2021: Year in Review

I need to give myself some props--I read 40 books this year! That exceeds my 2013 (pre-kids!) total. I also wrote about quite a few of the books I read, though you can see the start of the school year destroyed that streak (and drastically reduced my reading too). 

1. Irresistible by Adam Alter
2. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
3. Slaughterhouse-Five, a graphic novel adaptation by Kurt Vonnegut, Ryan North, and Albert Monteys
4. The Best of Me by David Sedaris
5. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
6. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
7. A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
8. Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
9. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
10. The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams
11. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
12. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
13. News of the World by Paulette Jiles
14. The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
15. A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies
16. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
17. Imitations by Zadie Smith
18. Consent by Vanessa Springora
19. Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion
20. Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
21. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
22. Nick by Michael Farris Smith
23. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
24. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
25. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
26. Cosmogony by Lucy Ives
27. The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
28. The Doctors Blackwell by Janice Nimura
29. Memorial by Bryan Washington
30. Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
31. The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
32. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
33. The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
34. No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
35. Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
36. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
37. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
38. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
39. Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
40. When We Cease to Understand the World by Bejamin Labatut

About 60% of the books were written by women, and a third were written by writers of color. Eight were nonfiction, and though most were published in 2020 or 2021, I read several old classics (hello 1851 with Moby Dick!).

Fortunately I liked quite a lot of the books I read! Moby Dick and Mrs. Dalloway were challenging but worth it. Butler's science-fiction is enthralling. Found myself carried away by some strong contemporary writers: Ferrante, Rooney, Lockwood. The enjoyment I got out of Saunders' book-as-college-class suggests I really would appreciate going back to school. I loved Green's Anthropocene Reviewed so much I wrote my own essay in the same style (and had my students do so too!).

"The Other Black Girl," "The Chosen and the Beautiful," "No One Is Talking About This," and "Remote Control"

I'm horribly behind in reviews. I suppose with school starting and feeling anxious about sort of everything, I haven't been able to muster the intellectual gumption necessary to write even a bland review. It's a shame because I've read a couple good ones recently! My last four books:

• The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
• The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
• No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
• Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

First, the less-than-thrilling:

The Chosen and the Beautiful was my second foray into Gatsby fanfic. It was far superior to Nick, mostly because it openly acknowledges The Great Gatsby as its source material, but it also didn't amount to much. Sure, it was neat to have Jordan as the narrator, and I liked the idea of complicating her identity by making her a bisexual Vietnamese adoptee, but in the end Vo's revisionist take didn't seem to have anything new to say. And the demon blood and magic felt like unnecessary distractions.

Nnedi's Remote Control had some promise, but its brevity--at somewhere around 150 pages, short even for a regular novel--really felt a deficit in a science-fiction book. There was too much unanswered and undeveloped in the world building and character building.

The quite good:

The Other Black Girl takes on the traditional mystery genre, but wraps it up in some sharp commentary about race. It follows Nella, the only Black employee at Wagner book publishing. When Hazel, another Black woman, is hired, Nella is excited to have a comrade in her wearying attempts to challenge entrenched racism and microaggressions at the publisher. However, soon after she gets a threatening note to "Leave Wagner"... and everything spirals from there. The novel captures the paranoia of a good thriller, enhanced by Nella's feelings of isolation from her white co-workers. Her struggle to be heard and believed is not just a convention of the genre but a reflection of the challenge of Black employees in white-dominated spaces. I've read complaints about the sci-fi twist at the end, but I found it fitting within the larger commentary.

Most recently I read Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This. Apparently Lockwood is somewhat famous as a poet/social media presence, but I'd never heard of her, which let me go into the book a clean slate. The first half of the book follows the thoughts of a social media influencer, made famous for the absurdist Tweet "can a dog be twins?" She's ambivalent about her attachment to "the portal," as she calls it, aware of its pull and the ephemeral nature of internet fame. Even though my social media presence is light--I scroll Facebook more than I should but almost never post--I was constantly chuckling at moments of recognition, at how astutely Lockwood understands the absurdity of our attachment. Half way through, the narrator is confronted by a family tragedy, and the real world invades her focus on the internet. It could easily have been an "internet-crazed young person learns the importance of family" kind of novel, but Lockwood avoids such easy answers. The narrator is moved by the physicality of her experience, but the internet also remains a place of solace. The book is sharp and definitely has me wanting to read more from Lockwood.

"The Plot" by Jean Hanff Korelitz

I’ve written before about the downside of choosing many of my reads from lists of prestigious literary award-winners or high-brow book reviews. I end up reading a lot of important, thoughtful, and beautiful literature, but it’s often not fun. Not that great literature has to be boring or depressing, but there’s usually a heaviness in subject or prose that can make the reading feel a bit like work. And I like to work for my literature, but I’m realizing that I don’t like to work all the time. Korelitz’s The Plot is an engrossing mystery/thriller about the motivations, justifications, and perils of writers. Most readers (myself included) will probably see the plot twists early, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the ride, even the stereotypical hackneyed ending. Despite some of the more overdone contrivances of the mystery genre, the book also raises plenty of issues of “ownership” in an age of over-sharing—when do we have the right to tell someone else’s story?

"Black Buck" by Mateo Askaripour

The jacket blurb says that Black Buck is for "fans of Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street," which is to say the novel is about the insanity of high-power sales and its intersection with race. The novel centers on Darren, who's working at Starbucks despite graduating valedictorian of his class and possessing potential for greater things. One day, on a whim, he convinces a regular customer to buy a different drink. The customer, Rhett, is so impressed with Darren's sales skills that he convinces Darren to come work for his company Sumwun. Darren is renamed "Buck" and racially hazed, but the adversity strengthens him and he eventually saves Sumwun through a disaster. I haven't seen more than 15 minutes of Wolf of Wall Street, but I think it follows somewhat from there: meteoric rise, lots of drugs and partying, bad decision-making, alienation of old friends and family. Then Darren decides the key to saving Black people (and other people of color) is teaching them sales.

I'm somewhat ambivalent about the novel. There's certainly some on-point racial satire, particularly around the way Buck's co-workers' surface-level geniality masks underlying prejudice. The book as a whole, though, feels so extreme that it's hard to get invested. Part of that extreme comes from the hyper-emphasis on sales as the end-all-be-all of life (the book is even framed as a "manual" for readers to learn sales). Part of the problem with Sumwun is its single-minded belief in the importance of its work. As if selling more subscriptions for teletherapy makes any actual difference in the world. Now, this is a problem in corporate business in general--the intensity of the work giving the illusion that the work is meaningful--but the book doesn't do much to dispel the myth. It also suggests sales is the solution for all problems. Darren teaches a few people sales over a couple days and--voila--they're successfully hired in business. It ignores all the gatekeepers--college degrees, internships, etc.--and suggests success is simply a result of tenacity.

And that's the biggest issue I had with the novel. Sure, it's quite aware of racism in American, but its counter to that is to revert back to a straightforward American Dream ideal. In the world of Black Buck, sales success is a result (solely) of bravado. And how do you learn bravado? You do crazy stunts like walk pass police drinking open beer cans and then run away. By that logic, teenage boys should be the most successful humans on the planet. Or, you demean and abuse people, and "what doesn't kill them makes them stronger." Uh... I certainly agree that confidence, swagger, and the knowledge of how to persuade another person are incredibly useful skills. But the book rarely teaches how to actually learn those skills. Instead, Darren takes a group out to an expensive dinner and then they skip the bill. They make a limited attempt to persuade the waiter that they shouldn't pay, then run away. How is that teaching sales? How does that make the group anything but jerks?

Darren's inconsistencies as a character and the convoluted ending also dampened my spirits for the novel. The book is so extreme that I think it shines less light on race and the business world than it could have.

