Book Gazing

Moving Day

2011-10-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, just a note to say that I’m moving blog homes. Blogger was a good sturdy setting for me and my words for two years, in fact I never thought I’d leave, what with it being such a simple content publishing system for someone with low technical knowledge. There are a few different reasons why I’ve decided to move, but essentially a more attractive service presented itself and I’m off to Dreamwidth.

If anyone is thinking of moving to Dreamwidth and wants to hear about my import experience in depth, just ask, but it went well and was pretty easy for a girl with low tech skills and someone advising her. I’m not sure everything about the layout at my new place will stay the same, in fact I know some things will change once I figure out how to make technical adjustments. I haven’t worked out how to move existing comments across yet, so this blog will remain up until I sort something out there, but overall my experience has been really positive so far. There are still things I need to quit being lazy and do (write things in my profile, set up links lists, retag things, fix video code) so please excuse the mess, but with those caveats welcome to my new place, Bookgazing version 2.

I know there are benefits to having a Dreamwidth account to comment on Dreamwidth journals (I don’t know what they are, but I know they are real) and I have a few Dreamwidth codes should anyone want one. I hope you’ll all feel happy visiting over there, whenever you want.

'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children' - Ransom Riggs

2011-10-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

When he was a child, Jacob’s eccentric Polish grandfather told him stories about monsters. While Jacob always took these stories as truth, his father later explains that the stories are just an old man’s way of coping with experiences from WWII. Jacob wrestles with his disappointment as he grows up and his grandfather appears to grow increasingly irrational, hiding in his house with his gun collection, until one day Jacob finds him bleeding to death in the woods. To everyone else it appears that he wandered confused into the path of a large bob-cat, or savage dog but Jacob’s brain thinks he saw something else in the woods that day; an otherworldly monster which gives him screaming nightmares that must be treated with therapy. As he and his therapist try to establish that he didn’t see anything so sinister, his mind continues to puzzle over his grandfather’s last words instructing him to ‘Find the bird. In the loop’.

Jacob thinks that a trip to a remote British island, which may be associated with his grandfather’s past, could finally settle his mind. Of course you, gentle reader, will be well aware that trips to mysterious islands usually create more questions than they answer and will be unsurprised when Jacob’s curious pursuit of his grandfather’s history leads him deep into science fiction land. On the island he discovers an orphanage full of peculiar children who once knew his grandfather well. Unfortunately it is probably deeply spoilerific to reveal much more about the plot (which may leave the rest of this review feeling a little vague, sorry) so let me redirect and talk about the format of Rigg’s novel, the real unique selling point of ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’.

Riggs has used vintage photographs alongside his novel’s text. Unusual black and white, or sepia images illustrate many of the things and people that Jacob encounters, contributing an old-fashioned horror aesthetic to the novel. You can see some of the photographs in this trailer for the book if you fancy watching:

The photographs show creepy oddities, often children in old fashioned dress apparently performing tricks that force the reader to look twice to confirm what they are seeing. The innate innocence of a child in a picture is subverted by the incongruous, supernatural tricks they seem to be taking part in. It’s strange and a little unnerving to see a photograph of a child in an old-fashioned setting, or dress, because picture of children are typically a reminder of youth, a symbol of eternal life and by association the constant reinvention of modernity. The inclusion of these photographs, which attach the patina of history to small children, indicates unsettling associations between children and ageing, or innocence and darkness. It’s well creepy.

In contrast, Jacob’s narrative is written in a vigorous, modern style which fills his story with dynamic action. The descriptions of with Sharp explicit description is used, which give the reader a strong mental picture of horrors and oddities that Jacob encounters:

‘I let go of my grandfather’s body and stood up, every nerve ending tingling with an instinct I didn’t know I had. There was something in the woods alright – I could feel it.

There was no moon and no movement in the underbrush but our own, and yet somehow I knew just when to raise my flashlight and just where to aim it, and for an instant in that narrow cut of light I saw a face that seemed to have been transplanted directly from the nightmares of my childhood. It stared back with eyes that swam in dark liquid, furrowed trenches of carbon-black flesh loose on its hunched frame, it’s mouth hinged open grotesquely so that a mass of long eel-like tongues could wriggle out.’

‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ contains an interesting blend of two different types of horror aesthetics. This results in a book full of dynamic action, that will suit fans of adventure novels and old style creepiness, which will appeal to readers who like the quiet fear that incongruous oddness injects into a horror story.

Riggs is the first author I’ve seen using photographic prints in young adult fiction. He gains serious originality points for deciding to combine them with the text of a full novel. Finding just the right kind of story to fit the use of real, found old style photographs shows Riggs interest in shaping stories around technique and that experimental side of his narrative makes me excited. In fact, when I think about why I enjoyed this novel I keep coming back to the format, that creative and apt use of the images. The newness of the technique is interesting and the photographs are visually striking, but they can’t carry an entire book to glory anymore than any other experimental form can.

So, what other positive elements does ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ contain? It has a strong adventure plot, which grips and takes its characters into real situations of peril. Watching the twists unravel, spotting the villain just before the end, as the book directs the discovery and watching the climactic good vs. evil struggle play out is entertaining. Reading this novel is like reading a creepy version of a traditional ‘boys own’ adventure novel, especially with the inclusion of two significant, complicated male relationships in Jacob’s life. I’m intrigued and I want to see where the sequel takes Jacob after one satisfyingly teasing cliff-hanger.

And the world building is fantastic, although sadly it would again be a bit too spoiler to describe its specifics. The details that make up the science fiction/fantasy element of the plot are again original (despite some slightly hand wavy explanation of some of the science fiction) and fun.

Still, for me ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ was almost a skipping stone book. There was nothing wrong with it technically, in fact there was a lot right (well balanced pacing, appropriate match between format and story, confident voice) and I enjoyed reading it, but there were niggles. My reaction after finishing the story feels similar in tone to Ana’s reaction, although the little things that nibbled at me after finishing were different to the ones that prodded at her.

Let me try to give an example. I found parts of the character creation frustratingly rooted in a limited form of traditional story telling. Riggs has created a novel which is so full of innovation in other areas that when mildly stereotypical character creation is used it’s dull, lack of creativity is very visible in contrast to all the other distinctive content. I could also see the potential for less well covered sci-fi stories to be told, from the perspective of other characters in the novel like Jacob’s grandfather, which were passed over in favour of following Jacob’s fairly standard sci-fi story. I often felt like I would find those stories more unique than Jacob’s, even though Jacob’s story is quite exciting. Perhaps what I want are multiple spin off novels as well as a direct sequel.

Not a perfect book to capture my heart then, but still well worth spending my time going on this adventure with Jacob. Many thanks to the publisher, Quirk for providing me with a copy for review. Hey Jeanne, Riggs is a Kenyon graduate, maybe you want to take a look at it (not that I’m a book pusher or anything).

Other Reviews

The Booksmugglers
Stainless Steel Droppings
Good Books and Good Wine
Books I Done Read
I Draw All Day and Write All Night
Bart’s Bookshelves

'The Vesuvius Club' - Mark Gatiss

2011-10-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

It’s no surprise to me that Gatiss, who worked on the recent reboots of two beloved sources of British entertainment (‘Dr Who’ and ‘Sherlock’), has playfully plaited elements of classic crime novels and British male heroes into his novel. Lucifer Box, the protagonist of ‘The Vesuvius Club’, is a distinct character from classic British crime stopping heroes like Bond and Holmes, as his story is set in the Edwardian era, he’s a bit dandyish and he keeps his work secret from those around him. Still, his character betrays strong links to these classic heroes.

As Lucifer Box the most scandalous and the eligible bachelor in Edwardian society he paints (the equivalent of Holmes cultured love of the violin). He has little patience of empathy for those around him (Holmes). He always knows where to find a quiet spot for the uninterrupted satisfaction of any willing lady (Bond, of course).

As Lucifer Box, agent for The British Secret Service, Box is efficient with a pistol (Bond) and has an almost sociopath enthusiasm for the ruthless pursuit of wrongdoers (Holmes). These features of his character make him a fantastic asset for the crown, even if his incautious nature has led to some problems in the past (Holmes, Bond, every secret agent ever).

It’s not just Box’s personality that is reminiscent of classic British novels about solving crimes and serving your country. ‘The Vesuvius Club’ also contains little textual flourishes that allude to the Bond and Holmes narratives. The names of the characters are sometimes deliciously over the top. If you thought the suggestive names of ‘Holmes’ villains like Lord Blackwood and Lord Coward were a bit over the top even for a pastiche, grab something and squeeze hard. Box meets people called Cretaceous Unmann and Charlie Jackpot, whose names become extremely suggestive after the reader learns a little about the characters. This kind of comic naming can be tiring, if not embarrassing, in pastiche novels, or even in classic sources. Fleming’s tendency to name his female characters suggestively is best ignored, for instance, but the game of names in ‘The Vesuvius Club’ remains fresh because the joke that is presented to the reader is constantly varied. Some characters are named suggestively, while some names present mild intellectual games that ask the reader to ferret out the connection to a cultural reference. One man is called Professor Verdigris...a posher version of Professor Green from Cludeo maybe? A Mrs Midsomer Knight appears. For variation, some characters have perfectly ordinary names, like Tom Bowler and Delilah, that don’t gesture to a part of their character or an in joke.

So, like many contemporary novels with historical settings ‘The Vesuvius Club’ includes a certain amount of pastiche, which forges connections between the novel and the literary traditions established by older sources. The fondly mocking attempt at imitation engages the reader in the fun of recognising what is being mimicked by the naming conventions and the chapter titles like ‘The Man in the Indigo Spectacles’. The witty voice of Box sounds a bit like Wilde, or The Scarlet Pimpernel, which again creates more narrative connections for the reader to delight in. Even the fast, fun adventure narrative which poses no real threat to Box’s safety (although the reader may feel he is in danger while in the thick of the action) is a kind of reproduction of earlier entertainment styles like Bond narratives and musketeer movies. No hero dies today. The connection between these particular areas and the familiar novelistic conventions of other exciting sources provides a certain element of cosy fun; aha moments of recognition are available to all kinds of readers.

Unfortunately ‘The Vesuvius Club’ extends its reflection of narrative tradition into a reproduction of old, representational stereotypes. As part of his search to unravel the novel’s central mystery Box meets a Chinese man; a Chinese man called Mr Lee who reportedly runs an opium den. Mr Lee speaks to Box in incomplete English phrases like ‘ ‘Why you come like this? We all friends here. You want pipe?’ ’. I’m sure that given his stereotypical name Mr Lee could be considered just part of the pastiche element of this novel, but to me it seems that his character has been plucked right out of the chest marked ‘lazy historical stereotypes’. His characterisation can’t even be explained by the usual cry of ‘contextually realistic views’ because the narrative doesn’t just make Box bark out his own prejudiced views, it actually makes Lee really represent the stereotype.

It gets...not worse, just differently stereotypical. Mr Lee is actually not the rather stupid, weak man he appears to be. He is cunningly disguising himself, until an opportunity to overpower Box appears. Aha, aha I thought, subversion is coming surely. He will turn out to be a criminal mastermind! Lee indeed reveals himself to be a violent, much stronger criminal, but he also turns out to be a villain who is involved in drugging people and carting their bodies away. In this second Mr Lee, there’s a manifestation of a historical white Western fear that Chinese people would drug white women and sell them into slavery. He may, or may not still be the owner of an opium den, as it isn’t clarified whether this was a pose as part of his disguise, so we get the narrative possibility that Mr Lee continues to conform to that pervasive, unjustified stereotype of the seedy Chinese opium seller.

This easy acceptance of racial stereotypes is disappointing, because ‘The Vesuvius Club’ spends time subverting other areas of the dominant cultural narrative. It is totally #teamboyskissing. A ‘secret’ that prevents Box from breaking ties with his British Secret Service employer Joshua Reynolds; yes that Joshua Reynolds is hinted at early on. If, like me, you were told that Box is a gay spy you will be confused by the fact that Lucifer’s secret does not seem to be his sexuality, as he makes eyes at a lady called Bella Pok for a significant portion of the book. Then, bam, there we go, a character called Charlie Jackpot arrives and Lucifer’s secret is revealed; he’s bisexual. The few sentences of social commentary that follow this revelation make it clear that the narrative has been designed to deliberately conceal the protagonist’s sexuality, so that later a surprise can be sprung.

‘You are shocked are you not? Or perhaps reading this in some distant and unimaginably utopian future like that funny little man Mr Wells would have us believe in, you are not shocked at all!’

‘The Vesuvius Club’ intends to confront reader expectations about what kind of men can be secret agents. The protagonist is a bisexual male spy. He is both an incredibly fastidious dresser and a violent sociopath who will happily shoot someone in the head (a ruthlessness which is framed as a good quality, as it is in many secret agent narratives). He swirls stereotypical expectations around and makes popularly perceived norms about gender and sexuality all messy.

At the same time the novel thoughtlessly embraces certain racial stereotypes in the way it presents Mr Lee. And late on a strange approach to transgender people shows up, tottering down the line between ‘contextually relevant opinions, which are frowned upon in modern liberal society’ and ‘modern casual privilege’. There are places where the novel contributes something new to the mainstream narrative (its villain is a transgender mad scientist, which is not exactly a common character type), but these new elements are limited in the way they subvert narrative common places. Putting a transgender scientist villain into a novel confronts reader expectation that an action adventure narrative must always be a straight, male affair. However, if the narrative allows its protagonist to (however contextually relevantly) dismiss a transgender character’s choice, it is still allowing that certain areas of the negative dominant cultural narrative do not need to be destabilized.

It’s a shame that ‘The Vesuvius Club’ contains this negative cultural reinforcement, because it’s also a full on fun, frantic, inventive novel, which features energetic coach chases through cemeteries, sci-fi style volcano bombs, sudden shootings and visits to decadent brothels. A sexy, sometimes tender new relationship springs up between Lucifer and Charlie, resulting in moments like this:

‘ “This is meant to be my day off,” said Charlie. “Who do I talk to about overtime?”

I looked him directly in the eye and managed a smile. “Charlie, what can I say?”

He stroked my hair with uncommon gentleness. “All part of the service.” '

despite Lucifer’s best efforts to keep Charlie a detached fuck buddy. The fact that Gatiss has built a novel around a bisexual spy protagonist is marvellous. However, the problem of the novels reliance on stereotypes remains. ‘The Vesuvius Club’ is the novel with a self centred, crime solving, bisexual spy making out with a friendly, sexy, kickass gay male side kick. It is also the novel where a transsexual character is insulted by Box for being transsexual and has no space to reply to that (oh and of course that character dies, along with Mr Lee). As Sarah Rees Brennan says in her excellent essay ‘All Those Who Default From the Default Will Be Punished (But Personally I think They Will be Awesome)’, ‘it’s much easier to criticise something that’s present than to criticise the absence of something’. It’s important to remember when critiquing novels which subvert some cultural norms, but still display their own set of cultural problems, that there are billions of books out there which avoid such cultural criticism because they conform so fully to prevailing narratives. Still, it’s hard not to be disappointed at the limitations of this particular novel.

A Quick Advert Break

2011-09-28T08:09:00.001-07:00

There are several projects I really wanted to highlight (including a couple I’m involved in) before I really get back to being focused on long bookish posts.

I'm on the Indie Lit Awards 2011panel for GLBTQ books again this year and I would love you to nominate something for our group to get excited about. The rules for nomination (shamelessly cribbed from Cass’ post) are as follows:

Anyone who is not an author/publisher/publicist can nominate! You do not need to be a book blogger to nominate books

You can nominate up to five books in each category. Please make sure they were originally published in 2011!

E-books are not eligible for nomination.

Nominations close December 31, 2011 at midnight PST and you can nominate books for the GLBTQ category here.

Cass is offering some kind of tasty invisible cookie reward for all nominators. I of course am too *ahem* classy to bribe and deceive you. I mean if you really loved me you’d nominate, but whatever... ; )Emotional blackmail - sweeter than inivisible cookies no matter what kind of icing you put on them!

The longlist for The Green Carnation Prize is out. I haven’t read along with any of the award lists this year, but I have added interesting looking books to my gigantic ‘want’ list. I’ve heard of lots of the authors whose books made it through this year, but not many of the books so lots of new novels to investigate.

The final of NHYA 2011 has been and gone. I meant to cross post all the judging decisions from each round here as the contest progressed, but I think it’s pretty clear that my blogging time has rapidly disappeared this year. To catch you up here are links to the First Round Decisions, Second Round Decisions, Third Round Decisions and Semi-Final decisions. The final decision was announced by The Booksmugglers on 14th September and their choice of winning novel was ‘What Momma Left Me’ by Renee Watson.

RIP VI is one of my favourite challenges. I’m taking the no stress approach to RIP again this year. I’m taking part in Peril the Second and aiming to read two spooky books. I plan to join the readalong of ‘Under the Dome’ by Stephen King, so I can finally return that monster to my colleague (I have had this book two years – gah!). Otherwise I’ll be trying ‘Dark Matter’ by Michelle Paver (which seems like a popular choice among readers this year) or ‘Draw The Dark’ by Ilsa J Bick which was leant to me by Ana at The Booksmugglers earlier this year. I’ve seen a lot of people’s lists already, but I’d love to hear if you’re reading something RIP related right now.

Hope you enjoy checking some of those out. What blogging projects are you really excited about right now?

'The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms' - N K Jemisin

2011-09-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

In her review Nic from Eve’s Alexandria says that ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ narrative is ‘neither as fragmentary and unreliable, nor as conversational’ as the first lines of the novel had led her to hope. The novel opens by thrusting the reader into the distant, distressed perspective of an unnamed narrator:

‘I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I don’t know who I am anymore. I must try to remember.’

and for the next two pages a sense of confusion continues to interject itself, no matter how solid a narrative the speaker tries to construct. The narrator identifies herself, elaborating on her precise lineage and the several different names she can be called, but this is preceded by the words ‘But I forget myself. Who was I again? Ah, yes.’, a phrase that signals the narrators struggles with a mind that is wandering for some reason. Although, after the first few pages the narrator turns to telling the story in a linear fashion, without many further interruptions, these early pages do set up certain expectations of further, messier disorder as the novel’s action and emotion becomes more intense.

These expectations are never fully met as this disordered and raw (although still artistically controlled) narrative strand is spread almost too regularly through the novel to stylistically reflect a significant amount of pain and confusion. The narrator, quickly introduces herself as Yeine ‘daughter of Kinneth’, she is from the tribe of Darre and she is the granddaughter of Dekarta Arameri, who we later find out is the leader of the family that rules N K Jemisin’s fantasy world. She then goes on to roll out her story, in a mostly linear past tense narrative that is interrupted at intervals by Yeine’s present tense voice (sort of, there’s a surprise concealed in this element of style that I won’t spoil, because it is really interesting to discover as the novel progresses). Yeine’s less controlled side only interrupts when events in the linear narrative have reached a natural break point in the past narrative, which makes the moments when the more chaotic narrative breaks through feel too ordered by the authorial hand.

It could be that this ordered insertion of a more mysterious, chaotic narrative is a structural indication that Yeine is a mentally strong character. Throughout the novel Yeine is shown to be a strong character and perhaps her strength extends to an exertion of control over the bubbling forces inside of her, which allows her to keep their narrative disruption to a minimum. Perhaps she proves her strength by reaching set points in her narrative before allowing a less ordered train of thought dominance. Still, considering that ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ contains central themes of madness and epic disorder I was expecting a bit more stylistic roughness, such as phrases butting in to the nice neat mapping of out memories, especially since Yeine’s present state has been established as ‘broken’ and disorientated.

However, like Nic, I found myself easily won over by Yeine and the reader barriers my expectations might have erected were knocked aside as I spent more time reading about her. Yeine is kind of amazing. Soon after arriving in Sky she discovers that it is her destiny to die in roughly a week and nothing can save her. At first she is devastated and spends a day crying for herself. She then goes on to make an alliance with the gods enslaved by the Arameri, searches for her mother’s killer, uncovers a lot of secrets, schemes to improve Darre’s poor economic situation and finds the time to form meaningful relationships with people and gods. The inclusion of her tears allows the reader to feel a level of emotional realism which makes Yeine’s later actions even more heroic, as she overcomes fear and sadness that could have understandably left her unable to act. When she arrives in Sky she’s the warrior girl who has come to avenge her mother’s death and that sounds like a kickass character description, but by the end of the book she has done so much more alongside that.

The catalyst for her story is the kind of geography spanning, detailed family politics than I adore (as long as I can keep everyone’s names straight). Yeine’s mother, Kinneth, became estranged from her biological family, the ruling Arameri, when she left their home in Sky (a crazy balancing act of a palace in the clouds that overlooks a city of the same name) to live with her lower class lover. Sky, rules the entire Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, including Darre, Yeine’s father’s homeland. Kinneth was recently murdered and Yeine assumes her grandfather Dekarta was behind the killing.

Even though the gap between Kinneth and Dekarta’s original rift and Kinneth’s death is rather large Yeine is aware that no one puts the Arameri family in the corner and stays alive. At the beginning of the novel her mother has been dead a month and Yeine has just been summoned to Sky to meet her grandfather for the first time. She goes, giving up her claim to the leadership of Darre’s matriarchal society, simply because ‘one does not refuse an invitation from the Arameri’, a comment which immediately shows the uncontested power of the ruling family and the fear they inspire. She also hopes to get close enough to confirm her beliefs about Kinneth’s murder. If she can make an opportunity, she plans to avenge her mother by killing her grandfather. That is just the tip of the crazy complicated familial relationships that Yeine has to deal with*.

Although Yeine is the narrator, the central character and such a different kind of female character (she describes herself as ‘short and flat and brown as forest wood’ and was brought up in a matriarchal society that casually derides masculinity) it is disturbingly easy for my thoughts to focus on the male second main character of Nahadoth, because he is explosive and alluring. Nahadoth, is a god who was defeated by his brother Itempas, imprisoned in human flesh and forced to serve the Arameri. He is spectacular, with all the flashiness and destruction that word implies, while Yeine’s greatness is simply human. As a god of immense power, who enjoys killing and desires seeks revenge he is a deliciously sinister character, who is bound to catch any reader’s attention, while Yeine spends the novel learning to achieve her aims through subtle political machinations. In an interesting reversal of traditional gender types Yeine is the one in control of her emotions. She is by no means schooled into hardness, but she handles herself in a compact, quiet, effective way most of the time. Nahadoth on the other hand, constantly vibrates with dangerous emotion. He is a pretty special piece of negative character creation and it’s hard not to get caught up in gazing at his brightly coloured sparks.

I don’t want to put all the emphasis on the flashy male lead and the romance, because Yeine’s individual journey is the heart of this novel. However, ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ is undeniably a fantasy novel with a romance at its centre. The relationship between Yeine and Nahadoth, which begins with Yeine plunging a knife into his chest after he has chased her through Sky, progresses as Yeine performs a delicate dance of intellect around a psychopathic character with a soul like a dark well. Eventually their relationship becomes romantic. I know this sounds like a bad idea out of the ‘every girl loves a psychopath’ worn out drawer of misogynistic paranormal romance plots. Luckily the novel contains space for Yeine to notes the crazy dangerousness of Nahadoth, even as she notices her attraction to him. Yeine has some control over Nahadoth, which makes her superficially equal to him and her personality is solid enough to counter him sometimes, but I was pleased to see that Yeine is never allowed to be certain that she can keep him from hurting her. Their relationship is written with a full awareness of the power imbalance that necessarily exists between even the strongest woman and a paranormal lover.

The narrative also has Yeine set up her own safety barriers, even as she slowly grows closer to him, because she’s aware he can never be trusted while she is human. At first Nahadoth is that guy you don’t want to let anywhere near your favourite lady character (even though he is undeniably fascinating) who supernaturally breaks into Yeine’s room, but as his relationship with her develops he becomes more careful to encourage her to find ways to protect herself from him. He does this without removing her agency to choose a relationship with him. Their romance becomes a co-operatively shaped partnership where each person tries to do as little damage as possible to the other, but it never compromises the discomfort the reader feels at such an unequal, dangerous relationship by slipping into idealistic simplification.

Even the sex scene, which is glorious and edgy and glorious again, is under cut by fear and uneasy amnesia when Yeine awakes, reminding the reader that nothing is pure, or easy about this relationship. The narrative always encourages the reader to fear Nahadoth’s touch on Yeine’s skin, until Yeine gains a state that will make her as equal to Nahadoth and as safe from him as she can ever be. The result is a slippery beast of a romance, which confronts the culturally dominant idea that romantic feeling should blot out any reasonable objections to a potentially disturbing relationship.

In her review Nic from Eve’s Alexandria, explains that the book loses her when the romance between Yeine and Nahadoth ‘overwhelms the rest of the plot and characters’ and ends asking rhetorically ‘where did all the court intrigue go?’ Despite being desperately engaged with the romance in this novel, I agree with Nic that something central to the political plot falls down a hole, as the romance is reaching its climax. Yeine’s initial motivation for forming an alliance with Nahadoth and the gods who live with him, isn’t an offer of protection from them. They can’t keep her from dying. What they can offer her is a chance to triumph as she dies, by winning a contest to be named Dekarta’s heir. To be honest I’m not entirely sure how they were meant to achieve that, as it’s my understanding that she knows they need her to lose the contest, so she’ll be given the chance to access a vital artefact that will set the gods free, but I might be misunderstanding. Anyway, the gods take no action to help her take Dekarta’s position. Towards the end of the book it’s like Jemisin remembers that plot strand needs to be tied up, but Yeine winning doesn’t fit with her plot resolution, so Yeine just says it doesn’t matter anymore. Um. Obviously it’s a pipe dream for Yeine to be named heir, but she is such a persistent, principled character I was surprised she didn’t at least push the gods as much as possible until they tried to act, or admitted there was nothing they could do. It’s a bit of an inconsistency and suggests that the romantic storyline became so dominant that Jemisin simply ran out of room to develop this part of the political plot.

Rich, emotional fantasy novels like ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ give someone like me the chance to splash around indulgently in the artistry of darkly beautiful pain with very little guilt, but it’s not just a personal art/emotion kink that led to my satisfaction with this novel (although, wowsa). There’s a complexity to the novel’s presentation of the world that shows just how many ways of viewing the world there really are and the impossibility of establishing definite, eternal, standards of moral judgement. Alternate ways of thinking and being are acknowledged as characters experience the fluidity of their sexuality, or love people they never thought they could. Yeine has multiple sexual partners and at no point does the romantic storyline turn into a binary love triangle with all the ramifications of anxiety and shame triangle set ups are usually accompanied by. She just sleeps with someone and cares about them, sleeps with someone else and cares about them too in a different way. Emotional paradoxes are set up. Yeine’s relationships with a couple of the other gods like Sieh are full of conflicting emotions that really push readers to think outside traditional paths. Mothers both love and hate their children. Forgiveness is offered to people who have done very little to deserve it because forgiveness can’t be earned, but then forgiveness is held out of reach because sometimes it has to be earned. Love is love, is broken, is mad.

I need awesome characters with insight, emotions and all sorts of moral compromise to make me feel synchronised with the beating heart of a book. ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ couldn’t have provided any better than Yeine, Nahadoth and the cast of sly, sympathetic, damaged family members who surround them. Is it any wonder I bought the second book in ‘The Inheritance Trilogy’ the day after I finished it?

* It’s interesting to think how often epic fantasy takes the domestic familial relationship and politicises it, cross pollinating the two elements that lit-fic often uses to define what is good and what is great. Epic fantasy often manages to allow the ‘small scale’ family stuff to combine with the ‘big scale’ political stuff, without anyone even noticing. Interesting, right? Thanks so much for giving me a copy Meghan :)

Other Reviews

Eve's Alexandria
Medieval Bookworm
Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog
The Booksmugglers

BBAW Giveaway

2011-09-15T01:28:00.000-07:00

I have something shiny to give away in celebration of BBAW this year. My hard back copy of ‘Slice of Cherry’ by Dia Reeves needs a new home.

This young adult novel tells the super creepy tale of Fancy and Kit, daughter's of The Bonesaw Killer. I reviewed it at ladybusiness, loved it and think it would make a perfect RIP VI read.

For a chance to win, just leave a comment telling me which part of BBAW is your favourite (it could be the awards, the interviews, Raych’s yearly sum up of blogging events, or anything else you enjoy). The give away ends Saturday 16th September 2011 at midnight GMT time. Sadly it is only open to contestants who can provide a UK, or Europe address for me to post it to (shakes piggy bank for sympathy).

