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archytas's reviews
1498 reviews
Plains of Promise by Alexis Wright
It is astonishing that this is a debut novel. While more linear than Wright’s later fiction, the narrative weaves multiple storylines together, working at different layers of understanding and posing a kaleidoscopic perspective on what is fundamentally going on. Human agency and the inevitability of law are different ways of viewing the same thing. This is a tale of corruption, of Country out of sync, and of terrible consequences for the characters. It is also frequently funny. Wright doesn’t spare her characters from the worst of colonialism. Still, she chooses to focus on the people rather than what is inflicted on them, which somehow manages to make this not bleak, despite her refusal to soften reality. She also has an eye for life’s absurdities and a sense of wicked fun in showing us the pettier side of humanity. If I have a criticism here, it is that Wright tends to position all of her POV women as niaive, with the omniscient narrator, complete with witty voice, contrasting to the women’s unawareness of what is happening. This is more nuanced in later novels (although the arch omniscient narrator is a Wright trademark and does add to a slightly unearthly sense).
But, as is the case with all of Wright’s work, when I had finished, all I really wanted to do was start reading it again from the beginning.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
“The Aboriginal inmates thought the tree should not have been allowed to grow there on their ancestral country. It was wrong. Their spiritual ancestors grew more and more disturbed by the thirsty, greedy foreign tree intruding into the bowels of their world. The uprising fluid carried away precious nutrients; in the middle of the night they woke up gasping for air, thought they were dying, raced up through the trunk into the limbs and branches, through the tiny veins of the minute leaves and into the flowers themselves.”
It is astonishing that this is a debut novel. While more linear than Wright’s later fiction, the narrative weaves multiple storylines together, working at different layers of understanding and posing a kaleidoscopic perspective on what is fundamentally going on. Human agency and the inevitability of law are different ways of viewing the same thing. This is a tale of corruption, of Country out of sync, and of terrible consequences for the characters. It is also frequently funny. Wright doesn’t spare her characters from the worst of colonialism. Still, she chooses to focus on the people rather than what is inflicted on them, which somehow manages to make this not bleak, despite her refusal to soften reality. She also has an eye for life’s absurdities and a sense of wicked fun in showing us the pettier side of humanity. If I have a criticism here, it is that Wright tends to position all of her POV women as niaive, with the omniscient narrator, complete with witty voice, contrasting to the women’s unawareness of what is happening. This is more nuanced in later novels (although the arch omniscient narrator is a Wright trademark and does add to a slightly unearthly sense).
But, as is the case with all of Wright’s work, when I had finished, all I really wanted to do was start reading it again from the beginning.
She Called Me Woman: Nigeria's Queer Women Speak by Aisha Salau, Chitra Nagarajan, Azeenarh Mohammed
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
"*When I look at the community in other countries, yes, they have their difficulties. But here, I can’t even express how painful it is. I know at least ten people who are lesbian and bisexual but because they are married, they’re not safe. They can’t even be part of this project because they’re going to jeopardise their marriage. In this country we’re in, you’re either hated by your family or shamed by your community. You lose your job or you’re exploited or you’re raped*."
There are 25 oral histories in this compendium, covering queer Nigerian women. As homosexuality is criminalised in Nigeria, the voices are all anonymous. The cover Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba women, muslims, Christians and athiests, and they range from teenagers to women in their early 40s, both cis and trans. While locations are obscured, it is clear that they come from different parts of the country, and from a variety of cities and villages, and a couple of expats in USA and Europe.
It can be a slog to read at times, even spaced out. Some of this is because the oral history style tends to homogeneise the voices of the women. There are also some things that are very similar across the volume, especially the relative youth of the interviewees (most are under 30), which possibly leans towards a focus on dating life and the various dilemmas it brings with us.
It is worth persisting, however, because what emerges is both a remarkable view of a diverse country and the kinds of continuity you can only get through community. While these womens lives - ambitions, professions and degree of financial independence - varies a lot, as does the cultures they live within, their experiences with childhood sexual violence, discrimination, religious intervention and family rejection are often depressingly similar. Most of the women have some family who are supportive and some who are not, none had supportive churches or mosques. All felt the ripple of the criminal law through their lives as a renewed sense of anxiety from their loved ones towards them. But you also see the impacts of a community - there is also a preoccupation with monogamy, bisexuality (various strong views on whether bisexuals are good to date, including from several bisexual women), queer parenthood, gender roles in lesbian relationships. These topics emerge over and over (I became uncomfortably aware at a point, given the way the project rolled out, that some of the participants had almost certainly dated each other and probably played bit roles in each others narratives) in a way that indicates they are hot topics in the current dating scene.
