What If?

This weekend during youth group at church, my youth played a game where everyone writes a question on a piece of paper, then we crumple them up into balls and have a "snowball" fight.  Everyone reads their question aloud and answers it.  Some of the questions are silly, but some of the questions really cause the person to think, and can start some great discussions.  Here is the question that struck me Sunday morning-"If you could kill someone with the power of your mind, and no one would know, would you do it?"

This question led to a discussion of Unitarian Universalist values, as the activity is supposed to ultimately do.  But it also led to a discussion of whether it is possible to change history.  If you add the ability to time travel to the ability to kill people with your mind, many of my youth said that maybe going back and killing Hitler as an infant would be an acceptable use of that power.  Because you already know what evil he created, and you would have a responsibility to stop it.  This exact idea is the central focus of Stephen King's latest tome, 11/22/63.


In the book, small town high school teacher named Jake Epping is floating through a rather drab existence.  Newly single, he spends his days teaching, grading papers, and eating his meals at a local diner.  One day the diner's owner and chief fry cook, A,l shares a secret with Jake-in the back of his store is an unexplained tear in the fabric of time.  Step through that tear and it takes you back to the same exact time on the same exact day in 1958.  No matter how long you stay or what you do while you are there, stepping through the tear resets any effect you may have had on the past.  Since Al discovered this mysterious tear, he's been travelling back and forth frequently.  His last trip lasted four years-because he had a mission, one that a lung cancer diagnosis is now forcing him to push on Jake.  His mission-to stop the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald, thereby stopping one of the most turbulent times in American history.  At least, that's this theory...

What follows is a loooooong history lesson about Lee Harvey Oswald.  Jake studies Oswald like a scientist, trying to discern what kind of man he was, what kind of husband he was, whether he did, in fact act alone...He follows his movements, and as a result we learn a lot about the man who shot Kennedy.

At 849 pages, this is one of King's doorstops of a book, but unlike Under the Dome, which I thought could be shortened by a hundred pages or so, I was riveted every moment of this one.  Maybe it's the historical fiction lover in me, but I actually liked the minute descriptions of Oswald's life, and King provides a personal storyline for Jake that is mildly predictable but very engaging.  Not horror by any means, this genre bending book-part historical fiction part science fiction-evokes the optimism of mid-20th Century America and the tension that builds as Jake gets closer to his goal.  And if he succeeds, will things really be better?  Consider this a novel of unintended consequences...

Reading Vonnegut for the First Time

As a science fiction fan, I have considered it a personal failing that I had never read any Kurt Vonnegut.  As a pacifist, the fact that I had never read Slaughterhouse Five made that failing sting a little more.  I wish I could say that reading this book was worth all of the years of self-recrimination.  I wish I could say that I finished it.  But the only thing I can say with any certainty is that I didn't get it.

I won't say that I don't understand why this book is considered a classic of science fiction specifically and literature generally.  Vonnegut's writing is by turns funny, poignant, frightening, or evocative.  Slaughterhouse Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, an accidental soldier who is captured by the Germans in 1945 and taken to Dresden.  He is there during the Dresden bombings, when the Allies bombed the non-military city of Dresden and killed over 100,000 people.  Vonnegut himself was a German prisoner of war who lived through the Dresden bombing and its aftermath.  But this is not in fact the major event of Billy's life.  Billy becomes "unstuck in time", moving through his own lifeline from prisoner to wealthy optometrist to alien zoo exhibit...yes, I said alien exhibit.  Because the other major fact of Billy's life is that he was abducted by aliens on the night of this daughter's wedding.

OK, I only know the last part because I read the SparkNotes for the complete novel.  Because I couldn't finish the book.  Even with the excellent writing, I could not get into this story.  It wasn't the writing, or the war, or the time travel, or the alien abduction.  The only explanation I can come up with is that my brain just doesn't think the way that Vonnegut's does.  Even though I already knew the destination theme-wise, I just couldn't follow where Vonnegut was leading.  Despite my natural inclination to agree with the book's anti-war message, I wasn't sure how Billy Pilgrim traveling through time and being abducted by aliens was supposed to articulate that message.  Of course, had I finished it, maybe all would become clear.  And that's on me.  I guess I'll just have to continue living my life as a science fiction fan who hasn't read Vonnegut.  But this time I'll forgive myself.

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Any long time readers of this blog know my deep respect for Octavia Butler.  She takes the genre of science fiction and turns it into literature that not even the most pernicious lit snob can say is anything other than high quality.  Kindred, Butler's best known work, is perhaps the clearest example I've yet read of the way that she combines issues of race, gender, and class into her work.

Kindred is the story of Dana, a black woman living in California in the 1970s.  Through some process never fully explained, Dana is transported back to the early 1800s whenever Rufus, her white great-great-great-great (you get the idea) grandfather is on the verge of getting himself killed.  Unfortunately for Dana, this unknown ancestor is also the son of a slave-owner in Maryland.  This means that once she is back in time with him, she must adjust her life to the customs of the time, acting the part of a slave.  As Dana travels back and forth between the past and the present, she learns more about what it meant to be black and powerless in the United States than she ever wanted to.  What was abstract to her and her white husband in 1976 becomes terrifyingly concrete in the world of 1830s Maryland.

Kindred is a bit of a cross-over novel, as the science fiction aspect of it is not nearly as important as the story itself.   Perhaps that's why it is her most popular novel, because you don't have to be a science fiction fan to enjoy it.  But I suspect it has more to do with the examination of race and slavery than with a genre preference.  Through Dana's experiences, Butler shows the brutality and cruelty of slavery.  Dana, with her 20th century moral superiority, begins by "acting" as a slave, but after being whipped, beaten, forced into the fields, and nearly raped, she comes to realize how easily people can be made slaves.  Take away a person's humanity, and they will believe they are less than human.  Value a person only because of the work that they can do or the price that they will fetch, and they will start to define themselves that way, even contribute to their own captivity.

It is this idea that is perhaps the most striking in Butler's work, especially given the 1979 release date.  That close to the heyday of the civil rights movement, it must have been a risk for Butler to create the characters of Rufus, who while not likeable does at least become understandable as the slave owner's son, and eventual slave owner himself.  Even though Dana hates what he does, she can't quite bring herself to hate him, though he certainly gives her ample reasons to do so.  But Dana's relationship with Rufus, and the various attitudes of other slaves on the plantation, demonstrate that slavery and people's attitudes towards it were not as clear-cut as history books would make them out to be.  To be sure, the institution of slavery is abhorrent, but those living within it sometimes had to do things that should not necessarily be judged by 20th (or 21st) century standards.  Butler clearly shows how insidious the effects of living under such a brutal system can be, from the need to run away again and again, even after the most horrific beatings, to the need to try and secure your place by serving up another slave's transgressions to your masters, even though you know what the consequences for them will be.  In the end, Dana is able to retain enough of her 20th century self to free herself from the bondage imposed on her by the involuntary time travel, but not without scars, both physical and emotional, that will leave a permanent impression on her, and on the reader.

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

I was not prepared.  When I decided to read Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, I did so as a way to give the author a second try.  I have tried to read The Remains of the Day back in college, and I found the tight, closely-controlled writing difficult, and not in a good way.  When I saw the movie they made from the book, I realized why it was written the way that it was.  But I couldn't get through it.  When I started to see Never Let Me Go all over the blogosphere, I had to work myself up for another try.  I try not to read too many reviews of the books I'm going to read before I read them-I don't want someone else's opinion to blur my own-so I really didn't know much about the book except that I had tried to read this author before and failed.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this book is about as far away from the content of The Remains of the Day as it is possible to get and still be the same form of media.  Never Let Me Go is the story of Kath, Tommy, and Ruth, three students at a boarding school in England, which you very quickly realize is not your typical boarding school.  The students are clones, created specifically to become organ donors.  Their teachers try to shield them as best they can from the inevitability of their fate, but each in their turn goes off to be a carer-someone who helps donors recover-until it is their turn to be cut up for parts. 

Given the subject matter, you might assume that this book is a treatise on medical ethics or social justice, but Ishiguro uses this rather interesting setting to tell a coming-of-age story.  The story is told with Kath as narrator, and it opens with her getting ready to retire from being a carer.  The story is told as memory, in Hansel and Gretl fashion-Ishiguor leaves a trail of crumbs, hints of what is really going on behind the placid boarding school setting, tidbits that make it impossible to stop reading until you figure out what is going on.  Everything is just slightly askew in this book-it's like the real world slipped sideways just a bit.

Ishiguro begins with Kath explaining her retirement from being a carer, though at the time you have no idea what that actually means.  What this narrative structure does is allow the reader to spend the bulk of the novel  pondering the relationships the characters have to each other, rather than waiting for them to escape from their predicament.  While the fact of their creation and eventual destruction is always below the surface, there are many things in Ruth, Kath, and Tommy that are familiar.  First love, jealousy, betrayal, insecurity-all pretty universal elements of a classic coming-of-age story.  By the time Ishiguro finally gets around to giving you enough information about the donation program to figure out what's been going on, it's practically the end of the book.  Only then do you realize that what you have been reading is not just your ordinary teenage love story, but a story about what it means to be human.  If clones can love and hurt and feel anger and fear, then what separates them from the "natural" people who created them?

A Book Geek's Dream

It has become more and more obvious to me, in part thanks to a thought-provoking series of posts from The Reading Ape, that there is a very clear culture of reading among serious readers, and a strong subculture specific to book bloggers.  We have our own jargon, common practices, etiquette...all of it built on a foundation of love for books and storytelling.  So it comes as no surprise to me that I had to find the book blogger community to find Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series.  Fforde's books are a treasure trove of literary references and inside jokes any serious reader, especially of classic literature, should feel right at home in what is a decidedly strange world.

