Reading Wednesday 22/12
Dec. 22nd, 2021 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livRecently read: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. (c) Susanna Clarke 2020, Pub Bloomsbury 2020; ISBN 978-1-5266-2242-6
I bought this as a new hardback soon after it came out, because I'm exceptionally excited by a new Susanna Clarke and because lots of my friends were raving about it. I didn't settle down to read it for ages, but then I messed up a pandemic safety decision and ended up waiting alone in my partners' house for several hours. (Basically Judith was in a panto, I'd automatically assumed I wouldn't go because we haven't been doing indoor theatre at all, but forgot to factor in that if the whole family was going there was no point me staying away. Anyway, I missed the show, so I read a book while waiting for everybody to come home.)
Anyway, it's just as good a book as I hoped, really absorbing.
Piranesi is a sort of reverse portal fantasy. It opens in a fantasy world, and the central mystery is about how the characters came to be in it, namely by discovering a way to travel from our world to the House. In some ways it is a bit like McGuire's Wayward Children set, exploring what really happens to people who travel into a fantasy world that is in some ways more romantic than ours. Although I don't get on well with the McGuire.
Like a lot of readers I was more excited about the earlier part where the House is mysterious and fantastical, than about the later section revealing how an eccentric and somewhat cultish academic discovered the portals and lured people into the House/world. The descriptions are absolutely amazing, it really does feel slightly mystical, even numinous, and also scary.
It's definitely interesting to explore how the experience of travelling to another world affected the various characters after their return. But the resolution to the mystery is really somewhat grim. I also found the ending a bit unsatisfying; although I understood, on some fantasy-logic level, how characters from this world transited into the House, I didn't really feel like anything was resolved, the story just came to a stop.
What I most appreciate about Piranesi is that it's simultaneously incredibly lyrical and incredibly readable. It's like a word-painting, and honestly there's not that much action, but it never felt like an effort to read, it's not pretentious at all. It feels like every word is doing a carefully chosen job.
Today I had my booster. I still think, even post-omicron, that focusing on boosters was the wrong policy; we should have started with first doses for children and the poorer parts of the world. But given that the mistakes have already been made and we have a highly transmissible, immune escape variant everywhere, I personally feel a lot safer now that I've had my mRNA booster. (I was AZ/AZ/Moderna.) In order to get it I neededghoti_mhic_uait to give me a lift to a small town 15 miles away, because this million boosters a day programme is a bit of a mess. But when I turned up it was all very efficient, big spacious sports hall, loads of marshalls, straight through to a vaccination station and straight out again, bam.
I currently feel tired, nothing worse than that, and I'm not even convinced I feel more tired than I did yesterday. It's been a long, dark, lonely autumn, and that's as likely as the vaccine to be the culprit.
I bought this as a new hardback soon after it came out, because I'm exceptionally excited by a new Susanna Clarke and because lots of my friends were raving about it. I didn't settle down to read it for ages, but then I messed up a pandemic safety decision and ended up waiting alone in my partners' house for several hours. (Basically Judith was in a panto, I'd automatically assumed I wouldn't go because we haven't been doing indoor theatre at all, but forgot to factor in that if the whole family was going there was no point me staying away. Anyway, I missed the show, so I read a book while waiting for everybody to come home.)
Anyway, it's just as good a book as I hoped, really absorbing.
Piranesi is a sort of reverse portal fantasy. It opens in a fantasy world, and the central mystery is about how the characters came to be in it, namely by discovering a way to travel from our world to the House. In some ways it is a bit like McGuire's Wayward Children set, exploring what really happens to people who travel into a fantasy world that is in some ways more romantic than ours. Although I don't get on well with the McGuire.
Like a lot of readers I was more excited about the earlier part where the House is mysterious and fantastical, than about the later section revealing how an eccentric and somewhat cultish academic discovered the portals and lured people into the House/world. The descriptions are absolutely amazing, it really does feel slightly mystical, even numinous, and also scary.
It's definitely interesting to explore how the experience of travelling to another world affected the various characters after their return. But the resolution to the mystery is really somewhat grim. I also found the ending a bit unsatisfying; although I understood, on some fantasy-logic level, how characters from this world transited into the House, I didn't really feel like anything was resolved, the story just came to a stop.
What I most appreciate about Piranesi is that it's simultaneously incredibly lyrical and incredibly readable. It's like a word-painting, and honestly there's not that much action, but it never felt like an effort to read, it's not pretentious at all. It feels like every word is doing a carefully chosen job.
Today I had my booster. I still think, even post-omicron, that focusing on boosters was the wrong policy; we should have started with first doses for children and the poorer parts of the world. But given that the mistakes have already been made and we have a highly transmissible, immune escape variant everywhere, I personally feel a lot safer now that I've had my mRNA booster. (I was AZ/AZ/Moderna.) In order to get it I needed
ghoti_mhic_uait to give me a lift to a small town 15 miles away, because this million boosters a day programme is a bit of a mess. But when I turned up it was all very efficient, big spacious sports hall, loads of marshalls, straight through to a vaccination station and straight out again, bam. I currently feel tired, nothing worse than that, and I'm not even convinced I feel more tired than I did yesterday. It's been a long, dark, lonely autumn, and that's as likely as the vaccine to be the culprit.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-12-22 09:59 pm (UTC)Also, go getting your booster. Quebec is currently prioritising children and over-60s so I will not be in line for one for a bit yet, but this seems exactly the right decision to me.
(Firefox is being annoyingly weird at me again so apologies if this comes out funny.)
(no subject)
Date: 2021-12-22 10:33 pm (UTC)I think Tony is also AZ/AZ/Moderna and so far he has a sore arm and slept for an afternoon. But then, he has just finished with work after an exceptionally difficult year, so why wouldn't he sleep for an afternoon?
(I'm J&Jx2/Pfizer and had almost no reaction to any of them)
And yes, in a better world the vaccination effort would be a lot more first doses worldwide, and obviously I have a selfish interest in the under-12 cohort here getting at least a first dose. But given the choices we have as individuals, taking up the vaccinations we can get is still the best plan.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-12-23 02:45 pm (UTC)From what I've read, getting a Moderna or Pfizer booster is ESPECIALLY important against Omicron for people whose initial vaccines were AZ/AZ
(no subject)
Date: 2021-12-28 12:13 am (UTC)(following you for similar tastes in books, BTW--I don't expect a follow back)