Book Club in the Playground: Shades of Milk and Honey

[happyturtle]

Click here for voting instructions - voting open until 17:30 GMT Friday Voting closed.


1. Shades of Milk and Honey
2. The Walking Drum
3. The Princess Bride
4. Dracula

[Lord Magtok]

1. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
2. Shades of Milk and Honey
3. Monstrous Regiment
4. Dracula

[Aolbain]

1. Shades of Milk and Honey
2. Time to Depart
3. The Walking Drum
4. The Dying Earth

[OrchestraHc]

1. Shades of milk and honey
2. American Gods
3. Princess bride
4. Dune

[Piggy Knowles]

1. The Magus
2. The Walking Drum
3. An Excellent Mystery
4. Alif the Unseen

[Kitten Champion]

1. Shades of Milk and Honey
2. Alif the Unseen
3. The Windup Girl
4. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

[KerfuffleMach2]

1. DUNE
2. Daemon
3. The Windup Girl
4. The Monstrous Regiment

[Palanan]

1. Shades of Milk and Honey
2. An Excellent Mystery
3. Time to Depart
4. The Dying Earth

.

[Artemis97]

1. Scar Night
2. Monstrous Regiment
3. DUNE
4. Dracula

[turkishproverb]

I may have missed something obvious, but is this club monthly or weekly? Kind've effects my votes.

[happyturtle]

There's no set time frame - just as long as it takes to discuss the book. Maybe a book a month or six weeks?

[turkishproverb]

There's no set time frame - just as long as it takes to discuss the book. Maybe a book a month or six weeks?

Ah. Ok then.

Well, for this round, I guess:

1. Monstrous Regiment
2. The Princess Bride
3. American Gods
4. DUNE

[BWR]

1. Dune
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
3. Dracula
4. The Dying Earth

[Cloud Rat]

1. Monstrous Regiment
2. Shades of Milk and Honey
3. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
4. Be More Chill

[Kindablue]

1. Shades of Milk and Honey
2. Alif the Unseen
3. Dune
4. The Dying Earth


Also "King Stephen". I almost went with that one for that detail alone...

[Morty]

1. Dracula
2. The Princess Bride
3. Scar Night
4. American Gods

[Helanna]

1. American Gods
2. Shades of Milk and Honey
3. Great Expectations
4. Scar Night

[IthilanorStPete]

This sounds like a lot of fun!

My votes:
1. Shades of Milk and Honey
2. Dracula
3. American Gods
4. Dune

[happyturtle]

Voting closed.

The choice is Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal. Everyone head to your local library or bookstore or Amazon to procure copies, and I'll start the discussion on June 13.

[Artemis97]

So I just discovered that Hank Green, brother of author John Green, has just read Shades of Milk and Honey. From the brief mention, I think he liked it, or at least one of the themes behind it.

[Piggy Knowles]

How much of a faux pas is it to read ahead? Based on the book's length and my listening/reading habits, I would typically finish it in two days. (I drive around a lot as part of my job, and get in about four hours of audiobook time a day - and this book is only seven and a half hours long).

Basically, I'm trying to decide whether I should get a second audiobook to listen to throughout the days so I can pace myself and read each chapter along with the book club, or just plough ahead and finish it, and just go refresh myself on each relevant chapter as we discuss them.

[Palanan]

Well, I'm on Chapter Four myself, and really enjoying it. I doubt I'd finish it anywhere as quickly as PK, but I could see myself being done with it by the weekend easily.

[KerfuffleMach2]

I only have about 40 pages left myself. I'm gonna finish it, then just skim through the chapters as we review them.

[Kindablue]

I couldn't find the book in the local bookstore (the one local bookstore), so I'll start reading when Amazon delivers it in a couple of days.

[happyturtle]

How much of a faux pas is it to read ahead? Based on the book's length and my listening/reading habits, I would typically finish it in two days. (I drive around a lot as part of my job, and get in about four hours of audiobook time a day - and this book is only seven and a half hours long).

