Of Swords and Parasols

What are you currently reading
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. Semi-autobiographical novel about the daily life (and sufferings) of a governess. It lacks The Tenant of Wildfell Hall's sheer awesomeness and "Screw you, misogynistic laws! Also you, romantic ideals of brooding Byronic heroes redeemed by the love of a Pure Woman." and is a much calmer and more sedate book in general, but Im enjoying it. (Not that there's anything wrong with calm or sedate, just a marked difference from ToWH.)

What did you recently finish reading?

The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino (trans. Rebecca Copeland). A feminist retelling on the Japanese myth of Izanami and Izanaki, through the eyes of Namima, a young woman who grows up in the shadow of her sister, who is meant to become their island's oracle, while Namima herself is destined to live in isolation, overseeing the island's dead. It's very good but also very frustrating, largely for reasons connected to the myth, and relentlessly draws attention to the unfairness and inequality of men's and women's choices and fates, and how they pay for their choices. Kirino also seems to be deliberately emphasizing Izanami's similarities to Eurydice and Peresephone in Greek myth, and throws in a bit of Hera, too. (Not that those tales don't also have parallels in other cultures too, Greek mythology is just the one that immediately stands out to me.) Though, while it's very good and interesting, I actually remained more emotionally unengaged than I was expecting. i'm not sure if it's the translation, or a subconscious defense mechanism giventhat emotional engagement would have led to much pain and despair. coffeeandink has a much better review here.

The Story of Saiunkoku Vol 9 by Kairu Yura and Sai Yukino. Final volume of the series. This is all sidestories, set before and during the main plotline. On the one hand, I enjoyed this a lot due to attachment to the characters and the stories themselves were enjoyable. On the other hand, it's very frustrating because volume 8 ends with Shuurei about to embark on an important journey at a major turning point in her life. Thanks to the first season of the anime, I've seen considerably further into the story, but reading this reminds me of my bitterness that not only will the second season probably never be released in the US on DVD, but the light novels will probably never see the light of day here, either.

Who is AC? by Hope Larson and Tintin Pantoja. Graphic novel about a girl whose cell phone zaps her with magic powers. Entertaining, but I feel like I didn't really take anything away from it. Probably because it rather feels like the creators were only just starting to do what they wanted by the end. I assume it's the beginning of a series.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Lost Stories. Anthology GN of short comics set between various episodes of AtLA. Cute and entertaining, but largely forgettable, aside from a few stories.

Kitty and the Midnight hour by Carrie Vaughn. First book of an urban fantasy series about a werewolf who's a nightshift DJ for a radio station, and accidentally turns her show into an advice line for the supernatural. I REALLY liked the talk show part and it had a nice vibe of making the reader feel like you have your own private therapist. OTOH, pretty much everything about werewolf culture as portrayed here made me queasy (I mean ,we weren't supposed to like it and Kitty wasn't happy about it and it wasn't portrayed as hot or kinky or whatever, I just wanted to hide in a hole every time it came up) I hated almost every male character in the book (and I am sideeyeing the choice of Kitty's apparent love interest, but we'll see) and Kitty's few relationships with other women in the book are pretty negative, except for her mother, who we see little of. I kept thinking that things might improve re: her relationships with other women, but they didn't, though one could later. Still, I enjoyed large bits of it, and it looks like a lot of the things I didn't like may have been done away with as of this book, and I intend to read the rest of the series, though it really drove home how the few urban fantasy series I've been reading the last few years really lack a lot of the things that bother me about the genre, or at least handle them better/in a way that's easier for me. (Also, awkward situation in this book where, aside from the "kill Kitty" part, I kinda rooted for the antagonist.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise. Three volume series bridging some of the gap between ATLA and Korra, focusing on the origin of Republic City. The charcters felt a bit off at times, but it's a good followup to the series. I'm miffed, though, that after a certain important bit, it kinda...forgets all about Mai. Then again, the series itself was a bit guilty of that at times. Also, Aang and katara constantly refer to each other as "sweetie," which made me want to gag eventually. Not out of any objection to the pairing, it was just way way too much. (Also, I can really only see them doing that so much at their ages to harass Sokka.)

