2024 #19 The Witch Elm (French)

 

The Witch Elm by Tana French
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think I came to this with unfair bias. My only previous experience with French's work was The Searcher, which I read in 2022, and I enjoyed. That is more of a traditional mystery, whereas this is more of a character study/novel (it does in fact say "a novel" on the front cover)? I also think I might have been better served by the print version as I found Paul Nugent's performance in the audiobook rather overwrought.

All that said, it doesn't help that the protagonist (and the vast majority of the characters) is just not that likeable. Toby is "always lucky" we are told, and he and his buddies, Sean and Declan, are hyper-masculine clichés, steeped in bro culture that is magnified in a seemingly endless scene at a pub between the three of them. Likewise, Toby's two closest cousins, Leon and Susannah, also don't have much going for them as characters. As read by Nugent, Leon is a whiny prat with a huge chip on his shoulder. In the case of this character, there is much in his backstory that makes him more sympathetic, but we don't get to any of that until much later in the book. The only two characters who seem to have any redeeming qualities are Uncle Hugo and Melissa (although I found Nugent's voicing of her to be absolutely cloying in places--California valley girl meets Irish damsel in distress).

As far as pacing goes, I feel that I must take responsibility for the fact that I was hoping for a more traditional mystery, and I was distracted in the first hour or so of listening because I kept trying to figure out a) why no one had died yet and b) who it was going to be. Well, someone does die, but it is actually a minor plot point by the time we start to understand that this book is an attempt to investigate the darkness of the human soul. There are a LOT of very lengthy trips down memory lane -- between the guys, between the cousins--not all of them necessary, lingering on boyish pranks and other foolish behavior. And LOTS of time sitting around getting drunk and wasted. I did end up appreciating what first seems to be Toby's luck coming to an end, as it was a well-crafted diversion (but not quite a diversion).

If you are looking for a more traditional whodunnit, this is not that. French's writing is descriptive and charged, enough for me to stick with it when I started to tire of everyone whining. Uncle Hugo's freelance work is interesting, and occasionally French peppers in some interesting historical tidbits and the like. A small point, but I was a bit surprised to hear Uncle Hugo quote Virgil as an example of the ancient *Greeks* believing that the witch elm stood at the gates of Hell. Splitting hairs, perhaps, but it was implied that Virgil was Greek.

I tried to evaluate it on its own merits rather than expectations I should not have had of the book. If you are a fan of French's mysteries, just understand that this is a very different creature. If you enjoy slow plots, psychological study, and an occasional plot twist, this might very well be a great book for you!

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2023 #50: Invisible Cities (Calvino)

 

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I often feel that Calvino could have written about a slice of cheese and would have made it interesting. William Weaver's translation is superb (at least as far as reading experience goes--I have not/can not compare it to the original). The book is full of metaphor, but instead of feeling tedious, we start to understand the metaphors as truths and not just mere symbols. The context is a fictitious conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, the founder and first emperor of the Yuan dynasty of China, and the subject of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem. Rather that set it completely in dialogue, however, the book offers vignettes of these "invisible cities" to which Marco Polo has "traveled"--the scare quotes will have to suffice here as I do not wish to offer spoilers. Occasionally dialogue from Khan and Polo interject to wax philosophical, but it is far from gratuitous. For those new to Calvino's writing, it is a great entry! It did not take me ten years to read this book---I just started it on my Kindle ten years ago and put it aside for awhile.

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2023 #49: Haven (Donoghue)

 

Haven by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was close to five stars for me, but I can see why some struggle with it. It is NOT a fast-paced book, but it is the slowness that invites you to experience the intense isolation and bare-bones intensity of the story. Set on a remote "island" (more of a rock) in the Atlantic, Haven is a story about three souls, all of them bound by faith, and how those ties become challenged by religion. The austerity of the backdrop puts the psychological in the foreground, and the end result is compelling. It did not immediately engage me, but I felt it was very worth sticking with it. Donoghue really calls into being the fine threads that might tie together obedience and obsession and how our existence can sometimes sever those same threads to find our own agency and reason to live.

