Reading Wednesday
Dec. 16th, 2020 07:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyJust finished: Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente. I loved this one. Loved it. I think everyone has read it now, though, so I won't say much more about it other than it brought me back to the joy I felt when reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy over and over as a kid and I cannot wait for the sequel.
On Being Yukiko, Jeff Chiba Stearns and Lillian Michiko Blakey. This is a kids' graphic novel about the joys and struggles of being multiracial, told by a girl whose great grandmother was a picture bride and survived the Japanese internment camps in WWII. It's very well done, with art by both Stearns and Blakey, and a story that manages to be accessible but not condescending to its young readership. I will confess that I found the two art styles a little jarring—while Stearns' is probably more appealing to young readers, Blakey's is just so beautiful that I wanted the whole thing to be in that style. They're working on a teacher resource so hopefully this will soon be in schools soon.
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez. Oh boy oh boy. Let me start off by saying that her debut novel, Scarborough, was my favourite book the year it was released, and I was really anticipating this one. It's about a Very Canadian Dystopia, where fascist governments have taken power in both Canada and the US, and the pilot project for genocide is happening in Toronto. Kay, a Jamaican-Filipino drag queen, escapes and joins the underground resistance, accompanied by Bahadur, a non-binary refugee, Firuzeh, a social worker, Liv, a queer teacher turned resistance leader, and Beck, a former soldier.
About 3/4 of this book is incredibly brilliant. Like, "why am I bothering to write a dystopian novel set in Canada when this one exists and is better than anything I could ever write?" brilliant. I loved Kay as a protagonist, I sympathized with all of the characters, the flashbacks to his childhood, the tensions between his intersecting identities, the joy and specificity of his experiences in locations and scenes that I recognized—amazing. The details of the fascist takeover and how most white Canadians are sucked into going along with it? Uncomfortable, realistic, and visceral. The scene with Fanny and her dog made me bawl.
And then...the derailment happens. Towards the end of the book, it somehow devolves into a screed about performative allyship that feels incredibly out of place. It's an important conversation to have, and it might have even been an important conversation to have in this particular book, but the circumstances—directly after the characters are rescued from the Nazis by white allies who are fomenting armed resistance???
The kicker is that it is well handled elsewhere. Bahadur's initial mistrust of Beck makes perfect sense and covers most of the ground that the campfire/training scenes cover, but more naturally, because it fits with the plot. But Hanna's "conversion" and Liv's confessional scene were just cringe—I can absolutely envision people talking like this in an activist meeting or on social media, but not when you're running for your life or training to kill fascists.
And it was weird. Because after we learn that white allies must constantly be checking their privilege, the plan that is largely concocted by said white allies goes off without a hitch? I was fully expecting either 1) the Other characters to point out why the plan was going to get everyone killed and come up with a better one, or 2) the plan would utterly fail and get everyone killed. But instead, everyone just does it and it works??? While I was super happy to see a dystopian novel where the main characters are actually participating in the uprising as opposed to inspiring it, it felt like it actively subverted the entire discussion that preceded it.
Also, for all that Hernandez makes an effort to include a diverse cast, there are notably no Indigenous characters with major speaking roles. The bedrock of Canadian racism is the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples so...how does the dystopia do that? We get Liv angsting that she has sinned by using Erin and their son as a prop to demonstrate how progressive she was in an extremely icky way, but we never see Erin's point of view and the result is that the sole named Indigenous character is robbed of any agency and used to further a white character's storyline.
It's a little thing, but I also found the use of asterisks to donate non-binary characters really jarring. At this point in human history, it is not exactly a new thing to have a character with they/them pronouns. Each time one of these characters is introduced, it's indicated with an asterisk ("They* were standing over there") and I don't see the point of that, particularly for characters like Bahadur whose identity is critical to their plot line. It feels, um. What's the word? Performative.
Hernandez is far more talented an author than I will ever be, and her prose is spectacular, which means that these problems did not occur to me until after I finished the book and was pondering it. I'd still really recommend it. And it's possible that I'm just a squeamish bad white ally who is uncomfortable with checking her privilege. But it's also possible that an editor needed to tell the author no and did not, because they were dazzled by the story overall.
Currently reading: Nothing, I finished it late last night.
On Being Yukiko, Jeff Chiba Stearns and Lillian Michiko Blakey. This is a kids' graphic novel about the joys and struggles of being multiracial, told by a girl whose great grandmother was a picture bride and survived the Japanese internment camps in WWII. It's very well done, with art by both Stearns and Blakey, and a story that manages to be accessible but not condescending to its young readership. I will confess that I found the two art styles a little jarring—while Stearns' is probably more appealing to young readers, Blakey's is just so beautiful that I wanted the whole thing to be in that style. They're working on a teacher resource so hopefully this will soon be in schools soon.
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez. Oh boy oh boy. Let me start off by saying that her debut novel, Scarborough, was my favourite book the year it was released, and I was really anticipating this one. It's about a Very Canadian Dystopia, where fascist governments have taken power in both Canada and the US, and the pilot project for genocide is happening in Toronto. Kay, a Jamaican-Filipino drag queen, escapes and joins the underground resistance, accompanied by Bahadur, a non-binary refugee, Firuzeh, a social worker, Liv, a queer teacher turned resistance leader, and Beck, a former soldier.
About 3/4 of this book is incredibly brilliant. Like, "why am I bothering to write a dystopian novel set in Canada when this one exists and is better than anything I could ever write?" brilliant. I loved Kay as a protagonist, I sympathized with all of the characters, the flashbacks to his childhood, the tensions between his intersecting identities, the joy and specificity of his experiences in locations and scenes that I recognized—amazing. The details of the fascist takeover and how most white Canadians are sucked into going along with it? Uncomfortable, realistic, and visceral. The scene with Fanny and her dog made me bawl.
