Sometimes life just gets the better of us, despite all of our good intentions, despite all our efforts to bear up and soldier on, and sometimes there is no recourse, or perhaps no healthy recourse, other than to allow oneself to be caught in the tide, washing up wherever one will.
November was, in many ways, a difficult month. During that last 10 days or so of radiation therapy I was just done, mentally exhausted perhaps more even than physically exhausted. Although I had allowed myself to be sick, allowed myself to stay in bed as needed, allowed myself to shirk responsibility, I hadn't really allowed myself the option of wallowing, of hosting my own private pity party, of tossing myself headlong into escapism and grief. And then November hit.
As you may recall, I ended October with a novel in Fern Michaels' Sisterhood series. I went on to open November with a binge-read, finishing the first nine novels in the series over the course of twelve or so days. When I wasn't reading I wasn't doing much else either, other than flouncing about or hiding in bed. I have no real regrets about that; I needed to allow ennui full access, allowing it to simply run its course and die from exhaustion.
In fact, were I not so generally listless and in need of escape, I might not have enjoyed these books as much as I did. Michaels is a story-teller, not a writer, and the novels very much follow a simple formula. This is the crime; this is the punishment; how does one then make the story work. As I mentioned before, this is pure simple escapist and revenge fantasy and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. They read like a literary equivalent of a Lifetime movie. I would want to say Hallmark, but they get perhaps a little too gritty on the revenge side for that, at least in some of the volumes. There is no nuance, no sophistication, no real character development, and yet they were exactly the escapist distraction I needed.
119. Fern Michaels: Weekend Warriors
120. Fern Michaels: Payback.
121. Fern Michaels: Vendetta
122. Fern Michaels: The Jury.
124. Fern Michaels: Sweet Revenge
125. Fern Michaels: Lethal Justice
126. Fern Michaels: Free Fall.
127. Fern Michaels: Hide and Seek.
128. Fern Michaels: Hokus Pokus.
If you were observant, you may have noticed a gap.
Somewhere in the middle of that list, about the time of my last treatment, of ringing the bell, of celebrating the joy of finally being done, I threw myself into a literary novel, and a very good one at that. It didn't hold, that focus, and I was back to fantasy fiction before I knew it, but enough of that.
123. Richard Powers: Bewilderment. I found this slim novel entrancing, moving, powerful, provocative, and bewildering. I intend all of that in the very best way, but it also may have been slightly more than I was ready to deal with at the time. It is the story of Thomas, an astrobiologist, who is raising his nine-year old son, Robin, following the death of his wife some years previously; but the novel is both more and less than one particular story line. Thomas is thinly drawn, often rather one-dimensional, and also far too clueless, even for a trope. Sometimes too much weight is placed on Robin, not that children can't be wise beyond their years, or fragile in ways that we, as adults have long forgotten. But the story is deeply affecting and even the sometime glib characterizations play an important role in this. It is the story of a family struggling; it is a story of a struggling earth and the damage mankind is inflicting on it; it is a story of scientific ethics; it is an overtly political novel; it is an overtly humanistic novel. In short it is a short novel that can be read on many levels in many ways, and that will both entrance some, myself included, and annoy others.
I found the tile of Bewilderment entirely apt. Mostly it is exactly that, the story of our own bewilderment. Thomas is a bewildered single father, struggling to deal with the needs of his son in the face of the expectations of society, neither of which he fully grasps; he is a man most comfortable with his science. Robin is a child probably somewhere on the spectrum, but his father wishes to avoid labels and drugs. Robin is preternaturally bright, a trait inherited from both of his parents, and emotionally unstable. He is bewildered by humanity, by the learned behavior humanity embraces, especially as this behavior appears contradictory to the natural world Robin so keenly observes. Bewilderment is also portrayed in the glimpses we are given of the life of the mother, Alyssa, (A - Lyssa, or not-fractious) who fights against the destruction of the natural world and yet struggles to contain her own emotions and anger at said destruction. Robin is very much the blossoming of the union of Thomas and Alyssa, neither of whom fit into the world completely, into something new -- a new beginning, which alas does not survive the bewilderment of the world into which it is born. I do believe there is a lesson in this, as well as the most telling lesson in this book, which is not the bewilderment of the primary characters, or the bewilderment of the natural world, which is ongoing, but the bewilderment of humanity at its own destructive tendencies. In this novel the complacency, ignorance, and willful blindness are their own kind of bewilderment, a bewilderment of unseen consequences. What choice does one make when the alternatives are bewilderment or retreat into a comforting complacency? Do we chose bewilderment? Or would we rather be comfortably numb? Can we learn? Or is it already too late? Will we change, or will we retreat into our own solace, our own grief, our own bubbles? There are no real answers here, but despite all the big questions, there is quite a bit of humanity.
129. Heather Busch's Why Cats Paint. This slim art book proved to be a humorous romp. Yes, it is a book for cat lovers. Yes it is about cats making messes with paint, as well as making messes with other things. It is a brilliant satire of both the culture of cat lovers and the elitism of the art wold. A good reminder not to take oneself too seriously.
Having gotten all that out of my system, my reading settled down. Here is the remainder of the list.
