adrian_turtle

With all the places I could conceivably post this, I choose to share it here, where I can't include a picture. Maybe it's because I like you so much.

I picked up a book from a little free library recently, and it included an actual breakup note. Not a goodbye note like, "Farewell, little book! May you find another lonely teenager to love you as I once did!"
This one says "I don't think I'm ever going to pick you up again" and "I love the first two books in the series, but not you," followed by a paragraph of [absolutely fair] criticism that appears to have been written with a purple gel pen.

Or perhaps now I should say "book boxes," as the shelves are starting to empty out. Although I will not be moving for 6 weeks, I am starting to pack in the hope that I can do a few boxes each day without hurting my hand. I know that packing everything in June would break me. I'm starting with books, because packing books is simple and orderly, especially compared to packing fragile bulky things like cookware. (And I want to be more confident that winter is over, before I pack winter clothes.) For books other than reference books*, I may want to keep them, but that doesn't mean I expect to lay hands on them in the next few weeks.

I have some good moving boxes left over from my last move. Thanks, aedifica and corylea! I can still see the record of those earlier moves and it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. I feel like that work of trimming down the book stash is becoming more visible. The boxes that had been labeled "W-Z" and "W" and "V-W" are now relabeled "W-Z" and "U-W" and "T-U." Some of the sturdy little book boxes got wet over the years, but fewer books might line up with fewer boxes.



*It wasn't until I started packing that I moved all the heavy reference books to the shelf behind where I sit for online teaching, so I could get them without going across the room.

I spent all my time at home during the first months of Covid, culling my books in an extremely leisurely fashion. I would check that the roof was still not leaking anywhere near the desk nor any of the bookshelves. Plenty of time! Plenty of space! Still...I knew I would eventually need to move, and it's easier to find an apartment with space for 4 bookcases than space for 6. (I double-shelve paperbacks.) And it's much easier to get rid of books gradually, with time to consider the matter, than in a last-minute panic while the movers are on their way.

Sometimes I would pick up a book and read 4 pages and think "Why did I ever buy this? WHY?" Sometimes I'd read the whole book, hoping it would get better after the first few chapters. (Nope.) Or I'd realize the misogyny fairy had hit it too hard for me to want it on my shelves. (I'm keeping the Mary Renault, though.) It would have gone faster if I could just smile at a book I wanted to keep and leave it on the shelf, but sometimes I thought "Oh, I haven't read this in years!" and just had to pick it up and remind myself how wonderful it was before putting it back. A slow process.

I really like being The Book Aunt. I'm a bit proud of having given my 13-year-old niece a great many books that hit the sweet spot so well her mother asks me how on earth I DO that. Almost all of them since "Hippos Go Berserk" have had female protagonists, which worked really well for her...she has too much sexism in her local world. (The only exception was "Wizard of Earthsea," which was conincidentally the only one she didn't like.) Of course, it helps that she's a reading sort of child. You know. There's the kind of child teachers/librarians/parents try to encourage to read more, and the kind of child where you have to take the book away to make them take a bath.

It's harder for me to be a Book Aunt for my nephews, in part because I don't know them as well. (They live near my mother, where I don't visit.) What's good for a ten-year-old? I don't read much for that age, so I'm at a loss. I'd prefer something written in the 21st century.** My niece loved "How Mirka Got Her Sword," but part of the reason she loved it was the Girl!Power! and Orthodox Judaism*. And she liked Castle Hangnail, but that might have been too young for her? On the other hand, my nephew isn't as much of a reading enthusiast, so something a little easier might be right for him. The Armitage stories were too hard for him, even though I loved them when I was 9, and my niece adores them as readalouds.

My nephew likes acting and baseball, but anything can catch his interest if it's fast-paced or funny. The books I like tend to be slower paced. I reread King of Shadows lately, and realized it isn't all that good. I liked Out of Left Field, and my 13y.o. niece loved it, but I'm not sure how much of that is the Girl!Power! and caring about the family already. How many girl power books can I throw a boy before I seem preachy, when I don't have other significant connections with him?


*We can quibble about the boundary between Orthodox and Conservative, but her family's practice is somewhere near that border. And the family I grew up in thinks that level of observance is fanatical and absurd. They think I'm being silly when I don't eat pork, or when I go to Saturday morning services just because I like them.

**It always annoys me when I ask a librarian "What's good for [age] that's come out in the last ten years?" and they offer me a new edition of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," or "All of a Kind Family." I'm asking because I want to find something for my younger niece, and be sure her sister doesn't already have it.

This week, I finished The Long Price Quartet, by Daniel Abraham. I'm not sure, but I think I was completely finished with Betrayal in Winter before this week, and only read An Autumn War and The Price of Spring this week (immediately going back to reread the beginning of A Shadow in Summer, for the sake of arguing with it, as one does.) The series does so many things right. I like how it shows characters actually maturing--not just growing out of childhood, or even out of fumbling young-adulthood, but through many stages of adulthood. I like how seriously it takes genocide, and how vengeance/forgiveness/moving on are all shown as so very difficult. I hope I'm mistaken in reading a pro-bullying message into the end.

