Nov 21 2022

Making Love With The Land: Essays by Joshua Whitehead

I didn’t understand what “creative non-fiction” was supposed to be until I read the first two magnificent essays in this collection, ironically even before Joshua Whitehead begins his somewhat disparaging essay on the subject. As with any art, there’s a strong sense of “I know it when I see it”, and I definitely knew I was looking at creative non-fiction with the first two essays, Who Names The Rez Dog rez? and My Body Is A Hinterland.

So it was interesting to see the entire subgenre dissected by the author in the essay immediately following, On Ekphrasis And Emphasis. I enjoyed the critique of Western thought that consigns the mystical phenomenon of everyday Indigenous life to, at best, magical realism, as this is a discussion I’ve recently been having about Southeast Asian experiences as well. I rather wish the author had engaged with this topic more as a conversation on that consignment’s origins in post-Enlightenment thought tho, whose original authors sought to escape the oppression of Western religious/mainstream authority on writing, a struggle and aim shared by modern Indigenous writing. This isn’t, ofc, a defense of rationalism: it just feels counterproductive, especially in a collection of essays searching for connection and understanding, to highlight only the differences and not consider the mutual goals.

I did appreciate overall the way this collection of essays engaged both with the NDN experience and with Cree as a living language (the essay A Geography Of Queer Woundings is phenomenal!) Most importantly, the frankness of Mr Whitehead’s discussion of the intersection between being queer and being Indigenous was a welcome exploration. I loved the grace of his dissection of a break up with a fellow queer Native in the essay Me, The Joshua Tree. He’s also admirably blunt about his struggles with eating disorders, and how that connects to his history of eating the pain of his loved ones, in one of the collection’s most brilliant extended metaphors.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/21/making-love-with-the-land-essays-by-joshua-whitehead/

Nov 20 2022

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili

A country and a century, told through what happened to a family, narrated by a member of that family’s next-to-youngest generation, dedicated to a member of the youngest generation who is trying to both escape and understand the legacy she is bearing. In The Eighth Life (For Brilka), Nino Haratischvili brings her native Georgia to life, though she wrote the novel in German, charting its course through a long twentieth century by portraying seven lives in a family that is both extraordinary and representative of the small country in the South Caucasus that, among other things, gave the world Josef Stalin. It’s a country I called home from mid-2008, just weeks before the latest Russian invasion, to the end of 2011.

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili

At the time Haratischvili’s narrator tells the stories that comprise The Eighth Life, she is 32, the year is 2006, and she is living in Berlin. Her mother calls from Georgia to say that her niece, twelve-year-old Brilka, has fled from a school trip to Amsterdam and been found by police just outside of Vienna. But by then the narrator is already getting ahead of herself, something she often does when telling Brilka the family’s stories, trying to make sense of them for herself — and trying to make sense of herself — by relating them to someone young and unseen. Haratischvili structures The Eighth Life as seven books plus a prologue, generally told in the third person but with enough first-person intrusions by the narrator that readers can easily keep in mind that all of the family stories are filtered through one person’s perspective, and all intended to explain the family to her young niece.

The narrator introduces herself:

My name is Niza. It contains a word: a word that, in our mother tongue, signifies “heaven.” Za. Perhaps my life up till now has been a search for this particular heaven, given to me as a promise that has accompanied me since birth. My sister’s name was Daria. Her name contains the word “chaos.” Aria. Churning up, stiffing up, the messing up and the not putting right. I am duty bound to her. I am duty bound to her chaos. I have always been duty bound to seek my heaven in her chaos. But perhaps it’s just about Brilka. Brilka, whose name has no meaning in the language of my childhood. Whose name bears no label and no stigma. Brilka who gave herself this name, and kept on insisting she be called this until others forgot what her real name was. (pp. 5–6)

By telling the stories, Niza hopes to give Brilka enough understanding of where and who she comes from that she can be free to become herself, to know the links to the past but not be weighed down by them. Niza wants that for herself, she has tried, but at least at the time of the story she has not succeeded. Many others in the Jashi family’s stories wanted to break free and tried in various ways — Niza’s great-great-grandfather journeyed to Budapest and learned secrets of the chocolatier’s trade; her great-grandmother married an army lieutenant; her grandfather joined the Party and the Red Army; her great-aunt defected to the West. Though none of them succeeded completely, none of the failed completely either. And so Niza hopes, and hopes particularly for Brilka, hopes enough to tell her more than 900 pages of family tales so that the knowledge may set her free.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/20/the-eighth-life-by-nino-haratischvili/

Nov 14 2022

Making Friends (Making Friends #1) by Kristen Gudsnuk

Was absolutely delighted to find this in my Sharing Library, and can’t wait to get my eldest to read it before putting it back in for the next lucky household to enjoy.

