A Book with a One Word Title

I'm sneaking this entry in between book writing and reading a zillion things for my World Lit II class. However, if I don't write this up I'll completely forget the book! I read it in January, for Pete's sake.

Here, I'm going with a Book with a One Word Title from my Better Reading Challenge. I've chosen Hild by Nicola Griffith. This could have fulfilled a few categories: book longer than 500 pages, book by a LGBT author, and a book a friend recommended. Don't worry, it's not taking all four categories, I'm not cheating.

Hild is by an author that I like, Nicola Griffith. I've read and enjoyed Ammonite (1993) and Slow River (1995) and hated The Blue Place (1998). Man, that one was terrible. Anyway, the first two novels were science fiction, and felt like Griffith was trying on genres for size. Ammonite was clearly an homage to Le Guin and Slow River was built on Gibson and other Cyberpunk authors. Hild is where I think Griffith really comes into her own.

It's historical fiction, telling the story of the early days of Hild, who later becomes Saint Hilda.  This is the story of the early conversion of England to Christianity and the tenuous role that one young girl plays in that story. Not tenuous because she's not great, merely because there are so many power plays happening that she's always in danger. What I loved about this book was the pacing. It's slow. Very slow. Reading it felt like sinking into a really comfortable bed. (I was going to say warm syrup, but I thought that might gross you all out.) The slowness of the text really gave me a chance to feel like I was in Hild's head. She's a thinker, a planner, as well as a doer. There's something rare about just engaging with a complex thought process that isn't always even tied to action. 

We also get a larger perspective on women's roles in early Britain. (The book is meticulously researched, so I feel as though they aren't terribly exaggerated, but I'm not an Medievalist so buyer beware.) The relationship between female companions was fascinating, the women's roles at court are complex, and women just generally seem like competent members of society. The opposite of what we often expect based on other fantasy novels, as the NPR review notes. As an aside, Terry Jones also teaches this lesson in his Medieval Lives episode on "The Damsel:" 

I highly recommend Hild if you like engaging in popular conceptions of the Medieval era. Give this a chance now that you've read all zillion pages of Game of Thrones, why dontcha? 

A Book Longer than 600 Pages

Yeah, right. 

Another better reading challenge blog post. I certainly won't make 50 this year, but hopefully 10. I've read many more than 10 books so far this year (and, actually, probably more than 50 at this point) but I don't have as much time to write as I'd like. Or, not as much time for pleasure writing.

First, let me introduce everyone to an amazing resource. Amazing! I’m currently teaching World Lit II online. All of our texts are also online, making the “I don't have the book yet” excuse entirely moot. What a pleasure! Anyway, some of the readings were on rather messy webpages, so I went searching for better versions that could be easily downloaded to Kindle (the Project Gutenberg downloads have never worked for me). I came across the University of Adelaide’s eBook program, and it’s great. The books read well on a web page, but are also easily and quickly downloaded to Kindle. In fact, both the readings I reference here are available: Little Women and Vindication on the Rights of Woman. Go forth and find some books! (I also downloaded Collins’ The Moonstone which I’m super psyched to read in conjunction with Waters’ Fingersmith.)

Oof. When I started reading Little Women on my kindle I didn’t really check to see how long it was. I also apparently read both parts, packaged together as Parts I and II by the Adelade eBook website, not realizing they were published as separate books initially. So, some of these impressions are definitely from Good Wives. When I downloaded the book I just figured, “oh, I haven’t read this and it’s a big hole in my children’s lit knowledge, so I should do it.” Little did I know. So many pages! So much "womanly advice!" So much nonsense disguised as sense!

My book's cover was more utilitarian. 

I really disliked this book. I know so many people have fond memories of it from reading it as a child, but as an adult I found the larger message of meek womanhood to be extremely frustrating. In fact, rereading Wollstonecraft’s Vindication I came across this passage:

Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man.

Of course, this is what Wollstonecraft is rallying against in her treatise. Yet it seems exactly the advice that Jo et. al. receive throughout Little Women. Jo is repeatedly advised to hold her anger inside in order to model ideal femininity. While this article from Michigan Quarterly Review suggests one of the most engaging aspects of the story is Marmee's underlying anger, it's still an anger she has learned to quash and encourages her daughters to do the same. Published in 1868, America is 20 years into "first wave" feminism, but the possibilities of that movement are not reflected in the novel. 

