"People Said Ove Saw The World In Black And White. But She Was Color. All The Color He Had."

 Many of the descriptions and accolades for A Man Called Ove include the words "charming," "quirky," and "delightful." I must admit that when I started reading the book, I didn't see a single one of these things. But like most things, you have to soldier on to get the full appreciation and just let the story unfold. 

Ove is an curmudgeonly, crotchety old man who despises most things in life, especially people who don't follow rules, people who don't know how to fix things, and things that lack systematic order and organization. He doesn't identify with much of modern life, and after the recent death of his wife and loss of his job, there doesn't seem to be much worth living for. That is until his new pregnant neighbor and her husband (and kids), force their way into his life, casually dismissing the unfriendly persona. Little by little, many of the other cast of characters living in Ove's neighborhood (including a cat) also kick open the door to being a part of his life, very much against Ove's will. But some sense of duty and obligation to do what is "right" in Ove's eyes, keeps him helping the various members of this motley crew. And maybe he ends up finding much more in his twilight years than certainly he ever asked for.

The book certainly did make me smile. And it was very heart-warming in the end. I just had to stick through the beginning. Because curmudgeonly types are characters I'm not a fan of (or even real people...not those that I 'get' in any way). So I did struggle with having any sympathy for him. But he's such a unique and complicated character that is unfolded so slowly and deliberately throughout the story through the events that occurring in the present time as well as revealing stories about his entire life (from childhood, to his marriage, to his time spent living in the current neighborhood). 

So if you want a quick, delightful read that will make you happy that there could be unique versions of community and family out there, A Man Called Ove should certainly be at the top of that list. There was also one particular passage that I just loved and I had to earmark:

" 'Loving someone is like moving into a house,' Sonja used to say. 'At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.' "  

And so, back to the book lists. A couple months ago, the bf and I went to the 4-floor used book store here in Detroit and stocked up on books to survive what clearly is going to be a horrible, horrible winter. So I'm starting to dig into the pile of 8 books that we bought that day (to add onto the 8 other books that I already had waiting in the wings). Everything I bought were books from the lists, so I should be set to hunker down and escape the terrible things going on in the world. Next up is This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The only book I have read of his was The Great Gatsby and I read it back in high school (never saw the movie either). So I'm looking forward to re-acquainting myself with him and his writing, as, similar to Hemingway, I feel like I've heard/learned more about his persona over the years than his actual writing.

Happy reading. And hanging on through the end of this wretched year.  

   

"The Word 'Pity' Is Used As Loosely As The Word 'Love': The Terrible Promiscuous Passion Which So Few Experience"

Well isn't The Heart of the Matter a bit of a bleak book? One that made me incredibly frustrated with the main character, Scobie, an assistant police commissioner stationed in a west African colony during World War II. Scobie has been living in the colony for 15 years and seems to be quite jaded about the environment he's in, his job, his colleagues, and certainly his wife. Nothing much seems to move him and he repeatedly states how much pity he feels. And completing his obligations doesn't give him any joy. 

But then a series of events occur, of Scobie's own doing, that make his life and position a little more tenuous: he borrows money from a local shady merchant to send his wife to South Africa (as she hates it there in the colony and is frustrated by her husband not being promoted to commissioner); acting on a request from the man who lent him the money, Scobie illegally provides contraband to an incoming ship captain; and Scobie begins having an affair with a young woman named Helen, who arrived to the colony very ill, on a ship that nearly sank in the ocean on its way, losing her husband during the journey. Scobie realizes that his illegal doings are likely to get him in trouble, and there are spies all around (a newly arrived police agent, Wilson, the servants for all of the main characters, etc) who are more than eager to catch and report him.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around the character of Scobie, and often had a difficult time sympathizing with him, because he just seemed so detached. Even though he expresses his love for his wife and for his mistress, he feels so much pity for them, which muddles what he seems to think "love" is and made it harder for me as the reader to believe he cared much about anything. As the book goes on, we learn more about Scobie's strong beliefs in Catholicism, and his inability to reconcile his actions against the religious doctrine and God - he goes to confession but cannot follow through with righting his sins. And from that point on, he believes that he is continuing to damn himself by accepting communion while living in sin. So while Catholicism is the only thing Scobie seems to really ascribe to and believe in, in the end, he ends up turning his back on even those teachings and commits the "unforgiveable sin". It was infinitely frustrating to read a character over and over again never feel any joy or happiness from any of the choices that he made. Another book where I found myself wanting to shake a character and say "Just get your fucking shit together." 

This book certainly did transport me to a unique setting, and the descriptions of the dynamics of the society were quite interesting and compelling. And I suppose Scobie's role within that made for an interesting plot point. But overall, I had a hard time really getting into the book. I cannot take anything away from the writing, because it was quite superb and there is so much symbolism and so many thematic elements to unpack, but it just left me feeling a little meh about everything. 

But onward we go. Up next, I'm taking a momentary break to pick up a suggestion from my sister and her book club with A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. While reading last night, the bf pointed out that the book had been made into a movie and he already knew quite a bit about it. It seems like a quirky read that I'll probably motor through somewhat quickly. 210 to go.  

"She Perceived Herself, The Absent Jenny, The Ever-Blamed Mary, Rose, Eunice, And Monica, All In A Frightening Little Moment, In Unified Compliance To The Destiny Of Miss Brodie, As If God Had Willed Them To Birth For That Purpose"

I wish there was a way to count the number of times that the word "prime" was used throughout The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I mean just looking back at one particular passage, the word is used 4 times in 1 paragraph. It is used so many times to refer to the private school teacher, as "a woman in her prime." It must be at least 100 times. Easy. And that's not all the catch phrases that are repetitive: Miss Brodie is trying to determine which of her girls will become "the crème de la crème." And we learn that each girl becomes "famous" for something, of which, that something is repeated nearly every time each girl is mentioned. At first, I was incredibly annoyed at this technique (I mean, I can retain information in my brain for a few minutes at a time so I can recall what each girl was famous for), but after a few times, I really spent a moment evaluating what purpose this served for the story. Was it just to give Miss Brodie a few clever catch phrases? That, while described as this renaissance thinker and developer of young girls' minds, maybe she was just shallow and haughty to fixate on these, and only these things? Or was it more than that. 

