solitary_summer: (Default)
[Trying to clean up & out all my half-written lj entries before leaving for an offline holiday...]


Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles

I liked both Throne of Jade and Empire of Ivory rather less than the first volume, and I must admit I'd kind of forgotten about Black Powder War and had to check amazon (and it's a special kind of internet generated laziness that makes you go to amazon rather than five steps to your own bookshelf... *facepalm*) for the name of the fith book on the vague suspicion that there had been a fifth book, and don't remember very much about it other than thinking Stephen Maturin wouldn't have thought twice about pulling that trigger, and I doubt would even have let Jack (much less William Laurence) stop him, actually given the opportunity to shoot Napoleon.

Victory of Eagles, though, I really enjoyed and IMO is the best book of the series so far along with His Majesty's Dragon, ... )


On a rather different note, what I find refreshing (perhaps an unfair generalisation, but having read Victory of Eagles right after Lynn Flewelling's latest novel it really stands out) is that for an author who comes out of, and still is involved with, fandom, specifically the slash corner of it, her writing is almost completely free of fandom tropes of any kind. If there's any 'ship' dynamic at all, it was, especially in the first book, in a clever twist of things between Laurence and Temeraire, which I suspect can't be entirely coincidental with Temeraire taking Stephen Maturin's part as the outside observer who criticises the practices and absurdities of military hierarchy and human society, the advocate of democracy. Not to mention the tendril-stroking thing. *g*



Which brings me to another point... I've been wondering for a while, but most recently apropos Shadows Return, which sacrificed the comparative complexity of the earlier volumes' political plots to become one long, self-indulgent and almost entirely relationship driven hurt/comfort slave!fic that just barely skirts mpreg, with only token appearances by the minor characters (who hadn't been so minor before, either), whether it was fandom that made me look at fiction in terms of tropes and kinks, or whether the close interaction between fandom and professional authors that the internet offers makes authors more likely to... It doesn't even have to be conscious pandering to the audience, but does being so familiar with fandom and knowing exactly what will get you readers (and it's commonplace that at least in fandom even mediocre slash will get a writer more comments and publicity especially when it's the right pairing than good gen) - consciously or subconciously - influence a writer's decisions?

... )


solitary_summer: (Default)
Quick summary of, er, since I last updated. (Funny how every time I make a big dramatic post about OMGjournalingblock&self-hatred, updating suddenly becomes easier...)

Around All Saints Day I took a couple of days off for a four days trip to Salzburg, where I took a lot of walks as well as a lot of photographs, and felt, if not exactly happy, at least mostly relaxed and content and a bit more like breathing freely.



a few more pictures )



Also watched S5 finishing my B5 marathon and I cried through the best part Sleeping In Light from the moment Susan gets Sheridan's letter, which must be a new record. One might think I'd have become a bit desensitised by the third or fourth time, but apparently I'm getting even more sentimental in my old age. ::sigh::

Surprisingly enough I found I liked - the telepath[s of the very glossy hair, and does it come with the gene?]-arc aside - S5 best of all, maybe because it's the most grittily realistic. Maybe I've become too old and cynical, or maybe it's the spirit of the time and we've all become harder and more disillusioned, but at times throughout the earlier seasons I caught myself thinking that this would never work out, people are just never that idealistic, self-less and heroic and not the least bit corrupted by the power the wield. (And I guess MJS must have been aware of that potential problem, or he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to establish Sheridan and Delenn's personal integrity, not to mention Sheridan's personal memento mori.)

