Countdown: three reviews left to write
Sep. 1st, 2017 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhThe Sellout by Paul Beatty. I didn't get it. I'm embarrassed to admit that, but it's honestly my main reaction to this book. I want to say that it's a tired retread of better jokes, an attempt at satire that has no idea of what it's trying to say, but hell, it won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, so there must be something here. But whatever it is, I didn't get it.
The plot is generally described this way: in Dickens, a neighborhood in modern-day LA, an unnamed black man (we only ever learn his nicknames, Sellout and/or Bonbon) enslaves his neighbor, an elderly black man named Hominy, and re-institutes segregation in the local buses and school. The rest of Dickens alternatively ignores or supports him, but he is eventually caught by an outsider and the ensuing civil rights case makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.
That's what everyone is talking about, but it's a summary that doesn't remotely capture the experience of reading the book. The issue of slavery doesn't even come up until well after the first hundred pages, and segregation until significantly after that. Even once these issues make it onto the page, our narrator doesn't have much motivation or reason for them; Hominy insists that he wants to be a slave and browbeats the narrator into accepting it, although they both continue to live normal lives barely different from before. What does happen instead of pointed racial satire is the narrator's fairly mundane life: he pines for his childhood crush, now married to a famous rapper/actor; he remembers his childhood, home-schooled by a strict and eccentric father; he surfs; he works as a farmer, investing too much in organic fertilizer and giving away satsuma oranges to neighborhood kids; he tries to take his psychologist father's place in talking would-be suicides down off of ledges. It's not a driving plot by any means, but rather meanders from one tangent to another. Each slightly disjointed scene feels like one piece of the kaleidoscope of our narrator's identity, so that by the end you have a whole picture but the process of getting there was chaotic and confusing.
Which is not to say there's no humor. My favorite scene was when a black intellectual rewrites Huckleberry Finn:
‘One night, not long ago,’ Foy said, ‘I tried to read this book, Huckleberry Finn, to my grandchildren, but I couldn’t get past page six because the book is fraught with the “n-word”. And although they are the deepest-thinking, combat-ready eight- and ten-year-olds I know, I knew my babies weren’t ready to comprehend Huckleberry Finn on its own merits. That’s why I took the liberty to rewrite Mark Twain’s masterpiece. Where the repugnant “n-word” occurs, I replaced it with “warrior ” and the word “slave” with “dark-skinned volunteer”.’
‘That’s right!’ shouted the crowd.
‘I also improved Jim’s diction, rejiggered the plotline a bit, and retitled the book The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protégé, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit.’ Then Foy held up the copy of his revamped volume for examination. My eyesight isn't the best, but I could've sworn the cover featured Huckleberry Finn piloting the raft down the mighty Mississippi, while Captain African-American Jim stood at the helm, hands on narrow hips, sporting a cheesy goatee and a tartan Burberry sport coat exactly like the one Foy happened to be wearing.
Now that's pretty great. But very little of the novel is this funny; not because it fails at it but because it simply isn't trying to be. There are scenes that burst over into outright tragedy, like the death of the narrator's father, but those too are rare. Mostly the tone is one of elegy: Hominy mourning the loss of his career as a child star, Dickens itself no longer legally recognized and without a clear identity, the narrator uncertain of who he is and who he wants to be.
I think writing this review has convinced that the book is better than I thought when I first finished it. Possibly because I was trying so hard to get the joke, to understand the satire, and now I think satire just isn't the right mode to approach it. A reread thinking about questions of identity and loneliness would probably make me like it much more.
The Harbors of the Sun by Martha Wells. The last (sob!) of the Books of the Raksura. This one picks up directly from the end of the previous book, meaning we're well-supplied with a large cast of characters, multiple plot threads already in motion, lots of adventure culminating in pretty much saving the whole world, and plenty of battles, rescues, sacrifices, new alliances, separations, and reunions.
It's a bit hard to summarize the plot, since so much of it is about resolving situations set up in previous books. And not just in the first half of this duology, but all the way back to the first book of the series: here we get to finally see Pearl take a more active and less fraught role in leading Indigo Court, Jade once again reassess how to treat Moon not as an ideal consort but as an individual with a specific history, Frost takes the first steps in learning how to be a sister queen.
Ultimately the series is old-school pulp fantasy – and I absolutely mean that as a compliment – given a modern twist by Wells's take on gender roles, sexuality, and ethics. Fun tropes, well-executed, with relatable characters who provide sparkling dialogue – what more could anyone want?
An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows. A portal fantasy! I haven't read one of these in ages.
Saffron, a modern-day Australian teen girl, accidentally falls through a portal into the land of Kena, where she is almost immediately caught up in coup to overthrow the current ruler. This turns out to involve a potentially costly alliance with the neighboring but very different country of Veksh. Unfortunately, Saffron hasn't spent more than a few hours in Kena before she has her head shaved and two fingers cut off, which complicates her ability to return to Earth with a plausible story of where she's been. Other important characters include Gwen, another woman from Earth who long ago made the choice to stay in Kena; Zech, a spunky orphan girl with a secret heritage; and my personal favorite, Viya, a spoiled noble girl who escapes a political marriage to Kena's ruler and slowly comes to realize that the power she wants means she has to take responsibility as well.
