an unexpectedly thought-provoking halloween read

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime they are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure."

This year, for the first time since I was in elementary school, I wanted to read something "spooky" during the fall. But I didn't feel emotionally up to the task of reading a full-fledged horror novel, so I instead picked up this little 1872 vampire story. It was just the right amount of creepy, with a surprising amount of depth: a melancholy contemplation of how society regards girlhood, with overtones of unease about humanity's position in the world. To a modern reader, the major plot "twist" is unsurprising, but there is a certain enjoyment in imagining what it was like to read this when it was first published - over two decades before Dracula, when the vampire genre was less ubiquitous. The writing remains engrossing and often quietly horrifying, my favorite chilling scene being one that seems to describe sleep paralysis. Even if you've read other vampire books, as most of us have, there are still surprises to be seen in the way this story unfolds.

What I found fascinating about the eponymous vampire is how seamlessly she fits into the world around her, as though she's a puzzle piece that was bound to materialize, or an organism that evolved to occupy a niche in an ecosystem. Repeatedly, we see how men assess and value female characters based on their appearance. Thus, Carmilla's beauty speeds her acceptance into people's homes. We see girls living in sheltered idleness, lonely without good friends their age, and often without mothers - a vacuum where matriarchy would have been. As a result they're overjoyed, perhaps a little blindly, at the opportunity of having a female companion. Given that Carmilla is a carnivore who has to feed off humans, is it any surprise that she learned to take advantage of these situations? We watch as she participates in a masquerade ball, playing the part assigned to her while subverting the whole ritual to achieve her own ends.

One of the most affecting and (initially) cryptic passages is when Carmilla argues for her right to exist as a natural creature. These arguments fall on the uncomprehending ears of other characters: "All things proceed from Nature, don't they? All things in the heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? I think so."

On the subject of nature, I happened to be reading this at the same time as Jane Goodall's Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe, which is all about another type of near-human creature. Both books explore the discomfort that people can experience upon seeing that humanity might not be as separate or supreme as they thought. Evolution was an idea that was still relatively new at the time that Carmilla was written, and debates between scientific and religious explanations appear a few times in the story.

What makes this book so sad and mysterious, and so hard to stop thinking about, is that Carmilla never really feels like a villain. Even when we learn the truth about what she's done, it is hard to feel vengeful towards her. Over the course of the story she's appeared to be both affectionate and selfish, young and ancient, fragile and dangerous. It's mesmerizing, and it's hard not to share her would-be victims' desire to have her around for longer.

PS, this book can be acquired for free at Project Gutenberg, and I just learend that an audiobook version featuring David Tennant came out a few days ago. :)


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On being a best friend

The Dog Listener: Learn How to Communicate with Your Dog for Willing Cooperation by Jan Fennell


Last year I adopted a little sheepdog from a shelter, and he's one of the most caring and clever creatures I've ever met. He's given me hope and unconditional love when I've needed it the most. However, he came with considerable baggage from his puppyhood: the early months spent neglected and possibly abused, followed by being shunted between different shelters, didn't make for a very optimistic or trusting outlook on life. Things that I had taken for granted with dogs that I'd had previously - going for walks, getting into a car, seeing people go by - were major sources of anxiety for him. In the time since I got him, he's been improving slowly but surely. At his latest checkup, the vet suggested that this book might be useful in helping me to figure out more ways in which I can help him.

The essential philosophy of the book is this: many modern dogs believe that they are alphas of the pack, and that they're responsible for guiding and protecting the rest of their family. However, because they live in a society dominated by humans, not dogs, they are ill-equipped for the challenges presented by this responsibility. The result is anxiety, which can manifest in different ways, depending on the individual dog: defensiveness, jumpiness, even self-mutilation and refusing to eat. The solution that Jan Fennell presents is for the owner to assume the alpha role by broadcasting signals that the dog will understand. None of it involves any kind of violence of course - it's all about body language, tone of voice, routine, and being aware of which behaviors you're rewarding. Once the owner has taken on the responsibility of being alpha, the burden is lifted from the dog's shoulders, leaving him or her free to relax and enjoy life.

In explaining how to implement this lifestyle (and she emphasizes that it needs to be a lifestyle, not a temporary fix), Fennell emphasizes the two C's of being calm and consistent. I'd add a third - being conscious. The book has really encouraged me to pay closer attention to my dog's behavior, and to remember to consider how things look from his point of view.

Some of the things recommended in this book were actually things I'd already figured out, which was interesting to see. I can't attest to the effectiveness of the entire method yet (it takes time), but in the time that I've been practicing it I have noticed improvement.

As for the way the book is written, I do think it could've been considerably shorter, which I think would make it accessible to a larger number of owners who could benefit from it.

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Readathon time!

