"I know Dutchman's Creek runs deep, much deeper than it could or should, and I don't like to think what it's full of."
I have never been fishing, so I "I know Dutchman's Creek runs deep, much deeper than it could or should, and I don't like to think what it's full of."
I have never been fishing, so I can’t say that fishing stories are something I care for very much. But If I learnt anything reading a collection of John Langan short stories last October (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), it’s that this man knows how to write, and that I trust him to take the seemingly banal and transform it into something I won’t be able to look away from. I picked it up on a quiet Saturday morning: it had to be pried out of my hands at one point, but it essentially gobbled up my whole day, because I was hooked, line and sinker (fishing pun intended) by page 2.
Langan creates literary horror that is as delightful as it is chilling: it’s also not all-out horror, it is much more subtle than that. The strangeness creeps up on you slowly, mixed in with the ordinary so slowly and gently that while you are aware of it for some time, it still manages to surprise you. And then it's just... unleashed.
This is the story of Abe and Dan, and of their friendship, built as a sort of support system for their grief. Both men lost their wives to tragedies, and despite their age difference, found solace in the act of fishing together in the many rivers and streams that flow through the Hudson Valley. One day, on Dan's suggestion, they add Dutchman's Creek to their fishing itinerary, despite hearing a rather disturbing story about the spot from a diner owner. The rest of their story deserves to be read, rather than told by me.
Langan uses a framed narrative structure very cleverly, by having Abe record the story of Rainer Schmidt as told to them by the diner's cook. This adds a timeless quality to the sense of dread that builds slowly through Abe and Dan's story, the menace lurking from a distant past. While he is not the first horror writer to explore the strange and desperate places grief can take people to, he does it with incredible skill - and his cosmic horror is blood-curdling.
If you like your horror stories literary, heart-breaking, deeply human and yet utterly alien, this book is for you. Masterful....more
This is awkward because I am married and you are dead, but... I think I'm in love with you. I guess developing a posthumous crush is a t"Dear Anthony,
This is awkward because I am married and you are dead, but... I think I'm in love with you. I guess developing a posthumous crush is a tad creepy, but hey, no one ever called me normal. Besides, I know you wouldn't have given me the time of day: I eat too much vegetarian food for things to have ever worked out between us. But damn, man, you were truly one of a kind. I've been reading your books and watching old episodes of your shows on Netflix; it breaks my heart a little bit every time, because of the way you left us - but what a legacy you left behind! This book is clearly the ancestor of “The Layover” and “No Reservations”; I devoured every page and wished you'd written a much bigger book. Or a bunch of sequels.
This book gave me a glimpse of you that "Kitchen Confidential" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) simply didn't. This time, I got to know you, not just your job. You put your soul on those pages, which makes this book vastly superior to its predecessor. I found out here that you were actually a romantic (not something I would have guessed from the other book!), who watched a lot of amazing movies and then went off to find out what happened off-frame in "Apocalypse Now", "Dr. Zhivago", "Laurence of Arabia" and "The Quiet American". What a crazy, beautiful thing to do!
I must say, I am a bit jealous. You figured out a way to get paid to travel, eat your heart out and get drunk with the locals. Where do I get that job?! Even if the stuff you did for "A Cook's Tour" was grittier than "The Layover" and "No Reservations", it was still pretty damn epic. The way you describe how people live in mysterious places I have never had the chance to visit is so evocative and vivid: I learned some incredible things, and not just about their food! You truly had a way with words, and a gift for observing the world around you: you saw its beauty even in the seediest, most dangerous spots on the planet. You make me want to go there.
I mentioned the vegetarian thing being a potential obstacle to our ever-lasting love, but frankly, as much as I love my tofu, reading what you write about foie gras somehow makes me question all my lifestyle choices (though I am truly sorry you had to suffer that vegan potluck in San Francisco; these people clearly don’t respect the vegetables they eat, which is just sad). This book contains a few very frank passages about where the meat that's on people's plates comes from and I actually find that fascinating - if a bit repulsive. My thinking is that if you are going to eat the stuff, you do need to know where it comes from, and if that offends some readers, well... fuck 'em. They can read something else if they want: I personally loved your thoughts about the dietary habits of North Americans and why a lot of them are silly at best, and hypocritically privileged at worse.
I read your writing and it makes me want to pack a bag and just go to all the places I haven't been yet, to see how people live there, what they eat and if they'll be my friends. And don't worry about selling out to the Food Network: most of us are whores to a corporate overlord somewhere. You took their money and did exactly what you wanted with it, which is the best way of dealing with this. Your unflinching honesty and shamelessness has a disarming charm that makes me go completely gaga. Your appreciation for all the things (food, obviously, but people's hospitality, their traditions and their work) is so intense that it makes me feel like I've only lived half a life. Your fearlessness inspires me so much.
Goodbye, Anthony. I would have tramped all over the world with you."...more
I’ve been reading and reviewing a bunch of books about Buddhism lately, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t read my very first introduction to the teaI’ve been reading and reviewing a bunch of books about Buddhism lately, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t read my very first introduction to the teachings in a really, really long time. We visited the Cham Shan Temple (also known as the Ten Thousand Buddhas Sarira Stupa, in Niagara Falls, Ontario) over the holidays, and looking at the amazing statues and shrines and spending a little time inside the public temple reminded me how moved I was by my first introduction to the life of the Buddha, and made me want to revisit it.
“Old Path White Clouds” is a beautiful and detailed novelized biography of Siddhartha Gautama. It is based on very meticulous historical research: Thich Nhat Hanh distilled his sources into a flowing narrative that is both elegant and easy to read. He has said about writing this book that he “tried to take away the mystic halos people ascribe to the Buddha. Not being able to see the Buddha as a human being makes it difficult for us to approach the Buddha”. I think that might be why it appealed to me immediately the first time I read it: this was the story of flesh and blood being just like me, who wanted to find a way to help people and ease their suffering.
This book is not a compendium of teachings or a guide for practices and mediation; its aim is to familiarize the reader with the life of Siddhartha Gautama, give them a sense of who he was and how his experiences led him to enlightenment, and inspired him to teach. That being said, I find it an invaluable work for anyone interested in Buddhism because through this biographical format, it also gives the reader a very strong sense of what Buddhism is about, without being didactic or formal. The teachings are interweaved in the story as the narrative unfolds, so it is a very good way to learn about the Middle Way, the Four Noble Truths, the Three Treasures, the Five Precepts, the Eight-fold Path and so on, as they arise within the story of the Buddha's life.
This book is beautiful and inspiring in so many ways. I obviously recommend to everyone, especially to those interested in learning about Buddhism. This is a magnificent story that deserves to be read again and again....more
"Instructions for the Zen Cook" is probably Dogen's most famous writing: it's a rather short text that was meant to be exactly what the title implies,"Instructions for the Zen Cook" is probably Dogen's most famous writing: it's a rather short text that was meant to be exactly what the title implies, a set of instructions for the cook of a Zen temple. That position was actually very important in a temple's administration, and Dogen believed it entailed a lot of responsibilities that went beyond preparation of food. This book is a translation of the original text, followed by commentaries on the essay by Rosho Uchiyama Roshi, a Japanese Zen monk.
This is one of Dogen's most accessible texts, because unlike the Shobogenzo, it's not really ambiguous or contradictory, but really straightforward. It's also applicable to pretty much every situation in life. It can seem bizarre to think that a 800 years old book intended for a monastery cook can have so much relevance in modern life, but it actually does, and it’s not that much of a mental stretch to see it. The essence of this text is the importance of awareness and giving one’s full attention to what needs to be done, regardless of circumstances; those concepts are very relevant to modern life.
