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A review by ketutar
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
5.0
I hate them so much right now. I hate them so much I'm ready to go and seek out their correspondence in this world and finish them off.
This is one of the best books I've ever read. it's so good I don't want to put it down, but so "mäktig" I have to. Mäktig is a Swedish word used to describe food that is very rich, and filling, but it also means powerful. This is what this book is.
To me it's new and original. I have never read anything like this.
I can't say, of course, I'm a white Finnish woman, but I think it's heavily based on Black American culture, tradition, history and stories. Not African, American.
She isn't preaching, she is telling a story, and this story makes me want to run to the barricades and rip apart the whole, rotten society... this reminds me of my favorite poem;
Elmer Diktonius: The Jaguar
I
From green leaves protrude
red muzzle,
eyes with triangular gaze
speckled;
whiskers undulation claw paw –
you fly! my heart’s jaguar!
so fly and bite and rip and ravage!
Biting is necessity as long as bites give life.
Killing is holy as long as corruption stinks
and life’s ugliness must be savaged
until beauty and wholeness can grow from its remains.
Thus are we, the two of us, my poem and I, one claw.
One will we are, one paw, one fang.
Together we are a machine that strikes.
We want to kill the cry of the indifferent
the compassion of the heartless
the religiosity of the sceptics
the impotence of the strong
the evil weakness of the good;
we want to give birth by killing
we want to make room
we want to see
sunspots dancing.
II
Do you think
strong paws feel no pain?
Do you think the jaguar has no heart?
O he has
father mother mate, young.
The wilderness is great
cold is the wind of autumn
in the jaguar’s belly dwell
loneliness despair.
The jaguar can kiss a flower.
He has tears;
sentimentality.
III
Night.
Waterfalls murmur long.
The jaguar is asleep.
An ant is licking one of his claws.
Who is whispering:
the morning is coming
sunspots are dancing?
IV
Sunspots are dancing! —
All is numbly whirling.
In a single bound
the jaguar hurls himself over
the crests of the spruce trees —
hear the laughter of stars in his roaring! —
a lightning-volt in the air:
like an arrow deep in the earth’s breast.
This is one of the best books I've ever read. it's so good I don't want to put it down, but so "mäktig" I have to. Mäktig is a Swedish word used to describe food that is very rich, and filling, but it also means powerful. This is what this book is.
To me it's new and original. I have never read anything like this.
I can't say, of course, I'm a white Finnish woman, but I think it's heavily based on Black American culture, tradition, history and stories. Not African, American.
She isn't preaching, she is telling a story, and this story makes me want to run to the barricades and rip apart the whole, rotten society... this reminds me of my favorite poem;
Elmer Diktonius: The Jaguar
I
From green leaves protrude
red muzzle,
eyes with triangular gaze
speckled;
whiskers undulation claw paw –
you fly! my heart’s jaguar!
so fly and bite and rip and ravage!
Biting is necessity as long as bites give life.
Killing is holy as long as corruption stinks
and life’s ugliness must be savaged
until beauty and wholeness can grow from its remains.
Thus are we, the two of us, my poem and I, one claw.
One will we are, one paw, one fang.
Together we are a machine that strikes.
We want to kill the cry of the indifferent
the compassion of the heartless
the religiosity of the sceptics
the impotence of the strong
the evil weakness of the good;
we want to give birth by killing
we want to make room
we want to see
sunspots dancing.
II
Do you think
strong paws feel no pain?
Do you think the jaguar has no heart?
O he has
father mother mate, young.
The wilderness is great
cold is the wind of autumn
in the jaguar’s belly dwell
loneliness despair.
The jaguar can kiss a flower.
He has tears;
sentimentality.
III
Night.
Waterfalls murmur long.
The jaguar is asleep.
An ant is licking one of his claws.
Who is whispering:
the morning is coming
sunspots are dancing?
IV
Sunspots are dancing! —
All is numbly whirling.
In a single bound
the jaguar hurls himself over
the crests of the spruce trees —
hear the laughter of stars in his roaring! —
a lightning-volt in the air:
like an arrow deep in the earth’s breast.