The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2019, pt. 19: Rosanne Rabinowitz

The Pleasures of Reading, Watching and Listening
by Rosanne Rabinowitz

It’s that time of year… So here are a few highlights of my reading and watching in 2019; perhaps I’ll spend more time on the ‘listening’ part next year. I’ll stress that this is not a ‘best of’, just a few things that come to mind or stuff that I've tweeted or posted about during the year.

Novels

The Migration Helen Marshall.

In the near future an unknown immune disorder has been affecting young people throughout the world. After Sophie's sister Kira is diagnosed, her family leave Canada to stay with an aunt in Oxford for specialised treatment. But what appears as a disease could herald a transformation... I’ve spent a lot of time in Oxford with my partner there, so I appreciated Marshall’s superb sense of place. She made this Oxford of the future very real. The characters also live on Osney Island, a watery part of central Oxford where one of my favourite pubs in the city happens to be. Now for a little story attached to this book... When Helen read an extract at Fantasycon in 2018 she announced a competition. Whoever cawed the loudest would win a copy of the Canadian edition. This was a big deal because the UK edition wouldn’t be out for about six months. And I cawed! I was desperate – I just couldn't bear the waiting and that desperation must have given my 'caw' its volume and urgency. It could not be denied!

And then I tweeted with joy when I won the prize.

The Dollmaker Nina Allan

We follow the journey of Andrew, a dwarf who is a dollmaker, as he tries to connect with his penfriend Bramber. Bramber, who came into contact with him because of their shared love of dolls, is stuck in an institution in a remote part of Cornwall after traumatic events in her past. A series of stories by Polish author and dollmaker, Ewa Chaplin, also weaves through the book. The Dollmaker is not overtly fantastical but it definitely feels like a fantasy novel – the book is about fantasy itself and how it can impart wonder and hope. It makes me think of Geoff Ryman’s Was in this respect. I loved its mittelEuropa flavour, even in sections set in London and Cornwall. The texture of the prose is rich and evocative. I found myself seeing the book as a film starring Peter Dinklage as Andrew and perhaps Samantha Morton as Bramber and Sophie Okonodo as Andrew's friend Clarence. And there's gotta be a role for Tilda Swinton in there somewhere.

A Spectral Hue Craig Laurence Gidney

The town of Shimmer, Maryland has long drawn a stream of black artists – working in a range of media – who focus on a colour that shifts between purple and pink, the hues of the rare local salt marsh orchid. Graduate student Xavier goes to Shimmer to study the work of these artists, inspired by an encounter with it in his past. He discovers magic in its beauty and also encounters the dark history that gave birth to it, one rooted in slavery and violence. This eerie and weird tale is populated by a memorable cast of queer black characters. It evokes our capacity to create art under terrible conditions and the power of that art to reach through time. As a writer I'm also obsessed with colour imagery and drawn to combinations of purple and pink so I loved this.

The Ten Thousand Doors into January Alix Harrow.

A satisfying portal fantasy, told from the perspective of a biracial girl growing up in a mansion filled with treasures, a mostly absent father and a guardian who treats her as one of his curiosities. But her quiet existence is shattered when she stumbles across a strange book. Each page reveals worlds within worlds and she begins to learn who she is. And the book literally opens doors for her.

What I Loved  Siri Hustvelt

I read this earlier in the year. A book full surprises. It started off as a story about arty nobs in NYC and transformed into a psychological thriller of sorts that explores grief, and meditates on nature and nurture.

Collections

Hollow Shores  Gary Budden

These atmospheric tales focus on the Kent Coast and London and some locations further afield. I loved their invocation of punk pleasures past and present, their sense of place and psychogeography. Some of them might have been unsatisfying on their own but as pieces in this mosaic they add to my understanding of these characters and their world. Generally, I love collections that have a thematic centre and I'm also drawn in by recurring places and characters. It reminds me of some early M John Harrison work, especially Climbers (though the main activity in this is walking). And WTF, I just love stories about old punks wandering about...

