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tachyondecay
As previously discussed in my review of The Hatred of Poetry, I struggle with reading poetry. So I was tantalized by the title of this book. The previous book was a gift from a fellow teacher friend whose feelings about poetry are a bit less ambivalent than mine. When I learned about Don’t Read Poetry, I thought it would be a good reciprocal gift to her. Stephanie Burt’s thesis is basically that we should avoid seeing poems as part of a monolithic form we call “poetry,” because it’s reductive and far too slippery a concept to really grasp. Rather, she wants us to read poems themselves, and she takes us on a tour of various lenses for reading and understanding a poem. Her point is basically that we seldom mean that we hate all poems when we talk about hating poetry—there are some poems that mean a lot to us, even we don’t read poetry in general. And I definitely agree with that.
The six lenses, corresponding to the six chapters of the book, are feelings, characters, forms, difficulty, wisdom, and community. Burt isn’t saying that every poem falls into one of these categories. Instead she suggests that we can use apply these lenses as and when we want to, although certain poems lend themselves better to different lenses. The surface meaning of each approach is fairly obvious, and I won’t provide a more detailed summary. What’s most valuable about this way of laying it out is that Burt can give us examples of specific poems and really isolate what about that poem is worth paying attention to. Indeed, the sheer number of poets and poems mentioned or featured in Don’t Read Poetry is at times overwhelming!
Sometimes I wonder if my mild aphantasia contributes to my ambivalence about poetry. I have a lot of trouble visualizing when I read. I can’t picture characters or places in my head; I don’t see action as a cinematic experience like others apparently do. I just read the words and absorb the information as a narrative. Perhaps, then, this explains why poems—which are often vehicles for complex imagery—don’t often work for me. I can recognize and understand the figurative language, but it doesn’t always make that connection in my mind required to really tap into those feelings or that subtext.
That being said, one of my personal realizations from reading this book is that there’s definitely more to my reticence than that. Burt discusses, for example, how different forms have come in and out of fashion cyclically over the years, plus new ones that get invented by innovators. And I thought about how maybe my emphasis on afferent reading is another reason I don’t feel connected to poems. Even when I’m reading a novel for entertainment, I’m reading the words so I can get to the story, which I construct in my brain. Style is usually secondary for me, and while I love it when I can luxuriate in someone’s writing, the story is always what I need first. So maybe that’s why poems often stymie me—I’m trying to look for meaning when first I should look at the poem itself as a thing, as a piece of art (some poems at least). This is probably why visual art does very little for me too….
I love that Burt consistently demonstrates why it’s so silly to define poetry in a restrictive way. Although she definitely has her own personal preferences when it comes to poems, she makes it clear that she considers pretty much anything that wants to be called a poem a poem. I appreciate this inclusiveness; it’s an attitude I wish were replicated in more English classes, which often seem to quash the spark of verse love from the souls of students in the same way that the words “Pythagorean theorem” quash the math love. Burt features some of the more familiar “canonical” poets throughout Western history. But she branches out into non-Western writers, and far more contemporary writers, and that makes this book so much more valuable.
One question I have after reading this, then, would be how do we really critique poetry? At one point Burt mentions that people who don’t like a poem probably just don’t understand it, that the poem probably “just isn’t for them.” I understand and am sympathetic to this point, to a point. Yet I also think it’s valid to ask how we critique poetry, how we criticize it seriously, how we break it down and determine if a poem that is trying to be serious is in fact facile, or vice versa. None of this is really within the scope of Don’t Read Poetry, but it seems to be related.
This book did not suddenly make me love poetry or even want to read more poems. But it definitely gave me a lot to think about. And Burt’s steady, methodical investigation into the mechanics and meaning of poems is competent and compelling, although sometimes dry a little too much for me to take in—this took me a long time to read, from my point of view. Nevertheless, I’d say I’m definitely the target audience: someone who fancies himself knowledgeable, especially in a literary sense, yet who feels like he’s missing out when it comes to understanding poems.
The six lenses, corresponding to the six chapters of the book, are feelings, characters, forms, difficulty, wisdom, and community. Burt isn’t saying that every poem falls into one of these categories. Instead she suggests that we can use apply these lenses as and when we want to, although certain poems lend themselves better to different lenses. The surface meaning of each approach is fairly obvious, and I won’t provide a more detailed summary. What’s most valuable about this way of laying it out is that Burt can give us examples of specific poems and really isolate what about that poem is worth paying attention to. Indeed, the sheer number of poets and poems mentioned or featured in Don’t Read Poetry is at times overwhelming!
Sometimes I wonder if my mild aphantasia contributes to my ambivalence about poetry. I have a lot of trouble visualizing when I read. I can’t picture characters or places in my head; I don’t see action as a cinematic experience like others apparently do. I just read the words and absorb the information as a narrative. Perhaps, then, this explains why poems—which are often vehicles for complex imagery—don’t often work for me. I can recognize and understand the figurative language, but it doesn’t always make that connection in my mind required to really tap into those feelings or that subtext.
That being said, one of my personal realizations from reading this book is that there’s definitely more to my reticence than that. Burt discusses, for example, how different forms have come in and out of fashion cyclically over the years, plus new ones that get invented by innovators. And I thought about how maybe my emphasis on afferent reading is another reason I don’t feel connected to poems. Even when I’m reading a novel for entertainment, I’m reading the words so I can get to the story, which I construct in my brain. Style is usually secondary for me, and while I love it when I can luxuriate in someone’s writing, the story is always what I need first. So maybe that’s why poems often stymie me—I’m trying to look for meaning when first I should look at the poem itself as a thing, as a piece of art (some poems at least). This is probably why visual art does very little for me too….
I love that Burt consistently demonstrates why it’s so silly to define poetry in a restrictive way. Although she definitely has her own personal preferences when it comes to poems, she makes it clear that she considers pretty much anything that wants to be called a poem a poem. I appreciate this inclusiveness; it’s an attitude I wish were replicated in more English classes, which often seem to quash the spark of verse love from the souls of students in the same way that the words “Pythagorean theorem” quash the math love. Burt features some of the more familiar “canonical” poets throughout Western history. But she branches out into non-Western writers, and far more contemporary writers, and that makes this book so much more valuable.
One question I have after reading this, then, would be how do we really critique poetry? At one point Burt mentions that people who don’t like a poem probably just don’t understand it, that the poem probably “just isn’t for them.” I understand and am sympathetic to this point, to a point. Yet I also think it’s valid to ask how we critique poetry, how we criticize it seriously, how we break it down and determine if a poem that is trying to be serious is in fact facile, or vice versa. None of this is really within the scope of Don’t Read Poetry, but it seems to be related.
This book did not suddenly make me love poetry or even want to read more poems. But it definitely gave me a lot to think about. And Burt’s steady, methodical investigation into the mechanics and meaning of poems is competent and compelling, although sometimes dry a little too much for me to take in—this took me a long time to read, from my point of view. Nevertheless, I’d say I’m definitely the target audience: someone who fancies himself knowledgeable, especially in a literary sense, yet who feels like he’s missing out when it comes to understanding poems.
Here we are, book three of Amanda Lovelace’s Women Are Some Kind of Magic series. Last year I read The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One and remarked that it was much more focused than the first book. In her afterword to this book, Lovelace reflects that The Mermaid’s Voice Returns in This One has also shifted focus: now it’s about rebuilding, about healing and moving on from trauma, while also coming to terms with the fact that the trauma will always be a part of herself. This reflection is an accurate encapsulation of the book. As the title implies, this collection is all about celebrating having a voice again.
Tons of trigger warnings for this book, of course—they’re listed in the book, fortunately. You don’t need to read the first two collections, though I highly recommend them.
Perhaps one of the worst things abusers can do (beyond, obviously physically and emotionally abusing someone) is steal someone’s voice, even after the period of active abuse has ended. The victim doesn’t feel capable of sharing their story—or they’re required to share their story over and over, for example during a criminal case, to the point where it might feel like they’ve become just the story. The story becomes the life, rather than just part of a much larger, richer life. One of the key takeaways from The Mermaid's Voice Returns in This One is that Lovelace isn’t just sharing her story, as she did in The Princess Saves Herself in This One: she is actively celebrating the fact that she is now the one making the story, not other people.
I say this, mind you, as someone who hasn’t experienced abuse or trauma like this. Despite my well-documented ambivalence about poetry, however, I think this is one situation where poems are one of the best mediums for communicating these types of experiences. They allow for a freedom of form that the conventions of prose don’t (and I am much harsher towards writers who abuse the conventions of prose than I am to people who experiment with poetry, go figure). Lovelace definitely has a style when it comes to her poems. And that style seems eminently suited to the emotions and substance of her stories. I love how she uses whitespace and the placement of words on the page to emphasize key terms, to draw attention to alternative readings of certain lines. Repetition is also important, both within poems and across poems.
A collection of poetry like this is almost like an album of music: each poem tells its own story and can be read on its own. Read this way, some poems are better than others. Some are stand out singles, while others are a little confusing until you experience them as part of the whole collection, which itself is telling a larger, grander narrative. The choice of mermaid, as with princess and witch prior to that, is an intriguing and deliberate symbol with a variety of meanings for Lovelace and the reader.
The sheer complexity of emotion here is another big hallmark of Lovelace’s style. Some of the poems are a little melancholy or bittersweet. Some are soaring, optimistic. Some are in between. For all the talk of mermaids launching themselves into space, there is a healthy dose of realism in this pages. Lovelace’s voices acknowledge that they aren’t going to be out of the woods forever, that there is no way to firmly close this chapter of their story such that it never returns. This part of their life will be with them forever, and this is just a way of dealing with that.
Also unique to this volume is the inclusion of other poets. I wasn’t expecting that going in, and it’s … okay, I guess? I’m indifferent.
At the end of the day, I continue not really to seek out books of poetry to read. But Lovelace definitely remains one poet whose books work well for me.
Tons of trigger warnings for this book, of course—they’re listed in the book, fortunately. You don’t need to read the first two collections, though I highly recommend them.
Perhaps one of the worst things abusers can do (beyond, obviously physically and emotionally abusing someone) is steal someone’s voice, even after the period of active abuse has ended. The victim doesn’t feel capable of sharing their story—or they’re required to share their story over and over, for example during a criminal case, to the point where it might feel like they’ve become just the story. The story becomes the life, rather than just part of a much larger, richer life. One of the key takeaways from The Mermaid's Voice Returns in This One is that Lovelace isn’t just sharing her story, as she did in The Princess Saves Herself in This One: she is actively celebrating the fact that she is now the one making the story, not other people.
