Wednesday Reading Reads on a Wednesday
The 57 bus runs through a long stretch of my home town of Oakland, including many very different neighborhoods and class levels. I ride it in two directions on most Sundays to visit some friends. So, naturally, I was interested in The 57 Bus: The True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives, by Dashka Slater.
In 2013, after school, Sasha, a white high school student, living outside of the gender binary, was wearing a gauze skirt and asleep in the back of the bus. A small group of black teenage high-school students were horsing around nearby. One of them, Richard, lit a match, and touched it to Sasha's skirt, which went up in flames. Sasha was seriously burnt, but not killed. Richard was arrested, and charged as an adult.
The story was apparently all over the news in Oakland when it happened, but I have no recollection of it. Dashka Slater has done a remarkable job of bringing both Richard and Sasha, along with their families, their friend groups, and their circumstances to life. Slater's account of their stories makes both teenagers sympathetic and likable, and it would seem that this was not a terribly difficult task, because both of them were (and are) remarkable people. Slater goes far afield to create context--for Sasha's pronouns, for Richard's environment, for the high schools they both went to and the worlds they both lived in. The book sparkles with teenage energy, teenage life.
How did Sasha recover? What happened to Richard? Read the book and find out; I didn't know when I picked it up, and that added to the suspense for me, even though I am generally spoiler-immune.
***
I expect to do a lot of Le Guin re-reading this year, and I started where I would start, with The Left Hand of Darkness.
"I will tell my tale as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that truth is a matter of the imagination."
Thus begins this novel. I've probably read it all the way through at least six or seven times since I first encountered it, a few years after it was published. It remains, to my mind, one of the finest novels ever written.
This re-read was very surprising to me, because I think it is the first time I've read the book when the gender issues weren't the forefront of the story for me. If anyone doesn't know the story, it takes place on a planet where humans were genetically engineered thousands of years in the past to be ungendered three weeks out of each month, and then to go into estrus (kemmer) and assume either a male or female gender for that period. Thus, anyone can become pregnant, anyone can do any job, and people spend most of their lives gender-free.
Of course, this was amazingly groundbreaking when the book was written in the late 1960s and is still startling today. And it will always be a key part of the story. But I've reached the point where I've delved far enough into that aspect of the story to be familiar and unsurprised. So I was able to read the book as centering on the mysticism of the Gethenians, the friendship between the two main characters, and so many other things -- not new aspects, because I read this book carefully when I read it, but newly emphasized.
If you've missed it, you're in for a treat. If you know it well ... re-read it. You're in for a treat.
***
Currently reading; Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
In 2013, after school, Sasha, a white high school student, living outside of the gender binary, was wearing a gauze skirt and asleep in the back of the bus. A small group of black teenage high-school students were horsing around nearby. One of them, Richard, lit a match, and touched it to Sasha's skirt, which went up in flames. Sasha was seriously burnt, but not killed. Richard was arrested, and charged as an adult.
The story was apparently all over the news in Oakland when it happened, but I have no recollection of it. Dashka Slater has done a remarkable job of bringing both Richard and Sasha, along with their families, their friend groups, and their circumstances to life. Slater's account of their stories makes both teenagers sympathetic and likable, and it would seem that this was not a terribly difficult task, because both of them were (and are) remarkable people. Slater goes far afield to create context--for Sasha's pronouns, for Richard's environment, for the high schools they both went to and the worlds they both lived in. The book sparkles with teenage energy, teenage life.
How did Sasha recover? What happened to Richard? Read the book and find out; I didn't know when I picked it up, and that added to the suspense for me, even though I am generally spoiler-immune.
***
I expect to do a lot of Le Guin re-reading this year, and I started where I would start, with The Left Hand of Darkness.
"I will tell my tale as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that truth is a matter of the imagination."
Thus begins this novel. I've probably read it all the way through at least six or seven times since I first encountered it, a few years after it was published. It remains, to my mind, one of the finest novels ever written.
This re-read was very surprising to me, because I think it is the first time I've read the book when the gender issues weren't the forefront of the story for me. If anyone doesn't know the story, it takes place on a planet where humans were genetically engineered thousands of years in the past to be ungendered three weeks out of each month, and then to go into estrus (kemmer) and assume either a male or female gender for that period. Thus, anyone can become pregnant, anyone can do any job, and people spend most of their lives gender-free.
Of course, this was amazingly groundbreaking when the book was written in the late 1960s and is still startling today. And it will always be a key part of the story. But I've reached the point where I've delved far enough into that aspect of the story to be familiar and unsurprised. So I was able to read the book as centering on the mysticism of the Gethenians, the friendship between the two main characters, and so many other things -- not new aspects, because I read this book carefully when I read it, but newly emphasized.
If you've missed it, you're in for a treat. If you know it well ... re-read it. You're in for a treat.
***
Currently reading; Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey