Can Hindu epics be feminized? (My opinion - no)

After learning the depressing fact that I read less than 10% from my TBR piles in 2014, I decided to read at least 2 books a month from my TBR pile going forward.  The first book I chose was Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions.  I purchased this book when it came out because, whoa!  Feminist retelling of the Mahabharata, that is fantastic!  I avoided reading this book for several years because, well, I wasn't sure if a feminist retelling of the Mahabharata was likely to be successful.

And I think my qualms were justified.  Much as I hate to admit it, it is very, very difficult to write the Mahabharata from a woman's perspective, particularly from the point of view of Draupadi, who had basically zero agency in her whole life.  She was born from fire to usher in the Kali Yuga, she was destined from a prior life to have five husbands, and people think she started a war that was probably more likely caused by one of her husbands' gambling addictions.

The Mahabharata is one of Hinduism's greatest epics, describing the end of the golden age and the start of the chaotic age (which we are still living in today, if you couldn't tell).  It is a truly enthralling and entertaining story, but it's very heavy-handed with predestination and fate and KNOW YOUR ROLE OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES (this is, after all, the religion of the caste system).  Really, when you think about it, no one in the story has much control over the major events of their lives because the gods all decided what would happen eons ago.

This is not to say that the Mahabharata is not worth reading.  It is.  I love it.  There is SO MUCH going on there, so many side stories, so many giants of history - it's fascinating.  But it's a difficult story to use to shift perspective.  Perhaps if you are not familiar with the Mahabharata, this book would work better for you.  But as someone with at least a passing knowledge of the story, this novel really didn't work for me.

The main reason for this is Draupadi herself.  When she came of an age to marry, Draupadi's father held a huge contest for all the warriors in the land to come win her.  They had to accomplish a very difficult feat.  Arjuna, one of five Pandava brothers, won the contest and therefore won her hand.  Through a weird twist in circumstances, Draupadi actually had to marry all five of the Pandavas, but Arjuna was the one who won her originally and the one she had been planning to marry for her whole life.

In this retelling, Draupadi apparently spends her entire life in love with Karna, a sworn enemy of the Pandavas (yes, all five of them).  She sees a painting of him, someone describes his (admittedly very sad and pitiable) story to her, and then Arjuna just can't hold a candle to him.

I get wanting to give Draupadi SOME agency in her life because otherwise, there is not much there.  But doing this is like re-writing the story of Cinderella, having her get all dolled up for the ball, and then, in a weird twist of fate, making  Prince Charming fall in love with one of the ugly step-sisters before Cinderella even has a chance to win him over.  It totally changes the ENTIRE story, and then you have to change EVERY OTHER part of the story somehow to make the circle fit the square.  I just could not get over this fact.  And the way Draupadi spends literally decades not even seeing or interacting with Karna but apparently thinking about him all the time, even while she has five other husbands right there, is just ridiculous.  It's hard to take her seriously.

I also think that trying to fit the entire Mahabharata into one fairly slim book is a tall order.  Divakaruni brought some stories to life here, especially those related to Bhima and Krishna, but she didn't flesh out most of the other people at all.  Arjuna is one of the main characters in the Mahabharata and he barely says ten sentences in this whole book.  I can see why this is the case if Divakaruni wants Karna to come out as the hero, but Arjuna is a pretty complex and interesting character in his own right, much like Lancelot, and he's given short shrift here.

There are some aspects of this book that I really enjoyed.  Karna really was a pretty amazing person with a horrible string of bad luck, and it's nice to see him get some positive attention.  Divakaruni makes pretty clear here how unfair people were to him his whole life and how the whole caste system mentality really took a number on him.

Krishna is probably one of the most-loved gods in all Hindu mythology, and he was great in this book.  All vague pronouncements and comments about letting go and moving on and not getting too attached to worldly goods, shared in a sufficiently god-like fashion.  Draupadi's relationship with Krishna starts out as friendship, turns into something similar to a parent-child relationship, and finally ends with a really beautiful section about her personal relationship with God.

I have a feeling my reaction to this book is based a lot upon having read and heard so many of these stories growing up, and watching the amazing television spectacle every week with my whole family growing up.  It's hard to have one version of the story in your mind and then read this one.  I would suspect that if you are not familiar with the Mahabharata, you might enjoy this book more than I did.

