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Book Review: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams (Series, #4)

March 30, 2010 6 comments

Dolphins in the sky along with a green glob holding a towel and giving a thumbs up.Summary:
Although the planet Earth definitely blew up, Arthur Dent has found himself back on it again, and not in the prehistoric past like before.  Everything seems about the same, except that the dolphins all have disappeared and apparently there was a mass hallucination of the planet blowing up caused by a CIA experiment.  You’d think this would require all of Arthur’s attention, but instead he’s rather highly focused on a woman named Fenchurch who claims the Earth really did blow up and insists something has felt off ever since.

Review:
It’s no secret that one of my favorite comedic books is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the second book in this series.  While I felt that the third book suffered a bit, it was still pretty damn funny in my opinion.  I really wish I could say the same about this.

I still enjoy Adams’ writing style.  It’s tongue in cheek, snarky, and self-referencing.  It is a pure pleasure to read.  This still holds true here, but the problem is that it’s just not laugh out loud funny.  Oh, there are bemusing moments, but mostly it’s a case of jokes falling flat.  I think the reason for this is that what makes the books funny is Arthur Dent–average British dude–stuck into the bizarre situations that are the rest of the universe with only the equally bizarre Ford Prefect as a true companion.  Indeed, my favorite bit of this book is when Arthur and Ford are reunited.  Without that Arthur stuck in outerspace element, you wind up with a rather run-of-the-mill, “huh, something odd is going on on planet Earth” book.  It’s cute, but it’s not surprising, and the element of surprise is what makes the rest of the series so funny.

I also wasn’t fond of Adams’ obvious response to the fan question, “Does Arthur ever have sex?!” with the addition of the love interest, Fenchurch.  He may think it is witty to reference this and answer it, but I was disappointed.  I enjoyed wondering if poor Arthur spent 8 years devoid of sex.  It added a certain element of mystery to him.  This whole part felt kind of like a cop-out.

I don’t want to sound like I hated the book, because I didn’t.  When compared to books not written by Adams, it actually holds up quite well.  It’s enjoyable and has some unique scenes.  It’s just, in comparison to the rest of the series, I was left a bit disappointed.  I still plan on finishing reading the series, though.

3 out of 5 stars

Source: PaperBackSwap

Previous Books in Series:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, the Universe, and Everything

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Guest Book Review: Chalice by Robin McKinley

March 29, 2010 4 comments

Please give a warm welcome to my first guest book review participant, Chellie!

Meet the Guest!
My name is Michelle Oleson, and I’m currently the Web/Digital Services Librarian at an academic library.  During a normal day, I coax printers into working properly, manage the library’s website content, help students find articles/books/staplers, and read a lot of blogs/tweetage.  Outside work, I travel near and far, and enjoy keeping up my mediocre skills at playing flute, Latin, and online gaming.

Summary:
Robin McKinley’s short novel Chalice follows McKinley’s other novels on the Beauty and the Beast theme.  Mirasol, a solitary twenty-something, bee-keeping enthusiast, finds herself out her depth as the newly appointed Chalice of her demesne (feudal styled village).  The previous Master and Chalice both died under tragic and mysterious circumstances leaving the Willowlands demesne in both political and spiritual chaos.  Mirasol must find a balance in her old and new life, in addition to solving the mystery of the Old Master and Chalice’s demise if she’s to successfully serve the new Master: an enigma in and of himself.

Review:
Much of this short novel is devoted to describing an overly complex feudal system with a Druid-esque relationship to land.  The story itself could have been concluded inside of 30 pages.

Mirasol leads the narration and all of the movement within the story.  While she represents a strong female character (like any Belle), she also lets herself be caught up in forces deemed beyond her control.  Fans of Hermione Granger will love her proclivity to spend most days holed away in the library trying to teach herself all the laws and mysticism of being the Chalice.

Mirasol spends most of her internal dialogue puzzling over the new Master.  Like any good feudal system, the old Master died leaving an elder son and a younger son.  The elder son, being a spoiled brat drunk with power, sends his brother off never to be heard from again.  Lucky for the demesne, the older brother manages to get himself killed before completely destroying his people.  The leaders of the village have a tough choice to make: bring in an outsider to rule or try to restore the younger brother.

The younger brother has been living his life as a monk in service to Fire Elementals.  He returns to lead his people as something of a Fire Element himself.  His first act as Master is to burn Chalice/Mirasol to the bone by barely touching her.

