Avaland and Dukedom_Enough's 2015 Reading. Part II

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NOW READING
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MICHAEL:



Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente (2015, SF/F)
Errantry: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand (2012)(ongoing read)

LOIS:



Famous Art Works and How They Got that Way by John Nici (2015, art history/popular culture)
Like Family by Paolo Giordano (novel, 2015, T 2015 Italian)
Closed for Winter by Jorn Lier Holst (crime novel, Norwegian)
The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States by Ira Berlin (2015, history)
The Phantom Passage by Paul Halter (T 2015, French, have set it aside, might return to it)
How Winter Began: Stories by Joy Castro (2015) (random reading, might go back to this...might not)

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2015 READING
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MICHAEL:



** indicates reviews done NOT a rating

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand (2015)
Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville (Short stories, 2015)
Fifth Season by N. K. Jemison (SF/F, 2015)**
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015, nonfiction)
Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente (2013)**
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (2015)
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (2013)
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (2013)
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (2014, trans from the Chinese)**
Beyond the Rift by Peter Watts (2013)
Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson (2013)**
The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)
Echopraxia by Peter Watts (2014)**
The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman (2015)**
Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley (2014)
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (2014, winner of the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award)
The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit by Graham Joyce (2014, UK title The Year of the Ladybird)
The Jazz Palace by Mary Morris (2015)**

Continued Readings in:
Collected Poems by W. H. Auden (one could list all favorite poetry volumes here)
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LOIS:



Books Read 2015

FICTION:
The Hunting Dogs by Jorn Lier Holst
Closed for Winter by Jorn Lier Holst (crime novel, Norwegian)
The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates (2016, US)
Dregs by Jorn Lier Holst (2011, Norwegian)
The Truth and Other Lies by Sascha Arango (2014, T 2015 German)
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood (2015, SF dystopian satire)
The Caveman by Jorn Lier Holst (2015, crime, Norwegian author, 4th in series)
A Slant of Light by Jeffrey Lent (2015, US author)
Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wondersby Julianna Baggott (2015, US author)
In the Dark Places by Peter Robinson (crime novel, Canadian/UK author, 2015, 22nd in series)
Pleasantville by Attica Locke (2015, US author)
Happiness Like Water: Stories by Chinelo Okparanta (2013, Nigerian/US author)
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson (2009, SF/dystopian)**
Severina by Rodrigo Rey Rosa (2011, T 2014, Guatemalan)**
98 Reasons for Being by Clare Dudman (2015, UK)**
Strange Shores by Arnuldar Indridason (2015, Iceland, crime novel)
A Price to Pay by Alex Capus (2013, T2014 Franco-Swiss author)**
Spirit; or The Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones (2008, UK) **
The Black House, The Lewis Men and The Chessman by Peter May (crime novels)
Dreamless by Jørge Brekke (2014, T 2015, Norwegian, historical crime novel)**
The Room by Jonas Karlsson (2009, translation 2015, no touchstone yet, Swedish)**
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison (2015)**
When the Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen (2012, translation 2015, Finnish-Estonian, WWII story set in Estonia)**
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (2014, novel)**
Bathing the Lion by Jonathan Carroll (2014, novel)**
A Matter of Time by Alex Capus (2009, Franco-Swiss, T. from the German, new edition 2013)**
The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan (2015, Canadian, crime novel)**

NONFICTION:
The History of the Gothic: American Gothic by Charles L. Crow (2009, literary criticism)
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison (1992, literary criticism)**
Living the Secular Life by Phil Zuckerman (2014, nonfiction)**
The Brilliant History of Color in Art by Victoria Finlay (2014, Art)**
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2015, from a TED talk)**
“The Contemporary Gothic: Why We Need It” by Stephen Bruhm and
"The Rise of American Gothic" by Eric Savoy in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction (2002)**
The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction by Nick Groom (nonfiction)**

Partial readings in:

Best of the Best American Poetry edited by Robert Pinsky (2013, 25th Anniv. Ed)
Nature by May Swenson (poetry)
Wolf Kahn by Justin Spring (Art, contains 3 essays)
Claiming the Spirit Within: A Sourcebook of Women's Poetry (1996, poetry anthology)
The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Third Edition, volume II.

We've been somewhat scarce over the last few months. It seems that it's been nonstop something since the snow finally melted (that was mid-April). There have been many distractions (baby, wedding, engagements, gardens, work at the bookstore, work around the house....and so on. It's affected our posting here and ability to keep up. We will try to do better!*

The main distraction is: William Oliver, our first grandchild, whom we have watched three days a week since late June. He's just turned 3 months. First book read to him: Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton, actually we sang it to him...



*I haven't written anything resembling a review in ages! (Lois)

Adorable! And I (and my little boys) love Sandra Boyton!

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne Valente



This short novel (at 167 pages, it's a bit long to be a novella) is Valente in her fairy-tale mode, retelling the Snow White story as a Western. Snow White is the out-of-wedlock daughter of a rich silver-mine owner and a Native American woman-thus, by ancient American usage, definitely not white. Her mother dies soon after Snow's birth, and is later supplanted by an abusive stepmother.

Of course Valente makes the story her own. The seven dwarves are seven women who have slipped the bonds of 19th century American womanhood in various ways. The huntsman is a Pinkerton agent, and Snow escapes him not because he takes pity on her, but because she's the better, quicker shot.