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2023 #48: Chaos at Carnegie Hall --Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane #1 (Oliver)

 

Chaos at Carnegie Hall by Kelly Oliver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I very much wanted to enjoy this book -- a music-centric cozy mystery with a fun heroine seemed just my speed, so I enjoyed this freebie on Kindle. Unfortunately, Fiona Figg is not Phryne Fisher (which was what I was hoping for) and at least for me, was a truly unlikeable character--fickle, judgmental, prudish, and a bore. She can't decide if she admires her fellow women ("I would be spending the night in jail with the best and brightest female minds in America") or whether her prudish sensibilities will rule the day ("I was glad when the luncheon was over. Mrs. (Dorothy) Parker's flamboyance was giving me indigestion.")

The book suffers from a lack of editing...how many times do we need to see cigars referred to as "foul"? How many times must Eliza be a little minx, or does she have "some cheek"? How many times do we hear that Eliza is not all she seems? When we are told for the umpteenth time, "But I suspected there was more to the girl than met the eye" it has already been revealed what that "more" is, at least in part. There are two references to Sherlock Holmes used as a quipped observation of two different characters in a matter of pages. The ending seemed a rather fantastical turn of events and I found myself rather sore at the protagonist.

There are moments of humor and the cast of historical figures lends some fun, when Fiona isn't busy judging them (outside of her murder investigation): Margaret Sanger, Dorothy Parker, Thomas Edison, etc. Eliza's character is fun, as is her little puppy, but I found myself wishing that she was the main protagonist. Sometimes the "Odd Couple" routine was a bit tiresome.

I realize this is the first book in the series, so I might try another since I feel the character(s) have a lot of potential to grow.


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2023 #47: Zoli (McCann)

 

Zoli by Colum McCann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had no idea what this book was about, but I needed a book that started with Z for my 2023 A-Z reading challenge, and I knew Colum McCann's work from Let the Great World Spin.
Zoli is a beautifully written book that traces the life and loves of a Romani woman, based loosely on Polish poet Papusza (1910 - 1987). Drawing from archival and authoritative sources (e.g. the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at UT Austin), McCann offers a narrative that bears witness to the history of the Romani people in how they were outcasts and exploited in the name of "advocacy". Zoli herself is a wonderful multi-dimensional character who must navigate and choose identities for her own survival. We see her as a child, raised by her grandfather, a young poet/songwriter--exploited and caught in political contexts out of her control, an exile and refugee both, and as an aging mother still determined to express her own agency.

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2023 #46: Year of Wonders (Brooks)

 

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It may be erroneous to say a work of historical fiction is prescient, but this 2001 novel took on new life in 2020. Based on the true story of the remote English village of Eyam that communally sacrificed itself during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1666, Year of Wonders is a miraculously beautiful novel. The characterization is rich and dimensional, with housemaid Anna Frith as a wonderfully developed (and developing) narrator. When the village rector convinces (most of) the village to self-quarantine from outlying towns, the loss is immense, but there is hope and growth and surprises. What is good and what is bad become murky and no one is immune from the challenges, even if they manage to stay healthy. The writing is extraordinary, wrapping in references to seventeenth-century village life and social structure without artifice. For all its graphic depiction of disease and childbirth, there is an underlying elegance which carries the reader along with just enough distance that we can understand 1666 to be 1918, or 2020, or whatever catastrophes we may face in the future.

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2023 #45 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Vuong)

 

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Novel" does not seem the most apt descriptor for this collection of prosepoetry. And no, that is not a typo. The language is reason alone to pick up this book. It is like watching a painter. If this is at the sacrifice of plot and conventional narrative, so be it. The language of this book is extraordinary.

And while there is not a single trajectory (really more a rhizomatic network of recollections and memories), we meet characters who embody truth in their realness, whether it is the protagonist's mother in her ability to be both mother and demon, the grandmother in her frailty and strength, or Trevor, in his sexual awakening and moments of tenderness juxtaposed with every red-blooded American masculine trope. Most of the characters seem to be reconciling (or not) the opposites within.

