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cctinsleybaxter · 5 months

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2023 in Books

I need to stop bragging that I’ve got this reading thing all figured out, because man if 2023 wasn’t a year of terrible books. I liked less than half of the 37 I read and nothing quite gripped me in the way it has in years past… but to put it more optimistically I liked a full third of what I read, and the ones I liked best were a fascinating and unexpected silver lining. Without further ado:

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, trans. Brian Hooker

Tell this all to the world- and then to me. Say very softly that… she loves you not.

I read a couple of plays this year for the first time since college and liked them fine, but there’s a reason this has been adapted five million times. Everyone go watch Megamind right now.

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

Of all the found footage-inspired horror fiction I’ve read this one makes the best case for existing in its chosen medium, as a 70s UK folk rock band are interviewed about the summer they spent recording what would become their final album [thunder crashes.] It reminded me of a Tana French mystery in its language and ability to make space feel lived-in; the character writing is so strong I realized that at some point I had stopped checking the interview headings to know who was speaking. Hand unfortunately distrusts her audience to read between the lines at a few crucial moments (and ruins what would have been a perfect ending and a deeply affecting scare by gilding the lily, or, in this case, photograph), but I love that she went from seemingly by-the-numbers American YA fiction to a meticulously-researched and truly unique horror novella. Puts other writers working in the genre to shame.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

Reminiscent of the best kind of TCM suspense thriller (and was adapted into one), but could only exist as a book for the kind of narrative tactics it employs. Levin is brilliant at setting and character; I think any one of his contemporaries would have leaned into archetypes for this sort of story, and he instead distinguishes his proper nouns in subtle, clever ways that lend them the weight a noir needs. Can’t wait to read more of his stuff!

All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva

I’d like to know why this anthology got hit with what a friend has termed a pottery barn throw pillow cover + a ‘the tiny things we know to be small’ title, because the eponymous story isn’t even called that! It’s just The Names They Used for God, and is, appropriately, about two women kidnapped by a religious extremist group. High risk-high reward; I think taken at their base premise the stories could have been insufferable and are instead strange, compelling, and fantastical. There’s a methodicalness and, I don't know, lack of whimsy? to them that’s unusual for fantasy, but also an absence of any one goal or moral in the way Le Guin speaks so highly of. It made me feel the way I did reading and adoring Kelly Link in middle school, and Sachdeva has a much different style that I guess works all the better on adults. My favorite was Robert Greenman and the Mermaid.

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Lauren Hillenbrand

Someone recommended this to me via Tumblr anon over five years ago, so let me start by saying if that was you I’d like to thank you properly! This book rules! It was written in ‘99 so falls prey to a very specific kind of jingoism, but the mechanics of that are interesting in and of themself. Seabiscuit the animal is a lens through which to view turn-of-the-20th-century America written from the precipice of the 21st; his story told through the expertly-researched biographies of his owner, trainer, and jockey. Hillenbrand is not only a good pop nonfiction historian, but has been a sports writer since the 80s and I never imagined the genre could be so thrilling as I did reading her work. Horse racing is insane and no one should be riding these things btw.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

It was one of the great livery-stableman’s most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.

Wharton came from old money New York*, was deeply disillusioned with it and pined for rational (i.e., even more insane) social and political scenes, had myriad thoughts about women and gender relations, and held a love for interior design. I learned all of this after reading but it’s apparent on every page; deeply funny and perceptive, fantastic use of language, the moments where it lost me completely nothing if not interesting. What sticks with me the most are a flair for the operatic and an ability to voice both the feeling and consequences of losing oneself to imagined scenarios. Read the pink parasol scene.

*Ancient Money New York; the saying ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is apocryphally attributed to her father’s side of the family

Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl by Jonathan S. Slaght

We’d return to our camp to huddle in the freezing tent and wait for our owls in silence, like suitors agonizing over a phone that never rings.

One of the better pieces of science writing I’ve read in a long time, as Slaght frames rural communities as a quintessential part of ecology rather than a barrier to it. His style is amiable and matter-of-fact (sometimes overly so; the amount of metric GIS directions, help), but he's super engaging and clearly holds just as much compassion for people and history as he does animals and natural landscapes. The Blakiston’s fish owls he’s studying are described as unreal, with hoots so low and quiet it sounds like someone has thrown them under a blanket. You can listen to them here.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Took my breath away and surprised me in a way a book hasn’t in years. I'd read Clarke’s 2004 novel when I was maybe fourteen and had vaguely positive but mostly neutral memories of it, and Piranesi being sci-fi-fantasy that came recommended by Tiktok had me very dubious. I ended up devouring it in the way I haven’t read books since I was fourteen; more of a mystery than the suspected high fantasy, with characters I would do disservice to in trying to describe in brief. While the mystery isn’t difficult to ‘solve’ (I’d argue the book also skews young!), the story ends in a way that’s both deeply unexpected and in the only way it could have.

