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furyofvissarion) wrote2008-02-22 10:44 pm
furyofvissarion) wrote2008-02-22 10:44 pm
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Cries and Whiskers - Clea Simon. I've turned into one of those cat people that actually reads cat mysteries. Or one, anyway. I got this one because it sounded like it mocked PETA-style activists (needless to say, there are plenty of vegans who hate PETA). I realized after I got home from the library that it was by the same woman who wrote the crappy The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection between Women & Cats, which I hated.
Nevertheless, there is a fair amount about this book that I enjoyed; it's a fun little mystery about a murdered cat rescue volunteer. But Simon's writing is merely adequate; how many times does protagonist Theda Krakow have to describe her cat Musetta as "my sweet round pet" or "my round black-and-white cat"? Also, I find it creepy when people say "my pet," "my pet," over & over, instead of saying "my cat" or using the animal's name. And I feel like no one proofread the book for grammar at all. It was pretty heinous.
Oh, & while Simon does mock some PETA-style activism, she also seems to have done very little research on animal activism in general; there are a lot of annoying fallacies. The book also crams so many plot points in: a hit & run killing the feral cat rescuer; Theda's friend getting in a car accident under mysterious circumstances; a new party drug making the rounds of clubs; Theda & her friend possibly getting dosed w/this drug; an up-&-coming band that is trying to buy their way into fame; etc. etc. etc. She does manage to tie most of her plot points together @ the end, but it sort of all stretches credibility for a while.
Stealing Buddha's Dinner - Bich Minh Nguyen. This is Nguyen's memoir of growing up among the small Vietnamese refugee community in Grand Rapids, Michigan during the '70s & '80s. Now, I knew from folks who grew up in that state that Grand Rapids is really conservative, but Nguyen's depiction is even worse: uber-Christian little girls who won't run or play because their mothers will kill them if they get dirty, a community virtually without any companion animals b/c, y'know, pets get the house dirty, kids growing up in the '80s shunning all the great music & clothes b/c it's all devilish! Not to mention, you know, the racism.
Nguyen writes a lot about food--how she feels that the Vietnamese food she eats at home is a whole secret world, separate from the beef stroganoff & Pringles her white schoolmates have. She's equally repulsed by things like pork chops (she finds them tasteless) & desirous of them, & American candy & junk food, as a way to fit in. Also along these lines, she wants her house to be like the white ones seen in commercials; her experiences provide compelling evidence about the importance of seeing images of your own culture in TV & other media. Her feeling left-out is also complicated because her father marries a Latina woman; their extended family gatherings become one more place that Nguyen feels she doesn't fit in. Nguyen's writing is thoughtful & smart, & she really conveys how prickly it was to grow up in her situation.
Speciesism - Joan Dunayer. In this brief book, Dunayer breaks down the logic against using animals (whether for eating, breeding, vivisection, etc.) & also explains the difference between "welfarist" actions (ie. groups like Farm Sanctuary & Compassion Over Killing who advocate for meat that's treated nicely before it gets slaughtered) & true animal rights advocacy (ie. killing at your whim is still killing, even if you give the pig a name & let him roam outside before you butcher him). Many of the examples she gives to demonstrate that various animals can feel pain & can reason are upsetting (coinciding, as many of them do, w/horrific stories of experiments done on them or injuries sustained when a human tries to kill them).
She also dissects the contradictions in animal-advocacy theorists like Gary Francione & Peter Singer (who is even more awful & absurd than I'd thought previously; what a shame that people still cite him as a leader, whose opinions ought to be listened to, on this stuff).
One thing that irked me is that apparently she's against spaying & neutering companion animals. Yes, I can see the argument that this violates an animal's autonomy over her own body & reproductive functions. But, given the overpopulation of domesticated animals, caused by humans breeding & breeding & breeding them (both intentionally & unintentionally), I feel that right now, it would be a graver harm to let one's companion animal reproduce. Not to mention the health benefits of spay/neuter. Also, she says later in the book that, were animals to gain legal personhood (which would help ensure that humans could not imprison, slaughter, & otherwise use them), domesticated animals like cats & dogs would basically have the legal status of very young children. I assume that refers to the fact that we generally accept that parents have the right to make decisions for their young children, even on matters relating to the children's bodies, whether or not the children are of an age or mental capacity to understand. Meaning parents are allowed to make medical decisions for their children. So... why not spay/neuter?
