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Inventing Memory
A one-of-a-kind novel, like nothing you've ever read, Inventing Memory is a stunning blend of fantasy and reality, exposing the secret links between the mythic, the mundane, and the timeless mysteries of the human heart.
Shula is a slave in fabled Sumer--until Inanna, Queen of Heaven, appears before her. Chosen by the Goddess for reasons she cannot begin to fathom, Shula is freed from bondage and set upon an uncertain path toward a new and mysterious destiny. But the attention of the gods is a dangerous thing, and Shula may have cause to regret the day she first laid eyes on the Queen of Dawn . . .
Wendy Chrenko, former high school misfit, is now an overworked graduate student, researching her dissertation on "Remnants of Matriarchy in the Ancient Sumerian Inanna Cycle." Still smarting from the painful wounds of a long relationship that ended abruptly, Wendy is bound and determined to prove that men and women once lived together in perfect equality, even if it means volunteering for a bizarre and dangerous scientific experiment . . .
Separated by millennia, Shula and Wendy appear to be two very different women, leading completely separate lives.
Or maybe not.
Shula is a slave in fabled Sumer--until Inanna, Queen of Heaven, appears before her. Chosen by the Goddess for reasons she cannot begin to fathom, Shula is freed from bondage and set upon an uncertain path toward a new and mysterious destiny. But the attention of the gods is a dangerous thing, and Shula may have cause to regret the day she first laid eyes on the Queen of Dawn . . .
Wendy Chrenko, former high school misfit, is now an overworked graduate student, researching her dissertation on "Remnants of Matriarchy in the Ancient Sumerian Inanna Cycle." Still smarting from the painful wounds of a long relationship that ended abruptly, Wendy is bound and determined to prove that men and women once lived together in perfect equality, even if it means volunteering for a bizarre and dangerous scientific experiment . . .
Separated by millennia, Shula and Wendy appear to be two very different women, leading completely separate lives.
Or maybe not.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
55 people want to read
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May 26, 2020
This book has the dubious honor of being the second book, ever, to be put on my did not finish shelf.
I gave it a valiant try. I got almost precisely halfway through, page 158, before asking myself, why am I doing this? Why am I continuing to read a book that I do not like? That is incredibly stupid? And badly written? Why am I doing this, self? And myself answered 'because you think it's important to read books whose viewpoints you disagree with' and I was like, yes, self, I do think that...but this is fiction! And I picked it up to read for fun! And I am not having fun! And so I decided, yes it is important to read viewpoints that I disagree with, but I think I shall limit that as an aspect of my nonfiction reading, and by golly, sometimes I just want to read something fun and this is not it.
I give you fair warning, this is going to be a bit of a wandering review because there is just so much wrong with this book. In the first place it's hard to write an organized review because the book itself is not organized. What is with this current phase of postmodernist writing?! Let's have a badly written short story, then boom, go to a different, badly written short story, and connect them somehow at the end...in some vague way? I don't know, maybe she does connect them. I glanced through and it seems like the first one is a simulated world designed by the character in the second one, but, again, what's with this postmodernist dream within a dream thing? Which is the dream? Which is real life? Neither of them, it's a book of fiction, it's gimmicky and it's boring. Just write a straight story that has a straight plotline. Spend more time on developing your characters instead of trying to be edgy and cool.
Other reasons this is a terrible book. It's preachy. I hate being preached at. Well, that's not true, I enjoy being preached at when that is what I intend. I will sit at the feet of those who know more than me and gladly imbibe their wisdom. I will read the works of people I despise, who espouse viewpoints that I think are vile, just to understand them. But I go in knowing that is what I am doing, and being prepared for it. I don't want to go in, expecting a nice little book with an intriguing title, just to have to be bashed upside the head with overt ideology.
Take Mercedes Lackey, for example, she has a clear set of political biases. She has a clear set of moral values, and they are not mine, but I still read her works, and she was instrumental in changing the way I thought about things because she made you believe in her world. It came to life and her characters were real people who suffered real things. It didn't matter that it was a magic world that could never be, her characters were human. I didn't care if she agreed with me or disagreed with me, because it was just the background of a story, it wasn't the purpose of writing the story.
This book is different. Her purpose is to push a belief system. She manipulates the story and her characters in order to get across a message. It's no different than the 19th century morality novels. Just as crudely done, but instead of teaching a moral message it's tearing down traditional morality. And fine, if you don't want to live a traditionally moral life, that's fine, but don't belittle the people who do. Don't belittle their belief system without engaging with it seriously.
