Lacey Louwagie's Blog, page 8

Published Journal Book Review: Let Me Stand Alone by Rachel Corrie

Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie by Rachel Corrie


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to this audiobook mostly while I was biking with my dog, so now I find that I “miss” Rachel Corrie when I go biking with a different audiobook. This makes it even more heartbreaking that my “missing” this book is only the most miniscule fraction of what her family and friends felt when she died suddenly and senselessly while doing activist work in Palestine.

I love reading published journals, no matter the subject matter or the author, meaning that I’ll read the diaries of “famous people” who I don’t really know for their work beyond their diaries. These published journals seem to be a fitting tribute to Rachel Corrie’s life and her development as an activist, although they are a somewhat disjointed collection of her poetry, diary entries, letters, and essays, many of which have only the vaguest of dates attached to them. Like many published journals, people and events are mentioned without any context, so you just have to accept that, despite being drawn into some of Rachel’s most intimate thoughts and observations, you remain an outsider. There is no question that even as a teenager Rachel was a very talented writer, and her writer’s voice develops as she grows. Her essay about her lover Colin is so beautiful and gives so much context to their relationship that I liked being “in the know” whenever Colin was mentioned in passing in later entries.

It’s true that where this journal really shines is in the writing Rachel does from Palestine. I felt like I got a better idea of what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “really” like through Rachel’s writing than through any newscast, article, or conversation I have ever come across. Her passion for her work really comes through as well, her conviction seeming to grow with each entry until it is cut short in the last entry before her death, followed by a single sentence memorializing the date and circumstances of her death.

The book essentially ends there, which felt too abrupt to me. After spending “years” of Rachel’s life with her, I wanted to know, via an afterward or an editor’s note, what happened next. I found on Wikipedia that Rachel’s family brought several lawsuits against those in Israel who investigated her death, challenging the conclusion that it was an “accident” (she was run over by a bulldozer that was “clearing” a Palestinian neighborhood, an action she had been frequently protesting.) Although her father gives a prelude to the journals that details her death, this information is less resonant before we have gotten to “know” her through her writing, and I wish more of this sort of thing would have been included at the end, to help ease the reader out of the book and to give some opportunity for further reflection. But of course, what I really wish is that Rachel’s story hadn’t ended the way it did, period.





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Fairy Tale Book Review: Beauty & the Beast

“Anne Anderson05″ by Anne Anderson (1874-1931) – http://www.artsycraftsy.com/anderson_.... Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

I have been posting to this blog less this year than I used to because most of my blogging energy has gone toward my Year in Disney Movies blog, which has been a greater undertaking than I expected. Disney movies were so interwoven into the fabric of my imagination when I was growing up that I’m sure they have had a bigger impact on my writing than I am able to consciously decipher, but I did write a bit about the intersections of my writing life and my Disney obsession in my post about Aladdin, which is my favorite Disney movie. I’ll be posting a review of the upcoming Aladdin dystopia book, A Whole New World by Liz Braswell, soon, too.

For today, I’m posting my review of “Beauty & the Beast,” which I read (I think for the first time?) prior to watching Beauty & the Beast last month. Enjoy!

This was a much quicker read than I expected. Nothing in it really seemed “new” to me, and I don’t know if that is because I have read and seen enough “faithful” renditions of the story or if I actually read it at some point in the past and forgot about it.This version was strange because both Beauty and the Beast start out as pretty “good” characters, so there is not much transformation except at the moment of ACTUAL transformation for the beast, from monster to man. But from the very beginning, the Beast is kind and patient with Beauty, and she enjoys his companionship but finds herself put off by his looks. Because he is already good, it seems that the character who must change is Beauty, but she ALSO is portrayed is being almost impossibly good, especially when compared with her selfish, shallow sisters. So the only “change” she really needs to make is to get over the Beast’s appearance — she goes from being a “good” character to an “even better” one, which isn’t an incredibly dramatic transformation.

