A bookworm's lot

[resonant]

In case anyone's wondering why I'm making terse podfic announcements and otherwise not participating in any way, I've got some odd illness whose only symptoms (after one day of debilitating fever) are tiredness, the inability to digest much of anything, and a sort of olfactory hallucination that makes everyone and everything smell like the dumpster of old cooking oil out behind a fast-food restaurant.

I'm functional but have no energy to devote to anything not absolutely critical, such as the acquisition and reading of books.

I'm pleased to have friends in fandom who'll understand this story:

At about two this afternoon I completed Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.¹² I napped for a bit, and then suddenly woke up filled with worry: the library was going to close in a couple of hours, and after that it wouldn't be open again until one tomorrow! That was a long time to be without books other than the several hundred books that are scattered around me on every surface! So I got up and went to the library to check out some more books.

¹ Nothing like a minor illness to help you get briskly through a 780-page book. I liked JS&MrN very much, but probably would have enjoyed it less if I had read it at the rate I normally read books and taken a month rather than a week.

About a third of the way in, it occurred to me that Norrell is a very Rodney McKay-like figure. If you say that fandom is 30% more gentle with McKay than canon is, then Norrell would be what would happen in a work that was 30% less gentle with McKay than canon is. And yet the resemblance is still there -- chiefly the lack of social skills, of course, but also the passionate devotion to his work, and the equally passionate devotion to his high esteem of himself, and his absolute helpless inability to perceive that the two could be in conflict.

Having seen that, it was not so great a stretch to see Strange as a John Sheppard-like figure. This enhanced my enjoyment.

²The html code for superscript is [sup], which makes the raw text look like my coding is greeting me.

Comments

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

Hey,Res^sup?

*pets* I hope you get better soon, and feel much more energized and smell, um, good things and roses and cinnamon everywhere. :-)

I very much enjoyed JS&MrN too, when I read it, and now you just doubled my enjoyment of it too! Jonathan and John even share initials. To think of Norrel as Rodney is indeed a fascinating idea, and I think it will stay with me for a while yet.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

From the reviews at Goodreads, (http://www.goodreads.com) I gather that many readers had trouble identifying with Norrell or understanding why he behaved the way he did, but with Rodney as a bridge, I found it very easy.

[twistedchick]

I think you've got whatever has been going around the last two weeks; I heard from several cousins that they all have it. Not pleasant.

::offers tea, your choice of flavor::

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

That's actually very reassuring. I found the lack of symptoms unsettling; weirdly, I would have been less worried if something had hurt. (Usually if something goes wrong with me, it goes wrong from the nose up -- that kind of pain I'm used to.)

[twistedchick]

There's some very weird stuff out there; I suspect older viri are mutating oddly.

[neevebrody.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you are feeling under the weather - hope you perk up real soon!

Here is another bookworm's lot... I have so many books, mgazines, journals laying around that until your post, I completely forgot that I had JS&MrN! And who knows what the hell else I have around here that I forgot about?? ::hurries to rummage through book stacks::

Seriously... feel better!!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

More books! Always better! Furniture made of books to store books on!

[xanphibian.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're feeling cruddy, and I hope you're better soon. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Aww. Thanks!

poor dear

[wolfdancer.livejournal.com]

feel better soon!

Re: poor dear

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize so many people had left me kind thoughts! Thanks -- it went away pretty fast.

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

you poor, book-deprived thing!

feel better soon. i'll be thinking good thoughts for you...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

At least I was well enough to read!

YES

[kormantic.livejournal.com]

I thought that when I was re-reading the book for the Yuletide story I'd been writing. The way he eats Jonathan up with his eyes!

Re: YES

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It works, doesn't it? Of course, Norrell's described as a withered old man, but aside from that minor discrepancy ...

[skuf.livejournal.com]

Urgh, sounds not good - hope you're better soon!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[reginagiraffe]

Eep! Hope you feel better soon! That sounds decidedly unpleasant.

I tried reading JS&MN earlier and couldn't get into it, but maybe with the SGA boys in mind it'll go easier.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed it, but then I like that kind of thing -- a whole world to sort of sink down into. I can see where if you were eager for something to happen, it would kind of get frustrating. I mean, I don't think any of the length was padding or digression, but there was an awful lot of it.

[dodificus.livejournal.com]

Hi, I was wondering if you would mind if I did a podfic of 'Advantage'? If anyone else beat me to it, or you'd rather I didn't that's ok.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Sure, be my guest! No one has done it so far (or at least, if someone is in the process of doing it, they haven't told me about it) -- I think so far readers have preferred to take on the shorter ones.

[dodificus.livejournal.com]

Great:) Thanks!

[lilyfarfalla.livejournal.com]

Wow, what an apt comparison! I read JS&MrN before getting into SGA myself, but the relationship between those two title characters really does work like John and Rodney's, where no one quite understands what the nice guy sees in the abrasive one. The way everything seems to come so easily to Jonathan has some similarities too, like Ancient tech to John.

I really want to reread now, and imagine what kind of things could/would happen if there was a similar sort of split between the SGA boys.

...Ok, I did reread the end a bit, and it's rather remarkable. "...magicians first" is something that could easily be applied to John and Rodney, I think.

(I realize this is month's after you posted and therefore rather random, but I couldn't resist.)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It made the book a lot more fun for me. And made me admire the author, too, because it had to be quite a tightrope act to write a character so deeply unlikeable and still have my sympathy at the end of the book!