stuff i read 10 january 2020
Jan. 10th, 2020 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabacoychanelColson Whitehead, Zone One (2011) “Beauty could not thrive, and the awful was too commonplace to be of consequence. Only in the middle was there safety. He was a mediocre man. He had led a mediocre life exceptional only in the magnitude of its unexceptionally. Now the world was mediocre, rendering him perfect.” Genre fiction usually centers on its protagonist’s burning desire to do or be something. The (frustratingly passive) protagonist of Zone One is a cipher. His ostensible mission is to eradicate zombies in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of New York but his actual mission seems to be to banish past and future. If all writing exists on a continuum from “visceral” to “cerebral” Colson Whitehead falls squarely into the “cerebral” camp. I don’t say that to dunk on him—I’m pretty cerebral myself—just to explain why he captures the ennui of living under late-stage capitalism better than 99% of “realistic” fiction does. His satire bites; his protagonist is a guy who’s always identified more with the monstrous cyborg Other than with “normal” folks. Oh I was not expecting this fugue-like narrative to end in a jam-packed action sequence lmao. Tbh if Whitehead’s reputation hadn’t preceded him I’m not sure I’d have finished the book. It reads like a minor work from a major author, and I’m looking forward to The Underground Railroad.
Robert Jackson Bennett, Foundryside (Founders #1) (2018) In a staggeringly unequal city where property rights are worth more than human rights, Sancia is a thief who gets in over her head when she’s tasked with stealing something so valuable her employer can’t afford to let her live to tell of it. This book is one long series of chase scenes & would make a dope movie. Robert Jackson Bennett has certainly gotten better at building tension since City of Stairs; he doesn’t just load up the whole plate with worldbuilding anymore. Sancia acquires two major allies—one an undead revenant who periodically possesses her, the other the scion of merchant dynasty who’s trying to reform the broken system from the inside. It works out great because Clef has big chaotic dumbass energy and Gregor is nothing if not über-lawful! I will say this book managed to surprise me not once but twice in the third act, I was expecting it to fizzle out and instead I got two emotionally satisfying revelations. Is it a damn solid book? Yes. If I could go back in time would I tell my past self to just reread Six of Crows instead? Also yes.
LOTR Rewatch Spent 90% of it in panegyrics over how good the score was. I swear at this point I have a Pavlovian heartrate-speedup response to the “Riders of Rohan” fanfare—by the time we got to the big charge at Pelennor Fields (real talk how big was that brass section?? the size of a football field?) I was losing my goddamn mind. I remember now why Two Towers is my favorite—the action scenes bore me least. I didn’t even want to watch Fellowship but witcherology made me and I’m so glad she did, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT STRENGTH IS IN MY BLOOD BUT I WILL NOT LET THE WHITE CITY FALL NOR OUR PEOPLE FAIL and then he closes Boromir’s fingers around the hilt of his sword so he can go to Valhalla adfdfkjd. I also forgot that the whole reason “they’re taking the hobbits to Isengard” happened is bc Merry & Pippin threw themselves down on the chopping block as a distraction so Frodo could get away?? I hate Denethor in DIRECT proportion to how much I love his sons and I love his sons A LOT. It’s like … you can’t really hate Voldemort, so you hate Umbrage because she’s a real person? That’s why Denethor is The Worst thanks for coming to my ted talk. Friendly reminder folks make sure you watch the extended edition not the theatrical cut, otherwise you’ll miss Éowyn’s face when she finds out Aragorn is 87 years old. I had no subtitles and therefore no idea what Arwen, Elrond & co. were saying during those flashbacks but they were saying it sexily so it was fine.
My appreciation for Sam grew the most during this rewatch but my appreciation for Faramir deepened the most: his face when he heard “Osgilliath is lost” oh my baby boy would do anything not to disappoint Dad again. And I paid more attention to the elegiac quality of Tolkien’s “glory days are past” nostalgia that suffuses everything; how is it possible every third line out of Théoden’s mouth is poetry? Some things haven’t changed, anyway: Pippin singing that song still gives me chills.