I do like how her realization of the Beast’s virtues comes after she sees how unhappy her sisters are with their handsome, wealthy husbands who do not possess the character traits that make a good husband the way the beast does. This is what makes her realize she loves the Beast, and of course her love transforms him. So even though she learned looks aren’t the most important thing in a relationship, lucky her, she doesn’t have to live with the consequences of that realization — she gets a man that is handsome after all, PLUS in possession of other husbandly virtues. So, it all works out pretty well for her in the end.

On Being A “Finisher” Who is Bad at Endings

My work style is that of a “finisher.” This means that I feel uneasy until a project is completed — I don’t like “unfinished” business hanging over my head. This trait has served me well — at age 13 I was able to kick that common writing pitfall of abandoning piles of half-finished stories. It also helps me make my deadlines — I don’t put things off till the last minute (usually) because I don’t feel good until the thing is done.

But of course, like any trait, it has its dark side. I spend far too much time reading books I know I won’t enjoy because I feel committed to finishing once I’ve started. And when it’s not clearcut when a job is “finished,” I have a very hard time drawing the line and creating my own ending.

Last week, I finally officially resigned as a volunteer blogger for the Young Adult Catholics blog. I have mentioned that  blog here often. I wrote for it since its inception in 2007 and I spent a couple years as its editor. It led to some incredible opportunities for me, such as editing the book Hungering and Thirsting for Justice and being invited to be part of the Religious Institute’s colloquium on religion and bisexuality.

But in the past year or so, I have let more and more deadlines for my posts pass me by. I used to be fueled by the tension between my desire to stay connected to the Catholic Church and my discomfort with many of its official teachings.

I have been an official member at a non-Catholic Church for two years now, and that tension is gone. So, too, is my passion for writing about Catholicism, although I remain interested in exploring it through literature and pop culture. But I feel a bit like a musician who made a name for herself writing angsty songs about dysfunctional relationships, only to find that she has nothing more to say once she finds herself in a stable one.

I’m glad to be moving on, and to be making room in my life for other things.

This is because I know that to welcome something new into your life, you often have to “make room” for it by letting go of something else that no longer serves you. Unfortunately, my process has often been quite different: when there is not an obvious end in sight, my “finisher” tendency makes me uneasy and I don’t know when I can finally declare myself “finished” with something. I have practically passed out from nervousness when I’ve resigned from previous jobs. So I look for some external sign of when my work in a certain capacity might be “finished,” even though my heart always tells me months or sometimes years before I finally make it official.

Instead of making room for new things to come into my life, I just keep adding more until I have a to-do list that I have no hope of ever completing. And that is stressful for a finisher indeed!

I have been making so many writing goals this year, but in order to accomplish them, I need to give myself more room. I can’t keep adding without subtracting. By the end of the year, I hope to officially “finish” some of the other aspects in my life that are constraining me in hopes of releasing the tension in my shoulders, sleeping better at night, and spending more time on my passions every day.

Attribution: https://www.flickr.com/photos/deeplif...

 

 

 

Fairy Tale Retelling Book Review: Enchanted by Alethea Kontis

Enchanted by Alethea Kontis


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5

As this book began, I thought I would adore it. I really liked the tone, which was whimsical while still paying proper deference to the many fairy tale tropes woven throughout the story. This is definitely the most mashed-up fairy tale mash-up I’ve ever read, and while I thought that would make it delightful, it’s actually what contributed to my losing some patience with it by the time I hit the halfway point. There are many fairy tale references, but as a fan of more traditional retellings, I felt a little frustrated when the threads were never fully followed through, and by the end it started to feel like a jumbled dream rather than a cohesive story — something along the lines of Alice in Wonderland, except more like Alice in FairyTale Land. The frequent head-hopping also did not help matters at all. Because of all this, there were plot threads from the main storyline that I totally lost in the shuffle, especially those relating to Sunday’s “lost/dead” brother Jack and Rumbold’s years of “madness.”

Still, when this book was good, it was REALLY good, totally sweeping me away into a land that was, well, enchanted. So despite some of my frustrations, I still hope to read the others in the series — maybe I can even dare to hope for a more tightly reined-in focus!





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What’s in a Name?

As a reporter for a national news organization covering legal news in South Dakota (and sometimes beyond), I’ve become much more attuned to what is happening in my home state than I ever have been in the past — especially when it comes to the state’s Native American population.

Nearly 10% of South Dakota’s population is Native, which is the highest percentage of any state. Unfortunately, South Dakota’s tribes are also among the poorest American Indians in the nation.

Over the last year, South Dakota’s Board of Geographic Names has been considering whether to rename Harney Peak, the state’s highest point, which was named for General William Harney, who led a slaughter against the Lakota people in 1855.

Last week, they decided to leave the name as-is, a decision which I covered .

This was a story I could not stop thinking about after it was completed, mostly because the letters I had read that made up the public outcry against the name kept running through my head.

It broke my heart that people were willing to choose “tradition” over the very real injuries suffered by our Lakota neighbors.

When I covered the story for the news, I sought to be as objective as possible. It was clear after listening to the minutes of the meeting that this was an excruciating decision. Below is my less-objective letter to the editor, which I sent to South Dakota’s major newspapers on Saturday.

I am writing to express my disappointment in the South Dakota Board of Geographical Names’ recent decision to reverse its recommendation that the name of Harney Peak be changed.

The Board made this decision in response to public outcry against their earlier recommendation to restore the peak’s earlier, Lakota name, Hinhan Kaga.

When we are trying to fairly address the needs of a minority population, “majority rules” is not always the most sound or ethical strategy. In a matter like this, it may behoove us to ask who has more at stake, and who will suffer the most harm following the decision.

It is not surprising, in a state where 90 percent of the population is non-Native, that the Native voices were quickly drowned out by the cacophony. This was especially, painfully obvious in the comments made at the board’s June 29 meeting, in which the single Native board member stood alone in voting against the reversal. If we allow “majority rules” to dictate at times like this, then we continue to participate in the oppression and abuse of our Native population. Is that the way we really want to make our decisions?

It may have been more appropriate to ask not what the majority wanted, but whose reasons for their stance was most compelling. Our Native population was asking for our understanding in Harney Peak’s ongoing insult to their dignity. Not only was it named after a general who slaughtered their people, but it is also located on sacred land that rightfully belongs to them, despite the myriad ways non-Native South Dakotans have exploited and profited from it.

On the other hand, detractors to the name change gave reasons such as that it had “always been that way” (not at all — only since the 1850s), that people would not be able to pronounce the new name (they could learn), that it would interfere with people’s lifetime of “good memories” on Harney Peak (the name change did NOT have the power to erase memories), or that the change would be “too costly.” But was not the loss of Native life Harney’s name stands for far more costly than drawing up new maps and brochures?

Unfortunately, the Harney Peak debacle is just the most recent in a long history of oppressing our Native population. I am a reporter for a national news organization — although I am writing as a concerned South Dakotan, not as a representative of my employer — and I am appalled at how little local coverage our media gives to the injustices we still regularly mete out upon South Dakota’s tribes. In the past year alone, we’ve seen a South Dakota county interfere with Native Americans’ voting rights (Poor Bear v. Jackson County) and a county judge reprimanded for his disregard of the Indian Child Welfare Act (Oglala Sioux Tribe v. Van Hunnik). Yet, our Attorney General offered no official release on either of these cases, which reduced local coverage, local knowledge, and most importantly, local outcry.

This is the backdrop against which we deal yet another blow to our Native population.

I understand the Board’s reluctance to move forward with a decision that the majority did not support, so I cannot fault them entirely. Instead, I am disappointed that, as a state, we are not yet ready to take even the smallest steps toward correcting the injustices we have visited upon our Native neighbors for hundreds of years.

Lacey Louwagie

Sioux Falls, SD

Fairy Tale Retelling Book Review: The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder

[image error]The Rose Bride: A Retelling of “The White Bride and the Black Bride” by Nancy Holder


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an interesting reading experience because I was not familiar with the source material for this book, the fairy tale “The White Bride and the Black Bride.” So I pulled out my trusty The Complete Fairy Tales of Brothers Grimm, Volume 1 and read it right before venturing in to this novel. (Reading the original, I can see why this story doesn’t get a ton of attention anymore. Although meant to be “metaphorical,” its depiction of the “white bride” as being good and the “black bride” as being bad comes across as somewhat racist.)

Since this story was not part of my cultural consciousness the way more common fairy tales are, I was particularly surprised when certain elements that seemed crucial in the original were disregarded in this rendition. It really ended up feeling like a bit of a mash up between “Cinderella” and “The Goose Girl,” since it played up the original’s elements of an abusive stepfamily and a case of mistaken/stolen identity.

The writing is adequate, if a bit flowery in places (no pun intended), and I was somewhat confused by the author’s choice to set it in France but to have the characters worship Greek gods. I don’t know enough French history to place this historically, although I assume at some point the Roman occupation probably came into play. I would have liked an author’s note to explain this choice, such as Donna Jo Napoli provides in Bound. With all the deaths and other horrible things that happened to Rose, the story did come across as melodramatic at times. I think that comes from the strange juxtaposition of this feeling like a “light” read even though it deals with the rather heavy subject matter of grief. And if the god I worshiped answered my prayers the way Artemis answers the prayers of Rose’s dying mother, I think I would start seeking a new religion pronto, even if it does “all turn out all right in the end.” I never felt completely certain that the destination was worth the harrowing journey in this case.

I would have liked further exploration of the case of “mistaken identity” between the King’s deceased wife and Rose — she was apparently her “twin” in looks, although they were around the same age and so she could not have been a reincarnation, and there was no indication they were actually twins separated at birth. I am glad that Rose realized the importance of the King coming to love her for who she was rather than as a balm to his grief over his late wife. I wonder if there are other retellings that focus more on this aspect of the story. If not, perhaps I will have to write one!





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My new writing space, and recommendations

I’ve been meaning to post a couple recommendations here for weeks, and now that I’ve got a nifty new writing station, I’ve decided it is time to do it!

 

My new #writing station.

A photo posted by Lacey Louwagie VenOsdel (@laceyvenosdel) on Jun 14, 2015 at 5:05pm PDT

First, the recommendations, and then the story of how my new writing space came to be.

My first recommendation is my friend Ashley Isaacson’s first book, Kingdom Horizon. The book is Christian/historical fiction with some elements of fantasy. I worked on the first part of this book as an editor and I am looking forward to reading parts two and three as well — it’s next in line on my e-reader. Ashley is a talented writer and designer whose name you may recognize from her credit in my website’s footer.
The second is Can Science Fiction Save the World?, a great podcast about the power of science fiction literature. As a long-time reader/writer of speculative fiction, this podcast articulates well what I love about the genre. (For the record, all of the SMNTY podcasts are quite good — but most of them do not relate to this blog.)

Now, despite the resounding silence on this blog over the last several weeks, I have still been writing. Most of my blogging energy, which used to come here to play, is currently going into my Year in Disney Movies project, which has been a bigger undertaking than I initially imagined, although still lots of fun. I’m also STILL writing that Rapunzel retelling (the end is in sight, I swear it!), and I’m also nearly finished with the writing exercises in Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.

Last week’s exercise is the one that led to my new writing station. The “assignment” was to create a new writing space for yourself. I almost gave myself a free pass on it. My husband and I are building an outdoor office, so surely that must count, right? Plus, we have a small house, I’m already writing in every available corner, etc. etc.

