What I've Been Reading Wednesday

[thisbluespirit]

What I've Finished Reading

I finished up The Castle of Otranto and it continued to be delightfully OTT and ridiculous right to the very last line. I laughed a lot. Especially at the last line. The charm of it is, I think (other than gloomy castles and giant suits of armour and what have you), that it's very hard to tell if the whole thing is some kind of joke, or just bits of it. This seems to have been the question for 250 years, and, indeed, the next book I read, The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve is quite openly The Castle of Otranto, the more rational (and therefore possibly not-truly-Gothic) remix.

As Clara Reeve says in the introduction, certain elements of Otranto, "destroy the work of imagination, and, instead of attention, excite laughter." (Walpole apparently responded that hers was, "So probable, that any trial for murder at the Old Bailey would make a more interesting story." Hmm, wait, a novel featuring a real life murder...? Shame he didn't try it, heh.)

It does indeed tail off into a long, plodding fixit of everything, though. It's rather like a tumblr-recommended fixit version of Otranto where everything is relentlessly put right and all the bad people are punished or grovel and apologise to the good people. I liked the beginning with the locked up haunted wing with the murdered body in it very much, though, mixed with a more recognisable setting. Also its hero Edmund has an amusing tendency to weep over people. (The best bit was at the end where he flung his arms round both his mentors legs at once and they had to stop him and then he still had to hug them and weep over them.)

But, given that it's still only about 130 odd pages and has a haunted East wing, it was readable and fascinating to compare to Otranto. I'm glad the collection had them both.

I also read another Daisy Dalrymple (Dead in the Water), which you could probably tell because fic happened. My friend is coming to see me again this week - I have hopes she might be able to lend me some more, because the only others I've found are quite a few books on from that. (Obviously, I'm looking forward to seeing her with or without books, but with books is always better.)


What I'm Reading Now
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, which, as promised by aralias, is very light and enjoyable and just my sort of thing. I seem to be okay with it, too. \o/ (The only downside is the inevitable comparison to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which can do it no favours. It's a shame she didn't set it, say, 20 years later or earlier to mitigate that. Although, of course, I'm only 100 pages in; there are no doubt very good Plot Reasons.)

(I'm still note-taking from A Mad Bad and Dangerous People? and technically sort of reading Desolation Island, but have not progressed far with either since last time.)


What I'm Reading Next
Well, if my friend does bring me some more Daisy, there'll be that. And once I've finished Sorcerer to the Crown, I might try the next Gothic novel in the collection, which is Mistrust by Matthew Gregory Lewis (author of The Monk).

Comments

[persiflage_1]

Sadly, I couldn't get into Sorcerer, which really annoyed me as it ought to be right up my street. I'm hoping it's another Temeraire, and that I'll get into it easily at another time.

Meanwhile I heartily recommend Jeannie Lin's Gunpowder Chronicles, Renee Ahdieh's Flame in the Mist, and (I may have mentioned already) Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries (which is free of murderous bots!)

[thisbluespirit]

Maybe! I'm finding it enjoyable enough so far, anyway.

Thanks for the recs. :-)

[persiflage_1]

I've other friends who share my reading tastes who've also enjoyed it. I know it's not the book - it's just me - I wasn't in the right headspace to read it at the time I tried.

You're welcome. I am ALWAYS ready with book recs! :D

(Also Natasha Pulley - The Bedlam Stacks and The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - although they were published in the reverse order to that, do read them in the order I just gave 'cos a major character in TWoFS is a minor character in TBS.)

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I've heard a few people mention The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - I should definitely add that to my list for one day!

I've other friends who share my reading tastes who've also enjoyed it. I know it's not the book - it's just me - I wasn't in the right headspace to read it at the time I tried.

Well, that's how it is sometimes! And sometimes even when you are and the book has all the right ingredients, it just doesn't quite click the way it should. One of the reasons I'm v careful about my reading at the moment is not just that much of it gives me headaches as that then I get resentful and hate the poor innocent book. So I won't try one unless it's something that doesn't matter or seems to be okay. (Books have been thrown across the room these last few years, I can tell you... Poor, undeserving books. Oh, and one deserving one! ;-D) But eventually, I get around to these recs.

[persiflage_1]

Do!

I don't throw books across the room - not since I read Sam Richardson's 'Clarissa' for my English degree. Gods, that book annoyed me! Mind, I mostly read ebooks now - definitely wouldn't want to throw my Kindle across the room!

