Insolent and obsolete
SOLOIR, v. This Old French verb means “to be accustomed to, to usually do” or “to be wont to” if you feel real fancy. Soloir no longer exists in modern French, but you can still see its relatives all over the place. Modern Spanish and Italian retain soler and solere, respectively. In Spanish, you often see this verb in the phrase suele pasar, “as usually happens.”
The original Latin verb solere is the root of an interesting set of words, including modern French insolite, meaning “unusual,” and modern English insolent, meaning “rude, arrogant, disrespectful”—in other words, going against the usual, accustomed etiquette.
Modern English obsolete also shares in this root, although it is directly from Latin, which had obsolere as a verb (“to wear out, decay”), which is solere plus that squishy-as-hell prefix ob-, which means “toward” or “against” or sometimes “before,” because prefixes are whatever we want them to be.
Latin also had obsolescere. The -escere bit indicates an inceptive verb, so it’s like adding “to begin to.” So not only did Latin have a verb that meant “to usually, to be accustomed to,” it also had a verb suffix meaning “to begin to, to start to,” or “to grow, to become.” (You can see other traces of this in English: adolescent, convalesce, phosphorescent.) So the verb solescere would be “to grow accustomed to” and obsolescere is “to grow unaccustomed to.”
From there, we can get to obsolete, “no longer in use,” which is, appropriately, an accurate description of the Old French verb soloir.
This week, still recovering from surgery, I have grown accustomed to lying in bed (convalescing, but neither insolent nor, I hope, obsolete). I did not read any capital-R Romance because reading outside my native language sounded like too much work for right now, but I did read a lot of small-r romance. How else am I supposed to feel better? Here they are, in the order I read them.
Courier’s Run (f/f, sci-fi) by Ennis Rook Bashe. This is a novella or a novelette, a short and sweet work about two women finding love in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. I don’t read a lot of dystopia because I could just read the news instead, but this had lesbians and sci-fi ghosts in it, so it was fun. Content warnings: unethical medical experiments, violence.
Beginner’s Luck (m/f, contemporary) by Kate Clayborn. This book is just as gorgeous and heartfelt as the other two in the series (which I read out of order, because the Boston Public Library runs my life). Relevant to my interests, the heroine is a materials scientist who repairs scanning electron microscopes as part of her job, and then she goes home and works on renovating her old house, so she’s like a fictionalized version of my own beloved, who helped me arrange this little #bookstagram still life (my mom also helped, since I was not really in walking-down-the-stairs shape). Content warnings: a parent who struggles with addiction, abuse/negligence.
I loved Beginner’s Luck by @kateclayborn.author and since I am married to a materials scientist who’s really into renovating our old house, it felt like a perfect opportunity to set up a little still life. (Also, J was very excited when I asked if we had any old hinges or door hardware lying around.) Every book in this series has been so heartfelt and gorgeous ❤️ #bookstagram #amreading #amreadingromance
SEPTEMBER 2, 2019
Salt Magic, Skin Magic (m/m, historical fantasy) by Lee Welch. Oh my GOD. Why did it take me so long to get around to reading this book, which I knew was edited by the marvelous KJ Charles, and which is a queer historical fantasy, the genre niche I like best? The real answer is the same as above—the Boston Public Library runs my life—but it’s okay because I’m so glad this book came into my life this week. I spent a lot of this week in bed, in pain, occasionally in tears. Picking up this book and reading the first few chapters, creepily atmospheric and perfectly paced as they are, was the first moment since my surgery that I forgot. I thought about Thornby, fashionable young earl mysteriously unable to leave his father’s country estate, and Blake, the working-class witch who’s infiltrated the estate to investigate a curse, instead of my own physical pain. That’s magic right there. Content warnings: references to suicide, murder, blood, fantasy violence, homophobia.
Lord of the Last Heartbeat (m/nb, fantasy) by May Peterson. Memorable main characters, some great one-liners, a haunting opening scene in beautiful prose. I think of fantasy as either High Magic or Low Magic, and with mages/witches/sorcerers, ghosts, curses, and shapeshifters, this book is very, very High Magic—sometimes in ways that bog it down. I wanted more Rhodry and Mio and less discussion of the byzantine complexities of the curse. Still, a lot to love here, and I’m always thrilled to see more queer fantasy romance in the world. Content warnings: references to suicide, murder, blood, fantasy violence, references to off-screen infidelity, mind control, non-graphic references to transphobia/anti-effeminacy/homophobia.
Thirsty (m/f, contemporary) by Mia Hopkins. For a little while, I resisted this very highly recommended book because it’s first-person from the hero’s point of view, and only the hero’s point of view. When I read m/f, I’m usually in it for the heroine. But I shouldn’t have resisted—this book has a fantastic heroine in tough, determined young single mother Vanessa Velasco, and it has a sweet, quiet hero in its narrator, ex-con Salvador “Ghost” Rosas. The voice in this book is so strong. Sal is funny and incisive and trying so hard to do the right thing even though he can’t escape his old gang connections. I loved the plot about Sal trying to get back on his feet and learning to brew beer from an unlikely friend, and of course, this book is as thirsty as its title implies. The portrait of the East LA neighborhood where Sal and Vanessa live, where little old chismosas gossip and people grow hoja santa in their yards, is so vivid it’s like another character. Can’t wait to pick up the next one. Content warnings: gang violence, racism (including some racially motivated violence), references to addiction, some supporting characters are dead from addiction, grief.
Flowers of Luna (f/f, sci-fi) by Jennifer Linsky. The worldbuilding in this novella is so much fun: Ran Gray, the protagonist, is at fashion school on the moon. There are tons of details about all the clothes she designs, and life on the moon, where the dominant culture is a futuristic Russo-Japanese blend. Both main characters are part of the Asian diaspora, which is also the case for the author. In the future described by this book, people can “genetweak” themselves to look however they want, including staying young forever or being a furry. The romance is sweet (also, closed door) and mostly low angst until a big twist at the end. The twist wasn’t to my taste, but I did like the two characters, and I loved the sci-fi setting. Content warnings: mentions of sexism and homophobia, infidelity.