the heart goes last. margaret atwood. (323)

the heart goes last is the first book of margaret atwood that i have read.  i know as a feminist i should really read the handmaid's tale, and it's been on my to-read list, but haven't made it happen.  i decided to put myself on the wait list for this work, assuming it would be a while before my turn came around, but i got it quickly. 

i wasn't sure what to expect from atwood.  i know she is a sci-fi writer and that isn't a genre i would consider my self a fan of.  however, everyone was excited about it online, so i decided to give it a try.  i was pleasantly surprised by how much i enjoyed this work.  to start, i had no idea what the book was about, from the cover it looked as if it was about prison like in the future we would all be prisoners.  and i guess this could a great one sentence summary.

the heart goes last is set in a distant future in which the economy has collapsed and the middle and lower classes are left to live in their cars and rummage for food and money.  the upper class have not been effected and still have wealth.  the novel is about a married couple, stan and charmaine, tired of living out of their car and scared of the crime that could occur.  they decided to sign up to live in consilience, a project based on the prison system.  since prisons create jobs and help sustain a community (i know i live in a town with two prisons), members of this community live as a prisoner for one month and then live outside as a civilian for next, and alternate back and forth.  they are given jobs both in and out of the prison.  they share homes with alternates that are in prison when they are home and vice versa.  they are not suppose to communicate with their alternates.

however, charmaine had an affair with her alternate and this caused a series of events to unfold because the man's wife was a woman that worked in surveillance and was assistant to the head of the project. using the affair as a cover, she then pressured stan into helping her stop the project by taking information into the outside world.  it turns our that the project originally was an actual prison and they began to kill off prisoners that were disobedient and harvested them for body parts.  this business started to become lucrative business, and so they started killing of people.  in addition to this, their biggest export were sex bots, which then lead to them operating on brains so that the first thing a person saw post-opt they imprinted on and basically became their sex slaves.  stan was to expose all of this, but to get him into the outside world, he had to fake his death by charmaine killing him.  

sounds like an exciting book, yes?  well it was until the end.  there was all this great build up but then it was like atwood wasn't sure how to end it.  there was some mission that took place in vegas which reminded me of ocean's 11.  and the outside world learned of what was occurring but unsure if anything really stopped.  and the head of the project turned into a sex slave due to the operation. charmaine had the same operation and imprinted on stan, only to learn that she never had the operation.

this twist at the end felt odd, and i wondered what atwood wanted us to take from it.  that love is not real but a construct of our minds like everything else in life. that the heart does goes last but not due to love but because it is a muscle and simply is the last to complete its function.  it feels cold for an ending but seems true.  we place all this emphasis on following your heart, but really your heart is guided by your brain, so it's your brain all along!

another lesson could be that of obedience, in which today especially, we so blindly follow what is presented to us that we don't question it and just believe.  so many times i see individuals post articles on facebook, only for me to google and find they are not true.  it reminded me of the study in which people were instructed to shock individuals and though they knew it was wrong, they did it since an authority figure instructed them to do so.  the members of the community worked in this prison and just followed instructions without realizing what they were actually contributing to.  this leads to the usual lesson of futuristic tales to question your government and to not conform.

lastly, since the story centered around prisons it reminded me of the stanford experiment.  that study dealt with the conforming of roles to that of authority and inferior.  though there did not seem to be any abuse of authority within the prison, we did see it from wife in surveillance.  since the prison was set up as a business, i wonder if atwood's critique would be that of how we criminalize individual to sustain this business, which i would counter, i have seen these prisoners after their release and they deserve to be there.  i will say it is horrible the amount of funds that is put into our prison system, especially in california, and if atwood was advocating that i am with her.  i will have to google to see what she says on the matter.

all in all, a great novel with a weak ending but definitely worth reading. 

the wilds. julia elliot. (263)

i actually had no idea what i was checking out when i picked up julia elloitt's the wilds, because it was a blind date book!  i had seen on the brooklyn library's instagram that they did a blind date books for valentine's day and shared it on my facebook.  my friend rovia told me that the beale library in bakersfield was doing it as well and of course i went to check it out.

so cute right.  i ended up picking up this book, because it was genre-bending!

and i wish the library had an actual dating service because i ended up enjoying this book.  it's a collection of short stories that are dark and weird, kind of southern gothic meets sci-fi, but very interesting!

my favorite stories were:

"the rapture", the story of two popular girls whose parents (in an attempt to teach them a lesson on life) forced them to spend the night for a classmate's birthday party.  the classmate was at the bottom of the social ladder and family was odd, an overly religious mother, a gay uncle who used to be a model, and grandmother who was religious but also

some sort of witch.  their stay was filled with creepiness and ended with a blondie reference (the story is called "the rapture.")

"LIMBs" it's a beautiful store with some amazing technology from the future.  a woman, elise mood, is in a nursing home, where she received treatment to help stimulate her memory which she is losing to alzheimer's.  in addition to this, elise was also given "leg intuitive motion bionics" or limbs to help her walk around.     while walking around the facility, an old flame ran into her.  initially, she did not remember him but then things to start to come back, as does memories of her husband.  elise and her husband had a rough life due to an injury he had and though he did cheat on him.  in the end, elise realized her husband was in the nursing home too and one day she escaped the home with him. 

"jaws" was a sad story of having to cope with our parents aging.  it's tough realizing the people that cared for you all your life will start to grow old and need your help.

"organisms" was educational for me.  i learned about a parasite that acts as the tongue of a fish (without the fish knowing) and how it lives by eating the food the fish catches.  it's actually quite scary how parasite organisms take over a body.  this story was like an episode of "the twilight zone" and would make an excellent movie! it was the story of three people but centered around an organism that is taking over the bodies of teens, the side effects are an appetite for junk food and long periods of electronic stimulation (ie video games and tv) sounds just like being a teen right?  which makes it even more difficult

to stop!

"the love machine" reminded me of  "her" and bj novak's short story, "sophia", was about a machine that loves.  it's funny when love is broken down to science, it's interesting to see our behaviors when it comes to love is framed by our knowledge and stimuli around us.

all of the stories are interesting and wierd and dark.  "feral" was about wild dogs that plague a town and a woman falling for a wild dogs expert. "the wilds"

was about a young girl that turns wild like a werewolf with a neighborhood boy. "regeneration at mukti" was about a resort where people go to cleanse their bodies and souls by having all of the horrible negativity and evils in their soul become manifested on their skin as warts and sores, etc. "caveman diet" poked fun at all or these trends to get back to some normal way of life by returning to primitive means.  "end of the world" was about a band getting back together and a woman getting closure from an old relationship.

all in all, a great collection of short stories and i can't wait for my blind date next year!!!

ender's game. orson scott card. (101)

i have no idea how i was an adolescent who read and missed "ender's game" growing up. the cover looked familiar like i probably saw it at the library and book fairs however i still missed it. but thanks to flavorpill's 30 to read before 30, it finally came on my radar.

i was actually surprised by how much i enjoyed this book. the novel which is set in the future is the story of ender, a young boy who may be the world's savior. earth has engaged in previous wars with an alien species referred to as buggers and ender shows promise to be the commander that will stop the buggers from conquering earth.

at first, i was bit thrown off by the children in the book because they were evil. ender's older brother constantly threatened to kill ender (literally not figuratively) and ender's bullies at regular school wanted to cause physical harm to him (it became worse in battle school). but then i started to understand that though ender was 6, he was not a 6 year old of today but one of the future. and sadly these children do not have "normal" childhoods like we know today. the war against the buggers was so important that children are monitor via a monitor in their neck, to see if they show promise to be a commander. if they do they are shipped off to battle school to be trained. ender's sister valentine and his battle school friend dink, both tell ender about a time in the past where kids were allowed to play and went to school to learn instead of battling. they both look back at it as some golden past. ender leaves for battle school at age 6 and as i read i thought of the first graders that i sub for and majority do not show the maturity that ender demonstrated (but that could also be that he was the chosen one).

but this made me worry about now and the future. i don't see war being so important that childhoods are lost but i do see kids being exposed to adult things at too early of an age. i will probably shelter my kids and be this crazed tiger mom but i want my future kids to be kids. i am always shocked by children's use of profanity and knowledge of it. i once overheard 2nd graders singing the will.i.am and britney song and saying how they couldn't say the "b-word". it is good that a 7 year old knows bitch is a bad word but how is bitch even in their vocabulary. maybe my family is old fashion but no one cussed around me when i was a child. another thing that worries me is kids exposure to social media, if you are under the age of 14, you do not need a facebook page or instagram. go out and play outside, play with your dolls or action figures, read a book, interact with other kids in real life. you only get to be young once, enjoy it because being an adult means hard work, so be young while you can!

even though i felt bad that ender was never a carefree kid, the flip side is that this book reminds us of, like flavorpill stated, "the power of children". ender saved the world as a teen and he was able to do that because those around him took the time and effort to teach and train him. though the battle school tactics were sometime questionable, it did demonstrate how kids are intelligent and just need direction to become great. all kids are capable of success if they have the right support. the thing that people needs to realize is that the raising and teaching of kids is not the responsibly of the school but of the parents. it was an interesting transition for me to go from working in beverly hills where parents wanted their students to the brightest and best to coming back to delano where parents can't make sure that the students complete their homework. every child is capable of greatness they just need parents and teachers that are willing to help them achieve it.