Sing Your Sadness Deep Laura Mauro

I was familiar with many of these stories as a subscriber to Black Static, and I've shared space with Laura in an anthology or two. However, it was good to read through them as a varied and captivating body of work. And then there were ones I hadn't come across before. I'd say that the award-winning "Looking for Laika" was worth the price of my ebook alone, and there are many more fine tales such as "When Charlie Sleeps," "Letters from Elodie" and "Ptichka."







TV and film


Years and Years (BBC)

Near-future how-we-live stuff, leaves you laughing and then crying and then very angry. Excellent performances all around, especially from Russell Tovey and Emma Thompson as a right wing populist politician. Here’s a chilling clip that I’ve posted in several online discussions, where Emma Thompson's character gives a spiel about the new detention camps, which reveals how 'concentration' camps first began under the auspices of the British Empire. "The word concentration simply means a concentration of anything... You can fill a camp with oranges and it will be a concentration camp by dint of the oranges being concentrated. It's as simple as that. Made it sound rather tasty! ...They simply let nature take its course. The camps were crowded, pestilent, and rife with disease... You might call it neglect, you might call it efficient.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUPf5GagKF0&t=2s

However, the end of the series didn't quite work. A bit Doctor Who, which is fine in its place . But it wasn't an effective ending for this series – an emotional dystopian drama rooted in current events. It dissipated the very real and present ambiance created by earlier episodes.

The Affair (Showtime)

I didn't think season 5 would be up to much without Ruth Wilson and the first couple of episodes seemed to confirmed that. BUT...

It went kind of SF with a near-future strand about Cole and Alison's daughter, Joanie. With episode 6 I became re-addicted despite some poor dialogue. Singing along with the theme tune is always fun and it lends itself to a bit of interpretive dancing when I need to get steps in. However, I must remember to draw the blinds first!

This unexpected twist in the show reminded me of Years and Years – a combination of relationship drama/family saga & SF – but not as well-written. Most people on Twitter hated the turn it took, but it revived my interest, which had been waning amidst the soapy suds.

Russian Doll Season 1 (Netflix)

A few of have already blogged about this in their Pleasures posts so I'll just briefly say that I enjoyed it. An abrasive, witty time-loop drama. Hope there's a second series.

The Beforeigners (HBO) (European)

I stumbled on this Norwegian time travel drama by accident and got hooked in immediately. I tend to avoid subtitled work on the small screen for eyesight reasons but the subtitles on this appear in big and very visible letters. This is a crucial technical point!

People from the past are suddenly emerging into the present – temporal immigrants in Oslo comes from eras such as the Stone Age, the Viking period and the 19th century. The 'beforeigners' collect in communities with others from their time and bars spring up specialising in their favourite grog. There's some great culture clash comedy, but the serious issues are not far below the surface.

The series follows a former Viking shieldmaiden who becomes a police detective, the first of her background to join the force. She bumps into a former comrade in arms and they have adventures that sometimes conflict with her duties as an Oslo cop investigating murder cases.

One standout scene involves an orientation seminar where an assortment of newly arrived Norse folk (the preferred term to 'Viking') are watching a cheesy 'welcome' video on modern Norwegian life. An argument breaks out between the Christians and pagans in the room.

I enjoyed the approaches to Norse history and myth the most and it may very well come to the fore if there's a second series. The 'tec tropes were fun they didn't absorb me in the same way. But now... St Olav and his killer Thor Hund are now living in modern Oslo. Thor is trying to live a quiet life with his wife & kids in a council flat and a job as a delivery person. Then he's rumbled... and Olav is still up for saintery, Christian crusading, and forcible conversion. Bring it on!

His Dark Materials (BBC)

The first episodes seemed a bit of glossy meh, but later episodes were very powerful.

I enjoyed the differences introduced into the series; for example, more elaboration on Will's background and the way he comes into the story earlier. I read the books back in the early 2000s so I'm a bit vague, but I wondered if the series places more emphasis on the fantasy trope of 'the one' and 'destiny'? If I recall, in the book Will found a door into Lyra's universe just by chance, but now it's part of this destiny set-up too. I've always hated 'the chosen' trope and I just try to ignore it so I can enjoy the series.

I also think there was a bit more SF behind the fantasy in the books. That side is explored in John Gribben's book The Science of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, which I've had on my TBR list for years.

