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Moominvalley in November, by Tove Jansson

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

Äckligt, viskade Filifjonkan och skakade sin trasa. Hon lyfte upp fatet och klev ut genom fönstret för att tvätta utsidan.“Horrid”, whispered Fillyjonk, and shook out her duster. She lifted up the bowl and climbed through the window to wash it from the outside.

The last of the Moomin books, this barely has the Moomins in it; instead six characters – the established Snufkin and Mymble, the Hemulen and Fillyjonk who may or may not be the same as earlier Hemulens and Fillyjonks, and the new characters Grandpa-Grumble and Toft, all congregate in the Moomins’ empty house in November. I had not read this one when I was a child, and I think a child reading it would be a bit bemused by the absence of the central characters. Of course it’s really about death and letting go; Jansson decided not to keep churning out Moomin stories but to write, in effect, about not writing any more. Each of the six protagonists has a little character arc; usually the smart reader can see pretty quickly what it is that they will be learning in the course of the short narrative. I must admit that I too missed the Moomin family, and I’m looking forward to returning to the other books of the series in due course. You can get it here.

This was my top unread book by a woman writer; next on that list is Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters.

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Virgins, Weeders and Queens, by Twigs Way

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

The very nature of society in the eighteenth century meant that women were unlikely to become active designers, either professional or dilettante. However, the care and creation of their own gardens was something deemed an appropriate arena of action in a country increasingly dominated by the mores of the ‘polite society’. The garden could thus bring both cultural and artistic fulfilment to complement the more traditional releases of embroidery, drawing, music and conversation. For some women, such as Henrietta Knight, or Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the garden could also act as a release or retreat from the dictates of a society with which they had become frustrated or with which they found themselves in opposition. Other women saw the garden as part of their intellectual spheres, connecting them with cultural coteries revolving around the influential literati of the day. In the case of Jemima, Marchioness Grey, the intellectual and the domestic combined, as she developed the gardens at her family seat of Wrest Park in the fashions of the day, taking responsibility for designers, workmen and gardeners. Whatever their motive for embracing the world of the garden, or their involvement within it, a common thread runs through the gardening lives of almost all these women. For them the garden is not a place in which to parade the accomplishments of polite society but instead a place in which that society might be challenged or evaded. 2
2 I am grateful to Dr Stephen Bending for sharing his thoughts and research into women, gardens and retirement in eighteenth-century society with me at an early stage in my writing. His own academic research, funded by a Leverhulme Grant, will be available in 2006. Another study of the romantic aspect of female gardening is J.M. Labbe, ‘Cultivating One’s Understanding: the Female Romantic Garden’ in Women’s Writing, vol. 4, no. 1 (1997), pp. 37–57.

I knew the author back in 1990-91 when we were both postgraduate students at Clare College, Cambridge; Elizabeth de Clare, the college’s founder, gets a shout-out in the first chapter, and I’m glad to say that her devotion to gardening is carried on by the college to this day. I’m not a gardener myself, but many of my relatives (mostly female relatives) are, and I found this a fascinating examination of the role of gardening in a historical and gender context. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff here – the particular influence of queens and aristocratic women in creating gardens, which of course had a demonstration effect on other aspiring households; the way in which particular plants get transported from continent to continent; the gardening career of Jane Loudon, better known to sf fans as author of The Mummy!; the study of ferns being deemed acceptable for women, because they don’t reproduce through sex; and how particular plants got their names. 

Roses appear to be one of the worst flowers for taking the names of females who have had little or nothing to do with their breeding. Lady Hillingdon, the famous society hostess who is said to have coined the phrase ‘shut your eyes and think of England’, gave her name to a pale yellow rose. A climber by habit, Rosa ‘Lady Hillingdon’ is said to be dreadful in the bed but great against the wall. 

I thought this was great fun, well-documented and enlightening. You can get it here.

This was, shamefully, the non-fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that pile is The Politics of Climate Change, by Anthony Giddens.

Second round wrap-up

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Congrats to , , and for calling both of yesterday's matches correctly.