As with The Old Man and the Sea, while The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie may seem like a short, little tale of a teacher a School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland, there are some layers here. First off, the story flashes forward abruptly throughout the novel, so the reader is already aware early on in the novel that one of her girls betrays her (oh, the word "betray" is probably used many dozen times too). So we spend the novel getting to know these young girls and how they were groomed by Miss Brodie. In many ways, she is a positive influence - she encourages them to be the best versions of themselves, she encourages their free thinking, exposes them to the beauty of art, and it is mentioned that they all are exceptional students compared to the others in their classes. But her relationship with them as a teacher is quite inappropriate, even long after they have moved on to the senior school, even grooming one of the girls to become the lover of the school's art teacher (as a proxy for her own love of the art teacher). 

One of Miss Brodie's girls, Sandy, is the primary narrator (and we are allowed into her head quite often, with some very clever "cut-aways" to the ongoing, dreamy, fictional stories that Sandy is making up in her head - I was particularly impressed with this approach in the novel; these types of asides don't seem like something easy to do in writing but much more suited for a visual medium). Sandy explores so many facets about herself, Edinburgh, and Miss Brodie through the lens of religion, politics (Miss Brodie was a big ol' fan of Hitler, Mussolini, and fascism), individualism, and psychology. The book explores how the girls grow up with Miss Brodie as the force majeure in their lives, at one point mentioning that their relationship with her "had worked itself into their bones, so that they could not break away without, as it were, splitting their bones to do so." But the story questions not just how one of her girls betrayed Miss Brodie, but whether Miss Brodie betrayed her girls by her methods and almost obsessive relationship with the girls as they grew up. 

Like I said, there was so much in this book to unpack and certainly a lot of literary critique could be derived from this book. If I was actually in school for literature, this would be a novel I would ear-mark, wanting to go back to it, read it multiple times, and really explore the depths of the themes in the book. I'm not sure if everyone would necessarily like this book, but I did, surprisingly more than in the first chapter or so.

Side note: I'm often amazed that someone like Muriel Spark isn't necessarily named in the list of authors who are considered the best of their time. Like I kind of feel like she has been forgotten a bit. But she was an absolutely prolific writer, publishing over 20 novels, many books of short stories, and poetry. I mean, she was knighted as a dame, for Pete's sake. It's a shame that I don't have any other books of hers on my lists, as I would really love to explore more of what she wrote (not that I can't just choose to read more, but I have a lot on my plate ya'll!).  

So next up, I'm moving on to The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene. And coincidentally, Graham Greene funded Muriel Spark's first novel. As with many other books I read, I don't know squat about Graham Greene or what the book is about, and I kind of prefer it that way. 211 to go.   

" 'But Man Is Not Made For Defeat,' He Said. 'A Man Can Be Destroyed But Not Defeated.' "

 When I was slightly over halfway through reading The Old Man and the Sea, I kept thinking to myself, "This?! This won the Pulitzer Prize?!" It's just an old dude getting dragged around the ocean by a fish. The language/writing isn't particularly impressive (in fact much of the early dialogue between the fisherman and the young boy is so choppy and oddly formal it didn't feel very authentic). But fortunately the book is short and I was able to breeze through the rest of it, and the remainder of the story definitely changed my opinion.

The story is that of an elderly fisherman in Cuba, Santiago, who has had terrible fortune and has not caught a fish for 84 days. A young boy from the village who used to fish with him abandoned him for better waters with other fishermen, so the man is on his own to make his own way (even though the boy still helps the old man by carrying his supplies, bringing him food, providing him with sardines for bait, etc). The man sets out one morning and travels far out to sea, hooking a giant marlin, larger than the size of his own boat. He spends 3 days being dragged out to sea by the fish waiting for his opportunity to finally kill and capture the fish. He manages to best the creature, but it does not necessarily mean success, as he still has to get the ~1500 lb fish back to land. Some obstacles follow the fisherman and his fish back to shore, leaving the man broken and devoid of emotion. 

While I was initially so annoyed with the basic nature of the book, there is definitely more there than meets the eye. It's really just a big ol' metaphor, right? About the determination and perseverance of man, about taking on tasks in which it may seem impossible to triumph (that even risk one's demise and death), and how to overcome the devastation of defeat. While I didn't necessarily identify with the man's journey and seemingly insane choices, I acknowledge his heroic struggle against something greater than himself. Throughout the book, I couldn't help but be reminded of Moby Dick, with the singular focus of Captain Ahab and this fisherman. And maybe part of my initial recoil from fully getting on board with the book was due to the elaborate descriptions of everything related to fishing that took me right back to the months and months spent reading Moby Dick...perhaps still a little repressed trauma there all these years later. 

So The Old Man and the Sea was a quick little read. I suppose enjoyable, but had it been much longer, I wouldn't have been too happy. It has been a long time since I've read Hemingway. I have only read A Farewell to Arms back in high school, so don't recall much of his writing style from such a long time ago and must say I'm curious to read more. Because while The Old Man and the Sea was certainly fine, I wasn't blown out of the water (pun intended) that I would have expected to be based on all of the hype around Hemingway. Perhaps is persona has made him as legendary (or more so?) than his actual writing. But I still have 3 other books of his, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to re-assess based on a wider sample size. Stay tuned for that. 

Up next is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. Another relatively short read, so I expect to get through this one in a pretty short amount of time too. Just gettin' 'er done here during pandemic quarantine time. 212 to go. 

"It Was A Hunger In The Back Of The Throat, Not The Belly, An Echoing Emptiness That Ached For The Release Of Screaming"

In these terrible, fucked up times, people use different forms of entertainment as escapism, often veering towards easy-going, light-hearted topics (see for example, the rise of musicals during the Great Depression). So my goal has been to tune out the world, shutter myself in, and read books. So maybe reading a book about child abuse was not the wisest selection as a means to that end. 

