juushika

Title: Underland: A Deep Time Journey
Author: Robert Macfarlane
Narrator: Matthew Waterson
Published: Highbridge, 2019
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 490
Total Page Count: 342,440
Text Number: 1221
Read Because: mentioned in Fear of the Depths by Jacob Geller, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I always forget (probably as a coping mechanism) that books about the planet/ecology/natural phenomenon must also be about climate change & other human disasters. They're all therefore marked by an insistence than change is necessary, but difficult, but possible—a terror and dogged hopefulness which is appropriate to the work but taxing to read.

Otherwise, this is interesting for its wide interpretation of "underland," which extends from natural to manmade, from caves to catacombs; which can be deceptively shallow or landless, like root systems and seas. It's a diverse exploration, and the constant discovery of the sublime both within these settings and in the complex ways they dwarf and/or are impacted by humanity conveys the profoundly vast, varied beauty of the subject. The human element is necessary and supports this theme, but also grows overbearing—I prefer less visible narrators, but beyond personal preference the rockclimbing stories and strong caricatures are repetitive.


Title: The Fantastic Art of Beksinski
Artist: Zdzisław Beksiński
Published: Morpheus International, 1998
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 80
Total Page Count: 343,165
Text Number: 1235
Read Because: fan of the artist, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Art primarily from Beksiński's "fantastic realism" period, ~1960s-80s, with a few examples of his later work. I love this artist and his bewitching nightmarescapes. He has the most remarkable organic greebling—a texture like hands/bones/branches/roots/veins which stretches across faces and buildings indiscriminately, thus uniting organic/inorganic, alive/dead, personal/public. It's uncomfortable and intricate, an exceedingly effective body horror and an invitation to linger over the details of the alien landscapes. (His later paintings are brighter and sometimes simpler, and I generally don't find them as evocative; his digital manipulations are thematically similar but unfortunately show their age.)

"In a dream, you can see a man who has a piece of raw meat instead of a head. This man is lying on the ground and actually growing into it, all the while carrying on a conversation with you. This situation (from a dream of mine) is not surprising or terrifying to you. It is a normal enough dream. It is only after you awake and analyze the details, that you notice that almost everything in the dream was strange and would have been terrifying if you had encountered it in your waking hours. It is a literal vision, but at the same time, blood is not blood here, pain is not pain, crime is no crime, and there is nothing to protest against, as it would be equally meaningful to protest against the fact that snow is falling."

But insofar as the benefit of picking up a print volume rather than browsing the artist's work online is print quality, accessibility, and curation, this is ... just okay. I enjoy lingering over a physical print, and the image quality is fine. But thick borders steal real estate from large paintings and the quotes from interviews, etc., while insightful, grow overbearing and are chock full of unfortunate typos. An imperfect imprint, but a beloved artist, and I'm glad I took the time to really sit with his art.


Title: Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China
Author: Ed Young
Published: Philomel Books, 1989
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 343,195
Text Number: 1236
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Beautifully illustrated, with hazy, almost abstract watercolors picked out by pastel detailing in improbable muted rainbows of fur and leaves. The panels which divide the pages add back narrative progression and build effective vignettes. I love red riding hood, and was familiar with the content of similar East Asian tales, but reading one as a story rather than summary is a different experience and I'm glad for it. If iconic imagery is absent, that's also true of pre-17th century antecedents to the European version, and the dialog between daughter(s) and wolf-grandmother and the wily problem-solving is familiar—and centralized, to engaging effect.

This also has a fantastic dedication—"To all the wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol of our darkness" (over a figure legible both as wolf and human)—which, I confess, I may love most of all.

Title: The Screwtape Letters
Author: C.S. Lewis
Narrator: Joss Ackland
Published: Harper Audio, 2012 (1942)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 225
Total Page Count: 288,235
Text Number: 941
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An experienced demon writes letters to his nephew, advising his work as the personal corrupter of a Christian convert. This is fantastic in audio (I listened to Joss Ackland's reading); the narrator so well inhabits that deceptively charming, incisively cruel personality. The epistolary format is expressive; there's engaging narrative tricks in the interplay between mentor, pupil, and victim, subverting the reader's investment in the speaker and playing with expectations of "good" and "bad" endings. I appreciate the work when read that way: the playfully critical view of humanity's benign and common evils, haunted by the ghost of a horror story. I don't know that the text holds up well to more rigorous criticism, or that the social commentary in particular has aged well. Luckily, I don't care. I'm not Lewis's intended audience and find no benefit in closer reading.


