Rachel Swirsky's Blog, page 37
March 13, 2011
My grandmother died
My grandmother died this morning. She's been very sick for a while now and everyone was surprised she made it this long, especially after my grandfather died five years ago on March 6, 2011. She was very depressed; she refused to leave her house for a place where people would be able to take care of her better; she was very lonely. She had talked about trying to commit suicide but she was afraid it would make everyone feel like it was their faults she'd died--our part of the family tried to tell her that she shouldn't prioritize us over herself, but I think she was very worried about her son's reaction.
I saw her about a month ago.
She died of a heart attack. She felt very sick at about 4am and called the lifeline. When they arrived, along with the woman who took care of her and one of her friends, she had already died.
She really, really did not want to leave the house. If she had survived, she would have had to go to a care facility. We're glad that she didn't. Her multiple illnesses had reached the point where they were untreatable and very painful. Everyone was worried that she would die a lingering, painful death. Her illnesses have been lingering and her last few years were unpleasant, but at least the end stage went quickly.
My parents both say they are relieved. They spent a lot of time caring for her in LA. She was so sick, and they were very worried it would be a long and painful death.
I'm glad to be here at the house when this happened. Mike and I are here for Fogcon. When my grandfather died, a lot of family (from the other side) was here, which was very strange, and chaotic, and kind of unpleasant. This morning it's just us and my parents.
Strangely, I'm headed to ICFA this weekend. The last time I registered for ICFA I was supposed to present a paper, but didn't go because my grandfather died. (This time I am going to go.)
I saw her about a month ago.
She died of a heart attack. She felt very sick at about 4am and called the lifeline. When they arrived, along with the woman who took care of her and one of her friends, she had already died.
She really, really did not want to leave the house. If she had survived, she would have had to go to a care facility. We're glad that she didn't. Her multiple illnesses had reached the point where they were untreatable and very painful. Everyone was worried that she would die a lingering, painful death. Her illnesses have been lingering and her last few years were unpleasant, but at least the end stage went quickly.
My parents both say they are relieved. They spent a lot of time caring for her in LA. She was so sick, and they were very worried it would be a long and painful death.
I'm glad to be here at the house when this happened. Mike and I are here for Fogcon. When my grandfather died, a lot of family (from the other side) was here, which was very strange, and chaotic, and kind of unpleasant. This morning it's just us and my parents.
Strangely, I'm headed to ICFA this weekend. The last time I registered for ICFA I was supposed to present a paper, but didn't go because my grandfather died. (This time I am going to go.)
March 11, 2011
A world without unions
Eyewitness at the Triangle, William Shepherd:
The story of the fire:
Mr. H.F.J. Porter, quoted in Triangle Fire by Leon Stein
I was walking through Washington Square when a puff of smoke issuing from the factory building caught my eye. I reached the building before the alarm was turned in. I saw every feature of the tragedy visible from outside the building. I learned a new sound--a more horrible sound than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk.
Thud-dead, thud-dead, thud-dead, thud-dead. Sixty-two thud-deads. I call them that, because the sound and the thought of death came to me each time, at the same instant. There was plenty of chance to watch them as they came down. The height was eighty feet...
I even watched one girl falling. Waving her arms, trying to keep her body upright until the very instant she struck the sidewalk, she was trying to balance herself. Then came the thud--then a silent, unmoving pile of clothing and twisted, broken limbs...
One girl climbed onto the window sash. Those behind her tried to hold her back. Then she dropped into space. I didn't notice whether those above watched her drop because I had turned away. Then came that first thud. I looked up, another girl was climbing onto the window sill; others were crowding behind her. She dropped. I watched her fall, and again the dreadful sound. Two windows away two girls were climbing onto the sill; they were fighting each other and crowding for air. Behind them I saw many screaming heads. They fell almost together, but I heard two distinct thuds. Then the flames burst out through the windows on the floor below them, and curled up into their faces.
The firemen began to raise a ladder. Others took out a life net and, while they were rushing to the sidewalk with it, two more girls shot down. The firemen held it under them; the bodies broke it; the grotesque simile of a dog jumping through a hoop struck me. Before they could move the net another girl's body flashed through it...
As I looked up I saw a love affair in the midst of all the horror. A young man helped a girl to the window sill. Then he held her out, deliberately away from the building and let her drop. He seemed cool and calculating. He held out a second girl the same way and let her drop. Then he held out a third girl who did not resist. I noticed that. They were as unresisting as if he were helping them onto a streetcar instead of into eternity. Undoubtedly he saw that a terrible death awaited them in the flames, and his was only a terrible chivalry.
Then came the love amid the flames. He brought another girl to the window. Those of us who were looking saw her put her arms about him and kiss him. Then he held her out into space and dropped her. But quick as a flash he was on the window sill himself. His coat fluttered upward-the air filled his trouser legs. I could see that he wore tan shoes and hose. His hat remained on his head.
Thud-dead, thud-dead-together they went into eternity. I saw his face before they covered it. You could see in it that he was a real man. He had done his best...
I heard screams around the corner and hurried there. What I had seen before was not so terrible as what had followed. Up in the [ninth] floor girls were burning to death before our very eyes. They were jammed in the windows. No one was lucky enough to be able to jump, it seemed.
But, one by one, the jams broke. Down came the bodies in a shower, burning, smoking-flaming bodies, with disheveled hair trailing upward. They had fought each other to die by jumping instead of by fire.
The whole, sound, unharmed girls who had jumped on the other side of the building had tried to fall feet down. But these fire torches, suffering ones, fell inertly, only intent that death should come to them on the sidewalk instead of in the furnace behind them...
I looked upon the heap of dead bodies and I remembered these girls were the shirtwaist makers. I remembered their great strike of last year in which these same girls had demanded more sanitary conditions and more safety precautions in the shops. These dead bodies were the answer.
The story of the fire:
The Triangle Fire tragically illustrated that fire inspections and precautions were woefully inadequate at the time. Workers recounted their helpless efforts to open the ninth floor doors to the Washington Place stairs. They and many others afterwards believed they were deliberately locked-- owners had frequently locked the exit doors in the past, claiming that workers stole materials. For all practical purposes, the ninth floor fire escape in the Asch Building led nowhere, certainly not to safety, and it bent under the weight of the factory workers trying to escape the inferno. Others waited at the windows for the rescue workers only to discover that the firefighters' ladders were several stories too short and the water from the hoses could not reach the top floors. Many chose to jump to their deaths rather than to burn alive...
Workers flocked to union quarters to offer testimonies, support mobilization, and demand that Triangle owners Harris and Blanck be brought to trial. The role that strong unions could have in helping prevent such tragedies became clear. Workers organized in powerful unions would be more conscious of their rights and better able to obtain safe working conditions...
Harris and Blanck [the factory owners] were to continue their defiant attitude toward the authorities. Just a few days after the fire, the new premises of their factory had been found not to be fireproof, without fire escapes, and without adequate exits.
In August of 1913, Max Blanck was charged with locking one of the doors of his factory during working hours. Brought to court, he was fined twenty dollars, and the judge apologized to him for the imposition.
In December of 1913, the interior of his factory was found to be littered with rubbish piled six feet high, with scraps kept in non-regulation, flammable wicker baskets. This time, instead of a court appearance and a fine, he was served a stern warning.
Mr. H.F.J. Porter, quoted in Triangle Fire by Leon Stein
"The neglect of factory owners in the matter of safety of their employees is absolutely criminal. One man whom I advised to install a fire drill replied to me: 'Let 'em burn. They're a lot of cattle, anyway.' "
March 7, 2011
Why male war victims fail to elicit the same sympathy as female war victims, a.k.a. a sucky dynamic
A commenter on Alas writes:
I agree with what he says, although in this case, I don't think it's because male is the default _exactly_. I think it's a combination of:
1) male is the default expected war casualty, so any war casualty that is not the default is a "man bites dog" story. "Man bites dog" stories are always more likely to elicit a kick of sympathy. To get the same effect with "dog bites man," in this case, you'd have to shade in more details about "man" by, e.g., giving him kids, describing his hobbies, or, preferably, profiling his character.
