Books
I'm embarrassed to admit I've totally retreated into books since Xmas:
Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett - This book about arctic exploration really got to me. While I highly doubt the penetration of Thoreau's work at the time would have allowed a naturalist to carry Walden with them to the arctic, his observation on 'moral exploration' really hit home:
Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clarke and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes -- with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary, and pile the empty cans sky high for a sign.... What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthumus or inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold, storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with 500 men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific of one's being alone.
(Can anyone else hear the echoes of the King James Bible in that? I'm always finding it in 19C American literature, which is probably why if feels so comfortable to me.)
Barrett's book deals with a fictional voyage that is sent to discover what happened Franklin. But it is only once the company is out on the ice past the season that the crew realizes that the Commander of the journey is not really interested in what happened to Franklin, he's voyaging to try to make his own discoveries, for his own glory, without regard to the safety or well-being of the rest of the men.
Barrett's theme is that in the history of exploration and exploitation, what's missing is the moral, humanist, element. The book begs the question of whether or not we've done the necessary inner-exploration to discover new worlds without destroying them or ourselves.
I've written extensively about it offline, I should probably set up a seperate entry for this book. It really got me going.
Robin Hobbs - I've also read an unhealthy amount of Robin Hobbs in the last month. I enjoyed her Liveship Traders series, despite it's gratuitousness, it was original. I picked up the Tawny Man series having been warned that her Royal Assassin series was really painful. Tawny Man is a sequel to Royal Assassin. It's pretty good at filling in what happened in the previous series, and it sounds incredibly traumatizing. It wasn't as painful, though as with her other series, book two seemed like a place holder between the first and last.
Tawny Man is about the further adventures of FitzChivalry Farsser and the Fool. Apparently saddled with saving the world, the adventure follows the betrothal of a prince to a princess from a Viking-like culture who demands the head of a dragon as a pre-condition to their marriage. Everything comes out all right in the end, though there is a fair amount of suffering in the last book. I want to say that one could probably skip/skim the second book without missing much, but I read s/f differently than most readers. (World building not being my primary interest.) It had a sense of finality to it, I'm guessing that Hobbs will not be returning to those characters or that world any time soon.
In the meantime, frostmorn sent me a copy of Shaman's Crossing, which I think I've enjoyed more than any of her other books, probably because its set in a Western landscape. There's native peoples (though thankfully she recognizes different tribal groups even within a 'people' and even different peoples,) and a very strong shamanic 'dream world' element, about which I'm not sure I have an opinion. The book is the first in her Soldier Son series. Book II is out, (in which the character will get fat due to a magical virus, and no doubt suffer a great deal so that he can fulfill the adventure in book III.) but I'm waiting for Book III before I read anymore.
Spinning Straw into Gold by Joan Gould - Psychology and personal transformation via feminine interpretations of fairytales. Her treatment of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty are unique and insightful. I especially like her thesis on the necessary and healing power of sleep, which have really redeemed the sleeping princess stories.
She also had a bit about Cinderella that I liked. Why, one might ask, having magical aid at hand doesn't Cinderella make her transformation earlier? Gould suggests that having learned lifeskills, Cinderella is free to make her decision on her own terms. She knows what she can live without. She can work for a living if she needs to. She can survive without male protection. She can make a choice her sisters cannot: she can marry on her own time, in her own terms, and for love. (Of course, I'd like that!) She also specifies that Cinderella isn't so much a rags-to-riches story, as a riches-rags-riches story. Cinderella isn't elevated, she claims her rightful place.
Gould's discussion on tale varients is useful, specifying that tale varients (including damnable Disney) make a big difference in the different messages of the tales. But I'm irritated that she chose to split the book into the approximate biologicaly chronology of Maiden, Matron, Crone. Life is not so clear cut in our society, (and I suspect it never was in any other) especially for someone like moi who is certainly too experienced to qualify as a 'Maiden,' but lacking the requisite responsibilities to be a 'Mother/Matron' and whose lifestyle seems unnecessarily Crone-ish for someone who still has fertile parts.
In fact, the book got kind of vague and confusing after the Sleeping Beauty section. Her treatment of Beauty & the Beast was particularly odd, though thankfully not the usual knee-jerk 'abusive monster' assumption.
I met this woman at a book signing several years ago and was surprised to find her so isolated from the rest of scholars and scholarship on the subject. (She'd never even heard of 'Sur La Lune,' and quotes a little too much Bettelheim for my preference.) Nevertheless, I found the first portion of the book interesting and valuable. Not as soulful as Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run With Wolves, but still an interesting read.
Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett - This book about arctic exploration really got to me. While I highly doubt the penetration of Thoreau's work at the time would have allowed a naturalist to carry Walden with them to the arctic, his observation on 'moral exploration' really hit home:
Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clarke and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes -- with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary, and pile the empty cans sky high for a sign.... What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthumus or inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold, storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with 500 men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific of one's being alone.
(Can anyone else hear the echoes of the King James Bible in that? I'm always finding it in 19C American literature, which is probably why if feels so comfortable to me.)
Barrett's book deals with a fictional voyage that is sent to discover what happened Franklin. But it is only once the company is out on the ice past the season that the crew realizes that the Commander of the journey is not really interested in what happened to Franklin, he's voyaging to try to make his own discoveries, for his own glory, without regard to the safety or well-being of the rest of the men.
Barrett's theme is that in the history of exploration and exploitation, what's missing is the moral, humanist, element. The book begs the question of whether or not we've done the necessary inner-exploration to discover new worlds without destroying them or ourselves.
I've written extensively about it offline, I should probably set up a seperate entry for this book. It really got me going.
Robin Hobbs - I've also read an unhealthy amount of Robin Hobbs in the last month. I enjoyed her Liveship Traders series, despite it's gratuitousness, it was original. I picked up the Tawny Man series having been warned that her Royal Assassin series was really painful. Tawny Man is a sequel to Royal Assassin. It's pretty good at filling in what happened in the previous series, and it sounds incredibly traumatizing. It wasn't as painful, though as with her other series, book two seemed like a place holder between the first and last.
Tawny Man is about the further adventures of FitzChivalry Farsser and the Fool. Apparently saddled with saving the world, the adventure follows the betrothal of a prince to a princess from a Viking-like culture who demands the head of a dragon as a pre-condition to their marriage. Everything comes out all right in the end, though there is a fair amount of suffering in the last book. I want to say that one could probably skip/skim the second book without missing much, but I read s/f differently than most readers. (World building not being my primary interest.) It had a sense of finality to it, I'm guessing that Hobbs will not be returning to those characters or that world any time soon.
In the meantime, frostmorn sent me a copy of Shaman's Crossing, which I think I've enjoyed more than any of her other books, probably because its set in a Western landscape. There's native peoples (though thankfully she recognizes different tribal groups even within a 'people' and even different peoples,) and a very strong shamanic 'dream world' element, about which I'm not sure I have an opinion. The book is the first in her Soldier Son series. Book II is out, (in which the character will get fat due to a magical virus, and no doubt suffer a great deal so that he can fulfill the adventure in book III.) but I'm waiting for Book III before I read anymore.
Spinning Straw into Gold by Joan Gould - Psychology and personal transformation via feminine interpretations of fairytales. Her treatment of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty are unique and insightful. I especially like her thesis on the necessary and healing power of sleep, which have really redeemed the sleeping princess stories.
She also had a bit about Cinderella that I liked. Why, one might ask, having magical aid at hand doesn't Cinderella make her transformation earlier? Gould suggests that having learned lifeskills, Cinderella is free to make her decision on her own terms. She knows what she can live without. She can work for a living if she needs to. She can survive without male protection. She can make a choice her sisters cannot: she can marry on her own time, in her own terms, and for love. (Of course, I'd like that!) She also specifies that Cinderella isn't so much a rags-to-riches story, as a riches-rags-riches story. Cinderella isn't elevated, she claims her rightful place.
Gould's discussion on tale varients is useful, specifying that tale varients (including damnable Disney) make a big difference in the different messages of the tales. But I'm irritated that she chose to split the book into the approximate biologicaly chronology of Maiden, Matron, Crone. Life is not so clear cut in our society, (and I suspect it never was in any other) especially for someone like moi who is certainly too experienced to qualify as a 'Maiden,' but lacking the requisite responsibilities to be a 'Mother/Matron' and whose lifestyle seems unnecessarily Crone-ish for someone who still has fertile parts.
In fact, the book got kind of vague and confusing after the Sleeping Beauty section. Her treatment of Beauty & the Beast was particularly odd, though thankfully not the usual knee-jerk 'abusive monster' assumption.
I met this woman at a book signing several years ago and was surprised to find her so isolated from the rest of scholars and scholarship on the subject. (She'd never even heard of 'Sur La Lune,' and quotes a little too much Bettelheim for my preference.) Nevertheless, I found the first portion of the book interesting and valuable. Not as soulful as Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run With Wolves, but still an interesting read.