I just finished The Eyre Affair.  It is the novel that introduced Thursday Next, a SpecOps agent on the LiteraTec squad-that is, the group that is responsible for protecting the great books from harm.  While this includes rather ordinary things like verifying manuscripts for authenticity, it also includes some decidedly unusual things-like traveling into the book in pursuit of an evil villain out to destroy the great works of literature.  The Eyre Affair is a rather strange combination of literary discussion and science fiction, all rolled up into a thriller format.

I will admit that the structure of the novel didn't always sit well with me, and I'll have to read more to see if the rules that govern his particular universe stay consistent.  There are a lot of moving parts in this novel-Thursday herself and her past, a time-traveling father, a giant corporation (named Goliath-not the most subtle name I'll admit) that secretly runs things behind the scene, and a bullet-proof super-villain who can't be seen on camera and can apparently change the molecular structure of glass.  Intrigued yet?

What I loved about this novel is the creation of a world where literature is so important to everyone that an entire arm of the government is dedicated to it.  In Fforde's world, the Marlovians and Oxfordians feel so strongly about their positions they go door to door like Jehovah's Witnesses trying to get converts, as though Shakespearean authorship study is a religion (frankly, there's just as much evidence for some of the authorship theories as their is for some religious beliefs, namely not much)  Some literary movements actually took up arms to fight for their literary theory, though that does seem like taking it a bit too far.  Imagine a world where people cared that much about reading and books.  That's not to say I thought this book was without its problems-the characters were not that well developed, and the action jumped around a bit.  But as fun, escapist reading for readers, this book was a winner.

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

What would you do to ensure the survival of the human race?  What would you sacrifice?  Your money?  Your freedom?  Your life?  Most of us probably would if we were up against it.  But what about the lives of our children?  What if the survival of the species meant giving up your children to violence, war, and possible death?

It is exactly this rather sticky ethical question that Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, takes on.  Well, that and a few others, like the morality of xenocide and government manipulation.  That's a lot for what is essentially a young adult novel, but Card manages it by creating a version of Earth that is both alien and somehow familiar.

Ender's Game is the story of Ender Wiggins, a genius among geniuses.  Bred specifically for intelligence and cunning, Ender is the last, best hope for humanity in their war against the buggers, and alien race that attacked the Earth not once, but twice, in an attempt to colonize it.  Sounds like the basic plot of just about any  science fiction novel.  The twist?  Ender is only six years old.  He is taken from his family and sent to Battle School, where he learns to fight in mock battles with other cadets.  But the real plan for Ender involves him learning to be very good at the game that the military has devised to develop his skills as a strategist.  At the age of 10 he is sent to Command School, where he trains with the person who defeated the buggers during the last invasion.  As the games become more challenging and Ender begins to collapse under the weight of everyone's expectations, the military's manipulation of him leads to devastating consequences-for the fleet, for the buggers, and ultimately for Ender.

Card's writing in Ender's Game is almost clinical, but that just adds to the "otherness" feeling that you get from the characters.  Ender and his siblings-both of whom washed out of the Battle School program-are just as brilliant as he is.  Peter, his older brother, washed out for being a ruthless little sociopath whose tendency towards violence and power was not tempered by empathy.  Valentine, his sister, washed out for the opposite reason-too much empathy, not enough ruthlessness.  The military hopes it is Ender who will present the perfect blend of these two traits-calculating and violent enough to lead a war, but empathetic enough not to kill unnecessarily.  And while you feel sorry for Ender, he is certainly not perfect.  He is violent, and emotionally distant, and ruthless when provoked.  But how much can be blamed on a child, when from birth he was trained for war.  


Given the fact that there are children all over Africa and Asia being conscripted as soldiers and made to fight right now, the premise feels more possible than a science fiction novel often does.  Ender does his job, and he does it well-but there is a price.  I will admit to being surprised to find that the final "games" were real battles.  I guess since I knew there were sequels I assumed the war continued.  Despite being manipulated into xenocide, Ender feels crushing guilt.  While an argument can be made that it wasn't his "fault", it doesn't begin to assuage the remorse he feels for that and so many other things that were kept from him during his time at the school.  And after losing his family and never being allowed to have real friends, he loses his home.  Concerned that he will be used by the various governments to defeat the other governments, he is forbidden ever to return to Earth.  And so the rest of the world blithely goes on with their politics-and Ender pays the price.

Book Blogger Hop-Why Do I Read What I Read

Well, folks, with the Literary Blog Hop only happening every other week, I've decided to join Crazy-for-Books Book Blogger Hop on the off weeks for LBH.  Thanks to both The Blue Bookcase and Crazy-for-Books for hosting these events.  I've certainly found plenty of great bloggers out there as a result.

This week's question is:

Why do you read the genre that you do?  What draws you to it?

