[Book Reviews] Books at least partially about North America
I'm glad that some of the oral traditions and stories about ravens from the Canadian First Nations are being preserved... "Tulugaq: An Oral History of Ravens" is a paired collection of collected tales and photography of the raven in situ. Sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes entertaining (I lost it at "Yukon turkeys"), it makes me contemplate a visit which I will undoubtedly chicken out of (raven out of?) because sixty below is not a temperature I wish to experience. Still, it was nice to live vicariously. Three and a half capering corvids out of five.
"Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are" is a really helpful and well thought out introduction to our neighbors here in Washington. I've spent some time with friends out at the Quileute reservation and wanted to learn more about the peninsular peoples and their history. This book, put out by a cooperative effort between tribal councils, leaders, and elders, is a helpful primer to people looking to learn. It includes maps of each tribe's lands and historical presence, commentary on language and orthography, introductions to common cultural practices and arts, and some usually pretty depressing history regarding treaties, resettlement, and how the reservations came to take their modern form. It's positive in focus when it is possible to be, discussing the skills and accomplishments of tribal members despite the weight of colonialist history, but it doesn't shy away from the ugly things that happened either. It just doesn't let those events define the lives of the peoples that it's celebrating. Much appreciated! Four greater understandings out of five.
A gift from miss_adventure, I was surprised by how many ties there were between the women depicted in "Frontier Spirit: The Brave Women of the Klondike" (mostly centered in Dawson in the Yukon) and far-flung towns across the west. Seattle and Victoria as transit hubs I expected, but the ties to Bisbee and Tombstone in Arizona were rather a surprise. I appreciated the strong and respectful (AFAICT) inclusion of First Nations women and their contributions to the history of the region, from the earliest known history of settlement to the present day. Lots of character, good and less good, in the women shown, which I also liked -- they are human and imperfect, strong-minded, sometimes foolish, headstrong in love, willing to fight, persevering through hardship. This isn't a story of idealized inspirations, this is a palette of the lives and experiences of unconventional women willing to take risks and make their ways through new experiences. I appreciated the read, I suspect it'll be even more informative if I ever do make it up to the Yukon. Four sourdough ladies out of five.
The best book I've read yet this year! (Granted, it's early, but I loved it.) "Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache" had been on my radar for a couple years, ever since I started visiting the Southwest regularly. I've been to Navajo Country, but I knew relatively little about the western Apache before reading this book. When the book club at Ada's named this as one of their picks for this year, I was delighted to have the excuse to read it. To my pleasure and surprise, many of the world reference points the author has were things I knew about from Irish culture, so while there was a great deal of listening and learning to do, I had more of a frame of reference than I had expected, going in. The book is comprised of four essays, each both illustrating and then expounding upon the use of places as referents to well known lore among the western Apache, describing how that rootedness in landscape maps to lessons in tribal behavior and values, and showing how those references are used in context to guide and instruct living people. The author talks a good deal about how neglected the use of place and geographic referents are in ethnographic studies; I would love to see if thinking about place is similarly a touchstone to history, morality, and ancestry for other tribes. Slender but thought-provoking; most readers will go away talking less and listening more. Five cultural lessons of place out of five, and my pick of this batch.
"Tales from Rugosa Coven" is a much homier fantasy than most of what you read -- character-driven rather than plot-driven, and the interaction with the supernatural is almost gentle at times. It's a little weird, but it's more "magical realism" weird than "epic fireball-throwing magic battles" weird. I very much liked the coven members dealing with the things normal people do throughout their lives, the interweaving of their religious celebrations in the everyday, the centering of problems that most folks can relate to... divorce, a partner with addiction issues, struggling with the stigma of mental health challenges, personality conflicts with people that you work with. I was disappointed in how some of the plot points resolved (I really felt for Ria!), but that's true to life for you. At least the author wrote skilfully enough that I didn't see it coming a thousand miles away, but also didn't feel that it was a complete "where did that come from" kind of solution. I did like the perspective shifts between different viewpoint characters, the way they each saw the world through their own filter, and how that colored their interactions with each other. Multi-PoV lets you understand the big picture much better! Three and a half normal people out of five.
