A Book Set in a Different Country

Back to the Better Reading Challenge. Today we're going with "A book set in a different country." I could have chosen a few here, as I've read books set in Sweden and Canada and Germany and Iowa so far this year (see what I did there?)

However, I've gone with Jo Walton's Among Others, which is set in England and Wales.

This is a book in which not a lot happens. And I'm actually okay with that. It's a book about recovering from a trauma, reality, and loving books. Sometimes recovery requires that not much "happen," I guess in a way that I hadn't thought about before reading this book. Mori, the main character, needs the process of reading and writing to recover from the events that led up to her running away from home and finding her long-estranged father.

It's a meditation on the power of "others," fictional, real, and maybe real. And for the duration of this book, the power of others is largely generative helping Mori to heal from the destructive months that precede the story itself. It's about how being smart is attractive and how desire can be an important part of healing (as is Lovely Bones, in a totally different way).

It is also a powerful love letter to early Sci-Fi. It brought me back to my early 20s, when I had inherited a lot of old paperbacks from my Dad and went on a big Asimov/Clarke/LeGuin/Heinlein/Herbert reading binge. My engagement with Sci-Fi hasn't stayed quite as strong as it was fifteen years ago, so I hadn't read nearly as deeply as Mori does, but it was fun to reflect on the power of possibility and imagination that helps Mori heal.

I don't know what to make of the fairies, or magic in the book, which is why it gets this category and not the "a book with magic" label. And I've just realized I've said dead nothing about England or Wales here! Ha. Well, Wales is represented as a combination of wild and etched away by industry, which if you've taken the train from London to Swansea certainly is true. Mori's role, in part, is to help the wild reclaim places that industrialization has destroyed (if you believe the magic part is true). This really has to happen in Wales, I think, rather than England, which is represented through the traditional British Boarding School and Family With Old Money. While Mori spends most of the book at the boarding school, it's Wales and the nearby town that have an impact on her life. There should be more books set in Wales. 

A Book by a Female Author

Hey, remember my Better Reading Challenge list that I posted a few months ago? And my list of female authors, AKA authors? Well, I thought it might be useful to keep track here with some short posts on my progress through these 50 books this year. Clearly, I have some catch-up to do since it's already July.

I'm starting with the category that bridges the two other blogs I posted and am going to comment quickly on Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein. I presented on this book at a Women in the Holocaust Conference at the University of South Carolina in March, so I'll try not to go on too long.

Rose Under Fire is a loose sequel to Wein's Code Name Verity. It was less well-received than Verity, and I think that's fair. Then again, Verity was amazing, so it's hard to live up to. There's room to criticize another camp narrative for young readers and it brushes up against questions about historical accuracy. Wein is well aware of that potential problem, however, and includes information on how she got her historical knowledge and where she's made allowances in order to move the story forward. This paratext is important in any YA Holocaust lit because of the way readers are often internalizing historical knowledge by reading these books.

What I liked about Rose is the engagement with two concepts rarely seen in YA Holocaust lit: medical experimentation and the Nuremberg Trials. Additionally, unlike most medical experimentation seen in popular culture, Wein humanizes the victims. Often these victims are particular sites of horror in pop culture, their bodies becoming more alienated and weirdly victimized yet again. Think X-Men, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and others here. So that's one important thing. Second, the engagement with the Nuremberg Trials, including the forthcoming trial of a guard who readers have developed some sympathy for, allows readers see how the Holocaust echoes throughout Europe long after the war is over. Rose's trauma upon leaving the camps is also worth engaging with.

I'm not covering these books, nor many other resistance narratives, in my book. There's just not room. Maybe in my next book, which is shaping up to be about female friendship and collective action. If I keep doing research. Anyway, if you are a reader of WWII adventure stories, interested in female pilots, or want to follow up your reading of The Book Thief, here's a book for you! Oh, lastly, Wein has some really interesting social media presence that helps readers gather more historical information if they want to follow up. Here's her Pinterest page, if that's your thing.