cry havoc

The Coffee Trader, Whitefire Crossing, Arcanum. I really think the The Lascar's Dagger deserves its own post, for reasons that will become clear.

First: I really, really want to like David Liss' work. It's historical fiction, covering a place and time and culture that really doesn't get enough press: the Jewish finance community in Amsterdam, in the late sixteen-hundreds or thereabouts. This one in particular is about a Portuguese-Jew who moved to Amsterdam with the exodus, and was doing alright until a few bad decisions have landed him in hard times and hot water with just about everyone. A non-Jewish widow of his acquaintance has an idea to corner the market on this new commodity called coffee, but wrapped up in that is the character's sister-in-law, a meddling and somewhat abusive maid, another Jewish trader of major social standing who has it in for the protagonist, the aforementioned widow, a guy ruined by his investments in the protagonist's financial disaster, and a whole bunch more, all of whom have their own agendas and methods and motivations.

It's just... they're all such jerks, even our hero, who seems to want to put himself forward as a helpless ninny who's been cast about by fortune's disfavor, but sheesh. If I wanted suffocating world-building, the tiny and (apparently) leaning-towards-orthodox, highly regimented and self-supervised community of Jews in Amsterdam are clearly it. Given the narrative makes clear the Dutch are pretty live-and-let-live, it's almost insane that the Jews create a community for themselves that's almost as repressive as any Soviet regime. I mean, it's crazy-making. I fail to see how any of the characters haven't just broken and run mad down the street.

( Various comments and complaints and whatnot behind the cut. )

Alright, onto the one that I really, really did want to like, as much as I want to like The Coffee Trader -- similar time-period to Liss' work, alt-history, taking the bones of the original and grinding a lot of it up with a heaping of original ideas, much like The Thief series. Except some important stuff got left out while something bordering on appropriation got left in, among other things.

Well, maire recommended The Riddle-master of Hed and Barry Hughart's stories, and I finally tracked down copies of each. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it past three pages of the first. It just felt too much like in media res, but not in a good way. More like I was expected to care about the siblings' squabbles, and the text was clearly indicating that I was expected to read characters in a certain way, but I'd barely even met them. It actually felt a little like I was walking into a sequel, and I was supposed to already know what was going on and who-was-who. So, guess it's a pass on that one.

Bridge of Birds... reminds me so much of the translations of Chinese stories. It's a particular style, influenced by the patterns of the original language, and Hughart does manage that. With a bit of dry humor, here and there.

However, I got sidetracked by another story, and I'm still not sure where I found the recommendation. Reiko Morgan's Over The Mountain Of The Moon is a m/m romance set vaguely during the early Sengoku, maybe, in Japan. Awfully florid and oh with the romance and declarations of luuuuuurve and the protagonist-uke veering into yandere, but relatively entertaining all the same. If you can get past the flowers and hearts of the so-romance-it-hurts variety. Not a complex plot and a bit of whump, but sometimes I guess a body's in the mood.

And then a rec from Dear Author, I think, that sent me after Master of Crows, which is your usual fantasy-romance, but with cultural elements of a steppes-influenced world bordering the, hrm, maybe central eastern European sort of world. The heroine isn't helpless nor stupid, which is a plus. Not a massively complex plot, but the hero is just as much a little off-beat as the heroine, so what might've ended up annoying spunkiness in her is toned down because he's not the usual all-bastard, all-the-time.

I quit halfway through Abraham's sequel, A Betrayal in Winter, even though I really did enjoy the first in the series, A Shadow in Summer. Abraham's managed a world that's substance of China, not so much trappings. It's very subtle, but it reminds me of stories about 19th-century Shanghai: cosmopolitan merchant-crossroads, but still China beneath the veneer of things from everywhere.

The problem for me was that the first book's emotional hinge is a triangle. Normally, I don't have a problem with this, and in the first book, it wasn't actually a problem. One hero leaves for a journey, and in his absence, his girlfriend and his closest friend become, erm, close. Things roll out that way, sometimes, after all. Technically, it's still cheating, but in the book's context, I had no issue with it.

