Books wot at read at some point
Sep. 29th, 2018 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresaI feel like crap currently :(
Here's an incomplete list of stuff I read since uuuuuh the beginning of the year, I guess?
La Mort du Temps by Aurélie Wellenstein
Parisian teenager wakes up somewhere weird with her dad telling her she needs to run. They run. The earth starts shaking and warping and oh shit the running caused her dad to have a heart attack and also it's not an earthquake it's a time quake! Calli goes on the run to find the girl she's in love with (Emma). She can barely stop to sleep though because there is The Flash, a bright flash of light that dissolves everything.
Then she runs into a crusader knight that got time displaced and merged with his horse who considers he owes her his life because she tried to save him in the initial quake. They pick up Jeanne, ten year old football fan whose mom merged with a table. They get attacked by prehistoric men and die.
SURPRISE
They're not dead, because they get retconned into having a wolfman gunman (wolfgunman?) save them. They find Emma. She is older and says the entire thing is Calli's fault. Or like, her dad's fault. Her dad, THE QUANTUM SCIENTIST. Turns out Emma and Calli were in an accident together and Calli died. Her dad invented timetravel to save her.
And broke timespace in the process. Oops.
They reach a town where this one guy realised this was happening and decides to kill Calli by burning her alive. This does not work. Calli can switch between branches of the timespace continuum so she survives. They go on the run again. Eventually they can't outrun the flash anymore so Calli sacrifices herself to save the others.
Yeeeeeeah so turns the Flash was what gave her the energy to use the power to switch between branches of the future tree. She jumps into the flash and proceeds to travel back her own timeline to kill previous versions of herself, right up until the end when she shoots her just ressurected self.
Epilogue shows Jeanne, the knight and the wolfman in their respective times and still human.
It was pretty fucking cool!
I liked Calli a lot and her relationships with the others were well drawn. I especially loved her friendship with the knight it was really sweet. She convinced him he wasn't a monster! He was going to sacrifice himself at her side at the end! There was a lot of humour but also some DELIGHTFULLY creepy moments. The pacing was a tiny bit off, beginning rather slow and ending slightly off. The first 30% could have been the first 25% and the last 10% the last 15% and it would have flowed better imho. That said still super grippkng and enjoyable!
Also I liked how matter of fact Calli being of Thai descent is shown: someone asks her name and she replies Callista, with an aside that she never figured out why her parents gave her a Greek name when she was of Thai descent. Also the relationship between Emma and Calli is so complicated and nicely done, I love it. Also Jeanne is cute.
All in all very reccomended.
Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them by The Lady Of The Manners (Jillian Venters)
It's very nice!
My favourite comeback to "it's not Halloween, you know!" didn't get mentionned even though there is much talk of how to act when people are rude to you because you're Goth. (It's "every day's Halloween if you try hard enough" btw). But it's got both advice for goths and non goths in a charming way.
I'd be remiss not to point out that the clothing advice is geared pretty much exclusively to The Lady Of The Manners type of Goth, ie: the ultra-gendered neo Victorian corsets and petticoats aesthetic. This is very much Not My Aesthetic -- I am pretty firmly on the androgynous, punk side of Goth myself -- so I can't judge how useful it'd be for anyone in that aesthetic zone.
The book pointed out a couple of things I didn't think about, for example that kids loves goths because we look like cartoons (high contrast with colourful highlights).
La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu by Jean Giraudoux
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trojan_War_Will_Not_Take_Place
A play in which Hector (and Cassandra and Andromaque) desperately try to avoid war with the Greeks by giving Helen back. Not everyone agrees with this. Not Paris, not half of Troy, not many of the Greeks. Helen's motives are a mystery, possily even to herself.
The gods want war and say so explicitly via Iris. The gods are dicks but lol this is Greek mythology IS ANYONE SURPRISED
And in the end you think it's gonna be ok because Hector and Ulysse made a deal but nope. The Trojan War will take place.
Twas good.
My Chemical Romance: This Band Will Save Your Life by Haydn Reinhardt
Because apparently I had this?????
Anyway it was interesting, I shall plunder the images for references for drawing the martian punks, but also it was originally published in 2008 so it's missing the last 5 years of the band, including their last album.
Poésies by Arthur Rimbaud
V good poetry. Me likey.
Chevaux de foudre by Aurélie Wellenstein
Bit too romance focused and not a fan of the love interest remaining Marcus in the narration after the Dramatic Reveal that he was a slave too and his name was Diego.
