Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-10-26 01:28 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-10-26 01:28 pm
Bibliophilia strikes again!
I really need to stop buying books faster than I can read them. FFS. If it turns out that the cheap surface-mail option for shipping books from France is a hoax, I don't know what I'm going to do--probably corner people on Barricade Day and strongarm them into smuggling my books back into the US in their luggage.
However, "I need to stop buying books" is a general statement. In the specific case of this beautiful edition of Les Travailleurs de la Mer, I regret nothing. 8€ and free shipping for a beautiful beautiful edition of a Hugo book I haven't read yet, with illustrations by Gustave Doré? I regret nothing.
Reading Quatrevingt-Treize right now. I'm right at the beginning of the Paris section, the chapter where Robespierre and Danton and Marat are hanging out in the back room of a café. Is it just me or is this book really geeky? It's like the Friends of the ABC in Les Mis were preliminary character sketches for what Hugo wanted to do in Quatrevingt-Treize, and now he's expanding on those ideas and indulging his historical geeky side. At the same time it's very Hugo: the characters are absolutes, without coming off as stereotypes.
Or at least, thus is my impression so far. I still have 250 more pages to read.
In other "currently reading" news, Eugene Sue has one up over Hugo: when someone in Mysteries of Paris is blatantly someone else in disguise, or there's a "X is Y's long-lost daughter!" plot twist that's easy to figure out, Sue pulls a "the reader will no doubt have guessed by now..." at exactly the moment it becomes obvious, instead of keeping up the pretense for hundreds and hundreds of pages god damn you Hugo. Kind of like the Jane-Rochester romance in Jane Eyre: Bronte knows that neither her heroine nor her readers are dumb, and only gives them one Juicy Juicy Subtext And UST Up The Wazoo scene before it's made explicit. I mean, there's something to be said for suspense, but there's also a lot to be said for not dragging it out too long.
However, "I need to stop buying books" is a general statement. In the specific case of this beautiful edition of Les Travailleurs de la Mer, I regret nothing. 8€ and free shipping for a beautiful beautiful edition of a Hugo book I haven't read yet, with illustrations by Gustave Doré? I regret nothing.
Reading Quatrevingt-Treize right now. I'm right at the beginning of the Paris section, the chapter where Robespierre and Danton and Marat are hanging out in the back room of a café. Is it just me or is this book really geeky? It's like the Friends of the ABC in Les Mis were preliminary character sketches for what Hugo wanted to do in Quatrevingt-Treize, and now he's expanding on those ideas and indulging his historical geeky side. At the same time it's very Hugo: the characters are absolutes, without coming off as stereotypes.
Or at least, thus is my impression so far. I still have 250 more pages to read.
In other "currently reading" news, Eugene Sue has one up over Hugo: when someone in Mysteries of Paris is blatantly someone else in disguise, or there's a "X is Y's long-lost daughter!" plot twist that's easy to figure out, Sue pulls a "the reader will no doubt have guessed by now..." at exactly the moment it becomes obvious, instead of keeping up the pretense for hundreds and hundreds of pages god damn you Hugo. Kind of like the Jane-Rochester romance in Jane Eyre: Bronte knows that neither her heroine nor her readers are dumb, and only gives them one Juicy Juicy Subtext And UST Up The Wazoo scene before it's made explicit. I mean, there's something to be said for suspense, but there's also a lot to be said for not dragging it out too long.