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Jennifer's Reviews > Among Others
Among Others
by Jo Walton (Goodreads Author)
by Jo Walton (Goodreads Author)
This is a fantasy in which the fantasy element could just as easily be a metaphor for psychological states or coping mechanisms. If you like coming-of-age stories, but don't like fantasy, you might still want to give this a try.
If you like coming-of-age stories that are honest about how awkward it really is to be a teenager, especially a geek teenager, but doesn't gloat over the narrator's misfortunes, you might want to give this a try.
If books meant a lot to you as a kid, if they opened up new worlds for you, if books ever saved your life, you might want to give this a try.
Trauma or abuse survivors, people who were the "weird kid," people who are never, ever part of the in-crowd--ditto.
If the narrator seems exceptionally smart, exceptionally clear-headed, bear in mind that she is smart, she is exceptional, she is geeky. Those people exist. Be patient; she's not perfect, and Walton does show us that.
My quibbles with the book are about the final confrontation, which came on too quickly, and with the use of "insane" as shorthand for "bad parent." The book's climax was awfully sudden, and both of the confrontations Mor faced could have stood a little introduction. Even a few diary entries indicating increasing attacks by her mother might have helped. The other confrontation, well, I could let it slide that that was a total surprise. Still, it was unclear what was happening and why, and the story fell apart like a dry piecrust at that crucial moment. I feel puzzled by that.
We are given to understand early in the book that Mor's mother was abusive, and given some ambiguous tidbits about evil motives she had for her behavior. We do see a couple of strange attacks, and some emotional abuse during the book itself. What we don't have, other than a mention of Mor's having been terrified of her mother, and her mother being insane, is much about the abuse that supposedly happened during Mor's childhood.
It's not that I doubt Mor's story, but--well, actually, I do, because she provides no evidence whatsoever, nothing concrete. I suspect that doubt on the part of the reader isn't Walton's intention at all. Mor assigns evil motives to her mother, and she asserts that her mother frightened her and was insane, and at one point she mentions being shoved down the porch steps. The last is certainly abusive. Perhaps we're supposed to gather from all this that there was a constant pattern of abuse in Mor's life. Unfortunately, it just didn't read like that, even though I'm pretty sure that's what Walton intended.
Instead, where there should have been some indication that the abuse was a pattern, was recurring, was just the assertion that Mor's mother was "mad." OK, she's insane, fine--but that shouldn't be code for "bad parent." Not only is that inaccurate and derogatory, but it's sloppy writing. Even a few sentences here and there, generalizations about what her mother did ("She tried to break our spirits," "Our teachers always turned a blind eye to our bruises"--something, anything), would have helped established the abuse more. Instead, we just get over and over again that the mother is mentally ill, and that's used as shorthand for "abusive and neglectful." The more I think about that, the more hurt and frustrated I feel, especially because the rest of the book, until the very end, was so excellent. I really felt like I could identify with Mor, but you know, given the way the mother was basically being vilified for her mental illness, I kind of started to identify with her, too.
We need to do better than this, as a culture. What a shame. I can't help but think that being derogatory was also not one of Walton's intentions, which makes it all the more important to denormalize this stuff when it appears. If even a good author, a nice and civilized person, can unthinkingly whip out an old tired trope like this, then it's obvious that we still have a lot of work to do.
If you like coming-of-age stories that are honest about how awkward it really is to be a teenager, especially a geek teenager, but doesn't gloat over the narrator's misfortunes, you might want to give this a try.
If books meant a lot to you as a kid, if they opened up new worlds for you, if books ever saved your life, you might want to give this a try.
Trauma or abuse survivors, people who were the "weird kid," people who are never, ever part of the in-crowd--ditto.
If the narrator seems exceptionally smart, exceptionally clear-headed, bear in mind that she is smart, she is exceptional, she is geeky. Those people exist. Be patient; she's not perfect, and Walton does show us that.
My quibbles with the book are about the final confrontation, which came on too quickly, and with the use of "insane" as shorthand for "bad parent." The book's climax was awfully sudden, and both of the confrontations Mor faced could have stood a little introduction. Even a few diary entries indicating increasing attacks by her mother might have helped. The other confrontation, well, I could let it slide that that was a total surprise. Still, it was unclear what was happening and why, and the story fell apart like a dry piecrust at that crucial moment. I feel puzzled by that.