First things first-we need to ad an "s" to that word genre.  I read many genres, and all for different reasons.  Since I love lists, let's do this in list format.

1.  Contemporary Fiction-I read contemporary fiction because it says something about the state of our world and society RIGHT NOW.  One of the reasons I like Jodi Picoult's books is because through her (rather exaggerated) plot lines, she does explore social issues facing us in America today.   Medical ethics, school shootings, religion vs. secularism, issues of family and society-contemporary fiction, while not always the most profound, can usually be relied on to be thought provoking.

2.  Literary Fiction-I read literary fiction because it says something about humanity, which is usually transcendent of time or place.  Unless it shows how humans are affected by time and place.  At any rate, sometimes my brain needs more sustenance than others.

3.  Science Fiction-Hated science, love science fiction.  The best science fiction writers say something about the human experience in their work, and they tend to be rather action packed for those times when I want something fun and exciting.

4.  Fantasy-I have been a fantasy fan since I read the Narnia books in sixth grade.  I was given The Wishstone of Shannarah in middle school, and I was hooked.  For a while in high school that was pretty much all I read.I don't read as much now as  used to, but I'm still quite fond of mythical lands full of unusual races.  I think this is why I like role playing games like Final Fantasy and Fable so much.  It's like I'm in the story.

5.  Feminist Fiction:  Ummm....because I'm a feminist!  Toni Morrison, Alica Walker, Margaret Atwood, Sheri Tepper, Sylvia Plath, Marge Piercy, Octavia Butler...I feel empowered just typing their names.

6.  Mystery/Thrillers:  They are fun, and usually easy, and often have engaging recurring characters that I enjoy reading about over time.  Also, because my mother reads them and gives me all of her book when she's done with them.

Under the Dome, by Stephen King

If there are two things that Stephen King knows, it's character and setting.  Despite the bizarre situations that he places them in, his characters usually feel completely authentic.  In fact, I think that his real talent as a writer is imagining what the average person would do when confronted with the impossible.  In that sense, Under the Dome represents the most obvious example of what he has spent a career writing about.  He does nothing so well as place his characters under the microscope to see what they will do in in the most trying of circumstances.

Imagine that your entire town is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by an impermeable, impenetrable barrier.  Nothing can go in or out.  In an instant, you become just one creature in a very large terrarium.  That is exactly what happens to the small Maine town of Chester Mills.  As the government outside the dome tries to figure out where it came from and how to get rid of it, the residents of The Mills go about the business of figuring out how to survive their captivity.  In classic King style, there is the corrupt town leader, the drifter with a past, the good-hearted average guy, the strong, feisty woman (in this case, the owner of the town paper), and a cast of townspeople (good, bad, or a little of both) who make up this particular microcosm of America.  If I thought about it long enough, I could probably match every main character from Under the Dome with their counterpart in The Stand (my favorite King book by a green mile!).  What makes this familiar cast work time after time is the fact that most of us know someone exactly like them.  The power struggle unfolds with a Lord of the Flies inevitability, with some people rising to the occasion, and others showing their true, evil nature.

My one criticism of this book is its length.  I'm not averse to a 1000+ page book, if all 1000+ pages are integral to moving the story along.  However, the middle 400 pages or so of this particular tome dragged.  I suppose when you have a story with this many moving parts (there are something like 20 important characters, with many more minor characters), you run the risk of getting bogged down in each individual storyline.  In the end, however, it was worth it.  The last 100 pages were fast-paced and exciting.  And in an example of another thing I love about King's writing, there are no safe characters.  This gives his writing a delicious unpredictability.    But, satisfactorily, the truly bad guys almost always get what's coming to them.

Patternmaster, by Octavia E. Butler

Patternmaster is the last book in story-time in the Patternist series by Octavia E. Butler, but the first of her novels to actually be published.  I find that fact astonishing on a couple of levels-first, because the book clearly mentions "past" events in the world of the characters that Butler had not in fact written yet, and because without the other books as backstory I'm not sure how an editor understood it enough to publish it.

Patternmaster tells the story of Teray, son of the current Patternmaster, the one person who hold the Pattern of thought connecting every Patternist on Earth.  The Patternmaster is the strongest of the Patternists, and his or her strength is what controls their society.  Without a Patternmaster the Patternists would not be able to live together without eventually killing each other.  Occupying the planet along with the Patternists are the Clayarks, human mutants who carry the only disease that can kill a Patternist, who can heal themselves.  Teray, just out of school, is tricked into becoming the slave of a brother he never knew he had-as Teray is the son of the current Patternmaster, he is a threat to his big brother's quest to take control of the Pattern.  When Teray tries to escape, his brother hunts for him, causing a showdown that leads to major changes for the Pattern.

