un rapporto instabile

you knew it was coming. i warned you. guess you've figured out by now that i dig reading. i dig books. i dig ideas. and this book is about reading, books, and ideas. surprisingly enough (to me), many people who enjoy reading DO NOT dig this book. again, warned.

italo calvino's if on a winter's night a traveler is one of my more recent favorites. have you ever noticed something you tend to do while reading? i don't just mean sitting in a comfy chair, but that too. i also mean things like notice that the author certainly used the word 'void' a lot. or that if this character says this one thing, someone's gunna die soon. now what if those patterns you notice or participate in were violated? what if they were pointed out to you in the very thing you're dissecting? would it make you uncomfortable? what if the plot wasn't resolved? would you put the book in the freezer? 


this pile of words is so much stinking fun i have to bifurcate again. it's becoming habit, i know, but at least then you can pretend this is like a choose your own adventure or something where you don't actually have to read the whole thing, just the piece you want, but then you'll actually end up reading the whole thing anyway because what could have happened?! ok, you don't have to read the whole thing. but you do. you can't help it. just be glad i'm not.. trifurcating!! because i totally could.


so remember when i said that someday i would compare this book with brautigan's watermelony goodness? apparently 'someday' is today. so i guess you have to call that one guy you told 'maybe someday' and stave him off with the 'maybe' part. here are the things about which i will now expound:

1. the reader!

is she talking about me? she can't be talking about me! yes, i am.

2. comparisons!
watermelons and feedings and travelers, oh my!


aaaaand they're off!


1. reader vs author vs character vs story vs ... verses. 

ha. see what i did there? anywho. this tome of awesome makes a very sharp point about the act of reading. it dives deep into the reader's psyche and pokes and prods it, teasing it. 

i suggested this book to my dear, angelic moms (right), and she assigned it to her book group at the library (you can decide later if that was awesome or mean). parentheticals aside, my moms has a blog too, go read it, she's a pro. and she gives away free books! 


which brings me closer to my punto numero uno. calvino doesn't just pick the scab off your plot and character wounds. you know, all those times you were really into a book but the plot left you with all kinds of dangling chads, or a character you fell madly in love with died or turned out to be an a-hole or whatever. he also plays with the roles we assume and interact with and assign as we read. i am the reader, this dude wrote this book, some people on the east coast published it, a nice lady like my moms will help you find it in the library, your friends will see it on your shelf and give you a funny look like you're a crazy person... and these roles are all mutually exclusive. JUST KIDDING.


seriousface, first paragraph of the book. calvino begins his experiment (on you) thusly:

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, 'No, I don't want to watch TV!' Raise your voice - they won't hear you otherwise - 'I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!' Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: 'I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!' Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone. 

oh, that's right. he went there. the whole first chapter is in the second person. who does that?! YOU. you have been cast as the reader and you are taking directions about how to go about reading this book you're reading. tasty treat: when i started reading this book for the first time i was on my exercise bike, so it really made me giggle a few paragraphs later when he begins to talk about the most comfortable position, chair, etc. for reading.


the first question we asked the book group was,

was this book hard to read?

and the answer was a resounding yes. ok, so this is half of the reason the book group was a little irked: every other (like 1, 3, 5, not every single other) chapter is directed at you, the reader. but the reader evolves. no spoilers. the other other chapters (you know, 2, 4, 6) are stories. like the kind you're actually familiar with. with plots n recognizable tannins. the second half of the reason the book group was a little irked is that none of these little short stories has an end. that's right, and it's not a spoiler, i promise. 


you read the first chapter, get into it, don't really know what's going on because you've just been talked at by a chapter about the act of you reading, but you go with it, thinking ok, that was weird, but i guess this book is about this dude at a train station NOPE. and it is not a choose your own adventure, so don't try skipping the next chapter to see what happens next in that story. you'll just find another beginning. there is purpose and reason, mind you. just no minor resolution to these minor tales. this is a book about your relationship with it, with reading, with words, with stories, with.. your expectations.


moving right along...


2. comparisons are odious.

