Category: Book Reviews

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Book Review: The Door by Magda Szabo

The Room is a novel about two people growing together and finding love in unexpected ways. And I don’t mean squishy feely romance love but the kind of love that comes from years and years of kind and cruel gestures, outbursts, opinions, and two people learning, but more often failing, to read intention and emotion.

Magda is not only the author but the writer and narrator of the story. It’s semi-autobiographical, about her 20-year long relationship with her housekeeper, Emerence. Emerence is in some ways the kind of old lady I’d like to be someday. Strong, passionate, an excellent judge of character, able to comfort and cleave with words, and well respected in her community, Emerence has a complicated past, shrouded in years and secrets.

Set in Hungary, the novel tells stories about Emerence and Magda, each story revealing a bit more about both women and all tinged with regret and anger, as by the time of writing, Emerence has died horribly and Magda is confronting her part in it.

This book made me angry because I’ve thought about what might happen to me. I might get hit by a car or trapped in a mob or shot in a random attack. I might get very old and feeble and lose my mind or the use of my body. My perfect death is quiet, painless, and predictable, with my dignity and autonomy mostly intact and all loose ends tied up. I don’t want friends and family forced to put me up in a home or watch me waste money and effort on palliative care I’d prefer not to need. Given this and also the constant urge in activism to listen to the needs and wants of a group before deciding what’s best for them, I read in horror as, with all the best intentions, Magda denies this woman, this almost mother figure who adores and trusts her, the dignity of the death she chooses.

Emerence has lived through wars, regime changes, and dozens of people’s lives and deaths. She is purposefully oblivious to political movement, religious edicts, world powers, or anything outside of what she, all by herself, is capable of. She hides Jews, Communists, Fascists, and stray cats with equal care and indifference and shows the kind of harsh mercy you would expect of a strong peasant woman with a long life of bitter disappointments behind her. She learns to trust one last time and, the poor woman, is betrayed one last time.

The Door is a character study on two women: one who knows everything about everyone and doesn’t care a whit, and one who doesn’t even know herself and cares far too much about what people think. Though one eventually failed the other, I feel hopeful that lessons learned stick with Magda and help her capture and embody some of what made Emerence so critical, so good for her. And of course, when I say that I mean that I hope some of the lessons stick with me, that I can capture a little of the fierce old woman.

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Book Review(s): The Wayfarer Series by Becky Chambers

Book(s) Review: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit

I got the first book as a hostess gift from some friends who stayed at my place over PAX DEV week. I’m always curious about fun new scifi and these are pretty recent. I was expecting dramatic flairs, super space battles, some self awareness and a dollop of insight. I wasn’t expecting to cry, to be touched, and to be envious.

Stories are often one single arc of setup, conflict, and resolution. This was a series of small, interpersonal conflicts and resolutions, resolutions so sweet and caring and sensitive that I fell in love with the lizard woman. I know, right?

It’s hard to describe the plot; the story doesn’t move the way you might expect. There are no huge plot twists, no massive battles, no critical intrigues, just good folks doing well by each other. I kept trying to predict plot movement but the simple humanity in it surprised me time after time. The reviews called it feel good scifi where bad things happen but the universe is, in general, a good place.

I deeply believe that we are all capable of compassion and understanding. After reading the Bonobo and the Atheist my feelings of goodwill toward individual humans have soared. Reading about alien species interacting with with each other compassionately and lovingly reminded me of the best in my own relationships. Walking through the thought processes as people confront their own biases and make informed, loving decisions in relationships made me feel so strongly glad I actually teared up a few times.

I’m on the outside of poly, swinger, and kink communities but I know people actively involved and the way they talk about consent, communication, and intimacy resonated with me, even without first hand experience. I recently had a brief conversation with a friend about expectations and how it’s reasonable to have them, but unreasonable to react with anger or dismissal when they are broken. These characters operated within limits, just like we do, and when they experienced events that didn’t fall within their past experience, they allowed for exceptions without judgement or anger.

I hope and wish for that with all our experiences. I hope and wish that when someone behaves in a way we don’t expect, people displaying behaviors that don’t fit with our ideas or experience, instead of getting angry at our own discomfort, we let it pass and address the current situation.

Some people like books with epic arcs or dark endings but if you want something that will make you smile and just might make you cry, pick up ‘The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet’ and thank me later.

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Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov

I have a few friends who keep trying to get me to read Lolita, saying it’s one of the greatest pieces of literature available. I have a hard time with the prospect of getting in a pedophile’s head so one friend offered me an alternative: Pale Fire.

Pale Fire is some of the best brain candy I’ve read in a while. Brain Candy, by my definition, is a book that doesn’t make you look too deeply. You read it, it’s fun, you enjoy it, but it doesn’t make you uncomfortable and doesn’t require a lot of post-reading musing.

Written in two parts, a 999 line poem and exhaustive liner notes, Pale Fire tells the story of a poet and a king. Our narrator tells the story both of his friendship with the poet and a story of revolution and exile in his home country, a fictional place somewhere near Russia.

