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juushikaTitle: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Author: Mary Roach
Narrator: Shelly Frasier
Published: Tantor Media, 2003
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 256,375
Text Number: 826
Read Because: interest in the subject matter, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An overview of the various uses—and fates—of human bodies after death. Roach's trademark morbid, self-deprecatory humor is lost on me; it's unobtrusive, but certainly doesn't sell me on her voice (which I think it does for most readers). The compassion and human element are more successful. My favorite parts of this book are about the evolution of dissection and, with it, science's changing relationship with corpses: the disrespect, respect, depersonalization, and thanks with which individuals and institutions treat corpses are all tools for coping with death and mortality; and they're flawed tools, but changing ones. I wish she had applied this insight to mortuary practices, to analyse why certain methods make us squeamish and critique the depersonalization within those in the mainstream; here, as nowhere else, she feels limited by convention and squeamishness. But this isn't my first book on this subject, and I feel like Stiff makes a better beginning to the conversation than a middle; it covers a decent breadth of subjects, but none in any particular depth.
Title: King John
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 256,475
Text Number: 827
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This feels like a throwback to the earlier histories (specifically the Henry VI plays): it spends so much time summarizing and condensing events that characterization and theme fall by the wayside, left inconsistent or piecemeal, or simply unremarkable; King John himself suffers most in this, a vaguely unlikable character. The Bastard emerges as a more interesting candidate for protagonist, both because of his immediate connection to the audience in his asides and speeches, and because of his evolving characterization. The women are also intriguing; Constance and Eleanor between them have a confrontational, impassioned vibrancy that much of the play lacks. This is one of the plays I appreciate reading in the context of this project but wouldn't recommend in its own right.
Didn't love this play; did love reading about it after the fact! Historical critical reaction to it is fascinating & also gross. I wrote about this on tumblr; copied below for safekeeping.
if you’ve ever wanted to go from "mildly disinterested" to "stanning for," consider reading Shakespeare’s King John and then reading about the history of Constance’s production history and critical response
featuring such delights as "this woman’s anger is so disgraceful that it must be excised even from the script" to "this woman’s anger is justified because the woman she’s angry at is disgraceful" to "maybe she’s a sympathetic person with complicated emotions?" to "no, wait; she’s just proud, and that’s the worst!" to "women amirite (Frederick S. Boas described her as "hysterical" and "dangerous" in 1896)"
that change of heart in the middle is something remarkable:
the delight of reading the plays, all in a row, is twofold: to read them all, and to read them as scripts—complete and uninterpreted, such that every (contradictory!) reading is possible
but lbr King John is not especially great; like the earlier histories, it’s summarizing/condensing so many events that there’s rarely room left for cogent throughlines in themes or characterization. production—interpretation—a truly remarkable actor can change this, can make an audience see the play in a way it may not easily be seen
but the question with King John is: do we not easily see this reading, a reading of Constance as tragic and empathetic and stirring and bereaved, less because of flaws in the script itself, and instead because we find it easier to interpret women’s emotions as disgraceful, or unbecoming, or unreasonable, or hysteric?
(the answer by the way is: yes)
Title: Monstress Volume 2: The Blood
Author: Marjorie M. Liu
Illustrator: Sana Takeda
Published: Image Comics, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 155
Total Page Count: 256,630
Text Number: 828
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I like this more than volume one—the routine developments in worldbuilding are out of the way; what progresses is more plotty and more personal to the cast. That said, Maika feels less distinct here; her early characterization is vivid, emotive, distant, angry; her mother issues reiterate that, and the resolution is trite. It's the god which saves things. While perhaps not as vast or strange as I'd like, it's vast enough, strange enough, which improves the tone and keeps that strange central relationship with Maika dynamic and intense. Again, the art is profoundly beautiful—and, perhaps because there's more supernatural/inhuman figures in this volume, it feels less gratuitous. This is an apt continuation, and while I still haven't fallen in love as most readers have, the series is well worth reading.
Title: The Party
Author: Elizabeth Day
Published: Little, Brown and Company, 2017
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 256,940
Text Number: 829
Read Because: reviewed as similar to The Secret History, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Events at an elaborate birthday party mark the unraveling point of an unlikely friendship between two men divided by their economic backgrounds and united by a shared secret. This namedrops Donna Tartt early on, but feels more like Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (and its questionable elision of queer attraction and sociopathy) or Hughes's In a Lonely Place (with an antihero PoV manipulating the reader's sympathy and disdain) than it does The Secret History, while possessing the atmosphere of none of these. There is no fragile idealization to balance out the unlikable characters and events; it becomes tedious, and the revelations aren't substantial enough to justify the tortured pacing. The only saving grace is the complexity of the characterization, specifically the way they change in interior and exterior views. But it isn't enough; I considered giving up halfway through, and honestly I should have.
Author: Mary Roach
Narrator: Shelly Frasier
Published: Tantor Media, 2003
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 256,375
Text Number: 826
Read Because: interest in the subject matter, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An overview of the various uses—and fates—of human bodies after death. Roach's trademark morbid, self-deprecatory humor is lost on me; it's unobtrusive, but certainly doesn't sell me on her voice (which I think it does for most readers). The compassion and human element are more successful. My favorite parts of this book are about the evolution of dissection and, with it, science's changing relationship with corpses: the disrespect, respect, depersonalization, and thanks with which individuals and institutions treat corpses are all tools for coping with death and mortality; and they're flawed tools, but changing ones. I wish she had applied this insight to mortuary practices, to analyse why certain methods make us squeamish and critique the depersonalization within those in the mainstream; here, as nowhere else, she feels limited by convention and squeamishness. But this isn't my first book on this subject, and I feel like Stiff makes a better beginning to the conversation than a middle; it covers a decent breadth of subjects, but none in any particular depth.