Meaning: Comparison (especially of people) is not productive and can have unpleasant consequences. People should be judged on their own merits.

Note: comparison (noun) = the act of comparing | compare (verb) = measure or note the similarity or dissimilarity between people or things | odious (adj) = extremely unpleasant; distasteful.


thank you, english club, but i am inclined to respectfully disagree. one can make all sorts of synaptic connections and find more relevant meaning when comparing. and comparing people is just fun. and part of our culture. but i digress.


while this book should be judged on its own merit (and i judge it fan-freaking-tasticulous), i also noticed that picking on the reader, speaking to the reader, and fiddling with the reader's expectations are not totally unique concepts. particularly, i am referring to a reference to which i have already referred: in watermelon sugar. 


in in watermelon sugar, our main character doesn't have a name, and he's speaking directly to you, reader, and so much of what he tells you depends on your interpretation of it. he won't just tell you what you expect, or how you expect to be told; he tells you whatever his crazypants brain feels like, and places the responsibility on you, reader, to make sense of it. this can frustrate some people. 


i also mentioned Feed, and implied this book warrants comparisons there as well. seem far-fetched? ha! ok, it's a bit of a stretch. what made me feel these two are distant cousins is twofold (oh, not again with the forking): the relationship to words - if on a winter's night is all about the reader's relationship to words and to books and the whole world of reading, right? you don't know, i know, so yeah, i'm right; AND the way the author toys with the reader by using different .. angles. in the case of feed, those angles are different media (i mean, still words, but advertisements and song lyrics - not just plot).


well, in feed, books don't exist anymore really. they're not commonplace, anyway. no one reads. there's no reason to, in their new blink-of-an-eye entertainment and knowledge future. and the consequences there are quite fun. at one point our protagonist (or is he?) makes fun of his smartypants girl friend for using a pen and paper. they're totally foreign objects to him. 


then Anderson throws song lyrics at you, Reader, from popular songs in this not-so-distant future. i'd give you a side-by-side comparison of some of the lyrics included in the novel with some of today's pop song lyrics, but instead, let me just give you another awesome chart to make my point. 

your head in a vice

Samuel Butler said,

"The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."

i concur, good sir! Plato claimed the soul is like a chariot (reason) pulled by two horses: spirit, and appetite. spirit is easier to control than appetite, so we must develop our reason in order to better control our 'horses,' and not lead a life where debauchery outweighs integrity. 


and John Keats wrote wrote an ode on indolence (laziness). in this poem, he describes three figures: ambition, love, and poesy (poetry, which Keats sees as his vice). are we sensing a pattern yet? i must warn you that everything below is my own interpretation and i am by no means an authority. the full text of the poem is provided at the end of this post so's you can make your own interpretation.


Keats laments that he cannot have all three, but that in order for one to flourish, the others must retreat. He describes them:

They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn

When shifted round to see the other side;

They came again, as, when the urn once more

Is shifted round, the first seen shades return; 

i.e., you can't look at all sides of the urn at once; to fully see one figure, it has to be turned so the others are just out of focus. once he recognized 'who' they are, our narrator seems overcome with emotion. he recognizes that he doesn't have love, and that ambition is short-lived, but that his art - poesy - makes him indolent. it is his vice. 


however, the way he ends this ode is most interesting to me. some think he's refusing to acknowledge these three ruling forces in his life, or that he's deciding to continue to choose poesy over love and ambition with his final declaration:

Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more

In masque-like figures on the dreary urn;

Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,

And for the day faint visions there is store;

Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright,

Into the clouds, and never more return!

i think, though, he's decided they are crude representations of life. they're masque-like on a deary urn. he has visions - inspiration - and that is worth a lot to him. he calls them phantoms, mocking his idleness. he may look idle, but he's filled with his 'vice.' 

i choose to reject the 'dualist' thinking that separates spirit from appetite, and love, ambition, and art from one another. it's just not that simple. it's the whole mind over matter, body versus mind mentality that i tend to disregard as naive. these are helpful ways to examine life and oneself, but the lines are much blurrier.


