Fairy Princesses: Double Header Review Day

Darkfever, by Karen Marie Moning

MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman. Or so she thinks…until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae….

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands…. (Amazon)

I have been somewhat out of sorts of late; in the kind of fey mood where I pick up a book, only to put it down again 20 pages later, and unable to read anything besides old and worn favorites. I have also been playing a lot of games on my kindle instead. BUT! I recently downloaded a book which seemed like it had a lot of potential (It was marked down to $1.99) and a book I requested from the library several months ago (no exaggeration) finally came in, so I got back on that horse, and well, here I am!

All of that was an introduction to letting you know that I was displeased, although I am generous enough to say that it may, possible, be a result of the mood, and not the books. And then again, maybe not. Let’s sharpen our claws!

First up was Darkfever. This is the first in a series, about a girl whose sister dies while studying abroad in Dublin. Given the mysterious and horrific circumstances of her death, our heroine, MacKayla, is incensed when the police declare that they have no leads and are closing the case. She sets off on her own to investigate, and winds up in over her head, entangling herself in the world of the Fae, and in a search for an object of power, a long-lost book which holds the key to the end of the world. It sounds super-fun, if not the most thought-provoking treatise in the world, right? WRONG. It’s a good thing this was on my kindle, because I was tempted to throw the book a few times. I literally rolled my eyes when I was reading it. Here, in alphabetical order, is my list of complaints:

1. MacKayla
2. MacKayla
3. MacKayla
4. MacKayla

Like, holy crap, I really wanted her to die. In my opinion, hoping the heroine dies is not the mark of a hugely successful character. Things I hated about her: the way that she always talks about what she wears, and how beautiful she is. That’s not a joke. At one point, while trying to disguise herself, she says that she could never be ugly, but she’s going to shoot for average. And her attitude! She makes one mention of how grief must have turned her mind to mush, but her actions and behavior are systematically ridiculous. She is in the midst of trying to figure out the cause of her sister’s brutal murder, so she wanders around town, asking people about the very thing that got her sister killed, and then shacks up with the first person who knows anything about what she’s talking about. My reaction to that would be, “So this sinsar dubh that my sister mentions in her last, desperate attempt to warn me – you know all about it? And you followed me to my hostel and spied on me, and told me that you’d be willing to kill for it? I think maybe I will not take you up on that invitation to stay at your creepy bookstore, on the edge of an abandoned city block.”

Honestly, you’d have to be pretty stupid to trust this guy (“Jericho Barrons” Don’t even get me started), and yet that is exactly what Mac appears to do – she tells him all about her sister, and the clues she finds, and lets him tote her around and use her as a magical sniffer-dog. I guess maybe that could be a strategy too, though, like, hey, if he is my sister’s murderer, I’m going to pretend to be in cahoots with him, so he thinks we’re on the same team, and doesn’t kill me, too! Except that Mac is not so much “pretending” as she “going along with everything he says, even if he gives no explanation as to his own motivations and goals, and generally keeps her in the dark about everything.”

Oh, but Mac is an individual, a spunky, fun, feisty woman. You can tell by the way that she disobeys like, the one obviously sensible order from Mr. Barrons to dress appropriately and instead wears a long peach skirt and rose colored fuzzy sweater to a vampire’s lair. Because she is an Independent Lady. Not only is this ho-bag tagging along with some random dude who has given her no reason to trust him and about a hundred reasons not to, she’s also ignoring any good advice he’s giving her. Which is to say: when your sister has been murdered, and you’re looking for her killer, and you’ve been sucked into an underground world with magical beings, most of whom seem to want you for nefarious purposes, or just plain want to kill you, and you’re going around stealing priceless artifacts from very bad men, don’t you think the very last thing you should be doing is dressing like you’re rainbow brite at a mime party? As in, YOU’RE DRAWING A LOT OF ATTENTION TO YOURSELF, GENIUS.

That’s not some awesome “damn the man, grrrl power” moment. That’s asinine. That is. . . I am still angry about it.

Moving on: Mac’s assumptions. Someone needs to sit this girl down and have a long talk about how when you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME. Or, really, in this case, she is making an ASS out of HER and HER. And sort of me, a little, because I am the fool who’s still reading. There is a point, in the story, in which she says, after seeing her protector walk through an alley without getting harassed by these bad-guy Shade-creatures, “There were really only two possibilities I could think of: either Barrons was lying to me about the Shades, or he’d struck some kind of dark bargain with the life-sucking Fae. Whichever it was, I finally had my answer to whether or not I could trust him. That would be a great, big NOT.”

Okay, first of all, now you realize you shouldn’t be trusting him? Not when he put you in a wrestling hold and bruised your ribs? Or choked you? Or how about the fact that you have no idea who this guy is, because he has given you no background information? Or the conversation you overheard in which his – uh, sex toy/bookseller? – tells him to stop using you? No, those all seem perfectly trustworthy.

Second of all, those are the only two possibilities? I feel like Murray, in Clueless, when Cher and Dionne are talking about Christian, and how Cher almost had sex with him, and he goes, “Yo, are you bitches blind or something? Your man Christian is a cake boy.” Yo, Mac, are you blind or something? There are a lot more possibilities than that. Liiiiiiiike, maybe the Shades know this guy is stronger than them and they don’t want to get into a fight and die. Or he’s wearing the magical equivalent of a protective hamster ball. Or these are his employees, and they’re kinda dim about the whole “not eating guests” thing. It could be anything! Sherlock Holmes, you are not.

As I said, this is the first book in the series, and I could not believe that people would actually recommend it, but upon reading the reviews, the consensus is that in the second book, MacKayla doesn’t display the same dimwitted fuckery that she does in this one. Although, obviously, that’s a pretty low bar to meet. And yet, the power of the reviews is such that I am almost tempted to get the second one and see if it improves as much as people say. Like, one million happy readers can’t be wrong. Can they?

It’s such a terrible temptation – MacKayla has a lot of potential to be awesome, and not the shallow dipshit she was, and I’m already sort of swayed, from reading the prologue to the second book, which mentions all the super cool things, without all the not so bright stuff.

P.S. I totally read the second book (Faefever or Moonfever or Bloodfever or Kittenfever or Clownfever or some such nonsense. I can't keep them straight) since I wrote this review, and it's true - Mac does turn out to be much more awesome in the second book. However, there's apparently some sort of gang rape scene in the third, so I have no idea how Mac continues to develop as a person, since I am in the mood to not read about that.

The Ordinary Princess, by Mary Margaret Kaye

Along with Wit, Charm, Health, and Courage, Princess Amy of Phantasmorania receives a special fairy christening gift: Ordinariness. Unlike her six beautiful sisters, she has brown hair and freckles, and would rather have adventures than play the harp, embroider tapestries . . . or become a Queen. When her royal parents try to marry her off, Amy runs away and, because she's so ordinary, easily becomes the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid at a neighboring palace. And there . . . much to everyone's surprise . . . she meets a prince just as ordinary (and special) as she is!(Amazon)

The second book I read was The Ordinary Princess, because there’s nothing like reading about being mind-controlled to strip in public and present yourself for rape to get you in the mood for a children’s book! Just kidding, I was super titillated by that section of Darkfever. It’s like Ms. Moning read my mind.

So, movingonbeforeyoustarttobelieveme, The Ordinary Princess! I didn’t like it. It sounds sweet – a princess is given the gift of ordinariness, and she sets out to find her fortune. But it ostensibly celebrated ordinary people and pursuits, while giving them lives that were anything but. Look, I get that peeling potatoes can be a refreshing change of pace from the bright lights of the paparazzo, but maybe try working for more than two months before you start singing the praises of the proletariat, sister. If Princess Amy were truly ordinary, then she would have really been up the creek when she gets fired.

