The story has a lovely beginning, a lovely end, and some holes and weakness in the middle. The vibe is life with a special woman, passionate but someh The story has a lovely beginning, a lovely end, and some holes and weakness in the middle. The vibe is life with a special woman, passionate but somehow cold French love, and the slow flow of the scenic river Loire in France -- a river I bicycled along a few years ago. There are few rapids or drops (the story has some), though apparently the current can be strong. There are wide spaces, shallow places, reeds, sand, birds, quiet areas, sculpted trees and bleached wood, old villages, cities, and new power plants. Much of the Loire is beautifully captured here, particularly visually. The main character really needs to wear a hat though -- so much sun damage.
This novel, published back in 1993 but taking place from 2024 onward (!), offers a scarily-possible post-enviro-apocalyptic-wastelandesque alternative This novel, published back in 1993 but taking place from 2024 onward (!), offers a scarily-possible post-enviro-apocalyptic-wastelandesque alternative future for the United States and the world, based on the author's views of her present and the path we seemed to be on back then, especially in terms of addressing climate change and environmental issues. Much of what takes place in the book, as no doubt many others have noted, is indeed happening now, albeit generally to less extreme degrees, including, but not limited to: rampant homelessness; massive rich/poor wealth gaps; gun violence; gang violence; widespread wild fires, flooding and environmental degradation; water shortages; a focus on colonizing Mars; violence and distrust among citizens; and a crazy president who makes everything worse...
Shades of "The Walking Dead" abound here, or 'Fallout', or 'Mad Max' -- much more than I expected they would in fact, in terms of human violence and brutality. The book is quite descriptive regarding this, and readers should beware if they don't want to hear about lots of rape, dogs eating decomposing families, babies being brutally murdered etc, etc... I actually found this to be too much at some point in the novel -- gratuitous even -- though certainly potentially-realistic, and it left me feeling rather negative and temporarily-depressed -- particularly given all the terrible things happening in the world today.
Lauren, the main character, is the titular 'Sower', developing a new religion based on God as change in her walled community, and eventually spreading it as well as 'seeds' of hope, positive change, and natural solutions on her troubled travels. Lauren is a strong character, though I find her 'Earthseed' religion sections largely tedious to read through, and I can't quite buy her motivations. I find her father and some of the female characters she meets later to be more interesting, but lacking in narrative space. Lauren also possesses (along with others in this dystopia) some form of 'hyper-empathy' called 'sharing' (caused by the side-effects of a new drug I believe), which I find to be unbelievable in its implementation. Sometimes Lauren will be unable to move due to her physical-shared empathy, sometimes she can do terrible things to people or animals and be just fine. While it is sort of explained, I'm unsatisfied with the explanation. On the topic of drugs, a scary drug called 'pyro' is very popular in this future, and, unlike, say, fentanyl, which kills its users slowly, pyro causes people to essentially have orgasms from setting fires and burning people and things. This is both disturbing and interesting, though it isn't explained deeply in the book. Various things aren't explained in the book in fact, and that's sometimes annoying. That said, in such a large, dystopic world with so many things going wrong, it's hard to explain everything, and also generally a good idea to leave some mystery and perhaps room for explanation in the sequel.
Overall, I enjoyed Parable of the Sower and would recommend it for folks into, say "The Walking Dead" type dystopias and/or the environment (with a strong stomach/thick skin). I would not recommend this book for high school students in general, even with a teenage main character (who, PS, also becomes involved in a problematic relationship with a much older man) and an upper high school depth of philosophical discussion... at least not without strong guidance and some sort of hopeful and love-filled counterbalance to this bleak, depressing, and graphically-disturbing literature world. Sower is thought-provoking, impressive, timely, and scary, and worth an adult read while considering the various caveats previously-mentioned.