130. Booker T. Washington: Up from Slavery.
131. Maggie O'Farrell: Hamnet.
132. Hillary Rodham Clinton: State of Terror.
133. Tommy Orange: There, There
134. W.E.B. DuBois: The Souls of Black Folk.
Although they are not sequential on the list, I am going to discuss Up From Slavery and The Souls of Black Folk together primarily because they have formed their own conversation in my thoughts. I had heard of both authors of course but do not believe I had read either. They should both be part of some essential syllabus that is required reading for what it means to be educated in America, along with the writings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In fact, I wish I had read them as a teenager, when I was reading both of the latter. But I also realize that both men, Washington, and DuBois, write in ways that are not really accessible to teenagers today, and that we do not really teach historical context, historicity, or train young people in how ideas change and evolve, and how our own thoughts are changed by shifting tides of ideas and events that often really have little to do with the original context facing the writer of the words themselves. I suppose I continue to hold onto the hope that such a world is possible.
I found both books fascinating and equally valid but quite different. DuBois does not agree with Washington's stance. I am not certain Washington would have agreed with DuBois, but that is not the point. I am also not convinced that Washington was an "Uncle Tom" and although I know what the term means, I also struggle with the idea that the Uncle Tom most of us know is the one portrayed in movies and on television, and that Uncle Tom is but a shadow of the original Uncle Tom as he was written. Dismissing Washington as an Uncle Tom, the idea of the Uncle Tom itself, is a fiction, a trope for a two dimensional world that refuses to acknowledge nuance, or reality. It is simpler, but not true.
But I have wandered into the weeds. Both works are shocking at times; both are moving, often most moving when talking, almost off-handedly, of deeply personal things. Both writers are most revealing when they are also the most oblique, when they hint at the vastness of things not said. DuBois' essays are meticulously argued, but it is the poetry of the personal stories that resonate. One cannot understand where we were without reading both, just as you cannot understand where we are now without also reading MLK and Malcolm X.
And then back to fiction, my comfort zone.
Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet has resided on my shelves since its initial publication and I am only now getting to it. Once I started I wondered why I had put it off so long. This is fine historical fiction. Set in Stratford in the late 16th Century it is the story of the young William Shakespeare, although he is actually never named here, his wife, Anne Hathaway, and the loss of their son, Hamnet. Hamnet was apparently another spelling of the name Hamlet, which I knew; my early English literature training coming to the fore here. In so many ways our obsession with proper spelling of names is such a modern thing. O'Farrell imagines Hathaway as a strong, resourceful, fierce and creative young woman, the kind of young woman to which an observant and poetic young man might be drawn. The setting is convincing, the story as well, and the author ties in the few known facts about Shakespeare's personal life into the story in convincing, if not always historically accurate, ways. Anne and Will never really overcome the rift created between them over Hamnet's death, although the drift was already present. It was always evident that young Will's imaginings that he would take his wife to London were at odds with everything we were shown about her character; as well as many of the realities of life in 16th century England. This did not surprise me, knowing that it was not unusual for families to stay behind, and I was grateful that O'Farrell did not fall into the modern assumption that Hathaway was a shrew simply because she stayed in Stratford. But more than just a beautiful and heart-warming story, Hamnet is also an exploration of loss and the transformative origins and consolations of art.
Next I read the new Louise Penny/Hillary Clinton political thriller, State of Terror, and I actually enjoyed it more than I anticipated. It is a well-crafted political thriller and it read like a good mix of the two authors voices. I am not certain I am happy about some of the connections made with Penny's Three Pines characters, I suppose these had to be added in to satisfy Penny's fans. There is also a lot of sarcasm and political pay-back, which I did expect, and although some of it bordered on off-putting, generally the story got moving quickly enough that one just let it slip. It always seems to me that a fair amount of suspension of disbelief is required in these novels anyway. It was a gripping read that I didn't really want to put down. Although I suspect that the political machinations and insights are not as off-base as my heart would prefer, I did find it lacking in the empathetic insights of Penny's Three Pines voice. This was no cozy mystery. The ending left open the possibility of another novel, but I am not certain I would follow through, even if the authors do.
Lastly, I read There, There by Tommy Orange. This was a novel that completely surprised me. I don't remember why I put it on my library hold list, a recommendation from a friend probably, but I absolutely loved it. The opening chapter is explosively passionate and I was completely captured by the voice, by the changing voices, by the palpable anger and confusion and even poetry of emotion and loss. This novel is told from the point of view of several characters, telling stories that initially seem disconnected but eventually come together to form a complexly woven whole. Sometimes the transition between the stories seemed choppy; sometimes the stories seemed incomplete, and I cannot say it was the easiest read, but I gradually came to recognize that this was intentional, a part of the story itself. There is some confusion around the timeline just as there is confusion in the characters understanding of themselves, their place in society, and their own history -- the very state of existence known as Native American.
The title of the novel is taken from a famous quote by Gertrude Stein, about Oakland, where the novel mostly takes place, when she stated that there was no "there, there" meaning the Oakland of her childhood was no longer evident in the 'there' of contemporary Oakland. Of course this is always the case for all of us, but in this novel that meaning is even more profound as the characters are trying to reconcile the "there" of their modern lives in Oakland with an almost mythological "there" of their heritage, something to which many of the characters have no knowledge or palpable connection, other than the fact that they are judged for being Native American and they yearn for some defining story to make sense of their lives. This is an incredibly powerful novel, filled with raw emotion. Orange captures the feelings of these characters so that something of each of them and their struggles sneak under the skin of the reader. Never have I read anything so powerfully soul-wrenching about the experience of alcoholism, or being a child born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Never have I felt such raw yearning. I can't say it was a favorite book because it was too shocking to be so classified; but I will certainly look for future work from this author, and my view of the world will never be the same.
