things mean a lot

Avatar – The Last Airbender: The Lost Adventures and The Promise Part 1 by Gene Luen Yang

2012-01-27T11:58:00.006Z

Avatar comics! Yes, they exist, and if you’re me, this is very exciting news indeed. This is only my second time ever seeking out media tie-ins for a TV series I like (the first time was for Babylon 5, many years ago), which is probably a measure of how in love I am with the fictional universe of Avatar.

The Lost Adventures is an anthology of twenty-eight short stories by several contributors, including members of the creative team behind the original Nickelodeon series. As with any anthology, the tone and quality of the stories was diverse, but overall they were beautifully drawn and an absolute pleasure to read (for example, Aang looks a little weird in the cover image, I think, but I’m happy to report that this is not the case throughout the book).

All the stories in The Lost Adventures, except two bonus ones at the end, are set at the same time as the three seasons of Avatar. They give us brief glimpses of what the characters might have been up to between episodes, and also capture little moments of character interaction that never made it to the series, but which add another layer to the characterisation. In this sense, this collection contributes to making the universe of Avatar feel even more alive and endless and full of stories beyond what we were allowed to see. It makes us long for more, but that’s a wonderful feeling I associate with my very favourite fictional universes.

Sleepbending.
The structure of The Lost Adventures mirrors that of the original series: the stories in the first section, which overlaps with season one, are mostly comedic short vignettes. But as we move on to sections two and three, they grow longer and darker and more serious in tone. There are stories about Zuko and Mai’s first kiss, about Katara’s despair at the beginning of season three, about Ember Island, about Aang’s past, and about Team Avatar bonding at the Western Air Temple before their final confrontation with the Fire Lord. They’re mostly based on character moments, since any plot-oriented material made it to the actual series, but that’s exactly why I loved them so much. They showed me new sides of characters I already loved, and they gave me the opportunity to spend more time with them.

The Lost Adventures is a lot of fun, but Gene Luen Yang’s brand new The Promise Part 1 is by far the better book of the two. It’s the first instalment of a trilogy of direct sequels to the original TV series, which means that it’s set right after the final episode. This is incredibly exciting for any fans who upon finishing watching Avatar immediately cried “Noooooooooo, what happens next? I need more.”

Unfortunately, this also means I can’t provide a plot summary without spoiling the finale for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet. Suffice to say that The Promise picks up right where Avatar left us. Then there’s a gap between chapters one and two, and the rest of the story focuses on how the world is doing one year after the end of the war.

Fans of Gene Luen Yang’s previous books, like the brilliant American Born Chinese and The Eternal Smile, will already know what to expect from his writing. His books are both intelligent and fun; they combine seriousness with humour and never hesitate to address difficult questions. The Promise Part 1 is no exception. His writing is absolutely perfect for the world of Avatar – he gets the tone, the humour, and the complexity just right.

Appa! Team Avatar! D’awww.
I can’t stress enough how much I love the fact that this book even exists. How many stories out there actually deal with the inevitable complications that follow the big epic finale? One of the things I loved the most about Avatar was its willingness to deal with the political implications of the story it was telling, and that’s the case with this book too. We soon realise that the end of the war was not a magical wand that made everything okay again. Instead, the transition to peace and to a new political system is slow and tricky.

The process of decolonisation in particular, which is the focus of this story, is messy and fraught with complications. The Fire Nation begins to retreat from the territories it had occupied in the Earth Kingdom, only to realise that after a hundred years or so, people have created roots. And they’ll of course resist any attempt to be shipped back to a home they identify with in the abstract, but don’t truly feel is their own. It’s a difficult situation with no simple solutions, but a writer like Gene Luen Yang would never shy away from that.

Zuko! I love him so much.
These books made me so, so happy. In addition to everything else, I’m so grateful for the opportunity to spend more time with these characters. I would be lying if I said either The Lost Adventures or The Promise worked as introductions to the world of Avatar – they’re too full of spoilers for the series, and there’s too much that would make no sense without context. They’re most definitely written with already existing fans in mind – but for those, what an absolute treat.

Which is to say: please watch the series, and then come be ridiculously excited about these books with me.

All my favourite Avatar moments seem to involve group hugs.
They read it too: The Discriminating Fangirl, Memoirs of a Teenage Bibliophile.

(You?)

Also, there’s an audio interview with Gene Luen Yang at Authors are Rockstars, as well as a text one at the Dark Horse Comics website. I really love this bit:

I’m excited about exploring a recurrent theme in a new way. Many of my books deal with the coming together of cultures. That’s one of the reasons why A:TLA appeals to me. There are four distinct cultures in the Avatarverse: Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomad. And each culture has subcultures.

In Legend of Korra, the cultures end up meshing together, much as cultures do in New York. So how do we get from a world where harmony is maintained by the separation of cultures to one where they intermingle? And is it possible for one culture to live beside—or within—another without losing some of its distinctiveness? These questions are very interesting to me.

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%. I requested a copy of this book via NetGalley.

The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone

2012-01-26T09:52:00.004Z

Brooke Gladstone’s The Influencing Machine is a non-fiction comic about the media. The book’s structure owes much to Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: a cartoon version of Gladstone herself addresses readers directly and guides them on a journey through the history of journalism (mostly US-focused, but still of interest to this European reader), culminating in a discussion of the many issues surrounding the media in the present day. This is a structure that I find really effective for graphic non-fiction, so it’s exciting to find another book that makes such good use of it.

The title The Influencing Machine is a reference to a syndrome identified among schizophrenic patients by Victor Tausk: all these patients believed they were being controlled by an external entity. Over the course of The Influencing Machine, Gladstone challenges the notion that the media are an external entity outside of our control. As she states in the introduction, “the media machine is a delusion”; what we’re dealing with is better describe as “a whole mess of mirrors”.

Of course, the fact that there’s no unified media conspiracy doesn’t mean that the media don’t manipulate or mislead people. It’s just that, first of all, we’re not helpless or passive consumers; secondly, the most common media biases are not what most of us would guess. We tend to be hyperaware of political bias, but Gladstone explains why she thinks that what we should really be worried about is commercial bias, bad news bias, status quo bias, access bias, visual bias, fairness bias, and narrative bias.

Gladstone also devotes a considerable amount of space to exploring the full implications of living in an increasingly participatory media culture. Although we have always filtered our media exposure, the Web makes it much easier for any of us to completely shape our media landscape. As attractive as the prospect may be, there are some dangers we need to be aware of. The term “incestuous amplification”, for example, refers to an unjustified sense of certainty developed in an “echo chamber” where there’s nothing but constant agreement and repetition of the same ideas. Being challenged and exposed to different ideas helps us all developed our worldview, and it’s a great way to prevent extremism or the demonisation of our opponents. The good news, however, is that a participatory culture also gives us the chance to “choose how much to simplify our worldview”. Media consumption is not passive, which means we’re not doomed to create echo chambers. We can decide to seek out alternative points of view at any time.

As I mentioned last week, I really liked Gladstone’s presentation of Daniel Hallin’s doughnut analogy, according to which journalism can operate in three spheres: there’s the sphere of consensus (the doughnut hole), the sphere of legitimate controversy (the actual doughnut), and the sphere of deviance (the air around the doughnut). Journalistic debate mostly takes place in the second sphere, but it’s useful to remember that since what we understand as unquestionable values and absolute truths changes over time, some of the topics that current fall in the unspeakable air around the doughnut will one day be brought into the sphere of legitimacy. The doughnut analogy also helps us realise how what we understand as political bias (or simply political engagement) changes over time. The idea that women should be able to vote currently falls in the sphere of consensus in many parts of the world, for example, but only a hundred years ago it was still being dragged from the sphere of deviance to the sphere of legitimate debate.

In addition to finding The Influencing Machine extremely interesting on a personal level, I thought there was much here that was incredibly useful to bloggers of any kind. I’m a small-potatoes blogger whose readership doesn’t even come close to that of any commercially viable traditional media outlet, but many of Gladstone’s ideas still resonated with my experiences as someone who creates content that is consumed by others, no matter on what scale. For example, she touches on the transition from a kind of journalism focused on the idea of objectivity to the current focus on transparency and disclosure (which is not without its pitfalls). Many of these ideas are relevant to debates that have raged in the blogging world in the past – as well as to the most recent instalment of the periodically reoccurring discussion about blog reviews, professional reviews, and the idea of objectivity. Similarly, the chapter titled “The Matrix in Me”, which focuses on how easy it is to be affected by unconscious biases and prejudices, will be of great interest to anyone whose writing is made public (as well as to any media consumer, of course).

This is only a brief sample of what The Influencing Machine covers: there are also discussions of the role a free press plays in a healthy democracy; of the power of media coverage to change what goes down in history; of how war reporting often exacerbates many of the challenges that are always present in journalism; and of they key role of free speech and of the dangers of scary recent legislation that promotes secrecy. In some ways The Influencing Machine can be read as a much-needed warning, but at the same time, it’s a very optimistic book. Gladstone knows more than enough about history to realise we’ve been here before – and as we read on, this becomes clear to us too:

Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation: its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage.
Also present was everything we admire—and require—from the media: factual information, penetrating analysis, probing investigation, truth spoken to power.
Same as it ever was.

Now and always, we have the power to become informed media consumers, and also the power to be conscious, deliberate media-shapers.

They read it too: The Literary Omnivore, 1330v, Guys Lit Wire

(You?)

The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole

2012-01-25T08:59:00.008Z

Photo of Mary Seacole from Wikimedia Commons

Mary Seacole was a Jamaican-born nurse who played an important role in the Crimean War. During her lifetime, Seacole was as well-known as her contemporary Florence Nightingale, but after her death she fell into obscurity for a long period of time. Her memoir, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, is notable for being among the earliest autobiographies by a woman of colour published in Britain.

Just the other day I was reading an excellent article at The Hairpin about a rediscovered book of suffragette poetry, and the article’s author says, “This, by the way, is *the* reason to get an e-reader — (…) the sheer bounty, the gems you’ve never heard of on Project Gutenberg, which are yours, for free, and which will break you with gratitude”. As you know, I’m a new e-reader owner, but I couldn’t agree with the sentiment more. Which is why I was incredibly excited when Aarti e-mailed me about The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands and suggested we read it together.

Our joint review (the first part of which you can read at Aarti’s blog) deviated quite a bit from the book itself to become a more general discussion of the constraints under which a woman of colour writing in the Victorian era operated; of racism and feminism and how people most likely had to pick their battles very carefully; of how the tone of the memoir surprised us and how we wondered about what Mrs Seacole was not telling us; of the way the perception of historical figures shifts over time; and of the search for meaning at times of catastrophe, among other things. This is why I love talking books with Aarti. I hope you enjoy reading our conversation as much as we enjoyed having it. Please make sure you start with the first section at Booklust.

Ana: We have gone on at length about what we expected to get out of this memoir and didn’t, but there are also interesting things we did find. So I thought I’d ask you what you liked about Mary Seacole’s narrative. What were some of the things that interested you the most?

Aarti: Well, Mary herself was pretty amazing. I was also interested in her way of going to a totally foreign place and opening up a hotel as her business, even though what she really enjoyed was nursing. I assume that nursing must not have made her much money at all, but it doesn’t seem like she was a very successful hotelier, either (especially now that I know what you detailed above).

I wonder if that was just what was easiest for her to do - because her brother had opened an inn - or if that was one of the few options available to her, as a black woman, or if she just really liked meeting so many different types of people every day. All of her stories and descriptions of hotel life were also super-interesting to me, and I wish she had put more of those anecdotes in the narrative. It was fun to learn just how highly prized eggs were, how difficult it was to get meat, how often things were stolen, how many favors the officers were willing to call in for Mary, etc. I really enjoyed those parts of the story, and I think Mary must have been a pretty indomitable woman to have kept that hotel open in the midst of war the way that she did. But perhaps she wasn’t very good with the financial operations, if she went home completely bankrupt. It’s so sad that she went and nursed so many men in the war, but didn’t get paid for any of it, and then came home destitute. It really says so much about her and her very strong belief that she should be useful and do something good for others.

What was your favorite story that she related?

Portrait of Mary Seacole discovered in 2003 and added to the National Portrait Gallery. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Ana: My favourite of her stories was probably the one about her first time performing an autopsy, to try to stop a cholera epidemic. I thought I’d include those two paragraphs here, actually, since they give readers a taste of what Mary Seacole’s narrative voice is like:

And, meanwhile, I sat before the flickering fire, with my last patient in my lap—a poor, little, brown-faced orphan infant, scarce a year old, was dying in my arms, and I was powerless to save it. It may seem strange, but it is a fact, that I thought more of that little child than I did of the men who were struggling for their lives, and prayed very earnestly and solemnly to God to spare it. But it did not please Him to grant my prayer, and towards morning the wee spirit left this sinful world for the home above it had so lately left, and what was mortal of the little infant lay dead in my arms. Then it was that I began to think—how the idea first arose in my mind I can hardly say—that, if it were possible to take this little child and examine it, I should learn more of the terrible disease which was sparing neither young nor old, and should know better how to do battle with it. I was not afraid to use my baby patient thus. I knew its fled spirit would not reproach me, for I had done all I could for it in life—had shed tears over it, and prayed for it.

