The Grand Sophy

Continuing my slow progression from "wait, you've never read any Heyer?" to, I suppose, eventually having read a great deal of Heyer; this would be something like number five. The first thing I need to say about this book is that there is some really gross and major antisemitism, which is sort of like finding broken glass in an otherwise delightful cake - I can't recommend this book, in the way that I wouldn't serve cake that I discovered to have broken glass in it, and I certainly wouldn't blame anyone else for feeling like the right amount of broken glass in their cake was zero and being very dubious about claims that it was in pretty big chunks, really, and you could pick them out. But it sucks, because it's a really delicious cake otherwise, and I in fact did choose to keep reading it and loved the rest of it, except for that one awful thing.

Brief description of the antisemitic content and how it fits into the rest of the book behind this cut: ( Read more... )

Spoilery thoughts about what I liked about it behind this one: ( Read more... )

House Like A Lotus

I am certain I was familiar with the title and cover of this book, but not one word of the contents seemed familiar when I recently read it. My best guess is that I picked it up somewhere in my exploration of L'Engle's larger bibliography and then was disappointed and gave up when it didn't have any telepathy or time travel or unicorns or even brain stimulation or regrowing limbs. (The brain stimulation, tsor suggests, was in a book called The Young Unicorns, which didn't have any unicorns either, total bait-and-switch. I never much liked any of the Austins, although I remember learning the "rioting in Africa" song from Zachary Gray in what was apparently Moon By Night, and it turned out recently that I had completely conflated the plots of Acceptable Time and Troubling A Star in my memory. (And, honestly, rereading, this year, even the ones I read over and over was rather jarring. Calvin's a snob?!))

Anyways, House Like A Lotus. 1984, Polly O'Keefe POV, takes place chronologically before Acceptable Time (published in 1989) although Acceptable Time feels written for a younger audience, which I wouldn't think publishers would let her do nowadays. House Like A Lotus is notable for having adult lesbian important characters; although, as noted, I don't think I actually *read* it as a young person, it may well have been the first book in my hands with lesbians in it. (Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen is the first thing I can think of that I actually read... or maybe By The Sword, were there lesbians in By The Sword? And when the hell did I read Annie On My Mind, maybe not until much later?)

SPOILERS henceforth. Reading it as a forty-year-old mom, I was Very Put Off by the medical resident (so, like, 26 at an absolute minimum, unless this fucker is Doogie Howser) who decides to go ahead and have sex with our very traumatized sixteen year old protagonist who he himself has literally diagnosed as being in shock - like, there's age of consent in South Carolina (where it's set), which I guess makes it "okay" since it's 16, but then there's "why am I being asked to read this as a tender and loving scene, the good experience to which various bad things will be contrasted", like, seriously, L'Engle, this is your Gallant to the various Goofuses? And the narrative requirement (reiterated by multiple older, wiser characters) that Polly forgive the traumatizing incident (one of the lesbians, who was her mentor, making a drunken pass at her, or possibly an attempted assault, it's... not entirely clear) doesn't really play well in the modern era of maybe *not* requiring young women to endlessly forgive the sexual advantage older people try to take of them, even if they are otherwise great people. (Also I guess they didn't have life jackets in 1984? I feel like I can *remember* wearing a life jacket in, like, 1986, so that seems wrong. But nobody ever mentions them in the boating disaster discussion.) Anyways, I would be fine with this one quietly vanishing into the realm of the lesser-known backlist.

(We had various gay picture books from the library when the kids were smaller - Tango Makes Three and King and King - but I strongly suspect the first thing my kids will be able to remember reading with lesbians in it is the Raven the Pirate Princess comics. Awesome ladies having adventures! That seems pretty good.)