Reading, Writing, 'Rithmatic

 "Not a reader? Now’s your chance to change that. Using your library or books you own, pick out three in three categories: fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. You know the rest (read them)."  

Fiction:  Iron Flame (Empyrean #2) by Rebecca Yarros

I am loving this series.  I am also coming to appreciate the major pitfall of my favorite fiction genre (world-building science fiction/fantasy).  An author can invest excessive time dreaming up such an ornate world that they lose steam in writing the action into their series and it collapses under its own weight.  This seems to have been the case with Game of Thrones and Name of the Wind.  Conversely, Yarros leaves her world and plot a little rough around the edges but I think the compromise is worth it for the sake of keeping the momentum.  If I were her editor, I would encourage substituting "tendrils" (of hair, shadow, smoke, etc.) for some synonyms, spend a bit less time emphasizing what characters' eyebrows and jaw muscles were belying about their reactions and detail out a bit more concretely the physics laws observed within this world so the plot twists felt twistier and less like deus ex machina, but none of those edits would justify delaying the sequel(s?!).  

This was also fun to read as an aspiring writer who discovered the Bookfox's YouTube channel concurrently.  Bookfox has a video up, "9 character mistakes that scream 'a woman wrote this.'"  It was a delight to step through and score Yarros on this rubric, conceding, as Fox does, that books, particularly in this romance genre, violate the rules explicitly to create a fantastic rather than relatable character.  It reminds me a bit of a childhood videogaming and discovering a "cheat code" in a strategy guide that lifts all sorts of constraints and the omnipotent delight you can have on this limitless sabbatical before returning to the mundane discouragements of your real life; in which your health points and damage dealing abilities accrue at a more plausible rate and your boyfriend cannot read your mind.  This contrasts to Kelly Bishop's observation in her memoir (also read concurrently) that Gilmore Girls has such a cult following because the characters are treated fairly, they are lovably flawed and this is true of both genres.

The final thing I love about this series is that while it is fiction and unbalanced fantasy at that, there were self-help elements embedded within it.  Self-help/personal growth is my favorite of all genres.  In this case, the help I found was hunched over the aero handlebars of my triathlon bike, sweating buckets, checking my watch every few seconds to see how much of the two hour prescribed ride remained.  What if this bike is actually a powerful dragon I am learning to ride?  What if I can also learn how to channel the energy of that dragon?  What if that telepathic dragon can also monitor my thoughts and interject like a best friend that has been fully briefed on cognitive behavioral therapy practices when my inner critic's monologue gets too unhinged?  That fantasy lens applied to real life workouts helps them fly by with less thrash.  

Non-Fiction:  Carribbean Reef Life: A Field Guide for Divers by Mickey Charteris 

It is hard to know when you are "done" with reference Non-Fiction.  I took this with us on a 2025 Kids Sea Camp excursion to Roatan, Honduras and paired it with two laminated fish slates.  I'm 8 years rusty at scuba, so across my 8 dives, I found I was mostly focused on my buoyancy and giving the reef wide enough berth not to damage it.  I did not see the micro-fauna detailed in the book's pages like sea horses unless the dive masters pointed them out.  But this book was helpful for narrowing down which of the megafauna like parrot fish, conchs, lobster, four eyes, lionfish, grouper, turtle, etc. I had spotted.  I wasn't alarmed when the dive master speared a majestic looking lionfish because I had read that these were invasive, voracious and poisonous-spined.  There is a family of fish called a suckerfish or remora that attaches itself to larger fish and turtles.  Another diver and I chuckled bubbles watching a poor parrot fish swimming in circles trying to shake one; mutualistic relationship you say?  But I found it was helpful to "steal" the remora strategy on dry land and sit at the dive master table for meals or close to where they were facilitating a class on fish ID (using this same book as reference) to get even more detail on how these sites compared to other Caribbean locations and to themselves in prior years.  i.e. turtles here are skittish compared to Hawaii and even more so on this part of the island where there was more recent history of hunting them.  File that away as a difficulty factor the next time I am admiring stunning photography of Roatan turtles.  