yes, all of this from an young adult sci-fi novel. but back to the story. it truly is as flavorpill said one of the best science fictional novels of all time. once i was in, i couldn't put it down. ender is great protagonist and you want him to succeed but also worry about all the pressure that is put on him.

since the novel is sci-fi, i was impressed by the portrayal of the nets and politics in ender's world and how it is the same in our current world. ender's brother and sister used the nets to share their political thoughts with the world and become extremely famous though they are only kids (they have usernames to hide their identity). i thought it was interesting considering how today the internet and social media is utilized so anyone can share their political views. life imitating art!

i also appreciated that with all of the competition in battle school and war, in the end the lesson is one of tolerance ad learning about your enemy and discovering that no harm was meant initially.

but you should definitely read this if you never have and do it before the movie comes out!

one last analysis, the author orson scott card is mormon (found out in the introduction) and i couldn't help but draw parallels between ender's mission and LDS missions. the age students left for battle school was 8, which is the age the children are baptized in the church because they can distinguish between right and wrong. also kids in the church are trained throughout all of their sunday school lessons to become missionaries. and then they are set out into the world to save souls. it kinda works.

also last but not least there were a lot of mentions of farts in this book but i guess that is how kids talk!

the martian chronicles. ray bradbury (58)

The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury

as soon as i finished “dandelion wine” i put in a request for “the martian chronicles”.  i absolutely loved “dandelion wine”  but was worried about this work because i do not consider myself a fan of sci-fi.  i have never seen (or had a desire to see) an episode of star trek or battlestar galactica or any of the star wars movies.  (i will give star wars a chance in the near future.)  but like h.g. wells, bradbury’s sci-fi doesn’t fit my preconceive notions of sci-fi (which would be pretty much things found on the syfy network.  lol)  bradbury himself didn’t really consider it sci-fi, as he explained in the introduction,

All that being true, how come The Martian Chronicles is often described as Science Fiction?  It misfits that description.  There is only one story in the entire book that obeys the laws of technological physics:  “There Will come Soft Rains.”

i think the best description of what “the martian chronicles” truly is was given by aldous huxley, as bradbury explained in the intro upon meeting huxley:

huxley ‘leaned forward and said, “Do you know what you are?”

            Don’t tell me what I’m doing, I thought. I don’t want to know.

            “You,”said Huxley, “are a poet.”

            “I’ll be damned,” I said.

            “No, blessed”, said Huxley.

(before i go on, such a cute story, right?  reading the introduction made me regret the fact that i never attended a talk given by bradbury and sadly being in los angeles there were plenty of opportunity for me to do so.)

i have only read three of bradbury’s works (i really want to read, “something wicked this way comes” but am saving it for halloween) but i have to agree with huxley for bradbury’s works really are poetry.  

"the martian chronicles" is a collection of short stories that chronicles earthlings missions to mars which leads to the  colonization of mars by earthlings and lastly the destruction of both mars and earth.  but mars isn’t just the red planet we learn about in science books, its more like mythical greece, and like mythical greece, readers get caught up in stories while ultimately gaining a better understanding of themselves and society.     

here are some examples of his stories being more than just aliens and astronauts:

-“Ylla”, the first story, and the name of a martian housewife who is no different from any other american suburban housewife (think "desperate housewives", yates' "revolutionary road") bored by her standstill life and full of dreams of a more exciting one.  then sadly having those dreams crushed by her husband.

-“The Earth Man” is a story that reminded me of “girl, interrupted” (the memoir not the movie) or “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” (which i never read but kinda get the gist of it).  it’s the story of “real" astronauts that are institutionalized because they are thought to be the figment of an “insane” martian’s imagination.

“-And the Moon Be Still As Bright”  is the story of expedition to mars in which one member Spender worries about the consequences of the colonization of mars on martians and their culture.  Spender fights his fellow humans in attempt to preserve mars. it's an interesting foil to the european colonization of the americas and southeast asian counties. esp considering how one negative effect of humans on mars is that the human virus “chicken pox” results in the death of thousands of martian. 

-“The Green Morning”- tells the tale of Benjamin Driscoll, the martian johnny appleseed who solves the problem of low oxygen levels by planting trees on mars. which can be seen as an endorsement for being green.; 

-“the fire balloons” demonstrates that one should be tolerant of all religions. a group of priests travel to mars to save the souls of those that migrated before but come across martians and their religion.  the priests learned that god can be found in all shapes and sizes (there is a great discussion of what the chinese christian god must look like) and that there is not only just one right way of worship.   

my favorite of all the stories was “usher II.”

in this story, a gentleman mr. william stendahl builds a replica of edgar allen poe's "house of usher" which he uses to get his revenge on the bureaucrats that stifle creativity and free thought by burning books and stopping literature from being written. stendahl is a little creepy and does kill people but you have to admire his dedication to books.

