I read 12 books in January. That seems like a lot, even for me. Not that there is any reason to justify how much I do or do not read. In this year of social distancing however, there are days that reading seems to be my only contact with my fellow humans. I believe reading is necessary, reading for fun, reading for information, reading because it opens a person's mind and understanding, both of the world and other humans but also of themselves. But I also realize that reading has become a privilege, at least in this country, and that saddens me to no end. But if I delve into this rabbit hole of what it means to be literate, and the implications for society, I will never get to the stated purpose of this post. Besides I am not an expert and therefore more research would be required. What I do know is this, in an age that is becoming more and more complex, and where more people are going to and graduating from college, the percentage of American adults who are proficiently literate is decreasing. That is not, and should not be, a comforting idea.
In short, yes, I have returned to writing about books. I will post a list, and I will try, hopefully sometimes successfully, to explore what the books I read mean to me. Occasionally my thoughts may approach the idea of a review, often not, and I am sure the process will be refined over time.
First, the list:
1. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. (non-fiction: race, criminal justice)
2. Colum McCann, Apeirogon. (fiction: historical, literary, Israel, Palestine)
3. Diane Cook,The New Wilderness. (fiction: literary, dystopian, mother/daughter relationship)
4. Adrian McKinty, The Cold Cold Ground. (fiction: mystery, Northern Ireland)
5. Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age. (fiction: popular culture, race relations)
6. Don DeLillo, White Noise. (fiction: literary, postmodernism, sarcasm)
7. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers. (non-fiction: culture, sociology)
8. Stuart Woods, Skin Game. (fiction: thriller)
9. Michael Curry, Love is the Way. (non-fiction: memoir, faith)
10. Joe Ide, IQ, (fiction: mystery)
11. Jess Walter, The Cold Millions. (fiction: historical, American West).
12. Stuart Woods, Bombshell. (fiction: thriller)
The year began with Michelle Alexander's fabulous book The New Jim Crow, and I mentioned it briefly at the end of my 2020 reading review, here. I had read it in 2018 but I wanted to read it again simply because so much of my own thinking and understanding of race and American Culture and history had changed over the past year. I am glad I did. It is an informative, well written and well researched book, a book I would like to say that everyone should read, even as I recognize that this will never happen simply because over half of American adults are, if the statistics are accurate, incapable of reading and comprehending this book. It is a valuable book, filled with complex ideas and well-researched information. On the downside, at least for this reader, there is considerable repetition in the opening sections, which I still found extremely annoying, although this time around I perhaps found myself more willing to forgive, understanding that the author may have felt the repetition was necessary given the complexity of the subject. I disagree but it is a relatively minor quibble.
Unlike so many books, Alexander's message grows stronger and more focused as the book progresses. The book moves from outrage, outrage that is focused but simultaneously still somewhat nebulous (hence repetition) as to details, to a deeply detailed critical study of the current situation, its roots, its history and its entrenched pervasiveness. The book starts where we are, knowing something is wrong but not knowing how or why, and then delineates the spider web of entrenched biases and systems that have led us to this place, a place in which should never have found ourselves. The last section, with its pointed and often painful analysis of the pitfalls of past reform and its damning account of what is needed, is the books strength. It is a book that is worthy of rereading, and even gains in strength.
I went immediately from the complexity of The New Jim Crow into another kind of complexity, this time in Colum McCann's novel Apeirogon. It is a fascinating tapestry of a novel based on the true story of two real men, one Israeli, one Palestinian, who lost their daughters due to violence. Through an unusual structure of 1001 short pieces, McCann weaves metaphor, history, allegory, fact, place and the very real weight of human emotion: joy, profound loss, grief. It is a book that often left me in tears, that occasionally rendered me speechless with beauty, which in fact led me through an array of emotional responses. It is a book that changed my understanding of a place and a people involved in conflict in a way that I might otherwise never have experienced.
