In a post-apocalyptic North America, the state of Panem consists of a Capitol and 12 Districts. 70-odd years ago, the Districts revolted against Capitol rule. Capitol won the war. And as a humiliating punishment, they instituted the Hunger Games. Every year two representatives from each District – one boy and one girl, aged 12 to 18 – are obliged to participate in a fight to the death in a televised spectacle. This year Katniss Everdeen is determined to win. She needs to, because otherwise there is no one to take care of her family: with her hunting skills, she is the main breadwinner.

It will come as no surprise to you that the book is full of violence, a lot of it pretty graphical. There’s everything from being stung to death by swarms of mutant hornets, to being hit with a rock. At first I thought it odd that such a bloody book would be marketed as young adult literature, but then I remembered what I read and watched when I was thirteen (Stephen King and Friday the 13th) and reconsidered. Today’s teenagers can be pretty unmoved by blood and gore.

The book was hard to put down while I was reading it, but left no real impression afterwards. It was thrilling but shallow. The book is about death as televised entertainment. From such a setup I would expect the book to rise a step above its contents, to take a critical view of what is going on, to reflect, to comment. Now it felt like we just got a written version of the TV show.

Katniss was all set up for us to like and feel sorry for and root for, but I found her character unconvincing and inconsistent. She hardly reacts to the deaths around her, only feeling sorry when her ally (a sweet young girl) is killed, but otherwise she’s unmoved. Her own likely death doesn’t seem to worry her much, either.

The writing was pretty dull and uninspired, in the journalistic style that I so hate in the detective stories that abound in Sweden. Things are described in a minimal, impersonal manner, giving us no real feel for the places or the people. There is no metaphor, no colour in the language.

One thing that really annoyed me from the beginning was the ridiculousness of the whole setup. A capital city of magnificent wealth, endowed with technologies such as hovercrafts – kept alive and afloat by the productive forces of 12 small, poor districts with backward technologies? One of which focuses solely on coal mining, and another on fishing? Yeah right. And 74 years of hunger games, of parents giving up their kids to near-certain death each year, and no one rebels? Yeah right. And a supposedly demoralizing punishment that involves making celebrities out of the punished, dressed and made up by top stylists, interviewed live on TV? Yeah right.

The whole setup only made sense when I read The New Yorker’s review:

If, on the other hand, you consider the games as a fever-dream allegory of the adolescent social experience, they become perfectly intelligible. Adults dump teenagers into the viper pit of high school, spouting a lot of sentimental drivel about what a wonderful stage of life it’s supposed to be. The rules are arbitrary, unfathomable, and subject to sudden change. A brutal social hierarchy prevails, with the rich, the good-looking, and the athletic lording their advantages over everyone else. To survive you have to be totally fake. Adults don’t seem to understand how high the stakes are; your whole life could be over, and they act like it’s just some “phase”! Everyone’s always watching you, scrutinizing your clothes or your friends and obsessing over whether you’re having sex or taking drugs or getting good enough grades, but no one cares who you really are or how you really feel about anything.

Cheap thrills for a day or two, good to have read so you know what the hype is about, not worth buying book 2.

Adlibris, Amazon US, Amazon UK.

This is the kind of book that makes me want to ask, How on Earth do you come up with an idea like that?

Embassytown is a human town in the middle of an alien city on an alien planet, whose raison d’etre is its embassy. Only Ambassadors, specially trained people, can communicate with the aliens – the Hosts, as the humans mostly call them.

Communication with the hosts is challenging to say the least. For them language is an opening into the speaker’s consciousness. Language that is generated by a machine or a computer is meaningless noise to them. Words have to be uttered by a sentient mind in order for the Hosts to perceive it as language.

It is impossible for the Hosts to lie, to speak about things that are not, or even to use a metaphors. Everything they say is a literal truth. In order to speak about ideas and concepts that do not exist yet, they create similes. Avice Benner Cho, the first-person narrator, was asked to participate in a staged simile when she was young, so that the Hosts could later compare various things to “the girl who was hurt and ate what was given to her”.

