What makes us human? (I know! It's food month! Why am I looking a philosophy? Bear with me.) This is a HUGE question, obviously, and one that philosophers and religious scholars (among others) have been discussing and debating and answering for millenia. My author this week, Richard Wrangham, is not a philosopher or a religious scholar - he's an anthropologist. He's more interested in what made us human from a social and biological stand point. The full title of his book is Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, and suddenly the inclusion of this book in food month makes sense, yes?
So. Wrangham argues, somewhat convincingly, that there were a pair of critical biological and social shifts which took place first 2.5 million years ago when homo habilis emerged from australopithecus, and then 1.8 million years ago, when homo erectus emerged from homo habilis. 2.5 million years ago, he contends, habilines started eating meat more frequently and also (and this is key, and one of the places where he differs with his peers) processing that meat and additional plant matter, to make it softer and easier to chew. 1.8 million years ago, homo erectus began to use fire to cook their food. This is the other place Wrangham differs with his peers, in that the general consensus has been that use of fire and cooking were separate events. Wrangham argues that cooking and fire had to have been very closely related, or else we would see another significant biological shift on the level of the ones 2.5 million years ago and 1.8 million years ago. The shift from erectus to sapiens is, he contends, not a significant biological shift in re: teeth and guts, but rather in terms of brain size.
So, first of all, I'm not an anthropologist. My wife is, and we discussed the book a little, but she contends that she's not the same sort of anthropologist that Wrangham is, so our discussion was not overly heated. Also, she hasn't read the book. With that proviso, I am a) not sure I entirely followed Wrangham's argument and b) even so, I'm not sure I agree. He's positing a very fast evolution - over the course of a generation or two - which seems not quite what I learned about evolution. Which, you know, was a long time ago, and in high school, so. But, if he's correct, that increased meat, and then cooking of food produced the evolutionary response, are we still evolving? My wife says we are, a little, but that our group dynamics, and our desire to have as many people survive and breed as possible have blunted the "survival of the fittest" aspect of evolution. Which would be consistent with Wrangham's argument, which is that cooking results in a communal society in which food (especially hunted food) is shared (something that other animals do not do - theft of food, yes; voluntary sharing of food, no). So there's that.
Second, Wrangham does seem to be making a gender essentialist argument in regards to the gendered division of labor. That is, he argues that females gravitated towards the "gathering" part of hunter-gatherer, and thus also to the cooking of food - that, indeed, having someone available to tend the fire and cook vegetable staples was essential to the hunter-gatherer system. Without readily available cooked food, the hunter could not maintain the ability to hunt. And, since hunting required greater physical strength (1.8 million years ago, mind), males gravitated towards the hunting, and females were excluded. Which, all right, I accept in theory. And Wrangham doesn't actually say "that's the way it's always been, and that's the way it should be forever and ever, amen," but he doesn't not say that either. And he does say that, while men CAN cook (thanks for that), there are no (traditional) societies in which they do so on a regular basis (and many in which they absolutely refuse to do so, even if it means starving). So, there's that too, I guess.
Anyway. Here in the industrial "west", we don't cook over an open fire unless we are camping. And, by and large, the meat in our diet is not dependent upon the ability of males to go into the wild and come back with a tapir or a wild goat or something. Consequently, I think that our next evolutionary step - and maybe we're already seeing it - is a societal step away from the gendered division of labor. And, I further think that our ability to change and grow is one of the things which makes us human in a spiritual and philosophical sense (and, maybe, in a biological, anthropological sense too).
