Reading Wednesday
Oct. 5th, 2016 10:20 pmWhat did you finish reading
I am going to go through all of these, gdit.
( List of finished books I didn't talk about before )
Le Jardin des silences, by Mélanie Fazi: So I read this back in 2015. I KNOW. Anyway, I bought the book at a convention, because the author was there and seemed pretty cool -- which she is!
This book is an anthology of short stories. According to the author's website, it contains the following: Swan le bien nommé, L’arbre et les corneilles, Miroir de porcelaine, L’autre route, Les Sœurs de la Tarasque, Le pollen de minuit, L’été dans la vallée, Le jardin des silences, Née du givre, Dragon caché, Un bal d’hiver, Trois renards.
Swan le bien nommé is a retelling a fairytale. It's okay, but it didn't leave a lasting impression on me.
L’arbre et les corneilles is vaguely fairytale-esque. It was fine, but I still dunno what the fuck what up with it. Too much was left utterly unexplained.
Miroir de porcelaine was the one where I almost put the book down, because I felt like all the narrative voices were too similar. The end was rather disappointing.
L’autre route is my favourite! Some of the images from it have stuck with me all this time, as has the line (translated) "Last week they were tortoises and I didn't know how to dance" which was chilling in context. It's about a dreaming road. I've read about all sorts of dreaming things, including cities, but never about dreaming roads. It does excellent work providing an answer for a question I didn't think to ask myself before I read it: What do roads dream of?
Les Sœurs de la Tarasque is my second favourite. Or equal favourite? Anyway, it's GREAT. I have to admit that I was kind of going *headtilt* at it being set in Brittany despite all the talk of the Tarasque, because that's not even remotely Breton folklore, it's Southern France folklore. But then it was explained! And okay, so it's not ever explicitly said it's set in Brittany, so it could have been on an island off the southern coast of France, but the love interest is called Lénaïc so pfffffffft. It's 100% set in Brittany. Anyway, I was also telling myself that I was ~reading too much into things~ and no way was it going to be lesbians, but it was lesbians! Or at least one lesbian and I think Solène is meant to be bi? Also, Lénaïc turns into a dragon.
Le pollen de minuit was weird. Okay, but weird.
L’été dans la vallée could have done more with its concept, because the ending was rather abrupt, but it was still fine.
Le jardin des silences is my third favourite. The titular "garden of silences" is a garden that appears to Séverinne when she goes walking alone at night and gives her back pieces of her past: an old hat, her former boyfriend, her younger self... The way the story is set up, you're first meant to think Luke was abusive -- she talks about how he forced her to throw away the hat -- but it turns out that the reason Luke made her throw away the hat/etc was BECAUSE THEY WERE ROBBING BANKS and then things turned to shit. I really liked the way the past is slowly uncovered and how Séverinne comes to terms with what happened.
Née du givre gave EXCELLENT CREEPY.
Dragon caché was okay -- but I really could have used some trigger warnings for it.
Un bal d’hiver was melancholy and bittersweet but utterly lovely. I got really invested in the old widow and her sort of romance with the ghost of a WW1 soldier.
Trois renards was also amazing! I think![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yhlee would really like it. It features someone making magic via music and summoning animals, including foxes. It's very eery and beautiful.
Overall, I would reccomend the book. But maybe skip the first three stories.
What are you reading now
Have made no progress on:
Contes et récits de l'histoire de Carthage by Jean Defrasne
Paris fais nous peur: 100 lieux du crime, de l'étrange et de l'irrationnel, by Claudine Hourcadette et Marc Lemonier
Le Déchronologue by Stéphane Beauverger (apparently somebody nommed it for yuletide, with Villon, Sévère and Brieuc, but not Mendoza?)
I am participating inyhlee's Sun Tzu Read-Along now.
Also, I went digging about for my copy of Vercors' Les Animaux Dénaturés, because sometimes a body needs to read about deeply uncomfortable arguings about what it means to be human, but I couldn't find it which is a bummer. I did find my copy of La Controverse de Valladolid by Jean-Claude Carrière which is a different flavour of deeply uncomfortable arguings about what it means to be human and so may scratch that itch. We shall see. For now it is fucking savage towards the Spanish Empire circa 16th century (for good reason).
