Recent reading
Jul. 9th, 2022 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeOther books read on holiday and since...
The Happy Return/Beat to Quarters by C. S. Forester (1937; different titles when published in different countries). My first attempt at getting into Age of Sail fandoms! I can't say I enjoyed this one hugely, but I have only myself to blame for that, because I had heard from Hornblower fans that reading the books in publication order is a bad idea and then decided to start with the first-published anyway. (I read the Discworld books in publication order when I was twelve and it didn't do me any harm...!) However—this is a very detailed story of sailing, imperial politics and highly questionable personal decisions set in/off the coast of Central America during the Napoleonic wars; Our Hero, Captain Horatio Hornblower, has to navigate commanding his crew, following difficult orders from the Admiralty, negotiating with some very strange local rulers, more than one suitably dramatic sea battle and an encounter with the strong-willed and somewhat improper Lady Barbara Wellesley (a fictional sister of the future Duke of Wellington). Hornblower would very much like to be a human person with feelings, idiosyncrasies and weaknesses, but he is absolutely convinced that this would be the most unpardonably un-captainlike thing he could possibly do, and so he tries his utmost to conceal his entire character beneath a facade of hard, featureless naval perfection. All his crew love him for it; my reaction to the extremes of this was a sort of cringing horror mixed with annoyance. I think the worst/best bit for me was where Hornblower thinks about how he hasn't discussed his orders with his officers, even though he isn't required to keep them a total secret, because he loves talking and gossiping about everything and is terrified of saying too much and spoiling his reputation. I feel sorry for him, but he does make it difficult! There were also some hints of where people get their slash shipping for this fandom from (I gather that the popular pairing is Hornblower and Bush, the first lieutenant with whom he can't possibly discuss his orders), which was entertaining, but not more than a few hints as yet.
sanguinity tells me that the mood of the books and the portrayal of Hornblower as a character shifted considerably over the course of Forester's writing career, and that the later books are much better. I'm planning to try Lieutenant Hornblower, her recommendation from the later books, next, and then if I like it I may go back and read the rest. I'm also going to try the Aubrey-Maturin books, which I gather are better-written and have some natural history in them.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911). A classic which I somehow managed to miss out on reading as a child—I think I saw a film adaptation of it at some point, but I can't remember the details. Anyway, I think this book is basically the idea of 'oh, go and get some nice fresh air, you'll feel better!' incarnated as a novel, an impressive achievement. Ten-year-old Mary Lennox, having grown up in the stultifying climate of India, loses her parents to cholera in one of the more horrifying opening sequences to a children's book I've read in a while and then finds herself sent to Yorkshire to live with her uncle in a big house next to The Moors. She is moody and unpleasant, but gradually transforms under the influence of Good Yorkshire Fresh Air and, most importantly, the garden of the title. This belonged to her uncle's wife, and he heartbrokenly abandoned it after her death years before; Mary is shown the door to the garden, all overgrown with ivy, and the key, buried in the earth, by a helpful local robin who befriends her, and sets to work restoring the garden alongside Dickon, the young brother of Mary's maidservant and a sort of local slightly-magical-nature-spirit friend to all animals (it's just occurred to me to compare him to Thomas Godbless, which seems like an interesting idea). Her cousin Colin, who has spent his life being hidden away in the house and convinced that he's hopelessly ill and surely won't live to adulthood, also joins in and is restored to perfect health. I thought all the Wholesome Fresh Air stuff was, er, just a little bit OTT—apparently it originated from Hodgson Burnett's Christian Science beliefs, which perhaps explains the sense of religious fervour in it. But I did enjoy the book overall, and especially all the nature descriptions, magical friendly animals and slightly absurd adulation of the general concept of Yorkshire. The attitudes to health in this context were certainly wobbly, however—I thought Hodgson Burnett convincingly argued that Colin's illness in particular was the result of persuasion and expectations rather than an actual physical disability and could plausibly be 'cured' by fresh air etc., but I was left with a certain suspicion that she wouldn't be especially ready to accept the idea that many disabilities are not that. Also, I rememberethelmay commenting on one of my posts about Juliana Horatia Ewing that a lot of the stuff in this book was ripped off from Six to Sixteen, which, yes, it totally was!
(Looking it up now, FHB not only never lived in Yorkshire, she was actually born in Lancashire. Who'd have thought! o_O )
Emily Davis by Miss Read (1971). Read towards the end of my holiday, when I was getting tired and wanted some comfort reading—the next Fairacre book is always a reliable choice for that. This one begins with the death of Emily Davis, one of the older generation of teacher characters, and shows various friends, former pupils and other members of the community reacting to the news and reminiscing about Emily and her influence on their own lives—helping them, guiding them in their choices, reacting to and wisely overlooking various transgressions and generally being a good influence. It's solidly good in the way of Miss Read books—gentle, perceptive and sympathetic. I especially liked the significance which Emily Davis's life as a single woman gets to have—her fiance left her due to his WWI trauma and she never married, living happily in retirement with her lifelong best friend Dolly Clare, and the portrayal of this situation is lovely; regretting what didn't happen, but living a full and happy life nonetheless. I also sympathised especially with one of Emily's former pupils, who's now living in London for work and, thinking about her old teacher, realises how awful the city is (crowded, noisy, unbearable in a heatwave, etc.) and decides to go back home to the country.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940). I had been meaning to read this one for ages—the library's copy was bizarrely determined to evade me, but it does prove to exist after all—and I'm glad I got round to it now. It's a more or less plotless novel following the lives of various characters in a mill town somewhere in the US South just before the Second World War; the central figure is John Singer, a deaf and mute man who becomes the unlikely friend and confidant of several very different characters variously hurt and unsatisfied by their lives. Basically it's a story about the human longing for connection and meaningful purpose, as the other main characters seek in Singer someone who will understand their troubles: a thirteen-year-old girl from a poor and overcrowded family who cherishes a passion for classical music and dreams of becoming a composer; a doctor striving to improve the lot of his fellow black Americans, who ultimately fails to make the changes he wants even in his own family; a young man who comes to the town as a sort of vagrant and finds work at a carnival while determined to spread the word of his Marxist ideals to the workers of America; the owner of a cafe (incidentally, defined in the same oddly broad way as in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe) which the other characters frequent, who deals with various personal troubles and lonelinesses surrounding the death of his wife. But Singer is not really the friend the others all seek in him—his muteness and the resulting lack of actual communication between them impede real understanding while allowing them to project whatever they need onto him. And Singer too has an ideal friend, another deaf-mute man who is carted off to an asylum at the start of the book; his loss is a source of great pain to Singer throughout, and none of the other characters ever understands or even, I think, actually knows about it, but Singer's relationship with his friend ultimately seems as self-created and unreal as the others' friendships with him. The whole thing is an oddly dislocated book. It's very, very good! McCullers portrays highly varied and complicated situations, emotions and reactions in brilliantly precise detail, and sums up her characters' predicaments with understanding and sympathy; but it is somewhat grim and very pessimistic about the potential for real connection between people, and I think this gloominess was a bit too much for me in the end.
The Happy Return/Beat to Quarters by C. S. Forester (1937; different titles when published in different countries). My first attempt at getting into Age of Sail fandoms! I can't say I enjoyed this one hugely, but I have only myself to blame for that, because I had heard from Hornblower fans that reading the books in publication order is a bad idea and then decided to start with the first-published anyway. (I read the Discworld books in publication order when I was twelve and it didn't do me any harm...!) However—this is a very detailed story of sailing, imperial politics and highly questionable personal decisions set in/off the coast of Central America during the Napoleonic wars; Our Hero, Captain Horatio Hornblower, has to navigate commanding his crew, following difficult orders from the Admiralty, negotiating with some very strange local rulers, more than one suitably dramatic sea battle and an encounter with the strong-willed and somewhat improper Lady Barbara Wellesley (a fictional sister of the future Duke of Wellington). Hornblower would very much like to be a human person with feelings, idiosyncrasies and weaknesses, but he is absolutely convinced that this would be the most unpardonably un-captainlike thing he could possibly do, and so he tries his utmost to conceal his entire character beneath a facade of hard, featureless naval perfection. All his crew love him for it; my reaction to the extremes of this was a sort of cringing horror mixed with annoyance. I think the worst/best bit for me was where Hornblower thinks about how he hasn't discussed his orders with his officers, even though he isn't required to keep them a total secret, because he loves talking and gossiping about everything and is terrified of saying too much and spoiling his reputation. I feel sorry for him, but he does make it difficult! There were also some hints of where people get their slash shipping for this fandom from (I gather that the popular pairing is Hornblower and Bush, the first lieutenant with whom he can't possibly discuss his orders), which was entertaining, but not more than a few hints as yet.
