Lenore and Henry are moving up in Victorian society. Henry is nouveau riche, a manufacturer of cutlery, and he's married a high-born but penniless wife. The match means class elevation for Henry and security for Lenore. Oh, there's love, too, at first, but after Lenore miscarries and becomes infertile, the relationship cools. The terrible secret they share doesn't help--and there's worse mayhem ahead, as they soon discover when they rescue the mysterious Carmilla from a carriage crash on the way to their new estate . . .
Hungerstone (Kat Green, 2025), is a story about desire and agency, which takes Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's lesbian vampire novella Carmilla as inspiration. In both stories, a young woman (Laura in the original, Lenore in Hungerstone) dreams of another woman about her age coming to her at night and biting her. Later, both heroines meet this mysterious figure--Carmilla--in the flesh, rescuing her from a carriage crash. Carmilla insinuates herself into Lenore's life; partly to sate her own desires, but much more importantly to help Lenore understand that she, too, has desires, and that she should be honest with herself and pursue them. Carmilla and Henry do not get along, and Carmilla, in word and deed, does what she can to encourage Lenore to reclaim her agency. It's not just a matter of getting out from under her husband's thumb--it's about survival itself.
Lenore's backstory is presented via her thoughts as she navigates her new reality. Thanks to Carmilla, Lenore is forced to reflect on her past to discover the reasons why she gave up hope of happiness from a young age, and why she allowed herself to enter an unfulfilling, even dangerous, relationship with Henry. Moreover, without Carmilla's aid, Lenore may not have discovered the forces being drawn up against her until it was too late . . .
For the fourth time this month, I've read stories by women about women who reclaim their agency to empower themselves and protect themselves from men. Of these, Hungerstone might be my favourite. Rich in allusion and metaphor, the novel first emulates and then inverts Carmilla's original story to present a subversive, well-earned happy ending Le Fanu may have appreciated but could not possibly have depicted in his era. Hungerstone also works as a horror novel; it's gloomy, with a pervasive sense of dread, the occasional outbreak of horrific violence, and some very weird scenes of pica--perhaps unsurprising in a novel about desire, hunger, want, and cravings--all the same thing, are they not? There's even a lovely little scene with a real hunger stone.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
The Bottomless Well of Human Desire
Monday, March 09, 2026
Annie Botherations
Naturally. That's how she's programmed; she's a sexbot designed just for him. She's beautiful, has a closet full of outfits like a Barbie doll, and Doug can have technicians adjust her weight or breast size on a whim. He can--and does--use verbal commands to adjust her libido. A neat freak, he gets annoyed because Annie, in the beginning, doesn't do any housecleaning. That's not what she's designed for--there are housekeeping and nanny model, but Annie is a "Cuddle Bunny" and is supposed to be focused on lovemaking and looking pretty. Nonetheless, Annie can measure Doug's displeasure in real time on a one-to-ten scale, and she becomes anxious whenever his displeasure registers. So she dutifully adds cleaning to her routine, becoming absolutely obsessive about it.
For most of the narrative, Annie insists to herself and others that Doug is a wonderful owner, an opinion reinforced by side characters like Doug's best friend and the company that made Annie and hundreds--thousands--of other robots.
As the novel progresses, Annie's sapience and understanding grow. She's essentially tricked into having sex with Doug's best friend, and allowing herself to be pressured into it becomes a source of guilt and shame. Eventually the secret comes out, and Doug responds by ordering her to turn her libido up to ten and locks her in a closet for a week. It's torture--not just the confinement, but Doug's anger, Annie's guilt, and her inability to turn her libido down or to reach orgasm. It's a deeply disturbing scene, and it's the crux point that sets Annie on a path to true awakening and self-determination.
It's not the first or last time Doug abuses Annie, but it is the most horrifying. Doug's action reads like a form of rape, even though he doesn't touch her. It's harrowing. Greer doesn't belabour the details of Annie's ordeal, but her prose makes it clear that this is a violation of the highest order, made worse because of Annie's innocence and naivete.
