The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

TV Review: Community, season 3

TV #24 of 2021:

Community, season 3

This stretch of Community is its most serialized yet (and possibly ever; I don’t recall the later stuff too clearly). That’s always impressive in a sitcom, and it adds a nice sense of momentum to the year as various arcs unfold. Of course, the downside is that fewer individual episodes pop out as all-time series best — although Remedial Chaos Theory and Regional Holiday Music should probably be on that list — and it’s a bit jarring when a production issue creates continuity errors by rearranging the airing schedule.

I also think Chang is well-placed here as a power-hungry security guard, splitting the difference between the strict teacher and the unhinged student that he’s been in the past. I don’t love how broad and cartoonish his part of the plot eventually grows, culminating in a literal fascistic takeover of the campus, but it’s an inspired use of a tricky character. Less successful for me is the show-within-a-show Inspector Spacetime, which never seems to justify itself beyond an obvious Doctor Who stand-in that’s weirdly uncommented-upon by someone as plugged into nerdy pop culture as Abed.

Behind the scenes, showrunner / creator Dan Harmon was failing to meet deadlines and publicly feuding with actor Chevy Chase, and it recently came out that he was sexually harassing and emotionally abusing the writers during his tenure as well. For some or all of those reasons, he was let go from the program for season four, but then brought back for five and six after fans complained and the ratings slid. Community was sort of perpetually on the bubble of potential cancellation, but from this point on, for better or worse, that slipped from subtext into the proper text of the series, with veiled dialogue about critical response and popularity and renewal campaigns and whatnot. If you know that background it’s difficult to ignore while watching, and there’s a definite feeling of entitled resentment percolating throughout this run.

As sometimes happens, writing this review has helped me work out my reaction to the season, and ultimately is going to lower the rating I was expecting to award. This is still a very funny title that I enjoy week to week, and a few gems like John Goodman’s air-conditioning repair school annex represent delightful new additions to the Greendale mythology. But overall this outing bites off way more than it can chew, and the result is messier both on-screen and off- than I had remembered.

[Content warning for racism, ableism, homophobia, and antisemitism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

Book #67 of 2021:

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #10)

A weaker effort from author Terry Pratchett, and a little too dependent on referential humor, where the entire joke is something like, “Wouldn’t a Discworld version of Gone with the Wind be hilarious?” I’m also still mostly familiar with this setting through the stories about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and the main characters here aren’t nearly as interesting. As I complained recently for a different title, these disposable protagonists utterly fail the basic tests of a] what do they want?, b] why?, and c] what are the stakes for not getting it? And although that might matter less if the novel were funnier, the satire is unfortunately so broad that it never really lands for me either.

The writing has its clever moments, as I suppose does the idea of Hollywood as a Lovecraftian entity / Platonic concept extending its influence into reality for mortals to instantiate, but overall the plot is more of a snooze than I expect from this series, and there’s just not enough else in the book to distract from it.

[Content warning for sexism, slavery, and torture.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Chance: Escape from the Holocaust by Uri Shulevitz

Book #66 of 2021:

Chance: Escape from the Holocaust by Uri Shulevitz

This 2020 title is a little unusual among Holocaust memoirs, both for its aim at a middle-grade audience and for its depicting a life more distantly touched by Nazi violence. Jewish author Uri Shulevitz and his family fled German-occupied Poland into the Soviet Union, where they continued to face antisemitic persecution and starvation-level poverty, but their struggles obviously do not reflect the full horror of the era. I wouldn’t want this to be the first / only book that a young reader encounters on the subject, but I’m also not sure how many will be interested enough to give it a try once they’ve already been introduced to the visceral evil of Hitler’s extermination program.

I struggle with the fundamental accuracy of the contents here too, as the 84-year-old writer looking back over the decades can’t possibly be remembering all the events he describes from age 4 to 12 — and indeed, he notes in an afterword that he’s relied on later conversations with relatives as well as his father’s written account to reconstruct this tale. I assume the broad strokes are fine, but the details may be shaky and the emotion sometimes feels artificial for the child perspective he’s relating.

As such, while this is still an important look at a historical refugee experience, I don’t think I can offer my unqualified recommendation.

[Content warning for cannibalism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han

Book #65 of 2021:

Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han

There’s a deep sense of sorrow pervading the four members of this novel’s Chinese-American immigrant family, all of whom seem utterly alienated — from their new country, from their homeland, and especially from one another. That estrangement is achingly rendered, and I’m sure it draws upon the firsthand experiences of author Simon Han who comes from a similar background, but at the end of the day, this is just not a story I have particularly enjoyed reading or a cast of characters I find likeable. It doesn’t help that the plot hinges around an inciting event that only takes place more than halfway through the text, or that that false accusation of child molestation is so ugly in nature. I could see this 2020 title winning literary awards, but it is very much not my preferred sort of book.

