Fledgling - Octavia Butler

Sunday was the last ‘Not the TV Book Group’ discussion (for now at least, I see mutterings at Savidge Reads about a potential summer project) and people from all over blog land turned up at kimbofo’s place to discuss ‘Fledgling’ by Octavia Butler. You can check out the comments on the discussion post (including mine) and gaze at the beautiful pictures of the park we imagined ourselves in.

There was some interesting discussion about the book going on, as the book is full of ideas to explore. Let me be the first to say that while I was reading, I had absolutely no idea what kind of point Butler was trying to make with her novel. I saw flashes of possible interpretations, but I get the feeling that Butler wanted her novel to be more than straightforward and symbolic, with plenty of ambiguity mixed in. That fitted in nicely with snippets I seemed to keep coming across in all kinds of places last week, about how it is misguided and rather detrimental for readers to approach all novels looking for concrete symbols and corresponding, definite meanings. So I was ready to go with the flow in this case and look for meaning, but not struggle too much if I couldn’t make one idea fit the hole.

Quick summary: Shori begins the book a severely injured black girl, who we soon discover is part of the Ina species, a race with many similarities to vampires. Shori has no memory of her family, or Ina culture and must try to rebuild her life with the help of relatives. But someone is targeting those close to Shori, determined to destroy her support network.

When Shori first appeared, I felt an immediate connection with her. There are all kinds of ways that Butler tries to get us to connect with Shori. She’s first presented as severely injured, then turns out to look like a young girl, who is all alone and later can be seen as a vulnerable young girl quickly caught in a relationship built on sexual exchange with an older man. However, all those aspects of her character that are designed to make her sympathetic are almost cancelled out, by what Shori does later. After finding her injured, she shows she is powerful enough to hunt and kill a medium sized animal. She eats the animal’s flesh raw, which suggests she is somehow monstrous. Then she seems to be similar to a vampire, as she bites the first human she meets. She soon discovers that the animal she ate was actually a human, a human who she had some close relationship with. That should be enough to keep anyone from connecting with her.

So, while it can be argued that Butler encourages sympathy by making Shori a vulnerable character, I don’t think that this is enough to explain what made me so deeply interested in Shori. I’d guess that part of my feeling for her comes from how much I like first person narrators. I’d also guess that my connection with Shori and the story comes from the gravitas of the writing throughout the book. There’s something slow, rolling and solemn about the rhythm of the writing that I enjoy. Possibly the rhythm linked with the plainness of the language and the controlled speech used to describe even the strongest emotions is what made this book so emotional for me:

‘I stood for a long time, staring at the spots where the two men had died. I had not known them, but they ahd been healthy and alive only a week before. They had welcomed me, had been friendly to Wright. It did not seem possible that they were dead now, reduced to two smudges of burned flesh that smelled of Iosif and of their individual human scents.’

Those lines aren’t trying hard, they’re not angst-ridden, or flashy, but they do speak of genuine pain. Shori’s emotions become more tempered by control throughout the book, but the pain remains. There’s something about the combination of the rhythm and the plain language that emphasise just how much there is a constant deep, sounding pain throughout the book that comes from losing people and having no memory of those you’ve lost. I loved kimbofo’s point that Butler might be talking about lost cultural histories. I so agree that she’s concerned with loss of culture and the importance of people passing on the knowledge of that culture, as this quote illustrates:

‘Iosif stared at him with an expression I couldn’t read. “And you will teach her about her people and their ways?” he said. “You’ll teach her her history, and help her into the adulthood she is approaching? You’ll help her fid mates and negotiate their family when the time comes?” He stood straight and gazed down at Wright. He wasn’t that much taller than Wright, but he gave the impression of looking down from a great height. “Tell me how you will do these things.” he said.’

Sometimes that tone of gravitas can tip over into the ridiculous, when applied to the most mundane day to day activities and the most solemn occasions. When Shori insists on describing exactly what her symbionts are eating in the same kind of spare writing, which seems to emphasise the importance of every detail, that’s a little laughable. When Shori is introduced to a mass of new Ina and they are introduced separately, with detailed reference to their backgrounds, appearances and geographical location it feels overly solemn and formal. When we move on to a trail among the Ina and all the characters keep the same formal, calm language going it feels a little...well a little Vulcan if you’ll pardon the sci-fi mash up. A little over-serious and ripe for parody.

At the same time it felt like these kind of passages, or the overly explanatory introductions at least, were Butler using epic fiction tropes that is often present in older fantasy adventure novels and may have been widely used in older sci-fi (I have no idea can someone enlighten me?). You can see me discuss this idea in the discussion comments but the detailed roll call of new Ina really reminded me of passages from Greek epic classics like ‘The Aneaid’, where the author insists on listing everyone who was called to fight and who they were begat from before getting down to business (and no I never finished ‘The Aneaid’, because of passages like that). Also, older fantasy adventure books often paused to discuss in detail the food being consumed. Coupled with the idea I saw in the discussion comments that Butler wrote this book ‘for a laugh’ I wonder if she is having a bit of a joke at her genre’s expense.