Then nothing happens for a long time while Mirasol goes to the library, thinks about how awesome her bees and honey are, how neat being a Chalice is, and wouldn’t the new Master be just dreamy if he was anything at all resembling human.  She has two or three conversations with the Master concerning how the land is holding up under all the strain of political upheaval.  Neither of them thinks they’re doing a very good job, but hey, at least we’re not getting drunk and dying horribly in a fire…

At some point the higher ups of the realm decide having a Fire Elemental as Master of a demesne is a Bad Plan.  These interlopers are only Bad Guys for the sake of moving the story forward.  Mirasol, however, comes up with a pretty spectacular plan.  The interlopers want to put their own guy on the throne and remove the current Master so he can go back to being a Fire Elemental.  Mirasol is already showing signs of being completely smitten with the new Master and feels that the land/people couldn’t survive another change.

McKinley takes Mirasol on a tour of the village blessing every inch and corner of Willowlands with her cup o’ honey.  Having successfully done this, she returns to watch the Fire Elemental Master duel it out with swords with the would-be Master.  The new guy is obviously a puppet, and wouldn’t even be a threat if the current Master was more corporeal.  Cue Fairy Tale Ending: Mirasol has her awesome bees attack the interloper in the middle of the duel.  Somehow this is not seen as cheating. All of her bees die; it’s very sad.  But from the bodies of thousands of bees, arises the Master returned in the flesh of his enemy.  The fallen man lies on the ground burnt to a crisp.

Quick resolution: Mirasol and the Master wed, as it’s obviously the only sensical thing to do.

I loved the fairy tale elements of this story.  I think the world could have been more simply explained, but maybe it’s just McKinley’s style to announce something significant, spend pages explicating the history of these circumstances, to return to the conversation once you’re ready to scream Get On With the Story Already.

I’m looking forward to reading McKinley’s Sunshine book, as I’ve heard it’s highly recommended.  I would recommend Chalice to fans of overly complex high fantasy, such as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s books.

3 out of 5 stars

Source:
This book was a gift.

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Chellie on twitter and her blog!

Book Review: The Thing from the Lake By Eleanor M. Ingram

March 25, 2010 3 comments

Brown paper cover with read lettering.Summary:
In the 1920s Roger Locke is a composer living in New York City.  He buys a house by a lake in Connecticut as a country retreat and appoints his cousin, Phyllida, and her husband, Ethan Veer, as caretakers of the property.  His first night on the property, he meets a woman–whether spirit or alive, he can’t tell–and is promptly intrigued by her.  His visits quickly turn sinister, though, as a dark force based in the lake comes at night to threaten Roger away from the woman.  What is the thing in the lake?  Who is this woman?  Can Roger defeat the dark force thereby returning himself and his cousins to their idyllic lifestyle?

Review:
I had a feeling I was going to like The Thing from the Lake when I discovered that every chapter started with a relevant quote pulled from the classics of the western canon, and I was right.  Ingram weaves a complex tale, filled with surprising twists and turns.  Just when you think you know what the overarching point is, or where the story is going to go next, you find out that you were wrong.

Ingram artfully goes back and forth between the daytime where the story is more period piece and the nighttime, which is all horror.  It is a very New England tale, featuring small farmers, big city dreams, references to the Puritans, and quirky, drawling neighbors.  While Phyllida and Ethan are believable and infinitely likeable, Roger’s immediate infatuation with the woman is a bit suspect.  It seems shallow how infatuated with her hair and her scent he is, but I think he later proves himself.  Sometimes people just know when they meet, so I’m willing to give Roger the benefit of the doubt.

Ingram leaves it up to the reader whether to believe the scientific or the supernatural explanation for the goings on at the lake.  It reminded me of my class on the Salem Witch Trials a bit, and I’d be willing to bet that Ingram was at least partially inspired by them.  It’s not easy to make both answers to a mystery equally plausible, but she pulls it off wonderfully.

The only thing holding me back from completely raving about the book is that there are parts that smack of historic misogyny.  I’m not blaming Ingram.  For her time period, many of her thoughts were quite progressive, and I’m sure Roger is an accurate representation of many men of that time period.  However, when he speaks about how his “plain cousin” Phyllida is so much more comely when she’s doing “womanly” household chores, it makes me cringe, and not in the good horror way.  Thankfully, these instances are not that frequent, so they’re easy enough to glide over.