Book Blogger Appreciation Week - Have You Met Meg?

2011-09-13T04:23:00.000-07:00

Today it is my pleasure to introduce you to my interview partner for BBAW 2011, Meg from write meg!. Below she kindly answers questions about book blogging, books written by women and her literary jobs. In return I threaten all her books with vague danger!

1.) Many book bloggers create their sites because they don't know a lot of readers offline. Did something similar motivate you to become a book blogger, or is your origin story totally different?

That’s pretty spot-on, Jodie! After I left my job as a Borders bookseller in 2008, I was frantic to find a way to still talk about novels with others. My friends and family are awesome and my sister is a voracious reader herself, but few love books the way I do. I didn’t want to lose my outlet to talk about characters and narratives and excellent writing, so write meg! was born.

Though my blog had been up and running for a few months before I quit Borders, it was when I stumbled upon the book blogging community that fall – and started realizing other people were actually as obsessed with books as my little English major self – that the real magic began to happen.

2.) I see a lot of books by female authors on your review list (awesome). Do you make a conscious choice to read lots of books written by women, or do you just find yourself naturally reaching for books by ladies?

I can’t say it’s a conscious choice, but I do tend to gravitate toward authors who are similar to myself. Some of my favorite recent reads have been humorous memoirs by women with whom I can really relate, like Valerie Frankel and Jen Lancaster, and I tend to enjoy living vicariously through my novels. Since reading is what helps me make sense of the world, I tend to prefer books by female authors who often teach me about myself. Though one of my favorite recent reads is by a man! (Matthew Norman with his Domestic Violets. Hilarious and poignant – a winning combination.)

3.) I think everyone is going to want to know a bit more about those literary related jobs of yours, so will you tell me a little bit about your different columnist job and your editor positions?

Sure thing! I pen a personal column that runs twice a week in three newspapers in Southern Maryland, my home of 26 years. It started out as a small project and has blossomed into something I treasure: my humorous take on the world around me. I write about everything from trying to squeeze into a bridesmaid dress to my obsession with sock monkeys, and anecdotes about the first time I tried fried Oreos or destroyed a batch of cupcakes are sprinkled in for good measure. Though it hasn’t made the leap online yet, I’m hoping that’s in the works for 2012.

I’m also the special sections editor with the same set of papers and editor of a newly-launched health magazine in Maryland. I like words -- and spend all day writing, correcting, editing and moving them around. And it’s a point of pride that my coworkers come to me as the arbitrator of all things grammar- and spelling-related! (Though I still make mistakes, like everyone.)

4.) What makes you interested in judging literary contests like Nerds Heart YA and the Indie Lit awards? Do you have any favourite mainstream literary awards and what makes you love them? Are there any other internet great literary awards that you'd like to shout about?

I’ll be selfish and admit that judging in literary contests has helped me pretend I’m still in school. As a bona fide book nerd, getting our summer reading lists in high school and college was the most exciting part of my year. Judging in competitions like Nerds Heart YA and the Indie Lit Awards is like getting a reading list all over again – and it gives me a chance to pick up books I may never have discovered on my own, like last year’s Indie Lit fiction winner Safe From The Sea by Peter Geye.

As far as great literary awards go, I tend to follow the Orange Prize alums pretty closely -- and really enjoyed reading long-listed nominee Tessa Hadley’s The London Train this year. Though I know the awards have inspired controversy, I still think they’re an excellent way to gain further appreciation for outstanding female writers and have found some great reads that way.

5.) I'm going to be a big meanie and end by asking you to name the one book you'd save from disaster if all your bookshelves were in some kind of vague (but deadly) peril. What would you grab?

Oh, the humanity! How could you demand such a thing? You’re a cruel, heartless woman, Jodie. Heartless.

. . . But, okay -- I’m game. Since you’re not asking for the one book I’d take to a desert island or the only book I would be allowed to re-read for a lifetime, I’d have to save my personal copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It’s been highlighted and dog-eared and crumpled up too many times to count, but that’s what makes it so dear to me. Both my sister and I read it in school and it remains the one book I’ve read more than twice.

You can now read my answers to Meg's questions.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week - Community Spotlight

2011-09-12T07:11:00.001-07:00

It's time to celebrate book bloggers again with Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Today everyone who wants to participate has been asked to share a few of the book blogs they really enjoy spending time with. This is always one of my favourite parts of the week.

In my BBAW blogger spotlight list from 2009 I focused on bloggers who were missing from the BBAW award short lists. This year I wanted to mention some of the people who I've started to get to know away from the blog (and that's been important, because maybe you've noticed I haven't been around much this year - I really miss it). These ladies might chat with me on Twitter (I always seem to be there now), work on book blog related projects and readalongs with me, or happily reply when I e-mail bomb their inboxes. I've met some of them in person. I've exchanged books and dvds with a few. Between them they've ensured that I never have to flail about for a book, music, dvd, sight seeing or fan-fic recommendation. And all of them make me happy just by being around whenever they have the energy.

subverting the text

things mean a lot

Iris on Books

cardigangirlverity

My Friend Amy

Amy Reads

Book Snob

A Striped Armchair

Bonjour Cass

The Book Smugglers

Necromancy Never Pays

Tales From the Reading Room

Medieval Bookworm

just add books

Over the last year these ladies have between them:

Moved to new houses, countries and cities
Landed new jobs
Returned to education
Wrote thesis' (thesi?) of wonder
Organised a wedding
Taken to exercise with a vengance
Raised money for charity
Helped kids navigate the world
Kicked against prejudice
Created their own ways of living with balance
Co-ordinated kick ass projects online and offline
Written a lot of great words
Charged off to see fantasies made real
Made connections with new people and pets

And that's just the stuff I know about.

Drinks and cake all round ladies. Cheers to your awesomeness.

I might have mentioned before that I am a typical Britisher stereotype when it comes to expressing emotions around people I haven't known for a billionty years, so what I like the most about BBAW is that it gives me a chance to get over that and throw out the love to all the people. Everyone else is doing it, so it seems ok. To any book bloggers who I've interacted with, who aren't on this particular list and to those who I really wish I was interacting with...I like you, ok!

*runs and barricades self in stationary cupboard*

Happy BBAW :)

Things you might be interested in...

2011-08-19T08:29:00.001-07:00

Recently I:

Met Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays and her family: I was a lttle nervous about meeting a whole family all together, but they really put me at ease just because they were so full of things to talk about despite their serious jet lag. I took them to ‘The Dirty Duck’ where we talked about all the differences between US and UK stuff, which continue to amaze me, because we absorb so much US tv here that it sometimes seems like we must be one and the same country. Such nice people and it sounds like the rest of their Brit trip was a success.

Went to Madrid with its gorgeous 35 degree heat: Ah if only all life could be a holiday. Highlights were a return to The Prado Museum, a visit inside the Royal Palace, a trip to Retiro Park (home to the only statue to Lucifer and the most gorgeous lakes with waterfalls and black swans) and a look inside a really beautiful cathedral. Sunshine, beer, sangria... If only we hadn’t been caugth up in an international air traffic problem on the way out (which meant we missed a connecting flight, do not even egt me started on why we were on connecting flights) it would have been a holiday without real trouble. Eventually I will get my act together and post photos.

I was out of the country for the riots, so, eh this might seem weird because who cares about one more blogger talking about it, I’d like to acknowledge that think about them, but I don’t really plan on talking about them here.

Booked tickets to see The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Agh!

Agh!

I still can’t believe I’m going! I’m going to have serious ‘these are not real ticket’ nightmares just before that.

Booked tickets to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall: Look, while a band which shaped my teenage years and hasn’t done a UK tour in 6 years is clearly the most exciting event here I’m pretty psyched that I get to see Phantom and take my first tour around The Albert Hall all in one giant gulp of a night. It’s a 25th anniversary performance, so I anticipate seeing some hardcore fans there. I will be the newbie who has only seen the film.

Aside from that it’s been reasonably quiet since I last posted. So I’ve been reading a lot of books (and a ton of fanfic, because seriously Sherlock you are not coming back until 2012? What is this? Are you aware the reboot of Torchwood has been massively unfulfilling and Dr Who is meh this year?): Wait, what kind of blog is this again?;) I have a lot of reviews backed up. I’ve been trying to increase all the totals for the kinds of books I wanted to read more of and I think I’m doing pretty well (although I still want to read more sci-fi by women, more of this in the next few months I think). My ‘read more male authors’ target looked like it had gone bubye, but in the last month or so I’ve read enough male authors to almost make my binary author gender split even. Now that we’re past half way through the year I think the main thing I want to read more of is literary fiction, maybe crack open the Dawn Powell and William Maxwell soon?

I have a few books I received for review, which need to go first (‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’, ‘Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman’ and damn, damn me and my procrastination, this is why I don’t take review copies often ‘85A’). There’s also a mini review post written where I talk quickly about ‘Iceland’ and my reread of ‘Jazz’ but after they’re up I was wondering which of these you’d want to hear about first:

‘The Vesuvius Club’ – Mark Gatiss (almost steam punk mystery spy stuff from the guy who needs to bring me my Sherlock)
‘Strong Poison’ – Dorothy L Sayers (mystery)
‘My Legendary Girlfriend’ – Mike Gayle (lad-lit)
‘Miss Hargreaves’ – Frank Baker (classic urban fantasy)
‘Tomorrow Pamplona’ – Jan Van Mersbergen (road trip, lit-fic)
‘Wrapped’ – Jennifer Bradbury (YA Regency mystery, with spies)
‘Behemoth’ – Scott Westerfeld (YA steam punk)
‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ – N K Jeminsen (fantasy)
‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ – Patrick Ness (sci-fi)
And I’ll try to order the reviews by level of interest. I have made a lot of notes, so it should all be fine!

Current book reading: I just finished the posthumously published last novel of Eva Ibbotson, whose Secret of Platform 13 I read over and over when I was a kid. Nymeth and I will be discussing ‘One Dog and His Boy’ later in the year. And I hope I can elicit a squeal from her after she emerges from the fug of her thesis by announcing that I have finally started ‘Night Watch’ by Sarah Waters. I really want a big, squishy piece of lit-fic, before I begin the plot driven ‘Goliath’ (no more Deryn, no more Alec).

Like I said, it’s been a bit quietish. Hey, I know what I need, an intensive few weekends of festival going, hen do drinking and wedding attending back to back! This weekend began the end of the summers schedule of fun and the lack of sleep comes to its climax. I think this year was less busy than last year’s epic summer (probably because I’m not attending all three days of a festival) but not by much. Next summer – does nothing. See you in between the events!

Not Your Average Boy Detective

2011-08-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Madrid for Sangria and sunshine on Monday everyone, but I didn't want to leave you on a negative review note, so just before I start manically trying to fit things in my luggage (So many other things to do before I go that are not holiday related! Why do I let things build up so?) I thought I'd leave you with a post full of positive book appreciation.

Despite Norah McClintock’s status as a well known mystery writer her Ryan Dooley series doesn’t seem to get that much attention. When a mystery series like the Theodore Boone books is getting a lot of press it seems unfortunate that Dooley isn’t finding more fans (look I haven’t read ‘Theodore Boone’ and I’ve nothing against Grisham’s adult books, but Leila shares some quotes that make the newest installment sound less than good). So, instead of reviewing the second book in the series, ‘Homicide Related’, let me try and explain why Ryan Dooley is a mystery lovers teenage dream.

The first book of the series, ‘Dooley Takes the Fall’, was focused on the development of the Ryan Dooley’s personality and history. McClintock provided a deep look into the heart of Dooley, the teenage ex-drug addict, criminal and alcholic whose life was reshaped by his strict uncle and a pager after he was released from juvenile detention. The specifics of Dooley’s character are interesting. He’s a realistic teenager and a individual character. At the same time his experiences, allow his character to logically contain typical elements of a certain kind of detective character. He’s a gruff, self-contained narrator, with a bit of a temper. By constructing her narrator’s background in a certain way, McClintock creates a logical reason for the inclusion of genre conventions and creates a stong link between this young adult crime series and a subgenre within the adult crime/detective genre which should encourage all kinds of mystery lovers to recognise Dooley as a great character and a great genre hero.

Dooley is also a sober addict who must work hard to combat the temptations placed before him, as his investigations progress. I tend to think of the addict detective as a pretty stock character, but there’s also a growing subgroup of recovering addict detective characters (although perhaps some of you can suggest some candidates for this group as my mind can not remember any specific characters – help!). Filling the ‘detective’ role (Dooley is really a civillian investigator, but detective tends to be used as kind of general term now), with a teenager allows McClintock to put a fresh twist on this stock detective type. The reader is suddenly alerted to just how devestating something like alchol addiction, can really be as they watching a teenage character think about how drinking used to feel:

‘Jesus, what he wouldn’t do fro a drink or a joint, anything to chase away that jangly feeling inside him. He got up and went into the kitchen. His uncle kept his booze in a cupboard above the counter. When he passed it, his hand shook. It would be so easy to reach up and take down a bottle of Jack.’

whereas alchol addiction is a lot easier to excuse, or ignore in adult crime novels.

His addiction also makes him a more, eh I hestiate to say vulnerable because eh bad connotations, maybe a less defensive character than your typical hard drinking adult detective. He has a lot of insecurities to overcome because of his past. The caring relationship he has with his girlfriend Beth in this second book is always a little bit fragile, or fraught because being more secure. Dooley’s uncertainty, prompts him to be incredibly loving (if at times a bit clingy) and that is very endearing in a male character, especially when he is so physically assured and intelligent. It’s kind of beautiful to see Beth attempt to help him through some of those insecurities, once she does understand them.

Sometimes I wished Beth could get Dooley’s situation better, for example in ‘Homicide Related’ she’s totally unable to understand his pretty reasonable detachment from his mother because her background is different from his. At the same time, wuhu for a female character who doesn’t always give him a total pass for dodgy behaviour, just because he’se been influenced by his bad past. Beth can be so forgiving, but she’s not about to be controlled by her love for Dooley anymore that she’ll be controlled by her mother’s expectations. Their relationship is one of my favourite things about the series so far.

Emotions, feelings, character – this series has them all! It also has some cool mystery plots for anyone who is more interested in story than character. In my review of the first book in the series, ‘Dooley Takes the Fall’ I said the plot resolution was a bit confused, but in ‘Homicide Related’ the resolution seemed to come from a much more logical chain of mystery building. The clues were all there for a reader to guess the ending, but there was enough obscuring mystery to keep the solution from being obvious. But as I said in my review of the first book, I’m the mystery dunce, so word + salt, you form the correct dish from that recipie.

See you all in a week, have lovely days :)

‘A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers’ – Xiaolu Guo

2011-08-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

While I was reading 'A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers' I thought I’d have lots to talk about in my review.

The novel is entirely composed uses the sentence constructions of a Chinese protagonist (Zhuang or Z as she asks to be called for simplicity’s sake), who is learning English while staying in England on a student visa, so there’s the use of language to comment on. Xiaolu Guo uses the idea of someone coming from outside English culture to humorously critique what seems ordinary to those who are native to England, so I could talk about whether the humour is, or isn’t effective. At times Guo uses Z’s confusion over the way English people talk to expose deeper cultural differences and to make jabbing points about England’s inward focus. I found some of these comments exact and rather painful to look at, so I could talk a little about how effective/not effective the novel is at suggesting new ways of looking at English culture. Much of Z’s story revolves around her insecurity and her saddening encounters with men who are often disastrous for her, which could be interesting to pick at from a feminist point of view. And yet, to be honest I really can’t get up the interest to stir my hand and fully explore any of these issues.

I keep comparing Z’s narrative voice to that of Charlie in Chris Cleave’s ‘Little Bee’, because it drove me nuts for much the same reason. Like Charlie, Z’s narrative voice is deliberately naïve; the voice of an ingénue, who appears unaware of the way much of what she says will strike the reader, or the people around her. However, Z’s comments often double as profound cultural commentary, because ‘A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers’ is a novel that wants to achieve several artistic objectives, including awakening the British reader’s conscious to the contradictory nature of cultural commonplace. The wise nature of what Z is saying is concealed from her, by her own lack of understanding and is only fully accessible to the reader. This means the book sometimes feels self-consciously manicured in its break from regular spoken language. Z is manoeuvred into specific misunderstandings that teach the reader something about their unquestioning acceptance of cultural norms, rather than being allowed the freedom to have random misunderstandings that reflect no lesson back to the reader. While this isn’t a fault of the novel (many novels set up specific plot situations to explain particular cultural, or political points to readers) Z’s comments sometimes have a twee, cutesy feel to them as a result of this textual management.

Z’s lack of understanding of British culture is realistic, because she’s written as a Chinese peasant girl who has little knowledge of the world outside her village. Guo said in an interview that the book is based on diaries she kept when she first arrived in England and I’m not questioning her novel’s sense of realism. I’m just not a fan of innocent characters who keep delivering pearls of wisdom unknowingly. I much prefer characters that start off with limited knowledge, or access to expression, but then begin to puzzle out things in their own consciousness (I’m especially thinking of D J Schwenk, from ‘Dairy Queen’).

In the end Z’s naïve way of speaking, which is necessarily manipulated to give Z’s narrative wider significance, left me feeling estranged from her story and her character. I think the technique of a novel can be interesting to examine, even if I don’t really enjoy the experience of reading that novel. However, without feeling some kind of connection to Z’s character I find that my current mood keeps me from being really interested in such an undertaking. Instead I’ll link you to a couple of reviews that I found very interesting, where the reviewers get on with the work I'm too lazy to do:

Eve’s Alexandria
Torque Control

'The Ingenious Edgar Jones' - Elizabeth Gardner

2011-08-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Edgar Jones is born to a mother expecting a girl, while a strange comet shower rains down on Victorian Oxford. He emerges from the womb with hair down the length of his spine and a growing curiosity about everything around him. His mother finds him hard to love, while William, his father has great aspirations for him that are frustrated when Edgar won’t take to his lessons. By the time Edgar turns seven, he is acutely aware that he is a great disappointment, so he determines to make his own way in the world and make his father proud by inventing and engineering. Everything Edgar does widens the gap between father and son. Edgar’s desperate aspirations get him into real trouble.

‘The Ingenious Edgar Jones’ is a novel where the ideas the author wants to express are intriguing and complex. Edgar and William’s father/son relationship illustrates how a parent can estrange themselves from a very young child through unjustified disappointment. William believes in standardised education and books above all else, but Edgar seems to suffer from serious dyslexia and is better at creating mechanical things. Despite his admiration of learning William sees the devil in scientific inventions he feels seek to pry into God’s mysteries, while Edgar is a born scientific pioneer. The novel explores popular arguments about the conflict between science and religion and also looks at how religion and science might be joined together in harmony, through their relationship. The novel also contains a strong theme about how reputation and appearances of respectability can lure people into abandoning their sense of right and wrong.

Unfortunately the protagonist of this book is one creepy little kid and the disturbing shudder he sent through me with his uncaring, all knowing smiles kept me unsettled throughout the book. Although Edgar’s situation is easy to relate to and his frustrations with his father are very palpable, he’s not a character I ever felt at ease with. Unreasonably I kind of wanted him to be caught and staked, even though he is just a little boy and I felt none of the sympathy I usually do for misunderstood characters tied to supernatural happenings. I was convinced he was going to turn out to be a changeling, left in place of the girl his mother thought she was going to give birth to and although that never happened I still think of him as a changeling, swapped by the sinister neighbour present at his birth. Well done to Gardner for creating such an effective, unsettling character, but in my case Edgar made me eager to be done with the book and I rather rushed through to the end to escape him.

'Next World Novella' - Matthias Politycki

2011-07-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

Jeanne recently suggested that maybe I would benefit from writing some terser, quicker reviews to get me back on track with blogging. I took her advice, writing shorter reviews of a few books I didn't enjoy and a few quick thoughts on books I really liked, before heading back to a longer format feeling really like I'd woken up a little bit more. And now they and some of the longer reviews are just about ready to share (I've been so lazy about finishing them up). First up, 'Next World Novella' by Matthias Politycki, the fourth title from Peirine Press:

While I still think a lot about the third title from Peirine Press ‘A Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman’ (which I know I haven’t written about yet, but hopefully I will soon) I put ‘Next World Novella’ aside and its contents very nearly disappeared from my mind. It’s not that I didn’t like reading the book, but despite offering many prompts for further examination ‘Next World Novella’ did not generate any sparks in my brain. We just didn’t make a good pair.

Politycki’s story focuses on Hinrich, a posturing academic, who likes to think himself an intellectual, a ladies man and the centre of his wife’s entire life. Hinrich awakes one morning to find his wife slumped dead over an old manuscript of his that she was editing and her death draws him to reminisce about their life together, without ever really finding fault with his own behaviour. It’s a story I’m sure anyone who has dabbled in lit fiction will have come across before.

Stories about characters like Hinrich (at least the ones I’ve read) tend to be written with some implied indulgence of the academic’s behaviour, even at the same time that they report his true state of ridiculousness. In contrast, Politycki’s novella gives Doro, Hinrich’s wife, a voice and allows her to truly criticise her husband. While he is initially devastated by her death he spots an angry final note at the end of this manuscript (his long forgotten novella), which prompts him to read all of Doro’s comments while she rests dead on their couch. Doro’s voice can be heard finally criticising her husband’s behaviour, even as she escapes to the other side.

The part of the novel that I found most interesting was the text of Hinrich’s novella. The translator Anthea Bell appears to have deliberately used colloquial English words like ‘cool’, ‘pet’ and ‘fag’ to represent the fact that (I assume) in the original German Politycki has given Hinrich’s writing a self-conscious, pulpy narrative style, that projects his failed attempt to approximate the casual confidence of someone who has lived a roguish life as part of the traditional, masculine bar scene. Hinrich’s writing is terrible and falls well short of producing an authentic narrative voice. Instead his narrator sounds like someone who has heard people talking about these kinds of experiences and using these kinds of word, but can’t put them together in quite the right way:

‘Life at the Maus was never boring. What with the place being full of alcoholics, jazz trumpeters, philosophers and other such colourful figures, and from two or three in the morning everyone talking to everyone up and down the entire bar. In case of doubt there was always Mutt. Because Hanni, as cheerily as she joked, cursed or knocked back tequilas, was basically the opposite of flirtatious. If someone made the slightest move behind her back, suggesting never mind the peanuts and pretzels, he could fancy nibbling something very different, she’d immediately swing round, brown eyes with those tiny gold flecks in them putting on a fireworks display, hand on hip, asking so we could all hear, ‘Who was it wanted a nibble, then?’ And when someone had ordered nuts or cigarettes, reckoning he was in with a serious chance, he’d often take his disappointment out on Mutt, Hanni’s dog, a mongrel who regularly hung out with us. Did the old boy know who the kicks he often got under the table at dawn were really meant for?’

His novella only serves to highlight that Hinrich is a phoney and draws attention to how unreliable his version of events may be, once Doro’s notes instruct the reader to connect the novella with real life events. And while the stylistic experiment of writing in the voice of a very bad writer to make points about his character didn’t exactly add to the pleasure of my reading experience (I’m not fond enough of style to enjoy technique more than an entertaining reading experience) it’s the one point of interest that really stayed with me after I’d finished reading.

A book where a neglected female character gets a voice (even if it is posthumous) sounds just like the kind of book I should want to analyse, but I’m afraid I don’t feel compelled to dig into ‘next World Novella’. I feel that Politycki made a fantastic choice in giving Doro a voice. Her voice becomes stronger as the novel continues, creating a real personality, which reminds readers that the dead body they are returned to again and again had feelings and aspirations. However, I felt distanced from Doro because a great deal of Hinrich’s remembrances of her, involved him reflecting on her detailed construction of a personal after life, one which wasn’t personally interesting to me.

Lots of other bloggers got something more out of this novella and my reasons for not connecting with it are all about my own interests, so I’ll refer you to:

Iris on Books
cardigan verity
Savidge Reads
Amy Reads

Crime - Everybody's Doing It!

2011-07-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

I'll be back on books soon everyone (and I need to tell you about meeting another book blogger in person) but for now I have some catch up impressions to offer about television (sadly not about the new series of Torchwood, we will not be speaking of that here). Do you remember I mentioned that to recover from my recent brush with the ‘ugh’ I was watching a LOT of crime drama? Apparently all UK tv providers had some huge crime drama budgets this spring and were determined to spend them, before someone reassigned the money to the department of truly weak comedies. Here’s what that budget bought us all:

‘Scott and Bailey’

I really, really wanted to like this, but in the end I didn’t get on with the first episode and ended up just watching the first and last part of this series. This is, what, the first show focused around a female police partnership since Cagney and Lacey (I am so unoriginal in my comparisons) but what’s that in the first episode? Why it’s Detective Bailey, abusing her police powers to avenge herself after a failed romantic relationship. GOOD LORD NO. Is it possible that you could revenge yourself without abusing police knowledge in order to do so? No? Well, if you absolutely have to use that knowledge, could you at least wait a couple of episodes so we can see that in general you are a decent, professional type? Or, if you want to go a different way you could abuse your police knowledge for other reasons as well, so that it’s clear that vaguely rule bendy copper is part of your core personality, not just something that rears up when a man has done you wrong. So many possibilities, why chose the most annoying one makers of drama? Oh and also the crime plot was a bit dull.

The last episode was...not totally better, but less annoying and more smart about the ladies. We got to see a lot of Scott and Bailey’s female boss, played by Amelia Bullmore (the more I see her, the more I like her) who sounds fascinating whenever she gets to speak. She used to be in profiling and in this episode she spends a lot of time being animated about her job, praised by a young profiler and enthusiastically missing the profiling department. Oooo. We get a better idea of Bailey’s competencies (she’s very smart and she notices everything, earning her respect and the name Sherlock), to go alongside that early picture of her abuse of power. And there’s a cracking cliff hanger ending.

Still, the villain of the over arching series plot is easily guessable and you can work out exactly what’s going on between everyone without needing to watch the rest of the series...Not exactly a recommendation, but I’ve watched a lot worse television than this last episode and enjoyed it.

‘Injustice’

I like Anthony Horowitz’s television work. It’s not fancy, or loud and although he refuses to help viewers solve crimes on their own (gah, please, I probably won’t work it out from your clues anyway, I just want a chance), his dramas do tend to contain detailed, human relationships. I got hooked during the first episode of this five part series, because it was rather slow to build and made the viewer get to know characters. These characters then changed over the five parts, into people who are not exactly sympathetic (a killer is revealed, a police man turns out to be emotionally abusive to his wife and a criminal turns out to be a scared victim). I mean if you’re going to make viewers ask ‘What are the morals of this situation?’ you need them really engaged with the characters, otherwise well who cares if you killed someone to make the world a better place soulless, featureless character?

It got good, it got a bit dull, and it got good again. Horowitz chucked in some espionage because that’s what he does (spies, EVERYWHERE) and all was disturbingly ambiguous. It didn’t really need to be on five straight nights. It didn’t have that big cliff hanger appeal and I could have done with some time to mull over how I felt about the character’s actions. Otherwise very polished.

‘Case Histories’

Jason Issacs runs. Jason Issacs takes off his shirt. Jason Issacs smokes sexily. Most of the other characters are women, so there’s no real male competition to distract from Jason Issacs. Jason Isaacs!

Some reviews I’ve read concentrated on the large collection of strong women surrounding Jason Isaac’s character. Having so many female characters around making up the support and the background to the world is great (the sisters’ relationship in the first two parter is especially touching) and needed. At the same time the first two episodes of ‘Case Histories’ are clearly the Jason Isaacs/Jackson Brodie vehicle, where all eyes should be aimed at JI at all times, so it’s hard to get too excited about there being so many women. The women don’t get really active, present parts; instead they die, talk to JI, or recount their past (his daughter and the sisters’ parts are exceptions to this). Even when they’re murderers all their action takes place off camera. You can sort of tell they’re busy having active lives away from JI and the cameras, but is that enough? Tricky. I end up seeing the first two episodes as good subversions of lots of common female presentation, filled with that oh so unusual female gaze, but I’m still not totally satisfied with them.

Some of the female actresses talk about the amount of strong female characters in the series, at the BBC website. Unfortunately this section is titled ‘Jackson’s Women’ a title which maybe signposts that my problems may not all be in my head.

