Recent reading
Oct. 22nd, 2019 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeTwenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea(s)* by Jules Verne (1870; translated by F. P. Walter, 1991). Picked this one up after reading ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
the-prince-of-professors's excellent Raffles fic Bleu Profond, inspired by Twenty Thousand Leagues. The book sort of reads like space exploration science fiction except set on Earth, being written at a time when that sort of wild speculation about just what might exist under the seas was still at least plausibly reasonable. It's far more worldbuilding than plot, a lot of the time, but Verne's worldbuilding is great fun and the descriptions of the world beneath the waves are really beautiful (even the endless lists of fish species are charming). The book is narrated by Professor Aronnax, a scientist who joins the expedition to investigate a mysterious 'sea creature' and discovers that the creature is actually a submarine; the rest of the book is an account of his voyages around the world in this submarine, the Nautilus. Joining him are Conseil, his devoted manservant and expert taxonomist, and Ned Land, a hot-headed Canadian harpooner. Then there's Captain Nemo, commander of the Nautilus and quite another mystery in himself... The mystery of just who Nemo is and what he's doing roaming the seas in a submarine of his own strange design is hinted at throughout the book, but the ending wasn't particularly satisfying and I had hoped for a bit more plot resolution than there ended up being.
*The title is usually given in English as 'Under the Sea' but according to Walter it should be 'Seas' plural, which certainly makes more sense in context.
Then I re-read The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (published 1977 from various drafts written earlier), an old favourite which always holds up on a re-read. I love Fëanor and the Fëanorians as much as ever. Tolkien has such an amazing feel for the shape of a story, the beautiful evocative language that passes 'from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin'; he writes about horrible things happening and good things being destroyed or ruined forever with—I think 'dignity' is the word I want, that sort of noble tragedy. It's very very beautiful. I'm not really in the fandom as such anymore (it's so intimidatingly huge—there are more than twelve thousand fics on AO3 for the Silm, that's at least twelve times more than any of my other regular fandoms), but this will always be up there as a fave.
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905). A classic children's book that tells the story of Sara Crewe, a rich, clever and imaginative young girl who goes to boarding school and there undergoes a dramatic change in her fortunes. I really enjoyed this one—it has that sense of being a little larger than life that good children's books often have, that mimics the way the world feels when you're a kid, and the suggestions of magic around the edges of a more-or-less realistic story were good fun, as were the colourful characters and their relationships. I loved Ermengarde, Sara's BFF who reminds her that cleverness isn't everything, and Becky, the ill-treated housemaid who becomes a friend to Sara in her misfortunes, as well as Sara herself with her stories and 'supposings', her kindness and her attitude towards the adults who mistreat her. The book suffers from a few unfortunate period attitudes towards class and race (nothing really overtly offensive, but definitely unfortunate), but those were the only real flaws of what's otherwise a charming little story. (In any case, I now want the fic where Sara, possibly accompanied by Becky, becomes a socialist when she grows up, as I think this would be very in character).
Then decided I needed some more Tolkien and re-read Smith of Wootton Major (1967, Tolkien's last completed book), which is my favourite of his minor works. It's the story of a man who travels into Faery, what he finds there and how he leaves it behind. It manages to do a lot of really interesting worldbuilding and evoke a beautiful mood in very few words, and it raises and leaves unanswered so many questions about this Faery—deliberately, for just the right effect. Very good!
*The title is usually given in English as 'Under the Sea' but according to Walter it should be 'Seas' plural, which certainly makes more sense in context.
Then I re-read The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (published 1977 from various drafts written earlier), an old favourite which always holds up on a re-read. I love Fëanor and the Fëanorians as much as ever. Tolkien has such an amazing feel for the shape of a story, the beautiful evocative language that passes 'from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin'; he writes about horrible things happening and good things being destroyed or ruined forever with—I think 'dignity' is the word I want, that sort of noble tragedy. It's very very beautiful. I'm not really in the fandom as such anymore (it's so intimidatingly huge—there are more than twelve thousand fics on AO3 for the Silm, that's at least twelve times more than any of my other regular fandoms), but this will always be up there as a fave.
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905). A classic children's book that tells the story of Sara Crewe, a rich, clever and imaginative young girl who goes to boarding school and there undergoes a dramatic change in her fortunes. I really enjoyed this one—it has that sense of being a little larger than life that good children's books often have, that mimics the way the world feels when you're a kid, and the suggestions of magic around the edges of a more-or-less realistic story were good fun, as were the colourful characters and their relationships. I loved Ermengarde, Sara's BFF who reminds her that cleverness isn't everything, and Becky, the ill-treated housemaid who becomes a friend to Sara in her misfortunes, as well as Sara herself with her stories and 'supposings', her kindness and her attitude towards the adults who mistreat her. The book suffers from a few unfortunate period attitudes towards class and race (nothing really overtly offensive, but definitely unfortunate), but those were the only real flaws of what's otherwise a charming little story. (In any case, I now want the fic where Sara, possibly accompanied by Becky, becomes a socialist when she grows up, as I think this would be very in character).
Then decided I needed some more Tolkien and re-read Smith of Wootton Major (1967, Tolkien's last completed book), which is my favourite of his minor works. It's the story of a man who travels into Faery, what he finds there and how he leaves it behind. It manages to do a lot of really interesting worldbuilding and evoke a beautiful mood in very few words, and it raises and leaves unanswered so many questions about this Faery—deliberately, for just the right effect. Very good!
