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Waterways vs Anthropology and the Selfish Protagonist
8 years ago
Cross-posted from Facebook. When I was done with the entry, I figured it would be more appropriate for Fur Affinity anyway, and was considering just posting it here, but I was reminded that I update so rarely that few people watch my Fur Affinity page, and that anyone I would consider a friend on Facebook would either be fine with my entry or ignore it, so I could just do a friends-only post on Facebook.
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I just finished listening to Waterways by Kyell Gold, narrated by Robert M. Clark and felt like writing about it for a bit. This will be a long entry, so if you have something better to do, I'd recommend reading later.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/Wa.....ook/B00UIBVYPG
First, a little background. Ever Dad got me a SanDisk MP3 player for Christmas a few years ago (still one of my favorite gifts) I've gotten into listening to audiobooks on my commute and on long journeys. I mostly listened to LibriVox stories at first, before switching to Brony stories after listening to Anthropology by JasonTheHuman and discovering that it wasn't just one isolated story, and the Brony fandom is particularly good at putting out high quality fan fiction and audiobooks.
So, with AnthrOhio coming up, I dithered on what particularly to listen to. Another Brony story seemed appropriate, but I had nothing in particular in mind. Since I was going to a furry convention, and I found that the works of Kyell Gold, the most celebrated writer in the furry fandom (Waterways won the 2008 Ursa Major Award for Best Novel), are now available on Audible, and since I'd unsubscribed from Audible long enough that restarting my subscription entitled me to a free book, I decided to try the earliest book available, and added Waterways to Audible.
As ever, there were some minor technical trouble with listening to a story on my smartphone. First of all, the audio always crackled badly with smartphones while my SanDisk played clearly, and I thought that was just a product of my after-market CD player, which requires a CD to be going to take audio from the audio jack. So, previously I would sometimes sneak a listen on the smartphone with headphones, but there is a little-enforced law on the books in New York State that driving while having headphones on both ears is illegal, and while I knew the chances of that being enforced on its own were slim, I still felt "bad" to do it, particularly when I was driving somewhere with actual heavy traffic. So, I was surprised when my friend Andrew plugged his smartphone into my car and the audio came out clearly, and found that the feedback and crackling is only an issue when the smartphone is both plugged in to the audio jack and the charger at the same time. Things on the smartphone play fine so long as the smartphone isn't charging. Last, having something playing on the same device I was navigating with was problematic, but on the drive large stretches of it were just staying on the expressway, so that wasn't much of an issue except around Columbus. With the 10 hours and 52 minute length of Waterways, I got 80% of the book done on the trip, and finished the rest of on the way to and from work.
As for the book itself, in one word it could be described as "great." It has a well-deserved 4.80 rating on Audible, and is a top-quality work of literature, and has a gentle, easy-listening style of narration by Robert M. Clark, who made sure to change tone and inflection between characters. It was also the very first furry audiobook I've ever listened to, and the first piece of furry literature of any significant length I've read in close to 15 years. The settings was particularly noteworthy. Kyell Gold set it in a parallel universe extremely similar to Earth, where even many of the names are the same. They live in the United States of America, drink Starbucks coffee, and even have some of the same celebrities, as I believe Michael Bay is mentioned by name. There are just little touches that set it a bit off from reality and give it just a sprinkle of the strangeness of Zootopia and My Little Pony. Everyone is some variety of mammal of course, and the effect of this on their world is that their houses are somewhat more customized, with Kory's (otter) house having a central pool, and Samaki's (fox) apartment being quite cramped and compact by comparison, like the modern version of a fox den. Sizes are homogenized though, and everyone is somewhere in the range of human sizes. Abilities are largely homogenized too, with everyone having about the same intelligence and senses, but with foxes having more sensitive noses than others, skunks smelling a little worse, and otters swimming a little better. The overall effect was a somewhat jarring (for me, at least) mix up between the purely constructed world of something like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the more grounded, realistic world of something like War in the Air by H. G. Wells, where everyone is human and it takes place on Earth, and only the technology is fantastic.
Waterways is a coming of age story. Listening to a coming of age story when I'm 27 gave me a lot to think about, but also made me feel mature and old to read it, and made my think of the quote from George Bernard Shaw that "Youth is wasted on the young". Which brings me to the main point I wanted to get to: Kory's mother.
