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tachyondecay
The epistolary novel was a huge tradition back when the novel was first becoming big. I love that blogs have breathed new life into this form. Anonymous Lawyer, based on a blog of the same name, is the somewhat-fabricated record of the hiring partner at a corporate law firm. He shares his views on summer students, employee management, how to get to the top, and family matters. In this character Jeremy Blachman conveys a perfect, supercilious parody of the shark-like, soulless attorney as we know them from popular culture. In so doing he captures some of the truth, gives us a good laugh, and reminds us that the legal profession, like so many others, is riling from a century of accelerated change.
I hate trying to describe why something else is funny, so here’s a sample:
It’s funny because it’s (kind of) true. Lawyers do bill by the hour, tend to be very expensive, and much of one’s success in a law firm is measured in terms of those billable hours. What Blachman does is take that caricature and turn it up to eleven: Anonymous Lawyer says what we think lawyers say to each other behind closed doors.
I like to think Blachman is drawing attention to another, important issue here: the way in which work has changed over the twentieth century. Anonymous Lawyer makes fun of lawyers who expect work–life balance (you can have “one thing” outside of work, whether it’s reading, exercising, spending time with your kids, or—hah hah—sleeping, and anything else is greedy). He also loves how smartphones allow the office to reach associates anywhere and everywhere. He says this all in the most outrageous ways, of course, but beneath this humour is valid social commentary. Many of us, in many professions, are feeling more constrained by our always-on connections. Combine this with the way mass production has extended to colleges and universities, and you become expendable. Don’t want to work seventy- or eighty-hour weeks? No problem! You’re fired. There are twenty-two people waiting in the wings who are just as qualified as you, if not more, and are eager and willing to work that much. Don’t let security taser you on the way out—and have a nice day.
Insert rant about capitalism turning us into capital here—oh wait, been there, did that.
Anonymous Lawyer also provides a fantastic example of an unlikable, and frankly even unsympathetic, protagonist. You’re supposed to hate this guy: he’s self-centred, bigoted, sexist, and overly judgemental. Yet in a kind of feat of literary Stockholm Syndrome, you almost start rooting for him. Even if you want him to fail in the end, you nevertheless come to sympathize with his hatred of the Jerk. It’s a symptom of the blog being from Anonymous Lawyer’s perspective, of course—for all we know, other than his embezzling tendencies, maybe the Jerk is actually a nice guy. This book also gives us a textbook unreliable narrator, right down to the ending that diverges from reality.
This was a very quick read for me—literally read it in a night. So I’m surprised that, a few days later, I can still recall a lot about the characters. Blachman isn’t big on names, using the anonymous conceit to give people monikers like The Tax Guy, The Musician, and The Bombshell. Yet it works—we get to know them by their personalities and actions, or at least what Anonymous Lawyer tells us about their personalities and actions. I appreciate, too, that Blachman develops a plot throughout the novel. What begins as somewhat random observations from Anonymous Lawyer transform into machinations to become the next Chairman. I’m pleased that I predicted the identity of Associate X, and the final few blog posts/emails were a great conclusion to the story.
Read this if you like legal humour and, in particular, want to see the blog-as-novel form done right.
I hate trying to describe why something else is funny, so here’s a sample:
I overheard one of the associates say, "The dog really brings some life into this place. I don't feel so alone." I gave her some more work to do after I heard that. She's supposed to feel alone. This isn't just a regular business, where people can go into their co-workers' offices and chat about the weather or the stock market or their "relationship issues." It's a law firm. Time is billable. Time is money. Small talk doesn't pay the bills. Every minute you're talking to a co-worker is a minute the firm isn't making any money off your presence….
It’s funny because it’s (kind of) true. Lawyers do bill by the hour, tend to be very expensive, and much of one’s success in a law firm is measured in terms of those billable hours. What Blachman does is take that caricature and turn it up to eleven: Anonymous Lawyer says what we think lawyers say to each other behind closed doors.
I like to think Blachman is drawing attention to another, important issue here: the way in which work has changed over the twentieth century. Anonymous Lawyer makes fun of lawyers who expect work–life balance (you can have “one thing” outside of work, whether it’s reading, exercising, spending time with your kids, or—hah hah—sleeping, and anything else is greedy). He also loves how smartphones allow the office to reach associates anywhere and everywhere. He says this all in the most outrageous ways, of course, but beneath this humour is valid social commentary. Many of us, in many professions, are feeling more constrained by our always-on connections. Combine this with the way mass production has extended to colleges and universities, and you become expendable. Don’t want to work seventy- or eighty-hour weeks? No problem! You’re fired. There are twenty-two people waiting in the wings who are just as qualified as you, if not more, and are eager and willing to work that much. Don’t let security taser you on the way out—and have a nice day.
Insert rant about capitalism turning us into capital here—oh wait, been there, did that.
Anonymous Lawyer also provides a fantastic example of an unlikable, and frankly even unsympathetic, protagonist. You’re supposed to hate this guy: he’s self-centred, bigoted, sexist, and overly judgemental. Yet in a kind of feat of literary Stockholm Syndrome, you almost start rooting for him. Even if you want him to fail in the end, you nevertheless come to sympathize with his hatred of the Jerk. It’s a symptom of the blog being from Anonymous Lawyer’s perspective, of course—for all we know, other than his embezzling tendencies, maybe the Jerk is actually a nice guy. This book also gives us a textbook unreliable narrator, right down to the ending that diverges from reality.
This was a very quick read for me—literally read it in a night. So I’m surprised that, a few days later, I can still recall a lot about the characters. Blachman isn’t big on names, using the anonymous conceit to give people monikers like The Tax Guy, The Musician, and The Bombshell. Yet it works—we get to know them by their personalities and actions, or at least what Anonymous Lawyer tells us about their personalities and actions. I appreciate, too, that Blachman develops a plot throughout the novel. What begins as somewhat random observations from Anonymous Lawyer transform into machinations to become the next Chairman. I’m pleased that I predicted the identity of Associate X, and the final few blog posts/emails were a great conclusion to the story.
Read this if you like legal humour and, in particular, want to see the blog-as-novel form done right.
Nearly two years ago, I read a book by Sarah Monette called Mélusine, and I hated it. I considered it a train wreck of a novel. I wasn’t looking to read anything more by Monette in a long time. Now she’s back under the pen name of Katherine Addison (apparently for career reasons, which is a little silly, but I can also understand why). And not only am I giving The Goblin Emperor four stars, but I consider it every bit worth the Hugo nomination it has received, and I will not be disappointed if it wins. (I’m not sure if I’m voting for it yet, because I haven’t read The Three Body Problem or Ancillary Sword and expect good things from both.) This is a novel that is worth its hype.
Having had a few days now to think on it, what has stayed with me the most about The Goblin Emperor is its positivity. Don’t get me wrong: plenty of terrible things happen in this book. Maia spends his entire life prior to becoming emperor in seclusion, raised by an abusive and negligent disgraced courtier and kept ignorant of the political and social knowledge he desperately needs if he is to rule. After he becomes emperor, he is totally the victim of a couple of coup attempts—plus he doesn’t know how to dance!
No, what I mean is that the arc of the plot is quite positive: things for Maia (and the empire itself) gradually and steadily get better. The setbacks are more like growing pains. For a book about an inexperienced young half-breed becoming emperor, I expected a lot worse to happen. I expected open rebellion, a forced marriage to a woman he doesn’t love, and complete inability to change anything about the empire or court. Instead, Maia manages to make friends, deal effectively with some of his enemies, and make a start towards real change. He is a surprisingly effective ruler.
Why does this positivity surprise me? It shouldn’t, really. But I feel like a large proportion of recent fantasy has gone to the dark side. We can blame grimdark (or is that GRRMdark?) for some of this trend—being “edgy” is cool (but writing rape scenes is not cool, Game of Thrones writers…). And perhaps it’s a reflection of current events, the zeitgeist, whatever…. That’s a larger discussion that we might be able to have here. Whatever the reason, dark is cool and light not so much, so in this climate, The Goblin Emperor is a surprise and a delight and a breath of fresh air.
Addison shows that positive fiction can still be paltable, even pleasurable fiction. Despite the fact that Maia’s closest allies don’t somehow end up dead in the middle of Act Three to really “raise the stakes” before the conclusion, I still managed to enjoy the book. I guess I’m just a freak or something. Anyway, the pleasure in this book comes from a few sources—your individual mileage with each source is going to vary greatly, but I think this is a fantasy novel that could appeal to a wide range of fantasy fans.
The worldbuilding, for one, is top notch. I was very critical of the way Monette manages the worldbuilding in Mélusine. It’s much better here. The story might be about “elves” and “goblins,” but there is almost no magic involved (I think there are two scenes total that involve explicit magic use). It’s all court intrigue and politics. Addison uses a consistent system of prefixes, suffixes, etc., in names of people and places to help create the sense that this is an old, proud society. For those of you who get tripped up with this stuff, or want to know more about it, there is an appendix (a great way to avoid too much exposition). For those like me whose eyes just skim over the stuff one thinks unimportant, the consistency of these devices makes it easy to ignore them once you understand what’s going on.
Maia’s vulnerability balances perfectly with his proactive nature as a protagonist. He is not the Chosen One by any stretch of the imagination (pretty much no one wants him as emperor, not even him, but that’s what happens when you have an inherited system of governance!). Yet he is not quite toothless either. The whole first act is basically him reacting and relying on people like Csevet (whom I kept expecting to betray him, because grimdark) to give him advice. In Act Two, Maia starts testing the waters: he starts making allies, making decisions, taking action, generally being emperor. Then in Act Three, the baddies push back, launch their own plans, and Maia and his allies have to deal with the fallout. During this whole time, Maia is evaluating his actions and others’ and changing as a person as he tries to become the emperor he thinks this country needs.
This emphasis on Maia’s duty as the emperor is excellent, because it is so multi-faceted. Everyone has a taken on it. Maia’s servants and minions feel that he has a duty to present a certain persona. He can’t apologize, for instance—that’s not emperor-like! Chavar the Lord Chancellor expects Maia to be a puppet emperor, unschooled and naive enough for him to manipulate or bypass completely. Tethimar certainly hopes Maia will be a weak emperor easily swayed by veild (or not-so-veiled) threats. And Maia himself feels that he has a duty to not be his father, who was cold and disapproving of most things Maia approves of (like his mother). Much of the conflict of this book comes from Maia’s attempts to negotiate the tensions among these various interpretations of his duty.
