The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Book #111 of 2020:

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

This long-awaited second collection of science-fiction from author Ted Chiang more than lives up to the promise of his earlier Stories of Your Life and Others (which contained the basis for the alien linguistics movie Arrival). These tales don’t just posit exciting technologies or shed light into bigger questions of the human spirit; at their best they radically expand our notions of what the genre can even contain.

In the exquisite first entry, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” an ancient Babylonian devises a portal for visiting decades past or future, thereby marrying familiar time-travel tropes with a delightful Thousand and One Nights narrative style. Later on, in “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” Chiang ponders how technological advances impact memory and self-perception by weaving together a tale of breakthrough digital recall devices and one of the introduction of western writing to an isolated oral culture.

Some of the stories play out like episodes of Fringe or Black Mirror, exploring alternate worlds and new avenues for dangerous temptation, yet they maintain a heart and appreciation for their characters that is all this writer’s own. My average rating for the book is four-out-of-five stars, and even the few pieces I don’t love — which tend to be short drabbles anyway — are well worth the read to see a master turning over such ideas.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas

Book #110 of 2020:

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas

This is a difficult read, challenging the widespread mode of philanthropy — in both direct charity and private-sector services — that aims to improve people’s lives but does little to address any underlying systemic forces at play. (For example: a platform for smoothing out unstable paychecks by automatically banking one month’s excesses to dip into for future shortfalls, ignoring what root causes might be driving that volatility. Or a lesson on confident ‘power poses’ for women that doesn’t push back on why such body language is necessary for them to be taken as seriously as men.)

In author Anand Giridharadas’s analysis, these efforts devote valuable resources to treating symptoms and not seeking cures, because the status quo benefits those very individuals and institutions who are charting the course to distribute funding. Channeling Audre Lorde’s classic dictum that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” he takes aim at all such efforts for the rich to ‘give back’ that don’t interrogate how they amassed their fortunes in the first place, thereby guaranteeing that others like them will continue to benefit disproportionately over the folks they claim to want to help.

I don’t know that I completely accept the writer’s reasoning in every case presented here, and I wish he would distinguish more between a rational consumer using a product like Uber or Facebook for its entrenched societal value and the venture capitalists actually carrying out that entrenchment. Still, the text is unsettling and provocative in the best way, and has given me quite a lot to ponder vis-à-vis working within a flawed system versus working to tear it down.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Bosch, season 6

TV #16 of 2020:

Bosch, season 6

Amazon’s middlebrow police procedural starts off strong this year, but seems to lose a little focus as it goes along. I think the news that only one more batch of episodes remains has also put pressure on the writers to wrap up several long-running subplots, resulting in a somewhat cluttered and uneven penultimate run with even less of a central throughline than usual. (To a certain extent I guess it’s all about Maddie Bosch deciding whether her cop father or defense attorney Honey Chandler is a better role model as she considers potential careers for herself, as well as the issue of how careless law enforcement can perpetuate the very problems it seeks to address. But that’s a bit of a stretch.)

I feel like Bosch has two main storytelling modes: actual crime-solving where the culprit remains a mystery, and meticulous case-building where the detectives — and audience — know their perp and are just trying to prove it. And there’s a lot of the latter type this season, which isn’t always the most stimulating drama to watch unfold. We also check in frequently with some antagonists who are basically just cooling their heels until the finale, which is again perhaps not the best use of that narrative space. I’m interested to see how this series concludes for good next time, but I wish we hadn’t had such a bumpy road to get there.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Onyx & Ivory by Mindee Arnett

Book #109 of 2020:

Onyx & Ivory by Mindee Arnett (Rime Chronicles #1)

This YA fantasy debut has clear potential that I’m hoping the sequel improves upon, with more worldbuilding details about the wider setting and less interpersonal drama that it seems like one good open conversation would resolve. I do like these protagonists and their plot, but I feel similarly to how I did when reading Cinder: If a romance hinges on a prince loving someone who is secretly a second-class citizen, I need way more information on whether he shares his society’s prejudice and how he is or isn’t positioned by his station to enact reforms. I also wish we could get to know certain minor characters better before they’re unmasked as villains, and that the heroine’s neat job as a royal courier could be more present in the later part of the story.