Scores on the doors:

✔ N %
32 56 57%
25 50 50%
24 50 48%
23 42 55%
22 42 52%
15 24 63%
12 26 46%
11 21 52%
11 24 46%
10 14 71%
10 20 50%
8 13 62%
7 10 70%
7 17 41%
pseudomantid 6 9 67%
5 7 71%
3 3 100%
3 7 43%
3 9 33%
2 3 67%
2 5 40%
1 1 100%
1 2 50%
1 3 33%
1 4 25%
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Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, by James Finn Garner

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

But their idyll was soon shattered. One day, along came a big, bad wolf with expansionist ideas. He saw the pigs and grew very hungry in both a physical and ideological sense. When the pigs saw the wolf, they ran into the house of straw. The wolf ran up to the house and banged on the door, shouting, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”

Like a lot of people, I am dismayed that “political correctness” seems to have become a way of demonising the old-fashioned concept of civility. This book therefore could have been rather awful, but in fact it’s not too bad – yeah, it’s a bit of a one-joke book, but I think the satire is reasonably well-aimed and some of the stories are given rather better endings as a result. You can get it here if you want.

This was my top unread sf book (fairy tales count). Next on that pile is The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.

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World Cup, Second Round, Day Five

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No matches tomorrow, so no poll today, just congratulations to an unprecedented ten people who got both of yesterday’s results right: , , , , , , , , and me.

And crumbs, the Belgium match was just a bit more exciting in the second half than the first, wasn’t it???

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Monday reading blog

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Current
The Way By Swann’s, by Marcel Proust
Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, by Abel Lanzac and Christophe Blain

Last books finished
Le Mariage de Figaro, by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Rose de Paris, by Gilles Schlesser and Eric Puech
Robot Visions, by Isaac Asimov
The Complete Ice Age, by Brian M. Fagan
Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire
Your Code Name is Jonah, by Edward Packard

Next books
Anno Mortis, by Rebecca Leven
Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters

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World Cup, Second Round, Day Four

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Well, yesterday was dramatic, wasn’t it? Most of us expected Croatia to beat Denmark (probably a bit more easily); only combined that with predicting a Russia win as well.

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Vasectomy, ten years on

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I had a vasectomy just over ten years ago, at the end of June 2008. The reasoning was fairly simple. When you have two children with severe disabilities, it’s difficult not to conclude that something is up genetically. In any case I was 41, and we had three children and did not want any more. So the choice was between continued use of contraception, with the non-zero attendant risks of failure, or medical intervention.

And the fact is that a vasectomy is far less invasive than the equivalent procedures for people with wombs and Fallopian tubes, which involve major surgery. It is an uncomfortable day in outpatients followed by a few uncomfortable days of recovery, and then it’s over; and your mind is at rest. And you can’t really compare the discomfort of a few days of exceptionally tender groin swelling to the bodily disruptions of pregnancy and childbirth. (One interesting point on consent – the hospital needed Anne’s signature as well as my own before going ahead.)

In retrospect, I should not have scheduled the procedure for the week before I moved office. My testicles swollen to the size of grapefruit (well, maybe not quite that big, but it sure felt like it) I was reduced to sitting around, in a masterly but uncomfortable way, watching my colleague, aided by a helpful friend and young F (then aged eight), packing and then unpacking boxes and assembling newly bought IKEA furniture. Also, a few days earlier I had broken a back tooth on an olive stone, so I was in some distress at both ends.

But in the end, there are worse things in life. Fortunately we have the technology to safely control our own reproduction; and while not everyone may want to use it, we should strive to ensure that everyone is able to access it when they need it.

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World Cup, Second Round, Day Three

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Well done to , , and who all called the winners of both matches yesterday. I drew France and Portugal respectively in our London and Brussels office pools, so at least I still have one team in the running.