The third episode is much more YES ABOUT THE LADIES, as Jason Isaccs is joined by plucky, odd teenage side kick played by Gwyneth Keyworth (such a cool young actress) who gets to go around with him solving the mystery of her employers disappearance (and has all kinds of agency besides that).

Maybe if he hadn’t made that joke about his little daughter dressing like a prostitute I’d be happier with this show. Or maybe I’m just difficult and should read the books first. Drama wise I enjoyed it. It had good actors, stories and believable relationships between characters. I just wasn’t sold on the female representation.

‘The Shadow Line’

But then compared to something like ‘The Shadow Line’, ‘Case Histories’ female representation is so much wider and better, so maybe that’s what I should judge it against rather than some misty eyed ideal (eh I do not like this idea).

Not awesome:

Making the name of the one female police officer Honey
Being another crime program where women go to die, or act as plot devises to spur their men into action
Some gay representation that is questionable in the grand scheme of gay representation

Awesome:

Pretty much every actor and actresses performances, but especially the ooooohhh Christopher Eccleston, Rafe Spall and Lesley Sharp
Characters like Jay Wratten and Gatehouse, creeping you out all episode long
Tension
Storylines with so much plot weaving, honestly BBC I had no idea you could plot this well, why do you not do so more often
Love of chucking in a completely unbelievable but awesome fight sequence every three episodes
The ending which put ‘The Departed’ on notice for not being ruthless enough.

‘Vera’

I found the crimes slightly dull and unnecessarily complicated. None of the episodes needed a two hour slot except for the final one, which shows some of the complexities of police officers necessarily leaving behind unsolved cases. However, very interesting personal relationships and character backgrounds popped up (Joe’s wife’s post natal depression, Vera’s awkwardness). And I can’t be totally against a show featuring an older, non nonsense female detective. Vera’s character is really interesting, as she goes along being brusque, smart and thoughtful. So, another show where the characters trump the plot for me.

‘The Mentalist’

Another show where I’m less interested in the crimes and more into the characters relationships. When I last talked about this program someone pointed out that the crimes investigated show a remarkably lack of diversity (overwhelmingly rich, white, straight people seemed to be involved as victims or criminals) to which I’d just like to say, wow, on the money, thanks for lifting the lids off my eyes. TV lands so neatly on the default sometimes and I don’t even notice.

The over arching narratives that carry through the seasons are more compelling than each random crime, which Jane will no doubt solve at the beginning of the episode just like Columbo in a flashier suit. I’m more interested in whether Rigsby and Van pelt get back together; whether Lisbeth and Jane are really just meant to be good colleagues and friends; whether Cho will ever get a romantic partner... I was impressed by the resolution to the Red John serial killer story line in the finale. So surprised (in a good way) by who they got to play Red John and glad I guessed this series’ police accomplice (because it suggests a Rigsby/Van pelt reunion which I want desperately). There are enough lose ends for another series, but the last episode would make for a reasonably satisfying end if this should be the last series.

So, that’s the tv I watched to unwind. Did anyone else dip into everything offered by the recent crime drama bonanza? Any theories on why so much original crime drama was shown all around the same time. And has anyone seen the new series of 'Luther', which was the one big crime work I missed?

Indie Awards 2011 - Exciting GLBTQ Releases

2011-07-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

You may, or may not know that I'm a panellist for the Indie Lit Awards GLBTQ panel again this year (I haven’t been the best promoter, what with dropping out of blogging regularly over the last few months). I thought I’d take a moment to share some of the books I’m positively drooling over that I would love to be asked to read, once nominations open for the award (September 2011 – December 2011). Massive thanks to those who posted these books on their blogs and brought them to my attention:

Young Adult

‘Sister Mischief’ - Laura Goode: I almost bought this yesterday despite, but I desperately need new holiday clothes out of this month’s pay packet and do not need new books because I have a bazillion already (stupid logic and money). I first saw it mentioned at Reading in Color. The author’s recent essay at Diversity in YA made me definitely decide that I want to experience its particular combination of friendship, romance and hip-hop.

‘Huntress’ - Malinda Lo: I finished reading this one recently, so I won’t say too much about it yet, but thanks go to Renay for encouraging me to read it asap in order to produce a companion post to her thoughts on ‘Ash’.

‘Witch Eyes’ - Scott Tracey: I can’t quite remember where I saw this one first, but I suspect it was in a Booksmugglers Radar post. The hero has magical eyes; the author’s name sends a geek girl thrill through me every time I read it. Logic doesn’t always come into my book choices.

‘With or Without You’ - Brian Farrey: Karen Mahoney’s blog recently mentioned this project from editor turned writer Farrey, which has the coolest music referencing title I’ve seen in a long time. Sinister secret societies and divided loyalties make it sound a dark, mysterious book.

‘I am J’ - Cris Beam: The story of a transgender boy’s teenage years, which I’m drawn to by the strong simplicity of the title. I think I first saw this one at Doret’s blog and she has a fantastic list of GLBTQ titles up, where I also found this next book...

‘Boyfriends with Girlfriends’ - Alex Sanchez: I wasn’t totally won over by Sanchez’s ‘The God Box’ and sadly Phoebe North’s review makes me think he might not be a writer whose style I’ll ever get on with. But Sanchez’s big name pull is hard to resist and again there’s a damn fine music reference in the title (I’m a sucker for a clever musical title).

Adult

‘The Lover's Dictionary’ - David Leviathan: A new David Leviathan book is always to be celebrated. I have to credit a non-blog source for my first sighting of this as I read about it in The Times supplement, but you can’t read that online so I’ll send you over to Simon’s post instead.

‘Rory's Boys’ - Alan Clark: The next three books popped up on Savidge Reads, where Simon is preparing for the second Green Carnation Prize. This story about a retirement home for gay men sounds cockle warming...

‘Stranger's Child’ - Alan Hollinghurst: ...Alan Hollinghurst’s newest sounds like an engrossing country house saga...

‘History of a Pleasure Seeker’ - Richard Mason: ...and finally we have a decadent offering full of scandal and beauty

‘A Study in Lavender’ – ed. Joseph R G Marco: http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=11141 Cheryl Morgan mentioned this anthology which queers the Sherlock Holmes stories and um, yes, I want that.

‘The Song of Achilles’ – Madeline Miller: A final, late entry to this list that I just found out about today, comes from Cornflower Books. ‘Something deeper’ (oh, what a quaint description) than friendship blossoms between Achilles and Patroclus in this war torn love story of ancient Greece.

Adult non-fiction

‘The Queen’s Throat:Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire’ – Wayne Kestenbaum: How rare for me to say I want to read a non-fiction book! Jessa Crispin at Bookslut just makes http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article07121101.aspx books about opera sound so frustratingly appealing.

Possibly eligible

‘Sky Academy: The Pearl Wars’ - Nick James: I can’t find much information about this book yet, so I’m assuming that it fits the criteria for the GLBTQ indie lit award. The blurb sets my ‘subtle marketing disguising of subject matter’ alarms tingling. ‘Witch Eyes’ appears in the Amazon recommendations for ‘other books you might like’. Can anyone confirm or deny whether this young adult fantasy novel contains any GLBTQ characters?

What am I missing? What other GLBTQ 2011 releases should I be excited about?

Women in Sci-Fi Week: A Lady Business Project

2011-07-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

I promise not to spam you with tons of other journal ladybusiness, but I want to briefly mention our week dedicated to women in sci-fi, because I know the subject is relevant to the interests of at least three people who sometimes read here.

So far this week:

Ana has reviewed the YA novel ‘The Adoration of Jenna Fox’
We’ve all contributed to a link post outlining recent discussions about women and sci-fi (and there are some bonus links at the end, one of which features sciency girls and Lego trophies)
I’ve reviewed ‘To Say Nothing of the Dog’
Susan from spindizzy has provided a guest post full of mini reviews

Still to come:

Renay will review ‘The Hunger Games’
Ana and Thea from ‘The Booksmugglers’ will pop by with an epic rec list

And that’s not all folks! Right now you could potentially win books by recommending science fiction written by women. Remember when I said ‘Hey ‘A Wish After Midnight’ is pretty cool’? Well you could now win your very own copy of Zetta Elliot’s novel, along with a copy of ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins and ‘Kindred’ by Octavia Butler. Just for reccing by 29th June! How easy is that?

Reports From Theatre Land

2011-07-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, just a quick update post, after my second London trip to talk about theatre and sightseeing!

Two weekends ago I met Ana, Ana and Meghan for general hanging out on the way to a production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ at The Globe. Honestly I had a fantastic time, in fact it was one of the best days I’ve had in ages meeting new people as everything just seemed so easy (so easy that I over talked way too often).

I thought the play was lovely, but then I’ve yet to see a bad staging of a Shakespeare play, his work makes everyone try their hardest it seems. Even the adaptations I wasn’t expecting huge things from about (Alastair McGowan and Jason Merrels in a touring production of ‘Measure for Measure’) have been wonderful. And, ok I’m a celeb spotter at the theatre so it was really exciting to see cast members I recognised from television *is a philistine for being excited to see Geoffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bell Air on stag*. The Globe’s staging is something special. It may even compete with the RSC’s varied staging experiments (look I am RSC biased ok), because the RSC theatre in Stratford does not have water features, or real trees.

The ladies were very generous and I ended up with a huge sack of books loaned and given:

Ok, maybe I bought a few as well. I couldn't get a good picture of them and have lost my patience with the camera so they were:

'The Eagle of the Ninth' - Rosemary Sutcliffe (childhood revisit after loving the film based on this book)
'Miss Hargreaves' - Frank Baker (single woman heroine)
And a non-fiction book about the real story behind Robinson Crusoe (which I can't remember the title of right now)

And then the day after I went to meet a friend who had just got engaged. Lots of ring ogling and Pimms on that occasion.

Last weekend I went on an epic theatre trip with my mum where we saw two shows, went sightseeing around London all day every day and took a theatre walking tour. Highlights included seeing the only portrait of Shakespeare with a good claim to being painted from life (Shakespeare was a rake I tell you), finding a ‘right out of Blyton’ school fete in Deans gate, which enticed us to sit with Pimms and cake made by a Latin teacher to watch Morris dancing, spotting pelicans in St James Park, a trip to Salvatore’s (the foooood is so good) and Moroccan food on the Southbank. Oh and the theatre of course:

Les Miserables: It was my second time seeing Les Mis and omfg I had forgotten how great it is. The songs from the word go are all singalongamazing. I like the crowd songs best ( ‘Work Song’ ‘At the End of the Day’, ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’), but some of the solo performances were just so outstanding that even a musical dunce like me could understand I was seeing something special.

The story is kind of a weird, but oddly hopeful mixture of the socially progressive (‘Lovely Ladies’, is a song which confronts everyone’s ideas about the comic image of the prostitute and Jean Valjean’s storyline forces the audience to question established ideas about criminality) and adherence to the limitations of old standards (oh Eponine I hope thousands have written fan fiction where you don’t have to die just because you dare to love the hero when he loves someone more traditionally feminine and socially acceptable). I’d love to know how much of the each position is Hugo and how much comes from the modern producers, which I guess means I have to read the very large set of novels.

War Horse: I’m absolutely gutted that I didn’t enjoy ‘War Horse’ more, as I was expecting to throw myself into loving it more than Les Mis. First let me say everything good I’ve heard about the staging and the puppetry is true. The puppets and the people working the horses are fantastic, as the mechanism and the puppeteers work together to produce true depictions of horse’s behaviour and movements (the front legs don’t quite look right as the horses run, after Joey grows up, but I think that’s probably a technical limitation). I loved the computerised backdrops, the actors dancing birds in flight across the stage, the creation of a tank on stage – basically all the staging, sets and costumes are amazing.

Unfortunately some of the main actors in the performance we saw were really bad at their jobs. They were obviously working off that well repeated principle that acting has to be larger in the theatre to reach the people at the back, but they seemed to lack the ability to retain the nuance of the emotions they were supposed to be portraying, as they projected larger and louder. Some of the actor’s performances were shouty. Some performances were just confusingly lacking in emotion and the actors uttered their lines with such disjointed inflection that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the serious points they were trying to make.

While bad acting is obviously always a problem in a play, it was especially detrimental to my reaction towards ‘War Horse’. The play’s story is hugely sentimental. There’s a scene where Joey the horse is creates the opportunity for co-operation between soldiers on both sides of the trenches. The finale has Albert reuniting with his horse, while blinded by tear gas, just before bells signal the end of WWI. These are not subtle scenes. Their meaning and intent are clear; war is hell and we should all weep for those caught up in it. Now the uncompromising forcefulness of this message and the blatant attempt to inspire sympathetic emotions should not necessarily have been something that turned me away from this play. I agree with the sentiment that war is harmful and it would be inaccurate for me to say that I’m put off entertainment by heavy sentiment, or obvious displays of politically partial sentiment. I do prefer this kind of message to be subtle and less one sided, but I adored ‘The Lion King’, which is very sentimental and I enjoyed ‘Blood Brothers’ which contains a political message that lacks ambiguity. I could name lots of other media I like that is kind of sappy (Les Mis, that I’ve praised above got me in the heart with ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables’ and ‘Castle on a Cloud’ which are both very much ‘cry, damn you’ heart string tugger songs), or very one-sided in its political stance, but something about the combination of sentiment, straight down the line opinions and awful acting triggered a bad reaction that I don’t think I’d have had if the play had just been kind of fuzzy hearts wanting and firm in its opinions.

I did find myself so interested, as a big ‘Black Beauty’ fan, in the parallels between Anna Sewell’s novel, which was partly written to illuminate the poor treatment of cab horses and ‘War Horse’, which shows a lot of the pain horses went through as they served in WWI. I think the production company (and I assume Michael Morpurgo, the author of the novel the play is based on) have tried to follow a similar structure to ‘Black Beauty’, as the play sees one horse as he’s passed on to different ‘owners’ (there are other similarities that suggest this play is actively recognising a link to Sewell’s novel, but the structure seems like the main one to me).

It’s interesting just to compare the difference in structure, but I can’t quite stop myself from making judgement comparisons as well. Which piece of media uses this type of structuring device the best? I’m not convinced that there’s enough space in this production to pull off this structure as successfully as in ‘Black Beauty’. The play requires a narrator to help the audience understand what is going on and without having Joey talk in a permanent voice over (as Black Beauty does in the 1994 film) humans must take that part. In order to care about the thoughts each character has about the brutal world they live in, the audience needs to get to know and care about each human narrator as much as they care about the constantly present Joey. In my opinion the play just doesn’t support the audience enough to encourage them to form a deep connection with all the multiple human ‘owners’. Some of these human characters lack development. Some are cast off as soon as is convenient for the plot, for example a French child whose live is eventually blown apart by war never finds Joey again. For all the audience knows wanders in the woods alone until she dies, even though she has shown just as much narrative innocence, kindness and morality as Albert and so has by the rules of this narrative earned a similar happy ending). The narrative doesn’t encourage the audience to care what happens to her after she’s played her narrative part (sweet girl who learns a bit of English and shows her love for a horse). The consequence of including so many characters that lack back story or depth of personality is that a majority of the play has no emotional resonance and the audience must rely on their connection with the horse to feel the full importance of everything that takes place in the play. I came away feeling I’d have enjoyed ‘War Horse’ with just the horses and a mime show from the actors.

Saying that, one of the most affecting parts of the play comes when a less developed character (Albert’s cousin) must charge Joey into the gaps of the enemy lines. His repeated, desperate cry of ‘Where are the gaps, sir?’ as the sounds of war play loudly through the theatre, brought to life a soldier’s experience through the simplicity of the fear and perseverance on display. I’ve got to give ‘War Horse’ some of my heart for that and the vivid mechanical recreation of horses; I just wish I could feel a little bit more towards it.

Now a question for you all. What production should I see next be it musical, plays or Shakespeare if the opportunity comes up?

NHYA 2011: First Round Judging Decisions

2011-07-07T07:51:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I was in London visiting with the lovely Ana, Ana and Meghan (which is wonderfully described by Ana in her recent post about Downton Abbey - I had so much fun ladies, thanks for making hanging out so enjoyable). I stayed over a night in Shoreditch to see a friend from university who was passing through London. This Friday I'm off back to the capital for a theatre weekend with my mother (for anyone who's interested we're seeing War Horse, Les Miserable for a second time and taking a theater walking tour).

I'm having so much fun off line at the moment and summer holds the promise of many more activities. I've also got a lot of on-line posts sitting around waiting to go up and lots of lovely online chatter seems to always be happening. Let me put my best foot forward just before I pack my suitcase and begin by showing you the results of the first round judging decisions in the Nerds Heart YA tournament. Here's what happened in the first round and a link to what the second round match ups will
look like:

First Round Judging Decisions

Jun 13th: This Purple Crayon and Book Addiction judged 'The Red Umbrella' by Christina Gonzalez and 'Tell Us We're Home' by Marina Budhos.

June 13th: Viloet Crush and The Literary Wife judged 'Stringz by Micheal Wenberg and 'Five Flavors of Dumb' - Anthony John.

'Five Flavors of Dumb' by Anthony John moves on.

'The Red Umberella' by Christina Gonzalez moves on.

June 15th: Pineapples and Pyjamas and Book Harbinger judged 'Tall Story' by Candy Gourlay and 'Premiere' by Melody Carlson.

'Tall Story' by Candy Gourlay moves on.

June 15th: Bookworming in the 21st Century and Birdbrain(ed) judged 'Finding Family' by Tonya Bolden and 'Toads and Diamonds' by Heather Tomlinson.

'Toads and Diamonds' by Heather Tomlinson moves on.

June 17th: The Brain Lair and Books, Movie and Chinese Food judged 'When the Stars Go Blue' by Cardidad Ferrer and 'Dark Water' by Laura McNeal.

'Dark Water' by Laura McNeal moves on.

June 17th: Secret Dreamworld of a Bookaholic judged 'The Last Summer of the Death Warriors' by Francisco Stork and 'The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin' by Josh Berk.

'The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin' by Josh Berk moves on.

June 20th: A Backwards Story and we're not butterflies judged 'Invisible Girl' by Mary Hanlon Stone and 'Dirty Little Secrets' by C J Omololu.

'Dirty Little Secrets' by C J Omololu moves on.

June 20th: The Wandering Librarians Anna and Arianne judged 'Summer Song' by Louise Blaydon and 'A Love Story Starring My Best Friend' by Emily Horner.

'A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend' by Emily Horner moves on.

June 22nd: Early Nerd Special and Snarky Mamma judged 'Stargazer' by Von Allan and 'How I Made it To Eighteen (A Mostly True Story)' by Tracy White.

'How I Made It To Eighteen (A Mostly True Story)' by Tracey White moves on.

June 22nd: Shylock Books and The Reading Zone judged 'The Kid Table' by Andrea Seigel and 'Teenie' by Christopher Grant.

'The Kid Table by Andrea Seigel moves on.

June 24th: Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books judged 'Paper Daughter' by Jeanette Ingold and 'What Momma Left Me' by Renee Watson.

'What Momma Left Me' by Renee Watson moves on.

June 24th: Book Nut judged 'Mindblind' by Jennifer Roy and '8th Grade Super Zero' by Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovitch.

'8th Grade Super Zero' by Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovitch moves on.

June 27th: TATAL Online judged 'Where the Truth Lies' by Jessica Warman and 'Jumpstart the World' by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

'Jumpstart the World' by Catherine Ryan Hyde moves on.

June 27th: the rejectionist judged 'Pull' by B A Binns and 'Efrain's Secret' by Sofia Quintero.

'Pull' by B A Binns moves on.

June 29th: Stella Matutina judged 'The End: Five Queer Kids Save the World' by Nora Olsen and 'Bleeding Violet' by Dia Reeves.

'Bleeding Violet' by Dia Reeves moves on.

June 29th: Sunshine and Bones judged 'Bamboo People' by Mitali Perkins and 'Abe in Arms' by Peggy Deitz Shea.

'Abe in Arms' by peggy Deitz Shea moves on.

The second round judging decisions will start rolling in on Monday 11th July and I can't wait! To see exactly which books will be slapping each other in the face with a delicate white glove follow the link to our second round schedule.

Have fabulous weekends everyone, see you next week.

'Coconut Unlimited' - Nikesh Shukla

2011-06-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

Do you remember cassettes? Did access to a two deck cassette player seem like a technological turning point of your childhood? Then prepare to be charmed by Nikesh Shukla’s 90’s nostalgia filled debut novel ‘Coconut Unlimited’.

The novel begins as Amit, the narrator, prepares for his stag do. His old friends Anand and Nishant arrive for a Blood and Crips theme night and their appearance makes him remember a significant time in their lives when they formed a hip-hop band, called ‘Coconut Unlimited’. The novel is a tale of adolescence, told in retrospect and the rest of the book follows the teenage characters as they try to negotiate complicated, but typical lives.

Amit and his two friends are the only Asian students at a prestigious private school in Harrow. Pressured by the high expectations of parents who work multiple jobs to pay the fees and appear like martyrs to the boys, all are straight A students headed for sensible, well-paid jobs, until Amit discovers hip-hop. Listening to naively titled ‘Rap Trax!’ cassettes with his nerdy but confident cousin Neel he finds the music inspiring a deep, immediate feeling of power and excitement:

‘I wanted to remain cool. Instead my heart was trying to burst out of my chest. My mind was trying to pump its righteous fist...My mind was fizzing with the spirit of black power and black rage and black funk and black edu-tainment. It rendered me speechless.’

Although his life is far removed from the gang culture that his favourite hip-hop talks about and his Asian peers tell him he should be more into Bollywood, the spirit of hip-hop music speaks to him. It becomes an integral part of his identity and he rushes to convert Anand and Nishant to the wonder of the genre, so they can form a band and become glamorous gangster rappers.

Amit is a sweet, stumbling main character, a flawed teenager who reminds me a lot of myself at that age despite my different gender, race, background and musical taste. When his year is split and he’s left in a separate class from Anand and Nishant he becomes incredibly self-conscious and timid, leaving him open to being harassed by racist teachers and fellow students. To remove himself from the shame of these encounters he creates a harder persona that he can be proud of, based on grand ideas about his hip-hop skills and ‘showing everyone’. Amit’s unconscious decision to create a new idea of himself, that doesn’t quite match his outward presentation, is the first appearance of a central theme of the novel: the difference between authentic identity and fake posing. ‘Coconut Unlimited’ shows that it is not always as easy to sort out the difference between these two positions as the reader might think.

It’s that hard, shielding aspect of Amit’s fake personality that keeps him from developing better hip-hop skills and gaining more knowledge. He has little access to hip-hop culture, or music, so all his information comes from a couple of magazines which run hip-hop reviews and the tapes his cousin lent him, but he sets himself up as an expert on the subject. He finds himself required to bluff his way through hip-hop conversations, as (again I’m making assumptions based on my own recollections of teenagerhood now, as this isn’t explicitly stated in the text) to be taught about hip-hop would seem to take away from the authenticity of his connection to hip-hop (oh teenage self you were so embarrassing). Cue uncomfortable humour, as Amit tries to fake out anyone who seems to know anything about hip-hop:

'Ahmed nudged me. ‘So, who’s your favourite rapper?’

‘Nas,’ I replied without a misstep, even though I hadn’t actually heard anything by Nas.

‘Yeah, he’s good.’ Good? Just good? The guy was the best. Apparently. ‘But I prefer Wu Tang...’ This was getting confusing now, balancing popular opinion with genuine thoughts.

‘Yeah, they’re alright.’

‘Alright? Nas is just one man and there’s about nine of them, all with skills as big as his. Mans are great. Come round. I’ll play you “Protec Ya Nec”. It’s their gang mentality single.’

‘Yeah alright.’ ‘

Part of this posture is due to his fear of looking stupid if he doesn’t appear to know everything, but it’s also possible that other people’s knowledge threatens the protective shield of authentic power that his interest in hip-hop gives to him. When white, posh boys like his classmate Paul Fine offer to share his enthusiasm for hip-hop he disqualifies them from being hip-hop fans based on their lack of ‘realness’, calling them things like ‘cracker’, maybe because hip-hop gives him that feeling of difference that convinces him he will show everybody because he has big plans that will set him apart from the peers he hates. He doesn’t appreciate the irony of his rejection of Paul’s opinions, considering his lack of hip-hop knowledge and his lack of self-awareness highlights how ideas of authenticity can be complicated by biases and defensiveness. It’s unfortunate that Amit can’t let other people contribute to his enthusiasm about hip-hop, because learning more would be rewarding, but it’s not exactly unexpected as he has to keep his shields up so high in a world that constantly abuses him.

So, Amit continues to fake his knowledge of hip-hop, while also emulating gangster rappers and attempting to impress the awesome nature of his hip-hop hardness on all his peers. Many of the novel’s funniest moments come from the disastrous results of Amit’s self-conscious posturing and the disconnect between his constructed street personality and the anxious, straight A student from a good background the reader sees as real. Amit looks a bit of a fake fool at times, for example when he and his friends show up on non-uniform day decked out in serious rap clothes that they don’t have the confidence to pull off. Why teenagers?! Can you not see disaster coming? Of course, they can’t. Can any teenager see social exile coming, no matter how non-conformist their actions are? No, never (and isn’t that kind of a good thing, even if our adult selves does cringe for all the hassle that is sure to follow ‘being themselves’).

However, Amit’s presentation as a gangster loving Asian provides an interesting challenge to preconceptions about what creates fakeness and authenticity. As he embraces hip-hop and show contempt for typical Asian entertainment like Bollywood other Asian teenagers call him a coconut. Coconut is a derogatory term that implies someone is ‘not brown enough’ or is denying their own culture (Ari wrote a great post expanding on what being called a coconut means and I owe all my knowledge to her). Looking at Amit and his friends who go around calling themselves ‘politically black’, dressing like stereotypical gang members and sneering at everyone Asian around them it at first appears that they have dropped their culture in favour of something they feel is cooler. Talking about a local dealer called Ash, Amit says:

‘He was everything I hated about being Asian. He listened to loud bhangra in his BMW, spoke in a stupid bud-bud/street accent and was only friends with Indians.’

which suggest that he thinks stereotypical Asian culture is uncool and has rejected his Asian community.

However, as I see it rejecting your cultural heritage goes deeper than taking up something because it seems cool and knocking something else because it doesn’t (although unconscious elements complicate that idea). It implies an element of self-hatred, maybe even of internalised racism. To use a stereotypical gender example it’s the difference between a woman saying she finds teaching sciences (traditionally a male area of interest) more exciting than teaching humanities (traditionally a female area of interest) and a woman saying she thinks teaching the humanities is a worthless activity because it’s a traditionally female area of interest. The first example expresses a preference, the second expresses misogynistic cultural rejection. Amit’s interest in hip-hop doesn’t automatically indicate that he hates Asian people (while he dislikes that Ash is only friends with Indians, he also only has Indian friends) or Asian culture. The beginning of the book shows that Amit’s allegiance to hip-hop begins because he enjoys the music and towards the end of the book Amit clarifies why he decided to be hip-hop by saying ‘I decide I like something different from everyone else’, showing that his interest in the hip-hop world is a preference inspired by a desire to distinguish himself, rebel a little against his parents and follow notions of what is cool. It’s a pretty typical teenage preference that gets him unjustly persecuted for rejecting his culture.

He doesn’t identify with what he sees as the stereotypical aspects of Asian culture (although he could be nicer to people who do like those things). He doesn’t see why he should perpetuate these stereotypes just to appear authentically Asian, when he is Asian. His sincere, if less than well researched, feelings of connection to hip-hop confront common ideas that the authenticity of someone can be determined by examining their interest in light of their race. Amit’s character also shows readers that race doesn’t always predispose someone to be interested in a particular culture of entertainment. A wider examination of ideas about the connection between race and authenticity could have been provided if another character had expanded on the idea that sometimes when people take up a culture that is not traditionally associated with their race they do so out of internalised self-hatred, or for reasons of appropriation, but as it is ‘Coconut Unlimited’ throws some interesting complexity into the world of thought.

