Book Review: Habibi by Craig Thompson

Habibi is a beautiful book. I mean that, first and foremost, in the literal sense. The hardcover edition is physically gorgeous with an maroon embossed cover and a heft and weight that reminds me of a spiritual tome, like a Bible.

Habibi
(All photos of the book taken by Parka81 on flickr.)

Open it up and the beauty continues. Craig Thompson blew me away with the art he produced for Blankets and his ability to capture emotion and soul in his art. His skills have, if anything, improved since then. Habibi is visually rich, interweaving Arabic script with detailed patterns and characters that come alive on the page. If I could do nothing other than flip through the pages and immerse myself in the art, this book would still be worth reading.

Habibi

Habibi

Habibi

Beyond the art the story is beautiful, too. As the website notes, “Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.”

While being sold as a slave, Dodola saves Zam from death and after they escape into the desert (where they live in an abandoned boat stretched across a dune), she begins to raise him as though he were her brother/son. They’re love and friendship grows more complex as they grow older and as life confronts them with its brutality and tears them apart. Through all the uncertainties and fears, poverty and despair, there is always a thread of hope, as Dodola and Zam and each turns to scripture and stories to sustain them.

That said, there are definitely problematic issues of Orientalism and cultural appropriation. For more information on that, I turn you to this article, “Can the Subaltern Draw?: The Spectre of Orientalism in Craig Thompson’s Habibi,” by Nadim Damluji. While I was certainly immersed in the story, I was also wondering about the stereotypes he was using to tell the tale. I certainly recognized a few (the sex-obsessed sultan, for example), but I was there were others that I was less certain about. Damluji a great analysis of Tompson’s book, discussing the beauty of its research on Islamic scripture, as well as looking at the Orientalism.

I’ll end with saying that despite the few reservations I mentioned, I rather loved this book and its beautiful art.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]

Book Review: Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen

gaughen 001I love the Robin Hood myth, the Merry men, Maid Marian, all of it. So, when I saw Scarlet (with its really gorgeous cover) in the library and learned that it was a retelling of the myth with Will Scarlet — thief, knife expert, and sneak — as a girl, I was stoked. I love retellings, and I especially love retellings in which typical male roles are presented to women. They fill me with joy.

Unfortunately, I built up a lot of expectations in my mind before reading, and the book went contrary to my expectations. There are things I liked and things I didn’t like with the end result being that I really want to like the book as a whole, but can’t quite love it.

First, what I liked. I love Scarlet. I love that wears boys clothes and tucks her hair up under a hat, that she could chop it off, but chooses not too, because it something that’s hers, her own personal secret. I loved that she’s tough, she’s slick with knives, clever with plans, and is one of only ones of the group that can sneak in an out of Nottingham castle through secret passageways. The men turn to her in working out plans, trusting her skills in dire situations. And I like that she’s though she’ll stay silent and hidden, but when she wants to speak, she’s smart mouthed and opinionated (in fact her voice throughout the book is consistent and very well done). She would give up her food to someone less fortunate even if it meant she had to go hungry. She’s also guilt-ridden and dark humored, which is hard sometimes hard to read, but you get the sense that hard living has led her to be that way and she doesn’t wallow all the time. Often she desires to run away from the situation, the boys, everything, but she sticks around despite the risks and makes sh*t happen.

I also love Much, one of Robin’s crew, who only has one hand, but still keeps up with the rest of the group. He’s good with the villagers and is kind in a true and honest way. He’s also the only one who shows and receives kindness from Scarlet without expecting something sexual to come of it.

Then there’s the stuff I didn’t like as much…, which I can’t really talk about without throwing in a few spoilers, so fair warning:

SPOILERS AHEAD

Robin Hood was not the hero I was expecting. He’s handsome (stormy eyed) and smart and uses the bow, but Scarlet outshines him with her agency that he seems pale in comparison. Yes, he’s young and inexperienced (and very moody) in this version, but Scarlet keeps telling the reader what a hero he is, what a great leader he is, but we never really see either of those things acted out with the exception of him occasionally barking orders and helping a villager out. There’s only one scene with Robin using his bow, and all the planning comes from Scarlet. Since this is supposed to be a team and Scarlet is supposed to be such a lone wolf, I would have liked to see Robin have a little more cleverness and agency of his own so that he wasn’t quite out shadowed.

