A Woman's Read of "The Barrow" or, "Yech!"

I am an irritated woman.  

Perhaps it's because yesterday I was home sick and today I have the sniffles.  Perhaps it's because today is Election Day, and I find myself inundated by people who presume that just because I have ovaries, I mustn't be in charge of my life or health.  Perhaps it's because this weekend Amazon suggested this as my Halloween costume:

Seriously?  I don't keep my brains in my boobs.


And Mark Smylie's The Barrow is taking the brunt of my irritation.  It may be the single most irritating book I've read in months. It is not terrible.  At least, not the most terrible thing I've ever read.  It's just generally bad.  

Let me and my ovaries tell you why. *Spoilers Ahead*

General male-heavy sword and sorcery "let's steal an enchanted sword lost for millennia" story.  Lots of dangerous-yet-attractive men with individual moral codes that somehow transcend/transgress the laws of the land.  And there's a magic map and a legendary sword they quest to steal.  So far, so typical. 

Which would be fine...if only.  If only it were better written.  If only it tweaked the typical plot just a little.  If only it didn't treat every woman in the story as a receptacle (literal or metaphorical) for some twisted male fantasy.  If only I enjoyed reading it, I wouldn't be so grumpy!  

I am willing to overlook gender imbalance in my books, if they're good. Lord of the Rings doesn't piss me off, even though Eowyn is the only female of any real merit (don't even give me Galadriel.  Doesn't count.).  You know why it doesn't piss me off?  Because it's too awesome to nitpick.  I will overlook your book's flaws if it is amazing.  The Barrow is not, and today it receives the fullness of my wrath. 

All women characters fall into the madonna/whore complex.  The only exceptions occur when we find out that a madonna character is (gasp) secretly a whore.  Lots of whores.  Naturally, one of our rogues is a whoremaster.  There are lots of passages of attempted eroticism where one woman or another is being raped or is drugged and forced into very rough sex.  One whore is even going to be the centerpiece of a black-magic ritual where she is forced to have sex with a bull.  Who cares if she dies afterwards?  *manly chortle* She's only a woman!  I need to scrub my brain out with soap.

The closest thing Smylie gives us to a "female power" moment is when we realize that one woman having sex in front of a crowd is the buyer of sex rather than the commodity.  Huzzah for women paying to be penetrated in public. Equality is delightful.

The most "well-rounded" female character is named Erim.  She dresses and passes as a man.  Which would totally be interesting if that had anything to do with her character.  But she never does anything particular, she has no conflict (except secretly wanting to be a whore.  No, really.), and no one ever discovers her secret.  She's just a woman passing as a man.  No complexity, no interest, no plot, no point.  She is written quite literally as a man, with breasts. 

Annwyn is the madonna figure, pale, blonde, perfect.  Shunned for having sex out of wedlock (but it's OK; her brother killed her lover), she has been alone in her father's house for ten years.  She's chaste and repentant, except when she's forced to enact twisted incest pseudo-sex with her brothers.  Thanks to a spell, the map to the sword appears under her skin.  The thieves must literally read her naked body to find the treasure.  Oh, and then she becomes possessed and has sex with everything that moves, including a dead guy.  

What the hell, Mark Smylie?

Yes, I am using you as a target for many of my issues about sword and sorcery novels, but I expect better from a book published this year (and not 1973).  There is a way to write fantasy, even horror fantasy, that doesn't feel like a porn flick or an exploitation film.  I shall not be reading any more of your work, and my ovaries are unimpressed with you.   Thus endeth the rant.

Book List Blues: Naomi

Normally, I like to write about books I’ve enjoyed.  My blog is a forum to proselytize: to share my favorites with my (admittedly small) audience.  But I also like to write about books I’ve enjoyed because I am passionate about them.  In a bit of a turnabout—which is, after all, fair play—I will share with you a book I tried and really, really hated.  

I like to wander bookstores and see what falls into my hands (See my post on libraries and bookstores here).  But sometimes I want something new to read and I don’t have the patience to wait for inspiration to strike.  It is then that I place my fate into another's hands: I turn to a book list.  

Booklists are not rare phenomena, especially in the age of The InterTubes.  It’s easy to find some schmuck on Goodreads or Amazon who will make up a booklist of “Musts.”  Unless we’re already friends, I usually won’t work off of your personal booklist.  I have to respect your brain if you’re going to try to hack into mine with literature.  There are, however, some booklists that I am willing to use as guides.  I like the NPR summer lists of “The Hundred Best YA Books” or “The Hundred Best SciFi & Fantasy Books.”  I like looking at the NYT Review of Books (for “serious” books) and the Entertainment Weekly yearly wrap-ups (for offbeat books).

