tob 3/23 Annihilation v. An Untamed State

//just cut pasted.  wld like to read thr,  add bold etc./


March 23 Jessica Lamb-Shapiro: Annihilation v. An Untamed State


 Poor folks have lives too, outside of the Rich and Diaspora's ken and this novel never ever goes there.
ImaniToo 17 hours ago           all good int cmmts > see https://disqus.com/by/ImaniToo
-I jumped into this game pretty late. I decided to because, as an asthmatic, I was stuck inside my house in Kingston, Jamaica, because there was a huge fire at a huge dump and the resulting smoke (and all the wonderful pollutants in that smoke) smothered the capital visibly for about two days. It's a little over a week and it's still going. I am grateful, as I wheeze, because it and the tournament have re-immersed me into my once active reading life. (I gotta buy a nebulizer too. /too?/)      This is the first round in which I wanted to read the two books involved. This judgement broke my heart too, Up front, I admit that I was very sceptical of the book at the outset.
I am wary of "third world" books written for "first world" audiences. Nonetheless, I continued to the end because I hoped that somehow, things would develop differently, or at least be depicted in a less ham fisted way, through a less typical diaspora filter. Didn't happen.  That 'Untamed State' tried to be "a story about Haiti and class and poverty" is why it largely failed for me.    I thought Gay excelled in all the American set scenes, especially when she focused on Miri's recovery, because the characters didn't constantly put the USA on trial all the time.  / d n all hv to speak to/   That's how the scenes set in Haiti read for me. From the airport, to the kidnappers, even a simple drive through Port Au Prince felt like a judgement and none of it breathed. The flashback to one of her childhood summers in which her father drives her through the capital, the crowd is reduced to an angry desperate mob, envious of the luxury sedan, running after coins. LOLOL! I go to downtown Jamaica all the time in which, yes, the street vendors clog every street, pedestrians mill across the road at will, vehicles (luxury and otherwise), have to bully their way through. I daresay some of us eye any Audis or Range Rovers with a lusty eye but we also had our own business to take care of too because, you know, we deh downtown fi do business or even just to chat. Poor folks have lives too, outside of the Rich and Diaspora's ken and this novel never ever goes there. Ever! The scene in which Michael spontaneously plays football with the kids reads like a Peace Corps ad.      I tried to reconcile it as Miri's POV...and she does say repeatedly that she never knew Haiti. It doesn't do enough for me because no other perspective is ever shown. At the end, of course, she has to mention The Earthquake and how Haiti is,once again, poor and broken and without hope. I just...*eye roll*.
     On the other hand I thought Miri's slow renegotiation of her personal geographies was...I can't find an adjective that doesn't sound trite. So many of her responses were "text book" but every moment shocked me and contained more than I could have imagined. I even found myself, at times, reacting with the same frustration as Michael, even while knowing that Miri was making a Herculean effort to find herself again. That story was brilliant.    /as below: I just think Gay's strengths came to the fore when she focused on Miri's trauma and recovery.
  (Pardon typos and bad grammar, please.)

--ImaniToo Melanie G 16 hours ago   I don't need a Tourism Ad for a book. As a child raised in a Tourist City I have a special dislike for it and cringe at every One Love ad. The trouble is finding any country between the PR images: both the positive ones that show nothing but beach and sand, and the negative ones that show nothing but indulgent wealth and craven criminals in the street, which attracts another kind of business.
I very much got the idea that Gay only wrote what she knows, although I refrained from speculation because I had nothing but this novel to go on.
This depiction of Haiti--indeed of any Caribbean island-- by those who left /as above: diaspora filter/ is very very familiar. It is more or less Michael's gesture of kissing the floor at the airport -- that gesture that irked Miri.
I had no issue with the scenes set in the states, or any of those characters. //where d n have to represent.  as above: not put on trial./   I loved Michael's Mum. Gay allowed those persons to be, in their space, whereas in Haiti everyone had to represent Something About Haiti. And that wouldn't have been so bad either if she had just offered a little more variety!

-ImaniToo Melanie G 16 hours ago    Okay. Apologies for getting jumpy about that :). 
I just think Gay's strengths came to the fore when she focused on Miri's trauma and recovery.  I would try her other books.   It's good to see another Haitian author besides Danticat promoted.
-I don't think being of Haitian descent gives her any kind of pass. It is fine to show that in a novel but it's no excuse to only have that one dimensional aspect presented. If being 2nd gen gives her a very limited take on the country then I'd prefer she pass it over rather than add to yet another narrative on Poor Broken Hopeless Haiti.

-I am really over authors using negative stereotypes of developing countries as tools for their protagonist's drama.
If the inclusion of even *one other* perspective could diminish Miri's journey in anyway then the writer simply isn't that good.
I read a literary round table conversation in an old Paris Review issue years ago. In it Adam Czerniawski pointed out that, for him, Polish to English translations were a political act. Post WWII, he felt that art production humanised a people. The Powers That Be in the world would find it less easy to dismiss them. They had to get their perspective, multiple perspectives out there.
That is how I feel. I am incapable of being complacent about these simplistic depictions because they are often all that is out there about us. I get esp annoyed when it is our own diaspora writers who do it because their takes are automatically given additional weight.

