archytas's reviews
1708 reviews

Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag

informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

Sontag writes with relish, and the often flamboyant prose suits the subject matter. These essays - the first more compelling than the second - seem mostly interesting now from a historical perspective. While the focus in on the camp aesthetic, even the fact that Sontag views this as aligned with, not synonymous with, queer culture speaks to a world where other futures seemed possible, or maybe it is just that so much was hidden.

Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis

adventurous funny informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I could have lots of criticisms of Fundamentally - the humour for starters is not really my style - but I tore through reading this and have not been able to stop thinking about it since. Most of the reviews will emphasise that this is definately popular fiction - jokes abound, our protagonist is the kind of adorably-hopeless-but-still-somehow-smart-and-competant woman that dominate the shelves and the UN world is sharply and amusingly skewered. But what is interesting to me is how sharp the ideas in this book are. Younis has things to say here, and through her finely drawn characters, especially Nadia, an avoidant mess of an academic and Sara, a sarcastic ISIS recruit now locked in a refugee camp, she gives us a world where little is as simple as the characters want it to be.
Underneath this, there is a very real situation. There are thousands of women and children - now teenagers - living in refugee camps basically abandoned by their countries of origin. Unsurprisingly, these camps are training grounds for ISIS, providing an enduring social base. While few are from Western countries - despite the enduring fascination - the issues surrounding those who went to fight for the "Caliphate" are well portrayed here. Younis compares and contrasts Sara's fundamentalism with Nadia's jaded athiesm. Both characters find living Muslim in Britain difficult, and both seek outside their traditional faith for answers. Younis also sounds a warning, however, about over-identifying - as Nadia becomes more obsessed with helping Sara, she becomes less effective at her overall goal of resettling as many of the women as possible. Younis provides no easy solutions to the balance of empathy and cynicism in this work, the morality of making trade offs that might sell some short to make gains for others, but rather raises pointed questions.
If this works more as observation on our world than solution to it, it is not painfully hanging. Our characters get proper arcs with satisfying resolution. I'm a bit over the genre, but the solid core of the story was enough to keep me engaged - and to mainline the entire Shamina Begum Story podcast straight afterwards. (Sara's situation is clearly ripped from Begum's story, but the character is not remotely based on her. Younis has reiterated several times that this is how she imagined herself to be, should she have taken a different path at 15).

The Science of Racism: Everything you need to know but probably don't - yet by Keon West, Keon West

informative medium-paced

4.25

"I personally would much rather live in a world in which every White man wanted to lynch me, but none of them had the power to do it, than a world in which no White men wanted to lynch me, but every single one of them had the power to do it. In the first instance, I may be disliked, but I am still perfectly safe. In the second, I am safe for the moment, but my life and security hang on the whims of people who could, at any time, and for any reason, withdraw that goodwill. No matter how effectively we do it, we will never solve racism by focusing exclusively on getting White people to like ethnic minorities more. Sooner or later, we must alter the nature of our society so that ethnic minorities can be less concerned about whether White people like them or not."

West is a social scientist, and the science of racism examines the evidence that racism exists and the impact that it has. Many of the studies discussed here I had heard of in general terms - although others looking at the gap between how people predict their actions and how they act - I had not. There is excellent material on why implicit bias is not necessarily unconcious, and why being aware of it won't assist in combating it. But the sharpest parts of the book take aim at the structures of power and how it is these which ensure the impact of racism.

Naag Mountain by Manisha Anjali

emotional reflective

5.0

"I hold a conch shell to my ear to experience the music of the sea. The shell was made by an animal spirit with a longing to live, and a vision for love that spanned across generations. The seashell outlived the animal but carried their spirit in sound waves. I hear the sounds of paradise from the future. I go to the end of paradise to live my destiny.

We find a foamy part of the ocean and take off our bangles, our blouses and our petticoats. We change into fish and read the water. We cut a circle in the watery mythology. This is how we cut time in half. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company planted our bloodlines in the great southern waters. This is how our tea and biscuits became sweet on red Australian afternoons. There is a name for us. Coolie."

Naag Mountain approaches the same story from two different directions and times. What comes together is a story of being and becoming, of unity of people, sea and land. This is the kind of poetry you must read aloud, tasting the words and feeling into the rhythm which conveys this unity and almost inevitability. Anjali's images bloom in your mind as you read. I times I kept drifting in the moments, losing track of the whole, and this was a wonderful thing. This is really gorgeous poetry, which takes you on a journey and has something to show us. It doesn't get much better than that.

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have been looking forward to this since I first heard about - literary fiction with a twisty spy plot and a social conscience. It may have been my expectations being too high, but something here just didn't connect with me. Possibly it was that the eco left  grouping here felt unfamiliar, unrecognisible from my experiences with left groups and protest encampments (Neanderthals are more, in my experience, of an obsession of the far-right, to my disappointment I admit). Or maybe I just got tired of the protagonist - I must admit while I have read some spectacular books with unsympathic protagonists, I feel like I should enjoy it more than I actually do.
Whatever the case, Creation Lake left me a little underwhelmed, and without the deep investment in the characters that I think it needed.

Peripathetic: Notes on (un)belonging by Cher Tan

informative medium-paced

4.5

"It was a Marxian metabolic rift, except the natural environment wasn’t the thing that was being alienated. We were using the language of capital to refute its logics. By then it’s become entrenched, you’re in too deep, it’s too late to step off the train now, which is exactly like how you got into it in the first place. The spin-cycle of lifestyle: what saves you entraps you further; the land of no return – your mind has already been moulded by its structures and affects, which makes reintegrating into so-called ‘regular’ society comparatively even more onerous – ‘a very poor preparation punk rock had been for later life’.* You’ve already spent so much time within it. The contrast becomes jarring: to extricate yourself and not experience its lingering effects, how it used to shape the entirety of your world, your understanding of reality."
I loved Peripathetic all of the way through, but I loved the early essays in a different way to the later ones. Tan has that capacity to words together in ways that make my spine tingle, or make me simply smile with the joy of it. This is on show in many of the earlier essays, which felt as I read them as if Tan edged close to somethingly powerfully earnest, but flips into writing playfully, prioritising the joyfulness of words coming together and enabling an easier read. Lingua Franca is a joy of code switching, showing off with rapid language transitions that still somehow fit perfectly together, pointing at significant things, combined with a cleverness of ideas and thinking that draws you in, but with some kind of emotional distance.
From "The Lifestyle Church" for me, the tone seemed to shift. Tan interrogates hard, and deploys her skill with words towards precision. It is still wonderfully put together, but there is less play and more focus on the torrent of things Tan has to say about her life, and the understanding she has drawn out of it. This was, for me, less shivery but also frankly harder to put down. I sneak read on my phone under the table, in the passenger seat. The ideas filled my head. I want to say there is more certain tone, but that would belie the nuance and doubt that Tan prizes. Rather, I would say, that the tone no longer suggests you can take or leave what she has to say, and it is the better for it.
Many of the essays revolve around Tan's experiences and processing of her time in the Punk scene, primarily in Singapore, and the experiences of casual work. I found her writing about the evolution of punk and online piracy compelling, as I also try to process how the early sense that tech would disrupt our order has morphed into something very different. And in strange ways, I found her constant interrogation of what to keep and what to move on from comforting. Maybe continuing to question is one of the best things we can do, especially if you can do it in such clear and enjoyable prose.
I'm not sure this review makes any sense, and I am a little tempted to delete it entirely, but I'm tired and don't have energy to start again. So let's just settle with: I liked this a lot.