For this reader, the non-linear structure was compelling. I found the convoluted interlayering to be reminiscent of the way memory surfaces and then seemingly disappears in our lives, apparently triggered by random events, of the way grief evolves and shapes us. In the seventh episode of Pretend It's A City, Fran Lebowitz states "A book is not supposed to be a mirror, it is supposed to be a door." This novel opened a door to me and lured me in, into a world I still would not have seen, even had I visited Israel (I have not). What I do see, now and in the future, will never be the same.
I read two additional ambitiously literary novels in January, Diane Cook's The New Wilderness and Don DeLillo's White Noise. Both were interesting, well-written, and challenging, I could appreciate them both on a purely intellectual level, but I did not enjoy reading either one.
The New Wilderness takes place in some dystopian, not to distant, future and although the opening scene, of a lone woman, Bea, giving birth to a stillborn child in the forest, a woman who had obviously once lived in a culture at least somewhat like our own, felt compelling, the novel is plagued by inconsistencies and I quickly felt mired down. Nothing in this world makes sense, and although that may be the point — the very arbitrariness of government and policy and transitions of power, as well as the confusion and blind stupidity this creates — the act of reading the novel felt arbitrary, illogical, and strained by awkward transitions. The New Wilderness felt somewhat like two novels to me: a not very successful dystopian novel which encompasses a novel about the relationship between a mother and her daughter (Bea and Agnes), about coming to womanhood, and about nurture and abandonment. Agnes herself is richly and fully developed and the relationship between Agnes and her mother is strong and finely nuanced, but finding and savoring that relationship felt much like finding occasional nuggets of gold in a sea of wildly shifting sand. I am sure there are people who loved this novel but I am not one of them. The novel does offer much to discuss however and I would be open to a conversation.
But what about White Noise? This novel was written in the mid 1980s and I reread it now for book group. Intellectually it was a fascinating novel, filled with incredibly beautiful sentences and sharp satire, both of which I enjoyed. But it was flat, intentionally flat, but flat nonetheless. I know this is the point. There is no difference in the cadence and emotional resonance of the different voices — as if the world exists on a flattened plain. I cannot say it is a collection of beautiful sentences without a plot, because there is a plot, even though it is not a plot-driven story. In fact, I am not convinced it is a story at all.
I think White Noise is an excellent representation of a particular moment in the post-modern absurdist mindset. A part of me remembers being a student of literature, remembers studying twentieth century literature. The novel reminds me of my early struggles with Genet and Barth, although I think I prefer both authors to DeLillo. I could be wrong because much has changed in the ensuing 40 years. I have changed as well. Reading White Noise reminded me of the intellectual I could have become, reminds me how grateful I am to have escaped that fate. While I was reading, I could not help being struck by the cruelty of its intellectual conceit — the cold sardonicism, the deliberate mocking tone. DeLillo was writing about how modern invention had created a simulacrum of life, hence the flatness. In fact there were overlapping simulacra here. I was thinking about the philosophy of Baudrillard, which I had been quite happy not to think about for those same 40 years. In the end I think DeLillo wrote a simulacrum of a novel, although it did prove good fodder for discussion in my book group.
In between all of that intensity, I needed a bit of lightness and escape so I indulged in a variety of mysteries and thrillers. Adrian McKinty's The Cold Cold Ground is the first in a series about Detective Sean Duffy and both the series and the author were new to me. I enjoyed it, although I found the character of Detective Duffy more compelling than the mystery itself, where I felt a few plot devices could have been more smoothly rounded out. I thought the premise and character had potential but the author seemed to get in his own way on occasion, perhaps take the whole thing too seriously, more seriously perhaps than I preferred in a literary escape. I am undecided about following up, although I will probably read at least one more novel in the series to see how it develops.
I liked Joe Ide's IQ even more and I will be reading more of this series. Ide has created an interesting, complex, and compelling character in Isaiah Quintabe (IQ). The story was outlandish and filled with humor. Yes, there were a few stumbles here and there, but I was having too much fun to care. In short it is a good, light, escape of a novel and I am looking forward to the next installment.