Gave good Fuck You Rome and good lightning horse too. Alix is fun character. Nice YA overall but probs won't reread it.
"J'accuse" by Emile Zola
Never read the whole thing before! Zola has no fucks to give with the Army's antisemitisism and incompetence. It is -- and ends with -- him basically shouting COME AT ME BRO to the then-president Félix Faure's face.
a 19th century translation of Sappho into French
Twas [fragment missing] good.
Crown of Ptolemy by Rick Riordan
I know all the demigod series(es?) of Riordan's are set in the same universe, so the crossovers are a thing that makes sense, but THE WORLDBUILDING MAKES NO SENSE ARGH
Was fun other than that.
70 solutions to common writing mistakes by Bob Mayler
Eh. It was a writing how-to book. Not bad, but not mindblowing either.
Breizh v1 by Thierry Jigourel and Nicolas Jarry (writing) and Daniel Brecht and Erwan Seure-Le Bihan (art)
A history of Brittany and Britain. In both Breton and French, Brittany and Britain are the same word -- Breizh in Breton, Bretagne in French.
Very dense. A bit too dense actually. Not a fan of the art or the random boobs, but I did like the occasional use of the bear as a motif to symbolise kingship of both Brittany and Britain (a la Arthur the Bear King).
Alix Senator v7 by Valérie Mangin (writing) and Thierry Démarez (art)
Intrigues in Augustus' Rome. The hints of Ancient Aliens are now joined by hints of Lovecraftian corruption/horrors and I am so confused but also into it? But also maybe reading too much into it. To nobody's surprise the mother of Alix's son is Augustus' sister Lidia. Tbh her line of "[Augustus] loves me... in his way" was fucking hilarious and it was nice seeing her take center stage.
Still not a fan of Kephren's plotline :(
Augustus continues to be a scary motherfucker with a really skewed sense of morality and charisma for days AND I LOVE HIM FOR IT
Livia (his wife) is also "a scary motherfucker with a really skewed sense of morality and charisma for days" and I love her for it too.
But HOT DAMN that thing the two of them have going where they are pitting cults/priests AND VERY POSSIBLY GODS against each other as a proxy war between them is fucking amazing as a story but also terrifying in its implications. "The price of Pax Romana", fuck you Augustus, you can be entertained without people dying!
The art's pretty great throughout. I liked the set of mirror pages where two groups are both looking for things being contrasted. My favourite image is the statue of this ram-headed god but instead of a ram head it's a ram skull?! Like holy shit every time I see it I think of how good a short hand for the status of Egypt at that point in time it is.
Ar-Men, l'enfer des enfers by Emmanuel Lepage (art and writing)
The history/story of "the most inaccessible lighthouse in Brittany, which to say, of the world". In the parlance of French lighthouse keepers, paradis ("heavens") are lighthouses on the mainland, purgatoires ("purgatories") lighthouses on islands and enfers ("hells") lighthouse out at sea.
Really REALLY good use of the comic medium. I am blown away.
Really interesting story (stories) too!
The lighthouse was built in the 19th century on a rock that was only uncovered at low tide during the spring tide so lol it took them 15 years to built the lighthouse.
Also holy shit the art is AMAZING
Also the last panel showing words written inside the lighthouse: "Le feu est clair; tout va bien" (The fire is bright; all is right) made me fucking cry.
Here's an incomplete list of stuff I read since uuuuuh the beginning of the year, I guess?
La Mort du Temps by Aurélie Wellenstein
Parisian teenager wakes up somewhere weird with her dad telling her she needs to run. They run. The earth starts shaking and warping and oh shit the running caused her dad to have a heart attack and also it's not an earthquake it's a time quake! Calli goes on the run to find the girl she's in love with (Emma). She can barely stop to sleep though because there is The Flash, a bright flash of light that dissolves everything.
Then she runs into a crusader knight that got time displaced and merged with his horse who considers he owes her his life because she tried to save him in the initial quake. They pick up Jeanne, ten year old football fan whose mom merged with a table. They get attacked by prehistoric men and die.
SURPRISE
They're not dead, because they get retconned into having a wolfman gunman (wolfgunman?) save them. They find Emma. She is older and says the entire thing is Calli's fault. Or like, her dad's fault. Her dad, THE QUANTUM SCIENTIST. Turns out Emma and Calli were in an accident together and Calli died. Her dad invented timetravel to save her.
