Book Reviews: Mortal Fire, Knox; Deep Dark Fears, Krause; The Broken Kingdom, Jemisin

Title: Mortal Fire
Author: Elizabeth Knox
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 450
Total Page Count: 262,805
Text Number: 850
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A mixed-race girl in the South Pacific, in search of something more, discovers it while on summer break with her step-brother. The nearest comparison I can make is to Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock, for the way it sets coming of age against a larger magical world, for the whirlwind ending suffused with bittersweet loss and self-acceptance, and also for the remarkable transcendence, a numinous quality that knits world to theme. The key difference is the protagonist. Her race adds to the world and her character; the interior vs. exterior view of her is a clever way to build depth; and I adore her, I cherish her mind, her affinity for patterns and her search for the Extra, a unique combination that develops an engaging magic system with consistent, unique internal logic. The interweaving of character to concept is masterful. The pattern of the plot, the tonal changes that come with the headhopping, are somewhat less even, and I'm not entirely on board with the narrative function of disability/terminal illness—but while I can quibble, honestly I loved this—the experience of it blew me away, it's an original and distinct and intelligent work, and easily one of the best books I've read this year. I can't wait to reread it.


Title: Deep Dark Fears
Author: Fran Krause
Published: Ten Speed Press, 2015
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 145
Total Page Count: 262,950
Text Number: 851
Read Because: fan of the comic, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 101 short horror comics about fears. Most are four-panel, single page comics, but there's some flexibility and a few marginal doodles—it's probably more striking in the print edition; digitally, it's unremarkable. The comics have been cleaned up from their online publication, particularly the text. Klaus's vibrant, rough style and thoughtful touches (especially in the final panels) pairs well with the micro-horror. I'm surprised how much I liked this, given that I'd read the vast majority of it on the blog—reading it in bulk reinforces the atmosphere, instead of wearing it out as some collections do. The brevity lends well to fridge horror; there's top-notch body horror, existential horror, and healthy collection of doppelgangers and monsters. The more comedic strips aren't to my personal taste, but they work surprisingly well, breaking up and contrasting the tone without overwhelming it. This is very short, there's not a ton of content exclusive to the book, but it reminded me why I love this comic series so much.


Title: The Broken Kingdom (Inheritance Book 2)
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Published: Orbit, 2010
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 263,335
Text Number: 852
Read Because: continuing the series, book borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Ten years after the previous book, a woman encounters Itempas as a mortal man. It takes a full third of the book for the protagonist to figure that out, and the plot which follows is a series of mistakes and failed escape attempts (the death of Madding is especially grating for being ridiculously over-telegraphed). This could work: the protagonist here stands external to the previous book's conflict, exposing the world's scale and the complexity of its political and religious systems. But to have the reader forever running pages ahead of the protagonist removes tension and substitutes it with frustration. I still enjoy the way that Jemisin writes character dynamics and female protagonists (although I am not enamored of the use of magical disability—it's not near as awful as it could be, but still isn't great), and the end is, at least, better than the first two thirds. But I didn't like this near as much as—well, any other of Jemisin's books.

Reviews: The Merry Wives of Windsor & Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare; The Night Watch, Waters

Title: The Merry Wives of Windsor
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1602
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 263,435
Text Number: 853
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: Honestly, I didn't think this was that bad—which may say more about my general expectations from the comedies than it does about this play in particular. Falstaff certainly doesn't sparkle here as he does elsewhere; Hal provides necessary contrast, in tone, in scope, and Falstaff here never rouses the competing emotions, the sympathetic distaste, that makes him so memorable in Henry IV. Here, he is only a laughingstock. The images of laundrybasket, etc. are memorable ones; I'm also engaged by the final tableau, and how the faux-fairies mirror the transformative function of forests in many of Shakespeare plays. Also interesting to me is the women—it's not an unproblematic approach to gender and relationships, but their agency and control is still a breath of fresh air. But the connective tissue, the individual lines and characters, are unremarkable.


Title: Much Ado About Nothing
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1600
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 263,535
Text Number: 854
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: I have less luck with the comedies, so I'm surprised by how well I enjoyed this. Beatrice and Benedick absolutely steal the show; their repartee is vivid and sharp, and the loving mockery at their change of heart is charming. I'm less invested in the Hero plot, but the interplay between the two plots enables the reiteration and alteration that I love so much in Shakespeare's thematic focus; it's playful and complex. This lacks the atmosphere that marks my more favorite of Shakespeare's plays, and I don't know yet if this makes my best of list, but what a pleasure to finally read and I would love to see it performed.


