TV - Where Your Strangest Friends Live

Welcome to another instalment of Jodie rambles on about television and film, refusing to learn the name of many actors or actresses. As before I’ll be referring to many people by their previous roles in unrelated programs and being affectionately snide. I like you visual media, but sometimes you do stupid things:

‘Never Let Me Go’ – I am not a fan of Keira Knightley’s work generally, but to be fair I’d have to say she’s miscast so often that it’s not always her fault she can’t pull off a performance (if I had to cast her in a Jane Austen adaptation I’d pick her for Marianne Dahswood). I think she was perfect for Ruth and wonder, after this performance, why she doesn’t have more roles as villains, or at least heroines with a harder edge, on her cv. In ‘Never Let Me Go’ she projects her small, but potent, sly expressions to the viewer so that it is easy to see that her insecure jealousy is the reason why she aims so much barbed sweetness at Cathy. I thought it was a really artful performance. I felt just enough sympathy and dislike for Ruth throughout this film that the final hospital scenes produced a mixture of disturbed emotions in me that forged a real connection between me and the real tragedy of this film.

Carey Mulligan is of course just right to play Cathy’s sad, capable, romantic character. One thing: I remember that reading the book I found Cathy’s interest in Ruth and Tommy’s relationship a little bit more sinister, so I would have liked to see bit more of an edge from her as she rubbed up against Ruth.

‘The Fighter’ – It’s true that Christian Bale steals the entire film despite ‘The Fighter’ being a story that focuses on the real life sporting rise of Mark Whalberg’s character. Whalberg is not a character actor. He does a good job at what he’s set out to do, which is to be able to act like a boxer, to make the viewer believe in his journey as a fighter and to use his body to explain his connection with the other characters in the story. He’s never really outside his own skin for the film, which considering the interviews I’ve seen where he explains his own connection to the story is probably not surprising. Nothing he does feels like a mannerism he wouldn’t equally bring to another role, but perhaps that’s a fault in Whalberg’s acting on other projects rather than this one. He’s really called on to act natural and look like a boxer, both of which he manages and I suppose the fact that I felt so comfortable watching him do those things shows he fit into the role the way he was supposed to.

Bale is a totally different person from the character we see in ‘The Prestige’, or ‘Batman’. Although you never quite forget that it is Christian Bale you’re watching (I do think it was easy to forget Bale’s celebrity when I watched ‘The Prestige’) it still seems like he drops so much of his own ego to play this role in order to let the equally dominant, but destructive ego of Dicky’s written character enter his body. I know that I’m more likely to see Bale, Whalberg and the brilliant Amy Adams in future films now. She’s doing the same thing as Bale, just in a smaller, less extravagant role. I know I’ve never seen anything before that suggested she would have the ability to be so inhabited by someone else without trying to keep some of her public image (sweet, classy, a bit quirky) in the role. The brilliant thing was that both she and Bale were totally committed to letting the audience feel the way the characters actions should make them feel, so there are times when I didn’t like either character and I felt like even after the redemptive ending I was free to feel that little bit of wariness towards their characters (although that idea mostly applies to Dicky’s character) .

The one thing I’m unsure how to talk about is the depiction of the Ward women in this film, specifically Micky and Dicky’s sisters. The real life brothers were involved with the making of this film, so the way that Micky’s largely female family is presented must have some truth to it right? How do we critique a drama that is created with help from people who were involved in the real life events and (as far as we know) want a sympathetic, but truthful account of their family produced? I mean how do we separate out realistic presentations of real, flawed women, from archetypes?

To be honest I’m not sure how to go about that, so instead I’ll just state what I see and try to draw judgements from that. Feel free to complicate them usefully in the comments as always. I think what troubles me is the way that the sisters are set up as characters the audience should be laughing at and the humour of their characters centres around things like their dress sense, which despite all their teasing and short skirts still lack links to traditional femininity. Femininity always includes a certain amount of sanctioned, mainstream society taste to be approved as femininity even when a woman shows clear female signals through her sense of dress. so although the sisters still clearly work on their sartorial presentation as feminine women their definition of femininity clashes with ideas about femininity that have established types of authority behind them and essentially loses its definition as femininity in the eyes of wider society.

There’s also this scene where all the women pile into a car to go beat up Amy Adam’s character Charlene, where I feel a kind of ‘isn’t it hilarious when poorer woman start being violent, because their attempts at it are so laughable (in comparison to a man’s) and so out of character for ‘proper’ members of their gender’ vibe going on. I can’t decide if what makes me uncomfortable is how the humour relates to their lack of traditional femininity, or if it’s how the humour is based on their lack of class and the way that intersects with their lack of traditional femininity. I just know that something made me feel weird after I came out of the cinema, having laughed along quite happily when I was in the middle of the film.

Viewers laugh at Dicky, in a way that connects with his lack of class, or lower socio- economic status, but they also gain access to something deeper about him (the tragedy of his situation as a crack addict, as a boxing prodigy destroyed by pressure, as in some ways a victim of his circumstances). However, this film is so focused on the brothers struggle (rightly, this is Micky and Dicky’s story and to make it otherwise would destroy the focus of the film, but even so there are consequences of this focus for the sisters). There isn’t a chance to access that same level of humanity when it comes to the sisters (because of the films focus) and so when we laugh at them for their hugely teased hair, overly aggressive attitudes, or biased, nonsensical opinions, we’re not going to go on to understand the hugely complicated picture of them as human beings partly created by their circumstances. By the end of the film we feel more kindly towards Dicky, having has access to the circumstances that made him and having travelled with him through a life changing journey. However over the top, or odd he might still appear to us, we understand what he’s been through and how human he is. We don’t get that for his sisters, they’re just uncomplicated traditional caricatures.

There are some nice, moments in this film that show the humanity of Mickey and Dicky’s sisters (making them more human than if just their flaws were shown). The scene where they arrive at the gym to welcome Dicky home, but have to try and pack up his surprise welcome is touching, even though it’s such a small part of that scene. But these are small moments, tiny in the scheme of the film. There’s also the problem of their portrayal as almost a homogenous mass of women. Individual personalities that go beyond distinctions of dress and appearance are missing for these women.

While I do think the Ward sisters are mocked for their lower socio-economic status the great thing about this film (and remember this is based on a true story so it does indeed give me all sorts of crazy, happy inspirational feelings – I will go back to being cynical in a minute OK?) is the way it so clearly shows that you don’t have to ‘beat’ your neighbourhood, or your family circumstances to succeed in life. Dicky has to ‘beat’ crack and remove himself from his crack addict friends to get on in life, but crack isn’t all there is to the neighbourhood. A successful solution for the characters doesn’t require them to escape from their background, they just need to remove themselves from its harmful aspects and to build bigger dreams within it (Micky’s new apartment which means he can have his daughter stay overnight). Success in this film does rely on the Wards increasing their financial stability, but I think that marker of success can be separated out from escaping their entire background (I guess I am saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water here).

Micky’s family is totally cracked and he has to disassociate himself from them for a while to progress in his career. However, in the end, it’s his brother who helps him win his big fights. His brother who screwed him over at the beginning of the film, who is this off the wall, flawed crack addict trying to come good is proved to not only still be a person who Micky needs and wants in his life, but also a person who can change so that he is really healthily helpful to Micky. Micky could take Dicky’s advice to fight ‘head, body, head’ without keeping Dicky in his life, but once Dicky returns from jail there’s something stronger than brotherly advice, that means that Micky wants his brother around. I mean who isn’t touched by Micky’s speech about how he wants his family around him, now that they’ve changed, no matter how harmful they were to him before. It might sound like a child’s unrealistic wish, or it might sound like a powerful lesson about the simplicity of deserved forgiveness. The potential for forgiveness, love and change gives me hope, especially in a film which has a devastatingly simple reveal that made me suddenly take on board the full seriousness of Dicky’s crack addiction.

‘The King’s Speech’ – I agree with all the good things people have been saying. Overall I think my favourite thing about it was how beautifully shot it was, which is the most pretentious thing you’ll ever hear me say about a film I promise. Well deserved Oscars, BAFTAs, all and a book full of facts about George VI seems to have crept into my mum’s shopping bag, so perhaps soon I will have factual things to wow you with ;)

‘Coraline’ – A great animated world and a film I’d watch over and over just for the pretty creepiness. How does it compare to the book Gaiman fans?

‘Tangled’ – I laughed all the way through, so funny and smart, but with quite an old fashioned story telling feel to it in places (the opening monologue by the off screen hero was an odd detail in a film with such an active princess). I refer you to this fantastic review at Gossamer Obsessions. It's also thought provoking to look at this post at Punkadiddle that asks why the film is so white. I genuinely didn’t even really think about this aspect until I was in the cinema, but you just can’t not notice it. It’s like Disney added up how many multi-cultural princesses they have now and decided they needed to redress some sort of unfair balance.