Honorable mentions

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, trans. Peter Washington

[Jigsaw voice] Every man has a devouring passion in his heart as every fruit has its worm.

I spent so much time running my mouth about this one on Tumblr there’s really not much left to say. I think it’s a work of genius that was physically exhausting to read, and I’m sticking it with the honorable mentions mostly because I remember The Three Musketeers being the better book. If you want to read Dumas- and you should- start with that one.

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

I would’ve liked this more had I read it in my late teens/early 20s, but I still think it’s pretty good and would absolutely recommend to anyone in that age bracket. Things that normally annoy me about philosophical first-person lit fic didn’t matter under the weight of Jon’s narratorial voice. He reminded me a little of Lynda Barry’s Maybonne in his understanding and depictions of community and family; his stream of consciousness letting contradictions sit rather than trying to explain them away (Whitehead also makes sex very prosaic and pretty-sounding while still being frank and gross about it, which is a rare talent!)

The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From by Edward Dolnik

This one fell in the rankings because the writing isn’t my favorite (think early days Vulture article rather than NYT), but I cannot stop referencing it in conversation. I want to read the whole thing to people and make them understand how truly unfathomable it is not only that every one of us is the product of 1 sperm and 1 egg, but that anyone ever figured out how that process works. When Western Europeans first started using microscopes they studied water; there were gross little bugs in there to watch and enjoy, so when semen was revealed to have its own bugs no one was shocked, but they also weren’t impressed. We would not see one enter an egg until EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-FIVE.

Killer Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh

The Malaise of First Night Nerves had gripped Peregrine, not tragically and aesthetically by the throat but, as is its habit, shamefully in the guts.

Has made it into my top 5 favorite Inspector Alleyn mysteries. I’m not keen on Marsh’s theater settings (and there are a LOT of them), but a convoluted setup made this one all the more rewarding. The final revelation as to a point of blackmail is visceral and bizarre in a way I haven’t seen from her before.

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

We all have dirty hands; we are all soiling them in the swamps of our country and in the terrifying emptiness of our brains. Every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor.

Best read in conversation with other writers, I wouldn’t recommend Fanon as the end-all-be-all introduction to communist and socialist thinking (the fact that he inadvertently describes what was going wrong with the USSR at time of writing is fascinating), but he explicitly invites that conversation and the value and impact of his work really can’t be overstated. Our points of disagreement tend to be in regard to nationalism, not his condonation of violence.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Fascinating to see how Austen was thinking about relationships near the end of her short life. I laughed to see the idea of preferring your brother-in-law’s family to your own was back in full force from my own favorite Emma, as well as an eleventh-hour ‘maybe I should ship the villains??’ My biggest issue is that, like Emma, Persuasion is written in third person limited narration, but Anne is fundamentally Good™ so doesn’t need to learn anything about herself or the world; critic Bob Irvine points out that she and her dashing, misogynistic sailor are beset rather than changed by it. That said I love a people being beset by people (concussed temptresses) places (Bath) and things (cars), and Austen's writing style is really firing on all cylinders here.

#i say 'nothing quite gripped me' but i'm still pretty fresh off some of these so remains to be seen in the long run!#(e.g i always end up wanting to swap at least one finalist and one honorable mention looking back at last year's list)#also as always these aren't ranked- just loosely grouped by date read #books #2023

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bunnyhysteria · 2 months

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so i finally read the extra I see a lot of ppl mad pressed about and go "this is why shen qingqiu is absolutely an abuse victim and binghe raped him!!"

throwin away the main story sex which is it's own can of worms and argument, it's not the one where he literally drugs him, no it's... shizun said be gentler and then just binghe didn't. that's what constitutes rape in fiction now??? honestly it's dubcon if you want to slap a problematic label on it. and I'm not sayin bingqiu isnt toxic, definitely not at a healthy point even when the story ends but. I just feel like people are graspin for straws to paint binghe as big bad evil man because shouldn't he know our very explicit means of consent in modern culture?! I'm not as caring on the antis who take their stance on shen qingqiu's nonsense because usually they make far more sense because the thing that gets me is I literally saw an exchange like "man I love it up until that point but I don't wanna throw it all away for one extra" and I'm just like. that's your tipping point? buddy it's literally just the same shit you were fed the whole time. I don't get it. why is everything else okay, but this isn't? throw the whole bag away or don't; don't eat half of it enjoying it then eat some more suddenly declaring you hate it.

