non wednesday reading update
18 May 2015 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frayadjacentBecause I have some free time this morning while a bunch of processes run at work, and because when I feel like posting I should just do it.
I read Mark Field's Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor, and Morality until about halfway through season 4. I paid $1 for the e-reader version because it's hard for me to read long stuff online. I'm too distractable. Some parts of it were super interesting. I especially liked when he talked about the existentialist moral themes in BtVS. I haven't had the patience to actually read existentialist philosophy since high school, and on the whole I find it compelling in some senses and frustratingly individualistic in others. Fields' characterization of existentialism and how it plays out in BtVS (and, implicitly, Angel) clarified a lot of that for me, in the sense that I realized that aspects of the shows' treatment of morality are apparently more coherent in their origins than I thought, even if I disagree with a lot of those origins.
I stopped reading it partly because everytime Field talks about Buffy having sex, it is judgmental and sexist and at times pretty gross. I can't say that he's drawing out themes that don't exist in the show -- they totally do -- but he not only fails to criticize those themes, he embraces them more wholeheartedly than the show itself does. Especially in Season 2, which he has a whole Freudian take on that, like I said, is not un-supported by the show but also kinda makes me blech. Also, I started to get tired of it and realized I really wanted to be reading some fiction. Which leads me to....
I finally started Ancillary Justice. Which I'm now about one quarter of the way through, and, I don't know. I love epic stories, but I'm tired of how often they are from the point of view of military officers and politicians and aristocrats and royalty. I don't need empire from the POV of the imperialists, even if the narrative doesn't condone the imperialism (which this doesn't). There are elements that I like, enough that I'm going to keep reading, and I keep hoping that a twist will come.
I read Mark Field's Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor, and Morality until about halfway through season 4. I paid $1 for the e-reader version because it's hard for me to read long stuff online. I'm too distractable. Some parts of it were super interesting. I especially liked when he talked about the existentialist moral themes in BtVS. I haven't had the patience to actually read existentialist philosophy since high school, and on the whole I find it compelling in some senses and frustratingly individualistic in others. Fields' characterization of existentialism and how it plays out in BtVS (and, implicitly, Angel) clarified a lot of that for me, in the sense that I realized that aspects of the shows' treatment of morality are apparently more coherent in their origins than I thought, even if I disagree with a lot of those origins.
I stopped reading it partly because everytime Field talks about Buffy having sex, it is judgmental and sexist and at times pretty gross. I can't say that he's drawing out themes that don't exist in the show -- they totally do -- but he not only fails to criticize those themes, he embraces them more wholeheartedly than the show itself does. Especially in Season 2, which he has a whole Freudian take on that, like I said, is not un-supported by the show but also kinda makes me blech. Also, I started to get tired of it and realized I really wanted to be reading some fiction. Which leads me to....
I finally started Ancillary Justice. Which I'm now about one quarter of the way through, and, I don't know. I love epic stories, but I'm tired of how often they are from the point of view of military officers and politicians and aristocrats and royalty. I don't need empire from the POV of the imperialists, even if the narrative doesn't condone the imperialism (which this doesn't). There are elements that I like, enough that I'm going to keep reading, and I keep hoping that a twist will come.
no subject
on 18/5/15 02:21 am (UTC)I didn't know anything about it when it popped up as a freebie on my BookBub, but it sounded intriguing and had a cool cover. I wound up reading it in two sittings: at first because it was showing me a world I didn't know anything about; then because I was in the "well, then what happened?" space (and after that the "how is she going to get out of this?" space), and finally to see how it all would wrap up. When I was done I was hungry for more — sequels from the author, fanfiction, anything. If I do Yuletide this year I'd definitely ask for post-canon fic.
ETA: The book has no connection at all to the 2013 film by D. Blyth.
no subject
on 18/5/15 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
on 18/5/15 03:03 am (UTC)