That's not to say any of this is morally right, just that it seems to be part of the way the human brain (or maybe the American brain) processes tragedy… after hearing the same thing ("man is killed in war") a hundred times, it needs an extra detail ("'not-man' [woman, child, dog even] is killed in war," or "[modifier] man is killed in war.")
You can get the same effect in reverse. Stay-at-home-dad has a different interest level than stay-at-home-mom. If you can nail the narrative circumstances to avoid homophobia and prejudice against convicts, you can sometimes achieve this effect by describing male rape victims in fiction or journalism. (Not to say there isn't minority kick-back; we had to ban an amazingly assholish feminist from the blog once for saying men just didn't mind being raped as much as women did.)
I approach this more or less from the same perspective as the idea that human (or at least American) brains seem to care more about evil done with a motive behind it than evil done without one, e.g. we can organize against "evil people planning to kill civilians" but global warming fails to evoke the same rage. (There was a study about this a couple years ago, which I will now be too lazy to link to.) The interest in "man bites dog" stories is essentially inevitable, and probably related to the way our brains (fail to) calculate statistics, e.g. we think super-fucking-rare things are incipiently dangerous, like stranger pedophiles breaking into our houses to kidnap our children, and fail to be afraid of things that are much more statistically likely to cause harm, like car accidents. I imagine it's also related to donor fatigue.
A skilled journalist or fiction writer can get around the problem by writing specifically and well. That's my professional relationship to it. I'm not sure how people involved in other professions get around the problem.
2) I do think there's an important secondary reason for why women are seen as especially bad victims of war, and it's the same reason why women aren't drafted. It's because of the historical (particularly Victorian?) association of women with children as people without full power or agency. Helpless victims are generally seen, in the abstract, as morally more compromising to attack than victims that are perceived as being able to fight back. A thirty-year-old getting into a shouting argument with and overpowering and strangling a five-year-old evokes a different emotion than a thirty-year-old getting into a shouting argument with an overpowering another thirty-year-old. If you assume that women are essentially helpless and morally stunted, which is a common historical social attitude in the west, then killing them is basically like killing a child. And of course you can't draft them into war or let them fight in combat; how could they handle the responsibility?
This attitude is sort of gone (though it lingers) from intellectual contexts but remains in physical ones.
The association of women with children in general acts to women's extreme disbenefit (see, e.g., historical attitudes that women are like children and thus can't be trusted to run households or own property), but occasionally turns up something like "not responsible enough to be drafted" which, if you're like me and essentially a physical coward and/or philosophical pacificist, is good (and, much as I can't personally fathom the desire to enter combat, if you're a female cadet who wants to fly in combat roles, sucks).
--
I have been flippant with some of my terms here for comic effect... obviously the effects of the dynamic described in the title are not merely sucky but horrifying, the attitudes held by the banned feminist aren't just assholish but vicious and cruel.
For an example of a 'not-man killed in war' story that takes advantage of the sentimental response provoked by non-default victims, see Brad Denton's "Sergeant Chip." For an example of a '[modifier] man killed in war' story, see "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien in which the objects act as the specifics that modify the men from generic to individual.
Men killed in war is very often just a nameless and faceless number which will invoke no sympathy or outrage while women killed and maimed in war is supposed to invoke more sympathy and outrage – this is especially true of conflicts far away from us. Many feminists will argue that this is because men is the default gender – and they will argue that as if that is a good thing in this case. Which it obviously is not. Victims who envoke sympathy are more likely to be helped.
I agree with what he says, although in this case, I don't think it's because male is the default _exactly_. I think it's a combination of:
1) male is the default expected war casualty, so any war casualty that is not the default is a "man bites dog" story. "Man bites dog" stories are always more likely to elicit a kick of sympathy. To get the same effect with "dog bites man," in this case, you'd have to shade in more details about "man" by, e.g., giving him kids, describing his hobbies, or, preferably, profiling his character.
That's not to say any of this is morally right, just that it seems to be part of the way the human brain (or maybe the American brain) processes tragedy… after hearing the same thing ("man is killed in war") a hundred times, it needs an extra detail ("'not-man' [woman, child, dog even] is killed in war," or "[modifier] man is killed in war.")
You can get the same effect in reverse. Stay-at-home-dad has a different interest level than stay-at-home-mom. If you can nail the narrative circumstances to avoid homophobia and prejudice against convicts, you can sometimes achieve this effect by describing male rape victims in fiction or journalism. (Not to say there isn't minority kick-back; we had to ban an amazingly assholish feminist from the blog once for saying men just didn't mind being raped as much as women did.)
I approach this more or less from the same perspective as the idea that human (or at least American) brains seem to care more about evil done with a motive behind it than evil done without one, e.g. we can organize against "evil people planning to kill civilians" but global warming fails to evoke the same rage. (There was a study about this a couple years ago, which I will now be too lazy to link to.) The interest in "man bites dog" stories is essentially inevitable, and probably related to the way our brains (fail to) calculate statistics, e.g. we think super-fucking-rare things are incipiently dangerous, like stranger pedophiles breaking into our houses to kidnap our children, and fail to be afraid of things that are much more statistically likely to cause harm, like car accidents. I imagine it's also related to donor fatigue.
A skilled journalist or fiction writer can get around the problem by writing specifically and well. That's my professional relationship to it. I'm not sure how people involved in other professions get around the problem.
2) I do think there's an important secondary reason for why women are seen as especially bad victims of war, and it's the same reason why women aren't drafted. It's because of the historical (particularly Victorian?) association of women with children as people without full power or agency. Helpless victims are generally seen, in the abstract, as morally more compromising to attack than victims that are perceived as being able to fight back. A thirty-year-old getting into a shouting argument with and overpowering and strangling a five-year-old evokes a different emotion than a thirty-year-old getting into a shouting argument with an overpowering another thirty-year-old. If you assume that women are essentially helpless and morally stunted, which is a common historical social attitude in the west, then killing them is basically like killing a child. And of course you can't draft them into war or let them fight in combat; how could they handle the responsibility?
This attitude is sort of gone (though it lingers) from intellectual contexts but remains in physical ones.
The association of women with children in general acts to women's extreme disbenefit (see, e.g., historical attitudes that women are like children and thus can't be trusted to run households or own property), but occasionally turns up something like "not responsible enough to be drafted" which, if you're like me and essentially a physical coward and/or philosophical pacificist, is good (and, much as I can't personally fathom the desire to enter combat, if you're a female cadet who wants to fly in combat roles, sucks).
--
I have been flippant with some of my terms here for comic effect... obviously the effects of the dynamic described in the title are not merely sucky but horrifying, the attitudes held by the banned feminist aren't just assholish but vicious and cruel.
For an example of a 'not-man killed in war' story that takes advantage of the sentimental response provoked by non-default victims, see Brad Denton's "Sergeant Chip." For an example of a '[modifier] man killed in war' story, see "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien in which the objects act as the specifics that modify the men from generic to individual.
March 4, 2011
Additionally
"The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window" was nominated for the Nebula last week. I am greatly honored and I think it's a pretty cool ballot.
*
Since I always feel a bit awkward about posting writing news, I'm going to take the opportunity to plug some other deserving works. Under the assumption that the very deserving works on the ballot will be getting plenty of readership, I'm going to take one last opportunity to link to my favorite piece that didn't make it from each category.I know I've been on about these for the past couple months but I promise to hush after this.
Short story
"The History within Us" by Matt Kressel
Novelette
"Flying in the Face of God" by Nina Allen
Novella
"Alone" by Robert Reed
Novel
HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu
Norton
THE BONESHAKER by Kate Milford
That's probably the last from me on this topic, although I am planning to do some reading up for the Campbell, and I might post about that. I don't know how useful it is to anyone, but making the posts forces me to gel my thoughts, and coming from a family of readers who communicate by lending books, I really like to share what I like.
*
Since I always feel a bit awkward about posting writing news, I'm going to take the opportunity to plug some other deserving works. Under the assumption that the very deserving works on the ballot will be getting plenty of readership, I'm going to take one last opportunity to link to my favorite piece that didn't make it from each category.I know I've been on about these for the past couple months but I promise to hush after this.
