When the translator is recommendation enough

The Goodreads group Loosed in Translation has a discussion I only just noticed, essentially asking members whether they've ever read a book because it was translated by someone specific. Short answer? Yes. But alas, short answers utterly lack the complexities that we seek here in the book blogging world. And so the long answer: yes, but usually as a crossover between my Hebrew and English reading. Does this make sense?

Here's how it goes. Last year I read 46 books that were not originally written in English. 13 of those books were originally in Hebrew, which was also the language I read them in. An additional 11 were books originally written in non-English languages that I read in translations into Hebrew. The remaining 22 were read in translations into English. In a lot of cases, I read a book in Hebrew versus English because of availability - for example, Halldor Laxness is available in Hebrew only through rather awkward double translations from Icelandic. Or alternatively, Christian Signol's Un Matin sur la Terre has not even been translated into English.

But then there are times I choose to read a translation in Hebrew or in English exactly because of a specific translator. Take Philippe Claudel, for example. I've mentioned before that I have a clear preference for the translations into Hebrew versus into English. It's obvious that I will wait a little longer to read Claudel's other works in Hebrew, just so I can enjoy what I find to be a superior translation.

There's an interesting flip side to this as well. Being a native English speaker, I obviously don't read English books translated into Hebrew. But I do take note of their translators. There are certain English-to-Hebrew translators whose tastes I like, and who have a knack for capturing the feel of a certain novel so strongly that I'll actively look into what other books they've translated, if only to get some good recommendations of books to read in English.

Does it seem like this post is heavily skewed towards Hebrew translators? It should. The Hebrew book market is significantly smaller than the Anglo one - it's surprisingly simple to learn about the most prolific translators, and it's even easier to gain an appreciation for them after face-to-face meetings (at events like HBL) or correspondences. I can't think of any to-English translators who I actively follow the way I have to-Hebrew ones, but I'm gradually learning. It'll be interesting to see how I answer this questions a few years down the line...

Unsettling, one step further | Beside the Sea

It's kind of hard to start a book like Beside the Sea without knowing how it's going to end. Maybe it had been spoiled for me in the past (a basic Google search brings up major reviews that completely spoil this novella's end...), maybe it's just something so hypnotically expectant about the writing, but the story's end didn't feel particularly surprising. That said, I'm not going to spoil it. I'll leave you anxiously expectant, as I was. But I will give you the bare-bones summary: a single mother takes her two sons on an unexpected trip to the sea. There. Story - summarized. That's a review, right?

We took the bus, the last bus of the evening, so no one would see us.

I've encountered reviews of Beside the Sea that tout its opening sentence as encompassing the mood of the novella.  Other readers have focused on the phrase "so no one would see us" in that first sentence, commenting that here the mysterious mood is set. Why would anyone board a bus in such fear? Who would care? But for me, the line that really captures Beside the Sea comes just a bit later, when the mother says: "I wanted us to set off totally believing in it." And here I ask another question, the one that defined my reading experience: believing in what? I felt expectant, I felt like I was waiting for something.

Beside the Sea is the type of book you'll read in one short, rather intense setting. Is this also something everyone else has already told you? Probably. Probably because it's true. Beside the Sea is short - terribly short - just that length and pulsing and hypnotizing that you don't even notice it's well past midnight and you have a test the following morning. It seems like nothing really happens until the last two pages, but then everything seems to have happened (in retrospect). It is no doubt a very unique novella, but I really don't know how much I can say I liked it.

This happens sometimes. I appreciate the artistic value behind Beside the Sea, because it's just bursting with it. The simple writing, the rather incredible pacing, those occasional punchy sentences that leap from the page... and then there's the hint of the bigger story, which Olmi never introduces to us. We catch only glimpses of the mother's life beyond her children, masterfully written in such a way that it's not as though it's just a topic she's avoiding, rather it's something that hasn't come up specifically.

And of course the ending. Not surprising in the least, it probably won't actually catch readers off guard. But if people admire the opening sentence, I have to admire the closing one - in three words, Olmi leaves readers even more unsettled and uncomfortable than everything else that had come before it. That's a pretty major achievement. But still. I couldn't actually like the book. You can't just like this type of book. And I can hardly imagine recommending it to someone. I'm not sure I'd be able to look them in the eye and hand off this strange and powerful experience. I'll leave that decision up to any prospective reader, I suppose. On your own head be it.

Flipping book cover gender expectation

This is brilliant, courtesy of Maureen Johnson.

I asked people to take a well-known book, then to imagine the author of that book was of the opposite gender, or was genderqueer, and imagine what that cover might look like.

Some of the results, as seen at the first link, are positively genius. The pink and lace on the gender-swapped A Game of Thrones is remarkably similar to endless fantasy books written by women, and On the Road is spot-on. Seriously. Spot. On.

The point here, of course, is fairly simple - covers (particularly in the young adult category) have a gender bias. It often doesn't matter what the content of the book is. Case in point. And it's not as though we can pretend that books aren't judged by their covers. Of course they are. That's why publishers make certain choices, hoping and thinking that by making a book seem more effeminate, they'll be able to draw in more female readers, absolutely disregarding any potential male readers who will most likely now completely ignore the book. And the critics, who will now most likely completely ignore the books. And our collective literary consciousness.

Basically, Maureen Johnson: thank you.

