Peachie's Updates

"All of it stank wholly of deliberate smoke-- the thing humans called incense. [...] Shesheshen never trusted deliberate smoke. Humans were seldom up to anything good when they burned things on purpose.

This book sits very nicely in the tradition of the "alien observes humanity" POV-- this involves a kind of "other" figure, usually an alien, making unintentionally humorous observations about humanity as they become better acquainted with us. My favorite example of this is the entire sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, though the others that come to mind are any Animorphs book from Ax's point of view, the Coneheads movie (not sure how that one holds up, it's been awhile since I've seen it), and of course, the spectacular opening to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which includes this paragraph that makes me laugh every time I read it:

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

- Douglas Adams

lulz.

Shesheshen isn't an alien, she's a monster, but her position in the story is the same. She is an observer, and often a confused one, whose position as an outsider gives her tremendous insights, both humorous and deeply profound, sometimes at the same time. She's also wearier than you usually see with this type of narrator, because she's lived near humanity (and feasted upon it, naturally) for quite some time, and it's always trying to kill her, and she doesn't understand what its DEAL is, and really, isn't that the most goddamn relatable thing you've ever heard.

This book is about her journey toward connectedness-- coming of age, but the exact opposite of the typical coming of age narrative, which involves setting out on your own and forming your identity independently of the systems that raised you to adulthood. This coming of age is about trust, vulnerability, and understanding-- about what we might call 'becoming human' if we believed that becoming human was actually all that great, and I don't think Shesheshen does.

I often talk about science fiction and fantasy exploring things through exaggeration, and depending on who I'm talking to, I get a sort of puzzled look a lot of the time-- but this is exactly what I mean. Fantasy isn't just an escape, though it is often that and truly, thank god for that. But fantasy also makes things bigger and more extreme or dramatic so that you can actually look at them. That's what Shesheshen does with humanity, with love, with family, with the exhausting and horrifying but meaningful task of knowing someone and being known. You can see them all, at last, because she shows them to you in a strange new way.

This book is about her. Her voice, and also her body-- the inventive, sometimes gross, fascinating way that her body operates. This is the second book I've read recently where I felt like someone understood how to write about a being that wasn't a human, and to show the inevitable conflicts and tensions that would arise if we encountered something that Wasn't Us-- a real alien figure, not just some humanoid guy in a rubber mask. (The other was The Stardust Grail, which is also excellent and you should read it.) Like is Shesheshen's POV relatable? Yes. Is she gonna rip out a dead body's esophagus and tell you about it? Also yes. You must simply learn to see through the eyes of the monster.

And like. It's really goddamn funny. But in a sly way where you'll have to stop in the middle of a set of deadlifts to laugh at your audiobook. (Or is that just me?) I'll leave you with two quotes that weirdly happen to come from the same page but delight me nonetheless:

From what she knew of civilization, all children were parasites. You were supposed to grow to like that about them.

and

Self-conscious, Shesheshen picked up her two forks again and tried to capture some of her pasta. Two forks were not enough forks for this. The spaghetti was versatile in its resistance. "Slightly strange. It's like an evasive bread."

I'll never look at pasta the same again."