The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

Second books in a series are always tricky to write about, especially in a series as easy to spoil as the Chaos Walking trilogy. Not that I think that knowing plot details in advance will necessarily ruin your reading experience—but I do think that finding out for yourself is a lot more fun, and so I do my best never too give too much away. And this is why, in this case, I will refrain from even writing a plot summary. Suffice to say that The Ask and the Answer picks up right where The Knife of Never Letting Go left off, and that instead of one narrator, it has two. Those who have read the first book will have no trouble guessing who the second one is.

Let me get this out of the way: wow. Patrick Ness takes this series in a direction that was, for me, a little unexpected, though to be honest I wasn’t even quite sure what I was expecting. Don’t get me wrong, the main themes of The Knife of Never Letting Go—gender and identity and growing up and violence—are still here, but he takes them further, approaches them from different angles, and adds new ones. And the whole thing is just so rich and complex I wanted to explode.

This is a serious, dark and frightening book; a book in which horrible things happen. And worse than that, it's a book in which characters you care about do horrible things. But in fiction, as in life, desperate situations lead to desperate actions. The book opens with the following famous quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, which couldn’t be more appropriate:

Battle not with monsters
lest you become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you.

War makes people do monstrous things, even if for the best of reasons. The fact that Patrick Ness uses two narrators is brilliant because we get to see both sides of the war. We see how each side perceives the actions of the other, and how each tries to dehumanize the other. Though one of the sides is, for me at least, easier to sympathize with than the other, things are really not as simple as determining who’s right and who’s wrong, who's good and who's bad. And as the story advances, the complexity only increases. The book is very political, but it’s also very personal. Propaganda, mistrust, death, loss, fear, activism and terrorism, misinformation, control, manipulation, torture: they’re all here, seen through the eyes of two kids who are caught in the middle of it all.

Reading The Ask and the Answer reminded me of WW2, of Iran, of so much of what happens in the world today, of all the horrible things human beings do to one another, and of all the ways in which we try to justify them. This is an uncomfortable book, but it’s also so full of tender moments, of moving scenes, of people remaining human even in the most dehumanizing of circumstances. I cried, and not just once. Or twice. Or…well, you get the point.

Even though the story in unflinchingly dark, I don’t think that in the end this is going to be a bleak trilogy. The world is set in would be called a dystopia, yes, and it’s a daring story – a story that, like all the best ones, asks several uncomfortable questions and doesn’t offer clear or comforting answers. But I want to believe that in the end these characters I so love are going to be okay. Of course, it will be a year at the very least until we find out. The Ask and the Answer has another one of those endings, and I have no idea when the final book in the trilogy will be out. I hope this doesn’t dissuade you from reading this series, but be prepared to suffer while you wait for the final book.

I can already tell that this is going to become one of my go-to series, one of those series I refer people to when they question the relevance of children’s and YA literature or of speculative fiction. Because if these books are not relevant—and subtle, touching, smart and complex—then I don’t know what is.

Other Opinions:
Karin’s Book Nook
Guys Lit Wire
Jenny's Books
Persnickety Snark
Kids Lit
YA Reads
Becky's Book Reviews
Bart's Bookshelf
Page 247
Rhapsody in Books

(Did I miss yours?)

Also! Exciting news for fans of this series! A spin-off short story by Patrick Ness, “The New World”, is now available at the Booktrust website. Even though the story takes place before The Knife of Never Letting Go, I wouldn't recommend reading it first—if you mind spoilers, that is—as it will inevitably give away things that are meant to be surprising in the book. Anyway, I'm saving it for this evening, as a reward to myself if I have a productive afternoon. Wish me luck!

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The Sunday Salon – Favourites of the Year So Far

Hello Sunday Saloners. Please insert the usual I-can’t-believe-half-the-year-is-gone-already ramble here. You already know it, so I’ll spare you, but seriously, the older I get, the quicker time seems to pass, and the less time I have for anything. It’s not fair! Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to list my top ten reads of the year so far, and then compare it with my final list in December. Some I'm sure will make the final list, but who knows what discoveries the second half of the year will bring? So, in no particular order except for number one, here they are:

• Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan - I’ll be very surprised if this doesn’t end up being my favourite read of the year. But you’ve heard me go on and on about it before, so go read Eva's or Renay's or Lu’s thoughts instead.
  
  
• Fingersmith by Sarah Waters – You know how sometimes you discover an author, and immediately you feel like they have always been a part of your life? Or like there was a gap in your reading, a gap whose existence you didn’t even realize, but that they fill like no one else possibly could? That’s Sarah Waters for me.
  
  
• Paper Towns by John Green – You’ve heard a lot about this one too, I'm sure. But yes, it really is that good.
  
  
• The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak – A beautiful novel-in -stories, set in Japan and full of magic, loneliness and hope. Meghan loved it too.
  
  
• The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson – or Fudoki. Another author I can’t believe I haven’t been reading all along.

• The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness – what an excellent series this is. I’ll be posting my thoughts on the second book next week, but until then, they can be summed up in one word: wow.
  
  
• What I Was by Meg Rosoff – A quiet story about friendship, love, identity, memory and misunderstandings. I’m not even sure why it touched me so much, but touch me it did. For another opinion, check out Paperback Reader's or Melanie's.
  
  
• Bad Science by Ben Goldacre – everyone should read this book! It’s informative, important, and fun.
  
  
• Bone by Jeff Smith – A epic that is as personal as it is grandiose, set in a detailed world and full of memorable characters. (On a side note, the other day I went to a friend’s house for dinner and she served a quiche. I had to explain why I kept giggling, but I think that even after I did she remained convinced that I wasn't all there. Which is probably what you're thinking right now if you haven’t read Bone. This will make sense if you do, though. I promise.)
  
  
• Old Man’s War by John Scalzi – I think everyone who's convinced they dislike all science fiction should pick up this book. If this doesn’t change your mind, I don’t know what will.

What about you? What are your favourite reads of the year so far? (She asks, knowing very well that this will inevitably result in more books being added to her wishlist. I’m hopeless.)

Also, I was looking at my Read in 2009 list and I thought I’d do a bunch of nerdy stats – because is there a better way to spend the time when you should, in fact, be working on a final essay? Anyway, I thought I was making an effort to read diversely this year, but the stats revealed that only 33% of the books I’ve read so far were by women, among other distressing facts. So I’m thinking of reading only female authors in July to help balance things. Does anyone want to join me?

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I almost forgot! The winner of my YA Carnival giveaway is: Marineko! I actually had a bit of an eek moment when I realized she’d won: I worried you’d all think I’d rigged it because she picked the one book I keep telling the whole world to read, Tender Morsels. I absolutely swear I didn’t, though! I’d have taken a screenshot of random.org, but I closed the tab before I realized that number 42 (ha, 42!) was her. I know I’m being paranoid, though, and that you won’t actually suspect me. Congratulations, Marineko! I’ll be sending the book your away very soon.

And speaking of loving a book so much you want the whole world to read it, have you checked out Amy's Book Drive yet? She and Lenore are trying to get two hundred copies of Nothing But Ghosts sold before next Friday. Before I read The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee I had no idea how important initial sales were for a book's ultimate fate, but they are very important indeed. So if the book sounds like one you'd enjoy, considering helping. There are prizes involved too!

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A couple of things, one of which is a free book

First of all, I'm very very sorry to bring this up again, but the exact people I wanted to reach are the ones who might have missed it before due to the technical problems with blogger last week. I'd like to ask everyone to please update your bookmarks from:

http://thingsmeanalot.blogspot.com/

to

http://www.thingsmeanalot.com/

...and/or your feed subscriptions from:

http://thingsmeanalot.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

to

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thingsmeanalot

When I got my domain name a couple of months ago, I was told by blogger than my old feed and url would always redirect to the new one. Last week, the redirect stopped working, and it didn't work for almost a week. Some browsers showed a message saying the blog was no longer hosted on blogger and was potentially unsafe, which is both puzzling and untrue. Others simply didn't open the site at all, and some even said the blog no longer existed (which resulted in a couple of concerned e-mails). To avoid another situation like this in the future, I'm asking you all to update. Thank you so much, and I'm very sorry for the inconvenience!