When ideas within a framework fail to impress | The Garlic Ballads

Is there something about Chinese fiction that's problematic for me? Of the four Chinese novels I've read (or gave up on for very good reasons) in the past few years, ironically only the one I read in a translation into Hebrew has been any good (Chronicle of a Blood Merchant)*. Of the English translations, I couldn't finish The Fat Years, The Dictionary of Maqiao was a slog most of the way through despite its clever structure, and now the fourth, The Garlic Ballads... I just finished Mo Yan's novel and am feeling distinctly underwhelmed.

I've been trying to finish The Garlic Ballads for weeks, actually. It's a bit like the situation I found myself in with The Fat Years - I wanted to keep reading out of sheer inertia. The Fat Years I gave up on the moment I lost a bit of momentum. I kept reading The Garlic Ballads because one thin aspect of the story seemed like it might develop further. It ultimately developed into a rather horrifying scene, but otherwise fully failed to move me.

If the eBook hadn't been returned to the library a few days ago, I would have been able to actually quote from the passages that highlighted much of what I didn't like about the book. But even without the book in front of me, I can clearly state that somewhere - either in the translation or while actually writing the novel - someone missed an important lesson on dialogue. The Garlic Ballads has a bizarre mash-up of flowery prose alongside extremely brash colloquial speech. It has nothing to do with certain characters speaking one way or another - the same character might give a very proper, stilted speech, and two pages later use slang that seems utterly out of place. Every translation from Chinese I've read - whether in Hebrew or in English - has had a very specific stiff feel to it, recognizable even across the different languages. This, coupled with the scant Chinese I know, leads me to be more lenient when it comes to translations from Chinese. But not this lenient. You lose me once the inconsistencies start.

I don't know why I didn't like The Garlic Ballads quite so much. It's not a horrible book, but I never felt like I connected with it: I didn't care about the characters, I didn't like the writing, and the plot kept feeling like some slippery ice-cube I was trying to grab inside a giant bath. I wasn't sure if Mo was winking at the readers, or at the government, or at the Western world, or what. But it felt like he was winking. Each chapter opens with a quote from the blind minstrel's "garlic ballads", where a lot of the political stuff gets jammed. It's generally a clever idea, having quotes from one of your characters framing the story (though the minstrel remains generally background until the very end), but... did it lead to anything? Did it enlighten me? Things happened, yes, and ideas were tossed around, but was there a plot? Was there character development? Was there anything?

So I end up feeling a bit like I did after The Fat Years. Namely, that Mo had a bunch of ideas, and decided to place them within a specific framework. Unlike the awful mess that was The Fat Years, The Garlic Ballads does a much better job of telling some kind of story (even if it's unclear what that story is). The gimmick here - the framing - is much more successful. The writing is also much better. But overall, I can't say that I enjoyed this book or took something significant from it. Even when reading the "difficult" scenes, I felt like an outsider who was uncomfortable, not like a character going through these events myself. I finished the book and just felt relieved to be done with it. I could now mark a V next to its title. Going through the motions... never a good indication when it comes to literature.

* This is mostly ironic because the vast majority of Chinese books are translated into Hebrew through English. I bought Chronicle of a Blood Merchant in large part to send a subtle hint to publishers that they can translate directly from the original language, and shouldn't be quite so cheap. Turns out I liked the book.

Yes, eLibraries are improving

It was about a year ago that I wrote a fairly angry post about the Boston Public Library's general failings as, well, a library. Though it went against all my instincts to criticize any library, I felt as though the BPL and I had reached an impasse - they remained firmly in an old-fashioned, clunky, messy state of mind while I wanted them to move forward. Then, over the past couple of months, as both my other local eLibraries have made the excellent step of adopting Overdrive's new website style (and longer check-out periods as well), I began to think that maybe it was time to write off the BPL for good. Why was I still holding on?

The reason is actually quite simple - content. The BPL has a large, very diverse eBook collection. Even though everything else about their site (and their overall library) is distinctly lesser, there's no way around the fact that they often have access to books and media that smaller libraries don't. And now, despite their instance on sticking to Overdrive's old, clunky site design, the BPL has actually gained back some of my respect.

Why? Because the BPL has the option of recommending eBooks for the library to purchase. And more surprisingly, they actually listen. The day I discovered this rather hidden feature, I recommended five books immediately. When I came to recommend the sixth, I realized there was a limit. A week or two later, this limit was lifted and I was able to recommend another five books. I assumed these recommendations were going to the same place my complaints about the non-electronic library had gone, but I figured I might as well show an interest in these smaller publishers whose books I wanted to read.

The other night just as I was about to go to sleep, I saw a new e-mail from the BPL, informing me that the book I had placed on hold was ready for check out. Then another e-mail came in, and another seven in quick succession. Nine out of my ten requests were now on hold for me. The tenth was a book I had recommended the BPL purchase for the sake of other readers - Brodeck, one of my favorite books from the past few years. It too was suddenly in the library's collection.

eLibraries get a lot (a lot) of flak. Truthfully, most libraries have fairly limited collections and awkward search engines. Most probably do not enable recommendations as easily as the BPL does. Of the two other eLibraries I patron, one has no option to recommend titles, and the other has a much less intuitive recommendation form.