Father of the Four Passages - Lois-Ann Yamanaka. I love Yamanaka's work, but this one proved to be the most difficult for me to read. Like her other books, there are abused children of abused parents trying to figure out how to love each other w/o messing it up.
Usually I sympathize really quickly w/her protagonists, but Sonia Kurisu took longer. I think that's b/c the book opens w/her wanting to physically hurt, & actually hurting, her newborn son. Even though I understand post-partum depression & that it can be pretty severe, it still was really hard to have any sympathy for Sonia (& if I don't like the main character at least in some small way, I generally don't like the book) for a while. She's a single mother student/lounge singer in Las Vegas, fighting addiction to substances & to bad men. She grew up shuttled between her mother & grandmother in Hawaii; half-mothered, totally hated by her sister Celeste; & abandoned by her father, who writes "sweet Sonia" descriptive letters of his traveling that just enrage me.
The magical realist elements of this book--largely tied to Sonia communicating w/her 3 previous fetuses, none of whom made it to birth--didn't work for me either, & usually I think Yamanaka does a good job. Well, no one can be on all the time, so I'll just hope that this book is a mere blip in Yamanaka's oeuvre.
Last Scene Alive - Charlaine Harris. I thought this was the 2nd Aurora Teagarden novel (curses to publishers who list the author's other books alphabetically, instead of breaking them up by series, inside the book) but it's clearly not. Oh well. It turns out I've missed Roe getting married & becoming widowed. In this book, mystery writer Robin Crusoe returns to Lawrenceton w/the crew filming the movie version of his book about the murders that took place in Real Murders. Roe is just about the only one in town displeased w/the film crew's arrival. Cue murder, anonymous hate letters, & a naughty librarian sex scene. I enjoyed this book more than the first one, but it did strike me again how, in certain ways, Harris' protagonists all feel like similar women. Mostly Roe & Sookie Stackhouse, I guess, although there's something about Lily Bard too.
Nevertheless, there is a fair amount about this book that I enjoyed; it's a fun little mystery about a murdered cat rescue volunteer. But Simon's writing is merely adequate; how many times does protagonist Theda Krakow have to describe her cat Musetta as "my sweet round pet" or "my round black-and-white cat"? Also, I find it creepy when people say "my pet," "my pet," over & over, instead of saying "my cat" or using the animal's name. And I feel like no one proofread the book for grammar at all. It was pretty heinous.
Oh, & while Simon does mock some PETA-style activism, she also seems to have done very little research on animal activism in general; there are a lot of annoying fallacies. The book also crams so many plot points in: a hit & run killing the feral cat rescuer; Theda's friend getting in a car accident under mysterious circumstances; a new party drug making the rounds of clubs; Theda & her friend possibly getting dosed w/this drug; an up-&-coming band that is trying to buy their way into fame; etc. etc. etc. She does manage to tie most of her plot points together @ the end, but it sort of all stretches credibility for a while.
Stealing Buddha's Dinner - Bich Minh Nguyen. This is Nguyen's memoir of growing up among the small Vietnamese refugee community in Grand Rapids, Michigan during the '70s & '80s. Now, I knew from folks who grew up in that state that Grand Rapids is really conservative, but Nguyen's depiction is even worse: uber-Christian little girls who won't run or play because their mothers will kill them if they get dirty, a community virtually without any companion animals b/c, y'know, pets get the house dirty, kids growing up in the '80s shunning all the great music & clothes b/c it's all devilish! Not to mention, you know, the racism.
