Jul 04 2015

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Given my recent run of disappointment with books I’ve been rereading, this was quite the refreshing change! As muscular as I remembered, and convincing, it was yet better written and more complex than I’d given it credit for in my rememberings. And that ending! Once, I’d believed it incurably optimistic: now, I’m still convinced of its valor, but see better the layer of grimness that colors it. A terrific book for fans of sci-fi and, I suppose, dystopian fiction, with well-thought-out philosophies. The gender dynamics occasionally feel antiquated (if not outright condescending, particularly and ironically in Coker’s rant against the learned helplessness of women) but I imagine it was quite progressive for its time. A true classic, sci-fi/horror for adults, and miles better than most of the stuff being churned out today.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/the-day-of-the-triffids-by-john-wyndham/

Jul 04 2015

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

First off, it is really weird reading a book about anorexia while fasting. There are parallels (and great divergences, of course) that really help you sympathize with the narrator even as you shy away from the excesses of control. I’ve never suffered from an eating disorder, tho I know people who have, but I have to say that as far as I can tell Wintergirls is a convincing, compelling look into the mind of teenage girls who do. Laurie Halse Anderson writes with sympathy and imagination, vividly navigating a hallucinatory inner world that reminds me only all too well of my own adolescence. Harrowing and sensitive, this is one of those books that I’m glad to have read because it makes me feel like I truly understand, at least a certain subset of, other people better now and can respond with more kindness and support than I might have before.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/wintergirls-by-laurie-halse-anderson/

Jul 04 2015

Three Plays: Bedroom Farce, Absent Friends, Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn

Bought this in college, and kept it at my bedside for years. B acted in an adaptation of Absurd Person Singular, which I think was the driving force behind the purchase (also, I love scripts,) and I found Ayckbourn on the whole witty, trenchant etc. And then I grew up and got married.

And let me tell you, I’m one of those people who thinks very dimly of the sitcoms where the married couples just bicker and are mean to each other and this is somehow supposed to be funny. It’s not, it’s awful, and I feel desperately sorry for anyone who thinks this is acceptable or, worse, aspirational. To a certain extent, I do blame Ayckbourn and his ilk for making that sort of bedroom farce (if you’ll excuse the pun) the standard by which so many drearily untalented “comedy” writers measure themselves, as at least 85% of the latter forget that the entire point isn’t that these miserable people are married, it’s that they’re miserably married, and honestly probably shouldn’t be married at all (but we’ll save the rant for the Western world’s fetishization of death-do-us-part marriages for another time.) Ayckbourn used comedy to highlight the absurdity of the (ostensibly British, but really quite universal) middle-class and its ambitions, and nothing was more symbolic of such than their marriages. When I was younger, before marriage and motherhood, I thought these plays much funnier than I do now. Nowadays, while I’m thankful to have enough self-awareness to avoid most of the traps these poor, unhappy people fall into, I can’t laugh at them as easily as I once could. Nowadays, I can’t help seeing the tragedy lurking just beneath, and it takes away a little of the pleasure these plays once gave me.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/three-plays-bedroom-farce-absent-friends-absurd-person-singular-by-alan-ayckbourn/

Jul 04 2015

Treatise on the Diseases of Women by Lydia Estes Pinkham

Fascinating insight into the world of medicine and health at the turn of the 20th century. Lydia Pinkham was certainly a pioneer in her frank discussions with women regarding their health. Essentially a collection of the advertising material created for her medicines, this book presents the most up-to-date (for the time) science regarding women’s health in a way that’s accessible and candid, with none of the squeamishness so often attendant upon discussions of such. Some parts are incorrect, some parts questionable (it’s basically an advertising tract, after all,) but on the whole, a valuable trove of material on the times.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/treatise-on-the-diseases-of-women-by-lydia-estes-pinkham/