As a consequence, Addison produces an adept commentary on the challenges faced by a parliamentary monarch. In addition to the central question—what makes a good monarch?—she explores the difficulty becoming a monarch and maintaining one’s own individuality—the distinction between Maia, a person with wants and needs, and Edrehasivar VII, the emperor. Scores of historical fiction novels tackle this theme, but I feel like fantasy tends to get caught up in the action around monarchs more so than their introspective, personal selves. It becomes all about the attempts to overthrow a ruler, or install a different ruler, or take back a throne that was usurped, or defend against invaders, etc. Addison reminds us that we don’t have to be philosophers, or even load a story down with overly philosophical language, in order to consider the morals and ethics of ruling while we care about the person becoming a ruler.
I love when a book convinces me to change my mind about something. That’s why I read and read widely. In this case, my first experience with this author wasn’t a positive one. A couple years later, a different book (and, let’s face it, a different me), and now I’m a fan. I want more. Write more books like this please. I don’t care if they are set in the world. Just write more.
Having had a few days now to think on it, what has stayed with me the most about The Goblin Emperor is its positivity. Don’t get me wrong: plenty of terrible things happen in this book. Maia spends his entire life prior to becoming emperor in seclusion, raised by an abusive and negligent disgraced courtier and kept ignorant of the political and social knowledge he desperately needs if he is to rule. After he becomes emperor, he is totally the victim of a couple of coup attempts—plus he doesn’t know how to dance!
No, what I mean is that the arc of the plot is quite positive: things for Maia (and the empire itself) gradually and steadily get better. The setbacks are more like growing pains. For a book about an inexperienced young half-breed becoming emperor, I expected a lot worse to happen. I expected open rebellion, a forced marriage to a woman he doesn’t love, and complete inability to change anything about the empire or court. Instead, Maia manages to make friends, deal effectively with some of his enemies, and make a start towards real change. He is a surprisingly effective ruler.
Why does this positivity surprise me? It shouldn’t, really. But I feel like a large proportion of recent fantasy has gone to the dark side. We can blame grimdark (or is that GRRMdark?) for some of this trend—being “edgy” is cool (but writing rape scenes is not cool, Game of Thrones writers…). And perhaps it’s a reflection of current events, the zeitgeist, whatever…. That’s a larger discussion that we might be able to have here. Whatever the reason, dark is cool and light not so much, so in this climate, The Goblin Emperor is a surprise and a delight and a breath of fresh air.
Addison shows that positive fiction can still be paltable, even pleasurable fiction. Despite the fact that Maia’s closest allies don’t somehow end up dead in the middle of Act Three to really “raise the stakes” before the conclusion, I still managed to enjoy the book. I guess I’m just a freak or something. Anyway, the pleasure in this book comes from a few sources—your individual mileage with each source is going to vary greatly, but I think this is a fantasy novel that could appeal to a wide range of fantasy fans.
The worldbuilding, for one, is top notch. I was very critical of the way Monette manages the worldbuilding in Mélusine. It’s much better here. The story might be about “elves” and “goblins,” but there is almost no magic involved (I think there are two scenes total that involve explicit magic use). It’s all court intrigue and politics. Addison uses a consistent system of prefixes, suffixes, etc., in names of people and places to help create the sense that this is an old, proud society. For those of you who get tripped up with this stuff, or want to know more about it, there is an appendix (a great way to avoid too much exposition). For those like me whose eyes just skim over the stuff one thinks unimportant, the consistency of these devices makes it easy to ignore them once you understand what’s going on.
Maia’s vulnerability balances perfectly with his proactive nature as a protagonist. He is not the Chosen One by any stretch of the imagination (pretty much no one wants him as emperor, not even him, but that’s what happens when you have an inherited system of governance!). Yet he is not quite toothless either. The whole first act is basically him reacting and relying on people like Csevet (whom I kept expecting to betray him, because grimdark) to give him advice. In Act Two, Maia starts testing the waters: he starts making allies, making decisions, taking action, generally being emperor. Then in Act Three, the baddies push back, launch their own plans, and Maia and his allies have to deal with the fallout. During this whole time, Maia is evaluating his actions and others’ and changing as a person as he tries to become the emperor he thinks this country needs.
This emphasis on Maia’s duty as the emperor is excellent, because it is so multi-faceted. Everyone has a taken on it. Maia’s servants and minions feel that he has a duty to present a certain persona. He can’t apologize, for instance—that’s not emperor-like! Chavar the Lord Chancellor expects Maia to be a puppet emperor, unschooled and naive enough for him to manipulate or bypass completely. Tethimar certainly hopes Maia will be a weak emperor easily swayed by veild (or not-so-veiled) threats. And Maia himself feels that he has a duty to not be his father, who was cold and disapproving of most things Maia approves of (like his mother). Much of the conflict of this book comes from Maia’s attempts to negotiate the tensions among these various interpretations of his duty.
As a consequence, Addison produces an adept commentary on the challenges faced by a parliamentary monarch. In addition to the central question—what makes a good monarch?—she explores the difficulty becoming a monarch and maintaining one’s own individuality—the distinction between Maia, a person with wants and needs, and Edrehasivar VII, the emperor. Scores of historical fiction novels tackle this theme, but I feel like fantasy tends to get caught up in the action around monarchs more so than their introspective, personal selves. It becomes all about the attempts to overthrow a ruler, or install a different ruler, or take back a throne that was usurped, or defend against invaders, etc. Addison reminds us that we don’t have to be philosophers, or even load a story down with overly philosophical language, in order to consider the morals and ethics of ruling while we care about the person becoming a ruler.
I love when a book convinces me to change my mind about something. That’s why I read and read widely. In this case, my first experience with this author wasn’t a positive one. A couple years later, a different book (and, let’s face it, a different me), and now I’m a fan. I want more. Write more books like this please. I don’t care if they are set in the world. Just write more.
I got asked a lot about why I was teaching Lullabies for Little Criminals because it is such a dreary book. Why teach something that is so raw, so traumatic? Why can’t I find something more uplifting? And hey, I’m not saying I’ll never teach a fun or funny book. But I like YA that is raw, because that’s real. Growing up is hard. This is an idea we might pay lip-service to as adults, but it’s a truth the shape of which we tend to forget as we get older. I like to think this is because we’re embroiled in our own little dramas, and we tend to think that the age we’re at now has it the toughest. Plus, we look back at our younger selves, and our inexperience, and hopefully we can laugh at it—but sometimes that laughter gets projected onto other young people. It’s easy, sometimes, to forget how hard they have it.
Conviction is another real, gritty YA book along the lines of Asking For It. Louise O’Neill’s story about a young girl in a small town who is raped and then victim-blamed asks its readers to consider hard truths about the way we socialize boys and girls to think about women. Similarly, Kelly Loy Gilbert presents a powerful story about the way toxic masculinity maneuvers men and boys into corners. I took this off the library shelf at a whim—I had heard nothing about it, knew nothing about author, didn’t know what to expect from the book in terms of tone or content. I’m very happy I took that chance.
My YA reads tend to be biased towards books with female protagonists (which are targeted, at least in terms of marketing, towards young women). Partly this is selection bias from the sources I use to get my YA recommendations. It’s also somewhat intentional, because of course I didn’t grow up as a young woman in any time, so I read YA as a way to better relate to what young girls I might know are dealing with as they grow up. Nevertheless, I like a little balance, and Conviction seemed like it would do the trick. Its narrator is a sixteen-year-old boy in Ornette, Alabama. His father, noted host of a local Christian radio show, is arrested on murder charges. And Braden’s testimony might be the one thing that could spare or condemn his father. It’s a great setup, and Gilbert delivers.
Braden’s characterization is, as with most books with first-person narrators, the linchpin. Most of this story is about his relationship with his father, Martin, who is absent in the parts set in the present day, but a force to be reckoned with nonetheless. We also learn about Martin from the numerous flashbacks that Gilbert weaves into the main plot, gradually leading up to Braden’s turn on the witness stand and the reveal of what “really” happened on that foggy day. It’s clear from the start that Braden is devoted to his dad, hence why it’s so interesting to see how he reacts to the new pressures he’s under as a result of his dad’s charges.
Ornette is a small town in the American South, and as such it’s very conservative and very Christian. Braden belongs to a youth group headed up by a teacher at his school, who is also the (former?) best friend of Braden’s brother. The G word gets dropped a lot in this book. As someone who isn’t religious, this is just something I’m not used to—so I found it very fascinating. Gilbert deftly portrays Braden as a young man who believes in God but has many questions and isn’t always sure how to get guidance. Also, her portrayal of his socialized homophobia is important. If we’re going to confront homophobia in our youth, then we need to understand where it comes from—and the way children are raised by their parents and their communities is a huge factor.
Braden’s homophobia, latent throughout the beginning of the story, becomes a bigger deal later in the book. I figured out the twist long before it happened, but I don’t consider that disappointing—rather, it’s just good foreshadowing on Gilbert’s part. And the way she portrays Braden struggling with how to reconcile this news with what he has been taught all his life is powerful and feels real (I say “feels” because I haven’t lived that experience, so I can’t actually speak to that). This would hopefully be a useful story for boys (or girls) who likewise are dealing with that conflict between the values they have received from their parents and their own experiences. Gilbert’s portrayal is sympathetic to Braden without making excuses. The characters here are all people, warts and all, some of them Christian and some not, some of them sympathetic and some not. There are few stereotypes here—just a lot of uncomfortable reminders that many people really are this intolerant and how harmful this can be.
When you get right down to it, of course, Conviction is about how Braden’s dad is an absolutely terrible parent. He is self-centred, manipulative, duplicitous, bigoted, immature, and abusive. He professes a love for his sons, but he treats them more like scions. Gilbert’s approach to showing all of this is masterful. On one level, Martin’s pushing of baseball onto Braden seems just like a slightly-obsessed, passionate father trying to make sure his son does well in athletics. Combined with the other flashbacks, however, this takes on a more sinister aspect. Martin has bought into a very specific and narrow vision of masculinity and determines to impress this on his sons. Trey refuses to conform and fights back by leaving. Braden begins to fall for it. It’s not Braden’s fault, but this is how they get you—get them young and get them hooked!