4.3 Stars
Notes (spoilers) (view spoiler)[ - The very dangerous outskirts of LA, filled with the sick, homeless, drug addicts, gangs and criminals, murderers and psychos, corrupt cops, and gated communities of middle class trying to survive and rich fortresses with private armies - Post-apocalyptic wasteland-style where water and food are gold and Mad Max but mostly with bicycles (the rich/government/corporations have vehicles) - the main character, Lauren, has hyper-empathy caused by her mother being on some sort of drug, and also got into lots of fights when she was younger - 17) Mars Mission, like Musk -- the government controversially spends much of its remaining budget on voyages to Mars. Lauren is sympathetic to it... - 18) Water Peddlars often selling dirty water, robbed and killed regularly - 19) There are TVs, functional radio, virtual reality devices for those who can afford them -- remnants of a tech-bro world... police are corrupt and useless - 20) Politicians who don't understand science - 22) Rape mentioned for the third time... - 23) Arson and murder of families, suicide mentioned various times - 33) Family rape and incest - 38) Lots of guns and shooting - 42) A dead family of woman, boy and infant, partially-eaten by dogs - 50) Really brutal - 77-79: Earthseed: God is Change. Change is the most powerful force in the universe, the only constant, etc. - 82) People are trying to move north and into Canada where there is water -- makes sense, but why is Canada still around and the US hasn't taken over it?! - 84) Ultimate goal of 'Earthseed' is to spread the religion out into space - 87) Questions why anyone would want to bring a baby into this world (paralleling today's young folks) - - an interesting dystopic, 'Walking Dead,' 'Mad Max-like' America which has not completely fallen apart (yet) and where the government, police, fire service, universities, and currency still exist -- albeit with extreme levels of corruption, inflation, etc.
- family physical violence and sex at 12 years old are mentioned (107) - Lauren's brother Keith goes off to rob people and become a VR-addicted drug-dealing robbing gangster essentially, murdering folks and bringing money back for his mom (youth, gangs). He is accepted by them because he can read and enables them to use their fancy stolen electronics. - He is found burned and mutilated in chapter 10, yet Lauren doesn't even cry despite her hyper-empathy - 125) Lauren essentially plans to become the prophet of a new religion called 'Earthseed', which is weird but I guess how prophets start - 132-134: So brutal. Child being eaten alive by dogs, descriptions of body parts and rotting corpses. - 136) Lauren's minister father missing and presumed dead - Chapter 14: Lauren's community is burned out, most folks brutally-murdered, lots of rape, people burned alive -- horror. Her whole family dies but she shows no signs of hyper-empathy... - 201) Lots of manipulation of feelings - 267) On the road with a new group including a much older man/father replacement who the barely 18 year old Lauren soon sleeps with - 328) The Parable of the Sower - 337) The author explains her predictions of the future and it's scary and realistic - 341) "Think about where we seem to be heading" the author wanted people to think about now and the future with her book. Thank you, Octavia E. Butler.
"Homebody" is a light, very-positive memoir about discovering gender identity and sexuality as a white, middle-class, female-born person from a very p"Homebody" is a light, very-positive memoir about discovering gender identity and sexuality as a white, middle-class, female-born person from a very progressive and accepting dual-parent family in England. The author embarks on a life journey of discovery, deciding they are non-binary and transgender, and highlighting the struggles they faced along the way, which were real, difficult struggles, despite the author's relatively-fortunate, privileged, and low-trauma circumstances.
I try to keep an open mind in the realm of spirituality, and give the existence of God or unknowable other the benefit of the doubt. That鈥檚 why the di I try to keep an open mind in the realm of spirituality, and give the existence of God or unknowable other the benefit of the doubt. That鈥檚 why the discussion of a universal consciousness doesn鈥檛 put me off鈥� what does put me off though, is pages and pages of rambling ambiguity 鈥� and that makes up a good chunk of 鈥淨uantum Body.鈥� After struggling through the book, I still don鈥檛 really understand what a quantum body is, and it still seems to remain unknowable, even though the authors claim there is a growing body of (unidentified) science that backs up its existence and importance in the realm of empirical evidence. It still seems largely in the territory of 鈥榳oo-woo鈥� 鈥� and that would be OK if the authors hadn鈥檛 set the book up as, quote from the title: 鈥淭he New Science of Living a Longer, Healthier, More Vital Life.鈥� Any actual science relating to the 鈥榪uantum body鈥� isn鈥檛 even addressed until page 197 (part 4) of the book, and to get there you have to make it through chapters and chapters of yoga talk, deceptive headings, rambling and lists.
