Quote of the Week for 7/13/15

"Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality was the thief of time."
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Quote of the Week for 7/6/15

"A fine beer can be judged with only one sip, but it's best to be thoroughly sure."
-Czech Proverb

WILD SEED, by Octavia E. Butler (5/5)

https://waynebarlowe.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/wild-seed-copy1.jpg

I get the Butler hype. I loved this book.

In a good year, I read 25-30 books. Maybe one a year serves to capture me the way Wild Seed did, enthralling from the first pages, compelling with its conflicts, fascinating with its magic. The resolution was somewhat unsatisfying in the moment, but only because, for a while, I'd convinced myself that this story was heading toward tragedy, when the beginning had actually promised a love story. I was so afraid Anyanwu would never regain her agency. I thought Doro unredeemable, though I'd started out liking him and felt he cared more than the narration would ever let him properly admit.

I was wrong on both counts, and the finale was so deftly orchestrated that it had me rooting for the "villain," for the sake of what and who he loved. That's how you know you've just read a special book--you want happily-ever-after for all the characters, even the bad guy.

As for the protagonist, Anyanwu, she really didn't need any help winning admiration. In fact, her one flaw seemed to be a distinct lack of flaws (much like Ender Wiggin in Speaker for the Dead by OSC, which I reviewed last year), but I've never been a subscriber to the law that your protagonist must be significantly flawed. Not every superhero needs kryponite, they just need to be human enough to struggle with the obstacles placed before them. It's the author's job to make those obstacles big enough that the reader believes even a superhuman can struggle with them, and that's what Butler has done with this book by pitting the perfect human against her antithesis, the perfect inhuman. A compelling read, from the first page to the last.

Quote of the Week for 6/29/15

"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."

-Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia 

THE TORTILLA CURTAIN, by T.C. Boyle (3/5)

The Tortilla Curtain is about two men, Delaney and Candido, who are tied together after Delaney hits Candido with his car in the opening scene of the book. Things only get worse from there for Candido, who is an illegal immigrant with a pregnant wife, and Delaney's got his own troubles, including dogs which keep getting eaten, a ball-busting wife, and an inferiority complex which drives him toward hatred of all things migrant, especially Candido, whom he cites as the source of all his 1st-world problems.
This book would have been a 2/5, as 75% of the plot is just the unrelenting depression of foolish people in shitty situations that trend shittier out of control, but the quality of the prose saved it for me. Boyle deals deftly in the transitions between lyrical and blunt, and that for me was the strength of the book.
As far as weaknesses, I feel this story falls into the "literary" trap. Literary Fiction is so often marketed as "realistic," but I find more often than not that lit fic eschews true-to-life realism in favor of flashy, inescapable tragedy. That's fine for a 2 hour play, but over a 400 page book? It gets discouraging, especially with a book like this, which starts at a low where most real lives bottom out, and only gets worse from there. 
A masterclass in empathy, but one that makes you regret taking the course.

On Fantastical Excursions and THE BURIED GIANT; or, "It's okay to write about British cultural identity as relating to war, but only if there aren't any wardrobes involved."

Much and more has been said of late about Kazuo Ishiguro's latest novel, The Buried Giant, some great, some not so great. Ishiguro, it seems, is rather hesitant to label his book a fantasy, though it's set in Anglo-Saxon Briton. And there are ogres. And knights. And a dragon that breaths forgetfulness mist. But, of course, this book cannot be so easily categorized, as it deals with adult themes and national identity and yada yada blah blah. 

Still, it is Ishiguro, and I've got a soft spot for English-speaking Asians who wear big, round glasses, so color me torn. Then I read this interview on Goodreads, and wouldn't you know it, but the interviewer, whose first name is a last name, so you know he's distinguished, opens with this little zinger in the preamble to the interview proper: 

"But don't be fooled by the fantastical excursions into Tolkien territory: This is still very much a wise, and relevant, literary investigation..."


This is, frankly, insulting. As if excursions into the fantastic would normally have precluded any wisdom or cultural relevance from appearing in the work. The most limiting lie anyone has ever told themselves is that because they liked a thing as a child, that thing must be childish, and therefore unworthy of their adult attention. Works of fantasy suffer under such misperceptions all the time, but it should not be so.

All works of fiction are fantasy. A character is made no more real because he lives in Manhattan, rather than Narnia; they are both fake, plain and simple. The wisdom and relevance of a work are derived from the universal experiences made particular by the author in his characters. Such is recognized by the reader no matter the setting. It is not seen, but felt in the heart and in the mind.

For an example, let's take "Tolkien territory." Tolkien, a WWII vet, was much affected by his time serving his country, and that experience we can see reflected in Frodo, who upon returning to the Shire finds himself unsettled in a setting he once found familiar and comfortable. Frodo has been changed by his traumatic journey with the ring, so much so that, though his task is complete, and by all rights he should get his well-earned rest, Frodo feels compelled to leave his home and his loved-ones in an attempt to regain some measure of the inner peace he's lost. In the world of the 50's, when PTSD was still decades from being understood, and thousands had returned home from the battlefields of Europe to discover they too felt a similar anxiety in returning to their day-to-day, Tolkien's portrayal of Frodo's stoic disquiet bore massive cultural and emotional weight, and still does today.