me: hi it’s Karl "i have chemistry with everyone up to and including lamp posts" Urban
me: <merry + pippin’s orc captors turn on each other & they escape in the tumult> imagine if orcs just had access to lembas bread this whole fiasco coulda been avoided
atia: have you noticed liv’s eyes look almost violet sometimes bc of her clothes + the lighting
me: ”arwen evenstar, secret targaryen" --10k meta pending
me: <aragorn’s horse noses at him> this horse is my dog and aragorn is me lmao
me: ok these children you’re drafting are like TEN what the actual fuck Théoden??
atia: <the sewage drain at Helms Deep about to get blown up> oh the olympic torch guy
atia: remember when d&d said the battle of winterfell would be more epic than helm’s deep
me: to be entirely fair d&d did learn one thing from helms deep and that was to light everything exceptionally dark
atia: oh this is the extended edition where we get to see Sauruman yeet himself off that tower
atia: lotr is so terrifying when you’re a kid
me: ummm lotr is still terrifying
me: i did not realize Elrond had the gift of prophecy? Elrond for Professor of Divination 2k20
atia: i wonder if viggo found it easier to speak elvish since he speaks 3 languages
me: could be! how’s his spanish
atia: really good last time i heard it! he speaks with an argentinian accent so it’s incredibly bizarre to me when he opens his mouth and an argentinian talks
me: “none but the king of gondor may command me” yk this is the first time he’s come right out and said it “I am Isildur’s heir” every other time it’s been Gandalf or someone else filling in his backstory
atia: frodo and sam are in love fight me
me: “don’t go where i can’t follow” how u holding up bb?
atia: dying
atia: when will it stop hurting
me: “rohan has deserted us.” my dude. who was it refused to light the beacon fires lmao
atia: everybody has an arc
atia: although gimli's is just "maybe elves aren't so bad"
me: legolas doesn’t have an arc
atia: THAT SHINY SHIRT IS MINE i relate to this orc
me: hey i love the whole “merienda for the masses” concept, i am staunchly PRO SECOND BREAKFAST, but you ever feel like food in the Shire sounds kinda...bland
atia: yes even elvish food is bland
me: ik he doesn’t do anything for you but my opinion as someone who DOES find aragorn sexy is ranger!aragorn > king!aragorn it ain’t even close
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Date: 2020-01-10 04:27 pm (UTC)Hee!
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Date: 2020-01-10 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-10 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-11 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-14 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-12 04:15 am (UTC)Yes, the twists were pretty well done! Although I will say that by the time I got to the Gregor reveal -- which was genuinely very cool! -- I had spent so much of the book bored by Gregor that realizing there was a cool reason for the way he was did not salvage that character for me, or the time I spent bored reading his POV chapters.
If I could go back in time would I tell my past self to just reread Six of Crows instead? Also yes.
LOL!
Loved reading your LotR rewatch thoughts (I need to do that myself one of these days). I will say that, as odious as movie!Denethor is, I think that's one of the worse adaptation decisions, because, like, he was not a great person in the book, either, but it was a lot more complex than this, and that's frustrating, even though he was one of my least favorite characters in the book as well.
me: ”arwen evenstar, secret targaryen" --10k meta pending
I would totally read this meta, FYI
me: legolas doesn’t have an arc
This is true / even Tolkien said so
ranger!aragorn > king!aragorn it ain’t even close
100% agree
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Date: 2020-01-14 07:30 pm (UTC)i think my position on denethor is: if the film adaptation had tried to make him as gray a character as the books (he had access to a palantir right? i'm a bit fuzzy i read them once like 15 years ago), it wouldn't have worked as well for the adaptation as a whole because there's just less room for complexity and contradictions in the story Jackson was telling
happy that we all hold the Correct Aragorn opinions
even Tolkien said so
what really? i feel validated
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Date: 2020-01-14 08:24 pm (UTC)Yeah! Or, OK, I no longer remember the source -- possibly his Letters? or maybe one of the Shippey books? I read A LOT of Tolkien meta and primary sources in my misspent youth, before there was an internet to distract me with other useless information -- but I'm reasonably sure I'm not just making that up.
he had access to a palantir right?
He did. And, like, I never thought about it this way, but Sauron was essentially gaslighting Denethor via the palantir. (Hah, I see, via a quick google, that I'm not the only one to think of gaslighting in LotR -- quite a few folks are mentioning Wormtongue/Saruman and gaslighting Theoden, too.)
