The Male Hysteric

Butter by Asako Yuzuki was a book that I had requested from a long libby queue a long time ago, forgot about, and then suddenly I had to read it right away before it disappeared, so it became my book for May. Anyway, I'm going to be square about it -- I was disappointed.

And I think what disappointed me so much is that about the first two thirds of the book were so, so promising, with a slow build about danger and desire for it to just... poof into smoke. I really feel like to get into my problems with this book will require spoiler tags, so here we go.

For a book with so many meditations on desire, particularly female desire, and clear themes of intimacy between two female characters who are very dissatisfied with their male lovers, the gender non-conformity of the main character, and the taboo of it all, it never... went there. And it's not even that it never went there, it read like there was some kind of invisible barrier preventing it from going there, like some kind of Hayes-like code that prevented it from happening. Once it got too close to happening the novel retracted itself into a nice, neat little story with a neat little lesson about wants without transgressing that awful line of... gasp, lesbian desire!

I admittedly didn't read too much about this book before I started and as a digital copy I did not have the blurb easily accessible so I couldn't immediately tell if it was being billed as a 'queer' or 'lesbian' book. I know that after a certain point in the US, books portraying major characters as gay and normal rather than something inherently... transgressive, I guess? became mainstreamed and I was not sure if this shift over ever happened in Japan so I was wondering if maybe I was seeing something like a book that was pre-this-shift. However, that was not what happened. The story saw what could have been and then went, absolutely not, nothing to see here.

It felt like a perfect distillation of what I was talking about to yvannairie a while ago, how straight, canonical couples have no chemistry at all, while implied gay couples have so much because they're not built completely on societal expectations of what a couple should be. Hell, there was even more chemistry between the main character and her older male tip source than her boyfriend, who thank God she at least broke up with, but that none of the chemistry that the main character actually had was ever explored is so bonkers considering the themes in the book. And it's so weird because it's not like there's no sex happening. It's like sex is allowed, as long as it's not actually sexy at all. Ugh.

Anyway. I don't know how much of this was stuff lost in translation, considering the book was originally published in Japanese. But I don't think I could recommend this book, especially to the type of people I know.

Yes I have been reading, no I have not been very good at recording them. So I’m only going to post some short things about each of these.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir was a reread for me, and a part of why it took me so damn long was because I was taking notes. I was also going to go through all the backmatter, but I got distracted, and now I figure that all of this has been delayed enough that I will talk about it anyway. What can I say? It was way better the second time around because I actually knew what was going on. I feel like The Locked Tomb books are the types of books that get better on reread and you might just have to go on vibes through the first read, which may be a flaw or strength, depending on how you read. I’m still going through the GTN read on Frontline Fifth and am going to try to reread Harrow before getting through their HTN read, though I’m unsure if I will do notes on that one, even though it probably needs it more.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik was interesting, but also a book that felt like it went on for too long for what it was, though a part of the problem was probably that I borrowed it from the library as an ebook so the return time was very strict. But if you actually pick it up at a library, it’s a very fat volume! I did enjoy it, though. One thing it did was that it was very direct about the casual terror of being a Jew in the old country which is just… when you have the fantasy fairy stories based in Europe is always absent? Reading it was very familiar, like, yes, yes, the horrors, we know the horrors, and then it dawned on me that no, the vast majority of the writers and readers of these kinds of books (maybe not this one, but fairy stories in general) do not. And that realization was kind of upsetting. But this isn’t Novik’s fault.

Dr. No by Percival Everett was… a very silly book. I picked it up at a bookstore because it was on the counter along with the promotional materials for James, which is having a moment right now but I didn’t think was my kind of thing but Dr. No from the summary absolutely did seem like my kind of thing, or at least I was kind of obligated to read it because I’m also writing about people studying math getting into trouble. I guess I had kind of assumed that James was a serious book, and therefore this would be a different book, it was very goofy, and not exactly in a way I was into (I don't read enough spy thrillers to be into a parody of them I think), but it was still a quick read which isn’t something I can say of a lot of the other books I’ve read lately. I’m left wondering if James is also a goofy book. I mean I guess Twain was considered a humorist but I never found him that funny.

First book of 2025 read! My challenge for this year is 12 novels in 2025, and I’m making progress on that, so at least one good thing happening. I started this book late last year as one of my writing buddies suggested it to me as a possible “comp” for a book I needed comparisons for and it really, I think, is a good comparison, in many ways, except I find Ishiguro to be pretty humorless in this book and my novel is… not like that. However, keeping this in mind, my reading of this book was probably poisoned in that I was looking at it for a certain purpose so that purpose was always in the back of my head and I may not have such a good idea of it on its own. It’s not a book that I would have picked up on its own.

