American War, by Omar El Akked.

This is a very good novel. Very well written, and thought-provoking.

It is about a war-torn near-future America, where the North and South are at war again, but over the use of fossil fuel. Of course the South was built on oil and gas, and want to keep going with it, in spite of the rising coastlines and the bursting levees of the Mississippi River. The North though, has a lot of new technology in war, and has an advantage.

The story is told by Benjamin Chestnut, about his Aunt Sarat, who fought in the war (for the South), and ultimately destroyed the North after an uneasy truce by carrying a deadly virus into their midst.

The depiction of what a modern war in America might look like was honest and brutal. The North used a lot of drones and bio-warfare, and the South just had their convictions, and just wouldn't stop fighting with small arms, and guerilla warfare, and sending people towards the wall built by the North with bombs strapped to their bodies.

I'm unclear what the overall point of the novel is, but maybe that is the point, is that war loses it's meaning and people sometimes fight for flimsy reasons, like a belief that is outdated, or an idea of who they used to be that is no longer true.

Mostly, the book looks at how people are just ground down by war. How one group of people damage another group of people, so they retaliate, and it carries on, with nothing gained. The book is about understanding where a person begins to hate another group, and how a person starts believing that their side is right, and how hatred and revenge become entrenched. It's about what war does to people, and to nations.

No, this is not a happy-funtime book, but it's good.

Wednesday, February 13

Today I am grateful for:

Having the resources to survive such cold weather. I'm grateful to have a snug home, with heat and water and so on. I'm grateful the goats can shelter in our heated garage. I'm grateful to have hay for my goats and horses. I'm grateful for a good vehicle.

The chance to socialize a bit with a friend of mine. She wanted me to try out a paint class, and it was a disappointment. The instructor asked everyone which painting they'd like to work on, and three people wanted to work on one painting, and I kind of wanted to try a different one, and the instructor said that I could do that one if I wanted to. My friend wanted to try that one too. Then, the instructor proceeded to guide and teach the other three people step by step how to do their painting, and completely ignored my friend and I. Completely. She literally propped a painting book open in front of us with that tutorial and walked away. We could only work in the studio for about two hours, and the instructor was telling us to wrap it up. The painting we chose was fairly complex, and no way could we be done in two hours. She literally said that we could come again next week to finish it if we needed to. That's stupid, because then we wouldn't get to work on whatever was supposed to be the next lesson, so what....we'd pay just to come and sit in her studio again and work on the same painting that she wasn't bothering to even instruct us on? I could have just worked at home for free. At least I have my own acrylics and brushes, and I can finish it on my own.

That it is slightly warmer tonight. Maybe only by a few degrees, but I'm trying to stay positive.