But that’s a small concern for me compared to his continual jealousy because of Little John (which I will get to in a bit), and his turning into a complete ass-shat when he learns her true identity. His explanation for all this bad behavior was “I hurt you to hurt myself,” which is such BS and I can’t believe Scarlet would accept that as an excuse. I do think the characters work well together as a couple, because of they are both wounded people trying to find some redemption for themselves, but I’m still annoyed with the instant turn around at the end.

There’s a general sense and belief among the men that a women, even Scarlet, MUST belong to a man. A general belief in ownership is involved, which fits the time period, but is still very annoying, especially when it comes to Little John and his pursuit of Scarlet after he sees her in a dress. He starts flirting with her and toying with her, and no matter how many times Scarlet says, “No, John, I’m not interested in you as a mate,” John says the equivalent of “You don’t know your own mind” or “You know you want to,” which makes me very uncomfortable. There are some confused emotions for Scarlet, because she sees him as a teammate and a brother, and when she’s at her most low, John shows her kindness, which she accepts because she’s so desperately in need of kindness. But every time John takes this acceptance of a kindness as a tease, a sign that she really MUST be attracted to him, even though she says she’s not.

What makes it worse is that compiled on top of John’s inability to accept her “No” is that Robin doesn’t believe her “No” either. Because John likes her, she must be with John, thinks and speaks Robin. Scarlet even shouts at them all, saying that they don’t take her feelings into account, and they absolutely do not, which is an awful situation, especially if they are supposed to trust each other. The only one who gets her feelings is Much, and he’s not given much say.

This feeling of ownership by her companions is especially disheartening in the face of the main villain, who is another man treating her like an object, wishing to possess her. Though the boys are not as extreme in their sense of ownership, it still rings ugly to me.

Then there is Scarlet’s SECRET IDENTITY, which I pretty much figured out as soon as she blushed when Robin glanced her way. She’s Maid Marian. I get why the author made this choice. Gaughen loved the myths, but never liked Marian, because she always thought of her as weak (which is pretty much how I feel about Buttercup in the Princess Bride). So, she changed things up and made Marian a thief and knife thrower. Cool.

I don’t mind too much that Scarlet and Marian are the same . . ., except when I picked up the book, I kind of hoped and expected to have Scarlet be a different character. For all the times Marian has to be rescued, I never thought of her as weak. She had a different kind of strength from the men, an ability to stand tall and help the cause as a lady from a different front. She had to smile in the face of her enemies while secretly helping Robin. She was clever in her own right. But she was always the only woman in the stories, the only women among all the men, so I kind of feel that by melding the two characters together, Gaughen lost the opportunity to have not one, but two strong women become part of the Robin Hood myths — one who stood tall as a lady, and one who was a thief and knife thrower. I would have liked to see that.

She made another choice, and that’s fine. Scarlet is a great character. But I can’t help but be a bit disappointed nevertheless.

So…, look. There are things I really love about this book, and there are things that really annoy me, too. That leaves me with mixed feelings. Will I read more books by Gaughen in the future? Most definitely, yes, because I do think she’s a great writer even if this book was contrary to my expectations.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]

Books Read in July

Despite the inexplicable cuteness of my newborn niece (I AM SO OBSESSED!!), which has taken up a significant about of my time, it’s been a rather good reading month. 🙂

1. Fast, Cheap and Under Control: Lessons from the Greatest Low-Budget Movies of All Time, by John Gaspard
2. After the Apocalypse, by Maureen F. McHugh
3. The Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri
4. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
5. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. The Waking Moon (published on wattpad), by T.J. McGuinn
7. The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham
8. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (audio book), by Mary Roach
9. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin

Click to read reviews on my livejournal.

