In Which We Discuss War & Peace - Chapters II and III

I was considering splitting these posts up so each covered five sections each, but I figured that would be harder to stick to.  My comments on chapter I are here.

Chapter II


Anna's drawing room is filling up with rich people, including Prince Vasili's not-Anatole children and Princess Bolkonskaya, who is a relative of the princess they want to set Anatole up with.  I've been trying to remember where I've heard of an Anatole before, and I think it's Kerensky's first name in Red Shirts.  Princess Bolkonskaya has brought embroidery to the party.  I like her.  I bring my knitting and cross-stitch all sorts of places.  I bore easily.

Pierre has also shown up.  He is, apparently, very rude, through a mixture of confusion and naivety.  He doesn't realise how importance it is to hear an old woman he doesn't know talk about how royalty will save them from war.  Apparently, he is the bastard son of a count and was educated abroad; perhaps this is code for "raised by wolves".  Anna is worried about him, while she's trying to be a good hostess and force her friends together, like a big smashed-together melting pot.

Chapter III

So, Prince Vasili's non-Anatole son (Hippolyte) has brought a friend, Vicomte Mortemart, who sounds like an arrogant prat.  He "evidently [considers] himself a celebrity" but is being very modest and hanging out with Anna Pavlovna, who is "serving him up as a treat to her guests".  Anna is also very pleased to be talking to a vicomte.  What a star-fucker.  Apparently, Princess Helene is very beautiful and very cleavage-y, and yet also modest.  Her brother, Hippolyte - these are Prince Vasili's children - looks just like her, but is hideous.  Perhaps this is the origin of the trope that hideous men suddenly become irresistible women when in drag.  Apparently, it has to do with him being dull and stupid.  How very Roald Dahl.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 1/52

10 books last week!  Well, slightly over a week; the 11th to the 19th of August.  This was a leap year, so my birthday was on the Friday not the Thursday.

Six rereads.  I'm reading (listening) to the City Watch books of the Discworld series in order, starting with Night Watch which adds a sad poignancy to the first few.  Poor young Sam.  It's interesting to observe that Sam is a man made by Keel, Carrot, and Vetinari, and then, ultimately, by himself.

How to be Good is one of my favourite of Nick Hornby's novels.  For a man who writes in a genre known as "lad lit" he writes excellent women.  Which kind of indicates that the people who try to gender genres are idiots.  I've also listened to The Upside of Rationality before; it's one of the first audiobooks I ever owned.

I started listening to Yes Please the other day when I walked the Birmingham-Worcester canal, from Birmingham to Worcester.  30 miles.  I also listened to Guards Guards during this trip.  The wisest line in the whole book is "your divorce will be like your marriage".  I've never been married or divorced, but that's certainly true in my experience.

The Silkworm is the second in the Cormoran Strike series.  I got it for Christmas and only just got around to finishing it.  I'm trying to get books off my unread pile before I move so I don't have to carry the bloody things!

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is my favourite of Roald Dahl's works, with some competition from Danny the Champion of the World.  I did notice some interesting similarities with The Great Gatsby.  Henry Sugar is like the Benjamin Button version of Jay Gatz; a playboy who finds a goal, devotes all his time an energy to it, and finds he's a better person with a meaningful existence.  As opposed to starting as poor and ambitious, finding a goal, devoting all your time and energy to it, and becoming a playboy.

Unseemly Science is the second i the Gas Lit Empire series.  I'm re-listening to them all, eventually.

I read Cursed Child in the first hour of my birthday.  Cried five times!

Little Sisters of Eluria has a slightly longer post to come.

Finally, Men Explain Things to Me.  Very short, took about an hour and a half to read.  For my feminist bookclub; definitely good for bringing righteous feminist anger.  The next book is Atlas Shrugged, which I really look forward to discussing!

In Which We Discuss Further Chronological Reading Challenges

A little while back, I decided to read everything Lisa Jewell had every written, in the order in which she'd written it. It was quite an interesting experience, and most of it was chronicled on this blog. You can find it through the "Chronological Reading Challenge" tag, which is also on this post. Scroll on down a bit and you'll see it.

Although I had read most of the books before, reading them in this way did give me further insights into them, and into the author. The main thing I noticed was her growing...obsession? Focus?...something - with children. More and more, children became the driving force in her character's lives. Not necessarily the fact of having them, more the consequences of various things connected with them, if that makes sense. For instance; one character's life changes utterly when she becomes pregnant and proceeds to give the child up for adoption. Another has her life change when she accidentally orphans and paralyses a child in a single accident. Yet another has her relationship go off the walls when she accidentally becomes pregnant.

Those events and the novels they appear in aren't in chronological order, as listed above. Generally speaking, things which happen to children get worse and worse as Jewell grows older, and writes more novels.  And, of course, as she has her own children, and presumably, worries and obsesses over all the horrible things that could happen.

However, moving away from Jewell, I am inclined to repeat the experiment. I'm considering doing it with Sheri Tepper, but her bibliography is long, complex, split over many different names, and occasionally out of print.

Excuse me, I must shriek like a fangirl.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Tepper's writing a sequel to Plague of Angels, set to be released this year! Ah!

Ahem.

I just googled Tepper's bibliography, looking for a complete list in chronological order, including those books published under pseudonyms, and spotted that. Now I am happy.

Anyway, her wiki page is probably the most thorough list, and you can see that that would be quite a project. Especially considering that I probably own less than half of them right now, and the library almost definitely doesn't stock many of them. So Tepper wouldn't be a great choice for this project, not until I have lots more money and free time (sadly, the two do not come together).

I do have a fair amount of books to get through at the minute too. I've just started the Mavin Manyshaped trilogy, of the True Game series, and I still haven't read most of my current library books. I need to get through those quick, before my reservations come in. So another CRC would take a while to get off the ground.

At the minute, authors I'm considering include Ben Elton (although I recently gorged myself on his work, so maybe not), Jenny Colgan (I already own most of them, and I know the library has the rest, so that would be easy), Nick Hornby (ditto), Trudi Canavan (a relatively new author, so less of a back catalogue), and Matt Beaumont (would have to buy, since the library is missing a few of them). Maybe Alice Hoffman or Kjartan Poskitt (I'm just looking at my shelves for random inspiration here - those aren't authors I've really considered before, which may actually be a point in their favour). Stephen King would represent many of the same problems as Tepper.  Dahl, maybe?  I don't know.

Any suggestions, comment. It should be open to those people without accounts now.