OCT - Oryx and Crake

October review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, 2003. [Man Booker Prize Shortlist category]

I'm not even sure how to start writing about Oryx and Crake. It is a strange book, not that I expected anything less from Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale has long held a spot atop my list of favorite feminist fiction, and I've been interested to see what else Atwood can do. Oryx and Crake has been described as post-apocalyptic, speculative fiction, adventure romance, and a number of other things, and it is the idea of "speculative fiction" that I think I got hung up on the most. Atwood has a way of resonating even today; I re-read Handmaid's Tale during the Obama-Romney election of 2012 and it was chilling in the context of the reproductive rights fight. Reading Oryx and Crake and then thinking about it in these post-election weeks (yes, super late review) was chilling in a different way. In this dystopia, science is paramount and genetic engineering rules (ruled) the world. The narrator, Snowman, is ostensibly the only human of his kind left as he relates his life and the catastrophe that brought him to this moment, living mostly in a tree and acting as a sort of half-assed prophet to the newly synthesized Children of Crake. He tells of his old friend whom he refers to as Crake, how he climbed the scientific ladder at a genetics corporation and created these new beings devoid of emotion and sexual drive. The possibility of this future is not necessarily what chills, instead it is the possibility of its decline under the next presidency. Science may not be on the top of the agenda in Trump's America and while we may avoid bringing about Oryx and Crake, we may be on the precipice of a dystopia of another kind. 

At any rate, back to the narrative. The most controversial aspect of Snowman's tale is the genetic engineering, the idea of "playing God," and "how much is too much, how far is too far?" (p206).  The truth is that most of today's technology could fall under the scope of "playing God" in some indirect manner or another, from modern medicine to weather apps, and but the "how far is too far" is quite apropos, placing the impetus on the individual. After all, "God is a cluster of neurons, he'd maintained," Snowman says of Crake's philosophy. "The whole world is now one vast uncontrolled experiment." (p228) What is the future without innovation and drive?

Snowman/Jimmy often talks about his love of language, how early on he had collected old words, "He developed a strangely tender feeling towards such words, as if they were children abandoned in the woods and it was his duty to rescue them." (p195) One of my favorite parts of the book, when I felt the most aligned with the narrator, who spent a portion of his post-graduate life as a glorified copywriter for a drug company, fomenting the change in lifestyle brought about with science as paramount. It is a slight nod to the future we find Snowman in, the last of his kind, trying to remember the names of everyday objects to keep himself sane, forcing himself to "Hang on to the words... When they're gone out of his head... they'll be gone, everywhere, for ever. As if they had never existed." I am hoping to collect such words, such books, to keep them for myself and for posterity.

I am unsure how to end this post, or what it was even about in the first place, but that is pretty much how I felt when I finished Oryx and Crake, so I guess it's in keeping with the narrative.

SEPT - The Underground Girls of Kabul

September review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg, 2014. [Investigative Journalism category]

Once upon a time, investigative journalism was something that I was very interested in pursuing as a career path. The most salient definition of "investigative journalism" that I could find during my search for a book of this genre delineated it as, "a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest to shed light on a specific issue, such as crime or social justice." For Jenny Nordberg, that specific issue is the bacha posh. Nordberg's book The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan examines the bacha posh, a phrase translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy" that is used as sort of a blanket term for the phenomenon of girls being disguised as boys in Afghanistan. (I use the passive voice here because it is generally not a decision made by the girls themselves, although there are exceptions. Usually the decision is made by the parents who have not borne a male heir and desire the social stability and visibility granted by having a male child.) Nordberg paints a compelling portrait of a number of these bacha posh who have undergone--and maintained--the disguise for varied reasons, shining a light into a heretofore unexamined corner of Afghan culture. 

I was immediately intrigued by this study, but I couldn't help a niggling discomfort that underscored my intrigue: what rights does Nordberg have to tell this story? This is, ostensibly, a tender subject and practice in a society that is notably difficult for girlhood, and I was uncomfortable with the author's insertion of herself into the issue. But early on, Nordberg establishes that her primary subject, a parliamentarian named Azita who chose the bacha posh life for her daughter, has given permission to tell her story (p25), saying "It could be interesting for people. This is the reality of Afghanistan." Nordberg, a Swedish journalist, broke the story to the New York Times in 2010 and spent years developing personal accounts and researching cultural and historical aspects of this practice. Her book lays out a number of different bacha posh experiences, probing the question of whether bacha posh exists as a kind of third gender or if it challenges the idea of a gender binary altogether--personally I wish more space had been given to this particular discussion, as it stands it is only brought up toward the end of the book through Zahra, a teenage bacha posh who is resistant to returning to her "girl state," but I suppose there is only so much one can ask from a broad investigative text. 

One section that resonated me in particular was Nader's story, a bacha posh who has continued the lifestyle into adulthood, who now runs what amounts to a literal underground meeting of like-minded individuals, practicing tae kwon do and "her own brand of organized resistance" (p217). When asked about the importance of her athletic endeavor, Nader replies about subversion and controversy, but also notes the following: 

"But it is also because when we use our bodies, we do not feel weak anymore. When a girl feels the strength of her body, she knows she can do other things, too." (p217)

Realizing one's own strength is especially poignant for me as a woman who has come into her own through the discovery of roller derby and commitment to a lifting regime, a woman who has learned how to use her body, albeit in a safer space than the tumultuous social landscape that is womanhood in a Middle Eastern society.  I recognize that any attempt I make to identify with this story is paltry in terms of privilege and social histories, but it is a small thing that I can build upon, some small measure of connection that feels important in the current climate.

