"No One But Yourself Bothers To Make A Collection Of Disasters. For The Time Being You Are The Hero Or The Villain Of The Thing That Is Uppermost In The Minds Of Your Friends And Acquaintances."

When I was only a short way through Appointment in Samarra, I was quite puzzled about why this book hasn't risen to the level of literary hype as The Great Gatsby. It has many of the same elements and has a very similar feel to the book. And while I haven't read The Great Gatsby in a long time, I felt myself already gravitating to this book more. Steeped in the wealthy, young adults of the 1920s, fueled with odious amounts of bootlegged liquor, there was almost a dark, cynical side to the characters motives and actions. But it all felt like a less romanticized version of elites in the 1920s and had a more modern feel (especially with regards to the portrayal of the women...they were much more interested in sex and this was written about so frankly, it felt pretty surprising. And I wonder if it was a bit shocking for the time).

Appointment in Samarra tells the story of Julian English and his wife Caroline, who attend an elite social event at their club just before Christmas in the small town of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania. And in a somewhat irrational moment of annoyance and ennui, Julian throws a drink in the face of a fellow club-member, Harry Reid. From there, he spends the remainder of the book attempting to make amends to Harry, his wife, his family, and their friends, and when it is not well-received, Julian doubles-down on his bad behavior, bringing about his own self-destruction.

It has all of the elements of a lush novel detailing the lives of the wealthy socialites of this time period: descriptions of particular social norms around party hostessing and marrying well, SO much talk about new automobiles (I mean, part of this is because Julian owns a car dealership, but so much space devoted to every detail about cars), gangsters, liquor, etc. It grounded the setting of the book and made it very visual and distinct. And made Julian's actions, particularly in the end, feel much more reasonable - all of the social climbing, and money, and infidelity very much drove his (and all of the characters') behavior. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book, and even now thinking about it a bit later, it feels like the kind of book I would very much want to pick up and read again. 

Up next, Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame. I have zero idea what this book is about which makes it an interesting surprise! 

195 to go.    

"God Was Everywhere, Terrible, The Living God; And So High, The Song Said, You Couldn't Get Over Him; So Low You Couldn't Get Under Him; So Wide You Couldn't Get Around Him; But Must Come In At The Door."

We watched I Am Not Your Negro on Netflix not that long ago, which is a documentary/essay of sorts based on an unfinished book by James Baldwin about race relations. I enjoyed it very much and remember looking forward to reading Go Tell It on the Mountain, which is included on two of my reading lists, to see how Baldwin's visual words that I had seen spoken would translate to the written word. And within the first few pages it was evident that Baldwin had a remarkable way of communicating large concepts in a lovely, interesting, and dynamic way. 

Go Tell It on the Mountain is based on Baldwin's youth growing up in Harlem with his stepfather who was a preacher and abusive to his wife and children. The character in the novel, John Grimes, turns 14 years old and attends a evening prayer service at his stepfather's parish where he experiences salvation, traveling to the depths of his own sin to climb up the mountain, determined to live thenceforth for Jesus. A large majority of the book is spent recounting the histories of his stepfather, mother, and aunt and how their journeys led them to where and who they are and, pervasive throughout every moment, is their relationship with God and their faith. 

It was surprising to me how much of the book was about the virtues of God and religion. In fact, there isn't that much activity/action that occurs throughout the course of the novel. The vast majority of it details the sermons, the struggle, the salvation, the way life should be led in the path of God. And it wasn't in an ironic way. It didn't seem to be critical of it. But the character of John struggles so mightily with trying to live with faith but that is in conflict with his own intelligence and trying to fight against the pervasiveness of sin that is in every single fragment of the world. And John struggles with despising his stepfather for his physical abuse on the one hand, and trying to love God (and his stepfather) on the other hand. I guess I found it surprising that John eventually is "saved" and moves forward choosing to follow in the path of his stepfather and mother, and embrace Jesus, knowing that Baldwin was ultimately not a religious person. So it's interesting to me that Baldwin wrote the book later in life and didn't eschew religion, but had his character of John embrace it. That the book wasn't written through the lens of someone who no longer embraced the faith that the character so strongly ascribes to.

Next up is Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara. In reading the first couple chapters already, it already feels like it's going to feel a lot like The Great Gatsby but with a bit of a more sardonic feel. 