"Memorial" by Bryan Washington

Memorial tells the story of gay couple, Ben and Mike, in a relationship that's on the brink of crumbling. Yet at the moment when their relationship seems at an end, Mike leaves their home in Texas for Japan, to be with his estranged dying father. Ben remains in Texas, suddenly roommates with Mike's mother, who's recently arrived from Japan. The book is told first in Ben's perspective, and then the same time period is told from Mike's perspective. The portrait that emerges is of two young men struggling with trauma from their families, who are unable to communicate, especially with the people they love the most.

Both Ben and Mike have casual, free-flowing voices. There's a lot to unpack in their identities, their relationships with others, their sense of purpose. I enjoyed the book, but the characters' inability to communicate could sometimes be frustrating. At times it felt like the dialogue was all subtext--a series of vague, "deep"-sounding non-statements, to the point where I had no idea what the tacit meaning was.

Still, it was a book with characters and relationships that go outside the norm that I read about. The voices felt authentic and nuanced. 

"The Doctors Blackwell" by Janice P. Nimura

I have a vague memory from elementary school that concerns me making Elizabeth Blackwell’s head out of a pumpkin. Not jack-o-lantern style, but painted, with a neat bun made out of gray yarn. I have to imagine a written report accompanied my creation, so presumably I learned that Blackwell was America’s first female medical doctor (M.D.). Like most people, that fact represented the entirety of my knowledge of the medical pioneer.

Nimura’s book complicates the basic fact of Blackwell’s fame, beginning with the title itself: The Doctors Blackwell. The pluralization of the profession reflects that the book is not just about Elizabeth, but also about her younger sister Emily, who followed in Elizabeth’s footsteps by also acquiring her M.D. and becoming her medical partner.

Nonetheless, the book is still largely Elizabeth's story, and Nimura seeks to paint a complex portrait of the doctor. Elizabeth did much good both by establishing hospitals for the indigent and, with Emily, opening a women’s medical college. But none of her actions were motivated by benevolence or altruism. She opened a hospital because she could get funding by the state and could not get work as a private physician. She opened the women’s college because the few women’s medical schools that existed were inferior, and she could not get qualified female doctors to work for her hospital. Elizabeth became a doctor to earn society’s—and men’s—respect. According to Nimura's portrait, Elizabeth was an idealist, not a pragmatist interested in the day-to-day work of caring for sick human bodies. She was ambitious, arrogant, and disdainful of others, just like so many male icons of history. She matched their bravado and found success—and censure—because of it. Ultimately, it was Emily who did much of the real physician work, including running the women's college for decades.

Aside from the sisters' fascinating history, one of the truths the book exposed for me is how misleading it is to focus on “firsts,” as doing so suggests a finality of accomplishment—in particular, overcoming discrimination—rather than a lifetime of struggle. For Elizabeth, acquiring the M.D. itself was, relatively speaking, easy. At the time, there were no admission requirements for medical school (beyond the ability to pay for it). Instruction consisted of two 16-week terms of (identical) lectures and examinations. There was no practical experience or continuing training. In that way, medical schools did little to actually train doctors. The male student body of the Geneva College of Medicine only agreed to admit Elizabeth because it seemed funny, a lark. But earning the M.D. did not clear the way for Elizabeth—she fought her entire life, often unsuccessfully, for the access, respect, and funding her male colleagues enjoyed. Even worse, her graduation did not clear the way for future female physicians either. Admitting one woman to medical school might be a publicity-earning novelty, but no male schools were ready to truly open to women. In fact, many—including Geneva—passed rules barring future women from entering. Emily’s first medical school barred women after Emily had completed her first year.

Sexism shaped every part of the Blackwells’ lives, and the book focuses especially on Elizabeth’s and Emily’s decisions not to marry. We know that many of their literary contemporaries—Louisa May Alcott, the Bronte sisters, Emily Dickinson, etc—were unmarried, and the Blackwells consciously chose the same. At the time, a woman’s success was completely incompatible with marriage, particularly since limited access to contraception meant a married woman would likely be burdened with children.

Interestingly, though the Blackwells’ time intersects with the burgeoning women’s rights movement, Elizabeth and Emily were somewhat skeptical. Elizabeth, in particular, looked down on most women, whom she found stupid, lazy, and silly. She blamed the women themselves—not men—for failing to rise from their station.

Ultimately, there was so much I found fascinating about the story. The Doctors Blackwell even reflects the Blackwells' time at an interesting point in medical history, a time before most modern advances or even basic hygiene practices, where physicians were as likely to do harm as do good. Doctors had to weigh what they were taught with their own experiences and observations in an attempt to do the most good.

In the end, the book paints a complicated picture of the Blackwells, of medicine, and of women's rights. I'd recommend.

"The Committed" by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Committed is a sequel to Nguyen's The Sympathizer, which follows the previous book's protagonist after his experience--okay, torture--at a communist "reeducation" camp at the hands of his "blood brother," Man. Now living in Paris with the third "blood brother," Bon, the protagonist is psychologically tortured by a number of things: 

1. The lies he's told Bon
2. The people he murdered while a communist spy
3. His "bastard" heritage as the son of Vietnamese woman and a French priest
4. His love for his mother and his self-aware objectification of all other women
5. Colonialism and the persistent racism as a result

And when I say "tortured," these five items are almost all he thinks about, except for occasional intrusions to get high or drunk and consider the drug-dealing business he's now a part of (including his ambivalence about supporting capitalism, given that he's nominally still communist). There's both power and tedium in the fact that the narrator waxes, ad nauseum, about these items. For example, we know that racism didn't end with slavery, and that racism today is not a result only of actions in the past but persistent racism today. The protagonist emphasizes that the same is true of colonialism. France's complicated and violent interactions with Vietnam (and other countries) didn't end with the end of colonialism, and even Vietnamese living in France as French citizens are still living with perpetual racism. There's power in the protagonist's recognition--and eventual exploitation--of these truths, but there's also the sense that the novel could have been trimmed without losing the message.

In fact, every one of the protagonist's revelations is repeated so often--and in such detail--that they begin to feel tiresome. Then again, perhaps that's part of the point. Racism is ever-present for those experiencing it but something to be addressed only when "convenient" when part of the privileged group. The idea is reinforced with the protagonist's perpetuation of sexism. There's a great line from Bo Burnham that goes something like, "self-awareness absolves you of nothing," which applies. The protagonist realizes he has used women as sex objects, but he doesn't stop doing so. In his final interaction with a woman, he can only focus on her partially-addressed (and very sexy [eye roll]) appearance, not her intelligence and power.

Nguyen is an engaging writer, and I eagerly followed the protagonist's desperate attempts to survive in a world so complicated there's no clear way out. Its stark depiction of the continuing harm of colonialism also serves as a reminder that racism is a multi-faceted, world-wide issue.

"Cosmogony" by Lucy Ives

I'm embarrassed to say this will be a short review, not because there's so little to say about Ives' Cosmogony, but because I have no idea what to say or how to frame it coherently. In that way Ives' short story collection is akin to Haruki Murakami's collections, though perhaps even more inscrutable.

What can I even attempt? Ives' protagonists are mostly women, slightly unhinged. They appear to operate within the normal world, yet their thought processes indicate a mind driven by OCD-like obsessions with finding order and understanding in incomprehensible world. There's a lot of metacognition, of protagonists explaining themselves to the reader--as if talking over nonsense directly makes nonsense any clearer. "Nonsense" isn't even the right word. The protagonists have theories of the world that feel sort of correct yet fail to be logical in any way.

I think my favorite story--the only one I can describe with any clarity--is a dialogue between two women. It's stripped bare of any context or description. Instead, the reader simply gets the back and forth as the two women discuss one of the women's ex-husbands and try to theorize about human behavior. It's funny, as the conversation shifts from the profound to the mundane, the insightful to the petty.