But the fact that the BPL is doing this is tremendous. The fact that recommended books are bought within two weeks is incredible. Digital libraries may still be flawed, but now the heaviest claims are starting to disappear. I love that browsing is improving for some eLibraries. I love that I can recommend the library purchase boatloads of translated fiction, or books from the NYRB or a publisher like Small Beer Press. I love that I recommended the BPL buy Brodeck, a gem of a book, and now within 48 hours of its purchase, it's already been checked out and there are two other people on the hold list. I love that half of the books I requested already have others clamoring to check them out. Most of the books in the BPL's digital catalog are mass-market romances, or thrillers, or books that simply don't interest me. But now there are ten more interesting, diverse, and somewhat unexpected books within the BPL's collection. More on the way, with the books I requested today. And I'm looking forward to reading them.

Magic on other worlds | Trafalgar

There's a hint of "finally" in my discovery of Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer (translated by Amalia Gladhart). Not just because it's one of the better books I've read this year. Not even because I had to wait a few weeks between reading the first chapter in this book and the rest. Mostly, it's a feeling of finally finding what I'm looking for - high quality, well-written, unique fantastic sci-fi from an interestingly non-Anglo perspective. It's almost as though Gorodischer has tailor-made this novel-in-stories for me. Decades before my birth. And continents away. Well played, Angélica Gorodischer, well played.

If you're looking for information on Trafalgar, you'll be hard pressed to find any on its back cover. Rather than giving hints about the stories found within its pages, the blurb instead aims to set a mood. Relax, it says. Open your mind. Take in something new and different and maybe just a bit unexpected. This might be frustrating for some readers (indeed, I personally found it to be an annoying gimmick-like choice), but it does set the mood fairly well. Because these aren't whip-fast, neck-breaking stories. These aren't swashbuckling sci-fi tales to set your hair on fire. These are coffee-shop stories that happen to take place on other worlds, with other cultures, and other frames of reference.

The first thing of note in Trafalgar is its wonderful clarity. A lot of books (particularly sci-fi) stumble over how to build their world without resorting to bloated, heavy-handed descriptions, but Gorodischer leaps over this hurdle lightly, opting instead for a casually limited scope. Because each story takes place on a different world, and because the stories are being told directly to another character, they remain small and relatively undeveloped. But we don't expect there to be a lot of descriptions of the places, the buildings, the people. That wouldn't be very conversational, would it? By making these actual stories, Gorodischer is able to get away with a crisper, cleaner storytelling style. I loved it.

The stories themselves touch on such a wide array of topics that it's hard to even classify them. Our titular main character, Trafalgar, doesn't seem to find anything wrong with this either. His stories aren't quite adventures, really - he's a businessman, after all. These are just the odd things that sometimes happen on his business trips. We get glimpses of wonders through this very particular filter.

There were two things I kept finding myself comparing Trafalgar to: one with a bemused excitement and one with a fair share of annoyance. The first was related to the way certain phrases and philosophies of the book resembled Star Trek (with a particular resemblance to TNG, which would not exist for another decade as of this book's original publication). In more than one story, Gorodischer touches on themes that often crop up in Star Trek, such as various cultural distinctions and even ideas resembling the Prime Directive. The stories were just light enough to keep me from getting too bogged down in them, but also thoughtful enough to keep me thinking throughout them. Also afterwards.

The third comparison is both the strongest, and the most frustrating. Because, though a much better book, Trafalgar very strongly reminds me of Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad, a book I've been struggling with for many, many months. Both are novels in stories, surrounding the somewhat bizarre travels of seemingly ordinary people in outer space (engineers in The Cyberiad, a businessman in Trafalgar), to odd, yet often very human, societies. Superficially, this makes these books extremely similar. Except whereas The Cyberiad is utterly absurd - and seems perfectly aware of this - Trafalgar is subtly whimsical. The Cyberiad drags on and on, while Trafalgar ends quickly and as lightly as it opened. The Cyberiad piles on more and more details; Trafalgar focuses purely on its storytelling.

This, of course, is Trafalgar's major flaw. A book that is so slim and so heavily tilted towards a storytelling form cannot dig quite so deep in other areas. World building is obviously low on Gorodischer's list of priorities in this book, but so is character development. The characters are just that - characters - but they move through their stories comfortably. They didn't feel out-of-place or particularly stiff. They don't necessarily leap from the page, but... it works. Within the context of Trafalgar's storytelling style, it makes sense.

I enjoyed Trafalgar. If it had just a bit more of a firmer impact on me, I might have even said that it was brilliant. But it falls just shy of that claim. Instead it will stand as a wonderful book with a lot of interesting ideas and vividly imagined stories. Easily recommendable.

How to be social (media)

So I've been thinking about this Youtube video for the last couple of days and I've reached the following non-conclusions: generations matter. Mediums matter. Content matters. And we, as content consumers, are pretty integral to this whole thing*. Sanne (the vlogger in this video) makes the strong point that social media is not only important, it's critical. The way she stresses the fact that many publishers are trying to use social media but failing... it's an interesting argument.

There's a lot in the video that I find striking. Maybe it's because I've been writing about books for so long (writing versus any other form of media) and maybe it's because I was just thinking about social media and the reviewer-publisher relationship the other day, but it seems to me like Sanne is viewing things differently from me, even though we should be coming from the same place.