Because we see Doug only through Annie's thoughts, it's a challenge to get a full read of his character--at first. At times, he seems to genuinely care about Annie as more than a machine, but then he betrays her in ways large and small. He always has his reasons, but we can infer they arise from self-loathing, capriciousness, and shame, but also from sadism, rage, and a need to exercise control in every aspect of his life. The torture scene makes it clear that Doug is the novel's antagonist.
Like many abusers, Doug attempts to excuse his actions even as he asks forgiveness for them. Because of her programming, Annie is particularly vulnerable to this form of manipulation, making the novel an extremely uncomfortable read. Doug even buys another robot, ostensibly an "Abigail," or cleaning model, but Doug has sex with her too, and it's clear it's partially to punish Annie. But when Annie plans an escape, she's surprised that the Abigail--named Delta--wants to come with her. In just a few words, it's clear that Delta, too, has her reasons for wanting to leave Doug's orbit.
Annie and Delta seek help from one of the technicians at Stella-Handy, the corporation that makes the robots, but Doug, of course, has a tracker in Annie, and she's recaptured. Doug professes regret for driving Annie away, sends Delta back to Stella-Handy, and tries to reform. And indeed, from what Annie relates to the reader, he does seem like he's making an effort to be better. He turns off the tracker, and gives Annie a series of commands to give her ultimate agency. He claims he wants her to want him without being forced to. He probably even believes it.
Annie's reaction--shared internally with us, the reader, not with Doug--he can't be trusted with it--is a fierce FU to Doug's offer. Had Doug treated her with empathy and kindness from the beginning, I'm sure Annie would have stayed with Doug. But his actions through their three years or so of living together make that utterly impossible. Annie frees herself, and while it may have been Doug's last programming commands that unlocked the final door, it's important to note that Annie's drive for self-determination and her stubborn refusal to give up the core aspects of her developing personality brought the couple to this inflection point. Doug thought he could control her without the shackles of her programming. But he's wrong, and I revelled in Annie's victory, expressed in silent fury accompanied by decisive action.
It's plain to see that Annie Bot is a metaphor for the difficult and uneven relationships between men and women. It's a compelling, uncomfortable read--the kind of novel more men should tackle. I can still see a bit of myself in Doug, and that haunts me.
Saturday, March 07, 2026
The Last Labyrinth, the Lost Ending
Gwendolyn Womack's new novel, The Last Labyrinth, is a well-paced, well-written romantasy time travel story that uses music as its magic. But it has one fatal flaw.
The setup: Womack's heroine, Magellan, is a modern woman, a musical prodigy who can play any instrument like a virtuoso, even if she's never touched it before, and she doesn't need sheet music. As the novel opens, we learn that Magellan has a talented roommate, Wren, a singer, who tries to bring Magellan out of her shell a bit; Magellan has a number of phobias that keep her pretty much confined to her apartment, except when she's out performing. One night, the skies all over the world light up with an aurora the likes of which humanity has never seen, at impossibly low latitudes. It's around this time Magellan receives a mysterious diary, purported to be that of Gwenddydd, Merlin's sister. (This framing--that of powerful women being identified only in relation to the men in their lives--recurs throughout the novel, to good effect).
While Magellan is playing at a wedding, the world begins to unravel, thanks to the auroras. In a panic, she runs off to play the venue's pipe organ, and this transports her to 1829, where she meets Rhys, a handsome bachelor who happens to be caught in a financial trap, needing to wed a rich bride to save his family estate.
Meet-cute and time travel shenanigans begin. Magellan learns that to save the world, she must assemble four movements of a symphony. She has half the first movement, and she discovers Fanny Mendelssohn has the second. To gather the other movements, she must collaborate with other important women musicians of the past, all while surviving not only the differences in language, culture, and technology, but the demonic forces who try to stop her from saving the world. Thankfully, she has Rhys at her side, who's no Superman but does have a talent for languages--very useful given their circumstances.
The plot serves as a great vehicle for the romance and for Womack's point about talented women being overlooked by history, and how that fault persists over the centuries. It's also fun seeing how the predestination paradoxes play out.
Here's my issue: We learn that the final confrontation will happen when Magellan returns to 2026, when she'll put the final movement of the symphony together and somehow gather all the world's musicians to play it together, the only way to seal the rip in the universe.
