it is some kind of failure of the education system and my own reading that this is the first i've read of alice childress, because my god. what a nimbit is some kind of failure of the education system and my own reading that this is the first i've read of alice childress, because my god. what a nimble and piercing set of plays. ranked in order of my personal favorites:
Trouble in Mind (1955) WILETTA: Henry, I want to be an actress, I've always wanted to be an actress and they ain't gonna do me the way they did the home rule! I want to be an actress 'cause one day you're nineteen and then forty and so on... I want to be an actress! Henry, they stone us when we try to go to school, the world's crazy. a play within a play: a theatrical company trying to put on a show about lynching. key word trying; the play is bad. for a script that's just a bunch of people sitting around their own scripts, this is blitz-fast and it made me fucking CRAZY BONKERS IN THE HEAD. everyone in the world should read trouble in mind you can find a pdf on google.com it will take you like two hours and it makes me froth and foam at the mouth
Wine in the Wilderness (1969) TOMMY: They got to callin' me Tommy for short, so I stick with that. Tomorrow Marie... sound like a promise that can never happen. hard to describe this one; it's a one-act on art and misogynoir and class and the relationships between men and women, but it's also just really really enjoyable to read. tommy i adore you so much. (view spoiler)[this is the last play in the collection, and after reading the first four, i definitely wasn't expecting this one to end on a final glimmer of hope. but it's such a perfect ending note. (hide spoiler)]
Florence (1949) MAMA: Do tell! What shame has she got? MRS. CARTER: It's obvious! This lovely creature... intelligent, ambitious, and well... she's a Negro! MAMA [waiting eagerly]: Yes'm, you said that... this one is very short and it punched me in the face. how is this the first play childress ever wrote. what the hell and fuck. everything down to the staging in a train station with a black/white seating divide... oh i'm crazy
Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White (1966) JULIA: We the ones built the pretty white mansions... for free... the fishin' boats... for free... made your clothes, raised your food... for free... and I loved you—for free. on an interracial relationship that hasn't become a marriage, because it's south carolina in 1918. what got me about this one was how clear it is that julia and herman adore each other, and how that still doesn't mean herman understands what it's like to live as a black person in america. many, many things going on in this one, and i'm not sure the pacing worked for me personally, but i should probably read it again.
Gold Through the Trees (1952) OLA: All my life I have hoped to see freedom, isn't it strange that the only way to gain equality is to die? I should so love to see it. I have dreamed of being here, alive when that day comes. i think i didn't get the full effect of this play, because the stage directions indicate that huge parts of it rely on set, costume, and music, and i am reading a script. so the rapid switching of time periods and locations jolted me more than it carried me along. that said, the last scene is about the anti-apartheid movement in south africa and it made me want to actually bawl. childress solos again
anyway. recommended if you're into theater or plays about women or plays about black women specifically or plays that are good or writing that is good...more
this is fucking brilliant and i want to see it DESPERATELY. obviously the progressive warping of the simpsons story into a post-apocalyptic cultural mthis is fucking brilliant and i want to see it DESPERATELY. obviously the progressive warping of the simpsons story into a post-apocalyptic cultural myth is fascinating and extremely well-done but i'm just as impressed by the slow unfolding of information in the first act through dialogue alone--the gaps in the info we have are brilliant and terrifying. i would be frothing to act in this if i could fucking SING...more
I FEEL. CRAZY. this one didn't grab me from the start the way the first one did but i've just finished and i feel CRAZY. pullman you crazy genius you I FEEL. CRAZY. this one didn't grab me from the start the way the first one did but i've just finished and i feel CRAZY. pullman you crazy genius you did it again ic an't believe the last like three chapters of this book come in swinging with (view spoiler)[the christian god is The Enemy (hide spoiler)]
obviously i am now understanding even more why my milton professor told me to read this series. this book was not quite as entertaining for me as the first, i think because some of the most appealing parts of the first were necessarily absent--i fell in love with lyra's world, but so much of this book is spent dipping in and out of ours; i find mrs. coulter one of the most compelling characters on the page, and she was on the page a lot less. also, i miss iorek. but the writing and the sheer craft of the story remain so vivid and elegant and deeply feeling. i didn't come to this series for breakneck twists; i came to it for the concept and the intertextuality. but i would like to shout out the way pullman embeds every upcoming reveal so smoothly and patiently, so that the gasp-out-loud moments feel less like twists and more like things that should have been obvious. soooooo well done. i would follow lyra anywhere to the ends of the earth
anyway, same as last time, some of these stories didn't quite hit for me, but some of them knocked me into next week, and regardless i think the coherent whole is more than the sum of its parts. i love her mind. favorite stories:
1. Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather the standout piece; this one won a nebula AND a hugo and it SHOWS. told in the format of a folk ballad's genius.com annotations page, in which a mystery unfolds. this one is so so delightful all the way through, from the mixture of petty squabbling and literary analysis in the annotations to the beauty of the song itself to. well. you'll have to read it for the mystery won't you >:3 everything about this hits the mark perfectly, the ending is fantastic, 12/10, read it now my final message goodbye. (i always hear the central song vaguely to the tune of Oak & Ash & Thorn, even though the meter doesn't fit.)
2. I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise okay, of course this is my second-fav, because my friends call me a "new yorkiboo." (in my defense, i was born there, allegedly.) there is so much in here that i specifically love--new york, weird liminal spaces, historical figures, alternate histories, warped chronology, GEORGE GERSHWIN'S RHAPSODY IN BLUE!!! the historical and fictional are combined so seamlessly here and it's delicious. (the title is a real gershwin quote!)
