Look, Ma, Livejournal People! (June Reading)

[ase]

If there's a theme this month, it's, "but your meta is so good! Why is your book not so good?"

Self-Made Man (Norah Vincent): Woman decides to cross-dress to explore that age-old question, "but how does it feel to be a man?" Yes, I did read this for the titilation factor. Two things strike me: the temptation to check off central themes bandied about in women's studies courses, and how joyless and relatively humorless the author makes the entire process seem. If you're going to transgress social norms, you may as well have fun, no? The author had a breakdown at the end of the book, about a year and a half into her exploration into masculinity, which may have something to do with the tone. Her experiences are interesting, but every chapter leaves me thinking, "you know, you make it sound like life as a man is a terrible thing, an emotional wasteland - except I'm pretty sure it's a little more complicated than that." Also, I think Vincent failed to fully acknowledge the impact of class and race on her personal experiences with masculinity. For example, door-to-door sales (one job she tried) are soul-destroying regardless of gender. A cushy internship at dad's law office is something else. For men or women.

Conclusions? Flawed, but thought-provoking. Gentlemen, pipe up: do you feel like you're living in an emotional wasteland? Discuss.

Tooth and Claw (Jo Walton/papersky): Self-described Victorian novel with dragons. I appreciated the elegance and artifice of the many plot threads concluding happily, but suspect I'd get a lot more out of this if Pride and Prejudice had inspired me to read more regencies.

"A Gift of Wings" (Sarah Monette/truepenny): Monette keeps doing cool meta in her lj, but her actual fiction does nothing for me. "A Gift of Wings" is a romance, which means the narrative tension should derive from the lovers overcoming obstacles to be together, but in this case, the primary obstacle seems to be the traumatized wizard and the battle-hardened mercenary not talking to each other. For months. When the narrative voice reflects that "he made it plain without so much as a word that they were lovers no longer" I tend to gag a bit.

I am not a romantic. I don't believe in finding your One True Love, I don't think you should overcome heroic odds to have a relationship with someone, I don't consider not saying, "hey, are we cool?" a good foundation for a plot. (The major exception to this are Tolkien's romances, where the heroes are charged with doing something monumental - stealing a Silaril from the Big Bad, restoring a kingdom, etc - to prove their dedication to their significant other. Notice, too, that this is a social/external barrier to the relationship, not an internal "can't talk about my feelings" sort of barrier. And it's a Quest! A Quest that sometimes involves singing! The Silmarilion isn't for everyone, but parts of it are awesome.) So yeah. I think I just need to stay away from the romance genre. The only romances I like seem to be slapstick comedies with lots of sarcasm, and that's generally for the comedy factor.

The characters are adequately crafted (if love-struck fools), the setting nicely evoked, and - to me - the plot a complete turnoff. Even the smutty bits do nothing for me. YMMV, especially if you like romances.

On the other hand, a traumatized wizard and a battle-hardened mercenary woman must solve a murder they are accused of committing. Together, they fight crime!

("A Gift of Wings" was published in The Queen in Winter, a collection of romances written by Claire Delacroix, Lynn Kurland, Sharon Shinn and Sarah Monette. Had I realized what I was getting into, I would have totally not ILL'd this. Not a romantic!)

Black Powder War (Naomi Novik/naominovik): Look! It's an overland Asia trip with dragons, and then it's a Napoleonic land battle with dragons! And before the end there's a cute young dragon who borders on the dangerously plucky!

I like the Temeraire books, as a romp through an AU world; it's becoming increasingly apparent that AU!England's similarity to known history is an abberration, rather than the norm. (Yes, I'm basing this off the China sequence and an offhand mention of Incans. Roll with it.) The worldbuilding is the most entertaining part, but I suspect I'd get more out of the series if I came to it with greater familiarity with the Napoleonic campaigns.

What's really going to nail me is the major plot of the fourth book, which may or may not involve epidemiology. This is, like, pre-everything big in biology - cowpox, Pasteur, carbolic acid - so it'll be interesting to see how much Novik allows her circa 1806 characters to intuit.

And there I go, getting gleeful about horrible deaths. Like I said, I'm here for the worldbuilding; plot and characterization are a little secondary. Though I may get attached to Iskierka, pluckiness and all.

July previews: I'm 30 pages from the end of Richard Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable, which involves a lot of circa early '90s computer modeling, and generally isn't as cool as The Selfish Gene. But I'll at least have some nonfiction finished this month. Also, Fifth Business is kicking around my room, so I'll probably knock that off Real Soon Now.

