![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Night's Master (Tales from the Flat Earth Book 1)
Author: Tanith Lee
Published: DAW, 2016 (1978)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 249,225
Text Number: 797
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A series of folktales chained together by overlapping events and a central figure: Azhrarn, prince of demons and the night. It requires an overarching plot in order to transition from interlinked stories to a novel; there's just enough of one, but it's backloaded and doesn't do as much with the book's themes as I'd like. Trauma is portrayed as a cycle of violence wherein victims become monsters and, therefore, perpetrators; Azhrarn's overarching story ties in to this, but fails to directly confront his role as instigator, undermining the book's cumulative effect. Characters from individual stories aren't especially memorable, but the narrative style and setting speaks to Lee's strengths; the tone is darkly fantastic, the style lush, sensual, sexual; a fluid, dreamlike, mythic space. I didn't connect with this as much as I have books with a similar structure (particularly Valente's Orphan's Tales series, which benefits from tonal and thematic variation), but it's an interesting effort.
Title: Titus Andronicus
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1594
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 249,325
Text Number: 798
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: That any other early plays have been criticized for mimetic rather than diegetic action now seems ridiculous; this is a play defined by its violence. I would love to see it staged—I don't think its effectiveness necessarily hinges on SFX style or quality, but the violence is important. it's in conversation with the play's themes and use of language, particularly violence as action vs. interpretation: how characters understand and internalize what they witness, and how it motivates future violence. Lavinia is central to this conversation but also excluded from it—the profound irony of Titus professing to be her interpreter is devastating. I can see why this play is controversial, I can also imagine some productions are ridiculous; it's also sincerely engaging, visceral, thoughtful, and must be quite the spectacle.
Title: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Author: Audre Lorde
Narrator: Robin Eller
Published: Tantor Audio, 2016 (1984)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 249,515
Text Number: 799
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A collection of essays, speeches, letters, and various other pieces from a black lesbian feminist poet. The focus of Lorde's work is intersectionality, and her ability to articulate and insist on these overlaps, to explore the complicated ways that they inform her experience and her feminism, is phenomenal. If her arguments feel familiar, it's because it was her work which helped establish them; but these essays don't feel redundant. She puts complicated concepts into remarkably clear language, is self-possessed and self-interrogative, profoundly compassionate and angry, and refuses reductionism even when exploring gendered and racialized archetypes. If anything, her essays feel too relevant; white feminism is still catching up. This isn't perfect in collection—the tone and format is changeable, the content occasionally overlaps, and the tools by which Lorde defines and insists on her identity won't speak to everyone. But the sum effort is far greater than these quibbles.
Some personal highlights: "Frequently, when speaking with men and white women, I am reminded of how difficult and time-consuming it is to have to reinvent the pencil every time you want to send a message." The interview with Adrienne Rich, which provides useful context about Lorde's life and contains a firm and mutually respectful conversation about the emotional labor that minority individuals are not obligated to perform in these discussions. Compelling, disquieting explorations of intra-community discrimination; "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." Her work to preemptively claim aspects of her identity, that they cannot be weaponized against her. Lorde has a knack for a powerful, quotable line (it makes sense, given her background in poetry); these lines are even better within the context of a complex, passionate argument.
Title: Richard III
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 249,615
Text Number: 800
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This is the first play in my chronological readthrough which feels like Shakespeare as I know him—the first which is truly phenomenal. (Is this influenced by my having studied it previously? probably, but I don't care.) Richard is fantastic, particularly his use of language and his rapport with the audience, but also the humor of his shortcomings; he's a compelling study of an antihero, and of the complicated relationship between antihero and audience. But it's the women that push this play above and beyond: the seduction of Lady Anne is keenly unsettling, and set in effective counterpoint to the less successful persuasion of Queen Elizabeth; Margaret is dynamic, and her conversation with the Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth is a rare moment of centralizing women—imperfectly, but effectively, especially as their conversation functions as a reflection of the entire tetralogy. It's a complex, vibrant, coherent play, and it's those exact elements that draw me to Shakespeare's work.