‘Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day’ – Modern builders were engaged to build an entire Roman villa at Wroxeter using only tools with a Roman equivalent and Roman building techniques. Modern contract builders and historical building should have resulted in awful reality tv, with male builders, trying to sneak in modern building materials, struggling with male historians for building site domination. There’s a bit of that as the site manager clashes with workers and the professor who designed the villa project fights with the builders about the use of wheelbarrows (no Roman equivalent existed, interesting right?). Dai Morgan, the professor, was the ultimate antidote to the ‘trying to look cool’ history presenters that the BBC favours and at times he appeared stuffy. Then came the moment when he saw the villas frame raised. The emotion he expressed at seeing his project taking shape was so genuine you’d have to be a right cynic not to feel a little heartstring tug. The builders also went on some wonderful personal learning journeys, as they learnt just how advanced the Romans were in terms of building knowledge. There is a little bit of awe that comes over you watching someone learn that history produced valuable things, not just stepping stones for modern times to build on. Still, what possessed the producers to say ‘Yes Kev, it’s fine to wear your range of ‘humourous’ t-shirts on tv’?

‘Madagascar’ – Not the animated film, but David Attenborough’s most recent nature documentary. Madagascan wildlife is so weird and of course to a natural world girl like me that means it is so very cool. It is also full of lemurs. I don’t...I don’t understand how anyone could not like a program which is approximately 40% different kinds of lemurs. Reed lemurs are the cutest thing. I concur with Kaitlin Moran who after watching Human Planet (which she said loves itself and I avoided watching because it looked like an opportunity for lots of annoying voyeurism of ‘the other’) asked that David Attenborough not die. Nature has never had such a great tv champion.

‘Episodes’ – A British comedy where Matt LeBlanc plays himself and satirises his career, while proving that he can play a nasty, self-centred guy convincingly. Oh and he looks hot with grey hair. I thought this program went up and down, so that some episodes (the one where drunk Matt has to be picked up from a bar, the episode where Bev gets stoned with the network executive) were really funny, some were duds and some pitched up and down between the two states. If I was placing it in some kind of ranking of projects Tamsin Grieg (everyone should be adoring her right now) has been involved in I’d put it below ‘Black Books’, but well above most of series two of ‘Love Soup’.

‘Outcasts’ – Oh! So awful! So, so awful. Imagine if ‘Lost’ had given away 3 seasons of plotlines, by over explaining the whole plane crashed on an island situation and killed one of its most promising characters in the first episode. ‘Lost’ and similar series are all about allusion and secrecy, which draws the viewer in and has them practically screaming 'What is in that damn hole, damn you? You and your damn secrets!' while continuing to happily mainline dvd series and chomp on popcorn. They usually contain characters who turn up looking a little bit shifty for a few episodes, then just when you’re about to say you don’t even care what their secret is they do something so mind blowingly out of the box that you’re hooked again. There’s probably even a further twist to do with what they’ve just done coming later that is going to cause you to make that special strangled noise only cats can hear. It's an aspect of drama that the big American fanatsy and sci-fi series have got down (and sure it could be argued that sometimes they use this technique rather too much) but it seems the creators of ‘Outcasts’ were smoking behind the bike sheds the day their college lecturers explained how to pace a story. They were also missing during the 'Writing dialogue' and 'Subtlety’ modules of Drama for Beginners.

At the same time it's all that's on at a time in the day when all I want to do is collapse in front of the tv. I entered the series with high hopes, which were disappointed, hoped it would get MUCH better in episode two (was hugely disappointed) and am now in that odd state where I'm hooked on watching some of my favourite actors hang out together rather than watching characters in a story.

There is usually something about such a terrible show that is still appealing (aside from watching used to be Lizzie Siddal, Roz, ’I’m almost always secretly an evil character man’ and ‘I had totally forgotten you were in Hustle man’ trip around together). In ‘Outcasts’ I’m kind of hooked on finding out exactly what Julius Berger’s evil plan is and how it will involve religious control. I’m convinced he does have an awesome evil plan, mostly because he has a secret evil look of young Lex Luther proportions. Tipper also has so much interesting potential. All his sisters died on Earth and it causes him serious psychological issues that he was saved because of his superior mathematical ability. He has to visit Carpathia’s psychiatrist. Come on there is character potential there! In fact there are quite a few interesting sci-fi ideas in this series (deep brain imaging, the artificially created AC humans) and the plot line about whether humans have lived on Carpathia before that is trying to sustain some kind of suspense. I do want to see if Cass and Fleur get together and if she is attracted to Roody, or Jack (I suspect Cass is destined for her as he is the sweet best friend/colleague character and she seems to forgive his betrayal far too easily). Mostly I just want to see more Fleur as after Tipper she seems to be the most human, interesting character around (maybe Lily is up there).

President Tate’s character would be interesting if I didn't get an icky vibe that the show wants me to sympathise with him, rather than all out question his rule (because that would align me with the evil Julius) but his behavior is SO awful I find it very hard to sympathise with his personal tragedy. He built people and then ordered their execution because they might be carrying a disease that killed children, maybe. I get the logic, but he is still a pretty awful guy. Maybe I have just seen too many programs where the clones are the good guys to get his point of view. Morbidly I am waiting to see if he will die and who might replace him if he does.

Despite ‘Outcasts’ being the most explainey show ever, there’s a convenient lack of explanation when it suits them. So, when Tate doesn't really explain why he's concerned about Carpathians finding religion it is a huge hole that begs the viewer to ask distracting questions about why religion in general is considered so awful by a secular man (setting up a typical divisive religion vs secularism debate) instead of story focused questions. A discussion from the characters about why Julius Berger might not be the one you want in control of religion, might lead to more complex discussion than Tate’s clear, unexplained distrust of all religion.

‘South Riding’ – Even though I haven’t read the book I already feel sure that this mini-drama will not end well. We all saw the horse die in the first episode right? Look, who doesn’t love David Morrison (do not disillusion me!) especially when he is being brooding. Who wouldn’t happily listen to him read classic novels all day long...

...sorry, drifted away there.

There’s a solid British cast, a team who know how to write proper dialogue and the good old BBC costume department behind this drama. There’s filmic representations of social progression and a female teacher trying to be inspirational. It would be hard to dislike the first episode of this drama, but I expect that the cheeriness that infects it, is a smokescreen and I’ll be interested to see how affectionate I feel towards this series when it starts ripping the characters hearts out. A horse has died, there are already two unwanted pregnancies and Morrison’s wife is in an asylum (love that the camera tricks you into thinking you’ll be going around the door before it is slammed in your face, nice touch).

‘The Good Wife’ – I started off thinking this legal drama wasn’t really anything exceptional, but now I’m three discs in and close to the obsessive ‘just one more episode’ state of watching that means a program is under my skin. I still think the format is very typical for a legal drama (case comes up that will somehow turn out to be related to the issue that the main character is struggling with in this episode, complications arise to make us understand that the good guys aren’t always clean as snow) but I also think this program has an unusually balanced and interesting social representation element that makes it different. There are a lot of women in this program and they talk about things other than men. Alicia is effectively a single mother at the moment, returning to work after a long time away with two children and she’s coping well with her situation. The cases aren’t all based around a white = rich, black = poor dynamic (although it’s not like we’ve seen the firm represent any rich people who aren’t white yet).

I do find it interesting that the program has found a way to make not just an individual highly paid lawyer look like they’re on the side of the underdog instead of the establishment, but has managed to maintain a consistent, realistic frame for why a whole firm of financially preoccupied, predominantly white, male lawyers might care about working from a more liberal angle. I mean yes it’s a manipulative frame that keeps the viewer sympathizing with a corporate legal organisation (who like all companies takes social responsibility only as far as they can without affecting their profits), but I think the program keeps an eye on how money influences the laws sympathies, reminding the viewer of the realities that the frame seeks to mitigate in order to allow the viewer to sympathise with its characters. Clever and responsible, it consciously tries to show more reality than the ‘lawyer as crusader of good’ archetype and also attempts to reshape the idea of the establishment firm as a force of pure evil, without straying too far from ideas of financial reality (although that attempt at an absolute approach to real justice is obviously what Alicia brings to the firm, so the show doesn’t stray too far away from other shows of this type). What I really like about their whole attempt to frame the firm as an agent for good is the way they keep reminding us that this particular firm is losing money. I mean that’s some clever manipulation there, the giant firm as relative underdog – smart!

I don’t really care about the romance in this show. I like seeing a collection of men who were busy being hot in other shows and I like Peter, because, well he’s Big and he’s another beautiful voiced brooder. Do I care just what crimes he’s guilty of? Nope, he slept with a whole bunch of prostitutes and hurt his whole family. He’s already kind of a bad guy. Am I interested in whether he and Alicia can find a way to trust again? Kind of, it’s just that I’m not especially bothered about romance popping up in this program. I’m more interested in finding out how Alicia is going to deal with each new law case and if she’s ever going to secure a case with a female defendant that doesn’t begin with someone saying ‘I thought you’d understand, because of what you’ve been through’. The lady, the law, that’s the interesting bit of this program, despite the title.

