book list, September 2009
Oct. 1st, 2009 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingIt's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in September 2009. (Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions. I reserve the right to spoil all hell out of any book if spoilery bits are what I feel like talking about.)
New: 3
---The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall (fiction: this isn't quite horror, isn't quite science fiction, isn't quite lit fic, isn't quite a romance, and isn't quite Jaws on acid... though it has elements of all those genres. If it's any single thing, it might be surrealist. Anyway, a man wakes on the floor of a bedroom with complete retrograde amnesia, at least as regards his own life. He learns that his name is Eric Sanderson, that he lost the love of his life about three years ago in Greece, and that his life is potentially in danger from -- get this -- a metaphysical, metaphorical memory-eating shark. Really. And by about a third of the way into the book, you will believe in the shark and all the other conceptual fish that make passing appearances.
The Raw Shark Texts is a very inward-oriented book -- both for the obvious focus on the life of the mind, and for the persistent shutting out of the day-to-day world. It's a lonely book, a claustrophobic book, a chew-your-nails-at-midnight book. It is a book that does its damndest to make you too scared to ever pick up another book, let alone venture online. And while I am not totally convinced by the ending [nor do I understand what is so funny or inappropriate about naming a cat Ian, but then, I am not British; perhaps there is a peculiarly British sense of what is or is not a suitable pet name that is going completely over my head], I think this book is definitely worth reading.
Vicky gave me The Raw Shark Texts for either Christmas or my birthday. It was a good present. *grin*)
---Duma Key, Stephen King (fiction/horror: in which Edgar Freemantle, formerly a successful Twin Cities building contractor, loses his right arm in a terrible accident and subsequently loses his marriage to rage and the drawn-out recovery process. He retreats to west Florida in hopes of building a new life, discovers a talent for art that develops with eerie speed, and makes friends with his landlady and her caretaker. So far, so good, except Edgar discovers that his newfound talent doesn't just verge on the supernatural; it is a full-blown psychic talent, and he has tapped into a powerful source of bad juju that is waking after a decades-long sleep and will stop at nothing to use him to achieve its goals. I liked this story very much, though I am uneasy about the sexism in the choice of victims; King attempts to lampshape the issue by claiming the monster is being misogynistic, but I don't buy it.)
---The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World, John Demos (nonfiction: basically what the title says. *grin* Demos arranges his book in sections defined by geographical/temporal areas -- he starts with Europe, moves to colonial America, spends a whole section on Salem [mostly because, he says, it is the specific instance that people default to when thinking of witch-hunting], and then expands his theme to explore other incidents in American history that have been described as metaphorical witch-hunts, while evaluating the accuracy and usefulness of that labeling.
The writing is clean, clear, and concise; the reasoning is lucid; and Demos provides an excellent bibliography at the end of the book. I wish he had spent more time on the decline of witch-hunting in Europe [and European parallels to the American 'scares' that replaced literal belief in witchcraft], but this is a book written by an American for an American audience, so the national emphasis is not particularly surprising.
I also found myself wondering about witch-hunting in other European colonies, and how the varying forms of interaction with native cultures influenced European patterns. But I suppose that colonization/imperialism of non-North American areas didn't get fully started until after the witch-hunt craze was dead or dying... except, of course, for the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of Central and South America, which Demos virtually ignores except to mention Tituba's origin. That is a notable lapse, especially since he does mention the differences in focus between Catholic and Protestant witch-hunts in Europe. I would be curious to see if those differences continued in the Americas. If there were no witch-hunts, accusations of witchcraft, or accusations of slander by way of witchcraft rumors, I would like an explanation of that lack.
[I can construct a tentative explanation from implicit evidence -- Demos does go on about the social organization differences between New England and the Middle and Southern colonies, and I suspect those differences also extend to Spanish and Portuguese colonies -- but it would be nice to have some explicit discussion of the issue.])
Old: 4
---The Magician's Nephew, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the sixth Chronicle of Narnia, wherein Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer do a lot of not-quite-advertent traveling between worlds, courtesy of Digory's creepy Uncle Andrew, and are present at the creation of Narnia. Also features Jadis being awesome.)
---The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the fourth Chronicle of Narnia, wherein Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole are sent to Narnia to rescue the lost Prince Rillian, and screw up repeatedly for perfectly understandable reasons. Also features the Lady of the Green Kirtle being awesome, despite not realizing she could just conquer Narnia on her own without the farce about Rillian. *sigh*)
---The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the first Chronicle of Narnia, wherein the four Pevensie siblings stumble into a magical land under the control of an evil witch, and learn that they are meant to defeat her. Also features Jadis being awesome.
Have you noticed that I love Lewis's female villains? *grin* They are evil and I do not for one second forget that, but it is wonderful to see female characters with agency marching across the pages larger than life. I especially love Jadis for being evil in a completely non-sexual way usually reserved for male villains. [On a related note, I also love Lucy, Susan, Polly, Jill, Aravis, and Hwin, who are often much more sensible and effective than their male counterparts.])
---The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the third Chronicle of Narnia, wherein Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace randomly fall into a painting and accompany Caspian on a voyage to the uttermost East, through a series of fantastical imaginary islands that are, in the Narnian world, perfectly real.)