Comments

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

Gee! This is one of the most interesting book reviews I've read in awhile! Glad I found/saw ya on Tygerr's friends page!

Thanks!

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Personally, I love romances. But only GOOD ones. And I'd consider it a bad romance if misunderstandings kept the couple apart. Blech. Bad romance, Bad romance!! ;-)

Good romance, Shards of Honor/Barrayar, but you probably won't need too much convincing there. (on the other hand, ACC? not so good romance in my book, great book, but Bad romance! Komarr is better -- external stuff keeping them apart)

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

you know, you make it sound like life as a man is a terrible thing, an emotional wasteland

I'm sure there are lots of people who think that. I have lots of possible answers.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Well, thank you. There's a couple others on the same tag if you're interested.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Shards is not romance - it has plot. (You see the definition problem developing. As an SF geek, I should know better than to do this, but still.)

ACC suffered from the author making everything a little too tidy. Realistically, Ekaterin should have blown Miles off and never looked back. Or at least put him on probation for six months. Things worked out just a little too conveniently, you know?

[ase.livejournal.com]

Such as?

[aoumd.livejournal.com]

"you know, you make it sound like life as a man is a terrible thing, an emotional wasteland - except I'm pretty sure it's a little more complicated than that."

I won't say that we live in an "emotional wasteland," though the way society is heading, we may in the future. I mean, there IS a problem that society socializes men to not be open about their emotions when they need to be. However, there is ALSO a problem which I notice a lot in society (and have read in books such as Christina Hoff Sommers' The War Against Boys and One Nation Under Therapy) and also in order to correct the aforementioned problem, our schools and political correctness machines are attempting to use educational "best practices" and legislation to force boys to be socialized more like girls (there are some great stories out there about funding going to studies to try to find ways to make boys play with dolls...). Men have different emotional systems than women do, both amongst themselves and within--whether this is due to socialization or more basic influences would make good debate between feminists and non-feminists, but is beyond the scope of this LiveJournal comment. Men can be very emotional in the right environment and the right setting, but they are not as openly emotional as often as women are, especially in the presence of friends the way women are. Honestly, I think what men need is support that WILL be there for them, will NOT humiliate them, will NOT question their masculinity or difference from the female socialization, and will NOT force them towards such support when they do not want it.

I saw Norah Vincent interviewed on the news a couple months ago. She gave this example of going bowling with a bunch of guys, and one of the guys just lost a loved one. The guys shared their sympathy verbally, telling the guy who lost the relative they felt for him, that they were there if he needed them, etc., but she thought it was odd they didn't just gush out and hug him so he could cry on their shoulder. This is a pretty good example, I think of how guys socialize. The verbal condolences may very well have been what the guy needed--sure, hugs and shoulders may have worked too, but the way the guys handled it very well worked. Thus, if you define what is "right" emotionally based on a strictly female perspective, then it truly will seem like a wasteland. But if it works for the men who need it, then is it really a wasteland?

Just my $0.02.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

there are some great stories out there about funding going to studies to try to find ways to make boys play with dolls...)

Hasbro figured this out 40 years ago; they're called G.I. Joes.

I would say that the traditional areas of masculine achievement are being divided into two parts: Those in which women are becoming involved, and those that are deprecated. For example, sports has probably as much involvement from girls as boys, at least in younger ages, and has pretty much become equal in terms of societal acceptance. On the other hand, hunting is in decline I think, both in terms of numbers and social acceptance, and I don't see anything changing that soon. Likewise, business and other leadership roles are increasingly open to women, where they were formerly a male preserve.

On the other hand, there are some female roles which are being deprecated, like homemaker, and very few that are anywhere near as open to men. For that matter, given the higher social standing of men traditionally, there's fewer female achievements they want to move into.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

See below; it's a distinct future possability.

That said, what was it she did that she considered both masculine, potentially fulfilling, and a failure?

My most flippant answer is that if someone is going to sample male privledge in whatever form, they ought to enjoy it, there's less of a wasteland that way.

[aoumd.livejournal.com]

I wasn't referring to action figures...I was referring into specifically trying to socialize the boys to adopt more traditionally feminine behaviors. But I should've made that more apparent in the original post.

