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Recent reading
Jul. 13th, 2024 05:09 pmImprobable Destinies: How Predictable Is Evolution? by Jonathan Losos (2018; apparently some editions have the subtitle Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution instead). Decided to take a break from fiction to read some evolutionary biology, and this was good fun. Much of the material was not new to me, but I enjoyed the presentation and discussion of the central question: does life evolve in predictable ways, there being only one best way to fill the niches that exist, or is the course of evolution dependent on historical contingency? (The answer: both, to some extent.) Losos's writing style is the kind of highly colourful, witty modern one that easily slips over the line into being annoying, and there's a doubtful over-confidence in some of his attitudes, but on the whole it's an interesting read.
The Sylph by Georgiana Cavendish (1778). An epistolary novel in which an innocent, naive girl from remote Wales is courted by a worldly gentleman of very doubtful morals, agrees to marry him and goes with him to London. Julia is fascinated and repelled by the world of fashionable upper-class London society, with its extremes of lavishness and conspicuous consumption, and its sexual morality in which lack of affection and mutual adultery are more or less expected of every married couple. She is in danger of falling into vice herself via card-playing and getting into debt, but is warned against this and other dangers by a mysterious adviser who writes to her anonymously, styling himself 'the Sylph'. The blurb of the copy I read managed to give the impression that the Sylph is an actual supernatural being, so I was disappointed by his being clearly just some man writing in disguise, and the romance and the ending are silly; but it's a very interesting book for what it is. Basically, eighteenth-century upper-class society is an awful place, especially for women, you really wouldn't want to live there. But the author (the famous Duchess of Devonshire) was a central figure in the society she writes about, and apparently actually popularised some of the specific fashions mentioned here, so there is evidently a bit of self-deprecating satire going on.
Head of the Lower School by Dorothea Moore (1920). I forget where I got the rec for this, but it had been sitting around on my e-reader and I decided to pick it up now. It's half boarding school story, half thrilling adventure novel. On the one hand it's a lot more geographically and historically specific than many school stories, which I enjoyed—the main character Jocelyn 'Joey' Graham lives in the Highlands and goes to school in the Lincolnshire Fens, and the fenland setting especially is very vivid and used to some effect in the plot; it's just after the end of WWI, in which Joey's father was killed, and patriotic sentiment is everywhere; one of the teachers is delayed arriving back at school for the new term because she has the Spanish flu—also Joey might be my favourite school story protagonist ever; and Moore is certainly not messing about when it comes to writing Thrilling Adventure. On the other hand the adventure plot is just slightly silly and improbable (Joey's bold naivety makes her obliviousness believable to a point, but there's an awful lot of characters failing to interpret or in some cases straight-up ignoring the very obviously dodgy things happening right in front of them); and that patriotism involves a ridiculous and depressing degree of anti-German prejudice expressed by both the characters and the narrative.
The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield (1922). I had been meaning to try out Katherine Mansfield for ages, and this was worth picking up. These short stories are all sharp, precise, well-observed portrayals of significant emotional moments, in ways that are often uncomfortable and terribly sad if not absolutely bleak, and that are generally not resolved in any meaningful way. I've decided that Mansfield is a very good writer but not really an enjoyable one to read.
The Sylph by Georgiana Cavendish (1778). An epistolary novel in which an innocent, naive girl from remote Wales is courted by a worldly gentleman of very doubtful morals, agrees to marry him and goes with him to London. Julia is fascinated and repelled by the world of fashionable upper-class London society, with its extremes of lavishness and conspicuous consumption, and its sexual morality in which lack of affection and mutual adultery are more or less expected of every married couple. She is in danger of falling into vice herself via card-playing and getting into debt, but is warned against this and other dangers by a mysterious adviser who writes to her anonymously, styling himself 'the Sylph'. The blurb of the copy I read managed to give the impression that the Sylph is an actual supernatural being, so I was disappointed by his being clearly just some man writing in disguise, and the romance and the ending are silly; but it's a very interesting book for what it is. Basically, eighteenth-century upper-class society is an awful place, especially for women, you really wouldn't want to live there. But the author (the famous Duchess of Devonshire) was a central figure in the society she writes about, and apparently actually popularised some of the specific fashions mentioned here, so there is evidently a bit of self-deprecating satire going on.
Head of the Lower School by Dorothea Moore (1920). I forget where I got the rec for this, but it had been sitting around on my e-reader and I decided to pick it up now. It's half boarding school story, half thrilling adventure novel. On the one hand it's a lot more geographically and historically specific than many school stories, which I enjoyed—the main character Jocelyn 'Joey' Graham lives in the Highlands and goes to school in the Lincolnshire Fens, and the fenland setting especially is very vivid and used to some effect in the plot; it's just after the end of WWI, in which Joey's father was killed, and patriotic sentiment is everywhere; one of the teachers is delayed arriving back at school for the new term because she has the Spanish flu—also Joey might be my favourite school story protagonist ever; and Moore is certainly not messing about when it comes to writing Thrilling Adventure. On the other hand the adventure plot is just slightly silly and improbable (Joey's bold naivety makes her obliviousness believable to a point, but there's an awful lot of characters failing to interpret or in some cases straight-up ignoring the very obviously dodgy things happening right in front of them); and that patriotism involves a ridiculous and depressing degree of anti-German prejudice expressed by both the characters and the narrative.
The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield (1922). I had been meaning to try out Katherine Mansfield for ages, and this was worth picking up. These short stories are all sharp, precise, well-observed portrayals of significant emotional moments, in ways that are often uncomfortable and terribly sad if not absolutely bleak, and that are generally not resolved in any meaningful way. I've decided that Mansfield is a very good writer but not really an enjoyable one to read.
