The Empowered Wo(man)

All my life, books transported me far away to worlds I could hardly imagine in my everyday life. Rapturously, I followed Tarzan’s adventures in the jungle, Robin Hood’s exploits in Sherwood Forest, Michael Strogoff’s journey through Siberia and Ivanhoe’s struggle to return justice to England at the time of the crusades. I adored these heroes. I wanted to emulate them. I wished to be a hero myself.

Thirty years ago, few female characters existed in literature that raised in me similar desires for grand action and bravery. And yet, though a girl (and now a woman) myself, I yearned to read about --and to live -- a life of heroic deeds. When I enlisted in the Israeli army in 1990, I hoped for a chance to be a warrior. Instead, I found myself serving in the army as more or less a secretary to a bored (and fat) older man who smoked too much and thought my main job ought to be serving him coffee and removing the cup after he was done.

Girls readers today have more female literary role models, heroines who fight for justice, peace, and freedom, than I had growing up. Whether it is Katniss in The Hunger Games, Katsa of Graceling, Beatrice in Divergent, or Celaena of Throne of Glass, teen literature overflows with female characters who are survivors. They are physically and mentally strong and capable of defending themselves even under the most extreme circumstances. Girls today need no longer dream of being a hero: they can become a heroine.

I recently read an article by Sarah Blackwood which discusses the character of Bella from the popular Twilight Saga. Blackwood describes Bella thus: “Bella waits, she wallows, she thinks, and feels, and worries, and wonders. She does not actualize in the sense we have come to expect from our heroines....” Blackwood mentions Katniss and Katsa as contrasts to Bella, yet she wonders: do these strong, actualized and empowered girl characters in fact represent a male perspective on what it means to be actualized and empowered? Have we feminists fallen into a new trap where, in an attempt to carve our equal status in the world, we define our strength by male guidelines? Have we rejected the passive, gentle, forgiving woman -- the traditional definition of the feminine -- to become nothing more than a tiny man?

While I would not like to reject out of hand any of my feminine qualities (forgiveness and gentleness especially seem to me worthwhile to keep), and while I appreciate Bella’s popularity among teen girls -- clearly her character answers a need in them -- still I personally have always turned to the chivalrous, heroic and brave rather than to the passive or needy. In truth, none of the Twilight characters particularly appealed to me, male or female. Instead, I turn to Katsa whose ability to survive, her prowess in fight, and her sense of justice are ideals I wish to live by, or Eugenides, from Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief, whose daring, wisdom, and loving heart made me his fan for life. My wish to be like either of them depends less on their gender and more on their qualities. And similarly, it is not either gender that I crave, but their courageous, loyal heart.

To read more:
The article about Twilight’s Bella.
My review of The Thief.
My review of Graceling.

The Thief of Complex Plotting

Just as I stopped complaining to myslf, a week or so ago, about not finding a really good book to read, a book that would carry me away to far lands, I picked up Megan Whalen Turner's magnificent The Thief. Sucked into the landsape of Eddis, Sounis and Attolia without a last glance behind me, I fell in love with Eugenides, the narrator, and his adventures. Three books later, and I'm worried -- Megan Whalen Turner had written four books so far, but I am not ready to say goodbye.

Turner is a master plotter. Her prose sings. Her landscape maerializes before my eyes like a movie, sometimes a grim black and white film, at other times a colorful, musical adventure. Reading her novel is like taking a deep breath and diving into the clearest water, expecting to find the bottom of the pool below, instead discovering the rich life of a sprawling reef.

Have I told you yet that I love this book?

Rich, a rich tapestry of life and intrigue, a longing for adventure, love and life, the complexitie of being -- I don't know how she did it. How do you create such a world, so alive? No wonder that in each novel's end note Turner says that the events there described are fiction, for how can one author's mind encompass so much unless it was the truth?

I have always admired composers, their ability to hear separate threads of music, themes, instruments and turn them into one cohesive, melodic piece. Mozart, for example, surely was a genius. Or Bach. Beethoven. How were they able to hold all this music together to create their perfect concertos? I had not thought about novels the same way -- yet here, in Megan Whalen Turner's work, is a symphony of voices, characters, action, threads upon threads that somehow coalesce again and again into the most amazing, unexpected conclusions, shining a new light upon every written word.

Have I told you already that I love this book?

Eugenides is flesh and blood in mythological proportions. The gods speak directly to him, giving him their answers in short, clear sentences: go to sleep, stop whining. He is elusive, strong, a master swordsman, yet fragile, with an undeniable fatal flaw. I don't want to tell you the plot of either novel, because there is no way to do that without spoiling the story. I read the first novel without an idea as to what to expect. Caught by the story, I read Eugenides' adventure as he wished to tell it, in his own order and words.

What I loved about the series: Eugenides' voice, the shifting landscape of his journey, the sea of olives, the dirtiness of prison, the arrogance of weak men, the beautiful yet cruel queen and the second, pants-wearing queen whose nose is broken. I loved the gods and their easy intervention in human life, the hidden temple, the isolation of Eddis, the friendliness of Sophos, the myths told by Eugenides and the mage. I loved the delicate, gentle love affair which slowly unfolds before the reader's eyes without ever being acknowledged. And above all, the figure of the Thief, sitting high above the city, shrouded in the darkness of the night.


Which books do you love whose story, characters, or landscape carry you far far and away like this?