Cosmogony is not a collection for everyone. Plenty of people will hate it, and even those who like it (myself included) will probably be mostly confused. But sometimes that's a sort of worthwhile ride anyway.

"My Brilliant Friend" by Elena Ferrante

In reading about The Lying Life of Adults, I heard about Ferrante's acclaimed "Neapolitan quartet," which begins with My Brilliant Friend. After reading MBF, there's no doubt the books share the same author. They both are set near Naples, neither with modern settings (though MBF is set in the 1950s and Lying Life in the 1990s). They both address the confusing stage of female adolescence, as relationships with peers--and potential romantic partners--take primacy over family relationships. More narrowly, both novels focus intently on class manifestations, particularly through language (speaking in dialect vs. formal Italian), education, and careers. Even more than the thematic connections, they share a certain haziness and uncertainty. Their characters are childishly selfish and self-centered. They have some understandings of the world around them--but only enough to be confused about everything else.

The primary difference between Lying Life and MBF is the social class on which Ferrante focuses. Lying Life's protagonist Giovanna is upper class; her father is a respected intellectual, and her education is assured. On the other hand, the protagonist of MBF, Elena, and her best friend, Lila, come from poor, working class families. The fact that Elena goes on to attend middle school--and eventually high school--is rare for her neighborhood. Giovanna could afford to be consumed by self-doubt, the uncertainties of relationships. Elena and Lila have the same adolescent concerns, but theirs are also tied to concerns about status, prospects, and--of course--money.

Elena and Lila's relationship forms the central focus of the novel. Lila is brilliant, arrogant, an undeniable force. Elena is intelligent and determined, but she's motivated primarily by attempts to match Lila. Through a series of events, Elena's the one who continues her education while Lila chooses to marry the local grocer--an increase in her social status--at sixteen.

There's an enormous cast of characters for the tiny neighborhood in which the novel is set, yet the effect is overall claustrophobic. For all their hopes and desires, the inhabitants of the neighborhood are mostly destined to remain where they were born. Attempts to break free--such as Lila and her brother Rino's work to develop new, fashionable shoes--seem doomed to fail. Elena learns that for all her atypical academic success, she doesn't even attend a very good high school. Her parents rely on her former teacher to supply books. Ferrante centers an inevitability about class that fuels the frustration, anger, and rage of many of its characters.

As an American, one of the most interesting elements of the novel was the distinction between dialect and formal Italian, a distinction that doesn't exist in American English (of course, all Americans can differentiate a "hick" dialect from formal standard English, but each would be understandable to the other). In My Brilliant Friend, knowledge and comfort with formal Italian is a way not only of demonstrating linguistic superiority, but intellectual superiority. Elena says her philosophical meditations on the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost simply can't happen in dialect. When Elena starts dating Antonio, a construction worker, she looks down on his lack of knowledge of formal Italian. In that way, the language furthers that sense of class inevitability. At least Gatsby could sound upper class. For most of these characters, their dialect is yet another tether keeping them poor and enclosed.

I'll certainly continue the quartet at some point, though I'll need a momentary break from angst in Naples. 

"Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah

I first read Born a Crime about a year ago, but I've assigned it as summer reading for next year's AP class, so I decided a reread was in order. This time I listened to it on audiobook (I actually had to check out a booklet of CDs from the library, which seemed quaint), and I'd highly recommend that medium. As a comedian, Trevor Noah obviously has strong delivery, but since so much of his memoir is about language, the book is especially served by hearing Noah perform the various African languages and dialects himself.

Born a Crime is not a great book, at least not in the traditional English class meaning of deep symbolism and complex, lyrical prose. Noah is a skilled storyteller, but he writes simply and straightforwardly. Nonetheless, there's a reason AP teachers adore assigning it (and the reason I chose it): it's fun. I don't mean in a "beach read" kind of way, though the book is very funny and not challenging, but rather in that it demonstrates to students accustomed to reading dry classic novels and writing monotonous literary analysis essays that writing doesn't have to be that way. It can be joyous. It can be silly. It can be profane. And it can also have meaning.

Much of my first quarter in AP is spent breaking down students' expectations of what writing "should" look like. Last year I assigned In Cold Blood for summer reading, and while I adore Capote's style and structure, the nonfiction "novel" did little to challenge what students believe respected writing looks like. I'm hoping Born a Crime will be different--that we can explore alternative modes of expression and style in the written word.

Noah's book recounts his childhood in South Africa, particularly during Apartheid. Born to a white father and a Black mother, Noah's existence was a crime under South African law. As a mixed child, Noah never felt entirely at home with any racial group, yet he learned to find acceptance through language--speaking another's language equaled belonging. The book is also a "love letter" to Noah's mother, whose determination and faith propelled her through a challenging life.

It might be surprising that there's almost nothing about Noah's career--how he began in stand-up; his propulsion into fame; his current gig as host of The Daily Show. However, it's clear that, for Noah (for all of us, probably), everything that he is was shaped in childhood.  

Born a Crime should provoke interesting discussions on interpersonal issues (our relationships with parents or how we connect to peers) and societal issues connected to race, poverty, and the criminal justice system. But I hope it will also provoke discussion on style, craft, and the versatility of the written word.

"Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf

Though I must have read Woolf in college (can't imagine completing a dual English/Women's Studies major otherwise), surprisingly the only piece I've referenced on this blog is her essay, "A Room of One's Own." I knew her mostly as "that feminist writer who drowned herself," which is poor tribute.

I'd like to think I have a healthy skepticism of the canon, particularly the idea that writers of previous generations had some mysterious skills missing in modern writers. Yet reading Moby Dick earlier this year, and now Mrs. Dalloway, has suggested to me that there's a reason these texts endure. They assume the reader is intelligent and thoughtful; that the reader is willing to work for a literary reward. They're books that provoke discussion and rereads. Like Moby Dick, Mrs. Dalloway is not an easy read, but I felt something gained in the effort.

At its core, Mrs. Dalloway is a simple story. It follows one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-crust woman living in London in the 1920s, as she prepares to host a party that night. Clarissa's life intersects with a number of people, including Peter Walsh, a friend from her youth recently returned from India who is still in love with Clarissa; and Septimus Smith, a suicidal WW1 veteran.

Woolf structures her novel in a stream-of-consciousness style that reminded me of Ellman's Ducks, Newburyport. Both novels flip our expectations of narrative. In a traditional novel, the focus is on the physical reality--who's talking, what's happening, what's visible--with occasional glimpses into the characters' interior realities. Conversely, in these novels, the characters' interior is made primary, with the tangible taking the backseat to reflections, memories, anxieties, and questions. Ducks, Newburyport follows only its protagonist, but Woolf instead jumps into the minds of dozens of characters with abandon--not only significant characters like Clarissa, Peter, and Septimus, but even minor passing characters. The effect is disorienting but expansive and allows Woolf to explore just how little we understand of others' thoughts.

One of Woolf's great tools for this effect is the semicolon, an underrated punctuation mark (I think I've been prejudiced by Vonnegut's curmudgeonly warning that "All [semicolons] do it show you've been to college"). Ellman's novel is one giant sentence--a powerful effect, but one that dilutes the individual power of the semicolon when the entire structure is reliant on it. Woolf, instead, uses semicolons liberally but intentionally, a way of emphasizing how disparate elements combine to frame our thoughts and emotions. Take this sentence--one of my favorites--from Clarissa's point of view very early in the novel:

In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June. (4)

In the semicolons, you see Clarissa's joy at London--and it's not just one element of London, but her existence within a busy and happening London that makes her think, "this is life! I'm a part of it!"*

Colons are assertive and absolute; they know the truth. Semicolons are reflective and connective; they suggest relationships and inter-connectedness. Woolf's novel is predicated on this inter-connectedness, and the semicolons are an essential tool in conveying that message.

