Rush, rush... And a review of Veronica Roth's DIVERGENT

May flew by, but not without a bit of exciting reading. 

While setting up my company’s booth at the International Reading Association, I peeked next door and saw a postcard for Insurgent, the sequel to a book on my shelf at home.

“The first book in that series is on the top of my reading list at home,” I told an attendant. Some middle-aged guy working for a tiny publisher of books for the special education market had just admitted to reading a book for teenaged girls. Very suspicious.

And it wasn’t exactly true, but I’m glad I lied. When I got home and saw Divergent, the first book in the series, I started in on it very quickly. It was the most exciting teen novel I’d read since finishing Mockingjay, and that was a year and a half ago. (I read the first five Game of Thrones books in the interim, but that won’t compare very well for all the differences, and I reacted differently to Martin’s fantasy, anyway.)

It was so exciting, the next thing I read (aside from manga, stuff for work, or soccer training materials) was Catching Fire, which I just finished a few hours ago.

The bridges between Divergent and the Hunger Games series are urgency, a compelling dystopian setting, clockwork structure, and well-crafted teenage female leads.

The urgency of Divergent is less existential, at first. The problems Beatrice Prior faces are subtler and less immediately lethal than those faced by Katniss Everdeen. Somehow, the wrenching philosophical and emotional issues Beatrice faces rise to the level of urgency of Katniss’. Rereading Catching Fire reminded me not only how well Suzanne Collins wrote action sequences, but also how well she wrote interior monologue. The strands of conflict and significance revealed in the first chapter follow through each to the last, taut and humming. This is the urgency matched by Veronica Roth in Divergent.

Strange laws, a warped society, alien values or ways of expressing them, the transformation of the familiar into the strange—these are some of the elements that go into a believable dystopia. Both worlds—Panem and Veronica Roth’s Chicago—have somewhat simplistic organizations. Panem has twelve, or maybe thirteen (find out for yourself), districts and a Capitol region, spread out across the former United States. Each produces specific commodities or manufactures a class of products, almost as Roman colonies, but simplified. One district manufactures electronics, one mines coal, one produces textiles, and no others duplicate these categories. Two produce food: one terrestrial and one maritime. Readers can accept this unrealistic situation because the rest of the narrative is so immediately realistic, almost tactile. Collins is especially successful at evoking place, both in terms of sensation and in terms of emotion.

Roth’s Chicago is cleverly transformed in physical terms, but still recognizable. The crucial social organization is simplified and easily understood, but simplistic, the Faction as unrealistic as the Districts of Panem. In place of Districts producing distinct products, each Faction in Divergent subscribes to different values and norms of behavior. This, even more than the differences among districts in The Hunger Games trilogy, adds color to the story line.

This is a good point to make a transition from comparing the dystopias to comparing the high degree of organization common to the Hunger Games trilogy and Divergent. I felt that this was what distinguished Roth’s and Collins’ work from other teen fiction. At each stage, significant details are revealed that either set the stage for later, elaborate on a theme from earlier, or both. The heroine (protoheroine?) Beatrice Prior’s early-revealed fascination with the daring members of the Dauntlesss Faction makes more sense as layers of the society, Beatrice’s past, and her family’s past are revealed, adding layer upon layer of significance to events and situations that seem unimportant or ambiguous.

Collins ratchets up the emotional stress with each additional layer, threatening to overwhelm the reader. Roth weaves the strands of significance back and forth a little less intensely, at least within the first book, but in a similar manner.

One of the similarities in appeal between the Hunger Games trilogy and Divergent is in modeling personalities in the books after real-world teen concerns. In the Hunger Games, children are forced into combat in the arena each year. In Divergent, teens choose their faction at the age of 16, and are initiated or cast out depending on their ability to adapt to completely new rules. This is far more subtle a setup than the Hunger Games, and there’s no central villain in the arrangement, but the most notable difference is that the factions behave a lot like social cliques in some ways. Imagine social cliques with their own laws, territories, and lethal induction ceremonies, as well as hangouts, clothing styles, lingo, and forms of entertainment.

Farewell, Jean Craighead George

Jean Craighead George, prolific author of books that have inspired both me and my son (My Side of the Mountain, anyone?), passed away at the age of 92. 

Her writing is a precursor of the gritty action-adventures, often featuring tough, young women, that sell so well today. (I just finished Divergent, by Veronica Roth, review TK.) I think there's a pretty straight line between JCG and dystopian fantasies.

Thanks, Jean Craighead George, for what you wrote, and for the inventiveness you inspired.

return to a theme - Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Close on the heels of Wintergirls, I read Scott Westerfeld's Pretties, the second in his series that eerily twists a major theme from Wintergirls around a strong sci-fi premise, and all too literally shapes the characters to fit the scene. There's a one-two punch going on here: Westerfeld created a compelling world for his characters to live in, and characters who stand a good chance to survive and even change it.

In many ways, I thought Pretties outshone the first in the tetralogy, Uglies. The first book in a science-fiction or fantasy series always has the advantage of the reader's wide-eyed wonder. Janet Rowling dithered on her way to introducing the main character, and it worked, because the wizarding world was so fun to watch, especially how an awful muggle like Uncle Vernon interacted with it. JRR Tolkien shows us the placid Shire and introduces the simple hobbits, and simpler dwarves, long before moving on to a plot. And Westerfeld's alt-future world is compelling, but his writing in the second book feels stronger.

One of the fun developments is the protagonist Tally's increasingly complicated relationships, with her friends, her allies, and her society's authorities. Part of the complication is due to the rules of the society Westerfeld set up, in which a central authority tinkers with perception and memory. When this point is abstracted, the premise sounds almost like a postmodern sociology text, but it works well as a plot element. It's also reminiscent of Philip K. Dick, though much friendlier and more action-packed. Dick's characters spent more time in a fog of self-delusion, or believing they were deluded, or not knowing something basic like if they were human, whereas Westerfeld's fly around on hoverboards and have major, dramatic confrontations.

Still, the themes of body image, friendship, and betrayal will resonate with teen readers today. He's cleverly worked the familiar into the strange, and halfway through, this feels like a series I'll continue to enjoy.

Do you have any more words like “searing"?

In Wintertgirls, Laurie Halse Anderson disassembles a very troubled teenager. It’s almost a therapy session, but one page into it, we can’t help but like and almost admire her protagonist, Lia. And soon, very soon, be terribly afraid of her.

Lia’s very good at convincing herself that she’s wrong. Her interior battles take place in interior monologues with strikeout text, bursts of self-loathing, and very bad decisions. Her outward impulses are generous and thoughtful. However, she is trapped in an echo chamber that is coming to light more these days.

She is dying from words.

The brilliance of the book is that it makes for a great read. I’m resisting any adjectives like “searing” because they fall short, and are overused. There is a fishhook quality to this book. I flinched on every page, and couldn’t escape needing to know the outcome. The bait was constantly replenished, too – deft characterization (I knew who Elijah was the moment he appeared), hard scenery (every place is a place we’ve seen, often in pain), and high tension.

Anderson’s book is more than brilliant. It’s also good. It’s part of what should be a national conversation about the terrifying new stresses our social and media environment puts on teens. Maybe we shouldn’t complain so much. Our distant ancestors lived, if they were fortunate, to the ripe, old age of 25 or 30. Kids today (don’t read this in a “get off my lawn” voice), at least in most of the developed world, do not want for physical comfort, food, educational opportunities. The disparities of wealth and access to power that do exist are even highlighted by some as examples of how wealthy we are.

So why should we be concerned with girls who have negative self-images? what is the difference between body image issues and self-esteem?

Low self-esteem weeds the winners from the losers. This is very useful if you need to cull the children in order to have enough food for adults, and if the adults all have to be hard as nails. We have drifted from that – well, for some, it’s an ideal – to the principle that happiness is a human’s right, at least to pursue, if not obtain. And if we’re all equal (again with the Enlightenment ideals), then we should stop culling ther children, and let them develop in their happy differences.

In so many respects, this works. We have consumer-protection laws that reduce the incidence of lead in children’s toys because it’s bad for them. We stopped accepting child labor (onshore) because we felt bad for the kids. There are foundations today focused on evening out the opportunities in schools, because we feel bad for the kids.

And bullying is making the news increasingly as a threat to our kids. It has always existed. It’s long been a concern of parents, more recently one of politicans, to restrict it, or to ignore it as natural, a way of sorting out the bosses from the followers.

One strain of bullying affects teenage girls’ self-image. And it’s not only bullying by kids against kids. It’s bullying by our entire society against kids. The reason, I think, lies in the use of concept marketing instead of product marketing.

Do you ever see a fat person drinking soda in a commercial? Do you ever see sick people going to the beach in paradise on an airline commercial? How about car ads? Drug rehab center ads on late-night tv?

We ingest a steady diet of these images, and tney become us. We are what we eat. And the difference between the ideal and the real causes pain to some, and is a stick others (bullies) use against them.

Anderson’s Lia is that girl. She’s trapped. She doesn’t need the bikini models to tormet her anymore. She is so far past them, she can taunt them instead.

If you can face Lia’s demons, you ought to give this book a read.

Bad luck for paper-bound publishers?

Alex Knapp at Forbes.com asks, "Are Apps the Future of Book Publishing?"

I think he begins by assuming the affirmative, and proceeds by asking which type of app.

I work in the paper-bound book publishing industry. I don't have a e-reader or tablet device.* I'm actually shopping for a bigger bookcase.

[*partly because my kids would never let me use it]

Knapp points out that something I've been wondering about since Myst is coming to fruition - a book type narrative that readers generate interactively. FWIW, I think that's a different type of literature from the dominant sale-scaled fiction narrative today, the novel.

