Reviews: A Witch's Guide..., Harrow; A Good Man..., O'Connor; The Collected Schizophrenias, Wang

[juushika]

Title: A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies
Author: Alix E. Harrow
Published: Apex Magazine, 2018
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 15
Total Page Count: 314,890
Text Number: 1091
Read Because: fan of portal fantasy trope, available for free online
Review: There's a point where books (or, well, short stories) about books tip into self-congratulatory rhapsodizing, and a point where well-intended social justice slips into a white savoir complex, and this stands at the intersection of both. I love it in theory, and the increasing inclination in portal fantasy metanarratives to interrogate the ethics of escapism is hugely relevant to my interests. And in practice, it's sympathetic—but also sanctimonious and twee in ways that directly undermine the intended themes.


Title: A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories
Author: Flannery O'Connor
Narrator: Marguerite Gavin
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2010 (1949)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 315,300
Text Number: 1093
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Ten stories. Flannery O'Connor is pinnacle southern gothic, entrenched in that setting and its social tension. There's an impressive ambiguity and grim intersectionality that, while dated, is surprisingly socially-conscious (read: this has aged well). Awfulness exists within, despite, and in concert with social prejudice. There's a trend of awful, privileged people getting their comeuppance, but a secondary thread runs through of undeserved suffering which targets vulnerable people. Uneasy and/or cathartic, both have a thundering tension—but dark humor modulates the tone, and there's a pervasive humanity—it's not quite hope, but the fact that everyone, no matter how awful, is a complete, complex person creates the potential of hope ... if there's someone there to shoot us every minute of our lives. What a fantastic collection—engaging, engaged; it holds up to my positive impression of O'Connor from high school lit courses.

(Ratings are a farce, 5 stars I reserve for life-changing books and it's hard for short story collections to earn them; anyway, this is like 4.5.)


Title: The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays
Author: Esmé Weijun Wang
Published: Graywolf Press, 2019
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 215
Total Page Count: 315,515
Text Number: 1094
Read Because: reviewed by Possibly Literate, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:12 essays of the author's personal experience with schizoaffective disorder, institutionalization, chronic illness, and life within/around these experiences. I wish the translation into a book gave the essays more context or structure. There's a thematic/chronological arrangement, but: 1) By necessity explorations of such ambiguous, unsolvable issues are to a degree unsatisfying—and that lack of resolution is itself productive, but still the dissatisfaction lingers. 2) The essays have an online-article tone, primarily personal memoir, fleshed out by anecdotes from within disability communities, primarily citing other similar articles. That there is no outside authority is, again, the point. But, 1+2, there is 3) in combination a sense of something lacking, which an overarching argument or simply a conclusion may have mitigated. (The first few essays almost provide this structure, but are honestly unexceptional.)

But those unsolvable issues are well-rendered. I appreciate Wang's honesty about her complicated reactions and internalized prejudices, her compassionate approach to other suffers and thoughtful approach to intersectionality, and the diversity and complexity of subjects. Details of the experience of schizophrenia are restrained but not withheld; the focus is larger, more diverse, and the chapters on "high-functioning" as a capitalist/social construct and the ethics of institutionalization (or, rather, accommodating caretakers vs accommodating suffers) are issues complex enough to be entire books—if they contained more sources and tried to offer more solutions.

I also found this wildly triggering, perhaps because it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know & fear about the impact of mental health/institutionalization. I can't make a value judgement on this, but assume it would be more productive/less triggering to an outsider audience. And that, I suppose, is my sum reaction: I admire and appreciate what Wang achieves here, but hated the reading process and don't appreciate the overall approach. The wrong book for me—but probably productive for other readers.

Comments

[chthonic_cassandra]

I am interested to read your thoughts on The Collected Schizophrenias - I have been looking forward to reading it (though it will be a while, given its place on my to-read list), but read Weijun Wang's novel, The Border of Paradise, the other day, and was really disappointed, including by its treatment of mental illness, which surprised me. (I also suspect, given our past conversations, that I am likely to find the essays triggering as well; it's helpful to be forewarned).

[juushika]

You were one of the people I thought of when reading it, because I spent the whole time wondering how people read trauma memoirs/personal accounts of narratives they experience or fear—or, rather, how they find that compelling and/or productive, when I just found it ... grueling. This isn't particularly a request for an answer, by the way, (although you are welcome to chime in, if it strikes you!) since I imagine an answer is midway between "it's complicated" and "it's personal." I know I find fictionalized frameworks more accessible/productive; but here I was so thin-skinned, even though the account isn't particularly detailed. It was hard for me to get value from it.

Which is to say that it may not be half so bad for literally any other reader, not just the more impartial ones!

[starshipfox]

A close friend of mine (who also deals with psychosis) loved Wang's book and found it very meaningful, so I was interested to read your more measured review. I'm definitely curious enough to read it myself, but will approach with caution.

[minutia_r]

Your thoughts on A Witch's Guide to Escape (which I read as part of the Hugo Voters' Packet) are pretty close to mine. I found the repeated assertion that all librarians can be divided into Good Librarians and Bad Librarians to be especially annoying for some reason.