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FMK #32: A Diversity of Writers

Last week's RF winner was Black Ships by Jo Graham! I am legitimately excited to read this one, although the F pile is getting really high. :/ I have been writing this month for November/Yuletide and that always makes me less likely to pick up a fiction book.

The K winner was Old Man's War, but that was also 3rd place for F with a majority of F votes, so I'm reprieving it. 2nd place was a four-way tie between Illuminatus!, Homeland, The Thirteenth Child, and the Lovecraft anthology. I guess the internet had opinions on Books The Internet Has Opinions On! The Lovecraft had by far the fewest non-K votes, so it gets to go.

How FMK works, short version: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.

I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/ post the new poll on the following Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.

Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)

This week's theme: Culturally Diverse Authors, non-SF edition.

Poll #19107 FMK #32: Diverse Authors

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28

View Respondents

The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe (Japanese, 1962)

F
7 (63.6%)

M
1 (9.1%)

K
3 (27.3%)

Mine Boy by Peter Abraham (South African, 1946)

F
3 (42.9%)

M
2 (28.6%)

K
2 (28.6%)

Changes, a Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo (1991, Ghanaian)

F
7 (58.3%)

M
4 (33.3%)

K
1 (8.3%)

The Best of Sholom Aleichem (late 19th-early 20th century, Yiddish)

F
11 (61.1%)

M
5 (27.8%)

K
2 (11.1%)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (2007, Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-American)

F
13 (54.2%)

M
11 (45.8%)

K
0 (0.0%)

So Long A Letter by Mariamna Ba (1980, Senegalese)

F
3 (27.3%)

M
5 (45.5%)

K
3 (27.3%)

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988, Zimbabwean)

F
6 (54.5%)

M
5 (45.5%)

K
0 (0.0%)

Kehinde by Buchi Emecheta (1994, Nigerian)

F
5 (55.6%)

M
4 (44.4%)

K
0 (0.0%)

Six Feet of the Country by Nadine Gordimer (1956, South African)

F
2 (25.0%)

M
3 (37.5%)

K
3 (37.5%)

Passing by Nella Larsen (1929, American)

F
6 (50.0%)

M
4 (33.3%)

K
2 (16.7%)

The Tale of Genji Part 1 by Lady Murasaki (early 11th century, Japan)

F
8 (53.3%)

M
7 (46.7%)

K
0 (0.0%)

A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1967, Kenyan)

F
6 (54.5%)

M
2 (18.2%)

K
3 (27.3%)

The Kite Fighters by Linda Sue Park (2000, American)

F
6 (60.0%)

M
0 (0.0%)

K
4 (40.0%)

Becoming Naomi León by Pam Munoz Ryan (2004, American)

F
4 (44.4%)

M
1 (11.1%)

K
4 (44.4%)

Two Old Women by Velma Wallis (1993, Gwich'in Athabascan)

F
3 (25.0%)

M
7 (58.3%)

K
2 (16.7%)

A Land Apart edited by J. M. Coetzee (anthologized 1987, South African)

F
3 (37.5%)

M
1 (12.5%)

K
4 (50.0%)

Voice of the turtle : American Indian literature, 1900-1970 edited by Paula Gunn Allen

F
5 (45.5%)

M
6 (54.5%)

K
0 (0.0%)

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I have read Passing. In its favor: it is short, and also it is the most No Heterosexual Explanation work of fiction I have ever encountered.

Excellent news on both counts!

Seconded. When I read it I was all "where is the femslash for this??"

I mean. The ending probably has something to do with that. But yes.

I first encountered Passing in a stage play adaptation that had surgically removed all homosexual subtext. I had to read the original book to make any sense of the characters' motivations.

I wonder if that's the same stage play adaptation I saw this summer at the DC Fringe Festival.

I definitely had a few moments of "This feels like she's more jealous of her husband" but couldn't tell if I was reading too much into it, and then went home and went on Wikipedia and felt justified. I should read the book!

Yes, that one. For a play that otherwise lifted its dialogue word-for-word from the novel, it's notable to me that the only exchange in the entire book that they cut is the one where Irene and her husband fight about the sex they're (not) having, and the only physical gestures that didn't make it from page to stage were the multiple times Clare and Irene kiss.

...we seem to see a lot of the same plays, by the way, and I'm always looking for more people to talk theater with. Friends?

(Sorry, I got caught up with Thanksgiving and then sick, so I didn't see this!)

Yes, we should be friends! I'm always happy to chat about theater. :D

And it definitely sounds like I need to read the book.

Whose translation of Genji? Waley's is like swimming through toffee, though if it's the first ten chapters or so it's doable. (Full disclosure: Waley's shorter Genji was what got me into Japan in my innocent youth.) Seidensticker is brisk. Tyler I hear does an excellent thing- use titles instead of names, because no one in Genji has names at all- but in the shortened version he does use the sobriquets, which defeats the purpose by me.

It's Waley - probably whatever was public domain, since it's a Dover paperback.

Mhh. F, then.

The Alexie is AWESOME. I get where the Marry votes are coming from. Definitely no-kill that baby.

Yeah, that one's got a strong early lead on Marry...

I have low tolerance for Alexie's adult stuff -- he has the "everyone unlikable" thing that's so prevalent in so much adult literary fiction -- but ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY combines what's great about YA with what's great about Alexie.

I feel more than usually guilty about voting kill on any of these. ;)

I think The Woman in the Dunes might be hugely sexist, but I want to read your review of it so I'm voting fuck. Ditto for desire to read review for Genji, which honestly is well worth reading. The Alexei book is great and a quick read; it sounds depressing but isn't really.

Sholom Aleichem is great and I think you would really enjoy his unfinished last novel, The Adventures of Mottel, the Cantor's Son. He steals fruit from a neighbor's trees by spearing it with a nail on a stick! His good for nothing brother keeps getting genius get-rich-quick ideas like selling ink (which stains the entire town) and very diluted lemonade (which gets a raging mob pursuing him when he sets Mottel in charge of the dilution and he accidentally adds soapy wash water). It's hilarious. You know, if you want MORE books.

>>I feel more than usually guilty about voting kill on any of these. ;)

That is why I own most of them!

I suspect I would really like the Sholom Aleichem, we read one of his short stories in high school and it was one of my favorites.

The Sholem Aleichem is the only one I've read anything of, and although I was a bit confused (read it in high school expecting it to be more like Fiddler on the Roof, which is based on Sholem Aleichem's stories), I did enjoy it.

Hilariously, I had to read all three of

Changes, a Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo (1991, Ghanaian)
So Long A Letter by Mariamna Ba (1980, Senegalese)
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988, Zimbabwean)

and a different Buchi Emecheta (The Joys of Motherhood)

for the same class as an undergrad!

I felt bad having all of these grouped togather because it means I know only two of them will be F & M -- and there were so many here I loved (ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY and BECOMING NAOMI LEON and the Sholom Alechem even *before* we got to these books).

I suspect I own most of the African ones because I bought them all at a yard sale where somebody was getting rid of all their old African Studies textbooks. But it's not like you see African literature very often in the US otherwise!

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