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walkitoutLavender’s Blue is apparently a folk song? I presumably heard the Burls Ives version at some point growing up, but it does not sound familiar at all. The lyrics have some fairly plain connections to the text.
Anyway, I just now learned that after reading the book, when I went to check the spelling of Mayer.
I have not read Crusie at all in a while, and I will carefully NOT go reread things until I am through the 3 part Liz Danger series that is coming out very rapidly in the coming weeks/months. This feels a bit like a pandemic project, and while set in 2022, it does not particularly feel like 2022 as no one mentions supply chain issues or argues about the election or really anything indicating that there had been a pandemic that was winding down in stages around the country and around the world. This is not a complaint or praise — it is a neutral observation that I still find myself making whenever reading recent productions whether books or TV shows or movies or whatever. I will presumably stop doing so in a couple years; certainly many people’s memory of the last few years is fading rapidly, which is honestly as it should be. If you are avoiding reading recent productions out of fear of mentions of the recent years, well, this one will not trigger you.
Crusie and Mayer did an above average job of depicting characters substantially younger than themselves. They did not go too young, which helps, and the setting is a small town in Ohio which feels perpetually stuck in the past, which also helps. There are slightly too many references that I recognize, including a ST:TOS reference, but at least there, the character making the reference wonders whether the person hearing it will get it at all, but honestly, the character making the reference is probably too young to be making a TOS reference.
All that harping aside, I really enjoyed this. The plotting is complex and enjoyable, and the interrelationships and bad behavior driven by guilt and denial and projection is absolutely amazing.
SPOILERS
The suicide that occurs before the events of the book and the bad behavior of rich people who have squandered their money on poor investment choices involve a subdivision that is fraught and will likely fail. A lot of that feels wrong era, but is such a classic, that it also feels really, really, really right. If you swap out a poorly thought through subdivision for an outright Ponzi, it does not even feel dated, and who knows, maybe in the next book or two, it will turn out that indeed, Cash Porter has been running a Ponzi and with a name like that, how could anyone even be surprised.
Good times. Well, reading it was good times. Some of the people in the book definitely were miserable. I particularly liked how Crusie took a bit — a character who just never lies, literally, and appears to maybe be a lie detectors as well — and really ran with it. I also was really impressed by the depiction of ML, and how the people around her react to her. Liz Danger’s mom has her own complicated reasons for why she tolerates ML being so horrifying, and appears to be completely oblivious to all the risks that she continues to put her own daughter in danger as a result. Ha ha. Danger. But what I liked about ML and people just putting up with her is, at this point in my life, way too familiar. Anemone, hearing about it over the phone, sees it for what it is and understands that it cannot continue to be ignored, but she is an outsider and has more perspective. Everyone in the mix is unable to see how the escalation long, long, long ago crossed a line and nothing is going to stop ML’s trajectory. Well, until something does. And it takes a lot, but it poetically just!
I used to find Crusie books to be a bit of an emotional grind to read. This one did not feel that way. I really am going to finish the series before embarking on a reread, but I will eventually do some rereading, because I do not think the books changed. I think I did, and I am now really curious what I will see in those older books when I return to them.
Anyway, I just now learned that after reading the book, when I went to check the spelling of Mayer.
I have not read Crusie at all in a while, and I will carefully NOT go reread things until I am through the 3 part Liz Danger series that is coming out very rapidly in the coming weeks/months. This feels a bit like a pandemic project, and while set in 2022, it does not particularly feel like 2022 as no one mentions supply chain issues or argues about the election or really anything indicating that there had been a pandemic that was winding down in stages around the country and around the world. This is not a complaint or praise — it is a neutral observation that I still find myself making whenever reading recent productions whether books or TV shows or movies or whatever. I will presumably stop doing so in a couple years; certainly many people’s memory of the last few years is fading rapidly, which is honestly as it should be. If you are avoiding reading recent productions out of fear of mentions of the recent years, well, this one will not trigger you.
Crusie and Mayer did an above average job of depicting characters substantially younger than themselves. They did not go too young, which helps, and the setting is a small town in Ohio which feels perpetually stuck in the past, which also helps. There are slightly too many references that I recognize, including a ST:TOS reference, but at least there, the character making the reference wonders whether the person hearing it will get it at all, but honestly, the character making the reference is probably too young to be making a TOS reference.
All that harping aside, I really enjoyed this. The plotting is complex and enjoyable, and the interrelationships and bad behavior driven by guilt and denial and projection is absolutely amazing.
SPOILERS
The suicide that occurs before the events of the book and the bad behavior of rich people who have squandered their money on poor investment choices involve a subdivision that is fraught and will likely fail. A lot of that feels wrong era, but is such a classic, that it also feels really, really, really right. If you swap out a poorly thought through subdivision for an outright Ponzi, it does not even feel dated, and who knows, maybe in the next book or two, it will turn out that indeed, Cash Porter has been running a Ponzi and with a name like that, how could anyone even be surprised.
Good times. Well, reading it was good times. Some of the people in the book definitely were miserable. I particularly liked how Crusie took a bit — a character who just never lies, literally, and appears to maybe be a lie detectors as well — and really ran with it. I also was really impressed by the depiction of ML, and how the people around her react to her. Liz Danger’s mom has her own complicated reasons for why she tolerates ML being so horrifying, and appears to be completely oblivious to all the risks that she continues to put her own daughter in danger as a result. Ha ha. Danger. But what I liked about ML and people just putting up with her is, at this point in my life, way too familiar. Anemone, hearing about it over the phone, sees it for what it is and understands that it cannot continue to be ignored, but she is an outsider and has more perspective. Everyone in the mix is unable to see how the escalation long, long, long ago crossed a line and nothing is going to stop ML’s trajectory. Well, until something does. And it takes a lot, but it poetically just!
I used to find Crusie books to be a bit of an emotional grind to read. This one did not feel that way. I really am going to finish the series before embarking on a reread, but I will eventually do some rereading, because I do not think the books changed. I think I did, and I am now really curious what I will see in those older books when I return to them.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-03 07:24 pm (UTC)Similarly, there was a stage of "Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" but now the sort of people who are into Paul McCartney (which is not unheard of among people my kids' age, though obviously far less common than it once was) all know about the Beatles. I think you reach a point when all the people who Don't Like Old Stuff fall away and anyone who likes any of this stuff Likes Old Stuff and isn't put off by some of it being from the 1960s.