But in spite of the horrific topic of the novel, Bastard Out of Carolina was one of the most heart-wrenching, riveting, and well-written books I've read in a long time. I couldn't put it down and blew through it in a week and a half. 

Bone is a young girl growing up poor in South Carolina in the late 1950s with her mother (Anney), sister (Reese), and stepfather (Daddy Glen), as well as a large extended family on her mother's side (I lost track...3 uncles and 5 aunts I believe, and a boatload of cousins). She was born a bastard, without the name of a father on her birth certificate. Her younger sister's father dies in a car accident and then her mother marries their stepfather when she was only about 7 years old. Glen has a very obsessive love for her mother. Initially, he wants to be a good father for the 2 girls, but after her mother loses their son in childbirth and can no longer have children, his initial good intentions turn to scorn and hate, focused squarely on Bone. 

The book contains very explicit descriptions of the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that Daddy Glen inflicts on Bone and the majority of the book details the trauma she exhibits as a result and all the ways she acts out as coping mechanisms. I took a class in college about psychology in literature (including works like Madame Bovary, The Trial, Notes From Underground, etc) and while I was reading this book, was continually thinking that this could totally be a portrait of the psychological repercussions of child abuse. Because Bone's behavior changes drastically after the abuse begins. She goes through a phase of religious fervor, she begins masturbating and having sexual fantasies that are often very violent and/or incestuous, and she continually makes up very violent, horrific stories that she shares with her cousins. All of these things are intertwined with her shame and self-loathing and she constantly has all of this repressed rage that she wants to take out on so many people who aren't necessarily the object of her fury (a friend, her stepfather's family, the owner of the local Woolworth's, etc). 

And her relationship with her mom is probably the most complicated of all. She loves her mom beyond words, and wants to do anything to not upset the balance of their family. She can't/won't tell any family members what is going on. When she's taken to the doctor for a broken collarbone, the doctor is furious at her mother after seeing many healed broken bones and injuries on Bone's x-rays, knowing that they are due to physical abuse. And even then, knowing that the doctor knows, she refuses to admit it to even him. Even though her mother loves her abusive stepfather more than her and doesn't do enough to keep her out of harm's way, all she wants is her mother's love, even if that means suffering the way she does. It's a horrible, fucked up dynamic that is enough to break your heart. But is probably the same story of so, so many children who experience the same thing.  Too young to fully understand what is happening to them or the complexities of the adult relationships, and all they want is to be loved, not hurt. 

In spite of all of this, the connections with her mom's extended family is also a huge contributor to who Bone is and who her mother is. While they are what would be considered "white trash," they are all so unconditionally there for each other. Whether it's in simple things like having each others' kids over for a night or two, to helping in more serious moments like Aunt Ruth dying of cancer, Aunt Alma having a mental breakdown, or the uncles vowing revenge on Daddy Glen when they find out he has been hurting Bone. There is nothing they won't do for each other and while they struggle with being poor, or marital troubles, or trouble with the law, their connections to each other are what ground them all and at least gives Bone some love and support to rely on. 

Dorothy Allison's writing in this book was also quite brilliant. You can tell that it is written from Bone's point of view after she has had time to process the things that happened to her, so there is more self-awareness as well as a very perceptive eye on who the adults really are as people. She sees things in peoples' eyes that tell her what kind of person they are, which helps her navigate their world. She is not naïve, but at the same time, there are often things that transpire among the adults that we as the reader understand, but that Bone as a young child does not. It's quite a remarkable way to tell the story that gives the reader a perfect view into what Bone is experiencing and also seeing so much more that is going on in the bigger picture.

So while it may not have been wise to read a novel of such heavy subject material in the middle of a pandemic and the middle of unprecedented political drama, I can't say enough about what a formidable, exceptional book this was. And somehow, I didn't finish the book feeling depleted or overwhelmingly sad (even though it didn't end on a hopeful note in any way). It just seemed like a powerful statement that reminded me of what a remarkable emotional impact books can have when done well. 

After that, I'm taking a change of pace and heading into The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I haven't read Hemingway since high school, and while I'm only about 35 pages into it, I don't know if I'm all that impressed yet. But I'll reserve judgement until I get through the entire thing (which should be relatively quick since it's pretty short and not dense reading). So I'm off. 213 to go. 

 

"Had She Actually Believed That She Could Plant A Seed Of Liberalism In The Blank Wall Of Mediocrity? How Had She Fallen Into The Folly Of Trying To Plant Anything Whatever In A Wall So Smooth And Sun-Glazed, And So Satisfying To The Happy Sleepers Within?"

Main Street was published in 1920 and quickly became one of the best-selling novels of its time, so much so, that it was often one of few books that rural folks from small towns with little money or access to books would buy for themselves. Maybe they didn't quite get that this book was a satire and didn't exalt the small-town life but parodied small-town life as small-minded, shallow, and stagnant. And oh so much worse. 

There were DOZENS of times while reading this book that I was just startled at how little has changed in 100 years. There were sentences in this book that could have been plucked out and dropped in a modern-day conservative news site and not even know the difference (see below). And it was quite alarming and nauseating. 

The book is about Carol Kennicott, a young college graduate who spent her time in larger cities like Minneapolis/St Paul and Chicago, but meets and decides to marry a doctor from a small town in Minnesota. He paints for her a glorious picture of idyllic prairie town living in Gopher Prairie, and oh boy, did he steer her wrong. The town is dumpy and ramshackled, and everything looks the same with no beauty or style or even effort to have any kind of aesthetic nicety. But somehow, everyone who lives there thinks the town is the most beautiful thing to ever grace any country anywhere (even though the vast majority of them haven't ventured  much beyond Minnesota). All Carol hopes for, is to find some kind of intelligent conversation about art, politics, and big ideas and to try to make some kind of positive change to encourage the other townspeople to aspire to something more interesting, different, and thoughtful. 

