Aug 09 2015

Seven Kinds Of Hell by Dana Cameron

A cut above the standard urban fantasy novel. A lot of the books in the genre read as if they’re written by people emotionally stunted in middle school, but Dana Cameron evades the worst of the genre tropes to present an exhilaratingly globe-trotting paranormal thriller. It was also really nice to see an author care enough about her readers’ intelligence to consider all the possible loopholes in her plot’s logic. Which isn’t to say that this was the perfect book: there were still parts that felt a little too exposition-y a/o deus ex machina, and Zoe does spend an awful lot of time feeling sorry for herself, but the latter at least is somewhat justifiable given her circumstances (which is not something I can say for the sad sack protagonists of most urban fantasy.) I’m honestly looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series, which I’ll be borrowing from Amazon as well soon.

One thing I noticed tho: having to pause reading this for work, I found when I returned to it, that I felt like I’d lost a certain amount of momentum. I’m not sure if this is an urban fantasy or a thriller thing, but it was notable enough that I’m going to keep an eye out for this happening with other books in future.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/09/seven-kinds-of-hell-by-dana-cameron/

Jul 29 2015

Paper Towns by John Green

I think that if I hadn’t read and loved The Fault In Our Stars first, I’d likely be more charitable to this book, which was pretty good overall, just not as good. And I guess that’s unfair to Paper Towns, which is a pretty good mystery on its own (and I really liked how convincingly the narrative sounded like an adolescent boy’s) but I didn’t really care for the presentation of the ending or, even, the presentation of the philosophies that underpinned the entire work. I mean, I liked the story elements, and I liked the thoughts behind them, but after the awesome narrative arc of the night of revenge, then the investigation, then the road trip, the ending just felt flat and kinda confused. I guess we’re supposed to draw our own conclusions as to what happens next, and I’m usually okay with that kind of thing, but the last few paragraphs felt unnecessarily contrived. Which means I likely won’t watch the movie (despite my curiosity re: Cara Delevingne,) but I didn’t watch A Fault In Our Stars either (tho that was because of my antipathy towards Shailene Woodley, if I’m being perfectly honest.)

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/29/paper-towns-by-john-green/

Jul 29 2015

Romanticism and Positivism – The History of Polish Literature by Czeslaw Milosz

What could Polish literature do after Pan Tadeusz, a poem that Milosz said, “gradually won recognition as the highest achievement in all Polish literature”?

For starters, literary eminence was contested by Mickiewicz’s contemporaries. “Besides his unrequited love, the other passion running through [Juliusz] Słowacki’s life was his desire first to equal, then to compete with, Mickiewicz for the position of ‘national’ poet.” (p. 233) Słowacki grew up in a literary household; his father held the chair of literature at the University of Wilno (now Vilnius), and his mother showed talent in the same area. Słowacki was “an introvert, well-read in Polish, French, and English literature, he was to be a lonely man all his life, the epitome of a melancholy Romantic.” (p. 232) His early poetry was “somewhat analogous to Shelley’s,” and later moved “toward an ever greater exuberance of sound and colors, toward what may be termed a revival of the Polish Baroque.” (p. 233)

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/29/romanticism-and-positivism-the-history-of-polish-literature-by-czeslaw-milosz/

Jul 27 2015

Simple Storys by Ingo Schulze

Writing in the mid-1990s in post-Communist Poland, Andrzej Sapkowski produced The Time of Contempt. Writing in the mid-1990s in post-Communist eastern Germany, Ingo Schulze produced Simple Storys (the plural is not correct in German either; it’s symptomatic of the anglicisms and pseudo-anglicisms that entered the language at that time).

The two books could hardly be more different. Sapkowski wrote fantastic adventures in which Poland’s history and traditions can be discerned, if a reader knows where to look. Schulze wrote 29 closely observed, hyper-realistic vignettes about people in a small East German city, in which the past is both omnipresent and invisible, mostly present in the things that the characters do not talk about, but occasionally bursting out to shape their lives and choices.

