samdalefox's reviews
192 reviews

The Story of Art without Men by Katy Hessel

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

My Aunty Lizzie gave this to me as my Christmas present in 2022. I took my time reading it because each page is packed with so much information and beautiful coloured pictures of the artworks. I will definitely be reading it again.

Overall Hessel achieved something quite extraordinary - an accessible, comprehensive, progressive, history of women and non-birnary artists and their work. It spans from the 1500s to 2000s, largely focusing on the West but does make an effort to include South Asian, Eastern Asian, South American, Aborigninal, and African artists. I would say Hessel makes the effort to give an intersectional feminist analysis. This is not an easy task since art history itself is difficult to categorise into specific movements, influences, genres etc. and many women artists have been overlooked throughout history. For those that are not overlooked, they have been misrepresented or downplayed, and viewed through a white Western heteronormative capitalist patriarchal lens. Discovering these artists, crediting historians, curators, and activists that supported these artists, and weaving a narrative that engages the reader is truly commendable.

Hessel sweeps us through decades to centries every few pages and names many women and gender non-conforming artists. It's a balancing act between giving enough time to call out why each individual is unique and important, and moving the conversation on so we don't get bogged down in too much detail. I think this book serves as an excellent and necessary introduction to anyone insterested in art history. For those of us with a greater interest in art and maybe already knew some of the artists presented in the book, there are many more included that we don't know, and it serves as a springboard for us to deep dive into the work of individuals mentioned, as well as new avenues and tools for us to discover even MORE artists not covered in the book. I cannot strongly recommend this book enough. This book is to Art History as 'Bitch' by Lucy Cooke is to Evolutionary biology.

Essays I strongly recommend reading alongside 'The Story of Art Without Men':

Ways of Seeing - John Berger, 1972
Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? - Linda Nochlin, 1971

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

I enjoyed the concept and found the the book easy to read. It's short enough to get through in one sitting if you enjoy a full evening of reading. I think many important moral and philosophical points were raised, but I did find that the pacing of the story weighed things down for me, especially around 50-80% of the way through, the pace slowed and the storyline seemed repetitive.

However, pacing aside, this is a solid classic scifi book where a simple concept is continually escalated until we see its natural (disastrous) conclusion. Both lead characters, Haber and Orr, are imbued with heavy symbolism. And the tertiary character

Heather Lelache

has particular significance with respect to identity. I would like to have seen more exploration of the

Aldebaranian aliens

I found their characterisation interesting, their interactions with Orr moving, and their potential insights into 'iahklu' and 'Er' perrehne' fascinating. It's a short read but packed with meaning, symbols and emotions. It shows us that the world is complicated, maybe meaningless, there are no easy solutions. We should embrace the constraints and learn to live within them.

It wasn't until page 149 that I understood the title of the book 'The Lathe of Heaven'...

A lathe is a machine for shaping wood. Orr is consistenly described throughout the book as been a solid block of wood. Haber sees him as an inert insignficant lump, while Lelache sees him as a pillar of immovable strength. Haber can be interpretted as the lathe trying to shape Orr, the block of wood, by using Orr's effective dreams as a way to intentionally change reality. Haber explicity says his goal on pg 149 as "then this world will be like heaven, and the men will be like gods.".

Haber and Orr represent opposites in the extreme. Haber - Selfish benevolence. Disrepect, or at least misunderstanding, of nature. God ego. Insatiable will/ambition. Individualism. Ultimately his perfectionist tinkering led to eugenics, and the climate changes issues persisted throughout all his changes. Who did he really help? Did the means of achieving the desired ends, justify them? e.g.,

by removing the existance of concepts of race and ethnicity can one really say he solved racism and white supremacy? No, he simply stripped people of their idividuality and cultures and homogenised them. It is a blunt tool that made a short cut through a nuanced problem...

Whereas Orr - passive. Acceptance of nature. No desire to impose his will upon the existing order. Desires harmony and just 'to be'.

Quotes:

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

"Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass."

"But the big man was like an onion, slip off layer after layer of personality, belief, response, infinite layers, no end to them, no center to him. Nowhere that he ever stopped, had to stop, had to say Here I stay! No being, only layers."

