I cannot claim that there has been any rhyme or reason to the patterns of my reading, aside, perhaps from the vagueries of my position on the local library hold list. In fact every book but one was a digital library loan. Nor can I claim that it has been the most successful month of reading, but I finished every book I started, and every book contributed to the wandering paths of my thoughts, even when I felt the books themselves were somewhat unsuccessful or “not my cup of tea”.
The timing of the first two books were simply due to the timing of library hold list availability and although they were good reads, I found them more intellectually entertaining than actually satisfying. I had requested Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain in the late spring or early summer, and I was apparently not the only person to think it was a good book to reread in a time of pandemic. Rereading it for the first time since I was in high school, I found that although I still enjoyed the book and found it somewhat intellectually satisfying, my tastes and expectations have changed over the ensuing decades. The complete absence of plot felt more obvious now, but I enjoyed tracing out the threads of real and fake science (as noted in my journal entry above). The dryness of the prose amplified the sense of tension, and this is a novel all about the tension involved in battling a plague as well as about the strengths and weaknesses of humans and their approach to what is known as well as unknown. Crichton’s prose improved after this book, but The Andromeda Strain still felt relevant enough to make it worth a few hours diversion. I doubt I will read it again, although it may be worth picking up again in another forty-some-odd years, if I am still here and reading.
From Crichton, I moved on to Alex Pavesi’s murder mystery The Eighth Detective which is part homage to the golden age of detective novels of the 20th century and part a combination of literary and mathematical puzzle. Unfortuantely, although I initially found the novel smart and clever, I also felt frustrated with an ending, which felt impatient, arbitrary and unrelated to the initial conceit, as if the narrator had grown tired of untangling a knot of threads and simply cut them off, tying on new threads at random, and then, as if by happenstance, coming to the solution of the puzzle. I am torn between thinking of this merely as a flaw specific to this narrative and considering it as reflective of the differences in the world today as compared to the world of the 1920s.
Next I picked up No Time to Spare, a collection of blog posts by Ursula K. LeGuin, written when she was in her 80s. LeGuin’s writing has always fed my love of metaphor and challenged my way of thinking. These short essays are no different, be they sublime mediations on aging, the idea of spare time, or explorations of the mundane. Each is great reading, pithy and on point without being mawkishly sentimental (as I myself tend to be). I had neglected LeGuin as an essayist. Further exploration may be needed.
Two new novels followed, wildly different. Jenny Offill’s abstract and metaphysical novel Weather seemed to capture a sense of increasing paranoia and dread that I see all around me in friends and acquaintances. I found it to be both profoundly unsettling and simultaneously incredibly warm: a novel suffused with an understanding of what it is to be human, to balance hope and fear, of that rather complex dance that is parenthood, family, and love as experienced in the world. The novel will not be to many people’s taste, as Offill is relentless in her rejection of plot and her exploration of the emotional weight of language and form, but it is very rewarding for those who are willing to trace out the distinct thread of this narrative.
Whereas, although I adored Weather and could not put it down, I struggled with the reading of Isabel Allende’s new novel A Long Petal of the Sea, even though the latter will be to more reader’s tastes. Allende attempts to give us an epic story following two people as they meet during the Spanish Civil war, emigrate to Chile, and eventually live through and survive another round of profound political and cultural changes. The problem is perhaps a problem of scale. There is just too much here, the parallels between the two countries, and in fact contemporary America, are too immediate and too emotional to contain. I felt the transitions between time and place did not work, the story was jerky, and too often the book defaulted to expositions on history rather than the human details. There is a lot of good material for a stunning novel here, but for this reader, it just did not come together. I did not grow to care for the characters, who seemed little more than pawns through which to explore history. Although there was quite a bit of history in the novel, it did not work as an exploration of history any more than it worked as a novel. A missed opportunity.
