thefourthvine | [Books] Rouse, Turner

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[Books] Rouse, Turner

Book I Have an Issue With: At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream, by Wade Rouse

I love essays, particularly funny ones. Find me a book of them and I will happily hand over $12 for the privilege of reading it. And this one starts off really well, because there's a raccoon attack. Raccoons to the head are funny. It's a basic rule of writing, right up there next to "show, don't tell." The premise is promising, too: Rouse moved from the city (more on this later) to rural Michigan (with his long-suffering boyfriend Gary) so that he could pursue a career in writing. Fish out of water! Raccoon attacks! Seriously, how could this be bad?

Well. It isn't entirely bad. But it isn't good, either. For one thing, when he's not wearing a live raccoon as an exceptionally angry hat, Rouse isn't actually funny, and that's a book killer. In this kind of memoir, you're basically sharing the brain of the writer. He has to show you all his random warts and neuroses or there's nothing for him to write about, but he has to be able to make you laugh with him (or at him - that also works) or, well, you're just spending your time with some random jerk's warts and neuroses, and you could do the same thing by getting stuck on an elevator with a guy from Marketing. Every other flaw this book has (sliding focus, sudden random religious tangent in the middle, shrieking intolerance, race issues, playing gay stereotypes up to the point where I expect him to start typing with a lisp) would be forgivable, or at least mostly tolerable, if Rouse could make you laugh. But he can't, or at least he couldn't make me laugh. He couldn't even make me smile, except in the first chapter, and a guy can't get attacked by a raccoon every day.

But my second issue is the one I will always remember about this book. See, okay - you know how sometimes you'll make an assumption early on, and it will be so ingrained that you'll never question it, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, until finally something leaps up and forces you to? And then you can feel your skull being rearranged, all, "The Fiddler on the Roof ISN'T set in 1970s Canada! Which probably means Canadians aren't vicious anti-semites, and I should probably stop worrying that these Quebecois are going to kill me!" (Yes, I was very young when I made the assumption, but it lasted for years. I still sometimes have to take a deep breath before I out myself as a Jew to someone from Saskatchewan.) I had a minor case of this in this book. See, I read the title and made the obvious assumption. And then, several chapters in, I discovered that the city in question is St. Louis. Which. Um. I live in Los Angeles (or, okay, near it, but that's pretty much what everyone who lives here does). It's a pretty big city. But it isn't the city. The only city in the United States that gets a definite article is New York City. Chicago is a city. Houston is a city. New York City is the city. And St. Louis, which is the fifty-second largest city in the U.S., ranked just below Wichita, with a population of 350k, most definitely is not. When I realized that the city of the title was St. Louis, that was my laugh-out-loud moment for this book.

(Note: Yes, I am aware that this is not universally true of everyone in the United States. In rural areas, as I understand it, the city is whichever one you drive to for shopping. But everywhere I've ever lived, New York City has been the city, and it would never occur to me that anyone who wrote that in a book title would mean anything else.)

Poll #2279 The City

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 243

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When you say "the city," what do you mean?

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New York City.
52 (21.5%)

The nearest city, whichever one that is.
113 (46.7%)

A city in my actual country, because I'm not from the U.S.
31 (12.8%)

Beszel or Ul Qoma.
10 (4.1%)

Something else.
36 (14.9%)

Because we're curious and it's a definite article question, when someone says "the industry," what do you think she means?

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The entertainment industry, and I live in or near Los Angeles.
18 (8.1%)

The entertainment industry, and I don't live in or near Los Angeles.
107 (48.2%)

Some other industry, which I will tell you in the comments.
60 (27.0%)

I do not believe in definite articles, and strike down all who say them to me.
37 (16.7%)

Books I Love: The Thief Series (The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia), by Megan Whalen Turner

Now. I am hoping that most of you have already read this series and are eagerly, even desperately, awaiting the next installment (due March 23, so if you haven't read these, now is the perfect time to start). But I have this sneaking fear that some of you have not, and obviously it is my personal duty to correct that. This series is incredible, with amazing characters and world-building and plot and action and one of the weirdest romances I personally have ever encountered in fiction. (For serious, this is a romance - you know, when I see romantic relationships in fiction, I generally try to recast them with my fannish favorites, but it is hard for me to think of even a single popular fannish pairing that might fit with this romance. Okay. I can think of one. But that's it.) But, actually, that's not what I want to talk about when it comes to these books.