The Thing from the Lake is a surprisingly thought-provoking book.  I highly recommend it to everyone, but particularly to those who enjoy New England literature or light horror.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Librivox recording by Roger Melin via the Audiobooks app for the iTouch

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Movie Review: No Impact Man: The Documentary (2009)

March 24, 2010 4 comments

Colin and Michelle Beavan in front of the NYC skyline holding their daughter's hands between them.Summary:
Colin Beavan writes history books, but when he decides that the future is just as important, he sets his sights on living with no impact on the environment for one year.  This is complicated by the fact that he, his wife, Michelle, and their two year old daughter live in a fifth avenue apartment in New York City.  As they gradually eliminate elements of their life from coffee (since it can’t be locally grown) to electricity, they both question their true motives and impact on others.

Review:
This is really two movies in one.  One is about the modern environmental movement and the other about a year in the life of a couple.

Michelle and Colin are a bit of an odd match.  She craves Starbucks lattes, Marc Jacobs bags, loves her job at Business Week, and wants more kids.  He….well, it isn’t entirely clear what he wants.  In the moments when he forgets the camera is there, it seems that he almost feels guilty for living.  That he feels guilty for humanity existing at all.  Michelle agreed to the project because she wanted to live a moderate existence and she felt that the year would snap her out of her shopping and tv watching addictions, whereas Colin feels guilty about using toilet paper because one tree might die.  He clearly views humanity as a pariah, which leaves me wondering why he agreed to get married in the first place.  That saddens me, because the environmental movement should be about embracing humanity as a part of nature.  We’re not overlords or a pariah; we’re just the animals with the greatest impact on the planet.

The documentary is intriguing to watch.  It strikes just the right pace.  Viewers less familiar with the movement will be shocked at the worm bin (I lived with one made by my old roommate, Nina).  They’ll be surprised and delighted at the dishes Colin creates using only locally grown food throughout the year, an introduction to the localvore movement to viewers who may not have heard about it.  Hopefully they’ll be able to see past the extremes Colin takes it to and realize that some elements of the movement are very much worth working into their life.  For instance, at the end of the year, Michelle herself says that she wants to keep biking to work and going to the farmer’s market.  She enjoys the health benefits of biking built into her day and the sense of community from knowing the people who grew her food.  Personally, I like to view the environmental movement more as a lifestyle movement.  Hopefully viewers will see those aspects of it through the hype and Colin’s self-hating guilt.

This documentary is absolutely worth the watch.  If you enjoyed Morgan Spurlock’s more well-known documentaries, you will enjoy this film.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Netflix

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Movie Review: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009)

Movie poster featuring Jeremy Piven standing with his arms crossed in the fore-ground.Summary:
Don Ready has built his career on helping failing car dealerships save the business with 4 day selling strategizing extravaganzas.  Everything is going as it usually does until Don falls for the business owner’s engaged daughter.  Can he win her over?  Can she or his friends mend his damaged heart?

Review:
It’s a good enough sounding plot fleshed out by an all-star cast known for their comedy abilities–Jeremy Piven, Ken Jeong, and Ed Helms among them.  Unfortunately, it suffers from a bad script and falls flat.  Attempts at being funny just induce cringes.  The characters either lack motivation entirely or their motivation is so overly contrived that it lacks believability.  For instance, we’re supposed to believe that Don Ready was wounded when as a child he traded a ball you sit and hop on for one of those peddle cars in the hopes of getting the attention of a neighbor girl, only to have her still like the other boy better.  Um. Ok.  I don’t think 7 year olds really think like that…..

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I don’t have a pc sense of humor.  I’m not uptight by any means, but I do think there’s a line, and The Goods really crosses it with one situation that is repeatedly played for humor.  The used car lot owner has a 10 year old son who has a pituitary problem that gives him the body of a 20 something.  One of the female characters is very attracted to him and repeatedly tries to bed him.  Although the other characters all scold her and tell her to lay off, the audience is clearly supposed to laugh at this.  Child abuse is not funny.  Ever.

Fortunately Ed Helms of The Office is around to save things.  His scenes are all actually amusing, and we get the chance to sample his singing talents, which are always enjoyable.

Overall, the movie isn’t horrible, it just isn’t worth the time.  I’d like those 90 minutes of my life back, please.  If you’re looking for bawdy humor, check out The Hangover or Superbad and skip this one.