Our heroine Danielle is having a hard time adjusting to life in the seventh grade. Sixth grade was fine as she had the same classes with her two best friends, Joan and Leah. But the new school year has her on a completely different schedule from them, leaving her feeling isolated, friendless and wildly unpopular.

When she inherits a magical sketchbook from her late Grandaunt Elma, she discovers that she can draw things that then manifest directly from the book and into her real life. Unfortunately, the very first thing she conjures up this way is the head of the villain from the Solar Sisters anime she enjoys. Prince Neptune is handsome and evil, tho Dany is convinced that he’s just misunderstood (sigh.) And at first he seems perfectly supportive, if not outright nice, lending her an understanding ear as she confides in him all her insecurities.

Things get trickier after an increasingly desperate Dany, overwhelmed by her lack of social connections at school, decides to draw up the perfect best friend. For all Prince Neptune’s charm, he is still a disembodied head, as well as instantly recognizable as an anime character. Madison, however, is stylish, smart and completely realistic. Best of all, she’s devoted to Dany in all the best ways.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/14/making-friends-making-friends-1-by-kristen-gudsnuk/

Nov 10 2022

Into The Forest: Tales Of The Baba Yaga edited by Lindy Ryan

I love the idea of this anthology that collects works from 26 different women worldwide, all on the theme of the mythical Baba Yaga. It’s a really rich subject open to different, intriguing interpretations. For those of you unfamiliar with the myth, our subject is the old wise woman of Slavic lore, who lives in a house that walks on chicken legs, dispensing terror or justice as the mood strikes. Christina Henry’s excellent foreword points out that Baba Yaga wasn’t necessarily ever just one figure either, but was sometimes three, often sisters, but always otherworldly and beholden only to her or their own rules.

Fitting, then, that she’s the subject of this fiercely feminist grouping of tales. Her ambiguous reputation provides fertile ground for the speculative fiction author. Is she a benefactress or beastly or both? Is she something to be run towards in hope or run away from in horror? I found that my favorite stories of this bunch definitely leaned more towards the former than the latter, but that’s the beauty of this collection, its absolute openness to any variation on the theme.

That is also, perhaps, its greatest weakness. In its eagerness to accept any spin on the tale, the anthology occasionally loses coherence, as the tone whipsaws wildly between moods instead of building gradually to an overarching whole. The ending, for example, felt better left to the quietly poetic Baba Yaga In Repose by Heather Miller. Instead Saba Syed Razvi’s equally poetic but much more metaphorical, almost anthropological, Shadow And Branch, Ghost Fruit Among The Lullabies provides an unnecessary coda that pulls focus from the lady in question to talk about the women she haunts instead. I can understand the argument that those inspired by her are more important in the long run than the witch herself, but I didn’t really come here to read about them, did I? Centering her influence instead of her actions makes this collection feel more like sociology than fiction, more like textbook than entertainment.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/10/into-the-forest-tales-of-the-baba-yaga-edited-by-lindy-ryan/

Nov 08 2022

Bipolar Bear And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: A Fable For Grownups by Kathleen Founds

As someone who has had the most frustrating experience with the United States’ health insurance system — my insurance company refused to pay for the $200+/month asthma medication my doctor prescribed because it can… also be used to treat COPD? Cigna is garbage — I found this book deeply relatable.

Theodore Bear is bipolar, and wants to figure out how to manage the condition. A friend tells him about medication, and he decides that that sounds like a good idea. But in order to get pills, he’ll have to get a job that pays him both money and health insurance, which requires that he put off getting treatment until he qualifies for that latter. Unsurprisingly, his mental state does not improve while he “proves” that he’s “worthy” of getting health insurance. Finally being able to see a psychiatrist and get the prescriptions he needs feels like a massive achievement because, frankly, it is.

