Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:15:59 -0400 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Beauty (was re: BDG Schedule for July-October 2003) To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU At 04:28 PM 2003-09-04 -0700, Bridgett wrote: >I take it we are kicking off the book discussion a little late this month? Well, here's where it's at: the nominator of BEAUTY seems to have disappeared, and I haven't finished the book, so I can't really write a kickoff message that's worth anything. However, I can say that I have read the first 75 pages or so and am thoroughly enjoying the book. There's a lot more humor than I expected, and the story is proceeding briskly. I'm looking forward to the rest. I'm sure a lot of list members have already read this book. Does anyone care to give an opinion on it? Jump on in! ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Radiohead -- Hail to the Thief "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 02:23:32 -0500 From: Fiona Wade Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Beauty To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Hi all well, my two pence - unfortunately I haven't reread the book for the discussion, but at least I HAVE read it for once! - I did a mini-dissertation for my honours on revisionist fairy tales, but could not find a copy of Beauty at the time - couldn't afford the Amazon price plus shipping. So, when I finally read it this year, I was kicking myself the whole way through, because it is such an interesting dovetailing and revision of so many fairytale plots. That is for me one of its greatest strengths, the way you are never sure which fairytale you are in, which gives the storyline at once a feeling of unpredictability and of familiarity. There's a Herman Charles Bosman story, which talks about standard plotlines, and about how there are only really two storylines - one of love and one of death - and that the trick is to know which one you're in. (The hero of the story believes himself to be in the first right up until the neighbours surprise him burying his wife under the dirt floor of the frontroom.) In many books we can pick up the standard theme of a story, and don't have to concentrate – we already know who lives, who dies, and who marries. I enjoyed the way Beauty is timetravelling science fiction, polemical environmentalism, and layers of fairytale at once. What I didn't like about the book is my standard problem with Tepper, and one I can now just blank out when I read her - her love of the soapbox. I can forgive her for this though, when she presents me with stories like this one. Fiona Publishing intern Macmillan SA -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search http://corp.mail.com/careers ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 09:32:43 -0400 From: Frances Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] fairy tales/Beauty To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Terry Pratchett's "Witches Abroad" has an interesting take on fairy tales: Lilias' using people to weave traditional story lines. It always puts me in mind of Beauty, and vice versa -- and i always hope they read and enjoy each other's work Beauty is a "mixed" Tepper for me. I can never really "get into" the riverboat sequence, and the business of Baskarone rather eludes me. And I get the impression that Hell was somehow created by lack of censorship of contemporary horror writers, which I'm sure wasn't Tepper's actual intention! Soapbox, yes, but I accept that, usually cheering her on from the crowd (though dissenting from her enduring grudge against the ACLU). But as always there are huge compensations, and the vision of the terrible collapse of the world seems more and more probable. "Down, down to Happy Land..." Frances ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 09:30:51 -0700 From: Laura Quilter Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] fairy tales/Beauty To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU what i thought interesting about the horror writers bit is that tepper herself writes horror. she's written under, what is it, something Horlak; and then a couple of names under Tepper, BLOOD and BONES, are straight horror; and then a fair number of her works, especially earlier ones, really draw on horror themes and could be classed that way, if not for the sf/fantasy elements - e.g., THE REVENANTS, and NORTH SHORE and SOUTH SHORE. i wondered if Tepper exempted herself as a different horror writer, different from her critique? or if this critique was her working something out for herself, about her own writing? laura quilter ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 22:56:47 -0400 From: Frances Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] fairy tales/Beauty To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU You're quite right -- I remember thinking that when I first read it. I didn't much like the Horlak one (can't think of the title) but enjoyed Blood Heritage and The Bones. The Revenants is one I have never been able to get into, though there are interesting bits along the way. The Awakeners (North Shore/South Shore) -- There is certainly some very nasty stuff happening but I can't recall any particular horror elements. Perhaps we're just looking at it from different perspectives. What did you have in mind? Now I'm wondering what exactly defines "horror". Nasty supernatural? There's certainly no lack of horrific "mundane" fiction, often far more chilling. Frances ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 11:38:02 -0500 From: "zenome@yahoo.com" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Beauty To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Just finished reading Beauty and wanted to add my two cents. Like Janice, I really enjoyed the beginning of the book - it's much more humorous and entertaining than I expected. But I feel like it really goes on a depressing downward spiral. The vision of the future is so, so bleak - it's unpalatable. And the character of Jaybee is just so nasty. I didn't get nearly as much feeling of the immense evilness of the Dark Lord as I did of Jaybee. Also, Tepper's soapbox-iness is really annoying, as quite a few on the list have already said, and sometimes even offensive. All in all, I did like the book, but I wish it had retained more of the humor and wit of the beginning. I thought Beauty was a really lovely, complex, well- thought out character, though. And I think the reworking of all the different fairy tales was really innovative and well done. zenome@yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 15:51:50 -0500 From: "Ashley M. Lander" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Beauty & The Companions To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Beauty was the first book to turn me onto Sheri S. Tepper. I guess I didn't mind the bleakness...it was a tragic story in many way's. The ending brought me to tears. I didn't know anything about the book when I first read it...so had no expectations. But since reading it, have made every effort to read everything she has ever written (only thing I haven't read is the Mavin Manyshape part of the True Game Series - only because I have been unable to acquire them). On another note - just finished her new book, "The Companions". I loved it of course - and I probably wouldn't be the best person to advice it because I have loved almost everything she has written (though Gibbon's Decline and Fall was kind of disappointing). This one just had so many interesting idea's...surrounding scents. If you love her books...then you will love this one. That's a given. ~Ashley _________________________________________________________________ Instant message with integrated webcam using MSN Messenger 6.0. Try it now FREE! http://msnmessenger-download.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 17:40:59 -0400 From: Frances Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Beauty & The Companions To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU ~Ashley wrote: >Mavin Manyshape part of the True Game Series - only because I have been >unable to acquire them). Out of curiosity I went to look at Amazon and Abebooks. Wow -- pricey! Abebooks does have one copy of Song listed at $6. Highly recommended. Purely personal: if choosing between Flight and Search, take Search. (Gloating over my tatty, well-thumbed trilogy.) >On another note - just finished her new book, "The Companions". Very dense with ideas. I'm taking it with me on vacation next week for the second reading. The first time for me with a Tepper is mainly for "what happens"; then comes the real pleasure of re-reading and digesting. Even the ones I don't enjoy so much at first tend to yield up treasures. Frances ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 23:24:09 GMT From: Faith Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Beauty & The Companions To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU I finished Beauty this weekend and I really liked it. Of course, I also like everything I've read by Sherri Tepper (Singer From the Sea is my favorite so far). There were parts of Beauty that seemed to drag and some parts that I found confusing, but over all it was an enjoyable read. I thought the way she revamped a familiar fairytale character into a three dimensional woman was refreshing since the princesses we meet in childhood fairytales are so two dimensional and appear to be incapable of thought as well as oblivious to what is going on around them. Faith ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 04:13:38 -0500 From: Fiona Wade Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Beauty & The Companions To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU >I thought the way she revamped a familiar fairytale character into a three >dimensional woman was refreshing since the princesses we meet in childhood >fairytales are so two dimensional and appear to be incapable of thought as >well as oblivious to what is going on around them. > > Faith I think one of the things about the revamp I like the most was the way that Beauty simply stepped out of the fairytale and left it to run its course with her halfsister, who fulfilled all the same conditions as did she for the curse, and would have been a lot happier in the role prescribed originally for Beauty. There is often such a strong feeling of Fate - the inevitability of Story - and the inescapability of curses and so on in the fairytale world that for Beauty to consciously leave the pattern represents a whole new departure - much like the modern fairytale princesses that save the prince, but less of a straight inversion of the tale. Even from within, Beauty is able to circumvent the inevitable and create new stories patched together from the old, although she cannot wholly escape the patterns of story. Fiona -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search http://corp.mail.com/careers ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 07:17:23 -0700 From: Maryelizabeth Hart Organization: Mysterious Galaxy Subject: [*FSF-L*] THE COMPANIONS To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU While like Ashley I must admit to Tepper-bias, I want to echo (again? I'm losing track of what I've discussed where...) her endorsement of THE COMPANIONS. Here's what I had to say elsewhere... The Companions by Sheri Tepper In The Companions, Sheri Tepper has created the best alien planets and sentient species since Jo Clayton, or some of her own renowned work, like Grass and Raising the Stones. Science Fiction's best attribute is the ability for authors to ask, what if this human tendency is carried out into an extended future, or to an extreme? Tepper is a master of extrapolation of ideas big and small, including ecology, faith, politics, and simple matters of how humans choose to behave, both as individuals and a species. Jewel Delis and her companions come to the mysterious planet Moss, where teams have worked unsuccessfully for years to determine whether there is sentient native life, seeking a haven for their few remaining dogs (or what our idea of dogs have become, on an Earth where pets are mostly unknown, as humans assert their divine right to the dwindling resources). Other forces at work on Moss, and in the universe, serve as an uncomfortable parallel. Signed copies available while supplies last MG will make a donation to www.theanimalrescuesite.com for every signed copy sold. Eos, $25.95. -- MeH -- ******************************************************************* CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF MARTIANS * MURDER * MAGIC & MAYHEM Mysterious Galaxy Books Local Phone: 858.268.4747 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Suite 302 Fax: 858.268.4775 San Diego, CA 92111 Long Distance/Orders: 1.800.811.4747 http://www.mystgalaxy.com General Email: mgbooks@mystgalaxy.com http://mysteriousgalaxy.booksense.com/ ******************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:03:48 -0500 From: lisa cohen Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Beauty & The Companions To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU whoops--didn't notice that the reply-to was faith, the first time i sent this: Frances wrote: > ~Ashley wrote: > >>Mavin Manyshape part of the True Game Series - only because I have been >>unable to acquire them). > > Out of curiosity I went to look at Amazon and Abebooks. Wow -- pricey! > > Abebooks does have one copy of Song listed at $6. Highly recommended. > > Purely personal: if choosing between Flight and Search, take Search. search does do more to flesh out plotlines and elements that will appear in the jinian books, but flight is a fantastic example of tepper's ability to create worlds and societies and think through what impact living in a completely different environment might have on societies' decisions. i love the entire true game series--you can see tepper deepen and grow as an author as you read it. lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 19:54:16 -0400 From: Frances Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Beauty & The Companions To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU >> Purely personal: if choosing between Flight and Search, take Search. >search does do more to flesh out plotlines and elements that will appear >in the jinian books, Right, which is why I'd recommend it if choosing between titles so expensive. Frances ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 17:23:56 -0700 From: Bridgett Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Beauty To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Like others here, I enjoyed the classic fairy tale motifs better than the grim future scenes. While Tepper's sermonizing doesn't usually bother me, I did find parts of Beauty annoying because there was too much telling and not enough showing. Perhaps there were parts I felt could have been developed more? I'm not sure, really. I just know I had a "get on with it" feeling here and there. I really didn't understand the interlude in the fictional world. What was the point of that? Was it supposed to be some sort of allegorical representation? What did I miss? I mean, if I were in a Lit class, I could probably make up something really interesting, but I didn't come away from that segment feeling as if I'd gained anything. What did you get out of it? How would you view Beauty's relationship with her mother from a feminist perspective? Did you find the little package hidden in Beauty to be wonderous? Or a form of rape? How about Beauty's love interest? Did you find him effective? Wimpy? Romantic? Developed or undeveloped? What did you think about Beauty and her partner's diminished libido in their old age? It seemed to be mentioned quite a bit! I understand and romantisize the idea of growing old with a companion, but the older people I know seem pretty sexually active to me. I'm not sure I liked the portrayal of older people as being virtually asexual. How about you? Thoughts? Also, do you feel this is a feminist issue? The freedom to be sexual (safely so) at any age? Sorry this is late. :-) Bridgett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 15:01:38 -0700 From: Jodi Marie Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Beauty