The Meals in Jars Handbook was something I picked up on a whim for $1.00. It appealed after another trip to the grocery store where I saw empty aisles and my own return to interest in pantry-building after months of denuded grocery shelves. Admittedly the title also reminded me of the various packages of freeze-dried food my parents would take on camping trips when I was a child. The book was written for a specific brand of foods, but many recipes can be adapted. I am not a prepper, have no interest in becoming one, and decided that the book was of more sociological than practical interest. Although creating my own pantry still appeals, dehydrated food for long storage is not a priority.
I then jumped into reading Curtis Sittenfield’s rather polarizing novel Rodham. I found it problematic, and although I thought the first half of the book was more successful than the second, I also thought the character portrait was rather flat. The author was apparently attempting to explore the tension between the public and private lives of Hillary Clinton but the characterization never quite came to life. This Hillary was two dimensional and profoundly inconsistent, in a way that struck me as unlikely, as if the author was attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to bridge two rather stereotypical views of womanhood and femininity. I found the ending to be a disappointment — pure white feminist wish-fulfillment fantasy. However, I will admit that I finished the book and I am glad I read it, mostly because it sparked warm feelings for the women who recommended it to me
As a bit of a palate-cleanser, I picked up and reread one of Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr series, The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian. I love the witty conversations, the gentle and sometimes not so gentle satire, the entertaining and often twisted plots, the occasional ridiculousness. There is nothing deep here, just light-hearted fun and the books always hold my interest and leave me smiling.
Then I went into a deep dive into Brandon Taylor’s novel Real Life. I was completely drawn into this seemingly autobiographical story of a gay black graduate student in a midwestern university. The main character, Wallace, and I have nothing in common, and yet, having read his story, I feel I will never be the same. The author states that he did not write this book “for the white gaze”, and yet it is perhaps exactly for this reason that I find it so powerful, as it resonates deeply even with this white woman. I also admit that there was much soul searching to come of out this book as Wallace attempts to negotiate his life among a group of friends who probably believe themselves to be sincere but who are in fact incredibly clueless about their own implicit racism and the burden of expectation and denial they impose on him. Through Wallace’s struggle I was able to see myself in a different light. I am sad for my younger self, who I am certain was not then, and is not still, more enlightened. I am sad for this world, and determined to change. If only the world will allow me that opportunity. This is a powerful and emotional book, which I am already convinced I need to read again.
Anne Tyler’s novel Redhead By The Side Of The Road is a short sweet novel about boringly normal people, the kind of novel at which the author excels. I always enjoy reading Tyler’s novels even though they do not leave me pondering the meaning of life. Rather they seem to capture something essential about the wonder of the everyday. Not surprisingly, this is a charming novel, a novel filled with kindness, humanity and compassion, something that seems far to often lost. It was the perfect, hopeful, novel to read after Real Life and before The Shadow King.
I finished the month with Maaze Mengiste’s epic novel about war, about memory, about history and the toll of history on the lives of people who live through it, the very people who make the progression of history possible, but who are subsequently forgotten. I am writing about The Shadow King, which I found to be absolutely brilliant, moving, and very much a novel that I could not put down. I found this book powerful precisely because of the way the author played with language and punctuation, the non-linear nature of the writing, the way the story is told through a pastiche of events as recorded in memory, the memory of one individual, prompted by a series of photographs. This is not a big, heroic tale of war. Rather it is a novel of the experience of war, and it is most powerful in the way it focuses on memory, on specific events as experienced by individuals. Much is obscured; much is revealed. Much of the book is brutal; it is not always an easy read. These characters, on both sides, are profoundly human, profoundly complex, and not at all either good or evil, merely complex emotional beings in difficult times, struggling with their own wants and needs, struggling with their own place. The lyrical writing adds power and depth but also makes for a slow read; the format both adds richness and complicates the flow in its almost operatic scope and the way the author borrows heavily from classical Greek literature. This is not a novel to gallop through, but a novel that reveals itself in haunting ways, if one gives it the chance.
And there you have it, a month in books. Too many books for a single post, but I don’t really yet know how, or even if, I am going to continue writing about books. I do know that I want to read more physical books. I lost the battle with the digital loan list in October and I need to learn to manage that a little better. But then, it seems like my whole life is a search for balance, a balance I skirt around but never quite achieve. I am okay with that.