Messing around on wattpad and a review of The Waking Moon by TJ McGuinn

So, I found out via twitter that Margaret Atwood has joined and has been promoting this site called wattpad. Essentially, its a way for writers to post stories online and connect with readers. Normally I wouldn’t look twice at this kind of site, in part, because its a self publishing venue in which there is no way to earn money (it’s completely free all around), but I figured since Margaret Atwood and has posted some of her poems, it lends the site some credibility and so I would check it out.

As a Writer

Writers post stories (either short stories or novels in serialized format or snippets or poetry), which readers can vote or comment on, and they can “fan” their favorite authors to find out when something new is posted.  According to the website, it has millions of readers every month. It also has an associated phone app and the option to promote your story on other sites (such as GoogleBooks, Sony eBookstore, and Scribd). All of which, suggests that there is an opportunity to connect with readers. You still have to find ways to promote your work on the site by chatting with readers and commenting on other works, and so forth, which is a lot of work in itself.

Though, I’m aiming to be professionally published, I can certainly see the appeal of instant gratification provided by self publishing your work (in any format). So, though I initially intended to join the site simply to read Margaret Atwood’s poems and to explore, I couldn’t help but post something of my own. The Poetry Project, as I’m calling it, will be a place where wattpad readers can suggest prompts that I will respond to with an original poem. I do have two poems completed (“Dreaming of Water on These Hot Sunny Days” and “The Butterfly Effect“), both of which you can read without being a member of wattpad. And I’m considering posting some of my Fay Fairburn stories on there, since I’ve already posted them on my blog, anyway.

I can already see that it’s a lot of work to get attention and move up in the stats (really based on popularity), which is fine — but it is something I also recognize as a distraction from doing the work to prepare and submit manuscripts for professional paid publishing, which is not so fine. I’ve been holding off on doing the final work to edit and submit some of the short stories I’ve written — there’s  fear involved of the I’m-not-good-enough variety — and I really need to make sure that happens. So, I’ll keep with wattpad for a while as a side project to see how it goes, but only under the provision that it doesn’t keep me from my main goals.

As a Reader

As to be expected, since there is no filter system (no editor selecting what appears and what needs more work), you get a lot of writing on the site that is not great (in fact a portion of it is really bad). You kind of having to skim through first pages and opening lines until you find something that’s worth reading. There are recommended stories and poems, which I tend to go to first, and various ways of searching to come up with unique reads, but there’s a ton of content on there to sort through to find something you like.

Despite that, I did find The Waking Moon, by TJ McGuinn. The book description: “Paulette’s life is in shambles. Her sister is dead, her mother is a drunk, and she’s been forced to transfer into a chaotic public school full of bullies. Things go from bad to worse when, one night while driving them home from dinner, her intoxicated mother hits and kills a teenage boy and is sent to jail. Now Paulette is truly alone. But when the teenage boy mysteriously comes back from the dead looking for Paulette, she finds herself face to face with the purest love on earth.

McGuinn presents a story with clean, crisp prose. I say this not just in comparison to the work on wattpad, but in comparison work published in general. It’s good clean writing that draws you into the story from sentence one. Paulette is an interesting character, who is understandably downcast, based on the various problems she has to face. Life is rough, but she’s not so despondent as to be depressing or boring. I was definitely on her side.

The character I absolutely fell in love with, though, was the one friend she made in high school, Rhodes. He’s quirky and fun, and sticks up for Paulie. He’s kind to Paulie and though he’s fallen for her, he doesn’t push her too hard. He does make mistakes (at one point, jealousy rears its head), but he’s quick to back off and apologize for him. He even manages to respectfully help her out of her clothes, when she’s injured, which is tough thing to do when it’s someone you’re crushing on. He’s a character that I wish was real, cause I would love to have him be my friend in real life.

The super-haught dead boy (whose name I can’t remember) is rather generic and bland in comparison to Rhodes, who has so much personality. In fact, I didn’t quite get why she falls for him, except that there is an immediate emotional connection based on common tragedy.

The story overall held my interest the entire way through, and I found myself crying by the end. Definitely worth reading, and I hope I get to read more work by McGuinn in the future.

Finding other works on wattpad that I liked as much is slow going. I have found some “good” stuff, and lots of “okay” stuff, but not much that falls into the “great” category. There is definitely some of that in there, though.

