I started off 2013 by re-reading two
Tamora Pierce quartets. My friend Mark is reading all of her Tortall
books over on
Mark Reads, and last year I read along with him as he
read
Song of The Lioness, but I kind of ended up racing ahead. Tamora
Pierce was my first true obsession – I first read the
Lioness/Alanna books nearly 20 years ago. They were a gift from my
ex-stepmother, who had given the books to all the important young women in
her life, her nieces and god-daughter and then later, me. When she first brought
me them to read, they were not in publication – they went out of
print in the 1990s and came back in a few years later, maybe the very
late 90s or early 2000s. She lent me all the books once, and was able
to track down the first and fourth of the
Lioness books in print in
England. When she couldn't find the others, she took her niece's copy
and recorded the entire thing aloud, the two middle novels, on
cassette tape for me, and sent them to me from England. To this day,
it's the most thoughtful and loving thing anyone has ever done for
me. I still have the tapes, and I really want to get them made into
MP3s.
Tamora Pierce's books, her characters –
they forged me. Harry Potter, a few years later, brought me into
fandom and things like that, it changed my life, but Tamora Pierce books made me who I am. I don't think anything will ever feel as mine as her books are, especially the Tortall books (though, in
some ways, I find the Emelan series cleverer and more pithy.) They
would be my specialty subject on any game show. I've always been
incredibly possessive over them and this world – like they're the
one thing that, if a film adaptation was made, I'd be like “wait,
wait, wait, hold the phone, this is NOT OKAY, wait, I need to be
involved in every aspect of this, I need to be the casting agent, I
need to play Alanna, nope, NO ONE CAN MAKE THIS RIGHT EXCEPT ME.”
They are my home. I cannot count
the amount of times I have read them – I am on my third copy of the
Alanna series – the first has fallen apart, and the second is on
the way. They fostered a lot of other interests in me, like
real-world medieval history and weaponry, and I'm sure that Alanna
being my major favourite fictional character from age seven made it
so I never even considered or doubted that there was anything a
little girl could not do.
When I stayed with Anna, my
ex-stepmother, in London a couple of years ago, I visited her while
she was house-sitting for one of her nieces, who is, I guess, a few
years older than me, in her 30s. I was staying in a spare room or
study that contained a lot of books, and I saw, in her shelves, that
she had the Beka Cooper books – Tamora's latest series, published in the last three or four years, which is a
Tortall prequel series. This made me so incredibly emotional – I've
never met this girl, this niece, but she had the books, Anna had
given her the Alanna books as a young teen and she, like me, has kept
Tammy all her life, she's kept buying the new releases, she's kept
caring, well into adulthood. This surprised me, and meant so much to
me. I've rarely felt so connected to someone, and this is a girl I'd
never met or even really seen a photo of. I just saw those recent
copies and knew she'd taken the same path as me. It was a really
special experience.
One great thing about Tammy is that the
books never quite feel the same – as I've grown and changed, I've
viewed the books and various characters differently. The Alanna
series used to be my world, and while it is always going to be the
most special to me, I can look at it objectively now and see that
it's quite rough and simplistic. I can see the restrictions put upon
her by publishing as an unknown author in the 1980s, I can see the inconsistencies that
are ironed out in later series set in Tortall, even in things like
dialogue, slang they'd use. That is not to say that it doesn't still mean
the world to me, because it does, they do. The characters in those
books... are my friends. I can visualise them better than any other
fictional characters, and I love them. I just wish that they could
have been given the same opportunities, of length and
progressiveness, as her later publications, in the 1990s/2000s. Like,
my god, as an older reader, the canonical subtext between Thom and
Roger is... almost painful, and it would be so cool to see those
books exploring the full potential that they could have had. But they
were an author's first work, and in the 80s, and at a time when it
was hard enough to get a fantasy book taken seriously, especially one
with a girl protagonist. Oh well. They're still great, they're
still an amazing adventure and they're still my world. Hogwarts is for all of us. Tortall is for me.
The second series set in Tortall,
around 10 years after the end of the first, is Daine's series, The
Immortals, and that was the first thing I read in 2013.
