As I started to pull this post together in my head, my initial memory of my reading adventures in February was that I did not read much, and that my reading was mostly easy and forgettable. As I compile the list, however, I see that my memories are only partially accurate, that, like so many other things in my life, I move in cycles, cycles of reading and cycles of not reading, and although it was not a month of complex reading, I did not do so badly after all.
First the List:
13. Stuart Woods, Hush Hush.
14. Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race.
15. Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff.
16. D.E. Stevenson, Anna and Her Daughters.
17. Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.
18. Don DeLillo, The Silence.
19. Joe Ide, Righteous.
20. Lydia Millet, A Children's Bible.
As I look at the list now, I see there was light, palette-cleansing, brain-resetting reading -- fun escape reads. I always rate them higher than they deserve on a purely technical level, at least the Stone Barrington novels, based purely on enjoyment. These are fast, flippant reads offering a mindless escape, without placing many demands. I did think Stone showed promise in the early novels; but by volume 56 his appeal is growing tired, the promise of his youth having faded, at least from this reader's perspective. In this volume the violence was more brutal than in the past few years; alas it did not make up for boredom. Joe Ide's IQ novels are new to me and so far I have enjoyed them thoroughly. Isaiah is a fairly complex character, but although the writing still crackles, and Isaiah intrigues, and there are moments that are laugh-out-loud funny, number two is not quite as ridiculously infectious as was the first.
There were books that made me cry and books that made me think, sometimes both in the same book. I thoroughly enjoyed The Silence, far more so than While Noise, which I read in January. Both books are thought provoking, both books are more art than story, and perhaps I enjoyed the second more only because the sardonicism was slightly less pointedly cruel. But that is just me. Frankl made me cry, as did Oluo. So You Want To Talk About Race, reads like a brutally honest conversation with a friend, a book in which Ijeoma Oluo masterfully reigns in rage and emotion without hiding it, allowing it to pierce without explosion. It is, without question, one of the most powerfully mind-altering and moving of the recent crop of books I have read about race. Perhaps my reaction comes from already having read so many other books, perhaps it is just that I am drawn to the act of telling of one's story.
There was a book I intentionally reread, and I am happy to have done so. I listened to The Children's Bible on Audible for my December book club meeting and I was intrigued by the narrative voice enough that I wanted to hold the book in my hand and actually read the words. It is a book that is improved by reading, and a powerful story as well. I know these parents, I know these children, I know this world on the brink of natural disaster. Alas we all do and this future is unsettlingly close. The Children's Bible is a short novel and Millet takes on many broad themes. One might think this would weaken the story, but it does not. The author weaves the story together artfully in a way that makes all this stuff, stuff that we want to ignore and not take seriously, all the more powerful. The flattening of the narrative voice, the easy-breezy social commentary, the exploration of religion, both flippant and childishly serious, are deftly drawn; all are unsettling, and unsettling familiar. I found this to be another book that slips under the skin.
And there were some books that I would not have read. Admittedly I read both books, and they were well enough drawn and the stories compelling enough that I wanted to know what happened next, even if occasionally just barely so. Both were selections for my two very different book clubs. Both, surprisingly, led to significant and interesting discussions in which I was happy to participate. Didn't love the books; did love the discussion. I have read other books by D. E. Stevenson, but long ago, and I cannot say how much my own tastes in reading have evolved over those years, although surely they have. I would say that Anna and Her Daughters was enjoyable enough, but was not her best and there were times when the issues of format and the demands of genre chafed. I found the writing in Eastbound From Flagstaff to be sanctimonious, not to the point that I abandoned the book, although there were moments, but, as I said, I did want to see what happened, and so curiosity won out.
But the simple truth is I could have been just as disappointed in the two suspense/mystery novels that I discussed first as I was in these two, and the novels by both Ide and Woods require significant suspension of disbelief. Perhaps the only difference was in expectation, or my own inner biases. For me I could accept the flippancy, the very over-the-top ridiculousness of Hush-Hush and Righteous over what I perceived as earnestness in both Anna and Her Daughters, and Eastbound from Flagstaff. I do not think it is my place to judge, merely to admit that I am not perhaps the best fit for those books. Romance, crime/mystery, and Christian fiction are the three most profitable fiction genres today and I have read from all of them, perhaps in differing proportions in different stages of my life. At the moment I lean more consistently in one direction but perhaps it would serve me well to explore other genres a bit more fully. Looking at my own choice of words here, "flippancy", "ridiculous", "earnestness" it seems I am looking for something more of a romp, wicked or not, in my escapist fiction, over the treacly or soothing.
That may change next month however.
