Thursday, March 5, 2020
Exhalation - Ted Chiang
Another of the prescribed reads for my course this year, I was apprehensive when I picked up this book. My fears were again unfounded.
Exhalation is a collection of science fiction short stories. There were multiple cultures and concepts touched on over the entire collection, and I found each story to feel unique in its atmosphere and voice. From the middle-eastern “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”, to the distant alien world in "The Great Silence", each world was uncannily unique yet familiar.
Out of all of them, I most enjoyed the titular story and "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". in their own ways, they both felt like a social commentary, without any kind of direct or forced moralistic approach. The former, feeling like a metaphor for complacency and even potentially climate change, and the latter our relentless overconsumption and moral distancing.
I enjoyed that this book made me stop and reflect on the world around me, and I plan to read it again sometime in the future.
Monday, January 27, 2020
Nowhere to be found - Bae Suah
Wow, this was... Wow
I read this book aloud with a friend over an evening. I feel like this is the way it should be read, even if some passages felt damn near impossible to spit out without choking on the words.
"If you gently stroke my lips and the palm of my hand right now, you will find them strangely cold and icy, a feeling of distance that even I can sense." I started reading at page 37, as my friend's voice was getting hoarse. A few lines later, "Burn me. Pour gasoline over me and set my body on fire. Burn me at the stake like a witch. Wrap me up in garbage bags and throw me in the incinerator. I'll turn into dioxin and make my way into your lungs..." The prose was simple yet strong. It was hard to put down, yet discomforting. And we read on, through the evening, until the book was done, and a silence lay between us.
It was a while before either of us said anything, but the nameless narrator we followed through the pages had taught us a lot, while not telling us much directly about herself at all. We got to know Cheolsu, and his mother. The narrator's sister and brother. But all we had from her was her words, her voice. She is unreliable in that, we have only her words to tell us what happened, and sometimes people's reactions to her actions seem implausible - perhaps she misread the situation? Their dialogue is quite clearly her own remembrance of their words, and I often wondered whether she was putting words in their mouths. I often got the feeling that there was a whole world of activity she barely saw beneath the surface of, or that perhaps she was so overwhelmed she couldn't see it.
The book was bleak, and throughout, I hoped for a Hollywood ending. I wanted redemption and good fortune for the narrator. I wanted her life to get magically better. I wanted so much for her. This feeling grew and grew until Suah broke my heart with the closing lines "And that is how I became an absolutely meaningless thing and survived time."
There is a lot about this book that I probably missed completely due to not knowing enough of Korean culture. I plan to re-read it later this year, paying a more careful eye to the cultural and political things in the book, as I want to understand it more.
I'm not sure that I can critique much of it at the moment - it was a heavier read than the other books so far this year, despite its size. But I'll do my best at a later date.
I read this book aloud with a friend over an evening. I feel like this is the way it should be read, even if some passages felt damn near impossible to spit out without choking on the words.
"If you gently stroke my lips and the palm of my hand right now, you will find them strangely cold and icy, a feeling of distance that even I can sense." I started reading at page 37, as my friend's voice was getting hoarse. A few lines later, "Burn me. Pour gasoline over me and set my body on fire. Burn me at the stake like a witch. Wrap me up in garbage bags and throw me in the incinerator. I'll turn into dioxin and make my way into your lungs..." The prose was simple yet strong. It was hard to put down, yet discomforting. And we read on, through the evening, until the book was done, and a silence lay between us.
It was a while before either of us said anything, but the nameless narrator we followed through the pages had taught us a lot, while not telling us much directly about herself at all. We got to know Cheolsu, and his mother. The narrator's sister and brother. But all we had from her was her words, her voice. She is unreliable in that, we have only her words to tell us what happened, and sometimes people's reactions to her actions seem implausible - perhaps she misread the situation? Their dialogue is quite clearly her own remembrance of their words, and I often wondered whether she was putting words in their mouths. I often got the feeling that there was a whole world of activity she barely saw beneath the surface of, or that perhaps she was so overwhelmed she couldn't see it.
