Books read

[cimorene]

1. Martha Wells - All Systems Red. Finished this for only the second time since I first read the series! I am in general a rereader, but the series is still somewhat new. It's interesting to see what I remembered and what I forgot. Overall, I was impressed again by just how neatly the plot is developed, and all those early amusing moments of characterization. I amused myself picturing things and trying to vary how I pictured them - it's not that I DON'T picture as I read normally, but the images are often a bit nebulous and disconnected, definitely not movie-like. I don't typically imagine an entire photographic-style setting. I made a bit of an effort this time. Also realized I have been picturing Meera Syal, who plays the sneaky brown sister Veerin in The Wheel of Time, all along as Dr Mensah. Wax checked the casting, and it's obviously not her - but Noma should be really good.


2. EF Benson - Queen Lucia. 1920. As mentioned last week, this is the first novel in the so-called "Mapp and Lucia" series of 1920s rural English comedies of manners by the then-popular novelist. They have been adapted twice for British television, which was how I first heard of them, but I enjoyed this a lot. The novel has a masterful and hilariously understated evocation of several exasperating types of foible, including those of the titular character, who is a type of person I absolutely hate (what I called Fake Nice as a child, but this one's also controlling and hypocritical: my parents were very active in the Unitarian Universalist church and other social groups, so I had ample opportunity to observe several people with these qualities, though none whose characters contained as much united awfulness as Lucia's does). You could say she's a type that I love to hate, though, of fictional characters at least, since she is mostly harmless - and less annoying when you aren't forced to interact with her, as I was with various hypocritical controlling and Fake Nice ladies as a kid. I did find the penultimate portion of the novel with its slight injection of romance a bit unnecessary, although I think I can see why it's there - the author needed a pretext for tying up loose ends; and there's the saving grace that it is fairly clear from earlier in the novel that the POV character (a rather fabulous and ridiculous little man who seems pretty much gay, tbh, but you know, 1920) is more narcissistically imagining himself in love than truly impassioned.

Did not finish Arnold Bennet's The Grand Babylon Hotel, which I mentioned last week. The beginning was fun, mainly in the portrayal of the operation and surprising purchase of the hotel; but about 40% of the way through I noticed that it was written pretty transparently to have a contrived cliffhanger at the end of each chapter, and one of the main characters was being so stupid that there was no possible rationale except 'wanted her to do it because it was dramatic'.

In progress:

1. Chrétien de Troyes's 12th century Arthurian romances in Kibler and Carroll's prose translation. I'm about 37% finished with the whole collection, which is to say, most of the way through the second story, Cligés, which is not nearly as enjoyable as Erec and Enide, and it has involved a bit of skimming. The funny thing is that apparently this story is generally thought to have been composed as a counterargument (?) to Tristan and Isolde, and indeed, the characters talk about not wanting to be like Tristan and Isolde repeatedly. The level of sophistication in the arrangement of circumstances to be uh, an obvious counterpoint to them and also interesting is... low? It's pretty silly.
   
   Medieval romances typically feature heroes and heroines who are paragons of virtue and what with the hyperbolic exaggerations typical of oral folklore which they tend to feature as well, it's not uncommon to hear that they're the most beautiful person in the world, that every single part of them is perfect, that a gift they're given is the most expensive and best-made whatever-it-is in the world and completely encrusted with gems, that all the people in the town are eager to declare how much they adore them and it's definitely the first time that many people have ever loved anybody that much... etc. etc. In other words, they frequently get a bit My Immortal. But this one does it even more than the last one. It has a tournament where the hero specifically goes and orders four entire sets of color-coded arms and armor and then he brings four different horses, and he appears on four consecutive days in the different outfits and separately defeats King Arthur's four best knights (according to the story) but ALSO hordes of other random knights in the melee, more than anybody has ever defeated at one time before, and in spite of being the most modest guy who ever jousted, he is detected on the last day and followed around by hundreds of knights insisting they want to pledge fealty to him and they are not worthy. Also there are two DIFFERENT women in this story who are the most incredibly beautiful woman to ever exist, which makes one wonder if they were identical. As a counterpoint to the increased silliness, though, this one includes an absolutely insane magical plot where the heroine marries a villain (sort of) but gives him a magic potion that causes him to fall asleep as soon as he goes to bed for the rest of his life, believing that he's awake and having sex, but actually not, so that she remains SECRETLY chaste, and then later she fakes her death with a different potion.


2. EF Benson - Miss Mapp. 1922. Sequel to Queen Lucia, with a different type of controlling upper middle class lady. I'm only at 11% of this one, and so far she has mostly watched people from behind the curtains and judged everybody. She seems like an annoying person but so far less annoying than Lucia (she doesn't babytalk, for one), although the beginning of the book is not quite as funny yet.


3. Martha Wells - Artificial Condition. The second Murderbot book. This is the one with ART, and that's my favorite side character, so I'm having a good time. It's a really interesting and exciting part of the mystery, and the new clients are extremely foolish but it's mostly hilarious to me instead of alarming and frustrating, which is how that type of character often strikes me. Maybe because the Murderbot's narration filters it all with dry, doleful pessimism?

Comments

[msilverstar]

You might enjoy "Chivalry" by Maurice Keen, quite some detail and citation of sources. and the various biographies of William Marshall (such as "William Marshall, the Flower of Chivalry" by Georges Duby). Chrétien undoubtedly knew about Marshall, and likely met him. He started off lowerclass, then pulled himself up to the kind of knight who won in melées and ransomed his defeated opponents' equipment, then kept succeeding, winning courtly-style tournaments and being a smart cookie until he ended up regent of England.

[cimorene]

Interesting, I'm so used to thinking of this society as fictive that that gave me a moment's pause! I probably should read something like that at some point.

[the_grey_hunt]

Love to see someone enjoying Murderbot. Have you ever read the very short prequel?

[cimorene]

I think I remember reading all of them when I first read it, from a list online somewhere. That definitely included something short, even if I don't remember it at all anymore. But I'll reread it as well when I get to it in publishing order.