The girls are encouraged to be obedient and proper. One of the most nauseating examples, I think, is the chapter where Meg is struggling a bit after the birth of her first child. She no longer is pretty! And endlessly charming! And she’s tired! And frustrated because she never talks to adults! So her husband just quits eating at home and goes to his friend’s house, where there’s a more charming wife. When Mama March finds out she encourages “a puerile kind of propriety,” suggesting Meg be a perfect version of a housewife until she charms her husband back home. Smile pretty, make nice dinners, and your husband will pay attention to you for a few hours a day. Yeesh.

My one word review

I also think Jo should have ended up with Laurie. They challenged each other! I think the lively discussions were good, not bad. I get why Alcott wanted Jo to remain independent, but I'm not sure a marriage to Laurie automatically undermines her autonomy. It does recenter the book around the girls' relationship with each other, but that's also undone by creating the "good wives" of Part II.

Jo's temper just gets totally checked and she meekly marries that old scholar. Plllbbbthhh. I just really have nothing good to say about it. I suppose it's admirable that Jo starts the school for boys, and that she marries for love and not money. Everyone is happily paired off by the end, the girls' having successfully found husbands due to their excellent feminine virtues.

Anyway, keep those happy childhood memories intact if you have them, and by no means give this a nostalgia reread. It’s a miserable and heavy handed book about obedience to your husband and God. Go read Wollstonecraft instead and see how many of her ideas we have yet to realize. 

A Classic Romance!

So, another entry from the "Better Reading Challenge" realm, this time about a classic romance. Romance isn't actually my genre of choice, but I DO love a "happily ever after" sort of story. STARDUST (2007) and AMELIE (2001) are some of my favorite movies for that reason.

Well, I need a book and its sequels to rightly talk about this one, so you get a three-fer here. I’m choosing Anne of Green Gables, Anne ofAvonlea, and Anne of the Island as my classic romance. Is there anything better than L.M. Montgomery’s thwarted/not-thwarted love stories in general? I mean, for romances? I claim there is not. You also may get the impression here that I’ve read a lot more than these three recently… so sorry if basically all of her works sneak in.

The way relationships develop in Montgomery’s work is really all the more poignant when you realize she herself entered an unhappy marriage after she turned down other men. In Chronicles of Avonlea she seems to want to rectify this over and over and over again.

Anne is, of course, a classic character of children’s lit. After rereading all (yes ALL) of the series earlier this year I feel like they hold up well as an adult reader. Except, EXCEPT Anne of Ingleside. This is one Montgomery went back and wrote later, and the charm has gone out of it. The sewing circle gossip seems mean rather than lighthearted and the whole thing is just…bleh. I think that’s the one everyone focuses on when they say “well, they just get worse as they go along.” Yet, Rilla of Ingleside is a really delightful book. Don’t believe the hype and give Rilla a chance.

Anyway, I love all the romances in Montgomery. Actually, I find Emily Starr and Dean Priest to be just creepy, so maybe not all. That works out okay in the end though. Emily’s a smart girl. Of course Anne and Gilbert is one of the most satisfying since it takes so long to develop (and doesn’t get stupidly put off like Emily and Teddy). You know it’s going to happen, yet they each grow as their own people before they finally get together. In contemporary boy/girl relationships I wouldn’t accept the “well, he pulls your hair because he likes you." Clearly that cements all kinds of really bad expectations for how men and women should interact. However, I’m not actually certain that Gilbert liked Anne at the hair-pulling point though, as he was just probably a jerk. Anne was right to be pissed. Yet, the book certainly teaches us about the downsides of holding a grudge after the Ophelia incident. 

Shakespeare comes to life...

Gilbert and Anne have a lovely romance because they both inspire each other (sometimes out of spite) to work harder and be better people. Once they are married their union is represented as a very happy one (DON’T pay attention to the blurbs for Anne of Ingleside AT ALL). Gilbert is sometimes stuffy and condescending, yes, but overall I accept it as a romance that I feel warm and fuzzy about (nostalgia tinged, of course).

Warm fuzzies.

Most of the books (not Windy Poplars or Ingleside which were written later and not public domain yet) are available as a set online for .99, so I suggest you give them a reread if it’s been a few decades. 

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

My students had some questions and moments of confusion when they recently completed some discussion board postings. I decided to write a quick FAQ for them, and also post it here for future reference. I'd love to see your thoughts on what else I should include. 

