Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.9
Most of the books that have arrived at my doorstep in the last couple weeks have been for an independent study I am taking over the summer on Caribbean literature. A good portion are science fiction, but some aren’t, and the books below are in the latter category. Should be a very interesting summer for me. Here’s the image (after the fold):And here are the descriptions, from left to right, top to bottom (taken from Amazon.com): 1. The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat We meet him late in life: a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him, and learn that he has also kept a vital, dangerous secret. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”–or torturer–s an unforgettable story of love, remorse, and hope; of personal and political rebellions; and of the compromises we make to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. It firmly establishes her as one of America’s most essential writers. 2. Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell Twelve-year-old Beka Lamb lives in Belize City, “a relatively tolerant town” where people with their roots in Africa, the West Indies, Central America, Europe, North America, Asia, and other places, “lived in a kind of harmony. In three centuries, miscegenation, like logwood, had produced all shades of black and brown, not grey or purple or violet.” Beka knows her family’s history from Gran who tells of “befo’ time,” when they were slaves, and now, when Beka can win an essay contest at the Convent school: “Befo’ time… Beka would never have won that contest… But things can change fi true.” And change they do. Before she won the essay contest, Beka’s days were filled with family, domestic work, food, school, neighbors, politics, hurricanes, and dreaming with her best friend, fourteen-year-old Toycie. Before the contest, Sundays were the days she and Toycie walked Beka’s baby brother through the rich neighborhoods to the seashore and planned the redecorating they would do when they owned the houses they passed, the days Beka waited patiently while Toycie talked to her boyfriend. Before the contest, Beka lied, got caught, got punished, and lied again. Before the contest, Toycie was still alive. 3. Ways of Sunlight by Sam Selvon The master-storyteller turns his pen to rural village life with Ways of Sunlight in Trinidad: gossip and rivalry between village washerwomen; toiling cane-cutters reaping their harvest; superstitious old Ma Procop protecting the fruit of her Mango tree with magic. With equal wit and sensitivity, he reflects the depression of hard times in London, where people live in cold, damp basements, hustling for survival. 4. Crick Crack, Monkey by Merle Hodge A revealing novel of childhood about Tee who is being made socially acceptable by her aunt so that she can cope with the caste system of Trinidad. 5. Myal by Erna Brodber I actually have no idea what this is about. No information on Amazon.com and the back cover only talks about the author. 6. Buxton Spice by Oonya Kempadoo Back in print: an extraordinary first novel by “a writer to watch and to enjoy.”* Told in the voice of a girl as she moves from childhood into adolescence, Buxton Spice is the story the town of Tamarind Grove: its eccentric families, its sweeping joys, and its sudden tragedies. The novel brings to life 1970s Guyana—a world at a cultural and political crossroads—and perfectly captures a child”s keen observations, sense of wonder, and the growing complexity of consciousness that marks the passage from innocence to experience. 7. In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming George Lamming’s “In the Castle of My Skin” skilfully depicts the Barbadian psyche. Set against the backdrop of the 1930s riots which helped to pave the way for Independence and the modern Barbados, through the eyes of a young boy, Lamming portrays the social, racial, political and urban struggles with which Barbados continues to grapple even with some thirty-three years of Political Independence from Britain. Required reading for all Caribbean people. The novel also offers non-Barbadians and non-Caribbean people insight into the modern social history of Barbados and the Caribbean. A writer of the people one is back again in the pages of Huckleberry Finn_ the fundamental book of civilisation Mr Lamming captures the myth-making and myth-dissolving mind of childhood. Anything sound interesting to you? These are pretty old, so maybe you’ve already read a few of them. If so, let me know what you thought.
Science Fiction Criticism: A Necessary “Evil”?