Besides the well-known story told once again, the pleasures of the book lie in Valente's voicing of the Western idiom:

"By now I expect you are shaking your head and tallying up on your fingers the obvious and ungraceful lies of my story...A body can only deliver up the truth its bones know. Its blood which is its history."

"Mrs. H called me something new...She named me a thing I could aspire to but never become, the one thing I was not and could never be: Snow White."

Valente switches from first to third person partway through:

"She needs distance, the generosity of miles. Maybe there's no gone that's far enough, but if there is, she aims to find it."

"Snow White does not know it when she crosses over into the Crow Nation. It looks just like the country which is not the Crow Nation. Trees, river, rocks, clouds hunkering down low like they're just as fugitive as she is."

"Snow White does what she knows to do. She brings in meat. All day and night blood and gristle. Goes into the forest and kills what will let her kill it."

Valente is all about the lush language. You like this sort of writing or you don't, I guess. For me it works perfectly at this length.

four stars

William Oliver is exceedingly cute and appears happy - probably because he knows he will live a childhood blessed with abundant and well-chosen books.

>2 avaland:

What a beautiful rascal! Congratulations, Lois and Michael! Um, the parents too... :)

>5 RidgewayGirl: >6 LolaWalser:

Thanks for the nice comments. Yes, his parents are good to lend him to us.

Adorable photo! They grow soo fast!

Congratulations! He is lovely and happy! Enjoy every minute. They really do seem to grow so fast. I have seven grandchildren, and each one is very special in their own way. I can't believe that the oldest is 19 and going to be a junior in college. How did that happen?!?!

Happy new thread, wishing you both more reading time. Am I right in assuming ** are the books that stood out?

>8 janeajones: >9 NanaCC:
Thank you. And I'm already seeing what you mean, NanaCC - he's grown a lot just in the 3 months so far. New behaviors every week.

>10 Caroline_McElwee:
The ** means I've written the review - am way behind on reviewing what I've read.

>3 japaul22:, >5 RidgewayGirl:, >6 LolaWalser:, >8 janeajones:, >9 NanaCC: Thanks, all.

>10 Caroline_McElwee: Wondering now if there might be a better indicator to note "reviews written" as, yes, many seem to use the asterisk, or a series of them, to indicate rating.

So cute! (and I love Snuggle Puppy- my great nieces have it!

We made our own music to Snuggle Puppy. It's playing in my head while thinking about it. And we haven't touched a Boynton years, I miss those days, well the story-time parts anyway.

Beautiful baby!

So, wait, you reviewed God Help the Child?...ah, found it. I would like to know your thoughts on Playing in the Dark. I just might get to both of these Morrison's later this year.

>14 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. A short review of the Morrison is coming.

In an attempt to catch up, I will be posting about 7 (hopefully, short) "reviews."



A Price to Pay by Alex Capus (2013, T 2014, Swiss author)

In this 3rd Alex Capus book to be translated into English, the authors imagines his three protagonists, Felix Bloch, Laura d'Oriano, and Émile Gilliéron—all historical figures—unknowingly crossing paths at the Zurich train station in 1924. He moves back and forth from each of these three telling us their stories: how each came to a turning point in their lives, which way they turned and what price they paid.

This is my third book in less than 12 months by Capus and that in itself says something. Capus's storytelling has a kind of charm to it. In this story it's as if our storyteller uses the distance he has from the actual history and is now telling us a kind of parable. His books are terribly short as books go these days, this one only 232 pages, but it was the perfect length for the kind of book it is.



98 Reasons for Being by Clare Dudman (2004, UK)

The story takes place during the mid 19th Century, when the science of mental illness was in its infancy. It centers around the German physician Heinrich Hoffman and his patients and staff, including a young female patient from Frankfurt's notorious Jewish ghetto, who no longer eats or speaks. Hoffman is desperate to "cure" her and uses all methods at his disposal (some, as you can imagine, are quite barbaric). Slowly as readers we learn both Hannah and Dr. Hoffman's story.

Many of you might remember how much I raved about Dudman's One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead, the fictionalized story of the German scientist and explorer Alfred Wegener. It remains my favorite of her novels thus far, but 98 Reasons for Being is another very good book, often riveting. The story elements are carefully researched with much attention to history; German, Jewish and that of medicine at the time, and that, with excellent storytelling, makes for a damn good read.

So, 2 for 2, I went looking to see what else she has and bought: A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees, the story of 19th Century Welsh colonists in Patagonia. It's in the TBR pile.

Continuing to catch up on reviews/comments. Here are two more, both SF novels read and both difficult to succinctly describe.



Spirit, or the Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones (2008, UK).

Michael and I agree that Jones is bloody brilliant and certainly one of the most intelligent writers of science fiction living today. I have enjoyed a few of her other books and very much enjoyed her essays and reviews. This novel purports in one blurb to be a kind of "inverted Count of Monte Cristo," which added to its attraction.

Jones' is not for the faint of heart. In this case, we thrown into her far future Aleutian universe without a road map or help of any kind. And her future is mind-blisteringly detailed and populated. I often felt I was in over my head, but there is a bit of a buzz to this kind of drowning, so I soldiered on...no, I was carried forward by a compelling story. Oftentimes, things became clear somewhere down the road. Generally, the book tells the story of a young girl, Bibi, the sole survivor of a massacre, who is taken into the household of Lady Nef, the wife of the victorious General. We follow Bibi for several decades in a riveting, face-paced story that has some similarities to the Count of Monte Cristo, but only some. It is its own story. That said, I have to leave the synopsis there because writing any more and I will find myself again lost in this story...



Julian Comstock, a Story of 22nd century America by Robert Charles Wilson (2009, Canadian)

I've not read every Robert Charles Wilson novel, but I've read a fair number of his earlier works, and this just might be his best book ever. Richly told, with wonderful detail, it is the story of, yes, Julian Comstock, popular hero and nephew to the current President of the re-formed United States, but also of our narrator, Adam Hazzard, Julian's childhood friend and an aspiring writer. The world they live in (so wonderfully envisioned by Wilson), now a century after the Efflorescence of Oil, the Fall of the Cities, the False Tribulation, and after the days of the Pious Presidents, resembles the 19th century (a century that is very much admired in the current thought of the Church of the Dominion, which, as its name suggests, dominants). It is this 19th century "feel" and the easy-going storytelling from Adam that draws us in, and It takes only a few pages—maybe only one—for a reader to be completely hooked.

While a great romp of a story, it also gives a nod to the writing and the art of storytelling. When Adam takes his first attempts of documenting his war experience, he is told by a veteran war journalist that, "Accuracy and drama are the Scylla and Charybdis of journalism, Adam. Steer between them, is my advice, but list toward drama, if you want a successful career." Later when Adam is assisting Julian with his lifelong dream of making movie of Charles Darwin's life, he asks, "Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story?"

Interesting note: I recently came across a review on the web that connected this book with the subject matter of Gore Vidal's novel Julian: A Novel about the 4th century Roman emperor Julian (aka Julian the Apostate). The reviewer convinced me that the connection is likely not accidental.

Severina by Rodrigo Rey Rosa (2011, T 2014, Guatemalan)

Our narrator is a bookseller and part-owner of a bookstore in Guatemala. One day he watches a young woman shoplift a book from his shelves. He carefully jots down the titles of what she is stealing and confronts her on her third attempt. The bookseller becomes obsessed with the woman, looking for hints in what she steals: I kept going over the books that she had taken from me and trying to imagine the complete list of every title she had ever stolen. It was as if I thought this would help solve the mystery of a life that seemed bizarre and fantastic to me." He connects with the woman and more he thinks he finds out, the more mysterious the woman gets, possibly slipping a bit into the fantastic.

The book comes across as light reading, and it would be easy to dismiss it as a story of one man's intellectual and sexual obsession with a woman, if it weren't for the terrific passages about books and bookselling. And, if it weren't for the enlightenment from the introduction (which I admit that I never read before I read the book lest it color my reading). I hadn't read any of the titles the woman stole, but had I, I might have recognized how, as noted in the intro, the drama of the story sometimes reflects the content of the books chosen (which, one has to admit, is terribly clever).

A decent read, but nothing I'm going to rave about....and as I noted, short.

Lastly, for today, a bit of literary criticism. I have such trouble "reviewing" nonfiction, so here are my notes:



Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison (1992)

In Playing the the Dark, Morrison examines the way in which blackness has been used to define whiteness in classic American literature from its very beginnings, or as she notes, "the way in which a nonwhite, Africanlike (or Africanist) presence or persona was constructed in the United States..." and "What Africanism became for, and how it functioned in, the literary imagination..." and how it 'is of paramount interest because it may be possible to discover, through a close look at literary "blackness," the nature —even the cause—of literary "whiteness." What is it for? What parts do the invention and development of whiteness play in the construction of what is loosely described as "American"?'

Morrison notes the paucity of critical material in this area and clearly hopes to spur interest in this compelling subject that will result in "a deeper reading of American literature". She is not attacking American literature, she delights in it. To explore her thesis points, she discusses Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl, some of the works of Poe, Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, with mentions of other authors and works from Faulkner to Melville, O'Connor to Styron.

I found myself re-reading paragraphs and pages over and over again, and dog-earring numerous pages (which is something I never do), while reading this brilliant and fascinating 97-page book of literary criticism. My reading of this will certainly change the way I read classic American literature in the future --moving into a "wider landscape," as Morrison suggests. I can't recommend this book enough to readers, particularly those who consider themselves fans of American lit, and who might feel up to some scholarly discussion of literature.

Note: It's interesting to note that Morrison rarely uses the word "other," which is so much used in literary discussion. I'm sure the term was being used in the early 90s, but I think she made a deliberate choice not to use it. I think she is doing something different, something more here, but I can't yet articulate what it is.

Great reviews, Lois. I'm particularly interested in A Price to Pay and the Morrison -- I can't imagine why I haven't read this one. Off to Amazon...

Great to catch up with your reviews, Lois; they may be "short" but they're intriguing.

>20 janeajones: I wondered also why I hadn't run across this before. I do feel a bit better knowing that you (in Academia) also missed it. LOL.

Oh, gosh, I see there is a 4th Capus novel in English...Almost Like Spring...