3. A Better Way of Saying i can't separate this one from the above--not because they're connected (though they are, vaguely; one character appears in each), but because they both play with history and hearsay so beautifully. when i realized what the speculative concept in this was, i started rubbing my hands together like a fly. also the tor.com cover art is fucking gorgeous so you should go look at it and read the piece while you're there
4. Left the Century to Sit Unmoved if you have never read a pinsker piece before and you want to start with something short, start with this one, because it carries the loveliness and melancholy of so much of pinsker's writing while also packing a CRAZY punch for under 2,500 words. i think you could make a lot of metaphors out of this and i think it also stands perfectly well on its own non-metaphorically. the title (which didn't mean what i expected it to; i think the flexibility of its meaning is another perfect aspect of the piece) is so beautiful that i started muttering it over and over like a madman and haven't quite stopped.
5. Science Facts! i will be honest--i think this one is paced weirdly, a little top-heavy, a little too long before the central conceit arrives. nevertheless, 1. it is fucking excellent anyway; the tone is balanced perfectly and the first-person plural tense is seamless, and 2. i read it while driving through the rainforest region of seattle where it takes place, right on the heels of leaving something that was not quite summer camp but carried the same mixed joy and grief in its temporality, and i almost started crying at the end. a really strong ending to the collection, and maybe the story that lives up to the title in the fullest way. (allegedly pinsker's editors wanted to title the whole collection Science Facts!, but c'mon, you can't do that, imagine the frustrated amazon reviews from people who can't read summaries and expect a biology textbook.)
honorable mention is two truths and a lie but every pinskerhead knows that one and also it makes me feel bad ...more
SARAH PINSKER JUST TEN MINUTES IN YOUR BRAIN PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I'M NOTHING
not entirely sure how to describe the experience of reading this bSARAH PINSKER JUST TEN MINUTES IN YOUR BRAIN PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I'M NOTHING
not entirely sure how to describe the experience of reading this beyond that, actually: i want to crawl into sarah pinsker's brain because i'm obsessed with what's going on in there. not every one of these stories worked for me, but even in the ones that i found overlong or too vague (i'm sorry Wind Will Rove you're beautiful i just wish you were ten pages shorter), the beauty and control of pinsker's prose and the strength of her vision comes across. pinsker is especially so fascinated in people and how they fit together, in a way that i find ultimately hopeful without being schlocky or shying away from the punches, and i think she's rapidly rising to become one of my favorite short fiction writers. favorites:
1. And Then There Were (N-One) overwhelmingly the standout, as well as the longest story, this one stars an alternate sarah pinsker attending a convention of interdimensionally-gathered fellow sarah pinskers. it's an agatha christie homage! there's a murder! it's exactly as bonkers as it sounds and, as the finale of this book, it has cemented to me that pinsker is a genius. if you only read one pinsker story, read this one.
2. In Joy, Knowing The Abyss Behind but that one's really long, so here's a somewhat shorter one, tracing the life of an elderly couple as one of them lies on his deathbed, and tracing around the incident that changed him forever. the scifi element of this one is more muted than most of the other stories, but dear fucking god did it make me want to bawl like a baby. pinsker is so, so, so good at slipping in innocuous details that come back around to wallop you. i was in the audience of a graduation ceremony trying not to get sniffly to this
3. Talking With Dead People re: those innocuous details that came back around to get you. this one is searing. on murder and true crime (loosely) and the ethics of building little AI houses that talk back to you about the heinous acts committed within them. also about shitty friendships with people who think they are the only sentient beings in the universe, which has been hitting a note for me lately.
4. A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide what if YOU got a ROBOT ARM but the ROBOT ARM was a ROAD in COLORADO because it was TRANSGENDER*. a really, really good start to the collection, because it shows off how pinsker can cut through a concept in such a brief page count, with dizzying vividness. also a really good forecast of what to expect: no easy answers or clean breaks, but a lot of feeling. *the robot arm is not explicitly transgender but it's literally a robot arm that is also a road
what do i say in summary. 4 stars because a few of these stories did overstay their welcome a little to me. but my god. give me the second sarah pinsker short story collection you fucking library...more
this is very, very CMM--on the literary side of genre fiction but richly speculative regardless, deeply concerned with consent and the body and the exthis is very, very CMM--on the literary side of genre fiction but richly speculative regardless, deeply concerned with consent and the body and the excruciating isolation of being an angry teenage girl, set in a world where the ordinary and horrific bleed into each other but the real horror is a very ordinary type of violence (heavy cw for (view spoiler)[sexual assault, although i appreciate and marvel at the discretion of this comic, which lets you know exactly what's going on while keeping the details off-screen, un-sensationalized and worse to imagine (hide spoiler)]. not my favorite CMM, maybe because her prose blows me away so hard that a graphic novel is on uneven ground, but that's no disrespect to the artist: the art in this is absolutely fucking breathtakingly gorgeous. book for girls who like girls for fucking real. also el i love you so much...more
IIIIIII AM GOOOOOOOING CRAZYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. this is a retelling of the procne and philomela story, by the woman who wrote MILF Satan Paradise Lost, witIIIIIII AM GOOOOOOOING CRAZYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. this is a retelling of the procne and philomela story, by the woman who wrote MILF Satan Paradise Lost, with a narrating chorus of women harmed by wartime sexual violence from various real-life historical conflicts. i honestly don't even know how to talk about how good this is. the way the themes all cohere. the constant imagery of blood and chewing and eating and flight. the incestuous undertones that emphasize the violence of the family unit before that violence visibly erupts outward. the fact that philomela is SO YOUNG. the first scene between the sisters and their lighthearted banter and earnest curiosity about sex versus the rest of the play. the monologues. the first lines. the last lines. i'm on my hands and knees coughing and retching
PROCNE I think marriage is like death: we consume ourselves in imagining what's on the other side and then all at once we're there....more
ERIN SHIELDS IS A GENIUS I'M FROTHING AT THE FUCKING MOUTH
beautiful man: three women discussing a recent movie they saw, and the wonderful male characERIN SHIELDS IS A GENIUS I'M FROTHING AT THE FUCKING MOUTH
beautiful man: three women discussing a recent movie they saw, and the wonderful male characters that the director took such care to represent with ~depth~ and ~importance~ and, of course, sex appeal. flipped-oppression stories don't usually work for me, but erin shields' cutting sense of humor makes it work--this goes way beyond "what if... women... were mean to MEN instead" to offer up a searingly ironic look at how women are depicted in media and how that reflects onto real life. so many lines that made me suck in my breath, or laugh but with a tint of bitterness. (my one criticism of this one is that there were a few lines that seemed to tilt into bioessentialism--blah blah men are naturally stronger than women etc etc in a way that left a weird taste in my mouth.)
