Title: A Corner of White (The Colors of Madeleine Book 1)
Author: Jaclyn Moriarty
Narrator: Fiona Hardingham, Andrew Eiden, Kate Reinders, Peter McGowan
Published: Scholastic Audio, 2013 (2012)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 308,100
Text Number: 1042
Read Because: recommended by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starshipfox, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A girl struggling with her changed life begins correspondence with a boy from the fantastical world of Cello. I've never encounter a halfways-epistolary portal fantasy; it almost violates the reader's contract of the genre (what's a portal fantasy without travel between worlds?) but it's an engaging change of pace and loses none of the wonder or sense of different(-but-overlapping) worlds. The narrative's view of the protagonists is as critical as it is loving, and their epistolary voices are vibrant; the character arcs bittersweet. So the way that the numerous plot threads tie into a neat ending feels more satisfying and healing than it does obnoxiously easy. This runs longer than average for its genre/demographic, but its balance and contradictions in tone—charming whimsy and painful character developments, the humor and the bent towards the numinous—don't just justify it; they're my favorite part.
Title: Nightwood
Author: Djuna Barnes
Narrator: Gemma Dawson
Published: Tantor Audio, 2017 (1936)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 180
Total Page Count: 309,030
Text Number: 1048
Read Because: recommended bybreathedout, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A disillusioned young mother escapes into the arms of two women in 1920s-30s France. This is a modernist novel, an early lesbian novel, short, and written in a dense, hypnotic, involved prose so laden with analogies and digressions as to almost be impenetrable. I confess I read it as I read poetry (as I'm not a particularly strong poetry reader): letting it flow over me, grabbing onto what sections and images resonated, acknowledging that it would take more energy than I could muster to pull it apart line by line. And that approach worked. A book's style sometimes runs away with itself, and none has run further than this, but what an experience! A little ridiculous, consistently provoking, and unexpectedly rewarding.
My favorite parts: The doctor's monologues I thought would overwhelm the women and the queer aspects of the text (where are what drew me) but instead do the opposite, giving voice to the central themes and speaking from within the queer community; the musings on the "night" as a queer framework are complex, productive, elucidating.
Also that love is viewed almost entirely in its absence, and this defines but doesn't limit it—Nora's letter-writing, her love that wraps around the void of a lover's presence, is superbly evocative and feels dissimilar to the tragic and/or recanted love of lesbian pulp fiction from the 50s and 60s—I don't know a ton of the history of lesbian literature, but Nightwood seems to subvert tropes that had yet to be established.
Title: The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories
Author: Joan Aiken
Published: Small Beer Press, 2008 (1953-2008)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 325
Total Page Count: 309,435
Text Number: 1051
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Armitage family is cursed with the gift of never being bored. This collection of short stories—very short, many only 10 pages—follows their whimsical adventures, like the plague of unicorns in the garden, or the time ornery witches transformed the parents into ladybugs. The success is in its continuity: later stories nod at previous events and to events unchronicled (noodle incidents that parallel the ridiculous truth of known events), creating a necessary sense of consequence to endings which are often glib or sudden. But aren't always, and those moments of tragedy are startling.
I began by comparing this collection to cookies, as slight, sweet, and easy to binge; perhaps as empty. But it grew on me. Perhaps not enough: Aiken's style, whimsical fantasy/gothic in early-to-mid-1990s England, isn't my style—too charming, too satirical. And the events don't accumulate into anything hugely robust—this isn't Diana Wynne Jones, whose madcap adventures (of similar styling) grow to thunderous conclusions. But I was sorry to see the collection end—it's consistent and enjoyable, and has the sense that it could go on forever.
Author: Jaclyn Moriarty
Narrator: Fiona Hardingham, Andrew Eiden, Kate Reinders, Peter McGowan
Published: Scholastic Audio, 2013 (2012)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 308,100
Text Number: 1042
Read Because: recommended by
starshipfox, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: A girl struggling with her changed life begins correspondence with a boy from the fantastical world of Cello. I've never encounter a halfways-epistolary portal fantasy; it almost violates the reader's contract of the genre (what's a portal fantasy without travel between worlds?) but it's an engaging change of pace and loses none of the wonder or sense of different(-but-overlapping) worlds. The narrative's view of the protagonists is as critical as it is loving, and their epistolary voices are vibrant; the character arcs bittersweet. So the way that the numerous plot threads tie into a neat ending feels more satisfying and healing than it does obnoxiously easy. This runs longer than average for its genre/demographic, but its balance and contradictions in tone—charming whimsy and painful character developments, the humor and the bent towards the numinous—don't just justify it; they're my favorite part.
Title: Nightwood
Author: Djuna Barnes
Narrator: Gemma Dawson
Published: Tantor Audio, 2017 (1936)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 180
Total Page Count: 309,030
Text Number: 1048
Read Because: recommended by
breathedout, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: A disillusioned young mother escapes into the arms of two women in 1920s-30s France. This is a modernist novel, an early lesbian novel, short, and written in a dense, hypnotic, involved prose so laden with analogies and digressions as to almost be impenetrable. I confess I read it as I read poetry (as I'm not a particularly strong poetry reader): letting it flow over me, grabbing onto what sections and images resonated, acknowledging that it would take more energy than I could muster to pull it apart line by line. And that approach worked. A book's style sometimes runs away with itself, and none has run further than this, but what an experience! A little ridiculous, consistently provoking, and unexpectedly rewarding.
My favorite parts: The doctor's monologues I thought would overwhelm the women and the queer aspects of the text (where are what drew me) but instead do the opposite, giving voice to the central themes and speaking from within the queer community; the musings on the "night" as a queer framework are complex, productive, elucidating.
"And do I know my Sodomites?" the doctor said unhappily, "and what the heart goes bang up against if it loves one of them, especially if it's a woman loving one of them. What do they find then, that this lover has committed the unpardonable error of not being able to exist—and they come down with a dummy in their arms."
Also that love is viewed almost entirely in its absence, and this defines but doesn't limit it—Nora's letter-writing, her love that wraps around the void of a lover's presence, is superbly evocative and feels dissimilar to the tragic and/or recanted love of lesbian pulp fiction from the 50s and 60s—I don't know a ton of the history of lesbian literature, but Nightwood seems to subvert tropes that had yet to be established.
Title: The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories
Author: Joan Aiken
Published: Small Beer Press, 2008 (1953-2008)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 325
Total Page Count: 309,435
Text Number: 1051
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Armitage family is cursed with the gift of never being bored. This collection of short stories—very short, many only 10 pages—follows their whimsical adventures, like the plague of unicorns in the garden, or the time ornery witches transformed the parents into ladybugs. The success is in its continuity: later stories nod at previous events and to events unchronicled (noodle incidents that parallel the ridiculous truth of known events), creating a necessary sense of consequence to endings which are often glib or sudden. But aren't always, and those moments of tragedy are startling.
I began by comparing this collection to cookies, as slight, sweet, and easy to binge; perhaps as empty. But it grew on me. Perhaps not enough: Aiken's style, whimsical fantasy/gothic in early-to-mid-1990s England, isn't my style—too charming, too satirical. And the events don't accumulate into anything hugely robust—this isn't Diana Wynne Jones, whose madcap adventures (of similar styling) grow to thunderous conclusions. But I was sorry to see the collection end—it's consistent and enjoyable, and has the sense that it could go on forever.