Simple Storys is brilliant, and demanding. Writing sometimes in the first person, sometimes in a tightly limited third person, Schulze shows what his characters do, and very little else. His stripped-down language leaves much of the construction of the story to the reader. There is virtually no signposting, very little is explicitly stated about characters’ inner states, even the identification of speakers in a scene is omitted as often as not. This method suits the down-and-out atmosphere of provincial eastern Germany — the book is subtitled “A novel from the East German provinces” — in the years following the collapse of the Communist system. The old ways have fallen away, and people are feeling their way toward how to get by in a newly unified Germany.

The political seems distant, and then it transpires that one character had informed on another years before, and the repercussions are still echoing. Or another had been fired in the political housecleaning that swept East German institutions such as schools and universities. Or that yet another had gone from the security services into bookkeeping, but still had a thriving sideline in using inside knowledge to settle scores.

But Schulze does not give political events or causes any greater weight than the other events that he describes in his stories. Which is to say, practically no weight at all, as he describes things that happen in an affectless style that occasionally, unaccountably lapses into the beautiful. His characters’ live intersect through affairs, friendships, coincidences; most of the stories start in media res, and there isn’t a Hollywood character arc to be found anywhere in the novel’s 313 pages.

They are simple stories. And yet. And yet they perfectly capture a period, a culture, a set of circumstances that was vanishing around Schulze even as he was writing its definitive chronicle. Simple Storys reminded me of Mutmaßungen über Jakob by Uwe Johnson, another great East German novel, but one that is also dependent on readers’ historical knowledge to make sense of the characters’ actions. When the silences are as important as the words on the page, a work requires its readers to know where the silences are, what they mean, and as the period of the book recedes into history, it becomes less and less accessible. The East German provinces of Simple Storys are already 20 years gone, and the silences are getting more difficult to hear.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/27/simple-storys-by-ingo-schulze/

Jul 27 2015

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

I had so many problem with this book! And so many compliments for it, too! First, the good bits: G Willow Wilson’s politics are solid and smart and she clearly knows what she’s talking about regarding the Middle East and class and social distinctions. I also really liked her ventures into metaphysics, theology and, with a caveat that I’ll discuss later, religion. Some of her characterizations were vivid and compelling (Vikram is the best thing about this novel, seriously, with Sheikh Bilal a close second) and everybody and their mom has talked about how awesome it is to read quality popular (urban) fantasy that isn’t primarily about white people and western culture.

But there were parts that didn’t ring quite true. The technology, for example, seemed glossed over to a large degree. The theory behind Alif’s computing seemed much more solid than the actual technical depiction. That’s forgivable: after all, the point of the story is to discuss the (really cool) ideas without bogging the book down in exhaustive detail (looking at you, Neal Stephenson.) But you can tell that there’s more enthusiasm than experience behind the discussions of computing, and as a former IT person myself, it was a little discomfiting to read as I felt constantly on the verge of being incapable of suspending disbelief to enjoy the rest of the book.

That wasn’t even my main issue with Alif The Unseen, which started at p83 with the throwaway sentence “She really was as smart as a man.” Augh. Fuck fuck fuck and augh!!! So Alif is our POV third-person narrator, and I get that we’re seeing everything from his perspective here but there is a certain authorial responsibility to make sure that such casual sexism, if it is meant to be just the flawed narrator’s viewpoint, is clearly marked as JUST the flawed narrator’s viewpoint, else the author becomes complicit in presenting same as her own. I wasn’t bothered when Alif, or any of the other characters for that matter, said anything awful, because that’s well within their roles in the story, but for that one line to be written without specific attachment to one character’s POV made it seem like the author was TOTALLY OKAY with this kind of thinking, i.e. that men are the benchmark for intelligence. This was later compounded by a whole lot of fuckery regarding how women’s world is civilization and women’s power comes through being passive and mysterious and a whole lot of yin-yang bullshit that made me want to punch through a wall.