Where I grew slightly weary was in the sexual awakening passages. While written beautifully, I relegate that many words devoted to sex to a different genre, and don't prefer it taking up that much space in a "novel" where I anticipate some sort of narrative arc. The arc is there, but it is subtle, and the retracing of steps/revisiting of sexual experiences found me scrolling through the pages of the e-book a bit faster in places. Mileage will definitely vary on this front, so I offer this criticism in humility and with full acknowledgment that it is my personal preference.

As I said, however, I don't think I've ever read such a poetic novel and it is well worth the time to see how words can be briefly gorgeous.

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2023 #44 The Terraformers (Newitz)

 

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In all honesty there were long passages wherein I never thought I'd give this book five out of five stars, but the plusses definitely outweigh the minuses for me. This is an incredibly imaginative, yet very real, book. Newitz has a gift for world-making, but also weaves in extended metaphors that are occasionally heavy-handed, but too relevant to ignore. In some ways, there’s a sense that we are all part of some cosmic and cyclical raison d’etre to build and destroy and rebuild. On the other hand, there’s also a hope for taking two steps forward without the compulsory step back.

Fans of Octavia Butler's Earthseed series (e.g. Parable of the Sower ) will appreciate the "ERT" (Environmental Rescue Team) for its idealism in a dystopic context. The characters are diverse in shape, gender identity, hominid status, and Newitz challenges the idea of human vs. animal. Frustratingly, however, just as one gets attached to characters the story shifts forward in time. This is effective in demonstrating generational legacy, but leaves a hollow space, particularly in the case of the first protagonist, Destry, and her friends in La Ronge. This was a similar complaint I had of Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's Glassworks, but The Terraformers works better in terms of continuity as it serves a larger statement about some inevitabilities of humankind. Despite the darker conclusions, the book is hopeful in some ways as well, not completely reliant upon dystopic tropes of ecological demise.

The acknowledgments are an inspiration--Newitz did their homework. While I don't have the expertise to fact check every idea in the book, it is rich with vision and foresight. Newitz asks us "what if" with just enough verisimilitude that we want to seek out the answer.

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2023 #43 The Long Call --Two Rivers #1 (Cleeves)

 

The Long Call by Ann Cleeves
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a long time fan of the series Vera, I was eager to read my first Ann Cleeves mystery! I deliberately chose this newer series (Two Rivers) with a new sleuth (Matthew Venn) because I didn't want to run into a story that I've already seen in the series Vera, and I wanted an untainted introduction to Cleeves's latest detective.

It took awhile to engage with it, although I recognize it is a difficult thing to introduce all new characters. Everything picks up speed in the last 15% of the book, but it is more procedural than thriller or suspense otherwise. Matthew is a troubled male detective with baggage and trauma and self-esteem issues, but is quietly competent. It is a shame that he has to get hit over the head for everything to become clear. Refreshing, on the other hand, is that he is a married gay man.

Some of the characters were a bit uneven and cloying. Cleeves offers some strong commentary on the power of abuse, and we even see how that abuse can be internalized. Some characters have an uneven presence--we meet Gaby early on, who seems so important as a flatmate of the victim, and then there's a big reveal, and then? Nothing. A final scene with Matthew and Gaby would have come full circle.

There are some interesting themes: parental relationships (Maurice and Lucy, Matthew and his dead father, Matthew and his mother, Jonathan and his folks, Caroline and her father), and bird imagery plays a significant role (the title of the book, for example).

There's an editing error wherein a character is given the wrong last name in one instance, which I'd have more tolerance for if it weren't such a procedural where one needs to keep track of all the various dramatis personae.

I'm intrigued enough to venture forth in the series, but I don't see myself following Matthew Venn for long unless he gets a bit more chutzpah, not just when confronting his own demons and traumas.

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2023 #42 Tranquility by Tuesday (Vanderkam)

 

Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters by Laura Vanderkam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Importantly, the four star rating is for the content, NOT the mode of delivery. If you do not need to listen to this as an audio book, I would highly recommend buying it in hard copy for several reasons. Each chapter is very formulaic in structure, but the "Your Turn" sections will be more effective if in a workbook mode (hard to do with an audiobook). Vanderkam has a pleasant voice, but one can only emote so much when reading numbered listicles and anecdotes. There probably is a more engaging way to convey the material, and at times the delivery sounded like AI generated text to voice, and the enthusiasm behind the directives started to sound mechanical as well.