And then...the derailment happens. Towards the end of the book, it somehow devolves into a screed about performative allyship that feels incredibly out of place. It's an important conversation to have, and it might have even been an important conversation to have in this particular book, but the circumstances—directly after the characters are rescued from the Nazis by white allies who are fomenting armed resistance???
The kicker is that it is well handled elsewhere. Bahadur's initial mistrust of Beck makes perfect sense and covers most of the ground that the campfire/training scenes cover, but more naturally, because it fits with the plot. But Hanna's "conversion" and Liv's confessional scene were just cringe—I can absolutely envision people talking like this in an activist meeting or on social media, but not when you're running for your life or training to kill fascists.
And it was weird. Because after we learn that white allies must constantly be checking their privilege, the plan that is largely concocted by said white allies goes off without a hitch? I was fully expecting either 1) the Other characters to point out why the plan was going to get everyone killed and come up with a better one, or 2) the plan would utterly fail and get everyone killed. But instead, everyone just does it and it works??? While I was super happy to see a dystopian novel where the main characters are actually participating in the uprising as opposed to inspiring it, it felt like it actively subverted the entire discussion that preceded it.
Also, for all that Hernandez makes an effort to include a diverse cast, there are notably no Indigenous characters with major speaking roles. The bedrock of Canadian racism is the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples so...how does the dystopia do that? We get Liv angsting that she has sinned by using Erin and their son as a prop to demonstrate how progressive she was in an extremely icky way, but we never see Erin's point of view and the result is that the sole named Indigenous character is robbed of any agency and used to further a white character's storyline.
It's a little thing, but I also found the use of asterisks to donate non-binary characters really jarring. At this point in human history, it is not exactly a new thing to have a character with they/them pronouns. Each time one of these characters is introduced, it's indicated with an asterisk ("They* were standing over there") and I don't see the point of that, particularly for characters like Bahadur whose identity is critical to their plot line. It feels, um. What's the word? Performative.
Hernandez is far more talented an author than I will ever be, and her prose is spectacular, which means that these problems did not occur to me until after I finished the book and was pondering it. I'd still really recommend it. And it's possible that I'm just a squeamish bad white ally who is uncomfortable with checking her privilege. But it's also possible that an editor needed to tell the author no and did not, because they were dazzled by the story overall.
Currently reading: Nothing, I finished it late last night.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 02:44 pm (UTC)The scenes you complain about in the third quarter do rather make checking one’s privilege sound more like a ritual to ward off bad luck from striking one’s plans, like conventionalized self-deprecation to avoid rousing the envy of the gods.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 06:40 pm (UTC)"Sabotabby sat at their* computer. They were exhausted and wished they didn't have to teach another 75 minute class."
The thing is, Kay is the POV for 90% of the novel other than a few flashbacks where other characters are telling their stories. He's queer and out and lives in Toronto in our current era where the singular they is widely used. From his perspective it's in no way unusual to encounter someone who's a they/them. So signalling that "this is this person's pronoun, look! A non-binary character!" is really directed at the audience, to make sure they (plural) understand. It breaks the 4th wall and not in a necessary or narratively relevant way.
The scenes you complain about in the third quarter do rather make checking one’s privilege sound more like a ritual to ward off bad luck from striking one’s plans, like conventionalized self-deprecation to avoid rousing the envy of the gods.
OH IT IS LITERALLY A RITUAL IN THIS BOOK LIKE WITH ACCOMPANYING MARTIAL ARTS MOVES and it took away from the otherwise excellent rest of the book.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 07:10 pm (UTC)So, more like sticking an x in a word to show how non-binary it is, even when it’s something like “folk” or “folks” that wasn’t gendered to begin with? (“Latinx” makes sense, because the x replaces an a or an o, but afaik nobody was going around addressing groups of people as “folas” or “folos”)
with accompanying martial arts moves
…….??!!!!!wtf
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 08:32 pm (UTC)with accompanying martial arts moves
…….??!!!!!wtf
So
The bad guys have a credo, which they repeat ad nauseam as totalitarian regimes are wont to do. So the white allies come up with their own credo (as do the Others, but they don't do calisthenics to it) and they repeat it every day with physical moves and have a debate about adding a bit to it and whether that's performative that is just so glaringly bad compared to the rest of the book.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 04:34 pm (UTC)as if resisting fascism is a matter of ally work anyway.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-27 06:49 pm (UTC)I think you articulate the problems I had with Crosshairs better that I could. The literally performative allyship was kind of jarring. I also found myself questioning how Liv managed to spend so much time away from her white supremacist boyfriend without being rumbled. That kind of guy has people watching his possessions at all times. And I’m fairly sure that march up Yonge St wasn’t going to end well. But as Miss Prism observes, “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”
I also found the non binary asterisk to be intrusive, but maybe it’s there for the benefit of people who would otherwise whine about the use of singular they?
no subject
Date: 2020-12-27 07:38 pm (UTC)It's possible, but I am Cheap and Weak and something that is a lot like Douglas Adams but written by an author who is young and prolific is sometimes all I need.
And I’m fairly sure that march up Yonge St wasn’t going to end well.
I felt that too. At least they were armed but in general, this book made a heavy point that symbolic allyship isn't effective and that most white people went along with the Renovation and could not be convinced to empathize with the Others, so I'm not sure why foreigners would be much different.
I also found the non binary asterisk to be intrusive, but maybe it’s there for the benefit of people who would otherwise whine about the use of singular they?
Possibly, but—who are these hypothetical whiny readers? I feel like anyone bothered by the singular they would read the epigraph and put the book right down.