[Cross posted to my livejournal.]

Being a list of 5 things

1. Kinderbard – Songs for Children Sung by Characters from Shakespeare
Kinderbard is an awesome project to create that uses Shakespeare and music to inspire and educate children.

“We want to bring into the world the first in a planned series of books, music, and interactive apps containing songs for children. Each song is ‘sung by’ a character from Shakespeare, and is true to the quotation spoken by that character, and on which the song is based. Many of our songs address issues with which children can identify, such as anxiety, sibling rivalry, even bullying. Some are just silly or funny. But they are all lovingly created, and professionally performed, produced, and mastered.” — quoted from here

If you watch the video on the kickstarter page, you can see the love that has gone into making all of this. Daeshin Kim is organizing the project, while his wife is creating the art and his young daughter is singing the songs. The project is in fact inspired by the challenges the daughter had to face when the family moved to Paris and how music and Shakespeare helped her adapt to a new language and culture.

The project only has a few days left to gain funding, so I’m trying to signal boost and get others to join in. It certainly helps that in every interaction that I’ve had with Daeshin, he has been generous and kind, so I hope, hope, hope that the funds for this project come together.

2. Rereading The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories that have been strung together into a novel, which presents earth’s colonization of Mars. The first expeditions meet with challenges from the Martian natives, who are an advanced race in their own right. In one such story, “The Earth Men,” the company lands hoping to receive acknowledgement and fanfare in this first interaction with an alien race, only to find the Martians to be bored and annoyed by their presence.

As the colonization continues and more and more humans come to Mars, we see new kinds of stories, stories of people reshaping a stranger world, of strange people finding peace in solitude away from the red tape of Earth, of people fighting back once Earth tries to bring it’s red tape to Mars. Some stories are better than others of course — and certainly, being written in the ’50s, there’s not much space for women who are little more than background — but on the whole they are stories with interesting characters, stories that analyze humanity and society by situating it on an alien world.

I actually picked up the book to reread just a few days before Ray Bradbury passed away, the coincidence of which added a new level of poignancy to the reading. I remember being immediately smitten with the book when I first read it in school. “There Will Come Soft Rains” remains one of my favorite shorts stories, and in rereading it again now, I’m still amazed by the way he spun the story and how it still both moves me and gives me chills. Really a fantastic book — just one piece of evidence showing how amazing Bradbury was, and I’m already looking forward to reading it again someday.

3. Snow White and the Huntsman and the fabulous witch
I was going to write a post all about how, while Snow White and the Huntsman was a flawed movie in many ways, Charlize Theron was gorgeous and wonderful, bringing a haunted, unhinged depth to Queen Ravena (that pretty much carried the movie), and how I really do love the queen in the Snow White stories in general, because Snow in her purity is rather boring, but Gemma Files (aka [info]handful_ofdust) already wrote about it in her fabulous column and said it so much better than I ever could.

The only thing she didn’t mention is Theron’s fantastic costumes throughout the movie. Her gowns were amazing, like this one with the amazing headpiece and bird’s skulls around the neckline or this one that’s made with dung beetle carapaces or this one that looks like chain mail. Gorgeous.

Photo 184. Speaking of fairy tales…
I was introduced to this story at PANK Magazine by Rachel Rodman, called “Experimental Breeds: Bears, Clothed In Rumpled Hoods, Pipe “Rapunzel” To The Sleeping Pigs,” which fractures multiple fairy tales and mashes them together. It blew my mind. I mean, literally I was left sitting in my chair, slack-jawed, and unable to think properly — mind-blown. Go read it.

5. Pants
Yesterday, I arrived at work, only to immediately rip a hole in the seat of my pants. It was NOT awesome and set a bad precedent for the day. However, that evening I went to the mall to replace the pants that ripped, and … I ended up buying myself a whole new outfit, pants, shirt, sweater.

Considering the fact that shopping can sometimes be a stressful and/or depressing event for me, finding a whole outfit that works perfect, makes me feel good, and that I love is a really great feeling.

Don’t I look cute! For joy. (^_^)

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]