I say this, mind you, as someone who hasn’t experienced abuse or trauma like this. Despite my well-documented ambivalence about poetry, however, I think this is one situation where poems are one of the best mediums for communicating these types of experiences. They allow for a freedom of form that the conventions of prose don’t (and I am much harsher towards writers who abuse the conventions of prose than I am to people who experiment with poetry, go figure). Lovelace definitely has a style when it comes to her poems. And that style seems eminently suited to the emotions and substance of her stories. I love how she uses whitespace and the placement of words on the page to emphasize key terms, to draw attention to alternative readings of certain lines. Repetition is also important, both within poems and across poems.
A collection of poetry like this is almost like an album of music: each poem tells its own story and can be read on its own. Read this way, some poems are better than others. Some are stand out singles, while others are a little confusing until you experience them as part of the whole collection, which itself is telling a larger, grander narrative. The choice of mermaid, as with princess and witch prior to that, is an intriguing and deliberate symbol with a variety of meanings for Lovelace and the reader.
The sheer complexity of emotion here is another big hallmark of Lovelace’s style. Some of the poems are a little melancholy or bittersweet. Some are soaring, optimistic. Some are in between. For all the talk of mermaids launching themselves into space, there is a healthy dose of realism in this pages. Lovelace’s voices acknowledge that they aren’t going to be out of the woods forever, that there is no way to firmly close this chapter of their story such that it never returns. This part of their life will be with them forever, and this is just a way of dealing with that.
Also unique to this volume is the inclusion of other poets. I wasn’t expecting that going in, and it’s … okay, I guess? I’m indifferent.
At the end of the day, I continue not really to seek out books of poetry to read. But Lovelace definitely remains one poet whose books work well for me.
It isn’t often that a book wins me over like The Throne of the Five Winds did! I usually know my general sentiment towards a book within the first fifty pages or so. My mood will change for better or worse as the story unfolds, and a 2-star book might make it to 3 or vice versa, and once in a while, a 4- or 5-star book plummets to 1 star because of an unforgivable sin. When I began this book, which I received as an eARC from Orbit and NetGalley, I was not feeling it.
Moreover, I really dislike it when someone tries to sell me a series by saying “for fans of Game of Thrones.” Because, like it or not, Game of Thrones is mainstream now. It’s like saying “for fans of Harry Potter” or “for fans of Marvel movies”—that’s not a useful category any more. And I honestly don’t think this book is very much like Game of Thrones, for many reasons, but hey, that’s not what this review is about.
Lady Komor Yala (house name, first name) has been sent from her home country of Khir to Zhaon. She accompanies her princess, Mahara, who is a bride and tribute to the Crown Prince of Zhaon following Khir’s rout at the battle of the Three Rivers. Yala and Mahara are alone in Zhaon, with no other Khir around them, forced to adapt to a strange culture. There are 6 princes of Zhaon, from 3 different women—two queens and a concubine. A second concubine of the emperor has adopted a son, General Zakkar Kai, who is unpopular with some because of his humble origins. Yala and Mahara barely have time to catch their breath before the latter is wedded and the assassination attempts begin.
People are going to tell you this book is long. Boy is it ever—but I don’t see that as a particular stumbling block, and I don’t think that’s even what those commenters are really picking up on. Sure, it’s long, and we could discuss how the story might be streamlined. But perhaps what we’re actually noticing is that almost all of the scenes in this book are two-handers, or perhaps three-handers in a pinch. There are certainly some larger crowd scenes, often action scenes. Yet so much of this book comprises private conversations between two characters, often involving intrigue veiled behind courtesy. That’s why this book feels longer than it is: everything is embedded within subtext, and so it takes twice as long to say. There is a lot of dialogue but also a lot of stillness, and S.C. Emmett’s description tends towards the poetic, with many quotations from writers in this world and comparisons of people’s movements to calligraphy.
Emmett also tends towards the “hard no” side for exposition and is even so hardcore as to put “untranslatable” terms into the book with footnotes explaining their meaning in English. So that adds to the initial learning curve. Frankly, I don’t blame anyone for noping out within the first twenty or fifty pages. It’s not easy to get into this book.
But if you persevere, you might decide it’s worth it. The Throne of the Five Winds has so many tropes of fantasy/historical fiction: palace intrigue, succession crises in the making, subtle love triangles, capricious queens and princes, a dying emperor, and assassins lurking behind every arras. Despite this surfeit of tropes, though, the book never feels that clichéd. The cornucopia of characters allows Emmett to wend and wind the plot through this world with a narrative deftness that keeps us on our toes.
There are downsides, of course. Another reason I couldn’t get into the book at first is that I didn’t feel invested in any of the initial protagonists. Why did I care about Yala being sent away from her home country? Who is this Kai dude, and why should I care about him and this emperor? Which of these princes am I supposed to care about? Similarly, the antagonists are two-dimensional. We’re supposed to like most of the protagonists and dislike most of the antagonists. Even Takshin, who is a fairly obvious antihero, is supposed to be the “lovable rogue,” in contrast to the Second Prince, Kurin, who is portrayed as an inveterate schemer. Emmett tries to give Queen Gamwone some depth by making it seem like her gambits are merely a way of ensuring the survival of herself and her sons in the limited ways she can as a woman in this world … yet the narrative voice of the book is so biased towards portraying her as a rude, vindictive, and petty woman that this little attempt at balancing the scales is insufficient, to say the least. And as far as the Khir nobility goes … we get, what, 4 scenes with them?
In other words, The Throne of the Five Winds has all the intrigue I love in a political fantasy novel. Nevertheless, it is still quite messy in some ways, and its characterization is shiny yet not always substantial. Emmet’s writing is beautiful in most cases, particularly as we watch Yala grow in her appreciation of her new home. I recommended this book to a coworker who enjoys reading sprawling court epics.
Moreover, I really dislike it when someone tries to sell me a series by saying “for fans of Game of Thrones.” Because, like it or not, Game of Thrones is mainstream now. It’s like saying “for fans of Harry Potter” or “for fans of Marvel movies”—that’s not a useful category any more. And I honestly don’t think this book is very much like Game of Thrones, for many reasons, but hey, that’s not what this review is about.
Lady Komor Yala (house name, first name) has been sent from her home country of Khir to Zhaon. She accompanies her princess, Mahara, who is a bride and tribute to the Crown Prince of Zhaon following Khir’s rout at the battle of the Three Rivers. Yala and Mahara are alone in Zhaon, with no other Khir around them, forced to adapt to a strange culture. There are 6 princes of Zhaon, from 3 different women—two queens and a concubine. A second concubine of the emperor has adopted a son, General Zakkar Kai, who is unpopular with some because of his humble origins. Yala and Mahara barely have time to catch their breath before the latter is wedded and the assassination attempts begin.
People are going to tell you this book is long. Boy is it ever—but I don’t see that as a particular stumbling block, and I don’t think that’s even what those commenters are really picking up on. Sure, it’s long, and we could discuss how the story might be streamlined. But perhaps what we’re actually noticing is that almost all of the scenes in this book are two-handers, or perhaps three-handers in a pinch. There are certainly some larger crowd scenes, often action scenes. Yet so much of this book comprises private conversations between two characters, often involving intrigue veiled behind courtesy. That’s why this book feels longer than it is: everything is embedded within subtext, and so it takes twice as long to say. There is a lot of dialogue but also a lot of stillness, and S.C. Emmett’s description tends towards the poetic, with many quotations from writers in this world and comparisons of people’s movements to calligraphy.
Emmett also tends towards the “hard no” side for exposition and is even so hardcore as to put “untranslatable” terms into the book with footnotes explaining their meaning in English. So that adds to the initial learning curve. Frankly, I don’t blame anyone for noping out within the first twenty or fifty pages. It’s not easy to get into this book.
But if you persevere, you might decide it’s worth it. The Throne of the Five Winds has so many tropes of fantasy/historical fiction: palace intrigue, succession crises in the making, subtle love triangles, capricious queens and princes, a dying emperor, and assassins lurking behind every arras. Despite this surfeit of tropes, though, the book never feels that clichéd. The cornucopia of characters allows Emmett to wend and wind the plot through this world with a narrative deftness that keeps us on our toes.
There are downsides, of course. Another reason I couldn’t get into the book at first is that I didn’t feel invested in any of the initial protagonists. Why did I care about Yala being sent away from her home country? Who is this Kai dude, and why should I care about him and this emperor? Which of these princes am I supposed to care about? Similarly, the antagonists are two-dimensional. We’re supposed to like most of the protagonists and dislike most of the antagonists. Even Takshin, who is a fairly obvious antihero, is supposed to be the “lovable rogue,” in contrast to the Second Prince, Kurin, who is portrayed as an inveterate schemer. Emmett tries to give Queen Gamwone some depth by making it seem like her gambits are merely a way of ensuring the survival of herself and her sons in the limited ways she can as a woman in this world … yet the narrative voice of the book is so biased towards portraying her as a rude, vindictive, and petty woman that this little attempt at balancing the scales is insufficient, to say the least. And as far as the Khir nobility goes … we get, what, 4 scenes with them?
In other words, The Throne of the Five Winds has all the intrigue I love in a political fantasy novel. Nevertheless, it is still quite messy in some ways, and its characterization is shiny yet not always substantial. Emmet’s writing is beautiful in most cases, particularly as we watch Yala grow in her appreciation of her new home. I recommended this book to a coworker who enjoys reading sprawling court epics.
I’ve been watching a lot of Dragons’ Den lately. It’s good TV, and it’s easy to watch bits and pieces of an episode at a time while eating breakfast or taking a break from other tasks. As entertaining and soapy as the show can be, it’s also a disturbing reflection of how capitalism pervades our society. In an episode I recently watched, the Dragons went gaga over a chiropractor peddling a spray that purportedly improved one’s balance and athletic prowess through (get this) quantum entanglement. One of the Dragons went so far as to declare, “I love the product and I strongly believe in science.”
Reader, I was yelling at my TV during this entire pitch. I’m not a quantum physicist, but I know enough about physics to know that any mass-market product based on quantum entanglement is a scam, and I was appalled that five intelligent people were falling for this pitch hook, line, and sinker. It really highlights a significant deficiency in our education system: when it comes to science and critical thinking, we are far too credulous when something merely appears to be scientific. A hundred years ago, it was magnetism and electricity. Now it’s “quantum” woowoo.
Even smart and rich people can fall for a scam, especially if they think they’re too intelligent to be taken in. I kept this in mind as I read this book, which is essentially about the same lesson.
I watched the HBO documentary based on Bad Blood earlier in the year, and finally I picked up this book last weekend. I decided to treat myself and read it right away, being in a somewhat rare mood for a non-fiction read—wow, was that ever the right choice. I read two thirds that night and finished it on Sunday morning. Bad Blood reads like a fiction thriller at times, thanks in part to John Carreyrou’s crystalline writing and in part to the absurdity of the plot. Indeed, if this book were fiction, I suspect readers would pan it for being “unrealistic.” Some of the events that Carreyrou recounts are simply incredible. I was telling my friend Rebecca about it over the phone, describing the highlights and recommending the book to her. As I repeated it, I could feel all the emotions I was feeling while I read the book come back to me.