Short story
"The History within Us" by Matt Kressel
Novelette
"Flying in the Face of God" by Nina Allen
Novella
"Alone" by Robert Reed
Novel
HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu
Norton
THE BONESHAKER by Kate Milford
That's probably the last from me on this topic, although I am planning to do some reading up for the Campbell, and I might post about that. I don't know how useful it is to anyone, but making the posts forces me to gel my thoughts, and coming from a family of readers who communicate by lending books, I really like to share what I like.
The Acceptability of Transphobia in Radfem Communities Debated at I Blame the Patriarchy
At I Blame the Patriarchy, the debate over bathroom libel rages on. I rarely post there, but some mad little hamster in my brain jumped on the wheel this time and squeaked out, "These ridiculous claims cannot stand! Bring it on!"
A commenter named lesbot asks:
Twisty replies, "Gender, incidentally, is one of the top 3 most pressing issues in all of Savage Death Islandism. Cultural narratives surrounding gender are the primary underlying motivation for rape as well as for lawmakers' steaming craps."
She also asks, "Why the fervent defense of these so-called ladies' rooms? The only thing keeping pervs and rapists out of them is — du dum — NOTHING! It's not like there's an anti-y-chromosome force field surrounding them."
These are both good points, but I can't get over the incoherence of the bathroom libel to begin with.
Does anyone have evidence of trans women attacking cis women in bathrooms, ever? Or is evidence too sciencey and thus patriarchal?
If the fear of trans women in ladies restrooms is about actual fear of rape and not, say, freaking out because trans people are icky, then examples should be easy at hand.
And they should even, preferably, exceed the number of examples of trans men and women experiencing violence at the hands of cis women and cis men when attempting to use either fucking bathroom.
Another commenter, yttik asks, "Does anybody hear the double standard going on? Women better make room for transwomen in the potty or else you're a bunch of anti-science bigots who hate dogs. And if we don't happily share the potty, what will we do? Cast a jaded look at somebody? Not smile and be welcoming? Meanwhile, why are transwomen afraid to use the mens room? Because they might be assaulted, raped, murdered, etc. Are we addressing the fact that men can be flippin violent and transphobic bastards? Nope, we're hating on women who might not be passing out warm inclusive hugs to transwomen in public restrooms."
But trans women DO encounter violence in women's restrooms, as per my links above. They may be assaulted. They may be arrested. More commonly, they are harassed. Under threat of arrest or harassment, they may be forced to use men's restrooms (again, see above links) where the chances of violence probably do rise, due to the incongruity between gender presentation and using the bathroom.
"What will we do?" yttik asks, referring to transphobic cis women as if they are passive and powerless. Well, there are a number of tactics, aren't there? Using the force of law to pressure trans women into situations where they are more likely to be violently attacked is not doing nothing; it is actively increasing the likelihood of violence. Using the force of law to subject trans women to police brutality from men is not doing nothing. Harassment, verbal or sexual, is not doing nothing, and yes, it does come from cis women:
Over on Twisty's blog, a lot of people are frustrated that the debate continues. Twisty has tried to end it (although she sparked it back up again by bringing it up in her next post). Both sides seem to find the argument exhausting. "Oh fuck," says commenter nails, "the Debate That Shall Not Be Named is back on. I'll just kick back and witness the bannage I guess." Other commenters insinuate that Twisty will only allow comments that aren't transphobic--which, well, I wouldn't object to that, but it's manifestly not what she's doing.
I sympathize with the fact that people want the debate to "be over." For pro-trans people, it's tiring having to defend their humanity, or the humanity of their friends and loved ones, or even just the humanity of other humans. For anti-trans people, well, it's always kind of tiring when people refuse to just accept your bigotry, isn't it? Cognitive dissonance is painful.
But no, the debate isn't going to "be over," not while the transphobia remains in that space, just the same as the debates about whether sexism is okay or racism is okay aren't going to vanish just because sexists and racists want them to.
And isn't it tiring that the debate centers around bathrooms when there are theoretically more important issues in trans people's lives, such as, you know, the incredibly high murder rate? But the bathroom debate is important. First of all, being able to pee is a human need. As someone who has panic attacks when entering situations where I'm likely to be harassed, I can't even imagine the panic that must accompany some trans public whenever they go out in public, knowing that if they have to use the bathroom, they could be subjected to harassment and violence.
Also, the bathroom issue--like gay marriage--has become symbolic, an imperfect but important barometer for anti-trans sentiment.
Commenter smaller: "Jill raised the "potty issue" most likely because that is the biggest fixation for bigots who can't wrap their heads around transpeople's basic humanity. Sure, it's a very real and pressing issue for transpeople in everyday life -do they walk into the bathroom that's "right" for their genetics, or the one that's "right" for their gender presentation, and risk being thrown out, arrested, beaten, killed or raped depending on how the people around them judge what sex they ought to be, no matter which choice they make?"
"Speaking of which," smaller adds, "talk to some of your really dykey lesbian friends some time and ask them how often they've been kicked out of bars or public places because a homophobic woman complains about "the man in the bathroom"- but it's seized upon to a ridiculous degree by people who want to belittle the issues surrounding trans-ness."
"I've peed in a lot of bathrooms labeled 'men,'" says commenter Nails. "When the other one is busy- especially in single stall bathrooms- I don't see much of a point behind waiting."
And I'm betting many of the transphobic commenters at I Blame the Patriarchy have done the same thing. It's not the bathroom that's a big deal. It's the symbol they make of it. They've made it into the center of debate because they think it's more important to symbolically reject trans women than it is to let real human beings pursue basic needs without the fear of violence.
A commenter named lesbot asks:
How could any radfem care more about "gender" than sex and more about an xy's comfort in a women's bathroom than about protecting xx's, including xx children, from rape?
Twisty replies, "Gender, incidentally, is one of the top 3 most pressing issues in all of Savage Death Islandism. Cultural narratives surrounding gender are the primary underlying motivation for rape as well as for lawmakers' steaming craps."
She also asks, "Why the fervent defense of these so-called ladies' rooms? The only thing keeping pervs and rapists out of them is — du dum — NOTHING! It's not like there's an anti-y-chromosome force field surrounding them."
These are both good points, but I can't get over the incoherence of the bathroom libel to begin with.
Does anyone have evidence of trans women attacking cis women in bathrooms, ever? Or is evidence too sciencey and thus patriarchal?
If the fear of trans women in ladies restrooms is about actual fear of rape and not, say, freaking out because trans people are icky, then examples should be easy at hand.
And they should even, preferably, exceed the number of examples of trans men and women experiencing violence at the hands of cis women and cis men when attempting to use either fucking bathroom.
Another commenter, yttik asks, "Does anybody hear the double standard going on? Women better make room for transwomen in the potty or else you're a bunch of anti-science bigots who hate dogs. And if we don't happily share the potty, what will we do? Cast a jaded look at somebody? Not smile and be welcoming? Meanwhile, why are transwomen afraid to use the mens room? Because they might be assaulted, raped, murdered, etc. Are we addressing the fact that men can be flippin violent and transphobic bastards? Nope, we're hating on women who might not be passing out warm inclusive hugs to transwomen in public restrooms."
But trans women DO encounter violence in women's restrooms, as per my links above. They may be assaulted. They may be arrested. More commonly, they are harassed. Under threat of arrest or harassment, they may be forced to use men's restrooms (again, see above links) where the chances of violence probably do rise, due to the incongruity between gender presentation and using the bathroom.
"What will we do?" yttik asks, referring to transphobic cis women as if they are passive and powerless. Well, there are a number of tactics, aren't there? Using the force of law to pressure trans women into situations where they are more likely to be violently attacked is not doing nothing; it is actively increasing the likelihood of violence. Using the force of law to subject trans women to police brutality from men is not doing nothing. Harassment, verbal or sexual, is not doing nothing, and yes, it does come from cis women:
I'll also state for the record that I have also been sexually assaulted in a public toilet - in this case it was a woman's toilet and a cis woman apparently felt that grabbing my tits while I was washing my hands was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Over on Twisty's blog, a lot of people are frustrated that the debate continues. Twisty has tried to end it (although she sparked it back up again by bringing it up in her next post). Both sides seem to find the argument exhausting. "Oh fuck," says commenter nails, "the Debate That Shall Not Be Named is back on. I'll just kick back and witness the bannage I guess." Other commenters insinuate that Twisty will only allow comments that aren't transphobic--which, well, I wouldn't object to that, but it's manifestly not what she's doing.