Non-Humans of New York

Hele Wecker's The Golem and the (D)Jinni is set mostly in Manhattan, right at the turn of the 20th century.  The two main characters are Chava, a golem, and Ahmad, a jinn.  Chava was created to be the wife of a man who died on their voyage to the new world.  Ahmad has no idea how he ended up in Manhattan - his last memory is from about 1000 years ago.  In contrast, Chava's first memory is of waking up on the ship and meeting her (ill-fated) husband.

Ahmad and Chava both stumble through their new lives in New York, trying to understand humankind - the relationships that form between people, the decisions they make, how they treat each other, who has responsibility for what actions.  They also, serendipitously, meet each other one evening, and embark upon a friendship that helps both of them understand their place in the world and deal with the consequences of their natures and decisions.

I found several things very interesting about this book.  I'm a sucker for any story with mythology or folklore or mysticism, and this book is full of all those things.  For that reason alone, I wanted to read the book.  But there was more!  For example, I really liked the way Wecker played out the tension between each character's true nature - for Chava, to solve everyone's problems, for Ahmad, to disregard everyone's problems - and their attempts to fit into human civilization.  Chava, for example, is terrified that one day, her true nature will come out and she will beat everyone around her to a bloody pulp because that's what golems do when they are threatened.  In conrast, Ahmad thinks humans over-complicate everything, and people should just do what feels good and damn the consequences.

In that way, Chava and Ahmad play out traditional gender roles even though they are not human.  Ahmad toys with plenty of women, and they are the ones who have to wake up in the morning, bereft, while he just moves onto the next person.  But it's not that Ahmad doesn't care about those women; it's that humankind fascinates him, and he needs to understand the whole species, not just one person.  And so he moves on.  Chava's whole purpose in existing, on the other hand, is to do what other people tell her to do.  In fact, they don't even have to tell her, they just have to think it and she'll know.  She is therefore very eager to please and worries constantly about whether she did the right thing.

Though the main characters were pretty fascinating on their own, I think there were far too many secondary characters who didn't really progress the story that much.  There's a bored, rich girl (doesn't every book set in early 20th century America require one of those?).  There's a curious Bedouin girl.  A cursed ice cream seller.  A lonely, quiet boy.  A lonely, quiet man.  A concerned father.  A creepy old man.  A creepy middle-aged man.  A kind middle-aged woman.  And more, and more.  We get back stories on several of these characters.  And, in general, I enjoyed these back stories, but I don't think they were necessary.  The two title characters in the novel don't even meet until 1/3rd of the way through the book (what is this, Anna Karenina?).   And while I enjoy a good, atmospheric, meandering story, this one just felt weighted down by all those characters.

That said, it's a great story to read on a cold, damp night!

Review-itas: The Not-Quite-Hits Edition

I really want to read G. Willow Wilson's Miss Marvel comic book series.  While looking for it on the library website, I came across this other graphic novel by her, Cairo, and decided to give that one a try while I waited.

I read Wilson's Alif the Unseen about a year ago and had mixed feelings about it.  While I liked the lead female character and the genie, and the way Wilson weaved modern religion into her story, I thought the details of the plot were pretty difficult to follow.

My feelings about Cairo are pretty much the same, even down to the genie.  Wilson converted to Islam in college, and I really appreciate the way she uses her stories to educate readers about the religion.  She shares an Islam that is respectful, peaceful, and kind.  In a world that often portrays the religion in a very negative, extreme light, I can't speak highly enough of stories that show it as progressive and welcoming.

The plot, though, was still hard to follow.  Wilson seems unwilling to write "conventional" fantasy stories, which is fine, but she also seems to have trouble translating what is in her mind to paper, and so readers are left a little confused.  Or at least this reader is left confused.  Perhaps because religion is such a strong component of her stories, the aspirations are much more high-level than what I am used to and such nebulous descriptions of key components to the story make it hard to understand what's going on.

Still, I cannot wait to read Miss Marvel!

One book I started but did not finish was Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, by Karen Abbott, a historical account of four women who participated in different ways in the American Civil War.

I had a vague recollection of the author's name, and when I realized that she was the author of Sin in the Second City, I had a feeling that I wouldn't love this book.  I really enjoy non-fiction, particularly history, but I feel like the events and the people are fascinating enough.  Authors don't need to add a lot of fluff to make the stories interesting.  Abbott, in my opinion, sensationalizes history a little too much.  It's very difficult to tell with her writing where the facts stop and her own hypotheses begin.  She attributes thoughts and feelings to historical figures without really providing any footnotes as to whether those are real or not.

