Some Books I Read This Spring
Oct. 6th, 2020 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ermingardenI read a lot of books this spring and I haven't written up my thoughts on all of them, but here are a few, selected according to no particular criteria:
Baudolino by Umberto Eco (translated from the Italian by William Weaver)
My Rating: ★★★★★
This book blew my mind. Another of Eco's novels, The Name of the Rose, has long been one of my favorite books, but Baudolino actually rivals it. It's by turns hilarious and poignant. As is frequently the case with Eco, the famous semiotician, there's a lot of play with narration: The frame is that Baudolino is narrating his own life to the Byzantine government official Niketas during their escape from the sack of Constantinople.
I should acknowledge that one of the reasons I loved Baudolino so much is that I studied medieval literature in undergrad, so there were a lot of jokes I got that my mom, who also read the novel but knows essentially nothing about medieval literature, completely missed. For example, I laughed my head off at the introduction of the character Kyot, who is Wolfram von Eschenbach's fictitious source for Parzival. That said, my mom really liked the book too, so you don't need to be a medievalist to like it. As is always the case with Eco, there are layers upon layers and references upon references - I'm sure I haven't caught them all.
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
My Rating: ★★★★☆
The Book of the New Sun is divided into four books (The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, and The Citadel of the Autarch) and is often published in two volumes.
This is a classic, and deservedly so. The worldbuilding is excellent, but for me the most engaging part of the story was the delightfully neurotic first-person narrator, Severian.
The setting is Earth in the far future, and the main character is the unlikely hero Severian, who begins the novel as an apprentice torturer but undergoes a crisis of morality (along with other crises). Caveat lector: The novel deals with very dark themes and has some pretty disturbing scenes. Characteristic of early-eighties sci-fi, Severian also sleeps his way through the female cast: By my count, he has sex with 36% of all named female characters and a whopping 86% (6 out of 7) of all developed female characters in The Book of the New Sun and The Urth of the New Sun collectively. (I'm still working on the statistics for the individual books.) And although there are no graphic depictions of sexual assault, there is one scene with some very dubious consent.
Overall, I really loved this book, especially the first half. The world Wolfe creates is absorbing and the plot deeply compelling. Highly recommended!
The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Urth of the New Sun is a coda or sequel of sorts to The Book of the New Sun and cannot really be understood outside of that context. I'm discussing it separately, though, because the ending of The Book of the New Sun is perfectly satisfactory without reading Urth.
Do you like time travel? If not, don't read this book; the plot is basically all a complex sequence of jumps through time. I like time travel plots, so that was actually one of my favorite parts. It's also heavily inflected with Christian religious allegory, more so than The Book of the New Sun, though with an interesting twist. I didn't enjoy Urth quite as much as The Book of the New Sun because it's narrated by a much older Severian, who has gained perspective thanks to his life experience and is no longer quite so neurotic, and as a result the narration is not as engagingly quirky.
Be aware that Severian does continue in his sexual conquests; the whole series is very eighties sci-fi and just extremely…male.
The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Technically, Merton is just the editor and translator; this book is a collection of anecdotes, aphorisms, and parables from the writings of the early Christian Desert Fathers. The translations are eloquent and engaging, and the order in which Merton chose to present the snippets really makes the book feel like a unified whole despite the many different origins of the excerpts.
Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
This is a solid follow-up to Thrawn, although I miss Eli Vanto. I love the structure, with two interlocking plotlines separated by some decades: one in the Clone Wars, with Thrawn and Anakin, and the other in the Empire era, with Thrawn and Vader. An extra-special aspect is that the novel is set on Batuu, which is the planet Disney created as the setting of the new Star Wars Land at Disneyland! I read Alliances shortly after visiting Disneyland, and it was a fun experience to read a Star Wars novel set in a location I had actually, in a sense, visited!
Star Wars: Medstar I: Battle Surgeons & Medstar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Although published as a duology, these books can't really be read separately; one of the central plot elements, the identity of the Separatist spy, isn't revealed until the end of the second book (although I figured it out quite early on). I'm therefore discussing them as a single work.
I wasn't expecting to love the Medstar books as much as I did! The premise is simple: It's M*A*S*H, but Star Wars. In tone, although there are certainly funny moments, they're not a comedy. Reaves and Perry populate these books with a wonderful cast of original characters, but the real gem for me is Barriss Offee's storyline. I like TCW, but what they did to Barriss' character is difficult for me to forgive; her Legends version has long been one of my favorite Jedi. The Medstar books feature a great exploration of Jedi philosophy and the nature of the Dark Side; the classic "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," even when used with good intentions, is a major theme. I also appreciate that the temptation with which Barriss struggles has nothing to do with romance, because "Jedi falls passionately in love and considers leaving the Order" is really overdone.
