Jan 05 2016

Taking Stock of 2015

In 2015, I decided to read in three major science fiction and fantasy series that I had somehow missed over the previous twenty years or more. While I had been happily reading other things, they had grown into monuments of the field, and I only knew second-hand what they were all about. So I decided to at least have a look. I was inspired in part by the serendipity of finding a trove of Discworld books in Basel, where I had been traveling for work, and in part by Jo Walton’s enthusiasm for Vlad Taltos and Mike Vorkosigan, as explicated in What Makes This Book So Great. As it turns out, I did not quite get to any of the Vorkosigan books last year, and I only read two Taltos books (though I liked them both), so I still have those to look forward to. Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels are also on my radar for similar reasons. Discworld, on the other hand, has me hooked. I read a good dozen of the books in 2015, and I am finding them everything they were promised to be: hilarious, humane, heartening.

There was slightly less Poland in my reading than last year, but a large chunk of it was Czeslaw Milosz’s History of Polish Literature. I haven’t quite finished blogging about the book, but as I said in my first post about it, every literature should be so fortunate as to have a Nobel laureate to write its history.

2015 was also the year I started reading books on my phone’s screen. The experiment got off to a shaky start, and I am still not a huge fan of this form of reading. I suspect that if I were commuting, I would read more that way. When I had long commutes in Moscow, I read a lot on my Kindle, so I know I’m not averse to e-readers per se.

Non-fiction books that stand out in my recollection, beyond the Milosz, include Midnight at the Pera Palace by Charles King, Jo Walton’s collection of enthusiasms What Makes This Book So Great, Shirley Jackson’s perfect memoir Raising Demons, and Ryszard Kapuscinski’s three meditations on power: The Emperor, Shah of Shahs and Another Day of Life.

I re-read two books in 2015. Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds is a delight that I have read many times and have to be careful about picking up because I know I won’t be able to put it down again. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner is a major work in the history of science fiction, and it stands up well.

The Wolfhound Century trilogy by Peter Higgins is an amazing achievement. I’m still trying to figure out what to say about the third book beyond “breathtaking” and “audacious.” Granted, not everyone will want to read a series that starts out as a police procedural in an alternative history Russia suffused with elements of fantasy and science fiction, but people who don’t are missing out. I suspect that publishing the books at widely spaced intervals meant that they did not get as much attention as they should (the first has a cliffhanger ending, and while that doesn’t matter now that they are all out, it annoyed some reviewers at the time). I see that Dave Hutchinson’s Europe in Autumn may be growing into a series, and I am looking forward to reading the next book. I can still hear how many inflections the characters in The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison put on the word “Serenity,” even with hardly an adverb in sight. That one may get re-read. After reading The Merchant and The Alchemist’s Gate, I am looking forward to more by Ted Chiang.

I finished two books in German in 2015, Viva Polonia by Stefan Möller and Simple Storys by Ingo Schulze. I would like my reading in German to be a slightly larger share of what I read, but I am also lazy about it.

Full list, roughly in order read, is under the fold with links to my reviews here at Frumious.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/05/taking-stock-of-2015/

Dec 31 2015

The Story Of A New Name by Elena Ferrante

I want to get it, guys, I really do. All the acclaim, all the rhapsodic reverence: I want to feel that, too. I just don’t, and tho I feel like I maybe came close here (and much closer than in the first book,) I still just don’t understand why this has been such a sensation, or even how universal its appeal could possibly be when, to me, it’s an above average but certainly not great novel.

My main problem with it was Lena. I’m the kind of reader who, especially if I’m reading a first-person narrative, trusts myself to the narrator in the expectation that even if I’m (hopefully pleasantly) betrayed, at least I will understand why the narrator makes her choices because I’m inside her head (see: Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Agatha Christie’s Endless Night.) But Jesus Christ, Lena. The closest I can get to why she’s so fucking awful is that she’s a pessimist whose sense of self-worth is so minuscule that I’m fairly certain she has borderline personality disorder, to the point that nothing in her life, none of her own achievements or accomplishments, matter as much as or in contrast with her “best friend” Lila’s. When people talk about how “realistic” this depiction of a “complicated” friendship is, I thank God that my many female friendships through the years were not with a creature as absurdly self-abnegating and negative as Lena.

