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| 0735279594
| 9780735279599
| 0735279594
| 4.09
| 458
| Feb 02, 2021
| Feb 02, 2021
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really liked it
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Like many Canadians, sometimes it feels like I know more about American politics than our own politics. American politics are louder, flashier, and ta
Like many Canadians, sometimes it feels like I know more about American politics than our own politics. American politics are louder, flashier, and take up more space in our news. So I’m trying my best to continue to monitor my country’s politics, particularly when it comes to issues of equity. That’s what drew me to Can You Hear Me Now?: I had heard of Celina Caesar-Chavannes and her rocky experience as a Black, female Member of Parliament. But I had another reason to read this too: Caesar-Chavannes is a business owner, an entrepreneur, and this is a memoir about the lessons she has learned and the mistakes she has made. With my best friend Rebecca’s birthday in February, this book seemed like a great gift for an entrepreneur like her. Caesar-Chavannes pulls no punches in this memoir. She discusses childhood abuse and molestation, and into her adolescence and adulthood she gets real with us about her struggles to complete school, get a degree, stay out of a toxic relationship, and later on, miscarriages, an affair, etc. She lays herself bare to the bone here in a way that is uncomfortable, certainly—but her vulnerability is powerful. Too many leadership memoirs focus on what the author did right, with maybe an anecdote here or there about hilarious failures that helped them learn an important lesson. In contrast, Caesar-Chavannes’ memoir feels more like a litany of “and then I made another mistake”—not only does this feel refreshing and human, but it’s also a reminder not to mythologize ourselves. Too often we look to leaders to tell us stories that paint them as larger than life because we, too, yearn to be that larger-than-life figure. Caesar-Chavannes reminds us that success is not a state you obtain and then you write a book: success and failure come and go in waves, and eventually you might write a book, but that doesn’t mean you’ve “made it.” She’s still got work to do. Let’s talk about race. I’m white, and therefore I have never experienced racism and discrimination. It’s important for me to read books like this, because Caesar-Chavannes pulls no punches when it comes to calling out racism either. She is not afraid to criticize various politicians, including Prime Minister Trudeau, and I am here for it. She recounts awkward, belittling conversations with the PM where he basically lectures and mansplains at her, and it presents such a stark image to the “cool Justin” reputation Trudeau tries to cultivate for himself. But these sound bites are really just the tip of the iceberg. Those later chapters where Caesar-Chavannes recounts her tumultuous experience in the House of Commons are difficult reading, for it really exposes just how anti-Black the upper echelons of our government are. We teach our children that this country is a bastion of tolerance and diversity, but when you look at the representation in our House of Commons, it’s still very white. Caesar-Chavannes is careful to point out that she is not the only person on Parliament Hill who experiences racism, but that her position as an elected MP protected her in ways staffers and public servants were not. So that was another interesting point for me to think about. Basically what I’m trying to say is that if, like me, you are interested in anti-racist praxis, this book is a valuable complement to the anti-racist books that are more academic or broader in their scope. Caesar-Chavannes’ personal experiences are worth listening to, because “I don’t see these problems” and “I didn’t know this was going on” are not acceptable statements from us white folks. Let’s talk gender. I like that she points out the discrepancies between how her parents treated her and her brother from an early age. While some of this might seem obvious, especially to cis women readers, again, I think the very personal and thorough ways in which Caesar-Chavannes explores these ideas creates such a compelling case for institutional sexism and misogyny (not to mention misogynoir, that is, discrimination specifically against Black women) in a way that people who avoid more academic books on feminism and racism can’t miss. One message she hammers home: representation matters, but access to representation matters more. It isn’t enough to have Black people and Black women in particular in positions of power and responsibility. They need to be accessible to younger Black women so that there can be mentorship and connection. This is something I will take from this book and think about, in my positions of power as an educator—how can I facilitate this within my sphere of influence? Let’s talk learning from your mistakes. Really, this is the theme of the book. Caesar-Chavannes carefully articulates how important it has been, throughout her life, to listen to herself and to honour the lessons from mistakes she has made. In particular, I like that she reminds us to make space and let ourselves rest in between projects. Don’t dive right into the next thing because you think you owe it to yourself or others to be productive. Give yourself time to rest, time to recover, time to regroup. You deserve that. My one critique, honestly, would be that I wasn’t a huge fan of Caesar-Chavannes’ voice as it comes across in her writing style. It’s quite straightforward, with a few flourishes here and there—and it might be just that the strict adherence to chronology feels very confining at times that I want her to burst out with an anachronistic comment or aside. So it took me a while longer to warm up to this book than I would have liked. Nevertheless, I walked away from it with the lessons I hoped. Accessible, thoughtful, hopeful, courageous—I could list a bunch of generic adjectives that apply. What Can You Hear Me Now? comes down to though is honesty. This is not a book that panders to our white supremacist society’s idea of what a Black woman who is a business owner and was a politician should say about her experiences. She isn’t moderating her tone, isn’t going to follow the narrative. Celina Caesar-Chavannes tells her story the only way she can: personally and with deep, humble honesty that reflects the limits of her experiences and the limitlessness of her ambition. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 03, 2021
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Mar 07, 2021
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Mar 16, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1338331787
| 9781338331783
| 1338331787
| 4.19
| 1,477
| Sep 12, 2017
| Jul 30, 2019
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really liked it
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Hey, it’s your girl Kara, reading the sequel to a book four years after I read the first book, and the real tragedy is that this is not unusual for me
Hey, it’s your girl Kara, reading the sequel to a book four years after I read the first book, and the real tragedy is that this is not unusual for me! So when you hear me say that I struggled to get into Shadowhouse Fall, it’s not because of the book itself. Rather, I literally forgot everything about the plot of the first book and had to lean on my review and some plot summaries to help me out! Indeed, despite such deficits on my part, the fact that I still enjoyed this book as much as I did is a testament to Daniel José Older’s storytelling. Sierra Santiago is now the leader of the shadowshapers in New York. She learns this actually makes her the head of Shadowhouse, and that there are other supernatural houses vying for spiritual power. Her main antagonist is the House of Light, led by the Sorrows. They want control over the Deck of Worlds, a literal deck of custom-painted cards that shift to reflect the state of this power struggle and also lends power boosts to the various representatives of the different houses. But the generational gap in Sierra’s understanding of shadowshaper lore makes it difficult for her to mount an effective defence (or offence). She is torn between protecting her people and embracing her destiny. The other forces at play might not give Sierra much of a choice, however. What struck me immediately about Shadowhouse Fall is the way Older employs vernacular in a seemingly effortless way. This is a dialogue-heavy book, and most of the characters are teens, and they sound like teens (particularly, Black and Latinx teens in NYC). I don’t just mean in terms of vocabulary either—Older has the cadence, the style, down as well. For an older (and whiter) reader like myself, that might make reading the dialogue more challenging, but it’s also rewarding in how it makes the characters come alive and feel far more real than if everyone were speaking a dialect with which I’m more familiar. In the same way, Older pulls no punches in portraying the brutal racism suffusing these teens’ experiences. There’s police brutality, from random stops to unlawful arrests. But there’s also the everyday humiliation of metal detectors at the entrance to their schools and harassment from security guards. Again, as a white reader this is valuable for me because it reminds me that the racism I engage with largely as a theoretical construct is something that teens like these characters face as part of their everyday lives. When adults like myself dismiss racialized teens because of their youth, we erase their very real experiences. When I review YA novels, I often say something like, “I didn’t like this but can see how a younger reader would.” I say this because I like to acknowledge that I am often not the target demographic for these books, and I try to reflect that in my review and my rating. Shadowhouse Fall (and its predecessor) is a YA novel I did enjoy, and it’s also one I really hope young adults will enjoy too. Older’s writing style is electric, engaging, and most importantly, never condescending. As for the plot: well, again, it took me a while to get back into this world given my four-year absence. But I made it! I love how Older drives this narrative through a combination of Sierra’s curiosity and the mounting threats to her and her shadowshapers. The resolution, wherein Sierra attempts a courageous gambit to outwit the Sorrows, is something else—it’s hopeful and inspiring and reminds readers that even when destiny comes calling, you can look destiny in the eye and tell it you’re creating your own path. The ending left me feeling fulfilled, like I was on this journey with Sierra and her allies and now I can watch them grow beyond whatever limitations or strictures Sierra’s forbears thought they could place on this magic or this way of life. Because that’s ultimately what this book is about: the tension between tradition and innovation. Shadowshaping is hereditary and wrapped up in traditions and beliefs from previous generations. Some of these result in strong, positive connections like how Sierra is growing closer to her mom. Others are more harmful because they seek to circumscribe the choices the shadowshapers can make. As with any culture, the youth will always make their own mark on our practices, and Older makes that very clear here: Sierra is a shadowshaper, but she’s also a teenager navigating herself into adulthood, and that is going to shape the shadowshaping itself. What an exhilarating ride. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 08, 2021
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Nov 10, 2021
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Nov 07, 2017
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Paperback
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| 0345812700
| 9780345812704
| 0345812700
| 4.17
| 60,228
| Oct 29, 2013
| Oct 29, 2013
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it was amazing
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Buckle up and make sure you’re wearing your g-suit, because this is one of those rare books that live up to all the hype. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life
Buckle up and make sure you’re wearing your g-suit, because this is one of those rare books that live up to all the hype. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth comes with ridiculously high expectations: it has a bunch of awards, and everyone gives it such glowing reviews. So, naturally, I tempered my excitement. As anyone who has read my reviews knows, I love space and science fiction. I welcomed the opportunity to read a book written by someone who has actually been to space. But I was not prepared for how inspirational and genuine Chris Hadfield’s storytelling would be. I could quote a lot of this book in an effort to try to convince you it’s worth reading. I have underlined, annotated, and emphasized so many passages. Here’s one from the introduction: Throughout all this I never felt that I’d be a failure in life if I didn’t get to space. Since the odds of becoming an astronaut were nonexistent, I knew it would be pretty silly to hang my sense of self-worth on it. My attitude was more, “It’s probably not going to happen, but I should do things that keep me moving in the right direction, just in case—and I should be sure those things interest me, so that whatever happens, I’m happy.” Plenty of people dream of becoming astronauts. When Hadfield’s dream began at 9 years old, he also recognized that it was a long-shot. Canada didn’t yet have a space agency, and when it did, the selection process for astronauts was ridiculously competitive and often required a lot of luck. Then again, so much of life is like that. Hadfield’s philosophy, as articulated above, is level-headed and applicable to pretty much any aspirations: if you predicate all your self-worth on a mere possibility of the future; if you define success only by a single, perhaps unattainable goal, then you will spend a lot of your life unfulfilled and unhappy. I suppose, in retrospect, the book’s title should have forewarned me; nevertheless, I didn’t anticipate how much of Hadfield’s thinking is relevant to our everyday life. Much of what he espouses fits with philosophies of mindfulness and self-compassion, which are increasingly popular these days and are things I am striving for within my life. As a teacher, I keep coming back to how much of what Hadfield says applies to education too. He notes that the life of an astronaut is a life of constant learning, both in the traditional form of classrooms and tests as well as on-the-job experiences. There is no such thing as “knowing all there is to know” when you’re an astronaut; you’re constantly learning new things, training on new systems, and re-training on the old ones. The same goes for teaching, and indeed, I suspect it’s true for most careers. And Hadfield emphasizes