The least obvious connection, at first glance, is between Clarissa and Septimus, who never meet, though Clarissa hears about his suicide during her party. Septimus is suffering some sort of PTSD following his time in World War I and is appalled by what he perceives as his lack of feeling, particularly over the death of his friend Evans. Throughout the novel, Septimus' wife Rezia tries to get Septimus medical help, but the doctors are dismissive and reductive. After experiencing a lovely moment with his wife, Septimus dies by suicide after throwing himself out a window--attempting to preserve that ephemeral happiness--rather than be subject to the doctor's misguided attempts to "cure" him through rest (in other words, nothingness).

Unlike Septimus, Clarissa is not suicidal, and she experiences a range of emotions. Yet she feels a kindship with Septimus--"She felt somehow very like him"--and she feels "glad that he had done it; thrown it away." Woolf tells us Septimus "made [Clarissa] feel the beauty; made her feel the fun" (186). She sees the beauty in the world evoked in that early thought about London and realizes the importance of claiming her place within it.

There's so much within Mrs. Dalloway I haven't touched on at all, particularly the love between Clarissa and Peter, and the love between Clarissa and her childhood friend Sally. It's another book that makes me eager to take a college English class again.**

*A needless aside, but reading this sentence immediately made me think of my time at Vanderbilt as an undergraduate. I'd be walking through the quad on my way to class; it would be spring, the sky a perfect cloudless blue. I'd feel my backpack on my back. I'd see people walking by, and I'd think "they know I belong here." And though I couldn't write it nearly so well, that moment could be perfectly evoked by my version of that final part of Woolf's sentence--"was what she loved; life; [Nashville]; this moment in [April]."

**This didn't fit naturally above, but Mrs. Dalloway is now part of a series of novels I've read recently that take place in or around the 1920s: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Nick, and The Great Gatsby (which I just finished teaching). It's not surprising that Nick, the only modern book of the four, takes an absurdly grim picture of WW1--and life in general. Smith thinks people struggling thrash on the floor and make bold pronouncements. Though none of the books are uplifting novels, the three written during the time period have a more nuanced view of human nature, recognizing the ways in which happiness and sadness, hope and despair, coexist--or ebb and flow--against a society that suggests we behave "normally."

"Nick" by Michael Farris Smith

I almost don’t think it’s fair to write about Michael Farris Smith’s Nick, but I read it, so I’m going to. And really, Smith brought it on himself. If you can’t tell by the title and copycat cover, Nick is a prequel to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It presumes to document Nick’s experiences during World War 1, a period a few years before the events in Gatsby.

I don’t hate on fanfic. I occasionally read some when I was younger. But the thing about fanfic that makes it fun is its winking knowledge of the original. Harry Potter fanfic better have wizards and spells and references to Hogwarts or Voldemort. Harry Potter fanfic that details Harry’s second grade year where he’s rightly diagnosed with bipolar disorder and Dudley recovers from leukemia would be crap. Not primarily because of the subject matter, but because it presumes to play on Rowling's universe without honoring the world she's created.

That problem plagues Nick and ultimately results in a book that’s crap. It’s not worth the space to describe in detail, but Smith’s Nick is unrecognizable as Fitzgerald’s Nick. Other than the barest biographical details (both from the Midwest, went to Yale, are in the war), the men have nothing in common. Smith’s Nick is traumatized by an obsessive Parisian love affair (that ends after a home-performed abortion) AND the horrors of trench warfare AND deadly arson he witnesses in New Orleans. He witnesses multiple people experience trauma and all respond in the most extreme ways imaginable. He nearly kills a man.

If logic follows, apparently two years later Nick moves to New York City, never thinks of or references any of these events again, and lives benignly—and with no reaction beyond voiced disapproval—as some rich people are assholes. Why would he even feel disgust at the events that occur in Gatsby after all he's seen in Smith's version?

Even worse, easy plot points to integrate are ignored! Fitzgerald’s Daisy says there’s rumors Nick is engaged. He denies them, but he also tells us he’s writing letters home to a girl and signing them “love, Nick.” This “girlfriend” doesn’t even exist in Nick.

After ignoring Fitzgerald’s Gatsby for the entire novel, Smith attempts to make up for it in the last chapter, suggesting Nick has PTSD and is repressed or something--so, uh, that's why none of this is ever mentioned in Gatsby! Smith then has Nick move to NYC and hold out his hand to the green light (oh, just like Gatsby! I get it! Smith figured out fanfic in the last five pages). It’s too little and too cheesy too late.

It’s easy to bash the book. I get that Smith and his publishers were in a quandary. Call it Nick and mimic that iconic cover, and you’re guaranteed sales—but everyone who buys it will do so because they love Gatsby and thus will hate your book. Or, ditch the Gatsby references, call it “Lots of Trauma in the ‘20s” and then the ten people who buy it might like it.

I’ve tried to consider that second perspective. As a narrative, Smith's book in no way needs Gatsby. So, shorn of those comparisons, is it any good?

It’s hard to say, as I struggled to get over my gut-reaction hatred. Smith attempts a Hemingway style (lots of “and’s” and straightforward yet "deep" prose and dialogue), but all I could think was “First Fitzgerald and now Hemingway, you monster!!” I haven’t even named the bizarre cast of characters, but all act so extreme that it was hard to recognize them as human. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy feels earned and real—you understand what it means to him and why. Nick’s obsession with his poor Parisian girlfriend is the exact opposite. Why is he obsessed after a few days together? No idea. By the second half of the book, we even regularly leave Nick’s point of view to follow a deranged New Orleans couple who cause a lot of deaths because they’re sad.

I wouldn’t recommend the book to anyone. Smith and his publisher have undoubtedly cashed in on Gatsby’s entry into public domain. By the logic of this book, Fitzgerald’s ghost should probably burn down all book stores.

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston

In a fit of “I must do something new!” I've decided to ditch The Scarlet Letter (which I’ve taught in my honors class for nine years) for Their Eyes Were Watching God. I wish I had thoughtful reasons for deciding to teach a book I haven’t read in years (probably since college), but instead I picked it because it’s written by a Black woman and is sufficiently within the canon to be accepted by my administration. I’m already embarrassed at my ignorance.

On the down side, I’m certain my students won’t like TEWWG any more than Scarlet Letter. Hurston’s prose is more accessible than Hawthorne’s archaic formality, but her colloquial dialogue will undoubtedly be harder. Both books are about women finding their autonomy against men seeking control—a theme I appreciate but for which the boys will show little interest.

On the plus side, TEWWG should pair well with The Great Gatsby, both because of their similar time periods and their commentary on different versions of the American Dream.

TEWWG follows Janie--a Black woman in Florida during the early 1900s--through childhood and then three marriages: first to cold Logan, then to controlling Jody, and finally to devoted Tea Cake. The novel's central focus is Janie's self-awakening and growth.

I’ve read snippets debating whether or not TEWWG is a “feminist novel” (interestingly, a similar debate follows Scarlet Letter). As in most great literature, the answer is not clear cut. Janie’s life is defined entirely by her relationship with men. She has no substantive female friendships. Heck, I think the novel might fail the Bechdel test! Over the course of the novel, Janie learns to exert autonomy, though that autonomy is in the service of men. She abandons Logan, but only to go off with Jody. When Jody dies, she subverts her community’s expectations, but only to be with Tea Cake. Her fawning devotion to Tea Cake is almost cringe-inducing. When he steals her money and holds a party without her, she only chastises him for not inviting her. Later there’s a particularly awful scene where Tea Cake beats Janie to prove his control to a potential suitor.

