alicebentley

Sunday book summaries are my casual log of what I’ve been reading this week. These are not formal reviews. They’re more my reactions and musings as taken from my journal when I complete the reading, and at times will contain notes about how they influence my thoughts on what I’m writing. 

I’ve had some issues with sleep and back pain this last week, so you get a week’s worth of writing this time. 

First off is a reread of a book which has had a significant influence on my life with horses—Alois Podhajsky’s My Horses, My Teachers. This book is Podhajsky’s memoir about specific horses that he recalls very well, along with a dose of his horse training philosophy, crowned with the simple phrase—“I have time.” 

This book was my introduction to the world of dressage. Until then, considering the time (early 1970s) and the location (south Willamette Valley), and my lack of exposure to any professional training or schooling, my best resources had been writers like Margaret Cabell Self and the Western Horseman magazine. Most nonfiction horse books available either in the school library or the Springfield Public Library were either generalist or specifically Western-focused. I was wrestling with a difficult mare to train and handle, and Podhajsky gave me some useful insights that have carried over to my attitude toward training horses. Besides “I have time,” his assessment of how he needed to change up his training based on the differing temperaments of the horses he worked with made me realize early on that “one size fits all” absolutely did not work for horse training. As a result, I learned some techniques that later served me well with my Mocha mare and now with my Marker boy. These days I also have a little thrill when I recognize significant names in dressage, such as General DeCarpentry. I didn’t know who he was back in the day, but now…. 

Next up is a read inspired by my past reading of Starry and Restless, Emily Hahn’s The Soong Sisters. Alas, it was a bit disappointing (not surprising, given the history of the book as related in Starry and Restless). While there are some good insights about the nature of China in the era of pre-World War Two and the early days of the war, there are a lot of passages taken from writings by the sisters’ husbands. No doubt these three ladies had a significant influence on Chinese political development, not only given who they were married to (Sun Yat-Sen, Chiang Kai-shek) but the role each woman played behind the scenes. I had expected a little more, but still…on the other hand, I’ll be checking out other Hahn writings. She wrote this at a fraught time in her life (a fraught moment in a life full of them) and it was a piece pushed out quickly. 

Do Admit by Mimi Pond was a fun read, being a graphic book interpretation of the history of the Mitford sisters. The cartooning style works very well for this particular history, and Pond’s callback to not just Charles Addams-style drawings but the stylings of assorted political graphics of the era adds depth to the history. Not just that but Pond made it a fun read, plus she picked up on some additional historical pieces that I hadn’t seen elsewhere. Definitely worth checking out! 

Then there’s the reading inspired by a social media exchange about women reading Sword and Sorcery fiction with one writer who, frankly, looking at the credentials she has in her bio, should probably not be making broad statements moaning about the lack of female presence in S&S and the lack of female writers just yet in her career. I pulled out Joanna Russ’s The Adventures of Alyx, where the title character—female—goes on assorted adventures, eventually getting pulled into a science fictional time travel story. But before then…Alyx is a pick-lock, and has multiple adventures (including sexual escapades). There’s a shoutout to Fritz Leiber and his character Fafhrd which is somewhat amusing since he’s one of her conquests but she can’t remember whether his name is Fafnir or Fafhrd but she definitely has fond memories of him. 

Even better, the Suck Fairy hasn’t visited Alyx, which is rather nice to encounter. Alyx is witty, fun, and a quick study when it comes to interesting magical stuff. 

Finally, a wee bit of a rant. I picked up a historical romance set in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century that was published in 1987, Fionna’s Will, by Lana McGraw Boldt. And oh, oh, dear. I had originally read it back in that era—it was published by a big mass market paperback company (though that wasn’t all they did), and it has a few nice but positive ratings (which are on the old side). But. Oh, oh, dear. Speaking of the Suck Fairy…. 

Don’t get me wrong. Mc Graw Boldt possesses a good command of language and the book is eminently readable from that respect. I did spot some typos but that’s normal. 

However. 

I wasn’t too far in before my developmental editing/beta reading fingers started itching, BAD. The book is a product of its era in many ways, including the sprawl of character arcs and story threads that…sigh. Could have been written tighter or had scenes/threads cut entirely. Look, I like me a nice twisty plot, and Fionna’s Will definitely has that. I like strong-willed female characters who Do Stuff, and Fionna’s Will has piles of that happening. One of the major plots involves Fionna’s love and relationships with two men, simultaneously, and that’s a bit spicy and fun. 

All sorts of fun juicy stuff, BUT. 

The book is thin when it comes to crucial elements, while suffering from bloat—482 pages in mass market paperback format, and even though it’s a fast read, it’s a LOT. The characters are a mile wide and an inch deep, plus Fionna comes off as the more-than-competent Mary Sue character. Oh, she’s interesting enough, no question about it. She goes through a lot. But she is so. darn. competent in an over-the-top way. She manages to juggle babies by different men in such a way that the man she eventually marries never finds out that the boy he thinks is his eldest surviving son…isn’t. How that works out significantly impacts my willing suspension of belief. 

Gotta say, though, I like that Fionna’s an abolitionist, helped slaves on the Underground Railroad, and possessed fairly enlightened attitudes for the time. All the same…. 

Then there’s the nice neat way where all the loose threads end up tying together. At one point I was thinking dear God, why doesn’t she just put up a sign saying that dang near every incidental encounter is a Chekov’s Gun scenario? So many pat endings to walk-on characters that don’t really add any significance to the story. SO SO MANY. 

Plus the utterly unrealistic description of a nineteenth century wise woman/herbalist/midwife stopping bleeding from a miscarriage in…arrgh, let’s just say that if I had been the editor, it’s one piece that would have been cut. It didn’t advance the plot to go into the graphic detail that had nothing to do with how female biology works in real life (shoving a fist up the vaginal channel to stop excess bleeding??? Huh???). We’d already seen the impact of the miscarriage on the characters. It wasn’t needed. That piece was just…I have to wonder if a male editor insisted upon it, OR SOMETHING. 

As I said before, however, the book is a product of its time. I can think of other historical romances that I read back then that were equally as thick, and if I revisited them, probably have even greater Suck Fairy visitations. This was one of the best stories of its time—I thought so then and I doubt my impressions have changed. If I stumble across them in a freebie situation, I’d probably reread them. 

However. Beverly Jenkins and Courtney Milan (to name two of my favorites) do it better these days, with the same degree of period-appropriate enlightened attitudes that appeal to the modern reader, with tighter plotting and pacing, much leaner prose, and deeper characterization. 

Still, I don’t regret the reread. Working my way through some other books, and waiting for the latest library ebook holds to be ready. Might be one week for the next book summary, might not. Got stuff happening, so…that’s it for now.

If you like what you’ve read, please feel free to check out my books at https://www.joycereynolds-ward.com/books or drop a tip at my Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joycereynoldsward