AUG - My Lady Jane

August review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, 2016. [YA Historical Fiction category]

I have long been fascinated with the Tudor era in English history. I read all that I could about the wives of Henry VIII and as many other historical figures as I could find, but for whatever reason, Jane Grey never really surfaced. Maybe because her reign was so short--they call her the Nine-Day Queen--she hasn't been given much page time, but I was thrilled to find My Lady Jane, which is a historical retelling of her reign, with a little fantasy sprinkled in. The salient change in this universe is the existence of beings known as E∂ians (pronounced eth-y-un), or people who have the ability to shape-shift into an animal. Namely, King Henry VIII, who turned into a lion and ate a court jester once, provoking the phrase "don't eat the messenger," according to the storytellers. The premise of My Lady Jane is this: 16-year-old King Edward is dying and must find a successor, and he lands on his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who he decides will be married to Gifford Dudley, son of Edward's most trusted advisor. Gifford, often referred to as "G," is an E∂ian who becomes a horse whenever the sun crests the horizon, a change that he cannot help or control in any way. Jane does not want to be married, let alone be queen, so once Edward is declared dead (spoiler alert: in this version he actually is not dead!) she has a slight crisis. The book is divided into two parts, Part One, "in which we revise a bit of history," and Part Two, "in which we throw history out the window." Part Two expands upon the conspiracy to (poison and) overthrow Edward and details the E∂ian rebellion that helps Edward take back the throne.

One of the most enjoyable things about this book, I think, was the self-aware storytelling. The prologue sees the three authors establish themselves as the weavers of this tale, referring to themselves often and inserting sly commentary throughout the relation of the tale. A few notable examples are the nods to popular culture at the time, such as having G (who is a closet writer) muck up the composition of some famous Shakespeare lines and then slyly nodding to the conspiracy theory that he would actually become the man behind Shakespeare (p489). The cavalier way the Lady Janes (as the authors appellate themselves) deal with history and consistently acknowledge this attitude keeps the tone of the book light, and it helps the reader to have as much fun with it as the writers clearly are having.

Obviously Lady Jane is my favorite character in the book. She is presented as somewhat of a mystery, nose always buried in a book (sound familiar?) rather than engaging with the court around her. My favorite little detail, however, is her synonym habit. When she learns of her fiancé-to-be, that he is purportedly a ladies' man, she thinks,

"So. Her husband-to-be was a philanderer. A smooth operator. A debaucher. A rake. A frisker. (Jane became something of a walking thesaurus when she was upset, a side effect of too much reading.)" (p35)

Although I disagree on principle with the idea of "too much reading" (is there such a thing??), I really appreciated the commitment to Jane's synonyms throughout the book. Again, there were moments where she would acknowledge she was doing it and the narrators would essentially come in and say that it was ok, it was what made her Jane.

JUL - The Mechanical

July review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis, 2015. [Steampunk Sci-Fi category]

July's choice for the ERC is The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis, the first in his new Alchemy Wars series. There were plenty of options for steampunk sci-fi, but something about The Mechanical struck me as different. The concept behind The Mechanical is one that is familiar, ever since the revelation of Asimov's I, Robot: that of robot sentience and self-awareness. Set in an alternative universe where Dutch scientist Christiaan Hyugens invented a magic-imbued clockwork automaton for use in the Dutch army, revolutionizing the technological advancement of the era, as well as the tenuous link between the Dutch and the French. 300 years after this discovery, the Dutch Empire has incorporated these mechanicals into every fiber of their society. Jax is a servitor mechanical, known colloquially as a Clakker in the jargon of the text, which is a mechanical man bound by something called a geas, an intrinsic set of rules and requirements the mechanicals are physically incapable of disobeying. The story opens with Jax on a mission from his owners, taking a painful break to watch some heretics being hanged, including a rogue Clakker. Jax watches as his compatriot declares his freedom from the geasa, and it is a beautiful juxtaposition of the nearly incapacitating strictures of the geasa under which Jax still labors and the apparent free will and self-actualization of the rogue Clakker who staunchly meets his unmaking. It is established from the back cover blurb that Jax would at some point become such a rogue, and it is part of our journey as readers to watch this unfold. 

One of the most salient threads throughout The Mechanical is the discussion of the soul and what it means to have Free Will. Jax's errand to begin the our story is to visit Pastor Vissor, who is, unbeknownst to him, a secret French Catholic and therefore heretical member of the underground revolution. I will give fair warning that after this paragraph there will be slight SPOILERS, so read on if you dare. The thread becomes even more tangled when Jax and Visser meet again toward the end of the book, after Jax has been freed of the geasa and possesses his own Free Will. The snarl is that Visser was captured in his attempt to elude the authorities and was forced to undergo an experimental procedure that imbued him, a human being, with the painful and unbreakable geasa. So, the next time they meet, their roles in the narrative have essentially been reversed, and Jax spends a good amount of time pondering how their respective "souls" change throughout the text:

"This shell before him wore the flesh of Pastor Luuk Visser. But its soul, if it had a soul, had changed. This man-shaped thing before him was something twisted." (p346)

At earlier places in the text, references are made to Jax being human-shaped, so this is an especially striking comparison of Visser's change. The line between human and machine is blurred, as is the heretofore-apparent characteristics separating one from another.

This dichotomy is dealt with in many different and subtle ways throughout the text, proving that Tregillis is truly emerging as one of the top new voices of his genre. His writing style is eloquent and practiced, and his vocabulary is to die for. Tregillis is so deft with his perspective shifts: it is as simple as changing the pronouns used in reference to Clakkers depending upon who is speaking. For example, at one point when Jax is freed from the geasa, he meets a high-ranking but disgraced member of the French resistance who has different views on Clakkers than most of Dutch society, but still sees them as not entirely citizenry. As Tregillis shifted perspectives between Jax and this revolutionary, the pronouns used to describe Jax shifted from he/him to it almost imperceptibly and I loved it. 

