Rebcake-o-rama

What I finished:

+ The Horse and His Boy. What a mixed-bag of a book! Honestly this is the strongest book in the series plot-wise imo. Aravis and Bree and Hwin are such fantastic characters! Shasta is a little less so in that common way that protagonists are often less interesting than the surrounding characters, but he has a lovely moment of growth towards the end that I really appreciate. We've again got a lot of really great images--the two horses riding side by side with the lions on either side, the tombs like beehives, the walk in the fog, etc. The pace is great, and it's enjoyable from start to finish.

But holy Orientalism, Batman! I would give big money to know what Edward Said would have thought of this book! The racism is of the kind that doesn't seem malicious but is no less potent for that. I can't even start talking about it because I would end up writing a dissertation or something. In Lewis's defense, we have in Aravis a Calormene who is relatable and admirable but flawed--a real person. That mitigates some of the nastiness, but obviously it's not enough. All the other Calormene are either actively terrible people or ridiculous (or both), and don't even get me started on the "Narnia and the North!" stuff.

I don't blame people for loving this book as it is, as I said, a thoroughly enjoyable one. But I also am appalled by it. Sometimes it is VERY clear that this book was written by a white British guy born in the Victorian era.

+ The Magician's Nephew. Speaking of the Victorian era.... This book is such a prequel. Let's explain where everything the other books came from! Here's the whole backstory! I don't think this is a bad thing, but on rereading it, it solidified my opinion that it's best to read these books in publication order. Reading this one right before the finale (which I am not looking forward to) is the right call, imo, because it gives the book an oomph it simply would not have if read earlier in the series. Frankly, I enjoyed this one more than I remember doing as a kid.

The images I remembered from this one were the yellow and green rings, the Wood between the Worlds, Jadis riding Boadicea-style on top of a hack, Aslan singing the world into existence, and flying on the Pegasus up to the mountains. To this I will add a few things that I hadn't remembered--Polly and Digory navigating the attic, the way the Lantern grows, etc.

I love that this book is about power and the arrogance of those who think they can wield it because they're ~special~. Should this book make me think of Nietzsche? Who knows. But it sure does--this is a book about how those who think they are an Übermensch suck actually. We've got both Uncle Andrew and Jadis who have no regard for anyone else, view people as (almost literal) guinea pigs, and think that might makes right. Contrasted with that we have the humility of Frank and Nellie, and in the middle, Digory who is tempted and first makes the wrong decision (with the bell) but ultimately makes the right decision (with the fruit).

An aside--one theme of the series I absolutely did not pick up on as a kid is all the ways in which we justify our own flaws, vices, and bad decisions to ourselves. Edmund, Eustace, and Digory all justify their bad behavior and decisions, and each have important moments where they admit not only that they were wrong and hurt people, but also that they told themselves a story about why they did things that they knew was a lie. This is not something I see a lot of in books for kids, and I think it's great.

The stuff about Digory's mother is very moving knowing that Lewis's mother died when he was a child--he doesn't linger on that pain in the book but it's there, lending some real pathos to the story.

+ A Study in Scarlet. After I read TMN, I was in the mood for some Victoriana, and who's more Victorian than Sherlock Holmes? I hadn't read this one before--I've read quite a few of the short stories and The House of the Baskervilles, but I think that's all. I've also seen quite a bit of Granada Holmes, so I'm very familiar with a lot of the stories, but I don't think I ever watched this particular episode? Honestly, Holmes and Watson are so familiar that it's interesting all on its own to try to put yourself in the headspace of meeting them for the first time, no matter how impossible that is.

Holmes is, of course, an instantly iconic character, even in this first book where he's not fleshed out quite as much. I enjoy how he simply will not use brain space for things he doesn't think are important (politics, literature, the fact that the earth orbits the sun) even if I disagree strongly with him about the importance of those things!

I had not realized this book was a hit piece on Mormons! I mean, I get it! Mormons are easy to write hit pieces about! But I simply did not expect it! Nor did I expect that we would take a whole 1/3 of the book telling the backstory as its own story without Holmes or Watson or London anywhere in sight!

My biggest takeaway from the book was, wow, Steven Moffat really took this story and made it so much worse, didn't he?

What I'm currently reading:

+ After seeing Sinners, I was like, "I need a book that makes me feel the humidity on my skin and fills my ears with the sound of cicadas," so I dipped back into the Benjamin January books, this time with Lady of Perdition. I have been intentionally reading the series verrrrrry slooooowly so that it won't be over too soon; I've gotten to the point where I only read it when I'm in a very particular mood.

This is one of the not-set-in-New-Orleans books, which I never like quite as much as the books that are set in New Orleans or the bayous around it. I always like the field trip books! But just not quite as much. This time we're in the Republic of Texas and Hannibal and Shaw have accompanied Ben to try to track down a free girl of color who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. One thing I deeply appreciate about this series is the way that it makes it very clear that even those Black people who are "free" as in not-enslaved are always in a precarious position--that freedom can be revoked at any time if a white person is violent enough, and the law will always be on the white person's side.

Anyway, more on this book after I finish reading it.


Up next:

City of Stairs had to go back to the library before I finished it, but I will certainly finish it later. I haven't read any more of Tendencies yet, but I need to get back into after my trip.

I will make myself read The Last Battle and I look forward to continuing the Westmark books with The Kestrel as well as checking out Emily Tesh's new offering, The Incandescent.

may I recommend one of my favorite musicians, Rhiannon Giddens? She was featured on the soundtrack playing "Old Corn Liquor" on her banjo alongside former bandmate Justin Robinson on the fiddle.

But the real reason I'm recommending her is because she does what the movie does: celebrates southern American music in all its forms. On her first solo album she did covers of Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton alongside covers of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Elizabeth Cotten and Geeshie Wiley (also of the Sinners soundtrack).

My favorites from the album (though every song is wonderful) are:

"Waterboy" (by an immigrant Jewish songwriter who wrote for vaudeville and collaborated with Langston Hughes)



"Black Is the Color" (we love an Appalachian folk song with a beatbox!)



"Round About the Mountain (The Lord Loves a Sinner)" which would make for an INCREDIBLE Sinners fanvid....




Her second album is more explicitly political and explores many different moments in Black American history.

On this one she covers songs by Mississippi John Hurt, Richard Fariña, and Roebuck Staples, but she wrote most of the songs herself. Several of the songs are about the dangers of being a black man in contemporary America and she's got an excellent New Orleans-tinged cut or two, but my favorites are:

"At the Purchaser's Option," a title taken from an ad for an enslaved woman that said the baby could be sold with the mom or left behind "at the purchaser's option"



"Come Love Come," which sounds like it belongs on the Sinners soundtrack





And after you've listened to her solo stuff, check out her early work with Carolina Chocolate Drops for some old-time covers of R&B hits and Tom Waits songs and traditional bluegrass songs.


And the incredible project Songs of Our Native Daughters for banger after banger after banger after banger.


Oh and she was also a MacArthur genius and won a Pulitzer Prize for writing an opera about Omar ibn Said. So. You know. Rockstar.