Coolness listings first today. Since I'm no longer updating this half of the Rae Gets Wordy system as often, UberCools can be plural, since I'm now handing out several days' worth at a time.
Accordingly:
Pam is the UberCool, for library-related rockingness. And generally being great.
Oliver is the UberCool, partly for being such an entirely lovely human being, and partly because he supplied copious quantities of inexpensive juice to UniGames, and thereby to me, because I swear to you all here and now that I'll probably by at least half of the juice he bought. And I was feeling sick today and it made me feel better, too. And he's generally great too.
(Fun Facts: Both Pam and Oliver have been known to warn me off their respective significant others. Pam's is Olly, and vice versa. For some reason this amuses me.)
Liz is the UberCool for many, many reasons, none of which I plan to list here, but she is, and I adore her. Liz rocks.
And last but not least,
Jen is the UberCool, because she also rocks, and because she is warped, and twisted, and between us we are having far too much fun with warped and twistedness.
Aaron is not the UberCool, because he's obsessing too much about Tekken 4, or else he might have had a chance.
Tom is very nearly the UberCool, and will have a good chance at default entry to the EternaCool list when I set it up, but is not the UberCool.
The Student Party is the UberCool. You know who you are.
All right, done with Cool listings. On with the substance.
The other day I picked up a second-hand copy of
Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown. I was pleased, because I've really liked a couple of her later novels, and I was interested in this one. (Recap: Venus Envy was the first I read by her, though I knew nothing about her bar the mention in
Education Rita, but I loved that play so I wanted to read it. It's a good book, despite the rather forced setup of the plot, up until the end, when it sucks mightily, but it's worth reading.)
It's... not what I expected. The fact that the central character is both illegitimate and poor is utterly unsurprising; even though this is her first book, I figured it would follow certain patterns. (Yes, I know that Frasier in
Venus Envy is rich and legitimate, and I know that Carole in
In Her Day is legitimate, but work with me here. She still riffs off a theme. And not just the "central character is female, queer, and will generally consider herself more attracted to women even though she's still perfectly capable of sleeping with men, and doesn't know quite how to identify" theme. Rita Mae is predictable. That doesn't mean she's not a good writer anyway.)
I'm digressing a lot. Ahem. I haven't even got into that one thing she does:
"Here's an astute social observation. Wait, it's not obvious enough, I'll make it clearer. No, hang on. Look, I'll spell it out in words of one syllable and make sure." We get it, Rita, we get it, anyone reading your books is most likely intelligent enough to get it, even if Rita in
Educating Rita was uneducated she wasn't stupid either, and you don't need to hammer it in like that. Just because you got your name in a play doesn't mean you're the specialest. Also, you don't need to say the same things in more or less the same words in multiple books, because we notice.
*ahem*
The writing is less sophisticated than she got later, and not just because she's not, for once, starting with an educated central character, even if she becomes so. But it's a good story - I probably would think it was better if I hadn't read some of her other books - and I can see why, in the time it did, it made the impact it did. I'm glad I read it.
This isn't nearly as coherent a review as I intended to write. It's more or less about that I finally read
Rubyfruit Jungle, and therefore won't get my lesbian card revoked, and it's a good book, but not the best book ever written, or even the best book Rita Mae Brown's ever written. But I recommend reading it, at least once, and will even lend my copy to interested parties to promote this activity.