What are you lot watching, what am I missing and what should I be complaining I can’t see because American television refuses to let us backward Brits anywhere near their shiny?

The Persephone Reading Weekend: 'Dimanche and Other Stories' - Irene Nemirovsky

The Persephone Reading Weekend is here. I plan to live the life of (moderately priced) luxury this weekend and will be reading a short story collection published by Persephone, doing my nails, then dropping into town for a beer and embarrassing dancing filled evening with a couple of mates. My Persephone reading will resume on Sunday afternoon (see that sounds like a plan doesn’t it, I made a plan for the weekend, it is officially productive now).

Since I probably won’t be in front of my laptop for long enough to put together a full review and read other peoples posts I thought a way to post my thoughts quickly and squeeze more blog and book reading in would be to liveblog my part in Persephone weekend. If you want to know how I’m enjoying Irene Nemirovsky’s 'Dimanche and Other Stories’ check back at this post throughout the weekend to see me popping up thoughts and debating what to wear.

Let me kick this off with an attempt at making 'about to start the book' sound interesting:

Saturday 12:00: Off to start ‘Dimanche and Other Stories’. Anne Robinson hosted a series this week called ‘My Life in Books’ where celebrities picked works that influenced their life and one guilty pleasure. Hardip Sincola picked ‘The Communist Manifesto’. He seems very nice (and made some great points, did you catch the one about how everyone should make sure they’re actually reading female authors), but can someone explain how that is a guilty pleasure? I’ve read bits of it and there’s absolutely no sex by a pool to be found. Resolved again to read more books in translation so can have smug things to say about ‘The State of British Publishing!’ when inevitably make millions by (insert ideas here) and am invited on similar show. Will not start with ‘Dimanche’, translated from French :P

Saturday 17:00:

So far I’ve read three stories, the title one ‘Dimanche’ (‘Sunday’), ‘Les Rivages heureux (‘Those Happy Shores’) and ‘Liens du sang’ (‘Flesh and Blood’). Just to clarify, the Persephone is translated into English, but includes both French and English titles.

‘Dimanche’: *Sighs* I remembered Nemoriovsky as a brutally honest social commentator from ‘Fire in the Blood’ and ‘Du Bal’ and I knew I enjoyed her writing style, but I’d forgotten just what an evocative, provocative picture of life she can produce.

‘Dimanche’ takes place on ‘the first Sunday of spring, a warm and restless day that took people out of their houses and out of the city.’ The story follows the activities of one family, particularly the mother Agnes, her husband Guillame and her twenty year old daughter Nadine. Guillame, now forty and thickening, but still determined to behave and feel like a twenty year old looks at his wife who reminds him of his age and responsibility with ‘veiled hostility’. He leaves for his current mistress and stays out all night.

This leaves the focus on Agnes and her daughter. Agnes is a woman who thinks she has come through the pain of love and of being provoked into the suffering that accompanies love. She knows about Guillame’s affairs, but is past the jealousy that she used to feel, is past staying up waiting for him all night. She says during this glimpse into her life that she prefers to stay calm in her house which is a ‘refuge’ and that ‘it would be such a relief not to hope for anything anymore. In comparison at the beginning of the story Nadine is in the first flush of love with a young man called Remi. She is also in love with being beautiful, with luxury and being twenty. She can’t understand her mother, or imagine that she was ever as passionate as Nadine is now.

Nadine gets stood up by Remi who is at home with another woman. Agnes reflects that her love for Guillame was never returned and that her insistence that it would be if she gave him everything has led her into a relationship where she has given up on feeling. She wants to recapture that feeling, but feels that at her age love would be ‘unpleasant’ and instead wishes she was twenty again, like Nadine who (she thinks) doesn’t have to worry about love. As the story reaches its conclusion its clear that Agnes was once the same as Nadine and that she is not untroubled, or happy as her daughter thinks and as she said at the beginning of the story. From the final pages it seems that Nadine is following the same pattern in love that led her mother to her current state.

After three stories I feel like a big part of her writings success is due to her use of multiple adjectives. While modern writers are generally expected to pick one adjective or adverb to describe something Nemirovsky regularly picks several, for example in this passage:

‘And a picture came into her mind of her sitting in a taxi driving along the dark, wet avenues of the Bois de Boulogne; it was as if she could once again taste and smell the pure cold air coming in through the open window, as Guillame gently and cruelly felt her naked breast, as if he were squeezing juice from a fruit.’

Using several words to describe one detail of the narrative has the effect of slowing the rhythm of the book, allowing the reader to dwell on the small, descriptive parts that make up the world Nemirovsky is describing. The time spent on each detail also clarifies the characters feelings and experiences for the reader, so that it is easy for the reader to respond to the characters because they have so much detail about what these characters experienced to base their responses on. At the same time there’s still room for the reader to feel unsure about how exactly to respond to characters experiences. It seems clear that Agnes’ taste of ‘pure cold air’ is meant to imply that this experience is vigorous and pleasurably, but what does it mean that she tastes it after driving along ‘dark, wet avenues’? Is this a dark, wet atmosphere full of the exhilaration of secrecy and the freshness that comes after the rain, or a setting of soggy blackness? The multiple interpretations that these particular details allow feeds into the way the reader responds to the juxtaposition of Guillame ‘gently and cruelly’ touching her. Does he love her, does he want to hurt her and are both emotions mixed in together in the way that Agnes views a relationship?

‘Dimanche’ is all about the misunderstandings that occur between people who can’t know anyone but themselves. At its heart it’s also a story about daily cruelty between those who are closest, whether it’s wilful cruelty (like the kind Remi and Guillame inflict, as they say ‘I like making you suffer a bit’) or the kind of cruelty that comes from being callous and those misunderstandings I mentioned. Who suffers the most? Well, people in close relationships are almost always in pain in Nemirovsky’s stories; they have the most to lose and they do generally lose even when they think themselves winners. Nemirovsky has to be described as a tragic writer, even though she produces some pure moments that anyone would describe as uncomplicated beauty. In ‘Dimanche’ the mother daughter relationship is the most complicated and hard, unsatisfactory relationships between parents and children is a subject Nemirovsky returns to in her next two stories (and you have to read her separate novella ‘Le Bal’ if that’s a subject you’re interested in). Lovers also have a hard time, because the romantic relationships in this story are so unequal, with the women unable to wrestle devoted love from the men.

It’s the women who suffer most in ‘Dimanche’ and Nemirovsky does often return to the theme of women caught in painful situations they can’t control, but come back tomorrow and I might talk a bit about the universal characteristics that Nemirovsky puts into all her suffering characters whether they’re women or men. Right now I must go off and get ready to go out.

Sunday 17:46: One more episode of 'The Good Wife' and then back to Nemirovksy. As litlove asked I though I'd tell you I painted my nails Ruby Wine (red with a bit o'shimmer) last night and we had a blast hitting a couple of old guy pubs for beer then went to a club. So many males clad in plaid in the club everyone! Gentlemen we love plaid, but we feel that if the ladies are making an effort you should be working on your individual dress style too. Also hats indoors: we are undecided about this new male passion for headwear - what do you all say?

Sunday 23:09: The fourth story in this collection, ‘Fraternite’ (‘Brotherhood’), is much more obvious in its intentions than the three preceding stories. Christian is an anxious wealthy, older Jewish man who meets a poorer Jewish man with the same surname while waiting for a train. Despite their different economic statuses and their different levels of personal connection to their Jewish heritage Christian and this man (whose first name we never learn) are shown to be connected by their shared sense of a Jewish historical identity. Christian feels a sense of warmth towards this man when he discovers their shared surname, but that disappears as the man speaks in Yiddsh and talks about his own close connection to his Jewish ancestory. When Christian boards the train and gains some distance from the man he denies their connection. He meets his wealthy, non-Jewish friends from the train and in their company begins to feel happier and confident again, but his body, chilled and nervous continues to observe his ‘ancient inheritance’. Nemirovsky wants the reader to feel that being a Jew is a connecting thread between all Jewish people, no matter what level of society they occupy.

Christian is a character whose insecurities makes him act in a cold, false way towards someone who only wants to share a connection with him. His insecurities remind me of those of Christiane, a young, upper class woman from Nemirovsky’s second story ‘These Happy Shores’. Christiane is insecure about her place in the adult world of love and acts cynically, because she believes this makes her look like a woman of the world instead of a foolish girl. Christian is insecure about everything and I think Nemirovsky intends to make the reader question what has made him into such an insecure, anxious character. One answer is never enough for Nemirovsky and she provides the reader with a couple of factors that have shaped his personality, but there’s a lot less ambiguity in ‘Fraternite’ than in the three stories that come before it. It is clear from the text that Christian’s anxiety is created by several definite things, even if the relative importance of each factor is left unknown, whereas the reasons for Nadine, or Christiane’s insecure personalities are left open to reader interpretation.

