taina

een recensie van Mens blijven aan het front van Andrii Kobaliia en Gilles van der Loo

Dit boek is geschreven door Gilles van der Loo op basis van zijn videogesprekken met Andrii Kobaliia. Het bestaat uit hoofdstukken waarin Kobaliia's ervaringen vanuit zijn perspectief worden beschreven, en uit stukken van Van der Loos gedachten.

De Kobaliia-hoofdstukken zijn waar je het boek voor leest; daarin wordt beschreven hoe het leven er aan het front in Oekraïne uitziet. In het begin in veel detail, maar in de loop van het boek steeds minder en wordt het een waas van overplaatsingen. Dit geeft reflecteert waarschijnlijk Kobaliia's gewenning aan het front en aan de groeiende ongevoeligheid waarmee hij gedurende het boek kampt. Daarnaast zal het wel herhaling tegengaan – kou blijft immers kou en modder blijft modder. Misschien speelt ook nog mee dat het leven van infanterie aan een frontlinie die sinds begin 2022 drastisch is verschoven minder gevoelig is dan informatie over drone-eenheden die in 2023 aan ongeveer hetzelfde front vochten als in 2024. Hoe dan ook waren het juist de details waarin ik geïnteresseerd was, en die miste ik een beetje tegen het eind.

De Van der Loo-hoofdstukken zijn in mijn mening compleet onnodig. Heel, héél af en toe zit er een klein stukje zinvolle analyse in, maar vaak dragen deze stukken tekst werkelijk niets bij. Een samenvatting/herhaling van de vorige zes bladzijden, een anekdote uit Van der Loos leven die niets met Kobaliia's verhaal te maken heeft, of gewoon woorden waarmee niks wordt gezegd. In het begin is Van der Loo  bezig met hoe iemand ervoor kiest om te vechten, wat ik op zich wel een interessante vraag vind, maar ook dat verdwijnt een beetje. (In het dankwoord dankt Van der Loo Kobaliia "van wie ik geleerd heb dat ook ik zou blijven om te vechten voor het behoud van mijn stad en land", maar deze conclusie volgt niet uit de tekst.) Van der Loo neemt te veel ruimte in in Kobaliia's verhaal zonder er wat aan bij te dragen, en het komt over als pure paginavullerij.

a review of The Little Book of Fungi by Britt A. Bunyard

I'm a bit wary of Little Books of this or that, I don't really trust them to be worthwhile in terms of quality. But I figured since I don't have much base knowledge of mycology, this might be okay as a primer or very basic reference work for me. That was a mistake, my first instinct was correct.

The Little Book of Fungi is a collection of fun facts that is mostly intended to look pretty. (The ochre clothbound cover does look very nice. The blurb is a sticker that I assume can be removed to leave a tastefully minimalistic outside with just the title, the author, and a small stylised bunch of mushrooms.) The inside is very heavily illustrated, with the page area divided about equally between text and illustrations. Additionally, the pages are very thick (for the colour images), so the number of pages is smaller than you might expect for the book's thickness (not very thick). All this means that there is very little text.

The text feels messy to me. The way information that seems related to me is sprinkled through different chapters feels disorganised; the organisation within the two-page sub-chapters feels wonky sometimes; and occasionally there's a sentence that doesn't quite make sense. There are too many sentences starting with "Amazingly," for my liking. (I don't think you should start a sentence with "Amazingly," if the previous sentence already described something as "amazing".) Sometimes the information of two  not-very-info-heavy sentences is summarised in a third sentence.

The illustrations are pretty, but not always very illustrative. Sometimes they're just nice photos or drawings of mushrooms (and hey, I'm a mushroom image enjoyer), but don't otherwise add much for how much page area they take away from potential text. Sometimes they are (I assume) meant to explain something, but because the parts of the illustration are not labeled, I'm left with no idea what I'm looking at.

And, you know, the book in general isn't very informative. There were plenty of facts I didn't know, of course, but not much in the way of insights. I guess if you're already read Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life (for example), I'd say The Little Book of Fun Facts is worth giving a pass.

a review of Toward Eternity by Anton Hur

Toward Eternity has a lot going for it that should really be my shit: poetry; AI; AIs reading poetry; exploration of the meaning and import of language(s); of what makes humanity (especially in a world where there are sentient beings that are not (biologically) similar to H. sapiens as we know it today. But I found it just okay. It didn't really focus enough on language(s) and I felt it also forgot about poetry for a while.

It also cared deeply about capital-M Music (especially classical European music – Bach and Mozart in particular), and that is an effective trick for making me lose interest. I simply feel "an intense, burning indifference" to it as a major component in fiction. I cannot relate, I anti-relate, it's just not for me. (To be clear, I haven nothing against music, I just don't care for it in fiction.) At least one of the points of view contrasted Music with poetry (which in the rest of the book are cast as an eternal, essential part of the universe, something that transcends humanity and keeps existing even if no one is around to read or recite or remember it anymore), and considered it even more pure and sublime(?) and so on than language – and then it wasn't really brought up again.

The book was maybe also too short for what it wanted to do (or at least for what I felt it was setting up). There was not enough page time for each character, and the book ended in a kind of awkward place of not enough mystery to leave me intrigued after finishing it, yet not enough revelation to leave me satisfied either. I would also have liked the eternal essence of poetry to be supported a bit more.
(Also, the poetry featured in this book is primarily 19th century English and American poetry, which one of the viewpoints states early on was a tool of imperialist violence. And while the same character states that these poems have merit nonetheless, I do find it awkward that the only examples of eternal and universal poetry we get are from this hegemonic Anglo-American canon.)

