Recent reading
May. 10th, 2020 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeIt's been a weekend. Beautiful warm weather until today—I was sat out on the grass in the garden yesterday reading all afternoon, which was lovely. I wanted to bake some brownies, but alas, there's still no flour to be had at the shop, so instead I bought some chocolate and made chocolate mousse, which was very nice.
Also, I saw the first swifts of the year! They're always such a beautiful sight wheeling through the sky, one of my favourite species to watch out for as the summer approaches. <3
Anyway, books...
Second Form At Malory Towers and Third Year At Malory Towers by Enid Blyton (1947 and 1948 respectively). Aww, I'm still really enjoying this re-read. The plots are great fun, mostly low-stakes school drama with occasional more seriously dramatic moments. Both of these books have climactic scenes where girls are almost killed in accidents—these may not be Blyton's adventure stories but there's plenty of adventure. I love Mary-Lou and her timidity and bravery, and her loyal devotion to Darrell (there's one bit where it's like, Mary-Lou knows she'll never be Darrell's ~special friend~ because that's Sally, but she's OK with that, she's happy just to be around Darrell and know that she likes her :) and I'm like, ouch). I enjoyed Sally's jealousy of Alicia in Third Form (everyone loves Darrell too much, that's the problem!). And, of course, Third Form also introduces my absolute fave, Bill, a 'boyish' girl who wears her hair short, goes by a boy's name (she's technically Wilhelmina), is forthright and honest, a bit of a loner and fanatically passionate about horses. I was never much of a horse girl myself, but the rest is very much my kind of thing, and I like her a lot. I'd forgotten that one of the subplots in this book involves Bill first clashing with and then befriending her form mistress, a fellow horse fan who also has a very similar attitude towards gender conformity—at one point the narrator is like, Miss Peters was mannish and Bill was boyish, so of course they understood one another! It's charmingly benevolent stereotyping, and I want to write fic all about their friendship. Anyway, if I remember correctly Bill gets agirlfriend ~special friend~ in the next book, so I'm looking forward to reading that.
The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford (written in the 1600s, edited and published by D. J. H. Clifford, 1990). Lady Anne Clifford was a seventeenth-century noblewoman who owned about half the northwest of England, wrote extensive diaries and had a very interesting life. As a young woman she fought a long legal battle to gain control of her family estates—despite an entail stating that they were to pass to the heir whether male or female, her father's will tried to grant them to Anne's uncle and male cousin instead of her. She refers to the affair as 'my Business', and writes pretty dispassionately about how her husband, various friends and family and King James I all opposed her attempts to regain her inheritance, but she persisted. She eventually won only because the uncle and cousin both died and there were no more male heirs. Anyway, she went north to claim the estates, and spent the rest of her life travelling between her five castles (!), arranging various building works and improvements to the castles and other bits of her property, which between the uncle's neglect and the Civil War were in a poor state, receiving visits from her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and generally acting as the evidently benevolent and well-beloved ruler of a little kingdom in Westmorland and Craven. She's a fascinating figure, and I greatly enjoyed reading her diaries. As I said, she kind of underplays the more dramatic parts of her life—a lot of the diary is taken up with rather repetitive accounts of family visits, journeys back and forth and that sort of thing—but there are some really interesting little insights into the daily life of the seventeenth century, as well as references to the major historical events of the time (one of the early entries describes her memory of Queen Elizabeth's funeral, where her aunt was a pallbearer but she wasn't allowed to be one because she was too short—she was thirteen at the time). Well worth a read! (And I'd love to know what Lady Anne would have thought about John Uskglass :D)
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller (1971). I was getting a bit sick of all the het romance in books I otherwise like, so I decided to read something that's actually about lesbians for a change. This book was exactly what I needed <3. It's the story of two women in the northeastern USA in the early nineteenth century who fall in love and, after various intervening troubles and adventures, end up going off to live together on a farm. The narrative style was not really my thing (it's a very 'modern' prose style, fast-paced and close POV and switching tenses and perspectives and that kind of thing), but the characters, the story and the general attitude of the book, which despite the hardships the characters face remains optimistic in a sort of gentle, charming way, were all very good indeed. Patience and Sarah's actual relationship is lovely, if not always an uncomplicated romantic ideal—they get together very early in the book and spend the rest of it working through various misunderstandings and conflicts, and we see the way the opposition of their families and society challenges them but fails to defeat them. (I loved the bit where Patience's brother is like, you've brought shame and dishonour on the family by falling in love with a woman! there's nothing to do about it but send you away! to a farm where you can live peacefully away from everyone here! oh yeah, and I guess she can go with you, idk, as long as it's not our problem anymore? Quite the solution!) Very, very good, my favourite lesbian book since The Well of Loneliness (which is really good but also really miserable, and there's definitely something to be said for more books that aren't like that :P).