Title: King John
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 256,475
Text Number: 827
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This feels like a throwback to the earlier histories (specifically the Henry VI plays): it spends so much time summarizing and condensing events that characterization and theme fall by the wayside, left inconsistent or piecemeal, or simply unremarkable; King John himself suffers most in this, a vaguely unlikable character. The Bastard emerges as a more interesting candidate for protagonist, both because of his immediate connection to the audience in his asides and speeches, and because of his evolving characterization. The women are also intriguing; Constance and Eleanor between them have a confrontational, impassioned vibrancy that much of the play lacks. This is one of the plays I appreciate reading in the context of this project but wouldn't recommend in its own right.
Didn't love this play; did love reading about it after the fact! Historical critical reaction to it is fascinating & also gross. I wrote about this on tumblr; copied below for safekeeping.
if you’ve ever wanted to go from "mildly disinterested" to "stanning for," consider reading Shakespeare’s King John and then reading about the history of Constance’s production history and critical response
featuring such delights as "this woman’s anger is so disgraceful that it must be excised even from the script" to "this woman’s anger is justified because the woman she’s angry at is disgraceful" to "maybe she’s a sympathetic person with complicated emotions?" to "no, wait; she’s just proud, and that’s the worst!" to "women amirite (Frederick S. Boas described her as "hysterical" and "dangerous" in 1896)"
that change of heart in the middle is something remarkable:
Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) performed in the role of Constance from 1783 until 1812, and her interpretation of Constance as a distraught and frenzied mother left a lasting impression on anyone who saw her, including the leading critics of the time. The force of her portrayal was such that it removed any potential ambivalence critics felt regarding the character of Constance. Indeed, the pathos of the "doating and bereaved mother" was never forgotten by those that "were born early enough to have seen Mrs. Siddons perform the part of Constance." Just as Siddons was defined by her exceptional portrayal of Constance, so too was the character of Constance defined by Siddons’s portrayal. Even after Siddons’s death, the imprint of her Constance remained in the minds of the critics. Indeed, even critics who had not seen Siddons in the part repeated testimony they had heard concerning her performance. George Fletcher went so far as to critique a performance based solely upon the accounts of it he had heard. Siddons’s performance thus became a touchstone for nineteenth-century critics. Whether they praised her or found fault in her portrayal, they responded to Siddons almost as another literary critic, arguing for or against her interpretation of the character of Constance.
Indeed, although not all critics responded directly to Siddons, her appearance on stage signaled (or at least, coincided with) a shift in focus in the critical tradition; early nineteenth-century critics did not discuss the possible impropriety of Constance’s speeches; rather, in discussing her character, they exclusively examined the pathos that she brings to the play. Critics generally agreed that Constance’s maternal grief represented, "the most interesting passion of the play." She was simultaneously perceived as a natural depiction of this maternal grief and as a "character conceived with Shakespeare’s profoundest art, and finished with his utmost skill." Indeed, Thomas Campbell, no doubt again responding, at least in part, to Siddons’s performance, went so far as to say that "after Constance leaves the stage, Shakespeare’s King John is rather the execution of a criminal than an interesting tragedy." For these critics, likely still under the influence of Sarah Siddons, the heart of Shakespeare’s play abided not in its titular character, but in the character who had only thirty-six speeches to her name and who disappears entirely after Act 3.
the delight of reading the plays, all in a row, is twofold: to read them all, and to read them as scripts—complete and uninterpreted, such that every (contradictory!) reading is possible
but lbr King John is not especially great; like the earlier histories, it’s summarizing/condensing so many events that there’s rarely room left for cogent throughlines in themes or characterization. production—interpretation—a truly remarkable actor can change this, can make an audience see the play in a way it may not easily be seen
but the question with King John is: do we not easily see this reading, a reading of Constance as tragic and empathetic and stirring and bereaved, less because of flaws in the script itself, and instead because we find it easier to interpret women’s emotions as disgraceful, or unbecoming, or unreasonable, or hysteric?
(the answer by the way is: yes)
Title: Monstress Volume 2: The Blood
Author: Marjorie M. Liu
Illustrator: Sana Takeda
Published: Image Comics, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 155
Total Page Count: 256,630
Text Number: 828
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I like this more than volume one—the routine developments in worldbuilding are out of the way; what progresses is more plotty and more personal to the cast. That said, Maika feels less distinct here; her early characterization is vivid, emotive, distant, angry; her mother issues reiterate that, and the resolution is trite. It's the god which saves things. While perhaps not as vast or strange as I'd like, it's vast enough, strange enough, which improves the tone and keeps that strange central relationship with Maika dynamic and intense. Again, the art is profoundly beautiful—and, perhaps because there's more supernatural/inhuman figures in this volume, it feels less gratuitous. This is an apt continuation, and while I still haven't fallen in love as most readers have, the series is well worth reading.
Title: The Party
Author: Elizabeth Day
Published: Little, Brown and Company, 2017
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 256,940
Text Number: 829
Read Because: reviewed as similar to The Secret History, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Events at an elaborate birthday party mark the unraveling point of an unlikely friendship between two men divided by their economic backgrounds and united by a shared secret. This namedrops Donna Tartt early on, but feels more like Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (and its questionable elision of queer attraction and sociopathy) or Hughes's In a Lonely Place (with an antihero PoV manipulating the reader's sympathy and disdain) than it does The Secret History, while possessing the atmosphere of none of these. There is no fragile idealization to balance out the unlikable characters and events; it becomes tedious, and the revelations aren't substantial enough to justify the tortured pacing. The only saving grace is the complexity of the characterization, specifically the way they change in interior and exterior views. But it isn't enough; I considered giving up halfway through, and honestly I should have.