JUN - The Secret of Lost Things

June review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay, 2007. [Book about Books category]

Picking a book about books is possibly the hardest category I've had to do. I only landed on The Secret of Lost Things really because I was down to the wire--past the wire, really--and it was on my To Be Read bookshelf and it seemed perfect. I have difficulty with decisions, ok? As has often happened with this challenge, this book found me exactly when I needed it: The Secret of Lost Things is about a girl who recently lost her mother and packs her life up to move from Tasmania to New York to try to find her way on her own and ends up employed at a strange and labyrinthine book emporium named The Arcade.

Rosemary Savage is young and naive and she makes a lot of mistakes by the end, but she is unabashedly trying to find her place in the world. She works hard for what she wants, even if those things are a little misguided, but she is pretty sublimely unapologetic for most of her decisions. She has experienced such loss, loss of her mother and her home and her country, and she cuts herself loose from the tenuous links she has after that loss to move forward. She is shoved forward by her friend and mother-surrogate Chaps, who buys her plane ticket, but once there she pushes forward on her own. Rosemary creates her own space, makes herself a new home all her own in a little run-down apartment, something that I have been working on for the past few months, making my space my home again after all the shifting I've undergone. Rosemary's description of her new apartment struck me, the timbre of it, talking about surrounding yourself with small things that make you smile to foment an aura of homeliness.

Books about books are possibly some of my favorite books to read. The Shadow of the Wind is one of my all-time favorite books and Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore rocketed to the top of the list as well when I found it a few years ago. I could list all my favorite books about books forever and still have more to talk about. The Secret of Lost Things does fall into this beloved category, and I enjoyed it, but I don't think it will be joining the ranks of my favorites. It had all the makings of a favorite, but somehow failed to deliver.  Being a coming-of-age story as well at heart, it makes sense that not everything was resolved or defined at the end (I did like that parallel), but I thought I'd signed up for a literary mystery and I was left lacking and a little disconcerted at the end. I did love learning about Melville and the possibility of a lost story, and I was excited to do a little research of my own on the matter, but I was left wanting more. I suppose that isn't the worst way to be left at the end of a book, and I am going to funnel that wanting into my To Be Read pile, and thank The Secret of Lost Things for what it gave me when I needed it.

MAY - Station Eleven

May review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 2014. [Disaster Fiction category]

When I read Station Eleven walking home from work one day, a girl passed me running the other direction. As she came abreast of me, she called, "Is that book any good? I want to read it!" She turned her head as she ran past for my answer, and I turned to walk backwards and call back to her that I loved it so far. Station Eleven elicited many such interactions with both friends and strangers whilst I read it, and it is one that I am looking forward to discussing. It is a book that makes you think, makes you imagine, makes you connect. My derby sister, Emilie, bought it for me for my birthday, one in a kick of post-apocalypse books she's devoured lately. I figured that a freak plague-driven-apocalypse certainly counted as disaster fiction, and hungrily added it to my Eclectic Reader list. {I will note that it's possible there are spoilers in this post, but it's hard to write about it without because the book offers its own spoilers as it moves from time to time, so it's not my fault this time!}

Station Eleven is about a lot of things. It is about a lot of times. The gist is that there was an inexplicable plague that sprang up and killed a significant chunk of the population, and the book bounces around between the night it began, the years before, and Years Since. There are a number of characters who serve as constellation points whose connections slowly come into focus as the story moves--well, not forward, due to the non-linear scattered-jigsaw way it is written, and it reminded me of Jennifer Egan's masterpiece A Visit From The Goon Squad in that way. I even drew up a character connections map, like I did for Goon Squad! (Yes, I'm a nerd, we all know this already.) The first thing Emilie asked me when I told her I'd finished was who my favorite character was, a surprisingly hard question! The two frontrunners were obviously Miranda, the shipping mogul ex-wife of an actor, and Kirsten, and the traveling actor survivalist, respectively. After much consideration, I think I rank Miranda as my #1, not solely because she was the author of the titular Station Eleven comic, but also because she epitomizes getting knocked down and standing back up again stronger--even if it means eventually ending up alone on a Malaysian beach at the end of the world wondering if that is all. I do love Kirsten, of course, as she is a survivor with a Star Trek tattoo ("Survival is Insufficient") and a player in the Shakespeare traveling theater company, but there was a way that she felt too distant from me for me to really mark her as my favorite. 

I think the reason this book resonated so much with me in the same way that Goon Squad  did is that it is primarily about people. The resilience of human souls when faced with the utter unknown, and how their failings and successes are equally important. I have been thinking a lot about resilience lately, albeit on a smaller scale than fight-or-flight having to survive a world-ending flu, and it is stories like this that remind me of how simple and beautiful resilience can be. Stories like this that remind me that I'm ok, and that I too can find and share and tell stories that will make others feel that they are ok, too. 

APR - Mad, Bad & Sad

April review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: Mad, Bad & Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors by Lisa Appignaensi, 2009. [Psychology (non-fiction) category]

My selection for Psychology (non-fiction) was Mad, Bad & Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors, a book about the last two hundred years' worth of "extreme states of mind" in women. It chronicled the way women have been diagnosed over the years and evaluated the gradual shift in societal perspectives on these unusual women. Beginning in the 1800s, Mad, Bad & Sad tracks the inception of female mental illness and institutionalization as a sort of storage term to remove unruly women from their families purview. There is a lot of name-dropping, making sure to cover the "greats" like Sylvia Plath and Marilyn Monroe and Zelda Fitzgerald, and it is here that the tone of the book seems to shift, organizing itself more around these cases rather than the societal views that the beginning of the book dealt with. The book was written in 2009, so there is a bit of a contemporary gap that I would be very interested in seeing Appignanensi deal with, but alas. 