And so I'm wondering. Do social media sites really influence the way people read (or the way we consume any content, for the matter)? My instinct would be to say "no". Book blogs, I could argue, are much more in the way of traditional print media. Except that's obviously not true. Some book blogs, yes, mostly eschew the notion of social media, but many (I'd even say by now most) book blogs have integrated their blogging with Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Tumblr, Pintrest, etc. Bloggers tweet publishers to let them know that they just reviewed one of their books. Bloggers host giveaways and contests through Facebook. They display every one of their books-read on Goodreads. And, of course, the blogging itself. Is blogging really akin to a print, critical review? Or is it something, as Sanne notes, more personal? And more believable as a result?

Obviously there are generalizations at hand here. While I would agree with Sanne that I personally would be more inclined to take advice from a reviewer I know (even if only superficially, anonymously, through the internet), it's not always true. Simply put, there are bloggers I've followed for years that I don't trust (different tastes, rating inflation, etc.). The personal, social aspect isn't what convinces me; I'm certain of most reviewers' sincerity. What convinces me is a good track record. You can tweet as much as you like, but it won't change the quality of your reviews.

Generations matter. I belong to a generation that was raised on the internet. We have been encouraged from an early age to share - share content, share our opinions, share our statuses... share everything. This is a concept my parents find foreign (and somewhat appalling). This is a concept even I find somewhat jarring at times (hence my anonymity and lack of serious social media interaction**). But the fact that a generation of readers has been raised expecting information to flow freely influences how that generation will behave as consumers. John Green's popularity is a perfect example of this. He is a rock-star writer for many, many, many readers, in large part because of his prolific and open online persona. He has made his personality and his life part of his author profile. At the end of the day, it's so much easier to enjoy and appreciate a novel when you like and understand its author. I understand John Green after having watched hundreds of his videos - it colors how I read his books and how I view his characters. How can it not?

Mediums matter. Reading a long post about my thoughts on social media and book reviewing might be boring to some people, but if I used my (crappy) webcam and did cool jump-cuts, it could be more accessible to them. Reading a book review on a blog could be more engaging than a review in the NYT Book Review. Getting a recommendation from a Facebook friend could mean more than Goodread's recommendation algorithm. It's entirely subjective, but mediums do matter. Otherwise we wouldn't distinguish.

Which leaves me with one last thought: publishers.

I'll probably be discussing this more in depth over the next few weeks***, but Sanne tosses out a small reference to the reviewer-publisher relationship near the midpoint of the video. She reminds reviewers that they can just ask for review copies - they don't necessarily need to be offered by the publishers. This is something I've known about and seen over the years, but I'll be honest that I never really made the connection between asking the publishers for review copies and social media. Except it's sort of the same thing, isn't it? It's all about sharing - sharing with the publisher that you want to read a book and sharing with your blog followers (or Youtube subscribers) that you liked (or disliked) a book. Publishers give out books for review because reviews benefit them. Why shouldn't they want reviewers approaching them, essentially guaranteeing them publicity and attention? Why shouldn't they use social media to determine who best to review their books?

I'm curious to hear from those who use social media about how it influences their book buying and/or their book reviewing. I'm curious to hear from people who avoid social media to understand why they don't use it. I'm curious about how publishers view the social media aspect and I'm curious about how an older generation - one that didn't grow up with the instant gratification and constant sharing we know today - views this growing reliance on social media. Thoughts?

* My subconscious is clearly trying to remind me to finish my math homework, yes thank you I noticed the word integral, now go away.
** Also my early aversion to use of the words "I" and "me". I've gotten over it since I first started this blog.
*** Or months. Or years, since my track record is not very good in this area...

Why have I written to you? | Black Box

"New or old?" This was the question I asked myself as I stared at the two books on the shelf. The bookstore offered autographed copies of Amos Oz's newest collection of short stories (בין חברים - Between Friends) and a new edition of his older Black Box. After several minutes deliberation, I chose Black Box. Not because I hoped that a more established title of Oz's would necessarily be better. Rather, Between Friends is another short story collection and I wasn't sure I was over the wonderful Scenes from Village Life. Black Box, being an epistolary novel, seemed to be about as far from the wonderful constraints of a short story collection as possible.

Yes and no.

I've known for years that my mother - the original voracious reader in the family - did not like Amos Oz or his writing style. When mentioned that I had liked - even loved - Scenes from Village Life, she was surprised. She dismissed his sharp, often coarse writing style as compared to the more elegant A. B. Yehoshua, or to the exceedingly readable Meir Shalev, or to David Grossman's emotional lyricism. Oz's style, by her measure, simply couldn't hold up. And for the most part, I agree with her assessment. Oz writes more bluntly than many of his Israeli counterparts. But it doesn't matter, because one thing is clear - Oz is an author in perfect command of his writing. Black Box is an excellent example of this.

Scenes from Village Life was special in large part because of the way Oz seemed to know exactly when to end his stories. There was a perfect level of suspense in each, wrapped up cleanly into small stories that drove me to keep reading. Though Black Box obviously has a larger narrative, this same care applies to each aspect of the novel-in-letters. Though the letters may sometimes drag on for longer than I would want/expect, it's obvious that Oz knows exactly what his characters need to say, and how.

