Booknotes 4.1

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden, published 2024, fantasy. I don’t know how I felt about it, to be honest. While it was well-crafted and I liked the central conceit (World War I + ghosts), the Faland thread wasn’t what I wanted from the story. Which is more a me thing, and might even be a “me right now but not in five years” thing. I did, however, rather enjoy Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale, and I plan to continue on with that series.

In Search of Lost Time volume 2: Within a Budding Grove, by Marcel Proust (translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff), published 1919 (translated 1924), fiction. Enjoyed it, particularly the Bergotte section, the part about Odette’s fashion, and the visit to Elstir’s studio. Not to mention the human observations woven throughout. Two volumes in, one of the major themes that stands out to me is a philosophy of infatuation, elaborated in detail. I haven’t read the original French so I can’t comment on how well Moncrieff (who died at age 40, by the way) translates from it, but the English prose is quite good.

Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett, published 1993, fantasy. Continuing my slow meandering through Discworld. A mostly light comfort read, funny as always, with sharp social commentary throughout.

Autobiography, by John Stuart Mill, published 1873, nonfiction. While I knew fairly little about Mill going into this (the word utilitarianism was about it), I quite liked this. More of an intellectual history than I was expecting, with some commentary on how his views changed over time and his development as a political economist. I enjoyed reading about his time in politics later in life, too, and his work toward women’s suffrage. Looking forward to Mill’s other books. (And also Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, and some of the other books mentioned at the beginning when he describes his early education.) This quote felt perhaps a bit timely: “He viewed this practical political activity of the individual citizen, not only as one of the most effectual means of training the social feelings and practical intelligence of the people, so important in themselves and so indispensable to good government, but also as the specific counteractive to some of the characteristic infirmities of democracy, and a necessary protection against its degenerating into the only despotism of which, in the modern world, there is real danger—the absolute rule of the head of the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals but all slaves.”