“Hunger: A Memoir of ‘My’ Body” by Roxane Gay

I have been a rather casual fan of Gay’s work for a while, I read Bad Feminist back in 2020 or so but I always like her essays online. I finally picked up this book after she happened to be speaking on campus and mentioned that this was being turned into a movie as well. I knew of this book, but since my main exposure was her essays it just never popped up for me. I’m glad I finally picked it up!

The book is in a format that is very easy to read, most of the chapters are only a few pages and it feels much more like a series of short essays or reflections than a narrative. But there is an underlying story of how Gay was raped as an adolescent and from there turned to eating as a way to protect herself. From there the book is primarily about what it is like going through the world in such a large body, what she struggles with, and how she is trying to heal.

Lately I have been almost obsessed with books that manage to talk about healing and the realities about it. It isn’t pretty or neat or linear. And she talks quite a bit about her process here and how wonky it is and the intersectionalities with being a large, Black woman. It gets driven home for me in a chapter where she talks about how she had to break herself in another way (her ankle) in order to realize how much she had and how much she had to live for. I think that’s such a nice way of getting at it that you just have to hit the right breakage in order to put yourself back together.

The other aspect I really appreciated was her brief discussion about the body positive movement. I am nowhere near her size, but I think talking about how she doesn’t feel there’s a place for her there since she doesn’t totally love her body resonates a lot. I also don’t love my body but want to, and I want to, more importantly, respect it and treat it well.

I am looking forward to trying to find the movie version as this seems like a difficult book to put together on screen. Gay seemed really enthused by it at the event and that is always a good sign. And I really should read more of her works. It just about always hits and captures the nuances of feminism and the like that you don’t see much elsewhere.

“The Bloody Chamber and other stories” by Angela Carter

This is a collection of short stories based on fantasy or folk tales. Some are really short, only a page, while others are much longer. There’s one based on Beauty and the Beast, a Puss in Boots, and Red Riding Hood among others.

I have a soft spot for retellings of familiar tales that get more of a modern twist, especially those written by women, so I did largely enjoy this work. Most of the protagonists are female, and a lot of them manage to get happy endings! Especially in “The Bloody Chamber,” the main character is about to be beheaded by her serial killing husband when her mother comes for her and shoots him in the head. It’s very satisfying.

I will also say though that there’s a bit too much… sex? For my tastes. It’s fine for the stories where it makes sense, and it’s really funny in Puss in Boots, but almost every story has a girl taking off her clothes at some point. Which like, I get it for a few stories and there’s a bunch that deal with the human/animal divide so that’s all good. But then the Little Red Riding Hood one mentions the wolf’s huge junk multiple times and she gets naked at the end and it just feels like we used this up previously.

So this was fun, it’s a quick read, but it gets a little repetitive. I still had a great time though, which is all I want from a book like this.

"The Crystal Cave" by Mary Stewart

 This is part of my journey through some older fantasy books. This was ok, because I had just finished a really good book I was definitely not as enthusiastic about this one. Tigana just has such a lovely cast of characters. This book just focuses on the protagonist the entire time and as a result just feels flat and lonely.

The story tells Merlin's life leading up to his raising of King Arthur. It starts with him as a child, a bastard in the house of an English noble. He meets a wizard in the woods and learns from him, but ends up running away when his grandfather dies and his uncle that hates him takes over. This doesn't last long, he is kidnapped and taken to Ambrosius who is trying to become king. It's then revealed that Ambrosius is his birth father, and that Merlin has some form of Sight that sometimes lets him see the future. Merlin helps Ambrosius win, Ambrosius then dies unfortunately and his brother Uther becomes king. Uther falls for the Duchess of Cornwall and Merlin helps them hook up and produce Arthur. Story ends with them procreating and Merlin predicting to his manservant that this child will be the greatest king of England.

As I have alluded to, I found this story to really lack colorful characters since so much of it is Merlin going off on his own. He repeatedly says that he loves being by himself in caves which would be a great opportunity to clarify some part of his magic. But that also never happens either. Plenty is explained as just being good at engineering, but his Sight comes and goes and is never quite clarified. He seems less like an actual wizard and more like some confused priest.

The treatment of women is also pretty abysmal. Repeatedly they are called whores or sluts, and the only women with any hint of a thought process are Merlin's mother and the Duchess at the end. Of course, I should emphasize, both women are just there to have children. Really disappointing since the author is (checks notes) a woman. Like I really don't care if it's to be "historically accurate" I don't want to read it.

This is part of a series about King Arthur but I really don't think I'll be checking out the rest of the series. This one stands enough on its own and I can stop reading here without needing more of it.

“Tigana” by Guy Gavriel Kay

This is one of my favorite fantasy books that I’ve read in a while. The plot is really nicely wrapped up, the conflict is complicated, there are multiple viewpoints and elements of action, and it is really thought provoking. In the 10^th anniversary afterword by the author, he mentions how this is primarily a book about memory. How if you destroy the memory of someone or someplace you eliminate it on a deep level. And that’s so interesting to think about in a fantasy setting.

The book opens with Devin, a singer in a troupe, being hired to sing at the Duke’s funeral. During the proceedings he follows one of his fellow musicians up to a mysterious room where she shoves him behind a panel and they overhear about a meeting taking place in the woods. Devin goes to listen and hears about a plot to overthrow the two wizard tyrants in the region. The meeting is interrupted by one of the other musicians in his troupe, Alessan, and he is revealed to be a prince of Tigana. Tigana is a land that used to exist, after Brandin (one of the tyrant wizards) loses his son in a battle in Tigana he overthrows the region and uses magic to make it impossible for anyone not born there to learn, remember, or hear the name. Alessan takes Devin away when the meeting is found and explains that to him. Devin realizes that he is from Tigana and joins the cause. They return to the meeting place and everyone there was slaughtered by Alberico, the other wizard tyrant. Also the Duke is revealed to not be dead, merely faking to get this plot started. He also joins them as he is secretly a minor wizard.