Cooking happens to be something I love to do, and I remember looking at my pots, pans, knives and other implements with a very different eye after reading "Instructions for the Zen Cook" for the first time. Once you understand that the focus, care and respect you give your tools and ingredients can be expanded to every other daily activity your partake in, it can really change the way you approach even the most mundane activity. It makes me smile to think that a spatula can be a good instrument with which to teach the Dharma.
I just love this book. Even the translator’s introduction was insightful and helpful! And the commentary expands on ideas brought up in the essay, such as Parental Mind, the concept of the Self, discrimination of worldly values and the goal of practice - giving the reader a deeper understanding of the many ways in which Dogen's essay can be a source of great teachings. This is truly a classic, and an essential text for Zen Buddhists....more
This beautiful book is a perfect resource for people who wants to flesh out their daily meditation practice but who do not live within a Buddhist commThis beautiful book is a perfect resource for people who wants to flesh out their daily meditation practice but who do not live within a Buddhist community. Thich Nhat Hanh collected the recitations, chants, gathas (short, simple devotional “poems” recited before performing various activities) and mantras recited by the people of Plum Village, his community in Southern France, and arranged them so that people who wish to incorporate those elements in their mindfulness practice can do so easily. The book also includes instructions for different kinds of meditation, a few formal ceremonies and some of the fundamental teachings and discourses of the Buddha.
There isn’t much to say about this book, except that it’s as practical as it is inspiring, and very well structured. When I first got it, I recopied a few of the gathas on little pieces of paper and placed them where they would be most useful (the one for washing dishes above the sink, the one for drinking tea by the kettle, etc.), and kept the book by my meditation cushion, to read longer passages such as the Heart and Diamond Sutra, after meditating. Of every book on my Dharma shelf, this one probably gets the most daily use.
This book is a wonderful addition to the library of anyone interested in making mindfulness practice a part of their daily lives! Very highly recommended....more
Last book of the year!! Thank you so much, Becky Chambers, for providing me with the sci-fi comfort my heart and brain needed.
I don't Re-read in 2023:
Last book of the year!! Thank you so much, Becky Chambers, for providing me with the sci-fi comfort my heart and brain needed.
I don't think I had noticed this the first time I read this book, but this time around, I was struck with the emphasis Chambers put on some professions that aren't often discussed - in real life and in the realm of science-fiction: morticians and archivists (Véro, this is definitely the "Wayfarer" book for you!). But more precisely, I was struck with the relationship between Eyas, our (for lack of a better word) space-mortician, whose job is it to handle dead bodies, funeral ceremonies and subsequent "recycling" of the remains into compost, and Sunny, the host (i.e. sex worker) she befriends. Chambers talks about both of their professions with incredible respect and dignity, and I loved it. The two lines of work are often met with tons of prejudices and are deeply misunderstood, and it's lovely to see her bring her heart-warming humane touch to those jobs. I would have loved to see more of their relationship.
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I just love Becky Chambers. There's no way around it: she writes the kind of sci-fi I've always wanted to read. She writes the kind of sci-fi I wish I had written! "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) was probably my favorite book of 2017, and I have been eagerly anticipating new "Wayfarer" installments since.
"Record of a Spaceborn Few" starts out shortly after the end of "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet"; but the setting couldn't be more different. After the Earth was rendered uninhabitable, humans built the Exodus Fleet and left their home planet in search of a new place to live. While they were eventually accepted as part of the Galactic Commons and settled small colonies on a few planets, a community of humans remains on the fleet. Known as Exodans, they cherish their traditions and are fiercely loyal to their way of life. But over time, so many have left the Fleet, to settle on other worlds, live different lives. Are the Exodans fated to eventually vanish? How can they insure no one forgets where they came from and how hard they worked to get there? The Exodans are confronted head-on with these questions when a tragic incident kills a significant number of their community.
Just as in Chambers' first book, the story is told by multiple points of view, painting a rich and multilayered picture of what life is like in this universe. She writes with profound compassion and optimist humor; qualities I hunger for insatiably. Her inclusive approach to character development never feels forced: in her head, people have simply gotten to the point where they understand that being open and accepting is the only way to make sure we all survive whatever we have to face.
In Chambers' vivid and flawless world-building, humans were essentially refugees, tolerated by the Galactic Commons and only recently been made an integral part of its community: in many ways, they are still figuring it out, and dealing with a heavy heritage. Some of the characters in this story were born on the Fleet, and for a myriad reasons, want to protect and help it endure... or they begin to wonder if it really is the place for them. A newcomer and an alien academic have a very different interest in this living relic of Human culture: can it be a home? What can their culture learn form it? Their voices are distinct, their personalities and backstory very fleshed out; you get invested in each story line.
"Record of a Spaceborn Few" is engaging, moving and thought-provoking: it's Chambers' most human-centric work yet, and it is a remarkable exploration of what an uprooted humanity - who still hold on to what makes them unique in this big, diverse and complicated universe they travel through - could be like. She has given us consistently amazing space operas for the last few years and I hope she never stops! I can't recommend her books enough. If you are a fan of the series, you cannot miss this wonderful novel....more
“The deepest cavern in the world is the human heart.”
Don Miller is missing some memories. Now that he iUpdated review after a re-read in March 2020.
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“The deepest cavern in the world is the human heart.”
Don Miller is missing some memories. Now that he is about to celebrate his sixtieth wedding anniversary, people shrug it off as an early onset of senility, but these blanks started a long time ago, before old age could be considered a factor of memory loss. It doesn’t bother his beloved wife Michelle, but then, she is pretty unflappable: a world-famous anthropologist, she still travels the world to attend conferences and conduct field research on mysterious lost civilizations, with no indication that she plans on slowing down or stopping. But eventually, the fog in Don’s mind lifts enough for him to realize that certain things, such as secret occult societies, conspiracies that span millennia and the strange powers of old bloodlines might just be best left forgotten.
That’s all you need to know about the plot. I was lured in with what I first thought was a simple retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin folk tale, but after just a couple of pages, the tone changed and I was hooked. The narrative structure puts us right in Don’s shoes: slightly confused, aware of something dark just at the periphery of our perception. “The Croning” is weird, ominous, and bizarrely sensual in just the right way: you couldn’t have pried the book out of my hands, and the images it evoked are still seared into my brain. The different strands of the story are brought together perfectly at the end, and that final view of the whole tapestry made me appreciate how brilliant Barron is, and how carefully he assembled this novel. What a beautiful spiral of monstrous insanity!
This was my first Laird Barron book, and I think I am absolutely in love. His gorgeous, chilling and atmospheric prose, the way he lays out his creepy story, the intriguing characters he summons… Wow! His style obviously appeals to the Lovecraft fan in me, but honestly, this is just amazing writing that goes beyond genre. It’s dark, beautiful, blood-soaked and irresistible. He’s also not quite as nihilistic as my buddy H.P., which makes his universe even creepier. Cthulhu and the Elder Gods don’t care about humanity and never have, but the Children of Old Leech love us…
How did he cram so much awesomeness into such a short book?! But then again, I might have exploded if the book had been any longer. This is still the best horror novel I’ve ever read. It is quite simply a masterpiece. Apologies to Lovecraft, Ligotti and all the other little wannabes out there: you guys are great, but Laird is definitely the King with a capital K because he made me afraid of the space between the stars. This book is literary, rich, intoxicating, surprising and haunting and everyone should read it and have nightmares about it....more
DO NOT read this review if you are planning on reading "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" and haven't gotten around to it: there's kind of a majoDO NOT read this review if you are planning on reading "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" and haven't gotten around to it: there's kind of a major spoiler in the opening on "A Closed and Common Orbit".
