In Which We Discuss Serial Reader and War and Peace

When I was younger, I owned a lot of books.  They topped out at about three-thousand, most of them from charity shops.  My grandmother would take me down her local high street and I'd pick up fifteen or twenty for £10.  It was magical.  Some of my favourite books are the ones I found in that way.  When I was twenty-four, I donated most of them back to charity shops because I'd moved twice by then and never, ever wanted to move all of those books again.  Now I own about a hundred physical books and another two hundred on my Kindle.

A small selection of my old collection, circa 2012.

I bring that up because there was a subgroup of books that I collected but never actually read, for the most part.  The old Penguin Classic paperbacks.  I was always going to read them "someday", and I justified getting rid of them by the fact that the Kindle editions are free.  Despite that, I still haven't read most of them.

One app that's helped me there is Serial Reader.  Serial reader takes those classics, cuts them up into bitesize pieces (5-15 minutes of reading), and sends them to you one day at a time.  If you have the paid version, you can read ahead, while the free version limits you to that one piece.

Another bit of backstory; I'm planning a trip to Russia, hopefully this year, if funds allow.

Serial Reader on my iPhone.

In short; I'm trying to read War and Peace.  I did try once before, and very quickly got confused as to who was who (which is, apparently, a Russian thing), so I'm going to take notes on each section as I go.  There are 235 of them.

Incidentally, I am also carrying on with my Stephen King project.  I'm just bogged down in Dreamcatcher at the moment, and also slightly addicted to Kristin Painter's Nocturne Falls series, of which I devour a book every three days or so.  That's loosely connected as well; I'm up to The Dragon Finds Forever featuring "Puff the magic MMA fighter", a Russian dragon shifter.  He's just breakfasted on syrniki.  Which I was already planning to make next week, despite my lactose intolerance, because they sound amazing.

War and Peace: Section 1

Sparknotes are here, if preferred.  I'm not reading ahead, but I am checking them at the end of each section, to see all the pretty nuances that I missed.

It's 1805.  Prince Vasili Kuragin is being told that the Buonapartes have taken over Genoa and Lucca (google: those are Italian cities).  So this little speech is about war, and it's taking place during a peaceful, high-society function.  Okay.  Anna Pavlovna is a 'maid of honour', which I don't think means head bridesmaid here, and she's a favourite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna.  Apparently, she wrote her invitations in Frence, presumably to be fancy.  England does that.  All our fancy words (beef, mansion) are from French while are commoner words (cow, house) are from German.

Apparently, the prince is also a count, and Anna Pavlovna may also call herself Annette Scherer.  You see why I was confused.  They are being very polite and courteous while speaking in fancy French.  I wonder if they are smiling?

Anna Pavlovna is afraid of revolution.  Another google search; the Russian Revolution occurred in 1905 and War and Peace was first published in 1869.   Austria does not wish for war and is betraying Russia, who must stand alone.  The English are suspicious and commercial (true), and is refusing to evacuate Malta, which sounds like us.  The emperor is Alexander, and this prince has a son and a daughter, and a youngest whom Anna doesn't like, Anatole.  She wants to marry him to Princess Mary Bolkonskaya, who is a relation of his.  Not unusual for princes.

From Genomes Unzipped (linked in text)

The Prince is tempted because Anatole is expensive and the princess may be rich.  Anna agrees to start matchmaking, while complaining - jokingly, I think - that it makes her feel old.

I quite like the name Anatole.  I hope he's in this a lot, he sounds fun.

In Which We Discuss Writing

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes (because I can't find the exact quote I want), "when you know the details of a thousand cases, it would be very odd if you couldn't solve the thousand and first".  That's how I feel about writing.  I read so much that it would be very odd if I didn't come up with my own stories, and I do.    The oldest is one I came up with when I was ten years old; that's nearly two decades.  I've been trying to write them down for years and I tend to trail off, or get tangled up....

Anyway, I'm trying something new.  I'm using a spreadsheet!

I took a lot of inspiration from this blog post.  I already use spreadsheets for finances, grade-tracking, and schedules, so it makes sense to me to use them for writing.  As well as organising timelines and scenes - which has made a huge difference to how real my worlds feel - it's also been useful for tracking word counts.  If you're interested in NaNoWriMo specifically, there are some great spreadsheets here!

To be clear, I don't want to be a full-time writer.  I don't want the stress of rejection, or to spend all day with my own thoughts.  I just want to get these stories out of my head into the best versions possible.  When/if that gets done, I guess I'll self-publish and see if anyone wants to read them.

In Which We Discuss the Fact that I'm a Working Class Feminist Who Enjoys Atlas Shrugged

I cannot and do not attempt to speak to Ayn Rand's intentions with this post.  I can only speak to my interpretation of Atlas Shrugged, which allows me to enjoy the book when so many others like me do not.

Atlas Shrugged is something of a controversial novel.  It focuses on Dagny Taggert, an heiress and second-in-command (though, realistically, in charge) of a railroad company, founded by her grandfather and run by her brother.  A key fact in why it's disliked is that it describes a world in which people's value comes from what they create and provide for others, and in which people can be split into creators and 'second-handers' who only take from the creators and do not provide value to others in any way.  Looking at it from our culture, that's an incredibly harsh viewpoint.  It has the unstated assumption that everyone is born with the same opportunities, which isn't the case in our society, and it doesn't address cases in which people are elderly, or ill, or lacking in opportunities.  That simply never comes up in the book.

