Book Review - Know My Name

 Know My Name: A Memoir

By Channel Miller

Rating - 5/5

Channel Miller was sexually assaulted within the Stanford campus by Brock Turner in 2015. She was saved by two Swedish bicyclist who saw the assault happening and intervened and apprehended the perpetrator. She was lying unconscious and had no memory of the incident. The trial started after a year and in the end Brock Turner was found guilty and sent to prison for 6 months. At the sentencing hearing, Channel Miller read out a letter which was addressed to Brock. This letter was later published by Buzzfeed and it became insanely viral. 

(If you have not read the letter, please do so now)

For the duration of trial, for roughly about 4 years post the incident, the identity of the rape victim was not disclosed. It was known as Emily Doe.  Post the rape, Channel went through trauma, lost her job,  felt anger, betrayed, blamed herself, and then managed to find her strength through her persistence. She also had a strong flair for narration, and was able to put down the impact of the impact in the viral letter. 

In this book, she decides to name herself. She shares her journey of coping up with the incident, taking us through the challenges faced by her, her support system in terms of family and friends, her attempts to cope, to go to therapy and transformation from Emily Doe to the confidence that she is able to name herself. 

The book also covers the aftermath of the trial - the judge was later suspended. It covers the role of Stanford administration, or the lack of it. The book also covers how her note became hope to hundreds, to thousands. How it was quoted by Hillary Clinton in her speech, how it was read in senate. It also brings to the current politics of Donald Trump and Brett Kavenaugh hearings. 

But above all, the book is her memoir to deal with all of things happening. What Channel has done is, miraculously, is to provide voice to the thousands of sexual assault victims and their ordeals. She has shown a mirror to the society. 

Brock Turner was a olympic level swimmer, with potential and a lot of folks had inputs on how one incident should not define him. But this one incident had defined Channel's life but that did not matter. 

““The judge had given Brock something that would never be extended to me: empathy. My pain was never more valuable than his potential.””

"Most of us understand that your future is not promised to you. It is constructed day by day, through the choices you make. Your future is earned, little by little, through hard work and action. If you don’t act accordingly, that dream dissolves.”

“They seemed angry that I’d made myself vulnerable, more than the fact that he’d acted on my vulnerability.”

“In fact I need you to know it was all true. The friendly guy who helps you move and assists senior citizens in the pool is the same guy who assaulted me. One person can be capable of both. Society often fails to wrap its head around the fact that these truths often coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. Bad qualities can hide inside a good person. That's the terrifying part.”

I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm. Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.”

I cried several times while reading this book. I felt her pain. I felt the slow grinding of the legal system. I saw the victim shaming, her struggles, the helplessness of her family. Her overcoming of her grief, using her voice to channel the rage, coming to terms that she has to speak up. Her immigrant background, her mother's and grandmother's grit that she inherited, her moral compass to do the right thing. Her love for all good things, her gratitude to the Swedes, her love, her fight. The book is fascinating 

Book Review - The Shadow of the Wind

The Shadow of the Wind (Cemetery of forgotten books #1) 

By Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Translated by Lucia Graves

When I read the first few pages of TSOTW, I thought that the book is yet to start. I am just reading an introduction here, on how the author got into writing. It starts with a first person account and the name of the narrator comes little late. The pages were immersive, vivid, It felt real. When the story kept on going, I thought to myself - how long is this introduction chapter. I looked at my Kindle to confirm this, only to realize that the novel has started. 

It hit me. My first reaction was - wow the writing is so good! Kudos to Carlos Ruiz Zafon and also to the translator Lucia Graves for this.

TSOTW follows a story within a story format. Told in first person, our narrator has found an obscure book, loved it so much that he is intrigued, and wants to know more about the book's author. It is his journey to find the author, and in the process, he traces the author's journey. His own journey and the author's journey has some similarities. The journey arcs unfold by various characters, and it is interesting how many characters are related to each other. 

The book is a fantastic read. It is a page turner. The pacing is great, characters are likable, a lot of suspense and the book takes time to reveal each mystery. But then the mystery is revealed, it leads to few closures but also adds more to the intrigue. There is no murder, yet this is a thriller novel,. There is no ghost, yet the book has shades of horror. There is no detective, yet this is a mystery novel

It is originally written in Spanish. I stumbled onto this as I was looking for a good gothic fiction to read. Gothic fiction that is not YA. TSOTW was recommended in few blogs and it being of non-English origin, I picked it up. I am thankful to have done so. 