The Buried Giant is a book about an elderly couple traveling in post-Arthurian England to meet their son, who lives in another village, while the country is shrouded with a mysterious mist that causes people to forget things. It might be a small thing and more indicative of what I read but I appreciated the main characters being elderly. This may be less true of literary fiction but… there aren’t terribly many elderly protagonists out there, at least in comparison to more youthful ones. I think in general most writers tend to write ages they’ve already experienced. The friend who recommended it to me also talked about how they hated the way Ishiguro writes dialogue and honestly I did not notice it. Or, well, it’s less that I did not notice it, but noticed that it did not seem bad read out loud by the narrator, in the same way Shakespeare is better read out loud by someone who actually knows what they’re doing rather than awkwardly stumbled over by a first-time reader. Not that I think Ishiguro is that brilliant, but there’s something to his dialogue that probably would not come through in the strictly written text, or the reader David Horovitch is very talented. But considering The Buried Giant is a novel, this would probably be considered a flaw.

It's been a while since I posted about a book I've read, hasn't it? And I suppose I'm still on track to get my 10 by the end of the year.

And finally one that I just unabashedly really liked.

So, I got a kobo for my birthday, a Libra Color, and I thought that probably what I would end up mostly doing is reading library books and possibly downloaded fanfiction on it. While I was at my brother's house I was mostly doing proof-of-concept with the Kobo's nice ability to browse Libby catalogues natively and I came across the book Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis and the cover intrigued me and the blurb was off the wall and there was no waitlist unlike many of the other books I had been looking at, so I grabbed it and... well.

Sometimes there are books that are made for you and you find them. It's a bizarre concept -- a 19th century Prussian scientist laying the groundwork to build perfect soldiers from dogs, and those dogs finally being created in the modern day, rebelling against their masters and joining high society in New York -- yet the outcome feels more honest than many books given its handling of ambivalence in a way that is not overwrought, which feels rare these days. It's hard to describe, I think, or maybe I'm not good at writing books. But you should read it.

Against my better judgement I went ahead and purchased one of the supernova rainbow titanium nitride bullet fisher space pens. I also got a purple ink cartridge for it -- so I will have a fully automated luxury gay space communism pen when it arrives, I think.



I have also put in a hold for a digital copy of at my library for The Future Is Analog by David Sax, so he might come and strangle me in my sleep for that, I suppose.

Hello everyone. I am going to be changing my blog name soon. I don't know what to but I want to have some consistent "branding" between this and my bluesky that's somewhat separate to my identities elsewhere, and fortunately both allow name changes. But the thing is... it's such a commitment! I've been working on names and talking about them with my partner and friends but I guess the thing is that anything I choose will grow on me rather than be perfect right away, probably.

Other things... I have been sick with a cold the last couple days and took the day off to recover. I've finished Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, finally. And I feel like, maybe because it's taken me months to get through it, or otherwise, I did not get everything out of it that I needed to. Like I understood the twist, I guess, and some other things, but also, I feel like, generally when reading the book, the blocking, as in, where people are in space, and where anything is in space, physically, is difficult to understand, and it feels like a lot of characters pop in and out of the narrative with little warning. It's hard to tell how much of this is my ADHD wandering-eye-on-the-page versus an actual flaw in the writing, especially on the first readthrough. However, I've already bought Nona The Ninth and will probably give that a go before trying to reread any of the other Locked Tomb books.

I suppose I don’t have to actually ask for permission from anyone here but I’m thinking at the very least reposting the literary analysis essays I’ve posted on tumblr on the novel Frankenstein here, and maybe some notes/excerpts from my large Frankenstein project here once I have any.

I saw a post on twitter wondering about when we were getting “The transmasculine Whipping Girl” and though I don’t really think this is the next Whipping Girl per se, the thesis of the project (which I was thinking of as a book, then a site, but now I’m back to book again) as being how Victor Frankenstein is widely villainized for having the same problems as modern transmasculine people, and the reason why these problems are seen as unsympathetic is because he is silenced both inside and outside the book and assumed to be incapable of having these specific problems as a man. This project was put on hold, in large part because even with JSTOR access research was very hard because I don’t know how to do it. For example, somehow even for a major character of a famous 200 year old novel, trying to search for “Victor Frankenstein Disability” only dredged up analyses of the creature as an abandoned, disabled child and nothing about the main narrator who is constantly bedridden, collapsing, hallucinating, etc. to the point of dying at 27 years old.

I know there’s still research to be done but some other writers have encouraged me to go do it anyway because I might actually be the first person to say these things. I don’t feel that’s especially likely and feel like it would be embarassing not to cite them, but maybe I should go on anyway.

A little while ago, as I've been resting my hands with cross stitch between projects (it seems the thing I've been doing that's least intent on destroying my fingernails at least), I decided to purchase some gold embroidery needles. If you don't actually do embroidery, this probably sounds insane, but you can often find them sold alongside normal embroidery needles for a couple dollars more a pack, though you don't get quite so many of them. They're not solid gold, of course -- some only have gold on the inside of the eyes, while some are covered in an incredibly thin layer of gold plating all over. Anyway, I wanted to be fancy and got some all-gold ones. They aren't prohibitively expensive given the hobby and I had just gotten paid, so, you know, treat yo' self, right?

Gold is considered to be superior to other needles if you have a nickel allergy, and also that the thin coating of soft metal can somehow make the process of punching the needle through fabric smoother, or in the case of the eyes, the threading easier. I don't have a significant nickel allergy -- I've had issues with earrings but never with just holding sewing needles, even for extended periods, so I have been thinking on the smoothness, and when they are fresh, they are extremely smooth. However I've used a single gold needle for something like a thousand stitches at this point and... the gold has almost entirely worn off! The gold in the eye is still there, and curiously some at the tip, but the part of the needle I hold is so pale, it's been stripped by use! I guess the gold at the tip is what matters most, but I did not know it would show so much wear without even a full finished project.

I've done a little research on gold needles and replacement needles in general and it sounds like a lot of serious embroiderers will grab a new needle for every project. Even though doing so, even if I did choose to use exclusively gold needles, would not be prohibitively expensive as I don't embroider that much, it's... just so strange to think about! Though I do have packs of needles that even if I started this practice today, I probably would not run out of needles for the next few years (though I would certainly run out of gold). It's one of those things that feels very wasteful but in the greater scheme of trash, probably wouldn't be, especially if one were not an avid embroiderer? compared to plastic bottles, paper products, etc... and there are apparently good reasons to switch out needles so often, because the oils of your fingers strip off the outer metals that run smoothly against the fabric and then the metal underneath can start snagging.

I don't know, it feels a lot like what I was thinking when I started buying fountain pens. It's not that I wasn't always a pen addict, but I didn't have any fountain pens -- I preferred gel pens, but with the number of pens I went through I always felt bad throwing so many away. And it was strange, because I was actually one of the few people using them until they completely ran out of ink! People are a bit irrational when it comes to this stuff, I guess.

Anyway, website is... currently on pause. I have a lot of shoelaces I need to make for a Pride booth later this month, and besides that I have the feeling that a lot of the Frankenstein stuff might be better in a book (?), but am also trying to get my writing brain for writing fiction back on track (???), also my AC is broken and it's like 100 degrees so I'm trying not to fry in my own home in the meanwhile. Too much going on, too little brain function, etc.

I'm trying to figure out why I don't read more. I enjoy doing it and it keeps me off of social media. And yet, I keep finding myself not doing it.

I think at a certain point I was finding it very stressful and then... I'm not sure if that's true anymore, or maybe it's much less stressful than it was at that point so now whenever I do it, I'm always surprised that the stress is no longer there. Or perhaps audiobooks, which I had been consuming a lot more of, are more stressful than written word -- I've stopped a lot of audiobooks lately because they're "stressful" to listen to and that belief drained into written works.

Anyway if you want cheap SFF ebook deals, SF Signal is a very useful twitter account, which keeps putting sales on my feed.

Yes, I finished Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I listened to it on audio so that's probably why I was able to finish. I did like it, but I was maybe not paying as close attention to it as I should have. A lot of people have complained about the passages that are just random spurious whale information but I did not find that particularly unpleasant. I liked the reader's voice and I guess the experience of most of the book became some sort of whale ASMR.

I remember hearing a lot of hate for this book when I was an adolescent that I don't really think is warranted. The style, which dips between narrative and information with some bizarre script-like stylistic flourishes honestly reminded me of some pieces of modern media, like Homestuck. Maybe these segments weren't particularly well-done but I think people demanding a straightforward narrative from books, especially ones like this, are misguided. Then again I did not have a high school literature teacher breathing down my neck demanding an interpretation about the whiteness of the whale, though, honestly, I have some opinions about that too.

Anyway if you want the same experience I listened to the version narrated by Pete Cross. It's a bit under 24 hours long and available through Audible and probably otherwise.