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Edges by Lena Roy

Apr25

Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Maria Ciccone at The Serpentine Library.

This short YA novel, 162 pages, is a debut by Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter. Unfortunately, it’s way too post-modern, pagan, new-agey for me.

One of the teen characters says that her family back home is “super Christian–Jesus is the only way.” Then the girl, Tangerine, who is obviously from one of Those Families (she has six brothers), asks Luke, the protagonist of the novel, “That can’t be true, can it?”

“No, I don’t trust anybody who says there’s only one way,” answers Luke.

The book goes on to preach, via characters who are confused but honest (of course), that you make your own way, create your own reality. If you believe it, it’s true for you. Tangerine believes in God-in-Nature. Some of the other characters in the novel are recovering alcoholics, and they believe in “a Higher Power, whatever you conceive Him to be.” Another character with another odd name, Cinnamon, believes in shamans and in her own animal tattoos. Another, Jim, believes in kachina dolls that he carves out of wood. Luke is the unbeliever who just can’t wrap his head around any of this mystical nonsense until . . .

The setting is the best part of the novel, near Moab, Utah. Ms. Roy describes the landscape and its effect of the lives of the characters in vivid prose that made me ready for a road trip to the Southwest. “Mountains of sandstone overwhelmed them.” “The sun’s angle on the earth had deepened the color of the rocks to a dark watermelon.” “They watched the lightning rip through the sky and the rain pelt down on the barren earth, making puddles, splashing, changing to darker and darker shades of red, brown, gold.”

As for the New Age themes, same old, same old. And I’m stuck in that Jesus-is-the-only-way rut (thank God), so I couldn’t possibly understand. Actually, I understand, but I’m not buying. If I have to create my own reality, my own god, my own idol, then I am lost. What could I possibly create that is worthy of worship or powerful enough to dispense the grace and forgiveness I need to live and breathe and avoid despair?

In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2:5-11)

I just don’t think kachina dolls or bear tats or even some vague Higher Power are going to cut it.

After the Leaves Fall by Nicole Baart

Apr22

I began to exist in a tension between wanting and not wanting–waiting for something I couldn’t even pin down in my most naked and honest moments. Waiting for a balance where I neither ached nor forgot, regretted nor accepted. Waiting for my heart to be light again yet fearing the implications of that same lightness. I suppose I waited for peace–an end to my own personal warfare. . . . Grandma and I stood hand in hand until the graveyard was empty and the rain had all but ceased to fall. Her lips moved faintly, and I knew she was whispering prayers for me. I couldn’t join her –I had forgotten how; the ability to pray had slipped out of my soul like the dirt had tumbled from my fingers. I wasn’t angry at God or anything–that would have been far too cliched. He just seemed irrelevant.

The narrator of this novel makes this self-observation in the aftermath of her father’s death, and in fact, our protagonist/narrator, Julia, is not only self-observant, but also somewhat self-absorbed. She has excuses: her mother was completely selfish and deserted the family emotionally long before she left them physically. Her beloved father dies after a long, painful illness at the beginning of the novel when Julia is only fifteen years old. Julia feels abandoned and rejected. However, she has a loving grandmother who picks up the slack and prays for her and teaches her to love God. So why is Julia such a mess?

She sees God as irrelevant. There’s an epidemic of that attitude going around. Is God irrelevant? Unconnected? Peripheral to my life and decisions at best? Sometimes I would have to admit that I, too, see God as an afterthought, or more accurately don’t see Him as central, vital, the source of all that makes life worthwhile.

By the end of the book, Julia has sown her wild oats, made some serious mistakes, looked for love in all the wrong places, and she’s in need of a God who loves and forgives and gives second chances. The resolution isn’t neat and tidy; Julia doesn’t have a Damascus road, five-star, turn-around conversion experience. It’s more as if the prodigal daughter comes home and realizes that her grandmother has always loved her and that God may not be so irrelevant after all.

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

Mar20

Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Lisa Jenn Bigelow.

“Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can get into Berkeley to become a doctor. It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent.”