Does that make these passages any more pleasurable for a modern reader? Not really and I understand why some people involved in the discussion referenced these kind of passages as part of the reason why they were disappointed in the writing. I’d really like to hear about her general writing style from readers who’ve read other books by Butler, so we could do a bit of a compare contrast between ‘Fledgling’ and her other work.

These passages were stumbling blocks and the trial felt like a very heavy handed criticism of the justice system considering how subtle Butler is when commenting on other aspects of society. However, as I felt a connection with Shori’s struggle and her symbionts (who make a massive impact considering that Butler uses the barest emotional indicators to describe their state of mind) they were blocks I got pulled around. If you don’t feel that connection I imagine the writing ticks would bug you.

On a quick sidenote the other day I decided to look for some criticism of ‘Fledgling’ and I came across this essay called '"Every age has the vampire it needs": Octavia Butler's vampiric vision in Fledgling’ which among other things, talk about Shori’s status as ‘hybrid figure opens up a space of cultural uncertainty and instability’. I love this interpretation of Shori, does anyone else?

Lacking Bite

As I’ve mentioned before I’m involved with both The Debut Book Battle and the Nerds Heart YA contest. Both contests want to highlight young adult books published in 2009, although they have different focuses that make them two distinct competitions. One difference I’ve really noticed between the two lists of books nominated is that The Debut Book Battle’s list features several paranormal romances, while Nerds Heart YA features just one paranormal romance.

Now there are lots of variables between the two contest that could have caused this. Perhaps all the paranormal romances are too well know to be nominated for NHYA which only looks at under publicised books. Perhaps they all got kicked off NHYA’s long list on the way to the shortlist (except I know they didn’t because I saw the shortlist being created). Or perhaps when a contest that’s actively focusing on promoting diversity*, filters out paranormal romance it’s because the paranormal romance published for young adults, is not a diverse field.

I know it won’t be a huge surprise to most of you that the young adult books that can be easily categorised as purely paranormal romance** do not tend to exhibit much diversity. I can name one paranormal romance series for teens that features a black protagonist and possibly a couple of stand alone books. I have to include Twilight to get any more diverse than that and I really don’t want to include Twilight in anything to do with diversity, ever.

The absence of paranormal romance stories with GLBT protagonists for some reason strikes me as the oddest gap in the young adult market (probably because I would devour these kind of books if I knew where to find them). Although GLBT protagonists don’t make up a majority share of the characters on offer in adult paranormal romance there are still quite a few paranormal books with GLBT main characters to choose from. Anne Rice wrote an entire series with bisexual vampire characters. Snowbooks publishes a series by S Roit called ‘Paris Immortals’ which features bisexual vampires. J Langley has several books out about gay werewolves. That’s to name just a few of the books on offer (and to offer no opinion on how good they might be). Try typing gay paranormal romance into Amazon for a more extensive range. Now try adding ‘young adult’ to that search, or ‘teenage’. Ah.

It seems like there’s a slow growing industry of GLBT speculative fiction, paranormal horror, super hero fiction and fantasy novels for the young adult reader. For great resources on these types of stories visit Lee Wind’s links. As hard as I search I can’t find any sort of comparative number of books that feel like they fit in the pure paranormal romance category and are marketed as young adult fiction. ‘Ash’ by Malinda Lo might fit and there’s a book called ‘The Vampire’s Heart’ by Mark Roeder, who seems to be holding up the GLBT young adult paranormal romance world all by himself. As the publishing world knows they can sell GLBT paranormal romances in the adult industry why are they so reluctant to opening up a new source of revenue in the young adult world?

What do you guys think? Does anyone have any recommendations, or resources to share on this area of reading?

* And this is so not a dig at the diversity of the Debut Book Battle’s list, it’s just meant to remind that NHYA’s theme this year was books that exhibit diversity, so all the books nominated were required to exhibit the diversity of the world in one of the ways we outlined.

** Now for the purpose of this post I’m using paranormal romance to mean that one, or more members of a potential romance must be a paranormal creature. If the book features an action driven plot the romance should feel equally important to the story.

Nerds Heart YA - Shortlist Announced

This is just a super quick announcement to say that the NerdsHeartYA shortlist is up! Drop over to the blog and find out what made the cut.

I want to say thanks so much again to our fantastic consultants Daisy and Liz who created this list for us all to enjoy :) Thanks for being uber-grand.