Chambers' second book opens very soon after the rather thrilling conclusion of "Angry Planet". Following the catastrophic damage inflicted in her system, Lovey, the Wayfarer's AI, was rebooted, erasing her memory of the personality she had developed over her time on the ship. She abruptly decides to do what her socialized version had wanted: download her "consciousness" inside a "kit", a near perfect replica of a human body that allows her not only to leave the Wayfarer but also to pass as a biological being. Unfortunately, such kits are highly illegal in the Galactic Commons, and anyone involved with them can be sentenced to long prison terms.
Lovey's adaptation from being an omnipresent AI with eyes and ears all over the ship and a permanent connection to a huge information network... to a self-contained being who's sensory input is limited by her human-shaped kit's perception capacity is quite a roller-coaster. Luckily for her, Pepper the spunky engineer is there to help her adapt and learn to pass as human. Pepper is the perfect teacher and friend for Lovey (or Sidra, as she chooses to call herself), because she knows first hand what its like to be ripped away from the only world you have ever known and forced to quickly adapt to an alien (no pun intended) environment. Before she was Pepper, she was Jane 23, one of hundreds of slaves scrap salvagers; she had never seen the sky, or any being that hadn't been genetically engineered like herself, for that matter. Until the day she escaped.
What Chambers started with "Angry Planet" continues seamlessly in "Common Orbit": a clever, complex, fully realized world-building filled with wonderful, multi-dimensional characters. It also follows the template of a space-opera: a characters-driven story that happens to take place of Port Coriol, a space-travel and commercial hub. Two characters instead of an ensemble this time, and while I missed Kizzy and Doctor Chef, the new players brought to this universe's stage are just as memorable.
The way Sidra perceives the world around her and learns to navigate it is so cleverly described, as are the strange new feelings she must learn to deal with. Her being overwhelmed by people, sounds - basically sensory overload - is an unexpected but when you think about it, normal side-effect of her condition: having a finite body.
Pepper is a character that we only meet quickly in "Angry Planet", but her background is fleshed out in flashbacks that alternate with the current timeline of Sidra's assimilation into society. Chambers has created a strong and yet incredibly vulnerable character with Pepper, and young girl who was raised by machines and who somehow came out of this strange education being more human than most.
Parenting, racism, sexuality, colonialism: Chambers uses sci-fi the old-fashioned way, to talk about real-world issues in a different context, and while she tackles firmly contemporary topics (gender identity is the first that comes to mind), I loved seeing Le Guin, Silverberg and Heinlein's influence come to the surface.
Call me a sap, but something about Chambers' stories moves me: the woman writes with such compassion, humanity and kindness, as well as humor. I read "Common Orbit" while vacationing at my in-law's cottage by Lake Ontario, looking at the waves and eating Ginger-Os and you know what? This book is like Ginger-Os: unexpected, delicious, comforting, familiar and yet completely refreshing. Dear Becky: please write many more of these! I love your books to bits!...more
Ah, to be young and bookish and to hate your status as a child… To want to be part of the grown-ups' world, to want to understand their strange actionAh, to be young and bookish and to hate your status as a child… To want to be part of the grown-ups' world, to want to understand their strange actions and their esoteric social codes, which seem so mysterious and sophisticated… As we get older we often realize that none of this is quite as glamorous as we had imagined, and the rear-view mirror of memory can give new meanings to events we thought we understood so well in our youth…
Briony is the youngest child of rather comfortable British family, between the two World Wars. One hot summer afternoon, when cousins and a friend of her older brother Leon's are visiting, a strange series of events will change Briony's life. She will witness a mysterious scene between her older sister Cecilia and their housekeeper's son, Robbie; her thirteen years old eyes will interpret their interaction and the following events very differently from what actually happened and by the end of that day, nothing will ever be the same… From there on, we follow Robbie and Cecilia's story, as they deal with the consequences of Briony's not-so-innocent mistake, and with the young girl's long and excruciating journey for forgiveness.
I am late on the band-wagon, as usual, and this is my first McEwan novel. And now I am kicking myself for not having checked this book out sooner. His prose is lush with gorgeous images and sensations - I found myself reading slower than usual to make the pleasure last a little bit longer. The characterization is amazing, as we get under every character's skin, explore their thoughts, what haunts and motivates them - and it is captivating! McEwan's mastery of language blew me away, as did his use of symbolism and clever narrative structure. A story about a mistake in judgement could never be told from a single point of view, it has to be explored from many angles, and he handled that with incredible skill.
What Briony does is a thoughtless act motivated by a whirlwind of immature feelings: jealousy, a need for attention, wanting to be taken seriously and feel "worldly", the budding fascination (and paradoxical repulsion) with sexuality that every young girl experiences... I've read many reviews that mention how much they hated her and how petty and selfish she was; have these readers ever met thirteen year old girls?! They are generally insufferable precisely because they are at that horribly awkward stage of growing up. Being a little girl doesn't work anymore, but no one treats them like adults either, so they are unpredictable and they act out. I am by no means excusing Briony's spiteful reaction; as the title of the book implies, she will spend the rest of her life paying for her mistake it in guilt and regret. What I am saying is how realistic I think she is; I didn't like her one bit, but I believed in her completely.
I am not a big love story fan, because I think most people can't write them up in any kind of honest and realistic way. Most people write about love-at-first sight or obsessive lust and neither of these things are love the way real people experience it, so I avoid books labeled as romances like the plague. I can count on the fingers of one hand the love stories I actually felt invested in, and Robbie and Cecilia's story is one of them. This is impressive given the fact that they are each other's first and only love, something I am usually very skeptical of. I was very moved by their devotion and how they give each other a reason to carry on in some of history's darkest days. I read the second half of this book with a lump in my throat, wondering what was wrong with me. In the end, I realized that nothing is wrong with me: McEwan is just fucking brilliant.
Cecilia is spoiled, but she turns out to have more character and inner strength than the rest of her family put together. Her faith in Robbie and her unwavering loyalty to him made her one of the greatest romantic heroines I've encountered in literature. As for Robbie, I couldn't help but admire his pride, his resilience and his fair-mindedness. For someone with such a bright and promising future to be disgraced and ruined the way he is would be tragic in and of itself, but the dignity with which he keeps moving and never gives up on his ultimate goal (to "live without shame": what a line!) made me root for him with my whole heart.
The ending made a lot of people angry, apparently, but I loved it. It made the heartbreaking parts of the story even more crushing and while we see that Briony can never really make peace with herself, she gave peace back to those she hurt the only way she could figure out how. I found that incredibly moving. Writing is a form of therapy to many writers: it's a way to talk about the things that linger on your mind without really talking about them exorcise demons, right wrongs and create a better world. This novel made me want to start writing again.
This was a wonderful and rewarding read, a rich mix of Austen, Forster, Waugh and Woolf, and I loved every word of it so much more than I could have anticipated. I saw the movie, and while I often can't stand the sight of Keira Knightley, I do think that she was a perfect Cecilia, and that the movie was a flawless adaptation that perfectly captured the tone of McEwan's writing. 5 very bright stars and a spot of my "favorites" shelf....more
“When Free Speech Turns Into an Orwellian Nightmare” or “PC Culture in Academia”…
I’ve had some first and second-hand experience of that phenomenon. We“When Free Speech Turns Into an Orwellian Nightmare” or “PC Culture in Academia”…
I’ve had some first and second-hand experience of that phenomenon. Well-meaning but utterly mis-guided people who find everything offensive, try to hush up people who disagree with them without seeing the enormous irony of using censorship tactics to keep those who think differently quiet. I have seen moral crusaders drag the names of people whose only fault was having a dark sense of humour through the mud, and use concepts like “safe space” and “trigger warning” to get people they didn’t like fired. Petty dictatorships established over the most trivial things blown out of proportion…
“The Human Stain” could be a real story, and it is my understanding that a very similar case actually happened right around the time that Roth published this novel. And because it hit so close to something I have seen happen in front of my own, disbelieving, flabbergasted eyes, it made me cringe a lot.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved this book. But it was a painful reminder of the weird, broken system of academia that I once held in such high regards. It is also interesting to think that this novel doesn’t take place that long ago: 1998 is still less than 20 years ago, and evangelistic political correctness has only gotten more hardline since.