I sympathize with the fact that people want the debate to "be over." For pro-trans people, it's tiring having to defend their humanity, or the humanity of their friends and loved ones, or even just the humanity of other humans. For anti-trans people, well, it's always kind of tiring when people refuse to just accept your bigotry, isn't it? Cognitive dissonance is painful.
But no, the debate isn't going to "be over," not while the transphobia remains in that space, just the same as the debates about whether sexism is okay or racism is okay aren't going to vanish just because sexists and racists want them to.
And isn't it tiring that the debate centers around bathrooms when there are theoretically more important issues in trans people's lives, such as, you know, the incredibly high murder rate? But the bathroom debate is important. First of all, being able to pee is a human need. As someone who has panic attacks when entering situations where I'm likely to be harassed, I can't even imagine the panic that must accompany some trans public whenever they go out in public, knowing that if they have to use the bathroom, they could be subjected to harassment and violence.
Also, the bathroom issue--like gay marriage--has become symbolic, an imperfect but important barometer for anti-trans sentiment.
Commenter smaller: "Jill raised the "potty issue" most likely because that is the biggest fixation for bigots who can't wrap their heads around transpeople's basic humanity. Sure, it's a very real and pressing issue for transpeople in everyday life -do they walk into the bathroom that's "right" for their genetics, or the one that's "right" for their gender presentation, and risk being thrown out, arrested, beaten, killed or raped depending on how the people around them judge what sex they ought to be, no matter which choice they make?"
"Speaking of which," smaller adds, "talk to some of your really dykey lesbian friends some time and ask them how often they've been kicked out of bars or public places because a homophobic woman complains about "the man in the bathroom"- but it's seized upon to a ridiculous degree by people who want to belittle the issues surrounding trans-ness."
"I've peed in a lot of bathrooms labeled 'men,'" says commenter Nails. "When the other one is busy- especially in single stall bathrooms- I don't see much of a point behind waiting."
And I'm betting many of the transphobic commenters at I Blame the Patriarchy have done the same thing. It's not the bathroom that's a big deal. It's the symbol they make of it. They've made it into the center of debate because they think it's more important to symbolically reject trans women than it is to let real human beings pursue basic needs without the fear of violence.
February 18, 2011
Response to Clarisse Thorn's Backlash 2: Nuke *and* appease, please; be a both/and blogiverse
On Feministe, I posted in reponse to Clarisse Thorn's article on "The Backlash 2" about where activists should draw the balance between encouraging safe spaces and high-level conversation on the one hand, and not unfairly filtering out contributions from people who are privileged and/or aren't as well-educated on the topic.
I referenced:
Kinsey Hope's theory on the different kinds of strategies employed by commenters in arguments: the nuker, the appeaser, the the emoter and the logic bomber. From commenter Jadey at Feministe, a link to the introduction to her four-part series on the topic.
And also I Blame the Patriarchy's recent post on a change in her comment policy which states, "This blog is goin' dudeless. If you are commenting as a dude, don't do it here," the salient bit of which (in my opinion) is *as a dude* which implies the commenters' presentation is being restricted, not the commenters' chromosomes, gender identification, or genitalia.
Here's my comment:
I'm a big fan of the idea that there should be a multiplicity of strategies and points of view. So, ideally, there should be forums where nukers are asked to take a gentler stance, and forums where nukers are permitted. There should be forums that draw the line for "is this a valuable contribution?" at well before 101, and forums that draw the line at the advanced calculus level.
They all have their benefits, and they all have their detriments, and the more different types of conversations that are happening and being engaged in, the more different kinds of ideas can be produced and shared.
I admit you're more of an appeaser than I prefer. I like your work, and many of your thoughts, and I appreciate the consideration and time you put into your pieces. I feel I learn from seeing your perspective. I feel much the same way about I Blame the Patriarchy. Even if I don't agree with your conclusions or hers (and sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't), I've learned something by exposure to both.
I'm not particularly fond of arguments, though, that suggest all spaces should be similar in terms of how accepting/appeasing/101-friendly they are. Maybe that's not what you meant to suggest, but it's sort of how I read it. I think the balance you strike is a needed balance. But I also think more restrictive balances are needed.
To draw the comparison again to I Blame the Patriarchy, I actually think that her comment restriction (at least as I read it) is kind of brilliant–men are actually perfectly permitted to post as long as they don't post about being men, since that's not the topic of the space. I admit that her piece was ambiguous on the point, but that's what I read her to mean based on her prior essays on the subject, in which she celebrates men's contributions to the site, but says she finds it grating when someone takes the conversation to a place about "I, as a man, feel that the issue should really be X."
It's not that men's perspectives on the issues are bad in general, but I think it's okay to have a space where they don't dominate the conversation. And it's okay to have spaces where they do! I actually often think Alas, a Blog, where I write, would be much more successful as a space intended for male perspectives on feminism and positive constructions of men's rights activism. However, the men I write with, who I feel are rather brilliant on these topics, have expressed that they don't feel like they have time to create what would amount to a new movement, which is reasonable–they have lives.
Anyway, there's room for that sort of forum (I would argue even deep necessity for it, since men really are restricted by some of the kinds of things MRAs don't ever manage to productively talk about), and there's room for I Blame the Patriarchy's comment policy, and there's room for places that do both, or some mixture.
(Aside: Unfortunately, I think I Blame the Partiarchy's comment policy is doomed to failure for the simple reason that the commentariat is kind of a clusterfuck. There's poisonous privilege of the kind that I really don't think is okay anywhere, as per the threads on trans rights. A few years ago, I had brief hope that the commentariat was going to explode out all their nasty and then start to improve, as happens sometimes, but it never seemed to happen there. Not that there isn't signal there, sometimes, but there's a lot, a lot of noise.)
I'm not trying to say (as I believe you are also not trying to say) that there are never lines where behavior is unacceptable. I'm not really chill with any social justice forum that permits the kinds of comments about trans people that are regularly written at IBTP. I guess I might be forced to admit that it might be okay in some kind of no-moderation community where the goal was antithetical to moderation, because I do believe that there's probably something to be gained from those conversations just as there is from controlled ones, but permitting that kind of poison is, IMO, antithetical to stated social justice goals.
Anyway. To analogize it to a class discussion, some professors direct a lot, some a little, some not at all. On either end, the discussion can be impaired by too little or too much direction. But even the extremes work for some people, produce a conversation that might not happen in the same way if a different technique was used. And on the internet, where we do not lack for classrooms, I think it's great for many different strategies to be embraced.
So, basically, both/and please. Nukers and appeasers. 101 conversation and level 1 conversation and the kind of conversation you only get at conferences with experts. And lots of room for people to pick which settings they want to be in.
I referenced:
Kinsey Hope's theory on the different kinds of strategies employed by commenters in arguments: the nuker, the appeaser, the the emoter and the logic bomber. From commenter Jadey at Feministe, a link to the introduction to her four-part series on the topic.
And also I Blame the Patriarchy's recent post on a change in her comment policy which states, "This blog is goin' dudeless. If you are commenting as a dude, don't do it here," the salient bit of which (in my opinion) is *as a dude* which implies the commenters' presentation is being restricted, not the commenters' chromosomes, gender identification, or genitalia.
Here's my comment:
I'm a big fan of the idea that there should be a multiplicity of strategies and points of view. So, ideally, there should be forums where nukers are asked to take a gentler stance, and forums where nukers are permitted. There should be forums that draw the line for "is this a valuable contribution?" at well before 101, and forums that draw the line at the advanced calculus level.