JENNIFER The director wants us to wait a few episodes to get to know the importance of the male characters.
SOPHIE The director, I hear, I hear she did a lot of research.
JENNIFER Yes, a lot of historical research.
SOPHIE And scientific too.
PAM She also talked to a psychologist who's an expert in these types of things.
JENNIFER They're making a documentary about all the research she did.
SOPHIE And she travelled too. She had interns all over.
PAM Oh, I heard about the interns.
JENNIFER Why didn't they speak out sooner, that's my only question.
unit b-1717: a woman tries to clean out her storage locker and is swept up in memories. this one took a little while to work on me, but when i got into it, man, was i into it. deeply concerned with embodiment and physicality and the ways people disappear when they take others' feelings upon their shoulders.
I was taught to be scared of the night. That women disappear at night. Women go missing at night. Women don't make it home when they walk alone at night, but that assumes all women want to appear. That all women intend to be found.
and then there was you: a monologue from a mother to her growing child. can't talk about this because despite my communist transsexual anti-nuclear family leanings stuff about parent/child relationships will reliably make me bawl like a baby and if i think too hard about this one i'll lose it
anyway i need to read every erin shields play ever written...more
things brenda peynado is interested in: the strange, the unsettling, small magics, pariahs, stories narrated by a first-person-plural "we," latine idethings brenda peynado is interested in: the strange, the unsettling, small magics, pariahs, stories narrated by a first-person-plural "we," latine identity, class divides, allegorical symbolism, bodies and what's done to them, stories that leave you a little unsettled. things i am interested in: brenda peynado's mind. this collection is sixteen stories. some of them felt a little crooked (too short, or too long, or too distant), but all of them are strange and beautiful. my favorites:
1. Thoughts and Prayers
Our teachers mentioned the shootings, but then moved on to the day's lessons. If they had to stop for every shooting, they said, the whole world would stop. Shouldn't the whole world have stopped? But I didn't know how to stop it.
in which a school shooting strikes an american suburb where families pray for safety to the angels on their roofs, angels that mostly chew cud and don't blink. this is the perfect start to this collection, because it's thematically emblematic of so much of the stories to follow and because it's throat-grabbing. i'm not sure how i feel about the ending, but i think this is the one that's going to stick with me the most.
If only we could live in every moment forever. If only the answers to our lives could be captured in a bottle we could drink from again instead of looking back across unreachable chasms, our own out-of-body experiences.
peynado likes stories where almost everything is the same except for one little unusual twist in the world. in this one, it's that a rash of drownings take lives from every generation, kind of like clockwork, and the current teenagers are fascinated by the immortality their swimming pools seem to promise. i was going to say that i don't know why it got me so bad, but i guess stories about adolescence and death as freedom will do that to me. also the prose is BREATHTAKING
I thought about how they had spent not just their lives, but our lives, too, gobbled up or snorted up or injected into their faces all that good fortune of the eighties and the dot-com boom, them laying their heads back into the shampoo bowl and me wasting all my understanding about the world--fluid dynamics, the great monologues of literature, the construction of engines, the physics of flight--on rubbing their skin over their bones.
no scifi-fantasy here; just cold capitalist dystopia. i don't know if it's the character voice that grabbed me or just the way this story makes stark the sheer horror of the way work grinds us down, but ohhhhh man. oh my god. peynado's prose makes me crazy bonkers [june edit: this ended up the story i consistently think about the most from this collection. aough]
For them, it was just a story. They never got to the point of horror, the point when we were sorry, when the tide turned, after we wanted them to surrender in the human way, arms up, after we wanted them to fight back to absolve us, after we realized they could not be pushed to fight back, when we began to carry them into the hospitals and the morgue, the doctors trying as best as they could to understand our differences, how to get under their armor, how to splint antennae together, where the vital organs were.