While watching episode 6 of His Dark Materials I had a dose of creepy deja vu. Then I realised that the outfits worn by Lyra and the other girls in the daemon-severing camp are just like the ones we had to wear for 'phys ed' in school (circa 1970s), otherwise known as 'gym suits'. Very appropriate, for the school system at the time was definitely intent on daemon deleting. Vile garments for vile times and places.

Fast Color (film on Netflix)

This film is described as a 'superhero film' in reviews. While formidable powers come into play, I found it much more quiet and contemplative. I'm not at all a superhero fan. I get bored with repetitive fight scenes even in the better ones like Black Panther

Generations of black women in a particular family have the ability to disintegrate objects into their atomic components and put them back together again. It's more than that – they are able to "see the colors" after performing these acts, indicating a universal connection and journey as well as a handy bit of sub-atomic DIY. The ability is blocked in the main character, resulting in lack of control and destructive consequences to her powers. She has to revisit her past in order to connect with this ability.

The numinous significance of color in this film and the centrality of black characters reminded me a lot of the novel A Spectral Hue, mentioned earlier in this piece. Its feel and some of its concerns are similar too.

Dark S2(Netflix)

Impulse S2 (YouTube).

Finally, this year brought long-awaited second seasons of the German time-traveling drama Dark, as well as Impulse and its teleporting teenage heroine. Both of these were excellent, though I didn't feel quite the same level of thrill and wonder that the first series brought.

With Dark I picked up some German. Ich bin Du. I am you – declared several times. You can guess what's going on there! Paradox aplenty.  

Impulse is a rare thing – a sequel that is superior to the original. The series carries on from a mediocre action film called Jumper, also about teleporting folks. There were some engaging concepts there, such as a centuries-long struggle between religious authorities and those who have this ability. However, the film featured lots of fight sequences and little story. In the UK we joked that the follow-up would be called Cardy.

Instead, we got Impulse, and I'm glad for it. We meet the daughter of the bloke in Jumper, who is growing up in a working class community in Washington State with her sister and her struggling single Mom.

This series hasn't received much attention, but it deserves a wider audience. Unlike its predecessor, it addresses issues such as class and sexual violence through the eyes of a complex protagonist. While series 2 does indulge in melodrama and lose its thread in places, it proved satisfying. I hope there is a third series.

Rosanne Rabinowitz is a London-based author of speculative fiction. Her debut collection Resonance & Revolt was shortlisted for the 2018 British Fantasy Award and her earlier novella Helen's Story received a Shirley Jackson Award nomination. Her Brexit and Oscar Wilde-inspired weird tale All That is Solid is now available as a chapbook from Eibonvale Press. She spends a lot of time drinking coffee – sometimes whisky – and listening to loud music while looking out her tenth-floor window.

Guest Post: An Open Letter to Margaret Atwood by Kristin King

An Open Letter to Margaret Atwood

by Kristin King

Dear Margaret Atwood, 

In a recent op-ed, you asked the question: “Am I a bad feminist?” My short answer, from one feminist to another, is no. My longer answer is that the question itself turns what ought to be a dialogue into a bitter argument. This is poor feminist practice. Your response to #metoo activists similarly polarizes debate surrounding sexual harassment and abuse, when the conversation could instead have turned elicited insights. And strangely, your response inadvertently pulls from talking points that have been circulating recently as a result of a deliberate and misogynist public relations campaign. 

However, the best part of feminism is our ability to learn from our disagreements. In the interest of furthering feminist solidarity and dialogue, I have some comments to make. 

The good/bad feminist divide

Framing the issue as a Good Feminist / Bad Feminist one draws battle lines and sets you up for further attack. It puts on blinders and prohibits dialogue. 

Let me offer a glimpse of my own perspective on the feminist movement, from someone who found feminism in the early 1990s. The first professor who taught me feminist theory was Katherine Stockton. She grounded me in queer issues, disability in the feminist movement, and more. And the next was my creative writing professor Colleen McElroy, who helped me start learning about race with authors such as bell hooks and Gloria Anzaldúa. My continuing self-education has also included the Combahee River Statement, which considered issues of race, class, and gender both together and separately. 