[Content warning for racism, bullying, and suicide.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: WandaVision

TV #23 of 2021:

WandaVision

Brilliant in concept and nearly flawless in execution, I have very few critical notes for this miniseries, the debut television project under the immediate creative control of producer Kevin Feige at Marvel Studios and the premiere event in his Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Four. It’s a decade-by-decade journey across American sitcom history that blooms into a powerful exploration of trauma and grief, and it’s utterly unlike anything the MCU has tried before. (Indeed, I expect we’re all going to be a little disappointed if/when the upcoming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier turns out to be a straightforward buddy action title, no matter how competently it’s done.)

WandaVision takes its time revealing exactly who and what is driving the larger plot, but the initial conceit is that each episode shifts to a new era, such that one week feels akin to The Dick Van Dyke Show and the next is more like Bewitched, all the way up through recent offerings a la Modern Family. These changes include everything from story beats to costume and set designs to camera angles, dialogue rhythms, laugh tracks, and beyond. It’s a bold break from the typical superhero formula, enjoyable as both a sequence of stylistic homages and a mind-bending mystery to solve, not to mention an unsettling, almost Lynchian deconstruction of the happy TV household.

It also stands fairly well on its own, although Wanda and Vision’s arcs continue from the Avengers movies Age of Ultron, Infinity War, and Endgame, and a few supporting characters are brought in from Ant-Man and the Wasp, the first two Thor films, and Captain Marvel. But you shouldn’t be too lost without having seen those earlier adventures, and Disney+ has released a couple short video summaries as Marvel Studios: Legends to help get viewers up to speed.

I do wish that this franchise would finally acknowledge the Maximoffs’ Jewish and Romani heritage from the comics — the closest we get here is a tasteless line about a Sokovian fortune-teller — and I’m a tad frustrated that a casting choice which seemed aimed at bringing the X-Men back into the fold now that Disney has reacquired their rights instead functions as merely a winking Easter egg with no wider significance to the canon. But overall the program is a triumph that gives actress Elizabeth Olsen and her Scarlet Witch a showcase the big screen has never quite found room for, and while I can’t really imagine a second season based on how this one ends (in an installment literally called “The Series Finale”), I know I’d happily tune in again for it.

★★★★★

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Book Review: Stormsong by C. L. Polk

Book #64 of 2021:

Stormsong by C. L. Polk (The Kingston Cycle #2)

This sequel is a decent follow-up to Witchmark, and I continue to enjoy the fantasy setting for its quasi-Edwardian trappings as well as its utter lack of homophobia and slut-shaming. Everyone maturely accepts adult relationships; the drama in this case stems from a political operative dating the reporter investigating her family’s crimes, not the fact that they’re both women or that they end up spending the night together. Their society appears to readily accommodate people in wheelchairs and those who suffer from migraines or post-traumatic stress disorder too, a bit of disability-friendly worldbuilding that’s often absent from genre fiction.

At the same time, however, there’s just not a lot of urgency to this storyline, and I don’t find our new heroine to be quite as engaging a voice as her brother, the protagonist from the previous novel. It’s also fairly late in the text before the romance seems built on anything beyond mutual physical attraction, which tends to keep me at a distance as a reader. Certain elements here feel as though they should be exciting, like a murder mystery and a cataclysmic weather event on the horizon, but it’s all buried under so much bloodless court intrigue that I’ve struggled to remain invested throughout. For all the talk of witches unjustly locked away in asylums, the main characters are too removed from that threat to experience it as viscerally as the plot really needs.

I’ll probably still check out the final volume in the trilogy — which looks to change our POV figure again — at some point, but after this one, I don’t know that it’s going to be a priority.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Book #63 of 2021:

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn #1)

This first Mistborn novel is every bit the modern classic that I remember, although it does have a few gender issues that author Brandon Sanderson improves upon in his later works. (Nothing too egregious, but except for our teenage heroine, this is a very male-heavy narrative that barely passes the Bechdel Test, and the threat of sexual violence looms over her and the rest of the skaa underclass, especially in the early chapters. On the other hand, I really appreciate how the second main viewpoint character, a man roughly twice her age, is firmly established as Vin’s mentor and father figure rather than a romantic prospect.)

On pretty much any level, the book is a roaring success. The worldbuilding is intricately detailed yet presented naturally without overbearing exposition, and the magic is as interesting for its systematic rules as for the fun ways that the writer devises to showcase them. The action scenes in which allomancers fight by attracting and repelling pieces of metal are downright cinematic, and Sanderson does a great job of gradually exploring how the basic principles give rise to surprising yet logical exploits. The protagonists grow steadily in competence and confidence too, and the plot of a gang of con artists attempting to overthrow their oppressive government allows for some terrific fantasy heist moments a la The Lies of Locke Lamora or Six of Crows. (So long as I’m comparing this to other genre stories I love, Vin infiltrating the corrupt nobility only to discover decent people among the ranks has strong Red Rising vibes as well.)

It’s hard to discuss and avoid spoilers, but The Final Empire also ends up interrogating and subverting the traditional trope of the prophesied Chosen One, and the author is already signaling an interest in how legends build into accepted truths over time, a theme he’ll return to throughout his career. And that’s a good metaphor for this trilogy itself, which continues to escalate its stakes and its scope across the next two volumes. This introduction feels complete on its own, but it’s merely the core of what the tale will eventually encompass, even setting aside any subsequent sequels and implied connections to the wider cosmere multiverse.

The heart, the combat, the twists, the setting, the cast, the storytelling — everything here just works for me, and I’m so excited to reencounter the further excitement ahead.

[Content warning for gore. And disclaimer: I’m Facebook friends with the author.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser

Book #62 of 2021:

American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser

This book is centered on one (white, Jewish) family’s experience with adoption in the 1960s, but it’s also a fascinating sociological and historical account of a topic that I had previously known little about. As author Gabrielle Glaser explains, the postwar era in America was a time when sexual education was practically nonexistent, teenagers had more freedom and privacy than ever before, abortion was illegal, and contraception was often impossible for unmarried people to procure. Unsurprisingly, the ‘Baby Boom’ was made up in part by a spike in unplanned pregnancies, and many underage expectant mothers were hidden away and pressured into giving up their infants. Meanwhile, strict laws shielded the identity of adopters, such that neither the children nor their biological parents could realistically hope to reunite.

Even that summary obscures the sheer awfulness of this treatment, in which the pregnant girls were fed lies — like that a wealthy diplomat was waiting to adopt their baby, while in reality there was no recipient household lined up — and threatened with jailtime under antiquated morality statutes if they wouldn’t sign over their parental rights. Viewed as a likely bad influence on the offspring, these new mothers were cut off as quickly and cruelly as possible, then to face a dauntingly Kafkaesque bureaucracy aimed at keeping them apart forever. Only recently, as public sentiment has swung around to the importance of everyone knowing their roots, birth parents knowing the fate of their kids, and families staying together whenever they feasibly can — and as genetic testing has further smashed through the idea of maintaining that sort of secret anyway — have some of those walls started to crumble.

Drawing on deeply personal interviews of a mother in this position and the son she was forced to abandon, Glaser presents a heartbreaking tale of lives that went decades feeling unwhole as both parties sought in vain to reconnect. She left regular messages at the agency that had taken him, updating them on relatives’ medical issues and begging for his new name and contact information. (They wrote down the notes and never passed them along.) He combed through available records looking for a hint of his origins, going off the few scraps that his adoptive parents had been told. (Those turned out to be falsehoods as well, painting a glamorous picture of busy professionals who didn’t have time for a child, not high school sweethearts who married soon after losing him.) It’s infuriating to read despite the eventual closure, and definitely made me hold my own daughter tight.

But it’s a moment we can’t look away from or allow to ever repeat, and this writer has done a valuable service in researching and publicizing the story.

[Content warning for domestic abuse, racism, antisemitism, and mention of sexual assault.]

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 7

TV #22 of 2021:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 7

If only this last run of the animated Star Wars prequel could be limited to its final four episodes, I think I would give it my first five-star rating of the series. That sequence represents a powerful prelude to the tragedy of Revenge of the Sith, absolutely drenched in atmospheric dread and dramatic irony, and although it pays off a few long-standing character arcs for returning viewers, I’d honestly recommend it to any fan even if that’s all you ever see of The Clone Wars. The action sequences and visual spectacle easily rival the big-screen films, and I’m somewhat astonished at how this often-goofy cartoon has been able to step up like that.

(I assume the difference is due at least in part to a change in corporate leadership, which should bode well for the sequel titles Rebels and Resistance — neither of which I’ve watched yet but which both aired entirely in between seasons 6 and 7 of this one, under Disney oversight. I’ll be happy if they can approach anywhere near the strength of this finale, especially in the treatment of protagonist Ahsoka Tano, who has seemingly grown more capable and endearing with each appearance and reaches new heights here at the close of her origin story.)

Before that point, unfortunately, there are eight installments this year that are roughly in line with the program’s typical output, albeit with graphics that greatly improve upon the customary stylized boxy design. I understand some of these were already in progress when production was shut down on the truncated sixth season, with their assets later incorporated into this batch rather than being discarded altogether. But such a behind-the-scenes explanation doesn’t make the early hours all that engaging to actually sit through, and while they are hardly the show’s worst, there’s a wide gulf between solidly inoffensive filler and legitimate quality storytelling.

That ending, though. I still have chills.

This season: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Seasons ranked: 7 > 5 > 2 > 6 > 4 > 3 > 1

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Book Review: Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

Book #61 of 2021:

Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

This story has it all: a generic fantasy setting, under-explained and inconsistent magic, a random and meandering plot, weirdly colloquial dialogue, and juvenile characters — both protagonists and antagonists alike — with no credible motivation driving their actions. Also quasi-bestiality, after the heroine’s pet fox is transformed into a handsome human love interest by the power in her blood when he bites her hand. Ratings are subjective and I don’t fault anyone who gets more out of this YA tale than I have, but I’ve spent most of the novel underwhelmed and expecting to give it two-out-of-five stars, only to be let down further by the listless and perfunctory ending.

I take full blame for not realizing that this is from the same writer as Heart of Iron, a sci-fi work that similarly never clicks for me. I’m sure author Ashley Poston has her fans, but I wouldn’t have picked this up if I’d recognized the name, and I’m going to try to avoid repeating that mistake in the future. Her style is just clearly not a great match for me as a reader.

★☆☆☆☆

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