"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.