Just as it was painful to read Asking for It because of how intense some of its scenes are, it’s painful in places to read Conviction. I was so sad to see what happens between Braden and Maddie and how his father manages to get between the two of them even while he’s in jail. I was sad to see the drama with Braden and Trey play out the way it does—even if it has a somewhat optimistic resolution, the fact it had to happen that way, the fact that either of them went through any of that with their father … that’s just rough. It’s not something any child should have to experience, yet it is all too common.
The title of this book sticks with me. Obviously, at first, it seems to relate to Martin’s trial, the fact that Braden has the power to sway whether or not Martin is convicted. However, there are deeper connotations. “Conviction” speaks to one’s certainty about one’s beliefs. Braden has incredible conviction for a sixteen-year-old—yet that conviction is tested here, as he wonders what the right and moral things to do are. And as the reader, you have to ask yourself whether you agree with what he does, and what you think about the result.
Conviction undersells itself, if anything. From the description I was hoping for an underwhelming, OK book about a boy who plays baseball and has a dick father. It’s so much better than that; it blew me away. It is a story high on teenage passion. Gilbert’s writing is slick and evocative. Braden’s thoughts and feelings are always front-and-centre, so you get to know and identify with him. When he acts out, especially in the form of making poor decisions on the pitcher’s mound, your heart goes out to him. This is a novel that acknowledges the hard choices teenagers face, reminds us that teenagers don’t have the tools they need to deal with those choices, and indicts the social and cultural hegemony that shames teenagers who do not conform.
Conviction is another real, gritty YA book along the lines of Asking For It. Louise O’Neill’s story about a young girl in a small town who is raped and then victim-blamed asks its readers to consider hard truths about the way we socialize boys and girls to think about women. Similarly, Kelly Loy Gilbert presents a powerful story about the way toxic masculinity maneuvers men and boys into corners. I took this off the library shelf at a whim—I had heard nothing about it, knew nothing about author, didn’t know what to expect from the book in terms of tone or content. I’m very happy I took that chance.
My YA reads tend to be biased towards books with female protagonists (which are targeted, at least in terms of marketing, towards young women). Partly this is selection bias from the sources I use to get my YA recommendations. It’s also somewhat intentional, because of course I didn’t grow up as a young woman in any time, so I read YA as a way to better relate to what young girls I might know are dealing with as they grow up. Nevertheless, I like a little balance, and Conviction seemed like it would do the trick. Its narrator is a sixteen-year-old boy in Ornette, Alabama. His father, noted host of a local Christian radio show, is arrested on murder charges. And Braden’s testimony might be the one thing that could spare or condemn his father. It’s a great setup, and Gilbert delivers.
Braden’s characterization is, as with most books with first-person narrators, the linchpin. Most of this story is about his relationship with his father, Martin, who is absent in the parts set in the present day, but a force to be reckoned with nonetheless. We also learn about Martin from the numerous flashbacks that Gilbert weaves into the main plot, gradually leading up to Braden’s turn on the witness stand and the reveal of what “really” happened on that foggy day. It’s clear from the start that Braden is devoted to his dad, hence why it’s so interesting to see how he reacts to the new pressures he’s under as a result of his dad’s charges.
Ornette is a small town in the American South, and as such it’s very conservative and very Christian. Braden belongs to a youth group headed up by a teacher at his school, who is also the (former?) best friend of Braden’s brother. The G word gets dropped a lot in this book. As someone who isn’t religious, this is just something I’m not used to—so I found it very fascinating. Gilbert deftly portrays Braden as a young man who believes in God but has many questions and isn’t always sure how to get guidance. Also, her portrayal of his socialized homophobia is important. If we’re going to confront homophobia in our youth, then we need to understand where it comes from—and the way children are raised by their parents and their communities is a huge factor.
Braden’s homophobia, latent throughout the beginning of the story, becomes a bigger deal later in the book. I figured out the twist long before it happened, but I don’t consider that disappointing—rather, it’s just good foreshadowing on Gilbert’s part. And the way she portrays Braden struggling with how to reconcile this news with what he has been taught all his life is powerful and feels real (I say “feels” because I haven’t lived that experience, so I can’t actually speak to that). This would hopefully be a useful story for boys (or girls) who likewise are dealing with that conflict between the values they have received from their parents and their own experiences. Gilbert’s portrayal is sympathetic to Braden without making excuses. The characters here are all people, warts and all, some of them Christian and some not, some of them sympathetic and some not. There are few stereotypes here—just a lot of uncomfortable reminders that many people really are this intolerant and how harmful this can be.
When you get right down to it, of course, Conviction is about how Braden’s dad is an absolutely terrible parent. He is self-centred, manipulative, duplicitous, bigoted, immature, and abusive. He professes a love for his sons, but he treats them more like scions. Gilbert’s approach to showing all of this is masterful. On one level, Martin’s pushing of baseball onto Braden seems just like a slightly-obsessed, passionate father trying to make sure his son does well in athletics. Combined with the other flashbacks, however, this takes on a more sinister aspect. Martin has bought into a very specific and narrow vision of masculinity and determines to impress this on his sons. Trey refuses to conform and fights back by leaving. Braden begins to fall for it. It’s not Braden’s fault, but this is how they get you—get them young and get them hooked!
Just as it was painful to read Asking for It because of how intense some of its scenes are, it’s painful in places to read Conviction. I was so sad to see what happens between Braden and Maddie and how his father manages to get between the two of them even while he’s in jail. I was sad to see the drama with Braden and Trey play out the way it does—even if it has a somewhat optimistic resolution, the fact it had to happen that way, the fact that either of them went through any of that with their father … that’s just rough. It’s not something any child should have to experience, yet it is all too common.
The title of this book sticks with me. Obviously, at first, it seems to relate to Martin’s trial, the fact that Braden has the power to sway whether or not Martin is convicted. However, there are deeper connotations. “Conviction” speaks to one’s certainty about one’s beliefs. Braden has incredible conviction for a sixteen-year-old—yet that conviction is tested here, as he wonders what the right and moral things to do are. And as the reader, you have to ask yourself whether you agree with what he does, and what you think about the result.
Conviction undersells itself, if anything. From the description I was hoping for an underwhelming, OK book about a boy who plays baseball and has a dick father. It’s so much better than that; it blew me away. It is a story high on teenage passion. Gilbert’s writing is slick and evocative. Braden’s thoughts and feelings are always front-and-centre, so you get to know and identify with him. When he acts out, especially in the form of making poor decisions on the pitcher’s mound, your heart goes out to him. This is a novel that acknowledges the hard choices teenagers face, reminds us that teenagers don’t have the tools they need to deal with those choices, and indicts the social and cultural hegemony that shames teenagers who do not conform.
You have no idea how hard it is for me to spell this title “correctly” (with the American spelling of centre). I have the forbearance of a saint, I swear.
The Island at the Center of the World is about the Dutch colony on Manhattan Island—New Amsterdam and its ancillary towns that would eventually be surrendered to the English and metamorphose into New York and New York state. Russell Shorto wants to bring to light the extensive new work being done on records from that period. For the past thirty years, a specialist in that period has been laboriously translating hitherto untranslated documents that help shed light on the character of the colony. This is revising historians’ opinions of New Amsterdam. Shorto essentially takes the position that history is written by the victors, and the victors being English in this case meant they had no shortage of bad things to say about the Dutch. So they downplayed the Dutch origins of Manhattan and New York, choosing instead to present a narrative of the United States springing forth from thirteen English colonies.
For Shorto, this is all about tracing the development of the colony and highlighting how the Netherlands’ colonial efforts differed so much from other European powers at the time. Whereas England, France, and Spain were all focused on claiming new land through settlement, the Dutch tended to stick with military outposts that enforced their monopoly on critical trade goods. I had never thought of it this way before, but it’s an important difference, and it makes New Amsterdam stand out as one of the few examples of true colonization/settlement from the Dutch. (It also helps explain why, while the Netherlands had outposts flung across the world, the Dutch language itself has not spread far and wide like English did.) So while this is a history of Manhattan, it’s also a history of seventeenth-century European power struggles, but told from a very different perspective than you might otherwise experience. I liked that aspect.
I haven’t read much in the way of colonial histories, so it’s difficult for me to compare this book to others like it. I appreciate how Shorto explores the nuanced relationship between Indigenous peoples in the area and the Dutch settlers. He is careful to point out the stereotypes in our present-day culture, and then he also goes on to explain how the relationship was different from the one that would develop in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries. He explains how the Indigenous peoples seemed to view the land purchases made by the Europeans (or at least, he tries to given the evidence we have available to us), and how from a certain perspective, the Indigenous peoples could be seen as having the upper hand in those deals (i.e., they “sold” the land in return for a presumptive alliance between their tribe and the Dutch, notwithstanding the Dutch not necessarily understanding or caring enough to uphold this end of the deal).
I originally wanted to read this book—I think; it’s been a while since it made it to my to-read list—because I was curious about Manhattan the island. It’s just so crazy to think of New York, today a bustling metropolis carpeted by steel girders and people, as wilderness. Yet it was, four hundred years ago. And we changed that. It wasn’t a natural process that transformed forests into parking lots and shopping malls. This is a very potent reminder of the way human beings are reshaping our planet.
On a related note, The Island at the Center of the World is aptly-titled, because Shorto reminds us of how geography plays a significant role in shaping our society and history. I don’t subscribe overly much to hardcore, Guns, Germs, and Steel–style geographic determinism, but geography certainly has influence. Even discarding the fixation with finding a passage to China through the Americas, the harbour and river system around Manhattan was one of the premiere entrances into the continent. For an economy that relied so extensively on shipping, this was all-important. It’s no wonder, then, that even when it was under Dutch control, New Amsterdam was a hub for shipping English goods from Virginia and New England across the Atlantic. Centre of the world indeed!
Shorto looks at the colony’s history through a biographical framework, focusing on some of the important movers and shakers of the time. There are some great aspects to this approach. He emphasizes the way that the wild, untamed American continent seemed to affect people who settled there. Even though Peter Stuyvesant and Adriaen Van der Donck were ultimately on the opposite side of a lot of issues, both petitioned to be allowed to return to the colony and there live out their days. Shorto adequately portrays the romanticism of the period. Actually, he might portray it overly much.
I read the Large Print edition of this book purely because it was the only copy available from my library, and libraries are rad. I thought the larger type would be a boon—it’ll make reading this non-fiction book a breeze! Counter-intuitively, it took me longer to work my way through the book. The font is larger, yes, but the typeface is so plain it’s almost ugly; the margins are skinnier … the design of the book, in general, is just minimalist and underwhelming. You don’t realize how important these elements are until they are taken away.