Bitter Melon was pitched to me as sort of the “anti-Tiger Mother novel,” the Rest of the Story from the pressured child’s point of view. I would have thought about Ms. Chua’s recent controversial child-rearing memoir as I read Bitter Melon even if the association between the two books hadn’t been brought to my attention. Amy Chua apparently believes (I haven’t actually read her book, Battle Cry of the Tiger Mother) that children should be raised in a very strict, competitive, and pressured environment so that they will learn to achieve their best and be proud of themselves. In her Wall Street Journal article, Chua talks about giving praise and encouragement along with (or after) the initial response to substandard grades or performance which is to ” excoriate, punish and shame the child,” but it looks as if the positive reinforcement and simple love get short shrift in the Tiger Mother model for raising kids. Such methods may work to produce highly competent pianists or doctors, but I would argue that there’s a dark side to to this parenting technique that borders on the abusive, if it doesn’t actually cross over into child abuse.

Not all cultural traditions are equally moral, virtuous, and yes, Christ-like. The Chinese and other Asian cultures may have many things to teach the West about principled behavior, honoring parents, and even teaching children to excel, but shaming children and beating them and controlling their actions by force and by emotional manipulation even into young adulthood are not right ways of treating the children that God has placed into our families, no matter how brilliantly it makes them perform. Love is not, or should not be, based on performance, and our children should never wonder whether we will continue to love them if they fail.

Sadly enough, Frances in the book Bitter Melon sees herself making a choice between pleasing family (her mother’s expectations) and speaking her own truth. She writes, “Then the question of whether to choose one’s family at the expense of oneself or oneself at the expense of one’s family has no easy answer. It is like choosing whether to cut off one’s right hand or one’s left hand.” There is a third way: we can teach our children that they are ultimately responsible before God to praise, enjoy, and glorify Him forever. It’s not all about me. Nor is it all about family and making my parents happy. Life is about accepting the love of the One who created me, loving Him with all my heart, mind and strength, and glorifying Him with my talents and abilities, serving others as if they were the Lord Jesus Christ, and honoring my parents even if I must defy their expectations. It’s still not an easy answer, but it is right, and God’s way of living transcends culture, both East and West.

Bitter Melon is a good novel, and a good antidote to the poisonous temptation of making human excellence and/or filial devotion one’s god.

Edwardian, Turn of the Century and The Great War

Mar8

I’ve been spending a lot of my time in the years 1890-1920 for the past week or two, via fiction, nonfiction, a couple of British period TV series, and my history class. It’s a fascinating time period. I’ll tell you what I’ve been watching and reading, and then I’ll try to share some of what it all made me ponder and put together in my mind.

Fiction:
She Walks in Beauty by Siri Mitchell. I’m not sure exactly when this novel is set, about 1890 or the turn of the century. I read this one because it won the INSPY award for historical fiction this last year. It’s about New York City debutante, Clara Carter, who becomes the leading belle of the season with a little help from her overbearing aunt and her rich, social climber father. Unfortunately, Clara wasn’t really the “spunky, defiant heroine” that we all love and tend to expect in these sorts of historical romances. She’s a seventeen year old girl who’s been indoctrinated to believe that her only worth lies in her ability to attract a rich husband and restore her family’s honor. As Clara makes her way through the balls, dinner parties, and social visits of her coming out season, she changes very little and allows cultural expectations to mold her and pressure her to become what she actually hates. Only a family tragedy forces her to come to her senses and begin to make decisions that will give her a chance to live a real, authentic life. (The Kindle edition of this one is showing as free right now. Definitely worth your time if you like historical romance.)
After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski. We read this YA novel for my English/History class at homeschool co-op. Annie is a thirteen year old girl living in a small town in Kansas at the end of World War I. As she begins to visit the returning soldiers at the veterans’ hospital where her father works as a doctor, Annie is at first repulsed and frightened by the severely injured men. However, she comes to be friends with them, one in particular, even though her mother is opposed to Annie’s hospital visits and wants her to forget about the war and its consequences.

