Recent reading
Aug. 1st, 2021 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeFirstly, there seems to be a lot of new interest in D. K. Broster and her books happening at the moment! I'm delighted, of course. And on that topic, Broster fan and excellent researcher theseatheseatheopensea has found this short autobiographical article, in which she talks about her childhood and experiences in the war as well as about her writing process.
London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes (1939-45). Mollie Panter-Downes was the London correspondent for The New Yorker, and this book is a collection of the regular columns she wrote for the magazine throughout the war, updating American readers on various general aspects of how the situation was going. I found the minutiae of the political developments and the details of daily life—rationing, gas-masks, the blackout and so on—recounted as they developed, really fascinating, and it was very illuminating, I suppose, to compare them with my own experiences of the last year and a half in a general sense that this is what big historical events look like on the ground while they're happening. There's a lot of detail on the Blitz, of course—more everyday details, like people's commuter buses having to be re-routed round bombed streets, as well as some striking descriptions of the destruction itself, and people's immediate reactions to the damage to historic buildings like Coventry Cathedral and London churches designed by Wren. There's some discussion of the plans for post-war reconstruction as they were being made. And, with Panter-Downes's audience in mind, there's a lot about the role of the US, from early hopes of help to the presence of American soldiers in London later on. Overall, a really fascinating perspective.
Two College Friends by Frederick W. Loring (1871). I think this is the sort of thing D. K. Broster might have written if she'd been American (and a much less good writer, but never mind). It opens with the two college friends of the title, Ned and Tom, who are BFFs at Harvard and who are having an argument: Ned thinks Tom is in love because he's carrying around a photograph of some girl and won't talk about it, and is upset about this. It turns out the photo is of Tom himself in female costume in a play, and he was planning to give it to Ned as a present because he thought he'd like it. Anyway, this is all very amusing, but then, suddenly, the American Civil War breaks out! Ned and Tom, full of patriotic fervour, both enlist, and the rest of the book follows them on their adventures in the war. The climax of the plot is a beautiful mess of hurt/comfort, mutual love and devotion and gentlemanly honour and duty (featuring Stonewall Jackson in the role of Noble Enemy), which ends in tragedy. It's a very, very slashy book, and Loring seems more or less aware—if not in what I, still working on the Imre ebook, might call the Edward Prime-Stevenson sense—that what he's writing about is love, in a sense comparable to acknowledged romance. This was enjoyable, as was the Broster-ish honour-based drama of the ending. I think its main flaw is that it's far too short—the same plot could easily have filled a book five times longer, and none of the important elements—characters, relationship, plot, historical setting—have anything like the room they need to be developed fully.
The Precious Bane by Mary Webb (1925). I had previously encountered Mary Webb only as the target of Stella Gibbons's satire in Cold Comfort Farm, and, to be fair, I think I might have liked this book better if I hadn't. It's set in rural Shropshire in the early nineteenth century, and narrated by Prue Sarn, a young woman who has a cleft lip ('hare-shotten lip') and lives on a farm by a lake with her brother, who is a determinedly horrible person. There are some really lovely nature descriptions—Webb paints an evocative picture of the lake, especially, and of the sense of being out in the middle of the countryside in the clear air surrounded by birds and insects and working in the fields. And there's a decent message somewhere in there about ableism and how disabled characters can find the happiness they want despite cruelty and prejudice—Prue, who's been told that of course no man will ever look at her, falls in love with the weaver Kester Woodseaves, who it turns out is quite happy to after all. But the whole thing is so melodramatic—both in the events of the plot and in the style of the narration and dialogue, with e.g. characters' prophesied tragic fates (which duly come true later on) being solemnly repeated whenever they're mentioned—that I found it difficult to take seriously, and I also felt that the romance, while admirable in theory, was distinctly unappealing in practice for several reasons.
theseatheseatheopensea has found this short autobiographical article, in which she talks about her childhood and experiences in the war as well as about her writing process.London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes (1939-45). Mollie Panter-Downes was the London correspondent for The New Yorker, and this book is a collection of the regular columns she wrote for the magazine throughout the war, updating American readers on various general aspects of how the situation was going. I found the minutiae of the political developments and the details of daily life—rationing, gas-masks, the blackout and so on—recounted as they developed, really fascinating, and it was very illuminating, I suppose, to compare them with my own experiences of the last year and a half in a general sense that this is what big historical events look like on the ground while they're happening. There's a lot of detail on the Blitz, of course—more everyday details, like people's commuter buses having to be re-routed round bombed streets, as well as some striking descriptions of the destruction itself, and people's immediate reactions to the damage to historic buildings like Coventry Cathedral and London churches designed by Wren. There's some discussion of the plans for post-war reconstruction as they were being made. And, with Panter-Downes's audience in mind, there's a lot about the role of the US, from early hopes of help to the presence of American soldiers in London later on. Overall, a really fascinating perspective.