2021 ended up being quite a banner year for me for reading. I don't know what crawled up my ass and had me reading as much as I did, but I read more books this year than I can ever remember (a total of 20 books). I think part of it was joining Goodreads, which provides me with a great amount of satisfaction to see and track the accomplishment of finishing books. But mostly I just found a lot of joy this year from reading good stories. And not all of them were always great. But I read enough really great ones to make me want to continue to seek out things that move me. So on to 2022 where I'm sure I'll continue on this trend. Because I have a giant stack of "to read" books on my bookshelf and a lot of motivation to keep enjoying excellent stories. 

196 to go.   

"At This Moment He Can Think Only One Thing: How Was It Possible, He Wonders, To Have Been So Wrong."

When I first started Everything I Never Told You, I thought it was going to be a clever, but strikingly similar to other recent fiction I've read, whodoneit story about the death of a young high school girl, Lydia Lee. But I was VERY very pleasantly surprised that this novel ended up being pretty much nothing like that. 

Yes, Lydia Lee dies by drowning in the lake by her Middlewood, Ohio home, but the resulting story is not necessarily about who may have had a hand in her death, but instead is the unfolding story of the Lee family in the late 1960s through the mid 1970s: James, a Chinese American Harvard-educated professor working at a small college, his wife Marilyn, a brilliant and promising academic with big dreams who met James while attending Radcliffe, their oldest son Nath, their daughter Lydia, and youngest daughter Hannah. Marilyn had always expected to make something remarkable of her life, rejecting her mother's goals for her to marry a "nice Harvard man." After falling in love and marrying a Chinese American man as a white woman, and promptly having children, no longer pursuing her dreams of being a doctor, she somehow finds herself living the exact life that she had tried to avoid. When Marilyn deserts her family to go back to school, it tears a rift in the fabric of all of their lives and things are never the same. 

Marilyn discovers she is pregnant with Hannah and returns to her family, abandoning school. She chooses to shift all of her dreams to Lydia, to raise her to be the person that she wasn't able to be. On the flip side, after experiencing discrimination his entire life, all James wants for Lydia is to fit in, have friends, and be popular. Between both parents, Lydia is completely smothered. The other children are largely ignored. 

Where the novel really shines is in the exact meaning of the title: everything that is never said. All five characters have so so  many missed opportunities to express things to each other that would likely have averted Lydia's fate: James to Marilyn, Nath to Lydia, Lydia to Nath, Hannah to Lydia, Hannah to her parents, Nath to his parents. So many things held back. So many things observed but not spoken aloud. So many things suffered in silence. It was very brilliantly done. 

I found I enjoyed the book much more than I thought. The exact writing itself didn't necessarily blow me away (I'm still on a God of Small Things high where I'm measuring everything against the exquisite language there), but as a whole, the characters and story was intertwined so well that it caught up with me by the end. I'm glad that I had the chance to read it. As a side note, according to good old Wikipedia, Celeste Ng's favorite novel is The God of Small Things. Go figure. 

After this break from the lists, back I go with Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin. I am officially off work until January 4th so I plan to spend the next week and a half doing nothing except relaxing and reading. 

"And the Air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside."

Normally I capitalize every word in the heading of the blog post, which is always a quote from the book I have finished. This was the first and probably only (we'll see) time that I made sure that the capitalization matched what was in the book. Because there were so many nuances in the author's choices in the format of the text that were deliberate and added so much to the meaning of the content.

And ya'll. The God of Small Things blew me away. 

It got me to thinking. As an occasional writer (ok, so technical writing is my full time job, but occasional fiction writer), all writers have access to all the same words. Sure, there are some who have slightly more advanced vocabularies than others. But for the most part, 99% of the words we all know are the same. So what Arundhati Roy was able to do with words, all the same words as I have access to, just blew my mind. And certainly made me think, "Oh yeah, no way I could ever in a million years write the way she does." I don't mind being brought down many pegs to be able to experience something this brilliant. 

And I don't throw around the word brilliant often. I think I tend to be pretty tepid with saying that every book was one of the most amazing things I've ever read. But this book honestly is. There is so much vivid imagery and creativity in what she presents about the environment, the characters, their actions, their inner thoughts. Like nothing I've ever read. And such a clever use of repetition throughout the book for key details about the characters, their physical attributes, things that happen to them, the world they exist in. I may be repetitive myself, but all I can keep saying is that it just blew me away. It was a book that I delighted in getting drawn into and one that I know would benefit from being read a second time.