I admit, I bought "God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre" completely for the title -- how could one not? Compelling reading, if a bit sensational, but why on earth did the protagonist stick around as long as he did? After the second time he thought he might die, I was kinda thinking "not too bright, are you?", and by the time he was doing cocaine with Mexican cops I was pretty sure that he wasn't good at this self-preservation thing. So it's a bit on the lurid side, but I was pleased to see that Grant depicts the people he meets *as* people, and not as characters in the Story Of Crazy Things He Did. (Not always a given with adventure travel books!) I learned a good deal of history about Mexican geography, economy, and history of interactions with the US, and that was valuable to me. I discovered a new Mexican author whose work I picked up based on him being quoted here several times. I found out that the author or editor of the much-beloved "Born to Run" must have done a LOT of editing of that story, since the Tarahumara are substantially present in the narrative here but their culture is presented in a much more complex fashion than it was in "Born to Run". So, a worthwhile read, but I'm still pretty astonished that the author didn't get killed by locals displeased with him blithely wandering into their territory. The ending is pretty hilariously abrupt, as indeed, he realizes that he has been stupid and That Is It, End Of Book Now, No Kind Of Reflective Conclusion, Just The End. Three and a half instances of poor judgment out of five.
Classic of Southern literature or not, I purely hated "The Moviegoer". The author can write beautifully, but the protagonist is loathsome, unapologetic, and that works out great for him. On the very first page, it's "the Negro cottages". On the tenth, it's "too many homosexuals in the French Quarter". Around page 80, it's how he feels as if he is Jewish because he goes to the movies alone, and clearly, if a man sees a Jew he feels such and so. (Because... there are no Jewish men?) He rhapsodizes about the bodies of his secretaries and women on the street without feeling more than the shallowest of lusts for them, which doesn't prevent him from trying to wheedle them into bed with false proclamations of love. When they start to have feelings back, he just gets a new secretary. He is neurotic and isolated and financially successful, I don't think he gives a serious thought in the entire book to the feelings of anyone else except his cousin whom he wants to marry, and I cannot scrape up sympathy for his struggles because they are entirely of his own making while he externalizes the costs of them like a cousinfucker. A skillfully written character study of a complete jerk, I went digging through the copyright page to see what year it was written, because I couldn't believe it had beaten out "Catch-22" for the National Book Award. Zero self-absorbed prats out of five; seriously, ugh.
In a word, infuriating. (Apparently this is my batch to get mad about books about New Orleans!) "Zeitoun" is a warm and vivid portrayal of family life in pre-Katrina New Orleans, the story of a Syrian immigrant who came to New Orleans, built a business, and fell in love. His heroic actions in helping save his neighbors in the aftermath of the storm are well framed, and I appreciated the constant threads of connection between Zeitoun and Kathy. (In many ways, this book is more the story of their relationship than anything else.) But the sudden left turn of his causeless arrest and subsequent week in jail, remarkably free of anything resembling due process, is horrifying. I've read a lot of books about events surrounding hurricane response that were depressing or frustrating, but I think this one is in the top five for straight-up civil liberties outrage. I'm glad it won all the awards that it did; four and a half cries for justice of five.
A couple months ago, Mae recommended the Welcome to Night Vale podcast to me -- she loves them. I'm still very slowly working my way through them... it turns out that I have far less time than I thought where I'm using my hands but not my mind. (You'd think athletics would be good for this, but no. Running, I need the music to keep me going. Everything else, I need to think about what I'm doing. So far, podcasts are a good match for house cleaning and, um, house cleaning.) When I heard that there was a Night Vale book, I was enthused about that -- I'd listened to enough of the podcast to have a sense of the world already, but I read way way faster than I listen. Indeed, I knocked out the book in a week. Weird and sly, the book is a worthy addition to the podcast. I'm delighted that I listened to several of the podcast episodes before reading the book, since that gave me the singular experience of hearing the whole thing in my head in Cecil's voice. The book does contain plot spoilers for the podcast, depending on how far you've gotten, but that wasn't problematic for me -- it's just the evolution of interactions between characters, rather than "well now I'm not going to bother to listen to anything in the middle". Subtle bits of truth run side by side with tales of the ridiculous and unlikely, making for excellent satire that manages to continually surprise the reader. (I think the author's taken similes with a twist to an art form.) Sympathetic characters with uncomfortably familiar personality traits engage in madcap behaviours that seem to make sense to them in the world they find themselves in. In between fits of laughing and moments of recognition, the reader tries to keep up with the world's dreamlike logic. Mostly, I succeeded. Four KING CITYs out of five.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/517748.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.
"Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are" is a really helpful and well thought out introduction to our neighbors here in Washington. I've spent some time with friends out at the Quileute reservation and wanted to learn more about the peninsular peoples and their history. This book, put out by a cooperative effort between tribal councils, leaders, and elders, is a helpful primer to people looking to learn. It includes maps of each tribe's lands and historical presence, commentary on language and orthography, introductions to common cultural practices and arts, and some usually pretty depressing history regarding treaties, resettlement, and how the reservations came to take their modern form. It's positive in focus when it is possible to be, discussing the skills and accomplishments of tribal members despite the weight of colonialist history, but it doesn't shy away from the ugly things that happened either. It just doesn't let those events define the lives of the peoples that it's celebrating. Much appreciated! Four greater understandings out of five.
A gift from miss_adventure, I was surprised by how many ties there were between the women depicted in "Frontier Spirit: The Brave Women of the Klondike" (mostly centered in Dawson in the Yukon) and far-flung towns across the west. Seattle and Victoria as transit hubs I expected, but the ties to Bisbee and Tombstone in Arizona were rather a surprise. I appreciated the strong and respectful (AFAICT) inclusion of First Nations women and their contributions to the history of the region, from the earliest known history of settlement to the present day. Lots of character, good and less good, in the women shown, which I also liked -- they are human and imperfect, strong-minded, sometimes foolish, headstrong in love, willing to fight, persevering through hardship. This isn't a story of idealized inspirations, this is a palette of the lives and experiences of unconventional women willing to take risks and make their ways through new experiences. I appreciated the read, I suspect it'll be even more informative if I ever do make it up to the Yukon. Four sourdough ladies out of five.
The best book I've read yet this year! (Granted, it's early, but I loved it.) "Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache" had been on my radar for a couple years, ever since I started visiting the Southwest regularly. I've been to Navajo Country, but I knew relatively little about the western Apache before reading this book. When the book club at Ada's named this as one of their picks for this year, I was delighted to have the excuse to read it. To my pleasure and surprise, many of the world reference points the author has were things I knew about from Irish culture, so while there was a great deal of listening and learning to do, I had more of a frame of reference than I had expected, going in. The book is comprised of four essays, each both illustrating and then expounding upon the use of places as referents to well known lore among the western Apache, describing how that rootedness in landscape maps to lessons in tribal behavior and values, and showing how those references are used in context to guide and instruct living people. The author talks a good deal about how neglected the use of place and geographic referents are in ethnographic studies; I would love to see if thinking about place is similarly a touchstone to history, morality, and ancestry for other tribes. Slender but thought-provoking; most readers will go away talking less and listening more. Five cultural lessons of place out of five, and my pick of this batch.
"Tales from Rugosa Coven" is a much homier fantasy than most of what you read -- character-driven rather than plot-driven, and the interaction with the supernatural is almost gentle at times. It's a little weird, but it's more "magical realism" weird than "epic fireball-throwing magic battles" weird. I very much liked the coven members dealing with the things normal people do throughout their lives, the interweaving of their religious celebrations in the everyday, the centering of problems that most folks can relate to... divorce, a partner with addiction issues, struggling with the stigma of mental health challenges, personality conflicts with people that you work with. I was disappointed in how some of the plot points resolved (I really felt for Ria!), but that's true to life for you. At least the author wrote skilfully enough that I didn't see it coming a thousand miles away, but also didn't feel that it was a complete "where did that come from" kind of solution. I did like the perspective shifts between different viewpoint characters, the way they each saw the world through their own filter, and how that colored their interactions with each other. Multi-PoV lets you understand the big picture much better! Three and a half normal people out of five.