We swap to narration from Dianora, a concubine to Brandin. It is revealed that she is from Tigana and came there originally to kill Brandin, before falling in love with him. She is also a sister of Baerd, one of the men with Alessan. Back to Devin and co., they are traveling around stoking unrest until they run into a troubadour wizard Erlein. Alessan as a prince binds Erlein’s power to his cause. Erlein protests as he now can only do magic that Alessan orders, and he tries to run away. But he is eventually resigned. They continue until Alessan gets word that his mother is dying. They head back to Tigana to see her where she rebukes him for not taking on Brandin himself. She then dies. By now though some geopolitical shenanigans are in action, Brandin is trying to establish himself as King of the land. To legitimize this, Dianora does a Ring Dive, a ritual where she grabs a ring he throws from the sea. Brandin and Alberico are now at each other’s throats, but there is a kind of stalemate where they aren’t at war yet. To kick things into motion, Catriana (a member of the original musical troupe) kills the relative of Alberico’s near them and attempts to sacrifice herself. Erlein saves her of his own accord and Alessan frees him. They go to battle soon after, and it is revealed that the plan is for their motley crew of wizards and magic users to shield Alberico until the last second when Brandin sends every ounce of magic at him. Brandin kills Alberico but leaves himself powerless. This removes the enchantment from his Fool, now revealed to be the Prince of Tigana that killed his son and was thought dead. The Fool kills Brandin before dying. Dianora drowns herself and her servant greets Alessan and co. In the end, Baerd never learns what became of his sister and the servant hides the identity of the Fool.

Now first of all, the writing style of this book is amazing. It is easy to understand and super clear, which is important with all of the geopolitical maneuverings taking place. There are multiple times where the reader is dropped into a situation with no context, and then has to put together pieces to figure out what exactly is going on. But Kay makes it very simple for the reader by not using a fantastic style of writing and instead just being accessible to a wide audience. I can’t stand when fantasy authors think that if they write in an archaic manner that it’ll elevate their story or something and Kay does not fall into this trap.

So much of the book has to do with the importance of memory and stories. Obviously there’s Tigana being wiped from the face of the earth with its memory destroyed. Many of the characters are living through the pain of being able to remember that land, but not being able to say it to others. Now part of what felt fake about this is that Devin does not remember Tigana at all, but being born there he feels a duty to join their cause. It just doesn’t feel like he has a stake in this, but to be fair that is partially addressed in the text as Devin acknowledges that he just feels that it’s the right thing to do to sign up. There is also memory with regards to different characters. At the very end, the identity of Brandin’s killer remains hidden. I thought that might have been unfair, but there is a sense that it would be too much for Alessan to know that he brother was alive and enchanted this whole time. His brother got his revenge in the end, and that fulfilled him, and once he is dead it sure doesn’t matter to him how he gets remembered. Alessan as well seems to have a sense of his legacy and import and thinks about that carefully, he is frequently emphasized to be a good and fair leader.

It is interesting to me that the book has a sort of “chosen one” plot with Alessan, and yet the main protagonist is Devin who is an ordinary guy. We get to learn about Tigana and this plot through his eyes, which makes a lot of sense narratively. But it feels ahead of its time that the narration is just a smidge off center. Alessan is clearly who everyone and everything revolves around, and we don’t get behind his eyes at any point in the book. I quite like this choice, I think it makes sense to tell the story this way and also it lets Devin comment on the proceedings around him as an outsider to a lot of the plotting.

The book is delightfully not black and white, or good versus evil. Which is so nice as a lot of fantasy tends to fall into that trope. Alberico is the closest to a true bad guy, he slaughters everyone at the beginning and is known for wanton killing. Brandin gets more complicated as we see him through Dianora’s eyes, but it still doesn’t change the fact that he destroyed Tigana and there is very little mourning for him. Alessan is the closest we have to a true good, but he binds Erlein. They argue over this constantly, and the author mentions in the afterword that this is supposed to make the reader think about what lengths someone should go to for their cause. It is softened quite a bit by who Alessan is, and with Erlein coming over to his cause, but the conflict is there nevertheless.

Interestingly, there is some queer representation. It is not much, but it is mentioned that the two female dancers in the musical troupe hook up, and that women or men can be attracted to each other. The presence of this feels kinda cool to me given that this book came out in the late 80s. But none of the main characters are queer, none of the sex that is had (nothing graphic, but it is there) is queer and that just feels like a missed opportunity. If there’s a whole scene of Devin having sex with some queen whose castle they stop in, you can have some queer characters exist more prominently.

Finally I do have some complaints. Most have been mentioned already, Devin’s motivations for joining Alessan feel forced. Catriana as well, its stated that she joined because her father never fought for Tigana and fled before it began. Which feels ridiculous to me, her father is not her. But there is a whole theme with her and Alessan of disappointment between parents and children that this does add to. I just feel that having multiple tyrants is more motivating than your dad choosing life. On a similar vein, it is not totally clear what the aftermath of all this is. Alessan is ruling Tigana, sure, its alluded to that he becomes King of the whole area in the epilogue. But this is where things fall apart, sure Alessan is a good man but is he a good leader? How does he rebuild after all of this conflict? None of that is made clear, and in that way the book is very similar to typical “chosen one” fantasy stories. Which is disappointing after such a great discussion of conflict and memory and choices.

Anyways, despite all of that I loved this book. It was gripping in its intensity and made you root for all of the characters. There is a softness at the heart of it that also just felt warm and made you want to disappear into this world. Unfortunately there isn’t a sequel, which I expected, the story is self-contained, but Kay has plenty of other novels I may check out.

