lunabee34

1. gloss linked me to this essay about the Southern Reach Trilogy and this conversation between its author and Jeff Vandermeer, and I just now got around to reading them. They are both uniformly excellent, and I would recommend anyone who loved the trilogy read them.

2. We are almost done with Lucifer. ( episodes 6-7 )

One more episode to go! Is that the end of the show, or is more expected?

1. I am one episode behind on Lovecraft Country, so this is a recap of Hippolyta's episode. ( spoilers )

2. Episode 2 of Lucifer: ( spoilers )

1. Fiona turned six on Monday. I can't believe she's that old. It is such a surreal feeling watching your kids grow up, and by surreal, I mean guaranteed to make you feel extremely old. LOL

2. We are going through a re-org at my university, and our chair has been promoted, leaving that position vacant. I am really gratified that multiple colleagues have suggested that I apply or assumed I was throwing my hat in the ring and expressed support for my candidacy. I have worked extremely hard to build my professional reputation, and that vote of confidence feels really good. I'm not going to apply for two reasons. I'm not ready to give up my flexible schedule. I actually wouldn't mind the 12 month contract part; you all know I get really antsy and bored over the summer when I'm not working, so that part of it would probably be good for me. It's the 40+ hours a week part that I'm not interested in (and it would be + because the job would involve a fair amount of travel among campuses). I would have to exercise either before or after work, which is a problem for me in either direction. I also want to be flexible while Fiona's still so young. I want to be able to attend her events and pick her up from school and etc. The second reason is that I just don't feel ready yet; I have gotten a good foundation in how the upper echelons work by serving on Senate for many years and chairing and serving on university-wide committees. I could do the job at this point, but it would have more of a learning curve than I'd like. Ideally, I'd like to be Assistant Chair for awhile first and get experience that way. If the Assistant Chair position ever comes open, I will 100% apply for that position, but I will probably wait until later in my career to try for Chair.

3. Josh is away for an out-of-state conference, so Emma and I started watching Stranger Things on Sunday night. We have one episode left. LOL I haven't blown through a TV show like this in a long time. I actually watched the first four episodes when it first came out, and I just stopped for some reason. I am boggling at myself now because it's so good and so gripping, I don't know why I did that. All I can think is that I must have been overwhelmed by how much TV we were trying to keep up with at the time and anxious about all the child harm/trauma.

( spoilers for Stranger Things )

Don't spoil me for the season one finale or season two please!

4. ( The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A.S. Byatt )

5. ( spoilers for the last three episodes of Lucifer )

I am extremely satisfied with this season, and I really hope we get another. Does anybody know if there will be another season?

6. ( spoilers for Jessica Jones season 2 episode 11 )

Does anybody know where The Defenders fits into the Jessica Jones timeline?

Please don't spoil me for JJ season 3. :)

1. I had such a great birthday. Thank you all for the wonderful wishes and birthday thoughts. You made me smile. For posterity, ( the birthday haul )

2. ( Spoilers for Lucifer )

Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees by Deidre Shauna Lynch

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is mostly missable.

The introduction lays out a good overview of Austen's reception by general audiences and the critical response to her work. The chapter "The Virago Jane Austen" by Katie Trumpener is the best of the book (very well written in the clear style I like best); Trumpener discusses Austen as a kind unifying force beneath the creation of the Virago books and the way in which some of those books respond to her legacy. Susan Fraiman's "Jane Austen and Edward Said: Gender, Culture, and Imperialism" is also quite good; it critiques Said's treatment of Austen and more largely his (non)treatment of feminist readings of it and other texts. Mary A. Favret's "Free and Happy: Jane Austen in America" is not as good as those two articles but is nonetheless interesting for its discussion of Austen's reception in America. "In Face of all the Servants: Spectators and Spies in Austen" by Roger Sales is kind of a structural mess; the thesis is a bit all over the place (is this about the servants in Austen? is it about how film adaptations replace servants with the camera? is it about how some of the female characters are treated like servants in the original texts and adaptations?) and even on the paragraph level there are some cohesion/coherency issues. However, even if everything Sales has to say doesn't belong together, what he's saying is interesting. The remaining five essays are utterly missable. Utterly.