I can see why my friends are so excited; Nabokov’s turn of phrase is beautiful. I love authors like J.G. Ballard who make similes where you least expect them, adds jarringly appropriate adjectives, and evokes a rich bookscape for readers like me who create images of the action in their minds as they read. I feel the reactions of the other characters to the narrator’s self-centered, overly proud behavior at the same time he justifies it. I imagine that his poet friend sees him less as a good friend and more as a source of amusement. I can tell even before it’s revealed that the poet is much more adept and perceptive than the narrator and I love the feeling of being in on the joke with Nabokov and his poet.

The method Nabokov has used to tell his story is really interesting. I’ve never encountered a novel in notes before. I read the liner notes first, then the poem because the poem becomes much richer when you know what it’s talking about. The notes also tell the story part of the novel, an action and satire-packed adventure of revolution, escape, exile, and assassination.

And the poem stands alone as a beautiful, whimsical, highly self-aware autobiography of the poet’s childhood, marriage, and the untimely loss of his young daughter.

Aside from the easy, beautiful words, I seriously enjoyed, as I mentioned earlier, being in on the joke with Nabokov and his poet. Nabokov does an excellent job of writing a man totally unaware of his boorishness. He’s just polite enough that no one really says anything but the way he describes other people’s behavior makes it clear to the socially adept reader. I always have fun guessing the twist a while before it happens; the less in advance I guess it the better. I only beat Nabokov by a chapter or two on the major twist and not much more on the more obvious one which made the book more enjoyable.

Overall, I recommend this as a shorter, less uncomfortable example of Nabokov’s mastery of language and uncanny ability to understand a man who doesn’t understand himself. It’s not too long and it’s not too heavy so it’s good light-ish reading for summer days.

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Book Review: The Bonobo and the Atheist by Frans De Waal

I picked up The Bonobo and the Atheist my senior year of college when I was leaving my religion and highly concerned with such things as atheism and its relationship with religion, particularly my brand of Evangelical Christianity. It sat on my shelf and followed me through several moves until it ended up one of the few conversations pieces in my office I hadn’t read. It had always intrigued me but it wasn’t until I picked it up that I fell flat on my ass in wonder.

I’m glad I didn’t read it when I was first rejecting my own beliefs because at the time I wasn’t in a position of exhaustion over the constant fighting between left and right, Atheist and Christian, etc. and et al.

The weekend before I started the book I visited with my mom for an afternoon. We wandered Greenlake and grabbed some Mighty-O and just fell more in love with each other with every word. We don’t always agree but we always love each other. When I picked up the book I felt like the author had listened over our shoulder and was saying in a more creative, better supported way what she and I said to each other.

The author’s main point is that atheists need to chill the F out (my words, not his) when it comes to religion for two reasons: one being why are you getting so worked up over a principle that isn’t important and the other that it won’t work to shepherd religious beliefs out any faster. I immediately knew exactly what he was talking about.

Religion speaks to something deep within us, emptiness in some, fullness in others, altruism in some, selfishness in others. It codifies our own inclinations and gives our feelings the validity of ultimate authority. We wrench our religious beliefs in whichever direction suits us whether that’s feeding the homeless or picketing funerals and use it to find and support community wherever we go. It is beautiful and ugly, priceless and worth less than dirt, uplifting and depressing. Atheists picking apart the facts of a particular belief system are doing nothing more than reinforcing their own dogma and alienating many good and useful people in the process.

We’re seeing that ideological alienation happening now, both nationally leading up to and in the wake of last year’s election and locally in the pro and anti sex workers movements. I could get into my personal politics but that’s not why I felt compelled to write about this book. I felt compelled to write about this book because I so deeply identified with the author’s core message which is our ultimate goodness and potential for a bright future.

Those of you who haven’t had much experience leaving a religion may not exactly resonate with these ideas but my fellow ex-evangelists will know exactly what I’m saying.

Frans De Waal is a Dutch Primatologist and social scientist who has been studying primate behavior for decades. He’s been a speaker and a teacher and a writer and all his experience over all his long life tells him that we, humans, are capable of all things great and socially just.

In TBATA, De Waal pulls on various sources such as his own research, the research of psychologists and other primatologists, and some historical artwork to illustrate his strong, and I believe true, belief that morality and ethical behavior comes naturally out of our social desires for love, acceptance, and fairness. That children, apes, canids, and other mammalian species exhibit empathy and a sense of at least first degree fairness, second degree in the case of many apes*, is to me a strong argument for the base nature of our social goodness. He argues that the commandments aren’t from God but from a sense of community we evolved by virtue of our social nature and need for community.

Setting aside the religious argument, I just loved the book for his almost childish innocence. His attitudes toward behavior are exuberantly optimistic and fit with my thoughts on humanity like pieces in a humanist puzzle. I think that the tendency of people to fall into discord and antisocial behaviors has more to do with malfunctions of the group or the individual than the natural inclinations of either. While we are all self serving, our altruism and empathy serve us just as much as our greed and elitism, if not more. Humans are basically good but don’t understand how to operate on a global level which is why we have such widespread issues with the ‘outgroup’. His closing arguments include “…even though I believe that morality is firmly rooted in the emotions, biology has barely prepared us for rights and obligations on the scale of the modern world. We evolved as group animals, not modern citizens.” He quotes Christopher Boehm saying “Our moral codes apply fully only within the group” which sparked my marginal commentary “’Don’t hurt people’ is universal; the definitions of ‘hurt’ and ‘people’ are not.” Which is something I’ve been saying since my Junior philosophy class.