And broke timespace in the process. Oops.
They reach a town where this one guy realised this was happening and decides to kill Calli by burning her alive. This does not work. Calli can switch between branches of the timespace continuum so she survives. They go on the run again. Eventually they can't outrun the flash anymore so Calli sacrifices herself to save the others.
Yeeeeeeah so turns the Flash was what gave her the energy to use the power to switch between branches of the future tree. She jumps into the flash and proceeds to travel back her own timeline to kill previous versions of herself, right up until the end when she shoots her just ressurected self.
Epilogue shows Jeanne, the knight and the wolfman in their respective times and still human.
It was pretty fucking cool!
I liked Calli a lot and her relationships with the others were well drawn. I especially loved her friendship with the knight it was really sweet. She convinced him he wasn't a monster! He was going to sacrifice himself at her side at the end! There was a lot of humour but also some DELIGHTFULLY creepy moments. The pacing was a tiny bit off, beginning rather slow and ending slightly off. The first 30% could have been the first 25% and the last 10% the last 15% and it would have flowed better imho. That said still super grippkng and enjoyable!
Also I liked how matter of fact Calli being of Thai descent is shown: someone asks her name and she replies Callista, with an aside that she never figured out why her parents gave her a Greek name when she was of Thai descent. Also the relationship between Emma and Calli is so complicated and nicely done, I love it. Also Jeanne is cute.
All in all very reccomended.
Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them by The Lady Of The Manners (Jillian Venters)
It's very nice!
My favourite comeback to "it's not Halloween, you know!" didn't get mentionned even though there is much talk of how to act when people are rude to you because you're Goth. (It's "every day's Halloween if you try hard enough" btw). But it's got both advice for goths and non goths in a charming way.
I'd be remiss not to point out that the clothing advice is geared pretty much exclusively to The Lady Of The Manners type of Goth, ie: the ultra-gendered neo Victorian corsets and petticoats aesthetic. This is very much Not My Aesthetic -- I am pretty firmly on the androgynous, punk side of Goth myself -- so I can't judge how useful it'd be for anyone in that aesthetic zone.
The book pointed out a couple of things I didn't think about, for example that kids loves goths because we look like cartoons (high contrast with colourful highlights).
La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu by Jean Giraudoux
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trojan_War_Will_Not_Take_Place
A play in which Hector (and Cassandra and Andromaque) desperately try to avoid war with the Greeks by giving Helen back. Not everyone agrees with this. Not Paris, not half of Troy, not many of the Greeks. Helen's motives are a mystery, possily even to herself.
The gods want war and say so explicitly via Iris. The gods are dicks but lol this is Greek mythology IS ANYONE SURPRISED
And in the end you think it's gonna be ok because Hector and Ulysse made a deal but nope. The Trojan War will take place.
Twas good.
My Chemical Romance: This Band Will Save Your Life by Haydn Reinhardt
Because apparently I had this?????
Anyway it was interesting, I shall plunder the images for references for drawing the martian punks, but also it was originally published in 2008 so it's missing the last 5 years of the band, including their last album.
Poésies by Arthur Rimbaud
V good poetry. Me likey.
Chevaux de foudre by Aurélie Wellenstein
Bit too romance focused and not a fan of the love interest remaining Marcus in the narration after the Dramatic Reveal that he was a slave too and his name was Diego.
Gave good Fuck You Rome and good lightning horse too. Alix is fun character. Nice YA overall but probs won't reread it.
"J'accuse" by Emile Zola
Never read the whole thing before! Zola has no fucks to give with the Army's antisemitisism and incompetence. It is -- and ends with -- him basically shouting COME AT ME BRO to the then-president Félix Faure's face.
a 19th century translation of Sappho into French
Twas [fragment missing] good.
Crown of Ptolemy by Rick Riordan
I know all the demigod series(es?) of Riordan's are set in the same universe, so the crossovers are a thing that makes sense, but THE WORLDBUILDING MAKES NO SENSE ARGH
Was fun other than that.
70 solutions to common writing mistakes by Bob Mayler
Eh. It was a writing how-to book. Not bad, but not mindblowing either.
Breizh v1 by Thierry Jigourel and Nicolas Jarry (writing) and Daniel Brecht and Erwan Seure-Le Bihan (art)
A history of Brittany and Britain. In both Breton and French, Brittany and Britain are the same word -- Breizh in Breton, Bretagne in French.
