Coming soon

Mini-reviews of
Beyond the Sky and the Earth by Jamie Zeppa
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

But if anyone is on here, rather than waiting for me to not update my reading blog, go get The Refugees and The Underground Railroad--both excellent reads.

Falling off wagon. Also read:
The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch
Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

A SPORT AND A PASTIME by James Salter

When you don't like a book by an acclaimed "writer's writer" (NYT), you wonder if you're missing something. Salter writes beautiful sentences and controls the rhythm of his prose masterfully. But I'm sorry to report that I disliked A Sport and a Pastime. The romantic lead is a spoiled, shiftless, wealthy narcissist Yale dropout at loose in the French countryside, and the narrator (who describes/imagines his friend's affair with a young French girl) is a milktoast who fancies himself a photographer and also doesn't work. The car the romantic lead drives is more fully characterized than the object of his desire; women in this world are just there to fuck (or marry). And Blacks are there to be exoticized. Both are described in stereotypical terms--her ass like two halves of an apple, the white teeth of the Black American soldier in a French nightclub. Isn't 1965--when this book was written--too late in the game even for an old (now dead) white man to be unapologetically trotting out those images? (And I must say, Salter is far too good a stylist to rely on tired language.) The bulk of the story follows (through the narrator's imaginings) the young couple as they go from one town to another and one hotel to another and have sex... and I do mean to another and another and another. It's boring. It's predictable. Nothing happens. The sex scenes are tame. Oh, mon dieu, they have anal sex! Dis donc, alors! The descriptions of France in a certain era are quite lovely and evocative, but I found this novel to be a poor cross between Fitzgerald and Hemingway (and I confess that last time I read The Great Gatsby, I didn't like it, either.)

BARBARIAN DAYS; THE SYMPATHIZER; CITIZEN; A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN

Neglected blog. Summary post for my records.

Books read last summer:

• The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis
• A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
• The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
• The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade 
• a couple of other titles, but I can't remember what

There wasn't a dud in the bunch, but standouts included Citizen; A Manual for Cleaning Women; The Sympathizer and Barbarian Days. 

I read Citizen twice... Rankine's prose-poems form a polemic on being Black in white America... poignant content in a compelling, unusual form.

Barbarian Days, New Yorker writer Finnegan's surf memoir was a quintessential summer read for me, as someone who loves the ocean, traveling and stellar writing.

And The Sympathizer was my favorite book of the year, about a Vietnamese double-agent at the end of the Vietnam War, who has to flee to the States--part spy thriller, part history, part great American immigrant novel, all beautifully written and constructed, and a page turner, to boot.

UNSPEAKABLE and Other Subjects of Discussion by Meghan Daum

So-so.

Kick-ass first essay about her relationship with her mother, followed by more mundane offerings, ending with two strong ones--one a paean to Los Angeles, and one about nearly dying. Some great writing, but too much that doesn't rise above the me-me-me of the personal essay.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS by Marlon James

Excellent!

I tend to be a skipper. Somewhere midway through or so, I start paging forward, skimming large chunks of a book, then slow down to preview a part I’m not up to yet, then go back to where I left off and read forward. Or I page back and reread, when I think I missed the full impact. I read some passages deeply, noting style and texture, but read other passages for plot. Sometimes I skip words and sentences altogether, to cut to the chase.

But I read every word of all 686 pages of this epic novel. Why? The language. It doesn’t hurt that the story’s good—based on the assassination attempt on Bob Marley in 1976, and the political and gang intrigue in Jamaica surrounding and following it. Told from the points of view of a dozen or so characters, what got me and kept me was James’ ear for dialect--Jamaican, American, British, Latin-American, upper crust, street… and how he uses it to reveal the interior lives of his characters.

It’s a fantastic read. But be warned—it’s violent, and though one of the most compelling characters is female, the overall tenor is so male that three-quarters of the way through, I went out and bought four books by women writers to stack up by my bed like talismans (or taliswomans).

BETWEEN YOU & ME: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris

Instead of a rating, I give this book a white privilege alert. Reader, beware.

Norris, a copyediting diva for The New Yorker, has written a memoir that offers the kind of a fine-tooth comb examination of everyday grammar and punctuation that is fascinating to an English teacher like moi. And she's sassy and she gives you a behind the scenes at The New Yorker. But she lost me on page 2. Describing a long ago job at the Cleveland Costume Company, she writes: “On my first day, a young black woman, Yvonne, was setting Santa beards in rollers so that they would be curly by Christmas. An older black woman worked in the kitchen… and said things like ‘My dogs is killin’ me.’ “ Is there a reason for describing the first two characters we meet by their race? Well, on page three, the young Norris has a Halloween party where “One of the guests came as a penis; another as a Ku Klux Klansman. Initially, I was sorry that Yvonne declined my invitation, but not anymore.”  Oh. I see. Yvonne and the colorful older woman are there for a hahahaha-I-grew-up-such-a-redneck moment. The older woman doesn’t figure in the story again, but isn’t her language something.

