wednesday books from openlibrary

[landofnowhere]

Consuelo, George Sand. After some heroic midwifing, we are in Vienna now and there is All The Politics! Consuelo has been reunited with her beloved mentor Porpora, who is a much less sympathetic character now -- he is bitter about what he views as a failed career, and hopes Consuelo will provide him a much-needed triumph over his rivals. Teenaged Joseph Haydn is still around, getting his foot in the door as Porpora's valet since Porpora is not interested in taking students. (Joseph and Consuelo have fallen into an found family relationship, at one point Joseph says "I might have been in love with you at one point" to which Consuelo says "Don't be ridiculous.") Consuelo just had a disastrous interview with Empress Maria Theresa, and I'm not sure what's next, but it might involve packing their bags and hoping for better luck in Prussia.

Taking Care of Terrific, Lois Lowry. Recommended by nnozomi, and I found it on OpenLibrary, which actually has a lot of out-of-print childrens' books, I really like this. This is a subversive book -- reading it helped me connect the dots between the Anastasia Krupnik books and The Giver. Set in the Boston of 40 years ago, specifically Beacon Hill and the Public Gardens, which are still recognizable (though there weren't any locations I imprinted on strongly). The snarky narrator is delightful. My one quibble is that the bit where the protagonist decides at the end she likes the name her parents gave her felt tacked-on and unnatural -- I feel like this is the way that childrens' books generally go: wanting to change your name is a phase that one gets over. (I assume this is less true now with better trans representation.)

Cat in the Mirror, Mary Stolz. Recommended by rachelmanija, also available on OpenLibrary, and also shares in common with Taking Care of Terrific a rich girl protagonist with awful parents (well here mostly an awful mother) and an interest in strikes/other sorts of collective organizing. I'm pretty sure I read this when I was a kid (it likely influenced some of the timeslip fiction I wrote when I was 12 or 13), though I don't remember that much of it. Well-done.

Comments

[nnozomi]

Oh, I'm glad you read (and liked) Taking Care of Terrific! "A subversive book" is a really good way to put it (and it's interesting that the locations are still recognizable 40 years on).
I never thought about the idea of wanting to change your name being treated as a phase; I think I always thought of the last scene as being less about her name per se and more about feeling happier with being who she is in general, but it's an interesting point that "learning to love who you are" (as the book parodies midway through) gets more complicated with issues of trans representation, etc.
(Also, come to think of it I first read it thirty years ago and I still don't know whether Enid is pronounced en-id or ee-nid.)

[landofnowhere]

The Boston Public Garden is still a major landmark and tourist attraction! But also the book mentions a lot of specific streets, so you can find everything on the map -- the Church of the Advent, where I was a bellringer when I lived in Boston, is in that neighborhood, so I know it pretty well.

It's a historic neighborhood, so the buildings haven't changed much, though the specific businesses have (the Ritz-Carlton has been through multiple name/ownership changes), probably the main change is that (like many parts of the Boston area) it's gotten substantially safer to be out at night. I also don't think of the Public Garden as being populated by bag ladies, but I'm not sure I'd know a "bag lady" if I saw one (most of the visibly homeless people I remember from the Boston area were male panhandlers).

(This is in striking contrast to the visit to the North End in Anastasia, At Your Service, which between the Big Dig and gentrification has been completely transformed, even if many of the buildings are still there.)