There’s just so much in this book that spoke to me I could write about it for ages. I don’t underline books. I’m too lazy and usually there’s nothing that stands out enough to warrant noting. In this book, there’s hardly a page without my notes in the margins. Nearly every statement hit me like a house. This book fits so tidily into my worldview it’s almost spooky and I encourage you to read it, wherever you’re coming from. He’s an educated, tolerant optimist who writes very well and you can never go wrong with that.

*First degree fairness is simply: “he got paid with a doggie bone for his handshake and I’m doing it for free? No way, I won’t do it.” Second degree fairness is “I’m getting bananas and grapes but my friend in the cage next to me is only getting lame carrots. Unless they get at least some grapes I won’t take anything but carrots.” Third degree fairness is “There are children in the Phillipenes who don’t have food or running water. I’m going to send money to people who say they will fix that.”

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Dual Book Review: Keep The Aspidistra Flying and Down and out in Paris and London, both by George Orwell

I stumbled on ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ while browsing audiobooks on Overdrive, a library partnered app that lends out e- and audio- books. I recognized the author, George Orwell, but not the title. I figured it would be a good put-me-to-sleep tome so I downloaded it and spent the next weeks being frustrated, baffled, bored, and confused by turns.

We all know Orwell’s dystopian novels but they’re set in fantastical places that we can only imagine. Aspidistra is set in London between the two great wars and follows the dismal life of Gordon Comstock as he lives a ridiculous life warring against ‘The Money God’.

He’s come up with this idea that middle class people are miserable because they worship this idea of ‘respectable money’ and ‘good jobs’ and without those things, they look down on you. He chooses to fight ‘The Money God’ by eschewing his well paid position as an ad man to work as a poorly paid clerk in a book shop. I never did quite figure out what his worldview was but I found his constant hemming and hawing over money incredibly irritating.

You see, Gordon is exactly the kind of poor person that conservatives think of when they think of poor people. He’s not stupid and he could make more money, but he chooses poverty and then complains about it pretty much every minute of every day. He complains to his best friend who is reasonably wealthy but can’t bear to talk about money because it’s not respectable to do so. He complains about it to his long suffering girlfriend who won’t have sex with him because she’s not ready but he blames his poverty. He essentially makes everyone around him as miserable as himself and then blames his lack of money and everyone else’s respectability for his misery.

The Aspidistra in the title is a hardy houseplant that was common at the time because it could withstand not only the variance in temperature but also the crummy indoor air quality caused by coal and gas heating. Gordon sees it as a symbol of the middle class clutching at respectability and worship of the money God and so he despises it everywhere he sees it, which is really everywhere.

The story follows his internal monologue as he berates his girlfriend for not sleeping with him until she finally gives in, he comes into enough money to pay his sister back and treat his friends to a nice dinner and proceeds instead to blow it on booze and food, sexually assault his girlfriend, hook up with a prostitute who steals the money he was supposed to return to his sister, and punch a police man.
This event lands him in jail, he loses his job, loses his ‘respectable’ housing, and ends up even poorer than he started. And he revels in it. Finally he’s escaped the worship of The Money God and he gets to wallow in his own filth and read trash all day instead of anything intellectually stimulating. His friends try to rescue him from his self created hell but to him, it’s heaven. 

At this point in the story I’m furious. He’s screwed over everyone who cares about him and it’s no ones fault but his own because there’s literally an easy, well paying job waiting for him to take it this entire time and his pathetic high mindedness means he’d rather live in squalor and boredom. What a pathetic shit. His girlfriend even finally sleeps with him to prove her love but she leaves him as she found him: dirty, smelly, and stupid.

And she gets knocked up.

Which then turns his entire life around and he takes the job, marries her, and moves into a nice lodging house and lives happily ever after. With an aspidistra in the window sill.

What the Fuck, Orwell!?! I’m pretty sure this isn’t actually a happy ending? I mean, it sounds ok; guy gets girl, they start a family, he’s deliriously happy… But his new life as the reader leaves him doesn’t fit his ideology. How is he happy?

I was so confused by this book that I suggested it for my next book club session and I’m very curious to see how my friends feel about this book. I felt such strong anger when he tried to rape his girlfriend and when his own form of money obsession ruined his life but my relief at his eventual redemption was confused. Taking into account the dystopian nature of his other works, I can’t imagine that it’s not a cautionary tale of a man shoving his principles under the rug in order to live a superficially happy life.

I finished Aspidistra so unsatisfied that I had to pick up another Orwell so I started his autobiographical Down and out in Paris and London which shed some light on all three of his other works I’ve now read (1984 and Animal Farm, of course). Orwell lived as a tramp and a pauper for a few months in his twenties. He had served in the army and was living ok when someone stole most of what little he had and suddenly he went from what we would think of as paycheck to paycheck to what we think of as straight up homeless.

