Recent reading
Aug. 23rd, 2020 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeI bought myself a bread machine last week, so besides reading I've been spending the weekend making and eating an excellent loaf of bread—absolutely delicious, this was a good decision.
Imre by Edward Prime-Stevenson (1906). This novella is the fairly structurally simple but emotionally fraught story of two men, a British gentleman traveller and a Hungarian army officer, who meet in a cafe in a thinly-fictionalised Budapest and fall in love. As you might imagine, it wasn't easy to publish this kind of thing in 1906, and Imre wasn't published as such—the author had it privately printed and distributed, presumably hence why it's not easy to find now. It is very much of its time, and I mean that in a not necessarily bad way—the book is pervaded by the medical-psychological attitudes to homosexuality of the turn of the twentieth century and uses words like 'Uranian' and 'invert' a lot, but it also strongly argues against the view of 'Uranianism' as a disorder, and for the beauty and happiness to be found in what Prime-Stevenson calls 'the friendship which is love, the love which is friendship'. The central relationship isn't the most substantial and there's not much of a plot, but there are some really lovely bits of description—both of Imre himself and their developing relationship by our adoring narrator, but also of the city of Budapest. Some pivotal scenes take place on this bridge, which is a suitably dramatic setting!
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (2012). I found this book both really good and very frustrating. It's set in some of the more dramatic bits of the Second World War—the main characters are a pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary and a Special Operations spy—and the book, narrated in first person by each in turn, is supposedly made up of what they write down during their adventures and trials after a mission to France goes badly wrong. First, what I liked: it's really good to have this kind of historical adventure with a central intensely loyal (and pretty shippable) relationship between women—you don't see that often, and Maddie and 'JB-S' are great together. Not being eighteenth-century gentlemen, they don't have quite the same concept of honour that e.g. Keith Windham has, but that sort of thing is there too—I was somewhat struck by the similarity between the set-up for the big plot twist and the central problem of The Wounded Name, with a character appearing to have done something dishonourable but... Anyway, there are a lot of lovely relationship moments, and I enjoyed it all very much. The history was another highlight—the author has clearly done her research, even including a bibliography in the back of the book covering various details of the setting and plot, and there are lots of interesting (and sometimes fairly harrowing—we are dealing with spies and Resistance agents in occupied France) historical details scattered through the narrative.
And the things I didn't like. This book has a lot of plot twisting, and makes fairly heavy use of unreliable narrators, both things that I felt ended up getting in the way of the story and characters. I don't like the kind of unreliable narration that involves deliberately lying to the reader, and while it wasn't particularly surprising that a narrator writing something for the Nazis who've captured her to read would do so, the twist that follows was a bit of a let down. Some of the first things we learn about one of the characters—things that made me sit up and go, ooh, now that's interesting, I want to explore that and see how it develops—turn out to be complete fabrications, and I can't help feeling like that's cheating. The central relationship is, as I said, really good, but I didn't feel like it got room to breathe between the constrained narration and the Dramatic Twists—there's not enough substance there, and it's frustrating because it's such a good idea—there could have been!
(Also, the whole 'intense same-gender friendship where one character's textual love interest is the other's acceptably-gendered sibling, with lots of emphasis on how very similar the siblings are in appearance and personality' is literally how they did homoerotic subtext in the 1860s, and I cannot take it seriously in something published in the twenty-first century.)
However! This book was nevertheless very good, and if I think it had more potential than pay-off, that's what fanfiction is for. It does seem to be pretty popular, as well—nearly 100 fics on AO3. (That's my idea of 'big fandom' these days, anyway...)
Next I think I'm going to re-read South Riding, and I feel it may be interesting reading something both written and set in the 1930s after a WWII book. We shall see...
Imre by Edward Prime-Stevenson (1906). This novella is the fairly structurally simple but emotionally fraught story of two men, a British gentleman traveller and a Hungarian army officer, who meet in a cafe in a thinly-fictionalised Budapest and fall in love. As you might imagine, it wasn't easy to publish this kind of thing in 1906, and Imre wasn't published as such—the author had it privately printed and distributed, presumably hence why it's not easy to find now. It is very much of its time, and I mean that in a not necessarily bad way—the book is pervaded by the medical-psychological attitudes to homosexuality of the turn of the twentieth century and uses words like 'Uranian' and 'invert' a lot, but it also strongly argues against the view of 'Uranianism' as a disorder, and for the beauty and happiness to be found in what Prime-Stevenson calls 'the friendship which is love, the love which is friendship'. The central relationship isn't the most substantial and there's not much of a plot, but there are some really lovely bits of description—both of Imre himself and their developing relationship by our adoring narrator, but also of the city of Budapest. Some pivotal scenes take place on this bridge, which is a suitably dramatic setting!
