sabotabby | Reading Wednesday

Just finished: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. I don't have a lot to add—this was good, definitely a page-turner, but didn't blow me away despite how obsessed I am with its premise. But it was fun. Would recommend.

Pyongyang by Guy Delisle. Now this one's been on my list for a while owing to its unique premise. Delisle, a French-Canadian cartoonist, gets a contract in Pyongyang working on an animation for a French company that has outsourced its work there to save money. We don't get a lot of on-the-ground stories about North Korea so I was very much intrigued.

I will say that Delisle does a masterful job with the medium and portraying a very dystopian society. The limited ink wash colour palette beautifully illustrates the constant dim light (due to fuel shortages) and haunting emptiness of the city. It's bleak and funny and as a comic, it's successful.

The problem is that Delisle is an utter asshole and I spent the entire comic wanting him to face just one (1) consequence of his behaviour. He portrays the North Korean people in a condescending way—they are all stupid and brainwashed into Jucheism, and in his boredom and frustration, he's constantly doing things that endanger his minder and his translator. He wants to criticize the DPRK, which, yes of course, but he makes no attempt to humanize any of the characters he interacts with, and comes off as a pompous Westerner blind to the failings of his own culture.

Is this a French cartoonist thing by the way? I think there's a tradition there where "satire" punches down more than it punches up, particularly when it comes to Western secularism and the superiority thereof, but I'm not familiar enough to make definitive statements to that effect. He's kind of working in the tradition of someone like Joe Sacco, but Sacco has a deft hand when portraying cultures he's not a part of in a way that's humorous but still human. So, I guess read Sacco instead.

The Shadow of the Torturer (Book of the New Sun #1) by Gene Wolfe. This one's also been on my list for a while due to it being constantly recommended by the kind of people who share my opinions on genre literature. I did not get to read much of it last night beyond the introduction by Ada Palmer (an author whose work I also adore, and who went on at great length about how hard this book is to read) and the first chapter. I will note that the prose is amazing, which is one of the things people consistently say about it. So far, we're in some kind of a medieval city, though I know from context that this is a far-future Dying Earth story, and Severian, the torturer's apprentice, runs afoul of some guards and ends up in a necropolis where he saves the life of a revolutionary, Vodalus. It's very atmospheric.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

rydra_wong

and who went on at great length about how hard this book is to read

Strong disagree! One of the fun things about it is that on one level, it works fine as Jack Vance-ish Dying Earth sword-and-sorcery with a dash of Borges to spice it up.

I mean, yeah, then you put your foot down one of the series's many infinitely-deep rabbit holes and break your brain (and that leads to things like listening to DEATH//SENTENCE's multiple multi-hour eps analysing it -- thanks for that, btw, they're great), but it also rollicks along happily as a picaresque.

Content note: Gene Wolfe was a very right-wing Catholic and it shows, albeit in very weird ways. Unfortunately he was also a genius. Also a lot of rape and rapey-ness.

From:

rydra_wong

Anyway I will be looking forwards to your reports! It's a good Very Big Weird Book.

From:

sabotabby

Well, it's Ada Palmer, so her tongue is firmly wedged in her cheek. It's certainly not hard compared to what she reads and writes! But I think it's hard compared to like, what is popular in fantasy these days.

Content note: Gene Wolfe was a very right-wing Catholic and it shows, albeit in very weird ways. Unfortunately he was also a genius. Also a lot of rape and rapey-ness.

I've heard this, but I managed Jack Vance. It's interesting because 100% of the people who have recommended this book to me have been leftists. I'm afraid I'm going to like it more than all the good progressive hopepunk I'm supposed to be reading.

From:

rydra_wong

It's interesting because 100% of the people who have recommended this book to me have been leftists.

This doesn't wholly surprise me. Its right-wingness is not of a sort that would be easily digestible by the contemporary mainstream right, I think. It's altogether too weird and impenetrable. It's not "here is your white power fantasy about how you get to shoot the mean woke people", you know?