Thing number two: Like I said a couple of days ago, I'm really sorry that I haven't been able visit your blogs lately, or to respond to comments quickly. The end of the semester is not normally this painful, but the wrist injury I had a couple of weeks ago made me lag behind, and now I'm struggling to revise for finals and finish projects and essays that are due soon, as well as catch up on my work as a research assistant. I'm not really sure when I'll be done with everything, but my last finals are this week, and things will be much easier after that. I have a few books I finished that I'm dying to tell you about, so hopefully I'll be able to do that soon.


Thing number three! Did I say free books? Why yes, yes I did. The YA Book Carnival is being hosted at Shooting Stars Mag this week, and I've been looking forward to it since it was first announced.

Unfortunately, I forgot that it was going to be during my crazy week and didn't prepare anything in advance. But hey, it's never too late for a giveaway, right? Since yesterday was Sci-Fi and Fantasy day, let's combine the two events: I'll draw a name and buy the winner a sci-fi or fantasy YA book of their choice. Just tell me in the comments which one you'd pick if you won, because I'm curious like that. The giveaway is open worldwide and the winner will be announced on Sunday. Good luck!

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On Fantasy and Why I Read It

Today, June 23rd, is Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers’ Day. My original plan was to pay tribute to my favourite genre with a review of Cheek by Jowl by Ursula K. Le Guin, a collection of essay and talks “on how & why fantasy matters.” But sadly I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, so instead I’ll have to tell you why fantasy matters to me.

I love fantasy. This does not mean I automatically like everything that is fantasy—you’d think this would go without saying, but strangely some people do make that assumption. They seem to believe that fantasy readers are undiscerning, and more than that, that if they want their reading choices to be respected, they have to justify the merit of every fantasy novel ever written. This is something that honestly puzzles me. I am drawn to imaginary beings and landscapes, to stories that stretch the limits of the real, to myths, to legends, to folklore and to fairy tales, and so I love fantasy. But this does not mean I will love all of it, just like someone who loves realistic fiction, historical fiction or mysteries will not love them all.

“Escapism” is a term you hear a lot in connection with fantasy, and with speculative fiction in general. This is something I’ve never quite been able to understand. I know how the argument goes: we “escape” into another world to get a break from thinking about the problems afflicting our own. That's fine, but what I don’t understand is how “escaping” into a fantasy world is any different from escaping into another time, another place, or very simply into another life.

Books of any genre allow us to escape our lives in the sense that they allow us to experience different realities, different ways of living, different problems, different sorrows and joys. And while we’re doing that, we momentarily forget our own. But this does not mean we shut our brains off. Quite the opposite—when we read a good story we are fully engaged intellectually and emotionally, and if the book is a very good one, when we return to our own skins we are a little changed.

I’m also puzzled by the assumption that because a story is not realistic, it will automatically be light, cheery, and dominated by simplistic moral absolutes. This is true of some fantasy, of course, just like it’s true of some realistic fiction. It’s not, however, in any way an inherent characteristic of fantasy. I honestly doubt there is much of a difference when it comes to the ratio between “fluff” and “serious books” in fantasy and realistic fiction, however we define those terms.

On a similar note, I’ve been told that fantasy is meaningless because it’s not about real people or real situations. And I ask, what else could it possibly be about? No, Middle-Earth, Narnia, Prydain, Earthsea and Discworld do not exist, but is anything that happens there really unheard of? What are their inhabitants doing, if not dealing with very human situations and dilemmas? War and violence are sadly very familiar. The problems that arise when we dehumanize otherd are unfortunately very familiar. Growing up is familiar, and so is leaving home and going to a new place, or trying to find home, or feeling like a stranger, facing danger, looking for something but not quite knowing what. Responding to our landscape, to the world we live in, to its strangeness, to its beauty, are also familiar.

It honestly surprises me that anyone would say that fantasy is not about human feelings. Of course, the specific details of a fantasy plot—a human turning into an animal or the reverse, the lost key to a hidden kingdom being found, temporarily leaving the world as we know it, travelling in time, and so on—do not correspond to actual situations we experience. But the important thing is that the emotions these experiences cause do. Fantasy stories are not factual, but they still reveal emotional truths.

According to T.S. Eliot, “the only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion”. This is to say, if a work of art is to successfully express an emotion, it must present a situation that is sufficient to justify that emotion. But you know what constantly lacks an “objective correlative”? Real life. How often do we experience emotions that our circumstances alone cannot convincingly justify, not even to ourselves? And this too is why we need fantasy. Fantasy allows us to create images and to explore alternatives, and very often through these we can express emotional realities more accurately than through reality itself. This is something nearly all my favourite fantasies do, and it’s one of the main reasons why I keep returning to fantasy, why I find it so satisfying.

I also resent the notion that fantasy—or genre fiction of whatever kind—is more constrained by conventions and offers fewer possibilities than so-called non-genre fiction does. Yes, genre conventions do exist, but the Genre Police does not go after authors who break them. In fact, some of my favourite books are exactly ones that play with these conventions, books in which the authors used their knowledge of the expectations readers would have to take the story further. I could also write at length about how realistic fiction, or “literary fiction” (a term I try to avoid), has its own set of conventions, but that’s perhaps a topic for another day.

Recently I read a post by David Williams in which he “called bullshit” on Ursula Le Guin for responding to those who, when writer J.G. Ballard passed away, wrote the usual of-course-what-he-wrote-wasn’t-really-science-fiction diatribes – the kind of thing you hear about books like 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, and more recently The Road. They are Works of Quality (and for the record, they’re all books I loved), they’re Respectable, and therefore they Cannot Possibly Be Science Fiction. I could give you fantasy examples involving names like Borges, Rushdie, Byatt or Angela Carter, but I’m sure you get the point.

Some of Williams’ points, like the fact that subservience is not a good strategy, are certainly valid ones, and I’m all for ignoring “the close-minded guardians of a dying culture” in the sense of not letting them tell me what to read, or what to take seriously, or what to be ashamed of reading. But I don’t think that’s what this is about. I don’t think that’s why Ursula Le Guin decided to take a stance, to argue back, to present clear arguments that expose the prejudice and close-mindedness behind statements of that kind.

It’s not about subordination. It’s not about insecurity. It’s not about craving “their” approval. The point of speaking out is, first of all, that someone might actually listen. And secondly, there’s the fact that prejudice and ignorance don’t really seem to go away on their own. History shows us that “Oh yeah? Well, who cares what you think anyway” unfortunately doesn’t take us very far.

Fantasy doesn’t need critical attention so that it can be validated or become respectable. But it deserves critical attention because it is, and always has been, worthy of respect. And if attitudes change, who knows, maybe more interesting ideas will be exchanged, maybe new readers will discover the genre, maybe more rewarding books about fantasy will get written—like the one on world-building on whose absence China Miéville commented recently.


What about you? Why (or why not) do you think fantasy matters?

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Why do I blog? - A Survey

(Not really; I've just been busy. But why miss a chance to post a lolcat?)

Ms Mazolla at State of Denmark is conducting a blogging survey, and so she suggested that participants answer a few questions about their blogging habits, motivations, etc. on their own blogs. Unfortunately, it took me so long to get around to answering them that my data will probably be useless by now. But I found reading other people’s answers interesting, so hopefully you will as well:

1. How long have you been blogging?
Since March 2007, so for a little over two years.

2. Why did you start blogging?
When I began, I wasn’t really aware that I was starting a book blog that I’d update regular for the following two years at least (and I don't intend to stop anytime soon). I started my blog so I could join the first Once Upon a Time Challenge and read fantasy books along with others. Then I discovered the community, and I stayed for that.