All of that aside, there is some really good advice and the participant responses are helpful to a point. The book looks at each of Vanderkam's 9 rules (outlined on her website but given in brief here):

Give yourself a bedtime
Plan on Fridays
Move by 3pm
Three times a week is a habit
Create a back-up slot
One big adventure, one little adventure
Take one night for you
Batch the little things
Effortful before Effortless

One of the overarching points that seems to be at the root of all the suggestions is to have increased awareness of one's own energy, and let it be the guide when determining what commitments we make. This was particularly useful in Rule 8: Batch the Little Things. Initially it feels like the opposite of a GTD (Getting Things Done (TM)) approach in some sense although really more of a recontextualization of an Inbox review. The emphasis here is on the "capture" mechanism that GTDers will recognize, rather than doing the little thing right at that moment. A good way to think about it is if doing an inbox review, the little actionable things go to a "Batch List" rather than a "Do it" if less than 2 minutes. I appreciated this because it acknowledges who hopping into email to answer something quickly can easily derail the bigger more important thing you are doing/about to do. Vanderkam says a two minute task can easily turn into: a "task hydra", a rabbit hole, or a procrastination cycle wherein you start doing a bunch of small tasks because now you are at the computer. Immediate reward supplants the longer term gain, in other words. She provides further guidance: Don't batch during your most productive hours, but set time aside maybe in the dip of the afternoon when your mental faculties aren't as energized and fresh.

Along similar lines, Rule 9 (Effortful vs. Effortless). Vanderkam encourages using pockets of leisure time (or even time confetti, a term coined by Brigid Schulte) for something more engaging like reading, rather than mindless social media scrolling. It isn't that she is suggesting one always read in lieu of social media, but to consider the more "effortful fun" first for a larger reward--working toward completing a book, for example. You will never reach the end of Instagram, she reminds us.

The narration of the study occupies too much space, and would have been more interesting if something had failed. While the narrative incorporates participant struggles, it starts to get tedious having the same structure applied to every chapter. While the book could have been shorter, it is still a worthwhile read, especially if you are skeptical in reading the list above. She does include anecdotes from participants who were initially reluctant or were immediate naysayers, and that did address my own reaction from time to time.

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2023 #41: Landscape with Invisible Hand (Anderson)

 

Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: I know the author.

If Salvador Dali and H.G. Wells birthed a novella together, this is what I imagine it might look like. It is a model of crafting dystopia, wherein humankind seemingly has welcomed our vuvv overlords, and "creativity" becomes the currency of survival--at least for a time. Seemingly very few stones are left unturned as the book takes aim at the climate crisis, capitalistic inequity, voyeurism of social media...just to name a few.

While marketed as a book for young adults, I think anyone who enjoys satirical dystopian fiction would enjoy this. My only issue was that it seemed too short--I didn't get to invest deeply in any of the characters, but as they are stand-ins for you, me, and possibility, I guess that makes sense.

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2023 #40:Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Zevin)

 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Is this a book about gaming? Yes and no. Is it a book about love? Very much so. Love and life are a series of restarts, and this works better as a theme in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow than a plot device. The characters are vibrant and take turns being exasperating and insufferable--in a good way should we choose to see it occasionally in ourselves. The character of Marx, in particular, is so well-crafted by Zevin that the reader is captured by him along with everyone else in his fictional world. But Marx can only really shine because of his contrast to Sam and Sadie, and his function as an anchor in the tempests constantly created by those two characters.

There's a lot here that isn't cliché. Sadie's family is wealthy. But they are just that. Her grandmother and her mother aren't stereotypes of the wealthy and privileged, as witnessed in Freda's counsel to Sadie about charity and friendship. Not that rich folks need defense or apologetics, but it was refreshingly humanizing to be able to like characters who happen to have money. There are other issues that get just a brief nod (appropriation), and others that seem to be in the background but are fairly central to the story (disability, race).