Let me put this into perspective for you: Amy, while picnicking one day, falls in with a group of young ladies who tell her that her days playing in the countryside are numbered, since the royal family is importing a dragon to entice young knights to fight for the privilege of the princess’ hand (and get shanghaied into marriage before they get a good look at her ordinary face). They tell her this, and add, “Ho-hum, I suppose that’s nice for them, but if only this dragon weren’t going to single-handedly destroy the countryside and eat all the livestock.” Wow, I like that attitude: Yes, the rulers of my kingdom are going to ravage the country and ruin our lives, but it’s all in an effort to get their daughter married off in some sort of underhanded scheme, so whatever.

And so Amy leaves town, and lives in the woods for awhile (why not), until her clothing falls apart and her fairy godmother tells her she needs to work, so she can get paid, and buy a dress. Amy toddles off, and gets a job right away as maid in the castle, and loves it, for whatever reason. Here is the thing, her godmother asks her, “Isn’t it great to be ordinary, isn’t it soooooo much better than being pretty?” And Amy is all, “Yeah, it’s the best!” But Amy’s been working all of six weeks at that point. That is less than half of a summer vacation. And when Amy (rightfully) gets fired, she has a fall-back position of being a fucking princess. So, I think she’s out of her gourd. Plus, how could anyone get behind a job that requires a year’s wages for a single common dress? No, really, they pay her 2 pfennigs a week, and a dress is 100 pfennigs, so she’d have to work for a year to get a new dress. And frankly, a dress you wear everyday is not going to last much more than a year. So Amy is in a job that basically pays for the clothes on her back and nothing else. What is she going to do when she’s too old to wash dishes, and carry pots, and clean things? Who’s going to want to be ordinary then, huh?

P.S. These reviews may be somewhat scattershot, since I wrote them in a fit of pique (obviously) and then went about my business for awhile, and didn't bother to edit them for posting. But I stand by every word, even if I can't remember what they were.

Atomic Element 26! Double Header Review Day

Iron Duke, by Meljean Brook

It's been nine years since the Horde, an oppressive empire from Asia, were run out of England. However, detective inspector Lady Wilhelmina Wentworth will never be able to escape their cruelty: her mother was raped during the invasion, and Mina is half Horde. Mina crosses paths with the revered Iron Duke Rhys Trahaearn, a former pirate captain who was instrumental in fighting the Horde, when a dead body is tossed on his estate. What begins as lust sparks into full-blown romance as the two learn more about the nefarious Black Guard and catch a murderous madman. Airships, zombies, nanotechnology, outlandish secondary characters, and a complicated heroine round out the novel. - Publisher's Weekly

This week's theme is two-fold: first, the obvious metallic royalty thing going on, which I find amusing, since it sounds like they belong to a single series, but in fact have nothing in common. I would totally read The Iron Dowager Queen, too! The other theme is procrastination, i.e., I read these books so long ago, I had to return them to the library, since they do not let me renew books more than once down here in this god-forsaken wasteland, but I've been putting off writing about them, until I had other things I wanted to put off more. Don't judge me, juggling onerous tasks is how I got so spry and nimble! Also, I know that doesn't make sense and I don't care. WHAT.

The Iron Duke, which I have typed as The Iron King twice now, is a really fascinating alternate history steampunk book, and although there are a few instances where I was kinda scratching my head, for the most part Ms. Brook does a good job of absorbing you into the story, and giving you enough world-building to get you interested, but not enough to overwhelm you. In Iron Duke, nanotechnology of some sort was introduced to foodstuffs imported into England (sugar, particularly), and once all the population had sufficient intake, they were activated, so that the people were controlled by the Horde, and kept insensate, apart from the brief periods of frenzy, which were basically induced orgies, meant to control the population growth.

As a brief aside, was the Horde supposed to be Asian, like, the Golden Horde? This was never explained to my satisfaction, and I will be honest with you, at first I thought they were aliens, and this was some sort of sci-fi thing, but I kinda got the impression that they were actually humans. Plus, they're sexually compatible with the English (rrrrawr), but visually separate, since people can tell from looking at Mina that's she's a hybrid. Or a half-breed. A mule. More zippers, mule! (I said, don't judge).

[PS I was just reviewing this for editing, and I realized that blurb up there totally says that the Horde is from Asia. HAHAHAHAHA, obviously my reading comprehension leaves a little something to be desired. But it's not clear in the book, is my point, nyah.]

Anyhow, Mina is pretty awesome, like the Mina from the League of Extraordinary Gentleman, who is based on the Dracula Mina (I was about to say Batman's Mina. I should not be writing this post, for real, yo), who is, by all accounts, also pretty kickass. To sum up: naming your child Wilhelmina is still a horrible thing to do to them. She is on a police force of some sort, that part's only partially important, because we get right to the good stuff right away: a body that fell on the Duke's property, who has been dropped from such a height as to break every bone in his body, and leave him a gelatinous sack. Also, he was frozen when he was dropped! DUN DUN DUN!

I will be honest, I only partially followed the plotline, mostly because it didn't really make much sense, and because not knowing it only slightly impeded my enjoyment of the book. This ain't no War and Peace, y'all, I don't need to remember why this pirate lady went out of her way to drop a guy on the Duke's house, which seems really stupid, since the last thing I would want is some pissed off Ironman bent on revenge chasing me around on a dirigible. In a dirigible? On a dirigible. DIRIGIBLES! One thing this book has lots of is dirigibles! Or uh, airships? Either way, a method of transportation I have no desire to try out, especially after reading this book. And seriously, how could the Duke, who is, apparently, entirely iron inside his insides, not have to like, stay in one place on the ship? Wouldn't that much iron, wandering around deck, trying to make out with people, be like, super unsteady, and tip that sucker over?

I just looked it up, and answers.com (which is a very reliable source) says that cast iron weighs 450 pounds per cubic foot. So, if he's like, five cubic feet (google failed me on my "how much cubic feet per person" inquiry, which I do have to admit is probably not asked very often, and should probably be restricted to the even more esoteric, "how many cubic feet are all the bones in the human body", which makes me sound like a serial killer), then he weighs well over 2000 pounds. You know what else weighs 2000 pounds? A small car. Can you imagine trying to have sex with a car on top of you? Really? You need help. Even if he's only like, one cubic foot worth of iron, that's still like, the same as a big fucking llama. I got sidetracked, I apologize.

So the Duke sees Mina, and thinks she's a hot piece, which he is one hundred percent correct about, and decides he's going to follow her around town, trying to mack on her, and generally being about even money in the helpful:horny odds. Now, I do have to mention, the one truly not good part of the book, is where he rapes her. I KNOW. I didn't want to say it like that, but it kinda is like that, no getting around it. She says no, he continues, because, and I forget this exactly, he's like, in some sort of sex-haze, and doesn't realize no means no. And he realizes later, and prostrates himself, and she forgives him, and they fuck off into the sunset. It's bullshit, but I got through it, and liked everything else, so my experience of the book was not ruined. It's just. . . it's rape, man, and FOR NO GOOD REASON. I have no idea why that scene was written like that. It really made me dislike the Duke, whereas I had been ambivalent before, and the eventual rehabilitation of his character just doesn't seem worth the total smear job.

Like, The Iron Duke really needed not to be a romance book, because all the non-romance parts (besides the bewildering plotlines, which I accept some blame for, I have a short memory) were great, and all the romance parts kinda skeeved me out. The world that Ms. Brook created is delightful, all the nuances, and details, and stuff, even if it's got some holes. I just wanted Mina to team up with the Duke without all the angst, and then for them to go off and like, hunt krakens and bulldoze zombies and solve crimes. I don't think that's too much to ask.





The Iron King, by Julie Kagawa

Meghan Chase has a secret destiny—one she could never have imagined…

Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school…or at home.

When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.

But she could never have guessed the truth—that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart. - From Amazon

This book is totally not like the Iron Duke, in that this is a) a teen book, b) not steampunk, c) set in Louisiana and faery, not Europe and airships, and d) not exciting. Two things this book is sorely lacking: ass-kicking and exploding zombies.