I did miss the participation of older voices. Not only to dilute some of the dating drama, but also because many of these women were clearly uncertain of what a settled future might look like. It was hard to parse whether this was because of their life stage, or because the law has made visibile long-term relationships impossible. Several participants make reference to the worsening situation, noting that cultural norms for same-sex relationships existed in both Yoruba and Hausa cultures traditionally, but have been more recently demonised. One woman simply says "most people I know don’t really want to settle down because of the society. We already know that the society doesn’t allow it, so why fool yourself?"
There is no question, reading this, that the government and religious pressure in Nigeria is very difficult, making the situation there fairly dire. These women are vulnerable in all kinds of ways, that intersect with already high rates of domestic and sexual violence (corrective rape is also a theme). It is less the danger of being directly imprisoned for their sexuality as it is that in being queer these women lose recourse to the law if they are ripped off or assualted and the perpetrator can point to their sexuality. It is also a reminder that this isn't happening to a society without a queer community, and that community, even if a source of drama, is also a great strength. "*It feels good, knowing there are other women with you. It’s like a family, especially for some of us. I always have this picture on my BBM: Family is not all about blood, it’s about those who love you through thick and thin and can hold your hand even through fires.*"
There are 25 oral histories in this compendium, covering queer Nigerian women. As homosexuality is criminalised in Nigeria, the voices are all anonymous. The cover Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba women, muslims, Christians and athiests, and they range from teenagers to women in their early 40s, both cis and trans. While locations are obscured, it is clear that they come from different parts of the country, and from a variety of cities and villages, and a couple of expats in USA and Europe.
It can be a slog to read at times, even spaced out. Some of this is because the oral history style tends to homogeneise the voices of the women. There are also some things that are very similar across the volume, especially the relative youth of the interviewees (most are under 30), which possibly leans towards a focus on dating life and the various dilemmas it brings with us.
It is worth persisting, however, because what emerges is both a remarkable view of a diverse country and the kinds of continuity you can only get through community. While these womens lives - ambitions, professions and degree of financial independence - varies a lot, as does the cultures they live within, their experiences with childhood sexual violence, discrimination, religious intervention and family rejection are often depressingly similar. Most of the women have some family who are supportive and some who are not, none had supportive churches or mosques. All felt the ripple of the criminal law through their lives as a renewed sense of anxiety from their loved ones towards them. But you also see the impacts of a community - there is also a preoccupation with monogamy, bisexuality (various strong views on whether bisexuals are good to date, including from several bisexual women), queer parenthood, gender roles in lesbian relationships. These topics emerge over and over (I became uncomfortably aware at a point, given the way the project rolled out, that some of the participants had almost certainly dated each other and probably played bit roles in each others narratives) in a way that indicates they are hot topics in the current dating scene.
I did miss the participation of older voices. Not only to dilute some of the dating drama, but also because many of these women were clearly uncertain of what a settled future might look like. It was hard to parse whether this was because of their life stage, or because the law has made visibile long-term relationships impossible. Several participants make reference to the worsening situation, noting that cultural norms for same-sex relationships existed in both Yoruba and Hausa cultures traditionally, but have been more recently demonised. One woman simply says "most people I know don’t really want to settle down because of the society. We already know that the society doesn’t allow it, so why fool yourself?"
There is no question, reading this, that the government and religious pressure in Nigeria is very difficult, making the situation there fairly dire. These women are vulnerable in all kinds of ways, that intersect with already high rates of domestic and sexual violence (corrective rape is also a theme). It is less the danger of being directly imprisoned for their sexuality as it is that in being queer these women lose recourse to the law if they are ripped off or assualted and the perpetrator can point to their sexuality. It is also a reminder that this isn't happening to a society without a queer community, and that community, even if a source of drama, is also a great strength. "*It feels good, knowing there are other women with you. It’s like a family, especially for some of us. I always have this picture on my BBM: Family is not all about blood, it’s about those who love you through thick and thin and can hold your hand even through fires.*"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Sexual assault, Transphobia, Homophobia, Rape, Child abuse, and Sexual violence
But the Girl by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu
“Much later on Ma told me that when I was young, I thought I was white. I didn’t want to be white or anything like that. I just thought that was what I was because I knew I was real. I knew I was real and not made up because sometimes I tested it. Sometimes I bit my lip till blood came out and when the saltine pain came, I knew that I was non-fiction.”
