Book Reviews: Travel Light, Mitchison; A Plague of Unicorns, Yolen; The Pride of Chanur, Cherryh

[juushika]

Title: Travel Light
Author: Naomi Mitchison
Published: Small Beer Press, 2005 (1952)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 145
Total Page Count: 225,180
Text Number: 717
Read Because: multiple recommendations, including mrissa, here and a few mentions (of author and book both) by rushthatspeaks, ebook requested and borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A rescued child, fostered by bears and dragons, learns to travel light. The title is central conceit, character growth and theme: what we carry with us, physically, psychologically; what it means to keep or discard, and how it informs our experience—couched within a playful, flexible narrative that slides from fairytale to Constantinople. The changing settings and tone can be disorientating, even disappointing for becoming less fantastic, but it also allows for increasingly ambiguous thematic development. That Mitchison can do this all, can speak with humor and sympathy, can be frivolous and profound, is a sincere delight (and it makes me want to read more of her work). I wish I'd encountered this earlier, but better late than never.


Title: A Plague of Unicorns
Author: Jane Yolen
Illustrator: Tom McGrath
Published: Zonderkidz, 2014
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 225,370
Text Number: 718
Read Because: reading more from the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A plague of apple-eating unicorns forces a monastery to seek outside help. This is a historical pastiche, a coming-of-age, a fairy tale, slipping lithely between categories with no great depth or sense of investment. But the combined effect is charming. It has a playful, irreverent tone which does much to demystify unicorns, and then an evocative, beautifully imagined climax which puts the magic back in; sweet, accessible, but with satisfying payoff. I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this, and would be interested in reading more of Yolen's middle grade fiction.

(The illustrations are adequate; decent atmosphere, but the technical skill leaves something to be desired. I don't find that they added anything substantial to the text, but they may work better for younger readers.)


Title: The Pride of Chanur (Chanur Book 1)
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: DAW, 1981
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 225
Total Page Count: 225,595
Text Number: 719
Read Because: fan of the author
Review: An alien stowaway thrusts one ship and crew into an interspecies conflict. The concept here—of human as alien, and as a secondary character—is fantastic, but not always fully realized: hani, the protagonist alien society, is insufficiently weird, insufficiently non-human; but other alien species are weirder, which is more intriguing and also convincing, and the approach to interspecies interactions, via cultural frameworks and linguistics, is a compelling addition to the space opera subgenre. This furthermore possesses Cherryh's hallmarks, the balance of personal narratives to larger plot; the distinctively terse but emotive relationships—functioning here across species lines. Cherryh has yet to disappoint me and this is no exception; I wasn't blown away, the ending action is a bit much, but the premise and sociological focus is thoughtful.

"If we get out of this," she promised him, "we go skin some kif. Next trip out. I take you with me."

That was premature. They owned nothing to give away, least of all the disposition of the Outsider. Lose Chanur, she thought with a chill, and they could make no more promises at all; but confidence burned in Tully's eyes, a trust that he was theirs.

Gods. THIERS. Theirs for managing, for using, for finding the location of his distant people before the mahendo'sat or the kif could do so, and making a wedge for Chanur trade. But it was Hilfy's kind of look he gave her. Worship ... not quite. Absolute belief. She looked at Hilfy to be sure and found the same. Looked disquietly at the others, at Haral and Geran and Chur and Tirun, who had their own rights on this ship which was theirs as well as hers, who had been there longer and knew better and had to know what the odds were. It was there too—quieter, but as crazily trusting. She talked about going kif-hunting and they gave her that kind of stare.

#there's this moment in very damn Cherryh book I s2g where these terse tense prickly assholes have an ENTIRE feeling #a feeling which is frequently 'I am connected to others; there is an intimacy here borne of responsibility or shared need' #and I am a sucker for it EVERY SINGLE TIME #it's esp. interesting here bc Tully is a human alien non-protagonist so his motivations/affect are more identifiable than the protagonist's #but we have an external PoV of providing aid to trauma and need which is primed to be sympathetic b/c we identify with him #so we see the crisis of A Feeling simultaneously from within and without—as Lover and Beloved as it were except the love is essentially #personhood; we are people we are interdependent and sapient and all in possession of feelings; but our places and powers are not equal #anyway Juu came to Cherryh for the interpersonals and then stayed for the interpersonals b/c I TRIED to read this for the non-human PoV #and it was approx. there although just about all the other aliens were more interesting than the protagonist-species Hani #yet the part that punched me in my own feeling-place was Tully's interactions with the crew



I was going to write "sure is nice to have a good reading block!"—but I actually began The Pride of Chanur mid-July (then interrupted it to get through a bunch of things due back) and the further truth is that a lot of my recent books, including ones finished today/in progress now, have been fantastic. Out from under the shadow of The Martian and the good intentions of Trouble and Her Friends—and the endless audiobook which was The House of Shattered Wings.

Following up Travel Light with A Plague of Unicorns was fascinating. They're not especially comparable—Travel Light is all about the numinous, the thematic; A Plague of Unicorns is a more frivolous but then, that climax! (the image of a girl-warrior winding a labyrinth for unicorns is transcendent, and a pointed conversation on feminism and violence, and Alexandria is the true hero of the book). But I had a similar reaction to them both, to their language and accessibility, to how far they take their magics and morals. It made me write this post over on Tumblr, copied below for posterity:

I tried for ages to be the sort of reader who can read YA uncritically/as escapism/to break a reading slump, and I deeply, truly am not–primarily because the standards of YA, the first person present tense narration, the romances, the protagonist archetypes, the pacing, all legitimately bug me; it’s not just that I can’t turn off critical brain (which is a fair criticism), it’s that it’s not my thing regardless.

But middle grade! The potential weaknesses there, the frivolity, the short length, the transparent and sympathetic characterization of protagonists (as misunderstood but valuable people still learning to be themselves), the visible narrator, the occasional obvious but still surprisingly complex moral, I just adore. It feels more like a fairy tale, and to be frank: to be told by a narrator that those prickly quirks which make one misunderstood are also the key to entering a fairy story is deeply cathartic and reassuring, still, at my age.

I often feel let down by YA–these intriguing premises almost seem to devolve, to grow less magical and also less profound when the genre’s standards are applied. The narration standards are flat and repetitive, when what the world wants is beautiful language; repetitive relationship dramas overwhelm the magic of the worldbuilding. Middle grade, to me, feels like it does the inverse. The quaint and present narrators remind me of Victorian fairytales, even when they’re a little too visible. Linking character growth to theme to the magic of the premise has an innate profundity, even when the craftsmanship is second rate. (And though MG may have sequels, they’re 150-page books and not sold as trilogies by industry standard.)

It has more to do with personal preference than objective truth–it’s about what clichés appeal to me. But I still find myself reluctant to start a middle grade book, like it’s below me or a waste of time, while refusing to make the same judgement of adults who read YA and putting YA on my TBR. That’s ridiculous, so, Dear Future Juu: stop doing the dumb thing; read more MG.

I've been reading an above-average (for me) amount of YA lately in my attempt to diversify my reading—it's so easy to find own voices reading lists for YA—and it's been occasionally spectacular (When the Moon was Ours) but, on the whole, has functioned mostly to remind me that I sure do hate the genre's standards. It's taken me a while to realize I tend to have the opposite reaction to MG.