Book Round-Up

 Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh: This satire of "Bright Young Things" between the Wars is sharp and brutal, even laugh-out-loud funny, but as the book progresses it also gets bleaker (Waugh got divorced while he wrote this). I admired it, and I'm glad I read it, but I wasn't in the right headspace to spend so much time with vapid, superficial people. Warning: the n-word shows up a couple of times, which I was not at all expecting.

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis: I'm mad that I read this. It has an interesting premise -- used bookdealer Ashlyn can pick up psychic impressions from books, especially the two she's found that tell both sides of an unhappy love story -- but it was terribly executed. The star-crossed lovers at the heart of the novel were snobby and insufferable, there was fatshaming and slutshaming (meanwhile the "slut" had the most interesting story, and the most integrity, of the bunch), the magic realism aspect was non-existent after the first few chapters, and, worst of all, the author wrote a terrible, offensive portrayal of suicide. I am mystified that this book is as well-reviewed as it is.

Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery: A palate cleanser! I adored the Anne stories as a child, but my paperbacks from the 1980s are falling apart so I'm treating myself to new, hardcover versions. I started with this one because it is my favorite and because it is the hardest to get, as it is not yet in the public domain. Montgomery really is an excellent writer -- perceptive, both clear-eyed about and forgiving of people's faults, and genuinely funny.

Once Upon a Prime: the Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature by Sarah Hart: Of course I'd be all over a book that unites math and literature. Hart displays both a deep enthusiasm for literature and math and a delightfully dorky sense of humor that made this a fascinating, engaging read. And now my list of books to read is even longer.

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link: One of my favorite authors is back! The short stories in this collection are riffs on classic folktales. Link has a talent for this sort of thing, incorporating modern details like jazzercise, brunch spots, and cellphones while keeping the dreamlike fantasy, and even horror, of the original tales.

An Early Start

 Disappointed that I didn't get to stitch any 12 Days of Christmas designs last December, I vowed to start early (February, I think) and stitch a few before summer ended. "A few" turned into "one," and that one was a large design (much bigger than I anticipated), but still! I have something to add to the collection!

 The design is from Gazette 94. It's a little too big to count as an ornament, but I love the colors.

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

Kuang's stand-alone fantasy novel posits a world where magic is the literal product of translation; silver bars inscribed with a word or phrase in two languages capture the meaning or implication that is lost in translation, producing an effect related to that lost meaning. Linguistic scholars at the Babel Tower in 19th century Oxford exploit this flaw in translation to aid the British Empire and its citizens. Kuang, who is a translator herself, understands all too well the impossibility of a translation that captures perfectly the intended meaning and all its nuances. She also peppers the narrative with lots of fun etymologies.

Kuang is interested in more than just a dark academia fantasy, however; at every step she challenges the reader to think through the implications of a magic system so thoroughly entwined with an empire determined to hold on to power. Robin Swift is a Chinese boy taken from his family and home country so that his linguistic talents, particularly his status as a native Cantonese speaker, can be developed and used in England's efforts to force the Chinese government to yield to unfavorable trade agreements. His cohort at Babel consists of other outsiders -- Ramy, a Muslim Indian, Victoire, a Haitian-French girl descended from slaves, and Letty, a white English girl expected to replace her brother after his untimely death -- who each grapple with their roles in perpetuating colonialism, in different ways. Robin, for example, must overcome his tendency to do what is expected of him and be the "model minority." Letty, on the other hand, struggles to reconcile the privilege she experiences because of her skin color and nationality with the very real sexism she faces. Witnessing the racism her friends face, she tries to dismiss it as the acts of a few bad people, rather than a symptom of a cultural, economic, and political system built on prejudice. And then there's Victoire, who has it worst as a Black woman; more than anything she wants to survive.

While the novel is highly praised (deservedly so), there's a strain of criticism I've seen pop up everywhere; namely, that Kuang was too heavy-handed in her condemnation of colonialism, that she should have allowed readers to figure it out for themselves. But if the themes of the story are something for us to work out, it becomes all too easy to just not do the work -- to skim the ugly parts and ignore all that unpleasantness that makes us feel vaguely guilty in favor of the cool, magical world centered around an actual tower (albeit not made of ivory). That's exactly what the Babel academics do, focusing on their fascinating work while turning a blind eye to its uses and implications. Kuang does not want us to gloss over the evil of what is happening, so she never lets us forget it.

It's not an easy read, but it is well worth it.

The 100 Day Project

 I joined the #100DayProject, a challenge to get artists out of a rut and into a daily habit of creating, on February 22. And what a mistake it was! 