It was cold grey dawn, and the rain had ceased, when I followed the man who had taken the dead child away to bury it, and bribed him to carry it by an unfrequented path down to the river-side, and accompany me to the thick retired bush on the opposite bank. Having persuaded him thus much, it was not difficult, with the help of silver arguments to convince him that it would be for the general benefit and his own, if I could learn from this poor little thing the secret inner workings of our common foe; and ultimately he stayed by me, and aided me in my first and last post mortem examination. It seems a strange deed to accomplish, and I am sure I could not wield the scalpel or the substitute I then used now, but at that time the excitement had strung my mind up to a high pitch of courage and determination; and perhaps the daily, almost hourly, scenes of death had made me somewhat callous. I need not linger on this scene, nor give the readers the results of my operation; although novel to me, and decidedly useful, they were what every medical man well knows.

In this short description, I saw a glimpse of the Mary Seacole I wish I had found in the rest of the memoir. Her tone is a little apologetic, and she’s clearly aware that the mere idea of performing an autopsy on a child could shock many of her readers. Of course, even today a graphic description of something like that is off-putting to most of us, but she seems to be hinting at something else here—at the then predominant idea that autopsies were a violation of the deceased’s body; at a controversial element surrounding them that is now gone. What is interesting to me, though, is that I think I can sense some genuine scientific excitement behind her words. She’s cautious, she’s clearly sad that the child died, and she doesn’t exactly like that she has to do this. But she’s also curious, in an intellectual way, to find out all she can about how to stop the epidemic from killing more people.

This little glimpse made me understand her passion for nursing better than anything else in the memoir. It made me think that there was an element of intellectual curiosity to it that she didn’t generally emphasise. I wonder if some of that comes down to, once again, gender roles and what was expected of a Victorian woman - she does say she fears her words make her sound callous. The caring element of nursing was far more socially acceptable, but there’s no telling whether that really was what drove the women who took up the profession. Judging by what I know of Florence Nightingale, for example, that doesn’t seem to have been the case with her. And judging by this, I have to wonder about Mary Seacole. I wish there had been more passages like this in the memoir — I wish she had been in a position where being candid about her experiences wasn’t fraught with complications and fears about how she would be perceived.

Aarti: You’re right- that’s an excellent passage to choose as a glimpse into what motivated Seacole because it’s much more clinical in nature than self-congratulatory, like much of the nature. And because of that clinical description, you learn a lot about Mary herself- that she approached her job more pragmatically than you might imagine, maybe?

You bring up an interesting point about what was allowed to drive women vs. what really did drive them. I think even now, many women veer away from the sciences and math-heavy fields because they seem dominated by men and women are generally considered to have a more creative, not logical, mindset. But there is so much creativity and opportunity available in science, and I can see how the idea of learning more for the sake of science and the extension of your own knowledge could make be very heady, particularly to someone who understood the miracle of the human body and its ability to heal itself.

On a more personal note, I think that as people, we really struggle with the “why” of loss so much, particularly in light of epidemics and wars that kill so many people, indiscriminately. There was a great interview on NPR’s Radiolab recently with the author of a graphic novel called The Green River Killer in which they try to understand why a man became a serial killer. And the author makes this amazing statement of: “My point is, sometimes when we ask the why in the face of profound evil, you kind of wonder if what we’re doing is daring God to show himself. And I think even now when we ask the ‘why,’ we are looking for order to restore itself and give us hope that all of this isn’t meaningless.”

And I bring this up because I actually think that much of what drives people to become healers is this “why,” and the belief that there must be a reason and a lesson and a greater good served by supreme suffering. I can’t help but wonder if Mary Seacole, who seems to have been pretty religious, was really shaped more by the belief that she must do the best she can in the face of suffering because that’s one way for her to really see meaning in all the horrible things going on around her, surrounded as she is either by colonialism or war. Granted, it doesn’t sound that way at all based on her description of the scene above, which is much more pragmatic than spiritual, but I don’t know if she would have been driven to the Crimea to search for more scientific knowledge, particularly when she had no money and no real support for her endeavor, and when she had so much suffering so close at hand, if that was the only thing motivating her. But if you say that’s what drove Florence Nightingale to the Crimea, then maybe it isn’t too far a stretch to think the same motivated Mary Seacole.

Ana: Oh no, I didn’t mean that was what drove Florence Nightingale necessarily - I don’t know enough about her to have a solid opinion on that. I just meant that what I’ve read about her suggests she was first and foremost a strategist, and yet the prevailing popular culture image of her is that of the ministering angel. She had an interest in mathematics, particularly in statistics; she was brilliant at looking at data and seeing the bigger picture, and thanks to that she was able to pioneer many important and life-saving sanitary reforms. And yet when people talk about her, they don’t generally emphasise that; they portray her as nurturing and caring, as “The Lady with the Lamp”. So I wonder if something similar might have been going on with how Mary Seacole portrays herself.

Aarti: Oh, I see! Yes, I suppose we could easily veer into objectification here. But I don’t think that in the case of Florence Nightingale, referring to her as “the lady with the lamp” and only talking about her as a ministering angel is necessarily because she’s female. This happens countless times throughout history- the nuances, rough edges, personalities and strong opinions of people we hold up to be heroes or villains are completely smoothed over so that what is presented to the world is a black-and-white, almost flavorless sound bite of a descriptor. This is very likely what happened to Florence Nightingale (as well as Gandhi, MLK, Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, Henry VIII, Richard III and so many others). Mary Seacole is different in that she is the one in control of our perception of her, not the press or history, so we are seeing what she chooses us to see, which for the majority of the book is a fairly one-dimensional person.

Ana: I agree with you, but I think there might be gender-specific aspects to how they were simplified (in both cases, in ways that were more gender-role appropriate), and that there’s a possibility that this was the case even if with Mary Seacole it was done by her own hand. But anyway, I definitely think there could be something to what you’re saying about searching for meaning in a more spiritual sense and trying to do something in the face of illness and suffering. And I say “could” because neither of us can of course be sure of what drove Mary Seacole - but imagining what might be hiding between the gaps of the text is a huge part of the fun of reading a book like this. Your reading makes sense to me in light of what we know about her convictions and background. I think the drive to find meaning goes beyond religion, even - for example, I’m a non-believer, but I too have the same tendency to try and make sense of things (on a personal level, at least), to use narrative to create meaning and impose order on chaos. We write the story of our lives through our actions, and perhaps Mary Seacole’s journey was her way of changing a senseless story of death and suffering.

Well, we have moved far beyond The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands in this conversation, but then again part of the fun of talking about books is that they’re such perfect starting points for wider discussions. I didn’t love Mary Seacole's memoir, but I’m glad to have read it anyway, particularly because it led to this conversation with you. Do you have any final comments?

Aarti: Much the same! I didn’t love this memoir, either, but I got so much more from our discussion of it than I ever would have if I had read the book on my own. I’m glad we really dug deep and touched on some sensitive topics here! I look forward to another read with you :-)

You can download The Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands for free at Project Gutenberg. As for me, I really look forward to one day reading Jane Robison’s (author of the excellent Bluestockings) biography of Mary Seacole, and seeing the extent to which it confirms or challenges the speculations and impressions Aarti and I formed through this memoir.

They read it too: Juxtabook

(Have you read this book too? Let me know and I’ll be happy to add your link.)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson

2012-01-23T11:56:00.004Z

The Morning Gift has an opening not dissimilar to that of The Secret Countess: we are given a glimpse of our heroine’s untroubled life among the cultural elite of Vienna before the war permanently changes everything. Only this time it’s WW2, and our heroine is twenty year-old Ruth Berger. When the Nazis march into Vienna, Ruth’s father is arrested by the Gestapo, and only released under the condition that he leave Austria within one week. The Bergers send Ruth to London with a student visa, and then prepare to leave themselves. But unbeknownst to her family, Ruth is denied permission to leave Austria, and ends up being left behind entirely on her own.

When Professor Quinton Somerville, a scientist who has worked with Ruth’s father, arrives in Vienna for a ceremony that is supposed to honour his colleague, he follows the strands to find Ruth alone at the Bergers’ home. The two realise that the only way for Ruth to leave Vienna safely and join her family in England is for them to get married. This marriage of convenience will be dissolved as soon as Ruth receives British citizenship – but when she becomes a student at the London university where Quin teaches, the two remain in contact, and soon it becomes obvious that they’re developing feelings for each other. Yet there are of course complicating factors, namely the fact that Ruth is supposed to be nearly engaged to Heini, a brilliant Hungarian pianist who’s meant to be joining the Bergers in London any day now.

What a lovely book The Morning Gift is. I can see why long time Eva Ibbotson fans like Claire and Fiona call it their favourite. Ruth’s story is charming and delightful and ultimately hopeful, but also very dark, as a story set at the eve of WW2 could hardly fail to be. In addition to the darkness, The Morning Gift seemed to me franker than the other Ibbotson novels I’ve read to date. It deals with sexuality more directly, for example – it acknowledges Ruth’s desire for Quin and the extreme vulnerability involved in sexual and emotional intimacy in a way I hadn’t found in her writing before.

Ruth and Quin’s romance was lovely and extremely satisfying. I praised Ibbotson’s handling of love stories in The Secret Countess, but she does it even better here. The pace is slower, the obstacles are more mature, and the reader is given plenty of time to see Quin and Ruth’s connection grow. The Morning Gift isn’t so much about them falling in love – they are in love for most of the novel – as it is about growing intimacy and trust and doubt. I’m always happy to find love stories that explore this aspect of relationships (if you have recommendations for more of them, by the way, I’m all ears).

As is customary in Eva Ibbotson’s novels, the love story is accompanied by a cast of colourful and memorable secondary characters with their own plotlines: there’s the Jewish refuge community at Belize Park, adjusting to the loss of their world and to a new impoverish way of life; there are Ruth’s university friends, who have troubles of their own; there’s Quin’s formidable Aunt Frances; there are Miss Maud and Miss Violet, the two ~~elderly~~ ladies who run a teashop in Belize Park. All are portrayed with Eva Ibbotson’s usual tenderness and warmth.

One of the things I’ve been doing as I read through Eva Ibbotson’s back catalogue is trying to make sense of her attitude towards class. I do this not to decide whether or not to disown her based on what I find out (I read and enjoy plenty of authors who are invested in ideologies I find problematic, after all), but because I’m genuinely interested in learning more about the worldview (or wordviews, as these things are not static) behind her large body of work.

When I reviewed The Secret Countess, Alex told me that she found Ibbotson’s classist attachment to the idea of intrinsic nobility too offputting to be able to enjoy her writing, and Jodie wondered if there might be something to how she portrayed characters with new money versus characters with old money. I kept their thoughts in mind as I read The Morning Gift, and what I found only complicates the picture further: first of all, the closest this story has to a villain is the insufferable Verena Plackett, who comes for an old genteel family and thus has the “right” sort of background – but her arrogance and snobbery are her downfall. Verena and her mother counter Ibbotson’s tendency to make her villains nouveau riche.

Secondly, there’s Quin’s Aunt Frances, who I thought was the most interesting of the secondary characters. The reader first meets her at Bowmont, the Somerville estate in Northumberland, when she’s peering out of the window with a spyglass and ordering the daytrippers who made their way to the estate’s beach to be promptly expelled. Aunt Frances is interesting because although she’s portrayed very sympathetically, the narrative acknowledges that she’s often wrong. Furthermore, her allegiance to problematic class attitudes is often just for show – a point that’s humorously illustrated through a plotline that involves a mongrel puppy Aunt Frances declares to reject, but secretly loves. There’s a very clear discrepancy between what she says and what she actually does; a discrepancy the text clearly wants readers to notice.

However, there’s also a degree of romantic attachment to the idea of aristocratic families with estates and inheritances and long histories in The Morning Gift. The idea of Bowmont falling into the hands of The National Trust, for example, is portrayed as a tragedy. I completely understand this from a personal and emotional perspective – it’s natural for people to have feelings about parting from a beautiful home; about a family’s long history in connection to a building coming to an end. That this is a problem that only exists within a context of extreme social and economic privilege does not making it wrong, or unworthy of being included in a story. I only find this kind of thing offputting when it becomes prescriptive – when people’s understandable emotional attachment to their lineage and to spaces they have a historical as well as a personal connection with is understood as signalling that their privilege is part of the “natural” order of things. I don’t think The Morning Gift does this, but there could very well be elements that support a different reading than mine.

At one point, Ruth and Quin have a difficult conversation about his father desperately wanting an heir for Bowmont:

“You chose to sneer when I said I killed her. Yet it is not untrue. My father knew that she was not supposed to have children. She’d been very ill—they met in Switzerland when he was there in the Diplomatic Service. She was in a sanatorium recovering from TB. He wanted a child because of Bowmont. He wanted am heir and he didn’t mind what it cost. An heir for Bowmont.”
(…)
“And what of her? Do you think she was so feeble? Do you think she didn’t want it? She was brave—look at her face. She wanted a child. Not for Bowmont, not for your father. She wanted one because a child is a marvellous thing to have. Why do you patronise women so? Why can’t they risk their lives as men do? They have a right, as much as any man.”
“To jump into the sea for a half-grown mongrel?” he jeered.
“Yes. For anything they choose.”

