Reading Rambo

Penguin sent me this book unsolicited, perhaps because my blog speaks so frequently of Victorian literature, murder, women, and disaster stories that it seemed a safe bet I would like it. And I did . I thought at first that Jane Steele was just a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies approach to Jane Eyre , but where Jane is a murderer. It is SORT of like that, except Jane Eyre is mostly just referenced frequently throughout it as the heroine's favorite book, so her life is more inspired by it than it being a take-off of the direct text. Inspired by it indeed! Jane Steele's life parallels the other Jane's in most ways, including her disgusting cousin at the beginning, her time in a loathsome school, and her work as governess for a mysterious man's ward. It reminded more of Christopher Moore's Lamb than anything else, as much like Lamb and its "differenty" take on Jesus's life, Jane Steele's story mirrors Jane Eyre's, except for some very...

I recently saw the musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder , which is based on the Criterion Collection film Kind Hearts and Coronets (starring a young Alec Guinness), which is in turn LOOSELY based on a 1907 novel named Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal . The musical was fairly adorable and twee, but not my favorite ever. AND YET, this morning at 6 AM I found myself on AO3 reading the scant offerings fanfic writers have decided to dedicate to it. I have thought about it and decided this is entirely due to the dresses of the 1900s.   From the only number in the show anyone cares about: 'I've Decided to Marry You' There are TWO main women in the show, and the way their rivalry is decided is delightful (I shall be reading the book to see what happens there). They also both have fantastic dresses. At this point, it seems if you put a lady in a dress anywhere from the 1870s to 1910, I will watch whatever she's in. Unless that woman is Keira K...

Carmilla , by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, is 108 pages long, Victorian, and about a lady vampire. I've been hearing about this book for a long time, but kept putting it off because A) Didn't sound like it'd be good B) I kept thinking it was 18th century and C) I didn't really feel like reading another thing where a lesbian's a life-sucking creature out to defile your daughters (I mean, only the latter part's even accurate). But then the webseries Carmilla came out, and Tumblr wouldn't stop talking about it because it had lesbians and that's pretty much all that site needs, so I finally sat down and watched all of season 1. And you know what, it's not great. But Laura, the lead, is so cute and Natasha Negovanlis who plays Carmilla is so much fun to watch be grumpy that I've started watching it all over again. So it made me want to read the book.  The book's kind of different from this Carmilla was published in 1872, which predates Bram S...

I've talked a lot this year about how Dickens was kind of an asshole but I still love him, only not so much him the person as the words, THE WORDS that flow from his blessèd pen. Bleak House is his best book. No, I haven't read David Copperfield . Or Tale of Two Cities . Or Little Dorrit . Or...others. But it's still his best book. The way I came to Dickens is in high school I made myself read Oliver Twist , because I loved the character Nancy in the musical Oliver ridiculous amounts (she sings a song called 'Oom-Pah-Pah,' people) and thought the book would flesh her out more. Ehhhhhh! Wrong! Oliver Twist isn't just Dickens: it's EARLY Dickens, which means black and white portrayals of people and EXTRA flat female characters. Poehler's not putting up with your bullshit, Dickens I wrote a paper on Nancy using an idea I stole from a Nabokov novel, saying that because characters in the Oliver Twist world exist on the good or bad side, and she ...

In that fragmentary firmament which Charles Dickens called The Mystery of Edwin Drood the stars shine on, and I may still fix my gaze upon them, seeking for the letters I have yet to learn. Richard M. Baker...is a giant nerd. And I love him. In 1948, he published a series of essays called The Drood Murder Case: Five Studies in Dickens's Edwin Drood , which I have just finished after having it out from the library for eight months (to exactly no one's surprise, no one else requested it during this time). He basically describes himself as a giant Dickens dork who really loves Edwin Drood and so he researched the shit out of it. And oh. Yes he did. For those unaware, The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Dickens's last novel and only half of it was completed when Dickens died, leaving almost no clues as to the ending. This has prompted many scholars to try to piece it together (WHAT'S THE MYSTERY NOW, DICKENS), write books, write novel-form continuations, AND, of cours...

