"Space Invaders" by Nona Fernandez

Space Invaders is an odd, little (very little) book. I sort of feel like a kid cheating at a book report project writing about it. That's because the book is short: we're talking only seventy pages, and that's with generous spacing between chapters and sections. For that reason, Space Invaders has more of the feel of a short story. I'm left wanting the larger work--to see how it connects to broader themes--instead of groping around with the little I'm given.

Part of that frustration probably results from my own deficiencies in knowledge. The novel centers on the childhood experiences of a group of students during Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1989 military dictatorship (I looked up that fact in an NPR article on the book, which tells you everything about my lack of knowledge). Throughout the book, the children react to their feelings about Estrella, a peer and daughter of a national police agent (yup, stole that from the article too). From that perspective, the innocent qualities of childhood--crushes, mundane classroom experiences--are contrasted against the political brutality happening outside (though filtering into) the classroom. However, the children's experiences are primarily told through dreams, rather than hard memories, lending an air of mythical uncertainty to the whole experience.

So that's a lot, especially for a calling-it-seventy-pages-really-is-cheating novel. There's also an analogy to the old Space Invaders video game that I didn't quite get. 

I think I need a reread. 

"There There" by Tommy Orange

This year, due to changes because of Covid-19, the school at which I teach has five lunch mods. 5th period--our lunch period--has always been longer than the other six bells to accommodate lunch, and this year it's even longer. Twenty minutes longer each day, to be exact. That means, over the course of a week, I have an hour and forty minutes more with 5th period than my other classes. I teach junior honors both 1st and 5th period, so this discrepancy became an issue. 

I came up with a novel (okay, easy) solution: we'd read in 5th period. I'd always wanted to do independent reading, but I couldn't figure out how to do it authentically in a school where student subterfuge is common. I checked out dozens of high-interest books from the library, and every day, for the last 15 minutes of class, my 5th period walks outside and reads by the baseball field.

I don't really know what my students think about it. They tell me it's "cool," but maybe they just sit there and daydream. I honestly don't care. Want to know what I do? Sit there, soak up the sunshine, and read for pleasure. It's my form of meditation. I'm dreading when it will be too cold to sojourn outside, but I'm taking it while I can.

Which is a needlessly long preamble to say I read There, There in 10- to 15-minute chunks over the course of six weeks or so. It's not an ideal way to read, and my apologies to Orange because I do think it did a disservice to his book, but I'll always remember it nonetheless. 

There There is a compilation of interwoven stories, all about "urban Indians"--that is, Native Americans living in the city, largely around Oakland. The characters in each of the stories weave into each other, all coming together at the end in a large powwow. The biggest downside of reading in small chunks was that I struggled to remember the characters' relationships to each other, especially because the connecting threads are often subtle.

That's a minor issue on my part, though, not a criticism of the book. I hadn't thought about it until I read There There, but I don't think I've ever read a book about modern Native American life that didn't take place on a reservation. Part of Orange's focus is that Native American identity and culture exist throughout America--not just on the reservation. He also considers what it means to be Native American today: some of the characters identify strongly with the label; others are barely aware it's part of their history. Regardless, the characters carry the history--and the baggage--of being Native American, which for many also means generational cycles of poverty and troubles with alcohol, drugs, or violence. 

Throughout the novel, there is a sense of dissonance, of disconnection--from identity, from family, from the outside world. None of the characters seem settled, at ease with where they are in the world, which is perhaps a reflection of America's long-standing tradition of uprooting Native Americans, of forcing them to an ambiguous place in our country.

In the increased focus on people of color this past spring, I realized how erased Native Americans have been. Other than a discussion of racist mascots, Indigenous' people's lives are rarely considered. There There is a glimpse of "urban Indian" life that few white Americans are familiar with, but it's also an unsentimental look at identity and our relationship to the past and present.

"Pew" by Catherine Lacey

I really wanted to like Pew. There's plenty of appeal: small-town secrets, a dash of "The Lottery" horror, a nameless (identity-less) narrator. But Pew is one of those books that only works when there's some sort of payoff, when the time spent feels ultimately meaningful. It's harder to justify the experience when all the ambiguity ends in... gooey ambiguity.

Pew is told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator who is discovered sleeping on a church pew. Though the church members are discomfited by the narrator's lack of clear identity markers (boy or girl? Black or white? young or old?), they decide to take the person in. The church members' "generosity" is pushed, however, as the narrator--whom they name Pew--refuses to speak or divulge any personal information. In the midst of the community's frustrations at Pew and Pew's unwillingness--or inability--to perform an identity, is the upcoming Forgiveness Festival.

There are multiple potential themes running through Pew, none of which quite come together. First, there's the town's uneasiness with Pew's gender ambiguity. It would seem to be a commentary on transgender individuals, but Pew doesn't identify as a person at all. The town is judgmental, but their discomfort with a person who refuses to take any kind of identity seems a pretty human response.

Pew repeatedly insists that their body is just a vessel; that they are not an individual with a past and a future. I could see this being a statement on trauma or perhaps a criticism of our over-individualistic society, but it just makes Pew feel empty as a character.

Pew becomes acquainted with Nolan, a boy adopted by a town family from a war-torn African country. Nolan clearly hates his family, and his family's condescending magnanimity is awful and cringe-worthy, but the ultimate criticism--that small-town, Christian goodness toward the "underprivileged" is often just a new form of Colonialism---doesn't feel especially new.   

Then there's the way in which individuals are prone to confess to Pew. In the absence of an identity, other people can project whatever they like onto Pew. Pew becomes a canvas for others' fears and insecurities. I suppose there's irony that a person in whom everything is hidden becomes a medium by which others' finally feel free to reveal, but, again--to what end?

Then there's the Forgiveness Festival itself, a vaguely referenced and ominous-sounding community event that the entire book leads up to. Given the hints scattered throughout the novel, it's easy to imagine a town from "The Lottery" or Midsommar, but instead the final event seems, well, rather tame. People [spoiler] confess aloud their wrongdoings, all at once... and then have a picnic? There are hints or worse doings (murders by the leaders? I'll confess I didn't follow), but nothing is confirmed. Again, it seems like there's an important theme that's just out of reach. Suggestions that the Festival is used to cover up rape, for example; or that grace-giving "forgiveness" can easily be twisted into harmful "forgetting." All worthwhile to explore, but the end effect is that they're mentioned--and then also forgotten.

The book ends suddenly, and while it feels like an ambiguous ending should feel meaningful, instead, it feels cheap and empty--sort of like Pew