Translation State

 

Translation State by Ann Leckie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A beautiful science fiction novel about what it means to belong. Leckie has more imagination in her little finger than most people have their whole lives. She explores belonging across borders of culture, gender, technology (AI), and species (aliens). Can you declare yourself to be something you are inherently not? What are the personal, interpersonal, and political ramifications of that? And even if, say, an alien decides it wants to be human, looks like a human, acts like a human, are there behaviors and urges that will always define them as alien? Leckie deftly shows the ramifications and shortfalls of simply declaring to be something you are not, but also how each character (species) has abilities that benefit the wider universe. She also makes a beautiful case of how a family (chosen, if need be) can be the ultimate place that you belong.

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How do I know what you say is true? I asked.   Words can say things that don't exist.

"You have only small and seemingly pointless choices available to you.  But if there is anything I have been trying to teach you, it is that small actions can have larger consequences.  If one has only small choices available, one must be patient, and canny."

"When you have decided what you want, remember that what one will not acknowledge is what one cannot properly control."

The Dutch House

 

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A second reading because: Patchett. This time around focused on how Patchett tells the story by others telling stories, how she used the idea of choice--can you just decide to not feel things? can you decide to feel things?, and the how places (not just the Dutch House) were used as conduits of emotion and reflective of a person's values and ideals (oddly, I realized cars figured predominately as a universally loved and cherished place). Once again, I was struck by Patchett's ability to create full characters (mostly--I have a feeling the stepmom Andrea would like her day in court) and bring a sense of parallelism so that despite the growth and change, there is a sense of closure and justice.

First reading: Ann Patchett can do very little wrong in my book. I liked it even better after book club discussion. It raises a lot of questions, without giving a lot of answers. Themes of class, priorities, judgement, forgiveness, and parenting. And of course, brilliantly written.

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what I felt in those blinded days just after my father's death was not the grief for who I had lot but the shame over what I had done.

That loss was too private, shameful in a way I couldn't understand.

exhausted by the burden of so many petals.

Well, your mother hated it and Andrea loved it.  He thought he'd solved the problem.

New York represented her shame about things that were in no way her fault.

"Home is so sad," Maeve said.  "It stays as it was left, shaped to the comfort of the last to go as if to win them back.  Instead, bereft of anyone to please, it withers so, having no heart to put aside the theft."  Once she was certain Maeve had stopped, Celeste picked up the line in a softer voice.  "And turn again to what it started as, a joyous shot at how things ought to be, long fallen wide.  You can see how it was: look athe pictures and the cutlery.  The music in the piano stool.  That vase."

I'd never been in the position of getting my head around what I'd been given.  I only understood what I'd lost.

Fluffy's stories had stayed fresh because she had kept them to herself. Fluffy still knew what she knew.

Any configuration of luxury seen from a distance felt like a window on my youth.

We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.

laying the tremendous burden of her grief and shame directly on my sister's heart.

 

her voice as quiet as a page turned.

They were living together in their own paradise of memory.  

I can use the time I've got to be furious, or I can feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Thinking about the past impeded my efforts to be decent in the present.

Look at the three of us, undone by a house.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is what I appreciated about Black Leopard, Red Wolf: the use of language is exceptional. I felt almost like I was reading a different language and I'll admit it took me at least 10% of the novel before it clicked and instead of struggling through, I was immersed in this strange new world. It's a dark world--dark being an understatement--dark, crude, primal. I'm reading the Old Testament at the same time, and it is definitely the same sort of setting, giants, talking animals, magic, curses, vengeance, violence and sex. There are several passages I had to gloss over just from sheer exhaustion of violence and lewdness. However, I did grow fond of Tracker and his misfit band, laughed, grimaced, cried. There is mystery, comedy, romance, family drama, power struggles, riots and uprisings, monsters and witchcraft. Some of the most original world-building as well as some of the scariest monsters I've encountered. The ending seems to show that humans are the cruelest of all the monsters and the most illogical--how we will grab at power regardless of its consequences (for ourselves, our country, even the instrument of power itself). I wish it was a bit more hopeful, and despite all its virtues, I probably won't ever re-read because it is so dark and crude.