Now, don鈥檛 get me wrong, Quantum Body does contain some tasty food for thought. There are important reflections in here on one鈥檚 life direction and makeup. There are big questions, and small questions, and there is some great advice. There are things to ponder in a quiet room, perhaps a quiet room in a nice house, overlooking a peaceful and beautiful view which no doubt the relatively-wealthy authors have at-will access to. Yes, there are things to meditate on, if you can find the time between a child screaming and a work commute, when the neighbours aren鈥檛 having a party and the streets aren鈥檛 being loudly cleaned. There are useful tidbits in here that anyone could, and probably should use to better their lives and existences 鈥� but much seems lost in some elite realm that is never really revealed, or remains open to people with far more money and time than the average person could ever hope to possess鈥� Many books could be accused of offering advice for the more privileged in society, but I think the broken promises and ambiguity in this book struck a chord with my sleep-deprived body, my distracted mind, and my blinded quantum consciousness.
Notes, items of interest from the book (spoilers if you will) (view spoiler)[
- 125) Creative Intelligence directs body construction and much more... - 149) If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, it does not make a sound, they say - 154) A deep experience of life stemming from vibrations at the quantum level - 163-168) Infinity. The Quantum Body is infinite. Humans are connected to infinity. - 172) Argues the brain doesn't create the mind - 193) Detachment: "I am open to whatever comes my way." Don't cling to things. - 227) "Climb the mountain, return to the valley" -- mountains are disease, stress, trauma, losses, disasters, etc. You should try to climb the mountain and return to the valley of 'good as new'.
WHO AM I? A good question to ask throughout your life.
- 253) Why do cells know what to do? The authors posit "massively coordinated intelligence." Maybe the quantum field holds the answer for life. - 255) But they reprise the same examples word-for-word, mostly 'superpositionality' - 257) The final answer to life is unknowable... still - 262) The potential for a living universe given the smallest particles seem to somehow contain creativity and intelligence ('knowing' how to interact with other particles, systems and organisms...) -- wow - interesting (!), but somewhat randomly-inserted section on the microbiome, then goes back to it again several chapters later for some reason - 286-287) Thoughts and perceptions are always interpreting the past. The silence between thoughts is the present. They argue meditation is the best way to explore the present...
MEDITATE
Signs you have moved out of your 鈥榓daptive zone鈥� for stress include:
鈥淪omeone else has control over you in a way that makes you feel unhappy or helpless, such as an overbearing boss. A repeated situation makes you feel lethargic, depressed, and dull.鈥�
鈥淵ou feel overwhelmed, a typical response to working full time while caring for a family and managing a home.鈥�
鈥淵ou can only deal with something by looking the other way, such as refusing to face drug or alcohol addiction in the family.鈥�
You need to aim toward:
鈥淩ejecting pressure from other people,鈥� and 鈥渇eeling relaxed and unpressured.鈥�
Try to diminish factors that lead to stress, such as:
鈥淧utting up with abusive conditions at home or at work.鈥�
鈥淓nduring constant tension in your relationships or in your career.鈥�
鈥淪uffering in silence, making yourself a martyr.鈥�
鈥淧retending that your happiness does not matter.鈥�
A great post-realist Canadian collection with a fair bit of weird, a decent amount of disturbing, and a fair bit of sex鈥�
Notes, thoughts on individua A great post-realist Canadian collection with a fair bit of weird, a decent amount of disturbing, and a fair bit of sex鈥�
Notes, thoughts on individual stories.* indicates I quite liked the story, ** indicates I really liked the story.
1. 鈥楽widdenworld鈥� 鈥� Jean Marc Ah-Sen: NSFW. Snobby art world investment exchange morphs (view spoiler)[into smut as the dealer and client evolve their relationship, then breakup via insults and desperation. Correspondence letters taking place over ambiguously-defined time periods. A love story, x-rated, very fancy vocabulary. (hide spoiler)]
2. 鈥楾ita Esme鈥檚 Room鈥� 鈥� Ryan Avanzado: A Philippino-Canadian tale. A tall, thin 鈥榓unt鈥� from Manilla moves in and shakes up the household, including the young boy main character. PG-13
3. 鈥楤aby Boomer鈥� 鈥� Carleigh Baker: Greg, father, collects cans to save his daughter from her terrible abusive husband. (view spoiler)[A violently-domestic conclusion (hide spoiler)].