For the characters and the prose this book deserves every star. Marx encapsulates beautifully the underpinning of ludic existence: "It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever. (336)." Even if our play is not captured in pixels and bytes, we can see ourselves in these dreams of the infinite, and so this is a book for not only gamers, but anyone who dares to dream.

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2023 #39: Glassworks (Wolfgang-Smith)

 

Glassworks by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Honestly, this book is absolutely between 3 and 4 stars for me. I could give each part of the book its own rating. Like Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days, the book has separate sections that almost alone, but are also interconnected. While I appreciate what Wolfgang-Smith tried to do in terms of style (adjusting the narrative style to the time period/circumstances of each section), I did not feel that approach was terribly successful.

In the first section we meet Agnes and Ignace. While slow to build in plot, this is where Wolfgang-Smith's gift for language is on full display. Written with a beautifully archaic elegance, there are moments of stunning simile: "If Ignace heard the menace in her voice, he did not signal it. She curdled in it herself--the spite she had absorbed and music now express to survive, like some blind and slimy subterranean creature." Like a gothic novel, we gain tremendous insights into the dark nights of the character's souls, whether driven by depression, abuse, or just the murky trenches of human existence. Agnes, in particular, is an astoundingly robust character who transforms with a self-consciousness that is honest: "She understood the appeal now, of this brand of abuse. There was an evil comfort in it." While the book could not have ended with the first section, I do wish we had simply extended the story of Agnes and Ignace because what followed really diminished my love for the book.

The second section does tie directly to Agnes and Ignace, who, for reasons not fully explained--but implied--have undergone a transformation from people we might care about to aloof artisans who are terrible parents. That in and of itself might have been interesting, but the section focuses on their son Edward. His lack of self-esteem, obviously a symptom of his upbringing, began to wear thin. At least initially, his love interest Charlotte was a far more engaging character, and just seemed to make Edward's self-disparagement and impulsive behavior all the more irritating. Then, Charlotte, too, transforms. These change of characters are a theme, as it turns out, and I found myself wanting to just gather them all in a room and take stock of where everyone started and where they wound up. That isn't a criticism and was in fact one of the aspects that kept me going. And even in this section of the book, we get wonderful, highlight-worthy sentences: "It was like Edward had traded his soul for seventy-two hours of tin-pan euphoria." Chef's kiss.

Edward's last years provide a quiet, almost invisible, backdrop as we meet his legacy in the third section. Wolfgang-Smith skillfully retraces her steps just enough to answer some questions that are important for everything else that comes later. It is when the character of Novak attends a Broadway play and meets Cecily that I felt things started to unravel a bit. Novak goes from a slightly grouchy realist to an obsessive savior figure and while there are enough psychological clues as to why, I didn't care enough about the focus of her obsession to want to keep following. The end of that section just went a bit off the rails for me.

Finally the book ends with the story of Flip. Here there are some very well crafted "hints" where Wolfgang-Smith drops something in passing, and we only later realize the significance. I loved that part of this final section. Flip and Tabitha are twins, and relate to the other three parts in a less direct, but interesting way. The problem is that Flip is even less likeable than young Edward, so again I was faced with a pathetic and tiresome "protagonist." By the time she transforms, it really didn't feel like enough, and the last section of the book was hard to finish.

Ultimately, however, I'm glad I did finish. I suspect other readers might resonate less with the first part, and more with the last, or the middle two sections. And I applaud the effort here, particularly since I believe this is a first novel--it is a hugely ambitious undertaking to write across four generations, shifting both style and plot directions. I will eagerly pick up Wolfgang-Smith's next novel, because her capacity for crafting beautiful sentences is some of the best I've encountered. The title of the book is fitting on many levels, and the book is very strong in some ways, but even a beautiful kaleidoscope can become too dizzying.