Setting all that aside, I enjoy the distinctive cultural flourishes that author Mindee Arnett has built into this narrative, as well as the system of magic that falters in darkness when massive ‘nightdrakes’ stalk the land. These elements don’t completely add up to a satisfactory whole for me, but there’s a lot of inventiveness here that I think could be really special if the writer manages to find the right balance.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Shameless, season 2

TV #15 of 2020:

Shameless, season 2

I like how this show seems to be following the Friday Night Lights model of jumping forward a few months in between seasons, using the time skip to refresh and reorient the plot by dropping some threads, advancing others, and introducing still more. I also appreciate that this sophomore outing takes place mostly in the summertime, which represents a shocking difference from the winter of season one in both the set dressing of the Chicago streets and the distinct seasonal concerns of the central family. And then when the closing episodes again start creeping into that colder weather, it adds a nice sense of homecoming and reversion to a familiar status quo.

Nevertheless, this is a series that’s still struggling to completely win my heart. Although I really enjoy seeing Fiona, Lip, Debbie, and Ian navigating the particular challenges of their lower-income household situation, the narrative spends far too long on cartoonish peripheral figures like Sheila and on the Gallaghers’ truly odious deadbeat dad. William H. Macy has top billing in the credits, but I only find Frank interesting as a negative force in his children’s lives, not as an absentee father getting into unrelated escapades somewhere else. (I also wish the writing would frame him more consistently as the asshole that he is, rather than some sort of lovable scamp. In general, the more our perspective is rooted with Fiona or one of her siblings, the stronger and more grounded the storytelling.)

I do feel invested in most of these characters, even if it occasionally seems like we’re missing a scene or two tracking their shifting relationship dynamics. Overall I guess I’m frustrated that Shameless isn’t doing more with its potential, but the better parts are rewarding enough to keep me tuned in.

[Content warning for a graphic on-screen suicide attempt, as well as the continued treatment of rape and other violations of consent as either punchline or romantic gesture.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones

Book #108 of 2020:

The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #6)

This last Chrestomanci novel to be published is also the latest within the setting’s chronology and the final volume in author Diana Wynne Jones’s suggested reading order. I don’t know that it completely works as a grand finale for the series — nor if it was intended as such, since it was released only a few years before the writer’s death — but it’s certainly a fun low-stakes adventure to go out on. I like the idea of all these hedge witches secretly practicing their rustic magic right underneath the enchanter’s refined nose, although that would admittedly be a richer development had the earlier books spent more time here at the castle rather than jet-setting around the multiverse.

As usual, we’ve got big squabbling families, peculiar spells, temperamental cats, and children who are tasked with stepping in and sorting things out when the grown-ups aren’t acting responsibly. I’ve enjoyed reencountering these stories as an adult myself, and I’m glad they were a part of my early experiences with the fantasy genre.

This book: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Individual titles ranked: Witch Week > The Lives of Christopher Chant > Charmed Life > The Magicians of Caprona > The Pinhoe Egg > Conrad’s Fate

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TV Review: The Good Wife, season 1

TV #14 of 2020:

The Good Wife, season 1

The first year of this CBS legal procedural starts out a little clumsier than I remember, with a bit too much focus on the title character’s children and some of the main cast feeling just lightly sketched-in. But the cases (and judge personalities, a rarity for this genre) are interesting, and the protagonist’s arc as a housewife returning to her early law career after her adulterous husband’s arrest is compelling right from the start. Then about halfway through, everything else really clicks into place and reminds me of why I love the series overall.