4. *鈥楯amaica鈥� 鈥� Tom Thor Buchanan: A young man tells us about his Japanese father, who had randomly-left the family and moved to Jamaica. Ending falls off though.
5. *鈥楻ecord of Working鈥� 鈥� Paige Cooper: A strange future energy project (fusion?) story. Sexual background drama, like the 1950s in the future. Great men and the women in their wake, in this case the adulterous, womanizing Arthur 鈥� project lead. The project is compared to a woman鈥檚 womb (82). Arthur searches endlessly for the perfect woman鈥� and the perfect source of energy. Fascinating.
6. **鈥橧鈥檓 Lonely Down Here鈥� 鈥� Marcus Creaghan: A man, a stalker (?) describes a young woman he knows everything about in impossible ways. A twist on the omniscient narrator. (view spoiler)[The woman turns out to be the star of a reality show where contestants try to establish a base on the moon. The man is an obsessive government employee fan who rewatches and artfully-describes her unprecedented demise near Jupiter. (hide spoiler)] Creepy finish. Very good.
7. *鈥楾he Underside of a Wing鈥� 鈥� Paola Ferrante: A woman is referred to as an albatross, as having an albatross (a heavy burden of guilt鈥�), as constantly being in fight or flight mode and not knowing how to fly. A female university student having a breakdown, with narration like the secret assassin character in 鈥淕ame of Thrones鈥� (鈥 girl does this鈥� a girl does that鈥�). A bit annoying to read but well done and disturbing.
8. 鈥楳adame Flora鈥檚鈥� 鈥� Camilla Grudova: Victoria stars in this transplanted Victorian tale, taking place in a time with plastic but not women鈥檚 rights. A few surprises lie in store. (view spoiler)[Madame Flora is a purveyor of female diapers and snake oil in a surreal patriarchy where women are infantilized鈥nd yet there鈥檚 more! These women are spoiled rich brats, especially the main character, Louise. But wait 鈥� there鈥檚 more! They鈥檙e actually also all vampires and they have blood-drinking sex parties with male hosts! (112) (hide spoiler)]
9. 鈥楥hemical Valley鈥� 鈥� David Huebert: A story of Sarnia and its oil industry 鈥� of pollution, sickness, responsibility, environmental repercussions, and something super-weird is also going on鈥� (view spoiler)[the main character is keeping his taxidermied mother in an oily-hole in his basement, where he goes to talk to her. (hide spoiler)] The city is sick, the citizens mean well, but are also sick.
10. 'Good Bones' -- Jessica Johns: A weird woman in Edmonton who writes obituaries for living people and is totally-obsessed with death and imagining people's deaths. (view spoiler)[Her lover dies. Her old friend died, both young. She's afraid of falling in cracks and holes (with no story/obituary for memory's sake?)... ends 'positively', though after a round of coke-snorting in a back washroom. (hide spoiler)]
11. 'Minor Aberrations in Geologic Time' -- Klippenstein: A man steals a dinosaur from a Japanese Jurassic Park-type lab in this too short dud.
12. 'The Stunt' -- Michael LaPointe: The narrator (Pascal) is the private teacher of A female child actress (Dot). The plot takes place on the set of a famous epic director's first horror movie. Trigger, rape. (view spoiler)[Pascal is protective of Dot, especially when the crazy director decides to actually depict a rape scene with her, with her greedy father's consent. 154) quote on working with crazy perfectionists in the hope of being part of something everlasting. Dot dies during 'the stunt' -- jumping off a cliff. (hide spoiler)]
13. *'Today is Cool' -- Julie Mannell: A suicidal working-class Ontario girl dates super-wealthy Westmount-type rich Anglo from Montreal. Privilege, class, wealth, self-esteem, relationships are all explored. Gets quite good, but also involves a suicide attempt.
14. 'Roxane and Julieta' -- Sofia Mostaghimi: Recent high school grad Lesbian couple: dominant Roxane and powerless Julieta. Pregnancy, sexuality, relationships, body-image explored. NSFW. (view spoiler)[It gets a bit intense when the much older upstairs neighbour (man) gets Roxane off (consensually) and then the couple breaks up because Roxane is no longer, if she ever was, a Lesbian. (hide spoiler)]
15. *'Property of Neil' -- T茅a Mutonji: A young woman in Scarborough talking about her explicit, coke-fueled relationship with an older man. Complicated. Abandonment.