Title: The Quartered Sea (Quarters Book 4)
Author: Tanya Huff
Published: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, 2015 (1999)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 415
Total Page Count: 288,650
Text Number: 942
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A bard with an unusually close connection to water travels across the sea to find undiscovered lands. "Unusually close" is very Huff, but perhaps the only fun part of the book. The protagonist's characterization grates; it was a relief to realize this was initial and to witness his significant growth, but I still dislike him. The world expands significantly, in ways which question and deepen the magic system, but the setting and local plot, hot and humid and hateful, failed to engage me. I'm not sorry to've read this, particularly for its additions to the worldbuilding, but this is the first book in the series that I haven't enjoyed.


Title: The Owl Service
Author: Alan Garner
Narrator: Wayne Forester
Published: Naxos Audiobooks, 2008 (1967)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 289,400
Text Number: 946
Read Because: recommended by starshipfox, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A Welsh vacation home is turned upside down by strange, magical events. This has a phenomenal combination of elements, setting issues of class and culture against history and mythology, but with a local focus—a single Welsh valley; particular, precise magics like the titular dinner service. Garner's sparse language and emphasis on dialog creates a magic which is simultaneously visceral and dreamlike, more experienced than described, with a deep intuitive logic. It's a subtle combination of elements, and deceptively compelling. Books of this sort can struggle at the end, since they need to maintain the slice-of-life narrative while still giving payoff to the magics, and this falls victim to that to some extent—the end is brief and exists largely in implication, and I wish it gave Alison and/or central characters more focus; like the end of Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock, I feel like the end is simultaneously phenomenal, intense with implication and begging reader involvement, and somewhat detached from the larger narrative.

But I found this compelling, transporting. I've bounced off of Garner before (perhaps because I was a more limited reader then; perhaps—and this I suspect is the case—because the balance of plot/adventure to magic/mythological was weaker in that book), but this has changed my mind. Profound magics haunting the local and human is very much my style, and I'll read more Garner in the future.

Title: Call Me by Your Name
Author: André Aciman
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 229,885
Text Number: 734
Read Because: recommended by Holly Dunn, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: One summer in Italy, a teenage boy grows infatuated with his family's boarder. That narrow perspective—focused almost entirely on one time, one place, one formative relationship—set within hot, idyllic Italy is certainly an experience: intimate, claustrophobic. The fluid sexuality, sincere intimacy, and the sense that a relationship can be simultaneously transitory and indelible are all well-realized. The voice, a stream of consciousness memory, dense with mixed metaphors and the inconsistent but sincere revelations of adolescence, is perhaps less so: it contributes to the atmosphere but is samey (the dialog sounds just like the interior monologue) and sometimes rambling and inaccessible. There's something seductive in the experience of this book, and I can see why some readers fell in love; it failed to quite grab me.


Title: The Bear and the Nightingale (The Bear and the Nightingale Book 1)
Author: Katherine Arden
Narrator: Kathleen Gati
Published: Random House Audio, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 340
Total Page Count: 230,225
Text Number: 735
Read Because: recommended by A Case for Books & others, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A daughter with the second sight tries to save her family home from the deadly Russian winter, the old spirits from the rise of Christianity, and herself from a woman's fate. This succeeds when it creates investment in the protagonist, Vasya, which it does: as a rare exception to female social roles and thus the consequences of a misogynistic society, she's sympathetic wish-fulfillment; the final act, with its large magics and an opportunity for Vasya to win the day, is a strong finish. But this is unremarkable on the whole, from the uninspired characterization (especially of antagonists) to the predictable pacing; Arden renders a strong sense place, but her voice isn't especially evocative. Mostly, this fails to feel larger than the sum of its parts, to be numinous or profound—an arbitrary judgement, but one that determines whether or not I find a fairytale narrative successful, which this one is not; it feels instead like the promising but unrefined debut which it is.


Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Book 1)
Author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Published: Simon & Schuster, 2012
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 360
Total Page Count: 230,585
Text Number: 736
Read Because: multiple recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Two boys met, become best friends, and survive adolescence together. Once again: it's (mostly) not you, young adult contemporary; it's me. The characters are realistically rendered, the themes are well-intended—but the voice is flat and repetitive (especially the dialog; especially how often people break out laughing), and, while I see the appeal of the arc from drama to tragedy to happy endings, while I think happy endings are valuable especially for teens in minority groups, the end of the book bothers me. The final deus ex parents is ridiculous and removes the protagonist's agency; moreover, he transitions from a troubled young man to someone completely cured. It's untenable and erasing; it feels more like everything wrong with the "it gets better" campaign than anything truly productive. These criticisms are unfair: the journey is frequently more realistic than the destination, and the happy ending obviously works for most readers; I imagine the narrative and voice are more successful for fans of the genre. But this fell flat for me.

