The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi. I could tell from the title what I was picking up, but where else do I start trying to find an opposing viewpoint? I tried to keep an open ear, but I have difficulty doing so with a writer who describes terrorism as “uncoordinated raids on Israeli border communities” and “inchoate forms of clandestine action” when talking about Fatah’s actions. I have difficulty taking this writer’s claims as seriously as he might like when only Israel’s actions are labeled “massacres”, while anything the Palestinians did is labeled with a moderated or justified tone. On the flip side, Gordis’ more pro-Israel book actually labeled some of Israel’s actions as “massacres” and its introspection and weighing of Israel’s faults leads me to trust it more. The Hundred Years War touts itself as a fair and balanced book in the synopsis, but to my (admittedly still learning) ear, it doesn’t sound balanced at all.
The author does not acknowledge actions taken by Palestinian groups as terrorist attacks, only saying that they are seen that way by much of the world. I notice that, to this author, every war action taken by Israel is either taken unprovoked or is taken against Palestinians who were just protesting in a way that "somehow" ends up labeled as terrorism by the world. Many things are blamed on other peoples or nations having more advantage or influence or money or unity. In the end, this book is useful for 1) bringing up the biggest talking points of the opposing narrative 2) giving me a starting point for digging into citations on those talking points. This is a larger project than I’m able to undertake right now but I will keep this title on the back burner in my mind because I want to investigate the claims made, especially about secret minutes of secret meetings between governments that he claims took place on several different momentous occasions.
The Way Home: Two Novellas from the world of the Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. I had already read the first part of this novel in another collection of short stories. The story Two Hearts briefly continued The Last Unicorn in a beautiful way, giving it a second closure, but it turned out one of the characters in that short story had far more to say and do. That character, Sooz, deals with The Dreamies (also known as The Good Folk or The Fair Folk) who stole a sister she never knew about from her family. It is a long, hard, traumatic journey. She meets an unexpected friend and makes shocking discoveries about herself. It is heavy on descriptors of fairy land and I was often as confused as Sooz was as the landscape shifted and changed under her feet the entire time. The writing felt a bit like an experiment in surreal landscape description, but it was an enjoyable story with believable stakes and costs. Good book.
Deerskin by Robin McKinley. This is a rough novel. It takes a lesser known old fairy tale by the name of Donkeyskin and gives it the full-length treatment. This is one of the more unsettling old fairytales as it deals with incest. The story tells us of a queen who was “the most beautiful woman in the seven realms” and a heroic prince who won that queen’s hand. They produce a single daughter, but as the daughter enters her early teens, the beautiful queen-mother wastes away and dies. Before dying, she extracts a promise from her husband that he will never marry anyone less beautiful than herself. Half-mad with grief and loss, he convinces himself over the forthcoming years that his daughter qualifies as a replacement for his wife. It’s a story of absolute destruction of a self to the point of madness and a very slow recovery from that madness. It’s a slow-burn tale of self-reclamation and healing. It’s painful, but a good read.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. I’m not positive I’ve ever actually read the original Peter Pan before. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about how it’s way darker than the Disney version but I wondered if that was just Millenial hype. NOPE. It’s every bit as surprisingly dark and twisted as I was warned and worse. But that’s part of what makes it so damn excellent. This is a story full of archetypes of childhood, childhood mimicking adulthood, childhood fearing adulthood, and childhood giving way to adulthood. Parts of it do lean a bit uncomfortably racist, but I wonder about that bit in regards to a theory I developed while reading this. The story tells us that on the Island of Neverland, while Peter is away, even mortal enemies will just thumb their noses at each other and rest and eat more than usual, but that when Peter returns, everyone rousts up and starts chasing each other as if they’re out for blood (and they are). Peter is said to imagine things so strongly that they become true, including food (and perhaps this is why he never ages, but other lost boys do sometimes?). Even enemy attacks and grand battles seem to happen at moments that are opportune for him, and always end up placing him in the center of some great drama that he somehow manages to escape. This all leads me to wonder if he is so incredibly tapped into the magic and soul of Neverland that he has it bent to his will.
There’s an episode of Black Mirror where a man creates perfect AI copies of co-workers in a universe he controls so he can torment them at leisure in his perfect little world, and echoes of that came back to me here. I wonder if Peter Pan has a perfect little world that literally revolves around him and any deviation is severely punished, and even his greatest enemies play like puppets on his stage. I think it’s entirely possible, and if so then even the “Redskins” as they are called may reflect a young English child’s perception of an entire race that he’s likely never met, as the pirates reflect a child’s perception of pirates (in other words, I wonder if it's the character who has these perceptions and not necessarily the author. It's at least plausible, unlike in A Brave New World). In any case, this is really an incredible book that works the archetype angle well and is shockingly dark when you go back and re-read that sentence you’re not really sure you just read.