The Immortals Quartet:
1. Wild Magic
2. Wolf-Speaker
3. Emperor Mage
4. Realms of the Gods
I realised on this re-read that my
perspective on these books has changed the most out of any of Tammy's
quartets. The format of them is quite different – both Alanna's
series and Kel's, the next one, cover long periods of time – around
ten years in total, each series. They're a pretty specific formula.
The Daine books cover short periods of time – once a year, we drop
into a specific adventure or conflict that covers a few weeks of
Daine's life, rather than following her over the entire period of
those four years. I found on this re-read that I actually really like
this aspect, the close, fast-pasted, detailed coverage of a specific event rather than the
vague coverage of four years in one book with a few main highlights.
It is a lot more in-depth and interesting. I also liked Daine a lot
more than I ever have before – I always loved her powers,
naturally, but I don't think I much liked her for herself, I found her a bit tedious, and
looking at her now, that's really changed for me. I – and I think
this is an age thing – am also now obsessed with Numair. I used to
not really notice him that much, and was never moved by his
relationship with Daine. He, on this re-read, became my favourite
romantic character of Tammy's. As a younger reader, I was a bit
weirded out by the eventual Daine/Numair romance. It seemed strange
to me, not inappropriate exactly, but not realistic and the age-gap
put me off. I think this is because I was too young or immature,
because now, at someone closer to his age – I'm seeing him not as a odd teacher figure, but as quite a sweet boy – which he IS, I
just didn't realise that when I was 13. He's a total darling, and I love
him, and I now see him as younger and more relatable than I ever did before.
As I
mentioned, my attitude towards Daine herself has also completely
changed – I don't know why, or what changed, because it isn't as if
I haven't read the books a lot, it isn't as if I read them once at 13
and once now. But something shifted for the better, and I now adore
Daine's series. I've always loved Kitten, and I love what we see of
Thayet, Jonathan, George and Alanna in this series, the progress of
Tortall in the ten years since we left them. I love Maura of Dunlath.
I love Kaddar – Emperor Mage has always been one of my favourite of
Tammy's books, no matter what I thought of Daine I always found that
story one of the best. And I always liked Rikash, but on this
re-read, my liking of Rikash turned to full-blown favourite character
obsession. I love every single word he says, I love what he
represents, how he changes Daine's perspective and prejudices, and I
actually put off finishing Realms of the Gods because of how much I
knew I was going to not handle his death scene. I'd read it many
times before and never been desperately hurt by it, but I knew this time
wouldn't be the same – I know the books almost off by heart, and I
remembered what Daine's inner thoughts were, and I knew it was going
to wreck me, and it did. It was awful. It is awful. It is the worst
death in any of her books, like the most viscerally, emotionally,
painfully written for me. More than Alanna losing Thom, more than
Liam, more than the little boys in the Trickster books. Daine staring
at him getting killed from afar, screaming without realising it. “It
was her voice. If she screamed loud enough, long enough, he would
live. She hadn't realised that he meant something to her. She hadn't
realised her was her friend.”
Jesus fucking Christ, right?
The Protector of the Small Quartet:
5. First Test
6. Page
7. Squire
8. Lady Knight
Kel's books have always been a solid
favourite for me, because they take that original structure of
Lioness – page and squire training, knighthood, and then out into
the world – but they totally flip it around, showing the
developments in the system since Jon became king – first and
foremost, of course, the fact that Kel is publicly training as a lady knight, as opposed to Alanna's disguise. There are many other changes
to the structure, the training processes, and I love all of them. I
love all of Kel's friends, especially Neal, Owen, and Merric. The
stuff with Joren and his gang is so exquisitely messed up. Lord
Wyldon is one of the most interesting and complex of all Tammy's
characters, and I love how much he comes to love Kel, and how much
she knows it, despite the fact that everyone else thinks he is unfair
to her. All their scenes together, where they have this unspoken
understanding, they just pretty much all make me cry. They are
wonderful. I also, of course – of course – am absolutely in love
with what happens to Kel as a squire, that Raoul picks her and that
we get a whole thick novel – Squire is one of Tammy's longest novels, and one of my very favourites (apparently it's Tammy's favourite, of all her books, too) – of amazing Raoul antics, he's one of my utterly most beloved from the Lioness books and I love who he has become while remaining his gorgeous, jolly, cheery self. Kel's relationship with Raoul is one of my favourite things in all literature.
