The stance of this blog is "fuck genocide"

Sarah Winnemucca's Life Among the Paiutes, their Wrongs and Claims is a somewhat controversial book and that's understandable. When it was published it was controversial because it was advocating for Native American rights; now it's controversial because of its advocacy for assimilationist rhetoric.

In spite of its flaws in that regard, the book is still a wonderful thing to hold up when racists claim that manifest destiny wasn't that bad or wasn't a genocide or that white people treated people better than other people did.

I don't have it in me to get super critical here, or to go into detail with this incredibly depressing subject. The settlement of the American West was a bad thing built on imperialism and genocide. There are clear victims of this settlement process and their people are still dealing with the repercussions of the genocide.

I happened to spend some time in Nevada and Oregon last year, when I had just started reading this book. One of the things I was curious about was the tremendous number of places I saw labelled as Paiute reservation land - where I'm from it seems like most tribal lands are fairly consolidated. You'll have a radius of maybe fifty miles, max, before you're out of that group's reservation areas.

The Paiute land stretched across hundreds of miles in a way that was strange to me.

Turns out that's because of forcible moves and multiple separations of the tribe and a whole bunch of other fucked-up shit.

Anyway, I can't recommend the book enough for people who are under the impression that white people settling the continent was somehow right or good.

Cheers,
     Alli

Swashbuckling sweetness

Cary Elwes (with help from Joe Layden) has written a charming book about a charming movie. As You Wish is Elwes' memoir about the production of The Princess Bride, which is of course itself an adaptation of the wonderful William Goldman novel of the same name.

Elwes recounts the story of making the sleeper hit with a kind touch, pulling heavily from his co-stars' and production crew's memories of crafting a film that nobody expected to become a family classic. The book is an easy, fast read that never digs too deeply into the nitty-gritty nastiness that's so common in film memoirs but instead recalls friendships formed on sets and touching moments with ROUSs and giants alike.

Everyone who lent their voice to the book is unfailingly sweet, sometimes frustratingly so. Elwes himself is the harshest voice in the book, and even then all his ire is directed inward at his foolishness for injuring himself with a frivolous ATV ride. I had rather hoped that Mandy Patinkin might have something harsh to say about his grueling fencing practice, or that Robin Wright might express some horror at the thought of being set on fire during her first day of filming, but none of that ever happens. As You Wish sets up film-making itself as a fairytale experience (at least with Rob Reiner at the helm) almost on par with the story of Buttercup and Westley. Growing up in LA and visiting film lots and attending at least a couple of auditions I'm inclined to glance askance at this rose-tinted view, but The Princess Bride was an indie film made three decades ago by a bunch of people you only ever hear lovely things about so maybe it was just as great to make as it is to watch.

I'm a bit of a cynic (which is probably sparklingly clear from the general content of this blog) so I found the syrup-sweet "she was great to work with, just an absolute trooper" and "he was a teddy-bear, never got mad, everyone loved him" tone throughout the book a bit taxing, but there are anecdotes scattered in the pages that cracked the shields around my cold and bitter heart. Reading that Wallace Shawn (the clever Sicilian) was acting in constant fear that he'd be fired was endearing, and hearing that Rob Reiner had to be banished from the set while Billy Crystal took his hilarious turn as Miracle Max was certainly something cheerful to think about. Most of what I enjoyed, though, was Elwes and Co. talking about Andre the Giant - telling stories about him messing around on set, describing the tremendous volumes of food and drink he consumed, that was expected; getting a lesson about discrimination and hypervisibility kick-started by a fart on set was wholly unexpected, and one of the best moments of the book.

If you're a fan of The Princess Bride you will probably enjoy Elwes' memoir and appreciate the background details that get filled in through stories from the cast and a lovely set of production stills. If you aren't already a fan there's probably nothing between the covers that will convert you. This book is a decent afternoon's distraction, full of warmth and bright little moments of joy - just like the movie it's about.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Elwes, Cary, with Joe Layden. As You Wish. Touchstone. New York: New York. 2014.