So I plodded through it, and I started losing patience. Shorto goes into so much detail, examines every little nuance and development. In particular, he feels it’s necessary to explore the background of every bit player. To some extent this is useful and interesting. Taken altogether, however, and the effect becomes amplified and loses some of its power. I just feel like there might have been a way to tell this story in a slightly more concise, punchier fashion.
I guess that’s what the movie treatment is for, right?
Do you like the confluence of geography and history? Do you want to learn more about that Dutch colony that has not-so-secretly influenced American culture, even if American myth does not want to admit it? If so, The Island at the Center of the World is your cup of tea. For all its flaws stylistically, it’s a solid, slightly academic read about a subject that perhaps needs more publicity. It’s not necessarily going to awaken those interests in you anew, but it will speak to them and provide you with more background on an important part of North American history.
The Island at the Center of the World is about the Dutch colony on Manhattan Island—New Amsterdam and its ancillary towns that would eventually be surrendered to the English and metamorphose into New York and New York state. Russell Shorto wants to bring to light the extensive new work being done on records from that period. For the past thirty years, a specialist in that period has been laboriously translating hitherto untranslated documents that help shed light on the character of the colony. This is revising historians’ opinions of New Amsterdam. Shorto essentially takes the position that history is written by the victors, and the victors being English in this case meant they had no shortage of bad things to say about the Dutch. So they downplayed the Dutch origins of Manhattan and New York, choosing instead to present a narrative of the United States springing forth from thirteen English colonies.
For Shorto, this is all about tracing the development of the colony and highlighting how the Netherlands’ colonial efforts differed so much from other European powers at the time. Whereas England, France, and Spain were all focused on claiming new land through settlement, the Dutch tended to stick with military outposts that enforced their monopoly on critical trade goods. I had never thought of it this way before, but it’s an important difference, and it makes New Amsterdam stand out as one of the few examples of true colonization/settlement from the Dutch. (It also helps explain why, while the Netherlands had outposts flung across the world, the Dutch language itself has not spread far and wide like English did.) So while this is a history of Manhattan, it’s also a history of seventeenth-century European power struggles, but told from a very different perspective than you might otherwise experience. I liked that aspect.
I haven’t read much in the way of colonial histories, so it’s difficult for me to compare this book to others like it. I appreciate how Shorto explores the nuanced relationship between Indigenous peoples in the area and the Dutch settlers. He is careful to point out the stereotypes in our present-day culture, and then he also goes on to explain how the relationship was different from the one that would develop in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries. He explains how the Indigenous peoples seemed to view the land purchases made by the Europeans (or at least, he tries to given the evidence we have available to us), and how from a certain perspective, the Indigenous peoples could be seen as having the upper hand in those deals (i.e., they “sold” the land in return for a presumptive alliance between their tribe and the Dutch, notwithstanding the Dutch not necessarily understanding or caring enough to uphold this end of the deal).
I originally wanted to read this book—I think; it’s been a while since it made it to my to-read list—because I was curious about Manhattan the island. It’s just so crazy to think of New York, today a bustling metropolis carpeted by steel girders and people, as wilderness. Yet it was, four hundred years ago. And we changed that. It wasn’t a natural process that transformed forests into parking lots and shopping malls. This is a very potent reminder of the way human beings are reshaping our planet.
On a related note, The Island at the Center of the World is aptly-titled, because Shorto reminds us of how geography plays a significant role in shaping our society and history. I don’t subscribe overly much to hardcore, Guns, Germs, and Steel–style geographic determinism, but geography certainly has influence. Even discarding the fixation with finding a passage to China through the Americas, the harbour and river system around Manhattan was one of the premiere entrances into the continent. For an economy that relied so extensively on shipping, this was all-important. It’s no wonder, then, that even when it was under Dutch control, New Amsterdam was a hub for shipping English goods from Virginia and New England across the Atlantic. Centre of the world indeed!
Shorto looks at the colony’s history through a biographical framework, focusing on some of the important movers and shakers of the time. There are some great aspects to this approach. He emphasizes the way that the wild, untamed American continent seemed to affect people who settled there. Even though Peter Stuyvesant and Adriaen Van der Donck were ultimately on the opposite side of a lot of issues, both petitioned to be allowed to return to the colony and there live out their days. Shorto adequately portrays the romanticism of the period. Actually, he might portray it overly much.
I read the Large Print edition of this book purely because it was the only copy available from my library, and libraries are rad. I thought the larger type would be a boon—it’ll make reading this non-fiction book a breeze! Counter-intuitively, it took me longer to work my way through the book. The font is larger, yes, but the typeface is so plain it’s almost ugly; the margins are skinnier … the design of the book, in general, is just minimalist and underwhelming. You don’t realize how important these elements are until they are taken away.
So I plodded through it, and I started losing patience. Shorto goes into so much detail, examines every little nuance and development. In particular, he feels it’s necessary to explore the background of every bit player. To some extent this is useful and interesting. Taken altogether, however, and the effect becomes amplified and loses some of its power. I just feel like there might have been a way to tell this story in a slightly more concise, punchier fashion.
I guess that’s what the movie treatment is for, right?
Do you like the confluence of geography and history? Do you want to learn more about that Dutch colony that has not-so-secretly influenced American culture, even if American myth does not want to admit it? If so, The Island at the Center of the World is your cup of tea. For all its flaws stylistically, it’s a solid, slightly academic read about a subject that perhaps needs more publicity. It’s not necessarily going to awaken those interests in you anew, but it will speak to them and provide you with more background on an important part of North American history.
Look, this isn’t really a novel.
Seriously. I know that it has that stupid “A Novel” subtitle that dangles off the end of a book’s cover like an appendix because some publishers worry that readers are too dumb or lazy to look at a book’s description to figure out if it’s fiction or non-fiction. But in this case, that label is a lie—or at the very least, a simplification. Seveneves is not a novel. It breaks all the rules and conventions of the novel form, and that’s not because it’s poorly written—it’s because the book is not trying to follow those conventions.
Time was, see, you just couldn’t publish a nearly 900-page hardcover book like this. The printing and binding machines would groan and creak. The publishers wouldn’t have it, and the editors would rise up and smack down any author who thought they could get away with such hubris. If this had been published fifteen (maybe even ten) years ago, it would be at least two books. Innovations in the technology behind publishing, both in print and digital form, and corresponding evolution in the thinking about publishing, allows authors to experiment with what, exactly, constitutes a “book.” The publishing industry isn’t dying. The novel itself is not dying—but, much like the human species in Seveneves, it might be diversifying.
Seveneves is closer to a fictional non-fiction account than anything. There’s almost an implication that the first two thirds of the narrative, before that big 5000-year jump advertised in the cover copy, is straight from the historical Epic that gets referenced in that last third. And throughout the novel, Neal Stephenson focuses more on the how and why of things than the who and where.
To put it another way, Stephenson does not give a shit that he has written a 900-page book that is almost 90 per cent exposition. Come at him, bro.
So if you go into this expecting a straightforward narrative with some science-fictional gloss … well, clearly you haven’t sampled any Stephenson before. But even as a Stephenson veteran I raised my eyebrows at how transparently he raises the middle finger to the conventions of plot and characterization. This book is literally pages upon pages of the scientific equivalent of erotic literature: explanations of orbital mechanics and near-Earth spaceflight, discourses on genetics and evolution and geoengineering. And, once in a while, when Stephenson needs to shift gears or change topics, some fictional creation wanders into frame to give him an excuse for that.
To say that Seveneves delivers Big Ideas is like saying that the current political situation in the United States is crazy—that is, a huge understatement. Seveneves reaches around, taps you on the shoulder, then punches you in the face with a Big Idea; when you come to, you find that you’re strapped to a conveyor belt built on Big Ideas and moving you headfirst towards a terrifying guillotine of Big Ideas. And that’s just the first 600 pages.
I don’t really want to get into the minutiae of these ideas. I found some plausible and some not, and sometimes the parts I was sceptical about turned out to be Stephenson being clever and showing that he was sceptical too. For example, I initially balked at the idea that people would so readily accept the Earth’s doom. Look at the number of people who deny that the Earth is warming (let alone that humans are the primary cause). No way would people so readily accept “science” telling them that the moon’s remnants were going to fall into the atmosphere and kill all life. So I was sceptical the world governments could get their act together and actually achieve this whole Cloud Ark thing; it goes too smoothly for my tastes at first, but Stephenson makes up for that later on.
Unfortunately, I started getting bored towards the midpoint of the book, and I completely—I mean completely, almost going to put this down forever—lost interest after the 5000-year jump. A reader can only take so much infodumping. Unlike a work of non-fiction popular science, Seveneves is as much about a fictional human civilization as it is about explaining physics and biology. Despite flouting many precepts of the novel, Stephenson remains tied to the syntax and semantics of fictive storytelling. In many ways, this book reminds me of Always Coming Home, which likewise depicts and explicates a fictional human society through a loose storytelling lens. In Le Guin’s case, however, she wasn’t trying to use this as a vehicle for showing off her knowledge of science. Under this added weight, Seveneves sags and then drags.
As I concluded in my review of Always Coming Home, I can admire the literary prowess and ambition these books display without actually enjoying them all that much. Seveneves demonstrates a zeal for experimentation and a love of science that stands Stephenson in good stead: I’m happy he continues to write and exhibit such creativity. I’m not all that enthusiastic about this particular product of that creativity. I don’t recommend this for a casual reader trying to dip into science fiction or Stephenson’s work. For fans or hardcore science geeks this book might have more to offer, but you should gird yourself before you wade into this particular arena.
Seriously. I know that it has that stupid “A Novel” subtitle that dangles off the end of a book’s cover like an appendix because some publishers worry that readers are too dumb or lazy to look at a book’s description to figure out if it’s fiction or non-fiction. But in this case, that label is a lie—or at the very least, a simplification. Seveneves is not a novel. It breaks all the rules and conventions of the novel form, and that’s not because it’s poorly written—it’s because the book is not trying to follow those conventions.
