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race and reviewing
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deepad's insightful thoughts on culture, literature, and Western/white monopolies in publishing raised, for me, many of the issues I've been pondering as a book reviewer.
Do we have an obligation to point it out?
First of all, I always feel like I'm the reviewer for Kirkus who points out icky race issues, to the extent that I feel self-conscious about it, like I have an obsession that I need to get over (I should note to my editor has never asked me to write less about race; the discomfort is all internal). I dedicated more words to my discomfort with Lauren McLaughlin's Cycler than the number of problematic words in the text itself. I second-guess myself constantly, often not mentioning issues I find very uncomfortable. (When you only have 175 words, every word carries so much weight that as a reviewer I need to decide "is this the takeaway I want from this book?")
Recently I chose not to mention race/colonialism issues in a standard boys' fantasy adventure -- white, American, baseball-playing boy goes to fictional Muslim country well stocked with exotic spices and carpets, where he meets plucky local boy and girl and helps save the country. Why didn't I mention colonialism in this story? Two reasons: the fictional Muslim country was well enough realized that I could tell which country it was meant to be, instead of just being generic hookahs- and turbans-land; and a fair amount of the country-saving comes from the locals instead of from the American boy. These two tiny things, in a genre well stocked with far more problematic (but highly praised) texts, were enough for me to let it go. I'm practically the only reviewer who would have mentioned the colonialist issues in the first place, so I had to let it go. As I tolddiceytillerman in my comment to her excellent recent post about fat acceptance, I give a lot of credit for baby steps. I give credit for trying, too. Sure, all of Tamora Pierce's heroines live in faux-European fantasylands[1]. But I give props to Trickster's Queen in my review for exploring the complexities of colonialism. I'd rather have given props for it not being a book about faux-Indonesians from a faux-European's perspective, but if anyone in fantasyland should get props for baby steps, it's Pierce. She really tries very hard to confront norms of race, gender, sexuality, class. She doesn't always succeed, but she tries. Baby steps.
Every time I mention race or colonialism, I feel like I am dragging down one book for exhibiting the failings of an entire genre. If I complain that this boys' adventure story featured a white boy hero, his white best friend, his Asian friend/martial arts expert sidekick, and a girl, am I just blaming a single book for being exactly like every other book in its genre? Every time I don't mention race, I feel like I'm failing readers. I have to keep reminding myself that it is only my job to help people make purchasing decisions. It's not my job to demand better books on their behalf. If I told librarians never to purchase any books with race or gender problems, there would be a whole lot of empty shelves and unspent acquisitions budgets. But I keep coming back to Herbert Kohl's Should We Burn Babar?, and answering the question, as he does, by saying No, absolutely not, but we do need to talk about it. I have no problem with thousands of tween girls reading and loving Twilight, but I wish we were talking about the icky race issues in that book. I wish we were putting Drew Hayden Taylor's The Night Wanderer on the shelves as well.
But you know what? Putting both books on the shelves isn't my job. Moreover, Twilight and the Night Wanderer are entirely different books, and Taylor's is not going to fill the same id vortex pleasure as Meyer's.
How do we talk about those books which are different but mediocre?
I'm thrilled that there have been a growing number of fantasy and science fiction books for young readers by authors of color and about characters of color, and characters not from the former or present British Commonwealth. But as a reviewer, I've been confronted with the hard truth that while some are fabulous, many of them aren't all that good. That's not at all surprising. First of all, Sturgeon's Law always applies.deepad's post has some other conjectures, which seem reasonable to me although I haven't thought them out or seen if anyone takes issue with them.
So how do I write reviews for these books? If I write wholly-positive reviews, then I am holding these books to a lower standard than I would books by white authors about white characters? Because that is patronizing and racist. If I write my review based entirely on literary quality, then these books won't get purchased and put in libraries, and they need to be there. They need to be there for the readers, they need to be there to counterdeepad's half a tongue.
In the past I've found myself writing reviews that say, more or less, flawed but necessary. Which is still incredibly problematic. And of course, I constantly second-guess myself about why I think these books aren't as good. Are they actually flawed, or are they just using tropes and writing styles which aren't as comfortable to me, because I know Eurocentric literature and its genre patterns? This was easiest for me to pick out when I reviewed a manga adaptation, where I could ask manga-literate friends to help me figure out which parts of the text that made me uncomfortable were tropes from another genre, and which were just native to this text. (Answer: a little of each.)
[1]: Semi-exceptions: one faux-European raised by faux-Europeans in faux-Japan before she comes back to faux-Europe at series start; the black gypsy lesbian (whose culture rejects her unfairly) and the faux-Jew, both raised in faux-Europe at series start; and the faux-Chinese girl. Which is, collectively, a fair amount for fantasyland -- a disturbing thought in and of itself.
deepad's insightful thoughts on culture, literature, and Western/white monopolies in publishing raised, for me, many of the issues I've been pondering as a book reviewer.Do we have an obligation to point it out?
First of all, I always feel like I'm the reviewer for Kirkus who points out icky race issues, to the extent that I feel self-conscious about it, like I have an obsession that I need to get over (I should note to my editor has never asked me to write less about race; the discomfort is all internal). I dedicated more words to my discomfort with Lauren McLaughlin's Cycler than the number of problematic words in the text itself. I second-guess myself constantly, often not mentioning issues I find very uncomfortable. (When you only have 175 words, every word carries so much weight that as a reviewer I need to decide "is this the takeaway I want from this book?")
