It's Always More Complicated

What I read

Finished Death in the Palace - was not sure at first about the introduction of the actual Marx Brothers into the cast, but felt this had meta-textual resonance as there was something very Marxiste about the whole making-a-movie shenanigans (especially when it's this dreadful costume epic) + murder mystery going on.

Then went straight on to Cat Sebastian, Star Shipped, which was fine but perhaps didn't quite reach the high bar set by After Hours at Dooryard Books among her recent history/contemporary set works.

Returned to TonyInterrupter, which had perhaps lost some momentum from the hiatus, but nonetheless, I may try more Nicola Barker at some time.

Georgette Heyer, Regency Buck (1935) came up as a Kobo deal, and I realised it had not featured in the Heyer re-read binge a few years ago. Gosh, it shows a certain early style, what? with the massive amount of Mi Research, I Show U It, re prize-fights, phaeton-racing to Brighton, the interiors of the Royal Pavilion, the members of the House of Hanover (how right Mme C- was in advising to keep well away, no?). Also, this cannot be, can it, the first outing of the Apparently Dangerous Alpha Male vs the Civil and Sympathetic Beta Male who turns out to be a conniving sleaze? (not unique to Heyer.)

Also finished the book for review.

On the go

Also picked up as a Kobo deal, Fern Riddell, Victoria's Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen (2025). I have considered the author, as a historian of Victorian sexuality, sound on the vibrator question, if perhaps a bit too much in the 'Victorians were cool sexy beasts really' camp (It's All More Complicated), but I was interested to see where this would go. It's very good on the way things are with the Royal Archives, for which 'gatekeeping' seems too loose a term. But I'm still not entirely persuaded. It's a bit repetitive. Okay, it's quite good on the tensions within the actual Royal family (though can it really be that Kaiser Bill-to-be had Oedipus issues?). But still have a way to go.

Up next

Maybe the latest Literary Review. Otherwise, dunno.

What I read

Finished Cakes and Ale, which is partly that early C20th litfic convention of a first-person narrator who just happens be around to hear a lot about the actual protags and the plot or at critical moments of same, but actually complicates it with Ashenden knowing that Rosie is not actually dead as everyone else supposes. Not sure the ending really worked.

I then, having got into an Edwardian/Georgian novelist rhythm, went 'ah! time for some Arnold Bennett! the one about the hotel', except I picked up The Grand Babylon Hotel (1902), which is 1900s thriller hijinx mode with European royalty shenanigans, false identities, etc etc (though I was wondering whether it might adapt into a screwball comedy movie?), and wasn't actually the one I'd read many years ago that I was thinking of.

Which was Imperial Palace (1930), which struck me as, although lacking the highspeed thriller plot element, remarkably like D Francis in its fascination for infrastructure (in this case, running a luxury hotel in London) and competence porn. The running-the-hotel bits and the trials posed for the new supervising housekeeper are, perhaps, at least these days, more interesting than the bits involving Hotel Manager and Rich Man's Daughter Gracie. To give her (and actually, Bennett as author) her due, she is not, whereas she would be in a lot of novels by his contemporaries, an unmitigated bitch (Aldous Huxley's Lucy Tantamount) or a tragic bitch (Michael Arlen's Iris Storm), she has some good points and was a competent racing driver, but she is still annoyingly entitled and egocentric.

I took a break from this because I suddenly had a whim to re-read Mary Renault, The King Must Die (1958) for the first time in absolute yonks. You know, Mary, the sexism and misogyny is not entirely just being Accurate for Period, is it, hmmmm? There is some great stuff in there, but.

On the go

Imperial Palace is very long, and still on the go.

Up next

I think I am up for some Agatha Christie, seriously.

What I read

After Hours at Dooryard Books was really good - set in 1968 in a used bookstore in Greenwich Village - this was so not a Summer of Love - but lots of Unhistoric Acts - also I really liked that what I feared was going to be one of those three-quarter way through Exposure of Dark Thing/Arising of Unexpected Crisis in Relationship actually didn't go angst angst angst wo wo wo.

Slightly Foxed #88: 'Pure Magic': pretty good selection, though rather irked by the guy fanboying over Room at the Top and all he can say about the sexism side of things is that the protag's behaviour to women 'may be less than admirable but he is not a cad'. O RLY. What do you call putting the local rich guy's daughter in the club and then chucking your older woman mistress, who dies horribly in a car accident?