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (2012). I found this book both really good and very frustrating. It's set in some of the more dramatic bits of the Second World War—the main characters are a pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary and a Special Operations spy—and the book, narrated in first person by each in turn, is supposedly made up of what they write down during their adventures and trials after a mission to France goes badly wrong. First, what I liked: it's really good to have this kind of historical adventure with a central intensely loyal (and pretty shippable) relationship between women—you don't see that often, and Maddie and 'JB-S' are great together. Not being eighteenth-century gentlemen, they don't have quite the same concept of honour that e.g. Keith Windham has, but that sort of thing is there too—I was somewhat struck by the similarity between the set-up for the big plot twist and the central problem of The Wounded Name, with a character appearing to have done something dishonourable but... Anyway, there are a lot of lovely relationship moments, and I enjoyed it all very much. The history was another highlight—the author has clearly done her research, even including a bibliography in the back of the book covering various details of the setting and plot, and there are lots of interesting (and sometimes fairly harrowing—we are dealing with spies and Resistance agents in occupied France) historical details scattered through the narrative.
And the things I didn't like. This book has a lot of plot twisting, and makes fairly heavy use of unreliable narrators, both things that I felt ended up getting in the way of the story and characters. I don't like the kind of unreliable narration that involves deliberately lying to the reader, and while it wasn't particularly surprising that a narrator writing something for the Nazis who've captured her to read would do so, the twist that follows was a bit of a let down. Some of the first things we learn about one of the characters—things that made me sit up and go, ooh, now that's interesting, I want to explore that and see how it develops—turn out to be complete fabrications, and I can't help feeling like that's cheating. The central relationship is, as I said, really good, but I didn't feel like it got room to breathe between the constrained narration and the Dramatic Twists—there's not enough substance there, and it's frustrating because it's such a good idea—there could have been!
(Also, the whole 'intense same-gender friendship where one character's textual love interest is the other's acceptably-gendered sibling, with lots of emphasis on how very similar the siblings are in appearance and personality' is literally how they did homoerotic subtext in the 1860s, and I cannot take it seriously in something published in the twenty-first century.)
However! This book was nevertheless very good, and if I think it had more potential than pay-off, that's what fanfiction is for. It does seem to be pretty popular, as well—nearly 100 fics on AO3. (That's my idea of 'big fandom' these days, anyway...)
Next I think I'm going to re-read South Riding, and I feel it may be interesting reading something both written and set in the 1930s after a WWII book. We shall see...
no subject
Date: Aug. 23rd, 2020 05:44 pm (UTC)You just reminded me that I have Code Name Verity sitting on my ebook reader and forgot to read it.
Also, the whole 'intense same-gender friendship where one character's textual love interest is the other's acceptably-gendered sibling, with lots of emphases on how very similar the siblings are in appearance and personality' is literally how they did homoerotic subtext in the 1860s, and I cannot take it seriously in something published in the twenty-first century.
That is a little off-putting (though I am perfectly willing to forgive it in a novel from past centuries).
Still, sounds like it's worth reading overall.
Re: plot twists and unreliable narrators, I am a few chapters into The Yellow Poppy and already going crazy with the number of characters with double identities, hints that characters have secrets that I don't know yet, and so on! :D
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Date: Aug. 23rd, 2020 06:54 pm (UTC)I am a few chapters into The Yellow Poppy and already going crazy with the number of characters with double identities, hints that characters have secrets that I don't know yet, and so on! :D
Ohoho, good, isn't it :D Well, I won't spoil the upcoming twists, but there's definitely more good stuff to come there. I was kind of comparing those sorts of aspects between CNV and things like Broster's books, actually—I can enjoy it when there's an omniscient narrator giving details away strategically or showing things that don't give the whole story, but unreliability has limits.
no subject
Date: Aug. 23rd, 2020 07:12 pm (UTC)I read somewhere that one of the reasons why "Imre" is hard to find is (apart from it being privately printed, like you said) that many copies of it were destroyed in an eartquake that happened in Italy a while after it was published (ironically, a natural tragedy is the fake reason EP-S previously used for his fake cartomancy book being so obscure ;) so I like to think he would have found this turn of events somewhat funny!)
It really is very much of its time, I agree! Some of his ideas are kind of dated and I side-eye them. I feel the same about his pro-homosexuality treaty, which is basically a long, non-fiction version of the themes of "Imre". It's dull and heavy reading at times, but it also has some surprisingly current views, like mentioning same-sex marriage and saying that the Bible actually never condemned homosexuality (which makes me think about that bit in "Imre" when Oswald quotes a verse from the book of Ruth that is very frequently used for wedding vows--as a queer person who grew up in a Catholic culture, I think it's so validating and vindicating and comforting, and I like to think EP-S totally did it on purpose to spite the haters/homophobes! I love him, what a badass!)