It doesn't take much to figure out that the mysterious Belili, or whatever her name is, the naked girl with black wings who appears randomly to lost teenaged girls and becomes their goddess, is actually Eve. Eve as she truly was. Not how she's been portrayed through centuries of male manipulation of the stories. No. The true Eve. The one who partnered with the snake to throw off masculine chains of servitude. The one who became a goddess in her own right by questioning. I might be exaggerating a bit here, to be fair. The part about evil men was never actually said by the author, I'm drawing a conclusion based on how males are portrayed in the book. There isn't a positive portrayal. We have the rapist who forces himself on a slave, the boy bully who torments a girl with jockstraps and terrible names, the abusive father, the uninvolved father, and the uncaring teachers, security officers, and principles. And that just bothers me. Even in bloody North Korea, where people are crushed, starved, beaten, humiliated, diseased and forced to hurt one another, there are still good people. There are still people who sacrifice for others. There are still people who give of themselves. I just get tired of this one dimensionality that seems so prevalent in modern fantasy.
I heard an interesting interview with Orson Scott Card the other day, and he said something about how much of modern fiction is not about the story anymore, it's about the ideology of the author. I have to say, he has a point. I noticed it in The small and angry planet, and then the horrible Olivia Butcher book whose title I blocked from my memory, but at least those authors could write in an entertaining manner! This book is torturous. It's uninteresting, it's banal. Every other page is talking about a vulva. This door looked like a vulva, her hand was white against her vulva, come plow my vulva....just...why? Because according to the blurb on the back 'we find the lost path to the cosmic feminine.' What does that even mean? I just want an interesting story and instead I'm being bombarded with a bunch of pornographic ick. I know, I know, it's about a Sumerian fertility cult, there probably was a lot of pornographic ick, but I don't want to read about it. Or at the very least I want to read about it in a dispassionate scholarly article instead of a fantasy book that is espousing it as something worthwhile!
But it's worse than just that! I don't even know what this story is about! I'm halfway through! And I don't mean that in a positive way, it's not like the exciting feeling you get when the author goes in an unexpected direction and you were like 'Wow! I totally didn't predict that, but now that you did it, it makes total sense!' Instead I'm like...this is worse in narrative structure than Kubla Khan and that was literally written on an opium high...
The first third of the story is set in an ancient Sumer-like place and the main character is a Semite slave....who somehow knows how to read and write Sumerian because...why? She met a goddess or something? The goddess decides to use her and grant miracles to her, and everyone treats her great and with a great deal of respect, enough to free her and make her a priestess to a fertility goddess, all to beat her to death for getting pregnant...because...why? Then boom we have modern day bullied emo girl who decides to reject everything and start worshiping the earth and this naked girl with wings who is followed by a snake....because the earth loves her even when no one else does....I never really understood the portrayal of nature as some sort of all-benevolent mother. Nature is responsible for earthquakes, flooding, the bubonic plague, covid-19, dysentery and mosquitoes...the list goes on. It's just irritating to, again, see only one side of something portrayed.
But probably the thing about this book that irritates me the most is the sheer avoidance of any depth while still portraying itself as uber-deep. My favorite part is how the erstwhile Eve, who is free of her shackles by joining forces with the snake, has a tiny two paragraph blurb about the nature of free will and evil and good and their balance. A difficult topic I would say, one that has occupied theologians and philosophers for centuries and it's dealt with in two, tiny, paragraphs, where the main character says 'But aren't there other choices other than just good and evil?' and she is praised, and told she's brilliant and that she must keep asking questions. She has the soul of a priestess because she asked a question. A question which completely elides the issue I might add.
I actually like questions. They are, by and large, a wonderful thing. Question your beliefs, question your ideologies. That's a very healthy thing and everyone should do that, but don't just ask questions. You must seek answers! But this book is like oh, you asked questions about the nature of good and evil. Great, you should be a priestess. You have a fine mind. The end.
Is that the nature of humanity? To question? Can you imagine what a hellhole that would be? To never be certain? To question everything?
Ah, but you see, the book isn't actually advocating questioning everything. That's the rub. It's advocating 'question everything you have ever learned from anyone you've interacted with, except me.' Listen to me, make me your goddess, because I'm the person who comforts you when you are sad, I'm the one who tells you what you want to hear. I'm the one who shows up out of nowhere after leaving you alone for 15 years of life, right when you are at a low point just to tell you to trust no one else but me. Yes. That sounds like a very healthy relationship.