I apologize in advance, not only am I sickish (this - a runny nose and sore throat - is usually about as sick as I ever get, so I milk it for all it's worth), and have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, I also didn't have much to say about this book even right after I read it, so I'm doubly short on words now. I was very excited about the premise, and also because I got the first two chapters on my kindle, and it was very tantalizing. But now I've read the whole thing, and I am very let down. First, the characters are kinda paper-boardy. Cardboardy. Two-dimensional. Meghan is flat, Robin is flat, and honestly, I skimmed the last half of the book. I didn't want to! It was just. . . not gripping, and kinda telegraphed, so I got bored waiting for everyone to do what I knew they'd end up doing, like, twenty pages back. Except that time Meghan gets drunk on fairy juice. Did not see that coming.

But things like that were part of my discontent with the Iron King: the events didn't really flow, they seemed more like, squares on a gameboard, like now you have a chase scene, now you have a dance scene, now you have your three main characters face-off and wow, I'm bored just trying to describe it. I feel badly, since it's not a bad book, I just sorta was expecting better, and it's so bland. It was a let-down.

Plus, you gotta compare it to that other book about going into fairyland to switch a changeling back, Heir to Sevenwaters, by Juliet Marillier, and this one just does not compare. Not that the changeling isn't frightening. That's some Omen shit right there. I've been trying to think of something else to say about this book, and it's just not coming. It really is that bland. So I am going to bed. I hope you'll all join me for the next installment, The Iron Maharaja.

The False Princess

The False Princess, by Eilis O'Neal

Princess and heir to the throne of Thorvaldor, Nalia has led a privileged life at court. But everything changes when she learns, just after her sixteenth birthday, that she is a false princess, a stand-in for the real Nalia, who has been hidden away for her protection. Cast out with little more than the clothes on her back, the girl now called Sinda must leave behind the city, her best friend Kiernan, and the only life she's ever known.

Sent to live with her only surviving relative, Sinda proves inept at even the simplest tasks. Then she discovers that long-suppressed, dangerous magic runs through her veins, and she realizes that she will never learn to be just a simple village girl. Sinda returns to the city to seek answers. Instead, she rediscovers the boy who refused to forsake her, and uncovers a secret that could change the course of Thorvaldor's history forever.

I apologize y'all. I have been sitting on this book (not literally) for a couple of weeks, because it's been so difficult to find time to write out a review. It's a madhouse! A MADHOUSE! Good, the insanity didn't take long. Regardless and irregardless, contrariwise, the fact remains that time has passed, and I'd already forgotten the heroine's name. It happens every time! Names are generally the first thing I will forget about a less-than-memorable book (unless they put it right in the title, Princess Ben), and even in books I like, occasionally. Sometimes I'll get ahead of the curve and skip the step of learning them in the first place.

I have not, however, forgotten the plot of the book yet, so let's get this show on the road before I finish my slow descent into senility. Nalia-now-Sinda gets called before the King and Queen and the two senior magicians, who inform her that she's not the princess, but actually the most elaborate body double ever, and she is being sent back off to live with whatever remains of her family. She gets shuffled off to her aunt's place, and tries to fit in, feeling sorry and sorrier for herself, until she almost burns the house down and realizes she's magical. Since, apparently, uncontrolled magic is a danger to everyone around her, you'd think that the kingdom would be prepared to handle novice magicians, but instead of accepting her into their special magic school, or something else constructive, like uh, imprisoning her or sending her away from the crowds of people in the capital, they let her cry about her rejection until this old woman magician, Philantha, shows up randomly and decides to train her.

Good thing Philantha showed up! Because otherwise, she would have had to do what all those other poor, magic-filled kids did . . . . which I assume, based on Sinda's fears, involved blowing themselves and everyone around them up. This obviously doesn't concern the king and queen at all, since they've allowed this state of affairs to continue, but it seems kinda reckless. Say, as reckless as allowing someone to take your child away and pretend she's a novice nun and steal part of her soul while you slot in a peasant baby in her place. Because THAT plan was a guaranteed winner, amirite? What could possibly go wrong there?

So anyhow, Sinda hooks up with Kiernan, and they. . . something something, I can't remember how it ends, but your mother's a whore. No, just kidding, they discover that Nalia 2.0, electric boogaloo, is also not the real princess, so they go haring off to find the third to complete the set.

I didn't mind the book, it is, as they say, mostly harmless, and it's an interesting concept. My issues are that the plot hinges way too much on deus ex machinas and leaps of logic that aren't earned by the characters. For instance, the key to the identity of the dirty double crosser relies on a chance statement that this oracle wished her family could have seen her be invested, or whatever it is they do to oracles down there. How Sinda and Kiernan get from that to the fact that it was a relative who asked her to give a false prophecy, I have no idea. It's not like the oracle was like, "OH, how I wish that MY FAMILY was here. I would do anything for them! They are the only people I trust in the WHOLE WORLD."

And plus, if Nalia 2.0 has to undergo constant upkeep on the spell to keep her and everyone else thinking she's the princess, then didn't Sinda have to do the same thing? Were they wiping her memory like that every week? Because that is never addressed, and I gotta tell you, it would be my first concern. Like, sure, not in the initial overload of information, but somewhere down the line, as she's picking flowers for her auntie, you'd think the wheels would be turning, and she'd go, "WAIT A SECOND. Those fuckers hypnotized me into forgetting I was wandering around getting magical maintenance done!" And then check to see if she was missing a kidney. And what exactly does this spell do, besides giving the double a birthmark? Because, honestly, I feel a tattoo would be simpler. I get that parts of the real princess's soul were transferred, but I'm missing the reason for it - I mean, was it just for the benefit of wandering magicians who felt the urge to check out the princess's aura? Because it didn't give Sinda any royal abilities, which you'd think would be kinda the point of going through this exercise to begin with.

So, obviously, I have issues. But it's not a terrible book, even if you do get a little tired of Sinda's does-he-doesn't-he attitude toward Kiernan, like, he does. Trust me, he does. It's just that I feel like the author was trying to accomplish more than just a inoffensive teen fantasy. There's stirrings of social reform in there, but it's all a little dulled. I think it could benefit from a tightening up. All in all, it doesn't quite stand-out from any of the other teen fantasy books out there, it's not wretched, it's not great.

Hush

Hush, by"Eishes Chayil"

Inside the closed community of Borough Park, where Brooklyn's Chassidim live, the rules of life - everything from how to dress to whom to marry - are very clear, determined to the last detail by an ancient script written thousands of years before. Then young Gittel witnesses an unspeakable act of violence against her best friend, Devory, an act that goes against everything she's been taught as a Jew. For the first time in her life, there are no guidelines to tell her what to do, so she remains silent. But even inaction has consequences, and sometimes they are deadly.

Now a teenager, Gittel is racked with guilt over the choices she made and those that were forced upon her by the community she once trusted. She must question everything about herself - her own innocence, her memories of the past, and the beliefs of her sect - to find peace for Devory and for herself.

Hush bears a lot of similarities to Fox Girl - starting with the opening narration. In Fox Girl, Hyun Jin dreams of her friend Sookie, from years past; in Hush, Gittel speaks to her best friend, Devory, whom we are told is dead. I really enjoyed Hush, and I hope that anyone reading this will not be dissuaded from picking it up when I say it resembles Fox Girl once again, as it deals with child sexual abuse, albeit in a radically different setting. Hush is set in a Jewish Orthodox community in New York in 2008, although it could easily have taken place anytime in the last fifty years, as the readers realize how little this community has changed, and indeed how they make this immutability a canon of their religious and social lives. The particular Chassidim (perhaps more commonly known as Hasidic Jews) in Hush are fictionalized (as is the author's name - Eishes Chayil is a pseudonym meaning Woman of Valor), but that a large pocket of such people live in Borough Park in Brooklyn is not. In fact, if you watch The Daily Show, you may recall an episode about the erection of an eruv in Westhampton Beach in March of this year, which is a boundary line enclosing a Chassidic community space. They also made the news last month, in much sadder circumstances, when a young Chassidic boy was found dismembered after a two-day long search after he missing on his way home from school. And now that I've made you all depressed, time to talk about Hush!

