de_eekhoorn | Book reviews July

Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley

I decided to read this book because, in the lab, we named our modified cryostat Frankenstein (following xkcd naming conventions), and it made me realize that I never actually read it. I therefore went in with maybe less than usual in the way of preconceptions about the book itself, and man, that sure was a ride. Suffice it to say that I did not expect the polar exploration.
Some other notes: Frankenstein is a miserable little man - I don't think anyone in this book is straight - the book is a patchwork blanket of different atmospheric locations, to both its strength and its weakness…
Possibly my dominant impression of this book was the novel form in flux and under construction: we have story within frame story within frame story, and the concept of a story not told as truth by an in-universe narrator seems to teeter on the edge of existence; the characters declaim to each other “I am sad” - “I am angry” - “I am heartbroken” because the idea of the narrator telling us this information is not quite compatible with the frame story format the book seems to be, in a somewhat ungainly teenage fashion, growing out of. I was also amused at Shelley’s description of glaciers, a thing she clearly had first-hand experience of, but which she could not suppose familiar to her audience.
Alas, the tell-not-show style of everyone putting on dramatic speeches about their emotions did not really grow on me, and I wasn’t really engaged with the book emotionally. I’m certainly glad I’ve read it, it was certainly an experience, and I enjoyed the roller-coaster un-sense of what was going to come next, but it might have been just the wrong kind of weird to really worm into my heart. But some books do take some time after reading them to be fully processed, and I think this might turn out to be the kind of book that you realize only years later has structured unexpected avenues and throughlines of your thinking.

Taltos - Steve Brust

This one was great, with lots of tasty worldbuilding. I’m starting to think that I did the three I already read a disservice by reading them in the omnibus e-book: these might read much better to me in paper format, where I slow down naturally and it is much easier to flip back and forth to compare bits.
It is interesting to see Vlad becoming who he is, and justifying himself as he goes - and also to note subtle differences of emphasis and tone between Vlad’s recounting of his past here and in Jhereg.
It also made me think about how I react to violence in books, because I definitely have stopped reading books as ‘too violent’ that had a lower body count than this one. I guess what I really cannot stand is carelessness about it on the author’s part - if your character is in a setting and has a personality where it makes sense for them to take lives easily or not react much to death, fine, but if a more or less normal person in the present world just munchkins through that much violence then I cannot. Alternatively, even if the characters themselves don’t care, I need to feel like the author thought about what it means for their book to have so much death in it, and did not just throw in violent events to have Plot and Consequences. I turn out to be fine with Vlad Taltos, but I could not abide the Harry Dresden books and stopped reading halfway through the third book with prejudice.
Anyway, back to Brust - truly lots of worldbuilding in this one; I am fascinated with the Wheel controlling the eras. My new problem is that now I need to look for the next book…

Records of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - Albrecht Dürer

Got it off Gutenberg.
The journey to Venice is a series of letters, very lively and engaging; the journey to the Low Countries is more of a private account-book. The latter, too, is interesting, although drier in tone: in both we get to see the Renaissance gift and prestige economy in action, Dürer noting exactly the monetary value of jewellery, which seems to be accepted as an alternative currency; of the dinners he is offered; and of the drawings and paintings he gives as gifts to those he hopes might become his patrons. (I was both charmed and amused by Dürer noting he had been able to sell both a set of woodblock prints, and a set of the bad woodblock prints. What made them deserving of this epithet is now left to the imagination.) Most hoped-for patrons do not progress any further than the hope: one does not get the impression from these documents that Dürer was very timely in paying off his creditors.
These documents correspond to the years 1506 and 1520-1521, on the cusp of and very early into the Reformation; and so we see Dürer painting Virgin Marys but buying Protestant pamphlets, and writing to Erasmus to take the torch from Luther at a point in time where Luther was believed to have been assassinated. In Venice, we see Dürer using the banking services of the Imhofs, sending valuables and money to friends and family in Germany with specifically named Imhof family members; in the Low Countries he continues his relations with the Imhofs but also visits the Fuggers, dining with them, admiring the house, and sending a package more impersonally.
The Netherlands, especially the south of them that now corresponds to Belgium, are richer than Dürer’s native Germany. Except for the landgravess Margaret, none of the women mentioned get names, although many get their portrait drawn. Dürer repeatedly buys some curious objects, which I can only presume were used as painting materials at the time: buffalo horns? “In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other dealings in the Netherlands, in all my affairs with high and low, I have suffered loss…” “I spoke to the skipper that he should take heart and have hope in God, and should take thought for what was to be done.” “And I beg of you to be patient with my debt, for I think oftener of it than you do.” “And let me know if any of your loves are dead.”

Book reviews July - August

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