Books and Media
16 Dec 2025 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimorene1.
I had a good time rereading all Heyer's mystery novels in the last couple months, although I find the classism, ableism, fatphobia, and misogyny baked into Heyer's work more irritating as I get older. The worst offenders are in her historicals, though, not her mysteries. I paid more attention to her plot structure this time: it is pretty weak in her mysteries and apparently the actual mystery plots were invented/worked out by her husband, and she just did the writing? The characters, and especially the humor, are really her shining strength, and the books are very enjoyable to read in that way, but the plots can be quite lazy. Also it's amazing and eternally fascinating to me what a hard on Heyer had for queeny gay-presenting men. There's several theses worth of psychological weirdness in her books on this front.
2.
Diana Wynne Jones, along with Patricia Wrede (in a tie at the time, but I haven't been able to read Wrede since RaceFail 2009), was my favorite writer from childhood. I particularly reread the Chrestomanci Quartet, Fire & Hemlock, and Eight Days of Luke constantly as a kid, so I didn't reread those right now, only the ones that I couldn't fully remember. It's interesting to revisit things like this which are like... they're childhood favorites, but also books that I've reread many times since childhood (although some of them were published when I was an adult and I've reread them less). They are highly colored by my first impressions of them from when I was a child, though. I have noticed the way fat is treated in Witch Week since I was a child, but I always thought that it was sympathetic; that is, the fatphobia is a bad thing that happens to Nan even though it's somewhat internalized. But after rereading The Merlin Conspiracy, A Sudden Wild Magic, Deep Secret, Enchanted Glass, House of Many Ways, Conrad's Fate, The Pinhoe Egg, and The Homeward Bounders... no, there is a pattern of fatphobia. I think she probably was consciously against it, but it's stll there. It's also actually rather oppressive and claustrophobic, when reading them all in a row like this, how much the overarching thread through her children's books is people not listening to and believing children. And less seriously... ADHD characters is maybe the most notable thing all the books have in common.
3.
Of course Christie, like Heyer, has lots of racism, sexism, and classism scattered throughout her work. The other day I picked up a paperback collection of Parker Pyne stories that belonged to my MIL, who was a big Christie fan. These stories are mostly not murder or crime stories, but rather light-hearted tales about a wise little man who uses his comprehensive knowledge of human nature to make unhappy people happy again. Several of them deal with marital fidelity and divorce. These are much more cheerfully and openly misogynist than is usual for her mystery novels, to the extent that the book was unintentionally funny. A middle-aged housewife is suffering because a scheming young girl from the office who wears makeup is preying on her husband, who insists he's just spending money on her out of friendliness. This housewife is sent to a famous beauty specialist for a makeover, then a dressmaker for fashionable clothes, and then a handsome young actor is sent to start taking her out everywhere until her husband gets jealous. Part of the 'psychological' treatment is the handsome actor telling the housewife that he's really fallen in love with her and is going to give her up and go reform his character and stop being a gigolo, which makes her completely contented to forgive her husband when he drops the office girl. A handsome and athletic yuppie's wife is too 'highbrow' and 'intellectual' and wants to leave him for a struggling artist but he still loves her, and the consultant has an actress play a young athletic woman who plays golf and tennis with him and convinces his wife and her friends that she's in love with him, telling the wife subtly that being 'highbrow' is how to lose a husband and that actually a wife should pretend not to care about art and literature and just get a personal coach in order to get good at country club sports even if she hates sports because she is obligated to care about her husband's interests. Once the wife drops the artist, the husband spoils the plan by falling in love with the actress. When a retired empire-building army officer consults Pyne because he is depressed by the lack of adventure in his life, Pyne sends out the actress to find out what his "type" is (fair, frail, sweet, helpless), and Pyne then selects a girl matching this type from... a file that he apparently has... of single girls who are unhappy and would like to meet a man??? And then he hires Ariadne Oliver to write an adventure-thriller plot to happen to the guy and this girl, arranging for some Black men to be apparently attempting to kidnap her outside an empty house when the guy walks by and rescues her. The girl was not in on this!! He decoyed her to this rural location to be the victim of a kidnapping attempt just so she could be rescued!!! There follows a silly intrigue plot that the girl and the guy work out together, in the course of which they get engaged, because a young professional good-looking girl is as inevitably attracted to any old retired middle-aged army guy as he is to his "type".
4.