We are given to understand early in the book that Mor's mother was abusive, and given some ambiguous tidbits about evil motives she had for her behavior. We do see a couple of strange attacks, and some emotional abuse during the book itself. What we don't have, other than a mention of Mor's having been terrified of her mother, and her mother being insane, is much about the abuse that supposedly happened during Mor's childhood.
It's not that I doubt Mor's story, but--well, actually, I do, because she provides no evidence whatsoever, nothing concrete. I suspect that doubt on the part of the reader isn't Walton's intention at all. Mor assigns evil motives to her mother, and she asserts that her mother frightened her and was insane, and at one point she mentions being shoved down the porch steps. The last is certainly abusive. Perhaps we're supposed to gather from all this that there was a constant pattern of abuse in Mor's life. Unfortunately, it just didn't read like that, even though I'm pretty sure that's what Walton intended.
Instead, where there should have been some indication that the abuse was a pattern, was recurring, was just the assertion that Mor's mother was "mad." OK, she's insane, fine--but that shouldn't be code for "bad parent." Not only is that inaccurate and derogatory, but it's sloppy writing. Even a few sentences here and there, generalizations about what her mother did ("She tried to break our spirits," "Our teachers always turned a blind eye to our bruises"--something, anything), would have helped established the abuse more. Instead, we just get over and over again that the mother is mentally ill, and that's used as shorthand for "abusive and neglectful." The more I think about that, the more hurt and frustrated I feel, especially because the rest of the book, until the very end, was so excellent. I really felt like I could identify with Mor, but you know, given the way the mother was basically being vilified for her mental illness, I kind of started to identify with her, too.
We need to do better than this, as a culture. What a shame. I can't help but think that being derogatory was also not one of Walton's intentions, which makes it all the more important to denormalize this stuff when it appears. If even a good author, a nice and civilized person, can unthinkingly whip out an old tired trope like this, then it's obvious that we still have a lot of work to do.
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Hi, thanks for your comment. As for the book, I think that, as a piece of writing, the abuse could have been established better and less nebulously. I kept waiting for more information, and then the book just ended. I was pretty surprised by that.I see what you mean about Mor's needing a bad guy, and the mother being presented as a stereotype because of that. That makes perfect sense to me.
I'd like to point out, gently, that it's unwise to tell strangers that they don't know what abuse is. You don't know my history, and in my review, I never said that abuse was all physical, or required a constant stream of incidents. Unfortunately, I know all too well that sometimes the worst abuse is the abuse that is interspersed with times that feel safe and okay. Even knowing that, I felt like information was missing from the book. That said, it's hard to get the population at large to understand that emotional abuse is real, or that abuse doesn't mean "OMG constant drama," so I do understand why you'd want to point that out to me.
It's sort of like the way she mentions children's lit having no shades of grey, earlier in the book -- she says it and at that point doesn't see that she hasn't learnt enough about shades of grey yet. But it is so easy to misread that, to just take the black and white view, because we don't see Mori grown up very much more at the end, only on the way to it.That's not what I meant to say, I'm sorry: more that your review doesn't get that across. I found my experience here in this book, because it isn't in huge dramatic events but in the thought patterns written into you -- in not giving something away because it can be used against you. Perhaps it is too subtle for many readers, perhaps not -- I liked the way it was done here, because it was closer to my experience than narratives like, say, A Child Called It could ever be. What you said focused on the physical -- "Our teachers always turned a blind eye to our bruises" was one of the lines you suggested for it, and the part you acknowledge as truly abusive is the physical action, and not the fear at all. It felt rather like being told that non-physical abuse, or non-systematic abuse, isn't "real", to read your review about not believing in it, when I found thought patterns I recognised so clearly in it. Clear-cut, physical, systematic abuse isn't the only abuse story worth telling.
I agree about abuse and discussions of it--fair enough that my review didn't get that across, though. Well, I did include a bit about breaking one's spirit, but even that sounds like high drama as opposed to the death by a thousand cuts that is so often the form abuse takes. It was a reasonable thing for you to point out, given the general attitude society has about these things.