Here are two additional reasons, besides awesomeness and the ability to make your heart sing, that you should read these:

Stepping it up a notch. If you've ever written or wanted to write a series, in fan fiction or original fiction, you should read The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. This is one of the few times when the second book of a series is an order of magnitude better than the first (and the first is really damn good). And the thing is, it's that way for a reason.

The author took some serious risks when she started The Queen of Attolia; she didn't let her characters or her situations stay static. She looked at what she'd done and said, hey, that was good, but how can I move from that? How can I get these characters to where I need them to go? And then she took the steps she needed to take, and let me tell you, those were some drastic steps. But they work, and they take the series from amazing to sublime.

Megan Whalen Turner could have rested on her laurels. She totally did not. This is how you write a series, people. (Or you can take a different road and make your sequels into an endless series of bondage scenes and holidays, which I call the Whips and Presents Method. Not my favorite, but it works for some people. You can also just keep writing the same story with the same plot and characters, changing the proper names as necessary to fulfill your contracts; I think of this as the Grimes Method, and it also works for some. But I'd rather you went the Turner route.)
The Queen of Attolia. The character, I mean. When I was a kid, I read everything. (No, really, everything, including many things I should not have. My mother used to take me to a specialty children's bookstore, hand me over to an innocent employee who had no idea how difficult her life was about to become, and say, "If you can find something she hasn't read, I'll buy it." She spent the next few hours sipping coffee somewhere, and I spent the next few hours saying, "I've read it.") I especially loved books that had fantasy elements. But I was bothered by the fact that they were always about either a) people randomly selected by fate for greatness or b) people born to be great. I knew I would never find an amulet that granted half wishes or a sand fairy, and I knew I wasn't the secret ruler of the desert tribe or the last Old One.

So I wanted to read a book about a person who became great, who had no special abilities or special item but still used her ordinary abilities to achieve an amazing goal. I looked and looked for that person and never found her. And then I did: Attolia. Turner doesn't spare her at all - Attolia is definitely the person achieving her goal has made her into. She's not kind. She's not fun. You would not want to play croquet with her, and you would not want to turn your back on her. But she is great, and she's great because she decided to be. She fought for it and keeps on fighting for it, using all her intelligence and all her determination, because that's all she's ever had to fight with. I love that. And I love that there is one person in the books who loves it, too.

Poll #2280 Greatness

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 164

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Which would you rather have?

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Greatness by birth, which usually comes with lots of followers.
7 (4.3%)

Greatness through effort, which often comes with an iron fist.
40 (24.4%)

Greatness through fate, which generally comes with great accessories.
35 (21.3%)

No greatness at all. It's wearying.
82 (50.0%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

I find that it all depends on context. If someone in person, where I'm standing, says "the city" I assume they mean Portland (two hours away) or maybe Salem. If someone on TV says it, and it's non-fiction (news, whatever) I guess they mean New York City. If it's fiction I assume they mean the closest city. But, having lived in Atlanta, I agree that a certain size is required before it's a city and not a big town. (Sacramento thinks it is a city, but it is not. Even remotely.)

If someone says "I'm going to town" I assume they mean the closest gathering of buildings which is large enough to house a few shops. (I grew up in the country, and town was fifteen minutes' away.)

1. *adds Turner to goodreads*
2. Jill Sobule has forever influenced how I hear the phrase "the industry." She has Nothing to Prove:

Here I am in Los Angeles
I came here two years ago
And everyone's young and beautiful, and their skin's so smooth
And everyone's in the industry, and I hate when they use that word
And when they say they're in the industry, I say, "Oh, are you in steel?"
Well, I got nothing to prove

"The City", to me, generally means London's financial district. Although context is important -- if it was an American saying it in the US, I would probably assume New York.

Actually, when I saw the title of the book, I assumed New York right away. And then you said St. Louis and I had to scroll back up and check to see that nobody had actually said anything about New York, I had just assumed. I was caught completely by surprise.

When I hear "the industry," I think "the auto industry." Ahahaha guess what state I'm from go on guess! *points to center of right palm* That's me. right there. Where the cars come from.

