Sakura of DOOM

What I've read: I finished Alison Bechdel's Fun Home after seeing her at a City Arts & Lectures event. The event itself was great; Bechdel herself isn't all too talkative, but there was a short video clip of her creating a comic page and discussion of her process, which I hadn't been expecting and was really interesting. I don't have much to say about Fun Home yet, especially since I'm still in the middle of her next memoir about her mother, but it's definitely worth reading, and I kind of wish I had read her stuff before going to see her. Oh well! At least it was incentive to get some of her books!

I also finished Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, which I like, but possibly not as much as everyone else. As most people have said, the voice is fantastic, as is the sense of place, but every time I was getting into it, more murder mystery details showed up and I would promptly lose track of what was going on. Clearly plot brain has disappeared again.

( A lot of Meljean Brook )

What I'm reading now: I'm still in the middle of Bechdel's Are You My Mother, which is an interesting experience because it has therapy and mothers, but Bechdel's relationship to her mother, problematic as it is, is very different from mine with my mother. (Me: I WISH my mom would not talk to me!) I also started Aaronovitch's Moon over Soho because I wanted to see how a few dangling threads at the end of Rivers of London were resolved, but now the mystery has hit and, predictably and sadly, I have lost interest.

What I'm reading next: Who knows! I feel like a fantasy + romance fun blend but don't like most paranormals and their more dominant than you heroes, but I can't really think of anything. I should also read vol. 2 of Wandering Son before it's due back at the library.

I first heard of this via delux_vivens' link to an NPR segment, and while the talk of writing a book with the idea of a movie as well tends to scare me off, Underwood, Due and Barnes' comments about the book were very interesting (aka, I hope the movie-talk doesn't scare off other people either).

Tennyson Hardwick is currently a wannabe-actor, formerly a gigolo and a bodyguard, and always handsome and smooth with women. He soon finds himself a suspect in the murder of his former client, rapper and actress Afrodite, and runs about trying to clear his name (which is the very appropriate "Ten Hardwick." Hi, I am twelve!).

I was a little hesitant at first because the plot involves gangster rappers and how one of them thinks of women as whores, etc. etc. But the authors are much more nuanced than that, and a lot of the plot with the LAPD reminded me of the politics of Homicide: LotS in how nicely complicated and complex and multilayered it was.

I wanted to shake Ten every two pages because he kept doing stupid things! Like, if you are the prime suspect for a murder case, it might be a good idea to not compound your case with things like breaking and entering and illegal possession! I mean, I get that this must happen for Ten to be the protagonist and to solve the mystery himself and that every thriller hero/heroine ever does this, but I kept going "Ack! Don't do that! Not good!"

I wasn't as sold on the erotic part of this book (Underwood mentions that he was inspired by a character in a script and by Zane's erotica); I suspect much of that is because it's from Ten's first person POV and it just feels very male. Clearly it is meant to be very male, so YMMV.

In the end, my favorite relationships in the book were the non-romantic ones, particularly with a secondary character who shows up halfway through the book.

The plot was very page-turning, I liked the characters, and I'd be interested to see what happens in the next book, particularly if Underwood, Due and Barnes keep the characters changing and growing. And I'm a little surprised to say this, given my general antipathy toward books-turned-movies, but I'd be really interested to see how this would be adapted to a movie, especially with Underwood at the helm.

Er, I may spam LJ in the vain attempt to relax after about six straight hours of doing Problem Set of DOOM.

I liked this, but not as much as the first book, Point of Honour, but that's because the twists near the end weren't as shocking or as personal for Sarah as they were in the first. Thankfully, Robins doesn't lose sight of the impact the events of the first book have on Sarah, and the new recurring character is quite fun and noble and upright in a good sort of way.

On the other hand, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the ending.

( Spoilers for this book and Point of Honour )

Anyhow, despite my qualms, I like that Robins is writing intelligently, looking at consequences, and not forgetting the events of the first book.

Second of the Marcus Didius Falco mysteries.

I read this book over several weeks, and for the life of me, I can't tell you what the plot is. I think this is why I don't do well with mysteries, just maybe. Anyhow, somehow Falco gets caught up in a case of mistaken identities and dead bodies, and then he ends up on a road trip to somewhere for a reason that I can't remember.