Also, I saw the first swifts of the year! They're always such a beautiful sight wheeling through the sky, one of my favourite species to watch out for as the summer approaches. <3
Anyway, books...
Second Form At Malory Towers and Third Year At Malory Towers by Enid Blyton (1947 and 1948 respectively). Aww, I'm still really enjoying this re-read. The plots are great fun, mostly low-stakes school drama with occasional more seriously dramatic moments. Both of these books have climactic scenes where girls are almost killed in accidents—these may not be Blyton's adventure stories but there's plenty of adventure. I love Mary-Lou and her timidity and bravery, and her loyal devotion to Darrell (there's one bit where it's like, Mary-Lou knows she'll never be Darrell's ~special friend~ because that's Sally, but she's OK with that, she's happy just to be around Darrell and know that she likes her :) and I'm like, ouch). I enjoyed Sally's jealousy of Alicia in Third Form (everyone loves Darrell too much, that's the problem!). And, of course, Third Form also introduces my absolute fave, Bill, a 'boyish' girl who wears her hair short, goes by a boy's name (she's technically Wilhelmina), is forthright and honest, a bit of a loner and fanatically passionate about horses. I was never much of a horse girl myself, but the rest is very much my kind of thing, and I like her a lot. I'd forgotten that one of the subplots in this book involves Bill first clashing with and then befriending her form mistress, a fellow horse fan who also has a very similar attitude towards gender conformity—at one point the narrator is like, Miss Peters was mannish and Bill was boyish, so of course they understood one another! It's charmingly benevolent stereotyping, and I want to write fic all about their friendship. Anyway, if I remember correctly Bill gets a
The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford (written in the 1600s, edited and published by D. J. H. Clifford, 1990). Lady Anne Clifford was a seventeenth-century noblewoman who owned about half the northwest of England, wrote extensive diaries and had a very interesting life. As a young woman she fought a long legal battle to gain control of her family estates—despite an entail stating that they were to pass to the heir whether male or female, her father's will tried to grant them to Anne's uncle and male cousin instead of her. She refers to the affair as 'my Business', and writes pretty dispassionately about how her husband, various friends and family and King James I all opposed her attempts to regain her inheritance, but she persisted. She eventually won only because the uncle and cousin both died and there were no more male heirs. Anyway, she went north to claim the estates, and spent the rest of her life travelling between her five castles (!), arranging various building works and improvements to the castles and other bits of her property, which between the uncle's neglect and the Civil War were in a poor state, receiving visits from her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and generally acting as the evidently benevolent and well-beloved ruler of a little kingdom in Westmorland and Craven. She's a fascinating figure, and I greatly enjoyed reading her diaries. As I said, she kind of underplays the more dramatic parts of her life—a lot of the diary is taken up with rather repetitive accounts of family visits, journeys back and forth and that sort of thing—but there are some really interesting little insights into the daily life of the seventeenth century, as well as references to the major historical events of the time (one of the early entries describes her memory of Queen Elizabeth's funeral, where her aunt was a pallbearer but she wasn't allowed to be one because she was too short—she was thirteen at the time). Well worth a read! (And I'd love to know what Lady Anne would have thought about John Uskglass :D)
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller (1971). I was getting a bit sick of all the het romance in books I otherwise like, so I decided to read something that's actually about lesbians for a change. This book was exactly what I needed <3. It's the story of two women in the northeastern USA in the early nineteenth century who fall in love and, after various intervening troubles and adventures, end up going off to live together on a farm. The narrative style was not really my thing (it's a very 'modern' prose style, fast-paced and close POV and switching tenses and perspectives and that kind of thing), but the characters, the story and the general attitude of the book, which despite the hardships the characters face remains optimistic in a sort of gentle, charming way, were all very good indeed. Patience and Sarah's actual relationship is lovely, if not always an uncomplicated romantic ideal—they get together very early in the book and spend the rest of it working through various misunderstandings and conflicts, and we see the way the opposition of their families and society challenges them but fails to defeat them. (I loved the bit where Patience's brother is like, you've brought shame and dishonour on the family by falling in love with a woman! there's nothing to do about it but send you away! to a farm where you can live peacefully away from everyone here! oh yeah, and I guess she can go with you, idk, as long as it's not our problem anymore? Quite the solution!) Very, very good, my favourite lesbian book since The Well of Loneliness (which is really good but also really miserable, and there's definitely something to be said for more books that aren't like that :P).