Nonfiction:
Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt. Semicolon review here. In this true story of a mother and daughter in 1896 who accepted a wager that saw them walk across the entire continent of North America, I found a couple of women who not afraid to strike out and do something unexpected and unacceptable to many of those in their community. Unfortunately for the two women, the book also tells how they paid a steep price in betrayal and social ostracism for their daring.
The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age by Juliet Nicolson. This book of social history covers the years 1918-1920 and tells lots of little stories, vignettes really, about people in Britain both great and small and their experiences in the aftermath of World War I. The book featured lots of fascinating people that I wish I had time to find out more about:
plastic surgeon Harold GIllies who repaired and reconstructed the faces of thousands of wounded WW I soldiers,
Joseph Enniver, inventor of Pelmanism, a secular program for strengthening of the mind and character,
nurse Edith Cavell, who helped two hundred allied soldiers escape to freedom in Belgium during the war before she was captured and executed by the Germans,
Coco Chanel, the greatest couturier of all time,
Nancy Astor, the American lady who became England’s first woman Member of Parliament, and many more. Look for a post of quotable stories from this book in the near future.

Television:
Lark Rise to Candleford. This series from the BBC is set in rural England just before the turn of the century, c.1895. The story is taken from a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by author Flora Thimpson. In the novels Ms. Thompson tells about her experience as a young girl getting a job in a post office and seeing the changes that were coming to England as a result of industrialization and the new modes of transportation and communication that were coming into use during the time period. Laura Timmins, the character through whose eyes we see the stories of village life and cultural transformation, is a village girl and as such, much more adaptable than some of the upper class young women in these stories. She’s able to become independent and see the world as one in which she can rise above her circumstances and become an intelligent voice while retaining her femininity and her place in the community.

Downton Abbey. While I was waiting for the DVD’s of the several episodes of Lark RIse to Candleford to get here in the mail, I began watching Downton Abbey, another period piece set in the years just before WW I, from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 to the announcement that England was at war with Germany (1914). Downton Abbey is amazing in its deft characterization of both the upper classes and the their servants, and even the burgeoning middle class gets a nod in the appearance of Lord Grantham’s new heir, Matthew Crawley, a distant cousin who becomes the new heir after the death of a couple of closer relatives in the Titanic tragedy. Lord Grantham has only daughters, three of them, who are of marriageable age, but with very little inheritance to hook a husband since almost all the money in the family is tied up in the estate. The servants in this grand old English family are all intimately involved in family matters as well as in the working out of their own lives and relationships. Downton Abbey is something of a soap opera, but it just manages to transcend that genre because the problems and the issues that make up the plot are very real and identifiable and intriguing, leading to both reflection and a feeling of connection. The characters are appealing, sometimes frustrating, and the dialog is spot on and funny. I loved this series, and I was only sorry to see it end.

I’ll have to leave the pondering and putting together for another post. However, I would recommend any or all of the above for your viewing or reading pleasure.

Boy Meets Girl

Feb14

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, my ruminations on the state of love, romance, and marriage in contemporary Young Adult fiction:

Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl
Boy finds girl again.
Marriage, happily ever after.

But now it seems that the recipe for romantic comedy (in the sense of happy ending) in Young Adult novels is more like:

Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl, or at least complications ensue.
Boy finds girl again.
Mandatory premarital sex in the penultimate chapter.
Ambiguity and lack of commitment.

I’ve read two young adult novels this past week that followed the latter formula, and although I could see it coming, it was a disappointment both times. I liked the characters in both novels. I wanted more for them than a quick coupling in a motel room or an act of incredible vulnerability and tenderness that ended in a nebulous commitment to “see where this relationship takes us.”

