The Female of the Species
Feb. 21st, 2014 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kI have been in a sulk all week because of a really shit job interview I had on Monday. Of course I was asked about the fact that I've been out of work for a few years now, which is a fair enough question, and gives me the chance to go into my "As you know, Bob..." answer about being a carer, and how it was unplanned, but ultimately improving and character building, and the many things I learned doing it that could be applied to paid employment. All fine and dandy, until the interviewer asked if there was anyone they could call to verify that I really had been a carer...
It wasn't even that they asked, not really, it was they way they asked, the assumption that of course you were a liar until proven otherwise. I mean, I have my flaws, and I am not above the odd white lie - but I would not make up a loved one suffering from dementia to cover up the fact that I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Anyway, I didn't get the job. Which is rather a relief. At the risk of sounding like someone David Cameron would like to see shot on the village green, I didn't really want it, I just wanted the interview practice. I would prefer not to work in a call centre again unless I'm really up against it. Plus, I've worked places where the management have that distrustful us-against-them attitude towards the staff and the atmosphere is invariably toxic and awful.
The other thing I have been doing this week is reading my way through the Dangerous Women anthology, which like a lot of people I was mainly reading for the new ASOIAF novella in it. I could have just skipped the rest of the book and read The Princess and the Queen, but it was the very last story in the book, and that would have felt, in some obscure and difficult to articulate way, like cheating.
My absolute least favourite story in the anthology was Diana Gabaldon's contribution, which was an overlong story about Jaime Fraser's manpain, and did nothing but reassure me that never reading the Outlander series has been a good life choice. It left me annoyed not only with Diana Gabaldon, but with the editors for not insisting that a tacked-on afterthought of a subplot about a woman thief didn't really count, and they would keep her in mind if they were ever putting together an anthology called faux-Scottish manpain. Indeed, a few of the contributors seemed to have missed the point (or, at least, what I wanted to be the point) writing stories about dude protagonists being led astray by femme fatals. Joe R. Lansdale and Lawrence Block (whose contribution was a protracted snuff-scene, eww) were particularly guilty of this.
But that's the nature of anthologies, isn't it, that you'll like some stories better than others. I unsurprisingly enjoyed the Brandon Sanderson one, and I really liked that Jim Butcher's contribution was a Dresden Files story from Molly's point of view. I still read and enjoy the Dresden Files, but one of my biggest nitpicks with it is that Butcher creates all these powerful female characters then seems to go to some pains to show how they are all less powerful than Harry, so it was refreshing to see Molly in her element and from her own pov. The Lev Grossman story was another example of how I like Lev Grossman's writing, but that he has never written a single character that I didn't think could be improved by the application of a partially defrosted haddock to the face. The Joe Abercrombie and Robin Hobb (dottie old women getting a new lease of life in an AU dystopia, squee!) contributions made me want to give both authors another shot.
I ended up really enjoying the historical fiction stories about female Russian fighter pilots during WWII, Constance of Sicily, and Nora, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine (not in the same story, obviously). I think that part of the reason I've been having so much trouble getting into what I've been reading recently, is that I've been reading SF/F almost exclusively and I really should read more historical fiction, or literary, or crime fiction, just to break things up a bit. On this note, if anyone has any recs for fiction about interesting women of history (real or not) I'd love to hear them.
The Princess and the Queen --
Okay, obviously anyone suggesting that we should chain GRRM to a keyboard and only feed him if he meets a minimum daily wordcount is being an arse and should kindly shut up. But. But, if he's writing anyway, and he's writing in the ASOIAF universe anyway, and he's got the show coming up behind him (I know S4 is only covering the latter part of ASoS, but the trailers have reminded me how little the plot actually advances over the course of AFfC and ADwD) then I really think he ought to be spending that time writing The Winds of Winter.
But if he was going to write a historical novella I would much rather have had this than another Dunk and Egg instalment or heaven forfend, The Wit and Wisdom of Tyrion bloody Lannister. Because I was interested in The Dance of the Dragons, and fascinating Targaryen women are one of my niche interests in this universe. Maybe Aegon isn't a fake? Maybe he really is a Targaryen dude? Maybe that's why he's so utterly, utterly uninteresting to me?
But mainly two things:
1) Writing it as an historical account written by a maester years later was an interesting exercise in structure, but also made it seem like any halfway decent fanfiction writer could have tackled this, and seriously, George, Winds of Winter?
2) The dragon-riders, and the way the dragons were used in battle was a bit Temeraire-like, Temeraire-lite? And I had always liked the idea that the dragons had died out over a century or so as magic left the world and they became increasingly difficult to hatch. So the reveal that despite being nigh on un-killable, they were, to the last dragon, killed off in this super convenient Targaryen civil war felt a bit... contrived.
So, yes, it was good from a completionist point of view, but mainly... Winds of Winter?
It wasn't even that they asked, not really, it was they way they asked, the assumption that of course you were a liar until proven otherwise. I mean, I have my flaws, and I am not above the odd white lie - but I would not make up a loved one suffering from dementia to cover up the fact that I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Anyway, I didn't get the job. Which is rather a relief. At the risk of sounding like someone David Cameron would like to see shot on the village green, I didn't really want it, I just wanted the interview practice. I would prefer not to work in a call centre again unless I'm really up against it. Plus, I've worked places where the management have that distrustful us-against-them attitude towards the staff and the atmosphere is invariably toxic and awful.