The fact that Butler saw her story so clearly that she could mention past events in the arc of the story that were actually still in her future is remarkable.  I'm not talking about rather general statements that could be expanded on later, but specifics, like where the Clayark disease came from and who killed the being who bred the first Patternist.  Considering that it took Butler eight years to finish the books in this series, that is a long time to keep specific details in mind. 

But more remarkable is that this novel got published at all, especially since it is her first.  While the story is fast paced, and the characters are interesting, if I hadn't read about Doro and Anyanwu, or the Clay's Ark mission, or the creation of the Pattern, I don't know if I would have understood half of it.  This novel also doesn't carry the usual social commentary that I've found in Butler's books.  It does explore the idea of morality, in that the Patternists had a definite sense of morality that was completely different than ours.  Does that mean morality is relative?  It also explores the idea of power being a corrupting influence, and yet every character in the novel is seeking it in some way, whether it is the power to make their own choices or power over others.

I'm glad that I decided to read the books in the order of the story, rather than the order of their publication.  I don't mind non-linear narrative, but I think reading Patternmaster first would have left me without the strong sense of attachment to the story that I got from starting with Wild Seed.

You Wicked Little Monkey!

It only took me three weeks, but I finally finished a book!  So I guess you could say I was the wicked little monkey!  I sure felt supremely slackerish in the reading department.  But the title of this post has more to do the the novel, Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff, than with my own lack of reading achievement in the month of September.

Bad Monkeys is the story of Jane Charlotte.  Jane has been arrested for murder, and during her interrogation in the psych ward she reveals that she actually works for a super secret organization called Bad Monkeys, whose sole purpose is to track down and stop evildoers by any means necessary.  If all else fails, it is Bad Monkeys' job to assassinate the evildoer.  No one has heard of Bad Monkeys, who have the ability to track our every move.  You know all of those rock posters you had on your wall as a teen-the eyes on the posters were actually spying on you.  The books you read-the spines transit information to the organization.  Even the money you spend tell them where you are and what you are doing.  Trouble is, there is no way to verify Jane's story.  Of course, she says that's because the organization can change any record, erase any tape, falsify any video-basically they can control everything we see and hear.  So, is Jane really an agent of good in the form of a Bad Monkeys assassin, or is she delusional?

This book is quirky and well-paced and fun, despite the sometimes horrific content.  I mean, Jane kills people who are evil-many of the characters are not exactly likeable.  By the end I wanted Bad Monkeys to exist-though the Big Brother aspect of it was pretty frightening.  And I wanted Jane to be good.  Throughout the novel she struggles with her own evil, and in the end that seems to be the message Matt Ruff is trying to get across, at least in part.  All of us have the capacity for good or evil, and it is our choices that determine whether we are on the side of right, or whether we are a bad monkey.

I realized after I finished Bad Monkeys that Ruff had written another novel that I found really quirky and fascinating, Set This House in Order.  It ist he story of Andy Gage, the public face of a mind with multiple personalities.  He is integrated enough to work designing virtual reality environments.  At work he meets Penny, another multiple personality who needs Andy's help.  The novel is engaging right from the start, and while I don't necessarily believe in the multiple personality disorder as a real condition, I do think that MPD as a mechanism for showing the multiple sides of our psyche and the conflicts they can create within us was pretty genius!

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

At last the wait is over!  Wednesday evening, I came home from class to find my copy of Mockingjay waiting for me in the mail. 

In case you have been living under a rock when it comes to the latest in young adult literature, Mockingjay is the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  I reviewed the first two books in the series, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire here.  The trilogy tells the story of Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old living in District 12 of Panem-what was once the United States.  Her life, and the lives of everyone in the districts, is closely controlled by the Capitol.  The populace is left half-starved and completely oppressed.  Once a year, just to prove how powerful it is, the Capitol puts on the Hunger Games, in which teen-age tributes fight to the death to earn their districts extra food for the year.  The event is televised all through Panem, and is required watching.  When Katniss, who volunteers to be a tribute to save her younger sister, finds a way to outsmart the system, she becomes a threat to the Capitol, and sets in motion a chain of events that leads to an uprising.

(If you have not yet read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, and want to, I suggest you stop reading now, as I cannot guarantee there will be no spoilers in the following review.  You have been warned!)

This is where Mockingjay picks up.  While Katniss deals with the physical and emotional aftermath of her time in the games, the rebels try to groom her to be their symbol-the mockingjay, which has come to mean freedom to the people of Panem.  Katniss is ambivalent about being used by the rebels, and is desperately worried about Peeta, the second tribute from District 12, who was captured at the end of the Hunger Game in Catching Fire.  Finally, her desire for revenge against the cruel President Snow causes her to throw in the with rebels.  With her best friend Gale by her side, she tries to outsmart the Capitol-and the rebels-in order to avenge the brutalities visited on her, her family and friends, and her district, and maybe just free Panem from tyranny while she's at it.

