January again???

[nineveh_uk]

Although January doesn't usually come with threats to invade Greenland. It's a mad, mad world... I have mostly been spending the new year feeling January-ish; it's wet and grey here and I've had a lingering bug that has not inclined me to do anything much more than look forward to the Winter Olympics* and spring in general, although I've enjoued my art class starting again. I would like some snow and have not seen more than a sprinkling. But I have read a couple of books worth noting:

The Burning Stones, by Antti Tuomainen. Not Nordic noir, but a comic crime story in which a middle-aged sauna stove company employee finds herself having to investigate the murder of a colleague. Thoroughly entertaining, though I had to decide it was set in "no lawyer AU world" as the sensible, competent protagonist would surely have rung a solicitor by the end of the first few chapters if only they existed. Introduced me to the word bumlet for small towels one sits on in saunas, which since it scarcely seems to exist on the internet, I can only assume that the translator picked up from the Anglophone community in Helsinki (or possibly invented independently).

Advent, by Gunnar Gunnarsson. Every year, in the middle of winter, farmhand Benedikt goes on a journey to rescue sheep that are lost in the mountains. Fantastic landscape descriptions, there's a real sense of time and place and the arduous nature of the journey and why he does it, although there is also the reader's inevitable moment of realisation, 'Oh, is this meant to be allegory and the shepherd Jesus?' On reflection after finishing it, I think it's meant to prompt the association, but not intended as allegory, other things are also going on, not least that the book is based on a true story. There is something of an early non-fiction novel about it. The afterward, interesting as it is, does not mention that Gunnar went on a 1940 lecture tour of Germany and met Hitler. Presumably, it was supposed that this would get in the way of the heartwarming Christmas novella marketing.

Over Christmas itself, I re-read Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern for the first time since I was about 15. It had less sex than I remembered (possibly because I first read it at 13, when sex in any book was remarkable), and on adult reflection is more of a tragedy brought about by class prejudice among dragonriders. Although post-COVID, there was some interesting elements of the flu pandemic that rang true in a way I hadn't previously recognised - at the point of writing, McCaffrey had lived through three, if none so deadly as the Spanish flu she was born just six years after.

*No, I have not seen Heated Rivalry. IMO ice hockey is the most boring Olympic sport, beating even curling, which takes some doing since even actual bowls (world championships currently being televised, I am not watching) is more exiting than curling. Still, I am happy for the fandom.

Comments

[mrs_redboots]

Did you watch the European figure skating championships? We watched most of them, on YouTube projected to our television via our Sky box! I haven't read Moreta for ages, although I do love Pern.

[nineveh_uk]

I saw some, but a bit limited that usual due to time. It's great that it is all on YouTube with no paywall.

I'd not read any Pern properly in years, but fell straight back in.

[perennialanna]

Ah! Now I know what was stuffing up the traffic! (Potters, where the World Bowls Championship is held, is just down the road).

[nineveh_uk]

Mystery solved!

[naraht]

No, I have not seen Heated Rivalry. IMO ice hockey is the most boring Olympic sport, beating even curling, which takes some doing since even actual bowls (world championships currently being televised, I am not watching) is more exiting than curling.

...I think where you're going wrong here is assuming that there's actual sport content in Heated Rivalry (but no, I haven't seen it yet either).

[nineveh_uk]

I saw an interview with someone who is a hockey double, so there is some! But it's a fair point.

[(Anonymous)]

Azdak here - sorry to join the conversation so late, but with fortuitous timing - it was planned several months ago - Wolfgang and I have fled the Big Freeze for the much warmer climes of Sicily, where amongst fabulously decorated churches, we have been admiring trees laden with oranges and mind-bogglingly enormous banyan trees. And now we are trapped by rain in a coffee shop in Palermo as we wait for the night train to Rome. And hence I have discovered this post. I don’t believe I’ve read Moreta but I was a huge fan of the Harper Hall sub-series when I was in my late teens (I swapped favourite books with a friend from my Saturday job - she gave me Jilly Cooper and I gave her Pern. Neither of us was impressed by the other’s taste but I did end up reading a bunch of Jilly Coopers whereas I think she ran screaming from Anne McCaffrey.

I haven’t seen Heated Rivalry. I get the impression from Tumblr that it is All Sex All The Time, but in fairness that seems to be true of every fandom on Tumblr.

[nnozomi]

Very late comment: I haven't dared reread Moreta since the pandemic, but my memory is that it does ring true in a number of ways, and one of them is, as you point out, the way the situation brings out the best in some people and the absolute worst in others. I'm always sorry there isn't more fic for it.