But they understand the concept of lying – they have learned it from humans. They find it fascinating and try to learn it themselves. They have Festivals of Lies where they listen rapturously to humans saying “this box is red” about a blue box, and compete in almost-lying – the winner is the one who comes closest to uttering an untruth.

Some humans see this development as disastrous and try to stop it. But just when it seems that we’ve arrived at the crux of the book, we’re proven wrong. Instead things turn in a completely different direction when a new Ambassador arrives from off-planet (unheard of!). Communication between humans and Hosts go badly wrong, society melts down, and soon the entire Embassytown is threatened with extinction.

I don’t want to say too much more about how the language actually works and how humans manage to communicate with the Hosts, or about what happens in the book. Miéville uncovers the big picture one little piece at a time, and does it so skilfully and with such care that running ahead of him and ripping the whole curtain down would destroy much of the magic.

It is an intellectual book, built on a single idea taken as far as it can possibly go. Language and communication and translation are the main “characters”. The actual physical human character narrating the book is secondary. The story happens in and to the world around her. She observes and occasionally participates but she is, for the most part, not central to the story.

Several reviewers complain about the lack of character development. And indeed if you follow tradition and view Avice as the protagonist, you would probably be dissatisfied with how Miéville develops her. By the end of the book I still feel like I hardly know anything about Avice. But as I said she is not the focus of the book.

Likewise there is very little in the way of descriptions or world-building. We get only a vague idea of what the Hosts look like (large, insect-like) and almost nothing about what the planet looks like, and even less about their society.

So, to me those weaknesses are not weaknesses. More problematic are some weaknesses in the idea itself, aspects of it insufficiently explained. How could an entirely literal language arise? How is it possible for them to hear and understand a lie but not repeat one? How can the Hosts stage similes if they cannot fully think of them before they have been performed? But Miéville’s execution of this idea was so exquisite, so pleasing to follow, that I didn’t want to be ungrateful. Instead I decided to go with the flow and not ask too many questions about it.

It is a weird and beautiful book – and towards the end, when things break down, a pretty violent one, too. It is confident, forceful, rich, sprung apparently fully formed from Miéville’s imagination. Reading it requires some effort but the rewards are great.

Read this review by Ursula K. Le Guin if you’re still not convinced that you should run and buy this book.

Amazon UK, Amazon US, Adlibris.

Cover art for Windup Girl

Imagine a future where climate change has had near-catastrophic effects. Sea levels have risen by several metres. Carbon emissions are strictly rationed and petroleum is longer used: there is no electricity, cooking and lighting is done by compost-generated methane, and all other energy needs are provided by muscle power, human or animal. Muscles move cycle rikshas, windup radios, lifts, fans, etc. (I couldn’t help wondering why solar and wind power aren’t used.) Genetic engineering has also advanced and the effects are almost as bad as those from climate change: global corporations engineer pests to kill all useful plants except those of their own design, and engineered diseases run amok.

Thailand, proud as ever, is surviving in this new world, pushing back against these changes. Bangkok is kept from drowning by seawalls and massive pumps; Thai specialists revive old varieties of plants from their seedbanks and forbid imports of seed or produce from the agribusiness giants. The ministries of Environment and Trade are the most powerful forces in the country, guarding it ferociously. Entire villages can be razed and burned when a genehacked pest is found.

The atmosphere is bleak and unpleasant, not only because of the dystopic changes but because of what has happened to the Thai people. Corruption and bribery is everywhere, as is hatred of foreigners – the Westerners with their agricultural corporations, as well as the Chinese refugees from Malaysia’s ethnic cleansing.

The windup girl of the title is only one of a number of key characters, who get roughly equal weight. None of them is particulary sympathetic but I still found myself sympathizing with them. Anderson Lake: a corporate spy from one of the agricultural corporations, trying to find Thailand’s seed bank, while running a battery research company as his cover. Tan Hock Seng: illegal Chinese refugee, Lake’s right hand man at the battery company, plotting to steal Lake’s blueprints, dreaming of becoming rich again. Jaidee: the head of Thailand’s environmental army, a thug who revels in destroying the illegal imports and unlicensed methane he finds and terrorizing anyone whom he finds breaking the rules. Kanya: Jaidee’s second-in-command, a Trade ministry mole in the very heart of the Environment ministry’s army. Emiko: the windup girl of the title, a woman genetically engineered by the Japanese to be the perfect geisha and given dog genes for servility, who unknowingly sets big events in motion.

