Happy Wednesday! It’s podcast time! This week, me and Whiskey Jenny chatted about how we engage with books and authors that are problematic(tm), then reviewed a problematic(tm) book from the golden age of mystery. You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures, if you want to skip around:
1:38 – What We’re Reading
6:06 – Serial Box Book Club
17:59 – Problematic Faves and How to Engage with Them
31:01 – Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey
44:40 – What We’re Reading Next Time!
Here’s where you can get Old Man’s War as a free ebook! Act now to avoid disappointment (the offer ends at the end of June)!
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads, as well as Ashley. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcript is available under the jump!
[COUGHING] [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Sorry.
WHISKEY JENNY: No! That means you’ll die at the end of the episode! [LAUGHTER] What a tragic cough.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: OK, I promise not to die at the end of the episode, knock wood.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! OK.
THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
WHISKEY JENNY: Welcome to the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we’re back to talk about books and literary happenings. On today’s podcast we will chat about what we’re reading. We will discuss the next two episodes of Spies and Witches, a.k.a. The Spy Who Came in from—nope. AKA—actually it’s just Spies and Witches. I don’t—[LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: –is the primary title.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: The Witch Who Came in from the Cold?
GIN JENNY: Mhm.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. Yes. We will discuss some problematic favorites and how you—or how we handle them. We read Miss Pym Disposes this week, by Josephine Tey. And then Gin Jenny is going to tell us what we’re reading next time and give a special programming update.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: So first up, Gin Jenny, what are you reading?
GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny, I’m not reading anything. I’m going through a period of fairly mild personal turmoil, so I’ve just been watching television.
WHISKEY JENNY: You’re not reading anything?
GIN JENNY: I know. Isn’t that weird? I finished reading Miss Pym Disposes and nothing has pleased me since then. I can never be satisfied.
WHISKEY JENNY: So you keep starting things and you’re like, nah, not this one.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and then I cast them aside in despair.
WHISKEY JENNY: This is no good.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, reading-wise it’s just been terrible. But I’ve been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, which continues to be awesome. And I also started watching the Starz series Black Sails which is about pirates in the golden age of piracy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Pirates.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: How are the pirates doing?
GIN JENNY: Well, mostly they’re chasing around a MacGuffin. I’m only on episode two. But Toby Stephens, the main pirate, is telling the main pirate lady about his dreams of retiring in peace someday.
WHISKEY JENNY: Toby Stephens is Mr. Rochester.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, in that Jane Eyre adaptation with Ruth Wilson?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! Yeah, exactly, that’s the one.
GIN JENNY: Exactly. That very one is the main pirate. And he’s really struggling to keep hold of his crew and carve out a world of peace and rest and financial prosperity.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, really? What is the forearm situation like?
GIN JENNY: The forum?
WHISKEY JENNY: Forearm. Like forearms. Like the part of your wrist to your elbow.
GIN JENNY: Oh. Sorry. [LAUGHTER] I thought that you had continued—I thought, actually, Whiskey Jenny, what had happened was that you had continued reading Patrick O’Brien books and now knew a lot of really technical boat terms.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: No.
GIN JENNY: The forearm situation is good. I would say, you know, a lot of them have those pieces of cloth wrapped around their wrists, which I tend to be pretty into. I don’t know how you feel about that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait, like an archery sort of—?
GIN JENNY: No, no. Just a raggedy pirate wayfarer sort of thing. You know, where they just—
WHISKEY JENNY: Like a handkerchief? Like a bandanna?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Just a piece of cloth, like a thin piece of cloth wrapped around their wrist. And it doesn’t really seem to serve any purpose, and you’re like, wouldn’t that get caught on something when they’re trying to do ship stuff? But nevertheless, it’s kind of good looking, so I don’t question it too much.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right. Yeah, I can’t picture this, but I’m glad that you like it.
GIN JENNY: The next time you see it—and you will—you’ll be like, oh, yeah, that thing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ah, yes, that cloth.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Listeners, weigh in. I feel like this is a thing, but maybe I’m—like, either maybe it is not a thing, or maybe there’s a name for it that I just don’t know. Anyway, generally positive. What are you reading?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I just finished Miss Pym Disposes right before this. But I can say—
GIN JENNY: You can exclusively reveal.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I can exclusively report, coming to you live from my bedtime reading situation—that tonight I will be starting—probably. We’ll see how it goes.
GIN JENNY: I’m on the edge of my seat.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sorcerer to the Crown, which is our next book club pick.
GIN JENNY: Oh, fun! I hope you like it. I didn’t—did I know that that one was the one that had won?
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think so. This is breaking news.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, I think you’ll love it. And I hope your book club loves it, too. But I think you’ll really enjoy it, for sure. I feel confident that you’ll enjoy it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think some people will like it, and I think some people will be like, ick, plot.
GIN JENNY: I think there’s one element in it that you will find distressing, but overall, I think you’ll enjoy it.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, cool. Turns out there was surprise mind control in Embassytown. And also turns out I do not like mind control.
GIN JENNY: Did you finish it? Did you like it in the end, apart from the mind control?
WHISKEY JENNY: I did finish it. I did not super like it, no. No one really did in book club. Here’s the thing, though. Several other people in book club had read other stuff by him and loved it, and did not like this, and said this was the outlier. So I would, before making any final decisions, I would talk to someone who has read something besides Embassytown.
GIN JENNY: OK, I will. Also, and I hesitate to ask this, do—
WHISKEY JENNY: I have not read any further on City on Fire.
[MUSIC AND ALARMS] City on fire! City on fire! [LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Sorry. So sorry.
GIN JENNY: How well you know me. No, I don’t care. I want you to quit it. I don’t know if I’ve made that clear.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t want to quit it, though! I’ve come so far. I want to finish it. And I’ve complained about it so much, but there were parts of it that I was enjoying. And I liked the writing, mostly.
GIN JENNY: I know. It’s just as long as the Great Wall of China.
WHISKEY JENNY: It just does not need to be that long. It just, it just doesn’t.
GIN JENNY: That’s why I want you to stop. It’s not that I don’t think it’s a good book. It’s just that I think, you know, this much time has gone by. And if you really wanted to finish it, I feel like you would have just done it, because you would have enjoyed reading it more than you, maybe, are.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I’m still going to finish it.
GIN JENNY: OK. Well, go with God.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you.