Besides being a moving book about child abuse and trauma, it's also an engrossing peek into an entirely different kind of world (at least for me, and I dunno about you all, but I doubt very much I have a large, or even existent, Hasidic readership. Feel free to lambast me about it in the comments). It is a world so divorced from my own experiences, I did doubt at times that it was even possible. How could one maintain such ignorance and such isolation in this period of over-sharing and intrusiveness? Gittel, to us, has only a child's knowledge of the world - she doesn't know facts about the human body that I learned by the time I was ten - and one of craziest (and most hilarious) scenes in the book is when she gets into an argument with her husband about the fact that she has breasts. Cause, you know, he's never seen 'em on a Chassidish woman before. At last, the bra's true purpose of destroying the very fabric of society is revealed!

Hush is actually two halves - the first is set in 2008 and flashes back to 1999, when Devory and Gittel are nine years old. The second half takes place entirely in the present, from 2008 to 2010. Hush concerns itself more with the aftereffects of the trauma than the trauma itself. We see the terrible burden that being the survivor has placed on Gittel. The problem here is not that no one cares about what is being done to their children, but that in a community which prides itself on adherence to rules they have been following for thousands of years, and a vast gulf between their world and the outside world, there is no outlet for this situation. It is a shameful secret which brings more condemnation on those who tell their stories and rock the boat than on those who commit the assault. These things are hushed up, not to protect the perpetrators, but to protect the innocent.

The results are predictably catastrophic. With no way to comprehend what she has seen, and no outlet for her questions and her story, Gittel turns all her guilt inward. Even though she was only a child, and even though she did her best to speak for Devory, she winds up blaming herself for not doing more, for not bringing the wrath of the community down on her, if it would have saved her friend. One thing I particularly liked about this book was the loving relationship Gittel had with her own family, especially her father. Her parents don't repress her out of malice, but out of love, out of the knowledge that Gittel's future will be forever stained if the truth comes out. And even though you shrink from a community which has such beliefs that they would punish the victim over the abuser, by the end of the book, you realize that this isn't because of any ill-motive, but because they see this as one more threat to their way of life, a way of life that they have all fought hard to maintain. It is the great irony of the book that such terrible actions come from a place of love. I've tagged this entry as "tragedy" but it isn't, really, because by the end of the book, Gittel has spoken, and she has opened a light into this world, and it has not destroyed them all.

The first half of the book is Gittel coming to terms herself with what happened, and finally being able to name it as rape. I liked the second half better, since it had more humor, but this part was compelling and necessary to realize the impact that it had on her, years later. Gittel was in the position of seeing Devory's cries for help, but being unable to do anything about them. You feel though her not only the trauma of having seen this horror, but having everyone pretend that it did not happen, which compounds the original horror tenfold. It is only through her goyim (non-Jewish) neighbor that she gathers the courage to speak to a social worker about it.

The second half deals with Gittel's marriage, and her publication of the truth. I will admit, I cried a bit when Gittel wrote her public letter to Devory. Which is the greater crime, the rape of a nine-year old child, or the systematic repression of the truth? I can only hope that a similar sea change is sweeping the Orthodox community, as it is only with knowledge and openness that such crimes can be combated.

I was incredibly fascinated with all the details of Gittel's life - the ban on pets and televisions, the one-track future for the girls, the ritualized cleaning, the expensive hats, the arranged marriages, and the pressure to bear children. Gittel and her husband are two perfectly reasonable, nice people, and yet the rigid guidelines of their lives put them so much at odds. The only thing keeping them together is this common faith, and yet that same faith prohibits even a comforting touch, or a frank discussion. It's a wonder to think that more people don't go round the twist.

Hush is certainly eye-opening, and it's an incredible account simply of what it means to be a Hasidic girl in New York. It also manages to make the Chassidim sympthetic, which is harder than it sounds, given that they have allowed child sexual abuse to flourish under their watch, out of fear. Gittel is also a charming narrator, and you get a feel for her character - stubborn and just as difficult as any adolescent going through puberty, and yet godly and strong in her faith. I was exceptionally pleased for her when her husband turned out to be such a stand up fellow. There is such a danger of abuse, given that this faith and community rests on the fragile pact each member has made to abide by the rules, which are obviously not designed for slackers.

The author has the ability to find the humor in the odd situations her characters' background puts them in, like when Gittel and her parents get so excited about a possible match they forget to ask his name or even if he speaks English, or when Gittel gets into a debate with her cousin about which sect is holier, the litvish or the Chassidish, and it devolves into an argument about whether a husband ought to help his wife with the dishes. As it turns out, nine year-olds are nine year-olds and teenagers are teenagers no matter if they grow up to get married at eighteen, or go on to a co-ed dormitory in college. Everyone has had that experience of accidentally turning out the lights on Shabbos, and everyone has sulked about the resultant scolding.

At last, we end on a message of forgiveness and hope, and of a bright future for Gittel, in which the memory of Devory has finally been sapped of its bitterness. Gittel says that the day of marriage is when a Jew is reborn, but it seems to me that Gittel gets reborn the day she's finally able to say goodbye to Devory.





And a final note to apologize if I screwed up any of them tenses of terms - I'm not sure about the endings on some of the words, so I sort of went with what made sense at the time.

The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice what the public sees as modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers."

The problem with critiquing Ayn Rand is that she anticipates most of your arguments and makes fun of them in her books. You wind up feeling ridiculous for calling her out on her lack of empathy or humanity when it is clear that she abhors both. And anyway, it would be a waste of time since she demonstrably believes that any critiques which do not value her are simply products of erroneous beliefs. Which is a convenient Catch-22 she’s got going on there. Though, to be fair, she probably wouldn’t accept praise either, unless it was given in the appropriately selfish frame of mind.

What’s frustrating about Ayn Rand (besides her cardboard characters, who are not people so much as they are things, and who serve to merely act out some weird Kabuki play of melodrama rather than make any pretense of behaving like real people, mostly because there are no people who are like the characters in her novels) is her absolute adherence to an unworkable scheme. She, naturally, will make no attempts to make it workable, as that would be compromise, and compromise above all things is terrible to her. I feel like there are kernels of something real and important in there, but they are completely obscured by the medium – Ayn Rand and fiction do not go well together. It’s the flimsiest façade for her philosophical bent, which just aggravates me. You know the phrase, golf is a good walk ruined? The Fountainhead is a good book ruined.

And yes, I get that she basically grew up destitute because of Communism, and that would make anyone a hardened Objectivist, but she makes it such an unpleasant experience. There's a little afterword in my copy in which some of her notes during the writing of the book are printed, and there's an excerpt there about ease of access to a library, and Rand goes, "Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?" Because we don't have enough problems as it is, but we need to make it harder for people to educate themselves. I get where she's coming from, I do, and it can be frustrating that people have all these opportunities that they don't take advantage of, but it's not a great idea to get all pissy about it and effectively say, "You don't want to go up some steps to the library? Fine, wallow in illiteracy!" because the only thing that does is create more imbeciles. Rand's books are full of that idea though, the one that says, "You're not appreciating me the way I ought to be appreciated? Fine, I'm going to go sit in a hollow cave and sulk about it until you realize how much you need me!" In Atlas Shrugged, it all worked out, because people "realized" how much they needed the geniuses, so the populance were properly abject when they all emerged from the cave, but in real life? The only thing you've done is create people who have no need for you at all, because they can along just fine without you. Just because we don't have savants shipping the steel across the country doesn't mean it won't get done. Just not as efficiently, maybe. Books will still be written, houses still put up.


You might ask, why am I reading this book when I obviously don’t enjoy it? Well, I’m reading it for a book group. Also, I didn’t think I would find it as tiresome as I have, because I’ve read Atlas Shrugged before, and I found it entertaining and provocative. Part of my weariness with The Fountainhead is because I’ve seen it all before (if you’ve read one Ayn Rand you’ve read them all), and part of it is because I’m no longer fourteen. Ayn Rand would say it’s because I’ve already betrayed my own soul (this is not speculation, it’s in the foreword to my edition of The Fountainhead), but I think it’s just because I’ve met a lot of selfish people and the shine as worn off. You’re old hat now, Rand.