The book was bleak, and throughout, I hoped for a Hollywood ending. I wanted redemption and good fortune for the narrator. I wanted her life to get magically better. I wanted so much for her. This feeling grew and grew until Suah broke my heart with the closing lines "And that is how I became an absolutely meaningless thing and survived time."
There is a lot about this book that I probably missed completely due to not knowing enough of Korean culture. I plan to re-read it later this year, paying a more careful eye to the cultural and political things in the book, as I want to understand it more.
I'm not sure that I can critique much of it at the moment - it was a heavier read than the other books so far this year, despite its size. But I'll do my best at a later date.
The Dawnhounds - Sascha Stronach
I won this book in a Facebook contest, and had no idea what it would be like. I knew that it was queer-friendly, and contained mushrooms, and was either fantasy or science fiction. It ended up being quite different from what I'd imagined, and something I enjoyed a lot.
The story was pretty solid, and I enjoyed getting to know the main character, Yat. The magic/science used in the book was different to most systems I'd read before. Stronach uses plants and mushrooms in an unexpected yet delightful way, imbuing them with powers that made sense according to those plants functions in our own world. But in this fantasy world, the plants' powers are fun without being frivolous or implausible. A particular favourite is the symbiotic nature of the mushrooms and their occupants (I will say no more - spoilers!).
Although there were heavy uses of tropes and cliche at points of the book, I didn't find it too jarring. There didn't seem to be anything as overused as the emerald-eyed, raven-haired, heaving-breasts fantasy woman, which was a pleasant change.
The weaving of sex into the book was done with a light touch, and I didn't get the uncomfortable "creep voyeur" vibes that I've had from other books in the past. Thank you for that, Stronach. I don't like feeling as though I've been peeking through someone's bedroom window.
My main critiques were that the book felt like it needed another round or two of editing, and that I feel the blurb on the back gives far too much away. As with other reviewers I've read, the ending wasn't as satisfying as the rest of the book, but, I personally enjoyed it as a nice rounding-off of the story.
It's definitely a book I'll go back to and read again at some future date. There's a lot of it that I don't feel I put enough attention to on first read. Overall, it was an awesome addition to this year's reading list, and I plan to keep an eye on the author's next novel to add to my collection.
The story was pretty solid, and I enjoyed getting to know the main character, Yat. The magic/science used in the book was different to most systems I'd read before. Stronach uses plants and mushrooms in an unexpected yet delightful way, imbuing them with powers that made sense according to those plants functions in our own world. But in this fantasy world, the plants' powers are fun without being frivolous or implausible. A particular favourite is the symbiotic nature of the mushrooms and their occupants (I will say no more - spoilers!).
Although there were heavy uses of tropes and cliche at points of the book, I didn't find it too jarring. There didn't seem to be anything as overused as the emerald-eyed, raven-haired, heaving-breasts fantasy woman, which was a pleasant change.
The weaving of sex into the book was done with a light touch, and I didn't get the uncomfortable "creep voyeur" vibes that I've had from other books in the past. Thank you for that, Stronach. I don't like feeling as though I've been peeking through someone's bedroom window.
My main critiques were that the book felt like it needed another round or two of editing, and that I feel the blurb on the back gives far too much away. As with other reviewers I've read, the ending wasn't as satisfying as the rest of the book, but, I personally enjoyed it as a nice rounding-off of the story.
It's definitely a book I'll go back to and read again at some future date. There's a lot of it that I don't feel I put enough attention to on first read. Overall, it was an awesome addition to this year's reading list, and I plan to keep an eye on the author's next novel to add to my collection.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The Score - Adrienne Jansen
I'm aiming to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, so I apologise in advance if anything seems too vague!