When I was at home over Christmas, I found my copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles . What I'd forgotten was what was done to the cover: I was in some college class, and a friend said "She looks too sad" and stuck that on there. So I promptly secured it with Scotch tape and it is never coming off. Because it's the best part of the book. When I was going through my Meryl Streep stage, I very very much wanted to watch The French Lieutenant's Woman, because it looked like it would have all kinds of delightful shippy things in it, and oh what fun. But obvs I had to read the book first, so I got it, read it, was none too into it, BUT Fowles quotes quite a bit of Hardy's poetry in it.  So I decided to finally read Tess because of that. And then I found out that Hardy was a big Mr. SadPants, which is not so much my thing. So he's all "And then Tess made yet another accidental bad decision which took two seconds but had a monstrous and terrible imp...

Aw, you guys, it's Dickens' 200th birthday. Back when I tried harder on here, I wrote two posts concerning him. They are: Dickens vs Austen Cage Match Dickens and My Kind of Overblown Prejudice Against Him Since I rarely go to linked posts, I'm going to assume you won't, so I can with impunity just repost a line or two from those. Namely, that  Dickens’ particular brand of hypocritical asshattery came about because, despite his constant assertions of how wonderful the Victorian nuclear family can be, he leaves his wife in 1858 and takes up with – dear God – an  actress .  I love his books. I do. But he's one of many authors I would have zero interest in meeting. We could time travel back to Victorian days and you could say "Alice! By George [for we would be awesome and adapt to the language], Dickens is directly down the street! Let us go hear him expound upon matters and some such things!" And I would say "If I wished to hear someone I don...

Do you ever have people whose stuff you read online and you're secretly like "If you knew me we would be BEST FRIENDS but for now I'm just going to quietly stalk you and not comment on your stuff because then I might go overboard and who wants that really certainly not me"? Yeah, no, me neither. So it's Friday. A scant 11 days until the dreaded end of January where book reading trends for the year will perhaps be set, and I STILL HAVE NOT FINISHED A BOOK. This is getting ridiculous. I did, however, start two more. Yes, I understand. But I like  starting books. And I hate the middle of books. And I keep reaching the middle of books. This is me today (and I suspect a number of you): So blame the subject matter for today on that if you will. This week I was on TruTV's site, reading about serial killers, as y'do, and when I got to the Scottish 'Bible John' , there was a little paragraph discussing other Scottish killers. Among them was Madelei...

I'm going to briefly go into love for authors as people despite one not knowing them, BUT FIRST, I want to relate something my friend Stephanie said, because it's one of those times you realize your friends know you better than you know yourself. CASE IN POINT being that today I bought a drawing of the Doctor and River Song from Doctor Who  -- yeah, a drawing -- and I sent Stephanie a link to it and this is how the conversation went: Stephanie : I feel like this is the beginning of the end. Me : beginning of the end of what! S : the beginning of the end of your obsession. Me : why! [I don't use question marks when I'm indignant] S : Because it always starts winding down after you purchase the most ridiculous item. And then I was shamed into silence. Because that is an accurate statement. NOW. Authors. I tend to ignore them if they're still alive, and sometimes I avoid as much biographical detail about them as I can, because they carry with them an air of douchin...

I get disappointed when people don't update daily. This is mainly because my job involves a lot of sitting around trying to find things to read. So perhaps others are busy doing "productive" things that aren't blogging, but because I can only truly see things from my own perspective, I am now blogging despite not having any clear subject about which to blog. What about the Brontes! Let's discuss them, oh let's do! (and no, I'm not umlauting them -- deal) I think my second blog post here compared the Bronte family to sea turtles, so rather than do that tired old thing again, here're my uninformed opinions on the three sisters who managed to remain not-dead for longer than the rest of the family: 1. Charlotte . Ah yes. Charlotte. Was I obsessed with her at age 16? Yes. Did I have make believe conversations with her? Yes. Did I read anything of hers beyond Jane Eyre ? Of course not, I'm not a weirdo English major.  But for reals, I tried Shirley  ...

