Curtsies and Conspiracies
This is another hugely enjoyable book from Carriger. Once again our girl Sophronia is thrown into difficulties at her alleged finishing school. This time she has a lot more to do with the supernatural element of her world, especially the vampires. Of course there’s a lot of discussion of dresses and fashion and hats and reticules; she must figure out how to carry a knife without it being obvious, she must learn to bat her eyelids effectively, and how best to carry the implements required of a young lady in her position. I’m still surprised by how enjoyable I find yet another school focused book.
Most of this book is spent on the dirigible of Miss Geraldine’s finishing school. Some time is spent in classes, learning about domestic economy, poisoning, fainting and how to properly address vampires. But for Sophronia, much of her time is spent on the outside of the dirigible – climbing – as well as with the sooties down below and the dressing-as-a-boy Vieve. Interestingly the plot follows on from Etiquette and Espionage, in that the MacGuffin here is the same. Of course this time it’s not so much about finding the prototype as it is about figuring out what it can do, how it will do it, and who will control it. There’s a surprising amount of politics for a book that seems at least on the outside as being solely can send with fashion. I guess that’s kind of the point; that the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive and anyone who is thinks they are is likely to underestimates graduates of Miss Geraldine’s finishing school.
One of the big differences in this book compared to the original is that there’s a lot more boys. I’m not really sure what I think about this; on the one hand it’s obviously an important skill for girls like Sophronia and Dimity to learn – that is, how to deal with difficult yet handsome young man. And of course reappearing in this book is Soap, certainly one of my favorite characters although somewhat problematic given that he’s black and his nickname is Soap. On the other hand I really enjoyed the almost exclusively female cast of the first book; the fact that boys were not necessary for the book to proceed, the fact that the girls were perfectly capable of getting themselves into and out of scrapes generally without any male assistance (or hindrance) at all. While some of the ways that Sophronia dealt with her would-be suitors was entertaining, I did find myself enjoying the sections of the plot that solely involves the girls generally more enjoyable.
I continue to be fascinated by the development of this world that Carriger initially developed for the Alexia books. And of course I remain desperately keen to find out how this series will intersect with the earlier one. One of those intersections is quite obvious but I have no doubts that Carriger will provide some further surprises in the rest of the series.
The Oxford History of the French Revolution
Overall this is a very readable book about the French Revolution. I’m not sure it would work for the complete novice – because I’m not, so I can’t judge that anymore. But it gives a generally thorough overview of the French Revolution and, interestingly, its impact on the wider world; Ireland and Poland both get mentions as being inspired by the Revolution itself during the Revolution, and the rest of Europe by virtue of conquest, with Latin America being mentioned in passing. Haiti also gets a few mentions in terms of the uprising there inspired by the Revolution.
I have two complaints; one stylistic, the other content. The first is that some of the writing is a bit obscure, in that sentences could definitely have been better formulated to avoid confusion. The second is Doyle’s attitude towards women. On the first page he mentions ‘an empty-headed queen’, and doesn’t really walkabout Marie Antoinette much except in terms of being anti-revolution. On one of the last pages he mentions that equality between men and women was never going to be a thing, despite women’s contributions to the revolution – which he’s mentioned about once, with the Women’s March to Versailles, which would be hard to avoid – but there he talks about women pushing matters to extremes, and Mme de Stael as ‘Necker’s busybody daughter’ (!!), and Theroigne de Mericourt and Olympe de Gouges and Claire Lacombe only once each. I found this very disappointing. Of course you can’t mention everyone in one book, but surely these women deserve more than just the one line dismissal of their contributions.
I would still recommend this a very good overview, keeping in mind that no single book is going to be perfect.
The Golem and the Djinni
This post should be read in conjunction with Mondy’s review, because I read it when he first posted it which is, clearly, a long time before I read the book, and it influenced my reading of the Jewish (and by extension Muslim) bits quite a lot. Also, this is another book given to me by Katharine, because she is a great big book nerd.
And this post is pretty much spoiler-filled. You’ve been warned.
Over on Goodreads, I gave this four stars, because I rounded up; I would have given it 3.5 for preference.