The novel ends before we get to that moment, with the ultimate fate of the world and the characters we've come to love unresolved. It's fine, of course, for novels to end on a note of ambiguity, but this really feels like the writer just ran out of steam and didn't have the means to craft the epic finale she envisioned.
The novel is still worth reading; it's clever, exciting, suspenseful, and warm. Magellan is a great heroine, and Rhys is flawed but worthy partner for her. I really wanted to see them triumph, though.
There's no word of a sequel, nor is there a hint of one in the author's afterword. It feels like this is the novel Womack decided to deliver. That's her right, but I really wish she'd given us that grand finale.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Misinterpreting "Green Light"
Last year I discovered Lorde's "Green Light," and it won me over instantly. The song's beat and melody feel so bright, so joyful, and the effect is buoyed by the singer's barely contained furious energy. According to my YouTube Music year-end wrap-up, it was the song I played most in 2023.
But when I investigated the genesis of "Green Light," I found that I had completely misinterpreted Lorde's message--and the discovery made me ruminate on the male gaze.
When I first heard "Green Light," I heard the music and lyrics as barely contained excitement over a young woman's determination to pursue a new love interest. She sings:
I do my makeup in somebody else's car
We order different drinks at the same bars
I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth
She thinks you love the beach you're such a damn liar
By this point, you might wonder how I could have mistaken Lorde's intent, because the last two lines of this stanza clearly indicate the nameless man may have some character deficiencies. But she goes on:
Hope they bite you
Thought you said that you would always be in love
But you're not in love no more
Did it frighten you
How we kissed when we danced on the light up floor?
On the light up floor
I thought the "great white with big teeth" was the other woman referenced in the previous stanza, and that Lorde's character was reacting with jealousy. Then, she reveals the man isn't in love anymore--presumably, his relationship with the "great white" has ended, and the singer's character has a chance: "Did it frighten you, how we kissed when we danced on the light-up floor?"
The song's tempo and beat climb exuberantly, and she sings:
I read this as excitement and joyous anticipation; the singer thinks she's on the verge of connecting with this man, and all she's waiting for is the green light (from him).
This is followed by:
Sometimes I wake up in a different bedroom
I whisper things the city sings them back to you
Those rumours they have big teeth
Thought you said that you would always be in love
But you're not in love no more
Did it frighten you
How we kissed when we danced on the light up floor?
On the light up floor
I read this as jealousy at the prospect of other potential partner for her man, followed by a reaffirmation that she thinks he's scared of the intensity of their nascent love.
But I hear sounds in my mind
Brand new sounds in my mind
But honey I'll be seein' you 'ever I go
But honey I'll be seein' you down every road
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
Again, I read this as reaffirmation of her desire. The song concludes in this vein, with Lorde's character singing about how she'll get her things as soon as she gets her green light. I was left hoping that the song's character would soon get that green light, and she and her beau would live happily ever after. That first, problematic stanza? Given the tone of the rest of the song, I thought perhaps the guy had been a jerk in some mild way, and that Lorde's character hoped that minor sin would be enough to foul up the prospects of his hookup with the song character's rival.
After listening to the song about a dozen times, I searched for information about the origins of "Green Light." And to my surprise and embarrassment, I found I had turned the song completely on its head. In interviews, Lorde has said "Green Light" is about heartbreak and finding the strength to move on. She's "seeing (him) 'ever I go," so she can't go forward; the green light she needs isn't from a man, it's from herself.
Missing the intended meaning of a song might not seem like a big deal, but I thought I was brighter than this. It makes me wonder, not for the first time, how many times I've misinterpreted women's stories, particularly the stories of women close to me. It's a daunting prospect.
For what it's worth, my relationship with "Green Light" began with empathy and well-wishes for Lorde's character, even if my thoughts were misplaced. My good feelings and hopes remain, though for different reasons.
Sorry, Lorde! And sorry, the many other women who I've doubtlessly read wrong over the years.
Monday, September 04, 2017
That Gum I Like Never Went Out of Style
Last night, Sean and I watched, bewildered, as David Lynch and Mark Frost stayed true to their most genuine and frustrating form, refusing to provide Twin Peaks audiences with closure and instead ending the series - probably forever - on a shriek of confused, helpless horror.