This Is Beautiful: Love's Labors Lost

 Ok so this isn't and won't be my favorite Shakespeare play. BUT even though I wasn't in it, Shakespeare in the Arb did this play this summer and I was able to see it multiple times to catch my friends. I then also went back and revisited "Lovely Little Losers" from the Candle Wasters in the hopes of picking up on more stuff from the play. And it worked, I realized a lot of odd things were just direct references to Shakespeare. It's an interesting adaptation since it's the characters from "Much Ado About Nothing"/"Nothing Much To Do" and as a result stuff gets rearranged. But I enjoyed it much more now that I know what it's about!

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

My partner started reading me Pride and Prejudice as I had never read the book and he wanted to watch the adaptations with me. I had seen a play that our friend put on that was one of the first adaptations of the work for the stage, so I knew the rough shape of it, but hearing the original work of course had so much more detail. I overall thought it was fun, it still isn’t really my thing, but it is cool to see what the fuss is about for a classical work of literature.

The book follows Elizabeth Bennett, one of several daughters in the Bennett family. There’s a fuss in their town with a rich gentleman moves in, Mr. Bingley, and he quickly develops affection for her sister, Jane. Meanwhile Bingley has this friend, Mr. Darcy, who is standoffish and a little rude. There are high hopes for Bingley and Jane, but Bingley suddenly moves away. Meanwhile Elizabeth is proposed to by her cousin who is a clergyman, she turns him down, and her friend ends up marrying him instead. Elizabeth goes to visit them and is proposed to by Darcy. She turns him down as well, citing that he ruined her sister’s relationship and the prospects of another officer she’s friends with. Elizabeth ends up visiting his manor with her aunt and uncle and running into him, which is when they get the dreadful news that her younger sister just ran off with that officer of the army that Darcy hates, validating his impression of him. Elizabeth hurries home to try and locate her sister and get her married to this officer. Eventually she is, and it is revealed that Darcy stepped in to save her from scandal. Everyone gets married!

In case you haven’t picked up on this, I am not a big romance fan. I do not get the appeal. So this isn’t a book I would have picked up on my own. Yes I know that Austen was revolutionary for writing about women and that her books don’t pass the reverse Bechdel test (as in: the men have very little inner lives) but it just isn’t something I would want to spend time on. Having said that, I did enjoy this experience. I do think Elizabeth is a great character and she and her sisters were delightful. Having said that, I still don’t like care about much of the book. So much emphasis is placed on class and seems ridiculous today, and there’s all sorts of mannerisms that the characters care a lot about and I don’t. Which is partially why I like Elizabeth, she refuses to participate in a number of these herself. But it would be hard for me to keep myself reading if I don’t find what the characters find important.

I know it’s not the most enlightened take, but not my favorite book. I did enjoy being forced to consume it though! Austen’s writing is a lot of fun, you can tell she enjoys her characters as well, and I think the more delightful part of this for me will be comparing different adaptations.

“A Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula K. Le Guin

This was a fun read, but not my favorite. Every single time I love the idea of reading Le Guin, and I love the ideas, but I just don’t vibe with her writing style. Which frustrates me, I want to like her stuff but something just doesn’t click.

This book follows Sparrowhawk as he comes of age. Sparrowhawk is a child in a village with an aptitude for magic, he eventually heads to a magic school. There he is goaded by another student into summoning the dead, an act that nearly kills him. He is left scarred and haunted by a shadow, which follows and threatens him wherever he goes. He eventually gives up on his assignment of being a village’s wizard to hunt it down. His friend from school, Vetch, joins him. They catch up to the shadow past the end of the world where Sparrowhawk merges with the shadow of his own death and emerges whole.

I feel as though there is something about the writing style, again, that I just don’t fully vibe with. Le Guin is classic fantasy and I just feel like I have a hard time following a lot of those works. Something about the way they drop important details very casually, I tend to miss them. This is a very easy read, I tore through it, but I felt like there was some barrier where I couldn’t fully connect to it.

Part of it might be that the main character and all of the influential figures are men. There’s one powerful woman who tricks Sparrowhawk twice but that’s kinda it for women. I just feel like I want a little more from my fantasy now. Having said that, in the afterword Le Guin talks about how all of the characters are people of color, something I sort of picked up on as Vetch is explicitly Black. And that’s really cool for fantasy, so frequently people of color are the savages or villains or something. So, I might overlook the lack of lady wizards.

The afterword of the book is also really interesting as it puts the book into the context of fantasy in the 60s. Back then fantasy was considered something for young kids, and with this book Le Guin wanted something that’d appeal to older folks. Teens potentially, but just something anyone could read. She also talks about how wars don’t interest her, she doesn’t want the militarism of the large fantasy works at the time. This is really a coming of age for Sparrowhawk. And I really vibe with that and I like that the scope is small, it really only has to do with one man’s journey back to himself. I just think that’s so much more powerful than large wars across worlds.

Anyways, I don’t know if I’ll continue with the series. It was short enough to read so I would not say no but I might not go out of my way to keep bashing my head against this series.

“Brown Girl in the Ring” by Nalo Hopkinson

This was a really fun read, it’s part of this string of older fantasy books I have been checking out recently and I really enjoyed it. The book still feels so contemporary and relevant, with a really vibrant magic system and colorful characters. It manages to feel light while dealing with a lot of heavy themes.

The book opens with a mob boss, Rudy, getting a visit from a politician and being told that he needs to find a heart donor for a political candidate who is using this to up her image. From there it transitions to the new mother Ti-Jeanne who is providing for her baby (called “Baby”) and avoiding the baby’s father, Tony. He is still in the mob despite wanting to get out and she doesn’t trust him to make good on his promises anymore. Tony is asked to get this donor by any means necessary and he goes to Ti-Jeanne and her grandmother, Mami a local healer, for help. Mami uses her way with Caribbean spirits to hide the two of them while Tony makes a run for it, and in the process Ti-Jeanne’s powers as a seer are awakened. She attacks some of the mob guys and Tony is told to get the donor (who is likely to be Mami) and kill Ti-Jeanne or he will be killed by Rudy.