Then again, Janie is a character whose growth is in learning not to settle—in demanding access to the love and autonomy she desires. Who am I to criticize because she finds those qualities in a man? With the exception of the scene above, the relationship between Janie and Tea Cake is largely one of equals, perhaps not so much by modern standards, but in the sense that both partners have their needs met; both partners feel heard and valued. At the end of the novel, Tea Cake develops rabies after being bit by a dog while saving Janie, and Janie is forced to shoot and kill him to protect herself. Though she's upset to have lost Tea Cake, she doesn't fall into self-recrimination or depression. She knows her actions were justified, and she returns to her former town with her head held high, wearing her favorite comfy overalls.

Thus, I think the best answer to the novel's relationship to feminist ideals is "it's complicated," which I like. There will be more to talk about!

In addition to debate over Hurston's feminism, there's been discussion about the novel's place in African-American literature. Though I've considerably upped the number of books I'm reading by and/or about people of color, I've realized how many are still centered on racism and discrimination. While those are important topics, I know it's important to see a diversity of experience. TEWWG is entirely about Black Americans--and a segment of Black America. There are almost no white characters, and while issues surrounding racism such as economic opportunity are present, it's not the primary focus of the novel. In that way, I think the book serves as an important complement to other canonical African-American works. 

I frequently listened to audiobooks when I lived in Philadelphia but have long fell out of the habit. Given its reliance on dialect, Hurston's novel was a good choice with which to return. The narrator did an excellent job of distinguishing between the many characters, but my only complaint is that her performance of Janie suggested Janie was always on the verge of belly laughs or hysterical crying. The plaintive tone she often adopted in intense moments undermined some of Janie's strength.

I'm nervous about teaching the novel next year. I fear I won't be able to surmount my students' disinterest. But at least we won't spend a quarter languishing over sin and adultery.

"Homeland Elegies" by Ayad Akhtar

Homeland Elegies moved me in a way few books have recently. Despite that (because of it?), I've struggled to articulate my feelings in writing. I've put off writing about it. So instead of delaying more because of the lack of coherence, I'm just putting down my thoughts. Excuse the lack of transitions.

***

I had a rather obvious epiphany when reading Homeland Elegies, an assemblage of stories and reflections about the narrator's Pakistani parents and his own life and success as a Muslim-American. In the wake of the protests last spring, I've read several books that address, in some way, the Black American experience (Intimations, Homegoing, Survival Math, The Hate U Give, White Fragility, Red at the Bone). However, it's been awhile since I've thought much about Muslim discrimination--perhaps not since Trump's travel ban several years ago. Homeland Elegies made me newly angry at myself and my country. 

***

I love books that straddle the division of fiction and nonfiction. The cover of Homeland Elegies identifies the book as a "novel" on the cover, but the book's narrator--Ayad Akhtar--shares the same basic biographical history as Ayad Akhtar the author. And beyond the biographical similarities, the book very much feels like a statement of author-Akhtar's view of America and his place in it as a Muslim. Yet it's funny how discomforting I found the fiction/nonfiction ambiguity. I found myself constantly questioning: Is he really saying that about his mother? Of course, it's not really his mother. But why would I be bothered if that was true about his mother? Did he really have that experience with the police officer? Why would I question whether he really did? Akhtar plays with the reader's subconscious discomfort about Muslims in America.

*** 

There's a point in the novel where narrator-Akhtar is having a conversation with Riaz Rind, a Muslim philanthropist who takes Akhtar under his wing and ultimately makes him rich. They're discussing the portrayal of Muslims in America, and Akhtar quotes Norbert Elias, a Jewish sociologist, who wrote, "The established majority takes its we-image from a minority of its best, and shapes a they-image of the despised outsiders from the minority of their worst" (139). Rind feels a compulsion to highlight the very best of Muslim-America in order to counteract the dominant "they-image" of Muslims as anti-American terrorists. Akhtar, on the other hand, feels more conflicted, and his novel is an expression of that conflict. 

His characters aren't simple American patriots railing against Islamic terrorists. Instead, they're complicated people with complicated feelings about their homeland (Pakistan, for Akhtar's family), America, and the relationship between the two. Homeland Elegies was the first time I read about, for example, 9/11 from this multi-faceted viewpoint.

***

Akhtar describes several runs in with police. Given all the news coverage about Black Americans' experience at the hands of police officers, the stories shouldn't have been so shocking, but yet I felt a visceral fear when I saw just how vulnerable Akhtar--and other Muslim or Muslim-appearing individuals--are against racist white Americans, particularly those in law enforcement. Despite all I've read and heard, my default is still a naïve view that "right will win" that "justice will be served." Akhtar's stories were yet another reminder of the blinding quality of white privilege. 

***

I saw some excerpted blurb about the novel that compared it to The Great Gatsby, which is not a particularly apt comparison beyond both works' focus on the failures of the American Dream--the appeal and shortcomings of this country. Even more so than Gatsby, Homeland Elegies is far-reaching and far-encompassing book, with a whole section about debt-buying and capitalism that almost lost me. Still, I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a nuanced look at America.

"Let Me Tell You What I Mean" by Joan Didion

Awhile back I started Didion’s much-lauded memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, about the horrific year following her husband’s death and her daughter’s severe illness. I abandoned the book early, though I wanted to like it more. Given Didion’s fame as an essayist—and having now read Let Me Tell You What I Mean— I think I should have started with her preferred art form.

Didion’s newest book is a collection of essays, most from early in her career (the late ‘60s), with the most recent from over twenty years ago. The essays are presented without theme or introductions (even the year published is saved for the end of each essay)—the point seems simply to be, “Didion is great. Here are some things she wrote.” Fortunately it's an apt assessment.

Organizationally, the lack of any preface to the pieces works both for and against the book. Some pieces, like “Why I Write” (the only included essay I’d read previously), are certainly timeless. Another, “On Being Unchosen by the College of One’s Choice,” about the feverish competition for college admittance, works effectively without context primarily because of the shock of learning it was published in 1968. The same piece could be published today; fifty plus years later, the process is only worse. In the book's final piece, about the power of Martha Stewart as a brand (“Everywoman.com”), Didion references an IPO concerned with what would happen if "Martha Stewart's public image or reputation were to be tarnished" (130). The piece receives some unintended dramatic irony by being published only a few years before her arrest.

Other pieces feel untethered without context. The first, “Alicia and the Underground Press,” criticizing newspapers, might have been improved with information about the political reality to which Didion was responding. A later essay, “The Long-Distance Runner,” appears to be an introduction to a book by a late director (whom I’d never heard of). Background on him and his work would have benefitted me as a reader.

Nonetheless, organization aside, I discovered how much I enjoyed Didion’s writing. She’s a master of the personal essay, able to weave personal observation and experience into broader meditations. Several of the pieces are about writing—the aforementioned “Why I Write,” another about Didion’s challenge with short stories (“Telling Stories”), and a third criticizing decisions to publish Hemingway’s unfinished work posthumously (“Last Words”). The essays suggest Didion as a person consumed by the author's relationship to the written word. Though intensely personal in many ways, the essays don't feel confessional--instead, they seem to reveal greater truths about art. 

Perhaps because it was last, or longest, the Martha Stewart essay stands out most in my mind. She challenges the notion that Stewart's brand reinforces traditional female domesticity. Instead, Didion argues that Stewart's enormous success as a businesswoman reflects a way of female style succeeding in a man's world--not getting ahead by emulating masculine traits, but by embracing femininity and power.

Perhaps that's true of Didion too. She came to success at an early stage of noted female essayists, not by replicating the work of men who had come before, but by embracing her own style and focus.