[thisbluespirit]

LOL, you threw Samuel Richardson across the room? Did you break something? Dent a wall? Strain a muscle?

In my teen classic-reading phase I picked up one of his - I forget which one now - and even I baulked at the length, size and weight!

[persiflage_1]

Nah! I've got a strong right arm - I played a lot of cricket in my youth, so I was (probably still am, though I've no tried for some time) a very good shot - I flung it at the wall over my bed so it smacked into the wall, then flopped down onto the bed with no more than a couple of bent pages. (I then abandoned it for the length of time it took me to read whichever was the newest Harry Potter that year!)

Yeah, SR went on forEVER!

[liadt]

New books sound rubbish next to the gothics! Two mentors? I bet they were both hoping to palm Edmund off on the other. Think of the shirts ruined by tears.

[thisbluespirit]

Ha, not really! It's just that there's more to say about them, especially as one was effectively a remix of the other.

Two mentors? I bet they were both hoping to palm Edmund off on the other. Think of the shirts ruined by tears.

No! They both came to live with him and practically married each other while they were at it. Everyone loves Edmund! He's a Gothic Mary Sue.

[unsentimentalf]

I picked up Letters of Marque the other day while looking for something just plain enjoyable to read so I'm back on the O'Briens :-) (I find it difficult to find books I enjoy these days. I used to read anything and everything but now I abandon more novels than I finish. Too sentimental, too unpleasant, too slow, too predictable, too juvenile, too clumsily written, too pretentious, too much like the author's RPG campaign, where are the women, why would I even be interested in this story? I am a truly grumpy reader, but Maturin is keeping me happy for the moment.)

[thisbluespirit]

Aww, still at least you have O'Brian! And I suppose, sometimes it just feels that life's too short for not so great books, maybe.

[unsentimentalf]

I do! I bought the next one from bricks and mortar Waterstones because i wanted to read it straight away, blinked at the price and have ordered the rest from Abe Books second hand, since Patrick O'Brian is past caring about royalties.

[astrogirl]

I'm reading Desolation Island right now, having finally gone back to the series after a hiatus. So, even if you're not really making much progress on it, we can still call ourselves book buddies. :)

I have Sorcerer to the Crown and am looking forward to reading it, but keep not getting around to actually taking it off the shelf.

[thisbluespirit]

So, even if you're not really making much progress on it, we can still call ourselves book buddies.

Aw, cool! We overlap on our reading! That pretty much never happens. :-)

And even the TBR pile, too! I am enjoying both anyway, but I need to go much slower with the O'Brians or stop, because I am giving myself too many headaches with them, annoyingly.

[astrogirl]

They're really not the world's easiest reads, for being basically the fun kind of stories they are.

[thisbluespirit]

They're not hard-going, either, but if I read anything a little more dense than fluff, I have to go slow and careful.

... I am being very bad at going slow and careful. (But it's so hard to ration out reading in the proper tiny doses! I rebel. So, the headaches are my own fault, but I reserve, as ever, the right to moan on the internet about it.)

[astrogirl]

It is a fundamental human right to moan on the internet about things, no matter whose fault they are. :) And you'd better believe, if anything interfered with my ability to read for long stretches, I would never stop whining about it for ten seconds...

[swordznsorcery]

Books books books. Glad you enjoyed the wacky Walpole so much. It's a real trendsetter, but some of those Gothic extravaganzas can be a bit too OTT for a modern reader. I've always struggled terribly with "Wuthering Heights", and that's practically modern in comparison!

If you're enjoying "Sorcerer To The Crown", you may enjoy "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik. I'm prejudiced, as I tend to love her work, but I really enjoyed that one. Young girl, magical prodigy, grumpy mentor. Doesn't sound at all original, I know! I guess it's what a writer does with it that counts.

[thisbluespirit]

Well, Wuthering Heights is very weird and dark - it's not really like anything else, and it's not a lot of people's cup of tea. I have mixed feelings about it, but it works as a very different thing. Otranto, though, is much shorter, and so OTT that you can't tell what was serious and what Walpole meant us to laugh at in the first place. It was fun.

And thanks for the rec. I've heard a few people talking about that one, too.

[dimity_blue]

I'm going to have to give the Daisy Dalrymple books a try. They sound so good.

[thisbluespirit]

They're very light reading, but fun, I think. :-)