this one took a little while to grow on me--it's one of the longer stories in the collection--but by the end i was transfixed and also ruined. it follows the aftermath of an alien arrival, one that humans reacted to with violence; it's a story asking how we can deal with the aftermath of a terrible, terrible crime. it makes me want to pull my hair out
these are my personal favorites, but the entire collection is worth a read (the story chosen for last place is a REALLY really good finale, for example). i have some gripes (the number of stories narrated by a plural "we" was a lot, and started to blend together; some of the stories felt more exercising than heartfelt), but i'm consistently impressed by the way peynado offers all these little glimpses into strange and familiar worlds. really excited to read more of her writing, because how did i miss it for this long....more
if i had to recommend one book about cleopatra, i'd recommend the stacy schiff biography. but sometimes people like to know a normal amount of things if i had to recommend one book about cleopatra, i'd recommend the stacy schiff biography. but sometimes people like to know a normal amount of things and not 350 extremely detailed pages' worth, so for those people i would recommend this one! a really clear, coherent, accessible-but-detailed examination of 1. what we know about the cleopatra myth and 2. important moments in her pop culture portrayal (particularly the shakespeare play and the elizabeth taylor movie). some of this was a little simplistic, and i don't agree with all of prose's takes on the shakespeare play (prose has a fascination with octavia that i understand but i think saying octavia is more appealing to the audience than cleopatra is insane. woman is boring as hell), but i appreciate the refreshing bluntness of just calling a lot of cleopatra media racist instead of waffling around "it was the tImE pErIoD." a lot of good info in here; definitely worth picking up if you want to learn about cleopatra beyond the pop culture image!...more
i am obsessed with carmen maria machado's mind. this will always be true. i am really really into what she has going on. none of these stories really i am obsessed with carmen maria machado's mind. this will always be true. i am really really into what she has going on. none of these stories really did it for me the same way as "The Husband Stitch," the only one i had read previously (and the setter of a very high bar), but just know that i am a CMM fanatic and i will be getting my grubby hands on In the Dream House as soon as possible.
that said--yeah, "The Husband Stitch" is a hard bar to clear. machado's prose is always immaculate and amazing (SO many times i thought, "augh, the things you can do with words!"), and her exploration of the gritty and gory, the psychological and bodily, the loving and lustful alike is technologically masterful. plus there is soooooo much experimentation with form which i ADORE. but some of these stories left me feeling a little empty regardless, maybe because they rely so heavily on audience interpretation. i really dislike feeling like i Don't Get Things. which is a me problem. but i found some of the stories notably more affecting/memorable than others, which i suppose is the peril of a short story collection.
the husband stitch: 5 stars it's impeccable. it's beautiful. it's weird and unsettling and witty and delicious and i fucking LOVE stories about storytelling (and, in this case, whose stories are heard/believed). and my GOD, machado's PROSE!!! you can read this one for free here and i am begging you to do it if you love me. nobody does it like her
inventory: 3.5 stars emotionally, this one didn't affect me super intensely, maybe because of the sparseness of the detail. but, once again, i LOVE stories that get weird with form (this one is a tale about the end of the world told through a list of the protagonist's sexual encounters), and the slow unfurling of the horror here is excellent.
mothers: 3.5 stars gonna be so real. i finished this one and thought "what the fuck was that" and was kind of pissed-off about it. re: not enjoying feeling like i Don't Get Things. the more i think about it, though, the more i like it, and the more the ending comes together for me. i will say i'm not sure we needed QUITE such a long description of the narrator's dream house but there we are.
especially heinous: 4 stars the most polarizing story, based off the reviews i've read, and i get why, because it is literally a novella told in paragraph-long summaries of fake law & order: svu episodes. it is like fifty pages long. i spent the whole first third thinking, "this is too long. why does this need to be this long?" but then it grew on me like a mold and i honestly think it's my second-favorite story in the collection. not JUST because of the cool formal stuff! but a little bit because of that, yeah. (the episode titles are real and i love seeing how machado twists what they presumably mean in the real show--this must have been so much FUN* to write, which isn't always a good thing as a reader but also yes it is!) *excepting the discussions of violent misogyny but you get what i mean,
real women have bodies: 3 stars there is a butch in this one. so props for that. also the writing style is gorgeous as always and i really love the worlds machado creates; in a different collection, by a different author, i think i would have enjoyed this more. but i have machado's more emotionally affecting work to compare it to, and this one ended up feeling a little dulled by contrast. the crux of this one is really in the concept (which IS a cool concept!), but i wanted more from it.
eight bites: 3 stars see above. three stars for concept and machado's prose, which never fail, but this one didn't do much for me (particularly the characters of the sisters, who are unnamed and sort of interchangeable in a fairytale-style way, but the rest of the story isn't fable-esque in the same style). (but ough that line about the main character's adult daughter refusing to come out to her mother even though her mother knows...)
the resident: 3.5 stars see, this is the one that's driving me insane. because on a technical craft level, it's absolutely amazing (the way it plays with gothic tropes! the way it plays with the idea of the madwoman artist!). but i also finished it and went, "that's fucking it?" this is the second-longest story in the collection, and i felt like it built and built and built and then sort of shuddered to a stop. maybe i went in with the wrong expectations, hoping for too much drama, but the end felt jaggedly abrupt. and yet this is the one that's been cycling around my head the most in the days since i finished the book, maybe exactly because i can't pin it down. (this [spoilery] article was an interesting read.)
difficult at parties: 4 stars this one could have been longer, maybe, but the concept got to me (a woman in the aftermath of a sexual assault discovers she can hear porn stars' thoughts), and i predicted the ending about four pages before the end and it happened so seamlessly that it felt like letting out a breath. maybe my third favorite. fourth favorite? the resident and i have some kind of enemies to lovers thing happening, i guess.