I admit, I bought "God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre" completely for the title -- how could one not? Compelling reading, if a bit sensational, but why on earth did the protagonist stick around as long as he did? After the second time he thought he might die, I was kinda thinking "not too bright, are you?", and by the time he was doing cocaine with Mexican cops I was pretty sure that he wasn't good at this self-preservation thing. So it's a bit on the lurid side, but I was pleased to see that Grant depicts the people he meets *as* people, and not as characters in the Story Of Crazy Things He Did. (Not always a given with adventure travel books!) I learned a good deal of history about Mexican geography, economy, and history of interactions with the US, and that was valuable to me. I discovered a new Mexican author whose work I picked up based on him being quoted here several times. I found out that the author or editor of the much-beloved "Born to Run" must have done a LOT of editing of that story, since the Tarahumara are substantially present in the narrative here but their culture is presented in a much more complex fashion than it was in "Born to Run". So, a worthwhile read, but I'm still pretty astonished that the author didn't get killed by locals displeased with him blithely wandering into their territory. The ending is pretty hilariously abrupt, as indeed, he realizes that he has been stupid and That Is It, End Of Book Now, No Kind Of Reflective Conclusion, Just The End. Three and a half instances of poor judgment out of five.
Classic of Southern literature or not, I purely hated "The Moviegoer". The author can write beautifully, but the protagonist is loathsome, unapologetic, and that works out great for him. On the very first page, it's "the Negro cottages". On the tenth, it's "too many homosexuals in the French Quarter". Around page 80, it's how he feels as if he is Jewish because he goes to the movies alone, and clearly, if a man sees a Jew he feels such and so. (Because... there are no Jewish men?) He rhapsodizes about the bodies of his secretaries and women on the street without feeling more than the shallowest of lusts for them, which doesn't prevent him from trying to wheedle them into bed with false proclamations of love. When they start to have feelings back, he just gets a new secretary. He is neurotic and isolated and financially successful, I don't think he gives a serious thought in the entire book to the feelings of anyone else except his cousin whom he wants to marry, and I cannot scrape up sympathy for his struggles because they are entirely of his own making while he externalizes the costs of them like a cousinfucker. A skillfully written character study of a complete jerk, I went digging through the copyright page to see what year it was written, because I couldn't believe it had beaten out "Catch-22" for the National Book Award. Zero self-absorbed prats out of five; seriously, ugh.
In a word, infuriating. (Apparently this is my batch to get mad about books about New Orleans!) "Zeitoun" is a warm and vivid portrayal of family life in pre-Katrina New Orleans, the story of a Syrian immigrant who came to New Orleans, built a business, and fell in love. His heroic actions in helping save his neighbors in the aftermath of the storm are well framed, and I appreciated the constant threads of connection between Zeitoun and Kathy. (In many ways, this book is more the story of their relationship than anything else.) But the sudden left turn of his causeless arrest and subsequent week in jail, remarkably free of anything resembling due process, is horrifying. I've read a lot of books about events surrounding hurricane response that were depressing or frustrating, but I think this one is in the top five for straight-up civil liberties outrage. I'm glad it won all the awards that it did; four and a half cries for justice of five.
A couple months ago, Mae recommended the Welcome to Night Vale podcast to me -- she loves them. I'm still very slowly working my way through them... it turns out that I have far less time than I thought where I'm using my hands but not my mind. (You'd think athletics would be good for this, but no. Running, I need the music to keep me going. Everything else, I need to think about what I'm doing. So far, podcasts are a good match for house cleaning and, um, house cleaning.) When I heard that there was a Night Vale book, I was enthused about that -- I'd listened to enough of the podcast to have a sense of the world already, but I read way way faster than I listen. Indeed, I knocked out the book in a week. Weird and sly, the book is a worthy addition to the podcast. I'm delighted that I listened to several of the podcast episodes before reading the book, since that gave me the singular experience of hearing the whole thing in my head in Cecil's voice. The book does contain plot spoilers for the podcast, depending on how far you've gotten, but that wasn't problematic for me -- it's just the evolution of interactions between characters, rather than "well now I'm not going to bother to listen to anything in the middle". Subtle bits of truth run side by side with tales of the ridiculous and unlikely, making for excellent satire that manages to continually surprise the reader. (I think the author's taken similes with a twist to an art form.) Sympathetic characters with uncomfortably familiar personality traits engage in madcap behaviours that seem to make sense to them in the world they find themselves in. In between fits of laughing and moments of recognition, the reader tries to keep up with the world's dreamlike logic. Mostly, I succeeded. Four KING CITYs out of five.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/517748.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.