CCBC-Net Archives
Re: The Summer Prince -- lots of thoughts (a few on sex, most on location)
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From: Ebony Elizabeth Thomas <ebonyt_at_gse.upenn.edu>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:46:51 -0400 (EDT)
Debbie, it's so relevant to bring up the rugged individualism of US mythology. This seems to be valued in other mythological traditions that we read most often in English-language fantasy. The supposed hero's journey is all about the individual and not the experiences of the collective.
I also think that's why some might find it very difficult to understand or "relate" to the sexual ethos of Palmares Tres. But I loved that Palmares Tres doesn't fit the politics of love and sex in the fantastic. Something about it reminded me of Butler's Xenogenesis series without the aliens... although for me, there was something of the ooloi about Enki. I kept expecting the June, Enki, and Gil triad to be the endgame although I knew that's impossible in a young adult story.
One question I have for Johnson and listmembers is whether The Summer Prince is truly YA. What makes a book a young adult novel? We know it's not just the ages of the characters. For me, this works fine in the young adult category, but my students felt the only place for it in a K-12 context would be in a high school library in the Northeast. Should this have been published as an adult SFF read?
This conversation reminds me that Enki was the most compelling of The Sum mer Prince trio for me. I could relate to his ascent, his pragmatism at the Pyrrhic choice of self-sacrifice so that his social class might taste a small bit of liberation in a society that was compelling on the surface, yet more dystopian as you plunged into the narrative. It makes me wonder if Johnson ever considered making him the protagonist, and if she writes a sequel (that ending demanded one), if we could see the story through his eyes.
Debbie also asked, "How much do people de-center themselves when they read?"
Karla Holloway's BookMarks: Readings in Black and White is a memoir of reading that answers this question . I'd love to see similar accounts of readers' experiences who are neither Black nor White, whose first language is not English, and who are not from English speaking countries.
"The act of reading from a de-centered position is akin to reading against the grain."
The corresponding thought is that the act of writing from a de-centered position is akin to writing against the grain. In my theory of the dark fantastic, I'm arguing basic Lacanian theory with a dash of postcolonial thought and critical race theory: the presence of the Dark Other in the fantastic usually creates a ontological dilemma. The dilemma is inescapable and must be reconciled. So writers and other creator generally resolve the dilemma by enacting symbolic or actual violence against the Dark Other as the inevitable resolution of the tale. This is w hat the readers and hearers of the fantastic expect, for it mirrors the spectacle of symbolic violence against the endarkened and the Othered in our own world. It is a familiar template, an archetype that comforts, especially when the “desert of the Real” is uncertain, ever-changing, and disempowering. All of these trope are prevalent in the traditional fantastic, and they haunt young people and adults of color alike in the real world. These monstrous, mirrored, and othered shadow Selves follow them into the classroom, as they participate in book clubs and digital fan cultures, and as they consume and respond to media.
I suppose my response as a reader is to repeat what I said last month: when I read, I center myself in the text even as that text tries to de-center me. I think that all readers "from the margins" (starting to loathe that phrase!) end up doing that. I think that some of what we think of in my field as a "literacy achievement gap" may also be an "understanding gap." Social media is now amplifying diverse responses to reading in amazing ways, and I see people writing, making images, and filming response videos sharing some of my main concerns. Instead of reading a book and saying "wow, there are no people of color in the future" or "an entire magical world with dragons and chimaeras and unicorns... and everyone's straight?" you'll run into something on social media and hundreds, thousands, or even hu ndreds of tho usands of people have had the same thought. Tumblr, which is truly a multimedia format, has grown very powerful in its ability to hold open court around texts. It's much more invisible than what's happened on Twitter, but has been no less powerful to witness.
We live in interesting times. And The Summer Prince reflects those times. My inner fangirl says "all the awards" to Johnson. If this is her debut, I can't wait to see where she's going next.
Ebony
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:46:51 -0400 (EDT)
Debbie, it's so relevant to bring up the rugged individualism of US mythology. This seems to be valued in other mythological traditions that we read most often in English-language fantasy. The supposed hero's journey is all about the individual and not the experiences of the collective.
I also think that's why some might find it very difficult to understand or "relate" to the sexual ethos of Palmares Tres. But I loved that Palmares Tres doesn't fit the politics of love and sex in the fantastic. Something about it reminded me of Butler's Xenogenesis series without the aliens... although for me, there was something of the ooloi about Enki. I kept expecting the June, Enki, and Gil triad to be the endgame although I knew that's impossible in a young adult story.
One question I have for Johnson and listmembers is whether The Summer Prince is truly YA. What makes a book a young adult novel? We know it's not just the ages of the characters. For me, this works fine in the young adult category, but my students felt the only place for it in a K-12 context would be in a high school library in the Northeast. Should this have been published as an adult SFF read?
This conversation reminds me that Enki was the most compelling of The Sum mer Prince trio for me. I could relate to his ascent, his pragmatism at the Pyrrhic choice of self-sacrifice so that his social class might taste a small bit of liberation in a society that was compelling on the surface, yet more dystopian as you plunged into the narrative. It makes me wonder if Johnson ever considered making him the protagonist, and if she writes a sequel (that ending demanded one), if we could see the story through his eyes.
Debbie also asked, "How much do people de-center themselves when they read?"
Karla Holloway's BookMarks: Readings in Black and White is a memoir of reading that answers this question . I'd love to see similar accounts of readers' experiences who are neither Black nor White, whose first language is not English, and who are not from English speaking countries.
"The act of reading from a de-centered position is akin to reading against the grain."
The corresponding thought is that the act of writing from a de-centered position is akin to writing against the grain. In my theory of the dark fantastic, I'm arguing basic Lacanian theory with a dash of postcolonial thought and critical race theory: the presence of the Dark Other in the fantastic usually creates a ontological dilemma. The dilemma is inescapable and must be reconciled. So writers and other creator generally resolve the dilemma by enacting symbolic or actual violence against the Dark Other as the inevitable resolution of the tale. This is w hat the readers and hearers of the fantastic expect, for it mirrors the spectacle of symbolic violence against the endarkened and the Othered in our own world. It is a familiar template, an archetype that comforts, especially when the “desert of the Real” is uncertain, ever-changing, and disempowering. All of these trope are prevalent in the traditional fantastic, and they haunt young people and adults of color alike in the real world. These monstrous, mirrored, and othered shadow Selves follow them into the classroom, as they participate in book clubs and digital fan cultures, and as they consume and respond to media.
I suppose my response as a reader is to repeat what I said last month: when I read, I center myself in the text even as that text tries to de-center me. I think that all readers "from the margins" (starting to loathe that phrase!) end up doing that. I think that some of what we think of in my field as a "literacy achievement gap" may also be an "understanding gap." Social media is now amplifying diverse responses to reading in amazing ways, and I see people writing, making images, and filming response videos sharing some of my main concerns. Instead of reading a book and saying "wow, there are no people of color in the future" or "an entire magical world with dragons and chimaeras and unicorns... and everyone's straight?" you'll run into something on social media and hundreds, thousands, or even hu ndreds of tho usands of people have had the same thought. Tumblr, which is truly a multimedia format, has grown very powerful in its ability to hold open court around texts. It's much more invisible than what's happened on Twitter, but has been no less powerful to witness.
We live in interesting times. And The Summer Prince reflects those times. My inner fangirl says "all the awards" to Johnson. If this is her debut, I can't wait to see where she's going next.
Ebony
--
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Reading/Writing/Literacy Division
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6216
Office: (215) 898-9309
Email: ebonyt_at_gse.upenn.edu
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Received on Thu 20 Mar 2014 10:47:22 AM CDT