Omens by Kelley Armstrong. Start of a new series, and one that, based on this book, is a far cry from Armstrong's women of the Otherworld series. A wealthy socialite, Olivia, gets dropkicked into the wrong kind of spotlight when it's revealed that she's adopted and that her biological parents were infamous serial killers, andteams up with her biological mother's ex-lawyer to investigate her mother's claims that they're innocent. It's structured more like a thriller than anything else, with hints of the supernatural sprinkled throughout, though it isn't made clear until the end whether or not the supernatural is involved, or just superstition. I liked it, but am more interested in seeing where ARmstrong goes from here than in a lot of the book itself.

What do you think you'll read next?

Manga, the second Kitty Norville book, whatever else I have on hand.

I read a bunch of Sabatinis last year (largely his earlier books, which are in the public domain) and they were fun, but kind of blended together in my head. Mistress Wilding, which uses the Monmouth Rebellion as its backdrop, and which was my first sabatini for this year, largely blends in as well, but it gets special mention for some of the earlier drama, which goes like this:

OUR HERO, ANTHONY: Ruth, I have a terrible reputation that I have completely earned and am conspiring against the king-just like your brother-but am desperately in love with you!

OUR HEROINE, RUTH: Anthony, you're awfully cute, but I've done some checking around and it looks like you have earned a lot of that reputation. Also, I am a royalist, and while I can't dump my brother, I can dump you.

ANTHONY: I'll go get drunk now.

RUTH'S BROTHER, RICHARD: I am drunk and really hate that guy. I'm positive he would never do anything to the brother of the woman he loves, so I think I'll just throw my beer in his face for saying my sister has nice eyes.

ANTHONY: You. Me. Pistols. Noon work?

RICHARD: ... That did not go as planned.

RUTH: Clearly, I have all the brains in the family. Since I can't dump you and am actually a bit attached to you, I'll go try out my feminine wiles on my ex now.

ANTHONY: Ruth, I'll totally spare your brother.

RUTH: Oh, thank you!

ANTHONY: If you'll marry me.

RUTH: I knew I dumped you for a reason.

RUTH'S SPURNED SUITOR, BLAKE: Nooooes! I must have her fortune for myself! I mean, her, Totally her. Not just her money. I, too, am a follower of Monmouth, but I'll totally sell him out to get Ruth's money. I mean, Ruth.

RICHARD: Blake, my buddy, my pal, what's with this letter addressed to Anthony Wilding that details out Monmouth's plans and totally outs my soon-to-be-brother-in-law as a traitor?

BLAKE: Oh, I stole that from a messenger. We'll turn it over to the loyalist magistrate and get Wilding executed.

RICHARD: I...feel this must somehow be wrong of us to do but really, I just want to get rid of this guy.

BLAKE: BRB, gotta visit the loo. Don't do anything while I'm gone.

RUTH: Richard, what is that?

RICHARD: Ruth! You're totally free! We'll just use this to get Wilding executed. I mean, you'll be a widow, but you were literally married 5 minutes ago so I'm sure no one will expect you to dye all your clothes bla-hey, what are you doing with that!

RUTH: I don't want him dead! I just don't want to live with him!

RICHARD: But-

RUTH: SCRAM!

ANTHONY: My beloved! Are you ready for some awesome wedding night sexings?

RUTH: Actually, I was thinking I'd just stay here, in my own bedroom.

ANTHONY: Babe, I love you, but not enough to live in the same house as your brother.

RUTH: Actually, I was thinking you'd go back to your house and I'll stay right here.

ANTHONY: Hey, remember our bargain? We did just get married 10 minutes ago! And I told you you could redecorate.

RUTH: Actually, I was thinking I'd chill here and you'd go away and not bother me and in return, I won't use this letter to have you executed. And maybe crush your entire rebellion along the way.