i see his 'ambition' as a representation of work, 'love' as a representation of family, and 'poesy' as art. but these are all intertwined in a life. further, for Keats, his ambition was his poetry, his work. and his friends/family were, granted, second to his work, but all surrounding it, inspiring it, relating to it.


we all have art in our lives in one way or another. is Keats saying that art is a luxury, to be enjoyed as a vice for those who have time to laze about and sigh and think and feel? and are those people then lacking in ambition and love? i don't see a lot of bums writing poetry.also, i find it interesting that this isnt an ode TO indolence, but ON it. prepositions have all kinds of meaning, you know. he's not singing a pretty song to laziness. he's lamenting ON the topic of it. 


ok, enough deep thoughts. anyone know who Jane Campion is? she's rad. i fell in love with her when i saw The Piano. anyone seen the piano? she wrote and directed it. guess what else she wrote and directed? her first in many many years - Bright Star. it's about Keats (oh, there's the connection). Campion rules at invoking emotion and mood with color and placement and all that mise en scene stuff. 

i have no idea how historically accurate it is, and i dont really care. kind of like i know Amadeus isn't accurate, but it's still one of my favorite movies. if you liked The Piano, and/or you like Keats, and/or you like period pieces, great art, etc, etc, just see the movie. it's long and slow, plotwise, but if you pay attention, every minute has something to show you.






now, as promised, the complete Ode on Indolence by John Keats:



One morn before me were three figures seen,
    With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
    In placid sandals, and in white robes graced:
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
    When shifted round to see the other side;
        They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
    And they were strange to me, as may betide
        With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

How is it, shadows, that I knew ye not?
    How came ye muffled in so hush a masque?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
    To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days?  Ripe was the drowsy hour;
    The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
        Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower.
    O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
        Unhaunted quite of all but - nothingness?

A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd
    Each one the face a moment whiles to me;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn'd
    And ached for wings, because I knew the three:
The first was a fair maid, and Love her name;
    The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
        And ever watchful with fatigued eye;
The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
    Is heap'd upon her, maiden most unmeek, -
        I knew to be my demon Poesy.

They faded, and, forsooth!  I wanted wings:
    O folly!  What is Love? and where is it?
And for that poor Ambition - it springs
    From a man's little heart's short fever-fit;
For Poesy! - no, - she has not a joy, -
    At least for me, - so sweet as drowsy noons,
        And evenings steep'd in honied indolence;
O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy,
    That I may never know how change the moons,
        Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!

A third time came they by: - alas! wherefore?
    My sleep had been embroider'd with dim dreams;
My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o'er
    With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:
The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
    Though in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;
        The open casement press'd a new-leaved vine,
    Let in the budding warmth and throstle's lay;
O shadows!  'twas a time to bid farewell!
        Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.

So, ye three ghosts, adieu!  Ye cannot raise
    My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
    A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
    In masque-like figures on the dreary urn;
        Farewell!  I yet have visions for the night,
And for the day faint visions there is store;
        Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright,
    Into the clouds, and never more return!

Written in 1819

too close for missiles; i'm switching to guns

you've seen a movie based on a book right? and maybe you've read that book. and no matter what order you did that in, you thought the book was better.. cuz there's more details n things you can't portray in film, blah blah, doesn't really matter.



i just read top gun. 'member top gun? best movie ever? yeah. here's that movie in text form (left).


equally rad in text form. kinda hard to read in that format, but you know what it is as soon as you start - then it's just the fun of realizing that yes, it is the whole movie. on one big piece of paper masquerading as a page in my esopus magazine that i've had for .. a while. 


i will now tell you two (2) things:
1. top gun is awesome in every form, and 
2. esopus is awesome in every form. (as if you didn't already know that based on my new top gun poster. but i'll go further.)