Honestly, all of this is fairly standard stuff for a doorstopper fantasy novel, but at least it populates its pages with a refreshing diversity. Gwen, for example, is a middle-aged black explicitly aromantic woman; not exactly your typical hero. Saffron's eventual love interest is a transwoman. The characterizations are engaging and, if not particularly original, lots of fun (honestly, Saffron proves to be the least interesting of the lot, but 'normal teen' just doesn't hold a candle to 'disabled and depressed former queen' or 'elderly matriarch with a sharp tongue who wields a fighting staff') and the worldbuilding is entertaining. I particularly liked Kena's system of complicated polygamous marriages, with the ruler obliged to have at least four spouses, some of whom have their own spouses.
It's not a book that I would recommend to someone who's not already a fan of the genre, but I enjoyed it enough that I'll definitely be reading the sequel.
The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe Lansdale. #3 in the Hap & Leonard series, mystery/thriller books about mismatched best friends (Hap is a white ex-hippie ladies man; Leonard a black gay conservative) in impoverished East Texas. (By the way, these reviews must be confusing given that I am simultaneously reading the new books in this series as they come out and going back to read the early ones that I never got around to before. Sorry about that!) In this book, they go in search of Florida Grange, Hap's ex, a lawyer and wannabe journalist. The last anyone heard of her, she was staying in nearby Grovetown to investigate the mysterious death of a black man in the county jail. Hap and Leonard head over to try and pick up her trail – was she murdered? is she even missing, or has she just decided to move on? (You can really tell that this story is set in the days before cellphones and email addresses became so ubiquitous.)
They don't find Florida, but they do discover that Grovetown is in a “time warp”: ruled by the KKK
with 'No Colored' signs still up on the laundromat and a diner that refuses to serve Leonard, not to mention a history of racially motivated rapes and murders, though of course no one has ever been charged with the crimes. After Hap and Leonard barely escape one visit to Grovetown with their lives, they have to face the decision of continuing to search for Florida versus staying safe. Or, to put it another way, facing up to their own morality and (metaphorical) impotence versus doing the right thing, even if it seems likely that whatever happened to Florida, she's long past helping.
And all of that is before the hurricane hits, flooding Grovetown. (I should note I actually read the book a week or two ago; this plot point has developed unfortunate bad timing since.)
I really enjoyed this book; I think it might even be my favorite of the series. The focus on confronting such overt, virulent racism gives it a darkness and weight greater than the previous books. There's still funny moments and the usual fast-paced, crackling dialogue, but overall it's a far more serious story. Seeing Hap and Leonard admit their own vulnerabilities makes them more than improbably-effective action heroes; they're characters I can love.
The plot is generally described this way: in Dickens, a neighborhood in modern-day LA, an unnamed black man (we only ever learn his nicknames, Sellout and/or Bonbon) enslaves his neighbor, an elderly black man named Hominy, and re-institutes segregation in the local buses and school. The rest of Dickens alternatively ignores or supports him, but he is eventually caught by an outsider and the ensuing civil rights case makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.
That's what everyone is talking about, but it's a summary that doesn't remotely capture the experience of reading the book. The issue of slavery doesn't even come up until well after the first hundred pages, and segregation until significantly after that. Even once these issues make it onto the page, our narrator doesn't have much motivation or reason for them; Hominy insists that he wants to be a slave and browbeats the narrator into accepting it, although they both continue to live normal lives barely different from before. What does happen instead of pointed racial satire is the narrator's fairly mundane life: he pines for his childhood crush, now married to a famous rapper/actor; he remembers his childhood, home-schooled by a strict and eccentric father; he surfs; he works as a farmer, investing too much in organic fertilizer and giving away satsuma oranges to neighborhood kids; he tries to take his psychologist father's place in talking would-be suicides down off of ledges. It's not a driving plot by any means, but rather meanders from one tangent to another. Each slightly disjointed scene feels like one piece of the kaleidoscope of our narrator's identity, so that by the end you have a whole picture but the process of getting there was chaotic and confusing.
Which is not to say there's no humor. My favorite scene was when a black intellectual rewrites Huckleberry Finn:
‘One night, not long ago,’ Foy said, ‘I tried to read this book, Huckleberry Finn, to my grandchildren, but I couldn’t get past page six because the book is fraught with the “n-word”. And although they are the deepest-thinking, combat-ready eight- and ten-year-olds I know, I knew my babies weren’t ready to comprehend Huckleberry Finn on its own merits. That’s why I took the liberty to rewrite Mark Twain’s masterpiece. Where the repugnant “n-word” occurs, I replaced it with “warrior ” and the word “slave” with “dark-skinned volunteer”.’
‘That’s right!’ shouted the crowd.
‘I also improved Jim’s diction, rejiggered the plotline a bit, and retitled the book The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protégé, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit.’ Then Foy held up the copy of his revamped volume for examination. My eyesight isn't the best, but I could've sworn the cover featured Huckleberry Finn piloting the raft down the mighty Mississippi, while Captain African-American Jim stood at the helm, hands on narrow hips, sporting a cheesy goatee and a tartan Burberry sport coat exactly like the one Foy happened to be wearing.
