I love good guys

Early this year, I read Ramona (1884) by Helen Hunt Jackson for the first time. I had known of the novel, of course -- it's significant for nineteenth-century US literature in general, and California history and Zorro fandom in particular -- but somehow I'd never been assigned it in any class or even had it recommended to me. I'd assumed I should read it, eventually, yet had a vague impression that it was considered somehow problematic.

It turns out that the novel is not acutely problematic in any way that I could have guessed. In fact, by 1884 standards, it is downright "woke," though there is nevertheless "pervasive subtle racism," if I may borrow a turn of phrase from its current Wikipedia entry. (Paternalistic: you know the type.) The author, a white woman, longed to do for Native Americans what she perceived Uncle Tom's Cabin to have done for African Americans. She fervently wanted her book to revolutionize white people's thinking, behavior, and governance. She had devoted years to this cause, trying first through politics, research, advocacy, and publishing non-fiction. On seeing the phenomenon of Uncle Tom's Cabin, it dawned on her that story might do what statistics had not. She feverishly wrote this novel, crafting a romance, an adventure, an epic, that she hoped would open hearts and minds.

The book was well-received and sold tremendously well. Some critics at the time called Jackson the best woman author the US had yet produced (history disagrees ~grin~).

But. The fatal element that doomed the author's hopes? Allow me a mic-drop: the painting on the cover of the 2002 Signet Classics paperback I read. It depicts a woman of the Spanish California elite who would have called herself Mexican or Californio, stereotypical mantilla and fan and all. The painting is from 1940, and is a portrait of a real woman likely influenced by Ramona -- which was enjoying a resurgence in popularity and drawing people to visit and move to California -- to dress up in that historical pose. Helen Hunt Jackson wrote a striking story with vivid characters, but she made her mixed-race heroine grow up in a Spanish/Mexican household and not learn of her Native American heritage until she was an adult, and her readers eagerly perceived Ramona as of Spanish California, not of Indigenous California.

I recently read an odd, intriguing, little, literary/genre novel that I think some of you would like to read and many of you may be curious about. A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon (translated by Anton Hur) was published in 2022 in Korea and 2024 in English-speaking countries. It's so different that it's hard to describe. Maybe: What if Sailor Moon but super meta, and not totally unreasonable to nominate for a Hugo or Nebula in its length category, though it should never, ever win?

At 180 pages in a physical format slightly smaller than a traditional mass-market paperback, but with larger font and the paper weight I associate with better-quality manga, it's actually a novella or even novelette. The publisher is Nomad Editions > HarperVia > Harper Collins, and apparently this line of books is specifically designed to fill the portability void created by the end of mass-market paperbacks by fitting easily into a pocket or purse, and also the attention-deficit situation by being concise. It's in first-person, which I don't love but apparently the young folks do. Each chapter has a manga-esque illustration as a frontispiece. Is it aimed at teens or adults? Both, I think.

With the structure of any familiar magical girl story, our heroine starts alone in a bad place, discovers her friends and powers, and eventually, with sacrifice, with friendship, out of her own pain, saves the whole world. That's a given. But the bad place she starts in is incalculably darker than permitted in anime on US TV: she's deep in debt and suicidal. And she's 29! Not a "girl." But what does it mean to be a "magical girl?" The story pushes and pokes at that, kicking the tires of tropes, and comes to some super-meta conclusions about why magical "girls" exist in this fantasy world -- and, implicitly and more powerfully, also as a genre out here in the real world. Oh, and it identifies the real planetary-scale threat.

I found it a little difficult to read in the first chapter or so, because it felt to me like it should be a different medium. Now, I plan to check whether anything else by this author has been translated.

(Also, the heroine is lesbian. That is not pivotal to the story, but I thought some folks would enjoy knowing that. It, too, is a trope of this subgenre being raised, of course.)

The PBS/BBC Masterpiece partnership will be rebooting Monarch of the Glen, the 2000-05 ensemble family-drama series (Wikipedia entry) loosely inspired by Compton Mackenzie's "Highland Novels" set in 1930s-40s Scotland. I liked the TV series so well that I read the first of Mackenzie's novels, but stopped there (Mackenzie made me think: second-rate Wodehouse with brogue).

Like the original TV series, this one brings Mackenzie's concepts up to the present day. The heir of a modern Scottish laird is yanked back from an independent life in London to deal with family obligations -- crumbling manor house, quirky employees and neighbors and relatives, traditions, debt, plots frequently based around schemes to raise funds for said debt, etc. In this case, the heir character is a woman lawyer instead of a man restaurateur, and the triggering event is not the father's inability to fill his role but his death.

This news is actually months old, but I just learned it today. Read PBS's announcement from last spring. Or read yesterday's article in the Independent with casting news.

I saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day on Friday night, unspoiled, and I'm pretty sure that it is my new all-time favorite Spidey movie. Perhaps I should go see it a second time on the big screen to make sure. ;-)

If you've skipped all the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies until now, you can start here, no homework required, truly! At the same time, if you've loved every part of the "Home" trilogy, you will be respected and rewarded here.

Of course the movie is not perfect, but it's really good and really satisfying. So much theme. (I love theme!) So character-driven. (I love characters!) So original. (As a life-long Marvel reader, sometimes the movies can look to me like mash-ups of specific comics. While many elements here are familiar to me, it is -- as far as I can tell -- actually a new, unique story, crafted for today's audience by today's creators.) The other Marvel heroes and villains who appear are all clearly serving integral roles in this specific Peter Parker story, not positioned as teasing future stories (even though of course they are; kudos to the creators for pulling that off).

Post credit scenes? ( Yes/No, How Many, and Type )

Sign-ups for friendshipex remain open until Monday, August 3, 8:00pm Pacific Time. Check out the sign-ups summary.

At this time, it looks like several people could write for several of my requests, while only one person has requested any of the 7 fandoms I offered to write (D&DC, BSG78, LOZ:LA, LOZ:SkSw, LOZ:EoW, LOZ:BotW&TotK, TtB), and that one person has specified only one friendship (Kass & Link). Of course that is a fine option! Yet it does make me watch the sign-up summary. We shall see.