Robert Rodi, Fag Hag (1992) - of its period perhaps. I think there may be works of his I remember more fondly than this one? Don't really recommend.

Dick Francis, Hot Money (1987): this is one in which I was waiting for the narrator to get, as per usual for a DF protag, nastily done over, probably by one of his siblings or in-laws in this convoluted tale of seething envies within the family of a much-married tycoon. He did get blown up but that was not personal and so did his father. No actually woodsheds but there was a glasshouse and various other nooks and crannies to see something nasty in.

On the go

Back to Lanny Budd - O Shepherd, Speak! (#10) (1949) - Lanny as ever finds himself where it's happening in the final stages of WW2 - have got to the aftermath of the war, and thinking about peace. Quite a way to go.

Up next

No idea.

What I read

Finished A World to Win, and decided not to go straight on to next.

Read Anthony Powell, The Soldier's Art (Dance to the Music of Time #8) (1966), which is a very different angle on WW2 as Nick Jenkins is stuck in a backwater with Widmerpool. A particularly grim episode in its much quieter register.

Started Elaine Castillo, Moderation (2025) which started out fairly strongly, then hit a saggy point, and then I discovered I'd been a bit misled over its genre position, and anyway didn't feel much like continuing.

Picked off the shelf Susan Kelly, And Soon I'll Come to Kill You (Liz Connors #5) (1991), from the period when I was reading a lot more crime novels like this. It's not bad - at least Our Heroine has a plausible reason for getting mixed up in criminal matters, as a journalist specialising in crime reporting, but she has the almost obigatory for period/genre cop boyfriend. This one was probably a bit atypical of the series as a whole as it involved someone with a grudge against her (there are several suspects for Reasons to do with past reporting etc) stalking her with malign intent.

Andrea Long Chu, Females (2025), because I'd found Authority interesting and read something about this but while I am all for rediscovery of the out-there voices of the 'second wave', riffing off V Solanas was just a bit niche.

Laurie R King, Knave of Diamonds (Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes, #19) (2025) - Kobo deal at the weekend - seriously phoning it in - scraping the bottom of the barrel -

On the go

Val McDermid, A Darker Domain (Inspector Karen Pirie #2) (2008) for some reason Kobo were doing a serious promotional deal on the McDermid Pirie series at the weekend so I thought, why not?

Up next

New Slightly Foxed perhaps.

Have observed a certain amount of Discourse over article being grumpy about the limits of 'cozy' fiction (The Necessity of Pain in “Cozy” Fiction*)- rather oddly defined though it is so often the case that when people start doing this definition/categorisation thing one can start shrieking WHAT! and Why are you including THAT???

But must say what sprang to mind was story I read a while ago involving 2 fanfic writers in the same ship, which was Enemies to Lovers + Hurt/Comfort and their embattled personal feuding, based in one being much more about the Hurt, and the other all about the luscious, luscious Comfort....

Have also been having thoughts about what one gets out of works at any given time and that though I had been resorting to Jane Duncan's 'My Friend' sequence for yonks in days of trial, when I did the complete series read-through in order, boy, there is a lot of assorted guilt and misery, not to mention trauma, that her pen (actually, typewriter, given that protag is trained secretary) dwells on.

Also, in light of recent re-reading of Jane Austen, quirking an eyebrow at those - actually I may be thinking of fictional characters who may be being 'placed' by this - retreating into her world as a lovely retreat from Modern Life....

Will concede (she concedes) that as in any genre or trope, there is done well and done badly.

And must, of course, cop to, ahem, writing what is v much on the comfort end of the H/C spectrum -

Adding that, as readers of the saga may have surmised from the in-text scene in which Leda reads Lady of the Vespers, Lady Anonyma herself was far from averse from some lovely H/C.

Though I would argue that this is (unlike the works of certain other authors) conscious of the precariousness of characters' lives in view of: state of medical knowledge of the period; legal position of women (and servants); issues around class, race, gender, sexuality, etc.

Also, would point out that a significant % of the characters are concerned about ethical consumption around sugar.