“Her bright light, her warmth and openness were not really her at all, but the carefully constructed house on a hill she lived in. And being porous to the pain of those outside this house would destroy the beautiful architecture of her life because it would be an admission.”
“I was overburdened by the overdetermining of my identity.”
And the surprisingly poignant “These mass emails were becoming more and more personal in tone, now all of them started with my name and told me how much they cared for me, which was why I should buy their new product or read their recently published article. It was a lonely time to be alive.”
Yu also uses this to critique the form of the novel she is writing. I’m not always a fan of this, it can be deployed cheaply as if arch knowing can avoid pitfalls, but here it also provides context for what Yu is prioritising. For example:
“That was the problem with always identifying with the protagonist of a coming-of-age novel, no one else but you ever got to come of age. You got to be an actual person and everyone else was just a symbol of a particular type of person or pathway.”
Yu, in this most definate coming-of-age novel, tries not to make her other characters too archetypal, even as she burns to show us the relentlessness of the way others, especially white people, think of the world as different to the way it is. Two leading academics, for example, make cracks about how lucky they are to be successful in postcolonial studies despite being White, all while Girl looks around at a clearly majority White field. As a public school graduate, I recognised the frustration of the “my parents had to sacrifice hard for private school” narrative which often feels tone deaf to the reality of families where public school uniforms were barely affordable. Yu captures the sense of a world in which diversity is hot in a way that means posed racial harmony, but not in a way which shifts power at all, or even allocates space for those diverse voices. She manages this without making the novel harsh. There is no cringe here (well, only a tiny bit). Instead, Yu centers around the family of Girl, whose thoughts keep getting distracted by trying to understand their lives, their perspectives, and in this way, to take space for what matters, not what is demanded.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The pacing of this novel is languid, but the prose cracks like a whip. It is a “postcolonial novel” but one which challenges the concept and also somehow centers Sylvia Plath. It is, in short, a study in contrasts and boy is it good.
Which is not to say it is completely enjoyable. Yu’s protagonist drifts through much of the book, unsure of what she wants and increasingly distressed by her own inertia, which is often frustrating to read. Yu captures here almost perfectly many experiences with residencies, where the enforced isolation results less in focus and more in introspection. This is, of course, partly the point. It also enables Yu to take Girl (Yu hints at, but never provides, a ‘real’ name here, in an exercise that seems designed for us to engage with her entirely through her own sense of self and not ours) through mental musings which unpeel the racialised expectations of contemporary literary, artistic and academic cultures. While being funny. The whip smart dialogue is one of the greatest pleasures of the book, but it also offers sharp insight:
Which is not to say it is completely enjoyable. Yu’s protagonist drifts through much of the book, unsure of what she wants and increasingly distressed by her own inertia, which is often frustrating to read. Yu captures here almost perfectly many experiences with residencies, where the enforced isolation results less in focus and more in introspection. This is, of course, partly the point. It also enables Yu to take Girl (Yu hints at, but never provides, a ‘real’ name here, in an exercise that seems designed for us to engage with her entirely through her own sense of self and not ours) through mental musings which unpeel the racialised expectations of contemporary literary, artistic and academic cultures. While being funny. The whip smart dialogue is one of the greatest pleasures of the book, but it also offers sharp insight:
“Much later on Ma told me that when I was young, I thought I was white. I didn’t want to be white or anything like that. I just thought that was what I was because I knew I was real. I knew I was real and not made up because sometimes I tested it. Sometimes I bit my lip till blood came out and when the saltine pain came, I knew that I was non-fiction.”
“Her bright light, her warmth and openness were not really her at all, but the carefully constructed house on a hill she lived in. And being porous to the pain of those outside this house would destroy the beautiful architecture of her life because it would be an admission.”
“I was overburdened by the overdetermining of my identity.”
And the surprisingly poignant “These mass emails were becoming more and more personal in tone, now all of them started with my name and told me how much they cared for me, which was why I should buy their new product or read their recently published article. It was a lonely time to be alive.”
