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Drive-by update
Jul. 2nd, 2007 12:49 pmIt seems to have been a week since last I posted. Was a busy week, with Europride activities, a friend of Isma's who was visiting and staying with us, and a new project with a really fast turnaround (a book I'm translating from Spanish into English) taking up a lot of time (plus, of course, my already extant deadlines and so on).
I also had two fillings fall out over the past few days, and my dentist can't see me until the week after next, which isn't helping me feel all cheery. :-{
But I did read a while ago a lovely little book, THE UNCOMMON READER, by Alan Bennett, which will be published in September in the US by FSG. It's a fable about what happens when Her Majesty stumbles upon a mobile library while following her corgis and discovers the joys of reading. Very witty, lots of amusing digs and observations she makes about various and sundry writers and books and genres, and epecially lots abotu the pleasures of reading (and how other obligations in our lives interfere with this). In her case, the entire palace is also against her pernicious new habit since it's distracting her from her duties, with the exception of one little gay boy from the kitchens who she promotes and who serves as her advisor on reading (some great moments where, since he only reads gay books, he's trying to think of things she might find of interest; J.R. Ackerly is the first compromise he hits upon, since she likes dogs) and errand boy and etc. (there's actually an amusing running joke as to what he is, as she learns more vocabulary).
In short, a very recommended little piece of entertainment for anyone who loves reading.
(I hadn't liked an earlier book by Bennett, THE CLOTHES THEY STOD UP IN, which was fine, but didn't cohere as well, overall, and the way it was told was sloppier.)
There's a long review of THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF NEW GAY EROTICA up at Erotica Revealed, a new critical website devoted to erotica.
The only thing that makes me a little uncomfortable is the complaint that there is no SF-nal content in the book. I guess it's the problem of readers wanting you to only write a certain kind of book all the time; there's a lovely quote from Josephine Tey's THE DAUGHTER OF TIME:
Was everyone nowadays thrilled to a formula? Authors today wrote so much to a pattern that their public expected it. The public talked about "a new Silas Weekley" or "a new Lavinia Fitch" exactly as they talked about "a new brick" or "a new hairbrush." They never said "a new book by" whoever it might be. Their interest was not in the book but in its newness. They knew quite well what the book would be like.
A few years ago I wrote a short essay that begins with that quote called "A Bookseller's Nightmare" for Booksense's website, that addresses the poblems of writing in many genres.
I also had two fillings fall out over the past few days, and my dentist can't see me until the week after next, which isn't helping me feel all cheery. :-{
But I did read a while ago a lovely little book, THE UNCOMMON READER, by Alan Bennett, which will be published in September in the US by FSG. It's a fable about what happens when Her Majesty stumbles upon a mobile library while following her corgis and discovers the joys of reading. Very witty, lots of amusing digs and observations she makes about various and sundry writers and books and genres, and epecially lots abotu the pleasures of reading (and how other obligations in our lives interfere with this). In her case, the entire palace is also against her pernicious new habit since it's distracting her from her duties, with the exception of one little gay boy from the kitchens who she promotes and who serves as her advisor on reading (some great moments where, since he only reads gay books, he's trying to think of things she might find of interest; J.R. Ackerly is the first compromise he hits upon, since she likes dogs) and errand boy and etc. (there's actually an amusing running joke as to what he is, as she learns more vocabulary).
In short, a very recommended little piece of entertainment for anyone who loves reading.
(I hadn't liked an earlier book by Bennett, THE CLOTHES THEY STOD UP IN, which was fine, but didn't cohere as well, overall, and the way it was told was sloppier.)
There's a long review of THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF NEW GAY EROTICA up at Erotica Revealed, a new critical website devoted to erotica.
The only thing that makes me a little uncomfortable is the complaint that there is no SF-nal content in the book. I guess it's the problem of readers wanting you to only write a certain kind of book all the time; there's a lovely quote from Josephine Tey's THE DAUGHTER OF TIME:
Was everyone nowadays thrilled to a formula? Authors today wrote so much to a pattern that their public expected it. The public talked about "a new Silas Weekley" or "a new Lavinia Fitch" exactly as they talked about "a new brick" or "a new hairbrush." They never said "a new book by" whoever it might be. Their interest was not in the book but in its newness. They knew quite well what the book would be like.
A few years ago I wrote a short essay that begins with that quote called "A Bookseller's Nightmare" for Booksense's website, that addresses the poblems of writing in many genres.
