flickered with shadows

[aamcnamara]

27.2 / 70

A bit of progress on the revision, anyway.

(Today: working at the bindery, walked two and a half miles around downtown--renewed my permit, sat at the Open Book center to read and think about writing projects--before busing home; now: tired.)

Banvard's Folly, Paul Collins: 13 essays about people who were famous and now aren't, largely from the 19th century. I think kelljones mentioned this to me? It was interesting--I'd heard about one or two of them before, possibly because this book raised their fame briefly again. The focus on the 19th century made me contemplate how many books could be written about such figures from other time periods (many, I'm sure).

Overall, though each essay was neat, the main unifying theme I got was "fame and fortune don't last", illustrated by examples ("here are some ways in which fame and fortune don't last"). I would be interested to read something on a similar topic, but focusing on one tight group--say, poets in a a specific decade of the 19th century--and looking at their fame then, how and why they got it (if they did), when they did, if it lasted and how long and theories as to why... this was a bit too scattered for me to take anything large from it, but it was an entertaining read.

Vintage, Steve Berman: I had heard good things about this and eventually figured I ought to check it out. The ensemble cast is as queer as any from a Melissa Scott novel, which is to say quite satisfyingly: the main gay characters, plus some queer secondary characters both female and male (sexuality other than 'homosexual' or 'heterosexual' is never explored too much in depth, but books do not have to try to be all things) and, oh, right, a couple of straight people and a homophobe or so to round it out. Not really a coming out story, either (yay!); it could be read as a coming-into-community story, but I am totally okay with those and I think we need more of them. At some points I didn't buy the progression of the central romance, but oh well.

All in all, this was a satisfying example of the queer YA SF/F subgenre that I lurk with delighted, delicious glee.

Comments

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Yup, that was me, although that's the Paul Collins book I haven't read yet. It sounds as though he's become better at tying the focus/foci together in his later books. Glad you found it interesting, though -- it's still on my list!

I like his books the way I like Oliver Sachs' -- he thinks about people in ways that are interesting to me, and I like to read nonfiction just for fun and specks of ideas that way I like to listen to NPR. It all flies in and buzzes around, totally unlike focused research, and I find that interesting.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Is there any other of his books you'd recommend specifically? I definitely enjoyed reading the bits and pieces about all the various people, and the range of reasons (and hypotheses) why they didn't get famous, or did and then vanished...

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books and Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism are his two others. Both are memoir mixed with odd and interesting history bits. I'd recommend them both to you for the interesting structure and history bits, though I had some issues with the ends. I would read them in publication order too, since he seems to learn to manage the interesting structure more cohesively as he goes.