Yu also uses this to critique the form of the novel she is writing. I’m not always a fan of this, it can be deployed cheaply as if arch knowing can avoid pitfalls, but here it also provides context for what Yu is prioritising. For example:
“That was the problem with always identifying with the protagonist of a coming-of-age novel, no one else but you ever got to come of age. You got to be an actual person and everyone else was just a symbol of a particular type of person or pathway.”
Yu, in this most definate coming-of-age novel, tries not to make her other characters too archetypal, even as she burns to show us the relentlessness of the way others, especially white people, think of the world as different to the way it is. Two leading academics, for example, make cracks about how lucky they are to be successful in postcolonial studies despite being White, all while Girl looks around at a clearly majority White field. As a public school graduate, I recognised the frustration of the “my parents had to sacrifice hard for private school” narrative which often feels tone deaf to the reality of families where public school uniforms were barely affordable. Yu captures the sense of a world in which diversity is hot in a way that means posed racial harmony, but not in a way which shifts power at all, or even allocates space for those diverse voices. She manages this without making the novel harsh. There is no cringe here (well, only a tiny bit). Instead, Yu centers around the family of Girl, whose thoughts keep getting distracted by trying to understand their lives, their perspectives, and in this way, to take space for what matters, not what is demanded.
Many Things Under a Rock: The Mysteries of Octopuses by David Scheel
adventurous
informative
reflective
3.25
Scheel gets a lot of information in here about octopuses, as he covers his work in Alaska and then Australia studying them. The chapters deal variously with themes - as always, the most interesting bits are around the remarkable cognition of these animals (their beaks will try to eat their own detached body parts but their tentacles are having none of it, for example), and grappling with how little we actually understand of how intelligence might work apart from our own.
The prose can be frustratingly ambigious at times, and Schell doesn't explore many of the things he hints at, but this is a nice, accessible introduction to some of the most fascinating creatures and, implictly, the questions that they raise of us.
The prose can be frustratingly ambigious at times, and Schell doesn't explore many of the things he hints at, but this is a nice, accessible introduction to some of the most fascinating creatures and, implictly, the questions that they raise of us.
Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
This is a ethereal novel, almost airy in its slim connections to plot or conventional structure, while being rich in evocative feeling. We are brought with little preparation into the world of Zuhour, who is studying in Britain while reeling from a grief she can't process at the death of her grandmother. As it so often is, the grief is spooled with a growing sense of dislocation for Zuhour, as she tries to make sense of why she is in England, and the eternal question of what she wants.
"Her life was like a paper kite. She would lift her head to watch as it went bobbing by, the breeze taking it farther and farther away. In the beginning, she believed that she had a firm hold on the cord that tethered that kite, and that she could control its movements. But the kite didn’t respond to her tugs. It flew away, eluding the pull of that thin and frail thread, which was really no more than an imaginary line. It was a kite far in the distance, hovering, circling, now ramming into a lamppost, now getting caught on an antenna, and finally, likely to be ripped to tatters as it chafed against a length of barbed wire. Or it might careen back to earth, but then it would surely plunge straight into the dirt."
Zuhour slowly thinks through her family history, trying to find meaning in understanding her grandmother's life and its relation to her own, as she also becomes more bound up in the lives of her friends around her. Serious identity issues collide or synthesise, with Alharthi exploring class, race, gender, caste, colonialism and imperialism along the way. She is most succesful at evoking the often unmoored worlds of the expat students, trying to establish their own sense of culture alongside their sense of self.
Her prose can be a lot (see the above quote), but also packs a punch in taut sentences that leaven the dreamlike quality of the overall novel: "The two of them led lives in which imagination occupied a very narrow margin."
Although I didn't find this a stunning read like Alkarthi's Celestial Bodies, it was consistently engrossing and enjoyable.
"Her life was like a paper kite. She would lift her head to watch as it went bobbing by, the breeze taking it farther and farther away. In the beginning, she believed that she had a firm hold on the cord that tethered that kite, and that she could control its movements. But the kite didn’t respond to her tugs. It flew away, eluding the pull of that thin and frail thread, which was really no more than an imaginary line. It was a kite far in the distance, hovering, circling, now ramming into a lamppost, now getting caught on an antenna, and finally, likely to be ripped to tatters as it chafed against a length of barbed wire. Or it might careen back to earth, but then it would surely plunge straight into the dirt."