So, connections in this collection after four stories: difficult parent child relationships (especially between mothers and daughters), pretensions and insecurities that create distress and cruelty, upper class life, unsatisfactory love and financial troubles. Cheery stuff.

I think I’ll just finish reading the fifth story ‘Wife to Don Juan’ and then get off to bed. Happy Persephone Reading Weekend everyone!

'In for a Penny' - Rose Lerner

Nev, the Regency hero of 'In for a Penny’ has been left with hefty financial problems by his father who has just died unexpectedly. Determined to set things right for his sister and mother he asks a practical young Cit (someone whose family has made their money in trade) Penelope if she will agree to marry him in order to save his family on the strength of one brief conversation at a party. Despite not knowing much about him Penelope takes a chance after an arousing kiss and a bit of frank discussion.

However, Nev is known for being extravagant and rowdy. As is her practical habit Penelope makes a list of things she needs Nev to do in order to be comfortable marrying him, decides she doesn’t want him to see it, but ends up losing it to him anyway. Nev being the stand up, historical best case scenario kind of guy that he is, agrees rather than lying to her, locking her in a cellar and using the might of ye olde law to justify himself as in a Wilkie Collins novel. He leaves his mistress (with a generous goodbye gift) and cuts ties with his friends just before he and Penelope leave for his neglected country seat, Loweston.

Alone Penelope and Nev try their best to improve the estate and manage Nev’s inherited debts. In the middle of all the practicalities they also try to find a way to make their marriage partnership real and pleasurable for them both.

In ‘In for a Penny’ Lerner sometimes asks the reader to suspend their disbelief about aspects of Penelope and Nev’s relationship which might seem quite modern, for example, once Nev has married Penelope he would be legally entitled to use her money without consulting her while continuing with the less moral pleasures of his bachelor life: excessive drinking, gambling and sleeping with his mistress. Although the reader can feel a certain spark between them in their early meetings, Nev doesn’t know Penny well enough to love her at the start of the novel. There’s no emotional connection to explain why Nev should be concerned about the way he treats Penny once she and all she owns become his legal property.

It would be so easy for Lerner, who needs her hero to appear honourable by modern standards so her modern readers can sympathise with him, to reinforce simplistic assumptions that as Nev is the hero, he must be an exceptionally nice guy whose innate niceness elevates him above all the ‘savage’ historical people to a more ‘modern’ (read enlightened) perspective. Regency society was full of rakes who would have abused Penny’s gesture of generosity once she’d married them without fear of much reprimand from society and in comparison to these kind of men Nev might at first appear rather too enlightened for a Regency hero. However it is easy to see that Nev has realistically reasons for taking a different approach, because Lerner’s has included logical motivations for his different behaviour that make his actions consistent within the context of the novel and at the same time do not make his actions seem like an idealistic picture of enlightened rebellion against historical constraints. Nev fits with the modern readers concept of the morals a romantic hero should live by (he doesn’t abuse his wife, he doesn’t cheat on his wife with a mistress) without being a modern man superimposed on Regency England. He doesn’t give up his past life because he believes married men should be sober and monogamous, he gives it up because his father’s extravagant life ruined his family. He doesn’t keep himself from taking complete control of Penny’s money because he thinks husband and wife should be equal financial partners, but because he feels Penny has made a huge sacrifice which makes him feel guilty for his own past selfishness. He feels that he owes her a good life because of that sacrifice (and there’s the love that’s growing between them, but that comes later).

On a similar note, one of the best measures Lerner takes to keep Nev and Penny’s relationship from appearing too exceptional to be true is to place the couple in financially imposed isolation at Loweston. Being necessarily kept away from the rest of society means there’s no need for Lerner to deal with the fact that there would have to be some interaction with sexist, class prejudiced Regency men. These kind of interactions could result in Nev having to defend opposite views to these men (running the risk of making him an excepto-boy who is so much more enlightened than any other man) or in Nev abandoning his hero status in the eyes of modern readers as he joins in with sexist, classist banter. The choice of a secluded, intimate beginning to the marriage brings interesting romantic opportunities to the novel (the freedom for Nev and Penny to develop their relationship properly without huge social pressures to kill it off is one) and the key point of a romance novel is to bring interesting romance to the reader. At the same time I think that the setting of Loweston being removed from society is also a useful structuring tactic that allows Lerner’s novel to maintain a tight focus on the personal and the personal as politics. It’s this focus on specific people and how the structure of society relates to them that makes this novel engaging to read and if Lerner had been required to address outside concerns about the main characters from bit characters ‘In for a Penny’ might have lost some of its immediate connection.

At its most basic the charm of ‘In for a Penny’ is that it allows the reader to spend time with enjoyable characters who say amusing things and are all so full of life that they could each easily inhabit a whole book by themselves. I’m not sure just watching Nev’s adventure, or just Penny’s would be as fun as watching them come together to be a happy couple, but if their story were a tv series I’d be tempted by any spin offs that came from it (Percy and Louisa, Edward and Amy – I ship that second pairing so hard, historical realities be damned). So many of the main character had back stories that were entertaining and that fed into the main story, adding to the slightly chaotic, sometimes delightfully farcical activity in the book. And I loved that third person narratives were available for both Penny and Nev. Dual third person perspective may be my new favourite mode of story telling (see also ‘The Agency’).

I seem to have talked a lot about Nev so far, so let me spend a moment talking about the wonderful heroine that is Penny. I am keen on Penny. She’s my favourite kind of ideal, but flawed heroine. She has interesting, useful capabilities, such as the knowledge of book keeping that allows her to help run Nev’s estate and real insecurities that she needs to conquer to reach her full potential. Watching her work out how to be part of a happy marriage and work out that an essential part of making a happy partnership must be making herself happy is wonderful.

‘In for a Penny’ is tons of fun and genuinely funny. I like books that make me laugh, but I have a hard time finding them and the complementary blurbs on books that say things like ‘ a laugh out loud romp’ always seem to steer me wrong. While this book didn’t make me crack up it had a wryness that I appreciated. There’s a bounce to the writing that is powered by the rhythms of the humorous writing (like that call and response style of joke where one character makes a statement and the other undercuts what they’ve said, often in an aside, which adds rise and fall to a text – is there a technical term for that?).

And it’s sexy. Alright it’s full of fantasy ‘sex in the rain, in an abandoned chapel’ always great sex, but the sex is also ideally considerate and the fact that Nev and Penelope show consideration for each others pleasure makes the sex even hotter. It’s the kind of book someone looking for a bit of hawt fun might enjoy, but it’s also clearly acknowledging that both partners having fun during sex is important. I also think it’s the kind of book you might hand to a girl who is a bit unsure about what to do and how enjoyable vs painful sex is going to be, because the early sexual encounters explain the mechanics of sexual acts without taking away any of the feeling that can go into the act (although I suspect the sex in the rain scene might get her hopes up way high). Penny is, for all her self-confidence in matters of money, business and intellect, required by the historical setting to be a virgin for who sex is a rather mystified area that she’s not so confident about (although Penny’s better prepared than most as at least her mother has spoken to her about sex). Explanations from Nev are required in some cases and a lot of focus has to be placed on them learning about each other’s bodies which I think is sexy as all.

Really the only thing I wasn’t sold on in this book was the villain, Sir Jasper, who was a bit too one dimensional for me. Lerner tries to make him more human by quickly sketching motivations for his behaviour that stem from his fear of the violence of class uprising and she almost made me sympathise with him, but these small references to his fear weren’t quite enough to humanise him for me. Perhaps if he hadn’t become a psychotic villain towards the end and had instead stuck with spinning a reasonable line of twisted, villainous logic I might have felt more for him. It’s generally the villains with good intentions, but terrible plans that I find most interesting. Apart from the villain lacking complexity there is a moment when Nev’s reaction to his mistress Amy veers into sketchy territory as he realises that she never loved him and he could never get something as great as real love from her. Yes, your feelings are the most important thing at that moment aren’t they? The lady whose body and emotional performance you pay for also owes you genuine emotional attachment. His attitude is realistic in its sketchiness, but I would have loved to see Amy counter it with some realism of her own about the life of a mistress who must be practical at all times. Otherwise a fun read, decorated with a lot of smartness.

Recommended for: Fans of Regency romance. Readers off for a sun holiday (oh don’t gloat). Readers looking for a little bit of steam. Readers who like a little comedy.

Other Reviews

The Booksmugglers (with many fantastic quotes)
Gossamer Obsessions

'The Birthday Boys' - Beryl Bainbridge

'The Birthday Boys' is Beryl Bainbridge’s fictionalised account of Scott’s fateful trip to the South Pole. In case you don’t know everybody dies – ooops, spoilers.

The team assemble and head off by boat for the Antarctic on the Terra Nova Expedition. The book begins narrated by Taff Evans, one of the labour/general sailor contingent of the crew (who will be the one lower class member of the team selected for the final trek to the Pole) and then switches to a different member of the final trek group in each new section, ending with Oates chapter.

