Wed Reading Meme...
Mar. 2nd, 2016 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat[As an aside, the headline of the Daily News was rather humorous...it was sitting on a coffee table at work. Below the poll percentages for each of the Republican Presidential Candidates, (guess who was in the lead?) was the headline: "Sign of the Apocalypse?" (No, but possibly a sign of the end of the Republican Party and US politics as we know it.)
Talked to my mother, who has been reading the biography Hamilton, upon which the musical of the same name is currently based. She said that apparently they were just as nasty to each other back then as they are now. (Recently there was an article about how the Republican Candidates were acting like the characters in Mad Max: Fury Road. Personally, I think that's giving them too much credit. More like the characters in Heathers or Mean Girls.) At any rate, it's really no different now than it was back in the 1700s. Hamilton was pretty much hated by his peers - mainly because he wanted to do things that were "unpopular" at the time. And Thomas Jefferson comes across as a bit of a hypocrite in the book and a deluded idealist. Hamilton wanted a centralized government, banking system, industrialized economy, and abolish slavery. Jefferson wanted localized government, agricultural economy, and was ambivalent about slavery (scary but true, also he owned slaves, so there was that). My mother stated that after reading this, it's no surprise that we ended up with the Civil War - 100 years later. And it was definitely about slavery - that was a huge divining rod between the two factions. The problem was the Agricultural States depended on slavery as their workforce, while the Industrial States did not (or ahem, a different type of slavery, women and children worked for next to nothing, but Hamilton who had worked as a child saw that as no big deal and better than poverty. A job is better than no job, was his attitude. (It was also a step or two up from slavery.) Sort of similar to various Southerner's view that the slave workforce was taken care of in exchange for work. (Not exactly true, of course.) And their justification? There's slavery in the Bible (which of course makes everything okey-dokey -- people have been using religious texts to excuse the worse crimes, giving religious text a bad name as a result. It's not the Bible's fault that people insist on misinterpreting it). Hamilton apparently hated slavery because he'd come from the Caribbean and seen how horrible it was down there, and the atrocities committed. (I'm kinda loving Hamilton at the moment). At any rate, the States Rights vs. Centralized Government debate was what eventually lead to the Civil War and has been at the base of the US political debate for well over 200 years. We're still fighting over it. ex: Same-sex marriage - should be left up to the States. Back then? Whether slavery should be abolished should be decided by the States. (I kid you not.) And in the 1950s? Marriage between two people of different races should be decided by the States. (Racism and sexism, unfortunately, have been part of US politics since it's founding.Although we've come a long way, back in the 1700s, both women and blacks were considered property with no voting rights, equal pay rights, or ability to own property - now? Both can run for political office and become President of the US. Let's take a moment to celebrate that.) Hamilton saw Thomas Jefferson as a coward. Jefferson took off during the Revolutionary War - he stayed in Paris. He would have been happiest staying in his plantation in Virgina reading his books and doing nothing. (I can sort of identify, there are days that's all I want to do.) Wonder what our country would have been like if Jefferson died and Hamilton became President? ]
1. What did you just finish reading?
Nothing quite as interesting as Hamilton. But I did finish Once Upon a Marquess by Courtney Milan, which I reviewed at length in a previous post on this subject. What I'd like to add to that review is that Milan is one of a handful of genre writers who breaks with the form. By that, I mean she steps slightly outside of the formula. Also, she started self-publishing some of her novels - in order to have more freedom over her story, and to be able to break the formula. (For example? She's currently writing a contemporary transgender romance novel. )That's by the way, a big difference between self-published genre fiction and published genre fiction, self-published breaks the formula, while published is more or less following the established formula. (Which means, yes, that plot seems familiar, because yes, this is a book that follows an established formula. I think they even have mimeographed handouts on how to write best-selling romance novels, mystery novels, thrillers, etc...) James Patterson writes formula fiction -- and now by committee. Writers who shell out a book every five months are formula fiction writers. They are quick reads. Lots of people like them. But there's really not a whole lot to say about them. They do make it possible for literary books to get published, believe it or not.
