Standish
by Erastes

For the Back to History reading challenge.

English
215 pages
P.D. Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 1-933720-09-3

First line: The candle guttered, and Ambrose looked up at it with a frown, the long blond hair falling away from the sides of his face.

Back cover blurb:
A great house. A family dispossessed. A sensitive young man. A powerful landowner. An epic love that springs up between two men. Set in the post-Napoleonic years of the 1820’s, Standish is a tale of two men — one man discovering his sexuality and the other struggling to overcome his traumatic past.

Ambrose Standish, a studious and fragile young man, has dreams of regaining the great house his grandfather lost in a card game. When Rafe Goshawk returns from the continent to claim the estate, their meeting sets them on a path of desire and betrayal which threatens to tear both of their worlds apart.

Painting a picture of homosexuality in Georgian England, Standish is a love story of how the decisions of two men affect their journey through Europe and through life.

Thoughts: From the moment I came across this book on Amazon.co.uk, I knew I had to read it. The story sounded amazing and I just love historical gay romance, there’s no denying that. Unfortunately, I was in for quite a disappointment.

I started reading it in January, got about a third of the way through during my first sitting with it, and then I put it down and did not pick it up again until now. I kept trying to persuade myself that if I read only one chapter a day, I would finish it in less than a month, but there just was no way of doing it. I wanted so badly to love the story, and I just couldn’t do it. I had such a hard time with the language and the way it was written — they didn’t appeal to me at all.

Finally, I picked it up again and found that if I just skimmed certain bits, it was tolerable. And so I finished the remaining two-thirds in a second sitting. I even, towards the end, found myself almost enjoying it. A part of the reason for this was, I dare say, the character of Padraig Fleury who appeared in the second half of the novel.

In the end, I didn’t like it even half as much as I had hoped to going in, but on the other hand, I did like it more than I thought I would after the first third. Even though it’s nowhere near the best book I’ve ever read, I am glad I decided to stick with it and read the entire thing. I have rarely been so close to making a book a DNF (did not finish), though. If it weren’t for the fact that I had it on my (no changes allowed) list of books for the Back to History challenge, or the fact that I had paid money for it and didn’t much like the idea of that being wasted, I don’t think I would have finished.

However, apart from all that I have outlined above, there was another thing that particularly bothered me. At one point Ambrose reads Dracula. Which is, y’know, cool and all. Except Standish is set in 1821 and Dracula wasn’t published until 1897, so unless there was time travel that I completely missed, that’s a big mistake on the part of the author, and that loses them a lot of respect from me.

I should think it obvious that the rating is not going to be a great one, but in the end, solely thanks to Fleury, it does manage a D, rather than an F. I realise we are only at the end of February and that much of the reading year remains, but I will be much surprised if this does not end up being “Disappointment of the Year.”

The World According to Clarkson: And Another Thing…
by Jeremy Clarkson

English
340 pages
Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0-141-02860-6

First line: I suppose all of us were out and about before Christmas, pummelling our credit cards to within an inch of their lives.

Back cover blurb:
Jeremy Clarkson finds the world such a perplexing place that he wrote a bestselling book about it. Yet, despite the appearance of The World According to Clarkson, things — amazingly — haven’t improved. Not being someone to give up easily, however, he’s decided to have another go.

In And Another Thing… the king of exasperated quip discovers that:

• bombing North Carolina is bad for Yorkshire
• we can look forward to exploding at the age of 62
• Russians look bad in Speedos. But not as bad as we do
• wasps are the highest form of life.

Thoughts: I love Top Gear, which, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is an outrageous sort of motor programme that even such car un-enthusiasts as myself can thoroughly enjoy. As Clarkson is one of the three presenters on the show, I found it hard to resist when I saw a copy of one of his books in a bookstore. After reading it, I discovered that it had been better for me had I managed to resist the temptation. Simply put: he drives me up the wall and infuriates me with pretty much every little column he’s ever written. I have thus come to the conclusion that I will keep watching, and enjoying, Top Gear, but will keep as far away as possible from anything of Clarkson’s that is not directly related to the show. (I now have to figure out if I should give in to the temptation to read any of the books by James May and Richard Hammond (the two other presenters), or if it’s best to just stay away from those as well.)

As for the rating, a D will do.

Den hemlösa sexualiteten: en antologi
by a number of different authors
&

For the A-Z and To Be Read reading challenges.

Swedish
286 pages
Bokförlaget Libris
ISBN: 91-7195-402-3

First line: n/a

Back cover blurb:
Homosexualitet är en av de mest brännande frågorna i kyrkorna i dag. Ämnet väcker starka känslor. Många tycker att det är svårt att ta till orda, andra tycks redan vara klara med frågan.
Antologin Den hemlösa sexualiteten vill medverka till ett konstruktivt och nyanserat samtal i kyrkan om homosexualitet. Om kristen tro innebär att man ställer hela livet i relation till Gud och evangeliet, då är homosexualitet också en teologisk angelägenhet för kyrkan. Det väcker frågor om:

• Vad säger Bibeln om homosexualitet?
• Vilken syn har kristna pÃ¥ sex och samlevnad?
• Hur ska kyrkorna reagera inför de orättvisor som homosexuella drabbas av?
• PÃ¥ vilka villkor kan homosexuella välkomnas i församlingen?
• Kan partnerskap välsignas i kyrkan?

