I've been contemplating book posts: How do I approach them? Do I even wish to write about books? And if so, what is it I actually want to write about or say? Does it matter what I think? I am not a critic, I don't think my mind is wired that way, at least not completely (Ask my college English Professor, the one who said I was perfectly well suited to a career writing book blurbs but could not aspire to much beyond that). Although I adore literary fiction, and I read widely across genres, I often dislike extremely popular novels and adore extremely sappy ones. Even if my opinion is irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, which is actually the case, does the act of writing a book post bring some clarity to me about my own thinking? It might. Ultimately that may be the crux. If I have already said this blog is something I write for myself, and so I have, how do book posts figure into my own understanding of myself as seen in my reading life?
I suppose I'll never know what I think, or how I wish to proceed, unless I just jump in. So here goes. Today I am writing about books that I read in late May, during a trip to Texas, and in June. If I feel this works, I will continue monthly book posts from here on out, assuming I have something to say about what I am reading. Or perhaps the obverse. Perhaps what I am reading has something to tell me about who I am.
I started my period of travels with Sheena Patel's novel I'm A Fan, which I completely adored even though it was a challenging read. The story is told in a series of short chapters consisting of interior monologues by a female, non-white, 30-something, second-generation immigrant living somewhere in London. From the opening line — "I stalk a woman on the internet who is sleeping with the same man I am." — I was drawn into this story even though much of the scenario it portrays feels foreign, and in some ways even incomprehensible, to me. Some of this may be generational, and I would, in fact, love to discuss this book with a younger reader, millennial perhaps, someone whose experiences of life through the lens of social media are quite different from mine. I think this would be fascinating, and we would both learn a great deal.
But back to the book. The protagonist is a smart, educated, driven. She has practically engineered a place for herself in the life of a successful and famous artist. Yet. she has also allowed herself to fall victim to this very asymmetrical, manipulative relationship, even as she is fully aware of and questions her own motives. Manipulation is endemic to this novel, and it defines all relationships and all parties. Still, I found myself rooting for this young woman.
In the process of telling the story there are periodic, and searingly blunt, meditations on male/female power dynamics; social media and the way it shapes and perhaps perverts our understanding of reality; the way the pursuit of influence and even fandom risks a sacrifice of our true selves and true voices; and white privilege — especially the way that privilege interacts and shapes the worlds of art and literature. A series of short chapters in the middle of the novel, aptly beginning with the title "There's no business like" are particularly damning and cringe-worthy to this reader because they hit uncomfortably close to home. It is a compelling and thought-provoking novel which I will not soon forget. The blurirng of lines between the conventions that define fiction and what appears to be nonfiction, are powerfully drawn and profoundly insightful. I will undoubtedly read this again; I believe it is worth that.
Next followed some lighter reading. First up were a couple of light novels which I would classify as historical fiction/romance. Both were novels my mom had recently read. Both proved to be good jumping off places for conversations during my visit, not the least because they both also included some reference to fashion or needlework.
The first was The Girl Who Wrote in Silk by Kelli Estes, a story set the Pacific Northwest, primarily Orcas Island. The story is told in a dual timeline, alternating between the story of Inara Erikson, who discovers an embroidered sleeve from a Chinese garment hidden in her family's house, and the story of Mei Lien, whose family was destroyed because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 and who ultimately embroidered the sleeve as a way of passing on her story, and that of her family, to her son. I was deeply engaged in Mei Lien's story; less so in Inara's. Once Inara discovers the sleeve, she contacts a Chinese historian, and there is some discussion about the origin and dating of the sleeve based on extant pieces of embroidery. This original supposition regarding the dating proves be incorrect, but interesting, as it leads to discoveries about the ways history gets misrepresented and intertwined with personal stories in ways that are often unexpected and misperceived by later generations. Mei Lien's story was at times quite upsetting and difficult; and Estes did embroider the actual history for effect, although she does address this an explanatory note. I actually found that this played into the story in this case, and it didn't really bother me. In fact, I tend to like books that make me think about bigger things, even flawed books.
Although the ending of the novel felt rushed to me, it also felt hopeful, and I think this too is a good thing. I would hope that at least some readers would be intrigued enough to look further into Chinese American history or the story of the Exclusion Act, as well as toward working to overcome our pasts to build better futures. I do think it is through our stories that we discover who we are, especially those stories where perhaps we learn that we are not who we thought we were. I do not think there is any culture or country or civilization in human history that has not treated immigrants or "others" badly at some point or another, but it is only by admitting our failings that we can also strive to achieve the dreams of our better natures. At any rate, I don't believe I would read this book again, and although she is not an author I might seek out, I would probably read another of her novels.