3. What have you found to be the benefits of blogging?
Above all, the friends I’ve made. I also like the fact that it encourages me to write (and thus think more carefully) about what I read, and that it allows me stay on top of bookish news. Plus it’s a great way of discovering new authors and books. Yes, I admit it: I enjoy the fact that you’re all such terrible influences on me.

4. How many times a week do you post an entry?
I’d say about five on average.

5. How many different blogs do you read on a regular basis?
I subscribe to 226 blogs (I know, I know). I don’t read them all every day, but I try (and often fail) to stop by a couple of times a week at least.

6. Do you comment on other people’s blogs?
Yes, I do. It’s impossible to comment on every post when you follow over two hundred blogs, but I do my best to join the conversation or just to let people know I’m there reading. I do comment on some blogs more than on others, though. I'm shy, so leaving that first comment is difficult. And there are some bloggers that still intimidate me a bit, but this is in no way their fault.

7. Do you keep track of how many visitors you have?
Comments mean more to me than the number of daily visitors. It’s not that I don’t appreciate quiet readers (and as I said above, I’m a lurker myself on several blogs), but I love the interaction. I check my stats on Google Analytics when I remember to, but I don't really know how to interpret the numbers, so it's mostly out of curiosity. I also tried Sitemeter a while ago, but it made me feel like Big Brother and I decided not to use it.

Anyway, I like looking at search terms (sadly the ones I get are never quite as weird, funny, interesting or puzzling as some other bloggers’), and I really like the geographical map of visitors (Samoa! French Guiana! I’m a dork). But as far as numbers go, I really don't know what to make of them. More than half my visitors come from Google, probably searching for something very specific, so I think visitors don’t necessarily correspond to readers. To be completely honest, I sometimes go through phases in which I have to try to ignore the fact that anyone could be reading my blog as much as my brain will allow it, or else my social anxiety begins to lift its ugly little head. Trish wrote a discussion post on the subject of stats recently, so I recommend that you read it if you haven't yet.

8. Do you ever regret a post that you wrote?
Not really, no.

9. Do you think your audience has a true sense of who you are based on your blog?
I think so, yes. I don’t often write posts of a strictly personal nature, but if you’ve been reading me for a while you probably know a lot about me. Maybe not the specific details of my life, but you most likely know what kind of person I am and how I feel about most things. I think that the way we react to books says a lot about who we are, so there’s no helping that.

10. Do you blog under your real name?
No, but there’s no reason why not, other than the fact that I’ve been online since I was fourteen and therefore I’m used to internet screen names. You’d probably laugh at me if I told you some of the ones I’ve used over the years. But I think most of you know that my real name is Ana. It’s not like I’m hiding it or anything.

11. Are there topics that you would never blog about?
Hm. Yes and no. Like I said, I don’t usually write very personal posts (not that I have anything against them), but there aren’t any topics that I deliberately avoid. If something comes up in a book, be it sex, drugs, rock and roll, religion, politics, you name it, I’ll discuss it. And sooner or later, everything comes up in books.

12. What is the theme/topic of your blog?
Books! I bet you didn’t know that. Here’s an updated wordle, just for fun:


Nothing much has changed since last time, it seems. It also seems that I say “really” and “also” a lot.

13. Do you have more than one blog? If so, why?
No, I don’t. I had a personal blog on livejournal for something like 4 years, but after I started this one I abandoned it. Not enough time to keep up with both, I guess. And I wasn’t writing anything terribly interesting there to begin with.

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This is the second to last week of the semester, so I'm behind on pretty much everything, including reading, replying to e-mails, writing posts, responding to comments, and visiting other blogs. Hopefully I'll have time to a least respond to comments in the next few days, but if not, my apologies!

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And another thing:

Some of you might have noticed that for the past four days now, Blogger has been having redirection problems. This means that my old url, http://thingsmeanalot.blogspot.com, no longer automatically directs you to http://www.thingsmeanalot.com/ but shows you a message asking if you want to be redirected first.

One of the consequences of this is that my feed is also not redirecting.This means that those of you who have been subscribed to my blog since before I changed my url are not getting my updates. In which case you're probably not reading this post, I know, but I thought I'd let you know what's happening in case you find it and wonder why it didn't show in your reader. Blogger is expected to fix this problem at some point (though they seem to be taking their time), but for future reference, here's a way of preventing problems of this kind:

If you subscribe to:

http://thingsmeanalot.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

...could you please delete it and subscribe again, this time to:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thingsmeanalot

Pretty please? Also, even after the old one is fixed, the new feed will update more quickly. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you!

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What I Was by Meg Rosoff

The narrator of What I Was is Hilary, an old man who is recalling his days as a teen boy in the early sixties. In 1962, after been expelled from two previous schools, he was sent to St Oswald’s, a boarding school in East Anglia that specializes in “hopeless cases”. He feels trapped in school, and one day, while lagging behind on a cross-country run, he meets Finn, another teenager who lives alone in a cottage by the sea. Hilary immediately feels drawn to Finn, and as he returns to the cottage again and again, the two become friends.

This is only the beginning: you quickly realize that the story is going somewhere, but that somewhere is not what you expect it to be. Yes, there is a twist. Or rather, a revelation that changes your perception of the whole story. I know that sometimes saying there is a twist can be enough to spoil a book, but in this case, I really don’t think it'll be. I’m not going to say “you’ll never guess”, but I was actively on the lookout for clues because I remembered Dewey’s review, and I still didn’t see it coming. I think there’s a particular reason why this happens, which has to do with certain biases, certain expectations we all have. And I think that making us pause and think about them is part of what this book is meant to do. I would love to go on at length about this, but sadly I can’t, or I’ll start giving you hints unintentionally.

What I Was is a beautiful story about love and longing and growing up. And about other things too, like memory and history and our collective blind spots. I think I enjoyed it even more than How I Live Now, and I really loved that book. There was something about the emotions Hilary was experiencing that really spoke to me. It’s a bit unsettling, but I don’t think it’s uncommon for a young person to feel strongly drawn to someone and not being sure if they want them or if they want to be them. And that’s what happens in this book. Finn symbolizes freedom, and a kind of life completely unlike Hilary’s—and for that reason, desirable despite its difficulties.

I also loved the silences between the two of them (Finn is not much of a talker), the small but meaningful gestures, the details, the little things. It all felt so familiar to me—pressing yourself against a silence because you cannot bear to put certain things into words, scrutinizing it for meaning, endlessly reliving every moment in your memory in search of a hint, a sign, anything you might have missed.

What I Was is also about how idealizing a person can sometimes keep you from seeing who they really are; can make you miss what’s right in front of your eyes. And then who do you love? The person or the construct in your head? I wish I could say more about how this book deals with these questions—I thought it was quite ingenious and unique. But i can't do that without giving too much away.

And there’s the longing. I think I said this about How I Live Now, but I’ll say it again: Meg Rosoff expresses longing beautifully. It’s done differently in this book—the writing style is actually quite different— but it’s just as lovely. Don’t take my word for it, though. Here’s proof:

I wanted to say, Jesus, Finn, didn’t anyone ever talk to you? But I could imagine that no one had. People around here didn’t waste words; language was a tool, not a treat. You didn’t roll it around on your tongue, revel in it.
I sighed. And yet…how was it that Finn’s silences turned my words to dust? No matter how heartfelt my thoughts, the noises I made when I was with him took on the quality of monkeys jabbering in trees. While his silence had the power to shatter glass.

As it was, nothing happened except the two of us watching the sea come in and go out again, listening to the birds, sheltering from the rain when it came and lying silent as the sky changed from blue to white to gold. For hours we lay side by side, breathing softly together, watching thin rivulets of water run down the cliffs and into the sea, feeling the world slowly revolve around us as we leant into each other for warmth—and for something else, something I couldn’t quite name, something glorious, frightening, and unforgettable.