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You kill the boy who is you, to become the man who is you, but everything must be learned. 

night fat with heat

Of all the terrible features of your form, shame is the worst.

Quiet is the opposite of sound, not the absence of it.  This was absence.

The animal had learned of the shame of men, the same man who once said that the Leopard would have been born with skirts if he was supposed to wear any. 

For you to say that sadness is not the absence of happiness, but the opposite of it.

Something to fight for, or nothing to lose, which makes you a finer warrior?  I have no answer.

Even going down, we stood high enough to see all of the city and the flat land beyond it.  I heard once that the first builders of this city, back when this was not yet a city, and them not yet fully men, were just trying to build towers tall enough to get back to the kingdom of sky and start an war in the land of gods.

Our wisdom is foolishness to the foolish.

miracle fruit--makes bitter taste sweet (a real fruit).

It is not that you lie, but that you don't know truth.  There was enough venom spewing from your mouth to kill nine buffalo.

Word is divine wish, they say.  Word is invisible to all but the gods.  So when woman or man write words they dare to look at the divine.  Oh, what power.

Glyphs are supposed to be the language of the gods.

Someone cried that Kongor is lost, for how can we have a future without our past?

Everything in the world cooks down to two.  Either-or, if-then, yes-no, night-day, good-bad.  You all believe in twos so much I wonder if any of you can count to three. 

Western Lane

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is between a 3 and 4. It was a short, sweet read about a young British Indian girl and her family trying to cope with the death of the mother. Gopi's father attempts to bring purpose and routine to the family by training his three daughters rigorously in the game of squash. Gopi, as the youngest, shows the most passion and promise but the pull of grief proves to be too much and the family starts to unravel. What seems to start as a tolerant deference to the father turns into a passion and love of the game for Gopi, if not for her sisters. But Gopi's ghost mother hovers in the pages as different characters attempt to cling to her. It's a little unclear whether it is the obsession of squash and new friends or the ghost of Gopi's mother is responsible for the ultimate dissolution of their family. Although Gopi narrates, there is a dream-like quality to this book, and her intentions and motivations are not obvious.(view spoiler)[especially her decision to live with her uncle. Why would she choose to live there when she could not play squash there? (hide spoiler)]. An interesting read, that could almost have been longer exploring themes more in-depth.

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Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a great uplifting book. It was a good story, and the ending revealed that there is a lot more going on than you originally think. So I may be harsh with three stars, but I found it laborious to get through. It needed a good amount of red pencil--too many descriptions, too precious, too many unneeded details that it gets in the way of the story for me. If it had been tightened up I feel like the story would shine even better (and move along faster). I was glad I got to the end, but it was only because it was a bookclub read.

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Lunar Love

 

Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was February--Valentines Day and Chinese New Year so it seemed a perfect excuse to indulge in a cute romance about love and the Chinese Zodiac. It was pretty predictable and a little contrived--Olivia is taking over her grandmother's matchmaking shop in China town that uses the Chinese zodiac to place compatible partners together and Bennett is starting up a mobile dating app using the Chinese zodiac as one of its parameters. Competition, suspicion, hijinks ensue resulting ultimately in true love for everybody. But I found the whole thing delightful for what it was. The descriptions of Chinese food and baking didn't hurt either.

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Real Self-Care

 

Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness by Pooja Lakshmin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think what I liked most about this book is that it encouraged you to define your priorities (giving you tools and exercises to identify them) and then come up with ways to align your life to those priorities. I might have rearranged the chapters so defining priorities came before setting boundaries and saying no, but I thought her approach to "self care" which is ultimately being true to yourself and not worrying about what other's may think was spot on.

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When you make a proactive choice, instead of felling like your life is being done to you, you're practicing real self-care.

when you make a life decision that aligns with your values, with your insides, then you don't care about what you're missing out on.