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 10th, 2020 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 10th, 2020 04:50 pm (UTC)(I hope they didn't have to deal with quite as much drama and hardship.)
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 04:21 pm (UTC)Well, now you have to, what a pity! ;) Seriously, Bill sounds lovely, I haven't read these books, but your description of her reminds me of George from the Famous Five books!
Also, that possible meeting between The Raven King and Lady Anne sounds very intriguing. Just saying!
And I completely agree about books full of het romance (side-eyes "The dark mile") so reading about lesbians is always a good call, especially if they don't have sad endings, as it seems to be the case so many times with books about historical LGBT+ people, unfortunately! I read "The well of loneliness" years ago, and it was heart-wrenching, so it's one of those books I can't bring myself to re-read too much. Unlike "Maurice", for example, because as sad as it is, it ends up happily and it's just so healing! <3 *flails about books*
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 04:42 pm (UTC)It's definitely a character type with Blyton—George was one of my faves as a child too :D Actually, I wonder what she and Bill would make of each other—there's another fic idea...
reading about lesbians is always a good call
Couldn't agree more :D Seriously, though, it's very good. Yeah, I don't think I can re-read The Well of Loneliness for a while—that bit about the fox still haunts me... Now, with Maurice I made the mistake of sympathising with Clive more than any of the other characters, so the ending didn't really feel unalloyedly happy, but I can appreciate it nonetheless! Carol (or The Price of Salt) is another good one with a (n implied) happy ending—have you read that?
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 04:57 pm (UTC)As for "Maurice", yes, it's impossible to avoid sympathising with Clive, because his ending is the most realistic, if you think of it. I felt that Forster wanted to avoid painting an overly romanticised situation. As you read it, you can't forget the social context it's set in. I love it anyway, because any sort of happy ending for LGBT characters is refreshing, isn't it? When I first read it as a teenager, it made me really sad, but it also gave me so much hope, because it painted a rough road, but one where all the outcomes weren't necesarily sad.
I haven't read "The price of salt", but I read some others by Highsmith a while ago, so it sounds familiar. I shall have to keep an eye out for it, because I can always appreciate a happy ending! :D
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 05:22 pm (UTC)Absolutely, it is :) And Forster's writing is so sharply beautiful—he really makes you believe in a happy ending.
The Price of Salt is a bit of an odd one, because Highsmith mostly wrote psychological thrillers (of which I've read a couple—very good!), and although it's a happy-ish romance, it sort of reads like a thriller—kind of on edge or slightly off balance? An odd mood, but I think that slightly dangerous mood suits the context, and it is a very good book.
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 05:27 pm (UTC)Oh, he definitely does! Now I want to re-read it again! <3
The books by Highsmith I've read were thriller/mistery ones (Strangers on a train, and the Ripley ones) so "The price of salt" sounds enjoyable, I'll look for it as soon as I can go to a bookstore again! Thanks for the rec!
(Speaking of recs, I've just shamelessly recced TFOTH to one of my other DW friends. Let's see if I can convince someone else to come along and suffer with us!)
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 05:34 pm (UTC)Aww. For some reason, this makes me think of those character "tag yourself" memes that used to be a thing when I was on tumblr (do they still exist?) In a nutshell: tag yourself, I'm Mary-Lou.
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Date: May. 10th, 2020 06:04 pm (UTC)I've just shamelessly recced TFOTH to one of my other DW friends. Let's see if I can convince someone else to come along and suffer with us!
Oh, excellent!