(I know, Knapp didn't ask if enhanced ebooks would replace novels, but that seems to be the real, underlying question. Who really thinks that college students in 2020 will have 40-pound textbooks that are out of date when printed?)


Yes, this makes me worry about, first, the future of literacy (will we all require enhancements as well as phonics instruction?), second, my publishing job, and third, what I will do with my new, big bookcase in seven years.

It does not make me worry about the publishing industry. Boo-hoo. The fat cats have to adjust. Don't worry, they're already figuring out how to get authors and customers to foot the entire bill.

Maybe I should assemble a group of really creative people to publish enhanced content. We'll have to come up with a new genre, since "novel" is taken, "enhanced novel" sounds creepy, and "e-book" sounds so pre-millennial.

Suggestions?

note on breadth, depth

When I started blogging (was: "publishing," but that sounded like aggrandizement) thoughts about what I had read, the idea was to share the breadth of things. But who wants to read lists? (The Pillow-Book of Sei Shonagon notwithstanding - really, you should read this, and the lists are among the best points.)

Depth takes time, however, and I've been both reading and (gasp!) writing, and now that soccer season is starting, I'm coaching, too, with no letup in yardwork, commuting, or being Dad, none of which I'm great (deep) at, but breadth takes time, too.

As for breadth, I've recently (this morning) discovered behavioral economist Dan Ariely's blog, which is so well written I think I might enjoy reading more about economics.

Here are some of my other recent readings, scored on a scale of 1 (why did I bother?) to 10 (how did I live without it?):

• Scott Westerfield, Uglies. 8/10. The protagonist doesn't know she's living in a nightmare, then discovers she is, then decides to unlearn that in order to rescue everyone else. Same character age (reader appeal) as Hunger Games, but far less violent. Still, the materials is directly linked to post-puberty issues, so I don't imagine 13 year-olds would be terribly interested. Anyone who wants to disagree, please comment! 
• Orson Scott Card, "Salvage," (Wastelands). 7/10. Unreliable narrator, deep secondary characters. Unremarkable postapocalyptic scenario, but well fleshed-out. The strength here is the characters' interaction with the history and conditions of their situation. I'm embarrassed I haven't yet read Ender's Game. Going to remedy soon
• Paulo Bacigalupi, "Bread and Bombs," (Wastelands). 9/10. Wowowow. What is human? Will we survive the changes we've wrought on the world, and if we do, will we still be human? And if we aren't, will we still be able to write like this? 
• Hiroyuki Asada, Tegami Bachi (Letter Bee) vol. 3. 7/10. Asada's art is so wonderful, the world he creates so stark and mesmerizing, and the names he chooses so silly, that I've found if I just accept the silly names (Gauche Suede? Lag Seeing? Jiggy Pepper? No, really...), everything else just falls into place.

Here's another reason I was keeping the blog. I can't remember anything. What the heck else did I read? More later. I hope. 

Aftertime, by Sophie Littlefield

Aftertime is a blow-to-the-gut, first of a series by veteran mystery writer Sophie Littlefield. The world she creates is a few years or a few months in our future, but vastly changed. Cass, the protagonist, arrives lost and confused, acts in desperation and fury, squeaking through conflicts and narrowly escaping moral danger and worse. Her heart is wracked by guilt; her body is ravaged by injury and disease; her mind is clouded by both. Cass’ way is uncertain, but she is driven to pursue it full tilt.

The physical descriptions are at times evocative and purely physical—the smell of the miracle plant “kaysev” cooking, for instance—while others are emotionally wrenching to read. This is not a book for children, even the fairly big kids. The frank and unsentimental descriptions of sex, of violence, of social decay are woven into the fabric of the book. They carry the plot along. They are much of what Littlefield wants us to see about Cass.

As a result, reading Aftertime did not go quickly for me. I generally prefer somewhat younger YA fare, or speculative fiction, science-fiction, or fantasy with more magic spells and telepathic dragons. Still, I could feel the story building, the protagonist changing, the world coming into clearer, and often painful, focus. And as it did, I felt more drawn to the story, as draining an experience as it was.

The end is cathartic. It has elements in common with the end of an action flick—I half-expected to hear the music from the end of Terminator II: Judgment Day, or see plumes of evaporating dry ice meant to convince me of a fire. The disturbing parts of the story were prelude to the resolution, but it’s a resolution that leaves the way clear to sequels. There is much in Cass’ world left to accomplish—to repair, to redress—and Cass is the woman for the job.

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[note: The author very politely points out that this is not "YA" - I've seen a lot of definitions of Young Adult lit, and this is very mature for kids, but if your young adults are twentysomethings, this is just about right; it's also okay for older people who want to feel like twentysomethings, though we have to watch out for heart stress - this is pretty powerful stuff.]