Funny? Perhaps I missed the joke. There’s nothing funny about a writer who thinks that a friend dressing up as a Klansman makes for a humorous opening anecdote to her book.  Are you surprised to hear that the rest of the characters introduced in Between You and Me are white by default? And this from someone who is one of the gatekeepers of what’s fit to print. How could her editors at Norton have let this through? How could the long list of people she acknowledged (including a few I know) not have bristled?

I read the rest of the book—and enjoyed it as only a grammar geek could—but I never really got past those initial pages. Once she set herself up that way, Norris’ voice—arch yet pithy—just annoyed me, rather than making me laugh.  I’m the queen of the red pen in my 8^th grade English classroom, but some things are more important than punctuation.

BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Very good

Coates is possibly the most important writer on race in this country today. I read everything he publishes in The Atlantic, and find him keenly insightful and illuminating, as well as eloquent. Between the World and Me delivers in some ways, but not in others. I’m going to say it’s a must read… for its ideas. But Coates is an essayist, and this—written as a letter to his son—is a kind of memoir, a form that demands rich storytelling. In this aspect, I found the book to fall a tad short.  Coates tells far more than he shows, and his prose—so elegant in his essays—occasionally veers into the purple, and can be somewhat pedantic and repetitive. He establishes his thesis early on—that the White Dream is deadly to the Black body—and he goes on to replicate it in a kind of theme and variations. Between the World and Me is an homage to Richard Wright—whose very words and language he borrows from liberally*—and James Baldwin, whose “Letter to my Nephew” was the inspiration for this work. Wright tells a better story, imho, and Baldwin’s prose is simpler and clearer—and just as outraged and powerful. Criticisms notwithstanding, the ideas and emotions are absolutely vital to our national discussion. Read it.

*(For instance, Wright, Black Boy: “There was the hint of cosmic cruelty that I felt when I saw the curved timbers of a wooden shack that had been warped in the summer sun.” Coates, Between the World and Me: “And I felt in this a cosmic injustice, a profound cruelty, which infused an abiding, irrepressible desire to unshackle my body and achieve the velocity of escape.”)

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr, BATTLEBORN by Claire Vaye Watkins; STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel; LOVING DAY by Mat Johnson

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr

Very Good

It’s hard to put down this tender, suspenseful, nicely crafted novel, set in WWII Europe. On the other hand, Pulitzer Prize winner? There’s the brave, clever blind girl, who’s part of the French resistance; the oversized German killer who loves classical music and has a streak of goodness; and so on. They’ll pull at your heartstrings, yes, but they verge on caricature. The sentence-by-sentence writing is lovely, the plot compelling… but I’m not sure it rises above a better-than-average, page-turning, heartfelt summer read.

BATTLEBORN by Claire Vaye Watkins

Very Good

Hard-edged, smart, well-written stories set in the Nevada dessert. One reviewer described the author as an Annie Proulx for the Wild West, for her evocative way with the places in which her stories are set. Not sure about that, but this collection nevertheless warrants a read. The book gained cult status, partially because Watkins is the daughter of Charles Mansion Family Member Paul Watkins, a fact that figures heavily in the first story, and is reflected in some of the others.

STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel

Excellent

A traveling band of actors in a post-apocalyptic world. Thoroughly enjoyable, moving and thoughtful, with characters you want to read about, good writing, and a gripping plot. Highly recommended.

LOVING DAY by Mat Johnson

Decent

The first couple of chapters are absolutely stellar. Johnson writes about being Black—and White—in this country with honesty, irreverence, guffaw aloud humor, smarts… and a refreshing fearlessness of the muzzle of a mass-market strain of political correctness that silences productive, respectful dialogue around critical issues of race and identity. But after those first chapters, the novel degenerates into a silly romp with characters, relationships and situations that require far too big a leap of faith. Still. Read the beginning.

GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee, Chapter One

I didn’t want to do it to her… but I did it. I read Chapter One of Nelle Harper Lee's new/old book. The chapter was released a few days ago by the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, also the parent company of the book’s publisher, HarperCollins. I mean, whuddidyouthink? Sometimes a manuscript, in the hand of one man, is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another.