16. 'WunderHorse II' -- Fawn Parker: A mentally-handicapped woman in a weird, NSFW tale with a simple style.
17. *'Portland, Oregon' -- Casey Plett: A girl (Adrienne) and a fancy, curious, talking (or 'talking') cat (Glenn) live in her basement apartment while she struggles through young adulthood. (view spoiler)[She reflects on past relationships, keeps forgetting to feed the cat, drives prostitutes at night as a side-job and gets very little sleep, does a lot of drugs and eats poorly. It's a toxic relationship portrayal where the cat thinks about leaving her, but in the end decides to stay with Adrienne, who it is revealed deeply misses her vibrant and exciting friend Tracy, who moved away to Portland Oregon. Takes place in the 1990s judging by the tech... (hide spoiler)]
18. 'Girls Who Come in Threes' -- Rudrapriya Rathore: Kitty, a 15ish year old girl has out of body experiences and strongly dislikes her unusual mother. Body image, relationships, clique dynamics, a young woman coming of age, coping mechanisms, absent father. (view spoiler)[ Kitty's mother is very pretty and desired by all the men in the community. Kitty's best friend Miranda is pretty like her mom, but Kitty is smarter. Kitty's grandmother does most of the work to raise her, while Kitty's mom parties and sleeps around. (hide spoiler)]
19. 'The Aquanauts' -- Eliza Robertson: An interesting premise but boring execution. What happens in an underwater habitat in the 1970s? Not much! Still an interesting enough read though.
20. 'Eight Saints and a Demon' -- Naben Ruthnum: A crazy, religious, female teacher has an illegal, rapey, manipulative relationship with a teenaged male student of hers in a messed up quest to become a saint... Clear power dynamics. Weird.
21. 'California Underwater' -- Cason Sharpe: A short, shallow story about a young man working at a movie theatre.
22. 'Going Toward Gadd' -- John Elizabeth Stintzi: A weird story about a weird life and a weird DnD campaign.
23. *'Beelezub's Kiss' -- Gavin Thomson: A man and his son go to a non-dead grandmother's house and find themselves having a weird and creepy family time. Mental health, Jewish mythology, Parallel Parking.
24. 'Creaturae' -- Christiane Vadnais: Odd mutant fish-hybrid humans on a lake somewhere 'in the south'. Translated writing. Strange, though appealing enough style. There's a sex scene....more
The second semi-fictional book on Val茅rie Plante's life in the series 'Simone Simoneau' is similar to the first. Too short, a bit too shallow, well-dr The second semi-fictional book on Val茅rie Plante's life in the series 'Simone Simoneau' is similar to the first. Too short, a bit too shallow, well-drawn, and fairly-interesting if you like politics and/or social justice issues (or Val茅rie). Within, we see from Simone a strong feminist stance, followed by a commitment to housing and the environment. At the very end, she even rides a bicycle.
Taken as semi-biographical, it's both interesting and troubling to learn that Val茅rie may have been abused by her principal in school (trigger spoiler), and also interesting to see her process in deciding to run for leader of her municipal party. The process is very condensed, however, and while including too much more may have bored some readers out of the book, a bit more depth would have been appreciated.
Overall, it seems clear that 'Simone' is a good person, seeking to do good things in politics, and who is putting the needs of her community very high on her priority list, with personal wealth, power, prestige etc. very far down the list -- unlike many and I daresay the majority of contemporary and historical politicians.
A Good book partially by one of the best mayors Montreal has ever had. Someone who genuinely tried to make a difference for women, the have-nots, citizens' quality of life, housing availability, public transit, the environment, and the future -- even when confronted with the near-impenetrable wall of corruption, ignorance, laziness, selfishness, apathy and infighting that is (on the negative side of things) Montreal. ...more
I liked or really liked 14 of the 75 poems in here. I don't think I loved any. There were perhaps a dozen more I could see others liking or really liki
I liked or really liked 14 of the 75 poems in here. I don't think I loved any. There were perhaps a dozen more I could see others liking or really liking. This is not a poem.