The other thing I have been doing this week is reading my way through the Dangerous Women anthology, which like a lot of people I was mainly reading for the new ASOIAF novella in it. I could have just skipped the rest of the book and read The Princess and the Queen, but it was the very last story in the book, and that would have felt, in some obscure and difficult to articulate way, like cheating.
My absolute least favourite story in the anthology was Diana Gabaldon's contribution, which was an overlong story about Jaime Fraser's manpain, and did nothing but reassure me that never reading the Outlander series has been a good life choice. It left me annoyed not only with Diana Gabaldon, but with the editors for not insisting that a tacked-on afterthought of a subplot about a woman thief didn't really count, and they would keep her in mind if they were ever putting together an anthology called faux-Scottish manpain. Indeed, a few of the contributors seemed to have missed the point (or, at least, what I wanted to be the point) writing stories about dude protagonists being led astray by femme fatals. Joe R. Lansdale and Lawrence Block (whose contribution was a protracted snuff-scene, eww) were particularly guilty of this.
But that's the nature of anthologies, isn't it, that you'll like some stories better than others. I unsurprisingly enjoyed the Brandon Sanderson one, and I really liked that Jim Butcher's contribution was a Dresden Files story from Molly's point of view. I still read and enjoy the Dresden Files, but one of my biggest nitpicks with it is that Butcher creates all these powerful female characters then seems to go to some pains to show how they are all less powerful than Harry, so it was refreshing to see Molly in her element and from her own pov. The Lev Grossman story was another example of how I like Lev Grossman's writing, but that he has never written a single character that I didn't think could be improved by the application of a partially defrosted haddock to the face. The Joe Abercrombie and Robin Hobb (dottie old women getting a new lease of life in an AU dystopia, squee!) contributions made me want to give both authors another shot.
I ended up really enjoying the historical fiction stories about female Russian fighter pilots during WWII, Constance of Sicily, and Nora, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine (not in the same story, obviously). I think that part of the reason I've been having so much trouble getting into what I've been reading recently, is that I've been reading SF/F almost exclusively and I really should read more historical fiction, or literary, or crime fiction, just to break things up a bit. On this note, if anyone has any recs for fiction about interesting women of history (real or not) I'd love to hear them.
The Princess and the Queen --
Okay, obviously anyone suggesting that we should chain GRRM to a keyboard and only feed him if he meets a minimum daily wordcount is being an arse and should kindly shut up. But. But, if he's writing anyway, and he's writing in the ASOIAF universe anyway, and he's got the show coming up behind him (I know S4 is only covering the latter part of ASoS, but the trailers have reminded me how little the plot actually advances over the course of AFfC and ADwD) then I really think he ought to be spending that time writing The Winds of Winter.
But if he was going to write a historical novella I would much rather have had this than another Dunk and Egg instalment or heaven forfend, The Wit and Wisdom of Tyrion bloody Lannister. Because I was interested in The Dance of the Dragons, and fascinating Targaryen women are one of my niche interests in this universe. Maybe Aegon isn't a fake? Maybe he really is a Targaryen dude? Maybe that's why he's so utterly, utterly uninteresting to me?
But mainly two things:
1) Writing it as an historical account written by a maester years later was an interesting exercise in structure, but also made it seem like any halfway decent fanfiction writer could have tackled this, and seriously, George, Winds of Winter?
2) The dragon-riders, and the way the dragons were used in battle was a bit Temeraire-like, Temeraire-lite? And I had always liked the idea that the dragons had died out over a century or so as magic left the world and they became increasingly difficult to hatch. So the reveal that despite being nigh on un-killable, they were, to the last dragon, killed off in this super convenient Targaryen civil war felt a bit... contrived.
So, yes, it was good from a completionist point of view, but mainly... Winds of Winter?
no subject
Date: 2014-02-22 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-23 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-24 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-22 11:50 pm (UTC)lol, i also think Outlander is god-awful. i got about 20 pages into the first book before i completely noped out of it.
if you're having trouble getting in to Life After Life you're not alone. I thought the beginning parts were dull, too- it didn't really pick up for me until we got to Ursula's adult lifetimes.
some lady-centric historical fiction recs:
Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders- early modern life in a English village, features an interesting friendship between the minister's wife and a lower-class woman
Emma Donoghue, Life Mask- Parliamentary politics and lesbians in the 18th century, based on the real life love triangle between Anne Damer, a sculptor, and Eliza Farren, an actress, and some upperclass dude. Warning: it's a bit dry and the first half is more parliamentary politics than lesbians. i rec'd it to V and she didn't like it, but i thought it was really subtle and well-done.
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl- autobiographical account of Jacobs' escape from slavery- really easy to read for something written 150 years ago. Jacobs' life story was so inspiring- here's a real life woman who broke her own chains. But obvi, triggery stuff for sexual abuse and, well, slavery.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-22 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-23 02:49 am (UTC)I actually ended up really liking Life After Life, although it took me a couple of Ursula's lifetimes to get into it. But it was definitely more historical fiction than historical fantasy, and it's what got me thinking that historical fiction, and actually popular history books, are something I should read more of. My history education was woeful, just the industrial revolution and WWII, basically, and I would like to make at least an attempt to plug some of the gaps.
Those recs all look excellent, cheers!