It's A Vlog

there's wood bees swarming this area and they're super mad at me for being in their space even though this is definitively my space I have video evidence this is my space I've been here longer than you but they're super mad at me I'm just going to try to be stubborn and make clear that they can't intimidate me oh that one's staring me down oh my so I'm reading lilac girls my neighbor uh my neighbor my neighbor gave it to me she uh she's nice she actually gave me my cat and and recently I told her I like books and so she was like oh I like books too I love historical fiction let me throw historical fiction at your face and I don't really like historical fiction but I would she did Chase me down the road one time it was very nice she actually sent her husband who this is an elderly couple and he doesn't move very easily but she made him chase me when I was on a walk to give me the book so I'm going to read it um I'm not even exaggerating the sweet man I had earbuds in while I was walking past their house and he was shouting my name trying to catch up to me because she sent him to lend me this book so I'm going to read it so I'm about 130 pages in um so not super far but enough that I can maybe open up this Vlog start talking to you so this so this is a World War II historical fiction aren't they all I know they're not but but seems like it uh this is a World War II historical fiction and we're following three perspectives so far anyway uh one is from the perspective of a Teenage polish girl who's been sent to a concentration camp one is from the perspective of a scientist a doctor she's a doctor I don't think she's a scientist I don't know where I got that and she's been sent to the concentration camps to work and so she's observing firsthand kind of the treatment of these women that of the camp that she's gone going to currently they're kind of sifting them out they're trying to get the uh 40 year people who are over 40 people who are sick people who uh are not going to be the best to work pregnant people who are pregnant and they're they're moving them outside of the camp and then they're keeping the ones that'll be good workers and uh that's what she's witnessing right now where I am in the book and then uh we also have the perspective of a woman in New York who is starting a relationship with a married man I don't really understand how her perspective connects honestly but um the the doctor's perspective so far has been the one that's interesting me the most at this point we've kind of just um done an introduction to all the women their stories and I'm not hooked at this point uh but I am interested mildly I will say the way the perspectives are shifting back and forth at this point isn't suiting my personal taste it it's it feels very abrupt where for instance there's a scene where um a soldier wants something doesn't get it and therefore raises up his shovel above his head to strike down and the scene Cuts it's like he raises up the shovel there's no stopping it cut New Perspective and then when we get back to her then the shovel comes down what I'm trying to say is the perspective shifts sometimes feel abrupt instead of natural which is definitely a literary style and there's nothing wrong with that it's just not it doesn't suit my taste personally but it's been a lot of setup we haven't really gotten into the meat of the story yet but I did want to check in with you let you know some of my first impressions and my first impressions are uh pretty mild so far I'm not hooked on it but I am interested to see where it goes because I have heard that a lot of elements to the story are based off of real life stories that the author collected so I'm not entirely I'll look into that before I check in with you on my final thoughts but I am interested to hear these women's stories person Al I really enjoy reading non-fictions that detail a person's story surviving things like for instance I read the wild swamp I read Wild Swans which is three generations of women who uh survived and escaped um the cultural revolution in China and when I return this book to my neighbor I'm going to pass out Wild Swans to her so if these are true stories I would probably just rather read you know a non-fiction about them but it's cool I'm reading historical fiction today that's what I'm doing doing and I'm going to talk to my neighbor about it and I'm going to thank her for her kindness welcome to the Vlog lilac girls is based on a true story Caroline Faraday and Herta Orban hser were real people as were all the Ravens Brook staff mentioned as well as Hera's parents and Caroline's mother and father Eliza and Henry Faraday in bringing them to life as characters I have done my best to represent them in the fairest most realistic way possible through Reading Caroline's letters the nurburg doctor's trial testimon and testimony of the survivors themselves I found Clues as to what their motivations might have been the dialogue throughout is my own making but I used actual testimony when possible in the doctor's trial chapter and some of Caroline's own words from letters and stories she wrote and the stories of those who knew her along with the characters I just named the author's note goes on to talk about other characters that were Loosely inspired by true people in history as well this book focuses on one of the only major concentration camps that were for exclusively for women and it focuses on the experimentation that they went through the treatment that they went through it is brutal to read at times but very very important to read their stories the experimentation that these women went through as quote unquote rabbits uh was something that I had no idea about having read historical fiction of this period of time before having studied it in school having this is you know a well documented piece of History it just it's interesting it's terrifying it's terrible that the more you look into it the more you peel back the layers there it just seems like an endless supply of more stories that need to be remembered because of my personal reading preference I think I said this in the last clip too I would have preferred that this had been a non-fiction I appreciate that these are true stories that have been fictionalized and I appreciate the care that the author put into uh wanting to represent their stories well but because the kind of non-fiction that I'm usually drawn to are either survival stories or historical accountings of true people who survived significant times in history like Wild Swans which was following three generations of women uh during the Chinese social Revolution so I think I'm going to do some research and see if any of these women have had a non-fiction told from their perspective specifically one of the rabbits it will be incredibly difficult to read and I probably won't read it really soon because this book a fictionalized version of it was incredibly difficult to read in certain scenes but I do want to hear their stories and I'd like to hear it from their perspective uh in just my personal preference I'm not a big historical fiction reader and I just kept reading this thinking I'd really just love to get their accounting overall I think it's an important book even though historical fiction isn't my genre so I did struggle with this a little bit just because it's not what I typically reach for I am glad that I read it it and now I have a lot to discuss with my neighbor on a lighter note the next book that I picked up is Jingo by Terry pratchet I'm back in the disc world and oh it's a tonal shift so I've switched my