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0063031361
| 9780063031364
| 0063031361
| 4.02
| 35,272
| Nov 10, 2022
| Nov 15, 2022
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it was amazing
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**spoiler alert** Last year I was surprised by how much I enjoyed
Daughter of the Moon Goddess
, Sue Lynn Tan’s reimagining of the mythology of Cha
**spoiler alert** Last year I was surprised by how much I enjoyed
Daughter of the Moon Goddess
, Sue Lynn Tan’s reimagining of the mythology of Chang’e (and specifically, her daughter). I was apprehensive whether Tan would bottle moonlight twice with Heart of the Sun Warrior—yet here we are, another five-star read. What can I say? Tan’s storytelling abilities are impressive. Some time has passed since the end of the first book. Xingyin is living fairly contently on the moon with her mother, who is now free to leave whenever she pleases, though she still has the duty of lighting all the lanterns that illuminate the moon each night. Liwei, heir to the Celestial throne, continues to court Xingyin and make moves towards proposing. Yet Xingyin knows Liwei’s parents are no fans of hers, and this is confirmed when she begrudgingly attends a birthday celebration at the Jade Palace. An engineered slight puts the moon goddess—and her daughter—on the back foot again as they ultimately become ensnared in a much larger attempt on the throne. Xingyin and her allies—including some unexpected ones—must fight back against a usurper who only has evil in his heart. But this war might cost Xingyin all of the precious love she has gained since her previous victory, and there is no guarantee even of success. Spoilers for both books in this review. Tan’s writing continues to be operatic in form and epic in scope. Once again we are thrust into a rich world. As she brings elements of Chinese mythology to life, she uses them to tell a broad and adventurous story. The stakes—the Celestial throne and stability of the entire immortal world—could not be higher. The love triangle of Xingyin with Liwei and Wenzhi is back, and once again, this aromantic reader did not mind the romance here. Additionally, the appearance of Houyi and his return to the immortal realm is very touching. At first, I thought it was a bit trite, until I really dug into the book and understood the genre and form in which Tan is operating. I won’t attempt to get too technical here, because I haven’t read or watched a lot of Chinese drama. But I feel like Heart of the Sun Warrior kind of has everything? This is best demonstrated at the climax of the book, when Xingyin is about to go up against Wugang with the ultimate subterfuge. Wenzhi helps her, and Liwei finally gives his rival a grudging nod of respect—they will never be friends, not after what Wenzhi has done, but suddenly we have the Celestial Prince and the Demon Prince on the same side, fighting in a war together, and if that isn’t epic, I don’t know what is. But you have to be able to get to that payoff, and this is where Tan excels. This is a book that lays down groundwork and then pays it off. It’s seldom a surprise—foreshadowing is strong here—but it is always rewarding. The dragons come back. The Celestial Empress baits Xingyin into a terrible promise, and then that comes full circle. Xingyin is caught between worlds—the worlds of the court and the moon, even the worlds of duty and family. What is she supposed to do? How come everything falls on her shoulders? The death of Ping’er hits hard as well. I love the ending. I love that Xingyin and Liwei don’t end up together. Sometimes you love someone, but it just doesn’t work out. You want too many different things. Xingyin and Wenzhi getting a second (third?) chance is perfect for this genre of story, even if, again, it feels trite. Tan has a masterful grasp of what is expected and works in a story like this. As with the first book, I don’t feel like I have a lot of need to go into detail though. This book is a block of marble, expertly carved and exquisite from every angle. Definitely read the first book first, then do yourself a favour and pick this one up when you can. It’s a book where happy endings aren’t always the ones we expect or even desire, but they are the ones we need—and they are forever. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 18, 2024
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Aug 23, 2024
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Aug 26, 2024
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Hardcover
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1908276428
| 9781908276421
| 1908276428
| 3.90
| 14,033
| 2009
| Mar 10, 2015
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liked it
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**spoiler alert** Every so often I take stock of what I haven’t read in a while and try to remedy that. In this case, it was translated fiction. My am
**spoiler alert** Every so often I take stock of what I haven’t read in a while and try to remedy that. In this case, it was translated fiction. My amazing new next-door neighbour, with whom I have so much in common (tea! knitting! cribbage!), offered to lend me a bevy of books including Signs Preceding the End of the World. She highly recommended Yuri Herrera, and I was eager to experience a book that she loved. Yes—my enjoyment of this book was likely going to make or break our friendship. Just kidding. Or am I? Set during an unspecified present, this is a novel about borders, transgressions, and transformation. Makina leaves her border town in Mexico and crosses over to the United States in search of her brother, who himself was convinced there was land in their family’s name waiting for them on the American side. The crossing is unsanctioned and full of danger, but so too is existing on the other side. Makina will be changed by what she experiences as she uproots herself from all that she has known in order to find family. Herrera, through translator Lisa Dillman, writes in stream of consciousness. The book doesn’t use quotation marks for dialogue, my one unforgivable sin when it comes to typesetting fiction—if my friend hadn’t recommended this book to me, I would have DNFed it. This flouted convention aside, I enjoyed Herrera’s style and the way that most of the other characters don’t need names. Makina interacts with crime bosses only assigned a letter: Mr. Double-U, Mr. Aitch, Mr. Q. Her mother gets a name (Cora) but her brother, with whom she arguably has a more significant interaction, doesn’t. Herrera is very sparing with how he doles out such personal details. This paucity of details extends to the setting—at least at the broader level—lending the story a timelessness that belies the title’s harbinger tone. This book could have been set yesterday, or two years ago, or next week. Makina’s town is small and has no direct phone service—she prides herself at being a skilled and neutral switchboard operator. Border crossings of the kind Makina undertakes have been common for a long time. Similarly, America is always sending people overseas to fight in one place or another. As a result, the themes Herrera explores feel like they are suspended in time if not in place. The end of the world, it seems, is always ever just over the horizon. Makina’s journey is simultaneously physical and spiritual. As her body traverses borders and nations, her spirit undergoes its own transformation. Her journey opens up her world and helps her to understand that, even in isolation, far-flung events and powers shape her and her family’s possibilities and experiences. Her brother was pulled away by the lure of land, false though that promise proved to be, yet stayed because the dangerous identity he acquired seemed to fit him better than whatever he could have hoped to be back home. In a similar way, Makina is permanently changed after finding and speaking to him. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending. It’s abrupt and almost truncated. Herrera’s narration thins out until it is a tight metaphor suspended in amber, the light shining through his words but distorted, unclear. My interpretation, best as I can make it, is that Makina realizes she must let go. Like many books written by foreign authors, the full brilliance of Signs Preceding the End of the World eludes me because I lack cultural context. A quick Google helped me understand that the chapters of the book are meant to mirror the journey through Mictān, the Mexica underworld—but that knowledge by itself is a mere surface detail; I lack the context of fully appreciating what that means. This is not a flaw of the book (or even of myself) but merely my attempt to remind myself that it’s OK that I’m struggling to articulate my thoughts entirely. That’s the value of Signs Preceding the End of the World, of course. The translation of this book into English provides a portal into the psyche of a certain experience. In this book, America makes its presence felt, always and unflinchingly. Its presence is at times gregarious, callous, dangerous, devious, treacherous. While aspects of this portrayal are recognizable to me, as someone who lives on the other border of the United States, my positionality is very different from Makina’s. In the end, the same sparse descriptive style that I praised (along with Dillman’s assiduous translation) is also my least favourite thing about this book. This novel (novella?—it’s short) is very much like oysters. I don’t mind eating oysters, but I wouldn’t eat them every day, and I probably wouldn’t even eat them that often throughout the year. It is a literary experience in and of itself rather than a literary escape. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 24, 2023
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May 25, 2023
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Jun 02, 2023
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Paperback
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1534303499
| 9781534303492
| 1534303499
| 4.46
| 37,329
| Dec 27, 2017
| Dec 27, 2017
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really liked it
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Did … did good things just happen to our protagonists? Excuse me while I check if I’m actually reading Saga, Volume 8 and not some impostor. Because … Did … did good things just happen to our protagonists? Excuse me while I check if I’m actually reading Saga, Volume 8 and not some impostor. Because … because … GOOD THINGS HAPPENED, FOLX. I mean, yeah, shitty things happened too. Don’t get me wrong; there’s still conflict and loss here. But … good things! And Ghüs!! I missed Ghüs!! This volume opens with Alana and Prince Robot looking for medical help in … Abortion Town. Right away, I’m sinking back into what I love about Saga: this series pulls no punches. Light-years away in space and who knows how far in time, yet this story still comments on issues that are relevant today. Whether it’s control over one’s pregnant body or the medicalization of trans people, Saga isn’t afraid to address it in a way that’s natural and relevant within the context of the story. Fiona Staples’ art backs up Brian K. Vaughan’s writing in this way: we see such a diversity of shapes and forms and ways of being. The settings of Saga remind me in some ways of Farscape. Both series attempt to depict a universe far more fluid and alien than some science fiction would ask us to imagine. (Moreover, being a graphic novel series, Saga of course has more of “budget” to depict this vision than a television series could). We’re talking anthropomorphic owls and robots with TVs for heads, people, and it is glorious. Because when you have such a cosmopolitan view of the universe, the species and societies and problems within, your stories become infinitely richer and more complex. Just as the overall enmity between the Peacekeepers and Scarrans hung over the entirety of the Farscape part of the cosmos, so too does the enmity between Wreath and Landfall touch everything that happens here. And right in the middle of this epic story we find Alana, Marko, and Hazel. If I have any criticism of this volume, perhaps it’s simply that we don’t see comparatively much of these three. They are present and central to what’s happening, and there are some really good moments among them as they continue to process their familial loss. Yet, in some ways the story is happening to and around them. There’s a lot more going on between Petrichor and Prince Robot, or in the separate storylines of The Will and Ghüs/Prince Robot’s son. With that being said, compared to the sad, painful story I read in Volume 7 last year, this volume was … hopeful. Especially that ending. And I fucking love the new villain and the way in which she discovers Hazel’s existence. Basically, while Saga, Volume 8 in some ways feel like a breath between two story arcs, it’s a very necessary breath. It is probably a calm before the storm, and I am here for whatever Staples and Vaughan rain down on them next. My reviews of Saga: ← Volume 7 | Volume 9 → [image] Merged review: Did … did good things just happen to our protagonists? Excuse me while I check if I’m actually reading Saga, Volume 8 and not some impostor. Because … because … GOOD THINGS HAPPENED, FOLX. I mean, yeah, shitty things happened too. Don’t get me wrong; there’s still conflict and loss here. But … good things! And Ghüs!! I missed Ghüs!! This volume opens with Alana and Prince Robot looking for medical help in … Abortion Town. Right away, I’m sinking back into what I love about Saga: this series pulls no punches. Light-years away in space and who knows how far in time, yet this story still comments on issues that are relevant today. Whether it’s control over one’s pregnant body or the medicalization of trans people, Saga isn’t afraid to address it in a way that’s natural and relevant within the context of the story. Fiona Staples’ art backs up Brian K. Vaughan’s writing in this way: we see such a diversity of shapes and forms and ways of being. The settings of Saga remind me in some ways of Farscape. Both series attempt to depict a universe far more fluid and alien than some science fiction would ask us to imagine. (Moreover, being a graphic novel series, Saga of course has more of “budget” to depict this vision than a television series could). We’re talking anthropomorphic owls and robots with TVs for heads, people, and it is glorious. Because when you have such a cosmopolitan view of the universe, the species and societies and problems within, your stories become infinitely richer and more complex. Just as the overall enmity between the Peacekeepers and Scarrans hung over the entirety of the Farscape part of the cosmos, so too does the enmity between Wreath and Landfall touch everything that happens here. And right in the middle of this epic story we find Alana, Marko, and Hazel. If I have any criticism of this volume, perhaps it’s simply that we don’t see comparatively much of these three. They are present and central to what’s happening, and there are some really good moments among them as they continue to process their familial loss. Yet, in some ways the story is happening to and around them. There’s a lot more going on between Petrichor and Prince Robot, or in the separate storylines of The Will and Ghüs/Prince Robot’s son. With that being said, compared to the sad, painful story I read in Volume 7 last year, this volume was … hopeful. Especially that ending. And I fucking love the new villain and the way in which she discovers Hazel’s existence. Basically, while Saga, Volume 8 in some ways feel like a breath between two story arcs, it’s a very necessary breath. It is probably a calm before the storm, and I am here for whatever Staples and Vaughan rain down on them next. My reviews of Saga: ← Volume 7 | Volume 9 → [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Dec 23, 2018
