A Feminist Life and A Time Travel Novel

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I do like people of all genders, and I don’t like having my brain washed out with soap: I’d rather be clear eyed about my lovely society—but as a long ago college student, a believer in Women’s Liberation, told me, “The truth shall set you free.  But first it will make you miserable.” 

That was in the 1970’s; there were a lot of liberation movements around back then. The Palestinian liberation Organization was everywhere, always leaving their scrawl on college blackboards: PLO.

Meanwhile, a friend recently e-mailed me that my name was in Goodreads, that I had a page with that web community of readers. “I do?” I had forgotten, because I only signed up to support an e-friend. Now I have two fresh book reviews with Good Reads,  although my Good Reads home page still shows me as not having written any reviews. Hey, nobody ever said computers were easy. Well, nobody except a few computer nerds, oblivious to we mortals who say, “I need an eight year old to program my VCR.”

The first book I reviewed, of nonfiction memoir-essays, is now on the store shelves; someone told me it’s well known—and I just heard her being interviewed on CBC radio yesterday, July 3rd. The second book, a novel, is a few years old. 

Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart

by

Jen Sookfong Lee

I will let other Goodreads reviewers delve into the details. What I want to say is this book is good feminism, like back in my day. Very involving and readable.

Modern feminism seems to be made for the ivory tower, with long multi-clause sentences in long paragraphs about abstractions. But in my day, feminism was not abstract, but personal, like how Jen Sookfong Lee writes very personally about her life. The world she describes may not be the official world of society, and not true for me, but it is what she sees, and true for her.

I am reminded of how early feminists met in “consciousness raising” circles to share, safe from being told they were crazy to see their world.

I very much like how, instead of a chronological “chapters,”, she presents “essays” that still cover her life but give me a chance to pause and think, more than I would at the end of a memoir chapter. Maybe her essays are the most she can share at this point in time, and therefore more honest.

… …

The Future of Another Timeline

by

Annalee Newitz

As best I recall, the first book about an organized group for time traveling, in a secret arctic army project, was published in the late 1950’s. Andre Norton’s The Time Traders. 

In one scene two traders, suitably disguised with bronze age furs, meet a healer lady who tells them of Mother Earth versus the new male gods.

Certain things, such as a downgrading of women by males, are timeless: A fellow who recently transitioned to a “she” discovered that she wasn’t listened to as much at her corporate office job as she would have been before her transition. Not news to any feminist.

In The Future of Another Timeline (Not ours!) there is some disguising when they Travel. The heroes are women, and one of them uses the pronoun “they.” The ladies are a secret group within the Time community, and when they meet, using a circle, they each start by saying, “I remember…”

I can relate: Today I suddenly remembered that Martin Luther King had survived that day he was shot in Memphis, had gone on to become a respected American icon, as the TV crawling bottom words said “King welcomed in Berlin.” How disappointing that no, they only meant that new King who lives in London. That’s the sort of sad thing the ladies face. To them, Harriet Tubman was a senator.

The ladies need their sharing circle—Like a 1970’s consciousness raising circle—because when the Timeline changes, only someone who was in the past at the time, upon returning to the present, can see any difference. Well. Something is Going Wrong, and the ladies discover Orwellian changes. They try to find out who is doing such things, and why.

I was delighted by the feminism, by the Chicago World’s Fair with the first belly dancers, and by the alternating chapters about teenagers in the early 1990’s—who love punk rock. And like the pioneer belly dancers, the teens question conformity. Each chapter is clearly dated as to time, place and viewpoint character. I loved how the rules of Time Travel are weaved into the story, such as: You can’t use the travel portal unless you have lived nearby for four years. The hero who uses the northern Canada portal into the 1800’s (the only one in North America) has to canoe south for two weeks before finding other transport to Chicago.

I recommend the book. The nonfiction side of me loved the boring part at the back, which most people won’t read: seven pages of Historical Sources, explaining why the popular Tubman was not a senator in our own Time Stream.

That obscure section ended with:

“I remember a world where abortion was legal in my country. I hope you do too.”

… …

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Sean Crawford

Calgary

July

2023

Reminder: Books often have a wikipedia page.