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some more books and some scattered thoughts
Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
It was okay. Certain aspects reminded me of A Day In the Life of a Troubled Male Antihero, but then, that is the point of A Day In the Life of a Troubled Male Antihero. It was only certain parts, though, because it takes so many people's perspectives and is that particular kind of warm/unkind about how far-reaching yet simultaneously banal human violence can be.
Iain M. Banks - most of the rest of the Culture series + Against a Dark Background
Generally speaking I really enjoyed the entire Culture series as good solid sci-fi reads. It doesn't force me to have feelings and it doesn't let characters control a story, yet the characters and situations are still compelling and interesting. It's not super cerebral, and not hard sci-fi either, and still also not space opera ... and though you can certainly read some political outlook quasi-propaganda in it, I never get the feeling that Banks is proselytizing, that he's enamored of his own fictional absurdly advanced culture.
Michael Chabon
Jacqueline Winspear - Maisie Dobbs and Birds of a Feather
A post-WWI English lady detective novel series. I liked it all right, I suppose I'd continue reading if I found the next book in the library, since it's not on Tuebl. It's still a bit ... I don't know. Something about it, about Maisie and the way the first two books have gone, strikes me as very conventional, a bit romanticized despite obvious efforts not to be. These first two have also been a bit prim for my taste. I don't demand all my mystery to be gritty serial killers heavy drinking chain smoking!! but it is. Genteel. And though class consciousness is very much a part of Maisie's character -- she was working class, worked as a maid, had her education paid for by a rich patron, and struggles a bit with negotiating her way through various levels of society, not to mention as a post-WWI lady detective -- I don't know, I'm kind of not into that. They are decent reads though.
Mark Mills - The Information Officer
Decent read. Sort of an "abandon at airport" book, unless you're super into Malta or something.
Robert Harris - Conspirata
The follow-up to Imperium, the story written as if by Tiro about Cicero. Roman politics turned up to 11!!! Backstabbing and scheming and vote-buying and threats and people probably not really sleeping with their sister but totally riding that reputation anyway! Julius Caesar sleeping with everyone's wives! Etc.
Fernand Braudel - The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Volume 1)
rocks back and forth silently pls no more
I also read three manga comix, Rurouni Kenshin, Deadman Wonderland, and Claymore. My best summary of Rurouni Kenshin: the Meiji era is peaceful but it was built on a mountain of blood and treachery, and Kenshin forces everybody, even total hardasses, have feelings about it until they stop trying to kill him with their fucking ridiculous sword techniques. Also, some of the villains have Marvel comics character designs, which the artist-author freely admits to in the intro sections.
Deadman Wonderland was OK, pretty fun read (warning for violence and not great depiction of trans* issues). Again with the protagonist forcing everybody, even total hardasses, to have feelings. I really am not sure how to analyze their trans character because I am not sure how the lens of Japanese culture (and whatever translation I read) changes things. What I would say from my perspective (U.S., cis) is that the backstory and characterization are not great and drawn from a number of gay stereotypes (a characterization choice which I thought was not at all in line with the character's overall personality and the one we see in the backstory) but the character herself is not villainized, victimized (in terms of the actual storyline), and not perpetually a source of ridicule or comic relief (she is casually antagonized on a number of occasions by crude characters and presented as flamboyant, flirtatious, etc.). There is a scene where she explicitly refuses to be destroyed by a psychic-esque recreation of the traumatic event in her past (all the characters have one, hers is additionally related to being trans), which I did appreciate. The characterization suffers most from its medium, honestly. Comics in general, and manga is certainly no exception, tends to use broad strokes and visual shortcuts, resulting in this kind of weird stereotype-dependent depiction. That's not really an excuse in my book, and the character is both kind and kindly meant, I think, but it's not great. I hope somebody else has thought about this more.
As for Claymore, it's ... actually it reminds me of Sailor Moon, except minus all the things I never liked about Sailor Moon -- sorta crappy story, sorta shallow characterizations, entire aesthetic -- and plus a whole lot more violence and gore. Like people get limbs chopped off a lot and impaled on stuff all the damn time. Maybe it's not really a compliment to say that it hardly reads as fetishistique at all, and my judgment of that may not be great anyway, but all the violence which I would ordinarily read as torture porn/guro, I don't. I mean, sometimes there are gigantic basically naked women striding over the landscape trying to murder each other, and I am 100% that is somebody's fetish, but it's also like, kind of great, regardless??? and the monsters they turn into, not all of them are really amazing, but man, some great design going on there.