So, hopefully this will help increase the prescence of these books a little and be super fun in the process. I loved seeing how many people picked up the winner and other books last year as a direct result of Renay's awesome idea and I look forward to seeing lots of interest this time around. I know Renay plans to get involved again this year with some kind of secret, sparkly giveaway, so yay for that too.

D'y'know posting this has really cheered me up, it's like I gave myself a mental pep rally (although we don't have those in the Midlands, umm a mental wander around a beer festival?). Happy NerdsHeartYA announcement day everyone :)

Do Not Avert Your Gaze

I’m reading books that I can’t talk about on the blog at the moment:

I’ve almost finished ‘Fledgling’, but don’t want to post about it until closer to the NTTVBG discussion.

I’m trying to inhale my picks for the Debut Book Battle as they took quite a while to arrive (actually one only arrived today) meaning I have two books to finish by May 22nd.

I still haven’t quite worked out what to say about ‘Anna Karenina’. I know how I feel about it. I know I don’t want to try to review it (ha, laughable). I’m picking up some of the recurring themes. What I don’t know is how to write about it here. Still thinking, but at the moment I’m not reading it at all (see above) so nothing much to report on that book.

I feel like someone is going to call me out for not being a real book blogger because I’m not reviewing all the time. Le crazy hits you sometimes. Instead of dwelling on that how about I show you the last bookgazing stack you’ll be seeing her in some time. Yes that’s right people I’m putting the book buying ban back in place, for twoish months (I’ll see how I feel after that) to help me with my troubled finances. Gaze while ye may on new books:

'Crossing' – Andrew Fukuda: The one but last book from my earlier pre-order spree. I was inspired to add it to my pile by GAL Novelty who seemed excited about this mystery featuring an American-Chinese teenage protagonist. It’s preeetty.

'First Among Sequels'– Jasper Fforde: See Stefanie I listened to your advice. I’m not giving up on Thursday quite yet and will give her fifth adventure a try.

'Hearts and Minds' – Rosy Thornton: ‘Crossed Wires’ was lovely and differently British (social housing is not the root of all evil you say? Well who knew) enough to make me interested in more of the authors work. This one sees the appointment of a new male dean at an all girls college.

'Death at Dawn' – Caro Peacock: I am proving just how fussy I am about series with this purchase. I have Caro Peacock’s second Liberty Lane mystery, set in the thirties, but I just can’t bring myself to start in the middle of the series. When did I get so odd about this? I was happy to read all the Falco books out of order when I was a teenager checking books out of the library. Anyway it was going for cheap in my book club magazine (that’s how I got a lot of the books pictured above) and I breathed a sigh of relief as I ordered it.

'The Gun-Maker’s Gift' – Matthew Plampin: Cornflower alerted me to this historical tale of gun stealing and romance. I’m very excited about it, if only I could start now.

'Hex Hall'– Rachel Hawkins: I would never have picked this up but for the Debut Book Battle. It seems like a book for my sixteen year old self and I never let her read Nightworld anymore (there was a horrible mix up with a charity bag when I was younger and my entire Nightworld series disappeared, otherwise I would have probably revisited them during the initial Twilight dust up). Time to be nice to her and read a spoof on the vampires go to boarding school genre.

‘8th Grade Super Zero’ - Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich: I cannot tell you how much I am enjoying this book – no I am literally forbidden to talk about it until the Battle is over. ‘S good though (bites lip to keep from talk about it)

'After the Fire, a Small Still Voice' – Evie Wyld: My spoils from the contest at Savidge Reads. I’m hoping to pick up some more Orange reading before the prize announcement. I really like the New Voices list though I don’t keep up with it as I should and it often makes no sense why one debut author makes the main list while another makes this new award. The 2007 winner, ‘Burma Boy’, was just outstanding, a real best of the best kind of book.

Now it's back to gazing at the stacks wondering what I should read next. Spoilt for choice is much better than no choice at all I always say. Apathy created by too much choice, I laugh at you, while I work away on my plans for returning to the 100 flavours ice cream shop in Nice.

Humanity Rewritten

In the comments on my latest discussion post Booksnob talked about how her grandmother knew people who resembled some of those great, moralistic characters in Victorian literature:

‘...people tended to be much more in control of their emotions and actions in those days due to a much stricter moral and religious code. We view them as unrealistic and impossible to emulate nowadays, but from what my grandmother tells me about her relatives, there really were people who behaved with the grace and decency portrayed in Victorian novels.’

I don’t doubt that great and good people existed in real life (who am I to knock someone’s real life knowledge?). I’m not going to go off on a tangent about public faces and private attitudes, doubting the morality of highly publically moral people. Although certainly there were hypocritcs who were moral in public and less so in private, as well as people, gay men for example, who had no choice but to adopt the moral attitudes of the time despite their personal feelings. Instead I want to argue that real people whose public and private morals matched were still very different in real life from the characters that represented them in novels.