but the real thing is that their dynamic strongly comes off as "if dear shizun actually wanted it to stop, it would stop". he's whiny and annoyed at best in the extra. he's not even really fightin back. "oh but the outside pressures and binghe always guilt trips him-" no, we are explicitly shown in another extra that shen qingqiu can turn him away, even if he starts wailing, even if it's sex. and you would think if he hates sex so badly with binghe, why would he in another extra again purposely initiate and say that he would gladly endure it??

as for the blood ppl are pressed about, yea it's kind of gross, but also injuries are basically nothing in this world. they're like a paper cut that just stings really badly and then heals within a day or even hour. people spew countless liters of blood and they're still around kicking next scene. in our world would anal bleeding be a very big problem? yes, yes it would. is it a problem for an immortal who can ask his friends to hit him up with spiritual juice and heal instantly? no, not at all. and I only ever recall blood twice, that being the main story scene and the wedding extra. I genuinely think the blood in this case is nothing to do with the actual story and just narrative device to play on the wedding night fetish.

and just... not only is shen qingqiu an unreliable narrator with severely tsundere tendencies, this is ultimately sung in a comedic tune. none of it is face value nor is all of it supposed to be a serious part of the story. not only is this me going "chill" but I also believe this is part of the reason why people feel justified in trying to pretzel shizun into a rape victim. because shen qingqiu is never actually giving the full picture on what's actually going on or even his on true feelings, we're left to guess to fill some parts in, and so with their own growing discomfort of the yandere binghe they signed up for, they latch onto the smallest bit of shen qingqiu rejecting him. they're obsessed specifically with the wedding extra because it's where it ends. forget how the previous shit is arguably far worse, this is where it ends. and it's not their picture perfect healthy relationship. and it bothers them so badly that they still like bingqiu. so they proclaim themselves critical, write a few essays on how it's so awful to distance themselves from the nasty bingqiu enjoyers who openly like problematic stuff and wouldn't actually care if it was rape, and then circle back around to enjoying it because they've done their moral obligation so they're now enjoying the ship in a pure and holy way.

and maybe I have a personal bone to pick because I see me and my hubby in bingqiu so much, including how everyone wants to paint him as an evil abuser despite never even meeting the man, just because we have a colourful past I'm not ashamed of. how because I'm a small and weak feminine person and because he's a large and strong masculine person. despite the fact I'm also upfront about the shit I did. like don't think heteronormativity and misogynistic ideals aren't playing a role in how binghe is always the abuser and shen qingqiu is always the victim. there's hardly ever any room for shen qingqiu is the abuser or how about they're both just two toxic clusterfucks made in heaven and hell for each other. and people just love to down play emotional control when it's shen qingqiu dishing it out, but as soon as it's binghe, the world is ending someone save shizun.

in my hot take, shen qingqiu has far more control over binghe than binghe could even dream of having over his shizun.

do I even wanna drag out the corpse of bl culture, misogyny towards women writing gay shit, or the general homophobia of how we hold gay shit to a way higher moral standard because it's already impure and immoral so there's no room for it to be down and dirty? and why are we pressed about this being our reason to throw out book 4 and not the literal slur printed on the page that was also written in the original. like the guy who says slurs is the one we're putting into the uwu baby box??? okay.

#text #mine #not tagging this anything so if it shows up in tags it does and if it doesn't it doesn't #I wish I could find that one blog I strolled that just had whiplash back snd forth between bingqiu is the worst thing ever to fanfic ideas #but also because I want to reread the posts now that I actually know what they were talkin about #like the high points of it all was just binghe has manipulated and gaslighted him into fawning all the time or smth #honestly binghe or at least bingmei is not a mastermind manipulater. he's a broken and abused child who was then tossed after being shown #his only scraps of kindness then constantly blamed and treated like a monster and chronically has his fear of abandonment triggered by guess #what. abandonment. and then of course the whole dating culture in the loose time period it's set in and how he's led to believe this is how #you treat your wife which is honestly like property. which is not helped by his shizun sharing those same ideals onto him. then you mix in #binghe has no concept of straight verses gay and literally calls shizun his wife because one is the husband and one is the wife in his mind #honestly I don't even know if binghe knows what gender is other than he's just told he's a man all his life #like yes he's fucked up and going to do fucked up shit. and you wonder why it's almost like shen qingqiu kept mentally fucking him up #like all these things I listed here are of direct consequence from how his shizun treats him and acts #give me a break on binghe is the abuser here. shen qingqiu is just getting what he's dished out. and he's fully fucking aware it.#if it's not clear I'm not arguing bingqiu is healthy. I'm arguing bingqiu is mutually toxic if not shen qingqiu holding the power.#thank you for coming to my ted talk

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