Welcome to the second reading list post of 2022! While this is still mostly a ‘reading list,’ I’ll also be including some TV shows and movies in the upcoming months. This month features four books and one movie. Read on below for the list, and let me know what you’ve been reading (or watching) lately!
Chandler Baker – The Husbands
So, the basic premise here? A gender reversal on The Stepford Wives. In this little novel, an intentional community of women performs some sort of mysterious operation to turn their husbands into supportive, loyal partners. Along the way, something goes wrong and they turn their husbands suicidal.
Does it work? It works well enough to make for a decent story, though the book suffers from two main flaws. The first is that the politics of the book are especially heavy-handed and unsubtle. But the second and more fatal one is that the politics and concerns of the book are endlessly, hopelessly upper-middle class. Every character is, essentially, a privilege, high-powered corporate executive or professional of some kind. Each one holds the kinds of worries you’d expect from such a group.
And so, it’s not a bad book. The story might teach readers a thing or two about gender roles. But did the world need another ‘consciousness-raising’ book on the themes of corporate feminism and the problems of relatively wealthy, professional-class women? No.
Iain M. Banks – The Player of Games
So, this is the second book in Bank’s Culture Series of novels. Each novel takes place in the same fictional universe, but they’re more or less independent stories. As a whole, the Culture is a Galactic civilization of many species. They operate on largely decentralized, democratic principles and norms and very advanced tech. People can change genders at will, and so on.
This book follows the story of a pro game-player who competes at a high level across many different kinds of skill and strategy games. The Contact agency – a special Culture agency that deals in contacts with foreign civilizations – sends him on a special mission. A rival civilization in a different part of the galaxy uses a strategy game to hold together its Empire. It uses the game to select all its administrative, civil service, and military leaders. Even to provide a central narrative for its civilization.
Our game player has to learn the game on the fly and then use it to undermine a foreign Empire. As an introduction to the Culture series, I found this to be a fantastic novel. I’m going to move on from here to read others in the series.
Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
Huxley’s Brave New World is a classic that I probably don’t need to introduce readers to. I’m returning to it after maybe 20-25 years between reads.
Did I get anything new out of it? Maybe. These days, lots of people find Huxley’s vision of a hedonistic future more likely than Orwell’s 1984 totalitarian scenario. That switch happened about 20 or 30 years ago when the future did look rather Huxley-like.
By 2021, I suspect the pendulum on this analysis has swung back toward Orwell. Or at least it should.
Kurt Vonnegut – Breakfast of Champions
This little Vonnegut book is a bit all over the place. On a more serious note, it hits themes of mental illness. On a less serious note, Vonnegut fills it with little drawings he made himself. And the plot is absurd.
Honestly, I think this book comes out of a literary tradition that I never really got into. I’m sure this book has a big audience, but I’m not part of it. Caveat emptor.
Movie: Plan B
Not long ago, I subscribed to Hulu to watch the TV series The Handmaid’s Tale. More on that later. But while I was around, I saw this little gem of a new film.
In short, Plan B follows the search of two teenage girls for a Plan B pill in right-wing Christian South Dakota. They drive across the state, running into right-wing pharmacists, rapey dudes at gas stations, drug dealers, and other characters. And as Indian and Latina teenagers, they also navigate the world of North Dakotan families not too far removed from immigration to the US.
Despite the ‘serious’ writeup I’ve given the movie, however, it’s a comedy. And it’s a good one. The ‘coming of age’ teen comedy is a difficult genre to do well, and this one pulls it off. It’s often a genuinely funny movie, even when it’s taking on heavy topics. And it’s part of a recent flourishing of such movies.