>21 rebeccanyc: Nice to see you, rebecca. I hope (certainly a thing with feathers!)to find time to get around to the threads, too. I have a collection to review, but it can wait a few days.

Definitely some interesting prospects there Lois. I have had the Morrison book since it came out, but for some reason not read it, I will shuffle it up the pile. I wonder whether my plan was to read some of the books she writes about first.

>23 Caroline_McElwee: Caro, she does talk in the preface about the various perspectives she brings to such a study, including that of being an author, but otherwise she doesn't speak of her own literature.

22> Well, I was teaching English and World Lit rather than American Lit -- but Morrison was always in my Women and Lit and Contemporary Lit courses.

Nice reviews, Lois. It is nice to catch up with your reading.

I'll be interested in your thoughts on Pleasantville. I've just checked it out of the library, but have a couple others to finish with before I get to it. I believe 'twas you who introduced me to Attica Locke.

>17 avaland:: I was going to say that I was unaware of Gwyneth Jones and to thank you for bringing her to my attention, then I realised one of her books is in my wishlist... I may get to it rather sooner than later.

>28 chlorine: For Jones, best to start with White Queen or Divine Endurance, if only because they're shorter.

>29 dukedom_enough: Thanks for the recommendation! The book currently in my wishlist is Siberia: a novel (can't make the touchstone to work...).

>30 chlorine: Ann Halam is her pseudonym for YA books. I haven't read any of those, but I'm sure they're good.

Ha, thanks for the explanation! This explains why the name Jones was unfamiliar.

>25 janeajones: That explains it.

>26 NanaCC: Thanks, Colleen.

>27 laytonwoman3rd: I'm thinking it might be useful for me to jot down a character list. I just seem to lose track of who is who, but then, it might be the reading a chapter a night sort of method....

>28 chlorine: >30 chlorine: You're welcome! btw, I have read several of Jones's YA books -- Taylor Five and Siberia and enjoyed them both. They were far less complex (as expected), and had interesting SF ideas in both. I think I still might have a 3rd - Dr. Franklin's Island still kickin' around. At my age, I prefer to limit the amount of teenaged angst/issues I consume.

>33 avaland: Some books just need you to have longer blocks of time to totally immerse yourself, don't they? And that's so hard to come by sometimes.

>33 avaland: Glad to hear you liked Siberia. If I like this one I'll be sure to check some of her adult books.

>34 laytonwoman3rd: it might be exactly what I needed.

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

First, a consumer warning. This fairly long novel is the first of a series; it ends at a moment of peril and loss without real conclusion. That the story is unfinished in the current volume, and will be continued in later books, is nowhere indicated in the title or other packaging - at least, not in the ARC I have. When tackling a 576 page book, one wants to know whether or not it is complete. This deception occurs too often in modern publishing, and it needs to stop.

This is an apocalypse story. Decades ago, an AIDS-like endemic disease, "posies," killed off most people in the US and, evidently, the planet. As the story begins, the world known to our 15 year old heroine, Ice Cream Star, is sparsely inhabited by people who live to age 18 or 19 or 20 at most, before contracting this lingering, fatal illness. In eastern Massachusetts, Ice Cream and her family loot houses for whatever goods still remain. They capture a stranger, a man who holds the key to a possible cure for this plague. But the stranger also heralds a military attack. Ice Cream and her allies - and enemies - will have to migrate out of Massachusetts, to engage with the wider world and the powers that contest what used to be the eastern USA.

So far, a standard apocalyptic scenario. What makes this story unusual is a racial disparity in the deadliness of posies. White people are much more susceptible, and are nearly extinct in North America. Every American we meet in the book is African-American or Hispanic.

The only characters we'd call white are the stranger, Pasha, and his people - who are Russian, and the front line of an invasion. Protected by the cure, Pasha is the oldest person Ice Cream has ever seen - a thirty-something with wrinkles in his skin. As he becomes useful, and a sort of ally, Ice Cream must consider whether she can trust him. She must deal with succession issues; her brother, the clan's leader, has come down with his posies. She must also deal with neighboring clans. She needs them as allies against the Russians, but some of them are more used to fighting her people than cooperating.

The book is written in the heroine's first-person voice. Newman writes Ice Cream's speech in an African-American dialect extrapolated from modern usage. The story begins:

My name be Ice Cream Fifteen Star. My brother be Driver Eighteen Star, and my ghost brother Mo-Jacques Five Star, dead when I myself was only six years old. Still my heart is rain for him, my brother dead of posies little.

My mother and my grands and my great-grands been Sengle pure. Our people be a tarry night sort, and we skinny and long. My brother Driver climb a tree with only hands, because our bones so light, our muscles fortey strong. We flee like a dragonfly over water, we fight like ten guns, and we be bell to see. Other children go deranged and unpredictable for our love.

This language contributes to the sense of estrangement one often wants in science fiction, and it's good to have a rare story where the characters cannot default to white in the reader's imagination. However, it's perhaps a dangerous choice for an author who is, from her photo, apparently white. For me, the language works; we need diversity in SF stories, and not just those written by people of color.

Among Ice Cream's perils are a choice between two men, respectively fitting bad-boy and nice-boy stereotypes. I have the impresssion that this sort of choice is common in YA books. I wonder whether this story may be aimed at late teens and twenty-somethings who have graduated from YA and are looking for something familiar-seeming, but with more sex.

