Recent reading

[troisoiseaux]

Finished South Riding by Winifred Holtby, which— oh my god. Oh my god!!!! I was not expecting the plot to go where it did?! I read the last several chapters in one sitting, finished it just after midnight, and then spent at least another hour staring at the ceiling contemplating, like, the meaning of life and how We Live In A Society. (I've spent the past week listening to The Trials of Cato's 2018 album Hide and Hair on repeat for unrelated reasons, but their song "These Are the Things" has become tangled up with this book in my head: when you live by the day at the market's command / where profit and property's the law of the land / to be held, to be heard, to be dealt a fair hand / these are the things that our people demand.)

Finished The Idylls of the Queen by Phyllis Ann Karr! Re-reading my original review from two years (?!) ago, I had noted that Karr's interest really lies with the, if not outright villainous, at least maligned characters of Arthuriana - Mordred, Morgan(a), churlish Kay - but this time, I was struck by the overlap between that narrative goal and how much of a voice (and depth, and sympathy) she gives to the women of Arthurian myth— although not, notably, Guenevere herself? (Karr apparently has another book, The Gallows in the Greenwood, that does something similar: a retelling of Robin Hood with a female sheriff of Nottingham.)

Karr's Mordred is my favorite Mordred, because he's so messed up by the prophesy that he's going to kill Arthur, when he doesn't want to— he responds to the situation half by building up a properly villainous reputation (e.g., sharp of tongue and creepy of habit - I love the bit about him carving snake rings as something to do with his hands; at first glance it seems like a fun detail, and then at second glance it's a punch-you-in-the-feels one: he's preoccupied with snakes because of the symbolism in Arthur's dream that led to the whole May Babies thing) and half by desperately hoping someone will do him the favor of killing him before he can go full grimdark, as it were. And then!! The thing that pushes him over the edge!! Is finding out that one of his own brothers actually killed their mother, not Lamorak!! It's all very Shakespearean, really— somewhere between Richard III ("I am determined to prove a villain") and Hamlet.

I am also deeply fond of Karr's Kay, who is just so bitter, all of the time, and occasionally feels like he wandered in from, if not a modern setting, at least from somewhere outside of the narrative rules of Arthurian myth that everyone else seems to have fully embraced...? (MAGIC, everyone cries. Maybe someone used a pin to inject poison? Kay asks, wearily. And as a modern reader you're like, yes! good! some common sense! But also it is an Arthurian retelling and magic literally exists so it's not like everyone else is stupid for suggesting that it may be an option??)

Anyway, go read osprey_archer's review!

Read House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones, a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle— Sophie and (an amusingly disguised) Howl and Calcifer are in it, but the focus of the story is Charmain Baker, a rather spoiled young bookworm tasked with looking after her wizard great-uncle's house - which is Bigger On The Inside - at the same time she's granted her dream of volunteering in the king's royal library. In some ways, there are shades of Howl and Sophie in the interactions between Charmain and Peter, her uncle's apprentice, with various aspects of their personalities and circumstances swapped— Peter is the one cleaning the house with a fury and scolding Charmain for her tendency to slither out of things, although Charmain has Sophie's ability to yell inanimate objects into doing what she wants. There's a dog! 10/10, an absolutely delightful book.

Comments

[oursin]

Is The Idylls of the Queen the one I remember as Kay being all 'going around being knightly and fighting is all very well, but somebody has to see everybody is clothed and fed and the horses are looked after and and and....'

[troisoiseaux]

Yeah! A lot of the world-building details are grounded in Kay's role as seneschal, and Karr delves into what that role actually entails, which I enjoyed.

[chestnut_pod]

I love Charmain Baker with all my heart, soul, might, etc. I delight in her crabbiness.

[troisoiseaux]

I love Charmain so much— she's probably my favorite of Jones' characters, not least because she does kind of feel kind of like a cross between Howl and Sophie with a crabby, lonely bookworminess all her own. Her coping mechanism for everything is "well, that's a problem for Tomorrow Me and/or Somebody Else to deal with, I'm going to read a book" and I felt that in my soul.