Ayn Rand is hard to like, because she does not respect you. In her mind, why should she? You haven’t proven yourself to her at all. She’s like the Kanye West of philosophy, except really unlikable, because she doesn’t even seem to be having fun looking down from her throne. At least Kanye knows how silly he sounds. But when Rand lords it over you, it’s a duty, not a pleasure. It’s certainly an interesting paradox, as to why when Kanye sings, “There’s a thousand yous, there’s only one of me,” that you can’t help but like him for it, even though you know he probably believes it, but when Ayn Rand says, "You have already betrayed your own soul because you compromise with others," you're like, "Right back atcha, beeyotch!"

Let’s get to the meat of the book. It’s about Howard Roark, who is an architect, wonderful or ruinous depending on who you ask, and all the people who seem oddly determined to put him down. Why? Who knows. Because people of genius are like the flames to which moths are drawn, I suppose. Rand likes to have her characters monologue for entire chapters about their creeds, but honestly, I still couldn’t quite fathom what Toohey (the Big Bad) gained from his shenanigans. I mean, possibly power over the people, but what did that get him? Just the satisfaction of being puppetmaster? I mean, no one even acknowledges that he is the one in control. That’s gotta be lonely. And that seems like a completely disproportionate workload in order to get the string-pulling power that he has. Maybe it’s just my objectivist showing, but he goes to all this effort to make sure that all artistic impulses in New York . . . come out mediocre? Just to . . . prove he can? What? I mean, couldn’t he just as easily manipulate the people into making nice things, and then at least have something decent to read, or watch?

Anyhow, Roark builds some stuff, and gets some praise, some criticism for it, he hooks up with (by which I mean rapes) Dominique Francon, who then spends the rest of the book married to other people, because she – I dunno, wants to prove how miserable she can be, I guess- and then builds a housing project which he blows up after too many other people try to put decorations on it, and then he goes on trial for it. But it’s just a kangaroo court because it is a trial of PUBLIC OPINION, and honestly, I can’t imagine that the state is not going to appeal a “not guilty” verdict when the perpetrator admits right off the bat that they did it.

Rand’s ideas are also still a little bit cloudy in this book, because she spends a lot of time complaining about collectivism, but demonstrates that just about all the forces against Roark can be attributed to one man. Maybe she just hates how easily people can be led by the nose. I’m trying to elucidate the exact reasons why I don’t exactly follow Rand’s philosophy, but everything I type out seems both obvious and beside the point.

Certainly Rand’s methods of communicating her ideas are pretty abrasive and unattractive. And all her relationships have a weird D/s tinge to them or are, in this book at least, admittedly outright rape (I can’t remember exactly if it was rape in Atlas Shrugged, but it was definitely not quite vanilla) and since I can’t imagine what purpose it serves the plot or characters (except maybe that if you have the courage of your convictions, raping people is a fine idea) so it really just comes across as Rand’s personal preferences, which is gross. I don’t want to know her sex life. TMI, Ayn, TMI.

Tam Lin

Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean

The classic story about the headstrong Janet who defies Tam Lin to walk in her own land of Carterhaugh and thenmust battle with the Queen of Faery herself for possession of her lover's mortal body and soul in the twentieth century. Set in a small Midwestern college in Vietnam-era America, Tam Lin is a contemporary fantasy about a heroine poised in that twilight between youth and passion.

This review is about Tam Lin, or as I like to call it, The Evolution of an Asshole. Not in the scatological sense. More like in the four-letter word sense. Janet Carter is a real dipstick. I'm not saying she's not realistic, I mean, we all know someone who was that person in college, heck, I was that person. But even I think it's kind of rank to be all,"I know you just got broken up with in a shitty way, but I hate even pretending to be sympathetic so much I have to trade off the job with someone else," and then turn around and use them for their dorm room. That scene where Janet gets told she's really not all that big hearted was pretty much the high point of the book for me. Suck it, Janet!

But Janet truly does become a much nicer person by the end of the book - four years down the line, and she finally learns not to be such a holier-than-thou snot. This is the second time I tried to read the book, and I gotta tell you, it was painful at first. Pamela Dean makes the weird decision to spend progressively less and less time on Janet's life as we approach the climax of the book, so we get about 180 pages on the first month, then another 130 on the rest of the first year, then 60 on the entire second year, then a mere 20 on the third year, then the whole last year takes up about 55 pages. And I'm pretty sure that's only because Dean had to stuff 80% of the plot into that, otherwise it'd be, like, four pages. What's even more obnoxious about it is that Janet as a freshman isn't nearly as fun to read about as Janet as a senior. Janet as a freshman is that kid who thinks that anyone who isn't exactly like them is barely even worth pretending to be nice to. Janet as a senior actually has feelings besides superiority, canyoubelieveit?

As you might have been able to tell, I was not a huge fan of the book. And I don't even know why, because this has been recommended by so many writers and readers that I trust. I just did not like it. It doesn't help that all of the characters felt supercilious and unsympathetic, and that (as discussed above) the book feels lopsided, so that the point to which it is building is almost an afterthought, like a snapshot of a more exciting story tacked on to a long treatise on how Janet Carter spent her freshman year. Plus, I was annoyed at how Janet managed to be friends with Nick and Robin, because let's face it, these guys are some real pieces of work. I don't care how many times you've been to college, when you attend a play, you sit your ass down and you shut the fuck up. People who talk and sigh loudly and wiggle around to impress upon you that how much greater their opinion of the play is than the play itself are jerkwads. Don't feed into their childish demands for attention. I once took this guy to a play (WHY, KATIE, WHY) and he basically did this thing, you know, the whole, my boredom with sitting here is more important than other people's experiences thing, and I pretty much never spoke to him again. I drove him back to his place in silence, my hands gripped tightly behind the wheel lest I be tempted to strangle him.

There was one line I particularly liked, because it swept me off into a frenzy of pleasurable imaginings, i.e., ones that distracted me from the actual story. I'm talking about the one where one of the guys is all, "Life's too short to be petty." Now, that's not a statement that I've never heard before, but this time it got me wondering, does this mean that if life were longer, it would be okay to be petty? So that people who live forever are incredibly nitpicky? Does this explain why vampires are always attracted to teenage girls in the novels? Is it just like cleaving unto like? I've always thought if I had a lot of time on my hands I would be pretty chill about the whole thing and not get fussed about the little details, but maybe not. Maybe I would be like, "You returned my book with dog eared pages? I'ma get you arrested for making pot brownies."

And I just could not get behind all the literary quotes in the book. I am not an English major. In fact, I hate English classes, mostly because most English teachers are fans of the "But what does Hamlet's talk with Yorick's skull mean?" school of thought whereas I am more of the, "It means Hamlet's off his rocker," school. And the more irksome I find a character, the less inclined I am to examine their motivations (I loathe Hamlet, and for that matter most of Shakespeare's 'great' tragedies. I cannot and will not give up my abiding loyalty to Titus Andronicus and The Comedy of Errors, which my eighth grade teacher infuriatingly dismissed as "bathroom humour." Someday I will get you back for that comment, Ms. Banks. Of course, when I was younger I also liked Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom best, so maybe my taste is suspect). So all the deep character-revealing excerpts from poems and such that they all quote was just wasted on me. It was all tedious. Like that scene in Gattaca that my mother and I like to do to each other, where Jude Law just drawls, "I'm bored of talking to you. I'm bored." Gosh, that movie is good. And I hate that Janet quotes all these long passages. Robin and Nick also bother me, yes, but I am willing to give them a pass because when I'm five hundred years old maybe I'll have memorized Spenser's entire canon, who knows. But Janet? Uh uh. No one who is not actually (so many actuallys in this post!) a five hundred year old poet would have all that memorized. Heck, I couldn't even get the Jude Law quote right when I first typed it!