The problem with this ubiquitous plot outline is not that premarital sex is mentioned or portrayed or described. Of course, young people engage in premarital sex, and it’s naturally going to be a part of young adult fiction sometimes. However, the problem that I see is that young people are being trained —in books, movies, magazines and on the web– to expect that their relationships with the opposite sex will lead to one night stands and uncommitted sex. No one connects sex to marriage, either before or after the act; no one seems to want commitment or marriage. Hardly anyone expresses the idea that sex means anything. It’s a just a fun, expected thing to do together on or after a date, like walking on the beach or going to a movie. On the third date or after a certain amount of time, you are expected to have sex if you really care about someone. But don’t think that this physical act means that the relationship has entered a new level of commitment, or heaven forbid, that you and your sexual partner, whom you of course love very much, will get married, spend your lives together, and create a family.

Let me emphasize that sex is NOT what the following books are about. That’s part of the problem. Sex is an afterthought or a step in the logical progression of a relationship that may or may not last. And nobody in any of these books tells the young characters that sex is meant for marriage, that two people who are committed to each other for a lifetime can express themselves in sexual relationship in ways that go way beyond the physical and touch the spiritual. Or even that it will hurt like you-know-what to have a sexual relationship with someone and then break it off and move on. Or, on a very practical level, that STD’s are rampant, and casual sex is an excellent way to contract an STD that may become a more constant companion than the guy or girl you slept with last night.

Here are just a few of the otherwise good recent YA novels that seem to me to reinforce this idea that sex is just another bump in the road, something to be experienced whether the relationship is going to last for five months or for a lifetime:
Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly. An autistic teen learns that sex can feel incredibly good and bring her close to the young man she loves, but neither the girl nor her paramour mentions marriage.
Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. Semicolon review here.
Saving Maddie by Varian Johnson. Semicolon review here.
Willow by Julia Hoban. Semicolon review here.
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. Semicolon review here. Sex as a game, recreation for the bored and the vacationing.
How to Say Good-bye in Robot by Natalie Standiford.
After the Moment by Garrett Freyman-Weyr.

There’s just no sense whatsoever in these books of the sacredness of a sexual relationship. Our bodies are connected to our souls. We are persons made in God’s image, and what we do with our bodies affects our entire being. Sexual coupling was intended for a committed long-term marriage relationship, and without the commitment, it’s a harmful and ultimately unfulfilling act for both the man and the woman involved. When are we going to tell teens and each other the truth about sex?

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Epitaph Road by David Patneaude

Feb14

Dystopian novels usually start with a dystopian premise: something has happened to change the world we know into a horrible place to live.

What if government become so big and so repressive that it controlled everyone and everything?
1984 by George Orwell.

What if everyone in the world suddenly lost their fertility and stopped having babies? What would the world be like after twenty or thirty years of no new pregnancies?
Children of Men by P.D. James.

What if our world were destroyed and reconfigured by climate change and the greed of oil hungry corporations and industries? How would a future world cope with a severe scarcity of oil?
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. Semicolon review here.

What if the world seemed perfect, no hunger, no violence, no inequality? But what if the underlying mechanism that sustained the culture and kept it pure and perfect was horribly unjust and hateful?
The Giver by Lois Lowry.

What if a repressive government used cyber-tools to monitor and control all dissent and to quash freedom?
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Semicolon review here.

In Epitaph Road the premise is: what if most of the men in the world were killed by a virus that only affected males, and as a consequence women ruled the world?

As it turns out, the result of getting rid of all of the men looks pretty good at first. Poverty, crime, war, and hunger have all disappeared. I happen to think Mr. Patneaude is mistaken in his predictions of what a female governed an female dominated world would look like, but it’s an interesting proposition anyway.

Kellen Dent is one of the few, the disrespected, the males. He and all of his fellow men are restricted by law to only a few possible professions and required to have “minders” with them whenever they travel. So when Kellen finds out that the virus that killed all the men in the first place is coming back and may infect his father, it’s not easy for him to find a way to warn his dad. Then, as Kellen finds out more and more about the governing authorities and what’s really going on beneath the surface of his seemingly peaceful world, he must make life-and-death decisions not only for himself but also for the people he loves and for whom he is responsible.

