Recent reading

[troisoiseaux]

Finished A Tale of Two Cities, which I was relieved to discover I still love— I'd spent so long considering it my favorite Dickens novel that it was genuinely disorienting to try to re-read it last summer and feel absolutely nothing. I'm sure someone, somewhere, has written a paper on the depiction of now-recognized mental health conditions in A Tale of Two Cities - Doctor Manette's PTSD, Sydney Carton's depression - which I'd be interested to read. I was also struck by the anonymity (?) of Dickens' depiction of the French Revolution, as compared to, say, Baroness Emma Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel books or Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three, which include Robespierre et al. in at least cameo roles— the only actual historical figure he references (besides the "king with a large jaw and queen with a fair face") is the executioner Sanson. In the tragedy of its closing scene I'd forgotten how absolutely bananas the last act is. Sydney Carton is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters; probably even in my top five.

Read To the Chapel Perilous by Naomi Mitchison, which is SOOOOO good. Arthurian legend retold through the charmingly anachronistic lens of two reporters at rival papers— Merlin's Camelot Chronicle ("intimately connected with the Court and scarcely less so with the Church") and the pro-Orkney Northern Pict, run by (I confess, I snickered every time I read the name) Lord Horny (Satan, possibly??). This review by skygiants has better commentary on the Arthurian-retelling aspect than I am able to give, but I can say that my favorite knight-centric chapter was the one about Sir Bors, in the same way that when I read the Odyssey I was charmed by how normal Menelaus and Helen were.

I really enjoyed Lienors (reporter for the Chronicle) and Dalyn (for the Pict), both individually and together! Their dynamic reminded me of the line from Good Omens about how field agents often found they had more in common with their opposite numbers than their minders back at headquarters. Mitchison's depiction of a partisan press was utterly unsurprising to read in 2022; what is surprising is that no one seems to have written an op-ed about revisiting To the Chapel Perilous in these days of "alternative facts."

I've been dipping in and out of Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva, by Rosemary Sullivan, for a couple of months now— it's not that long, or particularly difficult, but I've found it taken best in small doses, because hoo boy did she go through it. I just got to the point where Svetlana, who defected to the U.S. in the 1960s, joined Frank Lloyd Wright's widow's cult, which is not a sentence I could have predicted writing.

Comments

[sovay]

Sydney Carton is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters; probably even in my top five.

That was the conclusion of one of the first memes I ever did on LJ, seventeen years ago.

Mitchison's depiction of a partisan press was utterly unsurprising to read in 2022; what is surprising is that no one seems to have written an op-ed about revisiting To the Chapel Perilous in these days of "alternative facts".

Write and pitch it to Uncanny or Strange Horizons! Worth it!

[troisoiseaux]

That was the conclusion of one of the first memes I ever did on LJ, seventeen years ago.

Off the top of my head and in no particular order, I would say my top five are Pierre Bezukhov (War and Peace), Jo March (Little Women), Stephen Maturin (Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books), Sydney Carton, and Hamlet. (This feels like an extremely psychologically revealing list.) Runners-up include Athos (The Three Musketeers) - in terms of quantity as much as quality; I've never seen an adaption where I didn't fall in love with Athos immediately - and T.H. White's Lancelot, as much for White's character notes as his actual depiction in The Once & Future King. I will almost certainly think of seven more as soon as I press "post."

Write and pitch it to Uncanny or Strange Horizons! Worth it!

Oh, goodness, I don't think I know enough about journalism, or history, or the history of journalism, or Naomi Mitchison to do the topic justice.

[sovay]

in terms of quantity as much as quality; I've never seen an adaption where I didn't fall in love with Athos immediately

That speaks well for the various adaptations. (The first version I ever encountered of The Three Musketeers was the 1948 MGM in Technicolor, so Athos always looks to me like Van Heflin, actually. It is almost certainly where I first saw him.)

I will almost certainly think of seven more as soon as I press "post."

These are the workings of the human brain.

Oh, goodness, I don't think I know enough about journalism, or history, or the history of journalism, or Naomi Mitchison to do the topic justice.

I don't know that you need to. You're talking about writing about an experience. You just need to have had the experience and be able to articulate it! If you need to contextualize with research, it's not the bulk of the article.

[troisoiseaux]

That speaks well for the various adaptations

I have to confess, my favorite adaption is the gleefully ridiculous 2011 movie, with such very much not book-accurate elements as dueling airships and a Mission: Impossible-style heist sequence for Milady's theft of the queen's jewels.

You just need to have had the experience and be able to articulate it!

HmmmmMMMMM.

[skygiants]

I LOVE THAT NONSENSE FILM