i did really enjoy this, even if some of the stories left me a little underwhelmed! CMM is one of the best prose artists i've ever read, so that was enough to carry even the stories that didn't come off for me. and at the very least most of these have crawled into my brain to take up space. very excited to read In the Dream House, seeing as everyone i know raves about it. CMM i would follow you anywhere...more
A Roman could not pry apart the exotic and the erotic; Cleopatra was a stand-in for the occult, alchemical East, for her sinuous, sensuous land, as peA Roman could not pry apart the exotic and the erotic; Cleopatra was a stand-in for the occult, alchemical East, for her sinuous, sensuous land, as perverse and original as its astonishment of a river [...] It is not difficult to understand why Caesar became history, Cleopatra a legend.
what an epic of a biography, my god. comprehensive and sharp and absolutely gorgeous. schiff has such a dry and beautiful narrative voice, vivid and descriptive while also cutting sardonically through so much of the misogyny and orientalism that surrounds cleopatra; she also hits an excellent balance of assembling sources and theorizing about what might have happened (and what likely didn't; lots of roman historians thought cleopatra was a fucking idiot) while also rejecting the idea that we can ever know the "real truth." 4 stars (4.5 if i could. goodreads please) because there is simply so much detail here that i got bogged down at times, but honestly, that's basically method writing for talking about (the roman conception of) egypt's overflowing lushness, so who can complain. anyway this is a masterpiece and i really liked the making fun of cicero parts <3
Our fascination with Cleopatra has only increased as a result; she is all the more mythic for her disappearance. The holes in the story keep us under her spell. ^ this is the idea behind the thesis i have to write. this book made me excited about it again. thank you for your service stacy schiff...more
see my review of the first book, because all the same points apply. even if i'd love to do some gentle line editing, this is a tight, well-paced, extrsee my review of the first book, because all the same points apply. even if i'd love to do some gentle line editing, this is a tight, well-paced, extremely inventive children's book that i am realizing influenced my old writing a good deal more than i thought. i love kids' books about talking animals. i love when they're like "and then the giant rats RIPPED EACH OTHER'S GUTS OUT"
i also appreciate that collins is always based. the pacifist bent to this series is maybe less pronounced here than in the first book, but there's a lot going on with gregor's status as a "rager" (someone who goes into a sort of berserker frenzy when in a fight)—because he doesn't like it. gregor doesn't want to be a killer, or even particularly good at fighting; he wants to take care of his younger sister and help people solve things without getting hurt. the climax of this book has a very straightforward and yet not-heavy-handed emphasis on mercy, even when revenge might be easier. which, hey, another connecting string from this series to the hunger games! (also, low bar, but i like that there's very little gender weirdness; gregor's masculinity or lack thereof isn't ever an issue when there are giant rats trying to eat you. there IS a side character whose portrayal is very early-2000s-mean-girl, but thankfully she was only there for about ten pages.)
what else is there? collins remains so good at side characters. twitchtip, my absolute beloved. ripred, my one and only. (also, i love the naming conventions of the underland & how they vary for each species.) she ALSO remains so good at writing scenes that are just baldly horrifying. the visuals of (view spoiler)[pandora's (hide spoiler)] death scene have been lodged firmly in my mind for ten years; it's one of my strongest memories of this series.
finally, i have to reserve the most praise for this book for the third-act-plot-twist. reveals that absolutely knocked me head-over-heels as a kid. and you know what? it still hits! it still makes me sad! the resolution of it still makes me feel hopeful and misty-eyed! perhaps more so now that i can fully appreciate how well the text sets up the (view spoiler)[boots-bane parallels (hide spoiler)]. though i forgot how much the ending here leaves unresolved! very excited to (re-)read the next one :3...more
she's done it again... an absolutely sweet, darling little book about ten-year-old penelope (called penny), who is writing a journal to her as-yet-unbshe's done it again... an absolutely sweet, darling little book about ten-year-old penelope (called penny), who is writing a journal to her as-yet-unborn little sibling. it's 2015, and along with the daily trials of being ten, she's keeping track of two important cultural moments: the golden state warriors' march toward a basketball championship title, and the supreme court's ruling on gay marriage, a decision that affects penny directly as a kid with two moms. this book didn't get me quite like the other rocklin books i've read, but i can't say that without mentioning that it also made me cry ((view spoiler)[penny's friend's dad says her moms' partnership "isn't right;" in response, in her journal, penny writes an impassioned paragraph on how good her moms are for each other and how simply and beautifully and lovingly their whole family takes care of each other. look, man, i'm weak right now. (hide spoiler)]). from top to bottom, it's a book about love; it made me smile; it reminded me how sometimes scary-frustrating-thrilling it is to be ten. penny is a wonderful narrator; i didn't realize how fast i was getting attached to her until i realized that she'd be eighteen today and i aww'd into my empty room thinking of her growing up.
this book also has a lot of great representation! i dislike the foregrounding of representation/diversity in discussion of books that aren't about cishet white people, because i think it can lead to the actual content being overshadowed, but i'd be remiss here not to note that this book, like rocklin's others, is very kind-hearted and handles some heavy issues gently. most notably, one of penny's moms is ohlone, and through the book penny does a lot of research into ohlone culture and history for her fifth-grade heritage project. one of the points made repeatedly is that the ohlone aren't a relic of the past: even after centuries of genocide and discrimination, they are still here, figured not only by penny's mom but by her grandma, great-grandma, and uncle, who happily teach her about ohlone traditions. it takes a careful hand to discuss the horrifying treatment of indigenous people in a book that is, ultimately, a celebration of love and joy, but in my opinion rocklin pulls it off; penny becomes determined to teach the people in her class about the atrocities the ohlone have faced, but also about the beauty of ohlone culture in californian history and the present day.
