Musical Interlude: Tili Tili Bom

 

I found the full thing with subtitles after Lauren Paley's rendition! Check out my previous post for more creepy music.

Musical Interlude: Lauren Paley

Oh, yep. New obsession. Lauren Paley is just fantastic. She sits in stairwells and sings haunting lullabies to try and creep her neighbours out. She even does sea shanties. Just wonderful. Phenomenal voice.

SoA Open Letter to Ukrainian Authors

The UK Society of Authors have issued an open letter to the writers, illustrators and translators of Ukraine.

To the writers, illustrators and translators of Ukraine,

The members, directors and staff of the UK Society of Authors stand with you.

As the illegal invasion of your country continues, we cannot imagine what you and your families are experiencing.

Beyond the horrors of the humanitarian crisis endured by your people, this war is an assault on the rights that underpin your lives and livelihoods: the right to think, speak, write and create freely. It is an assault on a people’s right to self-determination.

Yet Ukraine is more than its borders and land. Ukraine is its people, its rich culture – its history, its present and its future. You, as the country’s thinkers and creators and makers are at the heart of that – whether you report what is happening today, write what must happen tomorrow, or create moments of reprieve to inspire those around you through impossible times.

Create freely. Write fiercely. Share your story. The authoritarian mind is right to fear you. You have the power to counter it.

We look forward to meeting you and your work in better times. Until then, if we can help or if you want us to share your thoughts and writing, email ukraine@societyofauthors.org.

Wherever the weeks and months ahead take you, you are in our hearts.

In solidarity.

You can sign it here. 

Trans Like Me

 

In Trans Like Me, CN Lester takes readers on a measured, thoughtful, intelligent yet approachable tour through the most important and high-profile narratives around the trans community, turning them inside out and examining where we really are in terms of progress. From the impact of the media's wording in covering trans people and issues, to the way parenting gender variant children is portrayed, Lester brings their charged personal narrative to every topic and expertly lays out the work left to be done.

Trans Like Me explores the ways that we are all defined by ideas of gender -- whether we live as he, she, or they -- and how we can strive for authenticity in a world that forces limiting labels.

Love, love, love this book. Perfectly written and beautifully narrated. 

I especially liked the point about language:

As a teacher, I’m constantly introducing words that are new to my students: rubato, cantabile, légèrement. When new words can bring us closer to something we want to say then we are all too happy to learn them. And this is why I’m suspicious of the claim that trans-related words are too much, too hard and of no use.

Even when a word has been in usage for a long time, those who are suspicious of what that means in terms of gender are quick to claim that the change is too fast. ‘They’ has been used as a singular pronoun in English for hundreds of years; we find examples of the singular they in the works of Shakespeare, Austen and Swift. But trans people like me, who use the pronoun ‘they’ as a gender-neutral alternative to ‘he’ or ‘she’, are often mislabelled in the media by editors who struggle with its usage. By implying that trans people are faddish and difficult about words, writers can cast aspersions on the validity of our language – and of our selves. By claiming that our words are too hard to understand, the media perpetuates the idea that we are too hard to understand, and suggests that there’s no point in trying.

Language is fascinating in every context, and especially here. The point is so well made above, and highlights how language reinforces societal constructs, dragging people back when they try to escape. 

As a cis-gender bi woman, I struggle with language even today. A few years ago I wondered if I should call myself 'pan' because I've been attracted to, and out with, trans people in the past. It's always been the person, not what's between their legs, that I've been attracted to because, let's face it, you're going to have fun either way. Did that mean that I wasn't 'just' bi - and why do I say bi? I use it because that's the word I had growing up to describe attraction to both sexes. But there wasn't anyone visibly trans or non-binary at my school, so I wouldn't have known if I was attracted to people of other genders, and in the early 90s people had a hard enough time with 'gay' and 'lesbian,' yet alone 'bi.' I don't think I ever heard the words 'trans,' 'pan,' 'a-sexual,' or 'non-binary' back then, not in my little village. So, you use the language you've got. And because that's the language I had, it's the word I've always used. And, whereas I guess by definition I am pansexual, I think I'm probably always going to refer to myself as bi. 'Pansexual' just sounds odd as a descriptive for myself, but would I come to feel comfortable with it if I used it? Other people also seem to find 'bi' a simple one to grasp in comparison. So, do I use it because it's easy? I guess a little of everything. I'm cis gender she/her, but I like the GNP 'they' and when talking to new people, I often refer to previous partners as 'they,' which is a common bi sidestep when not wanting to present as straight or gay to new people. 