Now You See Us by Balli Kaur Jaswal

adventurous informative slow-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? It's complicated

4.25

I really enjoy fun books about heavy topics done well, and this one totally qualifies. I enjoyed it more than Kaur Jaswal's previous hit Erotic Novels for Punjabi Widows, which was good enough to make me want to pick this one up. The novel centers around three Filipino maids working in Singapore, and their involvement in trying to investigate when another maid is accused of murder. The three women - one in her 20s, one in her 30s and one in her 40s - face different challenges in work and life, and the book uses this to shed light on the worlds of foreign domestic workers, who often work 16 hour days, are underfed and have their movements and relationships tightly controlled. And yest, even given the shocking conditions, many are able to pull families out of desperate poverty as a result. Kaur Jaswal also touches on Duterte and the impact of his state driven violence on the economically vulnerable. 
But this, despite the topic, is a feel good novel where you are justified in knowing the ending for our characters will leave them happier than before, and where the friendships between them - and the FDW community in general - provide much of the heart of the book.  There is no lingering in misery, and scenes focus on resistance and rebellion (even of the silent mental kind) over the drama of abuse. 
There were a few minor pacing issues in the middle of the book - caused in part by the number of threads, all fascinating, Kaur Jasawl gives us, but overall I really loved this and will be digging out her earlier books in the hope they are this good.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I wanted to like this one more than I did. I think I struggled because the themes that it seemed Pratchett wanted to explore were also in some ways undermined by his premise - our characters wanted to find better solutions than the military but also to be part of it. And I found the conclusion a bit over-the-top-silly rather than Pratchett's usual just-silly-enough. There were bright spots - Polly is a very likeable protagonist, Blouse was hilarious all of the time and, the ending aside, the plotting was unusually free of obvious holes. But the magic, for me, wasn't really here.

Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity by Scott F. Gilbert, Nathalie Feiner, Marcus Feldman, Tobias Uller, Kevin N. Lala

informative medium-paced

4.5

This somewhat dull-looking volume is a treasure trove for those interested in evolution—as far as I know, it is the first full-length, non-specialist, or expert volume dealing with developmental evolution and biology. It brings together decades of work, with specific reference to how recent leaps forward (heh) in biology have strengthened a shift away from gene-alone views of evolution.
To crudely summarise (all I am capable of), the authors argue that evolution is powered by developmental processes and natural selection of genes. These are varied, but include the set functions of cells, chemistry and physics that determine how organisms form and grow, epigenetic forms of inheritance and how individuals and groups of individuals within species create their environments and change their cultural behaviours, which change the context and hence selection pressures in the environment around them. There is also the role of bacteria, fungi and biomes in changing the organism. These things don't operate distinctly, but rather combine to create a more shaded and larger evolution engine than perhaps we are used to being taught.
Some of the examples that stood out to me included Bichir fish from Africa, which have fins they can use to drag themselves along land, although they primarily don't. When raised on land, these fish, while not having new DNA, will walk more efficiently and develop different musculature to support walking over swimming. KNown as developmental plasticity, this flexibility might involve epigenetic changes, changes induced by developmental rules (eg muscles that we use more become stronger because that is how our muscles work, bone development is influenced by muscle development etc) and 'cultural' changes in walking more. Once these fish are walking around (ok, it is flopping, but walking is the technical term) on land, natural selection works on a new paradigm, making these changes more "permanent" over time and, eventually, reducing the flexibility as a new normal becomes stabilised.
Another example was the probable role of cooking in human evolution. Apparently our guts are pretty low maintenance by mammal standards - important because our brains are very high maintenance. Cooking probably was a precursor to this set of changes, enabling much more efficient nutrient extraction. That would also have brought along with it a whole new set of microbes and probably changed their evolutionary environment. So changes in culture also set new directions for natural selection.
Possibly the most significant materials, however, are covering that we know that not all mutations are equal, and that some novel pathways for development are more likely than others, both to occur and to stick. The authors argue that while this has been seen as a constraint, it should be better viewed as an enabler, working to ensure that mutations that are helpful (eg 3 or 4 fingers is good, 3.23 fingers not good) are more likely to occur. Some of the reasoning here is epigenetics/genetic/cell processes I could follow, and much was Turing patterns, which I could not (but am happy to know that they exist).
I am slowly developing an understanding of epigenetic inheritance. Noting that the authors list examples of sperm being affected by epigenetic changes, and the reality that a pregnant woman carries the DNA of three generations (herself, her fetus and her fetus' ova) within her, so epigenetic changes in this period can affect three generations without requiring inheritance (it all does your head in a bit really). However, much of this discussion tends to circle around the possibility of human disadvantage and trauma being encoded, which is not really the starting point. Rather, epigenetic inheritance would evolve survival strategies without changes to DNA itself - and far more reversible ones. The markers found in those who survived famine, for example, assisted with absorbion of nutrients. In a modern, food-rich society, these may not be helpful adaptions, but the history they carry is that of survival.
All up, there is a lot here to digest. The authors use precise language, meaning it is slow reading for a lay reader, but not overly hard reading if you are willing to take your time. And the concepts matter - not only so we can better understand science, but because this is a message about how organisms shape their worlds, and how nothing works in isolation from other things or processes. Our desire to simplify - and there is nothing at all here that undermines Darwin, just which fleshes out the worlds he could see - can also be a desire to isolate. 