But despite her many many many best efforts (joining a couple different local social clubs geared towards "intelligentsia", organizing a play, joining the library board, having a very atypical party), the town is not havin' it. And she becomes a bit of a pariah who the town relentlessly gossips about and looks down upon for thinking that she's so uppity and better than everyone else. And the worst part is that Carol buys into it. She is so overwhelmingly concerned with what everyone thinks of her and worries about her reputation. She vacillates manically between throwing herself into trying to do something to enlighten the town and then being miserable and despising everything about it. 

After a while, this constant back and forth that Carol goes through gets a little frustrating and redundant (if I've ever wanted to reach into a book and shake the shit out of a character and say, "Just shit or get off the pot sister!", I would have). But more than that, I wanted to scream at all of the small-mindedness of the townspeople. And as previously noted, the fact that things HAVE NOT CHANGED in this country in 100 years is just astonishing. 

Let's take a little sample of some quotes as examples of this, shall we?

"We're all in it, ten million women, young married women with good prosperous husbands, and business women in linen collars, and grandmothers that gad out to teas, and wives of underpaid miners, and farmwives who really like to make butter and go to church. What is it we want - and need? Will Kennicott there would say that we need lots of children and hard work. But it isn't that. There's the same discontent in women with eight children and one more coming - always one more coming! And you find it in stenographers and wives who scrub, just as much as in girl college-graduates who wonder how they can escape their kind parents. What do we want?...I believe all of us want the same things - we're all together, the industrial workers and the women and the farmers and the Negro race and the Asiatic colonies, and even a few of the Respectables. It's all the same revolt, in all the classes that have waited and taken advice. I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We tired of always deferring hope until the next generation. We're tired of hearing the politicians and priests and cautious reformers (and the husbands!) coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just give us a bit more time and we'll produce it; trust us; we're wiser than you.'"

"With such a small-town life a Kennicott or a Champ Perry is content, but there are also hundreds of thousands, particularly women and young men, who are not at all content. The more intelligent young people (and the fortunate widows!) flee to the cities with agility and, despite the fictional tradition, resolutely stay there, seldom returning even for holidays...The reason, Carol insisted, is not a whiskered rusticity. It is nothing so amusing! It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment...the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God."

"Such a society functions admirably in the large production of cheap automobiles, dollar watches, and safety razors. But it is not satisfied until the entire world also admits that the end and joyous purpose of living is to ride in flivvers, to make advertising-pictures of dollar watches, and in the twilight to sit talking not of love and courage but the convenience of safety razors."

"Though a Gopher Prairie regards itself as a part of the Great World, compares itself to Rome and Vienna, it will not acquire the scientific spirit, the international mind, which would make it great. It picks at information which will visibly procure money or social distinction. Its conception of a community ideal is not the grand manner, the noble aspiration, the fine aristocratic pride, but cheap labor for the kitchen and rapid increase in the price of land. It plays at cards on greasy oil-cloth in a shanty, and does not know that prophets are walking and talking on the terrace."

[Discussing the target of a labor organizer who had planned to speak in the town] "'So the whole thing was illegal - and led by the sheriff! Precisely how do you expect these aliens to obey your law if the officer of the law teaches him to break it? Is it a new kind of logic?' 'Maybe it wasn't exactly regular, but what's the odds? They knew this fellow would try to stir up trouble. Whenever it comes right down to a question of defending Americanism and our constitutional rights, it's justifiable to set aside ordinary procedure.'" (!!!!!!!!!)

[And a couple paragraphs after the above text] "Next thing, I suppose you'll be yapping about free speech and free gas and free beer and free love and all the rest of your damned mouthy freedom and if I had my way I'd make you folks live up to the established rules of decency..." (!!!!!!!)

"And was I more happy when I was drudging? I was not. I was just bedraggled and unhappy. It's work - but not my work. I could run an office or a library, or nurse and teach children. But solitary dish-washing isn't enough to satisfy me - or many other women. We're going to chuck it. We're going to wash 'em by machinery, and come out and play with you men in the offices and clubs and politics you've cleverly kept for yourselves! Oh we're hopeless, we dissatisfied women! Then why do you want to have us about the place to fret you?"

"She felt that she was no longer one-half of a marriage but the whole of a human being." (💓💓💓).

Sooooo, yeah, those were a little lengthy, but for reals? All this shit is happening exactly the same today and sometimes it was frustrating to see how little has changed and how determined the male characters in the story were to keep women as the proper wives that a conservative small town should expect them to be. But then I remember how fortunate I am to be in 2020 and not 1920, although sometimes it sure doesn't feel that way. But women have taken over the offices and clubs and politics that men cleverly kept for themselves and many younger women are intentionally eschewing motherhood, feeling their purpose is different than that (this girl's hand up way in the air here). So while I was often very frustrated reading Main Street, in a way, it felt a little like reading a time capsule when you already know the outcome and how things have changed for the better. So at least a smidge of a positive feeling by the end. 

Next up is Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison. 214 to go. And my 41st birthday is in 6 days. Nighty night!  

"This Building Is What's Going To Happen To All Of Us. That's Why It's So Fucking Hard To Look At, But Why We Can't Look Away. It's Why Some People Hate This City And It's Why Other People Are Still Drawn To It And Keep Believing In It. The Fear And The Fascination."

Disclaimer: I know that The Narcissism of Small Differences is not about me and my bf. I know that. Michael Zadoorian wrote it years ago and couldn't possibly have written about our envisioned relationship today. But seriously you guys, this book is about me and my bf. Like freakishly, frighteningly, for reals about us. Let's take a look at the evidence, shall we? 