Bad Blood recounts the meteoric rise and fall of Theranos its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. For the majority of the book, Carreyrou reconstructs events based on documentation and accounts. He chronicles the genesis of Theranos in an idea that Holmes has while attending Stanford, how she drops out and founds the company, convincing lots of old white guys to get on board and fund her. From day one, the company’s vision always exceeds its grasp: Holmes ruthlessly pursues a vision that is untenable and unworkable. The turnover at the company is frequent, and it usually comes with threats of lawsuits if you say anything bad about your former employer. Meanwhile, Holmes and her inner circle pursue deals with giants like Safeway, Walgreens, even the US military—despite never really having anything more than a half-working prototype. This is the story of a con and con artist, of charisma overpowering any iota of sense.
Carreyrou’s careful and methodical depiction could have been dry and boring, but there is an edge to these events that keeps you reading. The hits just keep coming. As soon as you think you have Theranos figured out, they pivot and do something even more outrageous. Although many of us profess a certain jaded cynicism about the world and its checks and balances, or lack thereof, at the end of the day, most of us have an unexamined faith that the systems around us are largely working. Sure, there are a few bad actors here and there. But if the systems didn’t work for the most part, they wouldn’t be systems, right? Bad Blood really challenges that. Theranos and Holmes ride roughshod over every regulatory body that could possibly be involved in their business, and it takes a decade for anyone to really catch on and do anything about it. They didn’t just deceive people—they actually harmed people by providing false or inaccurate medical results at times. And the American regulatory system blithely let it happen.
Bad Blood delivers all the details play-by-play, just like I want from a nonfiction book of this kind. Give me the names, the places, the dates, and the dirty deeds done dirt cheap. I want to know all about the investors who were hoodwinked, the lawyers who lawyered it up, and the employees caught in the crossfire. Holmes is blatantly lying to her partners while she turns around and tells employees to do unethical things to fake lab results? Cool cool cool cool cool. Nothing at all is wrong with this picture.
The last couple of chapters are where Carreyrou himself enters the picture. He describes receiving the tip and contacting the first whistleblower. From there, the story grows in scope and strangeness. Theranos doubles down and goes after Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, the former employees—anyone and everyone. Carreyrou recounts some truly bizarre examples of its tactics, such as hiring actors to throw strops in the offices of doctors who had gone on record with him about inaccurate test results from Theranos’ products. As I said near the top of this review, it’s the kind of conspiracy-level action that you would dismiss as implausible if it were part of a regular thriller plot.
It’s easy for us to sit in our armchairs and look at this after the fact and say we would never be duped, of course. It’s fun for us to speculate about whether Holmes is a sociopath, or a pathological liar, or something along those lines. I respect Carreyrou reserving judgment on that for psychologists. I agree with his statement that he thinks Holmes didn’t set out to deceive people at first, but that there’s something missing from her conscience that allowed her to carry on this charade and eventually make it the foundation of her entire empire. Moreover, it’s hard to excuse or dismiss the way in which she manipulated and controlled everything, to the point of arranging to have 99.7% of the voting control of the company. Yeah, that seems fine.
This shit is bananas, y’all. There is literally no other way to express it. This is a glaring example of the failure mode of late stage capitalism: you get a bunch of credulous (white) men with way too much money, dangle a fast-talking salesperson in front of them as she pitches a revolutionary idea, and watch the sparks fly. Carreyrou does a great job of demonstrating how so many people fell for Holmes, partly because of her charisma and partly because so many other respectable people had already bought in to the delusion. No one wants to miss out.
There is a corollary here that Carreyrou kind of mentions but never quite makes explicit. He discusses how it has become common for tech startups to have these overblown, unrealistic valuations and vaporware-like products in the first years of their operation. It’s acceptable to the new generation of venture capitalists. What he doesn’t quite go on to say, although it’s between the lines, is that if we turn to tech startups to save us, we are screwed by this. Because a tech startup that only really cares about increasing its valuation will never actually care about testing ethics, about quality control, etc. “Fail fast, fail often” sounds great if you’re building a web app, not so much if you’re talking about human lives. Yet a significant segment of our society is so enamoured with the glories of the tech boom that they are willing to turn to tech startups for all the solutions.
I think that, on top of the obvious conclusion that you should question charismatic leaders more skeptically, should be a key takeaway from this book. No company, no matter how amazing its dream, deserves our unflinching and unwavering support. There is no excuse for a boss turning a company into a religion. And we owe it to people to take a hard look at the regulatory systems that allow these companies to exist. Bad Blood is a compelling cautionary tale, and I can only hope that we listen.
Reader, I was yelling at my TV during this entire pitch. I’m not a quantum physicist, but I know enough about physics to know that any mass-market product based on quantum entanglement is a scam, and I was appalled that five intelligent people were falling for this pitch hook, line, and sinker. It really highlights a significant deficiency in our education system: when it comes to science and critical thinking, we are far too credulous when something merely appears to be scientific. A hundred years ago, it was magnetism and electricity. Now it’s “quantum” woowoo.
Even smart and rich people can fall for a scam, especially if they think they’re too intelligent to be taken in. I kept this in mind as I read this book, which is essentially about the same lesson.
I watched the HBO documentary based on Bad Blood earlier in the year, and finally I picked up this book last weekend. I decided to treat myself and read it right away, being in a somewhat rare mood for a non-fiction read—wow, was that ever the right choice. I read two thirds that night and finished it on Sunday morning. Bad Blood reads like a fiction thriller at times, thanks in part to John Carreyrou’s crystalline writing and in part to the absurdity of the plot. Indeed, if this book were fiction, I suspect readers would pan it for being “unrealistic.” Some of the events that Carreyrou recounts are simply incredible. I was telling my friend Rebecca about it over the phone, describing the highlights and recommending the book to her. As I repeated it, I could feel all the emotions I was feeling while I read the book come back to me.
Bad Blood recounts the meteoric rise and fall of Theranos its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. For the majority of the book, Carreyrou reconstructs events based on documentation and accounts. He chronicles the genesis of Theranos in an idea that Holmes has while attending Stanford, how she drops out and founds the company, convincing lots of old white guys to get on board and fund her. From day one, the company’s vision always exceeds its grasp: Holmes ruthlessly pursues a vision that is untenable and unworkable. The turnover at the company is frequent, and it usually comes with threats of lawsuits if you say anything bad about your former employer. Meanwhile, Holmes and her inner circle pursue deals with giants like Safeway, Walgreens, even the US military—despite never really having anything more than a half-working prototype. This is the story of a con and con artist, of charisma overpowering any iota of sense.
Carreyrou’s careful and methodical depiction could have been dry and boring, but there is an edge to these events that keeps you reading. The hits just keep coming. As soon as you think you have Theranos figured out, they pivot and do something even more outrageous. Although many of us profess a certain jaded cynicism about the world and its checks and balances, or lack thereof, at the end of the day, most of us have an unexamined faith that the systems around us are largely working. Sure, there are a few bad actors here and there. But if the systems didn’t work for the most part, they wouldn’t be systems, right? Bad Blood really challenges that. Theranos and Holmes ride roughshod over every regulatory body that could possibly be involved in their business, and it takes a decade for anyone to really catch on and do anything about it. They didn’t just deceive people—they actually harmed people by providing false or inaccurate medical results at times. And the American regulatory system blithely let it happen.
Bad Blood delivers all the details play-by-play, just like I want from a nonfiction book of this kind. Give me the names, the places, the dates, and the dirty deeds done dirt cheap. I want to know all about the investors who were hoodwinked, the lawyers who lawyered it up, and the employees caught in the crossfire. Holmes is blatantly lying to her partners while she turns around and tells employees to do unethical things to fake lab results? Cool cool cool cool cool. Nothing at all is wrong with this picture.
The last couple of chapters are where Carreyrou himself enters the picture. He describes receiving the tip and contacting the first whistleblower. From there, the story grows in scope and strangeness. Theranos doubles down and goes after Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, the former employees—anyone and everyone. Carreyrou recounts some truly bizarre examples of its tactics, such as hiring actors to throw strops in the offices of doctors who had gone on record with him about inaccurate test results from Theranos’ products. As I said near the top of this review, it’s the kind of conspiracy-level action that you would dismiss as implausible if it were part of a regular thriller plot.
It’s easy for us to sit in our armchairs and look at this after the fact and say we would never be duped, of course. It’s fun for us to speculate about whether Holmes is a sociopath, or a pathological liar, or something along those lines. I respect Carreyrou reserving judgment on that for psychologists. I agree with his statement that he thinks Holmes didn’t set out to deceive people at first, but that there’s something missing from her conscience that allowed her to carry on this charade and eventually make it the foundation of her entire empire. Moreover, it’s hard to excuse or dismiss the way in which she manipulated and controlled everything, to the point of arranging to have 99.7% of the voting control of the company. Yeah, that seems fine.
This shit is bananas, y’all. There is literally no other way to express it. This is a glaring example of the failure mode of late stage capitalism: you get a bunch of credulous (white) men with way too much money, dangle a fast-talking salesperson in front of them as she pitches a revolutionary idea, and watch the sparks fly. Carreyrou does a great job of demonstrating how so many people fell for Holmes, partly because of her charisma and partly because so many other respectable people had already bought in to the delusion. No one wants to miss out.
There is a corollary here that Carreyrou kind of mentions but never quite makes explicit. He discusses how it has become common for tech startups to have these overblown, unrealistic valuations and vaporware-like products in the first years of their operation. It’s acceptable to the new generation of venture capitalists. What he doesn’t quite go on to say, although it’s between the lines, is that if we turn to tech startups to save us, we are screwed by this. Because a tech startup that only really cares about increasing its valuation will never actually care about testing ethics, about quality control, etc. “Fail fast, fail often” sounds great if you’re building a web app, not so much if you’re talking about human lives. Yet a significant segment of our society is so enamoured with the glories of the tech boom that they are willing to turn to tech startups for all the solutions.
I think that, on top of the obvious conclusion that you should question charismatic leaders more skeptically, should be a key takeaway from this book. No company, no matter how amazing its dream, deserves our unflinching and unwavering support. There is no excuse for a boss turning a company into a religion. And we owe it to people to take a hard look at the regulatory systems that allow these companies to exist. Bad Blood is a compelling cautionary tale, and I can only hope that we listen.
I actually read this back when Subterranean Press first published it online. I almost didn’t re-read it when I found it in the Hugo Voters Packet … but then I decided that I wanted to write a review of it, and I wanted to refresh my memory. I’m glad I did this, because “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” is even better than I remember. (I am aware of the irony of this statement given the story’s subject matter.)
The subjectivity of human memory is a subject open to endless interesting speculation. It drives one of my favourite devices, the unreliable narrator, and it informs the motives and choices of every person, real or fictional. We all edit our memories, recollect experiences imperfectly, hide inconvient truths or simply blur and half-forget past events. Ted Chiang points out in this novelette that writing has altered the way in which we remember. It is writing, he argues, that was our first step towards being “cognitive cyborgs” rather than any of the lifelogging, search-driven tools that are just beginning to creep onto the public stage today.
As a reader and a writer, I’ve long found the development of writing a fascinating subject for study. Our brains are naturally wired for language, yet we must learn to read and write. What is it like not to be literate? I can’t read non-Latin alphabets; I can’t even read most non-English languages in the Latin alphabet—yet, as a result of my literacy in English, I understand the concept of reading for information and pleasure. Through the character of Jijingi, Chiang allows the literate individual a glimpse at a grown person’s journey from illiteracy literacy. The revelation of what words are, and of how writing allows one to compose and order one’s thoughts in a predetermined manner, is fascinating, and it’s not something that those of us who are literate from an early age often consider. We take our literacy and the mindset that comes with it for granted.
But what Chiang also explores is the idea, perhaps unsettling, that literacy is a form of colonization. We colonize our past with it, appropriating it and fixing it. In pre-literate societies like the Tiv, history is oral. It requires better memory—something true of most societies prior to the onset of easy access to books—but even the best memories are fallible, as Chiang demonstrates with the squabble over the Shangev’s ancestors. The Tiv view writing as a European idea and therefore view it with suspicion. They do not think it can replicate the “truth of feeling”, mimi, that they use to speak of what is right. And maybe, to some extent, they are correct.
Chiang juxtaposes this ambivalence towards literacy with a narrator’s review of Remem, software that contextually searches one’s lifelog. In this way he comments concurrently on many popular trends today in society as well as in science fiction. We live in a surveillance state; the only question is the degree to which we are surveilled. Much of that surveillance is done by the government or its proxies, but almost as much happens on behalf of the individual. We record and photograph and otherwise document and tag our lives—hence lifelogging. We’re just now beginning to understand how this will affect us down the road, when Google produces that embarrassing photo you wish you had never shared. Remem is Google on speed and with impeccable timing, and as Chiang’s narrator explains, it is a tool with great advantages and great disadvantages.
Now, Chiang could have written about either of these tools—writing or Remem—in isolation and produced a good story. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” excels, however, precisely because of this skilful juxtaposition. Interspersing the narrator’s Remem tale with Jijingi’s tale is very effective. It allows Chiang to make points about both technologies, and as a result, the story isn’t just about our relationship with writing or our relationship with remembering—it’s a combination of both, greater than the sum of its parts.
Short stories and novelettes seldom make their mark through their characters or even, often, their events. They are too short to build towards massive climaxes. Their significance lies in the ability of the writer to capture a single Big Idea and whittle it down into a memorable Notion. Chiang showcases that ability here. This story is entertaining and moving, because it has the human elements: Jijingi’s tragic relationship with his own writing; the narrator’s fragile relationship with his daughter. But it also makes the reader think, hopefully in new and interesting ways.
This is probably my favourite nominee for Hugo novelette this year, because it comes close to a perfect short-form work of science fiction. So, take that with the grain of salt that you will.
The subjectivity of human memory is a subject open to endless interesting speculation. It drives one of my favourite devices, the unreliable narrator, and it informs the motives and choices of every person, real or fictional. We all edit our memories, recollect experiences imperfectly, hide inconvient truths or simply blur and half-forget past events. Ted Chiang points out in this novelette that writing has altered the way in which we remember. It is writing, he argues, that was our first step towards being “cognitive cyborgs” rather than any of the lifelogging, search-driven tools that are just beginning to creep onto the public stage today.
As a reader and a writer, I’ve long found the development of writing a fascinating subject for study. Our brains are naturally wired for language, yet we must learn to read and write. What is it like not to be literate? I can’t read non-Latin alphabets; I can’t even read most non-English languages in the Latin alphabet—yet, as a result of my literacy in English, I understand the concept of reading for information and pleasure. Through the character of Jijingi, Chiang allows the literate individual a glimpse at a grown person’s journey from illiteracy literacy. The revelation of what words are, and of how writing allows one to compose and order one’s thoughts in a predetermined manner, is fascinating, and it’s not something that those of us who are literate from an early age often consider. We take our literacy and the mindset that comes with it for granted.
But what Chiang also explores is the idea, perhaps unsettling, that literacy is a form of colonization. We colonize our past with it, appropriating it and fixing it. In pre-literate societies like the Tiv, history is oral. It requires better memory—something true of most societies prior to the onset of easy access to books—but even the best memories are fallible, as Chiang demonstrates with the squabble over the Shangev’s ancestors. The Tiv view writing as a European idea and therefore view it with suspicion. They do not think it can replicate the “truth of feeling”, mimi, that they use to speak of what is right. And maybe, to some extent, they are correct.
Chiang juxtaposes this ambivalence towards literacy with a narrator’s review of Remem, software that contextually searches one’s lifelog. In this way he comments concurrently on many popular trends today in society as well as in science fiction. We live in a surveillance state; the only question is the degree to which we are surveilled. Much of that surveillance is done by the government or its proxies, but almost as much happens on behalf of the individual. We record and photograph and otherwise document and tag our lives—hence lifelogging. We’re just now beginning to understand how this will affect us down the road, when Google produces that embarrassing photo you wish you had never shared. Remem is Google on speed and with impeccable timing, and as Chiang’s narrator explains, it is a tool with great advantages and great disadvantages.
Now, Chiang could have written about either of these tools—writing or Remem—in isolation and produced a good story. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” excels, however, precisely because of this skilful juxtaposition. Interspersing the narrator’s Remem tale with Jijingi’s tale is very effective. It allows Chiang to make points about both technologies, and as a result, the story isn’t just about our relationship with writing or our relationship with remembering—it’s a combination of both, greater than the sum of its parts.
Short stories and novelettes seldom make their mark through their characters or even, often, their events. They are too short to build towards massive climaxes. Their significance lies in the ability of the writer to capture a single Big Idea and whittle it down into a memorable Notion. Chiang showcases that ability here. This story is entertaining and moving, because it has the human elements: Jijingi’s tragic relationship with his own writing; the narrator’s fragile relationship with his daughter. But it also makes the reader think, hopefully in new and interesting ways.
This is probably my favourite nominee for Hugo novelette this year, because it comes close to a perfect short-form work of science fiction. So, take that with the grain of salt that you will.
For a while now, I’ve been eschewing posthumanism. Walking on the wild side of nanotechnology was starting to get too much like science fantasy for my tastes. The Quantum Magician is an exception that I’m happy I made: Derek Künsken’s story of a genetically engineered con artist is delightful, and it explores posthumanist ideas in a way that feels fresh. Although I wouldn’t say any of the characters (not even the protagonist) endeared themselves to me, the plot is enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Full disclosure, I received this through NetGalley! Send me all ur free books.
Belisarius Arjona, or “Bel” to his friends, is a Homo quantus. In this far future universe, humanity has tinkered with genetic engineering, producing such offshoots as the Numen (who created the reviled Puppets), the Tribe of the Mongrel (aka Homo eridanus), and Bel’s own subspecies. The Homo quantus have biological adaptations that help them sense not just magnetic fields but quantum states. Bel is capable of entering a fugue state where his consciousness decoheres, leaving an intellect of pure quantum computation. Bel has parted ways with the project that created him, and he lives on his own, pulling cons for organizations large and small to keep his brain occupied. When a military hires him to con their fleet through a wormhole junction, he has to assemble a rag-tag group of misfits to pull it off. Oh yeah, there’s a “getting the team together” part to this book, and it delivers.
The Quantum Magician actually is rather formulaic when you look at it from a macro view. The thing about formula is that it’s good when it’s used the way Künsken uses it, i.e., to ground the reader in an otherwise unfamiliar setting. The same might be said for something like The Lies of Locke Lamora, wherein Lynch likewise exploits the familiar tropes of a con artist team in order to spin a much more fantastic yarn. That’s what’s happening here: strip away the fancy terminology, the genetic engineering, the AIs who think they are reincarnated saints … and you just have a con. You have a caper. It’s Ocean’s Eleven but in space in the far future and with wormholes and so, so much better as a result.
I love the pacing in particular. The book builds and builds and builds, but it never feels like it’s running slow. Künsken never infodumps. Each chapter is a new scene, a new place, as we follow Bel on his travels to assemble his team, and each visit brings new ideas and new information to the forefront. It’s like a whistle-stop tour, and it hints at this big, rich universe beyond that we don’t get to explore as much as we might want. Leave them wanting more! Finally, after we have the team and the walkthrough and the twists and betrayals, there is an action-packed climax that actually got me worried for a moment about how the con would go. There are a lot of moving parts, and I’m impressed with how Künsken brings everything together.
As I mentioned earlier, the handling of posthumanism is quite well done. Obviously there’s Bel himself. We meet another Homo quantus, old flame Cassandra, whose opinions of their genetic engineering are very different from Bel’s. This juxtaposition is really nice, and it lets us consider the pros and cons of what Bel and Cassandra are capable of doing. It also sets up a romance that is, in my opinion, quite well done because of its subtlety. It’s there, but it isn’t a big focus in the story.
In addition to Bel, each member of the team embodies other posthuman qualities. Some, like Del Casal and Maria, might not be as obvious—they are closer to baseline human, but they live in a posthuman world and are used to interacting with posthumans. William’s conversion into a faux Numen, and his relationship with Gates-15 and the other Numen–obsessed Puppets, takes us down quite a chilling and disturbing rabbithole. Then we have Stills, the Homo eridanus, in whom Künsken explores how far from baseline human we can get and still be “human”. While we learn relatively little about the origins of these projects, who oversees them, etc., it’s clear that in this universe, humanity remains a dynamic, fractured, squabbling civilization that just happens to have some wormhole junctions nowadays. It’s fantastic.
If, like me, you are a sucker for a good con story, you need to check out The Quantum Magician. It’s posthuman SF blended with con artistry, with fun characters, lots of swearing, and perfect pacing and action.
My reviews of The Quantum Evolution:
The Quantum Garden →
Full disclosure, I received this through NetGalley! Send me all ur free books.
Belisarius Arjona, or “Bel” to his friends, is a Homo quantus. In this far future universe, humanity has tinkered with genetic engineering, producing such offshoots as the Numen (who created the reviled Puppets), the Tribe of the Mongrel (aka Homo eridanus), and Bel’s own subspecies. The Homo quantus have biological adaptations that help them sense not just magnetic fields but quantum states. Bel is capable of entering a fugue state where his consciousness decoheres, leaving an intellect of pure quantum computation. Bel has parted ways with the project that created him, and he lives on his own, pulling cons for organizations large and small to keep his brain occupied. When a military hires him to con their fleet through a wormhole junction, he has to assemble a rag-tag group of misfits to pull it off. Oh yeah, there’s a “getting the team together” part to this book, and it delivers.