The book covers the two or three months between the theft and a new job in London that pulled him from poverty but in that time he worked as a dishwasher in a Parisian hotel restaurant, tried some scams, lived as a tramp in and around London, and describes in detail what it feels like to be truly penniless.

Aside from the eye opening descriptions of the physical conditions of poverty, Orwell includes some philosophical ideas around work and the lack thereof, what it feels like to accept charity, and the kinds of men and women stuck in poverty and homelessness and why the middle and upper classes don’t like them. It helped me understand a little better why he wrote some of the other books and where he was coming from when he dreamed up these stories.

I also saw a few quotes I liked and one in particular that I felt resonated with the cause of Sex Workers Rights:

“He (the blue collar working man) is kept at work ultimately because of a vague feeling that he would be dangerous if he had leisure. And educated people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the process because they know nothing about him and consequently are afraid of him.”

This could very easily be said of anti-prostitution activists on both liberal and conservative sides. They know nothing about us, our lives, and our clients and are thus afraid of all of it. As you’ll see in my coming review of ‘The Bonobo and the Atheist’ I believe fervently in the underlying goodness of humans and that simple, kind, nonjudgemental education can save the world. It’s getting it simple, easy, and nonjudgemental that will be the hard part.

In summary: both of these novels are reasonably short and easy to read and they made me think in ways I hadn’t quite before. Orwell, as we all know, is a phenomenal writer and shares with us a valuable glimpse into a life many of my readers have never known and hopefully never will in the future.

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The West Wing (TV show review)

I’m late, again, on my post. I’ve had, again, that peculiar combination of busy, not busy, and unmotivated that fiddles with my productivity.

But now I’m watching The West Wing and I’m inspired to write a TV show review which I haven’t done since Law and Order. I think.

I’ve had The West Wing recommended to me a few times but I never really picked it up. I kinda thought of it as a political procedural, like a police procedural. My experience with those has been that they’re great for a while but get less great over time.

I have a strong hunch this will not be the case with this show. I recognize these faces as actors whom I have developed a deep respect for and the dialogue is clever as hell.

Additionally, one and a half episodes in and they’ve hit hard on two big topics close to my heart: the Christian Right and Sex Work. I’m already blown away by the fast pace, the quotability, and their ability to hit stereotypes so hard they shatter them.

My partner has been watching a few other nineties shows; My So-called Life, Dawson’s Creek, the obligatory Law and Order… I’d been thinking recently that wee are in the golden age of television when watching Black Mirror and Breaking Bad but if this was on  regular television a couple decades ago and what I see on cable now is house hunters and reality TV then I am so, so wrong. These shows cover real topics like homosexuality, teen sex, young love, abusive relationships, in such a nuanced (if dated) way. Like, no one reacts to these things with moral condemnation, they react with problem solving and personal revelations. Yeah, some of it is to make TV interesting but making it interesting without reverting to car chases and gratuitous violence.

The way the characters in The West Wing deal with each other’s irritations and differences is with humor, anger, tolerance, intolerant discussions, yet a distinct desire to overcome differences and get things done is inspiring. I’m looking forward to finding how it unfolds as I binge it.

Anyone who wants to chat with me about it, feel free but NO SPOILERS! 😉 I’m only a few episodes into the first season.

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It did!

I promise: I wrote this on time and meant to schedule it, I just wasn’t connected to wifi when I wrote it. Thus It’s late but I hope you’ll forgive me.

I’ve seen Rogue One: A Star Wars story twice now and both times I was in tears by the end. Every criticism I had of The Force Awakens has been met and mastered by RO.

Since the original characters hadn’t entered the story yet, I have no expectations about their appearance to be met or dashed, aside from the magnificent return of James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. The only other returning characters were princess Lea in a perfectly appropriate cameo and General Tarkin, master of the Death Star.

The character of Han Solo was replaced by rebel pilot Cassian Andor. While not as witty or devil-may-care, Cassian is as gritty and real as Han Solo would have been had we seen more of his back story. Cassian, someone we should be rooting for as hero of the rebellion, does some very bad things in the name of the movement and faces a crisis of conscience so big it takes half the film. He’s not nonchalantly blasting obviously bad guys, he’s a soldier following orders who winds up sacrificing every shred of energy and self interest for a greater cause. He’s the Han Solo I was hoping for in TFA: complicated, brave, not always very nice, but dedicated to something he’s spent his entire life working towards.

Our female lead, playing the precursor to the clever and courageous Princess Leah, is Jyn (gin) Erso. Caught up in the machinations of governments she has no interest in, Jyn begins as a self interested prisoner and grows into the one to deliver the most stirring speech of the film. The father-daughter dynamic trikes me particularly as I am very close to my own and with his sacrifice as the catalyst I don’t see her change of heart as artificial.

It’s also worth noting, and has been noted before, that there is no romance in this film, as well there shouldn’t be. They’re in the middle of a freaking war and while some people respond to stress by seeking sex, many don’t. It makes sense for strangers to remain strangers when Jyn uses her wits and strength as a tool instead of her sexuality. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that but it’s refreshing to see the change.)