As a just a quick summary of the story, it tells of two inseparable fraternal twins, Rahel and Estha, who live in Ayemenem, India and the fateful events that occur when their cousin, Sophie Mol, comes to visit from England in 1969. The children have their own lush world, part imagination, part very harsh reality. There are complex family dynamics and each character's history is explored. There is a backdrop of political issues (the burgeoning of communism in India, the persistence of the caste system) and an illicit love affair that leads to some of the horrific events that conclude the novel. Although, while these events "conclude" the novel, the storyline is split up throughout the book and heavy foreshadowing allows the reader to have a pretty clear idea of how things are going to end. But that doesn't make it any less shocking and terrible.

This book just rocketed up my list of favorites. I will probably say it again and again, but I've really never read anything quite as exquisite and lush with imagery. And written in a way that is new and interesting and compelling. And not done just for the sake of doing it. But because that is the story and who these characters are and the fiber of every moment of the book is made better by the way it is written. I wish I could provide a better explanation of what exactly it is that makes this novel so exemplary, but even with 99% of the same words, I cannot even remotely do it justice. 

So read it. READ IT. 

I'm taking a momentary pause from the lists to pick up Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. I'm on break for the holidays starting next week so I wanted to pick up something to usher me into my glorious free time that I felt I could read quickly. I also have some quality time in the waiting room of a hospital next week, ripe for reading. We'll move on back to the lists after that. I'm hoping to finish this one before the end of the year and squeeze in a year recap post, but we'll see how that goes. 

197 left to go.     

"The Search Is What Anyone Would Undertake If He Were Not Sunk In The Everydayness Of His Own Life"

The Moviegoer was certainly not what I was expecting. For starters, it's really not about an individual who goes to see movies at all. I mean, there is partly that. The main character, Binx Bolling, does enjoy going to movie houses all over to see films (the novel is set in the late 1950s), but as part of a larger personal exploration. I guess I was expecting it to be the center feature of the book and that more of the character's life would have revolved around his fixation with movies. But that really wasn't the case. 

The idea of a "moviegoer" was more about someone who saw things in life in a certain way, like Binx did. I found him to be a very interesting character but one who I had a hard time necessarily liking or rooting for. He felt like a bit of a cross between Holden Caulfield and Meursault from The Stranger. He was very disenchanted and apathetic about most things in life (with the exception of making money; that seemed to bring him some amount of satisfaction). He had a lust for women (particularly the ones who were assigned to him as a secretary), but then as soon as he got what he wanted from them, he would lose interest and a general malaise would come over him. But when faced with difficult, uncomfortable moments, he found himself needing to be with a woman (and not necessarily sexually, just needed that presence and that conquest), which I found to be an interesting aspect of the book. 

Binx is a stock broker in New Orleans who was injured during the Korean War. His father was killed when he was younger and he ended up being largely raised by his aunt, who is from a traditional southern, wealthy family. He has a close relationship with his cousin Kate (who he eventually marries...I guess first cousins wasn't a deal-breaker in the south in the 1950s), who is suicidal with a myriad of mental health issues. She states that Binx is the only one who can tell her what to do and she'll do it and keep her from the brink, which sounds like a great foundation for a healthy relationship. 

But Binx just doesn't ascribe to everyday life (what he calls "everydayness"). He seems detached from every relationship he has (from his mother and his step-siblings, to his aunt, to his new fling Sharon, and even to Kate) and views them through a vague, uninterested lens. However, he is on the "search" for meaning, for God, for something to give his life reason. And while he never seems to be able to find what he's looking for, he also doesn't even really seem to know what he's looking for. He struggles to relate to just about everyone and while he tries to find comfort in movies, he still seems to be isolated by his unwillingness to succumb to the everydayness and the contrived expectations of how people are supposed to behave (which is exemplified in the character of his aunt). 

And I don't want to make it sound like I disliked the book. I actually liked it quite a bit. It was the kind of book that I wish I had read in a literature class to be able to discuss some of the scenes with a group of other people. The novel definitely felt different and "new". While existentialism and questioning ones purpose isn't necessarily revolutionary content, the modern context (movies and his immediate environment) and the very keen observations of the world around gave the novel a very specific place and moment. So yeah, a book that surprised me a bit. 

Up next is The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. 198 to go. Happy Thanksgiving!   

"He Was Building From Day To Day On The Possibility Of Disgust, But Each Day Brought Forth Meanwhile A New And More Engaging Bend Of The Road."

Well didn't The Ambassadors just take all the wind out of my sails? Here I was, engaged with reading all spring and summer, clocking book after book, more quickly than I have in years. And then this one just screeched me to a halt, taking nearly 2 months to finish. It didn't take much for me to understand why...I just could not have cared less about The Ambassadors. 

