The Octunnumi

 

The Octunnumi Fosbit Files Prologue by Trevor Alan Foris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Foris gets lost in his own imagination so much that the reader is so overwhelmed by all the characters and Insominids (worlds) that they start not caring too much about it. There is some quick banter, tried and trite stock characters, and an almost developed plot line--(I really did care where the missing children and Nate were--until I didn't). The described worlds really are very imaginative and if the characters stayed in any of them long enough to really experience them, it could be a very stimulating and refreshing read. As it is, the reader is just too inundated to look around and take in the scenery. My niece bought the book because of the amazing marketing--the publicity, book design and packaging is really well-thought out and creates excitement--it even comes with a book mark. Hopefully, the rest of the series settles down a bit and concentrates more on less.

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More Than a Body

 

More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lexie Kite
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This isn't 4 star in terms of writing--it can be clunky with overextended metaphors BUT it identifies an issue I think every woman I know, including myself, struggles with. And more than struggles with--it constitutes up the majority of what we think about, talk about, and spend money on. We all know we are more than what we look like, but knowing and KNOWING is two very different things when we are constantly bombarded with messages from media and friends and family that how we look is paramount (especially for women). But more than identifying an issue everyone knows is there, the Kite sisters give practical and important alternatives to the constant stream of self-judgement and judgement of others we are constantly making. By changing how we think about comparisons, judgements, criticisms, we change behavior. I have found myself being happier and kinder as a result. I would recommend every woman read this to help make adjustments in how we perceive ourselves and others.

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The Wretched of the Earth

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not an easy read for several reasons, but it was one of the most enlightening reads about racial issues I've read. Fanon talks (this book was apparently dictated from his hospital bed) about the psychological impact of colonization, especially on the colonized. From South America to Africa he has identified certain cycles and predicted behaviors and outcomes stemming from colonialism. Although the age of colonialism is mostly behind us, the roles of the colonized (marginalized minorities) and colonizer (majority in position of power) still exist, and it helps explain some of the phenomenon we can still see in society today (why is there Black on Black violence, why are there gangs, why is there such animosity toward those in power when "they are only trying to help lift them", how does racism even occur). The psychology may not be what you think--but Fanon spells it out with examples. This is not to say I didn't have to re-read almost every sentence twice--it's very dense. Also, toward the end, his case studies on those who torture and those who get tortured show that in war everyone loses. Those were easier to understand, but harder to read because of the emotional impact it had. So, not a beach read, but important to start understanding power/post-conlonialism/ racial theories.

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For me words have a charge. I find myself incapable of escaping the bite of a word, the vertigo of a question-mark."

Preface

Roughly, this meant: You are making monsters out of us; your humanism wants us to be universal and your racist practices are differentiating us.

Europe, therefore, has hardened the divisions and conflicts, forged classes, and in some cases, racism, and endeavored by every means to generate and deepen the stratification of colonized societies.

Read Fanon: you will see that in a time of helplessness, murderous rampage is the collective unconscious of the colonized.

This repressed rage, never managing to explode, goes round in circles and wreaks havoc on the oppressed themselves. In order to rid themselves of it they end up massacring each other, tribes battle one against the other since they cannot confront the real enemy—and you can count on colonial policy to fuel rivalries;

I. On Violence

The colonized know all that and roar with laughter every time they hear themselves called an animal by the other. For they know they are not animals. And at the very moment when they discover their humanity, they begin to sharpen their weapons to secure its victory.

The colonies have become a market. The colonial population is a consumer market.

colonialist bourgeoisie is aided and abetted in the pacification of the colonized by the inescapable powers of religion.

The very same people who had it constantly drummed into them that the only language they understood was that of force, now decide to express themselves with force.

II. Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity

The unions, the parties and the government, in a kind of immoral Machiavellianism, use the peasant masses as a blind, inert force of intervention. As a kind of brute force.

III. The Trials and Tribulations of National Consciousness

In the underdeveloped countries a bourgeois phase is out of the question. A police dictatorship or a caste of profiteers may very well be the case but a bourgeois society is doomed to failure.

For the people the party is not the authority but the organization whereby they, the people, exert their authority and will.

People must know where they are going and why.

And in the more or less long term a people gets the government it deserves.