I have long been enamored of both Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, two tragic writer women who figured prominently in the more contemporary chapters of this book. I cannot say exactly what it is that draws me to these women--it is surely not any sort of personal connection to such oceans of sadness or dejected kinship, other than my love of words and the way these women used them. (This is not to say that I have never been Sad with a capital S, I suppose, but it is not the primary focus of my love for these writers--I do not love them because they ended their lives in tragedy, I guess is what I'm trying to say.) I was introduced to both women in high school, under the tutelage one of my favorite teachers, my AP Lit teacher Mrs. Culver. Virginia intrigued me because of her breakthrough stream-of-consciousness style, one that I tried to emulate in my journal for so many years. Sylvia's rawness in poetry electrified me, and The Bell Jar made me wonder about what my future held, as a senior in high school on the cusp of The Real World. It has been said that all the great artists are great because they have experienced sadness and pain in a way that rips through their art, and these two women certainly felt their share of sadness. The lapis-colored lens of their lives has more than once prompted me to look at my own experiences and be grateful that I have never been that Sad, but it has also showed me the ways in which such Sadness is relative, a fact that I was reminded of reading this book. 

My overall feelings about the book were those of intellectual intrigue. It was a long haul, and I trekked with this book to Italy and back, reading a little bit every day, whenever I could. It was thick with information, facts and anecdotes and tidbits, not always easily consumable in short bursts (sometimes I had to re-read), but I did my best.  I liked the way it moved through history, moving through different women and diagnoses. I wanted to be a history major for a time, but I had trouble in history classes; memorizing names and dates and disparate facts has never been how my brain processes information, so in a way, Mad, Bad & Sad humanized the history for me, presented me with fully-fleshed stories rather than bare-bones timelines. I am sure I should read this book again in order to retain the plethora of information that I was presented, as I must do with most dense information of this nature, and I look forward to it. 

Mental Toughness and Roller Derby

A few weeks back, I had a really terrible scrimmage night. I was trying new things every jam but none of them were working, and I felt like I was in the penalty box more than I was on the track. I couldn't shake anything off, couldn't leave any jam behind. Each trip around the ref lane piled on the next until I almost burst, snapping at the three different NSOs who told me I was soon to foul out of scrimmage. I couldn't let it go, and every time I took the track again after leaving the sin bin, I came in too hot, guns blazing, something to prove, which inevitably landed me right back where I started for another sit-down.

Everybody knows that everybody has bad days. You know it, but that doesn't always mean you can convince yourself of it in the midst of one, especially if you are prone to anxiety and overthinking like I am. It takes a certain skill set to be able to take a deep breath and evaluate what is making you feel bad in the moment, rather than later after a shower and a beer and some time apart. That skill set has often been referred to as "mental toughness," or the ability to roll with the punches when your brain gets to kicking its own ass.

Roller derby has taught me how to translate this mental toughness into the way I deal with problems or all-around just shitty days in my everyday life. Mental toughness is something athletes talk about a lot, not just in roller derby. My team has recently passed around a copy of Mind Gym to that effect, a book about inner excellence in athletics. This season, I’ve been trying to figure out what it means to be on the teams that I’m on, and how to find my next steps in my derby career. One of the ways I’ve been trying to do that is by assessing what derby has taught me so far. Roller derby has taught me that you can do anything for two minutes. And then on to the next two minutes. Roller derby has taught me that when that whistle blows, either to start or to end the jam, everything else can (and should) fall away. Roller derby has taught me how to recenter myself in the midst of the chaos, because in gameplay you can't escape for a few quiet breaths alone in the bathroom--unless, of course it is halftime, in which case you should absolutely take advantage of that opportunity.

One of the final parts of mental toughness that I've picked up through roller derby is the idea of the zen bench. In derby, it's the concept that when you're getting ready to play your next jam, you probably shouldn't watch the game or let yourself get riled up about it. Focus inward, take a deep breath, and plan some small thing that you yourself want to do in the next jam. This is much easier said than done, of course, but roller derby has taught me that it is ok for things to be hard, and for you not to be great at things that are easy to say. Because at the end of the day, mental toughness isn’t about being tough all the time. It’s about the reset. And you can do anything for two minutes, especially if you learn how to reset yourself.

#20/30 - 2016

They say

good things hide in the quiet

but pain lingers there too

lurks larger

shadows bold and writ large

under your silent eyes

#21/30 - 2016

I brought an umbrella today

but it hangs limp

unopened 

at my side at this bus stop

as I let my face feel the pelting

of the bullet rain

sweetly stinging

#22/30 - 2016

Tina Turner is not pump-up music. 

And yet--

belting along

time after time 

verse after verse,

I feel calm enough to take this game

this beating. 

I may not make it around the track

Time after time, 

but I know I'll get up

time 

after

time

#19/30 - 2016

I did three chin-ups this morning.
Strange to think
something so small
can be such a milestone.
Three times
through the strength of my arms alone
I have pulled my body up.
Three times
through the force of my muscles
I have raised myself high.
Three times
through the power of my determination,
I have broken through.
I am strong.
I am athletic.
I am revolutionary.

#18/30 - 2016

I have a list in my head
of words left unsaid.
It has been rewritten
time and again,
but never made it past
the red-penned gates of my lips.
So I stay quiet
and edit
and watch

#17/30 - 2016

beer garden sunshine
reflecting off the pints,
golden amber mahogany liquid
heat rising to my cheeks

#16/30 - 2016

Sometimes
all you need is to cuddle in the back seat of a pickup truck
your friend's arms around you
one hand smoothing your hair
the other giving your shoulder a squeeze every once in a while
to remind you
you're not alone

#15/30 - 2016

Ink

You can tell a lot about a human
by the books on their shelf
and now mine
are inked in my flesh.
My skin is made into a canvas
one that I hope will never again be blank
and fresh
and clean
because its marks mean something
They mean everything

#14/30 - 2016

Retrospect
is an interesting thing.
Sometimes
you forget things that you thought
you would always remember
the tasted of things
the way they breathed
and it is all you can do
to hold on

#13/30 - 2016

Mental toughness
is an ever-evolving skill
a tool to be honed
every time you lace up your skates
sometimes, a night hits you
off-kilter
and you have to have a sit-down
over and over
until your voice cracks
and deep breaths don't fix it

These are the nights to remember
that breath alone cannot patch you
sometimes you must push at the cracks
even though they may shatter
because even if they do
you will still be standing

#12/30 - 2016

Sometimes change can come
in a rectangle of amethyst purple
just the right shade
just the right time
just enough of something new
to kick-
start

#11/30 - 2016

Is there a word for
what I don't want to
can't ask
Am I so numb
that I have lost
even my words?

