I have been fighting with this blog post for over two weeks. That is not all I have been fighting, but a strict accounting is irrelevant to anything. Suffice it to say the best I can do simply is not enough right at the moment. We all fall into these periods on occasion. Today, I am determined to get at least this one thing done, this one thing outside of my two naps and my radiation session and pulling together adequate nutrition. All of that makes for a rather busy day.
In August I read 13 books. Here is the list:
90. Paul Fussell: Class, A Guide through the American Status System.
91. Victor Krachenko: I Chose Freedom.
92. Sue Monk Kidd: The Book of Longings.
93. David Brooks: Bobos in Paradise.
94. Elizabeth Curid- Halkett: The Sum of Small Things
95. Naomi Hirahara: Summer of the Big Bachi.
96. Ann Cleeves: White Nights.
97. Matt Haig: The Midnight Library.
98. Zora Neale Hurston: Hitting a Straight Lick With A Crooked Stick.
99. David A. Price: Geniuses at War.
100. Nadifa Mohamed: The Fortune Men.
101. James Baldwin: Going to Meet The Man
102. Lucy Foley: The Hunting Party.
The first three books, Class, Bobo in Paradise and The Sum of Small Things were all rereads prompted by a discussion with a friend who was be bemoaning the loss of the class system of her youth. I thought her understandings were somewhat off base, not necessarily completely in regards to the class structure of mid-twentieth century America but to shifts in play since that time. This is irrelevant to our friendship of course, and I was mostly rereading not to continue an argument, but in order to reconsider and refine my own thoughts. I was in the midst of my reading when David Brooks' reconsideration of his own thesis, How the Bobos Broke America came out in the August Atlantic Magazine. The article was promptly shared between one circle of friends and further discussion ensued. I might have been thinking of a blog post, but decided I had little more to contribute on that subject, and I agree with many of Brooks' points. In some ways I think he is kinder to the Bobos, and I say this seeing myself as very much a part of this tribe, than I myself would be. Still, I am glad to have reread and reconsidered.
I read two other non-fiction books. Victor Krachenko was a Soviet Official who defected to the United States in 1944 and later wrote a book, I Chose Freedom about his life in the Soviet Union. I read it because Kravchenko lived through some of the famines and issues discussed in the novel I read in July, Child 44. I believe the book was a best-seller at the time and I can see how the information that Kravchenko revealed about the Soviet Union was new and shocking. Even though we know much more today, I still found the book interesting, and at times surprising, although I was perhaps equally surprised by young Victor's naïveté as by some of the more brutal and calculated abuses. The book was indeed interesting, but not necessarily one of my favorite books. Worth checking out for anyone interested in that particular period/subject.
The other non-fiction book Geniuses at War by David A. Price was indeed fascinating. Price tells the story of the codebreaking efforts that went on at Bletchley Park and the impact these efforts had on the Allies ultimate success in World War II. It is a fascinating book, although at times the reading may be a bit technical for some. Price puts the work of Turing and others into context and tells the story of how Turing's work was leveraged into the world's first digital computer, Collosus, yes, at Bletchley Park. I found it to be a compelling story of brilliant but also flawed people working under incredible pressure, people whose story is not often enough told.
Everything else I read was fiction. I am not going to separate out literary versus commercial fiction as I always struggle with these distinctions. I am interested in what I think is good and what I enjoy, and the categories we create don't often correlate with what survives and what doesn't (most doesn't anyway). Many of what we consider "great" novels today were definitely looked down upon as commercial in their own day. But that is only a small part of why I chafe at these distinctions. But I am too tired to explore this in greater detail, just as I may also be too tired to discuss the books themselves well. Therefore a simple linear accounting will have to suffice.
I loved Sue Monk Kidd's The Book of Longings, which tells the story of Ana, the wife of Jesus. Yes, it is that same Jesus, although Kidd mostly focuses her story peripherally to the one told in the gospels, the story of two people before his ministry began, of Ana's life, lived separately, during the period of ministry. I thought the story was well told, I liked the character development, and that it remained mostly on the fringes of the more famous story. I like that Kidd uses an actual document from the time, one earthed in the Nag Hamadi Library and tells the story of an educated woman who could read and write in a time when we know there were women who were both literate and literary, even if they may not have been common. I thoroughly enjoyed the story.
The Summer of the Big Bachi is a mystery and the first in a series revolving around accidental sleuth Mas Arai. But what I really liked about the novel was the dialogue and dialect, the exploration of a sense of culture and place that is foreign to me. I am not sure the plot is the main draw here; the appeal was of being immersed in another culture and growing to to appreciate someone life might appear to fit expectations in once sense, and yet was completely foreign and more complex than imagined. I grew fond of the old gardener.
White Nights is the second of Ann Cleeves' Shetland Island mysteries, a series I am thoroughly enjoying. Jimmy Perez is really beginning to come into his own, and has much more confidence in himself and control over this investigation than in the first volume. Once again Inspector Taylor from the mainland arrives to lead the investigation, but he quickly becomes rather peripheral to the case. Perez is an astute observer and the story well told. I will be happy to continue this series.
I thought Matt Haig's The Midnight Library was shallow, predictable, done so much better elsewhere. Haig does an adequate job with parallel lives and with exploring the idea that changing one's life, with wishing one had made different decisions only to learn that those decisions had repercussions that were not necessarily what one might have anticipated. Despite this, I felt it lacked depth and characterization, as if it was capitalizing on a particular moment in time, a particular trend, but adding little to the conversation. I found it terribly trite.
Two sets of short stories were both fabulous: Zora Neale Hurston's Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick and James Baldwin's Going to Meet the Man. I never was a reader of short stories; that may be changing. Both collections are a mixed bag; some stories are stronger than others but most of them are also beautifully written and brilliantly astute about human nature. Both writers can shock the reader with the profundity of their insight.
Nadifa Mohamed's novel The Fortune Men is based on the true story of a murder that took place in Cardiff in 1952, a murder in which the wrong man was imprisoned and the true murderer was never found. It is a compelling tale filled with richly drawn and even compassionate characters, with a fabulous sense of place. and the complex relationships of a multiglot society filled with a mingling of races, religions, cultures, and attitudes both old and new. The author captures a sense of community, a sense of hope. The jarring disconnect between the abiding faith many of the African and Caribbean immigrants have in the British system, in its presumed justice, and the endemic fear and racism which still lie beneath the surface still haunts. It is a powerful and moving book, a book that has since made the Booker Prize shortlist. Well recommended.
Lastly, I read Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party. I read this because I had enjoyed Foley's more recent closed-room mystery, The Guest List, and liking the genre, thought I would give this one a try. This one is not quite as tightly developed, but it is still very enjoyable with beautiful writing and astute psychological development.
