Holidays 2019

Devon's halfdays off through Hanukkah lead seamlessly to halfdays/full days off for the new year, so I'm just now emerging from 10 days of hanging out with my partner, watching TV and eating good food and playing The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

(Which I adored, btw. It's everything I want a modern remake to be: retro feel with quality of life improvements to alleviate the frustrations of older titles and a high-poly charming playmobil-style aesthetic. I never did finish A Link to the Past because the combat grew too frustrating; this is the answer to the parts of retro games that don't hold up. I'd probably put it third-ish on my favorite Zelda game list, following Breath of the Wild and Twilight Princess. It's not a holistic ranking, because The Wind Waker and Ocarina of the Time have much more substantial narratives, but they're just not as enjoyable to play.)

It was the perfect vacation. My sleep cycle runs around 3a-noon, so Devon was effectively around my entire day. Between on-call days and scheduled company holidays, the ten-day vacation took just three total days of PTO. We had so much free time together that his trips out to see friends and family didn't feel like they were eating into precious us-time. It was sustainable and effective, and assuming he stays at his job we'll probably do the same next year.

Opting not to interact with friends and family wasn't the grown-up or healthy choice, but I'm still having a hard time with people—harder now than a year ago. I'm not sadder, I'm tired—a thorough and extended tired. I have griefprocessing.exe running in the background, slowing the rest of the brain-computer; but my brain doesn't have the uhhhhh RAM, I guess, to run bigger programs like family.exe or activeprocessing.exe. My choices are, as always, easier unhealthy-ish choice vs. harder and actively damaging but more responsible choice, and as usual I went with the former.

I'm super behind on end-of-year media wrap-ups (writing my own, but also reading others's!), because I've been with Devon instead of my computer. But I'll get there.

Reviews: The Velveteen Rabbit, Bianco; The Starless Sea, Morgenstern; The Brightest Fell, Chowdhury

Title: The Velveteen Rabbit
Author: Margery Williams Bianco
Illustrator: William Nicholson
Published: Doubleday, 1922
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 311,760
Text Number: 1069
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: I'm surprised it took me so long pick this up, and surprised that the iconic quotes and concepts—particularly the conversation with the Skin Horse—come so early. The second half isn't what I expected and I find it less fulfilling, particularly the idea that "realness" is the transformation into one's "real" form. It's not what the velveteen rabbit has loved or been good at, and it's disconnected from his path to realness; it's becoming what he was loosely styled after and has known only through longing and social rejection. It's not one of those children's books which is horrifying in retrospect, but it doesn't sit easy.

But I'm reminded of the mention of Fahrenheit 451 in this episode of the podcast Backlisted, and the argument that sometimes a text's premise and cultural impact are so iconic that the text itself, with all its flaws, is somehow secondary. This reads beautifully, even in the second half, but it almost loses its own point; but that point—that realness is a process, is a becoming; that it hurts, but matters; that "once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand"—is nuanced and resonant, and larger than the text. It was true to me (in life, and in my stuffed animals) through cultural osmosis, but finally reading the book intensifies that feeling.


Title: The Starless Sea
Author: Erin Morgenstern
Published: Knopf Doubleday, 2019
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 500
Total Page Count: 312,260
Text Number: 1070
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A postgrad stumbles onto a book that features him as a character, leading him in search of a secret and fantastical library. Books about books can be magical but more often tip towards self-satisfied and saccharine; the inclusion of video games could date this rather than expanding or enlivening that theme. But this is generally successful. The micro-readings of specific texts aren't robust but they're adequate and happen to hit on some media I care about; the macro-reading of the value of stories is complicated by criticisms of idealizing narratives.

But the execution is a mess. I wish this were 100 pages shorter to force a tighter rewrite, particularly to render the flipflop of the ending reversal and epilogue unreversal more cogent. The setpieces also need to be trimmed down; Morgenstern's style is indulgent, but the locations are numerous and sequential to the point of repetition. (Compare to the reoccurring and therefore more meaningful setpieces in The Night Circus.) Morgenstern also loves a star-crossed romance, but while her tensions are interesting that tension fails to inform the growth of the relationship or, as a result, the characters—and here this happens three times while the denouement rests on those underwhelming relationships.

This is a sophomore novel: more ambition and more freedom to experiment from an author who's still learning and can't quite wrangle a bigger project. May she one day write fully-realized books! The Starless Sea is interesting and beautiful and frustrating.


Title: The Brightest Fell
Author: Nupur Chowdhury
Published: Amazon, 2019
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 325
Total Page Count: 312,585
Text Number: 1071
Read Because: review copy provided by the author
Review: An unassuming but brilliant scientist pulls a political coup to prevent the use of a dangerous experimental drug. That central character is great, sharp and disarming, just deceptive enough that even the reader distrusts him. It makes for an engaging setup that balances clever politicking against charming interpersonal dynamics from a diverse and likable cast; it's a light, fun take on the scifi/thriller genre. But the second half loses some of that brilliance to easily manipulated supporting characters and the antagonist's long monologue in the resolution. This is quick and engaging, but the cheap tropes don't live up to its fullest potential.

This is self-published but consistently, albeit not perfectly, formatted and edited. (The only significant annoyance is missing vocative commas).