Religious readers may be bothered by the ugly offshoot of Catholicism practiced in New York City in Ice Cream's era.

I liked the book. It's well-written; its 576 pages are filled very well with event and introspection. Nothing is padded; Newman simply is telling a long story, one that holds the reader's attention. Also, I liked that the first chapter is set in the town of Westford, Massachusetts, where my wife and I lived for 14 years. But you won't find an end to the story in this first volume.

2-1/2 stars

>37 dukedom_enough: Ah, thank you for the warning! This one is on my wishlist, and I'm definitely interested in reading it, but I had no idea it was the fist in a series, let alone the "to be continued" kind of series. I don't necessarily have a problem with that if I know about it going in, but I wholeheartedly agree with you that not indicating that fact to readers needs to stop. Having that sprung on me unexpectedly pisses me off.

>38 bragan: Maybe LT needs a new field in Common Knowledge for unlabeled series books?

>39 dukedom_enough: I haven't checked, but it's possible that the finished copy of the book notes it's the "first book of..."

Playing in the Dark sounds really interesting - good review.

I might have been interested in Severina, but I can see how it might be a bit meh. What were the books that were mentioned?

>41 DieFledermaus: will post the list as soon as I find where I've put the book. :-)

BBC Two announces an adaptation of China Mieville's The City and The City.

I'm not optimistic. The novel's essence lies in Tyador Borlú's consciousness, and the screen can only show surfaces. I wish the dramatic media would keep their sticky hands off the books I love. Perdido Street Station would be a better choice, though it couldn't be done in the 4 hours the BBC is projecting.

>43 dukedom_enough: - I'm surprised that the BBC would commit to another fantastical series, their adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was a ratings disaster. But then again The City and The City is a detective novel and British TV can't stop making crime dramas.

I'm really wondering how an adaptation of The City and the City could turn out! It really does not seem to be made for this format...

>44 Jargoneer: >45 chlorine:

I suppose if they just do some sort of infodump on how unseeing and crosshatching work. Or maybe they could do something with color? Say, in the Besźel scenes, Besźel people and places are in color, and Ul Qoma ones are greyscale; then reverse when Tyador crosses the border.

>44 Jargoneer: Has anyone counted, to see whether the number of murder victims in British TV since, say, 1980, outnumber the actual number of such victims?

>46 dukedom_enough:

Admittedly, that'd be a lot of draping things in green, and computer-controlled camera setups.

>46 dukedom_enough:: The colour thing could work, it's a nice idea.

>43 dukedom_enough: it will certainly be a challenge. There was a film some years ago (15+ at least) that might make a good example of possibilities, but I need to tap the query into my memory and allow a little percolation before the bell goes ping and I can enlighten you Michael.

>Are you thinking Pleasantville? Did they mix greyscale and color buildings, or just actors?

>47 dukedom_enough: - the BBC have investigated the murder rate on TV - How unrealistic is murder on television?. It turns out that the most dangerous place is in the US - Cabot Cove, home of that angel of death, Jessica Fletcher.

I think I'm thinking of either, or a merge of two films in the 1990s: the French film 'The a City of lost Children'

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/city-of-lost-children-1995

And 'Dark City'

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-dark-city-2005

>53 Caroline_McElwee:: I don't remember Dark City very well but I think I see how you mean The city and the City could be adapted: scenes in which the main protagonist suddenly sees for a short instant how things really are?
Matrix might enter in that category, or maybe Open your eyes.

I liked The city of lost children but I don't remember any two parallel world's or anything like that in it.

Oxford, Jersey and Leeds seem to be particularly dangerous places to live in the UK. I am addicted to all of the BBC murder mystery series, but good luck to them with The City and The City.

>52 Jargoneer: Ah, thanks, knew someone would've worked that out.

>53 Caroline_McElwee: >54 chlorine: Interesting.

>55 baswood: The Mieville didn't seem to be about the murder so much as about the city(s).

>19 avaland: this is nice to see. The comment I had come across about this book so far was that it was arrogant and might hint at what became of Morrison's writing after Beloved. The comment was in an old review of a Morrison, but I forgot which review. Hopefully I will read this book later this year. (Although Morrison seems to be getting worse and worse with each book. I found A Mercy terrible. I'm discouraged at the moment. )

>57 dchaikin: Daniel, I think if there is a problem with recent Morrisson, it is that she had two particularly outstanding novels in mid-career, and it is almost impossible to continually hit those heights. I have yet to read a terrible book by her, and I've read them all except Sula and a volume of essays, but I certainly found that re-reading some of the later works allowed the more subtle notes come to the surface, and the surprise that the novel wasn't another Beloved is behind you, so you read it on its own terms, and not in comparison too anything else.

Maybe I need to reread. I found every book before Beloved terrific. And to me every book after it felt forced (through A Mercy). There is a clear change. Perhaps I'm not being patient enough with the newer books. But, regardless, they are different. The text wanders or the details dominate (Paradise) and there just seems to be less going on within the text itself. They are also less playful then before Beloved - although I would not call Beloved playful.

I read several of her novels for the first time in 2013, Beloved and a few other earlier ones. This year I read Tar Baby and then started to read the novels that came out after Beloved. (Actually I listened to Tar Baby and A Mercy).