Very dense. A bit too dense actually. Not a fan of the art or the random boobs, but I did like the occasional use of the bear as a motif to symbolise kingship of both Brittany and Britain (a la Arthur the Bear King).
Alix Senator v7 by Valérie Mangin (writing) and Thierry Démarez (art)
Intrigues in Augustus' Rome. The hints of Ancient Aliens are now joined by hints of Lovecraftian corruption/horrors and I am so confused but also into it? But also maybe reading too much into it. To nobody's surprise the mother of Alix's son is Augustus' sister Lidia. Tbh her line of "[Augustus] loves me... in his way" was fucking hilarious and it was nice seeing her take center stage.
Still not a fan of Kephren's plotline :(
Augustus continues to be a scary motherfucker with a really skewed sense of morality and charisma for days AND I LOVE HIM FOR IT
Livia (his wife) is also "a scary motherfucker with a really skewed sense of morality and charisma for days" and I love her for it too.
But HOT DAMN that thing the two of them have going where they are pitting cults/priests AND VERY POSSIBLY GODS against each other as a proxy war between them is fucking amazing as a story but also terrifying in its implications. "The price of Pax Romana", fuck you Augustus, you can be entertained without people dying!
The art's pretty great throughout. I liked the set of mirror pages where two groups are both looking for things being contrasted. My favourite image is the statue of this ram-headed god but instead of a ram head it's a ram skull?! Like holy shit every time I see it I think of how good a short hand for the status of Egypt at that point in time it is.
Ar-Men, l'enfer des enfers by Emmanuel Lepage (art and writing)
The history/story of "the most inaccessible lighthouse in Brittany, which to say, of the world". In the parlance of French lighthouse keepers, paradis ("heavens") are lighthouses on the mainland, purgatoires ("purgatories") lighthouses on islands and enfers ("hells") lighthouse out at sea.
Really REALLY good use of the comic medium. I am blown away.
Really interesting story (stories) too!
The lighthouse was built in the 19th century on a rock that was only uncovered at low tide during the spring tide so lol it took them 15 years to built the lighthouse.
Also holy shit the art is AMAZING
Also the last panel showing words written inside the lighthouse: "Le feu est clair; tout va bien" (The fire is bright; all is right) made me fucking cry.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-09-29 10:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-04 09:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-09-30 12:22 am (UTC)This is making me want to read stuff in French again. The last thing I read in full was Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal, and it was ages ago AND it took me ages. I don't think I ever got around to Rimbaud, though I think I looked for books by him in my library at some point in high school.
Ar-Men sounds fascinating.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-04 09:54 pm (UTC)Ha! Funnily enough I am currently reading Les Fleurs du Mal as well (sort of. If I can find my copy again). Do you want recs?
Ar-men is really good! I love the way the legend of Ys was woven into the narrative.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-05 06:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-06 09:47 pm (UTC)A lot of medieval/renaissance/romantic French theater is also in verse, if you want recs for that.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-09-30 04:38 am (UTC)La Mort du Temps sounds... uh... batshit? But maybe really cool also? I am just blinking dazedly at several bits of the summary (starting with merged with his horse) but also it sounds like you really enjoyed it and found it coherent and cool, which is promising! And I like the idea of the timelines thing playing out through interesting character relationships...
Also, I'm sorry you're feeling like crap. :( I hope that changes for the better soon!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-04 09:58 pm (UTC)It is batshit, but also, as seen previously on this channel, I love timetravel batshittery. He is sort of like a centaur, but also sort of like if someone mashed a human and a horse together into one being.
Thank you <3
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-05 08:54 pm (UTC)I do enjoy some good batshittery, I confess. Especially for the part when you get to explain it to people later with a straight face and watch them react. (This is one of the great joys of superhero comics, for example!)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-06 09:52 pm (UTC)YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Tommy and Billy's backstory from Young Avengers is especially good for that.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-05 01:36 am (UTC)Twas [fragment missing] good.
Yay.
The lighthouse comic sounds wonderful.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-06 09:12 pm (UTC)Do you have a favourite translation of Sappho?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-07 05:38 am (UTC)I don't, unfortunately! I can read her in Greek, so I never really warmed to anyone else's version. This is a recurring problem with me and classical literature; it makes me useless at recommendation.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-18 09:49 pm (UTC)