phantomtomato

The Beautiful Room is Empty - Edmund White

I like how Edmund White writes. His prose is filled with details that convey immediacy—it must be this time and this place and none other. Usually the type of prose I see praised is about description so fnature, or metaphors using it—your Austens and the like. White doesn’t have much of that. The closest that he gets are the times he describes bodies, especially of men he’s sleeping with. It’s more culture that earns his attention, the milieu of life in that city or town during those years. As an American whose life has touched many of those same places, albeit during different decades, I really love reading it. He is unsparing but somehow not unromantic.

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Oh, and a final note—the entire novel is written in first person POV (love this), and White avoids anyone ever addressing the narrator by name. It’s incredible, actually. The effect is so convincing. We know the character so well that we forget we have nothing to call him.

Run Away With Me, Girl - Battan

This manga has really gorgeous art. There is so much movement—the artist draws hair with particular personality—but also volume. The characters are sort of weightless, allowing them to flow across the panels, but their bodies curve and take up space on each page in a way that I don’t often see in manga. It’s very compelling, as so much of the story depends on our ability to empathize with them, so letting their physical forms be the tableau through which the story is told (as opposed to more typical backgrounds or objects or action+SFX-type movement) is effective at creating that empathy.

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Overall, a great read, not too long, and I recommend it to anyone who is intrigued by lesbian identity drama with a hard-earned romance and great art.

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

I did not finish this around the halfway mark. I want to be upfront that this was not about a dislike of Fanny, though she does not generally appeal to me. The book was too slow-paced for me overall, and though I suspect that the drama at its climax would be interesting (Henry being dastardly, Tom being ill), I was still so far off from it that the slog did not seem worthwhile.

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Anyway, a break from Austen for me. Back onto Forster, my last of his novels, and either more Edmund White or some Alan Hollinghurst to follow.

The academic term is over and thus began summer reading. Probably a bit too much, to be honest; it's not as though I haven't had other responsibilities for the past month! But this was overall a really enjoyable crop of books, and I'm excited to get to talk about them.

Jeremy at Crale by Hugh Seymour Walpole

I got the tip to move ahead to this third book in the series from edwardianspinsteraunt, thank you for that! To be very honest, I read this at the beginning of April, but my other April reads got their own posts and so I have lumped this in with the May group.

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The author called out a Talbot Baines Reed book in the foreword (The Cock-House at Fellsgarth), and I tried that as well but DNF’ed around 20% through. I will likely try to return to it later, it was just… straightforwardly a boys’ school adventure, nothing particularly slashy about it. My first Talbot Baines Reed disappointment, and I’m afraid the likely trend of his remaining school novels, judging by the quick skims I gave them. Fifth Form and My Friend Smith might be the only slashy ones.

Idylls of the Queen by Phyllis Ann Karr

This was in an exchange tagset (for an exchange I ultimately didn't join), but I knew I'd seen it discussed on meme and, after Middlemarch and Henry Henry, I wanted something lighter to enjoy. I really enjoyed it! Good choice, past self.

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Persuasion by Jane Austen

I read this alongside yletylyf and at her prompting, which I'm grateful for! I've probably never read Austen before (there's something I owned in high school, but I can't recall what or if I actually read it). I'm glad for the pushing, which helped me realize both that Austen's novels are not as long as I feared, and also that they're a very clear influence on Forster, which I love. I will make an effort to read at least one more this summer, ahead of the Austen Exchange.

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Howards End by E. M. Forster

During my debate about which Forster to read next, I found an old copy of this at a local antiquarian store, and that decided it for me. (I picked up a pretty specialty printing of A Passage to India during a recent trip, so I'll say that the ordering worked out!) I didn't know much about it going in and I wonder how it would have felt if I did—this is a novel I want to revisit in a few years' time, as I expect it offers a great deal to the rereader.

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