The Innkeeper’s Song
The Innkeeper’s Song by Peter S. Beagle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Peter Beagle is an author I should read more of. His “The Last Unicorn” is one of my favorite books, as well as having been made into a cartoon that was in nigh constant rotation during my childhood. In fact, I still own it today.
This book had moments of startlingly beautiful prose. Whole chapters as finely wrought as any in genre fiction. But sometimes it was inscrutable, holding me at arms distance, a mean feat for a book comprised of short, overlapping first person perspectives. I wonder if this isn’t a book too delicate and subtle for my law school brain at the moment, and so I am promising to reread it soon.
You know, this summer, or after the JD.
Green by Jay Lake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this book very much, despite some initial trepidation about its origins. I picked it up from the library after seeing it reviewed at John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever, as well as at The Hathor Legacy, where it was reviewed most favorably. Books that pass the Bechdel Test can be pretty rare, even in genre fiction, but this book passed with flying colors. I had to try it.
The book was written by Jay Lake as a gift for his daughter. That gave me pause. I was worried it would be a little paen to Mary Sue Lake, and the twee would overwhelm the potential for a good story. I was wrong. This story, full of adventure, is also a story with plot advancing casual sex, torture, and a heroine who makes devastating mistakes that she has to live with. It wasn’t EVER saccharine or sentimental, and I found myself thinking Jay Lake’s daughter is a pretty lucky girl, to have been given such a gift.
The world is marvelous, particularly the theology, and I found myself hoping that Lake plans to return to this world again. I would certainly read anything he wrote that further explores this world or its gods, and I plan to pick up his other series as soon as I clear out my library queue a bit.
ETA: Left purposefully vague, because I think I would hate to spoil any of the plot twists.
Happy Birthday, Victoria Woodhull!
Today is the 171st birthday of one of my favorite 19th century feminists, Victoria Woodhull. This biography sums her up beautifully.
Woodhull was a woman ahead of her time in nearly every way. She was the first woman to open a brokerage firm on Wall Street. She ran her own weekly newspaper. She ran for the U.S. Presidency in 1872. She advocated a woman’s sexual autonomy and free love 100 years before the Summer of Love. She was by far one of the most interesting women who campaigned for suffrage in her time.
If self-government be the rule, every self must be its subject. If a person govern, not only himself but others, that is despotic government, and it matters not if that control be over one or over a thousand individuals, or over a nation; in each case it, would be the same principle of power exerted outside of self and over others, and this is despotism, whether it is exercised by one person over his subjects, or by twenty persons over a nation, or by one-half the people of a nation over the other half thereof. There is no escaping the fact that the principle by which the male citizens of these United States assume to rule the female citizens is not that of self-government, but that of despotism; and so the fact is that poets have sung songs of freedom, and anthems of liberty have resounded for an empty shadow.
The Woodhull Center for Ethical Leadership has this to say about their namesake:
The woman who inspired and served as namesake to this organization is Victoria Woodhull, a nineteenth-century feminist who was the first woman stockbroker on Wall Street; the first woman to produce her own newspaper; and the first woman to run for President of the United States when women did not even have the right to vote. Victoria Woodhull was a fearless lobbyist, businesswoman, writer and investor who advocated for a woman’s equal status in the workplace, political arena, church and family.
Victoria Woodhull was in some ways like the Susan B. Anthonys and Elizabeth Cady Stantons of her time. Like them, she advocated for the full education of daughters, foregoing the 19th century belief that daughters, mothers and wives should be silent ‘angels of the house’ submissively catering to men’s needs. Like them, she called for a vote and a voice. But there the resemblance ends – for she was in many ways a quintessentially modern woman, and far ahead of her time.
She spoke frankly of the need for women to take control of their reproductive life and health- so frankly that she was not received in the most respectable drawing rooms, even those belonging to the feminists of her day. Even her language differs sharply from that of her well-meaning sisters in the suffrage movement: where they were often circuitous and genteel, Woodhull had no patience for mincing words; every speech was ablaze with bold honesty as she savagely criticized Victorian hypocrisies and political inequities.
The other organization I found that bears her name is the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. Their list of current projects is pretty amazing. Right at the top is this:
21st Century Census
The current Census exemplifies the government’s outdated view of America’s residents and their relationships. The Census suggests that marriage is the only type of relationship that really matters, it suggests that households all consist of a group of people related to a head of the household, it suggests that male and female are the only two options for gender, etc. If government is going to serve Americans optimally, then it needs to have an updated, accurate understanding of the rich range of personal characteristics and interpersonal relationships that exist in America.Woodhull is working to restructure the discourse in America about sex and sexuality and about the personal characteristics and interpersonal relationships that stem from that. As part of this work, Woodhull has formed working groups to address these issues around the Census and to present the group’s recommendations to the government.
As a legacy, I don’t think either of these things would displease her. Happy birthday!
Life As We Knew It
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I went back and added a star to my review, based on the Ebert rule. This book was okay, on a relative scale of what I generally like to read. But if I were to review it for how well it met the conventions of its genre and expectations of its target audience, it deserved another star at least, out of fairness.
The book is written as a journal of a sixteen-year old girl named Miranda, and it begins before the apocalyptic event occurs, giving us a baseline of what Miranda’s life is like before the asteroid hits the moon, pushing it into a closer orbit and causing tidal waves and volcanic eruptions as the moon’s gravitational force pulls harder on the Earth.