"He had gone into sleep research and oneirology in the first place to find therapeutic applications. He was not interested in detached knowledge, science for science' sake: there was no use in learning anything if it was of no use. Relevance was his touchstone..

"A person is defined solely by the extent of his influence over other people, by the sphere of his interrelationships; and morality is an utter meaningless term unless defined as the good one does to others, the fufiling of one's function in the sociopolitical whole."

"Orr was not a fast reasoner. In fact, he was not a reasonor. Hi arrived at idas the slow way, never skating over the clear, hard ice fo logic, nor soaring on the slipstreams of imagination, but slogging, plodding along on the heavy ground of existence. He did not see connections, which is said to be a hallmark of intellect. He felt connections - like a plumber."

“We're in the world, not against it. It doesn't work to try to stand outside things and run them, that way. It just doesn't work, it goes against life. There is a way but you have to follow it. The world is, no matter how we think it ought to be. You have to be with it. You have to let it be.”

“The quality of the will to power is, precisely, growth. Achievement is its cancellation. To be, the will to power must increase with each fulfillment, making the fulfillment only a step to a further one. The vaster the power gained, the vaster the appetite for more. As there was no visible limit to the power Haber wielded through Orr’s dreams, so there was no end to his determination to improve the world.”

"It's not that he's evil. He's right, one ought ot try and help other people. But that analogy with snakebite serum is false. He was talknig about one person meeting another person in pain... You have to help the other person. But it's not right to play god with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough. You have to... be in touch. He isn't in touch... He sees the world only as a means to his end. It doesn't make any difference if his end is good; means are all we got... He can't accept, he can't let be, he can't let go."

"He seemed not to know the uses fo silence."

"... a machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own."

Content Warnings

Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story by Hamid Sulaiman

Go to review page

adventurous challenging hopeful informative sad fast-paced

3.0

I commend what Sulaiman has acheived here. Freedom Hospital acts as a kind of introduction to what the Syrian revolution was/is (the civil war is ongoing), who the main players are and how the war affects Syrian people. However, it's a much more personal story, rather than focussing on specific historical events in great detail, these events provide the background for the characters where you see them live their every day lives and what choices they make to survive. It's humanising.

I found the resilience of Yasmine rebuilding the hospital again and again hopeful and inspiring, Much needed after continuously hearing her saying she believes the war will be short; where a decade later unfortunately we know it is still ongoing. Overall the novel does a good job at depicting the never ending violence, the brutal, complex, frustrating commandeering by other parties over the original conflict and a small glimmer of hope.

Pros

The artwork worked well. Using only black and white and dramatic full page panels really highlights the stark violence in the story.
I appreciated the character profiles given at the front of the novel and the explanatory footnotes throughout about what different names meant, I definitely benefitted from these.
The range of characters introduced showcased how the war affects people from different walks of life. Women men, Sunni, Shiite, soldiers, academics, medics etc.
The military equipment pictured is labelled with its model number and the country that sold it to either side. I think this an incredibly effective tool for indicating the countries complicit in funding the violence (US, UK, France, Russia).

Cons

So much is covered, I don't feel we get enough time with each of the characters to get to know them well enough to feel deeply about them. For example
Salem and his fake memory loss actually being a Syrian Intelligence Agent and imprisoning Fawaz?! Then being shot by the colonel?! WHAT? It all happened too fast, it was hard to really empathise.
Because so much is covered I feel the story doesn't flow as well as expected, but that could be intentional with the time jumps and being split into 4 seasons. Time does flow differently when experiencing war.
A big thing missing is the representation of women wearing hijab as active agents. The one hijabi, Zahabiah , did very little, and actually
stopped wearing her hijab by the end of the novel. Hopefully, through her own choice and not due to Western expectations/pressure/Islamophobia, but the story never actuallymakes this clear.

Content Warnings

Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki

Go to review page

mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

Average rating of all short stories = 3.17 ⭐, please see individual ratings below.