The main reason I enjoyed this novel and will continue to keep reading the series is, by contrast, Lila. I might not agree with all her decisions (tho in so many I felt a kinship) and I might think her occasionally mean and awful, but man, I really want things to go well for her. I read a memoir a while back where the author, in an effort to make her husband look like a good guy, painted herself as the villain in a weird act of self-justification as to why she put up with things instead of maybe saying something and not being passive-aggressive for a change, and this book felt a lot like that: a love letter to Lila, who is awesome despite Lena, who maybe makes herself sound shittier than she needs to because she wants us to love Lila like she does. But then again, Lena went and tossed the box into the river in an act of wild selfishness and ill-discipline (not to mention ill will,) so fuck her.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/31/the-story-of-a-new-name-by-elena-ferrante/

Dec 29 2015

The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated) by Ainslie Hogarth

I can’t remember where I came across mention of this book, but it was obviously enough to get me to buy it and read it. Of course, that happens a lot, which is why my to-be-read collection on my Kindle just broke 300 books.

Tangents, aside, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. Massacres are generally interesting to me, same with horror books. Boy meets girl, eh, done a lot, but in the end this was a very nice short-ish read that actually gave me the heebies at points. At a lot of points, actually. I love paranormal stuff and this books was full of it in spades, and done well, too. The author came at it all from a bit of a slant, so while it felt similar to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, it was actually very different, and very intriguing. Subtle is a word that comes to mind. Not a lot of words are used but the picture that emerges is very detailed.

I’m not an official book reviewer with a list of particular things to critique. I just like what I like, and I liked this book. I’m glad I came across it, I’m glad I read it, and I fully intend to read it again in the future.

I think you should, too.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/29/the-boy-meets-girl-massacre-annotated-by-ainslie-hogarth/

Dec 27 2015

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

In which I read a book simply because it has won the 2015 Man Booker prize, and am somewhat disappointed.

I read just about everything on the 2015 Man Booker short list because I wanted to. This was one of the ones I didn’t read, and now I’m regretting a bit that it won, because I won’t ever get that week of my life back.

Don’t misunderstand me, this book was literary to the Nth degree. It used Jamaican patois throughout (where appropriate), and figuring out what words meant from context was an enjoyable exercise for me. It spoke of important things, too – Jamaica and its culture, its politics, its relationship with the First World, and many others. So I can’t say that it was the topic that annoyed me, because it didn’t. This is usually the sort of thing I eat right up and ask for seconds.

In the end, though, I was left feeling unsatisfied. The seven killings were never very clear to me because people were biting the dust right and left and the number came to far more than seven. I appreciate thinking outside the box (*shudders* horrid term), and writing about a topic coming in from a different angle. So, truly, I should have loved this book. I didn’t, though, and it’s been making me a little crazy trying to figure out why.

I think maybe it was a couple of things. First, it was just too long. Period.

Second, I understand making a point and bringing in the local color, and staying true to the story, but there were so many characters, each writing in their own dialect (whatever that dialect might be), and not a lot of clues to help the reader keep track of what was going on. If I had read a book on Jamaican politics BEFORE picking up this book, I think I would have been in love. However, I was missing that foundation and so I had trouble latching onto the things that mattered and following the story as a whole. This could be my failure, or the book’s failure, or perhaps a joint effort in failing. I don’t know.

It’s not a bad book, just one I’d strongly suggest you read AFTER beefing up on Jamaican politics and Bob Marley and the drug trade.

You can read Doreen’s review from last month here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/27/a-brief-history-of-seven-killings-by-marlon-james-2/

Dec 27 2015

A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

There are so many, many great and splendid things about this book. First, as with all good hard sf, it is a novel of ideas, not merely translating our human experiences into distant settings, but also imagining alternate forms of personhood, whether in the structure of alien races — beyond the tired insectoid/robotic hive minds prevalent in popular sci-fi, tho forms of these are indeed as present in it as are our own familiar human lives — or in the very stratification of the universe into levels of consciousness and technology, and how entities bridge these levels. It sounds crazy and hard to fathom, but Vernor Vinge makes it all not only accessible but plausible.

In addition, his characterizations are excellent (and refreshingly not white-male-centric.) As well as being a novel of Ideas, this book is also a deeply moving study of love in its many forms, of greed and sadism and fear and, most importantly, of the will to self-determination. Towards that last, this book is also a rollicking adventure story with a body count that made me, at one point, scream with frustration at its sheer realism (and send my bff a garbled message heavy on emoji. Think of a sci-fi Game Of Thrones. Yep, like that.)