Startlingly relevant

I promise that I like normal comic books - I'm currently reading Squirrel Girl and Giant Days, I just finished the six-issue run of Coming of Rage; there are normal, day-to-day supers and horror books in my life. I guess I just like giant political memoir comics better in some ways. Maus is almost incomprehensibly good, probably my favorite comic book of all time, and now that I've read Persepolis I have to say that it's reasonable competition for the title of greatest illustrated war story.

Which is saying a fucking lot - Persepolis is different from Maus in many ways; Satrapi is telling her own story whereas Spiegelman tells his father's story; Maus is the story of concentration camps and adults struggling to survive while Persepolis is about Satrapi largely evading the war as a child sent away by her parents, but both are compelling, simply-but-beautifully illustrated stories about people stifled by a world they have little control over and attempting to live in spite of facing unexpected horrors.

Marjane Satrapi's story follows her as a child in Iran and a teen and young adult in Europe before returning as an adult to Iran to find the changes that have warped her world since her parents sent her away to protect her. The difficulties Satrapi has acclimating to the various cultures she is a part of are communicated beautifully and pathetically - she doesn't hide the ugliness she experienced from others or that came from herself but honestly examines the person-to-person conflicts that can hit so much closer to home than news of a bombing or the sham election of a leader. Satrapi rarely has to fear for her life and physical safety the way that the Jews in Maus do but she is constantly afraid for her way of life, for her identity. She struggles under religious conservatism in Iran but is also injured by racism and xenophobia in Austria - in fact the problems of enlightened Europe take a greater physical toll on her than the bombings of Tehran took on her family and reconciling those experiences becomes a tremendous source of conflict within her that makes it impossible for her to maintain a foothold in the shifting sands of her life.

There's so much that happens in Satrapi's narrative that it feels cheap to attempt to summarize it here but I will say that this character spoke strongly to me - from a childhood of lofty, thwarted dreams to a lost adolescence isolated from home and family to a young adulthood hemmed in by a foreign morality Satrapi is pulled in dozens of directions and has a hard time finding a solid center to build a life on. And while I've had the privilege of growing up largely without the fear of war or bombs I can relate to the glazed confusion when being presented with a world that seems to be shedding the expected skin to expose something uglier underneath.

Satrapi's introduction makes it clear that she is writing to counter the image of Iranians as terrorists and religious extremists. She talks about a world rife with European xenophobia that bares its teeth at children fleeing a war. She talks about living in a country where women have few freedoms and fewer rights. And she talks about a wish to leave that behind in a brighter future, something that has unfortunately not yet come to pass. While this memoir is only 15 years old it seems unbearably optimistic in a world where I see all people from the Middle East being stereotyped as terrorists, where global xenophobia is rearing up against children fleeing wars, and a world in which women's rights have regressed in many places. I want the same future that Satrapi wanted, I just didn't have her words to make clear what was missing or how much we still need it.

I hope it happens. And I strongly recommend reading Persepolis to hear an Iranian voice calling for what so much of the world believes no Iranians want.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis.  Pantheon Books. New York: New York. 2004. (2000).

One for the money

 

I really wanted to enjoy Pimp; from everything I'd seen about it before I cracked the cover I was intrigued. The book and its author have had a lot to do with certain aspects of African American artistic culture in the second half of the 20th century and I wanted to get wrapped up in that. Unfortunately I couldn't bring myself to enjoy the book on a deep level because holy shit is is misogynist.

I mean, obviously, yes, we're talking about a book that tells the story of a pimp before the 1950s, clearly this wasn't going to be a rallying cry for the equal treatment of sex workers. But neither should it have been a constant confirmation that sex workers are indeed thieves who are forced or coerced into sex work. Iceberg Slim may have been a stone-cold pimp but that ain't a patch on the modern Chicago Burlesque scene or the escorts on Tinder who have a great time running their own lives.

There was a lot to recommend about Pimp - Slim's frustration with the white supremacy that surrounds him and his attempts to subvert that supremacy by ignoring a system that will treat him as criminal regardless of his behavior is understandable and commendable. The utter exhaustion with the white man that Beck voices through his younger avatar is something that still rings unfortunately true.