#10/30 - 2016

Enveloped in white cloudy blanket
blanket nest
of my own design
slipping
back and forth from dreams to
waking
the lowering of a lid
the choice to shut out the
world
for a little bit
longer

#9/30 - 2016

Early rising Saturday
calls for
a few hours of some hard-core
adulting
washing the bed linens
pine-sol the floor
clear off the surfaces that have gathered
more than dust--
papers you'll use for art someday,
found bobby pins soon to be lost once more,
that magazine you keep meaning to read.
Take a deep breath
Take a step back
and get rid of that shit

#8/30 - 2016

Forecast
for the weekend:
freezing rain and snow.
Isn't it supposed to be April?
April showers bring
May flowers,
or so the saying goes,
but I don't think snow showers
were quite what the bards
had in mind.
Forecast
for the weekend:
blanket nest and books.

MAR - Somewhere In Time

March review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: Somewhere In Time by Richard Matheson, 1980. [Paranormal Romance category]

Warning: This book is fuuuuuull of angst. Such angst. And I read it while I was going through some pretty heavy angst of my own, so I will most likely keep this post relatively short for fear of inundating you all with my feels.

So, the basics. Somewhere In Time is a story about Richard Collier, presented as his manuscript which was published posthumously by his brother, detailing his account of the last days of his life, wherein he falls in love with an actress popular at the turn of the last century, and subsequently traveled back in time to be with the love of his life, said actress Elise McKenna. It is a story of violent and unquestioning love and yearning, of the possibility of a love that can stretch across and shape time with its very forcefulness.

One interesting thing to note is the use of the frame story, of Richard Collier's brother publishing his manuscript. There is a foreword inserted, assuring the reader that this is almost exactly what Richard's manuscript was, although he has edited it in some spaces--and this editing comes through later. The brother's voice butts in, especially during the mantra section, where Richard describes his attempts to lull himself back to 1896 through repetitive writing/thought. For this beginning portion, and again at the end of the text, we are constantly reminded that this is most likely a delusion, and this engenders a certain skepticism in the reading--at least it did in me.

It is relatively self-aware, and/or postmodern, for example Richard addressing the way he is taking things down (through recorded dictation, hand-writing, etc). The writing of the text is part of the text itself. This lends itself to the idea that a love story is about the experience, the journey, the "how" rather than the happily ever after.

Themes of love and belief and death are all intertwined here, and messily. There is a rationalization of everything at the end, when his brother describes what probably happened rather than Richard actually traveling back through time. How is this rationalization supposed to make us feel about the story that came before? I was unsure what I believed about Richard Collier and his fantastic love story, whether the skeptic in me would beat out the hopeless romantic, and this uncertainty left me feeling rather unsatisfied at the end. After all, aren't love stories supposed to end with some degree of "happily ever after"? I have recently been trying to remember the phrase "everything will be ok in the end, and if it isn't, you're not to the end yet," and that sort of struck a chord with me in terms of how this book is sitting. I don't have any answers to any of this, granted, but I'd like to believe his story, in the end.

#7/30 - 2016

It is 11:23pm
and I have an uncontrollable urge
for pancakes.
It's just
the making of the pancakes
that is not attractive to me.
It's just
the mixing and the constant monitoring
the consistency checking that
inevitably ends up
with far too much batter
and far too much time
over a hot griddle.
It is 11:24pm
and I can feel my stomach turn over
growling for pancakes
golden and thick and reminiscent
of mornings
mornings that range in intimacy
a stack of pancakes can mean
many things,
you see.
It is 11:26pm
and I am caught in the flames
of remembering pancakes past
too paralyzed
with hunger and angst
to consider
pancakes present

#6/30 - 2016

Ever notice
that the songs that get stuck in your head
are the ones
you do not
actively
learn
lyrics
to
?
They are the ones
that sneak in
the SBDs
the ear worms
that somehow show up
fully formed
when you're trying to hum
that Robyn song you like

#5/30 - 2016

You will still be beautiful tomorrow

and tomorrow

and tomorrow

For all the Tuesdays and Wednesdays

yet to come

because you are trying, love, and that

is all that matters  

#4/30 - 2016

we are not a species

meant to last

warning labels brushed by

like ticker tape at a finish line

so really, every single day is
a study in survival

#3/30 - 2016

I am here.
I exist.
Sometimes, with the rush and rumble
of the day-to-day
you can forget that.

Try to cultivate
a small voice inside you
to remind you
you are here.
You exist.
Keep going.

#2/30 - 2016

You helped me.
I remember.

Today I will remember
that feelings can come out sideways.
Mouths are sloppy, haphazard things,
not meant for precision work.
Teeth grip the syllables too long,
and some get left behind,
as yet too raw for consumption.
Sometimes feelings can come out
too big
they break the jaws that hold them back

leaving sharp edges to

cut and bloody

the ones that may come next. 

There's rosemary, she said, that's for 
remembrance
Pray you, love, remember--



and I do.