I will say that the end of the book is pretty fun, though. I don't think it's worth slogging through the beginning, but maybe it's better to have a terrible beginning and a good ending than a good beginning and a terrible ending. I'm still confused about all the pregnant girls who committed suicide though. Is Dean suggesting that these guys knocked the girls up and then the girls were so upset they committed suicide? Or that the girls couldn't manage to rescue the boys so they committed suicide after their lovers' deaths? It was weird. And how come nobody noticed that all the classics majors are like, seven year seniors? Doesn't it worry the dean of the school that no one in the classics program is graduating on time? And how is it possible to switch from Classics to English and yet still have to take three additional years of credits, how does nothing from Classics fulfill the English requirements? It's not like you're switching from film production to chemistry.

I have no more to say on this book. It's boring, I'm bored.

Fox Girl

Fox Girl, by Nora Okja Keller

Set in the aftermath of the Korean War, Fox Girl is the story of its forgotten victims, the abandoned children of American GIs who live in a world where life is about survival. The "fox girl" is Hyun Jin, who is disowned by her parents and whose life revolves around her best friend, Sookie, a teenage prostitute kept by an American soldier, and Lobetto, a lost boy who makes a living running errands and pimping for neighborhood girls.

I was describing this book to my mother and I said, "I dunno, it kinda looks like a children's book, but I don't think it is," and she said, "I hope it's not a children's book." And then I said, reflecting on it, "Yeah, probably not, there's a pretty brutal gang rape scene in there," and then she was silent, probably in respect of my absolute inability to delineate what makes a children's book a children's book. And I don't want to spoil the book for you, but trust me, you're gonna thank me later for not letting you get to that scene unprepared.

Fox Girl is the story of Hyun Jin, who kinda gets sucked into the world of prostitution and sex slavery by accident. She's born with a bad luck mark, a large black splotch, on her face, and it is an ill-fated mark of her destiny. Throughout the book, the tale of the fox girl is told several times, in different incarnations - in some versions, she is a a thief and a murderer, in others, she is merely trying to fit in, in a world which isn't hers. Hyun Jin is all of these girls, both victim and abuser, as she charts her course through the camptown life.

As the book begins, Hyun Jin and Sookie are best friends, despite their differences, mostly because Hyun Jin is a teacher's pet and Sookie is a half-American whore's daughter and they share a bond of being outcasts. Events begin to spiral out of control when Sookie's mother, Duk Hee, disappears to the "Monkey House" which is a hospital and provider of abortions. As Sookie struggles to survive in her mother's absence, Hyun Jin is a terrible friend, bringing her food only when she remembers, and only when Sookie is agreeable enough to her will. When Duk Hee's American GI boyfriend comes looking for her and finds Sookie, starving, instead, things begin to take on a tinge of inevitability for Sookie. Hyun Jin, who really is kind of a bitch, still can't manage to untangle herself from Sookie, and winds up getting disowned and thrown out on the street after discovering that she is not the daughter of two upstanding Korean citizens, but Sookie's half-sister, the child of Duk Hee and Hyun Jin's father, who wanted a child but could not get one with his sterile wife. Her father's love is not enough to overcome his wife's hatred of the ill-marked child who was given to them, and who utters the self-fulfilling prophecy that blood will tell. Hyun Jin winds up staying with Lobetto, a half black, half Korean boy who runs errands and hangs about with Hyun Jin and Sookie sometimes. When Hyun Jin finally gives in to economic pressure, Lobetto is all too ready to introduce her to her new reality.

In some ways, Hyun Jin's introduction into the world of sex slavery is worse than Sookie's, and is all the more brutal for her naivete. I really wanted to shake Hyun Jin, about 80% of the time. You see her just not getting it, and you want to yell at her for her stupid choices. It's a feeling I tried not to have, since she is more than repaid for her stupidity. The unrelenting stubbornness and take no shit attitude which got her into the mess in the first place is also what helps her claw her way out of it, though. I have to say, the most unrealistic part is when she becomes "popular" because she knows how to individually accommodate each man she services, because if there's one thing about Hyun Jin that sticks out, it is her absolute inability to read people or compromise.

The gang-rape/de-virginizing of Hyun Jin leaves her pregnant, which she (irrationally) decides to keep. When she loses the baby, in suspicious circumstances, she loses herself as well for a time, until she discovers that Sookie is pregnant. Hyun Jin makes a devil's pact: Hyun Jin will support Sookie if Sookie will keep the baby. In a world where the market is flush with young Korean girls prostituting themselves for GIs, Hyun Jin distinguishes herself by allowing any indignity to be performed on her body. After the baby is born, however, Hyun Jin finds it in herself to fight for a better future.

I know that's a lot of plot up there, but I kinda need to talk it all out, like therapy. I can't really do a critical review as I am still turning over the story in my mind. This is a killer of a book, and all the more sorrowful because this world is not a fantasy, it is history. The three young people who make up the center of the story - Hyun Jin, Sookie, and Lobetto - are sadly cruel to each other, demanding everything that it is possible to give. Lobetto and Sookie are more straightforward than Hyun Jin - they just want her body and her cooperation, while Hyun Jin wants their hope. They are all oddly loyal, even as they make each other's lives wretched.

It's in many ways a story that says that the family you are born with is not as important as the family you create. Despite the ways in which they use and abuse each other, Hyun Jin, Sookie and Lobetto are also the only ones keeping each other afloat, and Lobetto's final act is to give Hyun Jin the chance he never had. But at the same time, their closeness is poisonous, their ties to each other also binding them into the same old patterns. Only by separation are the three of them granted a future.

Besides being an absorbing, if depressing, look at the problems created by the American military in Korea, I'm not entirely sure what I should be taking away from the book. I don't think it's hopeful - even as Hyun Jin narrates her last chapter, she alludes to the fragile peace of her home, and the ever-present threat of destruction. In the end, Hyun Jin must let go of Sookie, her dark sister, who cannot leave the only world she's ever known. You'd be messed up too, if you were her, but you still can't help but hate a world that makes people like Sookie and Lobetto, and then abandons them.

It also suggests that you cannot escape fate - Sookie and Lobetto's courses were set for them long before Hyun Jin realized the depths to which you can sink, and only Hyun Jin, who was never raised in that world to begin with, manages to escape it by the end of the book. In a way, blood did tell, just not the way in which her mother believed it would. You almost don't want to root for Hyun Jin, because she is what Sookie accuses her of being: the fox girl who, taken in by a human family, eats them all in her hunger. But her courage and bravery make you admire her in spite of yourself.

It's a tough subject, and a tough read. Keller does a good job with the writing, and the twisted English phrases which mean nothing to Hyun Jin give off a detached feeling of unreality. It's a good book, and it makes me want to read more about it in detail, in a non-fiction format. South Korea has a prostitution problem, created by WWII, and exacerbated by the American military afterwards. What has been done is shameful, but there is hope for the future.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed himself in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book. Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.

I hope everyone is ready for another nonsensical post in which I ruthlessly try to extract meaning using only my unaided brain. You bring the popcorn, I'll bring the metaphors. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which I am only typing out once, and will now abbreviate to K&C which sounds like a baking powder manufacturer,¹ is a thick, pulitzer-winning book on comics, golems, jews, homosexuality, WWII, magic, and, most important of all, escapism. I actually read this book because of my overweening curiousity about my family's copy of the book, which was given to my brother many years ago by a young man who was hitting on him. My brother was, at the time, both seventeen and a clerk at the bookstore where it was bought. Customers take note: Don't be gross and hit on the hardworking members of the service industry when they are just doing their jobs to serve you, especially when they're still in high school, you creepoid. Anyway, so this guy gives my brother K&C, which has an inscription that says:

"Apparently this one's a good one for some such as we who are headed to 'The City'. Drop me a line."²

And ever since then, I have been dying to know what the fuck he meant by that. What is "The City"? Who is going there? Why is it capitalized? What does it all mean?!?!?!? and it's only taken me ten years to find out!