The world is great, vivid, detailed, all implications of his imagined future are covered. The characters are multifaceted and well-drawn.

The story… not so much. There is no clear beginning and no clear procession from there on (although there is a clear end). Much of it is slow, wordy, and weighed down by a lot of detail. There is much scene-setting, and little happens for a long time. The plot wanders from character to character, which makes the book unfocussed but at the same time gives equal attention to all sides of the ongoing conflicts. In the second half the pace picks up and by the end we’re racing along, with political intrigue giving way to riots and revolution, with a lot of graphic violence.

It’s a bleak book about struggling to survive, remaining human, making difficult choices in difficult situations. Tough times bringing out the worst and the best of humanity.

The book was good enough that I didn’t want to give up on it, but not engaging enough to compel me to pick up the book. It was hard to get into and took me weeks to get through. Impressive, fascinating, thought-provoking, but not a joy to read. I’m glad I read it but I’m also glad it’s over.

PS: One final quibble. I can’t help wonder, why did he pick Thailand? It is a bit of a cop-out to set the story in one of Western writers’ standard go-to countries for exoticism. (Japan for high-tech exoticism, India and Thailand for sweaty, teeming masses.) There is nothing specifically Thai about the story; all of this could have taken place in any low-lying seaboard country in the world. Is it more acceptable to make an Asian country poor and ridden with corruption, than to do the same with, say, Holland (to pick another low-lying country)?

An excellent review over at Strange Horizons.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris.

The Queen, out with her yapping dogs, stumbles into a travelling library that’s stopped behind Buckingham Palace. Out of politeness she borrows a book – one whose author she once made a Dame. Despite the author’s fine background the book turns out to be rather dull. Upon returning it, the Queen feels obliged to borrow a new one, and this time she is hooked.

Her staff do not read books (with the exception of Norman the kitchen boy), so they have little understanding for this new pastime. And the Queen is obviously losing any enthusiasm she might previously have had for such tasks as opening some public building or visiting a shoe factory. Her reading habit is seen as somewhat bothersome, and her private secretary, among others, conspires to put an end to it. But the Queen persists, and lives are changed.

This is a perfectly lovely little book. Charming, witty, wonderfully British, each phrase a joy to read. It is light entertainment but at the same time it is also a serious story about how literature can change lives. The Queen comes across as both eminently royal and surprisingly lovable and human. One wishes the real Queen read this book.

Adlibris, Amazon UK, Amazon US.

Eldbärare (“Fire-bearers”) is part 2 of a 4-part fantasy series. I reviewed part 1 some while ago.

At the end of book 1 the twins got trapped in a magic stone circle. After a year all of a sudden they get out. They’ve spent this year viewing the memories of the man who holds them in the circle. Since he’s hundreds of years old, they learn a lot. This is a useful plot device but to me it’s too much like cheating. At various points throughout the rest of the book, they can just think back, “oh didn’t we see/hear something like this back in the circle” and bam, problem solved.

But the twins still don’t really know what their father wanted them to do, or where they’re going. The world is still a mystery. It is hard to know who’s friend and who’s enemy. They continue their quest (and acquire a second one on the way) and continue to learn about the wide world that they know so little about. I rather like this setup – it makes much more sense than the usual fantasy setup where you have a quest mapped out and just need to get through all the hardships and slay all the dragons in your way.

This second book is a smooth continuation from book 1, which I really liked, but somehow book 2 falls short of my expectations. All the reviews I could find online were very happy with it, so I almost started to doubt my reaction, but I can’t deny that I was disappointed with it and I don’t feel any strong desire to read part 3.

