(no subject)
Post-op update +Preliminary Stoker ballot +Twisted Ladder review
I had my post-op checkup on Monday and everything is healing fine, although there is still a bit of achiness and some slight bleeding. I made an appt. to get my new pair of prosthetic eyes made in mid-March, after LJ user alexx_kay gets back from GDC. A. did a bunch of online research so he is armed with all srts of pictures and descriptions of the Delirium eyes that I want, so we will find out if my ocularist is going to stop being such a mundane about this.
Mostly I have just been reading and sleeping--Elizabeth Kostova's _The Historian_ (2005) was my favorite book to nap to, hundreds of pages in which nothing happens, and considering it is about Dracula and evil books, that is quite an accomplishment.
Ellen Datlow has posted
the 2009 PRELIMINARY STOKER BALLOT
http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/245990.html
but I have only read two of the books on it: _The Writer's Workshop of Horror_, which I highly recommend, and _Twisted Ladder_, by Rhodi Hawk, about which I feel really conflicted. I'm including my review below the cut, and if anyone is interested in having my print copy, I can bring it along to Boskone. I'm also culling the fantasy section of my print library and, if I remember correctly, will bring the results to Boskone and add them to the free books table. I'll post a list of what I am bringing next week, in case anyone wants dibs.
Kestrell's review of Twisted Ladder by Rhodi Hawk (2009) [scanned myself]
It's rare that I feel this conflicted about a book but, while there is plenty to recommend this novel, it also has some serious shortcomings, which probably would not stand out so much if the overall quality of the writing wasn't so well done.
What I liked:
Rhodi Hawk does an outstanding job at portraying the richness and diversity of New Orleans and Creole culture, and includes an impressive amount of detail on everything from the food to the various and varied forms of architecture.
The novel has a great premise:
a psychologist who studies and treats schizophrenia, including her own father, finds out that her family has a history of such illness, but also begins to uncover hints at another explanation. The pairing of the medical diagnosis and the idea of "bad blood" is intriguing in the ways they provide complementary perspectives on attitudes and treatments.
The dual storyline of Madeline and her family's life in the early 20th century is done extremely well, although sometimes the dual storylines seem to drag, and I htink this book could have been about fifty pages shorter, instead of the 530+ pages it actually was.
What I disliked:
Madeleine, the protagonist and a trained psychologist, with a long history of treating schizophrenia and a personal history of living with it due to her father, often does things completely at odds with being a professional doctor. She works with mentally ill patients, has lived with her father all of her life, but never seems to have learned any means of physically defending herself against them, instead allowing orderlies to protect her if they are around, and getting beat to a bloody pulp if they are not. She doesn't report her father after he beats her up and goes missing, but just prays he won't hurt anyone else.
Additionally, although the blurbs for the novel give the impression that Madeleine knows a lot about schizophrenia, the reader is never really given much evidence of this fact, other than a few often-repeated facts like the drugs used to treat schizophrenia make patients feel woozy and nauseus. The word "neuroplasticity" is used a lot, and the discussions between Madeleine and a neurologist friend seem very superficial in contrast to how much real professionals would know and have to say on the subject. On a related note, Madeleine's shock when she realizes that she might have a genetic inheritance of schizophrenia is difficult to believe, as she would be certain to understand the nature of family histories of mental illness.
Much of Madeleine's conflicts are personified in the two men who are pursuing her. The fact that both of them will use violence against her at some point and that she will do nothing about either again really bothers me. Madeleine is very passive about men using violence against her, and it seems hard to believe in my mind that she is supposed to be so tough but always has excuses for why men are violent toward her, and never gets markedly angry about it. Or learns to defend herself. But that's okay, because the one female in the story who supposedly does learn about self-defense is also completely helpless in the face of male violence (yes, that was sarcasm).
The differences between the two men is also marked by their ethnicity and class background: the good guy is white, highly educated, from a rich New Orleans family, white the bad guy is Cajun and basically portrayed as poor white trash. I kept expecting there to be a twist ending where this dichotomy would turn out to be about not being fooled by superficial appearances, but it never happened.
Lastly, while the book provides a resolution of sorts, a lot of threads are left hanging, and it is obvious in the last few paragraphs that there is a sequel which will continue the story, despite no mention on the cover or the first pages about this novel being part of a series.
If you really love books set in New Orleans, you may want to try this one, but if your feminist/diversity awareness is squicked by any of the details I have revealed, you would probably be happier skipping this novel.