GIN JENNY: Do you want to talk about the—uh—You know what, Whiskey Jenny? You’ve incepted me into not knowing the title.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
GIN JENNY: Do you want to talk about The Witch Who Came in from the Cold?
WHISKEY JENNY: I sure do. We read the penultimate and the—
GIN JENNY: Ante-penultimate.
WHISKEY JENNY: There you go. We read the ante-penultimate and the penultimate episodes, so only one more to go. And a lot of stuff went down this time, didn’t you think?
GIN JENNY: It sure did, yeah. Episode 11 was a little more of a setup episode, but episode 12, especially, a lot of stuff went down.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. This house of cards is crumbling.
GIN JENNY: It really is. We found out a lot more about Dom. [LAUGHTER] And I have to say, I liked how much Josh, in these two episodes, was so excited about Dom. Like, I’ve enjoyed everyone’s extreme fondness for Dom, but it was also fun to see Josh be like, that’s the kind of spy I want to be when I grow up.
WHISKEY JENNY: I loved sweet little Josh when he was like, don’t fall in the water, don’t fall in the water, don’t fall in the water. [LAUGHTER] That’s so sweet.
GIN JENNY: And there’s this part at the beginning of episode 11 where he’s waiting for Dom to come ashore with the defector. It says, “Dom was zeroing in despite the fog. Josh suppressed a shiver of admiration.” [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: A shiver of admiration. Aw, he’s so into him.
GIN JENNY: Everyone is just so hype about Dom.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no, it’s great. They’re like, man, what a great spy that guy is. He’s so good at it. Who do you think would play Dom in the movie adaptation of Spies and Witches?
GIN JENNY: Oh gosh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Have you fantasy cast him in your head?
GIN JENNY: No, I haven’t. As soon as you said that, I of course thought of Henry Cavill, the most handsome devil in all the land, who has also played a spy.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s true.
GIN JENNY: But I think that’s just because I’ve been thinking about The Man from Uncle a lot recently. And always. It’s just a great movie, underappreciated.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so great.
GIN JENNY: No, I haven’t really given it any thought. Do you have someone in mind who you think could play Dom?
WHISKEY JENNY: I have one suggestion, and that is Bradley Cooper.
GIN JENNY: Oh, sure. [LAUGHTER] He has those deep Vs, those deep Vs that are really hard to get.
WHISKEY JENNY: Those deep Vs that are really hard to get. [LAUGHTER] And also I just feel like he’s super American looking.
GIN JENNY: He is. That’s really true.
WHISKEY JENNY: And he’s really good at portraying confidence.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, those are two excellent points. And if you doubt this, listeners, I urge you to find a video of him doing the voice work for Rocket Raccoon. He commits!
WHISKEY JENNY: He commits so hard!
GIN JENNY: He commits a thousand percent.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so great.
GIN JENNY: Well, what we should do—I was going to say, Whiskey Jenny, what we should do for the final installment of Witch Who Came in from the Cold Serial Box book club is we should do some real thinking about fantasy casting. Because this is all just off the cuff for me, but I think if I sat down and thought about it, I think we could come up with some good choices.
WHISKEY JENNY: I love it. Let’s do it. You heard it here first.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Also, if you guys have suggestions for fancy casting, tweet me and then I will pretend that your ideas are my ideas.
WHISKEY JENNY: No you won’t.
GIN JENNY: No, I won’t. [LAUGHTER] You know that I would never do that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. OK, but back to Spies and Witches, though.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: While we’re talking about Dom, can Dom read minds, or was that just Josh being like, man, he’s such a good spy?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know. It seems possible that he can read minds, because—well, I’m going to go ahead and reveal what we found out in this episode.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! Here it comes.
GIN JENNY: We found out that Dom is a member of the Flame.
WHISKEY JENNY: The Flame!
GIN JENNY: Yes!
WHISKEY JENNY: Because every single person in the story has got to be one or the other.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I know that I said that I was done with the reveals that this one or that one was agents of the Flame or agents of the Ice.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, but?
GIN JENNY: But I do still enjoy all the shifting loyalties, the conflicting loyalties, and the way the story has parceled out those reveals—mostly. So even though I wasn’t that excited about Dom being a member of the Flame, I was kind of excited that he and Zerena are working together. Because they’re two competent people.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, definitely.
GIN JENNY: I think they can get stuff done together.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was pretty excited about him being a Flame operative, just because everyone is so into him. And so I was excited to see how that dynamic will play out.
GIN JENNY: I also liked it because I think up to this point it’s kind of seemed—not like the Ice are the good guys and the Flame are the bad guys, because the Ice people have that popsicle coffin barge.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, let’s not forget that.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: But because there are British and American people affiliated with the Ice, and so far all the Flame people have been KGB people, I felt like it’s been a little one-sided in terms of who we’re supposed to root for. So now—
WHISKEY JENNY: Now there’s people on all sides in all sides.
GIN JENNY: Which I think is good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Except for beautiful neutral Jordan.
GIN JENNY: And poor little Josh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, poor little Josh.
GIN JENNY: You know what I would love, actually? I would love it if Josh became, like, Jordan’s apprentice. If he was like, you know what? All this is BS. I’m just going to go work in a bar.
WHISKEY JENNY: Like bar apprentice, not magic apprentice?
GIN JENNY: Oh, you know, I was thinking both, but now I just—now I don’t know. Oh gosh, that’s a difficult decision. [LAUGHTER] I would like there to be a sequel where Josh becomes the bartending assistant and Jordan does all her magic stuff. And then gradually over the course of the series, Josh will be like, there’s something funny going on in this bar.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait a minute! [LAUGHTER] Great. I love it.
GIN JENNY: That would be amazing. I would read 12 million episodes of that.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Poor little Josh. I guess Frank in the American office is also not an agent that we know of so far?
GIN JENNY: Right. That’s true.
WHISKEY JENNY: But literally every other character who’s gone the line, basically, is an agent for one or the other.
GIN JENNY: That’s correct.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m starting to think that the number of magicians are outnumbering the number of muggles in this world.
GIN JENNY: Maybe just in Prague. Maybe there’s something special about Prague.
WHISKEY JENNY: It does have those ley lines.
GIN JENNY: And it seems like both the Ice and the Flame have a presence there. So I guess it makes sense that people who belong to those two organizations would kind of converge on Prague.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so I liked that. I like that about Dom. And I also was very moved that Nadia cared so much about Tanya possibly being sent to her death on a stupid mission.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was, too! It almost took me by surprise a little bit.