• The couple in the story have been dating for 15 years (bf and I have 15 years since we met coming up at the end of this month). 
• The female character, Ana, turns 40 in the novel (uhhh...less than a year ago for me). 
• The couple isn't married and don't have or want kids, decisions that they are judged for by others (in all fairness, my family stopped asking me questions about when the bf and I were going to get married a really long time ago and has never really questioned my decision to not want kids. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they talk amongst themselves about it. But we've certainly had other people/friends question our choices).
• Ana has a high-powered, high-stress corporate job which she is well-compensated for, making more than her partner Joe (check). 
• So many issues that the couple has on their plate, I swear are issues that we are dealing with or have dealt with. I won't go into too much detail about this, because I would like to protect our privacy at least somewhat. 
• One of Joe's coworker's names is Jin (the bf has a coworker with the same name). 
• At one point late in the book, Ana makes dinner for Joe, from pesto that she had recently made and jarred. I FRIGGIN MADE PESTO THE WEEK BEFORE I STARTED READING THIS BOOK! I'm on a crazy pesto kick right now. 

So yeah. So many similarities! But I have a theory about this. Yes, my bf is a friend of the author (he is even mentioned as his performance artist namesake for an event the characters planned to attend in the book !). But I don't necessarily think that would mean that the bf would have shared any of these relevant details of our relationship that appear in the book to Michael. I do believe, however, that we as a couple gravitate towards people who believe in the same things we do and live our lives in the free-wheeling, non-traditional way that we do (fondly referred to in the novel as "being weird"). We spend time with other couples/individuals who don't have kids, who don't believe in traditional marriage, and who just live their lives without ascribing to the societal expectations of what a normal relationship looks like. Maybe we gravitate to each other subconsciously, or maybe it's just easier to make plans and spend time with people who don't have kids. So by this shared time together, we acknowledge the similarities of what we've experienced, spoken or unspoken. The bf and I haven't really spent any time with Michael and his wife as a couple, but we do have mutual friends that we're all close with who all share similar circumstances. So maybe there are pockets of us "weird" childless, occasionally unmarried couples (and even in our case, not even living together), who see something of ourselves reflected in each other. And maybe that's how it filtered through? 

So anywho. I loved this book. Michael has such a relatable way of presenting his characters and writing in their voices. There's wit, knowledge, humor, and a realness that is easy to relate to and gives so much humanity to these characters. And set against the backdrop of the city of Detroit (and nearby suburbs) in 2009, it's interesting to contrast the struggles/crumbling of the city against the struggles of the couple in the novel, Joe and Ana. As a side note: it's quite remarkable how much Detroit has changed in 11 years. I moved here in 2010, and the city looked nothing like it does today (a large majority of the buildings in the downtown area were abandoned and now I think that number is down to only a couple. They literally cannot re-do buildings fast enough, with residential capacity in the immediate downtown area over 90%). I blew through this book in less than a week (mostly because we were up north relaxing over 4th of July weekend), I enjoyed it that much. Highly recommend - it's not necessarily a light and jaunty summer read, but you'll get so much more out of this one. 

I've shifted back to my book lists, picking up Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. I didn't realize until I started reading the background info about the author and novel at the beginning of the book that I had already read Babbitt. So it gives me a slightly better idea of what to expect for this novel knowing the tone and topic of that one. But apparently when Main Street was published in 1920, it became an instant hit, with significant numbers of people buying the book, way more than would normally have access to/purchase books at that time. So I'm looking forward to this one. 

Happy doldrums of summer!

"That, We Disarmed Our Selves Of The Few Abilities She Had Bestowed; Had Been Very Successful In Multiplying Our Original Wants, And Seemed To Spend Our Whole Lives In Vain Endeavours To Supply Them By Our Own Inventions"

So I find it interesting that Gulliver's Travels is very often read and taught to kids at a young age. Everyone I've asked if they had read it (this was not a large sample size given the current state of lockdown and the fact that I don't interact with more than a few people), responded either that they had read it "a very very long time ago" or they had read it "back in grade school or middle school." And I get the imaginative nature of the book to open up kids' minds to creating worlds of their own making, limited only by their own creativity. And that I certainly did appreciate about the book...lands of teeny people only about 6 inches high, lands of giants, lands where horses talk and are the supreme intelligent beings, lands that float above the ground as though a cloud. And all of these lands and people/beings described in tedious detail, written by an astute observer. It brought so much concrete realness to the imagined places, that I could certainly see how a child would be drawn into the magic of each unique place. 

But really, the book is a big ol' satire. A satire about how comically awful we are as human beings. Sometimes this is reflected in the dynamic of the people Gulliver meets and how the things they do juxtaposed against the things he does as a native Englander all seem so bizarre. And this was very abundantly driven home in Gulliver's last voyage where the Houyhnhnms (the talking, wise horses) are so fully disgusted by the other inhabitants of the island, the Yahoos, who we learn are really just slightly more grotesque looking (and behaving humans). But as Gulliver recounts all that he can about the history of Europe and England to the Houyhnhnms and all of the miserable things that humans do there, from their social customs to their lying and corruption to their completely inadequate system of government (he really doesn't try to candy-coat it), even normal humans are pretty despicable and grotesque in their own right.

I tend to struggle with books that are a statement about the politics of a given country/place at the specific times they were written. Because (and maybe it's just the examples that I've read that fall into this category) I usually don't know squat about the political histories of these countries/times, maybe don't care all that much to learn tons about it, and also because it seems to be written about in laborious detail that makes it even more of a slog for me to get through. I don't want to sound blasé, because I know that the context to the time (and largely the politics) can be critical for many well-regarded texts (and many of the ones that are a bit older on my lists), but I'm just not that driven to want to know all of those minutiae. Particularly if it's written in a dry and unengaging, technical way, which I definitely felt it was in Gulliver's Travels. The politics of England in the early 1700s is just not that compelling to me. Meh, judge all you want, but not my cup of tea (pun intended).

So after knocking that one off the list and settling myself down to 216 more books to go, I'll be taking a slight break to read The Narcissism of Small Differences (and just learned that I had no idea how to actually spell "narcissism") by Michael Zadoorian. Michael is a local Detroit-area writer who happens to be friends with my bf (they've known each other for many years). After just adoring The Leisure Seeker, I cannot wait to dive into this one (and also have Beautiful Music on the bookshelf for future reading too). There is a fun connection that I've been told (by the author himself!) that is in the book but I'll save that snippet for the recap once I've actually read it. I suspect I'll motor right through this one, since I love Michael's writing so much, and because I have a 5-day holiday weekend up north staring me in the face - prime for relaxing and reading. Happy 4th!  