Moving on to the actual book.
Coleman Silk, the highly respected dean of faculty at Athena College resigns in disgrace after allegations of racism are brought up against him by two black students who felt offended by a remark he made when they were not attending his class. By way of coping with this humiliating experience and with the death of his wife, he launches himself into an affair with an almost illiterate woman half his age. He befriends a writer living in his neck of the woods, and this new buddy will soon find out a secret that Silk has been hiding almost his entire life, and that make the accusations held against him even more absurd and devastating than it seemed at first.
Spoilers from this point on.
Can I just say that I am very late on the bandwagon: this is my first Philip Roth novel, and I am completely blown away by his sophisticated characterization. There are people I have known for ages, but I don’t know them half as well as I now know Coleman Silk. And it’s not just the main character that is portrayed with such details and humanity: the deeply damaged Les Farley and the incredibly self-important Delphine Roux are also rendered vividly. The prose is powerful and gripping: yes, he uses big words, but that’s not a problem for me at all. I love big words! The carefully assembled clockwork of the non-linear narrative structure unveils these people and what you think you know about them dissolves as you explore their roots, their motivations. These characters feel so very real and they will linger in my thoughts for a long time.
This book forces the reader to think not simply about race, but about identity, how our actions shape that identity, and whether or not how other people perceives us ends up defining us. We find out relatively early that Coleman Silk is a black man, who has been passing as white almost his entire life. Only a handful of people have known; most of the world doesn’t see the secret hidden in plain sight, and he has built a fictitious Jewish background for himself that people accept without any questions. The already absurd accusations of racism held against him would be even more absurd if people knew the truth about him, but how can he come out now, after a career, marriage, family – an entire life where it was always taken for granted by everyone that he was white?
Coleman’s nemesis, Delphine, is a much more complex and fascinating creation than I had expected, and as much as I can’t stand her, I loved reading about her. Roth painted such a painfully realistic portrait of a specific group: the highly-sheltered intellectual elite, who have never existed outside of an academic setting and who are not equipped to handle the “outside” world.
And of course, there are the Farleys: Lester, whose PTSD from his two turns in Viet-Nam is so out of control that he can’t tell reality from delusion anymore, and Faunia – the woman life decided to beat up on… Abuse, bad luck and then more abuse is what that woman had to endure, it has made her hard, calcified. She has seen and lived stuff that nobody should ever have to see and live. Coleman is probably originally attracted to her because of her damage, but the ultimate revelation that Faunia isn’t fooled was very touching. Deep down inside, don’t we want the world to see us for what we truly are? And she sees him.
I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, and probably re-reading it. A very impressive book that I recommend to everyone....more
My mom hates children’s TV shows, so while I was growing up, I mostly watched HER shows: “Star Trek: Next Generation” and Granada Television’s productMy mom hates children’s TV shows, so while I was growing up, I mostly watched HER shows: “Star Trek: Next Generation” and Granada Television’s production of “Sherlock Holmes”. I think it might be where my weakness for Victoriana and highly intelligent and sarcastic men comes from, because I was head over heels for Jeremy Brett. I apparently asked for a deerstalking hat and violin lessons for Christmas, due to overexposure to the show… But being an industrious bookworm, I quickly got my hands on a copy of the massive “Complete Sherlock Holmes” and kept it as my bedside table book for years: that copy recently fell to pieces form overuse and I had to replace it with a sturdy leather-bound edition.
Besides the obvious emotional attachment I have for these stories, as they have accompanied me as a comfort read since I was about 10 years old, I am always impressed by how timeless the writing is. Unlike his very comical “Lost World”, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave the world a collection of stories that always feel fresh with the Holmesian canon: the prose style is clean and never feels dated, the universality of motives behind the crimes investigated by Holmes still ring true, and the characterization of the famous detective and his faithful companion Dr. Watson has risen to an almost mythical level: readers believed in them at the time of the original publication, and modern readers are dying to believe in them now.
The four novels are slightly longer commitments than the short stories, but they are so well constructed, and often genuinely funny and/or scary, so the hugeness of the book shouldn’t discourage you. I have my favorites, obviously, that I can re-read over and over without ever getting bored: • A Study in Scarlett • The Hounds of the Baskervilles • The Sign of Four • Scandal in Bohemia • The Blue Carbuncle • The Copper Beeches • The Musgrave Ritual • The Crooked Man • The Final Problem • The Solitary Cyclist • The Dancing Men • The Six Napoleons • The Devil’s Foot
Sherlock Holmes’s investigation taught me that a sharp mind is one of the greatest asset a person can have. He also made the word “exceedingly” part of my day-to-day vocabulary. For any reader who enjoys cleverness and adventure!...more
This is one of my all-time favorite texts. I have had a copy for as long as I can remember and I re-read it at least once a year and I let the incrediThis is one of my all-time favorite texts. I have had a copy for as long as I can remember and I re-read it at least once a year and I let the incredible writing and the beautiful story wash over me. It never fails to make me feel hopeful and happy.
A very short novella, “L’Homme qui Plantait des Arbres” tells the deceptively simple story of a nameless man who was once wandering through the hills of southern France and met an extraordinary character: Elzéar Bouffier. This old shepherd lived all alone in a small house, tended his flock and planted acorns. This seems like such a waste of time and effort at first, but over the years, the once arid hills slowly become covered in luscious plant life, small abandoned villages are repopulated and the entire country side comes back to life.
The obvious moral of this little tale – even small actions can lead to big changes - is overshadowed by the absolute beauty of the language Giono uses to describe his home country. Along with Pagnol and Daudet, he is one of those writers who have made Provence into this mythical land of sun, cicadas, olive trees, old stone farms and dreams. These men had a gift for making this small part of the world feel more beautiful than anywhere else you can imagine. When I visited Marseille and walked a bit in the country side, their words resonated in my head, their extreme sensitivity to nature perfectly understandable when you stand in the breathtaking landscapes that inspired them.
The story of a lonely old man, who with great care, selflessly reforests an entire desolate region simply because he can is also very inspiring. It reminds me of Buddhist stories about solitary monks and hermits who changed the world with the strength of their loving kindness. Giono’s fable rejuvenates something in me at every read. Not faith, but belief that the toxic modern world is not all there is, that simplicity and beauty still exist and that good people walk around on our planet, often unseen, but changing the universe at an almost molecular level. Deserts can be covered with flowers with enough care and time.
I recommend this deeply moving little book to everyone. It is barely 50 pages, and can be read in a single sitting. I suggest a sun-bathed terrace as your setting and a glass of wine to accompany your reading. This is a tiny book to be savored like a precious vintage....more
I had totally forgotten that I read this book again last year, but I really needed the comfort that only Ms Chambers' writing can provide2023 re-read:
I had totally forgotten that I read this book again last year, but I really needed the comfort that only Ms Chambers' writing can provide. Still lovely, still whimsically ingenious and heart-warming.
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2022 re-read:
This book is still one of my favourites: a moving and comforting space-opera, written with an anthropologist's eye and filled with beautiful compassion and openness. I thought a lot about Ursula Le Guin during this re-read, and Chambers' similar ability to conjure up complex and solidly established alien civilizations.