And I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree that that there are traditionally "female roles which are being deprecated, like homemaker," and that those very roles are not "anywhere near as open to men." These fields really do have to be made more open to men in order for there to be true equality in society...one of the big points of my original comment is, we need to find new and innovative ways to do this, rather than try to make the guy act just like a girl from an early age. We have a lot of programs and funding out there going to trying to open the doors of engineering, business, etc. to women...and, quite frankly, the women I've seen in the business school (which I graduated from here at UMD) are about as far as you can get from the tomboy lifestyle as you can imagine. These programs are great...and we should be furthering, as a society, the race to equality by creating a similar environment for men in historically female fields (i.e. elementary education/early childhood development, homemaking, etc.), so that men can be attracted to these fields, not be intimidated by them, and not have to become, for lack of a better word, "tomgirls." Anything less than that creates a model for society that somehow just wishes that men would go away--preserving female dominance in historically female-dominant fields, while equalizing all other fields.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

<>Shards is not romance - it has plot.

Yeah (agreeing with your statement and paranthetical statement as well), but I'd say that I've read plenty of books classified as romances that were as good, if not somewhat better than Shards/Barrayar in the romance department. Good books are usually good books, no matter what category. And our tastes may or may not be similar enough to appreciate the same ones -- but of course I picked those because I knew we agreed on them! ;-P

Things worked out just a little too conveniently, you know?

Yes and no. There was actually too much angst for me as it was. I guess it was in character for Miles to be so devious to start with, but that smacks a bit too much of the "if he'd just asked her out, that would have been the end of it" for me. I'd have preferred it to have continued positively from Komarr rather than taking a million steps back and to a complete tangent. Or yeah, your ending might have been more realistic with that beginning, but I'd have really hated that as well.

Now that I think on it, Bujold's work in general has a bit too much angst for me. So I don't reread her work too often and only when I'm in a pretty decent mood. Otherwise, the character's angst/depression gets to me too much. She's an amazing writer, but what makes her most amazing also makes her writing too involving and personal for me to take a lot of the time.

Strangely enough, though I read lots of romances and love them, I absolutely hate angst and hate the protagonists being "artificially" forced apart as I said in my previous comment. So if you'd like a list of romances that I love that don't include those things, feel free to ask! ;-p

Oui! Oui!

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

I'll be sure to check out your other reviews, for sure!

Thanks again!

And I might add I was a bit surprised to see there are so many published, professional writers on Live Journal (I'm a former journalist, but it's not as if I have a published book. . .YET [smile!]). . .

In other words: it's nice to know there's a 'community' of published book writers on LJ!

[ase.livejournal.com]

If you want to toss some romance suggestions my way, feel free.

'd have preferred it to have continued positively from Komarr rather than taking a million steps back and to a complete tangent.

It's... it's... it's like, if it had followed the Lord Peter/Harriet Vane model a little more closely, it would have made more sense. If Ekaterin had independently come to the conclusion that Miles was a decent friend and better partner/coparent/husband, that would have been interesting. The relationship as developed in the books seems to be built on somewhat shaky foundations and open to a lot of backsliding.

Or yeah, your ending might have been more realistic with that beginning, but I'd have really hated that as well.

It would have hurt but good that way. And would have demanded a sequel where they fix things. There's only so much angst even I can take.

She's an amazing writer, but what makes her most amazing also makes her writing too involving and personal for me to take a lot of the time.

Strangely, I get similar feelings about C.J. Cherryh's novels, but that's probably got a lot to do with my crazy family. (Lots of brains. Less with the well-adjusted childhoods. Also not so good at the well-adjusted adult lives.) I occasionally reread Cherryh, but I find going straight through Downbelow Station or Cyteen really hard. I also can't reread the first third of Mirror Dance - once Miles dies, it's all right, but the early Mark PoVs are so desparate I find myself putting the book down and walking away.

Like I said, feel free to suggest some romances, if any come to mind. Awesome stories about two people in love making some plotty thing happen - I'm all about that. Bonus points for SF/F, but don't let that constrain you, if you think your non-SF/F recommendations are stronger.

Re: Oui! Oui!

[ase.livejournal.com]

I don't know if community is the right word - people come to LJ for lots of stuff. People use it for support, and people use it to avoid working on their "real" writing. Livejournal (or blog) as publicity engine seems to be happening, as well - but that can backfire, if people forget they're talking to self-selecting audiences, including people who violently disagree with your positions.

Re: Well. . .community has many connotations . . .

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

For me a community of writers exists wherever one wants to designate it as such as the connotation of the word is so broad as to encompass just about anything that anyone wants to define as "community."

I mean Live Journal is most definitely a community that varies based on how one wants to even "control" who is a part of their audience (as in those who make their posts public versus those who don't and those, like me who have a controlled "response" on which folks I want to hear from as I'm had more of my share of folks who just want to attack me just to feel good about themselves or whatever. . . and I do have a "consider the source" mentality to where, yes: some opinions have value to me and others do NOT and never will.

