Tag Archives: The Fifth Season

Review: Hugo Award Winner The Obelisk Gate

The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

Title: The Obelisk Gate
Author:  N. K. Jemisin
Published: 2016
ISBN-13: 9780316229285
Publisher: Orbit Books
Twitter: @nkjemisin
Publisher’s Blurb: The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

As I read The Obelisk Gate, it became deeply personal, often driving tears to well up as I felt the searing pain of bullies, including parents whose lives can only be understood in retrospect.  Nassun’s search for identity and her confusing relationship with her father reminded me of my own confusing relationships. What matter the details, save that Nassun’s search for the warm glow of love she’d once felt transferred to another father figure?  Nassun finds herself the smartest, most talented in her small class, and one mistake nearly undoes the entire sense of community she’s found. It is a lifetime hard task to come to terms with one’s self and the way others react. And it can be brutal, as it proves to be for Nassun.  She, at least, has the orogene power within her to make it stop. Karma’s a bitch baby.

The Obelisk Gate is a coming together.  Factions find each other, comms welcome new citizens, old friends are reunited.  And yet, The Obelisk Gate is about division.  Factions find each other but begin plotting their war against other factions, the new citizens in comms cause disruption and new lines are drawn.

At its core The Obelisk Gate is about politics.  Political identity of the orogenes, who are welcomed with open arms in Castrima.  Family identity as Essun’s daughter, Nassun, wrestles with who her parents are and what that means to an eleven-year-old girl.  “Good” Guardian vs. “Not so Good” Guardian, but who determines good? Stone Eaters trying to set agendas. And a narrator who, it is revealed, plays an all too godly hand in Essun’s part in powering the obelisk gate, and catching the moon.

Nowhere is safe, everyone is struggling to dig in and survive the Season which, thanks to Alabaster’s creation of the Rift in The Fifth Season, will be the longest in history, lasting thousands of years.

We follow Nassun on the road with her father, Jija, going to a place he is convinced will cure her of her orogeny and return his little girl to him.  His resentful anger gets in the way of their relationship, his narcissism does not allow him to see Nassun is right in front of him and doesn’t want to be cured.  Her power is big, and she’s dedicated to learning everything she can about using it. Even after giving him a warning, showing him just how strong her power is and what she can do with it, Jija is still determined to make her into his ideal daughter.  Things don’t go well for Jija, and Nassun has no regrets

In Castrima, Essun gets pulled into the politics of the comm.  Seeking consensus and advice, Ykka is trying to keep human prejudices from becoming deathly problems.  Suspicion builds as Essun’s self-control frays around the edges. Alabaster holds the key knowledge Essun needs to reshape the world and give everyone a chance to survive.

And a very changed Schaffa is at the comm, Found Moon, where Nassun ends up.  His role with Essun, when she was Daya, is mirrored in his relationship with Nassun.  Only now, he expresses regret for the many horrible things did in the name of the Fulcrum.  In his work with the orogenes at Found Moon, and most especially with Nassun, he sets about making amends.

The Obelisk Gate is big and complex, dark and intense.  Just as The Fifth Season was filled with bigotry and violence, so too is The Obelisk Gate.  Orogeny stands as the proxy for all the ‘ism’s we face in our lives; sexism, homophobia, racism, classism, all of them.  And under the stress of the Season, fractures become breaks.

At the equator, Nassun, Schaffa, and their group which includes at least one stone eater.  In the south, Essun and her group introduced to us in The Fifth Season.  Thousands of years of history come into play, new elements are introduced, and identity politics rise to a fevered pitch.  One comm wants to absorb every resource it can while on raids. Castrima will have none of it. Stone eaters circle each other, and Nassun and Essun.

Alabaster’s final words for Essun are, “First a network, then the Gate.  Don’t rust it up, Essun. Inno and I didn’t love you for nothing.” While saving Castrima, she understands what he means, and as Castrima packs up to move northward into a now vacant comm which will support them for years, Essun knows how to do what she needs to do.

It is Nassun who has the last word.  “Tell me how to bring the moon home.”  In The Stone Sky, it will be up to mother and daughter to catch the moon, settle the rivalries, and stop the Seasons.  It will be an epic battle. Just as deep and intense as the preceding books. Just as complicated, and as simple as catching the moon.

On Writing: Two Months

I’m not sure how I wound up in this place.  This place of intellectual challenge and delight while reading and writing differently than before.  In two short months, I have seen remarkable change in the way I approach them, the keepers of my sanity.  Somehow, I’ve become richer, more sure of myself, more ready to do the hard work required to become better at reading, and writing.