1. "take me to bed or lose me forever," or, how i learned to stop worrying and find that lovin feelin.


reasons top gun is awesome include, but are not limited to:

• great soundtrack
• jets
• rebellion and turmoil and love !
• sunsets
• beautiful people
• a surprising lack of violence ('splosions don't count as violence)
• 'splosions
• DANGER ZONE !
• boys singing to girls

but most of all, this:



i will accept no argument on this point.


further, it illustrates that christie was right, and they just don't make movies NOWADAYS that are as cool as the ones we grew up with. the fact that this movie was included as tiny-type-written, crisply-folded, perforated-for-ease-of-removal page in esopus 12 illustrates still further that this movie is freakin rad. 


it also suggests that someone thought it appropriate to include in the edition of esopus highlighting "black and white." hmmm. other thank ink on the ink on the page, what is black and white about this movie? quentin tarantino has an idea (i'll let you click on that instead of embedding the video because, obviously, it's offensive. enjoy.). but i'm not going to get into all the homo-erotica of this movie. i'll just leave it at 

take me to bed or lose me forever.

2. not a literary journal, not a magazine, just awesome.
esopus is a .. thing. that could be mistaken for a magazine, since it's called esopus magazine, or a literary journal, since it includes artsy writings and artsing, or probably a slough of other media. but whatever it is, i stinking dig it.


this is a non-profit. there's a spring and a fall edition, and they obviously cost WAY more to produce than they charge. one edition is $14, and a year subscription is $24. there are no ads. it is 100% art. art includes the aforementioned top gun story from esopus 12 (NOT the script, mind you). it also includes collages, short stories, poetry, sketches, articles, photography (sometimes even actual negatives), newspaper clippings, postcards, posters, creative images and words from any and everything you can think of. 


and each edition (i keep wanting to type 'episode' because it seems more fitting) comes with a CD of songs on the theme of the edition, requisitioned by esopus from awesome artists. for example, as previously mentioned, esopus 12's theme was black and white, artists (including lisa cerbone, sand pebbles, and sam amidon) chose black and white films (such as it's a wonderful life, to kill a mockingbird, and raging bull) as inspiration. from the editor. tod lippy:

some contributors took a direct approach, reflecting on, or expanding upon, the film's narrative; others created what are essentially post-facto soundtracks. they are all fascinating complements to their source material, not to mention compelling songs in their own right. 

i encourage you to check it out. it will challenge and confuse you, as it's not like any other media you're used to. but hopefully it will also make you grin and get excited and dig deeper and enjoy all the awesome there is to be devoured and digested in this life.

the future includes sex, guns, drugs, and body-swapping.

so i gave you some "girly" recommendations; now let's hear it for the boys. i read Altered Carbon in college, and once i had finished with all the rest of school's requirements, i read the other two books in this trilogy. i must say, holy stinking piles, batman. i understand (but am a bit terrified) why this story has been purchased by some sort of film industry for the making-into-a-movie action they tend to do to ruin so many books these days. silly kids, hollywooding my precious business. richard morgan is going to be filthy stinking rich, and he's not even old! kinda seth mcfarlane-lookin, huh. morgan's british though. anywho.

here's the deal. it's in the future, and our main character is a ... mercenary of sorts. his name is takeshi kovacs (pronounced TALK-eh-she KO-vatch). he used to be this super hardcore special ops marine type soldier guy, and now he's just a disturbed badass. dude's rad. and crazy. but he's not the most interesting thing about this book/series. the crazysauce is that in this future, one's consciousness is stored in a lil chip, like a harddrive. all your memories, your identity, per se, is all on this "cortical stack" in your brainstem. sounding like another book at all? it's not the same at all, don't worry. 

the kicker is that, should you die, your little chip can be inserted into another body. continue where you left off. or whenever your last 'upload' was. now, this new body could be a clone of you, another body like the one you were born with, or it could be some other body. you could potentially transfer everything there is about you into a body of the opposite sex, at any age. for instance, at one point our protagonist is reanimated into a body that was a smoker. so he's irritable until he figures this out, and then he's a trying-to-quit smoker for a while. 

this body issue is, by far, the awesomest idea i've come across in a long while, and i'll get into why a little farther down the page, but first, more about the story, cuz i think i've yet to hook you.

let me begin some hooking with this here fan art. reasons you will like this book include:

