(no subject)
Jul. 4th, 2007 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phineasjones3 july 2007
my head goes there. when i sleep. rach is nice enough (and knows well enough how cranky heat makes me) that she lets me have the window side of the bed. and thank goodness. what little breeze comes in there is what keeps me from going nuts from heat. last night it was actually pretty cool, thank goodness. today is crazy hot, but i'm surviving. we just got back from a brunch party where there were outdoor games. it was fun, but eventually we all had to go back in the house and soak up the ac.
so. posting topics.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scottxwl requested lesbian fiction.
fiction about lesbians? fiction by lesbians? fiction for lesbians? well, i suppose those things do often converge, don't they?
i'm racking my brain, trying to think of any lesbian fiction (original) i know that's not by jeanette winterson or sarah waters. um... i can't think of any. so i'll talk about about those two.
jeanette winterson: i started reading her books in college (quel surprise). oranges are not the only fruit was the first, followed by the passion, written on the body, sexing the cherry, art and lies, art [objects], and later the world and other places and powerbook. oranges is a great, funny, sad book. i enjoyed it and i'm sure i still would now and i think it's very different from most of her other books, probably because of its autobiographical nature. the passion is one of my favorite books ever. it's just breathtakingly beautiful in so many places. and it's so full of - wait for it - passion. and magic. and high drama of the best sort. we had a reading of this passage at our wedding:
i also loved written on the body, though it's been so long since i read it, i don't remember details. and then i thought sexing the cherry was pretty weird. i think i enjoyed reading it but didn't love it in the same way as the others. i would be interested to hear other people's opinions about it. i don't really remember what gave me the impression of weirdness that i have still. art and lies i also found weird when i read it. that's a book i should revisit. back then, i remember being a little prudishly freaked out by a scene where a woman fucks a man with a ceramic dildo. now i'm all, ooh. interesting. art [objects] is nonfiction. just her thoughts on, um, art. :) visual art, i believe. i didn't finish it. i was a little bored by it. perhaps it was not good as subway reading. the world and other places is a collection of short stories. i remember... nothing about it. that doesn't say much for it, does it? and lastly, i read powerbook and that's when it suddenly hit me that she is telling the same story over and over in her books. and i think that's kind of what the book is about. but it was starting to wear thin.
sarah waters: she has not yet worn thin for me. nope. first book of hers i read was tipping the velvet and i loved it. it's a thoroughly good read. interesting characters, intriguing plot, good writing and hot, hot sex. i love waters for going all the way there, writing the sex as i've come to hope for after all my slash reading. she does it and she does it well. that book is fantastic. next i read affinity. which i didn't love as much. it's more of a mystery with some subtle girl-loving threaded throughout. not so much with the hot sex and knife-in-the-gut ending. not a bad book, but i didn't find it terribly likable. and then fingersmith. another great twisty plot with a girl romance. and! there's interesting stuff in there related to porn. highly recommended. and presently, i'm about halfway through night watch. it's a little slow (hence the halfway). i'm having trouble sticking with it, while i have no actual complaints. we'll see where it goes.
waters and winterson are so different as writers but they share the 'lesbian fiction' tab in my head. winterson is much more poetic and profound while waters spins a great yarn and doesn't shy away from the sex. i love both of their books for what they are.
the only other lesbian fiction i could talk about is girl slash, i guess. and that really should be it's own topic. i don't read much of it at all, but that there should be the topic. why? i can't answer for certain but i think it has most to do with the characters out there. there are great female characters,of course, but it's pretty darn rare that there are two great female characters in a canon with an interesting enough relationship. which is tragic. and i'm sure it's not the only reason, but it's a biggie.
my head goes there. when i sleep. rach is nice enough (and knows well enough how cranky heat makes me) that she lets me have the window side of the bed. and thank goodness. what little breeze comes in there is what keeps me from going nuts from heat. last night it was actually pretty cool, thank goodness. today is crazy hot, but i'm surviving. we just got back from a brunch party where there were outdoor games. it was fun, but eventually we all had to go back in the house and soak up the ac.
so. posting topics.
scottxwl requested lesbian fiction.fiction about lesbians? fiction by lesbians? fiction for lesbians? well, i suppose those things do often converge, don't they?
i'm racking my brain, trying to think of any lesbian fiction (original) i know that's not by jeanette winterson or sarah waters. um... i can't think of any. so i'll talk about about those two.
jeanette winterson: i started reading her books in college (quel surprise). oranges are not the only fruit was the first, followed by the passion, written on the body, sexing the cherry, art and lies, art [objects], and later the world and other places and powerbook. oranges is a great, funny, sad book. i enjoyed it and i'm sure i still would now and i think it's very different from most of her other books, probably because of its autobiographical nature. the passion is one of my favorite books ever. it's just breathtakingly beautiful in so many places. and it's so full of - wait for it - passion. and magic. and high drama of the best sort. we had a reading of this passage at our wedding:
I say I'm in love with her. What does that mean?
It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself. Like genius, she is ignorant of what she does.
i also loved written on the body, though it's been so long since i read it, i don't remember details. and then i thought sexing the cherry was pretty weird. i think i enjoyed reading it but didn't love it in the same way as the others. i would be interested to hear other people's opinions about it. i don't really remember what gave me the impression of weirdness that i have still. art and lies i also found weird when i read it. that's a book i should revisit. back then, i remember being a little prudishly freaked out by a scene where a woman fucks a man with a ceramic dildo. now i'm all, ooh. interesting. art [objects] is nonfiction. just her thoughts on, um, art. :) visual art, i believe. i didn't finish it. i was a little bored by it. perhaps it was not good as subway reading. the world and other places is a collection of short stories. i remember... nothing about it. that doesn't say much for it, does it? and lastly, i read powerbook and that's when it suddenly hit me that she is telling the same story over and over in her books. and i think that's kind of what the book is about. but it was starting to wear thin.
sarah waters: she has not yet worn thin for me. nope. first book of hers i read was tipping the velvet and i loved it. it's a thoroughly good read. interesting characters, intriguing plot, good writing and hot, hot sex. i love waters for going all the way there, writing the sex as i've come to hope for after all my slash reading. she does it and she does it well. that book is fantastic. next i read affinity. which i didn't love as much. it's more of a mystery with some subtle girl-loving threaded throughout. not so much with the hot sex and knife-in-the-gut ending. not a bad book, but i didn't find it terribly likable. and then fingersmith. another great twisty plot with a girl romance. and! there's interesting stuff in there related to porn. highly recommended. and presently, i'm about halfway through night watch. it's a little slow (hence the halfway). i'm having trouble sticking with it, while i have no actual complaints. we'll see where it goes.
waters and winterson are so different as writers but they share the 'lesbian fiction' tab in my head. winterson is much more poetic and profound while waters spins a great yarn and doesn't shy away from the sex. i love both of their books for what they are.
the only other lesbian fiction i could talk about is girl slash, i guess. and that really should be it's own topic. i don't read much of it at all, but that there should be the topic. why? i can't answer for certain but i think it has most to do with the characters out there. there are great female characters,of course, but it's pretty darn rare that there are two great female characters in a canon with an interesting enough relationship. which is tragic. and i'm sure it's not the only reason, but it's a biggie.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-05 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-09 09:16 pm (UTC)