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This week's adventure in cooking requires a little historical background. For Christmas, my parents gave us (well, ok, we bought for ourselves with money from my parents) an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker. (Some of you are nodding your heads approvingly, some are jealous, and some are baffled - it's one of these, and it's really very cool). This week, I saw a recipe for making bread in the pot - you can use the pot to proof the loaf, but this recipe suggested steaming the bread in the pot, and then tossing it under a broiler to brown it and crustify it a little. I decided to modify the recipe a little by adding whole wheat flour (It was a modification of this recipe. Dough in a pyrex bowl 30 mins to rise on the yogurt setting, then cover the dough with foil, 20 mins under pressure with 2 cups of water [using the trivet]. Then into the broiler for 5 mins.). And the thing is, whole wheat flour sucks up water a lot more than regular flour, and I should actually know that because I have baked with it before. But, so. The dough was ugly, it didn't cook all the way through properly, and the end result was ... edible, but not really that nice. I'll try it again, with a little more water in the dough. And the ability to make mistakes and learn from them - also something that makes us human.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Friday, March 4, 2016
Book 1 of the Food Books, _52 Loaves_ by William Alexander, 3/4/2015
Food books have a lot of autobiography about them, don't they? I mean, even cook books (and I'll review a cook book later this month, probably), which purport to be basically instruction manuals, invite the reader into the author's kitchen. There is a sense of the personal in books about food, a sense of intimacy that comes from talking about food. In 52 Loaves, William Alexander lays out, in loving detail, his project to bake a single loaf of bread once a week. He was attempting (and maybe succeeding?) to re-create a perfect loaf of bread he once consumed in a restaurant, a loaf of "peasant bread," with a perfect crust, an open, airy crumb, and a great flavor of rye and wheat and yeast. His writing is intensely personal, bringing his readers not merely into his yard (where he constructs an outdoor brick oven for baking - and, you know, if I weren't renting, I'd be greatly tempted...), or his kitchen (where he takes readers through the painstaking process of making bread from a poolish - a multi-hour endeavor), or even his analyst's office (mid-way through, Alexander worries that he is suffering from some sort of mental breakdown because he is so obsessed with this perfect loaf), but, really, inside his head.
Alexander weaves through his personal narrative a discussion of the history of bread as a food, globally, but also locally. Why is American commercial bread so universally reviled? What, actually, is "enriching" enriched flour? What lay at the root of years of pellagra throughout the American South? This is fascinating, and adds a stability to the personal narrative - not unlike (if I can engage in a little analogy) the gluten containing the yeasty leaven of Alexander's obsession.
In addition to the technical and historical discussion of bread making, Alexander also explores the philosophical implications of bread. How do we eat bread? Why is that important? Do people in France make and eat bread differently than Americans? How about Moroccans? What does this say about people in those cultures? Alexander visits France and Morocco to explore these questions. He also spends a week baking in a French monastery - a fascinating portion of the book in which Alexander explores the possibility that bread, for him, is spiritual or even religious on some level.
This was a surprisingly delightful book, full of humor (mostly self-deprecating), history (which I, naturally, appreciate), and thought provoking information. It also (as my baking earlier this week suggests) invites readers to experiment with baking. If you like bread, or baking, or the compulsions of aging American men, check out this book.
And how did my bread turn out? Well, it didn't live up to Alexander's standards, that's for sure. It had a fine, dense crumb (not the air holes that Alexander was trying to find, but not something that I was necessarily aiming for - big holes makes it tough to spread things on a slice) and a nice crust, but it lacked flavor. It was, sadly, a bland bread. I'll keep trying.
Alexander weaves through his personal narrative a discussion of the history of bread as a food, globally, but also locally. Why is American commercial bread so universally reviled? What, actually, is "enriching" enriched flour? What lay at the root of years of pellagra throughout the American South? This is fascinating, and adds a stability to the personal narrative - not unlike (if I can engage in a little analogy) the gluten containing the yeasty leaven of Alexander's obsession.
In addition to the technical and historical discussion of bread making, Alexander also explores the philosophical implications of bread. How do we eat bread? Why is that important? Do people in France make and eat bread differently than Americans? How about Moroccans? What does this say about people in those cultures? Alexander visits France and Morocco to explore these questions. He also spends a week baking in a French monastery - a fascinating portion of the book in which Alexander explores the possibility that bread, for him, is spiritual or even religious on some level.
This was a surprisingly delightful book, full of humor (mostly self-deprecating), history (which I, naturally, appreciate), and thought provoking information. It also (as my baking earlier this week suggests) invites readers to experiment with baking. If you like bread, or baking, or the compulsions of aging American men, check out this book.
And how did my bread turn out? Well, it didn't live up to Alexander's standards, that's for sure. It had a fine, dense crumb (not the air holes that Alexander was trying to find, but not something that I was necessarily aiming for - big holes makes it tough to spread things on a slice) and a nice crust, but it lacked flavor. It was, sadly, a bland bread. I'll keep trying.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Bonus Post - Bread week - 3/1/2016
This week I'm reading 52 Loaves by William Alexander, which is about baking bread. So I decided to bake some bread today, and then I decided to tell you all about it. I'm using my mum's bread recipe, which has been historically well received. It would not, spoiler alert, meet with Alexander's exacting standards in that it has milk and butter in it. But that's a discussion for Friday. Today, I'm making bread!
