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No Rest for the Wednesday
Feb. 13th, 2019 12:21 pmWhat You Can Read Right Now For Free
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I love Ted Chiang and there's nothing to be done about it, but it's ok because I don't mind loving Ted Chiang. If you would like to join me in loving Ted Chiang, or alternatively if you'd like to see a fool-proof formula for making me cry a lot, here's a story you can read. It's called "Exhalation."
Though I think this story is a reasonably good example of why I love Ted Chiang, it is not my favorite Ted Chiang story. That small plastic trophy probably goes to "Seventy-Two Letters," the one about golem eugenics and the invention of sperm.
What I've Finished Reading
In The Phoenix Generation, Phillip "Two Ls, Zero Chill" Maddison seriously needs to cool it on having affairs to soothe the pain of his made-up idealized wife dying convenitragically in childbirth. He should probably also try to rake in his compulsion to explain The Money Power Behind the Government to everyone who passes within a yard and a half of him, but this is very obviously not going to happen anytime soon.
We spend about a billion pages on Phil sleeping with his secretary Felicity under Lucy's nose and Lucy being kind and understanding but a little sad about it. This is not nearly as interesting to us, the readers, as it is to them. Since he grew up - or, more genrously, since the war - Phil's never been as complete and believable a character as his all too human parents. Maybe that's simply because Henry Williamson has less sympathy for himself than he has for his own parents. Can you really blame him? I can and I can't.
There's a wonderful scene where Phil and his dad finally take a walk around the countryside together. It's all the walks Dickie imagined taking with his children before he had children and all the hoped-for happy memories he preempted with his brittle, wounded hostility. I cried like a baby who had grown up. Then I went back to being annoyed with Phil and H.W..
It's a little funny and a little sad how much time I wasted thinking, "Gosh, these fascist tendencies are way too subtle for me; I should have paid more attention in college; I sure do miss a lot of cues from not being British" only to have the whole thing suddenly take a screeching turn for the frankly Hitlerian. Not only does Hereward Birkin, the Oswald Mosley analogue, turn up and start making entire speeches on-page, but as promised Phil takes another trip to the continent and gazes starry-eyed at the well-run farms of the German countryside and the jolly apple-cheeked outdoorschaps of the Hitler Youth (Unlike Mosley, Hitler gets to keep his own name for this story). My heart sank when I opened a new chapter, the start of Phil's Germany trip, and the very first paragraph had Phil eating at a restauraunt full of "prosperous-looking Jews" and reflecting on the unreliability of anti-German propaganda. He saw plenty of hyped-up atrocity reports in the last war, and he's not going to be taken in again. Phil isn't necessarily a hundred percent on board with the Hitler program, but he thinks Hitler is a tragic Wagnerian figure tragically sacrificing himself to save the world from the tragedy of modernity, or something.
I also finished A Wild Sheep Chase, which was enjoyable all the way through. Murakami has great tonal control; the story floats easily from funny to spooky-sad and back with hardly a creak.
What I'm Reading Now
I had a rough day at work about 11 days in a row, and when I finally got a break, what I wanted most of all was to relax Kinsey Millhone Style: with a big glass of chardonnay, a pimento cheese sandwich, and the Alphabet of Destruction. A quick trip to the library and the grocery store and I was all set. It's nice to get what you want. V is for Vengeance has introduced about six different moving parts, none of which have come together yet - a hapless poker-playing college student, a shoplifter in trouble, a jealous trophy wife, a burglar's missing ring - but they will.
I started The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde, but I'm not sure yet if I'll finish it. It's another wacky adventure, but less engaging. This one takes place in an alternate 1980s, in which airships are the main method of long-distance travel, the Crimean War never ended (but there were also Nazis at some point), formerly extinct animals are cloned as pets (there are both pet and feral dodos waddling around) and everyone is really into English Lit. It's also possible to accidentally wander into the fictional world of books and (maybe?) change what happens. There's nothing obviously wrong with it; it just isn't holding my attention.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'll probably need a small break from the Chronicle and Phil "The Soil Purifier" Maddison before I dive into A Solitary War. I found A Bend in the River, a later 99 Novels listmate, on the free books shelf at the library, but I'm not sure if I'm going to read it now or later. Maybe now is a good time for cat mysteries?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I love Ted Chiang and there's nothing to be done about it, but it's ok because I don't mind loving Ted Chiang. If you would like to join me in loving Ted Chiang, or alternatively if you'd like to see a fool-proof formula for making me cry a lot, here's a story you can read. It's called "Exhalation."
