Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 19

Some thoughts after reading How I Shed My Skin, by Jim Grimsley

How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood by Jim Grimsley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Full disclosure first: I know Jim Grimsley and have met him a handful of times. We have friends in common and we are contemporaries. I am little older, but we both graduated from high school in North Carolina in 1973. We both grew up in a South in transformation, he in Jones County, which is Down East, and I, in the Piedmont, Orange County, Chapel Hill. We both attended UNC-Chapel Hill at the same time, although we didn't meet until many years later, I think at a science fiction convention.

I have a great deal of respect for Jim as a writer and as a fine human being. As he wrote in my copy of Dream Boy, it's always nice when we run into each other. That book, by the way, was an important of my own coming out, but that is another story.

I applaud the courage it took Jim to write this memoir, a frank and candid exploration of, as he describes it, "unlearning the racist lessons of a Southern childhood." I think of my own experiences in those years. While Chapel Hill is, in some ways, another world from Jones County, even so it has its own history of race and discrimination and turmoil and change and growth. Jones County Schools integrated in 1966. I attended Chapel Hill City Public Schools, and when I began first grade in 1961, I was in the second integrated class. That meant that there was one black child in my first grade class. I have not forgotten him, Odell Moses, a small child, even for a first grader.

The number of African American children in my classes, of course, increased and relatively quickly. The black high school, Lincoln, was eventually closed, as was the white downtown high school, and a new one built out of town. My older brother went to the new high school. When I was in sixth grade, 1967-68, all sixth graders were sent to Lincoln, which was, for a year, the sixth grade center. The library had to be upgraded to meet 6th grade standards. I had my first African American teacher that year, Miss Bowser. Junior high saw racial unrest and protest and in the high school, what were called riots. Now I wonder if that was too strong a term, given what was happening nationally in those years, including the anguish and pain of Vietnam (both another story and an inescapable part of the history of race and racism in the US).

I went to my 40th reunion, as Jim did and writes about here, in 2013. He describes a banquet where a former teacher talks of those years of integration and reminds the students that they were "part of the group that ended segregation, that [they] were part of something important in the world" (269). Jim was the only white person from his class in the room. That wasn't how it was at my 40th at the Time Out Restaurant, but like in the high school cafeteria, whites and blacks tended to sit separately from each other. That there were many integrated conversations and groups does validate the truth of how Jim ends this memoir: "Lawyers, judges, adults declared that the days of separate schools were over, but we were the ones who took the next step. History gave us a piece of itself. We made of it what we could" (275).

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Things are not as they were, there has been progress, slow and painful and times, even bloody. Racism stained American history, it still does. It's not over, it's not finished. But such honest and frank accounts as this book are helping us on our journey out of our past.



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The Land of the Green Man: A Journey through the Supernatural Landscapes of the British Isles, by Carolyne Larrington

The Land of the Green Man - A Journey through the Supernatural Landscapes of the British Isles by Carolyne Larrington

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There is the land we know, the familiar terrain on which we live, engaging in a myriad of activities. We find our way around this land, home, by maps, by directions given by others, by personal knowledge, acquired over time and through practice and repetition.

And there is the land we remember. When I drive home to North Carolina, where I was born and raised, where I came of age, educated, and began my adult life (1950s-90s), memory tells me I am coming home, even if the landscape has changed. I physically feel different. I remember the stories of what happened where and to whom and why.

This is personal and family memory, a memory preserved and transmuted through story. In Larrington's exploration of the "supernatural landscapes of the British Isles," she examines a terrain of a memory of which the personal and the familial are a part, cultural memory. I am not speakng here of historical memory so much--what happened here on this spot, in this place, at a certain time in the past, and the weight and value of such memories, their significance. That is one way of knowing.

As Larrington says, there is a "second way of knowing," of remembering, of knowing the land, through the stories and legends of folk tradition, here, those of "the British landscape." Larrington takes the reader on a journey, as the subtitle says, through the "supernatural landscapes" of the British Isles, from the islands in the far north, to Ireland, to the Isle of Man, and England, Scotland, and Wales. Here, the black dog was seen. Here, merfolk and over there, giants. Fairies, werewolves, monsters, changelings, selkies...

These are local tales, part of greater mythologies and legends, true, but as Tolkien and Lewis realized, "the great heroic legend cycles had their counterparts in the local and individual. For Tolkien and Lewis, and those writers of fantasy who came after them, understood that British folk legends and the supernatural creatures who inhabit them have important things to say about human existence. Thinking about life and death, about children and animals, about riches and poverty, about love and desire, past and future: all this is work that can be accomplished through hearing, reading, and considering our traditional tales" (8-9). "Giants, selkies, hobs, mermaids, wild men, knockers, werewolves and, above all, fairies remain good to think with and good to feel with--they tap into our concerns, anxieties,questions about being human and about how we live now, in this land" (10).

