thursday books have far to go

[landofnowhere]

Henry IV, Part I, Shakespeare. Play readaloud. Second time reading this, and I'm following the plot a lot better than the first time around. I think I've come to the point where I respect this play, but don't love it. However it is very much a Part I, so we'll see how I take Part II!

The Will to BattleSeven Surrenders, Ada Palmer. Reread. One of the main things I noticed on this read is how clearly this book is setting up the conflict and battle lines that will play out in later books.

Thursday's Children, Rumer Godden. Recommended by rachelmanija (link), and available on OpenLibrary, so I snapped up a copy and was hooked. The story of two siblings growing up doing ballet -- Crystal, who was pushed into dance by her mother, who has many of the worst traits of dance mothers (but is still presented as very human), and her two-years-younger brother Doone, who tags along to her practices and falls in love with ballet. Doone is very much the lovable underdog who we are rooting for, particularly in the first half of the book, as he has to overcome unappreciative parents and societal obstacles against boys doing ballet -- but by halfway through the book his father has come round to appreciate his talent, he's at ballet school with a supportive peer group, and he's succcessfully befriended well-connected older mentors. We also know from the prologue that he's going to have an impressive debut at 13, and so the dramatic tension in the second half of the story shifts to Crystal, who is also talented but much less sympathetic. Her mother's favoritism and the competitiveness of dance have reinforced Crystal's worst qualities. The relationship between Crystal and Doone reminds me in some ways of Gwendolen and Cat Chant in Charmed Life -- Crystal is selfish, dishonest, manipulative, and very much does not have Doone's best interests at heart, but Doone looks up to and supports her anyway (while having both more of a backbone and more outside support than Cat).

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins. First time read -- I read the Hunger Games books once a long while ago. Very readable and engrossing despite the fact that it's really unpleasant being in Coriolanus Snow's head, especially in the last part of the book. I respect that Suzanne Collins opens her best-selling YA novel with quotes from Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Wordsworth, and Mary Shelley. However, for fiction influenced by Hobbes I prefer Terra Ignota, and for unsympathetic protagonists named Coriolanus I prefer Shakespeare.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Gwendolen and Cat Chant is a great comparison, though thankfully Crystal isn't an actual sociopath.

[selenak]

Re: H4 1: I remember this not working well for me at all when I read it the first time - but then I was still a teenager -, and then I saw it on stage, and suddenly everything clicked. Not that I loved it, but I got really interested. And then I got interested in Orson Welles, and Chimes at Midnight is fascinating. The Hollow Crown a couple of years ago - aka Richard II, the two Henry IV plus Henry V - was pretty good, too, but Hiddleston was a way too sympathetic Hal/Henry V and without that cold core that needs to be there to make I know you all etc. believable. Speaking of that monologue, in Chimes at Midnight, Welles has Hal saying this directly to Falstaff, out loud, and Falstaff treats it like it's the same kind of insult game they keep playing with each other like they do later (the "Banish fat Jack, and banish all the world"/"I do, I will" scene), but a part of him does know Hal isn't kidding. Otoh, in The Hollow Crown, Jeremy Irons was the titular Henry IV was the first and only time where I found the king the most interesting character in said plays instead of a minor supporting part. It helped that Simon Russell Beale was directed to play Falstaff as unsympathetic as possible and that Hiddleston, as mentioned, was way too nice a guy as Hal.

Another thing: when reading the play the first time, I found Harry Percy only annoying, but when seeing the play performed in any version, he and Kate really work for me. It's really something that lives through performance to me.

[landofnowhere]

Interesting! I definitely felt that Kate deserved a better husband, but I can see that a lot of this would depend on how the couple is played on stage.