In real life these extremely moral people probably suffered from the same kind of personal frustrations, irritations and jealousies we all struggle to suppress. They had the occasional nasty thought. Despite their genuine moral feeling and despite the religious code that constructed a large part of their thoughts, the mind will go where it’s not supposed to. They had the occasional bad thought, while still remaining publically virtuous and privately moral. Perhaps they prayed on their unkind thoughts, perhaps they spent time working on their attitudes, but I can’t believe that a large section of society was walking around with never a bit of private unpleasantness in them. Maybe that does make me cynical, but I like to think there’s something special about humanity’s ability to have small weaknesses and continue to remain basically decent.

It’s these small, everyday cerebral misdeeds that are missing from many earlier novels. Good characters tend to be virtuous and free from any badness even in their private thoughts. I think the reason I lose patience with many of the Victorian novels I try (and I’ll admit I haven’t made it through a lot from that time period, so I’m not going to generalise here and apply these ideas to all the literary works of the Victorian age) is because of the layer of unreality that accompanies their portrayal of goodness. Making an entirely good character seems to be equivalent to silencing them, keeping their private irritations suppressed. It seems that some novelists felt their characters needed to appear beyond moral reproach, to be even more virtuous than the most upstanding real life citizens.

What I like so much about George Elliot’s approach to realistic characterisation (see I told you I wasn’t generalising about all Victorian novelists) is that she lets her characters fully express themselves through their private thoughts. Reading about her characters the limitations of societal bonds are freely explained through the thoughts they cannot silence, even as the characters conform outwardly and inwardly to society’s moral code, because they must and because they agree with the values encapsulated by that code. Take ‘Daniel Deronda’; the hero is an upright young man, extremely virtuous, good and kind. There is no question that he is a hero, not an anti-hero or a villain. His inner life is fully exposed to the reader and we see what irritates him, the mistakes he makes and the occasional uncharitable thought, yet he still remains the model of a Victorian hero, who is privately and publically upstanding. While the other characters in the novel may still, rightly worship him as good and moral, the reader has seen his private voice and knows his limitations as well as his goodness.

Hard to explain, but I like to see people’s true nature revealed in a way that doesn’t paint true nature as violently awful, or describe a public and private difference in attitude as hypocrisy, because a character is not perfect. As much as we all try to be good people, who conform to the vision of goodness that our own section of society promotes we all slip. All the people we think of as good have people they don’t like, small moments of disregard and petty jealousies they try to conquer. That’s the kind of universal humanity that's existed for centuries and that’s what I like to see in novels.

Personal bias, you’ve got to love it.

Bleeding Violet - Dia Reeves

Hanna hallucinates. She literally sees dead people, or at least one dead person; her father. After her father’s death Hanna has to move in with her aunt, who wants to have her committed. Understandably Hanna’s not keen on being locked up forever, especially with a long history of bad experiences with doctors who have misdiagnosed her mental illness. What’s a girl to do when someone won’t listen? Hanna’s solution is to knock her aunt out with a lamp and flee to Portero in search of Rosalee, the mother who abandoned her. Possibly not the route we’d all choose, but then Hanna is not like anyone else.

Rosalee is emotionally aggressive when her only daughter arrives. She sends Hanna off to the local school, assuming that Hanna will want to leave once she sees the real Portero. She underestimates her daughter’s tolerance for weird. After being labelled crazy Hanna’s actually happy to find that for once she won’t be the strangest thing in town. Instead of fearing for her life once she finds out that Poetero is full of monsters, Hanna gets involved in the fight to save the town. By joining with a boy named Wyatt, an initiate in the Portero’s monster fighting guild, Hanna hopes to prove to Rosalee that she should be allowed to live with her mother.

There’s often something unreal about heroines who discover paranormal activities. It seems like these girls should need time to adjust, or to run screaming before they accept that the world is full of monsters, but they almost always adapt within a few pages. With Hanna, Dia Reeves has bypassed this problem, caused by the necessity of moving the action along, by created a character who can realistically drop into a paranormal adventure with the minimum of fuss. Hanna’s hallucinations mean she’s already used to seeing things that should not exist. In this way her mental illness becomes connected to everything good and brave she does in the novel. In fact her conversations with her dead father often help her to save herself and others. By connecting Hanna’s mental illness with coping and monster fighting skills, Reeves shows people dealing with mental illness as strong and positive.

Besides her ability to cope with supernatural beings, Hanna possesses other qualities that make her a formidable character. She’s smart, skilled, confident and quirky (almost unbearably so sometimes), determined to make the world work the way she wants it to. She uses these same qualities to make sure that her sex life is fulfilling and fun for her. I could type on all day and explain why it’s important that we see more female teenage protagonists who approach life and sex with Hanna’s kind of attitude, but that wouldn’t tell you much about this particular book. Instead I will just say ‘Yes! More please.’ and if you’re already with me on this point you can nod, if not we can discuss it in the comments.

