November 2015

63.
Title: [The Turn of the Screw]
Author: Henry James
Genre: Gothic
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Victorian Gothic
Date Completed: November 4, 2015
Rating: ****

The Turn of the Screw is a typical Victorian ghost story, featuring an isolated and abandoned governess and her two mysterious charges.  Though my professor challenged my reading, I maintain that the children are themselves the most threatening figures in the story, and find that this reading is far more engaging.

64.
Title: [Fun Home]
Author: Alison Bechdel
Genre: Comic Memoir
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Affect Theory
Date Completed: November 10, 2015
Rating: *****

This was my second reading of Bechel's graphic memoir, after approximately nine years, this time for a class on affect theory.  Bechdel's illustrations and voice are compelling, and her struggle with her father's suicide and the development of her personal identity will engage the reader from the very beginning. For class, we are framing our conversation through Jose Munoz's "disidentification," with great success.

65.
Title: [Othello]
Author: Shakespeare
Genre: Drama
Medium: Folger
Acquisition: Work Text
Date Completed: November 10, 2015
Rating: *****

63> Both the gothic course and the affect course were amazing. I'm working on my term papers now, and it's both exciting and terrifying.  I gave a smashing paper on [Fun Home] a couple of weeks ago for Affect, and I don't think I'm going to be able to meet it.

64> I agree - it's one of the things I like best about teaching. The most exciting time is when a student comes up with something that's just so darn smart, that I've never thought of before.  It's wonderful!

66.
Title: [Manners and Mutiny]
Author: Gail Carriger
Genre: Steampunk YA
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Preorder
Date Completed: November 14, 2015
Rating: ****1/2

Manners and Mutiny is the final installment of Carriger's Finishing School series, which works backwards from Parasol Protectorate to develop the history of some familiar faces.  The plot is consistent with the rest of the series, and actually develops characters from the beginning, which I appreciate.  As a whole I didn't find it to be the most thrilling, but it did follow through with much that was promised, and for that I appreciated it.  A clean finish.

67.
Title: [Incubus Dreams]
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Ancient History
Date Completed: November 2015
Rating: ***

It's been interesting reading this series straight through for the first time, in fairly close order (not back to back, because teaching and grade school, but certainly closer than before). I'm tempted to say that Incubus Dreams is the book that signals the full shift of Anita Blake from profession to personal; earlier texts introduce some kind of balance between Anita's jobs as an animator and consultant, but in Incubus Dreams that balance is nearly gone - it's almost entirely personal. This is significant because one would thing serial killer vampires coming to time would register more on her professional level, but even the vampire side is marginalized for sex scenes.  I maintain that I don't have a preference for the two sides - I accept the development for what it is - but the moral grandstanding and angst can be a bit difficult to swallow when reading them so close together.

I like Nathaniel.

Also, in the course of research I came across an academic chapter on Anita Blake called "Sleeping With the Enemy."  Fun.  Perhaps I'll read it, when my real research is through.


75. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare. Drama. 11.2015. ***** (forgot to add to original review list)