R.I.P VII

This year since I'm technically doing research abroad you might think that I would skip the R.I.P. fun? But no.  Just last night my friends and I came up with an epic idea for Halloween costumes.  So clearly I've already been thinking about my favorite holiday. And then I remembered to check stainlesssteeldroppings.com this morning to see if it was time for R.I.P and it is!! Oh the joy.

Here is the link to the explanation. There you will find some cool artwork, a group read challenge (including The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman), and lots of links to blogs that are participating.

This year I can't do the Peril on the Screen challenge (alas), because I don't have access in Ukraine to a lot of movies.  I will, however, do Peril the Second where I read two books that I feel fit with the R.I.P theme.

Acceptable genres include Mystery, Suspense, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror ... but really anything that you think works.  The rules are very flexible, which is good because I'm a bit limited by what I can find for free on my Kindle this year.  

Some potential candidates, but suggestions are always welcome:

1. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
2. The Damned by Algernon Blackwood
3. Off Season by Jack Ketchum

The other one I'll do is Peril the Short Story.  I'm not actually a big short story fan.  But I recently found a few books of modern Lovecraftian fiction, so I'm going to work through those. Though who knows what else I might find.  

Crochet in Ukraine

I managed to successfully navigate the craft store today. I count the day a win even though the saleswomen there thought I was Polish. This is what I bought:

The color is way off for some reason for the yarn on the right; it is much more purple than pink.  I wanted to buy just two skeins of that one, but they were out. Then I found the other, so I ended up with three total.  Not quite sure what I'm going to make though I was looking up patterns today for a hooded scarf.  I think I found one that is manageable. I'll let you know if I end up finishing anything.

I know, as if I need more things to do other than getting my research done.

Kindle Love

I just want to gush a bit about how much I love my Kindle. I got it last year and hardly ever turned it on. But then I moved to this other country for the year and I've come to really appreciate it. Not only can I get lots of free books from Amazon (I don't even have to pirate!), I can still check out books from my library. How freaking cool is that?

For some reason, being in Ukraine makes me want to eat a lot of chocolate and sleep all day. I swear I'm not depressed! It also makes me totally willing to read whatever horribly edited free book I find on Kindle. I've been reading a lot of English. I know I should of course be doing work and learning the language etc, but me and my Kindle have become best friends. I wonder if I would read books in Ukrainian on it if I could find them .... probably not.

Many thanks to my parents who decided to buy it for me as my Christmas present.

Life on Pause

Since my academic trajectory has been temporarily derailed due to international drama, I've been doing a whole lot of watching t.v., crocheting, and reading.

Mainly in the watching t.v. category I've been catching up on past seasons of Supernatural. I used to watch it regularly then quit for several seasons.  One day a friend mentioned on Facebook she was very sad about the demise of certain characters on the show including Castiel.  Who? I asked. "The angel on Supernatural. You will love him."  So then I had to go back and watch all the episodes I'd missed.  I've made it almost to the end of season 6.  And I do love Cas.  Clearly the universe decided to keep me in the U.S. so that I could enjoy the show more fully. If I'd gone to Ukraine in December I'd have never watched season 5, which is by far my favorite.

Crocheting: My brother bought me a book for Christmas**. It has been a wonderful guide - not so much for patterns, but for the basics I never bothered to learn. I've always said that I can't read patterns, but now I think it is more that I don't like patterns.  For instance, the hat I made (pictures below) I started from the pattern I used on the last hat* but only for the first 5 rows. Then I just played around with the stitches and accidentally learned how to make ruffles.  So there you go.  The daisy on the hat I did learn to make from the book.  The scarf also posted below is probably my favorite of everything I've ever made.  I've been wearing a lot of black as an excuse to wear the scarf every day. 

Possibly too cute, not sure if I'll ever wear it anywhere, but since I made it up all by myself I'm pretty proud.

Braided some yarn to make a "ribbon." This is functional as well as aesthetic. The hat was a bit too floppy so the yarn works as a drawstring to tighten it up around my head.

A daisy.  This was surprisingly easy. Only messed it up once ;)

Not sure how well you can see this here, but it sparkles!

As far as the reading part goes, its mostly been non-academic (see previous post). I did, however, make a trip to the library for some books on theory.  I'm not sure if I'll ever read all of them, they are mostly by French authors and therefore dense. Its mainly stuff I should have read more of a long time ago. 

