Reading Wednesday
Jul. 24th, 2024 07:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyJust finished: Another War Is Possible: Militant Anarchist Experiences in the Antiglobalization Era by Tomas Rothaus. This one actually fucked me up (positive). I cut my teeth on anarchist antiglobalization organizing, just like the author (though I was far less militant and far less capable of travel) and it's such a strange, underdocumented movement. For example, did you know that we were right and we kind of won? It felt like winning at the time, and then it felt like such a crushing loss, and now the New York Times agrees that neoliberal globalization was bad, actually.
Rothaus was not only involved but is a very strong, very thoughtful writer, unafraid to share critiques and lessons learned. The level of detail here is visceral. It felt in some ways like a trauma flashback, but in a way that's necessary. One of my critiques of anarchists, then and now, is that we're terrible at learning from our past and our elders (interestingly, he talks about meeting CNT veterans in Spain at the beginning of the book, endearing him and his organization to me immediately). We have been here before. The struggle is different but the struggle is the same. There's a haunting, elegiac quality to this story, two decades later.
I also, I think, trauma-blocked a lot of the violence, which granted was worse in the Global South and Europe than it was here. Call me a shitlib but I was shocked at the death of Carlo Giuliani (I remember trying to make a Baroque-esque painting in his honour at the time), this realization that all of our critiques of the state were in fact not an exaggeration.
Anyway, this was both a troubling and cathartic book for me and I can't recommend it enough. Sucks for you guys that it's not out for 11 more months but do read it when it does come out.
Herald Petrel by Strange Seawolf. This was a bit of a unicorn chaser after Another War Is Possible, I guess, though in many ways coming from the same place politically. It's a critique of corporate bureaucracy and how it crushes workers. You could be forgiven for not noticing because it's a fast-paced space opera with romance, proud warrior species, and tentacled nurses, but at its heart that's what it is.
I have the same kind of critiques of it that I typically have of self-published work—the flip-side of having the freedom to explore character development without being as tied to word count as traditionally published work is that the pacing suffers a little, and also there is one particular plot point that frustrated me (I can explain in comments if people are interested). But overall I thought it was a strong debut with a compelling look at trauma and survival.
Currently reading: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera. I have been looking forward to this since the second I finished Saint Of Bright Doors and Googled the author, and hoo-boy it does not disappoint so far. It's weirder. It's weird in a way that speaks to a level of confidence in storytelling that hacks like me can only dream of.
The plot so far: There are these two kids. They exist in a Show that the audience watches on TV. They live in a jungle, and are warned that they can't go in the jungle because there are demons (and later Communist guerrillas). They go anyway. They also go to school, which consists of no classes but the kids are plunked in front of a 70s TV set where they watch fragments from the lives of other children, who are the audience. The show's audience are ghosts, watching characters watch their lives, and debate the meaning of this. They conclude that the kids are being taught how to live in the real world and one day they will leave the Show and enter reality. The Show is abruptly cancelled in the fourth season with the apparent death of one of the kids, who is then reincarnated in the real Colombo, Sri Lanka. This is only like, the first 50 pages. It's all the weird pomo shit I like in literary fiction, with all the wildness of speculative fiction, and I am here for it.
One day I would like to sit down with the author and ask him how he made his brain work like that.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville. "Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul in no cowards here."
Things continue to go wrong on the ship. Ahab continues to hubris his way through.
Rothaus was not only involved but is a very strong, very thoughtful writer, unafraid to share critiques and lessons learned. The level of detail here is visceral. It felt in some ways like a trauma flashback, but in a way that's necessary. One of my critiques of anarchists, then and now, is that we're terrible at learning from our past and our elders (interestingly, he talks about meeting CNT veterans in Spain at the beginning of the book, endearing him and his organization to me immediately). We have been here before. The struggle is different but the struggle is the same. There's a haunting, elegiac quality to this story, two decades later.
I also, I think, trauma-blocked a lot of the violence, which granted was worse in the Global South and Europe than it was here. Call me a shitlib but I was shocked at the death of Carlo Giuliani (I remember trying to make a Baroque-esque painting in his honour at the time), this realization that all of our critiques of the state were in fact not an exaggeration.
Anyway, this was both a troubling and cathartic book for me and I can't recommend it enough. Sucks for you guys that it's not out for 11 more months but do read it when it does come out.
Herald Petrel by Strange Seawolf. This was a bit of a unicorn chaser after Another War Is Possible, I guess, though in many ways coming from the same place politically. It's a critique of corporate bureaucracy and how it crushes workers. You could be forgiven for not noticing because it's a fast-paced space opera with romance, proud warrior species, and tentacled nurses, but at its heart that's what it is.
I have the same kind of critiques of it that I typically have of self-published work—the flip-side of having the freedom to explore character development without being as tied to word count as traditionally published work is that the pacing suffers a little, and also there is one particular plot point that frustrated me (I can explain in comments if people are interested). But overall I thought it was a strong debut with a compelling look at trauma and survival.
Currently reading: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera. I have been looking forward to this since the second I finished Saint Of Bright Doors and Googled the author, and hoo-boy it does not disappoint so far. It's weirder. It's weird in a way that speaks to a level of confidence in storytelling that hacks like me can only dream of.