I suspect there’s more to this story than either Quin or Ruth acknowledge – there is after all a long history of women being compelled into life-threatening pregnancies for the sake of lineage, and I hate to see it dismissed or explained away. But Ruth raises interesting questions about how the melodramatic life narrative Quin is so attached to robs his mother of any agency. Ultimately neither of them can know what really happened, but it’s dangerous to automatically assume that either version must be the right one.

All this to say: I love Eva Ibbotson’s novels because they’re all about people being able to do better – about even someone like Aunt Frances changing, growing, letting go of prejudices, and behaving humanely to others when the moment of truth arrives.

Another reason why I loved The Morning Gift was the fact that it unapologetically features a nearly universally beloved heroine, a girl who is beautiful, smart, good at pretty much everything, and quick to connect with anyone she meets. Readers often seem to be suspicious of, if not outright hostile to, characters like Ruth Berger, but I for one found such an unabashed celebration of a young woman’s competence refreshing.

Finally, how could I resist a novel that features such wonderful moments of humour, like the one where Miss Maud and Miss Violet apologetically express their willingness to adapt to the immigrant community that now frequents their teashop?

But in the flat above the Willow Tea Rooms, a light still burned.
“I suppose we could serve some of those cakes of theirs,” said Miss Maud as the two ladies, in flannel dressing gowns, sat over their cocoa.
“Oh, Maud! Not… strudels? I’m sure Father would not have wished us to serve anything like that.” Three years younger than her sister, Violet was less skeletally thin and, at forty-three, her fair still retained traces of brown.
“No, not strudels, I agree. That would be going too far. But there’s one they all talk about. It begins with a G. Sounds like guggle… Guglhupf or something.”
Violet put down her cup. “But it in from the Continental Bakery, you mean?”
“Certainly not. There is no question of anything being bought in. But I did just glance at the recipe when I was in the library,” said Miss Maud, blushing like someone admitting to a peep at a pornographic magazine. “You need a mould, but it isn’t difficult.”

Other bits I liked:

“Marianne didn’t like radishes. His wife. He never grew them when she was alive. When she died, he said, ‘Now I must grow radishes or she will remain under the ground.’ He meant that he dead must be allowed to move about freely inside us, they mustn’t be encapsulated, made finite by their prejudices.” She paused, moving her hair out of her eyes in a gesture with which he was utterly familiar. “He grows a lot of radishes and I don’t like them very much, as it happens, but I eat them. All of us eat them.”

But what it was was something she could not put into words. That she was devastated by the loss of a place which had nothing to do with her, which she would never see again. That she had been storing Bowmont in her mind: its cliffs and flowers, its scents and golden strands… There would be a lot of waiting in her life with Heini: sitting in stuffy green rooms, accompanying him in crowded trains. Like the coifed girls in medieval cloisters who wove mysterious trees and crystal rivers into their tapestries, she had spun for herself a dream of Bowmont: of paths where she could wander, of a faded blue door in a high wall. And the dream meant Bowmont as it was—as Quin’s demesne, as a place where an irascible old woman bullied flowers out of the ground.

They read it too: The Captive Reader, Nineseveneight, Life Must be Filled Up, The Bookworm Chronicle

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

2012-01-20T09:52:00.004Z

The Prestige opens in the present day, when a young reporter named Andrew Westley travels to meet Kate Angier, a reclusive woman he first met as a child. Both Andrew and Kate feel that something important happened during that first meeting of theirs long ago, but neither of them really knows how to explain this impression. There’s also the fact that Andrew feels that he has, or once had, a twin brother – a brother whose absence has haunted him all through his life.

After this short present-day section, The Prestige moves to the year 1901, and through a series of journal entries it tells the story of Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden, Andrew and Kate’s ancestors. Angier and Borden are two stage magicians engaged in a rivalry that spans decades. The reasons why the conflict between the two escalates to such an extent only become clear as the story progresses. Similarly, the secrets as the heart of their key illusions are slowly revealed.

The Prestige is many things: Victorian pastiche, a mystery, and also a science fiction novel, complete with a cameo by Nikola Tesla. The ways in which Priest’s novel is science fiction are not at all obvious at first, but they become clearer as the narrative advances. Litlove noted in her review that their sudden introduction was jarring, and many of the commenters agreed. This might very well have also been the case with me if I’d been caught unaware, but because I remembered this discussion, my reading experience was improved – one more reason to be grateful for social reading.

It took me until the section with the journal entries to truly get into The Prestige, but once that happened I was well and truly hooked. I love this kind of smoke and mirrors story; a story in which the puzzle pieces are hidden in plain sight in the language itself; a story in which the reader and the writer both know what the secret is, but the answer is nevertheless not openly acknowledged. This creates a different kind of suspense, where it’s less about finding something out and more about the implications of said thing, or the consequences of it being known by others. In this sense, The Prestige reminded me a bit of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Henry Dunbar (and of Victorian Sensation in general, a genre to which it is clearly indebted).

Part of the appeal of The Prestige is the fact that its atmosphere is eerie, unsettling, and clearly based on a kind of aesthetics I seldom fail to respond to. It’s also a very layered story, which explores the consequences of shaping your whole life around a single idea or goal, and makes good use of all the metaphorical resonance surrounding the idea of the double.

Having said this, I feel more of a cold intellectual appreciation for The Prestige than I do any genuine fan love. But that may very well be down to the mood I was in when I read it. This is a very skilful novel, with a particularly memorable final scene, and it makes me want to read more of Priest’s work.

I have not seen the film. Should I?

They read it too: The Boston Bibliophile, Tales from the Reading Room, books i done read, somewhere i have never travelled, Farm Lane Books, Lovely Treez Reads

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

Postcards From No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers

2012-01-19T12:45:00.006Z

Postcards From No Man’s Land tells a story through two interconnected plotlines that take place five decades apart (sorry Jodie; I can’t help but love this narrative structure): one, set in the present day, focuses on seventeen-year-old Jacob Todd; the other, set during the occupation of The Netherlands during WW2, follows Geertrui, who is a teenager herself at the time of the conflict. Jacob Todd is visiting Amsterdam to attend a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem, where his grandfather fought. While there, he stays with the family of the woman who looked after his grandfather when he was first wounded. That woman is Geertrui, who is now in her old age – and who tells a story that makes Jacob reconsider everything he has always believed about his family.

I picked up Postcards From No Man’s Land because it’s the only book to have won both the Carnegie Medal and the Printz Award to date. A quick glance at the synopsis is likely to remind readers of another Carnegie winner, Mal Peet’s Tamar, which uses the same kind of narrative structure and covers similar terrain. Both are excellent novels, by the way, and despite the superficial similarities they go on to do very different things.

There were a lot of elements in this novel that I instantly loved: the Amsterdam setting and the fact that the city becomes almost a character in its own right; the focus on the Hunger Winter and the occupied Netherlands, which are aspects of WW2 that don’t seem to pop up in historical novels anywhere near as often as, say, the London Blitz; the many references to books and reading, particularly to Anne Frank’s diary. I imagine that most readers will be able to relate to Jacob’s intimate connection to the diary, regardless of how they feel about this book in particular. “‘I do feel as if I know [Anne] better than anyone else,’” Jacob says at one point. “‘I mean, better than any of my family or friends.’”

There’s a scene in particular that I loved, about Jacob’s visit to the secret annex. It really reminded me of my experience at the Brontë Parsonage last year – it does such a great job of capturing what often happens when this sense of intimacy with a book or author confronts the real world. This is the conversation Jacob has afterwards with Alma, an older woman he befriends in Amsterdam:

‘…It seemed like waiting to see the two-headed man or the bearded lady at a fun fair. And when I got inside, people ahead of me, people behind me, all of us tramping up the stairs in to the rooms. Into her rooms. Which were crowded with people already, everyone kind of gawping and shuffling along. They weren’t behaving badly. Just the opposite. Quite reverential really, quite silent, not talking, just whispering, and pointing and peering. I don’t know. It just came over me that we were invading Anne’s privacy. Treading all over her. But apart from that, the really stupid thing…’
‘Yes?’
‘Seems ridiculous. But, seeing all those people, and most of them about my age, all of us like pilgrims, visiting a shrine, well, suddenly Anne wasn’t mine anymore.’
‘Not yours?’
‘No. Here were all these other people who wanted to be where she had lived. Where she had written her diary. And I said to myself, “They think she’s theirs too.”’

I suspect I might have loved Postcards From No Man’s Land for this scene alone, but there was plenty more to enjoy. For example, Chambers has his characters discuss everything from euthanasia, polyamory, or sexual orientation to war and art history (particularly Rembrandt and his relationship with his son). These discussions could easily have been very after school special, but, impressively, they were not. They felt completely organic to the plot and relevant to what Jacob and his new friends were experiencing.

Also, Postcards From No Man’s Land is the first YA novel (or perhaps novel, period) I’ve come across that includes polyamorous characters (I’m not counting polygamy novels, since the dynamics are so completely different). This is good news for my fellow blogger Trisha, who a while ago, while wishing for love triangles to die a horrible death already, expressed her bafflement that entire pockets of human experience, including relationship arrangements that are real and functional for many people, remain to this day almost completely invisible in fiction. This is a bafflement I share, as I would like for my fiction to deal with All The Human Things

(Though I must say I retract the offer I made in Trisha’s comments to post a vlog of myself doing cartwheels the day I found these experiences represented. I’m not that brave, and my offer only goes to show how much I didn’t expect to find a novel like this anytime soon. Who knew one had been hiding in plain sight all along, on the Printz and Carnegie Medal winners lists?)

Thinking of this puts me in mind of Brooke Gladstone’s doughnut analogy in her excellent The Influencing Machine. She suggests that the space outside this metaphorical doughnut represents all the things the media treats as no-go areas at a given moment in history; the ideas and perspectives that it doesn’t even occur to most people to consider. But I’m getting ahead of myself; I’ll return to The Influencing Machine and to this idea next week. I should of course add that Postcards From No Man’s Land considers Daan, Ton, and their choices thoughtfully, since I do believe that how representation is handled is every bit as important as the inclusion of minority characters itself. The novel also includes what I thought was a great representation of bisexuality – the narrative treats it as more than fence-sitting or transitory confusion, which is unfortunately all too common. Jacob’s bisexuality is not something he needs to make up his mind about, but something that simply is.

I’ve been going on about Jacob, but it was actually Geertrui’s narrative that really won my heart. Unlike Jacob’s, Gertruui’s story is told in the first person (in case you’re picky about these things, the framing of her narration is eventually explained). Chambers explains in the afterword to my edition that he wanted readers to feel closer to Geertrui than to Jacob, and that’s exactly how it worked for me. I thought this was an interesting choice, considering the historical context of each narrative. By making the past feel closer than the present, this narrative choice supports the points the novel makes in other ways about the nature of memory; about experiencing moments of such intensity that they stay with you for the rest of your life.

Finally, although Postcards From No Man’s Land is never explicit, it’s brilliant at getting across the strength and sheer dizzying power of first sexual passion. Plus it does this in a way that readily acknowledges female subjectivity, agency and desire, which is something I’ll never tire of seeing in YA.

Interesting bits:

The old often say they remember their youth more clearly than the day before yesterday. But this is not it. I know these things because those few days and the few weeks that followed them were such an intensity of living, so much more than any other time of my life, that they are unforgettable. And I have gone over and over them ever since. Sometimes you live more life in an hour than in most weeks, and sometimes it is possible to live more in a few weeks than in all the rest of your life. This is what those days in 1944 are like to me.

What a need we humans have for confession. To a priest, to a friend, to a psychoanalyst, to a relative, to an enemy, even to a torturer when there is no one else, it doesn’t matter so long as we speak out what moves within us. Even the most secretive of us do it, if no more than writing in a private diary. And I have often thought when I read stories and novels and poems, especially poems, that they are no more than the authors’ confessions transformed by art into something that confesses for us all. Indeed, looking back on my lifelong passion for reading, the one activity that has kept me going and given me the most and only lasting pleasure, I think this is the reason that explains why it means so much too me. The books, the authors who matter the most are those who speak to me and speak for me all those things about life I most need to hear as the confession of myself.

(Much to my surprise, I could find no other blog reviews of this book. If you have one, let me know and I’ll be happy to link to you.)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

Unnatural Issue by Mercedes Lackey

2012-01-16T13:34:00.004Z

Unnatural Issue is set in an alternate version of early twentieth century England where elements-based magic is real, and it tells the story of Susanne Whitestone, a young Earth Mage who grows up in isolation at a manor house in the Yorkshire moors. Susanne’s position in her own household is an awkward one – her mother died when she was born, which caused her father to refuse to have anything at all to do with her. Mad with grief, Richard Whitestone spent the following twenty years shut away from the world in his apartments, while Susanne was brought up by the servants and left to roam free, devoting her time to the care of the land that was once her father’s duty. Susanne’s life abruptly changes when her father decides to finally take notice of her. However, his sudden attention doesn’t quite feel right, and Susanne is soon given reasons to believe that her suspicious are far from unfounded.