GIN JENNY: Well, it did me a little bit too, because I didn’t feel like the story necessarily dealt sufficiently with the ice barge coffin thing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Same, yeah.
GIN JENNY: But Sasha plans to send Tanya on a mission where she’s definitely going to die, and Nadia really goes to bat for her, and tries to set it up with the other Ice people to make sure that Tanya does not, in fact, die.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which means she, a KGB agent, has to cross an East/West divide.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and go make nice with Ice agent and British—what are the British ones called? MI—
WHISKEY JENNY: Six.
GIN JENNY: Six? Yeah. She has to go talk to MI6 agent Alestair. Also Josh’s luvah.
WHISKEY JENNY: So they are, right? Because in this one, Josh was like, I feel like we maybe had a connection?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, but it definitely seemed in the last one like they banged.
WHISKEY JENNY: [MUTTERING] I was like, I thought you guys already banged. [LAUGHTER] Was it not that good, or?
GIN JENNY: Maybe Josh is just insecure and doesn’t know if it means anything.
WHISKEY JENNY: Maybe.
GIN JENNY: I don’t know if it means anything, either. Because I don’t know how Alestair really feels about Josh. He should like him a lot, because Josh is a dear.
WHISKEY JENNY: Since Josh doesn’t know anything about magic, I don’t see what sort of strategic potential Josh holds. I keep thinking, every time someone opens one of their doors, that they’re going to be caught in bed together.
GIN JENNY: Oh, absolutely. Me too. I was kind of wondering if something like that would happen to ensure Josh’s silence. Because—
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Since we’re on the subject of Josh anyway, towards the end of episode 12, Gabe is talking to Tanya about the Flame and the stuff they’re doing. Because the defector—I guess we mentioned this last time, but the defector is a host, so both the Flame and the Ice really want him. So Gabe’s talking to Tanya about this at Jordan’s bar, and Josh comes across them talking. And he’s like, [GASP], what? Is Gabe a spy? A double agent? Gasp, gasp, gasp! And he doesn’t know what’s going on. And it’s all kind of up in the air. Like, he could go back to Frank and say, Gabe is talking too much to that Russian, what should we do?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: So I was thinking it was possible that Gabe would use Josh’s sexuality against him, to keep him silent.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, OK. I was thinking Alestair would use it against him. But, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, Alestair’s more likely, too, huh? Cause Alestair—well, no, because Alestair’s also implicated.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s true. He’d be like, I know for sure, because—that’s a great point. [LAUGHTER] Don’t worry about it. Just trust me.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I’m sad we haven’t seen that much of Alestair recently. I mean, Gabe had his conversation with him, but apart from that we haven’t seen him doing that sort of louche British thing he’s been doing all along, which I do enjoy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no. He did get to make tea for Nadia in episode 12. That was nice.
GIN JENNY: Oh, that’s right. That was nice. And do a small team up to protect Tanya.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, tiny team up. I think that’s also where he alludes to the slight misfortune that Gabe had with the—[LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Oh, with the golem? Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: What a silly man!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I’m still not over it.
WHISKEY JENNY: They just—he started a murderous rampage and everyone’s like, oh, foolish boy. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: To be fair, Gabe is an extremely foolish boy.
WHISKEY JENNY: He is a foolish boy.
GIN JENNY: I love how, when Gabe is talking to Alestair, he’s like, well, I’m definitely going to keep it a secret that I know about that Ice barge. This is not the time or the place for that. And then three seconds later, he’s like, I know about your Ice barge! I know all about it!
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: And then he totally says it to Tanya, too.
GIN JENNY: Yeah!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Gabe is not a good spy. I’m calling it.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, yeah. Now we know.
GIN JENNY: I’ve been thinking it for a while, and this Ice barge thing just is the last straw.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, to be fair, he’s not at 100% because of the little hitchhiker he’s got in his mind.
GIN JENNY: [SKEPTICAL] Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: But that also ups his magical potential, I guess.
GIN JENNY: You know what else I was kind of surprised about this episode, in re Tanya? I was surprised that Nadia and them were like, oh, she’s the super, super powerful Ice agent. Because I don’t think I realized that she was—
WHISKEY JENNY: I did not either.
GIN JENNY: I thought she was a standard issue Ice agent.
WHISKEY JENNY: Same. But she’s a particularly powerful sorcerer.
GIN JENNY: She should be doing more with that, I think.
WHISKEY JENNY: And just in general, I wish we saw more magic.
GIN JENNY: Because I’ve love the magic that we have seen.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah!
GIN JENNY: It’s been really cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: We saw Tanya and Nadia, this time, do a cool magical binoculars trick with the wine bottle or something.
GIN JENNY: Yeah! That was neat.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I like how it takes more than one person to do most spells. I liked how Tanya figured out that Dom was Flame. I thought that was really fun.
GIN JENNY: I did, too. Because like we’ve talked about, there’s just been a lot of our two main people sort of staggering around reacting to things.
WHISKEY JENNY: Like, what’s happening? Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So I agree, it was nice to see her—
WHISKEY JENNY: She noticed something and was like, aha! I’ve got it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was also really excited in 12, it’s clearly setting up this big showdown at the safe house where the host dude defector is being stored. Heh. Is that what you do to people? What do you do to people?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Uh, it’s, uh, stashed.
WHISKEY JENNY: Stashed! Yeah, stashed!
GIN JENNY: OK. All right, cool, cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so the safe house where the host defector guy is being stashed. It’s very clearly being set up as the site of a showdown.
GIN JENNY: And I don’t know what to root for, because if America gets away with him, then Dom has control of him, which is the Flame. But if Russia gets him, then he goes on the Ice barge.
WHISKEY JENNY: Either he goes on the Ice barge or he goes to, like, Siberia.
GIN JENNY: Those are not good outcomes for our guy.
WHISKEY JENNY: No. Neither, really.
GIN JENNY: And also, if America wins, then Tanya and Nadia lose, and then what will happen to them? And the other way around, also. I don’t want anything to happen to Josh!
WHISKEY JENNY: No. I think the story has done a really great job of you’re not really rooting for anyone. You’re just like, oh, I hope everyone’s OK.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Someone tweeted at us recently that they had bought—I guess there’s maybe a print version?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, really?