Tony heads back and is followed by a local unhoused woman who is revealed to be Ti-Jeanne’s mother. She tries to warn them, but Tony kills Mami and they take her away. Ti-Jeanne’s mother then comes to her senses and is revealed to be a spirit that Rudy has chained to himself for power. Tony then shoots her in the aftermath and now Ti-Jeanne, Tony, and Baby are on the run from Rudy. They team up with a gang of street kids, and Ti-Jeanne decides to confront Rudy (who is revealed to be her grandfather). She gets there and Rudy tries to chain her into being his next spirit but instead she calls on the Caribbean spirits and ghosts to take him down. Rudy is crushed, the book ends with the funeral for Mami.

Part of the reason the book feels so prescient is that the whole body snatchers thing of forcing people to become body donors has never gone away for the Black community. There’s still that nasty stuff going on, especially with stories of Black women having to give birth after dying etc. Which is tragic. But means that there is a relevancy to that aspect of the story.

I also really liked the magic system. Each of the seers has a sort of patron spirit, and for Ti-Jeanne that’s the Prince of Cemetery who is often portrayed as a sort of trickster god. He’s a lot of fun to observe and her visions drop hints about how to defeat Rudy later on. It is delightful to see other religious systems get highlighted and explained in a book like this.

The summary almost doesn’t do justice to the book, nearly every link is resolved by the end. Ti-Jeanne’s mother is ok and they talk about the family and all of their dynamics, and Tony does try to make amends but isn’t necessarily back together with Ti-Jeanne. I thought this was delightful, I really wish there was a sequel but I haven’t found anything yet.

“Sex Isn’t Real” by Beans Velocci

I was fortunate enough to see Dr. Velocci give a talk on this work and a few chapters from it, and I knew I had to get the full thing afterwards. This is a really interesting overview of some history of sex science from a trans scholar thinking about what sex means over history and the modern day. Explicitly, they come down on the side that sex actually does not mean a whole lot, and the ending comes back to what this looks like today with new anti-trans legislation and executive orders and whatever else is happening.

The chapters each go through different realms of science, in roughly chronological order. The first is looking at animal sex studies, where apparently hyenas are difficult to sex and some birds can change their sex. The point here being that it is not a given that animals have distinct sexes that correspond to human biology and that there were even experiments getting chickens to change their sex entirely. From there we move down the street to the eugenics office where they were pioneering Big Data and all that stuff we love today about studies. Additionally the eugenics office wanted to know what the impacts of sterilization were, and research into this revealed that castration could cause individuals to become more feminine or masculine, but not enough to merit recategorization. Similarly in gynecology there emerged this idea that sex is a spectrum and that you can be more or less masculine/feminine, but again not enough to actually change category. This all gets cemented with the Kinsey studies as they needed to hold sex as a firm binary to demonstrate that humans are all a little bit gay and have a range of experiences with same-sex individuals. All of this despite the fact that their dive into physiological differences between men and women amounted to nothing. And finally it ends with the rise of trans medicine and the medical gatekeeping around these treatments.

I thought this was a fascinating and really timely look into this sex science over time. As a scientist, I maintain the belief that science is responsible for quite a bit of transphobic and queer gatekeeping that exists. And this really points the finger at it where scientists are maintaining these rigid boundaries around biological sex, even when their own evidence states that they are wrong. We know sex is a spectrum, we know that it can change, and yet we don’t treat it accordingly. Most scientific studies don’t dig into this very deep, they go with whatever is on the paperwork and toss anyone who is trans, intersex, or otherwise.

My rants aside, I also thought this was a great and easy read because Velocci makes it entertaining. There’s footnotes that are snarky and connections between chapters are highlighted throughout. There are many times complicated scientific ideas are broken down easily and simply as well. You do not have to be a scholar of science, the history of science, or of STS (science, technology, and society) to understand this work. It makes me hopeful that other interested trans readers will be able to find this and get something out of it.

Now of course there is the question of where to go from here. There is the obvious idea that science needs to change its framework to include sex beyond the binary and stop simplifying it into two immutable options or anomalies. But the work also makes a great case for the idea that sex cannot only be the realm of science, humanities scholars have interesting ideas here as well. For a very long time humanities have meant talking about gender while science is the realm of the body and biology but that does not need to be the case. Scholars like Velocci clearly have important things to say about this history and science that should be taken seriously.

I know for me, what I’ll be taking out of this is that sex is not only the biology but also includes how we present, gender roles, etc. Time and time again scientists in this work would ignore the evidence of someone’s body in favor of keeping them within the category that aligns with their social role. This was evident in the eugenic and gynecological chapters, but also the gatekeeping of trans medicine for only those that wouldn’t regret it. I think that’s a really interesting idea to think about, that science of biological sex has always been inclusive of what we might call gender. And that’s science baby! Specifically I’m thinking of those studies that base sex off of purely genetics or genitals, etc. Adding more biological variables might not be the answer, it also might just be asking what someone wants to be categorized as. And wouldn’t that be interesting?

Anyways this book gave me so much to think about and chew on. I am hopefully exiting a field where I’ll be able to do hard science research and implement this directly, but I want to keep learning about it and studying more how people think about ideas like sex. Which will likely make me happier, and also be more interesting and aligned with the ideas presented here.

Sherlock Holmes Adaptations

 Last weekend I went to see a local theater production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and I got so annoyed by the fact that it was basically an adaptation of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. It's a perfectly good version of Sherlock Holmes, but it wasn't what I wanted going into this play. And I am a little biased because I find the Rathbone/Bruce a little annoying in how much Watson is played as a dummy following Holmes the genius around. So here's a small collection of my thoughts on three different adaptations I'm most familiar with and like!

Elementary
This might be one of my favorite versions of the detective. Especially the first season with the big reveal of making Irene Adler / Moriarty the same person. It was endlessly inventive and creative while still being respectful of the source material. This particularly stood out because it started just after "Sherlock" did and fans were endlessly accusing it of being a copy.