But I got sidetracked, sorry, haha... I still think "Imre" is a very unique book. I like its choices of epigraphs and chapter titles and even if it's so short, it's just so poignant, and unapologetic in its idea of happiness being deserved and fully possible! <3
When I first read it, I definitely felt like it could have been more substantial and plotty (I wanted more of this story and its happy ending!) but I've also come to appreciate it exactly as it is. I totally understand the ideas of masks and shadows and hiding behind fancy terms as a way of detaching yourself/staying safe, so while the way he writes is totally of its time, the idea is still (sadly) relevant today, and I get the feeling that he also means something by not saying what he doesn't say. The thinly-veiled Budapest, the made-up myth about the Z. cousins, and even EPS hiding himself behind a pseudonym (or two, if you count Oswald, as being his alter-ego) and yes, that bridge, OMG what an image! <3 I feel this novel is a sort of liminal space, in which what isn't said has as much weight as what is actually said, but after a moment of uncertainty and suspension between both (literally over water, ha!) there is a happy transition and a balance.
Also I find it fascinating from a language/geography point of view, and what it means in the context of LGBT characters. Oswald is British, Imre is Hungarian, they can't speak each other's languages, so they need to find a common ground, to create a new way/bridge of communication, which is obviously veiled and hesitant and careful at first, which makes the developing trust and the "silence in intimacy" so lovely to read about! Neither of them is an especially rooted character at first, but at the end of the novel, I always feel a sense of an unlikely but very much deserved end of the quest/homecoming shining through! <3 Also, I am weak for characters who have closed up themselves and their feelings because of past, sad experiences finding happiness eventually--it's just so comforting and heartwarming! You may find this funny, but when I first read Tfoth, Keith Windham reminded me a little bit of Lieutenant Imre, because he is also a soldier that doesn't necessarily chose to be one (Keith is way more ambitious, though!) and who keeps people at arms' length, because people are awful... until he meets someone who isn't, and changes his worldview! <3
(I love this little book a lot, can you tell?)
Oh, good to know! I've heard several good things about this book over the years, but never knew this, and actually appreciate knowing it before deciding if/when to read it! This was very interesting to read, I always appreciate your thoughtful reviews!
Have you read "The heart is a lonely hunter"? I've re-read it a little while ago, so I immediately thought of it. It was written in 1940, so it's close enough, I guess? It's set in the 1930s, in the southern USA, and it's excellent!
(ETA: I now realise you meant "South riding" rather than reading another 1930s book--but my rec still stands! ;)
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Date: Aug. 24th, 2020 05:29 am (UTC)Some of his ideas are kind of dated and I side-eye them. I feel the same about his pro-homosexuality treaty, which is basically a long, non-fiction version of the themes of "Imre". It's dull and heavy reading at times, but it also has some surprisingly current views, like mentioning same-sex marriage and saying that the Bible actually never condemned homosexuality
That's fascinating! Yeah, a mix of dated and surprisingly current describes his ideas well, I thought. There's this need to justify the 'Uranian' as a type of person, like with those long lists of Good and Bad examples from history, that feels pretty unnecessary—but then there's the simple happiness of Oswald and Imre's relationship, that's quite enough justification on its own. (and yeah, the Book of Ruth was lovely!) And the 'mask' imagery, and the details of how the characters have to cautiously and slowly feel out each other's thoughts and views before they can be honest with each other, was really interesting.
I feel this novel is a sort of liminal space, in which what isn't said has as much weight as what is actually said, but after a moment of uncertainty and suspension between both (literally over water, ha!) there is a happy transition and a balance.
That is a great way of putting it.
Keith Windham reminded me a little bit of Lieutenant Imre, because he is also a soldier that doesn't necessarily chose to be one (Keith is way more ambitious, though!) and who keeps people at arms' length, because people are awful... until he meets someone who isn't, and changes his worldview!
:)
But yeah, I agree about the sense of warmth and homecoming in the ending—so quietly lovely.
I have not read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter—perhaps I'll look it up when I've got through South Riding :D
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Date: Aug. 24th, 2020 03:53 pm (UTC)Exactly! His treaty is basically long lists of Gay People Through History and Books With Homosexual Themes (he even includes his own-- what a legend, haha!) that goes on for over 500 pages, and I appreciate his unapologetic positive view, but it might have made more sense to keep the fiction and the non-fiction separate? After all, that "simple happiness" in "Imre" (like you said) is more than enough to make his point come across! In fact, every time I re-read it I'm amazed at how powerful and poignant that message is, in spite of being so short. And "quietly lovely" sums up the ending, yes... sometimes I just grab the book and re-read those last lines, because I find them so affirming <3
I hope you do, so I can read your review! ;) I've read it so many times over the years and love it very much! It's heartbreaking and relatable and has (I think) many layers to discover!
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Date: Aug. 24th, 2020 04:43 pm (UTC)Oh yeah, it certainly seems like it! And that fake cartomancy (?) book... well, even if there's a lot lost to history it sounds like there's still plenty to explore :D
did you read the one that's included in the appendix?
Not yet, although I read some of the bits from the introduction about it, and it does sound good (and sad)—I'm saving it for another time!
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Date: Aug. 23rd, 2020 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 24th, 2020 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 24th, 2020 07:31 am (UTC)