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction FAQ

Which is which?

Fiction is made up. Something that is fictional is NOT real.

Non-Fiction is factual, or real. I know, this seems like it’s backwards from how it should be. But English often doesn’t make any sense.

Similarly:

Novels are always fictional. They are made up. Therefore, not every book is a novel. In fact, most are not.

Non-fiction can be referred to as a text or a book when you are discussing it. Or, for shorter pieces, call them articles or essays.

Is that it? Why do we need a FAQ?

Well, here’s some more subtleties that we can think on:

What about if something really happened in the past and an author wrote a novel about it?

Well, there’s such a thing as historical fiction which means an author takes a historical moment in time and writes about it from a made-up point of view. This is still fiction because the characters and situations come from the author’s imagination. Examples of this sort of book are The Book Thief, The Help, Secret Life of Bees, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Number the Stars.

But what if it’s about a real historical person?

You may also find a novel from the perspective of a person who actually lived. One way to tell if you’re reading fiction or non-fiction in this case is to see if the text is labeled a biography (non-fiction) or a novel (fiction). You can also look for footnotes or references at the end of the book (see below). An example of a fictional text that has a character who did actually live would be Annexed, the story of Diary of Anne Frank told from Peter van Pel’s perspective. Wolf Hall and In the Time of the Butterflies are also examples of this kind of book.

Okay, but what about a book like Devil in the White City? That talks about actual people from the past, but reads like a story.

The difference between Erik Larson’s books and the fictional examples above is in how the authors gather material for their books. In Devil in the White City or others like it, the author will include many notes at the back of the book telling you where the information comes from. They will also often include a prelude or afterword explaining their process of writing. Many popular history texts (like Seabiscuit) will read like a story, yet be carefully footnoted. Importantly, every word a character says comes from either historical record OR interviews (like In Cold Blood), depending on when the book was written. All the dialogue the characters say are words they actually said or wrote, and are not from the author’s imagination.

So what's a memoir?

Well, we tend to assume that memoirs are non-fiction. And most are. Of course, we need to consider the slippery nature of memory itself here and realize our brains are always making things up and filling details in. This is why eyewitness testimony is often unreliable. Just because someone experienced an event, we can't say we have the "truth" from any one description (or even many, because there are all kinds of motivations one might have). Still, readers believe there is "truth" or "authenticity" (both complicated terms on their own) behind a memoir, which is why A Million Little Pieces and Fragments were both so vilified when people discovered they were partially or completely fabricated (i.e. fictional). Here's a little more on the difference between memoir, autobiography, and biography. 

Both of these last two (popular history, memoir) are often referred to as creative non-fiction. 

A Graphic Novel

I'm cheating a bit here and writing about Lumberjanes. It's a comic, rather than a graphic novel, but the first trade paperback has a contained story so it's gonna work here. I'm also writing about it for two forthcoming edited collections (as long as the editors like the work) and presented on it at CHLA recently. So! Quadruple duty for Lumberjanes!

What can I say about LJ? Lots. I just wrote 20 darn pages on it. But here's the highlights:

• The girls of Roanoke Cabin (which, btw, when I presented at CHLA on this topic we were in the Roanoke Room, which was amazing) work as a group to defeat the powers-that-be. There's no defined leader, instead their power comes from working together. We can contrast this against Harry Potter & the Sorcerers Stone where the group is really there to prop up Harry's success. No such power structure here.
• The girls, like actual adolescent girls, are at different stages of development, yet aren't set up as "mean girls" that pick on Ripley (seen above on the far left). I think the rejection of the mean girls trope is cool.
• Unlike the 1990s cartoon representatives of "girl power," the Powerpuff Girls, the LJ's don't gain their abilities from the patriarchy. PPG were created by Dad and given assignments by the Mayor (who, yes, has a power behind the throne woman, but still). The girls learn things, earn badges with bad puns, and use that knowledge to defeat various enemies. I like this, as it challenges some anti-intellectualism we see in American culture. Learning is good y'all.

I encourage you to check the comic out. It was clearly more popular than anticipated,so the trade paperback is sold out on Amazon. However, you can buy back issues of 1-8 on Comixology and read them online/on yer tablet. Two thumbs up so far, although one of the creators is leaving this fall, so we'll see where it goes.

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.