So I didn’t participate in second-wave feminism, even though I certainly reaped its benefits. But I did watch a rift widen between second-and third-wave feminists. I have seen some second-wave feminists who have succeeded in their goals, perhaps have become acting CEOs in their own companies as you have done, dismiss feminists working intersectionally, viewing that practice as a distraction from the primary issue of male and female equality. 

Skipping ahead to the present, I see that many millennial feminists are broke, can’t afford college, which isn’t going to get them good jobs anyhow. It’s not just that they don’t expect to reach the glass ceiling--they’re not even inside the building. They’re living in sleeping bags out in the cold. 

So there are real divisions between women, based on their lived experiences, and those divisions can be and are being exploited by, in your words, “those who do not wish women well.” 

Into this mix comes your op-ed and the language it uses. I see it using talking points that are also being pushed by corporately funded propaganda outlets posing as media. I assume this is unintentional, so a close examination of what I see might provide a beneficial learning opportunity.  

Using the language of the far-right corporate patriarchy

First let’s take a peek at some of the underlying power dynamics .-The wealthiest and most powerful, white men of course, the patriarchy, are using their wealth to pay PR firms to design and push their talking points, which then end up in popular culture, our everyday conversations. Some of it is misogynist, but the primary goal, I believe, is the aim of holding on to money and power. Noam Chomsky articulated the basic problem of news propaganda back in 1992, in his book Manufacturing Consent, and many people have also been watching the idea of manufactured backlash, as in a recent Huffington Post article, “The Fake Feminism Of The #MeToo Backlash.”  Unfortunately, in our current age, all manner of billionaires and corporations are using social media to spread propaganda that benefits them. And none of us is immune. 

Within that context, I’ll put on my hat of “literary critic” and compare three texts: an article published on a news media site of unknown ownership, an article published by a P.R. company, and finally your op-ed.

On December 13, 2017, the article “The #MeToo Movement Is Destroying Trust Between Men And Women” by D.C. McAllister appeared in The Federalist online journal. The Federalist isn’t a news journal but a series of opinion pieces that feature classic examples of propaganda, such as glittering generalities, straw men, name-calling, deliberate vagueness, and a false framing of the narrative. The journal has a readership in the millions--a guarantee that the ideas it spreads will propagate widely. Who is funding this journal? That’s not so transparent. Reader beware.  

On December 18th, 2017, another article appeared on another propaganda outlet, this one specifically targeted at feminists. The outlet was the site Spiked! Online, which has a long history of manipulating public dialogue, especially in the field of agricultural science. This history is readily available through SourceWatch or through research explained by George Monbiot. Its intention is also clearly laid out in their own words upon launch in 2000, available on the Wayback Machine, “nothing less than the creation of a new language for political, social and cultural writing in the twenty-first century.”

The article itself, “Meet the Women Worried about #MeToo,” includes short pieces written by thirteen different women and selected by an editor for the benefit of those funding the magazine. 

A close read of both articles reveals common messages, or talking points, that the outlets want to spread to the public for general use. Each of these messages stops or deflects dialogue in some way. And each message is reflected in your own op-ed. I’ll just take three to examine: the witch-hunt metaphor, framing as a legal issue, and “real feminists.” 

Witch-hunt metaphor

The metaphor of a witch-hunt and similar terms is a key weapon used against #metoo. Combing through through the two propaganda articles, it’s easy to find phrases like, “the sexual harassment witch-hunt,” “mob behavior,” “mass hysteria,” and “orgy of female victimhood,” as well as references to the beheadings that took place in the French Revolution. 

This metaphor has an invisible payload of meaning, which is quite intentional on the part of propagandists. Witches don’t exist, and this implies by analogy sexual predators don’t either. Then there is the gendered component, which is perhaps the reason “witch hunt” is used rather than McCarthyism.

In your op ed, when you note that your accusers mistakenly “think I was comparing them to the teenaged Salem witchfinders and calling them hysterical little girls,” it’s worth going deeper and asking  “Why do they think that?” I suggest it’s because somebody with money is pushing the witch-hunt metaphor in order to deliver that exact message. 