They all have their benefits, and they all have their detriments, and the more different types of conversations that are happening and being engaged in, the more different kinds of ideas can be produced and shared.
I admit you're more of an appeaser than I prefer. I like your work, and many of your thoughts, and I appreciate the consideration and time you put into your pieces. I feel I learn from seeing your perspective. I feel much the same way about I Blame the Patriarchy. Even if I don't agree with your conclusions or hers (and sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't), I've learned something by exposure to both.
I'm not particularly fond of arguments, though, that suggest all spaces should be similar in terms of how accepting/appeasing/101-friendly they are. Maybe that's not what you meant to suggest, but it's sort of how I read it. I think the balance you strike is a needed balance. But I also think more restrictive balances are needed.
To draw the comparison again to I Blame the Patriarchy, I actually think that her comment restriction (at least as I read it) is kind of brilliant–men are actually perfectly permitted to post as long as they don't post about being men, since that's not the topic of the space. I admit that her piece was ambiguous on the point, but that's what I read her to mean based on her prior essays on the subject, in which she celebrates men's contributions to the site, but says she finds it grating when someone takes the conversation to a place about "I, as a man, feel that the issue should really be X."
It's not that men's perspectives on the issues are bad in general, but I think it's okay to have a space where they don't dominate the conversation. And it's okay to have spaces where they do! I actually often think Alas, a Blog, where I write, would be much more successful as a space intended for male perspectives on feminism and positive constructions of men's rights activism. However, the men I write with, who I feel are rather brilliant on these topics, have expressed that they don't feel like they have time to create what would amount to a new movement, which is reasonable–they have lives.
Anyway, there's room for that sort of forum (I would argue even deep necessity for it, since men really are restricted by some of the kinds of things MRAs don't ever manage to productively talk about), and there's room for I Blame the Patriarchy's comment policy, and there's room for places that do both, or some mixture.
(Aside: Unfortunately, I think I Blame the Partiarchy's comment policy is doomed to failure for the simple reason that the commentariat is kind of a clusterfuck. There's poisonous privilege of the kind that I really don't think is okay anywhere, as per the threads on trans rights. A few years ago, I had brief hope that the commentariat was going to explode out all their nasty and then start to improve, as happens sometimes, but it never seemed to happen there. Not that there isn't signal there, sometimes, but there's a lot, a lot of noise.)
I'm not trying to say (as I believe you are also not trying to say) that there are never lines where behavior is unacceptable. I'm not really chill with any social justice forum that permits the kinds of comments about trans people that are regularly written at IBTP. I guess I might be forced to admit that it might be okay in some kind of no-moderation community where the goal was antithetical to moderation, because I do believe that there's probably something to be gained from those conversations just as there is from controlled ones, but permitting that kind of poison is, IMO, antithetical to stated social justice goals.
Anyway. To analogize it to a class discussion, some professors direct a lot, some a little, some not at all. On either end, the discussion can be impaired by too little or too much direction. But even the extremes work for some people, produce a conversation that might not happen in the same way if a different technique was used. And on the internet, where we do not lack for classrooms, I think it's great for many different strategies to be embraced.
So, basically, both/and please. Nukers and appeasers. 101 conversation and level 1 conversation and the kind of conversation you only get at conferences with experts. And lots of room for people to pick which settings they want to be in.
February 16, 2011
MIND MELD: Rereading
Over at Mind Meld, John DeNardo asked (on behalf of Derryl Murphy), "What science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror books do [you] read and re-read again?"
There are lots of interesting answers from authors from Pamela Sargent to N. K. Jemisin. You should go check out the whole thing. Meanwhile, here's a teaser in the form of my answer to the question:
If you'll bear with me, I'd like to answer this question a bit tangentially, by discussing my experience of rereading in general and then moving into the specific. Rereading is always interesting for me because of the way I was trained to read--namely, by my mother, who is a librarian, an avid reader, and someone who *hates* rereading.
To my mother, reading is accomplishing a task. It's checking off a box on your list of life's achievements. I have read that book--check.
Not that she doesn't enjoy reading. She loves reading. But to her, rereading is pointless. You've already checked off that box, so what's the point in revisiting?
So, then there's me. I love rereading, but I always feel a little guilty about it. It's kind of a guilty pleasure.
I tend to reread for one of three reasons:
I find the work extremely profound and revisiting it allows me to uncover new layers in the text. Not every work can tolerate this kind of rereading, but I love it when I find a text that is equally breathtaking--though usually breathtaking in a different way--on reread. I go to Octavia Butler's work for experiences like this, particularly Lilith's Brood and Parable of the Sower, although I admit it's gotten harder to do this since she died. As a friend of mine says, it's sad to live in a world where there will never be a new piece of work by Octavia Butler.
I find the work comforting and part of the reason I like rereading it is because it's a familiar, cozy experience. I reread many of the Terry Pratchett books every year or so. I often do it when I'm sick or stressed out and I don't have the mental resources to go exploring. I just want to be in a warm cocoon with Lions of Al Rassan or Doomsday Book or Wicked.
Nostalgia. I reread work because I want to evoke the feeling I had the first time I read it. This can be great--I really love Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun and Silver Metal Lover, for instance, although I think they were really something keyed into my experience of the world as an adolescent. Some children's books still have that crackle of a world I saw as potentially magical--E. L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Roald Dahl's Mathilda, The Forbidden Door by Merilee Heyer. Rereading for nostalgia can also be painful, though. In college, when I met someone who had written Pern fan fiction in high school, I thought to myself, hey, it would be fun to read those again. "It really won't be," she told me, "You're going to be sad you did." I didn't believe her, but she was right and I was so very wrong.
Of course there's a lot of overlap between these categories. I find Octavia Butler's work very profound, but it also reminds me of all the times in all the previous years when I've read it before. Wicked is comforting, but also nostalgic of my adolescence--when I was sixteen, I painfully over-identified with Elphaba. Even though I see Biting the Sun through the eyes of my teenage self, I discover new layers when I reread it, too, especially as I read more feminist SF and gender theory and see the ways in which the book is part of an ongoing conversation.
I guess there's also a fourth reason I reread--which is when I'm trying to figure out how an author achieves a particular effect, or do a structural analysis on a text because I hope it will help me discover something about my own writing. But while I often end up doing this as I reread, I don't think it's usually what's on my mind when I go pick up the book. Instead I'll think "You know what I want to reread? That book!" and then when I'm halfway through, realize that it's because there was something in it that resonates with one of my own projects, or some way I'm thinking about writing, or even just a philosophical or emotional dilemma I've been contemplating.
I really love rereading--I find it inspirational, profound, comforting and nostalgic. But I have to admit, from time to time when I look at my shelves and see all the books I still haven't managed to pick up for the first time, I start to worry about all those empty boxes that I still can't check off.
--So, what books do you like to reread?
There are lots of interesting answers from authors from Pamela Sargent to N. K. Jemisin. You should go check out the whole thing. Meanwhile, here's a teaser in the form of my answer to the question:
If you'll bear with me, I'd like to answer this question a bit tangentially, by discussing my experience of rereading in general and then moving into the specific. Rereading is always interesting for me because of the way I was trained to read--namely, by my mother, who is a librarian, an avid reader, and someone who *hates* rereading.
To my mother, reading is accomplishing a task. It's checking off a box on your list of life's achievements. I have read that book--check.
Not that she doesn't enjoy reading. She loves reading. But to her, rereading is pointless. You've already checked off that box, so what's the point in revisiting?
So, then there's me. I love rereading, but I always feel a little guilty about it. It's kind of a guilty pleasure.
I tend to reread for one of three reasons:
I find the work extremely profound and revisiting it allows me to uncover new layers in the text. Not every work can tolerate this kind of rereading, but I love it when I find a text that is equally breathtaking--though usually breathtaking in a different way--on reread. I go to Octavia Butler's work for experiences like this, particularly Lilith's Brood and Parable of the Sower, although I admit it's gotten harder to do this since she died. As a friend of mine says, it's sad to live in a world where there will never be a new piece of work by Octavia Butler.
