a journal of the plague, sword, and famine year

Read over the last week of 2022 and in the plane to India, three books by Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor and both volumes of The Cemeteries of Amalo. While the steampunk side is very light, the universe is rather well-conceived and the stories compelling, esp. the duology that follows a priest able to connect with recently deceased people, towards seeking murderers or scone recipes. Too much introspection and self-pity, too many descriptions of itineraries in an imaginary city, unnecessarily complicated names, but pleasant nonetheless, with a fascination with (imaginary) teas and tea-houses. I also read All the Horses of Iceland, which turned out to be an historical novel on an early Icelander’s trip to Mongolia and his bringing home the ancestors of the famed horses of Iceland. Very well-written and full of historical tidbits.

While visiting Ivan Vautier’s restaurant in Caen with a scallop menu was a continuation of a family (almost) tradition, I cooked very little over the period except for making my own garam masala from spices I bought in India. Put to use in weekly fish curries. I also tried to bake dosa (ದೋಸೆ), this very thin rice-flour crêpe ubiquitous in South India, but it ended up closer to a galette!

Watched most of The Good Detective, a rather conventional Korean TV series (meaning the same police stations, endless shots of police stations from outside, post-work dinner parties, intricate blackmail situations, widespread corruption, massive conflicts of interest, as in series earlier watched). But enough originality to keep me interested. And second-watched Belfast in the plane to India, a black-and-white film by Kenneth Branagh, focusing on a Protestant family during “The Troubles” and sounding (!) rather engaging, if possibly soppy (as sound was off).

a journal of the plague year [soon to turn one…]

Read in a few Sunday hours Living proof by John Harvey, a 1995 novel that I had found in the book exchange section of our library. A very easy read but rather enjoyable with several stories within stories and books within books. The resolution of the main murder mystery was disappointing but I enjoyed the inclusion of real artists like Ian Rankin and Mark Timlin. With a pastiche of P.D. James. And plenty of jazz references. Plus two characters meeting while studying at Warwick. And some shared glimpses of Nottingham like the statue of Robin Hood and the troglodyte Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. where I was once  invited for a pint… The story takes place during and around Nottingham’s Shots in the Dark festival. I hence grabbed another volume in the library in prevision of another lazy afternoon!

Baked rather decent chapattis for a take-home Bengali dinner but ruined the pan and started the fire alarm! Also tried to bake tortillas but mixed up the proportions of flour and water, ending up with a type of galette or injera instead (which worked as a container for the fajitas!).

Eventually watched the last two episodes of the Queen’s Gambit, but found them somewhat disappointing, between the main characters’ attitude that did not feel in tune with the 1960’s, the French femme fatale who cannot pronounce Jardins du Luxembourg, and the somewhat rosy tale of two orphans achieving financial freedom and professional success before their majority. Also watched the Korean Space Sweepers after an exhausting day, with a very shallow plot and a complete disregard for physics.

Read the duology of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo, set in the same universe as the Grisha novels. Which I had read five years ago and somewhat forgotten than these novels were written as young adult books, with a resulting shallow plot, so full of sudden changes of fortune that any worry for the (caricaturesque) characters vanishes (till the one point when one should have) in a definitive suspension of suspense. (The Guardian reviewed Six of Crows in the Children’s book review section, which feels rather inappropriate given the degree of abuse the teens in the novels are submitted to, with two girls surviving sexual enslavement in the local brothels.) Just like the Grisha novels were set in a postcard version of Russia, these novels are taking place in a similarly thin (pannenkoek) version of Amsterdam (with waffles as the only culinary delicacy!). I do realise these series have a huge fan base, to the point of leading to an incoming Netflix series. But I found the more elaborate Ninth House much more enjoyable… (In tune with this series of reviews, the second book includes a plague episode with a modicum of realism, at least in its early stages.)