And that attitude has nothing to do with anything I write on Live Journal. That is an attitude I and most professional writers or even artists I know have had to develop if you're truly going to "survive" in this game. In other words:

Even with a working journalist I knew that the reactions I received from some folks amounted to straight up b.s. for which I needed to toss the letter in the garbage can with a [sarcastic]"thanks for sharing" immediately after reading it and then those letters where a reader was, truly and sincerely, making an important, valid and intelligent point that DEMANDED my consideration. Only a fool would apply equal weight to all opinions, in other words. . .esp. when some have the worst motivations for their viewpoints to begin with. . .

As for why I write on LJ, I've had a journal for as long as I can remember and even have saved the ones I had as a teen. I believe that writing IS writing and either you're doing it or you're not. Period. And ALL writing, therefore, is "real" writing in my book, but all depends entirely on GENRE, AUDIENCE and PURPOSE.

But I'm not stating anything new here.

That's what anyone can find out from reading any college textbook or any book on writing for that matter. ..

[ase.livejournal.com]

I would say that the traditional areas of masculine achievement are being divided into two parts: Those in which women are becoming involved, and those that are deprecated.

In reply to both your comments, I'm tempted to say we're seeing a swing from the Oppressive Patriarchy (tm) to the Oppressive Matriarchy, but I think it's more complicated than that. I think there's a social shift in valuing work vs. family; it used to be that you worked to support your family, but currently, we work to do something we enjoy, and to support yourself (the individual). If we were moving on a more direct line to the Oppressive Matriarchy, I'd think that traditionally female roles, like housewife or elementary school teacher, would be gaining more respect, and that you'd see more men trying to break into those roles/professions.

[ase.livejournal.com]

and not have to become, for lack of a better word, "tomgirls."

I believe the SAT GRE vocabulary you are looking for is "effete". And look at the loaded connotations there. I like "tomgirls" as a concept much more. (As a back-formation from "tomboys" it works, but I wonder if it adequately stands alone?)

[toraks.livejournal.com]

I'll think about the recs and get back to you.

Interesting about Cherryh, I never got into them. I think I read a few way back when but really have no memory of them.

As far as romances, Nora Roberts' recent stuff is mostly great. I tend to buy her when I see her. She's been writing forever and it shows, her old work is not so great. She tends to do some interesting witchy/enchantment type fantasy kind of books. And she writes in pretty decent trilogies quite often. One of the trilogies I like the most is the "Irish Trilogy": Jewels of the Sun(1999), Tears of the Moon (2000), and Heart of the Sea(2000). That ones got some really good fantasy/legend comes to life type stuff. The "KEY TRILOGY": Key of Light (2003), Key of Knowledge (2003) , Key of Valor (2004) also has some fun legend coming to life stuff as well. And the "THREE SISTERS TRILOGY": Dance Upon the Air (2001), Heaven and Earth (2001), Face the Fire (2002) has some great witchy stuff, very earth centered, not very woo woo. In all cases, the romances are great and there's a lot of great characterization and fun plot.

Jayne Castle (aka Jayne Ann Krentz --real name for contemporary romances aka Amanda Quick for historicals) writes some fun fluffy science fiction romances. Fluffy's not quite the right word, but light. She gets into some really interesting world-building, at least I think it's pretty cool, with fun psychic interactions. The psychic stuff is more in there than the science fiction, though they do take place on planets far away. The books are: Amaryllis (Oct 1996); Zinnia (Jul 1997); Orchid (May 1998); "Bridal Jitters" in Charmed anthology (Oct 1999); After Dark (Sep 2000); After Glow (Mar 2004)

Can you tell I have these author web sites book marked? Easy to grab titles!

Anyway, I'd have more if I thought a bit longer, but these are great. And have more than just straight romance, so I though they might appeal. You can probably get them from a public library. There are plenty of other books by these authors and others that I could recommend, but I'll stop here for now. ;-p

Re: Well. . .community has many connotations . . .

[ase.livejournal.com]

I think we agree, and are using different words to say the same thing: writing matters. Getting the words out is the important thing. Am I right?

[ase.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recs - I'll look them up next time I'm at the library. (And looking at my due dates, that should be soon. As in, before the middle of next week soon. Or possibly tomorrow. Three cheers for online renewals!)

[toraks.livejournal.com]

No problem! Enjoy!