I couldn’t help myself. On moral grounds, I didn’t preorder. Why not let our Lady of Letters go out in a more dignified fashion? But having taught TKAM many times, and not being able to count self-control among my virtues, I capitulated and read the first chapter.

And yes, it reads like the sophomoric fan fiction version of her more mature—and well edited—classic. It’s full of tired, easy phrases, stock portrayals and awkward tense construction—signs of a writing newby. But a sentence here and there hint at the sharp, brilliant writing in TKAM. And like seeing the hidden paint layers of a famous canvas, it’s fascinating. As for Atticus the racist—the fodder for much discussion on social media, largely by people who don’t seem to have read the book yet—that hasn’t come up in Chapter One. Perhaps it will offer a more unvarnished look at attitudes about race in the Jim Crow South among ‘progressive’ whites, than Atticus the hero. Lord knows we need more honest discussion.

I’ve been brought to tears by the poignancy and beauty of certain passages in To Kill a Mockingbird virtually every time I read them aloud to 8^th graders, or they read them aloud to me. I’ve been stopped in my tracks over and over by a sentence, a paragraph, a description, a shift in point of view, thinking “How does she do that?” And yeah, each time I teach the book, I grapple afresh with how to tackle the sprinkling of anachronistic and offensive passages about race and gender and some problematic characterizations, without tamping down the deeply important message or the joy of the read. Harper Lee had a lot of it right, but she was a product of her time and place.

As for Watchman, everyone needs a good editor. Everyone needs time to develop as a writer. Our literary elders should be cared for, and their accomplishments honored and protected. Shame, shame, News Corp. Will I read the rest of it?  It might be a little like shootin’ a mockingbird.

HOTEL DU LAC by Anita Brookner

Stellar

What was contemporary fiction like before we packed everyone off to MFA factories to practice literary pyrotechnics?

The cottage I’m in this month has the best library of any of the scores of vacation houses I’ve rented in my life. I arrived with my usual crate of summer reads, and found I didn’t need any of them. (Hard-gotten--four titles by trading in seven entire crates of old books at The Strand, two via a half-price Groupon from Book Culture, and the rest purchased on my educator’s discount at the big bad B & N—why not take them home, save them for later, and read what’s here?)

Brookner was one of those writers I’d known about forever and never read. Hotel du Lac, which won the Booker Prize in 1986, is about an unassuming writer of romance novels who is packed off to a discreet Swiss hotel—yup, by a lake—retreat fashion, after committing some sort of indiscretion, which we’ll find out about in due time. I mean… who can resist that? Certainly not this former YA romance writer, currently in the summer 2015 middle-of-nowhere hideaway.

Raise your hand if you’re tired of showy sentences—impressive though they may be—that scream “Look at me,” and are written by writing school insiders with pretty faces, alluring authors’ bios and good jacket photos. Brookner was a pro before all that. Her prose is as understated as the heroine of this novel, but fiercely clever—funny, acerbic, and with just the right verb or adjective, just the right detail noted. And she’s a wonderful storyteller.

This is a great summer read!

THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander; QUIET by Susan Cain; A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA by Anthony Marra; THE DUKE OF DECEPTION by Geoffrey Wolfe; DEPLOYMENT by Phil Klay; Lonely Planet Cambodia

Oh, dear. I haven’t updated my reading blog since January. Can’t remember what I was reading six months ago; going to have to chalk up a few lost titles. Last five I remember (plus LP Cambodia with the hopes that it’s the next adventure) are:

THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander

Excellent

A must read for anyone who cares about racial equity. Not so much for the sentences, though her writing is clear and cogent, but for the ideas and information. Do not miss.

QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Good.

Again, this one is for the ideas and information, not the sentences. I read it to better understand the bf, a classic introvert, but wound up contemplating how to gauge the different ways people roll (not limited to introvert or extrovert), and how to give them what they need. As an educator and as someone who struggles with a big EQ learning curve, a deeply valuable read.

A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA by Anthony Marra

Excellent.

Absolutely beautifully written and constructed. I admit that the combination of not knowing much about Chechnya, plus the nonlinear structure made me feel lost and made the book hard work at first. But perseverance paid off. This is a gorgeous novel.

THE DUKE OF DECEPTION by Geoffrey Wolfe

Excellent.

I’ve been selling his brother Tobias’ memoir, This Boy’s Life, to my friends and students for years. This one is just as good.  When the Wolfe brothers’ parents split up, Tobias went with mom and Geoffrey went with Dad. Tobias writes about life with her, Geoffrey life with him. Fascinating, funny, insightful.

