Links 8/3/2015

I suppose if these links have a theme, it is how words, narratives, and rhetoric can affect how you do and don't define your voice and express yourself.

To Be Black and Woman and Alive

Video of a spoken word poem by Crystal Valentine and Aaliyah Jihad. The language is evocative, painful, and their performance is moving. I mean, what are words even? They fail. I only had thoughts after watching this, thoughts of all the black women in the news recently, degraded, devalued, dehumanized and deceased for varying reasons that all echoed in this poem. And that's what powerful poetry can do.

Chosen Ones, Specialness and the Narrative of the One

Thoughts from Aliette de Bodard on these tropes. I find I agree with de Bodard frequently when it comes to this push and pull, this tension we writers have with established modes of storytelling and our own personal inclinations. It can get to be an unending negotiation of examination and reaffirmation of who we are, what we are writing, and why. Are you honing your voice or stifling it in favor of familiarity? I'd also recommend her article about pushing against received narratives, because sometimes you just have to find your core and stake your claim.

Which This Margin is Too Small to Contain

Thoughts from Vajra Chandrasekera on diversity in SFF and the term "person of color". It does read as thinking on paper and I appreciate the thought process behind "strategic essentialism" as a "high-risk high-reward rhetorical move". Rhetoric can be a slippery thing to grasp and master and wield, and it is only as useful as its effectiveness. It stops being so when, as the title implies, it becomes too small to contain the idea, the complexity and depth of the definition of you. H/t to Fields for sending this one my way.

Spoilers! Animal Farm Ch. 8

Chapter 8

No animal shall kill another animal *without cause*, the commandment now reads.

The windmill is completed, but Napoleon's trade deal with a neighboring farm goes bad--they were tricked and Farmer Frederick paid with forged money! No sooner than the animals learn this than they are under attack by Frederick and a group of men. The men blow up the windmill and kill several animals before they are finally overwhelmed and run out. Everyone is dismayed but the pigs initiate celebrations and extra rations for all for their victory in the Battle of the Windmill, and their sorrows are soon forgotten.

After a night of drinking and hangovers, Napoleon decides the farm should grow barley and have a distillery where they had formerly set aside pastures for the elderly to graze. Oh, and that particular commandment forbidding booze has been secretly amended too: No animal shall drink alcohol *to excess*.

This chapter clustered many events together and seemed to run through them as though time and word count was of the essence. Of course, this is chapter 8 of 10, so things will have to wrap up quickly over the next two chapters. I'm concerned this will lead to an abrupt or pat ending.

Anyhow, Clover (the mare) is something of the conscience. She's the most suspicious about the commandments being broken, but she can't read, and when she asks another animal to, they find the altered version and have to concede they misremembered.

Boxer is more questioning but only out of ignorance. "If Napoleon says so, then it's so" is all he needs as reassurance.

In one light, I read the successive pig leaders as one regime getting worse. But the differences between them are there and distinct. Old Major was illustrated as wise and benevolent, prophetic. Snowball was ambitious, charismatic, shrewd. Napoleon is reclusive and cruel.

Squealer is Napoleon's main mouthpiece, and in an aside, turns out to be altering the commandments under cover of night, though the other animals don't understand that.

Then there's the old donkey Benjamin, who seems to know what's up but isn't the least bit inclined to say or do anything about it yet, except to nod knowingly at the corruption around him. He wasn't enthusiastic about the rebellion in the beginning either. You know. Like how some old folk be sometimes. Doubtful he'll be the one to expose the corruption. Doubtful there'll be any exposé, but we'll see. My money is on Animal Farm collapsing under its own unsustainable conditions. Humans may not reclaim it, but I'm not too sure the animals will be able to reorganize.

Discuss!

Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0

Spoilers! Animal Farm Ch. 7

Chapter 7

Food rationing worsens on Animal Farm, but Napoleon stages things so that their human intermediary won't detect how hard up the animals are, and the outside world goes on believing the farm is doing well. The hens protest giving up 400 eggs a week in trade with humans and they are starved in return until they comply. A far worse fate befalls any animal suspected of colluding with the phantom menace Snowball: slaughter. And many animals are killed after being forced to make false confessions, all mauled to death by the guard dogs. The remaining animals are shocked and disillusioned. To add insult to injury, their freedom anthem Beasts of England is now abolished.

All animals are comrades, indeed. No animal should kill another animal. This is a brutal chapter, not that it is graphic in any way, but the simple, matter-of-fact prose that enhances the absurdity in the beginning now enhances the cold efficiency of this dark turn of events.  The non-response from the animals to this callous disposal of life is all too real and all too chilling.

Does this story even have a hopeful, if not happy, ending? Surely, the dictatorship is unsustainable.  I'm tempted to Google it up, but I'll just read on and see.

