Jo Walton ([info]papersky) wrote,
@ 2007-09-01 15:38:00
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Assorted update
It's starting to be autumn. Some of the trees look faded, as if they'd been left out in the sun too long, and some of them are just starting to turn at the edges. We haven't had any frost yet, and indeed there were a couple of days this week that were too hot, but there's starting to be that something cold is breathing on my shoulder feeling.

I'm very pleased with the Hugo results. Yay [info]pnh! Yay [info]gerisullivan! Yay [info]ianmcdonald! And go Robert Reed, who I don't know at all but who is one of my very favourite writers at short length. It's great to see him getting some recognition. Yay Vernor Vinge! Also, interesting to see that Farthing was joint sixth (with Karl Schoeder's brilliant Sun of Suns) out of five on the nomination ballot -- close only counts with fragmentation weapons, and this is probably as close as I'll ever come, but it's nifty anyway.

Farthing review. Interesting thoughts on alt-history being historical fanfic. I think it can be, and I think when it is is when I'm most uncomfortable with it -- I'm very uncomfortable about using real people, and mostly don't.

I've been rushing around all week sorting things out for the Farthing Party, and there's still tons to do. The program is done, but needs a few changes and reprinting, and then actual printing. Badges need doing. The restaurant guide needs formatting and printing. People start arriving Tuesday. Lots of people start arriving Thursday. I'm looking forward to it, but first, I need to get everything organized.

This week's very assorted reading: Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy, Melissa Scott Night Sky Mine, Michael Chabon The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Ellen Kushner Privilege of the Sword (re-read). As a week's assorted reading goes, I can recommend all of it highly, individually or in combination.

Writing: zilch, except some bits of the great-aunt story. But I know how I'm going to fix the end of Half a Crown, when I have peace and quiet to work on it, and actually, that is progress, if somewhat intangible progress.

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[info]kythiaranos
2007-09-01 08:09 pm UTC (link)
What did you think of The Yiddish Policeman's Union? I've got it from the library this week, and I'm wondering if I should make it a priority in the To Read pile.

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[info]papersky
2007-09-01 08:21 pm UTC (link)
I thought it was brilliant, wonderful writing, very knotty plotting, gorgeous prose, and generally the sort of thing that makes me wish I was half that clever. I admire it greatly.

And talking about libraries, I was the first person in the Grande Biblotheque to get it. I just happened to walk in the instant they were putting it on the shelf.

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[info]xiphias
2007-09-01 09:25 pm UTC (link)
I was thinking that it would be an interesting discussion to have about similarities and differences between Yiddish Policeman's Union and Farthing. Had I thought of this a few months back, I would have suggested it for a Farthingcon panel; as it is, I am certainly not doing so.

But they are both alternate histories involving changes in what happens to the Jews over the 20th century, having the outward forms of specific mystery subgenres.

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[info]xiphias
2007-09-01 09:26 pm UTC (link)
. . . there are a few other similarities in plot elements, although to get into them would be spoilers for one or both books.

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[info]papersky
2007-09-01 10:09 pm UTC (link)
You could certainly bring it up at the "Issues" panel. Incidentally, you know why that panel's called that? Adrian wanted to have one last year on "Jewish issues in Farthing". I said there weren't any Jewish issues, what Jewish issues, I'd deliberately kept away from Jewish issues for reasons that would be obvious to anyone who read the seder thread here. And she said oh, the Holocaust, you know? And I said that isn't a Jewish issue, that's a universal human issue, because if you define it as a Jewish issue that's like defining rape as being a female issue. Of course, that's even more interesting as a contrast to YPU, which is one of the most Jewish books I've ever read. It even has the red cow.

Incidentally, I kind of read it because people were making that comparison. Actually, I read two brilliant books this year that I probably wouldn't have read without people comparing Farthing to them, The Yiddish Policeman's Union and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Funny everyone writing books like that these days, you'd think there was some reason for it, maybe?

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[info]adrian_turtle
2007-09-02 05:52 pm UTC (link)
I remember talking about it before I even knew there was going to be a Farthing-con last year, when I was just thinking in terms of my newly-extended family and their Jewish women's book clubs.
http://adrian-turtle.livejournal.com/38137.html
(Warning: post contains spoilers for the Sarantine Mosaic.)