Someone put Reese's Pieces in the reception candy bowl. Why would they do that? Of course I'm going to eat them all. Of COURSE. As I typed that, I accidentally swallowed one whole. Not really a choking hazard, but not pleasant. SO. Halloween! The day we're supposed to be all into scary things, only I do not like being scared, so boo to that. I'm very Let's Meditate on Happy, Good Things and Not Force Our Minds into Dark Places, which I guess could be an excuse for being a total wuss, but it's a BIBLICAL excuse, so bam (that's Philippians 4:8, for you heathens). Let's see, candy, scary things, what Halloweenish thing hasn't been covered so far? Oh yeah -- VICTORIAN LESBIAN GHOST NOVELS. Sarah Waters is the ultimate in respected ladies-loving-ladies authors, because her stuff is awesome. I usually like it because it takes place in Victorian times, and therefore has ladies bein' all "Oh, my stays seem to be a bit tight; would you loosen the...

Reviewing. I suck at it. Other people are good at it, and I respect that. While I'm slightly bummed that my book blog is rarely about specific books beyond "*insert title here* is kickass and you all should read it" or "This way sucks," if I tried to make it just book reviews, it would be tremendously boring, no one would read my blog and I'd sit in a corner crying while trying to come up with hilarious things to say on facebook. I'm sure if I sat down and looked at the format of people's reviews, I could synthesize some stuff and come up with a non-horrible way of doing it, but 1) that sounds boring, 2) too much effort, 3) while I appreciate other people reviewing, I don't think I could do it without sounding like everyone else. Boo. With this in mind, I want to talk about George Eliot. How do we all feel about George, or Georgie, as I'm sure she would totally prefer? (not really) My feelings sway depending on how much frustration she is ...

Brief Thoughts About The Old Curiosity Shop Dickens uses many words, but English vocab needs to survive, damnit, and I applaud his efforts. So apparently they used to throw dead kittens at criminals. Thank you for that bit of disgusting historical knowledge, sir. I love Richard Swiveller. I feel like people are not so much making this a battle between Dickens and Austen as reviewing the book they read. Maybe that’s how we’re supposed to do it? But screw that – it’s Dickens vs. Austen cage match time. I have Things to Say about both authors, and I do not pussyfoot around when it comes to picking sides. HEED THIS, ALL YE. Dickens                                                             Austen Has lots o...

Like many people, I have a tendency to simplify things in my world through generalizations. Generalizations are awesome. If I were younger and more crass, I might even say they were the shit. If we didn’t have generalizations, every single topic would take hours to go through in our minds because there are so very, very many exceptions to absolutely everything. With this in mind, I’m going to talk about Dickens. I’m going to be writing about him soon for the Austen vs. Dickens thrown-down that is currently sweeping the interwebs, but for right now I’d like to discuss his douchiness. My one thing I’d like those touchy people out there to bear in mind is that I am well aware that I’ve never met Mr. Dickens, and I do not know the exact circumstances of his mid-19 th century situation. Could there have been mitigating circumstances to alleviate his douchiness? Yeah, probably. But I’m still going to be pissed off about it. For those who have not read an excessive amount of his works (read:...

You’re a 20something girl who says she likes to read. Maybe you majored in English and’re now working in a completely unrelated field, because honestly, what real use is it being an English major? The point is, chances are you’ve read books by at least two of the three Bront ë sisters who made it to mature adulthood. That family reminds me of sea turtles. Sea turtles lay a bunch of eggs because they know that not many of them’re gonna make it, what with crafty seagulls and other seashore animals I’m not going to research right now pilfering their eggs or eating the babies as they try to scurry to the ocean. According to Wikipedia, which I just accessed (and which confirms my seagull idea), approximately one sea turtle out of a hundred survives. The Bront ë parents started out with six children. Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne. I would like to point out that they were born between 1814 and 1820, making their mother a saint and their father the devil (nah, he wa...