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Mar. 3rd, 2009 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsWoke up this morning, stood up to go brush my teeth, felt blood rush away from my head and legs start wobbling, realized rapidly that the likelihood of fainting if I continued to stand was embarrassingly high, dived for computer, collapsed onto couch, e-mailed work to say I would be late and fell back asleep.
That was several hours ago; now I am awake and feeling much better! Have read e-mail from boss telling me to STAY HOME, feeling super guilty anyways because I am now perfectly capable of working and pose a minimal risk of collapsing on the subway. Although I suppose I have not really taken any sick days in the six months I worked there, so maybe I should not feel so guilty as that for taking one before I leave. I am not used to this, though! I have not really taken a sick day since middle school; my illnesses tend to be of the common cold, 'suck it up and deal' variety. Or they fall conveniently on weekends.
ANYWAYS. I am rambling. I should stop that. And I have a book to talk about! Barbara Hambly's A Free Man of Color was handed to me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
agonistes last time she was in the city; she ordered me to read as much of it as I could before the end of the weekend when she would have to take it back to Denver to return to silveraspen. And I could have finished it, too, if everyone who was there that weekend had not been so busy being awesome and distractiony! I liked what I read enough to pick it up from the library, although it took me a while to get around to reading the second half; when I did, I wondered why I had waited so long.
The book is a mystery novel, but that's not what makes it excellent - it's the careful depiction of the complexities of class and race New Orleans society in the 1800s that makes this so strong. Benjamin January is a free man of color; his skin is dark, which sets him apart from his light-skinned mother and sister, who are cultured upper-class mistresses of wealthy men and thus almost able to ignore the basic rights they do not have. Every character is strongly drawn, and nobody - sympathetic or not - gets off the hook of complicity in the system.
So yes, I was impressed with it all the way to the end . . . and then the end surprised me with GIBBERING GLEE that has nothing to do with high literary quality but everything to do with AWESOMENESS. If there is a book that is NOT improved by the addition of SURPRISE SWORDFIGHTING CROSS-DRESSING LESBIANS, I have not yet come across it!
Well played, Barbara Hambly; I will definitely be reading more of these.
That was several hours ago; now I am awake and feeling much better! Have read e-mail from boss telling me to STAY HOME, feeling super guilty anyways because I am now perfectly capable of working and pose a minimal risk of collapsing on the subway. Although I suppose I have not really taken any sick days in the six months I worked there, so maybe I should not feel so guilty as that for taking one before I leave. I am not used to this, though! I have not really taken a sick day since middle school; my illnesses tend to be of the common cold, 'suck it up and deal' variety. Or they fall conveniently on weekends.
ANYWAYS. I am rambling. I should stop that. And I have a book to talk about! Barbara Hambly's A Free Man of Color was handed to me by
agonistes last time she was in the city; she ordered me to read as much of it as I could before the end of the weekend when she would have to take it back to Denver to return to silveraspen. And I could have finished it, too, if everyone who was there that weekend had not been so busy being awesome and distractiony! I liked what I read enough to pick it up from the library, although it took me a while to get around to reading the second half; when I did, I wondered why I had waited so long. The book is a mystery novel, but that's not what makes it excellent - it's the careful depiction of the complexities of class and race New Orleans society in the 1800s that makes this so strong. Benjamin January is a free man of color; his skin is dark, which sets him apart from his light-skinned mother and sister, who are cultured upper-class mistresses of wealthy men and thus almost able to ignore the basic rights they do not have. Every character is strongly drawn, and nobody - sympathetic or not - gets off the hook of complicity in the system.
So yes, I was impressed with it all the way to the end . . . and then the end surprised me with GIBBERING GLEE that has nothing to do with high literary quality but everything to do with AWESOMENESS. If there is a book that is NOT improved by the addition of SURPRISE SWORDFIGHTING CROSS-DRESSING LESBIANS, I have not yet come across it!
Well played, Barbara Hambly; I will definitely be reading more of these.
