2022 #4: Fall Of Giants (Follett)

 

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a massive achievement, no question. "Epic" certainly describes the scope of this novel that manages to narrative the lives of five different families, in multiple places, across the span of several years, beginning in 1911 and stretching into the aftermath of WWI. Follett creates characters who are flawed, and remarkably human in those flaws, against a backdrop that changes all the rules (war). I really appreciated the multiple perspectives from different players as they grapple with or uphold the various party lines. That politics is messy is no revelation, but Follett manages to remind us that while the history books recount war as a hegemonic chess game, there are thousands of lives down on "ground level" that are impacted in myriad ways. I labored to get through some sections about war strategy and the battlefield scenes, but found myself roped back in as the stories of love and loss emerged. I'd say I found the book too long, but admittedly I can't tell you what parts I'd cut (objectively). I'm not sure I love historical fiction or ~1000 page books enough to read the others in the trilogy, but for those who enjoy sagas that strike a good balance between characterization and historical narrative, I'd definitely recommend this.

View all my reviews

2022 #3: Taste: My Life Through Food (Tucci)

 Cross-posted at the Lady of Shallots

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I didn't know a thing about Stanley Tucci beyond "he's an actor" when my best friend recommended this book to me. Since I had a few free Audible credits, I decided to make this my first audiobook experience as well. I'm not sure it was the best choice on that front, as having recipes "read" to me is not that fulfilling (and if I'm listening to an audiobook I'm not going to be in a position to write them down). On the other hand, hearing Stanley Tucci recount his own memoir was wonderful and entrenched me in a deep nostalgia for my own Italian-American roots. Having spent considerable time in Italy, Tucci's pronunciation is more European than the particular East Coast American Italian er...dialect...that I learned from my father, but he nods to it on more than one occasion. Given his wry humor, hearing him say "fagioli" correctly (as opposed to "fazool") seemed a bit incongruous. The only truly annoying aspect of the audiobook, however, was the dialogue, which Tucci reads like a script, announcing the speaker ("Mom", "Me", "Felicity") before every single utterance. I did not feel this was necessary and Tucci is a good enough actor to have made a distinction between the "characters" (without resorting to farcical vocal characterizations as we also sometimes hear in audiobooks). But enough about My First Audiobook. I will be buying the print version for the recipes.

Again, knowing nothing about Tucci or his life, I wasn't quite prepared for the last segment of the memoir. As the publisher's blurb says nothing of it, I won't provide a spoiler here, but suffice it to say, the "journey through good times and bad" is legit, particularly on the "bad" front. Let's just say that under normal circumstances hearing a VERY LONG litany of foods he can eat, which he provides near the end of the book, would be taxing, but I found tears welling up in my eyes. It really is a beautiful celebration of food, family, and life. I am also grateful (I think) for the fact that he helped me recall a food that had been sitting in the deep abyss of my most buried memories: timpano. My mother and father, who divorced when I was eleven, did make one Christmas, a timpano. I had forgotten all about it, but the memories came rushing back, and while my mother did not likely curse about it -- even behind closed doors--I firmly believe she probably wanted to do so. I remember thinking it wasn't possible to put so much food at once into a single dish and then into my digestive system. Tucci says it is like cilantro--you either love it or hate it. I love cilantro. I cannot say the same for my memories of timpano.

The book is full of little treasures of food trivia (that martinis were often made with scotch in lieu of more expensive vermouth was a revelation), but it really is a rather moving and humorous account of life and food. I enjoyed listening to it while I cooked, and it helped renew my energy for what I know to be an act of love, but sometimes has felt more like a chore. With Tucci's words and voice, the simple and sweet truth of food's power to both center and be at the center of our lives is beautifully resonant.

View all my reviews

2022 #2: The Cooking Gene (Twitty)

 CW: enslavement/trauma

Cross-posted

The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A "journey" is an apropos description for this book. I won't even attempt to quantify the percentages of history, memoir, documentary, and food writing. Twitty manages to intertwine his personal story with a history of foodways and people that inextricably connects ancestry, personhood, and food in ways that left me contemplating my own complicated feelings about food and culture. As an adoptee, with two parents who have died, I've not cared to search too much into my own genealogy--I suspect in fear that somehow the cultures and stories into which I was adopted will become "less than." If fear is in the mix, I am even more humbled because this book is at times gritty reckoning with both Twitty's own ancestral history, and this country's foundational story of exploitation and abuse. There are many passages in the book that make it obvious that our narratives about food, crops, and foodways are never isolated. Culinary history is American history. Or African history. Or European history. You get the idea.

