cattytrona's reviews
241 reviews

was slightly beginning to wonder if i’d ever finish this one. was useful and interesting when i could catch its drift, and particularly when i had read the relevant books (i must read more dick; i will not read more more). hated the diagrams. i am working on a new personal project, where, if non-fiction is deeply resistant and difficult to read, i look it in the eye and call it bad writing. i’m shy, so i’m not going to make eye contact here, but it was a thought that came to mind.

fun. perfect plot - perhaps a bit too perfect, in that the coincidences and linkages necessary to keep it so contained slightly beggered belief. still, i persevered. feels so wonderfully crossgenre in a very modern sort of way: mystery and romance and adventure and comedy and a little bit of penny dreadful, maybe (can't lie i've not read any, but like, the vibe of how it as a concept exists in pop culture is there).

i particularly liked the focus on labour and how museum jobs are percieved, and i found the linking of start-up culture and the way museums are forced into working really insightful. i also liked the emphasising of positionality and honesty about address and citation very much. having just said that, the actual practical way those citations worked, where owen would just summarise someone else's admirable work for a couple of pages, frustrated me. i understand why he did that, but it ended up feeling like the book was just hopping between other people's narratives, whilst begging the question - 'why am i not just reading that instead?' it unfortunately worked much better when it was being done critically, using non-fiction tech bro publications as fodder for historical/literary analysis.

i recognise and acknowledge that with romance novels, you seem to have to lose some of reality’s nuance and character and politics for the fantasy and tropes to reach full force, but honestly, this also didn’t even have the things you sacrifice realism for. zero chemistry, zero conviction, zero wit, totally unclear where this romance comes from except we’re told they’re both attractive, which makes it hard to care. boring 

i found this pretty whatever. whistle stop tour of why: boring prose, flat world, flat characters, not enough aliens, long but for what, ‘All his life he'd known, starting from the first day his parents had shown him a picture of one in a book’ about turkeys, unpleasant energies, rushed, ambiguities seemed like gaps. made me think of the end of the affair and this one james tiptree jr short story, which respectively do faith/relationship crises and human/alien social clash, and do them better, deeper, darker, quicker.

obviously ofc the only way to appreciate a play is to watch it live. but i also think slowly agonisingly reading it over several weeks of class before the age of 18 is also a key element of really grooving with a shakespeare. anyway i just engaged with this one for the first time in my life by reading it at the age 26.

war as technology, technology as history, history as ever creeping up behind you, from vague fairytale shapes to a detail orientated moment in a proper-nounéd place. really interesting, enjoyed the reveal of what it was doing, how it was moving through time. but man, was it hard going sometimes. really difficult to pick up and stay with, for me.
the very end reminded me a little bit of the victoria mccandless section in poor things - fantasy as a way to understand the realities of a difficult woman’s difficult life, in a past moment when language lacked clarity for it? not sure. might be a delusional link to draw.
really interesting museum portrayal. if i come back to this, it may be for that.

i really struggled to find a good synopsis before reading, and that might be because takes a while for the plot to emerge — although luckily there’s a good succession of dramatic events to string you along until then — but when the book reveals its operation in the second half, the experience picks up and makes for a lot of fun drama. in general, this is a lot more fun than my brief previous dalliances with scott allowed me to imagine. it’s probably most held back by length, an occasional lack of clarity, and the fact that it predates a lot of similar genre works, which make it feel more predictable than it was maybe intended to be. still, i liked it, and i really would recommend it, particularly for people who are curious about scott but intimidated by like, the history of waverley or the length of ivanhoe. both things i’m guilty of, but feel better able to cope with now.

for what it’s worth, the plot is something like: an antiquary with a musty outside (but a heart of gold) and a young man of mysterious origins meet in a coach, and the latter is inducted into the former’s society upon reaching their destination, thereby falling into company with folk including a beautiful young love interest, a hotheaded soldier, a dying earl, a german conman, and the world’s best beggar. with these guys all around them, our protagonists navigate such episodic adventures as a duel, a storm, a treasure hunt, the last secret of an old woman, daytrips.

i like how this series is structured around discovering things. like every few pages, a revelation, a (re)discovery. it’s fun. it’s fun to see a world’s history open up like this, particularly when that history is sometimes today’s events and knowledge (you can’t just go to strange planets guys! they have atmospheres!)

there’s nothing quite as good in terms of character work as lessa’s emergence in the first book, but the politics is more compelling. it is a shame how lessa is kind of defanged and turned into the ultimate weyrwife in this one, but i guess it wasn’t so much her story as in the first book, so i chose to imagine she’s still being rude off-screen whilst we’re following robinton or whoever. nothing against robinton, i think it’s good how the series is like ‘look at all these hot young dragon riders. now here’s a normal semi-alcoholic old man as a major player’

i found this really powerful for two thirds: made me feel different, awake, ready to change my relationship with the world, i think. and then the weather changed, and it got greyer, and i only read the last part, rather than feeling it. it's a book that's meant to be read outside, i think.
and that doesn't mean the last part was bad, i was just in a different frame of mind, and so it didn't work the same way. there's something quite exciting about that: i know, knew even as i was reading it, that on a reread, my experience would be different, that different moments and messages and strands would resonate. that's cool, right. a finite book creating a very different experience each time isn't finite anymore. on this read, i really loved the chapter about clearing the pond, it made me think about what i want from where i live, how i want the outdoors around me to be.