Hanna’s not the only determined female character in ‘Bleeding Violet’. Portero is a town full of capable female heroines, villains and women who fall somewhere in between those extremes. Hanna’s mother Rosalee is the town legend because of her fascinating looks and her defiance of the mayor. The mayor is a woman who can control men even after they’re dead. Supervising Wyatt, is Shoko a woman described as ‘pretty but deadly’ like the pink flails she fights with. Wyatt’s mother Sera keeps strict control of her family and threatens to cut off Hanna’s hand with a machete. In comparison most of the male characters are inept, for example Asher, Wyatt’s dad, is always playing with magical concoctions, but they never quite work.

Wyatt inserts a strong male presence into the novel and the main villain is a man, but at its heart ‘Bleeding Violet’ is a novel about women battling each other for power. Rosalee and the mayor fight for authority over the town, although Rosalee may not be aware she is still in conflict with the mayor until late in the novel. Sera fights to keep power over her household as Wyatt gets closer to Hanna and Asher moons over Rosalee. Rosalee fights for control over her emotions as she tries to escape Hanna’s bonds of love. Each battle is openly bitter and at times physically violent. Clashing relations between women will be familiar to readers aware that women can be just as forceful as men when they fight for what they want, but the level of darkness in these relations is new for young adult fiction.

The conflicts between the female characters is just one of the elements that makes ‘Bleeding Violet’ so distinctive in the young adult genre. ‘Bleeding Violet’ is a mix of very exciting elements. Consisting of part gory adventure book, part paranormal romance, part coming of age narrative and part strained family drama it is bound to be hit with teenagers because of its dark honesty and originality. There are no other books quite like it around, although I can compare parts of it with other popular books (‘Liar’, ‘Silver Phoenix’ and there’s something of the Harry Potter series in there, maybe even a little similarity to Joe Hill’s horror novel ‘Heart-shaped Box’) .

As a consequence of the genre combinations there is plenty going on in ‘Bleeding Violet’, in fact sometimes it feels like the novel should be longer, as sometimes there isn’t enough space for each of Reeve’s ideas to be developed. In particular, it seems like Reeves wants to examine what constitutes courage and cowardice by including Wyatt’s ex-girlfriend, Petra. Petra is Reeve’s attempt to critique the passive heroines of some paranormal romances by showing that the people of Portero see Petra as a coward because she doesn’t fight the monsters in the town. Reeve’s critique is clever; Petra’s troubles are actually brought about by her seeking a protector, rather than learning to fight for herself. However, courage becomes a complex concept when your parents make you move to a town full of monsters. Reeve’s begins a conversation about what courage means as Wyatt dwells on the more painful tasks he performs to prove his dedication of the fight, but it never develops into a strong, alternate side to the discussion about courage. In Potero courage is killing anything that looks like a monster and never questioning why. The values the Mortmaine push on the town are never substantially examined, because there just isn’t space for them to be considered.

Two questions remained after I’d finished the book. Why is the mayor allowed to live when clearly she’s a monster? Will the answer to the first question be found in a sequel? If there are more monsters (awesome monsters by the way) to come out of Portero let them come quickly.

Other Reviews

Reading in Color
Opinionated? Me?
The Book Smugglers
The HappyNappy Bookseller
Presenting Lenore

Creating a Dialogue

Ever since reading ‘The God Box’ I’ve been thinking about dialogues in modern fiction.

The structure of a dialogue is a conversation, usually between two people, where the author has one character set out ideas the author does not believe are true. Then the author has the second character refute these ideas and suggest another course of thought is much better. Dialogues most famously first appeared in the Platonic dialogues where Plato set out to dispute certain philosophical ideas through recorded conversations between the author and a fictional friend,. Scientific authors like Galileo later made dialogues appear more fictional by absenting the author from the scenes of discussion. Galileo also complicated his most famous dialogue, ‘Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World’ by including more than two characters. I haven’t read Plato’s dialogues, but I really like Galileo’s which sets out to disprove the idea that the Earth orbited the Sun.

Even later in history authors integrated the structured dialogue into novels and plays. Right now I’m reading ‘Anna Karenina’ and Tolstoy is a big fan of the dialogue structure as a way of explaining his ideas. Part three sees his character Levin engaging in a several dialogues with other characters about the correct way to farm and as Levin is said to be a self-portrait of Tolstoy I’m assuming that Levin’s ideas correspond with Tolstoy’s.