Rating - 4/5 

TV Series review - Andor

 Andor

Created by Tony Gilroy

This review has spoilers 

Andor is all about the rebellion of Star Wars. It is the best thing to come out of the Star Wars universe. It is Star Wars without the force. When you remove the Force, then there is no Jedi, no Vader, no Sith, it is now all about an emperor who is tyrannical and about citizens who are rebelling against the tyranny. It is now a story of every fascist regime, every dictatorial govt, a story of ordinary people rising up and asking for their rights. 

Andor takes us behind the scenes. How does Tyranny work? In season 2, the whole Ghorman saga covers propaganda, manufacturing dissent, raw use of power to suppress free speech, oppression, and the greater-good.  Behind the emperor, at a planet level, at a city level, there are ordinary citizens who are following orders and participating in the tyranny with their free will and believing the BS that is fed to them. 

Andor takes us behind the scenes of how a rebellion works? How recruitment works, how planning is done, how they get money, who are these people and what drives them? How well known folks are taking risks to fund the rebellion.  When ordinary folks rise up against the tyranny, you know it is less to do with the hatred against the evil, but more to do with the love of their closed ones. 

Andor talks about sacrifice. 

Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I've given up all chance at inner peace. I've made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there's only one conclusion: I'm damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they've set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my, what is my sacrifice? I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them.

I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!

Look at the writing above. Look at the writing of the Nemik's manifesto above. Andor is a writer's show. It is at par with Sorkin's TWW.  While the acting, direction, story is great, the writing and the set-design including costumes, is at another level. The sets and costumes transport you to the galaxy, to different planets and make them believable. It is stylish.

But the writing is just another level. Let me share another example, this is the Mon's speech in the penultimate episode. 

Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries. I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I’ve spent my life in this chamber. I came here as a child. And as I look around now, I realize I have almost no memories that pre-date my arrival and few bonds of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct. This chamber is a cauldron of opinions and we’ve certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come. I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber’s hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza. What took place yesterday… what happened yesterday on Ghorman was unprovoked genocide! Yes! Genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest? The monster we’ve helped create? The monster who will come for us all soon enough is Emperor Palpatine!

The other thing that is unique and great to Andor is that it is prequel to the movie Rogue One. The movie came out before the TV series. So, in a way, you know the final chapter of Andor's journey. So, when season 2 ends, its ends hit harder. Rogue one was in-turn prequel to the original Star wars trilogy. But, once I have seen Andor, all Star Wars movie feel gimmicky. The movies do not acknowledge how the rebellion started, and it gives importance to people who can leverage the Force. But, the real heroes of the rebellion are the ordinary people. Nemik's manifesto gives voice to those nameless and the faceless. 

The TV series format also allows us to spend longer with these folks, that also goes to Andor's favor. 

One of the reasons why Andor is also so popular is how much closely it resembles our current times. While the emperor is fascisct, the tyranny is carried out by ordinary people. In Andor, this means that a junior officer is recruited to infiltrate and spread the wrong information to rebels. But he feels that he is doing the right thing. This junior officer's realization that his service, which is his life, has been a lie is done masterfully. This junior officer's superior (Dedra) is the architect to sow dissent. She ends up in prison because of her own arrogance. To demonstrate her bravado, she tries to capture a key rebel enemy solo, this mission ends up in failure and she is put in prison with the allegation that she was colluding with the rebels. Dedra's superior is shown to kill himself because of his failure to spot/remove the rebels. Dedra's superior's superior is killed by the same weapon (Death Star) that he helped create. The people who work for the empire are not happy, living and doing under fear, and eventually, all pay the price of understanding that the regime is not on their side. The empire does not care about its citizens, and they are also eventually citizens. If you compare this to what is happening in the political ecosystem, how many of Donald's supporters are getting prosecuted, the resemblance is uncanny. Andor came before this. It still resonates because the story of dictatorial regimes are similar everywhere. The template is same. History is merely repeating itself. 

I have now seen Season 1 once and Season 2 twice. But, I have appetite for rewatch, multiple re-watches. The show is cult!