• badass dude with guns and super enhanced muscles and fighting SKILLZ
• who pretty much can't die
• and is a little crazy. 
• fight scenes so rad you'll think The Matrix was boring (note: if you liked The Matrix, you will like this book)
• travel between planets
• interplanetary turmoil
• body modifications with technology that give you extra 'powers' 
• crazy drugs do weird stuff with your body technologies
• like make sex crazy steamy
• crazy steamy sex scenes
• psychological issues 
• related to the whole body thing
• and unrelated to the whole body thing
• mysteries!
• the ability to insert a consciousness into a simulation and do just about anything to them
• like torture - they can't die! just go insane.. 
• or fun stuff
• or a whole ton of planning and chatting for days or weeks while only passing a few minutes in the 'real world'
• whole religions, economies, and philosophies developed around these new crazy technologies
• for instance, the hardcore religious types believe the soul cannot be contained in technology, so if one of them dies, even if their 'stack' is in tact, they are not to be placed in a new body. they're d-e-d, dead.
• also, of course, only those who can afford it can get new bodies if they die - and you have to be pretty stinking rich to get clones of yourself, so the moderately rich get bodies unlike their own.

ok, enough for now. i think you're titillated. on to the whole consciousness-in-a-chip/body-swapping issue, and its implications. this is something the author doesn't explore as much as i wish he did, but it certainly gets those mind grapes juicing. can you sense i'm going to get all existential on ya? you have such good senses.

where, when, and who am i?

consider: our protagonist is already over 100 years old. his body looks, oh, say, 30? who knows how many times his body has died. but he has memories from decades ago, on this and other planets, and, unlike most people around him, was actually born on Earth. (oh yeah, we've totally colonized lotsa other planets by now, don't you fret.) he has memories of wars. lots of them. of aliens. of loves and losts. of death. a lot of death. 

in a great movie that you should see called 13 Conversations About One Thing, a character raises his glass and says to another, "may you get everything you want," and he and his friend joke that this is an old gypsy curse (not unlike 'careful what you wish for'). ah, to live forever. but we've seen it again and again in great literature, the curse that is eternal life. you only really begin to see it later in the series, but takeshi starts to go batshit crazy from all his past - that's just too much past for one person. 

not to mention, it is (as it always has been) the rich who inherit the earth. or, planet, as the case may be - Earth is long gone. though the technologies are available to everyone, these things have their price. a well-to-do person could have a whole warehouse of cloned bodies, as well as a number of backup servers to ensure his constant survival. what's to keep those old rich farts from getting older and richer, and gaining too much power? what IS too much power? who's going to keep tabs on these old crazies? and of course, what about the poor sap who gets caught in the crossfire of a gang fight, whose stack was totally transferable, but whose family couldnt foot the bill for a new body? peace out, dude. 

worse still, what of the guy who said 'no seriously, keep my stack around til my funds can cover a new body,' so the government hung on to the thing, and plopped him in a new body 150 years later? this guy has no family, no friends, and might even be on a different planet, and he's in an unfamiliar shell. hrm.

or, even, what if the stack is in tact and in holding, or just in the body still, but the body is dead, can't afford a new body, or chose not to... is he still there? in nothingness? in a sort of purgatory? could he be placed into a new body should someone try that experiment in a couple decades? would he still be a person? a sane person? does one have to destroy the stack to 'release' the actual person?

there is one scene where a guy who was in prison [prison is all psychological, no body attached. your consciousness is pretty much just suspended on hold til your time is up, then you get a body.) gets out and goes to see his wife. there is mention that, even though she knows immediately that it's him and they're madly in love, blah blah blah, she felt like she was cheating on him because of the new body. oOoooo....

and.. where are my important bits?

further, the idea that your memories = you... interesting. you see, if you can store everything that equals you in this little chip, that means our bodies really are just vessels. we are not a part of them. this gets back to the question of 'where does my essence lie?' if you cut off my arm, i say, 'that is my arm, but i am me.' if you cut off my head, would i say 'that is my head, but i am me'? so then, does the 'soul' reside in the head? is the 'stack' just the human invention to embody the soul? 

