All posts by Clio

100 Pages a Day: The Hurricane Party Part Two

The Hurricane Party Klas Ostergren

Part OnePart Three

Pages 98 – 198, this section really picks up steam and gets to the heart of the story.

Earlier in the book, when Hanck’s mother dies, her last words are “He will be a chef!”  She utters this before Hanck even met Toby’s mother.

Toby is described as sensitive and builds imaginary worlds, happily playing alone.  As he grows, he begins to show talent in the kitchen and takes over the cooking duties.  As he approaches adulthood, his skills become honed enough that he begins to work as a chef in higher end restaurants, from which he brings left over food and wine to share with his father.

Once a year, The Clan holds an enormous dinner party on one of the islands of the archipelago.  Toby leaves home and begins working at the inn which hosts this party and becomes a chef of great acclaim.

Hanck is again visited by two men dressed in lavender.  These communicators tell him that his son has died, at the age of 20.  As he progresses through the stages of grieving, Hanck wanders the pleasure district in search of something to dull his ache.

Finally, Hanck decides to confront the people who killed his son, and gets a ticket on the ferry which takes him to the inn on the farthest island in the archipelago.

One of the nine sisters who manage the inn arranges to meet Hanck in the library and tells him the story of Toby’s (known as Fimafeng to those he worked with) death.  Bora tells Hanck that Loki killed Toby because he sneezed.  That Toby didn’t have the sense to cover his face, or excuse himself after he sneezed.  He stood with a beatific grin on his face and Loki took offense and killed Toby.

Remember Toby’s mother was from the sect called The Sneezers, which explains the beatific look.  As Bora continues the tale, it becomes clear Loki was spoiling for a fight, his ego couldn’t handle all the other gods heaping praise on Fimafeng.

Now comes the retelling of the Norse story of Lokasenna.  The Clan is the clan of Norse gods who meet once a year for an all out bacchanalia (to mix mythic metaphors).  In the tale of Lokasenna, Loki is banned from the banquet by the gods after having killed Fimafeng.  But he returns and begins insulting everyone present.  Many respond in kind, and tensions escalate.  Odin strains to keep the peace as Loki tells tales of outlandish sexual situations, stories that should have remained unspoken.

Hanck has checked in for some unimaginable excitement as he learns of how Toby died, and the political wrangling going on between the members of The Clan.  Infuriated grief-stricken father, meet narcissistic trickster god who has angered all the other gods of The Clan.

 

100 Pages a Day: The Hurricane Party Part One

The Hurricane Party Klas Ostergren

Part TwoPart Three

After reading Margaret Atwood’s wonderful retelling of the myth of Penelope and Odysseus, The Penelopiad, I discovered there’s an entire series planned by Canongate, featuring global writers retelling myths.

The Hurricane Party, written by Klas Östergren is part of the Myths series.

In pages 1 through 98, 1984 has reared its ugly head in Sweden.  The cities are bleak, the administrative bureaucracy is being run by a fearsome organization called The Clan.

The book opens with a description of listening to organ music on the radio.  It took a while to understand it’s just the notes.  A note could be broadcast for days or weeks with no change.  An entire cottage industry has grown around gambling on when the note will change and to what.

Hanck Örn used to work for an insurance company run by The Clan.  His job was to investigate claims made to this company, a flimsy cover for The Clan’s protection racket.

In these first pages, the reader learns that Hanck was fired from his job and, returning to the scene of his last investigation, invests his money in typewriters.  Setting up a workshop in his apartment, Hanck teaches himself to repair and customize them, having found a market which sells obsolete technology to collectors.

On one of his visits, Hanck meets a young woman who tracks him down in his city apartment and spends the night.  Here we learn about the many splintered factions of Christian sects, especially The Sneezers who believe that God can be found in the space of the sneeze where the least amount of control and the largest void intersect.

Months after this encounter, men dressed in lavender arrive to take Hanck to an undisclosed location, which turns out to be a hospital.  His son, three-day old Toby, had been dumped with Hanck’s business card pinned to his swaddling clothes.  On the back of the card is the note, “Mother dead.”  Hanck was taken to the hospital to be informed of his son’s existence, and to decide Toby’s fate.

Perhaps needless to say, Hanck instantly falls in love with Toby and prepares his home for this new entry in his life.

This is a bleak book so far and the writing feels stilted.  I’m willing to admit this could be a cultural miscue on my part.  The translator for this book, Tiina Nunnally, has won awards for her work, so it probably isn’t.  Be that as it may, The Hurricane Party doesn’t read as well as George Orwell.

A little research reveals the myth being retold makes itself obvious later in the book and has to do with Loki as related in the Prose Edda of Norse mythology.

 

Review: Reviving Ophelia

But most important, we can change our culture.  We can work together to build a culture that is less complicated and more nurturing, less violent and sexualized and more growth-producing.  Our daughters [children] deserve a society in which all their gifts can be developed and appreciated. (p. 13)

In early adolescence girls learn how important appearance is in defining social acceptability.  Attractiveness is both a necessary and sufficient condition for girls’ success.  This is an old, old problem.  Helen of Troy didn’t launch a thousand ships because she was a hard worker.  Juliet wasn’t loved for her math ability.  (p. 40)

Girls are trained to be less than who they really are.  They are trained to be what the culture wants of its young women, not what they themselves want to become. (p. 44)

I first read Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, Ph. D. when it came out in 1994.  Even then I was searching for me.  I was very confused about being female and looking for answers that would make me worthy in the eyes of society.  I missed what Dr. Pipher was saying.  Society is not the place to turn to for answers, it will only confuse you and set standards which are impossible to meet.  I wasn’t ready to hear that I was good enough on my own, and screw society.