I wrote in my original review that there is no plot, which I am not so sure about anymore: there are a few bursts of intense actions, but the really journey of this book is certainly inside the characters. The long journey to Toremi space ends up transformative for many of them, and the ending left me with a lump in my throat.
Still highly, highly recommended.
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Original review, 2017:
If you didn't know I was a geek before reading this review, I have news for you: I'm pretty geeky. I grew-up on space-operas: my mom is huge Trekkie and I spend a significant part of my childhood hanging out in the family room with her while she got her Starfleet fix. When I started reading a lot of sci-fi on my own, I realized how utopian and optimistic Rodenberry's vision of the future was: the alien races in his universe aren't always best buddies, but they get together and they make it work in the name of exploration, science and peace-keeping (and if you are James T. Kirk, in the interest of seeing if there's a sexual compatibility between species - honestly, he's such a kinky freak!). Maybe that's why I'll happily re-watch "Star Trek" from time to time: there's something uplifting and comforting about it in a world where we can't get along with each other on our own planet, let alone with other inhabitants of the Alpha Quadrant.
"A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" has that sci-fi-chicken-soup feel that I associate with "Star Trek", "Farscape" and of course "Firefly". In fact, part of me is completely jealous I didn't write this, because this is just the sort of sci-fi I wish I came across more often in book form.
The Wayfarer is a spaceship that builds black-holes which will be used as tunnels to facilitate long-distance space travel. They have been hired to create such a tunnel so that the inhabitants of one small, angry planet may travel more easily and join the Galactic Commons, a sort of space-UN. But that's just the background story: the real focus here is world-building and character development. There's been a mass exodus from Earth, and most humans aren't born there anymore. They have joined the Commons, created a colony on Mars, traveled around. Of course, a few stayed on the home-world and have gotten a wee bit evangelistic about it, but generally speaking, they have adapted well to life off-Earth. Rosemary joins the crew of the Wayfarer as a clerk: we discover the world of "Long Way" through her eyes, but she is not really the protagonist: this is about the whole crew, their relationships with each other and the universe they live in. The chapters are connected but almost self-contained stories that follow each other as the Wayfarer's crew makes their way to the galaxy's core to fulfill their mission.
I have to say how happy I am that this book is not human-centric! It's full of weird aliens that don't behave like humans, they just go about doing their thing and being… well, aliens! Chambers conjured wonderful ideas about alien physiology, behaviors, cultures, social structures, religions and languages. And the best part is how totally chill everyone in the book is about the various races, genders, sexual preferences and what-have-yous. I love that this vision of the future is open-minded, compassionate and friendly. Chambers pulled off something very ambitious: her world-building is complex, solid and beautifully realized. Obviously, I can't check her science, because I am a dummy, but her terminology and descriptions are straight-forward and realistic whether she talks about what people eat on a space ship or how the Wayfarer's AI thinks and feels. To add to it, she writes with great humour and tenderness: not qualities one is used to see much of in sci-fi!
I have noticed that spunky, mouthy female engineers typically turn out to be my favorite characters in these types of stories: Kizzy is the Wayfarer's slightly unhinged, happy-go-lucky mech tech and she had my heart within seconds - she's basically Kaylee and Jillian Holtzman rolled into one awesome character. The whole crew is a finely drawn cast of characters, that each get their little dedicated story. I've seen a few reviews where people thought they were unrealistically friendly and supportive: I didn't think so, or maybe it simply didn't bother me. It was so refreshing to read non-stereotypical and well-realized characters, I just enjoyed it.
I would like to meet Miss Chambers and give her a big squishy hug to thank her for this lovely book. Even if I wish I had written it… If you like "Firefly", "Star Trek" and "Guardians of the Galaxy", you need to read this book and squeak enthusiastically the whole way. Now excuse me, I have to go get a copy of the sequel!...more
How to sell a book to Gabrielle in 2 easy steps: -Step 1: put a blurb on the book that references Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. LeGuin and China Mieville -StepHow to sell a book to Gabrielle in 2 easy steps: -Step 1: put a blurb on the book that references Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. LeGuin and China Mieville -Step 2: your work is done, go have a beer
Now of course, the downside of telling me that this book is like a baby conceived by my Holy Trinity of speculative fiction writers means the bar of my expectations is set very, very high. I picked up "The City of Stairs" with a mix of trepidation and anxiety. Political intrigue, discussions about culture, faith and how all those things can become a huge mess have always been favorite subjects of mine: but it requires quite a bit of skill to turn all that into a good story. Well Robert Jackson Bennett has the skill!
The city of Bulikov was once the centre of a world ruled by Divinities, where magic thrived and the Gods were an important part of their people’s daily lives. But after they were invaded and effectively put under the control of Saypur, a neighbouring nation that they had historically always dominated, their Divinities were destroyed, their religion was eradicated, knowledge of their former way of life and worship banned, and their miraculous objects were taken away. Shara is a Saypuri spy who comes to Bulikov to investigate the murder of a famous scholar who had been mandated to study the Continent’s history, but she does not have much time: she has a week before she is reassigned, despite her suspicions that civil unrest could soon bloom into an attempt to overthrow Saypur’s control over the city.
The world building is so clever and original, mixing references to Slavic and Middle Eastern/East Asian cultures (in a way that is, indeed, reminiscent of “The City & The City” – so there’s your Mieville reference) and giving the reader the feeling that they are running around what I liked to picture as 1930’s Prague or Istanbul. It blends an interesting and very original magical system to a strong political intrigue, where power plays, colonialist history, suppression of knowledge and culture all play a part. It is one thing to look for a murderer in a period of civil discontent, but it’s quite another to lead a covert investigation when the city you are in has a few “hotspots” that are still under the banished Gods’ control… The plot unfolds with perfect, slow-burn timing: it takes off a bit slowly, but when it gets into gear, it becomes extremely difficult to put down… Like with a LeGuin book, once your brain has adjusted to the world, its weird words and geographies, it becomes a very immersive read.
I loved the use of quotation from history books and various ancient scriptures: they reinforced the wonderfully mysterious atmosphere and the rich history of the settings. Ideas about religious fanaticism are skillfully explored by way of the mythology created by Bennett, but he doesn’t fail to also subtly comment on the good things that can come out of religion: some will be inspired to commit violent acts while others will devote themselves to keeping the less fortunate warm and fed – all in the name of their Divinity (I found Shara’s encounters with the Olvoshtanis to be really moving).
The characters are also beautifully drawn up: smart, conflicted in their loyalties, nuanced in their worldviews and ambitions. Shara is incredibly intelligent and curious, adorably stubborn and quite determined to find out what happened to Dr. Pangyui – but also vulnerable and damaged. I also loved Mulaghesh’s toughness, no-nonsense attitude and blunt honesty (read: potty mouth); maybe I am getting old, but I found it very endearing that she has reached the point where her ambition is to retire to a coastal town where she’ll be warm and away from intrigue. It’s lovely when fantasy writers really think outside the box when it comes to female characters. And obviously, Sigrud is just wonderful – especially if you are like me and have always had a soft spot for the big Viking-ish characters. But I also felt strongly for Vohannes, which surprised and delighted me. I was impressed by the great diversity of the characters, but also the realism of how complicated that diversity can be in this very byzantine context: Bulikov is essentially a minefield, as the control of Saypur is, historically, a reversal of eons of political control and colonialism, so there is plenty of mistrust, tension and desire for retribution. The relationship between Shara and Vohannes illustrates this perfectly: they both carry a cultural baggage and a sense of obligation towards their ancestry and patrimony that influences them much more strongly than their feelings or desires ever could.