So, yes, language is a mind bender. And a little exhausting sometimes.

There are so many wonderfully quotable lines in this book. 

I would be scattered away into pieces if I let other people decide me in their own words.

*

To get access to treatment as an adult, you have to have known you were trans since early childhood, but if you say that you're trans in early childhood, you're told that you're too young to know.

*

We assume that anything that is new to us is new to human society as a whole and that if we don't see it reflected in history books and recent memory then it can't have existed for long.

*

A strict gender binary has never been able to hold the totality of humanity. Not in the past, not in the present, not in the future.

*

It is heartbreaking that bodily integrity, the sanctity of selfhood and the right to live free from pain could mean so little compared with the pressure to fit into a false dichotomy. Trans or cis, intersex or not, we need to wake up to the fact that treating sex as a fixed and oppositional binary is not only a distortion of reality but is doing active extreme harm to a significant percentage of our population. Rather than forcibly applying a fantasy to our very real detriment, we could decide to accept the reality and learn and grow from there. 

*

Like many people, I hang more than a few of my hopes on the open mindedness of my generation, of the generation that follows. It would be dangerous though to think trans liberation a done deal because of that. In bleaker moments I have heard fellow activists suggest that the best we can hope for is a future in which the most hateful have died of old age, where this young generation have made good on their promise. In my bleakest moments I worry that they're right. But that would be a denial not only of the other changes happening around us but of our responsibility to agitate for those changes, encourage their developments and guard against pushback.

I just really enjoyed how smart yet easy to follow this book was. It shot down a lot of really nasty arguments that are bandied at trans people with extreme logic, solid statistics and a lot of heart. I think, even if you think you know a bit about the trans experience and you have trans friends or partners, maybe you've read a little around the subject in the past, it's just really nice to have access to somebody else's world, told through their eyes and with their words. And if you've never read anything about the trans experience, this is an excellent starting point. This book is just really open and straight-talking (pardon the pun). I feel like I learned a lot and got a healthy dose of humanism along the way. 

Go and get it. It's a great book.

The Infernal Devices #3 - Clockwork Princess

 

The third and final instalment of the Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare:

Danger and betrayal… Secrets and enchantment… Third and final book in the bestselling prequel series to The Mortal Instruments, set in Victorian London. A net of shadows begins to tighten around the Shadowhunters of the London Institute. Mortmain needs one last item to complete his plan. He needs Tessa. But Jem and Will, the boys who lay equal claim to Tessa’s heart, will do anything to save her. 

I like to include quotes in my reviews, but when I went to look at my Audible notes, there's about thirty of them, which means there were a lot of snippets I liked and a lot of language I leaned into. That's a lot to go back through.

Let's do random selection:

#46: Kwan Yin is the goddess depicted on the front. It is said that when she died and reached the gates of paradise, she paused and heard the cries of anguish from the human world below and could not leave it. She remained to give aid to mortals, when they cannot aid themselves. She is the comfort of all suffering hearts.

#23: Out of dreams of blood and metal monsters, Tessa woke with a start and a gasp.

#38: "...You say the things I think but never say out loud. You read the books I read. You love the poetry I love. You make me laugh with your ridiculous songs and the way you see the truth of everything. I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way." With the hand that was not holding his, she touched his cheek, lightly. "We are the same.”

#6: Cecily let go of the dagger's handle and rolled sideways, off the body of the worm. Its jaws missed her by a hairsbreadth and snapped viciously shut on its own body. Black ichor gushed and the worm jerked its head back, a howl like the wail of a banshee erupting from its throat. A massive wound gaped in its side, and gobbets of its own flesh hung from its jaws. As Will stared, Gabriel raised his bow and let an arrow fly. It sang home to its target and buried itself in one of the worm's lidless black eyes. The creature reared back--and then its head sagged forward and it crumpled in on itself, folding up, disappearing as demons did when the life left them. 

There's a lot to like about this trilogy. As mentioned in the first, Clockwork Angel, each chapter begins with a line of carefully selected poetry, and it's really nicely curated. Some really excellent choices in there, and no duff ones. I also felt the epilogue was particularly well written, especially the descriptive in the first half. Poetically done. 