That summary feels pretty weak, but I am afraid that saying too much will ruin something for someone, so it'll have to do.  Because the fact is, if you know too much about the events of the book prior to reading, there is no way that the story can pack the same emotional wallop that it does on a cold read.  I was wrung out after finishing-in a good way, if there is such a thing.  Granted, I pretty much read it all in one sitting, but I don't know how I could have put it down.  And I am not really going to go into the state of the Peeta/Katniss/Gale triangle.  That, too me, is the least that this series has to offer.  Suffice it to say that regardless of what "team" you are one (and could we stop making everything about teams, like it's the Superbowl or something!), you will find very few happy endings in Mockingjay.

What made this book feel different for me than other books with similar topics is the way that the horrors of war are portrayed.  There is no sentimentality here.  All of the characters, but Katniss, Gale, and Peeta especially, are horribly damaged by the war-body, mind, and spirit.  Collins does not try to sugarcoat the effects of war on human beings.  People go crazy, people are wounded, people die.  For periods of the book some of the characters are basically living on anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs.  I don't see how anyone reading this book could possibly believe that war is somehow glamorous, as some books/movies seem to imply.  Despite the horror and pain, Katniss and the others somehow manage to keep going-a greater testament to the human spirit than the glorified warriors of other novels, I think.

I also liked the theme of media manipulation.  Both the Capitol and the rebels use propaganda films to sway the populace.  There is a certain amount of "wagging the dog", and ultimately the novel shows how almost anything can be spun to prove almost anything.  I think that is not so different than what happens in today's media.  Just think about a political campaign.  There is so much conflicting information presented in campaign ads, it is impossible for both sides to be telling the truth.  Or think about famous scandals.  A well placed apology or public conversion can change a scoundrel into a repentant saint  we are all too quick to forgive-especially if they shoot a basketball real well or starred in a movie we really liked.  The fact was that no one who wasn't "in on it" had any idea what the true agendas of either the Capitol or the rebels were, including Katniss, who was once again manipulated for someone else's purposes.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Welcome to another edition of It's Monday, What Are You Reading, hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey.

For me, it's more like a "Where have you been for the last two weeks post?", since I somehow missed the boat last week.    School starts today, and while my blog may have been slightly neglected, my classroom looks wonderful :)

So, since my last Monday post, here's how things stack up:

Books read:

A Dark Matter, by Peter Straub

Clay's Ark, by Octavia E. Butler

Farm Fresh Murder, by Paige Shelton

Deception, by John Kellerman (review coming soon!)

Reading has definitely slowed down in my world-darn that having to work thing, anyway!  So, what's up next?

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

I was informed that my copy is on it's way from Amazon!  I read the first two in late winter, and cursed my friends who recommended Hunger Games for not waiting a few months so I could just read all three at once!

Wild Ginger, by Anchee Min

The Red Guards have branded Wild Ginger's deceased father a traitor and eventually drive her mother to a gruesome suicide, but she fervently embraces Maoism to save her spirit. She rises quickly through the ranks and is held up as a national model for Maoism. Wild Ginger now has everything, even a young man who vies for her heart. But Mao's prohibition on romantic love places her in an untenable position. Into this sexually charged situation steps Maple, creating an uneasy triangle that Min has portrayed with keen psychological insight and her characteristic gift for lyrical eroticism.(from Goodreads)

The Passion of Alice, by Stephanie Grant

It's 1984. Alice Forrester is a twenty-five-year-old anorexic who has just experienced heart failure when she is taken to the emergency room of Seaview Hospital, renowned for its eating disorders clinic. There, family and friends in league with staff and doctors intently try to steer her toward recovery. But it's not that simple. She passes time at the clinic waiting to find out what is wrong with her. What happened. When and how the damage was done. (from Goodreads)

Whisper to the Blood, Dana Stabenow

Inside Alaska’s biggest national park, around the town of Niniltna, a gold mining company has started buying up land. The residents of the Park are uneasy. “But gold is up to nine hundred dollars an ounce” is the refrain of Talia Macleod, the popular Alaskan skiing champ the company has hired to improve their relations with Alaskans and pave the way for the mine’s expansion. And she promises much-needed jobs to the locals.

But before she can make her way to every village in the area to present her case at town meetings and village breakfasts, there are two brutal murders, including that of a long-standing mine opponent. The investigation into those deaths falls to Trooper Jim Chopin and, as usual, he needs Kate to help him get to the heart of the matter.

