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ooohhhh booyy is it not a love story

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

January 24, 2019 by tillie 15 Comments

This book was given to me as a parting gift when I left Yorkshire. I had been to Haworth to see the Brontë parsonage and I’d walked the moors behind the house and I had lived in and understood the sweet melodic dialect of West Yorkshire.

All this lent the book a certain sweetness that the two horrible main characters did everything in their power to disrupt. I mean, I knew this wasn’t going to be a love story, but like ooohhhh booyy is it not a love story.

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

Heathcliff is stolen off the streets of Liverpool* and brought to live with the Earnshaw family. The father dotes on Heathcliff who becomes fast friends with the daughter of the family, Catherine, and mortal enemies with the brother.

Then stuff happens, Heathcliff leaves, Catherine marries Linton, Heathcliff comes back and is abusive and horrible and Catherine still loves him in a cool, incestous way. There’s a weak love triangle in the way that a love triangle is only weak when the two main characters love each other back.

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”

Then Catherine dies, but she also has a baby and that baby then grows up in this festering turd of an environment. Heathcliff is despondent that Catherine is dead.

“Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!”

Her husband is also upset, but pulls himself together enough to be a decent human being and raise his daughter. There are loads more characters in this book and all of them are examined by the same question: “What does love do to a human?”
Catherine’s brother’s wife dies and leaves behind a son. Catherine’s brother (no I’m not gonna go look up his name, deal with it) responds by turning to drinking and gambling. When Catherine dies Linton in turn stays a good, loving man trying to raise his daughter as best he can. Heathcliff is spoiled by the love of the man who “adopted” him. Linton’s sister ruins her life to love Heathcliff despite everyone being like “He’s a fucking psycho, stay away”. Then there’s what love does to Catherine and Heathcliff. These people are horrible, love makes them even worse. It takes all the cruelty in their hearts and makes it righteous in their minds. And when Heathcliff loses his loves he lives out some pretty extreme things, like digging up the corpse of his love TWICE. I mean. Come for the gravedigging and stay for the gravedigging.

Brontë is extra AF and clearly very fascinated by anger, death and bleakness. She does, towards the end include a nice little vignette of love’s saving grace, but I’m like too late, Emily. Love makes people horrible and the only way out is the sweet release of death. But also, visit Yorkshire. It’s really nice, got some great moors.

*I mean rescued, because it was a white man who did the stealing

Not a Single Dick-pun in this review. Not. A. Single. One.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

January 8, 2019 by tillie 1 Comment

Okay, so let’s disregard the awful title of this book and instead pretend the title reflects the content. In that case the title would be incisive, something about religion, humanity, and empathy. It would not be an awful pun.

I hate puns and there will be no puns in this review.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is set in a future after a devastating world war. Most of Earth’s population has emigrated to a colony on Mars, yet some people remain behind for reasons I’m not quite sure of. These people follow a religion called Mercerism, a religion that seems to worship empathy and dictates that people should care for animals and, because humans are garbage, owning and caring for an animal becomes a status symbol. Enter Rick Deckard who is a bounty hunter with a shameful secret. He owns a sheep – but it’s electric! Luckily, he’s about to get a big break. Deckard hunts and ‘retires’ androids and six of them are on the loose. If he retires all six he might be able to afford a real animal.

“I love you,’ Rachael said. ‘If I entered a room and found a sofa covered with your hide I’d score very high on the Voigt-Kampff test.”

There we go, that’s it, that’s the motive. But of course things go awry. Deckard hunts and identifies the androids by administering an empathy test. The validity of the test is called into question and the line between human and android seems blurred. Throughout the book Dick explores empathy in humans and animals alike.

“You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.”

The entire tale is set against a backdrop of Mercer-religion that takes empathy and structures it, makes a thing that can be dialled into via an empathy machine, yet still reserves it for a select few. No androids allowed. No stupid people. Empathy is a ritual that must be carried out, but is still kept unobtainable. Sympathy and compassion becomes what separates the human from the artificial, so it revered and idolized and completely depleted.

Of course Deckard realizes something throughout this book as he simultaneously loses and becomes his religion. I could say a lot about this, but here’s a tumblr post about a roomba that really says it all for me.