I shouldn’t, however, say that it was just the deaths that affected me. A Fire Upon The Deep deals with a concept even greater than the loss of life: it spends a great deal of time considering the loss of self. What does it mean to be someone entirely different than you’ve always believed? Is it possible for us to escape our programming, one could even say, our destinies? How much of our personalities are immalleable? It’s a breath-taking exploration of not only the outer reaches of space but also the interior space of the mind and soul.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/27/a-fire-upon-the-deep-by-vernor-vinge/

Dec 23 2015

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty

I usually find Liane Moriarty novels superlative, but this one fell short for me. Here’s my main problem with The Last Anniversary: it’s fairly clear from the outset that Grace has post-natal depression, yet at no time in the proceedings does she acknowledge this as true. It’s absolutely maddening. I also haaaaated Laura. I suppose her unhappiness was supposed to be punishment enough, but I thought the way she raised Grace was completely fucked up. I was also irritated by Margie’s problems all being solved as soon as she lost weight, and also by her “not exactly” affair. No, Margie, it wasn’t an affair at all; people are allowed to have friends of the opposite sex, you know. It was also very hard to figure out what Audrey (who was yay, Malaysian!) saw in Veronika, tho I suppose one could just chalk that down to the vagaries of love.

Anyway, there were too many headscratching moments in an otherwise terrific novel (that ending! So sneaky and satisfying!) for me to rate it as highly as the rest of her oeuvre, but the mystery was really well done and I did stay up far too late reading it, the hallmark of a very good book.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/23/the-last-anniversary-by-liane-moriarty/

Dec 20 2015

From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe

For those of us in love with the history of Architecture, there are a myriad of scholarly works, photo essays, and the like, many of which are unexceptional reading.  But, if there was a book that introduced “out of the box” thinking to 20th century architectural concepts, this is probably it. A classic from 1981, I imagine most Americans, and many Britons as well, hardly noticed that their skylines “suffered” from Bauhausian design, which advanced in the wake of war-torn Germany. Yet, Tom Wolfe envisions an architectural nightmare/wasteland of glass boxes consuming historic city downtowns across the western world from which it has only recently escaped, little better than the destruction it replaced.
“Suffered” is in quotes for a reason, though. I grew up in Houston, where at least one of Wolfe’s seminal examples are built, and as a child, I found the building to be fascinating, not mundane. As an adult, I think many of these same buildings have aged gracefully into the downtowns of many cities and in fact, co-exist with much of the traditional architecture which is now being revitalized in the “post-Bauhausian” age.
While I can engage the premise that the book poses, Wolfe freely admits he is no more a part of the architectural establishment than I am. So, I find it overreaching that he speaks in great detail about people like Philip Johnson, whom he does not purport to know well, as though he uniquely understood their intentions. But like any other style, if one encounters it constantly, one will tire of it. I find much of Baroque architecture overly fussy and ornate, but that does not mean that my opinion of it should hold sway. Nor does it mean I will not enjoy the experience of it once in a while.
If you are considering this book, know that it moves quickly and can easily be read in one or two sittings. Wolfe’s writing style often flows like the Colorado River eroding the Grand Canyon, with words like semiology that are not in everyone’s lexicon. I bought a copy from the used bookstore, so I had to pull out the iPhone for a semi-definition. Incidentally, the iPhone fits the Bauhausian design concepts to some degree if you have not noticed this before.
Of course, since the book is an opinion piece written by someone who has a clear gift for writing, it is most persuasive. But I did not care for the way the final chapter stopped like a tube coming slightly too fast into the station. For me, the argument was ultimately unconvincing. As a result, while it may have been “out of the box” in 1981, in 2015, it seems out of date. Read it to discover how Bauhausian design concepts have evolved around the world, but avoid taking it too seriously. After all, the author chose to be photographed in a solid white suit complete with matching handkerchief; he gets the joke.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/20/from-bauhaus-to-our-house-by-tom-wolfe/

Dec 20 2015

Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland

So I’m torn. I’m a big fan of ABT (because Center Stage is the best dance movie ever, and also everything ABT stands for) and I knew of Misty Copeland but I never really cared about her any more than the average principal dancer till I saw her judging on So You Think You Can Dance and HOLY SHIT was she not one of the best guest judges they’d ever had?! Smart, sensitive and sensible: her advice was astoundingly good, and I got the feeling that she genuinely cared about the dancers on the stage and wanted to help them improve. I’ve been a fan of hers ever since, so was super excited to get this book. And for the first part, I was totally with her. But… I dunno. So much of the second half left me cold. Maybe it was because the storytelling stopped being entirely linear, jumping back and forth in her history to illustrate themes instead. Maybe it was because I found it exceedingly hard to be sympathetic to her mother, and thought the part where Misty tried to make her dance teacher’s motives seem ulterior extremely tacky. I know it was difficult to be honest about what had happened, and I admire the courage it took for Misty to present what happened alongside her own, often conflicting motivations as a teenager and admitted people-pleaser, but dang. Her family behaved really badly. Having to read Misty bend over backwards to apologize for, if not outright defend, them was neither fun nor entertaining.

