Wednesday the Wailer
Sep. 26th, 2018 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bWhat I've Finished Reading
Not Ulysses! I've got one chapter left to go and it's the one with 3 sentences and no punctuation for fifty pages, so I'm waiting until I have a couple of hours free so I can relax and enjoy.
I have finished The Life of Samuel Johnson. I thought I was going to get through the entirety of The Life of Samuel Johnson with a minimum of emotional wreckage, but it was not to be. When Johnson had a stroke and lost his ability to speak, then immediately wrote four level-headed letters to his friends explaining the situation, I cried like a baby.
What I'm Reading Now
The Mighty and Their Fall is an unexpectedly weird book, weirder in its way than Ulysses. Maybe that's just because I fully expected Ulysses to be itself and expected something completely different for this one - which looks at first as if it's going to be a brittle costume drama about an unhappy family and turns out to be exactly that, only super weird, like some cubists decided to remix Ibsen for the experimental theater. It's almost entirely dialogue with very little action or description, and the dialogue is pointedly, doggedly, painfully stilted, so the whole book feels like watching a handful of harshly lit undergraduates in black jumpsuits inexpertly declaiming about incest on a bare stage. I don't know if I "like" it per se, but it's definitely interesting.
Little Women is not a weird book at all. It's very straightforward and pious and preachy. From my luxurious perch in the post-Little Women future, it's easy to feel like the March girls could do with a little less moral instruction every ten minutes, but they're likable enough and Alcott is probably doing the best she can within editorial constraints. I was surprised by how quickly I latched onto Beth as my favorite. She's too shy to go to school! She's thirteen, but she still feels a moral obligation to take care of all her sisters' discarded dolls! I like that she has the most rapport with Jo, the loud drama-loving tomboy - they are, after all, the two weirdos of the family even if they're weird in apparently opposite ways. They both have immense imaginary lives, but Jo's imagination is a family resource, while Beth's is almost entirely private.
Anyway, I've just started, so who knows? This is technically a re-read, but it's been a very long time.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'm first in line for Lethal White, the new Strike & Ellacott book, whenever my library gets around to buying a copy. There are many other things I plan to read next, but none of them are Lethal White.
Not Ulysses! I've got one chapter left to go and it's the one with 3 sentences and no punctuation for fifty pages, so I'm waiting until I have a couple of hours free so I can relax and enjoy.
I have finished The Life of Samuel Johnson. I thought I was going to get through the entirety of The Life of Samuel Johnson with a minimum of emotional wreckage, but it was not to be. When Johnson had a stroke and lost his ability to speak, then immediately wrote four level-headed letters to his friends explaining the situation, I cried like a baby.
What I'm Reading Now
The Mighty and Their Fall is an unexpectedly weird book, weirder in its way than Ulysses. Maybe that's just because I fully expected Ulysses to be itself and expected something completely different for this one - which looks at first as if it's going to be a brittle costume drama about an unhappy family and turns out to be exactly that, only super weird, like some cubists decided to remix Ibsen for the experimental theater. It's almost entirely dialogue with very little action or description, and the dialogue is pointedly, doggedly, painfully stilted, so the whole book feels like watching a handful of harshly lit undergraduates in black jumpsuits inexpertly declaiming about incest on a bare stage. I don't know if I "like" it per se, but it's definitely interesting.
Little Women is not a weird book at all. It's very straightforward and pious and preachy. From my luxurious perch in the post-Little Women future, it's easy to feel like the March girls could do with a little less moral instruction every ten minutes, but they're likable enough and Alcott is probably doing the best she can within editorial constraints. I was surprised by how quickly I latched onto Beth as my favorite. She's too shy to go to school! She's thirteen, but she still feels a moral obligation to take care of all her sisters' discarded dolls! I like that she has the most rapport with Jo, the loud drama-loving tomboy - they are, after all, the two weirdos of the family even if they're weird in apparently opposite ways. They both have immense imaginary lives, but Jo's imagination is a family resource, while Beth's is almost entirely private.
Anyway, I've just started, so who knows? This is technically a re-read, but it's been a very long time.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'm first in line for Lethal White, the new Strike & Ellacott book, whenever my library gets around to buying a copy. There are many other things I plan to read next, but none of them are Lethal White.
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Date: 2018-09-26 07:57 pm (UTC)Aww. Well, indeed. It's always worse in things when it's real. (When I get tired, which is a lot of the time, I cry at everything I read in history books, even when they aren't even that sad.)
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Date: 2018-10-10 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-10 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-27 01:08 am (UTC)Now I want to cry. That's so sad! Johnson loved talking so much! SO SAD.
Beth was my favorite of the Little Women before I had even read the book. I have no recollection of how I came to this conclusion, but it remained true after I read the book too. But in movie versions, she does tend to meld into the background a bit - I guess it's hard to make a really shy character come to life on the big screen unless you're really trying, and there's a lot of other stuff that tends to take precedence in film.
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Date: 2018-10-10 04:42 pm (UTC)He gets it back for a while, then loses it again, and is remarkably clear-headed throughout - being thankful that he hasn't lost his "wits" along with his voice, which really is lucky.
I'd like to see a Beth-centric adaptation or fic, but only if it's 1) really good, and 2) true to Beth's actual character. In the end, even her own family aren't sure what to make of her.
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Date: 2018-10-11 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-27 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-10 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-27 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-10 04:53 pm (UTC)