Great Courses: Great World Religions: Islam by John L. Esposito. The lecture wasn’t smooth and a bit difficult to listen to, but informative. I question two things, first I question why European colonialism is always presented in a way that makes it appear always damaging and oppressive while Muslim colonialism is presented as progressive and just, bringing progress wherever it went. Given the complete backlash against all colonialism, that seems really odd to me. I also felt like the lecturer, while giving me some good historical data on Islam, started giving his own conjecture about motivations the closer we got to modern times and I didn't like that it was presented as fact. While I got some good information, this course felt like a mixed bag to me, and I came away with the feeling that that all things he said were to be taken with a grain of salt.
The Exchange: After The Firm by John Grisham. This is the only Introvert Book Club read this round. I had three others, but I had to stop halfway through those because they bothered me too much. This one was well written and worth finishing. A male lawyer in a high-end law firm and a female partner travel to Libya to oversee the details of a contract dispute for themselves. While there, the female partner is abducted and held for a $100 million ransom. If they can't come up with the ransom, she will be brutally executed. The book details the firm's attempts to finagle that much money before the deadline is up, which is quite a bit more difficult than it seems, even for a high-end firm.
Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef. This memoir was written by the son of one of Hamas' founders. It traces the story of how he grew up admiring his father--a devout and committed Muslim and servant of his community--and how he came to hate the Israelis whose police force always dragged his father off to prison. How he planned to obtain guns, but because of his partner's incompetence, ended up caught by the Israelis and tortured. How the Shin Bet (Israeli internal security organization) asked if he wanted to work with them, and at first he said yes only so that he could be a double agent. Over time, however, he came to see that the Israelis were not who he had thought they were, and neither was Hamas. In time, he came to truly work with the Shin Bet, preventing many suicide bombings and attacks. He sheds interesting light on some frequently contested historical moments. It's a compelling read.
Movies
The Green Prince. This is the documentary about Mosab Hassan Yousef who wrote Som of Hamas. I found the book to be more compelling and detailed, however this documentary came out later and therefore has a fascinating development at the end. It turns out, as much as Mosab Hassan Yousef sacrificed to help the Shin Bet, his handler was ready to sacrifice a fair bit to help Yousef in his most dire moment. If only there were more like the two of them on both sides of the current situation.
The Sound of Freedom. I both wanted to see this and have put it off for ages. This is the sort of movie you respectfully put alongside Schindler's List in terms of quality and emotional weight. It's based on the true story of a former government agent who, after twelve years of arresting pedophiles in the US, goes on a mission to track down their internationally trafficked victims. Brace yourself when you watch, but don't look away. Evil exists, and this is one of its facets.
Suzume. Gorgeous. The creator of this is supposed to be the next Miyazaki and it shows. The animation is beautiful and there’s always something otherworldly going on, even in mundane settings. In Suzume, Suzume tries to help a strange boy close otherworldly doors to keep a terrible giant worm trapped in another realm, so that it doesn’t cause major earthquakes that would lead to hundreds dying every time it writhes. Except the boy gets cursed by the guardian who is supposed to be guarding the door… and the chase is on! It is breathtakingly gorgeous and probably has the best story of the three that I’ve seen so far from this creator.
TV Shows
The Queen’s Gambit. Orphaned by her mother’s suicide in the 50’s, Beth enters an orphanage and learns to play chess with the janitor in the basement. She latches onto the game, quickly becoming a prodigy who can beat adults, and we follow her as she grows up and enters the chess world. This show gives me hope for Hollywood. This is what I would call a GOOD female lead character, not a good person, but a good character. I understood the path she took even as I didn’t like it and groaned at each display of her self-destructive tendencies—but they were there. Unlike other Perfect Goddess Female Leads I’ve seen, this was someone I could picture existing in real life. Her massive triumphs were shadowed by real, entrenched, deep flaws. It’s short, only seven episodes, but it’s excellent.
Games
Batman - The Telltale Series. Okay so I definitely played these games out of order. Even so, watching the downfall of Harvey Dent and Batman’s battle with the Penguin and Lady Arkham was fun. In general, TellTale games don’t require a lot of skill beyond speed reading, so they’re low-key fun to play, though the decisions they force you to make always wrench me.