I found Kage Baker’s Company books because of a booklist.  I finally pulled Le Guin’s Dispossessed off my bookshelf and read it because of a booklist.  I even read Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl because it was on everyone’s “Best of 2012” booklists.  As I am a bit contrary by nature, I do not always expect to like everything I am recommended.  When a book shows up on multiple lists that I respect, however, and a myriad of people tell me that I really ought to read something, I usually give in to the literary form of peer pressure.  

That is precisely how I came to read Samuel R. Delaney’s Dhalgren.  And now I will never, ever get those precious hours back.  I should admit that I did not read all 801 pages; I would have thrown myself beneath a bus.  I read the first and second sections, which got me through the first hundred pages.  Then I tried to skim through the very last section, the title of which (“The Anathēmata: a plague journal”) was the most intriguing.  Then I threw the book with great force across the room.  

I recognize that this book is a stylistic experiment.  It is only nominally science fiction, and was perhaps categorized as such because Delaney’s other works are traditional scifi.  It is an allusive (and elusive) portrait of a city without rules or structure, arguably Delaney's metaphor for the 1960s in America.  Dhalgren is also deliberately reminiscent of Finnegan’s Wake, complete with fragmented narratives and a novel that begins and ends with a sentence fragment.  But Joyce was a genius, and I’m not sure that Delaney is.  Perhaps if I took a class on Delaney (as “with guidance” that is the only way I am willing to tackle Joyce)… but I am just not interested enough. 

I will not try to describe the plot, partly because I did not reading the entire book, and partly because I don’t believe there is one.  It is an expressionist book rather than narrative one.  The amnesiac protagonist is known as “The Kid."  He enters the magical/allegorical/anarchic city of Bellona and becomes entangled in street gangs, poly-sexuality, and the meta-literary world.  And, you know, stuff.  

With no narrative to drive the book, I look for character, setting, and—above all—language.  I can happily sink into an expressionist novel if I am borne aloft on imagery and verbiage.  Many of my favorite books have little to no plot at all!  But boy, are they pretty to read…

With Dhalgren, however, I found the writing derivative.  I recognize that it is deliberately cyclical and fragmented, but somehow it did not engender confusion or disorientation, but boredom.  The style was so very self-conscious that it became pompous.  The characters are one-dimensional, perhaps the better to project the reader’s self upon a “type.”  The sex is meant to be provocative and/or explicit, but is essentially uninteresting.  

As I poked around on the ‘net to see others’ reactions to Dhalgren, I realized that the book is remarkably divisive.  In most cases, if you don’t adore  your friend’s favorite book, they give you a disappointed look and secretly decide not to like you as much.  Apparently if you hate Dhalgren, you’re a moron.  Oh, and sexually repressed.  And racist.  *great*  For example, random reviewer Stevelvis from Goodreads says “It is interesting to read the long positive reviews by the "smart" people and it's also a laugh to read the negative reviews by the people who just didn't get it or who were offended by its explicit sexuality.” 

I didn’t like the book.  I can appreciate Samuel R. Delaney as a gay black man with an AMAZING beard.  Disliking his writing  does not make me racist, stupid, nor a prude.  But you know, I must be one or all of those things, because the 'net says so.  

Perhaps Dhalgren is a book best read as a timepiece, a reflection of the cutting-edge literary themes of its day.  I cannot describe it as a classic, nor as a pleasure to read.  If you don’t agree, please change my mind…but try to do it without calling me a moron.  That tends to make me cranky.

 

Translations are Hell (Choosing an Inferno): Naomi

I've been re-reading Dante's Inferno.   For fun. (I know, I know.  I am that deeply geeky.)  And I am madly in love with my translation of it, and wanted to share it with you, Gentle Readers.  

Dante's 9 levels of Hell, by Sandro Botticelli

A few words about translations: I am a self-confessed translation snob.  Perhaps it’s the training in Shakespeare, which makes me reticent to accept subpar renditions.  For example, I have seen many editions of Shakespeare where footnoted modernizations turn Hamlet into hamburger.  Shakespeare says:

… There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all…. (V.ii.)

If I were to “translate,” I might say: “God controls everything, even something as small as a sparrow’s death.  If something happens now, it’s supposed to.  If it’s not happening now, it will happen later.  All we can do is prepare.”  

Now, the first passage gives me goosebumps, and makes me *happy sigh* a little each time I hear it; it’s truth-in-poetry.  The second one is mere explanation: dry, soulless, lacking. 

I don’t want to dislike a book or an author because the translation is bad.  The translation should give the ideas of the original author a chance to affect a larger audience.  That’s why we translate books…

So I can read Dante, when I don’t read Italian.  

