Sarny

I reviewed Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen earlier this year and was really impressed with it. I think that dealing with such a subject as slavery in a way that is approachable for younger readers and truthful is a gruelling challenge for an author, yet Paulsen does so admirably well. (See the publisher's author page for more info on Paulsen and his many historical works.)

I got a copy of Sarny for myself to find out what happens after the events of Nightjohn. In the course of the story Sarny matures, becomes a mother, a widow, and then a heroine as she unshackles herself and pursues her children, who have been sold away from her. Her pursuit of her children with her friend and fellow ex-slave Lucy in tow to assist was gut wrenching for a mother to read; and the friendship she had with Lucy was a good counterbalance to the pathos of finding missing children. In the course of events, Sarny learns more about privilege and the reliance she can have on a community than one would normally expect from such inauspicious beginnings. There is a Forrest Gump quality about the way Sarny ends up in the midst of historical events; though gratefully the author does not push it so far as to lose credibility, and also fortunately Sarny is far too smart to settle for Gumplike platitudes in describing her fate. She does offer a few gems of wisdom:

"The brain don't forget," Sarny says in reflection upon her life; her characterization is completely unforgettable.

Again, I read the book rapidly - in two sittings, as the story is so compelling. The setting of New Orleans was a brilliant one, as such a cosmopolitan city provides excellent contrast to Sarny at the start of her time there. I would have enjoyed learning more about Sarny's benefactor Miss Laura, and thought that featuring such a character in the story was both a risky and rewarding choice. My understanding is that Paulsen created these composite characters to represent an amalgamation of persons who would have existed at the time, and that there actually was no such person as Sarny. However, understanding and empathizing with Sarny is a valid way of understanding the historical period and the terrible legacy of slavery for an individual such as she.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Anathem by Neal Stephenson took me a bit to get into; the author presents a non-Earth world called Arbre with a new vocabulary, social structure, and cultural norms in such a way that one must immerse in it or walk away.

Anathem will reward Stephenson fans, as it requires a devotion to complex plots... and a bit of tolerance. The first few chapters are slow going. But it is worth one's while to get through them. The device of having avout, a type of quasi-monk who lives a life focused on learning rather than worship, learning the secular world via their interactions with the populace provides a graceful way of explaining the secular world without too much tedious exposition. As an example, Simone, a technologist of Arbre, becomes more understandable as the plot advances, and the main character, Ras of the avout, gains an understanding of the world around him.

Having slogged through the opening chapters, I was rewarded by the story that unfolded. This book at this point is my favorite read of 2009. And unless George Martin finishes up A Dance with Dragons or Neil Gaiman comes out with a new masterpiece to surpass the Graveyard Book, I fail to imagine a contender that might take its place.

"The greatest difficulty, for one such as you, shall be, not completion of the given tasks, but instead the humiliation and uncertainty that arises from not being able to know the entire plan. These emotions can hamper you. You must simply decide now, either to proceed with the awareness that the entire plan might never be revealed to you, and, were it revealed, might have obvious defects; or to turn away and allow some other person to occupy [the place] that has been alloted to you." Fra Osa of the Vale

Also available, hear and see Neal Stephenson read an excerpt from Anathem.

Some fans were even so inspired as to create a trailer for the film of Anathem. Not that tehre is a film version of Anathem, at least not in this version of reality we're in (or this narrative, as Fra Jad would say).

The World of Anathem

Blogger Buddy Award

Thanks to Deborah at Babasfarmlife for the Blogger Buddy Award!

In the pay-it-forward spirit, I'll stop my political flamewar with my husband over Specter's leaving the GOP long enough to nominate some newer bloggers for the award:

Erin at Tastes Great No Fat.

and

Dad of 2 at Seeking in the Zeitgeist.

To accept the award, post the image on your site and pick a few bloggers to award it to in kind. Then post on their blogs to let them know.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

If I'm lucky, my commute to or from work each day is about 30 minutes long. That gives me an hour a day to take in a story (or sometimes more, if I'm unlucky). With my eyes on the road and the drive taking up some of my concentration, I can't take in too complex a story but when I saw Stephen King's Gunslinger book I thought it would serve for a few day's entertainment.

Only after I started it did I learn that this was the first of a series of 7 books which Stephen King considers his magnum opus, and which take in by reference throughout a variety of his other fiction. (Thank you, wikipedia.)

I found it entertaining to listen within the story for the references to previous King stories such as The Stand and The Eyes of the Dragon; I'm the type who likes to hunt for easter eggs in software too. The main character, Roland Deschains, was not compelling to me, but the characters he encountered were - I truly wanted to know more about the naif Jake and the wizardly Man in Black. Sadly, at the conclusion of the story these two seem to be leaving the story arc (though one can never tell, it is authorial fashion to bring back supposedly dead characters from time to time). The ruins of the ancient civilization that the travelers pass through underground were fascinating, as were the mutants they encounter. I'm not sure yet if I'll be reading the next book in the series; it is hard for me to engage with a series that lacks a strong central character, and Roland just wasn't such a strong presence for me.