GIN JENNY: I think so. Yeah, because someone tweeted at me, and it had a picture of, it looks like a printed book.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s cool.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Anyway, they said they bought it because we had been talking about it, which was awesome.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, exciting.
GIN JENNY: Because sometimes they feel like we’re very down on Gabe, and I worry that people think that I’m not enjoying it, because I definitely am.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me too, for sure. I think our love for Jordan and Josh shines through anyway.
GIN JENNY: OK, good. [LAUGHTER] That’s all I want.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: So those are episodes 11 and 12. We’re going to—unfortunately we have to miss out the next podcast on The Witch Who Came in from the Cold book club, because we are having a guest, and the episode is too packed. So two episodes from now, we are going to read the very last episode and talk about the series as a whole, and also share our fantasy casting, which I’m sure you guys are on the edge of your seats for.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m really excited to read the last episode, because I have no idea what’s going to happen.
GIN JENNY: No idea what’s going to happen either. I’m interested to see. I’m also excited to sit down and really think about fantasy casting.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yet, it’s going to be good.
GIN JENNY: I’m going to do my best.
WHISKEY JENNY: I hope I can work Eva Green in there somewhere.
GIN JENNY: You can.
WHISKEY JENNY: I feel like I can, too.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I’m excited to read the final episode. For this time, we thought about some problematic favorites and how we handle that situation. Unfortunately, I think this topic was a little bit inspired by the book that we read, Miss Pym Disposes. [LAUGHTER] So there’s that.
GIN JENNY: I actually—when I proposed this topic, I kind of wondered if you and I would end up having very different responses to this. Because I think we read differently, in the sense that I’m constantly reading to find true love, as defined by a book that I want to read over and over again. And I don’t think that’s really how you read.
WHISKEY JENNY: No. I guess I’m more of a one night stand gal. Because I’m perfectly happy if it’s just fun that one time. I don’t need it to be good on rereading.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Oh, man. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t mean to—
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: What a hussy I am.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I guess I shouldn’t have framed it that way.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: No, it’s OK.
GIN JENNY: But yeah, so I just wondered if maybe it would turn out that—because when I’m reading a book that I don’t care that much about, I’m fine for it to have some problematic content. Like, I don’t experience cognitive dissonance. I’m just like, well, there it is. This has a problem and other good qualities as well. But I when I go back and reread or rewash something that I used to really love and discover problematic content within it, it’s very sad.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, yeah, I’m glad you mentioned the going back and discovering problematic content issue, because that was definitely a topic that I wanted to discuss, as well. Because that to me is almost more upsetting than encountering it the first time. Because it also means that you yourself missed it that previous time.
GIN JENNY: Right!
WHISKEY JENNY: Which makes you complicit in it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it feels bad on several levels. Because I always feel like, why didn’t I care enough about this before, number one.
WHISKEY JENNY: Why didn’t I even notice it?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, or even notice it sometimes, yeah. And then number two, it makes it hard to—you know, I can’t feel the same way about the book anymore.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, it is sad. It colors everything.
GIN JENNY: I was thinking in this regard about this author, Lynne Reid Banks, who I read a lot of her books as a kid. So she most famously, I think, wrote the Indian in the Cupboard books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, yeah.
GIN JENNY: And I don’t mind giving those up so much, because I wasn’t that wild about them as a kid. I liked the last one, the fourth one, the best, and that’s the one that has the least of the really toxic stereotypes about Indian characters. But she has this lesser known book called Angela and Diabola that I really loved as a kid. And it’s about these twins where one twin is perfectly good and the other is perfectly wicked, and how the family deals with that. And I reread it a couple of years ago, and I was just really smacked in the face with the good/evil racial coding. Like, Diabola has darker skin. She has untamable corkscrew curls.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ew.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And Angela is fair skinned and blonde.
WHISKEY JENNY: Of course she is.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I know! And I just didn’t think about this at all when I was a kid. But now, like, I would not give this book to a child to read.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I just feel like not noticing it that first time is also what makes them so dangerous.
GIN JENNY: Right. Because these are messages that, as a child, I absorbed.
WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely.
GIN JENNY: And that is a bummer. And now it’s kind of, is that something that I want to have occupying space in my personal library?
WHISKEY JENNY: Right.
GIN JENNY: I’m not sure what the answer is.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, no, I don’t know what the answer is, either, but I think there is certainly for me a line where eventually the answer is no, I don’t want this in my personal library.
GIN JENNY: Are there books like that, that you’ve revisited them and they’ve just completely lost their worth for you?
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m trying to think. I was trying of think—well, I was looking at my bookshelf and seeing what I could see on this topic from that. And I have really been avoiding rereading Eva Luna, by Isabel Allende.
GIN JENNY: Oh, OK. Because—
WHISKEY JENNY: Because I remember that there’s a transgender character in that, and I am very nervous that it was not handled sensitively.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that sounds probable.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Right? But I guess it’s the coward’s way out, too, not to reread it.
GIN JENNY: But you don’t reread that often anyway.
WHISKEY JENNY: Not that often, but I do sometimes. But I can’t think of anything—probably, hopefully because I’ve successfully stricken it from my brain library catalog as well. But I can’t think of anything that—oh, you know what? I—well, no. I have a really hard time with Ender’s Game and that series, because I really enjoyed reading it when I was younger but have since found out—
GIN JENNY: Some things.
WHISKEY JENNY: Some things about the author’s real life political views that I do not agree with.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: So that’s been tricky.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that one is one that I really struggle with. And it’s the example that I find gets used a lot, because people are like, oh, well if you cared so much about authors and their personal views, then you would never have read Ender’s Game, and that would have been a terrible loss. And it would have been a sort of loss. I would have read other stuff. That would’ve been OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I don’t think anything is so important that it makes up for everything else. I absolutely don’t believe that. I don’t think that just because you make beautiful art, you have a different standard of behavior. And I don’t think that any one object is so earth shattering that I couldn’t have lived without that book. I for sure could have lived without that book.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I would have been fine. I would have been the exact same person.
GIN JENNY: So I’ve been able to—I haven’t been able to read any of Orson Scott Card’s more recent books. I think that’s because he is not as good of an author now. I think his best work is behind him. So partly that. I can go back and read his existing books with a kind of caveat in my head that he’s not great in some ways.
