The Book of Heroes; The Lost Thing

[sanguinity]

8. Miyuki Miyabe, The Book of Heroes.

After her older brother kills a classmate and then goes missing himself, Yuriko finds a magical, talking book in her brother's room. It tells her that her brother fell under the influence of The Book of Heroes: a much older and far more dangerous volume than the one Yuriko is talking to. Worse (according to the book and its friends, although not to Yuriko), her brother's actions have set the Hero loose upon the world again. And while there are others who can and will step up to save the world from the Hero, only Yuriko is willing or able to make sure that her brother gets saved, too.

Which means that, yes, this is a fantasy quest novel in which it is vitally important that our hero not become a Hero while fulfilling her quest.

Personally, I was fascinated by the premise that heroes are not inherently good things, a necessary and, um, heroic response to evil that would have existed with or without the hero. Instead, heroes are presented as the obverse of great evil, integral with the evil to the point that the heroic impulse will create and/or intensify evil. I do wish the book had been clearer about developing that thesis, however. A few characters explain it, but there's only one instance where it's truly shown: the events leading up to Hiroki killing his classmate. I also wish there had been more exploration of how one should respond to evil instead of being a hero. (Collective action? Going to the authorities? As I said, it wasn't fully clear, and it certainly wasn't fully developed.)

The Book of Heroes makes heavy reference to The King in Yellow, a collection of stories by Robert Chambers. While it's possible that the hero/evil interaction might be more fully developed if you're familiar with those stories, the book still reads fine without it. (After finishing the novel, I checked out the title story of Chambers' collection. Unfortunately, what with the imperialism, anti-semitism, racism, and ableism, the vileness-to-reward ratio wasn't worth my time to continue to the next story.) According to Wikipedia, Chambers influenced Lovecraft: there are likewise ctulhuesque elements in The Book of Heroes. (Tentacled horrors from the deep, boo-yah!)

This probably won't end up being a contender for my favorite fantasy quest novel of the year -- there are places where the worldbuilding is shakily just-because, and I never did untangle the metafiction to my satisfaction -- but I like Yuriko, I like that the text is clear that she is a elementary school kid trying to bear up under a grownup's job, and I like the novel upfront addresses some of the problems in the ur-stories of The Hero and The Chosen One.


9. Shaun Tan, The Lost Thing.

Are YOU finding that the order of day-to-day life is unexpectedly disrupted by unclaimed property? Objects without names? Things that just don't belong? DON'T PANIC! We've got a pigeon hole to stick it in.

Aw, man. I feel like The Lost Thing is positively begging me to say smart things about the presumptions of property; about the constructions of "lostness", being "out of place", of "not belonging"; about the lure and scourge of pigeonholes; about Somebody Else's Problem Fields and Of Course This Is My Problem Fields; about whether rescuers come from inside, outside, or a bit of both, and the invisibility of one kind of rescuer versus another... Or hey, even the narrative of "rescue" -- because I'm not sure that The Lost Thing was in want of rescuing, y'know?

But I'd rather think about the pretty pictures. You know how it is.

(Additional tags: nationality: japan, ethnicity: japanese; nationality: australia, ethnicity: chinese; picture books, middle grades, fantasy, spec-fic.)

2.9 Ranters, Ravers and Rhymers: Poems by Black and Asian Poets, Ed. Farrukh Dhondy (1990)

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

2.9 Ranters, Ravers and Rhymers: Poems by Black and Asian Poets, Ed. Farrukh Dhondy (1990)

The collection is divided into sections - Black Britain, the Caribbean, India and Africa. There are recurring themes - identity and power in society.

I liked the collection in some ways, but I found it frustrating. It was clearly designed as a introduction - Dhondy says he aimed it at teenagers. But it lacks basic information that an introductory text needs - the date of publication of the poems, some information about the poets, maybe some annotations because there are references to political events of the 1970s and 80s that I have no idea about.

I also struggled with some of the dialect poems, especially the Caribbean ones. I found the Indian section easier as they are written in standard English. My eye just flows along the lines rather than having to puzzle out what each word means, leading to a very disjointed reading experience.

Naturally, the issue of language is one that the poets address. Eunice De Souza says in "Encounter at a London Party":

You are young and perhaps forgetful
that the Empire lives
only in the pure vowel sounds I offer you
above the din.