Book report

[mrissa]

I got in and saw the chiropractor. She made everything go crack-crack-pop, and now it's clearly in the right place. Unfortunately, the muscles are also stiff and sore from being so extremely wrong ("that was really far out of place," said the chiropractor), so I'm still taking Advil and am trying to balance sufficient neck motion to keep it from thinking it's stuck in the bad configuration.

I'm a huge sucker for the 1920s, as I said, and Barbara Hambly did what I need in books about the '20s: she remembered that it wasn't all Jazz Age and Prohibition, but that for all adults in 1923, the Great War and the influenza epidemic were quite immediate, vivid memories. So I really liked that part of it. With all that said, I thought she spent too much page space on evoking things she'd already evoked perfectly well and not enough space on things actually happening. It wasn't a dull book, but it had stretches of nothing much, and for no particular reason I could see.

Also, I really felt that Bride of the Rat God strayed into some Nancy Reagan territory with its attitudes about cocaine. There was no Horrible Comeuppance for everyone who dared to use the stuff, so that was something, but it was still very...prim, I guess. Never tried it myself, don't intend to; in fact, I haven't tried any illegal drugs at all and don't intend to. But going to grade school in the 1980s has made me fairly averse to Drugs Are Bad messages, even when the specific pharmaceuticals are in the "I'd really rather my friends didn't" category instead of the "they hold no interest for me, but I don't care if my friends do as long as they're careful" category.

Anyway, thanks to yhlee for passing this one on.

I had not had sufficient nonfiction impulses to pick up Tolkien and the Great War until this weekend in the car. We all know (you don't? I'm telling you) that the Great War has burrowed into my brain and refuses to come out. A bit like greykev's brother's hedgehog and my mitten...anyway, I'd recommend this book to Tolkien fanatics, Great War fanatics, and people with moderate but not fanatical interest in both. Garth follows Tolkien and his immediate circle of school friends, and he manages to balance the group dynamic with our (and his) greater interest in Tolkien and Middle-Earth than in these other guys who were, I'm sure, very nice, but were not...were not Tolkien, is I guess the point.

Either the ending dragged a bit or my neck stuff made it difficult for me to focus. Possibly both.

Otherwise I read Laurence Klavan's The Shooting Script, which was mediocre, Joy Chant's Red Moon and Black Mountain, likewise, and Gary Paulsen's The Quilt, which reminded me of my deep-set personal hatred for Gary Paulsen. I would not spit on the man's shoes if I met him, but I would imagine doing it. I'm still mad at him for how he treated the dogs at the end of Winterdance. Also, Hatchet: HAAAAAAAATE. I am done giving this guy more chances. He is out of chances.

Most of the books I'd been avoiding from my to-read pile were...not that great, actually. Hmm. I think this is because I took the ones I suspected I would put down in favor of something better if I was at home. It didn't make for an unpleasant weekend, however, especially with the Tolkien book thrown in as something I hadn't had the energy for but wasn't actually avoiding.

Still. Maybe I just should have packed Athyra.

I'm now reading Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate, which has a good deal of momentum with the rest of the series behind it. I almost feel as though I'm racing to catch up with it. Almost. Not enough that it's overtaking such fascinating tasks as the laundry, however. And I'm starting to do well enough that I'm peering skeptically at the notecards, so we'll see about that.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Either the ending dragged a bit or my neck stuff made it difficult for me to focus. Possibly both.

The ending drags a bit. I really enjoyed that book, though.

[ellarien]

I finished it while standing on a hideously overcrowded intercity train last summer -- not ideal conditions for assessing the dragginess of endings -- but I tend to concur. It was one of the more memorable books I read that year, anyway, and I rather regret leaving it on the other side of the Atlantic.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

What did you HAAAAAAAAATE about Hatchet?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

EVERYTHING.

Paulsen is a patronizing shit who idealizes behavior I find useless at best and reprehensible at worst.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That's the one where a boy gets lost in the wilderness by himself and uses a hatchet to build a shelter and a bow-and-arrow set and so forth, right? Seriously, what useless and reprehensible behavior were you thinking of? All the behavior I remember in it is purely survival-in-the-wilderness oriented.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The behavior in Hatchet is more in the "useless" category than the "reprehensible" category. The "survival" portrayed is so far beyond unbelievable. sdn knows some kids who analyzed the odds of each step in the book because they were forced to come up with a school project for it, and the numbers they came up with were astounding. Plotting implausible, characterization flat and stupid, tone patronizing. Bah.

Paulsen is fond of idealizing "wilderness" or "traditional" things and telling other people how much better they'd be if they followed those ways and then running squeaking back into the arms of western civilization the minute it might help him in the slightest. He took stupid, useless risks with his dogs to prove his wilderness toughness and derring-do (in real life, as chronicled in his book Winterdance) and then didn't even say goodbye to them when the running squeaking thing happened. Bastard. You Do Not endanger your animals, and You Do Not leave them without settling them into their new place and saying goodbye. Selfish hypocrite assknot. HAAAAAAAATE.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Ah, Hatchet. *Shudders* One of a long string of books that put me off of the YA recommended lists at libraries.

My mother gave me Lois Lowry's The Giver when I was in high school, I believe out of some misguided attempt to get me to consider the YA recommended list again. Bad move on her part; I hated that even more.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have to say I hated Hatchet more than The Giver. Well, I probably don't have to. But I will anyway.

Still. I'm not sure whether the YA recommended list is generally worthless or whether I've just had the bad ones. Some children's recommended list stuff is okay, but YA recommended list...blerg.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Garth follows Tolkien and his immediate circle of school friends

Eep! That did not end happily.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, no, very little nonfiction related to the Great War does, really.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

This is very true. Most people did not have giant eagles to lift them out of No Man's Land.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In the sort of fantasy I write, they still don't. Sigh.