But what I’ve actually found difficult about his books, it isn’t so much that I know more about his political views. It’s more that I have less patience for how explainy a lot of his characters are. Like, they’re pretty splainy. It’s like watching an Aaron Sorkin show. Which is another thing that I do and enjoy doing. But there is this part of me that’s like, all right, all right, all right.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I know I just said that making a good work of art doesn’t make up for terrible things. But I think in the work itself, there is this horrible ethical arithmetic that you do where, if it’s amazing but there’s one problematic thing in it, you’re kind of like, oh, I didn’t like, that but it doesn’t, in my eyes, wipe out the rest of the part.
GIN JENNY: Right.
WHISKEY JENNY: But if there’s like five problematic things and the book is sort of mediocre, then you’re so much more willing to discount it and throw it totally away. And I think I’m much more critical, too, of the rest of the stuff once I encounter the problematic thing. And I’m like, well, you don’t get to be explainy, then, because you already used up my goodwill on that other thing.
GIN JENNY: Right, you already played one card.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, exactly.
GIN JENNY: That’s funny, I had actually also written, “that’s arithmetic that everyone does on their books.” That’s in my notes.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! Arithmetic. Well, horrible arithmetic.
GIN JENNY: Well, because I was thinking of stuff like that. One example I thought of was, we read Eleanor and Park, and you know that I loved it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think we both did.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And I’ve since read some critiques of the way race is handled in that book that I didn’t think of when reading the book myself, but looking back at it I’m like, OK, yeah, for sure. And at the same time, though, I think there’s some stuff in there about living in poverty, about living under sexual threat, and falling in awkward love that to me remains really unusual and lovely and makes it worth it to me. But I wouldn’t judge someone for whom it was no longer worth it to read that book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Who came to a different sum.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Or like, Salman Rushdie is not great about women, but I love his prose. So it stays worth it to me to reread some of his books. Not all of them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, no. Apparently his most recent book was a third person memoir.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: What!?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m sorry, what?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, Joseph Anton is about him, but it’s in third person.
WHISKEY JENNY: [SIGH]
GIN JENNY: It’s like, he did this, he did that. He has views on—what’s her face? What’s that food show lady?
WHISKEY JENNY: His ex-wife?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Padma Lakshmi?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, he has some views about her and how superficial she is.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, God. They used to be married, right? I didn’t make that up.
GIN JENNY: No, I think that’s right. That’s who I had in mind.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’d be a weird thing for me to make up.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Very specific. [LAUGHTER] No, that’s right. I think it would be weird to settle those scores in a memoir anyway, but it’s much weirder when he’s talking about himself in third person.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Wait, so who’s Joseph Anton? Let’s see. Let’s see what the internet can tell me. Oh, OK. All right, I can’t judge this. It was a pseudonym he used when he was in hiding. So that’s pretty legitimate. [LAUGHTER] Wikipedia says, “The memoir is unusual in that he writes about his life in the third person.” Yeah, that is unusual. Thank you for noticing, Wikipedia. That’s a choice.
But by contrast, I read Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes. I knew the premise going in and I did not care for it, but I read it anyway. And I enjoyed it, but I would never go back to it. I don’t think the value add of the book is sufficient for—
WHISKEY JENNY: For the message?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I don’t think the value add is sufficient to overcome the fact that it’s fundamentally a book about how a disabled person’s life isn’t worth living.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: So like I said, it’s a calculus that we all make. I don’t know that there’s a hard and fast rule.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I don’t think there is. And I don’t want it to sound like we’re excusing all these things.
GIN JENNY: No, not at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: But all of these things are created by humans, and humans are imperfect beings, so all of these things are going to be imperfect.
GIN JENNY: And I also think there’s different types of problematic content that different people are more and less able to handle. Like I will put up with more sexism in older books. I’ll probably put up with more sexism overall. But stuff that’s bad about mental illness, I just have very little patience for.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right. I think the timing aspect is interesting. I think I’ll put up with a little bit more in general the further back in history you go.
GIN JENNY: Well, and also I think because I don’t feel like I’m putting money in a bad person’s pockets if they’re dead.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, yeah, there you go. But I think it’s also important for me personally to watch out not just for the things that I am already aware about, but to read up on other experiences and things like that so that I can keep an eye out for them, for things that I might not normally notice.
GIN JENNY: I mean that’s, to me, a huge benefit of how much writing there is on the internet these days. Because there’s so many smart people thinking and writing about these things in all kinds of pop culture spheres.
WHISKEY JENNY: Definitely.
GIN JENNY: Which is very fortunate.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. We live in a fortunate world in some aspects.
GIN JENNY: Also, when I was making notes I was thinking, you know how it’s really thrilling to be the first person you know to discover a book that you think is excellent?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: I think similarly, I tend to have a much more intense aversion if I’m reading a book and I discover bad content inside it that I wasn’t expecting.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, like if you’re forewarned and you know that everyone else is already aware of the problem, you don’t feel quite so affronted by it?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I think I’m just able to engage with the book on its own merits and set that aside a little more if I know about it going in.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: I read—ugh. I read Hemingway in school, and everyone was like, brilliant literature for you to enjoy! And it was very hard for me to get past—well, it was very hard. I did not, I could not get past the sexism. And I think if someone had given me that book and said look, this is basically a guy about a broken dick and the woman he used to date and now resents. And there’s some not great stuff about gender in there, but here’s some things that are valuable about it, I think that I would have gotten more out of it in that case.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think that accurate expectation setting is helpful in all cases, and this is just an offshoot of that.
GIN JENNY: I know trigger warnings slash content notes are much maligned, but I really think they are quite helpful in this context.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: And I try to do that when I am recommending books to people, especially if I know specific things that they do not care for.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, for sure, yeah. But then again, there’s sometimes things that—I never would have warned you about The Royal We. Like it totally took me by surprise how stressful you found that book. [LAUGHTER] However, now that I know that that sort of thing—I guess I can add it to my personal—
GIN JENNY: Yeah, you can refine the algorithm.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: —personal Gin-Jenny-would-find-this-stressful list. But yeah, there are some things that just never even were on my radar whatsoever and that I need other people to tell me, oh, no, this is actually a problem. Then I’m like, oh, you’re right. Yep, sorry, my bad.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Pretty often I’ve recommended books to people that they’ve then gone out and read and they’ve been like, uh, there’s no women in this at all. And I’m like, oh, yeah, there sure aren’t. My bad.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, great point. Art of Fielding, for example.
GIN JENNY: I was actually thinking about this with The Chosen, which is a book I recommend, a book I really love, and I recommend it all the time. But there are no women in it at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is that a dude boarding school book?