that the process of learning is a communal effort: The debrief is a cultural staple at NASA, which makes this place a nightmare for people who aren’t fond of meetings. During a sim, the flight director or lead astronaut makes notes on major events, and afterward, kicks off the debrief by reviewing the highlights: what went well, what new things were learned, what was already known but needs to be re-emphasized. Then it’s a free-for-all. Everyone else dives right in, system by system, to dissect what went wrong or was handled poorly. All the people who are involved in the sim have a chance to comment on how things looked from their consoles…. It’s not a public flog: the goal is to build up collective wisdom. I love this idea of debriefing and want to use it in the classroom. I’ve recently gone gradeless, attempting instead to re-focus students’ attention on what really matters: the actual learning, the use of feedback and self-assessment to monitor and improve learning, and community in the classroom. Debriefs, or guided discussions, are nothing new to a classroom, of course, but Hadfield articulates the process here clearly and empathetically. Throughout the book, he points out that it’s possible to be helpful and to provide constructive criticism without tearing people down. Hadfield writes with humility despite being one of the few humans who have visited space. He chronicles the majesty and wonder of space flight with all the zeal one might expect of an astronaut. Reading his description of the nail-biting, g-force–inducing ascents and descents, with the miracle of life in microgravity in between, truly rekindles all the passion and enjoyment for stories of space travel that I have felt ever since I started watching Star Trek in my childhood. Hadfield also explains, in sometimes too-great detail, the mundane aspects of life in space, such as how he pees into a cup (for science) when weightless…. Suffice it to say, I don’t want to be an astronaut. And as much as we romanticize the career, it’s clear that the life of an astronaut is more waiting to be in space than actually being in space, and that life in space is not all it’s cracked up to be. The last few chapters of the book are as heartbreaking as they are honest and amazing. Hadfield recounts his third and last mission to space, sharing the feelings of the final re-entry and his subsequent retirement from the CSA. It’s bittersweet, and Hadfield doesn’t mince words as he shares some of his melancholy moments—but overall, the tone is one of enduring appreciation and pride. He has so much enthusiasm for his ongoing goals to educate and inspire passion for human space flight. We get a little blasé about pictures from space these days, I feel, just because the Internet makes it easy to disseminate them so quickly. Seeing the Earth from space in person must be such a different, jaw-dropping experience, though. Even having read his description of it, I cannot imagine what it must be like to gaze at the Earth from the Cupola of the ISS, knowing it’s the very last time you will ever see the planet in this way in person. Hadfield closes by reminding us to find satisfaction in the small things in life: If I’d defined success very narrowly, limiting it to peak, high-visibility experiences, I would have felt very unsuccessful and unhappy during those years. Life is just a lot better if you feel you’re having 10 wins a day rather than a win every 10 years or so. And just like that, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth is a welcome tonic to the voices that encourage us to measure success in the currency of celebrity or wealth or visibility. We define what success means to us. I have no reservations recommending this book: it’s a great, interesting, uplifting read. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 04, 2017
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Jul 05, 2017
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Jul 04, 2017
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Hardcover
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| 0525429530
| 9780525429531
| 0525429530
| 3.23
| 2,936
| Mar 01, 2016
| Mar 01, 2016
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it was ok
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I get a strong Charles de Lint vibe from Mark Tompkins’ The Last Days of Magic, at least as a result of the frame story. Tompkins reaches back into th
I get a strong Charles de Lint vibe from Mark Tompkins’ The Last Days of Magic, at least as a result of the frame story. Tompkins reaches back into the less mainstream myths and legends of Europe to answer the question that often comes up in fantasy: why, if there was so much overt magic centuries ago, does our world seem so barren of it now? Some authors say it’s hiding in plain sight, behind glamours and generous heaps of human denial. Others say it’s dead and gone—but how? Who, or what, killed it or drove it off? Tompkins takes us to Ireland in the fourteenth century, when the Catholic Church is trying to consolidate its power over Christianity in Europe, and the untamed isle off Britain’s coast is a last holdout in this power play. The scope and setting for this book is so interesting and intriguing, but Tompkins’ writing leaves much to be desired, at least for me. I haven’t read a lot of stories set in Ireland, contemporary or otherwise. So this was a pleasant change of pace in many ways. For reasons I don’t recall, I had the mistaken impression that this was set in the 1920s or 1930s? But it’s not. Aside from the frame story, it takes place in the last decades of the 1300s. Richard is on the throne in England, the Pope is back in Rome, the Black Death is having its way with peasantry and nobility alike, and Ireland is protected by its twin-goddess and strong ties to the Sidhe. But that’s all set to change. There is a delightful mutability to the characters and their allegiances and motivations in The Last Days of Magic. At first I was concerned, because some of the characters seemed very flat and almost caricatures of villains or heroic figures. But Tompkins belies most of these depictions. Jordan, the Vatican soldier who has made a career out of hunting Nephilim, harbours much deeper sympathies than I thought he might. Aisling, once believed to be one-half of the latest coming of Morrigna, eventually turns her back on Ireland, at least for a little while, because of the depth of its betrayal. Even someone as vile as Cardinal Orsino exhibits elements of self-awareness that help make him more than just a self-righteous exorcist. Similarly, Tompkins is not afraid to shake things up by killing off seemingly-major characters abruptly, or by veering the plot in directions I didn’t anticipate. He capitalizes on how to make every scene as dramatic as possible. Meetings that could be boring are full of tension caused by dramatic irony, by the extent of the corruption in human characters, by the desperation of the Nephilim characters struggling to save their races and their magic. As much as I enjoyed these elements, I struggled to enjoy the prose itself. Tompkins has no qualms about dropping exposition like it’s going out of style. And his lens is quite professorial, with an emphasis on economics. So I’m reading about faeries and goblins and demons … and then suddenly the narrator is lecturing me about the trading network of Christian and Arabic slaves across Europe or the intricacies of the shipbuilding economy in England. And, nerd that I am, I do find these topics fascinating—but not in a novel! I want characters and story and dialogue, with narration that amplifies these components through description and delineation. If something is truly important, work it into the action. All this background verged on a first-time DM’s attempt at box text for a dungeon crawl. This book is also quite racy and had a lot more sex, and creepy sex, in it than I anticipated or really even wanted. Like, it wasn’t just two characters getting it on because sexytimes; it was like “I’m seducing you so you keep me as a slave instead of sacrificing me to faeries” or “I have to make the High Priestess orgasm as part of my coronation” or threesomes among royalty and advisers. Or handjobs to collect royal semen for occult use. There’s just this patina of sexuality that Tompkins overlays across so much of what happens in this book. Taken individually, each of these moments is not in and of itself all that bad (though the slave-choosing-to-be-with-the-master component is hella problematic). Altogether, though, so much of it just felt unnecessary. I mean, if you are more into this stuff, then maybe you’ll enjoy it more? But it just pulled me out of the story. I could have done without the frame story. The way it’s used here makes this entire first book feel like a set-up for the next book, and that’s not even necessary here. There is a whole book within this book, enough for it to be standalone if there weren’t a sequel. Oh well. I probably won’t pick up the sequel, but your mileage, as always, will vary depending on your speed, the condition of your highway, and—wait, is this an audiobook? If not, put it down. Stop reading and driving! [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 29, 2017
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May 03, 2017
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Apr 29, 2017
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Hardcover
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| 0062449680
| 9780062449689
| 0062449680
| 3.99
| 13,860
| Aug 16, 2016
| Aug 16, 2016
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liked it
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There are so many things I take for granted because I grew up in Canada. Clean, running water (though that isn’t always guaranteed here, given the dep
There are so many things I take for granted because I grew up in Canada. Clean, running water (though that isn’t always guaranteed here, given the deplorable conditions on many First Nations reserves). Safety from imminent threats, like militants and terrorists. Justice, hot and cold running justice, served up to me on a fine platter of rights and due process. Oh, plus I have the bonus of being a man, and therefore getting treated like a first-class citizen. In A House Without Windows, Nadia Hashimi examines the precariousness of living as a woman in Afghanistan, and how events beyond one’s control can shape and redefine one’s life in terrifying ways. Zeba is married to an abusive man. When her children come home one day, the oldest finds Zeba in the back garden, holding the corpse of her husband, a hatchet wound to the head the obvious cause of death. Accused and essentially convicted in all-but-name of this murder, Zeba goes to Chil Mahtab, a women’s prison, to await her “trial”. The other main character, Yusuf, is assigned as her defence lawyer. Born in Afghanistan, Yusuf and his family relocated to the United States before September 11th, where he grew up and flourished. He has returned to his homeland with the aim of doing good and helping his country and his people—but of course, it is never that simple. He soon discovers a society torn between the old ways and the new, a people stripped bare by the repeated incursions of other countries in the names, alternatively, of war and peace. Yusuf wants to help Zeba, but Zeba isn’t sure she wants to be—or can be—helped—and once you grasp some more about these aspects of Afghan culture, can you blame her? I want to start by talking about judging other cultures. Hashimi’s portrayal of the treatment of women in Afghanistan is very critical. But there’s a difference between Hashimi, a woman of Afghan descent, and me, a man of European descent, expressing such criticisms. There is an element of white supremacy lurking within this discussion: it’s very easy for white people to look at other cultures with a Eurocentric lens and look down on those cultures, judge them, call them “backwards” or “oppressive” while simultaneously declining to keep their own house in order. We shouldn’t be wringing our hands over the treatment of women elsewhere in the world when women here in Canada still experience sexism and violence daily, when Indigenous women go missing and are murdered disproportionately. We are not better; we aren’t even all that different. We’re just brought up being told we are. So, yeah, as I read this book and watched how Zeba and other women were being treated, I felt a mixture of resignation (that people in the world have to go through this) and disgust (that women have to endure such treatment). And I had to sit with this and think about how much of this reaction was genuinely about the women on these pages and how much of it was internalized white supremacy bleeding through. The manifestations of oppression might be different in different cultures, but at the end of the day, the patriarchy sucks no matter your race, country, or religion. One passage in particular jumped out at me: No spell would change the fact that a woman’s worth was measured, with scientific diligence, in blood. A woman was only as good as the drops that fell on her wedding night, the ounces she bled with the turns of the moon, and the small river she shed giving her husband children. Some women were judged most ultimately, having their veins emptied to atone for their sins or for the sins of others. This is so true, this relationship between women and blood—but what really caught my eye was the phrase “with scientific diligence.” With that simple expression, Hashimi connects the dots between modern Afghanistan the modern West: modernization does not equate with liberation or equity. As our scientific knowledge has increased and advanced, there have always been those who seek to use science to quantify and justify oppression. Science, being a human endeavour, is very much political. Just because a society cloaks its oppressive attitudes with scientific language instead of religious language does not make it more progressive. So, as a story about the oppression of women, A House Without Windows is thoughtful and moving. Hashimi explores the ways in which women find freedom within the constrains of their culture: Zeba’s mother, and now Zeba, take on the role of jadugar, one who can work spells and magic to help (or hinder) others. Then you have women like Latisha, who find life in Chil Mahtab far preferable to a life outside the prison, where she might be forced to marry. Hashimi contrasts these women from more conservative walks of Afghan life with women like Aneesa and Sultana, who were lucky enough to receive more liberal educations and have a drive to change their country. What Hashimi strives to make clear, however, is that even the women in Chil Mahtab want to change their country in their own way. The fact that they do not have a university education or degree, that they are mothers and wives but not lawyers or journalists, does not change their ability to mock, critique, and subvert the system. As you might have glimpsed in the quotation above, Hashimi’s prose is lush. Indeed, at times it feels almost purple. I have not emerged a huge fan of her style—at the beginning of the book, I was a little bored by the amount of exposition, and no amount of careful descriptions of settings and characters is going to compensate for not moving along the story. Once the plot really gets going, and you become more invested in Zeba and Yusuf’s individual stories, the novel picks up. Yet I still never fully embraced Hashimi’s way with words. A House Without Windows has within it a certain power and gravitas, and if you like rich description and careful characterization, then you might find this captivating. Although it did not have quite so powerful an effect on me, I still enjoyed its story and the way Hashimi shows us a post-occupation Afghanistan with nuance and sincerity. There is no romanticizing happening here. There is ebullient hope but also carefully learned despair, and Hashimi’s greatest achievement in this book is managing to balance them in a way that seems believable. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 26, 2017
