Oct. 12th, 2020

lonemagpie: guy from the cover of sanctuary (Default)
17 – A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMAZONS, Women Warriors In Myth And History, by Lyn Webster Wild.
I dunno if I should even count this, considering how little I got into it before skimming to the end.
Nah, there are immediate problems with it. First she says it’s not going to be this sort of book, but another sort of book, then mostly writes it as the sort she said she wouldn’t, suggesting she couldn’t decide or was unable to make her intention work. Then almost immediately she displays a total misunderstanding of Ancient Greek symbology and art. Which is a problem when that’s actually what you’re basing your thoughts on. Skimming to the end, after she’d spent the beginning telling us how everything anybody said about the Amazons was conjecture and just bloody-mindedness, she ends up coming the same obvious conclusion as literally everybody else [i.e. lots of different cultures had empowered women and the Greek name just stuck as a general descriptor], as if it was amazingly new.
She also uses ‘I’ too much in the factual bits instead or [or as well as, rather] in the personal experience bits, which is iffy.
I probably will go back to it at some point, but for whatever reason it’s not doing it for me right now. Maybe I was just not quite in the mood for how this turned out, or maybe I was just oddly annoyed that the only pop culture Amazon she mentioned was Xena instead of Wonder Woman, or maybe it’s just too slow a slog when I’m trying to reach a total of at least 24 entries by the end of the year and don’t want to spend another month on number 17, [and it’s only 191 pages, BTW], but…
This is the recreational reading log, and if I’m not enjoying it and relaxing then it isn’t recreation, especially with a second go with covid right now, so I don’t have to go through it. Which leaves me with a bit of a problem; as I’ve been alternating male and female writers, and trying to vary the genre each time, do I now just go with a male writer. or find a female one, and if the latter it has to not be crime or an SF tie-in...

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