i have one gripe with the political messaging here. penny’s best friend, gabby, is black; this is for the most part good rep, as far as i can tell. one of the plot points is that (view spoiler)[her older brother, mike, has just gotten his driver’s license. while driving the girls around in the middle of the book, he is stopped by a police officer who treats him harshly and gives him a speeding ticket even though he wasn’t speeding. gabby tells penny that black kids have to learn how to handle these situations; penny tells gabby not to overreact, which makes gabby start to cry. penny immediately regrets this, admitting to the reader that she just didn’t want to think about racism because it upsets her, and she and the third member of their friend group, hazel, write an apology letter to gabby and give her a very heartfelt sincere apology about how they should have listened and tried to understand. so far, so good; i think this is accessible for kids but also doesn’t shy away from racism existing! …and then gabby says she wants to become a GOOD police officer when she grows up. i don’t know why this is in there; it’s one paragraph, and it could have easily been cut. i don’t know if joanne rocklin and her publishers actually believe there are good cops, or if they just thought “ACAB” was too much for a kids’ book, but either way, the result is the same: the book’s ability to address antiblackness is immediately watered down by its rushing to assure kids that no, guys, this black girl CAN grow up to be a GOOD COP and the system is salvageable :). i do get that ACAB might be a lot for kids; i’m not saying this book needs to go, “and actually, all cops are part of an inherently racist system that protects the state at all costs!” but it would have been very easy to remove that paragraph and it’s disappointing that that wasn’t done. (hide spoiler)]
that said, i can't bear to rate this book lower than four stars, because it is just so warm-hearted and penny is a great narrator. i mean, i don't even like basketball! but i was excited on her behalf anyway! i couldn't pick steph curry out of a lineup! but joanne rocklin has the sauce. her books are kind without being didactic, fun without shying away from the stuff out there that sucks, and after 240 pages i can announce that i love penelope, too :)...more
i will be straightforward: i did not enjoy the first half of this book. which was startling, because beartown was so good, but backman's work is alwayi will be straightforward: i did not enjoy the first half of this book. which was startling, because beartown was so good, but backman's work is always on a line between Just Enough and Too Much, and a lot of this book crossed firmly over. for one thing, it's longer, to a degree i'm not sure is necessary; where the first half of beartown felt urgent and suspenseful, the first half of us against you felt meandering, like backman was spinning his wheels trying to figure out what more one can possibly say about this town--because, after all, beartown wrapped up with a very neat bow. i will allow that i have had a wild past two months and was frequently distracted from this book, which can't have helped, but i wasn't chomping at the bit to read it.
and then i read the latter 40% in twenty-four hours? iunno. backman got me again. this could be me finally having the time to binge a book; this could also be that something just shifted around the halfway mark and it... got good again? still not beartown good, but it tapped into the same vein of emotion.
i think the main problem with backman's work is that it can get really, really corny. this is because, ultimately, it is very sincerely full of love. but sometimes the pathos becomes so exaggerated it's eye-roll-worthy. the observations about human nature and hate vs. love and the poetic waxing about hockey become cloying, repetitive. you end up with lines that came straight out of soap operas and after-school specials:
"Mom. You taught me that I don't have to have dreams. I can have goals."
i mean, come on. the other thing backman loves to do is the suspense bait-and-switch: setting up a chapter so that it looks like X or Y event is going to happen, A or Z character is going to die, and then going, "surprise! the circumstances were entirely different and the hook was purposefully misleading!," which is a gambit that works once and then gets increasingly exhausting. i mean, (view spoiler)[this happened to some degree in the climax of beartown: you're set up to believe someone is going to die, and nobody does (hide spoiler)]. imo, it (mostly) works there, but something similar happens at least twice in this book, and rather than make the plot more suspenseful, it actually takes out any suspense at the knees. i know you're not going to kill A or Z character, fredrik. i'm not falling for your wiles.
but, as always with backman, there are also some lines that absolutely knock you down. to get those, you must put up with the saccharine cliches.
Death does that to us, it's like a phone call, you always remember exactly what you should have said the moment you hang up.
and the real saving grace is that backman's character work is invariably excellent. the man has a talent for taking characters who have been mentioned once or twice as background texture and turning them into real rough-edged people in a few pages. there are a lot of people in this book who are easy to hate, but you can't hate them without recognizing that they're people, with loves and hopes and dreams and families. i found vidar rinnius to be especially a highlight of this book; for a character who only shows up on-page halfway through, his immediately layered characterization is fantastic and i was endeared to him within the chapter. (view spoiler)[which of course is critical for Making The Climax Work, so. (hide spoiler)]
also a big fan of zackell. autistic weapon. (view spoiler)[i know she's beating the stereotype allegations by not being gay but idc that woman should be a DYKE (hide spoiler)]
the best character, overwhelmingly, is of course benji ovich, and maybe he's the most major part of why this book works for me. such a well-drawn character. the self-destruction. the viciousness papering over the vulnerability. the barely restrained passive suicidality on this guy. the fact that he's so lost in his town and in others' expectations and in his own life. dear GOD.