The best part of this novel was the way it turned everything upside down as far as gender roles and prejudice are concerned and yet at the same time it reinforced the preconceptions that we have about the real differences between men and women. In the book, the men are responsible for all the violence and crime in the world. With men a distinct minority, women are free to walk out alone in the cities without fear, to be intelligent without caring about male competition, to go anywhere, do anything. Men, on the other hand, are restricted, discriminated against, sometimes even treated as potential criminals and second-class citizens. One of the most coveted jobs for a man is sperm donor. I really liked the way the book made me think about why we need both men and women to make a vibrant God-honoring culture and about what roles men and women play in the growth of good government and cultural achievement.

The issue that I had with the novel was that it seemed to move too fast. The characters came to decisions and acted in ways for which I, as a reader, felt unprepared. I often read reviews in which the reviewer complains that the pace of the novel was “too slow” or “uneven.” I actually felt that the pace of Epitaph Road was way too rapid. I needed more time and information to get to know the characters in the novel and to understand why they acted the way they did. Kellen was generally understandable, probably because I knew him the best. The rest of the cast–Kellen’s parents, his aunt, his two female friends/accomplices–seemed to act too quickly without adequate motivation or at least without reasons that I had enough knowledge to understand.

Still, as long as I skipped over the questions about motivation and preparation, I enjoyed reading the book. I would be interested in a sequel–if it answered my “trust questions” such as why did Tia and Sunday suddenly trust Kellen enough to risk their lives for him? And why did Gunny, another character, protect some kids he didn’t know? And why did Dr. Nuyen share secrets with Kellen when she was essentially working for his enemies?

Good solid dystopian fiction for the die-hard fan.

Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Feb10

I think I ordered this YA novel from the library because it was on the list of nominees for the Cybils, Young Adult Fiction category, and I had some grandiose idea of reading several of the books that were nominated in that category after finishing the Middle Grade Fiction list. The title of this particular novel begins with “A”, and it’s about a road trip. With a premise like that, how could it miss?

(I love road trip stories. It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Road to Rio with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Rain Man with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. The TV series Route 66. The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson. Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. However, I’ve never actually read the classic American road trip book, On the Road by Kerouac, because I’m not much for trippin’ while trippin’.)

Talk about detours. Back to Amy and Roger. I loved this book right up until Maryland. Amy is a California girl, traveling across the USA in her mom’s red Jeep Liberty, with good looking college guy Roger, designated driver for said Jeep. The two are headed for Connecticut where Amy will deliver the car to mom, and Roger will take a train to spend the summer with his dad in Philly. Of course, the two are destined to fall madly in love and live happily ever after. But there are glitches. Roger has a girlfriend, or maybe an ex-girlfriend. Amy’s just recovering, or maybe not recovering, from some mysterious traumatic event which seems to have something to do with her father’s death a couple of months before the story begins. Amy’s not too perky. Roger’s still hung up on Hadley, the beautiful, rich ex. Roger drinks root beer, and Amy drinks cream soda (until she discovers sweet tea in Kentucky). Roger listens to Dashboard Confessional, Owl City, The Lucksmiths, and many, many others I’ve never heard of. Amy listens to, believe it or not, show tunes.

Roger and May’s Epic Detour Road Trip of Discovery was fun. They discover America’s loneliest highway in Utah. Amy takes pictures of trees. They eat in lots of diners. Roger’s friend, Cheeks, shows them the best of Wichita, Kansas. They picnic on a golf course. They spend the night in a honeymoon suite, the last vacancy in town. They spend another night in the Jeep Liberty in the Walmart parking lot. Unfortunately, when the twosome get to Maryland, they’ve worked through all their psychological problems and previous entanglements , and the only thing left to do is . . . of course, go to bed together. No, the Act is not described explicitly or salaciously. Yes, the very fact of the road trip having to end this way made the book change from a book I wanted to give my sixteen year old daughter with my recommendation into a book that I wished I could have given to my sixteen year old daughter without reservations or hesitation.

