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readallthenewberys2017-09-04 06:36 pm
justice_turtle) wrote in readallthenewberys2017-09-04 06:36 pm
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Newbery Medal: Dobry (Monica Shannon)
The trouble with good books is that you finish them, and then you have to read other books. ;P Oh well, once more into the breach...
* Art by Atanas Katchamakoff. Incredibly weird art -- I swear to god I cannot interpret the endpapers as depicting anything other than people with super-stylized birds' heads. O_O
* We have a map of Bulgaria, showing where it sits in relation to Greece (it's northeast of Greece), Romania, the Black Sea, and so forth. I deduce that our story is set in Bulgaria.
* Dobry is excited about the first snow. He's a little boy, sounds about five, may wind up being anywhere from five to fifteen -- I do not trust Newbery authors to write kids accurately. ;P Dobry's grandfather is cranky about the snow being super early because his bones ache.
* ...I would not want a massage from a bear, but apparently Dobry's grandfather does. There's a group of Roma who travel with a trained "massaging bear" and Dobry's grandfather is cranky that they didn't arrive before the snow.
* Grandfather delivers a brief speech about the importance of being a special snowflake. I swear to god, I can't make this shit up. "No two things are exactly alike. In odd days like these -- snow comes too early, the g***y bear too late -- people study how to be all alike instead of how to be as different as they really are."
* Then Grandfather sits down by the fireplace, which is called a "jamal"; it has fancy tiles and a curved hood, and Grandfather exposits about what a good jamal it is and how only Maestro Kolu from Macedonia knows how to make such a good one.
* Dobry's mother, Roda, tells Dobry to go to bed. Instead, Dobry turns the conversation to tomatoes; apparently Grandfather "alone of all the villagers" knows a secret way to weave the tomato stalks together so that they protect the fruit from snow and act like a refrigerator. Then Grandfather plays the flute and Dobry dances, until Roda scolds them both and tells Dobry again to go to bed.
* Dobry goes to bed and asks the moon why it always follows him around staring. Then he goes out in the night, fetches a sackful of tomatoes, and eats "his share" in bed.
* The next morning, Dobry has a tummyache. His mother puts hot loaves of fresh bread on his stomach, and after a nap he feels better.
* When Grandfather comes in from bringing in the harvest (which is thankfully not ruined by the early snow), he tells Dobry a story about how God made people -- first giants that were too big, and then dwarfs that were too small, and then human-size people that were just right.
* The next day the storks fly south. We hear briefly about how the cowherd's father is a "Pomak, a Bulgarian who had turned Mohammedan to please the Turks", and how they're the only Muslim family in the village and thus outsiders to an extent.
* Then the whole village comes and strings the red peppers Dobry's grandfather has grown. "Everybody is invited to come today and string what peppers they need for the winter," Roda says, conveniently ignoring my questions about how payment is arranged.
* An orphan girl named Neda is one of the visitors. It's noted how her blue eyes and light brown hair make her prettier than the dark villagers. ;P She's about Dobry's age, so I call love interest. o_O
* There is wine and singing, and Dobry and Neda go out to do the chores, and Dobry gives Neda a fresh egg to have for breakfast and promises to build her a fancy kite like no one in the village has seen before.
* Another day, Grandfather takes Dobry and Neda to the flour mill. The cart is pulled by "buffaloes"; if these are supposed to be European bison, this story must take place sometime in the 19th century at latest, since wild populations of European bison in Bulgaria were extinct by the 20th century. *perplexed*
* They meet the cowherd, and we get the astonishing narratorial line "looking at the grandfather with the questioning wonder everybody feels when he sees a really living person who warms other people with that spark of God he always keeps burning in himself." :D I have no bloody idea what I'm reading here, but so far it's weirdly entertaining.
* In the mill-town, they meet the traveling Roma tinker, and Dobry and Neda stop to help him polish the townspeople's copper pots while Grandfather takes the grain to the mill.
* It's after sunset by the time they get to the mill. Lots and lots and lots of descriptions of everything. The miller's wife gives them supper, then Dobry and Neda lie down on flour sacks to go to sleep, while a Grandfather tells another story to all the villagers who have come to have their wheat ground.
* This story tells of a raider, the "Black Arab", who conquered twenty-seven villages and made the peasants in all the villages afraid to go outdoors. One brave and strong villager, Hadutzi-dare, takes his cart and drives through all twenty-seven villages to the valley of the Black Arab. There's a lot of mythic language about how they fight and how Hadutzi-dare wins the battle.
