Mosley, Rowland, Ted Chiang

[shimizu-hitomi.livejournal.com]

First post here, though I've been lurking for a while. I write rambly reviews, so be warned.

- Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others (link to my journal)

("Story of Your Life" is without a question the best thing I've read all year. The other stories in the anthology were bonus.)

- Laura Joh Rowland's The Snow Empress

- Walter Mosley's Fear Itself and Fear of the Dark

(I love mysteries, so it's been great discovering PoC mystery authors. Next on my list is Qiu Xiaolong.)

I also read Yxta Maya Murray's The Conquest and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. I intended to write something more in depth for both books, but never got around to it, and not sure I can or will at this point, so I'll just c/p what I originally wrote in my journal:


I've finished reading both The Conquest and Parable of the Sower. The former I enjoyed and understood what it was trying to accomplish, but ultimately have kind of mixed feelings about. The latter I LOVED. Both books deserve a more in depth review than I feel like giving right now.

I'm thinking Cynthia Kadohata's much lesser known In the Heart of the Valley of Love would make good companion reading to Parable of the Sower. I remember liking the Kadohata novel back when I read it, but it's been more than a few years... Both books are about post-apocalyptic LA, written by women of color and featuring heroines of color (both teens on the verge of adulthood). (Well not really apocalyptic in the strictest sense, but futuristic dystopia, I guess?) But beneath the cynicism and the darkness there is an underlying optimism in both. They're both pretty quiet novels, but powerful, even today -- in particular Butler's vision of the future is really striking. Both published around the same time, even. (1992 and 1993 respectively, in the wake of the LA Riots.)

Damn, I really should dig out my copy of the Kadohata novel and do an in depth compare and contrast. I've been letting Parable sink in for the past few days, and I'm still not entirely sure how to say what I want to say about it. It's just powerful.

/end c/p

- - -

A few additional remarks now that I've had some more time to think about it since I wrote the above: Parable is very, very dark, as previous reviewers on this comm have noted -- but that said, I'm not sure what it says about me that I did not find it depressing, or even a difficult read at all, and found it very easy to relate to Lauren Olamina. The Earthseed verses in particular were a realistic touch -- they read very much like verses penned by an intelligent teen. I'm definitely looking forward to reading the sequel, and still think a Kadohata/Butler compare and contrast would be very interesting. (The similarities and differences between the two novels are absolutely fascinating.)

The Conquest, on the other hand -- the use of language was very beautiful; I especially loved the way the protagonist used her stories to seduce her lover. Reminiscent of Scheherazade, which I'm sure is the image Murray was going for.

That said, I almost feel like the story was trying to cover too much. The mother/daughter relationship (the key to the story, IMO, but rather underplayed), the romance (which was believable and powerful but also in a way the weakest part of the novel), the reclamation of history (both culturally and as a woman), lesbians (awesome ones, I might add)... And ultimately the ending, for me, was emotionally satisfying but not entirely intellectually satisfying, but I wonder if it's my personal biases coming into play here.

Basically, the protagonist gets to have her cake and eat it too. The main conflict that's set up through the book is the protagonist's relationship with her lover vs. her need to somehow reclaim some part of her heritage, in some way to give voice to an intriguing female character in an old manuscript by determining the true authorship of said novel. And throughout most of the story it's made clear that she's pretty much going to have to give up either one or the other -- the way this is set up did feel believable to me on a gut level, despite the practical side of me that wondered why they couldn't just compromise, and if the guy was really worth it if he just couldn't understand this integral aspect of her being (not entirely his fault, mind, as I kind of felt the protagonist was almost torn on whether or not she actually did want him to understand or did want to share this part of her with him), even if he is in all other aspects her soulmate more or less...

So part of me is cheering for her at the end, when she successfully reconciles both sides of her life, but part of me is also kind of skeptical. But am I trying to say that she can't have both? That she has to sacrifice one or the other? I'm not sure.

Maybe it just boils down to the fact that though I could sympathize with the character and really feel for her through her relationship issues and understand why she loved him so much... it wasn't really a pairing I could "ship", to put it in fandom terms. In the end it seemed like he was mostly a reward for her, in a way. Which is interesting because it's a gender dynamic that's normally reversed (which is perhaps kind of the point in a way, as there are several reversals going on throughout the novel, as the title perhaps alludes to), but it doesn't feel any better than it does when it's the female love interest serving as a reward for the male protagonist.

Okay, I guess that did end up being kind of in-depth.