Women's History Month Review Roundup: Nalo Hopkinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Kate Manne

March is Women's History Month, so I decided to make a point to read only books by women this month.  Since today is the last day of Women's History Month, I thought it'd be a good time to post reviews of some of the books I've been reading: a short story collection by Nalo Hopkinson, a classic novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, and a detailed analysis of misogyny by philosopher Kate Manne.

On a related note, yesterday I took part in a "visionary fiction" workshop led by Walidah Imarisha, the co-editor of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.  She was on campus at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga at the invitation of my colleague Dr. James Arnett.  If you ever get a chance to hear Imarisha speak or participate in her workshops, I wholeheartedly recommend doing so!



Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

I've enjoyed Nalo Hopkinson's novels (especially Midnight Robber and Brown Girl in the Ring), so I thought it'd be cool to check out this short story collection with a cool title (she explains the title in the Foreword).  Hopkinson's stories feature plenty of diverse representation along axes of race, sexuality, gender, geography, etc.  Most of the stories are fantasy of a quirky sort (definitely no boring sword and sorcery stuff here, although there is one story with fairies).  There are also a few horror stories in the mix.

As is typical with short story collections, I can't say I completely loved or completely understood every story, but here are some of my favorites.  "Easthound" is a werewolf story of sorts.  "Old Habits" explores the concept of a ghost mall, or rather a mall with ghosts from the ghosts' point of view.  "Herbal" is about the elephant in the room, literally.  "Delicious Monster" depicts a cute couple and their friends and family ... and one of the characters may be a god with an epic mount.  "Snow Day" features a talking raccoon just as snarky as you'd think a talking raccoon would be.  "Blushing" is another horror story, this one with a gory twist.

See also my Goodreads review.



The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

There's so much to be said about this book and so little that can do it justice.

I'm a huge Le Guin fan, but somehow I had never read the Earthsea books until I picked up A Wizard of Earthsea last year.  Now I'm going through the series slowly and intermittently, which somehow seems appropriate.  [Fun fact: I recently found out I won The Heinlein Society Prize for Best Academic Paper Presented at the World Science Fiction Convention in 2018 for my paper "Le Guin's Daoism," which I presented at the 2018 Worldcon in San José, CA]

The Tombs of Atuan is a very different book than its predecessor, although both are amazingly, beautifully written.  Especially toward the end, I often had to stop every page or two just to savor the beauty of the text.  Le Guin's style in her fantasy is subtly different than in her science fiction.  It feels more ... mythic, as if one is reading an ancient epic rather than a 20th century text.  Part of her trick is to use archaic-sounding syntax, but very well it works.

Of course, one IS reading a 20th century text, which is even more obvious with this book.  It's a coming of age/bildungsroman focused on a young woman named Arha/Tenar.  Homeric bards or the poets of the Ramāyana simply never gave a woman this kind of agency or story arc.  Ged from the previous book does show up about halfway through the book, but this is not his story, important as he is.

The story is not on its surface terribly complex.  Arha is raised to believe that she is the High Priestess of a (somewhat Lovecraftian) religion centered on the eponymous tombs on a remote island of Earthsea.  Like any good young fantasy protagonist, however, she's not entirely at ease with this situation, involving as it does other people telling her who she is.

Spoilers ahead: Eventually a mysterious man is found among the tombs who turns out to be our friend Ged the wizard from the previous book.  And poor Ged is by tradition to be put to death.  Arha breaks the rules to save him and he in turn helps her to escape, not just the tombs or the island but the false name and narrative bequeathed to her. She realizes her true name is Tenar.  Tenar leaves Arha behind.  (End spoilers)

We learn a bit more about how magic works in Earthsea.  Here's a passage I particularly enjoyed on that topic, which also reveals some of that mythic language I mentioned earlier.

"Knowing names is my job.  My art.  To weave the magic of a thing, you see, one must find its true name out.  In my lands we keep our true names hidden all our lives long, from all but those whom we trust utterly; for there is great power, and great peril, in a name.  Once, at the beginning of time, when Segoy raised the isles of Earthsea from the ocean deeps, all things bore their own true names.  And all doing of magic, all wizardry, hangs still up on the knowledge -- the relearning, the remembering -- of that true and ancient language of the Making." (p. 119)

On the face of it, the novel is about freedom and self-determination.  But that's too simple, as first impressions of Le Guin always are, since Arha/Tenar is discovering her true name and her wider, more interesting destiny among the many islands of Earthsea.  What that destiny is, well, that remains open.  But she will find out.  Maybe with a little help from Ged and others.  As he says, "Alone, no one wins freedom" (p. 129).

Since Le Guin is heavily influenced by Daoist philosophy (something I discussed in my review of the previous book, too), I was delighted to notice a deeper theme from the Zhuangzi present in the book.  One of the Zhuangzi's major criticisms of other people is that they are often trapped in their own limited perspectives and that these self-made perspectival traps cut us off from appreciating other, larger, more interesting perspectives, other ways (daos) of being and doing.  A lot of the Zhuangzi's arguments and stories are meant to shake up the reader to be less invested in one's own partial perspective and more open to new, strange, delightful ways of existing.  I think Zhuangzi would appreciate the story of how Arha becomes Tenar, shedding a constricting, unhealthy perspective as she expands her gaze toward the unfathomable horizons of a larger reality.

See also my Goodreads review.



Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny is a thorough philosophical treatment of misogyny that will hopefully continue to be influential both within and without philosophy.  Two of the most striking (and convincing) ideas in the book are that misogyny is not the same as sexism (roughly, misogyny is the "law enforcement" branch of sexism) and the concept of "himpathy" (roughly, disproportionate empathy for men even when they are clearly in the wrong).

Non-philosophers should know that this is indeed a work of so-called analytic philosophy (lots of attention paid to definitions, fine-grained conceptual distinctions, etc.).  Philosophers should know that this is deliberately more accessible than an average philosophy book (there are - gasp - plenty of discussions of current events, Manne is not shy about her political stances, she makes an effort to write in a way that someone without a PhD in philosophy might understand, etc.).

The redefinition of misogyny and the concept of "himpathy" are probably the most brilliant ideas in the book, but a few other topics I'd highlight are the underlying logic of misogyny in terms of women straying from traditional images of women as "givers" (which also explains some women's misogyny toward other women), a theory about "victim culture," why misogyny isn't just about dehumanizing women, and insightful discussions of the 2016 US Presidential election.

I recommend this book to anyone (women, men, others... especially my fellow men) with the patience, open-mindedness, and moral fortitude required to carefully think through some ugly truths about our contemporary world.

See also my Goodreads review.