And then I remembered the mailing desk my great grandfather made.

The mailing desk whose surface had not been cleaned since … 2012?

When I first moved in with my husband, the basement wasn’t finished and so I didn’t “move office” from my old house. Instead, I set up shop temporarily at this mailing desk, the only desk in the house at the time. After we finished the basement and I properly moved my office from my old house to this one, this desk became forgotten — and just another horizontal space upon which to accumulate clutter — checkbooks, labels, old mail, and mostly, my writing notes and manuscript carcasses.

That’s no life for a desk.

So I made reclaiming that surface my weekend goal, and, voilà, I am writing upon it now! As an added bonus, the desk portion folds up, so I will keep it closed when it is not in use. Clutter, you are no longer welcome here!

Retelling Book Review: Bound by Donna Jo Napoli

Bound by Donna Jo Napoli


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s been so many years since I’ve read anything by Donna Jo Napoli — I think more than a decade — so I was pleased to find that she still “held up” after all this time, especially since I stopped reading her because I seem to have OD’d and found her books not “doing it” for me the same way they used to.

It’s clear from Napoli’s retellings that she has the utmost respect for her source material, and I admire that. She doesn’t try too hard to find a “gimmick” or “twist” to make her retellings sensational; instead, she simply sinks deeply and richly into the source material, particularly the psychology of the characters and the seemingly bizarre choices they make.

This is the first time I’ve read a Cinderella retelling that harkens back to some of the earliest, Chinese source materials, and I really liked the change of setting. The story is still there — the stepmother, a half sister, an orphaned and disadvantaged daughter — but there’s a subtly different light cast upon it. At first glance this book seems to be less dark than some of Napoli’s other work, but the scenes with the raccoon kittens and the ultimate fate of Xing Xing’s fish prove that Napoli still does not shy away from the more disturbing aspects of fairy tales.

Napoli’s characters are not two-dimensional — Xing Xing’s sister, who suffers the pain of bound feet, is a sympathetic character that Xing Xing genuinely pities and cares for. The stepmother, while dismissive and sometimes cruel to Xing Xing, is also made more believable for the pressure she feels to marry off her daughter so that the family can survive in a culture where three women alone are worth very little. Her cruelty is interspersed with moments of kindness, so that one does not feel the sort of simmering hatred of her that the stepmother usually inspires. It would have been soul-crushing to live under her roof, just the same.

There is a lot of buildup, so that the ending (the “ball,” the search for the owner of the shoe, etc.) seems rushed. I never really “bought” the character of the prince, nor did I feel totally confident Xing Xing was heading off to a happily ever after. But since the romance aspect is probably the least alluring to me in the Cinderella story, it didn’t bother me too much to have it downplayed here.

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Is There a Place for Big Girls in the Church?

My monthly post is up at Young Adult Catholics — a plea for the Catholic Church to be a good parent and let its children finally grow up.

Retelling Book Review: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was not what I expected it to be. It was lighter on magic, heavier on Alaskan frontier hardship, but once I adjusted my expectations, I ended up enjoying the book a lot.

It is one of those stories that you need to let yourself really sink into slowly. The hardship and isolation of settling the Alaskan frontier is palpable, as is the grief Mabel feels over her inability to have children, and the tension that all this elicits in her long-time marriage. Over the course of the novel, Mabel and Jack, intentionally reclusive at the start, begin to connect with their neighbors and form a small but tight community.

And in the center of this historical pioneer drama is just a touch of magic and mystery, when Mabel and Jack discover a nine-year-old girl who seems to live in the woods after they build a snow child. Faina flits in and out of the families’ lives over the next eight years, growing into womanhood without ever becoming less elusive. Is she a real girl, or a product of Mabel and Jack’s hopes and dreams? Either way, she is captivating, and the ambiguity of her sat well with me. It’s a beautiful story about a harsh time and place, and even harsher heartbreak.





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