He waits for his body to give way, for his knee to buckle under the impact of the pipe. He has time to wonder if he isn't only going to lose out on the game against Hed but on an entire career. After spending his whole life on the ice without serious injury, his knee will never be completely whole again, no chance, and he has time to think that the weirdest thing is that he isn't afraid. He isn't distraught. He doesn't care. How many years of training, how many hours? He doesn't give a damn about the game.
now, i don't like to assume authors' sexualities, and often i find it irrelevant. but throughout this book, i kept recognizing the ways in which benji is, for lack of a better word, Gay Rep For Straight People. he is gay rep in the "look, we're all human, right?" way, in the "can you, reader, imagine what it must feel like to be this different?" way, in the "i know the homophobia from the town looks bad, but there are a lot of complicated social and personal reasons people lash out" way. reading this as a gay person is like... yeah, i can imagine what it must feel like. no, i don't feel inclined to forgive the person who (view spoiler)[outed benji (hide spoiler)], actually, even if (view spoiler)[she was sixteen and emotional and he forgives her (hide spoiler)]. no, i don't really want to consider that it takes people time to get over their need to say slurs. in these moments, the book is speaking past me, to a reader perceived as more normal--sorry, cishet--than i am.
at the same time--i kind of don't care? i kind of don't care. i still really enjoy benji's character, and his arc in this book was excellently written. maybe i wish some of the homophobia had been dealt with more head-on ((view spoiler)[i'm glad you miss benji, william, but you could fucking say sorry for calling him a fag (hide spoiler)]), but i recognize what backman is going for (namely, making it clear that beartown will never fully be home for benji), and i love benji ovich so much that i'm not docking stars for this. the one thing i have an Actual Gripe about is the (view spoiler)[plotline with the teacher: i wish the book had come down a little harder on "hey, yeah, a teacher and student having sex is bad, actually." benji and the teacher don't end up together, but the only voices in-text pointing out that teacher/student relationships are bad are the same voices calling benji slurs and gay men pedophiles, which, uh. yikes. i think it's possible to examine the homophobia of this situation alongside the fact that no, a teacher should not hook up with his student, even if the first time they hooked up he didn't know. the charitable interpretation is that the whole thing is meant to be read as another form of benji's deliberate self-harm, but the book still felt uncomfortably lax about drawing lines here (hide spoiler)].
3.5 stars for everything i just groused about. rounded up to 4 because i just put my homework off because i physically couldn't put the last few chapters down. it balances out, or something; who knows....more
White nationalism is not a monolith. Supporters come from varied social, religious, and political backgrounds. Some are comfortable with overt crueltyWhite nationalism is not a monolith. Supporters come from varied social, religious, and political backgrounds. Some are comfortable with overt cruelty, while others are quick to embrace a narrow definition of bigotry in order to sidestep personal culpability in the suffering of others. What they share is an outlook defined by binary thinking and perceived victimization. Flattened and facile, white nationalism possesses a near-apocalyptic sense of urgency: The time is now or never for white people to protect their own kind. For women, that means bearing white babies, putting a smiling face on an odious ideology, promising camaraderie to women who join their crusade, and challenging white nationalism's misogynistic reputation.
it's the white woman question, right? why, if alt-right ideology is so fervently and violently misogynistic, do white women keep siding with it? (obligatory "blah blah #notallwhitewomen," but, like, come on, we know something around 45% of white women who voted in 2016 voted for trump.) this book sets out to explore that question--why white women get involved in white nationalism and what role they play in the movement--through case studies of three women who are or were influential in alt-right circles.
there's no easy answer, of course, but the three linked segments explore the desire many white women have for connection, protection, attention, influence, and everything in between. this is not an easy book to read. there were a lot of moments where i found myself genuinely gaping at the page--because i know white supremacists are evil, but holy shit. the structure, i think, is one of the book's strongest points; darby takes the reader through: 1. first, the process of integration into the movement (through the story of corinna olsen, who turned to white nationalism in a period of grief and turmoil and eventually left the movement disillusioned) 2. then the way white nationalism views women and the women who leap into that ideal wholeheartedly (through the story of ayla stewart, an influential youtube #tradwife) (holy fucking shit tradlife is so bad.) 3. finally the specific gendered influence alt-right women wield (seen as gentler and "nicer" than men's) and how that influence sometimes conflicts with the alt-right's desire for women to be submissive and quiet (through the story of lana lokteff, a high-profile white-nationalist pundit who has honed the ability of playing off bias and raw emotion to win people to her cause).
overall, it's an incredibly well-written book. darby clearly and vocally disagrees with these ideals, and she isn't afraid to call them what they are: hate, vitriol, bigotry, racism, eugenics. yet she doesn't take the low road of shitting all over these women, probably because that would only add more fuel to the fire (stewart and lokteff have both painted themselves as harangued by left-wing media), and also because one of the major points here is that radicalization is complicated. obviously, all three of these women had a choice to engage in virulent hatred, and they chose it*; they aren't innocent victims. but none of them were simply born evil, and darby takes care to explore the process of radicalization and what motivates a person's turn to white supremacy (short answer: it's very often needing a cause/narrative to order one's tumultuous life around. now, of course, plenty of people of color also need life causes and don't turn to genocidal racism, but there we are). *i think including olsen's story is integral to this project--her tale of leaving the movement goes to show that it is possible to leave and to make amends and build one's life around something healthier. + neither the author nor olsen herself makes any excuses/allowances for her period in the movement.
still, as fascinating and insightful as i found this, sometimes i caught myself wishing that darby had taken more time to shoot down the more complex white supremacist arguments here--not because it's the focus of the book, but because delving into these arguments is in some ways giving them a platform, even if the book clearly presents the movement as factually incorrect and chillingly cruel. i couldn't shake the question of whether it's smart to give a white nationalist the spotlight at all, if it means spreading anything they've said further. but darby addresses this, stating outright that she thinks it's incredibly important to learn how these movements work in order to combat them:
But first and foremost, combating hate requires understanding it—not what it seems to be or what we hope it amounts to, but what it actually is.
and i do have to agree with that. i don't know what the right way to present white nationalism is; i think this book makes a point of coming down against these women's ideals, and i hope that's enough.
