2 Book Reviews
Jul. 17th, 2016 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34I just finished reading a couple of books y'all might be interested in.
The first is An Older Man, the novella length sequel to Wayne Hoffman's Hard. In it, the protagonist Moe is in his early forties and is struggling with aging. He's always chased after older men, but now he realizes he IS the older man, an epiphany that's hard for him to handle. The novella is set over the span of a few days, Bear Week in Providencetown. I liked many things about An Older Man. I liked seeing what happens to the characters I came to care about in Hard. I liked seeing Moe gain some confidence; one of the themes of the series is that he struggles with body issues, and he comes to realize that other people do genuinely find him attractive. There's some discussion of activism; one of the side plots is police crackdowns on a spot that Moe frequents for casual sex. The tone of the novella is more wistful and melancholic than Hard, and I completely understand that the themes of the novella call for a different tone, but I miss the humor of Hard. Another issue I have with the novella is that it indulges in way too much Giles in the library info-dumping that is unnecessary. I personally hate it when authors of series do those little reminders (Jillian, the girl Lara sat beside all last year in English) of characters and events from previous installments. I think writing is always stronger when they're edited out. I definitely think this is worth a read, but I also think it's the weakest of the three books I've read by Hoffman.
The second is Florence King's Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady whichexecutrix had sent me. This books interests me on multiple levels. It's very funny, it ends up going down paths I did not expect, and it contains surprising moments of pathos towards the end. King grows up in Virginia, basically in the outskirts of D.C., and so her version of The South is very different than the one I grew up with. It is endlessly fascinating how many different versions of The South that coexist. You've got King's version: the patrician, I can trace my lineage back to King So-and-So, and that heritage rather than religion is the fabric that glues our society together. You've got the version I grew up with: middle class, college educated, redneck culture adjacent, religion is supreme. And then there's the redneck version, the white trash version, and the activist version (to which Josh's parents belong), the debutante version, and a billion more. King eventually goes to grad school at Ole Miss, and I found myself super amused by all the things about Ole Miss and the surrounding area that are still the same in the 21st century. I enjoyed this book and think many of you probably would, too; there's one or two instances of casual racism in the narrative (although mostly King exposes the racism around her that she disagrees with) and the parts where King phonetically spells out the Mississippi accent is annoying to read, but still lots to enjoy.
The first is An Older Man, the novella length sequel to Wayne Hoffman's Hard. In it, the protagonist Moe is in his early forties and is struggling with aging. He's always chased after older men, but now he realizes he IS the older man, an epiphany that's hard for him to handle. The novella is set over the span of a few days, Bear Week in Providencetown. I liked many things about An Older Man. I liked seeing what happens to the characters I came to care about in Hard. I liked seeing Moe gain some confidence; one of the themes of the series is that he struggles with body issues, and he comes to realize that other people do genuinely find him attractive. There's some discussion of activism; one of the side plots is police crackdowns on a spot that Moe frequents for casual sex. The tone of the novella is more wistful and melancholic than Hard, and I completely understand that the themes of the novella call for a different tone, but I miss the humor of Hard. Another issue I have with the novella is that it indulges in way too much Giles in the library info-dumping that is unnecessary. I personally hate it when authors of series do those little reminders (Jillian, the girl Lara sat beside all last year in English) of characters and events from previous installments. I think writing is always stronger when they're edited out. I definitely think this is worth a read, but I also think it's the weakest of the three books I've read by Hoffman.
The second is Florence King's Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady which
executrix had sent me. This books interests me on multiple levels. It's very funny, it ends up going down paths I did not expect, and it contains surprising moments of pathos towards the end. King grows up in Virginia, basically in the outskirts of D.C., and so her version of The South is very different than the one I grew up with. It is endlessly fascinating how many different versions of The South that coexist. You've got King's version: the patrician, I can trace my lineage back to King So-and-So, and that heritage rather than religion is the fabric that glues our society together. You've got the version I grew up with: middle class, college educated, redneck culture adjacent, religion is supreme. And then there's the redneck version, the white trash version, and the activist version (to which Josh's parents belong), the debutante version, and a billion more. King eventually goes to grad school at Ole Miss, and I found myself super amused by all the things about Ole Miss and the surrounding area that are still the same in the 21st century. I enjoyed this book and think many of you probably would, too; there's one or two instances of casual racism in the narrative (although mostly King exposes the racism around her that she disagrees with) and the parts where King phonetically spells out the Mississippi accent is annoying to read, but still lots to enjoy.
no subject
Date: 2016-07-19 01:12 am (UTC)Unfortunately, I believe she ended her life as one of those people who believe that it's OK to live like a leftist and vote like a conservative who wants to prevent other people from living like leftists ...
no subject
Date: 2016-07-19 10:59 pm (UTC)Wikipedia said that she ended up regretting revealing that she was bisexual and that she embraced the idea of spinsterhood as she got older and not much else about her.
I, too, recognized most of the Southern types she writes about. I can't believe I'd never heard of this book before now.