I find the work comforting and part of the reason I like rereading it is because it's a familiar, cozy experience. I reread many of the Terry Pratchett books every year or so. I often do it when I'm sick or stressed out and I don't have the mental resources to go exploring. I just want to be in a warm cocoon with Lions of Al Rassan or Doomsday Book or Wicked.
Nostalgia. I reread work because I want to evoke the feeling I had the first time I read it. This can be great--I really love Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun and Silver Metal Lover, for instance, although I think they were really something keyed into my experience of the world as an adolescent. Some children's books still have that crackle of a world I saw as potentially magical--E. L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Roald Dahl's Mathilda, The Forbidden Door by Merilee Heyer. Rereading for nostalgia can also be painful, though. In college, when I met someone who had written Pern fan fiction in high school, I thought to myself, hey, it would be fun to read those again. "It really won't be," she told me, "You're going to be sad you did." I didn't believe her, but she was right and I was so very wrong.
Of course there's a lot of overlap between these categories. I find Octavia Butler's work very profound, but it also reminds me of all the times in all the previous years when I've read it before. Wicked is comforting, but also nostalgic of my adolescence--when I was sixteen, I painfully over-identified with Elphaba. Even though I see Biting the Sun through the eyes of my teenage self, I discover new layers when I reread it, too, especially as I read more feminist SF and gender theory and see the ways in which the book is part of an ongoing conversation.
I guess there's also a fourth reason I reread--which is when I'm trying to figure out how an author achieves a particular effect, or do a structural analysis on a text because I hope it will help me discover something about my own writing. But while I often end up doing this as I reread, I don't think it's usually what's on my mind when I go pick up the book. Instead I'll think "You know what I want to reread? That book!" and then when I'm halfway through, realize that it's because there was something in it that resonates with one of my own projects, or some way I'm thinking about writing, or even just a philosophical or emotional dilemma I've been contemplating.
I really love rereading--I find it inspirational, profound, comforting and nostalgic. But I have to admit, from time to time when I look at my shelves and see all the books I still haven't managed to pick up for the first time, I start to worry about all those empty boxes that I still can't check off.
--So, what books do you like to reread?
February 12, 2011
N. K. Jemisin discusses writing the blind main character of BROKEN KINGDOMS
This is a really good article. I had a couple comments about it, but I also have a migraine, so I'm just going to quote.
Why is Oree Shoth blind?
She goes on to discuss her research process which I thought was interesting.
FWIW, and I don't know whether other people would agree with me, so maybe I'm just wrong here, but I think that when people are considering whether or not to ask someone from a marginalized group to read something and see if it accords with their experience, I think it helps if you ask people who aren't just inhabiting an axis of difference, but make a point of studying/advocating about it? I don't generally mind being asked to read things for accuracy on feminism (unless the writer is hostile). For instance, my "did I fuck up somewhere really obvious?" first reader on gay men's issues did a lot of academic work on gender studies and works in advocacy. However, I should note that we also have a relationship: I read drafts for him from time to time, so there's quid pro quo, and we've been friends for eleven years. Our relationship has always included political discussion about gender and sexuality, so asking him to talk about it in relation to my stories is not bringing something new into the dynamic. He's also part of my rotation of first readers for all sorts of stories, including those that don't touch on queer issues directly, because I value his literary opinion.
Also, of course, my friend is not The Voice of All Gay People, so I know that when a work is published, others may disagree with his opinion of it. All my friend is doing is adding an extra layer of filtration. I identify as queer and I read about queer theory and queer history, but I don't have his extensive academic experience, or his lived experience as a gay man. His expertise makes him somewhat more likely to catch it when I'm doing something blatantly stupid.
And of course, other readers may disagree with him. In "Where Shadows Meet Light" I wanted to engage with femiphobia by writing an unapologetically femme gay man, even though that has the potential for having a bad reaction with stereotypes about gay men. My friend and I talked about what I was trying to do, and our conversation reinforced that I really did want to attempt what I'd set out to do. Whether I did it well is another question--it worked for me; it worked for my friend; another reader, queer or straight, might not like the way the story works out in tension with stereotypes.
So, just a thought. I think Jemisin says it well when she talks about asking for first readers as "not not [being] above asking for help." I can imagine myself into sentient slime molds; I can imagine myself into a queer man's body... but sentient slime molds don't exist to have opinions about how they're portrayed, or to be hurt by stereotypes and misconceptions. Queer men do.
So I try to ask for help. I prefer that to the times when I'm too much of a privileged jerk to realize I need to.
Why is Oree Shoth blind?
...the unspoken subtext of the "why's Oree blind" question is Why is she different, why's she strange, why didn't you make her "normal" or like everyone else? The subtext is the same with other variations of this question that I've gotten, like "Why is your protagonist female?" or "Why did you make her black?" (or "why didn't you make her black?") and so on. Ultimately the real problem with all these questions is not the writer's choice, but the reader's assumptions about who "belongs" in epic fantasy. Or who's "allowed" to write it...
Now, note: I haven't gotten questions about Oree's race or gender nearly as often as I've gotten questions about her blindness. So, using that as a highly nonscientific survey of attitudes, it to me that women and black people are deemed to "belong" in epic fantasy to a greater degree than disabled people. (Or maybe people just know better than to ask me about the first two, lest they get popped in the mouth.) That might be because the SF/F fanosphere — myself included, here — has done a better job of talking about things like the racial default and illogical assumptions about gender, than we have about issues of ability and its representation in fiction. So this post is part of my attempt to address the deficit.
Now back to the main question. "Why is Oree blind?" does have an answer: because she is. That is — I wasn't trying to make a statement. I wasn't trying to play "check the boxes" on some hypothetical Fantasy World Diversity Quota form. ("Female, black, poor, and blind! If I can just make her gay, I win!") I just went with what my mind conjured up, as I always do when I create a new character. And as always, I tried to develop Oree as realistically as I could, so that she would be a person and not a caricature. Thus Oree's blindness is meant to be just one more aspect of who she is, same as her femaleness and artistry and blackness and poverty. All these things impact her life to some significant degree — but the story's not about any of those aspects of her identity.
She goes on to discuss her research process which I thought was interesting.
FWIW, and I don't know whether other people would agree with me, so maybe I'm just wrong here, but I think that when people are considering whether or not to ask someone from a marginalized group to read something and see if it accords with their experience, I think it helps if you ask people who aren't just inhabiting an axis of difference, but make a point of studying/advocating about it? I don't generally mind being asked to read things for accuracy on feminism (unless the writer is hostile). For instance, my "did I fuck up somewhere really obvious?" first reader on gay men's issues did a lot of academic work on gender studies and works in advocacy. However, I should note that we also have a relationship: I read drafts for him from time to time, so there's quid pro quo, and we've been friends for eleven years. Our relationship has always included political discussion about gender and sexuality, so asking him to talk about it in relation to my stories is not bringing something new into the dynamic. He's also part of my rotation of first readers for all sorts of stories, including those that don't touch on queer issues directly, because I value his literary opinion.
Also, of course, my friend is not The Voice of All Gay People, so I know that when a work is published, others may disagree with his opinion of it. All my friend is doing is adding an extra layer of filtration. I identify as queer and I read about queer theory and queer history, but I don't have his extensive academic experience, or his lived experience as a gay man. His expertise makes him somewhat more likely to catch it when I'm doing something blatantly stupid.
And of course, other readers may disagree with him. In "Where Shadows Meet Light" I wanted to engage with femiphobia by writing an unapologetically femme gay man, even though that has the potential for having a bad reaction with stereotypes about gay men. My friend and I talked about what I was trying to do, and our conversation reinforced that I really did want to attempt what I'd set out to do. Whether I did it well is another question--it worked for me; it worked for my friend; another reader, queer or straight, might not like the way the story works out in tension with stereotypes.
So, just a thought. I think Jemisin says it well when she talks about asking for first readers as "not not [being] above asking for help." I can imagine myself into sentient slime molds; I can imagine myself into a queer man's body... but sentient slime molds don't exist to have opinions about how they're portrayed, or to be hurt by stereotypes and misconceptions. Queer men do.
So I try to ask for help. I prefer that to the times when I'm too much of a privileged jerk to realize I need to.