Explaining what you did and did not mean by “witch hunt” doesn’t solve that problem, because the implication remains. A stronger move might involve hunting for a new metaphor, or simply diving into the specifics of the core issue with more concrete language.     

Framing as a legal issue

 

Another propaganda talking point is framing an assault complaint as a legal issue and invoking the principles of “due process” and “innocent until proven guilty.” There’s a core of truth here: an accusation of anything requires fair consideration. But there’s also a big manipulation of language. 

Going back to the propaganda articles, the Federalist article complains, “When anything from a naive touch during a photo shoot to an innocent attempt at a kiss is compared to rape” and “men never know when they will be presented at the court of injustice as a ‘sexual abuser’,” it is arguing by implication that an innocent kiss can get a man taken to court. The Spiked article makes similar connections, right down to requiring an act to be illegal before it’s called assault. 

A legal framing puts blinders on us and asks us to ignore obvious facts. First, making a public complaint or talking to Human Resources is entirely different from filing criminal charges. Second, social media is not a court. Third, “innocent until proven guilty” is a high standard that our criminal justice system should, but does not often, provide. Fourth, although the government owes us “due process” in criminal cases, most people don’t actually expect it in the workplace. (Though we should.) 

It’s worth taking a moment to explore due process in the workplace. All workers deserve a fair process before disciplinary action is taken, but most don’t get it. Most people have “at-will” employment, and they get fired all the time for getting sick, failing to smile . . . and for reporting sexual harassment and assault to HR.  The remedy here is a grievance process that requires employers to establish “just cause” and for workers to have access to a grievance process. 

Your op ed unfortunately fell into the trap of using a legal framing, and the focus on “due process” paved the road for an incomplete analysis of the situation. Your note that “[h]is faculty association launched a grievance that is continuing,” actually refers to a union grievance, which will indeed be heard and settled by a higher authority than the university. Because of his union membership, the professor has more due process than most people get. Further, although the workings of the university process are not publicly available, that does not automatically mean they were incorrect. The university is likely legally compelled to remain silent, and also, confidentiality protects both accused and accuser.  

Is it possible to say what we mean without using legal metaphors? Definitely. For instance, perhaps “due process” is best when a case of assault is going to court, but “a grievance process” more accurately conveys what we need from other institutions and the community at large. 

Real feminists

Another talking point, which is revealed in the Spiked article, pits “real” feminists against the rest. “Real” feminism is defined as fighting to be treated as equals in the workplace, empowering women as opposed to infantilizing them, and working together as “women and men of good will” to “fashion more equitable workplaces.” The past history of women dealing with harassment gets a new, macho spin, for “those of us who have spent years metaphorically kicking sex pests in the balls.” And the worry expressed is that all this fuss over harassment risks “turning the clock back on hard-won sexual equality.” 

These statements divide women into two groups: the over-40 crowd who fought for and won equality and the strange younger demographic who thinks winking constitutes harassment, who are “fragile” and lack “robust common sense.” 

This division helps nobody, and so it’s disturbing to see it reflected in your op ed, which ironically divides women into “Bad Feminists” (who are right) and “Good Feminists” (who are wrong). The wrong feminists “believe that women are children,” align politically with misogynists, want to take away fundamental justice from men, are “feeding into the very old narrative that holds women to be incapable of fairness,” are “giving the opponents of women yet another reason to deny them positions of decision-making,” have an ideology, expect everyone to “puppet their views,” and are now participating in unproductive squabbling. 

It might be more useful to think about good and bad feminist practice. Instead of calling names, a focus on practice  opens a dialogue about what we are doing and why we are doing it. What constitutes good feminist practice to me? To you? Where are we similar and different? 

How did this happen?

Your op-ed came at a key moment for the #metoo backlash and dovetailed with talking points that have been chosen by corporations whose business is public propaganda for the world’s most powerful men. Why? I speculate that somebody took advantage of the frustration you have been feeling over seeing a fellow novelist publicly attacked, and that after the talking points they were pushing had a time to saturate public dialogue, offered you the opportunity to put your words in print--but for their own cynical reasons.  