I had my post-op checkup on Monday and everything is healing fine, although there is still a bit of achiness and some slight bleeding. I made an appt. to get my new pair of prosthetic eyes made in mid-March, after LJ user alexx_kay gets back from GDC. A. did a bunch of online research so he is armed with all srts of pictures and descriptions of the Delirium eyes that I want, so we will find out if my ocularist is going to stop being such a mundane about this.
Mostly I have just been reading and sleeping--Elizabeth Kostova's _The Historian_ (2005) was my favorite book to nap to, hundreds of pages in which nothing happens, and considering it is about Dracula and evil books, that is quite an accomplishment.
Ellen Datlow has posted
the 2009 PRELIMINARY STOKER BALLOT
http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/245990.html
but I have only read two of the books on it: _The Writer's Workshop of Horror_, which I highly recommend, and _Twisted Ladder_, by Rhodi Hawk, about which I feel really conflicted. I'm including my review below the cut, and if anyone is interested in having my print copy, I can bring it along to Boskone. I'm also culling the fantasy section of my print library and, if I remember correctly, will bring the results to Boskone and add them to the free books table. I'll post a list of what I am bringing next week, in case anyone wants dibs.
Kestrell's review of Twisted Ladder by Rhodi Hawk (2009) [scanned myself]
It's rare that I feel this conflicted about a book but, while there is plenty to recommend this novel, it also has some serious shortcomings, which probably would not stand out so much if the overall quality of the writing wasn't so well done.
What I liked:
Rhodi Hawk does an outstanding job at portraying the richness and diversity of New Orleans and Creole culture, and includes an impressive amount of detail on everything from the food to the various and varied forms of architecture.
The novel has a great premise:
a psychologist who studies and treats schizophrenia, including her own father, finds out that her family has a history of such illness, but also begins to uncover hints at another explanation. The pairing of the medical diagnosis and the idea of "bad blood" is intriguing in the ways they provide complementary perspectives on attitudes and treatments.
The dual storyline of Madeline and her family's life in the early 20th century is done extremely well, although sometimes the dual storylines seem to drag, and I htink this book could have been about fifty pages shorter, instead of the 530+ pages it actually was.
What I disliked:
Madeleine, the protagonist and a trained psychologist, with a long history of treating schizophrenia and a personal history of living with it due to her father, often does things completely at odds with being a professional doctor. She works with mentally ill patients, has lived with her father all of her life, but never seems to have learned any means of physically defending herself against them, instead allowing orderlies to protect her if they are around, and getting beat to a bloody pulp if they are not. She doesn't report her father after he beats her up and goes missing, but just prays he won't hurt anyone else.
Additionally, although the blurbs for the novel give the impression that Madeleine knows a lot about schizophrenia, the reader is never really given much evidence of this fact, other than a few often-repeated facts like the drugs used to treat schizophrenia make patients feel woozy and nauseus. The word "neuroplasticity" is used a lot, and the discussions between Madeleine and a neurologist friend seem very superficial in contrast to how much real professionals would know and have to say on the subject. On a related note, Madeleine's shock when she realizes that she might have a genetic inheritance of schizophrenia is difficult to believe, as she would be certain to understand the nature of family histories of mental illness.
Much of Madeleine's conflicts are personified in the two men who are pursuing her. The fact that both of them will use violence against her at some point and that she will do nothing about either again really bothers me. Madeleine is very passive about men using violence against her, and it seems hard to believe in my mind that she is supposed to be so tough but always has excuses for why men are violent toward her, and never gets markedly angry about it. Or learns to defend herself. But that's okay, because the one female in the story who supposedly does learn about self-defense is also completely helpless in the face of male violence (yes, that was sarcasm).
The differences between the two men is also marked by their ethnicity and class background: the good guy is white, highly educated, from a rich New Orleans family, white the bad guy is Cajun and basically portrayed as poor white trash. I kept expecting there to be a twist ending where this dichotomy would turn out to be about not being fooled by superficial appearances, but it never happened.
Lastly, while the book provides a resolution of sorts, a lot of threads are left hanging, and it is obvious in the last few paragraphs that there is a sequel which will continue the story, despite no mention on the cover or the first pages about this novel being part of a series.
If you really love books set in New Orleans, you may want to try this one, but if your feminist/diversity awareness is squicked by any of the details I have revealed, you would probably be happier skipping this novel.