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You should probably just read manticore's reviews, here and here (spoilers). But since I'm doing a bit of housecleaning around here, I'll post my notes on this book:

First in a Japanese mystery novel series which is (in)famous for the way it was originally published: Natsuhiko Kyogoku wrote the book first, then went around shopping it to publishers. Which sounds pretty normal, but I guess the standard for genre novels in Japan is for the publisher to commission an author, and to assign him/her an editor, and for the story to be serialized in a genre magazine, all before the chapters are collected into a published book? Does anyone know?

Back to the novel: the gimmick is that the "detective," Kyonyouji, is an omyouji (faith healer specializing in possession) who does not believe in god(s) or the supernatural. He DOES, however, believe in possession, which he explains in anthropological or folklore terms, with some input from the narrator, Sekiguchi, a neurologist (and extremely disturbed person). Kyonyouji is a great character - the kind you need to carry a detective series. Sekiguchi being disturbed allows the author to explore themes of perception and memory, and to withhold crucial information from the reader. Possibly Sekiguchi becomes less disturbed in subsequent books - this one was about events that happened in his past, so Natsuhiko Kyogoku might've had to go the "biased narrator" route to keep up the suspense.

The philosophical asides in this book are probably the best part. They tend to be on a wide range of topics, to present complex concepts in simple language, and to be just slightly off from the usual way the topics are discussed. And Natsuhiko Kyogoku is pretty into weird medical conditions you've never heard of, too. ^^ manticore, who is a doctor, had nothing bad to say about any of the medicine in this book. I noticed that some of the physics is off, or at least is missing the point (quantum mechanics is just a set of equations designed to more closely model reality under special conditions, there's no real greater meaning to be gleaned here).

The book is halfway between mystery and horror. I talked to my friend Joni about a book she read - can't remember the title - about a rich Japanese family that is actually a cult, and ends up brainwashing the protagonist who marries in. This book is kind of like that, but set in the 1960s, not the present day. The "old" family has always been shunned by the public, and are in some ways victims of provincial prejudice, not just creepy cultists doing unspeakable things to innocent outsiders. But in both cases you get the feeling that Japan's old aristocracy really hasn't sold itself to the public. So there are these old compounds owned by the (formerly) wealthy, and they have a reputation as being places where really weird shit goes down. In this case (spoiler, highlight to read): the people who own them are so inbred and insular they literally have freaky genetic defects and look like frogs! Someone needs better PR!

One last thing I'll say about Summer of the Ubume is that it relies a lot on conventions from anime, and will make very little sense if you don't like anime. There's "special eyes" and Chinese martial arts masters, etc. (Loups-Garrous is the same way, but better. Did I talk about Loups-Garrous? This review on amazon pretty much nails it. It's an even better book than that, though. Probably my favorite of all the books I read last year.)

More blogging so I can have something to link to on Goodreads, XD. I read "Regeneration" (the first in the trilogy) for a British history class way back in 2007, and only got around to finishing the trilogy recently, when I saw books 2 and 3 on sale at Bookoff!


The Eye in the Door: I wrote a paper on Regeneration that was about the book's major theme, "Things We Can't Talk About." I argued that the severely understated writing style (where everything is hinted or written about euphemistically) was a stylistic choice to match the subject matter: homosexuality, mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder, not necessarily in that order, before those words existed (or at least existed only as technical terms used by psychologists, unknown to the general population). It was a fun paper to write, because I had to think about to best way to quote something NOT said by the author.

The Eye in the Door mostly follows a character, Billy Prior, who is provocatively blunt and outspoken, as he investigates pacifists in England, a group that was not coy at all about its opposition to the war effort. And yet, the book is written in that same understated style. XD;; So much for my paper thesis.

Oh yeah, this is a good book. I feel like I almost don't have to say this, it sort of sells itself! I still get a lot of pleasure imagining how gleeful my professor must've been when she assigned "Regeneration" to our class of mostly male poli-sci majors. =D There is a ton of insight in this book, also a ton of history. Pat Barker even lifts some insights from Regeneration to re-use in this book, and I don't even mind, because they were good insights the first time around and they remain so here.


The Ghost Road

Now we go back and forth between Billy Prior and the POV character of the first book, Dr. William Rivers. This book is pretty unstructured - you get the feeling that Pat Barker was writing about whatever she was able to find in the historical record that was the most interesting. In this case, that includes descriptions of Dr. River's anthropology work in New Guinea an of Lewis Carol's time spent with his sister Katherine (aka Alice). Woah!

