Reading Wednesday 24/6

[liv]

Recently er past several months read:

• A guide for the perplexed, by Dara Horn, Pub 2014 WW Norton & Co, ISBN 978-0393348880
  
• The long way to a small angry planet, by Becky Chambers, (c) Becky Chambers 2014, Pub 2015 Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-1-473-61981-4
  
• Twilight Robbery, by Frances Hardinge, Pub 2018 Macmillan Children's Books, ISBN 978-1509842346

So we've actually been studying the real Guide for the Perplexed in class this semester, and I'm a fan of Dara Horn's non-fiction. This novel is really quite unbelievably niche, though. It's modern midrash based on the relationship of Joseph and Judah in Genesis. And I have to wonder how much Horn expected her audience to even be aware that Joseph and Judah had a relationship worth discussing (beyond both being sons of the same father, Jacob). However, I imagine many people who are not massive Bible geeks would appreciate the exploration of sets of difficult sibling relationships, even if they didn't know about the Biblical narrative which shadows the whole thing. It's one of those books that makes the reader feel clever when they get the allusions, but it's an unusual experience for me to be so squarely in the target audience.

The main characters Josie and Judith (get it?) recapitulate the Biblical story, even down to Josie being kidnapped and imprisoned in Egypt. But it's a retelling of the Genesis narrative ruthlessly focused on the siblings, without any of the larger historical and mythological picture. But the two sisters, the younger golden child Josie and the older, less favoured Judith are mirrored by several other sibling pairs. Maimonides and his beloved brother David. The twins Agnes and Margaret who were instrumental in the discovery of the Cairo Geniza. Two fictional Egyptian sisters, one modern and secular, one trapped in a marriage to a fundamentalist. There is even a brother for Solomon Schechter though I don't know if he is a historical figure or invented, one who chooses the path of secular Zionism rather than diaspora academia and committed Conservative Judaism.

There's another intertwined narrative, the historical Cairo Geniza intertwined with Josie's fictional "geniza" software, which uses ambient microphones and cameras to record everything about subscribers' lives and give them an electronic simulacrum of perfect memory. This was a kind of cute science fictional idea in 2014, but it reads very strangely now in the age of so-called AI and mass surveillance. Though the book is certainly concerned about the problems with such imaginary software.

A guide for the perplexed is an absolutely gripping book, though I found the 'history repeats itself' ending a bit too pat and also very depressing. Although I might be the right audience for all the nerdy Jewish references, I'm probably not the right audience for a book about how much misery is caused by sibling rivalry. It has about as much violence as its Biblical canon, some of it fairly graphic, but it carefully and consciously removes the sexual violence. Also very vivid descriptions of asthma attacks which I personally found quite hard to read.

Lots of my friendship circle rave about The long way to a small angry planet and I can see why. I can also see how this was the break-out self-published book; it's Firefly fanfiction, pure and simple. Very good Firefly fic, and I don't exclude myself from the target audience of people who really loved the found family space opera adventures of Firefly, but wish it was just a bit less sympathetic to the US Confederacy.

TLWtaSAP starts out quite slow in a way, lots of just Rosemary encountering the crew and getting to know them and adapt to their culture and that of the planets they visit. The aliens are properly alien, and there's lots of really delightful characterization. As with the original, there's a background of war and genocide and generally horrible things, but our characters are very much on the right side of history and indeed most of the sympathetic people are pacifists, or at least fighting in desperate self-defence against more obviously evil forces. The pace picks up in the last third and there is some real heart-in-mouth peril. The characters turn out not to have protagonist immunity to danger, which came as a bit of a shock when so much of the book is just sweet and cozy.

There are a few things that felt not quite thought through. There's a whole thing where calling reptile-like aliens 'lizard' is set up as being equivalent to a racial slur, but in fact the reaction to in-world racism is far too mild for the build-up. I mean, it's not unrealistic that the nice racial majority (not technically white in-world, but still) human male captain would shrug and ask for no more than an apology when his white male human crew member is repeatedly racist towards another crew member. But given how much the narrative is sympathetic to said captain, it felt a bit off. In general I felt that the book's handling of Corbin was its weakest aspect; his bad childhood becomes an excuse for his unpleasant behaviour, and although he has horrible experiences they are nothing to do with his treatment of other characters. So it felt like neither a story of him getting his come-uppance, nor a story of redemption, just a weird muddle between tropes.

There are also two character arcs with a big pile of angst about whether rewriting someone's entire personality to keep them physically intact counts as murder, but the moral question is never really resolved and it feels like the sympathetic characters just shrug and go ahead anyway. If I'd read this as fanfic I would have probably been blown away by it, but reading it as an award-winning and much hyped novel I had somewhat higher expectations. I am looking forward to reading all the other stuff that Chambers has written on the back of the success of this one.