"The Way Most People Browse, It's As If They've Stepped Into A Temple Or Church"

So I probably should have written my entry for Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore as soon as I finished reading it. Because it has been a couple weeks and now most of my more interesting thoughts about it have vanished out of my brain like a wisp in the wind. So for future reference: either make notes while reading or write this shit up ASAP. 

This was a very fun little murder mystery, with some interesting cross-ties between characters (some of which I didn't see coming even though I should have) and some clever puzzles to follow and put together, leading the reader like bread crumbs. The story is about Lydia Smith, a bookstore clerk in Denver who one night is the discoverer of the body of one of the store's "Book Frogs" (the poor, young, regulars who spend excessive amounts of time there), Joey Molina, who has hung himself on the third floor. In Joey's pocket, is a photograph of Lydia as an 11-year old girl at her birthday party with 2 of her friends. What unfolds from there is a mystery that Joey has left behind for Lydia to unravel and along the way we learn about Lydia's very traumatic past and how it may be related to Joey, completely unbeknownst to Lydia. There were plenty of twists and turns and, as mentioned, connections between the characters that you don't necessarily see coming. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the plot of the story, and the very vivid, descriptive nature of many elements of the book (the store, Denver, the many unique characters, and a horrific crime scene). But I had a hard time connecting with the main character. I can't explain why, but something about her just didn't feel authentic (and one particular plotline regarding her and her boyfriend made me particularly annoyed...the character's decisions bothered me and felt overblown and inconsistent with everything else we had read about their relationship). I often wonder sometimes if this comes from an author of one gender trying to write from the point of view of the opposite gender; some authors can do this magnificently where you don't bat an eye or question whether the author is a man or a woman and some authors are less successful. 

All in all, a quick and enjoyable read. As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for a good whodoneit and this one checked every box that I would have wanted. 

Since finishing, I've moved on to Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. I honestly don't know much of anything about this book, having never seen any of the movie adaptations of it (other than the existence of the little people called Liliputians). I'm plugging away at it, keeping quarantine time occupied by trying to not hysterically break down into emotion-wracked sobs at the mess of a world we're living in. Maybe this is a good book to read now...voyaging off to lands not found on any map. Isn't that what we all wish we could do right now?    

"This Is The Time The Swooning Soul Hangs Pendant And Vertiginous Between The New Day And The Old, Nor Dares Confront The One Or Summon Back The Other"

I don't exactly know why it has taken me until I was 40 years old to read something by Dorothy Parker. I honestly didn't even know who she was until I saw the movie Can You Ever Forgive Me? with Melissa McCarthy, where she plays a struggling writer who takes to forging letters by authors and selling them to make ends meet; Dorothy Parker was one of her frequent subjects of imitation. Dorothy Parker is often described as one of the greatest wits of the 20th century (I mean, it says it right on the back of my book jacket) and one of the greatest short story writers in particular. So I don't know how she managed to evade my attention for so long.

And in diving into her short stories collection, it was clear to me that she absolutely had a distinct voice and style, unlike any other I had read before. The stories are largely set in the 1920s and 1930s and are told from the point of view of a society woman (there are some from the perspective of a man, but largely the same concept...high society urban men and women), and very often, there is some kind of miscommunication between the woman and a man, be it her husband, her boyfriend, the man she met at a high society party, or the man she is waiting around to call her. And the dialogue is often clever, funny, smart, and infuriating.

And it seemed clear to me, that Dorothy Parker did not think very highly of women at all (society women or really any woman). The women in her stories are constantly doing things that they don't want to do because it is polite and proper and expected of her. And Parker clearly has disdain for these women as the overall tone, while clever and witty, is one of mockery for women not rising above their situations and taking a stand against the status quo of gender dynamics. I think there was maybe one female character who was saucy and sharp-tongued enough to talk back to a man that she met at a party, in The Mantle of Whistler (and while most of Parker's stories were short, this story was even shorter, not giving any daylight to a strong female character). All of the rest of her women are "proper" women personified - simpering, desperate (like capital D-E-S-P-E-R-A-T-E) for their man's attention and affection (although often playing off that they don't care, but turning around and crying in hysterics), and feeling this obligation to be the perfect female mate. And in some stories (some of the longer stories in particular), the women were very self-aware. They were aware that they were being crazy and asked themselves "Why am I doing this for him?" but would go right back to being the pathetic creature of habit. 

Again there were a few exceptions where some of the women were given more dimension (Big Blonde for example) and fell slightly outside of this mold. But for the most part, after a while, a lot of the stories kind of felt the same. Which explains why it has taken me months to get through what should have been an enjoyable quick read. And don't get me wrong, I did very much enjoy Parker's style of writing. It was easy to get sucked into her banter and the dynamics of the relationship back-and-forth and was very enjoyable for a time. But after a while, I didn't want to read about the same woman anymore...a woman that I kind of wanted to scream at. And I get it, it was like 100 years ago when the gender dynamics were completely different, and women did play these kind of games to get and marry men (even though it often made them miserable, another subject Parker displays with zero sentimentality). And maybe that was the entire point. To hold up a mirror to the society woman that Parker loathed and put her on blast in a sardonic manner to show exactly what was wrong with the whole situation to begin with (and kudos to Parker for wading into some taboo issues like abortion way back then). 

Moving forward, Dorothy Parker will hold a special place in my heart, because I truly loved her sass and style of writing, but overall, I was glad to be done with my time with her society women.

Because I struggled so much with this book, rather than jumping into potentially another struggle bus book from my lists, I'm going to take a quick break for a random non-list book that I picked up on a whim off the table at the bookstore: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan. I need something that is going to capture my attention for a bit, mid lockdown. Reading is one of my greatest solaces and one that I need to absorb for joy during this time, so I really want to spend it absorbing things that make me happy and that I look forward to reading as opposed to forcing myself to get through something challenging (maybe I'll be ready for challenging in a bit, but not so much right now). I don't know much of anything about the book, so it will be an enjoyable surprise to read it with no expectations. Wish me luck!     