*Major spoilers beyond this point*
In the story, Kory is the kind of teenager that habitually keeps things from his doting, worrying mother, which isn't the sort of thing that causes too much trouble up to the point of the start of the story. But as he begins to have something serious and important that he wants to keep from his Mom, in this case his budding sexual identity, he starts with a little lie, which his Mom nips in the bud, and then forms a house of cards of lies, with one central lie as the cornerstone of them all, that Samaki is just a friend. He confides in his younger brother immediately, but goes almost an entire year with more elaborate lies building up between him and his mother, while his mother, hopeful that Kory isn't keeping anything too important from him, continues oblivious but vaguely uneasy and worried.
The climax of the center of the story is Kory coming out to his Mom in the absolutely most explosive, violent, hurtful way imaginable, and while the story is from his point of view, it was hard for me to not see him as the villain of that part of the story.
What follows after that is a Brony's nightmare. After exploding at his Mom and calling her every hurtful thing in the dictionary, she tells him to leave, he does, and then rather than cooling off and talking to his Mom, he spends the night at his friend's house. But not just the night. He surreptitiously removes his important belongings from home, never having one kind thought or any desire to reconcile with his Mom, and moves in with his friend before he has even graduated high school. Then, in short order he gets into a fight with his friend Sal, another otter, and without having one single thought at reconciliation, leaves there too and spends some time in a homeless shelter. To top it all off, then he starts lashing out at his boyfriend too, and his relationship starts going on the rocks. He moves into his own apartment with someone else from the homeless shelter, using his Mother's money. Twice his Mom makes some kind of effort to reach out to him, and he spurns her attempts at reconciliation, once even calling on her cellphone just to yell at her, after which she hangs up on him. Since I already gave a spoiler warning, I might as well go all the way and mention that in the climax of the story itself, his Mom wants to go to his graduation and get her picture taken with him, both to reconcile and at least keep some shred of her dignity. He gets into a fight, makes a scene and drags his boyfriend on stage, and afterwards she leaves in disgrace and utter social humiliation, angrier at Kory than ever, and will likely never talk to him again.
Now, let me be absolutely clear, the problem with all of this isn't a matter of realism. I've seen enough People's Court to know that realistically, there are plenty of times that among friends and family, an argument comes up, and with both people unwilling to reconcile, it can lead to a permanent break. Instead, what’s at stake here is the tone of the story, and the villainous edge of the protagonist made it difficult for me to identify with him.
Compare his situation to that of Lyra in Anthropology. Lyra also had a secret she was trying desperately to keep from her parents for the bulk of her life. Just like Kory, Lyra found she had an interest that her parents and some of those closest to her didn't approve of, and had to face ostracism and keep that part of herself hidden to fit in. And both Kory and Lyra's parents just wanted their children to be safe and happy, and were trying their best to do what's right for the children they loved. The difference is what happened when their respective Big Secrets finally came out. When Kory's parents found out, it was this huge shouting match filled with cruelty almost entirely coming from Kory, while he meanwhile took offense to things his Mom said that he had no right to not expect his mother to say. When Lyra's parents found out, there was no shouting, just fear. Lyra's father Dewey Decimal remains my absolute favorite character of Anthropology after Lyra herself because he had a calm, easy demeanor and respected the rights and autonomy of the daughter he so obviously loved. When it came time for Lyra to make her decision for what she wanted to do with her life, he knew that one decision would be extremely dangerous and he might have to say goodbye to his daughter forever, and yet he respected her enough to just make his opinion known, let her think on it, and then make her own decision.
The Brony stories I enjoy all keep that spirit of idealism in them, and set their stories in a world where the fundamental rules are that friendship is important, that fights can be temporary, and that while some people lash out in anger, frustration, fear, or selfish desire, everyone has a kind heart underneath it all (or more accurately, in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a kind heart typically underlies every pony, while most Griffins are fundamentally jerks, Lord Tirek is pure evil, and Starlight Glimmer and Maud Pie actually don't seem to have that fundamental spark of friendship in them. Trixie might, but that's a conversation for another time). That's why the really dark, corruptive stories that Bronies write, the ones where, to quote Pepper Coyote, "somewhere there's a whisper of anger of cruelty plotting its cold victory" feels like a corruption of what I love about the Brony stories in general. And though Waterways is a good story, and in real life there certainly are some 17 year olds who never have a single thought of reconciling with their enemies, I personally find it far more enjoyable to read a story that does have the friendship ideal in it, and at least for me, the inclusion of the selfish, villainous actions by Kory makes me identify with him far less.
And as a final thought, reading about Kory's fight with his Mom makes me grateful how lucky I am to have my Mom. We've gotten into a lot of fights over the years, but through them all was an undercurrent of love on both sides that let us make up afterwards. And now that I’m getting older, the general tide of fights between us have died down as I’ve come to appreciate what such values as honesty, generosity, and kindness actually mean in practice. After listening to Waterways, all I really want to do is go to my Mom, give her a big hug, and just be grateful that never in our lives have we had an argument so violent and disruptive that we cut ties forever.