if you get the chance take the time to read "the martian chronicles." and if you don't like sci-fi, you'll be fine. it reads like episodes of the twilight zone so they go by quickly. i suggest picking up a copy and putting it on your bed table and reading a story a night.

quotations:

"and they made Alice drink something form a bottle which reduced her to a size where she could no longer cry 'Curiouser and curiouser'" -description of what the government did to books in "Usher II"

"but already the words hung between planets and if, by some cosmic radiation, they could have been illuminated, caught fire in vaporous wonder there, her love would have lit a dozen worlds and startled the night side of Earth into a premature dawn, she thought." -description of janice's phone call from earth to her lover on mars in "the wilderness".

food for thought:

missions to mars in "the martian chronicles" started in 2030, which is 18 years from now. and on the plus side, legislature to censor books began in 1999 with "the great fire" being in 2006, so we are safe from that being our fate.

last but not least, i recently went to the hammer museum for their "made in LA" exhibit and found myself on what felt like bradbury's mars. (Pearl Hsiung. From Above It Is Not Bright; From Below It Is Not Dark, 2012)

the time machine & the invisible man. h.g. wells (5)

"the time machine" has been on my to read list ever since bravo's "work of art" book cover challenge. not because "the time machine" was the winning cover (it was cool, i almost bought it for that reason). but because the other artist's cover had flowers, a teddy bear (?) and a girl. this sparked my curiosity: what did she read to make a cover like that (turns out she didn't read it. but to help her out, the girl is weena and flowers were mentioned but still confused about the bear).

i read "the time machine" back in october, when the occupy wall street movement was in full force and i was disappointed that the 99% didn't take up "the time machine" as a metaphor for the current class divide and what can occur in the future if things do not change. (i can't be too mean, i for one had no idea that h.g. well's sci-fi classic was so political). "the time machine" can serve to the 1% as an example of what will happen to them if they don't improve the treatment of the 99%; they will be eaten (literally).

as the time traveler discovered 800,000 years into the future there are two species derived from humans, the eloi (the 1%) and the morlocks (the 99%). the traveler first encountered the eloi, lazy, stupid, pleasuring seeking pink-skinned creatures with curly hair, large eyes and tentacle-like hands. at first, he admired them for their "social paradise" but soon discovers that the morlocks (a subterranean species, ape-like with dull white skin and "strange large greyish-red eyes" and "flaxen hair" on their head and backs) are terrorizing the eloi. it is discovered that the eloi's paradise is the result of the morlocks who labor to feed, cloth and house the eloi. but here is the twist! the morlocks no longer have a food supply and since they are carnivores start treating the eloi like cattle and eating them!!! the rich, you have been warned. if you don't start treating the working class better then they will bite the hand they feed.

in addition to this, wells' explanation of how the classes diverged also serves as a warning to the super rich about what the future contains for them if their reliance upon the working class continues. the aristocracy becomes the unintelligent eloi due to their dependence upon the morlocks' labor. as a result of the upper class' lack of labor, they become devoted to leisure which leads to their minds deteriorating due to lack of stimulation. as the traveler explained "the too-perfect security of the upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence." in addition to this, the working class continued labor results in an even wider gap between the classes for as the traveler observed, "in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour." does this sound familiar? it's interesting to consider that although wells' future can appear far-fetch (giant crabs in the even farther future?), however when it comes to class relations 100 years from its publication, "the time machine" is pretty on point.

so why are the morlocks the "monsters" and the time traveler sympathizes with the eloi? because this story is to serve as a warning against the evils of capitalism. wells' was a socialist and wanted to stop the exploitation of the working class. he is not calling the working class monsters but understands that if their oppression continues they will start to push back. (see: occupy wall st, labor strikes)

lastly i want to point out that the eloi were vegetarians. and would just like to share a random fact that i learned at the natural history museum of los angeles. when meat was introduce to our prehistoric ancestors diets, their brains grew and their intelligence increased as a result. so i for one am worried with the current trends of veganism/vegetarianism that the absence of meat in our diets might result in the opposite effects. just some food for thought.

ps being a huge fan of natural history museum, i was happy to see the appearance of one in this novella. it makes me happy that museums ruins will be around in the future.

---
the book i checked out also included "the invisible man." i will say that i didn't enjoy it and i hated the invisible man. i was disappointed by the novella because as a kid, i always wanted my super power to be invisible. (as an adult, it would be to teleport and for those of you who have had my teleport convo with me, the ability to teleport out my fat cells and also babies.) but i learned if you are invisible, you'll go crazy. the invisible man was horrible and i am glad (spoiler alert!) he died in the end. i am not sure how to analyze this work. other than people go crazy with power. and science in the wrong hands can be destructive.

all in all, check out "the time
machine" but don't bother with "the invisible man". and do not watch "war of the worlds" (just cos i hate tom cruise.)