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Nov. 13th, 2010 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crantzI've been reading The Horse And His Boy by C.S. Lewis and it's not going well.
For starters, it features in droves a squick of mine: Slavery*. So right off the bat I'm not the happiest camper, especially since it's followed by the People Of The Unfortunate Implications, the Calormene. Who also keep angrily going 'those free, BEAUTIFUL white narnians!'. I knew nothing good was going to happen when I heard the beautiful line shortly after how dark the Calormene were. (Product of its time, yes, yes, that doesn't make it less irritating)
I guess what I'm saying is I've spent this whole book in a state of irritation.
I didn't want to! I wanted to really like it, given how many people recced it. But the whole slavery thing and the Calormene thing has made me irritable and that's influenced me even being able to like the characters. I can't even get amusement at how the Pevensies still talk like they all got hit on the head.
Plus when I try to talk about it on twitter, one of my favourite things to do when I read a book, all that comes out is total nonsense. The book is near impossible for me to talk about.
That is why I am a sad hamster.
(Also, and this one isn't a complaint, C.S. Lewis does like his words that look like typos. Plashing, frowsty, lief...)
My teeny step-brother likes the book, though. I read the first chapter to him out loud and he was excited and kept making faces at the points I believe Lewis intended them to be made. I'm getting him his own copy to read today.
*It, rape, and molestation are the fastest ways to take me out of a story, because it suddenly stops being escapism and starts being 'this is happening to someone right now in the real world and this just isn't entertaining as a result'
For starters, it features in droves a squick of mine: Slavery*. So right off the bat I'm not the happiest camper, especially since it's followed by the People Of The Unfortunate Implications, the Calormene. Who also keep angrily going 'those free, BEAUTIFUL white narnians!'. I knew nothing good was going to happen when I heard the beautiful line shortly after how dark the Calormene were. (Product of its time, yes, yes, that doesn't make it less irritating)
I guess what I'm saying is I've spent this whole book in a state of irritation.
I didn't want to! I wanted to really like it, given how many people recced it. But the whole slavery thing and the Calormene thing has made me irritable and that's influenced me even being able to like the characters. I can't even get amusement at how the Pevensies still talk like they all got hit on the head.
Plus when I try to talk about it on twitter, one of my favourite things to do when I read a book, all that comes out is total nonsense. The book is near impossible for me to talk about.
That is why I am a sad hamster.
(Also, and this one isn't a complaint, C.S. Lewis does like his words that look like typos. Plashing, frowsty, lief...)
My teeny step-brother likes the book, though. I read the first chapter to him out loud and he was excited and kept making faces at the points I believe Lewis intended them to be made. I'm getting him his own copy to read today.
*It, rape, and molestation are the fastest ways to take me out of a story, because it suddenly stops being escapism and starts being 'this is happening to someone right now in the real world and this just isn't entertaining as a result'
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 03:28 am (UTC)He seemed to listen.