Everybody's going on and on about Thirteenth Child.

[conuly]

I've actually read that book, and I read it before any of this hit LJ or DW or anywhere, so I had no idea of the concept of this book other than "Wow, I didn't realize Wrede was publishing a book this year!"

1. It's not that great. I hate to say it, but it's just not that great. It dragged in parts and I kept losing track of characters.

2. I have to say, reading it, I didn't realize there were no Native Americans. It took me a few chapters to realize they were even on an Earth (unlike in, say, Dealing with Dragons where they clearly weren't), and then... I think I assumed statements of "people not living beyond the barrier" meant settlers (something I didn't blink at as it would be consistent with views of this time period) or that Native Americans had originally made the barrier, or that Native Americans had their own barriers to keep out the wildlife which they used and didn't share with the settlers. But I may be editing my thoughts after the fact to make myself look good in my own mind, I don't know.

This comment isn't intended to be very insightful, and I doubt it is, but as most people talking about this book don't seem to have read it I thought I'd go ahead and say it anyway. (Which doesn't make their comments invalid, especially as many of them concern what Wrede herself said while in the planning stages, of course, nor does it make them *wrong* just because I didn't pick up on this while reading.)

A link list to MammothFail

Comments

[karalianne.livejournal.com]

I just read a James Patterson book. I hadn't read anything by him before, and doubt I will bother with any of his other titles. The book is Sundays at Tiffany's. Great premise, poor execution. :( It has a happy ending and all, but it fell flat. Characters weren't properly developed, their relationships weren't really expanded upon very well, so when the conflicts (which didn't seem all that huge) were resolved, it wasn't very fulfilling.

Yet he's supposedly a great author?

It's not even that I want something more sophisticated, because the novel I finished prior to this was Terry Jones' Starship Titanic. Which is based on an idea by Douglas Adams. And Terry Jones is of Monty Python fame. So you can imagine how sophisticated that book was. *grins* But I found it much more enjoyable.

[conuly]

Are you following threads about what's being called MammothFail at all?

[karalianne.livejournal.com]

No... I have heard of the book, but not much about it. I think I saw it at the library the other day and almost picked it up. Is it worth it? I usually love Patricia Wrede's stuff.

Sometimes I don't make comments that are actually totally on-topic. Feel free to ignore me when I do that. :)

[lorelein.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough I haven't heard anything about Thirteenth Child, but I remember reading and loving Dealing With Dragons as an adolescent. I can never find it at Half Price Books.

[conuly]

http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/297434.html

[siderea]

most people talking about this book don't seem to have read it

Yeah. I can't begin to express how unimpressed I am with that behavior. You'd think self-proclaimed antiracism allies would have some awareness of the history of how antiracist books, e.g. Tom Sawyer, have become the target of censorious mobs crying for suppression in the name of antiracism, e.g. "OMG it uses the N-word!", comprised of the easily lead and duped who hadn't read the book for themselves.

There's a REASON the FIRST question anyone asks when one starts objecting to the content of a book is "Have you read it? Have your read ALL of it?"

[conuly]

Well, of course, it's just come out, and I imagine a lot of them are reluctant to spend money (hardcover!) for a book that they already know they don't like the planning of.

I still think we should read before we comment, though.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, (and I haven't been following very closely, I admit), I've seen how badly hurt a lot of my friends are by the very concept of this book. And most of them are Wrede fans, or were. But the idea that she casually edited out the history of a people who are already so terribly marginalized in every way has hit a very deep nerve. I can't claim to understand it entirely myself, but I'm trying to respect the fact that it's obviously a much bigger deal than I realized.

[sanguinity]

On having read the book:

It's been a while since I've read Tom Sawyer, but if you're willing to discuss Huck Finn (which the same e.g. note would apply to), it's one of those "anti-racist" books written by white people, for white people, and which has a whole lot of free-range racism running around inside of it.

F'rinstance, Jim is portrayed as actually being childlike, and more than a bit thick. The racism is right there on the page in the characterization. The things Huck reports Jim as having said and done can't simply be chalked up to Huck being an unreliable narrator, not unless we're willing to say that Huck is so unreliable that we can't even trust that people said what they're directly quoted as saying.

