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The weekend is here and that’s a fine time to catch up with a book! Here are this week’s new books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound. What’s calling to you? Share in the comments!
— JS
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scaramouche
scalziwhatever_feedThe other day Athena noted that kittens had shown up in the parking lot of Bryant’s apartment. Sadly, between then and now one of the kittens succumbed to the dangers of outside living, and Athena and Bryant decided it was time to snatch the remaining trio of kittens and move them to a safer environment, i.e., our basement guest room. That cat-napping took place this afternoon and now we have the three kittens in the house. Here they are:
First, this cute little calico;
Then this dilute tortie;
And also this personality-filled black kitten.
We’re isolating them from the rest of the cats in the house until we can get them to the vet next week, but they certainly seem healthy and, once they got over being snatched and transported somewhere they’ve never been before, calm and baseline-level kittenish. The calico and tortie are almost certainly girl cats, genetically speaking; the black kitten is currently of indeterminate sex but I would bet on it being a boy. The three of them get along pretty well, which considering how Athena and Bryant found them, is not entirely surprising.
The plan now is to take them to the vet, confirm that they are healthy, and then either find them new homes or surrender them to a no-kill shelter. We can maybe take one of them (likely the black cat), but we’re also all right letting the entire trio go to safe and welcoming homes. So: If any of you are looking for a kitten (or two!), and can show up to take them away, we’ve got some available for you! Drop me an email (john@scalzi.com) and we can talk. These kittens are, as the kids no longer say, totes adorbs. They would love to come home with you.
— JS
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Author Jane Harrington has more in store today than a book. In her Big Idea she brings us a history lesson, one that will change how you see the entire genre of fairy tales. Follow along to see how teaching this lesson to college students led to the creation of her new book, Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance.
JANE HARRINGTON:
The desire to restore the legacies of marginalized women writers in history was the impetus for this book. And anger.
Some years ago I was called upon to teach a college literature course, and though I’m generally more comfortable teaching writing than lit, I thought, Okay, how about fairy tales? I knew my Perrault, Grimms, Andersen, and Disney, so I could put together something decent enough. It would be fun! But it wasn’t long into the first term before not-so-fun questions started poking at my brain.
One was Why do male writers overwhelmingly dominate the history of fairy tales? The only so-called classic tale with female authorship is “Beauty and the Beast.” And Why do we even call these stories fairy tales? I mean, you can count on one hand how many fairies appear in the combined works of the aforenamed fathers of the genre. Turns out the answer to both questions is the same: because the women writers who were responsible for the popularity of fairy tales—and who coined the term itself, contes de fées (because they were French)—were axed from the canon in favor of male writers. And, yes, there were fairies in every one of their seventy-plus tales.
My first glimpse of these women was in the margins of English-language folklore scholarship, which tends to focus on German, i.e., Grimm-ish, roots, and thus can lack depth in other areas. What was said about them was scant, somewhat dismissive, and (I would only learn later) often inaccurate. But they were female fairy-talers—conteuses, they called themselves—and I wanted to include them in my course.
So began my quest, which involved walls of books growing around me, thanks to an excellent university library and charming librarians who conjured up dozens of physical volumes from beyond the collection. And then there were all the electronic texts, archival and otherwise. Much of what I had to read was in French, a language I’m far from fluent in, but I wasn’t going to let that get between me and the stories of these writers. Truth is, it’s hard for even the fluent to nail down these histories, but more on that in the book.
Some broad strokes of what I learned: The conteuses wrote not only fairy tales but novels, historical fiction, plays, essays, and poetry. Their works were wildly popular, as were the writers themselves, who hosted literary salons in Paris. There they crafted the contes de fées that would usher in the first fairy tale vogue. Charles Perrault attended these salons, too, writing his “Mother Goose” tales from the prompts offered by these women. He produced one slim book, which came out at the same time as the women’s voluminous output, and yet he is the one history remembers from that birth of a genre.
Why were the women left out of the fairy tale canon? Well, all I’ll say here is that it mostly had to do with the misogynistic, homophobic, and ultra-conservative religiosity of Louis XIV’s reign. The conteuses were always under threat of not only losing their pens but their physical freedom. Exiles from Paris were common, as were lengthy stints in convents for mauvaise conduite—being an unruly woman.
Examples of unruliness: writing poems that insulted the king, trying to stop the abuse of a husband (with no recourse in the law), gambling, cussing, engaging in same-sex relationships. For the latter, one of the women was imprisoned in a cell in a medieval castle-turned-prison. Yes, in a tower. And yes, she’d written tales of young women trapped in towers. Only in her tales—and unlike her—the characters eventually prevailed over despotic forces.
