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Apr. 20th, 2020 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsIt recently struck me that our current situation is, finally, the perfect answer to the questions that people occasionally ask of a.) 'why do you keep so many books on your shelves, many of which you will possibly never read' and b.) 'why do you buy so much nonsense at used bookstores, many of which you will possibly never read.' Apparently I have actually spent all my life accidentally preparing for the possibility that I will have to rely on my own resources for reading material indefinitely!
(...this would be a more convincing argument if I was not also constantly, frantically buying more books by post. In my defense, I am supporting my local businesses.)
Anyway, relatedly, I bought Mythology 101 at a used bookstore a while back because I could not resist the seductive bright orange of its back cover, and it seemed like the time had come to finally read it:
The plot of this book, such as it is, involves a secret society of elves/leprechauns/short semi-magical people that live in the basement of the university library and occasionally offer advanced coursework to a select few lucky students. This year they are teaching Sociology 101!
All of the handpicked lucky students accept the secret magical society in the library basement without question, except for Our Hero Keith Doyle, who has more or less harassed his new friend Marcy into bringing him into the fold and decides that he will be the first - the very first! - to have casual hangs with the elves.
(Sidenote: from the back cover, I assumed -- and was grimly resigned to the fact -- that Marcy and Keith were going to end up as a couple. This is not correct! Keith soon deduces that Marcy has UST with one of the leprechauns, and, after he calls her out for her anti-short-people-hangups, is more than happy to step back and act as their matchmaker. Marcy's date with Enoch the elf is at a Labyrinth/Dark Crystal double feature and they're very happy together.)
Anyway, the elves do fine crafts, but they have no money, and as a result will have nowhere to go if the old library gets torn down! Fortunately, Keith realizes he can solve this problem by acting as a human middleman to market elf-made goods to fancy tchotchke shops around town:
Marketing was one of his skills. Hadn't he just been demonstrating it to his present disadvantage in the Student Senate? Had he not done a thorough selling job on Marcy to get him in to meet the elves in the first place? Was he not, after all, a Business Major?
... and the rest of the book is mostly about Keith dealing with all the challenges of starting a small business? Like quarterly taxes, and pressures from Big Union, and the business ethics of enchanting objects to look appealing when compared against standard commercial advertising!
(There is an antagonist, technically. He is Marci's evil ex and he is threatening to expose the elves to the outside world for ... inadequately explained reasons! Everyone blames Keith for this, but literally all Keith had to do was ask him about it and he was like 'oh lol yeah it was me,' so this was an easy problem to solve. There is also a replacement love interest once Marci hooks up with the leprechaun; she shows up 2/3 of the way through the book and Keith promptly fakes up a scholarship to help keep her in school out of elf business money, which explains why he has so much trouble paying his quarterly taxes.)
I strongly suspect that this book came about from one of those 4 AM conversations you have in college with your pals the business major and the sociology major about, ok, if you started with the working premise that elves lived in the university library, then -
And, honestly, more power to Jodi Lynn Nye. She wrote her truth! This book might not have an actual plot, or characters beyond paper-thin cutouts, but by damn it does have opinions about the logistics of starting a small business with mythological basement-dwelling partners and I respect that. (...I mean, not necessarily all of the opinions themselves. But I respect that it has them!)
(...this would be a more convincing argument if I was not also constantly, frantically buying more books by post. In my defense, I am supporting my local businesses.)
Anyway, relatedly, I bought Mythology 101 at a used bookstore a while back because I could not resist the seductive bright orange of its back cover, and it seemed like the time had come to finally read it:
The plot of this book, such as it is, involves a secret society of elves/leprechauns/short semi-magical people that live in the basement of the university library and occasionally offer advanced coursework to a select few lucky students. This year they are teaching Sociology 101!
All of the handpicked lucky students accept the secret magical society in the library basement without question, except for Our Hero Keith Doyle, who has more or less harassed his new friend Marcy into bringing him into the fold and decides that he will be the first - the very first! - to have casual hangs with the elves.
(Sidenote: from the back cover, I assumed -- and was grimly resigned to the fact -- that Marcy and Keith were going to end up as a couple. This is not correct! Keith soon deduces that Marcy has UST with one of the leprechauns, and, after he calls her out for her anti-short-people-hangups, is more than happy to step back and act as their matchmaker. Marcy's date with Enoch the elf is at a Labyrinth/Dark Crystal double feature and they're very happy together.)
Anyway, the elves do fine crafts, but they have no money, and as a result will have nowhere to go if the old library gets torn down! Fortunately, Keith realizes he can solve this problem by acting as a human middleman to market elf-made goods to fancy tchotchke shops around town:
Marketing was one of his skills. Hadn't he just been demonstrating it to his present disadvantage in the Student Senate? Had he not done a thorough selling job on Marcy to get him in to meet the elves in the first place? Was he not, after all, a Business Major?
... and the rest of the book is mostly about Keith dealing with all the challenges of starting a small business? Like quarterly taxes, and pressures from Big Union, and the business ethics of enchanting objects to look appealing when compared against standard commercial advertising!
(There is an antagonist, technically. He is Marci's evil ex and he is threatening to expose the elves to the outside world for ... inadequately explained reasons! Everyone blames Keith for this, but literally all Keith had to do was ask him about it and he was like 'oh lol yeah it was me,' so this was an easy problem to solve. There is also a replacement love interest once Marci hooks up with the leprechaun; she shows up 2/3 of the way through the book and Keith promptly fakes up a scholarship to help keep her in school out of elf business money, which explains why he has so much trouble paying his quarterly taxes.)
I strongly suspect that this book came about from one of those 4 AM conversations you have in college with your pals the business major and the sociology major about, ok, if you started with the working premise that elves lived in the university library, then -
And, honestly, more power to Jodi Lynn Nye. She wrote her truth! This book might not have an actual plot, or characters beyond paper-thin cutouts, but by damn it does have opinions about the logistics of starting a small business with mythological basement-dwelling partners and I respect that. (...I mean, not necessarily all of the opinions themselves. But I respect that it has them!)
no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 08:32 pm (UTC)T: "But what if we need the space for something -- "
M: "We DO need the space for something! Books!"
....sadly, since the cabinets themselves are now all full of nonperishable food, I can't do like some NYC friends did and take the doors off and use those as shelving space.