The other genre writers that I've read that break with the formula or color outside the lines are:
* Illona Andrews - she actually has a long-term relationship in her books, and lead doesn't sleep with everyone. Also she uses Russian and Eastern European, Persian and Asian mythology as opposed to Judeo-Christian. Goes against the trope. Her's are urban fantasy, but she colors outside the lines to such a degree that she's ruined me for urban fantasy, I can't read any of the others now. They seem silly.
* Minette Walters -- creates mystery novels around an ensemble, rarely just one detective, and often explores the uneasy emotions underneath. Often her heroes are the murderers. She breaks with the form consistently. And sort of ruined me in regards to mystery novels. It was hard to read PD James after Walters.
* Sherry Thomas - is another romance novelist who likes to color outside the lines. She focuses on pre-established relationships, marriages, or people reconnecting after a period of time, and how they screwed up. Often flipping the gender roles. In one of her books the woman was older and more accomplished than the man, he was the manager of the household, she was a well-reknowned surgeon, He was pretty, she wasn't. In another, the woman is a Chinese Assassin, who is on a quest, and he's along for the ride.
* GRR Martin - who broke the formula on fantasy, with his pseudo-realistic Game of Thrones, where the so-called heroes die, and it feels like an odd coming of age story in a horrifically violent world.
Part revisionist historical loosely based on the War of the Roses, part fantasy, part horror tale complete with medieval zombies.
* Andy Weir - The Martian - which is a science fiction novel that centers mostly on a guy stranded on Mars. Realitic, and character driven. Not plotty or speculative. Jumps outside the sci-fi box.
* Ellen Kushner - who writes swashbuckling gender flipping LGBT fantasy romances.
So they exist. The non-boilerplate writers. You just have to look for them.
2. What I'm reading now?
Euphoria by Lilly King - which is a lot better than expected. It's more of an exploration of what it means to be an anthropologist and the degree to which we should study other cultures, and to what extent our study of them is, in reality, just a finely veiled study of ourselves - than it is a romance. Also an in-depth study of three different people, Bankson (the narrator), Fen and Nell Stone. All three are loosely based on real people.
Through the novel, the writer says some interesting things about our own culture and the current clash between cultures.
Below are a few excerpts:
1. Discussion of the Dobu
2. The three characters, Fen, Nell, and Bankson (the narrator) received an anthropological manuscript from a colleague, Helen Benjamin, and are devouring it, with envy and excitement. (The book is set in the early 1930s, around 1930 or thereabouts. The narrator doesn't meet Helen until 1938, which is much later, after the events of the book.
The frustrated cultural anthropology major inside me is eating this up like chocolate. Yummy, yummy.
Reminds me a little of The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell, albeit less horrific and violent, and far more cereberal. That too played around with these ideas.
A lot of what is written there, resonated with me, and to a degree why I backed away from cultural anthropology. Well outside of the fact that I have no facility for learning lanugages, and that's sort of required. I envy people who learn languages easily - you can do so much with that. Like become a cultural anthropologist, travel the world, studying diverse cultures in their actual environment.