I am also reading Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu, which is just stunningly good. The fairy-tale parts are right. And the other parts are right, with parents who mean well and Just Don't Get It. Like making good choices now that you're in 6th grade doesn't mean going off to rescue your best friend from a snow witch. (Really, the responsible choice in that situation is to stop and put boots on, not to just sit there and do homework.)

On audiobook, I'm listening to Lower Corte, by Guy Gavriel Kay. I read it a long time ago, and I'm not sure if I'm perceiving it differently because my feminist standards have changed or because I notice different things at the pace of an audiobook.

On Friday, Sovay was coughing pathetically and expressing unhappiness about the need to go out into the dismal cold rain and deal with tax paperwork. As soon as she was out the door, I went looking for that book by Nevil Shute where the NHS is obviously the villain because England has such bad weather. (As compared to a fundamentally decent place like Australia, where the sun shines all the time, there's lots of poor immigrants providing free labor, there's plenty to eat with no rationing, and nobody who matters has to worry about taxes.) I looked at several, and it's remarkable how Shute draws me in, considering I don't actually like his characters very much.

I realized The Breaking Wave (also known as Requiem for a Wren was not the book I was looking for, about halfway through. (Though it's largely about how Australia is so much better than England, and is set shortly after WW2.) That's the one about the disabled pilot who goes looking for his brother's fiancee, after the brother was killed near D-Day. It's about people who take it for granted that a respectable person simply does not confide in those they love. Such people really annoy me, in fiction as in real life. But what bothered me more was the idea of war as a positive experience for young people. Not: unpleasant necessity. Not even: we remember it fondly because we were young and together, even though it was horrible. Rather: it was so exciting anybody who experienced it once will want more of it.

I have a shelf full of Shute (--now on a shelf, rather than in a box! I finally decided we are staying in this apartment, with all its flaws, and started nesting in earnest.) I went on to read The Far Country (I don't know the other title.) I'm less than halfway through, but the NHS has already been established as a great evil. So has the UK generally, because rain and cold and food shortages and equality. How dare a country tax the rich to provide health care! The little old ladies starving to death because they're too proud to accept charity from the government. (Accepting money from the government because of what one's husband did decades ago occupying India is respectable. Accepting money from the government because the government is offering to help just anybody is NOT.) It would all be very much funnier if the NHS and the underlying idea that it's good for poor people to get medical care and enough to eat were not under active attack.

Last fall, I went looking for Rumer Godden's doll stories. "Little Plum" was once one of my favorite books ever, and the youngest of the little girls I love seemed like she might be close to the age of appreciating it. (The older one didn't want anything to do with dolls.) I might have read one of the other books from the library, but Aunt Pat gave me "Little Plum," and I read it many times. After the paperback died in a tragic housetraining accident, the story lived vividly in my memory.

Or so I thought. After I managed to track down a copy (they're remarkably hard to find these days), I had to read it myself. Maybe it would have to go in the "when she's older" pile. Besides, I wanted to spend some time with Belinda again.

The only copy I could find was actually a collection including all Godden's doll stories, which would certainly make it a more impressive present. As I vaguely remembered, "The Doll's House," wasn't bad but didn't grab me hard. "Miss Happiness and Miss Flower" was wonderful! (Some of you probably remember it from when you were 8.)

The little girl who feels so out of place. The bookstore owner who helps her. The dolls who can't move or speak or do anything, but love her and play with her and make her less lonely. *happy sigh* And the other lonely girl in "Little Plum," who doesn't know how to play, and thus her doll is lonely and neglected. And how they are wished and pulled and quarreled into friendship and community and happy ending.

I still love it. Only now that I'm not 8, I'm not comfortable with some of the details. The little Japanese dolls are fascinating because they are so exotic. Nona making a dollhouse isn't just about making a nice comfortable home for dolls she loves. It's very strongly about making a Japanese dollhouse, so different from the English kind! with everything just so like the books. Making green tea out of paint. Making rice out of snippets of thread. Dolls bowing and thinking of "Honorable so-and-so."

And of course the dolls are silent. Nobody asks them what they want before moving them around. The only power they have is wishing. Where the silent and powerless dolls are so emphatically Japanese dolls, it makes me uncomfortable. Yes, of course they're dolls, and dolls don't talk. (I love how dolls' wishes have power, and how Godden shows the parallel with children who are moved around with nobody asking what they want.) But there's also that stereotype of small, pretty, exotic, doll-like, Asian women with no voices or wills of their own. It makes the whole thing feel vaguely creepy, unlike the small, pretty, voiceless, English or Dutch dolls in Godden's other stories.

Is this a glancing blow from the racism fairy? The colonialism fairy? Am I being hypersensitive about a book that's really sympathetic to all its characters--the disempowered ceramic Japanese ones, as well as the English children (and even the adults in the background.) I didn't recognize "Little Plum" as being even slightly racist, the first dozen times I read it. That might have been because I wasn't 9 yet. Or because it was the 1970s, and I lived in a world where "racism" meant calling people vicious names or beating them up. Not subtle othering.