I'm so happy I finally get to read Suzuki's works in English! Her work and ideas were clearly trailblazing for the time, some stories I think have aged better than others, all are valuable to read. It's important to note that this is a collection of Suzuki’s work ~40 years after being released and 35 years after she died by suicide in 1986. I think a short introduction at the beginning would be beneficial here to contextualise the stories, additionally notes on the translators and their translations could be insightful.

The theme of Suzuki’s collection is the commentary and critique of the arbitruness performance of gender roles in society, sexuality, womanhood/identity and how invasive the government and technology is. Suzuki reminds me of Tiptree Jr. in this respect, however Suzuki more directly questions the gender binary, her writing style is much more dialogue-focused and has many pop culture film and music references. Suzuki's scifi/speculative elements do not truly affect the stories, but are rather settings to study and observe the characters.

Only the tititular story grabbed my attention. Mostly I found that the stories' ennui and narrative tone very similar, making the transition between stories barely distinguishable. However 'Terminal Bordem' spoke to me. The descriptions of boredom are SPOT ON. The small glimpse of the world the characters live in was grimly relatable. The last words

"The boredom is gone".

was like a punch to the gut. WHY?! Why is it gone? Because of the sex? Because of the regret? The chemical-induced contentness from the implant? The exercising of autonomy and authority? The performance of domination masculinity through violence? Something finally felt real to her? It was by far the best story of the collection.

Excerpt from a review: Izumi Suzuki, Terminal Boredom (2021) by Ola G:

"I must say the stories’ mood affected me a little: the pervasive ennui, unhappiness, despair hidden beneath a very thin surface of the bustle of everyday life are depicted in a thoroughly realistic way....Suzuki’s stories are focused predominantly on creating a certain mood and exploring mostly psychological ideas of alienation, addiction, exhaustion; there is barely any action, worldbuilding, or even character development.

Reading stories from the late seventies/early eighties requires a layered approach: how do I respond to and understand the book in the present—while at the same time holding an awareness that these stories come from a specific historical moment? For example, the gender politics of “Woman and Woman” and its treatment of trans-ness or sexual consent read as a product of their era; recall work by writers like Joanna Russ or James Tiptree, Jr. in the Anglophone publishing sphere for comparison. On that note, I’d argue it’s a curatorial misstep on the editors’ part that Terminal Boredom doesn’t include an introduction—or even notes on the original publication dates, in the edition I read.

The women of these stories are also all outsiders, to some extent or another. Suzuki frequently centers the experience of being a person for whom connection, desire, and strong emotion don’t come readily."

Ratings and quotes from individual stories within the collection:

Women and women - 3⭐

"But it’s precisely because they don’t know about the dreadful stuff that ignorant people are able to be so confident."

"Not entirely sure whether it was for or against males and masculinity or not. Never quite broke the binary."

You may dream - 3⭐

"It scares me how everyone’s so cool about it, but I guess that’s the world we live in. Everyone’s so numb they can’t even take life seriously anymore —’"

"Like most people these days, I don’t overthink things. I’ll go along with whatever. No firm beliefs, no hang-ups. Just a lack of self-confidence tangled up in fatalistic resignation. Whatever the situation, nothing ever reaches me on an emotional level. Nothing’s important. Because I won’t let it be. I operate on mood alone. No regrets, no looking back."

"I can act all kinds of ways, but in the end it’s always an act."

Night picnic - 3⭐

"Eyes open to the night, they pondered time and the liberty of other living things"

"Once upon a time, we lived in peace. We may not have manufactured or consumed, but our existences were rich."

The old seaside club - 3⭐

"I had absolutely no friends before this year. It was a serious problem – and not one that could be easily explained away by shyness or introversion. I did have an idea of why people didn’t like me, but I just wasn’t prepared to admit it. I consoled myself by deciding that I hated other people and had no desire to love anyone"

You know, lately,’ I begin, slowly, ‘I’m finding it hard to identify what happiness and pleasure are.’
He looks up.
‘Well … Does it matter? If something feels good, that’s pleasure.’ He gives a weak laugh. ‘Nothing more to it.’

Things gets easier once you acknowledge the situation.’
‘That’s right. Even if you don’t solve anything. It’s the same with my own illness, too.

"It's not a good habit, to want to solve everything."

