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semperfionaI've been listening to Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress lately. I've only gotten to chapter 6 or so (disk 3 of however-many-there-are (I have mp3's)), and I've probably read this book before, back in high school when I was reading all the Heinlein I could get my hands on--not that I remember having read it, while I remember reading several of the Lazarus Long series--but in any case it's annoying me now.
1. the narrator's quasi-Russian accent. I suppose it's meant to go along with the syntax (see below) and the occasional casually dropped-in Russian words as a world-building tool, but I don't like it.
2. the syntax of the Lunar dialect. Is easy way to highlight invented history behind Luna society, but grates on ear to drop all articles and most pronouns from sentence.
3. sexism. For some reason all the male characters seem to think it required by politeness to whistle at a woman and compliment her on her breasts, no matter under what circumstances they meet her. This is being treated as completely normal, and the woman in question seems to act as though it would be an insult *not* to comment on her looks, even when she is standing at a podium to give a political speech. And then the men casually say things about her like "smart for a girl". It's as though RAH thought a hundred years of social progress would lead to women realizing all they ever wanted was to be condescended to.
4. political sermonizing. I just spent most of the drive to work this morning listening to characters, shades of Ayn Rand.
I can't decide whether it's worth the aggravation to listen to the rest of it. No doubt my tolerance for items 1 and 2 is lessened due to the audio format: when reading text, I don't make 'voices' in my head for characters, so wouldn't have the annoying accent to deal with, and might have also been able to slide over the syntax issues. I'm quite sure my tolerance for items 3 and 4 is lessened a great deal by my advanced age and changed beliefs.
I think maybe what I should do is scrap this and put Naomi Novik's Victory of Eagles on my ipod instead.
***
The last book I tried to listen to was The Witchhunter, by Bernard Knight. I gave up on it about a quarter of the way through, after the umpteenth occurrence of fish-looking-at-the-water. By which I mean this: the book is set in 1175. In order to get this across to the reader (or listener), Knight has his protagonist commenting in his thoughts about his surroundings. I paraphrase, but for example, he's sitting in a tavern thinking about the reason there are rushes on the floor. No doubt I'm spoiled by just having read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala's glorious Stratford Man duology, but I'm smart enough to get it if the author had instead had him kicking the rushes out of the way, or noticing a rat scuttling through the rushes or something.
To make matters worse, there had been a Historical Note at the beginning of the book! I get it already!
On top of that, I just wasn't liking any of the characters, except for some of the men and women who were being accused of witchery. Since it did not seem likely to end well for any of them, I gave up and returned the book to the library. Listening to the ending wasn't worth the additional overdue fine.
1. the narrator's quasi-Russian accent. I suppose it's meant to go along with the syntax (see below) and the occasional casually dropped-in Russian words as a world-building tool, but I don't like it.
2. the syntax of the Lunar dialect. Is easy way to highlight invented history behind Luna society, but grates on ear to drop all articles and most pronouns from sentence.
3. sexism. For some reason all the male characters seem to think it required by politeness to whistle at a woman and compliment her on her breasts, no matter under what circumstances they meet her. This is being treated as completely normal, and the woman in question seems to act as though it would be an insult *not* to comment on her looks, even when she is standing at a podium to give a political speech. And then the men casually say things about her like "smart for a girl". It's as though RAH thought a hundred years of social progress would lead to women realizing all they ever wanted was to be condescended to.
4. political sermonizing. I just spent most of the drive to work this morning listening to characters, shades of Ayn Rand.
I can't decide whether it's worth the aggravation to listen to the rest of it. No doubt my tolerance for items 1 and 2 is lessened due to the audio format: when reading text, I don't make 'voices' in my head for characters, so wouldn't have the annoying accent to deal with, and might have also been able to slide over the syntax issues. I'm quite sure my tolerance for items 3 and 4 is lessened a great deal by my advanced age and changed beliefs.
I think maybe what I should do is scrap this and put Naomi Novik's Victory of Eagles on my ipod instead.
***
The last book I tried to listen to was The Witchhunter, by Bernard Knight. I gave up on it about a quarter of the way through, after the umpteenth occurrence of fish-looking-at-the-water. By which I mean this: the book is set in 1175. In order to get this across to the reader (or listener), Knight has his protagonist commenting in his thoughts about his surroundings. I paraphrase, but for example, he's sitting in a tavern thinking about the reason there are rushes on the floor. No doubt I'm spoiled by just having read
matociquala's glorious Stratford Man duology, but I'm smart enough to get it if the author had instead had him kicking the rushes out of the way, or noticing a rat scuttling through the rushes or something.To make matters worse, there had been a Historical Note at the beginning of the book! I get it already!
On top of that, I just wasn't liking any of the characters, except for some of the men and women who were being accused of witchery. Since it did not seem likely to end well for any of them, I gave up and returned the book to the library. Listening to the ending wasn't worth the additional overdue fine.