But I just can't get behind how the book views women. I'm hoping that Beck's attitude about women in general and sex workers in particular had changed by the time he actually wrote Pimp, but I find it unlikely. There's such vitriolic contempt for sex workers in this story that it's hard to imagine the kind of people underneath the caricatures - something that isn't true of the pimps, police, and day-to-day folks you're introduced to. Only the sex workers, women terrorized and threatened into obeying the orders of a particular man above all others, are portrayed as conniving subhumans out to wrong the men who terrorize them.

And I can't get behind that. The story was compelling, the language felt natural and easy, and the author wrote in a way that was calculated to make sex workers seem subhuman and untrustworthy. And all that it made me do was want to get out of this story that thought so little of women in general and sex workers in particular.

Cheers,
     - Beck, Richard. Pimp. Holloway House Publishing. Los Angeles: California. 2006. (1969).

Going home is the best part of Going Solo

You can't understand how wonderful a book like Matilda is unless you were a lonely, bright child with very few friends. I mean everyone can appreciate that it's a sweet, cute story about success and beating the odds and tricking the corrupt leader, but until you've set aside your worn copy and stared so HARD at a pencil, struggling to see if you just might be magic like Matilda, then picked up the book again (disappointed in yourself but happy to keep reading and quietly muttering "it's okay, it's just a story") you can't understand how great the book is. It makes me question physics. As an adult. Who is pretty fucking into physics. Because maybe someday I'll feel those little hands pushing out of my eyes and making the world come to life for me. Maybe. Not likely, though.

Anyway, Matilda is the first Roald Dahl book I ever read. I've also happily consumed stories about Willy Wonka and a certain Big Friendly Giant. There were others, I'm sure (I know I at least glanced through The Twits and hated it at 10, but that was the same day my mother had a heart attack so maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a story). I probably should have read Boy before Going Solo, but Going Solo was the book I had so it's what I read.

Roald Dahl makes me feel pretty useless. In fact I'm pretty sure that most RAF pilots make most people feel pretty useless. Especially if they were WWII fighter pilots, because I try to make a difference in the world but I've never literally stopped Nazis from killing people. Which is really the meat of Going Solo. There are quite a few amusing anecdotes that introduce us to the young Dahl in the beginning of the book but by the halfway point you are solid into Nazi fighting. And getting into Nazi fighting actually makes the memoir more pleasant - the amusing little anecdotes have a lot to do with imperialism and covering murder, so it makes the people under discussion a little hard to like.

Dahl comes up looking pretty good through most of the story, and like a prince at the end. Of course it's his book and he was a tremendously talented writer, but it's very much the story of a young man out of this depth who is frustrated and terrified by the world around him and trying to muddle through anyway. His affable voice and self deprecation through the nightmarish things he lived through are bracing and sad at the same time. The final chapter, his homecoming and reunion with his worried mother, was heart-wrenching and is what really made me glad to have read this odd little book.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Dahl, Roald. Going Solo. Puffin Books. New York: New York. 1999. (1986).

A warm family in a cold world

This book took a little while to get into (the first 15 pages or so were hard to push through for me) but once I was involved with the story I was glad that I'd made the effort.

Wole Soyinka does an amazing job of regressing the reader to his childish viewpoint while still telling his story in a way that adults can understand. As the book moves through itself, and as the narrator ages, the memoir moves from a more febrile, magical perspective to a touching recollection of his family during a very frightening time.

I loved experiencing the percolation of knowledge through the narrator as he grew up and began to recognize a world beyond the walls of his family compound and indeed beyond the borders of his country.

Every person described is interesting and complete and touching, even if they are described with dislike they're granted their humanity and the understanding that maybe they're an okay person, just someone with different motivations.

The book is transporting, the language is lush and beautiful and makes you see the streets where Wole walked as a child, and hear the sizzle of cooking and smell the rich foods he so desperately wanted to scrounge from the family pantry. It's a very sensory book for the first two thirds of the story, and then becomes a very intellectual book as Wole the baby becomes Wole the boy and starts to participate in the various intrigues and uprisings around him.

The tale of the Nigerian Women's Movement from this unique perspective is intensely moving and makes you want to charge up and take political actions of your own - makes you want to be something bigger and wholer than you are now.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Soyinka, Wole. Aké: the years of childhood. Vintage International. New York: New York.
     1989. (1981.)