I
love Cleon, I love Dom – Kel's fickleness with her crushes
frustrates me a little, and I feel really sad for Cleon about how
serious he is about her – I'd take him in a heartbeat - but I have
read Tammy's take on this, and I respect it and appreciate that not
every one of her girls ends up with a true-love ending. When Kel's
series ends, she's really only on the start of her path, and while
I'd love to see what ends up happening to her in the long run, I like
the ending of her series. Kel's character is probably my favourite
out of any of Tammy's Tortall girl-heroes – even though I grew up
with Alanna as my idol (just like Kel did,) Kel's sense of self, her
control, and her general personality is one I really admire and
respect. If I could be like any of those girls, I would want, the most, to be like her. I can't wait for more books on her, which apparently are coming, from the point of view of her own first squire.
9. Playing Beatie Bow
Ruth Park
Playing Beatie Bow is an Australian
children's or young adult book, a short novel about a 14-yr-old girl
called Abigail who lives in The Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney city
proper. She slips back through time to the same area in 1873, where
she is – seemingly by accident or coincidence – taken into the
care of the Bow family. It turns out that she was actually drawn
specifically, and ties into a Bow family prophecy in regards to
protecting their slightly psychic and healing Gift. I picked this up
again (I had read it several times when younger) because I was
thinking about it, and about the Rocks and the settlement of Sydney.
It gives a fairly detailed description of the Victorian working
classes and slums in Australia and I bet they make kids in school,
age around 12 learning Australian history, read it for that cultural
reason. It's well known and was recently reprinted in a line of
Australian classics along with Seven Little Australians and Picnic at
Hanging Rock. This book was written in the late 70s, published in
1980, when the author herself was in her 60s. I looked this up
because it sort of seems to suffer for that – the dialogue in the
book's present day, in 1980 or wherever Abigail starts out, is so
unrealistic – not just dated, but really, really unrealistic that a
teenager would have spoken like that. It has the kind of dialogue
that you only really ever see written, like really prosy? It's
especially noticeable when Abigail is speaking to Natalie, the
four-year-old girl who she babysits. I don't know if the writer had
ever met a four-year-old girl because no child, no matter how smart,
would say lines like this – or have thoughts like this – at age
four. They just wouldn't.
Oddly, the stuff in 1873 is more realistic,
though the family she stays with are immigrants from Orkney so a lot
of their speech is written as dialect. The book, of course, features
young love in the shape of Judah Bow, the son of the family who is
one of those lovely, good, golden characters who you can't help but
adore. Abigail comes into the past a cynical, sour thing, furious
about her parents getting back together after her father had left the
family years earlier, and comes back all softened and considerate and
changed, of course. And she finds Judah, again, in a way. As I
mentioned, the modern parts of this book are not the best-written
thing I've ever read, but I would always recommend this as a book to
someone who wants to know more about Sydney, because it is a really
great portrait of the Victorian times here and the Rocks is a really
interesting place.
10. Gray
Pete Wentz
I've been waiting for this book for a
long time – a very long time. Since Wentz first came onto my
horizon, in around 2005 – at this point he had already published
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, I believe – it was known that
he was working on another book, at the time entitled Rainy Day Kids.
This project disappeared, and he even told fans that he didn't think
it would ever actually happen, but around a year ago – seven years
after I first got involved – he started hinting that this thing was
actually happening, posting a photo of a few draft pages. This
absolutely stopped my heart, because Wentz's writing has always been
what primarily drew me to him. I love the way he writes – in
lyrics, but in broken poetry and prose as well. I'd go as far as to
say that I was a fan of his before I was a full-on fan of the band's
– I followed his blogs regularly before I actually knew the band
that well, I was absolutely, absolutely in love with his words first.