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2023 #38: Lessons in Chemistry (Garmus)

 

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As I began reading this book, I was prepared to wind up with a "meh" for an overall review. I was wrong.
Elizabeth Zott is a heroine in her own time, and ours. We need not work hard to translate the sexist transgressions of the 50s and 60s to today. Maybe we don't fully identify with Elizabeth, but Garmus provides Calvin, Harriet, Mad, Walter, and even Six-Thirty to fill in the gaps. Writing omniscient narration for the dog provided something more than whimsy. There's truth in animal sense. Six-Thirty is the sage observer, and the little windows we get into Six-Thirty's mind are sometimes as heart-wrenching as they are smile-inducing.

I am mildly sympathetic to the fatigue expressed by some regarding feminists being cast as social misfits, but I feel this particular character is a real opportunity to understand neurodiversity and how one's calling and focus can shape how they relate to the world. This is why Calvin and Elizabeth find each other. I can also see how some expected an easy beach read, but discovered some really crushing scenes of the terrifying reality that many women face. Garmus owes no one an apology, from my perspective. It is exactly that these scenes are interwoven into more comical and lighthearted engagement that makes this such an excellent book. The cover's mid-century vintage design might belie the true nature of the book, but isn't that the entire point? It encapsulates the status of women in the 1950s it its use of that art.

There are yes, a few bra-burning clichés of feminist narratives, but they are used sparingly and with care toward the protagonist's character, so they seem plausible and less like clichés. What appears at first to be the central relationship of the book, is soon supplanted by a "it takes a village" story that includes villagers with secrets and skeletons aplenty, but who are ultimately so human in their stumbling and bumbling and sometimes successful attempts at growth.

An absolute favorite book for me.

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2023 #37: Other Birds (Allen)

 

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a really beautiful book, peppered with just enough magical realism to keep things interesting. Zoey, the protagonist, is so very like-able. As is Charlotte. There’s even a Boo Radley type and I’m impressed that this character has one denouement moment, but remains a mystery at the end—she doesn’t change, but the people in her orbit, and how they relate to her, do. That’s nuanced.

These "other birds," joined by Mac and Frasier, create their own flock, and that's ultimately the point of the book. But along the way, there are painful histories, ghosts--real and imagined, and a special "bird" named Pigeon.

There are some artful reveals, and those that should be obvious, but might not be. The book is slightly weakened by an unevenness in narrative--there are times when we aren't quite sure whose story is center stage because there's a bit of stream-of-consciousness jumping from one character to the next. Ultimately, however, the real value is in how Allen doesn't resort to cliché--what typically detonates fizzles out instead, and we are left satisfied with the unanswered questions just as we must be in real life in order to grow and have meaningful relationships.

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2023 #36 The Four Winds (Hannah)

 

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As someone who grew up in California, I find it deeply shameful that my education (which was in many ways excellent) did not address nor talk about the horrors of the Dustbowl and the migrants who came West seeking refuge. Sure, there was mention of Cesar Chavez and the Delano Table Grape strike at some point, but other than that, if you had asked me who the "Okies" were, I could not have told you until much later in life, when Dorothea Lange's famous photograph "Migrant Mother" (1936) finally posted on my radar screen. Kristin Hannah's beautiful novel helps to give voice to the Americans who were so mistreated--by local governments, by the Federal government, by private interests--and in so doing unearths a pattern of power that has plagued us since the first colonists oppressed and stole land from indigenous peoples.

The story is generational as well...Elsa Martinelli works hard not to recommit the sins of her unloving and abusive parents, and each new challenge adds dimension and growth to her character. Elsa's daughter Loreda navigates abandonment while also slowly shaping her own sense of justice. Elsa's in-laws represent the deep connection farmers have to the land, and the faith they hold on to that it will provide--even when it does not. Hannah writes of community in the darkest hours--whether it is a kindred soul in a tent-city, a handful of folks with the courage of their convictions, or a librarian surreptitiously providing access to education. Her characters are strong and vibrant, set against beautifully rendered scenery (some of it gorgeous, some of it awful).

[VERY MILD SPOILER IN NEXT PARAGRAPH]
The American Dream is very real, and Hannah exposes the rips and tattered shreds alongside the hope and abundance. The Great Depression is in the past, yes, but it would be folly not to understand the legacy of its narratives. My only true disappointment with the book is the deaths, as there are but two major ones--both women--and I think it (slightly) undermines the celebration of women that is the spine of the story, but it is recompensed by the unresolved disappearance of someone who seems like he might be a major character. Hannah artfully turns the road of the narrative from where it might have gone at the outset and centers it on the story of Elsa.