This story is set just before the outbreak of WW1, and Susanne’s journey eventually takes her to the French trenches as a nurse. Another interesting thing about Unnatural Issue (and, in fact, the reason why I picked it up) is that it’s a tribute to Dorothy L. Sayers’ novels – it features one Lord Peter Almsey, who, in the company of his valet Garrick, devotes his time to sleuthing. Peter Almsey crosses paths with Susanne when Lord Alderscroft (the head of an organisation that basically regulates the use of magic) sends him to Yorkshire to investigate signs of necromantic activity in the region. In this world, necromancers are very bad news indeed, so Peter’s job is to find out who is responsible for these troubling clues and put a stop to them right away.

Unnatural Issue is part of Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Master series: a series of stand-alone novels set in the same fantasy slash alternate history world, all of which loosely retell fairy tales (as you might have guessed by now, Susanne’s story is based on “Donkeyskin”). The Elemental Masters series has been on my radar for quite some time – retellings of fairy tales set in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and whose plots often revolve around major historical events, do sound right up my alley – but a previous experience with Lackey’s writing kept me away. I read one of her novels a few years ago, and, to put it bluntly, found the prose purpler than the background of this blog.

However, the combination of a fairy tale, an interesting historical setting, and the words “tribute to Dorothy L. Sayers” proved too much for me to resist, and I decided to give her another try. I’m happy to report that I found the writing in Unnatural Issue much less cumbersome than I feared. There were still occasional sentences I could do without, like “For a moment, she tasted the sourness of resentment, then the bitterness of irony”, but overall the prose was invisible – it might not have been brilliant, but it got the story told.

As for the tribute to Lord Peter Wimsey, it struck all the right notes for me. Lord Peter Almsey was different enough from his counterpart that I didn’t begin to irrationally resent Mercedes Lackey for not actually being Dorothy Sayers; but at the same time, there were enough echoes of Sayers’ novels to make me all warm and fuzzy – and also to make me love the character instantly.

Something I found particularly interesting was the fact that Lackey chose to highlight her villain’s misogyny. Richard Whitestone’s characterisation is not exactly a shining example of complexity, and in fact often wanders into cartoonish bad guy territory. Nevertheless, it was interesting that she focused on the logical consequences of his dehumanisation of women – even the wife whom he loved so much that losing her drove him mad was someone he never saw as more than a possession. The novel opens with a prologue from Richard’s perspective, set just before Rebecca’s death, and readers get to see that the sane version of this mad villain wasn’t exactly a pleasant man either. He was already sexist, controlling and condescending towards women – what happens merely takes these traits to the extreme.

The novel was generally satisfying when it came to gender dynamics, but I was less certain about its handling of class. Descriptions highlighting stereotypical class-based physical differences, for example, strike me as pretty dubious:

Agatha and Mary were as alike as sisters, of the same sort as most of the farmwives hereabouts. Mathew could have been their brother, and the two maids could have been the children of any of them. The people in this part of the world tended to be brown, round-faced, and cheerful, like a collection of sparrows. Susanne could not have stood out more among them had she been one of the Good Folk. She looked like one of those raven-haired china-dolls that little girls got for Christmas if they were very, very good: hair as black as midnight shadows, vivid blue eyes, healthy pink-and-white complexion—and she towered over all of them but Mathew by at least three inches.

However, the portrayal of class seemed to get a little better as the novel progressed. When Susanne runs away from her father’s house, she finds shelter in another manor house and disguises herself by working as a dairy maid. This is a house where everyone is comfortable and happy; where the servants and the aristocracy are like one big happy family. At first I read this as another example of Downtown Abbey-esque faux progressiveness: a rose-tainted portrayal of class relationships where everyone means well and people respect each other, but at the end of the day the power dynamics are the same and the status quo is reinscribed. Fortunately, something happens towards the end of the novel that challenges this model and highlights its limitations.

There were other things about Unnatural Issue that didn’t quite work for me – the romance didn’t convince me, for example. The dynamics were wrong; Peter was close to condescending to Susanne sometimes. The inevitable comparisons to Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane really didn’t favour Lackey in this case. Additionally, the ending felt a little rushed. But overall there was still more than enough to enjoy here and to leave me satisfied. Unnatural Issue may not be perfect, but it was a fine piece of storytelling and an extremely fun read; full of elements that I love and managing to tie them together mostly successfully.

As my favourite thing about this novel was the worldbuilding, I went on to acquire more novels in the Elemental Masters series (which, in case you were wondering, doesn’t have to be read in order). The Gates of Sleep sets “Sleeping Beauty” in 1912 Devon – sounds fun, right?

Other points of view: Bookworm 1858

(Yours?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

Another Year of Feminist Classics & Indie Lit Awards

2012-01-15T12:32:00.008Z

Today I wanted to tell you about two fun bookish projects I’m involved in: first there’s the Year of Feminist Classics, the reading project I started with my friends and fellow bloggers Amy, Emily Jane and Iris last year. The project is being extended into the New Year, and we’re running it from February 2012 to January 2013 (for now - hopefully it will carry on after that as well). Also, several other bloggers are joining us in hosting monthly discussions this year. Here’s the reading list the new team picked:

February – Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks (Amy)
March – The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine De Pizan (Jean)
April – Whipping Girl by Julia Serano (Cass)
May – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë read alongside Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (Iris)
June – Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg (Emily)
July – Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (Nancy)
August – The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Lauren)
September – Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua (Melissa)
October – The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (Jodie)
November – Beyond the Veil by Fatema Mernissi (me)
December – Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis (Emily Jane)
January – Feminism Without Borders by Chandra Talpade Mohanty (Eva)

We’re hoping the project will work like an ongoing informal feminist reading group, with participants picking whichever books interest them the most and joining the group reads as life allows it, and with more people joining us as co-hosts and picking books to read together in future years. We also hope that having a larger team will mean there will be no delays or radio silence when some of us are overwhelmed by life events or dissertations (I still feel bad for dropping the ball last year). If you’re interested in reading some (or all, of course) of these books with us, just leave us a comment at the group blog.

Secondly, the shortlists for the Indie Lit Awards have been announced. I’m a judge for the Speculative Fiction category, and over the next few months we’ll be reading and deciding among the following books:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (Candlewick)
The Magician King by Lev Grossman (Viking)
11/22/1963 by Stephen King (Scribner)
Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor Books)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Crown)

To see the shortlists for the other categories, just click over the website.

I hope everyone is having a great Sunday. My plans for today include finishing N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which I’m really enjoying, and maybe also Brooke Gladstone’s The Influencing Machine. Happy reading, everyone!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

2012-01-13T11:07:00.006Z

The narrator of The Fault in Our Stars is sixteen year-old Hazel, who has been living with cancer for many years. As she herself puts it, Hazel has “never been anything but terminal”; however, a medical miracle when she was 13 granted her an as yet unknown amount of time. At her parents’ insistence, Hazel attends Cancer Kid Support Group, to better cope with her depression (which is not, Hazel clarifies, a side effect of cancer, but rather a side effect of dying). It is there that she meets Augustus Waters, who quickly charms her with his tendency to pick his behaviours based on their metaphorical resonance (and it doesn’t hurt that he’s hot, too). Hazel’s emerging relationship with Augustus, their shared loved for a novel by a reclusive writer by the name of Peter Van Houten, and an unexpected trip to Amsterdam are all about to leave an indelible mark on her life.

The Fault in Our Stars will almost certainly make you cry, but I almost hesitate to emphasise that because the last thing I want to do is make this sound like a novel that capitalises on its subject matter for instant or easy emotional impact. John Green has said he hoped this would be a novel that would make readers feel ALL THE THINGS, and I think it succeeds very impressively on that regard. You’ll feel for Hazel and Augustus, who have gone beyond what many of us consider the unimaginable and carried on. But The Fault in Our Stars is as much about life as it is about death, and it’s every bit as funny as it is sad. It’s also a novel of ideas, engaging with big questions about what we understand by heroism, about our fear of death and oblivion, about the meanings we create, and about the consequences of accepting certain narratives about the worth of our lives.

Because I can’t discuss this novel in more detail without revealing, at least indirectly, something readers only learn more than halfway through it, I’ll ask those of you who mind spoilers and haven’t read it yet to stop here. The short of it is that The Fault in Our Stars is an amazing book. Read it, read it, read it – and then please come discuss it with me.

There will be SPOILERS from this point on:

One of my favourite things about The Fault in Our Stars is the fact that at the centre of the novel is a tribute to thoughtfulness. It celebrates intellectual engagement with the world not only as a means to an end, but for its own sake; not just as a tool, but as a rewarding way of living our lives. The incredibly moving letter that finishes the book pays homage to a kind of heroism that has long gone unrecognised: the heroism in observing, in thinking, in not rushing into action. To make matters even more interesting, The Fault in Our Stars explores the relationship between gender and our definitions of action, of achievement, of worthiness. At one point in the novel, Augustus expresses the conviction that a worthy life is one lived for a cause; similarly, a worthy death is one in the name of something larger than oneself. And of course, much of what he believes is deeply entrenched in our understanding of masculinity.

As I read The Fault in Our Stars, I kept thinking about what the text was telling us with the gender of each of its two main characters. Hazel’s more traditionally feminine (and highly devalued) form of heroism and Augustus’ ambitions and frustration both make sense in light of our culture and how each of them would have been socialised. However, just because something is realistic it doesn’t mean I’m happy for every story I read to reinscribe it, so at one point I wondered whether it would have been more subversive to have their roles reversed. But the beautiful thing about this novel is that it acknowledges that its dying protagonists are teenagers who are growing, who are becoming. They may not be growing towards something, but that doesn’t at all make their evolving personhood a waste.

Very often, the deaths of people like Hazel and Augustus are lamented in terms of for what they could have become. People talk of lives cut short, of wasted potential, and so on and so forth. And of course that it’s only human to be sorry for what could have been; to want to see these brilliant young people go further and further. But there’s also what they were; what they did become – and that’s not nothing. As human as regretting what never was is, it’s important to take care not to let grief bury the people they were. Augustus’ final letter reveals that before his death, he did become a boy who defined himself and the worth of his life in his own terms. The fact that he wasn’t one all along only heightens what the novel is doing thematically, in a way that wouldn’t have stood out as much had this been presented as a given fact.

Another thing The Fault in Our Stars does brilliantly is introduce Hazel as a subject and make her experiences the focus of the novel. A lot of stories about people with terminal illnesses are about the survivors. Take, for example, two other excellent YA novels dealing with cancer, A Monster Calls and Two Weeks with the Queen. The stories they tell are of course worth telling, but their focus is on losing someone, rather than being the one who’s about to be lost. They’re about dealing with grief, whereas The Fault in Our Stars is, among other things, about what it’s like to know you’ll be the cause of grief.

Hazel describes herself as a grenade that could explore at any time and hurt everyone who’s nearby. She grows to trust her loved ones, particularly her parents, when they tell her that having the chance to know her while she’s alive is more than worth all the future pain in the world, but this is by no means easy to negotiate. The novel acknowledges the complexity of this kind of emotional experience, and perhaps even more importantly, it gives Hazel a voice. For once, readers are not only invited to step into the shoes of the mourning family, but also into the shoes of the one who’s going to leave them behind.

The Fault in Our Stars deals with what happens once the questions that preoccupy most cancer narratives have been settled. The focus isn’t on whether Hazel and Augusts will survive, nor on how long they have; it’s on the business of living with the pressing reality of death. There’s hope and a measure of acceptance in the strategies they find, but this is done without any false comfort. They make the best of their circumstances because doing so is worth it, but there are no platitudes; no reduction of their pain to an inspirational example for the benefit of those of us lucky enough to be currently healthy.

Hazel makes several references to the sentimentality of the “cancer kid genre”, and fortunately her narrative is too honest to ever fall into any such trap. It acknowledges that dying is a messy business, and that illness often causes others to shrink away. There’s no romantic glow around Hazel and Augustus’ pain; it’s not used to other them, to extol them, or to elevate their love above ordinary love. They love each other and they’re brilliant and they die young, and there’s no way at all around the fact that that absolutely sucks. But the brevity of their experience is not allowed to become its only defining quality.

As you can probably tell by the “cancer kid genre” comment, there’s plenty of humour and sarcasm in how Hazel tells her story, but her tone is not once cruel or self-righteous. Hazel is, as Augustus says about her at the end, funny without ever being mean – she may reject ready-made comfort, but she doesn’t ridicule other people’s despair, their titbits of meaning, the comfort and coping strategies they manage to find. As her speech at Augustus’ funeral shows, there’s no point in hurting the living, even if you don’t want your life and death to be defined only in their terms.

Before I wrap up this already long post, I want to talk a little bit about the Peter Van Houten plotline: it’s difficult not to see all along that Hazel meeting the author of her favourite book to find out from him what happened next to the characters will end in tears and disappointment. And yet you still cringe when it happens, in all its cruel glory – the cruelty only heightened by the truth of much of what Peter Van Houten is saying. The almost over-the-top catastrophic situation turns what could easily have been a too-easy lesson about books belonging to their readers into a scene that actually works. With the dark humour comes real emotional impact – and later on real insight about heroes with feet of clay and how literature works its magic for our young narrator.