This book is a fantastic and refreshing genre-bending fantasy novel that rejects tired old clichés and delivers an intricate story and incredible world building. I can’t wait to see more of Mulaghesh in “City of Blades” – and I’ll be on the lookout for other works by Robert Jackson Bennett. 5 stars and my highest recommendation!...more
I was wondering why everyone raved like crazy about the Dublin Murder Squad series: it seemed interesting, but murder mysteries and police proceduralsI was wondering why everyone raved like crazy about the Dublin Murder Squad series: it seemed interesting, but murder mysteries and police procedurals are very hit and miss for me... I finally picked up a copy of "In the Woods" (dear used bookstore, you are my best friend)... and I fell in love with Rob and Cassie almost instantly. If my in-laws hadn’t been in town for Mother’s Day weekend, I would have probably barricaded myself at home and done nothing but read this book. In fact, I spent a few days deeply resenting anything that meant I had to put it down. I was not adequately prepared for the emotional roller-coaster I was about to embark on.
Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox are detectives and partners in the Dublin Murder Squad. They also have a wonderful and perfect friendship that started as a mutual attraction, but blossomed into something else entirely. As they are both young-ish and eager to make their mark, they jump on a case involving a twelve years-old girl found dead on the site of an archaeological dig. The only problem is that the body was found on the exact spot where Rob and two of his friends disappeared twenty years ago; only Rob was found, shell-shocked, amnesiac, his shoes filled with someone else’s blood. He has since changed his name and carefully avoided mentioning to anyone this dark and blurry passage of his life, but the investigation will stir up some long-dormant dust.
There are a few silly, minor plot holes, but I decided not to let them bother me because I loved Rob and Cassie so hard. And besides, this novel is not about solving the crime so much as it is about solving the puzzle inside its characters' heads. Rob's inner voice - sarcastic, dark, tender and hilarious - is one of the best first-person narration I have read in a very long time.
Rob's memories obviously play cat and mouse with him as he investigates a case uncomfortably close to his childhood friends' disappearance, and French does an amazing job of showing how inaccurately memories work, how the weirdest things can remind us of something we thought we had completely forgotten and how we build a world in our heads when we are children that our adult eyes will look at with astonishment when we start making sense of some nebulous episodes. I have read many a books lately that have a nostalgic flavor to them, showing vignettes of the characters’ childhood suddenly seen in the harsh light of adulthood; I can’t help feeling a twinge of pain when I read that kind of story. We love to think of our childhood as this kind of beautiful and innocent time, but is that nothing but a veneer we put on top of it in order to forget the dark and dirty spots? If we scratch that veneer too much, we can find very unpleasant surprises that might be better left alone…
Detectives Ryan and Maddox have a rare and perfect chemistry as partners; it's basically the dream colleague relationship, and watching this convoluted investigation deal blow after blow to it was heart-wrenching. I never thought a murder mystery could wreak such havoc to my feels, but the more I read, the more I wanted to scream in impotent rage as Rob and Cassie made mistakes after mistakes. The atmosphere of the sleepy-yet-creepy suburb, drenched in Irish rain, inhabited by people who have a strenuous relationship with the past and the present, is the perfect backdrop for characters who are not at all how they seem at first glance. And Rob’s melancholy foreshadowing hooked me dragged me down along with him.
Some reviewers mention figuring out the killer’s identity early on: I was too focused on my slow-burn heartbreak to notice the (possibly) obvious. I kept drifting, wondering about Rob’s childhood experiences, the events he witnessed and their aftermath, and of course how he allowed everything to crash and burn – to pay close attention to the potential suspects. To me, everyone in this damn town was fucked up enough to have done it. When the resolution finally came together, it was even bleaker than I had expected: no neat ending here, ladies and gents… Just the incredible senselessness of human behavior.
Well done, Tana French: you sucker-punched me in the heart with your amazing writing, messy mystery and beautifully created characters… Now I need to find the rest of the Dublin Murder Squad series… Gah!
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I watched the BBC produced series "Dublin Murders", which blended together the stories of "In the Woods" and "The Likeness" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), and while I wasn't sure about it at first, I persisted, and at the halfway mark, I was completely sucked in. The series is not a perfect adaptation of the books, but it's beautifully put together, dark and gritty and the casting carries the convoluted story very strongly. It's definitely worth watching for fans of the books....more
Oh, Edith Wharton. I wonder if she ever thought that her stories would still ring so true almost a hundred years later… Not just because of the classiOh, Edith Wharton. I wonder if she ever thought that her stories would still ring so true almost a hundred years later… Not just because of the classic love-triangle situation, but also the concern with appearances and reputations and the grand show that people put on for others to watch and judge.
The character development in this book is simply amazing. One is tempted to judge and pigeonhole these people, but the more you read, the more they reveal themselves to be much more complicated and interesting than they appeared at first. I do confess to a small book-crush on Newland (not because of Daniel Day-Lewis’ interpretation, though that is totally worth checking out), who is tragically stuck between two ways of thinking: the old-school one that he was brought up in, and the more modern one, which is right around the corner but not quite acceptable yet for someone of his station. He doesn't want to ruffle any feathers, but he is noticing with increasing annoyance that some of the customs held up by his social circles simply don't make sense anymore. His struggle is so vividly depicted that you end up just as torn as he is and by the end of the book, you just want the guy to be happy.
The sharp, witty writing that jabs so cleverly at the shallowness of the lives of the New York upper crust is another very strong point of this novel. Edith Wharton shows us the gorgeous, highly polished surface of society and scratches at it mercilessly, but she somehow avoids being condescending. Her long descriptions of furniture and priceless china is not there to mock so much as it is there to show us what these people cared about, and how ultimately silly it. I admire her restraint and the complete absence of meanness in her prose.
Ellen Olenska is one of the most wonderfully drawn characters I have encountered in a long time. Her strength of character, her need for independence, her yearning for happiness: all these things stunted by the conventions of the society she returned to, looking for comfort and support. Her story is really tragic: the bad marriage, the straight-laced relatives who can’t understand why she wants a divorce, the man she knows she cannot have because she refuses to hurt her cousin or to be someone’s mistress. Ellen wants to be first fiddle and she will not settle for less, even if that means giving up the man she loves. I admired her, but I also felt incredible sorrow for her.
This is one of my favorite books, and I warmly recommend it to everyone. If you have already read it, give it another go: I find out new delightful details and meanings every time I pick it up....more
Being from Montreal, I have to confess a weakness for stories that take place in my home town. To paraphrase a friend, I love Montreal the way Woody ABeing from Montreal, I have to confess a weakness for stories that take place in my home town. To paraphrase a friend, I love Montreal the way Woody Allen loves New York, and when it’s the setting to a good story, I can appreciate it on so many different levels. I recognize the street names and the buildings described, I hear the character’s accents in my mind, I know how it smells when it’s about to snow. Mordecai Richler was a Montrealer and the city obviously held a special place in his heart, as all his books set on my wonderful island treat the city like a grand lady of a character, and her presence is felt vividly through the entire story.
This particular story is the fictional autobiography of Barney Panofsky, who is trying to clear his name from lingering suspicions of murder, by telling his version of his life. The problem is that he is, for many reasons, an unreliable narrator. His son’s posthumous footnotes and corrections pepper the book, and eventually, we come to understand why some things don’t quite add up in Barney’s fascinating and hilarious story. We go through his youth as a North American expat in Europe, his return to Montreal, his 3 tumultuous marriages (which separate the book into three parts, one for each wife), his relationships with his father, children and friends, and the murder mystery surrounding the death of his buddy Boogie.
