bookblogging
May. 30th, 2009 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeNon-fiction prose:
Nicholson, Geoff: The Lost Art of Walking
(didn't finish it--I don't quite remember why now, but I think it was because it was sort of boring and mostly about the author's own experiences walking, rather than being a more general treatise on the act of walking. The latter would have been informative; the former is pretty dull).
Mystery:
Stout, Rex: A Right To Die
(While I appreciate that Stout probably meant well in making race the theme of this book, he probably shouldn't have, because he does a lot of dumb things. The bulk of his work predated the Civil Rights Movement, and racial relations seem to have crept up on him in the last decade of his very long and prolific career. However, the various wince-inducing race-related moments in this book have nothing, absolutely nothing, on the introduction by David Stout--no relation to Rex--which was written in 1994, and kicks off by saying that although there's nothing wrong with a white woman and a black man in a relationship, we all have to look deep into our hearts in order to realize that. Oh, David Stout, FUCK YOU. Rex Stout was a man of his time belatedly recognizing the significance of Civil Rights, and his racial sins were sins of omission, not something more toxic. And he was trying. There is no racist apology in the book itself that equals David Stout's implication that interracial relationships are shocking and taboo and morally troublesome. To to say something that asinine in 1994, in the service of introducing a not particularly transgressive work? Go to hell).
Stout, Rex: And Four to Go, Black Orchids, Trouble in Triplicate
(all very enjoyable, all lacking the mild ambition of discussing race in any way, all lacking people of color, which is pretty standard for Stout. As I said, sins of omission. I'm white and don't know much about the history and racial politics of New York circa 1930-1960, so that tends to be easy for me to ignore).
Graphic novels/comics:
Bechdel, Alison: Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For.
Rabagliati, Michel: Paul goes fishing
(less about fishing and more about the heartbreak of miscarriage. It's a good book, but not all that well structured. The other Paul books were stronger).
Robinson, Alex: Tricked
(Hated the rock star guy--the romance was underwhelming, and I felt no sympathy for him at all, nor interest in how his sudden fixation on Lily made his life better. It didn't make him a better or more interesting person, it just made him happy, and I don't care. Generally, I hated or barely liked most of the characters, and the conceit of their lives all becoming intertwined until they culminate in that one climactic moment--eh. I've seen it done much better).
Delisle, Guy: Burma Chronicles
(waaaaaaay better than Shenzhen, in many ways, and more of a genuine pleasure than Pyongyang, which was almost purely upsetting. For whatever reason--because he was here with a wife and child, because his wife was deeply involved in humanitarian work in Burma, and the related politics of that, because the length of his stay and his more relaxed lifestyle permitted it--Delisle actually seems to have gotten to know people in Burma, and learned about their lives and culture. While China's political system is by no means ideal to me, Delisle's criticisms of Shenzhen seemed, well...shallow, uninformed, ethnocentric, and lacking in real critical perspective--there is legitimate criticism of China to be made, quite a lot of it, but he wasn't doing it well, and he came across as totally uninterested in people's actual lives. Not the case here. Although life in Burma is pretty depressing and scary in many ways, same as in Pyongyang, this is a much warmer book nevertheless--the description of the betel-nut chewing, the Water Festival, the love of children that made Delisle's infant son very popular in his neighborhood, the deeply emotional, quiet reverence that the locals hold for Aung San Suu Kyi, sitting silently under house arrest in a decades-long act of political protest--all of this made for a much richer, more interesting, less ethnocentric book than Shenzhen. This one, I can whole-heartedly recommend).
Nicholson, Geoff: The Lost Art of Walking
(didn't finish it--I don't quite remember why now, but I think it was because it was sort of boring and mostly about the author's own experiences walking, rather than being a more general treatise on the act of walking. The latter would have been informative; the former is pretty dull).
Mystery:
Stout, Rex: A Right To Die
(While I appreciate that Stout probably meant well in making race the theme of this book, he probably shouldn't have, because he does a lot of dumb things. The bulk of his work predated the Civil Rights Movement, and racial relations seem to have crept up on him in the last decade of his very long and prolific career. However, the various wince-inducing race-related moments in this book have nothing, absolutely nothing, on the introduction by David Stout--no relation to Rex--which was written in 1994, and kicks off by saying that although there's nothing wrong with a white woman and a black man in a relationship, we all have to look deep into our hearts in order to realize that. Oh, David Stout, FUCK YOU. Rex Stout was a man of his time belatedly recognizing the significance of Civil Rights, and his racial sins were sins of omission, not something more toxic. And he was trying. There is no racist apology in the book itself that equals David Stout's implication that interracial relationships are shocking and taboo and morally troublesome. To to say something that asinine in 1994, in the service of introducing a not particularly transgressive work? Go to hell).
Stout, Rex: And Four to Go, Black Orchids, Trouble in Triplicate
(all very enjoyable, all lacking the mild ambition of discussing race in any way, all lacking people of color, which is pretty standard for Stout. As I said, sins of omission. I'm white and don't know much about the history and racial politics of New York circa 1930-1960, so that tends to be easy for me to ignore).
Graphic novels/comics:
Bechdel, Alison: Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For.
Rabagliati, Michel: Paul goes fishing
(less about fishing and more about the heartbreak of miscarriage. It's a good book, but not all that well structured. The other Paul books were stronger).