She also heavily implies that Siegfied Sassoon, the subject of Regeneration, was manic depressive (or maybe that was The Eye in the Door). o_O Is this true? Again a very well written book, but it mostly made me want to read the original historical sources myself.

Finally, The Ghost Road is notable because it actually moves the action to the Front, after 2.5 books spent dissecting the situation back in England. Considering that this is part of the historical record, I guess it won't be too much of a spoiler to say that several major historical characters die, just as the main character of Blackadder dies at the end of Blackadder, after going "over the top" (a phrase that originated in WWI). ;_; RIP.

Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand: I'm about 100 pages in and I take back everything bad I ever said about Delany! This book is GREAT.

Context: I had a warped view of Delany after reading The Fall of the Towers, a novel he apparently completed when he was 17 or 18. Here is the livejournal post where I complain about how bad it was. The thing is that you can still see some of the same elements at play in this novel - the obsession with complexity and systems that don't function properly, the ambition, and the poor physical description - but they are so much more interesting and better thought out in this novel that it's like reading a totally different author.

For instance, take the (poor) physical description. There's a device in this book puts information directly into your brain, like being permanently connected to the Hitchhiker's Guide, only you never have to interact with a physical device because it responds to mental requests for into, and you actually know everything you ask the device after you've asked it, without having to look up the words you've never heard of, because everything is cross-referenced and, again, linked directly with your brain.

When other storytellers put a "direct transfer of knowledge into the brain" device in their stories, they'll show that it is "direct" by making the transfer wordless: images, sounds, sensations and did I mention images? are what the brain receives. BUT NOT DELANY. His device talks to you, in words.

In other words, I don't think Delany is a very visual guy! He is a word guy, and the stuff with words in this book is fantastic. Stars in My Pocket is set in a universe with six thousand (in some cases barely) inhabitable planets, but travel between planets is rare, reserved for the privileged 1%. So culture on these planets can be quite distinct, and language can be used in unusual ways.... and also Delany, to trick you (the reader). For instance, there are planets where one default gender (call it "she") is used for everyone most of the time, but another gender (call it "he") is used for people you are sexually attracted to. And so, therefore, you read a sex scene and only afterward realize that actually, it was a gay sex scene1 And then you go back to the previous chapter and realize that the (female) human and the (female) alien were totally attracted to each other! And then you are like, I see what you did there, Delany.

Another example: in the first story in the book, you learn that "bitches" is what men on this one planet call the women on the planet when the women aren't there to overhear them. And maybe you think, like I did, "Oh, that's just like it is here on Earth." But then you read on, and eventually you realize that the culture on this planet is sick, and the casual and ubiquitous use of "bitches" is in fact a symptom of the disease. And that, in turn, causes you to question the way that "bitches" is used in our society.

In fact the writing is full of little things like that - redefining the way language is used in order to get you to question your underlying assumptions about how the universe works, particularly how privilege works. I'm trying to stay vague here because I think the effect is greater when you read the book yourself, and have to put the pieces into place yourself - the insight you finally get when you make the connection between how emotion and cognition are linked in Delany's SF scenario, compared to how the same forces play out in our world, is something that sticks with you more than if you'd read the same thing by a very accomplished author who laid all those principles out for you and just kind of took you along on a guided tour, because YOU had to make the connection, meaning you had to THINK.

And I think that goes for the physical descriptions too. I'm even kind of fond of the description of the car moving through the rings under a bright blue sky, with little bits of things glittering in the canyon walls, far away below - because Delany forgot to mention that the car is a flying car, and somehow having to go back and mentally insert that detail makes the scene more vivid.

I have some specific commentary on the first hundred pages, which I will put below the cut. Took these notes as I was reading, so there's some repetition and LOTS of speculation. No spoilers, please!

( On the opening novella )

( On the first 5 sections of the next chapter )

I'm at the "dinner party" and so I ask that all further spoilers be limited.

Testing whether If This, Then That will successfully crosspost an entry created here to my wordpress.

Does IFTTT have any use besides automatically spamming your stuff on one service to every other service you have an account at? So far I am also having it send a text message to my phone whenever it is raining.

EDIT: It works! Now I have no excuse for ever falling behind on wordpress, XD. (Also I guess I'll have to be more careful about checking for typos in entries here before hitting "post".)

( spoilers )

Links to previious discussion welcome pleeeeease.