reading wednesday
Jan. 23rd, 2019 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sea_changedTongues of Serpents, by Naomi Novik. Kulingile! Kulingile and Demane! Probably other things happened in this book but this is what I walked away with; they broke my heart and then put it back together again in the most wonderful way.
I'll admit overall though that this was not one of my favorites of the series; I spent significant stretches of it fairly bored, which is not an emotion I usually feel reading these books. There wasn't the excitement or interest of another dragon culture, I think, and while the sea serpent smugglers could've been great they came out rather flat, which again I think was tied to the fact that the creatures didn't have personalities of their own and there was no real dynamic between them and the dragons, or various human group and dragon group combinations; the same was obviously true of the bunyips. There was none of the intrigue of meeting the Chinese or Tswana dragons (or the Inca; I am most of the way through Crucible of Gold at the moment and loving it).
The Fantasy of Feminist History, by Joan Scott. Ah, Joan Scott. It has the disjointed feel of a collection of talks and essays, which it is, though there's plenty of interesting stuff. The psychoanalytic side is surprisingly (though thankfully) downplayed, and her better points seem largely absent of any Freudian (or more appropriately Lacanian) influence.
I'll admit overall though that this was not one of my favorites of the series; I spent significant stretches of it fairly bored, which is not an emotion I usually feel reading these books. There wasn't the excitement or interest of another dragon culture, I think, and while the sea serpent smugglers could've been great they came out rather flat, which again I think was tied to the fact that the creatures didn't have personalities of their own and there was no real dynamic between them and the dragons, or various human group and dragon group combinations; the same was obviously true of the bunyips. There was none of the intrigue of meeting the Chinese or Tswana dragons (or the Inca; I am most of the way through Crucible of Gold at the moment and loving it).
The Fantasy of Feminist History, by Joan Scott. Ah, Joan Scott. It has the disjointed feel of a collection of talks and essays, which it is, though there's plenty of interesting stuff. The psychoanalytic side is surprisingly (though thankfully) downplayed, and her better points seem largely absent of any Freudian (or more appropriately Lacanian) influence.