Why do I feel like I'm corrupting you? ;-)

By the way, J.D.Robb is also Nora Roberts and writes science fiction/murder mystery with great characterization, etc. First one is Naked in Death. Very fun series with about 26 or more books by now. Though they do get formulaic, I still enjoy them and Tom does too. But I'd start with the first.

I just can't help myself. ;-)

Re:How about getting the "right" words out? LOL!!!!

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

Why, of course, we agree and forgive me if I seemed as if I was disagreeing (many times folks think I'm arguing with them when I'm not. A note to (again) work on my TONE, LOL!!!!)!

Yes: "getting them "out" is such a major issue. Although I might say I'm not sure sure if you mean "out" as in "published" or "out" as in getting the right words "out" to where your reader (whomever he or she may be) actually WANTS or truly DESIRES to read your words.

This is my biggest dilemma as a creative writer, for instance. I always fear that whatever it is I'm trying to "get out" is not going to be understood or fully appreciated by the reader. I mean your review is a perfect example of that. You're, obviously, a very intelligent and rather erudite reader and thus I did feel a bit sorry for some of the authors you reviewed because, well, gee ---

writers INTEND so much, but then when the text comes "out" you find out, for real, whether you hit or missed the mark.

Sometimes I swear one can never know and there's never universal agreement on much. I mean the NYTimes and some very honorable writers recently voted Toni Morrison's novel, "Beloved" as one of the greatest texts written in the last part of the century or something like that.

I know there's a LOT of folks who bristled at that distinction or claim. But ce la vie. . .a writer can, most times, never know if all their hard work or effort is going to be the source of a rave review or a major diss.

And I think that's the grand mystery of writing, after all. . .

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

It's not a lack of respect that drives men away from elementary education. It's that it is a very labor intensive industry that has all the requirements of professional employment (college degree, professional demeanor, etc) with the pay of what publics are willing to tax themselves. Not to mention bad working conditions, etc. But I wouldn't really say it's a status thing as much. Or such is my impression.

Traditionally, a great deal of what is considered "women's work" is that because it sucks and they can be forced into doing it. Thus, I don't think there's as much emphasis on raising the status of traditional female roles, because many Matriarchists would prefer it just went away. Thus, the Patriarchal solution to "how to take care of kids" is "make women do it", while the Matriachal solution seems to be as much "be Childfree" or "hire nannies" as it is "raise the status of motherhood".

[ase.livejournal.com]

Why do I feel like I'm corrupting you? ;-)

Because you are? ;-)

I've heard of Nora Roberts/J. D. Robb. I hadn't been inspired to pick up her novels (in either persona) because the romances suffered from my "romance, ewww!" problem, and the SF stuff didn't have blurbs on the back. I want to know a little about the book before dedicating myself to 300 pages, you know? I've heard a little about them since then.

[ase.livejournal.com]

My most flippant answer is that if someone is going to sample male privledge in whatever form, they ought to enjoy it, there's less of a wasteland that way.

My thoughts exactly. I think she was trying to make a point by showing how her experiences didn't live up to her expectations, but she picked some stuff that was doomed to failure. She joined a bowling team when she couldn't bowl; she took a low-end door-to-door salesman job; she spent time in a monastery; she attended meetings of a men's group counseling thing. If she'd been, say, good at softball and joined a softball league, I think she would have come to some similar but less depressing conclusions.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Romance blurbs are probably worse than science fiction ones. Blech. I've definitely read ones that wouldn't have let me pick up the book, except I love all the books by that author. :-)

Actually, a bunch of her books rather than having blurbs on the back have them inside the front cover, first text page. Because the back has to be a big picture of her.

I don't think I'm fond of the Nora Roberts persona, she comes off as very big-headed. But then maybe her amazing writing justifies it. Let's just say she's not someone I'd want to meet. Unlike Lois, of course! ;-)

I'm Ba-ack!

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

Took a month long LJ hiatus. Hence the long delay in commenting.

Jenner & Cowpox was 1796...so there's _just_ enough time for the idea of primitive vaccination to percolate back to England by 1806...assuming a benevolent narrator. ;-)

...and yes, Iskierka is definitely dangerously plucky.

As for Dawkins (which you're certainly done with by now), the ideas aren't as groundbreaking, but the examples are really cool. The fig, the eye, the wing...it's about the details.

It's really a pity that Dawkins has to recapitulate the entire idea of natural selection in each of his books before getting to the good stuff. It seems a common bane in science writing. I've been reading about the Permian extiction and the authors all seem bound and determine to go all the way back to Lyell and the birth of uniformitarianism before saying anything _new_.

More in a bit!