Pictures of Perfection

Recently read

• Lynn Flewelling, Stalking Darkness & Traitor's Moon
  
  I've already bemoaned the fact that somehow I was totally sleeping on the Nightrunner series, but at least I've found it now. I was also correct when I said that I probably wouldn't be smart enough to take a break from the series after the second part. I did manage to stop myself after the third one, so yay for that! I was starting to feel a bit woozy while reading the third volume -- they are so long that it's easy to get lost in them -- so it seemed like a good point to stop for a while and go read something else for a while.



• Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor
  
  That something else was the Vorkosigan Saga, which I've also been sleeping on. At least I haven't been completely clueless: I've known of its existence for close to 20 years. I've always meant to read it at some point, but for some reason I never got around to it until now. I completely fell in love with Shards of Honor. It was so good that it was a bit surprising to realise it was Bujold's debut.



• Yatsuki Wakatsu, The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, Vol. 1: Holy Maiden Summoning Improvement Plan
  
  Isekai BL about a workaholic accountant, who is pulled along another person's transmigration trip, and a grumpy knightly commander, who very reluctantly gets invested in the accountant's eating and resting habits (or lack thereof). Reading this sure was an experience. Not a good book by any conceivable metric, but unfortunately highly addictive. I've already bought the second volume, so excuse me while I go cry about my life choices.

Currently reading

• Yatsuki Wakatsu, The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, Vol. 2: Church Management Support Plan
  
  Ehehe.



• Aliette de Bodard, The House of Sundering Flames
  
  One chapter in, and the melodramatic prose is already annoying me. Thuan continues to be a delight, though.



• Jonathan Dollimore, Sex, Literature, and Censorship
  
  I definitely don't have the theorical background to understand this, but I shall persevere.

Up next

Bujold's The Warrior's Apprentice, perhaps. Also, volume 5 of Ballad of Sword and Wine just came out.

Recently read

• Xue Shan Fei Hu, The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish, vol. 3. Silly and fluffy danmei. It's basically domestic fluff crossed with palace intrigue, except all the intrigue plots are resolved with minimal trouble and everything always works out for the main characters. Conflict level: -500. I don't know that I actually enjoyed reading this, because there was absolutely nothing of substance in it, but I still started vol. 4 right away. I blame the cliffhanger.
  
  I'll have to start being less of a completionist about danmei, don't I?



• Xue Shan Fei Hu, The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish, vol. 4. Yeah. I've no excuse.



• Gu Xue Rou, To Rule in a Turbulent World, vol. 1. Yet more historical danmei. I was pretty sceptical about this one, since the English translation is published by Via Lactea. Also, the translator/editor team is apparently Suika and Pengie, who made something of a mess of the TGCF and MDZS translations. Luckily, the quality of the translation and editing was better than I expected. Maybe nothing to write home about, but at least none of the tableware was tired of life, which was a step up from the TGCF translation.
  
  But. The fucking epub file, oh my god. Rant incoming.
  
  ( Screeching about the epub. Accessibility, goddamit! )
  
  
  It wouldn't have been a surprise if I'd just given up. I'm glad I didn't, though, because this was a surprisingly enjoyable read. So much so that I actually read it in one day.
  
  The MC is a flightly young master from a filthy-rich merchant family who has been sent to the capital to study for the imperial exam and to eventually buy prestige for his family by becoming an official. The ML is a slave from one of the northern nomadic tribes, whose loyalty the MC earns by saving his life. Since the MC is a flighty wastrel at first, he'll naturally have to face some difficulties to grow as a person.
  
  The prose isn't the most polished, but I liked the characters, and the pace of the novel is good. I also liked the farming, which is probably a weird thing to say about a story where the MC is studying to become a scholar, but there it is. A large part of this volume at least is taken up by restoring an old manor house and making the estate ready for spring planting. I happen to love stuff like that in fiction -- restoring something dilapidated, forging order out chaos, getting deep into the minutiae of a profession or craft -- but if you're bored by endless talk of watermills, then this might not be the book for you.
  
  Some content warnings to keep in mind should you be someone who would like to avoid these things: age gap relationship (15/22), master/slave relationship.



• A.J. Demas, Lion & Snake: Series One. Damn. Way to slay me again, Demas. Slow burn, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, age gap romance in Demas's pseudo-historical setting. Basically tailor-made for me. I have this because I'm subscribed to Demas on Ream. I don't think it's available anywhere else (yet).

Currently reading

Little progress on the old RIPs. Oops.

