Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

 This'll be a brief one because this week is all about being pressed for time, and stretched like taffy between one commitment or another, at the mercy of capricious forces who believe that their lack of planning out to be my emergency, and having far too many debates about children's literature for someone with an acute allergy to the stuff.

Just finished: Nothing.

 Currently reading: The Shadow of the Torturer (Book of the New Sun #1) by Gene Wolfe. Ah, see now I see what Palmer meant in her intro. It's not that the book itself is a difficult read, it's that there's quite a lot of plot and prose and whatever the other thing that Wolfe is doing is not something I'm going to pay much attention to on the first read. 

Our hero Severian has gotten himself expelled from the Citadel for showing mercy to one of his victims, and now he's off to serve as an executioner in a distant town. On his travels, he manages to get himself challenged to a duel. And falls in love again, this time with a woman who's not one of his victims, and therefore a step up?

I am usually annoyed by worldbuilding discussions but the worldbuilding in this is so good that it deserves comment. Worldbuilding in, say, a Miévillian sense, not in a Sandersonian TTRPG sense, in that the setting functions as character in a way that I envy a lot. Dying Earth is rapidly becoming one of my favourite settings—the elements that indicate that this is a far-future and not a secondary world get introduced subtly and beautifully—this is a tower perched atop the hastily filled garbage dump of the past, teetering on the brink.

And I know I mentioned it before but his prose is a delight to read.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. There has only been one chapter this week! What are you doing, Ishmael? Are you out to sea? What is happening? It mainly upset Tumblr with its indication that Ishmael and Queequeg aren't sleeping together anymore, but ffs they're all sleeping in hammocks anyway. Have you ever tried to fuck in a hammock? They're still married, Tumblr. Simmer down.

Comments

[blogcutter]

Are you allergic to ALL children's literature? Just literature that's specifically designated as being for children? Or...?
Tell me more!

[sabotabby]

So, short answer yes, long answer is there are a bunch of exceptions.

The things that I am allergic to are:
- Flat prose
- Overly exaggerated or simplified characterization
- Wackiness
- Condescension
- Didacticism

It's partially generational (there was just not a solidified YA category when I was YA-aged, which means I have no nostalgia around YA properties), partially developmental, and partially some unfortunate conditioning around children's media in general that came from my biological father. I learned to read at a precociously early age. Anything that my mom read to me when I was pre- or becoming-literate are things that I consider Good and Worthy Of Being Nostalgic About. That's why Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, La Petit Prince, etc. all get to be exceptions to my allergy. And why I have nothing against picture books as a general rule.

Once I learned to read, though, the whole middle-grade/chapter book-to-YA segment was uninteresting to me and I felt like I was being condescended to, especially since I hit the level of being able to read commercial adult fiction pretty early. I've never liked being taught An Important Lesson. In part I have strong opinions about Dahl because as much of a bastard as he was and as misogynistic, fatphobic, and racist as his books get, there is nothing condescending or didactic about them. I had an early sense for when someone was trying to make me into a better person and I did not like it.

I will absolutely admit that this is a Me Problem and not a broad criticism of children's lit in general—there is obviously tons of good children's lit out there. But for me since I didn't enjoy it as a child, it is even harder for me to enjoy it as an adult.

[yhlee]

I write MG/YA (for the $$$$ because I have sold out) and there absolutely has been a "dumbing down" trend in MG/YA as they've come to exist as modern USAn publishing categories vs. books even 20-30 years ago. :] Let's just say that I got edited to within an inch of my life, e.g. "cabochon" had to be replaced with "polished stone." Also, the publishers I've worked with are hyper-aware of the more pearl-clutching elements of the gatekeeping/purchasing trio of teachers/librarians/parents for MG especially. (YA the kids more likely to be buying some of their own books; I hope ten-year-olds don't have credit cards.) My funny/terrible story here is putting "!@#$" (literally those symbols) into the dedication to one of my MG books (as in, basically, "this book is for my @!#$ cat") and the editor wrote back and said we had to strike that because "!@#$" was "too controversial." O.o

[sabotabby]

Oh no. I mean, it's somewhat of a relief to have confirmation from the writer side of what I'm seeing on the teacher-and-reader side. Because people have told me I just haven't read enough MG. (Which is true—I teach high school, so to the extent I'm reading children's fiction, it's aimed at that age group.) But it's also, I think, a tragedy for the subset of kids who will become lifelong readers and the smaller subset who'll be writers. Every so often I encounter a book that would have appealed to the type of kid I was—who needed nuance and the affirmation that sometimes things aren't okay and you can sometimes survive that, and who also delighted in finding out the meaning of a new word—but it doesn't happen nearly often enough.