This was my first read of the year, and was a beautiful way to welcome 2020. I was raised in a household where piano ornaments lined shelves, and a baby grand piano filled half of our music room. I learned to play from a young age, and have always adored music. I had also read the follow-up book to this one, Change of Key, last year (the order of reading wasn't apparent until too late). Reading a book that revolved around a piano was something I'd been looking forward to.
Already knowing the characters only spoiled minor plot points for me, and didn't affect my enjoyment of the story. There were a couple of times that I stopped and went, "but I don't think that character would behave like that because...", but these were primarily times where I knew the character's full backstory or future. I'm not sure that I would have made the same observations if I'd read this book first, but it did make me wonder about the plausibility of one or two people's actions. I'm hoping to find someone who has read The Score, but not Change of Key, so that I can ask them.
I enjoyed Jansen's use of unique dialogue to separate the individuals. It was obvious who was speaking at any time, and when she moved to lightly broken English for some characters, it was subtle and didn't make them seem like a caricature. This was refreshing, and allowed me to "hear" the characters' voices.
The piano. It was lovingly described at times, and I liked the level of detail that was used. The description of the damage was precise and careful, while being moving enough. Jansen's descriptions brought back memories of watching the piano tuner at work when I was a child. And when she described the damage to it, I almost had to stop reading. Not because the detail was awful, but because it was overwhelming in a heartbreaking way.
Over all, it was a great start to my year.
This was my first read of the year, and was a beautiful way to welcome 2020. I was raised in a household where piano ornaments lined shelves, and a baby grand piano filled half of our music room. I learned to play from a young age, and have always adored music. I had also read the follow-up book to this one, Change of Key, last year (the order of reading wasn't apparent until too late). Reading a book that revolved around a piano was something I'd been looking forward to.
Already knowing the characters only spoiled minor plot points for me, and didn't affect my enjoyment of the story. There were a couple of times that I stopped and went, "but I don't think that character would behave like that because...", but these were primarily times where I knew the character's full backstory or future. I'm not sure that I would have made the same observations if I'd read this book first, but it did make me wonder about the plausibility of one or two people's actions. I'm hoping to find someone who has read The Score, but not Change of Key, so that I can ask them.
I enjoyed Jansen's use of unique dialogue to separate the individuals. It was obvious who was speaking at any time, and when she moved to lightly broken English for some characters, it was subtle and didn't make them seem like a caricature. This was refreshing, and allowed me to "hear" the characters' voices.
The piano. It was lovingly described at times, and I liked the level of detail that was used. The description of the damage was precise and careful, while being moving enough. Jansen's descriptions brought back memories of watching the piano tuner at work when I was a child. And when she described the damage to it, I almost had to stop reading. Not because the detail was awful, but because it was overwhelming in a heartbreaking way.
Over all, it was a great start to my year.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Reading goals for 2020
Over the past 8-10 years, I've kept a list of each book I read, and usually put them on an extra page of whichever blog I'm keeping at the time (my current list is here). After having a think and reading through the lists from previous years, I've realised that I've forgotten much of what each of the individual books was about.
So, I'm going to try and write something on each book this year, as well as trying to read the 50 books I used to set myself as a minimum goal. I'll post my mini reviews/synopses here, and hopefully my future self will get some benefit from it. Of course, my other hope is that other people may find these musings, read them, and perhaps find a book they wouldn't have considered before.
My reading list to date is as follows:
So, I'm going to try and write something on each book this year, as well as trying to read the 50 books I used to set myself as a minimum goal. I'll post my mini reviews/synopses here, and hopefully my future self will get some benefit from it. Of course, my other hope is that other people may find these musings, read them, and perhaps find a book they wouldn't have considered before.
My reading list to date is as follows:
- The Score - Adrienne Jansen
- The Dawnhounds - Sascha Stronach
- Nowhere to be Found - Bae Suah
- Exhalation - Ted Chiang
- Tomboy Survival Guide - Ivan Coyote
I plan to try and get some notes about each book up shortly.
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