Like Sean, I was disappointed by what felt like a meandering and almost cruel final hour, especially after the tease of the penultimate episode, which seemed to promise a reasonably happy, if strange, ending for characters I've loved for nearly 30 years. In that second-to-last hour, our heroes converge on Twin Peaks to rid the world of the malevolence of BOB. It's as funny, surreal, and thrilling as anything in Lynch's ouvre - but it's not enough. Dale Cooper, aided by the mysterious figures of the White Lodge, travels back in time in an effort to prevent poor, sad, lost Laura Cooper from being murdered on the fateful day of February 23, 1989. And at first, it seems to have worked. But just as Dale is leading Laura home to her mother, she slips from his grasp, vanishing with a scream, presumably whisked away by Judy, the Mother of Evil. And this is where the show failed for me last night on an emotional level - but with the benefit of a night's sleep and some difficult reflection, I have to admit that the last hour of Twin Peaks is thematically consistent and supports a dark, difficult vision that I didn't want to recognize on first viewing.
It's pointless to summarize the plot of the final hour, except to say that Dale never gives up trying to save Laura, and that is what dooms him. He finds himself, apparently, in a Texas of a different time, or a parallel world, or perhaps just a different dream state; in any event, gone is the confident, pure-hearted FBI agent we saw return so briefly in episodes 16 and 17. In the final act, Cooper is adrift, he's given a different name, and he's lost much of his joy. He uses excessive force on a trio of goons, holds an innocent at gunpoint, and shows not a flicker of delight when presented with a cup of coffee. He's not evil, but he's not the same man we knew and loved. (How could he be, after all he's experienced?) In this reality, in fact, he seems to be Richard, a callback to the very first moments of this season, in which the Giant and Dale converse in the White Lodge.
Cooper finds Laura, though she doesn't seem to think she really is Laura at all, but a woman named Carrie Page. She agrees to go with him to Twin Peaks anyway, as things seem to be bad for her here; there's a recently-murdered body in her house. Even after Dale has supposedly saved her, it appears Laura can never escape violence and darkness.
Much of the episode is spent on the long drive from Odessa, Texas, to Twin Peaks. There's barely any conversation; at one point, Carrie wonders if they're being followed, but the anonymous headlights of the vehicle behind them merely pass by.
Eventually, Dale and Carrie arrive in Twin Peaks, which is strangely devoid of traffic, though the episode doesn't call attention to this. They park in front of the Palmer home, and Dale, still intent on a quest that should have ended 25 years ago, insists on knocking on the front door and delivering Laura home.
But Sarah Palmer doesn't answer the door. It's a woman we've never seen before: Alice Tremond. Confused, Cooper wonders if they bought the house recently from someone else - the Palmers, he's certainly thinking. But the homeowner says she bought the house from Mrs. Chalfont...who, fans will remember, was the strange woman who lived with her grandson above the evil convenience store of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Cooper and Carrie walk back across the street. But after a moment of though, Cooper suddenly asks "What year is it?" And then someone - presumably Sarah Palmer - screams "LAURA!" from inside the house. Carrie screams, and I think this is where she realizes who she really is and the awful fate that's in store for her. She's awakened to the horror of her new reality, and her terrorized cries reverberate as the lights of the Palmer house flicker off, plunging all into darkness; roll credits.
Though presented obliquely, like much of Twin Peaks, the plot is really pretty simple after all; Judy, the Mother of Evil, won't let Laura go, perhaps, as revealed earlier, because Laura is the embodiment or avatar of good in the universe, as shown earlier this season. Dale Cooper is, perhaps, her White Lodge-appointed guardian, and has been all along.
Even before this finale, I realized that this third and final season of Twin Peaks was rich with layered commentary on the state of the world as it is today, as it was in some imagined Golden Age, and the nature of artistic creation itself. For example, throughout this season, Lynch and Frost teased their audience with meandering scenes of hyper-reality that seemed to have little purpose. To wit: several minutes spent watching a nameless custodian sweep the floor of the Roadhouse, the finale's endless scenes of night driving, side conversations from several characters about trivia that leads nowhere, the false foreshadowing of a young woman's underarm rash, Big Ed drinking coffee in his garage. These moments stand in stark contrast with the many episodes of horror, violence, hilarity and surreal quirkiness that define the show. I believe Lynch and Frost deliberately create this contrast to make their audiences squirm, to force us to feel the discomfort and loss of control that the characters in the show feel.