ANTHONY: This is not going the way I'd planned at all.

RUTH: That's karma for you. Toodle-oo!

ANTHONY: Suddenly, I need a cold shower.

The other Sabatini I've read so far this year is The Trampling of the Lilies. A couple days before I started reading this, I was thinking that it might be interesting to see how the "we were friends/lovers/would-have-been-friends-or-lovers-without-pesky-class-and-allegiance-differences when young but now there is War and we are Enemies" trope would work with a romance set in the French Revolution with one a Royalist and the other a Republican*, and then I read this and that's basically what it was. In my head (and probably rather naively so) there was a lot less conspiring to force her into marriage. Then again, I kind of feel that a lot of the Sabatinis I've read might be best titled as "101 Ways To Attempt To Trick, Coerce Or Manipulate Ladies Into Marrying You Yet Somehow Remain Inexplicably Likable, With Swords and Politics Thrown In For Kicks." Anyway, largely fun book, and not as overwhelmingly biased towards one side or the other in its depiction of the revolution as most fiction set then that i've encountered.

I think I was reading Baroness Orczy's I Shall Repay at the time, which was quite fun when it was about Juliette's revenge quest but got trying when Juliette an Deroulade were trying to outdo each other in self-sacrificing.**
**A while back I conspired to get a lot of public domain books added to my work website, and they largely consisted of Sabatini, Orczy, and a bunch of 19th century (and a few Edwardian) ladies.

I have to say, people certainly aren’t kidding when they say that the Miss Marple adaptations get rewritten a lot. But then, I’m not sure how to avoid that when your title character is usually a supporting character. (Obviously, some things got changed more than others, especially in the more recent versions.)

The character of Miss Marple, the “old biddy” sitting in the corner who no one takes seriously but who is actually a brilliant detective who uses her observational skills and knowledge of human nature to solve crimes, is actually only the main character in couple of her books. In most books, she plays a supporting role, and has relatively few scenes in a couple, and the POV characters are often the person she eventually helps, and some books have multiple POV characters. As such, I think the success of individual books depends a lot on how much you like that book’s POV character. While I don’t know if Christie ever actually intended for Miss Marple to be a serial character, I actually think this works interestingly in prose, especially as Miss Marple is frequently isolated from the actual action, and often solves crimes based purely on how events have been related to her (this is more evident in the short stories than in the novels, I think). I remember a Poirot episode where they made a big deal of Poirot being able to do this once, and have to laugh at that now. That said, while it’s interesting in prose form, it’s not something I think would work well on screen, where Miss Marple would likely come across as a bit of a deus ex machina. (Though, that’s basically what she is in the novel for The Moving Finger, where she doesn’t appear until about ¾ through, when the main character is getting absolutely nowhere with anything.) The adaptations, though, also portray her as considerably more worldly than the books, which…doesn’t make her skills less impressive, necessarily, but does remove the “wow, you figured out the killer’s 10 layer alibi while knitting a scarf because of how your neighbor’s gardener was lazy and didn’t weed well?” effect.

As mysteries (and, often, character studies), these are excellent, but as books I actually don’t like them a whole lot, at least partly because they’re so classist and xenophobic. I mean, I noticed this with the Tommy & Tuppence books, but it wasn’t as bad there, and I can tell that it’s being lessened in the adaptations, and I can accept (not like, but muster through) a certain degree of that with older books, but here, Christie frequently had me drawing up short with how frequently everyone but white, upper-class British (and the occasional American) existed only to provide clues, or to show how much better the white, upper-class British people were. This may have almost caused my eyes to become permanently stuck behind my eyelids a few times when the esteemed one had no discernable useful skills and was literally hanging around, waiting for someone to die and hoping they were still in the will.


