This Is Beautiful: Warm Weather

 I forget this every year, but it makes such a difference when it starts to warm up outside. I get to drive with the windows down, not bundle up every time I lead the house, and just soak up some sun. It fixes like the vast majority of my brain chemistry haha. Anyways we have had a few false springs, and I think we are actually in the clear now. It's so nice out!

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.

This Is Beautiful: Done with lab work!

 Alright so I thought I was done with experiments, and then we heard back from the journal, and then I was back to doing experiments for the past month. The unfortunate part is that I didn't have my undergrads that I trained to help me so I was doing everything entirely on my own. But I wrapped it up last Friday and I'm done again! And it's far too close to me leaving for me to pick up more things on this project. So that's exciting! I can finally check this off of my to-do list for graduate school!

“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.

This Is Beautiful: Interviews

 So I haven't had much, but I've now had 2 virtual interviews, and one of those is now leading to an in person interview for a teaching position! I just got the details this week for that, and it's really exciting that I'm at least getting a few nibbles on my applications! I will get out of here and get a job haha.

“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!

This Is Beautiful: Celebrations

 I've been trying to take time to celebrate my PhD, setting up events that I just find fun and all that. And also I've had friends defending, lab mates defending, and it's an exciting time in general with the summer coming up. It's just nice to take time to celebrate our accomplishments and spend time with each other rather than constantly working and whatnot.