mating

Mating is a novel by Norman Rush from 1991, set in Botswana in the early 1980s. This one won the National Book Award for 1991. Rush tells this story first person, from the POV of a graduate student from Stanford University, struggling with her doctoral thesis in nutritional anthropology. I guess that's a thing

Mating is an interesting look at the native lifestyles of southern Africa, how foreigner's perceive and interact with it, and how the local's feel about foreigners in their country. But more importantly, Mating is about love, how it feels, and how it changes people.

The text in this book is dense, and Rush assumes a huge general knowledge of the world, literature, academe, and foreign phrases! Dude, French AND Latin, and if I remember correctly a smattering of other languages, including Italian. Oh and don't forget Setswana and Afrikaans.* All dropped into casual conversation. Umberto Eco, I'm looking at you.

I really enjoyed this one, but man, it was dense, and it took a while to read, but in the end I'm glad I did. Rush spent some time in Africa, and drew on his experiences there I'm sure, and you can feel that knowledge of local culture, custom, and foods in every paragraph.





* Pro Tip: There is a glossary of Setswana and Afrikaans words, phrases and acronyms at the back of the book. I found it after I finished reading and thought: This would have been handy.

sunbeam

On a Sunbeam is a graphic novel by Tillie Walden and it is both visually lush, and touching in its sensitivity to its subject matter. 

Let’s take those things one at a time. The ‘graphic’ in graphic novel comes first and its fitting I think, especially in this case. Sunbeam is science fiction story set in a universe that seems to include Earth, but the area of space where this story takes place seems very remote from Earth, and remote even from planetary physics as we understand it. Little chunks of rock, sometimes with room for only a building or two, seem to float around in space, some occupied, some not. Many of these building are in need of restoration, and that’s where Mia and the rest of the crew on their fish-looking ship come in. 

 

The palette is subdued, using just 3 or 4 colors, mostly black, normally speckled with stars or star-like speckles of who knows what. Even in daytime, if there is such a thing here, star strewn skies float overhead, are glimpsed through windows and portholes, and sometimes seem to linger between two people as they talk. Often, the starscapes are strewn with twisting, colored storms of cloud and dust. The old buildings and ruins are drafted with care and an attention to perspective that makes me think they were first modeled with a program like SketchUp. 

You can just gaze at this book, at the velvety black, other-worldliness of it. Good on you Tillie Walden. 

The fiction part of the story follows our hero Mia through various stages of her life. It’s centered on her work as a new recruit on board a ship named Sunbeam as they work on building restoration and then move on the next job. The human story is based on the relationships Mai forms with her shipmates and is punctuated by her memories of her 9th grade year in boarding school--and the relationships she formed there.

Those two story lines then progress and spin together, and we see the perspective changing in both the Mia of the present and the Mia of the past. The message is clear; we’re always growing. 

And sometimes it takes growth to know when it’s time to go back to something you may have missed along the way. 

Mia is fierce, loyal, strong, sensitive, forgiving, and both spontaneous and thoughtful. When Mia hugs someone who was keeping her from someplace she desperately wanted to be, after keeping her against her will, I almost fell over.

Read this book, and gaze at the artwork. 

oresteian trilogy

The Oresteian Trilogy consists of three plays, translated from ancient Greek; Agamemnon, The Choephori, and The Eumenides. These plays, written by Aeschylus (525 - 456 BCE) tell of the tragedy that befalls Agamemnon and his family shortly after his return from the 10 year battle in Troy. Paris has been defeated, Troy sacked, and Cassandra taken as spoils of war back to Argos (Mycenae) and his wife Clytemnestra, sister of Helen.

You'll recall that Agamemnon went to Troy at the request (demand) of his brother Menelaus, King of Sparta, whose wife, Helen was stolen by Paris during a visit to Sparta for a wedding. Menelaus was obviously pretty peeved to lose he wife like this, and demanded the armies join him in marching on Troy to punish Paris and retrieve his queen. This bit is told in The Iliad, and because that story was as well known then as it is now, Aeschylus could skip to the days before Agamemnon arrived home.

Why is it, that after 10 long years beneath the walls of Troy, watching countless other men die in battle, including his brother Menelaus, Agamemnon has to travel all the way back home in victory before tragedy catches up with him? Well, that has to do with the curse on his family, that extends back to his grandfather Tantalus, who feasted with the gods, and then betrayed their secrets to mortal men. And it doesn't end with him, but with his children; Iphigenia, Electra, and his son Orestes, for whom the trilogy is named.

Because this story is so well known, is apparently why Aeschylus chose it to teach the populace about justice. Not the eye-for-an-eye justice of the ancient gods, but the modern justice of the emerging Greek democracy. Aeschylus weaves the ancient and modern ideals together, and like any persuader worth his salt, uses the believes of the people as a bridge to a new way of thinking. Conscripting Athena herself as the voice of justice, forming the very first court of justice, with 12 citizen jurors to decide the fate of Orestes, and finally bring an end to the family curse.

Because Aeschylus has an agenda, he's had his with the story and the characters to suit that agenda, so the stories in these three plays do not align with much of the popular Greek myths concerning these characters. 3000 year old fan fiction?

Translated from Greek by Philip Vellacott, who also wrote the introduction.

night squad

Before Corey Bradford was kicked off the police force, he had his way with some of the folks in the slummy part of town where he grew up, affectionately known as the Swamp--a bribe here, a shake down there. Now that Bradford is off the force, he's lost his wife, and has ramped up his drinking.

Now, being in the wrong place at the wrong time has put Bradford right between the crime organization that runs the Swamp and the police department he used to work for.

Then the Night Squad came looking for him.

This is 1961, hard core crime noir. The honky-tonk lingo, the cruel reality of the ghetto, the .38 specials, and the platinum blondes are all here. I haven't read a hard boiled crime novel in a while, and there really is something to these pulpy crime fiction novels from this era. David Goodis doesn't waste words, and he doesn't spare feelings. The inner dialog is a little over wrought, but it really gets to the core of Bradford's feelings as he moves his way through this story, trying to find the best way forward for number one.

Goodis writes the Swamp as an integral part, or even a character in the story. The teaser line on the original book jacket calls the Swamp: "...the brutal throbbing heart of the slums." There are plenty of sad, sorry stories in the Swamp, and Bradford just wades through them as gets on with his life there. There are glimmers of what life could be, buts its never clear if those glimmers hold any hope for Bradford, or anyone else who lives there.