Yesterday, I spontaneously decided to participate in Dewey's 24-hour Readathon on October 17th because I've been feeling the urge to join in some large-scale geekery. What I really wanted to do was NaNoWriMo, but unfortunately my work over the next month will make it impossible (but I will channel some of that writerly energy into other tasks!). So this readathon seemed like a fun, brief alternative since I do have a couple books coming up that I'm excited for. I'm going to consider this not as a to-be-read pile, but as a might-be-read pile: the books that I'll have on hand over the course of the day, and might read depending on how I'm feeling. I'm definitely not planning to read all of them (especially since I actually need to sleep on Saturday night!). I'll be happy if I can finish the first book and make a start on one of the others. A modest goal I guess, but this is my very first official readathon.

1. The Lake, by Banana Yoshimoto

This is for my penultimate task in the Read Harder Challenge: a book that takes place in Asia. 

2. Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel

I received an advance copy of this book last week and have been hearing a lot of good things about how it's a clever, fast read. 

3. Through a Window, by Jane Goodall

This book would be for my final task in the Read Harder Challenge: a microhistory. This book has been on my shelf for years, and as interested as I am in the topic, nonfiction is rarely at the top of my list. But one way or another, I will be reading this book soon. 

4. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. 

I'm one of the very few people who doesn't like the fall season. (Give me summer, or give me Christmas!) So maybe a dark, creepy book will at least help me get into the Halloween spirit? I have no idea. Up until recently, I only knew of McKinley from high-fantasy YA books like The Blue Sword and The Hero in the Crown, so I'm curious about her work in other genres. 

If guilt was an animal, then it would be an octopus.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not gonna lie: the main reason that I chose this audiobook was for David Tennant's narration. I'd never listened to an audiobook before and decided that a short book and a familiar voice was how I wanted to ease myself in. Consuming this book through my ears meant that I wasn't able to analyze it as much as I normally might - but sometimes, that's ok. There's something comforting about just sitting back and being read to, especially with a book like this.

This story is about a 10-year-old boy named Jamie. His older sister, Rose, died 5 years previously in a London terrorist attack. For almost as long as Jamie can remember, his family has carried the splinters of that event. His surviving sister, Jas, stopped eating. His mother had an affair and left the family. His father became an alcoholic and an aggressive racist, blaming all Muslims for the death of his daughter and demanding that his surviving children do the same. When Jamie's family moves to a new town, Jamie experiences isolation and bullying at his new school, but there is one person who offers him friendship: Sunya, who is a mischievous, imaginative, Muslim girl.

So: death, addiction, infidelity, eating disorders, racism, all in a middle-grade book. It sounds like an attempt at the ultimate tearjerker, but it's not. Given that Jamie was only 5 when Rose died, his distant memories of her life pale in comparison to his day-to-day activities and his recent memories of his family going to pieces. It's not about death as much as it is about the unpredictable ways in which the living react. Jamie's parents become ossified in their own forms of grief and anger, unable to consider that their children might be going through something different.

Jamie dreams of being a soccer star and a superhero. He looks at life as an adventure, and plots to bring his family back together. He's big-hearted, and we see the world through his vivid descriptions that express a kind of purity and simplicity while reaching out to all the senses.

At the same time, he's not particularly precocious or intuitive, and he's been somewhat desensitized. There are events that he observes without fully understanding, but that a reader will likely ascribe a meaning to and ask questions about. There are times when you arrive at a realization long before Jamie does, which evokes a feeling of pity and dread for him. This understated style of storytelling is how the book accommodates both middle-grade and non-middle-grade readers: it'll inspire some serious thoughts, but the nature of those thoughts depends on what kind of things you're ready to think about. For example, you might find yourself cheering for Jamie and Sunya when they get back at the bullies, but you might also find yourself thinking about the ways in which this behavior fuels the cycle.

The characters of Jas, Roger the cat, and Sunya are beautifully crafted and Jamie's eyes are opened through his friendships with each of them. Jas is probably my favorite character - even though she's a kid herself, and just starting to learn to live her own life, she tries to be there for Jamie in a way that their parents aren't willing to be. Jamie's sometimes uncomprehending relationship with his cat, Roger, parallels his parents' relationship with him. And Sunya forces Jamie to consider what happens when prejudiced generalizations meet an actual example of the group that is being generalized about - a person with a face and a family and her own superhero dreams. The story might become slightly too precious and heavy-handed at times, but it's a story that does need to be heard loud and clear, now as much as ever.

Since I started this review by talking about David Tennant's narration, I'll end by saying that it was even better than I had hoped. He uses a subtly different tone for every character, and the way he expresses heartbreak and disappointment is like hearing I don't want to go (if you're a Doctor Who fan) all over again. His reading of Jamie's soccer game might be the most exciting description of a sports match that I've ever heard.