Jul 04 2015

Pavane by Keith Roberts

So that was weird. I first encountered this book in college where, haunting the oddly stocked shelves of the library, I stumbled across the Gollancz version: no blurb, no explanation, just a bright yellow dust jacket with the title, author and the symbol of the Crab people in brick red on the cover. Desperate for any reading material, I checked it out, and after a slow-ish start (because I did not give a shit about trains and I felt that The Lady Margaret chapter went on and on about their handling,) I was plunged into a world so different yet similar. And then the ending! The ending! The book has haunted me since, and when it finally came back into print, Jay got me a copy for a recent birthday. Finally had time to read it, and… I dunno. I think it’s a book that doesn’t bear re-reading. The surprise of it is so overwhelming that going into it again, you expect the same experience, and it just can’t happen. Also, with time and experience, certain things stand out, such as Roberts’ discomfort with writing adolescent women and, worse, the odd gaps in logic and story-telling. Almost two decades later, the ending doesn’t make sense to me any more, though it was perfectly mind-blowing to me at the time. But other things have become better: my annoyance with train talk, for example, matured into an appreciation for the love behind it. And I wonder, too, if my own style of reading hasn’t become more demanding of an author, less demanding of my own imagination to fill in the intellectual blanks.

I’m wistful, still, for that first experience of wonder now colored by a more adult disappointment that what I once thought exquisitely beautiful and strange just wasn’t as much as I’d thought it.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/pavane-by-keith-roberts/

Jul 04 2015

How To Be Both by Ali Smith

So I got the Eye/Camera version, and I’m probably in the minority of people who found Francesco’s side more compelling than George’s, if only because it felt like a whole arc, unlike George’s half, which just sorta ended. But I’ve never been a fan of the grief narrative, as evidenced by my disdain for the vast majority of autobiographies written by people 40 or under: too much wallowing, not enough art.

Which is something that could never be leveled at Francesco’s half. Art abounds! I loved the imaginative invention of Francesco’s history, even as I’m not entirely sure why B sent this to me. We’d been discussing a boy I know, whose pre-Raphaelite beauty sneaks up on you unexpectedly, prompting her to send me this book. And there are certainly passages that spoke to me of love and reality in ways other books didn’t. One of which I’ll quote to end this review (ironically from George’s half):

You can’t just make stuff up about real people, George says.

We make stuff up about real people all the time, H says. Right now you’re making stuff up about me. And I’m definitely making stuff up about you. You know I am.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/how-to-be-both-by-ali-smith/

Jul 04 2015

One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville

So how to describe this book without devolving into a slew of Personal Issues that had me sobbing so hard at points in the book that I had to set it aside and just cry from the relief of knowing that someone, somewhere, experienced the same pain and came out intact and even, dare I say it, happy?

Anyway, terrific biography of an astounding woman. The value placed on the maternal instinct and how it matters just as much to a woman’s sense of self and personal fulfillment as outside work, and on crafting the best life possible even when circumstances work against you, and of the role of literature and art in giving life meaning, really resounded in me, as did the value of childcare that was loving and nurturing without being prohibitively expensive. When I first received this book as a gift from darling B, I didn’t know what it had to do with me that she thought I needed to read it so urgently: it’s nice to know that she still understands me through time and distance. Gorgeously written, One Life is a fitting tribute to someone who loved and was loved, fully and thoughtfully.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/one-life-my-mothers-story-by-kate-grenville/

Jul 04 2015

The Mistborn Trilogy Boxed Set by Brandon Sanderson

Ugh, Brandon Sanderson, why are you so good at writing?!?!

Stayed up the other night just to finish this, and cried my way through the ending. Not as badly as I cried through 40 entire pages near the end of Way of Kings (which was also partly due, I feel, to the Mistborn trilogy being stylistically less polished than WoK, but that’s understandable since Sanderson continues to hone his craft to exquisite result,) but still, there was quiet sobbing in the dark. It was a very satisfying conclusion, though, and cements my respect for Sanderson even more.