The big standout through are Holmes and Watson themselves. I adore Lucy Liu in general and I thought she was amazing in this role. And Jonny Lee Miller captures so perfectly the chaos gremlin that is Sherlock Holmes. He does his best when Sherlock is going off of the rails a little, while Liu pulls him back in and delightfully enjoys occasionally heading with him to do something illegal. Their dynamic is so perfect. 

Sherlock
This one always has to come up, but you really cannot deny that this show opened a lot of people to the original Sherlock Holmes stories. The attention of the producers to detail gained a huge following as well, and I will absolutely give them credit for an incredible first two seasons + Christmas special. The rest was garbage.

The show really excelled when it took the original stories and airlifted them into the present. The first episode was a wonderful adaptation of "A Study in Scarlet" where all of the aspects were there, but changing it up for the modern era still left a lot of twists and turns in the case. I so wish they stuck to that but whateverrrrrr.

Benedick Cumberbatch is a truly spectacular Sherlock, and if he leans a little too much into the science robot aspect of Holmes he is played off very well with Martin Freeman as Watson. Half the mystery of the show is Holmes himself, which they are able to capture very well in this version. My complaints are numerous, but also you can tell from early on, the creators do not like women very much. Irene Adler is naked from the get go, everyone hates the female cop, etc. That aspect has me honestly scared to rewatch a lot of it.

The Guy Ritchie Movies
These movies were so fun! I also honestly think that Watson in my mind is Jude Law now for how well he captured that character in a Victorian setting. Robert Downey Jr. is also so fun as an absolutely off the walls Holmes that hyperfixates, drugs his dog, and in general is just unpredictable. He is most similar to Jonny Lee Miller, but he goes a step or two farther in that he is usually butting heads with Watson where Miller softens from his collaboration with Liu.

The two movies could have probably been more united, I didn't love the Moriarty portrayal and how he changes in his characterization. And then killing off Irene in the second one is just unforgivable to me, bring her back now! But it's such a delight to see Downey Jr go running off with Law right behind him.

Original Stories
The original stories have such an important space in my heart. I read them all over the course of a summer on the beach, they are short and fun to get through. Doyle hated them, but there is a reason they have endured. Holmes is fun and walks a fine line of being annoying, silly, and wildly intelligent. Half of the cases you cannot solve just from Watson's point of view, so there also isn't a huge expectation that the reader is able to solve it. 

There also are really fun side characters, again there's a reason Irene, Moriarty, etc are all in these different adaptations. The female characters especially, it's hard to think that Irene Adler existed back then as a independent lady adventuress. She's bold on her own and is "the woman" to Holmes (she is only in one case though and there's not much evidence they had an actual relationship). Moriarty is also only in one case with the purpose of killing Holmes off, which is still hilarious to me in that Doyle had to immediately bring him back. There are other cases though with independent women seeking Holmes' services, and one notable case that ends with an anonymous woman killing the culprit and Holmes letting her off of the hook. Not being an official part of the police lets him do that and Doyle knew how to use it.

It really goes to show how enduring these stories are, Holmes is something like the most frequently portrayed human character in media. And somehow there's many different versions of him, with wildly different personalities and preferences. But the friendship between him and Watson is always present and strong, really making any of these versions work. And that's kinda why this play grated at me, Watson can't have been an idiot if Holmes is dragging him around this way. All that to say, I love these stories and I will gladly watch different versions, but I sure do have opinions about all of them.

"The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov

 Another book that I am kinda surprised ended up on my to read list. It is a Penguin classic, which has me even more surprised. I am no expert, but I believe that this was published in chunks in Russia in the 60s and is a flavor of satire making fun of society at the time.

The book starts with two men talking on a bench. A third approaches them and is quite mysterious and cagey about his motives. A few fantastic things happen, including that one of the men dies, as predicted by the mysterious stranger. The other (a poet) loses it and takes off after the stranger, his companion, and a cat that joins them. 

There's a few interspersed chapters that then take place in Jerusalem and center on Pontius Pilate sentencing Jesus to death. We eventually return to our poor poet chasing the devil around, he ends up in an institution and we learn that the devil is in the man he killed's room and staying in Moscow for a bit. In the mental institution our poet meets the master, he was working on a novel about Pilate and in love with a woman married to someone else.

She loves him as well, and we swap to her for a bit. This is Margarita, she has a wild night where she gets cream from an associate of the devil and rubs it all over herself making her young, beautiful, and able to fly. She zooms off to the devil and his friends and ends up hostess of one of his balls. As a thank you she requests to be reunited with the master. They are, and in the end the two get peace together. The devil and his friends then leave Moscow and there's a brief epilogue detailing how the poet still visits the bench he was at with his friend at the beginning.

The book is surprisingly extremely amusing and engaging, there is humor throughout it. A bit part of this is that no one is really telling the truth, there's layers of deception everywhere. So the characters can get into amusing situations. The poet's downfall is honestly ridiculous, and Margarita's flight as well. I skipped this in the summary but she trashes someone's apartment on her way out and that's incredible for her.

I'm not well-versed in the history of this time, but it is absolutely a response and satire of religious discourse of Russia. Otherwise why would the devil go there? From what I gather online, Russia was forced atheist and this was a satire in terms of people rejecting the historical figure of Jesus Christ and uplifting free thought and opinions. In the book you can be locked up for writing fiction even! The master in particular is shunned by the writing establishment and is thought to be a little biographical for Bulgakov. This is contrasted with the poet who is successful initially but is convinced to give it up.

I quite liked this book, I thought it was delightfully easy to read. I am sure that I didn't understand everything going on, I probably would need more information about Russia at the time to do that. But I thought is was amusing and resonated a lot with being at a crossroads in my life now. I look forward to coming back to it later and being able to pick up on more aspects I missed in my first go.

