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highlyeccentricCurrently Reading: A romance called 'Love and other hot beverages', which I have mixed feelings about; the second Gentleman Bastard book; 'Little Ship of Fools', a book about trying to row across the Atlantic.
Recently Finished:
The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
HUH. I really liked this! The lack of names was... odd, but as the story developed ceased to be a barrier. The uchi/soto distinction came sharply into view for me after the plot's crisis point, and in hindsight I think that was shaping the one thing that was really grating on me: the way that the narrator's wife is a central character but so sparsely characterised. It's a privacy thing: with a few exceptions, all you see of her is as pertains to the cat. The details of their marriage are oblique, and it's like the narrator is preserving his wife's - and his own - privacy. That felt a bit odd to me, accustomed as I am to 20th/21st c western writing with its strong confessional streak, but once I figured out what the strategy was I liked it.
I promptly sent my copy to K, who should see it in her mailbox any time now.
Asexuality and Sexual Normativity ed Carrigan, Gupta and Morrison. Not as useful as I'd hoped for research purposes, but interesting in its own right
Hexslayer by Jordan L. Hawk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
There was a lot to like about this book! The central pairing was interesting, I enjoyed Nick's deep grumpiness and mistrust, and I really liked that one MC's feelings for his ex were a major plot point.
And I was expecting this to be the book where I gave up on this series (as I did with Whyborne) for egregious appropriative nonsense, eg, on the matter of south american magic. It didn't really go there, which is to its credit (although... there's always another book).
I am, however, starting to get uncomfortable with the fact that race clearly *is* a factor in this alt-new york (certainly Irish heritage shapes one MC's standing, and the way the bit-character who runs the chinese laundry is placed suggests reasonable realism) but somehow it never seems to affect familiars. Or police practice. I think the analogy is supposed to be that familiar status trumps all other marginalisations, but... that's not how society works? You'd logically expect Nick to get a LOT more hostility because he's mixed-race. You'd expect rich families to doubly discourage acceptance of non-white familiars (unless perhaps the fact that they keep their familiars in animal form and regard them as menial means they don't cares so much about that?).
And, related, the problem with this book is it sold me too hard on Nick's logic. If the systemic abuse of familiars is to be treated as a sort of racialised trait, which the book seems to encourage... falling in love with a witch really ISN'T a good reason to accept long-term bonding with one, let alone to suddenly be pro 'letting witch ride on my back' etc. I found my experience of the romance plot, which obviously arcs toward complete magic bonding, impeded by the fact that what I /really/ wanted was N&J to break the bond and yet take up as lovers and business partners.
Gone to Earth by Mary Webb
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Oh, this was *difficult*.
It is a very well written piece. It has many things I love: its sense of place, for instance, is beautiful. Characterisation-wise, both Hazel and Edward are strikingly and gorgeously realised.
The difficult part is watching an MC who is clearly neurodivergent or developmentally impaired (some traits look startlingly like autistic-in-women features, but the book predates the coherence of the diagnosis) be dragged along by narrative imperative to her own destruction. That's the *point*, I guess, but it filled me with trepidation and consequently took me months to work through.
Law School: Sex and Relationship Advice by Benjamin Law
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This arrived, I read it in two hours and shrieked laughing the whole time. It's HILARIOUS - but also largely good advice. Ben and Jenny more or less agree a lot of the time, albeit in rather different terms, and when they diverge it may be in unexpected ways (Jenny is apparently in favour of cartoon porn; Ben has clearly Seen Too Much) and usually the divergence is more instructive than just one opinion would be.
And then, yes, there's the amusing cultural features, with Jenny giving advice in her capacity as a late-middle-aged chinese mother. I don't feel really equipped to comment on how that's executed - well, but I'm not the person to comment on how it's achieved. I particularly enjoyed the column about 'i just got a new girlfriend and my homophobic mother's threatening to visit for the whole holidays'. That was obviously a great set-up for an amusing mother-son interaction in giving advice and indeed it was deeply entertaining.
Also Overland 227, which can wait for next update.
Up Next: I have issues of both Meanjin and Griffith Review staring rebukingly at me.
Music notes: The new P!nk album is An Experience, folks.
Recently Finished:
The Guest Cat by Takashi HiraideMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
HUH. I really liked this! The lack of names was... odd, but as the story developed ceased to be a barrier. The uchi/soto distinction came sharply into view for me after the plot's crisis point, and in hindsight I think that was shaping the one thing that was really grating on me: the way that the narrator's wife is a central character but so sparsely characterised. It's a privacy thing: with a few exceptions, all you see of her is as pertains to the cat. The details of their marriage are oblique, and it's like the narrator is preserving his wife's - and his own - privacy. That felt a bit odd to me, accustomed as I am to 20th/21st c western writing with its strong confessional streak, but once I figured out what the strategy was I liked it.
I promptly sent my copy to K, who should see it in her mailbox any time now.
Asexuality and Sexual Normativity ed Carrigan, Gupta and Morrison. Not as useful as I'd hoped for research purposes, but interesting in its own right
Hexslayer by Jordan L. HawkMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
There was a lot to like about this book! The central pairing was interesting, I enjoyed Nick's deep grumpiness and mistrust, and I really liked that one MC's feelings for his ex were a major plot point.
