I've listened to Suara's new songs, 'Hito Nanda' and 'Hyakunichisou' 100 times, and as expected they merit inclusion into my 5-star music hall of fame. To make room for them I demoted two Xenogears songs (following a pattern of cutting instrumental songs to make room for more vocal songs).
Solaris, the Celestial Capitol has a clownish ring to it which can be offensive over a long enough listening period. After the Soldiers' Dreams is partially a remix of Bonds of Sea and Flame and thus doesn't merit its own separate listing as a 5-star song.
After that I had to demote songs in a chain reaction to make room for the demoted Xenogears songs, etc., with the end result of 'Venus as a Boy' by Bjork and 'I wish it could be Christmas Every day' by Sarah Brightman being kicked out entirely. All the details can be found in my music hall of fame permapost.
Meanwhile, I finished Vanity Fair. I don't think Rebecca was treated fairly. All she did was manipulate people into giving her money using her female winsome wiles. If a woman isn't allowed to do that, how would any of that sex get by? This wasn't an era where women were expected to work for their money, or had any decent jobs with decent pay they could work at. Rebecca was only doing the reasonable thing given her situation. And the money she raised by being a flirt was spent not only for herself but also supported her husband and child. The husband didn't have a job, instead he was severely in debt, debt Rebecca kept negotiating away thus saving him umpteen times. If there's anyone to blame in this story it's the useless Rawley. She never committed adultery, and he was the one who unjustly separated from her on unfounded suspicions that she was cheating on the mere basis that he found her alone one time with another man. Are we all suddenly Muslim, and women can't be in the company of a man not their husband at any time? It's not like they were undressed and going at it or something. It's perfectly ridiculous. And what was she ultimately doing with that man, you ask? She was flirting with him so that he'd give her husband a great job in the colonies paying 3,000 pounds a year, which was enough to solve all their debt and expense problems for life. She secured that job for him, which he took, while ungratefully spurning her, the source of his good fortune.
On the other hand, the Amelia/Dobbin pair was more admirable. I like both of them and find their romance charming. The problem keeping them apart the whole story long is not a vice but a virtue -- Amelia's devotion to her former husband, who died in battle at Waterloo. Who can blame someone for that? I'm glad she gave way and let a new and more deserved love enter her life at the end, whereupon they lived happily ever after. All of Amelia's problems came from her useless family -- her bankrupt parents who stole what little pension money she had from her dead husband, and her useless fop of a brother who, though rich, did nothing to aid her and wasted it all on luxuries for himself. If Amelia had been more hardhearted towards her parents and not indulged them in their endless sorrows, if she had demanded her brother who was rich take care of them instead of she who was penniless, her life would have been much better. Like usual the virtue of her kindness instead of any vice was the source of the problem.
I think the first half of the book was better than the second half, but oh well. It was a fine piece of literature that you rarely see these days, I can't be too hard on it.
Ultimately Vanity Fair is a story about money -- variously getting it and losing it over and over again in a tumultuous gale of good and bad fortune. Money isn't as interesting a topic as love or war, both of which appear in the book but always take a back seat to money. This is why I'd rate Vanity Fair below Hyouka, which has more charming romances and more exciting mysteries that need solving instead of balls and operas that need attending. Eru Chitanda is a better girl than Amelia or Rebecca, and prettier to boot.
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