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juushikaTitle: Black Wine
Author: Candas Jane Dorsey
Published: Tor, 1997 (1996)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 285
Total Page Count: 314,245
Text Number: 1076
Read Because: mentioned on Five Books about Loving Everybody, borrowed from Open Library
Review: A woman flees her despotic family and home; a woman bereft of family traces retraces her mother's footsteps towards that same home. I love how Jo Walton writes on this book, because that rhapsodizing is a necessary counterbalance to some of the objective flaws. The dense, mirrored, disjointed plotlines feel more like a stylized concept of identity and inheritance than a realistic depiction of two lives; the various locations and relationships are rendered complex and immediate when present, but they're dropped when the narrative moves on—and the extent to which the protagonists fail to internalize those experiences can work against the themes.
But there's more than those complaints. This is a study of the way that language builds and depicts society, and the way society informs and limits the individual. It's stylized and heightened, but grounded by a close domestic focus, and every element when in focus is distinct and provoking. This takes cover in its stylistic paradoxes, but builds something larger than the point/counterpoint of its strengths and weaknesses—something unique.
I imagine it blossoms upon reread.
Title: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins
Author: Eric A. Kimmel
Illustrator: Trina Schart Hyman
Published: Holiday House, 2014 (1989)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 314,275
Text Number: 1077
Read Because: mentioned on this list of spooky picture books, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: This strikes a lovely balance between its desolate, spooky atmosphere and clever trickster hero. The folkloric feel doesn't allow for much characterization, so this doesn't resonate in the personal way of my favorite picture books. But it's delightful, cleverly written with consistent, expressive art. (A letter from artist to author in the afterword mentions "what a pleasure it is to work on a manuscript that implies great visual stuff, but knows enough to stop at the implication" and let the artist fill in the rest—I love that sentiment and I agree that the two elements work in productive harmony here.) And it's not an outsider's/baby's first guide to Hanukkah, it's not instructional; instead it's an affirmation of Jewish persistence, thematically apropos and much more satisfying to read.
Title: The Deep
Author: Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes
Published: Gallery / Saga Press, 2019
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 175
Total Page Count: 314,350
Text Number: 1078
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This is one of those intensely metaphorical speculative narratives where the speculative element is fully realized but nonetheless overwhelmed but its metaphorical function: mermaids who are the children and descendants of pregnant African women thrown overboard while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on slave ships; a protagonist who is her people's memory-holder, burdened with an entire society's trauma processing. A novella initially feels like the appropriate container for such a conceptual work, but it curtails the complexity of the protagonist and her relationships (which is particularly glaring after the unremitting nuance of Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts) and exacerbates the heavy-handedness of a work which is already transparent in its themes. But this novella's intrinsic value overwhelms its technical limitations, because the work performed by this concept (in itself, and in the fascinating tripartite of album/song/novella) is nuanced and empowered and engaging. It's not perfect but it's still so very good.
Author: Candas Jane Dorsey
Published: Tor, 1997 (1996)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 285
Total Page Count: 314,245
Text Number: 1076
Read Because: mentioned on Five Books about Loving Everybody, borrowed from Open Library
Review: A woman flees her despotic family and home; a woman bereft of family traces retraces her mother's footsteps towards that same home. I love how Jo Walton writes on this book, because that rhapsodizing is a necessary counterbalance to some of the objective flaws. The dense, mirrored, disjointed plotlines feel more like a stylized concept of identity and inheritance than a realistic depiction of two lives; the various locations and relationships are rendered complex and immediate when present, but they're dropped when the narrative moves on—and the extent to which the protagonists fail to internalize those experiences can work against the themes.
But there's more than those complaints. This is a study of the way that language builds and depicts society, and the way society informs and limits the individual. It's stylized and heightened, but grounded by a close domestic focus, and every element when in focus is distinct and provoking. This takes cover in its stylistic paradoxes, but builds something larger than the point/counterpoint of its strengths and weaknesses—something unique.
I imagine it blossoms upon reread.
Title: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins
Author: Eric A. Kimmel
Illustrator: Trina Schart Hyman
Published: Holiday House, 2014 (1989)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 314,275
Text Number: 1077
Read Because: mentioned on this list of spooky picture books, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: This strikes a lovely balance between its desolate, spooky atmosphere and clever trickster hero. The folkloric feel doesn't allow for much characterization, so this doesn't resonate in the personal way of my favorite picture books. But it's delightful, cleverly written with consistent, expressive art. (A letter from artist to author in the afterword mentions "what a pleasure it is to work on a manuscript that implies great visual stuff, but knows enough to stop at the implication" and let the artist fill in the rest—I love that sentiment and I agree that the two elements work in productive harmony here.) And it's not an outsider's/baby's first guide to Hanukkah, it's not instructional; instead it's an affirmation of Jewish persistence, thematically apropos and much more satisfying to read.
Title: The Deep
Author: Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes
Published: Gallery / Saga Press, 2019
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 175
Total Page Count: 314,350
Text Number: 1078
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This is one of those intensely metaphorical speculative narratives where the speculative element is fully realized but nonetheless overwhelmed but its metaphorical function: mermaids who are the children and descendants of pregnant African women thrown overboard while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on slave ships; a protagonist who is her people's memory-holder, burdened with an entire society's trauma processing. A novella initially feels like the appropriate container for such a conceptual work, but it curtails the complexity of the protagonist and her relationships (which is particularly glaring after the unremitting nuance of Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts) and exacerbates the heavy-handedness of a work which is already transparent in its themes. But this novella's intrinsic value overwhelms its technical limitations, because the work performed by this concept (in itself, and in the fascinating tripartite of album/song/novella) is nuanced and empowered and engaging. It's not perfect but it's still so very good.
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Date: 2020-01-09 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-09 01:51 pm (UTC)