A lifetime of reading voraciously, anything within reach.  Some above my grade level, others extremely inappropriate for a reader of any age, all of it like a drug no one else around understood.  They watched me read, they fed my habit, and considered themselves readers too. But somehow my attachment to books and the spells they wove were different for me.

I read all the time, often getting in trouble in class for not paying enough attention.  I’m bad at math but I still think I got the better part of the deal. At temp jobs, “You mean you’d rather read than work?”  Uh, yeah.

But some books felt like I was just skating on the surface.  I could see figures beneath the ice, enticing me to join them, but I couldn’t reach them.  I didn’t know how.

But I kept reading.  From “should read,” “best of,” “canon,” lists.  Trying to organize what felt like a very disorganized approach to reading.  I made lists of my own, going through bibliographies carefully. I was looking for clues to a puzzle I didn’t understand.

The lists caused minor panic attacks.  The boxes on my shelves leered at me. And still I brought them into my living space.  How was I ever going to read them all? Sometimes I would admonish myself to read faster, harder, eschew everything unnecessary to daily life for the sake of reading.

I joined a social media site for readers, found a group and settled in for a couple of years.  There I developed rules of engagement for my reading. Only these topics, only series I had already started, only authors whose work I had begun reading.  But someone would warble a book or, in the case of egregious generosity, send the first in a series to my Kindle app. The nerve!

Then what was supposed to be a cozy little community blew up in my face over my unwillingness to move a book from a challenge which suited my needs to another one which suited someone else.  It got ugly, names were called, fat shaming was invoked and I sat at my computer sobbing. All of this over a book? I made my stand, “My reading is for my pleasure, not yours.”

At the end of the calendar year I left for good.  And went back to reading without the interesting challenges, and the mildly entertaining cliquish conversations.  I was on my own again, still searching for people to talk books with.

It was in this cozy little community that I started to write reviews.  Everyone did it. So I joined in. And because the internet and blogging had always fascinated me, I started a blog, several times.  7Stillwell is probably the sixth or seventh iteration.

All through my BA studies, I read interesting things.  Any time I had the chance to study something cross-disciplinary between literature and history I took it.  Women in Asia, Medieval literature, anything for which I could get credit in a history degree I took.

My way of reading was deepening, my craving for getting under the ice intensified.  Some I could crack a little hole and peek through, others I could see the figures more clearly but I couldn’t find my way in.

My writing.  Well that was something altogether different.  I thought I wanted to write grand fiction stories, but realized I didn’t want the responsibility of trying to keep a fictional world balanced.  But I kept trying.

And I’d never been satisfied with my reviews.  I read others, both peer and professional. But I kept finding myself fumbling around, especially at the end of a review.  I couldn’t stick the landing sometimes. But I kept at it.

I read book blogs and thought, “Oh, I know I can do better than that.”  And I would continue reading, and writing about it. Then I got myself listed on a book blog for authors to find reviewers.  And they came calling. Not many, but a few. Some I turned away. Some I accepted and then regretted that choice. One came through like a shining star, and I asked Alexander Watson what else he was working on and would he make sure I got copies.

The really good books are the ones that make it worthwhile.  Alexander’s River Queens was the one that kept me going because it was so elegant, and he was so professional about promoting his book.  He kept me going when work was turning ugly. He reminded me why I had such a deep abiding love for books, and the sanctuary they offered me.

But I was getting more restless.  Because now I was reading books that were touted by groups of people I had respect for and wondering what I was missing.  Kafka? Yeah, he’s fine but this one story in this collection was really clunky, how did it ever get picked? Steve Martin?  Yeah … no. Ready Player One?  Okay, not an 80s kid.  Don’t get it.

By August 2018, I was in such a funk.  Work was quickly going off the rails, I was discovering more and more I had at most two friends to talk about literature and books with.  I wanted more something, everything, different.

And so there was WorldCon 76 in my backyard.  The reader friend on the East Coast convinced me to cough up the money.  It was a lot of money. But he was right, it would be a shame to miss it when it was less than five miles from home.  And, wow. I had a great time, better than any other con I’d ever been to. I was on my own, attending panels I wanted, and just being me.  What a revelation.

My very first panel of my WorldCon experience was M. Todd Gallowglas’ “LitCrit for Geeks.”  Wait. What? This can’t be right. I thought LitCrit was dry and dull and required special skills and, here’s this writer I’ve never heard of making it sound like a lot of fun.  Something worthwhile.

