Recent reading
Apr. 11th, 2022 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxI submitted the mini-thesis I've been working on for the past eight months, so I can have a little book review, as a treat.
- Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, a 1962 novel about a depressed lesbian grad student who goes home for her twin sister's wedding and is immediately like, I'm Going To Cause Problems On Purpose. The vibe reminded me, to some extent, of Fleabag (season 1)— in the impulsive, emotionally messy protagonist, the relationship between two very different sisters ("the only person I'd run through an airport for is you" would not have felt out of place in this book) and their grief for their mother.
- Persuasion by Jane Austen, which is probably my second-favorite of her novels. (Pride & Prejudice holds the #1 spot by sheer number of times I've read it; I also have a soft spot for Northanger Abbey.) This is surprising, in a way, because one of the reasons I bounced so hard off of Mansfield Park is that everyone is just so mean to Fanny all of the time and while Anne Elliot doesn't have it quite as bad, she has a lot to put up with and does so with a frankly bewildering amount of grace and patience. On the other hand, Wentworth is definitely the best Austen hero, and rivals to lovers is great and all, but lovers to strangers to "awkwardly in each other's orbit again" to lovers is so good. On this re-read, I found myself more aware of the novel's... class consciousness, I guess??
- Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott, the sequel to Eight Cousins, which like Jo's Boys I found more interesting as a window into historical attitudes (or at least, Alcott's Opinions) than as a story in itself. I found it super weird that both of Rose's love interests are her cousins, but the past is a different country, I guess. The romance between Phebe - the Becky to Rose's Sara Crewe - and Rose's cousin Archie felt a bit like a genderbent version of the Nat and Daisy storyline in Jo's Boys. In both cases, a foundling with musical talent has to prove they can make a career out of it in order to marry into their love interest's respectable family, although unlike Nat, Phebe is unwaveringly good during her year away— which feels partially like a gender thing, and partially like everyone in this book is either unwaveringly good or dies tragically young as a direct result of their flaws.
- Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steven Johnson, which is about 17th century pirate Henry Every's attack on an Indian treasure ship (which was also, incredibly unfortunately, carrying many women from the Mughal court on a pilgrimage to Mecca) and the global repercussions thereof, but takes a "butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil" approach to getting there— the first three chapters jump from mid-17th century Devonshire and Every's most probable backstory, to a 1179 BCE naval battle in the Nile Delta with history's first recorded pirates, to the 7th century introduction of Islam in India. I really liked this approach, and the book overall, but Johnson kind of buried the lede on how the crime itself proved to be a linchpin in the history of British-Indian relations?? There was a hot minute (read: several months) where it looked like the Mughal Empire might kick the East India Company out of the country entirely, but the EIC ultimately ended up digging in deeper by offering their services as, basically, private defense contractors to protect the emperor's treasure ships.
- Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, a 1962 novel about a depressed lesbian grad student who goes home for her twin sister's wedding and is immediately like, I'm Going To Cause Problems On Purpose. The vibe reminded me, to some extent, of Fleabag (season 1)— in the impulsive, emotionally messy protagonist, the relationship between two very different sisters ("the only person I'd run through an airport for is you" would not have felt out of place in this book) and their grief for their mother.
- Persuasion by Jane Austen, which is probably my second-favorite of her novels. (Pride & Prejudice holds the #1 spot by sheer number of times I've read it; I also have a soft spot for Northanger Abbey.) This is surprising, in a way, because one of the reasons I bounced so hard off of Mansfield Park is that everyone is just so mean to Fanny all of the time and while Anne Elliot doesn't have it quite as bad, she has a lot to put up with and does so with a frankly bewildering amount of grace and patience. On the other hand, Wentworth is definitely the best Austen hero, and rivals to lovers is great and all, but lovers to strangers to "awkwardly in each other's orbit again" to lovers is so good. On this re-read, I found myself more aware of the novel's... class consciousness, I guess??
- Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott, the sequel to Eight Cousins, which like Jo's Boys I found more interesting as a window into historical attitudes (or at least, Alcott's Opinions) than as a story in itself. I found it super weird that both of Rose's love interests are her cousins, but the past is a different country, I guess. The romance between Phebe - the Becky to Rose's Sara Crewe - and Rose's cousin Archie felt a bit like a genderbent version of the Nat and Daisy storyline in Jo's Boys. In both cases, a foundling with musical talent has to prove they can make a career out of it in order to marry into their love interest's respectable family, although unlike Nat, Phebe is unwaveringly good during her year away— which feels partially like a gender thing, and partially like everyone in this book is either unwaveringly good or dies tragically young as a direct result of their flaws.
- Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steven Johnson, which is about 17th century pirate Henry Every's attack on an Indian treasure ship (which was also, incredibly unfortunately, carrying many women from the Mughal court on a pilgrimage to Mecca) and the global repercussions thereof, but takes a "butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil" approach to getting there— the first three chapters jump from mid-17th century Devonshire and Every's most probable backstory, to a 1179 BCE naval battle in the Nile Delta with history's first recorded pirates, to the 7th century introduction of Islam in India. I really liked this approach, and the book overall, but Johnson kind of buried the lede on how the crime itself proved to be a linchpin in the history of British-Indian relations?? There was a hot minute (read: several months) where it looked like the Mughal Empire might kick the East India Company out of the country entirely, but the EIC ultimately ended up digging in deeper by offering their services as, basically, private defense contractors to protect the emperor's treasure ships.
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Date: 2022-04-11 11:29 pm (UTC)