2022 books: 15-19

[the_siobhan]

I did read all these things last year, I just never got around to listing them.


    

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Another book that showed up in our library. This one was obviously a school copy, there are questions and commentary scribbled in all the margins. I genuinely have no idea how to feel about this book. Every human being in it is an absolute disaster, and there was legitimately a point where I was reading just to find out what awful thing they were going to do to each other next. The story is told from the perspective of an elderly servant who lives through all the events. The action starts when the patriarch of the family she works for brings home an orphan and names him Heathcliffe. He treats the boy better than his legal children, so there's jealousy and nastiness on both sides, then he dies without ever having formally adopted the kid. The son inherits and lets the kid stay as a servant. The daughter and Heathcliffe fall in love, but she marries somebody else - not because Heathcliffe is her unofficial adoptive brother, mind you, but only because he is poor - and Heathcliffe then dedicates his entire life to absolutely fucking with and torturing every single other person in her family and the family she marries into.

I say "legal" rather than "biological" about the patriarch's children, because I have a theory that Heathcliffe is the son of a black mistress that he loved but couldn't marry for Rich Person reasons. Heathcliffe is explicitly described as dark-skinned in the text - something that apparently did not translate to the movies. It's also strongly implied that Catherine (the daughter) is still banging Mr Poor and Brown even after being married to Mr Rich and Presentable.

The whole story is an absolute mess. They could legit make a reality show out of it featuring dissolute rich families and it would read as completely modern.

AND THE ENTIRE TIME I WAS READING IT I kept thinking about this old Kate Beaton cartoon.


    

The Illegal by Lawrence Hill Another one that showed up in the library. The main character is a boy named Keita who comes from a country where the government has been deposed in a coup and taken over by a corrupt despot. His father is a journalist who ends up being murdered by that despot - as despots so often do - and Keita has to flee for his life. Running is the ticket out of poverty in Keita's country, much like baseball or basketball in other countries and Keita is one of the best, so he racing is his key to surviving his own refugee status and also saving his imprisoned sister. It's not a deep book by any stretch. The writing is very straightforward and simple, but Hill is really good at sketching complicated characters in a few short lines. There is a lot going on here, but the message is very clearly about all the ordinary good people - and occasionally even a few bad ones - who each do their tiny part to collectively break a corrupt system.

    

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo A freebie from Tor.com. Tor put it up when The Empress of Salt and Fortune was released, I assume to generate interest in the author and it definitely worked because I now what to read more of her work. Is there a specific name for the kind of storytelling where animals are sometimes human-shaped but never lose their animal characteristics? I see it a lot in fiction written by indigenous authors and Vo uses it here. A cleric on a mission to collect stories is trapped by tigers on the road and they delay being eaten by telling stories featuring a tiger of legend. Very "One Thousand and One Nights". Only the cleric's fate is only delayed because the tigers want to tell the proper story back to them, having their own very clear ideas about who is the actual protagonist of the famous legend. It's entirely fantastical and delightful and I very much want to read more stories set in the same universe.

    

Dracula Daily by Matt Kirkland I reread Dracula just a couple of years ago, but I decided to give it another go when I found out about Dracula Daily. Because Dracula is written as a series of letters and journal entries, you can sign up to get the chapters emailed to you in real time. It was a lot of fun, both because I love Dracula and because reading it with the thousands of other people who were posting their reactions and impressions was like being in a huge ridiculous book club.

    

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu There were a few other email projects that were inspired by Dracula, and Carmilla Weekly is one of them. This one didn't work as well because it was not originally written as an epistolary novel so it was harder to maintain the flow. I had not previously read Carmilla though, so I thought the lesbian vampire story was still great fun.

Comments

[greylock]

I have not read Carmilla, but I do have Le Fanu's The House By The Churchyard on my self, taunting me. It was next to Bram Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm, I think it has actually ruined all the Draculas for me.

Kate Beaton is a treasure. She did a comic about working in the oil sands sector in Alberta I keep meaning to buy.

[cornerofmadness]

I enjoyed Carmilla

[the_siobhan]

The book itself was fun, I just think it would have been better read all in one sitting.

[cornerofmadness]

that's probably true

[shadaras]

Nghi Vo is a fantastic author! Highly recommend picking up more of her work if you get the chance—including the other two novellas set in that universe following Cleric Chih! (Chih uses they/them pronouns, btw.)

[the_siobhan]

Oh good catch, thank you.

And thank you for the recommendation, I will put her on my wish list. Once I get my trousers in order to set up a wish list. :-p