not set
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Dec 23, 2018
not set
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Mar 03, 2023
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
1524852317
| 9781524852313
| 3.68
| 19,365
| Mar 05, 2019
| Mar 05, 2019
|
really liked it
|
Here we are, book three of Amanda Lovelace’s Women Are Some Kind of Magic series. Last year I read
The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One
and remarked
Here we are, book three of Amanda Lovelace’s Women Are Some Kind of Magic series. Last year I read
The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One
and remarked that it was much more focused than the first book. In her afterword to this book, Lovelace reflects that The Mermaid’s Voice Returns in This One has also shifted focus: now it’s about rebuilding, about healing and moving on from trauma, while also coming to terms with the fact that the trauma will always be a part of herself. This reflection is an accurate encapsulation of the book. As the title implies, this collection is all about celebrating having a voice again. Tons of trigger warnings for this book, of course—they’re listed in the book, fortunately. You don’t need to read the first two collections, though I highly recommend them. Perhaps one of the worst things abusers can do (beyond, obviously physically and emotionally abusing someone) is steal someone’s voice, even after the period of active abuse has ended. The victim doesn’t feel capable of sharing their story—or they’re required to share their story over and over, for example during a criminal case, to the point where it might feel like they’ve become just the story. The story becomes the life, rather than just part of a much larger, richer life. One of the key takeaways from The Mermaid's Voice Returns in This One is that Lovelace isn’t just sharing her story, as she did in The Princess Saves Herself in This One : she is actively celebrating the fact that she is now the one making the story, not other people. I say this, mind you, as someone who hasn’t experienced abuse or trauma like this. Despite my well-documented ambivalence about poetry, however, I think this is one situation where poems are one of the best mediums for communicating these types of experiences. They allow for a freedom of form that the conventions of prose don’t (and I am much harsher towards writers who abuse the conventions of prose than I am to people who experiment with poetry, go figure). Lovelace definitely has a style when it comes to her poems. And that style seems eminently suited to the emotions and substance of her stories. I love how she uses whitespace and the placement of words on the page to emphasize key terms, to draw attention to alternative readings of certain lines. Repetition is also important, both within poems and across poems. A collection of poetry like this is almost like an album of music: each poem tells its own story and can be read on its own. Read this way, some poems are better than others. Some are stand out singles, while others are a little confusing until you experience them as part of the whole collection, which itself is telling a larger, grander narrative. The choice of mermaid, as with princess and witch prior to that, is an intriguing and deliberate symbol with a variety of meanings for Lovelace and the reader. The sheer complexity of emotion here is another big hallmark of Lovelace’s style. Some of the poems are a little melancholy or bittersweet. Some are soaring, optimistic. Some are in between. For all the talk of mermaids launching themselves into space, there is a healthy dose of realism in this pages. Lovelace’s voices acknowledge that they aren’t going to be out of the woods forever, that there is no way to firmly close this chapter of their story such that it never returns. This part of their life will be with them forever, and this is just a way of dealing with that. Also unique to this volume is the inclusion of other poets. I wasn’t expecting that going in, and it’s … okay, I guess? I’m indifferent. At the end of the day, I continue not really to seek out books of poetry to read. But Lovelace definitely remains one poet whose books work well for me. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 25, 2019
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Sep 25, 2019
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Sep 25, 2019
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ebook
| ||||||||||||||||
0465094503
| 9780465094509
| 0465094503
| 3.79
| 360
| May 21, 2019
| May 21, 2019
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liked it
|
As previously discussed in my review of
The Hatred of Poetry
, I struggle with reading poetry. So I was tantalized by the title of this book. The p
As previously discussed in my review of
The Hatred of Poetry
, I struggle with reading poetry. So I was tantalized by the title of this book. The previous book was a gift from a fellow teacher friend whose feelings about poetry are a bit less ambivalent than mine. When I learned about Don’t Read Poetry, I thought it would be a good reciprocal gift to her. Stephanie Burt’s thesis is basically that we should avoid seeing poems as part of a monolithic form we call “poetry,” because it’s reductive and far too slippery a concept to really grasp. Rather, she wants us to read poems themselves, and she takes us on a tour of various lenses for reading and understanding a poem. Her point is basically that we seldom mean that we hate all poems when we talk about hating poetry—there are some poems that mean a lot to us, even we don’t read poetry in general. And I definitely agree with that. The six lenses, corresponding to the six chapters of the book, are feelings, characters, forms, difficulty, wisdom, and community. Burt isn’t saying that every poem falls into one of these categories. Instead she suggests that we can use apply these lenses as and when we want to, although certain poems lend themselves better to different lenses. The surface meaning of each approach is fairly obvious, and I won’t provide a more detailed summary. What’s most valuable about this way of laying it out is that Burt can give us examples of specific poems and really isolate what about that poem is worth paying attention to. Indeed, the sheer number of poets and poems mentioned or featured in Don’t Read Poetry is at times overwhelming! Sometimes I wonder if my mild aphantasia contributes to my ambivalence about poetry. I have a lot of trouble visualizing when I read. I can’t picture characters or places in my head; I don’t see action as a cinematic experience like others apparently do. I just read the words and absorb the information as a narrative. Perhaps, then, this explains why poems—which are often vehicles for complex imagery—don’t often work for me. I can recognize and understand the figurative language, but it doesn’t always make that connection in my mind required to really tap into those feelings or that subtext. That being said, one of my personal realizations from reading this book is that there’s definitely more to my reticence than that. Burt discusses, for example, how different forms have come in and out of fashion cyclically over the years, plus new ones that get invented by innovators. And I thought about how maybe my emphasis on afferent reading is another reason I don’t feel connected to poems. Even when I’m reading a novel for entertainment, I’m reading the words so I can get to the story, which I construct in my brain. Style is usually secondary for me, and while I love it when I can luxuriate in someone’s writing, the story is always what I need first. So maybe that’s why poems often stymie me—I’m trying to look for meaning when first I should look at the poem itself as a thing, as a piece of art (some poems at least). This is probably why visual art does very little for me too…. I love that Burt consistently demonstrates why it’s so silly to define poetry in a restrictive way. Although she definitely has her own personal preferences when it comes to poems, she makes it clear that she considers pretty much anything that wants to be called a poem a poem. I appreciate this inclusiveness; it’s an attitude I wish were replicated in more English classes, which often seem to quash the spark of verse love from the souls of students in the same way that the words “Pythagorean theorem” quash the math love. Burt features some of the more familiar “canonical” poets throughout Western history. But she branches out into non-Western writers, and far more contemporary writers, and that makes this book so much more valuable. One question I have after reading this, then, would be how do we really critique poetry? At one point Burt mentions that people who don’t like a poem probably just don’t understand it, that the poem probably “just isn’t for them.” I understand and am sympathetic to this point, to a point. Yet I also think it’s valid to ask how we critique poetry, how we criticize it seriously, how we break it down and determine if a poem that is trying to be serious is in fact facile, or vice versa. None of this is really within the scope of Don’t Read Poetry, but it seems to be related. This book did not suddenly make me love poetry or even want to read more poems. But it definitely gave me a lot to think about. And Burt’s steady, methodical investigation into the mechanics and meaning of poems is competent and compelling, although sometimes dry a little too much for me to take in—this took me a long time to read, from my point of view. Nevertheless, I’d say I’m definitely the target audience: someone who fancies himself knowledgeable, especially in a literary sense, yet who feels like he’s missing out when it comes to understanding poems. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 05, 2019
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Oct 05, 2019
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Sep 05, 2019
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Hardcover
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150132599X
| 9781501325991
| 150132599X
| 4.16
| 281
| Mar 21, 2019
| Mar 21, 2019
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liked it
|
I bought this as a birthday gift for someone I know who has quite the collection of shoes/heels, although it was on my to-read list before I considere
I bought this as a birthday gift for someone I know who has quite the collection of shoes/heels, although it was on my to-read list before I considered it as a gift. High Heel is an unconventional treatise on this type of footwear. In short, easily-digestible chunks, Summer Brennan ponders the evolution of high heels in our history and culture. She wrestles with the conflicting attitudes towards high heels evinced by feminists, as well as the role of high heels in shaping ideas of femininity and women’s sexuality. It’s an interesting book that makes some good points, although I’m not sure it left me feeling like I’ve learned a lot in the way of new stuff. Summarizing this book is difficult. I didn’t know what to expect going into it. First, it arrived and revealed itself to be an A5-sized book. Huh. Then I discovered that within each of the 5 parts, rather than more conventional chapters like you’d see in a book, Brennan has written a series of numbered passages, most only a paragraph long, some a couple of pages. Each, then, represents a unified thought, which together form a kind of stream-of-consciousness lecture from the author to the reader, as if the two of us were together in a lecture hall—or perhaps lying along a river in the sun, musing about high heels. This is a very philosophical book, and makes no secret of that fact. Brennan name-checks thinkers both classical and modern, playwrights and authors and celebrities and politicians. She demonstrates, indeed, that high heels have touched pretty much every aspect of our society. Some positionality, I guess? As you might surmise, I don’t wear high heels. My gender performance is fairly typically masculine, although I do experiment here or there—I’ve been painting my nails a bit this year. But at 6'4, I’m not really looking to get any taller, nor do I have much junk in my trunk to emphasize. So there’s two of the voluntary reasons one might wear heels ruled out. As far as the “involuntary” reasons might go … well, I’m privileged enough that I’ve yet to run into any situation in which I am required or strongly expected/encouraged to wear heels. I don’t understand my friends’ fascination with heels, or shoes in general, although I try my best not to disparage it either—I’m sure there’s many hang-ups I have that they don’t get, and they are graceful enough not to bother me about it. So I don’t have a horse in this race, as it were. Like many feminist discussions of grooming and fashion habits, this is not something I can speak about from firsthand experience. Nevertheless, I still find these discussion fascinating. I enjoy reading people’s thoughts, and the high heel is such an immediately recognizable and polarizing object; its inclusion in this Object Lessons series is clever and apt. Probably the part of this book I most liked (not the best word) is