2 out of 5 stars

Source: Netflix

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Book Review: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (Series, #5)

March 22, 2010 6 comments

Railroad tracks and church steeple against a golden sky.Summary:
The gunslinger’s katet have a lot more on their plate than just continuing along the path of the beam.  Susannah is pregnant and has developed another personality, Mia, to deal with the pregnancy as it is most likely demonic.  The Rose is in danger in then when of 1977 New York City.  The man who owns the empty lot it grows in is under pressure from the mob to sell it to an unseen man.  So the last thing the katet needs is to run into a town desperately in need of the help of gunslingers.

The Calla, a town made up of rice growers and ranchers who mostly give birth to twins, has been facing a plague once every generation.  Creatures referred to as Wolves come and take one child out of every set of twins between the ages of about 4 and puberty.  The child is later returned mentally retarded.  Their local robot messenger, Andy, has warned them that the Wolves are coming in about a month, and their holy man believes gunslingers are on their way.

Unable to turn down their duty as gunslingers or give up on their quest for the Dark Tower, can the gunslingers pull it all off or is it just more than any katet, even one as strong as theirs, can handle?

Review:
Toward the beginning of the book, Roland says something like, “Being a gunslinger means weeks of planning, preparation, and hard work for 5 minutes of battle.”  That’s really a good description of this book.  It’s a lot of exposition, albeit very interesting exposition, followed by a rather anticlimactic battle that is really the exposition for the next leg of the katet’s journey.  This could have gone really badly, but thankfully there’s a lot of information King needs to tell us, and most of it is interesting and relevant to the gunslingers’ world, so it works.

King is good at creating a culture.  The Calla and its people possess a very distinctive speech pattern and colloquialisms that are simultaneously easy enough for the reader to learn and to follow.  He hints that he just took the Maine accent and exaggerated it.  Maybe that’s why a New England gal like myself found it so easy to follow.  In any case, the town of twins, ranchers, and rice is rich with local legends, folklore, and traditions.  It is enjoyable to read about, and the town also manages to provide information about the katet’s greater quest for the Dark Tower.

It is well-known that King’s Dark Tower series brings in elements and characters from his other works, as he sees all of his stories happening in the same world and being connected.  To that end, the holy man of the Calla is the priest from Salem’s Lot, and a part of Wolves of the Calla is him relating his backstory to the katet.  Something that irritated me about all of the tales told in the “Telling of Tales” section of Wolves of the Calla is that it would switch from the character speaking to an italicized third person narrative.  I don’t know if all of the italicized portions were previously written for other books or if King felt that he needed to be an omnipotent narrator in order to properly tell everything that had happened, but I found it disjointing and jarring.  It was only my unanswered questions about the Wolves and the Dark Tower that kept me reading through that section.

I enjoyed the growth in the relationship between Roland and Jake.  Roland is gradually growing into a father figure/adviser, while Jake is gradually becoming a man and an equal with the other gunslingers.  King handles this transition well, and it is believable.  Meanwhile, Eddie and Susannah’s relationship doesn’t change per se, but Eddie does realize that he will always love Susannah more than she loves him.  It is evident that both of them are uncomfortable with her multiple personalities.  This is an issue that clearly has not yet been resolved.

I do have three gripes with King.  The first is that he persists in calling Susannah’s multiple personalities schizophrenia, which is just wrong.  Schizophrenics hear voices, at worst, they do not have multiple personalities.  What Susannah has is Dissociative Identity Disorder, and it is just inexcusable that he would get this wrong.

Second, although previously in the series the reader isn’t allowed to know or see something Roland knows, the reader always gets to know what the other gunslingers know.  Here, information is pointedly held back from the reader.  I can only assume this was an attempt to maintain suspense about the Wolves, which I found to be a cop-out.  Either come up with an idea creative enough that we’ll be surprised anyway or have the characters be surprised as well as us.  Also, I already had the wolves figured out long before they are revealed anyway.  The suspense came in wondering how the final battle would play out, not in wondering who the Wolves were.

Third, I don’t like the fact that Susannah’s main storyline is a pregnancy.  I don’t like that one of her key roles so far as a gunslinger was to fuck the shit out of a demon so that Jake could be pulled through (The Wastelands).  I also really don’t like that something as simple as her being pregnant causes her to abandon her husband and her katet in the form of another personality, Mia.  It almost seems that King uses the multiple personalities just so that he can have a sweet woman around when he needs one but then can instantaneously turn her back into all of the negative images of women out there.  I need to see where Susannah’s storyline winds up before I can offer a final analysis of the character and its implications, but at the moment, it reads as a very negative view of women.