And I was expecting this to be the book where I gave up on this series (as I did with Whyborne) for egregious appropriative nonsense, eg, on the matter of south american magic. It didn't really go there, which is to its credit (although... there's always another book).
I am, however, starting to get uncomfortable with the fact that race clearly *is* a factor in this alt-new york (certainly Irish heritage shapes one MC's standing, and the way the bit-character who runs the chinese laundry is placed suggests reasonable realism) but somehow it never seems to affect familiars. Or police practice. I think the analogy is supposed to be that familiar status trumps all other marginalisations, but... that's not how society works? You'd logically expect Nick to get a LOT more hostility because he's mixed-race. You'd expect rich families to doubly discourage acceptance of non-white familiars (unless perhaps the fact that they keep their familiars in animal form and regard them as menial means they don't cares so much about that?).
And, related, the problem with this book is it sold me too hard on Nick's logic. If the systemic abuse of familiars is to be treated as a sort of racialised trait, which the book seems to encourage... falling in love with a witch really ISN'T a good reason to accept long-term bonding with one, let alone to suddenly be pro 'letting witch ride on my back' etc. I found my experience of the romance plot, which obviously arcs toward complete magic bonding, impeded by the fact that what I /really/ wanted was N&J to break the bond and yet take up as lovers and business partners.
Gone to Earth by Mary WebbMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Oh, this was *difficult*.
It is a very well written piece. It has many things I love: its sense of place, for instance, is beautiful. Characterisation-wise, both Hazel and Edward are strikingly and gorgeously realised.
The difficult part is watching an MC who is clearly neurodivergent or developmentally impaired (some traits look startlingly like autistic-in-women features, but the book predates the coherence of the diagnosis) be dragged along by narrative imperative to her own destruction. That's the *point*, I guess, but it filled me with trepidation and consequently took me months to work through.
Law School: Sex and Relationship Advice by Benjamin LawMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This arrived, I read it in two hours and shrieked laughing the whole time. It's HILARIOUS - but also largely good advice. Ben and Jenny more or less agree a lot of the time, albeit in rather different terms, and when they diverge it may be in unexpected ways (Jenny is apparently in favour of cartoon porn; Ben has clearly Seen Too Much) and usually the divergence is more instructive than just one opinion would be.
And then, yes, there's the amusing cultural features, with Jenny giving advice in her capacity as a late-middle-aged chinese mother. I don't feel really equipped to comment on how that's executed - well, but I'm not the person to comment on how it's achieved. I particularly enjoyed the column about 'i just got a new girlfriend and my homophobic mother's threatening to visit for the whole holidays'. That was obviously a great set-up for an amusing mother-son interaction in giving advice and indeed it was deeply entertaining.
Also Overland 227, which can wait for next update.
Up Next: I have issues of both Meanjin and Griffith Review staring rebukingly at me.
Music notes: The new P!nk album is An Experience, folks.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-01 08:02 pm (UTC)(Ahem. I Have Feelings. You recall when asexual was my primary sexual orientation, and I /still/ identify with panromantic demisexual as my identity when I'm being more specific than "queer" but... what that meant circa 2007, which isn't what it means now.)
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 08:54 am (UTC)I was trying to find ANY academic work which attempted to define 'romantic' (attraction, relationship, etc). (My boss is a francophone, they use amoreuse as the 'are you in a Relationship??' word, and she tried to reject me using 'romantic' to describe, eg, the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere prior to consummation) I figured: who would have cause to interrogate this: the asexuals! AVEN's definitions are recursive (as are most polyamory glossaries, so this isn't unique), so I tried the scholarship. NOPE. Same with academic research on non-monogamy, which I've also tried. They all write as if EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT ROMANCE IS. Even people writing on aromanticity. The -only- scholarship I've found that even approaches teasing that out is someone working on asexual polyamory.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 09:57 pm (UTC)They all write as if EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT ROMANCE IS. Even people writing on aromanticity.
Yes, I've run into this problem a LOT and back when I was Proto-Lev and Livejournal was where I was doing my self-exploration, the attempts to define 'romance' in the 2000s resulted in people proposing weird... WEIRD... stereotyped definitions of... silly fiction tropes. The question, interrogated, always began from, "I feel something, but it isn't That Thing On RomComs, is it romance". Sort of weird to me AVEN is the go-to research space and the role of the Livejournal asexuality community (which of course has open archives to this day) is untapped; someone should probably bother before Russian servers makes it vanish, but that's not your PARTICULAR interest though had you six years or so or if LJ had refined search term-ing you might find salient posts and discussions, but that was many many moons ago.
A place you might actually find "what is romance" questioned is actually dialogue about young adult literature and what constitutes romantic content therein. Science fiction and fantasy and the "why are women writers always dinged for putting romance in their books when men can do it just fine" conversation (it's a weird time) has also discussed the very basic premise "well what makes it romantic when women write it and just a story when men write it" in relatively recent timess-- on twitter, perhaps try asking Judith Tarr or Kate Elliot if they have any ready spaces to point to about their experiences with this particular form of sexism or discussions on romance/romanticism as a category of modern fiction. OH. Heather Rose Jones might also have research leads, she's read... everything out... about lesbianism, and is asexual-spectrum, and so asking if she has any academic leads might be useful also.