subdee

Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster

Rescued from the "additional romance -- $1 each -- buy 4 get 1 free" section of the bookstore. (The only difference between "additional" and "regular" romance is that the regular romance is longer and costs $2.) Misleading summary aside, Daddy Long Legs is not romance, but it is charming and funny and militant and SHORT and I totally recommend it to everyone.

Plot: orphan girl is sent to an unnamed women's college in Connecticut (Smith?) courtesy of a mysterious benefactor; the only stipulation is that she write to him once a month. The book was written in 1912 (before women had the vote) and serves as a kind of object lesson in the ability of women (and orphans, and children) to think and reason independently. XD Not only does the narrator express radical opinions in her letters, she does it in a creative way (with pictures!) so that you can totally believe that she could have won a scholarship on the strength of her English composition.

Good book, short (I finished in a couple hours), recommended. It's a shame about the end though. ^^; Fun fact: Jean Webster did, in fact, grow up in an orphanage an orphan.

***

The News From Paraguay by Lily Tuck

Another book I want to recommend to everyone. XD Based strongly on the life of an actual person -- Ella Lynch, a beautiful Irish woman who leaves Paris and a Russian count (though actually he leaves her first) to be the mistress of Francisco Solano Lopez, future dictator of Paraguay. The story takes place in the mid-1800s and is told in short sections (including letters from Ella, omniscient asides, and close third-person perspectives from various characters) which add up to form the total picture. This book is HILARIOUSly dark and includes sections like the following:

Instead of babtism, to satisfy Ella, Franco commanded a 101-gun salute in honor of his son. The reverberations from the huns were so powerful that they caused several buildings under construction in Asunción to collapse; also one of the imported English field artillery rifles had not been cleaned properly and it backfired. The battery landed on the hospital and killed and injured a large number of the patients in their sickbeds.

I read that out loud to apintrix and she thought it sounded like magical realism, due to the matter-of-fact relating of a series of improbable events. The book does, actually, sound a little bit like Marquez (so the blurb on the back was right for once!), especially because the humor is all understatement. But at the same time, it's verrry different -- the magical realists, even when they're writing about massacres, still manage to sound hopeful, or at least there's the sense that through all of the horror they've managed to keep a sense of humor. This book is nearly the opposite: the light, frothing atmosphere suddenly turns dark; inoffensive characters are revealed as secret sadists; tragedies pile up.

But the narration stays light. XD Though I do think I like the earlier sections, where Tuck was more free to invent detail, more than the later sections, where I suspect she had more historical material to work into the narrative. Another thing to note about the book is that it uses Spanish as a literary device in the same way that I'm used to seeing French (or Latin -- but knowing French is normally way more useful for reading English literature). I've had to stop to look up phrases.

(Confession time: I also had to look Paraguay up on a map, when I began. ^^; I knew it and Uruguay were between Argentina and Brazil, but I couldn't remember which was the landlocked country and which was the one with Montevideo for a capital. (Answer: Paraguay's the one in the heart-of-the-jungle.) So on top of reading an entertaining book, I get to educate myself about 19th century Paraguay.)

***

Sorry for taking so long to answer this meme. I haven't given up! But I realized that my answers were getting shorter and shorter, and I didn't want to answer with just a "Character A" and no explanation, because that's boring to read. So I thought I'd take a break and finish...eventually. ^^;

P.S. November is Deathfic month at fanthology.

♥ ♥ ♥

I got your postcard!

Nobuta wo Produce 01: ( Read more... )

Finished Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kunozoha vs the Souless Army: ( Read more... )

Gonna give up on The Lions of Al-Rassan for now. I dunno, it's not horrible, but I'm also not really enjoying it, and there more books on my "to read" pile than there are hours in a day.

Loveless latest chapters: Bringing suspense back. RUN AWAY, RITSUKA, RUN AWAY. ...Actually I was talking about the latest chapters with Chrissie ( and I think )

EDIT Linkblogging:

1. I mentioned amei's Raidou porn and forgot to mention wredwrat's High School AU doujinshi! Check it out, it's awesome.

2. harumi linked to a very cool Mononoke fanvid here (download here). The show isn't really my thing since it's too, uh, flat. (Seriously, the fact that you can't make spatial sense out of the scenery upsets me.) Also the visuals and storytelling are both really complicated and so in order for the audience to follow the story, the plot has to be simple, and I'm more of a "simple storytelling, complicated plot" person. But the video really is extremely cool.

3. Translation of the first volume of Kyou Kara Maou by the same person who's been translating the Mirage of Blaze novels. Dude, these are hilarious.