GIN JENNY: The Chosen?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: No
WHISKEY JENNY: What book am I thinking of? What am I thinking of?
GIN JENNY: It’s not a dude boarding school book, but it is about two guys as they get their education. So it kind of reads school-booky, since you mentioned it. I’ve never thought about this before, but it does. Interesting. Interesting, Whiskey Jenny. This is very enlightening. But that kind of thing, like, if I have the information going in, then I’m able to decide if that’s something that I’m willing to engage with or get past at the current moment. Because sometimes I’m just not in the mood to read a book with no ladies in it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely.
GIN JENNY: And other times it’s fine.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes things that I would’ve been fine with a year ago, I’m like, nah. Nope. Don’t have the space for that right now.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, same. Like, I was totally planning to watch The Handmaid’s Tale when it was first announced. But I am not.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I mean, I was never planning to watch it, so I can’t weigh in on that. But I think you made a wise decision.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, I made a really solid. I was at least planning for sure to reread The Handmaid’s Tale when the series came out, and I’m super not going to do that.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think that’s wise.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I recommend it to all of you listeners to just give yourselves a break on that. Send the price of that book to the ACLU instead.
WHISKEY JENNY: There you go. OK, well, speaking of some sort of ethical arithmetic that you have to do.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah. So I proposed this topic, in fact, because there’s a line—well, there’s several racially troubling lines in Miss Pym Disposes. But the one that I was like, oh my god, Josephine Tey. There’s a line—it’s set at a school. And one of the teachers says that one of the students has been working like a black, I’m sorry to say. So Miss Pym Disposes was published in 1946, so it is quite old. But that is no excuse.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s no excuse, but I think in some cases context is important. But certainly no excuse.
GIN JENNY: Do you want to tell us a little bit about what the book is about?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. So the titular Miss Pym, or the eponymous Miss Pym?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, those both work.
WHISKEY JENNY: The eponymous Miss Pym is Miss Lucy Pym—who wrote a psychology book, even though she’s not herself a psychologist. She’d just read a bunch of psychology books and was like, I could write a better one of these, and then does, and it’s a huge bestseller—gets invited by an old friend to visit a women’s college. And she gets to know the teachers and the students, and then some nefarious things happen eventually, and she tries to psychology them. She also—what’s the thing where you decide people are good or evil based on face shape?
GIN JENNY: Oh, phrenology?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, there’s a whole lot of phrenology in here that I did not like. [LAUGHTER] But, so Josephine Tey, I think, is a well-regarded classic mystery writer. And we have both read The Daughter of Time and enjoyed it, although now I’m a little nervous.
GIN JENNY: Same.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I also really liked Brat Farrar by her. I would say overall, this one didn’t super pass the mental arithmetic.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: This one for me got bogged down an annoying or problematic things. But I would still give Brat Farrar and Daughter of Time a reread, just to sense check those?
GIN JENNY: See where things are.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, see where things are. And if those still hold up, then I would still be like, OK, no, I still like those books, but this book I don’t. Where do you fall on that spectrum?
GIN JENNY: There were some elements of it that I found troubling. I enjoyed that it was kind of a boarding school book. I was expecting it to be more of a mystery than it turned out to be.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think Josephine Tey is sort of—she gets classified as a mystery writer, but she’s known for messing with mystery conventions.
GIN JENNY: Uh huh. Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Like in this one, there’s an accident that happens like in the last sixth of the book, maybe. [LAUGHTER] And the rest is just like, chit chat, just get to know everybody.
GIN JENNY: Just doodling around the women’s college.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Which is fine, like I said, I enjoy a women’s college book. It actually kind of reminded me of one of my favorite books in the whole world, Gaudy Night. It was like diet Gaudy Night.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh.
GIN JENNY: Very diet. Gaudy Night is a much, much better book than this. But I have pleasant associations for part of it. I wasn’t bored reading it. I don’t know that I would add it to my shelf and reread it a million times, but I was not unhappy while I was reading it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I would say it was sort of a pleasant, enjoyable read, but I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, and I don’t think I’d revisit it. But, just going back to Josephine Tey and her unconventional writing, I have a handy little introduction in my copy.
GIN JENNY: Oh, wonderful.
WHISKEY JENNY: And apparently—I just like this little tidbit. In one of her other books, A Shilling for Candles—
GIN JENNY: I love that title, by the way. I haven’t read that book, but that’s a great title.
WHISKEY JENNY: So, and this is a quote, “Two of the three plot strands are unraveled with information that is either not given readers at the time the detective gets it or only revealed just before the unmasking of the criminal.” And I think it’s sort of a universal mystery convention that the reader also has to have the same information as the detective, so that—
GIN JENNY: So it’s fair.
WHISKEY JENNY: —it’s fair, yeah, exactly. And she was just like, nah, I don’t care. I’m going to do what I want. [LAUGHTER] Which I kind of enjoy. I enjoy that she’s playing with those conventions.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have a pretty dumb set of questions.
GIN JENNY: I’m sure they’re not dumb. Go ahead.
WHISKEY JENNY: What, ah, what kind of a college is this?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that was kind of mysterious to me. So the college appears to be one that trains gym teachers, but that can’t be what it is.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Right?
GIN JENNY: There’s a large number of students, and they all get jobs at the end of the year.
WHISKEY JENNY: And some of them open a clinic?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. It doesn’t seem like there’s enough gym teacher positions in England.
WHISKEY JENNY: But then they open a clinic. Like, are they teaching gymnastics, or are they doing physical therapy? Because they talk about having patients and stuff.
GIN JENNY: I am not sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was really confused and I was like, what are they doing?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: No, I didn’t really get it either. So if that’s a stupid question, then I, too, am very stupid. Maybe it’s—no, I have no idea.
WHISKEY JENNY: Maybe this is really popular in the 1940s. There was a very specific position where you had to know how to do gymnastics, but you also had to know how to treat patients for sprained ankles or something. [LAUGHTER] I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was weird. And the whole book really hinges on this one job that one of the students is to be offered. Which appears to be a gym teacher position at a quite prestigious school, right?
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s what I gathered, as well.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Then—and I guess this is a spoiler, but then the fatal accident that happens is because of someone practicing doing gymnastics on a boom. Do you know what a boom is?
GIN JENNY: I know what it is in sailing.
WHISKEY JENNY: What is it in sailing?