February 11, 2011
Rachel Swirsky's Novel Recommendations, 2011
And the last entry, finally:
After talking to friends and acquaintances, emailing authors, aggregating years best lists, and asking editors and critics for recommendations, I came up with a list of 38 novels I wanted to read. I knew I wouldn't be able to get to all of them, so I sifted out novels that were parts of series I hadn't read the first few books of, novels with plot summaries that didn't interest me, and novels by authors whose previous work I hadn't enjoyed.
Sifting got me down to 26 novels. A further 5 were unavailable to me, mostly due to differences in UK and US release dates. (I would really have liked to read RED PLENTY by Francis Spufford and QUANTUM THIEF by Hannu Rajaniemi.) Of the remaining 21, I read 19.
Of course, that figure omits most of the novels I read during the year.
Ballot:
THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD by Margaret Atwood – It took me a while to get into this as a follow-up to ORYX AND CRAKE, but I ended up being very interested in the story of the pre-apocalypse commune. Though I do wonder to some extent whether that story was best told in connection to ORYX AND CRAKE, or if it might have been better off on its own.
THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS by N. K. Jemisin – Jemisin's writing is lovely, and this is particularly clear from her novels which are a fascinating take on epic fantasy, written with a post-colonial aesthetic. The politics and world-building are interesting, and what she does with gods is fascinating. The first three chapters of this are particularly beautifully done, moving from beautiful image to beautiful image. (Note: Jemisin asked that people considering nominating either Hundred Thousand Kingdoms or its sequel, Broken Kingdoms, focus on Hundred K. I probably preferred the second book, but am happy to accommodate her request—particularly since the only reason I'm not nominating both is that once I found enough novels I liked, I decided I'd rather nominate more authors instead of the same author multiple times. Last year, I was grumpy about novels and wasn't able to find enough that I liked, so I wasn't expecting to find an excess this year.)
THE DERVISH HOUSE by Ian McDonald – As far as I can tell, this is the DaVinci code told through Islam instead of Catholicism. I think I would have been skeptical about that if I'd known it before I started reading, but it turned out to be really cool. The novel follows a number of very interesting characters (and at least one character I found totally uninteresting but that happens) and explores a rich setting with affection. Much of the plot revolves around mythical historical artifacts, and all that was really interesting.
STORIES OF IBIS by Hiroshi Yamamoto – Haikasoru imprint. A frame story about the interaction of AIs and humans in the far future ties together seven previously published short stories about the evolution of artificial intelligence. I admit it; I really like short stories. So, I suppose the fact that I liked this novel (or that Maureen McHugh's CHINA MOUNTAIN ZHANG is one of my favorite books) isn't entirely surprising. Some of the short stories tend a little bit toward sentimentality. But I liked the effect that all the pieces created together, the way they made an interesting whole. I also liked that the relationship between the AIs and the humans was treated in an unexpected way.
HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu – A time machine repairman has spent the past decade trying to avoid living by keeping himself in a perpetual now. After being forced to return to the real world for repairs, he ends up trapping himself in a grandfather paradox. The novel skillfully taps the metaphorical wealth of science fiction tropes, and in particular the way they've seeped into the popular cultural imagination. It's also successful on the character level for the way that it depicts a decaying family relationship.
Highly Recommended (Oh, for a few more ballot slots!)
BROKEN KINGDOMS by N. K. Jemisin – The sequel to Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is perhaps better than the first book. Although I quite liked the character in book one, the character in book two drew me a bit more; the magic system and setting are really neat; and the plot has a pleasant sense of wholeness.
UNDER HEAVEN by Guy Gavriel Kay – One of GGK's epic historical novels, this one set in a fictional China. The opening image—of a lonely man struggling to bury the dead by a haunted lake—is vivid and compelling. The rest of the story is beautifully written, of course, but not as well-rendered as LIONS OF AL RASSAN or THE SARANTINE MOSAIC. I felt very aware of his tics as I was reading—the archetypes he uses, the kinds of plot twists and reversals he tends to—I don't know whether that was because this book wasn't quite as good as some of the others which called my attention to the structure underneath, or whether I've reached my saturation point for some of those devices.
Recommended
ZOO CITY by Lauren Beukes – In this alternate South Africa, a person's guilt manifests itself as a companion animal that the guilty person can never be separated from. The main character earned her Sloth familiar after acting as an unwitting accessory in the murder of her brother. Since then, she's used the animal's inherent magic talent for fining lost things to develop a small business—which is interrupted when a suspicious pair with their own animals offer her an enormous amount of money to track down a missing young singer. The ending of the novel, where all the threads come dramatically clashing together, didn't do much for me. But the build-up and the world building was very interesting.
MOONSHINE by Alaya Dawn Johnson – A charmingly voiced 1920s era alternate history in which vampires and djinni walk the streets of New York. The suffragette main character works tirelessly for the rights of immigrants and the undead, which the undead don't always appreciate. When she falls in love with a man who needs to track down a dangerous local vampire mob boss, her interest in social justice (combined with her need for money) prompts her to volunteer for the job. I'm an urban fantasy grump and a romance novel grump, but this was just a lot of fun to read.
UNDER THE POPPY by Kathe Koja – Historical fantasy. The first act takes place in a brothel that puts on theatrical productions. Includes eerie puppets. I reviewed this for the Cascadia Subduction Zone--it's kind of messy in a structural/plot sense, but messy in that lovely way where the story is just bursting with so much interesting _stuff_ that it doesn't all come together. The voice was unusual and striking, but sometimes also repetitive. The book did what I always want Mieville novels to do, though—it gave me all the weird ins and outs of the very dense world it portrayed. Also, the novel is breathtaking when it portrays the theater—it really conveys the depth and flash of the performances in a way that I haven't seen before in text.
Some Scattered Comments on other novels
HARMONY by Project Itoh – Haikasoru imprint, a future in which one's social position is maintained by a computerized network of social shaming wherein one is given a score that rates their healthiness and their sociability, and that score is visible in all interactions. I think there's something interesting in the notion of analyzing ableism in this context (as if healthy behavior is a matter of morality, and something we owe to other people in the society), but in general I thought the science fiction premises of this book swung back and forth from interesting to bizarre. I suspect a lot of that was culture clash; the premises probably make more sense emerging from Japanese politics. There were other problems—the exposition was terribly handled, and the plot got a bit weird—but I found it a compelling and strange and enjoyable (if occasionally frustrating) read.
WHO FEARS DEATH by Nnedi Okorafor – (copied from my review of it as a YA novel) - I didn't totally immerse in this one, and I think that was probably partially arbitrary, and partially for structural reasons--while the novel covered a great breadth of events, it sometimes spent many pages on relatively minor incidents, and few pages on major ones. That's a pet peeve of mine… the way it dealt with the violence was really interesting (though I don't want to analyze it in depth in a short review, partially for spoilery reasons), the magic was fabulously interesting, the landscape and world was transporting, the hints of how it came to be compelling, and Onyseonwu an entertainingly hard-scrabble narrator, sometimes very sympathetic, sometimes very annoying, just like real people. The epic scope of this novel and its magical vision of a world blending science fiction and fantasy were striking and unusual.
HOUSE OF DISCARDED DREAMS by Ekaterina Sedia – A young woman moves away from her parents' house into a home on the beach where ghosts and dreams come to life. The house sets itself to sail on the ocean. I was primarily interested in the middle section of this novel—it started slowly for me, and it ended in a way that didn't make much of an impact. The middle was strange and weird and intense. I loved the villains—a giant, evil catfish, and some figures from African urban legends. I loved the surreal landscapes and the ghost with many limbs and the zombie horseshoe crabs. I don't know entirely what I made of any of it. But I read it one night when I had insomnia, and it felt like I'd had my own refreshing dreams.
After talking to friends and acquaintances, emailing authors, aggregating years best lists, and asking editors and critics for recommendations, I came up with a list of 38 novels I wanted to read. I knew I wouldn't be able to get to all of them, so I sifted out novels that were parts of series I hadn't read the first few books of, novels with plot summaries that didn't interest me, and novels by authors whose previous work I hadn't enjoyed.
