Books (2008: #1-#2)
Remember my determination to read 50 books in 2008? I've read 4, and am in the middle of 4 more. Here's the review for the first two.
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Title: Herland
Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Categories: fiction, feminism, sci-fi
Herland is the story of three intrepid explorers who end up finding a society entirely made up of women. Shock! Horror! Etc. This was never going to be a story about exploration but is instead a recounting of a mythical utopia loved by two of the explorers - and hated by the third. It's the third who is the ultimate reason for them being expelled from Herland, but that's not really that relevant to the story.
Herland is utopic, no doubt about it. The society of women is peaceful, pragmatic, and centred entirely around motherhood. Romantic love does not exist there (and they are all sisters or cousins anyway), and the three male explorers do their damnest to try to introduce it. In between the descriptions of perfect motherhood and social bliss come withering criticisms of the late 19th and early 20th century treatment of women.
Despite all this, Herland isn't nearly as preachy as I've ended up making it sound. The narrator is witty and dry, and one of his uncouth friends is so boorish and so typically 19th/20th century that it's the mental equivalent of sticking a gladiator in a Victorian tea-party: complete and utter chaos. It reads more like a romp than a true utopic vision, which is an odd thing to say, but maybe it's the lack of romantic love that convinced me that Herland sounds like a fun place to be a girl and have adventures.
There are some dark moments, though. As the men discover, a society with no sex isn't that keen on having the idea introduced - especially not in the violent manner that the men choose. The flutter of panic I felt at discovering that one of the Herland women is going to travel back to the 'real world' with our banished protagonists was profound. For all her education and strength, she - and the rest of the Herland women - seem curiously innocent and naive. I'm led to think that this is because of the aforementioned lack of sex, which in Herland is a weapon merely waiting to wielded.
Overall: a witty, biting commentary on sexual relations during the turn of the century and just after that manages to be interesting and bloody scary at times.
*
Title: Woman, Child for Sale
Author: Gilbert King
Categories: non-fiction, modern slavery, politics, gender
Woman, Child for Sale tries to be a hard-hitting report on the state of the modern-day slave trade, and efforts to halt it. Or maybe it doesn't, at least not very hard, because it fails dismally. It reads instead like the script for a glossy coffee-table book whose subject matter was too shocking to warrant releasing with accompanying photographs.
King covers the history of the slave trade in one 'chapter' that read more like the literature review of a sub-standard undergraduate dissertation. For instance, did you know that the Egyptians had slaves? Thanks, I got more out of Firefly on the topic. More information is paid to the rise of the slave trade in America (although I continue to be sceptical as to what the study of historical slavery will add to the haltings of the modern-day slave trade - your mileage may vary), but this is covered in an unwieldy timeline that spans several double pages. Maybe it would look better with a few photographs to illustrate it? I ended up thinking, and skipping half of it.
After covering the history of slavery, King spends most of the book listing various cases of girls duped into being smuggled, and then abused. He also lists several cases of people being prosecuted for trafficking. He then lists various countries and outlines, in a paragraph for each, what each country's current status is with regards to efforts to stop trafficking.
All of this and more I could have found out from The UN website (and, in fact, go check it out, it has heaps of information). King's conclusion, inexplicably, focuses on the US efforts, despite offering no other information on US-wide initiatives. (Clearly singling out a couple of cases is enough information for us mere mortals; we need no sticking laws or statistics!) Worse still, the entire mess is boring. With each girl's suffering reduced to a descriptive paragraph and no other distinguishing details, they are reduced to nameless victims who are interchangeable in the reader's minds. By attempting to highlight how these victims fall through the cracks of itnernational law, King demonstrates the problem by doing the exact same thing.
Don't bother with this book; go read the UN website and donate the money to a worthy cause instead.
*
*
Title: Herland
Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Categories: fiction, feminism, sci-fi
Herland is the story of three intrepid explorers who end up finding a society entirely made up of women. Shock! Horror! Etc. This was never going to be a story about exploration but is instead a recounting of a mythical utopia loved by two of the explorers - and hated by the third. It's the third who is the ultimate reason for them being expelled from Herland, but that's not really that relevant to the story.
Herland is utopic, no doubt about it. The society of women is peaceful, pragmatic, and centred entirely around motherhood. Romantic love does not exist there (and they are all sisters or cousins anyway), and the three male explorers do their damnest to try to introduce it. In between the descriptions of perfect motherhood and social bliss come withering criticisms of the late 19th and early 20th century treatment of women.
Despite all this, Herland isn't nearly as preachy as I've ended up making it sound. The narrator is witty and dry, and one of his uncouth friends is so boorish and so typically 19th/20th century that it's the mental equivalent of sticking a gladiator in a Victorian tea-party: complete and utter chaos. It reads more like a romp than a true utopic vision, which is an odd thing to say, but maybe it's the lack of romantic love that convinced me that Herland sounds like a fun place to be a girl and have adventures.
There are some dark moments, though. As the men discover, a society with no sex isn't that keen on having the idea introduced - especially not in the violent manner that the men choose. The flutter of panic I felt at discovering that one of the Herland women is going to travel back to the 'real world' with our banished protagonists was profound. For all her education and strength, she - and the rest of the Herland women - seem curiously innocent and naive. I'm led to think that this is because of the aforementioned lack of sex, which in Herland is a weapon merely waiting to wielded.
Overall: a witty, biting commentary on sexual relations during the turn of the century and just after that manages to be interesting and bloody scary at times.
*
Title: Woman, Child for Sale
Author: Gilbert King
Categories: non-fiction, modern slavery, politics, gender
Woman, Child for Sale tries to be a hard-hitting report on the state of the modern-day slave trade, and efforts to halt it. Or maybe it doesn't, at least not very hard, because it fails dismally. It reads instead like the script for a glossy coffee-table book whose subject matter was too shocking to warrant releasing with accompanying photographs.
King covers the history of the slave trade in one 'chapter' that read more like the literature review of a sub-standard undergraduate dissertation. For instance, did you know that the Egyptians had slaves? Thanks, I got more out of Firefly on the topic. More information is paid to the rise of the slave trade in America (although I continue to be sceptical as to what the study of historical slavery will add to the haltings of the modern-day slave trade - your mileage may vary), but this is covered in an unwieldy timeline that spans several double pages. Maybe it would look better with a few photographs to illustrate it? I ended up thinking, and skipping half of it.
After covering the history of slavery, King spends most of the book listing various cases of girls duped into being smuggled, and then abused. He also lists several cases of people being prosecuted for trafficking. He then lists various countries and outlines, in a paragraph for each, what each country's current status is with regards to efforts to stop trafficking.
All of this and more I could have found out from The UN website (and, in fact, go check it out, it has heaps of information). King's conclusion, inexplicably, focuses on the US efforts, despite offering no other information on US-wide initiatives. (Clearly singling out a couple of cases is enough information for us mere mortals; we need no sticking laws or statistics!) Worse still, the entire mess is boring. With each girl's suffering reduced to a descriptive paragraph and no other distinguishing details, they are reduced to nameless victims who are interchangeable in the reader's minds. By attempting to highlight how these victims fall through the cracks of itnernational law, King demonstrates the problem by doing the exact same thing.
Don't bother with this book; go read the UN website and donate the money to a worthy cause instead.
*