In Galileo’s dialogue it is easy to see which ideas the author wants us to believe in, even if we know nothing about the scientific truth, or Galileo’s own ideas. Galileo gives the character who opposes Galileo’s views the humorous name of ‘Simplicio’. Simplicio is not realistic, nuanced, or as intelligent as the character Salviati, who presents Galileo’s views. By presenting Simplicio as a character who lacks cultivation and intellect, Galileo encourages the reader to ignore Simplicio’s views and embrace Salviati’s.

In a similar way Tolstoy makes Levin agree with characters who are agreeable and reasonably intelligent, then disagree with characters who are disagreeable and perceived as less intelligent. Of course, it’s Tolstoy so everything is a bit more complicated than that, for example Levin finds himself in complete disagreement with his extremely intelligent, upstanding brother. As far as I can work out that shows Tolstoy switching the views he believes are true to a different character, to reflect Levin’s and Tolstoy’s youthful idealism, which Tolstoy has since reluctantly disregarded. It’s harder to decode which arguments Tolstoy supports without knowing a bit about his background as Levin sometimes sides with characters a modern reader will find repulsive, but Levin represents a progressive dialogue character, not a definite dialogue character like Salviati. Levin he starts off sure of his opinion, but Tolstoy uses conversations with other characters to shape his changing ideas then bring Levin and the reader to his ideological stand point, more in keeping with how the third character Sagredo responds in Galileo’s dialogue. The reader’s acceptance of Levin’s views on farming also rely on them identifying him as a hero, or a likeable character and this is perhaps a little hard for a modern reader to accept at times.

This brings me to dialogues in modern fiction. If a modern author creates characters for the purpose of walking the reader through a complex discussion then the characters who hold views the author can’t resemble the kind of one note characters Galileo created. Modern fiction and modern readers demand realistic characters (more about that assumption in a later post) and any stereotypical evil, or stupid characters will strike them as false. At the same time there’s a lack of realism about the dialogue structure itself, which can make the inclusion of conversations in this style seem oddly inserted in a modern novel. A dialogue was never meant to be a realistic narrative structure after all, as it was developed a long time before realism was the be all and end all in writing. At the same time the idea of a conversation where one set of wrong views gets directly corrected has an undeniable charm and usefulness in the present day. While the dialogues in ‘The God Box’ felt badly integrated to me, they are the most important part of the novel.

That leaves me with a few questions about how a structured dialogue might coexist with modern fiction and modern readers, who may find inserted dialogues of this type preachy, or too much like info dumping. How do modern authors signal that one character’s views are not what the author wants their readers to believe, while keeping the character realistically human? Can dialogues be integrated into novels without seeming out of place to the reader? And one last question that seems to spring from nowhere is, do readers find the use of dialogues more acceptable in novels from places where realism is less of a dominant trend (thinking of places like South America which publishes a lot of magical realism)?

As always I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the questions above. I know you all have sharp minds that can help me cut through the mulling I’m doing.

The Endless Waiting - Fill it with Links

Usually when I manage to pull a link post together it tends to be of the ‘wtf is the matter with you world’ variety. Today I have something different for you, because you really don’t need to see a collection of links that amount to cursing at the Tories. Instead let us look at some fun things:

Simon interviewed Evie Wyld a while ago, who helped him set up a fabulous contest. People were asked to complete the sentence ‘I saw a Bunyip and it looked like…’ to win a copy of her book ‘After the Fire a Small Still Voice’ and the chance to have their Bunyip drawn by Joseph Summer. I was one of the winners and you can now see my Bunyip (the one on the right). ‘I saw a Bunyip and it looked like a kangaroo being swallowed head first by a giant potato, with dangling, thrashing eyes.’ I love it and the wings are a total bonus.

Next I have to show you an excerpt from Coleen’s first book, ‘The Map of My Dead Pilots’. Her project is part history of exploration and part personal narrative, which makes for a very appealing mix. It is so good, there were shivers going down my back while I read it. It doesn’t have a publisher yet, but I know there’s a ton of support out there for this endeavor so cross your fingers and hope the publishing world decides this is a commercially attractive book.

To end I have some excerpts of the film ‘Andrea: Queen of the Mantas’ which was a fascinating Natural World film about a female scientist and the rays she studies. Sadly you can’t see all the film because iPlayer content expires after seven days, but you can see three little bits of it. It’s one of the best natural science programs I’ve seen this year as part of the Year of Biodiversity challenge. Next month actual reading about biodiversity continues as I learn about the full ominous consequences of the disappearing bees.

In a quick reading update I’ve finished ‘Bleeding Violet’ by Dia Reeves, which I think lots of readers will love (strong, sexually aware heroine with very little fear).

I just finished Part Three of ‘Anna Karenina’, a book that makes me change my opinions on its characters every time I open it. I feel a bit of an ‘AK’ slow down coming on now, possibly all that slashing, digging farming description tired me out.