Like most novels in this world ‘Coconut Unlimited’ isn’t perfect. The ending is abrupt and includes an incredibly brief rundown of what has happened to all the characters involved in the novel, as the focus returns to adult Amit on his stag night. The novel’s conclusion is just about saved by a final hurrah for the boy’s terrible hip-hop band, which is predictable and sentimental but still gives out good fuzzies. Amit and his friends use the word gay as a negative term a lot. Other derogatory remarks Amit makes because he’s a flawed character, for example the way he talks about girls, are undermined cleverly throughout the novel. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel their use of gay was addressed as well. And a final blip for me was Amand's character, as I’m not sure we get much of a picture of his personality, beyond his status as a solid friend and a girl crazy lad.

At the same time the charms of ‘Coconut Unlimited’ are great. The friendship between the boys is affectionate and supportive. It’s actually funny, when humour seems so rare in award nominated adult fiction sometimes. There’s a funny side plot about drug dealing in a posh school. And I hope I’ve provided a space in this post that explains what how sympathetic the main character is and what interesting ideas the text makes available. Even if you were never a misunderstood Asian/African/British hip-hop devotee living in Harrow the commonality of early 90s music technology and teenage uncertainty will help you form a bond with narrator Amit.

'The Dispossessed' - Ursula K Le Guin

2011-06-28T10:16:00.001-07:00

I remember that a couple of people wanted to hear what I thought of 'The Dispossessed' by Ursula K Le Guin when I mentioned reading it for a Women in Sci-fi readalong.

Many moons later I've written something up. It's not quite a review, instead I lay out a summary of the book's central theme, with a few analytical thoughts scattered about. I hope it provides some interesting thought jumping off places.

My thoughts are posted over at a newish space that Ana, Renay and I started a few months ago, so we could talk about women in entertainment media and get to know more about each other. I'm really loving this space and I'm looking forward to everything it brings. Now that we're kind of comfy over there it seems like the right time to invite you all round to Lady Business. Here's my post on 'The Dispossessed'. Feel free to look around at what we've put up so far.

'The World More Full of Weeping' - Robert J Wiersema (Close Title Reading)

2011-06-23T05:33:00.000-07:00

‘The Reading Ape’ recently spent a post looking at the first line of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Blind Assassin’ which made me remember how enriching close reading can be. As one commenter said the brain does a lot of close reading unconsciously, but it’s fascinating to slow down and identify just what the brain is seeing and processing in a flash. I’m going to try my hand at something a little different today. I’ve decided to have a go at some close reading, but I’m going to take a look at what is going on in a title, instead of the first sentence. Bare with, this is a bit experimental for me.

'The World More Full of Weeping’ – Robert J Wiersema
‘The World More Full of Weeping’ is a title of some grand strangeness.
First the phrase ‘More Full of’ strikes me as an unusual construction. The graded quantifier ‘More’ sits before the adjective ‘Full’* in a way that sounds undeniably odd. Would you ever say ‘More Full’? It sounds strange doesn’t it, possibly even like incorrect grammar** ?

I almost think it sounds old fashioned, like a turn of phrase that is uncommonly seen (it’s probably more common to say fuller, although that would sit very clumsily in this phrase – imagine ‘The World Fuller of Weeping’). There’s no verb ‘is’ in between ‘World’ and ‘More’, which again I read as an old fashioned form of phrasing (I’m not really sure why though, I just feel like a sentence without all the verbs sounds like an older form of English). The old fashioned feeling is added to by the use of ‘Weeping’, a grand word of high feeling that isn’t used much in common, modern speech. Mourners weep at the funerals of great heroines in epic tragedies. I might be projecting on to this title, because I know what’s contained in the novel, but perhaps it’s possible to feel historical resonance in the wording of this phrase, which might be surprising as the blurb doesn’t suggest that this novel contains a historical storyline.

And that phrase construction, which feels old fashioned to me, gives the title gravitas. Add in the use of the word ‘Weeping’ and I’m feeling associations with weighty moments of sadness, or performative sadness at occasions of great importance. This novella feels like it will be concerned with important events, but the sense of maybe even formality suggests that the seriousness of these events may go beyond ordinary human tragedy.

Weeping is a very vocal, obvious display of sadness, that happens when terrible events like the death of a loved one take place. You don’t generally weep, or describe yourself as weeping because you’ve dropped the milk (although you might if that was the last straw in a series of terrible events). And it’s the ‘World’ that is full of this weeping, not just a world, which implies a personal tragedy, but the world. Either the events in this book affect the whole world, or they’re so tragic that it at least feels like the whole world is full of weeping to those involved. It’s a tragedy with a grander scale of feeling. So, we know this book is likely going to be about a truly awful tragedy. No reader is going to open this novella expecting happy endings and they might also experience levels of trepidation about how much tragic the narrative is going to be.

The fact that ‘Full’ is being measured, instead of rendered simply as a complete state, encourages me to ask questions about how full the world was of weeping initially. As the title opens the door for me to question, I suddenly notice that there are other things I want to know. Why the world is full of weeping. Weeping over what? What has happened here? That’s the hook to draw me in to the story.

Do you respond to the title the same way I do? What else would you pull out of this title?

* Yes I did have to go off and peruse grammar sites to get there, I suck at grammar construction and I may still be wrong about that adjective, but I thought I’d give this a go

** It isn’t but it would have butted up against the general rule teachers gave out at schools I went to, that we should see if phrases ‘sounded right’ and if they didn’t they probably weren’t grammatically correct

Edited: In the comments AbbotofUnreason suggested that the title sounded like it had come from a poem and a quick search shows it is a phrase from 'The Stolen Child' by William Yeats, which considering what goes on in the novel is very appropriate. Does close reading of a title work if it's a line from somebody else? No idea.

Return of the Girl

2011-06-21T05:32:00.000-07:00

I’m back, but not quite sure how to jump back into talking here. Waves...ummm. I could tell you what I’ve been up to, but the frame of mind I’m in now it could get rambly (as all my intros seem to be now), so let’s go for some highlights and a challenge wrap up:

Jersey - lovely, great food, but lacking in Jersey cows (we saw six on the whole island)

Nerds Heart YA – has started, see all the first round decisions so far at the blog

Dunsinane (or Macbeth: The Sequel) at the Swan theatre – nice blend of knowing modern metaphor, revisionism and Shakespearean drama conventions, disappointingly anti-Shakespearean lack of main character death (die Seaworth, die), I liked the soldier boy narrator best, recommended

Car booting - they make you get up at 5am, still tired two days later, cleared stuff, made decent money (more than we’d have made working the same four hours at a minimum wage job, a bit more than I’d have made working three hours at my job)
Reading – didn’t read much while I was away, which is pretty usual for me unless I’m on a beach holiday, reread ‘Wyrd Sisters’ by Terry Pratchett, still gold, then mainlined ‘Slice of Cherry’ by Dia Reeves in post car boot sale haze of horror filled wonder (so much inventive murder, hurray)

Tv watching – so. much. crime drama British tv, I will talk about this later after I recover from the finale of ‘The Shadow Line’, which seemed to be written by someone who felt that ‘The Departed’ kind of wussed out in the killing department
Brain – feels much better, circular thinking cut back, dogs now sleeping peacefully instead of pursuing obsession with tails (hurrah)

The Once Upon a Time challenge – this year I decided I’d just try to read one book, so of couse I ended up reading more fantasy than I ever have and watched some films as well, amazing what taking the pressure off will do:

Read

'The World More Full of Weeping' – Robert J Wiersama (fantasy/fairytale feel)
'Demonglass' – Rachel Hawkins (fantasy)
'Iceland' – Betsy Toibin (myth)
'The Iron Witch' - Karen Mahoney (fantasy/myth based)
'Orphans of Eldorado' – Milton Hatoum (myth)
'Fury of the Phoenix' – Cindy Pon (fantasy)

Watched

'Red Riding Hood' (fairytale)
'Thor' (myth)
'Camelot': longass episode The First (legend) – will talk more about this and my Athurian legend reread later, the first episode has won me over and reminds me I need to crack my huge illustrated edition of Mallorey’s tales

And apart from the Hatoum movella these were all very satifying. How did everyone else get on during this challenge?

That's me back then, hopefully for a good long while of regular posting and feed reading. Again...waves.

Sunnier Weather

2011-06-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

Thank you all so much for your kind and understanding words on my last post. I have contradictory feelings, because it’s always nice to know you’re not alone, but at the same time I don’t want all of you to know what I feel like. I want you all to be having the best times ever, always! Realism bites, right?

Listening to litlove’s advice I have tried to get in contact with the little voice right at my centre. Turns out that she’s telling me to chill the fuck out. Everything I want to happen can’t/isn’t happen right now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t get it done in the future and (I imagine she has her hand on her hip right now, because she seems very firm) these things may never happen if I keep following circular thinking about how they’re not getting done right now. I feel like I’m getting things done, because I’m thinking about them all.the.time, but really I’m chasing a tail I can’t see and rushing through the important tasks just to be able to cross something off that damned mental list.

So, the plan? The plan is to ditch my planning, which has grown out of all proportion until it is so obsessively detailed and ordered that there are a million breakage points where something could go wrong, causing me to give up on everything. Leave all plans at home until holiday is over. Restructure simpler plan that does not involve staying up late every night to fit all the steps in. Slow mind down. Concentrate.

Maybe I’ll try meditating eventually (the discipline required to sit quietly and not think just seems so immense though, has anyone had good experiences?), but for now I’m working on some simple mind calming exercises. I’ve let myself agree that tv is what I need at the end of the day now, not because tv is passive to watch, but because good tv centres my mind on what is happening right now on the screen. I have watched so many crime dramas in the past few days!

I’ve decided to try re-reading, as an antidote to rushing through books, or becoming annoyed too quickly. I’m a little way into ‘Wyrd Sisters’ by Terry Pratchett which I must have read 5 or so times when I was growing up and it’s just right. There are delighting moments when I remember which little incident is coming up, familiar jokes and characters, but I still can’t remember everything about the plot. Now I want to pull lots of old, familiar books off the shelves (but obs I am not rushing, because that is the point of this exercise).

Finally, I’m going to stop obsessively scheming to increase my house deposit. My wage is the same each month, nothing to be done about that (at one point I was thinking about taking a second job, going back to working retail in the evenings after a day at the office – yes I had spun out of control and would probably have hit a customer in the first month). And with that I declare the official end to the book buying ban. I broke it off a week ago, but hadn’t announced it here yet. While it was lovely and successful while it lasted, it had reached a point where it felt a bit like a punishment for extravagance rather than good sense. And here’s the modest ‘hurray for my willpower’ pile that I bought:

Thank you all for being about this week. I really did need you to speak calmly and sensibly to me. I look forward to catching up when I get back from a few days in the Jersey sunshine (yaaaaaayyyyy).

Frustrations

2011-06-05T23:30:00.000-07:00

It’s been a frustrating time for me recently. I’m fine, it’s just one of those times where the long road seems very long and full of holes. I also saw Kings of Leon, Belle and Sebastian and booked tickets for a day at Leeds festival purely based on Muse being the headliner. All of these things make me very happy, so really everything can’t be that bad.

Sadly the frustrations that have been buzzing around seem to have pushed themselves into my reading life as well. I spent a week hacking through a book I’m sure I would have swooned over at any other time. I picked up, put down, picked up, put down a book that despite its stunning writing feels kind of...icky, right now (so glad I came of age during the Friends generation, so I can use that word without feeling the need to clarify it – moving on). I actually finished a book, which was quite good, but wasn’t superb and it left me feeling unfairly dissatisfied.

It seems I have very specific tastes right now. I either want something exceptionally trashy (with unbelievable dialogue and lots of improbably action), or something guaranteed to move me with its brilliance. The problem is my brain tells me not to be wasting my time on trash because I’ve got so little time to read, but I’m never really sat reading long enough to concentrate on those heartbreaking works of staggering genius.

I need a compromise, because not getting a dose of satisfying reading is playing havoc with my mood right now. I need a run of books that are darkly fun, books that will drag me in with their sharps little teeth and shake me about a bit. ‘Total Oblivion’, the book Jeanne and I discuss together, did that. Despite being a little afraid of its length I found that ‘A Fine Balance’ kept me pelting through the pages, even if the ending caused my eyes to go up on stalks. I just need more of this kind of expereince and I need it guarenteed before my dissatisfaction puts me off any more perfectly pleasant books.

I guess the frustrations are part of what’s holding up my blogging here. I miss being able to get my thoughts out and I miss having the energy to comment around the town, but every time I sit down it all seems to get a bit daunting. I have how many reviews to catch up on? Man that’s a lot of posts in my feedreader. Maybe I’ll just watch another episode of ‘Miranda’ instead. But right now I’m deciding something’s got to be done about this. Last year I worked really hard on pushing the idea into my head that if I didn’t go out because I’d lost all my energy to work then work was winning. I set myself up in a proper battle where I had to win at life against the system of working for a living which only cared if I went to make money for it (inside my head, the world of work may rub its hands together more than necessary and have a trademark evil laugh). And yes, I was knackered by winter, but I had been a lot of places, done a lot of things and gathered a bunch of memories which I wouldn’t have got lying on my bed. The idea that I could ‘win’ is what got me on my healthy eating drive, but over the last three months I feel like I have slipped. I’m letting having a regular 8 – 5 job become an excuse for not doing as much, because I’m tired and frustrated at the end of the day.

I really can’t be having that. How do I expect to get anything done in life if I carry on like that? Work will not beat me out of living in up in my 20s. So, I have to stop eating emotionally, continue saving instead of emotional shopping, stop feeding myself comforting tv all the time instead of doing things like blogging, making and leaving the house.Come on capitalist systems on enterprise, let’s be having you. Motivational posts – locked on standby.

Nerds Heart YA Giveaway

2011-06-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Nerds Heart YA give way is now open. We have some really fabulous prizes this year:

Prize Pack One

Signed copy of ‘The Kid Table’ – Andrea Seigel
Signed paperback copy of ‘Monsoon Summer’ – Mitali Perkins
Signed copy of ‘How I Made it to Eighteen (A Mostly True Story)’ – Tracy White
Signed copy of ‘Toads and Diamonds’ – Heather Tomlinson
Signed copy of ‘Bleeding Violet’ – Dia Reeves
Signed copy of ‘Mindblind’ and bookmark – Jennifer Roy
Signed sketch by Tracy White
Signed hardcover copy of ‘Dark Water’ – Laura Mcneal
Signed paperback copy of ‘The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin’ – Josh Berk
Signed copy of ‘Pull’ – BA Binns

Prize Pack Two

Signed copy of ‘The Kid Table’ – Andrea Seigel
Signed copy of ‘How I Made it to Eighteen (A Mostly True Story)’ – Tracy White
Signed paperback copy of ‘Secret Keeper’ – Mitali Perkins
Signed copy of ’8th Grade Superzero’ and bookmarks from Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Paperback copy of ‘Dirty Little Secrets’ – CJ Omololu
Signed paperback copy of ‘Breathless’ – Jessica Warman
1 copy Office 2010 from Micheal Wenberg
Signed copy of ‘Five Flavours of Dumb’ – Anthony John
Copy of ‘The End: Five Queer Kids Save the World’ and magnet from Nora Olsen

and the contest is so simple to enter:

Just take a picture of one of the books on our short-list somewhere in the wild. Maybe you have a copy of the book at home, or you’ve seen it in a library, a bookshop, or even at a promotional event.

Wherever you see the book, take a picture of the book by itself, or put yourself in the picture. Then post it somewhere (On your blog, your Facebook page, your tumblr account, or Twitter account etc). Drop us a link to where you’ve posted in the comments of the NHYA giveway post by June 13th 2011 to be entered into the contest. Please include your email address and specify whether you’d prefer to win prize pack one, or prize pack two.

For full details please visit the NHYA website.

Good luck to all who enter.

'Total Oblivion, More or Less' - Alan Deniro (Second Half Thoughts)

2011-05-31T04:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, here's my second post about 'Total Oblivion, More or Less' by Alan Deniro, which Jeanne and I read in May. I really don't know what's up with me at the moment - hopefully normal blogging pace will resume soon.

Both the first and second parts of ‘Total Oblivion, More or Less’ are journey quest stories. In the first part of the novel Macy and her family’s journey feels somehow less perilous because her whole family is together on the journey. Even though pretty awful things happen to them all and they quickly lose any sense of control over their actual destination, or fate, there’s a security in seeing this family unit struggling to hold on to a goal, together that undercuts some of the danger inherent in the random flailing mess their lives have become.

At the same time their journey together does feel very random, very unplanned because it’s clear that Macy’s dad, who they are following, because he received a letter from a colleague offering him and job and a destination to aim for, is losing faith. Macy’s mum is vague for much of the trip, even before she gets the plague. Macy’s sister Sophia is trying to escape. Her brother Ciaran appears a menacing force that will destroy the family for fun, especially when he’s accompanied by his sinister dog Xerxes. So, through the first part of the novel there’s this tug and release balance between the safety the family unit provides and the worry that when the time comes for action all the family’s different members will get in the way of each others survival.

In part two Macy has to set out on her own quest alone and the precariousness of her situation is quickly apparent. She’s travelling to Nueva Roma to see Ciaran before he’s tried as a terrorist (at fourteen years old) when her boat is attacked. Macy attracts the attention of a man:

‘I could tell he was thinking about hurting me. Maybe he wanted kicks before dying, or to hurt someone before he got killed.’

Yet Macy on her own, proves more capable of making a decision than the Macy who journeyed down the river with her family. She kills the man and jumps off the boat into the corpse filled river, ready to try and make some kind of stab at living. Maybe it’s because she has no one else to rely on, or maybe it’s because she’s finally freed to make her own decisions without having judgement piled on her head, but she gives the reader the illusion that she is taking control in a situation that is so out of control and full of randomness. Really she’s just adapting, in order to survive, as so many science-fiction characters do. However, I’m impressed that Macy is a heroine who can fool me into believing that she’s taking names and carving a path through this jumbled jungle, even when all evidence in Deniro’s world suggests that there’s no way to take control of anything (unless you’re very manipulative and very rich, but I’ll come to that later). She’s shaping a linear narrative of progress and success out of the weird, even as she reminds us that narratives and stories rarely reflect the true collision and tearing of life:

‘That was the last time I ever saw Oxna. I had half-expected that we would have future adventures together, that our lives would intertwine more. But life doesn’t work out like that all of the time.’

She does piece together a surrogate support system throughout the second half, made up of Em the submarine captain and her lover Wye (who in the first half of the book is a shady, menacing character who arrests Ciaran – odd turn around). This group of people indirectly leads her to find parts of her family and contributes a slight feeling of increased safety to Macy’s story (at least for me). Strangely Macy’s younger brother William, reincarnated in the body of the dead Xerxes was the character which made me feel most secure about Macy’s fate. Once there was a talking dog on the scene I knew everything was going to be reasonably ok in the context of this novel. As William is family I guess that shows that I don’t always feel like Macy’s family gets in the way of her safety and the book kind of bears that thought out. After William turns up in his dog form Macy’s family’s narrative arc becomes one of a family coming back together, rather than a family willingly separating into parts. Macy finds and rescues Sophia, returns to her dad and hears that Ciaran is free. Em and Wye begin a new submarine board family when Em’s baby is born.

To wind up I just want to quote a couple of my favourite moments of political commentary in the second half of the novel. When I was talking to Jeanne about the first half of the book I said I couldn’t really determine a particular metaphorical connection between the political commentary and current events (I probably used like a lot more when I e-mailed her).

There’s a lot of general commentary that links the controlling forces of Deniro’s Nueva Roma with the destructive corporate side of America:

‘Crystal touched the edge of Oxna’s teal scarf. We designed these she said. Oxna gave her a goofy smile.

You really are in the Teal’s corner, he said. It’s been huge –

The stepmother laughed and it was cutting. No, no she said. Our brand identity team designed the logos and apparel for all the colours. The street campaigns are designed so that each team thinks they’re the unique target – that no one else “gets” them, their unique needs.

Crystal made the quote mark sign with her hands, which I’m positive Oxna didn’t get. She squeezed Oxna’s shoulder and said: Our little secret, okay?

Oxna’s shoulder sank.’

I think in the second half of the novel the connection between Roman conquering forces and American capitalism becomes a lot more definite:

‘It’s all manipulated by my stepmom and dad, she said. They keep pretending to give people something authentic, but it all turns out to be force fed lies. Look at this.

She was drinking some kind of papaya rum concoction from a Dixie cup. She pointed at some graffiti of a unicorn sparring with a gladiator. The unicorn had a cup in one of its front hooves. The cup was over flowing with a green liquid. PAPAYA-OVERLORD! It said in English, and there was demotic script below it. The same slogan, I assumed.

They use “street teams,” Lydia said. These freelance art-school dropouts from up north pretend to be actual graffiti artists and tag the city with these stupid ads.

The Romans used to do the same thing, I said. I mean, the graffiti, not the street teams.’
How that all fits into the grand scope of the books political rhetoric I’m still not sure. I’m not sure there’s a lesson to be extracted from ‘Total Oblivion, More or Less’, a way that Macy’s society could have saved their world. Maybe Deniro just wants to point out that we should all at least be aware of what’s going on and the connections that can be made between history and now. Maybe we all need to be aware, instead of remaining totally oblivious, in order to avoid total oblivion. Maybe we all just need to be aware, even if that won’t keep us from ending up in a similar situation to Macy. Maybe the only way to cope is to be aware enough to survive?

IMPORTANT - MY EMAIL HAS BEEN COMPROMISED

2011-05-27T04:07:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone. Just a note to say that my Gmail account got spoofed (which, is totally different from hacked, so my email account is ok now I've switched passwords and deleted contacts lists I think - the things you learn in times of technological disaster).

Please don't open any email you receive from bakerjodie at googlemail dot com today and don't click on any links within those emails. If you have Gmail accounts please report these emails as Spam using the 'Report as Spam' button at the top of your Inbox. If you receive anything dodgy after this moment in time (12:11 GMT) please let me know.

'Total Oblivion, More or Less' - Alan Deniro

2011-05-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

This week Jeanne from the shiny new, Wordpress version of ‘Necromancy Never Pays’ and I will both be sharing some thought on Alan Deniro’s ‘Total Oblivion, More or Less’, a trippy young adult novel about the crumbling end of American society. Today Jeanne’s talking about Part One of the novel and answering some of my questions about the voice of the narrator Macy, while I’ll be chatting around some of her questions on the total weirdness of the novel.

Short version of the plot that runs through the first part of this novel: Minnesota, where Macy’s home is, has been invaded by horsemen, Scythians who want land and the Scythians have been combated by people called The Imperials. Macy guesses the Imperials are on the side of ordinary people, but nobody seems very clear. They start turning people out of their houses and instructed them to go to CAMP. Macy and her family are travelling downriver in a dystopian version of America, after escaping what has turned out to be a cross between a refugee and a prison camp. Along the way many a strange and sad thing happens; not everyone makes it to any sort of final destination.

If there’s one thing both Jeanne and I agree on, it’s that ‘Total Oblivion’ approaches a new level of literary weirdness for both of us. Deniro seems to have taken every strange image that floated into his mind while he was writing and committed them to paper. His novel includes a plethora of random details that never go anywhere significant, like Carl the giraffe who Macy’s brother buys on a whim, then just as quickly sells. I’d expect to see this kind of fun, but ultimately meaningless diversion, cut ruthlessly from a first novel to make it tighter, but these unimportant details actually form the basis of 'Total Oblivion'. It’s almost like Deniro pulled junk out of the back of his mind’s attic and balanced everything precariously to make one giant, unstable art installation and the placement of a giraffe in the pile comes to seem almost normal in contrast to the stuff that surrounds it (‘Is that dog eating a baby, just as it’s being born? Is that ship full of gladiators fighting for tourists entertainment? Sea cucumbers? Guns that sing? I think I would like to look just at the giraffe now dear, I understand giraffes.’ The novel’s whole world is crafted out of idea debris.

Which sounds very bad, doesn’t it? It sounds like I’m being critical, but somehow Alan Deniro turns debris into a certain kind of craft without ever allowing his novel to show that it’s making the least bit of effort at working to win the reader. Macy’s world is rebuilt is a short space of time and a new country wide craziness suddenly dictates how peoples lives go. Suddenly her entire life is pushed and pulled by a series of random occurrences. So it seems appropriate for this novel, where anything can happen at any moment and life can end so suddenly, to be filled with so many random, unexplained details. And ‘Total Oblivion’ somehow pulled me right into its story, so that I barely ever thought to quirk an eyebrow at its strangeness until I put it down.

There is a lot of weirdness for weirdness sake, for example in between Macy’s first person narrative there are excerpts from various source materials that narrate the history of this developing dystopia. Alternatively, some are vignettes that provide back story for members of Macy’s family. While some of these chapters are very effective at filling in gaps, or just providing interesting stories some, like one entitled ‘The Function of Dis-Ease, and How to Solve It’ are just plain out there. They don’t seem to serve a narrative purpose, but then looking for purpose and meaning in this novel is probably a mistake. Trying to analyse this book on symbolical terms has proved confusing and looking for coherent metaphors seems impossible. So maybe instead I should just be blunt and say that a few of these diversionary sections are dull. They don’t add to the fun or the sense of chaos of the novel, they don’t add to the narrative…They feel extraneous in a book that is built on the superfluous.

Even though I said the meaning behind the images in this book is hard to define there are threads of connection deep in the weirdness that suggest unifying themes. Macy’s father tells her a story about a man who saw the devil’s head in a diamond. Then when a man on board Macy’s ship catches the plague Macy sees images in his pustules, ‘a cathedral with a sun over it, the sun’s jagged rays falling on the cathedral’s roof; and a bird that mimicked his tattoo.’ Macy mentions her knowledge of weapons, gained from World of Warcraft several times and gaming seems to crop up occassionally. And the novel often makes satirical links between the forces of Scythians, Thracians and Imperials that seem instrumental in America’s break down and the European and American history of colonisation. If Deniro has a defining message that he wants to get across I can’t quite puzzle it out, but all the details and plot shrug along together narrated by Macy’s sardonic voice, creating an effect I’d call charming if there were a way to reconcile that word with the enthusiastically grizzly tone of some of the details (I quite enjoyed the originality behind some of the more intentionally disturbing moments).

Deniro’s unstructured weirdness feels familiar to me, but I can't place why. I've read a few weird fantasy books, but most of them are structured in their weirdness. The weirdness in most books feels like it has some kind of purpose and often feels like it's been placed strategically with the aim of achieving a particular effect (although some writers can go too far with that and the weirdness ends up feeling clunky and so obvious that it feels as if the book is jabbing you with a fork going 'look how kooky I am'). In 'Total Oblivion' the weird elements feel less tied together, more offcuts, sudden dawn inspirations that had to be written down before they disappeared. It's hard not to be enthusiastic about a writer who manages to blurt out such a sustained trail of originality, without detracting from the plot, or alienating readers.

'The Latte Rebellion' - Sarah Jamila Stevenson

2011-05-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

‘The Latte Rebellion’ by Sarah Jamila Stevenson is the latest contribution to an area of YA that I hope is going to grow and grow. In my short time of reading YA I’ve come across a few novels which focus on teenagers organising movements for social justice. Last year I read ‘The God Box’ and ‘The Mariposa Club’, where teenagers tried to form Gay Straight Alliances. I also read the outstanding novel ‘8th Grade Superzero’ by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, where young characters work out that they want to give back to the community and then mobilise to improve their world. I love novels about vampires with all my fantasy addicted heart, but I wouldn't mind seeing this branch of contemporary young adult fiction take off with the same kind of force that consistently pushes paranormal young adult novels into the bestseller lists.

At a pool party a racist remark, made by Roger Cho, the obnoxious head of the Asian Cultural Society, makes biracial students Asha and Carey decide to set up a club for biracial students at their school. Setting up the club seems like an easy way to fight against Roger’s ignorance and add some extra skills to the girls college applications, but it’s quickly blocked by Roger and the school administration.

Asha and Carey are outstanding students, focused on getting into college, but as school begins to come to an end they’re feeling the pressure to improve their chances of getting into college and at the same time, crave a little release. With a little inspiration from their favourite coffee drink they turn the club into a small business venture, by setting up a website called ‘The Latte Rebellion’ to sell t-shirts that show people’s support for the biracial community. The girls just have to do a little grass roots marketing and hide the money from their parents, so they can take an end of school bff trip to London.

