scatteredbookthoughts

[scatteredbookthoughts]

3/17/24

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Just finished this today - my thoughts are mixed. I loved so much of the mood, the way Guterson captured the brooding isolation of the PNW in winter, the details about fishing and the characters' lives.

But it also struck me that, for all that detail, Guterson has very little to say about the experiences of Japanese American families in the internment camps during WWII - something that should have been very central to the story. We learn about Ishmael Chambers' experiences in the war, but Hatsue Imada's side of the story feels threadbare in comparison. Perhaps Guterson felt it wasn't his place, as a white man, to try to describe that experience?

The result, though, is that the book definitely felt like it belonged to Ishmael. It's really the story of a white man, written around the forced removal of Japanese families from their homes. His is the central emotional arc of the story.

So even though it was beautifully written, I was left somewhat unsatisfied.

#Snow Falling on Cedars #David Guterson

[scatteredbookthoughts]

The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien

My second read of this volume! I found it so difficult when I read it the last time that I took extensive notes, and even that didn't seem to help. It's going better this time already, though.

Comments from the first chapter:

Melkor is, if not entirely sympathetic, a compelling character; seeking knowledge for himself and not blinding following Ilúvatar are commendable characteristics in my mind

"...but the delight and pride of Aulë is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery" --I think the distinction here between Aulë an Melkor is going to become important

"But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby"--would love to know more about the gender politics of the Valar

#JRR Tolkien #The Silmarillion

[scatteredbookthoughts]

1/2/24

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I'd be fascinated to read some criticism around this book - either essays from the time, or historical work that gives more perspective on the labor movement. Obviously, this is not a radical tract, and I'm only about halfway through, but it's going to spoil it a bit for me if the book concludes that a living wage is not sustainable, and that the workers are ignorant to think otherwise.

#North and South #Elizabeth Gaskell

[scatteredbookthoughts]

1/28/24

Skid Road by Murray Morgan

This is the Seattle history that always gets recommended first - and I understand why. It's well-written and very readable. But it's also a little troubling to me that the seminal history of the city is one that was originally written in the '50s and which doesn't include a bibliography. I'm only a third of the way into it, though, so we'll see.

#Skid Road #Murray Morgan

[scatteredbookthoughts]

The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett

Also this bit made me scream:

"On one occasion Coral Browne was coming away from the house with her husband, Vincent Price, and they were talking quietly. 'Pipe down,' snapped the voice from the van, 'I'm trying to sleep.' For someone who had brought terror to millions it was an unexpected taste of his own medicine."

#The Lady in the Van #Alan Bennett

[scatteredbookthoughts]

The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett

"I was hoping for some clue as to what it was that had happened to make Miss Shepherd want to live like this. Except I kept coming across items that suggested that living 'like this' wasn't all that different from the way people ordinarily lived."

Love this book. Just finished reading it for the second time. This particular passage made me think of the people experiencing housing insecurity whom I've met while working in various customer service positions: Michael, who always brings other people to check out our museum; Cornell, who always ordered his coffee with equal parts espresso and cream; Patrick, who disappeared for a while, and then came back to tell us he had got an apartment.

It's just a genuinely delightful, and ultimately touching account.

#The Lady in the Van #Alan Bennett

[scatteredbookthoughts]

The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures by Tony Kushner

This play first appeared in 2009 and is set in 2007, and even though that's not so long ago, it feels eerie to read. The central conflict is about Gus, a card-carrying communist in his 70s, who wants to end his life. Act 2, scene 1 involves a conversation between himself and his daughter, Empty, who is a labor lawyer, where they argue about the lack of radical change achieved by working within the system, vs. the vague concept of revolution that never seems to provide any concrete action for people to take. It's the same goddamn conversation we have every election cycle and it never feels like there's a right answer, but the consequences are gaining on us anyway.

There's a point in the scene when Empty tells her father that she wants to help achieve victories like Roe vs. Wade, and Gus cuts her off to make a comment about how it'll only take a couple new Supreme Court justices to change that. I didn't expect this play to hit so hard when I checked it out of the library.