Author: Tanith Lee
Published: DAW, 2016 (1978)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 249,225
Text Number: 797
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A series of folktales chained together by overlapping events and a central figure: Azhrarn, prince of demons and the night. It requires an overarching plot in order to transition from interlinked stories to a novel; there's just enough of one, but it's backloaded and doesn't do as much with the book's themes as I'd like. Trauma is portrayed as a cycle of violence wherein victims become monsters and, therefore, perpetrators; Azhrarn's overarching story ties in to this, but fails to directly confront his role as instigator, undermining the book's cumulative effect. Characters from individual stories aren't especially memorable, but the narrative style and setting speaks to Lee's strengths; the tone is darkly fantastic, the style lush, sensual, sexual; a fluid, dreamlike, mythic space. I didn't connect with this as much as I have books with a similar structure (particularly Valente's Orphan's Tales series, which benefits from tonal and thematic variation), but it's an interesting effort.
Title: Titus Andronicus
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1594
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 249,325
Text Number: 798
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: That any other early plays have been criticized for mimetic rather than diegetic action now seems ridiculous; this is a play defined by its violence. I would love to see it staged—I don't think its effectiveness necessarily hinges on SFX style or quality, but the violence is important. it's in conversation with the play's themes and use of language, particularly violence as action vs. interpretation: how characters understand and internalize what they witness, and how it motivates future violence. Lavinia is central to this conversation but also excluded from it—the profound irony of Titus professing to be her interpreter is devastating. I can see why this play is controversial, I can also imagine some productions are ridiculous; it's also sincerely engaging, visceral, thoughtful, and must be quite the spectacle.
Title: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Author: Audre Lorde
Narrator: Robin Eller
Published: Tantor Audio, 2016 (1984)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 249,515
Text Number: 799
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A collection of essays, speeches, letters, and various other pieces from a black lesbian feminist poet. The focus of Lorde's work is intersectionality, and her ability to articulate and insist on these overlaps, to explore the complicated ways that they inform her experience and her feminism, is phenomenal. If her arguments feel familiar, it's because it was her work which helped establish them; but these essays don't feel redundant. She puts complicated concepts into remarkably clear language, is self-possessed and self-interrogative, profoundly compassionate and angry, and refuses reductionism even when exploring gendered and racialized archetypes. If anything, her essays feel too relevant; white feminism is still catching up. This isn't perfect in collection—the tone and format is changeable, the content occasionally overlaps, and the tools by which Lorde defines and insists on her identity won't speak to everyone. But the sum effort is far greater than these quibbles.
Some personal highlights: "Frequently, when speaking with men and white women, I am reminded of how difficult and time-consuming it is to have to reinvent the pencil every time you want to send a message." The interview with Adrienne Rich, which provides useful context about Lorde's life and contains a firm and mutually respectful conversation about the emotional labor that minority individuals are not obligated to perform in these discussions. Compelling, disquieting explorations of intra-community discrimination; "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." Her work to preemptively claim aspects of her identity, that they cannot be weaponized against her. Lorde has a knack for a powerful, quotable line (it makes sense, given her background in poetry); these lines are even better within the context of a complex, passionate argument.
Title: Richard III
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 249,615
Text Number: 800
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This is the first play in my chronological readthrough which feels like Shakespeare as I know him—the first which is truly phenomenal. (Is this influenced by my having studied it previously? probably, but I don't care.) Richard is fantastic, particularly his use of language and his rapport with the audience, but also the humor of his shortcomings; he's a compelling study of an antihero, and of the complicated relationship between antihero and audience. But it's the women that push this play above and beyond: the seduction of Lady Anne is keenly unsettling, and set in effective counterpoint to the less successful persuasion of Queen Elizabeth; Margaret is dynamic, and her conversation with the Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth is a rare moment of centralizing women—imperfectly, but effectively, especially as their conversation functions as a reflection of the entire tetralogy. It's a complex, vibrant, coherent play, and it's those exact elements that draw me to Shakespeare's work.