Scratch that, I still don't know what it means. There is not, as far as I can tell, a "City" in K&C. There is a city, New York City, in fact, but not a "City". And it's not like my brother going to a real city at the time, he was actually going to be moving out of a city. So I can only assume it was a metaphorical city. Maybe we can take a hint from Captain Hammer of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, who seems like a man who knows his way around a metaphor:

"The hammer is my penis."

Oh, well, okay then. I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore, but I think I should get back to the book, which is ostensibly the reason we're all here today.

I think that Kavalier&Clay is a well-written, thoroughly exhaustive book. That's not to say it didn't have problems. But the problems that crop up in a book of Kavalier&Clay's caliber are not the same kind of fun-destroying problems that crop up in, say, "The Sheik's Pregnant Heiress Secretary". I mean, even if you're not swept along in it, at least you won't hate yourself afterwards.

Let's get the story out of the way first: It begins, well, not quite at the beginning, when Josef Kavalier and Samuel Klayman meet for the first time. Then we back track to Josef's daring escape from Prague during the crackdown on Jewish citizens, and moves forward into Kavalier & Clay's partnership, their comic hero the Escapist, and jogging swiftly through the build-up to and entry in WWII, with Josef's struggle to free the rest of his family and their first romantic relationships, before jumping abruptly twelve years later, and the final act.

One of the things I didn't find particularly great about Kavalier&Clay was that I felt that it was one-sidedly plot-driven, rather than character driven. It seemed sometimes like Joe and Sam were blown always by things happening to them, and never by making things happen themselves. It's as though they were little pinballs, wound up and let loose, buffeted by outside forces into changing directions but never themselves making a choice. In the final part, there is a story about Harry Houdini and his wife, no more than a few pages long, and I felt like I got to know the wife better than I knew Joe or Sam. They had quirks, yes, but put them in an unfamiliar situation, and I could not have said which way they would jump. My standards might have been a tad high, since I was also catching up on episodes of Friday Night Lights when I was reading Kavalier&Clay, and that show does character like nobody's business. It does character so well that you actually forget that half of the show is made up of absolutely asinine and/or ridiculous plots like the time they made a sidekick geek high schooler character murder a rapist/stalker who then covers it up and lies to the police about it. Like, this show is about a high school football team, what the shit is that? And yet! That is the beauty of character.


The flipside to this equation though, is that the plot is absolutely stunning. (It'd have to be or else the book would have been mulched). It's very in the spirit of comic book heroism, and Chabon exploits that by setting his characters up, often at the beginning of a chapter or a section, in a weird or wonderful situation, and then later going back to the origins and working up to why, for example, Joe is suddenly threatening to jump off the Empire State Building after a 12 year absence. Haha, SPOILER! It's hard for me to explain if you don't know anything about comics, but it's very !comic book cover! wait, wait, actual story line, things that give the cover context and make it less absurd. Chabon really brings the events to life, and they're also very comic book in that they're larger than life, everything, all the time. Joe doesn't just enlist in the navy - he gets sent to Antarctica, and lives in a snow tunnel and everyone around him dies of carbon monoxide poisoning and then he and his crazy bunker mate make a pact to kill the last person on the continent who is a Nazi, only his pilot gets a burst appendix, so he crashes the plane, and then Joe tries to make conciliatory overtures to the German, but the German gets shot anyhow, and Joe winds up dragging this dead body along the ice for miles, and meanwhile you're like, what the...? How is nothing in that previous sentence made up?! I swear to you, it's true.

My other beef with Chabon is how he thinks I (and you too) am a Special Slow student.³ Yes, it may take awhile for things to sink it, but you don't need to shout, Michael. I am referring, in particular, to the scene in which Sam and Joe dream up the Escapist, and Chabon does this:

Page 119:

Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Every golem in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina’s delectable goat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat — was, literally, talked into life. Kavalier and Clay - whose golem was to be formed of black lines and the four colour dots of the lithographer - lay down, lit the first of five dozen cigarettes they were to consume that afternoon, and started to talk.

(And side note, how fucking awesome is that? Blew my mind. Chabon can write, no doubt about it. But he doesn't think much of his readers).

And then page 134:

The sound of their raised voices carries up through the complicated antique ductwork of the grand old theater, raising and echoing through the pipes where it emerges through a grate in the sidewalk, where it can be heard clearly by a couple of young men who are walking past, their collars raised against the cold October night, dreaming their elaborate dream, wishing their golem into life.

Like, okay, you were right, I needed that kick in the pants to get it the first time around. They are creating a golem, a creature enlivened by words and given a soul and sent off into the world. I was amazed, I hadn't made the connection. But your insistence on repeating yourself cheapens the effect. It's a golem! I got it! You don't need to bludgeon me with it.

And if that doesn't make you nuts like it did me (I can be tetchy, I admit it), how about their names, Kavalier and Clay? Could you get more anvil than that? Kavalier is not cavalier, exactly, but he is a cavalier, a soldier, a mounted gallant tilting madly at windmills. His whole mission: Escape from Prague: Family Edition embodies that romantic, stubborn era. Meanwhile, his buddy "Clay" over there is the embodiment of solidity, of opaqueness, and also represents the final golem of the book, clay brought to life by his own words, his fatal testimony. It's like Chabon didn't trust us to get it, so he was like, I'll put the fucking clue bus in there, that'll run em down.⁴ That, to me, is Chabon saying this:

"The hammer is my penis."

Another big theme of the book is escapes. Literal and figurative. The comics are escapism, the hero is called the Escapist, and Joe literally escapes twice: once in Prague to avoid death, once in New York City to avoid life. Sammy only manages to escape by the skin of his teeth, which is a lot more horrible than it sounds, before he escapes a final time, which is not so much an escape as it is a release.

You know what this book actually needs more of? It ain't four dollar words. I think it needs more golem! Now, I will warn you, everything I know about golems I learned from Terry Pratchett (I feel like I said that about something else in this blog, which is either sadly indicative of schools these days, or awesomely indicative of Sir Terry). However. I was more affected by the opening of the golem's coffin than I was by Tommy's death (Caveat: this may have been because I was like Han Solo in the garbage chute, all "I have a bad feeling about this," in regards to Joe's one-man crusade to rescue a boatload of children (not an exaggeration) and I am nothing if not an inveterate ahead-reader when I get anxious about inevitable tragedy). I may have also misled myself (I accept all blame for this) into believing that Kavalier&Clay would involve some sort of golem revenge-rampage, which I think would really have lightened the mood and given us all something to cheer for.

I can't remember if I wanted to talk about anything else, but I will say that it's worth a read, it's work, it won't necessarily be a delight, but I think it's worth the time, and it'll make you feel smarter. It's a unique book, that's for sure, unless there's a whole comic-book-origin-story-spirals-into-madness-and-skinned-dogs subgenre I'm missing out on. Don't expect much depth, but the pop and sparkle are enough to make you forget about it for awhile. Now I have to go breath life into this particular golem, which I hope lurches all over your doorstep, shedding mud everywhere. Get it? I made a golem. Of words. Fine, I'll spell it out for you:

The golem is my penis.

¹I pretty much know Where the Red Fern Grows by heart. I mean, how else could Billy have saved up $50 to buy his two pups if not for his trusty KC Baking Powder can?! Does this book still make me cry even though I've read it, like, seventeen times? Am I tearing up right now? YES and YES.


²Although it is not important for this anecdote, you may be interested to know that this gesture might have gone to better effect if my brother were actually gay himself. Moral of the Story? DO YOUR RESEARCH.



³Not that this is relevant at all, but why is the entire text of Up the Down Staircase on some Russian website? Complete with doodles and everything! Sometimes the internet mystifies me. And often it does so while violating copyright laws, so this is a red-letter day all around, I'm sure.