This book is a journey. Others have taken it, Tolkien, Lewis, and more recently, writers such as Rowling, Garner, Pullman, and Alexander. Does it matter that I am an American and not British? Yes, and no--this is not my native terrain, but it is one from many of my ancestors come, and when I first visited Britain, I felt as if I were coming home. Some visits later, I still feel that way.

Take this journey. As the Table of Contents suggests, this is a journey over time, of lust and love, death and loss, gain and lack, the beast and the human, and continuity--the tales are still there, part of the fabric, part of the land. And change, as we retell them, as we change where and how we live.

I wish I could explore the British Isles with this as my travel guide.



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A Little Review of A Little History of Dragons, by Joyce Hargreaves

A Little History of Dragons by Joyce Hargreaves

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I bought this little book on a trip to England last summer and stuffed in my suitcase and it has languished in my "to be read" stack ever since. I fished it out the other day and have had a delightful time reading it.

For a tiny little book, with only 58 pages of text, Joyce Hargreaves covers a lot of territory, beginning with the basic question of just what is a dragon to dragons in the West, in Norse mythology, in China and Japan, in India, and the Americas and other places. Dragon varieties examined include the Hydra, the Worm and the Wyvern, and the Basilisk. A helpful "Gazetteer on Interesting Dragon Sites" in Great Britain is provided, along the appropriate tales for each site.

Hargreaves begins with the question of just what are dragons, these beasts that are "the most nebulous, complex and ambivalent of all the animals that inhabit the jungle of the imagination. This fabulous creature has been the subject of myth and traveller's tales for the last 4000 years." Hargreaves argues that "[a] can be primarily considered a symbol of the many different aspects of the powers of the earth, both good and bad" (1). There is a wealth information here on this fabulous beast.

Students of dragons, aka dragonologists, here is a resource book for you. And ponder this: "...we can be almost certain that the dragon, in the general form we visualise it, does not physically exist anywhere on Earth" (2). Almost, eh? After all, "Our genetic ancestors were once hunted by dinosaurs. Could dragons resonate as a deep compound symbol for one of our oldest foes?" (50)?

They do make for great stories.




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A Brief Review of Black Projects, White Knights, by Kage Baker

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers by Kage Baker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A strange and curious collections of tales about the activities of the field agents of the Company, or Dr. Zeus, Inc., immortal cyborgs, who are engaged in such missions as searching for the "rare hallucinogenic Black Elysium grape, checking in on the ill-health of Robert Louis Stevenson, to recovering priceless literary artifacts from a sarcophagus in 1914 Egypt. To quote the book jacket, 'Is it possible to interfere with History in a moral way, especially if profit is the primary motivation for doing so? In fact, is it possible to sustain any ethical standards at all when handed what amounts to unlimited power?"

Dark, sometimes funny and satirical (the UK "nanny state" is eviscerated), sad, intense, and a very carefully constructed alternate reality and secret history.

Clearly a title that has been on my "To Be Read"s shelf for too long.



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A Short Review of Tales of the Seal People, by Duncan Williamson

Tales of the Seal People: Scottish Folk Tales by Duncan Williamson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I want to know more about selkies, or as they are called in this charming collection of tales, silkies. One of "Scotland's Travelling People, formerly called tinkers," Duncan Williamson learned these tales years ago "directly from working with crofters and fishermen along Loch Fyne," in Scotland (147, 3). Or from any one who "would tell him a tale" (back cover).

They are wonderful. These stories were, as Williamson explains, "never made, they were never set to any pattern. They were just 'something strange' according to them that actually took place. It was family history, that's the truth" (3). I would say there is sort of a pattern or recurring threads: live and let live, there's enough in the sea for men and seals, leave them be and they will leave you be. Care for a selkie, love one, and they will do the same for you. If not, they do take revenge. These stories do teach that all life is interconnected, that nature must be cared for or lost. They also teach of the intersections between humans and the animals, between the magical and the mundane of love, obsession, and revenge.

Good stuff.



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A Short Review of The Sleeper and the Spindle, by Neil Gaiman

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


According to the the front jacket text, "You may think you know this story. There's a young queen about to be married. There are some good, brave, hardy dwarfs..."

What happened after for Snow White, right? Almost. Wait as there's also " a castle, shrouded in thorns; and a princess, cursed by a witch, so rumor has it, to sleep forever." Ahh, Sleeping Beauty, right? But there is a sleeping sickness spreading slowly across the mountains between the two stories, and Snow White's, aka the young queen, kingdom is threatened, and a princess needs rescuing. The young queen postpones her wedding and, as heroes do, "She called for her mail shirt. She called for her sword. She called for provisions, and for her horse, and then she rode out of the palace, towards the east" (21).