The problem was that the second book... also hung its major emotional-plot elements on a woman cheating on her supposed intended/affianced. So again, uncomfortable triangle, with everything hanging on the woman's choice to split her attentions between two men. Once, okay, but twice is a little too much of a pattern. I had no interest in finishing the book once I realized that, and certainly no interest in carrying on to find out if the third and fourth books also turn on the emotional pivot of a two-timing woman. Pass.

Tried to read Maya Snow's Sisters of the Sword, but it's a little too YA-style for me. Not in content -- it's got some brutal scenes early on where the protagonist's family is murdered right in front of her, so I wouldn't recommend it for kids under, hm, twelve -- but stylistically. It's just a very YA kind of voice. I didn't like that at that age, and I like it less, now.

Never did finish Dragon in Chains. Awful lot of lyrical poetry, but I need a little more conflict to make me turn the page. Okay, I need conflict, period. Wasn't getting any.

On order: The Signore: Shogun of the Warring States, a fictionalized history of Oda Nobunaga by Kunio Tsuji, and The Samurai and the Long-Nosed Devils by Lensey Namioka. Ambivalent over the second, since it's been so long in print (and now out of print, I think) that I can't find an excerpt anywhere. So not really sure if I'm facing yet another YA-voiced story, even if a used copy is only a buck-fifty. (What a joke: shipping is more than twice the book itself.)

In related notes, the past night or so, we've been debating what it'd be like to have a Buddhist monk, a Catholic padre, a Daoist master, a Confucian scholar, and a Shinto priest in a room together. Although by the Heian or shortly after, the Buddhist and Shinto were probably close to the same in terms of ideology... but I still think the Confucian, the padre, and the Buddhist would be arguing over whether women are evil inherently or only evil if they don't follow the moral precepts of being barefoot and pregnant, while the Shinto priest would be in the corner playing one-sided Go. CP says by mid-Qing, the Daoist would be arguing right along with the rest, but I'd rather think of early Daoism, and that kind of priest would probably also be playing Go.

Although I'd be really curious to read anything that compared how each school of thought would react to meeting a yokai/demon in the flesh. (In the spirit?) Exorcise it? Beat it into submission to the Buddha? Instruct it in moral rules of behavior? Fear it? Or invite it to tea?

There were several issues with Paper Butterfly (Diane Wei Liang), one being that the voice was rather dry and distant, the other being that it couldn't seem to keep my attention. The reason for losing my attention, though, wasn't from the book but from my reaction, and I'm still trying to put my finger on it.

A few weeks ago or so, I recall linking to this essay [thx to soukup!] that discussed -- well, lots of things but this was one of the sub-themes -- the issue of works written for the insider group and works written for an outsider group. A significant point was that of the texts mentioned, some of them (which had been highly lauded in the West) were stuffed to the brim with a certain kind of sell-out, catering, mindset. The intended audience was clearly Western, and that audience's viewpoint was valorized over the insider/non-Western view.

( That's fuzzy, but it's a jumping-off point into a critique of Paper Butterfly, and why I stopped reading. )

Paper Butterfly — Diane Wei Liang
...trying to, at least. It's slow going, and the protagonist (a private eye in Beijing) is a little too reticent or introverted to get a handle on her. Cautious, as well, and the third-person POV is a little distant, and all of it's creating distance where I think I'm supposed to find sympathy. But I want to like the story, so I may keep trying.

Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad — Minister Faust
This is a book I can't review with any kind of distance. It was just that good, and caught me that much. Tore through it in an evening, because I simply could not stop. Now I want his next books. Like, fifteen minutes ago.

Chinatown Beat — Henry Chang
Not sure if I'll keep with this one. Decent writing, solid, but there are starting to be hints of misogyny. Not sexism (where women are less capable/able than men) but outright don't-like-women-that-much. Haven't read enough to pinpoint whether this is the narration/author or the character in particular. Problem is, not sure I want to keep reading to find out.

