So I have a lot to write about here, and will not do it all justice (she says, and then writes a ton)
Autobiography of a Chinese Woman by Buwei Yang Chao. I finished this -- it is still as good as![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer advertised, and still freely available online in the US, so you should still go read it!
Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell. I actually read this a couple weeks back and forgot to write it up. I started this series with The Shortest Way to Hades, which was a mistake (even if it was super cheap at the used book store) -- that one I found moderately amusing, but with this one I was laughing out loud through much of Julia's travelogue. Also a well-plotted mystery. I'll be reading the rest of these.
L'Ile Mysterieuse, Jules Verne. I finished this! The ending was suitably dramatic (with a bit of oh, that's where Rings of Power got the volcano thing from, but more plausible). I also appreciated the bit that's crossover with other Jules Verne (completely disregarding the timeline). Ultimately I wish that kid me had read the whole thing, rather than having to leave it at my aunt's house 2/3 of the way through the book -- kid me would have loved it. I'm sad that I didn't read an illustrated edition this time, it seems like the sort of thing that would be improved with illustrations. Regarding the ending, ( Read more... ).
The Rover, Aphra Behn. Play readaloud. 17th century sex comedy with a detailed exploration of rape culture, which was well done but not actually fun -- though other aspects of the play were. Our group has a running joke that when we're reading a play where the women end up with men who aren't worth it that they should go become lesbian pirates instead. In this play there are three women who don't end up paired off with men because they are not Women of Quality (two sex workers and a con artist), and so I am headcanoning that they go off and become lesbian pirates, starting with stealing the mens' boat.
Also, to cleanse my palate, I wrote The Grover, which is the wholesome Sesame Street adaptation of the play:
( The Grover )
Two Loves for Jenny Lind, Frances Cavanagh. I keep meaning to write a post where I properly explain my newfound Jenny Lind obsession but I'm not sure it will happen. (I locked down my post from last week about my having Feelings about learning that Felix Mendelssohn wanted to run off with Jenny Lind and threatened suicide.) Anyway the short version is that Jenny Lind was a very interesting 19th century personality who was very popular in her own time and is now remembered mostly as Hans Christian Andersen's unrequited love or as P. T. Barnum's opera star -- she and her heirs managed her public image well enough that she's now mainly known as a Boringly Good Victorian (or is fictionalized as a stereotypical opera star in ways that have nothing to do with the actual person, see e.g. The Greatest Showman). The only modern biography of her in English is not available in ebook, and also isn't in many libraries in the US (it looks like it was published by a small press that didn't promote it well), but I may end up getting a hard copy.
Anyway lacking a critical biography I thought I'd turn to fiction and,carbonel had mentioned liking Jenny Lind and her Listening Cat, and I discovered that this earlier Jenny Lind novel by the same author was available on HathiTrust (its copyright having expired, like Buwei Yang Chao's memoir). It was a pleasant enough fictionalization of Lind's American tour, and has the advantage of shipping Jenny Lind/Otto Goldschmidt (Lind's accompanist, who she married when Lind was 31 and Goldschmidt was 22) and not shipping Lind/Barnum. (The title makes it sound like a love triangle, which there sort of is, but the intro explains that the two loves are actually music and Goldschmidt.)
The Swedish Nightingale", Elisabeth Kyle. Available for hourly loan on the Internet Archive -- I am spoiled for access to random mid 20th century fiction. This is a children's biographical novel of Jenny Lind by the same author as Girl With a Pen, a biographical novel of Charlotte Bronte that I loved as a kid andosprey_archer recently reviewed. This was good for getting a background of Lind's early life, but again, fictionalized -- and also the story had a bit much of "Jenny doesn't want to Do The Thing. Her friends try to persuade her before resorting to reverse psychology, at which point Jenny decides to Do the Thing out of sheer stubbornness", which is just not that satisfying. Ends with Lind's decision to pursue a career outside Sweden, which was disappointing for me not actually getting to meet Mendelssohn. A different characterization of Jenny Lind from the other book, although they cover disjoint time periods.