The second novel on my stack from mom was a rather heart-warming bit of fluff by Jade Beer called The Last Dress from Paris. Here we have another story set in two alternating timelines, although in this novel I felt that both stories were more equally balanced. In one story line, set in 2017, Lucille is given a birthday trip to Paris by her grandmother Sylvie, with instructions to retrieve a Dior dress. Lucille cannot imagine how her grandmother had ever come to own a Dior dress, but she is up for the challenge. In the alternate timeline Alice Ainsley, the wife of the British Ambassador, throws fabulous parties, wears Dior and leads a life that many would envy. But Alice's marriage is cold and her husband is more interested in power and control than in love or relationship. Lucille discovers pretty quickly that there are in fact seven dresses, and that the one her grandmother specifically requested is missing. A search begins. The dress is found, and Lucille discovered that it originally belonged to Alice. The mystery continues: How did Sylvie get the dress? How do these lives intersect? I loved the way the story of Alice, Silvie, and Lucille was woven into the story of the seven dresses, and the details about Dior and construction of the dresses themselves. I also liked the way the mystery and the story of the dresses, helped Lucille to explore her own options, to create her own story, as well as to discover the story of her grandmother, a woman she thought she knew, at least in her role as Granny Sylvie, but did not know at all because the story of Alice had been held closely as a secret. This resonated with me because we all do this to some extent, even though our stories may not be as dramatic as the story of Alice. We think we know our families — our mothers and our grandmothers — but we only know them as role players in the family saga, as how we perceive them in relation to our own stories. Perhaps part of growing up, of becoming fully who we can be also taking a step outside of our own preconceived notions, involves learning to see our parents as the fully developed, and often complicated people they actually are. Perhaps part of growing up then also means letting go of those hurts and finding humanity.
The fourth book on my list was an even faster read. I'll admit I chose to read Spare by Prince Harry simply because it is so polarizing. I know people who are all for Harry and Meghan, I know people who are appalled by them, I know people who are loyal fans of the British royalty, people who love this book, people who hate this book and would never read it. That is specifically why I read it. I do not regret it.
The book is a fast read. It is not particularly well or beautifully written. In fact I am not sure that Harry was really ready to write this book, or perhaps it is more that I feel a better book could have been written with a bit more time under his belt. But the book comes across as heartfelt, and I am certain it was a necessary step in the process of this young man's coming to terms with his own life and his place in it.
Like all autobiographies, Spare tells a tale from one perspective, and so it is not complete. What I have garnered from this story is that Harry was, perhaps still is, a somewhat sensitive soul born into a situation where sensitivity is something of a liability. This story makes me sad; it makes me sad for the entire dysfunctional family. There is nothing I envy about a single one of them. I hold no feelings in support of, or opposition to, the Royal family, or the idea of the British Monarchy, token Monarchy that it is. If Harry feels hampered or worse by being the 'Spare' I am sure that William also has had similar frustrations about being the 'Heir'. Both boys' lives were shaped by roles that had nothing to do with them, cartoon-character roles that offer little room for human frailty. From Harry's perspective it seems there was little guidance on how to navigate this dichotomy.
I am sure the media is destructive; but without the media who would care? Would there be a reason for there to be a royal family at all? Without the monarchy would there be anything worth noting about this family? Is there a reason for monarchy to exist outside its ability to hold a population in its thrall? And at what price to a family, to a culture, to society? What does it even say about a society that we have to have celebrities to sacrifice on the altar of fame? This too is endemic to the history of human civilization, this need to simultaneously elevate and tear down a token hero, god, ruler, celebrity — a millennia of sacrifices in the name of the whole. Somehow, as I read Spare I kept thinking of a brief passage at the beginning of Jade Beer's The Last Dress from Paris when Alice arrives at Dior for the first show, of the way that women are gathering outside the door, like "competitive insects". That is what this book reminds me of, a lone cry in the midst of a swarm of competitive insects, ready to observe, judge, devour, a life.
Oh dear. I am out of my depth. I am out of my depth whenever I dip even a toe into popular culture. Back to something I love…
Ben Tufnel's first novel The North Shore is a compelling and completely satisfying novel, at least if you are, like me, a lover of literary fiction. Although billed as a gothic novel, this is somewhat deceptive as the story line is not really linear and the novel is, itself, a fascinating exploration of liminality, transformation, memory and art.
The novel opens with a ferocious storm, a boy home alone while is mother is away tending a dying grandfather, and the discovery of a drowned man on a beach. Then the novel shifts to the musings on art, metamorphosis, translation and myth by the now adult narrator, before returning to the stormy setting from the narrator's youth. The old man disappears, or perhaps he becomes a tree. The grandfather dies, and this reader wonders abut the potential for emotional and psychological overlays between these two stories.