I didn’t write up a full review of this season when I initially watched it in 2015, but here are some thoughts I gushed about on my Tumblr:

“Alicia is such an incredibly well-written character, as is Kalinda, and even Will, Cary, and Diane have moments that make me love them. Peter is still kind of an enigma to me, but I like how much they’ve fleshed out his character since his introduction in the pilot. At first it seems like he’s just an evil schmuck and Alicia should only stay with him for the potential good of her children, but at this point I could see him as at least somewhat wronged by his enemies. I like that he’s not just a soulless political figure like Eli Gold seems to be, and I like that he’s trying to do what’s right for his family now.
Alicia though. SUCH A GIFT. Trying to do everything for her family, putting up with daily reminders from everyone she meets that her husband’s indiscretions are a national news story, and still being, let’s face it, a pretty phenomenal lawyer. Both in her courtroom demeanor and in her research outside of court, that woman is SHARP. And the show just really does a great job of balancing her family life, the legal drama, the office politics at her firm, and everything going on with Peter.”

My only real update to all that is that Eli eventually grows into one of my favorite characters of the lot, although I do think I characterized him fairly in these initial appearances. And his introduction pretty much marks the point when the show figures out exactly what it’s doing and what kinds of stories it wants to tell, so it was a joy on several fronts when I saw him again this time.

I’m not looking forward to those later episodes when the program crumples back into a shell of itself, but I’m glad to find that the awkward intro stage doesn’t last too long on the front end. So for now it’s full steam ahead towards season 5, which I still maintain is one of the finest single runs on television. I can’t wait to watch everything build up to that level once again.

★★★★☆

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Movie Review: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend (2020)

Movie #6 of 2020:

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend (2020)

This new interactive Kimmy Schmidt sequel is a whole lot of fun! It’s not remotely necessary for providing further closure or anything after last year’s series finale, but it also doesn’t seem like it walks back that conclusion at all either. It’s mostly just another wacky adventure with the same amusing characters (plus the continued recognition of trauma and pointed satirical jabs at sexism).

Given the choosable-path nature of the piece, the obvious comparison point would be Netflix’s mindbending Black Mirror special Bandersnatch. But I honestly think that that format works much better here, where the writers use it to cram in alternate jokes and scenes that mostly dead-end before returning the viewer to the ‘correct’ narrative. It feels less experimental and personalized, but also less frustrating as an actual piece of entertainment. We watched it through twice, and are reasonably sure that we saw almost everything.

All in all, I’d say the film is non-essential but pretty delightful. Definitely one to devote a couple hours to, if you enjoyed the absurdities of the original show.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America by Daniel Okrent

Book #107 of 2020:

The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America by Daniel Okrent

A clear and powerful account of the American eugenics and anti-immigration movements of the early twentieth century, and how the two were inextricably linked. Author Daniel Okrent provides a detailed overview of the widespread extent of these ideologies, as well as a step-by-step understanding of how reasonable citizens of the era fell in with the associated pseudoscience. It’s an uncomfortable read due to all the historical bigotry, much of it quoted verbatim in the bluntest of terms, and I’m sure modern readers who don’t think their own views on border restriction are racist will be even more unsettled by the irrefutable connections Okrent presents. (As well they should be.)

My only significant critique is that the book’s discussion of antisemitism never really grapples with the distinctive elements of that prejudice — such as beliefs that Jews control the government, banks, media, etc. — instead framing it largely like any other bias towards some group’s assimilation into the country. Okrent is Jewish like me, so the writer likely has this knowledge, yet by not clarifying and contextualizing how our people in particular have often been seen by the world, it feels as though his audience may miss a key piece of the picture.

Still, this is overall a fine bit of research, impeccably highlighting a lesson from the past that many might wish to forget.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Traitor’s Game by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Book #106 of 2020:

The Traitor’s Game by Jennifer A. Nielsen (The Traitor’s Game #1)

There’s not enough worldbuilding in this YA novel to distinguish the setting from any generic fantasy realm, which makes it harder to track or care about all the opposing factions. Character loyalties also seem pretty easily swayed, which further impedes the grounding necessary for proper reader investment. I’m still waiting on author Jennifer A. Nielsen to recapture the magic that I found so fun in her book The False Prince, and this effort unfortunately falls short of that mark.

★★☆☆☆

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