Now that's pretty great. But very little of the novel is this funny; not because it fails at it but because it simply isn't trying to be. There are scenes that burst over into outright tragedy, like the death of the narrator's father, but those too are rare. Mostly the tone is one of elegy: Hominy mourning the loss of his career as a child star, Dickens itself no longer legally recognized and without a clear identity, the narrator uncertain of who he is and who he wants to be.
I think writing this review has convinced that the book is better than I thought when I first finished it. Possibly because I was trying so hard to get the joke, to understand the satire, and now I think satire just isn't the right mode to approach it. A reread thinking about questions of identity and loneliness would probably make me like it much more.
The Harbors of the Sun by Martha Wells. The last (sob!) of the Books of the Raksura. This one picks up directly from the end of the previous book, meaning we're well-supplied with a large cast of characters, multiple plot threads already in motion, lots of adventure culminating in pretty much saving the whole world, and plenty of battles, rescues, sacrifices, new alliances, separations, and reunions.
It's a bit hard to summarize the plot, since so much of it is about resolving situations set up in previous books. And not just in the first half of this duology, but all the way back to the first book of the series: here we get to finally see Pearl take a more active and less fraught role in leading Indigo Court, Jade once again reassess how to treat Moon not as an ideal consort but as an individual with a specific history, Frost takes the first steps in learning how to be a sister queen.
Ultimately the series is old-school pulp fantasy – and I absolutely mean that as a compliment – given a modern twist by Wells's take on gender roles, sexuality, and ethics. Fun tropes, well-executed, with relatable characters who provide sparkling dialogue – what more could anyone want?
An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows. A portal fantasy! I haven't read one of these in ages.
Saffron, a modern-day Australian teen girl, accidentally falls through a portal into the land of Kena, where she is almost immediately caught up in coup to overthrow the current ruler. This turns out to involve a potentially costly alliance with the neighboring but very different country of Veksh. Unfortunately, Saffron hasn't spent more than a few hours in Kena before she has her head shaved and two fingers cut off, which complicates her ability to return to Earth with a plausible story of where she's been. Other important characters include Gwen, another woman from Earth who long ago made the choice to stay in Kena; Zech, a spunky orphan girl with a secret heritage; and my personal favorite, Viya, a spoiled noble girl who escapes a political marriage to Kena's ruler and slowly comes to realize that the power she wants means she has to take responsibility as well.
Honestly, all of this is fairly standard stuff for a doorstopper fantasy novel, but at least it populates its pages with a refreshing diversity. Gwen, for example, is a middle-aged black explicitly aromantic woman; not exactly your typical hero. Saffron's eventual love interest is a transwoman. The characterizations are engaging and, if not particularly original, lots of fun (honestly, Saffron proves to be the least interesting of the lot, but 'normal teen' just doesn't hold a candle to 'disabled and depressed former queen' or 'elderly matriarch with a sharp tongue who wields a fighting staff') and the worldbuilding is entertaining. I particularly liked Kena's system of complicated polygamous marriages, with the ruler obliged to have at least four spouses, some of whom have their own spouses.
It's not a book that I would recommend to someone who's not already a fan of the genre, but I enjoyed it enough that I'll definitely be reading the sequel.
The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe Lansdale. #3 in the Hap & Leonard series, mystery/thriller books about mismatched best friends (Hap is a white ex-hippie ladies man; Leonard a black gay conservative) in impoverished East Texas. (By the way, these reviews must be confusing given that I am simultaneously reading the new books in this series as they come out and going back to read the early ones that I never got around to before. Sorry about that!) In this book, they go in search of Florida Grange, Hap's ex, a lawyer and wannabe journalist. The last anyone heard of her, she was staying in nearby Grovetown to investigate the mysterious death of a black man in the county jail. Hap and Leonard head over to try and pick up her trail – was she murdered? is she even missing, or has she just decided to move on? (You can really tell that this story is set in the days before cellphones and email addresses became so ubiquitous.)
They don't find Florida, but they do discover that Grovetown is in a “time warp”: ruled by the KKK
with 'No Colored' signs still up on the laundromat and a diner that refuses to serve Leonard, not to mention a history of racially motivated rapes and murders, though of course no one has ever been charged with the crimes. After Hap and Leonard barely escape one visit to Grovetown with their lives, they have to face the decision of continuing to search for Florida versus staying safe. Or, to put it another way, facing up to their own morality and (metaphorical) impotence versus doing the right thing, even if it seems likely that whatever happened to Florida, she's long past helping.
And all of that is before the hurricane hits, flooding Grovetown. (I should note I actually read the book a week or two ago; this plot point has developed unfortunate bad timing since.)
I really enjoyed this book; I think it might even be my favorite of the series. The focus on confronting such overt, virulent racism gives it a darkness and weight greater than the previous books. There's still funny moments and the usual fast-paced, crackling dialogue, but overall it's a far more serious story. Seeing Hap and Leonard admit their own vulnerabilities makes them more than improbably-effective action heroes; they're characters I can love.