* When they get back with the flour, there's a whole long flashback about how they plowed and planted and the whole process of growing the wheat.
* The next day, Dobry makes a stork-shaped kite for Neda, and Grandfather tells "The Poplar Tree Story", which is about how Dobry's father had to make the same wheat-grinding trip when Dobry was being born, and how in his hurry to get back he pulled off a branch of a poplar tree to hit the cart-pulling buffaloes and make them run, and how he stuck the branch deep into the ground and it took root and grew big and healthy just as Dobry grew big and healthy.
* Oh, they're water buffaloes! I had no idea those were a thing in Eastern Europe. O_O
* Dobry's father died in "the war". If this is supposed to be a contemporary book, and if the war referenced is World War I, Dobry would have to be in his late teens, so I'm still confused as to when it's supposed to be.
* Dobry is drawing pictures of the rooster and the oxen and all sorts of things. His mother is deeply perplexed by this, but hopes he'll grow out of it. Oh look, it's like halfway through the book and we approach something that might loosely be called plot! ;S
* Okay, Neda's father is the shoemaker, just her mother is dead.
* The massaging-bear arrives on Saturday, and the whole village is festive and makes music and everyone is excited.
* Oh, I see, the trained bear walks up and down people's backs to "massage" them. That's... slightly less terrifying than him doing it with his hand-paws.
* "For four summers now Dobry had looked after the village cows"... okay, so however old he is, he's not five. ^_^
* Unless he was five and we just had a time-jump. It's not clear. Anyway, Dobry watches the cows to earn money for drawing supplies.
* One day Neda comes up the mountain to have lunch with Dobry. They chatter about various things, including how silly it is that people in other countries nod their heads for "yes" and shake them for "no", opposite to the way it's traditionally done in Bulgaria. They don't sound much older, but that doesn't mean anything.
* Yeah, Roda is saying to Grandfather that Dobry is a "big strapping boy" now and should be getting over his fascination with drawing. Grandfather, of course, being wiser than the foolish woman, expounds on how Dobry needs to draw and will become a great man. He also notes that the shoemaker has a crush on Roda, but Roda isn't interested in remarrying.
* Dobry is now carving as well as drawing. Maestro Kolu, the jamal builder, comes through town and sees a carving Dobry is making. He compliments it, shows Dobry where to find clay for sculpting, and says Dobry should go away to study art because he's so talented. He also points out that Dobry's in love with Neda -- called it -- though Dobry ignores this.
* Dobry keeps carving and sculpting all through the summer and fall, as well as hanging out with Neda watching the cows and her goats.
* In winter, they have the "Snow-Melting Games", which is an event where all the adult men lie down in the snow and try to melt their way through the fastest with their body heat. Grandfather wins; Dobry is not old enough to enter.
* Afterward, Grandfather tells "The Story of the Betrothal Feast". There are two brothers, one the strongest man in the world, the other the handsomest. A rich man has a daughter, beautiful and wise. The rich man wants his daughter to marry the stronger of the two brothers; she wants to marry the handsome one, so she comes up with a test that involves not eating for three days, which the strong one fails and the handsome one succeeds at.
* On Christmas Eve, Dobry finds the lucky coin in the loaf of bread. Grandfather takes the opportunity to tell the shoemaker he's too careful and that's why he never has any luck. This is a weird book.
* Dobry and Neda go to midnight mass, and Dobry tells Neda that because he found the lucky coin, he knows she loves him and doesn't have to ask. It's not clear how Neda feels about that.
* Dobry builds a hill of snow in the courtyard and carves a snow Nativity scene out of it. The narrator tells us "Only youth could have brought the freshness Dobry brought to his Nativity, and only a primitive genius, Indian or a peasant like Dobry, could have modeled these figures with strength, assurance, sincerity -- untaught in any school." I'm not good at words about art, but I feel like this sentence is weirdly othering. I don't like it.
* Anyway, the snow nativity has Grandfather as Joseph, Neda as Mary, Dobry's water buffalo as the oxen, and Nedra's goat instead of the donkey.
* Everybody comes to see the snow sculpture. Roda is so struck by its beauty that she immediately tells Grandfather he was right about wanting Dobry to study art. When Neda comes, Dobry tells her "You are my Mary", which honestly bothers the hell out of me, because the implications of that are not at all what I think the author meant!!! *makes indistinct noises about the Perpetual Virginity and how if you're writing Catholics you should bloody well write Catholics*
(I'm also easily creeped out by people who compare women to Mary the mother of Jesus, because my sperm donor went through an incredibly creepy phase where he kept telling my bio-incubator that this other woman was more like Mary than she was... o_O)
* Ahem. Anyway. Then it is New Year's and everybody in the village gives presents to the people younger than them. Roda gives Dobry all the gold coins off her wedding dress to pay his way to artist school, which REALLY bothers the hell out of me because I have a vague notion that those coins are supposed to be the bride's dowry or somehow handed down through the family. Maybe I'm confused with another culture, but I'm weirded out.
* Dobry has carved Neda a pair of made-up animals out of the wood of the dran bush, which is used in New Year's celebrations, and he tells a story of how they're the animals Noah left behind.
* Maybe it's just me being aro, but seriously, I am unconvinced by the way Dobry and Neda talk to each other. Neda worries that if Dobry goes off to art school he won't come back, and Dobry says of course he'll have to come back for their betrothal feast and then their wedding. I haven't heard Neda say a word yet about her side of this, and Dobry hasn't asked her anything either, just told her. *pulls hair confusedly*
* Semo the schoolmaster tries to tell Dobry that his mother's "handful of wedding coins" won't be enough to put him through art school, but Dobry pooh-poohs the notion, saying "Every Mama in the village has a wedding dress heavy with coins." Oh, and I suppose they'll all give them to you just because you're so special, boy? Bankrupt the entire bloody village, will you? What a fuckwad! :P Neda, run now and don't look back.
* Dobry also plans to "dive for the golden cross", an annual event. Apparently the boys dive under the river ice and try to come back up with a golden crucifix that has been dropped in; the winner receives all the money the villagers can give. Since it's a cold winter, Dobry is the only one who tries, and he succeeds easily. "The basket was immediately liked up with golden coins old Mamas had ripped from there wedding dresses..." I am really very disturbed for the daughters of the village. How is anybody supposed to get married if all their wedding jewelry has gone to put Dobry through art school?
* The massaging bear comes back in the spring to test the river water and verify it warm enough to swim in, at which point everyone in the village can take the first bath of the year. The next day, Dobry will leave for the capital city of Sofia to go to art school.
* Seriously unimpressed by Dobry's and Nedra's weird goodbyes. If I didn't know that they were supposed to be in love, nothing they say in this last scene would make any sense at all.
* Art by Atanas Katchamakoff. Incredibly weird art -- I swear to god I cannot interpret the endpapers as depicting anything other than people with super-stylized birds' heads. O_O
* We have a map of Bulgaria, showing where it sits in relation to Greece (it's northeast of Greece), Romania, the Black Sea, and so forth. I deduce that our story is set in Bulgaria.
* Dobry is excited about the first snow. He's a little boy, sounds about five, may wind up being anywhere from five to fifteen -- I do not trust Newbery authors to write kids accurately. ;P Dobry's grandfather is cranky about the snow being super early because his bones ache.
* ...I would not want a massage from a bear, but apparently Dobry's grandfather does. There's a group of Roma who travel with a trained "massaging bear" and Dobry's grandfather is cranky that they didn't arrive before the snow.
* Grandfather delivers a brief speech about the importance of being a special snowflake. I swear to god, I can't make this shit up. "No two things are exactly alike. In odd days like these -- snow comes too early, the g***y bear too late -- people study how to be all alike instead of how to be as different as they really are."
* Then Grandfather sits down by the fireplace, which is called a "jamal"; it has fancy tiles and a curved hood, and Grandfather exposits about what a good jamal it is and how only Maestro Kolu from Macedonia knows how to make such a good one.
* Dobry's mother, Roda, tells Dobry to go to bed. Instead, Dobry turns the conversation to tomatoes; apparently Grandfather "alone of all the villagers" knows a secret way to weave the tomato stalks together so that they protect the fruit from snow and act like a refrigerator. Then Grandfather plays the flute and Dobry dances, until Roda scolds them both and tells Dobry again to go to bed.
* Dobry goes to bed and asks the moon why it always follows him around staring. Then he goes out in the night, fetches a sackful of tomatoes, and eats "his share" in bed.
* The next morning, Dobry has a tummyache. His mother puts hot loaves of fresh bread on his stomach, and after a nap he feels better.
* When Grandfather comes in from bringing in the harvest (which is thankfully not ruined by the early snow), he tells Dobry a story about how God made people -- first giants that were too big, and then dwarfs that were too small, and then human-size people that were just right.
