The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

TV Review: Gilmore Girls, season 5

TV #30 of 2023:

Gilmore Girls, season 5

This is kind of a weird season of television! I’m not sure if I ever noticed before this rewatch, but this does seem to be the point where the series starts running out of ideas, making some choices that don’t feel especially true to the established characters and others that are clear repeats of the past, to predictably diminishing returns. Richard and Emily begin in a prolonged fight, but since the Jason Stiles subplot that was the catalyst to that last year has been unceremoniously dropped, there’s no real further discussion of why they’re continuing to squabble, even though they do. Meanwhile, Rory is likewise fighting with Lorelei over the subject of her renewed relationship with the sullen Dean, who’s by now married to someone else and (unsurprisingly) still no more appealing as a romantic option for his ex. It’s the first of many odd choices the Yale sophomore will make in this run.

In other developments, Lorelei and Luke are now dating, which is great payoff for their long-standing flirtatious dynamic. Except then her parents, who have previously limited themselves to arch comments about her love life, take it upon themselves to break up the happy couple — and Luke allows it, despite plainly not caring for their opinions, revealing on an earlier date that he’s carried a torch for Lorelei the whole time he’s known her, and promising her that he’s seriously committed to making things work now that they’re together. In light of that context, the breakup feels like simple arbitrary drama, particularly when the pair ultimately reconcile a few episodes later.

Rory’s own next romance reads as somewhat groundless too, for while I like Logan in the eventual boyfriend role, he’s a smug jerk throwing his money around the first few times they meet, and neither the writing nor the acting sells Rory’s attraction well enough to mitigate that negative impression for me. It’s also pretty silly that a) his family interprets a girlfriend of a week as a marriage prospect, and b) they reject Rory, a fellow Yale student and grandchild of their high-society friends, so forcefully. It’s more empty melodrama that’s hard to take at face-value, especially coming after Richard Gilmore earlier in the season helped Rory play a prank on Logan to suggest the families truly were in courtship talks.

In a similar vein, Mitchum Huntzberger negging the girl in his workplace evaluation is abrupt and mean-spirited, and while it’s not clear whether he means it as genuine professional feedback or as another effort to steer her out of his son’s life, it’s patently obvious to the viewer that his comments are wrong. We’ve seen Rory thrive and meet all manner of challenges for five years now, and just this season we’ve witnessed her grow in competence and confidence from her timid arrival at the newspaper to an integrated intern teammate in a few short weeks. It’s difficult to see Mitchum’s dismissive view of her journalism skills as remotely legitimate, which also makes it tough to accept that Rory ever could — let alone to make sense of her disastrous final choices here.

Elsewhere Paris starts dating Doyle, which seems reasonable, and Lane starts dating her roommate / bandmate Zach, which…. does not. The intended trajectory of Lane’s love life got messed up by her previous beau’s actor leaving for a different show, and the attempt to graft whatever that would have become onto his friend who’s still around reads as a desperate stretch to keep Rory’s nominal bestie still relevant to the plot despite the distance between Stars Hollow and Yale. Like many elements this year, it’s effective enough in the moment to fill out the weekly 45 minutes, but not entirely satisfying from a bigger-picture perspective.

[Content warning for transphobia.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not) by José Rizal

Book #79 of 2023:

Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not) by José Rizal

By sheer coincidence, I finished reading this title on the Philippines’ Independence Day, exactly 125 years since that nation’s revolutionaries declared its freedom from Spain. That’s rather fitting, as the 1887 novel in some ways seems to have inspired their movement against the colonial authorities, via its depicting the corruption of the Spanish ruling class, the hypocrisy of the contemporary Catholic priesthood, and the general plight of the Filipino people under them. Originally published in Germany, the text was swiftly banned in the land where it’s set, but bootleg versions flourished, helping to bring both domestic and international attention to the situation in the Philippines and articulate a resistance ideology. While author José Rizal himself would be executed by firing squad in the midst of the ensuing revolution, dying a martyr at age 35, his writing lives on and is celebrated today as one of the major works of his homeland.

As for the story itself, it holds up pretty well even so far removed from its original time and place! The last hundred pages or so is where it really settles into its role as a blisteringly revolutionary tract, with emotional denunciations that speak to the unique abuses of the local rulers and their lawless police force yet resonate with any similar societal injustice as well. And even before this stage, we can trace the rising tensions in the plot, while also being entertained by the writer’s playful satirical touch. With a wit rivaling Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Rizal paints droll scenarios for his colorful characters, from a Spanish hospital porter who passes himself off as a skilled doctor in the colony by charging more than any genuine practitioner, to a priest who takes confessions in Tagalog without ever bothering to learn the language. At one point, after a fishing expedition has encountered and narrowly killed an angry crocodile, one member fears that their misfortune has come about because they left early that morning and thereby skipped attending mass. Another drily notes that the animal was even more unlucky — which stands to reason, since “Of all the crocodiles who frequent the church, I’ve never seen him among them.”