Time was, see, you just couldn’t publish a nearly 900-page hardcover book like this. The printing and binding machines would groan and creak. The publishers wouldn’t have it, and the editors would rise up and smack down any author who thought they could get away with such hubris. If this had been published fifteen (maybe even ten) years ago, it would be at least two books. Innovations in the technology behind publishing, both in print and digital form, and corresponding evolution in the thinking about publishing, allows authors to experiment with what, exactly, constitutes a “book.” The publishing industry isn’t dying. The novel itself is not dying—but, much like the human species in Seveneves, it might be diversifying.
Seveneves is closer to a fictional non-fiction account than anything. There’s almost an implication that the first two thirds of the narrative, before that big 5000-year jump advertised in the cover copy, is straight from the historical Epic that gets referenced in that last third. And throughout the novel, Neal Stephenson focuses more on the how and why of things than the who and where.
To put it another way, Stephenson does not give a shit that he has written a 900-page book that is almost 90 per cent exposition. Come at him, bro.
So if you go into this expecting a straightforward narrative with some science-fictional gloss … well, clearly you haven’t sampled any Stephenson before. But even as a Stephenson veteran I raised my eyebrows at how transparently he raises the middle finger to the conventions of plot and characterization. This book is literally pages upon pages of the scientific equivalent of erotic literature: explanations of orbital mechanics and near-Earth spaceflight, discourses on genetics and evolution and geoengineering. And, once in a while, when Stephenson needs to shift gears or change topics, some fictional creation wanders into frame to give him an excuse for that.
To say that Seveneves delivers Big Ideas is like saying that the current political situation in the United States is crazy—that is, a huge understatement. Seveneves reaches around, taps you on the shoulder, then punches you in the face with a Big Idea; when you come to, you find that you’re strapped to a conveyor belt built on Big Ideas and moving you headfirst towards a terrifying guillotine of Big Ideas. And that’s just the first 600 pages.
I don’t really want to get into the minutiae of these ideas. I found some plausible and some not, and sometimes the parts I was sceptical about turned out to be Stephenson being clever and showing that he was sceptical too. For example, I initially balked at the idea that people would so readily accept the Earth’s doom. Look at the number of people who deny that the Earth is warming (let alone that humans are the primary cause). No way would people so readily accept “science” telling them that the moon’s remnants were going to fall into the atmosphere and kill all life. So I was sceptical the world governments could get their act together and actually achieve this whole Cloud Ark thing; it goes too smoothly for my tastes at first, but Stephenson makes up for that later on.
Unfortunately, I started getting bored towards the midpoint of the book, and I completely—I mean completely, almost going to put this down forever—lost interest after the 5000-year jump. A reader can only take so much infodumping. Unlike a work of non-fiction popular science, Seveneves is as much about a fictional human civilization as it is about explaining physics and biology. Despite flouting many precepts of the novel, Stephenson remains tied to the syntax and semantics of fictive storytelling. In many ways, this book reminds me of Always Coming Home, which likewise depicts and explicates a fictional human society through a loose storytelling lens. In Le Guin’s case, however, she wasn’t trying to use this as a vehicle for showing off her knowledge of science. Under this added weight, Seveneves sags and then drags.
As I concluded in my review of Always Coming Home, I can admire the literary prowess and ambition these books display without actually enjoying them all that much. Seveneves demonstrates a zeal for experimentation and a love of science that stands Stephenson in good stead: I’m happy he continues to write and exhibit such creativity. I’m not all that enthusiastic about this particular product of that creativity. I don’t recommend this for a casual reader trying to dip into science fiction or Stephenson’s work. For fans or hardcore science geeks this book might have more to offer, but you should gird yourself before you wade into this particular arena.
I’m always fascinated by stories that examine the liminal space and time between the two World Wars. Take The Great Gatsby, for instance: it captures perfectly the weird mixture of fatigue and optimism that followed the Great War. In Carry Me, of course, Peter Behrens has the benefit of hindsight to allow him to trace the rise of Nazi Germany from the ashes of World War I. But he does this through a very meditative narrative, one that captures the way the 1920s and 1930s served as an all-too-brief respite during which the storm clouds gathered visibly, even if too few people were capable of recognizing what they foretold.
Carry Me came out at the end of February. I received this as an ARC from House of Anansi, but because I am a terrible person, I got completely distracted by reading books from a library trip and forgot to read this before its release. I love receiving free books: if you would like me to completely forget to read your book until after it comes out, send me a message and we’ll work something out!
Anyway, this is one of the types of historical fiction that really gets to me. Billy Lange kind of floats on the surface of life. His father and mother come from diverse backgrounds, German and Irish respectively, but more international in their experiences. The former’s internment during the Great War shapes a great deal of Billy’s youth, causing him and his mother to move from the Isle of Wight to London and then finally to Ireland until, reunited with his father, they relocate one more time to Germany. There Billy begins, properly, his on/off friendship (and sometimes more than that) with Karin von Weinbrenner, daughter of his father’s Jewish employer. It’s not quite a “forbidden cross-class romance” story—it’s not much of a romance at all, in fact, but more a kind of gravity between the two people.
The narrative alternates between episodes in Billy’s life, from childhood to young adulthood, and 1938, when Billy and Karin are preparing to leave Germany in the midst of its crackdown on Jews. Despite the intensity of this subject matter, Behrens manages to keep the pacing very mellow. There’s a surrealism to some of the story. This is probably best seen in the way Billy and Karin bond over their mutual love for Karl May’s Winnetou stories of the Wild West: May’s stories in no way attempt to represent the wild plains of North America, and its Indigenous peoples, realistically; rather, the stories serve as allegories for German idealism and the romantic connection between nobility and nature. Behrens does much the same here, with his characters feeling a lot like archetypes of the time rather than people.
Billy’s life is more defined by the in-between than anything else. German–Irish by descent, born and raised in England and then Ireland and then Germany, inspired by Germanic visions of North America, raised on notions of English propriety but betrayed by English xenophobia, and finally coming of age in post-war Germany while being taunted as an outsider … Billy has a lot of cultural baggage. It’s not surprising, then, that he fails to discover something uniquely his, and settles instead for an office job doing translation work. Similarly, it’s important to note that while Billy has some sexual encounters prior to and outside of his physical intimacy with Karin, he never has a serious romantic relationship. The closest he comes is to fantasizing about marrying a secretary at the law firm where he does some clerical work, and nothing comes of that.
As with most things in his life, Billy is stuck in the in-between with Karin. She constantly addresses him as “old Billy,” or “Billy, my old friend,” often peppering her speech with Anglicisms that make her sound more modern and forthright. She leans on Billy, falls back on him when she needs refuge, but sees him not as a viable partner so much as a pillar in her life. Or, at least, that’s the way Billy tells it … unreliable narrators and all. It’s worth noting, too, that Billy marries towards the end of the novel … though we might infer that the relationship is very different from the one he had with Karin, as I suppose romances begun later in life often must be.
I spent some of my time reading this book trying to decide whether Karin fits the profile of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (TVTropes). On balance I have to conclude she does not. Although Billy occasionally refers to her rebelliousness, it always seems to be a fairly tame and understandable reaction to her issues with her parents. And Karin does not really embody a character who exists as a kind of wish fulfilment for Billy: she seems to have her own goals and her own life. Instead, the two are more like planets whose orbits occasionally cross rather than one orbiting the other as a satellite.
And then that Hitler guy shows up and ruins everything.
Behrens deftly deals with the rise of fascism. He shows how people on every side of the issue don’t quite grasp the shape of what is to come. Both Billy’s father and von Weinbrenner fail to comprehend the dangers posed by Hitler’s anti-Semitic rants. The way that Billy describes the fascist crackdowns in Frankfurt and the changing zeitgeist is sinister. A great deal of literature and movies attempt to depict the horror of living under Nazi Germany (or in Nazi-occupied Europe) during the war, but I haven’t been exposed to as much literature that focuses on the rise of Nazism. In characters like Gunther Krebs, Behrens demonstrates how the Nazis leveraged personal and political beliefs in order to get people to conform to a sharp, manic vision of what Germany needed to become. And, alas, one gets a good sense of why it was so difficult for those with consciences to stand up and fight this rising power in an effective way.
The ending is a little bit predictable, and to be honest, I’m not sure I like it. Oh, it makes sense, in a kind of cinematic, inevitably tragic way. And I like that Behrens fast-forwards through Billy’s life during the Second World War and afterwards, that the story speeds towards its conclusion with little emphasis on what happens now that they have left Germany. This just might be one of those cases where the author does their job too well, and, like a meal that is so rich you know you won’t be able to eat your fill, the emotions inherent in this novel inexorably lead to a bit of a hollow feeling.
So that’s good, I guess? Carry Me is definitely some of the best literary historical fiction I’ve read in a while (using the word “literary” here to connote a certain style as distinct from historical fiction more driven by plot and circumstance than the character and consciousness of Behrens’ prose). It is a relaxing read, in the sense that the writing has the quality of a luxurious, soft blanket or bath towel—though the setting and subject matter, of course, doesn’t have the same soporific and reassuring qualities!
Carry Me came out at the end of February. I received this as an ARC from House of Anansi, but because I am a terrible person, I got completely distracted by reading books from a library trip and forgot to read this before its release. I love receiving free books: if you would like me to completely forget to read your book until after it comes out, send me a message and we’ll work something out!
Anyway, this is one of the types of historical fiction that really gets to me. Billy Lange kind of floats on the surface of life. His father and mother come from diverse backgrounds, German and Irish respectively, but more international in their experiences. The former’s internment during the Great War shapes a great deal of Billy’s youth, causing him and his mother to move from the Isle of Wight to London and then finally to Ireland until, reunited with his father, they relocate one more time to Germany. There Billy begins, properly, his on/off friendship (and sometimes more than that) with Karin von Weinbrenner, daughter of his father’s Jewish employer. It’s not quite a “forbidden cross-class romance” story—it’s not much of a romance at all, in fact, but more a kind of gravity between the two people.
The narrative alternates between episodes in Billy’s life, from childhood to young adulthood, and 1938, when Billy and Karin are preparing to leave Germany in the midst of its crackdown on Jews. Despite the intensity of this subject matter, Behrens manages to keep the pacing very mellow. There’s a surrealism to some of the story. This is probably best seen in the way Billy and Karin bond over their mutual love for Karl May’s Winnetou stories of the Wild West: May’s stories in no way attempt to represent the wild plains of North America, and its Indigenous peoples, realistically; rather, the stories serve as allegories for German idealism and the romantic connection between nobility and nature. Behrens does much the same here, with his characters feeling a lot like archetypes of the time rather than people.