Zuhour slowly thinks through her family history, trying to find meaning in understanding her grandmother's life and its relation to her own, as she also becomes more bound up in the lives of her friends around her. Serious identity issues collide or synthesise, with Alharthi exploring class, race, gender, caste, colonialism and imperialism along the way. She is most succesful at evoking the often unmoored worlds of the expat students, trying to establish their own sense of culture alongside their sense of self.
Her prose can be a lot (see the above quote), but also packs a punch in taut sentences that leaven the dreamlike quality of the overall novel: "The two of them led lives in which imagination occupied a very narrow margin."
Although I didn't find this a stunning read like Alkarthi's Celestial Bodies, it was consistently engrossing and enjoyable.
Deep Water: The World in the Ocean by James Bradley
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Bradley almost fools you, in the early part of this excellent book, into thinking that this is going to be a series of science essays on oceanography and associated topics. Chapters on fish and sea mammals, currents and flows, are engaging and intriguing but seem largely stand-alone. A hint, however, comes when Bradley talks of the duality of swimming, "a sense in which we are simultaneously contained within our bodies and part of something far larger." And so, gradually, he warms us into a bigger, holistic story of what is happening to our planet and how both human activity and ecosystems cannot be seen as isolated or local systems.
The book is tremendously researched. I could quibble (and of course I am) about the lack of hyperlinking of the referenced sections in the ebook, but the references are clearly laid out for those who want to know more, and the breadth Bradley covers is staggering. From fish farming, to cobalt mining, to eco-shipping, plastics pollution, fish cognition, whale singing, turtle navigation, artic ice development and melt, human migration, krill lifecycles, deep sea trench worlds, coral bleaching and reef recovery and global supply chain evolution are all topics covered in depth and with thought. The book is such a delight to read, with easy, accessible prose and a wealth of curiousity-driven findings to share. The picture builds to a total view, a coherent story about what is indivisible, even as each corner has beauty to see in the detail as well as the whole.
What emerges is slightly terrifying, no matter how much warming up Bradley attempts to do. This is possibly the most comprehensive summary of what the Anthropocene actually looks like that I have read. And it isn't pretty. Because he focuses on systems, Bradley also highlights things that are hard to change. It is easier, for example, to build a "green" ship than to dismantle global manufacturing of disposable products which only a fraction of the world can afford. Still, Bradley highlights that there is little sustainability without the latter. He relentlessly reports the ever-worsening picture of temperature rise, ice melt, and tipping points that we never knew existed until we passed them.
This is not a sensationalist book, and Bradley is also careful to highlight the adaptability and resilience of both oceans and their inhabitants, and indeed of humans. From biologists breeding more heat-tolerant coral to cobalt recycling and the growing opposition to deep ocean mining, he paints a picture of many hues. And perhaps most importantly, his love of the ocean expressed through research and shared knowledge reminds us, as he concludes, "however much is lost, there is still more to save."
The book is tremendously researched. I could quibble (and of course I am) about the lack of hyperlinking of the referenced sections in the ebook, but the references are clearly laid out for those who want to know more, and the breadth Bradley covers is staggering. From fish farming, to cobalt mining, to eco-shipping, plastics pollution, fish cognition, whale singing, turtle navigation, artic ice development and melt, human migration, krill lifecycles, deep sea trench worlds, coral bleaching and reef recovery and global supply chain evolution are all topics covered in depth and with thought. The book is such a delight to read, with easy, accessible prose and a wealth of curiousity-driven findings to share. The picture builds to a total view, a coherent story about what is indivisible, even as each corner has beauty to see in the detail as well as the whole.
What emerges is slightly terrifying, no matter how much warming up Bradley attempts to do. This is possibly the most comprehensive summary of what the Anthropocene actually looks like that I have read. And it isn't pretty. Because he focuses on systems, Bradley also highlights things that are hard to change. It is easier, for example, to build a "green" ship than to dismantle global manufacturing of disposable products which only a fraction of the world can afford. Still, Bradley highlights that there is little sustainability without the latter. He relentlessly reports the ever-worsening picture of temperature rise, ice melt, and tipping points that we never knew existed until we passed them.
This is not a sensationalist book, and Bradley is also careful to highlight the adaptability and resilience of both oceans and their inhabitants, and indeed of humans. From biologists breeding more heat-tolerant coral to cobalt recycling and the growing opposition to deep ocean mining, he paints a picture of many hues. And perhaps most importantly, his love of the ocean expressed through research and shared knowledge reminds us, as he concludes, "however much is lost, there is still more to save."
