yuuago | Reading Wednesday

Finished reading: Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan. To recap from previous Reading Wednesday - Indonesian magical realism, following a particular family as horrible things happen to all of them, and it's really, really good! Though, emphasis on horrible things happening to people. Yikes. If the novel didn't have such a light tone, I wouldn't be able to handle it. I was completely sucked in by it, though. Seriously seriously hard to put this book down, and that hasn't happened to me in a while.

Currently reading: The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Estonian author Anders Kivirähk. Set in some kind of early pagan medievalish period. People can speak the language of snakes! And use it to command other animals! I'm not too deep into it yet, so I'm not quite sure where it's going, but I'm enjoying the ride a lot. Also: Apparently bears are very seductive. Who knew?

Reading next: My package from Salakirjat finally arrived, so this means I'm probably reading The Magic Songs of the Finns next! Or at least the parts of it that are chunks-of-text. If I don't end up finding something really cool at the library that I want to tackle first, at least. Anyway, originally, this was compiled by Lönnrot. English translation is Abercromby, 1898... I'm not sure if there's a more recent English translation, it might be something I should look into. Anyway, the edition is a lovely hardcover (with lots of Gallen-Kallela illustrations in it!) and it's just such a nice book all around, I can't stop touching it. As for what it is - like the title implies, it's a compilation of spells for tons of different purposes, as well as some other magic odds and ends. Really neat.

I partly decided to pick this book up for fanfiction research/inspiration purposes - I have a feeling that it might be useful for Stand Still Stay Silent stuff, possibly also A Redtail's Dream too (though I might have to rely more heavily on the Kalevala for that one, since I have this one idea for a difficult story that would be very directly related to it, rather than the loose inspiration that Sundberg herself took with aRTD). But also, I confess I bought it just... because I am a huge nerd. Why not.

I just... have two gripes. Well, make that three. Firstly: Tiny text! Ach! I'm not that old, but even glancing it makes me feel squinty, urgh. Secondly, like I mentioned above, the translation is from 1898. It reads like a translation from 1898. Let's leave it at that. And thirdly, everything is in prose. Which does again, come back to the translation, not something I'd hold on the publisher of course, but arrrrgh prose translations of not-prose things, why! Oh, well. I'm sure I'll find it all fascinating anyway.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

straightforwardly

Oh, hey, I actually saw The Man Who Spoke Snakish at my library today! I almost picked it up. I ultimately didn't because... the summary/commentary on the copy they had was very vague, and I wasn't sure if it was really my thing, but you make it sound a bit more interesting.

yuuago

Yeah, it IS very vague. Buuuut Estonia and paganism are totally my jam, so I grabbed it in spite of that. :D I'm only like, 30 pages in, but I'm having fun so far. In addition to what I mentioned, there's a lot of stuff related to the contrast between people living the traditional (pagan) life vs the German-influenced Christians of the village, and I'm assuming that will be handled in detail at some point. Can't remember if the summary mentioned that or not.

there's a lot of stuff related to the contrast between people living the traditional (pagan) life vs the German-influenced Christians of the village

I'm... not entirely sure either if the summary mentioned that (helllo, terrible memory), but I think I recall something about the main character (or the people around him?) thinking that bread is disgusting?

Ah. Yeah, that is definitely A Thing. :'D Bread is held up to be like, the pinnacle of civilization, whereas the forest people don't eat it. It ties into that whole struggle/contrast.