For my third ‘Once Upon a Time’ selection ( so far read ‘Toads and Diamonds’ and ‘Bleeding Violet’) I’ve just started ‘Fledgling’ by Octavia Butler. It’s disturbing, there’s no question about that and I feel the more that’s revealed the harder it will be to read. Butler has created such a different kind of narrative voice from any I’ve ever heard before. Her main character is both distant, separated from life by her odd form of amnesia and almost clinical in her strange rediscovery of knowledge. At the same time she’s so easy to warm to. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s first introduced when she’s alone and hurt. It could be something to do with an adult voice coming from a body described as childish. Not sure. I hope I’ll make it to the end in time for the final ‘Not the TV Book Club’ meeting later this month.

Black Water Rising - Attica Locke

Here we go again, more reading from the Orange prize list. This time I’m talking about the surprise addition to the longlist, which I think is 'Black Water Rising’ by Attica Locke. While Rosie Allison’s ‘The Very Thought of You’ has been advertised as the surprise nomination I think ‘Black Water Rising’ actually has more of a claim to that title. ‘Black Water Rising’ is a political thriller with a male main character and it mostly concentrates on issues that affect the male supporting cast, which immediately makes it an atypical Orange nomination. It is, if we are talking about stereotypical notions of what women read and what women write, not the kind of book you expect to find on a prize list dedicated to women writers. If it weren’t for the Booker nomination of ‘Child 44’ by Tom Rob Smith I’d go so far as to say it’s not the kind of novel that you expect to find on major prize lists. I’ve been rather excited about its nomination and the possibility of a new kind of Orange winner.

Unfortunately it’s not the book to make me throw away my ‘Cromwell is sexay’ pin. But let me dwell on the good parts of ‘Black Water Rising’ first because there’s quite a bit to enjoy about this book, even if I don’t think of it as a potential prize winner.

The novel’s main character is Jay, a middle aged man who runs a small, Southern law firm, constantly facing financial disaster. As soon as Jay appears it is clear that life is often a disappointment to him and that in turn he feels as if he is not the man he expected to be. The reader first meets Jay as he tries to surprise his pregnant wife Bernie with a boat trip on her birthday, an episode which illustrates Jay’s feelings of shame and inadequacy:

‘Jay stands beneath his city, staring at the raggedy boat, feeling a knot tighten in his throat, a familiar cinch at the neck, a feeling of always coming up short where his wife is concerned. The guy on the phone lied to him. The guy on the phone is a liar. It feels good to outsource it, to put it on someone else. When the truth is there are thirty-five open case files on his desk, at least ten or twelve with court time pending; there wasn’t any time to plan anything else for Bernie’s birthday and more importantly there hasn’t been any money, not for months.’

The passage above is also a good example of Attica Locke’s general writing style. She writes prose that conveys the claustrophobia and anxiety that comes from not making it in a small town. However her prose also manages to be smooth and almost relaxing, as she produces a subdued rhythm through her controlled use of punctuation. She uses punctuation and later line breaks to actively manage her reader’s pace, but she also uses these devices to reflect Jay’s suppressed emotions. When he later states that:

‘Here he is, a workingman with a degree, two in fact, and, still he’s taking handouts, living secondhand. He feels the anger again, and beneath it, its ugly cousin, shame.

He tucks the feeling away.

Anger, he knows, is a young man’s game, something he long grew out of.’

it is the punctuation and that line break that convey just how beaten Jay is, as much as the words themselves. It is the fact that the reader has been asked to pause in each moment of his thoughts by the commas, that connects them to the emotion, as much as anything Jay might think.

As the boat is returning to the dock Jay, Bernie and the boat’s captain hear a woman screaming. Shots are fired and a woman’s body rolls into the water and thinking ‘that this is one of those times when being a man, or rather trying to play the part to any convincing degree, trumps his better judgement.’ Jay jumps into the bayou to save her. Although he saves her, he is reluctant to get involved with any problems this woman, Elise, might have. As a black man, who tangled with the government during the civil rights movement and has been burned by a white woman before, Jay feels the need to distance himself from her. They drop her off at the police station and Jay decides to leave well alone.

Jay’s identity as a black man, with previous involvement in civil rights is pivotal to the novel. His history’s most basic function is to provide realistic motivation for many of Jay’s actions, which allow the plot to progress. At the beginning of the book he tells a story about the father he never met who was beaten to death by white men:

‘They had him near ‘bout to the ground when Alma got the gun out of the glove box, a little .25-claiber pistol her brothers had taught her to shoot.