Barney has an acerbic wit and a dark sense of humor and no one is safe from his barbs. He rants about everything, he drinks like a fish, has a strange envy of (and exasperation with) artists and a short temper. But the thing about Barney is that he wants to be a good guy. He knows he is flawed and he knows the people he loves deserve better than the way he is. But he is hardwired to be a jerk. He has the biggest heart while simultaneously being such a bastard. He is a curmudgeon, but he is also wonderfully lovable. Probably because he is so human and so loving. The strength with which Barney loves his wife and children is his ultimate redeeming quality, and I adore him for it.
The other characters are all as unique and well-crafted. The three wives are all so refreshingly different, troubled and unforgettable. You think of them in clear-cut stereotypes at the beginning: Clara the artist, the 2nd Mrs. Panofsky the controlling Jewish wife, and Miriam the perfect forgiving lady. And yet they are much more than meets the eye, their personalities changing Barney, bringing in turn the best and the worst out of him. His father is another great creation: tragic and hilarious, well-meaning and coarse. You see how the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with those two. And of course there is Boogie, the writer who sneers on everyone and everything, driven by a self-destructive and irreverent urge to try it all. The shadow of his mysterious death hangs over the whole book, and the ultimate twisted explanation made me blink, re-read the passage a few times and then laugh out loud for a solid 5 minutes. Richler pulled an amazing prank on me with the ending: what a clever, funny man.
There are definitely strong parallels between “Barney’s Version” and “Herzog” (I think they hint at it in the movie adaptation of “Barney’s Version”– which is awesome, by the way – as Miriam is seen reading Bellow on the train). They were both based on events that happened to their respective writers and the protagonists are serially married grumpy Jewish guys who need to write down what happened to them, what led them where they are now. I personally preferred Richler’s book. The structure is tighter, and while it is not always easy to follow, as Barney goes on weird tangents (that ultimately come together in the end), I have found myself wondering who was telling me the story in “Herzog”, because the narration tense switches around a lot; in “Barney’s Version”, I always knew who was telling me the story. I also have the favorable prejudice of knowing exactly why both the Francophone and Anglophone communities in Montreal drive Barney (and Richler) insane and share his annoyance with the never-ending linguistic bickering that constitutes a Montrealer’s life. Note to critics: he didn’t hate the French, he hated EVERYONE! I also get all of the local references, which gave the book another layer of charm for me (Go Habs, go!).
“Barney’s Version” made me laugh and cry – and it is one of those rare instances where the movie and the book are just as good as the other (I can’t see Barney as anyone else than Paul Giamatti now, and I believe he totally deserved the awards he got for his performance). It is easily one of my favorite books and I warmly recommend it to all, but especially to people living or visiting in my beautiful Montreal....more
It is unsettling to read “Station Eleven” in 2022. I watched the HBO Max series, which was beautiful (the post-apocalyptic Shakesp2022 re-read update:
It is unsettling to read “Station Eleven” in 2022. I watched the HBO Max series, which was beautiful (the post-apocalyptic Shakespeare was surprisingly perfect and haunting), and it gave me an itch to re-read it, because the series changed a few elements significantly but effectively. It reorganized certain threads of Emily St. John Mandel’s delicate tapestry in a different way (highlighting even more strongly the interconnectedness between Kirsten, Jeevan, Arthur, Clark, Tyler, Elizabeth and Miranda), while somehow still respecting its spirit – and if you like the book, it’s well worth watching.
But back to reading the book during an ongoing pandemic. Obviously, the world of “Station Eleven” endures a much more lethal disease, but some elements, such as people not knowing how to tell others that things will never be the same again, the fear of isolation and powerlessness… that all feels a bit like lived experience now and it’s very unsettling to see it in a book written in 2014. I don't know how things were where you live, but we had a few food shortages and I started doing something I never thought I'd do: fill boxes with rice, dried beans and all the random canned goods I had, because there was no way of knowing how long this would last in March 2020, so the passages about scavenging empty homes gave me unpleasant chills. The post-pandemic children who have never known anything else in this book also made me wonder what those lockdown babies will think, in twenty years… What will seem normal to them?
The idea of art keeping us human was also interesting to reconsider in 2022, because art – in the form of music, television shows and movies, and even strange, experimental comedy specials – DID help us stay sane during these unprecedented times. Speaking only for myself, without new releases from the bands Thick, Said the Whale, the Damn Truth and X, without “Ted Lasso” and “We Are Lady Parts” – and of course without a pile of new books that allowed me to step out of the surreal world that has become our reality, I’m not sure what my mind would be like right now.
Survival is, indeed, insufficient.
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Original review:
So few post-apocalyptic books talk about art, and yet, it really is an essential part of civilisation. A world without music, paintings and of course, books… That’s a terrifying prospect to me. Art is absolutely vital to human sanity: most books about the end of the world will mention stockpiling food and water, but very rarely expand about the continuation of artistic pursuits, post-collapse of the world as we know it. I was instantly delighted that “Station Eleven” explored that question. “Because survival is insufficient” is the Travelling Symphony’s motto and it made my heart swell up with how true it rang.
A deadly pandemic of Georgia flu has wiped out most of the population of North America. Kirsten was a little girl when the virus broke out: she is now part of the aforementioned Travelling Symphony, a caravan of actors and musicians who wander around the Great Lakes region, performing Shakespeare and classical music in the small settlements scattered through what used to be the American North East. They are a dysfunctional family that sticks together to stay alive and to give other survivors a reprieve from the harshness of their new existence through art.
On the night when the pandemic hit Toronto, the famous actor Arthur Leander died of a massive heart attack on stage, while playing King Lear, right in front of Kirsten’s eyes. A paparazzi-turned-paramedic named Jeevan tried his best to reanimate Arthur, but without success. Arthur’s story intertwines with Kirsten’s through the book: we get to know a man who was rather lonely behind the façade of his fame, the story of his relationship with his wives Miranda and later Elizabeth, and how their stories in turn, touch Kirsten’s life.
I loved the prose, it was delicate and engaging. The Great Lakes region is a place I happen to love very much: my husband is from upstate New York and we have spent a lot of time at his parents’ cabin by Lake Ontario. As the Travelling Symphony moved around, I could picture the tall trees, the roads being taken over by vegetation, the animal eyes watching you from behind the leaves. It’s a breathtaking rural setting and I was happy to imagine it transformed by the lack of infrastructure maintenance.
There is something haunting about the idea of the world changing so drastically and leaving us (humans) so vulnerable – to the whims of nature and to each other… The most gruesome details some writers relish in are not really part of “Station Eleven”; this book has often been described as a pastoral apocalypse: it really is a good way to put it, and it felt to me like a darker “Not Forgetting the Whale”.
And of course, the Shakespeare lover in me was just thrilled that no matter what humanity endures, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is still around to make people laugh. Of course, the book has plenty of other Shakespearean references, most obvious of which is Arthur’s first wife being named Miranda (Prospero’s daughter, who lives exiled on an island in “The Tempest”).
I must say, if there is one thing that scares me more than a world without art, it’s a world where doomsday cults take over. I am seriously terrified of cults, and as soon as the Symphony encounter the “prophet”, I got a nasty shiver down my spine. I suppose that in the wake of a massive extinction event such as a plague, it’s predictable that people will turn to religion to try and make sense of what happened, and it is inevitable that manipulative individuals use this for their own advantage. I was completely creeped out. The final third of the book, when all the different strands of stories (Kirsten, Miranda, Clark, Arthur, Jeevan, the prophet) come together was very cleverly executed and kept me reading much later than would have been reasonable. Sure, I saw a few things coming, but there was a poetry to the way everything fell into place: it was simply delightful.