Talked to my mother, who has been reading the biography Hamilton, upon which the musical of the same name is currently based. She said that apparently they were just as nasty to each other back then as they are now. (Recently there was an article about how the Republican Candidates were acting like the characters in Mad Max: Fury Road. Personally, I think that's giving them too much credit. More like the characters in Heathers or Mean Girls.) At any rate, it's really no different now than it was back in the 1700s. Hamilton was pretty much hated by his peers - mainly because he wanted to do things that were "unpopular" at the time. And Thomas Jefferson comes across as a bit of a hypocrite in the book and a deluded idealist. Hamilton wanted a centralized government, banking system, industrialized economy, and abolish slavery. Jefferson wanted localized government, agricultural economy, and was ambivalent about slavery (scary but true, also he owned slaves, so there was that). My mother stated that after reading this, it's no surprise that we ended up with the Civil War - 100 years later. And it was definitely about slavery - that was a huge divining rod between the two factions. The problem was the Agricultural States depended on slavery as their workforce, while the Industrial States did not (or ahem, a different type of slavery, women and children worked for next to nothing, but Hamilton who had worked as a child saw that as no big deal and better than poverty. A job is better than no job, was his attitude. (It was also a step or two up from slavery.) Sort of similar to various Southerner's view that the slave workforce was taken care of in exchange for work. (Not exactly true, of course.) And their justification? There's slavery in the Bible (which of course makes everything okey-dokey -- people have been using religious texts to excuse the worse crimes, giving religious text a bad name as a result. It's not the Bible's fault that people insist on misinterpreting it). Hamilton apparently hated slavery because he'd come from the Caribbean and seen how horrible it was down there, and the atrocities committed. (I'm kinda loving Hamilton at the moment). At any rate, the States Rights vs. Centralized Government debate was what eventually lead to the Civil War and has been at the base of the US political debate for well over 200 years. We're still fighting over it. ex: Same-sex marriage - should be left up to the States. Back then? Whether slavery should be abolished should be decided by the States. (I kid you not.) And in the 1950s? Marriage between two people of different races should be decided by the States. (Racism and sexism, unfortunately, have been part of US politics since it's founding.Although we've come a long way, back in the 1700s, both women and blacks were considered property with no voting rights, equal pay rights, or ability to own property - now? Both can run for political office and become President of the US. Let's take a moment to celebrate that.) Hamilton saw Thomas Jefferson as a coward. Jefferson took off during the Revolutionary War - he stayed in Paris. He would have been happiest staying in his plantation in Virgina reading his books and doing nothing. (I can sort of identify, there are days that's all I want to do.) Wonder what our country would have been like if Jefferson died and Hamilton became President? ]
1. What did you just finish reading?
Nothing quite as interesting as Hamilton. But I did finish Once Upon a Marquess by Courtney Milan, which I reviewed at length in a previous post on this subject. What I'd like to add to that review is that Milan is one of a handful of genre writers who breaks with the form. By that, I mean she steps slightly outside of the formula. Also, she started self-publishing some of her novels - in order to have more freedom over her story, and to be able to break the formula. (For example? She's currently writing a contemporary transgender romance novel. )That's by the way, a big difference between self-published genre fiction and published genre fiction, self-published breaks the formula, while published is more or less following the established formula. (Which means, yes, that plot seems familiar, because yes, this is a book that follows an established formula. I think they even have mimeographed handouts on how to write best-selling romance novels, mystery novels, thrillers, etc...) James Patterson writes formula fiction -- and now by committee. Writers who shell out a book every five months are formula fiction writers. They are quick reads. Lots of people like them. But there's really not a whole lot to say about them. They do make it possible for literary books to get published, believe it or not.
The other genre writers that I've read that break with the formula or color outside the lines are:
* Illona Andrews - she actually has a long-term relationship in her books, and lead doesn't sleep with everyone. Also she uses Russian and Eastern European, Persian and Asian mythology as opposed to Judeo-Christian. Goes against the trope. Her's are urban fantasy, but she colors outside the lines to such a degree that she's ruined me for urban fantasy, I can't read any of the others now. They seem silly.
* Minette Walters -- creates mystery novels around an ensemble, rarely just one detective, and often explores the uneasy emotions underneath. Often her heroes are the murderers. She breaks with the form consistently. And sort of ruined me in regards to mystery novels. It was hard to read PD James after Walters.
* Sherry Thomas - is another romance novelist who likes to color outside the lines. She focuses on pre-established relationships, marriages, or people reconnecting after a period of time, and how they screwed up. Often flipping the gender roles. In one of her books the woman was older and more accomplished than the man, he was the manager of the household, she was a well-reknowned surgeon, He was pretty, she wasn't. In another, the woman is a Chinese Assassin, who is on a quest, and he's along for the ride.