What is the value of science fiction criticism, both in its literary form and as a medium used by the science fiction community to dig into the good and the bad of the genre? If you buy Kyle Brady’s argument, its value is a negative number. Back in March of 2010, Brady wrote an article on True/Slant about the damage criticism is doing to the science fiction genre. Unfortunately, it seems as if Brady missed the point of criticism and its value within the genre community. Without criticism there is only praise, and when praise dominates the market, nothing has any value; you really don’t have to look much further than YouTube or Amazon.com to understand why praise without criticism fades into the background and contains no value. Brady seems to think that criticism–specifically, harsh criticism–is potentially catastrophic, namely because it supposedly removes the value from “undying love and devotion” to the genre. The more critical and harsh certain blogs have become–he cites io9 as a prime example–the faster the value of love and devotion decreases–to the point that said admiration fades from the background, leaving the genre with an empty hole. I don’t buy this argument, primarily because there is also so much meaningless admiration and praise flooding the Internet that any blog or news avenue trying to pay lip service to said admiration is really adding nothing to the conversation. What exactly do I contribute to the fans of Battlestar Galactica by writing about why I love Battlestar Galactica? I still write about it, but it’s more for myself than for the fans of the show or for people who’ve never seen it. My admiration of BSG is essentially an empty gesture, except to me. Criticism, however, does add to the conversation, even if it is nitpicky. Why? Because to look at science fiction through a critical lens opens a dialogue about what is good and bad about genre, what works and doesn’t work, and so on, which brings the community at large to the forefront, where they can question and demand better from the people who produce the things they love.In fact, I’d argue that we’ve become too nice in the science fiction community, giving so much space to the blindly devotional and not enough space to the deep thinkers. A prime example of this, I think, is Avatar, which Brady cites as an example of his argument.Of all the movies you could bring to the conversation, Cameron’s “masterpiece” is probably the one film that most deserved what it got from its critics and detractors. Here is a film with an absurdly large budget and also the most amazing visuals ever put into a film–so amazing, in fact, that they’ve already begun changing how we make movies. But, for all that–all the money spent ($200-310 million, depending where you look)–it also has the most derivative story ever conceived for a major motion picture–so derivative, in fact, that it is almost painful. That’s the problem with Avatar, and a point that Brady misses when he tries to indicate that all fiction and movies are derivative (they are, but that’s another argument). It’s not that Avatar is a derivative movie, it’s that it is a derivative movie that knows it is one, and that anyone who saw it or heard about it knew from the start. This is not good storytelling, but lazy storytelling. The fact that most of the film’s budget was spent on the visual effects is painfully obvious in the story. At least when Cameron tried to retell Titanic, he did so by adding something to it, by taking a story we already knew and creating unique, emotionally-engaging characters to spice things up (yes, I’ll admit that as much as I hate on Titanic, I do think it’s a good movie). Avatar was panned because those of us who write about the genre and were supposed to make up Cameron’s core audience expected more from the man who gave us Aliens, The Abyss, and so on. Cameron is a director who knows how to merge beautiful visuals with strong stories and characters, and the idea that he could fail so miserably to deliver anything other than a giant special effects test was a disappointment to pretty much all of us. The criticism was necessary, because otherwise we’re asking for more of this kind of garbage.Criticism isn’t ruining science fiction; it’s making it better. Without criticism, the genre can’t grow. Devote yourself to your television shows, yes, but understand the flaws and let people know about it. We are the audience. If we want better, we have to show it. Battlestar Galactica, overall, is one of the best science fiction television shows to ever play on our screens, and if we ever hope to have more shows that take character and narrative depth as seriously as Ron D. Moore and his league of writers did, then we have to look at the rest of the genre and make out opinions known, even if they’re negative. Science fiction had to earn the following it has today, and it didn’t get to where it is now by cutting out the criticism. Look back through the history of the genre and you will see all manner of harsh criticism against the genre from people outside of it. Without that, the genre never would have grown and become what it is today: one of the biggest genres in the history of the narrative storytelling. If that isn’t support for the value of criticism, then I don’t know what is.