The Quantum Magician actually is rather formulaic when you look at it from a macro view. The thing about formula is that it’s good when it’s used the way Künsken uses it, i.e., to ground the reader in an otherwise unfamiliar setting. The same might be said for something like The Lies of Locke Lamora, wherein Lynch likewise exploits the familiar tropes of a con artist team in order to spin a much more fantastic yarn. That’s what’s happening here: strip away the fancy terminology, the genetic engineering, the AIs who think they are reincarnated saints … and you just have a con. You have a caper. It’s Ocean’s Eleven but in space in the far future and with wormholes and so, so much better as a result.
I love the pacing in particular. The book builds and builds and builds, but it never feels like it’s running slow. Künsken never infodumps. Each chapter is a new scene, a new place, as we follow Bel on his travels to assemble his team, and each visit brings new ideas and new information to the forefront. It’s like a whistle-stop tour, and it hints at this big, rich universe beyond that we don’t get to explore as much as we might want. Leave them wanting more! Finally, after we have the team and the walkthrough and the twists and betrayals, there is an action-packed climax that actually got me worried for a moment about how the con would go. There are a lot of moving parts, and I’m impressed with how Künsken brings everything together.
As I mentioned earlier, the handling of posthumanism is quite well done. Obviously there’s Bel himself. We meet another Homo quantus, old flame Cassandra, whose opinions of their genetic engineering are very different from Bel’s. This juxtaposition is really nice, and it lets us consider the pros and cons of what Bel and Cassandra are capable of doing. It also sets up a romance that is, in my opinion, quite well done because of its subtlety. It’s there, but it isn’t a big focus in the story.
In addition to Bel, each member of the team embodies other posthuman qualities. Some, like Del Casal and Maria, might not be as obvious—they are closer to baseline human, but they live in a posthuman world and are used to interacting with posthumans. William’s conversion into a faux Numen, and his relationship with Gates-15 and the other Numen–obsessed Puppets, takes us down quite a chilling and disturbing rabbithole. Then we have Stills, the Homo eridanus, in whom Künsken explores how far from baseline human we can get and still be “human”. While we learn relatively little about the origins of these projects, who oversees them, etc., it’s clear that in this universe, humanity remains a dynamic, fractured, squabbling civilization that just happens to have some wormhole junctions nowadays. It’s fantastic.
If, like me, you are a sucker for a good con story, you need to check out The Quantum Magician. It’s posthuman SF blended with con artistry, with fun characters, lots of swearing, and perfect pacing and action.
My reviews of The Quantum Evolution:
The Quantum Garden →
Every time I start another Holly Bourne book, I’m scared. I think, “Is this the time? Is this the book where Bourne lets me down, and I have to be disappointed??” And the answer is always no, as it is with The Places I’ve Cried in Public. I read this mostly in private, but otherwise there would have been some public tears, let me tell you.
Trigger warnings in this book for discussion and depictions of emotional and sexual abuse by a boyfriend.
Amelie has recently moved from Sheffield to the south of England and is starting her A Levels. She and her boyfriend have made a pact to break up but not fall in love, so they can pick up where they left off two years later at the University of Manchester. But then Amelie meets Reese, and everything is intense and wonderful—until it isn’t. It’s not a new story, but Bourne tells it with her usual complexity and gut-punching honesty. She also employs an interesting framing structure: each chapter is a different place Amelie has cried, usually as a result of her relationship with Reese and the fallout from their breakup. She talks to Reese in the second person at the beginning and end of each chapter, with the middle of the chapter a flashback set in the past and depicting a specific event from their time together, leading up of course to the public tears.
Look, if you’re coming to this book for suspense or surprise, you will not find it. The plot is utterly predictable, even without Amelie’s very overt foreshadowing mentioning red flags and the end of friendships, etc. That’s the point: Bourne is preparing us for the emotional journey ahead by giving us the framework of the narrative journey. This isn’t about trying to figure out what will happen, how it will end, etc. It’s a story about Amelie coming to terms with this huge thing that happened to her.
Like, Reese is a ding dong from the moment we meet him, and it just gets worse. I texted my friend Rebecca (in whose hands I press each Bourne book as she finishes the previous one I lent her) as Reese crossed more and more lines, like when he “surprises” Amelie with his “romantic” gesture at her first big show. Ugh. I’ve never had a romantic relationship with someone and I still know that’s not on. In fact, Reese is so much bad news wrapped up in a single macho wanker package that one might criticize Bourne for going overboard here. Is he a caricature of a manipulative and emotionally abusive manboy teenchild? Maybe. I’ll leave that to each reader to decide for themselves—I will say that if anything could be improved here, it’s probably the character of Reese himself, definitely. He could use a bit more dimension, a little bit more time on the page to breathe and be himself rather than being the Bad Guy of Amelie’s memories (this is, of course, one of the limitations of first person).
Yet Reese’s black-and-white characterization is almost certainly deliberate. Bourne does not want to brook debate here. This is not about “maybe.” Reese crosses lines that should not be crossed, and we can speculate and discuss about why that’s the case (toxic masculinity), but Bourne has other books about that. This is about Amelie’s experience. I see some people likening it to Tori’s relationship with Tom in How Do You Like Me Now?, and I agree with the comparison—to an extent. But this isn’t merely a YA version of Tori/Tom. This is about a manipulative and abusive boy and the way being in a relationship with him feels like a drug you can’t give up, even if you’re starting to wonder at what it’s doing to you. I’d say a slightly more accurate comparison to an adult novel on this subject would be the stellar Almost Love by Louise O’Neill.
The trademark heartbreaking Holly Bourne moment I’ve come to expect near the climax of every book happens here too, of course, when Amelie visits her old friends in Sheffield and Everything Goes Horribly Wrong. One reason I read these books so fast is simply because I need to get through them as fast as possible, like ripping off a band-aid, because these are emotionally draining books. And yes, Amelie certainly makes mistakes—she is, like all of us, flawed on top of being young and inexperienced in these things, and I appreciate that we get lots of facets of her character. She screws up bad with Alfie; she gets her former best friend upset … it’s a whole thing. There are a few other details that really make this book stand out.
First, Hannah. Hannah rocks. That’s all I’m going to say. I just really like how Bourne deploys this characters.
Second, the parents are great, as usual. This is something I don’t want to go unremarked about Bourne’s novels—so many YA novels neglect parents, or use them as casual antagonists. And sure, not everyone has great parents (or even a pair of parents), and those stories are valid. But I love that Bourne often portrays protagonists whose parents are as loving and supportive as they know how to be and yet the protagonist still struggles.
Third, therapy. Amelie goes to a therapist, who asks her the right questions, the tough questions, and Bourne depicts these scenes with realism and compassion. Love seeing therapy depicted constructively in YA literature. There are similar scenes of compassion between Amelie and her parents (see above) as well as a teacher. At one point, the therapist remarks that what happened between Amelie and Reese wasn’t her fault, wasn’t fair, but that now she has to live with it being a part of her for the rest of her life. It’s so poignant, so painfully true … ugh. Maybe I’m just a sucker for all the feels, but I felt them with this book, my friends.
The Places I’ve Cried in Public is very much an issue book. As are all of Bourne’s novels. But it is first and foremost an impeccably plotted, emotionally-tuned piece of storycraft, and as with all of her previous stories, it’s another example of the thought and compassion Bourne puts into these books. These are stories that I wish I could have read when I was younger—not necessarily to avoid making mistakes, because honestly I’ve been very lucky in my life … but these are books that help young people understand why the mistakes we make are not always of our own making, and how we can pick ourselves up afterwards. And I don’t know what it is … I don’t know if it’s some eldritch magic or just a lot of sweat and tears, but Bourne has got it. She knows how to build these stories, how to breathe life into these characters and their experiences. I need these stories. Teenagers need these stories.
Everyone deserves to be told that the way other people treat them is not their fault.
Trigger warnings in this book for discussion and depictions of emotional and sexual abuse by a boyfriend.
Amelie has recently moved from Sheffield to the south of England and is starting her A Levels. She and her boyfriend have made a pact to break up but not fall in love, so they can pick up where they left off two years later at the University of Manchester. But then Amelie meets Reese, and everything is intense and wonderful—until it isn’t. It’s not a new story, but Bourne tells it with her usual complexity and gut-punching honesty. She also employs an interesting framing structure: each chapter is a different place Amelie has cried, usually as a result of her relationship with Reese and the fallout from their breakup. She talks to Reese in the second person at the beginning and end of each chapter, with the middle of the chapter a flashback set in the past and depicting a specific event from their time together, leading up of course to the public tears.
Look, if you’re coming to this book for suspense or surprise, you will not find it. The plot is utterly predictable, even without Amelie’s very overt foreshadowing mentioning red flags and the end of friendships, etc. That’s the point: Bourne is preparing us for the emotional journey ahead by giving us the framework of the narrative journey. This isn’t about trying to figure out what will happen, how it will end, etc. It’s a story about Amelie coming to terms with this huge thing that happened to her.
Like, Reese is a ding dong from the moment we meet him, and it just gets worse. I texted my friend Rebecca (in whose hands I press each Bourne book as she finishes the previous one I lent her) as Reese crossed more and more lines, like when he “surprises” Amelie with his “romantic” gesture at her first big show. Ugh. I’ve never had a romantic relationship with someone and I still know that’s not on. In fact, Reese is so much bad news wrapped up in a single macho wanker package that one might criticize Bourne for going overboard here. Is he a caricature of a manipulative and emotionally abusive manboy teenchild? Maybe. I’ll leave that to each reader to decide for themselves—I will say that if anything could be improved here, it’s probably the character of Reese himself, definitely. He could use a bit more dimension, a little bit more time on the page to breathe and be himself rather than being the Bad Guy of Amelie’s memories (this is, of course, one of the limitations of first person).
Yet Reese’s black-and-white characterization is almost certainly deliberate. Bourne does not want to brook debate here. This is not about “maybe.” Reese crosses lines that should not be crossed, and we can speculate and discuss about why that’s the case (toxic masculinity), but Bourne has other books about that. This is about Amelie’s experience. I see some people likening it to Tori’s relationship with Tom in How Do You Like Me Now?, and I agree with the comparison—to an extent. But this isn’t merely a YA version of Tori/Tom. This is about a manipulative and abusive boy and the way being in a relationship with him feels like a drug you can’t give up, even if you’re starting to wonder at what it’s doing to you. I’d say a slightly more accurate comparison to an adult novel on this subject would be the stellar Almost Love by Louise O’Neill.