In discussions of literary racism, there is a long history of people who have read the book but who failed perceive that it was racist, and thus unilaterally decided that everyone else hasn't read the book and/or that that all of those other readers are just kinda stupid.


On what you can criticize if you haven't read the book:

Excepting the first couple days of discussion, in which people were critiquing the premise (not the book) in terms of how close it mirrors racist tropes, what one would have to do with that premise to keep the resultant book from being racist, and how if Wrede had tried to do that she had apparently done it so badly that the extant reviews of the book made no mention of any of it--

--the discussion of the racism of the premise has mostly focused on these direct quotes about the reasons she was making particular world-building choices she was planning on making, and the racism that is apparent in those words.

Meanwhile, people such as our host have been reading the book and reporting back, and I've yet to see one of them who reported that hey, the book didn't do what people were worrying it would do.

[conuly]

I'll jump right in here and mention that I've never read either Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.

I've never seen Jim as thick

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I just figured this is what happens when a perfectly intelligent person grows up illiterate and with no context other than what you hear about in one small town. Whether it's fair for the author to milk that situation for humor as much as he does, I'm not sure; it's a long time since I've read the book, and I'm certainly not going to say it's without racism: it could hardly be that.

[siderea]

In discussions of literary racism, there is a long history of people who have read the book but who failed perceive that it was racist, and thus unilaterally decided that everyone else hasn't read the book and/or that that all of those other readers are just kinda stupid.

*nods* And I haven't any quarrel of principle whatsoever with anyone who wants to make an argument based on what's actually in a book, that they've actually read for themselves. We might disagree, but I absolutely grant the legitimacy of the argument.

Excepting the first couple days of discussion, in which people were critiquing the premise (not the book) in terms of how close it mirrors racist tropes, what one would have to do with that premise to keep the resultant book from being racist, and how if Wrede had tried to do that she had apparently done it so badly that the extant reviews of the book made no mention of any of it--

o_O

In other words: a lot of people speculating on what was in the book based on hearsay. And I have a real problem with that.

-the discussion of the racism of the premise has mostly focused on these direct quotes about the reasons she was making particular world-building choices she was planning on making, and the racism that is apparent in those words.

No, not "most" of the discussion crossing my browser. Bully for the folks who want to take on the author for what she said.

Meanwhile, people such as our host have been reading the book and reporting back,

Yeah, that would be why I don't have a problem with her, and do with all the folks with the profligate excuses for why they don't need to. Look, don't want to read a book because you think it's likely to be racist? Think the author is a racist? Don't read it. But then don't critique it -- whether as racist or anything else -- and expect to retain any credibility. People who criticize books they haven't read are laughing-stocks for a very good reason. Yes, basic intellectual integrity requires that you read it for yourself.

and I've yet to see one of them who reported that hey, the book didn't do what people were worrying it would do.

Ah, so the ends justify the means?

In any event, what I find most interesting is how this post of conuly's, by someone who actually read it, differs from those of people who haven't: how the some of the more odious presumptions/decisions of the author aren't actually manifested in the text itself and would not betray them to the reader's experience.

Which brings up another problem following from criticizing books one hasn't read. When the actual racism is more subtle than what it's being widely lambasted for, plenty of readers will dismiss those criticisms as baseless. Case in point: the sexism in Heinlein's Friday. I've pretty much given up ever trying to explain, no really, why Friday actually is sexist to reasonable adults who have read it and found nothing resembling the popular "feminist" criticisms of it within its pages. So it seems it's rapidly turning into with TTC: the confusion of what the author said she was doing with what is actually in the book is making the charges raised against the book look ludicrous, even to whatever extent they're true. And THAT's a problem for antiracism work.

I want to make this extra explicitly clear: I'm not arguing the book isn't racist. (I wouldn't know: I HAVEN'T READ IT. For all I know, it could be as racist as Mein Kampf.) I'm CERTAINLY not arguing that books (or for that matter authors) shouldn't be called out for it when their racist butt cheeks are showing. I DEEPLY appreciate that a lot of people -- people not just in the People slighted, but who had the privilege to ignore the issue -- stood up and said, "Hey, WAIT JUST A MINUTE!"