* GRR Martin - who broke the formula on fantasy, with his pseudo-realistic Game of Thrones, where the so-called heroes die, and it feels like an odd coming of age story in a horrifically violent world.
Part revisionist historical loosely based on the War of the Roses, part fantasy, part horror tale complete with medieval zombies.
* Andy Weir - The Martian - which is a science fiction novel that centers mostly on a guy stranded on Mars. Realitic, and character driven. Not plotty or speculative. Jumps outside the sci-fi box.
* Ellen Kushner - who writes swashbuckling gender flipping LGBT fantasy romances.
So they exist. The non-boilerplate writers. You just have to look for them.
2. What I'm reading now?
Euphoria by Lilly King - which is a lot better than expected. It's more of an exploration of what it means to be an anthropologist and the degree to which we should study other cultures, and to what extent our study of them is, in reality, just a finely veiled study of ourselves - than it is a romance. Also an in-depth study of three different people, Bankson (the narrator), Fen and Nell Stone. All three are loosely based on real people.
Through the novel, the writer says some interesting things about our own culture and the current clash between cultures.
Below are a few excerpts:
1. Discussion of the Dobu
"The Douban," Helen concluded , "lives out without repression man's worst nightmares of the ill-will of the universe."
"I think they're the most terrifying people I've ever read about," I said.
"Fen was a little unstable when I met him," Nell said. " His eyes were like this." She stretched her eyelids as open as possible.
"I'd been frightened out of my mind every day for two years," he said.
"I wouldn't have lasted half that," I said, but it occurred to me that the Dobu sounded a lot like him: his paranoid streak, his dark humor, his distrust of pleasure, his secrecy. I couldn't help questioning the research. When only one person is the expert on a particular people, do we learn more about the people or the anthropologist when we read the analysis?
2. The three characters, Fen, Nell, and Bankson (the narrator) received an anthropological manuscript from a colleague, Helen Benjamin, and are devouring it, with envy and excitement. (The book is set in the early 1930s, around 1930 or thereabouts. The narrator doesn't meet Helen until 1938, which is much later, after the events of the book.
There was a pale violet light in the sky when Fen read the last pages. Helen's final push toward the understanding that every culture has its own unique goals and orients its society in the direction of those goals. She described the whole set of human potentialities as a great arc, and each culture a selection of traits from that arc. These last pages reminded me of the finale of fireworks show, many flares sent up at once, exploding one after the other. She claimed that because of the emphasis in the West on private property, our freedom was restricted much more than in many primitive societies. She said that it was often taboo in a culture to have a real discussion of the dominant traits; in our culture, for example, a real discussion of capitalism or war was not permitted, suggesting that these dominant traits had become compulsive and overgrown. Homosexuality and trance were considered abnormalities now, while in the Middle Ages people had been made saints for their trances, which were considered the highest state of being, and in Ancient Greece, as Plato makes clear, homosexuality was a major means to the good life. She claimed that conformity created maladjustment and tradition could turn psychopathic. Her last sentences urged acceptance of cultural relativism and tolerance of differences.
"Written by a true deviant," Fen said, tossing the last page down. " A true paranoid deviant. She gets a little hysterical towards the end there, as if the whole world's just about to go down the gurgler."
The frustrated cultural anthropology major inside me is eating this up like chocolate. Yummy, yummy.
Reminds me a little of The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell, albeit less horrific and violent, and far more cereberal. That too played around with these ideas.
A lot of what is written there, resonated with me, and to a degree why I backed away from cultural anthropology. Well outside of the fact that I have no facility for learning lanugages, and that's sort of required. I envy people who learn languages easily - you can do so much with that. Like become a cultural anthropologist, travel the world, studying diverse cultures in their actual environment.