Sifting got me down to 26 novels. A further 5 were unavailable to me, mostly due to differences in UK and US release dates. (I would really have liked to read RED PLENTY by Francis Spufford and QUANTUM THIEF by Hannu Rajaniemi.) Of the remaining 21, I read 19.
Of course, that figure omits most of the novels I read during the year.
Ballot:
THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD by Margaret Atwood – It took me a while to get into this as a follow-up to ORYX AND CRAKE, but I ended up being very interested in the story of the pre-apocalypse commune. Though I do wonder to some extent whether that story was best told in connection to ORYX AND CRAKE, or if it might have been better off on its own.
THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS by N. K. Jemisin – Jemisin's writing is lovely, and this is particularly clear from her novels which are a fascinating take on epic fantasy, written with a post-colonial aesthetic. The politics and world-building are interesting, and what she does with gods is fascinating. The first three chapters of this are particularly beautifully done, moving from beautiful image to beautiful image. (Note: Jemisin asked that people considering nominating either Hundred Thousand Kingdoms or its sequel, Broken Kingdoms, focus on Hundred K. I probably preferred the second book, but am happy to accommodate her request—particularly since the only reason I'm not nominating both is that once I found enough novels I liked, I decided I'd rather nominate more authors instead of the same author multiple times. Last year, I was grumpy about novels and wasn't able to find enough that I liked, so I wasn't expecting to find an excess this year.)
THE DERVISH HOUSE by Ian McDonald – As far as I can tell, this is the DaVinci code told through Islam instead of Catholicism. I think I would have been skeptical about that if I'd known it before I started reading, but it turned out to be really cool. The novel follows a number of very interesting characters (and at least one character I found totally uninteresting but that happens) and explores a rich setting with affection. Much of the plot revolves around mythical historical artifacts, and all that was really interesting.
STORIES OF IBIS by Hiroshi Yamamoto – Haikasoru imprint. A frame story about the interaction of AIs and humans in the far future ties together seven previously published short stories about the evolution of artificial intelligence. I admit it; I really like short stories. So, I suppose the fact that I liked this novel (or that Maureen McHugh's CHINA MOUNTAIN ZHANG is one of my favorite books) isn't entirely surprising. Some of the short stories tend a little bit toward sentimentality. But I liked the effect that all the pieces created together, the way they made an interesting whole. I also liked that the relationship between the AIs and the humans was treated in an unexpected way.
HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu – A time machine repairman has spent the past decade trying to avoid living by keeping himself in a perpetual now. After being forced to return to the real world for repairs, he ends up trapping himself in a grandfather paradox. The novel skillfully taps the metaphorical wealth of science fiction tropes, and in particular the way they've seeped into the popular cultural imagination. It's also successful on the character level for the way that it depicts a decaying family relationship.
Highly Recommended (Oh, for a few more ballot slots!)
BROKEN KINGDOMS by N. K. Jemisin – The sequel to Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is perhaps better than the first book. Although I quite liked the character in book one, the character in book two drew me a bit more; the magic system and setting are really neat; and the plot has a pleasant sense of wholeness.
UNDER HEAVEN by Guy Gavriel Kay – One of GGK's epic historical novels, this one set in a fictional China. The opening image—of a lonely man struggling to bury the dead by a haunted lake—is vivid and compelling. The rest of the story is beautifully written, of course, but not as well-rendered as LIONS OF AL RASSAN or THE SARANTINE MOSAIC. I felt very aware of his tics as I was reading—the archetypes he uses, the kinds of plot twists and reversals he tends to—I don't know whether that was because this book wasn't quite as good as some of the others which called my attention to the structure underneath, or whether I've reached my saturation point for some of those devices.
Recommended
ZOO CITY by Lauren Beukes – In this alternate South Africa, a person's guilt manifests itself as a companion animal that the guilty person can never be separated from. The main character earned her Sloth familiar after acting as an unwitting accessory in the murder of her brother. Since then, she's used the animal's inherent magic talent for fining lost things to develop a small business—which is interrupted when a suspicious pair with their own animals offer her an enormous amount of money to track down a missing young singer. The ending of the novel, where all the threads come dramatically clashing together, didn't do much for me. But the build-up and the world building was very interesting.
MOONSHINE by Alaya Dawn Johnson – A charmingly voiced 1920s era alternate history in which vampires and djinni walk the streets of New York. The suffragette main character works tirelessly for the rights of immigrants and the undead, which the undead don't always appreciate. When she falls in love with a man who needs to track down a dangerous local vampire mob boss, her interest in social justice (combined with her need for money) prompts her to volunteer for the job. I'm an urban fantasy grump and a romance novel grump, but this was just a lot of fun to read.
UNDER THE POPPY by Kathe Koja – Historical fantasy. The first act takes place in a brothel that puts on theatrical productions. Includes eerie puppets. I reviewed this for the Cascadia Subduction Zone--it's kind of messy in a structural/plot sense, but messy in that lovely way where the story is just bursting with so much interesting _stuff_ that it doesn't all come together. The voice was unusual and striking, but sometimes also repetitive. The book did what I always want Mieville novels to do, though—it gave me all the weird ins and outs of the very dense world it portrayed. Also, the novel is breathtaking when it portrays the theater—it really conveys the depth and flash of the performances in a way that I haven't seen before in text.
Some Scattered Comments on other novels
HARMONY by Project Itoh – Haikasoru imprint, a future in which one's social position is maintained by a computerized network of social shaming wherein one is given a score that rates their healthiness and their sociability, and that score is visible in all interactions. I think there's something interesting in the notion of analyzing ableism in this context (as if healthy behavior is a matter of morality, and something we owe to other people in the society), but in general I thought the science fiction premises of this book swung back and forth from interesting to bizarre. I suspect a lot of that was culture clash; the premises probably make more sense emerging from Japanese politics. There were other problems—the exposition was terribly handled, and the plot got a bit weird—but I found it a compelling and strange and enjoyable (if occasionally frustrating) read.
WHO FEARS DEATH by Nnedi Okorafor – (copied from my review of it as a YA novel) - I didn't totally immerse in this one, and I think that was probably partially arbitrary, and partially for structural reasons--while the novel covered a great breadth of events, it sometimes spent many pages on relatively minor incidents, and few pages on major ones. That's a pet peeve of mine… the way it dealt with the violence was really interesting (though I don't want to analyze it in depth in a short review, partially for spoilery reasons), the magic was fabulously interesting, the landscape and world was transporting, the hints of how it came to be compelling, and Onyseonwu an entertainingly hard-scrabble narrator, sometimes very sympathetic, sometimes very annoying, just like real people. The epic scope of this novel and its magical vision of a world blending science fiction and fantasy were striking and unusual.
HOUSE OF DISCARDED DREAMS by Ekaterina Sedia – A young woman moves away from her parents' house into a home on the beach where ghosts and dreams come to life. The house sets itself to sail on the ocean. I was primarily interested in the middle section of this novel—it started slowly for me, and it ended in a way that didn't make much of an impact. The middle was strange and weird and intense. I loved the villains—a giant, evil catfish, and some figures from African urban legends. I loved the surreal landscapes and the ghost with many limbs and the zombie horseshoe crabs. I don't know entirely what I made of any of it. But I read it one night when I had insomnia, and it felt like I'd had my own refreshing dreams.
February 10, 2011
I attempt to participate in fat people art week!
I decided to try to participate in fat people art week. Unfortunately, I'm afraid my contribution isn't very good. My only defense, besides the fact that I'm not an artist, is that I was using a track pad. Mrrf.
I don't know why she has blue hair. Maybe it's because you gotta have blue hair.
Update:
And a track-pad attempt at a self-portrait. Behold the many ways in which it fails to look like the photo I was using as a basis:
To see some good art, go check out Barry's efforts.
I don't know why she has blue hair. Maybe it's because you gotta have blue hair.
Update:
And a track-pad attempt at a self-portrait. Behold the many ways in which it fails to look like the photo I was using as a basis:
To see some good art, go check out Barry's efforts.