I gave it a valiant try. I got almost precisely halfway through, page 158, before asking myself, why am I doing this? Why am I continuing to read a book that I do not like? That is incredibly stupid? And badly written? Why am I doing this, self? And myself answered 'because you think it's important to read books whose viewpoints you disagree with' and I was like, yes, self, I do think that...but this is fiction! And I picked it up to read for fun! And I am not having fun! And so I decided, yes it is important to read viewpoints that I disagree with, but I think I shall limit that as an aspect of my nonfiction reading, and by golly, sometimes I just want to read something fun and this is not it.
I give you fair warning, this is going to be a bit of a wandering review because there is just so much wrong with this book. In the first place it's hard to write an organized review because the book itself is not organized. What is with this current phase of postmodernist writing?! Let's have a badly written short story, then boom, go to a different, badly written short story, and connect them somehow at the end...in some vague way? I don't know, maybe she does connect them. I glanced through and it seems like the first one is a simulated world designed by the character in the second one, but, again, what's with this postmodernist dream within a dream thing? Which is the dream? Which is real life? Neither of them, it's a book of fiction, it's gimmicky and it's boring. Just write a straight story that has a straight plotline. Spend more time on developing your characters instead of trying to be edgy and cool.
Other reasons this is a terrible book. It's preachy. I hate being preached at. Well, that's not true, I enjoy being preached at when that is what I intend. I will sit at the feet of those who know more than me and gladly imbibe their wisdom. I will read the works of people I despise, who espouse viewpoints that I think are vile, just to understand them. But I go in knowing that is what I am doing, and being prepared for it. I don't want to go in, expecting a nice little book with an intriguing title, just to have to be bashed upside the head with overt ideology.
Take Mercedes Lackey, for example, she has a clear set of political biases. She has a clear set of moral values, and they are not mine, but I still read her works, and she was instrumental in changing the way I thought about things because she made you believe in her world. It came to life and her characters were real people who suffered real things. It didn't matter that it was a magic world that could never be, her characters were human. I didn't care if she agreed with me or disagreed with me, because it was just the background of a story, it wasn't the purpose of writing the story.
This book is different. Her purpose is to push a belief system. She manipulates the story and her characters in order to get across a message. It's no different than the 19th century morality novels. Just as crudely done, but instead of teaching a moral message it's tearing down traditional morality. And fine, if you don't want to live a traditionally moral life, that's fine, but don't belittle the people who do. Don't belittle their belief system without engaging with it seriously.
It doesn't take much to figure out that the mysterious Belili, or whatever her name is, the naked girl with black wings who appears randomly to lost teenaged girls and becomes their goddess, is actually Eve. Eve as she truly was. Not how she's been portrayed through centuries of male manipulation of the stories. No. The true Eve. The one who partnered with the snake to throw off masculine chains of servitude. The one who became a goddess in her own right by questioning. I might be exaggerating a bit here, to be fair. The part about evil men was never actually said by the author, I'm drawing a conclusion based on how males are portrayed in the book. There isn't a positive portrayal. We have the rapist who forces himself on a slave, the boy bully who torments a girl with jockstraps and terrible names, the abusive father, the uninvolved father, and the uncaring teachers, security officers, and principles. And that just bothers me. Even in bloody North Korea, where people are crushed, starved, beaten, humiliated, diseased and forced to hurt one another, there are still good people. There are still people who sacrifice for others. There are still people who give of themselves. I just get tired of this one dimensionality that seems so prevalent in modern fantasy.
I heard an interesting interview with Orson Scott Card the other day, and he said something about how much of modern fiction is not about the story anymore, it's about the ideology of the author. I have to say, he has a point. I noticed it in The small and angry planet, and then the horrible Olivia Butcher book whose title I blocked from my memory, but at least those authors could write in an entertaining manner! This book is torturous. It's uninteresting, it's banal. Every other page is talking about a vulva. This door looked like a vulva, her hand was white against her vulva, come plow my vulva....just...why? Because according to the blurb on the back 'we find the lost path to the cosmic feminine.' What does that even mean? I just want an interesting story and instead I'm being bombarded with a bunch of pornographic ick. I know, I know, it's about a Sumerian fertility cult, there probably was a lot of pornographic ick, but I don't want to read about it. Or at the very least I want to read about it in a dispassionate scholarly article instead of a fantasy book that is espousing it as something worthwhile!