I'm afraid I'm going to like it more than all the good progressive hopepunk I'm supposed to be reading.

Almost certainly, yes.

From:

rydra_wong

Almost certainly, yes.

I mean, I am very fond of Book of the New Sun, and, although like everyone else I have no idea what the definition of hopepunk is supposed to be, I read the Kobo preview for A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and then ran very far away.

From:

sabotabby

I read it and it was fine? Like I recommend it to people who are depressed and want a cute distraction.

I just got in a massive heated debate on one Discord server, and an entirely interesting and productive debate on another after two of us who were intensely frustrated by the first one migrated it to a second, about hopepunk. Which is to say that I don't think it's a thing, at least not in any useful sense, and the thing that it's set up in opposition to is a strawman that is barely a thing and not really a culturally meaningful one, and if people want cozy optimistic stories that's fine but just call it that and don't call it anything with -punk in the title.

At which point I developed the term strawpunk, which I like and no one else commented on but I am going to make it a thing.

From:

frandroid

Oh wow, first negative stuff I read about Delisle, but then again I never bothered to take a peek.

There's a strong French tradition of off-colour satirical cartooning that's considered at the edge of mainstream in France (not so in Québec) that would be confined to the underground press in the North American world (le Canard Enchaîné, Charlie Hebdo, Siné Mensuel (more left)). Lots of puerile stuff too. (The publication "Fluide Glacial" is a reference to cold sperm, for example, and can be found in magazine stands across the country I believe.)

Edited Date: 2023-02-15 02:36 pm (UTC)

From:

sabotabby

Charlie Hebdo is what it made me think of. Like, "we're so not-racist that we will make this racist joke that proves that we are beyond racism, haha, aren't we naughty." Which I bounce off of pretty quick these days.

From:

symbioid

"he's constantly doing things that endanger his minder" - this reminds me of that time Vice did a N Korea video and they gave him those slippers to put over shoes to enter the Kim mausoleum and he was like sliding on the floor with them or wanted to. And the minder was like "no no no..." I'm like you're gonna get that guy killed...

From:

sabotabby

Right? I was expecting the conclusion to be "and then I never saw my minder again."

From:

altamira16

Several years ago, I read a few books about North Korea. From your review, I don't think I want to read the one you read. I read "Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite" by Suki Kim. Some people were very critical of the subjects she was discussing with her students.

The other one I read was "The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters." This was more boring and less entertaining, and I don't quite remember what it was about.

From:

sabotabby

I suppose it's unlikely to find an unbiased account? Like I would hate to read a glorification of the DPRK. But it's important to understand that it's not the North Korean people who are at fault for their government.

From:

altamira16

With the French dude above, concluding that everyone believes in Jucheism is wrong.

Basically, when you have a repressive government, everyone is going to be publicly performing what the government wants them to perform. Do they trust you enough to tell you what they really believe or not?

What was so interesting about Suki Kim's memoir is that because she is South Korean, she got to do more stuff than various other people who were not Korean at all got to do.

From:

sabotabby

I don't think he believes that; one of the sections in the book has him wondering about that specifically. But he seems to find it moral cowardice that they don't admit it.

From:

greylock

I think I am one of the few people in the world who hated The Book of the New Sun, although I persevered until the end of book 2.

It's atmospheric, but deeply weird, and I was consistently sure I was missing a lot (which, I believe, having read reviews over the past decade, I was) and it just wasn't fun.

I fear it's been too long now to attempt book 3.

From:

sabotabby

I am loving it so far. Like I'm only a few chapters in but there are some lines that made me stop and go "damn."

It's a hell of a brick, though! I usually don't read anything that long until later in the year because I'm trying to hit a book target.

From:

greylock

It's not even that big a book (my copy is 300 pages).

If you enjoy it (or not) check out M John Harrison's Viriconium, if you have not.
It may or may not be Dying Earth, but I read it around the same time as Shadow, and Claw, and loved it.