--
I just finished listening to Waterways by Kyell Gold, narrated by Robert M. Clark and felt like writing about it for a bit. This will be a long entry, so if you have something better to do, I'd recommend reading later.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/Wa.....ook/B00UIBVYPG
First, a little background. Ever Dad got me a SanDisk MP3 player for Christmas a few years ago (still one of my favorite gifts) I've gotten into listening to audiobooks on my commute and on long journeys. I mostly listened to LibriVox stories at first, before switching to Brony stories after listening to Anthropology by JasonTheHuman and discovering that it wasn't just one isolated story, and the Brony fandom is particularly good at putting out high quality fan fiction and audiobooks.
So, with AnthrOhio coming up, I dithered on what particularly to listen to. Another Brony story seemed appropriate, but I had nothing in particular in mind. Since I was going to a furry convention, and I found that the works of Kyell Gold, the most celebrated writer in the furry fandom (Waterways won the 2008 Ursa Major Award for Best Novel), are now available on Audible, and since I'd unsubscribed from Audible long enough that restarting my subscription entitled me to a free book, I decided to try the earliest book available, and added Waterways to Audible.
As ever, there were some minor technical trouble with listening to a story on my smartphone. First of all, the audio always crackled badly with smartphones while my SanDisk played clearly, and I thought that was just a product of my after-market CD player, which requires a CD to be going to take audio from the audio jack. So, previously I would sometimes sneak a listen on the smartphone with headphones, but there is a little-enforced law on the books in New York State that driving while having headphones on both ears is illegal, and while I knew the chances of that being enforced on its own were slim, I still felt "bad" to do it, particularly when I was driving somewhere with actual heavy traffic. So, I was surprised when my friend Andrew plugged his smartphone into my car and the audio came out clearly, and found that the feedback and crackling is only an issue when the smartphone is both plugged in to the audio jack and the charger at the same time. Things on the smartphone play fine so long as the smartphone isn't charging. Last, having something playing on the same device I was navigating with was problematic, but on the drive large stretches of it were just staying on the expressway, so that wasn't much of an issue except around Columbus. With the 10 hours and 52 minute length of Waterways, I got 80% of the book done on the trip, and finished the rest of on the way to and from work.
As for the book itself, in one word it could be described as "great." It has a well-deserved 4.80 rating on Audible, and is a top-quality work of literature, and has a gentle, easy-listening style of narration by Robert M. Clark, who made sure to change tone and inflection between characters. It was also the very first furry audiobook I've ever listened to, and the first piece of furry literature of any significant length I've read in close to 15 years. The settings was particularly noteworthy. Kyell Gold set it in a parallel universe extremely similar to Earth, where even many of the names are the same. They live in the United States of America, drink Starbucks coffee, and even have some of the same celebrities, as I believe Michael Bay is mentioned by name. There are just little touches that set it a bit off from reality and give it just a sprinkle of the strangeness of Zootopia and My Little Pony. Everyone is some variety of mammal of course, and the effect of this on their world is that their houses are somewhat more customized, with Kory's (otter) house having a central pool, and Samaki's (fox) apartment being quite cramped and compact by comparison, like the modern version of a fox den. Sizes are homogenized though, and everyone is somewhere in the range of human sizes. Abilities are largely homogenized too, with everyone having about the same intelligence and senses, but with foxes having more sensitive noses than others, skunks smelling a little worse, and otters swimming a little better. The overall effect was a somewhat jarring (for me, at least) mix up between the purely constructed world of something like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the more grounded, realistic world of something like War in the Air by H. G. Wells, where everyone is human and it takes place on Earth, and only the technology is fantastic.
Waterways is a coming of age story. Listening to a coming of age story when I'm 27 gave me a lot to think about, but also made me feel mature and old to read it, and made my think of the quote from George Bernard Shaw that "Youth is wasted on the young". Which brings me to the main point I wanted to get to: Kory's mother.
*Major spoilers beyond this point*
In the story, Kory is the kind of teenager that habitually keeps things from his doting, worrying mother, which isn't the sort of thing that causes too much trouble up to the point of the start of the story. But as he begins to have something serious and important that he wants to keep from his Mom, in this case his budding sexual identity, he starts with a little lie, which his Mom nips in the bud, and then forms a house of cards of lies, with one central lie as the cornerstone of them all, that Samaki is just a friend. He confides in his younger brother immediately, but goes almost an entire year with more elaborate lies building up between him and his mother, while his mother, hopeful that Kory isn't keeping anything too important from him, continues oblivious but vaguely uneasy and worried.