The humor in the book gradually bleeds away into the pointed political commentary, and with a modern critical eye, I might wish for that transition to happen quicker and for a general tightening-up of a few digressive subplots that pad out the narrative unnecessarily. But overall, I have really enjoyed this read and appreciate a friend bringing it to my attention, given its seeming obscurity here in America.

[Content warning for gun violence, racism, domestic abuse, rape, torture, and gore.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: Clariel by Garth Nix

Book #78 of 2023:

Clariel by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #4)

I like a lot of things about this Old Kingdom prequel, but it’s objectively a pretty disjointed novel. The first two-thirds paint a fascinating picture of the setting as we’ve never seen it, both by virtue of being so far in the past — six hundred years before the start of the original book Sabriel, as per an introductory author’s note — and by being firmly rooted in Old Kingdom cultural life, when previous protagonists in this series have all been outsiders to the land in one way or another. In addition, we find the country in a newly precarious state, full of political scheming and growing unrest against the corrupt and decadent upper class. Even those representatives of the magical Charter are surprisingly toothless compared to the heroes we know will be their eventual successors: the grieving king has effectively withdrawn from ruling, creating an unstable power vacuum that villains conspire to fill, and the legendary Abhorsen has shirked his own hereditary duties to the extent that he views the name as an empty title.

Against that backdrop, a sullen teen arrives in the capital city and finds herself unwittingly drawn into becoming a pawn in the various intrigues. She’s scrambling to get a read on the situation collapsing around her and to claw together some shred of personal agency for herself, whilst wanting nothing more than to retreat back to her former home and train to be a simple forest warden. It feels very much of a common flavor with Game of Thrones, particularly the moment early in that other fantasy saga when young Arya Stark witnesses the Lannister treachery against her father and is forced on the run.

The last section of the plot, however, transitions to Clariel’s time at the Abhorsen’s House, where the creature Mogget (less faithfully bound to service than we’ve seen him before) gradually lures her into embracing the awful power of Free Magic that he represents. This part is a tragedy of sorts, although it plays off no particular tragic flaw in the title character beyond youthful naivety, and author Garth Nix never really resolves the thematic questions he raises about whether the girl’s yearning for social isolation is antithetical to the knitting of Charter Magic / naturally aligns her with Mogget and his ilk. The very ending also seems a bit rushed, with several promising subplots reduced to a final flurry of quick exposition.

The bigger issue, of course, is how a reader is supposed to grapple with Clariel’s future identity as a previously-seen antagonist of a different name, which is hinted at throughout the text (and in its original subtitle of The Lost Abhorsen) and then matter-of-factly acknowledged via postscript. I don’t think this book works too well as an explanation for her downfall, and the story definitely feels incomplete where it leaves off, even given the further pieces revealed in the next novel, Goldenhand. Clariel’s ultimate villainy and steps in that direction here moreover muddy the optics of her asexuality, which is a fairly prominent aspect of her characterization. I’m not sure Nix means to imply a connection between her not feeling sexual attraction and being susceptible to wickedness, but, well, I’m not certain that he doesn’t, either. That’s the problem.

All in all it’s a mixed bag of a book, and while I started this reread and even this review expecting I’d give it a four-star rating, writing out the thoughts above has clarified (pun intended) my reaction considerably. I’d maintain that the volume has its share of strengths, but those are unfortunately balanced out by some genuine issues across the board.

[Content warning for gore.]

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Star Trek: Enterprise, season 3

TV #29 of 2023:

Star Trek: Enterprise, season 3

Credit where credit’s due: this season is a solid step up in quality for what’s previously been the weakest iteration of Star Trek to date. It’s still not a total success story, but this run makes a lot of smart choices to shake up its formerly lackluster status quo. Let’s go through them, one at a time.

First: a proper sense of mission for the crew and a true ongoing serialized plot. The surprise attack against earth in the previous finale already carried significant 9/11 vibes, and this year finds the program doubling down on the parallel as the Enterprise hunts for answers and takes the fight to the new enemy, who’s building an even bigger weapon to destroy the planet completely. It’s a somewhat uncomfortable allegory, but a welcome change from the days of Archer puttering aimlessly around the galaxy, and in the last string of episodes I would say that the show even approaches Deep Space Nine levels of dramatic serialization. Well done!

There’s also both a new romance among the main cast and the addition of a military presence of soldiers on-board, each of which alters the usual dynamics and gives rise to different possibilities for episodic subplots. Similarly, the Enterprise’s quest brings it into a region of space riddled with strange alien artifacts and ‘spatial anomalies’ that cause widespread damage to the ship, which likewise allows for some distinct new challenges as the larger story unfolds.