But it's worse than just that! I don't even know what this story is about! I'm halfway through! And I don't mean that in a positive way, it's not like the exciting feeling you get when the author goes in an unexpected direction and you were like 'Wow! I totally didn't predict that, but now that you did it, it makes total sense!' Instead I'm like...this is worse in narrative structure than Kubla Khan and that was literally written on an opium high...
The first third of the story is set in an ancient Sumer-like place and the main character is a Semite slave....who somehow knows how to read and write Sumerian because...why? She met a goddess or something? The goddess decides to use her and grant miracles to her, and everyone treats her great and with a great deal of respect, enough to free her and make her a priestess to a fertility goddess, all to beat her to death for getting pregnant...because...why? Then boom we have modern day bullied emo girl who decides to reject everything and start worshiping the earth and this naked girl with wings who is followed by a snake....because the earth loves her even when no one else does....I never really understood the portrayal of nature as some sort of all-benevolent mother. Nature is responsible for earthquakes, flooding, the bubonic plague, covid-19, dysentery and mosquitoes...the list goes on. It's just irritating to, again, see only one side of something portrayed.
But probably the thing about this book that irritates me the most is the sheer avoidance of any depth while still portraying itself as uber-deep. My favorite part is how the erstwhile Eve, who is free of her shackles by joining forces with the snake, has a tiny two paragraph blurb about the nature of free will and evil and good and their balance. A difficult topic I would say, one that has occupied theologians and philosophers for centuries and it's dealt with in two, tiny, paragraphs, where the main character says 'But aren't there other choices other than just good and evil?' and she is praised, and told she's brilliant and that she must keep asking questions. She has the soul of a priestess because she asked a question. A question which completely elides the issue I might add.
I actually like questions. They are, by and large, a wonderful thing. Question your beliefs, question your ideologies. That's a very healthy thing and everyone should do that, but don't just ask questions. You must seek answers! But this book is like oh, you asked questions about the nature of good and evil. Great, you should be a priestess. You have a fine mind. The end.
Is that the nature of humanity? To question? Can you imagine what a hellhole that would be? To never be certain? To question everything?
Ah, but you see, the book isn't actually advocating questioning everything. That's the rub. It's advocating 'question everything you have ever learned from anyone you've interacted with, except me.' Listen to me, make me your goddess, because I'm the person who comforts you when you are sad, I'm the one who tells you what you want to hear. I'm the one who shows up out of nowhere after leaving you alone for 15 years of life, right when you are at a low point just to tell you to trust no one else but me. Yes. That sounds like a very healthy relationship.
September 21, 2012
I was just getting into Shula's story, when it stopped, and we're taken to Wendy, a socially inept and lonely young girl. I found the writing at times to be excellent, and the prose to be very good, especially for the type of book this seems to be presented as.
But once into the first few chapters of Wendy's story, I saw through the facade of the story to what this truly is - the only slightly disguised naive sexual fantasy of an emerging wannabe goth.
Apologies to the author, but a lot of that playground stuff and expereinces of the early Wendy just have to be autobiographical.
Fantasies - sexual or otherwise - of 13-year olds are ALWAYS going to be about how they are completely alone in the world and always will be, and are very important to the person going through them. But to the rest of us, they are naive (that word again) tawdry and run-of-the-mill - a bit embarrassing really.
Aside from my total disinterest in Wendy (I read a single chapter of her after her 'emergence', and this just solidified my ideas about the wannabe goth bit), it all made me feel that I could see just how the rest of the book would work out, and so I dropped it on page 133.
Maybe I'm wrong, but only the most empassioned explanation of why i am wrong would sway me from ever picking it up again.
However, I may read another of Harris' books. Harris' prose style and some description really is very good, so if she avoids the infantile stories and the fan-fiction subjects of an ostracised teen, she could do good things.
But once into the first few chapters of Wendy's story, I saw through the facade of the story to what this truly is - the only slightly disguised naive sexual fantasy of an emerging wannabe goth.
Apologies to the author, but a lot of that playground stuff and expereinces of the early Wendy just have to be autobiographical.
Fantasies - sexual or otherwise - of 13-year olds are ALWAYS going to be about how they are completely alone in the world and always will be, and are very important to the person going through them. But to the rest of us, they are naive (that word again) tawdry and run-of-the-mill - a bit embarrassing really.
Aside from my total disinterest in Wendy (I read a single chapter of her after her 'emergence', and this just solidified my ideas about the wannabe goth bit), it all made me feel that I could see just how the rest of the book would work out, and so I dropped it on page 133.