Like ‘8th Grade Superzero’, ‘The Latte Rebellion’ acknowledges that movements like the rebellion don;t always begin because the organisers have saintly motives. Asha and Carey initially think of creating a club for biracial students because of a racist remark, but they really launch the rebellion as a vehicle to improve college applications and earn money for a holiday. Stevenson makes an important point with her choice of character: Asha isn’t some saintly, politically involved figure, but she goes on to become concerned about issues of social justice. As Asha gets more involved in co-ordinating the movement, she attends some political meetings at her cousin’s university, which encourage her to keep going. The movement grows and she comes to realise that the rebellion means a lot to biracial people, which crystallises what that the movement really does mean something to her. She illustrates that just because a teenager doesn’t keep a halo in a hatbox doesn’t mean they can’t come to feel that issues are genuinely important to them. By setting up a heroine who has to come to the realisation that campaigning for social justice is important Stevenson avoids making a book about teenagers ‘getting involved’ as worthy as that phrase suggests such books are.

Stevenson also slowly makes it clear that the effective results the rebellion achieves aren’t undermined, just because the rebellion has less than altruistic beginnings and again I think that’s a great point. Corporate social responsibility projects often have than charitable motives behind them, but if co-ordinated properly, they can do some good. However, I kept returning to the fact that Asha and Carey’s initial marketing is misleading, or at the very least exceptionally vague, using phrases like ‘In order for the Latte Rebellion to achieve its goal of spreading the word around the English-speaking world, consuming coffee at every turn, we must raise the necessary funds.’ to suggest that all the money raised would be used to further the cause of the rebellion. The rebellion isn’t a formalised cause, or charity, subject to laws about what the founders do with the money, so Asha doesn’t do anything illegal and in the middle of the book Asha does pledge all the money she doesn’t need for her holiday to the rebellion. Still, I was surprised that none of the new members, even asked Asha why she was using a chunk of supporters money for her own use. It’s an unexamined line that might have added complexity to the examination of co-ordinating a movement for change.

I enjoyed seeing The Latte Rebellion grow and change. I also found Asha’s emerging political conscience really convincing, especially as it emerges out of issues that directly impact her, for example when she learns that top colleges are not equipped to deal with applications from someone who identifies with more than one race. Unfortunately I wasn’t as convinced by other aspects of the story, such as the friendship between Asha, Carey and Miranda. At the very beginning of the book Asha and Carey’s relationship feels a strong, fun friendship and their conversations are full of familiarity and common feeling:

‘We both stuck our tongues out at each other. Then we put out our hands and wiggled our fingers together like we were playing “Chopsticks” on an imaginary piano, followed by putting our hand sover our heads and doing an Indian-style back-and-forth head motion. Then I went for a high five and accidentally hit her in the head because she thought it was the part where we shake hands. We broke out in shameless hysterics, which earned us some weird looks that I valiantly tried to ignore.’

As the novel develops the girls begin to have different priorities, which is fine, it’s interesting to see a novel which builds a main strand around the involved ups and down of a female friendship. What bothered me about the developments in Asha and Carey’s relationship was how fast the conflict came on and how quickly Carey dropped out of their friendship with very little explanation. The book doesn’t explore why Carey really feels threatened by the way the rebellion threatens to consume time, or why she steps away from Asha when their interests begin to diverge. The reader can make assumptions based on what we know of Carey’s life (she needs a scholarship to escape to college, she seems a little bit boy crazy and maybe gets involved with Leonard kind of fast) but there’s no chance to verify these assumptions, because the book doesn’t suggest any connections between Carey’s background and the way that her character acts over the course of this book. Her seriously negative reaction towards the growth of the rebellion doesn’t seem to have much reasoning behind it. She says she has to focus on her school work and that Asha should concentrate on hers, but without any reference to the background reasons that push Carey to be so concerned with grades, her words sound priggish and accusatory. Carey sounds like a bad friend and her drift from Asha comes across as a failing, rather than the result of logical, contextually appropriate reasoning.

Carey is in opposition to Asha throughout this book and Asha is the likeable protagonist, which makes Carey easy for the reader to dislike anyway, but the missing access to her reasoned decisions make it hard for the reader to do anything but judge their friendship as broken, long before she finally betrays Asha. I felt like this approach diminished the reality of Carey’s character and made her a simplistic character. Carey’s quick, unexplained split from Asha also made the girl’s friendship feel like it was based on shallow founding, that could be easily disrupted, when that’s exactly the opposite of the way Asha describes her past relationship with Carey. I don’t want to say that this one relationship acts as a comment on all female friendship ever, but I feel uneasy about this depiction of female friendship. I’m not that bothered that Stevenson presents a female friendship that fails, women’s friendships do break down and realistic literature needs negative relationships between women, just as it needs positive ones. It’s just, Stevenson’s creation of a female friendship that fails doesn’t contain all the complication I’d expect to see in the breakdown of a long standing teenage female friendship. Asha has explained how far back their friendship goes and how close they are in passages like:

‘We’d developed our secret handshake in sixth grade after being the only two new kids in our class, and now it was a tradition. I’d asked Carey over to my house that first week of school, and it turned out we both had protective parents, a secret and embarrassing love of old teen movies like The Breakfast Club and Dazed and Confused, and weekly cravings for pineapple pizza. We both had a silly streak, and we spent at least a monh refining our handshake. It was our first “master plan” in a way…but obviously not our last.’

that their separation is too simple and too unexplained for me to understand.

Maybe I’m overly focused on this one relationship. Asha’s friendships with other characters (male and female) aren’t exactly deeply explored, instead they act as a way of keeping Asha on track with the rebellion. This feels like a destination novel, rather than a journey novel, where the goal of the novel is to get the reader to the end for the emotional payoff of the conclusion where they’ll find out how the rebellion got out of hand and whether Asha will be expelled from school, because that’s the best bit. I don’t know if that makes sense, because obviously the goal of every novel is to keep the reader hooked so they want to find out what happens at the end, but ‘The Latte Rebellion’ feels like a book that is more focused on the end goal than on the developing lines that come up along the way. The plot drives the reader on with its plot structure, which switches back and forward from the past where the rebellion is just being created, to Asha’s current disciplinary hearing for charges of disruption and terrorist activity. The use of the unknown, threatening future event in the past narrative has the effect of pushing the reader through the pages to find out what necessitated Asha’s disciplinary hearing and increases the tension of the book.

This constant focus on the end didn’t agree with me at the time I picked up ‘The Latte Rebellion’, because I felt like I was being hussled from behind every step of the way, but that’s a totally mood-related thing. I’ve read novels that operate in the exact same way and loved them. I just wasn’t in the mood for that kind of style when I picked up this novel. It’s more important to look at whether this style worked for this particular story.

In my opinion it did and it didn’t. This focus on tense, forward pushing narrative style increases the excitement of the story. A feeling of extra jeopardy is introduced by the way the novel focuses so intently on the way the rebellion shapes Asha’s life. Readers are reminded by the way that the novel constantly refers back to the disciplinary hearing, that the conclusion of the novel is make or break for Asha. The feelings of tension and the reader’s worries about whether Asha will be expelled, transfer themselves nicely on to Asha’s worries about college, as two very stressful strands are explored close to each other (will Asha be expelled and Asha’s college rejections). ‘The Latte Rebellion’ provides an effective reminder of how pressurised teenage academic life can be and how it feels like there’s one chance to get everything right, or you’ll end up working a dead end job forever. However, the constant push of the main plot doesn’t compliment other strands of the novel, like the issues surrounding Carey and Asha’s friendship. This area of the novel in particular ends up feeling rushed and needs more space and time to be explored fully.

While I doubt ‘The Latte Rebellion’ is going to make the list when I choose my favourite books read in 2011 it was an entertaining, if rather shovey, reading experience that made me think more about teenage activism. Not every book is the love of your life, y’know, but not every failed romance is a waste of time either.

Other Reviews

Reading in Color
The Booksmugglers
Bookish Blather
An Armchair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy
The Happy Nappy Bookseller

'Fury of the Phoenix' - Cindy Pon

2011-05-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

At the end of my review for ‘Silver Phoenix’ I bemoaned the fact that there was probably going to be a ‘totally unnecessary sequel’ (I wrote my review before the white washing debate, which is when I learnt that ‘Fury of the Phoenix’ was going to exist). I remember thinking that the lack of detail that Cindy Pon provided about Zhong Ye and Silver Phoenix’s relationship, left this aspect of ‘Silver Phoenix’s’ plot feeling like an insubstantial after thought. When I read ‘Silver Phoenix’ I wondered where Ai Ling’s power came from. Then it turned out she’d been given the power by a goddess, so that she could end the life of a necromancer, who this goddess once loved, which is a fantastic, original idea. The problem was that this part of the book’s plot was dealt with so quickly it never felt fully realised. I assumed that if the author had put a bit more detail about this romantic relationship into ‘Silver Phoenix’ any sequel need not have existed. I assumed the sequel would feel a little thin and unnecessary.

You know that trite little saying about what happens when you assume...yeah, spot on. Lemme say it loud “I was wrong.” Ok, I still think that ‘Silver Phoenix’ needed to include more detail about Zhong Ye and Silver Phoenix’s to make their relationship feel emotionally real in the context of that book. However, the sequel, ‘Fury of the Phoenix’ is so much more than a weak spin off, add on. It is so fun and satisfying that I can’t imagine it not existing.

‘Fury of the Phoenix’ has two parallel storylines. Ai Ling hurries to board the ship Chen Yong is taking to Jiang Dao because she had a dream he’s in danger. And when I say hurries to board, I mean she engages a fisherman with the seafaring equivalent of ‘follow that taxi’, jumps from one vessel to another and grapples her way up the side of the deck. And just like in ‘Silver Phoenix’ Pon gives us a heroine who is determined, but at the same time is rather daunted by her task, as many of us would be if we had to jump from a boat and climb up the curved side of an effing, great ship, while it is moving:

‘With trembling arms, Ai Ling took agonizingly slow steps upward. The ship rocked across the sea, riding over a large wave so its bow slanted to the heavens. Ai Ling was flung backward and dangled helplessly, the sky filling her vision, then was bashed back into the ship’s side. Unable to breathe, she squatted like a bruised toad against the ship as it slammed down, and the water surged up to meet her. Focus. One hand over the other, then shuffling with her feet. The rough rope bit into her slick palms. The crew would disperse soon. She began to shake with the effort and bit her lip hard. She would get on board this ship or die trying.’

Realistic heroics are my favourite kind.

Ai Ling is swiftly found aboard. Actually she’s found rather too fast, which feels abrupt. The author needs to get Ai Ling into a particular situation quickly, so she has her discovered by chance as soon as Ai Ling boards the ship. This sudden discovery undermines the tension of the whole boarding episode, as that scene set the reader up to become invested in the drama of Ai Ling’s attempt to aid Chen Yong secretly and then ends the tension so hastily.

When Ai Ling is found so quickly by a crew member and taken to the Captain without much drama, the boarding scene feels like wasted effort, like Ai Ling has already failed so soon after spending so much time stealthily getting on the ship. I was left feeling a little flat and a tad resentful that Pon hadn’t found a more natural feeling way to get her heroine where she needed to be for the plot to continue.

However, after Ai Ling is found, her storyline becomes so quietly fascinating. Her travels this time are much less monster filled and dangerous than they were in ‘Silver Phoenix’, although Pon still includes one very cool shipboard battle with some Sea Shifters. Instead Ai Ling spends time training in a martial art called shuen, dealing with her feelings for Chen Yong and making new friends on the ship. And all this is taking part on a ship, which is fabulous. Ship board is a setting that means characters can’t escape from one another so resentments, or loving feelings inescapably bubble to the surface leading to a big emotional payoff for a reader like me. And all the time that Ai Ling is engaged in this almost commonplace, but fascinating ship life she has the feeling that there are memories in her head that aren’t her own, but she doesn’t quite know what to do about them. Pon weaves contemporary and fantasy together without one element taking over the book. By balancing the dynamic, fantasy conflicts and more active plot points with more scenes of quieter downtime, she creates a novel that feels much more comfortable in its pacing, world building and structure than ‘Silver Phoenix’, which was at times so enthusiastic to show off fantastical ideas that it neglected the basic underpinnings of its story.

As Ai Ling struggles with strange memories aboard ship the novel also follow a second historical storyline. The second storyline shows Zhong Ye, the villainous necromancer from ‘Silver Phoenix’ as a nineteen year old eunuch, who wants to increase his standing with the Emperor. To do so he must find a courtesan who can give the Emperor another son. He selects the young Mai Ling, whose lady in waiting is the beautiful former song girl (prostitute) Silver Phoenix. Slowly, as Zhong Ye advances Mai Ling’s interests, he and Silver Phoenix fall in love. Their growing affection for each other is tender and believable. Oh, how I wanted them to be happy, but sadly I already knew how their lives turn out because I’d read ‘Silver Phoneix’.

The real proof of Pon’s skill is that she almost makes the reader forget about the fate of these two lovers. She situates the reader so firmly in the present, by concentrating on humanising both her characters and focusing the reader on their feelings. It’s hard to feel the connection between Zhong Ye, the evil, obsessed character in ‘Silver Phoenix’ and the Zhong Ye of the sequel, because they’re so different and this Zhong Ye is such a simple, yet engaging character. The third person narrative supplies a high level of detail character detail, by describing his past, his ambitions, his feelings and by showing him interacting with characters in a personal way:

‘He grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips. “I never made a good farm boy.” She smiled, but he suddenly couldn’t return it. He had meant it in jest, but it was a poor joke. His throat closed and he glanced away.

“What’s wrong?”

“I ran away when I was eleven years. Worked, studied, apprenticed, became a palace eunuch.” He waved a hand. “All of this. So I could become better than a farmer and give my mother what she deserved in life.”

“You’re a filial son,” she said.

“Am I? Perhaps what they needed more was for me to be there to plow the fields.” He tried to picture his mother’s face. “I send coin back each month, but not letters. No one can read them.” He could remember only his mother’s eyes, light brown as a walnut shell. “I just wanted to escape. I haven’t seen them in seven years.”

Silver Phoenix bent over him, cupping his face with a cool hand. “We have each other now.” '

The humanisation of Zhong Ye’s character makes it easy for the reader to like him and later when that feeling has been comprimised by his misdeeds, to empathise with him.

That’s not to say that Zhong Ye is a tragic innocent, brought down by circumstances. He’s interested in status; in fact that’s why he became a eunuch (although his greedy interest in status is tempered by the fact that he sends money to his poor family). His desire to rise higher brings him into contact with a foreign alchemist who claims he can grant the Emperor immortal life and this contact sets Zhong Ye on to the evil path that leads to his fate in ‘Silver Phoneix’.

What is so interesting about Zhong Ye’s fall is that even as he loses his soul and becomes a bad person who will kill to extend his own life, his character never degenerates into a monster. Pon could have to make it easy for her readers to hate Zhong Ye, as she does in ‘Silver Phoenix’, but Pon keeps the reader focused on the positive aspects of his personality. His love for Silver Phoenix continues to exist in a pure form and it’s hard not to sympathise with him through his troubles, although it’s obvious that he is being corrupted by alchemy, power and self-interest.

Personally I prefer ‘Fury of the Phoenix’, to ‘Silver Phoenix’ because it feels much more assured, like a second novel by a writer who has really worked on improving their craft. I’m especially glad that I think the repeated word use that I found so annoying in ‘Silver Phoenix’ has disappeared. Pon makes the more complex dual storyline format work for her novel, when it’s a hard structure to get right. Neither of the storylines is ‘the dull one’ that readers will flip through to get to the one that is more interesting and the switches between stories felt like they came at the right point without leaving huge cliff hangers, or unnatural shifts. There are still some odd plotting blips in this book that seem to rely on the reader to unnecessarily suspend their disbelief, when reasoned plot development could have been included to make these moments seem more organically created, for example Ai Ling knows just where to find something of Zhong Ye’s at the end of the book without being told where it was.

‘Fury of the Phoenix’ could be described as a more conventional book than ‘Silver Phoenix’, with its romance and its dual plot line. Sure it has a heroine who battles demons, gets possessed and makes a trip into the underworld (which is vividly described and I can still see images like ‘the wide river of molton lava’ and ‘the warren of endless catacombs, a wasp’s nest hewn from rock.’ in my minds eye) which seem to argue against it being conventional. However, compared to ‘Silver Phoenix’ which is so focused on Ai Ling’s physical and emotional journey the concentration on romance in ‘Fury of the Phoenix’ seems traditional and less subversive than a story of a girl stabbing monsters. I feel obliged to explain that it still doesn’t feel traditional at all when you’re reading it, it’s just more quietly subversive than ‘Silver Phoenix’. We still see Ai Ling eating and solidly doing what needs to be done while being aware of the dangers she faces, it’s just that she’s in love while she gets on with the rest of her life. And there’s this respect between both members of each couples, as well as a joy in their partners when they eventually get together that is charming to see, for example when Zhong Ye walks on his hands around Silver Phoenix. Sensible, secure love doesn’t sound very exciting, but somehow these two couples make it just as interesting to watch as an tortured relationship. Likewise being compassionate to your enemy doesn’t sound as exciting as vanquishing them with balls of fire, but the part where Ai Ling meets Zhong Ye again is full of intriguing emotions:

‘ “The demons are keeping score,” he said with a wry smile, not bothering to glance up. “I’m losing.”

He was glad to see her, she could sense his pleasure. It only terrified her more.’

I’ll leave you with that and a recommendation to read both ‘Silver Phoenix’ and ‘Fury of the Phoenix’ close together, so that you can see the comparison between the special powers of both books.

Other Reviews

Reading in Color

Nerds Heart YA 2011 - Short-list

2011-05-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

This week is a young adult week at 'Bookgazing' as I've got two reviews of YA novels scheduled this week and a big YA announcement to make. Today I'm presenting the full short-lit, for the Nerds Heart YA 2011 tournament!

The specialist consultants have completed the tough job of narrowing down the nominations for the 2011 Nerds Heart YA tournament (thanks so much consultants, I really appreciate you taking the time to help out).

In alphabetical order here’s our Nerds Heart YA short-list for 2011:

'A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Frind' – Emily Horner
'Abe in Arms' - Pegi Dietz Shea
'Bamboo People' - Mitali Perkins
'Bleeding Violet' – Dia Reeves
'Dark Water' - Laura McNeal
'Dirty Little Secrets' – CJ Omololu
'Efrain’s Secret' – Sofia Quintero
'Eighth Grade Superzero' – Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
'Finding Family' – Tonya Bolden
'Five Flavors of Dumb' – Antony John
'How I Made it to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story' – Tracy White
'Invisible Girl' – Mary Hanlon Stone
'Jumpstart the World' – Catherine Ryan Hyde
'Last Summer of the Death Warriors' – Francisco Stork
'Mindblind' – Jennifer Roy
'Paper Daughter' – Jeannette Ingold
'Premiere' – Melody Carlson
'Pull' – B. A. Binns
'Stargazer' – Von Allan
'Stringz' – Michael Wenberg
'Summer Song' – Louise Blaydon
'Tall Story' – Candy Gourlay
'Teenie' – Christopher Grant
'Tell Us We’re Home' – Marina Budhos
'The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin' – Josh Berk
'The End: five Queer Kids Save the World' – Nora Olsen
'The Kid Table' – Andrea Seigel
'The Red Umbrella' – Christina Gonzalez
'Toads and Diamonds' – Heather Tomlinson
'What Momma Left Me' – Renee Watson
'When The Stars Go Blue' – Caridad Ferrer
'Where the Truth Lies' – Jessica Warman

The tournament schedule is as follows:

First round: 13th June – 29th June
Second round: 11th July – 27th July
Third round: 1st August – 7th August
Fourth round: 22nd August – 24th August
Final: 12 September

And we'll have a graphical representation of the brackets up as soon as possible (edited to say 'and here it is'. Don't forget to follow our Twitter feed to keep up to date with what's going on.

We're also looking for some bloggers to interview a few of the authors who have been nominated. If you're interested please email nerdsheartya at gmail dot com and title your email 'Interview Interest'.

So what do you think of the short-list? Are you excited about Nerds Heart YA 2011?

Red Riding Hood

2011-05-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

In 'Red Rding Hood', a recent adaptation of the 'Little Red Riding Hood' story Valerie is the girl who will come to possess the famous red cape. She has always tried to be good, or so her voiceover tells us), but from the very first scene she is tempted from her duty by a hunting trip with her friend Peter. Peter grows up to be a humble woodcutter (important!) who Valerie loves very much. Sadly Valerie’s parents want more for her than a life as a wood cutters wife and betroth her to Henry, the son of a wealthier metal worker. Alas, alack Valerie loves Peter (who I was cheering for, because a romantic hero called Peter in a werewolf film, that is some meta-coolness right there).

This troubled love triangle takes place in a village that must constantly placate a wolf with animal sacrifices. The wolf hasn’t killed a human in a long time, but just as the film opens Valerie’s sister Lucy is found dead. The wolf seems to be linked to Valerie in some way and she spends most of the film trying to keep from being taken, without letting the wolf destroy her village, while the audience attempts to work out who could be the wolf.

I heard rumours that 'Red Riding Hood' was a feminist retelling, which tweaked my curiosity. One feminist reading of the original 'Little Red Riding Hood' is that the story warns young women of the dangers of straying from the path and exploring the world for themselves. The film gestures towards this reading of 'Little Red Riding Hood', by making the wolf a hindrance to women’s unsanctioned sexual exploration. At the beginning of the film Peter and Valerie are making out in the woods, only to be interrupted by the warning horn that signals that the wolf has killed again. They return from the woods and find out that Valerie’s sister has been killed by the wolf. Characters initially assume that Lucie may have been killed because she snuck out to meet Henry on a wolf night. Both of these characters are exploring romantic partners outside their parents sanctioned choices and have stepped outside the bounds of their parents village.

'Red Riding Hood' made me think hard about how I identify a piece of media as feminist. How do I interpret work as feminist? How important is my knowledge of the creator’s intent? I feel like there’s feminist intent behind this film, attempting to make it a film that deliberately pushes a feminist message. However, I also think my feelings are mostly based on flimsy moments in the source that could easily be interpreted as simple reiterations of anti-female messages. In the scenes I described above the film is restating the original symbol of the wolf as a warning against the dangers of women straying from their sanctioned lives. Valerie kisses Peter and the wolf horn sounds. Lucie possibly goes to meet a boy and the wolf kills her. This restatement of the original fairytales message that responding to unsanctioned sexual interest can lead to danger, does not make the film an explicit feminist interpretation of the story. The original tales of 'Little Red Riding Hood' contain the same themes and I don’t think many would argue that these themes make it a text with a deliberate feminist intent.

The meaning behind these moments was never explicitly clarified. No one ever comes out and says ‘Using a wolf to represent a warning to women against exploring sexuality is creepy wrong’ so, why do I interpret them as moments created out of feminist intent? Why did I see them almost as wink to camera moments and think of the director Catherine Hardwicke raising her eyebrow, pointing and mouthing ‘See the messed up anti-female bias in the original story’? Maybe I identified them as feminist because reviews had told me to expect to find a feminist slant in this film. Maybe I reinterpreted these moments in light of later, clearer feminist commentary about the uncomfortable link between imprisoning women and protecting them from wolf shaped danger. Or maybe I saw them as feminist moments, because Valerie and Peter clearly express the happy, cheerful side of their attraction to each other. I guess my assumption is that if a film includes characters who are free to express happy feelings of sexual interest, any moments that speak of sexual interest being punished by a wolf, must be included as knowing commentary? Like I said I’m concerned that this is flimsy reasoning, which relies too much on my interpretation of the films intent. And as we all know interpreting sources based on assumptions about intent is a dodgy business. I will think on and see if I can identify anything more concrete that makes me interpret these moments as feminist.

Whatever led me to see these moments of cloudy meaning as pointed feminist commentary, some kind of explicit feminist commentary needed to appear to convince me that this film was a feminist piece of media. The most effective moment of commentary comes when Gary Oldman’s character, Father Solomon, arrives to hunt the wolf. His small daughters venture out of from his heavily armoured carriage, crying and shaking. They ask if the wolf he seeks here is the one that killed their mother. Father Solomon says it might be, then bundles the girls into the carriage. They are driven away to a mysterious location while they sob and peer out from a barred grill. The shot of them being driven away is a strangely chilling moment. It also allows the film to allude to ideas that men sometimes imprison their daughters under the guise of protecting them, which subtly comments on Little Red Riding Hood’s function as a warning tale.

Father Solomon quickly reveals himself as a villain, who the audience should despise, by contradicting widely held modern sensibilities, for example by accusing a boy of being a werewolf because he is disabled. If anyone wasn’t freaked out enough by the idea of a father locking his daughters in a constantly moving jail for their own safety (I mean that pretty much had me screaming SCARY VILLIAN in my mind) the other grounds that establish him as a villain suggest that all his actions, including his attempts to protect his daughters, should be viewed as suspect. This scene acts as explicit commentary on wider ideas about male protection of the female, specifically fathers’ attempts to control their daughters lives, which the ending of the film ties into nicely.

The theme of fathers controlling daughters and the metaphor of wolves representing overly protective fathers is the best developed strand of feminist commentary in this film. Sadly, that isn’t exactly saying much. The theme is not sustained, or really referenced, very often in the film after Father Solomon’s scene with his daughters. The viewer has to wait until the end for a really strong return to the theme of fatherly control. And yet it is still the most well developed feminist thread in this film. Red Riding Hood is scattered in its presentation of feminist critique and doesn’t quite know what it wants to comment on. At first it seems to want to pick away at the anti-female aspects of the original tale. Then it switches and tries to provide a wider criticism of historical attitudes towards women, as Valerie is unwillingly betrothed to Henry. Father Solomon says he found out his wife was a werewolf and killed her, so surely the film then switches to criticism of husbands who…I dunno, kill their wolfed out wives and metaphorically clamp down on their wives abhorrent wolfish sexuality? The line of feminist investigation is all over the place.

It’s like the film knows it wants to be feminist and it knows about a range of feminist issues that could be addressed in an adaptation of 'Little Red Riding Hood', but it panics - there’s too much feminist correction to be done, it feels overwhelmed and it tries to take too much patriarchy on at once. There are flares of successful commentary, like the scene with Father Solomon’s daughters, but the feminist critique isn’t shaped into a satisfying, sustained narrative line. I was left with muddled ideas about what the film achieved in terms of feminist commentary and I feel unable to point to many specific parts of the film which are effective pieces of feminist examination. The ending brought the feminist angle to the front of the story again as a villain walked through the ways that the wolf’s killing was been full of punishments for deviant female sexuality. Valerie defeats the wolf, dressed in her red cloak which is an obvious ‘I am woman, see me stab’ moment. However, I felt that although the ending makes 'Red Riding Hood’s' feminist intent clearer, it isn’t enough to shape the film into an effective piece of feminist media.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy some aspects of this film. I might be the only one, judging from other net chatter, but I genuinely didn’t know who was going to turn out to be the werewolf. The misdirection of the film worked really well for me and I followed it willingly as it suggested that Peter, Valerie’s grandmother and the young priest could each be the werewolf. I even suspected Father Solomon for a while. It’s a shame though that the film doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity to offer different kinds of feminist critique as each new person is framed as a potential wolf. The symbol of the wolf could potentially change its meaning depending on which character is thought to be the wolf. The film focuses on the entertaining mystery aspect of the town’s uncertainty rather making explicit reference to the symbolic chances provided by the changing accusations.

But perhaps it’s a mistake to focus mostly on the story’s symbolism and themes. As kind of a hot, action thriller 'Red Riding Hood' is quite a fun romp. As I said, the mystery element is intriguing. It’s also sexily shot. I watched the trailers and there is something alluring about the snow, flowing red capes and dark woods . It’s a classic combination, designed to tap sensual indicators set up by a lot of old stories and cultural ideas I guess. It certainly worked on me. And there’s a lusty 12A hot edge to certain scenes, especially one where the village dances because it thinks it has defeated the wolf. I’m very fond of Amanda Seyfriend since her appearances in ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘Veronica Mars’, so it was nice to see her reappear...

'Red Riding Hood' is definitely not the worst film I’ve ever seen ('Varsity Blues') or even the worst film I’ve seen all year ('The Adjustment Bureau') and I feel a little unfair summing up all it’s good qualities in such a short paragraph. Unfortunately, it’s undeniable that there’s more bad than good in this film and to say the good points go any deeper that surface appearances would be to skew the truth. It’s a sexy, adventure romp with a strong gothic violence vibe that trips daintily along the line between darkly sexy and genuinely uncomfortable (personally I think the scene near the end where Valerie is forced to wear a stylised iron wolf mask is disturbingly fascinating). It includes a feminist focus, even if that focus is all over the place. It’s a paranormal romance film where the female lead is be allowed to kiss a guy without HEAPINGS OF SHAME being piled upon her head. I would watch it again if I were to find it while idly flicking through channels.