I think you have to take into account that Morrison is now 84 and very few writers produce their best work into old age.

>46 dukedom_enough: - The City and the City has been adapted before, for the theatre - The City and the City on stage

>57 dchaikin: "Arrogant"...really? Confident, knowledgeable....etc, yes; arrogant, no. I would find a comment like that suspicious considering the content of the book; the choice of adjective suggests: uppity black woman, how dare she. I read a fair bit of literary criticism and her tone is not uncommon. And I'm not sure what a short volume of literary criticism has to do her later fiction. As Caroline notes, the arc of her career as a novelist is not unlike many, many authors whose best work is done mid-career. I imagine the pressures and demands of being a Nobel prize winner (awarded 1993, the year after the volume of Lit-crit was published) might have more to do with it. Btw, I have not read all of her fiction, but I've read more than half of it.

>52 Jargoneer:, >55 baswood: As you know, I have an affinity for crime dramas, UK or otherwise (btw, I hear there is a "Luther" special coming out). Recently watched "Chasing Shadows" and thought it okay. Both that and the Australian "The Code" attempt to recreate the detective duo of the Danish-Swedish "The Bridge" with one of the two brilliant but socially inept (somewhere on the Autism spectrum), and the other capable and affable. "The Code" is more straightforward thriller (which I am less fond of ) but worth watching for the mix of murder and political thriller á la the Swedish "The Killing" (who did it better, imo) and the settings of Canberra and the outback. Tried twice, but could not get into the New Zealand "Brokewood Mysteries." I'm enjoying the seasons of the Danish "Unit One" as I exercise (I previously exercised through all three seasons of "Scott and Bailey" and am looking forward to the 4th).

I'd comment on the discussion of The City and the City adaptation, but I think you all have already covered what I might say :-)

>53 Caroline_McElwee: - I loved The Bridge because of the dynamic between the two detectives. The good news is that a new series is coming soon, the bad news is that only Saga Norén is coming back but I can live that. The BBC are also going show Beck, which is loosely based on the Martin Beck books.
Mind you, it will take a lot to live up to the latest series of Spiral.

>62 Jargoneer: Do you mean a season 3 of "The Bridge"? I've already seen #2 (which, in some ways, was a bit better than 1). OK, what season of "Spiral" are you talking about? There are things I enjoyed about Spiral but I thought the police sometimes resembled stereotypical, pre-1970s American cops (covering each others' transgressions, going around the law when it serves their purpose...etc.). I could overlook this because I enjoyed seeing how the legal process worked (and didn't).

Turner, did you ever see "Borgen"...the Swedish political drama? And, if so, was it any good?

>58 Caroline_McElwee:, >60 Jargoneer:, >61 avaland: Kind of mentally processing all your comments on Morrison. I'm confused by her and what I'm reading this year verse what I read 2 years ago. Trying to make sense of it.

Arrogant was not the word used. It was "hectoring, didactic voice". The review is of Paradise, from MICHIKO KAKUTANI, in the January 6, 1998 New York Times:

Although "Paradise" employs familiar Morrison techniques -- cutting back and forth from one character's point of view to another, back and forth from the past to the present -- the novel's language feels closer to the hectoring, didactic voice that warped her 1992 essay "Playing in the Dark."

>63 avaland: - yes, a series 3 of The Bridge. I was talking about Season 5 of Spiral in which the lead character, Laure Berthaud, is pregnant. That's an interesting observation re 1970s US cop shows, it does have that feel to it. Most of the time when I watch the show I end thinking of the 'oddities' of the French justice system, and, I'm bit embarrassed to admit, thinking that Audrey Fleurot is the most beautiful woman on TV.

I tried watching Borgen but didn't really get into it. It is very talk-y as anything about politics tends to be. I feel as if I should try again as people whose judgment I trust still rave about it.

BBC4 did step out of crime a couple of times this summer - firstly, they showed a Danish series called 1864 about the war between Denmark and Prussia. It was so bleak I had to give up on it and read about it instead. They then showed a Belgium show, Cordon, about a virus outbreak in Antwerp - it was a little bonkers and made no sense half the time.

>65 dchaikin: - that seems fair enough criticism to me. No writer is ever going to please everyone. The novelist Charles Johnson has criticised her depiction of men and whites and said her Nobel Award was 'a triumph of political correctness'. While this seems overstatement it does make you think of Morrison's characterisation beyond black women. Surely, that is the point of criticism - to get others to look afresh at the work.

>65 dchaikin: Interesting. And I understand how you came to connect the essay and the later work. Thanks for posting that. I would not agree with "hectoring" but I might see how someone might chose "didactic." Her voice, imo, is authoritative (a very acceptable voice when used by a man, of course), and I, for one, am happy to sit at her feet and learn.

I'm not an expert on Morrison. And I'm not the kind of reader or "fan" who would suggest every book by an author is an excellent one, and I would be suspect of any reader who claimed that for an author, but every book of an author's oeuvre might be worth reading on some level. You, Dan, are a wonderful, thoughtful reader who continually stretches himself, and I admire your struggle with some of Morrison's work. Interesting article on Morrison in an April edition of the NY Times titled, "The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison" (you should be able to find this easily in a search, I can't post a link because I'm still using an antique laptop whose browser has ceased allowing me to copy and paste. Will post when I get to the desktop)

btw, Dan, the book I just finished about American Gothic had some brief*, but interesting bits about Cormac McCarthy, certainly enlightening for me. *it's a survey-style study, and only 200 pages, so comments on most contemporary authors are brief.

