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Aug. 16th, 2009 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionThe Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover - Victoria Janssen. Delicious cracktastic novel about a duchess plotting to remove her abusive husband from his position. This involves fleeing & spending the night in brothels en route! There's queerness, polyamory, & kink, all presented in v. well-written smutty scenes. I loved saucy obnoxious Sylvie--maid to the titular Duchess--& her forthrightness in expressing her sexual desires (there is one moment where she's talking to an Asian woman that seemed possibly exotifying to me, though). I was actually least interested in the Duchess herself, & the awkward relationship she has with the titular groom, maybe because that felt like in some ways the most traditional/common romance trope (male-female, social station gap, blah blah).
Weddings from Hell - Maggie Shayne, Jeaniene Frost, Terri Garey, Kathryn Smith. Four novellas from rising stars in the paranormal romance field. Strongly stereotypical, & revolving around tropes that are either yawn-inducing (a Scottish clan is cursed!) or offensive (a family of rednecks!).
The House of Discarded Dreams - Ekaterina Sedia. Beautifully atmospheric novel that still dragged a bit in parts & left me wanting more questions answered. Vimbai, the daughter of immigrants from Zimbabwe, moves out of her parents' New Jersey home to a strange house on the shore. This is partly to escape her mother, who seems slightly baffled by raising a daughter who is more American than anything else. I love the sharp observations on race & racism that come from Vimbai's mother, & almost against her will, Vimbai herself. Vimbai's new roommates are Felix, a weirdo with a mini-universe on top of his head in lieu of hair, & Maya, who seems reasonably normal at first.
One day the house detaches from the Jersey shore & just floats away. The house also expands--there are weird landscapes pulled from the dreamscapes of the house's residents (this is where Maya gets weird & Felix gets weirder). This is a fantastic setting (in both the skiffy sense & a quality sense). Living by the ocean, & the sorts of familiar & personal interactions someone has with it, are lovingly described. Sedia also manages to make me fond of horseshoe crabs (I always used to be scared of them when I was younger even though I knew they were harmless). There are bits that connect traditional ritual magic with self-mutilation that I found really interesting & (as someone who used to self-injure) vaguely empowering, but I think I need to sit & think about that some more. Somehow I wanted more of an explanation for everything, though--why exactly are these things happening? And how on earth do you just end up with a roommate that has a mini-universe on his head?--& a quicker resolution!
On Call: Political Essays - June Jordan. This collection from 1985 features sharp & critical pieces about Nicaragua, South Africa, police brutality in the US, & the politics of language. I really liked Jordan's discussion of the language that the powerless use ("I lost my job," "I was raped," instead of placing responsibility on who did these things), as well as her recollection of teaching a class about Black English, & how much she & her students learned about the grammar & uses of Black English in the process--and how the powerful ignore voices speaking that language.
A Book of Her Own: Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan - Leny Mendoza Strobel. This is a sort of self-help book based on Strobel's work on decolonization. I appreciated the idea but a lot of it was too hippy-dippy for me, & also I thought sometimes it dwelled a bit too much on healing the rifts of colonization by learning to love white people & understand that they are in pain as well. Also, I wanted more examples & citations for some of the stuff she talked about; at one point she talks about "the nondual nature of reality, which is a very Filipino way of being." How so? Can we have some examples? Is there really an essential Filipino way to be?
Goodbye Tsugumi - Banana Yoshimoto. Maria has grown up in a seaside town in Japan with her cousin Tsugumi, who has poor health & because of this has been spoiled & indulged her whole life by her family. Tsugumi is a really nasty character as a result, & Maria alternates between helpless fury, admiration, & affection for her cousin. I didn't find Tsugumi endearing at all, though, & found it hard to believe how much attitude her family accepts from her, even if they want to give her leeway for being in ill health. Anyway, the book revolves around Maria's recent move to Tokyo to go to college, & her return for one last summer at the shore with Tsugumi. What I really liked about this book was how well Yoshimoto evoked nostalgia & yearning & the sadness of time passing & things changing, even when the changes are (mostly) for the better. The atmosphere made having to read about Tsugumi bearable, though hearing Maria wax poetic about how beautiful & delicate her cousin was got annoying really fast.
Typical American - Gish Jen. I think I'm a bit worn out on East Asian immigrant stories that are so very very male somehow (& not just because of male protagonists) & in which a disastrous flirtation with crime occurs. Now that I think about it, Timothy Mo's Sour Sweet was probably the only other book like this that I've read recently, but it felt quite similar to this in some ways (I think I prefer Mo's slightly though). Anyway, a decent story, though waiting for the other shoe to drop kills me!
Black Looks: Race and Representation - bell hooks. This collection of essays looks at how black men & women have historically been regarded by the white gaze, how they are not accorded a gaze of their own, the friction of black men asking black women to essentially choose between their gender & their race, cultural appropriation, & a lot more, of course. One part that particularly struck me was talking about how problematic it is to have music or art with revolutionary, political lyrics without any kind of mechanism (from the artist) for involving the lyrics in a mass political movement: that consumption on its own is not political. (I would argue in some ways it can be--see the whole "Asian fantasy doesn't sell" or "black faces on books don't sell" thing--but I agree that it is definitely too easy to place too much emphasis on how/what we consume w/o going further).
Matters of the Blood - Maria Lima. Mediocre paranormal romance--the main thing that stuck out was the setting, in rural Texas, which was a nice change. Otherwise, fairly boring, & also with the bonus of a dodgy Holocaust sub-plot.
Weddings from Hell - Maggie Shayne, Jeaniene Frost, Terri Garey, Kathryn Smith. Four novellas from rising stars in the paranormal romance field. Strongly stereotypical, & revolving around tropes that are either yawn-inducing (a Scottish clan is cursed!) or offensive (a family of rednecks!).
The House of Discarded Dreams - Ekaterina Sedia. Beautifully atmospheric novel that still dragged a bit in parts & left me wanting more questions answered. Vimbai, the daughter of immigrants from Zimbabwe, moves out of her parents' New Jersey home to a strange house on the shore. This is partly to escape her mother, who seems slightly baffled by raising a daughter who is more American than anything else. I love the sharp observations on race & racism that come from Vimbai's mother, & almost against her will, Vimbai herself. Vimbai's new roommates are Felix, a weirdo with a mini-universe on top of his head in lieu of hair, & Maya, who seems reasonably normal at first.
One day the house detaches from the Jersey shore & just floats away. The house also expands--there are weird landscapes pulled from the dreamscapes of the house's residents (this is where Maya gets weird & Felix gets weirder). This is a fantastic setting (in both the skiffy sense & a quality sense). Living by the ocean, & the sorts of familiar & personal interactions someone has with it, are lovingly described. Sedia also manages to make me fond of horseshoe crabs (I always used to be scared of them when I was younger even though I knew they were harmless). There are bits that connect traditional ritual magic with self-mutilation that I found really interesting & (as someone who used to self-injure) vaguely empowering, but I think I need to sit & think about that some more. Somehow I wanted more of an explanation for everything, though--why exactly are these things happening? And how on earth do you just end up with a roommate that has a mini-universe on his head?--& a quicker resolution!
On Call: Political Essays - June Jordan. This collection from 1985 features sharp & critical pieces about Nicaragua, South Africa, police brutality in the US, & the politics of language. I really liked Jordan's discussion of the language that the powerless use ("I lost my job," "I was raped," instead of placing responsibility on who did these things), as well as her recollection of teaching a class about Black English, & how much she & her students learned about the grammar & uses of Black English in the process--and how the powerful ignore voices speaking that language.
A Book of Her Own: Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan - Leny Mendoza Strobel. This is a sort of self-help book based on Strobel's work on decolonization. I appreciated the idea but a lot of it was too hippy-dippy for me, & also I thought sometimes it dwelled a bit too much on healing the rifts of colonization by learning to love white people & understand that they are in pain as well. Also, I wanted more examples & citations for some of the stuff she talked about; at one point she talks about "the nondual nature of reality, which is a very Filipino way of being." How so? Can we have some examples? Is there really an essential Filipino way to be?
Goodbye Tsugumi - Banana Yoshimoto. Maria has grown up in a seaside town in Japan with her cousin Tsugumi, who has poor health & because of this has been spoiled & indulged her whole life by her family. Tsugumi is a really nasty character as a result, & Maria alternates between helpless fury, admiration, & affection for her cousin. I didn't find Tsugumi endearing at all, though, & found it hard to believe how much attitude her family accepts from her, even if they want to give her leeway for being in ill health. Anyway, the book revolves around Maria's recent move to Tokyo to go to college, & her return for one last summer at the shore with Tsugumi. What I really liked about this book was how well Yoshimoto evoked nostalgia & yearning & the sadness of time passing & things changing, even when the changes are (mostly) for the better. The atmosphere made having to read about Tsugumi bearable, though hearing Maria wax poetic about how beautiful & delicate her cousin was got annoying really fast.
Typical American - Gish Jen. I think I'm a bit worn out on East Asian immigrant stories that are so very very male somehow (& not just because of male protagonists) & in which a disastrous flirtation with crime occurs. Now that I think about it, Timothy Mo's Sour Sweet was probably the only other book like this that I've read recently, but it felt quite similar to this in some ways (I think I prefer Mo's slightly though). Anyway, a decent story, though waiting for the other shoe to drop kills me!
Black Looks: Race and Representation - bell hooks. This collection of essays looks at how black men & women have historically been regarded by the white gaze, how they are not accorded a gaze of their own, the friction of black men asking black women to essentially choose between their gender & their race, cultural appropriation, & a lot more, of course. One part that particularly struck me was talking about how problematic it is to have music or art with revolutionary, political lyrics without any kind of mechanism (from the artist) for involving the lyrics in a mass political movement: that consumption on its own is not political. (I would argue in some ways it can be--see the whole "Asian fantasy doesn't sell" or "black faces on books don't sell" thing--but I agree that it is definitely too easy to place too much emphasis on how/what we consume w/o going further).
Matters of the Blood - Maria Lima. Mediocre paranormal romance--the main thing that stuck out was the setting, in rural Texas, which was a nice change. Otherwise, fairly boring, & also with the bonus of a dodgy Holocaust sub-plot.
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Date: 2009-08-16 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 03:58 pm (UTC)