A few comments on some of the weirder stuff found in 'Red Riding Hood':

The romantic love triangle in this film is made of fail from the very beginning. There’s a total lack of romantic chemistry between either of the two male leads and Valerie. Henry is just so incredibly meh, even his hair cut is apathetic. There’s never any real tension about who Valerie will end up with, so why include a love triangle? Answer: because someone spent a whole meeting boring on about how love triangles are hot right now, until everyone in the room caved or head desked themselves to death.

There’s a pretty lusty vibe between Peter and Valerie, but I couldn’t see any deeper romantic feeling between the two of them. I have no problem with characters whose relationship is entirely about sexual attraction, but this film asks me to believe that Peter and Valarie are the kind of loved up couple who could weather paranormal tests and forced betrothals. I believed they were hot for each other and having a great time, but I didn’t really see any especially convincing emotional connection between them.

Suzette, Valerie’s mother’s costume and makeup is zupped up to the max, in comparison with all the other actresses. I’m not sure if her corseted, brightly coloured outfit and flawless foundation was an attempt at some kind of weird feminist commentary (we find out she’s had an affair, maybe the emphasis on her overtly sexy appearance was meant to reflect her status as a woman of unsanctioned sexuality). If her appearance was intended as commentary it was stupid (as stupid as having British actors speak with American accents while playing Roman soldiers in ‘The Eagle’). If it wasn’t, her costuming and makeup were bizarre in the context of this film.

Father Solomon arrives in his ominous armoured coach and his guards step out, all wearing helmets. They remove their helmets and…they’re all black, or Asian. Right from the get go, the audience understand that he is a villain, because he’s accompanied by a guard force whose members are positioned as strange, ‘exotic’ and threatening partly because of the fact of their race. They make the villagers gasp. Black and Asian men would have been scarily unfamiliar and threatening to them right? I mean, maybe, I don’t really know enough about Russian ethnic history to comment, but whatever, that’s not really the point. The point is that Red Riding Hood is another film that associates particular racial groups with evil, menace and unfamiliarity. It misuses (probably) historically plausible attitudes to justify including a serious modern racial bias that we see reoccurring throughout the film industry. Please make this kind of thing go away.

Personally I find it annoying that a disabled character was included in this film, just so that he could be killed. Plod (yes, I know, maybe the villagers would give him a derogatory nickname, but perhaps the viewer could also have been told his real name just the one time) He isn’t given any back story or characterisation. Then he’s suspected of being the wolf, because he’s disabled and likes card tricks, so Father Solomon has him killed. It’s contextually realistic for Father Solomon to think a disabled person could be in league with the devil, but Plod needs to have some kind of substantial characterisation. His disability should not be just a plot point, which allows Father Solomon to kill him and show a modern audience how unhinged he is. I’m not sure I’m explaining this very well, but I definitely feel like everyone involved in this film needed to think harder about the inclusion of Plod.

Reading the ending with a feminist head on and looking for consistency in the symbolism creates a problem. Peter is bitten by the wolf and turns into a werewolf. He goes away for a while until he can learn to control himself. Then he returns, to continue his romance with Valerie. Well looking at that symbolically it gets all kinds of messy (and I’d probably spoil the ending if I explained why). I suspect we’re supposed to view Peter returning to Valerie’s arms as a wolf, as Valerie embracing her sexuality…Meh, I want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it feels dodgy to me. This was the only moment in the film where I was suddenly struck by the incongruity of the director of a Twilight film ( part of one of the most anti-feminist teen franchises in the last five years) directing a feminist remake.

So, it’s another case where I quite enjoyed a film that was a bit silly and found plenty of fodder to roll round my brain. At the same time there were some parts that would make me uncomfortable talking about this film as just a silly romp, with a few theatrical problems, so you got this long post. I hope you found something of use here (and now off to try and get some book reviews written up, before my weekend disappears under a friend’s birthday celebration).

May Reading: Striking a Deal

2011-05-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

This month I made a deal with my mum that I would mostly read books from her bookshelves.

The situation: She buys really interesting books. I keep saying ‘Oh I want to read that too’.

The problems:

1.) She’s a much faster reader than me.
2.) Before the book buying ban I would keep buying myself new books and reading those before reading her books.
There are now about 30 (alright maybe more like 50) books on her shelves that she could send off to the charity shop, or sell online if only I would read them.

The solution: Pick some books and read them before she puts me out of the house for being a worthless daughter. Simples.

The picks: I generally read about six or seven books a month, so I’ve selected six that I’m going to try to read, with the caveat that I can change my mind at any time.

‘Iceland’ – Besty Tobin: This is actually one of her library books, so it won’t clear any space on the shelves, but it was a random library find and I’ll probably forget all about it if I don’t read it now. It’s a retelling of a Norse legend set in 1000AD, which is good because I quite fancy reading about early history right now.

‘Snowdrops’ – A D Miller: This novel is supposed to be a literary twist on the crime novel which could be good, or very bad. Some of the greatest surprises come when literary writers show an interest in genre, but some of the very worst example of high handed ‘genre fixing’ turn up as well. Cross your fingers I get all the good stuff.

‘The Street Philosopher’ – Matthew Plampin: Even though I’m not a great fan of the Victorians (I know, I should leave Britain immediately) I the Crimean war fascinating.

‘Nemesis’ – Lyndsey Davis: The blurb for the latest Falco mystery sent me into such a panic over who might be dead that I flipped through the first couple of pages to reassure myself. I am reassured and I can read on in one of my favourite series.

‘Ruby’s Spoon’ – Anna Lawrence Pietroni: A well reviewed fantasy by a Birmingham based author that I’ve been meaning to read since it came out.

‘A Fine Balance’Balance’ – Rohinton Mistry: At least two celebs brought this to Anne Robinson’s recent show ‘A Life in Books’ and one said it was the best book he’d ever read.

I'll also be reading a fantasy book with Jeanne, (we'll be talking about that book together this month and I am so excited about that exchange). So that’s what I’ll be reading this month, though don't expect to see reviews of these for a while as I've got about a month's worth of other reviews that need writing and sharing first. Does anyone want to praise up any of the books on the list, or suggest what I should start with?

The Guys Lit Wire Book Fair - 2011

2011-05-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

Important news: The Guys Lit Wire team have opened up the wish list for their third annual Book Fair.

Every year Guys Lit Wire asks book lovers everywhere to help them donate books to teenagers that just do not have the literary resources a lot of us grew up with. In its first year they bought books to make a library for young offenders and last year they sent books to two under privileged schools and hopefully those books. This year they’re supporting a school in Washington which has just one book for every student in the school. Yeah...

You can see the size of their library in a video that one member of staff made, when she decided to actively ask for help stocking the library. I probably have more books in my house than they do in their school. One of the organisers, Coleen at Chasing Ray, explains why this school was chosen if you need any more information.

GLW have put together an online wish list at Powells, with input from members of the school that will benefit. If you have a little bit of money available this month and you think you might want to purchase a book, or two off the wish list I know this school would appreciate it.

The wish list will be open until May 13th 2011 and it has tons of cool title on it. All the instructions on how to donate can be found in the introduction post.

I made my donation last night. Just a note: Trying to use the check out with Paypal option proved so difficult that I just used the regular Checkout button. Turns out Powells will let you pay with Paypal through that option any way when you get to the payment tab.

'Demonglass' - Rachel Hawkins

2011-05-01T23:30:00.000-07:00

When Sophie Mercer first arrived at Hex Hall, the magical borstal for delinquent members of magical Prodigium society, she felt like her mixed parentage and her father’s status set her uncomfortably apart from the other pupils. Her mother is human, her father is a witch, whereas her classmates all come from two magical parents. Her father is Head of the Prodigium Council, so people initially mistrusted, her even though she’d never had much contact with her dad. By the end of ‘Hex Hall’, the first book in Rachel Hawkins debut trilogy, Sophie found out that there was another secret difference between the Mercer family and all the other Prodigium. Her father is one of the last demons in existence. He is descended by birth from the spirit of an angel who fought on Lucifer’s side before the Fall and his heritage is a closely guarded secret among the other members of the council. Sophie’s magical powers are demonic, just like the powers of her crazy ass great grandmother Alice who rose from the dead in ‘Hex Hall’ and killed some of Sophie’s classmates.

Sophie wants to have her demonic powers removed so she can never hurt anyone like Alice did and as ‘Demonglass’ opens (with a scene nicely balanced between comedy and peril) she’s waiting for her absent father to summon her to see the council in England. As going through the Removal can potentially kill Prodigium everyone who loves Sophie is against her decision. Her father asks Sophie to spend some time learning about demons in England while they get to know each other better. So, she flies to England taking her vampire roommate Jenna and her strong, silent, ‘ever so dreamy’ caretaker friend Cal, for support.

When she arrives at Thorne Hall, the new headquarters of the council, Sophie discovers she and her dad are not the only demons in the village. Someone is raising new demons to use as potential weapons against Prodigium’s enemies, L’Occhio di Dio (The Eye). That’s not all Sophie has to deal with. Archer, Sophie’s crush who turned out to be a covert member of the The Eye, may be in England. And, oh yeah, she and Cal are betrothed - sixteenth century style. Those damn Americans bringing hilarity, deadly mayhem and romantic angst into our sedate isle.
It’s obvious that there’s a lot that readers need to know about the events from ‘Hex Hall’ to understand ‘Demonglass’. It’s not the kind of second book that can be read as a standalone novel. I have a really bad memory for plots and names, so I want the next book in any series (if it can’t be read as a standalone book) to refresh my memory of events without making me feel that the author would like to throw copies of the previous book at me in a dodge ball style book barrage. Although there is a lot of detail the reader needs to be reminded of, character and event reminders are brought up too fast, as Sophie recaps characters and events from ‘Hex Hall’. In just the first three pages she reminds us that Cal ‘was the schools groundskeeper even though he was only nineteen’, that ‘by the end of last term I’d watched my great-grandmother kill my best frenemy, and the boy I loved had pulled a knife on me.’ and ‘I hadn’t had a dream last night that re-created in vivid detail the one kiss Archer and I shared last November. Only, in the dream, here was no tattoo on his chest, marking him as a member of L’Occhio di Dio…’. However Hawkins manages to merge frequent reminders and clarification of what happened in ‘Hex Hall’ into the rest of the novel without slapping her readers over the head with her previous book, so overall I recommend this as a series that people with memory issues can read as it’s being published. You don’t have to wait until all the books come out and read them back to back to keep from forgetting what happened in each novel.

In ‘Demonglass’ Sophie continues to narrate in the same delightfully snarky tone she uses in ‘Hex Hall’. One of the best things about this trilogy is how integral Sophie’s narrative voice feels to Hawkins telling of the story. ‘Demonglass’ is written in a way that almost precludes my imagining it written in any other way and because it’s so much fun to read Sophie’s account in her snarky, first person voice that she almost is the ‘Hex Hall’ books. To think about them being written in any other way (third person, from another pov) automatically makes me think of those other options as ‘the wrong way’ for these books, even though the story of a magical correctional school written in say, third person would have probably been just as interesting. What Hawkins has achieved is to create a narrative voice that feels like the optimal way for this particular story to be presented to the reader. It’s the only way, I want to see this story written and it’s rare for me to not be thinking about how fun it might be to hear a book written from another point of view.

I also like how the comedic way Hawkins writes creates such a distinct, natural narrative voice for Sophie. The sarcastic lines seem to come from her as naturally as breath and Hawkins has created a heroine whose cynical confidence is entirely believable. Hawkins comedy writing is crafted to avoid snags that might disrupt the flow of the humour and cause the reader to question if Sophie’s constant whipping comments are part of her real persona. The comedic scenes never feel contrived, because Hawkins writes them so well. By writing such a clean, genuinely funny, sarcastic voice Hawkins has believably established Sophie as a character who describes her whole world as if it is always ripe for sarcastic commentary, so it never feels unnatural to see a comedic set piece appear in Sophie’s description of an event. Hawkins has created a positive, circular situation where because she writes comedy so well Sophie’s sarcastic voice sounds natural and because Sophie’s sarcastic voice sounds so believable readers find Hawkins comedic writing as being well created.

‘Demonglass’ is fun just like ‘Hex Hall’ was, but there’s a weightier feel to this second book. It feels like more is at stake, probably because the reader knows that the things happening around Sophie in this book will directly affect her. In ‘Hex Hall’ the attacks on girls she sort of knows happen around Sophie and she is aware that The Eye’s members attack Prodigium, but she never fully feels that these things may be linked to her life. By the end of ‘Hex Hall’ Sophie knows the attacks are all to do with her and The Eye is actively trying to harm her. So, in ‘Demonglass’ the reader is more keenly aware that Sophie is at the centre of the story, surrounded by potentially harmful forces.

There are also more emotional conflicts in ‘Demonglass’, which add to the complexity of the relationships between characters. ‘Hex Hall’ is a pretty straightforward novel in terms of the relationships it presents: Sophie makes friends, has enemies, meets a cute boy and is in contact with her mother who she’s pretty close with. In ‘Demonglass’ her relationships with Jenna and Cal become more conflicted, her main parental contact is with her dad who barely ever contacts her and it’s harder for Sophie to identify her enemies. She’s operating in general a state of mistrust, as at the end of the last book she found out her parents and Archer had seriously lied to her. While she is still quick witted and bouncy in general, many of her decisions are now based on the lessons she has learnt about trust from other people. As Jenna says ‘Sophie’s spent the last sixteen years of her life having people lie to her’ which makes it hard for her to trust people, or to ask them to tell her the truth. Sophie’s desire to make sensible decisions and avoid being conned again often wars with her romantic inclinations, as Archer, the demon hunting love of her life is not a sensible romantic choice. Again this sense of internal conflict adds complexity and interest to ‘Demonglass’.

Just a note about the romantic developments in ‘Demonglass’. Personally I have written Cal off as a viable love interest, even though he and Sophie seem to be developing hot, nice to watch chemistry. As soon as I learnt about the arranged marriage, I decided the lovely Cal would be better off with someone else. The arranged marriages between Prodigium families sound as if they are set up solely by male members of the families and are used to strengthen these men’s allegiances. Cal agrees to the match (notice that he is consulted about the match while Sophie only learns about it in this novel and the reader can probably think of lots of logical reasons why her parents never mention the bargain, but it’s still kind of weird behaviour on their part) because he thinks he and Sophie would make a good pair from what he hears about her, not because he is actively invested in patriarchal dominance. There’s genuine feeling between them in ‘Demonglass’. At the same time it is unsettling that Cal would consent to this match and to the way no one tells Sophie about the arrangement. Hawkins comes up with plausible reasons to explain why Cal never told Sophie about the match and readers can take into account Cal’s self-contained personality that keeps him from saying much to Sophie at the best of times if they need further reasons for his silence. Still, his involvement in what is essentially a marriage deal that his fiancé is unaware of, disturbs my idea of Cal as the noble, selfless hero character that Hawkins presents him as. If Cal and Sophie get together I feel like their relationship would validate Prodigium’s patriarchal social convention: ‘Oh well it worked out fine, no need to think about how male controlled the system of arranging marriages is when it appears in this world’. Just to clarify: I don’t mean to make a statement about all arranged marriages in the real world, just the way arranged marriages work in ‘Demonglass’.

Then again Hawkins might find a way to seriously critique the system while showing a positive individual romance springing between Sophie and Cal. She clearly shows Sophie being opposed to an arranged marriage in ‘Demonglass’, so I’ve no reason to think that she couldn’t pull off critique of arranged marriage and romance. I’ve said before that sometimes in series you have to put a bit of trust in authors that they’ll work out some of the kinks you don’t like in future books and I’m essentially making guesses about something I can’t know, so I will put faith in Hawkins skills and await the results of the love triangle in the final book. I continue to be in the part of Sophie’s cheering section that wants it all to work out with Archer.

So, I look forward to the final book of the trilogy and to finding out who is still alive. The end of ‘Demonglass’ is the cruellest cliff hanger known to humanity, as it places all the main characters in England in proximity of immediate death (apart from Sophie, what would be the point of a cliff hanger like that – she is a first person narrator). It seems likely that at least one person will die forever (really do not want it to be Jenna, not fussed if it’s Sophie’s dad). The last book is not even available for pre-ordering yet. I’m just saying, proceed with caution those of you with cliff hanger issues.

Other Reviews

Bookshelves of Doom

'Orphans of Eldorado' - Milton Hatoum

2011-04-27T23:30:00.000-07:00

Milton Hatoum’s ‘Orphans of Eldorado’, a book I picked up at random this weekend, turned out to fit Carl’s ‘Once Upon a Time Challenge’ perfectly, so I’m counting it as my first read on The Journey. How nice when your reading synchronises with your challenges all by itself.

Hatoum’s novella is part of the Canongate myths series and seems to promise to tell the story of Eldorado. Picture me imagining explorers dashing through cities of gold and humming the ‘Where is Carmen Miranda’ theme tune. What the book actually does is spin a sort of unrelated story around the Brazilian legend of The Enchanted City. The afterword explains that the myth of Eldorado may just be the Spanish conquistadors interpretation of the Enchanted City, as the myth (like many myths, legend and fairytales) has many versions and interpretations.

When I say ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ talks around this myth, I mean it goes way around until the story of the Enchanted City is way in the distance. It’s only very late on in the book that the narrator, Arminto Cordovil, reaches anything that approaches a hidden or, enchanted city. The rest of the book is spent following Arminto’s fall in fortunes, as he pursues a mysterious girl from the local convent and neglects the rubber business his father left him. References to the Enchanted City of myth, submerged beneath the sea appear sporadically through Arminto’s tale, but the real focus is on his desperate search for the mysterious girl Dinaura who may, or may not have run away to the Enchanted City.

The writing is full of description of every day life, but has almost a dead pan, emotionless tone and a rigorous pace that marches you ever onward to the next common place detail:

‘Talita looked after the garden and cleaned the stone centrepiece of the fountain. It was in the shape of my mothers head; Amando had had it made after she died. From a very young age, I used to look at the young face, the grey stone eyes which seemed to question me. I was on my knees in front of the head when I smelled the waft of scent from the Bonplant perfumery. Florita informed me that the bath was full. After the bath she served lunch: beans with pumpkin and maxixe, grilled fish and farofa with turtle eggs.’

I feel rather ungenerous saying this, but ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ is a book which uses description and pace to disguise more basic problems with his novella. It has been a long time since I finished a novel so devoid of any kind of forward movement, either in terms of plot, character, or emotion. Although things happen in this novel, for example Arminto sleeps with Dinaura; later he spends some time negotiating the sale of his house, the focus of this novella is on Arminto’s rather indulgent, leisurely examination of his own life. Arminto is a character of stasis, who does very little as events happen around him. In short: he is rather dull and no wonder Dinaura ran away after one night with him.

If I’m being fair I’d say this aspect of his character is probably deliberate, as the novella is preceded by part of a Cavafy poem called 'The City' that talks about a son’s inability to escape from the city he was born in:

‘You will not find new lands, you will not find other seas.

The city will follow you. You will roam the same streets. And you will grow old in the same neighbourhood.’

Clearly Arminto’s troubled relationship with his father, who dies part way through the novel links back to the poem, although I was never really clear how Arminto’s father’s influence from beyond the grave was really keeping his son from developing. I get the feeling Arminto places the blame for his misfortune on his father’s oppressive personality, when really, as the reader can see, it’s his own lassitude and obsession that destroys his fortune. It’s possible that the poem links to Arminto through its description of the sons inability to escape the inheritance of his birth city and Hatoum is contrasting Arminto to the son of the poem by having him make no real attempt to escape. Frustrated ambition is a typical, tragic story, but Hatoum could be subverting this by creating a character whose lack of ambition and failure to realise that frustrates his life. He could be deliberately creating a character readers are not supposed to support.

I’ve no problem with authors making characters unlikeable, but their unpleasantness must at least be interesting. ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ was not the most exciting reading experience I’ve ever had. When I started reading I just let the words flash past me in a colourful whirl and reading the book that way, for the isolated images and the rhythms of language is wonderful. But half way through I started wondering when my questions about the deliberately obscured elements of the novel would be answered, which is when I started to notice that not much was happening. I was just bumming around a couple of islands with Arminto’s haze of angst, romantic idealism and laziness, waiting for his father’s lawyer to slap him and bring him to his senses (never happened unfortunately). Once I noticed these things and added them to the feeling that Dinaura was operating as the biggest manic pixie girl in the world (she rarely speaks, but she gets her clothes off a few times before she disappears with excessive mystery) I got bored. There are potentially salacious revelations quite late on. I did not care and I am always interested in the sexy gossip bits of a book. I shouldn’t be able to get bored in the middle of a novella that is 130 pages. If that happens, something has gone wrong.

Maybe the best way to approach this book is to just breeze through it without looking for plot, or answers. Maybe if I’d just stayed focused on the attraction of Arminto’s surroundings or the pleasing contrast of the intense imagery and the soothing rhythms of the prose I’d have enjoyed ‘Orphans of Eldorado’ more.

Living for the (extended) weekend

2011-04-26T23:30:00.000-07:00

Four day weekends are the best! I’ve:

Had lunch and drinks
Watched the new Dr Who episode
Seen Red Riding Hood and Limitless (more on these later)
Had drinks again
Been to the zoo
Bought and eaten Easter chocolate
Finished 'The Latte Rebellion' and 'A Concise Chinese to English Dictionary for Lovers' (more on those later)
Not done any of those tasks that really needed doing, like clearing out my wardrobes *sigh*

Having four days off has also given me time to finish some reviews, although there are lots more that need doing.

I feel like I’ve lost my reviewing forward motion. The books pile up and the reviews don’t get done. As we go into summer it seems so important to be outside in the sunshine if I’m not at work, or out with friends and family and the evenings are fuller than in the winter, when I’m happily hibernating inside with my laptop (I do not like this thing called rain). I’m trying to work out new reviewing spaces that mean I can do it all. I think for now I’m going to try writing in my lunch hour (as clearly that whole exercise in my lunch hour thing isn’t coming off) and will see how that goes. I’m going to try not to stress about it, but try to and make keeping up with what everyone else is doing more of a priority.

So tell me Britishers, if you had four days off what did you do? Everyone else who just had a regular weekend off, what did you get up to? Are you getting a three day work week this week?

'Journey Into the Past' - Stefan Zweig

2011-04-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

The blurb on the Pushkin Press version of ‘Journey into the Past’ by Stefan Zweig makes this novel sound like a simple, yet passionate, romantic affair. Torn apart by WWI two lovers reunite to find themselves much changed. ‘Confronted with an uncertain future, and still haunted by the past, they discover whether their love has survived hardships, betrayals, and the lapse of time.’ the blurb says, which seems to settle what the book is really about. However, in ‘Journey into the Past’ Zweig seems to deliberately impose complications on his narrative that allow the reader to frame his narrative in a completely different way.

There’s no denying that the first part of ‘Journey into the Past’ when Ludwig first meets his romantic interest is passionate. The romantic phrases used to describe Ludwig’s feelings for the unnamed wife of his employer are ‘sweep you off your feet’ style proclamations that clearly show the extent of his love. The pace of the writing ushers the reader along in a sweep of emotion and the words used to describe the thoughts of the main character Louise resonates with real love.

I do think that if this book was rejacketed like a typical romance novel and Zweig was given a pen name literary critics would be aiming more snark at ‘Journey Into the Past’. Take for example a passage like this:

‘And only then was he overwhelmed by the realization that this woman, the woman he loved, must have loved him in return for a long time, for weeks, months, years, keeping tenderly still, glowing with maternal feeling, until a moment such a this struck through her soul. The incredible nature of the realization was intoxicating. To think that he was loved, loved by the women he had though beyond his reach – heaven opened up, endless and flooded with light. This was the radiant noon of his life.’

Now there’s nothing flawed in this passage. It’s a little overly rapturous, a bit overblown in its sentiments, but that’s just my own subjective assessment and as Ana says, ‘one person’s unintentional comedy is another’s beautiful prose’ . The word choice is full of complexity and the rapid pace fits the fervent emotional tone, but this is definitely the kind of language that is typically absolutely slated if it appears in romantic genre fiction.

Last year ‘The Post Office Girl’ by Stefan Zweig made my list of top ten adult books in 2010 and it’s a book I’ve added to my mental list of books I must re-read...sometime. I’m sure if I examined ‘The Post Office Girl’ again I’d find similarly enthusiastic declarations of emotion and the same kind of fast pace brought in to suggest high emotion. The difference between the two books is that ‘The Post Office Girl’ uses these devices to enhance the detailed knowledge the reader gains about Christine’s thoughts and inner life, whereas ‘Journey into the Past’ uses them as a supplement for giving the reader a decent amount of detail about the characters who are supposedly madly in love. There is a difference between stylistic brevity and a hollowness in your text. If you listen you may hear a faint ringing sound from inside the characters and histories of ‘Journey into the Past’.

And if this book is viewed as a straightforward story of romance battling circumstances and losing that hollowness of creation extends throughout the whole novel. The object of Ludwig’s affections is impossibly idealised in his thoughts and never granted a first name. Her own identity is non-existent. It’s hard not to view this kind of incomplete love interest, who is really supposed to be a main character, as an artistic failing if the book is intended to be read as a story that seeks to explain how love really manifests. To view ‘Journey into the Past’ as a novel that mourns romantic feeling that has been unfortunately frustrated seems a little odd, as the relationship presented in its pages (at least in the second half of the book, after Ludwig has been isolated in Mexico by the sudden arrival of war and returns after nine years) is so far away from a realistic, or desirable love affair.

I question whether this book intends to celebrate, mourn, or even speak of real romance. In my opinion ‘Journey into the Past’ is a novel that critiques the idealisation of love and Ludwig’s desperate attempts to gain what was denied him by circumstances. Coming from an author who wrote such a perceptive novel about young woman’s experiences I find Ludwig’s love interests lack of personality highly suspicious, almost as if Zweig intends to make a deliberate point about Ludwig’s character and limited perspective by giving so little substance to the woman he desires.

During the initial affair descriptions make it seem as if both partners are actively participating in the affair, as ‘The two of them spent he ten days until his departure in a constant state of wild, ecstatic frenzy.’ Although this woman will not go all the way and sleep with Ludwig before he goes to Mexico, her refusal seems quite natural for the context. She is a married woman after all and women of her generation might be quite conflicted about sex. But when Ludwig returns to meet his lover after many years she is described as taking an extremely inactive part in rekindling the affair. In fact her reaction to Ludwig’s renewed affections is one of reluctance, or almost of fear. This is especially apparent when she and Ludwig arrive at a hotel where he believes they will finally, happily consummate their relationship:

‘Her lips moved, trying to say something – perhaps the same words she had said ten years ago, that distressed, “Not now! Not here.”
But then she saw his gaze turning to her, anxious, disturbed, nervous. And she bowed her head in silent consent, and followed him, with small and daunted steps, to the entrance.’ .

Her reaction to Ludwig’s proposal that they go away together is not exactly active. What she actually says is ‘I could never have denied you anything’ which to me speaks of an attachment built on an unhealthy, obsessive link, rather than a cherished relationship reawakening. It seems as if by portraying her reluctance alongside Ludwig’s interpretation of her actions Zweig hopes to highlight the flaws in this relationship.

The conclusion I draw is that ‘Journey into the Past’ is a novel about the dangers of nostalgia, as some other reviews point out. I’d put more of an emphasis on the danger part of that phrase, to bring into sharp focus the tone of fear and violence that pervades the couple’s return to their relationship. To be compelled by old ties is unhealthy in this novel. It leaves causes Ludwig to disregard the real woman he has in front of him and to compel her to actions she really doesn’t want to take. The woman appears to fear what is to come, but cannot resist going with Ludwig. It might be a stretch, but the appearance of a nationalist parade just as they enter the town they’ve travelled to could be representative of the dangerous nature of looking to the past, as the desperation to recapture the honour of old Germany after WWI contributes to people’s nationalistic enthusiasm for Hitler’s party. The glimpse of the march certainly adds to the malevolent feel of the couple’s arrival at the hotel:

‘And again and again, from troop to troop, the drumbeat hammered out, its monotony doubly inflaming feelings, keeping the marchers’ backs straight, their eyes hard, forging war and vengeance by their invisible presence here in a peaceful square, under sky with soft clouds sweetly passing over it.’