My main dislikes were (diving right in here with the negative it seems):

In Taff’s narrative there’s a clever bit where he reflects on the general sailors and some of the other members of the expedition crew, in order to organically allow the reader to understand who is on board. I found that really helpful, but in later sections new characters who you’ve never heard of are introduced with little background detail (I know, I checked back through the section they were introduced and through Taff’s section to see just when they were introduced). Confusing and threw me out of the story, because there were always characters I couldn’t place.

Some of the main characters (Edward Wilson, or Bill, especially) exhibit a lot of class prejudice. I understand that these characters are representatives of real life characters who probably were prejudiced against lower classes, but I find myself prejudiced against characters that have problems with the lower classes (it’s actually harder for me to get over than historical characters who are prejudiced against women) if the book makes it clear that the reader is supposed to like them. I found Bill really unlikeable because of my own sensibilities. It is very dull to spend time with a man that you dislike so much when everyone else in the book clearly adores him.

Scott’s section reflects Scott not as the hero of the ages, but the way modern biographers now see him. He’s flawed, stubborn, unprepared and just plain wrong about the best way to travel. He’s the man who caused the failure of his expedition and the party. The trouble with Bainbridge’s portrayal of these flaws in his own section is that it’s not very subtle, he is forever thinking about how he doesn’t trust dogs and is glad they brought the ponies, or how you need to be firm when you’re in command. I think that his narrative is supposed to work in the same way as Taff Evans does, an unreliable narrator who is unable to see the faults in themselves talks and then the other characters offer correctives and troubling points of disagreement for the reader to follow along with. The trouble is I already knew that Scott was wrong and pigheaded, so the surprise that’s present when characters correct Taff Evans’ version of certain events isn’t there when someone like Oates explains how Scott’s narrative fails to be representative. Having previous knowledge of Scott’s character makes Bainbridge’s allusions seem obvious and again kind of dull.

And I’m not saying the ending isn’t horrifying. It is, even though you know what’s going to happen. I was not prepared for the sudden ratchet of horror that comes during their return trek after having failed to reach the Pole first. It is not all ‘I may be gone some time’ stoicism; it’s a hand that no longer looks like a hand and reader horror. At the same time all the horror and emotion the end of the final section conjured up didn’t make up for the lack of connection that I felt after I stopped reading Taff’s section and found out what an unreliable narrator he was.

I’m feeling in kind of a cranky mood about this book to be honest. Let’s just say this one wasn’t for me shall we and move on.

'A la Carte' - Tanita S Davis

I’ve finally given in and realised that I can’t possibly catch up on writing full reviews of all those books I read, but didn’t review before 2011. So that means it’s mini review time, with bonus reader type recommendations and links to much longer reviews than mine:

Lainey is a natural chef who is busy perfecting her skills of invention in the kitchen of her mother’s restaurant La Salle Rouge. Her goal is to have her own vegetarian cooking show (because there's an unfilled niche for African American, vegetarian cooking show presenters) and she’s very focused, constantly making up new recipes, adapting old ones to fit her vegetarian, health conscious tastes and entering cooking contests. She has a charismatic voice that makes you believe she can achieve her goals.

Her mother actually finds Lainey a little too focused on this goal (and on her weight), because Lainey doesn’t want to apply to college and is a loner who takes part in activities, but hasn’t had any close friends since her best friend Sim became too cool to talk to her. Lainey knows that there are times when he mother wishes she could be ‘more’ sociable and that hurts her, even though at the same time she feels her mother’s incredible support behind her.

When Sim begins to push himself back into her life Lainey is unwilling to trust him, but as he shows her more of his tough family life she becomes just as focused on Sim as on her cooking. Sim takes advantage of her need for intimacy in his own need for money and a safe place to stay. Lainey and her mother’s relationship fractures as Lainey’s relationship with Sim throws her priorities and judgement out of balance. It’s interesting to see how much the story of two other important people in her life (her mother and Sim) permeates her narrative. Sim sort of takes over the narrative when he reappears in Lainey’s life and as his story gets more intense her focus on her career feels like it is replaced by her focus on Sim’s situation. He doesn’t really reciprocate her attention and so the story becomes all about Sim, because both Lainey and Sim allow it to. This could be a deliberate, subtle lesson about the importance of not sidelining your own dreams, but when I first read the book it felt as if the book had temporarily forgetten the importance of its heroines own story.

When I first read ‘A la Carte’ it felt very much like the story of Lainey’s journey towards her career goal, her journey towards finding real friendship and her story of her relationship with Sim. I still think this book focuses on Lainey’s story, but as I mentioned above, other people’s stories seep in to make this book more complicated. Lainey’s complicated relationship with her mother is also really present in Lainey’s story. She thinks a lot about her mother and is supportive of her, because she works so hard, but the two of them are playing this tense tug of war with each other which continually surfaces. Lainey feels her mother pull at her to be more sociable, to have more friends. Even though she’s not fully conscious she’s doing it and even though she only does it because she worries about Lainey, she’s putting a lot of pressure on her daughter by expressing her own worries in the way that she is so obviously interested in getting Lainey together with other kids. At the same time Lainey pulls against her mother’s worries in ways that she could actually control, for example if she took college seriously her mother wouldn’t worry about her focus on cooking. I wonder now if ‘A la Carte’ is a contemporary teenage romance, but also a book that is interested in showing the tensions that lead to the classic, necessary break between teenager and parent.

As I don’t cook I wasn’t that interested in the full recipes that separate the chapters. I did think it was a nice touch that they were presented in a script typeface on lined paper to make them look like recipes Lainey had written out. I think bloggers who bake would have fun trying out these recipes though. That’s really the only part of the book that didn’t keep me entertained.

Recommended for: Readers who like to bake and want health conscious recipes. Readers looking for a quiet coming of age story, with a splash o’ romance.

Has anyone else reviewed this? I thought I'd read some reviews of it, but can't seem to find any.

Nerds Heart YA 2011 - Book Nominations Open

Thanks for helping me choose a new book everyone. I finished 'The Dispossessed' and am ready to start my next sci-fi book, 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' by Connie Willis. 'Kraken' came in second so I might try that after (an excuse to buy a new, bigger work bag maybe).

The rest of this post is just me dropping by to announce that Nerds Heart YA 2011 has started taking book nominations. We're in the process of letting all the judges know who will be judging when, but YA enthusiasts can tell us which books they should be in the tournament this year until midnight GMT time on 7th of March 2011. Drop by the Nerds Heart YA blog to check the criteria for nominating a book and then fill in as many nomination forms as you like. We want the biggest field of books possible.

More review substance tomorrow when I'll be starting a short series of mini reviews to help me catch up on chatting about books I read at the end of 2010. It's December 2010 without the extreme temperatures.

Help me pick my next book - Sci-fi!

I’m having so much fun reading sci-fi this month that I want to keep going. I want to cram as much into the end of Carl’s Sci-fi Experience as possible, but I can’t decide what to read. I’ve bought too many books and it turns out a whole lot of them are sci-fi.

Would you like to help me choose my next sci-fi book? Right now I’m considering:

‘Shipbreaker’ – Paulo Bacigalupi: This is Bacigallupi’s first YA novel. Carl reviewed it in January and it sounds very tempting right now. Also I said I was going to do a better job of keeping an equal balance of author genders in my reading and right now it’s not exactly going to plan.

‘Behemoth’ – Scott Westerfeld: Also YA and the sequel to ‘Leviathan’. I’m never sure if steam punk is a sub-genre of sci-fi, or a totally different book category. I suck at making distinctions between similar genres, so if anyone wants to advise that would be lovely.

'Dust’ – Elizabeth Bear: My copy has finally arrived and although I’ve missed participating in the main discussion for The Women of Sci-fi readalong I still fancy giving it a go this year.

‘Kraken’ – China Melville: I just don’t see how giant squid sci-fi could go wrong for me, but it is huge. I couldn’t fit it in my work handbag (which is very large itself) so I’d need to put two books into rotation.

‘Cyberabad Days’ – Ian McDonald: Short stories of sci-fi, set in India, which I bought after Carl reviewed it. Does it seem like I should be reading books Carl reviewed during Carl’s Experience?

'To Say Nothing of the Dog' - Connie Willis: Very kindly given to me by Nymeth. For some reason I thought this was fantasy, but I'm not sure why. Time travel and chaos theory are sci-fi right?

Which do you think sounds the funnest?

Perhaps you’re wondering why I’m even considering reading more sci-fi when my resolution to read one non-fiction book a month is clearly floundering. We are being quiet about that people, there are sparkly, fantastical science things to explore ;)

'Motherlines' - Suzy McKee Charnas

I have proof that The One Show teaches. There is Miranda (yes I admire Miranda, one of my heroines is from The One Show team ok) swimming around looking at seaweed and bam she starts talking about how large areas of seaweed are called holdfasts. A little research later and I discover that a holdfast is a root structure that plants, including seaweed, use to fix themselves to rock. Suzy McKee Charnas’ 'Walk to the End of the World’ was set in a place called The Holdfast, where the main crop was lammins, a type of kelp. Aaah, I see.