I have followed all his blogs since that time – the public ones,
like on FOBRock, Buzznet or FBR, and the secret blogspots as well, of
course, like nohartandsole, stagecoaches, and some that came before,
though I now find I can't remember the earlier URLs. I think he even
still had LiveJournal, as well. One of my favourite things about
being a Fall Out Boy fan is hearing a new album and recognising
lyrics – phrases, metaphors and such – that are fragments of old
blogs, things I had read before and taken to heart, posted right as
Pete was feeling them and offered up to the small congregation of
those who always knew where to find him, the ones he left
“breadcrumbs” for. So even though we have the wonderful fact that
Fall Out Boy are now touring and recording again, I was already
satisfied, prior to that announcement, just that we would be getting
Pete's book.
Oddly enough, it wasn't quite what I
expected , but perhaps what I should have. Gray is billed as a novel,
and I knew it was going to be about a boy in a band on tour, and in a
tumultuous relationship. However, for some reason, I expected it to
be, well.. a proper novel, not something actually based on himself.
Maybe because he's moved on so much in his life, through marriage,
fatherhood, divorce, lowering his fame level, and becoming stable in
love and life. I honestly thought he wouldn't want to revisit all of
this, I thought he was writing something dramatic, yes, and based on
feelings, yes, but this thing is not a novel, it's practically a
memoir. Now, I don't claim to know the private goings-on as this man,
but he has always been open and public, if you knew where to keep
tabs on him, and the fact is that I recognise most of this story. I
expected him to put across his opinions and feelings – his
uncertain relationship with fame, things about mental illness and
medication, and his experiences with love, but into a genuinely
fictional story. Gray can only be called fiction in the loosest sense
of the word. The protagonist, himself, is never named – it's in the
first person – and the girl is never named, but if you know Wentz,
you know who she is. The story covers the band's progression, and his
love life, from prior of the recording of TTTYG to sometime after the
recording of FUCT. So many facts are the same – locations, events,
time periods, even the exact locations of the studios where both
those records were made. Even people's actual names – not many
characters are named but one who is, a crew member of Fall Out Boy's,
goes by a famous nickname in real life. That nickname is changed, but
his real given name is mentioned and is the same in the book as it is
in real life. Patrick's in the book, though is referred to as Martin
– as in Patrick Martin Stump.
I also recognised, while reading,
just like when listening to a FOB album, many passages from old
blogs, many of his prosier writings, where he'd actually write in
paragraphs or tell stories about himself as opposed to his more
poetic, lyrical posts. As I said, this really surprised me, purely
because I just didn't think he'd ever want to go back to this place,
this headspace. Once I established that yes, we are going to this
place, I settled in feeling deeply attached and deeply unsettled,
because ten to one odds, most of the terribly harsh things I was
reading had really happened – and most of these things were things
our protagonist was doing, not things being done to him. We've always
known how dark and unstable he was, always, but there are some scenes
that were startling even to someone who has known just how fucked up
Pete was, who had read those old blog posts that he'd post in the
middle of the night and delete in the morning. Following the story
closely, I knew what was coming – his suicide attempt in February
2005 – and when that didn't happen, I soon realised where the
“novel” aspect of Gray comes in. Pete seems to have taken his own
story, been an honest as possible, and then given it a completely
different ending: ultimately more tragic, but maybe one he found
easier to cope with, maybe one he would have preferred. He doesn't
kill himself off, don't worry, but he certainly addresses that idea
that, honestly, if you haven't felt, you haven't had a bad break-up –
the idea that you'd rather someone you loved was dead, you'd rather
they left you without it being their choice, that it would be easier
to cope with than the pain you were putting one another through on a
daily basis.
