Laura Jean McKay's award-winning The Animals in that Country (2020) won't be for everyone, but I really liked it. A pandemic sweeps the world; we see it from the perspective of an emotionally-damaged Australian woman who works at an animal sanctuary/wildlife park. The effect of this particular pandemic include pink eyes, and the ability to understand the languages of animals. This is not Dr. Dolittle; what animals say,through sounds, smells, and so forth, gets represented as broken poetry expressing, for the most part, plausibly limited but revealing concepts and feelings. The consequences-- as our hearing of nonhuman "language" gradually spreads from beasts and birds to insects-- are often horrific, and social collapse becomes imminent. Meanwhile, our protagonist and her dingo companion must make her way through this world to find her granddaughter, abducted by a non-custodial parent.
Some notes:
(1) McKay took the title from a late-60s collection of poetry by Margaret Atwood. These are different books.
(2) I initially assumed I knew what her inspiration was for, you know, a book about a pandemic. In fact, her starting point, I learned, was the chikungunya virus, which the author caught in Bali. Like Station Eleven, the book predated the recent global pandemic, and received a coincidentally timely release.
(3) One of its awards was the Arthur C. Clarke. I find it deserving of that award, but I suspect that a subset of SF fans are grousing somewhere on the internet. I won't be seeking them out.
(4) .erachtlaeh ni sesirc gnidulcni ,detaerc sah noitartsinimda rieht sesirc tnerruc eht morf gnitcartsid ylraelc loot eliv era icuaF retfa gniog yltnerruc SU eht ni elpoep eht dnA .tseb ta gnikniht yzzuf s'taht tub ",cimednalp" a fo ecnedive sa desu eb lliw nevelE noitatS dna koob siht fo esaeler eht fo gnimit eht esoppus I
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S STAR WARS TRILOGY - ("Verily, a New Hope," "The Empire Striketh Back" and ""The Jedi Doth Return")
As I mentioned above, I'm "reading toward a specific goal," but this isn't it. There was time when I intended to read all nine "Shakespeare" plays in a row, which I still may do someday, but this isn't the time. I've read all three of these before, once each, but this is my first time reading them back-to-back. One thing I like about these is how Ian Doescher handles other languages and dilects. In the case of R2-D2 and Chewbacca, he translates their speech verbatim inti iambic pentameter; Yoda speaks in haiku; Bobo Fett (to designate he is of a lower statum) speaks in prose rather than metered lines; the Ugnaughts sing. Perhaps my favorite speech pattern is the one he gives to the Ewoks, an AABA rhyme scheme with a dash of pidgin English thrown in. For example, Wicket's first line when he finds Leia unconscious in the forest is...
A buki buki, Luki, luki, Issa creecher, Nuki, nuki!
(...which translates as "Look, look, it's a creature).
THE SKELETON AND THE CAT - A SPANIARD IN THE WORKS / IN HIS OWN WRITE:
Tracy bought this children's book recently because she likes skeletons and she likes cats. It's really very good, and I recommend it to anyone who has kids on their list. I wish we had had it earlier this summer when my niece brought my niblings (5 and 6) out for a visit, but there's always next year. We read many other books while we were together, though, including some Shel Silverstein. I continued to read Silverstein after they left, which put me in the mood to read some John Lennon.
I still have my paperback copy from high school, but I found this really nice hardcover edition on Amazon for sale cheap, so I bought it.
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Laura Jean McKay's award-winning The Animals in that Country (2020) won't be for everyone, but I really liked it. A pandemic sweeps the world; we see it from the perspective of an emotionally-damaged Australian woman who works at an animal sanctuary/wildlife park. The effect of this particular pandemic include pink eyes, and the ability to understand the languages of animals. This is not Dr. Dolittle; what animals say,through sounds, smells, and so forth, gets represented as broken poetry expressing, for the most part, plausibly limited but revealing concepts and feelings. The consequences-- as our hearing of nonhuman "language" gradually spreads from beasts and birds to insects-- are often horrific, and social collapse becomes imminent. Meanwhile, our protagonist and her dingo companion must make her way through this world to find her granddaughter, abducted by a non-custodial parent.
Some notes:
(1) McKay took the title from a late-60s collection of poetry by Margaret Atwood. These are different books.
(2) I initially assumed I knew what her inspiration was for, you know, a book about a pandemic. In fact, her starting point, I learned, was the chikungunya virus, which the author caught in Bali. Like Station Eleven, the book predated the recent global pandemic, and received a coincidentally timely release.
(3) One of its awards was the Arthur C. Clarke. I find it deserving of that award, but I suspect that a subset of SF fans are grousing somewhere on the internet. I won't be seeking them out.
(4) .erachtlaeh ni sesirc gnidulcni ,detaerc sah noitartsinimda rieht sesirc tnerruc eht morf gnitcartsid ylraelc loot eliv era icuaF retfa gniog yltnerruc SU eht ni elpoep eht dnA .tseb ta gnikniht yzzuf s'taht tub ",cimednalp" a fo ecnedive sa desu eb lliw nevelE noitatS dna koob siht fo esaeler eht fo gnimit eht esoppus I
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S STAR WARS TRILOGY - ("Verily, a New Hope," "The Empire Striketh Back" and ""The Jedi Doth Return")
As I mentioned above, I'm "reading toward a specific goal," but this isn't it. There was time when I intended to read all nine "Shakespeare" plays in a row, which I still may do someday, but this isn't the time. I've read all three of these before, once each, but this is my first time reading them back-to-back. One thing I like about these is how Ian Doescher handles other languages and dilects. In the case of R2-D2 and Chewbacca, he translates their speech verbatim inti iambic pentameter; Yoda speaks in haiku; Bobo Fett (to designate he is of a lower statum) speaks in prose rather than metered lines; the Ugnaughts sing. Perhaps my favorite speech pattern is the one he gives to the Ewoks, an AABA rhyme scheme with a dash of pidgin English thrown in. For example, Wicket's first line when he finds Leia unconscious in the forest is...
A buki buki,
Luki, luki,
Issa creecher,
Nuki, nuki!
(...which translates as "Look, look, it's a creature).
For the goal I've been reading toward, see "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker."
THE SKELETON AND THE CAT - A SPANIARD IN THE WORKS / IN HIS OWN WRITE:
Tracy bought this children's book recently because she likes skeletons and she likes cats. It's really very good, and I recommend it to anyone who has kids on their list. I wish we had had it earlier this summer when my niece brought my niblings (5 and 6) out for a visit, but there's always next year. We read many other books while we were together, though, including some Shel Silverstein. I continued to read Silverstein after they left, which put me in the mood to read some John Lennon.
I still have my paperback copy from high school, but I found this really nice hardcover edition on Amazon for sale cheap, so I bought it.
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