Unearned happiness

Do you ever get a little bubble-moment of what feels like unearned happiness? When there's no real reason to be happy except that you and everything around you is in its ... beingness?

Today, I was in the car, driving into town via the Western Approach Road. It's usually a quick run through but just today, probably because of the snow (snow!) there was a tailback all the way to Roseburn.

So I crept along in my old Citroen at a snail's pace. I was listening to Radio 3 and Kate Royal was singing one of the Songs of the Auvergne - I knew the music but couldn't think what it was. When the radio announcer said what it was after, I remembered that my granny used to listen to that piece all the time.

The weather was dreary. The sky was matt grey and lightless and there was an icy drizzling snow. But the car was warm.

The Western Approach Road isn't expecially scenic. You pass the brewery and the smell of hops is thick and yeasty. You come off the high part of the road, and pass the back of a big square grey complex that houses Mecca Bingo and Cineworld.

But there's always something.

As I queued to merge into the right lane, I had a few minutes to enjoy the abundance of daffodils on the verges. Daffodils all beaten down by last night's storm but still there and alive. Not exactly William Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud, but still.

Tailback of cars; dismal weather; beaten daffodils; beautiful music.

It was just a few minutes of ordinary transit. But weirdly, I was smiling.

Friday musics: How to get over those bad 80s memories

Make new happy faux-80s memories.

Do it by listening to this wonderful acoustic version of the 80s-tastic Bulletproof by La Roux.

Love this song.

Werewolf worlds

I recently posted on the central relationship in Kelley Armstrong's Bitten. In that post, I said I'd be posting later on the werewolf world created by Armstrong.

I can't say I'm any kind of expert on shapeshifter fiction - I've only a read a small number of shapeshifter books. But I've been struck both by the common threads and by the differences I've observed in the books I've read.

Broadly speaking, the books I've read fall into two camps which, for want of a better term, I'll call utopian and dystopian. I've realised I greatly prefer the latter.

Examples of the utopian type would be Nalini Singh and Mary Janice Davidson (disclaimer - I've only read three books by Singh and one by Davidson so feel free to contradict me). In these series, the shapeshifters are depicted as fundamentally natural, hyper-fit and super-abled, beautiful and successful in material terms. (This is not to say that there is no conflict - in Singh's world, the shapeshifters' society is threatened by external forces but the implication is that without those external threats, life for the shapeshifters would be pretty peachy).

A strong example of the dystopian type would be Mathilde Madden's Silver Werewolves trilogy in which werewolves are depicted as super-abled and hyper-sexual but also as shiftless, unreliable, prone to depression and having a short life expectancy.

Overall, while I found Armstrong's werewolf world much less bleak than Madden's, ultimately I found it more dystopian than utopian. In Bitten, life as a werewolf for Elena means no possibility of children, or of medical care for any wounds she suffers (since werewolves daren't bring themselves to the attention of the authorities), no profound friendships with other women (she is the only female werewolf in the world), a life of periodic violence and a lack of choices.

One of the satisfying things about Bitten is the way we see Elena - who is very negative about her status as a werewolf at the outset of the book - experiencing positive things about being a werewolf (the strong, affectionate ties with her pack, the joy of running) and seeing her contentment grow. At the end of the novel, Elena is becoming reconciled to her situation. We feel she is capable of reaching happiness, even if she's not quite there yet.

I find myself wondering why I so much prefer these bleaker worlds to the super-successful worlds depicted by Singh and Davidson. I think it comes down to a number of things.

Firstly, when I think of the paranormal books I've enjoyed, the paranormal aspects tend to operate almost in a parable-like way. I.e. the magical elements of the book say something about the real world. The thing I've greatly enjoyed in Madden and Armstrong's books is a sense in which this difficult, threatening werewolf world reflects certain aspects of the world we inhabit now. There is a feeling of isolation and in Madden's books this goes further, evoking the feeling of an excluded underclass.

Secondly, there is the question of reader-belief. Frankly, it feels more authentic to me that it would be difficult and troubling to become a werewolf.

Thirdly and lastly, as I've commented many times before, my preferred form of romantic conflict is internal and character-driven. External conflict is less compelling to me. To have the protagonist's very nature be an intrinsic part of the conflict satisfies my demanding reader's soul.