The novel tells the story of Strether, an older man sent on an errand by his fiancee, Mrs Newsome, to retrieve her son, Chad, from his galivanting in Paris to once and for all return to Wollett Massachusetts to run the family business. Simple enough right? Well once Strether arrives in Europe he becomes completely entranced with everything about it. About all of the magnificent people, their lovely gatherings, and of course, beautiful Paris. He also finds Chad so much more remarkable than he anticipated and truly admires the young lad. Chad has taken up acquaintance with a wonderful group of friends, in particular, Madame de Vionnet. She is an older, married woman with a beautiful charming daughter, and Strether all along thinks that Chad's relationship with Madame de Vionnet is not an amorous one. 

Throughout his time there, Strether becomes a different version of himself. He sees all of the wonderful things that he had missed out on during his youth by not exploring the world and seeking the kind of experiences that Chad is having. Sensing that Strether is not fulfilling his obligation of bringing Chad home, Mrs Newsome sends her daughter and her husband to finish the job. Her daughter is far more practical and determined and isn't even remotely impressed with Chad's life or with Paris. I won't disclose the ending, but suffice it to say that Stether may not have seen everything as it truly was and in the end believes that while he has changed so significantly, he doesn't deserve to benefit in any way from his time in Paris. 

My biggest issue with the book that I probably asked myself every time I picked it up was "Who the eff cares??" The book is almost 500 pages devoted to the hyper-over-analysis of every inner thought, motivation, impression, interpretation, every single minute everything that this one character experiences. I mean like, super duper overanalyzing every single thing. And who gives a rat's ass if the son comes home to work in the family business or not?? It's not like he was a fugitive or something. The topic was treated like it was the most important, significant thing in the world, and the whole time all I could thing was "Who cares?" I get that the novel was written in the early 1900s when it was of the most paramount importance that a son follow in his father's footsteps and carry on a successful business. But even then, who cares? The gravity of the situation as I saw it just didn't match up to how severe it was in the book to deserve the lengthiest prose ever to examine every ridiculous angle of everything. Similarly, the relationship between Chad and Madame de Vionnet ended up being such a big deal as to reputations and perceptions of society, and all the while, I was thinking, "So what? He's carrying on with a married woman. Does this really deserve such drama?" But apparently it did. I don't always feel that the time period of a book feels so grossly different than now such that it makes the book entirely irrelevant, but that was my main takeaway from this novel. 

One of my reasons for picking up this book (aside from the fact that I actually quite enjoyed Wings of the Dove) was that The Talented Mr Ripley was supposedly based on The Ambassadors. But it was really only the base premise of one man going to Europe to retrieve a son on behalf of the family that they had in common. The rest of the characters and certainly the plot line didn't fall in sync between the two. But I'm at least glad I got to see that. 

What I'm not glad about is that I still have 4 more books on my lists by Henry James. After the slog through this one, I'm not looking forward to the others (again, even though I have liked others of his). But hopefully I can right the ship of interest in reading again with The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. This one certainly intrigues me just based on the premise, so we'll see if the book itself matches up with expectations! 

I am officially under the 200 mark...199 to go! 

"Blind, That's What I Am. I Never Opened My Eyes. I Never Thought To Look Into People's Hearts, I Looked Only In Their Faces. Stone Blind..."

 So, a little context on Go Set a Watchman. Harper Lee notoriously never published another novel after To Kill a Mockingbird and was very adamant about this throughout her lifetime. Her sister Alice was her caregiver and managed her accounts throughout her life. Her sister was her advocate and pushed back on many of the requests made of Harper Lee that she did not wish to fill. So many found it to be quite suspicious that the announcement of the publication of this book was made only two months after her sister died. At this point, Harper Lee was in her late 80s and hard of hearing and had largely lost her sight. Many felt that Lee was manipulated into agreeing to publish Go Set a Watchman without having full comprehension as to what she was agreeing to, even including investigations into elder abuse. It is alleged that the existence of the manuscript was known for many many years, and the agency was simply waiting until her sister died so they could fast track it for publishing.

And while Go Set a Watchman was initially touted as a "sequel" to To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee had provided an explanation that the novel was actually a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird that she had provided to her editor. The editor had considered it a good effort, but not publishable and encouraged Lee to write the story from the perspective of Jean Louise (Scout) as a child, as she felt the flashbacks in Go Set a Watchman were the most compelling part of the story. Hence, To Kill a Mockingbird. (There are separate controversies about how the perceived-by-some, low quality of Go Set a Watchman somehow manifested into this amazing polished work of To Kill a Mockingbird in such a short timeframe, but I'll leave that argument for others to tease apart). There are differing opinions about whether Lee was happy about Go Set a Watchman being published. It sounds as though she was happy to learn that the manuscript still existed and her new attorney stated that Lee was happy about the book being published. But those who knew Lee disagree with this assessment - that she never would have agreed to it, consistent with the stance she had held her entire life. 