I have an entire post composed in draft form about the permutations that have occurred in the old “boy meets girl” plot line. My basic premise is that instead of boy and girl overcoming obstacles and eventually getting married and living happily ever after (or not, as in Romeo and Juliet), now they overcome obstacles and fall into bed together without benefit of clergy or marriage certificate. This change in young adult (and adult) fiction is not an improvement on the old formula, and although it may or may not reflect the culture at large, it’s a sad state of affairs. I aspired to commitment and marriage, and I certainly hope my children do the same.

The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli

Jan25

Ms. Napoli has novelized several folk and fairy tales already, and The Wager is another good entry in that genre. It’s the story, taken from a Sicilian fairytale “Don Giovanni de la Fortuna“, of Don Giovanni who makes a wager with the devil: he can have riches unimaginable that will never run out if he will go for three years, three months, and three days without bathing, shaving, changing clothes, or combing his hair. If he loses the bet, the devil, of course, gets Don Giovanni’s soul.

The details of Don Giovanni’s three+ years of degradation are fairly graphic and horrific. If you’re not up for pustules and bodily wastes, don’t read the book. Nevertheless, although the book started out rather slowly, the tension and the theme in particular built to a compelling read that I’m still thinking about today. (I finished the book last night.) Making a bet or a deal with the devil, hazarding one’s soul in return for X, is a popular theme in folk tales and in literature. The story mirrors the first story of Adam and Eve who exchange their souls for a lie and a piece of fruit. And only the sacrifice of Christ can redeem the soul from Satan’s lies.

However, in many popular stories, like this one of Don Giovanni, the wagerer pays for his own folly, redeems himself, so to speak, by outwitting the devil. Don Giovanni emerges through great suffering to live happily ever after. The idea that suffering, in this case self-inflicted suffering, is redemptive in and of itself seems to me to be flawed. Suffering is suffering; it’s nasty, uncomfortable, and possibly meaningless—unless it can be redeemed and madeinto a growth experience by someone else, someone who transcends our suffering and gives us hope and a future. Of course, the Someone is Jesus Christ. Although, Don Giovanni professes to be a “good Catholic” in Ms. napoli’s novel, he doesn’t look either to religion or to Christ for rescue. He does find meaning in the simple kindness of strangers and fellow beggars and that of a myserious artist who sees past his appearance into his soul.

It’s true that if I can be loved in spite of, in the middle of, all my sin and humiliation, my life can become something beautiful by the power of Christ in me. It’s not true that any human love can accomplish this transformation in me; however, I suppose Don Giovanni’s story is an imperfect picture of The Great Story of God’s reclamation and cleansing of his people.

Other fairytales for young adults reimagined by Donna Jo Napoli (well worth your time if you like this sort of thing):
The Magic Circle (Hansel and Gretel)
Zel (Rapunzel) Brown Bear daughter recommends.
Beast (Beauty and the Beast)
Crazy Jack (Jack and the Beanstalk)
Spinners (Rumpelstiltskin)
Hush: An Irish Princess’s Tale (Icelandic folk tale) Brown Bear Daughter also recommends.
Breath (The Pied Piper of Hamelin)
Sirena (Greek mythology)
Bound (Chinese Cinderella)

I’ll leave you with a humorous take on making a bet with the devil, not to mention some fine fiddle playing, in this 1979 song, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band:

In spite of the success of Johnny, the boy fiddle player, and Don Giovanni, I would suggest that you make no bets with the devil unless you’re prepared to pay the price. Satan is a deceiver, and our souls are already in hock without Jesus.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Jan17

Ship Breaker is on the shortlist for the Cybils YA Fantasy/Science Fiction Award.

Ship Breaker was a finalist for 2010 National Book Award in the category of Young People’s Literature. (The winner was Mockingbird by Katherine Erskine.)

Ship Breaker won the 2011 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.