* The next day the storks fly south. We hear briefly about how the cowherd's father is a "Pomak, a Bulgarian who had turned Mohammedan to please the Turks", and how they're the only Muslim family in the village and thus outsiders to an extent.
* Then the whole village comes and strings the red peppers Dobry's grandfather has grown. "Everybody is invited to come today and string what peppers they need for the winter," Roda says, conveniently ignoring my questions about how payment is arranged.
* An orphan girl named Neda is one of the visitors. It's noted how her blue eyes and light brown hair make her prettier than the dark villagers. ;P She's about Dobry's age, so I call love interest. o_O
* There is wine and singing, and Dobry and Neda go out to do the chores, and Dobry gives Neda a fresh egg to have for breakfast and promises to build her a fancy kite like no one in the village has seen before.
* Another day, Grandfather takes Dobry and Neda to the flour mill. The cart is pulled by "buffaloes"; if these are supposed to be European bison, this story must take place sometime in the 19th century at latest, since wild populations of European bison in Bulgaria were extinct by the 20th century. *perplexed*
* They meet the cowherd, and we get the astonishing narratorial line "looking at the grandfather with the questioning wonder everybody feels when he sees a really living person who warms other people with that spark of God he always keeps burning in himself." :D I have no bloody idea what I'm reading here, but so far it's weirdly entertaining.
* In the mill-town, they meet the traveling Roma tinker, and Dobry and Neda stop to help him polish the townspeople's copper pots while Grandfather takes the grain to the mill.
* It's after sunset by the time they get to the mill. Lots and lots and lots of descriptions of everything. The miller's wife gives them supper, then Dobry and Neda lie down on flour sacks to go to sleep, while a Grandfather tells another story to all the villagers who have come to have their wheat ground.
* This story tells of a raider, the "Black Arab", who conquered twenty-seven villages and made the peasants in all the villages afraid to go outdoors. One brave and strong villager, Hadutzi-dare, takes his cart and drives through all twenty-seven villages to the valley of the Black Arab. There's a lot of mythic language about how they fight and how Hadutzi-dare wins the battle.
* When they get back with the flour, there's a whole long flashback about how they plowed and planted and the whole process of growing the wheat.
* The next day, Dobry makes a stork-shaped kite for Neda, and Grandfather tells "The Poplar Tree Story", which is about how Dobry's father had to make the same wheat-grinding trip when Dobry was being born, and how in his hurry to get back he pulled off a branch of a poplar tree to hit the cart-pulling buffaloes and make them run, and how he stuck the branch deep into the ground and it took root and grew big and healthy just as Dobry grew big and healthy.
* Oh, they're water buffaloes! I had no idea those were a thing in Eastern Europe. O_O
* Dobry's father died in "the war". If this is supposed to be a contemporary book, and if the war referenced is World War I, Dobry would have to be in his late teens, so I'm still confused as to when it's supposed to be.
* Dobry is drawing pictures of the rooster and the oxen and all sorts of things. His mother is deeply perplexed by this, but hopes he'll grow out of it. Oh look, it's like halfway through the book and we approach something that might loosely be called plot! ;S
* Okay, Neda's father is the shoemaker, just her mother is dead.
* The massaging-bear arrives on Saturday, and the whole village is festive and makes music and everyone is excited.
* Oh, I see, the trained bear walks up and down people's backs to "massage" them. That's... slightly less terrifying than him doing it with his hand-paws.
* "For four summers now Dobry had looked after the village cows"... okay, so however old he is, he's not five. ^_^
* Unless he was five and we just had a time-jump. It's not clear. Anyway, Dobry watches the cows to earn money for drawing supplies.
* One day Neda comes up the mountain to have lunch with Dobry. They chatter about various things, including how silly it is that people in other countries nod their heads for "yes" and shake them for "no", opposite to the way it's traditionally done in Bulgaria. They don't sound much older, but that doesn't mean anything.
* Yeah, Roda is saying to Grandfather that Dobry is a "big strapping boy" now and should be getting over his fascination with drawing. Grandfather, of course, being wiser than the foolish woman, expounds on how Dobry needs to draw and will become a great man. He also notes that the shoemaker has a crush on Roda, but Roda isn't interested in remarrying.
* Dobry is now carving as well as drawing. Maestro Kolu, the jamal builder, comes through town and sees a carving Dobry is making. He compliments it, shows Dobry where to find clay for sculpting, and says Dobry should go away to study art because he's so talented. He also points out that Dobry's in love with Neda -- called it -- though Dobry ignores this.