My main gripe with the book was that many of the more event-packed entries strained to be written in the format Susan Beth Pfeffer chose. Too much word for word dialogue and objective viewpoint made it feel less like a real journal and more like a journal interspersed with short stories.
It was a zippy read, broken into easily digestible pieces, though, which made it perfect for reading while in law school. I’m not sure yet if I ultimately care enough about these characters to seek out the sequel, but maybe eventually. Next book, I think I want something a little more demanding.
Because I Am a Girl
So, today, a report came out on the effect of the global financial crisis on women and girls. I have previously linked one of my most favorite charities–The Girl Effect–who deal with economic aid and development issues as they impact women and girls.
The report is excellent. (Though I could quibble a teeeeeeny bit about the design of a report about girls and women that makes every pulled quote PINK, but whatever. That’s a losing fight. I get that.) It starts with a grim call to action:
The global financial crisis is taking a heavy toll on families and communities everywhere, and when money is short it is girls and young women who are most affected.
As a result of the current crisis, in 2009 alone an estimated additional 50,000 African babies will die before their first birthday. Most of these will be girls.
The numbers, if you stack them up, are grim. The falling economy results in girls being pulled out of school to take a job to help support the family. Sweatshops and child labor are often the BEST things that these girls can hope for. The economy being what it is just about everywhere, the sex trade is often where those girls end up working.
The report ends with a ten point plan for how to prevent the economic crisis from destroying the inroads made in helping women and girls.
1. No compromise on global gender equality goals and international commitments.
2. Promote the full integration of gender equality principles into national and regional economic policies.
3. Prioritize girls’ education from their earliest years through to adolescence and beyond.
4. Maintain national social protection programs and safeguard social services.
5. Scale up investment in young women’s work opportunity.
6. Support young women workers and ensure they get decent pay and conditions.
7. Invest in young women’s leadership.
8. Ensure equality for girls and young women in land and property ownership.
9. Count and value young girls and young women’s work through national and international data disaggregation.
10. Develop and promote a set of practical global guiding principles on girls and young women at work.
The conclusion, and the reason for redirecting our focus, is simply put: “Educated girls mean the chance of a better life for themselves and their children, a more prosperous community, a better workforce, and a wealthier nation.”
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Generally, the broad criticisms of this book are accurate. It is fairly superficial, zipping along at times when a slightly slower pacing would be a good idea. The characters are interesting, but mostly I was left wanting to know more about all of them, and sometimes their motives were completely inscrutable.
What is interesting about this book that I didn’t expect from a straight up YA genre work was the independence of the heroine. In this type of book, where the female protagonist is a tomboy, she is almost always tamed and persuaded to be feminine to catch the eye of the male love interest. No so, Katsa. If anything, she becomes more butch and independent after she loses her virginity to Po. In fact, instead of the inculcation of marriage and sex only inside marriage that you find in most YA fiction (Harry Potter, anyone?) Katsa doesn’t want to get married: she just wants Po to be her lover and her friend.
All in all, I’d recommend this to young girls who like genre fiction and who aren’t quite ready to graduate to the adult books yet. It was feminist and fun. In totally unrelated and irrelevant news, the cover is completely gorgeous.
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I’m All In
When your interests and education background are what mine are, things like this come across your radar, often because people want to prove you wrong. They want to take two of your beliefs and smash them against one another to see if they give sparks. In this case, my feminism and my respect for Islam were put to a test by the article about the 12-year old Yemeni girl who died in childbirth. It popped up several places today where I saw it, but it was also sent to me be a friend who disagrees with my assessment of Islam as a peaceful religion.
Let me be clear. This is not Islam. This is patriarchy dressed up with religion, which happens everywhere that men have decided they are the sole voice of God. In this case, the flavor is Islamic, but everything that happened to this girl would be contrary to the teachings of Muhammad and Qur’an.
Stories like this tear the heart out of me. They leave me wondering if there’s any hope that the world can be made better for women and girls. When stories like that of Fawziya Ammodi, who labored for three days to have her baby before she died, threaten to overwhelm me, there are two places I go. One, is the Shakesville blog, where I remember I have a teaspoon, and that I have promised to be all-in. (That’s one of my favorite blog posts of all time, right there…) The other is the Girl Effect website. And so a healthy dose of the informational video of one of my favorite charities:
“There is no neutral in this. You’re in or you’re fucking out.” –Melissa McEwan.
I’m in, too. Still. For good.
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1: Sex, the Future, and Chocolate Chip Cookies
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1: Sex, the Future, & Chocolate Chip Cookies by Karen Joy Fowler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I wrote my senior thesis for the KU Women’s Studies department on James Tiptree, and I had been wanting the anthologies ever since. I mean, the titles alone would have sold me. 
In this anthology, you’ll find short stories, critical essays, even letters from Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree) herself. If you don’t know who James Tiptree is, go now and Wiki it. I’ll wait.
Fascinating stuff. So much in the Tiptree stories turns gender on its head. They’re exciting, bright, well-crafted stories, and well-worthy of having an award named after them. I won’t say every Tiptree nominee has knocked my socks off, but they certainly have all TRIED.
I recommend this, and any Tiptree short stories you can get your hands on, to any fans of the genre.
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