DEPLOYMENT by Phil Klay

Good.

Being touted as this generation’s The Things They Carried (one of my all-time favorites). Deployment is worth reading, but Klay is no Tim O’Brien. (I mean, who is?)

LP Cambodia.

Hit me up if you’ve been there and have suggestions.

WE NEED NEW NAMES by NoViolet Bulawayo, US by David Nicholls, BAD FEMINIST by Roxane Gay

WE NEED NEW NAMES by NoViolet Bulawayo

Excellent

Is there a handy moniker for the American immigrant coming of age novel? Maybe just the New American Novel. This one, which begins in Zimbabwe and ends in Michigan, is gorgeous. Rich, loose, nimble language; a spot-on portrait of what it feels like to be a kid—anywhere; and a keen look at what is lost and what is gained by signing up for the American Dream.

US by David Nicholls

So-so

The uncoupling of a marriage meets the European romp. Frothy, fun, some good laugh lines, wants to be poignant, but pretty superficial. Not as good as his One Day.

BAD FEMINIST by Roxane Gay
So-so
Awww... I wanted to love this collection. Gay is personable, and I'm with her in the opinion department. I'd like to have coffee with her and shoot the breeze. But I didn't find much that was new or revelatory in these essays, and the writing was ordinary. I'm sorry.

Lost a few months. Harback, Wainaina, and Alarcón

Fall semester. Lost months. Can't remember what I've read. I see my copies of three recent ones lying around, so I'll attempt a few words about them, for my own record:

At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón
Excellent
Beautifully crafted, interestingly structured, masterful storytelling about a young actor in a three-person traveling theater troupe in a post-war Peru-like country. But the ending? What up with that?

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Decent.
Smoothly told, easy-down page-turner about a college baseball player. Compelling characters... though the women perhaps a bit less so. Well crafted.

One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina
So-so
Lush, loose, rich language, but somehow--despite the turbulence of the time and place--this memoir of growing up in Kenya somehow kept me at a remove... it felt like nothing much was happening... even though it was. Maybe it was that the writing was so opulent that the forest got lost for the trees.

AMERICANAH by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Decent

Best when she’s writing about race and culture. But the love story—the bulk of this novel—is ordinary and slo-o-o-ow. The protagonist, a Nigerian woman who moves to the U.S. and then back home, writes a social commentary blog (and makes a living at it; nice work if you can get it). The blog posts are the snappiest, freshest parts of the novel, but get weighed down in a nearly 600-page version of girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy again. I’m not giving anything away. You know what’s coming. Adichie’s Half a Yellow Sun was better. This is getting more attention, imho, because it hits certain PC high notes in its frank and on target discussion of being Black in America.

THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin

Very good

I subsist largely on a diet of contemporary literature. I don’t think much about it, until I read something else. Chopin’s slender, poignant novel about a woman in a unhappy marriage was written in 1899. It expresses emotions that are just as valid today, yet with a formal quality and language that mark it as not of this time. The ying-yang of the crisp, cultivated writing with the universal feelings worked on me like an elegant meal.

BREATHE by Kelly Kittel

♥

My friend Kelly has written a frank, raw, brave memoir about losing two children, and embracing life with passion and vigor in the wake of soul-crushing tragedy.

ONE DAY by David Nicholls

Very Good!

Delightful, tender, funny, smart. His life/her life on one particular day each year.

THE DEPT. OF SPECULATION by Jenny Offill

Excellent!

Nothing really happens—a woman’s  husband of many years has an affair. They get over it. But nothing really needs to happen. The writing is magnificent—compact, outside the box, poetic, compelling, insightful. I read it in one sitting.

New new rating system.

Pencils very cute. But x out of five not working for me. If I reserve five pencils for Richard Wright or Ursula LeGuin or William Faulkner, give four pencils to the books I've loved and would recommend, that means three pencils for the very good ones--maybe not "Oh, you *have to* read this," but "Oh, this was good; I think you might like it." Three pencils isn't enough for that. And what about good (but not fabulous)? Now we're down to two pencils, and that just isn't right.

So I tried to do it with simple words.

Truly awful. Bad. So-so. Decent. Good. Very good. Excellent. Truly stellar.
Okay. That's better. But that's eight pencils. Too much. So for the moment, I'll just use those words and see if it's working. And I'm going to add a ♥ icon if the book was written by someone I know. So I don't have to stick it with a rating, and can just enjoy my friends' accomplishments.

(This is why I hate putting a grade on student work. Among other reasons.)