Between those deaths and a series of attacks on snowmobilers up the Kanuyaq River, not to mention the still-open homicide of Park villain Louis Deem last year, part-time P.I. and newly elected chairman of the Niniltna Native Association Kate Shugak has her hands very much full. (from Goodreads)

Patternmaster, by Octavia E. Butler

The combined mind--force of a telepathic race, patternist thoughts can destroy, heal, rule. For the strongest mind commands the entire pattern and all ...more  
The combined mind--force of a telepathic race, patternist thoughts can destroy, heal, rule. For the strongest mind commands the entire pattern and all within. Now the son of the Patternmaster craves this ultimate power, He has murdered or enslaved every threat to his ambition----except one. In the wild, mutant--infested hills, a young apprentice must be hunted down and destroyed because he is the tyrant's equal....and the Pattermaster's other son. (from Goodreads)

Clay's Ark, by Octavia E. Butler

What would you do if you contracted a "disease" that forced you to seek out the uninfected and infect them?  We've had plenty of examples of this in popular culture lately to help us think about the issue-28 Days, 28 Days Later, and I Am Legend  have all dealt with the aftermath of an epidemic that forces us to lose our humanity in the mindless quest to propagate a disease over which we have no control.  I've always seen these stories as allegory for human creations gone awry, as apocryphal tales of what will happen in humans continue to change nature to meet our demands.

Trust Octavia E. Butler to have a different way of framing this idea.  In her novel Clay's Ark, part of the Patternist series, Butler shows us the beginning of an extraterrestrial epidemic that has the potential to completely wipe out the human race.  Not by turning humans into raving, bloody zombies intent on killing every living thing in sight, but by changing our very genetic make-up so that we are no longer human, but also not completely inhuman.  Clay's Ark is the story of Eli, a geologist and astronaut, who returns from a mission to the Alpha Centurion galaxy carrying an alien organism in his body.  The organism has changed him at a molecular level so that he is faster, stronger, and has sharper senses than before.  He also has the overwhelming compulsion to infect others with the alien life form.  After his ship crashes back on Earth, he comes upon a remote compound in the desert where a patriarch and his family live isolated from the rest of the world-a world that has become increasingly dangerous as people fight for resources that are becoming more and more scarce.  Eli has no choice but to infect the inhabitants.  Several years later, a man and his twin daughters are traveling the highway through the desert when Eli's band kidnaps them to add to their growing community.  What happens next determines the fate of all humankind.

While this may sound an awful lot like the other examples of this theme that I mentioned, what makes Butler's take different is the way that the infected try to hold on to their humanity.  The organism living inside each of them causes them to have compulsions that are immoral by human standards-incest, rape, murder. But Eli is convinced that if they can keep their settlement small, and only take new people as necessary to keep their compulsions at bay, then they can retain their humanity and contain the infection.  In Clay's Ark the literal infection is an alien life form, but Butler could be using that as a symbol for anything that causes us to act in ways that deny our humanity.  Rather than experiencing the invasion from the perspective of the "clean", we see this outbreak from the point of view of the infected.  Eli is basically struggling with the most basic existential questions.  What is it that makes us human, what is it that defines us as a human race?  And once the infected start having children who are very different than human children, what can be said for the future of the human race?  Are the children a new species of human, or something altogether different?  And does it matter, if they are taught how to act as humans?  Clay's Ark may be a pretty short novel, but Butler gives us a lot to think about.  The next book in the Patternist series takes us to the far future, and I find myself wondering whether I will like where this story comes to its natural conclusion.

Mind of My Mind, by Octavia Butler

I think that the reason that I like fantasy and science fiction so much is because I am so intrigued by the way the author's mind works.  I mean, when I read Neil Gaiman or Sheri S. Tepper, I marvel at the places their imagination takes them.  To take our ordinary world and change it into something marvelous/wondrous/horrible/terrifying/magical takes skill.  Since so much fantasy and science fiction these days seems targeted at a younger audience, I'm always glad to find mature, thoughtful stories.

And this week it is Octavia Butler that I am thanking the sci fi gods for.  I read Wild Seed, the first book chronologically in her Patternist series earlier this week, and last night finished Mind of My Mind.  Mind of My Mind takes the story of Doro and Anyanwu and fast fowards it 150 years.  Anyanwu and her family are now living in California, and Doro continues to pay visits to the only other immortal he's ever found.  On this trip, he is planning to take Mary, one of his many experiments in creating telepaths, and marry her off to Karl, another of his creations.  She is about to go through her transition, the time when those with latent telepathic abilities either learn to control their talent, or go crazy or die in the attempt.  When Mary transitions, Doro finds that her power is new, different-and potentially dangerous to him.  Since this is a fairly rare occurrence in his almost 4000 years of life, he does not kill her, but watches to see what she will do.  She is at the center of the Pattern-a psychic link to other strong telepaths.  While she does not control the Pattern itself, she can control the people in it.  She soon builds an enclave of other powerful telepaths, all of whom answer to her.  Soon enough, Doro realizes his mistake in not killing her when her new power first asserted itself.

As I was reading I was alternately drawn to the mission that Mary took on, and terrified of what it would mean if it was real.  Her telepaths can control anyone not a telepath, forcing them to do things while making them so content with their servitude they think they are doing them out of their own free will.  This is slavery of a different sort-one with fairly benign masters, assuredly, but slavery nonetheless.  While Mary has a symbiotic relationship with her telepaths, they all use the "mutes", as they call non-telepaths, to support them in creating a small empire, while helping them stay hidden from the rest of the world.  This reminds me of the relationship between the Ina and their symbionts in Fledgling, the first of Butler's books I discovered.