The trademark heartbreaking Holly Bourne moment I’ve come to expect near the climax of every book happens here too, of course, when Amelie visits her old friends in Sheffield and Everything Goes Horribly Wrong. One reason I read these books so fast is simply because I need to get through them as fast as possible, like ripping off a band-aid, because these are emotionally draining books. And yes, Amelie certainly makes mistakes—she is, like all of us, flawed on top of being young and inexperienced in these things, and I appreciate that we get lots of facets of her character. She screws up bad with Alfie; she gets her former best friend upset … it’s a whole thing. There are a few other details that really make this book stand out.
First, Hannah. Hannah rocks. That’s all I’m going to say. I just really like how Bourne deploys this characters.
Second, the parents are great, as usual. This is something I don’t want to go unremarked about Bourne’s novels—so many YA novels neglect parents, or use them as casual antagonists. And sure, not everyone has great parents (or even a pair of parents), and those stories are valid. But I love that Bourne often portrays protagonists whose parents are as loving and supportive as they know how to be and yet the protagonist still struggles.
Third, therapy. Amelie goes to a therapist, who asks her the right questions, the tough questions, and Bourne depicts these scenes with realism and compassion. Love seeing therapy depicted constructively in YA literature. There are similar scenes of compassion between Amelie and her parents (see above) as well as a teacher. At one point, the therapist remarks that what happened between Amelie and Reese wasn’t her fault, wasn’t fair, but that now she has to live with it being a part of her for the rest of her life. It’s so poignant, so painfully true … ugh. Maybe I’m just a sucker for all the feels, but I felt them with this book, my friends.
The Places I’ve Cried in Public is very much an issue book. As are all of Bourne’s novels. But it is first and foremost an impeccably plotted, emotionally-tuned piece of storycraft, and as with all of her previous stories, it’s another example of the thought and compassion Bourne puts into these books. These are stories that I wish I could have read when I was younger—not necessarily to avoid making mistakes, because honestly I’ve been very lucky in my life … but these are books that help young people understand why the mistakes we make are not always of our own making, and how we can pick ourselves up afterwards. And I don’t know what it is … I don’t know if it’s some eldritch magic or just a lot of sweat and tears, but Bourne has got it. She knows how to build these stories, how to breathe life into these characters and their experiences. I need these stories. Teenagers need these stories.
Everyone deserves to be told that the way other people treat them is not their fault.
It’s time to finish off my re-read of the first trilogy of The Wayfarer Redemption with Starman, the conclusion of Axis’ battle against Gorgrael to fulfil a Prophecy and recreate the land of Tencendor. I seem to have stumbled into a more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts situation here: I want to give this book two stars, but the series as a whole has actually been much more enjoyable than the individual books ever were.
Spoilers for this book and the previous two books, because I want to dig into this whole trilogy.
So Axis and Azhure get to be gods … yay? Although gods in this universe are not quite omnipotent beings, but rather just extremely magical, and “Lesser” creatures like WolfStar can hold their own against individual gods at times … yeah, the rules of this universe are frustrating sometimes. This series is a good example of falling in love with one’s own worldbuilding. Whereas the previous two books privileged plot, Starman stops pretending with that bullshit and just surrenders to the temptation to drown us with exposition. Almost every scene offers up an excuse to have a metaphysical conversation about the nature of the universe, the various gods, etc.
Now, the geeky part of me loves the ideas that Sara Douglass provides us. The idea that the Star Gods, Artor, etc., all showed up through the Star Gate or otherwise, and that they are perhaps just Sufficiently Advanced Aliens (this can be inferred but isn’t outright stated) is so cool to me. The problem is that if all you have are cool ideas, without much in the way of interesting plot, then this might as well be a RPG universe instead of, you know, a story.
Moreover, some of the exposition goes a little too far. In previous books, WolfStar/the Dark Man were intriguing antagonists because his motivations were so murky. Was he on the side of Axis or Gorgrael? Or Prophecy? (His identity as the Prophet is pretty easy to deduce if you pay attention, although given the monotonous length of these books, I don’t fault anyone whose attention lapses.) Starman clears that up fairly easily. WolfStar declares his intentions repeatedly and clearly for anyone who wants to know … and that caused my interest in him as a character to drop to zero. I don’t really care to sympathize with him on the basis of being a slave to the Prophecy he himself developed.
Similarly, Douglass seems to be in a rush to cast each main character into a crucible so that they can achieve their Final Form as soon as possible. Axis, Azhure, Faraday, etc., all experience major changes and powerups in terms of their abilities and understanding of their place in the world. Yet none of them, with the exception perhaps of the woobie Faraday, really earn this. It’s just dropped on them because it’s part of the story. Whereas Axis spends most of the first two books earning the loyalty of his men through his courage and honour, in this book he’s fairly useless and even petulant.
It’s all the fault of the damnable Prophecy, honestly! Take the whole Rainbow Scepter thing. Multiple people tell Axis he has to show up on Fire-Night to get the scepter from the Avar. Everyone seems to know about this scepter and the role it plays in Axis defeating Gorgrael. What was once a cryptic Prophecy now seems crystalline, and in this way the story transforms from one of epic fantasy into a middle-of-the-road fantasy RPG full of NPCs who direct you in your quest. “Get Rainbow Scepter.” “Go to the Ice Fortress.” “Kill Gorgrael.” This applies to characters other than Axis. It started with Timozel in book one; he switches sides mostly because of WolfStar’s mental assault than because of any true decision to betray Axis and Faraday. But we’ve got situations like Azhure showing up in Smyrton to help Faraday not through any decision of her own but because another, otherwise pointless character tells her that’s her role in the matter. It’s not that it’s predictable, because Douglass doesn’t even try to maintain anything approaching suspense. It’s linear, straightforward, and entirely telegraphed ahead of time.
I’m not sure if this is because Starman is worried that the readers just aren’t smart enough to get it, or if it’s just the way in which Douglass is captivated by the Prophecy she has woven throughout this trilogy. In any event, the result is a serious lack of suspense for almost the entire book. Nothing seems to be in jeopardy, even when traumatic events (like the abduction of Caelum) happen with maximum melodrama. Speaking of which—the whole thing where Azhure unilaterally mind-wipes her own kid because he plotted to sell-out his older brother to Gorgrael? That’s fucked up. I mean, DragonStar’s behaviour is fucked up, but he’s still ultimately a vulnerable child, whereas Azhure is a fully-grown woman and Icarii Enchantress. One of the main themes of this series seems to be that powerful people make for terrible parents.
Despite all these criticisms, I still enjoyed reading these books, even if perhaps my opinion of the series isn’t very high. Douglass has a stunning fantastical imagination, and she is great at creating unique and complex characters. Her stewardship of those characters through three books, however, leaves much to be desired. If Starman succeeds, it is in spite of its use of what are now considered cliché fantasy tropes, not because of those tropes. I’m not even sure I would go so far as to say it succeeds. The series is a feverish dream of so many cool elements tied together by a plot that doesn’t quite work and characters who are either too powerful, too prideful, or too underutilized (sometimes a combination of all three) to really be interesting or sympathetic.
But wait … my journey will continue with the sequel trilogy! Because I am a glutton for punishment and also I bought those three books cheaply when I bought these three, so … onwards!
My reviews of The Wayfarer Redemption:
← Enchanter
Spoilers for this book and the previous two books, because I want to dig into this whole trilogy.
So Axis and Azhure get to be gods … yay? Although gods in this universe are not quite omnipotent beings, but rather just extremely magical, and “Lesser” creatures like WolfStar can hold their own against individual gods at times … yeah, the rules of this universe are frustrating sometimes. This series is a good example of falling in love with one’s own worldbuilding. Whereas the previous two books privileged plot, Starman stops pretending with that bullshit and just surrenders to the temptation to drown us with exposition. Almost every scene offers up an excuse to have a metaphysical conversation about the nature of the universe, the various gods, etc.
Now, the geeky part of me loves the ideas that Sara Douglass provides us. The idea that the Star Gods, Artor, etc., all showed up through the Star Gate or otherwise, and that they are perhaps just Sufficiently Advanced Aliens (this can be inferred but isn’t outright stated) is so cool to me. The problem is that if all you have are cool ideas, without much in the way of interesting plot, then this might as well be a RPG universe instead of, you know, a story.
Moreover, some of the exposition goes a little too far. In previous books, WolfStar/the Dark Man were intriguing antagonists because his motivations were so murky. Was he on the side of Axis or Gorgrael? Or Prophecy? (His identity as the Prophet is pretty easy to deduce if you pay attention, although given the monotonous length of these books, I don’t fault anyone whose attention lapses.) Starman clears that up fairly easily. WolfStar declares his intentions repeatedly and clearly for anyone who wants to know … and that caused my interest in him as a character to drop to zero. I don’t really care to sympathize with him on the basis of being a slave to the Prophecy he himself developed.
Similarly, Douglass seems to be in a rush to cast each main character into a crucible so that they can achieve their Final Form as soon as possible. Axis, Azhure, Faraday, etc., all experience major changes and powerups in terms of their abilities and understanding of their place in the world. Yet none of them, with the exception perhaps of the woobie Faraday, really earn this. It’s just dropped on them because it’s part of the story. Whereas Axis spends most of the first two books earning the loyalty of his men through his courage and honour, in this book he’s fairly useless and even petulant.
It’s all the fault of the damnable Prophecy, honestly! Take the whole Rainbow Scepter thing. Multiple people tell Axis he has to show up on Fire-Night to get the scepter from the Avar. Everyone seems to know about this scepter and the role it plays in Axis defeating Gorgrael. What was once a cryptic Prophecy now seems crystalline, and in this way the story transforms from one of epic fantasy into a middle-of-the-road fantasy RPG full of NPCs who direct you in your quest. “Get Rainbow Scepter.” “Go to the Ice Fortress.” “Kill Gorgrael.” This applies to characters other than Axis. It started with Timozel in book one; he switches sides mostly because of WolfStar’s mental assault than because of any true decision to betray Axis and Faraday. But we’ve got situations like Azhure showing up in Smyrton to help Faraday not through any decision of her own but because another, otherwise pointless character tells her that’s her role in the matter. It’s not that it’s predictable, because Douglass doesn’t even try to maintain anything approaching suspense. It’s linear, straightforward, and entirely telegraphed ahead of time.
I’m not sure if this is because Starman is worried that the readers just aren’t smart enough to get it, or if it’s just the way in which Douglass is captivated by the Prophecy she has woven throughout this trilogy. In any event, the result is a serious lack of suspense for almost the entire book. Nothing seems to be in jeopardy, even when traumatic events (like the abduction of Caelum) happen with maximum melodrama. Speaking of which—the whole thing where Azhure unilaterally mind-wipes her own kid because he plotted to sell-out his older brother to Gorgrael? That’s fucked up. I mean, DragonStar’s behaviour is fucked up, but he’s still ultimately a vulnerable child, whereas Azhure is a fully-grown woman and Icarii Enchantress. One of the main themes of this series seems to be that powerful people make for terrible parents.
