“And what other kind of man would you want leading you into battle?” he says, reading my Noise. “What other kind of man is suitable for war?”

A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes monsters of men.

“Wrong,” says the Mayor. “It’s war that makes us men in the first place. Until there’s war, we are only children.”

Are you excited, Ana, Sandy, Jill, Jenny, Alita? I will soon be able to DISCUSS & SHARE, and there will be no need for secrets anymore (I have a feeling there still are).

Hundred pages in, I am already such a mess of nerves & empathy.

Ragnarok: The End of the Gods – A.S. Byatt
Grove Press, February 2012
I received a review copy through Netgalley 

Ragnarok is A.S. Byatt’s retelling of the Scandinavian myth of the end of the world, the moment that the Gods kill each other and destroy all that they know. In retelling this myth, Byatt has taken a girl, “the thin child”, who reads the myth during her childhood in war-time Britain. The reader veers in and out of the story of the myth, through the eyes of the child, following how the child makes sense of her own world, with her father away on war-duty, and the world of the myths told in Asgard and the Gods.

In order to enjoy Byatt’s retelling, you need not be familiar with the story of Ragnarok. In fact, I have never read a version of the myth myself, and have only caught glimpses of the idea of the end of the world as represented in it.  Byatt’s prose is beautiful and lures you right in. And even though I had to adjust to using the child’s perspective and appropriation of the myth for her retelling, in the end this is exactly what made Byatt’s book so interesting to me.

At the end of the book, Byatt explains why she chose to represent the myth as she did, reflecting on the autobiographical inspiration for the thin child, the idea of the relation of Ragnarok as inevitable to the contemporary loss and carelessness about the Earth’s nature, but also on the process of reimagining the specific genre of myth for modern readers. Byatt defines the differences between fairy tales and myths as concerning the kind of story telling they represent: fairy tales are narratives, straightforward, satisfactory to the reader, featuring characters with full personalities. Instead, myths, to Byatt, are often unsatisfactory, need not be narratives at all, and often feature characters that have no all-round personalities, just attributes.

“Myths are often unsatisfactory, even tormenting. They puzzle and haunt the mind that encounters them. They shape different parts of the world inside our heads, and they shape them not as pleasures, but as encounters with the inapprehensible. The numinous, to use a word that was very fashionable when I was a student. The fairy stories were in my head like little bright necklaces of intricate carved stones and wood and enamels. The myths were cavernous spaces, lit in extreme colours, gloomy, or dazzling, with a kind of cloudy thickness and a kind of overbright transparency about them.”

I enjoyed Byatt’s reflections at the end of the book, because it was exactly this different world view represented in the mythical parts of the book that captured my interest. Not because of the content of the myth, per se. I hate to admit it, but I even found it hard to not let my thoughts wander during the first few chapters detailing a part of the myth pertaining to trees. Instead, it was because Byatt paints such a vivid picture of the differences in world view between Scandinavian mythologies and Christianity, and yet has the child approach both as stories, which she could enjoy but did not believe in. Rather, the child seems to find meaning in the fact that both Asgard and the Gods and The Pilgrims Progress were stories that impressed her and lived on inside of her. Byatt does not criticize belief per se, but she shows how people search for and appropriate stories when they construct their own world view, through the eyes of “the thin child”.

In a way then, Byatt’s Ragnarok can be read as a somewhat post-modern and humanist perspective on meaning making through religious myth. This is reflected in her ”A Note on Names”, published at the beginning of the story, in which she explains why she used different names used in different regions for the same character:

“Myths change in the mind depending on the telling – there is no overall correct version.”

But it is a theme that recurs throughout the book. In her story, Byatt has the child prefer Asgard and the Gods over Christianity, at one point, because the child feels she can make more sense of the crumpling world of war in that way. Byatt certainly seems to prefer myth over Christianity, seemingly identifying the latter with a more static and strict worldview. And this is exactly what intrigued me. On the one hand, Byatt had me thinking to myself: “here I have been studying religion for years, and I feel I am finally making sense of the utter difference between a circular world-view, a mythical one, and the more linear Christianity”. On another level, while Byatt states she represents myth in a less modern way than her predecessors in the Canongate Myth series, by retaining Gods as characters with attributes instead of personality, she makes something as old as myths modern in a different way, by emphasising the constructionist and changing nature of myths. Then again, on yet another level, she really does only underline something inherent to the nature of the old custom of what we now call myth-telling, it having always been a tradition of re-telling, without every word being strictly set in stone.