"Consent" by Vanessa Springora

Consent is a French memoir by Vanessa Springora, recounting the sexual relationship she had with G.M., a famous French writer much her senior, beginning when Springora was fourteen. Springora recounts the grooming process by which G.M. lured her into a relationship and the methods he used to prey on a young girl desperate for a man's affection. Even though G.M. was a known pedophile and had written at length about his relationships with minors, no one in Springora's life--including her mother--took steps to prevent or end the relationship. Though Springora was eventually able to sever the relationship herself, she was stalked and haunted by G.M. for years, particularly because he continued to write about her in "fiction" form for decades.

According to the press I read, the memoir caused a sensation in France, where it finally resulted in G.M.'s (Gabriel Matzneff) long-due fall from grace. The obvious question: what the hell took so long?

That central question guides Springora's approach to the memoir. She begins by explaining some of the context that made relationships with minors "acceptable" by the time she was a teenager in the 1980s. The sexual revolution worked (appropriately) to de-stigmatize sex, but that free spirit soon extended to de-stigmatizing all sex, ignoring the way unbalanced power structures can apply to consent.* G.M.'s celebrity allowed him to continue his behavior for years. Springora recounts a now-famous TV roundtable where one guest--a Canadian woman--called G.M. out for his pedophilia. No one came to her support. Instead, the assumption was that there was something "special" about being chosen by G.M. He was famous and smart. He coerced through promises of love and manipulation of teenage insecurities, not through threats and violence.

All of this backstory forms the occasion around which Springora sat down to write her book. So what does she do? Bring him down as forcefully, as powerfully, as convincingly as she can. Wrote the New York Times review that made me pick up the book: "'Consent' is a Molotov cocktail, flung at the face of the French establishment, a work of dazzling, highly controlled fury."

The memoir is not concerned much with Springora as an individual. In fact, as a reader, I wanted more of her--who was she when alone, or in school, or with friends? What else was happening in her life? But recalling her life in whole is not Springora's rhetorical purpose. Instead, the memoir is tightly and completely focused on her relationship with G.M. and the predatory ways he hunted her and continued to destroy her life. 

Unfortunately, at this point, we've heard many stories of rape and sexual abuse. It can feel salacious to read a book that covers the visceral details of sex between a 14-year-old girl and a 50-year-old man. Yet, after reading the book, I can understand and admire Springora for writing the book that she did. And it worked.

*I'm reading a collection of essays by Joan Didion, and in one she recounts a famous director inviting her to summer in France; she's unable to, but her 14-year-old daughter consents, and Didion joyfully recounts finding her daughter weeks later, topless on the beach and being courted by several Italian men. This adventure might have been an entirely positive experience for her daughter, but it reminded me of an attitude that led to tragedies like Springora's.

"Intimations" by Zadie Smith

I remember the first time I heard about the pandemic in fiction. I was listening to the New Yorker Writer's Voice podcast, and the story was set during the pandemic, though the crisis wasn't the primary focus of the piece. It felt strangely dissonant--to hear about my bizarre reality in a fictional world. It still feels that literature should exist without masks, without constant hand-washing, without literal isolation.

Zadie's Smith's Intimations is a series of nonfiction essays, written early in the pandemic. Because they're nonfiction, they shouldn't feel as surreal as fiction. After all, I've read (too) many essays in newspapers and magazines about the pandemic. Nonetheless, assembling reflective and philosophical essays about the crisis in book form still feels odd. As if it's sacrilegious to talk about something so finitely (in a bound book!) while we're still living through it.  

Yet while part of me screams "it's too soon!", because her essays were written and assembled so early in the pandemic, it's also easy to feel how "spring 2020" many of her musings are. So much has changed in the past year they already feel cute or dated.

All of this is to convey the odd experience I felt reading Intimations, not to lodge a criticism again Smith. We're just in a weird place now. The spring of 2020 feels so long ago, and yet we're still living through (hopefully the end of) the pandemic. We're not as scared as we were in those early days, but we're more jaded.

One of the dominant themes in Smith's book is the way the pandemic has made issues of privilege even more explicit--and uneasy. In the essay "Suffering Like Mel Gibson," Smith talks about how quickly Zoom conversations required the "expected, decent and accurate claim that you are fine and privileged, lucky compared to so may others, inconvenienced, yes, melancholy often, but not suffering" (36).  Of course, Smith's readers are largely of this group--aware that their sufferings are not so great, yet still sidelined by moments "as puny as they may be in the wider scheme of things" that bring us down. 

She reinforces the unsettling questions of privilege  in a later essay, "A Man With Strong Hands," where she contrasts herself with Ben, her masseuse. Pre-Covid, their primary topic of conversation was the inconvenience of school shutdowns during snow, but even then Smith was aware of the vast gulf in inconvenience--an annoyance for her, a loss of work for Ben.

Probably the most compelling essay is her last, "Contempt as a Virus," in which she discusses American racism through the metaphor of a virus. The comparison could seem too pat, given the confluence of George Floyd's murder and the spring lockdown last year, yet Smith is able to use our conflicted feelings about and understanding of the virus to mirror back our long history of racism. For all that's been written in the aftermath of Floyd's death, the approach still offers insight--how difficult it is to reach "herd immunity" in Covid or in ending racism.

It might be interesting to reread the collection in a few years, once the pandemic is more of a memory, to see how many of her perspectives have held or shifted.

"A Swim in a Pond in the Rain" by George Saunders

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is an unusual book, and I’m honestly surprised there are not more like it (or maybe there are and I’m unaware). Essentially it’s a book form of a class Saunders teaches in the MFA program at Syracuse—an exploration of short story craftsmanship via the great Russian short story writers. It’s not so much literary analysis—though there is that—as a probing look at what makes good short stories “work.” As Saunders acknowledges, for many people, there’s something almost gut-level right when literature works: difficult to articulate but moving nonetheless. It’s why it’s easy to write a critical review and so challenging to write about books I love. For that reason, there’s pleasure in witnessing an expert break down the reader's subconscious response and consider how other writers might adopt similar strategies.

Nonetheless, if I wasn’t such a fan of Saunders’ Tenth of December, I certainly wouldn’t have read this book. But now I’ve read six classic Russian short stories, and I can pretend I attended a graduate MFA class (without the work)!

Though the book could have been dry and technical, Saunders keeps the wit and warmth that make his other books engaging. He doesn’t lecture, but rather questions and attempts to answer—sometimes even back tracking on his earlier thoughts. Though some of the "writing advice" in the beginning can feel simplistic—keep escalating, emphasize cause and effect—it’s clear to see how apparently “obvious” truths can be easily forgotten in the immersion in a draft.

In the second half of the book, I found Saunders' advice somewhat more nebulous, the tone a little more didactic. He spends a lot of time on the “skaz” narrative style of Gogol’s surrealist “The Nose,” but I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. Similarly, he enthusiastically explores the potential ambiguity in Tolstoy’s “Alyosha the Pot,” but I didn’t glean much beyond “great writers are great often without even meaning to be so.” A valid point but one perhaps disheartening to emerging writers. Even worse, by the end of his effusive praise of Tolstoy, I got that feeling far too many students get: that their English teacher is making up complicated elements of meaning to justify their ill-chosen career.

Nevertheless, the novel is not a how-to or self-help book, nor is it traditional literary analysis, so inevitably my expectations of either would fall short. Saunders ultimately claims that some writers are great. You might be great too, but if you are, it’ll be because of you, not because you adapted something from the other greats--or even learned from Saunders himself.