"Writing Science" by Joshua Schimel

 I had this book recommended to me recently to help with scientific writing that I tend to just struggle with. It's very helpful! The author talks about how we do scientific writing and how to write in terms of crafting a story. Which scientists don't think that they do, but people remember stories and therefore if you want your work to be memorable then you should be thinking in terms of a story. He systematically goes through all of the aspects of a paper or a grant, plus writing for the public or other audiences.

To come clean, I did not do the exercises at the end of the chapters. It probably would have enhanced the process if I did, and helped to apply these ideas. My biggest complaint ended up that having such a diversity of scientific fields made me lose focus as I was sometimes more focused on understanding what they were talking about than the writing. Which is something you really cannot avoid, we are all so niche that it's impossible to completely personalize these examples. But some did probably go over my head as a result as I just didn't grasp the nuances of the writing.

Overall though, I think this is one of those books to keep on a shelf and refer to occasionally when writing. I can definitely see its use and probably it'd be enhanced with a few more read throughs on my end.

"Summer Bird Blue" by Akemi Dawn Bowman

 I think I'm going through a part of my to read list that has a lot of asexual representation, because while this book was awesome, I think that's what put it on my radar. The bonus of it all is that the book actually goes into the thick of grief and healing and what that's all like, with some questioning of sexuality sprinkled on top.

When the book opens, Rumi is driving with her mom and sister. She's in the backseat writing a song with her sister Lea. Then they get into a car accident. Lea doesn't make it. Rumi's mom isn't doing well so Rumi goes to stay with Aunty Ani in Hawaii for the summer. She meets her older neighbor Mr. Wantanabe and his loud dog Poi, and Kai who lives on the other side of their house. She initially hates it and stays inside all day, but she hears a song on the radio where Kai and his friend are prepping to go to the beach. They start hanging out, and Kai doesn't treat her like the girl with a dead sister. She hears music from Mr. Wantanabe's and befriends him as that's the only way music doesn't hurt for her anymore. Along the way she tries to date Kai and realizes she's uncomfortable with that, they stay good friends.

Meanwhile Rumi is dealing with the loss of her sister/best friend, and her mom who she thinks abandoned her because she liked Lea more than her. She's having breakdowns in public when she thinks about her sister and lashing out at her aunt. It takes Mr. Wantanabe heading to the hospital for her to finally forgive her mother and release her anger so she can be sad. She heads back to Washington to continue her life with her mom at the end.

This book made me cry so many times. The author really gets what it's like to go through earth-shattering grief. Rumi lashing out and having meltdowns just felt so real to me. And that it isn't a straight line, she'll be ok and then have to leave a public place and snap at someone all in the same day. To me, there's been so much media these days that avoids grief and comes up with reasons for characters to not have to face their feelings. And this looks right into that abyss and comes out the other side. Rumi can absolutely be annoying, but that is the point.

For the asexuality of it all, I liked it as part of Rumi's personality is that she pushes people away. So she leans into that stereotype of cold asexuals a little bit. But you also get to see how much love she has for friends like Kai (who she gives a full monologue to after their failed date). And in a way she subverts that entirely. 

I loved this book, I thought it was gorgeous and full of life and emotion. It is something that anyone who has lost a loved one needs to read to feel seen, and if you haven't you should read it to know what we all go through.

"The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey" by Peter S. Beagle

 I found this through a list of fantasy books with minimal romance (seemed like my kind of deal) but what I did not realize is that this is an early draft of The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle and not a separate prequel or something. I haven't read The Last Unicorn, I saw the movie ages ago and thought it was depressing and scary and that's kind of been it. So to be quite honest, I'm not really the target audience for this. This is clearly best for fans of The Last Unicorn that are fascinated by how Beagle wrote that book and want to learn more. 

The story starts with our unicorn, she's hanging out in her forest. A dragon comes and is really upset about the state of the world, plus tells her that she's the last one. The unicorn decides to set out on her own to try and find others, or at least see what the world looks like. She meets a butterfly who only speaks in quotes, a child who seems to know what she is, some humans who think she's a horse, and finally a demon who accompanies her on her journey.

I really wish I picked up the actual book, this one is clearly unfinished. The characters are really cute, I love the playing with tropes, but there's no ending and nothing beyond the demon and the unicorn walking together. And maybe there's some message about modernity at the end, I'm not sure. But I almost want to just not write anything as I'm clearly not set up to have a fair opinion on this.

Maybe I'll grab the original the next time I'm in the library. We'll see.

"Come Tumbling Down" by Seanan McGuire

 This is the fifth book of the Wayward Children series (others can be found on this blog, the first, second, third, and fourth are all here). I was really pleased that this book is a return to previous characters that I love, while I was frustrated about its length primarily. I felt that this was the first book in the series that really suffered from being a novella and could have used up many more pages.

The book starts with Christopher in his room after the events of Beneath a Sugar Sky when lightning strikes the floor. And keeps striking. A door appears and Alexis, carrying Jack, emerges. Cora, Sumi, and Kade are all there by that point. Sumi wakes Jack up and it's revealed that Jack was forced to body swap with Jill so that Jill can become a vampire in Jack's body (which has never died). Jack is slowly falling apart being in Jill's body, so they all head to the Moors to attack the vampires before that can happen. Once there, Cora is called into the sea and disappears. The others head to the church of the Drowned God to ask for help. Kade falls on the way, but Cora then reappears with Kade, speaks for the Drowned God, and then recovers. They head to the castle, body swap Jack back into her body, and kill Jill. Then the others head back to the school.

Alright well, first of all I saw that this was another book about Jack and Jill and I sure was pleased that it wasn't another stand alone. Having Christopher, Cora, Sumi, and Kade all there helped a lot to lighten the mood of the Moors. And they were happy to be reunited with Jack which was cute.