#1/30 - 2016

I've often been told
your body is a temple--
do not desecrate it.

over the years
I've learned to assuage those voices casually
to smile blandly and nod,
acknowledging their obvious concern for
what I do with my own body
and then continuing on my quest
to decorate.

to decorate
not desecrate
this body of mine is an empty room
a brand new apartment
one that I can paint
and adorn
and renovate
to my interior decorator's delight

FEB - The Island of Dr. Moreau

February review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, 1896. [Takes Place on an Island category]

The Island of Dr. Moreau is a classic, one I've been meaning to read for a long time. Thank you, Orphan Black, for giving me the final push! (Season 3 featured a secret encoded in a copy of this book by one of the scientists responsible for the clone experiments.) I'm not sure I really have much to say about The Island of Dr. Moreau, other than that it was a quick read that I enjoyed as well as felt a little off-put by. For those who are not familiar with this book, it is about a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who removes himself to a remote island after society discovers that he has been experimenting with something called vivisection, which is experimenting surgically on live animal subjects. The story is not told from his perspective, however, and he does not show up right away. Instead, we come to this island and experience its horrors through the eyes of a shipwrecked man named Prendick. Prendick is rescued by Montgomery, who is assisting with the delivery of a fresh crop of animals to his associate Moreau on their island, and through a number of mishaps, Prendick ends up joining the two men on the island as well, although he is not necessarily wanted. Prendick finds out what Moreau is doing on the island, following the anguished cries of animals to an off-limits lab where he conducts his vivisection experiments that he populates the island with. Everything pretty much goes downhill from there, although the real action only takes a few days, and the rest is just Prendick going slightly insane by himself on the island while he waits for a ship to pass by and pick him up.

After his experience, Prendick becomes somewhat of an island unto himself, a veritable social pariah, so paranoid and paralyzed is he by the things he has seen. I suppose anyone would be, after seeing both your living companions killed and the social experiment devolve into madness and violence and you have to survive it somehow. It is a bit hazy (to me; I could be remembering things incorrectly) how long Prendick spent on the island, but this seems very much in keeping with the island mentality, where time passes differently and the outside world has no hold on what comes to pass. Prendick spends much of the book yearning for the outside world, to escape the hellishness he is experiencing on the island, but when he finally re-enters society, he finds himself almost inclined to return to the solitude of his exile. This juxtaposition/reversal is one of many that Wells exploits in Prendick's tale.

H.G. Wells was lauded as a relatively prescient man, however extreme his version of the future might have been. Perhaps it is this prescience that allows his works, while clearly ensconced in the realm of science fiction, can still be so relevant today.

JAN - The Poet

January review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: The Poet by Michael Connelly, 1991. [Serial Killer Thriller category]

I started reading The Poet by Michael Connelly last year, originally intending it to be my selection for PI fiction, but I ended up putting it down because Jack McEvoy, the protagonist, is actually a reporter, and not a PI--although I suppose I could've argued a transference, I've made similar "edits" to categories before. But I was intrigued enough by the concept to want to find another opportunity for it to work for me, and lo and behold, here came "serial killer thriller" for me. Jack McEvoy is a crime reporter who specializes in death, covering the murder beat for his paper. His homicide detective twin brother was recently found dead in his car, having ostensibly killed himself after a particularly rough and unsolved case--or so it would seem. Going back over the facts obsessively, reopening old wounds and delving into a dark corner of his brother's work, McEvoy finds links to a number of other would-be cop suicides and is on the case, so to speak. After securing the assignment, he begins to follow the trail of a sinister serial killer whom the FBI nicknames The Poet, after his use of Edgar Allan Poe lines in the "suicides." The book follows McEvoy as he enmeshes himself into the federal pursuit of The Poet, utilizing his research and knowledge to propel the investigation as well as find the end to the story and justice for his brother.

One of the reasons I was excited about this book because of the Poe trope that was woven throughout, as I am a sucker for all things Poe, but unfortunately, Poe was not utilized as heavily as I wanted it to be. (But I was still happy that it was there.) I enjoyed the scenes where McEvoy sits with his copy of Poe's works and tries to find meaning in the deaths, try to link the words to some shred of wisdom or truth in the context of Poe. It was a very literary book, in that sense, paying much attention to the logic of meaning and outlining the path of detection. It was incredibly readable, despite being published 20 years ago, although there are dating elements, such as the revelation that digital photography was used representing a major break in the case. Not to mention, you know, print media moguls still being a thing. Ohhh mid-90s concerns.

One of the reasons I was not excited? Serial killers. Especially serial killers with surprise child pornography/pedophilia thrown in. This was not an easy book to read, especially considering the chapters narrated by a card-carrying child pornographer/murderer, William Gladden. At first, his chapters seem completely out of left field, but they soon begin to link up with the case--I am unsure if I was just actively ignoring him until the book slapped me in the face and told me they were connected, or it really wasn't that heavy-handed, but either way, I didn't see it right off the bat. I'm not sure what else to write about this aspect of the book, especially without giving away some of the twisty twists, but suffice it to say that it was an uncomfortable slog.

I  relished the presence of a strong lady in the book, FBI Special Agent Rachel Walling, the best of the best who clawed her way onto her team with her talent and badassery and is fiercely protective of her position there. Spoiler alert, she and McEvoy do sleep together, which is slightly annoying and maybe uncalled for, but I suppose it did add some elements of complication and tension to the case politics. But that's just it: was that the only reason they slept together? I don't know, maybe I'm jaded.

Although for the most part I enjoyed this book, I had a hard time getting started and writing this review, for whatever reason. Maybe it was the subject matter, maybe I just didn't find the little kernel to pull at me like I have in some of my other selections, but here I am, trucking through a month too late. Maybe I need to have an editor who yells at me to get my ass in gear, like McEvoy does--and then I could ignore him, like McEvoy does too!