I complained that the plot of TFA trivialized the search and sacrifice for the Death Star plans because they used the same plot device but everything was an accident instead of carefully planned. This film tells the story that TFA cheapened and does it in a way that made me laugh, made me cry, and sent me home elated. Here, finally, is a Star Wars film that takes itself seriously!

It was said by a friend of mine that Miticlorians ruined the force. The attempt to explain how the force works took some of the mysticism and ritual out of it and tried unsuccessfully to drag a space opera into the realms of science fiction alongside Star Trek and Aliens. There is one character in RO:ASWS that renews the drama and mysticism of the force. He also provides both comic relief and the most poignant scene in the entire film. I had to hold my hands over my mouth to keep from sobbing in the theater both times and the act of writing about it is bringing tears to my eyes. Like legit tears welling up and falling down my face.
And of course the droid. The droids are always the comic relief. The clever, the foreign, the oddly loyal but sometimes kooky hunks of metal that help keep the humans safe. Even the droid was complex. Even the machine had heart.

I had a problem with the fan service in TFA because it felt out of place. The phrases we recognize didn’t fit in the context they were put and so it took me out of the film when I heard them. In RO, it was hella appropriate because the timelines are so close. I think RO leaves off a week or less before ANH begins and so when we see original footage from ANH, it makes perfect sense! When we see an artfully computer rendered princess Leah, it makes perfect sense! When the uniforms and the fighters and the sets are all the same, it makes perfects sense! I walked away immediately wishing to watch ANH so I could ‘find out’ what happens next!

Suffice it to say that, while it did take the entire first half of the movie to introduce our characters, establish back stories, deal with everyone’s crises of conscience, and introduce the real heart pounding action, I didn’t ever feel bored. In short: I loved it! This is the film we will remember as the turning point in the franchise (I hope) from a fun yet frivolous space opera to a grittier, more complex story of fierce loyalty, real passion, quick wits, and the perennial crowd pleaser: the underdog story.

I noticed something on my second viewing that I’m happy to discuss with the more politically minded but it’s a pretty deep topic and so I’ll leave you with this thought for your second viewing: pay attention to all the rebel uniforms. There are factions we are supposed to like and factions we are not supposed to like. The uniforms evoked associations in me as an American viewer around various guerrilla forces including American forces in Vietnam and Insurgent forces in Iraq and Afganistan, (as portrayed by media; I’ve never seen either in person). It was pretty clear to me who was supposed to be the bad guy and who was supposed to be the underdog, though they never fought each other directly.

In any case, I enjoyed the movie very much and would be happy to geek out on it with any and all interested parties. Or uninterested parties. I’ll geek out on anyone if I get the chance. I’m so happy!

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H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

We’ve been neglecting our book club all summer but I finally got around to reading March’s book club book and it is beautiful.

H is for Hawk tells three stories: the author’s recovery from the grief of her father’s sudden death, her year long journey in training a goshawk, and her relationship with T. H. White, writer of The Goshawk, The Sword in the Stone, and The Once and future King. I like the trio storytelling and how well she weaves it together. I did a baby version of that integration in weaving the story of my evolution as a sex worker and my growing relationship with my partner together so my own experience trying to fit two stories to each other in a way that makes sense helps me appreciate the skill with which MacDonald ties her life to her hawk Mabel and to a long dead author.

The story is autobiographical and heavily influenced by the words and writing style of her first and favorite authors: 19th century falconers. She draws on archaic terminology which enthralls me; I love encountering words I’ve never seen before, beautiful adjectives that settle into context for my appreciation and betterment. She writes with a flowing, almost stream of consciousness style but well structured, as it should be since she’s a professor of literature. I started and nearly finished it in one beautiful sunny day out at the cabin, taking frequent breaks to refill my drink, grab a snack, or watch my friends and family playing on the lawn. It’s a quick read, beautiful, and exquisitely mournful.

My most meaningful and lasting takeaway was that from now on, before I read a famous work, I want to know about the author. When we read The Sirens of Titan, one of our book club members had a near encyclopedic knowledge of the author and the circumstances surrounding the writing of the book. Hawk tells the story of T. H. White, a tortured closeted homosexual and sadist who refused to use corporal punishment on his students because he knew he would enjoy it.

MacDonal is first introduced to White through his book The Goshawk in which he tells the story of the first hawk he ever tried to train. I knew nothing of hawking before this book but MacDonald had been into hawking for years before she read this book as a child and cried at the cruelty White unintentionally inflicted on his hawk. She hated the book but her insatiable interest in books about falconry lead her to read it several more times growing up and when her father died, the deep grief she felt drew her to this story.

I can’t adequately summarize the book partly because I haven’t read it and partly because MacDonald filled her commentary on his story with her own feelings about her father and her hawk and a huge amount of biographical knowledge gleaned from hours and hours studying his letters and journals. I now want to read The Sword in the Stone because I know about the author, how he wished he could be wise and content like Merlyn and how he put aspects of himself in all the characters. I want to read the story, enriched by my knowledge of the author, and appreciate it all the more. I’ll happily read anything else MacDonald publishes, fiction or otherwise, because knowing her makes her work more alive, more real, more interesting.

Overall, H is for Hawk is a beautifully written, hopeful yet tragic, poignant story that deserves its place near the top of any reading list.