>66 Jargoneer: Will keep an eye out for the 3rd season of the Bridge. Yes, the "oddities" of the French justice system attracts me also. Is it the red hair of Fleurot (she's clearly a natural redhead)? She is gorgeous, true.
Thanks, I may continue to avoid "Borgen" for now.

>66 Jargoneer:

The novelist Charles Johnson has criticised her depiction of men and whites and said her Nobel Award was 'a triumph of political correctness'.

What an odious, racist comment. IOW, she didn't deserve the Nobel? Why, are black women automatically a more "political" choice than a white man? Does Johnson not know all the winners since the inception of the prize were weighed for and through political dimensions of one kind or the other?

That's part of the Nobel, and it's an important part. It gives some idea of the evolution of humanistic aspirations the prize was supposed to reflect, if not of actual social progress.

How terrible that this amalgamation of literary value and social significance seems to leave some white men and their pet stories in the dust.

>68 avaland:

Lois, I've only seen the first season of Borgen (Danish, not Swedish, by the way) and I think you'd love it, although I don't know how much hype came your way and how that might affect expectations (I stumbled on it in all ignorance). If you watch a lot of political series it may seem old hat; I thoroughly enjoyed both the prominence and the quality of the female lead, and the intrigue.

By the way, since you're a fan of Scandi-crime, I expect you've seen the series Irene Huss and Maria Wern? Police procedurals, not at all my thing, but I'm so starved for women in lead roles I watched through them just for THAT. Lest it seems like damning with irrelevant praise, fwiw, I thought both were very good to excellent. I preferred Irene slightly (the series, not the actress--both are great imo), but Wern has the more sumptuous visuals, tourist eye-candy.

>67 avaland: you can find The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison here: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/magazine/the-radical-vision-of-toni-morriso...

I don't know how you handle that laptop without copy and paste. I skimmed through the article. What I read was excellent and enlightening. Thanks for pointing me to it.

>66 Jargoneer: - It's interesting that you assumed Charles Johnson was white. He is a black novelist and academic. You are completely correct about the political aspects of the award though - Harold Pinter won his award as much for his anti-US stance at the time than his plays. The correct favourite the 2015 award according to UK bookmakers is Svetlana Aleksijevitj, a choice that has to influenced by the situation in Ukraine. I'm surprised that Syrian poet Adunis isn't being touted as well.

>69 LolaWalser: Thanks for the recommendations, Sanya, I'll look into that. Have you watched "Top of the Lake," Jane Campion's 6-part crime series? It's excellent, Elizabeth Moss is terrific in it.

>70 dchaikin: It seems to be just the browser, Dan, but other browsers choke up on the web pages (too old for Chrome, and Firefox won't update). It's an 8 year old MacBook Pro. I'm in the process of cleaning it off so I can buy a new one. The desktop I have is somewhat newer, just less convenient.

>71 Jargoneer: Gotta love the UK bookmakers....

>73 avaland: - gambling may well be the number one business in the UK. You can have a bet on virtually anything. If you watch sport on TV every ad seems to be about gambling, not to encourage you to bet on the result but specific items - the next throw-in, first player substituted, etc (sorry for the football terms). UK high streets now consist of three things - coffee shops, charity shops and bookmakers. I think the words of Homer Simpson stand for the whole of the UK -

The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother, and I call him Gamblor! We must save your mother from his neon claws!

But if anyone does fancy a flutter, Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life is favourite for the Booker Prize, just ahead of Marilynne Robinson.

>71 Jargoneer:

No, actually I didn't assume anything about Johnson. The remark is racist no matter what the colour of his skin.

>72 avaland:

Have you watched "Top of the Lake," Jane Campion's 6-part crime series? It's excellent, Elizabeth Moss is terrific in it.

Never heard of it! I think The piano is the only thing of Campion's I've seen and IIRC I found it impressive.

Thanks for the rec.

>76 LolaWalser:

"Top of the Lake" fits some of your requirements in the "sensibilities" thread, though it's not SF.

>71 Jargoneer: >74 Jargoneer: For what it's worth, I enjoyed Johnson's Middle Passage.

Great conversation here. I am a huge Morrison fan, but I did feel letdown by her last book. I haven't reviewed it because I feel I need to reread it. So many of her books have repaid revisiting.

>79 janeajones: Thanks for stopping by, Jane. I thought her last book very different from her previous, and early on I was ready to dismiss it, but it grew on me as I thought about it. It's no Beloved but Morrison still has something to say.

Thanks for the recommendations of various crime series. Top of the Lake is even available on German Netflix.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

N. K. Jemisin's new fantasy novel, first of a series, is set in an imagined world where plate tectonics runs on fast forward. Earthquakes and volcanoes occur much more frequently than in our world. Towns routinely suffer rockfall, collapsed buildings, lava flows, and tsunami. Only in the relatively stable capital city may builders dare to put balconies on structures. Every few hundred years, the world's crust is torn with sufficient violence that the sun is blotted out for a year or more by smoke and ash, causing an extended winter - a Fifth Season, for which human communities must prepare by storing years of food supplies, and by maintaining ancient, harsh customs of preparedness. In every such season, many towns and cities are completely destroyed. Yet a continuous civilization has existed for thousands of years.