So with that background laid, all I have to say is this: THIS BOOK SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED. 

No writer would ever have consented to have an early draft of a novel published, especially without any opportunity to revisit the work and improve it. And given that this was an early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, hey guess what?? Harper Lee did revise and improve it...it's called To Kill a Mockingbird. 

So all of that controversy aside, I tried to read the book at face value, and boy oh boy, it's been a long time since reading something made me really angry. I acknowledge the problematic issues around To Kill a Mockingbird - the racist experience in 1940s/1950s Alabama being told by white characters and a white author instead of through the black experience. But this book made that seem like child's play. 

The book takes place ~20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, with Jean Louise returning to Maycomb from New York to visit her family and her sort of boyfriend, Henry, during the time of civil rights and desegregation. While Jean Louise seems to be the moral compass in the novel (and again, even she is problematic), and the one who is the least racist, she's kind of an insufferable, annoying character. So if she's supposed to be the "heroine" here, she's not a very convincing one. 

But I'm not actually convinced she's supposed to be the voice of good in this novel. Jean Louise inadvertently sits in on a town meeting, including her father Atticus and Henry, where everyone is very strongly opposing desegregation in their town. The invited speaker drops the n-word many times, and Jean Louise's whole world is ripped apart seeing that her father, who she (and every reader ever!) has put on a pedestal as the embodiment of righteousness and honor and respect for all human beings, might actually be a racist. After seeing this, the novel moves to face-offs with all the people she cares about (Henry, her aunt, her uncle, and ultimately, her father) where they all try to convince her that she is completely wrong and segregation is what's best and that black people don't deserve the equality they're seeking. I mean, for fucks sake, her uncle slaps her across the face because she's so one-minded about the situation. 

But the final interaction with Atticus is what left me fuming. Like I was actually verbally expressing my anger at the story to anyone nearby who would listen. For example (dialogue from Atticus): 

 "This is merely for your own information, that's all: so far in my experience, white is white and black's black. So far, I've not yet heard and argument that has convinced me    otherwise....

Now think about this. What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? I'll tell you. There'd be another Reconstruction. Would you want your state governments run by people who don't know how to run 'em? Do you want this town run by - now wait a minute - Willoughby's a crook we know that, but do you know any Negro who knows as much as Willoughby? Zeebo'd probably be the mayor of Maycomb. Would you want someone of Zeebo's capability to handle the town's money? We're outnumbered you know.

Honey, you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people. You should know it, you've seen it all your life. They've made terrific progress in adapting themselves to white ways, but they're far from it yet..."

So yeah, in case you still had any redeeming views of Atticus as an honorable man who fights for justice for all, lemme just spare you any more uncertainty and let you know that apparently this book rebrands Atticus as a big ol' racist. And the entire perspective of Scout's family that she's vehemently fighting against is that blacks don't need to be treated badly, but they shouldn't be treated equally. And even though, as I mentioned, Jean Louise seems to be the voice of reason here, even she is problematic, acknowledging how much she dislikes the NAACP, how furious she was at the decision of Brown vs Board of Education, and how she would never marry a black man. 

Everything about this book sits wrong with me...there's so much racist garbage in it that, like I said, it made me angry. I realize that this was written back in the 1950s, but that does not give any of it a pass; one review I read said it perfectly: that this novel is on the wrong side of history. It just makes me dislike Harper Lee for these, her politics, written in an unfiltered, unedited way. As I mentioned earlier, I realize that To Kill a Mockingbird is problematic for some of its racist issues, Go Set a Watchman one-ups it with so much racism abound. 

So the only place I can land, again, is that this book never should have been published. Clearly as a money grab by her publisher, I don't suspect they anticipated the negative impact it would have on the legacy of the author and on the re-interpretation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Not to say that she in any way should have been protected from having this expose her, but again, it just should never have happened. 

Don't read this book. Even in spite of all of what I've said above, it isn't even a very well-written book. The narrative jumps all over the place (hey, I don't mind a good flashback now and then) and there just isn't much likeable about it. So yeah, hard pass on this one. 

Now that that vent is through, I've moved on to The Ambassadors by Henry James. When I read The Talented Mr. Ripley (which I loved), I learned that it was based on The Ambassadors. So I'm looking forward to seeing in which ways this story mirrors that one. Progressing onward.