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Jan. 4th, 2022 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee341. I got cards from minoanmiss and kaleecat!
2. My mouth is bothering me still so I'm starting some antibiotics and the dentist is going to look at it tomorrow just to be sure it's okay.
3. The floor is down except for the little trim piece that goes between the base board and the floor. It looks wonderful. Going to buy a rug today. Might even spring for new curtains. :)
4. First book of the year:
After London: Or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is amazing. I can't believe it's not more widely known. I would love to watch a movie/TV series based on it. It's astonishing to me how many of the hallmarks of our apocalyptic media are already present here in this 1885 text.
Part 1 of the book explains how nature retakes England after an unspecified disaster caused by industrialization several generations ago. It also affected continental Europe and presumably the entire industrialized world. Apparently the disaster happened slowly enough that the upper classes could flee (they've never been heard from again), and so all the survivors are from the poor and lower classes. All sorts of tech and knowledge have been lost, and the human civilization that has regrown in disaster's wake is fragmented, despotic, tyrannical (slavery has been reintroduced), and lost in many ways.
Parts 2-3 follow the adventures of Felix who is an interestingly flawed protagonist. He is smarter and better than the other fellows but also petulant and whiny and quick to take offense. Half the time, Felix is being an idiot and making things worse for himself, and the other half, he's being Wesley Crusher and reversing the polarity of the shield array. No, wait, a better comparison is to Ayla. Felix is constantly inventing a new trigger for a crossbow or telling seasoned warriors how to better lay seige to a city or being mistaken for divinity by shepherds on account of his skill with the bow.
His accidental foray into the heart of London, which resembles nothing so closely as the site of a nuclear disaster, is truly chilling and a prescient ecological warning.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I am crossing my fingers that my students do, too.
View all my reviews
minoanmiss and kaleecat!2. My mouth is bothering me still so I'm starting some antibiotics and the dentist is going to look at it tomorrow just to be sure it's okay.
3. The floor is down except for the little trim piece that goes between the base board and the floor. It looks wonderful. Going to buy a rug today. Might even spring for new curtains. :)
4. First book of the year:
After London: Or, Wild England by Richard JefferiesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is amazing. I can't believe it's not more widely known. I would love to watch a movie/TV series based on it. It's astonishing to me how many of the hallmarks of our apocalyptic media are already present here in this 1885 text.
Part 1 of the book explains how nature retakes England after an unspecified disaster caused by industrialization several generations ago. It also affected continental Europe and presumably the entire industrialized world. Apparently the disaster happened slowly enough that the upper classes could flee (they've never been heard from again), and so all the survivors are from the poor and lower classes. All sorts of tech and knowledge have been lost, and the human civilization that has regrown in disaster's wake is fragmented, despotic, tyrannical (slavery has been reintroduced), and lost in many ways.
Parts 2-3 follow the adventures of Felix who is an interestingly flawed protagonist. He is smarter and better than the other fellows but also petulant and whiny and quick to take offense. Half the time, Felix is being an idiot and making things worse for himself, and the other half, he's being Wesley Crusher and reversing the polarity of the shield array. No, wait, a better comparison is to Ayla. Felix is constantly inventing a new trigger for a crossbow or telling seasoned warriors how to better lay seige to a city or being mistaken for divinity by shepherds on account of his skill with the bow.
His accidental foray into the heart of London, which resembles nothing so closely as the site of a nuclear disaster, is truly chilling and a prescient ecological warning.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I am crossing my fingers that my students do, too.
View all my reviews
