aphanon_meme | part 353 whalers on the moon

part 353 whalers on the moon

We've been here over a year now! I can hardly believe it! Dreamwidth's been pretty good, I'd say, with almost no downtime to speak of and all that! Anyway... how is your spring going? Or I guess it's almost summer, isn't it? Hopefully it's been well! I've been catching up on work and new movies, all very exciting stuff, I'm sure.

Enjoy part 353!

Latest Page

View flat!

*There is a rules page here. Please read it before reading and posting.

*There is a contact post here. Please use it for contacting me privately.

*There is a meme calender you can use for tracking and listing meme events!

*Dreamwidth, unfortunately, no longer supports any type of anonymous image posting.

*If you would like the Dreamwidth layout to look more like Livejournal's, you can use this workaround for your browser

Note: All entries prior to Part 331 originated on Livejournal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And what did you think of it?

the last book I read to the end was Servant of the Underworld, by Aliette de Bodard, about an Aztec Priest for the Dead solving a supernatural murder, among other things. I thought it was super cool that it was a fantasy/detective blend set in a non-european setting, and it was really well-researched, but the writing style rubbed me the wrong way at times. I really liked it though, would definitely recommend.

The last book I started reading was The Fault in Our Stars, I read four chapters of it and it was the realest shit I've ever read (as a cancer survivor, that is) but I don't think I have the emotional capacity to finish it, at least not right now.

I tried to get into The fault in our Stars but to me, it just felt so...... forced, in terms of dialogue and storyline? Like over the top artsy dialogue and a plotline that hinges on the parents just not getting a hoot about their child's safety.

I'm not sure if I got far enough to formulate an opinion (it was a kindle sample so I don't even know how far I got into the book itself), but the little that I did read felt extremely familiar to my own experience, especially when Hazel mentions her friends from school that all tiptoe around mentioning cancer and end up drifting away just because they feel awkward around a sick person. I had never realized it before but that's probably what drove away a lot of my old friends, too.

To me, it started to get unrealistic and almost pretentious as soon as the relationship between the two got going. It started off fine, I think, but once it got into this really unrealistic things (I won't give specifics for spoilers) it was like... the author had some weird, pixie version of what it was like living with disease, what people talked about, etc. It's like he wanted to write a book where cancer wasn't romanticized.... started doing that in the first chapter or two... then... romanticized the heck out of it.

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.

It was okay. There was a lot of "OH AND SUDDENLY THIS HAPPENED," especially at the end, and I felt that the main character made random decisions which conflicted with her personality but seem clearly inspired by the author's desire to push their own beliefs onto the character. I'll probably pick up the sequel at some point, though.

Last that I read was Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell. It was good, though it took me a while to get into it - but that's probably because I kept trying to read it while exhausted.

Right now I'm reading some nonfiction; Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the North-West Passage by Glyn Williams. It's fascinating! When I was in school, we kiiind of covered the whole northwest passage thing a bit, but this goes into so much more detail, and there are a ton of expeditions that I had never heard anything about.

Yukio Mishima's Kinkaku-ji

It was

Uh.

That sure happened. (It's a fictionalized account of the burning of the actual Kinkaku-ji temple, told from the point of view of the disturbed young monk who burned it. Needless to say it's a trip, alright. Can't say I loved it, but I've been trying to look into Japanese literature more, so.)

Damn, that was supposed to be a < br >, not a < b >. :|

:Va Huh. Sounds interesting.

Interesting, definitely. Lots of discussion of Zen principles and parables, too, with some...uh. Unique interpretations. And it's short, so it's a quick read.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Yes, the one with the illustrated cover by gingerhaze.

To be honest it gave me a lot of feelings because I could related so well to the "awkward girl reluctantly goes to college and can barely functions" angle. That being said, it's pretty apt that the book was about fanfiction and fandom, because it reads like a fanfic so many ways. Despite all of her problems, she still ends up with everything going her way to the point that she *SPOILER* wins an award for a final she half-asses basically the night before it was due despite receiving an extension of a whole semester to work on it because her teacher is so in love with her characters and writing.

Which I guess only happened because everyone around her is an asshole, at least initially. There were about 5 instances where someone insisted she do something she didn't want to do, despite her telling them "no, I don't want to do this" multiple times. To be honest it pissed me off, but in hindsight the main character did a lot of "I actually do want to do this, but I'll say I don't until this character forces me to tee-hee" moments, so I guess there wouldn't be a story without them totally disrespecting and disregarding her wishes. Maybe that's why I didn't end up with a boyfriend and an award in college; when I said "no I don't want to go to the party" I actually meant it and my roommate didn't literally drag me out of the room to it. I donno.

Despite those things the book wasn't bad. Some things, like the relationship between the main character and her mom, were well handled, and the author actually did know about fandom which I appreciate. But overall it wasn't a great book like I was hoping either. Even for fanficiton. So yeah, 5-6/10 from me.

I picked up two tiny books to bring with me on my trip/on the beach.

First one are two version of Greek and Roman myths by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace and The Pomegranate Seeds. They were respectful of the source material, but they were obviously aimed at children (which isn't a bad thing!) and also very Puritan - well-written and enthusiastically told, with enticing imagery, but forcing a morality and a "justice" inside the stories that wasn't really there in the original. It's a fun, lighthearted read if you're both into Greco-Roman mythology and American literature of that period, which I am, but you can survive without.

second one is a short story by Miroslav Krleža, a very important Croatian author, Battle of Bistrica Lesina, about Croatian peasants who are co-opted as domobrans, soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army, during WWI, and it's sad as fuck and very crude but really really amazing. I'm finding out that I really like Balkanic literature and settings in general so I am maybe biased, but it's really some top-notch writing, and the ultimate moral message shines throught without it being in your face, which is something a lot of contemporary writers could stand to learn.

10000 comments

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

part 353 whalers on the moon

itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read

Re: itt: last book you read