Speaking of characters and viewpoints – the story is told through a single notebook in which a chain of roughly a dozen characters each write their own story, or part of their story, or their part of the story. The first three or so characters have somewhat distinct voices, but the later ones all sound/feel the same, and I found myself asking when and how they had the opportunity to write in the notebook, which broke my suspension of disbelief a little.

That said, Toward Eternity still manages to do a bunch of interesting stuff, and it's easy to keep turning the pages (or keep listening), and I did enjoy the musings about poetry, such as they were. It may be interesting to people who enjoyed Anjet Daanje's Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris. It's not the same, of course (nothing can be), but the structure and red thread of the respective books are similar in some ways, as well as the poetry/literature and music themes.

a review of Jalat ilmassa by Antti Rönkä (originally from 05-01-20)

Tätä innostuin lukemaan ennen kaikkea siksi, että yliopistossa tapahtuvat kirjat ovat kokemuksessani varsin harvinaisia (ja sellaiset minua nimenomaan enemmän kiinnostaisi kuin koulussa tapahtuvat).

Ensimmäiseksi sanoisin, että kirjoitus on tässä hyvin "tehokasta": päähenkilö Aaron ahdistus saadaan välitettyä täydellisesti. Minua ahdisti lukiessa niin kovasti että aivot olivat koko ajan paniikkimoodissa, tuli huono olo ja pystyin lukemaan vain sivun kerralla.
Loppupäässä kestin lukea paljon nopeammin ja aloin jo harkita viiden tähden arvostelua, kunnes tuli viimeinen luku. Siis tietenkin traumoista puhuminen on tarpeellinen askel, mutta toivoisin että sitä elämää sen jälkeen olisi vähän enemmän näytetty. Loppuluku oli niin huoleton että saattaisi uskoa kaikkien ongelmien ratkenneen taialla.
Luin haastattelussa, että ahdistus ja masennus ovat own-voices -perusteisia. On siis oletettava, että loppu vaan oli vähän onneton eikä tietämättömyyden tuote. Selittäytynee sillä että tämä on ensiromaani, ja ensiromaaniksi erittäin hyvä.

Yliopistoa oli aika vähän, mutta eipähän se ollutkaan tämän romaanin keskeinen aihe.

a review of As We Fall by Anya Wildt

Unfortunately, this book was a disappointment for me :(

I didn't really care for the generic Roman-inspired setting, it felt bland and undetailed. I realise the setting is a bit of a secondary concern in a romance book, but I care about worldbuilding a lot.

The plot was a bit weird. There was a nearly 200-page gap in the middle where the plot didn't really advance at all. The political plot was also unconvincing. There were people who wanted things, but they didn't really seem to have clear motivations. The effect is that they seemed to just be mindlessly doing things for the sake of having a conflict.

I hated the main character. Throughout the book, he got less and less sympathetic: he's mean, rash, irresponsible, and has a serious temper problem. He doesn't listen to anyone and lashes out at the people who care about him. Also, he's much more interested in sneaking out of the palace to play detective than in fulfilling his duties as a head of state. I'm inclined to agree with his enemies who think he is not fit to rule.

And on top of everything, the romance is not romantic.

( spoiler )

I can understand Domitris falling in love with Sinnan, but I don't really see any sign of Sinnan returning the feelings, or having any reason to.

There were also some minor editing issues, mostly in the form of words that were used wrong. I think the author picked some synonyms that don't fit. That didn't really bother me, though.

i just finished listening to With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo (5/5 stars, highly recommend). it was great, it's not your average white american high school drama. if you enjoy cooking, it really adds something extra. the author herself narrated the audiobook which was also nice. maybe i'd like to read it as a physical book (or ebook) some time, because i couldn't follow the occasional line in Spanish. still, i'm a big fan of the inclusion of some Spanish, i always support more visible linguistic diversity in literature.

but what i wanted to mention was the representation of Europe. the book includes a week's trip to Spain (it's hinted at in the blurb, i don't think it's too much of a spoiler). of course the book isn't about Spain, but i'm happy with some of the details that the author put in. here's a few that stood out to me:

• attention to Moorish influences on Iberian culture (including architecture and cuisine)
• varying levels of English among Europeans (some who speak a little, some who don't feel confident speaking it, some (highly educated) people who master it perfectly)
• veneration of Columbus and blood gold in cathedrals
• descriptions of an old town (cobbled streets, old restaurants etc)
• distinctions within a country (not just "Spain" but also Andalucía mentioned specifically)
• difference between European Spanish and American Spanish(es)

having read Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy in English, French and German, i finally got around to borrowing the Dutch translations by Mariëtte van Gelder from the library. since i've read each of the books at least seven times, i know them pretty much by heart and was able to pay quite detailed attention to the translation. so, here are some of my thoughts on the first book, Het recht van de Radch. there are spoilers here.

( contains spoilers )

anyway. i could go on for a long time, i made many more notes that i haven't even used. it's safe to say that i'm not too impressed with the quality of this translation. nevertheless, i really enjoyed my tenth read of Ancillary Justice and i'm looking forward to Het zwaard van de Radch, which will be my eighth read of Ancillary Sword.