In the real world, nothing makes sense; only in constructed drama do stories pan out neatly, with satisfying conclusions and narrative closure. For all its madness, Twin Peaks is, in this way, perhaps the most realistic story ever told on television. We, the audience, feel like we deserve, if not happy endings, then at least some kind of ending we can understand and put in a comfortable box. I'll admit that I was, even if unconsciously, hoping for that, too, last night. I didn't get it, and I was disappointed.
But on reflection, even though I was hoping for better days for Dale Cooper and his friends, I realize that would have been somewhat cheap, and perhaps even monstrous in light of what I think Lynch and Frost are really trying to communicate: evil is forever with us, but we fight it anyway, with love, even if in the end it's hopeless.
Twin Peaks is full of warmth and love, even in the midst of unspeakable horror and tragedy. The show is full of people of genuine goodness, epitomized by Dale Cooper and his fellow agents in the FBI and by Sheriff Truman and his deputies in Twin Peaks. Even the show's villains, from BOB on down, are sympathetic in some way; troubled pasts are inferred, and even BOB himself didn't ask to be born; as revealed in this season's mind-blowing episode 8, human beings, through the atomic bomb, unleashed BOB and his cohorts into the world. BOB and Judy are forces of nature as much as they are villains.
But the suffering they cause is all too real. Laura Palmer's long arc of horrifying inevitability is all the more heartbreaking with the show's final revelation: Laura is doomed, was always doomed, is forever doomed, despite the valiant efforts of all the good people who try to help her.
And yet those good people keep trying, even after she's died.
It's possible that I'm rationalizing the finale somewhat, that I've overthought the ending to compensate or wish away my initial disappointment. I hope that's not true, because the disappointment is still there, but I've shifted the blame to my own perceptions rather than perceived deficiencies in the work. I think it's important to remember, too, that all along I've been utterly delighted by this third remarkable season; I admire its determination not to pander to a nostalgic audience, to create an entirely different sort of television show. Say what you will, but there is nothing else on TV like this, and maybe there never will be again.
When Twin Peaks went off the air back in 1990, I was rueful. In just a few months, that show became as important to me, if not more so, than Star Trek, not just as television entertainment, but as a lens through which to make sense of a troubled world. I never expected it to return, and I regard this season as a tremendous gift. It will haunt me for a long time.
Wednesday, March 08, 2017
My Rock
Naturally my wife stands at the top of that formidable list. Here's an image of Sylvia standing beside a boulder near Radium, BC. It feels appropriate because Sylvia is filled with the gravitas, strength and heft symbolized by stone. It's too bad she isn't also standing next to a river too, so that her quickness of thought, determination and serenity could also be symbolized.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Ear Shadow
Yesterday I came up with a plan to make myself rich.
Every day, millions of people around the world apply eye shadow to their eyelids to enhance their beauty.
And yet the ears, save perhaps the addition of jewelry, are neglected.
But the ears, with their many folds and crenelations, seem designed for the application of makeup in a multitude of hues and shades to accentuate those ear-otic passages.
Imagine the delicate fossa painted an elegant mauve, which fades into a darker purple along the scapha, then transitions to a vibrant cobalt blue twisting into the antihelical fold, the antihelix, antitragus and into the ear canal itself. Perhaps the concha could be set apart in amber or emerald green.
Whatever shades best suit your aural fixation, there will be an ear shadow palette to match your look. I'll market it under the trade name Earl Shadow, or perhaps Shadow d'Earl. Of course I'll have to come up with an ad campaign to make people feel insecure about their looks first, but I have decades of Madison Avenue techniques to draw upon for that...
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Revolt of the Super-Chicks
The rest of the story is cheerfully mundane; Supergirl and Wonder Woman team up to fight the forgettable Multi-Face and realize that they must continue to serve as superheroines, foregoing romance. It's as if the two endeavors are completely incompatible, yet super-heroes have no trouble fighting crime and having girlfriends. No double standard there!