The climax of the center of the story is Kory coming out to his Mom in the absolutely most explosive, violent, hurtful way imaginable, and while the story is from his point of view, it was hard for me to not see him as the villain of that part of the story.
What follows after that is a Brony's nightmare. After exploding at his Mom and calling her every hurtful thing in the dictionary, she tells him to leave, he does, and then rather than cooling off and talking to his Mom, he spends the night at his friend's house. But not just the night. He surreptitiously removes his important belongings from home, never having one kind thought or any desire to reconcile with his Mom, and moves in with his friend before he has even graduated high school. Then, in short order he gets into a fight with his friend Sal, another otter, and without having one single thought at reconciliation, leaves there too and spends some time in a homeless shelter. To top it all off, then he starts lashing out at his boyfriend too, and his relationship starts going on the rocks. He moves into his own apartment with someone else from the homeless shelter, using his Mother's money. Twice his Mom makes some kind of effort to reach out to him, and he spurns her attempts at reconciliation, once even calling on her cellphone just to yell at her, after which she hangs up on him. Since I already gave a spoiler warning, I might as well go all the way and mention that in the climax of the story itself, his Mom wants to go to his graduation and get her picture taken with him, both to reconcile and at least keep some shred of her dignity. He gets into a fight, makes a scene and drags his boyfriend on stage, and afterwards she leaves in disgrace and utter social humiliation, angrier at Kory than ever, and will likely never talk to him again.
Now, let me be absolutely clear, the problem with all of this isn't a matter of realism. I've seen enough People's Court to know that realistically, there are plenty of times that among friends and family, an argument comes up, and with both people unwilling to reconcile, it can lead to a permanent break. Instead, what’s at stake here is the tone of the story, and the villainous edge of the protagonist made it difficult for me to identify with him.
Compare his situation to that of Lyra in Anthropology. Lyra also had a secret she was trying desperately to keep from her parents for the bulk of her life. Just like Kory, Lyra found she had an interest that her parents and some of those closest to her didn't approve of, and had to face ostracism and keep that part of herself hidden to fit in. And both Kory and Lyra's parents just wanted their children to be safe and happy, and were trying their best to do what's right for the children they loved. The difference is what happened when their respective Big Secrets finally came out. When Kory's parents found out, it was this huge shouting match filled with cruelty almost entirely coming from Kory, while he meanwhile took offense to things his Mom said that he had no right to not expect his mother to say. When Lyra's parents found out, there was no shouting, just fear. Lyra's father Dewey Decimal remains my absolute favorite character of Anthropology after Lyra herself because he had a calm, easy demeanor and respected the rights and autonomy of the daughter he so obviously loved. When it came time for Lyra to make her decision for what she wanted to do with her life, he knew that one decision would be extremely dangerous and he might have to say goodbye to his daughter forever, and yet he respected her enough to just make his opinion known, let her think on it, and then make her own decision.
The Brony stories I enjoy all keep that spirit of idealism in them, and set their stories in a world where the fundamental rules are that friendship is important, that fights can be temporary, and that while some people lash out in anger, frustration, fear, or selfish desire, everyone has a kind heart underneath it all (or more accurately, in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a kind heart typically underlies every pony, while most Griffins are fundamentally jerks, Lord Tirek is pure evil, and Starlight Glimmer and Maud Pie actually don't seem to have that fundamental spark of friendship in them. Trixie might, but that's a conversation for another time). That's why the really dark, corruptive stories that Bronies write, the ones where, to quote Pepper Coyote, "somewhere there's a whisper of anger of cruelty plotting its cold victory" feels like a corruption of what I love about the Brony stories in general. And though Waterways is a good story, and in real life there certainly are some 17 year olds who never have a single thought of reconciling with their enemies, I personally find it far more enjoyable to read a story that does have the friendship ideal in it, and at least for me, the inclusion of the selfish, villainous actions by Kory makes me identify with him far less.
And as a final thought, reading about Kory's fight with his Mom makes me grateful how lucky I am to have my Mom. We've gotten into a lot of fights over the years, but through them all was an undercurrent of love on both sides that let us make up afterwards. And now that I’m getting older, the general tide of fights between us have died down as I’ve come to appreciate what such values as honesty, generosity, and kindness actually mean in practice. After listening to Waterways, all I really want to do is go to my Mom, give her a big hug, and just be grateful that never in our lives have we had an argument so violent and disruptive that we cut ties forever.