I read ‘Journey into the Past’ as a novel primarily invested in critiquing flaws in people’s perception of their lives, specifically commenting on the idea of an idealised female love interest, rather than a story of reciprocated love that is thwarted by circumstances. Unfortunately Zweig’s critique still involves presenting a woman through the male, idealising gaze, which makes her a rather dull character to read. I’ll take Zweig’s attempt at critiquing the male gaze, but I’d rather I was given this woman’s own perspective so I could see her actively refute her idealisation. It’s always satisfying to hear a woman speak for herself.

'Ship Breaker' - Paolo Bacigalupi

2011-04-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

I feel like I lost myself in ‘The Windup Girl’. Despite not being keen on the way the rape scenes were written, I felt suddenly invested in Paolo Bacigalupi’s writing career after just that one book. ‘Ship Breaker’, is Bacigalupi’s YA debut and as Bacigalupi said in a recent interview, it’s a book that takes less risks than ‘The Windup Girl’. There were times when I thought I sensed the risks he might have taken in ‘Ship Breaker’ and I do sometimes still wistfully wonder where those alternate paths might have led ‘Ship Breaker’, but Bacigalupi’s second novel is still so...oh I don’t know, invigorating that it’s only made me feel more curious about watching his writing career unfold.

Nailer works light crew in the ship-breaking yards (the blurb says these are located on beaches along the Gulf Coast of this sci-fi, dystopian reimagining of American, but my limited geographical knowledge didn’t equip me to find this out from the text). He’s small enough to crawl into the old, fossil fuel run ships that sit and rust near the beach. He and his crew spend all day under the beating sun, or in the depths of the ships, breaking out the copper wire for their hard, exploitative boss Bapi. Nailer dreams of finding his own pot of ship breaker wealth, like the rich gangster boss Lucky Strike who controls the beaches trade, but he knows he’s just as likely to end up like Jackson Boy, a boy who got lost inside a ships tunnels and died.

Members of each light crew are tattooed in the same way and are supposed to be bonded like a family. Nailer often refers to members being ‘crew’ like we might refer to a member of family being blood. Bacigalupi uses that idea of being crew to examine two of my favourite ideas to see in literature – what makes a family and where the limits of loyalty lie.

In the opening chapters of ‘Ship Breaker’ Nailer falls into a hidden deposit of oil in an old ship and one of his crew, Sloth must decide whether to let him drown, so he won’t alert everyone else to the oil that she hopes to smuggle out to sell herself. She decides to leave him to drown, abandoning the code of crew co-operation. When Nailer does escape in a dramatic scene where he dives down and explodes out of a hatch in a shower of oil Sloth is kicked down the beach, with her crew tattoos slashed because a boss won’t keep a crew member who betrays them. As members of her former crew naturally ostracise her for violating crew code, she has little hope for the future. In this one episode Bacigalupi powerfully shows the idea of an artificially created group who members must develop bonds of trust and believe in those bonds in order to survive. However, as much as Nailer and the others may try to convince themselves that crew bonds are strong Sloth’s behaviour shows just how easily these ties can be broken if one person has an advantage over the other.

After almost drowning in his very own Lucky Strike Nailer goes home to his abusive, crystal sliding father, Richard Lopez. One small, nice touch is that Nailer’s father is most commonly referred to by his full name, which distinguishes him from other characters. The contrast between his full name and others partial names gives every mention of him a dread weight that emphasises how others respect and fear him. Nailer is terrified of his father’s unpredictable moods, with good reason as Lopez has a disturbing level of strength and repeatedly shows that he will harm his son for profit or fun, because of the clouding influence of drugs. While Nailer’s relationship with his father is extremely toxic, Nailer is unable to completely break the connection, because he has good memories from before his mother died and his father started crystal sliding. So, when a gigantic World Killer storm hits the beach while his father is passed on in a shack right in the middle of the storm’s path, Nailer convinces a neighbour to save him.

Of course, this is Bacigalupi writing so Lopez doesn’t take his unlikely survival as a sign to give up the crystal and booze. Lopez twists back and forth between knocking Nailer on his head because of his cunning and praising his cleverness for much of the book. Nailer has to try to understand the direction his father’s mood swings will take whenever they meet and while blood and memories keep Nailer from trying to slit his father’s throat their relationship can never be positive. He is always looking elsewhere for some kind of support structure he can trust. That’s why he invests so much value in ideas of crew holding people to him, even as he’s realistically aware that any kind of bond can be easily broken.

Nailer’s strike comes eventually. An expensive hydrogen clipper runs aground in an isolated part of the island during the storm. Only Nailer and a girl named Pima, know about the wrecked ship. She is the one member of his crew that he tentatively trusts because of their bond outside of the crew (Pima’s mother is like surrogate family to Nailer and she’s the one who lifted Richard Lopez out of the shack during the storm). The two agree to find a way to hide any moveable goods, before the crews on the beach find it and they begin investigating it, only to find Nita the young owner of the ship still alive on board. Nailer must try to forge new bonds of trust with her if he has any hope of collecting the reward she says she’s worth, but Nita is full of secrets and will take any chance to escape. When Nailer’s dad’s freaky dangerous crew surprises them and claims Nita along with the ship it becomes even more important that Nailer and Nita begin to work together to evade Nailer’s dad and Nita’s enemies. With a half-man (a genetic breed between man and dog) named Tool (Tool!) whose character creation has plenty to say about the creation of loyalty the two work their way to the drowned cities to find Nita’s allies.

It is hopeless to try to write a review of reasonable length that fits in everything so great about ‘Ship Breaker’. Maybe I’ll have time to come back and talk about other elements later (but you might have noticed I’ve been a bit blog world inconsistent this year). For now let me quickly tell you five things I really love about this book and then link you to some more people with persuasive lists about this book:

1.) Tool – Bacigalupi’s creation of half-men is such a fabulous sci-fi idea and reminds me a bit of a centaurs from fantasy (except obviously with a scientific explanation). It’s Tool that really makes this idea pop into life though, because the reader gets to see the true complexity of the life of a half-man (who is essentially supposed to be genetically encoded with a bond-servant’s type of loyalty). I am so excited that Tool may be back in Bacigalupi’s next book set in the drowned cities.

2.) Themes – Bacigalupi explores some of my favourite themes. I’ve already mentioned his ideas about family and loyalty, but he also explores chance, fate, genetic personality, environmental destruction and extreme organ donation. He’s hitting a lot my idea sweet spots.

3.) It's an adventure – The plot hurtles you along and is really exciting. Peril, escape, jumping trains – cool as.

4.) Diversity and originality in diversity – Characters from India. African American characters. Prominent female characters (although this is undeniably Nailer’s story). Poorer characters. Illiterate characters. All these characters operating outside of easy stereotypes. Girls and women doing physical jobs. Male characters who are not dumbasses towards women.

5.) No one dies today! - It’s undeniable that my heart felt a lot more whole at the end of this novel than it did at the end of ‘The Windup Girl’. I happily cheered Sarwat Chadda on for killing someone in his first book and cutting out just a little piece of my heart. I’m fine with writers who kill their characters with slicing key strokes. It’s just that sometimes it is heartening when people who deserve to escape make it out of danger okay.

More Lists

Maggie Stefvater: 10 Reasons to Read ‘Ship Breaker’

Vulpes Libres: 10 more reasons to read ‘Ship Breaker’

Other Reviews

The Booksmugglers

Stainless Steel Droppings

PS. I want to come back and talk a bit more about something Bacigalupi said in his recent interview if I have time.

Readathon - The Finale

2011-04-10T04:04:00.000-07:00

I read for about half an hour and then went to sleep so I could get up early today. Alright 9am probably isn't early for most of you, but my Sundays usually include sleeping until 12. I finished 'Demonglass' just now and all I can say is that Rachel Hawkins is evil, but if there was ever a way to get me to pre-order your next book (and make me want to weep a little) the cliffhanger extraordinary is probably the sharpest tool you have.

I just wanted to reflect a little on my readathon experience before going off to do a last bit of cheering for those still awake.

This year I totally focused on my reading, probably because we had such nice weather here. I didn't want to be on the computer a lot. Peta I didn't burn btw and if you saw me you'd understand why that's so surprising - whitest white girl ever (sorry that you got burnt!). That meant I didn't do a lot of mini-challenges, or online joining in (though I cheered for what turned into a couple of late night hours instead of the one I pledged) and I had some technical browser issues which kept me off the readathon site. At the same time I still felt really connected to the challenge. Knowing other people were taking part in the readathon, all around the world gave me the warm fuzzies even if I didn't do a lot of interacting with people during the 24 hours. My experience was, I imagine, kind of like running a marathon. You're surrounded by tons of runners, but focused on your own race and maybe you smile at people along the way but mostly you run. I kind of liked it this way and I think from now on (assuming I can take part in both) I'll keep the spring readathon really reading focused, with late night hours saved for cheering and during the autumn one maybe I'll sign up to cheer for more hours, as the cold will keep me in the house anyway.

Also I wasn't really focused on making it to the 24 hour mark. That was never a goal this year, I just wanted to have fun. Next spring readathon I think I'd like to pull an Amanda and go away for readathon, to try and make it a bit more of an endurance test. There's nothing worse than coming off readathon after I've stayed up all night and grumping at everyone in my house, so I tend to like to get some decent sleep in if I'm at home.

Overall I just had a lot of fun this year :) I enjoyed seeing what everyone had been up to while I cheered (I really liked the book origami challenge, so fab) and my books were kind of perfect - engaging, reasonably fast reads and really well written. Fantasy kind of rocks for readathon.

Thanks so much to the organisers - they always run such a fun event and put soooo much work in behind the scenes. I kind of think they deserve their own seperate readathon where they can just chill and read while other bring them exotic drinks. Great readathon organisers!

Right that's it for me and April readathon. Off to cheer a little bit and then...well I'll be doing some more reading in the garden. I know, I know, I'm a reading glutton, but it's too nice a day to spend inside doing anything else.

Readathon - Hour 12

2011-04-09T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've just finished about an hour and a half of cheering and am just popping in for a quick update (like lightening quick):

So far I've finished 1 book ('The World More Full of Weeping')which was excellent and I got to read it in my garden in the sunshine - super cool. I'm about 100 pages away from the end of 'Demonglass' which is still snarky and fun, but quite a bit darker than the last book. I'm still not sure about the love triangle angle - we shall see. I also spent a bit of time cheerleading. Now I am feeling like it might be a good time for sleep, but we'll see, I might last one more hour.

Tomorrow the plan is to wake up earlyish and finish 'Hex Hall', then start 'Fury of the Phoenix'. I hope y'all are having a great readathon and I'll probably see you in the final hour tomorrow before everyone collapses :)

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon - Hour One

2011-04-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

It's readathon day! I’m schedule posting this so that I don’t make the fatal readathon mistake of getting on the internet right at the beginning. Assuming it is as sunny as it is while I write this I will be spending time reading in our garden. Ahhhhhh, sunshine you have returned.

As you might remember from previous readathons I am a slooow reader, but I get demotivated if I just read one book throughout readathon. My plan to combat this in 2011 was originally to read short, short books only, but then I looked at all the really short books in our house and most of them are very literary, very intense. So I’m going to keep a few stash book in my readathon pile:

'The World More Full of Weeping’ - Robert J Wiersema

‘Next World’ – Mattias Politycki

‘Journey into the Past’ – Stefan Zweig

and then see how I feel about reading them in the moment.

Mostly I just want to have a lot of fun reading this readathon (which means staying away from the computer and not stressing out about trying to reach that 24 hour goal). So it’s very possible that I’ll be reading a less intense book as my main readathon choice, maybe:

‘Demonglass’ – Rachel Hawkins

‘How to Ditch Your Fairy’ – Justine Larbalestier

‘Nemesis’ – Lyndsey Davis

‘Fury of the Phoneix’ – Cindy Pon: Yes, my pre-order arrived after a minor mix up with Amazon and I am so freaking excited. Dear publishing world I would be even more excited if the cover had not been so heinously messed with. Please do not read my purchase as a vindication of your incredibly off putting white washing re-covering tactics.

Finally I have a fantasy short story collection that I’d really like to start:

‘Dreaming Again’ – Edited by Jack Dann

In other reading news I just finished Y S Lee’s second ‘Agency’ novel, ‘The Body at the Tower’ which is full of spies, romance, blackmail, cross dressing and clock towers. It was AMAZING. I meant to save it for readathon, but I cracked and started it last week. I must now wait until August for ‘The Traitor in the Tunnel’, but I am very excited (imagine my excitement like a sparkly marshmallow cloud full of button nosed puppies) to hear that there may potentially be a fourth book in the series. I need more Mary and James than a trilogy can possibly provide.

Happy readathon to everyone taking part, especially those of you personally knew Dewey and remember her on this day and happy general weekendness to everyone else. See you during my cheerleading time in about 11 hours.

'The Eagle'

2011-04-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

Oh ‘The Eagle’! How can I be so in love with a film and at the same time have some major quibbles with it at the same time? Today I’m going to focus on the positive squishy feelings. I’ll try to get some critical thinking going about the aspects of this film that bother me next week after readathon.

I grant myself permission to be a little bit sappy now. I saw ‘The Eagle’ a couple weekends ago. It made me go awwwww quite a bit in my head, which is strange because it is film that most would call super manly, as it is full of men and violence. So why the awwws from this lady? Am I intent on feminising glorious manly displays of maleness with awwws? Lemme explain why I felt like this film was handing me a big, warm bowl of soup in the midst of all the violence.

‘The Eagle’ is essentially a quest narrative and a buddy movie. Esca, the Brigante slave (played by the now delicious Jamie Bell) and the decorated, but injured Marcus Flavius Aquila (played by the delectable ‘I never thought I’d fancy him quite so much’ Channing Tatum) must ride across inhospitable, unconquered Northern Britain to retrieve an eagle standard. This standard was ripped from Marcus’ father’s legion (the Ninth) during a bloody, battle many years ago in which Marcus’ father died. Marcus sets out to retrieve the standard because despite his exemplary courage in a major battle, now that he is wounded he has no further opportunity to wipe out what others see as his father’s failure. Marcus saves Esca’s his life in an arena fight. Marcus’ uncle buys Esca as a slave for his nephew and although Marcus tells Esca he can run without anyone stopping him, Esca still feels he owes a bond of debt to the Roman whose values he despises.

A few things about this film touched me deep in my heart.

First, the realisation of Marcus’ struggle to restore his family’s honour is given a lot of space and is the driving force of the whole film. Unlike some films that focus around quests and battles ‘The Eagle’ doesn’t just state the motivation for its main character’s actions at the start of the film, consider the emotional side of the story dealt with and move on to a quest filled with battle sequence after battle sequence. Instead it often reiterates Marcus’ relationship with his father and family honour. It reminds the watcher of the importance of father son relationships in general by having Esca talk about his own dead father. By often returning to the emotional motivations behind the quest ‘The Eagle’ encourages the viewer to remain focused on the characters, allowing them to develop deeper connections with them than perhaps their acting performances would encourage (I loved watching Channing Tatum, but I think his pretty probably keeps me from paying attention to the flaws other reviewers have noticed in his performance – I am kind of shallow like that when it comes to visual media).

I have a soft spot for films that deal with family relationships, whether the family is present on the screen or not, but I do think ‘The Eagle’ handles this theme with tenderness. The flashbacks to Marcus’ blurry memories of his father handing him a wooden eagle are effective in connecting the viewer with a real relationship he had with a now dead character. A scene where Marcus goes to join the Ninth and spends time in front of his family tablet, performing rituals to the gods in the hope that they will help him to restore his family honour is simple but touching. And the first time I really thought hard about the way that Roman’s glorious expansion was based on the destruction of Britain’s tribes came when Esca talked about his royal father being killed by Romans. This theme was really well presented and utilised to make me care about the quest plot that pushes the film forward.

The next element that made me melt just a little was Esca and Marcus’ on screen partnership. Quite a few reviewers are casually calling ‘The Eagle’ a bromance film, which implies that it is a bit silly and overly touchy feely (at least that’s the vibe I get when people use the term). I will toss in my two pennies and say if someone wasn’t deliberately subverting masculine norms of closeness in this film’s production I would be very surprised. Near the beginning of the film Esca has to hold Marcus to a table during surgery and there is a moment of very intense eye connection that would not have looked out of place in a film like Twilight (which is, as I think cleolinda said much more elegantly, all about the eye sex). One line from the film that passes between Tatum and Bell – ‘I thought I had lost you’. There is a scene where Esca puts his hand on Marcus’ face while they are parting, because Marcus is injured and Esca is being made to leave. This scene takes place underneath a waterfall, the fantasy romantic setting of the millenium. The emotion in that gesture goes well beyond traditional representations of male friends who part, knowing that one of them may soon be dead.

All these moments of connection could alternatively be viewed as an attempt to inject some much needed emotional realism into the portrayal of male friendships, that have been formed during extreme circumstances. Come on, you almost die around someone a couple of times, you kill together, your relationship is going to be full of powerful emotion. Why must any sense of deep feeling towards male friends be glossed over by so many films about male comradeship? We need films to present a range of ways it might feel to be in situations that could be fatal with your male friends, rather than constantly pushing this ‘stoic and nerved up’ version. That’s one way it might feel, it’s not the only way. Ends soapbox moment. I’m not fussed about asserting that one of these interpretations is FACT. I like both interpretations very much. I’m just really glad these scenes are in ‘The Eagle’, because they provide a level of male connection we don’t very often see on screen.

Actually I think the film does a great job overall, of subtly exploring concepts that are traditionally linked with how masculine a man is, such as honour, strength and mastery of the self. One of my favourite aspects of this film is that it achieves this exploration without tipping characters the audience is supposed to validate, like Marcus, into an obsessive state where they try to prove how masculine they are while the audience continues validates their erratic behaviour. Marcus wants to regain his family’s honour and his quest to do so seems unnecessarily foolhardy, but Marcus doesn’t generally appears unhealthily driven by the need to regain honour (and by proxy masculinity). His quest is founded not in desperation for himself and his image, but in true belief that his father does not deserve to be remembered so badly. He wants to prove himself and by extension prove his whole family’s honour deserves to be restored, but he doesn’t need to do so because he feels something is lacking in him and his family, more because he wants people to recognise what is really, already great about him and his family. Does that make sense? Maybe I’ve talked myself in circles there.

When Marcus does appear to transverse the boundaries of reasonable behaviour in his drive to complete his quest the film depicts his actions as rough, or angry, not as positive actions that are justified because of his cause. He holds a knife to a man’s throat to gain information, he kills a child Esca had let live and that he mistrusts Esca (wh will later save his life) on this quest, but all this behaviour is ‘punished’ when Marcus’ is forced to be a slave himself. The way I read his eventual redemptive recapture of the eagle is that Marcus earns his reward by understanding a life of oppression, bonding with his slave as an equal and allowing Esca to convince him that he shouldn’t kill another British child. I’m not sure that this idealistic approach to ideas about the reversal of oppression is very through, but I do like that his bad behaviour on this quest results in consequences and censure, rather than defensive justification.

Finally, I’ll have a bit of a nationalistic moment and say how much I bloody love British cinema right now, especially Film 4 projects. The dulled natural palette that ‘The Eagle’ features helps to create the right vaguely threatening atmosphere for this film and the composition of the shots make beautiful use of ideas about space. Never change sort of arty, but still commercial British cinema. Never change.

'A Mercy' - Toni Morrison

2011-04-05T14:30:00.001-07:00

The narrative structure of ‘A Mercy’ by Toni Morrison is a complex affair. In the context of current literary culture it isn’t experimental, but it is different from a simple linear narrative, told by one narrator. The first chapter of the novel is told by Florens a slave on a mission for her mistress, in a style which approaches stream of conscious writing. Her first person narrative chapters progress in a linear fashion, as she travels to find her blacksmith lover who can save her mistress from small pox.

This narrative is interrupted at significant points by third person chapters showing the stories of five other people at the estate where Florens lives. There’s Jacob a Dutch farmer/trader who now lives in America and has never owned a slave until Florens is given to him to repay a debt. Rebekka, who answered Jacob’s advert for a wife. Lina a native girl, whose tribe was killed by small pox. Sorrow a red haired, black toothed orphan who was found floating in boys clothing from wreck of a ship. Finally come Willard and Scully, slaves of a neighbour whose sentences keep getting extended. Each character gets one chapter to themselves and these chapters focus on a particular characters history, as well as their life with Florens.

However, although these chapters all focus on different characters they also carry a thread of linear timeline that draws all these chapters into one story of forward progress. This is a different linear timeline than the one that Florens’ storyline follows and it beginnings just before Florens is bought by Sir, then continues to just after Florens returns from her mission to fetch the blacksmith.

At the beginning of ‘A Mercy’ I did not think I was going to get what I wanted from this novella (I know, I am so demanding). When I turn to Morrison I expect and almost crave a particular kind of reading experience, one that presents itself as tangibly complex after just a quick glance at the text. I expect a meeting with a novel written in a style that is as multi-faceted as the complex subject matter it is bound to contain. I want a novel that makes a point of embracing stylised writing if that makes sense. The opening chapter narrated by Florens, which begins

‘Don’t be afraid. My telling can’t hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark – weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more – but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and bare teeth. I explain. You can think what I tell you a confession, if you like, but one full of curiosities familiar only in dreams and during those moments when a dog’s profile plays in the steam of a kettle.’

sounded like the familiar deliberately obscured and intricate style that fills some of her other novels, such as ‘Beloved’ and ‘Jazz’. However, the majority of the writing in ‘A Mercy’ felt open, cheerful and breezily constructed. The novella’s prose style is straightforward and the tone of the writing is an uncomplicated, accessible one that I’m familiar with seeing in many historical novels:

‘In short, 1682 and Virginia was a mess. Who could keep up with the pitched battles for God, king and land? Even with the relative safety of his skin, solitary travelling required prudence. He knew he might ride for hours with no company but geese flying over inland waterways and suddenly, from behind felled trees a starving deserter with a pistol might emerge, or in a hollow a family of runaways might cower, or an armed felon might threaten. Carrying several kinds of specie and a single knife, he was a juicy target.’

That kind of tone isn’t bad, I really enjoy it when I find it in other books, but it’s not what I expect to find when I go to Morisson’s novels and my reading mood was not set to happily receive this kind of writing without quibbles about its own expectations. I spent a chapter being grouchy before ‘A Mercy’ won me over.

As you can see from the quote above the story is not only accessible, but dynamic. In that passage the man, Jacob, is just riding across the land thinking to himself, yet Morrison instils the action and adventure proper for his circumstances into his solitary riding and transforms the act for the reader. The narrative feels very active, even when it is focused on a character who is describing remembrances or domestic chores, because Morrison’s word choices are so descriptive, for example in Lina’s third person chapter the narrator describes how ‘It was some time afterward while branch-sweeping Sir’s dirt floor, being careful to avoid the hen nesting in the corner, lonely, angry and hurting, that she decided to fortify herself by piecing together scraps of what her mother had taught her before dying in agony.’ . The reader gets a detailed picture of the scene currently being described, but also of another image, of a mother whose dying state is made specific and real by the addition of the phrase ‘in agony’. And Lina’s internal state is described precisely, giving the reader a strong idea of how she feels, ‘lonely, hurt and angry’ which are all distinct states. The word ‘fortify’ identifies exactly how she wants to make herself feel and the idea of her memories being ‘scraps’ provides an evocative physical image that crystallises how the reader views what she has to work with.

There’s also something seductively strong about the wording Morrison uses throughout the novel. Sir is ‘a hurricane of activity labouring to bring nature under his control’ who is ‘forever unprepared for violent, mocking changes in weather and for the fact that common predators neither knew nor cared to whom their prey belonged.’. Rebekka knows ‘the pall of childlessness coupled with bouts of loneliness’ and wonders ‘Was happiness Satan’s allure, his tantalizing deceit? Was her devotion so frail it was merely bait? Her stubborn self-sufficiency outright blasphemy?’. You might say Morrison often uses a ten pence word where a penny one will do, but the cumulative effect of so much lush wordery is a novella that feels somehow sumptuous, while also slightly dangerous with the potential to become seedy and depraved at any minute.

And just by examining the sustain more complex word choice of the novella it becomes apparent that perhaps cogs and wheels are turning in this apparently simple writing style. Perhaps its apparent easy to read nature is actually under pinned by a helluva lot of work.

So much is contained in such a small book and I haven’t even talked about the themes, relationships or symbols contain in ‘A Mercy’, or even the amount of different facets of this historical period that she manages to fit inside those 169 pages. Don’t you just envy Morrison scholar’s who can spend hours pouring over her stories and the themes that connect her books? One for the re-read pile I think.

Goal Results: First Quarter

2011-04-04T03:25:00.000-07:00

I decided that this year I’d post how I was doing on various reading related goals (ho, ho, goals have numbers attached, these are really just unspecific notions) every quarter, just to keep myself on track:

Read more translated fiction: 4 books – I have already read more translated fiction this year than I read during 2010. If I could read 4 a quarter until the end of the year I’d feel like I was making translated fiction a part of my regular reading diet.

Keep male/female author ratio close (as in read more books by male authors): 10/12 – Right now I’m reading just slightly less male authors than female, but the ratio is much better than in 2010. I did have to make a big effort to increase the amount of male authors I was reading in March, but now I find that a lot of the books I want to read are by male authors. Must be careful not to tip back into days gone by when I would read so many more books by male than female authors.

Read more books containing GLBTQ characters with large roles: 8 – I found working towards this goal so easy this quarter, thanks to the fact that I was on the Indie Lit GLBTQ panel in January. I also seem to have a big stockpile of books that feature gay and lesbian main characters, so I don’t think the book buying ban is going to slow down this goal.

Read more books by authors of another race: 4 – Working towards this goal has not gone so well and in April I’m going to make an effort to work towards it. Part of the problem was that I wanted to read more adult fiction this quarter (and still do), but we have very few adult books by Asian, or African authors in the house and my book acquiring ban is on. I think the solution is to make sure that all my YA selections are by authors of a different race from me (which means I will almost certainly be reading ‘Slice of Cherry’ and the second ‘Agency’ mystery this month).

Read more non-fiction: 0 – Yeah I’m still sucking at that. I can’t concentrate on non-fiction in my lunch at work and most of my reading in the week is done in that hour.

Read more sci-fi: 6 – And I’m loving it! Sci-fi at it’s best can just make you think so hard and be so much fun to explore. In terms of male/female author ratio within sci-fi I’m at 3/3.

Read more literary fiction: 8 – My definition of literary fiction is a bit unspecified and doesn’t really seem to fit with a lot of other peoples (which seems to focus on lit fiction as fiction about political matters, but at the same time would exclude books like ‘The Dispossessed’ and ‘Shipbreaker’ which are both highly political). I know what I call lit fiction when I see it and this is the number I’ve come up with, the specific titles being: ‘Journey by Night’ – Antal Szerb, ‘The Summer Book’ – Tove Jansson, ‘Krakow Melts’ – Daniel Allen Cox, ‘Annabel’ – Kathleen Winter, ‘The Birthday Boys’ – Beryl Bainbridge, ‘Dimanche and Other Stories’ – Irene Nemirovsky, ‘Branwell’ – Douglas A Martin, ‘A Mercy’ – Toni Morrison.

Stop buying books for 3 months after Januray 13th 2011 (now extended until June): Book buying ban still intact – And oh my life how it needs to be. I might have mentioned that I’m saving for a flat deposit and it’s going ok, but I really can’t afford books, especially when I have so many lying around waiting for me. I’ve also kept up the clothes buying ban (although I can’t see that lasting too much longer as the weather is getting nicer and I’m not going to fit a lot of my summer clothes this year) and haven’t bought jewellery, or cds, or dvds throughout this whole nearly three month period (although I did put Vampire Diaries season 2 on pre-order). But there are some expensive events coming up. I feel a little stressed about money right now, but I’m sure it will all be fine – deep breaths.