In short, one of my favorite reads of the year so far : I will be looking at other books by Emily St.John Mandel because I am very impressed by her talent and can’t wait to discover other worlds she might have created....more
“Zazen isn’t about blissing out or going into an alpha brain-wave trance. It’s about facing who and what you really are, in every single goddamn momen“Zazen isn’t about blissing out or going into an alpha brain-wave trance. It’s about facing who and what you really are, in every single goddamn moment. And you aren’t bliss, I’ll tell you that right now. You’re a mess. We all are. But here’s the thing: that mess itself is enlightenment.”
This book was published almost twenty years ago. I don’t remember exactly when I got my copy, which is just dated as published in 2003, but I was still a McGill student at the time, so between 2004 and 2006… I’ve been re-reading it periodically ever since, and it never gets old. I’ve read a lot of other books on Buddhism in general and Zen in particular since, and I still go back to this one the most. It’s always relevant, always fresh and always inspiring. I often have an itch to pick it up when I feel my Zazen practice floundering – which it certainly has lately. Its often the kick in the ass I need to get the aforementioned ass back on the zafu and my mind back into the thought of non-thinking. I also think it is never a bad idea to begin a new year (arbitrary as the date may be) with a book that kicks your ass.
Of course it helps that Warner is a nerdy punk, that means I get all his weird references and share his love of bizarre and random crap. But this book is amazing because Warner is insightful, explains concepts as clearly as humanly possible (given how abstract things like “emptiness” can be) – yet remains challenging. You can read this book, but if you don’t do the work (i.e. sit on your ass and stare at a blank wall for 30 minutes every day), there’s only so much he can tell you. He also never sprinkled any sugar on his material: Zazen is hard, it won’t fix anything right away, enlightenment experiences are not that important. But keep doing it anyway. I’m sure that sounds pointless to a lot of people, but after doing this for let’s say fifteen years, I can tell you that it does change everything – even when it feels pointless.
Anyway, you should check it out! It’s really good!
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Original review:
True story : I met Brad Warner when he came to Montreal to give a talk about Buddhism and he drew a stegosaurus in my copy of “Hardcore Zen”. He’s a lovely guy!
When I started studying Buddhism years ago, a teacher suggested I look into Zen Buddhism more specifically. I think he understood that I had no interest in frills and just wanted a no-nonsense, straightforward approach – which is essentially what Zen Buddhism is. As I was looking for some literature on that specific school of thought at the bookstore, I stumbled upon a copy of “Hardcore Zen”. It caught my eye because not unlike Brad Warner, the punk subculture has been a hugely influential part of my life and the idea of approaching Buddhism through a punk lense – question authority, question society, question yourself, question everything! – was very appealing. Maybe this resonated with me because I have a problem with arbitrary authority figures, whether they are parental, governmental, professional or spiritual (and by that I mean that authority figures have to show me that they deserve my respect, and that I won’t just bow and scrape to someone without a good reason) and this dude was clearly not thinking of himself as an authority figure. Maybe it was because he was a simple, down to earth, self-deprecating guy who has had real modern life experiences. Don’t get me wrong, I have tremendous respect and admiration for a lot of Buddhist writers, but monks and nuns who have spent their lives in an ashram are sometimes very difficult to relate to, and their advice often hard to apply to the horribly mundane realities of daily Western life. Whatever the reason, I bought the book, brought it home and read it in a day.
I decided to re-read it because life has been a bit of a mess lately, and I wanted to re-sharpen my focus to deal with the mess in a healthier way. It helps sometime just to be reminded that some of the things our mind does make life seem complicated, but that its ultimately a trick we play on ourselves, and books like this one are perfect reminders. Of course reading that kind of stuff stirs some internal dust, but that’s usually a sign that its doing something good!
This book contains quite a few stories about Warner’s life, mostly about how he discovered Zen Buddhism, but also often moments in his life that he began to look at differently after he started practicing Zen. I feel like these anecdotes serve to show you how Warner’s life changed with his practice and study of Buddhism. Warner also wants to make it very clear to the reader: his book is not a manual on how to live your life or how to reach enlightenment. It’s a book about reality because that is the ultimate aim of Zen practice.
“Hardcore Zen” was originally published a long time ago now (2003), and Buddhism has become a lot more mainstream since, which is great, but this book is still incredibly informative, because as with anything else that becomes mainstream, a lot of bollocks is written on the subject - and Warner wants his readers to know that not all the pop-Buddhism out there is actual tradition or practice. His chapter on Buddhist morality (gloriously titled “No sex with cantaloupes”) is a wonderful text about what it means to apply the philosophy of action that Buddhism is to your life, and is worth the price of the book on its own.
Highly recommended for people who don’t mind a bit of irreverence, who are looking for accessible literature on Zen or who are simply interested in Buddhism but are deeply annoyed by hippie-wishy-washy writing about it. However, if you are looking for a set of instructions on finding enlightenment and can’t handle crass humor and geekiness, I suggests you look somewhere else. And finally, if you like this book, his other works are also well worth reading!...more
"It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe Updated review after a re-read in November 2019.
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“Change is freedom, change is life."
"It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed."
"There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities."
"Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.”
This novel will for ever be one of my favorite books: when graceful, intelligent prose and brave, nuanced ideas collide into one great story that intertwines the personal and the political, you get a treasure like “The Dispossessed”. This book jumped at the top of my favorites list mere seconds after I finished the last line.
Shevek was born and raised on the anarchist colony of Anarres, and while he has always embraced the principles on which his society was founded, as his work in physics becomes more complicated, challenging and promising, he begins to see cracks in the utopic system his ancestors created. A visit to the twin (but capitalist) planet Urras brings into sharp relief the differences between the two worlds, but also brings to light more commonalities than Shevek had expected. He soon finds himself caught in a high stake political game that would seek to make him the figurehead of a new revolution – or let him take the fall for its failure, depending on who has the upper hand.
LeGuin built her story carefully, and the two narratives, one set on Urras and one on Annarres, feed each other and collide at the perfect moment to bring the story together flawlessly. Brilliant narrative structure aside, this book is simply stuffed with beautiful and thought-provoking passages I had to stop and re-read a few times.
It would be a gross over-simplification to say that this is a sci-fi book about communism. Yes, it is that, but it is so much more. It is a nuanced, idealistic, heartbreaking, gentle and extremely intelligent novel. The subtitle “Ambiguous Utopia” is perfect: a book like that challenges the reader without ever trying to preach to them, letting them make their own minds up about the fictional anarcho-communist planet of Annares and its relation to its capitalist home world of Urras.
Shevek is one of the most beautifully rendered characters I’ve encountered. Stuck between both worlds, he struggles with the philosophies he lived his whole life by, the advantages of the new world he is discovering and his longing for what he left behind. He is flawed and lost, but also incredibly wise and brave, with a strong sense of compassion and integrity. I just loved him. And unexpectedly, I found his relationship with his partner Takver to be deeply romantic.
Le Guin definitely preached to the choir in terms of politics with me, I admit it. But I admired the fearlessness with which she chose to point out that whatever system of wealth distribution you live in, people will try to exploit each other, people will bully and ostracize those who don’t fit quite right with their herd, people will feel jealously and hatred. People on Annares share the wealth and the work, but they are still humans, with all the good and negative connotations that entails. This is why her utopia is ambiguous: human nature remains no matter what system you place it in and while you can dream of giving people a better life by giving them a system or code to get rid of inequalities, you can never remove the wild card of “people and how they will behave” from the equation.
I believe this book to be a classic, and I believe it completely transcends the science-fiction label. It is nothing less than a great work of art in my eyes and I recommend it to everyone.
"You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit or it is nowhere."...more
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