Reviews and Comments

Laura H.* is a notorious figure in the Netherlands. After converting to Islam at a young age, she and her husband left the country in order to join IS. In 2017, they escaped the Islamic State with two small children in tow. Her husband died en route. She wanted to return to the Netherlands, said that she's sworn of Islam and no longer held any fundamentalist beliefs, which of course was treated with huge amounts of skepticism by everyone. She was eventually convicted to three years in prison, so by now she's already living on the outside once again. This book, by journalist Thomas Rueb, is mostly concerned with the question of what could possibly convince a "normal, Dutch woman" who wasn't raised in the faith to join a terrorist state. He quickly shows that she wasn't all that normal, but in fact deeply troubled. Are those extenuating circumstances? Of course, her being a woman and a mother also creates a lot of sympathy as well. It's easier to feel for her than for her abusive husband who was born into a family of Palestinian refugees. Even with all the hardship that implies.

*Censoring a last name like that is done in the Netherlands to protect the privacy of anyone suspected of convicted of a crime.

An anthology of interwoven short stories that take place in a fictional ancient civilization - heavily implied to be the first ancient civilization, actually. Two pairs characters feature in all of them, until they finally meet in the last one; Norema, the barbarian woman and her companion Raven, a warrior from a matriarchal society who is constantly accosted by culture shock in this strange country where men do get to make decisions, and Gorgik and Little Sarg, the lovers, who use their old slave collar as a ruse to free other slaves, as well as a powerful symbol within their sexual relationship. (Look, Delany is a man of interesting sexual tastes and little shame, so you're going to find out about them.)

While that makes this book sound pretty lurid (which is why I decided to read it, not gonna lie), it's actually much more concerned with portraying the contrast between "barbarism" and (it also needs quotes) "civilization". The main difference between these two groups is really just a power relationship, and not intelligence, or even very visible in the lives of everyday people. This book takes place in a time where money, writing and even keys have only just been invented, and are not widely adopted yet. The "civilized" discuss how money and the invention of four-legged pots will shape society, and the "barbarians" discuss Freudian ideas on gender relations.

It's a strange little novelty, that probably never really got popular because it manages to alienate both of its possible audiences. The cover alone would turn away any high-brow intellectual, and the discussion on how to do proper theoretical analysis in chapter two would scare off any sword-and-sorcery fan. If you, by any chance, happen to fall into both of those categories, you'll probably enjoy this. If you're just wondering in fascination how Samuel Delany managed to combine those two elements, like I did, you probably will as well.

An especial treat is the last chapter, which is structured like an academic paper written about the ancient clay tablets that relate the plot of the previous chapters. It reads like a pastiche on the type of male historian who looks at any attempt to interpret history in a way that includes women's agency and potential to shape their society with benevolent paternalistic condescension. The idea that this ancient text could be written by a woman (and we, the reader, know by context clues that it was) is completely alien to him.

I have to say, I do appreciate that about Delany. The feminism in this book is very seventies, and you could write a decent Tumblr discourse post on all the ways it fails, but you don't often get a male writer so solidly on the side of feminism, so it's always quite refreshing.

So, I burned through the whole patternmaster series in a matter of months, which is pretty unusual for me. I like to leave big gaps in between installments, so I don't get burned out on a story.

While the series is overall great, I really regret reading the books in chronological order, starting with Wild Seed, and ending with this one, because in publishing order, this is her first book and her first published novel ever. As is to be expected, as Butler's skills as a writer increase, the quality of these earlier and earlier published novels decreases. Patternmaster isn't necessarily bad, but it doesn't hold a candle to Wild Seed, or even Mind of my Mind and Clay's Ark. Not to mention that the stories become gradually less ambitious. So, the overall effect is that a series that starts as an epic world-spanning, century-spanning tale of conflict between two primal forces of nature peters out as a story about a brotherly feud. It's a bit of a let-down.

So, if you read this series (and you should), do yourself a favor and read it in publishing order.

I picked this book up from a Little Free Library, so I didn't know this was the third installment of a five-part series. It was not an issue, honestly, as it's pretty easy to pick up on the events that proceeded the novel. Martha Quest, the main character of this semi-autobiographical novel, has just left her husband and child and is discovering her political self in Rhodesia's small communist scene against the background of the Second World War. The titular storm, of course.

She's part of the secret "group" that consists of - at most - twelve people who intend to topple the colonial regime and make Rhodesia a communist country, in which all classes and all races are equal. Despite this very ambitious goal, most of their meetings consist of lectures on the history of communism and arguing whether or not wearing make up is a sign that a woman is not sufficiently committed to the cause. Meanwhile, the social democrats are actually doing the hard work of making frustratingly incremental improvements in the country's racial politics. Or actually, their own party's racial politics. The country is still far beyond their grasp. The "group" is led by Anton, a preachy, bureaucratic guy whose feeble attempts at tyrannical rule are barely tolerated, and only because his status as a German refugee, who had to flee because of his political beliefs and quarter-Jewish heritage, gives him a certain amount of clout within this small community. Really, if you've ever even been tangentially involved with leftist activism, it's all painfully, embarrassingly, hilariously relatable. (Every single person I've explained "the group" to has groaned with recognition. Things, they do not change.)

Possibly because it's the middle of a series, the ending isn't very strong. But that wasn't much of an issue for me. Lessing's almost vignette-like style shines the most in the relationships between characters. She has a knack for capturing these interpersonal dynamics with an ironic understanding.

This book is a very interesting look into a time and place I'm not very familiar with, and beyond class or gender, she also touches on the race relations in this apartheid state quite well. I really enjoyed it, and I'm going to see if I can find the other four volumes as well. Instead of placing it back in an LFL, I'll be passing this one along to my mom who really wanted to read it. I'm looking forward to talking about it with her!

This is the third book written by the Brontë sisters I've read, and so far I've definitely enjoyed it the most. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall felt a little too moralistic to me, with Wuthering Heights I couldn't understand the characters' motivation. Jane however? I get Jane. Abused and neglected in childhood, desperate for love, yet still too proud to accept crumbs... I get Jane Eyre.

It's just a shame how much the two other most interesting female characters in the book - which would be Bertha and Adele - are treated. Bertha is little more than a plot device, when her story carries so much potential. Charlotte Bronte wouldn't have even had to make her sympathetic to satisfy me, just show a little bit more of her perspective. But, you know, I'm a person who has lived in the world for a couple of years, so I knew about the woman in the attic, and I was prepared for her. It was Adele who really broke my heart. She's what? Supposed to be nine years old? And Rochester and Jane both judge her so harshly for being basically a young girl who likes dresses and presents and people giving her attention. It's sad, she was adopted by a man who may or may not be her father and he... kinda hates her, because he projects her mother's rejection of him on her childlike shallowness.

I'm planning on reading Wide Sargasso Sea, the famous prequel from Bertha's perspective, but I also heard that Angela Carter was apparently planning a novel about Adele that she didn't get to finish before her death. What a shame! I would have loved to read that.

(Also, the woman on the painting they chose for the cover of this version is much too pretty. I always pictured her as a very slight, mousy girl, with ears that stuck out a bit.)