Nguyen writes a lot about food--how she feels that the Vietnamese food she eats at home is a whole secret world, separate from the beef stroganoff & Pringles her white schoolmates have. She's equally repulsed by things like pork chops (she finds them tasteless) & desirous of them, & American candy & junk food, as a way to fit in. Also along these lines, she wants her house to be like the white ones seen in commercials; her experiences provide compelling evidence about the importance of seeing images of your own culture in TV & other media. Her feeling left-out is also complicated because her father marries a Latina woman; their extended family gatherings become one more place that Nguyen feels she doesn't fit in. Nguyen's writing is thoughtful & smart, & she really conveys how prickly it was to grow up in her situation.
Speciesism - Joan Dunayer. In this brief book, Dunayer breaks down the logic against using animals (whether for eating, breeding, vivisection, etc.) & also explains the difference between "welfarist" actions (ie. groups like Farm Sanctuary & Compassion Over Killing who advocate for meat that's treated nicely before it gets slaughtered) & true animal rights advocacy (ie. killing at your whim is still killing, even if you give the pig a name & let him roam outside before you butcher him). Many of the examples she gives to demonstrate that various animals can feel pain & can reason are upsetting (coinciding, as many of them do, w/horrific stories of experiments done on them or injuries sustained when a human tries to kill them).
She also dissects the contradictions in animal-advocacy theorists like Gary Francione & Peter Singer (who is even more awful & absurd than I'd thought previously; what a shame that people still cite him as a leader, whose opinions ought to be listened to, on this stuff).
One thing that irked me is that apparently she's against spaying & neutering companion animals. Yes, I can see the argument that this violates an animal's autonomy over her own body & reproductive functions. But, given the overpopulation of domesticated animals, caused by humans breeding & breeding & breeding them (both intentionally & unintentionally), I feel that right now, it would be a graver harm to let one's companion animal reproduce. Not to mention the health benefits of spay/neuter. Also, she says later in the book that, were animals to gain legal personhood (which would help ensure that humans could not imprison, slaughter, & otherwise use them), domesticated animals like cats & dogs would basically have the legal status of very young children. I assume that refers to the fact that we generally accept that parents have the right to make decisions for their young children, even on matters relating to the children's bodies, whether or not the children are of an age or mental capacity to understand. Meaning parents are allowed to make medical decisions for their children. So... why not spay/neuter?
Father of the Four Passages - Lois-Ann Yamanaka. I love Yamanaka's work, but this one proved to be the most difficult for me to read. Like her other books, there are abused children of abused parents trying to figure out how to love each other w/o messing it up.
Usually I sympathize really quickly w/her protagonists, but Sonia Kurisu took longer. I think that's b/c the book opens w/her wanting to physically hurt, & actually hurting, her newborn son. Even though I understand post-partum depression & that it can be pretty severe, it still was really hard to have any sympathy for Sonia (& if I don't like the main character at least in some small way, I generally don't like the book) for a while. She's a single mother student/lounge singer in Las Vegas, fighting addiction to substances & to bad men. She grew up shuttled between her mother & grandmother in Hawaii; half-mothered, totally hated by her sister Celeste; & abandoned by her father, who writes "sweet Sonia" descriptive letters of his traveling that just enrage me.
The magical realist elements of this book--largely tied to Sonia communicating w/her 3 previous fetuses, none of whom made it to birth--didn't work for me either, & usually I think Yamanaka does a good job. Well, no one can be on all the time, so I'll just hope that this book is a mere blip in Yamanaka's oeuvre.
Last Scene Alive - Charlaine Harris. I thought this was the 2nd Aurora Teagarden novel (curses to publishers who list the author's other books alphabetically, instead of breaking them up by series, inside the book) but it's clearly not. Oh well. It turns out I've missed Roe getting married & becoming widowed. In this book, mystery writer Robin Crusoe returns to Lawrenceton w/the crew filming the movie version of his book about the murders that took place in Real Murders. Roe is just about the only one in town displeased w/the film crew's arrival. Cue murder, anonymous hate letters, & a naughty librarian sex scene. I enjoyed this book more than the first one, but it did strike me again how, in certain ways, Harris' protagonists all feel like similar women. Mostly Roe & Sookie Stackhouse, I guess, although there's something about Lily Bard too.