On the good side, this is really nicely written – it wasn’t a chore to read it, I generally enjoyed the switches of narrative perspective, and the Golem and Djinni both provide interesting perspectives on humanity. In fact I think this is the strength of the book (… and this is interesting given I read it very soon after The Just City): these two characters give Wecker the opportunity to think about volition and control and desire through two creatures whose natures are intended to be opposites. The Golem is created to be obedient, and lacking a master means that she has to think through controlling herself, and how not to respond to every whim she encounters, and it’s really hard. When at liberty, the Djinni was accustomed to doing exactly what he wanted and when, indulging any whim he might feel without reference to any consequences. Now restricted by the iron cuff, he’s unable to take any form he wants – so there’s an external restriction – and living as a human means that at least to some extent, he needs to learn about consequence and responsibility. So it’s a bit like watching two toddlers learn about how to be responsible human beings, when those toddlers have superhuman strength or the ability to liquify metal, and who already look like adults and so are treated as such by those around them – no leeway like actual toddlers get. I really felt for the Golem as she wanted to restrict herself and not lash out; I sympathised with the Djinni for feeling imprisoned and also that he wanted to encourage the Golem to actually explore who she is.
I really liked the way that Wecker always referred to the Golem and the Djinni in those terms. As Mondy points out, this is a good way of showing that they’re outsiders. Although they have been given names by those around them, they do not fit in.
I don’t know why Wecker chose the end of the 19th century for her story; it could just be that it was a period that she liked. Post-WW1 could have worked, I think, because living in the Roaring 20s would have allowed all sorts of interesting discussions. (Clearly post-WW2 would have required too many other discussions that would get in the way of the story Wecker was trying to tell.) Anyway that aspect mostly worked; I’m no expert so I have no idea whether it was accurate or not.
On the more negative side, there were a couple of things that really bummed me. Sophia Winston is a big part of that. She gets seduced by the Djinni and doesn’t appear to regret it – fine. She gets pregnant to the Djinni and then loses it in a mystical manner and then her body doesn’t recover and then the Djinni is taken to her house to warm up post-suicide by cooling attempt (… because she’s got the closest fireplace or something? Saleh’s thinking was a bit of a stretch there). And then apparently this is a sign to her family that her reputation is ruined and so her engagement is called off and she goes off on a tour of Warmer Climes (the Mediterranean) aaaannddd… that feels like a really raw deal and I didn’t much like how she was basically just used as a toy by the Djinni and then kinda left, lost, by Wecker.
And the ending really didn’t work for me. Constant reincarnation because the nasty magician is bound to the Djinni? It was sprung on me too quickly, with no prior suggestion of spirits being reborn, so it felt really jarring. Although I did like the eventual taking of the copper flask back the djinnis to look after, getting the magician into the flask was also dubious. And finally, the suggestion at the end that the Golem actually Has Feelings for the Djinni? nonononono. I do not like this suggestion at all. Not because I don’t think she should be allowed to have feelings, but because a romantic relationship there destroys what I thought was interesting about their relationship. These are two completely opposite non-humans trying to live in human society. A romantic relationship just weirds things out.
I enjoyed reading it, but I don’t think I’ll be reading the sequel.
Mrs Dalloway
My mother has been a bit vaguely sad at me for not having read this in the past, so I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet. I read and adored Orlando waaaay back in first year; I couldn’t get through To The Lighthouse. I have seen The Hours (and brought home the book, from my mother). So that was my context. Plus a vague suspicion that this was going to be depressing.
At least it’s better than James Joyce’s Ulysses. Which isn’t saying much, except the truth.
So yes. Depressing. With occasional glints of wait – is this actually as depressing as I think it is? Or is this just… life? With occasional regrets and obviously things that are difficult but hey, for Clarissa at least, this isn’t SO bad. (I’ll get to Septimus.) I was so conflicted and in need of debriefing that as soon as I finished reading it I had to call my mother, who was very amused by my reaction. Yes, dear, I think it is meant to be a bit depressing and horrifying. Oh good. She also pointed out to me just how obsessed the book is with TIME. I had noticed that Big Ben is almost a secondary character in its own right, but I hadn’t really clued into time being referenced EVERYwhere. Which makes the story even more poignant. And depressing.
Imagine, an entire novel about an upper class woman’s ordinary day! How absolutely extraordinary that must have been.
And of course, it’s not JUST about Clarissa Dalloway. Her daughter, her friends, all get a little bit of time for their own thoughts… almost always coming back to Mrs Dalloway. The one exception is Septimus, who is completely unconnected to Mrs Dalloway except that they are physically close by one another very briefly, and that his absolutely appalling doctor is a guest at Mrs Dalloway’s party. This was one of the most heartbreaking fictional descriptions of shell shock I’ve come across.