I studied Finn the way some other boy might have studied history, determined to memorize his vocabulary, his movements, his clothes, what he said, what he did, what he thought. What ideas circulated in his head when he looked distracted? What did he dream about?
But most of all, what I wanted was to see myself through his eyes, to define myself in relation to him, to sift out what was interesting in me (what he must have liked, however insignificant) what distil it into a purer, bolder, more compelling version of myself.

There are things I need to tell you, but would you listen if I told you how quickly time passes?
I know you are unable to imagine this.
Nevertheless, I can tell you that you will awake some day to find that your life has rushed by at a speed at once impossible and cruel. The most intense moments will seem to have occurred only yesterday, and nothing will have erased the pain and pleasure, the impossible intensity of love and its dog-leaping happiness, the bleak blackness of passions unrequited, or unexpressed, or unresolved.

Other Opinions:
the hidden side of a leaf
Jenny’s Books
Charlotte’s Library
Angieville
Cynical Optimism
Paperback Reader
Page 247
where troubles melt like lemon drops
Bart's Bookshelf

(Did I miss yours?)

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The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

I was born into all that, all that mess, the over-crowded swamp and the over-crowded sematary and the not-crowded-enough town, so I don’t remember nothing, don’t remember a world without Noise. My pa died of sickness before I was born and then my ma died, of course, no surprises there. Ben and Cillian took me in, raised me. Ben says my ma was the last of the women but everyone says that about everyone’s ma. Ben may not be lying, hebelieves it’s true, but who knows?

Todd Hewitt is turning thirteen in a month, the age when a boy becomes a man. He’s the last boy in Prentisstown. Shortly after he was born, there was a war with Spackle, and at the end they released a virus that killed all the women. The virus is also responsible for the Noise: every one of the man in Prentisstown can hear everyone else’s thoughts in a continuous stream. There is no silence. There are no secrets. Or so they say.

One day, Todd and his dog Manchee (the virus also made animals be able to talk) are at the swamp just outside town when they come across a spot of complete silence. No Noise. Only, silence is not supposed to exist. And if that isn’t true, what else should Todd be doubting?

I’m going to do something I don’t usually do, which is divide this post into two sections, one spoilers-free and the other spoilerific. It’s easy to tell from the start that this is going to be one of those books in which the protagonist’s—and the readers’—assumptions about the world of the story are constantly challenged. Some things are revealed early on, but really, the least you know, the more fun it is. And I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun.

So, spoiler-free reasons why you should read The Knife of Never Letting Go:

• It deservedly won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, which is given to “science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender”—and believe me, it does just that.
  
  
• There are awesome talking animals (especially Manchee).
  
  
• Todd’s voice is just perfect. And so is the way Patrick Ness uses language in bold ways to convey all sorts of things. And so is the use of different font sizes and types to represent the Noise.
  
  
• There are characters you will care about deeply. You will cry and be scared and feel hope with them and for them.
  
  
• The world-building is absolutely fantastic. Also, it's a dystopian world. I love those.
  
  
• This is a difficult and meaningful story, but it’s also extremely gripping. You’ll find it very hard to put down.

And I really can’t say much more without spoilers. I hope you do read it, but a warning: prepare to suffer if you don’t have the second book in the trilogy at hand. It has one of those endings.

SPOILERS AHEAD. BEWARE!

What I was saying about how I loved Ness’ use of language shows, for example, in the way pronouns and names are used. I loved the transition from “it” to “she” to “the girl” to “Viola” as Todd gets to know her, as she goes from being an unfamiliar creature whom he imagines to be completely different from himself to being an actual, real person to him.

I loved the concept of the Noise. I loved how it’s use to convey so many different things. It can be social pressure, it can be other people’s expectations, it can be the desire to control others, it can be rage, it can be intimacy, it can be distance. Take this passage, for example, about the difference between the noise in the swamp and the noise in Prentisstown:

The loud is a different kind of loud, because swamp loud is just curiosity, creachers figuring out who you are and if yer a threat. Whereas the town knows all about you already and wants to know more and wants to beat you with what it knows till how can you have any yerself left at all?

I loved how, as Todd and Viola travel through towns other than Prentisstown, Todd begins to realise that Noise doesn’t have to be the abrasive, intrusive thing he grew up with. There can be degrees of privacy still, and there can be balance.

I also love the fact that Noise affects men but not women, mostly because I think Patrick Ness uses a visible gender difference to say something about the belief in essential gender differences and some of its potential consequences. When we finally find out what happened in Prentisstown, I wasn’t exactly surprised, but it still broke my heart. This is a little random, but a few days after I finished the book I was reading a play, Brendan Kennelly’s retelling of Euripedes’ Medea, and I came across these lines:

…The most difficult
obstacle of all is a woman’s silence –
it makes a man feel that his words are less
than the squeaking of mice in the sleeping dark.

…which I think apply to what happened in Prentisstown perfectly. It’s the silence, but of course it’s not the silence on its own. It’s the fact that it’s women’s silence, women who are perceived as different, as others. And therefore without Noise their thoughts can’t possibly be guessed, which makes them seem dangerous, and so they are feared, and so it's decided that they must be eliminated. And this is why my favourite scene in the book is when Todd realizes that, Noise or no Noise, boy or girl, he knows Viola. They can communicate.

I can read it.
I can read her.
Cuz she’s thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She’s wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma’s. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she’s taking the song of my pa and she’s weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.
And it hurts her, but it’s an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it’s good, but it hurts.
She hurts.
I know all this.
I know it’s true.
Cuz I can read her.
I can read her Noise even tho she ain’t got none.
I know who she is.
I know Viola Eade.

It’s a lovely scene, and it’s a brilliant book. And there’s so much more that struck me about it. Pretinsstown’s notion of adulthood and how Todd resists it, his gut feelings about violence, the scene with the Spackle (I cried), the many reasons why Aaron was one of the creepiest characters I have ever encountered, how lovely Ben and Cillian were (but Renay perfectly said everything I wanted to say about them). I could go on and on. But this post is over a thousand words long already, so I’d better stop now.

[/SPOILERS]

Click here to read the first chapter of the book online.

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where troubles melt like lemon drops

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The Sunday Salon - Stuff I've Been Reading

Hello everyone. Because the next two weeks are going to be busy ones, you probably won’t see me posting as much as I usually do. I did manage to write my thoughts on two fantastic books, What I was by Meg Rosoff and The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, but that’s all I have lined up.

So I thought I’d use today’s Sunday Salon to tell you briefly about a few great books I've read recently. I worried that when I finally found the time to write about them properly, I would have forgotten much of what I wanted to say. And plus I have to return some of them to the library.


I'll start with The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle. I wasn’t going to tell you about these two because I have to write a final essay on them, and when that’s the case it makes sense for me to save my must-write-about-awesome-books energy for that. But I really want to share my newfound love for Roddy Doyle. I enjoyed these so much more than paddy clarke ha ha ha —and I liked paddy clarke ha ha ha a lot.

Paula Spencer is the protagonist of both of these novels. The first is told in the first person, and it’s the story of her marriage to Charles Spencer. The second takes place ten years later, when she is forty-eight, and finally recovering from her drinking problem. While I’m not sure if I would exactly call Paula an unreliable narrator, it’s obvious from the very start of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors that she’s editing her memories, both about her marriage and about her childhood. But as the story progresses, the excuses she's makin begin to sound hollow even to herself, and the truth begins to surface in a process that is just so powerful, and so moving.

And what’s the truth, you ask? The truth is a story of alcoholism, poverty and absolutely horrifying domestic violence. Paula’s story broke my heart over and over again, but by the end of the book—of both books—I didn’t pity her, I respected her. You know when you feel that an author has a deep respect for his characters? That’s what I felt when reading these books. Her story is told with concern, tenderness and unwavering honesty. I can see Roddy Doyle becoming one of my favourite authors yet.

frumiousb asked: I had some doubts about The Woman Who Walked Into Walls, but I'm told by many friends that Paula Spencer completes the first in a really good way. Was that also your experience?

I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, it was. I enjoyed (probably not the right word, but you know what I mean) The Woman Who Walked Into Walls more, but Paula Spencer really added to my appreciation of it. It made Paula seem more real. We get to see her in different contexts, being other things, playing other roles, and that allowed me to look back on the first book and not see her as a woman who is defined by the violent acts that are done to her.

A quote:

Where I grew up—and probably everywhere else—you were a slut or a tight bitch, one or the other, if you were a girl—and usually before you were thirteen. You didn’t have to do anything to be a slut. If you were good-looking; if you grew up fast. If you had a sexy walk; if you had clean hair; if you had dirty hair. If you wore platform shoes, and if you didn’t. Anything could get you called a slut. My father called me a slut the first time I put on mascara. I had to go back up to the bathroom and take it off. My tears had ruined it anyway.

Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age, edited by Martha Vicinus, is a collection of essays about—you guessed it—women in the Victorian age. I blame Sarah Waters for my recent need to read more and more books on this topic. This one was published in 1972, and judging from the introduction, which mentions a lack of research in this area, it was one of the very first. Fortunately, that is no longer the case, and there are now several other books on Victorian women I plan on seeking out.

These essays cover topics such as Victorian governesses, prostitution and venereal diseases, the lives of working class women, stereotypes of femininity, Victorian women and menstruation, John Ruskin and John Stuart Mill’s debates over The Question of Womanhood, portrayals of women in Victorian paintings, and transvestism in the theatre (which I thought was particularly fascinating, possibly because I knew nothing about the subject before).

The essays are scholarly but still very accessible, detailed but never dense. Some of them covered topics I was already familiar with, either by reading about them directly or by picking things up while reading fiction from or about this period. But they were fun to read all the same.

Dreamybee asked: In Suffer and Be Still did you see mention of anything that made you think, "Hmph...afraid that hasn't changed much!" or anything to that effect?

I did, yes. The sexual double-standard, for example. Also, many of the Victorian stereotypes of femininity (women as supposedly milder, gentler, purer, sweeter) are will alive and well today. And the way female sexuality is still demonized by some. Of course, if women transgress against these rules, the consequences are now different – we aren’t sent off to lunatic asylums quite so easily these days. Today disapproval is expressed more subtly, in most of the Western world at least, but that doesn’t mean it’s not done harmfully still.

A quote from the introduction:

…the told ideal of the Victorian lady has been replaced by new and equally potent models condemning women to a less than equal position in society. These chapters document the feminine stereotypes women struggled against a hundred years ago, but only partially defeated. They should serve as a reminder not only of the distance women have travelled, but of the miles yet to go.

And finally, I'll tell you about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard. This one is Lu’s fault, for saying “you must read this play.” I have to confess that this whole reading plays for fun thing is a bit new to me, but then again, a few years ago I didn’t read non-fiction for fun either, and before that, I didn’t really read short stories. I’m all for introducing a bit of novelty into my reading habits, so I'm pleased with this new development.

Anyway, as you can tell from the title, this is a story that takes place around the plot of Hamlet. It takes Hamlet’s two treacherous childhood friends, who are secondary characters in the original play, and gives them the spotlight. You can see the plot of Hamlet happening in the background, but on the whole, not much is actually going on. The focus of the play is mostly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s musings and conversations. The result is really really good, and also really funny.

Funny, of course, is not the opposite of serious, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is both. The language is playful, and they have hilarious conversations about nothing much, which they follow by saying some very serious things about, well, Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Example:

Ros: (…) Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?
Guil: No.
Res: Nor do I, really… it’s silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead... which should make a difference... shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air—you'd wake up dead, for a start and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it....

Or:

Guil: No, no, no...you've got it all wrong... you can't act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen—it's not gasps and blood and falling about—that isn't what makes it death. It's just a man failing to reappear, that's all—now you see him, now you don't, that's the only thing that's real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back—an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.

I really loved this last bit. But these might make the play sound bleaker than it is. It’s funny, I promise, though I guess a lot of it is black humour. Which is a good thing, right? I’ve heard that the movie version is also very good. Has anyone watched it?

Also, in this spirit of this week’s Weekly Geeks, if you’d like to know more about any of these books, feel free to ask me questions. I’ll update the post to include the answers.

---

One last thing: Fairy tale lovers who enjoy writing might be interested in this writing contest at the fabulous Diamonds & Toads blog. The goal is to retell "Sleeping Beauty" in 1000 words or less, and the deadline is July 31st. The winner will get a one of a kind fairy tale themed box by an Etsy artist. It's open to US residents only, I'm afraid. Please click the link for more details.

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The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn’t go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. She was warm in every wind and weather, but he was always cold. His hands were as cold as his smile and almost as cold as his heart.

And so begins this peculiar and delightful story. The Duke of Coffin Castle demands that those who come for the hand of his niece perform impossible tasks, and kills them when they fail. One day, a travelling minstrel that calls himself Xingu arrives to the town near the castle, determined to try to win the princess’s hand. With the help of a mysterious being who calls himself the Golux, he begins his quest to defeat the unapologetically evil Duke.

You know how some books just make you happy, and you can't even quite explain why? The Thirteen Clocks was one of those books for me. I loved the story itself, a fairy tale but-not-quite, but it was more than that. I loved the quirkiness, the darkness, the humour. I loved that even though it could easily have become silly, it never did. I loved Marc Simont’s illustrations, and above all, I loved the language.

Thurber’s use of language in The 13 Clocks calls attention to itself, but it does so in a way that never detracts from the story—on the contrary, it adds to it. This is a book that begs to be read aloud, a book in which every word is there to be savoured. In the introduction to this edition, Neil Gaiman says:

I watch Thurber wrap his story tightly in words, while at the same time juggling fabulous words that glitter and gleam, tossing them out like a happy madman, all the time explaining and revealing and baffling with words. It is a miracle.

It really is a miracle.

Also, The 13 Clocks is a short book, and at first glance you would perhaps not think there would be much in the way of characterization. But by the end of the story, I was completely attached to the characters, especially the mysterious Golux. I don’t know how Thurber does it, but they really come alive.

I love many different kinds of books for many different reasons, but it’s only rarely that one charms me as much as The 13 Clocks did.

A few particularly great bits:

The cold Duke was afraid of Now, for Now has warmth and urgency, and Then is dead and buried.

The clocks were dead, and in the end, brooding on it, the Duke decided he had murdered time, slain it with his sword, and wiped his bloody blade upon its beard and left it lying there, bleeding hours and minutes, its springs uncoiled and sprawling, its pendulum disintegrating.

And this, possibly one of the best uses of alliteration ever:

From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets.

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Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

I'd been meaning to read Girlfriend in a Coma for ages, and all along I thought I knew what it was about: In 1979, shortly after having sex with her boyfriend Richard for the first time, Karen McNeil falls into a coma. Nine months later she gives birth to Megan. And seventeen years later, when Megan is the age Karen was herself when this happened, she wakes up.

That’s the basic premise, and not only did it sound good, but it sounded like a story Douglas Coupland would tell particularly well. Except this summary—the one my brain retained for all these years for whatever reason—leaves out the visions Karen was having before her coma, the letter she wrote to Richard, to be read in case anything happened to her, the ghost, and the whole post-apocalyptic scenario.

Come to think of it, a while ago I did wonder why this was on the Guardian’s list of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Must Reads. Well, now I know. You know me: suspension of disbelief is something I manage quite easily, and I don't exactly demand that my fiction be realistic. So it’s not the lack of realism that kept me from loving Girlfriend in a Coma. Because yes—I still can’t get over it, but I didn’t love it. I’m shocked that I didn’t. I completely expected to, but what can I do?