But this is a Neil Gaiman retelling of these two stories, and what the young queen finds behind the wall of thorns isn't quite might be expected. Yes, a beautiful young princess sleeps there, cursed by a witch, or a fairy or an enchantress (there is some disagreement about this detail). But there is also dark magic, "which twists and turns and glistens and shines" (front jacket), and there are choices to be made. "There are always choices" (66)

As always, Neil Gaiman is amazing. So is the illustrator of The Sleeper and the Spindle., Chris Riddell. These rich, lush illustrations are part of the story's text, a visual of the narrative.

Recommended.



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The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The last line of this wonderful is "It's snowing." And today, here, it is, all day long. What a perfect day to read this book, to finish this book, the book Eowyn Ivey has been "longing to tell [her] life" (Guide 6).

Alaska, 1920, a "brutal place to homestead" and especially so for new arrivals, Jack and Mabel. They have come here to reinvent their lives, to finally get past the grief over the death of their only child, to start anew. Jack is struggling to keep their farm going. Mabel is struggling against loneliness and her grief. Then, during the first snowfall, they give to their inner children (or so it seems) and build a snow child. The next morning the child is gone and they see, for the first time, a "young girl running through the trees" (back cover).

Her name is Faina and she "seems to be a child of the woods," a child of the snow, with her red fox at her side. But is she real? Is she snow child in the old Russian fairy tale Mabel cannot forget? That she is real is almost a disappointment but that only brings more questions: how does she survive in the bitter winters, where does she come from. who is she?

The fairy tale remains at the core of this magical novel which is all too believable and real in this story of survival and loss, love and grief, and redemption.

I cried at the end.

Recommended.





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Welsh Tales for the Fireside, by Lisa Lee

Welsh Tales for the Fireside by Lisa Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I thought this little book was a collection of Welsh fairy tales. Wrong. These are modern stories, tall tales, but told with "all the ingredients of the traditional stories": "Singing pigs, a spirit from the lake, a magic bean, a young shepherd in love" (back cover).

"The Post Office Badger," probably my favorite, is about Mrs. Morgan who "kept the little post office at the end of the valley. She sold groceries and sweets and was licenced to sell tobacco. She was a widow, having buried her husband some four years before all this happened" (87). Then one Thursday afternoon in November, a badger shows up at her doorstep and comes in and "before she knew where she was it was sitting in front of her fire for all the world as though it had lived there all its life" (89). They become fast friends, although there are, of course, complications.

A student gave me this lovely little book some years ago and only know am I getting around to it. Thank you, UMW for this sabbatical, and thank you, Jessica, for your kindness.



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A Short Review of The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales, by Franz Xaver Schonwerth

The Turnip Princess and other newly discovered fairy tales by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Grimm Brothers weren't the only ones collecting fairy and folk tells in 19th century Germany. "In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schonwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm." But most of Schonwerth's (umlaut over the o) were lost, until just a few years ago, "when thirty boxes of manuscripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive" (back cover).

Now, here it is a selection in English. What some might not know is that the Grimms, over the years, edited the tales they collected. Schonwerth never did. These are dark stories, many of them, violent, and far more frank in terms of sexuality and human behavior. Some of the heroes just aren't. There are several that are familiar, such as variants of Cinderella, Tom Thumb, and The Pied Pier of Hamlin, among others. The explorations of human greed and love and family and the randomness of life are all here, as are the questions of what and who we are and where we are in the universe.

Lovers of the fairy tale, take note.



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Announcing the 2014 and 2015 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards for Best Novel

Spectrum Awards for Best Novel Announced at ChessieCon in November 2015

This is late, I know!

At a special ceremony on November 28, during ChessieCon (in Timonium, MD). the winners of the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Novel for 2013 and 2014 were announced by Rob Gates and Carl Cipra.

The winners of the Awards for Best Short Fiction will be announced at Gaylaxicon 2016 in Minneapolis this October.

Death by Silver (Lethe Press) by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold, is the winner of the 2014 Spectrum Award for Best Novel published in 2013. It's a murder mystery with magic, set in London, in an alternate Victorian England (where one goes to Oxford to study magic).

Fairs' Point (Lethe Press) by Melissa Scott, is the winner of the 2015 Award for Best Novel published in 2014. The fourth novel in the Astreiant series is also a magical murder mystery set in a fantasy world reminiscent of urban Renaissance Europe.

The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards recognize outstanding works in science fiction, fantasy, or horror that deal positively with issues, themes, and characters of special relevance to the GLBT communities.

Nominations are open to everyone; readers, fans, writers/creators,and publishers are all encouraged to nominate their own or other works.

Thanks to Carl Cipra from whose article in the Lambda Sci-Fi January 2016 newsletter I borrowed quite freely.

For complete lists of all nominees, winnners and finalists, please go to the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards website:

http://www.spectrumawards.org