So far I’ve neglected the stories themselves, which Saunders includes in their entirety. With the exception of “The Nose,” all are fairly traditional short stories: detailed characters in a detailed world; an escalation; a surprise resolve (of some sort) at the end. My favorite was the longest in the book, Tolstoy’s “Master and Man.” Perhaps because of its length, Tolstoy's able to achieve significant character development, increasing tension, and real "stakes" to the doomed sleigh ride of land owner Vasili and his peasant servant Nikita. Like the Alyosha of a later Tolstoy story (the final entry in the book, "Alyosha the Pot"), Nikita is a quietly-suffering peasant, but his development is more well-rounded than in the latter story, so he avoids being one-dimensional.

Reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain reminds me how much I miss being in school, or even engaging in a vigorous book club (mine has been on pause since March 2020). I read a lot but have few opportunities to discuss what I'm reading, outside the personal reflections I record in this unread blog. Reading Saunders felt like a conversation with someone else smart and book-y (okay, smarter and book-ier). In that way, it was a joy.

"A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself" by Peter Ho Davies

A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself is an abortion book, but Davies is aware it's not a typical story. First, it's told from the father's perspective, an approach the narrator immediately feels is problematic. Secondly, the abortion is the end to a desired pregnancy of a married couple, chosen only because of tests indicating a strong possibility of severe abnormalities in the fetus. It's a "virtuous abortion," as one woman calls it in the novel. So how to write about abortion from a man's perspective? How to write about a rare type of abortion--an abortion most likely to be sympathized with but that still retains the shame our culture places on abortions more broadly? How to remain pro-choice while also feeling guilty about the decision to end the pregnancy?

Davies navigates all these questions through his unnamed father narrator, as the couple chooses to end the pregnancy and later have a second child. The abortion frames the opening of the novel, but much of it is spent in the childhood of the second child.

For parents there's many moments of recognition, but where other books might go more comedic ("Cheerios everywhere?!"), A Lie remains aware that the dominant feeling of parenthood is fear--perhaps even abject terror. Those fears change and adjust as our children do, but never go away. Davies recognizes too the toll parenthood takes on an individual and a marriage, without sugarcoating such truth under an unhelpful "they're only young once!" platitude.

At times, particularly toward the later half, the book does feel heavy-handed. It's understandable that the father would choose to volunteer at a clinic that provides abortions as an attempt at resolution, but when every moment--even years after the act--recalls the mixed feelings on the abortion, I wondered if some nuance was missing. Nevertheless, there's so much to Davies that's intimately relatable to any parent that I immediately recommended it to my husband. 

I called it an "abortion book" in my opening sentence, but that's an unfair characterization. It's a book about parenthood, about the many choices we make, and the many failures that follow. It's about the all-consuming nature of parenthood, the way our children's lives and likes and abilities and failures become our lives (and likes and abilities and failures).

"The Lying Life of Adults" by Elena Ferrante

The Lying Life of Adults, the English translation of Ferrante's Italian novel, is a compelling look at the lies we tell others and, more importantly, ourselves. Through her teenage protagonist Giovanna, Ferrante suggests an essential element of growing up is becoming aware of these lies. First, we feel outrage as we realize those we admire--typically our parents--lie. Only later to we recognize that we shape our own identity through lies as well.

The novel begins with Giovanna learning about her estranged Aunt Vittoria and beginning a relationship with her, despite her father's misgivings. Though it seems the book will be about her father's family secrets, Vittoria is only a jumping off point. Her father's hatred for Vittoria challenges Giovanna's warm feelings about her father, and the later revelation that her father has been having a long-term affair with the mother of Giovanna's best friends only increases her distance from him. She doesn't know how to deal with her father's lies. She still seeks affirmation from him yet begins to see him more objectively: as someone who struts his intelligence; as someone too absorbed in his work to care for those around him.

But, again, whereas you might expect the novel to focus on the straining of the father-daughter relationship, instead it shifts again as Giovanna, as a maturing teenager, moves her focus on her father to her own burgeoning interest in men, particularly Roberto, the charismatic boyfriend of a friend. She is mesmerized by Roberto's confidence, by the way his attention can make her feel worthy in a way she rarely feels. Her admiration for him is total and all-consuming until she impulsively travels to his apartment and realizes he will sleep with her. 

Though the book focuses on lying in all forms, much of the novel is really about men and women, about the separate spheres in which their attentions and devotion operate. There's Vittoria, still attached decades later to a now-deceased married man with whom she had an affair. There's Giovanna's mother, who remains defensive of her ex-husband, even after he leaves her. Or even the principal of Giovanna's school, easily charmed by Giovanna's father's minor flattery. And there's Giovanna herself, so easily hurt by her father's words and so easily obsessed with Roberto and his small attentions in a world where she feels unrecognized.

The novel suggests many of the relationships between men and women are built on lies. "My behavior is acceptable because I am respected and great." "He deserves my love because he is great." "I respect her." "He respects me." These lies about intentions and beliefs perpetuate a patriarchal system that gives the men power, but excuses behavior on all fronts. Roberto can bask in the respect he receives from others and convince himself he is a devoted boyfriend and a caring friend, even though he has no compunction about sleeping with Giovanna. Giovanna can believe Roberto respects her and values her opinion, even though his attentions are fleeting and infrequent and he'll immediately cheat on his girlfriend with her without preamble. These lies are necessary: to justify Roberto's identity as a bright scholar; to justify Giovanna's slavish crush.

But these are just some of the lies in the novel. Giovanna's parents lie to her, and she lies to them. The adults lie to each other, to the children; the children lie to each other, and to the adults. The lies take various forms--explicit and implicit; dangerous and petty. Still, there's so little opportunity for truth-telling that the final scene--in which Giovanna chooses to lose her virginity to a boy she barely likes--is shocking. In the decidedly unromantic--yet, importantly, also un-traumatic--scene, she tells Rosario exactly how she wants to have sex. There are no lies of polite speech or enticement. It's a liberating moment amid a novel of obfuscation.

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

News of the World feels like a book I've read before, even though I'm sure I haven't. It has a classic odd-ball pairing: a grizzled, road-weary old man befriending a young, outcast girl. It touches all the right heartbreaking notes without being overly sentimental.

The story follows Captain Jefferson Kidd as he travels through Texas, where he makes a living by reading newspapers from around the country and world to small towns. He agrees to transport 10-year-old Johanna, who had been taken captive by the Kiowa, back to her relatives. Johanna's parents were killed in the Kiowa raid, and after living with the Kiowa people for several years, Johanna sees herself as one of them: she neither speaks English nor remembers her birth family. Not surprisingly, the book's primary focus is the growing friendship and respect between the Captain and Johanna. Existing somewhat outside of society himself after the death of his wife, the Captain understands Johanna's position in a way few other white characters do.

Traveling through Texas during Reconstruction, the Captain and Johanna must face lawlessness and constant threats. The dramatic dime-fueled shoot out is especially intense. But most of the novel is more languid, as the Captain considers his purpose and drive at this point in his life. Ultimately, the book suggests, life is about relationships and knowing what drives you. 

"Parable of the Talents" by Octavia Butler

I was ambivalent about Parable of the Sower, though I found it compelling despite myself. In many ways, Parable of the Talents is a better book, despite some the rush at the end. While both Sower and Talents are comprised of Olamina's journal entries, the entries in Talents are interspersed with reflections from Olamina's adult daughter, Larkin, who was born in the Earthseed community Olamina founds at the end of Sower. Larkin's perspective gives some needed balance to Olamina's single-minded devotion to Earthseed. Larkin rightly calls her mother a cult leader and is aware of the collateral damage of her mother's cause. Larkin's perspective doesn't make Olamina a villain--and she certainly shouldn't be viewed as such--but she does raise needed questions. Olamina's choice to build a self-sustaining community based on respect and loyalty is inherently good, but she insists on that community existing to promote her religion of Earthseed. It's that leap that's hard to swallow, even for people (and readers) sympathetic to her cause. Plenty of religions embrace change--the Christian "Serenity Prayer" comes to mind--but Olamina adds to her religion a goal of achieving the "Destiny": humankind's future belongs (literally) in the stars through space travel and human population of other planets.

