Short Business: Life Moves Pretty Fast
Nov. 9th, 2020 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ladybusinessWhen I first started this post I expected it to be my last Short Business post of the year:
How the end of the retail year is working out is… I am back on furlough as all non-essential retail in England closed back down at the end of 04/11/20, in accordance with government guidance, as our country tries to get the 'R number' for coronavirus infections back down. The current government forecast is that we'll re-open on Dec 2nd, but of course we have to see how infection rates and NHS capacity goes before we really know whether that's going to be possible.
I think eventually we all realised there would have to be a second national lock down, but I can't say anyone at our shop expected it to be for a month. And while I absolutely think we need to be shutting places down again to lower infections, deaths, and risk, it's hard to be a human and not to have emotions about a second lock down in terms of how it impacts your own general life and work. With regards to work, our bookshop had just had a really great week. Like, really great. I was feeling positive, and as ready as you can ever be to go into peak retail hard. So, it's a tough turn around to go from that, as well as the level of activity that working retail puts into your life at this time of year, to furlough. My main message is, if you can support your local bookshops at this time (chain and indies) please do. Even a really nice customer comment sent through to managers right now would be appreciated.
Personally, I'm going to try to treat this month as a longish holiday and just chill out reading, watching movies, and TV, while also doing a few things to keep myself feeling like I have a sense of purpose. I'm going to finish the colour in Christmas cards I'm going to send this year. I'm going to try (again) to learn how to knit a scarf. I'm going to take regular walks. And I'm going to return to reading five short stories a week, and doing Short Business posts about them. Hurray, artificially created, self-imposed purpose?
Anyway, on to this week's stories. I don't have five this week because I finished work on Wednesday, and I am adjusting, and I make the rules for this whole thing. But I do have some thoughts on three really interesting stories (some spoilers under the cut).
Hello, did you want to have a lot of feelings about a very good dog today? Well have I got the story for you! "Down to Niflhel Deep" by Maria Haskin follows dog Roan as he heads into the underworld to retrieve his little girl after she dies in an "accident". Truly, this is an emotional journey so prepare yourself, but I promise everything will be fine.
I am so, so impressed that Maria Haskin created an epic heroic narrative with a dog at its centre, and kept the story so… epic. Lots of authors would have taken a comedy route, or a softer approach, to telling a dog's story, and I'm sure such a take could produce an interesting read too. But Haskin chooses to make her tiny hero's journey earnest, and sends him into some pretty dark landscapes. That narrative choice enhances the importance of Roan's journey. It also allows Haskin to conjure a pleasingly menacing, classical feeling fantasy world for the reader to sink into.
At the same time, this story is so far away from a stiff, formal epic. The naturalness and fluid, fast-paced, forward-moving narrative right for a story about a dog propelled to search for someone's scent. And this choice of narrative style also enhances the feeling that this is a story all about the emotional connection that could drag a dog into the underworld in pursuit of his best person. We would all love to have a dog like Roan; a dog that would go into hell & back for us.
forestofglory mentioned "The Radicalised Dead" by Jeanette Ng in her recent Short and Sweet round up. It asks what would happen if burned books acted like other paper offerings made to dead ancestors, and made their way to the land of the dead for the ancestors to use.
In this story, the narrator belongs to The Party and burns books to destroy them. However, his dead ancestors receive these radical books, and they love them. The books he burns even help them to create an argument that allows them to manifest in front of him to ask for more books. This conversation between the ancestors and the conservative, oppressive narrator is illuminating. One of his relatives 'read all the radical journals' when she was alive. Another was a smuggler/revolutionary. Another was conservative, but has been educated on death by meeting the rest of the family and reading the books they've been "gifted". This is, I'm sure, a very different picture of his ancestors than the one the Party official portrays to the world.
The ancestor's voices are funny, and natural, and the dissonance between the way we often think of the long dead (solemn, stuffy, proper) and the way these spirits speak and behave makes much of this story a fun read. When they discover that the narrator isn't as progressive as the books he has "sent" them, and is in fact hoping to avoid a sexual harassment accussation, the ghosts decide to act. This final act makes this a story about vengeful ghosts, but the overall tone is light enough that I didn't have my usual problem with stories about spirits taking revenge.
I'm conflicted about "Girls With Needles and Frost" by Jenny Rae Rappaport because while I enjoyed much of the story, I really didn't like one of the romances the narrator, Roza, engaged in. Maxim is a soldier who is part of the colonising force that oppresses Roza's people. Roza is part of the resistance. And while their relationship starts off as a way to trade information, it quickly becomes a real romance that disrupts the romance between Roza and Elzbet; another resistance worker.
It's a really weird central romance to find in a story about a girl taking over the role of a revolutionary leader, and about women, and traditional women's work, being central to that revolution. All of that side of the story is really satisfyingly written, and described. And it feels like the story tries towards the end to gesture to the impossibility of Maxim being redeemed through his romance with Roza, or through his reasons for joining the army. But including this relationship at all was just such a weird decision for me that it coloured my reaction to the whole story.
"Possibly my last Short Business post of 2020 as I've just had my last week of holiday until after Christmas? Idk, we'll see how the end of the retail year works out in our new landscape."
