It's already Wednesday somewhere
Aug. 27th, 2019 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxRecently read
I finished Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans; it was......... fine. The writing style fell a little flat for me, and I’m not a huge fan of how infidelity is a plot point of, like, every single contemporary adult novel these days. The structure of developing the story through multiple viewpoints was a cool idea, but left a frustrating amount of loose threads, especially because I was more interested in the fates/plot resolutions of some of the side characters – the witness; the detective – than whether the main couple resolved their differences and ended up together, but to be honest, I have some unanswered questions there too. I was right about the plot twist I predicted in my last post, although that’s not a very pleasant thing to be right about.
Feeling a bit sick of grown-up books, I decided to read Geraldine McCaughrean’s Peter Pan in Scarlet, the official, authorized sequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, published in 2006. Peter Pan was my favorite book as a kid and I read all the adaptions and spin-offs I could get my hands on, but I only vaguely remember this one— the part at the beginning where the grown-up Lost Boys de-age themselves in order to go back to Neverland by dressing up their children’s clothes[1] always stuck with me, but not much else.
As it turns out, it’s a charming story on its own merits, and solid enough as a sequel to, you know, only one of the most famous children’s books of all time (and a personal favorite). It made some changes that struck me as kind of weird[2], and didn’t really address the one big thing that really should be changed[3], but I did get a kick out of McCaughrean taking the ‘if your canon doesn’t grow its own female characters, store-bought is fine’ route and turning one of the Lost Boys into a girl, and I really liked some of her additions to the Neverland mythology.
1. Or, in the case of childless Slightly, “going down to the foot of the bed” (which I’d misremembered as turning somersaults, oops.) Side note: Slightly was always my favorite Lost Boy, so I was delighted he got quite a lot of page time/his own subplot in this, and with McCaughrean's characterization of him.
2. According to this book, Hook hated his mother because she pulled him out of Eton just before he could win prizes for sports, the only thing he was good at, and in revenge he stole all the trophies and stuff that would have been given out, right before he left, which started him on his life of crime. I’m trying to think of anything from the original book that would actually contradict this – it doesn’t square with Hook’s obsession with “good form”? – but mostly it just feels wrong. Also, Tinkerbell gets married to McCaughrean’s OC fairy at the end of the book and I’m not sure how I feel about this at all.
3. She does downgrade the racism from “appalling” to merely “uncomfortable,” but it’s still... not great.
Currently reading
After checking my library's website and Libby offerings daily to see if they had Jia Tolentino’s new book, Trick Mirror, yet, I realized I had an Amazon gift card I’d gotten as a graduation present, so I went ahead and bought a copy. I’m glad I did, because I can already tell this is a book I’ll want to re-read.
I also started Nicholas Nickleby! I’m only a few chapters in, which have largely been filled with nefarious uncles and miserable orphans. I love Dickens’ snark, though; the chapter about the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company had me in stitches. (Side note: I’d assumed that lobbying legislative bodies on behalf of corporate interests was a more recent development than the 1840s/whatever, but apparently not? And yeah, as I type it out, I realize what a dumb assumption that was. Lobbyists have probably existed as long as legislative bodies have.)
Up next
I recently connected the dots between one of my favorite out-of-context quotes I’ve seen floating around the internet and Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, so this is me making a note to check my local library for that.
I finished Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans; it was......... fine. The writing style fell a little flat for me, and I’m not a huge fan of how infidelity is a plot point of, like, every single contemporary adult novel these days. The structure of developing the story through multiple viewpoints was a cool idea, but left a frustrating amount of loose threads, especially because I was more interested in the fates/plot resolutions of some of the side characters – the witness; the detective – than whether the main couple resolved their differences and ended up together, but to be honest, I have some unanswered questions there too. I was right about the plot twist I predicted in my last post, although that’s not a very pleasant thing to be right about.
Feeling a bit sick of grown-up books, I decided to read Geraldine McCaughrean’s Peter Pan in Scarlet, the official, authorized sequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, published in 2006. Peter Pan was my favorite book as a kid and I read all the adaptions and spin-offs I could get my hands on, but I only vaguely remember this one— the part at the beginning where the grown-up Lost Boys de-age themselves in order to go back to Neverland by dressing up their children’s clothes[1] always stuck with me, but not much else.
As it turns out, it’s a charming story on its own merits, and solid enough as a sequel to, you know, only one of the most famous children’s books of all time (and a personal favorite). It made some changes that struck me as kind of weird[2], and didn’t really address the one big thing that really should be changed[3], but I did get a kick out of McCaughrean taking the ‘if your canon doesn’t grow its own female characters, store-bought is fine’ route and turning one of the Lost Boys into a girl, and I really liked some of her additions to the Neverland mythology.
1. Or, in the case of childless Slightly, “going down to the foot of the bed” (which I’d misremembered as turning somersaults, oops.) Side note: Slightly was always my favorite Lost Boy, so I was delighted he got quite a lot of page time/his own subplot in this, and with McCaughrean's characterization of him.
2. According to this book, Hook hated his mother because she pulled him out of Eton just before he could win prizes for sports, the only thing he was good at, and in revenge he stole all the trophies and stuff that would have been given out, right before he left, which started him on his life of crime. I’m trying to think of anything from the original book that would actually contradict this – it doesn’t square with Hook’s obsession with “good form”? – but mostly it just feels wrong. Also, Tinkerbell gets married to McCaughrean’s OC fairy at the end of the book and I’m not sure how I feel about this at all.
3. She does downgrade the racism from “appalling” to merely “uncomfortable,” but it’s still... not great.
Currently reading
After checking my library's website and Libby offerings daily to see if they had Jia Tolentino’s new book, Trick Mirror, yet, I realized I had an Amazon gift card I’d gotten as a graduation present, so I went ahead and bought a copy. I’m glad I did, because I can already tell this is a book I’ll want to re-read.
I also started Nicholas Nickleby! I’m only a few chapters in, which have largely been filled with nefarious uncles and miserable orphans. I love Dickens’ snark, though; the chapter about the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company had me in stitches. (Side note: I’d assumed that lobbying legislative bodies on behalf of corporate interests was a more recent development than the 1840s/whatever, but apparently not? And yeah, as I type it out, I realize what a dumb assumption that was. Lobbyists have probably existed as long as legislative bodies have.)
Up next
I recently connected the dots between one of my favorite out-of-context quotes I’ve seen floating around the internet and Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, so this is me making a note to check my local library for that.