The books are:

Murder at the Vicarage
The Body in the Library
They Do It With Mirrors
A Murder is Announced
4.50 From Paddington
A Pocket Full of Rye
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
The Moving Finger
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder

And a number of short stories in various collections. I read a collection that was all the Miss Marple short stories

Noel Streatfeild’s “Shoes” books (many of which were renamed to carry the “Shoes” title) are largely-independent books focusing on children and the performing arts. The leads range in age from around 9-12, and most of the books I’ve read take place over at least a year, with most leads being siblings (biological or adopted) or cousins. The books I’ve read focused primarily on female leads, including when the main leads were of mixed gender, but I don’t know if that holds true of all the books, or if part of why these books remain in print is that youthful interest in the performing arts is considered to be more of a “girly thing.” The most well known of the books is Ballet Shoes (and it was the recent BBC movie based on this that made me seek the books out), and the ones I’ve read are it, Theater Shoes (originally Curtains Up, Dancing Shoes (originally Wintle‘s Wonders), Skating Shoes (originally White Boots, and Party Shoes (originally Party Frock).

The books are in general quite endearing with realistic leads and entertaining stories, but, from a perspective from 2010, are also interesting for a few other reasons. Written between the 30s and 50s, several of these take place during WWII, and offer considerable detail about daily life during rationing, and, meant for children, a more upbeat approach to making do than most stories I’ve encountered (most written after the fact) and are more about making do than suffering. They also offer very intricate detail about the training, rules, regulations, and competitions regarding children and the performing arts in the times, as most of the books have children receiving training in the arts, and considering careers in the arts, though not all maintain that interest through the end. Ballet Shoes, Theater Shoes and Dancing Shoes, all set in different decades, have the leads attending schools for dance and theatre, Skating Shoes has the leads training for professional ice skating, and Party Shoes (the only exception to both the training and, in large part, future careers) has several children putting on a pageant ranging the spectrum of performing art forms. Though not for everyone, I found the attention to detail in the training and rules fascinating, and it also adds a deal of gravity to the plot, changing the interest in the arts from something exciting an glamorous and into something real and potentially realistically lasting for the leads.

Unfortunately, I seem to have read all of the books that are in print in the US, though there are a number that were published that I haven’t read.

I’ve seen the 1935 movie with Errol Flynn often enough that I was worried the book may end up a bit of a rehash for me, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Possibly because, while the movie is fairly faithful up through Blood’s escape from slavery (about 1/3 of the book) it changes things up quite a bit after that. In particular, most of Blood’s adventures as a pirate are left out of the movie, and the remaining events are altered a good bit. This is arguably the most famous pirate novel out there (though I suspect a lot of its fame comes from the movie) and possibly the ur-pirate novel as well.

Peter Blood is a former soldier who returned to medicine, only to be falsely accused of treason when he tends to a member of the Monmouth Rebellion who’s been wounded. Predictably, the rebel gets off due to his connections, and Blood is transported to the Caribbean as a slave. There, he’s purchased by the cruel Colonel Bishop at the urgings of Bishop’s niece, Arabella, who took pity on him, as he was about to be bought by someone even worse. Granted, I’m not sure Bishop was much better, as his only good quality is that he’ll sometimes let his much kinder niece influence him. Blood gains some esteem on the island once his medical background is discovered, but still plans to escape, and becomes a pirate when he does so.

Lots of fun, with engaging leads and an interesting plot, and considerably less sexist than expected. (I tend to be leery of adventure novels, despite many of the older ones technically having many elements I like.) But then, I kind of think general treatment of women in fiction comparatively improved drastically in the first half of the 20th century, and then had a backlash in a lot of ways. (Or rather, ran into “well, we’ve done enough, no reason to bother anymore” mindset in many things.) About what you’d expect regarding race and class, but without the “did you really just…” of many contemporaries.

And now I’m (mostly) caught up with blogging I wanted to do before WisCon, and will be largely AFK until I get to Madison tomorrow. Not sure how much I’ll be on there, though Kraehe is coming with me and we’re mooching off of wireless.

This book and its plot are so well known that any sort of synopsis would be rather superfluous.