Rodin's "Gates of Hell"

 When it comes to choosing a translation edition, I have a process:  choose a passage, find it in each book, compare.  It’s how I buy translations, dictionaries, even travel guides.  When I chose my Dante a few years ago, I spent about two hours sitting on the floor in Very Distinguished University’s bookstore, surrounded by every translation they had on hand.  As I pondered, I had a few criteria:

      1) The translation needed soul.  So all prose translations were put back on the shelf.  This girl was not interested. 

2) I wanted, but did not require, a facing-page translation.  (You know, original language on one page; translation on the other.)  Because of my Romance language background, I like to look at the original language and see how much I can parse it.  Some editions have the original text in Part I of the book, followed by the translation in Part II, but that’s pretty clunky to navigate.

      3) Scholarly notes.  I prefer footnotes to endnotes, but I definitely wanted the occasional editorial comment on context or word choice.  Since I’ve never taken a class on Dante, and I was reading for education as well as pleasure, I wanted someone to give me a little guidance. 

After a few hours of consideration, I chose Michael Palma’s translation of Inferno.  This was a wonderful decision, as the book is fabulous.  This was a terrible decision, as he has not published Purgatorio or Paradiso.  And I need them!

I have such a crush on Palma’s translation.  It’s not word-for-word exact.  But the soul is right.  So many writers are intimidated by translating poetry.  It’s with excellent reason—good poetry is hard enough to write oneself, let alone trying to capture the essence of someone else’s poetry while remaining true to the original rhyme scheme.  Dante in particular has been a challenge, and so many translators have thrown up their hands and reverted to prose!  O the humanity.  Translators have done Dante in free verse, blank verse, and bastardized terza rima with elimination of the linking rhyme. 

[For those who are unfamiliar, Gentle Readers, terza rima is a poetic rhyme scheme collected in tercets, or lines of three, much like a couplet is collected & rhymed in twos.  Each middle line—for example, the “B” of an A-B-A tercet—is the main rhyme for the following tercet.  To wit: A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D, etc.  Terza rima is traditionally iambic (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable), which sounds like a heartbeat (duh-DUM).  Shakespeare is also traditionally iambic.]  

Palma keeps Dante’s terza rima (including the linking rhyme), so the rhythm and the rhyme pull your reading forward.  He also keeps the beauty, so when you read about Paolo and Francesca, you’re struck with the hopelessness of their passion and their punishment.  (Did you know that Rodin’s The Kiss is figured after Paolo and Francesca?  The statue illustrates the moment of the first forbidden kiss, when “that day we did not read another line.”)

In his introduction, Palma explains why his translation is a little less flowery than some others.  He reminds the reader that Dante is famous for writing in Italian—the vernacular—rather than Latin.  In Dante’s lifetime, “serious” works of literature were written in Latin, partly so that other intellectuals could read one another's ideas without translation problems (O the irony!), and partly so that authors appeared to be extending classical lines of inquiry.  Latin showed that these authors were taking up the torch, so to speak. Dante changed that.  He wrote a “serious” work of literature, a piece with religious overtones, classical bones, and political significance, and he wrote it in everyday speech.  

So Palma keeps his translation pretty lean and mean.  The words are well-chosen but the manipulation of language seems effortless.  It’s clear, it’s readable, and it’s still lovely. 

It’s not perfetto.  I have a few niggling problems: Palma’s “All you who enter, let no hope survive” does not hold a candle to John Ciardi’s “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  Frankly, Palma's rendition of the most famous of all Dante quotations is pretty clunky.    But all in all, I’m a big fan. 

I won’t get even more pedantic in this post, but please don’t let Dante frighten you.  He’s canonical because he’s good, not necessarily because he’s hard.  If reading a prose translation gets you into reading Inferno, use it!  (Just don’t tell me.  My heart will bleed.)  Please give it a shot.  It’s lovely, it’s frightening, it’s intense.  And each Canto is pretty short, so each “chapter” is readable.  

Don’t abandon all hope… give the poetry a chance.  

Palma has two publications of his Inferno: the facing-page translation which I own, and the Norton Critical Edition, with additional essays and explication.  Both are available relatively cheaply.  

Watchers, and the watched...:Naomi

I have sometimes been accused of being a book snob.  I would like to protest that that is only mostly true.  I do not insist on “highbrow” reading.  I do not read only Shakespeare, and theory, and dry textbooks.  I AM FUN, DAMMIT.  In fact, I dislike theory quite a lot (the theory-head is Hermia, weird little freak that she is).  And I do love Shakespeare, but I love him for his ridiculous plots and his bawdy jokes as much as for his poetry and his polish. 