The child wouldn't notice any hint of racism in the book. She reads very well, but she's only 7. She's only 7...but someday I hope she'll be a strong voice against bigotry, even the subtle kinds of bigotry. I don't want her to think this kind of thing is ok, or that Aunt Adrian thinks this kind of thing is ok. (But she won't notice.) But I do want her to know about Nona. And Mr. Twilfit, because of course miracles come from bookstores. And Gem. And Tom. And Belinda, who does spiteful things and then is sorry and tries so hard to fix them. Ack. Wibble. Thus do I grind to a halt.

One of the things I like doing with Redbird is reading aloud. With the right book, it feels connecting and cuddly. With the wrong book, it's just annoying. We don't want books Redbird already knows. Or books that are deeply scary or depressing. So I'm asking advice from people who have read more than we have.

For this purpose, we want episodic books, or those not focused on very complicated plots. We want to be able to pick up reading chapter 17, and have it make sense even though we read chapters 10-16 three weeks ago. Detective stories would only work if each chapter were its own mystery. (Mirable?) Or if the idea was to follow the character development of the detective, more than to figure out the puzzle the detective was working on. (Charlie and Constance?)

Both of us have a low tolerance for sexism. (We all know the difference between sexist characters and a sexist story? Good.) I can be ok with an all-white story, but not with active racial bigotry. We have limited patience with characters being stupid just because it's convenient to the plot. One nice thing about reading aloud is being able to call out the annoying bits as they go by...but we don't want every page to collapse into MST3K.

We had a good time with Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons and 2 of the sequels (the last in the series was less good, because of characters being gratuitously stupid, but not a disaster.) Naomi Kritzer's The House That Wasn't There was a somewhat more serious adventure, aimed at the young side of YA, and we really liked it. And A.J. Hall's The Curious Incident of the Knight in the Library was great fun.

There are a great many stories outside YA and fanfic that Redbird hasn't read yet. (Those categories do seem to help the odds. She's read very little fanfic, and only that YA which has crossed over to adult popularity.) In order to work for this purpose, YA needs to avoid dystopias and problem novels. Fanfic needs to avoid relying too heavily on the source texts--we read The Curious Incident of the Knight in the Library as a standalone novel with some peculiar character names. I think horror is right out, but other genres might work.

I recently starting reading Anne Ursu's YA books, the trilogy starting with The Shadow Thieves. (Hat tip to Rush-that-Speaks.) If you haven't read them, you should, because they're great. I meant to say, if you haven't read them, you should know they're about a couple of contemporary 13-year-olds in conflict with ancient Greek gods. I love how the kids come across as entirely real and exactly as sensible as actual teenagers. I especially love how they realize they aren't just in conflict with a particular supernatural being, but with a whole metaphysical system.

I borrowed the second book from the library, and found a bookmark--a little Christian evangelical pamphlet. I have no idea if somebody left it there entirely at random, or if that book was chosen because it mentioned pagan gods, or if somebody recognized it as a book advocating metaphysical revolution against pagan gods and thought its readers would be good targets for evangelism.

It can take me a long time to go from idea to post, especially when I'm depressed. I started thinking about this one years ago, when I was reading various enlightened commentary, disapproving of 24 and other mainstream/conservative stories glorifying torture. I keep being reminded of related issues, and bogging down in stuff that's difficult to even think about.

Spoilers for Vorkosigan books 1-7. Disturbing moral questions. Not for the squeamish. ANNE, DO NOT READ. If anybody is still with me, ( Read more... )

Back when I was working in a manufacturing environment, and there was a radio playing in the background, I remember being surprised by the prevailing narrative I was hearing over the radio (in country music, in talky ads.) It's been too long for me to remember exact wording; I just remember being surprised by the overall sense of union=menace. (Sometimes as financial corruption, sometimes as evil union organizers stalking people--decent folks have to watch out or they'll get you, sometimes just as thoughtful creative people have to be careful not to get stuck in a hopeless/meaningless/stupid union job.) Last month, I ran into some remarkable anti-union hostility, and what looked like real fear, from a woman who was on the poor side of working class, doing a job where she was exploited by her employer.

I don't think that hostility and fear comes from logical argument so much as it comes from stories. Those heartwarming songs about sticking with the union seem to be from my grandparents' time. Some of us still sing them, but they're relics. I can't think of many pro-union popular songs or stories created in my lifetime.
Click-Clack, Moo! Cows that Type, is the strongest example that came to mind.
I think the 1631 series is pro-union, though I didn't find it readable.
I don't think Bruce Springsteen lyrics really count. "For my 19th birthday, I got a union card and a wedding coat," is part of an image about giving up on dreams rather than achieving them. He's just sympathetic about feeling trapped.
There's a little pro-union sympathy off to the side in Orbital Resonance.
Are there lots of others I'm missing?