Linda Hogan, Laurence Yep, Shaun Tan
11. Linda Hogan, Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World.
Essays on... I might say natural history, but this is more philosophical than you usually see in natural history works. Also, unlike many natural history works, Hogan does not position humans as non-natural. Perhaps I should say these are essays on the need to fit snugly and peacefully into the world, to overcome the positioning of ourselves as Other.
Her essays speak strongly to me, reflecting my own frustrations and infatuations with science, my own ambivalence about the false dichotomy of observing vs. participating, the cost of knowledge, and the tensions between various ways of positioning yourself in the world.
I took this one backpacking with me, hoping that it would be a good backpacking-book. It was.
But it's just as good a living-at-home-in-the-city book. And maybe more necessary there, perhaps.
12. Laurence Yep, Dragon of the Lost Sea.
Shimmer, an exiled Dragon Princess, reluctantly allies with a human boy named Thorn to restore her family's homeland, and hopefully, eventually, reconcile with her people. The latter plotline isn't resolved in this book -- there are sequels! -- but Shimmer makes substantial progress toward her first objective.
I should add: substantial progress toward what is possible. There's a strong element in here that the past is only a memory and a history: it can never be restored. Time passes, things change, change radiates outward, and while the single big root changes might be reversed, all the myriad attendant little changes cannot be. I'm expecting that this theme is further developed in later books.
The other theme I found interesting is that of Shimmer and Thorn's (very unequal) partnership. I was expecting a resolution akin to Aesop's "The Lion and the Mouse" (even small people are capable of big service), but Shimmer does not judge Thorn's value by his utility: she judges him by his loyalty. Thorn does eventually become useful -- no spoiler there -- but Shimmer grudgingly commits to him long before that, solely on the basis of his loyalty and heart with respect to her. (In fact, one senses that Shimmer would prefer Thorn to not be useful, since that places an obligation of gratitude upon her.)
While I was reading the book, it didn't make a big impression on me -- my fault, in part, for reading it during the I'm-so-tired escapist time slots. But since then it's grown on me a lot, and I'll be checking out the sequels.
13. Shaun Tan, The Red Tree.
This one was filed in the "JE Parenting" section of our library, which I assume is the picture-book equivalent of YA Message Novels. That, or maybe Parental Advisory? I dunno. In any case...
If you want to know what depression feels like -- the hard-core deal, and not the passing thing where you're kinda bummed that your vacation is over and you have to go back to work again -- this is it. (Except depression is a lot less aesthetic than this -- but, hey, artistic license.) Turning the pages was almost eerie, a sense that Tan knew far, far too much about what great swaths of my childhood felt like; he had taken my inner life and smeared it across the page for anyone to see.
Except, you know, making it beautiful.
I was reading it in the library, with occasional passers-by, and each time a shadow moved in my peripheral vision, I wanted to slam the book shut, for fear that they would see what I was looking at and know.
I've got to say, based on the two books of Tan's that I've read, the man is awesome-brilliant. Little details in the spreads kept catching my eye, extra little messages that double-underscored the point of the illustration. The spread of the child looking out the window at clouds and birds and beautiful things, and how isolated s/he feels from them--? That the illustration is composed looking in at the child, with the beautiful things the child is looking at only visible as a reflection... Heart-breaking. I kept touching the page, stroking that picture.
Okay, maybe the very last spread is something of a sell-out, the adult voice interjecting what he wants the child to believe. But, FWIW, I also remember that my very favorite book as a child had a similar final page -- an assertion that sometimes the world is different than this -- and I remember finding it comforting. So.
Essays on... I might say natural history, but this is more philosophical than you usually see in natural history works. Also, unlike many natural history works, Hogan does not position humans as non-natural. Perhaps I should say these are essays on the need to fit snugly and peacefully into the world, to overcome the positioning of ourselves as Other.
Her essays speak strongly to me, reflecting my own frustrations and infatuations with science, my own ambivalence about the false dichotomy of observing vs. participating, the cost of knowledge, and the tensions between various ways of positioning yourself in the world.
I took this one backpacking with me, hoping that it would be a good backpacking-book. It was.
But it's just as good a living-at-home-in-the-city book. And maybe more necessary there, perhaps.
12. Laurence Yep, Dragon of the Lost Sea.
Shimmer, an exiled Dragon Princess, reluctantly allies with a human boy named Thorn to restore her family's homeland, and hopefully, eventually, reconcile with her people. The latter plotline isn't resolved in this book -- there are sequels! -- but Shimmer makes substantial progress toward her first objective.
I should add: substantial progress toward what is possible. There's a strong element in here that the past is only a memory and a history: it can never be restored. Time passes, things change, change radiates outward, and while the single big root changes might be reversed, all the myriad attendant little changes cannot be. I'm expecting that this theme is further developed in later books.
The other theme I found interesting is that of Shimmer and Thorn's (very unequal) partnership. I was expecting a resolution akin to Aesop's "The Lion and the Mouse" (even small people are capable of big service), but Shimmer does not judge Thorn's value by his utility: she judges him by his loyalty. Thorn does eventually become useful -- no spoiler there -- but Shimmer grudgingly commits to him long before that, solely on the basis of his loyalty and heart with respect to her. (In fact, one senses that Shimmer would prefer Thorn to not be useful, since that places an obligation of gratitude upon her.)
While I was reading the book, it didn't make a big impression on me -- my fault, in part, for reading it during the I'm-so-tired escapist time slots. But since then it's grown on me a lot, and I'll be checking out the sequels.
13. Shaun Tan, The Red Tree.
This one was filed in the "JE Parenting" section of our library, which I assume is the picture-book equivalent of YA Message Novels. That, or maybe Parental Advisory? I dunno. In any case...
If you want to know what depression feels like -- the hard-core deal, and not the passing thing where you're kinda bummed that your vacation is over and you have to go back to work again -- this is it. (Except depression is a lot less aesthetic than this -- but, hey, artistic license.) Turning the pages was almost eerie, a sense that Tan knew far, far too much about what great swaths of my childhood felt like; he had taken my inner life and smeared it across the page for anyone to see.
Except, you know, making it beautiful.
I was reading it in the library, with occasional passers-by, and each time a shadow moved in my peripheral vision, I wanted to slam the book shut, for fear that they would see what I was looking at and know.
I've got to say, based on the two books of Tan's that I've read, the man is awesome-brilliant. Little details in the spreads kept catching my eye, extra little messages that double-underscored the point of the illustration. The spread of the child looking out the window at clouds and birds and beautiful things, and how isolated s/he feels from them--? That the illustration is composed looking in at the child, with the beautiful things the child is looking at only visible as a reflection... Heart-breaking. I kept touching the page, stroking that picture.
Okay, maybe the very last spread is something of a sell-out, the adult voice interjecting what he wants the child to believe. But, FWIW, I also remember that my very favorite book as a child had a similar final page -- an assertion that sometimes the world is different than this -- and I remember finding it comforting. So.