I enjoyed Ragnarok very much, perhaps less so for the parts in which the myth itself was retold, and more because it made me stop and think, every few pages. I am still processing what I have read, and I cannot wait to return to this short book someday. In the mean time, I am anxious to finally read some of Byatt’s other fiction.

Other Opinions: Desperate Reader, She Reads Novels, Things Mean A Lot, Rebecca Reads, Geranium Cat’s Bookshelf, Lindy Reads and Reviews, A Librarian’s Life in Books, Eve’s Alexandria.
Did I miss yours? Let me know and I will add your review to the list. 

]]> http://irisonbooks.com/2012/01/23/ragnarok-the-end-of-the-gods-by-a-s-byatt/feed/ 5 candletea ragnarok http://irisonbooks.com/2012/01/22/blog-anniversary-iris-on-books-turn-two/ http://irisonbooks.com/2012/01/22/blog-anniversary-iris-on-books-turn-two/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:28:38 +0000 Iris http://irisonbooks.wordpress.com/?p=2870 Continue reading →]]> Iris on Books = Two Years Old!

I think this deserves a dance (even if this is probably my most embarrassing picture ever – no, my hair does not look this crazy on a regular day):

After two years, I still feel like a new blogger, I still learn something new from reading other blogs every day, I still feel I could or should do so much better, but at least I am still here right? And I am very happy I wrote that first post 2 years ago, even if I did not know that what I was doing had a name, or that there was actually a book blogging community. Most of all, I am grateful for all the other bloggers I have met since then, who have become friends, and who have taught me so much about reading, literature, and the joy of books.

No giveaway from me this year, though I can direct you to yesterday’s post for an opportunity to win a presentation pack of Roald Dahl stamps.

Happy Sunday, and hopefully the third year will be a great year for blogging for all of us.

(You might also notice some changes in the blog’s address. That’s right, I caved and bought my own domain. I also got rid of the adds that apparently – I was never aware of it – still show up from time to time for visitors. I think my RSS feed and everything else should still work as it always did. Using the old blog address will just redirect you to the new address).

Now, the Royal Mail has issued stamps featuring Quentin Blake’s illustrations of many of Dahl’s beloved characters. And I was kindly offered presentation packs to giveaway.

To enter, please leave a comment featuring a childhood memory of Roald Dahl’s stories, or a more recent one, if you wish. If you have not read his books, tell me why you’d like to give them a try. Also, make sure you have listed your email address, so I can contact you if you win.

This competition is open to anyone, whether you have a blog or not. I am willing to send worldwide.

The competition will close a week from now, Saturday 28 January 2012, at the end of the day, midnight GMT.

UK readers may also want to check out the Royal Mail Facebook Page competition for 7 of Roald Dahl’s most beloved books.

Sanctuary Line – Jane Urquhart
Maclehose Press, January 2012
(This edition does not feature the  blurb on the cover)

Jane Urquhart’s Sanctuary Line weaves together many elements in the story of one family living in Ontario. The narrator, Liz Crane, has moved back to her family’s farmhouse to study the migratory pattern of monarch butterflies. But events, among which is the dead of her cousin, military strategist Amanda Butler, who was killed in Afghanistan, lead her to spend much of her time reflecting on the past of her family.

There is much to be said about Urquhart’s novel. For one, her prose is stunningly beautiful. What is more, she manages to achieve a lot in relatively few words and a relatively short novel. Through a form of storytelling that is calm, and comfortable, she alludes to grander themes that most humans encounter throughout their lives.

One such theme is that of sanctuary. In many ways, Liz relives the past to find comfort in how things used to be, or to find questions to how that comfort fell apart. At the same time, her story contains example after example of people failing to find sanctuary, or with a less grand gesture: comfort, somewhere, of the ruptures in the calm that will never be fully achieved. It can be found in every storyline, that of the butterflies, of Liz’s life, that of her  family members, down to all the stories the family has told itself for decades to give a sense of grounding, of home, of tradition. It is really very admirably done.