I would like to note that this probably isn't because Davis doesn't plot well. It's because I do not particularly care about mystery plots and as such, do not pay much attention to what's going on unless absolutely necessary.

And yet, I keep reading these and will probably pick up the third book! This is because I really love the characters, and, most importantly, I adore Falco. He's the first-person narrator for all the books (?), and he's irreverent and attempts to be sarcastic and aloof, usually very unsuccessfully. He has a giant family which he grouses about; one of his sisters sends her son along not for Falco to watch over, but so that Falco has someone to watch over him.

Senator's daughter Helena Justina also features prominently, and while I probably should be annoyed by them getting together and breaking apart and getting together and breaking apart, I'm not, because Falco is so obviously in love and Helena Justina is so wonderfully herself.

There's a plot twist involving the two that made me grit my teeth a little, but really, it isn't handled with a heavy hand, which makes all the difference.

Fun and fast, and really, I just love the narrative voice so much.

Links:
My review of The Silver Pigs, the first book of the series

Inspector Jimmy Pibble, recently laid off, managed to stumbled into the McNair House for cathypnic children, courtesy of a tip from his wife. Cathypnic children tend to be sluggish and very, very sleepy, with low body temperatures; some of the staff call them dormice. They seem to be vaguely creepy and yet loveable and tend to inspire obsession in people for some reason.

The atmosphere of this book is great; it's slow and creepy and draws you in little by little. I particularly liked the portrayal of the cathypnic children; some of the characters in the book become enamoured of the idea that they are somehow telepathic and that Pibble may be a telepathic sender.

Unfortunately, I seem to do very badly with any sort of mystery when they don't involve characters that I like or find myself drawn to. That, plus my current inability to keep track of complex plot (or possibly I was always unable to do so?), made reading this very difficult.

The plot honestly isn't that complex, but the small hints and tips that make a mystery are entirely too subtle for me, and I ended up not picking up on any of them. I ended up having to reread the entire middle of the book because I had no idea what was going on, but I lost track of who was who and what their motivations were on the second time round as well.

I'd probably rec this to people who were a fan of claustrophobic mysteries in which nothing is quite solved, but alas, I don't seem to be one of those fans.

Links:
rachelmanija's review

Much like Walton's Tooth and Claw, this is a fantasy take on a different genre, only this time, it's an English country-house mystery set in an alternate history instead of Trollope with dragons. It's equally brilliant.

It's 1949. Lucy Eversley Kahn is the daughter of a rather eminent British family. Her mother and her father both run in a political circle called the Farthing Set, notable for brokering a peace with Hitler in 1941 that has allowed him to take over most of Europe. Lucy has pretty much exiled herself from her family by marrying David Kahn, a Jew.

They've gone back to Farthing, the Eversley country house, for a party her mother is throwing, only an important politician of the Farthing Set is found murdered, and all clues point to David.

All the odd-numbered chapters are told from Lucy's POV (first person), and the even-numbered ones are told from the POV of the inspector assigned to the case (third person). I very much loved Lucy's voice; she sounds frivolous and feathery, but she's actually quite smart and down-to-earth under her mannerisms, and I really adored her. Carmichael's voice is less distinct, given the third person, but he turns into an interesting character of his own as well.

I also really like how the book proceeds as a "simple" murder mystery, but because of how Walton has structured the world, the characters, and the plot, each additional revelation about the mystery also becomes an additional revelation about the alternate history she's created. Even better, all this becomes a commentary on class and politics and anti-Semitism without being didactic in the least.

There are so many nifty details in the book that I don't want to say too much about them.

Anyhow, this is definitely a very good book, and I am still completely in awe of how Walton manages to write a perfectly cool mystery along with really awesome world-building and characters and manages to delve into anti-Semitism and fascism as well, all without ever preaching.

Highly, highly recommended.

Someone else on my LJ recently read this and adored it as well (jinian?), but I can't find the link for the life of me.

