A Fan's Playground

This is an epistolary novel about the USA Civil War, as told through the friendship of two women, one Northern and one Southern. This book was recommended to me after I posted about a real-life Southern woman's Civil War diary I'd read a few years back, as a book that also gives a more complicated view of the war.

And like....it was that, and it was a well-written and well-researched book, and I cared a great deal about the main characters, but.... I don't know. The book ends with the basic theme of "War just generally sucks" which is an idea I can get behind, but I just don't feel like a historical period that is very specifically A War About Chattel Slavery is the right historical period to set your novel that's mainly about the hardships of being a white woman.

Yes, there's some content about slavery and racism, and trying to figure out what Right is, but all of this is from the perspective of white people, and the white people are absolutely the people the book is actually interested in. And yes, white people (and especially women!) did have awfully hard times in the Civil War, and there were people behaving badly on all sides of the war, as there always is because people are people and war is terrible. But in this context, the story just felt to me like it was giving the impression that, if both sides are bad then there's nothing especially wrong about being a supporter of the pro-slavery side.

And I agree with the book's anti-war message, I absolutely believe that war is bad and leads to lots of bad stuff happening - but if you're going to specifically write an American Civil War novel with an anti-war message, I kind of feel like you're morally obligated to indicate you have some sort of notion of how else the abolition of slavery might have been achieved. Or at the very least make clear that the narrative understands that black people being freed from oppression is just as important as white women being freed from oppression.

But as it is, though I feel desperately for Susanna and Cora and the awful things they experienced, a novel about the civil war choosing to focus solely on white people is making a statement about what people are the ones worth paying attention to. And in this book, the black people ultimately don't matter. And that makes me deeply uncomfortable with the entire book. Especially since the Civil War is so unfortunately continuing to be relevant to modern political discourse, and so the ideas about the Civil War that are out there matter to modern race relations and US politics.

I googled the author after reading this book, and discovered that she's the writer of the Benjamin January series I keep hearing good things about, which is a series featuring a black man in the antebellum south, so it's not that the author doesn't care about black people. And knowing that does make me feel better, somewhat. But that still doesn't fix what I see as wrong with Homeland.

In conclusion I would have liked the story about Susanna and Cora and their Romeo-and-Juliet-esque friendship-between-enemies far more if it were set in pretty much any other historical context. And I think this year is the right year for me to finally get around to reading at least one or two of the slavery memoirs on my to-read list.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly

Oh look another historical novel about a tomboy living in rural 19th century USA!

This one though was written in the last few years and is set in Texas in 1899. Calpurnia (often known as Callie Vee) is the middle child of seven children, and all her siblings are boys. But instead of just a general interest in adventure/hijinks, she has an interest in SCIENCE, encouraged by her grandfather. Much to her parents' despair.

There was a lot to love about this book! Some good characterization, especially of Callie and her grandfather.

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The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly

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Gosh June was a good month for me, quality-of-book wise. The below four are all really great, as were most of the others I read earlier this month! A big contrast with May, which was nearly all books I was pretty meh about.

( The Emperor's Soul, by Brandon Sanderson )

( The Martian, by Andy Weir )

( Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson )

( The Book of Small, by Emily Carr )

Yeah, so there's a lot of books I've read in the last little while when I haven't been posting regularly, so there's a bunch to report back on! Some I have more, uh, extensive thoughts than others. I'll start with a compilation post for a number of the books for which I had less to say. But after posting this I am taking my beloved computer off to the repair shop to get a serious overheating problem looked at, so my presence may be erratic until the repairs are complete! (depends on how often Mara needs her computer, how often I go to the library, and how often I decide that the frustrations of internet via iPod are worth facing :P)


( The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, by S Bear Bergman )

( Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton )

( Magician's Ward, by Patricia C. Wrede )

( H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian )

( Dragonbreath, Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs, and Dragonbreath: The Curse of the Were-Wiener, by Ursula Vernon )

( Drystone Walling Techniques and Traditions, by The Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain )

So today I finished reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Yup, the book by the dude who wrote the article about fandom! And yup, that's why I picked it up!

( Cut for spoilers )