After three months of editing and revising, I finished the second draft of my modern retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. This is a nice side project while my main WIP, Project Prehistory, is resting. This week, I edited the last five scenes, and now the retelling is off to my critique partner for feedback. I should be ready to send the manuscript to beta readers in November.
If you want to see more about what I've been up to in the writing vlog below.
Babel by R.F. Kuang
“That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
Robin Swift, an orphaned Chinese boy, is brought to London by his new mysterious ward Professor Lovell. After training years in Latin, ancient Greek, and Chinese, he enrolls in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel. Besides being the world’s center for translation, it is also the center for silver-working, a magical way of manifesting the meanings lost in translation. This makes Babel the principal assistant in the British Empire’s quest for colonization. As a Chinese man raised in Britain, Robin soon realizes that serving Babel means betraying his motherland. But can a student stand against an empire?
Babel is a dark academia historical fantasy about colonialism, oppression, and colonial resistance. The themes this book tackles are hugely important, and Kuang does a great job exploring the complex intersecting identities of her main characters. Unfortunately, this is one of those books where I feel the literary merit of the book was higher than my enjoyment of it.
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| Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones by Henry Fielding |
Henry Fielding (1707–1754) was an English writer and a judge known for his use of satire and humor in his works. I’ve read two of Fielding’s novels, and one of them is among my favorite classics. I'll talk about my favorite book, Tom Jones, first, even though it was actually published after Joseph Andrews.
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| September reads |
September was a bit of a hit and miss for me in terms of reading. I finished a lot of books and read a lot of pages, but rating-wise, it wasn’t a great month. I did read one book I loved, Marjan Kamali’s historical fiction The Lion Women of Tehran (5/5 stars). I also finally finished my Jane Austen July classic, Frances Burney’s Cecilia (4/5 stars). The rest of the novels I finished, however, were somewhat disappointing reads. I finished two fantasy books: a romantasy The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon (3.5/5 stars) and a historical fantasy The Winter Goddess by Megan Barnard (also 3.5/5 stars). I also listened to one audio book, a Finnish translation of This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (3/5 stars). You can click the links to read more about my thoughts.