Somehow the sense of urgency, of impending doom, of great responsibility, has weakened. Even though the twins have two important quests, one of which is pretty much on the “save the world” scale, it doesn’t seem urgent. The tone of the book, the behaviour of the kids themselves, the pacing, all would fit a quieter world with smaller worries and smaller quests.

Pacing is the book’s greatest weakness. A third of the way in, Sunia and Wulf find themselves in a community of people of the Blood. These people are sticklers for tradition, etiquette, courtly manners etc. They assure the kids of their intention to help but explain that these things take time. And for some reason the twins accept this. Despite the urgent need for action, when the forces of evil are approaching and the kids have not one but two important quests to fulfil, for a long while – nearly a hundred pages – they pretty much just sit around and wait. Once they leave the castle where they’re kept semi-imprisoned, the pace picks up, and the plot becomes much more interesting again.

A few elements of the plot are a bit too predictable. When Wulf’s eyes first meet the eyes of a girl, his throat immediately feels dry, and of course we know some sort of romantic feelings will arise. The romantic feelings are rather clumsily adolescent, with repeated variations on the theme of “I was feeling things for her that I couldn’t express in words”. This makes the whole book feel like a YA novel, which is not what I signed up for.

Other parts of the book feel fresher and more interesting. The people of the Blood have pretty strict gender roles and neither Wulf nor Sunia fit into those. Wolf is the one who’s good with words, and with a sewing needle; Sunia has great skill with the sword. This theme is presented relatively subtly and un-preachily.

It’s not a bad book. Like Ondvinter, its great strength is the “feel” of its world, its inhabitants, its history. The series is not innovative in the way that makes you go wow; there are no wild flights of fancy. It’s just a world that clearly has its own character (Nordic and slightly archaic) and is free from the whole dwarves and elves thing. But while this made book 1 worth reading, for me this is not enough to carry a whole series.

Adlibris.

One of my fundamental principles of parenting is that violence is not OK. Hitting, spanking, slapping, “disciplining”, whatever you call it and whatever spin you put on it – it is not OK.

Non-violence towards children is the norm in Sweden, unlike some other countries where I understand that there are people who publicly hold the opposite view. Here, if you spoke for spanking (and not in joking) you’d be viewed as seriously misguided at the very least. If you’re a parent and you told someone you hit your kids, I suspect that you’d find the social services at your door soon, or the police.

My views on this is not what I want to discuss here. Perhaps another time.

I’ve been reminded of this cultural difference by several books I’ve read for Ingrid. Occasionally we come across mentions of adults hitting kids. In some books it is talked about very openly, while in others it’s a more oblique reference. I often struggle with how to treat such collisions between our reality and the story. Do I let it pass? Do I explain?

In Pätu the father mentions getting his belt. In Sleeping Beauty the cook reaches out to slap the kitchen boy. Even Pippi Longstocking, when telling about how she sends herself to bed, says she threatens herself with a good hiding if she doesn’t obey.

Many of the briefer and more passing references probably don’t make any sense for Ingrid at all, and pass more or less unnoticed. “Ett kok stryk” or “keretäis” (“a good hiding”, in Swedish and Estonian respectively). She isn’t even familiar with these words, it is nothing we ever feel the need to talk about in this household. And fathers reaching for their belts or for birch rods? What for? These I explain when she asks, which she rarely does with things she doesn’t understand in a book.

But when we recently read Kipling’s story about how the elephant got his trunk (in an old Estonian translation) and the poor elephant child was beaten again and again by his family and relatives, and he didn’t react with anything but sadness, I felt I had to explain. That many many years ago people thought it was OK to hit kids, but not any more. That parents mustn’t hit their kids. That no one should hit anyone.

If you are a non-violent parent, how do you deal with such stories?

The back cover summarizes the setup of the book pretty well. “15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows?”

A lot is promised but the book falls short. Early on the plot becomes way too predictable. The wild guy who lives fast with his hip friends and cool media job, finally settles down. The bookish, slightly overweight girl, sheds glasses and turns out beautiful. The “falling in love with your best friend” cliché. “Finding yourself.”