Raccoons have not attacked me, but they have definitely marched right up to my glass door and laughed mockingly as my cat went insane.

the industry = manufacturing, in general.

Post Yuletide, I had fallen into that lull of having forgotten that I was desperately waiting for another book. NOT ANYMORE, THANKS. Lol, kidding.

twtd read The Thief out loud to me. I was deeply skeptical because the last YA lit books she read out loud to me were Tamora Pierce's first set with Alanna. I will concede that it is a) no longer the 80s and b) her writing has definitely grown since then, but I just...was not in love (and I failed to have the childhood connection that

twtd does). Oh, and I was not happy about the POV of Thief...you know...until I got to the end and was like OMG WUT?

Needless to say, she didn't finish reading the other two books to me because she wasn't reading them fast enough...so i did it myself...over the course of like, two nights. I'm just so enamored with the care in the writing--from the plotting to the worldbuilding to the character building. You can just tell that each book has been written and rewritten and carefully pieced together...and you learn that if there's an end that seems lose, something is coming.

Irena/Attolia is probably one of my favorite characters ever, I think for some of the same reasons as you. I loved her even more fiercely when I found out more about how she came to power. And I really appreciate the balance MWT strikes between her ferocity and strength and her vulnerable moments without making her seem weak or like a puppet. That Gen can love her despite everything else seems incredibly real to me.

I also hardcore love Helen/Eddis, and I'm kinda dying to see what happens with her.

Yeah...I'll stop gushing now.

1. "The city" means, depending on context "Boston," which is not the nearest city but is "the city" to people around here; "New York," if I am talking in a general American context, I almost never use it that way; or "the Boston/New York equivalent for the context in which I am speaking". So "New York" if I am speaking with someone from Hoboken, and "DC" if I am speaking with someone from Alexandria, Virginia, and "London" if I am speaking with someone from St. Albans. Of course, for my cousins who live in London, "the city" means "the city of London" as opposed to the rest of London, which is a metropolitan distinction around which I cannot wrap my American brain.

2. I don't think I have ever said "the industry" but if I did I would mean "high-tech".

3. MWT is astounding beyond reason. Queen of Attolia hits every single fiction kink I have, and I don't mind how much of a Mary Sue Gen becomes in book 3. Also, he suffers so incredibly well. (I have read book 4 in galley but apparently the final galley is so different from what will be the published version that I can't even say "AND WAIT UNTIL WHAT HAPPENS IN BOOK 4".)

An addendum to my answers regarding "the City": My father was born in NYC and grew up there and in its suburbs. I grew up about five hours away in the middle of NYS, with frequent trips to the City (when I was very little, my Great-Grandmother still lived there, but even after she died we went at least once a year). Now I live in DC. Sometimes if we're out of town, we'll say "we're going back to the city tomorrow", but usually we call it "the District", or sometimes "we'll head back to town tomorrow". When people ask me where I live, I say, "the District" to differentiate between the actual District of Columbia (taxation without representation!) and any of the immediate suburbs people sometimes mean when they say "DC".

So, in other words, my answer is colored by both my own personal history with NYC and the fact that my current city has an alternate name.

"Industry" is steel mills and auto plants and the like, and "the Industry" is the entertainment industry. (And I remember being very annoyed at a mandatory safety training I had to take in college - because as a tutor I was technically employed by the university - about what was basically industrial safety, things like MSDS and the like, and I complained to the instructor afterwards about how it wasn't applicable to my life, and she said that it would be when I got a job in industry, and I just looked at her, because my major was anthropology and my parents were both teachers, and the most volatile chemicals I expected to encounter were nail polish remover and copier toner. Turns out that it wound up eventually being useful information to have in my head in my various museum jobs, but to me "industry" means blue-collar work and I come very much from a white-collar background and had no intention of ever working in anything that could be considered "industry" unless perhaps I got a job as a Hollywood consultant or one was using the word in a very old-fashioned way.)

The Industry = whoring.

