glasses, book
Feb. 15th, 2022 07:39 pmHome from work today because ill (a GI thing, nothing worse). Also was feeling good enough this afternoon to manage to drag myself (to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
myrialux's passenger seat) to an opthamologist appointment to get new glasses prescriptions. We'd already had to cancel this once before, so I didn't want to cancel unless absolutely necessary. The eye dilation is almost worn off right now, but I'll finish reading DW and go stare at a page of actual text instead of a monitor shortly.
Ended up ordering 3 pairs of glasses from Zenni--one bifocals (with magnetic sunglasses), and two computer glasses to have one at work and one at home because I am TIRED of schlepping them back and forth to work, and (very occasionally) forgetting to bring them to work. I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier to do this.
I've got a year subscription to the Heywood Hill curated book service, where they send you one book a month tailored to your tastes, or at least what they can glean of them from interviewing you (either via phone or via questionnaire). While they've been hit or miss, they nailed it solidly with William Urban's Medieval Mercenaries, and gave me a complete miss with a book, which had a FABULOUS cover, about spies in World War II. But that one ended up being a perfect gift for my father-in-law who eats WWII books up with a spoon. I'm not opposed to reading about WWII spycraft, it's just that I ended up bouncing off the prose--one of the things I mentioned in the interview is that I really like interesting voice and I was hopeful that this would have some of that, but no.
Anyway, the February offering arrived today, The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont (MUCH BETTER UK cover and US cover via affiliate link). I read it all this morning, because there were some interesting stylistic elements to it, but my opinion overall is that it kinda falls down for me. It is a Literary Novel (tm) using some trappings of the cozy mystery genre, but do not expect a standard mystery. I can see why they sent it to me--I mentioned I'd recently read a lot of mystery and romance set in the period between WWI and WWII, which dealt with the fall out of WWI, and this, in part, does that.
If this were on AO3, I'd call it RPF AU with an OC. It takes an actual event--Agatha Christie vanishing for 11 days in 1926 after her first husband asked for a divorce so he could marry his mistress, a time she never explained--and tells it form the POV of the husband's mistress. The identity of the mistress is where it first diverges from reality. The narrative voice is interesting--I'd call it first person omniscient, because it's written as if the mistress, Nan O'Dea, knows what most people are thinking. The conceit is revealed early on: O'Dea is, in effect, writing this book, and so sometimes she explains why she knows what someone is doing and thinking, but other times she doesn't explain and you're left to wonder. The camera's eye in different sections jumps into other people's heads, or sometimes it's Nan who's explaining what people are thinking and what their motivations are, and sometimes you're not sure if it's her or it's gone fully into third person. This was not handled badly, I found, and it lent strength to the notion that you can't tell if Nan is a trustworthy or an unreliable narrator, which is one of the questions at the heart of the book.
I have to get deep into spoiler territory to discuss the stuff that didn't fit well with me. 3...2...1...( Read more... )
myrialux's passenger seat) to an opthamologist appointment to get new glasses prescriptions. We'd already had to cancel this once before, so I didn't want to cancel unless absolutely necessary. The eye dilation is almost worn off right now, but I'll finish reading DW and go stare at a page of actual text instead of a monitor shortly. Ended up ordering 3 pairs of glasses from Zenni--one bifocals (with magnetic sunglasses), and two computer glasses to have one at work and one at home because I am TIRED of schlepping them back and forth to work, and (very occasionally) forgetting to bring them to work. I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier to do this.
I've got a year subscription to the Heywood Hill curated book service, where they send you one book a month tailored to your tastes, or at least what they can glean of them from interviewing you (either via phone or via questionnaire). While they've been hit or miss, they nailed it solidly with William Urban's Medieval Mercenaries, and gave me a complete miss with a book, which had a FABULOUS cover, about spies in World War II. But that one ended up being a perfect gift for my father-in-law who eats WWII books up with a spoon. I'm not opposed to reading about WWII spycraft, it's just that I ended up bouncing off the prose--one of the things I mentioned in the interview is that I really like interesting voice and I was hopeful that this would have some of that, but no.
Anyway, the February offering arrived today, The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont (MUCH BETTER UK cover and US cover via affiliate link). I read it all this morning, because there were some interesting stylistic elements to it, but my opinion overall is that it kinda falls down for me. It is a Literary Novel (tm) using some trappings of the cozy mystery genre, but do not expect a standard mystery. I can see why they sent it to me--I mentioned I'd recently read a lot of mystery and romance set in the period between WWI and WWII, which dealt with the fall out of WWI, and this, in part, does that.
If this were on AO3, I'd call it RPF AU with an OC. It takes an actual event--Agatha Christie vanishing for 11 days in 1926 after her first husband asked for a divorce so he could marry his mistress, a time she never explained--and tells it form the POV of the husband's mistress. The identity of the mistress is where it first diverges from reality. The narrative voice is interesting--I'd call it first person omniscient, because it's written as if the mistress, Nan O'Dea, knows what most people are thinking. The conceit is revealed early on: O'Dea is, in effect, writing this book, and so sometimes she explains why she knows what someone is doing and thinking, but other times she doesn't explain and you're left to wonder. The camera's eye in different sections jumps into other people's heads, or sometimes it's Nan who's explaining what people are thinking and what their motivations are, and sometimes you're not sure if it's her or it's gone fully into third person. This was not handled badly, I found, and it lent strength to the notion that you can't tell if Nan is a trustworthy or an unreliable narrator, which is one of the questions at the heart of the book.
I have to get deep into spoiler territory to discuss the stuff that didn't fit well with me. 3...2...1...( Read more... )
