The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

Book #199 of 2019:

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

There are some lovely individual moments in this novel about characters in 1940s Europe evading and resisting the Nazis, but I’m ultimately dissatisfied by the overall shape of the narrative and by how little author Alice Hoffman has developed the various elements of Jewish mysticism that she introduces along the way. (I hesitate to label the story as magical realist, but it certainly fits a tradition of fabulism amidst the mundane within the literature of Judaism.)

Certain individual threads work well, like the female golem a rabbi’s daughter creates to protect a young girl on the journey out of Germany, or the angel of death who appears to people on the verge of their fated hours. But other aspects are too vague to make much of an impact, and the plot is so disjointed that I struggle to feel invested in any particular angle. So although I appreciate the #ownvoices perspective of our common heritage that Hoffman continues to bring to such projects, this book is a real letdown after her exquisite earlier piece of historical fiction The Dovekeepers.

[Content warning for sexual assault of a child as well as historical Holocaust atrocities.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Better Call Saul, season 1

TV #36 of 2019:

Better Call Saul, season 1

This is my first time rewatching this program from the beginning, on the heels of my first time going back through its parent show. And overall, I really think I prefer this one. Breaking Bad is an amazing piece of television storytelling on any number of levels, but its central character is pretty flat from a personal growth perspective. (Complex and interesting, yes. And his situation changes dramatically over the course of the series. But Walter White is fundamentally the same person from earliest flashback through bitter end, a corrosive element that becomes more widely recognized by himself and others without ever altering in any meaningful way.)

Better Call Saul, by contrast, is all about change. And choices. Its own protagonist is actively seeking to be a better person, only for a cruel universe to strike him down for it again and again. There’s great dramatic irony in this being a prequel, since the audience knows Saul Goodman as the jaded figure he’ll be in 2008 when his storyline intersects with White’s. But when we meet him here in 2002, he’s still going by the name Jimmy McGill, and he’s so much more earnest and decent than anyone could have imagined. True, he’s already bending the truth as well as the law, but he continually surprises us with hidden depths and the lengths he’ll go to on behalf of his loved ones and clients.

After all, this is also a story about the grind, about putting an unfathomable amount of effort into a task in the hopes of achieving some sublime reward. That’s true in a macro, thematic sense of the hero’s futile journey toward self-improvement, as well as in the smaller moments of hustle that we get to see him employ. Jimmy is willing to do the work, even while he’s hindered by his own worst impulses and the people like his brother who can’t see beyond his past as a small-time con artist.

I’m giving this debut season a rating of four stars instead of five, but only because I know how the story improves from here and gives its supporting cast more to do. Kim, Mike, and Nacho all have compelling grinds of their own ahead, but they’re largely an afterthought to the Jimmy show for now. His is such an unexpectedly rich piece of characterization that it’s more than capable of sustaining these first ten episodes, but the narrative grows deeper and even more entwined with the original series as the focus shifts to encompass his fellow travelers as well. I can’t wait to see it again with fresh eyes.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

Book #198 of 2019:

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman (The Book of Dust #2)

I hate to foreground the matter in my review, but I think every prospective reader of this much-anticipated His Dark Materials sequel should know that it’s a book in which returning heroine Lyra Silvertongue gets sexually assaulted by a group of soldiers in brutal detail. She’s twenty years old now, but it still feels like a betrayal of authorial trust to write this treatment of a beloved character first introduced to us as a precocious child.

Even before that incident at the 92% mark, I have some issues with how Philip Pullman has approached the new adult Lyra’s story. She has nascent mutual romantic feelings for a man over a decade her senior — who’s known her since she was a baby and first realizes he’s in love when he’s her teacher and she’s sixteen — and seems poised for a love triangle in the next novel involving an enemy alethiometer-user with whom she already shares an odd Rey/Kylo dynamic. And she’s grown up in a Susan Pevensie sort of way, half-convinced that the fantastical adventures of her youth were exaggerated flights of fancy.