ETA: yay for people sending me links! Also, if you wrote something on the book, I'd love even more links (hint hint)

Links:
- sartorias' review
- oracne's review
- oursin's review
- gwyneira's review
- kate_nepveu's review
- yhlee's review
- tenemet's review

Oops! I was reading some of truepenny's very good posts on the book and realized in my great fear of having a mob of Sayers fans, uh, mob me, I forgot to note the meta aspects of the book, which I did enjoy to some degree.

I'm probably going to just end up repeating what truepenny has already written, but I haven't actually read all hers yet and wanted to make observations.

It's perpetually interesting having Harriet involved in a mystery, given that she is a mystery writer. truepenny makes the point that Harriet approaches the body on the beach much as she would in a hypothetical book; she constantly asks herself what Robert Templeton (her fictional detective) would do. I did very much like that in the beginning, particularly the bits in which Harriet thinks that really, investigating a corpse on the beach isn't half as much fun as it seems in the books.

I also thought it was interesting that many of the breakthroughs in the book happened because Harriet would say something like, "Well, if this were in a detective story, such-and-such would happen." Same with Wimsey debating how truthful some alibis were, simply because they were so perfect. Sadly, I would probably have more to say about this had I read more mysteries in general.

There was also the fact that the murderer seemed to be working off what he thought a proper mystery should be; vague threats, impractical suggestions and all, which highlighted the artificiality of mysteries.

Unfortunately, I got rather irritated because Harriet would say something reminded her of such-and-such, and then Peter would end up having the epiphany. I should probably stop grinding this axe, but it kept bothering me. I like Harriet. I like that she is grumpy and fumbles and is cruel to Peter and doesn't always think things through. I would like Peter much more, except he seems entirely too perfect and too clever; he solves the ciphers while Harriet spends days substituting words, he figures out all the twists and turns of the mystery while Harriet only realizes after he mentions a few things, he is also hopelessly in love. It felt incredibly unfair, and I ended up taking Harriet's side.

Er, I do realize that this is probably a highly atypical reaction to the book, but I seem hard-wired to first sympathize with the female character no matter what.

Also, in the end, despite all the meta-narrative about detective novels and the inherent artificialities of a murder mystery, particularly one with an amateur sleuth, Peter and Harriet still end up solving the mystery. There would be moments in which the deciphered letter would prove to be a comment on how a mystery should work, which I liked, but right before that, there would be a long, drawn-out scene in which Peter and Harriet would go carefully through the cipher, which I had a difficult time suspending disbelief for.

I suspect much of this is unfamiliarity with the genre.

ETA: First reaction

I ended up liking this much better than Strong Poison, mostly because I found the mystery more engaging.

Wimsey's brother, the Duke of Denver, has been accused of murdering his sister's fiancee. Despite the fact that the mystery is centered around the Wimsey family, Lord Peter doesn't make that much of an impression on me in this book, even when compared to the not-so-character-based Strong Poison. I didn't mind so much, though, because the supporting characters were for some reason more appealing to me. Also, as mentioned before, I was more interested in the mystery itself and so the resolution of it was more satisfying for me.

There seemed to be much more hidden passions and secrets in this book than in Strong Poison (this is going to get compared to SP very often, because I have no other Sayers benchmark), and because of that, the backstory geek in me was much happier about the revelations concerning Denis Cathcart (the murdered man), Mary Wimsey and Gerald Wimsey.

I also grew rather fond of the Wimsey family as the book progressed. Come to think of it, I grew rather fond of Peter as well, so nix the bit about him not making that big of an impression. I was quite possibly won over by his affection for his brother and his rather dashing last minute... er... dash to save Gerald.

Have now bought Murder Must Advertise and am trying to save it for the flight back.

Question (because obviously, my FL knows everything): I managed to get my hands on Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter, Unnatural Death, Clouds of Witness and Gaudy Night, since I am planning on reading them sometime. Is there any sort of handy reference out there that tells me what order I should read them in?

The boy showed me an organizational chart of Time Warner and all the companies it owns and said, "Look, it's the world!" Truly it is the evil empire ;).