Discuss below.

Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0

Spoilers! Animal Farm Ch. 6

What I read: Ch 6

The animals have need for resources beyond their capabilities, especially in the case of building the windmill. Napoleon arranges for a human intermediary to conduct trade on behalf of Animal Farm.  One by one, the Seven Commandments are broken: pigs living in the house, sleeping in beds, etc. And Squealer, the persuasive propagandist pig, explains it all away. Not sleep in beds? No, no. The commandment said not to sleep in beds *with sheets*.

Heh. So it goes.

The animals are uneasy about all these changes, but as they hate the old way more and none can read or reason well, they can do nothing about it.

I've a feeling Boxer might die. He toils single-mindedly and unquestioningly in all due fealty to the new animal order, wanting, it seems, to be the best Animal Farm citizen he can be. The exploitation of blind patriotism, perhaps?

Add to that unity through hatred of a fabricated menace: Napoleon has now put a bounty on Snowball's head for destroying the unfinished windmill (which really was knocked down by a storm.) An effective ploy, since humans aren't so scary now that animals are working with them, and the animals were mightily dispirited after the windmill fell.

Comrades, discuss below!

Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0

Spoilers! Animal Farm Ch. 5

What I've read: Ch 5

Mollie runs away to another farm. Napoleon and Snowball's disagreements over whether to build a windmill come to a head. Napoleon stages a coup and supplants Snowball as the leader. Snowball just barely escapes the privately trained death hounds Napoleon unleashes on him. A new, crueler order is coming--no more meetings or debates, pigs make decisions and others follow orders, food rationing and harder labor.

So, once again, a new pig takes over, successively making things worse for the common animal while giving more privileges to his own group. It's interesting to see art imitating life this plainly and effectively. I don't know if this kind of simple metaphor (e.g. pigs in power, the sheep say and do whatever the pigs want) would work nowadays, but if one found a particularly neat metaphor that mapped as brilliantly and cheekily as the one in Animal Farm, one might do very well for oneself, indeed.

Anyhow. Now, the full on lies and revisionist history begins, as Snowball is downgraded from war hero to a traitor, thief, and liar. Hard times ahead. Discuss below!

Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0

Spoilers! Animal Farm Ch. 4

Chapter 4

News of the Animal Farm spreads throughout the animal world in England and among the human farmers, who go from scoffing to nervousness after other animals refuse to work and/or turn on their masters. Farmer Jones (dunno why I call him that, as in the book it's just Mr. Jones--but consistency, comrades!) rounds up some men to take back the farm. They are attacked and run off. Boxer despairs at having struck and killed a young man, but the young man is only stunned, recovers, and runs away. The animals commemorate the victory with a battle title and hand out a few medals.

The anecdotes about Mollie always make me chuckle. She excuses herself from work and hides when the fighting gets serious. And then there is the cat, who was an ardent supporter of the committee of wild animal reeducation (or something) and tries to convince birds and rats all animals are comrades and they could sit on her paw. Needless to say that committee was a failure.

This is the first chapter where I didn't quite enjoy the telling nature of the prose. The POV seemed distant from the animals. Like a historian who knows how it all turns out:

"The men gave a shout of triumph. They saw, as they imagined, their enemies in flight, and they rushed after them in disorder. This was just what Snowball had intended."

As you know, Reader. Other than rare exceptions, I don't like when classics address Dear Reader. I'm looking at you Jane Eyre Besides, it seemed pretty clear it was a trap once the men were surrounded and overwhelmed in the yard. I like action scenes as fluid and commentary-light as possible.

Snowball orchestrated and led the defense, so that officially makes him a type of tactician. How long before he turns his skills on his fellow farm-dwellers?

"The only good human being is a dead one."
Far too cold about taking a life. Then again, the humans were no less so towards animals. And around it goes.

Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0

Spoilers! Animal Farm Ch. 3

What I've read: Ch 3

The animals work the farm, from the tireless Boxer to the wee ducks and chickens. Except for the pigs, of course. They are "brain workers", you see, and they need all the milk and apples to nourish those big brains, lest Farmer Jones comes back! Comrades, surely you don't want that to happen.

Hilarious.

I'm curious why the pigs took and secluded the newborn puppies, but my guess is for security; brainwash them into ardent guard dogs. Of course, there's the obvious parallels to youth enlistment in this cause or that ideology. It also appears that Napoleon and Snowball argue a lot, so maybe the pigs aren't as unified a ruling class as I thought. Is one of them going to kill the other? I expect the seven commandments to all be broken in such fashion by the end of the story.

The thrust of the plot is dependent on just how stupid the majority of the animals are, most not able to reason at all. How's that for social commentary?

Image Credit: "penguin.animal.farm.shepard.fairey", available under by-nc-as 2.0