La Tercera by Gina Apostol

reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

"He’s grown up translating his world, servants’ tongue into sala’s mouth, Waray and Tagalog into glimmering, correct spelling in Spanish onto the schoolbook page: a kind of magic, or witchcraft, he thinks, as words transform from one meaning to another and yet sound the same, mimicking the mind’s process, the way the world shape-shifts as he observes it, his brother into a moth, the armored beetle, kagang, into a leaf, pahina."

La Tercera is a dense, and relatively unforgiving novel. Apostol cares little for whether you can follow the rapid language shifting, time shifting, place shifting and switching between the sprawling cast with their own sprawling family trees. But like many literary novels, Apostol rewards your investment with a tale whose emotional impact grows with what you have invested, and whose swooping, immersive descriptions and pithy one liners ("In my mom’s world, you could have no money, and a maid would still be washing your child’s hair.") can be enjoyed just as they are.
 This is a book which uses language to immerse the reader in a world, to bring forth what being in a place, of a place (and not of a place) feels like. The book swirls with descriptions, dialogue, which often tumble out furiously with scant explanation of when, where or sometimes who, we are with. It is in turn exhilerating and exhausting.
This is also a book about language, and how we create our worlds through it. It is particularly a book about language, power, colonialism and class. Apostol's characters defend and attack through their languages, define themselves, take and surrender power in their choices of language. Some speak only in Waray, refusing the world which would colonise them. Others speak with a distinctive polyglot, effortlessly peppering words of Waray, Tagalog, Spanish and English together, to demonstrate their ownership of their own space. Characters use their language choices to create distance or eradicate it. Most of all, their choices define themselves. There is a lot readers without Waray will miss, but there is also plenty we don't.
Rosario, our central protagonist, is trying to untangle her own grief, and unease at how to define herself in a community that has set(s) of definitions she stuggles to navigate. As she delves into constructing the stories of her great grandfather and great uncle, brothers in a war no-one wants to admit happened, she also starts to peel back the layers of her unforgettable mother - the kind of women considered "too much" in most of my worlds, but whose vivacity is conditionally celebrated in her upper class filipino world. Just as Rosario gets into reconstructing her ancestors inner worlds, we start to see how little of her mother's she has understood.
But this makes it sound a lot more linear than the experience, which plunges the reader from frozen contemporary New York, to rivers of Layte Island, to the opulance of central Manila, and warfare-infested jungles. Much of the pleasure here is in the moments, and there a rather a lot of them, so it might be best to take this one slow.