Instead, cotton ensured the growing and complete racialization of what it meant to be of African descent. African ethnic groups became the early Afro-Creole culture that began African America. If King Cotton had never reigned, we African Americans might be like an other ethnic group --stories might be passed down; names remembered; song, words, religions, prayers, perhaps, even on might say, a sense of pride. Instead, names were changed again and again and again, as people were sold, further commoditized, dehumanized, and abused. (357-8)

Twitty tells us: "My food is my flag" and his quest to to "regain...a heritage denied" is filled with pain, joy, curiosity, and tremendous beauty. There are multitudes of lessons here, and at some point I will give it a re-read, because I'm certain I'd find even more layers. One of my biggest takeaways, however--and this is coming from my historian's soul--comes from this passage on the last page:

I mistook the past for a landscape to be managed by the learned mind but I was wrong. The past is not to be conquered or conveniently cinched in neat lessons and sound bites. It is a territory that will absorb you almost against your will. (425)

If you aren't interested in culinary history or genealogy...READ THIS BOOK. You owe it to yourself. Michael Twitty allows us to glimpse this "journey" and understand the true meaning and depth of that Carl Sagan quote that is too often blithely offered as inspiration instead of an invitation for reflection and exploration: "We are, each of us, a multitude."


View all my reviews

2022 #1: Specimen Days (Cunningham)

 

Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think reading this book in spurts was a disservice. All three "stories" within the novel are interconnected, but it is hard to evaluate the novel as a whole because the three sections seem almost more like individual novellas. All three stories have three main characters (who share names, but shift their roles as protagonists/antagonists and their characterizations: Simon, Catherine/Cat/Catareen, Lucas/Luke) and Walt Whitman's poetry (and occasionally the poet himself) features in all three stories.

Of the three, "In the Machine" resonated the most, but I suspect that was because it was the first and I had no concept of the book as a whole. Cunningham vividly evokes the New York sidewalks and factories of yesteryear, with meaningful experiences of the underserved and outcast woven into a pseudo-ghost story.

The middle section, "The Children's Crusade," shifts to a more recent present, with a gritty protagonist whose choices, however, are less convincing than those of "In the Machine". The final offering, "Like Beauty," is an indulgent shift into sci-fi dystopia land, which ends up being a good read with an edge, but left me wanting the backstory that might have been included if it had been an entire novel.

Some have criticized the work as being too similar to Cunningham's The Hours in its use of Virginia Woolf. I can't comment on that, but I will say that the use of Whitman didn't always pack the same level of punch across the three stories. I found the Whitman quotes most compelling and interesting in the "The Children's Crusade" where as they seemed more of an annoyance in the other two.

It probably deserves a more concentrated re-read from me, because I'm sure I missed interconnections and allegories. On the other hand, I enjoyed reading each section as a self-contained story, even if Cunningham's genre experimentation was not consistently convincing.

2021 #17 The Pull of the Stars (Donoghue)

 

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is not an easy read right now, not that it would ever be an easy read. But it is also the PERFECT read right now, in the way it reminds us that life is not 2020. It isn't 2021. It isn't 1918. Life is the maelstrom of our experiences -- messy, incomplete, unexpected, joyful, mournful. I might not recommend this book for expectant mothers, but truly a beautiful reflection on life that takes place over three days. The protagonist is who many of us are sometimes and who we sometimes wish we could be Donoghue shares lives without ceremony or overcharacterization--their stories are enough. Our stories are enough, and that is the lesson here.

View all my reviews

2021 #16: The Ways of White Folks (Hughes)

The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

These may be short stories, but they are not short reads--nor should they be. Langston Hughes gives us a multi-dimensional look at racism through vivid characterization and writing that can be both acidic and tender. "Slave on the Block" looks at fetishization. "Home" and "The Blues I'm playing" should be required reading for music students--especially those studying the classical tradition. The final and longest story, "Father and Son" exposes the workings of classism and colorism, and is one of the most powerful short stories I have ever read. Throughout the book, questions of "home" and what that means seem to surface time and time again. This is one of the most important short story collections of the twentieth century, and is an essential inroad to understanding race relations in the U.S.

2021 #15: A Good Fall (Ha Jin)

 

A Good Fall by Ha Jin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's a lot here: some whimsy, a lot of dark humor, some heartache...in other words, life. But here Ha Jin captures live with a hyper-consciousness of the experience of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. We are invited into struggles of love and life, often against the backdrop of Flushing in Queens, NYC, and sometimes the understanding is remote, and other times it is more visceral. "A Composer and his Parakeet" hearkens back to an older time of fables, while keeping a modern narrative. Other stories, such as "Choice" and "The House Behind the Weeping Cherry" demonstrate that necessity and circumstance can both blur lines and forge relationships. It is an excellent book for the nightstand, reading one story at a time. To read it cover to cover would likely be rather unwieldy, although it would likely highlight Ha Jin's overall message regarding immigrant experience. That the characters are dynamic and diverse is important unto itself, and this is a great offer to think about the many layers and facets of life that fly under the radar.