So, anger. Probably no surprise here, but the more I learned about these women, the more incensed I became over how men of the patriarchy had disrupted their livelihoods and their lives, some even chipping away at their legacies long after the women were dead (think Voltaire). I kept a list, and before I’d even finished Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance I had a plan: The conteuses would get vengeance on their oppressors in a salon in the afterlife—a quirky novel of the speculative-historical-literary variety. My working title: Women of the Fairy Tale Revenge.
Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
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And who better to enjoy them than Charlie? Honestly, this is a master class right here in making the most of a waning summer season. Get to it, Charlie!
How are you?
— JS
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A few days ago, I got a text from Bryant saying that he had kittens under his car, and that I simply must come see them immediately. So I booked it over and lo and behold there were two kittens underneath his car! There was a calico and a tuxedo, and both were very shy and very hungry. It was so hot outside, and Bryant’s car was one of the few spots of shade in the area, so I can see why they’d hide under there.
I had a sneaking suspicion that there were more around. Where there’s two kittens there’s five, or something like that, anyway. Sure enough, it wasn’t long after feeding the two skinny kitties that another came running, seemingly appearing out of thin air. This one was a diluted tortie, and she parked herself right next to her siblings underneath the car. I could hardly believe three kittens had spontaneously appeared, but I was so thankful that it happened to be under the car of one of the biggest animal lovers I know.
We weren’t really sure how best to handle this situation, and while we were thinking it over, the tuxedo ventured out from beneath the car and ran behind the apartment into the woods. We decided to follow him and see if we could catch him now that he was out from underneath the car.
While we followed him down the trails of the forest, getting eaten alive by bugs, wouldn’t you know it, a black kitten appeared:
Had the three from under the car originated from the forest? Or had the black one been under the car with the other three originally and ventured to the woods like the tuxedo ended up doing, too? Either way, I was shocked to see another one, and thought surely that this was the last one of the litter.
This new one was different from the other three. While the calico and diluted tortie were absolutely terrified and skittish as hell, and the tuxedo wasn’t much better, the black one was incredibly friendly in comparison. In no time at all, the black one was following us around like a shadow, and was even willing to be pet and purred the whole time. Shortly after, he was even okay with being picked up and petted like any normal household cat. It was like he wasn’t even a stray, really.
We had the food set out by the car still, and wanted the black one to come get food, so we had him follow us back around to the front side of the apartment, where he reunited with his siblings under the car.
In the couple days that they have been at the apartment, we’ve been working on figuring out a rescue plan. I called multiple rescues in the area and asked if they can send someone out to collect them, as we are not certified kitten wranglers and don’t want to hurt or scare them, but none of the rescues offered that type of service.
For now, they are being fed and watered consistently, and there have been pretty impressive strides with how close the kittens have started to get. Still, the only one that enjoys being pet and actively seeks out affection is the black one, but the calico and tuxedo are becoming much more acclimated to human presence, it seems. The diluted tortie is without a doubt the worst case, still extremely skittish and frightened.
Even though it would be super easy to catch the black one, and even the tuxedo, the other two still seem uncapturable for the time being, and we don’t want to separate them. We figure the best course of action is to keep trying to get them comfortable enough until all of them are snatch-able.
I had an idea to try and hand feed them with tubes of food, like I’d seen so many times in cat rescue videos on Tik Tok. I figured it would help them trust us, and make it so they’re within hands-reach to make for easier snatching. Other than the black one, they preferred to eat it only when we squeezed the contents out onto the ground for them to eat at a further away from us distance:
Look how close the calico was! This was huge progress:
THEY’RE SO CUTE I LOVE THEM SO MUCH:
We want to rescue these babies so badly, while still keeping them together. We just aren’t experts, but we’re doing our best and making sure they’re fed for now, at least.
I expect some questions about logistics and whatnot, so here’s some pre-answers:
The car that they’re under is Bryant’s car, but it hasn’t moved from that spot in three years. He drives a different car, so don’t worry about him having to like, move the kittens’ shelter. It ain’t going anywhere.
Bryant is the only tenant at his apartment, there’s no neighbors to inform of these kittens, only the landlord, which he did.
I’m not sure which of the many rescues in the area would be best to take them to when they’re eventually caught, so please let me know if you have recommendations for kitten shelters in the Dayton area!
Aren’t they so cute?
Which would you love to take home with you (I want all of them)? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
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