Reading Wednesday
Mar. 31st, 2021 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyJust finished: Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson. Loved this, and it gave me even more of a thrill to learn that Claude and Marcel were real (and actually I'd seen Claude's autoportraits before, I just apparently forgot). It's magnificently written and it's such an incredible story that it's not surprising that I thought it was fiction at first.
The lesbians do die but it's from old age so it's not a Bury Your Gays trope, see also real life where people aren't usually immortal. Also a cat dies and that's really sad because the circumstances under which he dies are straight out of my nightmares involving being arrested and not being able to take care of my cats.
Anyway, highly recommended. Loved it. You'll love it too.
Speak, Silence by Kim Echlin. Another based on a true story, but slightly more loosely. This one is about rape trials following the Yugoslav War. It's obviously harrowing content that would be a fascinating read as non-fiction, but the fictional part of the story is also compelling. A journalist—who mainly writes fluff for travel magazines—goes to Sarajevo for a film festival after the war, ostensibly to report but also to track down her lost love, who's the father of her daughter. The whole time, he's been in love with another woman, but she doesn't reciprocate. She's also a star witness in the Hague trial that established rape as a war crime. You expect the plot and relationships to go a certain way, but it's mainly about the bond that forms between the two women, and it's nuanced and beautifully written.
Echlin's writing is pure poetry, infused with mythology and fairy tale references, and the effect both intensifies the horror of the events and also elevates the humiliation and suffering to acts of heroism. It's a tricky balance and she pulls it off incredibly.
The lesbians do die but it's from old age so it's not a Bury Your Gays trope, see also real life where people aren't usually immortal. Also a cat dies and that's really sad because the circumstances under which he dies are straight out of my nightmares involving being arrested and not being able to take care of my cats.
Anyway, highly recommended. Loved it. You'll love it too.
Speak, Silence by Kim Echlin. Another based on a true story, but slightly more loosely. This one is about rape trials following the Yugoslav War. It's obviously harrowing content that would be a fascinating read as non-fiction, but the fictional part of the story is also compelling. A journalist—who mainly writes fluff for travel magazines—goes to Sarajevo for a film festival after the war, ostensibly to report but also to track down her lost love, who's the father of her daughter. The whole time, he's been in love with another woman, but she doesn't reciprocate. She's also a star witness in the Hague trial that established rape as a war crime. You expect the plot and relationships to go a certain way, but it's mainly about the bond that forms between the two women, and it's nuanced and beautifully written.
Echlin's writing is pure poetry, infused with mythology and fairy tale references, and the effect both intensifies the horror of the events and also elevates the humiliation and suffering to acts of heroism. It's a tricky balance and she pulls it off incredibly.
Currently reading: A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis. A friend (who happens to have written the two best YA books ever) posted about non-didactic YA, and so I asked him what he considered non-didactic YA, and he recommended this. It's a pregnant teenager in a mental institution who knows her baby will be taken from her, so that's already a horrific start, but apparently there will be murder later. I'm only two chapters in but it's off to a good start.
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Date: 2021-04-01 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-01 08:45 pm (UTC)