11. Struck By Lightning
Chris Colfer
I haven't seen the film of Struck By
Lightning yet, and I will admit that I found it a little bit odd that
he was even putting this out as a novel – a bit sell-outy, even,
like he just wanted another book out at any cost. However, after
reading it, I established that he'd actually – as the film's
scriptwriter – taken the opportunity to go further into his
characters, perhaps inner thought processes that he was not able to
portray in the film. I don't know how much of that kind of thing made
it in, like if the main character, Carson, had a lot of inner
monologue, but if he didn't, the novel tie-in is, though quite
simplistic, definitely a really great, and deep, resource for someone
who enjoyed the film. The book also includes the entire literary
journal that Carson produces, the writings of all the students that
he blackmailed, and that was, I felt, an important experience,
insightful and sad, which is something that Carson realises himself.
Chris Colfer also, just like he did in The Land Of Stories, makes
sure to have his character repeat, in passing, his negative ideas
about fame, about pedestals of celebrity, and about the bad behaviour
of fans. In TLOS, it's just one character tiredly mentioning dealing
with the responsibility of the public eye, but in SBL it is slightly
less subtle, because Carson is opinionated and scathing about
everything. But yeah, Chris really isn't shy about his distaste for a
lot of celebrity and fan behaviour, and it feels like that, if he
can't outright tell everyone off, he uses his creations to put his
opinions across and teach or guide his fans about how he feels on the
subject. I was mostly unmoved, emotionally, by reading this book –
I enjoyed it, but quite absently – until quite near the end when
Carson discovered exactly what had happened to his Northwestern
application. I was so furious and disgusted, like I literally went
cold, I felt like a fist was gripping my heart, I was so angry on
Carson's behalf. It really took me by surprise, how much righteous
fury I felt, I think I said out-loud “wow, that is fucked up.”
Anyway, I'm keen to see the movie, and I'm interested to see how much
of the inner thoughts expressed made it into the film in some form.
12. How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or
Less
Sarah Glidden
This is a graphic novel that I looked
up and purchased after I saw Amanda Palmer looking for
recommendations of books about Israel to read before she goes there
for an event later this year. Several people recommended this and I
had never heard of it. I've only read one or two novels set in Israel
before, and seen one film. I'm going there in May on what will be my
seventh or eighth visit overall, my first visit in nearly ten years,
and my first time alone, not with my dad and younger brother. For
those who don't know, my background is Israeli – my dad is from
there, and all of his family live there – his mother, sisters, and
my two older half-brothers, though both of them lived in Australia
for times as teenagers/young adults. The reason I live here, and that
he lives here, is because my mother was a control freak, but that is
a long story for another day. Israel has always been a fixture in my
life, since before I knew its position on the world map, the
conflict, etc. It was where I was taken on holidays, to see family,
and most of my memories are of the beach, riding bikes around my
grandmother's kibbutz, my dad showing me all the places he'd done
metalwork, flea markets, being bought new clothes, a particular type
of strawberry ice cream, apartments with tiled floors in every room,
and lots and lots of cats and dogs – everyone in Israel has a lot
of pets, and all I wanted as a child was animals all the time. On the
kibbutz, even, my dad's best friend from school ran a small zoo,
where she had a tame meerkat, and lemurs and spider monkeys. That's
my Israel. I knew nothing about the conflict, about Palestine, about
why people might be anti-Israel, or any of that.