Use of it for the entertainment industry is still appropriate, but with a wink to the real professionals out there working in less comfortable footwear.

a) San Francisco, as in Tales From The City? But with Eddie Izzard playing in my head.

b) Whichever industry the speaker is involved in. Tangentially, when "industry" is used as a descriptor ("in the sense of someone being "industry")or an esablishment is "industry-friendly" the industry suggested in my mind is sex work.

I am completely unqualified to answer this as I 1. live outside the US 2. speak different languages so have different default cities for each "the city" 3. study film and since then have become extremely biased on the "industry" front.

However I wanted to say that where I grew up "the city" in the native language has been and still is the largest city (or the downtown of the city I live in) where one goes shopping, etc. I ALWAYS KNEW I WAS A COUNTRY BUMPKIN :(

OH my god. There are more than two Attolia books? REALLY?

OH my GOD.

It isn't even my birthday.

*runs off to Amazon to do some ordering*

The Thief and The Queen of Attolia were two of the books that consistently survived the purges of old books throughout my childhood, mainly because of my deep and abiding love for Eugenides. I have a real weakness for tricksters, thieves, and anyone who's too smart for his or her own good, and Gen handily hits all three. Plus (and I did not realize this until just now) his reaction to Attolia's agreeing to marry him is exactly how I reacted to my first relationship. "Wait, I get to be with you? Really? Great! Wait, what do you mean that's not it? This comes with responsibilities?. SHIT."

tl;dr - thanks for making my day and lightening my wallet.

Also, "The Industry," to me, means the "entertainment" industry, by which I mean porn. No idea why, as I don't live anywhere near any great porn-hubs, but still.

that last question reminds me of a quote;
"some are born into greatness & others have it thrust upon them"

there there's my addendum;
& others fall into it

Hmmm. Without context, I'd assume "the city" was a metaphorical construct, as opposed to "the country." In reference to an actual place I'd assume "the city" referred to the nearest sizable town (in a sparsely-populated region) or big city (in, say, suburbia). I'm not familiar with "the city = NYC" but perhaps it's a big-city or regional thing; I grew up & lived most of my life in the country or small towns around the Great Lakes, with stints in New Mexico & Florida.

I'm also not familiar with using the definite article with "industry" but, if I had to guess, I'd probably think it referred to porn-producing. I have a vague notion that I've seen movies or 60 Minutes-style programs where porn actors or writers called it "the industry."

"The Fiddler on the Roof ISN'T set in 1970s Canada! Which probably means Canadians aren't vicious anti-semites, and I should probably stop worrying that these Quebecois are going to kill me!" (Yes, I was very young when I made the assumption, but it lasted for years. I still sometimes have to take a deep breath before I out myself as a Jew to someone from Saskatchewan.)

...

*blinks*

Okay.

I thought I'd already told that story here, so everyone would be bored by it again! But since that line is confusing out of context, here's the story:

When I was four, my mother called me in to see Fiddler on the Roof on TV. I didn't understand it, of course, but I liked the singing, and she explained the plot. Just, either she didn't mention the key word "Russia," or I didn't hear her. But she did mention wheat, and the only place I knew of where they grew wheat that wasn't in the U.S. was Saskatchewan. So I assumed the events she described happened there - she took pains to emphasize that it was based on real events - and I also assumed they happened in, oh, 1970 or so. Because she said it was long before I was born, and that was long before I was born, to me at that age.

I was really alarmed when we went to Canada a few years later, like, did no one notice that we were going to a land of NOTORIOUS JEW-HATERS? I looked at all the people I met, wondering if THAT VERY WOMAN was involved in doing Bad Things to Jews! Or that man! But it never occurred to me to share my concerns, so they went unallayed until much later, when I went to Quebec with my father (who grew up across the border from Montreal). We were driving in, and I was pondering my usual Fiddler on the Roof conundrum, and suddenly I realized: pogroms were not in Canada. They were in Russia! (I had learned that in the interim without ever connecting the dots.) Which meant - probably Canadians were not actually going to kill me! Or even hate me to any special degree. It was a great relief.

In retrospect it's amusing how long I just accepted my four-year-old conclusions, but it's also educational to me now that I have a kid, to remember that what he hears may not be what I think I am saying.

Because the polls aren't on Livejournal: Eddie Izzard was correct when he said everyone calls San Francisco 'the city.'

Whereas I totally had never heard that. I am educated! Thank you.

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