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omorkaA number of the people on my friends list have been talking about their favorite books and characters in fiction. Two have listed their favorite female fantasy characters. I thought about doing that myself, but I realized that my list would end up being rather short.
I really haven't read much fiction lately. It's not that I haven't been reading, let me hasten to add. It's just that I haven't been picking up any novels recently, other than the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Jhereg series.
On the one hand, that's because of time pressure. What with the number of cookbooks; books on Paganism, Wicca, religion, and religious history; books on education and learning theory; textbooks; gaming books; and sociology books on politics, feminism, gender, and GLBT/Poly/Kink issues, I really just haven't had space in my leisure reading time for much fiction.
On the other hand, most of what I personally produce is fiction - the Borealis stuff in SmallWorld, snippets of fanfic, and very occasionally something original to me. I do still read fanfic on occasion as well, although usually only the short-story length pieces, not the novellas. (I mentioned HP fanfic to my mother over the phone a while back; I had forgotten she was an SF fan, and she startled me by reminiscing about Star Trek fanfic back in the late '60s and asked if I had gotten any published in a 'zine.) It seems selfish of me to put out in a genre in which I don't take in much. Moreover, a lot of my non-text consumption is SF/fantasy - in the forms of anime, movies, and games.
Sometimes the way fiction is privileged in the publishing industry irks me. Novels, in particular, seem to be the darlings of the booksellers. And in general, it's not fiction of a type I like - modern-day fiction without fantastic elements or magickal realism tends to bore the fool out of me. (I can tolerate historical fiction, although it's not my favorite.) If I wanted soap-opera drama, I have my students' lives to listen to. SF and fantasy tend to be thought of as "kid's stuff," something to be outgrown when you become a mature adult reader. And nonfiction is sort of workaday; only the odd political or celebrity tell-all gets much attention from the bookstores.
On the other hand, I dislike even more the practice by the literal-minded of conflating fiction, especially fantasy, with lying. The people who tell children who they think are lying that they're "telling a story," and that it's wrong to do so, irrevocably besmirch the noble act of storytelling. There are things you can't say except in fantasy or using fantastical elements. And in some ways, SF is myth-building for a technological age (I'd point to the original Matrix movie, in particular, as an example of that).
I suppose there's nothing for it but to wish for more hours in a day to get the reading in. If you noticed, a few paragraphs back I mentioned reading fanfic almost as if it weren't reading fiction. In a way, to me, it isn't, simply because I can't smell fanfic, can't hear the pages rustling, can't smell the binding. The Spouse is happy with eBookish things, but for me they lose the kinesthetic, auditory, and olfactory parts of reading as an experience. (I suppose that's what you should expect from someone who literally chewed on the edges of books when she was first learning to read; devouring text is only barely a metaphor for me on some level.) On the other hand, reading on the bus is real reading time for me, although recently I've used that as crocheting or knitting time instead. ("Too many hobbies" is another issue here.)
This is especially problematic for me because reading is so important to me. On the tests that have it as an option, I'm not an auditory-primary; I'm a text-primary. Don't show me, don't make me do it, don't just tell me; write it down, and I will understand. The fact that our current Fearless Leader is a self-confessed non-reader is part of why I loathe him. (That, and the whole field-dependent issue, which will be another post sometime.) Text-only communication, like e-mail, works quite well for me, in ways that it doesn't work for other people; indeed, I even sort of like things like iChat/AIM, although I don't use them the way my students do. For me, they're the reincarnation of the old "talk mode" on the Unix workstations of my college days, and as in talk mode, I write in complete sentences, which always confuses my students when they AIM me. (Then again, they often approach communicating in complete thoughts, if not actual sentences, over the course of an IM conversation, so perhaps I'm merely being a good influence.)
I really haven't read much fiction lately. It's not that I haven't been reading, let me hasten to add. It's just that I haven't been picking up any novels recently, other than the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Jhereg series.
On the one hand, that's because of time pressure. What with the number of cookbooks; books on Paganism, Wicca, religion, and religious history; books on education and learning theory; textbooks; gaming books; and sociology books on politics, feminism, gender, and GLBT/Poly/Kink issues, I really just haven't had space in my leisure reading time for much fiction.
On the other hand, most of what I personally produce is fiction - the Borealis stuff in SmallWorld, snippets of fanfic, and very occasionally something original to me. I do still read fanfic on occasion as well, although usually only the short-story length pieces, not the novellas. (I mentioned HP fanfic to my mother over the phone a while back; I had forgotten she was an SF fan, and she startled me by reminiscing about Star Trek fanfic back in the late '60s and asked if I had gotten any published in a 'zine.) It seems selfish of me to put out in a genre in which I don't take in much. Moreover, a lot of my non-text consumption is SF/fantasy - in the forms of anime, movies, and games.
Sometimes the way fiction is privileged in the publishing industry irks me. Novels, in particular, seem to be the darlings of the booksellers. And in general, it's not fiction of a type I like - modern-day fiction without fantastic elements or magickal realism tends to bore the fool out of me. (I can tolerate historical fiction, although it's not my favorite.) If I wanted soap-opera drama, I have my students' lives to listen to. SF and fantasy tend to be thought of as "kid's stuff," something to be outgrown when you become a mature adult reader. And nonfiction is sort of workaday; only the odd political or celebrity tell-all gets much attention from the bookstores.