I’m also glad I went and bought this in the trilogy format for my Kindle so that I forced myself to read the entire thing through. I think I’m done with not reading completed series novels in a row: it works so much better if you just go through them all at once. But then, I usually feel compelled to re-read earlier novels in order to make sure I’m refreshed on the events that might take place in following books. I no longer have the time for that kind of reading, tho!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/the-mistborn-trilogy-boxed-set-by-brandon-sanderson/

Jul 02 2015

Od Magic by Patricia A. McKillip

How do you pronounce the first word of the title? I asked a couple of friends who had read Od Magic before me, and their first response was a pause, and then, “Hm.”

Online Scrabble has since taught me that “od” is an actual English word, somewhat archaic, meaning “a hypothetical power once thought to pervade nature and account for various scientific phenomena.” Which in a way is too bad, because before stumbling across the definition (fortunately, with a double-word score), I had thought about different ways to parse the word as part of the title, and to tie it together with the considerations of magic that form one of the book’s key themes.

An early chapter points in that direction, too:

Continue reading

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Jul 01 2015

Yendi by Steven Brust

Yendi is the second book published in Steven Brust’s long-running Vlad Taltos series. It takes place after the prologue of the first book, Jhereg, and a fair amount of time before that one’s main story begins.

As I noted previously, “Vlad’s world is a high-magic setting, with death often no more than an inconvenience (though it can become permanent under certain circumstances), and teleportation common enough that Vlad will undertake several in a busy day, and that his office has a designated spot for both incoming and outgoing teleportation. This not the kind of book that explores the ramifications of commonplace magic very rigorously; it’s the kind of book that takes such things as read and gets on with telling a fast-paced adventure story.”

Taltos himself (the name is pronounced in the Hungarian way, with the final “s” said like “sh”) is a human, low in status and very short-lived compared with the human-like race called Dragaerans, who dominate the part of the world seen in Brust’s novels. Vlad is a mid-level mafioso, because that is all that the social setup allows a person of his background to be. Though the adventure story in the book concerns a mafia war that is more than it seems, the following passage was, for me, the heart of the book:

“… my father ran a restaurant. The only people who came in were Teckla [peasants] and Jhereg [mafia], because no one else would associate with us. My father … wouldn’t let me associate with Easterners [humans] because he wanted us to be accepted as Dragaeran. …
“My father tried to make me learn Dragaeran swordsmanship, because he wanted to be accepted as Dragaeran. He tried to prevent me from studying witchcraft, because he wanted to be accepted as Dragaeran. I could go on for an hour. Do you think we were ever accepted as Dragaeran? Crap. They treated us like teckla [the animal, not the peasantry] droppings. The ones that didn’t despise us because we were Easterners hated us because we were Jhereg. They used to catch me, when I went on errands, and bash me around until—never mind. …
“I hate them. … I joined the [Jhereg, i.e., mafia] organization as muscle so I could get paid for beating them up, and I started ‘working’ [assassinating] so I could get paid for killing them. Now I’m working my way up in the organization so I can have the power to do what I want, by my own rules, and maybe show a few of them what happens when they underrate Easterners.
“There are exceptions … But they don’t matter. Even when I work with my own employees, I have to ignore how much I despise them. I have to make myself pretend I don’t want to see everyone of them torn apart. Those friends I mentioned—the other day, they were discussing conquering the East, right in front of me, as if I wouldn’t care.
“So I have to not care. I have to convince myself that I don’t care. That’s the only way I can stay sane; I do what I have to do. …”

The heat of this passage also partly explains one thing that bothered me as I read the book: the amount of casual killing, without apparent consequences. Hand-to-hand combat with lots of casualties is a common characteristic of sword and sorcery fantasy, all the more so when the main character lives outside of what little law prevails in such a setting. I enjoyed reading Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and dozens more that featured scores of bodies that wound up on the wrong end of a sword or a spell. At some point, I may go back and see if I gloss over all of that as easily as I once did, because now, reading that four guards were quickly dispatched by the hero’s bodyguards gives me pause, even if the lead character has no second thoughts and none of it seems to have given the author any pause.

Taltos and his people, however little solidarity he generally shows with them, have been on the receiving end of discrimination and violent abuse in the Dragaeran Empire since time out of mind. Among other things, he is working to be able to pay some of that back.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/01/yendi-by-steven-brust/