where Brennan discusses high heels as objects that sexualize women and as synecdoche for women-as-sex-objects. Trigger warning here for discussions on her part of rape, sexual assault, murder, etc. Brennan makes one very interesting point: stiletto heels have a peculiar dualistic role in our society. If you wear stilettos, you’re either very high-class or very low-class: either a powerful executive, or a sex worker (to be clear, neither Brennan nor I are positioning sex workers as lower class—rather, we’re talking about how sex workers are perceived in wider society). The so-called middle-class, average woman typically doesn’t wear stilettos often, if at all, and probably not expensive ones. This was a point I hadn’t previously considered, this double-standard of heel-wearing whereby your choice of footwear can signal that you’re either extremely available or extremely unavailable…. I also like that Brennan clearly articulates how choice is not always a choice. As previously mentioned, heels might not be a requirement of some jobs, yet they are still expected, just as women might not be required to wear makeup or perform other expensive rituals of femininity, yet they might be subtly penalized if they don’t conform to such expectations. Similarly, Brennan points out that even when heels are entirely optional, it still might not be considered a choice if women have internalized this desire for heels. If they grow up, are raised to want heels, or raised to want the things they think wearing heels will give them, then are they really choosing heels? Or are heels actually just a symptom of a different, larger social issue? I admire how Brennan carefully balances her clear aesthetic and personal appreciation for the art and fashion of the heel with the obvious critiques and problematic aspects of this shoe. She makes no secret of her own conflicting attitude, nor does she waste our time attempting to apologize for or justify heels in any kind of torturous way. Mostly she just … talks. She talks about the fun things, the interesting history, the fascinating types of heels and their effects on those who wear them and those who look at those who wear them. She talks about the problematic stuff, the negative stuff. In the end, she has justified the existence of this book: the high heel is an important enough object in our society to be worth such careful consideration. I enjoyed this book. It made me think. Yet I stop short of actually being able to tell you how it has altered my perception of heels all that much. Honestly, I wish Brennan had gone deeper, or at least had maybe taken more of a stance on some of these issues instead of tried to represent so many various perspectives. By avoiding too much of her own opinion and thought, she has certainly made this book an objective lesson—but it’s also a drier one for all that. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 25, 2019
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Nov 30, 2019
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Feb 15, 2019
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
4.36
| 1,078,350
| 2011
| 2015
|
it was ok
|
I’ve had Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari’s later book, sitting in a box waiting to be read for a couple of years now (because that’s how I roll). My best
I’ve had Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari’s later book, sitting in a box waiting to be read for a couple of years now (because that’s how I roll). My bestie Amanda recently purchased Sapiens on the strength of several recommendations, with someone even suggesting she could use it as a university course textbook. However, she is neck-deep in writing a PhD thesis right now, so I’m subbing in! I do loves me some world history … just not this one. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind attempts to chart the development of the human species as it spreads around the world and transforms the world through science, technology, exploration, and war. Harari begins with prehistory and the emergence and survival of Homo sapiens as the sole remaining Homo species on the planet. From there he leads us through ancient history and towards more modern history, all the while ruminating upon how various cultural developments (such as religion, writing, and capitalism) might have been the killer apps of each period. At the end of the book, he allows himself the luxury of speculating where the human species might be heading in the future. All of this sounds great on the surface, and I definitely see why people would find this book fascinating and enjoyable. Had I read this, say, 7 to 10 years ago, back in my more impressionable university days, maybe I would have been one of them (I used to think Jared Diamond had interesting things to say; what can I say, I was naive). As it is, Sapiens is just making me want to re-read A Short History of Nearly Everything , which I haven’t read in years. I respect that Bill Bryson, who does not have a histor doctorate, doesn’t disguise the fact that his book is basically pop history. Because don’t let the references in the end notes fool you: that’s what Sapiens is too. At one point, Harari writes, “As the twenty-first century unfolds, nationalism is fast losing ground.” This, from a book originally written in 2011 but updated in 2014, is … puzzling. I’m pretty sure that even as far back as 5 years ago people were sounding the alarm about the rise of nationalism. And now … well, sigh, now where we are. So, yeah, Sapiens seems a little short-sighted at times? Also there are lots of diagrams that look like the author created them with Word’s Shape Art on a rainy afternoon when he had nothing better to do. Such quipping critiques aside, though, really, Sapiens just made me uneasy the whole time I was reading it. A great deal of what Harari says sounds reasonable and interesting. I learned a lot while reading this book, which is why I think many people enjoyed and are endorsing it. Harari is a compelling writer in the sense of how he structures and lays out each chapter. Yet that’s entirely my issue: I feel like I was being lulled into a false sense of security only to have questionable, pseudo-philosophical premises slipped into my brain when I wasn’t paying attention. For a book with a fair amount of scholarship apparently behind it (given the endnotes), Harari doesn’t ever seem interested in engaging with specific scholars. He prefers to say, “scholars agree” or “some scholars say,” as he addresses various theories. Lining up these broad attributions with specific scholars is an exercise best left with the reader, I guess? Anyway, it’s difficult for the average reader to really understand how well-grounded Harari’s ideas are, except of course if you just take Harari at his word, which is exactly what he wants you to do. Harari tries to play the eminent rationalist who presents his analysis and arguments without the hindsight fallacy (which he talks about explicitly) or personal bias. Here’s the thing though: you can’t be unbiased and objective about history. Literally you can’t. If you were, it would be the most boring thing, and also the most useless thing, because if you’re trying to tell a brief history, you’re going to have to cut some things out. And what you cut out reveals your biases, really. So I would much prefer if someone is upfront about their biases and about the perspective they’re using when they look at history. Harari is pretending to a neutrality he cannot have and which would be useless anyway. Here’s what I’ve unravelled in my reading. Harari likes empires, but not imperialism per se. He thinks empires are the most natural, stable form of human governance, because why else are there so many of them? (Is this not the hindsight fallacy?) He laments how various empires have interacted in ways that might not be so good for Indigenous peoples, but he points out that this just how it goes. And now we’re all one global society anyway, so … yay? Capitalism is great because money is a liquid asset but the peak capitalism of the 20th century is troubling. Overall, Harari just seems quite impressed by how we’ve managed to spread around the world and make fire and Twinkies. (He does not actually mention Twinkies; it’s called subtext, people.) Just before embarking on a look at the Scientific Revolution, Harari ends a chapter with a particularly egregious passage which is too lengthy for me to want to transcribe here. But basically it’s a shrug of the shoulders and an attempt to say that no one really knows why anything happens in history, and conceivably it all could have turned out differently. Oh, and western Europe had “no important role in history” prior to the Scientific Revolution. For the most part, Harari actually acknowledges that various Indigenous peoples around the world often had civilizations of equal, if not greater, cultural and technological sophistication than the European invaders who showed up during the so-called Age of Discovery. Nevertheless, I feel like Harari’s viewpoint remains mired within a Western, colonial lens. Specifically, Harari is obsessed with “progress” as a metric by which we measure the success of our species. He doesn’t assign a morality to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca Empires, of course, because that Is Not Done these days—yet he basically shrugs and says that the Spanish won because … progress. More broadly, Homo sapiens won out over other hominins because … progress? You can fight me on this but maybe it’s worth acknowledging that even if you personally believe we should be striving for more inventions, more discoveries, etc., that’s not necessarily what every person or every culture wants. The Inca Empire didn’t invent the wheel, of course—and had the Spanish never shown up and the Inca went on for further millennia without wheels, would that be so bad? Colonizers always fall back on the idea that, whatever losses of life happen during the actual conquest period, everything is better now because … progress, brought to you, naturally, by your colonial overlords. At the end of the day, I’m not giving this book 1 star because it’s still a fairly interesting read, at least until I started getting fed up with it towards the end. Sapiens has a lot of little moments that leave me nodding—I’m definitely receptive to some of what Harari is saying. Overall, however, his style of argument and the way he draws overly broad conclusions leaves me, as a sometime-scholar and occasional academic, quite uneasy. As I’ve told my friend, I’m sure there are way better books to use as textbooks in a course on sustainability. [image] ...more |
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1
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Jan 28, 2019
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Feb 03, 2019
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Jan 28, 2019
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Paperback
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0544173767
| 9780544173767
| 0544173767
| 4.27
| 911,284
| Sep 01, 1973
| Nov 05, 2013
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 16, 2018
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Jan 02, 2019
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Jan 02, 2019
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Hardcover
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1534308377
| 9781534308374
| 1534308377
| 4.56
| 32,481
| Sep 26, 2018
| Oct 02, 2018
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liked it
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Haha, so it seems like only yesterday I was talking about how Saga, Volume 8 was a refreshing respite from the dark, downer moments of his series. Oh b Haha, so it seems like only yesterday I was talking about how Saga, Volume 8 was a refreshing respite from the dark, downer moments of his series. Oh boy. I get it, those 1-star and 2-star reviews from people throwing up their hands in the air and saying, “I just can’t even with this anymore.” That is a legitimate point of view and valid criticism of this book. Saga, Volume 9 takes any of the good, happy feelings you got at the end of the last volume and tears them to shreds, lights those shreds on fire, then scatters the ashes of those shreds to the four corners of the globe. Then it cancels your Netflix subscription and steals your identity, using that to go on a crime spree. Just for good measure. I’m not quite at the point where I want to abandon this series or anything. At the end of the day, this is Vaughan and Staples’ show, and they can do what they want with the characters (and we are free to criticize them for it, of course). I’m definitely not happy with much of what happens in this volume, particularly the final twist at the end. But there are definitely some things I want to praise first. This instalment of the series underlines something that has been in the back of my mind for a while now: there isn’t really an endgame here. Marko and Alana have a chance to “escape” by essentially changing their identities. They reject this (which is fine), but this means that for the foreseeable future they will have to stay on the run for … forever. Their plight is not a simple conflict where the goal is to obtain something, or get somewhere. They have always been fighting to keep their family together, and usually that means running from people trying to hunt them down. That hasn’t changed, and it likely won’t change. Vaughan and Staples also explore parents’ duties of care to their children. Marko and Alana make a decision on Hazel’s behalf, while Sir Robot makes essentially the opposite decision on his child’s behalf; both sets of parents are trying to safeguard their children. I like this duality here, because it emphasizes that sometimes it’s hard to see what the “right” choice in any given situation might be. There is no manual for parenting, especially when one is an intergalactic fugitive. Those deaths tho…. I’m not against killing off characters, and this level of carnage is definitely consistent with Saga as a series. I guess what I’m saying is that you have every right to be upset by what happens here, but you should definitely not be surprised. That being said, I was surprised that Vaughan and Staples dispatch the new potential antagonist so quickly. I was hoping that she would be a more formidable foe. Instead she’s really just a vehicle to get The Will back in range of our intrepid protagonists. Overall, though, I think this is a case of my opinion of this volume being dependent largely on what happens next in the story. Volume 9 reminds us that every moment of contentment can turn to ashes in an instance, that everyone is fragile and susceptible to injury, even fatality, in the harsh universe of Saga. For such a punctured equilibrium to occur can only mean that something even bigger, something even more intense, is coming up next. If Vaughan and Staples can deliver when they return to this series, then this volume will be a good set-up. If the next volume lets me down, then this one will have felt a little like an empty promise. Stay tuned, I guess. My reviews of Saga: ← Volume 8 [image] ...more |