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2023 #35: These Precious Days (Patchett)

 

These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"People want you to want what they want. If you want the same things they want, their want is validated. If you don't want the same things, your lack of wanting can, to certain people, come across as judgement." (143).

This is just one of many tremendous insights (this one from "There Are No Children Here") tucked into this marvelous series of essays. Patchett writes with honesty that is neither brutal nor saccharine in its emotion. From "Three Fathers", where Patchett narrates navigating paternal relationships with her mother's three husbands, to "Flight Plan", where she articulates so beautifully the relationship between fear, love, and anger, these essays are as intimate as they are universal in the way they express multifaceted humanity. Patchett makes us want to look more deeply at our own lives, whether it is the mundane stuff we decided to keep or toss ("My Year of No Shopping", "The Nightstand"), or the relationships that just happen, redirecting our lives in ways we don't anticipate. It is this last area where Patchett's writing shines the most. The title essay, "These Precious Days" is the longest essay and tells the story of Patchett's friend Sooki, whom she first met as Tom Hanks's assistant. Much as she often does in her fiction, it is the conversations and the small moments that draw us in, rather than the rhetorical denouements and anticipated endings so common in narratives. The essays are best read in order, capturing what at first glance seems a whimsical curation of musings and soon reveals itself to be a carefully crafted meditation on exactly these (or this) precious days. Fans of Patchett's fiction will find several of these essays particularly enriching, both in providing some back story (particularly about The Dutch House) and illuminating the author's process, devotion to her craft, and relationship with life itself.

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2023 # 34 The Dutch House (Patchett)

 

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel succeeds because the characters are believable and in some ways, ordinary. In Danny and Maeve Conroy we have two siblings, the former who grows up in The Dutch House, and the latter who chooses to play the role of mother to her younger brother. This is not a strange and esoteric tale, but the nuances that Patchett weaves into her characters makes this a powerful narrative. Danny Conroy learns how to negotiate his past in all his decisions, and the skillful back and forth of past and present lays bare how much of living is this constant dance with our past. He can't escape his father's paternalism, foisting a house on his wife and children much in the same way his father did to Danny's mother. He's at the mercy of his sister, who sets him on a path that is very much about her desire to get revenge. Maeve is headstrong and rebellious. Their mother makes a deeply misguided decision that impacts their lives forever. Their stepmother, Andrea, is perhaps the most archetypal, although she too gets recast in the latter half of the book. Even with all these traumatic situations, however, Patchett manages to illuminate the messiness of love.

As the main narrator, Danny seems almost unfazed, seemingly a passive participant in his own life. But this is what makes the story so compelling--we are allowed to bring our own backgrounds into the experience. When Danny says, "Thinking about the past impeded my efforts to be decent in the present" (304), I had to stop reading for a bit, reflecting upon when I, too, had this realization. Danny has astoundingly beautiful turns of phrase and uses of metaphor that spring forward without preamble, made all the more potent by the lack of emotional window dressing. Likewise, one of the most tragic losses in the book happens without drama or ceremony--a sentence at the end of a chapter, the final item on life's great checklist.

This is a remarkable book that should be savored and read carefully. Anyone who has a mixed or blended family will likely relate to much of the book and even those that don't should appreciate the multi-dimensional, heart-wrenchingly human characters.

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2023 #33: Braiding Sweet Grass (Kimmerer)

 

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her own voice on the audiobook, brings forth the lessons of sweetgrass and so much more, with compassion, erudition, and occasionally a tone that manages to embrace both anger and sadness. The main theme of the book advocates for regenerative reciprocity, a concept embodied by much of the natural world and echoed in the practices of many Indigenous peoples. Rather than Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons", Kimmerer envisions an "Economy of the Commons", wherein "resources fundamental to our well-being...are commonly held rather than commodified." She balances her narrative in order to keep the vision in arms reach, or at least parts of it that we might endeavor to create.

A botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Kimmerer braids together the teachings of plants and those of her ancestors to create a work that is reminiscent of the "poetic sensibility" of Loren Eiseley, and gives rise to the increasingly popular work of people like Peter Wohlleben. The book is packed with information about indigenous culture and plant life, in equal measure, and the main criticism I have is that it could use a stronger editorial hand in places. There are moments when a metaphor starts to wear a bit thin, losing a bit of its "oomph" through constant repetition. However, these moments (which seem to increase toward the end of the book) are minor inconveniences in the face of what Kimmerer accomplishes.

Take language, for example. Kimmerer boldly weaves in linguistics to support her main contentions. Indigenous language offers concepts that bring us nearer to a true understanding of the natural world versus science, which she calls "a language of distance" (mind you, one in which she is fluent and leverages in powerful ways). In the chapter "Learning the Grammar of Animacy" she writes of the Potawotami language (an Anishinaabe dialect), wherein a noun such as "bay" (wiikegama)-- a body of water in English--is actually a verb--more "to be a bay"-- because it is living, part of the natural world. This respect for and lack of objectification of natural elements is a key point of contention between colonialist thought and indigenous thought, and as Kimmerer shows, really creates tremendous knots in our ability to co-exist peacefully with our natural world.

'To be a bay' holds the wonder than for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise--become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall--and there are verbs for that too.

She talks about the relationship between reciprocity and restoration and this idea that reciprocity is the real requirement for sustainability of our restorative efforts. It isn't the land that is damaged, she says, but the relationship we have to it. I think that is largely true, but it is a sound byte that doesn't get as thoroughly interrogated as it might.

Whether it is her own struggles with clearing pond scum so that her daughters might swim, embracing the multitudes contained in a strawberry, or illuminating the ecological ramifications of strategic and not-strategic harvesting, Kimmerer's book (first published in 2013) provides a path forward that may not save us at this juncture, but would undoubtedly make us better citizens of the planet.



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2023 #32: How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures (Imbler)

 

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a remarkable book that manages to combine "memoir with marine biology" as the podcast Science Friday put it (which was the impetus for me to put the book on my reading list). What keeps it from a full five stars for me is the whiplash between the two, but I'll address that in a bit.

The words after the colon in the title are important here: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures. Imbler is a very gifted writer who sets upon the task of creating substantial and meaningful metaphor through ten creatures: the goldfish, the octopus, the sturgeon, the sperm whale, the yeti crab, the sand striker, the butterflyfish, the salp, the cuttlefish, and the immortal jellyfish. Imbler hones in on the characteristics and circumstances of each of these creatures and connects to those as a queer and mixed-race person. Ira Flatow's interview didn't quite prepare me for the level of intimacy that Imbler brings to this book, but I am better for it. The metaphors are not forced, but seem to blossom forth: "They are one of the best-studied jellyfish in the world, and yet no one noticed the moon jelly's power of regeneration until someone gave it time and trust that it might grow into itself." Often, it is the passages focused on the sea creatures where Imbler offers their most potent observations. There are passages that brought me to tears: "But life always finds a place to begin anew, and communities in need will always find one another and invent new ways to glitter, together, in the dark"--some of them hopeful, some of them recognizing the darkness in the depths of identity.

And this is very much a book about identity and taxonomy--biological and social. There are moments where just as you are caught up in either the science or the memoir, however, the prose switches abruptly. This seems like a stylistic choice on Imbler's part, but it didn't work for me, as I felt yanked out of things just as I was connecting to the intimacy of their narratives. I worry that the title and marketing (the Science Friday interview downplays the memoir side) might mean potential readers may miss out if deep sea creatures aren't a ready-made point of interest. Imbler's personal experiences no doubt mirror that of many queer youths, swimming in the murky waters of identity. I hope they know this book is for them, because Imbler's words reach up from the bottom like a kelp forest toward the light, and everyone is better for it. Perhaps if we could all embrace a little bit more of ourselves in the creatures we know and don't yet know, existence might be a bit less fraught.

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