Flutiebear: Rambling My Way Through Thedas

myjusticecake:

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts wherein people pledge to read a bunch of books in 2013, which I heartily endorse. I’m also probably going to read a bunch of books in 2013, but I’ve noticed that, in recent years, my reading parameters have gotten sadly narrow.

So, I’m asking for your recommendation for books that are NOT fantasy, science fiction, or urban/modern fantasy. Any other genre is fair game, from kid’s books to social theory. Novels, short story collections, poetry, non-fiction, whatever you have read and think is cool. 

I’m going to try to read one a week and then make a short post about my reactions to it. Please note that this might mean I shit on something you love. That doesn’t mean I am shitting on you! People connect with media in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons, and my lack of connection with a particular work does not invalidate your experience of it.

Also, I love lots of stuff that is terrible and would never blame anyone for hating it.

So. Recommend away! When I get fifty books, I’ll make a post with the list.

Flutie, The Master and Margarita is already on my list. ;)

Hee hee. Actually, though, I don’t think you’ll like M&M very much. It’s very much a product of its time (it helps to know some 20th century Russian history), and it’s probably a little too heavy on the idealization of domestic feminine power for your taste. Like, what was pretty freaking transgressive for Soviet Russia would probably make a 21st century Canadian gal roll her eyes. 

If I were to recommend you Old Dead White Guy Literature: Russian Edition, I’d probably pick something from Nabokov’s vast trove of treasures, perhaps The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. (Or maybe Solzhenitzyn’s One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. Bleak, but oh man, really, really good. It kind of fits with the idea of story-as-testimony, rather than story-as-salvation, along the lines of that conversation we had the last time I was in town.)

Other books I think you might dig: Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture; Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America; Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man; John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist; The Devil and Sherlock Holmes or The Lost City of Z both by David Grann. Also have you ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? The Awakening? Rebecca? Goddamn, I loved all three.

myjusticecake:

He follows the line of the terrified boy’s arm. The woods are dark and alive, and for a moment it’s hard to remember where he is - but then his arm throbs, and he inhales the smell of evergreen and leafmould, clenches his hand on the ridiculous backpack.

Three hours gets him to the road, just as the sun is peeking over the horizon. The smell of the blacktop is almost dizzying, the carbon ghost of exhaust thick in his nostrils. He crouches in the tree line, watching. He catalogues the contents of the backpack by touch. Shirts, energy bars, a couple of books. Three cars pass by before he hears the rattle and cough of an older vehicle and stands, fighting every instinct. He stretches his spine, pastes on a smile.

Lookit them pearly whites. Ain’t as impressive as mine, brother, but mighty pretty all the same.

The truck pulls over. “You look in need of a helping hand, son.” The driver is older, in plaid and a farmer’s cap, eyes sharp but kind.

“That I am,” says Dean. “Got a bit lost. Was camping.” He hikes the backpack a bit.

“How far you headed?”

“West. As far as you can take me.”

“Alright, hop in.”

The door swings open, and Dean puts on hand on the edge of it, lifts his foot, and then can go no further. Den! his mind screams at him. The truck smells of the man, strongly, cigarettes and beer and a hint of shaving cream and sweat. It’s dim, and close, and once in, there will be nowhere to go. Not in fucking Purgatory anymore, he thinks, and forces his foot to the footwell, climbs in, shuts the door. He breaks out in a sweat immediately.

link to AO3

(Follow the link to AO3 for the full drabble.)

Jesus Christ, cake. If this is what I have to look forward to from you for the rest of the season, my feels will be in a puddle by 8x05. (Just in time for the vampirates to sail right over them.)