When I got home from the weekend, I reread my notes.  Intertextuality, metatextuality, Marxism, feminism, new historicism?  Race, gender, deconstruction, OOO? And for the next month while I fought the demons at work, and tried a new approach to reading and journaling, I thought about LitCrit.  This geek wanted more but what?

I lost my job in September.  Packed up my stuff and came home.  Moped around for a few days and thought “now what?”  The need to read, and write, remained. But I wanted to go deeper.  I knew there were ways to do that but I didn’t have a clue where to start.  Just reading and recapping weren’t enough anymore.

Little did I know that the guy I hadn’t heard of would turn out to be my mentor and show me the way to look at things differently.  Little did I know how much I was going to change. Little did I know how much work it would be and how happy it would make me. Here, finally, was something worthwhile to do with my time.

In two months, I’ve read a lot more than usual.  Feeling myself slipping into the cracks, acknowledging myself, figuring things out.  More personal growth than I thought possible. Then two books which really shook things up and made me realize while I was just starting, I was doing it.  I was reading deeper and writing better about what I read. I felt like my reviews were taking on meaning.

First, The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin.  Jangled, sharp edged, arrhythmic.  There were times I’d think, “She won a Hugo for this?  What am I not seeing?” I’d put it down and think about the new theories I was learning, think about how they might apply.  I stuttered my way through until something happened which betrayed my trust in the story. I literally had to have a bit of a lie-down because I was so angry with what I had just figured out about the main characters.  I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go on.

Applying the Pearl Rule still doesn’t come easily to me, and Jemisin had won back to back Hugos three years in a row for this series.  That was important. What was I missing?

Off to the internet to read what other people thought, what other reviewers wrote.  This is unusual for me because I want to go into a book with as few preconceptions as possible.  But damn it, this was supposed to be brilliant. I had just been at WorldCon surrounded by really smart people who talked about her and this series.  Besides, my mentor suggested I join him for a group read. And he was having problems too.

What I read reassured me enough to dig back in.  To forgive Jemisin enough to finish the story. I was happy I did, and now the thinking.  Now I had permission to think and do it deeply. “Pick five schools of theory and apply them to The Fifth Season,” he said.  Oh boy.

November.  “We’re going to spend the month on A Visit From the Goon Squad,” he said.

“Oh ha ha,” I thought.  “A month?”

For all intents and purposes, I’ve read it three times.  Back to back to back. Each time finding something different, something I hadn’t picked up on before.  Three times. I don’t do that. But apparently I do now..

Jennifer Egan is brilliant.  Her collection of thirteen stories are enriched by being told in non-chronological order..  Not only is her prose engaging, her characters and their stories transcend archetype to become fully formed.

This character Bennie leads to his wife Stephanie leads to his brother-in-law Jules leads to starlet Kitty Jackson leads to …. This story about Bennie in high school leads to his visit to a band he signed who no longer make the grade which leads to …. Seamlessly, and with epiphanies.  “Oh, that explains why Sasha’s a kleptomaniac.”

Spend a month?  I could imagine spending an entire semester on it.  And all the while, with my spreadsheet and 30+ pages of notes, thinking is happening and I feel myself opening up and going deeper.  “Pick five schools of thought and apply them,” he said again.

And as with The Fifth Season, I discovered not all schools can be applied to all books.  New Criticism and Feminism will almost always apply. Trying to make my other choices apply meant looking at the material differently.  Was race a viable filter? Culture? What does culture mean in this text?

I reminded myself I was at the beginning of this fascinating journey, I couldn’t possibly know how it would, or if it could, work together.  Having to think about how there might be other ways to interpret the text made me reach, and stretch. There were days when I flailed, a lot.  “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here,” I would gripe. But I kept writing, and thinking.

It’s been two months of work.  Steady, daily work. Reading Michael Moorcock’s essays still make me anxious because he’s so damned erudite and he eloquently writes about things I’m just now learning.  Instead of skipping or stopping or throwing my mental hands up and saying, “This is too hard,” I kept at it.

I kept at it.  That was huge. I was no longer in the realm of wanting to just move on to the next book, or deciding not to write about it.  And things I’d read about process and writing from other writers whose work I enjoyed seeped in.

Here was Anne Lamott with her “shitty first draft,” from Bird by Bird.  Richard Kadrey, Chuck Wendig, Kameron Hurley … “do the work, it’s okay to be scared, writing is hard work, and no one has to ever see what you write.”  This last perhaps as important to me as Anne Lamott’s.

Knowing Michael was the only one seeing the work I chose to show him helped.  Trusting he would tell me if I was going down the wrong road, helped. His brief encouraging comments about my mind and the great work I was doing thrilled me.

