I actually found that out at a picnic last summer...

t ::huffs:: on nails

t buffs on lapel

t admires

No, JS, but I do have it neatly piled in my to-be-read pile, which also includes the 9/11 Report, The Things They Carried, a Jennifer Crusie book, a couple of mysteries and a book about tuberculosis.

Ah, gotcha. I have a similar pile with different books.

t pause

Well, unless one of your mysteries is the new Ian Rankin.

sluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut

Okay, I have finished Set This House in Order and would like to ask what others thought of the spoily revelation in the very middle. Because it -- didn't turn out to matter as much as I thought it would. Or, at all. Which was strange and not-right.

Suela? Micole? Anybody else read this?

I read it. I adore that book; Ruff has such a unique style. Fool on the Hill was my favorite book through college.

However, I read Set this House when it first came out, so I'll need to skim back through to remember the section you're referring to.

Hi, looking for some mild spoilers for the Aubrey/Maturin books. I've just started The Truelove. What's wrong with Stephen's daughter? Does she have fetal alcohol syndrome?

Nutty, I assume you mean the revelation that Andy is female? Or, more precisely, that Andy's body is female?

And yeah, I thought that it was interesting how unimportant it was in the outcome, although it informed the backstory a fair amount. Although it does explain why the book won the Tiptree prize, which puzzled me until I reached that point.

KristinT, another Ruff fan! I went to Cornell for 3 semesters, and had friends who lived at Risley, so Fool on the Hill is one of my sentimental favorite books. I had such a crush on Ragnarok: I do so love the broken ones. What did you think of Sewer, Gas, and Electric?

Right. That's the revelation I'm talking about. I'm unclear on why it was revealed, to wit: either it's a Big Reveal, and has Meaning to the rest of the book, or it's just a mundane detail and needs neither obscuring nor revealing.

Moreover, I thought Andrew's explanation for why so many of the people in the body are male was mealy-mouthed and foolish. Just saying "Andy Gage was born with a male soul" doesn't mean anything or tell me anything. WHY is this so? What does this say about Andrew as the head of household? Why doesn't this affect his sexuality more, problematize it, problematize categories?

And you know what? I've known a couple of women who dress like men, and it takes a lot more than just some baggy clothes to actually pass for male. If we're seriously to believe that Andrew passes, well enough that Julie doesn't guess it till she goes crotch-grabbing, what kinds of tools and techniques is he using? Because body language alone won't cut it.

I think I walked into the novel with expectations that ended up being confounded. I expected/wanted it to be more transformative, more revelatory, more doubtful of the standard order of things. But it tended to buy into most of the classic therapy verbiage about DID, without much in the way of question, and didn't feel like it was breaking a huge amount of ground on that front. I guess what I wanted was for a larger metaphor to which the houseness and ordering-ness related, and didn't get that.

KristinT, another Ruff fan! I went to Cornell for 3 semesters, and had friends who lived at Risley, so Fool on the Hill is one of my sentimental favorite books.

I've stayed in Grisley a couple of times (functions at Cornell), and I have much Fool on the Hill love. Haven't read it in ages. I should remedy that.

I expected/wanted it to be more transformative, more revelatory, more doubtful of the standard order of things.

Hmm. I was disappointed in the end, I felt, but I loved the central conceipt of the house, and the way that Ruff conveyed that through the novel. I also missed a chunk of the story in the middle because a folio was missing.

What I did think was remarkable was how hopeful and human it all was, especially given the backstory of Andy and Penny. I don't like reading about abuse, but this didn't feel like a novel about the abuse.

either it's a Big Reveal, and has Meaning to the rest of the book, or it's just a mundane detail and needs neither obscuring nor revealing.

I dunno. I liked that it was there and it didn't have a big meaning, that it was just part of the story that didn't come up until that point. Although, yeah, Ruff concealed it until halfway through, and usually that bothers me. But I didn't feel as manipulated as I usually do in those circumstances.