On the other hand, I dislike even more the practice by the literal-minded of conflating fiction, especially fantasy, with lying. The people who tell children who they think are lying that they're "telling a story," and that it's wrong to do so, irrevocably besmirch the noble act of storytelling. There are things you can't say except in fantasy or using fantastical elements. And in some ways, SF is myth-building for a technological age (I'd point to the original Matrix movie, in particular, as an example of that).
I suppose there's nothing for it but to wish for more hours in a day to get the reading in. If you noticed, a few paragraphs back I mentioned reading fanfic almost as if it weren't reading fiction. In a way, to me, it isn't, simply because I can't smell fanfic, can't hear the pages rustling, can't smell the binding. The Spouse is happy with eBookish things, but for me they lose the kinesthetic, auditory, and olfactory parts of reading as an experience. (I suppose that's what you should expect from someone who literally chewed on the edges of books when she was first learning to read; devouring text is only barely a metaphor for me on some level.) On the other hand, reading on the bus is real reading time for me, although recently I've used that as crocheting or knitting time instead. ("Too many hobbies" is another issue here.)
This is especially problematic for me because reading is so important to me. On the tests that have it as an option, I'm not an auditory-primary; I'm a text-primary. Don't show me, don't make me do it, don't just tell me; write it down, and I will understand. The fact that our current Fearless Leader is a self-confessed non-reader is part of why I loathe him. (That, and the whole field-dependent issue, which will be another post sometime.) Text-only communication, like e-mail, works quite well for me, in ways that it doesn't work for other people; indeed, I even sort of like things like iChat/AIM, although I don't use them the way my students do. For me, they're the reincarnation of the old "talk mode" on the Unix workstations of my college days, and as in talk mode, I write in complete sentences, which always confuses my students when they AIM me. (Then again, they often approach communicating in complete thoughts, if not actual sentences, over the course of an IM conversation, so perhaps I'm merely being a good influence.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 11:30 am (UTC)By the way, I finished Tigana and I'm sorry to say that I was very disappointed. I found it to be basically a long and annoying version of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress(which you really should read). If it had been about three hundred pages shorter, maybe I would have thought better of it.
***SPOILERS***
My main problem is with the Tiganian revolution plan. For something that they've supposedly been working on for years, it sure had a lot of holes in it. In the end, they only succeed because Alessan just happens to find some wizards and Baerd just happens to find some Night Walkers(who, by the way, have no real purpose or place in the story other than that). Furthermore, the plan is only necessary in the first place because of a series of unbelievable coincidences where both tyrants narrowly avoid death. The buildup to the whole plan takes at least 5/6 of the book, and the climax and resolution are a mere fifty pages.
The worst part, though, has to be Dianora(the Tiganian turned tyrant concubine). She passes up not one, not two, but *three* chances to assasinate the person who destroyed her homeland! Oh, she's in *love* with him -- and you can tell, because she spends page after page after page agonizing over it. And then in the end they both die anyway. Why? What was the point? Both tyrants could have died within a hundred pages of the opening of the book and nothing would have been lost!
I found myself sympathizing more with the enslaved wizard and Alberico the tyrant than I did with the main characters. That's not good.
The concept was pretty good, and a few parts at least had some merit(the meeting and death of whatshisname's family in the beginning stands out), but overall this book is seriously weak.
Thanks for trying, though. I always appreciate book recommendations, even when they don't work out. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 12:54 pm (UTC)Oh, that was from actual history? I didn't know that. Okay, that makes them much less out of place, although IMHO their huge battle scene is still a waste of space given that it was never developed further.
Dianora wasn't an unsympathetic character to start with, but the way she kept vacillating drove me crazy. "I'm going to engage in an elaborate plot to kill him! Oops, but I fell in love with him instead. Hey, I just saved his life -- now he betrayed me, and I hate him! Oh, but he's so *cute*! Maybe I'll just hurt him a bit...no now I know that my destiny is to die to stop him. Oh wait, I don't really want to die, I love him too much! I'll help him gain complete control over the peninsula. Except now he's dead. Poop. Guess I'd better off myself too, thus narrowly avoiding the much-foreshadowed meeting with my long lost brother." I'm kind of surprised you like her, seeing as how she's the very model of a weak female character, especially compared with the rest of the cast.
The political machinations with the south were one of the better parts of the book. It would have been nice to have spent more than five pages on them. :(
Livejournal thinks "okay" is not a word.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 05:16 pm (UTC)Yeah, what the LJ spellchecker does and does not recognize is extraordinarily random.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 11:36 am (UTC)Although I can easily get sucked into words on my computer, I generally prefer books. For me, it's mostly about comfort -- when I read at the computer, I have to be sitting upright and staring at the screen. I can read a book lying on a bed or a sofa, or sitting in a nice comfortable chair. If there were some sort of portable high-res well lit screen I could use, I might change my mind, but screen lighting is more harsh than incandescent on paper.
I mostly agree with you about realistic fiction, but my threshold for "unreal" is a bit lower. Something like, say, The Count of Monte Cristo or Macbeth is far enough removed from everyday experience to satisfy me.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 12:30 pm (UTC)As for books, I tend to read more fiction than non-, though lately I've been trying to force myself to read more nonfiction. I tend toward history, particularly sixteenth to nineteenth century English history, more sociological than political. I favor historical fiction in that setting also. I think it's because it's different enough from the reality I know that it stimulates my imagination, without getting too far-fetched into things I can't relate to. *shrugs* I do read other things, too, but that's the bulk of it.