little less ritual & a lot more fun

Catching up for two weeks! I've read a lot of fanfic lately, so I've been reading fewer books than usual.

What I finished:

+ The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. My Narnia reread is complete!

I'd been dreading this one and kind of putting it off, but on reread it's not actually all that bad? To me anyway--I totally get why other people hate it. I am not saying that it's good, but it's also not unreadable.

The problem is that Lewis has created this story entirely to serve the needs of his theological assertions, which makes for bad storytelling and worse worldbuilding. Preaching through fiction is always a bad idea because a story that exists to moralize is not going to be a good story. When, in previous books, Lewis sprinkled his theology throughout the stories, it was more or less fine--the story of a king who dies for the good of his people is a universal story, etc. You could always read the books literally as well as as analogy. Here, though, the theology takes over the narrative completely--there is no way to read this book on a literal level because just about every choice is made from the perspective not of a storyteller but of a preacher.

Plus, if you disagree with his theology, you're just going to be pissed off. I disagree with some of his theology myself, but I am much less pissed off than most because of my background. His particular brand of Christianity is very different than the white American evangelical kind I was raised in, for all those people have co-opted him. You have to understand how much gentler this view of soteriology is than the one I was surrounded with--Lewis embraces the idea of the virtuous pagan, for one thing, which is NOT a given in evangelical world. And perhaps more important, those who don't make it to heaven just cease to exist instead of being tortured for eternity. I realize this is probably hard for people who didn't grow up like I did to understand, but these ideas are significantly gentler than the evangelical view of hell. So when I encountered them as a kid, they felt freeing in a way I can't articulate. Between Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle, I had two Anglican fiction and nonfiction writers who had a more expansive view of God and life than I had been presented with, and they were lifelines to me.

So yeah, I don't hate this book, I just find it annoying and Not Good. I do like that we get more Eustace and Jill since they are my favorite of the characters from our world. I think it's kind of cool that we get to see Narnia from its first day to its last. Shift is a really good villain--not as good as Uncle Andrew, maybe, but Lewis knows how to write someone who is inherently selfish, and the early chapters with Shift and Puzzle are actually a fantastic depiction of an abusive friend dynamic. Lewis is really good at human foibles, the narratives we use to justify ourselves, etc.

I do not feel the need to ever read this one again but I'm glad I reacquainted myself with it as an adult so that I could decide how I feel about it.

+ Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water by Peter H. Gleick. This book is quite dated in statistics and things--I think it came out in 2010--but the central problem is, of course, still with us. This is a book that confirmed my belief that bottled water is problem: it is, of course, a lifeline for people in areas that don't have potable public water, and I am glad it exists. But it's ubiquity is indefensible in places that do, particularly in the US (places like Flint aside).

You can probably imagine the contents of this book: bottled water in the US is much less regulated than public water, therefore we don't know whether it's safe or not; it is not necessary in places that have clean public water; bottled water companies steal water from communities, destroying ecosystems; they prey on our fears; there's an industry (which I am 1000% confident has grown substantially since the time the book was published) of woo-y health grifters who sell special super waters, and these people are almost never stopped by authorities; and then there's the plastic. It's nice to see it all laid out clearly, though. And I also appreciate a book that is, really, a reminder that regulations are Good Actually.

So yeah, a worthwhile read.

+ Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert.

YIKES!!!!!! Gilbert deep-dives in pop culture depictions of and messages to and about women from, roughly, the late 90s to the mid-2010s, visiting topics like the way the powerful female musical artists of the 1990s were replaced by girls who couldn't stand up for themselves; the way the same thing happened in fashion with the powerful supermodels of the 1980s and early 1990s being replaced by, again, girls who couldn't stand up for themselves; depictions of women and femininity in reality TV; the way movies shifted from romcoms that centered female stories to bro comedies that hated and/or erased women; the era of Us Weekly, TMZ, and Perez Hilton and the way it ate female celebrities alive; and the #girlboss and Lean In eras. She keeps a Susan Faludi "backlash comes in waves" perspective on the whole thing.

There's also a lot about the pornification of culture--I really appreciated the nuance with which Gilbert handled this topic because I agree with her. Pornography, in the sense of art that exists to titillate and turn-on, is not a bad thing in itself and there are plenty of people who are out there creating and enjoying it in completely unobjectionable ways. But they're a minority: porn culture is hugely misogynistic, and the vast majority of porn that exists (often free of charge and disturbingly easy for children to stumble on) is hateful, violent, cruel, and racist. Gilbert worries, as do I, about how boys (and some girls) are getting their entire sexual education from these sources; porn provides a narrative of how to relate to sex and to women that is frankly terrifying. I think this is a huge problem that is very difficult to talk about, because most people who are talking about porn in negative ways are doing it from an anti-sex pov, often religious, and I think their criticisms are wrong. Again, I really appreciated how Gilbert talked all of this.

Overall, Gilbert is insightful, compassionate, clear-eyed, and accessible. This is a very well-written book by a very good writer, and I recommend it, whether as a book or, as I read it, an audiobook read by the author. It depressed the hell out of me, but it also reminded me of how resilient and strong and creative women are.

What I'm reading now:

A Lonely Death, the next Ian Rutledge mystery by Charles Todd.

I am once again asking for audiobook recs! I'm looking for nonfiction, read by the author, preferably not too dense. Audiobooks are not my normal medium, so I'm picky. As for what kind of nonfiction, I like history, cultural criticism, psychology, etc.

Audiobooks I've actually enjoyed listening to:

The Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
Girl On Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert
How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur
Unruly by David Mitchell
Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs by Mo Rocca



I think all of these people except Gilbert have experience on TV/podcasts, which probably contributes to them being good at reading their own stuff.