*(While Babette's Feast is a wonderful movie, given the political position we may deduce of the author of the article, do they know anything at all about Karen Blixen??? - coffee plantation in Kenya? - problematic nature of Out of Africa?)

(Or maybe I am being total reading snob here, I will concede.)

Anyway, in a recent Pass Notes in The Guardian apropos the ‘75 hard’: the viral fitness challenge

What is it then? “75 Hard is a transformative mental toughness programme.” He says he spent 20 years figuring out how to master mental toughness.
And what do you have to do? Follow a healthy diet plan, with zero alcohol or “cheat” meals.
For 75 days? I’m beginning to miss dry January. And on each one of those days you’ve got to do two 45 minute workouts, one outside, as well as drink three and a half litres of water.
Two workouts! Sounds hard. Exactly! It’s in the name.
What if … I don’t know, you have a job, or a family, or a life? And it sounds like a fitness challenge to me! You also have to read 10 pages of a book. Nonfiction.
What?! Well a) Only 10 pages? That doesn’t sound hard. And b) What has he got against fiction? Frisella is more into self-improvement books – personal development, finances, entrepreneurship, that kind of stuff.

However, I am also not sure that ripping through extruded romantasy product, produced under conditions that make one suspect that churning out penny dreadfuls in a Victorian garret may have been preferable, is entirely great ('it's three tropes in a trenchcoat, and this year we're swapping in dragons for last year's werewolves...') even before there's actual plagiarism in the mix.

Or is finding one's reading matter by TikTok hashtag, which one could certainly diss on, this generation's 'Enid Blyton/The Beano at least gets them reading'?

What I read

Finished Out of Bounds, which I thought was rather a slow starter, but picked up the pace as it progressed. Not sure I'm in for delving deeper into McDermid's more recent oeuvre, however. Might see if I can dig out the earlier works I thought I had around.

Most recent Literary Review.

Siri Hustvedt, The Summer Without Men (2011) people talk about Sad Girl Books but this seemed to me of that genre Sad (sometimes Angry, Hai Doris Lessing) Middleaged Women books and maybe it's not typical but I don't think I will be picking up more of her work. Okay, it's the narrator who blathers a bit about Laqueur and the sexual body, but puh-leeez!!! that is the book me and mates in related historiographical fields have been snarking on now for literally decades.

Penelope Lively, Spiderweb (1998). Retired anthropologist moves to a West Country village for rather random reasons. A certain predictability e.g. re the bestie's widowed husband, though, fair dos, did not go quite the full Village Gothic with the horrible dysfunctional nextdoor family (not actually locals but incomers themselves).

RA Sinn, A Second Chance for Yesterday (2023) - I took a punt on this because half of the brother and sister team wrote a very good work of history I read recently, and it was very good but if you are writing sff I would like more closure than just the main character's epiphany to end on? Maybe I am bringing my Old Skool assumptions.

On the go

In between things I am still dipping into They Winter Abroad, because it is absolutely a work where you can read a few pages of somebody wittering on or having deep inward thoughts about the local peasantry or whatever or awkward interactions between the various characters, and then leave it for a while.

Have just started Kathleen Thompson Norris, The Rich Mrs Burgoyne (1912), which was a bit due to a general sortes ereader and partly due to observing that at some point I downloaded several of her works and never got to more than a couple, but the ones I did read I liked.

Up next

The latest KJ Charles is due tomorrow. Also I am a bit intrigued by an Edwardian murder mystery also due to publish then by the author of the biography of Marshall Hall.

What I read

Well, there was a continuation of the slight Sayers binge with In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939) and The Nine Tailors (1934) (which somehow was omitted from recent re-reads of the novels - Wimsey off his usual patch and without most of his posse except for Bunter). I suppose it does rather fit with the short stories as those lean rather heavily into Unusual Methods and Strange Crimes*, so Death by [Massive Spoiler] isn't much of an outlier.

*(Also at least she got the 'hawkshaw fakes their own death for investigational purposes' over with in a short rather than giving us a whole bloody novel.)

I then had a bit of a 'what do tiggers eat' phase and a spot of sortes-ereader, and started Micaiah Johnson, The Space Between Worlds (2020), which I'm not sure when and how I acquired - did somebody recommend it? - anyway, kept me reading, pretty good even if I had some questions. I see that there is in fact a sequel that came out recently - has anyone read it?