The overarching storyline of the quest for the Dark Tower, however, is still going strong in this book.  We learn a bunch of new, important information about the Tower, the beams, and the worlds, and new questions pop up.  With each book it becomes more evident that saving the Tower is important to the well-being of all worlds.  I am pleased to report that this was a marked improvement over the previous book, although not quite up to the intensity of The Waste Lands or pure readability of The Gunslinger.  It still manages to suck you in and gets the story back on the path of the beam.

3 out of 5 stars

Source: Borrowed

Previous Books in Series:
The Gunslinger, review
The Drawing of the Three, review
The Waste Lands, review
Wizard and Glass, review

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Movie Review: Bolt (2008)

March 9, 2010 6 comments

Cartoon poster for Bolt featuring a dog, hamster, cat, and people.Summary:
Bolt is the star of a weekly tv action show in which he protects the little girl he loves from evil masterminds using his super doggy powers such as the super bark.  The producers, however, have worked hard to make sure Bolt doesn’t know it’s not real, so when he accidentally gets shipped to NYC, he’s in for a bit of a surprise.  Lucky for him along the way he teams up with an alley cat and a hamster who help him truly become a super dog.

Review:
Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for talking animal movies.  It’s probably got something to do with the fact that in the imagination land that is my head, I tend to create my own soundtrack for the animals around me, so when dogs in a movie see a ball and we hear them saying “ball!  ball! ball!” instead of barking….yeah, I’m hooked.

That said, I wasn’t intrigued by the preview at all.  It all seemed so contrived, that I went into it expecting not to like it.  I was, however, pleasantly surprised.  The story manages to be cute and believable enough.  Bolt isn’t egotistic.  He’s intensely loyal in a way only dogs can be.  He’s been led to believe he can shoot lasers with his eyes, and it’s kind of adorable when he tries to melt iron in the real world.

The characters he meets along the way are the best of what we’ve come to expect from animated movies.  From the bad-ass alley cat to the over-exuberant hamster to the gangster pigeons they all work together to make Bolt’s non-television world the vibrant place it becomes.

The overall message of Bolt is actually quite delightful, and a surprise coming from Disney.  Only when Bolt comes to accept that over-the-top superpowers are fake can he come to be the best dog he can be in the real world.

I would definitely show this to kids, but anyone who enjoys animated movies without shout-outs to adults watching will enjoy this film.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Netflix

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Movie Review: Seven (1995)

March 8, 2010 2 comments

Movie poster with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman against a dark background.Summary:
Detective Sommerset is almost ready to retire.  He just has to introduce the new detective, Mills, to the inner-city beat, but two grisly murders mark the appearance of a serial killer.  His murders are each a punishment for one of the seven deadly sins, and Mills will need all the help from Sommerset he can get to solve the crimes.

Review:
For those of us who grew up on CSI, grisly crime scenes are nothing new.  What makes them work in this film is their subtle and not so subtle associations with each of the seven deadly sins.  The English major in me gloried at the detectives’ research into Dante’s works.  The crimes are not just well thought-out; they are literary.

Beyond the crimes though is the story of the two detectives ever resonating just beneath the surface.  With a job this grisly in such a bad part of town, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.  You can’t have a family and live here, and you can’t do this job anywhere else.  Sommerset chose the job, but he clearly wonders if that will be the best choice for Mills.

Pitt, Freeman, and Spacey are all great actors, and they do not disappoint here.  I do think they miscast Paltrow as Mills’ wife, however.  She doesn’t read as blue collar whatsoever, whereas Mills does.  There seems to be little chemistry between the two, and I am certain that is due to Paltrow’s acting.  Her doe eyes do not suit the character.

Although the story can move a bit slowly at times, it is an enjoyable watch for anyone with a literary slant and a taste for the grisly.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Netflix

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Book Review: The Sweet Smell of Success and Other Stories by Ernest Lehman

March 4, 2010 2 comments

Black and white image of the hood of a car.Summary:
A collection of Ernest Lehman’s noir style short fiction, including The Comedian and The Sweet Smell of Success, which was turned into a film in the 1950s.  Varying in length from flash to many pages, most of the stories address the damage caused to individuals by the overly hungry theater, movie, and television industries.  Some of the stories also look at individuals suffering from discontent in marriage.