(Part of me still isn't over the fact I didn't discover Diana Wynne Jones' books as a kid, but the other part of me is glad, because I don't know if I'd have loved Charmain and Fire and Hemlock's Polly as much as I do now - with a sort of fierce protective love that comes from seeing so much of my younger self in them - or if I'd have bounced off of them for, well, the same reason.)

[regshoe]

South Riding has a nice bit of a twisty ending, doesn't it :D I totally understand your reaction—it's a book worthy of much large-scale contemplation of Society. And that song (which I'd never heard before) suits it very well.

[troisoiseaux]

South Riding has a nice bit of a twisty ending, doesn't it

Partly because of the Jane Eyre parallels but mostly because, well, I've read books before, I had a very clear expectation of where the Sarah Burton-and-Carne storyline was going to go and THEN IT DID NOT. GEEZE LOUISE, WINIFRED.

It was the epilogue that put me in a really contemplative mood— between Sarah Burton, and Joe Astell, and the general poignancy of novels from the mid-1930s that are sort of impossible to tangle from the fact that WWII started just a few years later...?

[regshoe]

I think Holtby has a bit of a thing about subverting the expected romantic happily-ever-after ending—both the two other books of hers I've read also avoid the 'obvious' endgame couple, though in different ways. It's very refreshing!

between Sarah Burton, and Joe Astell, and the general poignancy of novels from the mid-1930s that are sort of impossible to tangle from the fact that WWII started just a few years later...?

I know! It's this whole wide-ranging social and political situation and historical moment that the book builds up, and that a book about local government is so uniquely well-placed to build up—and which is all going to be torn apart in a few years' time by the war. The fact that Holtby, who died in 1935, never knew it makes it all the more poignant, I think...

[sovay]

The fact that Holtby, who died in 1935, never knew it makes it all the more poignant, I think...

Yes. It absolutely isn't retrospective. Just a couple of years later, it would have been.

[troisoiseaux]

I found myself thinking of— I think it was Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, that ends on an unnamed European battlefield some years after the main action of the book - which is set in the 1920s - and I was, like, yeah, this checks out. We all know what came after the 1920s! So you can imagine how gobsmacked I felt to realize the book was published in 1930.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, the ending of South Riding is a lot! Not only for how it goes for Sarah Burton, but also the presumed forward trajectory for Carne's daughter... I recall her being very "1930s girl on the verge of madness, you can tell by the stream of consciousness narration," but I got all invested in her anyway.

(regshoe recently uploaded The Crowded Street to gutenberg.org if you wish to continue your Holtby journey. I keep meaning to read it but *gestures at TBR list*)

It's funny how Kay's bitterness makes it easier to take the grimness of a lot of the events! You have so many knights running around bashing each other over blood feuds, and no real hope of the feuds ever ending or justice ever being done, and it could be so miserable to read but Kay's bitingly sardonic sense of humor makes it funny. He and Mordred are such a good double act, trying to out-sarcasm each other, and although they both try to present themselves as ironically distant and disdainful they both actually care way too much.

[troisoiseaux]

1930s girl on the verge of madness, you can tell by the stream of consciousness narration

HUH. I didn't actually make that connection, vis-a-vis the implications of stream-of-consciousness narration; I feel like it's a fairly common and not-necessarily-indicative-of-madness rhetorical device now, and I didn't realize that was a Thing in the 1930s...?

Kay and Mordred's double act is just, so much fun for me - I love a good "characters who Don't Play Well With Others forced into a situation where they're reluctant allies" dynamic - but, yeah, the sarcastic narration is a way for both the characters and the audience to gain a bit of distance from the sheer grimness-to-horror of it all. As you mentioned in your review, Karr makes you laugh right before dropping the story of the May Babies!

[osprey_archer]

I feel certain that I've seen "stream of consciousness insanity" elsewhere in 1930s books, but as often happens when I try to think of a specific example I'm turning up empty. (It's also been quite some time since I read South Riding!)

The May Babies story is such a tour de force, because Kay reaches peak Done with Everyone energy while he's telling it, and yet at the same time he never condemns Arthur - after all the guy is still his sovereign, and while he may scoff mightily at him, actually breaking the bonds of fealty is clearly a bridge too far for him.