There's an argument to be made (though it's not made convincingly in the novel) for such travel, but framing a religion around that travel seems doomed. Heaven, as a concept, works because it can't be proven/disproven and can't be achieved while alive. It's never-ending. Space travel, on the other hand, is finite and fallible. Olamina believes in the Destiny because she believes humankind needs a grand purpose--if not eternity in heaven, then a genealogical eternity on other planets. But what happens when they reach and populate another planet? Does Earthseed end? We don't find out, though Parable (improbably, given the apocalypse in Sower) ends with the first humans heading out to the stars.

But I'm quibbling with points that aren't particularly important to the novel. Instead, the bulk of the novel follows Olamina as Acorn, her Earthseed community, is founded and then later destroyed and turned into a Christian Reeducation Camp. The camp is run by fanatical followers of President Jarrett (who really does have the slogan "Make American Great Again"). The camp guards steal Larkin, kill Olamina's husband Bankole, and enslave the remaining community members. Olamina's time in the camp, filled with brutal violence and rape, is the hardest to read. The violence is important to establish the regime they're living under, though the didactic criticisms of fundamental Christianity are tedious, even if wholly deserved.

Given the detail given to Acorn's founding and later destruction, the ending of the novel rushes by, with Olamina almost immediately finding success and financial support for Earthseed. Again, given the apocalypse in Sower, it's hard to believe so many people are well-off and eager to support a single-woman cause. If nothing else, it speaks to the strength of Olamina's character, something that was clearly established in Sower. She's a young Black woman, but no one doubts her leadership or competence. There's enough strength of will to almost make the reader want to believe in Earthseed.

I've mentioned two of the novel's perspectives--Olamina and Larkin. The third comes from Marc, Olamina's younger brother who was sold as a sex slave. After being freed by Olamina, he becomes a preacher in the Christian church that enslaved Olamina, and he chooses to hide Larkin's existence from Olamina for years. Marc should be a villain, but he never quite goes there, a testament to Butler's writing. Like Olamina, he finds certainty and solace in a belief system that provides him with purpose.

Talents probably should have been two books (perhaps would be two books today), but it's no less forgettable than Sower and definitely more thoughtful.

Miscellany:

• In my review of Sower, I noted my confusion with Olamina's hyper-empathy syndrome, which seemed unimportant to the novel and inconsistent. It's even less important in Talents, and no additional information is provided, so I'm fully flummoxed by its use in the books.

"Moby Dick" by Herman Melville

I've done it. I've conquered the "white whale," the endlessly-metaphor-ready novel of English literature. And like Ahab (of course, because we're all Ahab), the path was long and treacherous, with high hopes, fits and starts, and (okay, the simile's not particularly apt) an entirely benign conclusion.

I started Moby Dick a few years ago, inspired by an educator's event at the Contemporary Arts Center on an exhibit inspired by the novel. One artist had drawn an illustration over each page of the book. "I'll read a page each day!" I had decided. I think I imagined I'd write some sort of response too. Though I did occasionally make annotations, the page-a-day petered out almost immediately. Still, I made some progress over the years, picking it up here and there. This year, realizing I had perhaps 100 pages left, I decided it was time to resolvedly confront the Leviathan.

It's funny how hard the book is. It shouldn't be. I've read significantly longer books. The prose is archaic by today's standards, but it's not more challenging than the prose of Melville's contemporary, Nathaniel Hawthorne (whose The Scarlet Letter I teach), and it's certainly easier than the more opaque post-modernist writers. It's simplest to blame the challenge of reading on the novel's structure, its frequent departures from the primary narrative. After all, Melville dedicates more pages to arguing that whales are fish than he does on the final chase of Moby Dick--but, then again, I love non-traditional books. Or perhaps it's the awareness that there's meaning that's just above your head, a sense that the teacher would laugh at you the next day when you innocently asserted the novel was "about a whale." But I'm an English teacher!

Probably it's a combination of all of the above, in conjunction with Moby Dick's vaunted position in the English canon. It's a book I found frustrating, boring, and tedious but also fascinating, funny, and compelling. I'm glad I read it.

Reading what I've written so far, it's clear that reading Moby Dick is more about the reader's journey (oh, the metaphors!) than the novel itself. Still, Moby Dick is, nominally, about the monomaniacal Captain Ahab's pursuit of the white whale, Moby Dick, who cost Ahab his leg. It's narrated by Ishmael, whose character frames the opening of the novel before dropping out completely. In fact, though Ishmael continues to narrate and is present during the final chase, he doesn't insert himself back in until the epilogue, after everyone else on the whaling ship Pequod has met their watery doom. The linear narrative plays only a minor role in the novel, however. Instead, the reader learns a lot about whale anatomy. About the heavenly feel of spermaceti. About Biblical references to whales. About other ships the Pequod encounters. About how easy it is to weave the word "unctuous" into prose. 

And we also learn about human purpose and fate, about our drive even in the face of insurmountable odds. I just finished teaching The Road to my juniors, and a student remarked that McCarthy's message seems similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald's closing line of The Great Gatsby (which we studied in the fall): "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." It's the same final message we get in Moby Dick, maybe the American message, or maybe simply the message of humanity. 

Come for the spermaceti. Stay for the message about us all.

"The Liar's Dictionary" by Eley Williams

The Liar's Dictionary has the appearances of a fluffy novel, or at least what "book people" would consider a fluffy novel. It's full of wordplay and obscure vocabulary; it treats lexicographers and dictionaries ambivalently, befitting both the seriousness and absurdity of their work. On a straightforward level, the novel is about a Victorian lexicographer who enters his own made-up words into the dictionary--and a modern assistant who discovers them. Much of the pleasure of the book comes from the recognition in these invented words, the sense of "ah, yes, that should be a word," or even just the sense that, despite the expansiveness of the English language, our words can only say so much. 

But Liar's Dictionary is a quirky book that doesn't quite meet expectations. By the end it's also a mystery or maybe a spy thriller or... I'm not sure? I was more baffled by the ending than I expected, leaving me to wonder if I'd missed something all along.

The novel alternates chapters. First, there's Winceworth, our sad-sack Victorian lexicographer, working on the "S" section of Swansby's Encyclopedic Dictionary. A hundred years later, there's Mallory, the sole intern for the never-finished Swansby's Dictionary, who mostly answers phone calls from a mysterious caller threatening attacks on the building.

Winceworth's chapters focus primarily on his relationship with Sophia, the fiancé of Winceworth's pompous colleague Fransby. What appears to be a story about a burgeoning romance between the two suddenly takes a turn when Winceworth ends up in an exploding train (for real) and Sophia turns out to be a Russian spy (?). The primary message, then, from Winceworth's story is his attempt at immorality through the invented words he sneaks in the dictionary. He realizes his actual person will leave no legacy, but his words can.

Mallory's chapters attend to her dry work at the dictionary, where she's assigned to find the mysterious invented words littered through the dictionary. She also has to contend with the threatening caller, who's presumably angry at the dictionary changing the definition of marriage to include the queer community. Mallory has an enthusiastic girlfriend, Pip, but is not quite out as a lesbian. Mallory and Pip's relationship is more satisfactorily concluded, though her section ends with an exploding building and insurance fraud (?) that I also found largely inexplicable.

Endings and overall cohesiveness aside, The Liar's Dictionary is still largely a fun book. Plus it reminded me of fantastic real words (such as "apricity," the warmth of sun in winter) and contrived ones (such as "agrupt," the irritation caused by having a denouement ruined," which I probably should have understood as a sign of the book's ending).