Tho that didn’t even annoy me as much as the characterization of the three main women in the book did. Let’s get The Convert out of the way first, who’s never given a name because she’s OBVIOUSLY a stand-in for the author. I did enjoy her as a narrative device, especially when discussing racism and the clash of civilizations, but her fate was such obvious wish-fulfillment that it was uncomfortable to read.

I also didn’t enjoy Intisar’s narrative arc, probably because I really liked her! And, to be fair, I did think that her actions in the first and last thirds of the book made total sense. I just have no idea why she showed up at Al Basheera Mosque and suddenly turned into a whiny baby. It felt more like G Willow Wilson needing a bad guy than a natural extension of what Intisar might actually do.

HERE BE SPOILERS

TURN BACK YE WHO FEAR SUCH NOW

I also have a huge problem with the Intisar-Dina dichotomy, which is presented as a clash between pragmatism and principle. Intisar thinks mainly of what needs doing now, of how to survive, if not enjoy, the present and the foreseeable future, whereas Dina is focused on sticking to her own rigid moral code, no matter how shitty it makes her feel, because she’s convinced that that is what will bring her happiness in the end. These are both valid ways of dealing with life, but Ms Wilson paints Intisar as the bad guy, whereas Dina is a saint. And that’s my main problem with AtU: Dina is the fucking worst. Objectively speaking, I really, really hate the “consolation girlfriend” trope, and I spent a good part of the first third of the book hoping against hope that this was not the fate for her, because Alif kinda sucks, and his sudden decision that he loves her is entirely unconvincing. Also, the whole “she won’t marry anyone else now so I HAVE to get back to her” is gross, because obviously the only way Dina will ever find happiness is to be stuck with this idiot for the rest of her life.

That aside, I hated Dina herself. She reminded me of some of the smugly hypocritical girls from boarding school who always found justifications for their selective application of religion, and enjoyed making other people feel bad about their own behavior (because of course Dina is one of those killjoy bitches who disapproves of women laughing in public.) The incredibly specious argument regarding music, for example, was entirely maddening. Wearing clothing isn’t the sharia of the innocent either, Dina: that doesn’t make not wearing clothes an acceptable interpretation of religious law, especially from someone who chose to wear a niqab due to pride alone (btw, not even the strict Muslim boarding school I went to banned music because that, like the niqab which school also discouraged, isn’t an actual part of Islam at all.) Hilarious that she then tells Alif off for being a hypocrite later. I was also a little uncomfortable at her confrontation of the demons near the end: I kept thinking, “Would I feel comfortable if she were Christian and fighting demons by quoting the Bible?” I have zero interest in reading Christian fiction because proselytization is something I’d like to avoid in reading for pleasure, and that scene felt distressingly close to being the Muslim version of a Left Behind chapter.

Anyway, good book, if entirely problematic in its depiction of women, which was really disappointing to me as a Muslim woman who’s experienced living in both liberal and conservative milieus. That’s likely why I’m harder on this book than most of its readers, in addition to being a former programmer and current book critic who was disappointed that the Alf Yeom wasn’t explored further. Who or what was Farukhuaz really? When she appears to Alif in his fever dream of coding, is she meant to be evil? And how am I supposed to believe that Alif only got as far as the story about Vikram when he was supposed to be using the entire text to write his code (which again led to my discomfiture re: being able to suspend disbelief.) Eh, whatever, if you can get over all that, then a fun, intelligent read. Clearly, I couldn’t.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/27/alif-the-unseen-by-g-willow-wilson/

Jul 24 2015

The Alloy of Law (Mistborn #4) by Brandon Sanderson

While this book didn’t have the same “Wtf, did that actually just happen?!” plot twists that are a Sanderson hallmark (I mean, I knew what would happen to Lessie and who Mr Suit had to be pretty quickly,) this was definitely a solidly entertaining, if not downright excellent projection of progress in Scandria (is that the name? I don’t recall such from the first trilogy, so was thrown off-balance when it came up in this book, to the point that I forgot what the planet was called. And am too lazy and sleepy now to look it up.) There were a ton of wry in-jokes in reference to the first trilogy, which I adored. Tho I was a bit annoyed to get to the end of the book and realize this wasn’t a standalone novel but the first of another trilogy — forgiveable only because I know Mr Sanderson’s incredible work ethic will ensure that I’ll be able to enjoy the rest of the trilogy without an inordinate wait. It’s also been a lot of fun discussing this with Ingress Book Club!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/24/the-alloy-of-law-mistborn-4-by-brandon-sanderson/