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Dec 24, 2018
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Dec 24, 2018
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Dec 24, 2018
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Paperback
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1633537587
| 9781633537583
| 1633537587
| 3.13
| 433
| unknown
| May 31, 2018
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liked it
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I’d like to crack a joke like, “I love this title because it’s basically my life” except that would be a lie, because I’m actually killing it at adult
I’d like to crack a joke like, “I love this title because it’s basically my life” except that would be a lie, because I’m actually killing it at adulting this year … not that I want to be. Sometimes just have to. Still, Bad at Adulting, Good at Feminism really does have an excellent title. Prudence Geerts has produced a cornucopia of tiny comics that illustrate, reflect upon, and poke fun at her own experiences, the way she sees the world, and the way the world might see her. As the title implies, she is, of course, discussing that millennial experience of growing up as the web came of age, of transitioning into adulthood in the age of social media, and, in her case, of being a woman all at the same time. There is a lot in here that I think would resonate with many readers, particularly people in that millennial bracket—but these experiences are by no means unique to that generation. Geerts’ cartoon style is interesting. Her comics usually feature a version of herself, with occasional guest characters (mostly her cat). They present a story in a minimum of words and an economy of visuals. The most predominant comic form is that of a side-by-side of two situations, either two of Geerts, or Geerts and someone else (often a hyper-idealized stereotypical woman), to depict the “expectation” versus the “reality” of a situation. These ones in particular are always clever, and even when they don’t apply to me, I can still sympathize with and understand the point Geerts makes with each one. Small content note/trigger warning for aromisic language: the section titled “Love Letters” begins with the phrase, “We all fall in love at least once in our lives…”, and the section is quite obviously about the ups and downs of romantic love. These kinds of blanket statements are dehumanizing for aromantic people; not everyone falls “in love” in the sense almost always meant by that phrase. One could simply change it to, “Many of us fall in love at least once in our lives…” and suddenly it isn’t a universal that excludes/erases aro people. There may be other problematic aspects to these comics, but most of them are about experiences quite different from my own, so it isn’t really my lane to comment on that. I have some thoughts about the “feminism” portion of the adulting/feminist content … suffice it to say, I just think that I’m in a somewhat different place right now in terms of the type of feminist reading I’m looking for. But I really don’t want to invalidate the work that Geerts has put into these comics, because they do embody feminist ideas and messages, and for some people they might land. Also, this is not the type of book I really enjoy reading. Novels are, of course, my primary jam. When I read comics, I tend to gravitate towards graphic novels. Collections of comics don’t do as well with me. If I had read some of Geerts’ comics individually somewhere, I would definitely be entertained, just as I am with xkcd, or The Oatmeal, etc., even though I’m not a huge fan of collection books in general. My friend Rebecca, who lent me this book, absolutely loved it. And I can see why she did! There are delightful things about it. She also pointed out to me that it wasn’t really meant to be read cover-from-cover, as I did, but rather dipped into and sipped at, and that’s a valid point. And this raises an interesting philosophical issue of literary criticism. When a reader doesn’t consume a book in the way it was intended to be consumed, is that on them? If I attend an arthouse drama and then complain there weren’t enough explosions, aren’t I being a dick for not tempering my expectations to the form? So can I really even properly rate a book if I think I haven’t experienced it in a way that does it justice? Aren’t I being a grumpy curmudgeon? I mean, you can see that I’ve obviously rated this book. But this is all just a long-winded disclaimer to remind you I’m just here to record my thoughts, and this review is probably not the one you want to be reading if you’re trying to decide whether or not to read this book. Unless you are me, in which case … you’ve already read this book, Ben. Get with the program. Anyway, I liked many of these comics individually. I like the idea behind the collection, even if the execution isn’t everything I wanted. I definitely think that a lot of people could pick up this collection and enjoy it—for me, personally, Bad at Adulting, Good at Feminism has its moments but overall didn’t leave me wanting more. [image] ...more |
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1
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Aug 23, 2018
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Aug 24, 2018
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Aug 23, 2018
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Hardcover
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1534300600
| 9781534300606
| 1534300600
| 4.48
| 46,080
| Apr 04, 2017
| Apr 04, 2017
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really liked it
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Oh. Em. Gee. Saga, Volume 7 might just be the saddest, most heart-wrenching thing I’ve read this year. It’s not quite at the nadir of A Fine Balance,
Oh. Em. Gee. Saga, Volume 7 might just be the saddest, most heart-wrenching thing I’ve read this year. It’s not quite at the nadir of A Fine Balance, but it comes close. I am struggling to recall a single positive and redeeming moment in this book. There’s … there’s a lot of bleakness and heartbreak here. As with many a long-running series, I’m starting to run out of new and creative commentary. Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples once again deliver a packed collection of chapters that both advance the story and drive the characters to new heights (or, er, in this case, depths). This volume might be notable for how it is more tightly focused on certain characters. There is a little bit of attention on the wider galactic politics, particularly as they involve a comet where much of the action takes place. For the most part, however, this story focuses on Alana, Marko, Hazel, and the people closest to them. The worldbuilding remains top notch. I love the imagination and dedication involved in portraying such a diversity of intelligent, alien life in this universe. It isn’t just the myriad and miraculous forms that Staples depicts—it’s the whole aesthetic, the way everything fits together (or doesn’t), the very ideas involved, like a bounty hunter with two heads. As someone who doesn’t visualize when I read, I find that this is where the graphic novel medium excels for me. I just finished Terminal Alliance, in which Jim C. Hines similarly attempts to describe a diverse universe. But because it was just words on paper, I couldn’t picture it, so I had got a lot less from his descriptions than I do from something like Saga. Although Hazel is growing up, she is less prominent here except as a plot device around which the other characters revolve. Indeed, it’s hard to say that any of the regular cast really shine as protagonists in this book. It seems more like they have things happen to them, and react, as they each struggle with their own demons. That isn’t a bad thing—if anything, it just makes this volume feel more like an interlude from one massive adventure to the next. Where will the ship go next? What will Marko be like now? How will he and Alana deal with this latest round of setbacks? And when will their paths finally cross with the Will, still broken and now disbarred from the bounty hunting union, scheming a way to get back everything he feels has been ripped away from him. Will Sir Robot find his kid? I miss Ghüs. My reviews of Saga: ← Volume 6 | Volume 8 → [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 04, 2017
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Dec 04, 2017
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Dec 04, 2017
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0765398877
| 9780765398871
| 0765398877
| 3.51
| 5,183
| May 17, 2016
| Feb 14, 2017
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really liked it
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Company Town, while a book I definitely wanted to read, is not a book I had intended to read right now. This is how it came to me: Me: *spots book on lCompany Town, while a book I definitely wanted to read, is not a book I had intended to read right now. This is how it came to me: Me: *spots book on living room table, evidently purchased by Dad* You read this yet? 100% accurate retelling. I’m quite surprised this is a selection for Canada Reads. It’s very science fiction, and not literary-acceptable science fiction by a juggernaut like Margaret Atwood. Madeline Ashby name-checks concepts like the Singularity and, without going too far towards spoiler territory, includes some temporally-challenging timeline/artificial intelligence/nanomachine stuff in this book. Trigger warning in the book for violence against women and, specifically, sex workers, and rape threats. There is a serial killer at work and some of the scenes get gruesome. I’m not going into details in this review, though. Company Town is about twenty-two-year-old Go Jung-hwa. A high school drop-out, Hwa makes a living as a bodyguard for the United Sex Workers of Canada union members on the New Arcadia oil rig. She stands out because she is completely unaugmented in a genetic and cybernetic sense. She makes up for this with tenacity and rigorous training, tenets she intends to pass on to her charge, the fifteen-year-old son and heir apparent of the company that buys New Arcadia. Make no mistake: though this book is set in the near future and filled with technology only now in its infancy, Company Town is about the present day in the best sense of science fiction. Ashby’s portrayal of Hwa, the sex workers she protects, and the corporate machinations that threaten the existence and stability of New Arcadia are all very real and pressing people and issues in the present day. By removing them into a hypothetical future with robots and virtual reality Ashby just has a few more degrees of freedom to explore where we might be heading as a society—and I say “we”, since this book is actually set in Canada! One of those degrees of freedom is in Ashby’s depiction of unionized sex work. This is a hot topic right now, with several high-profile court cases happening recently in Canada. It isn’t clear specifically if sex work is legalized or decriminalized in this future (the difference is an important one to sex workers), but the point is that it’s not underground any more. That doesn’t eliminate the need for protection, as Hwa’s job at the start of the novel demonstrates—but even the positing of a future with unionized sex work is in some ways a positive move towards social justice. For all the economic oppression and violence that happens in this book, there is at least this hopeful dimension to this future. Still, much of Hwa’s experience will seem familiar to contemporary readers. Her world still searches for clean energy solutions, and the vice of fossil fuels has continued to squeeze corporations into constructing bigger, more dangerous oil rigs that are essentially cities. These environments have their own laws, and with a new owner, new rules come into play. It’s notable that Hwa does not call the police when her former colleagues start dying: she investigates on her own, using the resources available in her new position, because she does not trust the police to protect women. And Ashby does an excellent job explaining, in a visceral way, so that male readers in particular might get an inkling of why that’s the case. In addition to the more graphic scenes, there’s a disgusting chat conversation Hwa eavesdrops on halfway through the book. While reading it, all I can think is, “this is how a lot of men talk today”. It’s how the President of the United States has talked, on record, about treating women. Company Town is set in the future, but nothing about its treatment of women is science fictional. I love how Ashby shows Hwa’s colleagues pushing her away after she leaves the United Sex Workers to go work for Lynch, Ltd. It’s not very subtly done, but that makes it all the more potent: they see her as a traitor, a sell-out. Worse, they don’t trust her anymore, making it all the more difficult for her to help them—which is the main reason she stays with Lynch even after the job goes sideways, fast. But you really quickly understand that, in a world where everyone else is against them, trying to get something from them or possibly planning violence against them, they have to stick together. And they interpret Hwa’s action as abandonment, even if it is potentially a good decision for her on a personal level. I also appreciate the relationship between Hwa and her charge, young Joel. Although he’s a self-described genius, he’s not annoying. He is fifteen, and it shows, both the quirky confidence fifteen-year-old boys have and the moments of excruciating self-doubt. This is amplified, of course, by his obvious responsibilities as heir to the privately-held Lynch company. But I love how he goes to bat for Hwa, how he comes to trust her and help her, and how he starts to question certain aspects of his father’s business. Their relationship feels the most real and reaffirming of all the ones in this book, in contrast to, say, Hwa’s relationship with Daniel, which I could never really place in terms of whether it was supposed to be messy romantic tension or just programmed corporate espionage. (I also headcanon Joel as asexual. He reassures Hwa he has no desire to have sex with her. It’s true, of course, that part of Hwa’s characterization is physical disfigurement that renders her conventionally unattractive. Still, a couple of times he mentions how he finds the whole prospect of sex unpalatable, gross, perhaps “even painful.” And I’m like, “Dude, fifteen-year-old me totally gets where you’re coming from here. Stick with your generation ship designs and your VR books and science club.” So there’s that.) If the first half of this book is our introduction to Hwa and her world, then the second half is an intense thriller and mystery. As Hwa’s involvement in the Lynch corporation’s plans for New Arcadia gets deeper and deeper, she has to question her identity and her allegiances and even her ideology about what the future should hold. It’s philosophically complex but also intense because of the physical action sequences, the detective legwork and chase scenes that Hwa participates in. For the majority of the time, I was enjoying this book at about the same level that I did vN or iD : hey, this is a cool science-fiction novel. Then a switch flipped, and I can’t quite remember where, and I realized that this book is a big deal. Like, I get now why it was chosen for Canada Reads. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 02, 2017