Always Will Be: Stories of Goori Sovereignty from the Futures of the Tweed by Mykaela Saunders
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
There is an awful lot of miserable, or vengeful, spec fic around at the moment, and Saunders' anthology, deliberately imagining futures centered around Bandjalong persistence in the Tweed, are a welcome breath of hopeful air (and occasionlly water). The dazzling strength here is the variety of imagined futures. Most involve catastrophic climate change, but they are stories of human, Indigenous, survival, ingenuity, joy and connection set within an ecosystem which shifts, but whose Country persists.
The tales include those set in a world with a drowned Tweed valley, a near-future with drone delivery, a flee to the stars and a return, a divided Tweed where rich wellness influencing has turned into an isolationist wealthy cult. Some stories focus on a low-tech, return to traditional knowledge lifestyle and others revolve around futuristic technology. Saunders has arranged the volume so that the stories can be read as a series in a continuously evolving future, or as variant futures. The difference may not be material.
One downside of the ordering is that the volume starts with several stories that feel similar in tone, centered around a single persons thoughts. However the variety quickly picks up, which is important in an anthology with such a strong central theme.
As you would expect, not all the stories work equally well. Some stories - Tweed Sanctuary Tour comes to mind - work more as idea essays with a lightly fictionised edge. Others, like Cultural Immersion Program or Fire Bug, have a really compelling story but which feels overshadowed a little at the end by the idea that underpins it, sitting uneasily between point and character. But occasionally - Our Future is in the Stars was my absolute favourite - Saunders's storytelling and ideas come together in breathtakingly good ways and it just feels transcendent in looking at who we are, and what we could do.
The tales include those set in a world with a drowned Tweed valley, a near-future with drone delivery, a flee to the stars and a return, a divided Tweed where rich wellness influencing has turned into an isolationist wealthy cult. Some stories focus on a low-tech, return to traditional knowledge lifestyle and others revolve around futuristic technology. Saunders has arranged the volume so that the stories can be read as a series in a continuously evolving future, or as variant futures. The difference may not be material.
One downside of the ordering is that the volume starts with several stories that feel similar in tone, centered around a single persons thoughts. However the variety quickly picks up, which is important in an anthology with such a strong central theme.
As you would expect, not all the stories work equally well. Some stories - Tweed Sanctuary Tour comes to mind - work more as idea essays with a lightly fictionised edge. Others, like Cultural Immersion Program or Fire Bug, have a really compelling story but which feels overshadowed a little at the end by the idea that underpins it, sitting uneasily between point and character. But occasionally - Our Future is in the Stars was my absolute favourite - Saunders's storytelling and ideas come together in breathtakingly good ways and it just feels transcendent in looking at who we are, and what we could do.
The Bird Tattoo by Dunya Mikhail
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Mikhail pulls no punches in this novel, based on her interviews with Yazidi women enslaved by ISIS. She opens with deliberately shocking scenes of a slave auction, before jumping back to show us protagonist Helen's love story. In both the romance-heavy and the later suspensful sections, the tone is almost that of melodrama, but of course, there is nothing exaggerated here. Another comparison would be holocaust fiction, which is apt as it suits in many ways what happened to Yazidi communities and people living in ISIS-controlled areas.
I found the book more successful as documentary storytelling than as fiction, but I suspect those with more of a liking for romantic plots might feel differently. I did very much appreciate the skill with which Mikhail evokes the world of the villages around Mosul, and the tight knit family dynamics of the Yazidi characters.
I found the book more successful as documentary storytelling than as fiction, but I suspect those with more of a liking for romantic plots might feel differently. I did very much appreciate the skill with which Mikhail evokes the world of the villages around Mosul, and the tight knit family dynamics of the Yazidi characters.
White Holes by Carlo Rovelli
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
"Making an analogy involves taking an aspect of a concept and re-using it in another context, preserving something of its original meaning while letting something else go, in such a way that the resulting combination produces new and effective meaning. This is how the best science works."
You either like your cutting edge physics with more Dante Alighieri, in which case you will love Rovelli, or less-to-no Dante, in which case he is unlikely to be your cup of prosecco. My favourite part of this slim, idea-packed volume was probably when Rovelli takes to task those who criticise him for eschewing technical terminology in his books. Non-physicists are just glad to have things explained in terms they can follow, and experts already know the technical content - the annoyed, he asserts, are largely physics students keen to practice their newly learnt ways of thinking. For them, he includes a footnote in which even this non-physicist could detect the thumbed nose.