There’s so much about this novel I haven’t touched on at all, including all the smart allusions – there’s Eliot, there’s William Carlos Williams, there’s visual art, and most of all there’s the deep convictions that teenagers will be smart and intellectually curious and well-read. But this is John Green, after all, who I can’t imagine would ever approach writing YA in any other way.

A few of my favourite bits:

My favourite book, by a wide margin, was An Imperial Affliction, but I didn’t like to tell people about it. Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books, like An Imperial Affliction, which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.

I could feel everybody watching us, wondering what was wrong with us, and whether it would kill us, and how heroic my mom must be, and everything else. That was the worst part about having cancer, sometimes: The physical evidence of disease separates you from other people. We were irreconcilably other, and never was it more obvious than when the three of us walked through the empty plane, the stewardess nodding sympathetically and gesturing us toward our row in the distant back.

They read it too: Reading Rants!, Book Harbinger

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

2012-01-12T12:06:00.008Z

A Morbid Taste for Bones is the first in Ellis Peters’ long series of medieval mysteries. The year is 1137, and our sleuth, Brother Cadfael, is a Benedictine monk at Shrewsbury Abbey. When a fellow monk by the name of Brother Columbanus falls ill, he’s taken in a pilgrimage to St Winefride’s Well in North Wales and returns cured. The cure is attributed to St Winefride herself, who Columbanus claims has told him in a vision she wishes her remains to be moved to Shrewsbury Abbey. The Abbot and a small party (which includes the Welsh-speaking Brother Cadfael) accordingly travel to the village of Gwytherin in Wales to claim the saint’s relics; needless to say, this doesn’t go down too well with the local community. Tempers rise, and murder is the result. It’s up to the observant Brother Cadfael and to Sioned, a local young woman, to find out what really happened before an innocent man is made to pay.

There’s plenty to enjoy in A Morbid Taste for Bones, but to me the best thing about this mystery novel was Brother Cadfael himself. He is, as Kiirstin so well put it, “a comfortable, comforting hero who makes the story worth reading”. He’s a worldly man who took religious vows rather late in his life and had the opportunity to travel and get to know all sorts of people; he’s a challenger of preconceptions; and he’s a tolerant and quietly subversive man. Plus, you’ve got to love a monk who says,

“Both men and women partake of the same human nature, Huw. We both bleed when we’re wounded. That’s a poor, silly woman, true, but we can show plenty of poor, silly men. There are women as strong as any of us, and as able.”

Much to my surprise, Brother Cadfael reminded me of none other than Nanny Ogg from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. In fact, the tone of the book was slightly reminiscent of Pratchett’s Lancre witches books: they share a deep understanding of how people work; an ability to capture the pulse of small communities; and central characters who are non-judgemental and appreciate the nuances and complexities involved in both local politics and personal relationships.

I was very impressed with how well Peters managed to capture the intricacies of community life in such a short novel. Brother Cadfael’s major ally in Gwytherin is Sioned, an intelligent and capable young woman whose difficult position as the daughter of an influential landowner who is in love with an indentured servant is very well illustrated. Similarly, the political angle was handled with intelligence and sensitivity: there are of course major implications to an Abbot from England coming to take away the bones of an obscure Welsh saint. The plot of A Morbid Taste for Bones (and also the solution to the mystery) is very much concerned with politics and power struggles within monastic life and their effects on medieval society.

Another thing Peters illustrates very well is the fact that religion and social life were deeply intermingled in the Middle Ages. The worldly Brother Cadfael is not above using belief to suit his purposes, and the novel’s final chapters are surprisingly sceptic-friendly. But this is all done in a way that isn’t condescending to most characters’ deep faith, though that could very easily have been the case.

Over the past year and a half I’ve had several starts and stops with historical mysteries: I tried quite a few series that I just didn’t care about enough to stick with. After all these attempts, it’s lovely to find one I’m truly excited about. I can’t wait to read Brother Cadfael’s next adventure.

They read it too: A Book a Week, Rhapsody in Books, A Striped Armchair, A Lifetime of Books, Tip of the Iceberg

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss

2012-01-10T12:42:00.004Z

The first thing about The Thorn and the Blossom that will likely catch the reader’s attention is its unusual format: this novella, which is subtitled “A Two-Sided Love Story”, can be read in two directions, giving readers the chance to decide which narrator they want to begin with and thus providing two very different reading experiences. And as you can see below, the book, with its accordion-fold binding, is absolutely beautiful as a physical object.

But let me tell you what The Thorn and the Blossom is actually about: Evelyn Morgan (whose story I started with, in case you’re curious) is a poet and literary critic who we first meet when she’s on holiday in a small Cornish village. Brendan Thorne is the son of a bookshop owner in said village, and also a scholar himself, with an interest in medieval romance. The two meet and immediately connect; The Thorn and the Blossom then follows them over a number of years, as they lose and find each other again.

The Thorn and the Blossom was one of my most eagerly anticipated releases of 2012, chiefly because of Theodora Goss’ lovely short fiction (some of which you can read online). As I was hoping, the book is full of elements I love – folklore, scholarship, echoes of medieval literature, and plenty of intertextual references. Although Goss’ style is very much her own, what she does here reminded me slightly of other authors I absolutely love, such as A.S. Byatt or Elizabeth Hand.

One of the most interesting aspects of The Thorn and the Blossom is the fact that the fantasy elements are subtle and always debatable. The connection between Evelyn and Brendan’s story and the medieval romance “The Tale of the Green Knight” is made obvious by the narrative but never outright stated, which leaves room for alternate readings. The same goes for Evelyn’s fantastic visions – I decided to take them at face value, but that’s certainly not the only possible reading. As a fantasy lover, I have of course nothing against fantastic elements that are presented unambiguously, but in the case of The Thorn and the Blossom the ambiguity worked well and contributed to tying these elements with the novella’s general themes.

As for the love story, it very much surprised me to enjoy it as much as I did, considering that it uses one of my least favourite romance tropes ever: the idea of destined lovers. Contrary to popular belief, the reason why I dislike this trope is not because I’m bitter and heartless and cynical and hate love. It’s rather because this kind of story tends to erase or minimise the things that interest me the most about love stories: the choice to be there day after day, even when things get hard; the effort; the purposefulness; the frailty and chance factor inherent to every romantic relationship. To me, these don’t make love matter less – they make it matter more. And my favourite love stories are usually the ones that acknowledge this.

The Thorn and the Blossom is not one of these stories, but a story that explores love from a mythical, larger-than-life perspective – and it’s probably very telling that I really enjoyed it anyway. I think that what made it work for me was the fact that the romance was simultaneously extremely important and kind of tangential to Evelyn and Brendan’s lives. Both lovers pull a disappearing act on the other at some point, but neither is left pining (or not just pining, anyway): they carry on with the business of living. They feel the loss acutely, but still they have other interests, intellectual pursuits, passions beside their passion for each other. Their love story is realistically framed among these other passions, but is never lessened because of it.

This is how I like romance to be approached: love matters tremendously, but most of the time it’s something that happens while we’re busy living in other ways. The stories we usually tell about love frame it as either the one and only thing worth living for (especially in women’s lives) or a complete waste of time. However, acknowledging that it exists alongside other things in our lives doesn’t have to cheapen it in the least. On this note, I absolutely loved the ending of Evelyn’s section: I don’t want to give it away, but the way it captured the coexistence of loss and contentment was masterfully done.

There were plenty of things I loved about The Thorn and the Blossom, but all the same I have to admit I didn’t find it quite as satisfying as Goss’ short fiction. It felt a little like the beginning of something that wasn’t brought into full fruition. Perhaps it was a case of too high expectations? Still, it’s a lovely novella and very much worth reading.

They read it too: Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%. I received a copy of this book from Quirk Books.

May B by Caroline Starr Rose

2012-01-09T12:16:00.004Z

May B is set in late nineteenth-century Kansas and tells the story of May Betterly, a young girl whose family sends her to a neighbour’s farmhouse to help with the housekeeping, “just until Christmas”. The Oblingers’ farm is only 15 miles from the Betterly’s, but in the world May inhabits, this is an insurmountable distance. Which is why when something goes wrong, May is left entirely on her own. With no way to contact her family and with the snow about to isolate her even further, all she can do is try to remain alive.

Caroline Starr Rose tells May’s story in free verse, which perfectly suits the tone of the novel. The writing is very sparse and focused: a few small details are enough to evoke vivid images on the reader’s mind. There’s also May’s wonderful voice – brave, vulnerable, determined and scared – which really shines through and immediately draws the reader into her narrative. I realise that the words “novel in verse” may put some of you off, but although the format clearly shapes the writing I suspect that even poetry-shy readers will soon forget they’re reading it at all.

One of my favourite things about May B was the fact that it’s such an observant, sensitive and compassionate novel. For example, May is dyslexic and spends much of her time at the Oblinger’s struggling with her reading. The narrative treats her efforts kindly and never patronisingly – May’s discouragement feels momentous, and her every accomplishment huge. There’s also the intensely miserable Mrs Oblinger, not much older than May herself. Mrs Oblinger doesn’t treat May kindly, but it’s hard not to sympathise with her unhappiness and homesickness – she is, after all, a girl uprooted and forced into a life she never chose.

May B is a quiet, beautifully written and girl-centric pioneer story. The tone of the novel is generally very subdued, but everything that happens feels every bit as huge to the reader as it does to May herself.

I’ll share a few of my favourite passages, to give you a feel for the writing:

For the best,
like when the Wright baby died, not three
weeks old –
one less child to clothe.
After all,
I cook some,
collect fuel,
mend,
tote water,
hoe,
wash,
pretty braid or not.
Why not Hiram? I think, but I already know:
boys are necessary.

Today,
if it takes forever,
I will see the place
where the earth touches sky.
I will find it.
I will track it down.
I will not sit here and wait
for nobody to come,
for nothing to happen.

When the world is black, I’m most
alone,
the silence thick around me. I pray for
wind,
for rain,
for the meadowlark
to break
the constant pound of quiet.
What is that?
What is at the door?
A rasping sound, a muffled breath, a
whine
outside.
Then, nothing.
My pulse surges through my
fingertips as I crack open the door.
Scratches line the heavy wood,
Yellow threads cut deeply in the broads.
There are tracks
on the edge of the moonlight garden.
A wolf has been here. I am not alone.

Reviewed at: Rebecca Reads, Stacked. And there’s an interview with the author over at Amy’s blog.

(Have you read it too? Let me know and I’ll be happy to link to you.)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%. I requested a copy of this book via NetGalley.

The Sunday Salon – The Book Loot to End All Book Loots

2012-01-08T13:12:00.008Z

I know, I know, I know – this isn’t really the best way to start a year in which I’m supposed to be focusing on my towering TBR pile. However, between unspent gift cards and generous birthday gifts from lovely friends and family, a book acquiring extravaganza on the first week of January has become somewhat of a tradition around these parts. This will be my last spree for a while, though, and plus many of these will make my reading goals for 2012 a little bit easier, so I don’t feel too bad about it. Here are my acquisitions – the books on the first pile were all gifts, while the ones on the second are mostly books I ordered with my Christmas and birthday gift cards:

Piratica and White as Snow by Tanith Lee – I suspect Lee could become a favourite author of mine if only I would read more of her stuff. I’m sure these will be a wonderful start.
Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher, Regeneration by Pat Barker, Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith and Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis – these were all part of Jodie’s themed Birthday Box of Awesome and Squee. In case you were wondering, the theme was the social side of the two world wars. She knows me so well.
Starlight by Stella Gibbons – yay! Bit by bit, I will read ALL the Stella Gibbons.
Cat Stories edited by Diana Secker Tesdell – This short story anthology includes authors like Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Italo Calvino, P.G. Wodehouse, Angela Carter, Steven Millhauser and Doris Lessing. Debi clearly also knows me very well.
The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson – very timely, as I’ve already finished The Morning Gift and need even more Eva Ibbotson in my life.

The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss – Hooray! As you might remember, I’ve been really looking forward to this one. I read it in one sitting yesterday, actually, and will hopefully review it next week.
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones – I hear this is a good follow-up to Great Expectations, which I’m planning to read this year.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell – for Project Read More by Authors I Already Know I Love. I’ll probably read Cloud Atlas first, which I also own, but this was on sale and I couldn’t resist.
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Berniéres – As above. I think it was Alex who told me this was even better than Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, so the blame goes to her.
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri – I loved Interpreter of Maladies and can’t believe it took me so long to get this.
Nylon Road by Parsua Bashi – I can’t resist an appealing graphic memoir.
Bayou Vol. 2 by Jeremy Love – Thank you, Debi! I loved volume one and can’t wait to read this.
The Gates of Sleep by Mercedes Lackey – from the Elemental Masters series, on which more next week.
Just Kids by Patti Smith – Completely Priscilla’s fault.
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James – And this is of course Amy and Amanda’s fault, as they read it for the Real Help Project and made it sound amazing.
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston – This is Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography, and it sounds absolutely fascinating.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry – I requested this from Bookmooch based on some interesting comments about it from Jodie. I thought it was funny how the spine creasing clearly shows that probably more than one reader abandoned it halfway through. Hopefully I’ll have more luck than they did. It does sound very much worth the time investment.
Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes by Billy Collins – This collection will be perfect for Kelly and Lu’s brand new poetry monthly event.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque – I’ve been meaning to read this for so long it’s not even funny. Plus it’s both on my classics list and on the reading list Debi gave me last year.