Southland — Nina Revoyr
I'm four or five chapters into this one, and I'm starting to get that feeling, the same one I got at this stage of The Hero's Walk, that something marvelous is unfolding in front of me. Stay tuned, will report in later.

Currently reading -- and yes, I do mean all of them --

Done Wrong — Eleanor Taylor Bland (mystery)
The Steel Remains — Richard K Morgan (fantasy)
Water Touching Stone — Eliot Pattison (mystery)
Havemercy — Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett (fantasy/steampunk)
The Hero's Walk — Anita Rau Badami (literary)
A Companion to Wolves — Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear (fantasy)

A chapter of one, a chapter of the next.

I'm thinking maybe I should pick one and stick to it. Most likely bet would be The Hero's Walk — a gracious and incredible and gorgeous work of poetic verse with a deep heart — but it also deserves to be savored, not chewed through or swallowed whole. So when I start getting anxious about sitting in one place for too long, I move to sit somewhere else in the room, and look, there's a different book right there.

Bad habit, I know, but a very old one.

Last week (after we got back), I was bored enough and hadn't read a book in awhile, felt like, so thought I'd check out what new ebooks were on offer from the publishers I like (read: who seem to be somewhat consistent in decent quality). One area I almost always check out is "multicultural", but this time I noticed something and I'm not sure whether it's me, or if it's not me.

When I say "multicultural", I mean as in: where the two (or more) main characters come from a variety of cultures. Kinda culture-clash, even if on a superficial level the characters may have a lot in common, visually. Someone from Australia and someone from Britain might look like they have distant-distant-distant kin, possibly, but culturally they're going to have some differences. The lack of a language barrier meaning the differences may be less than, say, Australia and Peru, but still, culturally it's still not quite exactly the same. Still, that's what I'd consider a watered-down multiculturalism, because between language, ethnicity, and culture (on a very broad scale), there's still a lot in common between the two characters, more than there's difference.

( When I say, multicultural, I mean, lots of cultures, coming and going and complex and textured. )

If it seems like it's an odd request, it's because I've realized that we can extend that meme about "if you don't like panels with only white guys, as a white guy, don't agree to be on panels with only white guys". If I don't like books with only white characters, stop agreeing to read/purchase books with only white characters -- and to be honest, settings in which the white culture dominates quietly, in the background, as an unquestioned assumption, is part of that refusal.

I'm thinking it's time to paraphrase the Dalai Lama: read the change you want to see in the world. I'm ready to read. Throw some titles at me!

Final installment: ( Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon, Jade Palace Lock Heart, Muscle Girl, Let The Bullets Fly, Torocco, My Own Swordsman, A Chinese Ghost Story, Open To Midnight, Fullmetal Alchemist OVAs, 49 Days, The Sword With No Name, The Last Princess, Forest China, Shadows in the Palace, A Frozen Flower, Ogamdo, Psychic, Returner, Snakes And Earrings, Secret Reunion, Jeon Woochi, Duelist, Sapuri, Goemon, Ōoku: the Inner Chambers, Death Note 1/2/3 )

A random rundown in mostly chronological order of what I've watched in, uhm, the last 6mos or thereabouts. ( Sorry for the City, A Good Day to Have an Affair, Protege, Fly Daddy Fly, Hotaru no Hikari, Kimi wa Petto, Ohitorisama, Guns and Talks, Iris, Smile, Ohitorisama, Kamui The Lone Ninja, Time Between Dog and Wolf, Sukiyaki Western Django, Hot Shot, City Monkey, A Woman A Gun And A Noodle Shop, Love You 10000 Years, The Passage, Secret Love, The Untold Scandal, Volcano High, Rough Cut, Like a Dream, Hear Me, The Man From Nowhere, My Little Chef, Oishii Man )

Talking just now with CP on a paper idea of his, and (as we frequently do) we ended up tangenting along until we ended up on a discussion of whether there are/were significant non-named/generic non-human critters in folklore from any of the African countries.

