Book meme

[tamaranth]

Meme from mindygoth

Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 23.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal...
...along with these instructions.

I am at Werk, and there are no real books nearby. None!

So it's an e-book:

"'Diana could, by waving her fan,' said Sophie: her face was not well-suited for crossness, but now it expressed a variety of cross emotions -- indignation for Stephen, displeasure at this renewed complication, and something of the disapproval or even jealousy of a woman with a very modest sexual impulse for one in whom it was quite the reverse -- the whole tempered by a willingness to think or speak unkindly."

Delicious characterisation. *bows before the master*

Comments

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Oh, an O'Brien?

I read the second one (Post Captain?)'cos I couldn't get the first one out of the library. Not bad, not bad.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I think the second one is one of the best -- naval stuff nicely leavened by social stuff.

And, *point*!

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the whole bear-disguise incident is rather, errrr... well.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

... smelly?
For some reason it always reminds me of Kidnapped, but I have no idea why.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

I dunno... it (Post Captain overall, I mean) just seems to me as if POB hadn't quite figured out what genre or style he was going for. It has its Jane Austen moments, and its Boy's Own Naval Adventure moments, and then it goes and has its cracked out surreal moments. Flora the dancing bear is in the latter category. If it were television, I'd say it was more like "magical realism" than *real* realism, yknow?

Kidnapped is an interesting comparison. I was just pondering it in terms of romances-vs-novels (in the sense of nerdy literary terms, not in the sense of Mills and Boon etc), and Kidnapped is definitely in the "romance" category there.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Ha. Found the page I was vaguely thinking of when I wrote the above comment. May interest you in a general kinda way. http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/genre2.htp

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I think the Austenesque quality of those first few books is why I love them. Not that I don't love his later blue-water sailing, but those initial day-sails are gloriously measured, and a delightful window on the naval experience of life on land.
Interesting point re magical realism. Shall contemplate.