>And I said that isn't a Jewish issue, that's a universal human issue, because if you define it as a Jewish issue that's like defining rape as being a female issue.

Women aren't the only victims of rape, but women are raped much more often than men. This gives women a particular, personal, interest in stopping rape. Most men who want to prevent rape have indirect motives; they are concerned with social justice in general, or they want to protect women they care about. Most women doing the same work have those motives as well as the direct personal fear of being raped. It's not *just* a female issue, but it can be both universally human and particularly female.

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[info]papersky
2007-09-02 07:24 pm UTC (link)
Women are overwhelmingly the victims, and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators. If you make something a problem the victims have and talk about and discuss alone, the perpetrators don't ever have to think about it and can shut it into some box marked "Not to do with me".

"I could have been sent off to die" is a mostly Jewish issue. "Could I have sent someone off to die?" is a universal human issue.

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[info]elianarus
2007-09-04 04:12 am UTC (link)
My first response to this was: *yes!!* ...and I immediately copied it off into a collection of favorite quotes, because something that spot-on, that gives such chills has to be squirreled away and hoarded.

My second response is that, powerful though it is, and despite the big-picture truth it represents, is that it misses the other truth: that life/society *doesn't* force the perpetrators to confront the issues, but it does force the victims (actual and potential) to do so.

And, more than tangentially related to that: have you read Cheryl Benard's "Turning on the Girls" ? http://www.amazon.com/Turning-Girls-Cheryl-Benard/dp/0743442911/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1550697-0334238?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188878814&sr=1-1
a flawed, but intriguing book... sort of a Herland for the the modern day, but a bit less of a soapbox.

Eliana

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[info]papersky
2007-09-04 03:30 pm UTC (link)
You're absolutely right. Life forces only the victims to confront the problem. This is in itself a problem. When people ask me what Farthing is about, I say it's about why good people do evil things. Or sometimes, I say it's about why we do.

I haven't read the Benard. I'll look out for it. Thank you.

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[info]aquila1nz
2007-09-03 12:06 am UTC (link)
I read Never Let Me Go last week, without having any idea about what it was about before I read it ( which is how I hope to have my mother read Farthing when my copy finally arrives (Amazon says it has shipped - yay!)). I did think of Farthing as I read it, though the approaches are very different. And afterwards I kept finding reviews describing it as Near Future which drove me nuts. Were they not reading the same book as me? Those kids were at school in the 80s, add 2 years and 12 years and it's set now at the very very latest, just not our Now.

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[info]papersky
2007-09-04 03:35 pm UTC (link)
Exactly. It's definitely an alternate now.

The way I thought it resembled Farthing was in using the language of privilege to talk about something else entirely. Which is, well, unusual, and nifty, and in Never Let Me Go at least it's very effective in sneaking something up on you.

I have since read the complete works of Ishiguro and he's one of my new favourite writers.

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[info]mjlayman
2007-09-02 01:37 am UTC (link)
Publishers Weekly review of Ha'penny. Faster to scroll up from the bottom than to scroll down.

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[info]purplecthulhu
2007-09-02 08:38 am UTC (link)
Looks like I might be headed to Montreal in 2009! That would be a really big Farthing party!

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[info]antonia_tiger
2007-09-02 09:16 am UTC (link)
The fairy Godtigger bounces in, waves her tail, and showers the assembled multitudes with sparklies. "Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!"

Omnes: But we want to go to the Worldcon!

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[info]purplecthulhu
2007-09-02 09:21 am UTC (link)
There's a long tradition of associated events pre and post Worldcon...

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[info]bunsen_h
2007-09-02 10:48 pm UTC (link)
I finally read Farthing over the last few days. (I'd been waiting until I felt in the mood for something which I'd generally seen described as gripping but depressing.)

I enjoyed it. But... wow, that ending is bitter. I think (and hope) that you won't be offended by my thinking that it reminded me somewhat of the endings of a couple of stories by Mike Ford.

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[info]papersky
2007-09-04 03:39 pm UTC (link)
I'm flattered. I have no idea what you're talking about specifically, but I'm flattered just by the comparison.

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