This one also picked up the action a little more, but of the three, I still think the first book was the best. The balance of romance and action was just right there. For the second and third, it's a lot of the same romantic repetition. I didn't really feel the characters evolved much once Will found out that important thing about himself, and Jem only appears to exist in order to die. Tessa wasn't my favourite character by the end. For someone who is half-angel, half-demon, she's all goody two-shoes. If you are a conduit for the forces of heaven and hell combined, you might expect a little more internal struggle to control that, or some kick-ass superpowers. It is apparent that she has the latter, as a shapeshifter, but she doesn't seem to make much of it. A little less time protesting her love too much, and a little more time purging the automated armies of hell, would have been my personal preference, but this is a teen romance.

I did enjoy it. I must have, because I can't remember the last time I read a trilogy. I've read two of the four Shadow of the Wind tetralogy, but maybe not a full trilogy since Howl's Moving Castle back in 2012.

Switching narrators was certainly an interesting choice. Clockwork Angel was entirely read by Jennifer Ehle, Clockwork Prince was narrated by Ed Westwick and Heather Lind, and this one was narrated solely by Daniel Sharman. I assume it's to do with balance, maybe a little shapeshifting from female to male. I kind of see it, but I'm not sure it entirely worked for me in the middle. It's not first person, so the switch over didn't seem to follow much of a pattern and it broke the stride a little. But both the first and third flowed nicely. 

From midway through the first book I was kind of hoping it would push mainstream boundaries and extol the virtues of polyamory. After all, Will loves Tess, Jem loves Tess, Jem and Will love each other, and Tess loves both of them - it makes sense doesn't it? But that would have made for a very short story. Way to remove the conflict. Still, there was sort of a nod to the idea at the end. 

Anyway, an enjoyable read.

OwlKitty

My friend Jo introduced me to OwlKitty with the Titanic episode, and I've been binge watching for two days straight. There's also a really sweet adoption video about how OwlKitty (AKA Lizzy) came to be.

The Girl of Ink and Stars

 

Picked this up because I liked the cover and the title:

Forbidden to leave her island, Isabella dreams of the faraway lands her cartographer father once mapped. When her best friend disappears, she's determined to be part of the search party.

Guided by an ancient map and her knowledge of the stars, Isabella navigates the island's dangerous Forgotten Territories. But beneath the dry rivers and dead forests, a fiery myth is stirring from its sleep.

It won both the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and British Book Awards' Children's Book of the Year in 2017. 

It's an adventure story set on the fictional island of Joya, though reference to real-life places such as Africa, America and India (spelled Afrik, Amrica and India) give the sense that it is rooted in our world. Like the best fiction, it didn't happen - but it might have done.

According to the blog, Like Telling the Truth:

The mapping coordinates of the fictional Isle of Joya are given on the opening page of the book, so of course I went to Find Latitude and Longitude and looked them up! Hargrave has based her tale on La Gomera in the Canary Islands, Spain. This is the very port from which Christopher Columbus set sail on 6th September 1492, intending to sail to the Indies under the patronage of Queen Isabella. 

The lead protagonist is indeed called Isabella. She is a mapmaker's daughter, and who doesn't like a story about mysterious maps?

There was only one map that showed the whole of our island, and it hung in Da's study... It had always felt like a sign that Ma and Da were meant for each other, that he was a cartographer and her only heirloom was a map.

*

Each of us carries the map of our lives on our skin, in the way we walk, even in the way we grow.

Full of dark places and mystical fears:

My body eased through the slight tug of the current. I had forgotten the sensation of weightlessness... Swimming in the sea was different though, the water was black beneath me, and after a while I scared myself imagining what was below and had to get out.

It was an easy read. Reminded me a bit in style of Naomi Novic, and in subject of the Netflix series Shadow and Bone, which also centres around a mapmaker stuck in a land you're not allowed to leave. Shadow and Bone was adapted from books by Leigh Bardugo, but I haven't read those yet, hence the Netflix reference - sorry. But similar themes and a plucky female protagonist who has to fight to be allowed to go on an adventure.

I'd probably suggest the tree format over the audiobook. The audiobook is very well narrated, but one of the main characters is a bit annoying and has a voice to match. Some awful things happen to her, but, because of her voice, I felt more relieved than sympathetic. Reading it for yourself, you might find that she's more relatable.