Title: Rose Daughter
Author: Robin McKinley
Published: New York: Ace, 1998 (1997)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 189,550
Text Number: 555
Read Because: reread, borrowed from Dee
Review: A retelling of Beauty and the Beast, about three lively sisters and a cottage covered in roses. Once upon a time, this was one of the first McKinley novels I read—and, after Deerskin, it felt insubstantial. But I've read more McKinley since, and come to appreciate her breadth of style. This was much better upon reread, cozy and charming and enchanting; the haunted atmosphere of the Beast's castle is particularly well done. McKinley has knack for finding definitive moments, and Beauty's monologues, as she gives herself voice and carves her own experience out of her fairytale setting, are the unequivocal highlight of the book. The ending is half that: beautiful, intimate, character-driven; but it's also half talky, confusing, and largely divorced from the core plot and characters, which sours things. This isn't my favorite of McKinley's retellings (that would be Spindle's End)—I see too many flaws in it, and its messages lack personal appeal. But it's lovely comfort reading, as McKinley often is, and I recommend it.


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Title: Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers
Editor: Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Published: New York: Open Road, 1998
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 176,955
Text Number: 518
Read Because: fan of the editors, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 22 stories that combine fantasy with erotica by exploring seductive, magical, unearthly lovers and romances. Datlow and Windling, especially in combination, are accomplished anthologists, but this is the closest I've come to disappointed with their work. For one, only three stories feature queer relationships (two others have them in background roles); the heteronormativity is toxic and uncreative, a particular oversight in a collection of strange love. (Compare to something like Caitlín R. Kiernan's phenomenal The Ammonite Violin & Others.) At its worst, the heteronormativity is damning: the stories are magical and strange only because the attractive, desirable women have power that threatens their everyman partners. For another, the collection has an unforgivably slow start: you can skip the first seven stories and miss nothing.

There's a marked improvement with the first standout story: Elizabeth E. Wein's "No Human Hands to Touch," an unlovable, intimate retelling of Morgan LeFay's relationship with Mordred. Doris Egan's "The Sweet of Bitter Bark and Burning Clove" is less profound, but successfully explores power dynamics, violence, and sensuality. Kelley Eskridge's "The Eye of the Storm" is my favorite, no contest—its exploration of violence, sensuality, poly dynamics, and the balance between personal need and social interaction is engrossing.* The unique concept and sympathetic, quiet execution of Mark Tiedemann's "Private Words" makes for the last standout story. I found this collection worth it for those four, but the rest is passable at best and a waste of time at worst. I don't recommend it—

—But for finding Eskridge's short fiction, I'm glad I read it.

* See also: Elizabeth A. Lynn's Chronicles of Tornor: similar second world settings, similar fluid interpersonal relationships, similar fluid physical redefinition, similar id-level wish-fulfillment, similar focus on interpersonal intimacy and personal growth, also, just, really good, both of them.

Title: Fire and Hemlock
Author: Dianna Wynne Jones
Published: New York: Firebird, 2012 (1985)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 438
Total Page Count: 161,649
Text Number: 472
Read Because: discussed by rushthatspeaks, among others; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: When Polly meets Thomas Lynn at a funeral, she sparks an odd relationship which will change her life. I adore books about books, and this turns out to be one—pointedly, about using books not to rewrite or escape reality, but to create and understand it, with the reader's identity remaining paramount within their own life. Polly's story is sad and charming in equal turns, and makes full use of Jones's ability to live in liminal space, with the fantastic creeping and crashing in to normal life. It also has an undercurrent of the strange—Lynn as an adult, courting Polly's attentions as a ten year old girl—which is easy to dismiss for the sake of the narrative but which the book's ending brings to the forefront, forcing the reader to reinterpret all that has come before. The ending—not the climax but the very brief coda—is brave and bold and slightly flawed, because while it allows Jones to do much it does it inscrutably and swiftly. Most of Fire and Hemlock is made literal and explained; the ending is left to the reader to decipher, and that shouldn't be necessary in a book with an otherwise flawless balance of readability and thematic depth.

Otherwise: phenomenal. I've never clicked with Diana Wynne Jones—she has a vast and whimsical creativity which creates great setpieces and themes but leaves the plot piecemeal. Fire and Hemlock exhibits a level of intent I haven't found in her work before. It's still whimsical, liminal, a loving story about stories. It's also a nuanced and sympathetic examination of broken homes and self-made homes. And it's about the potential and perils of creating yourself around someone; about the need to acknowledge and function within reality. It's about being liberated by the very thing that breaks your heart. It is, simply, one of the better books I've ever encountered.