View all my reviews

( spoilers for Lucifer )

1.

The Bodyguard's Assignment by Amanda Stevens

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


When we turned in our marriage license in 2001, the state of Mississippi gave us a garbage bag full of cleaning supplies, condoms, beauty supplies and other toiletries, and this book.

I have dutifully held on to it for the last seventeen years; who knows what harm may befall my marriage should I lose this state-sanctioned marital aid.

As far as the actual story goes, nice hurt/comfort, nice tension between the male and female protagonists, and a genuine mystery as to who is betraying them. As far as Harlequins go, this one is perfectly fine.



View all my reviews


2. ( The Plains of Passage and The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children) )

2. ( SPOILERS FOR THE TWO EPISODES OF LUCIFER FROM CANCELLED SEASON )

1. ( reviews of the last two episodes of Lucifer )

2. ( reviews of much Gotham )

3. After watching the commercial for Beaches resort get away, Fiona said, "That's a dream cremation."

4. ( Some books I read )

1. I got my annual evaluation today. Exceeds expectations in teaching and service; meets expectations in scholarship. I am pleasantly surprised by the latter; I fully expected to get needs work. It's really gratifying that the efforts I'm making to transition from a position that didn't require scholarship to one that does are being acknowledged.

2. ( Lucifer reviews )


3. ( Gotham review )

4. ( spoilery thoughts upon Westworld rewatch )

5.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I didn't think it was possible, and yet this book is even better than the first installment. It contains more dialogue, action and character work than the first; it's a song with words as opposed to the orchestral piece of the first novel.

Authority is from the perspective of a newly introduced character, Control, who's come to take charge of The Southern Reach after the psychologist, now revealed to have been the SR Director, doesn't return from the 12th expedition. Control is an outsider; he knows very little about the SR or Area X or what's really going on, and the reader learns the truth with growing horror alongside Control. A great deal of what we think we know from book 1 gets subverted or changed in some way in this sequel; our understanding of the psychologist in particular deepens.

Control learns that the border has always been a conceit; that Area X has never been bound by that invisible line and that it has been changing the people who work at SR for years now.

In addition, a doppelganger of the biologist, Ghost Bird, has returned to the real world as have doppelgangers of the other expedition members minus the psychologist. Control eventually ends up with Ghost Bird on a far northern coast looking into a rift Ghost Bird has created that leads back into Area X. Far south behind them, the facade of a border has come down at the SR, and the world is changing quickly as Area X advances. The novel ends with the two of them jumping into the portal.

I don't think I do this novel any justice with my review. It's just fantastic both on its own and as a continuation of/commentary on the first. Highly, highly recommend.



View all my reviews

1. ( Dirk Gently Spoilers )

2. ( Lucifer spoilers )

3. From a World Lit essay: When Beowulf was younger, he was described as very selfless. A lot of his selfless acts would be for his own benefit.

4. The Professor by Charlotte Brontë

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was an interesting and quick read. Although published after her death, The Professor is actually Bronte's first book, and in it I see antecedents of both Villette and Jane Eyre.

The narrator of the book is a young man whose mother married beneath her station and was then snubbed by the family; William's family treats him coldly as a result; his brother is very cruel to him (shades of Jane Eyre). He goes off to seek his fortune in Brussels and works as a teacher at a boarding school; he is extremely contemptuous of Catholicism (shades of Villette).

William is very frank about how easily he could fall into the temptation offered by the mistress of a girls' school; she's interested in him but is marrying the master of the boarding school where William teaches. When they marry, she will be living in the same establishment as William, and he foresees himself eventually succumbing to her flirtations, so he leaves.

The woman William eventually marries is adamant about continuing to work after marriage; it is presented as vital to her well-being and sense of fulfillment, and William is supportive and understanding of that need. In their relationship, there's a little too much of the he's her master and she willingly submits to him that gets on my nerves from time to time in Jane Eyre, but on the whole, I think they are well suited for each other and mutually beneficial.

Overall, good read.



View all my reviews