When I was researching for stories of my own, one thing that bothered me to no end was the overwhelming amount of material available on European (especially British and North European) folklore creatures... and the absolute dearth on just about anywhere else other than maybe Japan and Russia (and a smattering from India). Elsewhere, sure, you could find plenty of stories about named characters -- i.e. Anansi, Coyote, Baba Yaga -- where there's an entire body of legends about the character's exploits. But those legends also presuppose that there's only one, even if that one shows up everywhere at any time. What I was looking for was generics or categories, like the Indian naga, or the Korean gumiho, or the Welsh redcap, and having no luck.

A few times, in articles from/about -- I think it was Mozambique, South Africa, and... I want to say one of the western coastal countries, but I don't think it was Cote D'Ivoire proper -- there would be random passing reference. Then the interveiwee (or translating author/ethnographer) would keep going, into some story of another named legend. No, no, back up, I wanted to say, but it was clear that someone -- whether the interviewee, or the interviewer -- didn't consider these incidental unnamed category-creatures to be worth more explanation.

This is entirely my speculation, but it's possible that it's the ethnographer only wanting a 'body' of stories, instead of snippets here and there -- little stories, if you will. And it's also possible that it's the interviewee (as CP suggested) not wanting to seem too backwards, so preferring to tell legend-type stories, where there's a running narrative. Instead of, y'know, talking about the bogeyman.

But I wonder if it's also possible that in telling the little stories, that there's a self-censorship at play because of the self-consciousness of the telling. Like, for instance, choosing not to repeat the stories of Santa Claus, because you stopped being fooled by that story when you were eight -- even if ten minutes after the interviewer leaves, you're reprimanding your own children about the fact that if they don't behave, Santa will leave coals in their stockings.

Besides, it's my firm belief that if there's one universal aspect to parenting, it's that all parents have a bogeyman at their command. And if you don't behave, that bogeyman -- whatever his or her name, age, rank, appearance, or living quarters -- will come get you.

Or maybe it's just that bogeymen are universal.

ETA: If you do know of beastiary [yokaiography, demonography, list-of-nonhumans, etc] books that recount the folklore of 'generic' (unnamed) non-human types, from cultures other than EU/CEE (which I already have in spades), please do tell.

From a Salon essay about the English-language translation of The Ringbearer, a satirical/parodic take on The Lord of the Rings. First, tying into both myth-making and a broader pop culture application, per the issue of fantasies in re women's roles, this food for thought:

"The Lord of the Rings" wouldn't be as popular as it is if the pastoral idyll of the Shire and the sureties of a virtuous, mystically ordained monarchy as embodied in Aragorn didn't speak to widespread longing for a simpler way of life. There's nothing wrong with enjoying such narratives -- we'd be obliged to jettison the entire Arthurian mythos and huge chunks of American popular culture if there were -- but it never hurts to remind ourselves that it's not just their magical motifs that makes them fantasies.

And an intriguing reaction from the reviewer, too, in the final paragraph:

Yeskov's "parody" -- for "The Last Ringbearer," with its often sardonic twists on familiar Tolkien characters and events, comes a lot closer to being a parody than "Wind Done Gone" ever did -- is just such a reminder. If it is fan fiction (and I'm not sure I'm in a position to pronounce on that), then it may be the most persuasive example yet of the artistic potential of the form.

And since translations and language have been on my brain, this paragraph from an interview with Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things:

To be able to express yourself, to be able to close the gap—inasmuch as it is possible—between thought and expression is just such a relief. It’s like having the ability to draw or paint what you see, the way you see it. Behind the speed and confidence of a beautiful line in a line drawing there’s years of—usually—discipline, obsession, practice that builds on a foundation of natural talent or inclination of course. It’s like sport. A sentence can be like that. Language is like that. It takes a while to become yours, to listen to you, to obey you, and for you to obey it. I have a clear memory of language swimming towards me. Of my willing it out of the water. Of it being blurred, inaccessible, inchoate… and then of it emerging. Sharply outlined, custom-made.