Roads to Safe Places

niaseath

We'll hand in the keys to the flat in Uelzen on Monday. I can't believe that we moved  in here over a year ago, and I am really glad we're moving out, especially seeing as the nights are already getting significantly chillier and our walls have started getting more mouldy again. The crazy design of the flat and redecorating it the week after moving in was fun, but there were a lot more disadvantages than there were advantages to this place, on the whole. Hannover will be much better, I suppose, even though commuting down to Hamburg for the few lessons I am taking (preparation for my writing thesis is more important) will suck epicly.

lordhellebore

• Wiki's excellent article on the §175
• SchwulenCity: "§175"
• Ron Steinke: "Ein Mann, der mit einem anderen Mann - eine kurze Geschichte des §175 in der BRD"
• Carola v. Bülow: "Der Umgang der nationalsozialistischen Justiz mit Homosexuellen"

Wings, by Terry Pratchett.
The final instalment in the Bromeliad trilogy. This is Masklin's story and how he managed to get back to their mother ship and get back to Grimma and the store nomes in the quarry.
Which I did not finish because it had been put on hold by someone at the library and I had to take it back earlier than I would have liked. I never thought this instalment was as interesting as the other two, even though Masklin is as likeable as ever and even though the store nomes reaction to meeting a decendant of his deity is hilarious.

Diggers, by Terry Pratchett.
Living together in a disused quarry, especially the store nomes have troubles adjusting and putting by old feuds. Masklin, the main character, decides to go and get help from a decendant of the store nomes "deity" who founded the store. In his absence, the quarry is re-opened and Grimma, who now leads the nomes even though she is female, acts to save them.
Again, my gender-goggles were pleased, even though I keep thinking that Terry Pratchett's positive message is made easier by the fact that his female characters are all coming directly out of deeply prejudiced worlds which are just moving on to more equality. Still, I have a very soft spot for Grimma.

Truckers, by Terry Pratchett
Four-inch or so tall people, originally form outer space, the nomes, who live next to a motorway decide to improve their perilous condition by moving, use on of the trucks that sometimes come by, and find out that there are nomes which live in a store. When the store has to be demolished, they leave together.
When I first read these books, I read them in German on a train ride back from my elderly relatives in Essen and frequently I had to literally bite my hand to stop myself from making a spectacle of myself by repeatedly getting into laughing fits. On second reading, in English, ten years later, I do not find these novels THAT funny anymore, but these predecessors of the Wee Free Men, successors of the Carpet People are still interesting enough for me to read all three novels. Again, my gender-goggles are deeply gratified by the progress perceptible in this world, and even though the plot itself is nothing that new, there are many elements to the story that I liked a lot, like the religion the store gnomes have.

Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett.
A story about the first female wizard who goes to Ankh-Morpork's famous Unseen University, or tries to, as women can't enter the university.
Not in this pretty version, obviously. What I love about Terry Pratchett is that you can analyse his books at leisure and still hardly ever be disappointed. I have never used race goggles on his books, he may have skeletons in the closet there, but gender-wise, and my gender-spectacles are permanent by now, I'm afraid, this man is perfect. This is one of his earliest novels and even though he cheerfully draws on the same stereotypes as many of his Fantasy-writing colleagues do it does not matter, as he does so tongue-in-cheek, as he deconstructs the things he does use as he goes along. The deeply prejudiced world he depicts at the beginning of the story is already going somewhere by the end of the novel, and this deeply optimistic view of his world as a place which starts out bad but is evolving to something better every novel makes his Discworld novels such a great read.

38.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The End, by Daniel Handler.
I am still not sure what to make of this ending. There seem to be some loose ends, but I daresay that it's possible to assemble clues from the series to fill in the blanks. I don't really know what to make of the dilemma that the last book's end presented me with, though, and I like that. It seems that the series itself leaves the heroes in this grey zone between heroes and villains, and that is a really awesome thing to do at the end of a series for young readers. I also loved learning more about Count Olaf's backstory, curiously enough.

37.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Penultimate Peril, by Daniel Handler.
Another better novel. It's awesome to finally meet the sister of the fictional author of the story. The added information on the main plot were really worth the read, although I had a hard time justifying the actions of the children towards the end of the series. It seems very hard to do, and even though I feel that the plot means to make them remain in the roles of heroes, their actions rather show that they have become, in fact, villains. I'm really curious how the last book deals with that.

36.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Grim Grotto, by Daniel Handler.
Another great instalment that was fun reading. Especially the introduction of yet another grey zone between heroes and villain made this book really awesome for me.

35.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Slippery Slope, by Daniel Handler.
I loved this one, really loved. The way the romance sub-plot is not played out as something of utmost importance, finding out about V.F.D, the continued use of the Swinburne-quote - I loved it. Finally, the overall plot has gathered some momentum, and the style continues to stay awesome. I also stopped being aggravated by the lack of realism in the baby's behaviour.

34.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Carnivorous Carnival, by Daniel Handler.
This book was really interesting. It's slightly depressing that this is really the first one which is so thoroughly entertaining and quite suspenseful at times, although I couldn't say whether or not this wasn't already the case in the eighth book, which was out at the time and which I had to skip.

