Auteur's library

Ursula Le Guin

Hainish Cycle:
The Left Hand of Darkness IV.

1969

A pearl that is all too unknown in Continental Europe. How come? I discovered it through the movie The Jane Austen Book Club ! I've never read any other sci fi in my life but I'd always imagined it to be more 'sci' than 'fi' and more 'pro science' than 'pro life' ; Le Guin threw me aback. I loved it! As a s-fantasy fiction, everything that one expects is in there and more thought through and better 'scripted' than in The Earthsea Series. As a novel, it easily beats up some of the classics of literature. Its depth doesn't stop at a show of wit and a few clever sentences here and there, but goes on to actually form the basis of the whole book. Recommended to anyone who loves fantasy fiction, philosophy, social theory, or suspense. This is good writing without pretension, a strong story without an ounce of show.

P.S. Also, another incentive: it's very rare, at least in fantasy, to have a black male as the main character, particularly given the late 60s context.

Tags: gender structure and relations, androgyny/transsexuality, feminist thought, the "what-the-hell-are-we doing-here" question, racial relations, "homosocial" relations, roman de mœurs, socio-political structure, far far away planets

Far far away planets and galaxies...and a whole lot of technology

Classes, governance, social structure,...

 

Androgyny, transsexuality, transgenderism, cross-dressing

 

Auteur's library

Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility

1811

Pride and Prejudice 

1813

Emma

1815

Northanger Abbey

1818

Well-written, sophisticate, are all novels of Jane Austen. But Northanger was one of my favourites because it never failed to surprise me. The book is small and feels at time rushed, at times slow, as if it had been written quickly, but planned carefully. Gradually, Northanger goes beyond its focus on melodramatic Gothic fiction and keenly observes the fictious in the real, the falsity of its heroine's social net. As Catherine goes from fiction to fictious, the reader is caught into the ferventness of the intrigue, not knowing what it actually is until late in the book, but reading ardently_ like Catherine devours her Mystery of Udolpho. Nothing in particular happens, as, Austen points out, nothing does in social life. Yet in that nothing, everything is: the envy, the pursuits, the love, the lies, the little somethings and the big nothings that make up Austen's enclosed, almost stuffy, scene.

Tags: ladies & gents' courtship dance, close quarters, gothic interest, 19th-century society, roman de mœurs, gender relations, famille & land 

Persuasion

1818

This is one of Austen’s more ‘tamed’ work. The book offers a study of the dilemma between reasonability and influenceability, and ends up, like all Austen, praising nuance. The heroine is restrained in her emotions, with an acute awareness of social do’s and don’ts, to the point of making you yell at her in despair. You’ll understand it, this is a story in which you can’t help but invest. With a cast of characters to die for, from the comic relief to the ‘grip-your-own-hair’ type (that’d be the heroine), the book offers a nice balance of wisdom, stock characters, social observation, suspense, indignation, comedy, and annoyance. This is a complete work, more well-rounded in its study than Northanger, if perhaps less witty. The characters are attaching, they feel real and simple, closer to a 21^st-century audience than Austen’s other works.

Tags: ladies & gents' courtship dance, close quarters, 19th-century society, roman de mœurs, famille & land , gender discussion

 

Gothic elements