GIN JENNY: The, um—ahem. It’s the, um—
WHISKEY JENNY: [GIGGLES]
GIN JENNY: No, no, no, I do know. I can picture it perfectly in my head. I could draw you a picture of it. I’m just trying to think how to describe it in relation to all the other things. I took a sailing class once, listeners, and it was—I don’t know why I thought it would be fun. It was super douchey. Everyone there was incredibly rich and terrible. And the instructor wouldn’t answer any of my questions. Unless I feigned a terror that the ship would tip over if I didn’t know the answer to this question, he wouldn’t answer any of my questions. So he thought I was abnormally frightened that the ship would tip over, which I knew that it wouldn’t.
So the boom is the thing that—well, shoot, I don’t know how to describe it. I could identify it on a boat.
WHISKEY JENNY: It kind of sounded like maybe it was a balance beam?
GIN JENNY: It’s like a swinging bar, basically.
WHISKEY JENNY: On the boat.
GIN JENNY: On the boat it’s a swinging bar, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: It kind of sounded like they were describing a balance beam.
GIN JENNY: It did to me as well. Yeah, so it’s like—I know how to describe it now. It’s the thing that holds the bottom part of the sail.
WHISKEY JENNY: In sailing. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So when you’re shifting the angle of the sail, the boom will swing around the boat. And you have to duck out of the way, because it can hit you and knock you overboard.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure. I still feel like I don’t know what they’re doing in this book, though.
GIN JENNY: Me neither. Not at all. [LAUGHTER] We’ve said some words, but not reached enlightenment.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, well, I guess that’s great. As long as we’re both in the dark. I mentioned the phrenology. Did not like that. There was that weird racist talk.
GIN JENNY: I also was just fascinated by the way Mary Innes is portrayed. It was so weird. She’s the character who everyone thinks should get this super special—
WHISKEY JENNY: [BREATHY] Arlinghurst.
GIN JENNY: Arlinghurst. And she’s not rich, but everyone keeps saying throughout the book that she’s poor but she’s of high quality. And it’s really weird. The implication is always that she belongs to a higher class. It doesn’t seem to be because she’s intelligent, although she is. It seems like she is intelligent because of her innate quality.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, there’s a lot of innate qualities.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Miss Pym meets Mary Innes’s parents, and she sees Mary’s mother and she’s like, “It is not often nowadays that one saw good bones. Smartness had taken the place of breeding.”
WHISKEY JENNY: Yup.
GIN JENNY: And then there’s another part where she’s talking about Mary and she says, “To have standards to live up to, but to have little money to live up to them with, was not a happy combination.” And when they’re talking about Arlinghurst, Arlinghurst said they want someone “who would be Arlinghurst from the beginning, and so more part of the school and its traditions than a migrant can ever be.”
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s not good.
GIN JENNY: It was so weird. The book seems to very uncritically accept this idea that there’s an innate quality to people.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, absolutely, throughout the whole thing. And that’s part of why she keeps on being like, well, those eyebrows, so must’ve done some murder. Yeah, if you accept that murder is an innate flaw in certain humans, then, sure, it stands to reason that it would come out in the eyebrows. Why not? [LAUGHTER] Absolutely.
GIN JENNY: Well, it was interesting, because when I thought about this and then looked back at Daughter of Time, it’s a similar argument The Daughter of Time is making. Because the guy looks at the picture of Richard III and thinks that he looks like a person of quality.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right, right.
GIN JENNY: But in that book, it’s used as a jumping off point. And to this, it’s—
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s the whole proof. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: —really central. Like, OK. So the one girl who is of less good quality dies. And Miss Pym keeps having to remind herself that it’s sad that the girl is dead. But she keeps kind of making it seem like that tragedy is on the same level or less important than Mary not being able to attain this position at Arlinghurst.
WHISKEY JENNY: [WHISPERING] Arlinghurst, Arlinghurst Arlinghurst.
GIN JENNY: It’s so strange. It’s SO strange.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s very strange. Again, this is definitely a spoiler, but I would argue that at the end, she came to the conclusion that it was less important than Mary Innes going to Arlinghurst. Which is bananas. [LAUGHTER] Miss Pym thinks someone totally got murdered, and she’s like, yeah, but what if she can’t have that great job? [LAUGHTER] Well, she murdered someone, so. What so—you remember. [LAUGHTER]
Yeah, also I think Rouse, the character who dies, is also portrayed as not as attractive as the rest of the girls. I found that really weird, that attractiveness points to quality and unattractiveness points to not quality, or is something that you have to make up for.
GIN JENNY: Right, and as we find out, in addition to being unattractive and not—I keep thinking of Regency mysteries, where they would say people were not good ton.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, no, she’s not good ton.
GIN JENNY: But in addition to that, she’s also intellectually dishonest, and Miss Pym catches her trying to cheat on an exam. So it really does feel like the book at every turn justifies Miss Pym’s feeling about Rouse and her quality and Mary Innes and her quality.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. The one part where I was like, oh, maybe the book isn’t saying that, maybe this is going to take a different turn, is when Miss Pym brings to the headmistress of this school, who’s her old friend, her allegation that Rouse was cheating on the exam that she was overseeing. And the headmistress who is the one who has made the decision that it’s going to be Rouse, and it was a whole big scandal, and Miss Pym thinks she has too much of an attachment to this Rouse person.
GIN JENNY: Which is also never really explained. It was not clear to me why she made that decision, either.
WHISKEY JENNY: And this is her trying to explain it. I actually thought that she—at least it wasn’t like, well, I just like her better. She did try to make sort of an argument. She gave an explanation.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, she did.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I started being like, oh, well that’s interesting. Because she was saying it’s unfair the way everyone has been treating Rouse just because she’s unattractive. And I was like, yeah, great point, totally true. It is. I agree. And then was dinging Mary Innes basically for not smiling enough, I feel like. And then I was like, no you lost me at that, Henrietta. [LAUGHTER] I was with you, then you lost me. There’s just a lot of strange ideas floating around in here.
GIN JENNY: I felt in general—like I said, it kind of reminded me of Gaudy Night, but worse in every way. And one of the ways in which it was worse is that I just felt like Gaudy Night had a much better grip on what people are like. That book had some old fashioned ideas for sure, but I was able to grasp why people were thinking the way they were thinking. It wasn’t so alien to me as this is.