And then he gets the medical bills. Theodore has to navigate a labyrinth of bureaucracy in order to figure out why he owes so much money, even with insurance. The answer further aggravates his mental state, sending him into a spiral that finally lands him in debtor’s prison. Fortunately, he soon acquires a network of friends who rally with him to fight back against the oppressive system and attempt to make meaningful change for everyone, including poor Theodore himself.

Anyone who’s been at the mercy of the US’ byzantine for-profit health insurance system will find themselves nodding along grimly at the scenes depicted in this book. It is utterly bizarre that one of the richest countries in the world so stridently espouses the idea that healthcare should only go to people considered worthy, which for the most part means the capitalism-approved “productive” members of society and those lucky enough to be their dependents. Progressive politicians and their supporters are working to fix this injustice but the sheer number of empathy-deficient jerkfaces trying to stop us is equal parts bewildering and infuriating.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/08/bipolar-bear-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-health-insurance-a-fable-for-grownups-by-kathleen-founds/

Nov 04 2022

Stolen Words / kimotinâniwiw itwêwina by Melanie Florence & Gabrielle Grimard

with Cree translations by Dolores Sand & Gayle Weenie.

Happy Native American Heritage Month! Meant to post this earlier but had the worst time finding this book in the mess that is currently my household, the result of two busy working adults and three small children who can make an outsize mess.

Anyhoo, my eight year-old twins’ school recently asked parents to sign up and buy a diversity read book for the third grade students, shared between classrooms. Being an overachiever, I bought several, but was so intrigued by this title that I bought myself and the kids a copy with the Plains Cree (y-dialect) translation included. I’ve been reading enough work by American Indian authors lately that their different languages continue to fascinate me, even as I wish I had enough time to apply myself to learning any of them in addition to the French and Arabic I’m already working on. This book has both the original English text and the Cree translations on the same two-page spreads, with a brief pronunciation guide in the back for the key Cree words used in the English.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/04/stolen-words-kimotinaniwiw-itwewina-by-melanie-florence-gabrielle-grimard/

Nov 03 2022

The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

The Grief of Stones begins with the execution of a murderer uncovered by Thara Celehar in The Witness for the Dead. His friend Anora is trying to talk him out of attending, saying Celehar is punishing himself, and Celehar replies that he believes he has a responsibility. The friend loses the argument, though both of them are right. Once there, “I reminded myself of the women [the prisoner] had murdered, after seducing each one into believing he loved her.” (p. 2) Celehar takes no satisfaction in the execution, and after the event he reflects, “Maybe now I could stop dreaming of his wives.” (p. 2)

The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

While on the surface The Grief of Stones is a charming, almost cozy recollection of incidents in the life of Thara Celehar, prelate of Ulis and Witness for the Dead, there is an undercurrent pulling at both Celehar and the reader, drawing them into the depths of how far Celehar is willing to go for his witnessing, and what it will cost him. In the world that Katherine Addison has developed in two books about Celehar and The Goblin Emperor, a Witness for the Dead can contact people newly deceased and return with limited information from the remains of the person’s consciousness. Judicially, they also represent the dead person and are required to always tell the truth about the results of their inquiries. Once asked by a living person to witness for someone, they become investigators, not formally a magistrate, but recognized by law and custom. The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones are in a way fantasy cousins of the mystery novels featuring English vicars.

Celehar’s first investigation is slightly unusual within his cultural context: he is called by the Marquess Ulzhavel to witness for his late wife. It is unusual in that the Marquise has been dead for more than three months, and thus the ability to contact the newly departed will be useless. The Marquess has discovered evidence that she was murdered — a threatening note — and he is adamant that he does not want a judicial Witness, but an advocate for his wife, a Witness for the Dead. Celehar agrees to take the case.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/03/the-grief-of-stones-by-katherine-addison/

Nov 02 2022

Ralph Azham Vol 2: The Land of the Blue Demons by Lewis Trondheim

Wonderfully translated from the original French by Joe Johnson, and with truly magnificent colors by Brigitte Findakly.

Now that Ralph has discovered the truth behind not only the identity of the ruler of Astolia but also the fate of the other children marked by their superpowers as Blueys, he’s decided that the enemy of his enemy must be his friend. With this maxim in mind, he endeavors to travel to the far-off land ruled by Vom Syrus, the warlord who’d struck so much fear into his little village in the first book in this graphic novel series, and bid for an alliance.