As for the weaknesses, well, none of the above is necessarily all that engaging, and the eventual revelation linking the Xindi to the transdimensional sphere-builders seems far too pat. We also don’t get a great sense of personality from any of the recurring adversaries outside of Degra and the returning Andorian played by Jeffrey Combs, and the worldbuilding behind the various Xindi factions is too surface-level to register as particularly meaningful. Scott Bakula and the others do their best with all the dry exposition about needing to sway three of five council votes or whatever, but it’s hard to get worked up about any of it absent a more emotional character-based connection to the drama.

I’ll also mention that the seriousness is severely compromised by the start of every hour cutting from a moment of high tension to that awful theme song, an effect that’s been made even worse now via the introduction of a jaunty riff to the affair. Whose idea was that?? It’s a minor issue, but it does launch each episode with the exact wrong energy for the steadily-deepening plot.

[Content warning for racism, gun violence, and torture.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Double Sin and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

Book #77 of 2023:

Double Sin and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

An odd little collection, published in 1961 (and then only in the US) but including stories from as far back as 1925. Three of the eight entries had even been previously released in other Agatha Christie volumes — “The Last Seance” in 1933’s The Hound of Death; “The Theft of the Royal Ruby” and “Greenshaw’s Folly” in 1960’s The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding — which results in a rather repetitive read for anyone making their way through the author’s body of work. The assortment is also somewhat eclectic, containing four mysteries solved by Hercule Poirot, two by Miss Jane Marple, and two that turn out to not be mysteries at all, but rather spooky tales of the genuine supernatural with nary a detective in sight. Some of these are fun, but even the better ones tend to lean hard on coincidence, which is not this writer’s strongest tool. It’s not a bad sampler introduction to her style, though.

[Content warning for gun violence, racism, and gaslighting.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis, LPC

Book #76 of 2023:

How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis, LPC

Probably the best self-help book I’ve ever read, and all the more so for its short length, with author KC Davis evincing none of that genre’s usual need to belabor her points ad nauseum just to beef up the page count. As a licensed therapist with significant disclosed mental health issues herself, she instead presents readers with a straightforward yet radical new paradigm for thinking about our regular chores — which she refers to as care tasks, applying to upkeep of either one’s household or one’s physical body — in a way that’s compassionate, morally neutral, and utterly free of shame.

If you’re the sort of person who believes in a ‘tough love’ approach to motivate either yourself or others, this might not be the right book for you! (Although I hope you’d still consider it with an open mind.) For the rest of us, it’s a truly kind reminder that your living space is there to serve you rather than the other way around, that even minimal progress on a to-do item is better than a paralysis of executive functioning that keeps you from starting the activity at all, and that rest is a vital human requirement like any other. Most striking for me is the idea that taking any of those maintenance actions is a gift you can bestow on your future self — but also that you can always choose not to do so in the moment, if that’s what your present self needs more.

Davis includes commentary on how privilege can intersect with these topics, from gender inequity in expectations / share of household duties, to the greater social pressures in some marginalized communities to maintain appearances, to the negative response behaviors that can become associated with particular tasks due to one’s personal history of trauma. Above all, she stresses: you are not lazy for struggling with things that (seem to) come easily for others. And you can find strategies for handling those things in your own way without having to feel like you’re drowning.

It’s a lesson I expect to resonate with me for quite some time to come.

★★★★★

Book Review: Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire

Book #75 of 2023:

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #8)

Four-and-a-half stars, rounded up. My previous ratings for this fantasy novella series have ranged from two stars (#6) to four stars (#1, #2, and #3), and this is easily the finest of the lot to date. If you aren’t familiar, the overall premise of the franchise concerns children who discover Narnia-style portals to other worlds and return from the experience forever changed. But the stories are fairly discrete from one another, and this volume stands just fine on its own.

Here, the girl who slips away has good reason to. The first third of the book before she finds her mystic door is excellent but just brutal to read, with heavy themes of domestic abuse and the steady erosion of that sense of security that any child rightfully deserves. She’s five years old when her father dies in front of her, and when her mother remarries a year later, her new stepdad proves to be a gaslighting tyrant who undermines her relationship with her mom at every turn. He doesn’t quite assault her physically, but he walks right up to that line, and there’s a definite atmosphere of sexualized grooming to it, as author Seanan McGuire warns in an introductory note. It’s harrowing to observe, especially given the character perspective of a little kid who’s increasingly frantic over the situation but doesn’t have the ability to understand or express why.

