February books
Sep. 10th, 2012 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanI didn’t read much in February, that month being eaten by CELTA. I did read two birthday presents at the tail end of the month though, and they were both great:
The Changeover by Diana Wynne Jones
Reading this was sort of a weird experience, since Diana Wynne Jones is my favourite author on the basis of her children’s fantasy novels, and this is satire for adults about the changeover from colonial to self-rule in an invented African nation called Nmkwami, from ‘numquam’, Latin for ‘never’. Ie, Neverland.
It’s incredibly funny and occasionally very dark; in a weird way it’s Pratchett-esque. It swings around the society, showing various parts of it and very different characters, both British and Nmkwami, as they deal with the turmoil of changeover and the far-reaching mistakes of a misunderstanding. It all starts with “appropriate action - mark changeover” and the British Governor thinking this means there must be appropriate action to deal with Mark Changeover. And we’re off.
So yes. Very different from her later output - although her compassion and sense of humour is much in evidence, as is her ear for dialogue and subtle feminism, the satire of this changes the tone, and Diana Wynne Jones’ tone in her children’s fantasy is very distinctive. But I loved it - I love satire and lots of different characters, and I loved the subject matter; unusual, cool, and making it an appropriate gift for my dad for Father’s Day. I got to give him fiction he’ll like (he has a dry sense of humour and is an academic studying west African history, esp, colonial stuff) instead of a tie. Thank you, Diana Wynne Jones!
The Way I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
YAY! I’d read this before but not for years, and it was a lot of fun revisiting it. I’d completely forgotten the lack of quotation marks for dialogue, which says something about how mesmerising the story and characters are. I just passionately love this book; the heroine is a thoroughly modern New Yorker from a ‘broken home’ but she gets to England and her cousins and it becomes, in mood, for me very familiar: reminiscent of a particular kind of English story about a family as they grow up. (The Beckoning Hills, The Vicarage Garden, Ballet Shoes...) Which is part of why it’s so incredibly joyful and funny to read, and comforting, and then things are falling apart. Which is also very reminiscent of those kinds of stories, except this isn’t WW1, this is war come to England. And there are no fight scenes, our characters experience war as rationing and fear and checkpoints, and then MASSIVE TRAGEDY. Like seriously. Heartbreaking.
I love the romance; “the world’s most inappropriate case of sexual obsession” is a phrase that’s stayed with me for years. I love the magical realism element: a hint of mindreading that’s never explained, just totally in keeping with the tone. I love the quest-type sequence with our heroine and her younger cousin and the wanker older cousin who wants to be a spy and help save his nation. I LOVE ALL OF IT.
Even if I always finish it feeling full of love for the last line, and broken into bits.
The Changeover by Diana Wynne Jones
Reading this was sort of a weird experience, since Diana Wynne Jones is my favourite author on the basis of her children’s fantasy novels, and this is satire for adults about the changeover from colonial to self-rule in an invented African nation called Nmkwami, from ‘numquam’, Latin for ‘never’. Ie, Neverland.
It’s incredibly funny and occasionally very dark; in a weird way it’s Pratchett-esque. It swings around the society, showing various parts of it and very different characters, both British and Nmkwami, as they deal with the turmoil of changeover and the far-reaching mistakes of a misunderstanding. It all starts with “appropriate action - mark changeover” and the British Governor thinking this means there must be appropriate action to deal with Mark Changeover. And we’re off.
So yes. Very different from her later output - although her compassion and sense of humour is much in evidence, as is her ear for dialogue and subtle feminism, the satire of this changes the tone, and Diana Wynne Jones’ tone in her children’s fantasy is very distinctive. But I loved it - I love satire and lots of different characters, and I loved the subject matter; unusual, cool, and making it an appropriate gift for my dad for Father’s Day. I got to give him fiction he’ll like (he has a dry sense of humour and is an academic studying west African history, esp, colonial stuff) instead of a tie. Thank you, Diana Wynne Jones!
The Way I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
YAY! I’d read this before but not for years, and it was a lot of fun revisiting it. I’d completely forgotten the lack of quotation marks for dialogue, which says something about how mesmerising the story and characters are. I just passionately love this book; the heroine is a thoroughly modern New Yorker from a ‘broken home’ but she gets to England and her cousins and it becomes, in mood, for me very familiar: reminiscent of a particular kind of English story about a family as they grow up. (The Beckoning Hills, The Vicarage Garden, Ballet Shoes...) Which is part of why it’s so incredibly joyful and funny to read, and comforting, and then things are falling apart. Which is also very reminiscent of those kinds of stories, except this isn’t WW1, this is war come to England. And there are no fight scenes, our characters experience war as rationing and fear and checkpoints, and then MASSIVE TRAGEDY. Like seriously. Heartbreaking.
I love the romance; “the world’s most inappropriate case of sexual obsession” is a phrase that’s stayed with me for years. I love the magical realism element: a hint of mindreading that’s never explained, just totally in keeping with the tone. I love the quest-type sequence with our heroine and her younger cousin and the wanker older cousin who wants to be a spy and help save his nation. I LOVE ALL OF IT.
Even if I always finish it feeling full of love for the last line, and broken into bits.