What about you? Do you like shapeshifter/wolf stories? If so, what is their appeal for you? Do you have a preference for the form of the world-building?

On appropriation

Apologies for the lack of linkage in this post.

I recently posted at some length on Tom and Sharon Curtis's Lightning That Lingers, an early 1980s contemporary. Subsequent to that I bought Sunshine and Shadows, another contemporary written by them about a decade later, a single-title length book featuring an Amish widow heroine and a jaded movie director hero. It came highly recommended by Meriam.

Here's the first thing to note. I absolutely loved S&S. It was utterly delightful, and possibly the most sensory book I think I've read since Beast by Judith Ivory. I can't emphasise enough how much I loved and enjoyed it, more even than LTL (which I raved about). I say that to put the following comments in context - these comments are the manner of observations, points of interest; possibly reservations of the most minor sort.

I almost regret making these points. Despite my saying I absolutely loved S&S, inevitably, these comments will detract from that assertion.

Judging by the two Curtis books I've read (and that may not be a fair sample) I'm thinking that the Curtises *thing* is Innocence and Experience. In both books, the experienced hero's view of himself is to some extent one self-loathing and he finds some kind of redemption in the healing, wholesome innocence of the heroine (On a separate but related note, is it just me or are self-loathing heroes getting more commonplace? My current read, One Week As Lovers by Victoria Dahl features one).

In light of that, the casting of the hero (movie director with a disturbing childhood) and heroine (Amish widow) in S&S feels like an supersized version of this idea. As though the authors had thought hard about how they could place their H/H at the most extreme ends of the innocence-experience spectrum.

Overall I enjoyed the depiction of Amish life. It felt well-researched and intimate and it was not entirely one-sided. However, I couldn't ignore that whilst Amish life was not portrayed wholly positively, there was a rosy idealism about it in the book that, to me, over-simplified the life. This depiction didn't have a sense of religious evangelism about it (something I am watchful for in my reading matter). It was more - and I find this difficult to put my finger on - more like a sort of cultural appropriation of the Amish life that made me very slightly uncomfortable; a sort of fetishisation of Amish innocence for the purposes of heightening the extreme positions of the H/H on the innocence-experience spectrum. This was underlined for me by the surprising ease with which the heroine's father relented on a number of matters towards the end of the book. His Amish beliefs didn't 'matter' as much as delivering the right ending. (Well, that's romance, I know.)

My reaction to this aspect of this book (which, again I say, I absolutely loved) made me recall certain pejorative comments I've read about M/M romance, which talk about it as fetishising homosexuality for a largely straight female audience. It also makes me think of some of the comments Sarah Frantz has made about BDSM romance at DA in relation to the fact that many BDSM readers (who do not even dabble in the lifestyle) are not troubled - as Sarah sometimes is - by lack of realism about the lifestyle.

Is it alright - in the context of a romance novel - to appropriate from cultures/ beliefs/ lifestyles in this way, with the purpose of entertaining?

I think it is alright. That view is one I reach easily, because it derives from one of my own most strongly held beliefs: freedom of expression. But yes, I think it can be problematic where the author is insensitive to what they are appropriating.

In S&S, I loved Susan's uber-innocence and there were many clever and satisfying ways in which the authors played with my assumptions - which were also the hero's assumptions at times. They showed me how clever and sly and sophisticated Susan could be in her way. But ultimately, her innocence was an idealised thing that I didn't really believe in, in a way.

S&S certainly wasn't an insensitive appropriation of Amish life. In fact, it was an incredibly thoughtful and careful one. But I knew when I reached the end that what I had enjoyed - so very much - in this book was purest .... fantasy.

Dinner Party of the Century: you choose

Carolyn Crane has a contest to celebrate the release of her novel Mind Games.

I don't do promo or memes on this blog..... UNTIL NOW.