This one is better than Glass Onion and overall fantastic, but it's not as perfect as Knives Out was. (I suspect Johnson had probably been mulling over Knives Out for a very long time before making it.) Some great performances and visual design. Some hiccups in translating the tropes into the modern day, though. Lovely to think of architecturally-sound 19th century churches around the northeast being kept up and meticulously cared for and staffed with two priests and a live-in caretaker even if they only have like six regular parishioners, but yeah, you can't squint too hard at that part. Also I'm gonna have to dig out that reading list and read the others: in the process of reading through the classics of between-wars Golden Age detective stories, I have read stuff on purpose knowing it wasn't that great, but one thing I haven't done is keep reading a writer after their stories relied on the supernatural at their solutions, which is what the first John Dickson Carr story I read did. That's why I never read any of his other books. It was a pretty fun read though, so it won't hurt to read another. The movie reminded me more of Murder is Easy than of the two Christies on the list, The Murder in the Vicarage (Marple) and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Poirot), although I see why those two are there (they contributed to the design of the crime).
5.
I haven't watched the fourth episode yet. It is fun tv that I'm finding watchable, although the sex scenes are boring me even though, aswaxjism keeps saying, they do contain characterization. It's interesting that it made a show this good and this well-written when the concept seemed destined to be bad - and it does look like the books are probably much less well-written than the show is. I'm not that interested or invested in the actual character arcs and interpersonal plots, but the fact that they're like... there, and pretty much well-written and constructed and shot, is still such a novelty that it's interesting anwyay. I haven't watched the last episode yet though.
I had a good time rereading all Heyer's mystery novels in the last couple months, although I find the classism, ableism, fatphobia, and misogyny baked into Heyer's work more irritating as I get older. The worst offenders are in her historicals, though, not her mysteries. I paid more attention to her plot structure this time: it is pretty weak in her mysteries and apparently the actual mystery plots were invented/worked out by her husband, and she just did the writing? The characters, and especially the humor, are really her shining strength, and the books are very enjoyable to read in that way, but the plots can be quite lazy. Also it's amazing and eternally fascinating to me what a hard on Heyer had for queeny gay-presenting men. There's several theses worth of psychological weirdness in her books on this front.
2.
Diana Wynne Jones, along with Patricia Wrede (in a tie at the time, but I haven't been able to read Wrede since RaceFail 2009), was my favorite writer from childhood. I particularly reread the Chrestomanci Quartet, Fire & Hemlock, and Eight Days of Luke constantly as a kid, so I didn't reread those right now, only the ones that I couldn't fully remember. It's interesting to revisit things like this which are like... they're childhood favorites, but also books that I've reread many times since childhood (although some of them were published when I was an adult and I've reread them less). They are highly colored by my first impressions of them from when I was a child, though. I have noticed the way fat is treated in Witch Week since I was a child, but I always thought that it was sympathetic; that is, the fatphobia is a bad thing that happens to Nan even though it's somewhat internalized. But after rereading The Merlin Conspiracy, A Sudden Wild Magic, Deep Secret, Enchanted Glass, House of Many Ways, Conrad's Fate, The Pinhoe Egg, and The Homeward Bounders... no, there is a pattern of fatphobia. I think she probably was consciously against it, but it's stll there. It's also actually rather oppressive and claustrophobic, when reading them all in a row like this, how much the overarching thread through her children's books is people not listening to and believing children. And less seriously... ADHD characters is maybe the most notable thing all the books have in common.
3.
Of course Christie, like Heyer, has lots of racism, sexism, and classism scattered throughout her work. The other day I picked up a paperback collection of Parker Pyne stories that belonged to my MIL, who was a big Christie fan. These stories are mostly not murder or crime stories, but rather light-hearted tales about a wise little man who uses his comprehensive knowledge of human nature to make unhappy people happy again. Several of them deal with marital fidelity and divorce. These are much more cheerfully and openly misogynist than is usual for her mystery novels, to the extent that the book was unintentionally funny. A middle-aged housewife is suffering because a scheming young girl from the office who wears makeup is preying on her husband, who insists he's just spending money on her out of friendliness. This housewife is sent to a famous beauty specialist for a makeover, then a dressmaker for fashionable clothes, and then a handsome young actor is sent to start taking her out everywhere until her husband gets jealous. Part of the 'psychological' treatment is the handsome actor telling the housewife that he's really fallen in love with her and is going to give her up and go reform his character and stop being a gigolo, which makes her completely contented to forgive her husband when he drops the office girl. A handsome and athletic yuppie's wife is too 'highbrow' and 'intellectual' and wants to leave him for a struggling artist but he still loves her, and the consultant has an actress play a young athletic woman who plays golf and tennis with him and convinces his wife and her friends that she's in love with him, telling the wife subtly that being 'highbrow' is how to lose a husband and that actually a wife should pretend not to care about art and literature and just get a personal coach in order to get good at country club sports even if she hates sports because she is obligated to care about her husband's interests. Once the wife drops the artist, the husband spoils the plan by falling in love with the actress. When a retired empire-building army officer consults Pyne because he is depressed by the lack of adventure in his life, Pyne sends out the actress to find out what his "type" is (fair, frail, sweet, helpless), and Pyne then selects a girl matching this type from... a file that he apparently has... of single girls who are unhappy and would like to meet a man??? And then he hires Ariadne Oliver to write an adventure-thriller plot to happen to the guy and this girl, arranging for some Black men to be apparently attempting to kidnap her outside an empty house when the guy walks by and rescues her. The girl was not in on this!! He decoyed her to this rural location to be the victim of a kidnapping attempt just so she could be rescued!!! There follows a silly intrigue plot that the girl and the guy work out together, in the course of which they get engaged, because a young professional good-looking girl is as inevitably attracted to any old retired middle-aged army guy as he is to his "type".