-I do plan to read the new Marlon James. I've read his other two. His  novels, so far, do not have that failing. He writes from the inside about a certain moment or Jamaican space. They never lack nuance, they   never have neat conclusions about the island, and his writing skills are far superior /y/, imo. I am a big fan.
-I am very early into Marlon James' book but already--from the title, to the characters--he is all about specificity. /mm. y./  For me, he writes like an insider. Hopefully, I can say more by the time the next judgement comes around.


-Peer S.: hen Station Eleven got removed last week, I felt bad for Annhilation already - it would have had a chance against the same genre imho, but not about a "real event" book where "something bad happens". To be unfair about it: Uncomfortable books about uncomfortable things are loved by critics, because they upset you. For my taste: Its more abour readibility, than being sad for someone fictional.
-ImaniToo:In some sense, "Annihilation" left me very uncomfortable, or at least with a strong sense of unease and disquiet. I immediately got the other two to relieve it somewhat. I also found it far more readable because Vandermeer's prose is crisper, brighter, and craftier. There's not to much to Gay's.


PeterNepstad Drew • 12 hours ago
 -Annihilation was my fav in this year's tournament, though I've only read a little less than half the books. It is a modern day AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. People use the term "Lovecraftian" to describe stupid tentacled nonsense but forget that delightful and minutely described scientific observations of a world out of alignment with all you know of reality is really at the core in his best works. Sad to see it go and agree it was knocked because of gravitas gap and genre, so sad.
--Yes, I love how Lovecraft makes everything sound so realistic. I'm basing that from only 'At the Mountains of Madness' though. I'm remembering Mountains being much more scientific, even though Annihilation's main character is a biologist. I loved both books.



-teedle: whether it's okay to write off an entire genre because of what you believe the genre to consist of. . ."
It's not, and I can't even believe that it's still a debate today.
-teedle: VONNEGUT WRITES SCIENCE FICTION!!
-mr hilary: I'm not saying he doesn't! I think he's the shining example of what the genre could be but often isn't, in my limited experience.

(-neighbors73  10 hrs ago ~ 5pm ish -Ok. I went through all the comments (I think) and want to make the following observations: 
Those who didn't like AUS are being very specific with why they didn't like it, mostly that they found the writing to be cliched, of poor quality, etc.
Those who prefer Annihilation are mostly upset about the judge's bias, or those of other commenters. Drew made several very specific references to what he thinks works in Annihilation---but there's not a whole lot of discussion of the actual book. We're all in a big genre debate.  /y I read this morning well noon ~made it to end of 85ish cmmts.. then surprised tonight: 280 !    now 297 cmmts)



 ...
-For me, Nos4a2 was that way. I am actually too scared to finish it.
--Margaret L: I finished nos4a2 and I still have nightmares. Oh most definitely. I don't even have kids /ha ha: / and my first thought was NEVER LET KIDS GO MORE THAN 10 FEET AWAY.

-Margaret L /who liked Evth I Nvr Told You for ~personal reasons, relating to situation not in wh qstn of murder or suicide but in wh almost happened, diffciulties in telling things to ppl close w/: I just didn't feel like Untamed State hit home for me precisely because of the writing. I remember being like 10 pages in and thinking, "I hate the sentence structure, how am I going to get through this?" But I did, and I am grateful that it engenders conversation and grateful that I can be a part of that conversation, but I didn't love it as a book. (I know "love" isn't the right word, but there's not a better one for what I mean.) I wanted something more, and I don't know what that something more is--better surrounding characters maybe.



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good thread:   Heather Drew • 18 hours ago   I was hoping for a different judgment as well, but I do feel like our judge gave Annihilation a solid reading and some pretty high praise.
I don't love An Untamed State, but it does seem to inspire really intense feelings that make me wonder what I am missing.    For those who really found themselves resonating with the book, why? What in particular has made it stick with you?

-AmberBug @ ShelfNotes Heather • 18 hours ago
I think the second half (her recovery) was what connected me. The idea of how someone recovers from that - not the act itself. It brought out a lot of truth to relationships and how you can one day feel so connected with someone and the next a change sets off a completely different feeling.
I've gone from love to hate before and I find it very interesting that her feelings mirrored many of my own - even though I didn't have this terrible thing happen to me. I believe Gay touched upon a darkness inside of us, how we can never truly be as close to someone as we think. Again, one spark and the whole situation changes, you can't relate to a person, you look at them differently. That was what I was taken with but might be completely different from other readers.

