"All Idealisation Makes Life Poorer. To Beautify It Is To Take Away Its Character Of Complexity - It Is To Destroy It."

Confession: I have been way behind the eight ball this year as far as writing blog posts after finishing reading books. I've been trucking along reading at a fine clip, outpacing last year, but for some reason I have a block when it comes to finding the time to sit down and summarize the book and how I felt about it. As a result, I'm writing posts a couple months after I finish the book as opposed to right after I finish reading it and it's fresh in my mind. So most of the initial reaction, emotion, and even recollection is long gone by the time I get to writing it. 

This is exactly where I am right now with The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. I finished it towards the end of June, and now it's slightly more than two months later. And while I can certainly remember the entire storyline, anything else I have to say about it is just meh. A secret agent in England who has infiltrated those believed to be acting, and potentially dangerous, anarchists (who are really all talk). Who is encouraged by his boss to do something destructive to be able to capture others. He arranges to have a bomb set off at the Greenwich Observatory that inadvertently kills his mentally challenged brother-in-law. Fallout with his wife from there.

And somehow that's really all I feel like I have to say about it. I didn't have much strong feeling about any of the characters. Or the writing. Or much else. It felt like a perfectly fine book. And maybe that was the point. That Verloc, the secret agent, was just mediocre at best. He spent his life as a middle of the road agent just doing his job which didn't yield much high-profile intelligence. And everything else about his life is mediocre as well - his family, his home, his interactions with others. If there was a book that made being a spy seem super duper boring, this is definitely the one. And again. Maybe that was the point. 

Coming up next, a short break from the list to read A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. I randomly picked this book up at the bookstore with little to no idea what it is about. It seems like it's going to be very much outside my normal wheelhouse, but we shall see. 

188 to go.  

"I Was Lighter Because I Had Unburdened My Shoulders, And Heavier Because I Knew The Dreams Would Fall."

Sometimes (not always), I enjoy reading books that I don't entirely understand. Or that I somehow think aren't meant for me to fully grasp (I think I said something similar when I was discussing how I felt after reading Owls Do Cry). Normally I would say that I don't enjoy that because I walk away from my time spent laboring over a book only to not have "gotten it." But Tracks is one that felt mysterious and unexplainable in a good way. 

The novel is about a group of Native American families (either by blood or by bond) struggling to survive in North Dakota in 1914 as, inch by inch and plot by plot, they are being forced out of their lands and starving along the way. The unique characters all possess so much mystical foundation, rooted in their indigenous beliefs. But the way it is written, is so matter of fact, and accepted as true. Like, of course everyone knows about that demon that lives in the lake and who is tamed by one woman, Fleur. And the negative forces that Pauline embodies and shares with others. There are so many facets of the story that are bound up in Native American lore and belief that makes it one of the most unique novels I've read. There were passages I would read out loud because they felt so natural but not like anything that I could have comprehended. 

And I liked the fact that there were two different narrators to the book - Nanapush, the elder of the tribe (but a bit of a scoundrel) and Pauline, a young woman of mixed heritage who wants to be white-passing and joins a convent. Their tone, perspective, and access to the main events of the story were so different, that it gave you a fuller picture of the events from most sides.

I genuinely didn't want this book to be over when I finished it. And I will definitely be putting other novels by Louise Erdrich on my To Read list. It sounds like there are other books about the families in this one (this one giving backstory to some characters, even though it is the third in the series). 

Next up is The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. 189 to go.