The four women she includes in this book were spies on both sides of the war, and I'm sure they were all fascinating in their own right.  I loved that they were not limited by their sex but were willing to use other people's preconceived notions and beliefs about women to get ahead.  I would love to learn more about all four of these women, but I don't think Abbott's book is quite the right way for me to do so.  This book is much more a light beach read on the non-fiction scale, which has a lot of value in its own right, but just isn't right for me.

Also, seriously - the book is about women who did underground activities during the American Civil War.  I feel like she could have featured at least one woman of color here!  There are a couple of loyal slaves and servants mentioned who have parts to play, but I think Abbott could have put the spotlight on someone if she really wanted to.

Musings: The Song of Achilles

This book is SO GOOD.  Honestly, I was reading the first 250 to 300 pages or so and it was good but I was thinking, "I mean, this is a good book, but it's not AMAZING."  And then I spent the last 50 pages or so just bawling uncontrollably, and couldn't stop.  And I mean that in a GOOD way.  It is the kind of crying you do because you are just overwhelmed by the poetry and beauty and love of what you are reading.

The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller, is told from the point of view of Patroclus.  Born to a cruel father and a simple-minded mother, Patroclus' life really begins when he's exiled to Phthia.  There, he meets the golden boy Achilles, who will be the greatest warrior the world has ever known.  But Achilles is not war-obsessed.  He is kind and trusting and friendly and he plays the lyre beautifully.  Patroclus and Achilles become good friends, then they become inseparable, and then they become lovers.  And when Achilles goes to fight in the Trojan War and gain his fame, Patroclus goes, too.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Musings: Bayou, Volumes 1 & 2

I have been interested by Jeremy Love's Bayou webcomic series since I first heard about it (which, admittedly, wasn't too long ago).  I decided it would be a great fit for me to read during A More Diverse Universe because it is just the sort of fantasy I want to read.  Not only is it a beautifully illustrated graphic novel, but it has a really brave young girl at its heart and addresses the very important issue of racism, particularly the myriad ways in which it can effect a society, in a highly original and truly terrifying way.

Lee lives on the Mississippi bayou with her father in the early 1930s.  Her best friend is Lily, a white girl who can sometimes be nice and can sometimes be horrible.  One day, Lee sees Lily eaten by a monster from the swamp.  When she gets home, she realizes that her beloved father has been accused of kidnapping her best friend.  After a brutal beating, he's hauled off to prison, though everyone thinks he's likely to be lynched before he even stands trial.  Lee decides that she must save her father, and sets off to the land of the monster to do so, embarking on an Alice in Wonderland type adventure steeped in Southern folklore and tradition, accompanied by a kind and haunted giant name Bayou who dreams of losing his children to shackles that rise up from the ground.

It is difficult to review these two volumes because the story is unfinished, frustratingly so.  I remember feeling similarly when I got to the end of Castle Waiting and realized that there were many loose ends that I'll likely never see wrap up.  But Castle Waiting is a light and fun read, whereas Bayou does a LOT of heavy lifting.  I ended Volume 2 still not knowing if Lee will save her father from lynching, and there were so many other questions left unanswered, too.

But if you go into this series with a willingness to embrace that ambiguity, then you'll be highly rewarded.  Bayou is one of those books that convinces readers that the comic format is a powerful force in literature that should be taken seriously by all readers.  It explodes with meaning on every page.

It's a coming-of-age story for a young girl.  It's a tale of loyalty and friendship that transcends the traditional boundaries - of a black girl trying to save her white friend, and of a strong man beaten into submission learning about courage from a tiny girl.  It's about broken families and how poverty can impact social structure.  It's about how slavery's legacy carries on for generations so that poor, uneducated little men can feel big and powerful by using cruelty against others.  It's about the power of music, the ill effects of alcohol, friends betraying friends for money, and so much more.  (There is even a very disturbing bit on natural African hair being "nappy" and the straightened, chemically treated hair being much better.)  And it's all told in such lush, beautiful pictures.