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June Books

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Non-fiction: 2 (YTD 27)
Virgins, Weeders and Queens, by Twigs Way
Brexit and the Future of Ireland: Uniting Ireland & Its People in Peace & Prosperity, by Senator Mark Daly

Fiction non-sf): 2 (YTD 16)
Gemini, by Dorothy Dunnett
Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi

Theatre: 2 (YTD 3)
Everybody Comes to Rick's, by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison
Le Mariage de Figaro, by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

sf (non-Who): 12 (YTD 61)
The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi
Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee
Penric’s Fox, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Stories of the Raksura vol. 2, by Martha Wells
Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty
Introduction to the Stormlight Archive for Hugo Voters, by Brandon Sanderson
The Art of Starving, by Sam J. Miller
Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, by James Finn Garner
Moominvalley in November, by Tove Jansson
Heroine Complex, by Sarah Kuhn

Doctor Who, etc: 1 (YTD 18)
Old Friends, by Jonathan Clements, Marc Platt and Pete Kempshall

Comics: 1 (YTD 16)
Rose de Paris, by Gilles Schlesser and Eric Puech

~6,200 pages (YTD ~39,200)
9/20 (YTD 62/141) by non-male writers (Way, Dunnett, Selasi, Alison, Bujold, Wells, Lafferty, Jansson, Kuhn)
3/20 (YTD 18/141) by PoC (Selasi, Lee, Kuhn)
0/20 (YTD 6/141) reread

Reading now
Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire
Robot Visions, by Isaac Asimov
The Complete Ice Age: How Climate Change Shaped the World, ed. Brian Fagan

Coming soon (perhaps):
Your Code Name is Jonah, by Edward Packard
Anno Mortis, by Rebecca Levene
“Slow Sculpture”, by Theodore Sturgeon
The Aeneid, by Virgil
Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, by Abel Lanzac
Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters
The Man Within My Head, by Pico Iyer
Maigret Loses His Temper, by Georges Simenon
Up Jim River, by Michael Flynn
The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England, by Ian Mortimer
Aztec Century, by Christopher Evans

Anno Dracula – Dracula Cha Cha Cha, by Kim Newman

The Supernatural Enhancements, by Edgar Cantero
The Martian Inca, by Ian Watson

High-Rise, by J. G. Ballard
Politics of Climate Change, by Anthony Giddens
Aliénor, la Légende noire, tome 5, by Arnaud Delalande, Simona Mogavino and Carlos Gomez
The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
Welcome to Night Vale, by Joseph Fink
The Flood, by Scott Gray and Gareth Roberts
The Two Jasons, by Dave Stone
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The Fifth Doctor Box Set: Psychodrome by Jonathan Morris, Iterations of I by John Dorney

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This is a set of two Big Finish plays released in 2014, featuring the full early Fifth Doctor line-up – Peter Davison, Sara Sutton, Janet Fielding and for the first time Matthew Waterhouse.

The first story, Psychodrome by Jonathan Morris, is explicitly set immediately after Castrovalva, and features a complex narrative of the Tardis crew dealing with their own images of each other. The guest cast are put through their paces, each of them having to play three different roles – particularly Robert Whitelock, who does three different Doctor-substitutes as perceived by the others. As Peter Davison points out in the extras, it's good to have a bridging narrative from the uneasy relationships at the end of Castrovalva to the relative comfort of later stories.

I spotted Iterations of I in my St Patrick's Day post of Doctor Who stories set in Ireland, of which the vast majority are Big Finish audios. It's set between Black Orchid and Earthshock, Adric in his hubris attempting to pilot the Tardis and ending up on an island off the Irish coast where the crew become involved with a missing person investigation, a strange cult and the awful prospect of sentient numbers, a gonzo concept which is well-used by not being too deeply explored. The wonderful Sinead Keenan is the lead female guest, sadly not depicted on the cover. There's no particular reason for this story to be set in Ireland, but there's no reason why not either.

You can get them both here.

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World Cup, Second Round, Day One

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You should be able to vote using your Facebook or Twitter account, even if you aren't on Livejournal.

Yesterday nobody called all four matches correctly. and I failed to foresee Poland's victory, but got the other three right, whereas and hoped in vain for England not to lose against Belgium, but predicted the other three results.

The state of play after the first round is as follows:

✔ N %
27 48 56%
20 42 48%
19 42 45%
16 34 47%
16 34 47%
11 18 61%
10 24 42%
8 13 62%
8 16 50%
8 18 44%
7 13 54%
pseudomantid 6 9 67%
5 6 83%
3 3 100%
3 9 33%
3 13 23%
2 3 67%
2 4 50%
1 1 100%
1 3 33%
1 3 33%
1 3 33%
1 4 25%
0 1 0%
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Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

Daniela will help me make sense of whatever’s happening.