Mary and her "First Family" of telepaths (those she drew to her first), are at times sympathetic characters, and at times ruthless killers.  Mary's mission to save latents from themselves seems admirable, but when they do not abide by the rules of her little community they will kill them without much remorse.  It seems that ordinarily, telepaths cannot abide each other's company, since they cannot abide mind to mind contact with each other.  They also cannot abide children, because no one, not even Mary, can completely block the psychic noise that constantly streams from young minds.  This is another reason that they need the mutes-if their "race" is to continue, they must have someone who can take care of the children without abusing or killing them.  Butler blurs the line between good and evil, highlighting the relative nature of so many of the rules of human society.  She also examines the very idea of race as a construct, since Doro has been trying for millenia to create a new "race" of people like himself of which he can be a part.  Color has nothing to do with it in Doro's worldview-talent is the great dividing line, the one thing that determines a person's worth.  There are two more books in this series, and I almost don't want to read them, because then I will have read them-I like thinking about the pleasure I will have in the future from this always surprising, though provoking author.

Top Ten Picks-Books You Have To Read At Least Once

Thanks to Jillian at Random Ramblings for hosting this meme.  This week's topic-books you should read at least once.  I'm going to stick with late 20th-21st century titles-while I appreciate the genius of authors like Austen, Hemingway, and Lewis I'm itching to update the list a little.  I'm noticing a lot of feminist and/or social justice literature on here.  I guess you really can judge a person at least a little by their reading material!

1.  The Handmaid's Tale-Margaret Atwood

    This book is incredibly intellectual while still being accessible.  Atwood takes the idea of women as chattel to its not entirely unbelievable extreme.   A great way for new readers of feminist fiction to get into the genre.  Love everything Atwood ever wrote, but this one inspired me the most.

2.  Stone Butch Blues-Leslie Feinberg
  
      I know that most people have probably never heard of this book or this author,  Leslie Feinberg, but ze is one of the most influential writers in the world of GLBT literature, specifically around issues of gender identity.  The "ze" label is deliberate-Feinberg rejects traditional definitions of gender in favor of a more global perspective on what it means to be human, regardless of the genitalia you happen to have been born with.  In this, per first novel, ze tells the story (mostly autobiographical) of coming up as a young butch lesbian in the 60s, pre-Stonewall.  Great, touching, moving read!

3.  Paradise-Toni Morrison

     I firmly believe that this is her best book, despite the number of people who seem to think that Beloved takes that prize.  I love the way that time is fluid and non-linear in so many of her books, and the juxtaposition of the nuns and the village in this one makes fr fascinating reading.

4.  Stranger in a Strange Land-Robert Heinlein

     This book takes every idea about love and sex and culture and turns it on its head.  Even if you are not a fan of science fiction this one is sure to give you something to think about.

5.  A Thousand Splendid Suns-Khaled Hosseini

     Anyone wanting to understand Afghanistan, and why it shouldn't have taken 9-11 for the US to do something about the Taliban, should read this book.  Heartbreakingly written, intimate and tragic, this book is one of the best I have read-ever.

6.  Savage Inequalities-Jonathan Kozol

     I'm not usually a huge fan of non-fiction, but Jonathan Kozol's work is powerful.  This book is about the inequalities that exist in America's schools, and he examines the racial and socioeconomic politics that leads them to be the way they are.  He makes a strong argument that until we address these inequities we will continue to have generational poverty, racism, and class warfare in our country.

7.  The Time Traveller's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

     This is one of the most moving love stories I have ever read, and one of the best written books I have seen in a long time.  The plot is so complex and ingeniously structured...it's not often that an author can completely surprise me with something new, but Niffenegger did it.


8.  Possessing the Secret of Joy-Alice Walker

     Walker takes a minor character from The Color Purple (arguably another book everyone should read), and creates a story around her that examines what it means to break taboos.  While the main topic of this novel, female genital mutilation, is clearly not the most uplifting subject, the way that the book examines the practice and the main character's decision to undergo the process is powerful and moving.

9.  The Giver-Lois Lowry

This may be a young adult novel, but the there is enough here for the most intellectual adult reader to chew on. Science fiction that doesn't feel like science fiction, with an ending that leaves you wondering (at least, until you read the sequel) 

10.  Prodigal Summer-Barbara Kingsolver

     Beautifully written, this novel explores the idea that humans, rather than being above nature, are in fact undeniably a part of the rhythms and cycles of the world, driven as much by biological forces as rational.  Kingsolver's explorations of the place of body and heart in our lives is full of stunning descriptions of the natural world and tons of emotion.  The book is unashamedly a treatise on treating the natural world with respect and reverence, but the environmentalism never becomes preachy or cliche.