Up next

More farming in historical China, perhaps?

Recently read

Aliette de Bodard, The House of Shattered Wings & The House of Binding Thorns. I feel like I spent half the reading time arguing with de Bodard's choices, which didn't make for a restful reading experience.

They've got the same problem Shelley Parker-Chan's The Radiant Emperor duology: too many main characters and therefore not enough space to develop those characters, leading to the author leaning too heavily on a single defining characteristic for them. And just like Parker-Chan, de Bodard chose to lean on misery. If "woe is me" were a genre, these books would be picture-perfect examples of it.

You know how sometimes authors switch to a different set of main characters within a series? Freya Marske's The Last Binding series comes to mind; the switch killed any desire I had of continuing past the first volume. Well, in this case, a complete switch would have been a blessing. There's only so many times one can read about someone's spiral of self-castigation and misery before it gets stale, and the best parts of the second book were the parts with the new or less-known characters. (Well, most of them. One set of them was cast in the old mould of melodramatic navel-gazing.)

To be fair, though, I still pretty much inhaled these. Addictive, but frustrating.

Currently reading

Priest, Coins of Destiny vol. 1. A hundred pages in, and not really feeling this yet. Priest appears to be a mixed bag for me. Some of her novels I love (Stars of Chaos, Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire), others I very much don't (Guardian, and now this one too, apparently).

Ginn Hale, Wicked Gentlemen. This one, on the other hand, is keeping my attention, though it suffers from having the worst epub file I have ever seen. It's so messed up that I actually opened it up to see whether I could fix it easily. Alas, I would've pretty much had to redo the whole thing. It was an unholy mess, which isn't surprising, I suppose, given that it's apparently been exported straight from a bloody Word document. Holy fuck.

Up next

I've bought the sequel to The House of Shattered Wings and The House of Binding Thorns, so maybe that one. Or maybe I need more of a break from this series. We'll see.

Only two more days until my summer holiday, so I will have plenty of time to read then, even if I spend twice as long on a novel than I would normally do on account of all the ranting.

I appear to have read a bunch of danmei lately.

Legend of Exorcism vol. 1 by Fei Tian Ye Xiang
A bit meh about this. Nothing wrong with it, it's just not my cup of tea. It appears to be going in the direction of found family, so this might be a good fit for people who like that trope. It's not particularly a draw for me, which might explain my lukewarm reaction. Still, I'll probably read the next volume, too.

Ballad of Sword and Wine vol. 4 by Tang Jiu Qing
There are two ongoing danmei series where I always read the latest English release as soon as I can. This is one of them. I like military and court intrigue, and this one delivers.

Peerless vol. 4 by Meng Xi Shi
And this is the other series I always want to read ASAP. Also a plot-driven one with plenty of political intrigue, though this one is more focused on the mystery aspect -- figuring out what's going on with all these rebellious plots -- whereas Ballad of Sword and Wine has the main characters themselves right in the middle of all the plotting and rebelling.

How to Survive as Villain vol. 2 by Yi Yi Yi Yi
This novel has about as much dramatic tension as a worn-out rubber band. This is a transmigration novel that leans quite heavily into a kind of absurd humour which, you probably guessed it, is not my thing. By the end of vol. 1 I thought it was moving towards more serious direction. You know, "character transmigrates into a novel, treats is as a bit of a game, eventually realises that these people are real, things get more serious". Well, it didn't happen. Within a few chapters, vol. 2 was back to the silliness. Pleasant enough reading when you just want to hang your brain out to dry and relax, though. And luckily only three volumes long.

In addition to all the danmei, I also finished this:

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
This is the second part of the Radiant Emperor duology, the first one being She Who Became the Sun. I have conflicted feelings about this. On the one hand, Parker-Chan created some very interesting characters in the first part of the series. On the other hand, I think having so many major characters and trying to follow them all and tie them to the plot is also its weakness, which became clear in this second part of the series. There isn't space to devote enough time to them (except maybe Zhu Chongba, who I unfortunately find the least interesting), so they are rather two-dimensional. It's tragic character after tragic character after tragic character, which becomes a bit repetitive.

