Where Have I Been? What Have I Been Doing?

[lydamorehouse]

 One really fun thing that I did lately is finally listen to/read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

This came about because my son has heard me go on and on since I read Frankenstein for the first time earlier this year about how GAY Victor Frankenstein was for his most sincere friend Henry Clevral. Being Mason, he said, "Oh, huh. Have you ever read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? I recommend it," without, of course, spoiling the fact that it's pretty much common knowledge the Robert Louis Stevenson had based Jekyll and Hyde on his real life gay friends.

If you doubt me, check out the Wikipediea entry's "inspiration and writing" section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde#Inspiration_and_writing  Stevenson apparently literally named Jykell after a reverand who was very likely gay and several of his known gay associates, specifically John Addington Symonds. Symonds apparently read Jekyll and Hyde and said (and I paraphrase), "I am in this book and I don't like it."

Anyway, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is short and well worth the read.

Having thoroughly enjoyed that experience, I have been pondering if there are other classics that I've ignored over the years due to the trauma of having been an English major. (When one is forced to read a lot of classic leterature, one grows weary of its ponderousness.)  My friend naomikritzer has talked me into trying out Anne of Green Gables. I'm not sure how well this one will stick because it is in no way genre or genre adjacent like Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  But, we'll see. I found someone on Spotify who did a lovely podcast of Anne of Green Gables with multiple voice actors playing the various roles, so it could generally just be a fun way to experience the book. 

I know it's not Wednesday, but what are you reading? Anything fun? Anything weird? Anything AWFUL?

Comments

[mrissa]

I just started a bugcrusher from the library, Greg Grandin's America, América: A New History of the New World, whose premise is: what if instead of focusing on what the US was doing with regards to Europe for its whole history, we focused on Latin America instead? I liked his Fordlandia, should be interesting.

[pameladean]

Several authors I preorder when possible seem to have their publishing schedules in some kind of sync. So I have devoured the latest Louise Penny, The Black Wolf, and then reread the first half of the two-volume novel they really are, The Grey Wolf. Then I devoured the latest October Daye book by Seanan McGuire, but was having a very stressful time for various reasons and felt it rather flat by comparison to the others. I just started reading it again -- I mean, it's Seanan, I'd read her laundry list if she had one and this is not that -- and was relieved that it is not flat, but it certainly does exist under some peculiar circumstances. So that was rewarding. (I reread ALL THE TIME, and mostly if an author can generate a lot of narrative lust in the reader, I gallop through a book once, miss a third of what's happening, and then reread it at leisure when I'm not so worried about what will happen to the characters. So this isn't atypical, though it may be weird.)

I'm also trying very hard to read Stephanie Burt's Don't Read Poetry, which she graciously sent Cam and me after we met at Gaylaxicon. But it's a paper book and my cat appears immediately a few minutes after I pick it up and insists on cuddles. Long ago one of her foster mothers wrote to me that Saffron loves "couch time" and insists on getting right up under your chin, "making it impossible to read." This is still true. I say it aloud to her regularly. "MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO READ!" Then she purrs. Maybe I'll title my autobiography that.

Stephanie also sent us a couple of books of her poems, and I can usually get in one or two of those before the cat takeover. I really like them. There is one dedicated to the naked mole rats at the National Zoo that is charming and alarming and takes a turn at the very end. I wish I could say it was disarming, but it is not.

I didn't read the Anne books until I was in my forties and I adored them while maintaining a strong cynical mood at certain junctures, and occasionally tearing my hair out about certain themes and notions. But most of those are later on.

P.

[carbonel]

The on-my-phone book that I finished most recently was The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet, and it was so good. It also just won the World Fantasy Award for best novel, so it's definitely not a hidden gem.

I'm also into the fifth (of six, at least so far) of the Queen's Thief books by Megan Whalen Turner, and I like the twisty plots but I don't like the love interests. Mind you, romance in non-category romance books does not get a free pass from me, but this seems especially egregious.

And for fun, I really enjoyed The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, which I listened to as an audiobook. It has a slow start, but once it got going it kept me interested the entire time. And it has a really interesting structure (and I'm somewhat of a structure wonk).

[allezhop]

I just added The Tainted Cup to my library holds. Thanks for the recommendation!

[dreamshark]

Well, while we are on Robert Louis Stevenson... I recently read Treasure Island for either the first time or the first time in more than 60 years and was astonished at how well written it is. A rollicking adventure story for kids with surprisingly nuanced character development and an intriguingly hinted-at back story.

I read it because I had become obsessed with the amazing Netflix series Black Sails and wanted to see how it related to the source material, but that's a different recommendation. Let's just say that those showrunners did a remarkable job of fleshing out said intriguing back story and taking it in absolutely unexpected directions without ever breaking canon. They even included a bunch of real-life pirates without significantly changing their histories except for the timelines (so they could all show up in the same place at the same time).

[bibliofile]

Thinking on Theodora Goss's The strange case of the alchemist's daughter, you might want to consider Verne's Dr Moreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "Rappacini's daughter." In case you haven't read it: The Goss book is full of women from a bunch of Victorian novels in one place, including the books you've read and Sherlock Holmes. Maybe after you're done reading these classics, read the Goss for a treat?