Anyway. Eventually she finds her way into a different dimension, and that’s the weakest part of the story for me. Her idyllic adventures there in a shop that stores up all lost things are fine but nothing special, beyond some ominous indications of a possible darker underbelly to the business. It’s only when that revelation finally arrives that the plot regains its grip on me, turning into a rather brilliant metaphorical exploration of both the cycle of abuse and how the lingering trauma of surviving such an ordeal can make a person feel like they’ve had to grow up before their time. When the heroine rejects that path and speaks up for herself against certain people who have betrayed her trust, it’s a wonderfully cathartic moment.

So a great beginning and ending, with a somewhat looser section linking the two. It’s still, as I’ve said, the best of the Wayward Children books yet.

★★★★★

Book Review: My Darkest Prayer by S. A. Cosby

Book #74 of 2023:

My Darkest Prayer by S. A. Cosby

I went back to read this 2019 debut novel on the strength of author S. A. Cosby’s later works Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears, and I can confirm that his talent for immersive storytelling is already apparent here. It’s another crime thriller / southern noir, in which an unconventional investigator digs into a local mystery, gets impressively bloodied by the various factions he riles up, and deals back his own damage twice as hard. I once saw someone refer to Cosby as the Black Elmore Leonard, and that’s honestly not too far off the mark!

On the other hand, there are some definite weaknesses in this earlier text, like a reliance on character archetypes he’d subsequently learn to either skew or avoid altogether. The romantic interest feels particularly egregious in this regard, as a literal porn star who falls for the protagonist immediately and assures him that he’s better in bed than anyone she’s ever been with before. (Sex workers of course deserve love stories just like everyone else, but this femme fatale seems less like an attempt at representation and more like a juvenile bit of wish fulfillment for the writer’s stand-in.) The plot is also fairly straightforward, again using familiar pieces very well but never quite elevating them into something distinctive. Still, it’s a first book with a lot of promise, and I’m delighted the author has now fully grown into that.

[Content warning for racism including slurs, gun violence, torture, child rape, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: It’s OK to Be Angry about Capitalism by Bernie Sanders

Book #73 of 2023:

It’s OK to Be Angry about Capitalism by Bernie Sanders

This new release is the third book I’ve read from Senator Bernie Sanders, following 2016’s Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In and 2018’s Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance. If that first title laid out the author’s political philosophy of modern democratic socialism in the wake of his surprisingly strong but ultimately unsuccessful presidential primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, and the second one made the case for his renewed 2020 run, it’s not immediately clear what the point of this next volume is. (It’s possible Sanders will throw his hat into the ring for president again, in which case a political book would be a standard early move, but the text itself gives no indication of that. His Senate seat is up for re-election in 2024, so perhaps he’s just laying the groundwork for that statewide race.)

From the name of it, I would have expected this publication to be more of a narrow diatribe against the victimization and inequality allowed to fester under an unchecked capitalistic society, but as before, it’s more of a split between the latest iteration of the politician’s overall stump speech calling for various progressive reforms — which admittedly encompasses those themes — and a touting of his own record in advancing that agenda, in this case with a focus on the 2020 primary season, his efforts to both support Joe Biden and push him leftward after losing out on the Democratic Party nomination to that more moderate rival, and the Biden presidency to date. There are no big revelations here for anyone who followed the news over that span — again raising the question of this book’s intended audience — but I suppose it’s an interesting play-by-play recap if you didn’t know / forgot Bernie’s role in all that.

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Seinfeld, season 1

TV #28 of 2023:

Seinfeld, season 1

This classic 90s sitcom gets off to a bit of a rough start — the first season is made up of only five episodes, the pilot of which feels particularly unfinished, with no Elaine, a misnamed Kramer, and a somewhat backwards George-and-Jerry dynamic. Even after that, these early installments are both using too much of the star’s standup material and struggling to incorporate its topics into the primary plot of the day.

The show has also become a strange time capsule, in ways both good and bad. On the downside: lots of hackneyed jokes about the stereotypical supposed differences between men and women, and a rather white cast for a series set in NYC (although I suppose the implicit Jewishness of the main characters and the overall tone of the writing is a nice piece of representation, especially for the era). On the upside, it’s a fascinating viewpoint into a now-bygone world without social media or cell phones, which has a direct impact on how events in any given episode play out differently than they would today. Because this is a program so obsessed with minutiae and rambling conversations that wind up fussing over such mundane details, we get a lot of that sort of slice-of-life focus that isn’t always as present in other series from the same period.

The pieces are generally here for the powerhouse comedy that the title would become, but the storytelling isn’t quite clicking into gear yet, particularly when it comes to incorporating Kramer into everything else. We also haven’t seen any recurring guest stars or other signs of serialization / worldbuilding at this stage — and yes, I know that co-creator Larry David famously mandated that there would be no learning or growing for Jerry and his friends. But he also called this a show about nothing, and it’s already clear that that’s not entirely accurate either. So I am expecting some minor continuity to help strengthen the affair at some point, in addition to a tighter plot engine and more memorable quotes all-around.

★★★☆☆