The citizen must appropriate the bridge. Then, and only then, is everything possible.

The army is never a school for war, but a school for civics, a school for politics.

IV. On National Culture

When the colonized intellectual writing for his people uses the past he must do so with the intention of opening up the future, of spurring them into action and fostering hope.

By imparting new meaning and dynamism to artisanship, dance, music, literature, and the oral epic, the colonized subject restructures his own perception.

We believe the conscious, organized struggle undertaken by a colonized people in order to restore national sovereignty constitutes the greatest cultural manifestation that exists.

War and Peace

 

\ War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I did it! And I must say it is one of the best classics I have had the joy of spending over a month reading. Once you figure out who is who (everyone is referred to by at least three names) the world of the upper class during the Napoleonic war in Russia during 1805-1820 comes alive. Along the way, Tolstoy expounds his thoughts on how history is interpreted and the misconception of heroes. His battle scenes are exciting and insightful, the romances are complicated and satisfactory. There is death and disappointment, courage and compassion, faith and disillusionment. Throughout it all the characters seek to understand the purpose of life--some think they find it only to be mistaken, others discover it only after great trials, and some never do. I never felt as though I were slogging through a classic, and even though it was long, there is very little I would cut out.

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The regiment fluttered like a bird preening its plumage and became motionless.

At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two persons.

The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription.

all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or decrease in the strength of the nation--even though it is unintelligible why the defeat of an army--a hundredth part of a nation--should oblige that while nation to submit.

the unknown quantity is the spirit of the army...Men who want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous conditions for fighting.

For us the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human actions are incommensurable.  And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.

But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.  

We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts allis lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins.  

While there is life there is happiness.

There were then as now conversations and discussions about women's rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights, though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natasha, she positively did not understand them.

    These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is, only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which lies in the family.

    Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner, did not then and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dimmer is the nourishment it affords, and the purpose of marriage is the family.  

As gold is gold only if it serviceable and not merely for exchange but also for use, so universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to history's essential question: what is power?

What causes historical events? Power. What is power?  Power is the collective will of the people transferred to one person.  Under what condition is the will of the people delegated to one person?  on conditions that that person expresses the will of the whole people .  That is, power is power; in other words, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.

Grey Goose

Reflecting

Father pops out in brilliant hues

    camping trip green

    roller-coaster red

    icy-pop blue

    punched through with angry black.

But Mother is a mess--

a finger-painting of routine,

bleeds colors from sole to grey,

the particular indiscernible from far away.

Grey--

tint of storm clouds

pregnant with sobbing,

chasing the sun with condolences,

mutilating the heavens with her bawl.

Grey--

chimes like silver,

sword on sword in a

defensive battlecry,

clashes of protection.

Grey--

skeleton scaffold of ladders

to drape a skin of want

without hazard of buckling.

Grey--

world at dusk;

a black and white movie

with birdsong as soundtrack;

blurred edges, softened scrutiny;

a rabbit's meuse;

white noise.

Grey--

becomes the background

so the colors can

pop.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters

Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a satisfying and hopeful conclusion to the Smoke and Bone series. Although it was a bit too long with too many introspective passages saying the same thing. She uses language that always has bordered on this side of too sentimental and precious, and in this book I felt it crossed the line. Perhaps it was a culmination of reading all 3 in a row, or perhaps it was just over the top in this one, but I rolled my eyes more than once. A stronger editorial hand could have saved it, because several passages were transcendent, but got lost amongst the verbal barrage. The plot was really quite well done, though again, I felt like the introspective passages outweighed some of the new mythology she introduced--I would have liked more details about that and less about the constant longing of Akiva and Karou. Still, this is hands down one of the better YA fantasy trilogies.

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Stone Mattress

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Probably a 3.5 star rating. These are nine tales, some really good, some seemed tired and overplayed. Almost all involve aging protagonists who are dealing with the consequences (sometimes physical, sometimes emotional) of choices made when they were younger. A bit of magical realism (whimsy?) is usually involved. "Stone Mattress" is one of the better tales, as is "The Freeze Dried Groom" and "Torch the Dusties" (although this last one bends credulity a bit). I wouldn't say it lives up to what I was expecting from the author of A Handmaids Tale , but perhaps that is unfair, and it was an interesting read nevertheless.

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