First, here's the recipe [with my added notations]:
Bread Dough
1/4 cup margarine [I'm using butter, because I prefer to bake with butter] + 1 cup milk. Heat 2 mins [microwave - this recipe dates to when Mum adapted her bread recipe to the microwave]. Let cool.
1 cup tepid water ~[1/2 cup boiling water + ~1/2 cup water from the fridge {I have a jug of water in the fridge - don't you?}], 1 tsp sugar - mix, Add 1 Tbsp yeast. [Red Star dried yeast today]. Let sit 10 minutes. [Technically, I've been told that this step, "proofing" the yeast, is not necessary with modern yeast which is unlikely to be dead in the jar. But I really like watching the yeast get all bubbly! And it certainly doesn't hurt anything to proof the yeast.]
[Yup. That yeast is alive and kicking.]
Mix yeast mix with tepid milk. Add 3-4 cups of flour until dough is smooth and not sticky. [I should say, I've made this recipe many many times, and it's never needed less than 4 cups of flour. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. Oh, also, I added a good tsp of kosher salt, because my butter was unsalted.] Knead on floured board [or the counter] until dough is springy. [classically, a thumb print should spring back out of the dough when it has been sufficiently kneaded.]
[Kneading dough is one of the few times when I remove my wedding band, because getting bread dough out of the engraving is a right pain the keister. {the engraving, because someone will want to know, reads, in Hebrew, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."}]
Put 1 Tbsp oil in empty bowl and coat dough with oil.
Microwave 1 cup [mug] of water for 3 mins on high.
Put in bread 10 mins on 1%
20 mins on 0%
[ yeah. The first microwave we ever owned had power percentages, and 1% was just barely warm, and 0% was essentially a timer, no heat at all. But no microwave I've encountered since then works that way. So, 30 mins, no timer - this whole thing creates a nice steamy place for the bread to rise.]
Knead. Let sit on [heating] oven until risen again in pans. Bake at 350 F, 30 mins. [I've got one loaf in a pan, and one not - to go with soup tonight. I'll update with a report on how the baking goes.]
First, here's the recipe [with my added notations]:
Bread Dough
1/4 cup margarine [I'm using butter, because I prefer to bake with butter] + 1 cup milk. Heat 2 mins [microwave - this recipe dates to when Mum adapted her bread recipe to the microwave]. Let cool.
1 cup tepid water ~[1/2 cup boiling water + ~1/2 cup water from the fridge {I have a jug of water in the fridge - don't you?}], 1 tsp sugar - mix, Add 1 Tbsp yeast. [Red Star dried yeast today]. Let sit 10 minutes. [Technically, I've been told that this step, "proofing" the yeast, is not necessary with modern yeast which is unlikely to be dead in the jar. But I really like watching the yeast get all bubbly! And it certainly doesn't hurt anything to proof the yeast.]
 |
[Yup. That yeast is alive and kicking.]
Mix yeast mix with tepid milk. Add 3-4 cups of flour until dough is smooth and not sticky. [I should say, I've made this recipe many many times, and it's never needed less than 4 cups of flour. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. Oh, also, I added a good tsp of kosher salt, because my butter was unsalted.] Knead on floured board [or the counter] until dough is springy. [classically, a thumb print should spring back out of the dough when it has been sufficiently kneaded.]
 |
| Wedding ring in partial shadow... |
 |
| Smooth, and not sticky |
[Kneading dough is one of the few times when I remove my wedding band, because getting bread dough out of the engraving is a right pain the keister. {the engraving, because someone will want to know, reads, in Hebrew, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."}]
Put 1 Tbsp oil in empty bowl and coat dough with oil.
Microwave 1 cup [mug] of water for 3 mins on high.
Put in bread 10 mins on 1%
20 mins on 0%
[ yeah. The first microwave we ever owned had power percentages, and 1% was just barely warm, and 0% was essentially a timer, no heat at all. But no microwave I've encountered since then works that way. So, 30 mins, no timer - this whole thing creates a nice steamy place for the bread to rise.]