Arguably, all the things I mentioned above as disliking in Sailor Moon are about as bad in Claymore. It's not a great story, though I find it more interesting, more complex, and better executed; characterization doesn't go super in-depth for many characters, but I still thought that it did an overall better job, both for those it did and those it didn't; and the aesthetic is actually quite similar in that the Claymore armor is not particularly armor-like and the visual effect is still that of a very short skirt, plus all the girls are supposed to turn blond and silver-eyed when they're made into Claymores.
However, the overarching theme impresses me (SPOILERS). An organization of men who have turned young girls into monsters for their own super shady reasons, who have manipulated them into risking their lives and even killing each other, who in fact often manufactured the horrible traumatic situations which led to the girls agreeing to become monsters -- and the story is like, 99% about the girls, about their relationships with each other, about how they find out the truth and what they decide to do. How they sometimes fight with each other, how some of them have been toxic and abusive, why they have been, how it changes. How they protect each other, or fail to. I liked that.
Pretty sure Tara has talked about exactly these aspects of Claymore before, but she was probably trying not to get too spoilery and now that I've finally worked through what's been put online (the series isn't quite over), it's neat to understand what she was saying.
It was okay. Certain aspects reminded me of A Day In the Life of a Troubled Male Antihero, but then, that is the point of A Day In the Life of a Troubled Male Antihero. It was only certain parts, though, because it takes so many people's perspectives and is that particular kind of warm/unkind about how far-reaching yet simultaneously banal human violence can be.
Iain M. Banks - most of the rest of the Culture series + Against a Dark Background
Generally speaking I really enjoyed the entire Culture series as good solid sci-fi reads. It doesn't force me to have feelings and it doesn't let characters control a story, yet the characters and situations are still compelling and interesting. It's not super cerebral, and not hard sci-fi either, and still also not space opera ... and though you can certainly read some political outlook quasi-propaganda in it, I never get the feeling that Banks is proselytizing, that he's enamored of his own fictional absurdly advanced culture.
- Use of Weapons - enjoyed it, though admittedly about halfway through I did the thing where I saw the underlying conceit and decided NO WAY IT CAN'T BE THAT THAT WOULD BE DUMB and ... then it was, it was totally the thing. But I liked it enough that it didn't ruin it for me.
- Excession - I really liked this one. It features the Minds (super advanced AIs) scheming and maneuvering, and a bunch of various alien cultures pooping their collective pants. Culture spaceships are run by Minds and they all have really dumb hilarious names, which is one of the most delightful parts of reading the entire series. "Of Course I Still Love You," "Resistance Is Character-Forming," "Frank Exchange Of Views," "So Much For Subtlety," among others.
- Inversion - This one takes place through the eyes of a person who is not only non-Culture but from a civilization that is just utterly unaware that the Culture, or like ... much of space ... exists, so it's different in tone. Didn't like it quite as much.
- Matter - I liked this one because it has the aliens who talk like google translate poetry.
- Surface Detail - this is probably my favorite, although it was confusing in parts because of the structure/use of simulated environments problem. There's a lot of maneuvering here too.
- The Hydrogen Sonata - this one is about the Subliming thing. It was one of the more SPACE ADVENTUUURE ones, if you like that, which I did.
- The State of the Art - a novella about when the Culture first came to earth, like, our world. REALLY FOR REAL.
Michael Chabon
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
- The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Jacqueline Winspear - Maisie Dobbs and Birds of a Feather
A post-WWI English lady detective novel series. I liked it all right, I suppose I'd continue reading if I found the next book in the library, since it's not on Tuebl. It's still a bit ... I don't know. Something about it, about Maisie and the way the first two books have gone, strikes me as very conventional, a bit romanticized despite obvious efforts not to be. These first two have also been a bit prim for my taste. I don't demand all my mystery to be gritty serial killers heavy drinking chain smoking!! but it is. Genteel. And though class consciousness is very much a part of Maisie's character -- she was working class, worked as a maid, had her education paid for by a rich patron, and struggles a bit with negotiating her way through various levels of society, not to mention as a post-WWI lady detective -- I don't know, I'm kind of not into that. They are decent reads though.