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Apr 28, 2017
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Apr 26, 2017
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0345808274
| 9780345808271
| 0345808274
| 3.27
| 3,859
| Sep 30, 2014
| Sep 30, 2014
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it was ok
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Reading Adult Onset feels like watching someone else watch a movie inside a glass box: I can see them enjoying the movie but can’t quite join in. I th
Reading Adult Onset feels like watching someone else watch a movie inside a glass box: I can see them enjoying the movie but can’t quite join in. I think I’ve come to terms with the fact I didn’t like this book, but I’m still trying to figure out if it’s well written or not. That is, I’m pretty certain most of what I didn’t like is on me, not on the book—but maybe a little of it is the book’s doing. Ann-Marie MacDonald is a versatile, clever author, and I admire what she attempts with this book. But it just doesn’t quite work for me. Ostensibly a week in the life of Mary Rose MacKinnon, aka “Mister”, liberal use of flashbacks and interstitial pseudo-narratives allows MacDonald to delve deeper into Mary Rose’s past. We get to see Mary Rose’s struggles with the quotidian tasks of taking care of a toddler and small child while her partner is out west directing a play. Meanwhile, Mary Rose ruminates on her mother’s many miscarriages and the impact this might have had on Mary Rose’s childhood and upbringing. Phantom pain in her arm from childhood bone cysts causes worries, which combine with the stress of childrearing to fray Mary Rose’s temper and set her off in front of her toddler multiple times. Adult Onset’s title, then, is meant to imply the recapitulation of crisis, emotional as well as physical, as Mary Rose worries that she might be following down the path of her own mother. I had a hard time gaining traction when it comes to sympathizing with Mary Rose. I understand, even if I don’t know, that raising children can be hard, especially when your partner isn’t always around to help. I get that Mary Rose is exhausted and stressed and occasionally overwhelmed with all the different asks on her time. But she seemed determined to take the difficult path and to refuse the help of people around her. Conversations with Hilary that should have been sweet and routine quickly became battles in which Mary Rose validates her decision to be a stay-at-home mumma by asserting her fatigue. This portrayal and the frustration it causes for some readers are probably intentional on MacDonald’s part, and maybe I would have appreciated it more if I had found other things to enjoy about the book. Alas, all I can say is that Adult Onset bummed me out, and not in a good or cathartic way. I tip-toed through the chapters with a sense of dread. MacDonald’s writing just seems to highlight the negatives here: Dolly’s encroaching senility and its parallels in Mary Rose’s forgetfulness; her parents’ dual homophobia when she first comes out; Mary Rose’s chronic inability to engage with the other mothers because of the age gap; the stuff with Daisy and the mail delivery; and, of course, Mary Rose’s actions verging on child abuse. This is third person stream of consciousness narration, and it just seems to jump from one negative fixation to another. This book probably needs a big ol’ trigger warning slapped on it. As Mary Rose tries to tread the water of her life and ends up flailing, I’m just left wondering what I’m supposed to take away from it all. Being a child is hard? Growing up is hard? Mothering is hard? Loving is hard? We get it: life is hard. For all that MacDonald puts Mary Rose and her friends and family under a microscope for our examination, we get only those scenes and little else. This is a snapshot of a life, presented for our consideration, with little in the way of editorializing or endings. There isn’t so much a climax as a kaleidoscope of events affixed to a merry-go-round tour of Toronto. I just kept waiting for something to happen, but instead we get more plodding through day after day. It isn’t quite postmodern but it comes close. This book strikes me as dithering between two paths like an uncollapsed wavefunction. It could seriously tackle issues of childhood abuse, domestic abuse, parenting, and relationships. Or it could take a more humorous tack, smile and wave at the bad while luxuriating in the essential goodness of family and community. Unfortunately, Adult Onset doesn’t ever seem to make up its mind about what sort of book it should be. It brings up serious issues, then skirts their edges and draws back, non-confrontational-like. It uses humour for highlights and shadows, but it also seems to want to be taken seriously. The thing is that all of this seems intentional. MacDonald borrows a lot from her own life, from Mary Rose’s heritage and birthplace to her wife sharing an occupation as a theatre director with MacDonald’s wife. I don’t know (or care, really) the extent to which Mary Rose’s childhood and experiences parallel MacDonald’s. Regardless, the structure and style I’ve been criticizing are not accidental flaws. MacDonald is too careful and precise a writer for that. She has clearly tried something very different as a novel here, and it just didn’t work for me. Although I think there are some for whom this novel might work, I’m not chalking up my indifference solely to my own personality. Strive though she might to present an intriguing snapshot into this character’s life, MacDonald isn’t completely successful with this story. Adult Onset is an interesting yet flawed experiment, and those flaws chafed for me. Fall On Your Knees is one of the few books that has a reasonable claim to being my “favourite book of all time” (such a nonsense idea that you could only have one favourite book). It is about as sublime and amazing as literature can get. I think I read The Way the Crow Flies when I was a teenager, but I don’t remember it at all, so I guess it wasn’t as impressive. I admit to some trepidation starting Adult Onset, wondering what would happen if I didn’t like it. Well, I didn’t like it. The world hasn’t ended. I’m OK with the fact that I absolutely love one of MacDonald’s novels and am lukewarm on another. It’s unfortunate, in the way that not liking a book by a talented author always is, but I’m going to recover. I mean, if you want to send me cards and chocolate (or more books), please feel free. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 03, 2016
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Aug 05, 2016
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Aug 03, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 1612195636
| 9781612195636
| 1612195636
| 4.07
| 4,242
| Sep 20, 2016
| Sep 20, 2016
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really liked it
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Trainwreck was published on my birthday, so it was kind of like Sady Doyle was giving me a birthday gift. Not really, at all, in any way. But still, a
Trainwreck was published on my birthday, so it was kind of like Sady Doyle was giving me a birthday gift. Not really, at all, in any way. But still, a great coincidence. I’ve enjoyed reading their writing on various sites for years now, so when I heard they had an honest-to-goodness actual book coming out, I was elated. Fortunately, Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear … and Why does not disappoint. It appoints. It appoints very much. Doyle’s criticism of media and the consumer habits that support the way media recycle the same narratives about women over and over is nuanced, fascinating, well-researched, and on point (can I still say “on fleek”? It’s too late to say “on fleek”, right?) This is a big subject for Doyle to tackle in an organized fashion. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Doyle starts with sex, linking the packaging of sex for consumption with the pressure women in the spotlight face to sexualize themselves. The irony (spoiler alert) is that it turns out women who volunteer their sexuality are seen as sluts, while chaste-appearing women whose sexuality is displayed without their consent are shamed even as they are ogled:
Doyle presents us with examples of trainwrecks from as far back as the French Revolution. They emphasize that, indeed, these historical trainwrecks are not all that different from the celebrity trainwrecks of today, despite the differences in technology. In all these cases, it boils down to the patriarchal need to control women’s sexuality, and to punish women who deviate or resist that control by labelling them immoral, mad, and then continuing to punish them until they die, at which point they can possibly earn redemption (or not). Wow, when I put it that way, it sounds really depressing. Indeed, this feeling predominates throughout the book, and I had to keep reminding myself that it isn’t Doyle who is depressing me so much as the society they describe. There’s just so much wrong with the way our society treats women, and in particular the way our media vilify some women while putting others on a pedestal—and then the next day, or week, those women’s positions get switched. We have to be careful, though. We can’t fall into the trap of just saying “the media” like it’s a single monster (if it were, it would be a hydra, I’m sure). There is no oligarchy pulling the strings of this puppet to make it dance to a sexist tune. We pull the strings. Media platforms respond to us and what we choose to consume. We are part of the problem, we who come to gawk and rubberneck at the trainwrecks. This is the theme Doyle advances in the latter third of the book. After covering the ways in which we shame trainwrecks, and the ways in which trainwrecks can respond (silence or embrace, essentially), Doyle looks at why we have trainwrecks at all (emphasis original):
Oooohhh. That line, like so many others in this book, makes me shudder. It’s a powerful, albeit tragic, description of how we use and abuse women to keep certain people and groups in power. Doyle grounds the issue firmly in a systemic perspective, which I like, but they do not excuse individuals from the way they act in that system. (Incidentally, this last chapter about the French Revolution has a typo on page 224 that jumped out at me—Doyle mentions “the incompetent King Louis XIV” whereas Louis XVI was king at the time of the revolution. Fast fingers make for good enemies sometimes.) Although reading about the tragedies perpetrated upon so many women can be saddening, I like Doyle’s conclusion and call to action. Their point is that we cannot fix the current system. There is no way to be a “good girl”, to become immune to being a trainwreck. The only solution is to opt-out. To flip the script. To be revolutionary. And for those who are male or otherwise insulated from this phenomenon courtesy of our privilege, we need to step up and help women be revolutionary, support them instead of tearing them down, and check that rather than participating in trainwreck narratives we are doing all we can to fight them. Because it is, ultimately, all about the narrative. Trainwreck is a story about the stories we tell about women. And you all know how much I love books about storytelling. More broadly, storytelling is so crucial now that social media has become both a way we get news and a way we interact with each other. This was never demonstrated so clearly as during the recent American election, where the narrative you consumed thanks to your personal bubble influenced your opinions about whether or not to go and vote (if you are American) and who you thought was going to win. The stories we tell have power over our lives. I came to this book as someone who has gone from an awareness of injustice and inequity towards a position of wanting to fight against it while acknowledging how I participate in systems of oppression. This is the gradual progression that many people make, and it is essential if one hopes to be an intersectional feminist. So for me, Trainwreck was largely a lot of head-nodding—nothing Doyle says seems really strange or new to me, though they often express it more eloquently, or illustrates it with an example from history or pop culture that had previously been unknown to me. I don’t have the perspective required to say for sure how someone newer to feminist thought would react to this book. But I’d like to think that it is thought-provoking and edifying: I think that if you’re open to learning more about misogyny in our culture, this book will work for you. At the beginning of my review I remarked that this book came as kind of like a birthday gift to me. I’m actually giving it as a birthday gift to the friend who lent me Spinster , Decoded , and Men Explain Things to Me . I debated doing so, simply because it is a depressing book at times, and we’re both still kind of shattered over the way Clinton was treated during the election. But I value our conversations about feminism and our differing perspectives over pop culture, and I’m interested in the conversations we will have because of this book. It’s one thing to enjoy a book by oneself and another thing entirely to enjoy a book with others. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 28, 2016
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Dec 2016
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Jun 09, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 1487000995
| 9781487000998
| 1487000995
| 3.43
| 2,779
| Mar 05, 2016
| Mar 05, 2016
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liked it
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**spoiler alert** This novel has quite the body count. Normally I hate hiding ARC reviews behind spoiler-walls, but it’s got to be done in this case….