Knead. Let sit on [heating] oven until risen again in pans. Bake at 350 F, 30 mins. [I've got one loaf in a pan, and one not - to go with soup tonight. I'll update with a report on how the baking goes.]
 |
| After the first rise |
 |
| Working on the second rise |
Friday, February 26, 2016
February 26, Book 4 of the 2nd Book Series, _Live Bait_, by P.J. Tracy
This is the last week of the February 2nd Book series. Next week, as we begin March, I will start a series of food books. For April, I'm considering romance novels - I'd love for you to suggest romance novels for me to read. Or, baring that, name 4 unique sub-genres of romance.
This week, we're looking at the second book in an ongoing series. Specifically, we're looking at the second book in P.J. Tracy's Monkeewrench series, Live Bait.
What do I mean by an ongoing series? What makes this series different from last week's series? After all, the Rot and Ruin books started as a trilogy, and then there were four books, and then five, and then interstitial books, and so on... So, Tracy's* Monkeewrench series; how is that different? I think the key difference is that Maberry had (or has) a defined end point to his series. It's possible that the end point is perpetually disappearing into the distance - not unlike, say, George Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, for instance - but there IS a defined point at which the story is done. By contrast, Monkeewrench (and, really, this is true of most mystery novel series, I think) has no defined end. Grace McBride, Detective Magozzi, and the rest of the team will keep tracking down serial killers until Tracy, her publisher, or her readers, get tired of the conceit. And that's perfectly fine. That being said, I think that the second book in such a series has a surprising amount of weight to bear as a result. The first book, obviously, stands alone. Bad guys do bad things, and good guys stop them, the story has a clear beginning, middle, and end. But, if the first book does well (and, naturally, we assume that the first book does well), then a second book follows. The second book must have a clear beginning, middle, and end. It must have different bad guys doing bad things, and the good guys have to stop them, but in a different (but related!) way from the first book. The book has to stand on its own - what if the reader missed the first book? What if libraries gave it a pass, but picked up book two on the strength of the reviews for book one? - but it must ALSO reward readers of book one with hooks back into the first story line AND also also point towards a potential third (and subsequent) books. That's a lot of pressure! "But Mike," you say, "that's true of the second book in a classic trilogy too! And of whatever Rot and Ruin is. And, really, any book 2 which might have, at some point, a book 3!" And that's a fair statement too - but I think there's an additional pressure here, because this book two absolutely has to stand on its own. Book three can dangle some serious loose ends if the author so desires, but book two might well be the only book in the series that a reader picks up - if they missed book one, and if book three never gets published - so I think there is a unique pressure on a book in this position in an ongoing series.
So, how does Live Bait stand up to that pressure? Pretty well, I think. First off, these are a series of fantastic police procedurals, which is to say that they are awful, dreadful books, which I love. Lots of grit and a fair bit of gore, serial killers with dubious motives, and hard working detectives who solve crimes by asking tough questions, and with the support of computer experts who don't mind bending the rules. Hell, they revel in bending, folding, spindling, and mutilating the rules. The same two detectives seem to solve all of the big serial killer cases in Minneapolis,** and no crime could ever be solved ever without the assistance of Monkeewrench and their unique computer skills. My willing suspension to disbelieve is highly trained, though, and I just love these sorts of books. That probably says something deeply disturbing about my psyche, but it's true. So, if you like pulpy crime novels with quirky (VERY quirky) characters, twisty motives, lots of blind endings, moody cops, and graphic descriptions of Minneapolis weather, you'll like these books. Oh, also, doomed romance, and musings about why a policeman's lot is not a happy one. And, if you want, you can start here with Live Bait, but the first book (Monkeewrench) is good too.
*Actually, P.J. Tracy is a duo, Patricia and Traci Lambrecht.
** Between Tracy and John Sandford, I'm pretty convinces that Minneapolis/St. Paul is ground zero for serial killers in the US...
This week, we're looking at the second book in an ongoing series. Specifically, we're looking at the second book in P.J. Tracy's Monkeewrench series, Live Bait.
What do I mean by an ongoing series? What makes this series different from last week's series? After all, the Rot and Ruin books started as a trilogy, and then there were four books, and then five, and then interstitial books, and so on... So, Tracy's* Monkeewrench series; how is that different? I think the key difference is that Maberry had (or has) a defined end point to his series. It's possible that the end point is perpetually disappearing into the distance - not unlike, say, George Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, for instance - but there IS a defined point at which the story is done. By contrast, Monkeewrench (and, really, this is true of most mystery novel series, I think) has no defined end. Grace McBride, Detective Magozzi, and the rest of the team will keep tracking down serial killers until Tracy, her publisher, or her readers, get tired of the conceit. And that's perfectly fine. That being said, I think that the second book in such a series has a surprising amount of weight to bear as a result. The first book, obviously, stands alone. Bad guys do bad things, and good guys stop them, the story has a clear beginning, middle, and end. But, if the first book does well (and, naturally, we assume that the first book does well), then a second book follows. The second book must have a clear beginning, middle, and end. It must have different bad guys doing bad things, and the good guys have to stop them, but in a different (but related!) way from the first book. The book has to stand on its own - what if the reader missed the first book? What if libraries gave it a pass, but picked up book two on the strength of the reviews for book one? - but it must ALSO reward readers of book one with hooks back into the first story line AND also also point towards a potential third (and subsequent) books. That's a lot of pressure! "But Mike," you say, "that's true of the second book in a classic trilogy too! And of whatever Rot and Ruin is. And, really, any book 2 which might have, at some point, a book 3!" And that's a fair statement too - but I think there's an additional pressure here, because this book two absolutely has to stand on its own. Book three can dangle some serious loose ends if the author so desires, but book two might well be the only book in the series that a reader picks up - if they missed book one, and if book three never gets published - so I think there is a unique pressure on a book in this position in an ongoing series.
So, how does Live Bait stand up to that pressure? Pretty well, I think. First off, these are a series of fantastic police procedurals, which is to say that they are awful, dreadful books, which I love. Lots of grit and a fair bit of gore, serial killers with dubious motives, and hard working detectives who solve crimes by asking tough questions, and with the support of computer experts who don't mind bending the rules. Hell, they revel in bending, folding, spindling, and mutilating the rules. The same two detectives seem to solve all of the big serial killer cases in Minneapolis,** and no crime could ever be solved ever without the assistance of Monkeewrench and their unique computer skills. My willing suspension to disbelieve is highly trained, though, and I just love these sorts of books. That probably says something deeply disturbing about my psyche, but it's true. So, if you like pulpy crime novels with quirky (VERY quirky) characters, twisty motives, lots of blind endings, moody cops, and graphic descriptions of Minneapolis weather, you'll like these books. Oh, also, doomed romance, and musings about why a policeman's lot is not a happy one. And, if you want, you can start here with Live Bait, but the first book (Monkeewrench) is good too.
*Actually, P.J. Tracy is a duo, Patricia and Traci Lambrecht.
** Between Tracy and John Sandford, I'm pretty convinces that Minneapolis/St. Paul is ground zero for serial killers in the US...
Friday, February 19, 2016
February 19, Book 3 of the 2nd Book Series, _Dust and Decay_ by Jonathan Maberry
We've looked at an unexpected book 2, and we've looked at the middle book of a trilogy. This week we're looking at book 2 of an ongoing series, Jonathan Maberry's YA zombie series Rot and Ruin.
So, what role does a second book play in a series which is longer than a trilogy, but has a defined (more or less) ending? Maberry's series about Benny Imura is (officially, sorta kinda) four books long, plus a fifth book which covers the actions of other people in the series, plus a set of interstitial e-books - so somewhere between four and ten books, is what I'm saying. So, when the series has four books, does that mean that book two serves half of the purpose of book two in a traditional trilogy? Does it need to point not only to book three, but also further, onto book four? How tightly does it connect to book one; is it more an extension of book one than it would be in a trilogy? All difficult questions to ponder, and I don't really have a clear answer. I think, in the case of a series, book two, and indeed any book in the series, has a more compelling need to stand on its own, while also connecting ongoing readers to the series as a whole. A new reader should be able to pick up book two and understand what is going on, but readers of book one should find something extra in their experience of book two. This need is less compelling here than it would be in a series with no defined end - that's next week, btw - but it's still a real need.
So, how does Dust and Decay hold up? Pretty well, I think. Obviously, it's going to be easier to follow the plot if you've read book one, but I think Maberry offers enough background in book two that new readers will not be lost. Effectively, if we consider the series as a classic quest story (which I think is a fair thing to do), I think this book could be considered book one, with Rot and Ruin working as the prologue in which the characters are prepared for their quest, and the quest is set. Over the remainder of the series, the heroes will pursue the quest to its conclusion, for good or ill. So, Maberry offers enough sign posts for readers to see where the story is going in a general sense, while also offering a compelling and internally satisfying narrative which is complete within this book. A neat trick. Also, perhaps, an answer to my questions above - one way to handle book two in a non-trilogy series is to redefine the role of all of the books in the series.
So, zombies. I love zombies. I considered doing a whole month of zombies for February, and I may yet do that. Maberry does all of the things we've come to expect from a zombie story - plenty of gore, lots of "the real monster is US" stuff, small huddled collections of humanity trying to keep hope alive, brave heroes venturing out into the zombie infested wilds to scavenge supplies, all of that. At the same time, there's a real and unique heart to these books. We care about what happens to Benny Imura and his friends, naturally, but we also care about what happens to the zombies - which is another neat trick. If you like zombies, and coming of age novels, and zombies, and hopeless quests through zombie infested wilderness, and surprisingly deep thoughts about what makes a person a person, and zombies, then this series is totally for you.
So, what role does a second book play in a series which is longer than a trilogy, but has a defined (more or less) ending? Maberry's series about Benny Imura is (officially, sorta kinda) four books long, plus a fifth book which covers the actions of other people in the series, plus a set of interstitial e-books - so somewhere between four and ten books, is what I'm saying. So, when the series has four books, does that mean that book two serves half of the purpose of book two in a traditional trilogy? Does it need to point not only to book three, but also further, onto book four? How tightly does it connect to book one; is it more an extension of book one than it would be in a trilogy? All difficult questions to ponder, and I don't really have a clear answer. I think, in the case of a series, book two, and indeed any book in the series, has a more compelling need to stand on its own, while also connecting ongoing readers to the series as a whole. A new reader should be able to pick up book two and understand what is going on, but readers of book one should find something extra in their experience of book two. This need is less compelling here than it would be in a series with no defined end - that's next week, btw - but it's still a real need.
So, how does Dust and Decay hold up? Pretty well, I think. Obviously, it's going to be easier to follow the plot if you've read book one, but I think Maberry offers enough background in book two that new readers will not be lost. Effectively, if we consider the series as a classic quest story (which I think is a fair thing to do), I think this book could be considered book one, with Rot and Ruin working as the prologue in which the characters are prepared for their quest, and the quest is set. Over the remainder of the series, the heroes will pursue the quest to its conclusion, for good or ill. So, Maberry offers enough sign posts for readers to see where the story is going in a general sense, while also offering a compelling and internally satisfying narrative which is complete within this book. A neat trick. Also, perhaps, an answer to my questions above - one way to handle book two in a non-trilogy series is to redefine the role of all of the books in the series.
So, zombies. I love zombies. I considered doing a whole month of zombies for February, and I may yet do that. Maberry does all of the things we've come to expect from a zombie story - plenty of gore, lots of "the real monster is US" stuff, small huddled collections of humanity trying to keep hope alive, brave heroes venturing out into the zombie infested wilds to scavenge supplies, all of that. At the same time, there's a real and unique heart to these books. We care about what happens to Benny Imura and his friends, naturally, but we also care about what happens to the zombies - which is another neat trick. If you like zombies, and coming of age novels, and zombies, and hopeless quests through zombie infested wilderness, and surprisingly deep thoughts about what makes a person a person, and zombies, then this series is totally for you.
Friday, February 12, 2016
February 12, Book 2 of the 2nd Book Series, _Siege and Storm_, by Leigh Bardugo
Second books serve different purposes in different contexts. Books like last week's entry from Christopher Moore allow the author to return to a setting and explore it more fully. An author might use such a book to tie up loose ends from the first book, and also introduce new loose ends that might spawn a third book. At the same time, such a book needs to be sufficiently satisfying on its own that readers don't feel cheated by not having read the first book, nor by not having a third book available.
This week, however, we have the second book in a traditionally constructed trilogy. This sort of second book serves a completely different purpose. Yes, the author IS exploring a setting more fully, and drawing characters more sharply, but she is also advancing her broader plot, introducing new complications for her characters, and generally building a bigger story. It is far less necessary for this sort of book to stand alone, because there is an implicit assumption that the readers have a) read book one of the trilogy and b) intend to continue onto book two. Indeed, the second book in a trilogy must serve as a bridge between books one and two; on some level, were the second book to stand alone, it would have failed in its purpose. At the same time, of course, the book must be narratively complete, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, even if the beginning is anchored to an earlier book and the end strongly points towards a later one.
Siege and Storm is the Leigh Bardugo's second book in her YA Grisha trilogy. (It is also her second published novel, but that's a different discussion.) This trilogy is a Russian inflected fantasy, in which a body of "grisha" engage in what we the readers might deem magic, but they view as science. Through the manipulation of mater at the atomic level, they can perform wonders in a narrow range of areas: human bodies (healers and killers), natural elements (air, water, and fire), and material elements (construction and alchemy). Bardugo has constructed a compelling world around these grisha, who serve as a powerful second army for the nation of Ravka. Ravka's neighbors tend to distrust or actively hate grisha, focusing instead on technology. Thus, there is an element which some might deem "steampunk," but which I think probably does not apply here.
The books tell the story of Alina and Mal. In the first book, Alina discovers that she is a powerful grisha, able to manipulate light. This makes her important to the leader of the grisha, who can manipulate darkness. Ravka is riven by a "sea" of darkness; an accident caused by a previous Darkling, and Alina might be able to destroy or otherwise mitigate this Unsea. Mal is a soldier whom she loves, a skilled tracker, but not magically inclined. There is, consequently, a class divide.
In the first book, Alina discovers that the politics of Ravka are deeply complicated and full of betrayal and danger. The first book ends with Alina and Mal on the run, and that is where we pick them up at the beginning of this book - hiding on the partially explored other continent. From there, Bardugo offers her readers an adventurous tale with pirates, sea monsters, flying craft, crash landings, wild hunts, land monsters, human monsters, more politics, and a civil war. There is betrayal and redemption and excitement all around. It's a very good book.
It's also a very good second book. While it is possible to pick up the basic thread of the story from book one, there is a strong sense that everything - the plot, the character interactions, the politics, the complications of the world - would make better sense after having read book one. Additionally, while there is an ending to THIS book, there is also a clear sense that this is not the end of the STORY. A trilogy works best when all three books are good books by themselves and ALSO good parts of the larger whole. Bardugo accomplishes both goals with this book, and I do recommend the trilogy AND the book to all of you who love YA fantasy filled with darkness, betrayal, regret, and blood.
This week, however, we have the second book in a traditionally constructed trilogy. This sort of second book serves a completely different purpose. Yes, the author IS exploring a setting more fully, and drawing characters more sharply, but she is also advancing her broader plot, introducing new complications for her characters, and generally building a bigger story. It is far less necessary for this sort of book to stand alone, because there is an implicit assumption that the readers have a) read book one of the trilogy and b) intend to continue onto book two. Indeed, the second book in a trilogy must serve as a bridge between books one and two; on some level, were the second book to stand alone, it would have failed in its purpose. At the same time, of course, the book must be narratively complete, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, even if the beginning is anchored to an earlier book and the end strongly points towards a later one.
Siege and Storm is the Leigh Bardugo's second book in her YA Grisha trilogy. (It is also her second published novel, but that's a different discussion.) This trilogy is a Russian inflected fantasy, in which a body of "grisha" engage in what we the readers might deem magic, but they view as science. Through the manipulation of mater at the atomic level, they can perform wonders in a narrow range of areas: human bodies (healers and killers), natural elements (air, water, and fire), and material elements (construction and alchemy). Bardugo has constructed a compelling world around these grisha, who serve as a powerful second army for the nation of Ravka. Ravka's neighbors tend to distrust or actively hate grisha, focusing instead on technology. Thus, there is an element which some might deem "steampunk," but which I think probably does not apply here.
The books tell the story of Alina and Mal. In the first book, Alina discovers that she is a powerful grisha, able to manipulate light. This makes her important to the leader of the grisha, who can manipulate darkness. Ravka is riven by a "sea" of darkness; an accident caused by a previous Darkling, and Alina might be able to destroy or otherwise mitigate this Unsea. Mal is a soldier whom she loves, a skilled tracker, but not magically inclined. There is, consequently, a class divide.
In the first book, Alina discovers that the politics of Ravka are deeply complicated and full of betrayal and danger. The first book ends with Alina and Mal on the run, and that is where we pick them up at the beginning of this book - hiding on the partially explored other continent. From there, Bardugo offers her readers an adventurous tale with pirates, sea monsters, flying craft, crash landings, wild hunts, land monsters, human monsters, more politics, and a civil war. There is betrayal and redemption and excitement all around. It's a very good book.
It's also a very good second book. While it is possible to pick up the basic thread of the story from book one, there is a strong sense that everything - the plot, the character interactions, the politics, the complications of the world - would make better sense after having read book one. Additionally, while there is an ending to THIS book, there is also a clear sense that this is not the end of the STORY. A trilogy works best when all three books are good books by themselves and ALSO good parts of the larger whole. Bardugo accomplishes both goals with this book, and I do recommend the trilogy AND the book to all of you who love YA fantasy filled with darkness, betrayal, regret, and blood.
Friday, February 5, 2016
February 5, 2016 - Book 1 of the February 2nd Book Series: _Secondhand Souls_, by Christopher Moore
First of all, welcome back! Let me just clean up some of the dust here, and move these boxes over there - oh, look, a cockroach! I shall collect it and add it to my insect collection! Maybe I will donate it to the museum:
Um. Right. Sorry.
So. Since I last posted, I have relocated to a different city in the southern tier of New York, and I've finished and defended my dissertation (yay!), and am now over educated and sadly under employed. If you need a doctor of history, well, you know where to find me.
But enough about that. It's February, which is the second month. I'm giving this whole review blog thing a second chance. So I've decided to look at second books - the second book in a trilogy/series. I'm starting with Christopher Moore's sequel to A Dirty Job, Secondhand Souls.
Second books are sometimes tricky. Part of the plot depends on an understanding of the book which went before. Often, there is an assumption that the bigger story will be resolved, or continued, in a third book. As a result, one of the things I will be considering is how well the book stands by itself.
Moore approaches second books a little differently from other authors. On the one hand, Secondhand Souls clearly builds on the pre-established narrative of A Dirty Job. On the other hand, Dirty Job had as solid and satisfying an ending as any Moore book ever does (which is to say, Moore introduced a new character in the last 1/4 of the novel which allowed him to tie up the loose ends and put the narrative arc to bed), and so a sequel was not (and never is) a foregone conclusion. Consequently, this book has several parts where having read the first book would enhance the experience of reading this book, but no places where having read the first book was essential to enjoying this second book. If that makes sense.
So, here's the nut-shell description of the first book. Charlie Asher collects the souls of people who die in an unresolved state, vis a vis the afterlife. Those souls and then pinned to physical objects which he sells in his secondhand shop. Folks without souls are drawn to the ensouled objects, and buy them, thus acquiring a soul. Supernatural recycling. Oh, also, Asher's daughter is the embodiment of Death. Asher has some wacky adventures, fights with some Celtic crow goddesses, falls in (unlikely) love with a Buddhist nun, and then dies. We open book 2 with Ahser's soul preserved in a creature constructed, with loving care, by Audrey, the nun, out of taxidermy and lunch meat. His daughter, Sophie (now five) believes he is dead. And something screwy is taking place with the recovery of souls.
Returning in this kooky romp are Minty Fresh, the green-clad owner of a second-hand record store, Alphonse Riviera, once a cop, now the owner of a used book store, and Lily Darquewillow Elventhing Severo, fabulous Goth princess, and most excellent suicide hotline call center worker. New characters include Jean-Pierre Baptiste, a janitor, and Theeb, a spork-wielding leader of taxidermy lunch meat creatures. For all the zaniness, there is some depth here too. What does "death" mean, in a cosmic sense? What is the soul, and what do we do with it? How does love endure, even across centuries? What, in the end, is a "booty nun?"
If you liked A Dirty Job, you'll enjoy this. If you like wacky, absurdist fiction, this is a good book for you. If you like the sensation of shock which comes from walking into the bathroom at midnight to find that the cover art glows in the dark, then this is most definitely a book you should check out.
Seriously. It glows in the dark. According to the jacket notes, Beeteeth is responsible - well played, Beeteeth, well played indeed.
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