I find it hard to tell you how I felt about Sanctuary Line. I could appreciate all that Urquhart did, I could appreciate the intricate ways in which grander themes are part of almost every page in the book, and her beautiful use of language. However, I am sorry to tell you that I could not love it. There is something very puzzling to writing about a book that holds so many perfections, but that you fail to connect to personally. It may have been the manner in which the story was told. Liz Crane as a narrator tells her story to someone, a “you”, of whom you only learn the identity at the end of the book. She assumes a familiarity with the landscape, with what she is ostensibly pointing out to the “you” in question. I constantly felt that this was a clever mechanism, as it has the reader imagining Liz is talking directly to him or her, but at the same time it kept me at a distance, knowing full well that I was not in that room looking out the window at the grounds with her. It may also have been that the build-up of the first half of the book was very slow, and there was no urgency to the storyline. It was clear that at some point, somewhere, something had happened, but the hints towards that something were too scattered, and I was too little involved with any of the characters mentioned to feel it mattered much. This changed once I was past page 100, when I started to care about the story and its execution. Too little, too late, in a sense. On the other hand, I do not feel Urquhart was trying to achieve a linear, thrilling storyline, but meant the book to be more of an exploration of themes and settings, of memories, comfort, and loss. And once I was past that page-100 point, my former hesitancy towards the novel disappeared.

I do appreciate all that Jane Urquhart did in Sanctuary Line, she delivered a beautifully executed story, tackling themes in an interesting way and in prose that I am sure many will love. Nevertheless, to a certain extent, it always remained just that to me, a story, not something I wanted or needed to relate to, or that felt very real until halfway into the book.

Other Opinions: Buried in Print, Lindy Reads, Reeder Reads.
Did I miss yours? Let me know and I will add your review to the list. 

The aim of the challenge is as follows:

Reading Goal: 5 books.  That’s it.  There will be no other levels.  Of course, participants are encouraged to read more than 5 books.  Eligible books include those which are written by African writers, or take place in Africa, or are concerned with Africans and with historical and contemporary African issues. Note that at least 3 books must be written by African writers.

Although Kinna states that there is no need to make a list of books beforehand, I could not help but browse my shelves and look for books that would be eligible. Here’s what I found:

• The Other Crucifix – Benjamin Kwakye (which Amy so kindly sent to me for Christmas)
• God Dies by the Nile – Nawal El Saadawi
• Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Black Mamba Boy – Nadifa Mohamed
• Spilt Milk – Kopano Matlwa (won at Judith’s Dutch book blog last year)
• Broken Glass – Alain Mabanckou (won at Rob’s blog last year)
• An Elegy for Easterly – Petina Gappah
• The Devil that Danced on the Water – Aminatta Forna
• The Memory of Love – Aminatta Forna

I may at one point plunder the University Library for some of the African Writers Series, but in the meantime, the above list is inspiring enough for me to feel excited to start reading for this challenge.

[updates on my reading progress can be found at the dedicated page, here.]

Any recommendations? (I may not be able to buy books, buon the above list that I should absolutely read/avoid/start with/etcetera?

]]> http://irisonbooks.com/2012/01/19/signing-up-for-the-african-reading-challenge/feed/ 6 candletea african reading challenge http://irisonbooks.com/2012/01/18/oroonoko-by-aphra-behn/ http://irisonbooks.com/2012/01/18/oroonoko-by-aphra-behn/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:54:34 +0000 Iris http://irisonbooks.wordpress.com/?p=2844 Continue reading →]]> Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
Girlebooks, 2009
(originally published 1688)

Oroonoko is the tale of a “royal” slave, who is taken from Africa (it never became exactly clear to me where the African part of this story was set) to Surinam. His story is narrated by a woman, who is travelling through Surinam and  claims to have been an eyewitness to Oroonoko’s life there.

This is where my lack of knowledge about literature and its history is going to show. From browsing GoodReads and the information page on Girlebooks, I gather Aphra Behn was one of the first female English writers and that this book is often taught in literature classes for that reason. I, however, had never heard of Aphra Behn before. Now, I could claim living in the Netherlands as a valid reason for this gap in my knowledge. But that does not really help me in my endeavor to understand this book. While reading, I constantly felt that there is so much more to Oroonoko that I found it hard to put my finger on. I would definitely have benefitted from a class, or a good introductory article, before reading this novella.