Mark Mills - The Information Officer
Decent read. Sort of an "abandon at airport" book, unless you're super into Malta or something.
Robert Harris - Conspirata
The follow-up to Imperium, the story written as if by Tiro about Cicero. Roman politics turned up to 11!!! Backstabbing and scheming and vote-buying and threats and people probably not really sleeping with their sister but totally riding that reputation anyway! Julius Caesar sleeping with everyone's wives! Etc.
Fernand Braudel - The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Volume 1)
rocks back and forth silently pls no more
I also read three manga comix, Rurouni Kenshin, Deadman Wonderland, and Claymore. My best summary of Rurouni Kenshin: the Meiji era is peaceful but it was built on a mountain of blood and treachery, and Kenshin forces everybody, even total hardasses, have feelings about it until they stop trying to kill him with their fucking ridiculous sword techniques. Also, some of the villains have Marvel comics character designs, which the artist-author freely admits to in the intro sections.
Deadman Wonderland was OK, pretty fun read (warning for violence and not great depiction of trans* issues). Again with the protagonist forcing everybody, even total hardasses, to have feelings. I really am not sure how to analyze their trans character because I am not sure how the lens of Japanese culture (and whatever translation I read) changes things. What I would say from my perspective (U.S., cis) is that the backstory and characterization are not great and drawn from a number of gay stereotypes (a characterization choice which I thought was not at all in line with the character's overall personality and the one we see in the backstory) but the character herself is not villainized, victimized (in terms of the actual storyline), and not perpetually a source of ridicule or comic relief (she is casually antagonized on a number of occasions by crude characters and presented as flamboyant, flirtatious, etc.). There is a scene where she explicitly refuses to be destroyed by a psychic-esque recreation of the traumatic event in her past (all the characters have one, hers is additionally related to being trans), which I did appreciate. The characterization suffers most from its medium, honestly. Comics in general, and manga is certainly no exception, tends to use broad strokes and visual shortcuts, resulting in this kind of weird stereotype-dependent depiction. That's not really an excuse in my book, and the character is both kind and kindly meant, I think, but it's not great. I hope somebody else has thought about this more.
As for Claymore, it's ... actually it reminds me of Sailor Moon, except minus all the things I never liked about Sailor Moon -- sorta crappy story, sorta shallow characterizations, entire aesthetic -- and plus a whole lot more violence and gore. Like people get limbs chopped off a lot and impaled on stuff all the damn time. Maybe it's not really a compliment to say that it hardly reads as fetishistique at all, and my judgment of that may not be great anyway, but all the violence which I would ordinarily read as torture porn/guro, I don't. I mean, sometimes there are gigantic basically naked women striding over the landscape trying to murder each other, and I am 100% that is somebody's fetish, but it's also like, kind of great, regardless??? and the monsters they turn into, not all of them are really amazing, but man, some great design going on there.
Arguably, all the things I mentioned above as disliking in Sailor Moon are about as bad in Claymore. It's not a great story, though I find it more interesting, more complex, and better executed; characterization doesn't go super in-depth for many characters, but I still thought that it did an overall better job, both for those it did and those it didn't; and the aesthetic is actually quite similar in that the Claymore armor is not particularly armor-like and the visual effect is still that of a very short skirt, plus all the girls are supposed to turn blond and silver-eyed when they're made into Claymores.
However, the overarching theme impresses me (SPOILERS). An organization of men who have turned young girls into monsters for their own super shady reasons, who have manipulated them into risking their lives and even killing each other, who in fact often manufactured the horrible traumatic situations which led to the girls agreeing to become monsters -- and the story is like, 99% about the girls, about their relationships with each other, about how they find out the truth and what they decide to do. How they sometimes fight with each other, how some of them have been toxic and abusive, why they have been, how it changes. How they protect each other, or fail to. I liked that.
Pretty sure Tara has talked about exactly these aspects of Claymore before, but she was probably trying not to get too spoilery and now that I've finally worked through what's been put online (the series isn't quite over), it's neat to understand what she was saying.