Maybe I'm wrong, but only the most empassioned explanation of why i am wrong would sway me from ever picking it up again.
However, I may read another of Harris' books. Harris' prose style and some description really is very good, so if she avoids the infantile stories and the fan-fiction subjects of an ostracised teen, she could do good things.
May 16, 2009
Interesting, but not good. Don't bother with this stinker. I actually finished it because the writing itself was good. Too bad it's wasted on this fluff.
The first half of the novel is the story of a slave girl in ancient Sumeria. It has rich history and gods and goddesses in it and makes for an interesting read.
However, the second half of the novel introduces you to a woman in today's world. Well, actually, it introduces you to an awkward teenager who becomes the woman in today's world. And the boy who becomes the man that she falls in love with.
And somehow the two stories intermingle. In a really stupid way. In a way that cheapens any importance or meaning in both stories.
And the ending is even more stupid, where one character, who until now is an average, everyday sort of person, becomes EVIL and SELFISH and quite two dimensional. Like I said, really stupid.
The epilogue is so saccharine sweet and ties up all the loose ends so nicely, you want to barf. What a perfect ending for such screwed up people.
Feh! I won't be reading any more of this author's works.
The first half of the novel is the story of a slave girl in ancient Sumeria. It has rich history and gods and goddesses in it and makes for an interesting read.
However, the second half of the novel introduces you to a woman in today's world. Well, actually, it introduces you to an awkward teenager who becomes the woman in today's world. And the boy who becomes the man that she falls in love with.
And somehow the two stories intermingle. In a really stupid way. In a way that cheapens any importance or meaning in both stories.
And the ending is even more stupid, where one character, who until now is an average, everyday sort of person, becomes EVIL and SELFISH and quite two dimensional. Like I said, really stupid.
The epilogue is so saccharine sweet and ties up all the loose ends so nicely, you want to barf. What a perfect ending for such screwed up people.
Feh! I won't be reading any more of this author's works.
July 18, 2016
The prose style got this book it's third star -- the story and concept are only worth two. It's loaded with gender essentialism, plot gaps, and poor historical research. The author certainly read Kramer & Wolkenstein's translation of the Descent of Inanna... and not much else. She persistently refers to Sumer as Sumeria, and makes a number of similar accuracy errors that pretty well convince me that she did the minimum research necessary to crank this book out.
The book isn't *bad*... it's just not *good*, either. Her prose is strong and fluid, descriptions vividly rendered, good interweaving of the aforementioned translation into the text. But overall the story is poorly conceived, its feminism is the worst sort of un-thought-through second-wave essentialism, and overall the writing just can't quite carry the story by itself.
The book isn't *bad*... it's just not *good*, either. Her prose is strong and fluid, descriptions vividly rendered, good interweaving of the aforementioned translation into the text. But overall the story is poorly conceived, its feminism is the worst sort of un-thought-through second-wave essentialism, and overall the writing just can't quite carry the story by itself.
December 22, 2011
This is a very simple, fast read. I’ll warn potential readers that you’ll feel a little jarred with the two seemingly unrelated storylines, but by the end, it’s worth it. Harris gives us plenty to chew on in terms of feminism and personal responsibility, and fans of mythology should have fun with this. One warning though, there is actually very little fantasy in this novel. You won’t believe me till the end, but trust me. Don’t be surprised when you find out. :)[return][return]For a full review, which may or may not include spoilers, please click here: http://calico-reaction.livejournal.co...
September 3, 2007
I've read her other two books and I remember that they had a lovely mindfuck quality that stood out more than the quality of the writing. This one had a little less of that. The ideas were interesting but never really fully developed, nor were the characters. Several of them seemed cardboard. I was never sure if she was gently mocking her group of naive feminists or exalting them. That said, the story was engaging and I gobbled it up within two days while I was on vacation. I liked the sentiment behind the story even if the execution led me to feel a little uncomfortable. (March 10, 2005)
July 26, 2007
This moved me on a really deep level. Brilliant story-telling, amazing depth to her main characters, and I found the Sumerian mythology fascinating.
February 17, 2008
This book was lots of fun to read. It's a sci-fi, feminist, wiccan exploration of identity, matriarchy and relationships. Good times!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 2, 2008
this wasnt a mystery in the sense of a crime to solve, but a path to follow. It was fascinating.
September 10, 2013
This is one book where the jacket blurb sounded much better than the actual book. I read about 1/4 of the book and decided it just wasn't going to get any better.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews