While thinking about this final blog post I began to ask myself the progressive thinkING question of what does it matter that we’ve been doing this? There’s a right answer to that question, but what I found to be more interesting was the entire opposite. There is a level where none of this matters and blog posting is something like a “momentary stay against confusion” (a partial quote from Robert Frost about the function of poetry). To extrapolate from the inherently grim idea that nothing matters, I’d like to add that there is an aspect of chaos that works to complicate the whole situation. This is what I’d like to explore in my final blog post. What does it mean that Jemisin’s characters don’t fully subscribe to nihilism in the face of annihilation? How has humanity survived in the Stillness for so long? I believe the answer lies in a consideration of philosophy and whether or not chaos truly is a force in the Stillness. Continue reading “The Stillness Free From Chaos”
Stone Everlasting
Steel’s conversation with Nassun about living forever, helped me understand why Steel, a stone eater wanted Nassun, an orogene to destroy the world. It wasn’t because he is naturally evil, and wants the world to suffer. He has nothing to live for, it’s a selfish wish, that can only be- for that reason Nassun and Steel are similar. Steel is not naturally cruel, just in pain, and living forever is the cause.
Being a Lorist
So fun fact about me, I work in Milne Library, more specifically down in the TERC section. I do a bunch of different things, from reshelving to labeling new material. However, arguably, my most important duty is recording when books or toys get used. Most people don’t realize this but when you use anything in the library whether it be a book, a game, or even a puppet you’re not supposed to put it back. Which sounds weird because everyone grows up hearing they always have to put away the things they use. But when you do that in the library and especially down in the TERC section you make my life harder in many ways. Continue reading “Being a Lorist”
You Are Here…… Again
In the beginning of the semester I wrote a blog post about my prediction that Essun, Damaya, and Syenite were the same people. I was right, but that’s not what this post is about. After reading two books-worth about the character of Essun, I’ve begun to recognize that she doesn’t even know who she is anymore. She corrects people when they use the wrong name for her and yet questions if she is still Essun anymore. Instead of changing who she is again, she does what most of us tend to do in our real world and proceeds to change as a person without completely changing her identity. Continue reading “You Are Here…… Again”
What Stillness Society Understands About Puberty Ceremonies That We Do Not
Life in the Stillness is flawed. Deeply flawed. As Hoa informs us, it has been so for a long time. Yet when it comes to raising children, there is something they get right: they have puberty ceremonies. This summer, I borrowed Kurt Vonnegut’s If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young from the Brooklyn Public Library. In the book, which is a compilation of speeches, Vonnegut, ever the fan of speaking at colleges, points out the ritual’s absence in modern American society–in his 1998 commencement address at Rice University, he said of the event, “This is a long-delayed puberty ceremony. You are at last officially full-grown men and women — what you were biologically by the age of fifteen or so. I am sorry as I can be that it took so long and cost so much for you to at last receive licenses as grownups.” Jemisin, in her immaculate, historically inspired world-building, informs us that comms in the Stillness have these ceremonies which we lack.
Continue reading “What Stillness Society Understands About Puberty Ceremonies That We Do Not”
Becoming Alabaster: A Call to Blankness
Following the plot of N.K Jemisin’s trilogy has been a task I was only able to cope with by writing things down. Being aware of my forgetful habits, I realized very early on the semester that I needed to find a method of staying organized. Well…at least that was my intention. What was to be a structured arsenal of literary evidence quickly became a playground for whimsical cartoons and occasional freakouts. The more I wrote, the less it became about hoping I didn’t forget and instead focused on replicating my emotions on paper. So when I read The Stone Sky and came across Alabaster’s own record-keeping, I started making some connections with my own, and I wrote them down.
Children of Malice
Remember the very first blog post I made? Probably. not, but it was centered around Māori mythology and the idea of primordial parental figures. In all honesty, the post was meant as a basis for a thread of connections I’m currently trying to unpack. There were times where it might have seemed contradictory or lacking, so I’m here to explain somethings before I start. I said that Jemisin takes inspiration a lot of different cultures. This inspiration isn’t appropriation, but rather a reference point for growth. Her blog post about creating races clearly states she isn’t interested in using other people’s beliefs or traditions for personal gain. See the rest of my findings as a plausible origin for what we’ve read instead of a concrete backstory. Continue reading “Children of Malice”
Hoa the Hare
Surprisingly, in my search for the context behind the briar patch, Urban Dictionary of all sites summarizes a briar patch as a “place you secretly really want to be, even though the person sending you there thinks it’s a punishment.” Most likely referring to Joel Chandler Harris’ Tar-Baby story, this explanation is pretty accurate for its brevity. The class had just started The Stone Sky when we were encouraged to look into the background of the briar patch of Syl Anagist on the Interwebs. I admit that I was a little frustrated during that class because I could not figure out the connection between the Urban Dictionary/Harris and the Jemisin versions for the life of me since The Broken Earth’s briar patch is definitely not a place that anyone wants to be in. However, now that I’ve finished the trilogy, I realize that I was too narrow-minded in trying to look for a copy-and-paste orogene edition of the Tar-Baby story in Syl Anagist.
Labels, Identity, and Use-Names
Labels, names, and identify have power. More power than we often give them credit. In Joy Kim’s post, this subject is tackled and spoken about in a way that I truly identified with. I strongly agree with many points that are made within the post. Even within the world of the Stillness, where some parts of the world seem to be much more accepting, such as Tonkee’s identity or Alabaster sexuality, labels still exist. Even within the homogenized Sanzed people, Essun points out individual traits each has, trying to determine what their ancestry is, “He’s probably lighter skinned… from somewhere near the Antarctic’s, or the western continental coast,” (The Fifth Season, 106).
Reclaiming Language
On a comment about one of my previous blog posts, Dr. McCoy raised the question about whether or not “the additive meanings [of words can] survive without being informed/poisoned by the roots?” My previous post focused on the word “family” but Dr. McCoy’s suggestion got me to think about the origins of other words and specifically, as she pointed out, the U.S. Constitution. Continue reading “Reclaiming Language”