homebound, books

[jazzfish]

On the one hand, "social distancing" / "self-quarantine" isn't that much different from how I live my life three weeks out of four. Erin and I are functionally quarantining as a unit despite maintaining separate households, but apart from that my encounters with human beings closer than three feet are limited to the grocery store anyhow. Yoga's out for the foreseeable; that makes me sad, but I can exerbike and watch Kipo and the Wonderbeasts, or whatever once I run out of Kipo (got lots of good suggestions both here and on the Book of Face). I have a sufficiency of stuff to cook, and stuff to bake. I sometimes talk to people online.

On the other hand... that one week out of four was pretty important to my mental health and well-being, turns out, as were the semiregular semiannual distant-sweetheart visits.

Bah. Gonna be a rough spring all around.

What are you reading now?

Rereading Ha'penny by Jo Walton, because I decided that what I needed to distract me was a trip through an alt-history midcentury fascist England. I may yet regret this by the end of the book. I'm enjoying it thus far, though, and I have basically no memory of the ending (except for Viola's fate) so it's functionally a first read. As I recall I got irritated with the third book for its deus-ex-machina in the form of the Royals; will see if that holds up, I guess.

What did you just finish reading?

First reread of The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe. What an odd book. It's nominally set present-day (well, 2010) but apart from a few references to email and cell phones it would feel more at home in, say, the late seventies. It's an enjoyable puzzle-box, and I'm sure there's more to it than I think, despite my feeling of smugness at having picked up on one of the key mysteries (the author of the last letter).

What do you think you'll read next?

Jeez, I don't know. Maybe Half A Crown, maybe A Mist Of Grit And Splinters, maybe something completely different. I seem to have spent last week binging on ebook sales so it's not like I'm starved for choice.

Comments

[shanaqui]

I think Half a Crown played right into something my mother always said about the Queen having some legal powers left which she can never exercise without the government then legislating to take them away... to which my response was always, "So she's saving it for the right time?" So it pinged something for me!

I'll admit, that left me with the hope that she would stop us withdrawing from the EU, but that's an aside.

[jazzfish]

That makes sense, and I've heard something like it myself... basically, that "the monarchy has powers as long as they're never used." My complaint is mostly the same as for the end of Babylon 5 S4: there's still a broad base of popular support for the terrible things, and that doesn't just vanish.

[davidgoldfarb]

Seeing as you've mentioned B5 S4: is it just me or did they get torture chambers and expert torturers in place awfully quickly?

And why did they bother torturing Sheridan at all instead of subjecting him to the previously established "Death of Personality" process?

[jazzfish]

The availability of expert torturers etc is an excellent point. I was willing to give them a pass on that based on my deep-seated belief that humans are terrible (AGENT K: "_A person_ is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.") but it doesn't make a lot of sense in the world as built.

Regarding your second point, I defer to Mr Orwell: "The object of torture is torture."

(I've only seen B5 once, and was figuratively throwing things at the screen even before the end of the Shadow War, so I am not the most reliable interpreter.)

[davidgoldfarb]

I can remember being more interested in and involved with B5 than I've ever been with any other television show before or since. (At the end of S2 through the first few of S3, in case you're curious.)

[jazzfish]

That seems like a reasonable time to have been hyperinvested in the show. :) I found late-S2 thru I guess the first couple of S4 to be quite compelling watching despite my quibbles.

I also have a kneejerk reaction to praise of B5. I'm sympathetic to "judge it in its context / based on its time" but I have a lot less energy for "judge it based on what JMS wanted to do and couldn't because of network/actors/etc".