Not pictured because they haven’t arrived yet:

Ha’penny and Half a Crown by Jo Walton – the rest of the Small Change trilogy.

All Clear by Connie Willis – So I can finally read Blackout.

Women, Work and Politics: the Political Economy of Gender Inequality by Torben Iversen and Frances Rosenbluth – my feminist reading is heavily biased towards the social side of things, and while there’s nothing wrong with that per se I’d like to gain a better understanding of the economics underpinning so many of the issues I care about.

Finally, not a book but a lovely bookish gift – a cover for my e-reader. Isn’t it adorable?

Now, which of my new books should I read first?

Avatar: The Last Airbender

2012-01-02T09:41:00.005Z

So, remember how a few months ago I finished watching Six Feet Under and promptly declared that I couldn’t imagine finding another series¹ I loved as much as that anytime soon?

Well, when I started the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender I didn’t expect it to be it, but halfway through season one I became a convert. The series is set in a gorgeous and detailed Asian-inspired fantasy world; the worldbuilding is reminiscent of Miyazaki at his best; it has both a great plot and in-depth characterisation; and it’s every bit as thoughtful as it is funny and addictive. And have I mentioned the swoon-worthy gender politics? In sum, I love it so much I want to burst. I’m a few years late to the party, I know, but if any fantasy lovers out there happen to have missed it, do yourselves a favour and watch it right now.

Anyway, the real goal of this post is to let you know that over at Lady Business, Jodie and I discuss the first season of Avatar (at great length, as we are wont to do). If you’re curious, just click over – and if you’re a fan too, we’d absolutely love to hear your thoughts.

(If by any chance the title The Last Airbender makes you think of the horrid M. Night Shyamalan movie, all I can say is ugh – and then point you towards Gene Luen Yang’s brilliant comic on the subject. I happened to catch part of the movie on TV a few days after finishing season one, and it was seriously a traumatising experience. It takes talent to take source material this good and turn it into the stuff of nightmares.)

¹ In semi-related news, my Buffy DVDs and I have now been reunited. Just saying.

Happy New Year!

2011-12-30T07:59:00.004Z

Photo Credit

Wishing you all a very happy 2012, filled with everything you hope for and plenty of good books. Also: this. See you in the New Year!

Reading Goals for 2012

2011-12-29T12:42:00.005Z

As I was saying yesterday, 2011 was a bit of an odd year for me. My reading was pretty erratic, and as a result I really didn’t do well in the few challenges I joined. My plan for 2012 is to take a break from them altogether – I’ll even temporary hide the “Challenges” tab at the top of my blog. I still thinking reading challenges are great, especially as opportunities for reading socially, but after so many years of joining them compulsively a break will probably do me good.

I’ll continue to work on my long-term reading projects (which include reading through the winners of the Carnegie Medal and of the Printz Award), but I’ll do that slowly and leisurely and without having to think about self-imposed deadlines. Another thing I did in 2011 was swap reading lists with several blogging friends, but I’m afraid the results were a complete failure. I still want to read the books in question, though, and I’m sure my friends will understand if I take more time to get to them. The same goes for my Children’s Classics Challenge (which I’m renaming “Project” to trick myself into thinking of it differently).

Another thing that will continue in 2012 is my policy of accepting very few review copies and thus avoiding the stress involved in the whole process. I may make the occasional exception for favourite authors or books I’m very excited about, and I’ll continue to request the odd comic or non-fiction from academic presses from NetGalley (these are books I wouldn’t otherwise be able to have access to, and I appreciate having the opportunity to read and review them), but that will pretty much be it. In 2011, review copies were only 4% of my reading, and I don’t imagine that will change in the New Year (this is of course a personal choice, and not a judgement on bloggers who do accept them).

The rest of my goals directly follow from the reading stats I published yesterday. I loved the comment Kiirstin left me: she said that if nothing else, stats make her a better librarian because they make her aware of her own reading gaps and biases. I’m not a real librarian yet (I’ll only consider myself one when/if I start working as one), but this is certainly something I always want to keep in mind. So, my reading goals for the New Year are the following:

Read fewer new to me authors: I know there’s much to be said for branching out and trying new things, but I keep saving books by authors I already know I love for… when? The zombie apocalypse? It’s silly to continuously put off reading them, and I want this habit of mine to stop. However, non-fiction will not be included in this resolution, as I’m much more likely to pick it by topic than by author.
Climb Mount TBR: I hereby declare my intention of joining C.B. James’ TBR Double Dare, which invites readers to focus on their to be read piles for the first three months of the year. However, as I’ll explain in the following point, I’m tweaking the rules a little bit. I’m also excluding the two highly anticipated 2012 releases I’ve pre-ordered (the new John Green and the new Margo Lanagan).
Read more diversely: I’d like to read more glbtq literature and more books by authors of colour in 2012. But this goal stands in direct opposition to the goal of focusing on my TBR pile – Jodie was saying recently that she notices a bias towards white authors in her book buying habits, and it’s much the same with me. I could go on and on about how it’s not a level playing field out there, but this is something I want to act on rather than talk about endlessly (I’ve done too much of that in the past). So, my strategy for the first three months of the year (partially inspired by Renay's soon to be revealed project) will be: for every 4 books knocked out of my TBR pile, I’ll earn a library book or an e-book download, and I’ll make these predominantly books that also count towards my diversity goals. Sounds simple enough, right?
Try to read five poetry books: I know, I know – that sounds suspiciously like a challenge. But hey, I’m adding “try”, so it’s pretty pressure free. I actually used to read a decent amount of poetry, but I’ve completely lost the habit in recent years. This is something I want to do for myself, so I can reconnect with something I know I’ll really enjoy if I only make the time for it. It’s also an excuse to read all those Anne Carson books I keep hearing wonderful things about. And Charlotte Mew.
Read and review more comics aka graphic novels: During my first few years of blogging I was a bit of a champion for the medium, but comics were largely absent from my blog in 2011. I didn’t intend for this to happen and plan to rectify it in the new year. I particularly want to read more comics by women, since they are still underrepresented in the industry.
Finally, I want to read a reasonable amount of classics: this is a goal my shiny new e-reader will surely make easier.

For the past three years or so, I’ve been making lists of classics I hope to get to in the new year. In 2010 I did pretty well and got through almost the entire list; this year I only read about five titles. I don’t mind this very much, since the goal was never really to read them all, but rather to have fun putting the list together and to remind myself that these are books I’d like to read. So, with this in mind, here’s my list for 2012. We’ll see how many I actually manage to get to.

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Quicksand by Nella Larson
Armadale by Wilkie Collins
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Indiana by George Sand
Tess of the d’Ubbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
The Doctor’s Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Maurice by E.M. Forster
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith
East Lynne by Ellen Wood

What about you? Any reading goals for 2012?

2011: The Year in Review

2011-12-28T12:35:00.008Z

2011 was not a great reading year for me. Last year, not only was I able to easily come up with a list of 26 favourites, but I even had an alternate list to spare. This year, not so much – I read fewer books overall, and fewer still that really impressed me. I have no doubt that much of this has to do with the fact that this was a difficult and exhausting year for me on a personal level. It takes both the book and the reader, after all, for that special click to happen.

Having said that, I’m still very grateful to have discovered the following books, all of which will undoubtedly stay with me for a very long time. Without further ado, here are my favourite reads of the year, in no particular order (as usual, this is a list of books I read this year, rather than a list of 2011 releases).

Fiction

The 10PM Question by Kate De Goldi — A subtle and layered story about a family dealing with mental illness, making the best of their circumstances, and realising there is more than one way to be happy.
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness — This take on grief, loss, and the importance of the narratives we build for ourselves is absolutely brilliant. I strongly suspect this will be next year’s Carnegie Medal winner.
Temeraire series by Naomi Novik — I read this whole series in a little over a month, so it has kind of become a single entity in my mind. No other books brought me as much joy as these this year. Who knew adding dragons to Regency England could result in something so rich in accurate historical detail?
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides — Young twenty-somethings trying to find their place in the world, plenty of literary theory, a heroine obsessed with Victorian novels, and heaps of intertextual references. The ingredients alone make this sound like something I’d love, and fortunately the execution did not disappoint in the least.
Kraken by China Miéville — It might sound overdramatic to say that Kraken restored by faith in reading when I thought I’d lost it, but that’s what it felt like at the time. This novel of giant squids, secret cults and fiery apocalypses is one of the strangest I’ve ever read, but also one of the most fun.
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf — Possibly my favourite of the Woolf novels I’ve read to date. I loved To The Lighthouse for many reasons, but was particularly impressed by its take on the obstacles to real intimacy put up by Victorian gender roles.
Ragnarök by A.S. Byatt — A tender, dark and memorable take on the Norse myths and the apocalypse by one of my favourite writers. The writing in particular is Byatt at its best – elegant and full of descriptive detail, but never excessive.
Among Others by Jo Walton — There are many reasons to love this subtle fantasy novel, but my main one was its realistic and very sensitive portrayal of a young girl’s intellectual development, and of the effect that constant engagement with ideas, fictional people and imaginary worlds has on her mind. This is certainly a book for book lovers.

Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson — I could have listed any of the Ibbotson novels I read this year, but this is perhaps my favourite. I’m sure it helps that it was my first, but also that it ties in with so many of my interests – the Edwardian era, the Amazon, women naturalists, exciting voyages. This is a fairy tale without magic, and an absolutely perfect comfort read.
Westwood by Stella Gibbons — While Nightingale Wood remains my favourite Gibbons novel, this is now a close second. A hilarious, gentle novel about a bookish and awkward heroine, with an ending that subverts the stories about women that remain dominant to this day.
Thank Heaven Fasting by E.M. Delafield— An unwavering look at the emotional and psychological consequences of the marriage market. While novels that focus on women’s enforced economic dependence often seem to invite a sigh of relief from contemporary readers, this one will very much not.
Chime by Franny Billingsley — An unreliable narrator, an atmosphere somewhat reminiscent of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and a close look at the clash between modernity and an older way of life; at gender and creativity; and at life in small communities. What’s not to love?
Caddy’s World by Hilary McKay— Oh Casson Family books, how do I love thee? I finished this series last year and didn’t know there was a prequel on the way, so finding Caddy’s World was like receiving a gift from the universe. Anyway: if you like smart and funny stories with brilliant characterisation and the ability to move you when you least expect it, please read these.
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson — A character-oriented mystery that I particularly loved for its examination of the idea of the “perfect victim”. My fellow bloggers keep telling me I’ll love Atkinson’s non-mysteries even more, so I can’t wait to read them.
Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman — An absolute gem of a book, and a strong contender for the title of Short Book Most Likely to Make You Run Out of Tears (watch out, A Monster Calls). Gleitzman’s theme – a young boy’s loss of faith in adult infallibility – is by no means new, but he gets it absolutely right.
There is No Dog by Meg Rosoff — Last but not least, we have another winner by Meg Rosoff. The concept of this novel (what if god was a teenage boy?) seems to draw the most attention, but it’s really the thoughtful, hilarious and generous execution that sets it apart.

Non-Fiction

Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine — My urge to stand on a street corner handing out copies of this book to random passer-bys remains every bit as strong as when I first professed it, almost a year ago. Delusions of Gender is both one of the best feminist books I’ve ever read and one of the best science books. Fine demolishes dangerous and prevailing myths about gender and biological determinism with elegance and wit.
The Brontë Myth by Lucasta Miller — A must-read for any Brontë fans, but also for anyone interested in the complexities and dangers of idealising others, in feminism and literary history, and in our changing perception of historical figures over time.
The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal — This memoir/family history/art history book was to me more than deserving of all the accolades it’s been getting. De Waal tells his family’s story with amazing sensitivity and insight.
Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson — Another fascinating piece of feminist social history from Virginia Nicholson, this time focusing on British women’s lives during WW2: What were they doing? What did it feel like? How did their experiences change them?
Letters from a Lost Generation edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge — The collected WW1 letters of Vera Brittain and four men who did not survive the war – her fiancé, her brother, and two close friends. A harrowing read, but impossible to put down.

Honourable mentions: Fly By Night, Anya’s Ghost, Ship Breaker, Anna and the French Kiss, A String in the Harp, The Essex County Trilogy, A Doll’s House, Henry Dunbar, Walk Two Moons, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland on a Ship of Her Own Making, The Monstrumologist.

Statistics
I must begin the stats section with the usual disclaimer. I was disappointed not to have reached 200 books for the first time in a few years – but I do of course realise that complaining about the number of books you’ve read, especially when it’s still a fairly high number by most people’s standards, has the potential to make you sound insufferably smug, like you’re fishing for compliments, or, worst of all, completely blind to your own privilege.

So let me get this out of the way: I feel blessed to have been able to read as much as I did, even if it wasn’t as much as in previous years, and I absolutely don’t see reading as a competitive sport. I publish these stats because I find other readers’ interesting, and therefore hope they may be of similar interest to others. But I absolutely don’t think how much you read say anything at all about you, other than perhaps how quickly you read or how much time you’re lucky enough to be able to devote to a favourite hobby.