It's interesting how Karr modernizes the characters (as you say, Kay sometimes feels like he comes from modernity or at least Common Sense Land) but in certain ways their thinking is still SO foreign. Like Morgan's whole thing about getting Lancelot to impregnate her because he is the best knight and therefore has the best seed and they would make the best baby together. Well, that's one reason to keep a knight imprisoned for a year so he can paint incriminating and criminally bad murals about his affair with Guenevere on your walls...

[troisoiseaux]

because Kay reaches peak Done with Everyone energy while he's telling it, and yet at the same time he never condemns Arthur

It's key to the "Merlin as the real villain" theme of Karr's Kay's perspective of the Arthurian legends he's lived through: Merlin could have told Arthur who his father was and avoided multiple problems (war, incest, etc.) but nooooo; he could have come up with either less drastic interpretation of Arthur's snake dream OR counseled less drastic action than pulling a Straight-Up King Herod, but NOOO, he had to jump straight to DROWNING BABIES.

I think the sense of Modern Thinking comes through largely with the female characters as well - Lynette, Dame Iblis, Morgan, and Nimue - but possibly that is because the Arthurian Narrative Cultural Lens just... wouldn't give their perspective in the first place...?

[osprey_archer]

Honestly fascinated to know Merlin's perspective on all of this. Why DIDN'T you tell Arthur his true parentage, Merlin, hmmm? Why did you opt for the King Herod path? (Notably, in OAFK Merlin is already entombed in his cave by the time the May Babies roll around; Arthur just says, "They said I should..." without saying who "they" are.)

Yes, I think you're onto something with the sense of modernity coming from the female characters - haven't actually read Malory so perhaps I am doing him a wrong, but I suspect they don't get much perspective there.

[sovay]

Why DIDN'T you tell Arthur his true parentage, Merlin, hmmm?

I have decided I am genuinely interested in finding a version of the conception of Mordred that requires neither Merlin nor Morgause to be a villain—I'm sure it can be done!—and I have no idea if it actually exists.

[skygiants]

I've been meaning to write up High Noon Over Camelot since I listened to it at aria's a few weeks ago, which has one of the more genuinely unique Mordred:Morgause takes I've encountered simply by making them the same person.

[sovay]

which has one of the more genuinely unique Mordred:Morgause takes I've encountered simply by making them the same person.

I am indeed curious about how that works.

[lunabee34]

I love a book that just sucks you in and then won't let go.

[troisoiseaux]

I have to confess, I was ambivalent-to-interested for most of South Riding - several individual chapters definitely lived in my head rent-free, after I'd read them, but because it felt like a collection of interconnected short stories more than a novel with an overarching plot, I was happy to graze at the literary charcuterie board, rather than sit down to a full meal, as it were - but then there is a hell of a plot twist and I was like, I have to see how this one plays out right now immediately.

[sovay]

I was struck by the overlap between that narrative goal and how much of a voice (and depth, and sympathy) she gives to the women of Arthurian myth— although not, notably, Guenevere herself?

I don't think of Karr as unsympathetic to or uninterested in Guenevere—when we finally see her in the last chapter in conversation with Kay, she seems as much of a person as anyone else in the book—I just think by nature of the story's structure we can't be allowed anywhere near her perspective until the mystery has been solved, not least because we can't trust Kay as a narrator where she's concerned any more than we can trust him about Lancelot, who after all Morgan wanted a mythically well-sown child from and Kay would drop dead before admitting has a redeeming feature in his body.

at first glance it seems like a fun detail, and then at second glance it's a punch-you-in-the-feels one

This nicely summarizes, if you ask me, the entire book.

[troisoiseaux]

I don't think of Karr as unsympathetic to or uninterested in Guenevere—when we finally see her in the last chapter in conversation with Kay, she seems as much of a person as anyone else in the book

I agree! I was just thinking about how, in contrast to, e.g., Lynette and Dame Iblis and Nimue and Morgan— they all basically retell "their side" of their respective stories, and Guenevere... not so much? It is due to structure/the limitations of Kay's POV - he'd probably drop dead on the spot rather than have an in-depth conversation with Guenevere about the fact she's involved in a love triangle and he's not in it - but idk, it just stuck out to me.

[skygiants]

I was wondering if part of it was the fact that numerous Guinevere-focused books do exist where the Lynette and Dame Iblis etc. stories are much less likely to previously exist, but certainly there are also some very famous Morgan-focused books ...