What I'm reading

Well, I did read on a bit further in They Winter Abroad but it's not exactly compelling, and I am somebody who is not averse to This Kind of Thing in general principle, I feel White is just not quite hitting the mark. Query: was he, before he finally hit his mark, trying out various modes - the mystery/thriller in Darkness at Pemberley, the Huxleyesque novel of conversation/manners here - without actually getting them quite right?

Currently on the go is Sherry Thomas, A Ruse of Shadows (Lady Sherlock, #8) and it begins by doing a lot of things that are not total turnoffs for me but not on my Most Favourite Thing list. Quite apart from the immense amount of accumulated Back Story, we have at least two ongoing antagonists, and I realise I do not really care for that thing where our series protag/s have recurring antagonist, who really has to be supervillain material in order to manage to evade our Hero/ine. I will give leeway for spy thrillers because e.g. Feramontov in Cory's Fedora series has a whole organisation behind him. But I really mark down the 87th Precinct episodes that feature The Deaf Man, ditto I went rather cold on Julie Smith's Skip Langdon mysteries when she acquired A Nemesis. And in general, I do not ever think it is a good sign in a mystery when I find myself muttering 'the chalice from the palace holds the pellet with the poison -- no no, the flagon with the dragon holds the pellet with the poison'....

Up Next

Well, happy day, there is a new Vivien Shaw Greta von Helsing novella, calloo-callay, and I have various other things I have lately taken a punt on. Also I see that Julie Smith has lately returned to writing mysteries after a hiatus...

Okay, so I've finally completed my Simon Raven Alms for Oblivion/First-born of Egypt re-read, after I forget how long since the last time.

I am not saying I would entirely recommend these works to my dr rdrz because not only are there are a lot of Of Their Time and also Of Particular Class/Educational Background attitudes, even In Their Day I suspect there were a lot of people who thought Raven was A Bit Much.

Although Raven himself wasn't really all that quite-quite, and he does cast a fairly cynical eye, there is also that sense of being embedded in a certain time/milieu and being at odds with a wider world which was moving in other directions.

Anyhow.

A major difference between the two sequences is that AfO is non-linear, at least if you read in publication order and the order the volumes are in the omnibus edition. So the reader is bopping around from 'story set in more or less same time as the time of writing' to 'story set in different time & place and quite probably a different set of characters with maybe a few overlaps but they are younger/older'. Which gives an interesting and I am trying to think of a word - ?stereoscopic - perspective. Effective.

But the FboE is linear, and actually switches genre from something that is predominantly the story of a loosely associated group of individuals with occasional gothic notes and slight touches of the supernatural to becoming more and more an occult thriller, involving ageing surviving characters from AfO, and their descendants (or adopted offspring/associates).

I mentioned in an earlier post that I did not think plots in AfO were Raven's strong point, they were an excuse to get people in certain relations and situations - I make an exception for Bring Forth the Body - and honestly in the FboE I think the Evil Manipulator who is Secret Cathar plot takes over - and rests on certain rather weak foundations, I cannot care that much about the main object of his manipulations.

But I did keep reading!

I don't often remember much about my dreams these days - odd scenes or images - but last night I had quite a long one and though I don't remember all the details it sticks in my mind after waking.

Mostly perhaps because it is Return of That Dream, which is perhaps not a Recurrent Dream as such, as the specific details are never the same, but the as it were narrative trope of it is very similar.

I.e. I am somewhere, and I go out of a room or a space or a building for some temporary purpose and then when I go back I cannot find it or at least the way in is no longer there.

So last night I was in a church or a place set up for a church service with my mother (and I think other family members? or some other people). Waiting for the service to begin, I went out at the back for some reason, into a space which was not like the vestry/church hall/Sunday school rooms of the church of my youth, which have been wont to figure in dream-space, but somewhere which was a vague combination of a hotel/conference centre with people going about and rooms with different things going on and several floors and a lift.

I got into the lift at one point but realised I didn't want the floor it was going to.

There was also a bookshop, or more like a book-space, in the middle of the floor.

And as I was going about trying to find the way back in, with time ticking on, I was saying that this was just like that dream of mine.

Not sure I ever did get back - at one point I found myself outside whatever the building was in a space that felt a bit desolate and dangerous.