Alright, February was a train wreck for me, so I never managed to get January’s post out. But that’s fine. We’re all here now. We’ll do it live!
Where possible, I include Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a tiny commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of longevity injections for billionaires.
Moving Pictures
By Terry Pratchett
I’m still working through the Discworld series with my kids. Thankfully, Pritchett was a prolific author, and if I stretch them out I can continue reading his books for several more years before I’ve read them all. It’s nice to think that a favorite author can live on in this way, through his books.
Moving Pictures is an experiment in how many movie-related references and metaphors Pratchett can cram into a fantasy world. Alchemists have invented movies, their cameras powered by the dangerous combination of little imps and highly flammable cellulose film. Within weeks, the seaside shanty-town of Holy Wood springs up on an otherwise deserted stretch of beach, and people are drawn toward it by the chance for fame, and perhaps a more nefarious force.
One of the newly minted actors who found his big break at Holy Wood happens to be a student wizard from Anhk-Morpork’s Unseen University. He starts to see signs that there’s more than movie magic going on: in fact, there may be other realities (like our own) leaking into the Discworld from the void between universes. Where there are weak places in the fabric of the universe, there are Cthulhu-esque “Things” looking for a way in.
Much of the silliness of the book comes from twisted versions of familiar movie tropes: the Orangutan-transformed University Librarian picked up by a 50-foot woman climbing a tower in an inversion of King Kong; or the bald, golden, statuesque ancient protector against cosmic evil who just happens to look like everyone’s uncle Oscar.
Like the Simpsons, Discworld has a massive cast of characters that can be pulled into service for any given plotline. Detritus the troll and perpetual scammer “Cut-me-own-Throat” Dibbler get higher billing than usual, with the wizards of the University making a strong appearance toward the end.
Pratchett’s super-power, however, is the ability to write a silly story in a silly setting, packed with quips and jokes, and still build a real plot and characters with actual motivations that make you root for them.
Katusha: Girl Soldier of the Great Patriotic War
By Wayne Vansant
Like many of the more unusual comics I pick up, this was a Half Price Books impulse buy. There is now a whole sub-genre of historical fiction and biography within indie comics (see Maus, Palestine, and Persepolis in my previous months’ reading), and while I don’t generally gravitate toward it, I’m glad I picked up Katusha.
Firstly, this thing is a tome, clocking in at almost 600 pages. Unlike many trade paperback comics, this has a strong binding that has held up well so far, despite that size.
When I started reading, I wasn’t especially excited by the art, which has a sketchy look that sometimes skimps on detail. However, it grew on me over time, and I came to understand that Vansant was picking and choosing important panels to fully flesh out. I could call the art “workmanlike,” but that is not an insult. It is straightforward, and there is never any confusion about what is happening. It is impactful at all the right moments, and really fits the documentarian feel of the story. I can hardly blame Vansant for lack of detail here or there. The fact that one person was able to write and illustrate this entire book is a small miracle.
The story follows the titular girl soldier from the early war, before the German expansion east into Russia, all the way through the messy German retreat to Berlin.
The first few chapters provide a day in the life before the war, introducing Katusha’s mother and father, her adopted sister, her best friend, and her mysterious troublemaker of an uncle.
Katusha and her family are Ukrainian, and their life under Soviet rule is already sometimes fraught. When the Germans invade, making promises to civilians of a better life under their rule, rural Ukranians have to wonder whether the occupation might improve their lives.
Unfortunately, those promises soon prove hollow, as the family witnesses brutal suppression and an immediate round-up of Ukrainian Jews and others the Germans consider undesirable. Katusha and her family are forced to flee their home town to stay with relatives, and then flee again and again. The family is separated, and Katusha and her sister become partisans under the leadership of their uncle, creating a rebel base in a well-hidden cave.
After a winter of successful operations against the Germans, the sisters are briefly reunited with their father, a tank factory supervisor, who helps them enroll in the Soviet tank school. They spend the remainder of the war manning, and eventually commanding their own tanks.
For a book that is concerned with brutal war, there is no excessive gore. When there is violence, it isn’t skimmed over, and it feels honest. Over the course of the war, Katusha loses many family members and friends. It is a sad coming-of-age story that must mirror what millions of teenagers went through in many countries over the course of the war.
Vansent is careful to show the complexity of wartime politics, with multiple factions of Ukrainian partisans. Some fight with the Soviets, while others fight with the Germans, and some fight against both in a bid for independence. Even after the Germans retreat, the fighting continues in what eventually proves to be a vain hope for Ukrainian independence. It is a particularly timely reminder that the Ukrainian people have spent so much of their history fighting for the right to choose their own destinies.
Katusha ultimately survives beyond the end of the war, but like any good war story it is a melancholy victory. She marries a fellow soldier who nearly died of his injuries. Most of her family is gone. And despite the best efforts of the partisans, Ukraine returns to the grip of the USSR. It’s a long and bittersweet journey.
Severance: The Lexington Letter
(Unattributed)
Like the rest of America, I’ve been watching Severance. The Lexington Letter is a little in-universe book (exclusive to Apple Books, of course) that includes a series of emails and a pamphlet titled “The Macrodata Refiner’s Handbook.”
The emails chronicle the brief story of a severed worker who finds clues that her “innie”—the separated personality that only activates at work—has found evidence of bad things happening at her employer, Lumon. After trying in various ways to sneak information out of the company, the woman quits and contacts a reporter at the Topeka Star with her information. The story, however, is ultimately suppressed. The editor killing the story has a name that will lead observant fans to realize he is likely in the company’s pocket, and the woman turns up dead soon thereafter.
The handbook in the second part features a cartoonized severance brain chip as a mascot that guides new workers through the mysterious job featured in the show: macrodata refinement. It is full of the tone-deaf and slightly sinister corporate propaganda-speak that the show is known for, and filled with a plethora of little details that seem like they might be clues, but probably don’t mean anything. In short, perfect fodder for the mega-fan conspiracy theorists.
The entire book can be easily read in a sitting or two, and serves to add a little more content to the Severance universe, without really revealing anything new or exciting. It is definitely focused on existing fans, and newcomers to the series will likely not find much for them here. However, if you’re a hardcore fan of the show and desperately counting down the days until the next episode release, this might just tide you over for an evening.
I’ll also note that I hate it when big media tie-ins do this thing where they don’t credit the author(s) of the tie-in material. Yes, the book is effectively a stealth advertisement for the show, but there was clearly some effort put into the writing and illustration. Those people deserve credit.
What I’m Reading in March
I’m currently working my way through American Gods, a book that I loved when I first read it, years ago. It’s by Neil Gaiman, award-winning author and person recently outed as being somewhere on the spectrum between avid sex pest and serial abuser. Never have heroes, kids. You’ll be disappointed.
I’m also working through some excellent Ted Chiang stories, something I’ve wanted to do ever since I fell in love with the movie Arrival, based on his Story of Your Life. See you next month!
Words Deferred 