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May The force Get Better

I know this comes months after its initial release but it’s come up a few times so I thought I would finally get it out: Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a shit movie. I love Star Wars. I think Luke is cute, I love Leah’s metal bikini and bad assery, I love Chewie and Han and the whole hero’s journey. The prequels were kinda lame what with Jar Jar’s ridiculousness but it was at least a new story about a character we were already invested in. Anakin’s dialogue may have been lame but there was internal as well as external conflict and we saw how one evil but creative politician can sway an entire governing body.

The Force Awakens may have better been titled “A New Hope II: Bigger, Better Death Star” since it was nearly scene for scene a remake, and a shitty one at that.
First: Han Solo. When I first saw Star Wars, Harrison Ford and my own father were about the same age. Han had that quick wit and snappy lines and that devil-may-care attitude. As I watched my father go to war, raise his children, and grow into a still snappy but far more invested, adult person, I also would expect Han Solo, now a father and a lifelong rebel fighter, to have grown up. The writers attempted to keep the best of both worlds and so failed doubly, writing cheap one liners and paying fan lip service one moment and overly dramatic, totally unrealistic family drama the next. Han Solo should have grown over the last 60 years to become either someone who totally eschewed all responsibility or a dedicated rebel fighter, steeped in Jedi lore and powerfully charismatic, a strong father figure to all his young rebel pilots. He would have been a legend, second only to his wife, General Organa Solo And the myth of Luke Skywalker.
Leah Organa Solo, trained in diplomacy from childhood, already a strong spirit, resourceful strategist, and powerful leader at twenty, would NEVER have taken some young storm trooper deserter’s word for it and committed the entirety of rebel forces to a suicide mission. It’s been suggested that she is force sensitive (I agree) and so she would have sensed his authenticity and intuited the truth of his plan. Which is great except that HE WAS LYING! No way would a force sensitive, incredibly skilled diplomat and strategist be fooled by some young kid’s need to be a stupid hero and get the lady hero’s attention.

Here is the better plot for “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens”

Open on Rey doing her thing. Scavenging, driving her speeder bike, etc but we notice she’s unusually good at things, or more accurately, someone observing her notices and the audience overhears their dialogue. She is in the middle of fixing something and a tool is out of her reach. She reaches for it, strains to grab it, and it leaps into her hand, startling her. She greets someone before she actually sees them and there’s an awkward moment. She wakes from a deep sleep and items are floating in the air around her only to drop suddenly when she realizes what’s happening. She’s confused and a bit scared and her peers and community starts shying away from her.

Cut to Han Sol. He’s smuggling but secretly on a spy mission for the rebel alliance. He is in or near the heart of the Sith Lord’s castle or whatever or the Sith apprentice’s stronghold. The Apprentice and lord are talking and the lord tells the apprentice that there is a force awakening on Tatooine and it needs to be contained…. Or eliminated, mwahahahahaha! Han Solo: *whispered to himself* “Rey”

Cut to Han and Chewie escaping with or without their cargo depending on action sequence and heading for the nearest rebel outpost. He calls Leah. “Leah, they’ve found Rey. We need to reach her before they do. We need Luke” “He won’t help her.” “Yes he will.” “How do you know?” “A father never gives up.” We see over his shoulder a family photo on the dash of the Falcon with Han, Leah, etc. One of the children is obviously the Sith apprentice.

Cut to Rey getting in trouble with friends. Something major happens and she uses the force in a big way to save someone/thing. Her power is out of control and so something bad happens. Cliffhanger.

Cut to Han and Chewie landing on a remote planet. Maybe it’s even Dagoba. They go meet Luke and explain: “Luke, They’ve found her and they’re going to get her.” “I can’t help you.” “You have to.” “I can’t. A father’s love is just as dangerous as any other. Love leads to fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate. My love for her mother already created a rift in the force, I can’t risk another, greater disaster.” Han and Chewie leave in disgust. Yoda appears to Luke “A father’s love, Powerful it is. A jedi’s strength, powerful also.” Ben Kenobi appears. “You cannot risk yourself. This girl is a path to the dark side.” Anakin appears. “A father’s love for his child can defeat the dark side. Trust the force, my son.” Luke chases down Han and Chewie and flies off with them.

Cut to the Empire forces assembling. One storm trooper, the garbage man, overhears a conversation about the current mission, particularly that it’s a young girl who doesn’t know anything about the force. We follow him to his quarters and as he takes off his helmet we see an expression of internal conflict.

Cut to rebel forces meeting up with Han, Chewie, and Luke in orbit around Tatooine. Heartwarming reunion, meet the new young talented pilot, make a plan, etc.

Rebel forces descend to the planet in time to rescue Rey from whatever predicament the locals put her in (burn her as a witch, sell her to the local gross dude, whatever) but at the same time, Empire forces also descend. Action! Adventure! Storm trooper defects to Rebels and saves the girl from something dangerous!! Han fights his own son long enough to get everyone else away. Dies because he won’t take the advantage and kill his own son (but not in a lame, predictable, pathetic, eye contact competition). Handsome young pilot has to fly the Falcon. Rebels get away. Drama!! Excitement!