It’s still Christmas for me <3

January 3, 2019 by tillie 2 Comments

THERE WAS MORE CHRISTMAS FOR ME! A NEVER ENDING BOOK FLOOD <3 <3 <3

I got so many goodies this year. Jen K has been so amazingly good to me getting me both things off my wish list and some really great surprises! I am beyond thankful and I love all of cannonball, you guys are the best!

Thank you so much Jen K, I can’t wait to read all the things!

Well, I got to 52!

P.S. I love you by Cecilia Ahern

December 31, 2018 by tillie 2 Comments

Ahern wrote this book when she was 21. The premise is clever, a bitter-sweet gimmick where Holly’s husband dies, but he leaves her a series of letters to help her cope in the first year without him. Each letter has a surprise or a challenge and always ends with “P.S. I love you.”

“Their plan had been very simple: to stay together for the rest of their lives. ”

The book however does not quite work. Writing about the grief and pain of losing someone you love is a hard task and Ahern does not measure up to it. Not only that, but she also paints Holly and Gerry’s relationship so rosy and perfect that it becomes hard to even connect to her happiness. It is only natural that one remembers the rosy bits more, but Ahern seems to think that it is more sad that Holly’s husband died because they never fought rather than letting the loss and grief stand on its own.

“She had been given a wonderful gift: life. Sometimes it was cruelly taken away too soon, but it’s what you did with it that counted, not how long it lasted.”

Later on it becomes very apparent that the reason they never fought is that Holly pretty much bent over backwards for her husbands, including a very uncomfortable memory where she comes home from work and he has invited guests over, like a full blown houseparty. She, very reasonably says “hey could you like maybe tell me if you have guests over?” and he shouts at her leaving her to cry alone in the bathroom until she decides he is right and then she gets dressed and gets crazy drunk to prove to him that she is still fun. Right then.

Relationships are weird things, half love, half forgiveness, but they should also be full awareness. In P. S. I love you there is none. I suppose we read books like this to explore our own feelings of what-ifs, a safe way of exploring our darkest fears. This one, however, I read to get to 52.

David Mitchell is slightly grumpy about things

December 29, 2018 by tillie Leave a Comment

Thinking about it only makes it worse is a collection of posts that Mitchell has written for the guardian over the years. Dealing with everything from contemporary politics to weird hangups on grammar David Mitchell does what David Mitchell does best: is slightly grumpy about things.

“Brainchild” is an odd word. You hear it a lot in explanatory voiceovers and I suppose I was trying to join in, but I don’t really like it. I’m not keen on the idea that my brain could have a child. Would it be made of brain – a child, made of grey brain, like a squelchy zombie? As metaphors for inspiration go, I prefer the lightbulb.”

Most of the essays are somewhat dated and though Mitchell tries to contextualize them with updated commentary it doesn’t always quite work. Furthermore a solid knowledge of English history and contemporary politics are especially required to enjoy the political stuff, though reading about silly school politics in the current brexit climate does make everything feel quite trivial.

“With a story, as with a well-chosen gift, we’re happiest when surprised by something we didn’t know we wanted.”

In the end there are some solid written articles, but they lack the honesty and depth that made Backstory so compelling. I read this over the span of a year, dipping in and out of it. There are some gems there, but I recommend, if you are a fan of David Mitchell’s writing to read some of his newer articles instead.

“What women want is still what it’s always been: either you or, more likely, not you.”

A sweet little book about walking

December 29, 2018 by tillie Leave a Comment

Walk is a book that attempts to expand the simple act of walking. Written in short vignettes Radford describes everything from breathing, to tempo, to using the senses in a different way while walking. All of this is meant to transform walking from a simple mode of transportation, but rather take advantage of the slowness in walking as a sort of meditative state.

Included in the book are loads of exercises that are pretty easy to do, it doesn’t require many tools and while it does heavily focus on nature, Radford also includes examples from mindful walking in the city.

This book is great for people who enjoy walking, but are perhaps new to mindfulness. As someone who already does yoga/meditation there was less new things for me to collect, but I did enjoy the simple reminder to be more present in all activities in life, even the simple act of walking.