Books 188-190, Nonfiction 11-12, Fiction 178:
Nonfiction 11-12.
11. Rachel Manija Brown, All The Fishes Come Home To Roost.
I can't remember who recommended this to me. I don't usually read autobiography, memoir, that kind of thing. But this one was definitely... interesting.
12. Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece.
Published in 1990 as part of the Cambridge Key Themes in Ancient History series, it remains, so I'm informed, the most thorough examination of literacy, orality, and their intersection, in ancient Greece in print.
It's lucidly written and clearly organised, with chapters dealing with oral poetry, the arrival and use of writing in Greece, performance and memorial, and the use of writing by the state. It suffers from an understandable concentration on Athens and the use of writing there - the majority of our sources come from Athens, after all - but it's a very interesting and useful examination of a topic that has been subject to perhaps a surfeit of academic ideology.
The material making use of the evidence from Graeco-Roman Egypt, and the epilogue on the use of writing in Roman times, is also extremely interesting.
Thomas' work is at it's best when examining the intersection of literacy and 'orality'. If you are in any way interested in this topic, this is the book. Seriously. It's thorough, it's interesting, and it suffers somewhat less from the over-comma'd, contortionist style of academia than other writers I could name.
Fiction 178
178. Emily Gee, Thief With No Shadow.
Like Patricia Briggs' early work, only not quite as good.
WARNING: severe spoilers may follow.
This is an interesting book in a number of ways. Interesting for me, at least, because I can see the ways in which this is definitely a journeyman book, and thus I can use it as a learning tool.
It's romantic fantasy, and there's not a lot of (external) movement: it stays mostly in one place. The prose is workmanlike at best, choppy at worst, and the story suffers a lot from forced escalation*, and a little from obvious melodrama. Nevertheless, it manages to be entertaining.
The opening is in medias res, and it wouldn't have suffered for starting perhaps fifty pages earlier, with the main characters' (Melke and Bastian's) motivations more clearly fleshed out from the start.
In order to rescue her brother Hantje from salamanders, Melke has to steal a necklace from Bastian. Bastian, however, needs that necklace to break a curse on his family. The reader doesn't really learn this until the end of chapter four, and so I, at least, did some very annoyed muttering.
(Incidentally, we never do learn satisfactorily why Hantje decided to steal from the salamanders. The reason given near the end of the book is too little, too late.)
Bastian despises Melke, but needs her to steal the necklace back from the salamanders. Melke despises herself, and agrees to help - partially out of guilt, partially in order to get a healer (Bastian's sister) to help her brother. And so days pass.
The characterisation is somewhat uneven, and not very much happens while Hantje is ill. Bastian is unlikeable. Melke is a bit wet. The sister is Good. The brother is unconscious. And when we get to the exploits of derring-do, I was astounded by the reversal of character shown by the two major protagonists.
And, ah. The resolution? Is not so believeable. The reader is expected to believe that the two men - individually - can survive what amounts to rape, and go on back to normal with a bit of self-affirmation and a good talking-to. (And teh Love of a Good Woman, of course. Bleh.)
All the ends tied up neatly with bows. No lasting suffering, or scars.
So I have learned something about tension, characterisation, pacing, and emotionally satisfying resolutions. So I can't consider that a waste of time.
*When I say forced escalation - some writers make the tension within the story seem natural. Here, at least intially, that escalation is very obviously an authorial device.
Nonfiction 11-12.
11. Rachel Manija Brown, All The Fishes Come Home To Roost.
I can't remember who recommended this to me. I don't usually read autobiography, memoir, that kind of thing. But this one was definitely... interesting.
12. Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece.
Published in 1990 as part of the Cambridge Key Themes in Ancient History series, it remains, so I'm informed, the most thorough examination of literacy, orality, and their intersection, in ancient Greece in print.
It's lucidly written and clearly organised, with chapters dealing with oral poetry, the arrival and use of writing in Greece, performance and memorial, and the use of writing by the state. It suffers from an understandable concentration on Athens and the use of writing there - the majority of our sources come from Athens, after all - but it's a very interesting and useful examination of a topic that has been subject to perhaps a surfeit of academic ideology.
The material making use of the evidence from Graeco-Roman Egypt, and the epilogue on the use of writing in Roman times, is also extremely interesting.
Thomas' work is at it's best when examining the intersection of literacy and 'orality'. If you are in any way interested in this topic, this is the book. Seriously. It's thorough, it's interesting, and it suffers somewhat less from the over-comma'd, contortionist style of academia than other writers I could name.
Fiction 178
178. Emily Gee, Thief With No Shadow.
Like Patricia Briggs' early work, only not quite as good.
WARNING: severe spoilers may follow.
This is an interesting book in a number of ways. Interesting for me, at least, because I can see the ways in which this is definitely a journeyman book, and thus I can use it as a learning tool.
It's romantic fantasy, and there's not a lot of (external) movement: it stays mostly in one place. The prose is workmanlike at best, choppy at worst, and the story suffers a lot from forced escalation*, and a little from obvious melodrama. Nevertheless, it manages to be entertaining.
The opening is in medias res, and it wouldn't have suffered for starting perhaps fifty pages earlier, with the main characters' (Melke and Bastian's) motivations more clearly fleshed out from the start.
In order to rescue her brother Hantje from salamanders, Melke has to steal a necklace from Bastian. Bastian, however, needs that necklace to break a curse on his family. The reader doesn't really learn this until the end of chapter four, and so I, at least, did some very annoyed muttering.
(Incidentally, we never do learn satisfactorily why Hantje decided to steal from the salamanders. The reason given near the end of the book is too little, too late.)
Bastian despises Melke, but needs her to steal the necklace back from the salamanders. Melke despises herself, and agrees to help - partially out of guilt, partially in order to get a healer (Bastian's sister) to help her brother. And so days pass.
The characterisation is somewhat uneven, and not very much happens while Hantje is ill. Bastian is unlikeable. Melke is a bit wet. The sister is Good. The brother is unconscious. And when we get to the exploits of derring-do, I was astounded by the reversal of character shown by the two major protagonists.
And, ah. The resolution? Is not so believeable. The reader is expected to believe that the two men - individually - can survive what amounts to rape, and go on back to normal with a bit of self-affirmation and a good talking-to. (And teh Love of a Good Woman, of course. Bleh.)
All the ends tied up neatly with bows. No lasting suffering, or scars.
So I have learned something about tension, characterisation, pacing, and emotionally satisfying resolutions. So I can't consider that a waste of time.
*When I say forced escalation - some writers make the tension within the story seem natural. Here, at least intially, that escalation is very obviously an authorial device.