I am making an exception for three reasons:

1. I know that Mind Games is going to be amazing. Don't ask me how. I. Just. Know.

2. It's actually an amusing Meme.

3. It's my blog so I can do whatever I want. Yay! If you no likey, normal promo-free service will resume shortly.

What follows comes from Carolyn's own blog:

Prizes:

First Prize: One randomly chosen player will get $100 toward a fancy dinner at a restaurant of their choice! (Any restaurant anywhere that accepts plastic or sells gift certificates. You don’t have to choose until you win.) Second prize: $50 toward a dinner.

How to play:

Just post the questions, your answers, meme icon and meme game line on social media site li (blog, facebook, livejournal, other).

Below is all you have to put (but make up your own answers! LOL):

1. In MIND GAMES, hypochondriac heroine Justine Jones can’t figure out why tortured mastermind Sterling Packard never sets foot outside the Mongolian Delites restaurant. What if you were somehow trapped in a restaurant, what sort of restaurant would you prefer?

TUMPERKIN ANSWER: classic French bistro

2. What if you won the fancy $100 dinner to a restaurant of your choice, and you could dine with any character from any book, movie, or history. Who would you choose?

TUMPERKIN ANSWER - Bob Dylan in 1966

3. Choose three characters to dine with for a lively dinner party (you can define lively however you want).

TUMPERKIN ANSWER - Charles Darwin, Mary Shelley and George from Seinfeld

Meme Game! Send meme game link by 4/8 to meme@authorcarolyncrane.com to enter. Anyone can play. Details at

www.authorcarolyncrane.com.

Good luck with it.

Friday Music: to a lark

In the manner of a magpie, I will filch some shiny bits for this post.

Birds.

Mr T is something of (by which I mean, a not-serious) birder. Not quite a twitcher and in fact his interest is partly a professional concern, though also a genuine interest and appreciation.

During family walks, Mr T will point out far-off specks or blurs of wings - gone before I see them - and will inform me of the precise species in question. I will sometimes try to reciprocate but every time I point something out, it will always turn out to be a crow or something. Something very ordinary.

But I like being told that this or that bird is a lapwing or a skylark or something equally romantical sounding, even if I don't manage to see it, or distinguish its song. I know that he's tried to show me a skylark - more than once - doing its thing, which, in the case of a skylark is flying high high high to sing its song. Hence the name, I suppose. Skylark.

Percy Shelley famously wrote - Hail to thee, blithe spirit! - his Ode to a Skylark, and described those ecstatic zig-zagging flights of song:

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

And then you get that same attempt to express the same thing through music. Here is a little wee video of one of my very favourite pieces, The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams. Actually, it's not more than a taster and there is some discussion of the piece by the soloist, Akiko Suwanai, but the bits you hear played are just gorgeous. She plays them just beautfully. I like this even better than my Nigel Kennedy version.

The thing I love about this lovely bit of early 20th century impressionistic classical music, is that it has what a birder or twitcher would call, in birding terms, jizz. Jizz, to quote Wikipedia:

... is a term used by birders to describe the overall impression or appearance of a bird garnered from such features as shape, posture, flying style or other habitual movements, size and colouration combined with voice, habitat and location.

Sean Dooley described jizz as "the indefinable quality of a particular species, the 'vibe' it gives off" and notes that although it is "dismissed by many as some kind of birding alchemy, there is some physical basis to the idea of jizz."

When I listen to this piece, the jizz is there and I see the skylark better than when I see.... see the skylark.

The critic in The Times wrote of the first performance of this piece, this lovely sentence:

"It showed supreme disregard for the ways of today or yesterday. It dreamed itself along"

Reflections on Bitten #1: Elena and Clay

I'm not going to review Bitten by Kelly Armstrong.

It must have been reviewed a thousand times and I'm not minded to summarise the plot and all that malarkey. For me, there two things about Bitten I particularly liked and that I want to talk about.

The first thing is the relationship between the heroine Elena, and the 'hero' Clay (though in a sense there is no 'one' hero in this book). This was a complex, wounded relationship that was portrayed in a deeply satisfying way. The second thing I want to talk about is the werewolf world depicted by Armstrong and that will be my next post.

There are spoilers ahead. If you haven't read Bitten, I suggest you don't read this post. It's an excellent book and this commentary will tell you things you won't want to know before reading.

One of the reasons that Elena and Clay's relationship is so compelling is because of the pace at which their history is parsed out. I was learning key things about their history right up to the end of the book.