**spoiler alert** This novel has quite the body count. Normally I hate hiding ARC reviews behind spoiler-walls, but it’s got to be done in this case…. I received an ARC of The Butcher’s Hook for free from House of Anansi Press in return for an honest review. And I will be honest: this book squicked me out a bit. I loves me the free books, though, and if you want me to talk about how much your book squicked me out, get in touch! Janet Ellis serves up what seems, at first, to be a fairly standard piece of historical fiction. Anne Jaccob doesn’t want to get married—but since this is London in 1763, she gets little say in the matter. She tries to distract herself from the unwanted suit by going after the butcher’s boy, gradually developing her coquettish skills and becoming more comfortable with the desires she feels when she is around the down-to-earth young Fub. Just when you think you’ve got this thing figured out, there is a twist that sends Anne off on an entirely different trajectory. It’s not what you think … but it walks that strange line between hilarious and macabre. The beginning is lovely. Ellis develops Anne’s character quickly: we see how she is bright and eager for knowledge, even when every young. Unfortunately, Anne discovers the hard way that her sex means this thirst for knowledge won’t always be celebrated, let alone satisfied. The scene between her and Dr Edwards is very awkward and uncomfortable, to be sure. However I was actually more moved by Anne’s falling out with Keziah. This, to me, marked the moment that Anne realizes she is different, not just from men but from other women; it foreshadows her always being alone. Anne’s lack of companionship throughout her early adolescence, her lack of confidants, seems to play a big role in shaping her prior to her infatuation with Fub. I also like how Ellis explores Anne’s nascent sexuality. Depictions of female masturbation are too few in fiction, so it’s cool that Ellis works it into a book that is all about repressed sexuality. After the meet-cute with Fub, an overwhelmed Anne retreats to her room. Ellis briefly and tastefully—but clearly—describes what’s going on, making it clear that Anne is definitely in tune with her body and aware of how to pleasure herself. This scene, almost a footnote at the end of a chapter, is in some ways much more transgressive than either the sex or the slaughter that follows. Because, yeah. Anne straight-up murders a guy. Then a boy. Then a girl her own age. Watching as Anne plots the murder of Dr Edwards is fascinating. Ellis conveys the thrill that Anne receives from finally having a measure of power: she can do something, can take action, to fix something she perceives as having gone wrong in her life. She harnesses the only leverage that she has (her femininity and youthful attractiveness) and lures Edwards into a secluded spot. The clinical way that she goes about killing him, and his very calm reaction to the act, almost tilts the book towards melodrama. Almost. What actually tilts the book is what happens next, when Anne discovers a boy who went to Dr Edwards for some tutoring is suspicious and might tip the police off about her. I love this trope (I can’t find its page on TVTropes, if one exists), where in order to cover up your murder you have to kill someone else … and then the whole thing just snowballs. But if her first murder reveals Anne’s cold-bloodedness, this murder shows her utter lack of conscience. We could have attributed her offing Dr Edwards, in part, to his abuse of her when she was younger. The boy, aside from threatening to spill his guts, was innocent. And Anne’s ability to act so calmly, both when talking to Dr Edwards’ daughter and when talking to the vicar about the boy, demonstrates her deeply amoral character. The “Jane Austen meets Gone Girl” comparison on the back of the book makes sense now. I kind of ignored it before I read the book, because I haven’t read Gone Girl and have no interest in it. That being said, I might characterize this more as “Emily Brontë meets Gone Girl,” because I think that Brontë could very well have written Gone Girl if she were alive today. Ellis is essentially replacing the Gothic horror aspect of Wuthering Heights with a no-less-chilling more modern approach to the psychopath. Although I was looking forward more to a modern deconstruction of the matchmaking of that era, instead I got to watch Anne get discounted and ignored as a result of her sex and perceived fragility. She outright confesses to Fub, at least twice, and he laughs in her face. That ending though. Dr Edwards’ death is revenge; the boy’s is expedience. What is Margaret’s? Malice. Plain and simple. Anne understands she cannot ever have Fub, cannot run away with him much as she might like to … but if she can’t have Fub, then she resolves that Margaret won’t have him either. Again we see the premeditation, the careful planning and guile and flattery that she uses to put her victim at ease. This time, however, there is even more cruelty. Unlike Edwards, who—while not deserving to be murdered—did wrong Anne grievously, Margaret has done nothing wrong at all. Yet Anne brutalizes her, leaves her broken and bloody to die in a fire—which, by the way, consumes and destroys the butcher’s livelihood. It’s this collateral damage that is, in some ways, the most ghastly part of Anne’s embrace of her full darkness. Killing individuals is terrible, and we saw the damage that did to people like Dr Edwards’ daughter. Yet Anne essentially ruins the Leveners when she kills Margaret, and she shows no evidence of remorse or guilt over that consequence. It’s all the same to her. And so she sets off into the world. I wonder if her mother knows or suspects Anne’s nature and what she has helped to unleash on an unsuspecting Britain. The Butcher's Hook is ultimately about transformation: Anne grows up from a precocious child into a dangerous young adult, and it’s anyone’s guess where she might go or who might earn her wrath next. All in all, it isn’t the novel I was expecting, but it’s fascinating nonetheless. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 10, 2016
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Mar 12, 2016
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Mar 10, 2016
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Paperback
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| 0374534683
| 9780374534684
| 0374534683
| 3.98
| 117,991
| Nov 01, 1962
| Jul 29, 2014
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liked it
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It’s books like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich that make me glad I don’t do video or podcast reviews, because I cannot pronounce Aleksandr Sol
It’s books like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich that make me glad I don’t do video or podcast reviews, because I cannot pronounce Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s last name. Indeed, as is often the case with books originally written in a language one does not speak, names of people and places would be a huge problem in this review. I don’t know how difficult a translation this was for H.T. Willetts, but I can imagine. In addition to reconciling the censorship performed both before and after Solzhenitsyn submitted this manuscript, Willetts had to contend with a uniquely dull story. That might sound odd considering the positive rating I’m giving this, but stick with me. The conceit of this novel is that it is literally one day in Ivan Denisovich’s (or Shukhov as he’s called throughout the book) life as prisoner Shcha-184 in a Soviet prison camp. And, short though it is, the novel still covers Shukhov’s entire day in great detail. So as far as plot goes, it’s dull. That’s an accurate description. There are no dragons here, not even any fights. It is just a straightforward accounting of the drudgery Shukhov faces. And that is entirely Solzhenitsyn’s intention and why this book is so successful. Most novels work by amping up the drama, by exaggerating and exacerbating. Like a Hollywood movie, they often rely on gimmicks and scenes pitched and calibrated for maximum emotional impact. They are, after all, written by storytellers—those consummate and inveterate pathological liars whose only joy comes from repeating things that aren’t true. Solzhenitsyn takes it in the opposite direction. The point here is that this isn’t just one day; this is pretty much every day for Shukhov. He wakes up, rolls out of bed, has a meagre breakfast, is force-marched to work in some godforsaken, cold place outside of the camp, and then force-marched back in the evening for an even more meagre dinner. Don’t bother trying to count the days until your release, because they’ll just slap another sentence on you. Don’t hope for a better future or spend too much time dwelling on how you’ll make a living and support your family when you get out—those things are too far gone. Just keep your head down and focus on making it through the day. If that sounds bleak, that’s because this kind of is. It is a Russian novel, after all! But actually, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is not bleak or tragic in the sense of Tolstoy’s work. It isn’t reassuring either, of course, or upbeat. It’s more resigned, though, and it reminds us that when dealing with hardship, perspective is often vital to our survival. This is just one Iay in Shukov’s life—and while the form remains the same, the substance can vary. At the end of the book, he reflects upon how this was a good day. Some of his days are much worse. Just think about that for a moment. You’re sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, with every chance that you’ll be sent back to prison on another set of trumped-up charges. You get inadequate nutrition. You have to scheme for every extra scrap and be careful to keep yourself in good health, not to mention on the good side of your gangmates. And if you don’t get caught with a piece of metal that might have been a knife, if you get a little more to eat than normal, then that is your definition of a good day. That is your new normal. I’m sitting on a couch right now, in a house with electricity and WiFi, typing this on a brand new laptop that is frankly terrifyingly fast and light. There are people who live Shukhov’s life, or some variation thereof, in this world, at this present moment. None of us would want to do that, and few of us probably could. I probably couldn’t. So this novel is a stark, unvarnished, simple portrayal of life without a horizon. It’s Of Mice and Men for the Russian gulag: these guys are never going to have their cabin and pet their rabbits. It’s a reminder that for all the small, unfortunate things that happen throughout our day, our lives could be worse. I also want to talk about how it chronicles, as a kind of historical footnote these days, the perversity of the corrupt Soviet penal system. But considering how messed up the penal system is in so-called “civilized” Western states, I think that’s a bit … optimistic. These prison camps haven’t disappeared, just metamorphosed into newer, fresher hells. It’s in this sense that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is still relevant. Solzhenitsyn’s observations are simple and to-the-point. There is little embroidery here, yet this starkness is in itself a kind of poetry. This is a book that is beautiful because of its simplicity. While it’s not interesting in the sense of providing excitement, it is still rewarding and fascinating. I don’t envy Shukhov, and I’m glad I happen to be lucky enough to have the privilege that I do. Reading books like this reminds me of that privilege, however, and why we need to keep fighting for democracy—even if we think we have it already on paper. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 28, 2015
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Nov 29, 2015
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Nov 28, 2015
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Paperback
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| 0307359948
| 9780307359940
| 0307359948
| 3.74
| 1,468
| Aug 07, 2014
| Aug 12, 2014
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really liked it
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I'm always down for some historical/mythological fiction in a comedic style, so The Table of Less Valued Knights seemed like a good proposition. Marie
I'm always down for some historical/mythological fiction in a comedic style, so The Table of Less Valued Knights seemed like a good proposition. Marie Phillips delivers an Arthurian quest beset with archetypes, allusions, and anachronisms. Her characters quip like they're in a Christopher Moore novel (albeit slightly less self-aware) and her vision of Knights of Camelot is every bit as decadently absurd as Monty Python's. There. Have I name-dropped enough comparisons yet? Good. Let's get on with it. The story starts a little slow, actually, and for the first part I was somewhat skeptical as to how much I would end up enjoying it. This type of humour is easy to get wrong (as evidenced by how inconsistently I've enjoyed Moore's work). While there's nothing wrong with Sir Humphrey and the idea of a "Less Valued Table of Knights" who have been demoted from the Round Table over the years, none of it particularly grabbed my attention. Indeed, it isn't until Martha shows up and steals the show that this story gets going. Queen Martha of Tuft has a tough time of it, especially after she kinda-sorta becomes a man, in that classic "gender swap/mistaken identity" trope. Phillips creates an interesting character here: in many ways, Martha is naïve. She knows little of life outside a castle (has no idea of the value of money, for instance). Yet she also has many skills she once perceived as pointless, such as the ability to speak many foreign languages. Her observations of Humphrey and Conrad and attempts to fit in and emulate maleness are funny, sure, but they're also part of a larger commentary on gender that Phillips weaves throughout the book. Stories like this, stories that poke fun at the tropes and shorthand we've constructed of medieval worlds and legends like Arthuriana, are valuable. It's one thing to strive for "historically accurate" fiction and another to just take a can-opener to history and tear the top off to find out what lies beneath. The Table of Less Valued Knights starts as a light-hearted, humorous story. Yet the deeper I went, the more plot I found. Martha's a wonderful protagonist, and her reviled husband, Edwin, is an equally wonderful antagonist. He starts off as a stock, stereotypical villain type: a lascivious lout with no respect, for women or for men, and far too big an opinion of his own cunning. But Phillips soon lends substance to his pomp, showing that Edwin has some teeth. The moment he goes from comical thorn in the side to actual villain is pretty shocking, in the sense that I'm surprised the author lets him get away with it. This sense—that the characters are more two-dimensional actors in the author's drama—does run throughout the story, and it's possible this could be a bigger problem for you than it was for me. Phillips never quite breaks the fourth wall like other authors do (and I love me some fourth-wall breaking), but the narrative structure is both absurd and serendipitous at points. You kind of just have to go with it, and want to enjoy this type of book. Wishing it's something more complex is only going to get you disappointment. I was ambivalent about The Table of Less Valued Knights when I began, but by the end I had a smile on my face. Surprises like that are always welcome; here I was starting a book I thought I'd like at best, and I ended up having a much better time. It's not even the over-arching plot or the characters so much as all the little bits Phillips throws in—like the dwarf manning the customs post at the border of Tuft showing up again at the border of Grint, much to Edwin's irritation and surprise. It's these little things that show how much fun Phillips must have had inhabiting this universe, and when the fun an author has shines through, the experience is that much better for a reader. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 21, 2015
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Nov 25, 2015
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Nov 22, 2015
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Hardcover
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| 1770899847
| 9781770899841
| 1770899847
| 2.85
| 230
| Jan 01, 2013
| Nov 10, 2015
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liked it