Before I go on, I should also clarify that these percentages don’t add up to 100 because some of the categories overlap.

Total books read: 174 (23% down from last year.)
Novels: 107 (61.5%)
Short Story Collections and Anthologies: 4 (2.3%: mission Read More Short Fiction was a failure yet again this year.)
Comics aka Graphic Novels: 28 (16%)
Non-Fiction: 50 (29% — this number is a little inflated by all my dissertation-related reading.)
Poetry: 1 (0.6%. Eep.)
Plays: 2 (1.2% — better than last year’s zero, I suppose.)
In translation: 5 (A dismal 2.9%.)
Classics: 25 (14.4% — certainly down from last year’s 22%.)
By Women: 103 (59%)
By Men: 69 (39.8%)
By Men and Women: 2 (1.2%)
By People of Colour: 17 (9.7% )
glbtq: 16 (9.2%. Diversity roll call is about the same as last year, which is to say, still not great. More on this tomorrow.)
Re-reads: 1 (0.6%. I guess this year I have the excuse of having been separated from most of my books all year.)
By new to me authors: 98 (56% — though again the number is inflated by research-related non-fiction.)
Favourite authors discovered this year: Eva Ibbotson, Kate Atkinson.
Least favourite book of the year: The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison – apologies to any fans, but it really wasn’t for me.
Best reading month: January (26 books, or 15% of my yearly reading. I was ill for much of the month and took refuge in books.)
Worst reading month: September (8 books, or 4.6% of my reading. The month when I finished my dissertation – enough said.)

I’ll be back tomorrow with one last post about my reading plans for 2012, but I wanted to wish you all the best for the New Year anyway. May it be full of wonderful bookish discoveries for all of us.

Gifts!

2011-12-26T12:42:00.015Z

First of all, I hope those of you who celebrate it had a very wonderful Christmas. Mine was lovely – the fact that my nearest and dearest were incredibly generous to me this year was only one of the reasons why. My partner in particular wasn’t supposed to get me much in the way of gifts after our trip to Germany, but he blatantly cheated and spoiled me anyway – not that I’m complaining, of course. Here’s what I found under my tree:

Why yes, that is the I Capture the Castle tote bag – and as you can see below, it was full of treats:

As you probably can’t read the titles, the books I got were:

Farthing by Jo Walton – Finally! Hopefully I’ll be able to get the rest of the trilogy soon with one of my birthday gift cards.

Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out — A McSweeney’s short story anthology that includes Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby and Jonathan Safran Foer. I didn’t remember this existed, so it was a wonderful surprise.

Global Women edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild – A collection of essays on women and economic inequality that I had been coveting for ages.

The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson – More Eva Ibbotson for me! And according to Fiona, this is a particularly good one.

No Surrender by Constance Maud – This suffragette novel is one of the most recent Persephone publication, and it was a particularly special gift. It was given to me by Claire, one of my favourite of the many lovely people I’ve met through blogging, and one of the hosts of Persephone Secret Santa. Being jobless at the moment I couldn’t afford to join any Secret Santa swaps this year, but Claire sent me a Persephone anyway. Isn’t that lovely of her? And it’s of course a perfect choice, as this is a novel I’ve been dying to read.

Wildwood by Roger Deakin – I love getting non-fiction for Christmas, and this one seems especially interesting.

Zahra’s Paradise by Amir and Khalil, Wandering Son Vol 1 by Shimura Takako and The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone – all of these are comics I’ve been coveting all year.

Last but certainly not least, that thing you see at the top is indeed an e-reader (!). It was a completely unexpected gift, and one that will surely influence my reading in the future. Project Gutenberg and Girl Ebooks, here I come! If you have any other sites with free and/or inexpensive classics to recommend, I’m all ears.

I also really loved the dress and shawl you can see hanging from the chair behind the other gifts, the lovely cat bookmark and ornament, the Lush bath bombs - everything, really. What about you? Any particularly coveted books or other great gifts under your tree?

I’ll leave you with a few holidays pictures, including, of course, gratuitous cat ones:

I finally tried the German chocolate I had been saving for Christmas and can officially announce that cardamom chocolate is the best thing ever.

Mmm.

Brigadeiros.

You can't go to Germany at Christmas and not get a nutcracker.

The gifts waiting to be opened.

Ho Ho Ho

2011-12-23T10:18:00.003Z

Photo Credit

I hope those of you who celebrate it have a very wonderful Christmas/Yule/Samhain/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/Hogswatch/etc. May you have a lovely and relaxing time and find plenty of books or bookish goodies under your tree. If you don't celebrate a winter holiday, have a wonderful weekend anyway. I'll be back sometime next week for my last few posts of the year: a picture of my Christmas book loot as per usual, and of course, my top reads of the year.

Now, off to watch part two of the Hogfather TV adaptation (I'm quite impressed so far) and to bake spiced apple cookies. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis

2011-12-21T10:52:00.005Z

Connie Willis’ Miracle and Other Christmas Stories is a collection of eight seasonal short stories that cover a variety of genres – from a country house murder mystery in “Cat’s Paws” to a bittersweet family story featuring Christmas spirits in “Adaptation”; from a reworking of the nativity story in “Inn” to a sci-fi alien invasion in “Newsletter”. These eight stories are perhaps not quite as successful as Connie Willis’ longer works, but everything I love about her writing can still be found here: there’s humour, thoughtfulness, strong characterisation, moving moments, complicated but successful plots, and plenty of intertextuality.

Like the best Christmas stories, the ones in this collection are both familiar and new. Many of them, in fact, include twists on well-known plot arcs or reworkings of recognizable tropes. For example, in “Miracle” the characters often discuss the movies It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, and the aggravating environmental guerilla fighter of a Christmas spirit Lauren is sent for Christmas has a Kris Kringle-ish trick of his very own up his sleeve. In “Adaptation”, there are allusions to not only A Christmas Carol but also A Little Princess, and Christmas spirits share the spotlight with figs and frosted cakes. In “Cat’s Paw” (my favourite in the collection), the assistant to the greatest detective in the world tells us how his companion solved a murder mystery at a country house slash research institute on primate intelligence – or did he?

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories is also a celebration of everything there is no love about Christmas that doesn’t once stray into sentimentality. Many of these stories pay tribute to connection and empathy, but they do so without ever becoming saccharine. Like “Newsletter” tells us, if everyone suddenly started being nothing but thoughtful and nice at Christmas, we should probably worry. People don’t change suddenly and miraculously (the Scrooge-like character in “Adaptation” certainly doesn’t); Christmas doesn’t make problems go away. Things will carry on being difficult; people will be busier and crankier than ever. But as these stories acknowledge, there’s plenty to celebrate in spite of all this. (This is also why, Connie Willis tells us in the introduction, she much prefers Miracle on 34th Street to It’s a Wonderful Life).

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories includes an introduction and a final word, both about Christmas stories; and also a list of twelve Christmas stories and twelve Christmas movies Connie Willis recommends. I appreciated these lists almost as much as the stories themselves. Willis explains that she wants sharing these stories to be like giving a gift to her readers, just like Robert A. Heinlein leading her to Jerome K. Jerome, for example, was like a gift to her. Many of the books or films she listed were new to me, so it felt like a gift indeed.

So: eight stories that make you see some of the oldest Christmas tales around with new eyes; humour, compassion, and excellent writing; and a gift included at the end. What’s not to love? Miracle and Other Christmas Stories was a perfect seasonal read.

They read it too: Shelf Love, Aneca’s World, Lesa’s Book Critiques, sprite writes

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

2011-12-19T11:55:00.004Z

Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is a collection of sixteen short stories originally published in several different magazines and now reprinted together. Contrary to what I expected, only one of the stories is set at Cold Comfort Farm, and only three altogether are set at Christmas. I didn’t mind this very much in itself – they’re still Stella Gibbons short stories, after all – but perhaps adding “and other stories” to the title would have been useful to avoid disappointing readers.

The story that gives the collection its title was everything I expected – we revisit Cold Comfort Farm one Christmas a few years before Flora Poste’s arrival, and find Adam Lambsbreath, Elfine, Seth, Judith and Amos and Aunt Ada Doom at their hilarious best. There’s also “The Little Christmas Tree”, a seasonal story that opens Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm and which charmed me from the very first paragraph:

Because she was tired of living in London among clever people, Miss Rhoda Harting, a reserved yet moderately successful novelist in the thirty-third year of her age, retired during one November to a cottage in Buckinghamshire. Nor did she wish to marry.
‘I dislike fuss, noise, worry, and all the other accidents, which, so many friends tell me, attend the married state,’ she said. ‘I like being alone. I like my work. Why should I marry?’
‘You are unnatural, Rhoda,’ protested her friends.
‘Possibly, but at least I am cheerful,’ retorted Miss Harting. ‘Which,’ she added (but this was to herself), ‘is more than can be said of most of you.’

However, in what proved to be a trend in the collection, the story sets out to prove its protagonist wrong (or at least to change her mind). As charming as “The Little Christmas Tree” is, it’s also the kind of story I can’t help but imagine other possibilities for: how would E.M. Delafield have written it, for example? I can’t say enough times that there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with love stories, or that I don’t believe that romance weakens or compromises the integrity of female characters. But because I can’t think of a single story that does feature a thirty-something single woman enjoying Christmas on her own, being contended, and not secretly feeling lonely and empty and dead inside, I can’t help but wish “The Little Christmas Tree” had been that kind of story.

This brings me to why the general tone of Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm surprised me: compared to Stella Gibbons’ novels, these stories are much more conventional, less generous, and leave far less room for subversive readings. Some of them are also quite dark and cynical in tone – Gibbons is less kind to her characters here than I’ve seen her be before. Take “Sisters”, for example, which was probably my favourite story in the collection – it’s a wonderfully written story about an older single woman, Miss Garfield, who goes out of her way to help an unmarried young mother, Ivy Banks, by offering her kindness and compassion and giving her a chance when nobody else in the village where they live will. But the story eventually takes a heartbreaking turn when the social censure Miss Garfield was trying to spare Ivy turns against herself.

Then there are stories like “The Walled Garden”, “The Friend of Man”, “Cake” and “More Than Kind”, which are very socially conservative – they affirm traditional values against what Gibbons clearly considers bohemian folly. “More Than Kind” in particular conjures a very interesting situation: Lillian Wardell is at her wit’s end because Sophie, the first Mrs Wardell, is coming to stay to visit her children. Everyone among the Wardell’s friends considers the couple’s intimacy with Ian Wardell’s first wife the proper, kind, modern and open-minded thing to do; but Lillian can’t stand her and her visits make her extremely uncomfortable. It’s obvious from the beginning that the situation is all wrong – forcing someone to endure something that causes them so much misery for the sake of being modern is every bit as bad as doing so for the sake of being traditional. And yet I can’t help but cringe when I read something like this:

‘Yes, I do hate you,’ said Lillian. ‘But I don’t hate you because I’m jealous of you. I hate you because you used to be Ian’s wife. Even if you were the sort of woman I could like, I should still hate you, and detest you coming to stay here, because you used to be Ian’s wife.’ (…)
‘You and your friends try to pretend everything’s simple and easy on the surface when really they’re all violent and bitter. It isn’t natural for you to be here, that’s why I hate it so.’

I dearly wish “More Than Kind” had gone for some kind of middle ground rather than such a prescriptive solution. There are couples out there who get along perfectly well with ex-partners without anyone suffering discomfort or awkwardness, and this broad brush approach confines them all to the realm of “unnaturalness”.

If I’m focusing so much on the social points these stories make, it’s because making such points is very clearly just what they set out to do. However, I don’t consider this so much a literary flaw as the mark of a different mode of storytelling that has now gone somewhat out of fashion, as Alexander McCall Smith so well says in his introduction. And despite the fact that they come to conclusions or make generalisations I disagree with more often than not, I found much of interest in these stories: the writing is as wonderful as always, and there’s Stella Gibbons’ customary humour, compassion, and excellent dialogue and characterisation.

In short, these are stories that very often made me want to argue, but there’s something valuable and very stimulating in engaging with a writer whose mind is not a perfect fit with my own. Reading Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm reminded me of reading Dorothy Sayers’ essays: I agree with her passionately except when I disagree with her vehemently. Disagreeing with Stella Gibbons didn’t take away her place among my favourite writers; it was interesting to discover another side to an author I’ve grown to love, and to see that in the first half of the twentieth century, she was contributing to debates that remain current to this day. We may be on opposite sides of them, but I am nevertheless interested in her take.

They read it too: Cardigan Girl Verity, Desperate Reader, 20th Century Vox, I Prefer Reading

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

2011-12-16T11:18:00.008Z

Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot, who at the ripe old age of twenty-seven remains unmarried and lives with her snobbish and indebted father and sister, Sir Walter and Elizabeth Elliot. Eight years previously, Anne was to be married to one Captain Wentworth, but was persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off the engagement. Sir Walter’s debts force the family to move away from their home, Kellynch Hall, and to let it to Admiral Croft and his wife. Mrs Croft turns out to be Captain Wentworth’s sister, which means that he is about to return to Anne’s social circle. And Anne can’t deny that her feelings haven’t changed very much at all in the past eight years.