In conclusion, these are definitely some of my new favorite Star Wars novels!
Baudolino by Umberto Eco (translated from the Italian by William Weaver)
My Rating: ★★★★★
This book blew my mind. Another of Eco's novels, The Name of the Rose, has long been one of my favorite books, but Baudolino actually rivals it. It's by turns hilarious and poignant. As is frequently the case with Eco, the famous semiotician, there's a lot of play with narration: The frame is that Baudolino is narrating his own life to the Byzantine government official Niketas during their escape from the sack of Constantinople.
I should acknowledge that one of the reasons I loved Baudolino so much is that I studied medieval literature in undergrad, so there were a lot of jokes I got that my mom, who also read the novel but knows essentially nothing about medieval literature, completely missed. For example, I laughed my head off at the introduction of the character Kyot, who is Wolfram von Eschenbach's fictitious source for Parzival. That said, my mom really liked the book too, so you don't need to be a medievalist to like it. As is always the case with Eco, there are layers upon layers and references upon references - I'm sure I haven't caught them all.
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
My Rating: ★★★★☆
The Book of the New Sun is divided into four books (The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, and The Citadel of the Autarch) and is often published in two volumes.
This is a classic, and deservedly so. The worldbuilding is excellent, but for me the most engaging part of the story was the delightfully neurotic first-person narrator, Severian.
The setting is Earth in the far future, and the main character is the unlikely hero Severian, who begins the novel as an apprentice torturer but undergoes a crisis of morality (along with other crises). Caveat lector: The novel deals with very dark themes and has some pretty disturbing scenes. Characteristic of early-eighties sci-fi, Severian also sleeps his way through the female cast: By my count, he has sex with 36% of all named female characters and a whopping 86% (6 out of 7) of all developed female characters in The Book of the New Sun and The Urth of the New Sun collectively. (I'm still working on the statistics for the individual books.) And although there are no graphic depictions of sexual assault, there is one scene with some very dubious consent.
Overall, I really loved this book, especially the first half. The world Wolfe creates is absorbing and the plot deeply compelling. Highly recommended!
The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Urth of the New Sun is a coda or sequel of sorts to The Book of the New Sun and cannot really be understood outside of that context. I'm discussing it separately, though, because the ending of The Book of the New Sun is perfectly satisfactory without reading Urth.
Do you like time travel? If not, don't read this book; the plot is basically all a complex sequence of jumps through time. I like time travel plots, so that was actually one of my favorite parts. It's also heavily inflected with Christian religious allegory, more so than The Book of the New Sun, though with an interesting twist. I didn't enjoy Urth quite as much as The Book of the New Sun because it's narrated by a much older Severian, who has gained perspective thanks to his life experience and is no longer quite so neurotic, and as a result the narration is not as engagingly quirky.
Be aware that Severian does continue in his sexual conquests; the whole series is very eighties sci-fi and just extremely…male.
The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Technically, Merton is just the editor and translator; this book is a collection of anecdotes, aphorisms, and parables from the writings of the early Christian Desert Fathers. The translations are eloquent and engaging, and the order in which Merton chose to present the snippets really makes the book feel like a unified whole despite the many different origins of the excerpts.
Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
This is a solid follow-up to Thrawn, although I miss Eli Vanto. I love the structure, with two interlocking plotlines separated by some decades: one in the Clone Wars, with Thrawn and Anakin, and the other in the Empire era, with Thrawn and Vader. An extra-special aspect is that the novel is set on Batuu, which is the planet Disney created as the setting of the new Star Wars Land at Disneyland! I read Alliances shortly after visiting Disneyland, and it was a fun experience to read a Star Wars novel set in a location I had actually, in a sense, visited!
Star Wars: Medstar I: Battle Surgeons & Medstar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Although published as a duology, these books can't really be read separately; one of the central plot elements, the identity of the Separatist spy, isn't revealed until the end of the second book (although I figured it out quite early on). I'm therefore discussing them as a single work.
I wasn't expecting to love the Medstar books as much as I did! The premise is simple: It's M*A*S*H, but Star Wars. In tone, although there are certainly funny moments, they're not a comedy. Reaves and Perry populate these books with a wonderful cast of original characters, but the real gem for me is Barriss Offee's storyline. I like TCW, but what they did to Barriss' character is difficult for me to forgive; her Legends version has long been one of my favorite Jedi. The Medstar books feature a great exploration of Jedi philosophy and the nature of the Dark Side; the classic "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," even when used with good intentions, is a major theme. I also appreciate that the temptation with which Barriss struggles has nothing to do with romance, because "Jedi falls passionately in love and considers leaving the Order" is really overdone.
In conclusion, these are definitely some of my new favorite Star Wars novels!
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Date: 2020-10-06 06:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-06 08:05 pm (UTC)