I vaguely remember the discussions about modernist literature and what it was trying to do (that class was a very long time ago). I find Woolf’s style intriguing – and so very different from what I normally read – so many semi colons! And it occurred to me that while this isn’t Joyce’s stream of consciousness – ugh; it’s unreadable – it’s very close to replicating thought patterns, and indeed speech patterns. It approaches verisimilitude and while I am absolutely certain Woolf sweated blood to produce it exactly as it is, it comes across as effortless. As simple and … naive is wrong. So is innocent. Unsophisticated, perhaps, where sophistication means cunning and artifice and tricksiness.
I liked it. I will read The Hours soon. I will probably reread this, now that I know what I’m in for regarding the plot – and I’ll pay more attention to the descriptions than I did this time.
The Great Cat Massacre
I heard about this book a long time ago, probably in the context of a university history subject that was attempting to give students an overview of different ways of approaching the writing of history; it was preparatory to undertaking Honours. It was probably mentioned by Peter McPhee, discussing the idea of cultural history. At any rate, I thought of it on and off but never got around to it, and then a friend gave me a copy when culling their library of extraneous books. So I read it today. And overall, it was very good.
Darnton’s approach is an anthropological one, in an attempt to understand the mentalite of sections of Old Regime French society. He doesn’t claim to be getting to the heart of 18th century French culture, nor completely understanding any one individual. Rather this is meant to be a beginning, showing a possible methodology (or road, using one of the metaphors in the book) that might allow Anglo-Saxon historians to do something the French have been doing for a while and, in his estimation, sometimes doing poorly.
There are six chapters. The first three essentially go through three different classes (DANGER WILL ROBINSON!) and look at a particular piece of culture as a way in to understanding, in some way, that person, group, and indeed the cultural milieu of France. I think I loved the first chapter the most – looking at peasants through the lens of folklore. It is the one that he describes as most ‘impressionistic’ and I get the feeling he feels almost guilty over it, and certainly worries that it appears least to rely on evidence. But it is wonderfully written, sets the context for peasant life beautifully (acknowledging the problematic nature of ‘generic peasant’), and does some really intriguing stuff in looking at variations in folkloric traditions within France and then between France and England, Italy, and Germany. He warns the reader off the idea of thinking you can completely ‘understand’ people, but suggests this as a way of better grasping how people approached their world.
The second chapter is the titular one, and is also deeply fascinating as it explores relationships between apprentices, journeymen, and masters; it also looks at the role of tormenting cats, which – whoa. The third looks at what must be a really bizarre text created by a man living in Montpellier, which seems to want to present the entire town as text and which Darnton uses to try and get at what it might have meant to be or think of oneself as bourgeois.
The second half is focussed on even more ambiguous groupings. The fourth chapter was kind of hilarious as it looks at the police reports written about ‘men of letters’ in the mid-18th century – written by a man whose job was basically to keep an eye on these producers of culture, and who makes all sorts of comments on their appearance, their literary worth, and who they’re connected to. I can’t help but imagine what a similar set of ASIO files would look like for Melbourne’s literary scene. The fifth chapter was, sadly, almost impenetrable for me: it looks at Diderot and d’Alembert and their constructing the Encyclopedie. There’s a lot of discussion of various philosophical ideas and modes of constructing knowledge and so on that I just didn’t get; Darnton presupposes a lot of understanding in his readership here that he doesn’t presuppose in knowledge of French society. Which surprised me, and disappointed me somewhat. Anyway, the last chapter is about reading Rousseau and changes in ways of reading. Darnton explicitly says not to but I can’t help but read the letters that readers of La Nouvelle Heloise as the most awesome fan letters ever; there’s a lot of weeping and sighing and offers of sex, basically. (I thought I would get to the end of the chapter feeling guilty about not wanting to read Heloise but Darnton reassures me that it’s almost unreadable to a modern audience. HOORAY.)
I had two issues with reading the book. The first, site-specific, was the opaque nature of the fifth chapter. It really bugged me. The second was the lack of women. Yes, there probably were fewer literate women at the time. Yes, digging up evidence of women’s contributions to culture can often be problematic. But the man is using folklore as real and useful evidence; I don’t think that difficulty ought to be used as an excuse here. Even in that chapter on peasants it felt like there was an emphasis on men – he uses the Perrault versions of the stories as his ‘literary’ comparisons, and of course the Grim brothers, and acknowledges that Jeanette Hassenpflug was the latter’s source, but Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy gets one mention only. And there’s no discussion, really, that women may have been involved in the transmission of stories, except in telling them to the men who wrote them down. And he does mention women as running salons when discussing the men of letters, and of being patrons, but again only in passing. I don’t know what else is out there; I would really like to have seen some discussion at least of the difficulty of finding women, perhaps as a challenge to later historians.