The character I most identify with is still Garibaldi, Sinclair can be surprisingly, dare I say it, hot on occasion, and somehow Ivanonva doesn't live up to the memories I have from when I watched the show on tv.



reading: Naomi Novik: Empire Of Ivory, Perihan Maǧden: Two Girls, Clive Barker, Mister B. Gone )


Since then, work, procrastinating (as usual), two birthday cakes (cheesecake for B. and M. at work, apple cake for my father), a bit of a lingering cold, more work with books arriving at the last possible moment or later, skipped Spanish class & belly dancing class this week because I was too tired and sick, with a sudden pain in my back/right hip to add to the general miserableness, snow, cold, heat in my apartment not working when I tried to turn it on Saturday (repair guy comes tomorrow), being wrapped in blankets with a hot water bottle as a result, starting to watch the Hornblower DVDs I bought a while back, and while it's a bit like O'Brian light, the boy is ridculously pretty as well as heroic, and it's fairly enjoyable to watch...
solitary_summer: (creatrix (© clive barker))

Attempted the first morning run in three weeks & barely managed six lengths (some six or seven km) through the park in a rather longer time than I care to mention. Gah.

And that's about all the activity I can face today, except hop over to my parents' place to water their plants and possibly do my laundry, since I'm running out of towels.

I'm tired of feeling drained all the time. It's been two weeks since I've had the energy to do more on weekends than quietly collapse and take every minute of rest I can get. Three weeks since the last morning run, since the last time I went out to take photos. Thursday at work I had what may or may not have been a minor breakdown, sitting in out storeroom-cum-kitchen for half an hour, unable to stop crying, for no real reason except that suddenly it was all too much. I'd dragged myself to work the week before despite the less than pleasant side effects of the antibiotics, because I'd stupidly believed that things would immediately & miraculously improve afterwards, which of course they didn't, and suddenly it felt that there was nothing left of my life but work, sleep and feeling sick. Over the last couple of years I (think I) managed to address and accept the inadequacies and imperfections of my life, the way it fell rather short of my (and, probably the greater problem, everyone else's) expectations, my inability to form relationships, the lack of perspective and challenge of my work-situation (Perhaps this isn't the best or healthiest way of dealing with things, but I know I don't have the strength to make any fundamental changes, at least not at the moment, and the alternative would be to drive myself into depression again by constantly comparing myself to some day-dream ideal I'll never reach, and hating myself and everyone happier and more successful in the process.), but it's a fragile balance, and too easily shaken up even by minor crises.


All right, body, I get it. I'm rethinking my relationship with you. I'll treat you better. Just get healthy again, pretty please?


* * *



In the meantime, lethargically watched too much tv, not to mention all of SV S4.


Read, although over a longer span of time than just the last three weeks:

Ya,sar Kemal, Mehmed, mein Falke (beautiful, although I prefer his later books).

G. di Lampedusa, Der Leopard (very vivid and evocative, liked it a lot, even if it isn't a book I can actually connect to).

E.M.Forster, The Longest Journey (a re-read, still/again love it, sad and strange and very beautiful), A Room With A View (another re-read, never my favourite among his books, but not-quite-light and not-quite-sweet, and I'm genuinely fond of it) and Where Angels Fear To Tread (this one I barely have a recollection of having read before, and for some reason still don't like it too much. It's not bad of course, but, IMO, too academically constructed. With all of Forster's novels his characters and plots are very much vehicles for the message he wants to convey, but here more than anywhere else none of the characters strike me as alive nor their actions as natural, rather than illustrating some point.)

Naomi Novik ([livejournal.com profile] naominovik), Throne Of Jade and Black Powder War: Now there's something that freaks me out a little about reviewing a book when the author's only a mouse-click or two away, especially with the culture of squee'n'gush prevalent on livejournal... Not that she'll ever read it, but still. It's not as if i didn't like the two sequels, but I wasn't as charmed and delighted as with the first book. The writing is good, there's plenty of lovely world building, enough plot to keep the story going, and I rather adore the dragon characters, but for me the problem is that for all the miles covered geographically, emotionally it just doesn't go anywhere. The first book was carried by the development of the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire, but this is from the beginning established as such a strong, mutually exclusive bond, to which even lovers must always come second, that there is little room for other emotional connections to form, and despite certain philosophical differences and the angstiness over possibly being parted in ToJ, the Laurence-Temeraire relationship has little room for development left, either unless Laurence should discover some Chinese spell to turn him into a dragon and they live happily ever after.