Also, to me the most interesting relationships and the ones with the most interpersonal tension were the ones that revolved around Esen-Temur. (Warning: major spoilers for She Who Became the Sun follow.) Highlight for spoilers! *And then Esen-Temur died in the first book. To me, it was the most emotionally satisfying moment in the whole book. I thought the build-up and the resolution to the story-arc was really well written. But without Esen-Temur, much of the interpersonal conflict that drove Ouyang and Wang Baoxiang lost its dynamism and became stagnant. They felt the after-effects, to be sure, and it was those after-effects that drove them in this second book. I just don't think they were enough to carry these characters.*

There were good parts in this book too, sure -- I really liked the story arc with Wang Baoxiang and the Third Prince -- but IMO they weren't quite enough. YMMV.

With books like these, I often keep thinking about the things they didn't do well, and that is reflected here as well. That gives a distorted view of the books. Makes it seem like I think less of them than I do. And yet the reason I keep thinking about the weaknesses is because books like these are interesting enough to hold my attention. Mediocrity doesn't do that.

So, let me state this: even though it didn't quite live up to its potential, I thought this was an interesting book and a good debut series. I look forward to seeing what Parker-Chan does next.

I'll Have What He's Having by Adib Khorram
M/M romance. DNF'd in chapter 7. No complaints about the plot, the setting, the characters, etc. The reason for the DNF was the amateurish writing. It's got infodumping, characterisation with a capital C, cringy sex. I felt like I was reading Khorram's daydream about what a cool life would be like. And the frustrating thing is that I think all of these issues were solvable with the help of a good editor. As it is, it's not worth bothering with.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer
This, on the other hand, is extremely worth bothering with, because it's fantastic. Sci-fi mystery/thriller, with a smattering of M/M romance. I recommend not spoiling yourself for the plot twist beforehand, though from experience I can say that even if you do get spoiled, it's still worth reading.

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
The second book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series, and just as good as the first. Mystery with thoughtful depictions of power, responsibility, and the danger of good intentions.

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
DNF'd at 16%. This isn't so much an anti-rec as it is a warning, because I think The Game of Kings really requires you to have a better grasp of British history -- especially the Anglo-Scottish Wars -- than I do. It assumes you have a lot of background knowledge about the people and the events, and if you don't, it's often dull reading. It might have got more interesting later on, but there are too many books I really want to read for me to bother finding out.

Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
As far as I can remember, the only work by a Russian author that I'd ever read before this was a short story by Anton Chekhov, which we had to read at school. The reason I picked Kreuzer Sonata up was because I was going to see a ballet based on it soon after, and I'm glad I did. It deals with domestic violence, and yet it's a surprisingly easy read. Anyway, I've now read both a short story and a novella by a famous Russian author. What's next, a whole novel?

(The ballet was good, too, though I think the choreographer had mostly missed the point of the novella.)

I managed to shrink my one handknit lightweight beanie. Accidentally washed it in 40 degrees rather than 30. Farewell, beanie.

I dug up some leftover yarn I had from knitting a sweater this past winter: 1.5 skeins of Knitting for Olive Merino, which I figured would probably be enough for an adult beanie in size large. Possibly even one with a turned up brim. The colour is called Trenchcoat, which is a very trenchcoat-y colour. Probably not my favourite, but it grew on me as I was knitting the sweater, especially as the silk mohair I paired it with gave it more shine and depth.

Since the decision to cast on this beanie now rather than later was a last-minute one as I was preparing to flee renovations, I packed my supplies in a hurry. I was planning to try a top-down beanie pattern, so I packed a long cable for magic loop. What I didn't pack was a 40-centimetre cable. Either of them, because I have two. At home. Where I am not.

Alas, knitting the crown went a lot faster than I thought, even with my knitting pace of "snail chilling on a leaf", so now I have a beanie WIP that could fit onto short circulars, but no short circulars, and a week of my exile left.

Do I
a) keep going with magic loop (hate it, thanks),
b) switch to knitting my sock WIP (don't wanna), or
c) go buy a new cable (waste of money)?

Decisions, decisions.

I read J.M.Coetzee's Disgrace in January. I had tried it once before, so I knew going in that I would dislike it. If Coetzee had set out to write a novel designed to make me froth at the mouth, he couldn't have done much better. It infuriates me enough to get me to finally break my renovations-induced social media break.

Spoilers ahoy. (Also, CW for rape.)

The protagonist of Disgrace is David Lurie, a middle-aged professor at a South African university, where he teaches a subject he feels is beneath him. When he's not teaching, he's avoiding writing a chamber opera about Byron, having sex with younger women, and generally being an ass. He pressures his student, Melanie Isaacs, into having "an affair" with him. (The reason for the quotes will become clear soon.) When caught, he refuses to show regret, loses his job, and decides to go visit his daughter Lucy.