All of this suggests that perhaps Pullman has become ill-suited to his protagonist, which is a shame because this second volume of The Book of Dust trilogy is otherwise a major step forward from the forgettable prequel La Belle Sauvage. And plot developments aside, there is a genuine thrill from seeing Lyra and her dæmon Pantalaimon again and discovering what they’ve been up to since the end of The Amber Spyglass. The narrative that takes them away from Jordan College once more is interesting and exciting, and I only wish I could recommend it without all the sour notes.

[Content warning for some implicit homophobia and Islamophobia, in addition to the above.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: His Hideous Heart: 13 of Edgar Allan Poe’s Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler

Book #197 of 2019:

His Hideous Heart: 13 of Edgar Allan Poe’s Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler

I’m rounding up my rating for this collection a little bit on the strength of the original Edgar Allan Poe stories (many of which I’d never read before) that have been included along with their 2019 YA retellings. Still, the contemporary updates are pretty fun, and Tessa Gratton’s “Night-Tide” alone justifies the entire project for its heartbreaking version of “Annabel Lee” as a summer romance between two teenage girls, tragically struck down just as it and they are blossoming. That’s one of several entries that introduce diversity of gender, sexuality, nationality, and/or race into the classic works, a welcome act of representation that unfortunately also casts some marginalized characters as victims, given the macabre subject matter.

Yet overall, this is a quick and spooky read, perfect for introducing younger audiences to Poe. I only wish that each older tale had been presented alongside the newer one that it inspired, instead of having all of the reimaginings at the beginning of the volume and all of their precursors at the end. I wanted to (re)read each Poe item prior to its modernization for the full context and impact, and I had to keep flipping back and forth in order to accomplish that.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell

Book #196 of 2019:

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell

The true story of how an American woman with a prosthetic leg overcame discrimination against her nationality, her gender, and her disability to become a British intelligence agent in Vichy France is downright astounding, but this deep dive into her activities with the resistance movement often struggles to adequately convey the excitement of that career. It’s a well-researched historical account, but somewhat flat and repetitive as a reading experience. Because Virginia Hall was such a private person by both nature and vocation, it’s not always clear how much author Sonia Purnell is reconstructing rather than reporting, either. Still, I’m glad Hall is getting more recognition for her accomplishments, no matter my issues with this particular biography.

[Content warning for graphic descriptions of torture and discussion of concentration camps.]

★★★☆☆

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Movie Review: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

Movie #10 of 2019:

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

It’s an undeniable thrill to see Jesse Pinkman again (along with some other old friends), and both star Aaron Paul and writer/director Vince Gilligan seem to have grown even more adept at depicting the wayward figure’s stoic anguish in the six years since Breaking Bad went off the air. And the story is well told in the Gilligan tradition, offering several new spins on his trademark vision of the crooked Albuquerque underworld.

Yet it never quite feels necessary, as though there were anything further to say about this character or his fate. Picking up in the immediate aftermath of the series finale, the film plays out like an extended deleted scene, presenting a sequence of logistical hurdles that aren’t terribly different from what any reasonable observer could have guessed would happen next.

(I’m reminded of some of the worst indulgences of the Breaking Bad spin-off prequel Better Call Saul — which I generally love, but which can occasionally fall into the trap of simply ticking the boxes of what had to occur in the past rather than telling compelling new stories in that space.)

To put it differently: if the closing scene of El Camino were where its narrative began, and we instead watched some fresh incident in Jesse’s life from that point onward, I don’t think a single viewer would have complained that we don’t know how he got from Breaking Bad to there. The entire arc of this movie is suggested in the final frames of the character in 2013, and actually seeing it play out carries little genuine surprise.