Persuasion is a subtle, subdued and character-oriented novel that takes readers by surprise. The plot is fairly simple, but the satire, the love story, and above all the characterisation are all extremely satisfying. Anne Elliot is perhaps an unlikely heroine, but that’s one of the reasons why I loved her. She’s sensible, considerate, patient and gentle, but also quite resolute in her own way. As Tasha so well put it, “the way Austen starts off the book, almost hiding Anne, and then bringing her slowly to the forefront of the story and revealing her relationship with Wentworth, was masterfully done.” Anne’s personality slowly comes into focus and earns both the reader’s and the other characters’ deep appreciation.

Anne’s choice eight years prior to the novel’s beginning was the result of persuasion or influence, and as the title indicates this is one of the novel’s major themes. I was very interested in the fact that despite Anne’s mistake, her having been persuaded does not come across as weakness—not at all. Austen is very much aware that anyone living in a complex social world will sometimes have to give in, meet others halfway, balance conflicting interests and needs, and if possible find a way to do all this while without smothering their own desires.

Anne Elliot is not a heroine who breaks off with society to follow her own path, and Persuasion is in a way a very conciliatory novel. Breaking off with society is of course sometimes a necessary choice, or even the only choice; but this is a course of action we romanticise, while simultaneously we tend to despise more appeasing heroines whose lives are revolutionary in far quieter and less obvious ways. Anne, who can be quite sharp, observes the following about the exaltation of immunity to influence:

Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to [Captain Wentworth] now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

There isn’t enough appreciation for women like Anne; women who meet others halfway, who get what they want without giving up their social world, and who are nevertheless never portrayed as weak. Anne doesn’t want to go against society not because she lacks courage, but because she does value the opinion of people who matter to her, because if possible she wants to preserve these connections and find her way without giving up things that also matter to her.

Another thing I loved about Persuasion was its focus on female subjectivity and desire. At the centre of this novel is a woman (an older woman by Regency standards) who is deeply in love. The passion may be subtle, but it’s very much there. Every time I read Austen I’m reminded of what Virginia Woolf famously said about her – she is “a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there.”

I also quite liked Anne’s conversation with Captain Harville towards the end of the novel, about men and women’s constancy in love. I was pleasantly surprised that Anne’s explanations for gender differences are all social – there’s no essentialism in what she says, only a keen awareness of the power of circumstances and how they mould people, as well as of women’s restricted roles and confined lives.

When it comes to social satire, Persuasion is full of tensions and pulls in opposite directions. On the one hand, Austen sharply denounces subservience to rank for its own sake – the scenes involving Sir Walter, Elizabeth, and Lady Dalrymple are absolutely hilarious. There is also an appreciation for Captain Wentworth’s success in making something of himself despite a modest birth. But on the other hand, as Alex pointed out Mrs Clay’s similar ambition is dealt with mercilessly. I’m sure a lot has been said about the interaction between gender and social mobility in Persuasion by people far more knowledgeable than I am. To put it briefly, I was interested in the fact that although the novel is steeped in limited class ideals, there are also little cracks that signal social change.

Today is the 236th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth; the date, along with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense and Sensibility, was one of the motivators for Advent with Austen. It’s still not too late to join us for the celebrations. You can do so by reading and reviewing something Austenesque or by joining the fourth and final Twitter movie night this Sunday.

On a side note, as I found out recently thanks to Susan the cover of the Penguin Deluxe edition of Persuasion is by Audrey Niffenagger, who also did Sense and Sensibility. Aren’t her covers amazing?

Memorable bits:

They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing! There had been a time, when of all the large party now filling the drawing-room at Uppercross, they would have found it most difficult to cease to speak to one another. With the exception, perhaps, of Admiral and Mrs Croft, who seemed particularly attached and happy, (Anne could allow no other exceptions even among the married couples), there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

Anne found Captain Benwick getting near her, as soon as they were all fairly in the street. Their conversation the preceding evening did not disincline him to seek her again; and they walked together some time, talking as before of Mr Scott and Lord Byron, and still as unable as before, and as unable as any other two readers, to think exactly alike of the merits of either, till something occasioned an almost general change amongst their party, and instead of Captain Benwick, she had Captain Harville by her side.

There, he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind. There he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost; and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in his way.

They read it too (many thanks to Alex for letting me borrow her formatted link list): The Sleepless Reader, Fyrefly’s Book Blog, The Blue Stocking Society, Dot Scribbles, The Literate Mother, Jayne’s Books, The Literary Stew, Open Mind, Insert Book, A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook, Just Books, Rebecca Reads, All Consuming Books, Fashion Piranha, Presenting Lenore, Alita Reads, Worthwhile Books, Lesley’s Book Nook, The Book Pirate, Fingers and Prose, Desperate Reader, You’ve GOTTA Read This, Adventures in Reading, MariReads, Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books, Stella Matutina, Lost in Books, Reading Reflections, My Random Acts of Reading, Stacy’s Books, The Literary Omnivore, Books. Lists. Life., Tony’s Reading List, A Striped Armchair, Lit Endeavors, Aneca’s World, Bookworm Nation, Shelf Love, Diary of an Eccentric, The Bookworm Chronicles

(Have I missed yours?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.

Germany Pictures

2011-12-15T11:51:00.003Z

As promised, here are a few pictures from my trip to Munich and the Bavarian Alps. Unfortunately I didn’t get much snow, but the atmosphere was still very Christmas-y and I had a great time. First of all, this is Füssen, the lovely town where I stayed for a few days:

There was a lot of fog the day I went to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, which made clear pictures pretty much impossible. It did make for amazing atmosphere, though.

A very foggy castle.

You are supposed to have a beautiful view of the castle from this bridge. Provided, of course, that there is no fog.
Castle in the air: what I got instead. Not that I'm complaining.

The scenery was often breathtaking. This is the Schwansee (Swan Lake) near Füssen.

Hohenschwangau Castle, which is a bit further down the mountain and therefore had no fog.
Bookshop sign in Füssen.

The best apple strudel I’ve ever had.
Christmas lights in Füssen.
One last shot of the scenery.

After two days in Füssen I went to Munich, where I got to see all the lovely Christmas markets.

Watching the sunrise on the train to Munich.
The Neues Rathaus (New City Hall) seen from the Peterskirche tower. Climbing all 306 steps almost killed me, but the view was worth it.
Munich with the Alps in the background.
The famous Glockenspiel. I was lucky enough to have been able to be there in time to see the clockwork figures move.
Entrance to the courtyard of the Neues Rathaus.

Detail of the Neues Rathaus.
Statue at the Viktualienmarkt, a large open air market where pretty much everything is sold.
Mmm.
These smelled amazing. Christmas in a bag, pretty much.

I could not resist one of these.
There were Christmas markets everywhere!
Decorated ceiling in a bookshop in central Munich.
Second floor of the Lentner bookshop in Munich, which, changes of premises aside, dates back to 1698.
Black Forest cuckoo clocks in a shop window.
Sadly I had to make my way to the airport just when it was starting to get dark, and so I missed the best of the Christmas lights. But the glimpses I got were very lovely indeed.

Bring back ALL THE GERMAN CHOCOLATE. (And some tea too.)
I’m afraid that after a few Internetless days, Google Reader will have to get the Mark All as Read treatment (you post a lot! And I mean that in the nicest way possible). But if there is anything you think I’d be particularly interested in, I’d be really thankful if you dropped me the link.

Off to the Alps

2011-12-10T08:37:00.005Z

Photo Credit

I’m off to the Bavarian Alps today for a short stop on my way home. The trip is an early Christmas gift from my partner and has me incredibly excited – if mountains, lakes, German Christmas markets and possibly snow don’t cheer me up and help get me into the Christmas spirit this year, I don’t know what will. Since visiting a place seldom fails to make me want to read books set there, I might as well ask in advance: do you have any recommendations for books set in Bavaria?

Have a great weekend, everyone! I’ll see you (and probably bombard you with pictures) sometime towards the end of next week.

A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond

2011-12-09T11:19:00.004Z

Fifteen-year-old Jen Morgan is on her way to Wales to join her family for the Christmas holidays. Her father accepted a teaching position at Aberystwyth University and moved to nearby Borth with her younger siblings, Peter and Becky, while Jen stayed behind in New England with her aunt so she could continue attending the same high school. The Morgans are in mourning: Jen’s mother was killed in a car accident just before Christmas, and the one year anniversary of the accident is quickly approaching. When Jen arrives in Wales, she realises that her father’s intention to help the family heal through a change of surroundings isn’t really working out as planned.

Jen’s brother in particular seems to be doing worse than ever – he’s determined to hate everything about Wales, and clings to the hope that Jen will convince their father to take them all home. But things begin to change one day, when Peter finds an old metal harp tuning key near the sea in Borth. The key provides an unexpected connection with Wales’ rich past – a connection that helps the Morgans make sense of the present.

When I started reading A String in the Harp, I was immediately reminded of writers like Margaret Mahy and Diana Wynne Jones. These are writers I love for their ability to seamlessly combine fantastic or mythical elements with rich characterisation and everyday concerns, and this is an ability that Nancy Bond very much shares. I loved the family dynamics in A String in the Harp; I loved how sensitively and perceptively Bond captured the mourning process. Over the course of the novel, we watch the Morgans slowly transition from being isolated in their grief to acknowledging that they are all suffering, and that perhaps things will be a little bit easier if they reach out and let one another in.

At the same time, I loved the novel’s atmosphere and expert use of history, setting, and legends. The plot of A String in the Harp is heavily based on Welsh mythology, particularly the legends surrounding the bard Taliesin and a sunken kingdom off the coast of Wales. Bond particularly highlights the connection between land and lore: the Welsh hills, the Bog and the sea are almost characters in their own right, and the stories Peter slowly discovers inject a place he initially thought of as empty and desolated with a richer life than he ever imagined it to have.

Petrified tree stump on the beach near Borth. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
He also finds himself grasping with history; with the true meaning of living somewhere where human beings have lived and died and hoped and dreamed for thousands of years. As the past and the present are brought closer together, the Morgans discover a new sense of belonging: to the land, to the pattern of humanity, and most of all to each other, as they’re slowly released from the isolation of their pain.

As I was saying before, the very human elements are what really makes this novel stand out. Jen, the eldest of the three siblings, goes through the processes of realising that adulthood is not about having all the answers. We watch her go from this,

Jen could still feel the horror that had overcome her at seeing her father cry during that carol service. It has frozen her, made her unable to think or to move. She had not soon forgiven him for it because she couldn’t bring herself to reach out and say or do something that would comfort him. He should have been comforting her.

…to this:

All her life, Jen reflected now, she had truly believed that with age came wisdom; that when she finally grew up all the complexities she wrestled with would straighten themselves out for her and she would be able to deal with life confidently, with perfect assurance. She had only to wait.
But it wasn’t so. Her father, who ought to know all the answers by this time, had just told her that he, too, was still groping. Oddly, Jen felt closer to him at this moment than she ever had before; he was as human as she and as much in need of reassurance and faith. Was he better at hiding him than she, or had she simply not noticed before?

Jen (and to a lesser extent, Becky and Peter) goes from feeling betrayed because her father is also vulnerable to realising that of course he would be – he’s just as human as the rest of them are. Acknowledging that parents and other adults won’t always have solutions is an inevitable part of growing up, of course, and Nancy Bond deals with this process in a sensitive, thoughtful way that reminded me of Morris Gleitzman’s brilliant Two Weeks With the Queen: there’s no cynicism or bitterness here, just a lot of tenderness and an understanding of what was gained in addition to what was lost.

A String in the Harp was first published in 1976, but it feels absolutely timeless – it’s that kind of book. It’s a novel full of atmosphere and subtle mythical elements that will appeal to fans of The Dark is Rising. Even the occasional jibes against those close-minded scientists with their silly reliance on facts (which I really could do without in my fantasy, thank you very much) didn’t bother me as much as they usually do – and that’s saying a lot. The gentle and insightful portrayal of a family in grief gives A String in the Harp universal appeal, and the lovely writing and rich, in-depth characterisation make it an absolute gem of a book.

Favourite bits:

Becky kept telling Peter it would get easier for him, but it didn’t because Peter wouldn’t let it. He had to hang on to his hardness and hate or he couldn’t survive. Without the hate, there were only the intolerable homesickness and desperate longing for his mother. These hurt far too much to bear alone.

After all, how long ago was hundreds of years? (…) Imagination couldn’t stretch that far, and yet vast pieces of time lay all around: in the sand underfoot, the shaping of the sea, the burnished hills, the Bog. They changed, but so gradually it was seldom noticed in a lifetime. They must all have been here fourteen hundred years ago. Suppose you could see other people’s footprints in the sand—not just the ones from this time that the tide hadn’t washed away, but the footprints every person had ever made on this beach… Peter thought his head would explode.

They read it too: Charlotte’s Library, Bonnie’s Books

(You?)

Affiliates disclosure: if you buy a book through one of my affiliates links I will get 5%.