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Life and reading update
Jan. 27th, 2019 08:57 amToday I woke up to the cat standing on my sternum, which wasn't so fun (he's not a small cat), and when I suggested he move he stood on my boob instead which was not an improvement:D
Anyway, it's been nice to have him, even when I have slept less because his nighttime walkabouts. He'll go back home to my sister sometime next week, unless something unexpected happens and there's still stuff that needs to be done in her new apartment.
***
We are having a proper winter in southern Finland this year, which I like much better than the last few years when we barely had any snow, and what we had lasted only days at a time. It's so much lighter and prettier now, and temperatures below freezing are much easier to dress for than the just above zero and raining.
***
My first book of the year was to read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell again, I'd read it once before several years ago. I like a lot about that book, especially the world building and style (which is probably divisive, for me the meandering works with this story), but there are also things that annoy me about it. For one, it's impossible to disregard that it preaches one thing and practices other; a fairly significant theme in the book is that you should respect the agency of women and people of color, and yet all the characters that actually have any agency are white men.
Moving on, I'm doing research for the HP story I'm hopefully going to finally write, which means rereading all the HP books. I'm in the middle of the Chamber of Secrets right now, it's been years since I last read them (I revisited the series as a whole fairly soon after the Deathly Hallows was released, but not since), and it's curious to see what I retain and what I've forgotten. The plot is familiar, but many details come as a surprise, same with the style somewhat.
I did remember everyone was mad at people more than I was really comfortable with, but the reasons seem more ludicrous than I remembered, and the scale of people's reactions completely blown out of proportion sometimes. Not to mention that every single adult in Harry's life is letting him down by leaving him at Dursleys, which I thought even before this reread, it just strikes me very strongly again. On the good side, the things I enjoyed before I very much still do, the richness of the magical world, and the potentials in it, as well as the compelling characters, which were the reasons that called me to write for the fandom in the first place. It's all still there, and reading the books is strengthening my resolve to write the post-war fic.
Anyway, it's been nice to have him, even when I have slept less because his nighttime walkabouts. He'll go back home to my sister sometime next week, unless something unexpected happens and there's still stuff that needs to be done in her new apartment.
***
We are having a proper winter in southern Finland this year, which I like much better than the last few years when we barely had any snow, and what we had lasted only days at a time. It's so much lighter and prettier now, and temperatures below freezing are much easier to dress for than the just above zero and raining.
***
My first book of the year was to read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell again, I'd read it once before several years ago. I like a lot about that book, especially the world building and style (which is probably divisive, for me the meandering works with this story), but there are also things that annoy me about it. For one, it's impossible to disregard that it preaches one thing and practices other; a fairly significant theme in the book is that you should respect the agency of women and people of color, and yet all the characters that actually have any agency are white men.
Moving on, I'm doing research for the HP story I'm hopefully going to finally write, which means rereading all the HP books. I'm in the middle of the Chamber of Secrets right now, it's been years since I last read them (I revisited the series as a whole fairly soon after the Deathly Hallows was released, but not since), and it's curious to see what I retain and what I've forgotten. The plot is familiar, but many details come as a surprise, same with the style somewhat.
I did remember everyone was mad at people more than I was really comfortable with, but the reasons seem more ludicrous than I remembered, and the scale of people's reactions completely blown out of proportion sometimes. Not to mention that every single adult in Harry's life is letting him down by leaving him at Dursleys, which I thought even before this reread, it just strikes me very strongly again. On the good side, the things I enjoyed before I very much still do, the richness of the magical world, and the potentials in it, as well as the compelling characters, which were the reasons that called me to write for the fandom in the first place. It's all still there, and reading the books is strengthening my resolve to write the post-war fic.
