So I started this year as I finished the last one - with a totally undemanding Georgette Heyer novel. Heyer is very nice as an occasional indulgence, though: she manages to write essentially fluffy books which don't insult my intelligence. This is harder (or at least, rarer) than one might imagine. (The last chick-lit book I picked up I had to put aside because it was so full of inanities and anachronisms, to the point where my irritated inner monologue was preventing me from actually taking in any of the book.)
Anyway, The foundling was slightly different from the usual Georgette Heyer model, since the story was not a love story on the Pride and prejudice model, but instead the story of a small, mild-mannered young Duke who becomes increasingly frustrated by the benevolent autocracy of his servants and runs away to find adventure, gets kidnapped, gets embroiled with a beautiful but moronic girl and a runaway schoolboy, and proves surprisingly resourceful at escaping from all of these entanglements. Very charming and slightly farcical. [1]
Showing posts with label Georgette Heyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgette Heyer. Show all posts
08 January, 2009
30 June, 2008
Light reading
Two similarish and very enjoyable books, as a post-coursework, pre-revision treat (I am so behind with updating this blog). PG Wodehouse's Pigs have wings and the Damon Runyon omnibus. Both fun more for the language than the story: the silly literary jokes in Wodehouse and the marvellously unreal dialogue in Runyon. [30] [31]
Then as a post-exams mindless indulgence, four Georgette Heyer novels: The Nonesuch, Cotillion, Arabella and A marriage of convenience. Reading Georgette Heyer is like taking a hot bath, really. But I do like the fact that all her lovely men are so well-dressed. I can't think of any other novels in which such attention is paid to the details of the men's outfits. Maybe Gone with the wind? I think Rhett Butler does dress well, but I can't remember if there's any detail about it. The regency period is interesting, though: it's the point where men's outfits (that is, upper class men's outfits) lose the extravagance of the eighteenth century and start being modelled on riding clothes: women's clothes remain impractical and decorative. I suppose the fascination with the period is to do with the men being beautifully, elegantly dressed but also wearing recognisably 'manly' clothing: clothing which looks good on strong, athletic male bodies with broad shoulders and long legs. [32] [33] [34] [35]
Then as a post-exams mindless indulgence, four Georgette Heyer novels: The Nonesuch, Cotillion, Arabella and A marriage of convenience. Reading Georgette Heyer is like taking a hot bath, really. But I do like the fact that all her lovely men are so well-dressed. I can't think of any other novels in which such attention is paid to the details of the men's outfits. Maybe Gone with the wind? I think Rhett Butler does dress well, but I can't remember if there's any detail about it. The regency period is interesting, though: it's the point where men's outfits (that is, upper class men's outfits) lose the extravagance of the eighteenth century and start being modelled on riding clothes: women's clothes remain impractical and decorative. I suppose the fascination with the period is to do with the men being beautifully, elegantly dressed but also wearing recognisably 'manly' clothing: clothing which looks good on strong, athletic male bodies with broad shoulders and long legs. [32] [33] [34] [35]
07 January, 2007
Old year...
So, I didn't make it to a hundred books, but I read eighty-two, which I think is a good start. And that included two longish reading blocks.
The last three books of the year were the truly excellent The middle parts of fortune by Frederic Manning, an Australian who served as a private in the British army in WWI. It's an excellent novel about the experience of war in the trenches and particularly interesting as it's written from the point of view of a man who could have been an officer but preferred to stay a private. The central character, Bourne, is constantly resisting a commission: in real life Manning was eventually made an officer but then narrowly escaped court martial after being drunk on duty. [80]
A Christmas treat to myself was a lovely Georgette Heyer novel The quiet gentleman which was like most Georgette Heyer novels: like a hot bath or some really expensive chocolate, not exactly trashy, but an indulgent treat that doesn't really do one any good at all. Also like most Georgette Heyer novels inasmuch as half an hour after reading it I couldn't have told you about any of the characters, or indeed anything that happened. [81]
The last was a present from ma, a collection of Germaine Greer's early writings called The madwoman's underclothes. Amusing and clever and witty, if occasionally rather silly (much like marvellous Germaine herself), and always very much of their time. [82]
Later edit - it's actually 83 books as I forgot to add a course book, Ludwig Feuerbach's The essence of Christianity. [83] Yay!
So, looking back at my literary resolutions, I haven't really kept any of them except the last: 'To avoid rereading children's books and trash and to read new worthwhile things instead'. The attempt to read a certain number of books has done me good, though, I think; I haven't succumbed to the temptation to mindlessly kill pages in the quest for 100 books, but have been quite focused on keeping reading, which I think is a good thing, on the whole.
I'm also pleased that I've kept on at this blog: it is good to have something more on the books I've read than just the date I read them (which is what I previously kept a record of). It also motivates me to read decent books and not trash - not that many people read this but it would annoy me to keep having to list a whole lot of rubbish...
The last three books of the year were the truly excellent The middle parts of fortune by Frederic Manning, an Australian who served as a private in the British army in WWI. It's an excellent novel about the experience of war in the trenches and particularly interesting as it's written from the point of view of a man who could have been an officer but preferred to stay a private. The central character, Bourne, is constantly resisting a commission: in real life Manning was eventually made an officer but then narrowly escaped court martial after being drunk on duty. [80]
A Christmas treat to myself was a lovely Georgette Heyer novel The quiet gentleman which was like most Georgette Heyer novels: like a hot bath or some really expensive chocolate, not exactly trashy, but an indulgent treat that doesn't really do one any good at all. Also like most Georgette Heyer novels inasmuch as half an hour after reading it I couldn't have told you about any of the characters, or indeed anything that happened. [81]
The last was a present from ma, a collection of Germaine Greer's early writings called The madwoman's underclothes. Amusing and clever and witty, if occasionally rather silly (much like marvellous Germaine herself), and always very much of their time. [82]
Later edit - it's actually 83 books as I forgot to add a course book, Ludwig Feuerbach's The essence of Christianity. [83] Yay!
So, looking back at my literary resolutions, I haven't really kept any of them except the last: 'To avoid rereading children's books and trash and to read new worthwhile things instead'. The attempt to read a certain number of books has done me good, though, I think; I haven't succumbed to the temptation to mindlessly kill pages in the quest for 100 books, but have been quite focused on keeping reading, which I think is a good thing, on the whole.
I'm also pleased that I've kept on at this blog: it is good to have something more on the books I've read than just the date I read them (which is what I previously kept a record of). It also motivates me to read decent books and not trash - not that many people read this but it would annoy me to keep having to list a whole lot of rubbish...
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