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Apr 03, 2017
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Apr 02, 2017
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Paperback
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1532913680
| 9781532913686
| 1532913680
| 3.83
| 146,011
| Apr 23, 2016
| Apr 23, 2016
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really liked it
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We’ll skip the boring part about how I don’t usually read poetry and yadda yadda but this one is an exception blah blah, OK? I’ve had this on my to-re
We’ll skip the boring part about how I don’t usually read poetry and yadda yadda but this one is an exception blah blah, OK? I’ve had this on my to-read list for a while—in addition to the intriguing title, Amanda Lovelace is asexual (or ace-spec), so that increased my interest. Then one of my IRL friends read and highly recommended it, so I borrowed a copy, and here I am. Reading poetry! If I have to try summing it up, The Princess Saves Herself in this One is about resilience. It’s prefaced with a long list of trigger warnings and content notes, including abuse, self-harm, and suicide. Lovelace’s poetry often has a staggering beauty to the way she lays out her words, both visually on the page and mentally in the reader’s mind. I can’t speak to the way poetry—both reading it and writing it—might itself be healing, but it certainly is an act of resistance, and therefore of resilience. Rather than running from the tragedy or difficulty, Lovelace confronts it head-on. She names it, like the way Dumbledore never hesitates to name Voldemort rather than hide behind a euphemism. I can’t personally relate to a lot of the experiences chronicled herein, but I do identify with the notion of being bookmad. I know what it’s like to seek solace and refuge in stories, to befriend characters, transport oneself to these foreign lands, and, yes, wield words as weapons against those who might mean you harm. This book, although a loose collection of poems, is not so much poetry as it is snippets of identity. Lovelace picks apart the narratives we construct, or which are constructed for us: you menstruate and therefore…; you’re a woman and therefore…; I love you and therefore…; we are together and therefore…. She asks us to question what we’ve been taught, to look the lies in our lives in the eye and ask if we cannot do better. There is power in words, and I think poetry is positioned quite well to remind us of this. I flagged so many of these poems with sticky notes before returning this book to my friend. I wanted to mark out the ones that resonated with me, whether for reasons of experience, identity, or simply because I liked how they were constructed or made me feel. Lovelace offers hope while simultaneously refusing to simplify; she acknowledges the darkest complexities of our lives. For example, she chronicles an abusive, alcoholic mother and then later describes her feelings of loss as that same mother succumbs to cancer. We are such paradoxical creatures, sometimes, and our feelings don’t always make sense. That’s why The Princess Saves Herself in this One works for me. It doesn’t revel or wallow, but it validates and accepts. It says you’re going to have shit days, and good days, and days in between. But it reminds us that you are ultimately the narrative of your own making. You don’t have to be strong always, but you can be strong sometimes. Find the words that make that work for you. It might not be poetry—certainly isn’t in my case—but it will be something. [image] ...more |
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Sep 26, 2017
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Sep 28, 2017
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Jan 03, 2017
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Paperback
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0140180788
| 9780140180787
| B001027VJU
| 3.90
| 188,320
| 1908
| 1990
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it was ok
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This is a tough one, because I’m feeling pretty conflicted about A Room with a View. On one hand, I’m pretty sure I didn’t like it—despite being only
This is a tough one, because I’m feeling pretty conflicted about A Room with a View. On one hand, I’m pretty sure I didn’t like it—despite being only 220ish pages, it took me a long time to read, because I kept putting it down and looking for other, more interesting things to distract me. On the other hand, this is not a bad or poorly-written book. I can see what E.M. Forster is trying to do; I have seen other writers tell similar stories and knock my socks off. So what do George Eliot or Thomas Hardy have over Forster for me? The plot is tedious and dull, and that’s likely my chief problem. Lucy Honeychurch is an eligible young lady on vacation in Italy with her chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett. She ends up associating with an ensemble cast of characters, one of whom makes a move on her and kisses her (scandalous!). When she returns to England, she accepts the third marriage proposal from a persistent suitor who is not suited to her at all. Then the cad from Italy intersects her life again, and of course, there is suspense as Lucy tries to figure out if he has feelings for her (or if she has feelings for him) and if anyone other than Charlotte knows of, and could reveal, that Italian indiscretion. It’s pretty standard fare as far as these types of stories go. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many stakes here (beyond, perhaps, Lucy’s reputation were her out-of-school kissing to become common knowledge). The supporting characters, like Charlotte and Mrs Honeychurch and Freddy, Lucy’s brother, tend to be fairly flat, stock types who don’t offer much in the way of conflict. There is no one, central figure who dominates the page and stands out as a strong antagonist. Not even Cecil, who is indeed trying to project his idea of what a woman should be on to Lucy, really deserves such a label. I felt like I was trapped in the prequel to an Agatha Christie mystery. I kept waiting for someone to drop dead and Poirot to burst onto the scene with Hastings and Japp, so he could start using his little grey cells to figure out that, egads, Emerson is no murderer—it was Mr Beebe all along! A good murder would really have lightened the mood, I think, and made A Room with a View more bearable. That or maybe some kind of natural disaster plunging the family into penury. But no, Forster instead offers up a very bland look at English country life circa 1900, the British Empire riding high into the twentieth century with the rumblings of the Great War still far off on the European horizon. Lucy can go for a jaunt around Italy all she wants in the first half of the book, then noodle about her neighbourhood, playing tennis and mulling over marriage … and it’s just. so. boring. Maybe it’s my misanthropic distaste for socializing, but I just can’t bring myself to care or be interested in the quotidian happenings of these various characters. The book picks up a little towards the end, and it certainly has some moments. Lucy has a pretty badass moment in Chapter 17, “Lying to Cecil”, when she explains why she has gone off marrying him: “… When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you’re always protecting me.” Her voice swelled. “I won’t be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can’t I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? A woman’s place! You despise my mother—I know you do—because she’s conventional and bothers over puddings; but, oh goodness!”—she rose to her feet—“conventional, Cecil, you’re that, for you may understand beautiful things, but you don’t know how to use them; and you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I won’t be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me. That’s why I break off my engagement. You were all rigth as long as you kept to things, but when you came to people—” She stopped. You go, girl! There, now you’ve read the best part; I’ve saved you the trouble of having to read the whole book. I also like how this chapter and subsequent chapters are titled, “Lying to …”, giving us explicit acknowledgement that Lucy is deceiving herself and others about her feelings. There is a level of introspection here, which, combined with the above speech, definitely elevates A Room with a View above the frivolity of mere romance. Yet Lucy is about all that is interesting about this book, as I mentioned above. George is no Mr. Darcy or Captain Wentworth. As far as I’m concerned, Lucy would be better off burning everything down and moving to Canada. Hmm. Not a bad fanfic idea…. Anyway, Forster’s writing just doesn’t get to me. It’s an incompatibility of style and of plotting rather than ability, though. I can recognize that Forster is trying to do interesting things here, and I see why other people might find this book captivating. It does not speak to me, though. Some books, the right books, will transport you into their world and make you never want to let go. And when you’ve read enough of those, you know immediately when you’ve cracked open a book that won’t. A Room with a View is such a book for me. It might not be the same with you, but that’s not enough for me to recommend it. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 27, 2016
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Dec 28, 2016
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Dec 27, 2016
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Paperback
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0804138141
| 9780804138147
| 0804138141
| 3.91
| 220,162
| Sep 15, 2015
| Sep 15, 2015
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liked it
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First off, an update on the shoe situation: I’m much faster at putting on shoes now. I’ve been training hard, lots of montages and such, and I’m proud
First off, an update on the shoe situation: I’m much faster at putting on shoes now. I’ve been training hard, lots of montages and such, and I’m proud to say I’ve seen great improvement. Why Not Me? is the second autobiographical set of essays from Mindy Kaling. In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Kaling told us about her childhood and the path that led to her involvement with The Office. In this book, Kaling reflects more on her adult life, talks about developing her own TV show, and shares her opinions on being in the position of a somewhat recognizable celebrity. Kaling’s humour once again suffuses her writing, with delightful sentences such as, “… a honeymoon is, after all, a sex vacation you’re giving yourself after a massive party in your honour”. But this book probably works so well because it neither glamourizes nor downplays the life of a Hollywood actor/writer. In one chapter, Kaling describes a typical day of working on the set of The Mindy Project, from waking at an ungodly hour to get to work, to going to bed at an ungodly hour after a long day of acting, writing, editing, and occasionally cake-eating. Replete with (often unflattering) pictures to illustrate the long process of early-morning makeup and late-night editing, this chapter reminds us that making TV shows is hard work for everyone involved. Typical coverage of celebrities tends to focus on the red carpet galas and extravagant premieres, but this over-emphasis on the glamour of acting in Hollywood detracts from the hard work it takes to actually make these entertainments. On the flip side, though, Kaling is quick to acknowledge the disconnect between her experiences now versus her experiences a decade ago. She mentions hiring a “team of stylists” and then remarks on how weird it is to say that—but that it’s also incredibly useful. Kaling is careful not to minimize the impact that her increasing success has had on her life. Claims by celebrities that they are “just like us” tend to ring hollow. Firstly, it’s obvious that all celebrities are actually lizard people in human suits. Secondly, it doesn’t matter how famous a celebrity is: just living and existing in that particular sphere of social interaction necessitates a different lifestyle. Kaling remains down to earth, but she never claims to be “just like us” (doesn’t deny the lizard thing either, you notice). In case it’s not obvious, I’m not necessarily Kaling’s target audience. She goes so far as to explicitly acknowledge this in her introduction. So take my three-star rating with that grain of salt. Nevertheless, there were a couple of passages that resonated with me, such as this one from her chapter on weddings and friendship: Until I realized: this long expanse of free time to rekindle friendships is not real. We will never come home to each other again and we will never again have each other’s undivided attention. That version of our friendship is over forever. Every once in a while, Kaling drops nuggets of hard truth in between her jokes. I shared the above realization with her as I have grown older. Many of my friends have moved away, or entered into long-term relationships, even had kids—and this is great and all, but it is a big change. Particularly as someone who doesn’t enjoy “going out” and prefers to have one or two close friends over just to hang out, it’s a change that requires a lot of adjustment. I also enjoyed this observation about differences between women’s and men’s magazines: I laugh thinking about if they ever tried to do “Who Wore It Best?” for men’s magazines. They wouldn’t, because no one would care. Men don’t care which men looked better in the same clothes because it’s so obviously a huge waste of time. It’s also why they don’t have astrology sections in men’s magazines. Zing! But a zing with a heavy dose of truth about different expectations of genders. And so this is why, even if I’m not the target audience and not, in fact, a huge fan of Kaling herself, I still enjoyed Why Not Me?. It’s modest but honest, and rather than serving up chapter after chapter of fluff, Kaling sticks in real, thoughtful, often feminist observations about our society. This is a book that can check off both the “easy read” and “meaningful read” boxes on the reading checklist I know you keep beside your bed. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 19, 2016