What fascinated me most about Oroonoko, in my ignorance of its literary qualities, was its portrayal of slavery. This seems the kind of book that would be perfect to analyse in terms of post-colonial theory, hybridity, or intersectionality of class, gender, and ethnicity. Now, I do not claim to be knowledgable about those things, but there were a few things that stood out to me.

For one, Oroonoko is portrayed as the exception to the rule, when it comes to the slaves. He is constantly referred to as “royal”, “sophisticated”, and as possessing a certain class, morality, and understanding of honour that was  lacking in others and seemed to be linked to his royal descent. And so it is the fact that Oroonoko is taken as a slave, that the narrator resents, while she seems okay with the treatment of the other, more “lower class” slaves. There is a definite hint of longing for the “noble savage” here, but it is reserved for Oroonoko only. Furthermore, the narrator does not criticize slavery as such. Most slave owners are described as reasonable men who treat their slaves right, it is only the one that Oroonoko deals with that is incredibly cruel. And mostly cruel because it is the prince that suffers at his hands.

It is also fascinating how the narrator retains her own innocence in the whole story. When Oroonoko is mistreated, she claims she wasn’t near, or she would have interfered. In those cases she only recounts what she was told. There are also ways in which the British at large are portrayed as innocent of any cruelty. As was said above, the slave owner who mistreats Oroonoko is portrayed as the exception. Furthermore, it is not he who performs the execution of any punishments, instead, it are other slaves (who, if you think about it, probably had little choice in the matter, but who are sometimes represented as willingly following orders). Also, the British in general are described as holding to a much better standard than the Dutch, who took over the colony. It was almost as if the author was trying to say: who dares criticise us, should take a look at the Dutch first.

On the subject of Surinam: The narrator repeatedly regrets the trade-off of Surinam for New York by the British. This is interesting to me, as a Dutch reader, since in high school this episode of trading New Amsterdam for Surinam is always portrayed in light of a loss to the Dutch, since New York soon prospered. (And, yes, I see how that is completely denigrating towards Surinam. I *shudder*  to think of how easily high school children are taught that this is a laughing matter, something we should come to think of as a “stupid” trade, because “we” [the Dutch] took the “lesser” part of the bargain). Anyway, it was interesting to read criticism of the practice of the Dutch in Surinam (though of course not the hegemony of the West as such) in a book from 1688.

Oroonoko was interesting to me because of the observations above, but the story itself did very little for me. I often had trouble concentrating on the story, my mind wandered, and it took me much longer to read this short novella than stories of this length usually take.

Other Opinions: A Striped Armchair, Jules’ Book Reviews, Leaning Toward the Sun.
Did I miss yours? Let me know and I will add your review to the list. 

Graveminder – Melissa Marr
William Morrow, Harper Collins, January 2011
I received a review copy from the publisher 

I knew I had to give Melissa Marr’s first novel for adults, Graveminder, a try, after enjoying Wicked Lovely so much. So when I saw William Morrow was offering this book for review, in honor of its paperback release, I simply could not resist.

Graveminder tells the story of Rebekkah Barrow, who returns to the town of Claysville, after her grandmother, who has always been very kind to her, is found dead. Rebekkah now takes on the job of Graveminder, making sure the dead do not start wandering, together with the man she abandoned years ago, Byron, the Undertaker. Painting a world of strange traditions and paranormal occurrences, Melissa Marr tells of Rebekkah’s struggles to come to terms with who she is, while struggling to hold the town and the dead to the agreement they struck with Charles, also called Mr. D., who rules the shadowy land connected to Claysville.

Melissa Marr’s style is easy to recognise in this book: the language is beautiful (though I still the think the key phrase “Sleep well, and stay where I put you” reads a little awkwardly) and the world-building of Claysville and the world of Mr. D. in particular is superb.  Especially Mr D’s world had me longing to learn more, and to return to it after the end of the story. Nevertheless, I did not ultimately love this book, as some parts of it left me unsatisfied. For one, I felt Mr. D’s world was not explored as it could have been. Furthermore, as a book catered towards adults, I thought the plot was a little predictable. I guessed most of the story by page 30, even though the ultimate question of the culprit surprised me. Furthermore, I felt the characterisation was lacking in some places, especially where it concerned the relationships between the characters. For example, while one of the storylines about a relationship of Rebekkah (sorry, trying to avoid spoilers here!) led to questions of predestined love, and was problematised instead of swooned over, which I loved, I felt the subject could have been explored more, and that ultimately, problems were too easily overcome. The same goes for the exploration of the relationship between Maylene and her daughter and granddaughters. The reader does receive an answer as to why there was such a tension between grandmother, mother, and children, but it was not enough to satisfy me, especially concerning the characterisation of Maylene’s daughter.