Which is wild too, because the push here is for more diverse books and diverse experiences, and there's definitely a wider diversity of authors, but the Canadian market is largely beholden to the American market, and I suspect publishers may be reticent to push something that's just going to get banned in Florida.

[yhlee]

Yeah. :] I had a conversation on exactly this topic with Hannah P. Bowman (literary agent) when I was agent-shopping in 2020. (I wound up instead with Seth Fishman because he was a better fit for the range of things I write, but I really liked Hannah too, and people speak very highly of her as well). We both agreed that modern MG/YA is often frustrating in exactly this way. Like, I'm thrilled that there are more diverse books in terms of culture and ethnicity and gender and so on, in ways that didn't exist or were hard to find when I was growing up. Books about Asian kids in space basically did not exist when I was young. If books existed about e.g. queer characters, it was about Dealing With Being Queer/Coming Out - which is important, but now you can also find books where characters happen to be queer and it's just accepted while they're having adventures or whatever, which I think is also important. (Full disclosure: I've written for Disney Hyperion's Rick Riordan Presents imprint, which is basically predicated on #ownvoices, and I'm the parent of a biracial kid.)

And to be clear, it's good that there are easier-to-read books for those kids who find reading harder or less compelling (...especially when videogames/TikTok/??? are competing for their attention), but I don't want that to be at the expense of there ALSO being more complex/nuanced/challenging books for young readers who want that, but maybe aren't ready for adult-market books. It's a conundrum. :]

[sabotabby]

For sure. And I know it's out there, because I sometimes stumble on it. It would just be better in general if publishing bottom lines weren't so tight and the industry had more freedom to do a wider variety of stuff rather than jump on a trend bandwagon.

I'd have killed for the diversity that currently exists in kids lit. The fact that so much of it was a boy and his dog type shit or girls having crushes on boys was part of why I noped out of the age category as soon as I could. But the diversity of style and tone isn't where it could be.

[yhlee]

Yep. People complain sometimes about the UBER SUPER BESTSELLERS but honestly...my understanding of the trad pub business model is that, at least in the past, the UBER SUPER BESTSELLERS are what fund the experiments and the midlist in an industry that doesn't have great margins. Unfortunately, publishers are increasingly intolerant of midlist authors, which is another problem; and of course self-pub/indie is not a cure-all. For one thing, it's VERY hard to do anything with MG in indie. And of course part of the issue is that no one has a magic crystal ball as to what new authors will become UBER SUPER BESTSELLERS, or not. I mean, yes, obvs having a big marketing push helps a lot, but it's not a guarantee, so here we are with boy and his dog and girls having crushes on boys because they're relying on lowest common denominator stuff to at least pay the bills.

[springheel_jack]

the fo'c'sle is a tiny space. everyone in there is sleeping with everyone.

[sabotabby]

I'm pretty sure they're all poly. Except for Starbuck, he seems ace, and Ahab, who is married to the concept of vengeance.

[oracne]

I got two-thirds of the way through The Book of the New Sun. I think I might have done better to read it when I was younger and had fewer things clamoring for my attention.

[sabotabby]

I'll probably get through it as it's a ripping read. At least the first two. We'll see.

[greylock]

It's that there's quite a lot of plot and prose and whatever the other thing that Wolfe is doing is not something I'm going to pay much attention to on the first read.

I feel partially vindicated.

Dying Earth is rapidly becoming one of my favourite settings

I felt this. And I got a lot of Dying Earth fiction, then I encountered Wolfe.
For me, it's the age of the world and the quippiness of the text.
But I have no firm options.


Have you ever tried to fuck in a hammock?

Should I?

Tumblr. Simmer down.

Tumblr has no chill.
(I ignore Tumblr, but its trolling of Musk was awesome).

[sabotabby]

I wouldn’t call it quippy. But it’s gorgeous prose, just ultraviolet, and I’m here for it.

I love Tumblr in part because folks there care so much about poor Ismael and his cursed love life.

[greylock]

Tumblr is one of those things I never got.
That for the longest time I thought had died.

[yhlee]

I loved Book of the New Sun and should reread it soon! I'd read some litcrit of it before coming to the book, which was a fun way to do it.

Re: Moby Dick: when my mom bought it for the house when I was in 5th grade, I assumed it was (sorry) turgid boring literature and refused to touch it. LITTLE DID I KNOW. Like I asked Dongwon Song if the book's first couple chapters were really as slashy as they seemed to me or had I been in fandom too long, and they were like, Nope, it really is super queer!

[sabotabby]

I'm coming to it via the DEATH//SENTENCE podcast finally convincing me to read it, since along with Deleuze, they are contractually obligated to mention it a minimum of once per episode. I seem to encounter all Important Books through similar backwards channels. Like reading Moby Dick (which is exactly that gay) for a Tumblr book club.