Hot Stuff (May Reading)

[ase]

My to-do list hasn't been stalled by any reluctance to put on real clothes. It has been stalled by 92 degrees of misery with 54% humidity. (In case you missed it, I loathe and abhor any temperature above 80 F when the humidity is above, oh, 20%. Who spent a few formative years in a desert? Hi!) Today may be a good day to learn what bribes my roommates will accept for taxi services.

In the meantime, May reading:

Babel-17 (Samuel Delany): The beautiful poet and genius linguist Rydra Wong is recruited to unravel the other side's code in an interstellar war. Leans on the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to explain how Babel-17 operates. It's also linked to computer languages: thinking in Babel-17 lets Wong analyze and react to situations quickly, but forces its own logical pathways on the thinker. Paired read with Snow Crash?

I was less than impressed by the unending adulation shown to Rydra Wong - can do no wrong, smarter and more beautiful and more understanding than anyone else ever - but wasn't too put off because it was a short novel, and was over before Wong could irritate me too much. Something also distracting was the extensive body modification, which was sort of socially class linked and may be standing in for tattooing, I don't know. I was just distracted because hey, minor surgery! Ow!

Someone lent me two graphic novels, The Tale of One Bad Rat and Fun Home. I tried and failed to read both. Rat nearly got hurled against a wall by spinal reflex for being unexpected Child Abuse Is Bad fiction; I got as far as the back cover copy for Fun Home and nixed it for proximity to Rat, as well as general indifference, before I ever cracked it open. Neither were the fantasy or SF tropes I was expecting.

If I finished anything else, it's been lost in the shuffle. May was nuts and fruitcake and a very short attention span.

Comments

[sraun]

I've read Babel-17 relatively recently, so I have an opinion on the body modification. A large part of it was a stand-in for tattooing, but there were also elements of 'we have computer jack-in technology that takes you out of body, and uses your whole body reactions to control things', and the body modification allowed both the practice of things that you might have to do with a ship that you couldn't otherwise, and the analysis of how good you might be doing that type of thing.

[ase.livejournal.com]

The in-text explanation is reactions and body control, but I still get stuck on the external context (USA, the mid '60s) and what Delaney going for some impressive body modification in that time says. "People are people", I guess.

[cathydalek.livejournal.com]

Why did you think Fun Home would be SF/F? It's alison bechdel's semi-autobiographical story of growing up in the family funeral home with her mom and her closeted gay dad. Not to mention Bechdel is best known for Dykes to Watch Out For.

I prefer Nova to Babel-17 and didn't really mind the admiration of Wong, considering it's not a novel, that sort of thing came pretty standard for the era the book was written in - either you're the near perfect hero or you're a total anti-hero; flawed heros didn't come standard.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Every single conversation I'd had with the loaner had been about SF/F, and the rec was "I think you'll like this" with no additional information. So I drew the conclusion that I was being loaned SF; obviously I was dead wrong.

I picked up Babel-17 used and cheap; I'll see if the library has Nova. You're right about the era: Wong's magic touch isn't particularly unusual for the time. And some of her influence - I'm thinking of the, um, customs (?) agent - is a little more subtly portrayed than the norm.

[meril.livejournal.com]

Fun Home was actually pretty good, and you know my tastes in comics normally run towards magical girls and ninja. ;) cathydalek's description of it is pretty much right on, with the added part about the protagonist's own issues with her sexual orientation. Not all unhappy families are necessarily abusive, but I know your issues with that and, yeah, you probably don't want to read that this summer.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I draw a distinction between "good" and "what I like" because, well, there's a difference. Wacky family stories featuring clones from an alternate future timeline are probably not quality, but they're entertaining in an escapist way. Fun Home is probably technically excellent, but not likely to cheer me up.

Massive word on "unhappy" =! abusive. Not that I was listening to an NPR special on child custody rulings lately or anything. There's a gradient between "meh" family units and actively damaging ones; the really lucky people get to not investigate this issue ever. Anyway, I'm sure the library can hook me up with some DTWOF books to introduce me to Bechdel's work, if I want.