33.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Vile Village. by Daniel Handler.
Yay! Finally! Plot! The return of the useless guardian is even made bearable by that.

32.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Ersatz Elevator, by Daniel Handler.
This book had one of the most annoyingly unrealistic scenes of the entire bloody series - the baby climbing up the elevator using her teeth. No creative licence in the world can make that ok. Also, the reappearance of the one evil-and-one-incompetent-guardian-thing makes this boring. The glimpses of an underlying plot of the series makes it worth the read, though.

31.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Austere Academy, by Daniel Handler.
I really enjoyed reading about the Triplets, although the more blatant moments of children's literature and the resulting lack of realism and sense were annoying again. I liked that there seems to be plot on the horizon there somewhere. Can't wait.

30.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Miserable Mill, by Daniel Handler.
Yawn. Also, the less realistic things are getting annoying. I still enjoy the Snicket parts and the style, but the children's book literature moments get on my nerves.

29.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Wide Window, Daniel Handler.
I hated this one with the passion of a hundred flaming suns. Why? Because of the fact that one of the brats thought that the henchman of the sinister Count Olaf whose gender is unclear is the "scariest", and apparently because of that alone, and because they called hir an "it".
The "hooked arm" and "wooden leg" things were bad enough, but this one was really over the top, as it seemed to be the only reason for the person to be horrible.

28.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Reptile Room, Daniel Handler.
Even as a young child I would have found Mr Poe too aggravating to believe. I do wonder about the dedications of the books, though, and I've come to like the tone. On the whole, the backstory of Lemony Snicket is far more interesting to read about and think about than the children's predicament. The two layers of the story work very well together.
Maybe it's only because I've gotten used to them, but the characters seem rather likeable all of the sudden, and although I still find it very difficult to actually sympathise with them, they do seem likeable.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning,  Daniel Handler.
I think I'm only reading the series because I couldn't resist the temptation and irresistible appeal of the cover and design of the books.
I have to say that I hated the movie, but that was mostly due to the presence of Jim Carey whom I really can't abide. I think that the Eternal Sunshine and The Truman Show were the only movies which feature him which didn't make me aggressive and nauseous in equal parts.
Something about the books strikes me as incredibly phoney, which may well be the attempt to stuff as much Gothic-novelesque imagery into this book as humanly possible combined with the language. It's like a Tim Burton movie in book form for early readers.
The language of the narrator annoys me slightly, but I think that I would have enjoyed the books as a young child, before the missing logic would have gotten on my nerves.

Drachen, by Joseph Nigg. (How to raise and keep a dragon)
This probably doesn't even count as a book, but it is so incredibly cute I wanted to include it.

The English Language - a guided tour of the language, by David Crystal. For my semester, or at least the WS0203 IELS course, the Welsh professor probably is the godfather of Linguistics, as we were treated to a taped lecture he held in Hamburg a few semesters before by our teacher, Ada Whitaker.
("Accommodation has gotten me into the worst sort of trouble. I was talking to another arts enthusiast in Glasgow the other day, and we were agreeing about funding and exhibitions and all sorts of other topics, and after a while, Ah felt me voice go like thes. And then it happened. My partner in conversation was delighted and asked, 'Are ye from Glasgow?" Now, there's the problem - the Glaswegians are used to having their accent ridiculed, and react rather violently, so what was I supposed to say? 'No!' - he would think that I was making fun of him, and he would hit me. 'Yes!' - 'Which part of Glasgow?' - 'Uh, I don't know!' - and he would hit me again.")

Eric, or Little by Little, by Frederic William Farrar.
A boarding school novel. A gripping tale of the snares of moral corruption that lurk behind every corner in the every-day life of a schoolboy in the nineteenth century (like cheating in exams, smoking the pipe, or using bad language that god does not delight in, oh my).
Most of the conflicts that arise between the students and the teachers seem absolutely ludicrous (one boy pinned a note that said "[teacher] is a surly devil" to the board and did not confess when he had the choice. As a punishment, he was "tried" in a mock trial by the entire student body. Their punishment for him was making him "walk the gauntlet", a beating from all of his fellow students. He was also subsequently caned in front of the entire school by the headmaster and expelled afterwards) from today's perspective - or at least my perspective, but it is still a charming window into a world that is comparatively whole and simple.

Middlemarch, by George Eliot.
Mostly because I couldn't remember what happens towards the last third of the novel. I like it a lot, although there are parts that are incredibly tedious, and parts that are incredibly charming.

Reading Lolita in Teheran, by Azar Nafisi. (Reading "Lolita" in Teheran - a memoir in books)
A fascinating read with many unbelievable insights into the daily life of an Iranian college professor. It made many of the things I already know about more real and thereby more horrifying.

Mein Herz so weiß,by Xavier Marias. (A Heart so white)

Homeland, by R. A. Salvatore.
Ever since duckygirlrocks wrote that entry in her LJ about the main character I wanted to read the series.
It is good so far, although I had to take the book back to the library before I finished reading it, though, so I still need to take it out again to find out how it actually ends. Needless to say, someone else has it in their clutches now and won't give it back.