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What I've been reading, what I'm reading
Jul. 19th, 2013 02:16 pmWhipping Girl, Julie Serano. It's a collection of essays about transsexuality, some of which touch on feminism and femininity. She thinks the latter is disparaged for misogynistic reasons; I disagree somewhat, but I acknowledge I have a blind spot because I was a tall tomboy and was always in trouble with my mom and grandmothers because I wanted to wear pants and play in the dirt. "Why can't you be more feminine?" or really anything positive about it makes me see red. The essays vary in style and appeal for me. I liked best the ones where she talks about her experience of growing up and figuring out her sexuality and gender. She also has some great thoughts about how TS people are portrayed in the media, how even sympathetic stories of MTF people always start with obligatory shots of putting on makeup, getting dressed, etc. Even if the person is a butch lesbian. Since I'd read How Sex Changed a few years ago, I already knew a lot of the stuff she describes about sexologists and doctors being gatekeepers for trans surgery and requiring the patient to live in "appropriate" gender roles - MTF people who saw themselves as lesbians were barred from surgery. So that part wasn't so interesting. I'd recommend it to anyone who's curious about transsexuality and how it's been treated by our culture and the medical establishment.
After that, The Child's Child, the newest Barbara Vine. A new Barbara Vine! She's one of my favorite writers, so I put off reading this, held it back as a reward, since I knew it would be wonderful. But sadly, it wasn't. Two stories, with a book-within-a-book, that are sort of related (themes of siblings; homosexual men; unwed mothers) but without the twists and turns I expect from Vine. I mean, who didn't see that blackmail coming??
The inner story is interesting and kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next, but it's written in the same voice as the framing story. It doesn't feel like a different book and nor does it feel like a book from the fifties, as it purports to be.
The framing story is kind of slight and doesn't have the emotional depth or the complex emotions that I associate with Vine/Rendell. The narrator tells us about her emotions but they don't feel real, nor do we understand much about the other characters. They seem to get angry just to move the story along. The end, and the motive of a character who shows up in the last pages, doesn't even make a lot of sense.
Now I'm reading Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore - The Epic of Australia's Founding and enjoying it very much. So far he's alternated chapters about the first peoples of Australia and the European discovery of the continent with descriptions of Georgian England and why it had a need for a distant land where convicts could be sent.
After that, The Child's Child, the newest Barbara Vine. A new Barbara Vine! She's one of my favorite writers, so I put off reading this, held it back as a reward, since I knew it would be wonderful. But sadly, it wasn't. Two stories, with a book-within-a-book, that are sort of related (themes of siblings; homosexual men; unwed mothers) but without the twists and turns I expect from Vine. I mean, who didn't see that blackmail coming??
The inner story is interesting and kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next, but it's written in the same voice as the framing story. It doesn't feel like a different book and nor does it feel like a book from the fifties, as it purports to be.
The framing story is kind of slight and doesn't have the emotional depth or the complex emotions that I associate with Vine/Rendell. The narrator tells us about her emotions but they don't feel real, nor do we understand much about the other characters. They seem to get angry just to move the story along. The end, and the motive of a character who shows up in the last pages, doesn't even make a lot of sense.
Now I'm reading Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore - The Epic of Australia's Founding and enjoying it very much. So far he's alternated chapters about the first peoples of Australia and the European discovery of the continent with descriptions of Georgian England and why it had a need for a distant land where convicts could be sent.