This quote from the jacket grabbed me: in Viriconium, the young men whistle to one another all night long as they go about their deadly games. If you wake suddenly, you might hear footsteps running, or an urgent sigh. After a minute or two, the whistles move away in the direction of the Tinmarket or the Margarethestrasse.

While looking for that quote, so as not having to type it out, I found this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/genewolfe/comments/laf65y/m_john_harrisons_viriconium/

It may be relevant.

From:

rydra_wong

AAAAAAAH Viriconium! *flailing hands of excitement*

Yes, love it, second the rec.

Warning: I found Viriconium at an impressionable age and that led to reading Climbers (his technically-non-genre novel which makes the Sheffield area and the gritstone crags feel every bit as strange and dying-earth as Viriconium) and that was probably a contributory factor in my becoming a climber many years later and now I climb on those crags and get over-excited every time I see the cement works in Hope because it's mentioned in the book.

So, danger: may lead to climbing.

From:

sabotabby

I am pretty sure nothing I read, no matter how good, is going to lead to climbing. My upper body strength is approximately zero.

From:

rydra_wong

This was also true for me when I first started climbing. You have been warned.

From:

greylock

I know, like me, you're not going climbing, but you'll (I guess) be totally shocked at how quickly muscle can build with weights.

Six months of Kmart night fill and I was Vin Diesel.
And a few years I grabbed some 3kg weights, same deal.

Now I am noodley car-yard wavy arm dude.... Because I don't care. Much. You could be climbing El Capitan with Kirk before you know it..., assuming you work on those finger muscles.

From:

greylock

That's an awesome story.
Books at an impressionable age are the best, especially good ones.
I grabbed a whole bunch of MJH books after I read Viriconium, not read any.

I do recall something about him being too good for genre (or limited by).
I should find them in my library.

For some reason your comment reminded me of Alan Garner. Someone I should have read at an impressionable age, and didn't, came to in my 30s, and absolutely loved (having HATED the Owl Service in the day, but it was an assigned text so....)

As someone who is unco, and getting older, I can fully see myself not getting into climbing. I want my hip to break while going to the toilet at 2am like god intended! Not up on on a crag, or in a climbing gym!

From:

rydra_wong

See, if I'm going to break my hip, I absolutely want it to be at a crag, because then at least I'll have a good war story. As someone who is also very unco-ordinated, I've already spent enough of my life explaining to doctors how I injured myself in an embarrassingly mundane way in my own home!

Also it'll mean that I'm still going to crags by the time I reach hip-breaking age, which I feel will say good things about my overall health and wellbeing.

I know a fair number of people still climbing well into their 70s, so I aspire.

From:

sabotabby

Oooh, intriguing! Especially China Miéville being a fan.

So the edition I have is around 800 pages, but it's an ebook that contains the first two books. I'd guess based on that that the books are of average length, but then when I looked at the epub I was like. Eeek. But loans are for 21 days, it'll be fine.

From:

greylock

My paperbacks are all *exactly* 301 pages (the last two are "notes on translation").
Except the last book, which is 317 pages.

I wanted to love them.

I do recall they are apparently books that need multiple re-reads to fully appreciate. All I remember are bits and pieces, and there might be an unreliable narrator?

From:

rydra_wong

I love them personally, but I'd say with any book, if you make it that far in and are just not having fun or getting anything out of it, DITCH IT.

Life is too short and there are too many other books to read.

From:

greylock

I have heard so much love, and I love Vance's Dying Earth so much. So I tried.

Life is too short and there are too many other books to read.

From:

greylock

You are mostly correct, and yet not!
Sometimes books land better, later, in different brain spaces.

In my experience.

From:

rydra_wong

That's a valid point! But I still think it's better to abandon something and maybe return to it at a later point (if that idea appeals), rather than forcing yourself to persevere grimly when you're getting nothing out of it.