"Reboots are about letting go, and accepting things."

Smoke gets in your eyes - 3⭐

"The difference between cold and cruel is that to be cruel, you need to have feelings but to be cold, you don’t, right?."

Forgotten - 3.5⭐

"Can’t you see it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with love for one’s country? If anything, it’s a form of territorial egotism." (On empire and nationalism)

"My home planet is no match for Earth in terms of scientific and technological development, but at least most people there consider how they want to live their lives. Our history is unfathomably long, and yet there have been only five wars recorded – including a couple of really small-scale ones. And the last of those wrapped up over two millennia ago."

Terminal bordem - 3.75⭐

"Everyone lives in a happy-go-lucky depression – they only take life half-seriously, you might say."

"Even in this day and age, we still revere truth. But at the same time, we devote ourselves to the task of erasing the distinction between truth and fiction."

Content Warnings

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Go to review page

adventurous emotional informative inspiring reflective sad 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? No

4.0

This was on my to-read list for a while, and now felt the right time to read it (October-November 2023) as the genocide is underway. It feels like one more small (indirect) action of solidarity I can do, to understand the personal lives of Palestinians. The story follows protagonist, young Palestinian woman Nahr, and how her life unfolds being displaced, discriminated againist, exploited, and punished for pursuing resistance against Israel. It is a finctional story made up of various peoples' real-life experiences. As such, the story feels very realistic, which makes the violence even more horrible.

This was a glorious and heart wrenching scream of Palestinian identity. Nahr is a woman of many names and many countries. The narrative showcases the challenges faced by the Palestinian people while emphasizing their remarkable resilience, demonstrating their capacity to find hope and joy amidst heartbreak and injustice. It is an ordinary tale that showcases the extraordinary spirit of Palestinian people. Tough to get through (see content warnings), but a great way to get people to recognise Palestinians as wonderful, complex, oppressed people who need our solidarity and support.

Favourite quotes

"I find that reporters and writers that come here don't actually want to listen to me or hear my thoughts, except where I might validate what they already believe" .

"I had not known the extent of our subordination until I knew what it meant to be respected."

"When powerless, following world events only highlights your impotence"

"I should have said it again, that her embroidery was more special than any desk job could be, that she was an artist, that western images of professional women don't have to apply to us, that concepts of respectability and modernity or manufactured".

"The ceaseless accumulation of injustice made me want to fight the world"

"Can something expected still be surprising?"

"The belonging and acceptance I had found was an illusion."

"I colonised the colonisers' space of authority. I made myself free in chains and held that courtroom captive to my freedom."

"The state will always find a way to imprison those who are truly free. Who do not accept social, economic, or political chains."

"You must accept them and accept them with love, for these innocent people have no other hope. They are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it." - James Baldwin

Content Warnings

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

Absolutely stunning short story. I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about until Le Guin introduced

the endlessly suffering child

. After that I was fully onboard. Her commentary on human nature is true and devastating. The

suffering child

represents any number of real-world examples of the ways people compromise their morals in the name of convenience, comfort, and expediency. This short story ultimately asks us what is the price of utopia? What are the ethics of sacrifice? (As justified by utilitarianism). Are any of us free when one person remains unfree?

At first I thought those that walk away from Omelas would choose to take the place of

the suffering child

, join it, help it, or at the very least openly question the necessity. But no, they walk away. They wash their hands of the moral problem. This is a horrifying reflection of our society today. I wish this story was read by all.

My favourite quotes and another member's review below:

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. "

"Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive."

"Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free."

bitchbane's review
4 ★’s — fantastic short story on morality and the value of human life.

the ones who walk away from omelas presents a unique examination of morality, the value of human life, and the cost of civilization. posing a sort of societal 'trolley problem,' le guin forces readers to consider where they draw the line between acceptable loss and unjustifiable abuse. how do you define right and wrong? what is the real cost of "civilized" society? would you shut up and let a child be neglected and abused to maintain a perfect utopia for everyone else?

this story was much different than what i thought going into it. i expected something heavy on emotional contemplation and what it means to be human, perhaps from the perspective of someone who is trying to decide if they're going to walk away or stay. instead it was more of a parable talking about a broader issue.

interestingly, none of the people who are 'the ones who walk away from omelas' rescued the child. they decided to leave the utopia rather than staying or rescuing the child. this, to me, isn't worthy of dignified praise, they've just made it 'not their problem' anymore.

i thought le guin's approach and conversation about this topic was interesting and new. it's a new take on the trolley problem, discussing ethical dilemmas, and contemplating what humanity is worth. fantastic short story!