Beyond that though, there wasn't a lot dedicated to this quest. Cora mysteriously returns with Kade, so there didn't seem to be a point in all that. We could have at least gotten something from Kade or Cora's point of view for that time. And Jack does worry about killing her sister, but there isn't anything to speak to her mental status after this. It seems like a done deal from the beginning. Everything in general from the Moors onward just felt rushed, like we could take our time and talk to these characters more. Since the book is primarily about this quest, I would want some details about it.

Anyways, still love this series, I hope that there's more books continuing this story specifically rather than one offs. I can't wait for the next one.

Struggling with "Ducks, Newburyport"

 I don't really have a real post this week, primarily because getting through Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann has been such a struggle for me. The book is long, but that doesn't usually intimidate me. What is more frustrating is that most of the book is written as a giant sentence stringing together stream of consciousness thoughts from our protagonist. 

It is a cool idea, and as a recent book dealing with the first Trump administration and the world, it is an interesting concept. But I am not getting into it. The stream of consciousness means that I have no idea what is happening as there's so much being thought at the same time, and I don't really know who the characters are or care about them. You'd probably think that we get a very intimate look at our protagonist, but I don't feel that way. I feel like she's behind this wall of thoughts where I only get a brief look at what she's thinking or feeling at any time. It's just impossible for me to parse and make sense of and make a connection through.

There's also places interspersed with traditional narration of a mother lion. These bits make more sense. Yet I am not sure how they connect, except that both point of view characters are mothers I suppose. It is just hard to figure out what has meaning here, there's so much being thrown at me that I'm skimming most of it and it just takes energy.

I'm really not sure if I'm going to finish this. It is a long book to get through if you don't enjoy it. I'm trying for now, but this is certainly the least I've enjoyed a book in a very long time.

“Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” by Patrick Radden Keefe

This book has been on my to read list for a while, and I didn’t know until I picked it up that the author also had written Empire of Pain, a book my partner really enjoyed. So I was excited to pick it up. I think there are some issues with the framing of the story, but overall this was a really intriguing and impressive look at the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The book opens with detectives heading to Boston College to investigate a murder. From there it jumps back twenty or so years and starts telling us about the night Jean McConville was abducted from her home of ten children. It jumps again and starts telling us the history of the Troubles. Some characters of note are the Price sisters, Dolores and Miriam; the McConville children of course; and a few other IRA members. The focus jumps around a little bit to update us on everyone as the Troubles progress, up to the car bombs in London and the jailing of Dolores and Miriam and all the hunger strikers, including Bobby Sands and nine others that died in jail. We then get to Gerry Adams going into politics and orchestrating the Good Friday Agreement that ended the violence.

In the aftermath, a former IRA member Mackers starts setting up oral histories of the IRA with members, under the agreement that it wouldn’t be released until the members died. However, investigations into the handful of folks disappeared by the IRA jumps the gun and soon oral histories are being requested to investigate the murder of Jean McConville. There’s a whole back and forth about whether to hand the tapes over and Boston College capitulates. Unfortunately though, not many folks talked about her death. It’s Keefe himself who takes it on himself to put together the pieces, and through a few fragments he manages to place Miriam Price at the location of the murder and likely the person who pulled the fatal trigger. The book ends with this narrative about the author and reflection on the writing process of this book and memories of the IRA.

It did take me a while to get into the book, I was primarily interested in the murder and the book departs from that narrative for the majority of the text. It felt a bit clickbait-y, the way it opens with the murder and intrigue and then departs to give a whole history of an entire movement first. Once the second half comes though with the discussion of the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement and the debate around these tapes I was more absorbed. I feel like there was a framing that could be worked out that makes this more a history of the Troubles, but I do understand if Keefe is interested in publishing his theory of the murder that this framing would make sense to him. So hard to say which would be better for the work as a whole.

I was also extremely impressed with the depth of the work. Keefe explicitly talks about memory and tries to corroborate accounts when possible, and make use of direct quotes. He was able to talk to a lot of folks, like the McConville children, and the folks making the oral history. Many other also refused to talk to him, but the depth is so impressive. Multiple characters are detailed out, and I felt like I could keep them all straight, which is a feat in and of itself. It really speaks to the strengths of the writing that during the book I didn’t get confused or have to flip back to remind myself who someone was.

The book is excellent, so well written and such a thorough account of a relatively recent and heated topic in history. My only minor quip is the framing, but it does pay off by the end of the work. I should check out Empire of Pain next, I could read more of this writing style.

“In an Absent Dream” by Seanan McGuire

This is another installment of the Wayward Children series, and it’s another stand alone about one person’s trip through a mysterious door. (You can read about the first, second, and third books in the series at these links.) This time it’s Lundy, the counselor from Every Heart a Doorway who ages backwards. Her story is pretty tragic to be honest, but it has all of the charm of the rest of the series.

Lundy is a young girl who loves reading and finds a tree that has twisted itself into a door. She goes through and finds herself at the Goblin Market, which is run by strict rules concerning fair value and bartering amongst the inhabitants. Those that don’t fulfill their promises and don’t give fair value get slowly turned into birds. Giving fair value turns yourself back. Lundy meets Moon, a young child that’s already part bird, and the Archivist who becomes a surrogate mother and teacher. Lundy goes on an adventure, resulting in the death of one of her friends, and returns to her world devastated.

She goes back to the Goblin Market after experiencing some pretty bad misogyny from her teacher, and stays for a while. She has until her eighteenth birthday to decide which world she wants to stay in. She goes on more adventures, but wants to return to grab supplies and ends up being sent to a boarding school by her father who had also been to the Goblin Market and wants to keep Lundy in his world. She escapes, saves Moon from becoming a bird, and wants to stay in the Goblin Market, but also wants to say goodbye to her family. Her sister pulls her back in forcefully, enough that Lundy goes back and forth for a while, but eventually wants to put off her choice. She drinks a potion to make her stop aging, and ends up banished from the Goblin Market for messing with the rules. Eleanor then finds her and brings her to the school.