Autobiography of a Chinese Woman by Buwei Yang Chao. I finished this -- it is still as good as
osprey_archer advertised, and still freely available online in the US, so you should still go read it!Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell. I actually read this a couple weeks back and forgot to write it up. I started this series with The Shortest Way to Hades, which was a mistake (even if it was super cheap at the used book store) -- that one I found moderately amusing, but with this one I was laughing out loud through much of Julia's travelogue. Also a well-plotted mystery. I'll be reading the rest of these.
L'Ile Mysterieuse, Jules Verne. I finished this! The ending was suitably dramatic (with a bit of oh, that's where Rings of Power got the volcano thing from, but more plausible). I also appreciated the bit that's crossover with other Jules Verne (completely disregarding the timeline). Ultimately I wish that kid me had read the whole thing, rather than having to leave it at my aunt's house 2/3 of the way through the book -- kid me would have loved it. I'm sad that I didn't read an illustrated edition this time, it seems like the sort of thing that would be improved with illustrations. Regarding the ending, ( Read more... ).
The Rover, Aphra Behn. Play readaloud. 17th century sex comedy with a detailed exploration of rape culture, which was well done but not actually fun -- though other aspects of the play were. Our group has a running joke that when we're reading a play where the women end up with men who aren't worth it that they should go become lesbian pirates instead. In this play there are three women who don't end up paired off with men because they are not Women of Quality (two sex workers and a con artist), and so I am headcanoning that they go off and become lesbian pirates, starting with stealing the mens' boat.
Also, to cleanse my palate, I wrote The Grover, which is the wholesome Sesame Street adaptation of the play:
( The Grover )
Two Loves for Jenny Lind, Frances Cavanagh. I keep meaning to write a post where I properly explain my newfound Jenny Lind obsession but I'm not sure it will happen. (I locked down my post from last week about my having Feelings about learning that Felix Mendelssohn wanted to run off with Jenny Lind and threatened suicide.) Anyway the short version is that Jenny Lind was a very interesting 19th century personality who was very popular in her own time and is now remembered mostly as Hans Christian Andersen's unrequited love or as P. T. Barnum's opera star -- she and her heirs managed her public image well enough that she's now mainly known as a Boringly Good Victorian (or is fictionalized as a stereotypical opera star in ways that have nothing to do with the actual person, see e.g. The Greatest Showman). The only modern biography of her in English is not available in ebook, and also isn't in many libraries in the US (it looks like it was published by a small press that didn't promote it well), but I may end up getting a hard copy.
Anyway lacking a critical biography I thought I'd turn to fiction and,
carbonel had mentioned liking Jenny Lind and her Listening Cat, and I discovered that this earlier Jenny Lind novel by the same author was available on HathiTrust (its copyright having expired, like Buwei Yang Chao's memoir). It was a pleasant enough fictionalization of Lind's American tour, and has the advantage of shipping Jenny Lind/Otto Goldschmidt (Lind's accompanist, who she married when Lind was 31 and Goldschmidt was 22) and not shipping Lind/Barnum. (The title makes it sound like a love triangle, which there sort of is, but the intro explains that the two loves are actually music and Goldschmidt.)The Swedish Nightingale", Elisabeth Kyle. Available for hourly loan on the Internet Archive -- I am spoiled for access to random mid 20th century fiction. This is a children's biographical novel of Jenny Lind by the same author as Girl With a Pen, a biographical novel of Charlotte Bronte that I loved as a kid and
osprey_archer recently reviewed. This was good for getting a background of Lind's early life, but again, fictionalized -- and also the story had a bit much of "Jenny doesn't want to Do The Thing. Her friends try to persuade her before resorting to reverse psychology, at which point Jenny decides to Do the Thing out of sheer stubbornness", which is just not that satisfying. Ends with Lind's decision to pursue a career outside Sweden, which was disappointing for me not actually getting to meet Mendelssohn. A different characterization of Jenny Lind from the other book, although they cover disjoint time periods.