Recently I chose not to mention race/colonialism issues in a standard boys' fantasy adventure -- white, American, baseball-playing boy goes to fictional Muslim country well stocked with exotic spices and carpets, where he meets plucky local boy and girl and helps save the country. Why didn't I mention colonialism in this story? Two reasons: the fictional Muslim country was well enough realized that I could tell which country it was meant to be, instead of just being generic hookahs- and turbans-land; and a fair amount of the country-saving comes from the locals instead of from the American boy. These two tiny things, in a genre well stocked with far more problematic (but highly praised) texts, were enough for me to let it go. I'm practically the only reviewer who would have mentioned the colonialist issues in the first place, so I had to let it go. As I told
diceytillerman in my comment to her excellent recent post about fat acceptance, I give a lot of credit for baby steps. I give credit for trying, too. Sure, all of Tamora Pierce's heroines live in faux-European fantasylands[1]. But I give props to Trickster's Queen in my review for exploring the complexities of colonialism. I'd rather have given props for it not being a book about faux-Indonesians from a faux-European's perspective, but if anyone in fantasyland should get props for baby steps, it's Pierce. She really tries very hard to confront norms of race, gender, sexuality, class. She doesn't always succeed, but she tries. Baby steps. Every time I mention race or colonialism, I feel like I am dragging down one book for exhibiting the failings of an entire genre. If I complain that this boys' adventure story featured a white boy hero, his white best friend, his Asian friend/martial arts expert sidekick, and a girl, am I just blaming a single book for being exactly like every other book in its genre? Every time I don't mention race, I feel like I'm failing readers. I have to keep reminding myself that it is only my job to help people make purchasing decisions. It's not my job to demand better books on their behalf. If I told librarians never to purchase any books with race or gender problems, there would be a whole lot of empty shelves and unspent acquisitions budgets. But I keep coming back to Herbert Kohl's Should We Burn Babar?, and answering the question, as he does, by saying No, absolutely not, but we do need to talk about it. I have no problem with thousands of tween girls reading and loving Twilight, but I wish we were talking about the icky race issues in that book. I wish we were putting Drew Hayden Taylor's The Night Wanderer on the shelves as well.
But you know what? Putting both books on the shelves isn't my job. Moreover, Twilight and the Night Wanderer are entirely different books, and Taylor's is not going to fill the same id vortex pleasure as Meyer's.
How do we talk about those books which are different but mediocre?
I'm thrilled that there have been a growing number of fantasy and science fiction books for young readers by authors of color and about characters of color, and characters not from the former or present British Commonwealth. But as a reviewer, I've been confronted with the hard truth that while some are fabulous, many of them aren't all that good. That's not at all surprising. First of all, Sturgeon's Law always applies.
deepad's post has some other conjectures, which seem reasonable to me although I haven't thought them out or seen if anyone takes issue with them.So how do I write reviews for these books? If I write wholly-positive reviews, then I am holding these books to a lower standard than I would books by white authors about white characters? Because that is patronizing and racist. If I write my review based entirely on literary quality, then these books won't get purchased and put in libraries, and they need to be there. They need to be there for the readers, they need to be there to counter
deepad's half a tongue. In the past I've found myself writing reviews that say, more or less, flawed but necessary. Which is still incredibly problematic. And of course, I constantly second-guess myself about why I think these books aren't as good. Are they actually flawed, or are they just using tropes and writing styles which aren't as comfortable to me, because I know Eurocentric literature and its genre patterns? This was easiest for me to pick out when I reviewed a manga adaptation, where I could ask manga-literate friends to help me figure out which parts of the text that made me uncomfortable were tropes from another genre, and which were just native to this text. (Answer: a little of each.)
[1]: Semi-exceptions: one faux-European raised by faux-Europeans in faux-Japan before she comes back to faux-Europe at series start; the black gypsy lesbian (whose culture rejects her unfairly) and the faux-Jew, both raised in faux-Europe at series start; and the faux-Chinese girl. Which is, collectively, a fair amount for fantasyland -- a disturbing thought in and of itself.
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Careful with the comments on some of those; many full-of-fail Twilight fans accusing the host of being mean and petty.
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Actually, that kind of sounds like fun. It was a defining moment in my life when at age 15 I opened up that week's Parade and read a host of letters from New Kids on the Block fans who were unhappy with a not-fawning feature on the boy band published the week before. One letter-writer insisted the news shouldn't be allowed to print anything lots of people will disagree with. Ever since, I've had lots of fun laughing at anyone who takes any fandom THAT seriously. And laughing at stupid people, too.
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I suppose I should have said that the Twilight fans were praising Meyer for her "generosity" toward the Quileute, etc. Because that's the kind of thing that was getting to me; not the "you're so meeeeeean" comments.
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"with that said even if stephenie meyer twisted the true legends it was quite generous of her to use a true tribe in her fictional story and bring forth its legends, bringing some of the true legends alive and letting the legends live through her story as long as it will be remembered."
*boggles* I... wow.
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