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Full disclosure: I received a free ARC of I’m Coming from House of Anansi Press. In fact, this book came with a tiny promotional package: [image] Yeah, Full disclosure: I received a free ARC of I’m Coming from House of Anansi Press. In fact, this book came with a tiny promotional package: [image] Yeah, that’s a small package of vaginal lubricant and two AA batteries—presumably to, you know, power Mr Rabbit, or whatever shape one’s vibrator takes. Fortunately, one of my friends—who would actually have a use for such items—saw me tweet about this and volunteered to take them off my hands. I wasn’t about to ask! So as this clever marketing strategy implies, I’m not in the expected audience for this book. And despite my penchant for wide reading, I’ll be honest: I probably wouldn’t have picked up this book myself. That being said, it’s kind of my cup of tea in some ways, and I definitely enjoyed it. Here’s the skinny: Julie has never had an orgasm despite having multiple sexual partners, three children, and a devoted husband. So she buys a vibrator with a 30-day money-back orgasm guarantee and locks herself in her bedroom. But when she attempts to climax, she inevitably distracts herself with flashbacks and ruminations. The very first page encapsulates the promise I’m Coming holds: when Julie tells her husband (known only as “A”) that she has been faking every orgasm, he’s crushed: “the first thing he had to be reassured of was that there was nothing wrong with him.” I see this attitude from well-meaning allies online—even while trying to be supportive, lots of men (myself included) seek reassurance that we personally are “off the hook” for sexist or misogynist behaviour. And as the chapter goes on, Selma Lønning Aarø quickly runs down some of the most significant issues that women face: body image, the pressure to be a “good” mother, conflicting attitudes towards sex across gender and generational lives. See, I’m neither a woman nor all that interested in sex on a personal level. And for those reasons, it’s all the better that I’m reading a book like this. After all, how else am I supposed to understand people who have these different perspectives unless I expose myself to their thoughts and feelings? So I appreciate the perspective that Aarø gives me. And of course, on a wider level, our society is just obsessed with sex. This novel is timely, because this was the summer of the “female Viagra” pill. The big question: does this pill empower women to “take control” of their sexual arousal, or does it transform lack of arousal into a medical condition? You can read more about this debate in Sady Doyle’s fantastic write-up for The Guardian. But at the heart of it, and at the heart of I’m Coming, is a simple fact: the double standard. Men are expected, encouraged to have sex and to have multiple sex partners. When it comes to women, the story is a bit different, because expectations for them have changed a little. Time was, women were expected not to have independent sexual desire—they were objects for sex. Now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and under the guise of empowerment and the sexual revolution, women are expected to be more forward, more comfortable with their sexuality. As Aarø has Julie put it in the first sentence of this book: “For a long time, my husband thought I was a horny bitch.” Therein the double standard then, and I know I don’t have to explain it to women reading this (or even to most men). So I’ll just say that Aarø does a great job emphasizing how this affects women like Julie, who might want an orgasm but who have managed to get through life quite fine without one. The story’s structure, which alternates between Julie’s masturbation sessions and the flashbacks to different lovers or other significant events, can be frustrating. Then again, I imagine that’s the intention: the frustration and tension we feel parallels Julie’s own frustration. Julie herself is not entirely likeable. She’s sometimes abrasive and not always charitable in her opinions of others, particularly women. Also, keep in mind that this book is entirely from her perspective, so there’s an unreliable narrator dimension to everything: maybe she’s super-crazy and unbalanced and everyone else is just barely tolerating her. Whatever the case, even though I didn’t like Julie, I could feel sympathy for her and wanted some sort of resolution. Without spoiling it: I loved the ending more than I expected. It’s … appropriate, and well done. Aarø could have taken it in a few other directions, but I don’t think any of them would have had the same impact as what she ultimately does. In some ways I’m Coming reminds me of a play. In its present length, and with the way Aarø has structured it, there is an act/scene feeling to it. I’m not quite sure how an actor would portray Julie’s alone-time on stage without it seeming super corny. But that’s the director’s problem, not mine! If I’m Coming has any shortcomings, it’s that the humour is not quite what the outside packaging advertises. Kari Dickson has done a great job translating this from Norwegian: everything reads smoothly, and the humour comes across. But it’s a drier humour than the cover copy implies, at least to me: this isn’t one of those hilarious “chick flick” style movies like Bridesmaids that expect laughter from the audience. It actually reminds me more of what Love Actually does with some of its storylines: that movie, overall, is very humourous—but there’s a lot of disappointment scattered across its various stories. This book is much the same, with the humour coming from the setbacks and almost pedestrian stopping Julie from climaxing. Let me be clear, though, that I don’t view this discrepancy as bad. I think that if it were more overtly humourous, then it would lose some of its depth, and I wouldn’t find it as approachable. I appreciate how Aarǿ seems to be writing for a much wider audience than the packaging might indicate. While other women—and perhaps frustrated women—are logically the core audience, there is nothing insular about this book. I was pretty sure, going into it, that I would enjoy it. The whole idea of chick flicks and chick lit just irks me so much. It’s not that I want to take away safe spaces for women to write about women’s issues—but it’s unfortunate that in creating those spaces we also ghettoize them, as we have done with science fiction and fantasy at times. It is just as important for men to read novels about women’s issues. So if you’re male and reading this review, that’s my challenge to you. You don’t necessarily have to read I’m Coming, but let’s expend your reading repertoire if you haven’t already. Let’s break some genre and gender expectations here. And on a more general note, if anyone else would like to send me free books, you are more than welcome to! However, I will pass on free sex stuff, marketing or otherwise. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 24, 2015
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Oct 26, 2015
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Oct 24, 2015
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Paperback
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| 1632150778
| 9781632150776
| 1632150778
| 4.42
| 80,464
| Dec 17, 2014
| Dec 23, 2014
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really liked it
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Alana and Marko have escaped danger for now, but they are still fugitives. Their unique child, Hazel, will be recognized for what she is no matter whe
Alana and Marko have escaped danger for now, but they are still fugitives. Their unique child, Hazel, will be recognized for what she is no matter where they go. So they are living in disguise on a backwater planet called Gardenia, and it’s causing no end of tension. Alana tries to support her family through a superhero soap opera, while Marko takes care of Hazel. Life seems both easier and harder than it was before. But as the end of the first chapter says, “This is the story of how my parents split up.” Sucker punch, much? Saga, Volume 4 delivers some of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ best work yet. At first as I was all, “Noooooo, Alana/Marko forever!!!!” in my most fangirly of internal dialogues while I sat reading this volume. In retrospect, though, it was a cool move. It’s a natural development of the pressure they have been under—it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Vaughan and Staples don’t go for the cheap plays—they introduce a potential affair for Marko, but I really like how that gets resolved—and instead show us that the disagreement Alana and Marko have is a result of stress and tension. It’s not that Mommy and Daddy don’t love each other anymore—things are just … difficult … at the moment. And then a robot shows up and kidnaps, like, everyone. Because Saga! It has been literally a year since I read the first three volumes of Saga, because I bought those for a Christmas present for a friend. So my memory of the specifics is pretty vague. But it started coming back to me as Vaughan and Staples jumped to the various storylines. I suppose those multiple storylines is one reason this is called Saga, and I imagine it must be difficult deciding how much space in each chapter to devote to each story. So far they seem to be balancing it pretty well. Although external conflict makes an appearance towards the end of this volume—and boy does it make an appearance when it finally shows up—most of the conflict in this volume is internal and emotional. I appreciate that, especially in a series that does have a lot of violence. This volume is a bit of a respite from that violence (at least at first) but no rest for Alana, Marko, et al. In particular, Vaughan and Staples show a new side of Alana we couldn’t see until now: motherhood guilt. She feels so bad not being able to spend enough time with Hazel, even though she is single-handedly supporting the family with her job. And it’s a crappy job at that. The resulting spiral culminating in substance abuse, recriminations, and an epic argument is nothing short of excellent. Towards the end, as the storylines start to converge again, the theme of parenting and the extent to which parents will go for their children becomes more apparent. That very last shot at the end of Chapter 24 … well, without spoiling it, let’s just say that it’s the kind of use of the Enemy Mine trope (TVTropes) that we love. If you’ve been reading Saga until now, you have no reason to stop. If you haven’t read Saga, go start at Volume 1 (or get Book 1, which collects the first three volumes) and settle in for a crazy ride. Minor spoiler: I love that King Robot has a massive flatscreen TV as a head. I had to stop at that two-page spread and laugh for a solid minute before I could go in. It’s perfect. My reviews of Saga: ← Volume 3 | Volume 5 → [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 27, 2014
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Paperback
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| 0091926254
| 9780091926250
| 0091926254
| 3.45
| 3,401
| Jan 01, 2014
| Jun 26, 2014
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liked it
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During my time in England, I have consumed an extraordinary number of BBC documentaries (and the occasional drama) about Britain’s long, bloody, occas
During my time in England, I have consumed an extraordinary number of BBC documentaries (and the occasional drama) about Britain’s long, bloody, occasionally confused history. Some of these covered the Plantagenets, but the lion’s share tend to drift decidedly towards the Tudors. Even the brutal episodes of internecine family bloodshed of the Wars of the Roses have nothing on slow-motion car crash that is Henry VIII’s six wives, Reformation, and Elizabethan England. In The Marriage Game, Alison Weir focuses on the politics involved in Elizabeth I’s marriage (or lack thereof) and how this influenced her relationship with Robert Dudley, the man most historians have labelled her lover in all of the various ways. Marriage now can still, occasionally, be the bond that cements alliances in the vast dynastic power struggles between great houses. But not so much as it was in Elizabeth’s time. And Weir gives us a very good idea of the significance that Elizabeth’s marriage would have for England and for the rest of Europe. In a time where a Protestant England was a new and threatening prospect for Europe, Elizabeth’s marriage was about more than controlling or ruling England. It had direct bearing on the issues of who wielded absolute power over religious matters in Europe in that age. The religion of Elizabeth’s suitors, as well as that of her rival Mary Queen of Scots, would play a large role in determining Elizabeth’s moves in this marriage game. It’s Elizabeth who refers to the matter of her marriage as a game in an attempt to trivialize what is, for her, a terrifying prospect. Weir shows how Elizabeth has to walk a very careful line. Her Parliament and advisers are pressing her for a marriage, both because they doubt her ability, as a woman, to rule, and because it would strengthen England and provide allies against the enmity of France and Spain. Elizabeth, understandably, is worried about the effect of marriage on her sovereignty as a ruler—a fear compounded by what happens to Mary after her marriage to Darnley. But she recognizes the precarious position that England is in. Into this mix Weir adds the complicating factor of her own speculation about what befell Elizabeth when she was a teenager in the care of Thomas Seymour. The Marriage Game paints Elizabeth as every bit the complicated person she should be, even if it’s not quite the likeable character we’d like her to be. Elizabeth kind of comes across as a horrible and manipulative person. Her vacillation with regards to marrying Dudley is very annoying. Whenever she decides to renege on what was a fervent pledge to marry him, she buys him off with a title or land or a castle. (And it works, because in the end he’s more concerned with his worldly advancement than with actually being married to Elizabeth—but he still wants to get in her pants at the earliest opportunity.) As Elizabeth gets older and her marriage prospects diminish, the harsh and vindictive parts of her personality only seem to heighten. I don’t agree with those reviewers who assert that these unlikeable aspects of Elizabeth’s personality necessarily make her unsympathetic as a character. I can sympathize with Elizabeth’s dilemma and the emotions that motivate her to act in these ways, even if I don’t particularly like what she does as a result. Certainly what Weir emphasizes above all else is the sense of loneliness that Elizabeth must have felt. She was a woman without peer. Her closest friends are some of her ladies in waiting who had been companions since her tumultuous years as a young adult during Edward and Mary’s brief reigns. But they don’t really understand the pressure she experiences as a woman monarch. Her most intimate confidante is Robert himself, and he isn’t exactly an impartial party. So it’s not a surprise that Elizabeth projects her uneasiness onto Mary Queen of Scots. Though Mary is a deadly rival, she is, like Elizabeth, a woman struggling to rule a kingdom with deep religious divides. It galls Elizabeth that Mary has no problem taking a husband and producing “an heir of her body,” despite the fact that Elizabeth’s failure to do so is ultimately a decision she made. Yet despite Mary’s clear involvement in plots against Elizabeth, Elizabeth is still horrified by the prospect of executing another country’s (deposed) monarch. As a character study, The Marriage Game is an insightful look into this interpretation of Elizabeth. Yet at times Weir leans too much on character to drive the story. Her expertise as a non-fiction author shines through here. A novel, by definition, really needs a plot. I don’t remember The Captive Queen being as dull as the events here. Told in yearly chapters, the story here feels episodic but repetitive, with the same scenes being repeated over the years as Elizabeth’s advisers tell her to marry and she throws a strop (thanks, England, for the vocabulary). It is definitely interesting, but only to a point. The Marriage Game retells and reexamines Elizabeth I’s reign through the lens of her marriage negotiations. Weir does an excellent job demonstrating how important this single part of Elizabeth’s life was, both to her as a person and to her realm. She interrogates the motivations behind Elizabeth’s reluctance to marry and Robert Dudley’s desire for her hand. As a story, it feels very flat—there’s plenty of drama, but it’s of the one-note variety. As a history, however, it’s interesting and enlightening. I won’t call it the best or most memorable piece of historical fiction I’ve read, but I certainly enjoyed Weir’s perspective and speculation on England’s Virgin Queen. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 27, 2014
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Jul 30, 2014
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Jul 27, 2014
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0679446230
| 9780679446231
| 0679446230
| 3.74
| 385,478
| 1958
| 1992
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liked it
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**spoiler alert** This is not an easy story for me to love, and maybe even like is not the appropriate word. I can appreciate it, as literature. That