Black Box revolves around the collapsed marriage of Alex and Ilana. At the start of the novel, Ilana is contacting Alex (a well-known professor living abroad) for the first time in seven years, asking for his assistance with their angry, often violent teenage son Boaz. Ilana's writing style is clean, one-sided and lyrical. We immediately get the impression that there's more to the story than what Ilana is sharing, and as the novel progresses, we learn about why Ilana and Alex got their divorce (with Alex completely cutting off ex-wife and son). Ilana is meanwhile remarried to Michael (Michel), whose influence on the story grows alongside Alex's re-involvement in his ex-family's life.

The story is mostly told through letters between these four major characters, with the occasional correspondence between Alex and his lawyer, clippings from Alex's notes on military history or literature, and occasionally letters from other family members. Oz does a brilliant job of switching between characters, on a level I don't think I've ever encountered in an epistolary novel. If normally the reader needs to be told who is narrating the letter before beginning to read it, in Black Box each letter-writer is so clearly distinct from one another that within the first few lines, it's obvious who is writing to whom.

For example, Ilana, as I mentioned, writes pretty. Hers is a literary style; she invokes long, beautifully written passages meditating over her impressions on what Alex is doing at any given moment. She quotes entire conversations comfortably, as though writing a novel. But her letters feel like novels in other regards as well. Ilana is an unreliable narrator, admitting to certain lies and omissions from one letter to the next, gradually letting down her guard as the story progresses. Boaz, meanwhile, writes with numerous spelling errors. His style is loose, colloquial, bad. He writes like you would expect a poorly educated teenager to write.

There is no external narration in Black Box. Most of what we know about the characters is either through their writing style or through secondhand accounts. The only character who really describes her own life is Ilana, but she herself casts doubt on most of what she says. We know she is intelligent, manipulative, and passionate from her writing style, just as we know her husband Michel is religious, single-minded and vaguely possessive from his own accounts. Alex, meanwhile, comes off as stiff and cold, whether in his sharp telegrams to his harassed lawyer or in his long, oddly pained letters to the other characters.

Though each character is thoroughly unappealing, together their letters create a clear sense of intimacy between reader and fiction. Each character frustrated me for other reasons: Boaz for his aggression and impulsive view of the world, Michel for his method of applying his political beliefs, his hypocrisy and his sexism (in general, there's an uncomfortable thread of sexism running through Black Box), Alex for his violence and coldness, Ilana for her manipulations, lies and generally victimized perspective... These are people I wouldn't want to deal with in real life, but I was nonetheless drawn into their world through Oz's clear-minded writing. I cared, even if I sort of wished I didn't have to.

I didn't love Black Box. I don't think I ever could. It's hard to love a book when its characters are so unappealing or when it brushes against politics so lightly without really revealing its true feelings. But it's also hard not to like a book that creates such a strong level of intimacy between these awful characters. Past the halfway mark of the book, I felt almost overwhelmed by one of the letters: Ilana is recounting the beginning of her relationship with Alex, her former army commander. Reading what felt like such a personal, intimate letter unnerved me, unsettled me entirely. Worse are the moments from the other end - Michel's impassioned, almost fanatical letters to Boaz felt a little too believable. By the end of the book, I had to remind myself that these were fictional characters. I had to remind myself this because an already grim story turned even more inwards. The effect was... powerful. This is not as easy a book to recommend as Scenes from Village Life, but yes - it is recommended.

Fantasy of a different flavor | The Killing Moon

It is perhaps the mark of a relatively weak reading year thus far, but there's no doubt that the book I tore through the fastest (and with the most interest) is N. K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon. Jemisin is an author I've grown to respect, even as I can't pinpoint any particular trait to her writing that I especially like (I've had specific issues with each of her books thus far, though different issues every time). What's important is that Jemisin is trying something new in fantasy, and I respect it. I also happen to like it. In the case of the The Killing Moon, I happened to like it very much.

From the back cover blurb, it's easy to understand why people regard Jemisin as a "different" sort of fantasy writer. The Killing Moon, as other reviews will already tell you, takes place in a quasi-ancient-Egyptian culture. Jemisin treats her setting carefully, making her references to the real Egypt both obvious and non-intrusive. The Killing Moon doesn't get bogged down in descriptions and bloated world building, but on the other end of the scale, I never felt like I was living in a half-developed world. This in itself is rare in fantasy, where world-building is often equated with page count. Jemisin mostly opts just to show the world - it isn't until relatively late in the novel that we begin to fully understand the events of the first chapters. This may make the opening a bit shaky for some, but I was confident enough that the story would come together... and it did.

The Killing Moon is a fantasy, but it's definitely a different type. Not only does Jemisin eschew the comfortable cliches of a European Medieval fantasy, she also opts for a very different type of magic. Indeed, rather like The Inheritance Cycle (of which I've only read the first two books), The Killing Moon feels a lot more like mythology than it does fantasy. By latching the use of magic onto the in-story religion (and its in-story mythological origins), Jemisin creates a very realistic magical approach. Magic is ubiquitous, but uncommon. It's limited to a very narrow group of people, but it applies to everyone. More than anything, the magic in The Killing Moon is an acquired ability than an inherent born talent (though there's a bit of that as well). This makes it less like the dramatic high fantasies many of us associate with the genre, and more like a strange piece of historical fiction. With magic.