That little fact popping up reminded me that I’d still got to read ‘Motherlines’, the sequel to ‘Walk to the End of the World’ and that I wanted to read something for Carl’s Sci Fi Experience and...well you know how the roaming mind goes. Suddenly you’re opening a sci-fi book while finishing a little conversation in your head about hamsters in space.

Alldera, the fem who escaped the male dominated Holdfast society at the end of ‘Walk to the End of the World’, has made it into the Wild as the Holdfast collapses in violent chaos. She has been tasked by the Matris, the controlling force within fem society, to find the free fems they believe live in The Wasting and bring them to The Holdfast to liberate all fems.

Alldera doesn’t find free fems, but she is eventually rescued from starvation by female characters. Upon entering the Wild Alldera realises that she is pregnant by one of the male characters who raped her in the first book and although she tries to lose her cub, it clings on to life. Her strength begins to fail as she can’t find enough food and just as she’s almost dead women appear on horseback to help, but they’re not the free fems of Holdfast legend. They’re women, descended from a line of females who kept themselves out of the bunker that select men and women fled to during the apocalyptic events referred to in the Holdfast creation story and found another way to survive. Their different lineage means that women regard themselves as apart from the fems. Women have never experienced male oppression. They did not escape The Holdfast society as slaves, instead they grew up outside the society as free women and have never known rape, or male control. To them the history of the fems appears a history of femish co-operation in their own oppression, which causes them to view females as lesser female beings; ones who don’t take control and substitute dreams for action.

While the women’s society is clearly framed as utopian, it initially seems that the women’s views on fems will limit the way that Alldera benefits from this utopia. It appears she has swapped life as one of the unmen, to become an unwomen, viewed as lesser and at time rather primitive. Shell, one of the women who picks Alldera up in the desert and consequently becomes a sharemother to her child (the children of the womens society have multiple adopted mothers, as well as a biological mother), views her as lesser and contemptible. While being thought of as less in the women’s society carries far less violent consequences than being thought of as less in the male society of The Holdfast, her exclusion still affects Alldera. She gives birth to a daughter, who is to be raised as a child of women, not fems; she takes a lover among the women; she learns to ride (an activity which is a huge part of being a woman, as the women feel close bonds with their horses) and makes an effort to assimilate herself into their culture, but she is still excluded. She can’t attend the Gathers the women celebrate at, she isn’t allowed to ride to fights with other groups of women and she’s forever reminded that if she balks at aspects of the women’s culture, that she just doesn’t understand properly. At the same time there are parts of her fem life that she can’t cut out, or doesn’t want to. The women don’t understand why she wants to hang onto anything from the days of her oppression, because they’ve never been oppressed. Having grown up in freedom, they’ll never really know how they would have reacted to the violence the fems faced and Alldera finds the way they talk about fems frustrating as they using language which demonstrates how little they understand the situation in the Holdfast:

‘ ‘In the morning two fems were found frozen, hugged in each others arms by the gate. They must have hoped to get at the soup pot first in the morning. Mother Moon, how my master lit into the young menin charge of the fems for putting his trained runner in danger of freezing to death!’

Nenisi said, ‘Why didn’t all you fems break into the hall and throw the men out to freeze?’

There just wasn’t any point in trying to explain. Alldera turned over and tried to sleep.’

Alldera finally breaks with the women after she watches them cull horses they’re personally attached to, for the good of the collective. She then finds out how the women’s society reproduces (let us just say bestiality and some wild science) and she moves in with a group of free fems who trade with the women (it is interesting that the women always said there were no free fems until Alldera saw them). She leaves her daughter behind with the women and tries to make a new life. Unfortunately what she finds at the fem camp is a recreation of the structures of male Holdfast society. A few high power fems control a hierarchical society, which is full of struggles for power, bargaining for favours and oppression. The fems live on dreams of glory, fuelled by The Plan to return to Holdfast and defeat the men.

Suzy McKee Charnas has set up societies that operate on opposing principles to each other. The two groups of female characters represent two schools of feminist thought. The fems dream of taking what the men have created, while the women have created a new way of life that operates outside the constructs of the male, Holdfast culture and don’t see any need to reclaim an old society. At first glance the women’s way of life seems the most progressive, it appeals to feminist ideas that refute the validity of reclamation and instead frame this approach as operating within the patriarchy. The fems fantasies of retaking The Holdfast, have led them to recreate the oppressive structures of the men seeming to confirm ideas that dreams of reclaiming existing culture leads to people taking on the oppressive characteristics of that culture, but it’s important to note that in ‘Motherlines’ both female societies significantly conflict with Alldera’s own vision of what a perfect life, free of men, should contain. In a perfect world she would not be required to share her lover Nenisi with others for the good of the community and women would not engage in bestiality to reproduce. In a perfect world fems would take action, rather than creating unrealistic dreams out of misguided nostalgia and fems would not emulate male, oppressive structures. The women seem as flawed as the fems, although the fems flaws tend more towards violence and division than the women’s do.

Alldera clashes with both female communities and eventually moves to live with an older, religious fem who makes medicines out in the desert. There she learns to make her own life, independent of a community, by starting again and collecting wild horses to ride. At first I thought that this was McKee Charnas’ way of indicating the flaws of all collectives, distancing herself from decrying the flaws of a particular school of feminist thought, but what follows afterwards seems to disprove that. Alldera takes her former fem lover, Daya and rides to the women’s camp, where her daughter is due to ‘come out’, emerging as an adult woman. Now she slots back more easily into the women’s community, admitting to Daya that the flaws she saw in them were really in her, that she ‘demanded too much of them’ while remaining wary of fems as they begin to desert their leader and follow her to the women’s camp. She even tries to force the same restricting measures on fems, that she railed against when she first lived in the camp by explaining that ‘fems would be more useful taking over camp duties so that more women could go after sharu.’ . The women remain distressed about the way the fems live in their society, as they cordon off their own areas of tents (in a society where everything apart from horses is pretty much collective), steal and continue to tell stories of oppression that the women think they should let go. The fems are not a positive group and it appears that McKee Charnas is showing that fems can never be as worthy as the almost god like women.

There is a huge problem with this approach, because the things the women object to about fems, are direct consequences of them having been victims of the male society. Fems steal and partition because they never owned anything in The Holdfast. They tell stories from the old days to explain what they’ve been through, to form community and to pass on the rage at male society, in the hope of inspiring action.

But ‘Motherlines’ is a novel of progression which explores many extreme opinions and then incorporates parts of them into the beliefs of those characters who are still on a journey to a determined position, before arriving at the mixture of views it wants to wholeheartedly support. Readers have to trust the novel will get them somewhere you want to be and McKee Charnas has to work to keep readers engaged with the characters and the story, to encourage them to reach the conclusion which shows the final, more sympathetic way that many of the characters react to fems. Her detailed character creation, descriptive writing and fluid, interesting dialogue are designed to keep readers engaged with the story telling, sci-fi aspect of the novel, when they might have given up on a novel that uses its characters, plot and environment as pure ciphers for ideas. Readers will analyse the politics as the read, but I believe it’s the stories of individuals like Alldera, Shell and Daya that encourage reading.

The reasons I find myself so happy to trust the novel, are partly tied up with my experience of Alldera in ‘Walk to the End of the World’. I have faith, which is encouraged by previous experience, that she’s a heroine whose views will at least meet mine in the middle, even if we don’t think the same way about everything she experiences. But it’s also the humanity of the world and the characters that makes me adore this book and trust it to take me somewhere that won’t have me throwing it across the room. I know that’s kind of a false idea, detailed characters that you care about and writing that smoothes your way into a different world do not always result in happy, political alliances between reader and book. There’s something about McKee Charnas’ style of writing, of creation even, that makes me feel secure. I feel that the story she gives to me will be compassionate (yes despite any violence and blood, writing can be compassionate while the story is aggressive and kills a bunch of people) and thoughtful, not a head on assault that tries to make me agree with her book. I feel free as a reader when I’m reading her stories, as if I’m having a long, satisfying discussion, rather than an unproductive wrestling match.

The fems begin to work more co-operatively within the women’s society, without assimilating completly, as it’s clear the women hope they will. They move into their own tent, they take up riding and learn how to be warriors, but they do so, in order that they can march on The Holdfast, they continue to tell their own stories. And while Alldera still feels uneasy about the fems need for war and their adoption of her as a leader and the women still find themselves superior to the fems, both must admit that the fems have begun something new, something better than the broken, femish society they had replicated from The Holdfast:

‘Even Sheel, unwilling as she was had to admit to herself that the longer they lived here in the camp the more their slavish ways feel away from them. Everyone noticed that they all quarrelled and intrigued far less…’ .