But, lest I protest too much (Hamlet joke: nudge, nudge, wink, wink), let me continue.  I like all kinds of books.  I read horror, sci fi, fantasy, mysteries, even some non-fiction.  I have very few rules, but here they are:

1) The book must be well-written.  If the plot is good, I can forgive substandard prose, but if the plot and the prose are poor, I get cranky.

2) If the book has a genre precedent, it must be acknowledged, even if it’s then rejected.  For example, I think Twilight is awful.  Both because it violates Rule #1, and because it never adequately explains why Myers’ vampires don’t fit the vampire prototype.  Now don’t get me wrong, Gentle Readers.  Not all vampires need to be Dracula-esque.  Some of my favorite vampires are totally different types.  But the good books acknowledge the previous stereotypes, explain the unique twist given, and extrapolate from there.  A good book is aware of its place in literary history, even if the book only aspires to be a pot-boiler.  

3) If I am going to cry, I like to be warned.  I don’t need to know what horrible thing will happen, but I like to know that I need tissues.  And usually I like to read crying-books while wearing my contacts, so my glasses don’t get all foggy.  (So I’m a neat-freak.  So what?)

That’s pretty much it.  I will read just about anything.  So I find it amusing to be called a book snob.  Frankly, I’m a bit more of a book whore.  I’m rather indiscriminate with my favors, and I will do it anywhere.  *ahem*  Moving on…

This whole conversation (Monologue? Rant?) is preamble to one of my favorite books.  It’s a Dean Koontz thriller.  Dean-o usually falls into the grey area described in Rule #1 above.  His plots usually get me through the rough prose patches, but I have to read him sparingly.  He is, however, a fantastic airplane read.

But one of the “Masters of Modern Horror” owns, and loves, golden retrievers.  (awwwww.)  His golden retriever Trixie even wrote a few books before she passed away.  See her webpage here: http://www.deankoontz.com/trixie-about/   Yeah, yeah, yeah…corny.  I know.  Koontz’s A Big Little Life is still worth reading for all dog lovers, though (bring tissues). 

***

So, back to…Watchers.

There are two books being written here.  One is a dog book.  If you don’t like dogs, firstly you won’t care for this book.  Secondly, why are we friends, Gentle Reader?  I mean, really.  What do we have in common?  Anyway, the other book is a science fiction genetic-mutation-runs-amok story, which is one of my favorite sub-genres. The great thing about Watchers is that these two halves feel organic.  And not in a genetic-mutation sort of way. 

Amoral scientists who have been tempted by power, money, and fame have come together somewhere in California to make super-genetic-hybrid-spy-soldier (SGHSS) things.  Then, as these things tend to do, the SGHSSes get loose.  There are, of course, two of them.  The good one, who looks like a golden retriever, and the bad one, who eats people’s faces and looks like hellspawn.  The bad one is jealous of the good one (sibling rivalry with fangs), and hunts it.  It does eat people’s faces along the way: Jekyll & Hyde, with fur. 

But the good SGHSS adopts a person.  And since it is, physically, a dog, the SGHSS cannot speak.  Which is where the book gets really fun.  Our friend Dean writes dog behavior beautifully.  Anyone who has ever been owned by a dog knows that his or her dog is obviously super-smart.  Smarter than most people.  Certainly smarter than I am.  This SGHSS dog is the apex of my-dog-is-amazingly-smart.  Because, you know, it is.  Genetically modified and all.  There is some seriously good dog-owner wish-fulfillment going on in this book.  Plus, you know, faces being eaten.  And chase scenes. 

Some of the book is silly.  There’s a girl-being-stalked subplot that is just shoved in there, but serves to get the romantic leads together.  Frankly, it’s superfluous.  Some of the plotting needs a nudge, and it is not beautifully written.  BUT THE DOG HAS A PEOPLE-BRAIN.  So it all works out. 

It's pretty tightly-plotted, and the faint of heart ought not to read it alone in the dark.  Read it amongst friends, in a brightly-lit coffee shop in the middle of a sunny afternoon.  You'll still bite your nails. 

And yes, it made me cry.  By the end I even cried for the bad SGHSS.  It is not his fault, after all, that the amoral scientists made him “wrong.”  And he’s still a puppy.  In spite of the face-eating. 

Here is the B&N link, but you can find it cheaply on any book site.  It was, after all, first published in 1987.  My paperback is beat all to hell, and I am actually considering finding a hardback edition that I don't have to hold together with rubber bands and spit.  Or you could vist your local library, otherwise known as my happy place.  

[NOTA BENE: Koontz also wrote The Darkest Evening of the Year, another book with golden retrievers.  It’s a total waste of time.]