So I liked watching, for the most part. It doesn’t cheapen the original show as some might have feared, and the callbacks will make fans smile throughout. It works as the next chapter of that saga so long as you can ignore the actors’ aging. But I’m truly baffled that anyone involved in making this project thought it was worth the effort.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Book #195 of 2019:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

This is a lovely fantasy debut about portals to other worlds, the power of stories, and the tension between stable stagnation and unpredictable change. The prose is lyrically beautiful in the Laini Taylor fashion, and the plotline of a mixed-race girl in early 20th-century Vermont discovering the titular doors evokes other authors like C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, and Seanan McGuire while still carving out a new style that feels distinctive to writer Alix E. Harrow.

My only criticisms concern an underbaked romantic element and a tendency for the narrative to stall artificially, such as when the heroine forgets she can perform a certain magic or twice has a book confiscated before she can finish learning its secrets. These issues keep me at a distance from the character, although they do improve somewhat once she’s finally off on her adventures and coming into her own as a capable young woman. And despite the unevenness, I would still recommend this novel and call Harrow a clear talent to watch in the future.

[Content warning for racism and sexism directed at the protagonist.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Book #194 of 2019:

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

This is a clarifying read in many ways, and I appreciate author Ibram X. Kendi’s framing of racism as any policy or behavior that maintains or furthers inequity across racial groups. Moving the locus of activism from intention to effect is an important step in enacting meaningful change, as is the careful use of precise definitions that Kendi employs throughout the book. On the other hand, I don’t find all of his arguments convincing (like that capitalism is inherently racist), and I would question how much of his personal journey in arriving at these insights is strictly necessary to have included. I ultimately think this is more of a useful guide for readers who already agree with the writer — and don’t mind a bit of memoir along with their social justice — than a persuasive tract that would sway anyone else.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Book #193 of 2019:

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Debut author Caitlin Starling has delivered a stunning, claustrophobic sci-fi horror novel, the entirety of which is spent in an underground alien cave system with the protagonist locked in a mechanized suit. Her only contact is an evasive handler back on the surface, who withholds key information and takes dangerous liberties with the remote control features of the equipment. As the two women navigate her through the hazardous terrain, they develop an unhealthy codependency and the miner, spiraling into paranoia and potential hallucinations, becomes convinced that there’s someone or something down there with her.

This is a deeply creepy read, and by avoiding the full-throttle surreal madness of a work like Annihilation, it maintains a coherent sense of danger that’s all the more terrifying. The pacing is first steady and then increasingly frantic, and although some of the threats could seem repetitive, the shifts in the characters’ psychology and relationship to one another render each scene more gripping than the last. I love them both, each canonically dark-skinned and queer, and I admire the writer’s skill in being able to tell this story so effectively with such a small cast.

I often complain about a lack of worldbuilding details in speculative fiction, but this book is a perfect example of how with the proper scope, readers don’t need to have everything spelled out for us. There’s a lot that I still don’t know about the broader fictional setting of The Luminous Dead, but not once have I had any difficulty in suspending my disbelief in its internal consistency or felt as though Starling hadn’t considered some key issue. It’s sparse, but in complete service to the genuinely flawless narrative at hand.

[Content warning for body horror and seriously intense claustrophobia.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Book #192 of 2019:

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

This urban fantasy novel feels severely underbaked, like a first draft that was rushed to publication without any editor’s notes. The worldbuilding is vague, and the few details that we get generally arrive via infodump right when they become relevant, rather than threading organically throughout the text. The villain is even more of a cipher, and there are plenty of dangling plot issues that could be justified for the start of a series but are just frustrating in a standalone volume like this.

I’m also pretty confused about the heroine’s love life, which is a fairly central part of the narrative. She has a serious human boyfriend already, and she soon develops an intense relationship with a vampire that generates no discussion on anyone’s part about jealousy or fidelity or guilt or open arrangements. If the overall work were stronger I might suspect some sort of radical statement in this, but given the messiness of everything else it mostly comes across as an oversight instead. And although the book predates Twilight by a couple of years, it shares with that franchise the romanticizing of unhealthy behaviors like secretly watching a prospective partner while they sleep and manfully repressing the desire to attack them.

There’s sporadic potential to the story that could have been polished into something better, but I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed it as a finished product.

★★☆☆☆

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