strange and random happenstance

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Published by: Gateway
Publication Date: 1974
Format: Kindle, 403 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Anarres and Urras are the twin inhabited worlds of Tau Ceti. Anarres is barren. Nothing more than a planet to be mined. Yet around two hundred years previously The Odonian Revolution saw Urrasti anarchists settle on Annarres in a peace treaty of sorts. Since then life has been hard for the Annarresti. But they have eked out a living free of the constraints of the capitalist patriarchy on Urras. There is no contact between the two planets except for once a year when Anarres ships Urras their consignment of precious metals. The two planets live in unwavering ignorance. They might need each other, but they will never talk about it. Which is where Shevek enters. Shevek has spent his entire life on Annarres. Despite the hardships of his existence he has a family and a career. He is a physicist attempting to create a General Temporal Theory. He believes that this will revolutionize life for the Annarresti. Yet there is pushback within academic circles. His duty to the Annarresti should come before anything else, before personal power or glory. Therefore Shevek must perform his civic duties, putting the society's needs ahead of his own. For four long years he does punishing physical labor. At the end of that time he gets to return to his true calling. His theory has won him a prestigious award and he has decided to go to Urras to accept it and finish his work. This decision alone causes political unrest. His mentor claims that he is being selfish and threatening the stability of the political separation of the two worlds. And yet Shevek goes. He makes the journey, he gets his vaccinations, he arrives in A-lo and is feted like a returning hero. After all, he is technically coming home. But if he thought he was going to a utopic society he is sadly mistaken. All the troubles that led his ancestors to flee still exist. He's disillusioned by the Ieu Eun University. Will his work really help his people or will it be exploited by the Urrasti? Perhaps it's best for him to just go home. If he can.

I believe as it stands my book club has now read more books by Ursula K. Le Guin than any other author. Getting to discuss so many books of hers with a small group of friends lets us get into the wide variability of her work. Therefore there are hits and there are misses and then there's this. Commies in Space! Yes, yes, I know, perhaps referencing The Muppet Show isn't the most academic or done thing, but, seriously, that's what this book is. But taken to eleven. Yes, I know I've moved onto Spinal Tap, I just can't help myself. The Dispossessed is the sixth book in Le Guin's loosely connected Hainish Cycle. Seeing as I haven't read any of the previous volumes I don't know if they'd add any depth to my understanding of this volume, but I doubt it. It's pretty straightforward if taken to a comical degree. The series started at the height of the sixties when people became disillusioned with American society, so it makes sense that Le Guin would try to work out her feelings about socialism versus capitalism in the far reaches of outer space, which oddly is also where Andy Weir set his book Project Hail Mary. The problem I have is her exaggeration of these two societies. Annarres with it's socialism is like Russia in the bleakest of bleak midwinters only with dust instead of snow. Urras is oddly, kind of like the opulence of the Zamundan court of King Jaffe Joffer from Coming to America. There's pageantry, there's sex, there's lots of female flesh on display. I mean, seriously, what is going on in Urras Le Guin!?! The way you describe female fashion for the upper class I kept envisioning some weird Time Lord getup where the women's breasts were on full display. I mean, what's that about!?! I get the whole, women as property and the men wanting to show them off, but this is a step too far. If it wasn't so serious I'd almost think this was a parody like The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, released the same year as Rocannon's World. But the sad fact is this wants to be "serious literature" and the execution makes it a depressing slog.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anarres, Andy Weir, Capitalism, Communism, For the Love of Book Clubs, General Temporal Theory, Hainish Cycle, Project Hail Mary, Shevak, Socialism, Tau Ceti, The Dispossessed, Time Lords, Urras, Ursula K. Le Gun

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
Published by: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: January 19th, 2021
Format: Kindle, 415 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lily Hu knows she's different than other girls. It's not just that she's smarter and likes math it's that, unlike her best friend Shirley, she really doesn't have any interest in boys. Lily can use her parents' strictures as the reason why she doesn't date, but the real reason is she doesn't want to. Boys don't stir anything in her like they do Shirley. But then, one day helping out at Shirley's parents restaurant, Lily sees an ad in the paper that stirs something in her. It's for Tommy Andrews, a male impersonator at the Telegraph Club. She furtively rips the ad out and it becomes a talisman for her. A dangerous talisman. One day it slips out of it's hiding spot and her fellow classmate Kathleen Miller picks it up. Kathleen and Lily are the only two girls in the advanced math class, both with dreams in the heavens, and it turns out they have more in common than Lily thought as Kathleen says that she has been to see Tommy at the Telegraph Club. Her friend Jean took her and Kath will take Lily if she wishes. It is Lily's greatest wish to go, but the experience is more unnerving than she thought it would be. It's not lying to her parents and risking their safety, or even being in a bar with so many women free to be themselves, it's the fact that the Tommy of her imagination was a matinee idol yet the real Tommy is flesh and blood and female. How she's feeling inside is no longer hypothetical, it has shape and form, and that form is looking more and more like Kath. But there are consequences to Lily's actions, Shirley has warned her about Kathleen and in particular Kathleen's friend Jean who was thrown out of school when she was found with another girl in the band room. When she first heard the story Lily couldn't understand what could drive someone to do something so risky. Now she's endangering herself every minute with her thoughts and actions. But love, true love, is worth all the consequences.