How the end of the retail year is working out is… I am back on furlough as all non-essential retail in England closed back down at the end of 04/11/20, in accordance with government guidance, as our country tries to get the 'R number' for coronavirus infections back down. The current government forecast is that we'll re-open on Dec 2nd, but of course we have to see how infection rates and NHS capacity goes before we really know whether that's going to be possible.
I think eventually we all realised there would have to be a second national lock down, but I can't say anyone at our shop expected it to be for a month. And while I absolutely think we need to be shutting places down again to lower infections, deaths, and risk, it's hard to be a human and not to have emotions about a second lock down in terms of how it impacts your own general life and work. With regards to work, our bookshop had just had a really great week. Like, really great. I was feeling positive, and as ready as you can ever be to go into peak retail hard. So, it's a tough turn around to go from that, as well as the level of activity that working retail puts into your life at this time of year, to furlough. My main message is, if you can support your local bookshops at this time (chain and indies) please do. Even a really nice customer comment sent through to managers right now would be appreciated.
Personally, I'm going to try to treat this month as a longish holiday and just chill out reading, watching movies, and TV, while also doing a few things to keep myself feeling like I have a sense of purpose. I'm going to finish the colour in Christmas cards I'm going to send this year. I'm going to try (again) to learn how to knit a scarf. I'm going to take regular walks. And I'm going to return to reading five short stories a week, and doing Short Business posts about them. Hurray, artificially created, self-imposed purpose?
Anyway, on to this week's stories. I don't have five this week because I finished work on Wednesday, and I am adjusting, and I make the rules for this whole thing. But I do have some thoughts on three really interesting stories (some spoilers under the cut).
Hello, did you want to have a lot of feelings about a very good dog today? Well have I got the story for you! "Down to Niflhel Deep" by Maria Haskin follows dog Roan as he heads into the underworld to retrieve his little girl after she dies in an "accident". Truly, this is an emotional journey so prepare yourself, but I promise everything will be fine.
I am so, so impressed that Maria Haskin created an epic heroic narrative with a dog at its centre, and kept the story so… epic. Lots of authors would have taken a comedy route, or a softer approach, to telling a dog's story, and I'm sure such a take could produce an interesting read too. But Haskin chooses to make her tiny hero's journey earnest, and sends him into some pretty dark landscapes. That narrative choice enhances the importance of Roan's journey. It also allows Haskin to conjure a pleasingly menacing, classical feeling fantasy world for the reader to sink into.
At the same time, this story is so far away from a stiff, formal epic. The naturalness and fluid, fast-paced, forward-moving narrative right for a story about a dog propelled to search for someone's scent. And this choice of narrative style also enhances the feeling that this is a story all about the emotional connection that could drag a dog into the underworld in pursuit of his best person. We would all love to have a dog like Roan; a dog that would go into hell & back for us.
forestofglory mentioned "The Radicalised Dead" by Jeanette Ng in her recent Short and Sweet round up. It asks what would happen if burned books acted like other paper offerings made to dead ancestors, and made their way to the land of the dead for the ancestors to use.
In this story, the narrator belongs to The Party and burns books to destroy them. However, his dead ancestors receive these radical books, and they love them. The books he burns even help them to create an argument that allows them to manifest in front of him to ask for more books. This conversation between the ancestors and the conservative, oppressive narrator is illuminating. One of his relatives 'read all the radical journals' when she was alive. Another was a smuggler/revolutionary. Another was conservative, but has been educated on death by meeting the rest of the family and reading the books they've been "gifted". This is, I'm sure, a very different picture of his ancestors than the one the Party official portrays to the world.
The ancestor's voices are funny, and natural, and the dissonance between the way we often think of the long dead (solemn, stuffy, proper) and the way these spirits speak and behave makes much of this story a fun read. When they discover that the narrator isn't as progressive as the books he has "sent" them, and is in fact hoping to avoid a sexual harassment accussation, the ghosts decide to act. This final act makes this a story about vengeful ghosts, but the overall tone is light enough that I didn't have my usual problem with stories about spirits taking revenge.
I'm conflicted about "Girls With Needles and Frost" by Jenny Rae Rappaport because while I enjoyed much of the story, I really didn't like one of the romances the narrator, Roza, engaged in. Maxim is a soldier who is part of the colonising force that oppresses Roza's people. Roza is part of the resistance. And while their relationship starts off as a way to trade information, it quickly becomes a real romance that disrupts the romance between Roza and Elzbet; another resistance worker.
It's a really weird central romance to find in a story about a girl taking over the role of a revolutionary leader, and about women, and traditional women's work, being central to that revolution. All of that side of the story is really satisfyingly written, and described. And it feels like the story tries towards the end to gesture to the impossibility of Maxim being redeemed through his romance with Roza, or through his reasons for joining the army. But including this relationship at all was just such a weird decision for me that it coloured my reaction to the whole story.
Nifhel Deep
Date: 2020-11-10 09:29 pm (UTC)...is a great dog story thank you.
Re: Nifhel Deep
Date: 2020-11-11 11:21 am (UTC)