Title: The Perilous Gard
Author: Elizabeth Marie Pope
Published: New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001 (1974)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 280
Total Page Count: 153,557
Text Number: 449
Read Because: discussed on this fantasy of manners reading list*/interest in fairy tale retellings
Review: Banished to a remote estate, ungainly Kate finds herself in a place where old magics linger in the form of fairies and deadly teinds. The Perilous Gard surprised me: it's fantastic. Its Young Adult trappings are unfortunate, making the book accessible at the price of caricature, forced humor, and predictability—it feels a little slight. And more's the pity because, at its heart, the book is anything but. This is the character development I long for in female protagonists, based on coming of age rather than the discovery of unseen beauty. The fairies are subtle and superb, and rather than retelling Tam Lin directly it sets itself as a distant sequel, avoiding much redundancy while maintaining the ballad's themes.

What lingered in me was the conflicting emotions that linger in Kate, an awe and a fear, a complex desire, a stubborn practicality; a glimpse of inaccessible magics tempered by a vivacious, mortal humor. Pope's love for this book rings off the pages, a heartfelt intent and a lively engagement, and it resonates. The Perilous Gard is certainly flawed, but I forgive it that; what it does right is so good, so important, and frankly a pure pleasure to read.

* Unsure that I'd class this as fantasy of manners, however: the historical setting rings true, but this isn't setting-as-story; the conflict has social ramifications, but is more self-against-other than it is self-against-peers or elsewise primarily political/social.

Once Upon a Time has this fascination with interconnection. That was fine in the first season when it functioned to knit together the parallel storylines; now it makes for a plot which hinges on coincidence. I'm catching up on season 3, and the reveal of Pan's identity is uncalled for.

I finally got around to reading Barrie's Peter Pan this year, and it lines up with Mary Poppins and the Alice books in that the source material can be pretty creepy and that's fantastic. Poppins is a little inhuman, capricious and cold. Wonderland is as much nightmare as dream, denying Alice bodily autonomy and questioning her identity. And Pan is what Valente calls "heartless" in The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making:

All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one.

He is incapable of seeing the world outside himself, unaware of consequence; a consummate child and, given the power he has in Neverland, that makes him scary. I love the idea of dark retellings of children's classics like these books, but the truth is the source material often does it better; compare the disconcerting undercurrent of Pan's nature within the wonder of Neverland to the artless, racist, excessive gothic parade of Brom's The Child Thief which, as you may gather, I rather disliked. I love to see subtext turned text, but it's hard to find retellings that are actually loyal to, or even as effective as, what it is that makes the text intriguing or unsettling or dark.

Once Upon a Time's Pan isn't perfect but he's surprisingly good--in part because Robbie Kray can act; in part because his dynamics with other cast members intrigue me; in part, and to the point, because Pan has that same heartlessness and because he treats his machinations as a game--and while that phrasing grows stale, it's effective. The Lost Boys are older in OUaT but it works, it makes them more rebellious and as such more dangerous. But Pan still feels like a child, capable of leadership and responsibility but with not just a refusal but an inability to fathom compassion, relationships, selflessness, sympathy.

Finding out that he hasn't always been a child, and putting him in a parent/child relationship with another character, undermines the shit out of that. It makes him seem pathetic, even a little gross; a desperate play-actor rather than a precocious, heartless child. All because the narrative wants to make one more madcap, half-written, coincidental interconnection, sigh.

Watching OUaT is an exercise is missed opportunity (not even gonna mention Mulan right now), but this one stung.

Title: The Dark Wife
Author: Sarah Diemer / mermaiden
Published: 2011
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 245
Total Page Count: 126,948
Text Number: 369
Read Because: personal enjoyment, gift from my maternal grandparents ($5 says they didn't read the product description)
Review: As Persephone comes of age, she's introduced to the gods of Olympus—and to Zeus, selfish, violent, and powerful. But when she meets Hades—to her surprise, not a god but a goddess—she discovers something new: choice, and freedom. The Dark Wife is a pointed lesbian revision of the Persephone myth, and desperately well-intended; it's also an amateur effort. As such, it's as often good as bad: Hades is compelling and inhuman but vulnerable (and like her, the Underworld is beautifully envisioned); Persephone's inner monologue leans bombastic, but her journey is fueled by self-determination and love. It's exactly the character arc I want, but it's all a bit too good: the morality is simplistic, Persephone's battle for choice is too explicit and grows repetitive, and the romance—although sensual and well-developed—is saccharine. It's good YA, reading swift and easy, containing the best intended messages of character growth, but it wants refinement: tighter editing to bring out the descriptive potential of Diemer's voice, and a story somewhat more oblique so that the good intentions can blossom around the reader than than battering her over the head. As it is, The Dark Wife has all the right components but it rings slightly hollow; I recommend it only moderately.

Review posted here on Amazon.com.