Here are my favourites. Those with an asterisk (*) I 'really liked'.
*21) 'The Years' - Alex Dimitrov 26) '330 College Avenue' - Joanna Fuhrman 32) 'Other News on Page 24' - Herbert Gold 40) 'The Devil's Wife Explains Broken 45s' - Patricia Spears Jones 43) 'A Marvelous Sky' - Vincent Katz 45) 'Three Shrimp Boats on the Horizon' - Miho Kinnas 57) 'Hooky' - Ada Limon *80) 'The Facts' - Kathleen Ossip 86) 'In Space...' - Maureen Owen *87) 'Film Theory' - Xan Phillips 89) 'Brown Furniture' - Katha Pollitt *90) 'Poem No. 2: My Kind of Feminism' - Carolyn Marie Rodgers 122) 'Sweepstake' - Jeffrey Cyphers Wright *123) 'Song for Mie Yim' - John Yau
Very trippy indeed. Some crazy stories and crazy art. Disturbing. Powerful at times. Worth celebrating! I didn't like the Hi茅rophante large-print stylVery trippy indeed. Some crazy stories and crazy art. Disturbing. Powerful at times. Worth celebrating! I didn't like the Hi茅rophante large-print style art as much as the older styles. I felt some of the styles in the book were a bit culturally-appropriative in terms of Indian and perhaps West Coast Indigenous cultures, but reading the stories seems to show it was done with appreciation and respect....more
Daddy's Girl is a disturbing short story comic read featuring plenty of rape (mostly father-daughter incest...) from a fictionalized yet autobiographiDaddy's Girl is a disturbing short story comic read featuring plenty of rape (mostly father-daughter incest...) from a fictionalized yet autobiographical perspective. It also features the trials and tribulations of two girls growing up in the sixties, mostly in New York State. The situations are very realistic and relationally-complex. The art style is dark and functional. The stories are sometimes confusingly-structured with sudden time jumps and character switches, as well as a confusing overall timeline. At least with my edition, zero information on the author or additional information on the work is provided. I read a translated English-to-French version from L'Association....more
Quite a confusing graphic novel we have here. It's catalogued by the publisher as a NON-FIC biography, yet they also claim it is a work of fiction sev Quite a confusing graphic novel we have here. It's catalogued by the publisher as a NON-FIC biography, yet they also claim it is a work of fiction several times, including just before this cataloguing categorization, and also while introducing the book's bibliography. So what is it -- fiction, or non-fiction?? Any serious scholar of Tolkien would know the answer, and I'm sure I can find out with a little research, but why isn't it clearly-indicated? I'm a huge Tolkien fan quite familiar with his fiction but less familiar with his own story -- am I the audience for this or not? ARrrrgggh.
In the end, I'm left with I guess a partially-true story of Tolkien before, and mostly during World War I, which seems to highlight some of the inspirations and motivations for his work, as well as the usual absolute horror of World War I. The art is alright -- nothing special. The text is at times quite tedious, as it's often written as divided chunks of letters between Tolkien and his friends. Additional text in a 'further reading' section titled 'J.R.R. Tolkien's Library' is quite hit and miss, with some interesting facts but generally a poor quality of writing that feels like it was translated from another language using Google Translate in its first year of existence, and little real explanation or organization of facts.
All-in-all, I'm not sure what to think exactly. I found myself going "ohhh, that's why he did that!" during the book, and being pulled in and captivated by the emotional occurrences in Tolkien's life --but now I'm not sure any of it was even true. I wish the book was much better organized, edited, written and drawn to give proper praise and insight regarding one of the most important writers in the English language -- as opposed to this confusing, disappointing misfire of a book.
An occasionally-funny, sometimes thought-provoking comic memoir of the author living her life, laying around, shopping, hanging out with her daughter An occasionally-funny, sometimes thought-provoking comic memoir of the author living her life, laying around, shopping, hanging out with her daughter or parents, making comments toward her husband/boyfriend, etc. There's quite a lot of her sitting around and laying around, though often it works for her narrative and underlying condition of course (she has MS, though not an advanced form?) I think the funniest parts for me are her mother on the phone. ...more
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