linkss

[swatkat]

I have been reading the posts from the Asian Women's Blog Carnival #1. I point you to this post by bossymarmalade:


Kali is not a white woman. Kali is not an un-Irish crone. Kali Ma is dark and fierce and terrifying, and you cannot call upon her lightly -- much less bear her name -- unless you understand what it is like to look into her incomprehensible face and feel hollowed out, humbled and exhilarated and reverent all at once because she will do what you cannot.

...

Sita has been written and rewritten by Indian storytellers for centuries. She tells her husband he's lost his mind; she merrily refuses to be banished; she fires the bow that kills Ravana. Women have been told to be like Sita generation after generation, and so they have interpreted the sort of Sita they want to be. All this before she was dismissed as yet another victim of arranged marriage and bride-burning and sati; all this before she was generously recognized as possibly having some worth once a white woman could use her story to tell her own pain.

A big YES to both paragraphs.

Also, the second paragraph alludes to the Ramayana tradition (of writing and re-writing the text in a hundred different ways) in India, and I couldn't help but think of the implication such a tradition, which defines 'original' as something that is yours, something you love and play with and rework, for us fans.

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And then you should read thedeadparrot's remyth, Chopsticks:

My parents taught me to use a fork and spoon first. I don't know why. Maybe it is because they are easier to use in small, chubby, child hands. Maybe it is because the teachers at my pre-school would never hand me chopsticks to eat my lunch.

I don't remember those pre-school lunches very well.

I do remember Dim Sum lunches in Chinatown, where they don't lay out forks and spoons next to their chopsticks, and the uncomfortable shame I'd feel when my parents would have to make a special request for a fork just for me. Because I didn't know how to use chopsticks. Because I was too American to know.

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And then this review of Naomi Novik's Throne of Jade and Black Powder War.

Comments

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't seen the reviews of the Novik books yet - thanks for linking!

I haven't read that series, nor do I plan to (I flipped through the pages of the first book at a bookstore once and quickly put it back on the shelf once I saw that it was full of period dialogue -- something I just can't tolerate). But the reviews are troubling. Very troubling.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

I've enjoyed the books very much, and I do like the fact that Novik has tried very hard to expose Laurence's (and by extension, his world's) prejudices in her tackling of deeply troubling issues of the British Empire. It's not always enough, though, and that's why I enjoyed reading the reviews tremendously - it gave me something to think about.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

...the Morrigan with a dot on her forehead? *incredulous* With no disrespect intended to anyone, Kali would eat the Morrigan alive.

Thanks for the recs. Interesting enough.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

She would. I think that *was* the point the OP was trying to make. *g*

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that, but I'm still astounded. Damn son, Kali is some scary shit, that's a really dumb way to think about her.

(I know you know this--no duh--I'm just expressing my own disbelief. :D?)