1) It turns out, I already have the habit of creating (or at least stitching or beading) every day, and if I don't on a particular day it's because I'm dead tired, both physically and emotionally.

2) I'm not creatively blocked; in fact, I have a notebook of ideas and little time to explore them.

3) Although the Project doesn't require it, I picked one thing to work on -- my Hawai'ian quilt (huh, apparently I never showed off the completed center), specifically the crazy-quilted borders. But working on the same thing for one hundred days straight was tedious; so tedious that around day 80, I switched to a fun Sue Spargo stitch-along. 

4) The obligation to post on Instagram every day was exhausting. I'm clearly not cut out to be an influencer.

That said, I really did enjoy seeing other people's art, and I made a lot of progress on my own project, finishing two sides and most of a third:

 

 

A few of my favorite seams:

 (I'll save the Sue Spargo project for the next post.)

Next year, I'll just be a spectator.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

 Zevin's novel lived up to all the hype -- a story about two lifelong friends who are devoted to each other but struggle to communicate. Sam and Sadie meet as children in a hospital and immediately bond over Super Mario Bros. We follow them as they drop out of college (Harvard and MIT), create a ground-breaking video game, found their own company, and split over competing visions. There are misunderstandings and arguments, betrayals and tragedies, but they can never quite let go of each other. It's a moving, nuanced portrayal of a deep friendship between too prickly, creative, troubled people. 

It's also a paean to creative work, and the drive to make something. Sam focuses on what's popular, what will get the most players, and Sadie cares more about the art and storytelling, but they both want to design a game that will matter to other players, and both are uncompromising in their own ways. 

Sadie and Sam are the main focus of the narrative, but the book is filled with other characters in orbit around them, most notably Marx, the loyal friend to both and the one who bankrolled their vision. At one point, in a burst of anger, Sam calls him an "NPC" -- non-player character -- and says he doesn't matter. But as Marx points out, without NPCs there's nothing for the player character to do. Marx may continually take a back seat to Sam and Sadie, but his effect on them, and his role in the story, make up the core of the novel. Zevin excels in creating wonderfully realized characters, and in Marx she created one of my favorites ever.

If there is one flaw in the book, it's that the narration is a bit inconsistent. With two notable (and brilliantly effective) examples late in the book, Zevin uses an omniscient third-person point of view, but there's a moment early in the book where the narration changes slightly, as if the story is being told to a specific audience by a specific person. This peters out (perhaps the legacy of an earlier draft?) and the omniscient point of view reasserts itself, until it doesn't for a heart-breaking turn two thirds of the way through. 

I absolutely loved this book. And I want to start playing video games again.

Earrings, Earrings, Earrings!

 I'm on a roll with the jewelry-making.

Sari spiral earrings, inspired by a PBS show that talked about the cultural significances of spirals:

 I took two lengths of recycled sari cord and coiled them, using small tacking stitches to hold them in place. I added a sprinkle of beads for a hint of sparkle.

Frida earrings: 

 Love them, and I want to make more.

Shiva earrings (I got the pattern from an old beading magazine): 

Each earring is composed of three identical sections, each one a rivoli crystal surrounded by peyote and herringbone stitching:

 Doesn't it look like a dragon's eye?

Flower and birdie earrings:

 I actually made these in the winter, but it's only now I feel like wearing them.

Book Round-Up

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott: as tween I would have absolutely adored this fantasy novel about twins who discover they have magical powers, especially they way Scott throws in historical and mythological characters from all over the world. As an adult, I found the writing too simplistic. I'm not sure I will finish the series.

Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson: a meta-mystery that's a fun, modern take on the classic locked-room mystery, with a genre-savvy narrator who helpfully tells us which clues we can ignore and what pages the deaths happen on. I highly recommend it if you love mysteries and/or post-modern fiction.

Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater: the second of her Regency Faerie Tales. This one was a riff on Cinderella, with a fairy godfather and a housemaid so angry at the injustices she and others experience she inspires the rest of the staff to engage in collective bargaining. Although I loved the idea that Effie's magic has the ability to stitch emotions into her mending and embroidery, I didn't enjoy this novel quite as much as the second one.

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher: this was an absolutely delightful story about a 14-year-old girl who uses her magical powers over bread to save her city, with the help of her two familiars -- a carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob and an adorably tough little gingerbread man.

The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martínez: this is a re-read of a literary mystery set at Oxford and involving math (I love math!). It's very good, but I'd forgotten about the last set of deaths, which hit too close to home and leave a lingering misery in me. The movie version is not great.