To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Hello all, I was the one who originally recommended Beauty and unfortunately, I have not had a chance to respond. I sort of had a hectic summer, which (not to get too personal) included a few moves and a death in the family. I finally have my computer set up. I hope that I didn't inconvenience anyone too much. I really liked Bridgett's questions about the book. Anyways, here are my thoughts on Beauty. This was the second Tepper book I read, and I wasn't too impressed with the first one. It lost me a little and was pretty bleak. However, my friend insisted that I would like this one, and she was very right. I thought it was going to be a "light" read (obviously, I didn't know Tepper! ) because it had been described to me as a story about sleeping beauty who had a daughter who turned out to be cinderella whose daughter turned out to be snow white etc. This book would probably have to be one of my favorites. I loved the use of fairy tales. Both to tell the story, but also to demonstrate societal flaws in a way. Right at the beginning, Carabosse mentions how Beauty was never given the gift of intelligence at her birth. I always wondered a little if that was meant to point out (since this was mainly an environmental allegory according to tepper's note) that if we had just been a little bit more intelligent, we wouldn't have squandered the beauty and magic of our world. I also always wondered if there was a little bit of a hint of Little Red Riding Hood with Jaychin being the Big Bad Wolf. Beauty's collision course with him when she was supposed to find her mother (and chinanga) and his constantly being described as "hungry" and obviously a predator. I did ultimately like the ending though. I felt as if it was saying that there was hope, even if it is sometimes hard to see. That beauty, whether it is inside us or surrounding us can always be found and revived. I also wanted to comment on Bridgett's questions/comments, but I am having a hard time quoting them properly, so I'm going to bold what I quote from her. >I really didn't understand the interlude in the fictional world. What was >the point of that? I agree--this segment of the book really slowed the momentum down. I couldn't figure out much of a point that wasn't made elsewhere in the book and usually better. >How would you view Beauty's relationship with her mother from a feminist >perspective? I think that this is an interesting question. It's interesting that Beauty was never a child and her mother was perpetually a child right until the very end. I can't really comment on their relationship from a feminist point of view except to say maybe it's that Beauty's mother's careless attitude towards life and "love" was too oriented on the greedy pleasures that ultimately ruined the world and were really empty illusions. Is that perhaps a commentary on forms of feminism in the 60's--free love and all? Beauty was more careful and aware of the consequences of her actions--sexuality in the AIDs-ridden 90's? I did however find Beauty's mother to be a fascinating individual in the story. I think the fact that she lost her power and her memory through sex, and that she was able to regain it by refraining from sex was very interesting. I wonder if this shows a certain McKinnon-esque attitude towards sex? Rape was a constant presence throughout the book--the rape of the land, the rape of magic, Jaychin's rape of Beauty--there was very little positive sexuality in the book actually. And the relationship between Beauty's father, where sex TOOK integral parts of Beauty's mom, whether it was initially voluntary or not, feels like a form of rape to me. It just seems, as I said, to be echoes of Catherine McKinnon--and my feelings were reinforced after reading Gibbon's where I thought that theme was very prevalent. Does anyone else see the parallels or is it just me? lol >How about Beauty's love interest? Did you find him effective? Wimpy? >Romantic? Developed or undeveloped? Underdeveloped and a shallow character (not shallowly developed, but actually a shallow person). I didn't like the focus on how he couldn't reconcile his love of the young beauty with his later love with the older and not as pretty beauty. I got the impression that if given a choice, he would have picked the younger and less developed beauty, but that he more or less settled for beauty. I thought he was too weak to set him alongside beauty. >What did you think about Beauty and her partner's diminished libido in their >old age? Taking the McKinnon parallel a step further, it makes sense to me. If you equate age with wisdom then the more "wise" would realize that sex isn't important. Beauty's mother, who was almost always a child, and always looking for immediate, but ultimately empty pleasures, could always be "entrapped" with sex. Back to Beauty's mother, I think it is interesting that sex "entrapped" her to Beauty's father. In many patriarchal religions, it is women who are the ones that are using sex to entrap men--adam and eve, although women typically seemed to be subdued by sex. It just seems that it is a little flipped here with men being the entrappers, yet also the subduers and sex losing importance as wisdom and age is gained. Not a very positive perspective, if you ask me. But very interesting to think about...lol Thanks for listening to my rambling and VERY long email Jodi Marie Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search