(no subject)

[winterbadger]

42/50 Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour by Barbara W. Tuchman
43/50: The California Voodoo Game by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
44/50: The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
45/50: Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

I know, I've said this before, but I will write up some comments on them later. Right now I just want to mark them down.


In the works:
Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini
Devil To Pay by C. Northcote Parkinson
Doom Castle by Neil Munro
Hostile Skies: A Combat History of the American Air Service in World War I by James J. Hudson
Drinking Arak Off an Ayatollah's Beard: A Journey Through the Inside-Out Worlds of Iran and Afghanistan by Nicholas Jubber
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz

I think this year I may actually make the 50! The Jackson bio is a very quick read (well, listen) and quite enjoyable. The CNP is reminding me why I was never as taken with his writing as with Forester or O'Brian. There's something missing--it's less like reading a novel and more like having someone tell you the plot of the novel. But, eh, it's Napoleonic naval adventure, so that's not all bad. Munro is also a little slow going; I liked The New Road, but this seems to be a bit...ploddy. I think it intends to be a sort of gothic, with mysterious doings and the protagonist only slowly coming to see the true faces of the other characters. But if so, it's very slowly... Maybe I'll try the Pamuk again, but that struck me as a bit draggy too. My reader on my iPhone (where I've been reading Knights of the Cross) has gone wodgy. And the others...I have been reading mostly just before bed of late, and I hate to read non-fiction then because I'm afraid I will forget bits.

Comments

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

IMHO, Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series is about the best fantasy series in the universe.

spolier alert! Don't read further if you've read none of TDIR books

[winterbadger]

I used to feel that way, when I first read the series in high school. I've been rereading it lately, and while I enjoy the settings and many of the characters, what's bothered me is that, by and large, no one actually seems to *do* anything. This makes them very disappointing (for me) as adventure stories.

This has been most pronounced in Dark Is Rising, which used to be one of my favourite books, so perhaps I feel most let down by it. Will Stanton comes into all sorts of magical powers as the last of the Old Ones. But what does he actually *do* that tests his ingenuity or his character or his ability? He simply shows up at place after place and gets handed the signs. He retrieves the Book of Gramarye (well, helps Merriman retrieve it). But he doesn't have to do anything but stand there to do so. He gives the mask to Herne the Hunter; but it isn't a clever insight on his part to do so; he doesn't have to devise a plan or scale a wall or escape bad guys. He just finds the mask and hands it over.

Same with Greenwich. The boys don't any of them really *do* anything. Will and Merriman go to see Tethys, but don't achieve anything. Simon and Barney are captured by the Dark chappie, but they don't escape--he just lets them go. About the only independent action that any of the characters take, and the only thing that affects the outcome of the story, is Jane wishing the Greenwitch were happy. That's pretty thin action to pin a plot on.

The setting and the events are described evocatively, and I still enjoy that very much. The image of the painter *painting* his spell as the sun sets and darkness falls over the harbour, and the parade of ghostly history, are vividly described. But the characters take little more part in the story than the reader; it's a series of events that take place round them, without their really influencing them one way or the other for the most part. That leaves me with a very flat and unsatisfied feeling when compared to (off the top of my head) Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider or Harper Hall books, Edward Eager's magic stories, or (contemporary British YA stories), Joan Aiken's Dido stories or Desmond Skirrow's The Case of the Silver Egg.

Re: spolier alert! Don't read further if you've read none of TDIR books

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

That's a reasonable critique. I'll admit that I was blown away by the series when I first read it--likely because of the aha! allusions to myth and legend--but I haven't wanted to reread it as often as, say, the Harry Potter series, just for example.