Review:
My first entry in my reading challenge to read books I bought for university but never got around to reading.  This was assigned for my Film Noir class in conjunction with watching The Sweet Smell of Success.  I loved that class and at least enjoyed the assigned books that I read at the time.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for these short stories.

Lehman’s writing doesn’t just evoke the past of the 1950s, it evokes an alternate, incredibly depressing universe.  I have the feeling that was his point in writing these stories.  The entertainment industry is evil and will slowly rob you of your soul.  There’s definitely merit in that, but it can get a bit depressing and redundant to read the same theme over and over again.

I also found the dialogue jarring.  The characters do things like call other men “baby,” and I can’t help but wonder if people actually talked like that back then.  It made the stories ring a bit more fake to me than I think they should have.

Three of the stories revolve around press agent Sidney Falco and columnist J. J. Hunsecker.  While I enjoyed these short stories it felt as if someone had ripped out three chapters from a back and handed them to me out of order.  I wish Lehman had written this as a book or novella.  He clearly had an affinity for these characters, as he repeatedly came back to them to explore them, so I wonder why he never just wrote a long piece about them.

The Comedian though is where Lehman hits his stride in this style and theme.  He takes just the right amount of time to tell the story.  He subtly lets us know the background information vital to feeling something for these characters on this crucial day, and the overarching them of the story is deeper than “the entertainment industry is evil.”  Oh, it is still represented as bad, but that is not the main point of the story, which makes it stronger.  I recommend reading this short story if you can get your hands on it.

Overall, if you’re in the mood for a marathon session of dark noir, you’ll enjoy this book.  Otherwise, I’d recommend finding one of the short stories to get a taste of the 1950s version of the genre.

2.5 out of 5 stars

Source: University bookstore

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Book Review: Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

February 23, 2010 7 comments

Abstract painting on a book cover.Summary:
Connie, a 30-something Chicana of the 1970s who has led a rough life, enjoys the time she spends in 2137 at Mattapoisett with Luciente.  She believes she is a catcher and Luciente a receiver, which allows her to time travel in her mind.  Luciente tells her there are two possible futures, and they need her and all the downtrodden to fight and not give up or the utopian future of Mattapoisett will be lost.  Connie’s family and friends, however, believe she is schizophrenic and in need of their help.  Who is right?

Review:
I almost gave up on this in the first chapter when we discover that Connie’s daughter has been taken away from her due to child abuse.  Connie blames everything bad in her life on other people–the police, social workers, white people, her brother, etc…  She takes no responsibility for anything.  I was concerned that Connie’s opinions were the author’s opinions as well–blame society for everything and take no individual responsibility.  I was wrong about that, though, and I am very glad I didn’t stop reading.

Marge Piercy’s writing is astounding.  She sets up a complex social situation and leaves it open-ended for the reader to decide who is right, what the problems really are, who is to blame, how things can be fixed.  Unlike most books regarding time travel or mental illness, it is not obvious that Connie is actually time traveling or that she is schizophrenic.  This fact makes this a book that actually makes you think and ponder big questions.

The future world of Mattapoisett is of course the reason this book is considered a classic of feminist literature.  In this society it has been decided that all of the bad dualities of have and have not originate from the original division of male and female, so they have done everything they can to make gender a moot point.  The pronouns he and she are not used, replaced with “per,” which is short for “person.”  Women no longer bear children, instead they are scientifically made in a “breeder,” and then assigned three people to mother it.  These people can be men or women; they are all called mother.  In the future of Mattapoisett, women are allowed to be strong; men to be gentle, and that is just the tip of the iceberg of the interesting, thought-provoking elements of Mattapoisett.

At first I was concerned that this book is anti-psychiatry, but really it is just pro-compassion.  The reader is forced to observe the world from multiple atypical perspectives that force a questioning of world view.  More importantly though it helps the reader to put herself into another person’s perspective, which is something that it is easy to forget to do.  To me the key scene in the book (which doesn’t give away any spoilers) is when two people in Mattapoisett dislike each other and are not getting along.  The township gets them together and holds a council attempting to help each person see the situation from the other’s perspective, as well as to see the good in the other person.

What I’ve said barely touches the surface of the wonderful elements of this book.  I absolutely loved it, and it is a book I will keep and re-read multiple times.  I highly recommend it to all.

5 out of 5 stars

Source: PaperBackSwap

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