Billy’s life is more defined by the in-between than anything else. German–Irish by descent, born and raised in England and then Ireland and then Germany, inspired by Germanic visions of North America, raised on notions of English propriety but betrayed by English xenophobia, and finally coming of age in post-war Germany while being taunted as an outsider … Billy has a lot of cultural baggage. It’s not surprising, then, that he fails to discover something uniquely his, and settles instead for an office job doing translation work. Similarly, it’s important to note that while Billy has some sexual encounters prior to and outside of his physical intimacy with Karin, he never has a serious romantic relationship. The closest he comes is to fantasizing about marrying a secretary at the law firm where he does some clerical work, and nothing comes of that.
As with most things in his life, Billy is stuck in the in-between with Karin. She constantly addresses him as “old Billy,” or “Billy, my old friend,” often peppering her speech with Anglicisms that make her sound more modern and forthright. She leans on Billy, falls back on him when she needs refuge, but sees him not as a viable partner so much as a pillar in her life. Or, at least, that’s the way Billy tells it … unreliable narrators and all. It’s worth noting, too, that Billy marries towards the end of the novel … though we might infer that the relationship is very different from the one he had with Karin, as I suppose romances begun later in life often must be.
I spent some of my time reading this book trying to decide whether Karin fits the profile of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (TVTropes). On balance I have to conclude she does not. Although Billy occasionally refers to her rebelliousness, it always seems to be a fairly tame and understandable reaction to her issues with her parents. And Karin does not really embody a character who exists as a kind of wish fulfilment for Billy: she seems to have her own goals and her own life. Instead, the two are more like planets whose orbits occasionally cross rather than one orbiting the other as a satellite.
And then that Hitler guy shows up and ruins everything.
Behrens deftly deals with the rise of fascism. He shows how people on every side of the issue don’t quite grasp the shape of what is to come. Both Billy’s father and von Weinbrenner fail to comprehend the dangers posed by Hitler’s anti-Semitic rants. The way that Billy describes the fascist crackdowns in Frankfurt and the changing zeitgeist is sinister. A great deal of literature and movies attempt to depict the horror of living under Nazi Germany (or in Nazi-occupied Europe) during the war, but I haven’t been exposed to as much literature that focuses on the rise of Nazism. In characters like Gunther Krebs, Behrens demonstrates how the Nazis leveraged personal and political beliefs in order to get people to conform to a sharp, manic vision of what Germany needed to become. And, alas, one gets a good sense of why it was so difficult for those with consciences to stand up and fight this rising power in an effective way.
The ending is a little bit predictable, and to be honest, I’m not sure I like it. Oh, it makes sense, in a kind of cinematic, inevitably tragic way. And I like that Behrens fast-forwards through Billy’s life during the Second World War and afterwards, that the story speeds towards its conclusion with little emphasis on what happens now that they have left Germany. This just might be one of those cases where the author does their job too well, and, like a meal that is so rich you know you won’t be able to eat your fill, the emotions inherent in this novel inexorably lead to a bit of a hollow feeling.
So that’s good, I guess? Carry Me is definitely some of the best literary historical fiction I’ve read in a while (using the word “literary” here to connote a certain style as distinct from historical fiction more driven by plot and circumstance than the character and consciousness of Behrens’ prose). It is a relaxing read, in the sense that the writing has the quality of a luxurious, soft blanket or bath towel—though the setting and subject matter, of course, doesn’t have the same soporific and reassuring qualities!
And so we’ve reached the ghostwriter era, with The Extreme delivering a fairly dull adventure to an exciting place: the Arctic.
There’s not actually much wrong with this book. The trouble is that it comes on the heels of a particularly strong moment in the series—the David trilogy and The Hork-Bajir Chronicles—and most stories would look boring in comparison. Unfortunately for a story called The Extreme, Marco and the other Animorphs don’t get up to anything particularly new here. We’ve seen them on board the Blade ship. We’ve seen them in bug morphs. We’ve seen them infiltrating/destroying Yeerk bases while facing off against strange alien life.
Rachel acquires her iconic polar bear morph here, and in fact, she’s one of the best parts about this story (but I’m biased). Her comments show an interesting, sympathetic warrior mindset: she is ready to fight, but she’s also sad when she has to kill these strange hybrids programmed to oppose them.
Normally Marco brings the humour to counteract the seriousness of the Animorphs’ war. And the writer tries, but it feels a little perfunctory. The book opens with Marco crushing hard on a date, whom the other Animorphs have to investigate, of course. Unfortunately it doesn’t really factor into the plot—that’s a shame, because it would have been more interesting. Marco having to go on multiple dates with a girl who might be a Yeerk would be a novel worth reading.
I wish I could be more enthusiastic, because the Animorphs go to the Arctic! They meet a (presumably) Inuit man who takes their morphing in stride and reminds them of the value of respecting those who call this land their home. But this part of the plot feels very aimless. On one hand, I love how the writer realistically deals with the fact that they are not prepared for such a cold, inhospitable environment (morphing outfits are not cold-weather garments!). On the other hand, “we need to stay in morph or we die of hypothermia” only stays interesting for so long.
The real missed opportunity is the Venber. They could have spent more time developing this plot, actually explored the implications of what the Yeerks had done much in the same way as they did with the Leerans ten books ago. Instead we get the thinnest exposition. Then they become anonymous, mindless bogeyman who barely pose a threat as the Animorphs curb-stomp their way through the base.
The Extreme is a mess, and not even a hot mess in the good way. It’s an all right story—there aren’t really any major plot holes, but that’s because there isn’t much of a plot. It’s only a level or two above “filler.”
Next time, though, we are in for a treat when the Animorphs get to visit another planet and the Crayak storyline kicks off properly….
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #24: The Suspicion | #26: The Attack →
There’s not actually much wrong with this book. The trouble is that it comes on the heels of a particularly strong moment in the series—the David trilogy and The Hork-Bajir Chronicles—and most stories would look boring in comparison. Unfortunately for a story called The Extreme, Marco and the other Animorphs don’t get up to anything particularly new here. We’ve seen them on board the Blade ship. We’ve seen them in bug morphs. We’ve seen them infiltrating/destroying Yeerk bases while facing off against strange alien life.
Rachel acquires her iconic polar bear morph here, and in fact, she’s one of the best parts about this story (but I’m biased). Her comments show an interesting, sympathetic warrior mindset: she is ready to fight, but she’s also sad when she has to kill these strange hybrids programmed to oppose them.
Normally Marco brings the humour to counteract the seriousness of the Animorphs’ war. And the writer tries, but it feels a little perfunctory. The book opens with Marco crushing hard on a date, whom the other Animorphs have to investigate, of course. Unfortunately it doesn’t really factor into the plot—that’s a shame, because it would have been more interesting. Marco having to go on multiple dates with a girl who might be a Yeerk would be a novel worth reading.
I wish I could be more enthusiastic, because the Animorphs go to the Arctic! They meet a (presumably) Inuit man who takes their morphing in stride and reminds them of the value of respecting those who call this land their home. But this part of the plot feels very aimless. On one hand, I love how the writer realistically deals with the fact that they are not prepared for such a cold, inhospitable environment (morphing outfits are not cold-weather garments!). On the other hand, “we need to stay in morph or we die of hypothermia” only stays interesting for so long.
The real missed opportunity is the Venber. They could have spent more time developing this plot, actually explored the implications of what the Yeerks had done much in the same way as they did with the Leerans ten books ago. Instead we get the thinnest exposition. Then they become anonymous, mindless bogeyman who barely pose a threat as the Animorphs curb-stomp their way through the base.
The Extreme is a mess, and not even a hot mess in the good way. It’s an all right story—there aren’t really any major plot holes, but that’s because there isn’t much of a plot. It’s only a level or two above “filler.”
Next time, though, we are in for a treat when the Animorphs get to visit another planet and the Crayak storyline kicks off properly….
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #24: The Suspicion | #26: The Attack →
Oh look, an Isabel Allende novel hanging out on the New Books shelf. You treat me so well, library. So, so well. And I tried to love it, but I really only ended up liking it, and even then that might be a stretch. The Japanese Lover is the kind of novel that someone else will definitely love, but that person isn’t me.
This is a parallel story of two women—Irini Bazili and Alma Belasco—and how the tragedies that happened to them at a young age shaped their lives, particularly their love lives. Irina meets Alma while working at a retirement home, and gradually the latter recounts her days growing up in the States after emigrating from Poland just before the Second World War breaks out. Meanwhile, Alma’s grandson Seth starts paying court to Irina, who for some reason seems reluctant to get involved with anyone. Yet Seth and Irina bond over their concern for Alma, who is starting to show her age, and who continues leaving Lark House intermittently on what they assume are trysts with Ichimei, Alma’s mysterious and ephemeral on-again/off-again/on-again/off-again/on-again lover over the decades.
If that sounds like a lot is going on, you would be forgiven for thinking so. Yet the novel proceeds at a leisurely, almost agonizingly slow pace, as if it has all the time in the world to unspool its story. At times it feels like it wants to be a mystery: who is Ichimei? And then it tells us, with plenty of exposition and backstory. At other times it seems to be a romance: will we ever see Alma and Ichimei together? Will Irina and Seth end up together? Yet other times imply that this is a meditation on growing old: Lark House is a microcosm for the various ways that elderly people confront aging. A book can, of course, be more than one thing. I really did enjoy some of Allende’s observations about aging, and in particular the attention she pays to how different people react.
I had a harder time appreciating the romantic or historical parts of the book. I’m supposed to care about Irina/Seth and Alma/Ichimei, but the characters feel so distant. Allende spends more of her time telling than showing, describing and narrating instead of giving us dialogue and action. It also doesn’t help that Seth is a whiny manbaby whose reaction to Irina’s trauma is “we will fix you,” as if she is some kind of broken human being and he is a God-given panacea, and who quite literally tells her to move in with him and he’ll pay her—when she retorts that he wants a “secretary with benefits” I had to give her a high-five. Seth is basically a waste of space.
Ichimei, on the other hand, seems kind of sweet. But Allende portrays him as surprisingly stereotypical. The Fukudas practise martial arts, have a ceremonial katana, etc. To her credit, she mentions a specific religion/sect (oomoto), but she doesn’t go into much detail about what makes it different—it might as well be any other “exotic” Eastern brand of spiritualism for all the readers of this book are going to care. The time that Ichimei spends in the internment camps is some of the most fascinating in the book—Allende captures the irony of the situation, of the US entering a war to fight an enemy putting Jews in concentration camps when it is doing something similar at home. But she does not flesh out these supporting characters as much as she could.