reading order yet again I started on the city watch books and then I decided to go chronological for fear of missing something important and then quickly missed City watch City watch and now I'm back again so I'm reading Jugo and already I mean Jingo keep calling it Jingo I I'm breeding Jingo and really really loving it so we're back with vimes we're back with carrot we're back with a whole bunch of people that I so dearly love it's lovely to once again read letters from carrot to his family see the Dynamics of vines and his current familial situation which I won't divulge in a spoiler-free video um but also new characters are introduced I really want to read to you so there's like this war on the horizon that's happening currently in the plot line and at this point everything is just kind of building up we're getting people into play we're seeing how they're going to handle it we're seeing who the opposition is and uh I can't really talk about the plot that much cuz it's all just reintroducing our characters and setup at this point but we got introduced to this character who's a genius he's super duper smart and I just I always love pret's pros and there's so many turn of phrases and play on work words that he's doing in these books that are in this book that's making me laugh or chuckle or smile or just in general have a really great time but then there's also like long forms of introduction that are just masterful in my in my opinion Lord ventari nodded he knew how it was he knew how it was far more than Leonard of quirm did which was why there was one key to the door and he had it not that the man was a prisoner except by dull humdrum standards he appeared rather grateful to be can finded in this light Airy attic with as much food paper sticks of charcoal and paint as he desired and no rent or food bills to pay in any case you couldn't really imprison someone like Leonard of quirm the most you could do was lock up his body the gods alone knew where his mind went and although he had so much cleverness it leaked continually he couldn't tell you which way the political wind was blowing even if you fitted him with sales Leonard's incredible brain sizzled away alarmingly and overloaded chip pan on the stove of life it was impossible to know what he would think of next because he was constantly reprogrammed by the whole universe the sight of a waterfall or a soaring bird could send him spinning down some new path of practical speculation that invariably ended in a heap of wire and springs and a cry of I think I know what I did wrong and the entire opening scene with this Leonard has been hilarious the way he's interacted the things that he's come up with the way his notebook looks the way he's talking about this weapon of war that he's just kind of thought up uh in his spare time and the way this conversation is going it has been oh I just I've missed pret's writing it's been a delight to be back so I'm just at the beginning of it and I'm having a wonderful time so far I'll check in with you when I finish I just finished Jingo which is the next disc World Book the next city watch book that I've been reading and I enjoyed it so much it was so nice to be back with disc world to be back with this humor with these characters with this nonsense I had so much fun with this story and I'm going to give you another quote because it's discor and that I feel like a whole review for a disc World Book could be quotes it was because he wanted there to be conspirators it was much better to imagine men in some Smoky room somewhere made mad and cynical by privilege and power plotting over the Brandy you had to cling to this sort of image because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because Ordinary People the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other Ordinary People it was so much easier to blame it on them it was bleakly depressing to think that they were us if it was them then nothing was anyone's fault if it was us then what did that make me after all I'm one of us I must be I've certainly never thought of myself as one of them no one ever thinks of themselves as one of them we're always one of us it's them that do the bad things so this takes place during war a stupid useless War over an island that's sprouted out sprouted up from the ground and now people are fighting over it and it does so much in the realm of humor in the realm of uh poking fun at so many things I laughed on near every page that I read of this book but it also does so much on reflecting on on war how two people groups can be so against each other because they're against each other how uh when you have an enemy it's easier it works better if you'll just dehumanize them all they're all the enemy every single one of them they they don't have personalities they don't have thoughts they don't have families they're just the enemy so I stab because enemy but it also does so many smaller things as well as these disworld books always do they're always full of nonsense humor Ridiculousness but there's always so much introspection as well that's just kind of handed to you and it's like there you go do what are you going to do with that like casual racism and biases and what we do with them when we're confronted with them and when they come up like uh Power and how power is manipul ated and used um vimes specifically has a a lot to say about the law and how the law is not flux the law is not something that you maneuver and change according to your own goals or conveniences and how his role as an enforcer of law is not the same as the role of a soldier his job isn't to just follow orders his job is to keep the peace there's so many quotes that are hilarious and so many quotes that reinforce themes of this book but I enjoyed being in this story so much I missed discor I missed City watch in 2023 I read a disc World Book every single month and then in 2024 I backed off I think this is only my second disc world book that I've read this year and I'm definitely feeling like a slower pace is where I want to be because just being able to pick one up every few months soak it in enjoy it that feels like what's comfortable to me now that I've gotten back into it and I'm feeling great about it and I'm going to keep on with the city watch because I enjoy vimes so much and I really really love the role he played in this book I think my biggest complaint about this book is just that this was more plot focused than it was character focused and uh while there are certain characters that got great stories in this book there were also many characters that just kind of continued to be what they were in previous books and I didn't feel like we got any deeper or any fur further with them so I was missing that character side in this book for some of the characters but overall I enjoyed myself very very much and I'm happy to be back with disc world this video had no interludes and I'm very sorry about that my family were passing around to sickness and we didn't get out a lot but I think we're going hiking on Monday and I think we're going to a new Trail so hopefully next oh actually next week there will be no Vlog because I'm doing a wrap-up on Tuesday and doing a vlog Vlog directly after a wrap-up always makes it always feels a little bit redundant so there will be something else but then the Vlog after that should have some really good hiking I'll see you again soon bye [Music]

Channel: Merphy Napier | Books

Views: 7,661

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Id: zz_rQatN9p0

Length: 16min 16sec (976 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2024