Basically, I'm trying to decide whether I should get a second audiobook to listen to throughout the days so I can pace myself and read each chapter along with the book club, or just plough ahead and finish it, and just go refresh myself on each relevant chapter as we discuss them.

I'm going to try to read one chapter at a time, but I can't blame anyone else for choosing differently.

[Lord Magtok]

To open the discussion, I'd just like to throw out that I think Mr. Dunkirk is nowhere near as subtle as Jane thinks that he is. 'No doubt he meant Melody', my butt.

[happyturtle]

Chapter One Overview

The book opens like a typical Jane Austen novel: Name the family, point out their station in society, and describe their finances. In our case, we have the Ellsworth family of Long Parkmead, Dorchester. Like the Bennetts of Pride and Prejudice, they are a family living on an entailed estate, which means that the daughters of the family will not inherit. Unlike Mr Bennett, Mr Ellsworth has managed to save up a dowry for his daughters, Jane and Melody.

The eldest, Jane, is the more talented of the two in music and painting, as well as 'glamour', the art of creating illusions. Melody is the prettier, which makes her more likely to attract a husband. () Because of this, Mr Ellsworth seems determined to act as matchmaker to see Jane married before his death.

The prospective matches are Captain Livingstone, who Jane thinks of as a boy, and Mr Dunkirk, who Jane and Melody both fancy. It is because of the expected arrival of Mr Dunkirk on an afternoon call that the two women spend a half hour refreshing the 'glamour' in the drawing room. They have the ability to spread fragrance, breezes, illusion of movement in the wallpaper, and even to create an echo of music. The effort of doing too much too quickly can cause lightheadedness, which seems a perfectly reasonable price to pay for those effects.

Mr Dunkirk is late, upsetting and embarrassing Melody, but he brings the news that a professional Glamourist is in the neighbourhood - a Mr Vincent, who has studied on the Continent and even done work for the Prince Regent. As he leaves, he tells Mr Ellsworth 'Your daughter is a credit to you', leaving Jane to fret about which daughter he means, before deciding he must mean Melody. And such she reassures Melody when she goes to comfort her.

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Comments

I'm seeing lots of parallels with both Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. For S&S, we have an older sister who is talented and reserved, and a younger one who is beautiful and impetuous. For P&P we have the family situation, the entailed estate, and a matchmaking parent.

I like the description of Glamour, and how it is relegated to an art form, such as painting or music. As in the arts, men make their living with art, while women use it simply as a method of making the home more pleasant. Now I'm wondering how far the glamour can go? If you can make a breeze, can you make a cool breeze, from a mountaintop or an arctic zone that will act as air conditioning? Because I could really do with some of that right now. Gah, it's hot today!

[Aolbain]

Honestly, I think the parallels with Jane Austin was a bit to blatant. I get that it's supposed to be a homage but so far it's been Pride And Prejudices With Magic, not an independent novel.
Another thing I didn't like was Melody, but there is a decent chance that she'll grow on me, just as Jane did when she started to show hints of her resentment towards Melody (if not exactly sympathetic such thing always gives a bit of depth).

[OrchestraHc]

I say it's a pretty good first chapter. We've got our characters and the tensions between them right off the bat.

I do like the magic here. Instead of battle magic, it's more like artistic aesthetic illusion. Magical interior decorating almost.

My favorite moment is when Jane catches the music in her glamour, sets it to repeat, and then snips out the pause between pause between repetitions like magical Audacity. She even makes it sound far away. It sort of perfectly encapsulates what glamour can do.

[happyturtle]

My only real complaint is the name Melody. It feels like a modern name, and a quick google shows it only becoming popular in the 1940s. Maybe a more in depth search would discover otherwise, but it does take me out of the story somewhat. Jane Austen's writings were populated with Janes, Elizabeths, Marys, Annes, and Catherines, with lots of duplication within families. If Anne and Robert get married, their first daughter will be named Anne, and their first son Robert. Then they'll name children after their parents or siblings, and you end up with all the cousins pretty much sharing the same first names.

Maybe there will be a story explaining where a Melody came from later in the book. Or maybe it was just an authorial oversight. Who knows?