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Reading not remotely wednesday
Jun. 2nd, 2018 03:16 pmWhat did you just finish?
The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart. A novel set in 1842, Massachusetts. Polly is a 15 year old girl living with an extremely abusive father (by the way, this book should come with a trigger warning for rape, incest, CSA, and domestic violence), her despairing mother, and her young brother Ben, who's been mentally "simple" ever since their father attacked him as an infant. Matters come to a head one night, and Polly convinces her mother and brother to flee with her; unfortunately in the process she accidentally sets their house on fire and doesn't know if her father survives. Stunned, extremely impoverished, and with nowhere else to go, they end up in a nearby Shaker community.
There Polly begins to bloom for the first time in her life: not having to be constantly afraid, given enough food, and having the company of other girls her age. She quickly forms a deep friendship with Sister Charity, who's been raised by the Shakers since birth. But not everything is great, the main problem being that Shakers believe in the separation of men and women and the death of "flesh families"; this means that Polly can't speak to Ben, not even to check on if he's happy and being well cared for.
It's also the "Era of Manifestations", a period when many Shakers experienced holy visions, spoke in tongues, and created religious art. Many of these revelations came to teenage girls, and shortly after arriving Polly begins to see angels. The Visionist takes an ambiguous approach towards these visions, which I think was a great narrative choice. Polly's definitely experiencing something, but what is it? An actual vision from the Shakers' founder? A PTSD hallucination? An overactive imagination? Sister Charity is convinced Polly's a living angel, while Sister Agnes (the leader of the community) is equally convinced that Polly's faking it for attention.
In another plot thread, we're introduced to Simon Pryor, an inspector in charge of determining if the fire on the farm was arson or not. He becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Polly and the others and protecting them. This section was by far the weakest of the book. There is so goddamn much space devoted to who now legally owns the land – wills and auctions and debts and which sale predates which – and it just never seems to matter. Given all the bad memories that must be associated with that place, I'm not sure Polly even wants to go back to the farm, and though I guess she could use the money from its sale, she doesn't seem in urgent need of it. She certainly never thinks about the farm or worries over what's happened to it. There's also a weird subplot regarding the legal status of Ben's birth that never goes anywhere, despite creating a huge air of mystery around the topic.
It's a well-written book, and the material about Shaker life and religion is fascinating, but the book is marred by its insistent focus on the ownership of the farmland instead of just letting Polly get on with her life. And I don't want to spoil anything, but I absolutely hated the ending, which came out of nowhere and didn't match the character arcs that built up to it at all. Overall there's better historical fiction out there, but this might be worth the read if you're particularly interested in the topic.
Evolution’s Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins by Peter S. Ungar. Non-fiction that tells the story of human evolution from the point of view of our teeth. This is less silly than it may sound; teeth, being harder than bones, preserve extremely well in the fossil record and we often have more teeth from an extinct species than any other part of them. In addition, the shape and wear of teeth can tell us a lot about the diet of a species – just imagine how different the teeth of a lion look from those of a cow. Ungar gives the reader the basics of the topic, explaining the history and methods of studying teeth. He's got plenty of examples of modern primates and their teeth, from gorillas to lemurs to little monkeys. But of all this is in the service of learning more about where we came from, and what drove our evolution – climate change? predators? stone tools? Most of the book covers early human evolution, giving a close look at the teeth of species like Paranthropus bosei, Homo habilis, and the Australopithecines (better known as the genus that includes "Lucy"). However, two chapters at the end cover the invention of farming and the post-Industrial diet (with its abundance of sugar and soft, processed foods) on modern humans' jaws and teeth.
It's an interesting topic, but unfortunately Ungar's writing style is extremely dry and academic. I could hardly get through a page without finding my attention had wandered and I needed to reread the last paragraph. I'm all for introducing the details of human evolution and how we learned them to a general audience, but books like that need authors who can capture an audience and hold it. Ungar isn't up to the task.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Nemsis Games by James S.A. Corey. The next in The Expanse series!