Two College Friends by Frederick W. Loring (1871). I think this is the sort of thing D. K. Broster might have written if she'd been American (and a much less good writer, but never mind). It opens with the two college friends of the title, Ned and Tom, who are BFFs at Harvard and who are having an argument: Ned thinks Tom is in love because he's carrying around a photograph of some girl and won't talk about it, and is upset about this. It turns out the photo is of Tom himself in female costume in a play, and he was planning to give it to Ned as a present because he thought he'd like it. Anyway, this is all very amusing, but then, suddenly, the American Civil War breaks out! Ned and Tom, full of patriotic fervour, both enlist, and the rest of the book follows them on their adventures in the war. The climax of the plot is a beautiful mess of hurt/comfort, mutual love and devotion and gentlemanly honour and duty (featuring Stonewall Jackson in the role of Noble Enemy), which ends in tragedy. It's a very, very slashy book, and Loring seems more or less aware—if not in what I, still working on the Imre ebook, might call the Edward Prime-Stevenson sense—that what he's writing about is love, in a sense comparable to acknowledged romance. This was enjoyable, as was the Broster-ish honour-based drama of the ending. I think its main flaw is that it's far too short—the same plot could easily have filled a book five times longer, and none of the important elements—characters, relationship, plot, historical setting—have anything like the room they need to be developed fully.
The Precious Bane by Mary Webb (1925). I had previously encountered Mary Webb only as the target of Stella Gibbons's satire in Cold Comfort Farm, and, to be fair, I think I might have liked this book better if I hadn't. It's set in rural Shropshire in the early nineteenth century, and narrated by Prue Sarn, a young woman who has a cleft lip ('hare-shotten lip') and lives on a farm by a lake with her brother, who is a determinedly horrible person. There are some really lovely nature descriptions—Webb paints an evocative picture of the lake, especially, and of the sense of being out in the middle of the countryside in the clear air surrounded by birds and insects and working in the fields. And there's a decent message somewhere in there about ableism and how disabled characters can find the happiness they want despite cruelty and prejudice—Prue, who's been told that of course no man will ever look at her, falls in love with the weaver Kester Woodseaves, who it turns out is quite happy to after all. But the whole thing is so melodramatic—both in the events of the plot and in the style of the narration and dialogue, with e.g. characters' prophesied tragic fates (which duly come true later on) being solemnly repeated whenever they're mentioned—that I found it difficult to take seriously, and I also felt that the romance, while admirable in theory, was distinctly unappealing in practice for several reasons.
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Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 02:05 pm (UTC)This book is apparently RPF about Loring and his own best friend from college (and I think also one of their professors?). I'd love to know what the best friend made of it, especially because Loring tragically died around the time of publication.
I haven't read The Precious Bane, but I did read Mary Webb's other novel Gone to Earth (because it was on the list of novels that Roald Dahl has Matilda read in Matilda, which is definitely a Choice), and it too is SO melodramatic, and not always in the fun way like Two College Friends. (I think a deep dive into melodrama is often more enjoyable in a less-skilled writer. Webb is too good to pull it off.) There's a scene where there are some birds pecking at windfall cherries "like the world pecks at poet's hearts."
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Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 02:14 pm (UTC)Heh, I saw your review and tipped
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Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 05:21 pm (UTC):D Hahaha, it is good stuff, isn't it... I think this book has a lot in common with Broster's The Wounded Name, which is also very 'id close to the surface'.
Oh yeah, I remember Loring talking about his real best friend in the introduction (though the war part seems to have been made up?). Yeah, it would certainly be interesting to know what he thought of it...!
That is a very good point about Webb being too good to write enjoyable melodrama. I like a good over-the-top Gothic novel or Victorian sensation novel, and that sort of thing can be genuinely good in some ways, but there was too much about The Precious Bane that ought to have been... more seriously(?) better than that.
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Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 08:12 pm (UTC)He's his own category, isn't he? <3 Both the implicit queerness and the happy endings are very refreshing, especially when compared to books like this one, full of subtext and tragic endings--not that they aren't enjoyable in their own way, of course, they are good inspiration for fix-it fic! XD But there are so many of them, and so few happy ones, it seems...
And yeah, "Precious bane" is a bit melodramatic and OTT, and I guess the romance is a bit dated. There was a scene I didn't like, around the time where they first meet, and actually my favourite thing about it is when they send letters to other people that are actually veiled letters to each other. But I guess I'm very contrary, and will root for a het romance when the rest of the world doesn't XD I might have cared less about it if Prue hadn't been disabled, or if she had been forced into romance (which is sometihng that happens to another one of Mary Webb's characters).
If Prue had stayed alone at the end, it would have also made sense, because she had lived alone all her life and managed pretty well and didn't need anyone. But she is definitely not a helpless heroine, and she clearly wants romance for herself, so it works for me! And I liked the parallel between her saving Kester and him saving her at the end, it makes me think that they are on equal terms. And also they have a similar kindness, that makes me feel that they are right for each other.
I guess that the book's message would have worked even better in a less melodramatic story. One of the ugliest parts of ableism is people hearing over and over that they can't have something until they believe it themselves, so it's still good and vindicating to see someone (even if it's a fictional character) getting *exactly* what the world says they can't have.
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Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 04:21 pm (UTC)Ha, I missed that (it doesn't work so well in my accent!)—nice :D And of course Loring's commitment to being So Much is admirable.
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 04:17 pm (UTC)...We can ignore it, or we can remark the significance of how it (more or less explicitly) can only happen because Tom doesn't have Ned anymore. I thought that was interesting, although I certainly would have preferred a happy ending!
Oh, I'm afraid I didn't like the veiled letters at all—it hit my squick for anything that feels like mocking or taking advantage of people for not knowing or understanding something, and it felt like such a nasty trick. But you are absolutely right about the importance of Prue getting what she wants, as well as the element of equality between her and Kester—that was nice to see. (Have you read Dinah Maria Mulock Craik's Olive? —another good book about a disabled woman who eventually gets a romantic happy ending, and a lot of interesting stuff besides. It's less melodramatic than Precious Bane but, like John Halifax, very Victorian).
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 05:08 pm (UTC)I liked the veiled letters as a means to an end for them to try and express their feelings, but I see what you mean-they kind of hijacked and took advantage of other's people only way to communicate, if that makes sense?
Oh, I think you've mentioned "Olive" before, and it definitely sounds like a good one! Thanks for the rec!!
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 05:46 pm (UTC)True, and fair! There's a lot that could be be written about the conflict between friendship and 'friendship' and (m/f) romance in fiction pre-acknowledgement of same-sex relationships—it seems to turn up an awful lot as an... uncomfortable element in stories, perhaps in more than one way.
they kind of hijacked and took advantage of other's people only way to communicate, if that makes sense?
Yeah, it does—that's just what I thought.
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Date: Aug. 1st, 2021 10:38 pm (UTC)The biographical information is neat, but I really like her discussion of her writing, especially the familiar description of a story starting from a fragment around which everything else is written. I'd love to know what her "mental pictures" were for her different books.
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 05:47 pm (UTC)"Some force (not my own will, sure) moved forward my hands, which met his in a grip as short as a lightning-flash, and as long as eternity. He gave me a look quite indescribable—of pity and forgiveness, and (I should not write it were I not sure) of affection."
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 3rd, 2021 07:19 am (UTC)Each man kills the thing he loves, indeed.
(Preserving a friend's life by suggesting that he might give up information against his cause is present in both stories, too, although it's not played for angst in this one.)
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 06:08 pm (UTC)That's a very nice thing to be able to track.
I was struck at the time by the method of turning a short story into a novel by exploring the background of one incident, rather than by simply expanding the plot into book form, and this discussion of her writing process really puts that in context.
M. John Harrison has a similar technique: I have seen him both elaborate the plot of a short story across a novel and incorporate short stories wholesale as chapters within a novel, sometimes in the same book; it's especially visible in The Course of the Heart (1992), which contains remixes or inclusions of four identifiable stories. I write by accretion myself, but not at novel-length. I don't mostly write by incorporation, but there are a couple of places it's happened.
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 06:39 pm (UTC)Interesting! I've not read any of his books, but that must have made for a fun bit of detective work tracking them all down. Now I'm thinking of Tolkien writing different versions of his Silmarillion tales in various lengths and styles, though I can't remember which bits came first (wasn't Eärendil as the rising evening star one of the first things?).
I'm also more of an 'accretion' writer—I'll have particular images or moments that I want to incorporate into a longer story before I've plotted it out fully, but they always exist in the context of the larger idea.
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Date: Aug. 2nd, 2021 11:05 pm (UTC)I read the short stories first! Which made the novel itself simultaneously enjoyable on its own merits—it's my favorite of his novels so far, although I am again one behind because almost anything that came out in 2020 missed me—and a differently enjoyable exercise in ". . . wait a minute."
Now I'm thinking of Tolkien writing different versions of his Silmarillion tales in various lengths and styles, though I can't remember which bits came first (wasn't Eärendil as the rising evening star one of the first things?).
I believe Eärendil was the very beginning. (After that I would have to start looking things up.)
I'm also more of an 'accretion' writer—I'll have particular images or moments that I want to incorporate into a longer story before I've plotted it out fully, but they always exist in the context of the larger idea.
I rarely plot in the formal sense, except that I almost always know something of where a story is going, sometimes because the accreting image is the hinge of it. I say I write by pearl-grit.
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Date: Aug. 3rd, 2021 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 3rd, 2021 06:41 pm (UTC)I think it's actually Mary Webb's LEAST melodramatic novel, which is certainly saying something.
Heh—perhaps I'll give the rest a miss for now...