To finish out the thrill ride I read the last two of Stuart Woods' Teddy Fay novels, Skin Game and Bombshell. I had picked up Teddy Fay at my mom's and I found the first two novels fast, mindless, and entertaining, in a kind of action-packed roller-coaster of a read kind of way. Of these last two, I felt Bombshell worked better than Skin Game, where it felt like Stuart Woods was trying to turn Teddy Fay into another Stone Barrington and it didn't work. The language is too elementary: The short, to the point sentences, probably written at a 4th or 5th grade level, work well for action, for people acting on impulse, for blowing things up and doing other stupid things, not so well for romance or espionage. Skin Game, set in Paris, tried to be too complex and it fell flat. Bombshell, which I read in two hours one evening when I was tired and both my internet and tv were out, provided the perfect distraction of mindless absurdity and action. I am probably done with this series, but it was the perfect read for its time. And I can see how it would be the perfect book for a visit to my mom, where fast light entertainment that can be easily interrupted is the order of the day.
Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age is a light, fun novel about a white-influencer-celebrity who hires a black nanny. It is occasionally uncomfortable, very often funny, and it unpacks everyday cultural angst and systemic racism in a very accessible way. A novel very much of the moment, although, not surprisingly, with very little to hold onto.
Bishop Michael Curry's memoir Love is the Way is beautiful, uplifting, and filled with hope and wisdom. I listened to the audiobook and I think this format works very well because Bishop Curry's inflections and soothing tone, his charming self-deprecation, his humor, add to the story he is trying to tell. There is nothing new here philosophically or theologically, except in Curry's profound understanding of human nature and acceptance of the idea that there are no flawless heroes. He invites the reader to step back and put anger and fear aside, and his faith is inspiring. Curry has a way of taking a life and crafting a story that reminds us of the things we are all supposed to know but which we somehow put aside, and he does it with honesty and without condemnation. I would say this a perfect book for those times when you are struggling to find a little hope in the world. I loved the book, not because I learned new things, but because I was reminded to open my eyes and see the things I knew a little more deeply.
Finally two entertaining and thought-provoking reads which were thoroughly enjoyable but not terribly profound. Malcolm Gladwell is always insightful, and I enjoyed reading Outliers, which has been out for a few years now. I already knew some of the information the author explores as much has been written about it, but I was surprised that the book itself still had the power to force me to examine and think about some of my assumptions in new ways. Gladwell has a gift for accessibility, and for packaging ideas in ways that sneak into the interstices of the mind.
Finally, I ended the month with Jess Walter's historical novel The Cold Millions, which takes place during the free-speech riots in Spokane during 1909-1910. Walter deftly intermingles history and a few historical characters with fiction, with "what might have been" but it is also a modern story, a story with many parallels to today, written by a modern author. I thought the author bridged this divide effectively and well for the most part, although at times I struggled with the many voices, the interruptions in thought. The story revolves around two brothers, Gig and Rye, and how the riots impact their lives. Both brothers are reading War and Peace, and War and Peace permeates this novel, with Walter employing the same structural format (and the same problem of the many characters). The novel is very much about "the cold millions" who never get ahead, and the men who keep opportunity from them, but even more so it is about how the forces of history exert a power outside of ourselves, how we get caught up into the flow despite ourselves, and how our choices make or break us. It is a good read but not a novel I will return to again and again (unlike War and Peace, which rewards the reader for each subsequent effort. I may have to pick it up yet again).
And there you have it. February is shorter, and I have picked up a couple of books I am reading very slowly, a few pages at a time, so the list may be shorter. Or not. In truth, it hardly matters.
On that note, I shall leave you with a few words from the young George Santayana, writing to his friend and former Harvard classmate, Henry Ward Abbot in January 1887:
Did you come into this world because you thought it was worth while? No more do you stay in it because you do. The idea of demanding that things should be worth doing is a human impertinence.