WHISKEY JENNY: There were a couple of moments that were really interesting phrases about human nature that I thought were really spot on. So there were a couple of points where I was like, oh, yeah, totally, that is what people are like. And then there are couple of points where they were like, yeah, but eyebrows, and I was like, oh, um, ah, hm. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, I don’t know what you mean.
She had one line saying someone, I guess it was Mary Innes, was not broadcasting how sad she was about the fact that she didn’t get [WHISPERED] Arlinghurst. And she said that some people would have broadcasted that and “collected sympathy like a street singer catching coins in a hat.” And I thought that was a really—
GIN JENNY: Oh, that is good.
WHISKEY JENNY: —great note on human nature, and definitely a thing that people do sometimes. There are moments like that where you’re like, oh, yeah, totally. And I also really liked that it’s 95% women characters, and that was just really nice to read.
GIN JENNY: That was lovely. I enjoyed that, too.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s two random dudes at the end that sort of show up to woo different people. They’re not important at all, and they’re just madly in love with two of the characters. [LAUGHTER] Every single other of the characters are women. And that was really refreshing to read.
GIN JENNY: Well, if you enjoyed that, can I also recommend to you the book Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, you may. Though it’s already on my list. I have one more note that’s again a spoiler.
GIN JENNY: Hit me.
WHISKEY JENNY: So at the very, very, very end, on the last page.
GIN JENNY: Right.
WHISKEY JENNY: I know this is a super super super duper spoiler, so definitely, if you didn’t skip ahead and you don’t like spoilers, you should. This is literally on the last page. She finds out the person that she thought did the murder the whole time, Mary Innes, did not do it, and it was her best friend Bo Nash. And she’s just like, huh.
GIN JENNY: Whoops!
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: And goes on her merry way. Meanwhile, she’s punished Mary Innes to a life in the small town that she wanted to leave all along, and Mary Innes takes the blame for it and is like, please, please, please don’t report it. If you don’t report it, I’ll do penance for the rest of my life. And Miss Pym just leaves and is like, huh, got that one wrong, and goes off to the rest of her life.
GIN JENNY: Yeah! She’s like, well, I wasn’t very good at psychology after all. Oh well. I’m not sure how we were supposed to feel about that, but it did not make me feel great about Miss Pym.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me neither! She just consigned Mary Innes to a life of drudgery and misery.
GIN JENNY: And relatedly, I don’t think that she should have not reported it in the first place. That was crazy!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, super don’t think that. And then she should have reported it—even if you’re like, OK, but Mary Innes, then she should have reported it when it was the other girl! No, you still gotta—I mean—what the hell, man? [LAUGHTER] What a strange little book. I’m not going to mark off Josephine Tey from my list, but what a strange little book.
GIN JENNY: No, no. It was very odd.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well.
GIN JENNY: Well, want to hear what we’re reading for next time?
WHISKEY JENNY: I sure do. Hit me.
GIN JENNY: All right. So next time, we are having Renay back on the podcast.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay Renay!
GIN JENNY: Yay! From Lady Business and Fangirl Happy Hour. She recommended us a starter pack of ten SF books last, I think October? It was a while ago. And some of us, who are geniuses, that have already read a bunch of them—that’s Whiskey Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’ve read four, I think, right? Yeah, I’ve read four.
GIN JENNY: She’s read four. By the time of next podcast, she’ll have read six—
WHISKEY JENNY: I will. I will!
GIN JENNY: —of the ten. Which is astonishing. I’m so impressed.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you.
GIN JENNY: So yes, for next time we’re going to be reading and discussing Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi, which is about a guy who reaches his 75th birthday and goes to enlist in the space army in space to defend humans from aliens.
WHISKEY JENNY: In space.
GIN JENNY: In space. So it’s about his space war adventures. And John Scalzi is one of Renay’s all time favorite authors, and I’m excited to ask her lots of questions about that. Because I think this is the first in a series, if I’m not mistaken.
WHISKEY JENNY: Am I right in thinking also that she liked the rest of the series better?
GIN JENNY: Yes that is also my recollection. So that will be exciting. We’re really looking forward to having Renay on again.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, very much.
GIN JENNY: And I’m really excited to hear how impressed she’s going to be that Whiskey Jenny has read so many of her recommendations already.
WHISKEY JENNY: I hope so. I hope we get to chat a little bit about the other books, too, because I enjoyed all of them.
GIN JENNY: I mean, yeah, the hit rate has been really good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Very great so far. I think also, didn’t you tell me that Old Man’s War is the Tor book club pick this month?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. You have a couple more days left to go to Tor.com and you can get this as a free e-book if you sign up for their newsletter. Well, this has been the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow us on Twitter @readingthened. We are both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us, please do, at readingtheend@gmail.com. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review. It helps people find the podcast.
Until next time, a quote from Insomniac City, by Bill Hayes, which made me very homesick for New York, by the way.
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw.
GIN JENNY: “Sometimes it will be difficult, and you’ll question why you ever moved here. But New York will always answer you. Remember that; New York will always answer you.”
[GLASSES CLINK]THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
[BEEP]WHISKEY JENNY: And we’re back to talk about books and literary happenings. Ooh, that “books was really high. [LAUGHTER] Oh, I’m punchy this time, sorry.
[BEEP]GIN JENNY: —in that Jane Eyre adaptation with Ruth Wilson?
WHISKEY JENNY: No, no, He’s, no. I think he’s the one with, um, oh, you know, old what’s her face.
GIN JENNY: Mia Wasikowska?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: No, no, no. That can’t be.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, yes. Yes.
GIN JENNY: I refuse to believe that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, you’re right. It’s Fassbender.
GIN JENNY: Fassbender! Yeah, I knew it was someone.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s Fassbender. And you’re right.
GIN JENNY: That’s OK. I’ll cut this all out and it’ll seem like you believed me immediately.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great.
GIN JENNY: With Ruth Wilson!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, exactly. That’s the one.
GIN JENNY: Exactly. You are correct.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I’m sorry I’m so bad at selling those!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: There were no outtakes in the interim here. Just Whiskey Jenny agreeing with me about Toby Stephens.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yup. That’s what happened.
[LAUGHTER] [BEEP]WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I could hear the pregnant pause where there was meant to be something and I was like, is she gonna—did she—
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Died suddenly. Actually that would be very—
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: No! I knew it! The cough! [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: It was just much faster than you expected.
WHISKEY JENNY: Twist!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I thought we’d have more time!
[LAUGHTER]