Next we lean that the entire gothic story is found in an old journal uncovered in a box of childhood ephemera. More musings on art, on myth and the transformation of humans into plants and plants into humans; also on the transformation of memory, how the wilder, more imaginative and more mythical impressions of childhood become subsumed under a more placid exterior that allows us to function in the world.
My impression is that the author is musing on the common thread between art, literature and the psyche as well as the way we use stories to provide meaning to our lives. In fact, it feels as he is attempting to use words and ideas in the same way an artist uses brushstrokes to build depth and meaning in a painting, as if the act of writing is the act of manipulating words into something that merely appears scattered but which is methodically into something that harbors hidden depths. The alternating sections, the jumping around between magical realism and practical reality, art, movies, literature, human interaction — all of this is a rather deft exploration of the knotty bits that make up understanding. Fascinating and engrossing, a novel worth returning to.
Yeonmi Park's book, In Order to Live, was published in 2015, when the author was 22 years old, and it tells the story of her childhood and her escape from North Korea through China and Mongolia to South Korea and, eventually, the USA. It is hard to describe the contrasting naivetée and poignancy combined with the heartbreaking brutality that fills this book; it was at times hard to read, but totally compelling. The writing is not polished but it is clear and filled with humanity. If you have ever wondered why immigrants crowd onto unsafe boats, make dangerous passages across treacherous seas, or walk the length of continents to seek asylum, this book may offer insights. That supposes that one is willing to see them, because we live in a world where it is very easy to forget that dystopias exist, that human trafficking exists, that people truly suffer in ways we consider unimaginable. This book has prompted lots of thoughts, thoughts I am not going to explore here. What I see is a story of terrible struggle and of human resilience. What I see is the struggle of a child who has faced greater trials than I could have imagined and yet can still write the following:
"I learned something else that day: we all have our own deserts. They may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free."
I do not know if Yeonmi Park still feels that way. I hope she does even it may sound naive to say that. There is wisdom in that statement that I do not always achieve. But I also know there are some deserts that no one should have to cross and sometimes we need reminding of this fact.
Lastly, more fiction. I loved Deborah Levy's last two novels, Hot Milk, and The Man Who Saw Everything. I ordered her newest novel, August Blue, in advance of publication. Not only that I recommended it to my book club before it was actually released. I am very glad I read it and I enjoyed it thoroughly, although I am not yet certain as to whether it compares with either of the two previous novels.
Comparisons aside, August Blue it is a thought-provoking and entertaining novel. The story is narrated by Elsa M Anderson, a world class pianist, who froze onstage during a performance of Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto and walked off stage, who is going through a rather interior crisis, possibly a crisis in her career, but since this is also during the time of Covid, Elsa's interior crisis is somewhat caught up in, and reflected by, liminality in the lives of the other artists and musicians she knows.
It is also a story where, true to form, Deborah Levy slings enigmatic metaphors about freely. Elsa, who was born Ann, who has dyed her hair blue and "frozen" on stage. Elsa whose struggle is interior but who is also struggling with her outer self, the Ann she might have been. As a child Elsa/Ann loved the water; in a scene in this novel she goes out diving for urchins, calling to mind Henry Scott Tuke's painting of the same name as the novel. She wanders around Europe giving piano lessons, much as Rachmaninoff himself wandered about giving piano lessons after a disastrous concert. The fascination with Isadora Duncan, who threw off convention, and with filmmaker Agnes Varda of the eccentric purple and white hair, are also of note, not so much to speak to some greater theme, but as they reflect Elsa's own growing understanding of how who she is, both as an artist and as a woman, intertwine.
Initially I wondered if the metaphors were leading me somewhere deeper, but gradually I just got into the story, realizing that the metaphors were reflective of Elsa's own mental peregrinations, of the references that shaped her world and the way they played out in her own understanding of her path, the same way we all carry mental references and relate our own struggle to the stories we have chosen, or which have been chosen for us, to guide our lives. One never gets the sense that Elsa will not recover from her walk through the desert of her own interior emotional responses, and so I would say the book is more hopeful than not, and Elsa's wanderings not so much aimless as liminal. I find it interesting that this very journey into transformation is set during the time of COVID shutdowns, creating another overlapping layer of ambiguity between the internal and the external. I am also intrigued by Elsa's doppelgänger, a woman she sees on more than one occasion, and around whom she constructs a monologue, perhaps a central theme of this book, as Elsa comes to terms with the woman she has been, the woman she might have been, and the woman she could be.