Jul 24 2015

The Penguin Complete Novels Of George Orwell by George Orwell

Realized after I posted my last review that I hadn’t posted this one of a book I’d read earlier. Apologies. I briefly consider each book in the compendium below:

Animal Farm — It’s weird to think that I’ve lived this long, as voracious a reader as I am, and still have never read this slender classic in its entirety. Of course I know what happens as the book is a cultural touchstone, but this omnibus was missing the first five chapters, so I am still ignorant of its entirety. What I did read was thoroughly worthy of its status, tho! Oddly enough, the bff has never read Animal Farm end to end either: yet another thing we have in common.

Burmese Days — A stunning indictment of colonialism that is at once sympathetic to all the parties involved. Better than most Maugham, IMO.

A Clergyman’s Daughter — I mostly enjoyed this, and was quite impressed with his rendering of her. Another great examination of morality and choices, as well as the social circumstances of the times. Hard to read this without coming out of it with greater sympathy for the homeless.

Coming Up For Air — Hard to believe this was fiction, given how inhabited it felt. Wasn’t sure I’d like it, tbh, from the blurb, so was pleasantly surprised. Thought it ended rather abruptly, but was otherwise happy to just spend time in the narrator’s self-examined life.

Keep The Aspidistra Flying — What the hell was this garbage? Comstock is the fucking worst: a whiner surrounded by good people whose affection and devotion he returns with sheer awfulness. I can see why Orwell wanted this manuscript burned before publication.

1984 — Did not read this this go-round, but enjoyed it when I read it on its own ages ago.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/24/the-penguin-complete-novels-of-george-orwell-by-george-orwell/

Jul 24 2015

Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology And My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill & Lisa Pulitzer

Having just finished a bunch of Orwell, this was both mind-boggling and horribly sympathetic. She describes growing up in a state of repression more suited to communism or a paranoid dictatorship a la North Korea than to any religion that purports to help people self-actualize. I applaud her for having the intelligence to see that what was being done to her was wrong, and the courage and fortitude to escape from it. She does her best to explain how people willingly go along with the diktats of the organization, tho I have to admit that I have difficulty understanding how those who know there’s a better alternative (as she did not growing up) could possibly continue in it. People, amirite? Anyway, fascinating insight to the inner workings of Scientology. Could have used some tighter editing, and the ending seems a bit rushed in comparison to the much more clearly written first two-thirds, but otherwise a decently written memoir.

And, you know, being an adherent of a religion that’s often also vilified, I’m hesitant to write anything truly critical of Scientology. If you can get good from your belief system, if it makes you be a better person and treat others humanely and take the long view of life, then I’m all for it. But Ms Hill makes it clear that the practical application of Scientology long ago left behind any interest in really helping its adherents, as opposed to robbing them of money, identity and freedoms instead. Any religion that subsumes the happiness of its adherents to the good of the institution needs to be questioned, at the very least. If it can’t survive that questioning, then maybe it isn’t a religion worth following after all.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/24/beyond-belief/

Jul 24 2015

The Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski

The Time of Contempt picks up the story of Geralt of Rivia an unspecified, but not terribly long, time after the events of Blood of Elves. Sapkowski opens the novel by following a royal messenger through several errands, and he uses that device to deliver to readers a quick burst of exposition about the state of affairs in the northern kingdoms, a state that is, to say the least, unsettled. More monsters than usual are about in the lands, and the kings are mobilizing armies. The understanding between kings and sorcerers has broken down, with the former declining to trust the latter. All of these developments mean more work for messengers, who deliver secret verbal messages as well as the more usual diplomatic letters. The developments also mean more demand for the services of Geralt, a witcher — a fighter possessed of unnatural speed and no little magical ability.