Recap 2015: A Third Year of Eclectic Reading

Herein begins the ultra-tardy recap of my third year of eclectic reading, everybody! Thanks for stickin around! I've done this three times already, and it's thrilling to see that even though I'm late at times, I have finished it off every time. I have kept myself in school, so to speak, and this time I don't get docked points for papers turned in after the deadline! 2015 was a crazy year for me. I lost my job, spent a few months unemployed, found two jobs in quick succession, and spent the second half of the year settling into the one I chose, learning and growing and expanding my brain--not just because I was working for a neuroscience startup! I noticed that I read a lot of books that featured strong, real ladies this year (not much of a surprise, but always worth mentioning), as well as a number of books dealing with personal growth and change and what you wanted to be when you grew up (so to speak). Again, I warn of spoilers, because one cannot have adequate recaps or discussions without spoilers, so tread carefully, my friends!

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
January - diversity
The first book I chose for 2015 was one featuring diversity, The Secret Life of Bees, about a little white girl who runs away with her nanny and finds a home with three black sisters who have a secret connection to her late mother. I've always thought of diversity as an interesting concept in reading, being that it is so based in the reader's perception, so diversity has to be explicit or else readers will most likely fill in their own backgrounds for un-filled-in characters. This book was the first in the trend of strong, real ladies, not only myriad different female roles, but the ways in which they can shift and change as you age.

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lundqvist
February - set in a country starting with S, Sweden
Finally, I found a good creepy vampire story, one that I was actually loath to turn the light off on when I was done reading for the night! Let The Right One In played with the lore in ways that I hadn't seen before, and it was a genuinely creep-tastic read, which was thoroughly thrilling. This was a stark contrast to Bees, which showed you the hope and light within everyone, where Let The Right One In showcased the grimness and dankness inherent in much of human nature. An interesting juxtaposition, to say the least, but one that I very much enjoyed. Because after all, what is the light without its contrasting darkness?

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
March - YA Adventure
Graceling was a very easy read, complete with fabulous world-building and ridiculous naming mechanics, but it was overall a good strong girl exposure book. This book combined the threads I mentioned in my intro of strong ladies and what do you want to be when you grow up, being an incredibly heavy-handed coming-of-age story for Katsa, who is Graced (ostensibly) with killing, turned into a monster by a man who once claimed to be her family. She learns through her relationship with Po that her Grace may not actually be killing after all, that she's been looking at herself skewed for so long that that was just how it seemed. The possibility for good and change within her took some time and care to find, but she did, and she was able to save a little girl's life because of it.

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester 
April - microhistory
Nerd heaven! This is a microhistory of the Oxford English Dictionary, lovingly and colloquially referred to as the OED, and it describes the efforts of the men who created it many decades ago. As a word nerd, I harbor an undying love for the OED, and though it is technically nonfiction, I loved this book as a "profile" of it. It gives the reader a chance to see the OED almost as a character in and of itself, learning as you progress its history, its birth, its secrets.

Veronica Mars: Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
May - PI fiction
VMars! This is the second of the novelizations of Veronica Mars's life adventures upon her return to Neptune after the events of the Veronica Mars movie. The strongest of the strong ladies, one of my favorite role models, and although I read this one as a book and not an audiobook narrated by VMars herself (Kristen Bell) like the first, I could still feel her seeping through every word. Mr. Kiss and Tell dealt with heavy issues like the rape and murder of a call girl, and the intricacies of it made it one of my longest and most involved reviews of the year, one that I forced myself to cut short before I rewrote the whole book. Veronica Mars has always helped me to think about and champion the hard things, bringing the grit of life out into the open.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
June - contemporary romance
The Rosie Project was a different kind of story/character than I'm used to. I wasn't sure at first, but the pages kept turning! Simsion did a great job of making a character that I wasn't sure would be palatable hold my attention simply because the entire framework of his highly logical mind was laid out for me to follow like a roadmap, and I was fascinated. The biggest question I had reading this book, especially the end of it, was the idea of changing oneself and the difference between making a change for yourself or for someone else, and whether the latter was ever okay if it led to something that made you happier in yourself. Again, 2015 was a year of transition for me, and thoughts of personal growth/working on myself were never far away, and this book helped me see it from maybe a different point of view than I ever would've considered before, namely that of a borderline autistic middle class white Australian man.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
July - epistolary fiction (sort of)
This was sort of my cheat book for the year, only sort of epistolary; it was more like I wanted the book I was reading to work because it was the end of the month and I didn't have time to read another whole book, so I made it work. But it brought up some interesting questions because it didn't quite fit. Gone Girl is about a husband whose wife disappears with barely a trace on the morning of their wedding anniversary, and the first part of the book switches between his present and her diary recounting when they met. Now, SPOILERS--it is later found out that this diary, and really the whole disappearance, was a fabrication on the part of Amy, the wife. This brought up the incredibly interesting idea of the journal as reality but also as a constructed version of events. What is reality, really?

Mind Gym by Gary Mack with David Casstevens
August - sports
I read this for roller derby. Around this time, I was considering trying out for full B-team status, and I was having a lot of feelings about that. Leaving the team I'd started with after barely a whole season, possibly missing out on some opportunities with that team later in the season, but open to the possibilities that being a full member of the B-team would allow me, all these thoughts were spinning me around so much that I was changing my mind hourly about tryouts. I was recommended this book as a perspective on how to keep my head on straight through all of it, how to allow myself to improve and learn without berating myself for failures or perceived shortcomings, and while much of it was anecdotal, there were many portions that I still refer back to in my derby career. This book focused a lot on what is it that you want, and how are you going to help yourself go out and get it.