It is also not very believable. Dexter is a jerk, more and more so as time passes. Emma is, for some inexplicable reason, unable to fall in love with anyone else, even though there doesn’t seem to be any reason for her to love or like Dex. She just hangs around somewhere on the fringe of his life and waits until finally in the end they find each other. I can understand a college girl falling for the cool guy, but as a successful adult in her 30s, her still not being able to let go doesn’t make much sense.

But the book has got its good sides, too: good dialogue, funny scenes, great 1990s detail. The structure is pretty clever and generally works well, even though some chapters “cheat” and aren’t really limited to the day itself but start with a summary of the year that’s passed.

Not bad but doesn’t quite live up to expectations.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris.

This is a book about ethnopediatrics – child care from the point of view of an anthropologist. The question Meredith Small tries to elucidate is, To what extent is parenting based on biological imperatives and to what extent is it based on culture? She shows how differently children are cared for in different cultures, and how convinced all of these parents are that theirs is the right way and the others are crazy/wrong/weird. Parenting practices rest on parents’ assumptions about the world and on their values – they are as much a product of culture as what we eat, what we wear, or how we dance.

First, Small presents an overview of relevant aspects of human evolution – about how our upright posture and large brains lead to babies being born “unfinished”, and about the parent-child bond that is essential for babies’ survival.

Then she takes on a world tour highlighting cultural differences in parenting. The !Kung San train their babies’ motor skills so that the babies can cope with their nomadic life; the Ache carry their kids until the age of 5 to keep them safe in a dangerous forest environment; Gusii mothers don’t talk to their baby because children are viewed as low-status family members and expected to watch and learn rather than talk; Japanese mothers encourage dependence and a close bond between mother and child; American parents expect babies to cry a lot and don’t think it is necessary to respond to all crying.

Next there are more in-depth looks at three central elements of baby care: first a chapter on sleep across cultures, then a similar chapter about crying, and finally about breastfeeding – all from both an evolutionary and cross-cultural point of view.

It’s a slim book and a quick read. It could be slimmer still with some editing: at times it felt repetitive and padded with more words than it needs (perhaps in an attempt to make it feel more substantial). Disappointingly for me as a reader 60 of the 300 pages are filled with references, footnotes, an index etc. It does, however, set the book apart from all the books about babies that are really opinions served as fact, “do this because I say so”. This is, instead, “this is what other people do and here’s why”.

Throughout the book, the author remains an anthropologist, an observer standing to one side, and never quite expresses any firm opinions about what she describes. But if I were to summarize the book in just a paragraph, both what is said and what is repeatedly hinted at by leading questions, I would say this:

Babies evolved to be close to the parent, since they cannot survive on their own. They evolved to be carried rather than transported in plastic seats, to sleep with the parent rather than alone, to breastfeed frequently throughout the day and for years rather than months. Western child-rearing is to a great extent fighting against millions of years of evolution. If you work with your baby’s nature rather than against it, you will make life both easier and more pleasant for both yourself and your baby.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris.

Wolf Hall tells the story of the ending of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he can marry Anne Boleyn instead, and how this leads to the English Reformation. We follow these events through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, minister to Henry VIII and mastermind of England’s break with Catholicism.

Cromwell is a low-born lawyer/businessman/accountant, which would make him an unlikely hero in any case. He was, from what I’ve understood, a hated man during his lifetime, and is usually cast as somewhat of a villain in this whole affair. Here he is presented as a caring and enlightened man, taking care of widows and orphans, trying to save heretics from being burned and so on.

The story already existed, of course, and gave Mantel a lot for free, so to say: colourful personalities and tumultuous historical events. But she really brings them to life, makes it all funny, lyrical, personal; every sentence is exquisite. I took great care to read it slowly and savour every paragraph, wanting to make it last. It took me a few weeks but unfortunately I still ran out of pages in the end.

The book is extraordinarily vivid even though there are almost no visual descriptions of anything. It feels like no time has passed since this all happened: I can picture myself there among those people. The smells, the heat, the fear of disease. It must all rest on excellent research, but she uses her knowledge of those times subtly and never even gets close to didactic exposition. In fact I could have used more facts at times, and had to turn to Wikipedia for help with keeping track of all those people.