The Japanese Lover just doesn’t seem very impressed with itself, and that attitude rubbed off on me. It is a novel, but it’s a novel that goes through all the motions. Written by someone else it might be tolerable, but from someone as celebrated as Allende it feels like going to a Michelin-star restaurant only for the chef to serve you up the most “tolerable” piece of toast you’ve ever seen: yes, it is tasty, but that’s not really what you were hoping for given the reputation. This book is by no means a waste of time. As I said at the top, I can see why others might love it, whether it’s for the forbidden love angle or the juxtaposition of Alma’s youth with her more elderly days. But these elements felt so disparate for me, and they never quite came together into a fulfilling read.
This is a parallel story of two women—Irini Bazili and Alma Belasco—and how the tragedies that happened to them at a young age shaped their lives, particularly their love lives. Irina meets Alma while working at a retirement home, and gradually the latter recounts her days growing up in the States after emigrating from Poland just before the Second World War breaks out. Meanwhile, Alma’s grandson Seth starts paying court to Irina, who for some reason seems reluctant to get involved with anyone. Yet Seth and Irina bond over their concern for Alma, who is starting to show her age, and who continues leaving Lark House intermittently on what they assume are trysts with Ichimei, Alma’s mysterious and ephemeral on-again/off-again/on-again/off-again/on-again lover over the decades.
If that sounds like a lot is going on, you would be forgiven for thinking so. Yet the novel proceeds at a leisurely, almost agonizingly slow pace, as if it has all the time in the world to unspool its story. At times it feels like it wants to be a mystery: who is Ichimei? And then it tells us, with plenty of exposition and backstory. At other times it seems to be a romance: will we ever see Alma and Ichimei together? Will Irina and Seth end up together? Yet other times imply that this is a meditation on growing old: Lark House is a microcosm for the various ways that elderly people confront aging. A book can, of course, be more than one thing. I really did enjoy some of Allende’s observations about aging, and in particular the attention she pays to how different people react.
I had a harder time appreciating the romantic or historical parts of the book. I’m supposed to care about Irina/Seth and Alma/Ichimei, but the characters feel so distant. Allende spends more of her time telling than showing, describing and narrating instead of giving us dialogue and action. It also doesn’t help that Seth is a whiny manbaby whose reaction to Irina’s trauma is “we will fix you,” as if she is some kind of broken human being and he is a God-given panacea, and who quite literally tells her to move in with him and he’ll pay her—when she retorts that he wants a “secretary with benefits” I had to give her a high-five. Seth is basically a waste of space.
Ichimei, on the other hand, seems kind of sweet. But Allende portrays him as surprisingly stereotypical. The Fukudas practise martial arts, have a ceremonial katana, etc. To her credit, she mentions a specific religion/sect (oomoto), but she doesn’t go into much detail about what makes it different—it might as well be any other “exotic” Eastern brand of spiritualism for all the readers of this book are going to care. The time that Ichimei spends in the internment camps is some of the most fascinating in the book—Allende captures the irony of the situation, of the US entering a war to fight an enemy putting Jews in concentration camps when it is doing something similar at home. But she does not flesh out these supporting characters as much as she could.
The Japanese Lover just doesn’t seem very impressed with itself, and that attitude rubbed off on me. It is a novel, but it’s a novel that goes through all the motions. Written by someone else it might be tolerable, but from someone as celebrated as Allende it feels like going to a Michelin-star restaurant only for the chef to serve you up the most “tolerable” piece of toast you’ve ever seen: yes, it is tasty, but that’s not really what you were hoping for given the reputation. This book is by no means a waste of time. As I said at the top, I can see why others might love it, whether it’s for the forbidden love angle or the juxtaposition of Alma’s youth with her more elderly days. But these elements felt so disparate for me, and they never quite came together into a fulfilling read.
I read most, if not all, of the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid (of course). I was very moved by Anne’s journey and transition to adulthood; even then, I was pretty sure I wanted to be a teacher, and so I was fascinated by her career path. While the details of the story have blurred with time, one memory continues to stick with me. In none book, Anne and a friend are discussing marriage, and they reach the determination that of the three marital states for a woman (maid/spinster, married, widow) they admitted, “widow” was surely the best—but to get there you had to pass through the “marriage” state first! I’m not sure why this sentiment, of all things, has stuck with me, but perhaps it’s because it is a fundamentally different proposition from anything I’ve had to consider by virtue of being a man in our society. This is, inevitably, the lens through which I viewed Spinster. As Kate Bolick points out from the top, expectations around marriage differ greatly for men and women. I found her analysis, drawn from her own life and the lives of several “historical spinsters” she has studied, interesting. Perhaps more interesting, however, is how this book belies its title. Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own is not about being a spinster, although it is about making a life of one’s own.
Like most people, I went into this book expecting a lengthy discussion of what it is like to be a single woman, particularly one who is over thirty. I detect rancour in some of the reviews I’ve read that protest the way Bolick seems to overlook this crucial part of spinsterhood. As Bolick herself acknowledges in the last chapter, several of the five “awakeners” she examines in the book were not, strictly speaking, spinsters. And while Bolick claims that title herself, for now, much of the time spent discussing her personal life focuses on all the men she has dated, emphasizing not so much that she has spent most of her life single but that she has spent most of her life in and out of various relationships—just none that she wanted to turn into a marriage. Like those other reviewers, I was a little frustrated by this apparent disconnect between the book’s potential and what it actually delivers. But I managed to find something worthwhile in the last few chapters that redeemed most of it.
See, this is not so much a book about being single in modern society as it is about being a woman, full stop. This is a feminist book, a plea for us to continue abolishing gender norms and double standards:
This resonates with me, because it so succinctly captures the double standard with regards to marriage. I’ve never been a relationship, and to be honest, am increasingly feeling comfortable with that state of being. And because I’m a man, I have the privilege of ignoring the question of marriage and assuming I can be independent, can provide for myself, etc., a priori. This is not the same for women, and even though women might have more choice and flexibility these days, the way they view marriage—and the way we view them, and judge them, when it comes to marriage—is very different. And I think Bolick is very right to pin this on the fundamental problem that patriarchy poses, which is namely the way it does not recognize women as people, with agency and all that entails. Just look at the ongoing battle against women’s health and reproductive rights in the United States.
In this context, then, the rest of Spinster makes more sense. Sure, some of the women that Bolick examines did end up marrying. The point is that they caught her attention for how they managed to live, single or married, as their own selves. They were individuals first, wives and women second, and that intrigued her. I like how Bolick peels back the layers of assumptions and stereotypes about the 1890s through the 1930s to show us the diversity of lifestyles. Movies and literature only show us so much; we inevitably start thinking of a certain period through the shorthand of its portrayal in fiction. Bolick’s recounts of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s strange, solitary life with her husband, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s world travels, remind us that there were always exceptions and wonderful countercultures within the more dominant culture of the time.
It’s just such a shame that it takes until literally the closing pages for Spinster to provide those missing pieces to make everything else fall into place. Bolick could have been more upfront, but she chooses instead to provide an anecdotal preface followed by a first chapter that sets the mould for the rest of the book: series of jarring vignettes that flit between her personal life and the lives of the women she has studied. While I disagree with those who feel let down by the book’s premise, I wholeheartedly agree that its organization and editing are greatly lacking. There is a great deal of interest in Spinster, but its writing does not make it an easy book to love. I pushed myself through it, through Bolick’s attempts at self-deprecation and her vacillation between being brutally self-aware and seemingly oblivious.
Also note that while Spinster is indisputably feminist in its arguments, it is a very limited, white feminism rather than intersectional. Bolick’s perspective and discourse almost myopically focuses on middle-to-upper class, white America. I don’t mind that Bolick ignores marriage in other countries and cultures, for that would be an absurdly broad scope. More troubling, though, is the omission of any thought to poor women, past or present, Black/African American women, Indigenous women, Asian women, Hispanic women, women of other various ethnicities who were born in America or immigrated. Now, it’s not surprising that Bolick writes with the perspective she does, or that the women who were her “awakeners” are similar to her in background and vocation. I don’t expect Bolick to somehow be able to authentically examine the experiences of women from different backgrounds. However, it would be nice if she at least acknowledged that, even united by a common gender, the struggles that she has faced as a woman are mediated by her race and circumstance and are different from those that other American women face, even today. This lack of self-awareness is one of the reasons white feminism is so problematic; it does not diminish the veracity of Bolick’s arguments but does undermine some of her attempts at solidarity.
I borrowed this from a coworker and friend who absolutely raved about it. Of course, when you borrow a book and don’t like it, that can be very awkward. Halfway through Spinster I was trying to figure out how I would explain/soften the blow of my disappointment with the book—fortunately, those last couple of chapters managed to change my mind. I liked Spinster, and I found a lot of Bolick’s observations eye-opening and accurate. It’s just the style and structure of the book that made liking this more of a struggle than I’m used to with my non-fiction.
Like most people, I went into this book expecting a lengthy discussion of what it is like to be a single woman, particularly one who is over thirty. I detect rancour in some of the reviews I’ve read that protest the way Bolick seems to overlook this crucial part of spinsterhood. As Bolick herself acknowledges in the last chapter, several of the five “awakeners” she examines in the book were not, strictly speaking, spinsters. And while Bolick claims that title herself, for now, much of the time spent discussing her personal life focuses on all the men she has dated, emphasizing not so much that she has spent most of her life single but that she has spent most of her life in and out of various relationships—just none that she wanted to turn into a marriage. Like those other reviewers, I was a little frustrated by this apparent disconnect between the book’s potential and what it actually delivers. But I managed to find something worthwhile in the last few chapters that redeemed most of it.
See, this is not so much a book about being single in modern society as it is about being a woman, full stop. This is a feminist book, a plea for us to continue abolishing gender norms and double standards:
The question now is something else entirely: Are women people yet? By which I mean: Are we finally ready for a young woman to set out on the long road of her life as a human being who inhabits but isn’t limited by her gender?… Until the answer is an undeniable yes, a girl actually can’t grow up like a boy, free to consider the long scope of her life as her own distinct self.