Eve by Elissa Elliott
September - retelling of a fairytale or myth
Eve: A Novel of the First Woman is just that, a book about the biblical Eve, told from her perspective as well as that of her (imaginary?) children. I love "historical fiction" like this--I use quotes because of the contentious nature of Eve as a historical character. It is a re-telling of the archetypical female character, the first female character, and I loved it because it allowed her to be flawed, to be fucked up and imperfect without taking all the blame for everything women have done ever, which she is so often forced to do.

The Martian by Andy Weir
October - SciFi in space
Funny! This book was very funny. Which was great, because I find space to be slightly terrifying, especially the concept of being trapped in space with no recourse or exit. Weir was knowledgeable enough and prepared enough that his tale was plausible, and only sort of terrifying, and the fact that so much shit went wrong over and over again and Mark Watney, the astronaut, still survived still made sense because space is hard.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
November - fiction for foodies
Fiction for foodies was such an overwhelming category, and there were actually a number of attractive books that I had already read, so I chose one that was on my to-read shelf. Framboise Simon is the narrator, and both her young self and her old self share the narration. It was another multi-faceted portrait of ladyhood, one that toyed with young and old, mother and daughter, and everything that goes along with.

Magic Kingdom for Sale--SOLD! by Terry Brooks 
December - published before 1991
Magic Kingdom was Terry Brooks's first book that wasn't set in the Shannara universe. It was easy/low fantasy read, about a man who bought a magic kingdom out of a catalog and realized he had to save it from ruin once he got there. It was a clever stab at a mid-life crisis, an overwrought lawyer being asked by the universe, What do you want out of life, how are you gonna find it/go get it? December always seems to be a time of transition, and it seemed fitting that I read this book when my job got pretty stressful and I started thinking about looking for another one. Sure, I probably won't be able to buy a magic kingdom to go and save (God knows I don't have a million bucks cash lying around to pay for it), but it begs the question, what exactly is it that I want moving forward? I'm about to hit my mid-twenties, the millenial quarter-life crisis looming, and I still haven't found my dream job. And I might not, but I should get myself out of the comfort rut and keep looking. Maybe there is a magic kingdom out there somewhere for me.

Time for final thoughts. I began my writing year with a promise to dedicating myself more to my writing, being on time with my posts, and here I am two months late with my recap. But I can't fault myself too much, because I am still writing, but I am also living, moreso than I think I ever have before, and once this headiness passes, I may be able to get my schedule under control once again. But for now, I'm going to keep reading, keep living, and hope I can get my things published in a sort of timely fashion. Stay tuned!

{Link to my 2014 recap  ~  Link to my 2013 recap }

DEC - Magic Kingdom For Sale--Sold!

December review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2015: Magic Kingdom For Sale--Sold! by Terry Brooks, 1986. [Published Before You Were Born category]

This is probably one of the most open-ended of categories, "published before you were born" (which for me is 1991), and that's possibly why I left it until the end of the year: I couldn't make a decision with all the possibilities that were given me. For a while, I toyed with the idea of going back to a classic, something I've chipped away at but never fully finished, but I ultimately decided to go with a quick, fun read and Magic Kingdom For Sale fit the bill. Magic Kingdom For Sale--Sold! by Terry Brooks is his first post-Shannara endeavor and one that cemented his status as a solid fantasy writer in the 1980s. It tells of Ben Holiday, a jaded widower and high-powered lawyer who is bored with his life when he comes across an advertisement in a Christmas catalog, promoting the sale of an honest-to-God magic kingdom for sale for the very low price of one million dollars. Unsurprisingly, Ben decides to take this strange offer, and very soon we are in the magical kingdom of Landover, where everything is pretty much dying and only slightly resembles the blossoming land that was promised.

We follow Ben on his journey from high-powered Chicago lawyer to bumbling king of a failing magical kingdom, and it seems that everywhere Ben turns, things are going to hell. His less-than-skilled court magician, Questor Thews, accidentally causes him to sleep away 7 of his 10 allotted decision-making days (he is allowed to back out with only a nominal fee within 10 days of acceptance of the mantle) and no one in the land is willing to recognize a new king. Something called The Tarnish is eating away at the kingdom, something Questor associates with the lack of a rightful and capable king. Ben has to try to secure the pledges of the various powers in the land, all the while attempting to convince them that he is worthy of their pledge as well. The cast of characters Ben accumulates over the course of his journey, both in his band of followers and in those he meets on his journey, are each unique enough to remember, but not entirely deep enough to have significant development or character arcs. Everyone stays pretty much the same, pretty much the way you knew they were going to be from the beginning, if that makes any sense. Rather, the character development is expected rather than organic. This is the way Ben and Questor must come to think because this is the way the story must end. And I am not saying this in a negative or derogatory kind of way: sometimes you just need to know where a character is going. As is to be expected, there is a point in Ben's quest where he has to go where everyone has spent the entire book telling him not to, and it is here that he truly understands the man he is supposed to be in order for this whole kingship thing to work. Like I said, relatively unsurprising, although entertaining.

Magic Kingdom was most definitely a "lighter fare" fantasy read, something I could dip into every night before bed or on the bus on my way to work without having to rebuild an elaborate world in my head prior to opening it up again. Brooks's prose style is very straightforward, very telling, although he is capable of quite the turn of phrase. It was an excellent choice to cap out the year, reading by the fire while the snow blew and all those winter cliches, and it was fun to see an early Terry Brooks try his hand at something smaller.

Eclectic Reader Challenge 2016

Year Number Three of the Eclectic Reader Challenge 2016!
Here are this year's categories:

Categories

1. A book about books (fiction or nonfiction)
2.  Serial killer thriller
3.  Paranormal romance
4.  A novel set on an island
5. Investigative journalism (non fiction)
6. Disaster fiction
7. Steampunk sci fi
8. Any book shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
9. Psychology (non fiction)
10. Immigrant Experience fiction
11. YA historical fiction
12. A debut author in 2016