I really enjoyed reading Elatsoe last year and this was a bit more challenging for me, a lot of world building to maintain two storylines in two worldI really enjoyed reading Elatsoe last year and this was a bit more challenging for me, a lot of world building to maintain two storylines in two worlds - one is our world but with ever increasing climate change based disaster looming; the other is a world where animals easily shift into human form and occasionally can travel to our world. Anna is a young human trying to make sense of her great grandmother's deathbed recordings and Oli is a snake kicked out of the nest and trying to survive along a river.
Darcie Little Badger writes from her influences - Lipan Apache background and the education of an Earth Scientist - both worlds are present here.
I read this because the Book Cougars picked it for their first readalong of 2022....more
I'm so glad I finally read this book for the Book Cougars/Reading Envy joint readalong. If you only read one science or nature book this year, this coI'm so glad I finally read this book for the Book Cougars/Reading Envy joint readalong. If you only read one science or nature book this year, this comes with my highest recommendations. We will discuss it more soon on their podcast and in the meantime I'll try to gather my thoughts!
If anything I wish I could have read it more slowly.......more
I've had this book on my shelves a few years but it took being stuck at home and a Book Cougars readalong to get me to read it. Translated from the GeI've had this book on my shelves a few years but it took being stuck at home and a Book Cougars readalong to get me to read it. Translated from the German, it's the story of Richard, a retired academic living in Berlin who encounters refugees and starts to learn about the complexity of issues and bureaucracy surrounding refugees in Germany. He is trying to help, or wants to, but is ill equipped.
I must admit that while Richard as narrator can "explain" the issues better to the reader, it felt wrong to be yet another person witnessing the frustrations and dehumanizing treatment from afar, even as a reader. The author does a good job in showing the systemic inadequacies and the way nobody will take control and fix the problems (you first, right) and how these problems play out specifically in Europe with its country-specific placement and quotas that further serve to perpetuate the trauma for people who have been displaced already at least once, usually more. The author refers to this as "asylum fraud" and I don't think she's wrong.
The author also unveils, through Richard and his circle of friends, how people who on paper believe in their country welcoming people who are displaced, are not actually willing to do anything to help those that are in their neighborhoods. In this story in particular, the men from various countries are not allowed to work while being shamed for not working, have their mobility controlled by bureaucracy without access to translation for navigating the system, and the only people who seem to benefit are Berliners who have jobs created to manage these processes. We only know portions of the stories, not the whole stories, and that is really a shame.
I'm not sure it's a hopeful book. But I look forward to future discussion....more
When I saw this was the next book for the BookCougars readalong, I knew it was the push I needed. It is quite a bit different from Flights by the sameWhen I saw this was the next book for the BookCougars readalong, I knew it was the push I needed. It is quite a bit different from Flights by the same author, which was fragmentary and not so linear. Drive Your Plow is about an older woman in Poland who helps a neighbor with another neighbor who has died, and gets swept up in what might be a crime spree or might be the animals taking revenge. I also love how some things happen in a sentence, blink and you could miss them, like the time she goes to bed with the beetle scientist.
Olga Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2018. Flights, translated by Jennifer Croft, won the Man Booker International Prize. Interestingly this book has a theme of translation in the quieter parts, as the protagonist works with William Blake's poetry. ...more
Jenny (Reading Envy)
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