This resonates with me, because it so succinctly captures the double standard with regards to marriage. I’ve never been a relationship, and to be honest, am increasingly feeling comfortable with that state of being. And because I’m a man, I have the privilege of ignoring the question of marriage and assuming I can be independent, can provide for myself, etc., a priori. This is not the same for women, and even though women might have more choice and flexibility these days, the way they view marriage—and the way we view them, and judge them, when it comes to marriage—is very different. And I think Bolick is very right to pin this on the fundamental problem that patriarchy poses, which is namely the way it does not recognize women as people, with agency and all that entails. Just look at the ongoing battle against women’s health and reproductive rights in the United States.
In this context, then, the rest of Spinster makes more sense. Sure, some of the women that Bolick examines did end up marrying. The point is that they caught her attention for how they managed to live, single or married, as their own selves. They were individuals first, wives and women second, and that intrigued her. I like how Bolick peels back the layers of assumptions and stereotypes about the 1890s through the 1930s to show us the diversity of lifestyles. Movies and literature only show us so much; we inevitably start thinking of a certain period through the shorthand of its portrayal in fiction. Bolick’s recounts of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s strange, solitary life with her husband, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s world travels, remind us that there were always exceptions and wonderful countercultures within the more dominant culture of the time.
It’s just such a shame that it takes until literally the closing pages for Spinster to provide those missing pieces to make everything else fall into place. Bolick could have been more upfront, but she chooses instead to provide an anecdotal preface followed by a first chapter that sets the mould for the rest of the book: series of jarring vignettes that flit between her personal life and the lives of the women she has studied. While I disagree with those who feel let down by the book’s premise, I wholeheartedly agree that its organization and editing are greatly lacking. There is a great deal of interest in Spinster, but its writing does not make it an easy book to love. I pushed myself through it, through Bolick’s attempts at self-deprecation and her vacillation between being brutally self-aware and seemingly oblivious.
Also note that while Spinster is indisputably feminist in its arguments, it is a very limited, white feminism rather than intersectional. Bolick’s perspective and discourse almost myopically focuses on middle-to-upper class, white America. I don’t mind that Bolick ignores marriage in other countries and cultures, for that would be an absurdly broad scope. More troubling, though, is the omission of any thought to poor women, past or present, Black/African American women, Indigenous women, Asian women, Hispanic women, women of other various ethnicities who were born in America or immigrated. Now, it’s not surprising that Bolick writes with the perspective she does, or that the women who were her “awakeners” are similar to her in background and vocation. I don’t expect Bolick to somehow be able to authentically examine the experiences of women from different backgrounds. However, it would be nice if she at least acknowledged that, even united by a common gender, the struggles that she has faced as a woman are mediated by her race and circumstance and are different from those that other American women face, even today. This lack of self-awareness is one of the reasons white feminism is so problematic; it does not diminish the veracity of Bolick’s arguments but does undermine some of her attempts at solidarity.
I borrowed this from a coworker and friend who absolutely raved about it. Of course, when you borrow a book and don’t like it, that can be very awkward. Halfway through Spinster I was trying to figure out how I would explain/soften the blow of my disappointment with the book—fortunately, those last couple of chapters managed to change my mind. I liked Spinster, and I found a lot of Bolick’s observations eye-opening and accurate. It’s just the style and structure of the book that made liking this more of a struggle than I’m used to with my non-fiction.
The Animorphs save everyone with the Power of Love™, and it would be disgusting if they didn’t need this win so very much.
The Attack is notoriously the last Animorphs book written exclusively by K.A. Applegate for a very long stretch. As such it is regarded (accurately) as an island of quality among otherwise mediocre, or at least uneven, books. Indeed, this is a great book—not quite five stars, because it didn’t really move me the way some of the previous books have, but as far as the story goes, it successfully combines high stakes with a plot that makes sense. The whole thing practically gives one chills, reading it.
We’ve seen the Ellimist before, so when he shows up again proposing that the Animorphs help him in some big interstellar game of chess, they naturally hesitate. Except that the Ellimist’s opponent is Crayak—the weird, semi-mechanical, force-of-pure-evil being that Jake first glimpsed when his Yeerk died at the end of #6: The Capture. So they agree to participate (duh), and along with Erek, get sent to a world “millions of light-years” from Earth, to save the indigenous Iskoort species from Crayak’s seven representatives—deadly, never-defeated Howlers.
(Minor science nitpick: Applegate, earlier in the book, implies that the Ellimist and Crayak are limited to this galaxy, because a “more powerful” force ejected Crayak from another galaxy. A distance of millions of light-years would put the Iskoort planet well outside our galaxy, which is an order of magnitude smaller.)
There’s a lot to like about The Attack, particularly if you like Jake as the narrator. Never has he been so clearly the leader of the Animorphs as now, when they undertake one of their most dangerous missions ever. The others all look to him automatically, and he exercises his authority much more explicitly here—for example, he orders Ax to stop moping about running from the Howlers, invoking his reluctant role as Ax’s “prince”. Jake has to struggle to conceal his fear, particularly given that much of it comes from the indirect involvement of Crayak, who continues to plague him in nightmares.
As usual, Applegate also raises moral issues surrounding war and conflict. The Howlers are deadly. They killed the Pemalites, slaughtered countless other species in cold blood … but they are also just children. Like WTF? Is it ethical to kill them? Indeed, you’ll notice that the Animorphs’ chosen resolution—Jake’s idea—very deliberately side-steps that issue. They don’t kill the Howlers; Crayak does. They are indirectly responsible, of course. But their hands are technically clean. I wonder how they feel about that. It’s interesting that Erek managed to work it around his pacifist programming.
We also get treated to a brand new, amazing alien species. The Iskoort are a delight. In a few sentences Applegate implies entire social strata. Consummate salespeople, the Iskoort society is organized around the exchange of goods and services. They buy and sell everything—including memories, and there are entire parts of their society dedicated to buying what factories produce; it’s a kind of satirical look at capitalism for kids, I suppose. This might be one of the first books that, while reading it as a kid, made me realize I just don’t visualize when I read. I had no real image in my head of what an Iskoort looked like. I still don’t. I paid very close attention to Applegate’s meticulous description of their strange bodies, but it didn’t provoke anything in my mind’s eye. Maybe I need imaginary glasses?
And then there is the carrot Applegate dangles in front of us, the resolution to the Yeerk problem. One of the longer-term issues in this series has been the kind of endgame we might expect—even if the Animorphs and Andalites defeat the Yeerks, what will they do with them? Genocide seems a bit extreme. Confine them to Yeerk pools to live out a very restricted existence? Or maybe there’s a third option…. This is what I love about Applegate and this series: she reminds us that there are always possibilities, that there is always hope. And part of being a hero or being “the good guy” is being able to see that bigger picture, to look at battles from a different perspective, instead of persisting in an us-or-them mentality.
Next time, the Animorphs have to dive deeply to get to another alien shipwreck. James Cameron, eat your heart out.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #25: The Extreme | #27: The Exposed →
The Attack is notoriously the last Animorphs book written exclusively by K.A. Applegate for a very long stretch. As such it is regarded (accurately) as an island of quality among otherwise mediocre, or at least uneven, books. Indeed, this is a great book—not quite five stars, because it didn’t really move me the way some of the previous books have, but as far as the story goes, it successfully combines high stakes with a plot that makes sense. The whole thing practically gives one chills, reading it.
We’ve seen the Ellimist before, so when he shows up again proposing that the Animorphs help him in some big interstellar game of chess, they naturally hesitate. Except that the Ellimist’s opponent is Crayak—the weird, semi-mechanical, force-of-pure-evil being that Jake first glimpsed when his Yeerk died at the end of #6: The Capture. So they agree to participate (duh), and along with Erek, get sent to a world “millions of light-years” from Earth, to save the indigenous Iskoort species from Crayak’s seven representatives—deadly, never-defeated Howlers.
(Minor science nitpick: Applegate, earlier in the book, implies that the Ellimist and Crayak are limited to this galaxy, because a “more powerful” force ejected Crayak from another galaxy. A distance of millions of light-years would put the Iskoort planet well outside our galaxy, which is an order of magnitude smaller.)
There’s a lot to like about The Attack, particularly if you like Jake as the narrator. Never has he been so clearly the leader of the Animorphs as now, when they undertake one of their most dangerous missions ever. The others all look to him automatically, and he exercises his authority much more explicitly here—for example, he orders Ax to stop moping about running from the Howlers, invoking his reluctant role as Ax’s “prince”. Jake has to struggle to conceal his fear, particularly given that much of it comes from the indirect involvement of Crayak, who continues to plague him in nightmares.
As usual, Applegate also raises moral issues surrounding war and conflict. The Howlers are deadly. They killed the Pemalites, slaughtered countless other species in cold blood … but they are also just children. Like WTF? Is it ethical to kill them? Indeed, you’ll notice that the Animorphs’ chosen resolution—Jake’s idea—very deliberately side-steps that issue. They don’t kill the Howlers; Crayak does. They are indirectly responsible, of course. But their hands are technically clean. I wonder how they feel about that. It’s interesting that Erek managed to work it around his pacifist programming.
We also get treated to a brand new, amazing alien species. The Iskoort are a delight. In a few sentences Applegate implies entire social strata. Consummate salespeople, the Iskoort society is organized around the exchange of goods and services. They buy and sell everything—including memories, and there are entire parts of their society dedicated to buying what factories produce; it’s a kind of satirical look at capitalism for kids, I suppose. This might be one of the first books that, while reading it as a kid, made me realize I just don’t visualize when I read. I had no real image in my head of what an Iskoort looked like. I still don’t. I paid very close attention to Applegate’s meticulous description of their strange bodies, but it didn’t provoke anything in my mind’s eye. Maybe I need imaginary glasses?
And then there is the carrot Applegate dangles in front of us, the resolution to the Yeerk problem. One of the longer-term issues in this series has been the kind of endgame we might expect—even if the Animorphs and Andalites defeat the Yeerks, what will they do with them? Genocide seems a bit extreme. Confine them to Yeerk pools to live out a very restricted existence? Or maybe there’s a third option…. This is what I love about Applegate and this series: she reminds us that there are always possibilities, that there is always hope. And part of being a hero or being “the good guy” is being able to see that bigger picture, to look at battles from a different perspective, instead of persisting in an us-or-them mentality.
Next time, the Animorphs have to dive deeply to get to another alien shipwreck. James Cameron, eat your heart out.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #25: The Extreme | #27: The Exposed →