Title: The Night Watch
Author: Sarah Waters
Narrator: Juanita McMahon
Published: Recorded Books, 2006
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 500
Total Page Count: 264,035
Text Number: 855
Read Because: fan of the author, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A story of the intertwined lives of four individuals in London during World War II. Had I realized ahead of time that this were the setting, I wouldn't have read it; it's a historical period I prefer to avoid in fiction. That reservation made it difficult for me to immerse myself, which is something that Waters's work requires. (Audio was also a mistake. The narration is strong, but it's just so long.) This is a melodrama, heightened and lengthened; the living diversity of the queer characters adds depth to the tone, and Waters has a phenomenal grasp of lengthy, intimate scenes, both mundane and dramatic, which stylize the human condition. But I found this laborious. The reverse chronological narration is a gimmick—an intentional, even lampshaded one; it's occasionally effective, but it made me wish for something like the suspense in The Handmaiden. And so: a fine book but the wrong reader; I found it fairly unremarkable.

My maternal grandmother died; and thoughts on, iunno, how everything is always shit I guess?

Today (Wednesday the 18th, although who knows when I will edit and post this) (future Juu: ~3 days later, apparently) I am engaged in an internal debate of "am I upset because my grandmother died this morning, or because I am making it out to be indicative of the larger, and awful, state of the world"—which is, of course, a trick question, as the answer is "both."

We were not close; her death was not unanticipated given her age and health issues, and the prior death of my grandfather, nor was it under particularly bad circumstances. So there's nothing especially to grieve, except the loss itself. Historically I have a relaxed relationship with grief, insofar as I never particularly miss people—in my daily life, or after their death.

So when I mourn this, I recognize that most of what I'm mourning is my father's terminal diagnosis—I mourn the fact of death, of loss; I've developed a significant apprehension of both in these last years of pet deaths, my sister's cancer, and my father's cancer.

The experimental inhibitor my father was on didn't return positive results, so he's off that and back on chemo. The right-now doesn't change significantly, but it is not a good indicator or the lucky break we were all hoping for.

I feel like I'm only justified in mourning my grandmother's death had I made any effort at all to be involved in her life—and that becomes a self-recrimination that echoes back to anxieties about my relationship with my father, and with the rest of my family, and with the social circles with which I'm not engaging. When I am this fearful and unhappy, it's significantly easier (and sometimes healthier, and frequently unavoidable) that I retreat from all socialization. So what am I missing, really, when these people die/will die? I don't interact with them anyway!

I think a lot about tikkun olam—about the social and moral obligation to repair the world. I think how terrifying it is to face the enormity of the world's wrongs, and they are so enormous right now; they are so large, and so deeply rooted. If I cannot tackle things on a macro scale—and I can't; I can't even comprehend how one could—is a micro scale sufficient? are my relationships with my loved ones enough, do they help enough? But I can't engage in those relationships, either; and if the charge then is to repair myself, well: that is provably beyond me, even in the best of times, and this is not the best of times.

What is my culpability; what do I miss; what am I entitled to mourn?

Devon intentionally doesn't discuss finances/his education/our future plans with me, because these things are specific anxiety triggers in general and right now I can't cope with anything beyond the day to day. But he can't provide that safe space in public, so a few days ago I was tangential to a conversation between Devon and father about Devon's upcoming graduation, looking for work, incomes—potential and probable dramatic lifestyle changes? moving near or far away! all as soon a December. And I can't get invested, because I have been burned by the anticipation of improvement too many times before; but part of me is already packing for New Zealand, not because that specific location which we have both already dismissed out of hand is remotely feasible, but because it's so far away that perhaps there, if nowhere else, I won't be crazy, my dad won't be dying, my real life won't be real.

But to even contemplate that things may improve at the end of the year is to link personal improvement to my dad's declining health.

These issues seem inseparable not just because I'm prone to self-indulgent navel-gazing and desperate to excuse my own bad behavior, but also because they are. We are all swamped by societal grief. The deep-rooted problems with society are not abstracts; they are affecting people I know, relatively privileged people I know, in concrete ways that I could do something about were I a better, healthier person. The relationships between individuals are enough—are certainly something—if I could engage in them. But to recognize the link between all these concepts is a really shitty way to process loss (to turn my mother's grief, my family's grief, and a real person's death into, what, an object lesson?), and in no way helps me navigate out of the labyrinth of self-knowledge and self-condemnation.