But then again, the problem might not be with the novels at all, but rather lie with the fact that I've made it through all but two and a half of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels before my exasperation with his rambling style of narration won out over my fondness for his characters, and perhaps I'm a little hesitant to start all over again with O'Brian light with dragons...
solitary_summer: (candles (© clive barker))

Meh.Last Wednesday I took the last of the meds for that stomach/nausea problem; Thursday still was okay, but by Friday the nausea was back again, and still is, in varying degrees. Might have something to do with the fact that I had the worst first (and second) day of period I've had for a very long time, which, considering my periods are normally pretty mellow isn't saying all that much, but I still I felt awful, crampy, dizzy, etc... Then again, it might not. I suspect another trip to the doctor will be in order this week. I'm starting to get a little worried, but also a lot annoyed. I'm going to fly to Madrid in a week's time to see [livejournal.com profile] soavezefiretto, which I'm looking forward to, damn it, and I kind of thought I'd be okay by then. Not distracted by vague and undefined sickness. Normal state of things. Able to, you know, have a glass of wine with her instead of ask for camomile tea and dry bread. ::frustrated sigh::

I'm not pleased with this. Ever since last summer my body has been throwing a series of minor yet irritating-as-hell fuck-ups at me; I'd like to feel really healthy for once.


As a result of this, and the cold rainy weather (today he sun has come out; I should get dressed and go out for a walk, I really should. but. tiredness. lethargy. provokingly cheery sunshine) nothing of any importance happened or got done over the weekend. Saw BBM and Derek Jarman's Sebastiane on dvd (the former I've said enough about already, the latter, which I hadn't seen before, I rather liked -- I like his visual language; it's not the more linear, easier to translate into words storytelling I usually prefer, but it contributes, it's not superficiality or empty form). Caught most of Rosenstraße on tv, and that two part movie about Catherine the Great, which mainly consisted of Catherine Zeta Jones looking pretty and (in the second half) Potemkin pitching a fit of threatened masculinity about how he wasn't equal in this relationship every quarter of an hour or so. Perhaps I'm a bad feminist (bad, as in opposed to good feminist, not feminist=bad, obviously) to mock that, but the whole thing seemed so much more concerned with placating modern male viewers' sensibilities than with historicity that it felt faintly ridiculous. On the whole, rather bland.

Finished Orhan Pamuk's Rot ist mein Name, which was a little too... formal? focused on the art of miniature painting? for me to really get into it emotionally, and just perhaps a little too Name of the Rose in some ways, and I kept feeling I was missing certain details and shades, not reading carefully enough and with sufficient attention to detail, because for a while I found it difficult to keep the different characters/voices apart, but compelling enough to finish it, and it made some things clearer to me than they were before. The problem of perspective in painting, the development of the realistic portrait, and, on the other hand, possible reasons for rejecting either, all this I've touched upon repeatedly, especially during research for my diss, but I've never fully understood it, because when you're so deeply immersed in the western tradition of art (and, perhaps, individualism), the quest for the perfection of naturalism seems so entirely natural a progression that it is hard to grasp emotionally, even if you understand it theoretically, that this could be undesirable in other cultures. Interesting.

Also [livejournal.com profile] naominovik's His Majesty's Dragon, which I found very enjoyable, and, although I've no idea how to say this without making it sound unduly light-weight, because it does have its dramatic moments, is the cutest thing ever just incredibly sweet. In a good way, that brought a happy smile to my face more than once while reading, I hasten to add. Charming, is that the appropriate word? And, if it weren't a (albeit male, and so far disinterested in the females of his species) dragon we're talking about, I would say very slashy indeed. There's affection and possessiveness and cuddling and Laurence buys books he doesn't understand to read to Temeraire, and I did mention the cuteness?

Already ordered Throne of Jade. What credit card bill?


Speaking of which, sort of, I also picked up tool's 10 000 days Saturday after work, which I'm not going to review after listening to it only two times, but so far it doesn't impress me like Lateralus did. It sounds good enough, but also a little too familiar. Less disappointing than WT, but come on, someone surprise me?

I wonder if my teenage Bowie fangirldom spoiled me forever and makes it impossible to stick to a single artist through more than a few albums.

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