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Sci-fi that's short but (bitter)sweet

The Gaijin Girl: A Mayake Chronicles Short Story by E.E. Giorgi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A futuristic fairytale that's hard to put down. I won't say much because it's such a quick read and I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say that it takes on themes of theory vs. reality. Literature, social networks, and even people's self-conceptions are veiled in questions about what's real and what's not. Against this backdrop, we watch a girl named Lilun as her lonely, restrictive childhood approaches its end.

Whether or not you've read other books in the Mayake chronicles, this story is an intriguing window into a perspective that's been kept hush-hush in the rest of the series. It's always fascinating to see "villains" in their day-to-day life, and even better when this perspective challenges our preconceptions of what they're like.

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of mallards and malaise

I sometimes wonder how many times any given person or animal has saved a life without knowing it.

With this photo at the back of my mind, I went to a nearby pond today and fed the ducks some bits from my sandwich. Within minutes, I heard the sound of footsteps and children's voices on the walkway. I had the urge to get up and leave, but I stayed put and kept throwing bread. Two toddlers soon descended upon me and starting talking, and asked if they could feed the birds too. So I gave bits of bread to each of them, apologizing that it was sticky from the peanut butter. When I had to go back to work, they looked so sad, and said "No!" and "Why?", so I offered them the rest of the sandwich to feed the birds with. They accepted without hesitation and I could hear them chatting to the ducks as I walked away - calling over the ones who were further off so that everyone could be fed.

I've had moments of feeling direly hopeless lately but it makes all the difference to know that I brightened up the day - even by a tiny bit - for some animals and some people, who in turn brightened up the day for each other. Kindness is an unpredictable force: it ripples out from someplace unknown and ripples onward from us whether we want it to or not. It's hard to say who's received the most.

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” - Albert Schweitzer

My trouble with martians...

The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a lot of us are aware by now: Mark Watney is the 17th person to set foot on Mars and the first to be stranded on it. After his crew mistakenly leaves him for dead while evacuating during a dust storm, Mark has to figure out how to survive as the only human on the planet - or become the first one to die there.

And there's a lot to figure out: food, water, communication, transport. Much of the book is spent describing how Mark (almost typed "Mars") and NASA attempt to solve these problems - in detail. Andy Weir clearly did a lot of work to come up with plausible solutions. At times the book is reminiscent of the Methods section of a real scientific paper, which is something that people often skip because it's tedious - so it's to Weir's credit that he's written pretty readable descriptions that don't slow down the story. It makes me wonder if science textbooks in the form of adventure stories could someday be a thing. Novel-length word problems.

I liked watching the conflict between scientists and administrators - the hilariousness and frustration of which I'm sure many scientists can relate to. But my absolute favorite parts of the book were the cameos of previous, real-life Mars missions. It brought back the excitement of watching those missions unfold. Space rovers always seem like the most heroic of inanimate objects.

Unfortunately, the emotional connection evoked by spacecraft didn't extend to the human characters, who at best seem like two-dimensional tropes (the Aspergers one, the hot nerd, etc.) and at worst just blur into each other. Mark is somewhat funny, but not that funny, and woodenly impervious to most physical and mental consequences of prolonged isolation and malnutrition. The style of writing is unremarkable, although I guess Weir gets away with it by framing it as the no-frills log of a desperate astronaut. The logs are mixed in with passages of various side characters' POVs, an ominous omniscient narrator, TV transcripts, and the like.

But y'know, different authors try to accomplish different things, and once I accepted that Weir wasn't aiming for beauty or complexity, I was able to sit back and enjoy the slapstick space shenanigans. However, one thing that I couldn't get past was the questionable way that it presents women in science. Even if we put aside some of Mark's comments because they're just part of his oh-so-irreverent personality (umm), the problem remains that the geekiness of the book is only of the smug, socially unaware, male-gaze variety (like The Big Bang Theory on a larger scale).

Commander Lewis is a woman who's capable and respected, and that's awesome. But she's the exception rather than the norm. Let's say you're a woman who wants to work in science but you don't have, or don't want, Lewis's military background. What other possibilities are presented to you in the world of The Martian? You can take on a helper role, like Annie's, where understanding science is secondary to being glamorous. Or you can be knowledgable and quick-thinking like Johanssen, as long as attractiveness is still your main claim to fame. Or you can be like Mindy: You may get credit for being observant and hard-working, but you still face people (mostly men) who judge you by your appearance, who are polite because they worry about your delicate feelings rather than because you deserve respect, and who readily pull rank and demote you as they please. These small details of characterization seem insignificant next to Watney's struggle and NASA's efforts to save him. But with every throwaway gesture that suggests female scientists don't warrant the same respect as their male counterparts, the book quietly works against the ideals of Teamwork and Progress that it outwardly glorifies.

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