In Armstrong's world, only males carry the werewolf gene. Men who are born werewolf are taken from their human mothers and brought up by their fathers. Werewolves can also be 'made' if they are (a) bitten and (b) survive, a rare circumstance. Elena is unique. She is a made female werewolf - the only one in the world. She was bitten without knowing what that meant. She did not choose to become a werewolf. Clay is also unique. Most werewolves only 'change' after they are adult. Clay was found as a child-werewolf by the Pack alpha, Jeremy. In Bitten, Clay's early life is shrouded in mystery.

When Bitten begins, Elena is living with her boyfriend, Philip, in Toronto. He doesn't know what she is. She wants to live in the human world and deals with her need to change in secret, hiding her true nature in various ways. Her life seems inadequate with only her hope for a near to normal life lighting it. Elena's relationship with Philip feels permanent and normal.

Elena receives a call from Jeremy asking her to return to Stonehaven, the Pack's headquarters. Gradually, we are introduced to the world that Elena left behind when she went to Toronto. We meet Clay - apparently a jealous ex who has been compulsively awaiting her return. The book wears on and we discover more.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD...

We discover that Clay and Elena have known each other for ten years. That they met before she was bitten and were going to marry. That he was the one who bit her and that she never forgave him. And that for ten years they have had a conflict-driven on and off relationship but a year ago previously she left, intending never to return. This final realisation - along with the growing sense the reader has about the depth and intimacy of Elena and Clay's history - gives the lie to how her relationship with Philip is depicted at the start. We realise that that is a relationship built on shallow foundations and borne out of Elena's flawed notions of what she needs.

It's the patience with which all of this is revealed, and the smartness of the reveals through Elena's first person POV that makes the book - for me - so very successful and the central relationship so fascinating. The way you view both Elena and Clay shifts and shifts again. They are both damaged people with more in common than Elena can see or admit to. Elena craves normality and Clay can't give it to her. He's the most wolflike of all the werewolves with an ingrained disdain for the human world. Towards the end of the novel, Elena has an epiphany and realises that Clay is in fact the only man who can give her what she needs and that her needs existed before she was bitten.

Some may find Clay's single-minded possessiveness off-putting but Armstrong does two important things to lighten what might read as stalkerishness. The first is that he is completely open about his intense feelings for Elena - he loves her and wants her back. There is no moody pride-saving here. The second is that he has the greatest of respect for Elena's abilities and strength. He never seeks to protect her and treats her as a fully equal partner when they work together to solve the mystery at the book's heart. That Elena single-handedly saves the day and then chooses to return to Clay is a fitting conclusion to the book.

This is very much Elena's story. It's in her POV and we see her character arc. We don't really see Clay change or grow in any way. We know that Elena completes him and we know that he wants to win her - but he is already reconciled to that when the book begins - long before that in fact. Elena has to catch up to him and because of that, the first person POV is particularly satisfying.

We already know what 'sort' of book this is when we open it and therefore when we meet Clay, we're prepared for the idea that he is the romantic hero. We guess 'what page he's on' emotionally from the outset and gradually this is confirmed and then affirmed, and with each affirmation, Elena's self-awareness feels as though it's growing. This connection between the character reveals and the sense the reader has of Elena's journey are intimately connected.

Of course, this has made me consider the POV issue again.

Pure romance readers often seem to have a hostility to first person POV (though in this urban fantasy genre it seems pretty prevalent). I'm no expert, but my sense is that the old school romance way was third person fixed POV, the story told solely from the heroine's perspective. At some point, the revolving third person POV, largely (though not exclusively) revolving between the hero and heroine, seems to have become the norm. I must admit that from the perspective of the romance arc, this is my favourite POV form. I like to understand the internal development of both hero and heroine. Generally, however, such romances will depict the growth to love on the part of both H/H. In Bitten, the characters are already in love and the story is more about Elena coming to a point of being able to live with what Clay did to her. In that sense it's not about falling in love (the heady stuff of lyrical romance) but about the triumph of love over adversity.

Any other readers of Bitten out there with thoughts on this?

Jessica RRR's new blog address

...Is here: Read React Review