The Wolf Hall that gives the book its title is the seat of the Seymours, among those Jane Seymour, who will be Henry’s next wife. Wolf Hall is barely mentioned in this book so it is pretty obvious that a sequel is in the works. I can’t help thinking of the rhyme: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”, and I am anxiously looking forward to seeing events unfold.

I am very very glad I read this book and will certainly look for more of Hilary Mantel’s works.

Adlibris, Amazon UK, Amazon US.

One evening in Gran Canaria, I noticed a book lying abandoned on a deck chair, next to a pretty pink scarf. It was still there the evening after. The third evening someone had moved both items from the deck chair (probably they wanted to use it!) onto a ledge. The scarf looked nice but not my colour. The book I picked up because it had a smiling baby on the front cover. If no one had claimed it during three evenings, I figured I could adopt it.

From the back cover of Why Love Matters – How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain:

Why Love Matters explains why love is essential to brain development in the early years of life, and how early interactions between babies and their parents have lasting and serious consequences.

Sue Gerhart goes through all the various ways in which human contact and human relationships affect brain development, and how experiences during the first months and years of life can leave marks for life.

The main thesis is that a baby cannot regulate its own needs, physical or emotional. It needs the help of a caring adult. If that relationship is dysfunctional, if the adult is unable or unwilling to fulfil the baby’s needs, the baby suffers not just immediate discomfort but also longer-term effects. Brain chemistry becomes subtly imbalanced, some parts of the brain do not develop properly, inappropriate emotional habits are founded. In the long run, all kinds of mental and emotional troubles can arise, and Sue Gerhart shows how the former can lead to the latter. Babies of depressed mothers get used to a lack of positive emotions; babies of angry, resentful mothers learn to suppress their feelings. Babies who get no help with soothing negative emotions do not learn how to keep on an even keel.

While some other author on the back cover says “I would recommend it to all new parents” it really isn’t written so as to be accessible by most parents. I would guess it really wasn’t written for the general public but for politicians, social workers, those in charge of childcare facilities, psychologists etc. In particular the book is unlikely to be read by those who need its message the most: those depressed mothers, or the parents who meet their babies’ demands with anger.

A reviewer in The Guardian expresses resounding support and provides a thorough summary.

If there is one thing to take with you from this book, it’s this excerpt (p. 91):

Good timing is a critical aspect of parenting, as well as in comedy. The ability to judge when a baby or child has the capacity to manage a little more self-control, thoughtfulness or independence is not something that books on child development can provide: the timing of moves in a living relationship is an art, not a science. Parents’ sensitivity to the child’s unfolding capacities can often be hampered by an intolerance of dependency. This is partly cultural and partly the result of one’s own early experience. Dependency can evoke powerful reactions. It is often regarded with disgust and repulsion, not as a delightful but fleeting part of experience. It may even be that dependence has a magnetic pull and adults themselves fear getting seduced by it; or that it is just intolerable to give to someone else what you are furious you didn’t gt yourself. [...] Often, parents are in such a hurry to make their child independent that they expose their babies to long periods of waiting for food or comfort, or long absences from the mother, in order to achieve this aim. Grandparents only too often reinforce the message that you mustn’t “spoil” the baby by giving in to him.

Unfortunately, leaving a baby to cry or to cope by himself for more than a very short period usually has the reverse effect: it undermines the baby’s confidence in the parent and in the world, leaving him more dependent not less. In the absence of the regulatory partner, a baby can do very little to regulate himself or herself other than to cry louder or to withdraw mentally. But the pain of being dependent like this and being powerless to help yourself leads to primitive psychological defences based on these two options.

[...] The dual nature of the defensive system seems to be built into our genetic programme: it’s either fight or flight. Cry loudly or withdraw. Exaggerate feelings or minimise feelings. Be hyper-aroused or suppress arousal. [...] Whichever way the individual turns to find a solution (and these strategies may be used consistently or inconsistently), he or she will not have mastered the basic process of self-regulation and will remain prone to being overdemanding of others or underdemanding.

Adlibris, Amazon US, Amazon UK.