I just wanted to mention a couple of other things I’ve put in place over the last quarter. I started eating more healthily during the work day, so salad, fruit and yoghurt for lunch and no trips to vending machines or Maccy D’s and started putting in lower fat measures at home (there’s no way I could give up carbs at the end of the day, but now the carbs can be wholewheat pasta or new potatoes on the majority of days). I kept that up consistently for 2 months, then had a couple of not so good weeks, but the refreshing thing was because I’d proved I could eat healthily and use will power I didn’t feel like these breakdowns were the end of my good intentions, or showed that I was just destined to be a bad, emotional eater.

The plan for this quarter is to put some regular exercise into this routine as it gets warmer, probably by going walking one lunch time every week to start.

I also set up a regular charity donation plan, which is something that not buying as many books allows me to do (just to be clear this is not me chiding anyone about charity, or trying to start a guilt trip, we all work for our own money, we all make decisions about what to do with it and as long as no one I know is doing something evil like deliberately giving their money to the BNP or betting on animal fights I really have no opinion on how any regular person spends their money - if you pay to see a monkey with a small blade fight a blind rabbit we would have to talk). I picked 3 charities to regularly donate to. With the help of the ‘Good Intentions are not Enough’ blog and charity rater, I could select a decent range of charities and check that my charities were operating in an effective and transparent way, which gives me greater confidence that my money is doing some good. I also picked a fourth charity, but they don’t allow UK residents to set up direct debits s this quarter I’m going to decide how to go about supporting them. And I set aside a (very) small monthly amount for spontaneous charity so I can support internet initiatives and friends, or colleagues. Obviously charity giving is not all about me, but regular giving and charity resources like ‘Good Intentions are Not Enough’ and Charity Rater do make me feel like I'm helping without harming.

So that’s all the goal related stuff I’ve been up to in the last three months. Let’s get motivational – tell me what you’ve been working towards and I will cheer like hell for you in the comments!

'The Iron Witch' - Karen Mahoney

2011-04-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

Donna Underwood never takes off her elbow length gloves in public. She was removed from school after an incident between her and another student. Her father is dead and her mother is in a mental institution. People can be cruel and it’s not surprising her peers call Donna ‘the freak’.

And when Donna thinks about her past she doesn’t exactly disagree with those who ostracise her. She wears the gloves to hide magical iron designs that are embedded in her skin. The designs, which give her super strength, healed her arms after they were destroyed by an evil fairy beast. Her father died saving her. Her mother’s madness is the result of a fairy charm. The adults who surround her are alchemists, members of the ancient Order of the Dragon. They expect her to study magic and defeat wood fairies because her parents were great heroes of the order. No, Donna Underwood is not even close to normal.

At the same time Donna’s life sounds like it was relatively quiet before ‘The Iron Witch’ opened. Within the novel Donna finds her regular routine disrupted over and over by the growing power of supernatural forces. Donna avoided her ex-schoolmates and went to lessons with her tutor. She saw Maker, the man who changed her hands and deals with the pains in her hand. She spent time with her one and only friend, Navin, a cute, bike obsessed boy who isn’t exactly popular, but slips ‘under a lot of people’s cool-dar’. Her daily life involved no regular contact with the dangerous fairy world that scared her physically and emotionally.

Then at the beginning of the book Navin encourages Donna to go to a house party with him. She ends up on the roof with the hot, intriguing host, Alexander Grayson. He seems interested in Donna, which Navin is not pleased about. So, when Donna takes a trip out to the secret location of Maker’s laboratory Navin decides to follow her in case she meets Xan (I know, I know, we will get to that later). At the workshop Donna and Navin find chaos and a wood fairy in the bathroom, which forces Donna to reveal her secrets to Navin.

Personally I found the reasoning that made Navin think following Donna was a good idea, tenuous. I also admit that at this point in the book I wondered if I should be winding up my ‘stalker, stalker’ siren, although it doesn’t take long to work out that Navin is not, through the rest of the book, one of those creepy guys who cares by stalking (and isn’t that faint praise, he’s actually a fun, supportive, brave guy). Navin needed to be in a situation where he can uncover Donna’s secrets, so that the book’s action can move forward. The problem for me is that the way this is engineered hinges on actions and reason that seem under realised to me.

As a case study in contrast the books plot required Xan to become involved in the ‘Donna fights fairies’ action, which means he also had to discover her secrets. The way Xan was manoeuvred into a situation where he could find out her secrets felt more natural to me than the way Donna’s secrets were revealed to Navin. A homeless looking guy turns out to be an evil wood fairy that attacks Xan and Donna on their first date (that’s such a Buffy move by the way, evil kicking dirt all over the magical first date, love that kick ass trope) which leads in the end to secrets being revealed on both sides. There are coherent reasons for why Xan and Donna find themselves in this situation together.

The chapter where the two are first attacked by fairies is one of my favourite action scenes in this novel, which has quite a few well paced action sequences. As well as being a cool moment of fighting and escape, this event leads to Donna and Xan’s relationship developing. Lemme say I know I’m probably supposed to be pulling for Navin to be Donna’s love interest, as he’s the ordinary hero and the friend Donna has known all her life, but I’ve got to say my preference at the moment would be for Xan and Donna to work out. Both Xan and Donna have been victims of fairies, which makes it easier for them to reveal their physical and emotional pain to each other. They are vulnerable together in a way that Donna can’t bring herself to be with Navin even after he knows about the fairy world. And that’s not because Navin is a bad guy, it’s because she feels more comfortable talking to someone who has experienced the same kind of paranormal brutality. I feel like Xan and Donna could heal each other and dude the scene where Xan first reveals his own pain to Donna manages to be both touching and hot, without being unrealistically emotionally full on.

Having a guy like Xan around who knows a lot about the world of fairies means that Donna can share things about her life openly. Donna’s involvement with the order means she has to keep herself pretty emotionally isolated. She’s had to cut herself off from a lot of natural emotions, like grief over her mother’s mental illness, to keep going. She also carries around a lot of guilt over her father’s death and the fact that she can’t tell Navin the full truth about her life hurts her, as he opened up to her when his mother died. ‘Iron Witch’s’ narrative allows Donna to go from a closed off girl, who is basically existing, to a girl who has people she can share everything with. While Donna’s journey to uncover secrets about the order and fight the fairy world is what drives the novel’s plot, ‘The Iron Witch’ is a book that allows space for its heroine to undergo an emotional journey as well, even though this does little to push the immediate action plot on. Do I even need to tell you that a combination of fighting and changing emotions is my preferred mix in stories of paranormal adventure? I mean does a character really win if they come out as emotionally dead as they were before they started tricking, kicking and killing?

My favourite thing about Donna’s own emotional journey is that her feelings often realistically fluctuate, especially in relation to the strength in her repaired arms. In one diary excerpt she is buoyed by the knowledge of her physical strength:

‘I turned to the locker, drew back my fist, and punched it as hard as I could.

With an ear-splitting shriek of metal the whole door collapsed inwards, wrecking the locker beyond any hope of repair. There was a collective gasp from the small audience and I was gratified to see Melanie back up a few steps, eyes wide and staring.

…

At that moment all I gave a damn about was that I had won.’

In other parts of the book she’s feeling pain in her arms and is depressed by the constant reminder of her unnaturalness. Again my personal feeling is that the natural state of heroines in paranormals should be a state of ever changing conflict, because they get awesome powers/feeling of strength/to kill the enemy, but they also get consequences and to wash the blood out of their hair on a Friday night. They operate in both these realities at once, hence conflict. Donna exhibits emotions that change, then change back, then change back again. What’s not to like there? By the end of the book she’s not totally different and she still has a lot of stuff to work out emotionally, which I guess just means there will be more interesting emotions in the coming sequel.

I can feel myself getting invested in the three main characters of ‘The Iron Witch’. However, there’s a problem with ‘The Iron Witch’ that stops me from getting fully connected with them. This novel can be kind of explainy.

At the beginning of the novel Mahoney’s writing is quite natural in the way that it releases and conceals information. The reader first meets Donna as they read a first person diary entry where she recounts the battle in the forest that changed her life. Here Donna feeding of information to the reader feels right, because of the framing provided. She’s writing in her diary, re-telling the event to herself, because she’s seen it in a recent nightmare. At the same time the obvious narrative reason behind all this framing (that the reader needs this information to understand the story) is concealed by the urgency and drama of the scene, or more properly the detailed drama of the reported scene actively informs the reader.

In later parts of the book, written in third person, Mahoney doesn’t recreate this subtle, active dissemination of information and often makes Donna give more information than is required. Donna tends to explain why she knows something about a person, which serves as a way for Mahoney to explain things to the reader, for example:

‘If she sometimes came across as a little strict, Donna realized this was probably because her aunt had never had a husband or child of her own; she was not the most natural mother-figure. And of course, Aunt Paige always seemed too busy for a family, what with full-time work and the demands of the Order.’

These type of comments often feel stiffly inserted into the text, because they provide too much information to seem like the natural thoughts of someone who already knows this information. The use of third person narrative is supposed to make these kind of explanatory details feel less out of place. A third person narrator is outside of the immediate thoughts of the main characters and so generally feels less unnatural when explaining details than a first person narrator, who would need to frame their story as a narrative to an outsider to justify explaining details they are already aware of. The use of third person narrator doesn’t make this kind of explanatory detail feel any more naturally included in ‘The Iron Witch’, possibly because the writing in these places is too self-conscious as it strives for an appearance of naturalness. Throwing in signals to the naturalness of these thoughts like ‘And, of course’ only highlight how strange it is that the reader is having such things explained to them.

There are also passages where explanation is info dumped to set out the rules of the world the characters exist in. Take this excerpt for example, a part of the conversation where Donna explains the Order to Navin :

‘ “It has different names depending on the culture, but the most important thing is what it symbolizes. It’s something to do with ‘all being One,’ and it reminds us that the cycle of death and rebirth might be considered a natural thing. Although death is something that alchemy seeks to overcome.” ‘.

This type of explanation is probably the least bothersome because although this information could have been included more subtly, it is information that the reader needs to operate in Donna’s world. Mahoney works to make the conversation sound natural, by having Navin interject questions and sarcasm, instead of allowing Donna to just rattle through what the reader needs to know. It still doesn’t feel like a natural conversation to me, but then I feel like I’ve become very attuned to picking out teaching conversations in fiction over the last year. As the other kinds of over explanation accumulated I felt a wedge wiggling in between me and Donna which is tough to explain. Maybe it occurred because I was constantly pausing to have something explained to me, so I wasn’t being given as much space as I wanted to naturally absorb an understanding of Donna (although I feel like I do know a lot about her life now). Or maybe the explanation interrupts and slows the rhythm of the narrative too much for me to go deeply under the spell of the story. Whatever the cause the novel does feel stilted in many places because of the large amount of explanatory detail.

Finally, every review has mentioned this, but I thought it was fab, so I will end on a repetitive note. ‘The Iron Witch’ contains a background gay couple who run Donna’s order and are just, y’know together, no big, freaking drama, gay characters are represented in some way in this book. I suspect future books in the trilogy may have a gay villain whose villainy is not a result of his sexuality. I am in favour of that.

Thanks for the review copy, signed in purple ink, Karen Mahoney. I look forward to seeing how the next book in the trilogy develops the characters.

Other Reviews

Reading in Color

Once Upon a Time There Was a Girl Who Blogged

2011-03-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

I am returned, feeling much better and tomorrow I will actually have a review up. Thanks so much for all your nice messages (and especially Jeanne thanks for the lines of poetry). Colds are rotten, aren’t they? But at least it wasn’t the flu, which I had once and NOOOOO never again darken my door. Just a drop by today then to announce my intent to take part in this year’s Once Upon a Time Challenge. This year I’m going to take part in The Journey version of this challenge, where participants can read just one book, in order to take any challenge related pressure off my back.

I’m hoping to read at least two books instead of just one and those books are: ‘The World More Full of Weeping’ - Robert J Wiersema which features kids getting lost in the woods and a mysterious wood dwelling girl

‘Demonglass’ – Rachel Hawkins the snarky, much anticipated sequel to ‘Hex Hall’ which I keep totally inaccurately thinking of as ‘Hogwarts for girls’. It’s set in a magical boarding school and the main character must fight evil, but apart from that shares no similarities with HP at all, except for the fact that it is also super awesome

Happy end of week to you all. Hopefully you'll be seeing a lot more of me from now on.

Things To End When I am in Charge: Item One - Colds

2011-03-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Dear everyone, *cough, cough* the cold virus decided to make a liar of all my ‘I’m fine’ comments, which means you find me seriously miserable and full of cold again. The really bad bit is over (last Wednesday night I went from alright to tender and awful in about ten minutes), my throat is better, but there’s nothing nice about blowing your nose fifty times a day #oversharing. The worst of it is I had some time off sick the first time I was ill and so now I have to go to work unless I can’t stand up/ insert other horrible non-work appropriate things you can think of. These things have not happened (which despite being at work, folding leaflets, feeling like my head might pop I am glad of that) so to the office I go armed with blackcurrant Lemsip until I am better.

I have been working on writing things elsewhere in the last few days, but I haven’t had the inclination to also write reviews. I finished ‘Shipbreaker’ (awesome), ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ (also awesome) and am halfway through Behemoth (guess what, again it is awesome). There’s more I’ll be saying about each title when I review them and each review will not be just ‘I liked it a bunch, squee’ but right now my easy to type in one sentence feeling is that young adult sci-fi adventure where both boys and girls get to go adventuring is a trend it might take a long time to tire of.

Hopefully I’ll be better soon and I’ll get something up on the Nebula contenders for The Booksmuggler’s readalong this weekend. Until then if any of you in the UK fancy a lend of my copy of ‘Shipbreaker’ let me know and I’ll send it on, it’s good, fantasy violent fun with a narrator I wish was getting a sequel.

Orange Ladies (No Spray Tan Necessary)

2011-03-16T06:25:00.000-07:00

It’s Orange long list day! Is everybody happy to see the return of the book prize that is all ladies, all the time?!

Here’s the full long list, which I nabbed from Simon at Savidge Reads post:

• Lyrics Alley – Leila Aboulela
• Jamrach’s Menagerie – Carol Birch
• Room – Emma Donoghue
• The Pleasure Seekers – Tishani Doshi
• Whatever You Love – Louise Doughty
• A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
• The Memory of Love – Aminatta Forna
• The London Train – Tessa Hadley
• Grace Williams Says it Loud – Emma Henderson
• The Seas – Samantha Hunt
• The Birth of Love – Joanna Kavenna
• Great House – Nicole Krauss
• The Road to Wanting – Wendy Law-Yone
• The Tiger’s Wife – Téa Obreht
• The Invisible Bridge – Julie Orringer
• Repeat it Today with Tears – Anne Peile
• Swamplandia! – Karen Russell
• The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives – Lola Shoneyin
• The Swimmer – Roma Tearne
• Annabel – Kathleen Winter

This may be the biggest test my reading ban has faced yet. I’ve only read one (‘Annabel’ for the indie lit awards which was very good) and own another one (‘Room’ of which I am scared). I already know that I want to read at five other books on the longlist (‘The Tiger’s Wife’, ‘Swamplandia!’, ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’, ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ and ‘The Seas’). What will my wanting list look like after I investigate the rest of the list?

Thanks to Simon’s post guessing what might be on the list I am adding lots of other books to my list. The 'want to read' notebook is officially almost full and this is worrying, because I’m pretty sure it contains more books than I can read in a life time.

Which books from the long list are you excited about? Has anyone already read enough of the list to hazard shortlist predictions?

The Adjustment Bureau

2011-03-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

Oh this is going to be such a negative post, which is a shame because I don't often take a whole post to review one film, but it can't be helped. I first need to make a few things clear, because I am going to have to talk about religious elements of the film and I think everyone knows that can lead to misunderstandings, especially when you’re a non-believing blogger. So some disclaimers and explanations:

1.) The Adjustment Bureau is a religious movie. As such at time the beliefs expressed in this film directly contradict my world view

2.) I’ve watched, read and enjoyed a lot of media over the year that expresses ideas that contradict my religious world view (films and books that clearly express the uncontested belief that God exists and that there’s a divine plan) and have never really felt uneasy about taking in this media. Everyone gets to believe their things, I’ll go on believing mine and we’ll all watch media about each others beliefs for the benefits that can bring (understanding, the possible realisation of chances for compromise between different groups, or just straight up entertainment from an interesting source)

3.) I’m not especially fond of some of the logic constructs, which are linked to religious beliefs, that crop up in books like Narnia and I’d try to argue against them reasonably, with the understanding that anyone else is free to dispute my ideas as long as they’re not offensive and they don’t expect to convert me to their way of thinking. At the same time I don’t necessarily feel like I always want to put down media which contains religious views that do lead towards an offensive contradiction to the way I see the world. For example, I find he way that Narnia presents puberty troublesome and its treatment of Susan misogynistic, the books expression of these views are linked to the religious structure that informs the text, but I don’t feel the need to hurl the book at the wall. The reasons for this are many and complicated.

4.) There has been one time in my whole life that I can remember where religious ideas expressed, without critique, in a book made me so uneasy I could find no way to be satisfied with this type of free argument structure. That book did actually contain offensive material towards another religious group, I felt the views being expressed were so dead wrong and I think everybody has their own tolerance level for how much uncritiqued offence they can watch go by in media before they need to put it down.

5.) Watching The Adjustment Bureau was not quite the same, because the films expression of how a divine plan works doesn’t express prejudice against one particular group, but against the entirety of humanity. The idea that humanity is not a good species is something I’ve seen expressed in lots of places, but I found the expression of that idea in this film particularly distasteful because it was linked to religious logic and the logic seemed sloppy. I hold my hands up and make clear my personal bias here – I don’t like religious theory expressing ideas that humanity is a big bunch of wasters who can’t do anything right and so I did not enjoy this element of the film, but I might have been more tolerant of a piece of media expressing this view if a.) the logic behind it were more robust b.) it wasn’t linked to religion

6.) I fully understand that just because I felt extremely uneasy about the ideas being expressed in this film they do not remove my right to believe in what I believe in, nor are they offensive just because I find them squicky

7.) Just because there is no substantial opposing theory offered to these ideas does not make this film a bad work of art (although it is for other reasons) or a propaganda piece. Many pieces of art only show one side of an argument and are effective works of art/not propoaganda

8.) I am not calling for censorship of the expression of alternative ideas to mine, nor am I saying ‘I can’t watch this, it has religion in it’. I just need to explain that part of what made this particular film so awful for me to watch had to do with the logic behind the metaphorical examination of divine control

9.) I don’t want to imply that all religious people would agree with the views expressed in this film, or that these views ‘should’ be something nice, religious people stand against – we probably wouldn’t get along if they thought all of humanity was a waste of space (and there’s a big difference between that and thinking humanity has flaws), but y’know they get to say whatever they want because that’s how free speech works

10.) There were many other reasons why I didn’t like this film besides the fact that I found the way ideas I did not agree with hard to take in this one piece of media

In 'The Adjustment Bureau' human life is controlled by The Adjustment Bureau, shady men who dress like 50s government agents with trilbys and grey trenchcoats (yes all of them are men). They must make sure that every human life sticks to The Plan, which is written by The Chairman (for who we humans have many names, hint one of those names is God). Matt Damon’s character David Norris, meets Emily Blunt’s character Elise (actually do we ever find out her second name?) and forms a quick romantic connection with her. According to The Plan they’re not supposed to be together after that one kiss and it’s only because David’s ‘guardian agent' Harry falls asleep at a crucial moment that they meet again. David also arrives at his office earlier than he is supposed to and so sees members of the bureau ‘adjusting’ his colleagues brains so they’ll agree with Norris’ solar power project. The plan is well and truly off track.

A lot of reviews are calling this film an examination of free will vs predestination, which I find odd because there is no substantial examination of free will. The film proposes a world where the divine plan, run by The Chairman, really exists and no matter how they might try humans cannot change the plan themselves. Free will does not exist in the world of ‘The Adjustment Bureau’. Well that’s not quite right, humans are allowed free will in small matters, for example what drink to get on the way to work. In the big matters humans may think about exercising their free will (as in the impulse for free will still exists), but any unknowing attempt to deviate from The Plan in a significant way will be corrected before the human being can put their free will into action. Basically, humans have free will in thought, but in action they’re strictly controlled.

At first it seems like David and Elise's attempts to be together show that free will really does exist and can change The Plan. However, it emerges that they only want to be together because The Plan is always being rewritten. In earlier versions they were meant to be together and these versions keep poking through into reality. In the end David gets the relationship he wants, which isn’t in The plan, not through his own free will but because the fact that he and Elise fight for their relationship shows The Chairman something that makes him change The Plan. As the voice over moral at the end tells us (paraphrased) ‘what the creator really wants is for humans to keep fighting for the life they want, to keep overcoming the hurdles he puts in their way and then what they want becomes part of The Plan’. Now, that is not free will as I understand it, although I don't have enough religious knowledge to know whether this kind of interpretation of free will makes sense in terms of the major religions. By my understanding of free will this ending makes ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ a film that wants the audience to believe it has shown free will at work, changing human lives, but has actually shown them how a divine plan might adjust so that your free will wishes become part of the plan. And this only happens if you’re very exceptional people, the rest of humanity that plods along refusing to fight hurdles, is undeserving of free will and continues to exist in a controlled state while David and Elise go ‘free’ this time.

I find this version of the way the world works contrary to my beliefs (see disclaimers above) as well as rather troubling, but the point where I actually swore out loud at the screen from frustration came in the middle of the film, when an agent known as The Hammer explains that humans used to have free will, but that control was taken back by the maker of The Plan. At certain points in history The Chairman apparently stepped back from control and gave people free will. The first time resulted in The Dark Ages, and when control was released again in the nineteenth century humans to brought about WWI and WWII. When David asks how why the world is still kind of bad now, despite the bureau taking back control, The Hammer provides an answer to the effect of ‘We’re still working to get it back on track’. These seem extremely poorly constructed rhetorical arguments (for one thing they ignore any good that may have come out of other events taking place during the time periods when control was released and ignores any bad stuff that came about in time periods where The Chairman exerted control like The Enlightenment). The Hammer’s view is also the most depressing assessment of humanity I’ve ever heard expressed and to hear that it’s backed by The Chairman, by the all powerful being that made and controls the entire world, leaves no room for the audience to say ‘well maybe that’s just the view of his imperfect servants, perhaps God has more faith in us’. It’s just a hugely condemnatory way to approach the entirety of humanity and it makes me really sad to see something created that would cast every person in humanity, not just as flawed, but as pretty much worthless, immoral, unpleasant characters. I guess I don’t understand how a persons religion could lead them to such an idea (and yes, again I note my bias that if someone were to present this idea without any religious links it might have less of a powerful effect on me).

Shall we move on to what else I didn’t like about this film:

Elise: Elise is in this film…why? Oh right to be a love interest, for shots of her legs in a short skirt and…um.... to provide the drive for David to continue to try to exert his free will! I mean…she has no agency, the plot devices in the film make sure that she can't be told anything that would lead to her having agency and at the end of the film when David tells her that if they stay together all her dreams will disappear it takes her about a second to agrees to follow him where he leads, in order to see if they can beat The Plan. I mean take at least a pregnant pause of drama to decide whether you want to risk your career aspirations and dreams for this guy.

Also there’s a definite vibe towards the end that to be successful in a high profile way is preferable to being successful in a less high profile way. Elise will be one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the age if David leaves her, but if he stays with her she will ‘end up teaching dance to six year olds’. I get that if your dream is to be a great choreographer and in the end you don’t get there that doing anything else might be a bit of a let down, but we can’t know if it would be a let down for Elise for no one is allowed to ask her. Perhaps she would trade high profile success for lower profile success because teaching children might be fulfilling to her. Perhaps she would resent David forever if he killed her dreams of being a high profile dancer. Who knows? Instead of a real answer we get this really awful implied assumption that to be a teacher (which is a traditionally female role, especially when you add in ‘dance teacher’ and ‘teacher younger children’) is fundamentally a lesser job and less desirable than high profile success.

Weak sci-fi: Really, is it even worthy of the name sci-fi? The adjustment agents have hats that let them open special doors that take them to a new location, which can be anywhere in the world. How the hats work is not explained. Large areas of water, or rain, shield people from the agents ability to control circumstances. Again there is no explanation. The most decent sci-fi element is The Plan, which appears as a constantly changing diagram in notebooks that the agents carry around. There’s no explanation of how they function, or how many plans fit in a notebook, but the effect does at least look cool. Are these sci-fi elements symbolic in some way?

Theories on romance: The bit where I really lost it with this film came towards the end. David asks why the bureau cares so much that he doesn’t end up with Elise and Harry answers that if he ends up with her she will be ‘enough’. David won’t need to strive to be a Senator anymore, because that hole that drives him to be in front of crowds will be filled by Elise. The Plan needs him to be a Senator because he’s going to do great things (although these great things are unspecified, but I can let that go because maybe Harry is bound by the great rule of all sci-fi - you can’t tell people what you know about the future).

Yep that’s how life works. Once you find the perfect partner they are the only thing you need and any grand career aspirations are exposed as a simple reaction to a lack of domestic approval, attention and love. Clearly every successful, high profile person is walking around with just a little part of them missing, because they haven’t found The One yet.

And there are other weird, littler things about romance that crop up in the dialogue. David and Elise have a conversation where she asks how he knows she doesn’t have a fabulous boyfriend now, it is three years after they first met after all. David is pretty clear that it would not matter if she did, he would persist, but he says (paraphrasing) that if she were married then that would be a problem. *Sigh* because marriage is the only romantic commitment that a.) can’t be broken b.) should be respected by outsiders who fancy you right? *Sigh*

More on women: In a film so lacking in the women, that makes Elise’s character into a cross between manic pixie girl, a woman with one interest (although I did like the way this creative drive was represented in the film, for example when she is unsure about her wedding she goes to her studio to dance to try and work things out - nice) and a woman with no agency I am suspicious of every little reference made to the ladies in this film. So when Harry says (paraphrase) ‘your father could have been so much more and your brother could too, if they both hadn’t died, but it wasn’t in The Plan’ and David asks if his mother was also a casualty of the plan, but is told her death was ‘just chance’ I am ragingly suspicious in the way I interpret that remark. The lady in his family isn’t mentioned as someone who wanted to, in fact could have, been more and she apparently wasn’t important enough to have a place in The Plan that meant she had to be removed from earth.

So that was (not) a fun night at the cinema. I’m also kind of sad to find out that this film is based on a Philip K Dick story. Does anyone know how closely it sticks to the source material? Has anyone else seen this film and what did you think of it?

March Readalongs

2011-03-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

I’ve been off work sick for a few days (everyone seems to be toppling with March colds and while I'm back at work my sinuses still don't feel quite right in dry office conditions) and that’s why I’ve been missing around these parts. I just thought I’d give you a wave and a little notification of what readalongs I’m planning to join in March:

‘Shipbreaker’ - Paolo Bacigalupi and ‘Behemoth’ - Scott Westerfeld for The Booksmuggler’s Nebula readathon. I’m 100 pages into ‘Shipbreaker’ now and really enjoying it already.

‘Prospero Lost’ - J G Lamplighter for the Women of Fantasy Book Club.

‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ - Patrick Ness for Calico Reaction's Book Club, which is a reading group I haven’t read with before.

I’ve already finished Karen Mahoney’s 'Iron Witch’. it continue
Four other literary things

Last weekend I saw Romeo and Juliet at the new theatre in Stratford, with some of my favourite members of the Royal Shakespeare Company playing the title roles. More on this later when my head is properly cleared.

The next day I saw Gnomeo and Juliet, which follows the ‘doomed lovers’ storyline in the main, but is otherwise delightfully far away from canon. Elton John songs, references to other films (including one to ‘Brokeback Mountain’ which officially won this film my love) and drag racing lawnmowers which will put you so in mind of Grease. It’s sentimental of course, but there’s also quite a bit of funny and a glob of good heart. Your heart would have to be a little stone ninja bunny not to crack just a leetle bit.

I’m entering the third month of my book buying ban and I am beginning to jonesy for a new book fix (litlove, this is my attempt to keep working that idea of books as healthy but addictive into my blogging). I’ve said I’ll enter into another three month ban with Peta at the end of this one and go until June, which, if you could see my room you would clap hard as a very good idea. Still nnnhhh, bites down.

Do you know the 24 hour read-a-thon, or Dewey's read-a-thon is on April 9th 2011? Hurray!

Adieu, until I am fully none sniffley everyone.