"Even imperfect things can be precious, after all. The choice itself is precious. The smallness and largeness of an individual life does not change the fundamental honor and value of every manifestation of our personhood."
I felt, overall, like I was searching for something in this book that I never did quite find. I'm not sure how to describe it. Maybe whatever it is can be summed up with the question, "So, does turning into a dragon dissolve notions of classism?" There are other -isms I could then go on to ask about, but this one became central as the story moved into its third act and dragons became a sort of economic entity. There might be an existing term or literary device for it, but When Women Were Dragons has what I call an "interest in a larger hand." That is, the idea that some larger hand will come in and fix the world is what the story pivots on. It's not a bad pivot in and of itself, but it always raises the question, "Do we trust that the larger hand won't harm us?" This brings me back to my -isms question. Do dragons defy classism? Capitalism? There are references to dragons being part of the Civil Rights Movement and marching with organizers. Do no dragons march on the side of white supremacy? If not, why not when they seem to still apply themselves to other systems (beauty standards, ideas of "usefulness" in a social-capital sense) that existed in their previous lives? Are dragons just too "nice" to be racist but not nice enough to disrupt economies (outside of warring states, I guess)?
As an aside, the scientific understanding of dragoning develops throughout the book, but I had my teeth clenched until I got to the first mention of transwomen. There were a few other mentions of trans dragons throughout the book, but it was few enough that it looks like some reviewers missed them or forgot about them entirely. More than a token mention was in order, I think. Maybe the main character's prom date could've dragoned.
This book creates a bedrock. A workable one, I think. One that allows a questioning premise. But I wanted it to go further. No, I believe it should have gone further. It loses a lot by lacking what I would consider core intersectionality.
☆ ★ ☆
I did read King Lear and rather enjoyed it. I prefer Kurosawa's treatment of the Fool, though haha. I started reading Heartstopper without knowing much about it besides "queer high schoolers, has a TV show." I got through the first volume before realizing it is, in fact, an ongoing webcomic, and I don't have to wait several weeks for the next volume to become available to keep reading rofl so I've been reading that. Just today I checked out Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz. I read a sample of it a while ago now and was highly intrigued. We'll see how it goes? 'Til next time emotion_yatta