The story is pretty depressing to be honest. Lundy deals with heavy grief when her friend dies, and is kicked out of her home because she loved her sister. I kept expecting Moon to turn on her as well, their relationship goes through some rocky patches, but that ended up not happening, surprisingly enough. It is in fact the Archivist that is revealed to be the Market manifest who kicks her out, she is unhappy about it but has to do it anyways. So the rejection coming from a mother figure hurts even more.

The characters and the world building are the strong suit here. The questing and all that is entirely skipped over in a time jump, the book wants to focus on Lundy making the journey back and forth rather than the adventures she goes on. I did not hate that choice, although I could see McGuire being nervous about it. The book isn’t supposed to be exciting, it’s supposed to leave you in suspense and it does that really well.

Having said all that, I definitely don’t like these one off stories as much as Every Heart a Doorway or Beneath the Sugar Sky where the whole group of wayward kids is together. I hope that there’s more group adventures in store, apart from being more entertaining with a wide variety of characters, they also give more insight into the physics of all these worlds than the single journeys. The one offs though definitely have more material to feed them, you could write about every character’s journey that way. Group activities are harder to plan.

I’m excited to keep going with this series, I really like it so far. Hopefully there’s more intriguing worlds left to explore!

“The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett

Another book that I think ended up on my reading list because I heard about it years ago and was intrigued, but I can’t totally remember. It was a really good read, the characters sucked me in and pulled me along their journey. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.

The story spans several decades but it starts in the sixties with one of a pair of twins that ran away from Mallard returning. The one returning is Desiree, and she brings a dark child with her. Mallard is odd in that it’s all Black people living there, but they have tried to make themselves as light as possible. It tells how Desiree ran away with her twin Stella, but then Stella ran off on her own (pretending to be white). Desiree married a darker man, had a kid, and had to run off with the child once that relationship became abusive. So she raises her child, Jude, in Mallard. Jump forward to Jude now heading to UCLA for college. She meets and falls in love with Reese, a trans man who also ran away from home. To save up money for his top surgery Jude starts working fancy parties, and at one of the parties gets a glimpse of Stella.

Fast forward a little more, Stella’s daughter Kennedy that Jude met at the party is starring in a show with one of their drag queen friends. Jude starts getting close to Kennedy, trying to learn about Stella. One night Stella comes to the show but doesn’t believe Jude when she says she’s Desiree’s daughter. Fast forward and jump to New York, Kennedy is trying to make it as an actress. Jude and Reese show up there as they had to move to get Reese’s surgery. Jude gives Kennedy a picture of their mothers as kids and they strike up a more friendly relationship. Stella learns about Jude, and finally visits Mallard as her mother suffers from Alzheimer’s. Kennedy eventually comes home and Stella comes clean to her daughter. Final jump, Jude is in medical school and learns her grandmother has died. She and Reese head back to Mallard for the funeral.

The book is largely about the different people we are and could be, and what happens when we cut off our past to be those people. Stella pretends to be white and has a whole new family. Reese runs off to be a man. Kennedy keeps trying to leave, unsuccessfully. Jude even has to go to LA to be herself. The foils of Stella and Reese, while not always directly compared, are interesting because it shows that this cutting off isn’t always a bad thing. Reese’s parents were abusive and he never heads back, although he still understands the importance of family and wants to be one with Jude. I thought it was a really interesting look at identity and race, and the lengths we are willing to go there.

I also just really loved Reese and all of their queer friends in LA. I wish there was more of that in the second half of the book. But it was so cool to see someone go through gender affirming care in the seventies and see that found family that they all have. Plus trans male representation is still so rare, it feels like something to treasure whenever it pops up.

The characters and the plot were all so compelling in this book, I really loved going through it. It’s Bennett’s second novel, I’ll have to try and find her first as well.

“Beneath the Sugar Sky” by Seanan McGuire

This is the third book of the Wayward Children series I’ve been enjoying (with the first and second books also covered) and I liked it so much more than the second installment. This returns to the cast of the first book, with a new protagonist, but it revisits the location and characters I loved in the original installment that got me hooked.

The book’s main character is Cora who is from an underwater world where she was a mermaid. She loves swimming and is athletic, but it’s implied that she takes her own life in response to bullying about her weight and that’s how she gets to her world. She’s a new arrival at Eleanor West’s house, and her friend is her roommate Nadya who also came from a water world. They are hanging out in the pond when Rini plunges through the water looking for her mom, Sumi. Sumi died in the first book, so they go to get Christopher and Kade to sort this out. All of them first go to find Sumi’s body, then to the Land of the Dead to see Nancy (main character of the first book) to get her spirit, and then finally to Confection to get her Nonsense. Nadya elects to stay in the Land of the Dead in exchange for her spirit, but in the end they successfully return with Sumi after the Baker of Confection bakes her back together.

One of the highlights of the series is the diversity. Having the main character being called fat despite her athleticism, and especially go to a land of sugar and deal with all those feelings, is really cool to read about. You don’t often encounter that perspective in a fantasy novel. Plus the Baker is a girl with a hijab from Brooklyn, and that was interesting as she was originally called a god by some of the characters. She had to clarify that she isn’t particularly religious.

I have to wonder how the series will eventually deal with the potential relationships that spring up between the characters. Kade clearly still likes Nancy, even with her in the Land of the Dead and him stuck at Eleanor’s. Christopher and Cora also appear to be developing a relationship, or at least a crush, which is unfortunate as Christopher keeps proclaiming that he loves the Skeleton Girl. Seems like an unfortunate love triangle to be stuck in.

The logic of these worlds was also developed further here, but I’m still confused about it all. That doesn’t really detract though, half of the characters are confused as well so it does truly feel like a bonus if you’re able to reread and gleam a little more of the organization from the text. For now though, I get enough to get by and I’m pleased with that.

This series is so much fun, I’m really glad to keep going with it. I hope that the rest are similar to this one instead of departing from the setting that got me hooked in the first place.