This graphic novel is the direct
opposite: it's the true story, or diary, of this girl Sarah, from
NYC, who is Jewish by birth but who claims to be progressive and
liberal, and apparently being progressive and liberal means being
anti-Israel? She decides to go to Israel to sort out her feelings on
the situation and see for herself – she goes on taglit, a
Birthright trip, which is a program set up by the Israeli government
which offers young Jewish adults the chance to visit Israel, for
free. Like, they pay everything – international flights,
accommodation, travel around in a guided tour. There are all
different styles of taglit trips – religious, non-religious, ones
from different countries or even niche trips – there's ones for
outdoors types where most of the spare time is doing extreme sports,
and ones for special needs groups... But the basic structure is a
10-day tour around Israel, explaining the history to young Jews. The
agenda, I'm pretty sure, is to encourage them to “make aliyah” -
to move to Israel and become a citizen, or at least to feel connected
to Israel and to defend it on a world scale. No matter the niche,
there are several spots that every tour visits – places like
Masada, the Old City in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Sea of
Galilee, they learn the origin of the kibbutzes, they go to the Negev
Desert and learn a bit about the Bedouin tribes. They spend time with
young members of the army – army service is mandatory in Israel,
you go in between high school and uni. I have never had any desire to
do taglit, even though a free trip anywhere is appealing. The author,
Sarah, went on a non-religious taglit – I mean, Israel is a Jewish
state, so things are historically Jewish, but on a non-religious trip
they don't push any religious rules on the group. Sarah, the author,
is not shy in portraying herself as going in cynical and
argumentative, expecting the whole thing to be sheer propaganda, but
then goes through the process of an attitude adjustment, as she meets
new people. The group visits places that do seem to push propaganda –
the visitor's centre in the Golan Heights, for example, but Sarah is
surprised to have this issue addressed by the tour guide as soon as
the group gets back on the bus. Her group's guides, who are Israeli
Jews, don't shy away from the issues of the country and present a
more unbiased view of the situation and the conflict than she was
expecting, and even though Sarah has done as much objective research
as she can and is prepared to attack at every turn, she finds herself
questioning a lot of things. She admits that she came there,
originally, to validate herself that Israel was definitely the bad
guy, because they are the ones with the power, and that she could go
home without having qualms of cutting it out of her life forever. She
ends up conflicted about this.
She finds some ingrained prejudice, but
also realises she has a fair bit of her own. It was a really good
read, and gave me a perspective on why people may actually be
anti-Israel. Sarah mentions at some point, that she's felt like that
if you're Jewish, you're meant to support Israel no matter what, and
she doesn't, so she feels conflicted. I think that I'm probably one
of those people, though more out of thoughtless loyalty than Zionism.
I look at Israel and I'm a child, saying “but what's wrong with
it?” This gave me some idea of why people have issues with the
creation of Israel, though it is hard for me to really commiserate.
My family were in concentration camps, they went to Israel to be
free. My father was born in a holding camp as they waited to
emigrate. What am I meant to do with this information? I have bias. I
was glad to see that Sarah didn't do a total 180, because even my dad
hates the creepy Zionist attitude and is against a lot of current
Israeli politics – he loved Rabin, naturally, may his lovely soul
rest in peace, and hates Netanyahu. He – and most Israelis I know –
also really dislike the Hasidic Jews, mainly for their hypocrisy –
they, in our experience, find every loophole to live by their laws
and feel superior about it. Like how cutting the hair is
forbidden, but it specifies something about shears, electric razors weren't invented in the Bible, so
they're totally fine to cut the hair with. So even Israelis have
varied feelings about aspects of Jewish culture. There's a pretty big
rift between secular and orthodox.
The book does a good job of portraying
two sides to a lot of stories – like the security wall, disrupting
a lot of Arab settlements, but reducing the amount of terrorist
attacks from something like two per week, to about four a year. At
some point, Sarah hears from an Israeli how it is to turn on the
radio and know, if there's a happy song on, it's okay, there hasn't
been a bomb that day. I've lived that. I literally know what that's
like. I've been there when a bomb goes off – everyone in Tel Aviv
loses cell reception, did you know that? It's like when you go to a
music festival, and everyone is texting each other so the entire
place gets messed up signal? Imagine that, except it's everyone
checking to see that their friends aren't dead, weren't in that
nightclub or that bus. The same person who recounts this also gives
an honest opinion on most people's view of sending kids to the army –
that no one glorifies it, thinks it is normal or easy, or wants to
send their kids. I've been to a few of the places that Sarah goes to
– I've been to the Golan, I have a photo lying around somewhere of
us on the edge of a minefield. I've been to the Sea of Galilee. Tel
Aviv, of course. I've been to several kibbutzes – my dad grew up on
one, and I've seen the way they've changed over the past couple of
decades, the privatisation. I've been to the Dead Sea, but not to
Masada, and one part of Sarah's aggressive cynicism and determination
to root out “brainwashing” that actually really interested me was
her comparison of the original recorded story of what happened there
to the softened, heroic legend that commonly goes around.