Overall this is a generally approachable book – not for the completely un-historical, but fun if you’re interested in the development of culture and different styles of Doing History.
The Devil You Know
This book was provided to me by the publisher at no cost.
In this novella, KJ Parker has taken the idea of Faust and puts his own spin on it. In most versions of that story, Faust makes a deal with the devil – in the person of Mephistopheles – whereby Faust gets all of his desires seen to and the devil gets his soul after some specified period of time. Classically, Faust panics at the end of the deal; of course the irony is that all Faust has to do to get out of the deal is to ask God for forgiveness and he’d be fine.
But this isn’t a review of Faust.
Saloninus is the greatest philosopher-scientist of his age, and possibly of all time. This is a secondary world, but Parker amuses himself by attributing numerous real-world achievements to Saloninus, I guess as a way of stressing how awesome Saloninus is. He makes a deal with… well, the being is never clearly identified as a demon, but that’s clearly the idea. Saloninus gets youth and twenty years of the demon being at his beck and call; he gives up his soul in return. Right from the start the demon is suspicious – why would such a man want to sell his soul for a mere twenty years? – and that’s what drives his(?) narrative throughout. Saloninus’ deal isn’t entirely clear.
One thing that got a bit annoying was the frequent switch in perspective, between the demon and the philosopher-scientist. In the version I read, an ARC to be sure, there wasn’t an easy way to tell the difference between narrators until, sometimes, a paragraph or more into the new section. Of course I got there, but there was more work involved than was necessary.
Overall, it was a fairly fun take on the idea of selling your soul.
SPOILER
The one real reservation I have is that the ending really didn’t work for me. I just wasn’t convinced by Saloninus’ motivation at all.
Cibola Burn
It’s weird. I did my mammoth James SA Corey re-read specifically in order to read this and then… it took me a while to really get into it. Partly, I think that’s because it was jarring to go from the familiar to the not but with some familiarity; it kind of threw me. And then there’s the fact that most of this book is set on, or orbiting above, a planet. I mean, there’s been bits set on Earth before, and quite a lot within the inhabited asteroids, but – a planet? as the main setting for an Expanse novel? That’s just weird.
But, eventually I got there. And of course I’m glad I did because this, really, is the conclusion to the arc that started with Leviathan Wakes (… although I’ve just bought the fifth novel and there’s a sixth due next year, so I don’t really know what’s going to happen there).
As always, there are multiple narrators. The prologue starts with Bobbie Draper, which is mean because it meant she wouldn’t feature and I really like Bobbie. Anyway. The first chapter is Basia, and it took me a little while to recognise the name (and a rather obvious hint, actually): but this is Miller’s acquaintance from Eros, the one whose little boy was kidnapped at the same time as Mai. He’s been part of the first wave of people to head out through one of the gates that’s now opened to the galaxy; basically, they’re squatters. Which is mostly fine, since their planet has a nice store of lithium for digging up and then selling – but because of that lithium, there’s a corporate ship coming with offical Earth papers that say the planet is theirs for the mining. Of course, why should an Earth piece of paper make a difference? And so Basia gets caught up with the wrong people (saboteurs) for the right reasons (family and freedom). He has many difficult decisions to make over the course of the novel.
The second narrator is Elvi, a scientist who is coming to the new planet (whose name depends on which side you’re on) with the corporate ship because heck, wouldn’t you? Chance to check out (what should be) a pristine new environment? Of course things go wrong (see previous comment on Basia’s friends), but she does at least get to do some science. I wasn’t always happy with Elvi’s narrative; I’m particularly conflicted about the romantic aspects, because while I think I understand it, it did feel a bit like “oh a lady must feel romance” and that makes me sad. She does get to be a kickass scientist though, which I guess is a consolation.
Third is Havelock, and I am so embarrassed by how long it took me to figure out who this was. It wasn’t until there were really obvious comments about being an Earther and being part of Belter security that I realised: this was Miller’s partner, back in the day. The one he warned off when things were getting difficult for Earthers. So we have a marvellous set of call-backs to the first novel, here. I mostly liked Havelock, although his tendency to just follow and mirror what his leaders are doing got pretty old. I enjoyed the perspective he allowed, though – it did add a nice rounding to the story.
And fourthly, of course, what would an Expanse novel be without James Holden? Oh Jim. Seriously. This time, he’s involved precisely because of who he is: one of the most notorious men in the solar system, renowned for a disturbing sense of decency and fierce love of truth. Who better to negotiate between Belter squatters and an Earther corporation? BAHAHA.