4.
This one is better than Glass Onion and overall fantastic, but it's not as perfect as Knives Out was. (I suspect Johnson had probably been mulling over Knives Out for a very long time before making it.) Some great performances and visual design. Some hiccups in translating the tropes into the modern day, though. Lovely to think of architecturally-sound 19th century churches around the northeast being kept up and meticulously cared for and staffed with two priests and a live-in caretaker even if they only have like six regular parishioners, but yeah, you can't squint too hard at that part. Also I'm gonna have to dig out that reading list and read the others: in the process of reading through the classics of between-wars Golden Age detective stories, I have read stuff on purpose knowing it wasn't that great, but one thing I haven't done is keep reading a writer after their stories relied on the supernatural at their solutions, which is what the first John Dickson Carr story I read did. That's why I never read any of his other books. It was a pretty fun read though, so it won't hurt to read another. The movie reminded me more of Murder is Easy than of the two Christies on the list, The Murder in the Vicarage (Marple) and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Poirot), although I see why those two are there (they contributed to the design of the crime).
5.
I haven't watched the fourth episode yet. It is fun tv that I'm finding watchable, although the sex scenes are boring me even though, as
waxjism keeps saying, they do contain characterization. It's interesting that it made a show this good and this well-written when the concept seemed destined to be bad - and it does look like the books are probably much less well-written than the show is. I'm not that interested or invested in the actual character arcs and interpersonal plots, but the fact that they're like... there, and pretty much well-written and constructed and shot, is still such a novelty that it's interesting anwyay. I haven't watched the last episode yet though. 
(no subject)
Date: 16 Dec 2025 04:50 pm (UTC)Though I won't catch all the nuances for sure.
(no subject)
Date: 17 Dec 2025 11:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 17 Dec 2025 01:48 pm (UTC)I enjoyed the movie, but I think possibly it might have hit harder if I had been steeped more in a Christian upbringing. Australia is very culturally Christian, but the only times I went to church growing up was for weddings and funerals, and Religious Education in school (Anglican, let's be honest - none of the other religions copped a mention) didn't convince me. I think most of the people I have seen it really resonate with have at least a bit more solid background, and it's very interesting seeing the range of reactions.
I also think that maybe seeing it in the middle of the day and not having lunch until 3pm may have affected my appreciation a bit, but it was really good to watch on the big screen, and at least when I rewatch it (which I will) I'll be able to pause it.
(no subject)
Date: 17 Dec 2025 02:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Dec 2025 10:47 pm (UTC)I was looking forward to this movie and I'm honestly bummed. So many good actors who I enjoy - totally wasted on this nothing movie. I also looked very cheap to my eyes. The terrible green screen in the first few minutes, barely any scenes shot outside.
(no subject)
Date: 20 Dec 2025 12:44 pm (UTC)I think it suffered a bit by being written from the perspective of Golden Age pastiche, where the church would be Anglican, and from the other half of the ideas arising from a desire to comment on modern reactionary movements, which are typically fundamentalist. There are Catholic reactionaries though - priests and even bishops - so he could have looked at how they work. It seems like instead there was a hasty, perhaps late attempt to turn a Baptist or whatever into a Catholic, presumably to feel more old world and institutional and perhaps because a catholic priest's required abstinence would create a stronger contrast for his illegitimate child and the slut-shaming of his mother.
(no subject)
Date: 20 Dec 2025 03:30 pm (UTC)Oh yeah, the first thing that threw me really off was that Josh Brolin had an illegitimate child and that he somehown didn't get blamed himself for this total lapse from abstinence. It would have made more sense for the parishioners to turn away from him or him being assigned to a new church but it sounded like everybody knew about his daughter.