#The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures #Tony Kushner #play

[scatteredbookthoughts]

1/18/24

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

What is it about queer people and Peter Pan? The references are all over this book (Rose's last name is Darling, the recurring shadow motif, the town is called Neverton). Interestingly, though, Chuck Tingle has taken the opposite approach than the one I'm used to; in this book, the world of Neverland and Peter Pan is used to indicate a false reality, one in which people are manipulated and indoctrinated into a toxic sect of Christianity.

This book has a lot going for it, and while I enjoyed it, it didn't blow me away or anything. In the second half of the novel, Rose comes off as a character who speaks like she's trying to get a good grade in therapy - which isn't precisely a critique, it's just odd that someone who has grown up in a cult would immediately develop so much emotional intelligence. The relationships between her and Saul and her and Willow also didn't read as convincing to me. It felt like they had too little time together to develop such a close bond. Again, though, that could very well just be me.

#Camp Damascus #Chuck Tingle #Pride #Peter Pan

[scatteredbookthoughts]

1/14/24

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

One of the most effective parts of this book is the way it represents closeted church kids' inability to even think about queerness. In the book, there are physical consequences for this: you start spitting up mayflies. But in real life, Christianity teaches that even to think something is a sin. To lust in your heart is as bad as committing adultery. To think violent thoughts is as bad as committing violent acts. Growing up queer in the church means censoring yourself constantly, and living in fear of those creeping, sinful thoughts.

#Camp Damascus #Chuck Tingle #Pride

[scatteredbookthoughts]

1/13/24

Pageboy by Elliot Page

Finished Elliot Page's memoir, Pageboy. I wasn't going to read it, but my roommate said she had heard good things about it. I had it on the desk at work this week, and someone told me they had heard he was really catty in it - which I disagree with. He details some awful things that have happened to him, both on sets and in his personal life, but he's not dishing up gossip, and he rarely names the people doing these things.

As celebrity memoirs go, I enjoyed it. I like the way he described dysphoria, like wearing an uncomfortable, skin-tight bodysuit that you can never take off. I also liked the non-linear flow of the narrative. Stylistically, I wish there were fewer digressions. Often, he would begin a story, then go on a tangent to describe the history of the setting, and by the time we're discussing what beavers look like up close, I've forgotten where we began.

Early in the book, he discusses the explosion of the Mont-Blanc in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1917. This not only shaped the physical landscape where he grew up, but he uses it as an interesting metaphor. I just wish that kind of writing had been carried through the book.

Anyway, it's a solid celebrity memoir. Plus I got a few good song recommendations out of it.

#Pageboy #Elliot Page #celebrity memoir #memoir #Pride

[scatteredbookthoughts]

I want Edmund to resist the narrative of the Great Man, the single inventor, one person shaping history as a result of his natural abilities, in favor a more complex understanding.

History has its significant figures, but history is also made up of groups of people working together, building on the achievements of those who have come before. That has to be part of Edmund's realization throughout the book: he isn't special because of his education or who his father is. He has to work side-by-side with others to make the world a better place.

If I come to write future books, I want to incorporate the idea that the future doesn't hinge on one critical moment. Edmund is the hero of the novel, but not a hero in the world of that novel. He's one of many, working to collectively create a better future.

#wip #Edmund and the Stars

[scatteredbookthoughts]

1/6/24

The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction by Deborah Lindsay Williams

"Engaging with a sense of wonder enables us, as readers, to connect ourselves to a larger whole and thus resist narratives that rest on facile binaries or narrow singularities."

The way Williams discusses the power of books to undermine rigid classification systems makes me think, inevitably, of the conservative right and their concept of a perfect society: if you're a woman, you stay at home and care for the house and children. If you're a man, you earn a living outside the home. Everyone is straight. No one is nonbinary. This is satisfactory for everyone involved, and it's only the evils of feminism and leftism that have convinced people otherwise.

As if there has ever been a point in history when this perfect division of the population has existed. As if people are all alike and have never dreamed outside the bounds of society. As if a million forms of evidence don't exist that not all women would be happier as homemakers - not least the evidence of my own experiences and my own mind.

But then I remember that the conservative right doesn't necessarily care about happiness. And I wonder what it's like for them to consume media. How do you read books and not come away with a sense of empathy for people unlike yourself? You can't force people to be better readers, just as they can't force me to settle down and start a family.

#The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction #Deborah Lindsay Williams