Twenty years later, I returned to this book in search of answers on how to be a good auntie to the children in my life who have been raised in a society which is more pornified and sexualized than when Reviving Ophelia was first published.

I didn’t find those answers either.  Not because Pipher doesn’t offer a good explanation of what happens when puberty hits and many of the ways parenting and society can stack the deck against young women without meaning to.

I have to take it on intellectual faith that the maelstrom that is puberty and adolescence really is as described.  There was so much other dysfunction going on in my family that I truly cannot relate on an emotional level and do not have physical memories of what it was like to be a teenaged girl.

Hormones rampaging?  Didn’t notice.  Black and white thinking?  Don’t remember.  It’s hard for me because my memories involve a father who came into my bedroom at night and a mother who undermined my development at every turn.

Watching my six nieces grow has been quite the education for me.  I can see the things Pipher describes happening in them and I have learned it’s okay because it’s normal.  I’ve watched them go through these stages and come out the other end to be strong women who can face society on their own terms.  In no small part due to the parenting they received, from family prepared to teach them the pitfalls of living in a pornified society filled with highly sexualized standards for girls and women.

Reviving Ophelia is well-written and easy to read.   Dr. Pipher’s case studies are still relevant, as are her explanations about what goes on when a girl hits puberty.  That I didn’t get what I wanted from it is not Dr. Pipher’s fault, I was looking for a book she didn’t write.

 

 

The Female Pose

My friends are all feminists. All of them. Especially the men. And we often get into discussions about the pornification of society and the expectations that for women to be deemed worthy  they must adhere to impossible standards of beauty.

One of the communities I used to be active in was science fiction/fantasy fandom. While the people who welcomed me were some of the most accepting people I’d ever encountered, and were willing to teach me the not-so-secret handshake, over the years I noticed the cliques, the gatekeeping (by males), and even more sexualization of women, especially in cosplay.

It’s so sad this happens and people make up excuses for why it’s acceptable, when it isn’t.

In 2012, Jim C. Hines and John Scalzi held a pose-off to raise money for charity. The object, male authors attempting to pose in the same positions in science fiction/fantasy cover art as women are drawn. Of course, they’re drawings, because those positions are impossible to hold by real, actual women.

Today, I came across this on io9:  10 Stupid Arguments People Use To Defend Comic Book Sexism.     (I look forward to the day when links and titles to articles no longer have numbers in them.  Why couldn’t this have been simply titled “Stupid Argument People Use …”?)

The conversation continues to be the about objectification.  Reducing women to only their body, and judging them on the impossible standards of beauty as enforced by society.  We feminists rail against this all the time.  We don’t want the children of the world growing up to believe that the only worth a girl has is based only on her appearance.

We need to understand that every person we meet is a fully realized individual with talents and interests that don’t show on the surface.  It isn’t about sex.  It’s about sexualization, and objectification. And those are wrong.

How do we change the conversation?  As always, we start with ourselves.  When we see someone handsome/pretty, do we think of them as people?  Do we wonder what stories they might have to tell?  Or do we just think of them only as something shiny and bright that would look good in a picture on our walls?

Changing the conversation means we train ourselves and those around us, especially kids, to see people as people.  To see women as people.  Seeing women as people means accepting that not every body is the same, and that no matter how much you think they should do something (lose weight, stop wearing stripes, wear tighter/looser clothing, etc.) to look good to you, they are under no obligation to do so.

Every person on this planet has a story to tell that is more than just how their body looks.  We all have interesting stories, and we need to be asking about those instead of judging people by their looks.

Catcalls

I want to write something about Jessica Williams‘ story for The Daily Show about catcalling but I find myself without words.

Where do men get the idea that saying those things to women is acceptable?  When called on it, men have said, “I’m just sayin’/I was kidding/Can’t you take a joke?” to me.

Men, it is not a compliment to stare at a woman’s body (in my case, usually my breasts).  It’s not nice to stare and whistle.  It is especially not good form to say things to women on the street/in bars/etc. you would not want said to your sister/daughter/wife/girlfriend.  Why do you think this is okay?  Trust me, women don’t respond well to this behavior, and would never date some jerk who said such things to her.

Instead of complaining, which I am really good at, I am going to make a suggestion.  It’s one many advocates for girls  and women make.  Let’s change the conversation.  Instead of teaching us how to survive this bullshit, let’s teach men and boys that this behavior is not okay.  Let’s teach them that girls and women are more than their bodies, more than their appearances, and do not owe a man anything just because he whistled at her.

We are not bitches/frigid/sluts/etc. because we choose not to engage with you.  Most of the time, we are afraid and disgusted by you and do not understand why you won’t just let us be.

It’s really not that hard.