Tomb of Sand

Finished March 26

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell

This book is about character, history, family and memory. It was the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize, and the winner of the 2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, as well as awards for translations into other languages. It was the first novel translated from Hindi to win the International Booker Award. 

This is an extraordinary novel, that is rooted in the life of an eighty-year-old woman in India. Ma, as she is referred to, has lived with her eldest son Bade since before the death of her husband. Since that loss, she has shrunk into herself, spending much of the day in bed. When her son retires, he must leave his government house and move into an apartment, which he is renovating. 

After Ma goes missing on an unexplained nighttime outing, it is decided that she will live with her daughter, Beti, who lives an unconventional life as a writer. Never married, she's had lovers, and lives on her own in an apartment. Soon after Ma moves in, she starts to receive visits from an old friend, Rosie Bua, a person who is gender fluid, and who involves her in crafts and planning a trip to Pakistan. 

I just loved this book. It is so interesting, and the writing is beautifully done, with the story seemingly wandering off at times, but really giving us information that is important to the story, background information and information about relationships and important objects, such as canes and small statues. 

We also learn about birds that become part of the story, crows that live outside Beti's apartment window in the nearby trees. Trees that have their place in the plot. 

The novel describes Ma as a woman growing smaller, and Beti as a woman growing bigger, in an interesting way that the story evolves. The first chapter grabs you, gives you hints about what is coming, and doesn't let go.

A tale tells itself. It can be complete, but also incomplete, the way all tales are. This particular tale has a border and women who come and go as they please. Once you've got women and a border, a story can write itself. Even women on their own are enough. Women are stories in themselves, full of stirrings and whisperings that float on the wind, that bend with each blade of grass. The setting sun gathers fragments of tales and fashions them into glowing lanterns that hang suspended from clouds. These too will join our story. The story's path unfurls, not knowing where it will stop, tacking to the right and left, twisting and turning, allowing anything and everything to join in the narration. It will emerge from within a volcano, swelling silently as the past boils forth into the present, bringing steam, embers, and smoke. 

There are two women in this story. Besides these women, there are others who came and went, those who kept coming and going, those who always stayed but weren't as important, and those yet to be mentioned, who weren't women at all. For now, let's just say that two women were important, and of these, one was growing smaller, and the other bigger.

There were two women and one death.

Two women, one death. How nicely we'll get on, us and them, once we all sit down together!

Two women: one mother, one daughter, one growing downwards, the other growing upwards. One laughs and says, I'm growing smaller by the day! The other is saddened, but says noting when she sees herself growing bigger. The mother has stopped wearing saris now that she must stuff more than half the fabric into her waist and raise the hems of her petticoats a little higher each day. Does gradually growing smaller make you catlike, so you may slip through tiny cracks and escape? Puncture a border and slip right through? Develop a knack for near-invisibility?

This must be the reason that the mother was able to slip through to the other side of the border while the daughter was still fretting over how stuck they were. It's also possible that the smaller woman truly was innocent when she refused to confess to any crime of her part, be it regarding legal permissions, debates over names, or accusations of theft. 

Those who didn't understand her arguments considered her crazy, maybe even vicious. They suspected her of purposefully misleading.

She pointed out that men always get the high-quality dal and women just get leftover mash, don't they? Hmm? She spoke fearlessly. So? So does that make it right?

But if you stare at them fearlessly, will the border guards understand? You have crossed the border, they reprimand.

She chuckles. Anything worth doing transcends borders. Should I do nothing at all?

No, they retort, and no one is foolish enough not to know this. Even goats and cows know where not to stray. And your eyesight isn't so bad you can't see, so how can you be forgiven?

Who's asking for forgiveness? She roars with laughter and the growing-bigger daughter weeps. And is this all there is to see? Perhaps I too have seen a thing or two. Try seeing with my eyes for once. 

If she were to fall, she did not with for it to be facedown. Wherever the bullet came from, whenever it his, she would fall straight back and lie supine on the ground. Regally. Her eyes filled with sky.

Let me practise, she'd tell her daughter

The mother had started hiccupping all the time. She hiccupped and hiccupped and hiccupped. If the daughter had not been in such a state, she'd have grown suspicious as to whether these hiccups were real or fake. They won't stop with water; give me a slap on the back! the mother would command. If the slap isn't hard enough, then try a running kick, boom! Try it on my back or in my stomach or on my sides, and make sure I fall down, but on my back, eyes open, forehead facing up; then the hiccups will surely stop. It was a strange remedy, but the daughter did as the mother asked. She kicked and kicked, boom boom boom, and with this new game her mother kept falling over bam bam bam. After a bit of hullabaloo, observers would also burst out laughing--Can you beat it? This old lady's too much! But the mother told the daughter that she needed to be prepared.            

Anyway, long story short, what happened was this: a bullet did come flying towards her, but by then the mother had become an expert at falling backwards. A bullet came, punctured her body, shot through and out the other side. Anyone else would have sprawled facedown in the mud, but Ma flipped backwards like she was doing a somersault. She lay back on the ground in an attitude of victory, elegantly, faceup, as though she was reclining on a soft bed, the sky her coverlet. 

Those who consider death to be an ending took this to be hers. But those in the know knew that this was no ending; knew she'd simply crossed yet another border. 

So there's no harm in starting the story right here, that is, the way we're doing it right now.

You can see the way the story engages, draws you in, and makes you want to know the story for yourself.

The tone is light and a little amused, as if it is playing with us. She plays with many things here, and many borders, Highly recommended. 