But I'm not liking how rapidly the side of the angels is sliding into the side of people who don't much care about the details, or accuracy, or aiming where they're shooting, the side of book-banners and moral panics. The thing that separates a social movement from mob rule is everyone thinking for herself.

And that requires reading the damn book for yourself.

[conuly]

In any event, what I find most interesting is how this post of [info]conuly's, by someone who actually read it, differs from those of people who haven't: how the some of the more odious presumptions/decisions of the author aren't actually manifested in the text itself and would not betray them to the reader's experience.

In fairness, that might indicate that I didn't notice the native Americans or lack therof because they're erased in my own mind, why would I expect to see them? I wasn't reading with Wrede's comments about her worldbuilding in my thoughts, after all. It might reflect badly on me rather than well on the book. I *think* I rationalized them away as "clearly they're there, they just have their own methods", but I could be doing that entirely in hindsight.

I think I read Friday once, ages and ages ago. What's sexist in it, then? (Next time I find a copy, I can read it with that in mind and see if I agree.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

I read Friday once, a long, long time ago. I don't remember it well. All I can remember is it's about some created female who has sex with people when they want her to and doesn't seem to view it sexually.

I know the book was about more than that, but that's all that sticks. I suspect some objections to it may be about some of that.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

And then ask, "Have you read any of her other books? Have you read other people's books in similar genres?" Or maybe, "What genre do you think that book is in?"

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

most people talking about this book don't seem to have read it

I don't think you *have* to have read the book to understand that what she did was extremely problematic. If you erase a people from existence in order to explore what effect that actually has on a future alternate history, that's one thing. (For instance, that's what Kim Stanley Robinson did in "The Years of Rice and Salt.")

But Patricia Wrede didn't erase Native Americans from history to explore what impact that would have on the world; she did it because she thinks they're boring and/or impossible to write except as stereotypes, and *she* wanted to write about magic and mammoths. She stated explicitly that she doesn't think the erasure of Native Americans *would* create a "wildly divergent" history.

This is all from her own words (http://elynross.livejournal.com/435519.html).

Now, you could argue, "Well, maybe if you read the book, despite her completely wrongheaded, offensive way of going about it, which you have *direct from her own words*, maybe it wouldn't be offensive." But people aren't judging the Thirteenth Child based on *nothing* or hearsay or someone else's summary of the book. They are judging the book on things Wrede actually wrote and said about *why* she went with that specific premise and the choices she made.

[conuly]

Yeah, I know. That's why I edited my entry to clarify that I get that most people are talking about what she said about the book, not about the book proper.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

The descendents of the Siberians are not erased from existence. They are existing in Siberia and elsewhere in Asia.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

The difference between "they never existed" and "they never existed in the story I'm telling because I was too lazy to not write racist stereotypes about them," is the difference between looking at your child and telling it, "I wish you were never born so I never had to deal with you," and "I wish I'd given you away at birth so I never had to deal with you."

It doesn't really make a difference, as far as being thoughtless, hurtful, and insulting.

[conuly]

Yes, but they're not living the life of existing Native Americans, most probably, as the ancestors of our Native Americans apparently (as quotes from Wrede indicate) got eaten by monsters.

So I guess their descendants *are* erased from existence, actually, and in a particularly disturbing way.

Though even if they weren't, I see the point. If, say, the Romans had never left Italy, much less invaded Gaul, I wouldn't be here today. Even if every single ancestor of mine still existed (already unlikely) the cultures in the rest of Europe would be different enough that my existence - even if my flesh and blood was still here - would be gone.

Which is the point of alternate history, but there's killing off all of Europe in a plague to explore an interesting world without huge European influence and then there's killing off all of Europe in a plague because you can't be bothered to figure out how to write white folks and then figuring "Eh, it won't make that big of a difference to my world anyway". The people still aren't there, but your motivations are all different. (In the first, at least, nobody can accuse you of laziness. I'm still wondering how I missed the lack of potatoes, tomatoes, and choclate in Thirteenth Child. But maybe they were there and I didn't see them, as I wouldn't see the fact that they have water. Who knows?)