Anyway, to your actual point, I don't disagree that it's easier to adapt Denethor as a villain, and I don't even mean that dismissively, I recognize that movies are better at showing some things than others, and ain't nobody got time for the offscreen slow-motion tragic fall of a secondary character in a movie. I guess I don't actually mean "worse" adaptation decisions, more like "unfortunate" or "less true to the character".
Which, to be fair, movie!Aragorn is actually fairly different from book!Aragorn, too, and you don't see me complaining about that, so this is by no means an unbiased view, lol.
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Date: 2020-01-27 02:42 am (UTC)this is actually the viral alignment chart that made me think about why i needed to have a hard copy of LOTR--i mean i do have a hard copy but it's vegetating in my dad's basement and it's not pretty to look at after 15 years. i think when you put a physical book on your shelf yr saying "this book is part of my IDENTITY" which is not a statement you can make with ebooks.
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Date: 2020-01-27 04:14 am (UTC)*nod* I understand this and relate to it completely. Honestly, I find ebooks easier in most regards, but the books I buy in hard copy are those kinds that I want on my shelf for identity reasons (plus ones I want to be able to lend to people; that's why I have my Vorkosigans and Vlad Taltoses and Rivers of London in hard copy, often when I already also have an ecopy too :)
The chart is glorious, and I especially love the inlcusion of the "open-face bookwich" (*shudder*) under chaotic evil. So true! XD
(I land on true neutral with occasional forays into neutral good, which is about where I really fall on alignment charts :)
And, of course, looking forward to all the LotR thoughts! (starting with the ones from the appendices which I see you've already posted :)
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Date: 2020-01-27 05:09 am (UTC)bet you don't get a lot of those lent-out books back! bet that was the plan all along trololol
I am true neutral with chaotic neutral tendencies, i think
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Date: 2020-01-27 08:18 am (UTC)bet you don't get a lot of those lent-out books back! bet that was the plan all along
Hahaha, I do account for a certain attrition rate! But also occasionally I've gotten extra books somehow, or at least I have no other explanation for why I have two copies of Memory when I only ever bought one... Anyway, quite often, at least with Vorkosigan, I do get the ideal outcome, which is that the person I fandom baba-ed will then go out an buy the books for themselves and return my copies since they're no longer needed. :D
*Speaking of very long books that one has to lug around, I have not forgotten about the Cyteen post! I think that given that we're doing it kind of orderly and over a long haul, I'll make thread-starter comments for each chapter that we can comment on as we get there -- you know, planning for success. But I finally got to the en of chapter 1 and realized that these interstitial things keep going between chapters, so: for the purposes of the sync read, do we count them as part of the preceding chapter? or the beginning of the next one?
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Date: 2020-01-28 02:10 am (UTC)no other explanation for why I have two copies of Memory when I only ever bought one
imagine if books reproduced (asexually, i would think) imagine if there was a function for calculating the rate of progeny produced
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Date: 2020-01-28 03:23 am (UTC)Works for me! I'll plan to put up the post tonight.
And, yeah, so long as nobody else attempts to put a hold on it, 14 weeks should be manageable with a little bit of library abuse (I can "bounce" it to a different family member's card when my own renewals max out, hehe). And if someone does put a hold on it (unlikely, I think XD), I'll figure something else out. Not gonna worry about it for now.
imagine if books reproduced
Oh, I love that idea! It sounds delightfully Discworldian! (And, actually, sexual reproduction for books sounds even better, because then you could get interesting crossbreeds...
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Date: 2020-05-24 02:15 am (UTC)Theoden's poetry is very specifically Anglo-Saxon poetry. Stop me if you knew that.
(In my last year at university (U Va), I took a semester of Old English and then the next semester, those of us who stuck with it translated Beowulf at 300 lines per class session. So I can talk more about the poetry of Rohan if its of interest.)
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Date: 2020-06-01 05:05 am (UTC)I did not know that, and I raise my glass to you, Person Who Translated Beowulf at 300 (!!!) lines per class session. I've read the Seamus Heaney translation and what I remember is that it made me uncomfortable. Like it was really visceral and it wasn't what I was used to. Not that I read a ton of poetry, so I would like to hear more but I don't even know where to start. You'll have to talk to me like I'm five, or point me toward some resources for complete beginners.