Alas, poor Sutherland

Finished Curiosities of Literature last night. I had been looking forward to it, but I'm afraid it was a disappointment. I loved the idea of it -- a collection of miscellany and trivia from the literary world -- but I could hardly believe how poorly done it was! It looked like it had never encountered an editor in its existence. Misplaced commas (even allowing for differences between British and American systems, they were wildly misplaced), missing articles, and dangling modifiers are bad enough in normal books; in books written by English professors, they're mind-boggling. Even worse were the major factual mistakes: Sutherland misquoted Shakespeare, identified Georgina Hogarth as Dickens's daughter rather than his sister-in-law, named Colin Firth as the star of the 2005 theatrical version of Pride and Prejudice, and referred to Sherlock Holmes as a "medical figure." I'm guessing there were probably even more that I wasn't educated enough to catch. I wanted to rank this book higher because of the great concept and the author's wicked wit -- he has some genuinely funny zingers in there -- but when your book is all about literary facts and you keep getting those wrong (when they're so easy to check, too), you've pretty much undermined your whole project. Wonderful idea, horribly sloppy execution. Two-and-a-half out of five stars.

Now I'm back in the mystery genre with Ends of the Earth by Tim Downs. This is my fourth "Bug Man" novel; I think I'm reading them out of order, but this one was on sale a few weeks ago, so I just snatched it up.

The way we want things to be

Found this story via Bookshelves of Doom: Author Hilary McKay has written a sequel to one of my favorite childhood books, A Little Princess. As usual in these situations, I am simultaneously horrified and intrigued. I don't like the idea of some stranger messing with those wonderful characters, but at the same time I can't help feeling a little curious.

This part, though, unequivocally bugged me:

You introduce several new characters in your novel, including Alice, the feisty, outspoken new maid. She’s quite different from Becky, the maid who leaves to live with Sara.

Yes, she is. I knew that there had to be a maid helping out, and I felt I couldn’t have anyone remotely like Becky.

Well, as Ms. McKay has taken on this task, that's her prerogative. But sometimes I think that we're spoiled in this day and age, you know? We see other ages through our own eyes, and often that leads to tweaking our vision of them so that things are as we would have liked them to be. It's all to the good that we want to write strong, self-reliant female characters for little girls to emulate, especially in the Age of Bella the Bumbling and Brainless -- but sometimes I think we deliberately close our eyes and ears to the truth when we say we simply "can't have" characters who are cowed by their circumstances. Seriously, in the time and place when the story was set, who would be likelier to be working as a maid for a tyrant like Miss Minchin? A "feisty, outspoken" Alice, or a poverty-stricken, timid Becky who didn't dare speak up for herself, for fear of literally starving to death?

I suppose what I would say to Ms. McKay is this: Write Alice the way you need to, but don't blow off the Beckys of the world while you're at it. There were an awful lot of them -- and there still are, all over the world. And their voices shouldn't be drowned out just because they make us uncomfortable.

The day everyone went completely nuts: a meme

Thanks to Nibs at Wickfield for this meme. I'm sure many of you have done it before, but if it's new to you and you'd like to try it, consider yourself tagged! Apologies for any unorthodox spacing; LJ is really acting up for me these days.

"List twelve characters from any fandom/literary source, and then answer the following questions." Make SURE that you list the characters BEFORE reading the questions!!!

1. Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities)
2. Anne Shirley (the Anne of Green Gables series)
3. Lord Peter Wimsey (the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries)
4. Arthur Clennam (Little Dorrit)
5. Sara Crewe (A Little Princess)
6. Miss Betsey Trotwood (David Copperfield)
7. Harriet Vane (the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries)
8. Lily Bart (The House of Mirth)
9. Father Tim Kavanaugh (the Mitford series)
10. Adrian Monk (Monk)
11. Radar (M*A*S*H)
12. Archie Goodwin (the Nero Wolfe mysteries)

( In which the above named have some strange adventures . . . )