(no subject)

All the things that I didn't do this weekend have fallen into today's basket. It's not a long list, but it's a gruesome one. Since I may not alleviate my woes with chocolate (five days to go!) I'm alleviating it with books. With one book only, really, but it's a big one: Helen Lowe's The Gathering of the Lost. The first volume in the series was a traditional epic fantasy, with lots of familiar tropes, but with women as important and fascinating characters. This exactly fits my needs today, for I need to be strong and resolute and accept no secondary options when it comes to contracts and taxes and the like. Also, some very sad emails, one about a friend's major lifestyle changes (not sad, actually, but very dramatic) and another about a friend's mother's death. Plus there's the usual study and writing, which is not dire at all, but can't take precedence over taxes and contracts and death.

Watch this space for jubilant as I conquer the epic tasks and return to normal. My normal. Which will include the Middle Ages, of course.

In a less frabjous note, I discovered 3 dozen articles I have yet to read. I must read them before I write up that chapter. They were hidden in a mysterious folder on my computer, "Dissertation" under the obscure label "To check." Also, I found another stack of notes of books I ought to read. I need to cull them, because I really am near the end of research and some of them may not be necessary. I so hope some of them aren't necessary!! The end is still in sight, but more in a seasonal way (I have seen it from a mountaintop) than in a woo-hoo, we're here!" way.

All I can say is that it's just as well I spent that extra time fighting papers and bibliography this weekend. I wouldn't like to be faced with the same amount to be read after I'd completed the last two chapters!!

(no subject)

Two things of note from my day's reading so far (seven of those articles demolished!).

Firstly, scholars/writers who don't write in spec fic don't tend to notice when studies that include it are poorly conceived.

Secondly, scholar/writers (in this case just the one) who don't use spec fic as part of their analysis and who don't write it don't understand that the world of the novel can open up from publication ie that the novel is not necessarily a closed world. S/he argued that the novel is finished and then the author moves on, while with history, it's the discussion and the changes and the shifts that are important. Me, I argue that this is more shifting of grounds in the argument than a solidly demonstrated case for novels being so fundamentally different to history. Some novels close and the worlds are preserved, but most of them have that strange thing called reader interface (for most of them are read, and because many readers are acutely intelligent and thoughtful and latch onto ideas and start playing). This is more apparent to me for some works than for others: I'm very happy to play in an Anne McCaffrey dragon world but I have absolutely no desire to even walk round in any of Peter Carey's worlds.

Writing brilliance doesn't equate to desirability of universe. I can't see why it should - some novels are made so that they finish when the book is read, and for some the initial entertainment is only the beginning.

I think what's getting to me today is the way a whole series of academic writers have assumed that novels are a simpler form with a simpler role in society and a simpler interface with both writer and reader than is actually true.

Does anyone know a study that handles this well? This is not for my doctorate - it is for me. I can find my own understanding (I usually do) but it would be terrific to read an articulate and thorough analysis of novels regarding when they are limited worlds (that's it when you close the book) or when they extend and how they extend. The literary/genre divide is daft and helps not at all, for some literary works have extended worlds (Jane Austen!) and some genre live only between the covers.

I'm not interested in good/bad judgements, for that's not relevant as far as I can see. It's not about the quality of the writing, but about how society takes on that particular tale and its universe and decides how to play with it.

I should have asked about a book on this year ago. My books tend to encourage participation, you see, so the question has been appearing over and again when I meet readers. The number of times I've been told, wistfully "I want coffee with Rose" is astonishing, and one reader asked me how Liz was going, six months after he'd finished the novel and another started blogging her life as a case study and then realised it was fiction.

In my case, it's to do with the nature of the mimesis I write. In cases like McCaffrey, it's to do with a world that's sufficiently comfortable (the balance between formulae and character is just so) so that we as readers can insert ourselves in those worlds and create our own adventure.

And I so want to read a magisterial study on this!

(no subject)

I have been tough on my notes and checked everything. I have 18 books to read and about the same number of articles. I need to book myself some library time!

Where all this came from is that I quite forgot I had lost two weeks of research to my eye even before the burglary. The things I was going to do during those two weeks were in different piles to everything else because they were imminent. The piles were moved during the kerfuffle of the burglary and the series of unfortunate incidents compounded and I forgot that those two weeks hadn't contained much of anything.

It means I have a bit more catching up than I thought. Given I have medical appointments and meetings by the half dozen from now until the first week of May (they come in matched sets, two of each a week, averaging two hours in length with one hour travel each way - I have it all calculated, which possibly means I'm focussed a bit much on it, but it *does* give me some reading time), this is a good time to work them into my schedule. Chapter Six can wait until May.

I cancelled my long weekend away. I was going to take time out and visit Cat and Michael this weekend because April was going to be a tough month even before March became curious and strange. Instead, I shall use it to help me achieve miracles and catch up a bit more.

Having said that, I'm going to try to do most of the articles today and tomorrow, for I really hate falling behind on things!

ETA: All the articles for Ch. 6 are read and notes have been taken. Just the 18 books to go! They'll happen more gradually - when I can get to libraries.