Nursepuppy and footnotes
Jan. 23rd, 2006 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaKind of dizzy and shaky today. I have managed both breakfast and lunch for both myself and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
timprov, and markgritter is getting his own lunch now, and missista is being a pretty good puppy. She's started sleeping on the bed we bought her for in my office, when I'm sitting at the computer. She'd clearly rather that I was on one of the couches or in bed, but even the best pup in the house can't always get what she wants. (For one thing, it would make the song really hard to scan, wouldn't it?) She was nursepuppy for the timprov for a little bit not very long ago, which was very sweet. (Nursepuppy considerately provides a soft petting surface for people who may need one. She also holds down people who should not get up and occasionally provides puppy kisses to hands, feet, knees, ears, etc.)
Trying to get rid of our old furniture before our new furniture arrives. This is not as easy as it sounds. I do have one of my specialist appointments lined up, though, and I'm waiting for calls back on the other two.
I'm reading Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, which is a mystery with Jane Austen as the detective. The thing that's bothering me most about it is that it is not in our genre. I don't mean that I want Jane Austen to be doing spells or genetic engineering, but that the author is working from an entirely different set of assumptions about what is acceptable incluing and what must be presented in infodump. She footnotes things. And she footnotes things that should be perfectly obvious from context. Some of the footnotes are to carry on the framing device that these are discovered diaries and letters of Jane Austen's (which framing device I find utterly unnecessary -- we can figure out that they are, and I don't need to play pretend that they were found in somebody's basement), but others are to explain customs like use of first names being confined to very close friends and relations, which are clear enough without being smacked over the head with them.
I know that this isn't wrong, it's just different, a different set of assumptions about why and how the reader is reading the book. But I find them intrusive, a constant reminder that this book may entertain me but will not become one of mine deep down. Not all mysteries do this. Gaudy Night is mine mine mine. So maybe it's not a genre thing after all; I don't know. Anybody else?
timprov, and markgritter is getting his own lunch now, and missista is being a pretty good puppy. She's started sleeping on the bed we bought her for in my office, when I'm sitting at the computer. She'd clearly rather that I was on one of the couches or in bed, but even the best pup in the house can't always get what she wants. (For one thing, it would make the song really hard to scan, wouldn't it?) She was nursepuppy for the timprov for a little bit not very long ago, which was very sweet. (Nursepuppy considerately provides a soft petting surface for people who may need one. She also holds down people who should not get up and occasionally provides puppy kisses to hands, feet, knees, ears, etc.)Trying to get rid of our old furniture before our new furniture arrives. This is not as easy as it sounds. I do have one of my specialist appointments lined up, though, and I'm waiting for calls back on the other two.
I'm reading Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, which is a mystery with Jane Austen as the detective. The thing that's bothering me most about it is that it is not in our genre. I don't mean that I want Jane Austen to be doing spells or genetic engineering, but that the author is working from an entirely different set of assumptions about what is acceptable incluing and what must be presented in infodump. She footnotes things. And she footnotes things that should be perfectly obvious from context. Some of the footnotes are to carry on the framing device that these are discovered diaries and letters of Jane Austen's (which framing device I find utterly unnecessary -- we can figure out that they are, and I don't need to play pretend that they were found in somebody's basement), but others are to explain customs like use of first names being confined to very close friends and relations, which are clear enough without being smacked over the head with them.
I know that this isn't wrong, it's just different, a different set of assumptions about why and how the reader is reading the book. But I find them intrusive, a constant reminder that this book may entertain me but will not become one of mine deep down. Not all mysteries do this. Gaudy Night is mine mine mine. So maybe it's not a genre thing after all; I don't know. Anybody else?
