Book Reviews: Angel-Seeker, Shinn; Mapping the Interior, Jones; Cannibalism, Schutt

I never read related books in a row—if my brain groups them (as series or genre or format), I interweave that "type" of books with other types of books. I'm wary of burnout and of blurring the boundaries between texts, and it's been an effective tool for countering my long-held dislike of series, much of which probably comes precisely from burnout & installments blurring together. It also, coincidentally, means that I've been finishing up three series at about the same time: Shinn's Samaria, DWJ's Chrestomanci, and (when my hold comes in!), Wells's Raksura. It's so satisfying to remove those entire sublists from my TBR, and it opens up room to ... start some other series that have been waiting on my TBR.


Title: Angel-Seeker (Samaria Book 5)
Author: Sharon Shinn
Published: Ace Books, 2005 (2004)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 505
Total Page Count: 281,505
Text Number: 911
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The stories of an angel-seeker and a Jansai girl explore the forgotten corners of Samaria's worldbuilding. Insofar as Shinn's worldlbuilding draws from real world cultures, the social politics of these books is sometimes simplistic and never perfect; to explore the smaller, gendered aspects of the world brings some welcome depth but also runs directly into those limitations. It succeeds on the whole, mostly because the characters and central romance are sympathetic—the latter has some of the best tension in the series. But I found this disappointing. It's a small story, a sequel to Archangel which fails to progress the overarching speculative plot; as the first in the series which fails to do so, it feels remarkably less substantial regardless of its scale.


Title: Mapping the Interior
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 110
Total Page Count: 281,615
Text Number: 912
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A 12-year-old boy sees his dead father in his family's modular home. The metaphor of inner landscapes/mapping the interior (of a life, of a home)/the anatomy of a haunted house is powerful, and here superbly rendered, an exploration of family and American Indian identity, of cycles of violence and how individuals find meaning in their live's events. I've never seen the concept taken in this particular direction(/to this particular location), and Jones's conversational narrative voice sells it completely. The blurry boundaries between the metaphorical/speculative and the real world excel in novella-length, where they may fall apart in a longer work; this is the failure of the ending, which is too substantial in concept but left unexplored, a weak end to a strong book. But this impressed me. I liked it much more than Mongrels, and it makes me want to read more of Jones's work.


Title: Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History
Author: Bill Schutt
Illustrator: Patricia J. Wynne
Published: Algonquin Books, 2018 (2017)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 281,935
Text Number: 913
Read Because: discovered here, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This is a decent overview of the history and biology of cannibalism. The zoological studies are diverse and broad, and make effective arguments about the causes and therefore evolutionary benefits of cannibalism. It lines up nicely with the human studies which investigate these same causes, particularly privation. The issue of evolutionary benefit for humans is of course more complicated, and Schutt takes a variety of approaches, looking at cannibalism both as an act and as a social concept, and this latter—particular the role of (accusations of) cannibalism in justifications for genocide—gives the book depth.

But I have too many unanswered questions: What are the ethics of murder versus eating the already-dead versus cannibalism as a social taboo—how does sapience factor into the erstwhile benefits of survival cannibalism? What is it that makes the taboo of cannibalism compelling in the public consciousness, and how does this intersect with cases of criminal cannibalism? I respect the decision to avoid sensationalism and over-reported criminal cases, but the lack here is conspicuous; meanwhile, using Freud to discuss taboo is cliché and, frankly, problematic. What is the cost/benefit for the evolutionary benefits versus health risks of cannibalism; where's the tipping point in that equation and what protective measures exist? Many of these answers exist by implication, and most of them are "it's complicated," but I wish Schutt were bolder & reached further. The only bold conclusion he draws is a warning about the intersection of desensitization and survival cannibalism in near-future disaster situations—a lazy argument that directly conflicts the desensitized genocidal/cannibalistic human past. (All cultures are desensitized in their own special way.) I liked this well enough, the breadth of it is interesting, the science accessible; Schutt's humor conflicts sometimes with the deceptive gravity of his topic, but it makes for a readable text. But I wanted more, more depth, more asked but unanswerable questions, and that's not present here.

(The author liked this review on Goodreads, which I'm sure he does almost-universally; and I never really forget that authors are real people and probably compelled to check for reviews just like anyone would be; and this is the most harmless version of creator/consumer involvement in these troubled times of social media. But! I hate the reminder that when I say a text is just okay the text's proud parent can probably hear me! it's stressful! let's only read classic lit from now on.)

Bye Tumblr; and more Hanukkah

There's something invigorating and optimistic in the Tumblr exodus—a feeling helped along by nostalgia which I've been trying to rein in (not only can you never return to the good old days, there are no good old days, not really), but which has been counteracting the low-grade anxiety that always comes with thinking about social media & the role it plays in my life. (Agoraphobia/anxiety I think makes me especially vulnerable to the dangers of parasocial relationships and the dopamine hits that come from microblogging platforms—it's easy for me to expend my limited social energy in ways that don't provide adequate returns. It's still a double-edged thing, because mindless/more passive distraction has value. Thus the answer to the perennial question, how2socialize?, forever evades me.) Tumblr dying doesn't fix anything, but it may be an improvement, and it's certainly hilarious to watch it all fall down.

My visits home for Hanukkah have been low key, mostly in positive ways, excepting one overlapping visit from a goyim family friend—still low key, but it did prompt a "the story of Hanukkah from a poorly-educated non-observant Jew" moment which illustrated all the complicated feelings I've had about cultural Jewish identity after the death of one's Jewish parent. Everything secondhand, everything imperfect; and the light in the window to show the world that we are still here is particularly bittersweet given that we are not all here. The cancer in my family is BRCA-related, which particularly affects Ashkenazi Jews, so these things, death of a Jewish parent, Jewish diseases, Jewish holiday, feel pointedly entwined. This is not how I wanted the universe to validate our identity.

Devon has been working to give this Hanukkah positive associations despite everything by reviving the one small present for each night tradition that I grew up with, albeit gifts of better quality that the famously shitty things my grandparents used to pick out. So far, most of them have been the mini Overwatch pachimari (Pachilantern, Pachiking, Pachilover, and Gingermari), to add to my growing collection of soft nerd items.

Excepting literal apocalypse, Devon's last day of undergrad is tomorrow (now today, Friday). He has a potential job available if he wants it, and has been working there very-part-time in these last few weeks of school. It's not all perfect; no fulfilled fantasy, yet, of moving to Canada, Sweden, the moon; to distant places where the live I've had until now stops being real. But he's almost free—we are almost free—and that's so huge that I haven't yet internalized it. Taking advantage of the increasing financial freedom to indulge in stupid presents is, however, concrete & comprehensible. And working! I don't know how I could survive any of this without him.