Lobsters are vermin you eat
We'll start cute and then go dark.
.
We'll start cute and then go dark. Sound good?
It better because, ah, that's what we're doing.
Onward!
083) You're Mom by Liz Climo, finished August 7
Not the same thing, but the vibes match.
one sit
084) Lobster Is the Best Medicine by Liz Climo, finished August 7
A fine little collection of hers. You like it or you don't. I had two laughs but I love the art every page even when I don't find it that funny.
a second sit
085) Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and Leuyen Pham, finished August 12
Let's add this to the list of Gene Luen Yang masterpieces. Even though I come into any teenage-romance story deeply skeptical, I was absolutely won over by this one. It's multiple storylines (all about love, not all about teenage romance) all come together to give me multiple reasons to cry. Even what is essentially a mid-credits sequence for books made me cry, resolving a story that was no longer top of my mine.
Although Yang is a terrific artist himself, he made an excellent choice handing art responsibilities over to Leuyen Pham for this book. At first it was a little disorienting because I associate her so deeply with the Princess in Black and other Shannon Hale collabs, but I got over that soon enough. Her sense of anatomy and gesture and her skill at weaving in the fantastical elements that make many Yang books so intensely felt, create a shared work of wonder that's barely rivaled.
I really think Gene Luen Yang is one of the best writers of our generation and he understands what comics can do. Pham managed to meet him as an equal. This is must-read comics fiction.
at most a week
086) Alma 30–63: A Brief Theological Introduction by Mark A. Wrathall, finished August 18
From the epilogue:
My general perspective is this: Alma's ministry was devoted to attacking background assumptions about the world that distort our relationship to God and to each other. Ironically, the greatest obstacle to understanding Alma's doctrine is the fact that we continue to hold the very assumptions or prejudices he attacks. One of these assumptions is that religious faith is primarily concerned with belief or knowledge—that to stand in the right relationship to God is to believe the right things about God. Another is the idea that I merit or deserve God's mercy as a result of what I do. A third is that God's justice is a form of vengeance.
Alma's experience taught him that these assumptions distort our faith and prevent us from letting Christ's mercy transform our heart.
It's a terrific book. And it opens up both Alma and faith itself.
almost two months
087) The Pearl by John Steinbeck, August 20
 I haven't written about this since I first read it in 2007 but I have read it. At only 90 pages, it doesn't technically qualify for this list, but I rather wished I'd put at least a sentence up each time I read it with a class so I could see any evolving opinions or even just the number of times I read it, which must be over ten but could be over twenty. It's been over ten years since I've read it now. And instead of assigning it to freshmen, to be read together in class, I assigned it to seniors to read on their own the first two days of school. It's an experiment.
Anyway, when I first read The Pearl, my only experience with Steinbeck was Of Mice and Men which has . . . a similar conclusion. And I wondered if Steinbeck was a one-trick. Since then I've read more (I've loved Travels with Charley and East of Eden, and thought Pippin IV was fun.) which may have opened me up to The Pearl in new ways because it doesn't just feel like an easy way to get kids to have opinions anymore. It feels like something I actually care about.
two days
088) The Woman in the Woods and Other North American Stories, finished August 20
Like all the collections I get off Kickstarter, it's hit and miss. Mostly miss, to be honest, but you do find these glimmers of potential and I'm left hoping these folks get more opportunities to grow their craft.
Which I suppose means I should really keep buying these off Kickstarter, but I'm trying to spend less money there. Art needs patronage.
after dinner
089) Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber, finished August 23
First of all, I hated it. I only finished it out of respect for my late neighbor who praised it as one of the two monsters of its era likely to achieve immortality. (The other was Interview with the Vampire.) Perhaps I should have been suspicious as Anne Rice was a friend of his and Fritz Leiber may well have been as well; they were all Bay Area residents, after all.
This novel is so grounded in San Francisco that it can be difficult to tell what is real and what is not. Perhaps it doesn't matter as it is all true within the novel, but since the novel often feels like Leiber would rather have been working on encyclopedia articles, it seems to matter.
It's a difficult novel not to skim. There is VOLUMINOUS exposition, often appearing after the "need" for it has passed. And if a character is worth describing in two-pages of detail once, he'll be worth describing in two-pages of detail again. Even if a full page of other stuff has not passed in the interim.
I suppose I should be grateful that we did, once, get to go a hundred pages without the moon being described as gibbous.
I'm astonished the book was so highly regarded when it appeared, in the late '70s. I suppose that tells us a lot about the era, particularly in contrast with our own. Also, that young women are into middle-aged men. (Even when they like middle-aged women even better.)
What a shame the book is a boring slog, though, because the antepenultimate chapter, when we finally meet the eponymous character, is pretty cool. But even though I saw her appearance coming, it didn't feel justified by the pages that came before. It wish if I could have believed in it, but I had found nothing in this book prior to persuade away my disbelief. She, at least, is a somewhat original monster, compared the the other monster which the book spends way more time worried about.
In short, it sucks. No matter what reviews of the time may claim.
i'll guess three weeks
090) Radiant Vermin by Philip Ridley, finished August 29
I'm on the hunt for a dystopic play that I can read with my AP Lit students while they're all reading dystopian novels in small groups. In other words, a play to read during classtime.
I'm down to four finalists which I am now reading, starting with Radiant Vermin, which is excellent but not right, I don't think. I loved it, I think the conclusion is spectacular, and while issues of greed and classism and euphemism and murder and stuff work well with students (you should read their Pearl papers), the stuff about housing anxiety seems a bit old for 17yrolds. And while the section where the two characters are reenacting a scene involving almost a dozen characters has a payoff in those final pages, I think it would be too confusing to do in class for too many students.
Still. Great play. My gosh, can you imagine walking out after that conclusion?
You can read the opening pages here.
one day