What I'm Reading Now

Jodi Picoult, By Any Other Name

Picoult is one of those authors I like to read without really being a big fan of her work. This is a departure for her -- it's part historical novel, part contemporary. In Elizabethan England, we have Emilia, who lives in the orbit of Elizabeth's court, and who is sold at age 13 to be the kept woman of an English lord. (He sells her to someone else when she gets pregnant.) It's Picoult's theory that this woman is the actual author of some of Shakespeare's plays.

In the present, we have Emilia's descendent, Melina, who has been unable to succeed in New York's playwriting scene, while mediocre male writers win accolades and see their work staged. 

I was put off this book by its main idea, that of someone else writing Shakespeare's plays, and I still don't buy it; but Picoult makes an interesting case. I'd also heard all the arguments for why men sell more books/get more reviews/are taken more seriously as authors in the present day before, so that part of the book bored me a little. Picoult makes a good argument in both parts of the book, I guess is what I'm saying, but I'm probably not the intended audience. 

I liked the Elizabethan sections a lot more than the modern day sections -- Picoult might think about writing more historical novels.

I am reminded of one of my professors when I was in the writing program who set us a question on a big exam: name a writer we thought was not as famous as they should be, and say why. I named a woman writer, and made the argument that she was not receiving the fame she deserved specifically because she was a woman writing historical novels. That (male) professor wrote historical novels, and I think he felt attacked, because he gave me a low grade and claimed my argument was "wildly corny." And yes, I'm still holding a grudge.

Peter Heller, Burn

Speaking of mediocre male writers.

Honestly this is a typical Peter Heller book. Two guys in a homosocial (definitely not homoerotic) relationship go through some shit. There's weird spacing which I agree has an effect on how the narrative reads. No dog in this one, but there's a small child in a lion suit which kind of stands in for the dog.

The event that causes the guys to have trouble is a civil war, kicking off not in Texas or Alabama as you would expect but in Maine. I kind of liked that, it's a bit fresh. 

There's never any explanation about why the Maine secessionists assassinated the president, but that works, I guess, since our two guys are as confused as the reader about why all this is happening. I also like Heller having the federal government pursue a scorched earth campaign against the rebel territory, like Sherman marching through Atlanta (which Heller lampshades in the text). The rebels turn out to be equally ruthless in their actions against the U.S. troops sent in to handle the rebellion. Both sides, am I right?

Anyway, it's a readable book. I read the whole thing in one evening. But since Heller is determined not to examine the ethics of starting a civil war, or even notice why the civil war is happening, the book is ultimately unsatisfying.

Also I see that Heller still has not figured out what women actually are or how one would act. 6/10, only read it if you're desperate for something to read.

C. J. Cherryh, Cuckoo's Egg

Speaking of women authors who don't get this fame they deserve.

This is a Cherryh novel which somehow I had never read. It's pretty good, and Wikipedia tells me it was nominated for a Hugo in 1986. An alien civilization (really well done by Cherryh here) has a brief war with some humans who arrive in their solar system. The humans are all killed, but the aliens are worried that they might come back, so they clone one of the humans and a Hatani from the alien world raises the child from infancy, training him up to be a Hatani himself.

Cherryh never defines Hatani (since everyone in the alien civilization knows what one is), or tells us why this Hatani has a human baby, so we have to figure this out as we go along. That's Cherryh's usual technique, and you either like it or hate it. I like it, for the record.

Cherryh's worldbuilding here is excellent, as usual. This is part coming of age novel (as the infant grows up) and part mystery (what's happened, why are these aliens raising a human?), and works pretty well, though the end left me wanting more. 

If you haven't read Cherryh and you like science fiction, highly recommended.