skygiants | (no subject)

So at first I felt a little bit like a bad lit-nerd for not having read Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler.

And now I feel a bit like a bad lit-nerd for not loving If on a winter's night a traveler?

I mean, yes, reading meta as novel, that's cool! And there are certainly some bits that spoke to me, that made me go, yes, that's how I read, that's what it means. And there were other parts that were numinous and beautiful in and of themselves. But there are plenty of other bits that didn't and weren't, and -- man, I don't know. I rebel against the idea of the 'perfect' female reader as a mysterious, unattainable object of desire full of secrets. I rebel against the division of the desirable passive female reader and the undesirable active female reader.

And I think maybe I just rebel against the whole characterization of the act of reading as bizarre, mystical, inherently frustrating. That may be what Calvino feels, when he sits down and digs deep into his soul about how he feels about books, but to me it seems like a strangely one-sided portrayal. The act of reading is numinous to me exactly because it's so ordinary, and so necessary. A day feels wrong to me if I haven't picked up a book at any point. And I didn't feel that part of reading, that comfort and joy, from If on a winter's night a traveler. I get that part of the point is to frustrate the reader. But I didn't just feel frustrated, I spent a lot of the time feeling alienated.

I'm glad I read it, though! I like being able to read all the excellent If on a winter's night a traveler Yuletide fics.

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Ew.

What do you think of Byatt's _Possession_?

I remember liking it when I read it, but that was over ten years ago and I don't know how much I trust teenaged Becca's taste.

(I also remember spending a lot of time thinking that authors should never show us their characters' poetry, because it rarely ends well. Not that the poetry was terrible! But all the same.)

I last read it in college. The stuff with the Americans is pretty awkward but otherwise it held up pretty well, though at the time I was falling in love for the first time so I was probably predisposed to it. But I have zero poetry sense.

(Oooooh, it's FINALLY out as an ebook! Woo! Time for another change-of-life-stage re-read!)

I should probably reread, I'm curious what I would think of it now! And I've liked some other Byatt I've read since.

Oh, agreed on all of this. It's a book you want to like because the idea is interesting, but the narrator creeped me out every time women came up. And I don't mind Every Reader characters who are white middle-class guys as much when the author is only trying to say that there are things in white middle-class guys' reading experiences that are typical, but I find it off-putting when I can't tell if the author noticed at all that his Every Reader *was* a white middle-class guy.

I've actually been super-reluctant to read anything else of hers, partly because they sound much more mainstream and partly because I have this Thing about having read One Perfect Book by an author and not wanting to mess with that.

I did read "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye", which has a perfect opening sentence, and reviews of the new one, _Ragnarok_, sound interesting, so we'll see.

Exactly! And like, okay, fine, you are clearly assuming a reader who is Like You, but if that's what you're doing then don't expect me to identify with the Reader! Your experience: not universal.

Hah, that's the exact opposite of me -- as soon as I find an author I like I tend to assume the Pokemon attitude. Gotta catch 'em all!

. . . that is indeed an amazing opening sentence. Well played, A.S. Byatt.

Especially if you're about to turn around and say "and incidentally, women? Super weird, amirite?."

ISN'T IT SEXY HOW THEY'RE SO MYSTERIOUS THOUGH


damn

I love it when you read books I am planning to read, because you always pick out the things that are going to hit me wrong, and then I am forewarned! I've read the first chapter or so of If on a winter's night a traveler, and liked it immensely, but I'm definitely having to read it through a White Dude lens. (On another note, have you read Invisible Cities? I don't know if it's actually better than If on a winter's night a traveler, or just that it has a less cohesive theory, or even simply that it's about cities rather than reading, but I am absolutely loving it.)

You are Kate Beaton and I claim my five pounds.

Usually I do too; I think it's because it feels so unlikely that anything else of hers will hit me in just the same way, and I found this book at such a formative age that I feel really possessive (heh) about it.

I have not read Invisible Cities, but I definitely mean to! I think because it is a topic that's slightly less intensely personal to me than reading, I will have a much harder time getting around the "but that's not MY meta!" factor.

A little late, but I would like to second everything in this entire post and comments about If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. A person (a woman!) that I respect gave it to me, and I tried and I tried for her sake but I eventually started skimming, and finally I was like Mr. Calvino I concede that you have a nice light hand with prose, as with pastry, but women do not have their origin in you, or God, mixing up equal measures of Mystery + Cunt. There are a few other ingredients.

Mostly though I am commenting to say that I believe A.S. Byatt is one of the best writers in the world and the history of the world and if you want to talk about her I could literally talk for days, but Possession has all her worst traits in it and is probably best reserved until you have got used to her.

A lot of people I respect really like it, and there is definitely a lot to like and respect in it! Buuuut the stumbling blocks for me are too high, I am allergic to the standard postmodern Recipe For Woman.

Where would you recommend to begin with for Byatt, as an adult? Though I warn you it may be too late; even though I don't remember Possession very well, my vague impressions of it are still sort of lodged as Byatt-ness in my head.

The Little Black Book of Stories.* Or The Matisse Stories or Elementals. Her short stories are appallingly perfect sometimes. "Morpho Eugenia" in the pair of novellas Angels and Insects is a favorite of mine. As to novels, the quartet that starts with the Virgin in The Garden is so finely done that it makes me angry in the "how dare you set the bar this high" way.

* This one made me stand my high school boyfriend up on a date because I was really early so I went into the library nearby and it was on a Staff Recommendation shelf and then it was an hour past our meeting time. It was also the book that convinced me for the first time that a woman could write as well as a man. She is so merciless and so fucking good.