The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart. A novel set in 1842, Massachusetts. Polly is a 15 year old girl living with an extremely abusive father (by the way, this book should come with a trigger warning for rape, incest, CSA, and domestic violence), her despairing mother, and her young brother Ben, who's been mentally "simple" ever since their father attacked him as an infant. Matters come to a head one night, and Polly convinces her mother and brother to flee with her; unfortunately in the process she accidentally sets their house on fire and doesn't know if her father survives. Stunned, extremely impoverished, and with nowhere else to go, they end up in a nearby Shaker community.
There Polly begins to bloom for the first time in her life: not having to be constantly afraid, given enough food, and having the company of other girls her age. She quickly forms a deep friendship with Sister Charity, who's been raised by the Shakers since birth. But not everything is great, the main problem being that Shakers believe in the separation of men and women and the death of "flesh families"; this means that Polly can't speak to Ben, not even to check on if he's happy and being well cared for.
It's also the "Era of Manifestations", a period when many Shakers experienced holy visions, spoke in tongues, and created religious art. Many of these revelations came to teenage girls, and shortly after arriving Polly begins to see angels. The Visionist takes an ambiguous approach towards these visions, which I think was a great narrative choice. Polly's definitely experiencing something, but what is it? An actual vision from the Shakers' founder? A PTSD hallucination? An overactive imagination? Sister Charity is convinced Polly's a living angel, while Sister Agnes (the leader of the community) is equally convinced that Polly's faking it for attention.
In another plot thread, we're introduced to Simon Pryor, an inspector in charge of determining if the fire on the farm was arson or not. He becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Polly and the others and protecting them. This section was by far the weakest of the book. There is so goddamn much space devoted to who now legally owns the land – wills and auctions and debts and which sale predates which – and it just never seems to matter. Given all the bad memories that must be associated with that place, I'm not sure Polly even wants to go back to the farm, and though I guess she could use the money from its sale, she doesn't seem in urgent need of it. She certainly never thinks about the farm or worries over what's happened to it. There's also a weird subplot regarding the legal status of Ben's birth that never goes anywhere, despite creating a huge air of mystery around the topic.
It's a well-written book, and the material about Shaker life and religion is fascinating, but the book is marred by its insistent focus on the ownership of the farmland instead of just letting Polly get on with her life. And I don't want to spoil anything, but I absolutely hated the ending, which came out of nowhere and didn't match the character arcs that built up to it at all. Overall there's better historical fiction out there, but this might be worth the read if you're particularly interested in the topic.
Evolution’s Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins by Peter S. Ungar. Non-fiction that tells the story of human evolution from the point of view of our teeth. This is less silly than it may sound; teeth, being harder than bones, preserve extremely well in the fossil record and we often have more teeth from an extinct species than any other part of them. In addition, the shape and wear of teeth can tell us a lot about the diet of a species – just imagine how different the teeth of a lion look from those of a cow. Ungar gives the reader the basics of the topic, explaining the history and methods of studying teeth. He's got plenty of examples of modern primates and their teeth, from gorillas to lemurs to little monkeys. But of all this is in the service of learning more about where we came from, and what drove our evolution – climate change? predators? stone tools? Most of the book covers early human evolution, giving a close look at the teeth of species like Paranthropus bosei, Homo habilis, and the Australopithecines (better known as the genus that includes "Lucy"). However, two chapters at the end cover the invention of farming and the post-Industrial diet (with its abundance of sugar and soft, processed foods) on modern humans' jaws and teeth.
It's an interesting topic, but unfortunately Ungar's writing style is extremely dry and academic. I could hardly get through a page without finding my attention had wandered and I needed to reread the last paragraph. I'm all for introducing the details of human evolution and how we learned them to a general audience, but books like that need authors who can capture an audience and hold it. Ungar isn't up to the task.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Nemsis Games by James S.A. Corey. The next in The Expanse series!
