show up onscreen for the first time, though. My favorite introductions so far have been Dr Kishen Chand Seth, Lata's cantankerous grandfather, who comes in lopping the heads of innocent flowers with his cane, and the dread Cuddles. We have decided that Cuddles deserves his own spinoff series, which can obviously be called An Unsuitable Dog.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm trying to finish Mary Beard's SPQR before we give it to my father-in-law for Christmas. I don't think I'll make it. It's good, though.
What I'm Getting in the Mail
Word has been out for a while now that I'm willing to part with money in exchange for print media, so I've been getting a tremendous number of subscription offers over the past few years - some for absolutely nonsensical amounts like "three years for $11!" More recently, I moved onto the list of "people who want free address labels." I can't complain about either of these things; I am a fiend for print and I will use those ugly address labels, thank you. Recently, however, things have escalated. Marketingland has concluded that I am 80 years old and hankering to buy novelty home decor, technologically enhanced bedding, themed porcelain dolls, commemorative coins, Baby's First tablets, and all manner of absolute trash from a never-ending series of catalogs. Do I want this? Mostly not. Am I enjoying it anyway? For now.
(Also, has anyone read Harper's lately? How are they doing? I don't have a good example to hand right now, but every time they send me a subscription appeal, I think, "Harper's, are you okay?" They underline more phrases than a Republican PAC panic flier).
What's Next for Wednesday?
I'm not sure! I asked for Wolf Hall for Christmas, but might get something else entirely. In any case, I'm going to try to get back on the Wednesday Reading train for real soon.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-23 05:41 pm (UTC)LOL! You are baffling everyone's algorithims!
Also hello! nice to see a post from you again. ♥ Whatever comes next for you, I hope it includes many excellent books. And possibly terrible free address labels.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-23 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-23 06:57 pm (UTC)I've never read A Suitable Boy, because I too have been terrified by it's length, but perhaps now that there's a miniseries and all I ought to read it.
We have decided that Cuddles deserves his own spinoff series, which can obviously be called An Unsuitable Dog.
The BBC should get ON that, can you even imagine what the viewership numbers would be like? Off the charts. We all need a series about adorable dog-induced mayhem after 2020.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-23 07:38 pm (UTC)There's a lot for you to like in A Suitable Boy! I'll be interested to hear what you think. Also apparently Vikram Seth is writing a sequel??? That will take place in the present (instead of 1951-52)?? I just learned this and am feeling extremely wary but also curious.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-23 08:14 pm (UTC)I too have been putting off A Suitable Boy! My bff loves it, and I'm sure I will, but I know it will take me /forever/ to finish ("A Fine Balance" took four months, and my reading pace has slowed since).
no subject
Date: 2020-12-23 08:26 pm (UTC)A Suitable Boy is very long, but the chapters are short - most of them under ten pages and quite a few that are two or fewer. So one approach might be to just accept that it will take forever and read a limited number of chapters a day - so it won't get in the way of other books you might want to read in the meantime. I hope you enjoy it, whenever you get around to it!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-24 04:45 pm (UTC)Free address labels! A rare thing these days. Algorithms are not very intelligent. I took baby's first tablets to be actual pills until I thought about it!
I hope you get something good to read for Xmas whether it's 'Wolf Hall' or not.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-04 11:51 pm (UTC)A Suitable Boy is big, but pretty straightforward and not too daunting (apart from its bigness). I still mentally balk a little at big books despite having loved a large number of them.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-04 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-05 12:01 am (UTC)The guy who plays Maan in the miniseres is such a charm bomb that it's actively distracting; he's like somebody managed to glue a moustache to a ray of sunshine.