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Oct 20, 2016
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Oct 19, 2016
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Hardcover
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0812981154
| 9780812981155
| 0812981154
| 3.85
| 8,529
| Nov 16, 2009
| Nov 01, 2011
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it was amazing
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A friend lent Decoded me after I expressed a desire to “get into hip hop”. This is not a whim on my part but a recognition of a gap in my otherwise wi
A friend lent Decoded me after I expressed a desire to “get into hip hop”. This is not a whim on my part but a recognition of a gap in my otherwise wide musical listening. Although I would say that my “favourite” music tends towards a fairly narrow swath of sound, and my tastes are decidedly more pop than hard rock in later years, I appreciate a lot of different sounds, albeit perhaps not equally. I rock out to classical music cranked loud with my windows down; I dance around my kitchen to Florence + the Machine or my classroom to … well, pretty much anything. My music collection is not devoid of hip hop either, but those songs are few and far between. More importantly, though, I lack any clear idea of who I should try to listen to. My typical musical discovery involves hearing a song that I like somewhere, figuring out who performs it, and then going through their catalogue to discover if I want all the things or just that track, then buying accordingly. This strategy hasn’t worked for hip hop. Part of it is that I don’t often understand the lyrics when I hear a rap song. I might like the beat or the flow, maybe there’s a hook that stands out that I enjoy, and I can groove to it when it comes on. Basically, when Jay Z says: Which is the other reason hip-hop is controversial: People don’t bother trying to get it. The problem isn’t in the rap or the rapper or the culture. The problem is that so many people don’t even know how to listen to the music. he’s talking about me. Except I am trying to get it, but very slowly and probably poorly because I have no idea what I’m doing. This book helped, a little, but in the end I suspect I am more like Kathleen Norris, whose reaction to reading proofs Jay Z quotes in his afterword of this edition. She speaks as a poet who has been given a better understanding of something she knew was important but had no way of interpreting. I’m hobbled further by a more general antipathy towards poetry (sorry Norris), and so maybe that’s why rap, which seems so much more poetical than other genres of music, intimidates me. Because rap is poetry. I pity people who dismiss it as anything less, and Decoded proves them wrong. Consider how Jay Z breaks down “Public Service Announcement” and compares rap to sonnets: But even when a rapper is just rapping about how dope he is, there’s something a little bit deeper going on. It’s like a sonnet, believe it or not. Sonnets have a set structure, but also a limited subject matter: They are mostly about love. Taking on such a familiar subject and writing about it in a set structure forced sonnet writers to find every nook and cranny in the subject and challenged them to invent new language for saying old things. It’s the same with braggadocio in rap. When we take the most familiar subject in the history of rap—why I’m dope—and frame it within the sixteen-bar structure of a rap verse, synced to the specific rhythm and feel of the track, more than anything it’s a test of creativity and wit. It’s like a metaphor for itself; if you can say how dope you are in a completely original, clever, powerful way, the rhyme itself becomes proof of the boast’s truth. And there are always deeper layers of meaning buried in the simplest verses. I call rhymes like the first verse on “Public Service Announcement” Easter-egg hunts, because if you listen to it once without paying attention, you’ll brush past some lines that can offer more meaning and resonance every time you listen to them. I love this paragraph so much. It is an eloquent explanation of what rappers are doing when they front. Moreover, it demonstrates the commitment required to create memorable and powerful verses. Jay Z is not claiming that every rapper knows the structure of sonnets and is labouring to recreate them in rap. Many rappers probably cannot explain how they rap as clearly and academically as Jay Z has here—but they still know their stuff. Indeed, they know it on an intuitive level that far surpasses someone like me with an English degree, because they live the flow. A good MC can spit rhyme any time inspiration strikes, as Jay Z recounts the days he had to rush into a store to buy something so he could get a brown paper bag to write sudden lyrics on before he forgot them. Jay Z says he wants “to make the case that hip-hop lyrics—not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC—are poetry if you look at them closely enough”. I believe he makes that case more than adequately. Structure and cleverness, as mentioned above, aside, some of these verses are just so deep and so beautiful that it’s difficult to believe they might be juxtaposed next to a line about bitches coming on to him or the money his character has made from hustling. They are, though, and time and again Jay Z returns to the idea that it is more difficult to separate these two things in hip hop than one might want to believe—that is, “clean” rap is largely an illusion. However, he is more than willing to mock both himself and his critics by serving up self-satirizing songs like “Ignorant Shit” or the “almost a deliberate provocation to simpleminded listeners” of “99 Problems” with its clickbait chorus line but ultimately unrelated subject matter: The art of rap is deceptive. It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it completely literally, as raw testimony or autobiography. And sometimes the words we use, n****, bitch, motherfucker, and the violence of the images overwhelms some listeners. It’s all white noise to them till they hear a bitch or a n**** and then they run off yelling “See!” and feel vindicated in their narrow conception of what the music is about. But that would be like listening to Maya Angelou and ignoring everything until you heard her drop a line about drinking or sleeping with someone’s husband and then dismissing her as an alcoholic adulterer. I grok Jay Z’s frustration; I really do. It’s so weird that our society is fine with giving PG ratings to movies that show brutal violence, yet a little bit of nudity or sex suddenly makes it R-rated. Showcase (a specialty channel here in Canada) is fine with showing a rabbit getting its head ripped off in The Magicians or Eliot getting the shit kicked out of him in Mr. Robot, but they make sure to bleep the F-word—I assume because they think if their viewers hear a single F-bomb their brains will implode? Yet I am also somewhat complicit in this. I admit to qualifying my appreciation for rap with things like “but not gangsta rap” or “I like rap, except the parts with misogynistic lyrics”. While my intentions here might have been good, it shows an ignorance regarding the nuance that Jay Z articulates about this genre. To be frank, it’s a little racist of me: here I am, a privileged white dude, bursting onto the scene like the Kool-Aid man and insisting I’ll take “the good rap” but not “the offensive stuff”, as if I can pick and choose. Obviously it’s up to me what I listen to. But Jay Z’s stories and explanations are a stark reminder that I am so incredibly lucky with my lot in life: Most of us come from communities where people are just supposed to stay in their corners quietly, live and die without disturbing the master narrative of American society. Simply speaking our truths, which flew in the face of the American myth, made us rebels. It’s worthwhile having a conversation about the meanings within rap lyrics, as it is with lyrics from any genre. But such a conversation taken out of the context of those lyrics’ birth is little more than tone policing. I have the privilege of ignoring the pain and poverty that the predominantly Black communities face, the constant violence and aggressions that result in a vicious cycle of drug selling and buying. Jay Z is very critical, rightly so, of the ways in which the American government launched a “war on drugs” even as it funded drug cartels in other countries. There is pain here, but there is also a buoyant sense of optimism and hope that hip hop is a way to improve the future lots of Jay Z’s brothers and sisters. Jay Z observes that in some cases the potential for rap to influence social change must be there, or else why would authorities go to such lengths to suppress it: Rappers, as a class, are not engaged in anything criminal. They’re musicians. Some rappers and friends of rappers commit crimes. Some bus drivers commit crimes. Some accountants commit crimes. But there aren’t task forces devoted to bus drivers or accountants. Bus drivers don’t have to work under the preemptive suspicion of law enforcement. The difference is obvious, of course: Rappers are young black men telling stories that the police, among others, don’t want to hear. Rappers tend to come from places where police are accustomed to treating everybody like a suspect. Opposition to rap on the basis of character, then, is another form of culturally inculcated anti-Blackness. While I suppose I was aware of this in some latent sense, it took these words to make me realize it consciously. There’s nothing wrong with finding rap music unappealing, for whatever reason—but condemning it or the “offensive” words so often used in its lyrics in a wholesale fashion is another example of wilful silence in the face of the oppression that Black people and communities face. Hip hop is the latest in a long line of musical genres used—and often even piloted and popularized by Black musicians before being co-opted and made safe by white musicians—to express the angst, pain, and raw emotion of the oppression or, as it is put, “the struggle”. Jay Z believes that hip hop’s power is far from confined to Black experiences, though: This is why the hustler’s story—through hip-hop—has connected with a global audience. The deeper we get into those sidewalk cracks and into the mind of the young hustler trying to find his fortune there, the closer we get to the intimate human story, the story of struggle, which is what defines us all. (Emphasis his.) This statement, lavishly splayed in white text on a black page early in the book, resonates deeply with me despite zero experience with the hustling lifestyle. I get it, because as a storyteller and reader and educator I get that need to connect on a human level with the stories we tell in all avenues of our lives. This book is part song explanation, part autobiography, and part rumination on the politics and pressures on African Americans. Jay Z explains the meaning behind many of the lines in the selected songs, and he also comments on his choice of words and rhymes, as demonstrated above. The songs are not ordered chronologically; rather, they are grouped around loose themes that dip in and out of his history: Part 1 heavily features his adolescence, growing up on the streets, and life as a hustler, to which he compares the life of a hip hop artist; Part 2 is more about the business of hip hop and the pressure of being “known”; Part 3 gets more political; and Part 4 is an attempt to capture the zeitgeist and issues around which hip hop crystallized. Throughout this book, Jay Z openly discusses his time selling drugs, his relationship with other rappers, music that influenced and inspired him, and his attitude towards politics, particularly the election of President Obama. I imagine fans already familiar with his work will relish the first-hand explanations herein as well as the frankness of his reflection: there is more Shawn Carter here than rapper Jay Z. As someone who until this book only knew Jay Z second- and third-hand, Decoded is now a firm anchor going forward in my exploration of hip hop. Jay Z says that he’s “happiest knowing that [Decoded]’s working as a gateway drug for kids to get into reading and into thinking about new ways to use their own voices and experiences”. I have long talked about books being my drug. And I too like to use them as a way to help people express themselves. I’ve known other teachers to use hip-hop in their classrooms; I still need to get around to reading Emdin’s Urban Science Education for the Hip Hop Generation (even though I don’t teach science), though I did pick up his latest, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too . Largely I’ve eschewed using hip hop because my lack of familiarity makes me worry that I’ll use it in a inauthentic way. Hence, my exploration of hip hop is not merely a desire for cooler tunes. In my latest iteration of an English class I worked hard to improve my unit on stereotypes, drawing on the unfortunate proliferation of police shootings of Black men in July of this year. We discussed Black Lives Matter, and I did take the chance and include both Jay ’Zs “Spiritual” and Beyoncé’s “Formation” in this discussion. Though my mastery of this content is incomplete, that just means my students and I are on a quest for knowledge together. Sometimes it can be tough as a teacher to let go of needing to have all the answers, but the rewards are often worth such a risk. Although Decoded came too late for this version of the unit, it will doubtlessly inform my planning next time around. I’ll need at least that much time to mull it over anyway. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 09, 2016