His curmudgeonly father decides not to come with him, having secret plans of his own. So Ralph strikes out with his best friend, the religious young mage Yassou, hoping to come up with a plan as they travel to Vom Syrus’ domain. In the port city where they’re hoping to charter a ship, they encounter trouble, in the form of both an alluring cat burglar turned ally, as well as the young oracles who roam the streets, collecting tithes and giving pronouncements on the fate of penitents. One of these oracles almost immediately accuses Ralph of planning to rob the church, which is enough in this town to get him thrown into jail. But no prison can really hold Ralph when he sets his wily mind to escape it.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/02/ralph-azham-vol-2-the-land-of-the-blue-demons-by-lewis-trondheim/

Oct 31 2022

Uncanny Times (Huntsmen #1) by Laura Anne Gilman

What a fun way to get into the mood for spooky season, as we follow a pair of sibling monster hunters on the trail of an unusual killer in early 20th century New York!

To most eyes, Rosemary and Aaron Harker are an orphaned brother and sister living quietly as adults in New Haven, Connecticut, with their over-sized dog, Botheration. Sometimes they travel, as when they’re summoned north to the town of Brunson by Margaret Lovelace, the widow of their distant relative, Uncle Tucker. Aunt Margaret herself is only passing on one of his final requests: should he die, Rosemary and Aaron must be summoned to investigate.

For the Harkers are Huntsmen, a bloodline that specializes in hunting the Uncanny, the catch-all term for the supernatural creatures that prey on humanity. Their remit is to use deadly force against those that kill, and to be prepared to act in self-defense. Castigated by the Church as unclean, Huntsmen form a worldwide network dedicated to protecting humankind against killers that very few want to admit are real. Usually, they’re called in by others of their association to investigate reports of Uncanny slayings, or to assist in the termination of same. Being invited on the vague terms of their aunt by marriage is something new, but a summons they’re ready and willing to answer.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/31/uncanny-times-huntsmen-1-by-laura-anne-gilman/

Oct 29 2022

Premature Evaluation: The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson

In the first hundred pages of the book of her translation of The Odyssey, Emily Wilson introduces readers to this three thousand year old epic poem that is one of the foundations of Western literature. She opens doorways to the poem for readers not already well versed in Homer, but she also makes clear that what readers find through those doors will be a strange and different world, where people act differently because the things that matter to them are different from modern concerns. Wilson explores some of the long-lived questions surrounding the poem — Who was Homer? When was The Odyssey composed? — and some of the concepts that run through the poem that modern readers might want to know more about before sailing on Homer’s seas of verse: the Homeric world; gods; friends, strangers, guests; the roles of women; becoming a man; slaves; Odysseus’ choices; people in the poem who hate Odysseus; endings; how The Odyssey has been seen through the centuries. Before that, though, she bids readers welcome.

The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson

Modern connotations of the word “epic” are in some ways misleading when we turn to the Homeric poems, the texts that begin the Western epic tradition. The Greek word epos means simply “word” or “story” or “song.” It is related to a verb meaning “to say” or “to tell,” which is used (in a form with a prefix) in the first line of the poem. The narrator commands the Muse, “Tell me”: enn-epe. And epic poem is, at root, simply a tale that is told. (p. 1)

Odysseus, for anyone who would like a brief refresher, is one of the men who went off to fight in the Trojan War, a story told in The Iliad, the other Homeric epic (which I still have not read, despite several attempts). He left his wife Penelope and infant son Telemachus behind on their home island of Ithaca. This edition of The Odyssey provides several maps of the ancient Greek world, so readers need never feel lost, at least geographically. The war lasted ten years, and another ten years have passed since its end, and still Odysseus has not returned. The Odyssey tells the story of his attempts to return. It also tells the stories of the people left behind, and indeed the first several books of the epic follow his son, Telemachus, as he makes his own journey to try to find out what has happened to his father. Penelope has remained faithful to Odysseus, but she is beset by aggressive suitors, who want her to declare Odysseus dead and choose one of them to take his place. In the meantime, they are abusing Greek laws of hospitality and eating her out of house and home. Telemachus, though nearly grown, is not strong enough to battle the suitors alone.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/29/premature-evaluation-the-odyssey-translated-by-emily-wilson/