I admit that there were parts of this story I didn't get, connections I couldn't draw.  Many characters have ties that began before the story does and lives that extend from our world to the fantasy world and back again.  There are crows - called Jim Crows - that can tear a man apart.  There are bloodhounds that keep everyone submissive.  There are rabbits - and I admit I don't know the significance of these characters being rabbits, but I'm positive there's a reason.

There's really so much here and so much more to come.  The story is on so many levels that I'm positive I'm missing a few of them.  And the drawings are so evocative.  This is one of the best graphic novels I've ever come across - there is so much depth in the story, so much heart in its characters, so much horror in the situations they face, and so much that is true about their relationships.  There's nothing obvious in the story - the characters have feet of clay, and as a reader, I was so worried about little Lee and the people in whom she was forced to put her trust.  But Lee has seen and dealt with more in her ten years than I am likely to see in my lifetime, and if there's anyone who can tackle the problems that arise, it's her.

This review is posted as part of the A More Diverse Universe Reading Tour.

Musings: The Savage Fortress

I cannot properly describe to you just how excited I was to learn about the Ash Mistry series.  It's a fantasy series aimed at middle grade readers with a pudgy Indian-British boy at its center, and Hindu mythology as its core.

Amazing, right?!

I contacted the author, Sarwat Chadda, via his website and gushed over how awesome this premise was and how excited I was to read his book.  This conversation was the impetus behind the entire A More Diverse Universe blog tour idea.  So, the book had big shoes to fill.

And honestly, when I received The Savage Fortress in the mail and saw the very young-looking cover, I had some trepidations.  I wasn't sure if this was a book that would appeal to me at all.  I wasn't really into the idea of reading a book about a boy escaping from Godzilla.

(I looked very closely at the cover to see if the characters were white-washed.  I don't think they are, but the background is very red, so it could go either way.  Smart thinking, Scholastic.)

But a few chapters into the book, I was settled in.  Yes, it's definitely written for a younger audience.  The phrase "totally cool" pops up a lot.  An old man uses the phrase "Kick butt."  (I cannot imagine any old person in India ever saying that.)  But hey, the hero is thirteen years old and the old man is almost 5,000 years old.  I cut some slack.  Because this book is pretty impressive on many levels.

Ash(oka) Mistry is the star of this novel.  He's a chubby 13-year-old who won serious Aarti points by referencing Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who and The Lord of the Rings throughout the course of this book.  He's a gamer and a geek, and he's the one that Chadda chose to be a reincarnation of Rama in our times.  LOVE.

Musings: The Water Room

I've had Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery series on my radar for a while, and so was very, very pleased when I recently found the second book in his series, The Water Room, at a local used bookstore.  I have not read the first book in the series, Full Dark House, before, but had very little trouble following this book.  I hope to go back and read the first in the series soon, though.

The Water Room doesn't feature as unusual a detective as did The Janissary Tree, but Arthur Bryant and John May are, in my opinion, far more entertaining and fun to spend time with.  Bryant and May are octogenarians on the London police force.  They're on the Peculiar Crimes Unit, meaning they get the more long-term and unusual jobs that the Metropolitan Police don't have the time or capacity to handle.  They are facing budget cuts and bureaucratic red tape, though, and their unit could be shut down at any time.  That doesn't worry the team enough to actually follow police procedures, though.  They do things their own way, and manage to get results using a lot of internal knowledge and old-fashioned sleuthing.

That's because Bryant and May are a little old-fashioned themselves- they're both well into their 80s, meaning they not only survived the London Blitz, they also lived through the crazed 60s, Margaret Thatcher and a new wave of terrorism.  They have also seen London evolve and grow and change over time, and the knowledge they have picked up about the city (particularly Bryant) is absolutely amazing.  Meaning, the knowledge that Christophe Fowler, as the author of this book, has about London is truly overwhelming.  And putting that knowledge into the thoughts and mannerisms and emotions of two elderly men- that's really quite masterful.

Musings: The Firebrand (DNF)

Marion Zimmer Bradley's feminist retelling of the Trojan War, The Firebrand, is oddly named for a man- Paris- and not for any of the women in the story.  The main character is Paris' twin sister, Kassandra.  At a very young age, Kassandra is called to be a virgin priestess of Apollo (unfortunately for any number of men, since she's as beautiful as her brother is handsome).  But the Mother Earth Goddess wants her, too, and Kassandra has trouble walking the line to make both Immortals happy.  Her own personal struggle is set against the backdrop of the Trojan War and the shift from a matriarchal society dominated by worship of the Earth Mother to that of a patriarchal society ruled by the gods of Olympus.

This is another one of those books I've had on my shelf forever but never felt motivated to pick up.  I finally got it down recently because I was supposed to do a buddy read with a fellow blogger.  But I got about halfway through and she told me that she couldn't participate any more, and I (quite gratefully, I admit) set the book aside.  I didn't finish reading it so please note that the below thoughts are formed by reading only about 330 pages of a 600-page book.  I have a feeling the things that bothered me in the first half, though, would continue in the second half.

Musings: Red Branch

There are some books that stand out to you on the shelf one day, and you have no idea why.  What is it about a book that can make it sit patiently on your shelf for years before finally your eyes glance at it and decide it's the one you want to read next?  Often, I don't know.  In this case, though, I know exactly why I picked this book up!

While reading Hawk of May, I noticed many allusions to a mythological Irish hero, Cuchulain and the Red Branch warriors.  I remembered that I had a book called Red Branch by Morgan Llywelyn (who is nothing if not Irish) and started browsing my shelves.  Sure enough, there it was on my shelf!  Where it has been waiting for me, according to LibraryThing, since at least 2006.  (I only opened my LibraryThing account in 2006, though, so maybe it has been on the shelf even longer...)  So I finally picked it up to learn more about a group of warriors who were mythical even in King Arthur's time.

Musings: Hawk of May

Hawk of May, by Gillian Bradshaw, is the first book in her Down the Long Wind Arthurian trilogy.  It was first published in the 1980s.  My copy is an old mass market paperback and does not have the cover shown to the right- but I was happy to find that the book has been republished after being out of print for so long!

Hawk of May  is the story of Gwlachmai (Gawain), son of Arthur's sister Morgawse and King Lot.  Growing up, he had no skill at the arts of war he was expected to learn.  Instead, he was an excellent horseman and bard.  His father didn't appreciate these arts, though, and thought Gwlachmai useless, giving him none of his time and all of his temper.  So Gwlachmai was led down the path to the Darkness by his sorceress mother, trying to use magic and evil to gain power.  It was only after one particular episode in which Morgawse went too far that Gwachmai was able to pull away from her influence and escape the Darkness that wished to consume him.  His escape and his quest after that to join King Arthur's family make up the majority of this story.

Musings: The Drawing of the Dark

I have had The Drawing of the Dark on my shelf for some years now.  I am not sure who first told me that I should read Tim Powers, but whoever it was probably knows my reading tastes pretty well.  Powers specializes in historical fantasy.  He takes real-world events and then puts a twist on them to explain what "really" happened.
In this book, he puts his spin on Suleiman's attempt to take Vienna in 1529.  That whole situation wasn't just about economics and empire-building.  Oh, no!  It was all about beer.

Well, beer and the infinite battle between East and West.

But let me start at the beginning.  Brian Duffy is an Irish mercenary living in Venice when he meets a strange old man named Aurelianus.  Aurelianus hires him to be the bouncer at his brewery in Vienna and Brian sets off immediately to take on his duties.  But strange things happen along the way.  Weird animals and monsters follow him and protect him.  Other things try to kill him.  He has strange dreams about a sword and a lake.  And all the while, Suleiman's army is advancing...

Musings: Silverlock

Silverlock is the story of A. Clarence Shandon, a good-looking, cynical man from Chicago in the 1940s.  On a sea voyage, his ship is wrecked and he is saved only through the help of a man named Golias, who helps him onto a raft and takes him, with a few stops on the way to the Commonwealth of Letters.  There, Shandon goes on a wide variety of adventures, meeting beautiful women, laughing giants, brooding princes and all sorts of others.  His journey takes him to the depths of Hell and back out again, and along the way, he becomes a brighter, better person who calls himself Silverlock.

I am not sure where I first heard about this story.  It gets great praise on the cover, with people calling it "the stuff of wonder" and "bigger than life."  And, of course, "a masterpiece."  It's on quite a few lists of best fantasy stories.  But what really drew me to the book is its premise.  One of the beautiful women Shandon meets is Circe.  The laughing giant is the Green Knight who confronts Sir Gawain.  The brooding prince in Hamlet.  There is also Robin Hood, Don Quixote and Dante.  References to Paul Bunyan and the Alamo.  Beowulf makes an appearance, as does Oedipus.