“Your daddy took one look at me with that gun and said, ‘Alma don’t you dare.’ ” '

Jay makes it his life’s work to avoid becoming afraid of the consequences of defending himself, which explains his involvement in the black power movement, but in reality he is running scared of what can happen to a black man implicated in a crime. He is a conflicted character; desperate to prove himself a man, but aware of how easy it would be to lose the freedom that his concept of manhood revolves around. His warring instincts lead him to investigate the woman, Elise and her crime, then to cover tracks he feels will implicate him in that crime. Each time he covers signs he is involved, he causes greater problems and pushes himself into a place where he feels he has to solve the crime to exonerate himself. While at the beginning this seems realistic, the more Jay vows not to get involved, then does, the more frustrating his character becomes. By the end his involvement in solving the crime is only justified by pure paranoia, which makes contextual sense, but becomes a bit wearing for readers who can see how irrational his actions are.

Jay’s past also allows Locke to explain the evolution of black civil rights to the reader. Jay can be convincingly involved in present day strike action, where dock workers find that the amount they are being paid is split along racial lines. Jay’s involvement in this action and the descriptions of his past allow Locke to vocalise some of the arguments I’ve seen on many, many blogs since the cover whitewashing scandal – the kind of arguments people call Racism 101:

‘ Bodine sighs and says to Reverend Boykins and Darren, “If I’m being real with you, there is no way for us to not take seriously the mayor’s proposal. If the stevedores adopt a viable program for race-blind hiring, I think there’s a very real possibility that the strike will reach a resolution shortly.”

“And I’m telling you-all,” the Rev says, “pretending people aren’t black is not the way to equality. It’s not even possible, first of all. Any more than I can pretend you aren’t who you are.”

“I thought this is what you all wanted,” Bodine says sincerely.

“I think the hope has always been that you see what you see and you take us anyway, for who we are,” the Rev says. “Not that we all go around pretending we’re the same.”

Including arguments like this one, is important because as so many people have commented in the past few months, it is exhausting for black people to have to spend every argument about race patiently educating those who don’t understand how racism can manifest. Locke has taken that basic education and put it in a thriller, a highly accessible form of literature which will appeal to many. Hopefully this will ensure that the knowledge spreads far and wide. While there have previously been many readable articles written that simply explain how institutional racism manifests, I can’t think of a single book, with mass appeal that so succinctly walks readers through the problems of perspective which stall racial debates.

It is the way racism is commented on that should elevate this political thriller into the top ranks of its genre. Unfortunately its main political plot, which focuses on corruption in big companies, keeps it down. It’s hard to explain without giving the reveal away, but the way Elise’s crime connects with the political misdeeds in ‘Black Water Rising’ takes too long to be revealed and is revealed in a bit of a dull way. While the pacing of the sentences works wonderfully, the pace of the novel’s plummet towards a solution is too slow for a thriller. Interest is generated by flashbacks to Jay’s past, his dealings with the striking dock workers, or his relationship with Bernie, all of which enhance Locke’s wonderful world building, but have little to do with the crime which is supposedly central to the novel. Shouldn’t the thriller element to be central and to a thriller and shouldn’t the solution to the main plot be as interesting as the background world in which the political crime is situated?

Attica Locke is absolutely an author to watch if you like thrillers that comment on the state of society effectively and are character driven. However, I don’t think she’s quite got the hang of something. I’m not entirely sure whether her problems stem from trying to operate two political plot strands at once, or if she just struggled with bringing about a convincing plot resolution as she clearly cares more about the affect the plot has on her main character, than how the plot might end. I don’t read a lot of thrillers, maybe two a year, but I’d be prepared to bump Linwood Barclay from his regular spot if Locke produces a second novel, just to see how she’s getting on as a writer. She intrigues me.

Other Reviews

Buried in Print

Hello.

I have been gone a while. Mostly I have been thinking about where my life is going – conclusion not earning enough money to really change it. So it’s on with a serious spending freeze and a big job applications push.

I have been thinking about Open University MAs. While I still can’t afford to take one right now, they are about a third of the cost of an MA at a university and maybe I will be able to afford it by the time this year’s enrolment opens. Saying that, I’m not sure of their worth (looking at the English MA the content looks quite similar to some of the English courses I took in my first year of uni – same books and everything). Does anyone, preferably someone who works in academia, know how they compare to a university based MA?

I was also out eating at the Tewkesbury food festival. Then I planned a holiday to Croatia. And I got reprimanded for go-karting irresponsibly. See it is not all serious times when I disappear.

Soon I should have a few updates on my ‘Anna Karenina’ reading which is going oh so well. No, really that wasn’t sarcasm it is going unexpectedly well. Also I’d mostly finished a review of ‘Black Water Rising’ before I disappeared. I’m, oh about half way through ‘Bleeding Violet’ right now and my feelings are mixed, but heavily weighted towards the positive. Did you know it is Persephone week right now? I meant to join in, but I think I might be too book busy – two review copies, two readalongs and a YA contest + Carl’s challenge makes a big reading schedule.