Assorted notes and queries

[raven]

Having got me successfully through everything it had to get me through, my body has given up on walking around and now I just want to lie down and flop. Forever. With two bags of sweets within reach, and maybe also the complete works of Lois McMaster Bujold. Some assorted notes and queries:

1. Firstly, and most importantly, Professor Jerry Cohen is dead. My reaction to this has mostly been "but but but he was IMMORTAL but". While I wasn't lucky enough to be taught by him, I have read most of what he's written - and I recommend his writing to everyone, actually, not just students of political philosophy. The title of one of his best-known works is If You're An Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?, which says it all in just its title, doesn't it? He writes - well, he wrote - about difficult things, about orthodox Marxism, about his particular brand of egalitarianism, and makes a significant critique of Rawls' theory of justice (one which, it is worth noting, is easily used as the base for an explicitly feminist critique), but he does it incredibly well - clearly, engagingly, the sort of way I wish everyone who writes about difficult things would write.

And even though I was never taught by him, I did... er... encounter him on occasion. Wherever he is now, I'm sure he's raising orthodox Marxist hell.

2. In other news entirely, I wish to make a point about Rachel McAdams. jacinthsong showed me the trailer for Sherlock Holmes - which, is, oh god, looks terrible, crash-bang-wallop homoeroticism I cannot wait - but, I could not help noticing, has Rachel McAdams in it playing Irene Adler. She - McAdams, I mean - is also in The Time Traveler's Wife, which, like the other, is a film that people will have heard of. (I have no idea what it will be like, probably bad, but I suspect I will have to see it anyway.)

Anyway. Yes. Rachel McAdams is in films that are released all over the world that people have heard of, and stuff. Isn't she supposed to be a minor character in that Canadian indie thing only my friends and I watch...? Yeah. I just wanted this down for the record.

3. Yes, these points aren't supposed to be related in any way. Flist, speak to me of Diana Gabaldon. I know some of you have read/are reading her - nos4a2no9, thistlerose? - and I'm interested to know what you think. After spending a week in London without a lot to do in the evenings, I have read two and a half of her Lord John books, which are, sort of, historical detective-thriller-adventure things set in the 1750s. Which do, yes, sound like the sort of thing I'd hate (they exist in the same universe as the author's "real" series, a series of historical romances with time-travel and Jacobite rebellions and whatnot, none of which I have been able to get into). But they are witty, engaging, and just likeable, and also the protagonist, Lord John Grey, is that rarest of beasts, a fictional character who is gay, perfectly happy about being gay, and who pursues adventures with gentlemen in and around solving the mystery of the moment. I'm not explaining these very well, but they're good. Very, very good, in this delightfully light and loopy way. The books are: Lord John and the Private Matter, Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, and Lord John and the Hand of Devils (short story collection; don't start with this one). Consider this a rec.

(If they were fanfiction, though, I'd warn for: the fact Grey is a rape survivor. I think it happens in Private Matter, which I am only halfway through - but Grey is a lucid narrator and Galbaldon very good at character development, so it is worth noting that the fact of his having been raped is mentioned in the other two novels, and in some ways informs all his subsequent characterisation. Thus I mention it.)

4. Meme! Nabbed from emerald_embers most recently, but from all of you.

Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post. Possibly with pictures. Ask multiple questions. I'll do it.

That's it. shimgray is plotting a Wikipedia article that he has been threatening to write for some time ("Elephants in Scotland"), and I am curled in a chair and attempting not to fall asleep. It's quiet, and it's nice, and it's very good to be together again.

Comments

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

I actually stopped reading Outlander about 100 pages in. The writing was good, the heroine was likable, but the romantic interest was pissing me off with his perfection. To the point where I find him wholly uninteresting and don't want to read about him for another 500 pages. I may pick it up again, but... I like my protagonists with lots of flaws.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say that! He appears in Lord John's books too, and I really thought he was the worst thing in them. He's so... blandly idealised. Grey's supposed to be in love with him, but I never saw why.

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

Well, he's handsome! And perfect! And gallant! And handsome! *yaaaaawn*

[tau_sigma]

Top five times Martha Jones was AWESOME. Because I am very much feeling the Martha love right now.

My brain is a little too dead for further comment, but enjoy flopping and sweets and being with your boy.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Comin' right up, honey. I am so with on the brain-dead - I am back in my comfy chair with boy and bag of sweets. It's awesome.

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Top five things that made you want to go to Hogwarts. Or, equally, the top five things that made you *not* want to go there.

I think the floppage is extremely warranted, and probably necessary at this point. And congratulations on your marks, super-lawyer-child! :D

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you, lovely! And your five things are coming up.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

Those darn Canadian actors, growing up and moving to Hollywood! At least we've got Paul --

Oh, wait.

*

I made it through several volumes of the Outlander series before Jamie Fraser got too perfect even for me and Claire drove me up a tree with bad decision making. This was in part because it was summer and I did them all at a dead run.

If the Lord John Grey books are much better, that's good to know.

*

Top five Darren Nichols productions?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE PAUL. HE WILL NEVER LEAVE US. Yeah.

Lord John's books are very much better, yes. He's a much better character to begin with, I think.

(Darren comin' right up. :P)

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

I...god, I don't know what to say, I have been to a couple of lectures by him and he was so awesome, really funny and blunt and very impatient when people asked stupid questions and also obviously a genius. It sounds silly to say that I am sad, but it is true.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. It is sad - and it bothered me that he wasn't as old as I'd thought. He was only in his sixties! It's such a shame.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

While we're on the subject: top five Geoffrey moments in S&A!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Sure! And hey, I didn't know you were an S&A person too! Seems like all the cool kids are. :P

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

2. Wasn't Rachel McAdams big in Mean Girls, though? (ohgod why do I know that?) Whenever I show people S&A, they always recognize her immediately. Which is as it should be. (Because she has UNEARTHLY BEAUTY. And also, y'know, talent.)

4. Top five fannish characters!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

...omg, Leigh, Rachel McAdams was in Mean Girls! The moment you said it, it clicked for me who she was in it. Wow. Seriously, how did I never notce that?

OTC! Comin' up.

[flashofalchemy.livejournal.com]

One time, Regina George punched me in the face. It was awesome.

Aaaand

They say she does car commercials. In Japan.

There is your daily dose of Mean Girls quotes :D

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I didn't realize it until I rewatched Mean Girls after seeing S&A the first time. (oh god why I have seen it MULTIPLE TIMES?) It is craziness.

[tafkarfanfic.livejournal.com]

Gabaldon's earlier books are great; the later ones really could have used some tightening up (to the point where they went from "must read NOW" to "I'll get around to it...someday")

Gabaldon has a thing for male rape victims. Lord John is not her only male character who suffers that.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, that's interesting. I have to admit, I can't think of another novel with a male character who has a rape as part of his backstory - i.e., not as actual focus of novel. It impressed me, actually, with how well it was handled.

[tafkarfanfic.livejournal.com]

I would say, if nothing else, read Outlander. It's really good.

Hey, in other news, remember that story about Sha're that I've been talking about for five years? I finally wrote it! (http://tafkarfanfic.livejournal.com/267847.html?mode=reply) (Well, the first third...)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hey, dude! That's awesome! *bookmarks*

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

Sarah Monette has done this; so has Elizabeth Bear.

But then the latter is rather out of favor in my circles at present.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Top five fictional lawyers.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Good one, yes!

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I feel this should be my cue to say: Iona, if you haven't seen Boston Legal yet, someday you probably should. I mean, it's deeply problematic, but also about lawyers and deeply gay. Deeply gay between Daniel Jackson James Spader and Captain Kirk William Shatner. I KNOW.

[tafkarfanfic.livejournal.com]

YES!!! Seconding Boston Legal. It's also some of the best work Shatner has done. It goes from super-loopy to super-serious on a dime.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's it. This week I am going to WATCH THIS SHOW.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Catching up, let's see: congratulations; good luck; yay trains, sweets, etc; Sherlock Holmes more homoerotic than this sentence has room for; top five feminists (real/fictional, historical/current)?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins at you* Coming up!

[nerves-patterns.livejournal.com]

I just kind of wanted to cry while watching The Time Traveler's Wife. IN A BAD WAY. McAdams was great - Eric Bana couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. The writing wasn't good. I wish we could just turn the sound off and look at them, because it looked good - cinematically beautiful - but god, was it awful. :( I can't even fully express how disappointed I was. There may have been a tear or two... and lots of indignant snorting and huffing.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ack, I was afraid you might say that! I suspected the book might be unfilmable in any case, but it's such a shame to have my suspicions confirmed! What do you think - go see, or not bother?