Content Warnings

Solaris by Stanisław Lem

Go to review page

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

Solaris falls into the category of classics where I appreciate why it's a classic and think it deserves its status, but I personally didn't enjoy it very much. I did read it quickly in three sittings, so perhaps a slower read with more time for reflection would be suitable for this subject matter.

I think it's fair to describe Solaris as a book split into two 'parts'. The main part which follows Kris and his experiences upon the Solaris station, and the supporting part which constitutes long periods of exposition about the various scientific descriptions, theories, schools and progression of thought of the planet/entity Solaris. I was hooked in the first chapter but by the time

Rheya

appears all momentum slows to a glacial pace.

That being said, I found the hard science descriptions of Solaris, in particular the 'ocean' and the station's scientists 'experiments' were very interesting to read. I personally enjoy hard scifi, but if that isn't for you you will likely find the majority of this book boring. The theme of the book is undoubtedly a philosophical reflection upon the human condition; a complex and multilayered work about the fallacy of applying anthropocentric standards to an inhuman and ever changing universe and about the limits of human knowledge. While this theme was thoroughly explored, I personally don't think the relationship between Kris and

Rheya

or Kris's own inner thoughts and emotions embodying this theme were directly explored enough.

Favourite quotes:

"Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labryinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed."

"Grastrom set out to demonstrate that the most abstract achievements of science, the most advanced theories and victories of mathematics represented nothing more than a stumbling, one-or-two step progression from our rude, prehistoric, anthropomorphic understanding of the universe around us."

"We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us - that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence - then we don't like it anymore."

"The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated or complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequnetly limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, and the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word."

"It was you who wanted this conversation not me. I haven't meddled in your affairs, and I'm not telling you what to do or what not to do. Even if I had te right, I would not. You come here of your own free will, and you dump it on me. You know why? TO take the weight off your own back. Well I've experienced that weight - don't try to shut me up - and I leave you free to find your own solution. But you want opposition. If I got in your way, you could fight me, something tangible, a man just like you, with the same flesh and blood. Fight me, and you could feel that you too were a man."

Content Warnings

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Go to review page

dark sad medium-paced

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

2.25

I'm not a big fan of the thriller murder mystery genre, but I adored 'Gone Girl' and 'Sharp Objects' also by Flynn, so I thought I'd give this one a go. Dark Places is certainly dark. It opens dark, stays dark, and arguably ends dark. The book started off strong and I was really invested, however as soon as the first 'twist' was revelaed

the introduction of Diondra as Ben's girlfriend

it quickly became predictable. I had guessed the truth of the murders by about a third of the way in. Overall, Dark Places is not enjoyable or as clever as her other works. I don't usually enjoy the changing point of view and flip-flopping timeline, however the format did make sense for this plot. I thought Libby was well characterised, though she was the only one. The ending really let everything down. It was anticlimatic and dare I say too 'neat'; throughout the book all the little 'inconsistencies' between each character's POV were neatly explained by another's. I've included another review that I strongly agree with below:

rockinmama2ax's review:

"Unlike some suspense thrillers, I never experienced that on-the-edge-of-my-seat moment with this story. But I don't necessarily think that distracts from the novel's effectiveness. The way details about a triple homicide are shared - from various perspectives the day of and then twenty-four years later - made for a slow yet effective reveal of the sad truth.

And that brings me to my overall assessment: this was a sad story of a dirt-poor family whose circumstances seemed forever stacked against them. What might be glimmers of hope in otherwise perpetually cloudy skies proved illusions, and the reader is left with an unsatisfactory catharsis: a resolution is presented and case solved, but the sadness, the unhappiness, and the sense of hopelessness lingers, whether purposefully or not.