I read Twilight Robbery slightly by accident, because I failed to realize that a) I had already given it to my partner on a previous gift-giving occasion and b) it's actually the sequel to Fly-by-Night which I haven't read. I think partly because it's marketed as YA it is pretty stand-alone, there are plenty of clues as to what happened in the previous half of the pair so it's no problem to read without knowing the first book. The description sounded like Miéville's The City and the City where the two populations of the same location deliberately choose not to see each other. If anything it's even more sinister than the Miéville version, and that's saying something!

Hardinge is an amazingly good writer and definitely doesn't talk down to her presumed teenage audience. It is possible this has a little more explanation of the world-building than an adult novel would, but I never felt impatient with it. The world-building is really original and full of all kinds of baroque details which I thoroughly appreciated. I really loved the ways that the conceits (the two parallel cities, as well as a world where it's impossible to lie about your name) are explored. The characters are a bit stock, perhaps; in some ways this feels like it's a descendant of Oliver Twist with the loveable but desperate orphan and his charming and thoroughly crooked rogue protector. But every minor character felt really vivid.

If anything the main flaw in this book is that there is just too much peril. Mosca keeps just barely escaping from terrible situations only to find herself in an even worse situation. Rather than being exciting, it started to feel a bit structurally samey, although all the perils are distinct from each other. It comes careering to an all's well that end's well ending, via a thoroughly enjoyable ride.

Via cosmolinguist, I thoroughly recommend An interactive introduction to the terrific experience of rendering Arabic typography and its technical debt by Khaled Hosny, who at 23 1/2 is a terrifyingly brilliant writer. Even if you think you are not interested in Arabic typography, it is 8000 words of the most stunning prose I've seen in a long time.

Comments

[davidgillon]

Even if you think you are not interested in Arabic typography, it is 8000 words of the most stunning prose I've seen in a long time.

It kept me reading for all the unexpected complexities of laying out text on a page that browsers are working through. But I'm precisely the right type of word/code nerd for that to shine through.

[liv]

I'm fascinated by the moveable type section and the historic section as well as the how does it work with actual browsers section! Partly cos Hebrew has many of the same issues. I mean it doesn't have ligatures at all, but it was historically justified by stretching the letters themselves not the spaces. And I have very often run into the bug with the cursor jumping around in mixed direction text, so I was particularly excited to get some insight into how that works.

[davidgillon]

The letter-stretching did have me saying "Oh, so that's why Arabic looks like that!"

[meepettemu]

I love chambers’ stuff. ‘A psalm for the wild-built’ is lovely.

[liv]

I do think I'll read some more. It's one of those settings where I'd love to spend more time, even though some of the background is a bit grim.

[adrian_turtle]

I really liked Long Way to a Small Angry Planet as well. Despite how badly it mishandled the ethical problem at the end. (I am so forgiving about it because it is such a small side note.) I include a content warning when I recommend it; not because they might be committing murder, but because coercive medical treatment is, all by itself, a live controversy that makes some autistic people flinch really hard.

I'm glad to hear such good things about Guide to the Perplexed. I read her Eternal Life a few months ago, and was disappointed.

[liv]

Yeah. I didn't like the bit where it's all, well, a sympathetic character said healing the Sinaat Pair was ok, so it can't really be a problem. I think you're right that it looks like coercive treatment, particularly because by narrative fiat the Pair can't meaningfully withhold consent and that could go to extremely unpleasant places.

You seem like someone who would appreciate the Dara Horn, but it does have some quite dark stuff in it. Bullying, medical neglect of dangerously sick children, very graphically described (but carefully not sexual) torture, and a deeply weird infidelity arc.

[seekingferret]

A Closed and Common Orbit wrestles substantially with some but not all of the sticky ethical things from the end of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. But also I think in general Chambers likes to leave sticky ethical questions without neat resolutions.

[liv]

That makes sense! My impression was that there was some unresolved ethical stuff, like the pacifism debate, and the Popper paradox about whether the tolerant and constitutionally non-racist galactic federation should include aliens who are racially prone to violent xenophobia. But there were some other ethical problems that for me were not so much unresolved as resolved too neatly, in the sense of, this character is a Good Person so the dodgy looking choice that they make must therefore be ethically good. I may well try A closed and common orbit, I'm looking forward to more time in this 'verse.

[kass]

I liked TLWtaSAP a lot, and it is the reason why I have subsequently read all the rest of her books. My absolute favorite is Record of a Spaceborn Few, which is centered on the Exodan fleet and has a whole bunch of cool invented-religion stuff in it. :D

[liv]

I am extremely unsurprised! Well written Firefly with considerably less sexism and racism seems like very much your kind of thing. Invented religion sounds fun, I'm looking forward to getting to that eventually.

[jjhunter]

I really enjoyed that fantastic typography article!

Have another neat typography history rec in return: Typefounders Of East London

[liv]

So glad to hear it! I keep virtually grabbing people's sleeves and telling them, you must read this! Thank you for the typography article, I've just come back from a tour of that part of London so it seems very timely.