-Breen Reardon Heather • 17 hours ago
There's a frantic energy early, there's astounding brutality in the middle, and there's a "will she recover?" question near the end. It's hard to look away from this book, in my opinion.
But what I have been thinking about the most is Mireille's adaption to her rules and captors. You know, there's a lot of talk about biological impulses in Annihilation (what makes the Crawler do what he / it does?) but it seems to me to be a topic in Untamed State as well. When Mireille decides to actively seduce the Boss (and I hate not having the book in front of me to be more specific) it's strange, terribly uncomfortable, and it makes perfect sense for her survival. At some point she decided to stop railing against her environment and just survive.
Should she have consented earlier, adapted to the situation and environment before the worst of the abuse? (And would that have stopped what was to come anyway?) Engaged some survival mode earlier? I have no idea and I hope to God I never to have to consider it other than as a literary discussion, but it's been on my mind a lot. And I still don't know what I think.    That's why it's stuck with me.

-I was initially hesitant to read it because I worried about the level of violence, but I ended up loving it. It really pulled me in and was hard to put down. In the first parts, it alternated between the violence and the flashback scenes, which provides a break from the trauma. But then she is freed, and I found myself more affected by the process of her recovery- the PTSD elements felt very real. I think overall the book has a strong emotional core that feels true, and that resonated with me. I read it last summer, and it has really stuck with me.

-It's a bit unfair, since I only finished it a few weeks ago, but I think the entire suddenness and harshness of the plot, the focus on the afterwards, the shifting alliances (seducing the Captain, not telling her husband everything, family relationships), and the isolation all were particularly compelling.
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-S-k-s to aliceunderskies • 17 hours ago
In the whole 'National Conversation' on this "Very Important Topic" that we seem to be trying to have this year, I think sexual assault has been turned into some sort of objective, depersonalized thing. And what I think this book does that is important is take it out of that "society" conversation and remind us that assault is a very personal thing that happens to individual people who are brutalized and traumatized and have to go through it and come out the other side in a way that is unique and different for every person. /km syllabus quoting E Sedgwick: "People are different from each other." /*to* e o, I want to say.//  I think that the book is stronger because it doesn't try to explore the background of the assault and the people who did it in any great depth: this is a book about what happened to Miri, and about how Miri survives, not about how Miri fits into the greater cultural conversation.



_____________________________________________   fr phone notepad
tmn tob 3/23 tob  UAS

-Hartford Public School Parent  to Kristin Boldon  14 hours ago
Kristin: You ask, "can't we all just acknowledge that there is no such thing as objective criticism?" Yes, we can (at least in my opinion), insofar as we all recognize that we come to a novel, each one of us, with our own set of experiences, values, hopes, music-in-the-inner-ear, and so on. There are some kinds of books I'm going to be drawn to, and others that are going to be inherently difficult or strange or elusive or abrasive.
But... Once we acknowledge this basic fact of human diversity, what can we nevertheless say (if anything) about what distinguishes great writing from OK writing from, well, bad writing? This, I think, is the question behind those few responders who are pining for the old notion of "objective standards." They (and I guess I'm one of them) worry that so much of our talk about this or that novel goes solely to the themes or ideas that the writer is engaging -- and not to how the book is written.
There are qualities that good novels share no matter what they are about: ingenuity in construction; originality; freshness and control and surprise in the use of language; insight into human nature and human dilemmas. If a novel has these, I will like it -- no matter what the subject or genre. If it doesn't, it might be about a subject dear to my heart... but it will be nothing to me.
Some of the books that are being praised passionately lack these basic literary qualities. *****  An Untamed State is like a primer of mistakes that student writers make. Herky-jerky pacing and simplistic dialogue; awkward time-frame slip ups; simplistic and blatant dialogue; yucky romantic writing; wild character fluctuations; POV confusions; tin-ear dialogue... and on and on. The one convincing thing, the source of authentic power, is the main character’s abject rage and traumatization after she is let go. But even then her actions and remarks are laughable in places –
e.g., when her husband tries to console her, and she says, “Don’t hurt me – whatever you do, don’t hurt me!” Now, I don't doubt for a second that victims of sexual violence are traumatized and experience resurgences of dread and powerful unexpected responses. But instead of finding some unexpected and compelling way to embody this reality in the scene, Gay writes it with clumsy literalness. It is only believable if you translate it into an idea -- if you interpret it as a way for the writer to make the point that a person has been traumatized, and not as the real utterance of a unique individual in a persuasively rendered scene. This is what I mean by heavy-handed writing. Similarly discouraging to me is the romantic banter between the main character and her husband. It suggests a
not-quite-adult conception of romance and marriage. The novel is full of Yucky Romantic Writing (“We lay there, in the surf, beneath the beating sun, and he said, ‘I’m going to love you forever.’ And I believed him. I believed in our happily ever after.”
This is the kind of thing that several other readers have called -- accurately -- "trite." This kind of writing is flat, pedestrian, melodramatic, and banal. “His eyes glowed and frustration pulsed from his skin.” “It wasn’t until I was taken away from my husband and child that I realized we were all going to pay the price for my father’s dreams.” And on and on.
Now, of course someone -- anyone -- can insist, Well, I don't care about those things. (And there have been accomplished novelists who weren't exactly writers of gorgeous prose -- think Dreiser, for instance). But they do arguably amount to a set of literary criteria that aren't simply, you know, a matter of subjective taste.
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