Despite all these criticisms, I still enjoyed reading these books, even if perhaps my opinion of the series isn’t very high. Douglass has a stunning fantastical imagination, and she is great at creating unique and complex characters. Her stewardship of those characters through three books, however, leaves much to be desired. If Starman succeeds, it is in spite of its use of what are now considered cliché fantasy tropes, not because of those tropes. I’m not even sure I would go so far as to say it succeeds. The series is a feverish dream of so many cool elements tied together by a plot that doesn’t quite work and characters who are either too powerful, too prideful, or too underutilized (sometimes a combination of all three) to really be interesting or sympathetic.
But wait … my journey will continue with the sequel trilogy! Because I am a glutton for punishment and also I bought those three books cheaply when I bought these three, so … onwards!
My reviews of The Wayfarer Redemption:
← Enchanter
Back for round 2 of my review of this classic ’90s fantasy series. In my review of The Wayfarer Redemption I was cheeky but also tried to be serious. I didn’t want to be too hard on Sara Douglass, because after all, the clichés in these books weren’t quite clichés when she was writing. At the same time, it’s hard to call these books great. They‘re good, for a certain entertainment value of good.
In this sequel, Axis has embraced his heritage as an Icarii Enchanter and plans to reunite Tencendor under his leadership. To do this, he must deal with his half-brother, Borneheld, while also defending the territory and people under his protection from Gorgrael. Oh, and he’s still learning magic. And he’s in love with two women! Fun times.
If anything, Enchanter made me think more about Douglass’ goals with this series and how she constructs it. Maybe it’s because I spent a lot of Sunday morning reading this while listening to the classical radio station, but Enchanter really strikes me as embodying the most operatic qualities of high fantasy. This is a tragedy in its purest literary form. The stakes are high; the sets are big; the characters are larger than life. That allows me as the reader to give Douglass more leeway with this whole prophecy thing. Yes, Axis is unlikable and a dick, but he’s still a sympathetic character because he’s the protagonist of this tragedy: he might save his peoples from the Big Bad, but he himself isn’t going to get a personally happy ending in the process. The same can be said for Faraday and Azhure and perhaps a handful of supporting characters—the closer you are to the centre of this story, to the prophecy, the less likely you are to come out of it with anything resembling happiness.
Similarly, there are no “real” people in this story. We speak to precious few people who are not within the inner circles of the plot. We speak to very few people who might be considered your average everyperson—it’s like all the extras in this story are far in the background. Because the opera doesn’t care about those people; it only wants to give page time to the people whose actions are sustaining the plot (prophecy). This constraint can make for a very one-sided, very contrived story.
Why do these stories appeal to us if they are so over the top? Of course no one like Axis or Faraday exists in real life. Few people are the same combination of powerful yet petty as Borneheld (although, you know, I can think of a few leaders and billionaires who come close). Nevertheless, writers turn time and again to these stock characters and their stories because they do appeal to us. I think when you remove human agency from parts of the equation, it’s like controlling for a variable: the writer themselves then has a little more freedom to dig into another part of the human condition. By wrapping Axis & co. so tightly in prophecy as to practically smother them, Douglass can explore the edge cases of fighting for survival against incredible odds.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if this story were being told by people in fancy costumes singing on a stage, I’d be more sympathetic to it. It’s made for that grand scale. With novels I usually yearn for something that has a little more humanity to the characters, but it’s hard to fault Enchanter for being consistent with the form it’s emulating. I’d be a lot harsher if I thought Douglass were actually trying to make her characters more real, but that’s not what I see here.
I’m starting to see now why this particular series from this time period might hold up in the sense of being a good example of the craft. I’m still not sure that it holds up as a series that I, personally, am enjoying reading.
My reviews of The Wayfarer Redemption:
← The Wayfarer Redemption (aka Battleaxe) | Starman →
In this sequel, Axis has embraced his heritage as an Icarii Enchanter and plans to reunite Tencendor under his leadership. To do this, he must deal with his half-brother, Borneheld, while also defending the territory and people under his protection from Gorgrael. Oh, and he’s still learning magic. And he’s in love with two women! Fun times.
If anything, Enchanter made me think more about Douglass’ goals with this series and how she constructs it. Maybe it’s because I spent a lot of Sunday morning reading this while listening to the classical radio station, but Enchanter really strikes me as embodying the most operatic qualities of high fantasy. This is a tragedy in its purest literary form. The stakes are high; the sets are big; the characters are larger than life. That allows me as the reader to give Douglass more leeway with this whole prophecy thing. Yes, Axis is unlikable and a dick, but he’s still a sympathetic character because he’s the protagonist of this tragedy: he might save his peoples from the Big Bad, but he himself isn’t going to get a personally happy ending in the process. The same can be said for Faraday and Azhure and perhaps a handful of supporting characters—the closer you are to the centre of this story, to the prophecy, the less likely you are to come out of it with anything resembling happiness.
Similarly, there are no “real” people in this story. We speak to precious few people who are not within the inner circles of the plot. We speak to very few people who might be considered your average everyperson—it’s like all the extras in this story are far in the background. Because the opera doesn’t care about those people; it only wants to give page time to the people whose actions are sustaining the plot (prophecy). This constraint can make for a very one-sided, very contrived story.
Why do these stories appeal to us if they are so over the top? Of course no one like Axis or Faraday exists in real life. Few people are the same combination of powerful yet petty as Borneheld (although, you know, I can think of a few leaders and billionaires who come close). Nevertheless, writers turn time and again to these stock characters and their stories because they do appeal to us. I think when you remove human agency from parts of the equation, it’s like controlling for a variable: the writer themselves then has a little more freedom to dig into another part of the human condition. By wrapping Axis & co. so tightly in prophecy as to practically smother them, Douglass can explore the edge cases of fighting for survival against incredible odds.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if this story were being told by people in fancy costumes singing on a stage, I’d be more sympathetic to it. It’s made for that grand scale. With novels I usually yearn for something that has a little more humanity to the characters, but it’s hard to fault Enchanter for being consistent with the form it’s emulating. I’d be a lot harsher if I thought Douglass were actually trying to make her characters more real, but that’s not what I see here.
I’m starting to see now why this particular series from this time period might hold up in the sense of being a good example of the craft. I’m still not sure that it holds up as a series that I, personally, am enjoying reading.
My reviews of The Wayfarer Redemption:
← The Wayfarer Redemption (aka Battleaxe) | Starman →
I tend to read books one at a time in quick succession. I have to, for the same reason I am so assiduous in writing reviews: I have a poor memory for these types of details. However, every so often I'll have a "project" book that takes me weeks or months to read, in parallel with my other books. I tend to do this with lengthy anthologies; I've been doing it with the Iliad. In retrospect, Dhalgren would have made a good project book. It's lengthy and difficult to read, and if I had invested the time to read it more gradually, my opinion would probably be very different.
Nobody prepared me for Dhalgren.
I began it with few preconceptions. The back cover copy of my very old Bantam paperback edition is extremely cryptic and unhelpful (and, in fact, not all that accurate). So I had this idea that it was about some kind of post-apocalyptic city, and that was it. A couple of visits to the book's Wikipedia article later, I finally understood the situation into which I had gotten myself. According to the article, "Critical reaction to Dhalgren has ranged from high praise (both inside and outside the science fiction community) to extreme dislike (mostly within the community)." That last parenthetical is accompanied by the dreaded "citation needed" note, so I don't know how reliable it is. From my experience with Dhalgren, however, I would understand if it is true. The conventions that would identify it as science fiction are covert, obscured—yet I cannot imagine any other label that better describes this book.
I am indebted to Dhalgren, because it is one of those books that challenge me as a reader. By challenge, I do not just refer to the effort required to read and comprehend the story itself. I mean that Dhalgren challenges how I approach reading and literature and my biases toward form and genre. This is a polarizing book that has earned high praise from some renowned authors, such as William Gibson, and nothing but vitriol from others, like Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick. It is simultaneously considered a sublime, transcendent work of literature and a piece of trash that is impossible to enjoy or take seriously. And so it calls into question the verity and integrity of the entire novel form. Why is a black square painted by me worthless while one painted by Kazimir Malevich is worth millions? What makes art good, and what makes some crap crap and other crap "transcendent"?
Sometimes I worry I come off as a bit of a book snob. I read Umberto Eco, and worse, I write lengthy, gushing reviews about his books. I trash talk Dan Brown (but who doesn't?) and Stephenie Meyer. But really, I'm not that far gone: I might write reviews, but not for literary criticism journals; and so far, I have felt no desire to read anything by Thomas Mann. There is hope for me yet!
If I were a book snob, I would probably have to write some sort of encomium for Dhalgren that reiterates the views of those like Gibson. Fortunately I can dodge that bullet and confess that I didn't enjoy Dhalgren. I'm still glad I read it, because I am a better person for it, and it is worth reading. The actual act of reading it, however, was onerous. I pushed through it, because I wanted to finish it and because Delany has earned enough respect from me as an author to deserve some faith from me as a reader. And there are parts of this book that are jaw-droppingly awesome. There are moments when everything the narrator is saying just clicks into place and makes perfect sense. It is as if the clouds in the perpetually-overcast city of Bellona have parted to display not one but two moons: there are brief glimpses of lucidity amid this happy madness.
Unfortunately, most of the book is just confusing. I'm aware that this is the point and the purpose, and better people than me have read and will read this book and find more meaning than I dare to dredge from its pages. Alas, I like my prose concise and easy to comprehend. I am a fan of sublimity from simplicity, though I'm aware that it's possible to obtain through other methods. Mostly though, I just had a difficult time following the thread of a scene, let alone the entirety of the story.
The best thing about Dhalgren, in my opinion, is its meta-commentary about the nature of writing and literature. The main character, the Kid, finds a notebook that contains the text of this novel. And then later it turns out he writes it, or wrote it. But for most of the story, he uses the blank pages to scribble poems, which then get published by Bellona's newspaper editor. So Kid becomes a bit of an overnight celebrity, and everyone is reading his poetry for lack of any better reading material in the city. But Kid isn't sure he's done anything worth reading, isn't sure if he's an artist at all or just a hack. He receives mentoring from an established poet who is just visiting Bellona, and everyone around him provides advice as well. I suppose it's possible to consider the characters sort of Jungian archetypes of the Kid's subconscious. It is an explanation that makes as much sense as any other that tries to undermine the fundamental incoherence of Delany's narrative.