**spoiler alert** This is not an easy story for me to love, and maybe even like is not the appropriate word. I can appreciate it, as literature. That being said, unlike much of the so-called “great” or “classic” literature I have read to date, I do not feel immeasurably enriched by Things Fall Apart. Although at times moving and disturbing, Chinua Achebe’s account of how Europeans stripped Nigeria of its cultural and tribal identity lacks a certain resonance for me, something I put down to a lack of sympathy towards the main character. Achebe presents Igbo culture plainly and unapologetically. There is no hedging and no excuses made for the poor treatment of women or the cruel attitudes towards twins (kill them!) or the warrior cults of masculinity that perpetuate endless cycles of violence among tribes. It’s easy for me, as an heir of the same white, European culture that colonized Nigeria, to condemn these aspects of Igbo culture. At the same time, there has to be some kind of line between cultural relativism and moral relativism. I think it’s to be found in the way in which one speaks of a culture’s less savoury elements. It’s possible to condemn the structural misogyny in Igbo culture without condemning all of Igbo society and its people (much in the same way we today should condemn our own society’s structural misogyny). By the same token, Achebe’s naked portrayal of this culture means that he is not setting up a straw man that the Europeans knock down. This is not the story of "noble savages" succumbing to imperialist aggressors. It’s far more nuanced than that, but it benefits from Achebe’s perspective as an indigenous Nigerian who has also been exposed to colonial education and perspectives. I found most of Things Fall Apart fascinating simply as a result of this portrayal of Igbo society. The title is apt, in that the pace of the book’s plot moves with the gentle transition of seasons rather than the frenetic beat of a narrative drum. Achebe is more concerned with touring and exploring the various facets of life, particularly as he unravels Okonkwo’s complicated relationship with the rest of the tribe and with the Europeans. Each chapter is essentially an episode in which Okonkwo or his kin face a new challenge or experience that prompts them to question or redefine their goals and motivations. Here Okonkwo’s own obstinacy proves to be his undoing, first with the accidental discharge of a gun that has him exiled for seven years, and then later when he attempts to stir the village to war. In both cases, Okonkwo’s restlessness, symptom of a far more complex issue in the village, undermines the stable life he has managed to construct through his skill and perseverance. So Okonkwo is not all bad. He’s a jerk to a lot of people, and he does not suffer fools gladly. But he is, at his core, fair in the eyes of his culture. We might not agree with his code, but one must recognize that he has one: he acts in accordance with a rigidly defined code of behaviour by which he understands what it means to be "a man" in his society. When his eldest son fails to live up to these expectations by converting to Christianity, Okonkwo declares him a "woman" and disowns him. This is not just the petty action of the older generation failing to understand the younger; it’s the logical consequence of Okonkwo’s code of behaviour conflicting with his son’s own understanding of maleness in the new Igbo society subject to colonial rule. This is what critics mean when they refer to the clash of cultures present in the book; though physical confrontation happens as well, there are far more nuanced examples of how European culture begins to dismantle or otherwise set aside the existing ideologies. In this light, I see Okonkwo’s suicide as an allegory for the Igbo people’s choices when faced with the suppression and assimilation of their culture and society by Europeans. Unlike his son, Okonkwo could not accept the new rules and mores imported into Nigeria by Europeans. He must have been aware of the high cost of suicide: never to be buried on sacred ground, name besmirched in the eyes of the tribe forevermore … for someone like Okonkwo, for whom status and prestige were his life’s work, this was not a fate he would have chosen lightly. In this context it’s clear that his suicide is, therefore, an act of a man who thinks he is out of other options. He cannot fight—he does not have the support of the village—yet he cannot surrender either; he is not a "woman" to so peaceably turn his back on his beliefs. Okonkwo’s rigid code runs up against the implacable force of colonial assimilation, and he faces an impossible dilemma. Things Fall Apart, then, is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions. Okonkwo is a tragic figure trying to keep his family and people together. He is not a hero fighting valiantly against a clear enemy, because Achebe mentions forces other the colonialism at work in the tribe. Even had the Europeans not invaded, there were signs that the Igbo youth were already leaving certain old ways behind them. But the Europeans’ arrival hastens these changes and augments them with strange new ones. That Okonkwo is doomed to failure seems obvious early on, probably even to himself (I suspect that his eagerness to engage the Europeans in battle has nothing to do with optimism for victory and everything to do with his expectations for himself to behave like a warrior). What matters, though, is that he must act in this way because to do otherwise would be to betray himself, to be like his father, and that is the one thing Okonkwo refuses to do. I can appreciate Okonkwo’s struggle, even if I don’t particularly like him as a person. Achebe has crafted an intricate but simple story of entropy in the face of colonial expansion. He captures the way in which Europeans dismantle or replace the order and structure of Igbo life with an order and structure more to their liking. And he manages to do so while giving us a taste of what that pre-colonial structure was like, of how their people married and celebrated and feasted and died and held court. Things Fall Apart is equal parts tragic, fascinating, and frustrating. Despite its slimness, it is neither a light read nor a quick one. While I’m not going to place it near the top of my list of postcolonial literature, I’m still glad I’ve read it and had the opportunity to consider a chapter in colonial history that I haven’t otherwise paid much attention to. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 06, 2014
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Jul 10, 2014
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Jul 06, 2014
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062273841
| 9780062273840
| 0062273841
| 3.85
| 37,152
| 2011
| May 14, 2013
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did not like it
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This book is the dead tree equivalent of a BuzzFeed post. Its title could be “I Got 99 Cognitive Biases But a Psychology Degree Ain’t One.” Or maybe n
This book is the dead tree equivalent of a BuzzFeed post. Its title could be “I Got 99 Cognitive Biases But a Psychology Degree Ain’t One.” Or maybe not. Rolf Dobelli enumerates 99 thinking errors, or cognitive biases, in The Art of Thinking Clearly, dispensing as he does tips for leading a more rational, less error-prone life. Anyone who has done even the least amount of reading in this subject will recognize many of the cognitive biases that Dobelli describes here. Unlike most popular cognitive psychology books, however, this book makes no central argument and does not examine these biases within a larger context. It is literally just a list, with extended descriptions, of the biases. At times, Dobelli occasionally ascribes the bias to some evolutionary origins, and he will quite often cite some interesting experiments conducted by psychologists (he is not, by the way) that revealed or provided insight into the bias in question. In his introduction Dobelli explains that the book began life as a personal list kept for his own benefit, and I can believe that. Dobelli covers 99 biases in 300 pages, so he can’t spend much time on each bias. Not every bias is as interesting or worthwhile as the next. But from the very beginning, I was frustrated by the brevity of each chapter. Just as I read something that intrigued me, Dobelli shepherded me on to the next bias like some kind of frantic tour guide worried that we won’t have time to see all of the art. Please stay with the tour, no cameras. I wanted to be mollified by dazzling prose, but I had to settle for somewhat dull attempts at wit. I wanted to be satisfied with lucid, if too concise, explanations of these biases, but I had to settle for somewhat tepid attempts to demonstrate these biases without getting drawn into the bigger discussions of the cognitive and behavioural science that underlies them. Dobelli ties his own hands here, to poor effect. To be fair, it is clear that Dobelli is well-read in this field. He has done his research (even if the “note on sources” section frustratingly places the sources under headings by the bias name but not the chapter number, and there is nary an endnote to be seen). It’s clear, judging from the number of times he quotes from or references Thinking, Fast and Slow, that he has been heavily influenced by the work of Daniel Kahneman. In fact, one could say that The Art of Thinking Clearly is little more than attempt to distil the biases and only the biases mentioned in Thinking, Fast and Slow and similar such books. The thing about blog posts like this is that they seldom linger in one’s short- or long-term memories. They are space-filling exercises, attempts to get eyeballs to the page and clicks on ads. It doesn’t work well in book form; I don’t, as a general rule, enjoy books of lists all that much. There are some exceptions for lists compiled and enumerated in a hilarious manner, but that isn’t the case here. Yet with the cognitive biases removed from a larger context and reduced merely to a checklist of errors to avoid, Dobelli robs them of their greater meaning. So if you’re truly interested in this subject matter, why not just skip The Art of Thinking Clearly and go read Thinking, Fast and Slow? I have. It’s much better than this book and much more informative, and it’s written by an actual psychologist. This book, like the BuzzFeed post it resembles, is a pale imitation of something more meaningful and accomplished. Imitation flowers have their place, but life is too short to waste it on imitation books. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 13, 2014
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Apr 15, 2014
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Apr 13, 2014
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1554686628
| 9781554686629
| 1554686628
| 3.78
| 270
| Jan 01, 2011
| Jan 01, 2011
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liked it
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I’ve always held that the Sun is out to get us. Oh, sure, it plays the role of life-giver, showering the Earth in energy and heat necessary for life.
I’ve always held that the Sun is out to get us. Oh, sure, it plays the role of life-giver, showering the Earth in energy and heat necessary for life. Yet too much time in the Sun leaves us open to cancer. And in a little under five billion years, the Sun, in its senescence, will expand to engulf our planet. Before that happens, however, its expansion will have already scorched the surface and rendered the Earth uninhabitable. So pack your bags now, people. We might have as little as a billion years left! If that sounds crazy, well, fine. But I really enjoy science fiction that considers the concept of human survival into the far-far-future. For one thing, it’s optimistic, because it assumes that we survive this tumultuous age. And then it asks: what happens to humanity when the Earth can no longer support life? What happens to humanity when the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide? What happens to humanity when the very universe itself ends? These events are almost impossible to fathom from our limited, terrestrial perspective. They have no bearing on our present-day lives. Yet they are fascinating to consider. Curt Stager doesn’t look quite so far ahead in Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth. However, the sentiment is similar. He discusses global warming and greenhouse gases from a longer-term perspective than the topics usually receive in most media. Stager isn’t interested in how warming trends will affect the Earth into the next century or even the next millennium; instead he goes several orders of magnitude beyond. Central to this discussion is his argument that we, this generation, this century, have the opportunity to influence the next 100,000 years, depending on how much of our fossil fuels we leave in reserve and how much we manage to curb our carbon emissions. The Earth is warming. The scientific consensus is in. This consensus includes a determination that humans are the primary culprits of this warming, thanks to our newfound skills at digging up dead plant life and burning it in offering to the gods of power and propulsion. For the first time in the history of the Earth, a species has managed to alter the biosphere of our planet through deliberate action. That’s rather staggering. (Stager introduced me to the term Anthropocene, a proposed new geological era corresponding to humans affecting the environment on a global scale.) Denial of global warming is, thankfully, shrinking—but there are still plenty who, while acknowledging the fact, practise cognitive dissonance in claiming that global warming is either (a) not that much of an issue or (b) not this generation’s problem. Those with economic interests in maintaining our dependence on oil, coal, and natural gas claim that switching to alternative fuels is impractical or even impossible. Those who favour such a switch claim we’re selling our descendants of the next century up the river. Stager points out that few people on either side of this debate consider what will happen to humanity and Earth beyond a century or two hence. And he has a point. The carbon cycle is such that our carbon emissions don’t affect the warming and cooling trends for the planet just into the next century or two; these emissions will affect warming and cooling for the next hundred millennia. So it behoves us to consider our actions on such a timescale, as incomprehensible as that might seem at first. So with Deep Future Stager aims to present some of the possible consequences if we either tamp down our emissions to a "moderate" level or continue to burn through our reserves as aggressively as possible. The book treats us to visions of the past and the future, as Stager examines evidence of the former’s warming and cooling trends to help prognosticate possibilities for the latter. Past temperatures are available to us through ice core and sediment core samples, while future temperatures are the realm of advanced computer models. Stager is careful to attach a caveat when discussing the results of models: climate modelling, though distinct from weather modelling, remains quite difficult to get right. In some cases the timing might be off even when we are confident of the actual consequences. Perhaps one of the most interesting contentions of the book is that our descendants might intentionally burn any remaining fossil fuels to ward off the next ice age. For this reason, Stager argues, we might want to consider leaving some around. I find this idea fascinating because it perfectly describes the Anthropocene; as time goes on, we are increasingly going to need to make more conscious decisions about how to alter our biosphere. It also demonstrates another idea that recurs throughout the text: "warming" doesn’t necessarily equal "bad". To be sure, the current warming is having and will continue to have adverse effects on society, industry, and infrastructure. Yet change is inevitable. Only a billion years ago, the idea that there would ever be this much oxygen in the atmosphere would have seemed absurd to any life on Earth capable of such considerations. But thanks to some enterprising early bacteria mastering the art of photosynthesis, we’re now a planet dominated by oxygen-breathers, with our anaerobic distant cousins squatting in oxygen-deprived hovels deep in the ocean, shaking their metaphorical fists at us. Thus, there is precedent for life on Earth altering the atmospheric makeup and very environment of the planet. And life will adapt, as it always does, and flourish—with or without humans present. This is Stager’s assertion. Other reviews call Deep Future an optimistic book, and indeed, Stager seems pretty sanguine about humanity’s chances of survival millennia from now. He’s careful to qualify that as the survival of the species, and that’s an important distinction. It’s very easy to discuss how global warming will be socially disruptive in the next century or so. Naturally, it’s harder to predict how society will change in response to continued warming over the next millennium. But aside from a few catastrophic scenarios, Stager opines, it will be very difficult for all of humanity to go extinct, even if civilization as we know it collapses again. In this respect I think Stager is being too quick to dismiss those possible catastrophes. True, he’s engaging in speculative science rather than speculative fiction. I’m not expecting him to consider grey goo or a Singularity as possible apocalyptic events. Yet our continued tinkering with genetics, the ease with which we spread disease, etc., presents a host of opportunities for us to hasten our extinction. On balance, though, Stager’s probably right. Civilization might end, but humans will endure. So Deep Future is an attempt to provide a glimpse at what the Earth might be like for these survivors. Using the latest techniques in climate modelling, Stager attempts to demonstrate how two different scenarios for human-caused warming will change the face of the planet. It’s an impressive education in how we affect our environment and an important reminder of how much every aspect of life on Earth is inextricably bound together. From the carbon cycle to the water cycle, all these processes conspire—sometimes over geological time-scales—to produce the most amazing changes. When Stager talks about how the weight of the ice on Greenland will actually create new, massive fjords as the glaciers melt … that’s just a "whoa" moment. Geology is cool. Stager’s dedication to being even-handed, neither alarmist nor reactionary, in his presentation will doubtlessly frustrate or even infuriate readers on either side of the issue. Those who accept the scientific consensus that human-caused warming is a pressing issue, myself included, might wish that Stager were not so sunny in his outlook. But that’s missing the point. There is plenty of literature talking about the present crisis we face, and it’s an important subject. But it’s not the only way to view the issue of global warming, and with Deep Future, Stager reminds us of that. It’s important that we don’t forget that warming itself is not the bad thing, carbon dioxide itself is not the bad thing; rather, it’s the intensive, runaway warming that we’ve caused that is the problem. We’ve passed the point where we can just throw up our hands and claim that we don’t have an impact on the environment. There is no going back. The only thing to do now is to accept our stewardship of the planet Earth and try to determine how best we can influence the next 100,000 years, for our own species and all the others here on planet Earth. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 16, 2014
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Feb 19, 2014
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Feb 18, 2014
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0061923036
| 9780061923036
| 0061923036
| 3.80
| 2,992
| 2010
| Jul 20, 2010
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liked it
|
The public domain is a wonderful concept. Copyright is a useful tool during a creator’s lifetime, but when a work passes into public domain, something
The public domain is a wonderful concept. Copyright is a useful tool during a creator’s lifetime, but when a work passes into public domain, something special happens. Anyone can reproduce it and indeed use its characters and ideas without worrying about any associated legal encumbrances. In this way the public domain becomes a treasure trove of mutual cultural touchstones. Of course, to do this, one needs access to public domain materials. Hence why, in my review of Dracula, I praised Project Gutenberg for providing such access. It’s thanks to the public domain that Syrie James is able to create such an interesting book as Dracula, My Love. You may also recall that my review of Dracula is not particularly favourable with regards to Stoker’s treatment of his women characters. This is but one area that James seeks to rectify as she retells the events of Dracula from Mina’s point of view. She also seeks to (possibly) clear Dracula’s name—he wasn’t a monster, as a matter of fact, merely misunderstood. My expectations going into this were pretty low. I haven’t had a good track record with modern adaptations of classics; the prospect of a "romance" version of Dracula did not seem enticing. So I’m pleased to say that I was wrong. Dracula, My Love is very well-written. James has clearly paid close attention to her source material. She expands upon the characters of Mina and Dracula and manages to create a convincing romantic subplot in the interstices of the original story’s events. I began reading this literally as soon as I finished Dracula. This was both annoying and useful, for James cribs many scenes, lines of dialogue, and even descriptions from the novel verbatim—as one might expect. So it was interesting to see the correspondences, even though at times it felt repetitive. Like its original, Dracula, My Love feels a little too long—but perhaps that was because I knew, this time, the general twists and turns of the plot, even if the exact details are somewhat different. This book is essentially a second, secret journal that shadows the journal from Mina that Stoker presents in the original story. Herein Mina confesses that her interactions with Count Dracula go far beyond the dine-and-dash dramatics that Stoker describes. Rather, Mina meets Dracula while in Whitby, where he poses as the affable young Mr Wagner. She falls in love with Wagner, only learning his true identity much later into the book (though it is painfully obvious to the reader for the duration). This connection made, the novel slips into the standard mould of the romance plot in which the heroine is torn between two loves: the mysterious, sexually appealing Dracula, who offers Mina eternal life and eternal learning; and Jonathan, who has known Mina almost all her life, and who offers her a kind of stable existence impossible with the dynamic and terrifying Count. James’ rendition of Mina is refreshing and illuminating. She makes Mina feel more real, certainly more of a person than Stoker’s Mina. Yet she is careful also not to let any modern anachronisms slip into Mina’s characterization either. The result is a heroine who is a complicated mixture of natural, human emotions and Victorian-inculcated morality. Though she shares the inexperience of Stoker’s Mina, she is far more frank and open with us about the extent of her longing for Dracula than her counterpart ever could have been. Her aspirations to "be a good wife" to Jonathan, to have children, maybe teach some piano on the side, are all quite normal considering her social standing and upbringing. Yet, unlike Stoker’s Mina, these are not all she is. James includes an episode in which Mina discovers the identities of her parents, something that isn’t strictly necessary but goes a long way towards filling in the blanks of her past as well as demonstrating the kind of person Mina is in the present. Though she discovers that her father is now a man of some standing, she declines to make herself known to him. She says that having the mystery solved is satisfactory enough, and that announcing herself to him would only cause him pain. Mina doesn’t want to bring pain either to Jonathan or to Dracula. It seems, for a time, that she and Dracula hit upon a plan that allows her the best of both worlds: he will wait for her while she lives a natural life with Jonathan, coming for her at the time of her death to make her into a vampire. It’s creepy and weird, but it makes a kind of ruthless sense. This plan is sabotaged by a conflux of circumstances that culminates in the climax of the original novel, only this time, Dracula fakes his death for the benefits of Van Helsing and company. Afterwards, he and Mina reunite in his castle for the true climax of the story, as she must make her choice once and for all. James never definitively illustrates whether Dracula is, in fact, "good". It’s possible to read the story either way—he could still be a monster who has duped and misled Mina into loving him. Ultimately, though, James takes Stoker’s original story and adheres quite faithfully to the original sequence of events while putting her own spin on things. It’s a fascinating example of this type of literature, and as a romance novel it manages to be satisfying without being too over-the-top. I can’t speak for how a more experienced romance fan will find it, but aside from some overly flowery prose in the sex scenes, it’s tolerable. If you haven’t read the original Dracula, you’ll not have any trouble following this story. If, like me, you’ve read Dracula quite recently, then you’ll have an added bonus of seeing the same things unfold, just rotated ninety degrees. And sometimes, that makes all the difference. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 30, 2014
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Feb 2014
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Jan 30, 2014
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1926851358
| 9781926851358
| 1926851358
| 3.62
| 61
| Jan 01, 2011
| Jul 21, 2011
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liked it
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I wasn’t sure I would like Picking Up the Ghost before I started it. The back cover copy bills it as a coming-of-age story about a kid from an impover
I wasn’t sure I would like Picking Up the Ghost before I started it. The back cover copy bills it as a coming-of-age story about a kid from an impoverished background learning more about himself and his absent father through magic and encounters with ghosts. None of that pushes my personal urban fantasy buttons. But I gave it a try, and it just goes to show why reading widely and keeping an open mind can be rewarding. Tone Milazzo presently surprises with a story that is both endearing and somewhat original in its emphasis and expression. It’s not a book about beating a bad guy or saving the world. It’s about learning who you are and having confidence in yourself rather than relying on others. Cinque seizes an opportunity to find out more about his father when he receives a letter informing him of his father’s death. He hitches a ride from St Jude’s into Chicago (this in and of itself is ill-advised) to claim his father’s effects. As a fourteen-year-old black kid from a very poor city, part of him is hoping for money, and lots of it. Instead he gets an unopened letter from his mother and a book about the Black Arts. Coupled with strange dreams and seeing ghosts, this leads Cinque down a very dark rabbit hole indeed. A spirit steals Cinque’s heart. As he tries to discover what to do about it, he meets an African guru by dreamwalking, a mysterious woman named Iru who oversees important moments of change, and a cynical ghost named Willy T. Cinque continually trusts and listens to these characters and others, and this proves to be a bad idea. For this is the primary lesson of Picking Up the Ghost: don’t trust people until they earn it. By far the majority of the bad mojo that visits Cinque is a result of him blindly following the lead of another character, simply because they are explaining something to him. Cinque takes their explanations on faith rather than being critical, and this gets him into progressively hotter and hotter water. Eventually Cinque realizes his problem and starts fighting back. And this is where Picking Up the Ghost starts to shine: Cinque is a very empowered young adult protagonist. Though he makes a few shady deals with some spirits, on the whole his redemption is of his own making. He takes matters into his own hands, and instead of looking for an instruction book to help him get of trouble, he writes his own. The climax truly is a thrilling turning point, where Cinque begins to stand up against the threats that have, until that point, thoroughly trounced him. The events leading up to that climax are a little confusing. Cinque goes through this whole trial in which he must discard his identity and become no one, nameless, in order to escape the antagonist. Before he can turn the tables, he must reclaim his identity. This is a powerful sequence, but Milazzo doesn’t invest it with the greatest clarity. I wish there had been more detail to explain exactly what was happening. This is one of the reasons I’m leery of books in this vein—they use some of the trappings of magical realism that I like the least, namely a taste for surreal descriptions that I have trouble reconciling with reality. Cinque isn’t really Cinque any more, but everyone tells him he is Cinque. He had a hook in his skull, but presumably there was no mark, no blood—so it was a magic hook of some kind. It’s all just very vague and dreamy and magicky (as opposed to magical). Some of the other plot points could also have been integrated more organically. Without delving too deeply into the spoiler bag, the whole thing about Cinque being the seventh son of a seventh son comes out of nowhere. The antagonist lets it slip during a particularly nasty confrontation between the two of them, but aside from furnishing him with slightly more motivation for his relentless attack against Cinque, it doesn’t seem to have much bearing. This are rough edges around an otherwise very enjoyable book. Picking Up the Ghost is a novel of confrontation and transformation. I’ve shelved it as young adult, because it would definitely appeal to young adults—but it is a very adult young-adult novel; it is dark, not in an explicit way but in a profound one. Cinque learns tough lessons and becomes stronger for it. In the end, his relationship with Eshu—the being claiming to be a god that helps Cinque in return for some favours—is never fully resolved, so there is a strong hint of a potential sequel. But with the main plot wrapped up, this is a thoroughly satisfying novel that can stand alone. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 20, 2014
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Jan 22, 2014
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Jan 20, 2014
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Paperback
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| 0099276585
| 9780099276586
| 0099276585
| 3.65
| 45,697
| 1997
| 2006
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really liked it
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I picked this up because one of my A2 English Literature students has selected it for her coursework partner text, to accompany our class discussions
I picked this up because one of my A2 English Literature students has selected it for her coursework partner text, to accompany our class discussions of Hardy and
Player One