"Because Between 'Reality' On The One Hand, And The Point Where The Mind Strikes Reality, There's A Middle Zone, A Rainbow Edge Where Beauty Comes Into Being, Where Two Very Different Surfaces Mingle And Blur To Provide What Life Does Not: And This Is The Space Where All Art Exists, And All Magic"

Suffice it to say that Donna Tartt is quite a remarkable writer. I found the story of The Goldfinch so remarkable and was completely hooked from the very beginning but combined with her equisite descriptions and aside observations of life (filtered through a oftentimes dark and troubled narrator), I just could not put it down. As I noted a couple posts ago, there were many pages that I dog-eared because a particular passage would capture me and I would be so struck with the words and thoughts behind them. I believe I even read one of them outloud to the bf. That doesn't happen very often at all because he never really seems all that impressed with them in spite of how much I love them.

The Goldfinch tells the story of Theo Decker, who we meet as a young 13-year old, living in NYC with his mother, following their abandonment by his alcoholic father. After getting in trouble at school and having to go meet the principal with his mom, they make a stop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on their way to kill time and because his mother is particularly keen to see a favorite painting of hers. During this sojurn, the museum is vicitim to a terrorist attack, with Theo being one of the few survivors near the center of the blast. He emerges, having connected briefly with a dying man in the museum who insists that he take a painting with him, The Goldfinch, by Carel Fabritius, which Theo does, in his incoherent state of shock and delusion. 

From here, Theo's life trails down a difficult path, initially being sympathetically taken in by the wealthy family of one of his friends from childhood. But his father returns to claim him (and the possibility of any money he can get his hands on through Theo) and Theo moves to Las Vegas where he befriends Boris, the son of a Russian business man who travels the world. Together, they head into a self-destructive path, fueled with drugs and alcohol, but at the same time, cement their friendship. 

Further into his adulthood, Theo continues his darkness, but has established himself as a very sucessful antiques dealer, after connecting with the family of the dying man he met in the museum. All the while, he is tortured over the loss of his mother, the trauma he experienced in the museum, his unrequited love for another survivor of the bombing, and the fear of hiding The Goldfinch, which by now, the musuem curators and authorities are certain was stolen from the museum and not destroyed in the bombing. What unfolds is a sinister and dangerous situation for Theo, who is perhaps too troubled a soul to really be able to handle a sinister and dangerous situation. 

AT 771 pages, this book was dense, but each different vignette of Theo's life (from his time as a young kid before, during, and after the bombing, to his wild and unsupervised time in Las Vegas staying with his father and meeting Boris, to his time as an adult where he is learning to navigate the life that has been thrust upon him) was told with so much riveting detail, that I couldn't possibly see it being any shorter. I actually loved the fact that it was so lush and long because it helped you GET Theo and everything about him and his circumstances and what drove him to the choices that he made. 

And again, I was so remarkably captured by so many passages:

"You see one painting, I see another, the art book puts it at another remove still, the lady buying the greeting card at the museum gift shop sees something else enitre, and that's not even to mention the people separated from us by time -- four hundred years before us, four hundred after we're gone --it'll never strike anybody the same way and the great majority of people it'll never strike in any deep way at all but -- a really great painting is fluid enough to work its way into the mind and heart through all kinds of different angles, in ways that are unique and very particular. Yours, yours. I was painted for you." 

"What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?"

"And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beutiful because of the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throws a prism of color across the sky -- so the space where I exist, and want to keep existing, and to be quite frank I hope I die in, is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime." 

I mean c'mon, that last sentence? It's just freaking beautiful. 

Donna Tartt just shot to the top of my list of authors that I want to read everything they wrote. And it's possible that I bought her other 2 novels for that very reason. 

Side note about the movie of The Goldfinch: as I was reading the book, I was aware of the fact that the movie had already been made of the novel. And I found myself already angry about it. Because there is SO MUCH in the book that I was angry that they short-changed it by making it a 2.5 hour, single-sitting movie. It needed to be done as a miniseries, in the style of Big Little Lies. Devote the time, space, and development to explore all of the amazing facets of the novel. So when I watched the movie, while I was pleased that they kept as true to the book as possible and really included much more than I expected, it was all so rushed. It didn't develop anything nearly enough, and you didn't have the sympathy or understanding of Theo (or any of the other characters for that matter) the way you needed to. So while I would give the movie maybe a B-/C+, I don't think many people who didn't read the book would remotely appreciate it, which does a huge disservice to the book. 

So yeah, go read this book, I promise you won't be disappointed!

Given that life has substantially changed in the last couple weeks to a world of pandemic quarantine where we'll be staying home indefinitely, I anticipate my reading will ramp up quite a bit here. And hopefully my commitment to writing here too. I mean, what the hell else do I have to do? I'm being given the gift of time, so in order to avoid a deadly infectious disease, I think I can commit to just huddling up and doing nothing but read. With that said, Dorothy Parker is an absolute delight. But I sometimes struggle with reading books of short stories...I feel as though I have to only read a couple at a time to then reflect and absorb the individual story. If I were to sit down and read it cover to cover, I would never appreciate each story, the tone of them (particularly with Dorothy Parker) would begin to feel monotonous, and I would probably forget most of what I read. So I'm trying to pace myself a little bit with Ms. Parker. But wow, what a wit. And boy will I have commentary about her portrayal of men and women in her stories. 

So with that, back t0 staring at these 4 walls and finding the many constructive things to do. Happy quarantine Saturday. 

"If People Don't All Experience Emotional Satisfaction And Deprivation In The Same Way, What Claim Can There Be For Equality of Need?"