Alright, I loved it just a little bit. Or rather, I loved some things about it. I loved the writing—I think Douglas Coupland couldn’t manage to write bad prose if he tried. I love that it portraits loneliness and hopelessness very accurately while still not being a bleak book. I love that it allowed me to play a game of Spot The Smiths’ Song Title, much to my amusement. But sadly, there were quite a few things I didn’t like.

It's mostly the ideas behind the story that left me cold. I felt that it took its exercise in nostalgia one step too far. Forgive me for keeping this abstract, but I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot and spoil it for anyone. But what I mean is, are we really that more desolate and lost today than we were in the 70’s? In the 20's? In the 1800's? Ever? Is modern life all that much more meaningless? Has technology really isolated us? I wasn’t around yet in the 70’s, but I do read a lot, and it seems to me that people have been grumbling about things like ennui or mal du siècle for a very long time.

Yes, I realize that a lot of people feel lost and lonely, but were things really better before? And yes, I do think the way we—all of us—lead our lives has to change. I believe in social justice, I believe in respecting the environment, and I know that most of us contribute in little or not so little ways to things that go against what we believe in. What I don’t believe, however, is that what we’re lacking is a Glimpse of the Truth. I think we have the answers. I think we know what to do. We just need to stop being lazy and act on it.

Also, I can’t help but cringe when I see sentences like “nobody has any convictions anymore”, probably because I’ve seen them used to mean “nobody shares my convictions anymore” one too many times. The thing is, this is very much a Douglas Coupland book. These feelings, these ideas, this kind of social commentary—they are there in many of his other books, and I love them. But the way they were presented in this one kept me from connecting with the story or the characters. They made me impatient, even. I found Jared smug. And I hated how the ending reduced Karen to a non-person, to nothing but a tool of her friends’ Enlightenment. I could go on and on about this, but it’s impossible to do so without spoilers.

Or maybe I just missed the point. That's entirely possible. Girlfriend in a Coma is widely regarded as Coupland’s best work, and I love him, but I really can’t say I liked it. On a side note, it’s kind of funny that I loved How to be Good, everyone’s least favourite Nick Hornby book, yet completely failed to connect with this, the world's favourite Douglas Coupland book. You know what, they were next to each other on the shelf. Perhaps they switched personalities? Perhaps they (and yes, I’ll stop anthropomorphizing my books in a minute) got talking late one night and agreed to do this, just to mess with me?

Who knows. I still love Douglas Coupland. Hopefully I'll have better luck next time. A lovely scene (there were quite a few):

I threw a stick. “I’m too young to be a father. I’m too young to be anything. I’m seventeen. I haven’t even left home yet. It seems unreal. You won’t tell anyone, right?”
“Sealed lips.” She whipped a twig from her dress. “It’ll be like having part of Karen back. I miss her. We never talk about these things. But I miss her. Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“But we don’t ever say it out loud, do we?”
“I guess not,” was all I could reply. “I don’t like the silence, either.” I didn’t realize then that so much of being an adult is reconciling ourselves with the awkwardness and strangeness of our own feelings. Youth is the time of life lived for some imaginary audience.

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Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai

Set in Sri Lanka in 1980, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea tells the story of Amrith, a fourteen-year-old boy. Amrith’s parents died under mysterious circumstances when he was only six, and after being disowned by his remaining relatives, he was adopted by Aunty Bundle and Uncle Lucky, his mother’s best friend and her husband. Though they’ve always treated him with nothing but kindness, Amrith still feels the sting of having been rejected by his own family.

When his cousin Niresh comes to visit for the summer from Canada, Amrith is thrilled that his estranged maternal uncle agrees to let him spend time with him. The two boys become quick friends, and soon Amrith realizes that there may be more to his feelings for Niresh than he had imagined.

Shakespeare’s Othello adds another layer to the story: Amrith is supposed to play Desdemona in his school’s production of it, but after his cousin’s arrival he can no longer find the time to practice. The play’s themes of jealousy and distrust, however, find their way into his life.

There’s a lot to love about Swimming in the Monsoon Sea. I loved the fact that even though part of the plot focuses on Amrith realizing he’s gay, this is not exclusively a book about being gay. His sexual orientation is shown as what it is: just one of many facets of his life, just one of the many things he has to deal with in the whole process of growing up. Other things include coming to terms with his parents’ deaths, discovering where he belongs, and learning to trust those who surround him.

Another thing I loved was that the book was full of examples of how sexism affects both men and women, and of how it and homophobia are often connected. The society Amrith lives in is not exactly gay friendly, and neither do women enjoy a lot of freedom. When Amrith realizes that he’s attracted to his cousin, all the derogatory remarks he has heard about homosexuality immediately come to his mind. Here’s an example:

As Amrith looked at him, he remembered how he had once heard boys in his school mention Lucien Lindamulgé’s secretaries and refer to the old man as a “ponnaya” – a word whose precise meaning Amrith didn’t understand, though he knew it disparaged the masculinity of another man, reducing him to the level of a woman.

And later:

A ponnaya-that was what he was, a ponnaya. He did not know what to do about this thing within him, where to turn, who to appeal to for comfort. He felt the burden of his silence choking him.

The rigid definitions of what it means to be a man and to be a woman and the assumption that masculinity is superior are a big part of the reason why Amrith feels the way he does as he discoverers his own sexuality. There is no real resolution at the end of the novel, but he does learn to accept who he is a little more. And interestingly, the resentment he felt towards Aunty Bundle also begins to disappear.

I also loved the setting. I knew next to nothing about Sri Lanka, and while I still don’t know much, at least I know a little bit more than I did before. The way the book portraits Sri Lankan society and culture is very vivid and very interesting. Amrith lives in a world where schools are not co-ed, where different social classes don’t mix, where there are specific expectations and rules of behaviour. It’s also interesting to see how his Canadian cousin reacts to all of this. I’ve spoken mostly about Amrith so far, but Nerish is a very interesting character in his own right, who has questions of his own that he’s trying to answer, namely about identity and belonging.

Swimming in the Monsoon Sea is a very good book, but it’s not perfect. There were times when I thought that Amrith was a lot more gullible than a fourteen-year-old boy would be. But then again, this is a different culture, the 1980s, and he leads a sheltered life. My main problem with the book was that the writing was very uneven. There were passages I liked a lot. Take this description of a suspicious six-year-old Amrith being brought to meet Aunty Bundle for the first time.

He found himself going to her. It was her voice that drew him, its low murmur like a stream running over pebbles. She put an arm around him and drew him to her. There was a deftness to her touch. She held him but did not confine him in any way. Amrith allowed himself to sink into her, let her stroke his head. Her perfume was sweet but also woody, like fresh cut logs. Bhootaya, their dog, who never trusted strangers, was lying by Aunty Bundle’s chair, her snout on her paws.

But then you get bits like this:

When the tailor was done, the boys stood next to each other in the mirror, looking at their reflections. They smiled to acknowledge that they liked wearing matching shirts.

Well, yes. I could have figured out why they were smiling on my own. There are a few other examples of stating the obvious, as well as some awkward dialogue. But the setting is one you don’t see often in YA, the characterization is good, and the story is emotionally resonant. Considering that, I don’t hesitate to recommend this book.

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And visit Ms Bookish to see her daughter's impressive short film inspired by the book.

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Reasonable Creatures by Katha Pollitt

I like to think that they [these essays] are drawn together by a common concern for women’s entitlement to full human rights: to say what happens to their own bodies, to develop their abilities without being defined and constrained by stereotypes of the “feminine”, to make their own choices and their own mistakes without being punished for them more than a man would be. I’ve taken my title from Mary Wollstonecraft, the first woman to present a full-dress argument for female equality. “I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes,” she wrotes in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, “but reasonable creatures.”

Human beings, in other words. No more, no less.

Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism is a collection of essays that Katha Pollitt wrote for her column in The Nation, “Subject to Debate”, between 1986 and 1991. She covers several topics, all of which involve women but which are, it almost goes without saying, of interest for everyone: social attitudes towards rape, gender roles, surrogate mothering, reproductive rights and prejudice against older and unmarried women, among others. Two decades later, these topics are all still being debated.

Let me tell you how I came to this book: I read somewhere that Pollitt was one of the main opponents of Carol Gilligan’s theory of gender differences, and I suspected that if she opposed Gilligan, she was someone I would really, really like. I was not mistaken. Therefore, it’s not surprising that my favourite essay was “Marooned on Gilligan’s Island.” Gilligan wrote a book called In a Different Voice, which in my opinion is little more than a jargon-laden reworking of Victorian stereotypes of the Ruskinian type about female docility, purity and nurturance. On a side note, I was exposed to Gilligan during my first year as a psychology major, and I took her to be much more representative than she actually is. Because of that, I didn’t quite know what to make of feminism for a while. The emphasis on gender differences went against all my gut feelings. Of course, I have no one to blame for my ignorance but myself, but I thought I’d let you know where I’m coming from.

Anyway, what Katha Pollitt says (and I wholeheartedly agree) is that there are more differences between individual men and women than there are between women and men as a whole. Sometimes I almost think this is too obvious to need stating, but then the countless adds, magazine and newspaper articles, and everyday conversations I’m exposed to that still seem to be based on a Men-are-from-Mars-Women-are-from-Venus philosophy remind me that no, it's not. Pollitt puts it perfectly here:

But the biggest problem with all these accounts of gender difference is that they credit the differences they find to universal features of male and female development rather than to the economic and social positions men and women hold, or to the actual power differences between individual men and women. In The Mismeasure of Woman, her trenchant and witty attack on contemporary theories of gender difference, Carol Travis points out that much of what can be said about women applies as well to poor people, who also tend to focus more on family and relationships and less on work and self-advancement; to behave deferentially with those more socially powerful; and to appear to others more emotional and “intuitive” than rational and logical in their thinking.

I love her. My other favourite essay was “Not Just Bad Sex”, in which she argues against a book that claims that because of feminim, women are reinterpreting what is nothing but “bad sex” they regret having the morning after as rape. Okay, deep breath. Just writing these words made my blood boil. You know, as much as any attempt to dismiss rape deeply repulses me, I think that what got to me the most was the I’ve-discovered-gunpowder tone of the whole thing. It’s as if the author of the book believes that society automatically sides with rape victims; that the veracity of their experience is never, ever questioned; that in a rape trial the victim isn’t as judged as the aggressor. Fortunately, Katha Pollitt says everything that needs to be said. I'd post my favourite bits, but the essay is available online, so you can read it yourselves.

A lot of the essays in Reasonable Creatures, if not all of them, deal with political issues, so your own political alignment will no doubt affect your enjoyment of this book. To me, Pollitt sounds passionate but never forceful, but as I identify very closely with her ideologically, it’s hard for me to say how someone who doesn’t would react. In any case, for me Reasonable Creatures was relevant and sensible, and I found myself nodding along through all the essays.

Notable passages:

What we should be asking is not how the most sensational crimes against women are different from run-of-the-mill threats, rapes, bashings and murders but how they are the same. We need to stop thinking of male violence as some kind of freak of nature, like a tornado. Because the thing about tornados is, you can’t do anything about them. The onus is all on potential victims to accommodate themselves or stay out of the way (What was she wearing? Why was she out so late? Why didn’t she flee/scream/fight back/stay calm?)

The pernicious tendencies of different feminism are perfectly illustrated by the Sears sex discrimination case, in which Rosalind Rosenberg, a professor of women’s history at Barnard College, testified for Sears that female employees held lower-paying salaried jobs while men worked selling big-ticket items on commission because women preferred low-risk, noncompetitive positions that did not interfere with family responsibilities. Sears won its case.

Although it is couched in the language of praise, difference feminism is demeaning to women. It asks that women be admitted into public life and public discourse not because they have a right to be there but because they will improve them. Even if this were true, and not the wishful thinking I believe it to be, why should the task of moral and social transformation be laid on women’s doorstep and not on everyone’s—or, for that matter, on men’s, by the you-broke-it-you-fix-it principle? Peace, the environment, a more humane workplace, economic justice, social support for children—these are issues that affect us all and are everyone’s responsibility. By promising to assume that responsibility, difference feminists lay the groundwork for excluding women again, as soon as it becomes clear that the promise cannot be kept.

‘Strident’ and proud: Jessica Valenti interviews Katha Pollitt

(Have you posted about this book too? Let me know and I’ll add your link here.)

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The very awesome Kailana has been inviting friends and fellow bloggers to write guest posts for her Music Mundays posts, and this week she invited me. If you're curious about what my five favourite music videos are (well, five of my favourites, anyway), head over to her blog and say hi.

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The Sunday Salon – Forgotten Favourites

Hello everyone. I’m happy to report that my wrist is doing better, even though it’s not completely healed yet. But the wrist brace has helped, as has applying ice twice a day. Thank you again for your kind comments. I really appreciate them.

I was thinking the other day about how I’ve been a reader all my life, yet I’ve only been blogging for a little over two years. This means that there are a lot of books I loved but haven’t had the opportunity to tell you about. And there are also some I loved but can’t remember anything about – other than the fact that I love them, that is. I really need to make more time for re-reading.

Anyway, I started thinking that this is certainly also the case with my fellow bloggers, and I’d really love to hear about these books. Which gave me an idea: what if I invited other bloggers to tell me about a forgotten favourite of theirs? When they read it, what they remember the most clearly, why they loved it, and so on. Part of the inspiration also came from the fact that Kailana invited me to write a guest post for her blog, which will be up tomorrow. I quite like the idea of having other bloggers I love sharing a post with me and my readers. It’s fun, it keeps things from getting monotonous, and it’s a way of discovering new blogs.

So what do you think? Is this something you’d be interested in reading or contributing to? I’d probably only be able to start in July, as June is going to be a busy month. Also, please let me know if anyone out there has done anything similar. I’d hate to accidentally be stealing someone’s idea.

I was going to tell you at length about my forgotten favourites, but if I do go ahead with this I might as well save it for then. But in case you're curious: until recently, one was Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice, but I re-read it this year. Another is Brief Life (also published with the title That Same Flower) by Jostein Gaarder. I loved it when I was 17. I wonder how I'd feel about it today.

Let me know what you think. I hope you all have a great week.

Edit to add: Thanks to Molly for pointing out that Alyce has recently started doing something very much like this. I'll be sure to participate in the near future, and I'd love to see you join as well!

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Because I haven't done one in a long while...

...here's a reading meme. I combined some of the different versions I've seen around. (Actually, I suspect that what I'm really doing is combining completely different memes, but that's okay, right?)

Which author do you own the most books by?
Terry Pratchett (42), and Neil Gaiman (35). Surprise, surprise.

Which book do you own the most copies of?
I have two copies of Coraline and of Stardust. I don't think I own more than two copies of any book. Yet.

Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Not at all.

What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I can't say I'm actually embarrassed about any of the gaps in my reading. I don't believe that not having read a certain author by a certain age (or even not meaning to read them at all) automatically turns anyone into a philistine. Also, I'm not from an English speaking country, so a lot of what I read at school and was introduced to while growing up is unknown to the world at large, whereas English, American and also some French and German classics are considered universal classics. I could go on and on about the whole notion of The Canon, but I won't. Does this mean there were horrifying gaps in my education? I don't think so. And as I love reading, I've been seeking out many of these books on my own.

Having said that, I'd like to read some George Eliot before the end of the year. And also some more Shakespeare.

Which fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I've always been a little bit in love with Death from the Sandman, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. Also, my teenagehood crush on the vampire Armand is probably not completely gone.