And for some reason, that dimmed my enthusiasm for her determination to be a role model, so to speak, for other black and brown girls. Just the glaring lack of self-awareness between her “well, Cindy must have done it primarily for herself, not me” and her “I’m doing this primarily for others, not myself” when it seems perfectly clear that they both wanted the same thing… I dunno. It’s not as bad as your average memoir written by a 30-something American woman, but it falls far short of where it needs to be in terms of introspection and maturity.

Which isn’t to say that the book is at all juvenile! Misty Copeland is a truly inspirational figure, and I absolutely agree with her belief that circumstances shouldn’t deter people from working towards their dreams. I’d absolutely snap up a book she wrote at the end of a hopefully long and lauded career, when she and I are both decrepit old people who’ve had time to look back over our lives and reflect. That said, I can see the point of having this book come out now, to encourage young (and hey, even not-so-young) people to follow their dreams, but I honestly don’t think she’s had enough distance from the controversies of her upbringing to really tease through all the emotional fallout and give us a clear picture of herself and her place in the world. So I’m torn. The book is good enough for what it set out to do, but it could be so much more. Here’s hoping we get a better version fifty or so years from now!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/20/life-in-motion-an-unlikely-ballerina-by-misty-copeland/

Dec 18 2015

I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

I really enjoyed her fiction work, so in comparison, this collection of essays seems fairly bland. It’s okay if you want to read the musings of a young, single white American woman living in New York City, but it’s nothing groundbreaking, distinctive or even particularly memorable. There’s some humor to it, but I didn’t find it laugh out loud funny. Passable entertainment.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/18/i-was-told-thered-be-cake-by-sloane-crosley/

Dec 15 2015

The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal by Hubert Wolf

I’ll admit, I picked up the book because “ooh, sexy nuns!” But The Nuns Of Sant’Ambrogio turned out to be so much more: an intelligent examination of the Catholic Church in a turbulent period of the 19th century, with this scandal serving to illuminate the theological and political divides that have shaped the institution (and frankly, in the opinion of both the author and myself, not necessarily for the good.)

So you’ve got the beautiful Sister Maria Luisa, the surprisingly young and powerful mother vicaress of the convent of Sant’Ambrogio, founded by a woman, Maria Agnese Firrao, who was later convicted of false holiness (i.e. she claimed to be a saint but the Inquisition found otherwise.) Maria Agnese Firrao left behind a legacy of mysticism and abuse that Maria Luisa would both fall victim to and take full advantage of… and that’s ostensibly the story here, with lesbianism, and forbidden affairs between nuns and priests, and several murders thrown in for good measure. Juicy, titillating stuff.

But Hubert Wolf isn’t a mere scandal-monger. He’s a German professor and church historian who was given access to the Inquisition’s files, as well as an author with a fine eye for parallels and nuance, and more importantly a person with a deep human empathy. There are so many paths he could have taken this book down, but he chose, in my opinion, the best one: to show the corrupting influence of unquestioned power and self-delusion. No one is left off the hook as he dissects the tragedy of Sant’Ambrogio and tells us what happened to the participants after the ensuing trial. I still feel a heartbroken fury for certain of the parties involved, knowing what I do now.

I was also deeply affected by the feminism of the book. Mr Wolf doesn’t infantilize or objectivize the women or what they did, but presents them as complete human beings. Princess Katharina, the novice who sets the denunciation of the convent in motion, is clearly one of those women who are more well-meaning than practical, but Mr Wolf is never dismissive of her or her claims. Maria Luisa is pretty much the exact opposite of Katharina, and a terrible person, but I still couldn’t help feeling for her. Impoverished and expected as a child to run the household upon her mother’s death, she finds solace in the religion of a kindly woman neighbour, who encourages her to take a vow of chastity (before the age of 10! What kind of trauma would encourage a child that young to do so?) and helps her win a dowry (essentially a scholarship) to gain entry to the convent of Sant’Ambrogio. Leaving behind her actual sisters (who I got the distinct impression she didn’t care for) for an idealized sisterhood at the age of 12, she discovers… well, you’ll have to read this heartbreaker of a book to find out for yourself.

I hope I haven’t given the impression that this book is just about the convent and its inhabitants. There is an exhaustive amount of research into church history and politics, leading to some truly shocking revelations as to the theologian behind several of the important (and in some opinions divisive, if not outright questionable) dogmas adapted in the 19th century (including the ordinary magisterium and papal infallibility.) As a Muslim, I hadn’t had any idea of certain aspects of Catholic theology till this book, but Mr Wolf made it all accessible and interesting. I wouldn’t recommend this book for people who don’t have an interest in theological intrigue, but for those who do, The Nuns Of Sant’Ambrogio is pretty much the gold standard.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/15/the-nuns-of-santambrogio-the-true-story-of-a-convent-in-scandal-by-hubert-wolf/