I continue to enjoy the Assassins soundtrack, albeit in a slightly strange way. I can't help it. Some of the songs are just so peppy. I love the Sousa-esque "How I Saved Roosevelt" and the banjo-y "Ballad of Booth" and the folk song-y "Ballad of Czolgosz." The Czolgosz song particularly reminds me of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." I just realized while listening to this how much Americana music (is that even a term? Probably not) I listened to while growing up, mostly thanks to the wonderful "Wee Sing America" and "Wee Sing Around the Campfire." Also, the insanely optimistic "Ballad of Guiteau." But while I'm sitting in my car and enjoying listening to them, there will inevitably be a point in which my brain realizes that the songs are still about the assassination of American presidents, and as such, are pretty violent and unhappy. I don't think I'll ever quite get over that disconnect.

I think Sondheim does a particularly good job in reconciling the funny and the horrific in "How I Saved Roosevelt," which could have very easily been a straight comic piece. But every single time I'm giggling like mad because of Sondheim's rhymes (they remind me of "A Weekend in the Country" in A Little Night Music) and the fact that assassinating the president is somehow a solution to one's aching belly, Zangara bursts into the song screaming, "No laugh! No funny!" with a terrifying fury, and suddenly it's not funny anymore. Also, it's a frightfully cheery song for something that ends with the buzzing of the electric chair.

"Something Just Broke" will forever make me think of 9/11. I wasn't even alive for the assassination of JFK, I don't remember the Challenger, or most other national tragedies. I would like to say that 9/11 changed my entire outlook on life, but I'm not sure if it did. It's not as though there was much violence of that nature in Taiwan, though we would sometimes joke about China bombing us. I think it was just that even though most people were pretty sure China wouldn't be so stupid as to blow up our island, the threat was always sort of there. And even if not, it was dangerous territory politically, and just the fact that no one could really say what would happen to Taiwan come ten years makes for some uncertainty.

American never used to feel that way to me, though. American always seemed so safe and so stable, like it was something that would always be there, despite a relatively short national history. That was what 9/11 changed for me. Unlike the rest of my roommates that day, I was awake because (ironically) I was getting a new cell phone. I still find it strange that my old cell phone bill has the start date of 9/11/01. And my friend and her dad and my mom and the guy selling us the cell phones just stood there listening to the radio, because there was no TV in the store, and we heard the news when the second plane crashed, when another one hit the Pentagon, when another one crashed in Pennsylvania. And then the towers fell down. And it felt like the end of the world. Things like this weren't supposed to happen in America. They happened in the Middle East and in Ireland and other places, and it's so horrible to think of tragedies like that, like something that always happens in other places, to other people, but that's how it felt. Prior to 9/11, it felt as though the world was on track... there was the boom of the nineties, we weathered the Asian financial crisis (pretty glum in Taiwan during that time), etc. After, people were screaming for retaliation, which frightened me. My mom was convinced World War III was going to start. The economy, which was already not doing so well, really started going down. And I interned at Merrill Lynch and got seriously depressed, then I graduated from college two years later and had to look for a job and got even more depressed. Because of that, 9/11 always feels to me like the dividing line between adolescence and (fledgling) adulthood, the stepping stone between optimism and cynicism.

But that's what that song reminds me of now.

Despite the sobering associations, I can still listen to Assassins over and over just because the tunes are so peppy. And somehow, it doesn't depress me as much as Sweeney Todd. Also, Sweeney Todd is just incredibly difficult to listen to because of the almost painful whistles in the theme. Sweeney Todd feels like there is no hope at all in man, that everything beautiful only ends up destroyed and broken, but Assassins feels like even though horrible things happen, there is a reason behind it (albeit occasionally insane), and that there are people who still care. It's tragic, but not nihilistic.

Quite fun. Although I was completely stumped by the puzzle, much like the one in The Westing Game. I can never quite decide if I like watching the mystery unfold or if I like watching the absolutely random and strange characters do their thing.

The mystery is that of the disappearance of Leon/Noel, and Mrs. Carillon (his wife) and her very long search to find him. Along the way, she gathers twins who are not really Siamese, lots of purple-flowered dresses, and lists of places beginning with "New."

It's just a weird and charming little book that reminded me a lot of The Westing Game and made me quite happy.