Though I think this story is a reasonably good example of why I love Ted Chiang, it is not my favorite Ted Chiang story. That small plastic trophy probably goes to "Seventy-Two Letters," the one about golem eugenics and the invention of sperm.
What I've Finished Reading
In The Phoenix Generation, Phillip "Two Ls, Zero Chill" Maddison seriously needs to cool it on having affairs to soothe the pain of his made-up idealized wife dying convenitragically in childbirth. He should probably also try to rake in his compulsion to explain The Money Power Behind the Government to everyone who passes within a yard and a half of him, but this is very obviously not going to happen anytime soon.
We spend about a billion pages on Phil sleeping with his secretary Felicity under Lucy's nose and Lucy being kind and understanding but a little sad about it. This is not nearly as interesting to us, the readers, as it is to them. Since he grew up - or, more genrously, since the war - Phil's never been as complete and believable a character as his all too human parents. Maybe that's simply because Henry Williamson has less sympathy for himself than he has for his own parents. Can you really blame him? I can and I can't.
There's a wonderful scene where Phil and his dad finally take a walk around the countryside together. It's all the walks Dickie imagined taking with his children before he had children and all the hoped-for happy memories he preempted with his brittle, wounded hostility. I cried like a baby who had grown up. Then I went back to being annoyed with Phil and H.W..
It's a little funny and a little sad how much time I wasted thinking, "Gosh, these fascist tendencies are way too subtle for me; I should have paid more attention in college; I sure do miss a lot of cues from not being British" only to have the whole thing suddenly take a screeching turn for the frankly Hitlerian. Not only does Hereward Birkin, the Oswald Mosley analogue, turn up and start making entire speeches on-page, but as promised Phil takes another trip to the continent and gazes starry-eyed at the well-run farms of the German countryside and the jolly apple-cheeked outdoorschaps of the Hitler Youth (Unlike Mosley, Hitler gets to keep his own name for this story). My heart sank when I opened a new chapter, the start of Phil's Germany trip, and the very first paragraph had Phil eating at a restauraunt full of "prosperous-looking Jews" and reflecting on the unreliability of anti-German propaganda. He saw plenty of hyped-up atrocity reports in the last war, and he's not going to be taken in again. Phil isn't necessarily a hundred percent on board with the Hitler program, but he thinks Hitler is a tragic Wagnerian figure tragically sacrificing himself to save the world from the tragedy of modernity, or something.
I also finished A Wild Sheep Chase, which was enjoyable all the way through. Murakami has great tonal control; the story floats easily from funny to spooky-sad and back with hardly a creak.
What I'm Reading Now
I had a rough day at work about 11 days in a row, and when I finally got a break, what I wanted most of all was to relax Kinsey Millhone Style: with a big glass of chardonnay, a pimento cheese sandwich, and the Alphabet of Destruction. A quick trip to the library and the grocery store and I was all set. It's nice to get what you want. V is for Vengeance has introduced about six different moving parts, none of which have come together yet - a hapless poker-playing college student, a shoplifter in trouble, a jealous trophy wife, a burglar's missing ring - but they will.
I started The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde, but I'm not sure yet if I'll finish it. It's another wacky adventure, but less engaging. This one takes place in an alternate 1980s, in which airships are the main method of long-distance travel, the Crimean War never ended (but there were also Nazis at some point), formerly extinct animals are cloned as pets (there are both pet and feral dodos waddling around) and everyone is really into English Lit. It's also possible to accidentally wander into the fictional world of books and (maybe?) change what happens. There's nothing obviously wrong with it; it just isn't holding my attention.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'll probably need a small break from the Chronicle and Phil "The Soil Purifier" Maddison before I dive into A Solitary War. I found A Bend in the River, a later 99 Novels listmate, on the free books shelf at the library, but I'm not sure if I'm going to read it now or later. Maybe now is a good time for cat mysteries?
