Wednesday, Or, Virtue Unrewarded
Oct. 11th, 2017 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bWhat I've Finished Reading
The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless by Eliza Haywood, a Novel of the Double Standard from 1751. Betsy is a rich young teenager with "a giddy disposition" who doesn't want much out of life, just to flirt, joke around, visit local monuments without being mistaken for a prostitute, go to the theater with her friends ditto, and not be forced into an uncongenial marriage with a callous fortune-hunter in a last-ditch attempt to prevent irreparable damage to her reputation. Guess what she doesn't get?
If your standard for "old books" is 19th century English lit, the level of sexual frankness here might be surprising. It was surprising to me, even though I know not to treat The Past as a monolith, that when a character discusses getting pregnant and seeking an abortion, she uses the words "pregnancy" and "abortion." The characters here are also much more frank and open about being puppets than I'm used to, with their indicative stage names. Miss Betsy Thoughtless' guardians are Mr. Goodman and Lady Trusty, the con artist who tries to trick her into a fake marriage calls himself Sir Frederick Fineer (looks like "fine" but sounds like "veneer"), the suitor she loses through the malicious gossip of others is Mr Trueworth. In this book set in an obsessively gossipy and image-conscious London, "the public" is the most important and ubiquitous character, and a few well-placed anonymous letters can spoil a reputation overnight. A queasy confluence of comedy and nightmare, with happy ending engineered at the last minute and only after it's been thoroughly demonstrated that while the appearance of innocence may be prized, actual innocence is worse than useless.
I keep meaning to "catch up" on the books I've read, so let's see how many we can get through in turbo mode:
The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum: a sci-fi author who died young only a few years after publishing his first story in 1934. The best ones are adventures in space exploration, from the days when everyone thought Venus was a little less hot than it turned out to be. I like his impossibly profuse and maximally sweltering Venus, where if you leave anything out for more than ten seconds the microbes turn it into a micro-jungle. The first story, "A Martian Odyssey," is a totally delightful alien encounter, the first, according to Isaac Asimov's introduction, in which a non-human intelligence tries to befriend the humans instead of killing them.
Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene was a very Graham Greene book after all.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book is a collection of retellings of Greek myths, with a Story Girl-like framing device, in which an ideal Young Nathaniel, home from college, entertains his younger cousins by telling stories. Young Nat is a good storyteller and there is lots of soothing seasonal landscape description, plus some arguments with a neighbor about whether Young Nat is failing to give the Greeks their proper share of reverence (nonsense, says Young Nat, stories are for everyone).
(Non-Ideal Old Nat, incidentally, lives just down the road, and the children are not allowed to disturb him lest he toss them all in the stove in a sudden fit of embarrassment).
I think that's going to have to be all for today.
Oh, and The Anti-Death League got good eventually! Or else I got used to confusion and it dissipated. Maybe I'll have more to say about it next week.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm picking my way through The Guns of Avalon, which is sometimes delightful and sometimes boring, averaging out to not bad. Zelazzle takes a break from the clipped detective narration to indulge in some real horses-and-thunder fantasy prose from time to time, to reasonably good effect. It's still really hard to care about all the "throne of Amber must be mine" business, but we've met some promising new characters and had some conversations. This time I'm fully expecting a cliffhanger, so won't be nearly as annoyed when the cliff shows up.
What I Plan to Read Next
I really need to start entering the library through the door that doesn't have the free books shelf, because the free books shelf is going to be my downfall. I couldn't resist picking up DECIDER by flist favorite DICK FRANCIS, and will be making it my designated airplane book when I visit family this weekend.
The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless by Eliza Haywood, a Novel of the Double Standard from 1751. Betsy is a rich young teenager with "a giddy disposition" who doesn't want much out of life, just to flirt, joke around, visit local monuments without being mistaken for a prostitute, go to the theater with her friends ditto, and not be forced into an uncongenial marriage with a callous fortune-hunter in a last-ditch attempt to prevent irreparable damage to her reputation. Guess what she doesn't get?