Man, I have been staring and re-reading the title of this post for about 5 full minutes trying to really wrap my head around it and trying to come up with a good answer. And while in my previous post I noted that I probably didn't give July's People a fair enough read, there was certainly parts of, like statements like that, that would catch me re-reading and thinking about. Or a passage, further along the same page discussing death as a relative place based on an individual's place in the economy, a "purchase", describing the wealthy white architect who could afford the private jet in which he crashed and then describing the elderly tribal grandmother who would work the land, bending lower and lower to the earth until she returned to it. It was certainly a novel about race that is teeming with tension when, just that quickly, roles are reversed.

The story is about the Smales family and their servant July. The Smales are a liberal, upper class, white family in Johannesburg (Bam, Maureen, Gina, Victor, and Royce) who are forced to flee the city during a (fictional) violent civil war overturning the system of apartheid (note: Nadine Gordimer wrote the book prior to the end of apartheid, therefore, this was her fictionalization/prediction of what she thought might happen) and are aided by their loyal black servant of 15 years, July. He helps smuggle them out of the city during the fighting and takes them to his village a couple hundred miles away. Once there, they are now the minority and have to live according to July's rules and the ways of the village in order to survive. During this time they confront the immediate loss of comfort, living in huts with dirt ground and bathing in the river, and the fact that many of the other villagers (mostly the women) don't necessarily want them there. And they are living in absolute fear, knowing that many friends and other upper class whites in Johannesburg were killed, so knowing that if they are discovered, they may very well face the same fate.

Amongst all of this is the incredibly complex changing relationship they now face with July, in particular, Maureen (as she is the main narrator). The change in power dynamic, and the levels of trust that both of them have to demonstrate, which is tested many times. In the city as the head of the household, Maureen was generally the one who provided the orders to July, and now, in his tribe, gender roles are far different, which Maureen must adjust to. And back in the city, July had a mistress which Maureen knew about, and now back in his tribe, July must trust Maureen to maintain that secret from his wife. They must also entrust the keys to their truck to July, which could potentially be their only lifeline to getting out of the village if something were to happen.

The racial dynamics during the time of apartheid in South Africa are so well explored in this book in such a simple way and again, there was so much tension. You wanted to believe that because these characters knew each other for so long they would trust each other and everything would work out, but there was absolutely no certainty in that. And while the book was relatively short, it was the kind of book where I felt like every word was so much more deliberate than I was probably giving it credence. Again, the fact that I read this in a half-assed, less-than-focused way probably didn't allow me to get as much out of it as I probably could have. But I still found it engaging, nonetheless.

So after July's People, as I said, I devoured The Goldfinch. With this President's Day off, maybe I will get around to writing that badboy up too.

Oh and yeah, I'm only a couple stories into Dorothy Parker, and she's already a heroine. There is going to be a LOT that I'm going to have to say about her.     

"Today Is Only One Day In All The Days That Will Ever Be"

And so here we are in February. Of 2020. A full 7 months since my last post. My 40th birthday has come and gone. No big reflective post about the origins of this blog. Examining how far I've come. How far away from the original goal I fell. For those of you keeping track, which I know is no one, across the 4 lists there were 326 books. When I started the blog in July 2012, I had read 73, leaving 253, and as of my 40th birthday on September 14th, 2019, I had only added an additional whopping 36 books to that total, leaving 218 left to read (a clerical error added an additional book that I had originally excluded from the list, thinking I had read, but I had not). 

So the goal of this blog that I started with such aplomb and happy ambition was not met. And the simple thing would be to just strikethrough that 40 and change it to 50! Yay! And maybe I will. I certainly won't stop reading all of these classics. Because these lists and these books are as much a part of how I  make choices, not just of what to read but what I do in my everyday life and how I spend my free time, that I truly can't see myself living without them. So while I may not have met the lofty goal, the quest goes on because it has to. 

And I'm sorry if this whole post sounds a little Bitter Betty. I feel like it should be so much more reflective of this whole endeavor that I've undertaken. But the last 7 months have just kicked me so hard in the teeth that there's a reason not just for the absence in posts but the lack of reading. And a lack in reading makes my heart hurt. And all of the other things going on that have affected the lack of reading make my heart hurt too. Mostly getting sucked into the void of 70-hour work weeks from about August onward to December. When I left my last job it was for largely the same reason and I swore I would never do this to myself again. Because it affects every part of my being and of my life. I become this opposite version of myself that I loathe. This version who bitches about work to anyone who will listen even though I know they're only pretending to feign interest and concern. But I can't stop myself from the verbal fountain of complaining because I am stuck in the drowning suction where the only thing that exists is the waking hours of work and the few hours of sleep in-between. And if I try to grasp for some sympathy from even a partially listening ear, I tend to go for it, even as I see the boredom reflected in their eyes as I prattle on about the failure of team members to provide input on time, gigantic changes in scope, blah blah blah. 

And so that was where my life existed for almost 6 months. While July's People languished on my nightstand. And I know I read it. And I'll give a recap. But I didn't give it a fair read, because it was during such a low time for me, even when I was able to devote time to it, like on an airplane. My mind was elsewhere, and not in a good place. 

So explain to me how, following July's People, I read The Goldfinch, an almost 800 page book in 2 1/2 months, while I was also still dealing with all of the 70-hour work drama bullshit. I guess the heaviness somehow matched exactly how I was feeling, and it was hard to put it down. There were so many phrases and passages that I dog-eared because I wanted to save. Suffice it to say, yeah, I absolutely adored it. I didn't want it to end. I've had it on my mind for DAYS since I've finished it. And I may actually read it over again. And I very very rarely do that, only because there are so many books that I want to read. But I just loved it so much in such a heartbreaking, lovely way. 

And again, maybe the melancholy of the book just caught me at the right time. The grey loneliness of winter and the shit time at work all wrapped up in the painting and the excessive drug use and death. I don't know. 

Anyway, I'll write a recap for that too. But up next, I'm finding it hard to make a choice of what to read next. I'm going to try Stories, by Dorothy Parker because she may be a good fit for how I'm feeling lately and to at least keep me on track with the reading lists. But we'll see Maybe I'll come around and have a more positive attitude about 2020. Until then, here's a snippet from The Goldfinch to leave you with. 

"That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open."