Geralt claims neutrality in all of the machinations of the kingdoms around him, saying he fights monsters for anyone who will pay his fees. But of course the plotters have other ideas about his neutrality; further, his connections to sorcerers and other elements of history mean that he will have a very difficult time staying on the sidelines. As Trotsky did not quite say “You may not be interested in the war, but the war is interested in you.”

Geralt’s ties to politics also stem from his personal entanglement with the sorceress Yennefer, and the choice the two of them made to hide Ciri, heiress to a border kingdom and child of prophecy, at the witchers’ training citadel. Those events were related in Blood of Elves, but some of the consequences become apparent in this book.

Ciri may be a child of prophecy and destiny, but in this book she is mostly a willful adolescent who likes nothing more than to escape her minders for either child-like play or heartfelt romanticism. Ciri is learning who she is, but she has neither adult powers nor adult judgement, and that gets both her and the people around her into trouble.

I have been enjoying the Witcher series, though I haven’t played the video game which is apparently the main commercial driver, and I am glad that the fourth and fifth books are slated for English translation (publication scheduled for 2016 and 2017). The set pieces in The Time of Contempt are generally good — what happens to Ciri after she goes through a magical portal is particularly good, whereas the sorcerers’ conclave was not fully convincing — and the overarching story continues to develop at a pace that confounds expectations from English-language fantasy.

Sapkowski wrote The Time of Contempt in the mid-1990s, when the initial euphoria of overthrowing Communism in Poland had worn off, the Solidarity coalition had split into multiple feuding factions, economic difficulties were all around, and the larger goals such as membership in the European Union seemed terribly distant. Indeed, it was possible that for all of their rhetoric, the Western nations might not ever welcome Poland as a peer. It would not have been the first time that Poland had been left to muddle through a time of contempt. Indeed, Sapkowski was born just three years after the end of World War II, a war that was fought with greater savagery in Poland than practically anywhere else. The author would have grown up surrounded by visual reminders of the war, and he would have heard stories of the war, while experiencing the Stalinist regime that had been imposed on Poland afterward with great contempt for its own history and institutions.

The novel does not draw explicitly on either of these events, or on the other times of contempt that it is not hard to find in Polish history. But the overall background, the divisions, fears, and domineering neighbor, are all recognizable aspects of the Polish experience. On one level, Geralt’s stories are just fantastic, action-packed adventures. But they also reveal a different historical background for looking at fantasy adventures. That added depth, and the strangeness of a different tradition, make me look forward to the next three, knowing that they will be fun, exciting, and surprising.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/24/the-time-of-contempt-by-andrzej-sapkowski/

Jul 07 2015

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

The Bursar shrugged. “This pot,” he said, peering closely, “is actually quite an old Ming vase.”
He waited expectantly.
“Why’s it called Ming?” said the Archchancellor, on cue.
The Bursar tapped the pot. It went ming. (p. 145)

It’s a throwaway joke, of course, but it’s a perfect one. Not only can readers hear the sound that the vase makes, but they can see the Bursar’s anticipation of the conversation, somewhere between exasperated and amused, knowing exactly what is going to happen next. Everyone probably has set-piece conversations about particular aspects of their lives. Ming happens when I meet a fellow American overseas. “Where are you from?” is one of the inevitable questions early in the conversation, and nine times out of ten my answer provokes the — sometimes genuinely surprised — response, “But you don’t have an accent!” Ming!

That’s just people being people, which is exactly what the characters in Moving Pictures, the tenth Discworld novel, get up to, only more so. That’s because a little alchemical magic gets mixed together with a lot of genius loci of a place called Holy Wood, and a new industry is born. People follow a mysterious call to a sunny place by the ocean; once there, they try out new identities, become outsized versions of themselves, and look for the main chance. Within weeks of the alchemists’ discovery, the motion picture makers of the Discworld have recapitulated (gleefully satirized by Pratchett) much of the early history of making movies in our world.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/07/moving-pictures-by-terry-pratchett/