Robinson, Alex: Tricked
(Hated the rock star guy--the romance was underwhelming, and I felt no sympathy for him at all, nor interest in how his sudden fixation on Lily made his life better. It didn't make him a better or more interesting person, it just made him happy, and I don't care. Generally, I hated or barely liked most of the characters, and the conceit of their lives all becoming intertwined until they culminate in that one climactic moment--eh. I've seen it done much better).
Delisle, Guy: Burma Chronicles
(waaaaaaay better than Shenzhen, in many ways, and more of a genuine pleasure than Pyongyang, which was almost purely upsetting. For whatever reason--because he was here with a wife and child, because his wife was deeply involved in humanitarian work in Burma, and the related politics of that, because the length of his stay and his more relaxed lifestyle permitted it--Delisle actually seems to have gotten to know people in Burma, and learned about their lives and culture. While China's political system is by no means ideal to me, Delisle's criticisms of Shenzhen seemed, well...shallow, uninformed, ethnocentric, and lacking in real critical perspective--there is legitimate criticism of China to be made, quite a lot of it, but he wasn't doing it well, and he came across as totally uninterested in people's actual lives. Not the case here. Although life in Burma is pretty depressing and scary in many ways, same as in Pyongyang, this is a much warmer book nevertheless--the description of the betel-nut chewing, the Water Festival, the love of children that made Delisle's infant son very popular in his neighborhood, the deeply emotional, quiet reverence that the locals hold for Aung San Suu Kyi, sitting silently under house arrest in a decades-long act of political protest--all of this made for a much richer, more interesting, less ethnocentric book than Shenzhen. This one, I can whole-heartedly recommend).
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no subject
on 2009-05-30 07:22 pm (UTC)You tackle some rather tough titles, like the Stout. What made you choose those books?
no subject
on 2009-05-30 07:38 pm (UTC)I did put A Right to Die off to the side for a few days, until I felt up to handling his well-meant but iffy perspective on race, and tripping over the tropes (interracial romance leads to tragedy! plus, a clunky and unsophisticated take on racial solidarity, and glossing over the historically debilitating and unfair treatment of blacks by law enforcement), but it was far more the introduction than the book itself that put me off.
no subject
on 2009-05-31 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-05-31 01:43 pm (UTC)Generally, I just read whatever seems interesting to me, or on topics I want to learn more about
no subject
on 2009-05-30 08:15 pm (UTC)Anyway, I loved Burma Chronicles SO MUCH, I think I mentioned. The laid-back feel; the lives of his neighbors and their delight in his baby son; the betel-chewing, the house-hunting, the babysitters, the other ex-pats. And the politics never overwhelming but always clear: the health workers banned from helping the ethnic group in the mountains, ever-present Aung San Suu Kyi, the e-mail filters, the grandmother finally willing to speak freely because she's dying. It chilled me to read about his cartooning student who disappears after Delisle does a casual international interview.
And it was fascinating and heartbreaking to see the community of cautious and passionate Burmese cartoonists that opened to Delisle (something that didn't seem to occur to him would exist in Shenzhen or Pyongyang). The tiny selection of Burmese comic art he reprinted was beautiful. The little scribble kicking itself! The women's magazine illustration that was totally josei! I wish that he'd printed more, and that he could give the artists credit, and that there were a whole library of comics available from them here. I want Burmese manga! It hurts to think about some Asian comics guidebook I read, that talked about Indian Hindu comics and Japanese manga and Korean manhwa and manhua from China and Taiwan, and all these countries/artists' influences on each other; and then it got to Cambodia and was basically like "the modern comics scene here is limited because the artists who would've grown up to become influential Cambodian mangaka got slaughtered instead."
no subject
on 2009-05-30 10:45 pm (UTC)This is a book I could read more than once; I think it's his best, although Pyongyang really is...something it's really important to record, I guess. And Burma taught me things I didn't know at all, and just a couple of days after I read it, The Lady's house arrest sentence was extended again, and I didn't just hear about it and think, "gosh, a human rights violation in a place that's unfamiliar to me," but really felt it, felt for her, felt for the people of Burma. I wanted to cry. For whatever that's worth.
Her presence-by-absence in the book really haunted me--because it haunted Delisle, I guess.
Gosh, I hope that Shenzhen did predate Pyongyang. He seemed much more interested in exploring an understanding in Pyongyang then in Shenzhen, and given what a fascinating place Shenzhen is, it felt like some massive backsliding, you know? (I've been reading
I liked all the samples he gave of local comics, particularly the stuff he liked--he is hella sophisticated, like me! :D
and then it got to Cambodia and was basically like "the modern comics scene here is limited because the artists who would've grown up to become influential Cambodian mangaka got slaughtered instead."
God. That's heartbreaking.
no subject
on 2009-06-02 04:48 pm (UTC)Could you email me? My address is noahberlatsky at gmail. Thanks!
no subject
on 2009-10-15 05:16 pm (UTC)Yes, this is kind of damning with faint praise, but for a guy writing in 1937, I thought Stout did okay.
no subject
on 2009-10-17 02:12 am (UTC)And yeah, damning with faint praise as it may be, I think for a heterosexual white American dude writing in 1937--and a couple of decades before and a few after, with a lot of non-writing-related toil towards financial stability prior to the prime writing years--he does pretty well. I'm far too fond of him to ever really be upset by the cheery little racial and sexual-role pitfalls I stumble across in his works.