And, having just finished reading this award-winning piece of dystopian fiction, I would say it deserves the nominations and awards and accolades it’s recieved. I would also say that the PC setting and themes in the book didn’t hurt its chances in the running for awards. The world in Ship Breaker is a world destroyed and reconfigured by climate change and the greed of oil hungry corporations and industries. By the time the story opens, oil is an extremely scarce commodity, and the world’s transportation systems run on other forms of energy, for the most part. Our hero, Nailer, is one of the lowest of the low in the New World Order, a scavenger who works the light crew on wrecked oil tankers and other useless hulks washed up on the beach where Nailer lives. The best Nailer can hope for is a place on another crew when he outgrows his ability to crawl into the small spaces where copper wiring and other “scavenge” can be found on the wrecked ships. Nailer’s mother is dead, and his father is mean, violent and drug-addicted.

Ship Breaker becomes a story about loyalty and heredity and the limits of trust when Nailer finds a “lucky strike,” something that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Will he take advantage of his luck and run with it, or will he choose to save the life of a worthless and dangerous captive at the risk of his own? This story was exciting and spell-binding. It will appeal to Hunger Games fans and other readers of dystopian science fiction and technofiction.

I had only one problem with the book, not a problem that made me consider quitting the book, but a problem, nevertheless. Why does Nailer make the choices he makes? Nailer is a classic hero. He chooses right, no matter that he stands to gain riches and save his own life by making other decisions than the ones he makes. Why? He’s loyal to his friend, Pima, and her mother, Sadna, because they have taken care of him in the past, given him a place to stay, food, and a job. Tit for tat. Pima is Nailer’s crew leader, and Nailer has sworn a blood oath to “have her back”. Then, other people enter the equation, and although Nailer has no rational reason, and no real sense of morality, to give his loyalty to anyone else, he does. Why? Nailer himself doesn’t know, and the reader is never given any good insight into Nailer’s core allegiance either. He’s realistic about the cruelty of the world he lives, somewhat superstitious, and highly intelligent inspite of his lack of education and opportunity. So why does he turn quixotic without Quixote’s code of knightly honor to sustain him?

“The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. Everything else was just so much smoke and lies.”

If that’s so, then why does Nailer sacrifice himself for someone who has done nothing for him and very likely never will?

Still, it’s a good book, and you may find answers to my questions that I didn’t see. Warning: Lots of violence, very little or no language or sexual situations.

Split by Swati Avasthi

Jan14

See below the review of Andrew Klavan’s The Identity Man. Split is another book about change and whether it is possible for a young man to become a new person, leave behind his old patterns of thinking and his past crimes, and as Jace, the protagonist in this book, puts it, “take the bastard-no-longer pledge.”

When sixteen year old Jace shows up on his older brother Christian’s front step with a split lip, a few dollars, and a reluctance to answer questions, it’s touch and go as to whether or not Christian will let Jace stay–even overnight. Both young men are running from their abusive father, and together they endanger each other. However, Jace has nowhere else to go, and maybe, even though he’s possibly a broken kid, unfixable and dangerous, perhaps he’s not hopeless yet. At least Jace would like to convince himself and Christian that it’s not too late, that he can leave his dad and the anger that is his dad’s bequest to him, all behind.

Again, the question is “can a person really change, become new, leave the past behind?” If so, how? Jace tries sheer will power, and that works for him to some extent. He also finds a “good woman,” but he’s afraid to take advantage of the benefits of a loving relationship with a girl he is attracted to because he’s afraid he can’t be the good man she needs and deserves. Finally, the answers in this book are honesty, brotherly loyalty and love, exercise for the purpose of anger management, and taking it one day, one hour, one minute at a time. Those are pretty good answers, perhaps inadequate in the long run, but perhaps not as far as leaving an abusive past behind.

Split was one of the books on the shortlist for the Cybils in the category of Young Adult Fiction, and I’m definitely understanding why it’s one of the top books that the panel chose. The relationship cues and under-currents are subtle and spot on, and Jace is an intelligent and astute judge of character, even of his own. His insights into what is going on beneath the surface of his family’s dynamics, plus the references to Shakespeare and other literary lights, were what made the book for me.

Warning: some language, (domestic) violence, and sexual references make this a book for mature young adults with a tolerance for that sort of material.