Cut to the Falcon. Everyone is sad as fuck b/c Han is dead. Rey is confused but Leah, grieving but strong, explains. Luke decides to take Rey as his Padawan and presents her with his old light saber. Storm trooper defector pledges to the rebel alliance, young handsome pilot takes over the Falcon as Chewie retires, inconsolable, to his home planet. Storm trooper takes over as copilot.

Roll credits.

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The Chronicles of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card

First, let me say that OSC is one of my favorite authors because of the Ender series. The premise is incredible, the science fiction genre is a favorite of mine, the writing is well paced and engaging, and the conclusion is satisfying. I have yet to decide whether the difference in my own opinion between the Ender series and the Alvin Maker series is in the writing itself or in the fact that I read one and listened to the other on audio book.

The Chronicles of Alvin Maker begins with the birth of our hero. We’re introduced to the five year old Peggy Guester, a torch who can see people’s heart fires, their life force or soul, and potential futures as they change with decisions. She sees a large family crossing a river that is very suddenly in flood and she sends her father and several other townspeople to rescue the family. Unfortunately the oldest son dies in the process of saving his heavily pregnant mother from a huge tree trunk in the current but the rest of the family is saved and taken to Peggy’s home, the local inn. Alvin is born and Peggy is present for the birth, their fates forever entwined. As Alvin’s family continues in their westward travels, toward Ohio country, Peggy can see Alvin’s ‘heartfire’ and rescues him multiple times, using the power of some of the placenta she saved from his birth. The reason he has so much power is that his oldest brother, who died in the flood, didn’t actually die until Alvin was actually born, so he is a seventh son of a seventh son. You see, this whole story is set in a pioneer America in which magic is real. Different races harness magic in different ways, but it is real and being the seventh son of a seventh son confers onto little Alvin some serious powers.

Alvin grows up, his evil nemesis “The Unmaker” following him all the time, trying to kill him using water, the most corrosive of the four elements. He uses his power in childish ways as a child but a ‘Red Man’, a Native American, appears to Alvin in a vision as part of the man’s spirit quest and admonishes the child to only use his powers for good. A preacher with envy in his heart is visited by the Unmaker and tried to kill little Alvin at one point but is foiled by Peggy’s use of Alvin’s powers. She is, as always, watching out for him.

In the second book, Alvin goes away from home and meets up with a prominent Red Man, traveling the land recruiting other Reds for either a rebellion or a mass exodus. The man’s brother is the same man who appeared to Alvin as a vision and is considered a prophet. Between the two, alongside the machinations of a powerful white governor from the south, they orchestrate a massacre by whites of reds that begins the Reds’ exodus to the lands west of the ‘Mizzippy’. Alvin learns how to heal physical trauma in a person even near death, walk in the way of the Red Man (silently, quickly, listening to the music of the earth moving together as one), and forges ties between red and white people. All before he is 11 years old. Seriously. He also walks on water and has a vision of a city made of crystal that he’s supposed to make. Because he’s a maker. Whatever.

In the third book, he becomes an apprentice blacksmith and gets involved with the abolitionist movement He returns to where his big brother died and where a corrupt blacksmith is willing to take him on as an apprentice. It’s also where Peggy lives but she runs away the day before he arrives because she can see the future and only her leaving creates futures in which Alvin actually falls in love with her instead of marrying her out of duty. Or something. (It starts getting a bit absurd at this point but I’m invested in the story so I continue). The same day Alvin arrives and Peggy leaves, an escaped slave, raped by her white master under the influence of the Unmaker, brings herself and her baby to the Peggy’s town using black magic. The effort she used to escape kills her and Peggy’s mother adopts the half black baby and names him after a contemporary king. As a joke. Alvin works hard, learns well, does even better work than the master blacksmith, and also befriends the little boy. Meanwhile, Peggy runs away and lives with a woman her father cheated with years ago (she knows who, where, why, and how because heart fires and stuff. Whatever.) to learn how to be a real lady. Once she’s learned that she goes to college to learn how to be a school teacher and returns in disguise to her hometown. She teaches the little boy and Alvin, privately, because that’s the real reason she came back to her hometown. There is controversy over her teaching the half black boy because racism. Some slave trackers come to town to find the little boy and Alvin helps rescue him. He transforms the little boy’s genes in order to render the tracking magic the slave trackers use useless and baptizes him (symbolic much?) to wash away any leftover skin cells, etc. The slave trackers return to where they last saw the boy, one gets shot by Peggy’s mom, the other shoots Peggy’s mom, Peggy freaks out, reveals herself to Alvin, they’re in love, blah blah blah, Alvin kills the other slaver, they all run away and live happily ever after. Oh, also, Alvin makes a magic gold plow that is alive and in order to do so he climbs in the forge fire and basically burns to death but then heals himself and also changes the atomic nature of iron to turn it into gold in the fist place. My skepticism is full bore at this point but I NEED to know what happens next!

In the fourth book, Alvin and the little half black boy go back home to live with his family as journeyman blacksmith and friend. He starts trying to teach people how to understand atoms and cells but most people pretty much can’t. His little brother, also a seventh son of a seventh son because the oldest died before he was born, is a little shit and behaves shittily. He has similar powers to Alvin but has no scruples and is basically just a conceited, insecure, braggy little shit. Some stupid little girl has a crush on Alvin, spreads rumors, and drives him out of town so he goes wandering with the half black boy. They go back to where he was an apprentice and the corrupt blacksmith has claimed the golden plow is actually made out of gold the blacksmith had from family or something. There’s jail and a trial but Alvin can bend metal like wet clay so it’s not really in danger, it’s just another way to show how particularly wholesome Alvin is. He is acquitted and keeps wandering, hoping to find some inspiration. His little brother wanders around also, being a little shit and getting into trouble, lying and drinking and using his powers for petty shit. Peggy and Alvin are in love and get married. They want to stop slavery but it’s not that easy. Stuff happens. It’s not that important or interesting.

In book five, Peggy stirs up unrest in the slave south while Alvin travels New England where magic is illegal. He gets accused of witchcraft, his little shit of a brother gets in trouble in the same city his wife is in, he leaves the witch trial by literally peeling his shackles off and goes to rescue his wife, the trial gets fucked up in a good way (read, no more witch trials) by the judge, he saves the day and literally creates a bridge over a lake using his blood, leads his people to the promised land, figures out how to create the crystal city, and his little brother, literally restored to health from being a fucking zombie, continues to be a little shit. Also, they go to Mexico to win a war but the other reds light up a volcano. What the hell is even happening at this point?!?!!

Obviously, summing up some half dozen books (I think I accidentally smushed two together) isn’t easy. A lot happens, background fills in and moral agendas unfold, and trying to analyze an entire multi book series in a single review is not the easiest. That being said, all of the books are in the same universe and follow the same people so they do all kind of mesh.

The universe concept is awesome. It presents colonial and post-colonial America in an alternate universe where there are crown colonies in the south, independent America is in the northwest, Native Americans create their own reservation out of ALL land west of the Mississippi, and Puritan New England is its own state. The Red magic is the magic of the land, specializing in communication with earth and woods and creatures, focusing on cyclical relationships and wholistic existence, voluntary sacrifice, and long term survival over short term gain. The Negro magic comes from objects and bits of yourself, feathers and urine and lost hairs and wax to bind it all together, powerful but requiring sacrifices. The white magic comes as ‘knacks’. Particular skills such as forming iron, cooking, comforting, or storytelling all come as particular, slightly supernatural ‘knacks’ in each person. Alvin’s knack is ‘making’, the ability to see deeply into the atoms and cells and souls that make up a person or a thing. He can knit bones and arteries, change iron to gold, convince wildlife to trust him, and even use his blood to form water into blocks of crystal that should last forever. It’s a really neat idea and formed the backbone to a great epic of good against evil and the slow evolution of a young person into someone meaningful and lasting.

It’s also kinda fun that it’s peppered with historical figures. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, George Washington, David Bowie, and dozens more pop into and out of Alvin’s life and the world he lives in. Their lives are often vastly different from what history tells us, but it’s fun to kind of have an idea of their historical significance and watch how the author plays with them. They’re all useful to alvin’s cause or used by his enemies but their addition enlivens the world Alvin’s story lives in.

The story itself is incredible. It’s the story of an extraordinary child set against impossible odds, changing the world and learning how one mistake at a time. Alvin makes difficult choices and moves the world in meaningful ways, all the while just a humble young man who wants to settle down and raise a family. It’s the classic story of a normal person with greatness thrust upon them that lights imaginations so often and to such great effect.

The writing is…. Acceptable. I have a feeling that, had I read it instead of listening to it and would thus be able to skim over some of the more repetitive moralizing and recapping, I would have enjoyed it much more. Because I listened to it, I heard in every. Single. Volume. The story of how little Peggy Guester saved the ‘birth caul’ from newborn Alvin’s face and used the power from it to save him many times. I heard multiple times the tedious conversations that served no purpose in moving the action forward, only allowed the author to express his personal opinions. I swear, if I hear one more woman read to me, passionately, the story of Alvin’s birth I’d freaking… Well, do nothing, really, just get really annoyed. I get that in a series you have to make sure that each book technically stands alone, but seriously… It got so sappy and so moralistic and so focused on what the characters thought instead of what they did… I wonder if audio book needs a different kind of writing than books intended to be read only.

Overall, the series is reasonable. It’s a good story, an interesting world, it has two, if not three dimensional characters, and I think I would have very much enjoyed sitting on a patio reading them quietly more than I enjoyed listening to overly dramatic orators stress every damn syllable. Next on my list is the biography of Thomas Jefferson and in the middle was ‘the Witches of America’, a story of the making of a documentary on modern day Wicca, both of which I can assure you are more interesting and a better use of your Audio book time. Also, If you haven’t read all of Mary roach’s books yet, they’re a much more entertaining and valuable use of your time. I recommend them at least three times more than I reccomend the Chronicles of Alvin Maker.

As a side note, I read these books because I now have access to a service called overdrive. Using your Seattle public library card, you can check out books and audio books for free. It’s a great service and even if you aren’t interested in these books in particular, there are hundreds of other volumes to check out. It’s a particularly good idea for kids who will read and discard their literature.