When Last Night at the Telegraph Club was released to such acclaim, topping best of lists left and right, I thought it sounded like a rich historical fiction novel about the LGBTQ experience in 1950s San Francisco. And it is that, don't get me wrong, I just didn't think it would be so YA. And Last Night at the Telegraph Club is epicly YA in all the good and bad ways. YA, even YA done right, has a certain cringe factor, you're looking back at your teen years and you feel all the feels all over again. The sweats breaking out when you see your crush, the itch on your skin as they draw near, the horrible replay of how your tongue fumbled to form coherent words around them. It's all here. Even the horrible betrayal of a former best friend. Everyone's teenage years seem to distill down to the same level of hormonal tension and Malinda Lo has captured that universality for good and for ill. But she has also captured the deeper identity struggle that happens when you realize you're not like everyone else. I was also forcefully reminded of a situation I was in in college. One of my friends started dating a guy. She was Vietnamese and he was white. She knew her parents wouldn't approve so one day when they were on a date she told her mother she was with me. I was not informed that I was her alibi and called her house. Her cover was blown and thereafter she created a fake girl who she was hanging out with when she was really with her boyfriend. I commented that it was lucky she wasn't gay because otherwise her mom would be suspicious of this new girl friend. Her response was that "that wouldn't happen." Reading Lily's mom say there "are no homosexuals in this family" brought that moment back to me after twenty years. To have someone who you love so much deny who you are, I just don't get how anyone could be so cruel. Love is love. I'm just lucky enough to have been raised in a family that believes this.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1950s, Communism, Drag King, For the Love of Book Clubs, Historical Fiction, Kathleen Miller, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Lesbian, LGBTQ, Lily Hu, Love, Malinda Lo, San Francisco, Tommy Andrews, YA

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
Published by: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: January 19th, 2021
Format: Kindle, 415 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lily Hu knows she's different than other girls. It's not just that she's smarter and likes math it's that, unlike her best friend Shirley, she really doesn't have any interest in boys. Lily can use her parents' strictures as the reason why she doesn't date, but the real reason is she doesn't want to. Boys don't stir anything in her like they do Shirley. But then, one day helping out at Shirley's parents restaurant, Lily sees an ad in the paper that stirs something in her. It's for Tommy Andrews, a male impersonator at the Telegraph Club. She furtively rips the ad out and it becomes a talisman for her. A dangerous talisman. One day it slips out of it's hiding spot and her fellow classmate Kathleen Miller picks it up. Kathleen and Lily are the only two girls in the advanced math class, both with dreams in the heavens, and it turns out they have more in common than Lily thought as Kathleen says that she has been to see Tommy at the Telegraph Club. Her friend Jean took her and Kath will take Lily if she wishes. It is Lily's greatest wish to go, but the experience is more unnerving than she thought it would be. It's not lying to her parents and risking their safety, or even being in a bar with so many women free to be themselves, it's the fact that the Tommy of her imagination was a matinee idol yet the real Tommy is flesh and blood and female. How she's feeling inside is no longer hypothetical, it has shape and form, and that form is looking more and more like Kath. But there are consequences to Lily's actions, Shirley has warned her about Kathleen and in particular Kathleen's friend Jean who was thrown out of school when she was found with another girl in the band room. When she first heard the story Lily couldn't understand what could drive someone to do something so risky. Now she's endangering herself every minute with her thoughts and actions. But love, true love, is worth all the consequences.