I also found Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa which I am enjoying so far.
What are you reading next
( old list )
I am going to go through all of these, gdit.
( List of finished books I didn't talk about before )
Le Jardin des silences, by Mélanie Fazi: So I read this back in 2015. I KNOW. Anyway, I bought the book at a convention, because the author was there and seemed pretty cool -- which she is!
This book is an anthology of short stories. According to the author's website, it contains the following: Swan le bien nommé, L’arbre et les corneilles, Miroir de porcelaine, L’autre route, Les Sœurs de la Tarasque, Le pollen de minuit, L’été dans la vallée, Le jardin des silences, Née du givre, Dragon caché, Un bal d’hiver, Trois renards.
Swan le bien nommé is a retelling a fairytale. It's okay, but it didn't leave a lasting impression on me.
L’arbre et les corneilles is vaguely fairytale-esque. It was fine, but I still dunno what the fuck what up with it. Too much was left utterly unexplained.
Miroir de porcelaine was the one where I almost put the book down, because I felt like all the narrative voices were too similar. The end was rather disappointing.
L’autre route is my favourite! Some of the images from it have stuck with me all this time, as has the line (translated) "Last week they were tortoises and I didn't know how to dance" which was chilling in context. It's about a dreaming road. I've read about all sorts of dreaming things, including cities, but never about dreaming roads. It does excellent work providing an answer for a question I didn't think to ask myself before I read it: What do roads dream of?
Les Sœurs de la Tarasque is my second favourite. Or equal favourite? Anyway, it's GREAT. I have to admit that I was kind of going *headtilt* at it being set in Brittany despite all the talk of the Tarasque, because that's not even remotely Breton folklore, it's Southern France folklore. But then it was explained! And okay, so it's not ever explicitly said it's set in Brittany, so it could have been on an island off the southern coast of France, but the love interest is called Lénaïc so pfffffffft. It's 100% set in Brittany. Anyway, I was also telling myself that I was ~reading too much into things~ and no way was it going to be lesbians, but it was lesbians! Or at least one lesbian and I think Solène is meant to be bi? Also, Lénaïc turns into a dragon.
Le pollen de minuit was weird. Okay, but weird.
L’été dans la vallée could have done more with its concept, because the ending was rather abrupt, but it was still fine.
Le jardin des silences is my third favourite. The titular "garden of silences" is a garden that appears to Séverinne when she goes walking alone at night and gives her back pieces of her past: an old hat, her former boyfriend, her younger self... The way the story is set up, you're first meant to think Luke was abusive -- she talks about how he forced her to throw away the hat -- but it turns out that the reason Luke made her throw away the hat/etc was BECAUSE THEY WERE ROBBING BANKS and then things turned to shit. I really liked the way the past is slowly uncovered and how Séverinne comes to terms with what happened.
Née du givre gave EXCELLENT CREEPY.
Dragon caché was okay -- but I really could have used some trigger warnings for it.
Un bal d’hiver was melancholy and bittersweet but utterly lovely. I got really invested in the old widow and her sort of romance with the ghost of a WW1 soldier.
Trois renards was also amazing! I think
yhlee would really like it. It features someone making magic via music and summoning animals, including foxes. It's very eery and beautiful.Overall, I would reccomend the book. But maybe skip the first three stories.
What are you reading now
Have made no progress on:
Contes et récits de l'histoire de Carthage by Jean Defrasne
Paris fais nous peur: 100 lieux du crime, de l'étrange et de l'irrationnel, by Claudine Hourcadette et Marc Lemonier
Le Déchronologue by Stéphane Beauverger (apparently somebody nommed it for yuletide, with Villon, Sévère and Brieuc, but not Mendoza?)
I am participating in
yhlee's Sun Tzu Read-Along now.Also, I went digging about for my copy of Vercors' Les Animaux Dénaturés, because sometimes a body needs to read about deeply uncomfortable arguings about what it means to be human, but I couldn't find it which is a bummer. I did find my copy of La Controverse de Valladolid by Jean-Claude Carrière which is a different flavour of deeply uncomfortable arguings about what it means to be human and so may scratch that itch. We shall see. For now it is fucking savage towards the Spanish Empire circa 16th century (for good reason).
I also found Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa which I am enjoying so far.
What are you reading next
( old list )