Not dead. Also, not unhappy. ^^; Just busy. (Okay, so I'm not that busy.)

Saw Gone Baby Gone -- you know, that Ben Affleck movie about the missing kid -- with sesame_seed and emblem's boyfriend last Friday. Overall I liked it and think it's worth seeing. Casey Affleck (Ben's younger brother) doesn't "act" but he does look very pretty staring intently into the camera, and the script doesn't call for much emotion from him anyway. (That's what his "better half" is for.) The writing is generally not spectacular -- there were plot holes and the speeches were almost uniformly awful -- but the authentic local color dialog was very good. The movie does a very very good job of portraying a certain neighborhood in Boston, and succeeds at being thought-provoking.

In short: frequently bad but sometimes good writing, consistently good direction, great setting: obvious strengths that make up for obvious weaknesses. 7/10. (But is anything else out now better than this?) Also, it was the best thing ever to see this movie with people who were willing to discuss it in excruciating detail afterward.

Speaking of awesome people, sesame_seed flies back to Taiwan tomorrow (technically, today). ;____; Chrissy! I'll miss you.

***

On the other hand I've been gaming. I'm about halfway through Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raido Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army right now. This is an AU set in "Taisho 20" where you play as Raido Kuzunoha (a title, not a name) the 14th, a high-school-uniform-wearing "devil summoner" who is pimped out by his awesome mysterious clan to work for Narumi, a layabout who runs a private detective agency in late-twenties Tokyo. It's sort of like noir thriller meets supernatural horror meets military conspiracy. What really amuses me, though, is that despite Raidou being an absolute badass (steely gaze, mystical powers, Jotaro Kujo's fashion sense, plus he runs with his cape swirling behind him in a very badass way), absolutely everyone gets to order him around. XD; First his clan on the training level, then the talking cat assigned to follow him around and make sure he doesn't get into trouble, then Narumi, then Narumi's clients, and finally, random NPCs whose capricious whims must be fulfilled in order for the plot to advance.

Raidou Kuzonoha: errand boy. XD

Other things I really like about this game are the world map (it's a street map of olde Tokyo -- the levels are city wards); the jazzy soundtrack and cinematic timing; the mad scientist who randomly lives under the convenience store and fuses your demons together at no charge; and that whenever you get stuck, you can always go visit the head of the local yakuza, who can be found at the local public bath. Naked. (Well, okay, not totally naked -- he has a small towel, and Raido's hat stays on.)

Haven't played any of the other Megaten games, so don't spoil me! The only reason I'm playing this one is it was on sale for ten dollars, and amei drew a hell of a lot of porn for it. XD;

Next up: Samurai Legend Musashi. And I'm thinking about picking up the second Prince of Persia game. (Speaking of videogames, canis_m have you seen this? That article is old, it's not a rumor, Atlus is definitely porting the game over. ^_^ I have no idea what the game play is like but it's a puzzle game and it's freaking gorgeous: I'm sold XD. (Demo here, in Japanese.))

***

On the other hand, I've been working, and on the third, invisible hand, I've been reading:

Ursula le Guin, Tombs of Atuan & The Farthest Shore
John le Carre, The Looking-Glass War
Naomi Mitchison, Travel Light
Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory
Jane Emerson, City of Diamond


And right now I'm about five chapters into Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan. ^^; Feel free to ask about any of these, by the way -- I have notes for all of them, just haven't gotten around to typing them up.

Unlocked the previous post re: possible jobs now that things are settled and I won't be er jinxing my chances. The winning combination turned out to be 1+2+5: I'm working at the library on Tuesdays and Fridays, the used bookstore on Thursdays, and the lawfirm when I feel like it on Mondays. Thanks everyone who commented on the last post! Yr. input was v. helpful.

On the fandom front: I've been watching old episodes of shows I used to watch in high school at tv-links (Buffy, Farscape, Roswell, Smallville) and I may be ready branch out into something new. Maybe. (First up: Nobuto wo Produce.) I also borrowed Phoenix Wright: Justice For All from sesame_seed, so maybe something on that in a bit. And I'm reading some cyberpunk novel by Patricia McKillip, but I'm not sure why, because it's pretty awful. ^^; Note to self: when attempting to revise your opinion of an author you are lukewarm about, but largely unfamiliar with, upward, please to not be picking up one of the author's earliest works.

Recced by checkered_fool: Honeydew Syndrome. It's a webcomic. ^^; I'm kind of: "...eh" on the high school dynamics (there weren't really "jocks" and "emo kids" at my high school, and who cares about high school anyway), but the art is good and the writing is very sharp. It's funny. It's BL! It's pretty cool. XD.