Rovelli's books don't just explain complex things in simple terms, they capture some of the beauty and wonder of knowledge (or speculation) that drives the field. I love that Rovelli - so unlike any other physicist I can think of - embraces doubt. Is his theory of White Holes true? He really has no idea, he tells us, but he really *wants* it to be because it is so lovely.
For Rovelli, math is poetry. And even for those of us for whom well, poetry is poetry, this love makes his passions feel worth investing an hour or two in.
You either like your cutting edge physics with more Dante Alighieri, in which case you will love Rovelli, or less-to-no Dante, in which case he is unlikely to be your cup of prosecco. My favourite part of this slim, idea-packed volume was probably when Rovelli takes to task those who criticise him for eschewing technical terminology in his books. Non-physicists are just glad to have things explained in terms they can follow, and experts already know the technical content - the annoyed, he asserts, are largely physics students keen to practice their newly learnt ways of thinking. For them, he includes a footnote in which even this non-physicist could detect the thumbed nose.
Rovelli's books don't just explain complex things in simple terms, they capture some of the beauty and wonder of knowledge (or speculation) that drives the field. I love that Rovelli - so unlike any other physicist I can think of - embraces doubt. Is his theory of White Holes true? He really has no idea, he tells us, but he really *wants* it to be because it is so lovely.
For Rovelli, math is poetry. And even for those of us for whom well, poetry is poetry, this love makes his passions feel worth investing an hour or two in.
Serengotti by Eugen Bacon
Serengotti is a trippy, off-kilter exploration of violence within communities, mid-life ennui and the elusive nature of community. Ch’anzu, our second-person protagonist, flounders more than drifts, through hir life in a way that feels at turns raucous, tender and poignant.
Like these tones, Bacon combines many elements in her writing. These are not so much mixed as blended, giving the novel an ever-surprising texture. Serengotti is not speculative fiction—there are no fantastical or futuristic elements outside of a few spiritual references—but somehow, it feels like it. So much of this world feels off-kilter—metaphors baffle, characters surprise, and Wagga Wagga is described as remote (? this could just be the way Melbournians think).
The novel is often slightly shrouded - with a reasonably large cast for the length; I used the search function to keep everyone straight. My sense of dislocation, of elements thrown slightly haphazardly together, feels less like an artifice and more as a window into Ch’anzu’s mental world. As zie takes on more agency, the novel’s structure also solidifies (or at least, I got the hang of it).
I’m still not quite sure what I think of this. In some ways, it left me more distanced and less absorbed than books I would normally feel like I loved. But I found myself picking up Bacon’s previous book (against my no-more-books rules). I think this one might have to sit in my brain for a bit before it settles in.
adventurous
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
“Sometimes you feel rearranged, hidden in the pocket of life’s airport, one that puts you on a tiny plane on the way to nowhere that’s now somewhere. You ask yourself existential questions, the how and why stories, but nothing comes at you flying low so you can make out the roads, and you know to leave those questions well alone.”
Serengotti is a trippy, off-kilter exploration of violence within communities, mid-life ennui and the elusive nature of community. Ch’anzu, our second-person protagonist, flounders more than drifts, through hir life in a way that feels at turns raucous, tender and poignant.
Like these tones, Bacon combines many elements in her writing. These are not so much mixed as blended, giving the novel an ever-surprising texture. Serengotti is not speculative fiction—there are no fantastical or futuristic elements outside of a few spiritual references—but somehow, it feels like it. So much of this world feels off-kilter—metaphors baffle, characters surprise, and Wagga Wagga is described as remote (? this could just be the way Melbournians think).
The novel is often slightly shrouded - with a reasonably large cast for the length; I used the search function to keep everyone straight. My sense of dislocation, of elements thrown slightly haphazardly together, feels less like an artifice and more as a window into Ch’anzu’s mental world. As zie takes on more agency, the novel’s structure also solidifies (or at least, I got the hang of it).
I’m still not quite sure what I think of this. In some ways, it left me more distanced and less absorbed than books I would normally feel like I loved. But I found myself picking up Bacon’s previous book (against my no-more-books rules). I think this one might have to sit in my brain for a bit before it settles in.