Only when you fully acknowledge the wealth you have in life can you be ready fro mre.  And a funny thing happens when you start appreciating and digesting all the good: You stop caring as much about getting that next thing.  You realize that what you have right now is just as good as what you may have in the future.

When you shut down your negative feelings, you're inadvertently shutting down your ability to experience positive ones as well.

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ishiguro is just sublime to read. His ability to embody the narrator and tell stories of small things that add up to momentous revelations and emotions is just astounding. I won't detail the plot here because that is part of the joy of this book. But I thought the examination of what makes us human and what constitutes a soul was so subtly and artfully done. I thought it was a beautiful and eloquent book, riveting to read, and much to reflect and think about.

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Ruth had been right: Madame was aftraid of us.  But she was afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders.  We hadn't been ready for that.  it had never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, being seen like that, being spiders. 

When I watched you dancing that day, i saw something else.  I saw a new world coming rapidly.  more scientific, efficient, yes.  More cures for the old sicknesses.  Very good.  But a harsh, cruel world.  And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let it go. 

keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast.  And these tow people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much.  The current's too strong.  They've got to let go, drift apart.  That's how I think it is with us.  It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives.  But in the en, we can't stay together forever. 

The Immortal King Rao

 

The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This felt like three books in one: the story of King growing up in India, of coming from the poorest caste and how he overcame poverty and prejudice to become a titan of technology, business, and politics; the story of him and his daughter, Athena, secluded on an island where King is Athena's whole world until she inevitably chafes under his control and runs away to join dissenters; and the story of Athena in jail in a world different from ours but maybe not so far from the future. All the stories are well told and intriguing. There is a lot of exploration of technology and how we sacrifice privacy, uniqueness, and personal values for easy knowledge and convenience. Algorithms can take the difficulty of sifting out truth, can help us determine our style, can entertain us without boring us. But what if the algorithms start determining what and who you are? Is that any different than the caste system King was born into? You question whether the world King helps design is any more civilized or compassionate than the rural coconut farm he grew up in. Also loved the allusions the Greek myths and tropes--emphasizing that humanity keeps reaching for an idealized civilization only to be undone by humanity itself.

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The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion

 

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 1 by Beth Brower
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I have heard this is a great read from people whose opinion I respect so I may continue to one more. But I could not give this "book" (installment) more than one star because it is not a book. It is an introduction (and pretty slow at that). Just when something starts to happen--a stranger moves in to Lapis Lazuli, the book ends. I resent that I have to "buy" another book to continue. It's not a cliff hanger--you have to have enough action to get to a cliff for that. What's more, it is presented as diary entries and most of these are the least believable diary entries ever. Who says "now I will describe the neighborhood" and proceeds to pen 3 pages? No, maybe you draw a map. You don't describe what you look like. You don't explain things and people you already know. Also, what a stupid uncle--what idiot spends money just to be petty when it will make them destitute as well?

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The Correspondent

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This epistolary novel was very well done. The plot unfolded organically in the letters and replies to several recipients. What I especially loved was that different "voices" were used depending on whom she was writing to--in one letter she'd be enthusiastic about say, the opportunity to eulogize a colleague, and then in another she'd bemoan the fact that she'd have to do it. We see fights erupt and heal, regrets resolved, relationships grow and change, decisions made, acceptance grow and challenges met. Evans does all this with the salt of humanity--never making her protagonist overly sentimental or the lessons overly explicit--just a mortal muddling through and being inspirational because of it.

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one has committed oneself to the page, the tragedy I've just laid out will not apply.  Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn't there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?  If all of this amounts to you as nothing than drivel, then you might allso consider a simpler value of the written letter, which is, namely, that reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world, the preservation of which ahss to be of some value  we cannot yet see.  The WRITTEN WORD, Mr. Watts.  The written word in black and white.  It is leters.  It is books.  It is law.  It's all the same.