All of this magic, interestingly, takes left stage to the core of the novel - diplomatic intrigue. This was where I found the true strength of the book to be - the way Jemisin makes readers believe in the politics and diplomacy within this fantasy world. Toss in a good helping of mythology, magic, manipulation and murder, and you've got something special. Jemisin raises questions about life and death, never really answering them but leaving them lingering throughout the story. Ethics and morals are important; Jemisin never fully lets her readers forget that.

But much as I enjoyed the story, I have to admit that there are some important technical flaws in this one. Characterization, for example. I liked the characters and they felt fully-formed (ish), but they didn't feel particularly real. Ehiru is intriguing, but he is not particularly engaging. Nijiri, meanwhile, is engaging, but also flatter and less developed. And Sunandi is a strange blend, where I mostly liked her, but didn't really care about her. I felt little to no emotional connection with the characters. That's fine when you're breezing through a book, but it's not exactly the mark of quality literature.

The writing is also a bit strange, but here it might have been a matter of expectations. Jemisin's style felt a bit more jaded than it did in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms or The Broken Kingdoms. It mostly fit the story, but sometimes I was struck by how standard it was. Though I liked The Killing Moon significantly more than Jemisin's previous efforts, I found myself preferring the writing style in those novels over this one. Now I'm wondering if the writing style even really changed, or if it's just my memory playing tricks on me. Either way, The Killing Moon is written in a super standard "easy-to-read" style that suits its pace and its story admirably. It's good enough, but I wouldn't call it good.

Yes, I enjoyed The Killing Moon a lot. It does what fantasy is supposed to do: displace the reader, tell a good story, make the reader think. Jemisin may have stumbled a bit with two-dimensional characterizations and a distinct, somewhat blunt writing style, but overall her novel works. Not necessarily an example of true fantasy literature, but a fine book nonetheless.

A predictable Goodreads/Amazon post

You've all probably heard by now that Amazon has bought out Goodreads. This is turning out to be a pretty big deal in both the book blogging world and the external business-y world, which seems to find the acquisition either amusing or bemusing. Goodreads users are, for the most part, not in either of those camps. Most seem thoroughly unhappy about the move - some on a level that they have publicly and loudly deleted their Goodreads accounts - while the rest seem cautiously optimistic. With the exception of a few Goodreads members who commented that Amazon's acquisition will hopefully mean a better integration between Kindle devices and Goodreads, nobody was really excited or happy about this move.

"Cautious optimism" is the key here. The best case scenario, as many members have pointed out, is that Amazon only takes advantage of Goodreads' vast data store and doesn't interfere with the actual community behind this information. There might be an increase in certain types of advertisements, and more syncing with Amazon owned products or Amazon affiliates (for example, in giveaways, in compatibility with Kindles, in ads, etc.), but this best case scenario assumes that the basic functionality of Goodreads won't change.

The worst case scenario is that Amazon's policy of "your reviews belong to us" (which I didn't really realize until now, and am suddenly thoroughly uncomfortable by just how much I've given them over the years) will extend to Goodreads. That the functionality will go from a bookish social networking site that aims to build a community to another extension of Amazon's dominance in the book industry. That Goodreads' recommendation algorithm will be replaced by Amazon's significantly more commercial one. That the ease of finding old, indie or little-known books will evaporate. That the option of buying a book through an independent provider will disappear. The worst case scenario? Goodreads loses everything that made it the site that it is.

Personally, I believe in the middle ground. Obviously Amazon will be mining our personal collections now in order to better understand its customers, but is that necessarily a bad thing? I've complained for years about Amazon's stupidity when it comes to book recommendations, and the clumsy way it tries to throw the bestseller-of-the-moment at readers. With this new (and significantly improved) pile of data behind it, maybe Amazon will actually improve. Maybe it'll adopt Goodreads' book recommendation algorithm, and not the other way around. Maybe it will learn. 

Goodreads is probably going to change. It's going to feel different, if only because everyone will expect it to change, and be on alert for any suspicious behavior on Amazon's part. Like most Goodreads users, I'm uncomfortable and nervous and a little upset by how brazenly Amazon has been going about creating a true monopoly in the book world. But I'm not about to delete my Goodreads account. Unlike most readers, I don't really need Goodreads to catalog my books (I have a significantly better Excel document that has much more information than I'll ever give the site...). I don't even use it for the social/community aspect very well, though recently I've made a bit more of an effort. I don't really like reviewing on Goodreads, and I don't necessarily love their recommendations algorithm. But all together, it's a convenient site. The ability to access simpler, more sincere reviews than Amazon is pleasant. Seeing the different methods by which people tag and label their books is fascinating. It's less severe than LibraryThing (which I also don't like because of its price tag), and it's less commercial than Amazon. Goodreads filled a certain niche in the literary world. Hopefully this will not change, even if other details do.

Library eBook lending - revisited

A couple months ago, I posted about what I saw as the strange phenomenon of readers avoiding a convenient and free method of acquiring eBooks - library eBook lending programs. In the post, I raised some of the issues with the current eLibrary models, and comments backed up these negative claims, rightly pointing out how cumbersome and often clumsy the current library systems are. Unlike me, for whom the prospect of acquiring new books in English from halfway across the world is a huge advantage, most readers saw the messiness and limited quality of these eLibraries as making it rather worthless.