You know, I knew going in that there would be far less focus on romance than in the adaptations I’ve seen (as near as I can tell, Austen’s main use for it is that her women be happy in their marriages, since marriage was the greatest security available for women of her class, and it wasn’t a security Austen herself had) but wasn’t really expecting there to really be so little of it. Not that I’m complaining, though I did end up rather fond of Darcy. (I think I’m fonder of Bingley, though. He’s sweeter, if a bit adverse to independent thought at times.) I was also initially surprised at how less refined the writing was than Emma’s, though P&P is an earlier Austen, and Emma was much later.

I think what I liked best about this book was Elizabeth’s sense of humor. I mean, it isn’t unusual for heroines of classical literature to appreciate a good joke, but I don’t think I’ve encountered one before who literally saw the humor in almost everything. Especially picking on stuffy men.

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Tommy and Tuppence’s spying and adventuring days are long since over (supposedly) but Tuppence is still more than ready to jump at the chance of a new adventure. (Tommy still gets invited to annual meetings to discuss new spies. Tuppence is properly snippy about old boys’ clubs. Tommy is properly contrite.) Tuppence has an interesting conversation with a patient at the nursing home while Tommy is visiting his Aunt Ada, and when Aunt Ada dies, Tuppence learns the woman left under seemingly-normal-but-possibly-suspicious circumstances, and uses a painting she gave to Aunt Ada to investigate, while Tommy is busy being Important.

The Marple mass rewrite adaptation of this is possibly my favorite of the McEwan Marples, but I can see why fans of the books don’t like it. While I wouldn’t trade the Marple/Tuppence interactions for almost anything, it really does do a disservice to Tommy and Tuppence’s marriage and partnership, and undermines Tuppence’s role in their adventures.

I think N or M? is my favorite Tommy & Tuppence book so far (I think I have one left, though) but I liked this one a lot too.

Set a few years after The Secret Adversary and years and years before N or M?, Partners in Crime is a collection of short stories about Tommy and Tuppence Beresford as they run a detective agency. Which was pretty much bought because Tuppence was bored.

Most of the mysteries are introduced and resolved in a single chapter, though a few get several chapters, and Tommy and Tuppence also deliberately take on the methods, and sometimes personalities, of various famous detectives, including when they first meet their clients, not to mention other charades. Surprisingly, Tommy doesn’t get kidnapped. Probably because none of the stories are long enough for that. It’s a bit odd to read it knowing that people are coming to them for help with something important and knowing that Tommy and Tuppence are doing it more as a lark than anything else, but they apply themselves to the cases pretty seriously, so that’s only a bit jarring. For the most part, it’s a marvelous bit of fluff. (Err…can something be fluff when dead bodies are involved?)

Written and set 20 years after The Secret Adversary, Tommy and Tuppence are now middle-aged with grown children, and bored silly because the government thinks they’re too old for any fun war contributions. But then Tommy is asked to secretly investigate a potential Fifth Columnist spy who may be hiding in a genteel boardinghouse in the country, and off he goes, feeling at least a little guilty about leaving Tuppence behind. He forgets, though, that Tuppence is, above all else clever, and that her sense of smell is most finely tuned to adventure.

Like The Secret Adversary, Christie relies on buoyant spirits and conspiracy theories and reveals and double reveals and triple reveals and “oh wait, actually…” and does so well. I especially like how Tuppence is Very Put Out that Tommy thought he could successfully leave her behind (not that he tried, because he was ordered to, but because he thought he’d succeed) and their children’s “Mother and Father? But they’re old and boring and it’s so silly the way they talk about how they used to have adventures and isn’t it nauseatingly cute how they hold hands in public?” schtick, though that’s only fun because they’re doing it while Tommy and Tuppence are undercover and looking for Nazi spies.

I’m also amused at how it seems Tommy is always getting kidnapped. Actually, Tuppence gets captured, too, but for much shorter time periods. I can’t help but wonder if Christie just wants him out of the way for a while sometimes.