. Ian McEwan is an author I’ve been meaning to read more but never really made a priority, so it’s nice to have a reason to jump him up in the queue. I really do love the ghetto of genre fiction, but sometimes the overabundance of series of books can leave me in a state of semi-permanent sequel burnout. (This has particularly been the case after inhaling Karen Miller’s Godspeaker trilogy at my roommate’s behest before she gives the books away as a Christmas present.) It’s so nice to settle into a standalone novel, particularly one that is fairly conservative in its plot structure. Enduring Love is an exemplary specimen of a story: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has compelling protagonists and antagonists who square off in an intense conflict of psychology and emotions. Joe Rose begins as a fairly bland narrator, despite the predicament McEwan thrusts upon him. Happily puttering through a childless marriage with Clarissa, Joe becomes a participant in a helium ballooning disaster. Though he tries to help, his actions and the actions of other men involved result in loss of life, a burden he and Clarissa must carry forward from that day. More bizarrely, one of the other men involved, Jed Parry, decides that Joe is in love with him—and that he should return Joe’s affections. In this way, Joe acquires a highly religious and very disturbing stalker, whose attentions alienate his wife and begin to unhinge our thoroughly rational narrator. Joe’s rational nature is one of the cornerstones of the story. It’s what attracted Clarissa to him, and it has served him well in his runner-up career as a science journalist. Yet when we meet Joe, he has entered a darker, more cynical stage of his life. He no longer writes about science with the same wide-eyed fervour that might have infected him as a youth: these days, he composes pieces he knows are facetious or at the very least inaccurate, just because he can spin together enough details to create something he can sell. Joe has, if not exactly sold-out, then abandoned whatever mission he first had as a science writer. It is a crisis of faith of a kind. As a result of this crisis, Joe is vulnerable. Parry steps into this void. He knows exactly how to needle Joe, how to provoke him into response rather than ignoring Parry’s advances. At first, Joe wants nothing more than for Parry to go away. Yet as he becomes more obsessed with Parry’s presence, the relationship becomes almost symbiotic; Joe spends more and more time focused on Parry, mirroring Parry’s fixation with him. When Clarissa levels the accusation that perhaps he’s misinterpreting Parry’s actions, that perhaps Joe has done something to lead him on, she’s not being entirely unreasonable. (As a side note, though, it’s also interesting to see McEwan invert the traditional gender roles in victim-blaming, thus requiring the male character to voice outrage and disbelief that his partner would think he “was asking for it”.) And so we come to the masterstroke of Enduring Love: the unreliable narrator. I love this device; it can be used to stunningly good effect. Joe narrates the majority of the book; the exceptions are chapters comprising letters written from Parry to Joe. At first I thought this meant that Parry’s existence as Joe’s stalker must be fact. Then it dawned on me that Joe could be the one writing these letters—something McEwan later echoes in Clarissa’s observation that the handwriting resembles Joe’s own. Threads began to coalesce, and suddenly it made sense: maybe the entire book is Joe’s rambling hallucination. This possibility peaks in events leading up to the climax. Joe and Clarissa join a friend for dinner at a restaurant. The witness a contract killer attempting to murder a family at the table next to them, only to be foiled at the last moment by an anonymous hero, whom Joe thinks he recognizes as Parry. From this experience, Joe believes that Parry’s obsession has escalated to a violent stage, and that the hit was meant for him. When the actual target turns out to be a public figure with a history of attempts on his life, Joe’s shoestring theory starts sounding even more paranoid. Suddenly, the possibility that McEwan is heavily manipulating our perception of events becomes ever stronger. I don’t want to spoil the ending by examining the resolution. Suffice it to say, it does get resolved. Having spent a great deal of time enthusing about the narration, however, I’d like to comment on some of the themes McEwan explores throughout the book. The balloon accident is more than an inciting force for Parry’s possible stalking. It is a touchstone for Joe and Clarissa, a moment when everything in their relationship changed. Later, Joe seeks out the widow of the man who died in the accident. She asks him to do some detective work and determine if he was cheating on her the day of the accident. For reasons he doesn’t entirely fathom himself, Joe accepts the assignment and succeeds. At the end of the novel, we learn more about what actually happened, and we see the widow forgive the ostensible other woman. The need for forgiveness is a powerful drive, McEwan seems to be saying. So too is the need to forgive. As Joe and Clarissa’s relationship deteriorates in direct proportion to Joe’s obsession with Parry, one begins to wonder whether they can ever forgive each other, whether reconciliation might happen. By raising such possibilities, McEwan does much more than portray simple, shallow ideas of love. Love can be passion; love can be obsession; most of all, love is hard work. It is the triumph of faith and trust over doubt and deceit. We are all human; we all have weaknesses and make mistakes that test our ability to love and to be loved by others. Sometimes that love is strong—it endures. Sometimes it does not—it fades. Enduring Love is a short but very complex novel. It is simple enough not to tax the mind while reading, but deep enough to swallow that same mind and envelop it in considerations of love, loss, and life. Through his narrative decisions and his careful, almost precise sketches of the characters, McEwan crafts something that is a joy to read: I don’t know how many times I had to put down the book for a moment, just so I could grin and reflect how much fun I was having. It’s that kind of book. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 04, 2013
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Dec 07, 2013
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Dec 04, 2013
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1408828111
| 9781408828113
| 1408828111
| 3.87
| 94,700
| Sep 24, 2013
| Sep 08, 2013
|
it was amazing
|
I saved this book for a weekend. I knew this was not something I wanted to read in bits and pieces of time snatched, sneaked, and cobbled together dur
I saved this book for a weekend. I knew this was not something I wanted to read in bits and pieces of time snatched, sneaked, and cobbled together during the commute to and from work or the hour before bed. My previous experiences with Jhumpa Lahiri’s sumptuous prose meant I would need a certain type of stillness in order to appreciate this book. I needed the luxury to linger over each page and absorb the words, rather than skim and skip as I might do with a different type of novel. So, the weekend before last, I sat down to enjoy this, not entirely sure what to expect in terms of story. Lahiri does not disappoint, though. The Lowland is magnificent in its breadth and depth. The book spans most of the twentieth century and stretches tentatively into the twenty-first. It doesn’t concern itself with charting or documenting India’s tumultuous decades following Independence so much as it uses those events as a cultural backdrop. Only the Naxalite movement itself figures prominently in the story, whereas other significant events, such as the Emergency, are only mentioned. Much of the book takes place in the United States; again, however, major historical events are mere signposts, ways of keeping track of time, than elements of plot. The Lowland is relentlessly character driven in its story, much more so than almost any book I’ve read. As such, the story defies easy summary. The term plot becomes quite basic—that which happens. And that which happens is, for the most part, the ordinary give-and-take of daily life, punctuated by those momentous events that shape and define our existence. Subhash returns to India following his brother’s death at the hands of overzealous, anti-communist police. He finds his parents mistreating Udayan’s widow, Gauri, who is pregnant with Udayan’s child. So he marries Gauri and takes her back with him to the United States, where they intend to raise the child as his own. It is a marriage of convenience, not of love, never of love so long as the spectre of Udayan hangs between them. Through Subhash’s experiences in the United States, first as a bachelor and then as a husband, Lahiri creates an effective and poignant juxtaposition of two cultures. She presents much of Subhash’s experiences as decisions, moments where he must choose between the American way and the Indian way. For example, when his friendship with an American woman becomes something more, he feels that he has turned his back on his parents’ plans for a traditional, arranged marriage. Even after this romance flickers and fades away, there is a sense that Subhash has irrevocably changed. His decision to marry Gauri, certainly against the wishes of his parents, only confirms this transformation. No longer the calm and deferential son he was in youth, Subhash has become a more independent individual. Yet for all his adoption of certain American habits and perspectives, he still has deep roots in India. In this way, Lahiri subtly emphasizes the complexity of life as an immigrant, immersed and steeped in more than one culture. She builds on this picture through Gauri’s own adaptation to living in the United States. At stake for Gauri is more than cultural confusion: hers is a crisis of identity. In India, she had been Udayan’s wife and then his widow. Until recently, her role had been clear: she would be a mother and a companion, and she wanted both of these things. Udayan’s death changed that, and she certainly wasn’t happy any more, but she still had a clarity of purpose. Moving to the United States dispels that clarity, and Gauri has the difficult task of reforming her identity as the wife of the brother of the father of her child. When this doesn’t work for her, she starts branching out and becoming her own person again, rediscovering her interest in study, in philosophy. Gauri struggles to reconcile her desire for independence with motherhood. She finds living with Subhash uncomfortable, awkward, and the baby’s birth only intensifies this feeling. Ultimately, she is unable to truly embrace being Bela’s mother, and the consequences are heartbreaking. There is one significant series of events when Bela is a child, playing on the living room floor. Gauri finds they are out of milk. Telling Bela she is popping out to check the mail, Gauri goes out to the convenience store, returning as quickly as possible. She is nervous the entire time she does this and relieved when she finds Bela safe and unaltered—yet the thrill, the sense of satisfaction, soon motivates her to leave Bela alone again and again, often much longer than that. I can still remember feeling so shocked that she would do this. And then when Subhash discovers that Gauri is doing this…. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy says, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Put simply, The Lowland is about an unhappy family. Gauri is a mother who resents the burdens of motherhood. Subhash loves Bela but is always reminded that he is not really her father—for though he raises her, she develops an independent and mercurial restlessness that is more like Udayan than anyone else. The tensions and disagreements eventually drive all three apart, Gauri leaving and Bela striking out on her own, with Subhash the one, true to his character, remaining at rest. The Lowland eschews quotation marks or any other delimiter of dialogue, even an em-dash. Instead, dialogue must be inferred. Ordinarily this is a dealbreaker for me; I like the explicit, conventional signals and punctuation marks that have arisen to help the reader of the novel understand what’s going on. There is an exception to every rule, though, and in this case, the lack of delimited dialogue works. It helps that there is very little dialogue—more and maybe I would have had a harder time. This book is mostly description and narration; characters and people speak infrequently, adding to the dreamlike atmosphere of the story. There’s a certain element of voyeurism to fiction, and particularly fiction like The Lowland. Readers are observing the lives of characters, people who are unaware of our presence or interest. But with this observation comes the ability to sympathize with and understand situations that we would never otherwise experience. I’ll never know what it feels like to nurse a child from my body or the complex interplay of emotions and hormones that accompany it. If I’m lucky, I’ll never experience the type of unrest and repression that Udayan fights unsuccessfully. Yet thanks to Lahiri’s skilful portrayal, I can see how these things change people and why they are driven to do things that they later regret—or celebrate. Subhash and Gauri’s drama is not larger than life, not fantastical or incredible. Yet Lahiri unfolds it with a complexity and richness of detail that allows us to examine it from multiple angles, to sympathize with all those involved and lament that, sometimes, being human means not everything can have a happy ending. But we can’t stop reading, can’t tear ourselves away. We have to find out how it ends—though, true to real life, there is no proper, neat ending to The Lowland. Loose ends dangle. Here, as in reality, the story is never finished; only chapters come to close. No matter how bad it gets, how incredible it seems that a series of innocent choices has led to a state of abject unhappiness, there is always a reason to hope. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 17, 2013
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Oct 20, 2013
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Oct 17, 2013
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 4.09
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really liked it
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Mar 07, 2021
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Mar 16, 2021
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| 4.19
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really liked it
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Nov 10, 2021
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Nov 07, 2017
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| 4.17
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it was amazing
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Jul 05, 2017
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Jul 04, 2017
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| 3.23
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it was ok
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May 03, 2017
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Apr 29, 2017
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| 3.99
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liked it
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Apr 28, 2017
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Apr 26, 2017
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| 3.27
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it was ok
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Aug 05, 2016
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Aug 03, 2016
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| 4.07
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really liked it
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Dec 2016
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Jun 09, 2016
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| 3.43
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liked it
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Mar 12, 2016
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Mar 10, 2016
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| 3.98
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liked it
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Nov 29, 2015
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Nov 28, 2015
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| 3.74
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really liked it
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Nov 25, 2015
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Nov 22, 2015
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| 2.85
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liked it
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Oct 26, 2015
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Oct 24, 2015
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| 4.42
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really liked it
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 27, 2014
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|||||
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| 3.45
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liked it
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Jul 30, 2014
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Jul 27, 2014
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| 3.74
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liked it
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Jul 10, 2014
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Jul 06, 2014
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| 3.85
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did not like it
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Apr 15, 2014
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Apr 13, 2014
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| 3.78
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liked it
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Feb 19, 2014
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Feb 18, 2014
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|||||
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| 3.80
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liked it
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Feb 2014
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Jan 30, 2014
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|||||
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| 3.62
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liked it
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Jan 22, 2014
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Jan 20, 2014
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|||||
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| 3.65
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really liked it
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Dec 07, 2013
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Dec 04, 2013
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|||||
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| 3.87
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it was amazing
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Oct 20, 2013
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Oct 17, 2013
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