If your standard for "old books" is 19th century English lit, the level of sexual frankness here might be surprising. It was surprising to me, even though I know not to treat The Past as a monolith, that when a character discusses getting pregnant and seeking an abortion, she uses the words "pregnancy" and "abortion." The characters here are also much more frank and open about being puppets than I'm used to, with their indicative stage names. Miss Betsy Thoughtless' guardians are Mr. Goodman and Lady Trusty, the con artist who tries to trick her into a fake marriage calls himself Sir Frederick Fineer (looks like "fine" but sounds like "veneer"), the suitor she loses through the malicious gossip of others is Mr Trueworth. In this book set in an obsessively gossipy and image-conscious London, "the public" is the most important and ubiquitous character, and a few well-placed anonymous letters can spoil a reputation overnight. A queasy confluence of comedy and nightmare, with happy ending engineered at the last minute and only after it's been thoroughly demonstrated that while the appearance of innocence may be prized, actual innocence is worse than useless.
I keep meaning to "catch up" on the books I've read, so let's see how many we can get through in turbo mode:
The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum: a sci-fi author who died young only a few years after publishing his first story in 1934. The best ones are adventures in space exploration, from the days when everyone thought Venus was a little less hot than it turned out to be. I like his impossibly profuse and maximally sweltering Venus, where if you leave anything out for more than ten seconds the microbes turn it into a micro-jungle. The first story, "A Martian Odyssey," is a totally delightful alien encounter, the first, according to Isaac Asimov's introduction, in which a non-human intelligence tries to befriend the humans instead of killing them.
Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene was a very Graham Greene book after all.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book is a collection of retellings of Greek myths, with a Story Girl-like framing device, in which an ideal Young Nathaniel, home from college, entertains his younger cousins by telling stories. Young Nat is a good storyteller and there is lots of soothing seasonal landscape description, plus some arguments with a neighbor about whether Young Nat is failing to give the Greeks their proper share of reverence (nonsense, says Young Nat, stories are for everyone).
(Non-Ideal Old Nat, incidentally, lives just down the road, and the children are not allowed to disturb him lest he toss them all in the stove in a sudden fit of embarrassment).
I think that's going to have to be all for today.
Oh, and The Anti-Death League got good eventually! Or else I got used to confusion and it dissipated. Maybe I'll have more to say about it next week.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm picking my way through The Guns of Avalon, which is sometimes delightful and sometimes boring, averaging out to not bad. Zelazzle takes a break from the clipped detective narration to indulge in some real horses-and-thunder fantasy prose from time to time, to reasonably good effect. It's still really hard to care about all the "throne of Amber must be mine" business, but we've met some promising new characters and had some conversations. This time I'm fully expecting a cliffhanger, so won't be nearly as annoyed when the cliff shows up.
What I Plan to Read Next
I really need to start entering the library through the door that doesn't have the free books shelf, because the free books shelf is going to be my downfall. I couldn't resist picking up DECIDER by flist favorite DICK FRANCIS, and will be making it my designated airplane book when I visit family this weekend.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-11 07:33 pm (UTC)it sounds interesting though! (I always want to read all the v old books, even though that is probably not the best plan, but... history the easy way!)
I really need to start entering the library through the door that doesn't have the free books shelf, because the free books shelf is going to be my downfall.
LOL, it's just as well you don't have a free bookshop, then. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2017-10-15 03:13 pm (UTC)It is just as well. I have enough trouble with the for-pay bookshops an hour's drive away.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-15 04:40 pm (UTC)Every time I go into the free bookshop and look at the crime section, I think of you.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-12 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-15 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-12 02:06 am (UTC)I had that problem too -- I also started out the series actively disliking Corwin, and the bit where I didn't care at all about his motivations didn't help. Fortunately things get better as the plot thickens and the stakes shift...
no subject
Date: 2017-10-15 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-12 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-15 03:20 pm (UTC)