Does this ending suggest that there is an admirable difference between being co-opted into a culture and co-opting parts of a culture for your own ends? Does it suggest a need for some females to forge their own way, even when there is a seemingly utopian female society to fit into? I’m not sure. To some extent I think the answers are dependent on the rest of the books in the series and how the fems ultimately end up. What I do think it does is, allows room for dual approaches to feminist actions and suggests different, ways for women to act in response to oppressive male culture, which are valid despite their flaws.

As I mentioned in my review of ‘Walk to the End of the World’ there is so much more to discuss in these books than I could ever fit into a review, or that I can confidently explore. I would be fascinated to see some literary criticism on this book (especially racial commentary, as the women’s society in ‘Motherlines’ seems to be based on commonly held ideas about early Native American society and searching around the internet, I found that the title ‘Motherlines’ suggests a connection with Native American culture) but most of it seems to be in essay collections, rather than online. Until I can find them in a library I’ll have to make do with this exchange between McKee Charnas and a reader and pick up the third book in the series as soon as my book acquisition ban is over.

February Readalongs

Time for a round up of what group reading projects I’ll be taking part in this month:
This month I’m taking part in the Women if Sci-fi readalong, by reading Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Dispossessed’. I’m a little way in to the book and I think I may be overcoming my Le Guin block. I know, I know, everybody loves Earthsea except me. There’s nothing I can do about that, but I can enjoy this book.

It’s also the second month of Carl’s Sci-fi Experience. I didn’t mention I was thinking of joining in this (in case of failure), but I did and I’m feeling accomplished, so I will now use Jenny’s retroactive resolutions idea to prove my accomplishment:

Resolutions

Read a book for Carl’s Sci-fi Experience.

Done! I spent all last Saturday reading ‘Motherlines’, the second novella in The Holdfast Chronicles series by Suzy McKee Charnas. It was good, good, good (and it was delicious to be able to start and finish a book in one day, ahhhh). More to come about ‘Motherlines’ soon.

Finally I’m hoping to join in with the Persephone Reading weekend. I think in the end I’ll be reading one of the two Persephones my mum has, so either ‘Still Missing’ by Beth Guthcheon, which it seems everyone loves, or ‘Dimanche and other stories’ by Irene Nemirovsky, whose work I just would swim in if possible. Tough choice, does anyone want to pick for me?

As always if anyone is doing any of these projects and wants to chat about them I would LOVE that.

'Jazz in Love' - Neesha Meminger

'Jazz in Love’ begins with Future Stars and Leaders super student Jasbir Dhatt (Jazz to herself and her friends, but not to her conservative Sikh parents) explaining to her friend Cindy why being seen hugging her long time male friend Jeeves is such a big deal. The Community has reported Jazz’s hugging antics to her parents, who are concerned that she’s been seen being affectionate with a man who isn’t related to her. Jazz’s mother doesn’t react in an extreme way as she trusts her daughter, but she is concerned about the way others will see Jazz and how this might affect her chances of marrying into a good Sikh family later in life. She decides that it’s time for her to help eighteen year old Jazz start looking for an appropriate life partner. She presents her daughter with suitable candidates’ encyclopaedic files and makes the case that Jazz is lucky, because her parents will let her pick a match for herself, and then wait until she has finished college before helping her to plan the marriage.

Jazz’s reaction to this is the same as any teenagers would be if their parents said ‘We know this person we think you should go out with.’, a mixture of shock, pouting and bargaining. She eventually agrees to meet a boy who has been recommended by her Auntie Mindo. He’s a suitably Indian boy who lives (far away) in Canada and he looks kind of cute in his file photos. If Jazz meets him her mother will back off about bombarding her with files and files of suitable matches.

When she meets Gurmit, in a designated coffee shop but at least a few streets away from where their mothers are discussing them, he’s quick to explain that he’s not keen on the guided dating idea either because he’s gay. The reason his parents are so keen to find him a life partner is because he hasn’t shown enough interest in women (while Jazz is being chivvied because she’s supposed to be showing too much interest). He’s hoping that being in an accelerated academic program, Jazz will be more understanding than other Indian girls and make a deal to pretend they’ve hit it off and it turns out he’s right.

It’s not surprising that, after Jazz gets over her shock at meeting a gay Indian boy, she jumps at this offer. Jazz’s has a strong, sometimes over powering interest in boys and romance, but she’s also naturally smart and a strong academic. While the book makes little specific reference to any individual interests prompted by her studies, Jazz uses her problem solving skills to take advantage of any romantic opportunity that might improve the happiness of her or anyone else’s life. In Chapter One we see her wondering how the British managed to ‘weasel out of’ arranged marriages while Indian society clings on to the idea and by Chapter Five she’s taking the chance offered by Gurmit’s deal to make sure that both of them can get more freedom from their parents, allowing them to pursue other, non-arranged, romantic partners. Soon she’s also working on a plan to help her Auntie Kinder beat her abusive ex-husbands legal challenges, by reuniting her with a lost love. Finally she spends time making the hot, new West Indian guy Tyler R notice her, in a bid to become freer like her friends who don’t have such strict cultural rules to follow. Her idea that romance can solve any problem may be naïve, but the ways she goes about putting her idea into practise show off her canny, inventive brains. She has the practical abilities to create a plan and carry it off, even if the goal of that plan is a bit flawed to begin with.

‘Jazz in Love’ is such a fun book. Jazz has an enthusiastic, fun voice that sounds very natural and injects the book with a lot of energy:

‘OH. MY. GAAAAWWWWD. Tyler R touched me. He TOUCHED me!!!! I was on my way out the door to meet Cindy and her sisters for lunch at Tony’s Diner, when I realized I’d forgotten my wallet in my jacket pocket. I told Cindy I’d catch up with them and ran to my locker to grab aforementioned wallet.

Out of nowhere, I felt these warm fingers on my elbow. TYLER R.’s fingers (Shudder). I totally died. Right there.’

Her voice reminds me of books I used to enjoy when I was a teenager, with boy crazy girls running around creating complicated plans to bring true love their way and lots of loud, happy conversations over boys, between best girl friends. The trouble with boy crazy books is that often they come with a heap of unremarked girl hatred and built in simplifications about certain types of girls. In ‘Jazz in Love’ Meminger makes a point of including realistic, flawed attitudes directed from the main female characters towards other girls, for example:

‘ ”Why would Tyler R. want to talk to me? He has his pick of the entire school. Every butt-crack-baring, Juicy-bottomed, cantaloupe-boobed…”

“Don’t forget ditzy…” said Cindy.

“…hair-tossing hoochie he could ever want,” '

but she has other characters show just how flawed these ideas are, like when Toni responds with ‘ “I hate when members of my gender do this. Not only did you two unfairly and unjustly put down all of these women, but you…you completely devalued yourself and your best qualities.” ' (although I should mention that this didactic style can feel forced in a few places) . I also find it freakin’ delightful to see a book with academic, female main characters, that doesn’t feature a mean girl enemy as a romantic competitor. This books energy is directed at describing full on female friendships and that means there just isn’t enough space for simplistic girl squaring off over a man.

I think one of my favourite parts of this book is watching Jazz interact with her friends(male and female), showing off her joyful, genuine spirit. Despite hatching a momentous, parent fooling plan with Gurmit she really doesn’t know him at all, but she spends time listening to him talk about his romance with a boy named Josh and is genuinely excited for him. Her relationships with her friends are the point that she revolves around. Although the way she throws herself into such a singular involvement in her relationship with Tyler R means she makes mistakes with her friends she genuinely cares about these friendships.

Meminger works hard to create individual personalities for all these friends, doing all the little intricate writerly things that implicitly show what a character is like, for example choosing words that express parts of a characters mood and personality. Saying that Cindy ‘bounces’ away shows her romantic optimism and her general cheerful personality, in a subtler way than Jazz commenting that Cindy is optimistic and cheerful. Meminger captures her characters tone and personality by choosing the right style of dialogue for each person and the descriptors she chooses to surround their dialogue are often used to add more detail to the readers understanding of a character, for example Cindy and Jazz are the kind of people who flourish and shriek, showing that they’re flamboyant and enthusiastic. These are all the little things that build a character.

So, it’s strange to realise that Meminger has left large gaps in some of her characters, missing out the big, obvious details that would give readers more detail about a character. Taking Cindy as an example, readers learn quite a bit about the lives that Cindy is in (she has a boyfriend called Wes, her mother is divorced etc) but little about Cindy’s inner life. The external manifestations of her inner thoughts are missing in this book. Everyone has dreams and interests, but Cindy’s are never mentioned. She gets called academically brilliant as do the rest of the FSL characters, but we don’t see any goals, or interests mentioned. Readers can gather plenty about her personality from the subtle touches I’ve described above, but looking at Cindy’s surface presentation she appears a much blanker character than she actually is.