The plot so far: There are these two kids. They exist in a Show that the audience watches on TV. They live in a jungle, and are warned that they can't go in the jungle because there are demons (and later Communist guerrillas). They go anyway. They also go to school, which consists of no classes but the kids are plunked in front of a 70s TV set where they watch fragments from the lives of other children, who are the audience. The show's audience are ghosts, watching characters watch their lives, and debate the meaning of this. They conclude that the kids are being taught how to live in the real world and one day they will leave the Show and enter reality. The Show is abruptly cancelled in the fourth season with the apparent death of one of the kids, who is then reincarnated in the real Colombo, Sri Lanka. This is only like, the first 50 pages. It's all the weird pomo shit I like in literary fiction, with all the wildness of speculative fiction, and I am here for it.
One day I would like to sit down with the author and ask him how he made his brain work like that.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville. "Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul in no cowards here."
Things continue to go wrong on the ship. Ahab continues to hubris his way through.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 12:44 pm (UTC)*rolls ST vs Disbelief*
Carlo Giuliani
I have no memory of this at all.
The plot so far: There are these two kids. They exist in a Show that the audience watches on TV. They live in a jungle, and are warned that they can't go in the jungle because there are demons (and later Communist guerrillas). They go anyway. They also go to school, which consists of no classes
This sound both terrible and interesting.... And seems like A LOT for the first 50 pages.
Just on what you say, my brain leapt to I Saw the TV Glow and... The House of Stairs(?) as touchstones.
"Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul in no cowards here."
OH COME ON NOW.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 12:48 pm (UTC)What's happening with NAFTA these days?
Carlo Giuliani
I have no memory of this at all.
Were you involved in anticapitalist movements at the time?
This sound both terrible and interesting.... And seems like A LOT for the first 50 pages.
Just on what you say, my brain leapt to I Saw the TV Glow and... The House of Stairs(?) as touchstones.
I think it's interconnected stories. So it's a complete story.
I haven't seen either of those things—no one's giving me a compelling reason to be interested so far.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 01:03 pm (UTC)If you listen to THEM, it hollowed out the US to create the rust belt, killed jobs and created migrant crime from job-stealing Mexicans.
Without looking, IIRC, Trump got bigly mad and renegotiated CAFTA?
The rest of the world went and did all sorts of terrible bilateral treaties and watever the trans-pacific partnership turned into.
Were you involved in anticapitalist movements at the time?
I was not. But I remember surprising things, and considering that happened just after we avoided London's May Day riots that year, it is the kind of news I might recall.
I haven't seen either of those things—no one's giving me a compelling reason to be interested so far.
William Sleator's House of Stairs was a YA book (from '74 apparently), I'd not heard of it until the post-Cube/Lost era, but it was beloved of Americans my age so I picked up a copy and read it one afternoon. I don't regret it.
Glow is an okay film. I wanted more.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 01:07 pm (UTC)They're 2/3 right there, which is exactly what we said would happen. Increasingly Global North nations are moving towards protectionist policies.
Which. Not for the right reasons. If we'd won won it would be different, obviously. But the global supply chain is completely falling apart and none of these multinational agreements are particularly effective anymore.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 01:20 pm (UTC)No, but they are GREAT PLATFORMS for suing the fuck out if governments for US$ billions for not doing deals.
Off the top of my head I can think of 4-4 Australian companies suing Tanzania, Congo and Cameroon for somewhere around US$40B (in Paris and London IIRC) under trade treaties.
Yes, the governments were probably taking bribes from China, and the claims are certainly ambit, and in many cases multiples of annual GDP... but commerce gotta commerce. That rain forest won't destroy itself.
And don't even get me started on Special Economic Zones.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-25 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-25 01:35 pm (UTC)I can't say why, but I have a vague sense the end was part 'sitcom reset' and part WTF. I should reread it.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 07:12 pm (UTC)AWWWW
I was listening to David Camfield's Victor's Children podcast talk about how the SDP's support of the German government credits in 1914 instead of leading the international workers front against the war (whatever that would have been) was rooted in the SDP's institutionalization as an elected party with a parliamentary bureaucracy and I was like. Oh. *side-eyeing the NDP* We're been here before.
Anyway, that Looks Like An Amazing Book and I think I'll stock some copies for my distro.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 07:53 pm (UTC)T remembers the smoke from the tear gas bombs going up past the tops of the skyscrapers downtown in 2000! I....just remember reading books about United Fruit Inc. Most of which appear to be out of print now :-/
There are these two kids. They exist in a Show that the audience watches on TV. They live in a jungle, and are warned that they can't go in the jungle because there are demons (and later Communist guerrillas). They go anyway. They also go to school, which consists of no classes but the kids are plunked in front of a 70s TV set where they watch fragments from the lives of other children, who are the audience. The show's audience are ghosts
I need this immediately.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 07:54 pm (UTC)You will love Rakesfall. Like Saint, I was like, "oh, this book is for me" by around the page 1 mark.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 09:26 pm (UTC)Yeah that one got me too
damn you
sold
also sold
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 09:29 pm (UTC)