I was incredibly disappointed after reading Ursula Le Guin's rebuke of Ishiguro earlier this week, but at least during this interview, he deftly handled (rather, side-stepped) the questions about genre perception and stigma, though this pacifism may be, in fact, a direct result of the admonitions he received from Le Guin and others like-minded. This interviewer, however, could not manage to purport himself with quite so much grace. He tipped his hand early as a literary bigot, and ruined what may have been an otherwise intriguing interview for me.

I may read this book. I may not. I suppose it will just depend on how relevant I'm feeling, and how wise.

On THE LEGEND OF KORRA: The Avatar State

So the Legend of Korra's got me super confused. Again.

There I was, four episodes into season 4, and Korra seems to be traipsing all over The Last Airbender's memory once again. This time my beef was with her ability to assume the Avatar State.

The Legend of Korra has been nothing if not confusing, and at many points contradictory. The Avatar State is a perfect example. In TLA (The Last Airbender), we learned that the Avatar State was the current avatar's ability to channel his (or her) past lives in a way that gave he (or she) access to all the wisdom and power of his (or her) predecessors. Confusing? A little. Vague? Yeah, but whatever. Cool? Duh.

In TLA, the audience was made to think of the Avatar as an element-bending Dalai Lama. Both bald, both spiritual leaders, both with a fondness for red and yellow robes. And both were perpetually reincarnating spirits tasked with guiding the free world. Right, got that. To get metaphysical for a minute, the concept of the Avatar in TLA was that the avatar spirit never died, and was reincarnated in each new avatar. Each avatar was basically the same person, but in a different body, and with their own experiences. Aang was Roku. Roku was Kyoshi. So on and so forth. Again, confusing, but people rarely need (or want) their spiritual beliefs over-analyzed. Reincarnation is a common and accepted thing in several eastern philosophies. We went with it. Cool. Past lives. One in the same. Still got it. 

But if you do over-analyze it, the nature of the Avatar raises some seemingly contradictory existential dilemmas: How can avatars be themselves AND someone else? If they're the same person, how can they still speak to one another individually, like different people? Korra should be able to remember BEING Aang, and Aang should be able to remember BEING Roku. Speaking to one's past life like a grandchild to a wise, loving grandparent seems redundant; why not get those memories and experiences in First Person POV? Korra IS Aang, just like you ARE you and I AM me. Sure, you COULD speak to yourself, but not to tell yourself what you already know. It's more of a comfort thing, at least for me, but who's counting?

The Legend of Korra attempted to solve all those fishy existential mysteries with Raava, the giant silver and white immortal Light Spirit that lives inside each Avatar like a bad case of ring worm. For the first time, the Avatar State was concretely defined; it was given a mechanism. The Avatar State was not, in fact, the channeling of past lives, but the channeling of Raava, who herself is connected to all the Avatars, past and present. She was the hidden telephone by which Aang spoke with Roku, and by which Korra spoke with Aang. The Avatars AREN'T all the same person, with the Avatar spirit. Raava IS the Avatar spirit, and each new Avatar is a vessel she chooses, an individual with his (or her) own soul. You could say Raava is the real Avatar, the ONLY Avatar. The human Avatars are just the sharks that little Raava suckerfish uses to hitchhike around the ocean. The Avatar Spirit is the Avatar, but the Avatar isn't the Avatar Spirit. God, that's confusing.

So what does that mean for the Avatar State? As I've just said, it's the channeling of Raava, who, through her connections with past Avatar souls, can make the current Avatar much more bad ass. It's like Korra's body is a Gundam suit (a giant, brainless, fighting robot, for the layman), and, normally, Korra's soul is the pilot, but during bursts of Avatar state, Raava (a.k.a. the Avatar Spirit) takes control of the Gundam and goes ham sammich on whoever is in the way. 

I didn't understand this right away (can you blame me?), and so Season 3 of the Legend of Korra, especially the finale, was frustrating. "How can she achieve the Avatar State?" my little nerd heart cried out. "Zahir's poison shouldn't work, because Korra's connection to her past lives was severed last season!"

Excellent point, My Little Nerd Heart. I now think I have the answer, thanks to some Avatar Wiki.

The Avatar Spirit IS Raava. Raava is immortal, but can be "killed." This happened in the Season 2 finale. Unalaq (Korra's uncle and Season 2's Big Baddy) and the Darkness Spirit, Vaato, dragged Raava out of Korra and destroyed her. But there can be no darkness without light. Yin and Yang. Good and Bad. Raava was reborn inside Vaato, Korra ripped her out, they recombined, happy ending. But this Raava was not the same old Raava.

Think of it like hitting the Reset button on... something that has a Reset button. The old Raava had all these experiences and connections with past Avatars because she was there, swimming around inside them like a parasite of Goodness, but when she was destroyed and reborn inside Vaato, all that stuff was lost. This version of Raava has had all the factory defaults restored. No more past lives; this new Raava didn't know any of the old Avatars, just Korra. Korra is essentially the second "First" Avatar.

The writers of the Legend of Korra aren't contradicting themselves by letting Korra still go Avatar State, but when Korra goes Avatar State from now, it really shouldn't make a difference. The old Raava had connections with all the old Avatars--that's what made her Avatar State powerful. This new version of Raava only has a connection with Korra. So the Avatar state is basically just Korra using Raava to connect with... herself. The Avatar State is no longer an advantage, and it never will be for Korra. Not until the next Avatar will it be useful, because then the new Avatar will be able to channel Korra's wisdom and power (what little of it there is) through new Raava.

I think. 

Okay, rant over. Thomas out.