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Reading has been a bit slow lately, partly because of Yuletide writing (which is going reasonably well so far), partly through lack of opportunity.
I recently finished A Shadow Above: The Fall and Rise of the Raven by Joe Shute, an interesting and somewhat odd natural history. Shute examines the various symbolical and practical relationships people have had, and have now, with the raven, across time and cultures, all in the context of the species's recent improved fortunes and spread back across much of its old range. I hadn't realised quite how far that return had progressed, and some of the descriptions of how numerous they apparently are in some places seemed frankly improbable (they're still only 'very rare vagrants' where I live, sadly), but it was all fascinating and sometimes disturbing. I thought the prose didn't really live up to the subject—something like this really needs to be properly vivid and dramatic, which it wasn't always, and the occasional minor SPAG errors were less easy to ignore because of that—and that Shute missed out quite a bit of the relevant political context in discussing conflict between humans and ravens, but it was still enjoyable. (By far the book's gravest flaw, of course, is that it never mentions Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, despite including a discussion of the raven in historical and current popular culture. Why not???)
However, I went to the library this afternoon, which so far seems like the best of the big public libraries in the various places I've lived in. I found:
I recently finished A Shadow Above: The Fall and Rise of the Raven by Joe Shute, an interesting and somewhat odd natural history. Shute examines the various symbolical and practical relationships people have had, and have now, with the raven, across time and cultures, all in the context of the species's recent improved fortunes and spread back across much of its old range. I hadn't realised quite how far that return had progressed, and some of the descriptions of how numerous they apparently are in some places seemed frankly improbable (they're still only 'very rare vagrants' where I live, sadly), but it was all fascinating and sometimes disturbing. I thought the prose didn't really live up to the subject—something like this really needs to be properly vivid and dramatic, which it wasn't always, and the occasional minor SPAG errors were less easy to ignore because of that—and that Shute missed out quite a bit of the relevant political context in discussing conflict between humans and ravens, but it was still enjoyable. (By far the book's gravest flaw, of course, is that it never mentions Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, despite including a discussion of the raven in historical and current popular culture. Why not???)
However, I went to the library this afternoon, which so far seems like the best of the big public libraries in the various places I've lived in. I found:
- A big book about the traditional knitting styles of fishing communities around Britain, particularly ganseys and similar jumpers, with patterns included. I've wanted to learn to make proper Fair Isle jumpers for ages, and this book will be a great resource—it has not only the instructions but background about the history and context of the clothes. The author apparently made a journey around the coasts gathering knowledge from local knitters as the traditions were dying out in the late twentieth century, and it all looks like fascinating stuff.
- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, which I'm sure will be terribly exciting. I think this was one of Catherine Morland's favourites.
- Doreen by Barbara Noble, which I found by the tried and true method of looking along the shelves, seeing a Persephone edition and going 'ooh, those are usually relevant to my interests!'. I have a love-hate relationship with these editions, because on the one hand they're really pretty and well put together, they are usually relevant to my interests and the distinctive style makes them easy to pick out on library and bookshop shelves, but on the other hand they don't have summaries on the covers, which is extremely annoying and means it's always a bit of a gamble picking one up. We shall see how this one goes.
- Waverley by Walter Scott, which I am now thirty pages into. I've read Ivanhoe and Rob Roy, and my general opinion of Scott based on those is that he has an amazing talent for creating really interesting situations and then approaching them from the least interesting possible angle. However, when I remembered what Waverley is about it seemed inevitable that I'd have to read it, and so far the protagonist does seem to be a bit more colourful than those of the other books. He's just got to Scotland, so I await what happens next with some interest. :D
- Two different editions of A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, which I didn't take out because I already have a copy, but which it was very good to see. I abandoned the trilogy after Sunset Song because I thought it must be impossible to say anything more after such a ridiculously perfect book as that, but actually I probably will get round to reading the other two at some point, so it was good to be reminded of it.
Adaptation ambivalence
May. 31st, 2019 08:08 pmSo, I hear the Good Omens TV show comes out today.
I feel like I ought to have stronger feelings about it than I do. I'm not going to watch it for a while for the practical reason of not having Amazon Prime, but even without that I don't think I'd want to plunge enthusiastically in straight away. Good Omens is one of my favourite books ever, there's a new TV adaptation, the adaptation at least seems to be doing some interesting new things with the material while also honouring the original and particularly Terry Pratchett's vision of it, the cast looks good, the trailers are fun, Neil Gaiman has said some very encouraging things... and I just don't seem to be able to care about it very much.
Perhaps it was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that did it, like a character in a folk song swearing that she'll never love again after one boyfriend cheats on her. I do seem to have felt differently about adaptations in general recently, though—like, they're there, they can be fun, they can be an enjoyable extension of a story I loved in the original, but they don't, ultimately, mean very much. (I'm listening to the third series of the Raffles radio adaptation at the moment. It's fun; it's an enjoyable extension of the stories I love; it doesn't mean very much.)
Perhaps it's the general new! exciting! mood of the whole thing that I can't get on board with. The TV show does look pretty relentlessly contemporary, setting update and all, and as someone who tends to deal with the general horribleness of the present by taking refuge in old stories, I feel like there's not much for me there.
I don't know. I saw that picture of the seat they left for Pterry at the premiere and it's made me very emotional about not being very emotional about it. I'll probably watch the thing eventually, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I do.
I feel like I ought to have stronger feelings about it than I do. I'm not going to watch it for a while for the practical reason of not having Amazon Prime, but even without that I don't think I'd want to plunge enthusiastically in straight away. Good Omens is one of my favourite books ever, there's a new TV adaptation, the adaptation at least seems to be doing some interesting new things with the material while also honouring the original and particularly Terry Pratchett's vision of it, the cast looks good, the trailers are fun, Neil Gaiman has said some very encouraging things... and I just don't seem to be able to care about it very much.
Perhaps it was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that did it, like a character in a folk song swearing that she'll never love again after one boyfriend cheats on her. I do seem to have felt differently about adaptations in general recently, though—like, they're there, they can be fun, they can be an enjoyable extension of a story I loved in the original, but they don't, ultimately, mean very much. (I'm listening to the third series of the Raffles radio adaptation at the moment. It's fun; it's an enjoyable extension of the stories I love; it doesn't mean very much.)
Perhaps it's the general new! exciting! mood of the whole thing that I can't get on board with. The TV show does look pretty relentlessly contemporary, setting update and all, and as someone who tends to deal with the general horribleness of the present by taking refuge in old stories, I feel like there's not much for me there.
I don't know. I saw that picture of the seat they left for Pterry at the premiere and it's made me very emotional about not being very emotional about it. I'll probably watch the thing eventually, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I do.
Linguistic accidents
May. 8th, 2019 07:54 pmI really dislike how the word 'consume' is applied to stories (in various media—books, films, video games, songs etc.). Something that's consumed is used up, destroyed in a single event, passed up the trophic levels of the ecosystem. If I consume a piece of cake, it's gone, no one else can eat it, but with stories you can literally have your cake and eat it too—if I read a book, the book is still there just as it was before for other people to read, and this applies to both the particular physical copy and the book as an abstract object. I think this distinction is important, because it's fairly fundamental to how stories work.
(It doesn't work in the capitalist sense of 'consume', either, because that just means buying products—capitalism doesn't care whether I read the book. I think this is another area where conflation of concepts is not a good idea).
It's especially frustrating because I don't get the sense that people are using the word this way out of any particular wish to liken reading a book to consumption, but simply because English doesn't have a convenient catch-all word for reading a book/watching a film/playing a video game/listening to a song/etc. (See also: how much grief we could have avoided if 'asexual' and 'ally' hadn't happened to begin with the same letter).
(It doesn't work in the capitalist sense of 'consume', either, because that just means buying products—capitalism doesn't care whether I read the book. I think this is another area where conflation of concepts is not a good idea).
It's especially frustrating because I don't get the sense that people are using the word this way out of any particular wish to liken reading a book to consumption, but simply because English doesn't have a convenient catch-all word for reading a book/watching a film/playing a video game/listening to a song/etc. (See also: how much grief we could have avoided if 'asexual' and 'ally' hadn't happened to begin with the same letter).
Birdwatching
Jan. 1st, 2019 06:11 pmYesterday: finished re-reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Today: went out for a walk in the countryside, saw a raven (in flight against the winter sky... <3).
Coincidence? I think not.
(Happy new year!)
Today: went out for a walk in the countryside, saw a raven (in flight against the winter sky... <3).
Coincidence? I think not.
(Happy new year!)