That an author of highly revered feminist dystopia can be manipulated by patriarchy’s PR machine makes this a chilling moment for all of us. Time to step back and look at how social media is not only providing fake news but also twisting public dialogue as it comes out of our own mouths, turning thoughtful commentary into friendly fire. 

What now? 

The simplest solution to the problem of dialogue we don’t like is to ask everybody to “stop squabbling.” From your point of view, the angry #metoo activists should calm down and quit their witch-hunt. From my point of view, I’d prefer that you stop using the term witch-hunt.  But both requests to silence speech are too easy, and they leave us open to yet more manipulation and pointless infighting. 

A trickier but more powerful answer is for us to deepen the dialogue, to continue as feminists have always done and reach across divisions to find common ground. An example of such cross-generational discussion is “Feminists From Three Different Generations Talk Me Too,” which recently appeared on Vox.com. From a position of mutual solidarity, it is indeed possible for feminists to consider the issues on our own terms.  

That brings me back to the issue at the heart of your op-ed--what #Metoo participants should and should not do.

How to stop sexual violence

The real question is not whether or not you are a good or bad feminist, or whether #Metoo posters represent a lynch mob, but what to do with the very real question of sexual violence in our communities.

One group that has been working on the problem for decades is women of color. In particular, a group called Incite! Women of Color Against Violence met in a founding conference in 2000 to discuss how to stop violence in their communities, and it branched off in many directions. A framework for community accountability emerged in 2003 with no clear answers but with groundbreaking ideas and questions. A lot of the strategies and terms that are now surprising many white people, such as “believe the survivor,” came out of that work. But it is a nuanced practice, including other concepts such as “impact versus intent” and sitting down with both parties. That’s very different from someone reflexively sending a “believe the survivor” tweet. 

We have thorny problems to address, such as a conflict between transparency and confidentiality, and also between the need to believe the survivor and to follow a fair process. But I know from first-person experience that they are being addressed. I recently participated in a democratic discussion about how an organization might modify its complaints process to account for sexual harassment and abuse. Even though most of the people in the organization are men, the new survivor-focused process passed overwhelmingly. It looks like the world is ready for a change. 

This is, as you say, an important moment in history. 

Yours for the movement,

Kristin King

Works cited, and further reading 

Atwood, Margaret. “Am I a Bad Feminist?” The Globe and Mail, 15 Jan. 2018, www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/article37591823/.

Moraga Cherríe, and Anzaldúa Gloria. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. SUNY Press, 2015. Available at http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6102-this-bridge-called-my-back-four.aspx.

bell hooks

Anzaldúa Gloria, and AnaLouise Keating. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. Duke University Press, 2009. Available at https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-gloria-anzaldua-reader.

Combahee River Collective. “The Combahee River Collective Statement.” Released 1977, available on circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html.

 “Manufacturing Consent.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Feb. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent.

Fallon, Claire. “The Fake Feminism Of The #MeToo Backlash.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Jan. 2018, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/metoo-backlash-feminism_us_5a621cf7e4b01d91b2552f26. 

McAllister, D.C. “The #MeToo Movement Is Destroying Trust Between Men And Women.” The Federalist, FDRLST Media, 15 Dec. 2017, thefederalist.com/2017/12/13/metoo-movement-destroying-trust-men-women/.

“Meet the Women Worried about #MeToo.” Feminism | Spiked, Spiked Ltd, 18 Dec. 2018, www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/meet-the-women-worried-about-metoo/20639. 

“Spiked Online.” SourceWatch, www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Spiked_Online.

Monbiot, George. “George Monbiot: Invasion of the Entryists.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Dec. 2003, www.theguardian.com/education/2003/dec/09/highereducation.uk2.

Elizabeth Velez, April Sizemore-Barber, and Hanna Chan. “Feminists from 3 Different Generations Talk #MeToo.” Vox, Vox, 31 Jan. 2018, www.vox.com/conversations/2018/1/31/16952380/me-too-second-third-wave-feminism-backlash.

 “Community Accountability.” INCITE!, Incite National, incite-national.org/page/community-accountability.