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Aug 18, 2016
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Aug 09, 2016
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Paperback
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014305435X
| 9780143054351
| 014305435X
| 3.81
| 1,904
| 1990
| Sep 27, 2005
|
really liked it
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At first glance, Medicine River has a gentleness to its plot that is easily mistaken for the monotony of nothing happening. I’ll freely admit that, es
At first glance, Medicine River has a gentleness to its plot that is easily mistaken for the monotony of nothing happening. I’ll freely admit that, especially at the beginning of the novel, I had trouble finding something specific about the story that I could point to as a defining moment, or even a central conflict. Will’s circuitous narration, interspersed with frequent flashbacks, and Harlen’s idiosyncratic way of saying everything indirectly, make for a book that might seem frustratingly dull on the surface. To his credit, however, Thomas King packs much more into this slim story than initially meets the eye. And as I devoured the last few chapters, I started understanding why Medicine River has received so much praise. My first instinct was to ascribe this book’s slow pacing to the fact that it’s “character driven”—but it’s not, not really. Even the characters seem to drift in and out of focus like a camera with a slightly janky lens (see, I worked in a photography simile). Medicine River’s power comes from context rather than character or even event. It is a novel steeped in cultural and symbol; and so, I can see how people unwilling or unable (for whatever reason) to engage at that level might find it wanting. One way to approach the book is a bit obvious but no less revealing: the protagonist, Will, is an Indigneous man who moves back to Medicine River after spending much of his adult life in Toronto. As a result, he has kind of lived in “both worlds,” rural and heavily urban. He knows what life is like on a reserve (which Medicine River borders) as well as what it’s like in Canada’s biggest city. And one of the recurring motifs in this book is the way Will feels various “pulls” from different aspects of the societies he belongs to. On the one hand, Will has spent a great deal of his life away from his people and his spiritual home. We don’t earn a lot about Will’s teenage years, about how he ended up in Toronto after living in Calgary and Medicine River with his mother and brother as a child. It’s clear that Will enjoys the art of photography, and that he is a capable small business owner. But there is a question mark hovering over his head, a kind of latent sense of expectation: What now? What next? If Harlen Bigbear gets his way, “now” and “next” entail moving back to Medicine River as the town’s “only Native photographer” and moving in, if not marrying, Louise Heavyman. And so we see Will’s Indigenous identity interrogated. He constantly finds himself involved in his culture and its practices in a way that he wasn’t back in Toronto, where he was usually the “token Native.” This is really the most brilliant aspect of Medicine River, but you really need to want to see it in order to appreciate that brilliance. King parodies and subverts and lampshades the stereotypical depiction of Indigenous peoples in media: almost always absent, when Indigenous people show up in Canadian or American productions, they almost always fit into one of a few narrow moulds. From the “noble savage” or “warrior” stereotype in historical productions to the “intensely spiritual, connected to the land” stereotype you might see in more contemporaneous depictions, Indigenous people in settler media seldom have the chance to be individuals. Contrast this with Medicine River, where the cast is predominantly Indigenous and the characters are just that: individuals, just regular, everyday people, with all the hang-ups and vices you might expect. I don’t want you to get the impression, however, that King is only saying, “Hah hah, see, we’re just like white folk!” But this is a vital reminder—and one that even people like me, who work with Indigenous individuals on a daily basis, need: we get so caught up in “Indigenous issues” that we fall into the trap of generalizing experiences that are often very personal. King does engage with the stereotypes and the racism and marginalization that Indigenous feel in various ways. Take, for example, the casual wisecrack to Will about the irony of him being a photographer given “what Indians believe about photographs” (cricket chirp). Or the various references to clashes between colonial powers and Indigenous peoples, from Custer’s Last Stand to the more recent Wounded Knee occupation. Even among Indigenous people, there are conflicts and confrontations about how to perform Indigeneity (see Big John versus Eddie). And while it is not always in the foreground, the struggles with alcoholism, abuse, and crime that disproportionately affect Indigenous members of our society are always there in the background, as Will and Harlen discuss members of their community who experience these traumas. The point, then, is that while many other books (like the amazing Indian Horse) by Indigenous authors address poignant issues head-on, King does so through a snapshot of contemporary Indigenous society as he sees it in the 1980s. It’s very easy to complain about this, to say it’s just a very literary book where “nothing happens”—but white people write books like that all the time and win awards for it! Medicine River looks the reader in the eye and challenges you about what you believe a book by or about Indigenous people should be like. I read this because I’m embarking on my first time teaching Grade 11 College Preparation English to a group of adult Aboriginal students. There are also four students in the class taking it as a “Contemporary Aboriginal Voices” Native Studies/English credit, so I’m very much focusing on Indigenous issues, culture, and content. Obviously this is a challenge for a white guy like me! Although my fellow teachers often teach Indian Horse in their Grade 11 classes—and I might very well do it at some point soon!—Medicine River appeals to me for its broader scope and less traumatic tone. That’s not to say we should avoid trauma (hell, I taught Lullabies for Little Criminals to my previous English class); however, we will touch on residential schools and other traumas plenty in other areas of the course. I’m very much looking forward to studying this book in further depth with my students and hearing their feedback and opinions about it. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 2016
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May 02, 2016
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May 01, 2016
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Paperback
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1594633681
| 9781594633683
| 1594633681
| 3.76
| 197
| May 2015
| Aug 25, 2015
|
liked it
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I confess I was sceptical about this one, despite the PhD author. A student lent this to me, though, and in addition to generally trying to keep an op
I confess I was sceptical about this one, despite the PhD author. A student lent this to me, though, and in addition to generally trying to keep an open mind, I like to take an interest in what students are reading. So while I probably wouldn’t have picked up The Superhuman Mind on my own, I gave it a try—and it was all right. The rhetoric was not as hyperbolic as I feared, and the scientific aspects were pretty fascinating. It doesn’t have the same kind of intense hook or narrative that some books have—the writing is easy to follow but not overly engaging—but the subject matter is pretty cool. Neuroscience fascinates me, as does philosophy of mind. What makes us who we are? Berit Brogaard and her coauthor, Kristian Marlow, discuss various examples of how the brain can exceed its seemingly “ordinary” capacities to engage in “superhuman” tasks. Brogaard draws on her research on savants, synesthetes, and other people who have abnormal or extraordinary abilities caused by brain function. Her central thesis is that these abilities are not just granted through accident (of birth or circumstance) but can be replicated or learned by almost anyone, provided we have a good enough understanding of how they come about. Frankly, we need more books like this. Once upon a time I watched a movie called Lucy. It was, quite simply, one of the worst movies I have ever watched. The plot was an utter trainwreck of uninspired scenes stitched together somewhat haphazardly, with garbage science tossed around with the impunity of someone who watched The Core and thought, “Hmm, this is too scientifically accurate.” They take the “we only use 10% of our brain” myth—a myth I loathe with the fire of three hundred suns—and crank it up to 11. It’s so ridiculous it should be silly and fun, but it takes itself so seriously and artsy that it falls incredibly flat. But I digress. The 10% myth isn’t the only brain myth that needs to die. Whenever people hear I teach both mathematics and English, they react with surprise, and many of them make a comment along the lines of, “Oh, you use both sides of your brain!” Yeah, because everyone else just goes through life using half a brain. Well, OK, maybe it seems that way! If they bring up the left brain/right brain thing, though, I have to say, “Well, actually, the left brain is also typically the dominant hemisphere for language as well.” So there. My point is that our understanding of brain function has advanced considerably in the past fifty years, but our education on the brain has not. The general public still has a very vague idea of how our brains work. This ignorance, combined with the proliferation of various myths, is not just inconvenient but can also be dangerous: it leads to stigma around mental health and traumatic brain injury; it reinforces stereotypes of gender (and even race!); and it leads to people basing important decisions on mistaken or pseudo-scientific information. The Superhuman Mind goes a long way towards informing its reader about the wonders of the human brain, laying out what we know and how we know it, along with what we don’t know or need to find out next. It sheds light on the savant abilities of people with autism, traumatic brain injury, and other brain function that differs from the “norm.” Brogaard explains how these abilities work—at least as far as we know right now—and how people might acquire them without sacrificing chunks of grey and white matter. Neuroplasticity is a fascinating idea, and a complex one, and I’m not going to try to explain it here. I like, however, that Brogaard explores how practice influences the brain. It’s not just the practice is building up memories—it’s rewiring our neural connections, training the brain to dedicate specific pathways to certain tasks. This is adjacent to the bigger discussion around nature and nurture: some people seem born with savant abilities, and others acquire them suddenly in similarly “natural” experiences; yet, Brogaard contends, it is entirely possible to learn these abilities like one might learn to play piano. As much as I enjoyed the book, I really hate the way it is being marketed by cover and copy decisions. My copy has the subtitle “Free the Genius in Your Brain” (only slightly different from “How to Unleash Your Inner Genius”), and the back quotes extensively from the book’s own foreword, talking about the “superbrain.” All in all it just comes across like this is supposed to be one of those gimmicky The Secret–like books that will give you powers over matter and the universe itself. It isn’t. It’s hard science at its best, albeit told through some scattered and disorganized narratives about individual patients and larger studies. The Superhuman Mind is informative and interesting. It talks about the brain, and neuroscience, in an unconventional but still utterly rational, thoughtful way. I liked those aspects. At times it doesn’t deliver what I generally want from a non-fiction read, in terms of style and feel, but those seem like minor and very personal quibbles. If, like me, you wonder how we tick beneath these skulls of ours, you might like giving this a shot. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 11, 2016
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Apr 13, 2016
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Apr 11, 2016
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
0385347138
| 9780385347136
| 0385347138
| 3.46
| 9,362
| Apr 21, 2015
| Apr 21, 2015
|
liked it
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I read most, if not all, of the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid (of course). I was very moved by Anne’s journey and transition to adulthood; even