So today, I'm pleased to announce (somewhat belatedly) that at least one of the three eLibraries I patron (don't judge me...) has made a tremendous step in the right direction. And surprisingly, it's the one that until now was the messiest, the most cumbersome, and the least cooperative. Northern California Digital Library, I commend you.

Up until just a couple months ago, NCDL's site was cramped, uncomfortable and extremely difficult to maneuver. This is the eLibrary I frequented least often, in large part because I could never seem to find the books I was looking for. Their search bar was practically unusable, their collection seemed mostly comprised of travel books, and all in all, it was a nightmare to use the site. So, like many readers pointed out in the comments, I just didn't.

Now as you can see (if you clicked the link...), the site is much more modern, much more clean. It's a little hard to compare without the previous look and feel (I found only two small, blurry screenshots that don't accurately portray how annoying the site used to look), but regardless: the NCDL's new site is nice. But more than just the general aesthetics, the site now has a much smoother functionality. Most importantly, it also has an excellent browsing method because for the first time, one of these three eLibraries I patron has figured out how to use filters.

This seems like the most obvious thing on the planet, right? I mean, search engines have had filters for so long now, it seems somewhat absurd that a site like an eLibrary wouldn't. And yet they don't seem to see the direct correlation between how easily patrons can find books and how much they'll, you know, check them out. The relatively limited collection is still a problem, but with these simple, easy filters, I can find those few, good books I want quickly, easily and without any unnecessary headaches. I've already seen hints on another library's site that they're going to upgrade to a similar style; here's to hoping the others follow in the NCDL's footsteps soon.

Women and men (one last time)

Two things.

First of all: Ryan left a very interesting comment on my previous post about women and men, rightly referencing something that, in retrospect, is a huge oversight from my post. Namely, he had a problem with how the differences between men and women reviewers could be so far from the proportions of men and women book bloggers (and in general, men and women readers), where women do not merely triumph but dominate.

Though my book blogger statistics are several years out of date by now (and I will now publicly, and subtly mention that I would love the chance to do them again, but perhaps with some help this time so that the statistics actually get published), there is one finding in them that I have no doubt in my mind remains fairly constant - women book bloggers outnumber men by a wide margin. Essentially, among non-professional (or, more accurately, non-print-publication) book reviewers, there is a more predictable, reasonable spread of women/men when compared to the actual reading statistics - because surveys of who reads more (men or women) consistently show that women read more, and they read significantly more fiction. How is this not better represented in the publishing and reviewing industries?

I wish I had an answer for this. My gut tells me that women do fairly well in online publications, which will probably never factor in VIDA's stats. My gut also tells me that regardless, this clear slant against women is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with seriously (and not in a reactionary fashion).

The second thing I wanted to point out is this set of numbers crunched from specifically sci-fi/fantasy book blogs. Lady Business looked at a small sampling of blogs (written by both men and women), and analyzed how many books they reviewed by women, and how many they reviewed by men. The results are quite interesting, but I would describe them as somewhat skewed - surprisingly, in favor of women. For example, the general stat says that reviews of books by women make up 42%. Looking a bit deeper, however, I realized that one book blog specifically reviewed women writers almost exclusively. No surprise, then, that the numbers came out so high.

I really recommend reading the whole post, as well as many of the comments. It's really interesting to see the way readers view their own imbalances and preferences, as well as how they plan to change (or not change) their habits. Some food for thought.

Women (and men), revisited

There's something about charts. You can list statistics, you can have gut feelings, you can suspect... but nothing hits harder and proves a point more strongly than a good series of graphs and charts. And so I urge readers to look over VIDA's yearly summary of book reviews from major publications. It's illuminating, and not in a good way.

Now that you're back (and possibly as angry as I am), let's have a little chat about this. Because seriously - what. We often talk about "imbalances" and "subtle sexism" and all sorts of other neutral concepts, but VIDA's statistics make it really hard to shy away from the truth. And the truth is that something is seriously skewed with the literary world. Look at those numbers - for the most part they don't even approach 50% in the authors reviewed sections and the reviewer gender polls don't show much better results. What's truly shocking is how consistent this is. There is no example of a review outlet that employs more women reviewers than men, and scant examples of publications that has reviewed an equal number of books by men and by women.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I don't like to rely too much on statistics. I love numbers, but it's too easy to get caught up in one-sided beliefs when relying entirely on percentages. So though most of these reviewed books may be written by men, that does not necessarily mean that the publications are automatically sexist. That these books are mostly written by men doesn't mean that there aren't strong women within their pages, it doesn't mean that these books are also all about men.

The statistics do, however, mean that books by women are not getting the same attention as books by men. That review publications do not employ many women. And that the problem, despite being one I first heard about three years ago, is still thriving.

We can lay the blame anywhere. We can say it's the fault of publishers for marketing books by and about women as exclusively for women. We can say it's the fault of literary publications, who clearly prefer men in the position of reviewer, despite the fact that women tend to read more than men. We can say it's the fault of reviewers for believing that men writing about family life is timeless while women writing about family life is fluff. We can say readers are at fault for buying into all this nonsense. We can lay the blame anywhere and everywhere, and we should. This is a joint effort. Two years ago I commented that these stats and the general dismissal of women writers for literary awards was not outright sexism. At the time, this was the right thing to say: one outlying year of skewed reading is unfortunate but doesn't say much. Two is a reason for taking note. Three is already a trend. We have a trend of male-preference in literature. Something needs to change, and we have a role to play in that. It's time we take it more seriously.