sanguinity tells me that the mood of the books and the portrayal of Hornblower as a character shifted considerably over the course of Forester's writing career, and that the later books are much better. I'm planning to try Lieutenant Hornblower, her recommendation from the later books, next, and then if I like it I may go back and read the rest. I'm also going to try the Aubrey-Maturin books, which I gather are better-written and have some natural history in them.The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911). A classic which I somehow managed to miss out on reading as a child—I think I saw a film adaptation of it at some point, but I can't remember the details. Anyway, I think this book is basically the idea of 'oh, go and get some nice fresh air, you'll feel better!' incarnated as a novel, an impressive achievement. Ten-year-old Mary Lennox, having grown up in the stultifying climate of India, loses her parents to cholera in one of the more horrifying opening sequences to a children's book I've read in a while and then finds herself sent to Yorkshire to live with her uncle in a big house next to The Moors. She is moody and unpleasant, but gradually transforms under the influence of Good Yorkshire Fresh Air and, most importantly, the garden of the title. This belonged to her uncle's wife, and he heartbrokenly abandoned it after her death years before; Mary is shown the door to the garden, all overgrown with ivy, and the key, buried in the earth, by a helpful local robin who befriends her, and sets to work restoring the garden alongside Dickon, the young brother of Mary's maidservant and a sort of local slightly-magical-nature-spirit friend to all animals (it's just occurred to me to compare him to Thomas Godbless, which seems like an interesting idea). Her cousin Colin, who has spent his life being hidden away in the house and convinced that he's hopelessly ill and surely won't live to adulthood, also joins in and is restored to perfect health. I thought all the Wholesome Fresh Air stuff was, er, just a little bit OTT—apparently it originated from Hodgson Burnett's Christian Science beliefs, which perhaps explains the sense of religious fervour in it. But I did enjoy the book overall, and especially all the nature descriptions, magical friendly animals and slightly absurd adulation of the general concept of Yorkshire. The attitudes to health in this context were certainly wobbly, however—I thought Hodgson Burnett convincingly argued that Colin's illness in particular was the result of persuasion and expectations rather than an actual physical disability and could plausibly be 'cured' by fresh air etc., but I was left with a certain suspicion that she wouldn't be especially ready to accept the idea that many disabilities are not that. Also, I remember
ethelmay commenting on one of my posts about Juliana Horatia Ewing that a lot of the stuff in this book was ripped off from Six to Sixteen, which, yes, it totally was!(Looking it up now, FHB not only never lived in Yorkshire, she was actually born in Lancashire. Who'd have thought! o_O )
Emily Davis by Miss Read (1971). Read towards the end of my holiday, when I was getting tired and wanted some comfort reading—the next Fairacre book is always a reliable choice for that. This one begins with the death of Emily Davis, one of the older generation of teacher characters, and shows various friends, former pupils and other members of the community reacting to the news and reminiscing about Emily and her influence on their own lives—helping them, guiding them in their choices, reacting to and wisely overlooking various transgressions and generally being a good influence. It's solidly good in the way of Miss Read books—gentle, perceptive and sympathetic. I especially liked the significance which Emily Davis's life as a single woman gets to have—her fiance left her due to his WWI trauma and she never married, living happily in retirement with her lifelong best friend Dolly Clare, and the portrayal of this situation is lovely; regretting what didn't happen, but living a full and happy life nonetheless. I also sympathised especially with one of Emily's former pupils, who's now living in London for work and, thinking about her old teacher, realises how awful the city is (crowded, noisy, unbearable in a heatwave, etc.) and decides to go back home to the country.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940). I had been meaning to read this one for ages—the library's copy was bizarrely determined to evade me, but it does prove to exist after all—and I'm glad I got round to it now. It's a more or less plotless novel following the lives of various characters in a mill town somewhere in the US South just before the Second World War; the central figure is John Singer, a deaf and mute man who becomes the unlikely friend and confidant of several very different characters variously hurt and unsatisfied by their lives. Basically it's a story about the human longing for connection and meaningful purpose, as the other main characters seek in Singer someone who will understand their troubles: a thirteen-year-old girl from a poor and overcrowded family who cherishes a passion for classical music and dreams of becoming a composer; a doctor striving to improve the lot of his fellow black Americans, who ultimately fails to make the changes he wants even in his own family; a young man who comes to the town as a sort of vagrant and finds work at a carnival while determined to spread the word of his Marxist ideals to the workers of America; the owner of a cafe (incidentally, defined in the same oddly broad way as in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe) which the other characters frequent, who deals with various personal troubles and lonelinesses surrounding the death of his wife. But Singer is not really the friend the others all seek in him—his muteness and the resulting lack of actual communication between them impede real understanding while allowing them to project whatever they need onto him. And Singer too has an ideal friend, another deaf-mute man who is carted off to an asylum at the start of the book; his loss is a source of great pain to Singer throughout, and none of the other characters ever understands or even, I think, actually knows about it, but Singer's relationship with his friend ultimately seems as self-created and unreal as the others' friendships with him. The whole thing is an oddly dislocated book. It's very, very good! McCullers portrays highly varied and complicated situations, emotions and reactions in brilliantly precise detail, and sums up her characters' predicaments with understanding and sympathy; but it is somewhat grim and very pessimistic about the potential for real connection between people, and I think this gloominess was a bit too much for me in the end.
no subject
Date: Jul. 12th, 2022 09:23 pm (UTC)Speaking of movies, I second
"The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" is a lot, isn't it? I feel that being kind of plotless is part of the point in many of her books, right? She's so good at showing a bleak but realistic view of people who don't get to do many big things or make many choices in their life. I'm always touched by the quiet dignity of her characters, who basically know from day one that their life is going to be a series of failures, so their only choice is how they will deal with them--and that's also limited. So we have someone like Singer, who ends his life on his own terms, because there's nothing else for him anymore, and then someone like Mick, who steps into the role she is supposed to have in life, hating it but being quietly resigned, also because there's nothing else for her. It's sad, but also very sympathetically shown! And, like you said, her writing really is about that longing for connection and meaningful purpose, and how, more often than not, that's just a wish that never comes true. That search for belonging, for an "ideal friend" that doesn't exist, she gets it absolutely right, every time, and it's especially relevant from a queer+disabled perspective. If you ever want a less depressing book by her that still deals with a lot of these themes, I recommend "The Member of the wedding".
no subject
Date: Jul. 13th, 2022 04:17 pm (UTC)The book is very sweet, but you're absolutely right about the whole Fresh Air Will Cure You thing being a bit too much, and also overly simplistic--it's a bit like telling sick and/or disabled people that their pain is all in their heads, or suggesting to depressed people that they do yoga and think positive thoughts! But the nature stuff is definitely lovely!
Exactly! It was frustrating, really, because Fresh Air and the beautiful Yorkshire moors and nature etc. really can be good for mood and mental health, I find, and it's lovely to have that portrayed in a book—but FHB can't stop there, she has to act like it's this miraculous cure-all and in the process suggest that the things it's curing were never really real in the first place *facepalm* And I will certainly try that film, it sounds lovely.
"The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" is a lot, isn't it?
Yep! I see what you mean about the 'quiet dignity' of characters who don't get happy endings or the things they wanted—there's a kind of strength in that, bleak as it is. As well as the queer/disabled perspective, which I really liked (both Mick and Brannon seemed potentially queer to me, as well as Singer and Antonapoulos—do you think so?). But I suppose I can't believe that real connection is actually as impossible as she seems to think it is, even if the perfect 'ideal friendship' is an impossible ideal, and it feels like a too-miserable denial of any hope. I will try The Member of the Wedding, though—that does sound good!
no subject
Date: Jul. 13th, 2022 08:31 pm (UTC)I absolutely do! And it's true that McCullers's books are mainly about denial of any hope, which can be miserable, but I still appreciate her practical and matter of fact way of approaching it, and how she shows the dignity in accepting it--I agree in that there's strength in it. I also like the care and respect she shows towards her characters' inner lives/daydreams/secret wishes, and how those are sometimes the only thing that keeps them going, even if they don't come true. I think it goes really well with her disabled/queer perspective. Oh, and "The Member of the Wedding" doesn't end in such a bleak note, while still really understanding that need to belong (the main character calls it "the we of me") and how that can happen or not. It's really good!
no subject
Date: Jul. 14th, 2022 03:38 pm (UTC)"The Member of the Wedding" doesn't end in such a bleak note, while still really understanding that need to belong (the main character calls it "the we of me") and how that can happen or not. It's really good!
That does sound very good—I'll definitely put it on the to-read list :)