* Dobry keeps carving and sculpting all through the summer and fall, as well as hanging out with Neda watching the cows and her goats.
* In winter, they have the "Snow-Melting Games", which is an event where all the adult men lie down in the snow and try to melt their way through the fastest with their body heat. Grandfather wins; Dobry is not old enough to enter.
* Afterward, Grandfather tells "The Story of the Betrothal Feast". There are two brothers, one the strongest man in the world, the other the handsomest. A rich man has a daughter, beautiful and wise. The rich man wants his daughter to marry the stronger of the two brothers; she wants to marry the handsome one, so she comes up with a test that involves not eating for three days, which the strong one fails and the handsome one succeeds at.
* On Christmas Eve, Dobry finds the lucky coin in the loaf of bread. Grandfather takes the opportunity to tell the shoemaker he's too careful and that's why he never has any luck. This is a weird book.
* Dobry and Neda go to midnight mass, and Dobry tells Neda that because he found the lucky coin, he knows she loves him and doesn't have to ask. It's not clear how Neda feels about that.
* Dobry builds a hill of snow in the courtyard and carves a snow Nativity scene out of it. The narrator tells us "Only youth could have brought the freshness Dobry brought to his Nativity, and only a primitive genius, Indian or a peasant like Dobry, could have modeled these figures with strength, assurance, sincerity -- untaught in any school." I'm not good at words about art, but I feel like this sentence is weirdly othering. I don't like it.
* Anyway, the snow nativity has Grandfather as Joseph, Neda as Mary, Dobry's water buffalo as the oxen, and Nedra's goat instead of the donkey.
* Everybody comes to see the snow sculpture. Roda is so struck by its beauty that she immediately tells Grandfather he was right about wanting Dobry to study art. When Neda comes, Dobry tells her "You are my Mary", which honestly bothers the hell out of me, because the implications of that are not at all what I think the author meant!!! *makes indistinct noises about the Perpetual Virginity and how if you're writing Catholics you should bloody well write Catholics*
(I'm also easily creeped out by people who compare women to Mary the mother of Jesus, because my sperm donor went through an incredibly creepy phase where he kept telling my bio-incubator that this other woman was more like Mary than she was... o_O)
* Ahem. Anyway. Then it is New Year's and everybody in the village gives presents to the people younger than them. Roda gives Dobry all the gold coins off her wedding dress to pay his way to artist school, which REALLY bothers the hell out of me because I have a vague notion that those coins are supposed to be the bride's dowry or somehow handed down through the family. Maybe I'm confused with another culture, but I'm weirded out.
* Dobry has carved Neda a pair of made-up animals out of the wood of the dran bush, which is used in New Year's celebrations, and he tells a story of how they're the animals Noah left behind.
* Maybe it's just me being aro, but seriously, I am unconvinced by the way Dobry and Neda talk to each other. Neda worries that if Dobry goes off to art school he won't come back, and Dobry says of course he'll have to come back for their betrothal feast and then their wedding. I haven't heard Neda say a word yet about her side of this, and Dobry hasn't asked her anything either, just told her. *pulls hair confusedly*
* Semo the schoolmaster tries to tell Dobry that his mother's "handful of wedding coins" won't be enough to put him through art school, but Dobry pooh-poohs the notion, saying "Every Mama in the village has a wedding dress heavy with coins." Oh, and I suppose they'll all give them to you just because you're so special, boy? Bankrupt the entire bloody village, will you? What a fuckwad! :P Neda, run now and don't look back.
* Dobry also plans to "dive for the golden cross", an annual event. Apparently the boys dive under the river ice and try to come back up with a golden crucifix that has been dropped in; the winner receives all the money the villagers can give. Since it's a cold winter, Dobry is the only one who tries, and he succeeds easily. "The basket was immediately liked up with golden coins old Mamas had ripped from there wedding dresses..." I am really very disturbed for the daughters of the village. How is anybody supposed to get married if all their wedding jewelry has gone to put Dobry through art school?
* The massaging bear comes back in the spring to test the river water and verify it warm enough to swim in, at which point everyone in the village can take the first bath of the year. The next day, Dobry will leave for the capital city of Sofia to go to art school.
* Seriously unimpressed by Dobry's and Nedra's weird goodbyes. If I didn't know that they were supposed to be in love, nothing they say in this last scene would make any sense at all.
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