Since we plan to return to Sea Camp in future years as our kid ages into scuba certification age, on other sites in the Caribbean, I will hang onto this book for reference.  I'm not sure I want to go full-on into underwater photography as it is expensive equipment to schlep around the international airport terminal.  There's also something fundamentally "not living in the present" when you're diving with your attention trained on a view finder (even if I am envious of its magnification capabilities).  I would definitely put myself through an intensive drawing or painting course before the next trip to help improve my memory for the details of what I saw underwater.  It might also be useful to pair with a book like those Tristan Gooley wrote for dry land to take a more "Sherlock Holmesian" approach to what you can infer about an environment based on small clues and interactions between plants, animals, and the terrain.     

Poetry:  Gold by Rumi/Translated by Gafori 

How to Read a Book (Adler) suggests first reading the poem through in its entirety, then reading it aloud, then take a vacation from it and revisit.  

First read:  oops, I got bogged down in the background that Adler warned me to avoid.  Now I am watching YouTube videos of Whirling Dervishes and how lovely that phrase, Whirl Derv, the touch of assonance making the first syllables almost rhyme, is that where Farsi has more versatility than English?  

I didn't realize how centrally this Shams character was in Rumi's work...  How odd it is to my westernized ears for a man to speak so openly of love for another man.  I am immediately suspecting the Shams-Rumi dynamic had some carnal undertones.  Wasn't there some of that within the Greek epics too?  Patroclus and Achilles?  I wonder if my belief that men's love and lust are so intertwined is a product of my culture or my lived experience.  Platonic friendship between genders is so often problematic.  My western ears also hear poems that sound more like collaborations to drive cross-traffic to Shams' social media channel- If you love this idea, you'll love my teacher, Shams!  How cynical and commerce-warped is the lens I look at the world.  

The elaboration of the title was delightful: "Gold, the title of this book, is a word that recurs throughout Rumi's poetry.  Rumi's gold is not the precious metal but a feeling state arrived at through the alchemical process of altering consciousness, of burning through ego, greed, pettiness, and calculations, to arrive at a more relaxed and compassionate state of being...  Gold is the deepest love."     

While I love seeking the references to gold within the leaves now, some other ideas feel tediously repetitive as I read cover to cover in the space of a day.  So many allusions to getting drunk on the wine of love.  How much experience would Rumi and his audience have had on being inebriated if alcohol is haram?  So many allusions to the vastness of the ocean and being a sinking ship within it, did he had real experience to draw on?  Afghanistan and Turkey aren't exactly famous for their beaches.  Maybe he had some exposure to the Black and Caspian Seas?    

How arbitrary it all seems.  Persian can't always be literally translated, the translators themselves become derivative poets.  Plus, he'd be writing in a culture 300 years before Shakespeare and we all know how weird some of The Bard's phrases seem today.    Nevertheless, I love this-- 

Ferment like wine

in the barrel of your body.

Second read:  in small sips, out loud, on my feet, sometimes whirling like a dervish.  The message of this body of work is still so narrow, I wouldn't say these opened the floodgates of thought-provoking joy.  It is, however a beautiful way to punctuate one's day.  I still love the idea deep love is gold and all the metaphors that come with it.  I love the above passage and a few others made me smile.  Noticing the word-play on "oil" and "water" being an indeterminate quantity and how if you take them out of their vessels, they literally become one.  

...There's one spirit in countless bodies, 

One oil in countless almonds, 

One meaning in countless words

Uttered by countless tongues.  

Shatter the jugs, the water is one...    

But even so, there is so much talk of getting drunk on spiritual wine, I felt like I was the sober, responsible adult squelching across the sticky floor of a frat house at dawn, doing what I could to square away the empty pizza boxes rather than surrendering to the revelry.