“Trust yourself,” he said.  He wasn’t in the same county, so he couldn’t hear when I laughed.  “Dude,” I thought.

I kept working through my personal grievances and anxieties.  Days when I didn’t want to get out of bed because the PTSD was making it hard.  But I did it. I got up and went to work.

Because the work is what keeps me sane right now.  And learning about different ways to dig into the text and make the connections and then write about them make me really happy.  Before September, I was prepared to just keep reading as I had been. Trying to find writing classes which didn’t really fit but were affordable and might offer some guidance, and trying to write to the specifications of assignments which made no sense to me.  That’s what I was doing before.

Now, in November, I think differently about what I’m reading.  I look for the connections, I apply filters, I think things like, “Why would she write it that way?  How does [some school of theory] apply here?” I allow myself to believe I know what I’m doing, to trust I have a lifetime’s knowledge to apply, and to know I’m really doing the work.

Examining A Visit From the Goon Squad with a spreadsheet was something I had never, ever thought to do.  But it seemed to be the best way to really dig in and pay attention.  It’s never occurred to me even once that it’s weird to be this excited about reading better and deeper, or that my writing would become stronger.  It’s not weird, it’s quite wonderful. And I look forward to doing the work every single day.

Review: Hugo Winner The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

TitleThe Fifth Season
AuthorN. K. Jemisin
Published: 2015
ISBN 13:  97803162229296
Publisher: Orbit Books
Twitter:   @nkjemisin
Publisher’s Blurb:
This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

There’s so much going on in this book.  It is dense and filled with dangerous adventure.  It’s also filled with bigotry, sexism and violence.  In many ways, it’s a difficult book to get through. Three story lines, three different women.  Or so we think. Each on their own adventure. Each with a different narrative point of view.

There’s Essun, whose son has been killed by her husband.  Her story starts with the discovery of her son’s body and carries us through as she searches for her daughter who’s been kidnapped by Essun’s husband.  Along the way she meets the mysterious Hoa and gregarious Tonkee who delights in taking samples of things as they go along in search of a community which will take them in after the ground has started shifting under their feet.

There’s Dayama, a young girl whose parents exile her to the barn until a Guardian can fetch her.  Exiled because she has a scary skill and people would rather her kind, the orogene, didn’t exist at all.  Dayama’s story begins when the Guardian arrives and takes her off to school, on horseback, to be trained. Daya is treated better by the Guardian, Schaffa, than she was by her community and family.  Yet his treatment comes with difficult lessons to learn, one of which is that because she is orogene, she will always be considered less than the rest of society. She will always be considered lowest of the low, unless someone needs her to use her skills for them.  Even then, she will be asked begrudgingly.

Third, there’s Syenite whose story begins when she is assigned to a ten-ring orogene named Alabaster on what seems to be a simple mission to unclog a shipping port so trade can go back to normal.  Syen is resentful and angry, and she takes it out on Alabaster, who returns her anger in kind. The first scene with Syen is almost literally her telling him that she’s there to fuck him (Jemisin does not sugar coat this).  Syen believes the only reason she is traveling with him is to breed. His ten-ring genes with her four-ring genes could produce a super orogene to be used at one of the satellite stations for the Fulcrum.

“Everything changes during a Season.” (p. 185)

The Fifth Season refers to an extended winter triggered by cataclysmic earthquakes or catastrophic weather events.  And one is on its way.

Then there comes a humdinger of a loop.  One which threw me completely out of the story and made me feel betrayed.  I had to put the book down and walk away for a long while. Truly, I didn’t understand why it happened, and it threw everything I thought I knew about this story into disarray.  I wasn’t sure I could go on. The book won a Hugo, what was I missing?

After I calmed down, I did some reading of other reactions to The Fifth Season.  What I read made me curious enough to go back and finish the book.  It was worth it.

In a way, all the characters congregating at Castrima, the community run by orogenes, which welcomes everyone seems too easy.  But there’s nothing easy about this book, you have to work for the payoff. Three women are actually the same woman, their stories set in three different times of her life.  The stories of hardship, impossible choices, and survival come to a head in Castrima. Alabaster has the last word, “… have you ever heard of something called a moon?”

Everyone important to this story has gathered in Castrima, and it has something to do with a moon.  What a great setup for book #2 The Obelisk Gate.

 

New to the Stacks: Hugo Winner

The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert Irwin
Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Karmeron Hurley
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
  • The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert Irwin – Read (No review)
  • Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks – DNF
  • In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
  • The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley – Read
  • The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
    1. The Fifth Season – Read
    2. The Obelisk Gate ~ read
    3. The Stone Sky