Orogenes, a small precentage of the population, are born with the ability to start, enhance, or suppress these seismic events. When untrained, they cause disasters, and so are feared and hated. Commonly, they are murdered as soon as their powers appear in childhood. A few are taken to the capital city, where they learn to control their abilities, to serve the rest of the society. In turn, they are controlled, their freedom taken away by the order of Guardians set above them.

The story begins at the beginning of the end of the world, when an orogene rips apart an entire continent, starting a Fifth Season more severe than any in history, one that will last for thousands of years. We then follow three stories.

Just before the earth suffers its unprecedented break, Essun discovers her baby son, murdered by his father, who has disappeared with their daughter. After the Season starts, she sets out into the growing chaos to find them.

Before the break, Damaya, a girl newly discovered to be an orogene, is taken from her community by the Guardian who will supervise her for the rest of her life. Her training begins with alternating kindness and terrible brutality from him and, later, her teachers and fellow students, in the citadel where all approved orogenes must live.

Also before the break, Syenite, a young adult orogene of great talent, is sent on an unimportant mission; her real orders are to become pregnant by her orogene companion, a senior member of her guild - for orogenes are bred by their Guardians, who seek bloodlines with improved talents. She has no choice in the matter.

Jemisin is African-American, and this book can be read, among other readings, as a parable of the experience of slavery. Her characters' position in their society, as a vitally important foundation but without freedom, is sharply drawn and heartbreaking. Heartbreak is everywhere; Essun's several-day vigil over her dead baby is not the worst thing that happens in the story. The book draws a well-realized secondary world, full of history and puzzles which we will learn more about later in the series. There are hints that this series may be science fiction disguised as fantasy. This was a common maneuver in the 1930-1960s, before Tolkien made fantasy respectable, but it's interesting and refreshing to see it used today - if I'm right.

If I have a complaint, it is that Jemisin, like many other younger writers, goes further than I prefer in the direction of outsourcing to the reader the details of setting and event. Often, just bare descriptions are supplied. Give us more imagery of that giant rift formed right at the beginning. Show some of the cities crashing down. But that's a minor point.

This, Jemisin's sixth novel, is a fine story told by a talented writer. It's brutal and sorrowful, as fantasy novels tend to be nowadays, and filled with uniquely conceived ideas and people. I look forward to the sequels.

Four stars

Very nice review! I had never heard of Jemisin and she sounds like she's an author worth reading.

>81 RidgewayGirl: You are welcome. Do you know if the German series "Bukow & Konig" is any good? I have a DVD here of set one but have not gotten to see it yet (exercising through 4 seasons of the Danish "Unit One" series, first).

>83 chlorine: There are more newer writers than I can keep track of, but Jemisin is certainly interesting. This is the first novel of hers I've actually read.

>68 avaland: Going back to the beginning of September on your thread, but putting in a good word for Borgen. I loved the two seasons I have seen to date and am waiting to see season three. Also a big fan of The Bridge and glad to hear there is a season three, and The Killing. They're all a great way to while away those snowbound evenings coming up all too soon.

1864 sounds like something that might work this winter.

>84 avaland: No, I'll look for it, though. The German version of Netflix has quite a selection of crime series from all over. I'm watching Top of the Lake now.

>86 SassyLassy: Thanks for your input, now I must find it....

>87 RidgewayGirl: We seem to be seeing less and less through Netflix here these days. The first season of "American Crime" was excellent, if almost unrentlessly bleak (though there is a ray of hope towards the end). The acting is top-notch. I'll be interested to see what they do with the next season in 2016.

>88 avaland: I feel like every time you mention that you liked a show, I'm the one who ends up watching it. d

>89 RidgewayGirl: She gets kickbacks when you do...
:-)

>86 SassyLassy: Broke down and bought "Borgen," but it will have to wait until season 2 of "Fargo" finishes.

>89 RidgewayGirl:, >90 dukedom_enough: ha ha...

I'm now behind in reviewing by 8 books. Sigh.

>91 avaland: That's funny as I'm currently working through Fargo.

My sympathies on being behind with the reviews. I'm in approximately the same position and it does weigh.

>92 SassyLassy: 1st season or 2nd? Thus far I think I still like the first season best, something about the mix of Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton, but the 2nd season is certainly also good. Also watching the weirdly addictive "The Leftovers" on HBO.

I'm going to have my knee replaced during the winter and that should give me a bit more down time to catch up. I do have some written up but at this point I would like to trim them and keep them short.

It's been a crazy few months. Perhaps the whole year has been crazy. We had hoped to keep current, maybe even socialize. We thought we might post some from our vacations in Washington DC (8 art galleries + 1 other museum) and Quebec City (1 art gallery and other stuff), but failed to do so. Life pulls us in other directions.

We will aim to do better in Club Read 2016. I've updated our reading lists at the top of the page. I have some draft reviews in a file somewhere, but I'll save them for the 2016 thread, I think. Michael may do the same. We'll post our "Best of 2016" in the new thread.

Thanks for visiting us in 2015. Your comments are always interesting, and much appreciated. Happy New Year!