On a positive note, as my co-worker said the other day "everything happens for a reason." I think the reason I've been foiled in my fieldwork attempts is because it was way too cold at my fieldwork site and I would have died. Or starved. Or been a hermit for three weeks at least.  The universe is just waiting for it to warm up over there and then I can go. 

*That failed to fit me. I posted about it.  It has, I'm happy to say, found a new home with a friend of mine who wears it all the time!
** In case anyone cares, this is the book Teach Yourself Visually - Crochet

Malazans!

I made it to the end of Book 6 of Erickson's epic* fantasy series Malazan Book of the Fallen.  There are 10 books, which today isn't entirely abnormal for a series, but these are so loooong.  And exhausting.  I've actually only read 5 because I skipped one**.  It has taken me a while to develop a definitive opinion on the series, but finally here's what I think:

There are too many characters.

It is kind of lame to boil down 1000s of pages into 5 words, so I'll try to explain. Erikson and his pal Esslemont spent years - in between being archaeologists and other stuff - developing the Malazan world for the purpose of role-playing games.  They score points here for being seriously devoted, for putting in so much time, and for being anthropologists***. One cannot fault the Malazan books for being rich on details.  There are a variety of distinct cultures spanning millions of years many of whom have developed mythologies and histories. 

Up to a certain point I am fascinated with the different groups; humans, non-humans, gods, monsters, etc.  Unfortunately, many of these people are practically immortal (even when they aren't gods) so instead of these ancient races being relegated to the backstory, they all keep running into each other.  Many of them have issues with each other - conflicts, unresolved crises, lost loves etc.  Furthermore, lots of them have a multitude of aliases.  And our writers are intimately familiar with these stories that span millions of years and thousands of characters because they spent decades inventing them.  But the reader (i.e. me) does not have such depth of knowledge and so these complicated plots become quite confusing.

I can, in fact, totally sympathize with this problem though from an academic point of view.  When writing grants I often alluded to things in my research that I was intimately familiar with and that seemed super obvious to me, until a kind reader pointed out "hey actually I don't know anything about the Austro-Hungarian Empire maybe you could explain this with a couple more concrete sentences."  In contrast, Erikson and Esslemont are writing characters.  Therefore the problem of the super-obvious not, in fact, being so obvious is that conversations between characters can become extraordinarily opaque - particularly if these characters have been around for a long time (being nearly immortal).  No actually I don't remember that brief episode you are vaguely referring to that happened 10,000 years ago with one of those tribes on one of those continents.  Don't mind me muddling through your insinuations that turn out to be (3 books later) important revelations and crucial to understanding the over-arching plot.  Sorry.  

Beyond the issue with time-depth, the other problem is that the very structure of Erikson's novels requires dozens of characters.  In most books, something happens called a convergence.  This occurs when things in the Malazan world get heated up, there is extra excitement, the gods are meddling more than usual and so on.  People all over the empire are affected by different aspects of this turmoil seemingly at random until you realize that everyone is actually headed in the same direction (to the same city, battle, temple, or what have you).  Therefore in order to get a whole world stirred up and to convey the grand-scale of this conflict many characters are needed.  In addition, much of the action is war-oriented.  There are many (oh so many) battle scenes and Erikson likes to write these scenes from the points of view of the armies - not just one soldier, but several that are usually in a squad together.  Its nice on the one hand because you get a feel for the bantering camaraderie of these army buddies, but on the other hand I just can't keep up with the sheer number of them.

Now I should point out that Erikson's fans have come through and have created an encyclopedia.****  And I have multiple times had to consult this reference guide because I can't remember who is who, when, or why.  Honestly, I feel sort of cheated that I have to do research in order to read these books, in order to understand where the story is going (and where it has been).  See, its exhausting. 

Ok, so now you ask "why don't you stop reading?"  Well, several reasons.  1) I have nothing better to do at the moment 2) I like some of the characters and I do want to know what happened to them 3) Its nice to be able to read an epic fantasy series that is actually finished! 4) I've invested a lot of time in them and since I don't hate the books I might as well keep reading while I still have time to read things for fun*****




*of unusually great size or extent
**I skipped book 5 b/c the storyline diverges from book 4, but in order to read further I have to go back and read it b/c book 7 combines the two plots.  See its exhausting.
***I'm only a little biased. 
**** I'm actually pretty sure there are two, possibly more
***** Before I become a real anthropologist.