the religious fanatics in the story obviously don't think so. they think your body is you, and if it dies, you're gone. crush that backup file, i'm outta here. but wait! we already have synthetic everything-parts! anyone seen Bicentennial Man? if you have a metal leg, a plate in your head, two hearing aids, glasses, and a pig's heart.. are you still human? what makes us human? if you have someone else's body, are you still you? what happens if you put a 'stack' in an animal? (this is touched on briefly in simulation in the series.) is any of this reminding you of Blade Runner? aka, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? (which was written by Phillip K. Dick, after whom the Phillip K. Dick Award was named, which Richard K. Morgan won for Altered Carbon, btw. something about a middle name beginning with K...)

SKADOOSH!!! that was your head exploding. so awesome. i got some shrapnel. sure do love these questions. anywho, if you dig these ideas, or even just the rad 'film noir' meets dick tracy style of this book, i suggest you continue with the series. don't worry, two more! Woken Furies, and Broken Angels. here's the author's website, if you feel so inclined. 

ladies, ladies. there's plenty to go around.

maybe it's the font of the title, maybe you thought you recognized the author, maybe the cover art sparks some distant memory, just out of reach in your memory.. whatever the reason, you pick up a book you would never ever ever choose of your own volition. you roll your eyes, read the back flap, get slightly less uninterested, and decide you're intrigued enough to read the first paragraph, right there in front of the shelf at barnes and noble (you haven't invested enough in it to actually sit in one of the comfy chairs and get intimate with this book yet; it's still feeling-it-out time). 


usually, this ends with a harrumph and a not-so-gentle placement back on the shelf. but occasionally, you are ensnared. sarah dunant hooked me bright and early with The Birth of Venus, even though i regret to type, i had fallen into the habit of treating books that look like this and have subject matter like this as pulpy pseudo-intellectual romance novels. 


in fact, i loved it. i loved it so much i bought another book by sarah dunant to read next. that's right, NEXT, with no break to read something else in between. woah.

The Birth of Venus is a story about the life of a woman from childhood to oldladyhood, in Florence (and other places) in the 1500s. It is historical fiction, from which i usually shy away - mostly because i like totally made up stories better than ones that are trying to be realistic; i read to escape reality, after all. but this setting is mesmerizing. war, gore, politics, art, art, art, to name some of the awesomesauce of the historical accuracy of this book. all so perfectly woven into the main plot that you don't get that 'historical fiction' vibe of being lectured about boring goings on of days of yore. at all. 


but above all else, this novel is about what it means to be a woman. to grow into your role as a person, a character in your life, in your family, and in your history. this is not sexist, or feminist-y. it is easy to relate to and it is beautiful. i was shocked how much this book touched me. there are weddings that occur for a million reasons, none of which are love; there are births that are.. not as planned; there are passionate connections that are socially unacceptable; there are deaths and the multitude of perspectives, emotions, and rippled reactions through friends, government, enemies, society, and most of all, family. 


our main character grows into herself and learns to deal with all life throws at her in this very difficult time and place. she has to make choices that break her heart, and nearly her soul. she has to decide what it means to be a daughter, sister, lover, wife, mother, and adult, among much else. also, SO beautifully written. 


now, if you want something slightly more light-hearted, the book i read next (though written before) resulted in actual LOLs. In the Company of the Courtesan (also dunant), is about the same time period, and takes place in Rome and Venice. the main character goes through an epic (historical) tragedy, and ends up having to start from scratch with no help but her dwarf-buddy-servant-helper-friend. he, by the way, is the narrator. 

My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor's army blew a hole in the wall of God's eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment.

i dunno bout you, but i think that's a pretty good way to start a book. fiametta, if you haven't figured it out by now, is a courtesan (you know. like. a female companion. for a fee. but don't worry, it's not dirty). she goes through some significant horrors and findings about herself, her home, her friendships, her family, and most of all, her power. 

these are woman who are out of sync with their time, who are brilliant and cunning, and who refuse to be placed below men in their society. without giving anything away about either book, i must say that these are insanely empowering novels of enchanting clarity. well done, dunant. you've impressed me.