Thoughts | Books for boys, books for girls

I don't remember where I first read about The Monstrumologist, but I clearly remember the major critique the reviewer had against the book: its complete and total lack of female characters. The general details of the book faded from my memory, but that one notion that a book could have absolutely no relevant female characters intrigued me somewhat. And so I kept that idea in mind as I finally delved down to read the book as a sort of mind-wiping distraction.

It's a relatively good assessment of the book, and an accurate indicator of its target audience. The Monstrumologist is a boy's book through and through, whether because of its clear tendency towards all things gory, or because of its masculine approach to hunting monsters, or even simply because of that one factoid someone mentioned years ago: there is not a single female character throughout The Monstrumologist. No romantic interest, no token female... nothing. And it's not even that the cast of characters is necessarily so small. It's just that every single character happens to be male, and happens to behave in what we traditionally label as a masculine behavior.

Then I got to wondering: how much should this actually influence the book itself? Is the book necessarily weaker for the fact that it has no female characters? I think it isn't. The characters are all of a certain cut. There's the insane monster hunter, the out-of-touch doctor, the revenge-thirsty teenager, the skeptic policeman... The characters themselves are fairly routine, and truthfully, adjusting the gender of one of them would have been significantly worse than the fact that there were no women overall. True, this indicates some kind of weakness in Yancey's ability to write well-rounded characters as a whole, but there's nothing inherently sexist about it. I didn't get the vibe that Yancey didn't want to write about girls for some defined reason, rather that he had a specific "boy's tale" in mind. Is that so terribly wrong?

I'm split. On the one hand, I know that young men read significantly less than young women, and that books are very rarely marketed exclusively for guys. On the other hand... how can a book so completely lack characters of the opposite gender? But now I'm realizing that this isn't just in "boys books". Often, the only male characters in books for young women is the romantic interest. How is that better? When you start looking at it, young adult books are often split along gender lines. It's... strange. And extremely problematic.

I've had months to think about this, and really... I've reached no conclusions. It bothers me that a book could be so utterly limited in its characterizations, but if those are the characterizations that make the book better, I really can't fault the author. The Monstrumologist overall isn't much more than mediocre (for reasons well beyond gender imbalances), but its clear boy-focus is inherently tied to its story. Something else probably would have rang false. So... thoughts?

And in conclusion... Three Strong Women

So I finally finished Three Strong Women by Marie Ndiaye and I've even had some time to absorb it and think about it a bit. It's an interesting book, but I find myself struggling to actually recommend it to readers. As seen through the rear-view mirror, Three Strong Women works much better than it did while I was actually reading it. Fit together, the three stories that make up this book suddenly seem clearer and more sharply tuned. But this does not detract from the book's flaws.

I mentioned in my last post that I was developing a theory about the title: Three Strong Women. Now, after having read all three stories I want to discuss it a bit more in depth because I think this is the strongest argument both in favor of reading the book, and possibly against it as well. This post will contain spoilers.

Okay. We have three women: Norah, Fanta and Khady. Norah and Khady give us their stories firsthand; Fanta's story is seen through the eyes of her husband. The three women face various struggles throughout their stories, mostly revolving around men in their lives. These are not romantic issues, though the dynamics of romantic love do come into play in each of the stories. These three women are supposed to be our "strong women". But truthfully, not one of the three is a strong woman by my definition, and this is in fact what makes the novel an interesting one.

Norah is technically the closest - she is independent, supports her daughter, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter, and is a successful lawyer despite whatever issues she may have had as a child. Yet she lives under her father's shadow, jumps when he says jump and in essence succumbs to his strength throughout her story.

Fanta is similarly submissive, but what are her character traits? We know she has had an affair (which her husband Rudy discovered), but stayed with her husband, despite all observations indicating her unhappiness with him and their general living situation. Is her strength found in the fact that she stays with a troubled husband, or is it found in the fact that she even followed him to France in the first place? Fanta is supposed to be a strong woman, but no textual evidence supports it. Seen through her husband's eyes, she is almost deliberately flattened.

And then Khady. Khady starts her story out completely submissive - indeed, admitting to having closed herself off. She then makes one pivotal decision, which she proudly views as her first shot at independence. But this strength and her independence lead her into a complex mess of issues that culminate in a rather heartbreaking ending. So what's the lesson here?

I've seen a lot of readers and reviewers call Three Strong Women conservative, and there's something about that word. When our "strong women" are not truly strong at all, it can seem as though Three Strong Women is actually conservative, restrained and old-fashioned. But I don't think that's the case. Ndiaye treats her characters with care, but there's a sense of irony behind everything she writes. Once I finished the book, the suspicion I'd had that Ndiaye was ironically referring to these women as "strong" intensified. I'm not one-hundred percent convinced, but... that's what it feels like.

Here's the thing: I will recommend Three Strong Women to certain readers. It's an interesting, thought-provoking book and even though Ndiaye's writing will probably not appeal to all readers, it didn't bother me too much. The very fact that I am still uncertain as to Ndiaye's true intentions leave me intrigued; I suspect these certain readers will be equally curious.