Also, of course, Miller is still around and being annoying in Holden’s head. In fact, the artefact gets its own occasional appearance in the narration of the story…
Not quite as enjoyable as the previous novels, but still a really solid SF story… and the epilogue makes me rather excited for the fifth.
You can get Cibola Burn from Fishpond.
Zeroes
This book was provided to me by the publisher at no cost.
I wanted to adore this book. I really enjoyed it, but I didn’t adore it. I’m trying to work through why…
Some general comments and then spoilers will be flagged.
The premise is one of superheroes, where the heroes are adolescents and most of them don’t feel, or want to be, heroic. Their ‘powers’ aren’t obvious (no one is turning green) and sometimes they don’t seem particularly useful, either. At some point in the past they’ve discovered each other and tried to work together, to see whether and how they might become a team… but then it turned sour, and they haven’t really worked together for a year. But when one of them is caught up with the police (his own fault, really), he asks for help and things go from there. Up, and down, and twisty-windy. The plot revolves around accidentally stolen drug money, a bank robbery gone very wrong, people in the wrong place and a bunch of teenagers trying to fix things and occasionally messing up.
We get chapters from each of the Zeroes, although not always alternating; the story begins from the perspective of Ethan (Scam), then Kelsie gets the fourth chapter and then gradually the others are introduced. This structure is exactly as useful as it seems, with multiple perspectives on events and people and ideas. It was an aspect I really liked, but it also contributed to one of the reasons I didn’t adore the book (I didn’t fall in love with any of the characters; more on that below). The characters are nicely varied: girls and boys, different ethnic backgrounds, one blind, families of different structures (those that we see anyway). They definitely have different personalities, which are not entirely tied to their ‘powers’ – which is great. There is some connection (Kelsie can work a crowd and loves going out dancing, for instance), but the question of cause and consequence isn’t tied down.
I liked that the action takes place over just a week; there’s no interest here in dragging a story out. It’s fast-paced over all, as it needs to be when there’s scary underworld types involved and things need to get fixed pronto. There are a few adults around – more parents are mentioned and briefly involved than you might expect in a teens-save-the-world story – but they don’t get in the way of said teens getting into a lot of trouble. The story is set in Cambria, which it turns out is really a name for a town in the US; I don’t know whether it’s intended to be set in the real town or not, but at any rate it’s a dinky little town rather than NY or Chicago, say, which I think is an interesting choice. It lets the characters develop their powers before having to deal with The Big Smoke, I guess (bets on that happening in a later novel?). There’s little real world building – it’s the America of today, and the city itself plays little part in the story, so there’s no need to make it really come alive.
Now, SPOILERS.
Patchwerk
I received this book from the publisher at no cost.
This is a really hard story to talk about without major spoilers. So initially, let me know: the premise is quite clever – man makes machine that may well interfere with the very fabric of reality – and there are some nice points of world building. There’s a point at which you may well wonder whether your version of the text has somehow been corrupted (I did), but it’s actually the story itself, as you discover when you keep going (… unless your copy actually is corrupted…). However, I had some issues, mostly in the characters which I’ll mention in the spoilers section; partly it was in the prose itself, which at times just felt clunky.
Ancillary Mercy
This book was provided to me by the publisher at no cost.
Spoilers ahead for Ancillary Justice (reviews here and here – yes I loved it enough to review it the second time around) and Ancillary Sword.
Sooo… first thing to admit: it took me reading someone else’s review to realise that Justices, Swords and Mercies are all the sorts of ships that Breq is in charge of. How embarrassing that I did not realise that.
Secondly: yes, I love this series, I love Leckie’s work, I love Breq and the world she inhabits. My love is true and remains unshaken.
Further note: I’m just going with ‘she’ to refer to everyone, when I have to. I think there’s one person whose gender is actually confirmed (… maybe…insofar as that ever can be in these books) and it just does violence to my brain to go with he/she when Leckie herself (ahaha) goes with SHE. So nyer.
As with Justice to Sword, Mercy starts almost immediately Sword finishes off. I quite like this, since it means there doesn’t need to be any tedious filling in of blanks. It also means I’d like to see an omnibus edition where you can just read the whole lot, start to finish. It wouldn’t even be that much bigger than a complete edition of The Lord of the Rings. Breq continues to have issues with Anaander Mianaai, ruler of the Radch and therefore of civilisation as the Radch defines it… Continue reading →
Randomly Yours, Alex 