⁴What's with all this swearing? It's not the heat, it's the humidity; I should have written this yesterday, when it was abnormally cool outside. Instead I'm in here trying to keep my fingertips from sweating.

The Piper's Son

The Piper's Son, by Melina Marchetta

Five years have passed since Saving Francesca, but now it's Thomas Mackee who needs saving. After his favourite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can't forget. Shooting for oblivion, he's hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt, work at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father. Tom's in no shape to mend what's broken. But what if no one else is, either?

Look, y'all know how much I love Melina Marchetta, and if you don't, then, uh, I'm sorry that my statement, "Marchetta has always been one of my favorite authors," was too subtle for your peanut sized brain. Plus, Saving Francesca was always one of my top books, top. It's unlikely that I will ever be able to write about it because any kind of objectivity goes out the window when I talk about it, it would basically be me typing things like, "And then the eggs, and she makes friends, and Tolstoy and Trotsky, and Justine is her rock(!), and then she runs away but she calls home, and Luca, and then they get picked up at school!!!!!!!!!" and it's a big sloppy mess. Hearts in my eyes, hand to god.

So I was excited about The Piper's Son, because Frankie was always such a great character and I really wanted to know how she's doing for herself, five years on. The Piper's Son is tonally a fairly different book than Saving Francesca and Searching for Alibrandi, though, and even Jellicoe Road.

The Piper's Son alternates viewpoints from chapter to chapter between Tom Mackee, the, well, kinda doofus-y guy from Saving Francesca, and his aunt Georgie. I was going to refresh my memory about Tom (I always got him mixed up with Jimmy) but I can't find my copy of the book, which is very odd, since I brought Jellicoe Road and Finnikin of the Rock down with me, and I distinctly remember squirreling away Saving Francesca to take with me, so I am suspicious about its absence. I've also misplaced something else that I can't seem to find anywhere, so I'm wondering if there's some Bermuda Triangle box that I haven't unpacked all the way where all these wonderful items are hiding. Or if I'm just losing my mind and they're right out in plain sight.

Now that I'm completely sidetracked, let's talk The Piper's Son! But first, a short digression about Finnikin of the Rock. This book is messed up, man. It's well written, for sure, but it's sort of like if you were dropped into the world of Candyland, only instead of getting Gumdrop Pass and Queen Frostine, Lord Liquorice was a prisoner in the mines, Princess Lolly watched her brother murdered in front of her, Grandma Nutt had been gang-raped by soldiers, and Gloppy had died of the plague after being exiled from Molasses Swamp. It is a dark fantasy book, peeps. And I was completely unprepared for it. Marchetta usually likes to keep the major drama offscreen, so that her characters are dealing with the aftermath, more than the event itself. It's like the exact opposite of thrillers or murder mysteries, which generally move on to the next book in the series as if all these dead bodies are just another day at work, ho-hum. (Not that I'm complaining. I'm not reading Agatha Christie because I want to find out about trauma counseling.) Also, a fun fact: my brother dressed up like Lord Liquorice as a camp counselor once, probably because he enjoys making children cry.

In The Piper's Son, the great off-screen drama is the death of Tom's uncle Joe, who was blown up on his way to work in London. The death half a world away of the beloved younger half-brother of Tom's father Dom, and his aunt Georgie completely destroys the family, and Dom spirals down into an alcoholic mess that further fragments the family. Now, two years later, Tom's hit rock bottom and winds up moving in with Georgie because he's got literally nowhere else to go. Georgie has her own problems, as she's having a baby with her ex, whom she hasn't been on good terms with since he fathered a child while the two of them were on a break, seven years ago.

I enjoyed this book, although I didn't feel it had the humor that Saving Francesca had, which I'm still not sure was intentional or not. At one point in the book, Tom's grandmother and aunt are having a bit of fun at him about his thing with Tara Finke, and his grandmother goes, "Too sensitive, that one." Tom's way too sensitive about a lot of things, from his father's actions, to his need to work off the debt his skeevy ex-flatmates incurred at the pub, to his need for Tara. He needs to lighten up, Francis.

A common theme through Marchetta books is also the way the men and women always seem to have these life-or-death feelings toward each other. There's always at least one couple in which the man loves the woman to pieces really loudly, and it's just killing him inside. And the woman returns the love, but it's usually much less flailing and floppiness, and more determination and duh-ness going on for her part. That kind of unswerving loyalty is maybe the least-realistic of her books, as I've not met one couple who's expressed their feelings like that publicly (even if they feel it privately) the way that they do in Marchetta's books.

Of course, maybe the genius in Marchetta's books is the way that everyone seems to be able to say what they've been keeping in all this time, and they feel better for it, and everything works out in the end. It's like a billboard-sized advertisement for the truth shall set ye free, which I can get behind, although that happy ending is not how things usually work out in real life, sadly. I always employ a go-for-broke mentality when it comes to relationships, at least, and even though I've made quite a sight of myself, I still don't regret it, even though I'm not even on speaking terms with the people with whom I've been so honest any more.

Maybe I don't feel so strong a connection with The Piper's Son as I did with Saving Francesca because this one is more about grief and losing a sibling than about depression and feeling alone, which I have more experience with. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose my brother, and I don't want to. It still made me tear up some, though not the full-out sobfest that the others did. Marchetta is a master at the hopeful outcome, the we're-going-to-have-a-fairytale-ending-because-we'll-work-our-butts-off-to-get-it-because-we-know-the-alternative-is-terrible ending.

Georgie was not a very compelling character to me. Perhaps because of the structure of the book, with the alternating chapters, Georgie and Tom just had very different concerns (although the same grief about Joe) and it was harder to get Georgie's thoughts fleshed out. Tom was easier - I'd read him before, and he lives everything in technicolor, while Georgie is washed out in immobilizing grief, anger, and indecision. I think Georgie's issues could have been a book all their own, but because they were sort of side-alonged to Tom's, they got somewhat short shrift and wound up being an afterthought. It would have been better, maybe, to do it all from Tom's perspective, but give more scenes of him and Georgie together talking to get a sense of her problems.

I can't even tell how much of this review is about The Piper's Son, and how much is about Marchetta in general. Any book of Marchetta's is worth reading, but The Piper's Son isn't in the same class as Saving Francesca and Jellicoe Road, in my opinion, more like a Searching for Alibrandi-type, which at least isn't horrifically scarring like Finnikin of the Rock. I think I went through PTSD with that book, hand to god. It's nice to see Frankie again, although one of my most-beloved things about Saving Francesca was the deep deep friendship between the girls and Tom and Jimmy, which is missing here, mostly because half of them have moved away. I will never get tired of reading about these people though, and I'm half hopeful about the way that Marchetta leaves Jimmy out of The Piper's Son, like maybe she'll write a book about his problems, and how friends and family overcome it all, although at this point, I'm not sure what new trauma she can send him through, maybe amputation or paralyzation, and don't even think about doing that to Jimmy, Marchetta, haven't I cried enough already?!

I wanted to talk a bit about the title, which refers to Dom, Tom's father, the union man who is a natural born leader, who winds up going round the twist after Joe dies (and possibly a bit before) and leads everyone into a cave and seals them up while the rats feast on the leftovers. Wait, wrong fairytale. OR IS IT? It was a bit tricky to get a handle on the family dynamics, and I couldn't tell what to feel about the step-grandfather Bill. That could have used some more explication, I think. One thing to note though is that this too is a book about the third sibling dying and leaving the other two in pieces (a la Prince of Tides), except this is somewhat more grounded, and less over-the-top. Unfortunately, this is a terrible paragraph to end on, but I don't really want to move it somewhere else, and I've sort of run out of things to say about it.

I do want to point out that I am grading on a curve here, since I hold Marchetta to a different standard than I do, say, P.B. Ryan, whose Gilded Age mysteries are a nice treat on a Sunday night, but which do not inspire me to harangue my mother until she reads one of them, the way I forced her to read Jellicoe Road and then relished each one of her tears. Homework assignment: Am I a terrible daughter? Discuss amongst yourselves behind my back.