BleakAlong - Post the Finalmente

Every time we finish a readalong, The Doors "This is the End" plays in my head the whole time I'm writing my final post. It's very distracting, especially because for most of my young life I was pretty sure that Val Kilmer was Jim Morrison and that is a very handsome movie poster, I tell you what. Have I mentioned this before? Possibly.

Anyway. Part of the reason I was behind most of the readalong is that I was listening to the audiobook, which is approximately 548 hours long. I enjoy audiobooks immensely because they allow me to pursue two hobbies at once (reading and knitting, or reading and spinning, or reading and eating...), but they do slow down my Goodreads challenge. Last night I went to bed with 3 chapters (two hours!) left, so I gave in and read the last ~50 pages in the paperback that Amanda sent me for our Secret Santa, and I am SO glad I did because the afterword to this edition is delightful. Elizabeth McCracken is a Dickens fangirl whose first sentence to her afterword apologizes to the reader for encountering an afterword at all following roughly 1000 pages of novel.

Not to mention that the splash page on her website is delightful.

Salute the McCracken.

How are we feeling now that mostly everyone we didn't like ::cough Skimpole cough:: and a few people we did - POOR JO - are dead?

They had nothing to do with it.

I had a shouty moment when Esther turned Woodcourt down and I was prepared to be Very Upset Indeed, but Jarndyce made the right decision - some might say unlike Dickens himself later in life - and while I dislike the idea that Esther was his to reward Woodcourt with, I support the final outcome of Esther being happy and loved for who she is.

You know who never calls Esther "Dame Durden"? Woodcourt.

We're gonna circle back to the birdcage theme for a second - remember that one from way back when? - to just mention that Miss Flyte names all her birds and probably has to recite them in order every night like Arya Stark, and with all the Ashes and Penitences and Wards in Jarndyces, she has a bird named Spinach. Bless you, Miss Flyte.

And bless YOU, Charles Dickens, on behalf of all the Volumnias of the world, with our spare little drops and feeble prismatic twinkling. You rapscallion, you brimstone bogtrotter, you brilliant and ginormous tool.

It's not your fault that sometimes in my head I get you mixed up with Charles Darwin.

BleakAlong - Post the Fifth: There Be Italics Ahead

Against all odds, the Oscars Movie Party on Saturday, the Oscars themselves on Sunday, and a dear friend's breakup today which necessitated an hour-and-a-half phone call to get all the details and express an appropriate amount of "what the fuck is that guy's problem?!?," I have caught up on Bleak House you guys.

And boy am I glad I did, because what the what is going on right now? NICE WORK ALICE in choosing where we've been ending up.

Until the fateful lack of clocks warning Tulkinghorn about his impending doom,

way to go, pal...

I spent most of this week's chapters thinking about who in this story are the villains and who are the heroes. Which ones are the worst/best, respectively? This ended up being mostly made up of a list of Who I Like Best in descending order. Dickens is doing an admirable job of directing our attention toward Ada and Richard, who at the outset seem to be the heroes of the piece. Ada is obviously the ingenue and Richard (can I call him Dick? Yes let's do) is the person who thinks he loves her so he must be the hero, right?

No. Primarily because we I don't like Ada in any role except Esther's darling and that Dick is... pigheaded and stupid, shall we say. I submit to you instead that the true heroes of the piece are Esther and Alan (Allan? I'm listening to the audiobook). While I know in my Tumblr-addled soul that Esther and Ada need to end up together, I was pleased by Alan comforting Esther about her looks when no one has done that yet areyoufuckingkiddingme?!?

Villain: Harold Skimpole.

For I am such a child, don't you see. AND CHILDREN CAN'T BE TRUSTED.

Lord he's just so awful and managed to snow everyone into believing him and I'm screaming internally like Leo at the Oscars (don't get me started but also Glenn Close and Gary Oldman have also not won Oscars so a little perspective please tumblr). Arrrggghhhhh.

And then there's Jo and I couldn't help but picture Dickens chuckling to himself about how affecting this death scene will be and how the ladies would just cry buckets of tears over poor Jo and his caaaaaa-*sniffle*-aaart.

There's a lot of death in this book, you guys. At least Lady Dedlock's secret is safe! Who shot Tulkinghorn? It definitely wasn't me, although I did harbor a suspicion that Tulkinghorn had a frisson for our Lady.

Poor Esther. I want to shake her and yell that NOTHING in this book is her fault and WHERE ARE THE ACTUAL ADULTS this book is peopled by children much like Frozen (also don't get me started). And then I will stride around London and Chesney Wold and administer slaps. To everyone. Asking Esther to marry you, indeed. BAH.

BleakAlong - Post the Fourth

Well well well. Here we are in week FOUR, which if you all recall was originally when we were supposed to be completely finished with this amazing Bleak House readalong.

I have a few things I'd like to discuss. Firstly, as much as I like Charley and want her to have a good life, I'm really supremely unhappy that it was Esther who got the ugly end of whatever mysterious illness they both came down with. Did she really deserve that, Dickens? No she did not. So why does it happen to her? I don't think necessarily that Dickens would have been on board with our working "so Woodcourt wouldn't love her and she would be free to live with Ada for the rest of her life" theory. But you never know.

(Also, 1850's germ theory: the era of We Haven't Quite Figured This Out, Have We?)

And then Boythorn is super-awesome and offers Esther his house to rattle around in, which is not at all a plot device to get Esther closer to Lady Dedlock, nosiree. It's just him being cheerful and nice and not at all creepy like the other jolly fat guy who likes animals.

Plot twist!

So last week I was really behind and missed the spontaneous combustion bit, and Alice and I discussed it yesterday and there's the moment where Guppy and Weevil nee Jobling are falling all over themselves to get out of Krook's room, and I couldn't stop picturing them as these two:

Guppy and Jobling, respectively.

which led to a conversation about dream casting for Bleak House. Shall we have at it to cover up that I'm STILL three chapters behind? YES LET'S DO.

Who would you cast?!?

BleakAlong: Post the Second-and-Third

I can't even believe you guys are still reading this book. I mean, the characters are all bland and the story is boring. Also Lolita needed to go further into the "juicy stuff."

Can we talk about the SUPREMELY DISMAL parenting going on in this book? I am fairly sure that it's on purpose, given Dickens's first examples of motherhood are 1) the horrible godmother/aunt 2) Mrs. Jellyby and 3) Mrs. Pardiggle.

And then we have Mr. Turveydrop, whose deportment is the envy of us all I am sure, but sir,

Although while he's a trial to everyone around him and will expect Caddy and Prince to wait on him hand and foot until he expires in a cloud of lavender water, he's not as emotionally manipulative as the horrid Mrs. Jellyby being snide and ridiculous and so dismissive of her daughter and the things she wants. PARENTING, you guys. I know it's not easy but seriously, get your shit together. And you, Rick. Yeesh.

Mrs Rachel from back-in-the-day is Mrs. Chadband? Ugh he is so gross and his utterly nonsensical "sermons" give me the giggles.

"When this young heathen now among us - who is now, my friends, asleep..."

Hah. But I love how Dickens just throws the detail of the Chadbands in as if it's not important - she just walks up in the middle of an unrelated chapter and is all, "hey, remember me? I made your childhood a living hell. Also I married a guy you don't yet know you hate. Peace."

I'm sure that won't come back around later. Anyway, the bird imagery continues, have you noticed? And Hortense comes in and begs Esther for a job but does it in a very interesting manner. The kind of manner where she promises to do anything... she's very hot-blooded being from France, you know... she'll take care of Esther better than anyone could ever...

BleakAlong: Post the First

Well, here we are in the first week of the #BleakAlong and I've managed to make it through ALL the reading!

This will not last, so I intend to celebrate while I can.

Okay, so far this book is about contrasts, yes? There's the excruciatingly obvious Mrs. Pardiggle vs. Mrs. Jellyby, whose husbands should absolutely have dinner together, Esther. And then there's Chetney Wold vs. Bleak House, and the different areas of London, and how the Chancery differs from the real world...

But there are some things I HAVE to talk to you about: are we established and all on board that Esther and Ada are as queer as a three-dollar bill? Poor Mr. Guppy and his awkward proposal.

GOOD; more on that later.

But first I want to talk about the wallpapers in this book. Ada's bedroom at Bleak House is full of flowered things - the wallpaper, the upholstery, everything. Is it because she is Virgin in this tale, Mr. Dickens? No need to whack us over the head with that one. Then there's Esther's room, with the hard working people on the walls, making hay and whatnot, because she'll be the housekeeper you see. Without any training I might add - Dickens, that's a stretch. But the description of the sitting room is what made me sit up (hah) and take notice. It's papered with birds. Birds, who represent freedom and innocence, but whose song - like the birds of the mad old lady at Crook's shop - is silenced, in the case of this room, forever.. Is this a hint to us that the Jarndyce judgement will never come down, or that it might not be everything it's cracked up to be once Chancery has its way?

Close readings are the best.

Are you as weirded out by Boythorn as I am? Alice pointed out that Bleak House predates The Woman in White, but it doesn't change the fact that I met Count Fosco first and therefore will never again fully trust a giant, overblown man who has a strange way with the beasts of the field. And I submit to you, my friends, that Wilkie thought there was something creepy about it too, which could be why the two characters resemble each other.

The exception that proves the rule.

There's so much stuff in here, you guys! We could do a week per chapter and I'd STILL fill up 2 pages of notes.

The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

So you all know I have A Thing about debut authors and how their books are generally... not so great. That's not to say that they won't get better, of course, and if your first novel is the best thing you ever produce and your name is neither Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell, I'm going to be pretty sad for you.

Maybe the thing that irritates me the most about these debuts is the superlatives that are used on the dust jackets. If someone's first work is stunning, gorgeous, groundbreaking, and phenomenal; where do they go from there? That's a lot of pressure! Especially when people are calling you the next JK Rowling because you're young, English, blonde, and (to be fair)  a pretty talented wordsmith at 23.

Correlation vs. causation, my dear Watson.

Now, don't get me wrong: The Bone Season is a grand ol' time and I not only enjoyed it thoroughly, I also look forward to reading more of Ms. Shannon's work while I weep in the corner about how I've done nothing with my life and young whippersnappers are published authors. But she's no JK, and The Bone Season is not "the next Harry Potter," so kindly ignore all that stupid hype.

The world Shannon has created is a kind of neo-Victorian clairvoyant Brave New World (although that's also one of my favorite books so y'know - also not the next Aldous Huxley, yadda yadda). It's got a whiff of Neverwhere about it, as well as some Soylent Green.

Paige is a clairvoyant in a London that diverged from ours around 200 years ago, when Edward VII went crazy at a dinner table, killed 5 people, and thus unleashed the clairvoyant curse on some of the population. The government operates as something of a junta, and most voyants have either joined the underground crime syndicate or sold out to the government for safety and work as terriers, sniffing out the illegal voyants. And of course Paige's strain of voyancy is special if not unique, and of course she doesn't know exactly how to use it. Clearly she needs a mentor.

You could just use honey, Mr. Miyagi, but whatevs.

There are twists and turns and Shannon does an excellent job of doling out information in just the right doses to intrigue her readers. There are some inconsistencies, and the pacing isn't super-refined. But I expect that she'll develop into a pretty phenomenal author if she can avoid the trap of writing novels in order to make movies, and it's all pretty engaging, especially if you threw it into you library request list without knowing anything about it except a vague feeling of "I heard this was good and maybe saw it on my goodreads feed."

7.5 out of 11 Ribbons for Dangling from in a Circus Act that No One Watches

The Bughouse Affair - Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini

I’ve mentioned my library’s 7-Day Shelf before, usually to bemoan my inability to return books on time; library fines are an actual line-item in my (mental) monthly budget. (Who has time for a real budget? I’m too busy spending money I don’t have!)

I did a quick sweep of the 7-day shelf at one point and came home with this GEM, but I’ll admit to the following mental process:

1) Wow, that cover is really awful.
2) What a terrible title.
3) Pronzini? Ahhhahahah!
4) *reads the first paragraph of the inner flap * Set in Victorian-era San Francisco! Yes, I’m reading this.

I may have been a leeeeetle biased going in. But nothing prepared me for the accuracy of my first impressions.

Except vast experience in Being Right, of course.

Story! Let’s start with John Quincannon, Male Lead, and his views on his attractive-but-widowed business partner:

“She was not a beautiful woman, but at thirty-one she possessed a mature comeliness that melted his hard Scot’s heart.”

That, my friends, is what some assholes  call a “neg” – the ostensible compliment that hides a criticism. Also, the descriptor “Scot” shows up 3 more times in the first chapter, just in case you didn’t catch it the first time around.

Other things you might have missed because you are stone-blind and have the mental capacity of a thimble:

• A mental map of 1890-something San Francisco. Don’t worry, this book will provide you with one! “Quincannon walked to Terrific Street, as Pacific Avenue, the district’s main artery, was called, turned into an alley, and entered a large building mid-block.” Good job making me not care at all about your whorehouse scene, Authors, because I’m too busy trying to navigate your commas.
• A definition of American Victorian slang, such as “yegg.” 
• Murderous hatpin-using pickpockets 
• Sherlock Holmes in the flesh

Sadly not this flesh.

Let’s define the word “yegg.” OH WAIT, we can’t, because unlike other, more obvious words (::coughbughousecough::) that are used in context over and over again – and defined on page 245 just in case you missed it – this one word is never explained.

Moving on to the hatpin-wielding pickpocket. This girl’s MO is to find a likely-looking victim in a crowd, jab him viciously with a hatpin, then cut his purse. Okay, I’ll buy that.  But what I will not buy is that your victims wouldn’t know the difference between an attack of biliousness and a jab with a sharp, supremely unhygienic object, to the point where a guy would die in short order of what he thought was a stomach problem. How deep did can one poke a hatpin without someone noticing blood?

It turns out that Sherlock wouldn’t have been a surprise if I’d read more than the first paragraph of the bookflap. And to be honest, I’d probably have put it back; after my experience with Death Comes to Pemberley, I’ve given up on pastiche.

One final quote because I just. can’t. stand it:

“The open-air California Market, known far and wide as San Francisco’s ‘entrepot of foods,’ ran for an entire block from Pine to California streets between Montgomery and Kearney.”

Oh good. Next time I’m up there, I’ll be sure to think about how everyone in the Middle Ages used to know what an “entrepot” was.  [Spoiler: it’s a trading post.]

The worst part about this book is that the authors have not only 40+ years of writing experience and 35+ published novels between them, they also have a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. EACH.

You’d think they would know how to set up some tension, create interesting characters without having to borrow them from somewhere else, and maybe add a plot twist so that it wasn’t the wife who did it.

Are you kidding me?

THE WIFE?!?

3 of 11 Poorly Plotted Pastiches*



*Don't get all excited, Authors. That third star is only because I got to spend an hour downloading Sherlock gifs. 

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

I’m pretty sure I thought this book and The Book of Blood and Shadow were the same for a long time. Oops.

SO! There's a story, and it's not that one! Alina is an orphan and a soldier in the Border Wars army, along with her best friend Mal who, of course, never notices that she’s a girl with feeeeeeelings. Specifically, feelings for him. Men!

Good call, Liz. 

There’s this thing in their homeland called The Fold, and it’s basically a wide piece of hell full of darkness and scary harpy-like creatures that have been known on occasion – every occasion – to try to kill anything human that tries to cross it. Alina’s division tries this journey because the coast is on the other side and it’s not really clear why, but during the battle Mal gets hurt and Alina’s long-hidden power presents itself: she can push back the darkness, possibly eventually enough to destroy The Fold and reunite the country.  Hurrah! But she is only a teenager and already behind in her studies of... magic stuff... because she's been busy kicking ass instead.

And then The Darkling, whose very TITLE screams BAD GUY but does anyone notice? NO, takes her to his little palace to help her learn how to use her power at something like a school for magic people, but since she’s the only one of her kind and he’s the only one of his kind, she falls for him a little right before Alina realizes that The Darkling is an anagram for King Lard (not really but it is) and runs away because he wants to control her. Seriously, MEN!  Always trying to make the ladies put their lights under bushels!

Alina runs away and meets up with Mal in the woods, there’s a bit about a stag with magical antlers, and then the end happens which I won’t spoil for you because I’m nice.

The front of this book trumpets, “Unlike anything I’ve ever read.” – Veronica Roth, Author of Divergent. On the flip side, if goodreads is to be believed Bardugo did about .35 hours of research into Russian Naming Conventions and Onion Domes before basing her world squarely in Mother Russia + Magicland. Here’s the thing: if Ms. Roth hasn’t ever read anything remotely like this before, then she doesn’t read enough, although that seems to have worked out pretty well for her own writing since she's wicked popular and all (MORE ON THAT LATER...). A second thing is: goodreads people are ridiculous. It’s a fantasy world, and while it may be based on Slavic culture, it’s pretty much the prerogative of the author to change things as she sees fit. Regular WASPy people wouldn’t be throwing a fit if the author had co-opted some Traditionally Western Stuff for her setting, so if you’re either 1) basing your knowledge of Russian culture on a fantasy novel or 2) not smart enough to figure out that this is FICTION, then you have bigger problems and should probably read a nonfiction book or Wikipedia or something.

Rant-y ran rant rant.

Anyway, this was interesting and the world was, for my money, very prettily realized and richly populated. I will pick up book 2 when the Internet starts jumping up and down about it, and I will hope for the best.

7.5 out of 11 Pseudo-Russian Patronymics

Bonk - Mary Roach

This book is subtitled “The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex,” and right from the subtitle the puns and jokes flow from Mary’s pen like… water. I said water! Get your mind out of the gutter!

I was giggling madly, hooting with laughter, or cringing while reading this. Roach’s style is that of Interested Observer (and Occasional Test Subject) of Science. Thankfully, the laughing and giggling happened more often than the cringing.

The guiding thesis to this book is pretty much what it says: where do science and sex overlap? And Roach found out some pretty interesting, often hilarious, things. I’m just… I’m just gonna give you a bunch of quotes and then maybe a list of the stuff that made my eyes go wide for one reason or another:

Theodoor Van de Velde on nurturing “the perfect flower of ideal marriage” and “combatting the forces of mutual repulsion,” which include “fermented clitoral smegma” [Ed. Note: UM WUT] and “bad breath,” which does not apparently include semen breath.
Because according to Van de Velde, a “slight seminal odor” can be detected on a woman’s breath within an hour after intercourse, and it can be “very arousing” for the man. (75) 

 Robert Latou Dickinson’s Atlas of Human Sex Anatomy included 14 thumbnail “Coital Diagrams” with titles like “Pillow Lifts Hips” and “He Diagonally Across,” but the publishers still objected so he tried to appease his publisher by replacing human forms with – I can’t even – entwining robots. (76)

Perhaps the publishers were worried about people using the book to put a spark in their sex lives?

There is erectile tissue in the lining of the nose. Sooo… nasal congestion is an erection inside your nose. (135)

 
In medieval times, it was believed that both women and men had “seed,” and that it was the mixing of the two seeds that created babies. Men, as we learn earlier in the text (and probably earlier in life), need to… err…. expel… their seed regularly. (There’s actually a scientific reason for this: if sperm get held in for too long, they start doing weird shit like growing extra tails and heads and probably hair and opinions.) So I suppose it follows that under the same paradigm women would also need to release their seed – apparently not connected to menses at this point – and those who could not would get hysteria – literally “womb fury – from lack of sex. At this point, I kind of picture my uterus waving its little fallopian tube arms about in RAGE, but I digress.

A medieval physician concluded that “By a long Detention there, [the seed] may be converted into VENOM, or a Poysonous Humour…” (Roach describes this guy as “typographically deranged,” which seems pretty accurate...)  Thus, one of the midwife’s jobs in regards to widows was to take “various oils with her fingers,” and “rub the part gently for a long time.” To expel the she-semen and prevent brain injury, you see. (214)

In conclusion, even though I usually refuse flatly to read non-fiction because life is non-fiction enough thankyouverymuch, this book was great, and Mary Roach lives in the Bay Area so I might have to email her and beg her to be my friend.

8 out of 11 Medieval Sex Manuals

*A final tidbit of learning for us all: “Nominations for a Nobel Prize…remain secret for fifty years. You make the claim, and nobody can prove otherwise until after you’re dead. Add one to your resume today!” (263)  

Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carla Rifka Brunt

How great is that cover? So great. 

I generally consider myself a stone cold (fox) of a woman; not a lot of things in real life make me cry - which my therapist says isn't something to be proud of, but what does she know? However, this book... this book, you guys.

I read the book jacket before starting in order to remind myself of what I was getting in to, which is always a stupid thing to do. Book jackets are designed to sell books, and they do a Very Bad Job of it. But my point is that the book jacket says those dreaded words, "debut novel," so I promptly tweeted this very snarky thing:

And then 40 pages later, when I was in a figurative flood of tears, I took it back. Because this is what a "debut novel" should be, written by someone with proven writing chops who has turned her face to long-form fiction, and it. is. gorgeous.

It is 1987, Junie is 14, and her best friend is her uncle Finn, who is a fabulous artist in NYC and also dying of AIDS. Quickly. Like, definitely before THIS narrative is over, let's just say that much.

So, here's the deal. This book is about loneliness and growing up and learning about yourself, and also about family relationships and how complicated they can be. And really,

because *I* have a gay uncle who is my favorite, and I am his favorite, and we both love art and Mozart's Requiem and while this isn't our story, it could have been, and I...

I actually had to put the book down a few times to SOB. So nice work, CRB. Puffy eyes at work is my best look.

9.5 out of 11 Clandestine Trips to NYC

The Book of Blood and Shadow - Robin Wasserman

I am compelling and mysterious! There is a shadow in my blood-colored eye! GET IT??

So now I have a library card and the books are starting to filter in - generally too fast for me to read in anything resembling a timely manner according to the library, which also (as it happens) objects to me making notes in the margins of its books. Library, I blame you for my newfound obsession with Post-It page markers. 

Ok, focusing on this book. I enjoyed this book much more than I... well, not more than I expected to. The nice thing about reading a hundred+ book blogs every day with the library request page open is that books just magically appear and I'm pretty sure I'll like them because otherwise I wouldn't have put the book in my queue. But I digress (shocker). I like this book because even though the heroine can translate Latin on the fly, she has a legit reason for learning to do so - and not just because she was home-schooled as a cancer kid (::coughJohnGreencough::).

I do, however, take SERIOUS ISSUE with the teenagers-solving-ancient-mysteries thing. Granted, the author gave us a moderately reasonable story here - information came to light that no one had seen yet, and the kids' professor hoarded it so they knew What Was Up. But still; as a general rule, I am almost as tired of this trope as I am of the two-rockin'-guys-one-clumsy-girl love triangle (TwilightandHungerGamesIamlookingatYOU!)

Make no mistake, there are many things Wasserman did right here. The aaaaaaangst of teenaged love is hard to watch, even when the participants to speak fluent Latin (unlike me who has had Wheelock's and sundry workbooks for years to no avail...). A few lines stuck out to me, and this one in particular:

"So Thomas had left her behind, alone. She had given him her heart and, apparently, he'd taken it with him as a parting gift." (p. 72)

Girl, I have BEEN THERE.

And then there's this totally legit point about how the author of the letters was writing 3 years post- Romeo and Juliet, and how can she accurately describe love without books like Pride and Prejudice or Gone with the Wind (not actually a love story)? Which makes me think that there must have been some equivalent that is lost to the ravages of time, so what were they? 

There's a buncha stuff that happens that I enjoyed but I can't tell you about because

(Alice that one's for you)

 But I liked it and you probably will too. 

7.5 of 11 Latin Translations (the hilarious dirty kind)