Which book have you read more than any other?
Hmmm, I'm not sure. Os Olhos de Ana Marta by Alice Vieira? (I often daydream about translating this book and introducing it to the English speaking world). Anne Frank's diary? One of my childhood favourites for sure.

What was your favorite book when you were 10 years old?
The two I mentioned in the previous question.

What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
The last book I strongly disliked was The Helmet of Horror by Victor Pelevin, which I read a little over a year ago.

What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

What is the worst book you’ve ever read?
Any of the four by Paulo Coelho that I was bullied into reading. Sorry!

If you could tell everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Today, Tender Morsels. Tomorrow, who knows.

Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
To be honest I haven't read enough of either, but I'll go with the Russians.

Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare.

Austen or Eliot?
Like I was saying, I haven't read Eliot yet, but for some reason I have the feeling I'll like her even more than Austen.

Roth or Updike?
Roth.

David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
It's a tough one, but I think I'll have to go with Eggers.

What is your favorite novel?
My default answer is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, but you know, there are probably others I love just as much.

What is your favorite play?
I'm not very well-read when it comes to drama, but I did love Synge's Riders to the Sea.

What is your favorite short story?
*Points to right sidebar*.

In addition to those, "A Diamond Guitar" by Truman Capote, "One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock" by Neil Gaiman, "The German Reporter" by Douglas Coupland, "The Theme is Power" by Ali Smith, "The Story of the Eldest Princess" by A. S. Byatt, "The Tiger's Bride" by Angela Carter.

Okay, why have I been completely neglecting short stories this year? I obviously love them to bits.

What is your favorite poem?
There are quite a few I love, but I'll go with "i like my body when it is with your" by e.e. cummings.

What is your favorite epic poem?
Gilgamesh.

What is your favorite non-fiction?
All-time? Probably Nick Hornby's Spree (an imaginary edition containing all three books, preferably). This year so far, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

What is your favorite essay?
I'm a big fan of Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories" and Ursula Le Guin's "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?". John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor's "The Subjection of Women" is pretty awesome too.

What is your favorite graphic novel?
Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman, probably.

What is your favorite science fiction?
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

What is your favorite fantasy?
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

What is your favorite memoir?
I haven't read that many, but I loved John Bayley's Elegy for Iris.

What is your favorite history?
I'm not sure. I tend to gravitate towards social history, and I really enjoyed Liza Picard's books about London. Actually, recommendations in this area would be very much appreciated.

What is your favorite mystery or noir?
Mystery is a genre I don't know enough about. I really enjoyed the Father Brown stories that I read, though.

Who is your favorite writer?
Neil Gaiman. And Terry Pratchett. (No way! you say.)

Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Okay, part of me wants to say Stephenie Meyer, but I know that since I haven't, er, actually read her, I'm not technically entitled to. Also, I've always had problems with the notion of "overrated". What exactly does it mean? "Something that a lot of people like but I don't, and therefore less people should like it?" I'm not saying I'm above thinking, "this book/song/movie is awful, what can people possibly see in it?!", but I do see a difference between that and declaring, "This is overrated." Okay. Rant over.

What are you reading right now?
I'm just finished Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age by Martha Vicinus (a great history, by the way), so now I'll devote myself full-time to The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien. It's going slowly, but I'm enjoying it.

Feel free to grab this meme if you haven't yet. I'd love to see your answers.

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Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

The year is 1899. Meet Fevvers, a renowned aerialist, a circus star so bright that journalist Jack Walser comes all the way from California to write a story about her. What makes Fevvers so unique is the fact that she claims that she was hatched from an egg and grew wings of her own when she reached puberty. Nights at the Circus begins with Walser interviewing the Cockney Venus, as they call her, backstage in London, and then moves to St. Petersburg and Siberia. After hearing her story, the young journalist is to taken with Fevvers that he decides to run away and join the circus.

This is a messy plot summary at best, I know. But so much happens in Nights at the Circus, and anyway, it’s not really about the plot. It’s about the extravagant and celebratory atmosphere, about the fascinating cast of characters, all of them misfits with a story to tell, about Angela Carter’s lush language. Every single one of her sentences is a delight to read. Her language is beautiful, rich, and playful. I think that what draws me to her work the most is the fact that you can feel she’s having fun. The tone, or the several different tones, the rhythm, the tricks she pulls: all of them celebrate language, and they do so in a way that is luxuriant but never excessive.

And even things that might sound pompous in the hands of another writer are nothing but wonderfully playful in hers. Take the frequent literary allusions, for example. I love this passage, in which plays with Blake’s famous poem:

We saw the house was roofed with tigers. Authentic, fearfully symmetric tigers burning as brightly as those who had been lost. These were the native tigers of the place, who had never known either confinement or coercion; they had not come to the Princess for any taming, as far as I could see, although they stretched out across the tiles like abandoned greatcoats, laud low by pleasure, and you could see how the tails that dropped down over the eaves like icicles of fur were throbbing with marvellous sympathy. Their eyes, gold as the background to a holy picture, had summoned up the sun that glazed their pelts until they looked unutterably precious.

I’m going on and on about her use of language – this is because I hadn’t read Carter in a while, and I’d forgotten just how much I love it. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a story here. There is: a story composed of many sub-stories, of many episodes, of many characters, all with something to say. Nights at the Circus celebrates storytelling just as much as it celebrates language. That’s something I always appreciate in a writer: when they treat storytelling as an end in itself and not just as a means to exploring a theme. Don’t get me wrong; I do care about themes. I care about them a lot. But all my favourite writers share this passion for stories in themselves, and Angela Carter is no exception.

But what exactly is Nights at the Circus, you ask? It’s a carnivalesque late-Victorian fairy tale. It’s an effervescent story about freedom, about gender, about the modern world, about love. And it’s a story that both celebrates and exemplifies the hold that stories have on us.

Some have said that most of the female characters in this story enjoy more freedom than real women would have at the time, and while that’s true, I really don’t think it means that the story denies that injustice and oppression do exist. We see it in the book: there’s Mignon’s story, for example, the abused child-wife of the circus’ Strong Man. And there’s the story of the all-female prison in Siberia. But more than that, there’s the fact that the freedom these women do have is never taken for granted.

There’s so much in this book. I could go on forever, but I’d better stop now. Nights at the Circus is a dizzying and magical journey, and I can’t believe it took me this long to pick it up. On a side note, reading this really put me in the mood for Tipping the Velvet, which I imagine to have a somewhat similar atmosphere.

Bits I particularly liked:

Walser had not experienced his experience as experience; sandpaper his outside as experience might, his inwardness had been left untouched. In all his young life, he had felt not so much as one single quiver of introspection. If he was afraid of nothing, it was not because he was brave; like the boy in the fairy story who does not know how to shiver, Walser did not know how to be afraid. So his habitual disengagement was involuntary; it was not the result of judgement, since judgement involves the positives and negatives of belief.

Her voice. It was as if Walser had become a prisoner of her voice, her cavernous, sombre voice, a voice made for shouting about the tempest, her voice of a celestial fishwife. Musical as it strangely was, yet not a voice for singing with; it comprised discords, her scale contained twelve tones. Her voice, with its warped, homely, Cockney vowels and random aspirates. Her dark, rusty, dipping, swooping voice, imperious as a siren’s.

The train now ground to a halt with an exhausted sigh. The engine wailed softly, the locking wheels clicked and groaned but nothing in sight, not even one of those frilly little wooden stations like gingerbread houses they put up in these parts, mocking the wilderness with their suggestion of the fairy tale. Nothing but streaks of now standing our unnaturally white against the purple horizon, miles away. We are in the middle of nowhere.
‘Nowhere’, one of those words, like ‘nothing’, that opens itself inside you like a void. And were we not progressing through the vastness of nothing to the extremities of nowhere?

Other Opinions:
Tales from the Reading Room (Brilliant review; it says everything I wish I could have.)


(Did I miss yours?)

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