I read most, if not all, of the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid (of course). I was very moved by Anne’s journey and transition to adulthood; even then, I was pretty sure I wanted to be a teacher, and so I was fascinated by her career path. While the details of the story have blurred with time, one memory continues to stick with me. In none book, Anne and a friend are discussing marriage, and they reach the determination that of the three marital states for a woman (maid/spinster, married, widow) they admitted, “widow” was surely the best—but to get there you had to pass through the “marriage” state first! I’m not sure why this sentiment, of all things, has stuck with me, but perhaps it’s because it is a fundamentally different proposition from anything I’ve had to consider by virtue of being a man in our society. This is, inevitably, the lens through which I viewed Spinster. As Kate Bolick points out from the top, expectations around marriage differ greatly for men and women. I found her analysis, drawn from her own life and the lives of several “historical spinsters” she has studied, interesting. Perhaps more interesting, however, is how this book belies its title. Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own is not about being a spinster, although it is about making a life of one’s own. Like most people, I went into this book expecting a lengthy discussion of what it is like to be a single woman, particularly one who is over thirty. I detect rancour in some of the reviews I’ve read that protest the way Bolick seems to overlook this crucial part of spinsterhood. As Bolick herself acknowledges in the last chapter, several of the five “awakeners” she examines in the book were not, strictly speaking, spinsters. And while Bolick claims that title herself, for now, much of the time spent discussing her personal life focuses on all the men she has dated, emphasizing not so much that she has spent most of her life single but that she has spent most of her life in and out of various relationships—just none that she wanted to turn into a marriage. Like those other reviewers, I was a little frustrated by this apparent disconnect between the book’s potential and what it actually delivers. But I managed to find something worthwhile in the last few chapters that redeemed most of it. See, this is not so much a book about being single in modern society as it is about being a woman, full stop. This is a feminist book, a plea for us to continue abolishing gender norms and double standards: The question now is something else entirely: Are women people yet? By which I mean: Are we finally ready for a young woman to set out on the long road of her life as a human being who inhabits but isn’t limited by her gender?… Until the answer is an undeniable yes, a girl actually can’t grow up like a boy, free to consider the long scope of her life as her own distinct self. This resonates with me, because it so succinctly captures the double standard with regards to marriage. I’ve never been a relationship, and to be honest, am increasingly feeling comfortable with that state of being. And because I’m a man, I have the privilege of ignoring the question of marriage and assuming I can be independent, can provide for myself, etc., a priori. This is not the same for women, and even though women might have more choice and flexibility these days, the way they view marriage—and the way we view them, and judge them, when it comes to marriage—is very different. And I think Bolick is very right to pin this on the fundamental problem that patriarchy poses, which is namely the way it does not recognize women as people, with agency and all that entails. Just look at the ongoing battle against women’s health and reproductive rights in the United States. In this context, then, the rest of Spinster makes more sense. Sure, some of the women that Bolick examines did end up marrying. The point is that they caught her attention for how they managed to live, single or married, as their own selves. They were individuals first, wives and women second, and that intrigued her. I like how Bolick peels back the layers of assumptions and stereotypes about the 1890s through the 1930s to show us the diversity of lifestyles. Movies and literature only show us so much; we inevitably start thinking of a certain period through the shorthand of its portrayal in fiction. Bolick’s recounts of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s strange, solitary life with her husband, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s world travels, remind us that there were always exceptions and wonderful countercultures within the more dominant culture of the time. It’s just such a shame that it takes until literally the closing pages for Spinster to provide those missing pieces to make everything else fall into place. Bolick could have been more upfront, but she chooses instead to provide an anecdotal preface followed by a first chapter that sets the mould for the rest of the book: series of jarring vignettes that flit between her personal life and the lives of the women she has studied. While I disagree with those who feel let down by the book’s premise, I wholeheartedly agree that its organization and editing are greatly lacking. There is a great deal of interest in Spinster, but its writing does not make it an easy book to love. I pushed myself through it, through Bolick’s attempts at self-deprecation and her vacillation between being brutally self-aware and seemingly oblivious. Also note that while Spinster is indisputably feminist in its arguments, it is a very limited, white feminism rather than intersectional. Bolick’s perspective and discourse almost myopically focuses on middle-to-upper class, white America. I don’t mind that Bolick ignores marriage in other countries and cultures, for that would be an absurdly broad scope. More troubling, though, is the omission of any thought to poor women, past or present, Black/African American women, Indigenous women, Asian women, Hispanic women, women of other various ethnicities who were born in America or immigrated. Now, it’s not surprising that Bolick writes with the perspective she does, or that the women who were her “awakeners” are similar to her in background and vocation. I don’t expect Bolick to somehow be able to authentically examine the experiences of women from different backgrounds. However, it would be nice if she at least acknowledged that, even united by a common gender, the struggles that she has faced as a woman are mediated by her race and circumstance and are different from those that other American women face, even today. This lack of self-awareness is one of the reasons white feminism is so problematic; it does not diminish the veracity of Bolick’s arguments but does undermine some of her attempts at solidarity. I borrowed this from a coworker and friend who absolutely raved about it. Of course, when you borrow a book and don’t like it, that can be very awkward. Halfway through Spinster I was trying to figure out how I would explain/soften the blow of my disappointment with the book—fortunately, those last couple of chapters managed to change my mind. I liked Spinster, and I found a lot of Bolick’s observations eye-opening and accurate. It’s just the style and structure of the book that made liking this more of a struggle than I’m used to with my non-fiction. [image] ...more |
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Mar 22, 2016
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Mar 26, 2016
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Mar 23, 2016
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Hardcover
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1632154382
| 9781632154385
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| 4.40
| 69,834
| Sep 09, 2015
| Sep 09, 2015
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it was amazing
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This isn't a review so much as a disjointed collection of thoughts about Saga, Volume 5. I mean, the problem with these reviews is that it always boil
This isn't a review so much as a disjointed collection of thoughts about Saga, Volume 5. I mean, the problem with these reviews is that it always boils down to more of the same. Buy Saga. Read it, in order. Do it! Whenever I read graphic novels, I try to talk about the art and artist, since these are obviously important parts of the medium. And it’s with great respect when I say that I don’t give the art of a graphic novel as much attention as I should; I prefer words, which is why I prefer regular novels. But Volume 5 has some very explicit scenes, so it provides a good opportunity to discuss Fiona Staples’ artwork. Saga is fairly conventional when it comes to its panel layout, so that helps. The panels are different on each page, and occasionally they’re skewed rather than perpendicular—but they are always generally quadrilateral and well-defined. Despite sticking to this conservative schema, Staples employs a great variety of panel dimensions and layouts to help tell the story. She can effortlessly convey a sense of motion, or give us a big hero shot to emphasize a particular moment. This has always been an adult comic, and its artwork reflects that. This volume is no different, and perhaps even a little more. I mean, that two-page spread with the dragon is just … uh … wow. Also, can we pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that Ghüs is amazing and possibly the best character in the entire series and I don’t want him to die please oh please don’t kill him? Let’s pause and do that. There is lots of dying in here. No spoilers, of course, just a reminder that Vaughan and Staples are GRRMing the shit out of this series: anyone and everyone can and will die, no guarantees, no warning. It’s a good thing, because like Game of Thrones they have a tremendous cast of characters, and no, and I can’t remember everyone’s name. That’s what wikis are for. This volume might be the most insane yet in turns of plot twists. Saga continues to ramp up, with the stories going in directions both predictable and unforeseen, providing a nice mixture of reward for invested readers and twists that will keep us invested. And Ghüs is the best! My reviews of Saga: ← Volume 4 | Volume 6 → [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 23, 2015
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Paperback
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4.02
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it was amazing
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Aug 23, 2024
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Aug 26, 2024
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3.90
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liked it
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May 25, 2023
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Jun 02, 2023
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4.46
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really liked it
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Dec 23, 2018
not set
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Mar 03, 2023
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3.68
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really liked it
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Sep 25, 2019
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Sep 25, 2019
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3.79
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liked it
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Oct 05, 2019
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Sep 05, 2019
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4.16
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liked it
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Nov 30, 2019
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Feb 15, 2019
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4.36
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it was ok
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Feb 03, 2019
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Jan 28, 2019
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4.27
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Jan 02, 2019
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Jan 02, 2019
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4.56
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liked it
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Dec 24, 2018
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Dec 24, 2018
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3.13
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liked it
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Aug 24, 2018
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Aug 23, 2018
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4.48
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really liked it
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Dec 04, 2017
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Dec 04, 2017
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3.51
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really liked it
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Apr 03, 2017
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Apr 02, 2017
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3.83
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really liked it
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Sep 28, 2017
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Jan 03, 2017
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3.90
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it was ok
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Dec 28, 2016
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Dec 27, 2016
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3.91
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liked it
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Oct 20, 2016
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Oct 19, 2016
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3.85
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it was amazing
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Aug 18, 2016
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Aug 09, 2016
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3.81
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really liked it
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May 02, 2016
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May 01, 2016
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3.76
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liked it
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Apr 13, 2016
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Apr 11, 2016
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3.46
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liked it
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Mar 26, 2016
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Mar 23, 2016
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4.40
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it was amazing
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Dec 22, 2015
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Dec 23, 2015
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