The interpretation that allows me to enjoy the book is the assumption, firstly, that Atlas Shrugged is a work of science fiction set in a similar but non-identical world, and, secondly, it isn't intended to describe the entire population; instead, it's intended to describe a specific set of highly privileged people who could and should be doing more with their privilege instead of taking it for granted.   People who should be taking responsibility, doing what they say they will, and doing it to the best of their ability.  I find that inspiring, as a goal for me personally.  Dagny is also contrasted with her brother James, who has had the exact same privilege as her plus that of being born male, and older, and automatically the heir to Taggart Transcontinental.  That support my interpretation; Dagny's accomplishments are built on her privilege; the contrast is with why James didn't try to achieve the same, not why someone less privileged didn't.

I also like that Dagny is proud of her accomplishments.  People should be proud of what they achieve.  I got excellent grades last term, because I worked hard for them.  The fact that other people also worked hard and didn't achieve those grades may speak to their lack of privilege compared to me, which I should be careful not to forget, but that doesn't mean I didn't deserve my achievements and shouldn't be proud of them.  I intend to do even better this semester; I've been getting up early and sticking to a schedule which allows me to achieve what I intend to achieve each day, as well as attending workshops at my university's learning commons to learn how to do things better.

The story, for me, seems to be about the spirit of communism overtaking America, a country Rand saw as the very antithesis of it.  Not communism as intended, and as people hope it will be; communism as it was in China and in Russia, where Ayn Rand grew up.  One of the symptoms of this infection is incompetence, and I can definitely relate to that.  Dealing with call centres where people don't associate cause and effect and literally just say random words that they don't understand and no one seems to think that this is a problem.  That's only a tiny level of what people in communist countries experience, but even on that level, I can understand why Rand dreamt of competence, of people who knew what they were doing and just got on with it.  I've also read a little on communist China and North Korea; civilisations where you were/are expected to act as if the most ridiculous things are true, and the goal wasn't to get things done but to shift the blame.  I get why you'd want to get as far away from that as possible, if you'd grown up with it.

Another factor, for me, may be that I grew up in an abusive household where, again, the goals were to shift the blame and what happened wasn't based on reality or facts but on shifting moods and outright lies.  I think, because of that, I get a great deal of satisfaction when Rand's characters say the equivalent of "no, that's bullshit, this is true".  Within the confines of Rand's imagined world, their statements are true and clear and simple, and that is such a relief to me.

I also like some aspects of how romantic relationships work, in Rand's world.  You go for the people who like you back and who inspire you to be a better person.  That's lovely.  Dagny isn't ashamed of her sexuality or of being a mistress, and although I'm not really cool with the idea of adultery, I do like that she is open about her sexuality.  I do think Ayn Rand is mistaken in writing as if the specific submissive fetish she and Dagny (and, full disclosue, I too) share is universal for all women.  It isn't.  I get it though; it's a combination of being submissive but also proud; submitting to someone 'unworthy' isn't satisfying or enjoyable, it's just degrading and fake.  So, again, because of my specific circumstances, I can relate to it on that level.  However, I do feel that Rand glosses over how difficult it can be for women, especially at the time, to rise to the top economically.  Dagny doesn't go out of her way to help other women, and there are very few other women in the same position.  Rand seems to prescribe to the theory that the reason women aren't in positions of power is because most women just aren't as good as men, because if they were, they would be.  That isn't true, and I really dislike that opinion.  But, because I'm used to a world in which men are in power and women are invisible, its not an excessive hardship to ignore that specific element here, either.   The same goes for people of colour; they just don't really exist in Rand's world, but then, they don't exist in lots of fictional worlds so, while it's not okay, it's not a problem unique to Atlas Shrugged.

So, thoughts?  Do you like or dislike Atlas Shrugged?  Why or why not?  What troubles you about it?  What do you enjoy?

In Which We Discuss My 28th Year

So...I got a little behind!  I turned twenty-nine on the twelfth of August; these are the books I read prior to that day.  My time's been taken up with preparing for the second year of my degree and with writing.  For the former, I've been using coursera courses and the module descriptions to assign pre-reading for myself.  I've struggled to stick to my study schedule, but I'm least I'm struggling now and not after the semester begins!  As for the writing, I've recently begun using spreadsheets and trying writing exercises, which I'll be sharing here.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Weeks 39/52

Books I read in my 28th year, between the 6th-12th of May.  One pre-read and two new ones!

Chart Throb is the reread.  It's one of Ben Elton's books which I have an Audible; I've listened to it probably half a dozen times.

The Plant is an unfinished novel by Stephen King, available to download.  I'll expand more on it when I write my next dedicated King post as part of my chronological challenge.

Finally, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is one of the best short-story collections I've ever read.  I forget what prompted me to download it, but I'm so glad that I did!

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Weeks 38/52

Three books last week, all rereads and all audiobooks.  With exams coming up, that's all I have time for!

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Weeks 37/52

Only two books this week (22nd to 28th April), both audiobooks that I'd read before.

Last week, I started watching Dr Who for the first time, ever.  I started with the tenth Doctor, and I will never accept any other.  Though David Tennant is fun.  Weirdly, I'd read stories from the extended Whoniverse before I'd ever watched the show.  Rereading Time Lord Fairy Tales having seen it, I do feel like I got more from it!

The third book in the Fire Sermon series will be released at the end of June.  That's not why I re-listened to this book now; I just felt like it.  I might wait a bit before listening to the second part of the trilogy, so there's less of a gap.

The most obvious thing about The Fire Sermon is that it's a book of foils.  Everyone is born twinned, with one alpha and one omega.  In this specific story, specific alphas aren't contrasted only to their omegas, but to other pairs of alpha and omegas.  The two key pairs face the same problem, but a different half of the pair is ultimately the more ruthless.  That's quite interesting.