Another part of the book I really liked
was where Sarah described the Israeli temperament, the blunt
criticism that is common – no soft-pedalling. She explains that the
upside of this is that any compliments given are genuine, and she
says “My gratitude towards this Israeli honesty did have its
limits, though to me, it's worth getting offended by someone if it
means I can trust their true opinion.” I was raised in an Israeli
family, and this trait is definitely something you may recognise in
me if you have experience dealing with me. I'm not saying that I
don't have some social problems regardless of culture, but if you're
sensitive, and find me too blunt and difficult, I do not suggest
making friends with Israelis. They can be harsh, sometimes in a way
that seems very mean – more malicious than I believe I've ever
sounded. But it's all just candid, unfiltered honesty, and they're
also very forward, honest and unfiltered in what they do like. It's
definitely something that's influenced me and been part of my
upbringing.
I've been to the Old City in Jerusalem,
to the Wall, to the markets and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but
I haven't been to Jerusalem city proper, or to Yad Vashem, the
Holocaust memorial. I want to go there – though want isn't the
right word, I need to go there, but I have never known how I will
handle it. I have trouble dealing with Holocaust imagery in general
art exhibitions and such – I mean, I'm sure it's no cakewalk for
anyone – but alternately, I've read quite a few books – people's
biographies from the Holocaust, or Jews escaping it, in the Second
World War. If you have ever received an email from my personal
account, you'll see the email signature is a quote, “what gives
light must endure burning,” which is a quote by Viktor Frankl.
Viktor Frankl is a bit of a hero of mine, he was a Jewish
psychiatrist who performed mental health care on other prisoners in
the camps with him. Before the war, he set up a program counselling
high school students free of charge, and this was credited with
vastly decreasing teen suicide rates in Vienna, where he practiced.
He wrote many things, including a short but brilliant book called
Man's Search For Meaning, which is about his time in the camps and
the development of the idea of discovering meaning in all existence,
and hence, a reason to keep living. If you are interested in a
general Holocaust memoir you could try Night by Elie Wiesel or Elli
by Livia Bitton-Jackson. Anyway, the point is, I'm an Ashkenazi Jew
and come from a family of Holocaust survivors. I have Holocaust
issues. Naturally. I could never, ever visit the actual camps, in
Germany, Poland, etc. I have been scared of facing Yad Vashem for
over ten years, I don't know how to handle it, who to go with. I
didn't know how I felt about going with family or with going alone.
What I'd most prefer is to go with a good friend who's more detached
than me, who is there to support me, but I don't think that's
possible. Naturally, no one is going to come to Israel with me just
to hold me upright. So we'll see how that goes.
In May, I'm visiting Israel for the
first time since 2004, and I'm going alone. I'll be mainly staying
with my family, but I will be an adult tourist, not with my dad and
not being ferried around. This is my first chance to experience
Israel from my own perspective, and I've been curious and somewhat
anxious about it. I feel this inexplicable need to make the most of
it, to do and see the right things, to not miss out. I'm only going
for about two weeks. My younger brother, since graduating high
school, has spent large chunks of time there, like a couple of six
month stints. He has been absolutely impossible, I asked him what to
do and his answer is to go sit in cafes in Tel Aviv. Now, I'm not
exactly a “tourist attraction” type traveller, but sitting around
in cafes for six months? Reading this graphic novel was a good
experience for me. The author was not scared to portray her own flaws
and prejudices, as well as the ones she found in Israel, and was open
about expressing her positive experiences and changing point of view.
While I don't think I could ever truly empathise with her original
determined anti-Israel stance, her story did give me a better
perspective and understanding of why people may feel that way and
what some of the problems are in a way that actually makes sense. One
of Sarah's issues, before she went to Israel, was a lack of objective
material about “the situation,” and with writing How To
Understand Israel In 60 Day Or Less, she's done a pretty good job at
filling that gap in the market. I would definitely recommend this
graphic novel to anyone visiting Israel, or anyone who is curious or
uncertain about what things are like there.