"An emphasis on the disorganized aspects of Aryanism obscures its strategic and structured dimensions," argue the authors of the book American Swastika. Today, that emphasis downplays the endurance and adaptability of the hate movement over time. It ignores the internet's unparalleled propaganda power and the implications of hate as a social bond. It overlooks that white Americans' group consciousness is ascendant and that the mere existence of the Trump administration is evidence of the political salience of explicit appeals to white interests. The idea that white nationalism is going anywhere, much less anytime soon, is wishful thinking.
overall, this one was a captivating and harrowing read. really really good nonfiction; really really good journalism; really really awful content. recommended to anyone interested in white nationalism and radicalization, but content warning for just about fucking everything. i'm glad i read this, but it has unnerved and terrified me.
(if you'd like a teaser, here's an article the author wrote from which some of the material is repurposed.)...more
the best part of this book, in my opinion, is the intro and the first chapter. karim-cooper's overarching point here is, i think, a really good one: tthe best part of this book, in my opinion, is the intro and the first chapter. karim-cooper's overarching point here is, i think, a really good one: that shakespeare doesn't need to be put away entirely, because his work still has the power to inspire and affect, but that if we're going to keep him in our curriculums and lives, we need to interrogate the way his plays deal with race. the first chapter examines the history of shakespeare's legacy and the way he became a key figure in english culture (spoiler: it was not just because his plays were good; it was also nationalism and colonialism!). this review notes that
For me the strength of her book is not in her general assertions but in the wealth of minute specific details she has gleaned from her reading and research: early modern references to Moors and Jews, various 16th century depictions of Cleopatra, techniques for preserving heads piked on London Bridge or for lightening or darkening faces on stage, threatened miscegenation in most of the race plays...
and i would agree; maybe i'm just a history fan, but i think this book is at its strongest when it's applying historical context and analysis (stuff like the origin of the word "barbaric," or the various meanings of "fair," "foul," and "strange"). moreover, karim-cooper's writing style is lively and easy to read; people who don't spend their time reading classical literature might disagree, but i found it quick reading for nonfiction. the first chapter i would gladly give five stars.
the book overall i'm giving four, because i wish it had gone further. while karim-cooper's analysis is good, it's sometimes near outweighed by summary of the plots of each play (helpful for those not entirely familiar with shakespeare, yeah, but it made the book less focused, imo). more than that, though, i wish the book had challenged shakespeare more. while karim-cooper discusses the racism inherent in many of his finest lines and patterns of imagery, and while she spends time on each of his so-called "race plays," she still cuts shakespeare a lot of slack, often writing that she likes to think his plays were meant to challenge societal bigotry rather than reproduce it. which... i mean, i'd also like to think that, but come on, why are we still searching for a way to make the merchant of venice progressive, actually? one of my favorite articles about shakespeare is madeline sayet's "interrogating the shakespeare system," which also examines shakespeare as a tool of white supremacy, except it's much sharper. i wouldn't say karim-cooper is reverent toward shakespeare, exactly, but sometimes she seems to value his work to the point of apologetics.
then again... i can't entirely blame her. karim-cooper is a professor of shakespeare studies. she works at the globe. of course she likes his stuff, and of course she thinks he's still relevant! (also, like, who am i to judge; i've been riding a shakespeare hyperfixation since my freshman year english class.) and also, honestly? a lot of people are just too fucking racist to imagine questioning shakespeare at all. karim-cooper notes in the first chapter that she constantly gets emails mocking her for trying to make shakespeare "woke," by, uh... doing race-blind or race-conscious casting instead of only casting white people? maybe i think she should have been meaner to the bard, but, like, one glance at the reviews of this very book prove that some people can't handle even that.
the dear friend i buddy-read this with summed it up perfectly, i think: on some level, the book is directed "to an audience of people who are committed to stanning shakespeare and need to be convinced not to be racist (vs someone who is committed to not being racist and needs to be convinced to stan shakespeare)." so not exactly to me. that said, i still think it's a valuable contribution to the shakespearean conversation! i'm glad i read it, i think karim-cooper's writing is very engaging, and i hope this book influences teachers, students, and fans of shakespeare's to do some hard but worthwhile examination of the difficult parts of the bard....more
generally i have little interest in books for parents, not least because i am not a parent and my instinct is always to take the child's side, becausegenerally i have little interest in books for parents, not least because i am not a parent and my instinct is always to take the child's side, because i remember being a frustrated child and also i'm a communist who's dubious of the nuclear family structure. but i was deeply impressed by how empathetic this book is to parents and children alike, and how understanding sole-smith is about the conundrums parents face even as she remains uncompromisingly committed to fat liberation....more
this is very 2014-tumblr-text-post humor, but it's also really fucking funny. and made me feel better about having to read certain romantic poets in lthis is very 2014-tumblr-text-post humor, but it's also really fucking funny. and made me feel better about having to read certain romantic poets in literature classes. nothing transcendentally amazing here, but a very welcome cooldown from all the academic reading i've been doing lately
max theodore
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