Författarna till Den hemlösa sexualiteten tar upp dessa och andra frÃ¥gor. UtgÃ¥ngspunkten är klassisk kristen tro i förening med lyhördhet och respekt inför de homosexuellas situation. FrÃ¥gorna blir belysta ur fyra olika perspektiv — bibliska, etiska, kulturella och pastorala. De 18 författarna representerar olika kristna traditioner.
Boken ger inga färdiga svar, men läsaren får hjälp att själv orientera sig i frågorna utifrån en kristen livsvärld.

Thoughts: This is another book I got in the 2006 book sale and that has been in my TBR-pile ever since. Unlike Profile of a Criminal Mind it is actually included on my list for the TBR-challenge, so I can strike one off there now. Yay!

Another thing that differs compared with Profile… is that I really liked that one, and I didn’t particularly like this. I have to admit that when I bought it, I thought it was a different sort of book than it turned out to be. I initially thought that it was a collection of essays by Christians who were positive when it came to homosexuality, perhaps homosexual themselves, and how they managed to make their beliefs and their sexualities match. That was not the case, however. Rather, the approach in the book is more along the lines of “hate the sin, love the sinner.” Interesting, yes, but also a little prone to making me angry. I will not touch on that too much, but I will mention one thing in particular: it drives me absolutely nuts that people so often seem to think that bisexuality always means a complete lack of ability to be monogamous. Seriously, people, homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality are on a completely different scale than monogamy vs. polygamy/polyamory. You can be heterosexual and polyamorous, or you can be bisexual and monogamous. Just because a person has the ability to be attracted to persons of both genders¹, doesn’t mean that they want to be with people of both genders at the same time. (Sorry for rambling, but that really is a pet peeve of mine.)

I’ve mentioned it before, but I find rating non-fiction quite difficult. A book can be well-written and well-argued, but if I personally don’t agree with the views expressed in the book, that will obviously colour the grade I give it. Keep that in mind when I now dole out a D to Den hemlösa sexualiteten.

1. Or is attracted to people with a complete disregard of gender. I am being consciously simplistic here.

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
by Elizabeth Smart

For the Decades ’08 reading challenge (first published 1945).

English
112 pages
Flamingo
ISBN: 0-586-09039-8

First line: I am standing on a corner in Monterey, waiting for the bus to come in, and all of the muscles of my will are holding my terror to face the moment I most desire.

Back cover blurb:
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart’s passionate fictional account of her intense love-affair with the poet George Barker, is widely recognised to be a classic.

Thoughts: You might not know, if you are a new acquaintance, but I am absolutely crazy about Morrissey. This is one of his favourite books, and it’s inspired a number of his songs, so I have long been meaning to read it. This weekend, I was visiting a dear friend for the first time and she had it in her bookshelf, so I finally got a chance to read it myself (she even graciously offered to let me borrow it if I didn’t manage to finish it before I had to leave, which I didn’t).

I can see where Morrissey got his inspiration — there are certain lines that echo lines found in his songs — but that’s about it. I don’t think poetic prose is really my cup of tea, and I had a lot of trouble actually understanding what was going on in the story. I get that it’s the fictional account of the author’s love-affair with a poet (one who is married, I might add), and at one point they are arrested by the police, but that’s about as far as my understanding goes. It’s just plain weird.

No, like I said, the style of writing exhibited in this story is definitely not my thing and I will leave other works in the genre be (though apparently not all of them, as supposedly Jean Genet is a prime example of a prose poetry writer and I intend to read his The Thief’s Journal at some point this year. We’ll see how that goes).

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (I do like the ridiculously long title) receives a D rating.

Mamma sa att jag var sjuk
by Julie Gregory
Original title: Sickened

For the A-Z reading challenge.

Swedish
259 pages
Bra Böcker
ISBN: 978-91-7002-361-6

First line: Det värsta var att bli rakad.

Back cover blurb:
An unusual memoir describes growing up as the victim of Munchausen by proxy, a dangerous form of child abuse in which her mother invented or caused a series of illnesses and ailments, and her struggle to escape her mother’s serious psychological problems to rebuild her life as a healthy, compassionate young woman.
(This text refers to an edition other than the one I read.)

Thoughts: This book paints a truly horrific picture of Gregory’s childhood and adolescence, but while it was moving at times, I just couldn’t like it. I always feel bad when I don’t like a book by someone who’s gone through terrible things, but there are writing styles I just can’t stand, and Gregory’s is one of them. Perhaps I’d have got more out of the book, had I read it in the original English, but I didn’t and I don’t plan on it either, so I guess I’ll never know now.

I’m giving the book a D rating, because as a book it just wasn’t very good at all. It makes my stomach churn that anyone has had to go through what Gregory has, though. It’s absolutely terrible and chilling that someone would treat their child that way.