I picked this up early last year when it seemed to have some buzz behind it, but have only now got round to reading it. It’s a rather impressively done multiple time-line story. Our protagonist gave up a potentially brilliant academic career for the sake of his relationship with his partner; fifteen years on, his alter ego from a different fork comes to displace him. The parallel universe science is a bit wobbly, and the writing a bit staccato in places, but the central question is well put, of to what extent each of us is the sum of our own experiences. There is a thrilling denouement where the narrator turns out to be literally his own worst enemy, many times over; I felt it was generally well executed. You can get it here.

This was the top unread book that I acquired last year. Next on that list is High-Rise, by J.G. Ballard.

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World Cup, Day Sixteen

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No matches tomorrow, so no poll today. Yesterday was another day of surprises, with nobody expecting South Korea to beat Germany. Most people expected Brazil to beat Serbia; but of those, only expected Sweden to beat Mexico, and only forecast the Costa Rica-Switzerland draw.

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Old Friends, by Jonathan Clements, Marc Platt and Pete Kempshall

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Second paragraph of third chapter of “Cheating the Reaper”, by Jonathan Clements:

The roar of the engines increased drastically, telling Benny that they were blowing their little hearts out, cancelling the weight of the dropship, cushioning it as it settled on its legs. And then, with a cavalier flick of a switch, Vyshinsky killed most of the power.

Second paragraph of third chapter of “The Ship of Painted Shadows”, by Marc Platt:

‘Just keep your nose out of other people’s business,’ she heard her father say in his familiar, controlled, yet exasperated tone. It was a lesson she had wilfully ignored ever since.

Second paragraph of third chapter of “The Soul’s Prism”, by Pete Kempshall:

It was obvious now why Simon had discounted Caroline Dadd from the list of suspects. There was no way in the galaxy that the skinny cow could have thrown Ivo as far as the killer had, not without serious bionic enhancement. Benny could see no evidence of that on Dadd’s trim physique. She should probably ask Jason to double check – he was sure to have looked more closely than Benny had. Then again, knowing her ex-husband’s current stand on cybernetic adaptation, if he had spotted anything of that kind on the captain he probably wouldn’t be flirting with her quite so keenly.

Another collection of Bernice Summerfield novellas, this time a linked narrative by three different authors, involving a figure (half-human, half-lemur) from Benny’s pre-Doctor past emerging to cause difficulty by dying unexpectedly. I thought this was a particularly good effort, Marc Platt scoring particularly for atmospherics in his flashback story of Young Benny, but Clements and Kempshall doing a good job of setup and resolution. Not particularly penetrable for those who are not already Benny fans – the unresolved Jason relationship is a big part of the story. Get it here.

Next up: The Two Jasons, by Dave Stone.

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World Cup, Day Fifteen

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You should be able to vote using your Facebook or Twitter account, even if you aren’t on Livejournal.

Nobody called all four of yesterday’s matches; , and I got three each, missing Peru/Australia, France/Denmark and Nigeria/Argentina respectively.

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Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

Dewdrops on grass blades like diamonds flung freely from the pouch of some sprite-god who’d just happened by, stepping lightly and lithely through Kweku Sai’s garden just moments before Kweku appeared there himself. Now the whole garden glittering, winking and tittering like schoolgirls who hush themselves, blushing, as their beloveds approach: glittering mango tree, monarch, teeming being at center with her thick bright green leaves and her bright yellow eggs; glittering fountain full of cracks now and weeds with white blossoms, but the statue still standing, the “mother of twins,” iya-ibeji, once a gift for his ex-wife Folasadé, now abandoned in the fountain with her hand-carved stone twins; glittering flowers Folasadé could name by their faces, the English names, Latin names, a million shades of pink; glowing sky the soft gray of the South without sunlight, glittering clouds at its edges.

I see a lot of “meh” reviews of this book online, but actually I rather liked it; it’s the story of a family patriarch, who dies in the first chapter, and his two wives and four children in Ghana, Nigeria and the USA, with some fairly grim family secrets coming to the surface as the relatives gather for the funeral in a series of extended flashbacks. I felt it said interesting things about migration, culture and families in a vivid and lyrical way. Worth a look.

That was my top unread book by a non-white author. Next on that list is The Man Within My Head, by Pico Iyer.

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