Things happen, Lucy gets raped, David is incensed (oh, the irony), yadda yadda, something something, the end. It's mostly a technically proficient novel, though the prose can get curiously purple at times. I think it's all style and no substance, though. It fails, IMO, because Coetzee doesn't have a good enough understanding of sexual violence to be writing a book that centers on sexual violence.

As you can see, I don't think much of it. It's a book that tries so hard to shock that its shock-value seems to be its main purpose.

However, the most infuriating thing about Disgrace is not Disgrace itself. It's the blurb. The edition I read said:

"David Lurie ... has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry."

That's utter horseshit. David Lurie doesn't have an affair with Melanie Isaacs. David Lurie does a Neil Gaiman and pressures his student into having sex with him. At least one of their sexual encounters is outright rape, for all that David calls it "[n]ot rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core." (Chapter 3)

In that scene, Melanie outright tells him no and struggles against him, but he forces himself on her anyway. In all the scenes, Melanie is clearly a reluctant participant. David stalks her and deliberately takes her by surprise so that she won't be able to find the words to say no. And Melanie, predictably, starts cutting class and avoiding David right after their first sexual encounter.

And this is what the publisher chose to describe as an affair gone sour. What the everloving fuck?

Disgrace revolves around rapes both brutal and more subtle, yes, but it also revolves around rape and sexual violence on a meta level, at least in my mind. I spent the whole book wondering if Coetzee realises he wrote David Lurie as a rapist. Half the time I thought he couldn't possibly have written the book the way he did without understanding that, but the other half I thought that no, maybe he really doesn't understand.

Disgrace draws attention to the ways people like David Lurie get away with rape. The men who raped Lucy get away, too, though I think that's probably the part where Coetzee comments on modern South African history and which therefore I have zero competence to comment on myself. But the way Lurie gets away with rape is the way men like him get away with rape everywhere: by doing it (mostly) by coercion rather than physical violence and by being in a position of authority. By being powerful. After all, the only reason Lurie loses his job is because he refuses to pay lip service to the concept of regret.

So does Coetzee realise Lurie is a rapist? I'm not sure, but there'd be plenty of people who wouldn't call him that. Coetzee's publisher certainly didn't.

I don't much like goals. Or rather, I don't much like public goals. I don't find them motivating, and I haven't noticed them making me Do The Thing more. The opposite, really.

A fantastic start to a Snowflake challenge post that should be about setting goals for the year. :D

I have signed up for two challenges this year, though: the Fannish 50 challenge, for which I chose the topic "50 thoughts about books", and the Goodreads Reading Challenge, which I do just so that Goodreads will display my read count on the frontpage.

I have deliberately made them very easy to achieve. I set my reading challenge goal as 30 books, so that I can reach it easily and then bask in the feeling of a job well done. My Fannish 50 topic is also loose enough that even this post counts.

Perhaps this year I'll stop listing my "Currently Reading" books on Goodreads. It makes me feel pressured to read them, which isn't conducive to me actually reading them.

I'm not a monogamous reader by any means. I usually have half a dozen books in progress, some of which may languish months in the RIP pile. And yet, I almost always feel an internal pressure to finish reading books fast. I also feel like I shouldn't have too many reads-in-progress.

Which inevitably leads me to stalling on all my non-fic reading, if my RIPs aren't keeping my interest at that particular moment. -_-

I've been reading Alastalon salissa by Volter Kilpi, which is famous and famously difficult. Everyone knows it, critics praise it, and no one reads it. It's a stream-of-consciousness novel, an 800-page doorstopper that takes place over the course of a six-hour period in the titular parlour of Alastalo, where the local well-off men have gathered to discuss building a barque ship.

There isn't much discussion about the barque in the book. Instead, the characters think about: choosing a pipe, the best ratio of water to rum in a hot toddy, the necessity of building their own parlour a foot longer than Alastalo's, and other such fascinating topics.

Alastalon salissa is not suited for fast reading, as I discovered when I tried to read it fast. I only started to enjoy reading it when I started reading it in much shorter chunks. It doesn't matter if you set it aside for three months and forget everything that has happened, because nothing has actually happened. It doesn't even matter if you forget what it said on the previous page as you read it, because there would have been nothing there to remember.

Reading Alastalon salissa is about appreciating the rhythm and the descriptiveness of the language and the -- frankly hilarious -- characters. It's best when it's savoured, not gobbled.

Tl;dr: Each book has its own pace, and not all books should be read and finished fast.