September Total: 7 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a ridiculous amount of fanfiction)
Year to Date: 62 books (36 new, 26 old)
New: 3
---The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall (fiction: this isn't quite horror, isn't quite science fiction, isn't quite lit fic, isn't quite a romance, and isn't quite Jaws on acid... though it has elements of all those genres. If it's any single thing, it might be surrealist. Anyway, a man wakes on the floor of a bedroom with complete retrograde amnesia, at least as regards his own life. He learns that his name is Eric Sanderson, that he lost the love of his life about three years ago in Greece, and that his life is potentially in danger from -- get this -- a metaphysical, metaphorical memory-eating shark. Really. And by about a third of the way into the book, you will believe in the shark and all the other conceptual fish that make passing appearances.
The Raw Shark Texts is a very inward-oriented book -- both for the obvious focus on the life of the mind, and for the persistent shutting out of the day-to-day world. It's a lonely book, a claustrophobic book, a chew-your-nails-at-midnight book. It is a book that does its damndest to make you too scared to ever pick up another book, let alone venture online. And while I am not totally convinced by the ending [nor do I understand what is so funny or inappropriate about naming a cat Ian, but then, I am not British; perhaps there is a peculiarly British sense of what is or is not a suitable pet name that is going completely over my head], I think this book is definitely worth reading.
Vicky gave me The Raw Shark Texts for either Christmas or my birthday. It was a good present. *grin*)
---Duma Key, Stephen King (fiction/horror: in which Edgar Freemantle, formerly a successful Twin Cities building contractor, loses his right arm in a terrible accident and subsequently loses his marriage to rage and the drawn-out recovery process. He retreats to west Florida in hopes of building a new life, discovers a talent for art that develops with eerie speed, and makes friends with his landlady and her caretaker. So far, so good, except Edgar discovers that his newfound talent doesn't just verge on the supernatural; it is a full-blown psychic talent, and he has tapped into a powerful source of bad juju that is waking after a decades-long sleep and will stop at nothing to use him to achieve its goals. I liked this story very much, though I am uneasy about the sexism in the choice of victims; King attempts to lampshape the issue by claiming the monster is being misogynistic, but I don't buy it.)
---The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World, John Demos (nonfiction: basically what the title says. *grin* Demos arranges his book in sections defined by geographical/temporal areas -- he starts with Europe, moves to colonial America, spends a whole section on Salem [mostly because, he says, it is the specific instance that people default to when thinking of witch-hunting], and then expands his theme to explore other incidents in American history that have been described as metaphorical witch-hunts, while evaluating the accuracy and usefulness of that labeling.
The writing is clean, clear, and concise; the reasoning is lucid; and Demos provides an excellent bibliography at the end of the book. I wish he had spent more time on the decline of witch-hunting in Europe [and European parallels to the American 'scares' that replaced literal belief in witchcraft], but this is a book written by an American for an American audience, so the national emphasis is not particularly surprising.
I also found myself wondering about witch-hunting in other European colonies, and how the varying forms of interaction with native cultures influenced European patterns. But I suppose that colonization/imperialism of non-North American areas didn't get fully started until after the witch-hunt craze was dead or dying... except, of course, for the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of Central and South America, which Demos virtually ignores except to mention Tituba's origin. That is a notable lapse, especially since he does mention the differences in focus between Catholic and Protestant witch-hunts in Europe. I would be curious to see if those differences continued in the Americas. If there were no witch-hunts, accusations of witchcraft, or accusations of slander by way of witchcraft rumors, I would like an explanation of that lack.
[I can construct a tentative explanation from implicit evidence -- Demos does go on about the social organization differences between New England and the Middle and Southern colonies, and I suspect those differences also extend to Spanish and Portuguese colonies -- but it would be nice to have some explicit discussion of the issue.])
Old: 4
---The Magician's Nephew, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the sixth Chronicle of Narnia, wherein Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer do a lot of not-quite-advertent traveling between worlds, courtesy of Digory's creepy Uncle Andrew, and are present at the creation of Narnia. Also features Jadis being awesome.)
---The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the fourth Chronicle of Narnia, wherein Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole are sent to Narnia to rescue the lost Prince Rillian, and screw up repeatedly for perfectly understandable reasons. Also features the Lady of the Green Kirtle being awesome, despite not realizing she could just conquer Narnia on her own without the farce about Rillian. *sigh*)
---The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the first Chronicle of Narnia, wherein the four Pevensie siblings stumble into a magical land under the control of an evil witch, and learn that they are meant to defeat her. Also features Jadis being awesome.
Have you noticed that I love Lewis's female villains? *grin* They are evil and I do not for one second forget that, but it is wonderful to see female characters with agency marching across the pages larger than life. I especially love Jadis for being evil in a completely non-sexual way usually reserved for male villains. [On a related note, I also love Lucy, Susan, Polly, Jill, Aravis, and Hwin, who are often much more sensible and effective than their male counterparts.])
---The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis (fantasy: the third Chronicle of Narnia, wherein Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace randomly fall into a painting and accompany Caspian on a voyage to the uttermost East, through a series of fantastical imaginary islands that are, in the Narnian world, perfectly real.)
September Total: 7 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a ridiculous amount of fanfiction)
Year to Date: 62 books (36 new, 26 old)