When Last Night at the Telegraph Club was released to such acclaim, topping best of lists left and right, I thought it sounded like a rich historical fiction novel about the LGBTQ experience in 1950s San Francisco. And it is that, don't get me wrong, I just didn't think it would be so YA. And Last Night at the Telegraph Club is epicly YA in all the good and bad ways. YA, even YA done right, has a certain cringe factor, you're looking back at your teen years and you feel all the feels all over again. The sweats breaking out when you see your crush, the itch on your skin as they draw near, the horrible replay of how your tongue fumbled to form coherent words around them. It's all here. Even the horrible betrayal of a former best friend. Everyone's teenage years seem to distill down to the same level of hormonal tension and Malinda Lo has captured that universality for good and for ill. But she has also captured the deeper identity struggle that happens when you realize you're not like everyone else. I was also forcefully reminded of a situation I was in in college. One of my friends started dating a guy. She was Vietnamese and he was white. She knew her parents wouldn't approve so one day when they were on a date she told her mother she was with me. I was not informed that I was her alibi and called her house. Her cover was blown and thereafter she created a fake girl who she was hanging out with when she was really with her boyfriend. I commented that it was lucky she wasn't gay because otherwise her mom would be suspicious of this new girl friend. Her response was that "that wouldn't happen." Reading Lily's mom say there "are no homosexuals in this family" brought that moment back to me after twenty years. To have someone who you love so much deny who you are, I just don't get how anyone could be so cruel. Love is love. I'm just lucky enough to have been raised in a family that believes this.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1950s, Communism, Drag King, Historical Fiction, Kathleen Miller, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Lesbian, LGBTQ, Lily Hu, Love, Malinda Lo, Pride, San Francisco, Science Fiction, Shirley Lum, Tommy Andrews, YA

Deadly Summer Nights by Vicki Delany 
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: September 7th, 2021
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Elizabeth Grady never pictured the life she's living now as the life she'd have. She is running Haggerman's Catskills Resort for her mother. Yes, her mother. Olivia Peters. You probably know her. The woman who didn't really raise Elizabeth, that was left to her Aunt Tatiana, as Olivia pursued fame but who in her waning years has been left a resort from one of her admirers. Due to financial irregularities, AKA spendthrift exes, Haggerman's is Olivia's only option and Elizabeth is determined to make it succeed, with her mother as the figurehead whose glamorous allure will hopefully draw in the guests with lengthy bookings. Plus her mother can also book acts the other resorts can't with her connections. Just look at the rather controversial yet undoubtedly funny comic they've just booked who could be the next Lenny Bruce. Or so Elizabeth keeps saying to the guests who are taking umbrage with his show. Little did she know when she left the city behind that almost all of her work would be dealing with guests, not dealing with the bills, like she should be. And one guest is about to cause a very large headache. Because he's turned up dead. What seems to be a tragic accident soon has the local sheriff calling the Feds in. Harold Westenham had maps of London and Washington, D.C. on the walls of his remote cabin as well as a copy of The Communist Manifesto. To Elizabeth it looks like the poor man was doing research for a book, an opinion backed up by his nephew when he arrives at Haggerman's. But the arrival of the Feds as well as a dead body puts everyone on edge. Elizabeth has to keep her head. People die at resorts all the time. Sure, they may not be murdered, but it happens. She just has to keep a lid on the crime and keep the guests happy and quell the rumors of Communism. Of course what makes guests happier than free drinks and time with Olivia? Elizabeth will need to solve this case fast if she's to save Haggerman's and not have a whopping bill for alcohol.

I have never gotten to live the summer resort dream of the Catskills or the Poconos made famous in such fare as Dirty Dancing and the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Now I have been to resorts there for Moonlight Rising, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan convention. But the Split Rock Resort in Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania only delivered on the buffet, and as for the Friar Tuck Resort in Catskill, New York, it most likely hadn't been remodeled since Frank Sinatra signed the photo above registration to the owners. So the places I went to were far beyond their prime and the culture that Deadly Summers Nights propagates to say the least. Yet it is a nostalgic culture I wish I could have been a part of for even a few days. Or maybe I'm just nostalgic for vacations? Therefore I thought this book would be my best bet to slip into this world from the comfort of my couch. Instead it proved an infuriating read. This book is tailored to fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with a heavy helping of Gilmore Girls and a dollop of Dirty Dancing but without any of the sparkle and vivacity of the originals. Here's the thing, if you're going to do an homage to the oeuvre of Amy Sherman-Palladino the quirky characters and the quaint locales aren't enough. She is known for her rapid fire dialogue and her witty banter. No matter your feelings on her as a person, you have to occasionally, begrudgingly admit that she can write. She has six Emmy Awards afterall. So what do you have when you have all the elements and none of the talent? You have a book you slog through because just having the framework built doesn't matter if you don't deliver on the content. As for the whole Communist angle? It was so obviously a false trail that I was actually yelling at the book one of Miss Scarlett's famous lines from Clue: "Communism is just a red herring."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amy Sherman-Palladino, Catskills, Clue, Communism, Deadly Summer Nights, Dirty Dancing, Gilmore Girls, Haggerman's Catskills Resort, Miss Scarlett, Murder Most Foul, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Vicki Delany