All in all, I did enjoy Marr’s Graveminder, but compared to Wicked Lovely and my high expectations of this novel, I felt a little disappointed. The book is a little more lightweight than I would have liked, and some parts, especially the exploration of relationships between the characters, could have been improved upon. I somehow felt that it would have been natural for this book to be turned into a series, and I may like it more if it did.

Other Opinions: Book Chic Club, Annette’s Book Spot, Hooked on Books, Carrie’s YA Bookshelf, Books and Needlepoint, Booked on a Feeling, Literary Escapism, Fashion Piranha, Silly Little Mischief, Alexia’s Books and Such, Fizzy Thoughts, Here, There and Everywhere, Bookalicio.us, Bewitched Bookworms,   A Bookworm’s World, Stiletto Storytime, S. Krishna’s Books, Good Books and Good Wine, Book Nook Club, The Guilded Earlobe, thebookbind, Jenn’s Bookshelves, That’s What She Read, From the TBR Pile.
Did I miss yours? Let me know and I will add your review to the list. 

A Kid For Two Farthings – Wolf Mankowitz
Bloomsbury Ex Libris, 2009
First published 1953

In my quest to eventually read all the books published in the Bloomsbury Ex Libris series, I read A Kid For Two Farthings in the fall. Somehow, after the reading the book, I never took the opportunity to review it. So, here goes, what I remember of my impressions.

A Kid For Two Farthings is the story of Joe, a six-year-old boy growing up in Whitechapel, who finds a unicorn at a market and buys it, believing it will grant all his wishes and those of his family: a steam press for the tailor shop located in his home, a ring for the engagement of one of the workers in the shop, and a chance to see his father again, who is currently located in Africa.

Heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once, this 128-page story can be read as a children’s tale of fantasy, dreams, and reality, but also tackles those subjects in a different manner for a more adult reader. As the story sheds light on the difficult circumstances in which Joe, his family, and his friends, live, it also reflects on the inability of dreams providing rescue from the situation at hand, while simultaneously it portrays a respect for childhood innocence and naivety that is very moving. The book was filled with quirky humour, and it was hard not to feel love for all of the characters. In particular, Mr Kadinsky seemed like that perfect elderly person to have in a child’s life, while Joe’s enthousiasm and care is heartwarming to read about. Can we just say I wanted to give this book one giant hug? It certainly wasn’t perfect, and I may have loved The Brontës Went to Woolworths more, but it was wonderful and charming storytelling nonetheless.

Other Opinions: BookLust, Savidge Reads, Back To Books, Stuck in a Book, This Book and I Could Be Friends, Cardigan Girl Verity.
Did I miss yours? Let me know and I will add your review to the list. 

We decided to continue with a slightly different format, as we now have 8 other hosts joining us! Thus, we have aimed to guarantee that every month will see a number of post on the book under discussion. The project is still pretty much the same, with at its root the idea that we “think of this project as an informal feminist reading group. You don’t have to commit to joining the discussion every month, but we’d love to hear your thoughts whenever you’re able to.” In coming up with the list of books we have aimed to fill in gaps from last year’s list, which resulted in a list that features some more recent works, but that we feel are still influential enough to fit the word “classic”.

The reading list we will be reading from, starting February:

• February – Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks (Amy)
• March – The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine De Pizan (Jean)
• April – Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano (Cass)
• May – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë read alongside Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (Iris)
• June – Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg (Emily)
• July – Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (Nancy)
• August – The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Lauren)
• September – Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua (Melissa)
• October – The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (Jodie)
• November – Beyond the Veil by Fatema Mernissi (Ana)
• December – Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis (Emily Jane)
• January – Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practising Solidarity by Chandra Talpade Mohanty (Eva)

Join us, for one, all, or a selection of, the above titles? 

Personally, I am uncertain whether I will be able to join in for all the books, especially since I do not have enough money at my disposal to buy books not available at my library. But I’m trying not to worry about that, I’m much too excited to be part of this project again.