While I wasn't always forced into the next chapter in search of immediate answers, I was interested in discovering the truth, which means I was invested in the characters and the outcome. I only wish I'd been able to experience an intense emotional response - tears, anger, joy - rather than being reminded that happiness and fulfillment elude some forever."

Content Warnings

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

The Machine Stops - 5⭐
A Celestial Omnibus - 3⭐
Average rating for the entire book = 4⭐

The Machine Stops
Sensational. Prophetic. Important and succinct. I actually stopped reading half way through to check when this was written; it was first published in 1909. 1909! 114 YEARS AGO!! The futuristic technology described and the accompanying societal norms are SPOT ON. Forster clearly had an excellent understanding of humans' attitudes, needs, desires, and shortcomings. He described things such as remote control, video calls, and modular highly specialised automation. He also described the accompanying behaviours such as withdrawal, isolation, and intolerance, directly referring to the extreme discomfort experience by people not experiencing life through technology in their individual bubble as 'direct experience anxiety'.

The Machine stops forces the reader to contemporary reader to evaluate one's own self in the information/technology/machine age. How do I foster my growth as a human being? How can i stay truly connected to others and to nature? What are the benefits and/or damage done by hyper-individualism and the collapse of community? What is the line between machines supporting our lives meaningfully, freeing up our time and energy from labour for other pursuits (e.g., washing machines) and them dominating the way in which we spend our time and energy (social media addiction, digitalisation of processes, no opt out etc.) It's a quick sci-fi read but amazing for the time it was written and left me wondering how many times I've exchanged experiences for "ideas." I appreciate how Forster focused on the physical health aspects as well as mental health aspects of the machine age human.

A Celestial Omnibus
Some short stories, such as The Machine Stops, show us its meaning clearly and deliberately, and at the end of the story you have a clear and immediate reaction. Other short stories, like A Celestial Omnibus, the story's intent is less clear and you end the story trying to make sense of it. I enjoyed reading this story, but nowhere near as much as The Machine Stops. My take away is that the boy protagonist represented creativity and imagination, and that the moral of the story is that there is meaning in these pursuits in and of themselves. Illustrated by the elitist, arrogant, snob Mr Bons (snob written backwards! :)) whose superficial appreciation of the arts saw him being lost/damned/falling to his death? A petty point, but I also didn't appreciate the Greek bit at the end that didn't have a translation. I felt like I missed something important to the story.

Content Warnings

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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

5.0

Just as exceptional as the first book.

Although the series works as a duology, I was surprised Butler didn't write more so I looked it up. Apparently she envisioned a seven part series! That's how long Earthseed was imagined to fully resolve. Source: https://electricliterature.com/now-more-than-ever-we-wish-we-had-these-lost-octavia-butler-novels/ I feel sad we will never get to hear the rest of the Earthseed story, but I'm also glad to have the existing series to the highest standard.

The Parable of the Talents reads just as well as the first one and predominently focuses on the difficulty of maintaining their community and advancing Earthseed. There are very clear historical references to the injustices suffered by Black and Indigenous people, which should also set alarm bells ringing in contemporary readers as we start to see the same signs of Christo-facism in the West now. Without ruining the plot, I appreciated the 'positive' ending as it felt realistic. It was at once hopeful, aspirational, yet also sombre. Butler hinted at the sacrifices and consequences of attaining such the achievement.

I enjoyed gaining the perspective of Lauren's daughter, I think that was a clever move and showed how others' perceived Lauren besides those that directly support or oppose her theology. I do understand the symbolism of the Christian 'parable of the talents' (The Bible, Matthew 25:14–30) but I was surprised that the book ended with that verse, mirroring the choice to end with the respective verse in Parable of the Sower. To me, it felt like it was saying the ultimate motivation behind Lauren was still her Christian beliefs, not Earthseed at all, which felt wrong to me. Perhaps this choice would have evolved as the series did, we will never know. In summary, I loved it, definitely read it.

I will add all my favourite quotes from the book here at a later date (there are so many of them!)

Content Warnings

More...

samdalefox's reviews 192 reviews

samdalefox's reviews
192 reviews