Cindy’s lack of obvious interests is especially odd, because Meminger does such a good job of making sure that some of Cindy’s sister’s internal lives are reflected. Maybe their interests and dreams get to appear in an obvious way because they serve Jazz’s story and the book at large, whereas Cindy’s wouldn’t. Mary’s disappointing time as a PA on a tv station lets Jazz find connection when she needs them and feminist Toni provides corrective to Jazz’s thoughts on bindibos . To further Jazz’s Cindy needs to be a smart girl and a solid friend who is interested in boys. Nothing else is required of her. However, Jazz’s story doesn’t gain anything from Jeeves interest in basketball, but it’s mentioned a few times. It seems that Cindy missed out on this more obvious form of characterisation for no story related reason, despite being, like all the other characters, extremely well developed in more subtle ways.

There are fun times to be had with Jazz as she navigates her way through love and the way different cultures approach forming a romantic partnership. I’d like to thank Neesha Meminger for sending me a copy of her new, self-published novel, which for some bizarre reason couldn’t find a home with an established publisher despite the authors previously successful novel (published by Margaret K McElderry) ‘Shine, Coconut Moon’. I’m looking forward to going back and reading that book next.

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Slaves of Golconda: 'The Summer Book' - Tove Jansson

I am so late getting my thoughts on ‘The Summer Book’ up for The Slaves of Golconda readalong, because I’ve been having some external device + laptop issues in the last few days. Of course these wouldn’t have stopped me posting if I’d written this review right after I read the book at the begining of the month and pre-scheduled it, but I didn’t (no excuses I’ve been equal parts lazy and buried in other books). So instead of joining in with my own post I’ve been catching up on other people’s thoughts. Have I mentioned this is why I love small group readalongs so much? All these other thoughts appearing on a book you finished recently is kind of wonderful in its quiet bookishness. Now I’m putting my own thoughts out there, in the hope that the other members of the group (and you even if you didn’t readalong) will find something to enjoy here.

Tove Jansson’s 'The Summer Book’ is the story of of a young child called Sophia and her grandmother, who spend time together on an island in the Gulf of Finalnd, which Sophia’s grandmother has lived on for forty seven years. Esther Freud’s introduction to my edition explains that Sophia is based on Jansson’s niece and Sophia’s grandmother is based on Jansson’s mother (Freud's introduction is a short piece that combines facts, literary criticism and a personal story about her visit to the island that inspired the book, with Sophia Jansson).

The novella is made up of a series of chapters that are each a seperate, complete story. Maybe each one could be called a vignette chapter, as they’re quite short and capture specific moments of the characters life on the island. In any case, each chapter could be read independently, or out of sequence without any confusion. However, when read one after another in the order Tove Jansson has set them in, connections begin to form between the seperate stories.

As the novella progresses the pronounced seperateness of the individual story each chapter contains emphasises the gaps that surround these glimpses of life. Life outside of the island isn’t refferred to much, but the occassional detail is dropped in that suggests the characters have other complicated, full lives outside of immediate island life that the reader is not seeing. The contained way in which life is presented to the reader, as if little exists beyond the particular incident that they are reading about, encourages readers to feel that they are arriving in the middle of life, because they aren’t given any lead in, explanatory detail of what led to this moment. The third person narrator seems to presume readers are already familiar with the two characters lives, by declining to provide much detail from outside the immediate moments described. This lack of detail, not only intrigues the reader, making them hungry for every detail of the characters wider life, but also encourages the reader to care about the characters, because they are already being addressed with the casual lack of explanation that signals an intimate friendship. I always find this technique of telling the reader that they’re already involved and engaged with a story a powerful draw.

The vignette style also creates a sense of time passing, without often directly mentioning the time that has passed between each chapter. The absence of description of life outside the island, or life outside of the specific moments readers are allowed to see, as well as the way readers are dropped into situations with little introduction, suggests that other things have happened around the events that readers have been shown. At the same time Jansson creates small connections that remind you that while you haven’t been watching the characters their lives have been continuing, for example Sophia’s grandmother’s illness escalates during the novel and quick mentions of her condition inform readers she is getting worse, but the escalation seems to happen faster than it should from what the rest of the text describes. A simple couple of sentences suddenly makes it clear that she is actually ill, not just frail:

'They crawled on through the pines, and Grandmother threw up in the moss.

"It could happen to anyone," the child said. "Did you take your Lupatro?" '

but it seems as if she must have been deteriorating outside of what is described in the text for some time to have reached this severe stage. So I began to think that chunks of time must be passing outside of the text.

The contained nature of the individual stories in each chapter somehow emphasises the absence of writing around those moments. There are quiet hollowed out spaces you can almost feel the shape of, in between each story, even though they’re unwritten spaces. There’s a push, pull tension in this novel, where the completness of each story makes the reader more aware of these spaces of silence and the spaces accentuate the completness of what Jansson has written.

Perhaps you can tell from some previous posts that my writing brain is kind of skipping around all over the place right now, so after that attempt at using paragraphs and linking sentences (linking sentences steal all my joy sometimes) I’m going to revert to the more bookish chat unconnected observation points that are the most enjoyable way for me to get my thoughts on books out at the moment at the moment.

Additional thoughts:

In her review Nymeth mentioned that Sophia’s mother’s absence (we find out she’s dead early on) haunts the book, a view which I think is spot on. There are moments where Sophie flies into a rage, or worries about something terribly and we feel that it’s connected to her mothers death: when she worries about her father out in a storm, when she worries about going into deep water by herself, when her grandmother worries about Sophia calling her Mama. There’s this touching chapter where she and her grandmother build a minature city outside, but a storm comes along and Sophia worries the city and all the people she’s imagined inside will be destroyed. It is, but seeing how worried Sophia is and knowing (I think the writing encourages me to assume) that this worry is connected to her new issues with impermenance and death her grandmother rebuilds the city inside with great attention to detail and claims to have found it intact.

Sophia’s father’s absence also hangs over the book. While Sophia’s Papa is still alive and lives on the island with her, he’s often very absent from the life of his six year old child and leaves her daily care to her grandmother. Even when he appears in a chapter he feels ...not insubstantial (that would seems like I was implying something negative about the way he’s been written), but in the background, maybe distracted by other things. Sometimes he lives in a tent on the island, away from his daughter. His relationship with his mother doesn’t seem much closer. He seems distant from the other two people on the island, but not deliberately unkind or unhappy in his seperation.

As there are few other characters in Sophia or her grandmothers life the novel is focused on their relationship. A great deal is pulled from such a small focus, despite the fact that Jansson doesn’t use her omniscient narrator position to analyse this relationship from on high. She lays out the relationship and mostly allows the reader to extrapolate their own views of this relationship (although she does show the thoughts of the grandmother to inform how the reader sees parts of the relationship, or maybe to inform how they see inside the grandmothers part in the relationship).

I paid especial attention to a chapter called 'The Visitor' where Sophia’s grandmother talks to a friend about relatives meddling in older people’s lives, just as Sophia’s father has meddled in hers without thinking himself to be meddling. The tone of the grandmother’s thoughts continues in the same way the rest of the book is written, very placid, but there’s also a bit of sharp annoyance mixed in.

After the mention of Sophia’s grandmother being sick in the bushes I watched the book more carefully, taking note of the pills she takes, the tiredness she mentions. I became unsure of how this book might end and then when it came to the end with her grandmother still alive I began to wonder if this would be the last time she’d return to her island.

And that kind of leads into one of my favourite excerpts from the book which shows how unreal those closest to you can find the idea that you ever had a life seperate to them. I was reading something recently (I think it was ‘Journey in Moonlight’) where the protagonists wife said he didn’t understand that anyone but he had an inner life and I was reminded of that by Sophia’s comments here:

' "But who was he?"

"Your grandfather, of course,"Grandmother said. "My husband."

"Are you married?" Sophia cried in astonishment. '

For lovers of The Moomins who are hoping to catch a glimpse of them in this adult book by their creator I present this quote:

'Grandmother sat in the magic forest and carved outlandish animals. She cut them from branches and driftwood and gave them paws and faces, but she only hinted at what they looked like and never made them too distinct. Theyretained their wooden souls, and the curve of their backs and legs had the enigmatic shape of growth itself and remained a part of the decaying forest. Sometimes she cut them directly out of a stump or the trunk of a tree.

Her carvings because more and more numerous. The clung to trees or sat astride the branches, they rested against the trunks or settled into the ground. With outstretched arms, they sank in the marsh, or they curled up quietly and slept by a root. Sometimes they were only a profile in the shadows, and sometimes there were two or three together, entwined in battle or in love.'

I got a pretty Moomin feeling vibe from that passage.

Finally, non-critically, this book was just lovely. I could name lots of chapters I enjoyed and post lots of quotes. It's just delicious, gentle and sympathetic, with a lean power I wasn't quite expecting. It also comes beautifully packaged in the Sort of Books edition (see cover above and there are french flaps, whcih I know some readers love to distraction), translated from Swedish by Thomas Teal.

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