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Feb. 23rd, 2012 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreIn which I have trouble with books:
The thing about The Monk is that it's not really a breakfast book. I mean, I am enjoying it. We have yet to get to the Satanism and torture and all, but there has been a pregnant nun (who was taken away for punishment - we haven't seen her since, so I don't know yet what that punishment is) and the titular monk (Ambrosio) has discovered that his best monk friend (Rosario) is actually a woman (Matilda) who crossdressed as a monk because she's in love with him and wants to be close to him. Which means that we have to have pages and pages of Ambrosio trying to send her away for the good of their collective souls but she's so beautiful and might kill herself and she was his best friend when he thought she was a guy and also she posed for the picture of the Madonna that Ambrosio has really inappropriate thoughts about. See, this is what happens when people are raised in monasteries and not allowed to go outside till they're 30. Currently, Ambrosio has been unexpectedly bitten by a snake and Rosario/Matilda is tending to him. Wikipedia tells me that Matilda is secretly a witch, so I imagine Ambrosio will get better.
So it's fun, but it's not a breakfast book. Mostly because of the capitalization, which I have yet to figure out any sort of rhyme or reason for. It's like Matthew Lewis just threw some random capital letters at the pages and let them stick where they would. I can deal with the kind of capitalization where the author capitalizes words s/he wishes to emphasize but if that's what's going on here, Mr Lewis must want to emphasize practically everything. Also, he often capitalizes pronouns and I don't have the mental energy at breakfast to stop and remember that he's not talking about God and instead is just referring to the main character. It's oddly tiring.
Thus, this morning I ended up poking around my kindle to find something that would serve as a breakfast book (not boring, haven't read it too recently, not too mentally taxing, nothing icky). And succumbed to my periodic temptation to poke at The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu. Every once in a while, I remember that I put that on my kindle and I try to read it. And the thing is, Sax Rohmer could write. The first chapter or so (as far as I've ever gotten) is very exciting, in a pulp adventure sort of way, and I love pulp adventure. Nayland Smith bounds into his friend Dr Petrie's rooms and immediately turns out the lights, all Final-Problem-airguns, shows him where he's been shot with an arrow dipped in cobra venom, and then whisks him away to try and prevent a hideous murder. I mean, that's pretty thrilling stuff, right? You'd be intrigued. But then - horrible racism.* Before we ever even get to meet Dr Fu Manchu. I would like to meet him. I love diabolical genius evil masterminds anyway, and I'm fully prepared to root for him over Nayland Smith, who is a horrible racist. Anyone who gets nicknamed the Lord of Strange Deaths is all right by me, y'know? And at least in a book, he can be an actual Chinese person, instead of a white dude in yellow face. So there is always a temptation to try and stick it out, but I am usually defeated by about the middle of chapter two.
Is there pulp adventure that isn't horribly racist? Or misogynist? I would really like some.
*Possibly you are thinking, "This is a person who regularly reads and enjoys Lovecraft." And you are right - Lovecraft was also a horrible racist. I can manage Lovecraft because his stories, while horribly racist, are mostly about squishy squiggly things that drive people insane. Whereas Sax Rohmer is actively writing about Combating the Yellow Peril. It is perhaps a small distinction and useful only to me but there you go.
The thing about The Monk is that it's not really a breakfast book. I mean, I am enjoying it. We have yet to get to the Satanism and torture and all, but there has been a pregnant nun (who was taken away for punishment - we haven't seen her since, so I don't know yet what that punishment is) and the titular monk (Ambrosio) has discovered that his best monk friend (Rosario) is actually a woman (Matilda) who crossdressed as a monk because she's in love with him and wants to be close to him. Which means that we have to have pages and pages of Ambrosio trying to send her away for the good of their collective souls but she's so beautiful and might kill herself and she was his best friend when he thought she was a guy and also she posed for the picture of the Madonna that Ambrosio has really inappropriate thoughts about. See, this is what happens when people are raised in monasteries and not allowed to go outside till they're 30. Currently, Ambrosio has been unexpectedly bitten by a snake and Rosario/Matilda is tending to him. Wikipedia tells me that Matilda is secretly a witch, so I imagine Ambrosio will get better.
So it's fun, but it's not a breakfast book. Mostly because of the capitalization, which I have yet to figure out any sort of rhyme or reason for. It's like Matthew Lewis just threw some random capital letters at the pages and let them stick where they would. I can deal with the kind of capitalization where the author capitalizes words s/he wishes to emphasize but if that's what's going on here, Mr Lewis must want to emphasize practically everything. Also, he often capitalizes pronouns and I don't have the mental energy at breakfast to stop and remember that he's not talking about God and instead is just referring to the main character. It's oddly tiring.
Thus, this morning I ended up poking around my kindle to find something that would serve as a breakfast book (not boring, haven't read it too recently, not too mentally taxing, nothing icky). And succumbed to my periodic temptation to poke at The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu. Every once in a while, I remember that I put that on my kindle and I try to read it. And the thing is, Sax Rohmer could write. The first chapter or so (as far as I've ever gotten) is very exciting, in a pulp adventure sort of way, and I love pulp adventure. Nayland Smith bounds into his friend Dr Petrie's rooms and immediately turns out the lights, all Final-Problem-airguns, shows him where he's been shot with an arrow dipped in cobra venom, and then whisks him away to try and prevent a hideous murder. I mean, that's pretty thrilling stuff, right? You'd be intrigued. But then - horrible racism.* Before we ever even get to meet Dr Fu Manchu. I would like to meet him. I love diabolical genius evil masterminds anyway, and I'm fully prepared to root for him over Nayland Smith, who is a horrible racist. Anyone who gets nicknamed the Lord of Strange Deaths is all right by me, y'know? And at least in a book, he can be an actual Chinese person, instead of a white dude in yellow face. So there is always a temptation to try and stick it out, but I am usually defeated by about the middle of chapter two.
Is there pulp adventure that isn't horribly racist? Or misogynist? I would really like some.
*Possibly you are thinking, "This is a person who regularly reads and enjoys Lovecraft." And you are right - Lovecraft was also a horrible racist. I can manage Lovecraft because his stories, while horribly racist, are mostly about squishy squiggly things that drive people insane. Whereas Sax Rohmer is actively writing about Combating the Yellow Peril. It is perhaps a small distinction and useful only to me but there you go.
