Reading Wednesday

[troisoiseaux]

Recently read

Went on an Agatha Christie binge, with The Pale Horse (1961), The Moving Finger (1942), and Towards Zero (1944). Interestingly, despite the very different premises and the almost 20-year gap between their publishing dates, I caught a number of similarities between The Pale Horse and the The Moving Finger.

The most obvious connection was that a Rev. and Mrs. Dane Calthrop showed up in both novels. In both cases, the vicar's personality boiled down to a penchant for overlong Latin quotations; the Mrs. Dane Calthrops of The Pale Horse and The Moving Finger differed slightly in terms of characterization (one gave "sound but unorthodox advice", and the other made a point to never give any advice at all) but served a similar narrative purpose.

Both novels also touch on the topic of the "village witch" - actually a grumpy old woman who cultivated a Reputation so people would leave her alone but also send her free stuff, to get on her good side - supposedly able to "ill-wish" someone so they "waste away and die of natural causes." This was proposed hypothetically in The Moving Finger - actually a passing argument as to why the so-called village witch in question wouldn't have committed the murder(s) - but it was a major focus of the plot in The Pale Horse.

Finally - and this is admittedly a more tenuous connection, but given the other similarities it stuck out - both novels feature a character with similar physical descriptions. The part that stuck out to me was the "prominent Adam's apple," because that seems like such a weirdly specific thing to describe?

The Pale Horse also contained a passing reference to one of Christie's Tommy & Tuppence novels; a character mentions having encountered an elderly woman in a nursing home who spoke, apparently senilely, about a child buried behind a fireplace, which is of course what sets off the Beresfords' investigation-of-the-book in By the Pricking of My Thumbs. So that's an interesting data point for my Agatha Christie Extended Universe theory! Ariadne Oliver and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford apparently exist in the same 'verse, and since Ariadne Oliver and Hercule Poirot definitely exist in the same 'verse, I guess the Beresfords and Poirot also exist in the same universe? (Of course, maybe T&T don't exist in this universe and the mystery of the child behind the fireplace never gets solved. :/)

Read Intimations, a new, very short, very good collection of essays by Zadie Smith, reflecting on the hell year that is 2020. The proceeds are donated to the Equal Justice Initiative and the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund for New York— it's $4.99 for an e-book and I think it's $10 for a physical copy?

Finished The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. I have basically no thoughts on it whatsoever, but the ending was cuckoo bananas: Quentin stops Fillory's apocalypse by turning into a dragon, killing its twin gods, and temporarily becoming a god himself, only to give up his godly powers, because Quentin Gives Up is pretty much the theme of this series. I'm pretty sure this still wouldn't have made any sense whatsoever even if I had actually read the last few chapters rather than skimming them because I'd lost interest.

Also, I don't blame Alice for being mad that Quentin "rescued" her from being a niffin. Like, she seemed to be enjoying her afterlife as a disembodied magical energy spirit that can apparently go anywhere - down to the crust of the earth, up past the known reaches of space, through mirrors - so to then be spontaneously re-embodied by her whiney ex, who saw her as more of an ideal than a person when she was alive and only got more "she was the only one who understood me!!" about her in the seven years since she died? I'd be pissed off, too!

...okay, I guess I had two (2) thoughts.

Currently reading

Given my recent Arthurian kick, I'm re-reading The Once & Future King by T.H. White.

Comments

[kore]

Oh yeah, Janet is VERY grating, altho she won my heart with that long monologue about her time in the desert -- which the actress for the show apparently auditioned with! they made her different in the show, much more likeable and heroic (I was fine with it, LOL, esp since the actress was gorgeous). I really liked the part where she was a witness to Fillory's end, too. And one nice thing abt the show is that now when I read about Eliot I can picture Hale Applebaum, who was just about perfect. Butyeah, nearly everyone in the book is insufferable, maybe with the exception of Alice, who has that opaqueness that makes me think she might be some kind of version of a girl the male author was in love with IRL.

I was WAY more interested in Julia and her demi-goddess?-hood than Quentin being Lord King Creator God who of course was the only one who could destroy AND save Fillory. Bleah.

[troisoiseaux]

who has that opaqueness that makes me think she might be some kind of version of a girl the male author was in love with IRL

Honestly, my entire experience of reading this series was haunted by whatever the opposite of "death of the author" is. Aggressive presence of the author, working some stuff out.

I did like - although I guess like isn't the right word - the part where Quentin's dad died and he's convinced that maybe his dad was a secret magician because that couldn't be it, his dad couldn't have been just some emotionally distant, boring, normal guy, and it turns out... it is. There's no mystery there, no secret panel behind his filing cabinet. It was one of the more emotionally genuine scenes in the series.

I also liked the other Chatwin brother's memoir. It made me sad for the Chatwin brother who became the villain of the first book. :(

[kore]

Honestly, my entire experience of reading this series was haunted by whatever the opposite of "death of the author" is. Aggressive presence of the author, working some stuff out.

LOL, YES

It's almost like white guys are rewarded with lots of money and publicity for working out their issues therapeutically in book series while when women do that, it's a Bad Thing! hah.

Oh yeah, the memoir by the brother was great -- that was really well-written, and so sad. I kept getting all these hints that Grossman really COULD inhabit people OTHER THAN Quentin! ....and yet, there we were, still stuck in Quentin for nearly the whole freaking series.

[moon_custafer]

I have not read either this series or Philip Pullman, but from my friends’ comments on both I’m definitely getting the impression that hatred of children’s-fantasy tropes is not in itself a good reason to write fantasy books?

[kore]

Grossman actually said his series was supposed to be a "deconstruction" of Harry Potter (I....thought Harry Potter deconstructed itself, really, but whatever) and "Wouldn't it be awful for the guy whose life peaked in high school? What would you do after that?" like he thought Harry Potter was some magical jock whose life ended after the Final Year Quidditch Championship Season. I don't even know.

I do like some aspects of the books, but I find the show adapted from them a whole lot better, and a lot of the fic is great.

[troisoiseaux]

Grossman actually said his series was supposed to be a "deconstruction" of Harry Potter

I also get the sense he has some opinions about the Narnia series, although other than "needs to be edgier," I'm not... wholly sure what those opinions are.

[kore]

OMFG if I said what I thought about him using an expy of C.S. Lewis (or "the guy who wrote Narnia" anyway, he doesn't go into CSL's religion at all) as a character who MOLESTS THE ORIGINAL KIDS who travel to Fillory whose stories he basically steals....Comcast would come to my house, disconnect my cable modem, and toss it out the window. UNFORTUNATELY, while the show mostly improved on his dumb plotting, that was one thing they not only kept but doubled down on.