Top five, part 2

[scripsi]

evelyn_b

Oh my, this is vast. I’m likely to forget someone important, but here goes:

1. Alice, Lewis Carroll's heroine. This was the first literary character I ever identified myself with.

2. Lord Peter Wimsey, Dorothy L.Sayers amateur sleuth

3. Delgado!Master. I have always loved bad guys and he is one of the best.

4. Miles Vorkosigan. The Most Annoying Hero Ever. Many thanks to Lois McMaster Bujold for inventing the hyperactive, brilliant git.

5. Gollum. I don’t think The Fellowship of the Rings would have been the classic it is today without him.

paynesgrey

I can’t give these books a specific order, but they are my top fives. I’ve also refrained from gushing over them- I will likely re-read any of these sooner or later and gush on a Wednesday post…

1. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.

2. Persuasion by Jane Austen.

3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

4. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

5. Faunen (The Faun) by Anna-Karin Palm. I’m sorry to say she isn’t translated to English, but can be read in German and French. As you are unlikely to know about this book I will gush a little. The book has three timelines, each written in very different styles. The first is about Amelia, a writer of romance novels in the late 19th century. One day she finds a faun in her living room who says he is very cross with her. The second is set in the Middle ages were Elinor meets a faun in the woods. And the third is the contemporary diary of a young Swedish woman living in London who gets obsessed by a painting in National Gallery of a faun. This one, actually, The death of Procris made by Piero di Cosimo.



velvetwhip

Difficult, as many of the things I have loved over the years are gone now (or I have lost the links). So these are mostly fics I have read the last few years.

1. Two Birds In A Cage by Daystar Searcher. A Doctor Who fic featuring Three and Sarah Jane. It’s a work in progress and I really hope it will be finished. It’s very dark and very good. IMO it would work as a dystopian SF in it’s own right. Check the warnings, though, there is both rape and torture in it.

2. As To A Portrait, Gently Drawn. A Harry Potter fic featuring Snape and Luna Lovegood, which is both sad and lovely.

3. In the Arms of the Father, which is my current favourite and written for me in The Rarepair Fest (I don’t know who wrote it yet. Penny Dreadful-fic with Sir Malcolm/Vanessa. Not incest, despite the title, but rated mature and contains some sex.

4. The Practice of Barrayaran Sex by Philomyta. I’m a big fan of Lois McMaster Bujold and this fic reads as missing scenes from Aral and Cordelia’s marriage and the time just before and after. Rated explicit, which the title may imply.

5. The Master and Mrs. Pond by Memory Dragon. I do so love the interaction between Delgado!Master and Amy. Rather PG.

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I love your taste in literature (both published and fannish)!


Gabrielle

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[bearshorty.livejournal.com]

Persuasion is my favorite Jane Austen. I read it when I was 27, so it was appropriate. The wonderful movie helps too.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

PERSUASION IS SO GOOD

(I know I said the same thing below, but IT IS STILL SO GOOD. At least twice as good as I can express in a single comment).

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'll get around to it one of these days.

[bearshorty.livejournal.com]

The movie is amazing! I highly recommend it. I just feel good by the end every time I watch it.

Do you mind if I friend you? I like reading what other people think of books.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Feel free! I hope you don't mind if I add you back!

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

I read it when I was around 27 as well. I was surprised over how much I loved it- it's a much better book than Pride & Prejudice, IMO. And if you are thinking about the Movie with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root I'm all with you (haven't seen any other version). It's my ultimate feel-good movie. :)

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

There can never be too much gushing as far as I'm concerned. Persuasion is an astonishingly good book. I only read it for the first time this year, and it may be the single best emotional rollercoaster I've ever been on. I was chomping my nails and clutching my head all over the place, and laughing and sobbing on the same page, on nearly every page, all over whether one person was ever going to manage to have a conversation with another over something that happened almost a decade ago. Like, I vaguely remembered that Jane Austen was good, but I had no idea she was that good.

I also read Gaudy Night for the first time recently and I'm still basically unable to assess it objectively, possibly because it took me so much by surprise: I kept expecting a murder mystery, but there was no murder and I ended up with a big pile of Feelings About Writing instead. The reading experience also involved a lot of yelling at fictional characters and sometimes closing the book so I could shake my head at it for five minutes straight. It will probably end up being a permanent favorite, if it isn't already.

Jane Eyre was one of my very first favorite books. I've been reading it since I was too young to have any hope of understanding the plot, and I still sort of forget that Mr. Rochester and his creepy house of secrets exist sometimes. The opening chapters, when Jane is living with her aunt's family and later at Lowood, were weirdly comforting to me as a child and I read them over and over -- and the descriptions of Jane's creepy paintings, so memorable!

I didn't take to Alice to the same extent when I was Alice's age, but I appreciate her better now. She and Jane are still some of the best children in fiction.

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

Well, I can talk books until your ears curl... I bore my friends to tears sometimes. :)

Persuasion is Austen'sbest book, I think. She's got the form right, Nails the character and manage to convey a lot of feelingsin a not so long book. Sense & Sensibility is too wordy and a bit all over the Place, Pride & Prejudice (which I also love and think is her second best) wobbles at times and Emma has a heroine you just can't feel that much for- she's nice bu oh so bratty. But Anne Elliot is such a lovely person (and indeed, every man she meets prefers her, even if they end up marrying someone else) and Captain Wentworth is so nice too- you really feel how heartbroken he has been over Anne's rejection.

I love the Movie with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root- it's the Movie I always watch when I feel down. :)

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Aww, I love Emma's brattiness, and she does have a heart of gold -- but she can be a bit much and as someone -- maybe you? pointed out recently, she doesn't have nearly as much at stake as the others. Anne and Captain Wentworth are both intensely sympathetic, but I think my favorite Austen protagonist is whoever I happen to be reading about at the time -- they're a little like the Doctor that way. But you're probably right that Persuasion is Austen's best book. Everything about it works beautifully all the time.

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

True,, Emma is very good-hearted and really want to help, which I guess is why the book is good. It wasn't me who pointed it out, but it is a good point that she has less to lose than any other Austen heroine; she is pretty, well-loved and wealthy.

I think one of the reasons Persuasion is such a good book is because the people in it are real and you can understand them, even if you don't like them. If you compare Mrs. Bennet with Anne's sister Mary, they are quite alike, rather hysterical and prone to feel ill when they are not. But even if Mrs. Bennet for her and her's daughter's future are real, she is still mostly a charicature.

Mary isn't a very nice person, she's snobbish, selfish and whiny, but she's also a peron who has, through her whole life, been second-best. Her motehr died young and seems to have loved Anne best anyway. Her father only seem to love their oldest sister. Her husband wanted to marry Anne, and so did his family. I think the only person who ever loved Mary for being Mary is Anne, otherwise she's always been second best. In that light her attention seeking behaviour isn't just understandable, it's also psychologially sound, even if it isn't endearing.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

YUS! LOVE!!

*Dances*

*HUGS*

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[paynesgrey.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte! Can't go wrong with the classics. :)

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

Nope! :D

[ramasi.livejournal.com]

Faunen sounds interesting, thank you for the rec!

Persuasion is great. It's probably not my favourite (I guess? I'm not sure how to pick), but it's definitely up there. I think it was the last of the Austen novels I read (I think I read all the finished one except Lasy Susan), and I loved how the way it was somewhat differently constructed.

I like that you like Gollum.

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

Faunen is well wroth a read and also Another of her bppks called "Målarens döttrar" (The Painter's Daughters). she often worjk with several timelines, weaving it all into a whole by the end, which I like.

Persuasion isn't generally the most liked Austen. :)