The Story of V

Finished July 23

The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box by Catherine Blackledge

This is an in-depth look into female sexual organs, sexuality, reproduction, and sexual pleasure. The author has a PhD in science, and worked in science and medical journalism. As one would guess from the title of this book, the central subject of the book is the vagina, but it goes beyond that.

She describes how female genitals have been studied over history and talks about how knowledge has ebbed and flowed. Some things were discovered, denied, and then discovered anew. Sometimes these complex organs were simplified or misrepresented. 

She also references female sexuality across numerous species, including insects, birds, and mammals, and talks about how, in many cases, it is the female that controls the sexual encounter and whether fertilization occurs. 

She also talks about how our sexuality goes beyond our genitals involving other areas of our body, and how scent is a big influence on our sexual pleasure. One thing I found interesting in the connection between the nose and sexual arousal was that, for many people, nasal stuffiness or congestion can occur in conjunction with sexual stimulation or orgasm. 

She talks about the structure of the different parts of our genitals, and when we learned about different aspects of them, linking research to knowledge and where we still have things to learn. 

This is an important book, particularly for women, to better understand their own bodies and responses. I read it slowly over many months, taking time to absorb the different learnings throughout. 

X + Y

Finished December 31

X + Y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng

I was looking for a book to help meet a reading challenge and came across this book which got me thinking about many things in different ways. The author is a mathematician and an artist. She teaches mathematics at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. In her career, and in other aspects of her life, she has encountered sexism and racism. She has thought a lot about this and how often gender issues are substituted for behaviour issues. She outlines how our society favours more aggressive, competitive, individualistic behaviour, and about how that behaviour has come to be seen as masculine. 

She has come up with new descriptors for this issue around behaviour that take the gender out of the discussion, eliminating one red herring to change. She describes two behaviour types as ingressive and congressive, where ingressive is the current valued type of behaviour that values competition, winners, contests, and individual success. The other type of behaviour, congressive, values understanding, sharing, working together, collaboration, and societal success. She makes a great argument for this new set of descriptors and how using them and thinking of them more in the behavioural sense and not tying them to gender norms can overcome not only gender bias, but also other biases in our society that favour the status quo. 

I found myself easily understanding her descriptions of category theory mathematics (I was a math major in my first year of university) and seeing how it applies to this idea of behavioural categories. She advocates gradual change, using congressive approaches and responses to replace ingressive or passive ones, and finding a way forward that will benefit not only society as a whole, but individuals more broadly as well. 

This is a fascinating book that needs to be read by more people and have them seriously consider her suggestions. 

Chaotic Good

Finished December 8

Chaotic Good by Whitney Gardner

This teen novel is told by teen Cameron. She has a twin brother Cooper and their family has just moved from Portland, Oregon to Eugene, Oregon. It is the beginning of summer before their senior year of high school. Cameron loves to sew and create new fashion items, and she's also into costuming for cosplay. She is applying for Fashion Design school and has a portfolio that she needs to get ready for her application. 

When she ventures into the local comic store for inspiration, the clerk treats her in a very condescending way, because of her gender and she feels very uncomfortable. After some thought and discussion, she decides to take advantage of her gender neutral name and dress as a boy the next time she shops there. This decision ends up leading to a summer of deceit, new friends, and an introduction to the world of Dungeons and Dragons (D and D). It also means that her new relationships are built on pretty shaky ground and at some point she's going to need to be truthful about her gender. 

Another aspect of the IRL part of this story is her online life. She has a blog where she talks about her fashion creations, including her cosplay creations, and this draws attention from the internet trolls. As she finds herself assaulted by this foul-mouthed mob, threatened and verbally assaulted, she finds her boy persona a way to escape that reality for a while. 

I liked Cameron as a character, and liked that D and D also gave her another connection to her father. This was an interesting story looking at some real world issues around gender and online harassment.

Sapphire the Great and the Meaning of Life

Finished November 29
Sapphire the Great and the Meaning of Life by Beverley Brenna, illustrated by Tara Anderson

This children's novel is told from two points of view. One is that of nine-year-old Jeannie. Jeannie's dad has recently moved out as her parents separated, and Jeannie has a lot of emotions around this: frustration, anger, guilt, sadness. She has wanted a hamster for quite a while and her parents finally agreed to let her get one. She's saved money for it, and for the supplies she'll need for keeping a hamster and looking after one.
The other point of view is that of Sapphire, the hamster that Jeannie gets. Sapphire isn't the name that Jeannie originally picks for it, but one that it is more thoughtful later decision. We see Sapphire's experience in the pet store before she gets chosen, as well as on the trip home, at Jeannie's place, and on various adventures. Sapphire is a bit of a philosopher, and has a goal of freedom, but gradually changes what she defines that as.
We watch how Jeannie struggles with her own feelings, sometimes erupting in frustration, anger, or sadness. And we watch how spending time with Sapphire calms her, and others in her household.
The idea of freedom extends beyond Sapphire into others in the story, who are struggling with the freedom to be who they really are, despite how others may react to them. It's about being able to have that freedom to be comfortable in your own skin, to be happy with your life, and to see that life in a positive way. This extends not only to Jeannie's parents, but also to her neighbour, and gradually friend Anna Conda. Jeannie accepts Anna for who she is, and defends her as well, looking for ways to help others find acceptance too.
This book exposes children to a variety of family types, and opens the door to discussion in a positive way of these differences.
A great addition to any library.