Some books you read only once, for reasons ranging from boredom to lack of time to being too emotionally shattered. Others, and for me all the books I really care about, you read on a rush the first time, and then, after a break, more leisurely the second time, savouring them detail for detail. (And then there are the third and fourth etc. times...)
I just finished my second read-through of a book I aquired during my end of April short trip to London after attending the book launching, Roz Kaveney's Tiny Pieces of Skull. Now I've known (and loved)![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rozk's poetry, her fanfiction and the fantastic (in both senses of term) Rituals of Blood saga, but this is the first non-fantasy prose of hers I've read. The narrative voice - witty, sharp, deeply humane - is recognizably the same. Simultanously, the story in relation to her other work feels like the experimental episodes like Hush, Restless, The Body or Once More, With Feeling did on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if that makes sense - something in a new/different format, which is at the same time a different type of genre.
Tiny Pieces of Skull is a novel set (and originally written) in the late 70s, a comedy of manners (the subtitle "A Lesson in Manners" isn't just irony), an entry in the "Traveller abroad" genre - and a stunning evocation of a key point of LGTB history, for all the characters in this novel except for a few minor supporting characters are trans. Our heroine, Annabelle, starts the plot by deciding on a gamble and follows her American friend Natasha's invititation to come and live with her in Chicago. Before you know it, Annabelle is stuck in Chicago with no money and no Natasha, but also with a refusal to give up and a talent to encounter a rich gallery of fascinating characters, some endearing and funny, some terrifying, all highly memorable and described in superb language. A few choice quotes.
"Her legs went on forever, without pausing even momentarily to be a bum."
"He pecked Natasha dexterously where his moustache and her lip-gloss would not contaminate each other"
"By now Chicago was America for her, far more convincingly than New York had ever been. New York was still The City, as was London. Both were Babylon, rich in ivory, silver, gold and the souls of men; both were prosperous and fallen. Chicago lacked that sense of scale and of the metaphysical. It was provincial, and knew its limits."
Like I said: the first time I read this, I was busy at different points chuckling, gasping (because even without any supernatural elements, there is some terrifying stuff going on there on occasion) and wanting to know what happened next: the second time, I found myself lingering over the gorgeous language. I can't wait for the third time, for this is a slender volume, easily something you can take with you travelling, which I'm about to do again next week.
Unrelated:
First season 9 of Doctor Who trailer! Considering the last season became my favourite of the Moffat seasons (and the only one I aquired on DVD), this makes me very happy.
I just finished my second read-through of a book I aquired during my end of April short trip to London after attending the book launching, Roz Kaveney's Tiny Pieces of Skull. Now I've known (and loved)
rozk's poetry, her fanfiction and the fantastic (in both senses of term) Rituals of Blood saga, but this is the first non-fantasy prose of hers I've read. The narrative voice - witty, sharp, deeply humane - is recognizably the same. Simultanously, the story in relation to her other work feels like the experimental episodes like Hush, Restless, The Body or Once More, With Feeling did on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if that makes sense - something in a new/different format, which is at the same time a different type of genre. Tiny Pieces of Skull is a novel set (and originally written) in the late 70s, a comedy of manners (the subtitle "A Lesson in Manners" isn't just irony), an entry in the "Traveller abroad" genre - and a stunning evocation of a key point of LGTB history, for all the characters in this novel except for a few minor supporting characters are trans. Our heroine, Annabelle, starts the plot by deciding on a gamble and follows her American friend Natasha's invititation to come and live with her in Chicago. Before you know it, Annabelle is stuck in Chicago with no money and no Natasha, but also with a refusal to give up and a talent to encounter a rich gallery of fascinating characters, some endearing and funny, some terrifying, all highly memorable and described in superb language. A few choice quotes.
"Her legs went on forever, without pausing even momentarily to be a bum."
"He pecked Natasha dexterously where his moustache and her lip-gloss would not contaminate each other"
"By now Chicago was America for her, far more convincingly than New York had ever been. New York was still The City, as was London. Both were Babylon, rich in ivory, silver, gold and the souls of men; both were prosperous and fallen. Chicago lacked that sense of scale and of the metaphysical. It was provincial, and knew its limits."
Like I said: the first time I read this, I was busy at different points chuckling, gasping (because even without any supernatural elements, there is some terrifying stuff going on there on occasion) and wanting to know what happened next: the second time, I found myself lingering over the gorgeous language. I can't wait for the third time, for this is a slender volume, easily something you can take with you travelling, which I'm about to do again next week.
Unrelated:
First season 9 of Doctor Who trailer! Considering the last season became my favourite of the Moffat seasons (and the only one I aquired on DVD), this makes me very happy.