Thank you for your understanding. I do agree with your review, in the main -- the parts with Mori's mother needed more to feel as satisfying as the rest, to me. I linked to your review in mine; I think the issue of the portrayal of mental illness needs thinking about, even when there are narrative/character reasons for it. It feels like a shortcut, an easy way out -- if we're meant to see that's just what Mori is doing, then it's a valid point, but I don't think every reader will see that!
If a third person can join this discussion -- I agree that there wasn't nearly enough explicit evidence of abuse, whether physical or emotional. I think the primary evidence really was supposed to be the letters she received. Her burning them was a major incident in the books. However, we aren't given any real insight into what the letters contained (Mori doesn't even open most of them) or how they could have harmed her. I wonder if the author didn't want to that aspect to overshadow the other themes of the work. Perhaps she understated it too much.
As for "insane" being code for "bad mother," I read it as her mother becoming insane because of her powers and the way she wanted to use them to control others. She had a choice, in other words. I didn't see it as saying that all bad mothers are insane, or that all women with mental problems are necessarily bad mothers.
I've already taken the book back to the library (someone else had requested it), so I can't check to see if that interpretation is justified.
None of these things bothered me, though, because I was always aware that the narrator is a 15-year old girl, and, as Nikki says, they are not noted for their ability to appreciate the complexities in life. I suppose I filled in some of those missing complexities, just as I would when dealing with a 15-year-old in real life.
Hi Suzanne--thanks for your comment. I'd say the interpretation is justified because our society equates mental illness with evil, especially in women, especially in mothers. So even though Walton was writing from a semi-autobiographical standpoint (her mother really was abusive, apparently, and really was mentally ill, which complicates interpretation of the book), books and other media are written and produced within a greater context. Most people are going to read that sort of thing and either agree consciously, or subconsciously (because our negative views of mental illness and of women are so normalized that they don't even register consciously)--they won't even get that there might be something to question there, much less protest.Folks who examine works and raise questions about this stuff are not so much claiming that these things are exceptional instances, or deliberate, calculated hatefulness by an author (although sometimes they certainly are). It's more that what people read and view does inform what they think, and what they think informs how they treat others, how they vote, how they interact with the greater society. So we call out these problems not because we're nitpicking, but because even bringing attention to the fact that the messages are there at all can allow folks the opportunity to consider them consciously rather than just taking them in.
If the reality is that some women are both insane and abusive, how can we urge that such women not be depicted in literature? Should literature not reflect reality? The work includes a wide variety of women, some good, some evil, some balanced, some unbalanced. The Aunts are balanced and evil (apparently); the teachers and librarian are balanced and good or at least neutral; her mother is (reportedly) unbalanced and evil. And, of course, we have to ask on what basis Mori makes that diagnosis. She knows whether she has been abused, either physically or emotionally or both, but she is hardly in a position to diagnosis a mental illness. There's no doubt that she believes her mother to be insane, but there is also no evidence for it. She may simply find it easier to believe that an abusive mother is mentally disturbed than to accept that she knowingly did what she did. That, also, is a reflection of reality.
Suzanne: I think the point is that portrayals of women who are mentally ill should be balanced and considered. Women are already a disprivileged group: mentally ill women even more so. Authors should, I think, be careful of further stigmatising them.Which is not to say that mentally ill women shouldn't be reflected in literature, but not only as evil abusive people. If Mori's mother is mentally ill, for example, is she in control of her own actions? No, she is not. Yet the narrative implies both: that she is knowingly evil and mentally ill -- which can reinforce the stereotype.
I've read that Jo had a schizophrenic mother, and her sister died. It's very easy to read this story as a straight fantasy and as a piece about schizophrenia-and the last battle being Mori coming to terms that she "sees" fairies too and always will, and can live with that. it's an equally powerful book either way.
I have to say, though, that your idea of what abuse is is as limited as this portrayal seems to you. It isn't all about the bruises, or dramatic breaking of spirits. A single instance of being hurt can be enough to haunt you for a long time. I got that feeling from this: for example, there's a part where Mori writes about taking books from her mother's shelf, and hiding the fact that she has -- that speaks more to me of fear than any number of references to bruises. And the reference when she's at school to not giving away anything because it can be used against her, too -- that speaks of bitter experience.