The depiction of race, gender, and sexuality in Dhalgren is also worth at least one person's undergraduate thesis. A great deal of this book is given over to explicit sex. Bellona is, in a twisted and ironic way, a post-scarcity society: no one needs money, because no one is really in a position to sell goods or services. With so much of the city abandoned, empty houses and stores have items for the taking, and one can move anywhere one wants. Moreover, thanks to the timey-wimey wibbley-wobbliness of the city, a store that one ransacks one day might be full and untouched two days later, just as a building that burnt to the ground last night might be restored, unscathed, the next morning. This post-scarcity economy juxtaposed with an environment that radiates unspeakable social poverty has the predictable effect on the inhabitants of the city: everyone is in a kind of dream world, in a holding pattern. Nothing and no one change, because if they did, it would mean admitting that their world is broken.
In this post-scarcity society, however, there is still one valuable commodity: sex. There are few enough people in Bellona, but there is an endless variety of relationships, from monogamous marriages (the Richards) to polyamory (Kid, Lanya, and Denny) to a weird kind of cat-and-mouse game (George Harrison and June Richards). And regardless of who's doing it, there is lots of sex, all the time. Literally, I doubt more than ten pages will go by without someone talking about or engaging in intercourse. Because beneath the fragile veneer of civilization, it's clear that the conventional norms have broken down, and a new system of mores has arisen in their place. Delany has created a brand new society between these pages. It's post-apocalyptic, although the apocalypse was a localized phenomenon and tourists are still welcome. This accomplishment alone, however, is probably enough to make Dhalgren a good, if not great, work of science fiction.
While still on the subject of sex and sexuality in Dhalgren, I would be remiss not to discuss Delany's depiction of homosexuality and bisexuality in characters like Tak and the Kid himself. I'm aware, intellectually, that this book is in many ways a reaction to the cultural movements of the 1960s. But I wasn't alive then, and I won't pretend that I understand any of that subtext. I'm not sure how the book's open portrayal of explicit homosexuality was taken in the 1970s. However, even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, in a country that is progressive enough to have legalized same-sex marriage, the scenes from Dhalgren are still the sort of thing more common in a very specific subset of erotica than in mainstream literature or even in science fiction. We're getting better at representing homosexual relationships in our media, but we've still a long way to go. So I have to give Delany kudos for his casual-yet-integral depictions of homosexuality and bisexuality in Dhalgren. There is no way this book would be the same without it: not only do these depictions augment Delany's exploration of what it means to deviate from social norms, but they are essential aspects of some of the most important characters, such as the Kid. His ruminations on his identity, which includes his sexuality and the degree to which he is attracted to men or to women, are a crucial part of Dhalgren. In fact, one might say that the entire book is about Kid's attempts to piece himself together, to recall his name and retrieve the parts of his identity that have eluded him. His time in Bellona, which is filled with a series of successive events that don't necessarily have a connecting plot driving them, is a vehicle for that exploration of self.
I think that is true for everything in this book. I didn't like all of it, but there is nothing I would change. I cannot envision how to alter this book yet retain the effect it has on the reader. Dhalgren is "great" in the sense that it is challenging, thought-provoking, and memorable. It is defiant, because it does not conform to our conventional expectations of literature and of the novel form. For that reason, I think it's a little prickly: I cannot warm up to it as much as I can to, say, Dune. Yet I most emphatically dispute that it is trash of any kind. Dhalgren is an authentic and honest effort by Delany, and now I finally know what all the fuss is about.
It's a little bit mindblowing. And very, very weird. Ultimately, it's a valuable reminder of a fact that's true for a lot of science fiction: a book doesn't have to be good to be great; and you don't have to like great fiction to appreciate its genius.
Nobody prepared me for Dhalgren.
I began it with few preconceptions. The back cover copy of my very old Bantam paperback edition is extremely cryptic and unhelpful (and, in fact, not all that accurate). So I had this idea that it was about some kind of post-apocalyptic city, and that was it. A couple of visits to the book's Wikipedia article later, I finally understood the situation into which I had gotten myself. According to the article, "Critical reaction to Dhalgren has ranged from high praise (both inside and outside the science fiction community) to extreme dislike (mostly within the community)." That last parenthetical is accompanied by the dreaded "citation needed" note, so I don't know how reliable it is. From my experience with Dhalgren, however, I would understand if it is true. The conventions that would identify it as science fiction are covert, obscured—yet I cannot imagine any other label that better describes this book.
I am indebted to Dhalgren, because it is one of those books that challenge me as a reader. By challenge, I do not just refer to the effort required to read and comprehend the story itself. I mean that Dhalgren challenges how I approach reading and literature and my biases toward form and genre. This is a polarizing book that has earned high praise from some renowned authors, such as William Gibson, and nothing but vitriol from others, like Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick. It is simultaneously considered a sublime, transcendent work of literature and a piece of trash that is impossible to enjoy or take seriously. And so it calls into question the verity and integrity of the entire novel form. Why is a black square painted by me worthless while one painted by Kazimir Malevich is worth millions? What makes art good, and what makes some crap crap and other crap "transcendent"?
Sometimes I worry I come off as a bit of a book snob. I read Umberto Eco, and worse, I write lengthy, gushing reviews about his books. I trash talk Dan Brown (but who doesn't?) and Stephenie Meyer. But really, I'm not that far gone: I might write reviews, but not for literary criticism journals; and so far, I have felt no desire to read anything by Thomas Mann. There is hope for me yet!
If I were a book snob, I would probably have to write some sort of encomium for Dhalgren that reiterates the views of those like Gibson. Fortunately I can dodge that bullet and confess that I didn't enjoy Dhalgren. I'm still glad I read it, because I am a better person for it, and it is worth reading. The actual act of reading it, however, was onerous. I pushed through it, because I wanted to finish it and because Delany has earned enough respect from me as an author to deserve some faith from me as a reader. And there are parts of this book that are jaw-droppingly awesome. There are moments when everything the narrator is saying just clicks into place and makes perfect sense. It is as if the clouds in the perpetually-overcast city of Bellona have parted to display not one but two moons: there are brief glimpses of lucidity amid this happy madness.
Unfortunately, most of the book is just confusing. I'm aware that this is the point and the purpose, and better people than me have read and will read this book and find more meaning than I dare to dredge from its pages. Alas, I like my prose concise and easy to comprehend. I am a fan of sublimity from simplicity, though I'm aware that it's possible to obtain through other methods. Mostly though, I just had a difficult time following the thread of a scene, let alone the entirety of the story.
The best thing about Dhalgren, in my opinion, is its meta-commentary about the nature of writing and literature. The main character, the Kid, finds a notebook that contains the text of this novel. And then later it turns out he writes it, or wrote it. But for most of the story, he uses the blank pages to scribble poems, which then get published by Bellona's newspaper editor. So Kid becomes a bit of an overnight celebrity, and everyone is reading his poetry for lack of any better reading material in the city. But Kid isn't sure he's done anything worth reading, isn't sure if he's an artist at all or just a hack. He receives mentoring from an established poet who is just visiting Bellona, and everyone around him provides advice as well. I suppose it's possible to consider the characters sort of Jungian archetypes of the Kid's subconscious. It is an explanation that makes as much sense as any other that tries to undermine the fundamental incoherence of Delany's narrative.
The depiction of race, gender, and sexuality in Dhalgren is also worth at least one person's undergraduate thesis. A great deal of this book is given over to explicit sex. Bellona is, in a twisted and ironic way, a post-scarcity society: no one needs money, because no one is really in a position to sell goods or services. With so much of the city abandoned, empty houses and stores have items for the taking, and one can move anywhere one wants. Moreover, thanks to the timey-wimey wibbley-wobbliness of the city, a store that one ransacks one day might be full and untouched two days later, just as a building that burnt to the ground last night might be restored, unscathed, the next morning. This post-scarcity economy juxtaposed with an environment that radiates unspeakable social poverty has the predictable effect on the inhabitants of the city: everyone is in a kind of dream world, in a holding pattern. Nothing and no one change, because if they did, it would mean admitting that their world is broken.
In this post-scarcity society, however, there is still one valuable commodity: sex. There are few enough people in Bellona, but there is an endless variety of relationships, from monogamous marriages (the Richards) to polyamory (Kid, Lanya, and Denny) to a weird kind of cat-and-mouse game (George Harrison and June Richards). And regardless of who's doing it, there is lots of sex, all the time. Literally, I doubt more than ten pages will go by without someone talking about or engaging in intercourse. Because beneath the fragile veneer of civilization, it's clear that the conventional norms have broken down, and a new system of mores has arisen in their place. Delany has created a brand new society between these pages. It's post-apocalyptic, although the apocalypse was a localized phenomenon and tourists are still welcome. This accomplishment alone, however, is probably enough to make Dhalgren a good, if not great, work of science fiction.
While still on the subject of sex and sexuality in Dhalgren, I would be remiss not to discuss Delany's depiction of homosexuality and bisexuality in characters like Tak and the Kid himself. I'm aware, intellectually, that this book is in many ways a reaction to the cultural movements of the 1960s. But I wasn't alive then, and I won't pretend that I understand any of that subtext. I'm not sure how the book's open portrayal of explicit homosexuality was taken in the 1970s. However, even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, in a country that is progressive enough to have legalized same-sex marriage, the scenes from Dhalgren are still the sort of thing more common in a very specific subset of erotica than in mainstream literature or even in science fiction. We're getting better at representing homosexual relationships in our media, but we've still a long way to go. So I have to give Delany kudos for his casual-yet-integral depictions of homosexuality and bisexuality in Dhalgren. There is no way this book would be the same without it: not only do these depictions augment Delany's exploration of what it means to deviate from social norms, but they are essential aspects of some of the most important characters, such as the Kid. His ruminations on his identity, which includes his sexuality and the degree to which he is attracted to men or to women, are a crucial part of Dhalgren. In fact, one might say that the entire book is about Kid's attempts to piece himself together, to recall his name and retrieve the parts of his identity that have eluded him. His time in Bellona, which is filled with a series of successive events that don't necessarily have a connecting plot driving them, is a vehicle for that exploration of self.
I think that is true for everything in this book. I didn't like all of it, but there is nothing I would change. I cannot envision how to alter this book yet retain the effect it has on the reader. Dhalgren is "great" in the sense that it is challenging, thought-provoking, and memorable. It is defiant, because it does not conform to our conventional expectations of literature and of the novel form. For that reason, I think it's a little prickly: I cannot warm up to it as much as I can to, say, Dune. Yet I most emphatically dispute that it is trash of any kind. Dhalgren is an authentic and honest effort by Delany, and now I finally know what all the fuss is about.
It's a little bit mindblowing. And very, very weird. Ultimately, it's a valuable reminder of a fact that's true for a lot of science fiction: a book doesn't have to be good to be great; and you don't have to like great fiction to appreciate its genius.