Internment (Ahmed)

In a time not far from our own, Muslims have been forced into internment camps. Ahmed knows her history and Layla, her protagonist, knows her history and perhaps a bit too much literature. Aside from some occasionally wooden and didactic dialogue (and a villain lifted from The Shawshank Redemption), my biggest concern with this book is that it is too linear, too neat. There are a few places where I wondered whether Ahmed had more. For example, she notices that Muslims from different regions are placed on different blocks in the internment camp. This serves to remind the reader that Muslims do not just come from one place and Layla knows enough to name this strategy as “divide and conquer.” But nothing comes of it. The better conflicts are between the generations and, though this one is less successful, the ones who volunteer to be block captains in exchange for better treatment for the block. This couple, unlike some members of the older generation, is given no real legitimacy.

There’s much to discuss here, about the present of the book’s world as well as our own as well as what history has and has not taught us. If it was edited to keep it under 400 pages and / or to keep the plot flowing, well, I’d like to see the original one day.

Will this book stand the test of time? Unfortunately, it probably will.

Varina (Frazier)

I love Charles Frazier’s books. My only complaint is that he does not write quickly enough. I read Cold Mountain while I was living in the south and had this — https://www.allmusic.com/album/appalachian-journey-mw0000610270 — as the perfect soundtrack. I just fell right into the novel. I was so absorbed by the people and the journey. I’d never read anything like it. Though they were less popular, I felt the same way about Thirteen Moons and Nightwoods.

I was a little antsy when I learned that the focus of this one was, Varina, the wife of Jefferson Davis. I always get wary that a fictionalized version of an historical figure will muddle the waters. Then I realized that I didn’t really know much about her in the first place. I had read about her adopted son in Shane McCrae’s Anisfield-Wolf award winning collection, In the Language of My Captor.

Once again, I fell right in. I’m not sure how Frazier does it. Maybe it’s the attention to detail (which could also explain why he takes so dang long). I tried to pace myself, to ration myself to a certain number of pages a day, but I couldn’t. The book is so vivid and so human. Frazier gives us such important nuances not only about his title character, but the Confederacy in general. Maybe that’s the secret. Frazier complicates what we think we know and understand.

In the end, I’m okay with not knowing how he does it. I just wish he’d do it more often!

The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 (Lynskey)

Whenever I teach a book I’ve taught before, I try to read something new about it. After all, I need to remember that although I’ve read 1984 many times, the students haven’t. So, thank you, Mr. Lynskey; this is exactly what I needed. The book is in two parts – first a biography of the man and the influences that led him to write the novel; then, a kind of biography of all of the influences the book has had on others. Along the way, he gave me much to think about (and some things to regret) about teaching the book and how I’ve taught the book. In short, I am reinvigorated. The book, complete with Lynskey’s less-than-neutral commentary, is clearly a passion project. So if this book (during this time) is a passion project for you, I’d recommend it. One of the many things I admire about the book is the way that a whole range of people who represent a whole range of interests have, ever since it was published, sought to claim it as their own.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Kimmerer)

There is so much in this book that makes so much sense that you’ll want to read it with your highlighter in hand. These are not only words to remember, they are words to live by. Kimmerer’s ability to combine (dare I say braid?) the three topics in her subtitle with such remarkable clarity and insight is just astounding. You cannot read this book and look at the world in the same way.

For a while, I was a bit confused about the book’s structure – I thought so many of the individual sections were great – “Learning the Grammar of Animacy” is the example I just happened to flip to – but I was having trouble making sense of the whole. When I flipped to the back and saw that it is listed in the genre of “NATURE / ESSAYS,” things made more sense. So don’t read it expecting a narrative. Read one or two, pause, be grateful, repeat.

Be With (Gander)

When I saw this collection had won the Pulitzer Prize, my first reaction was, “Who?” I’m not claiming to know every author, but I am generally at least vaguely aware of those who win major prizes. Not so this time.

And so I read it. Aside from the breathtaking, “Stepping Out of the Light” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/144806/stepping-out-of-the-light), and a few other sharp moments, I didn’t really find myself too engaged or impressed. Who knows? Maybe you will.

White Noise (DeLillo)

I always get a bit nervous when it comes to re-reading a favorite book. My first experience with this one was so incredibly great. I almost got hit by a car because I was reading this book while I crossed the street. I then went on a DeLillo binge that lasted several months.

You know what? This one holds up quite well. I read more carefully this time, more for the art of it than the story, and DeLillo’s craftsmanship is exquisite. I remembered the humor and the grocery store, but the purposeful construction of the novel, indeed, every scene, is just remarkable. There’s just so much packed into this. I loved it then; I love it now.

Could I teach it? I’m not sure. Students struggle with the tone of satire. A friend pointed out that they tend to be too young to think very much about their mortality – at least not in the same way as the middle aged white couple at the center of this book does. Still, there are other ways into this novel. One day, maybe; one day.

The Man in the High Castle (Dick)

I am searching for alternatives to Orwell’s 1984, so you’ll likely be seeing a fair number of reviews of dystopian novels this summer. I don’t think this one is it. I admit I can have trouble tracking (it won a Hugo Award, so it’s either science fiction or fantasy, probably the latter) books like these. It’s an alternate history and maybe it’s the influence of brief glimpses of the TV show, but I don’t think I gleaned the weight of this book in the way Dick intended. This is probably due to my own inexperience as a reader than anything else. The book came off more as an outline of an idea than a developed piece, but I am not confident in my ability to review this one fairly. I will try an episode or two of the TV show, but I am on to the next possible dystopian novel. Any recommendations that are not The Hunger Games or Divergent?

A second read, January 2020:

I went back to it because a 9th grade teacher I work with was / is (?) thinking about using it. I still don’t think it’s good for the classroom. I am not confident that they’ll grasp the alternative history piece of it because I am not confident that they know the actual history. Still, some of this is on me. I found it confusing in places, lost track of who’s who, etc.. I understand the TV series is pretty interesting. Not so the book.

Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Thought from Slavery to Freedom (Levine)

I read the 30th Anniversary Edition and time has not given Mr. Levine much more insight into this problematic project. In his new introduction, he regrets that people have started thinking that it’s not really a good idea for an outsider to write someone else’s history but does not seriously engage with the concern. And the book, written at a very different time, I concede, reflects some pretty serious broad strokes assumptions that read in 2019 as racist. (A researcher cannot become black by attempting to speak a certain way.)

In addition, there is just not that much insight here. Perhaps at one point it was worth demonstrating the claim that folklore is worth studying, but not now. But even when it comes to certain elements of folklore – like trickster tales – Levine has little to say and a zillion examples to share. This was a magazine article (long-form journalism) stretched to a mind numbing 440 pages.

Pigeon English (Kelman)

I was prepared to call this novel picaresque, but a quick check of the definition tells me that such novels focus on “rough and dishonest” protagonists. Harrison Opoku is certainly “rough,” but maybe not in the way the definition implies. He’s more of a rough draft. And he’s certainly not dishonest – more naive. The first thing that will pop out at you is his voice. It can be difficult for an adult writer to stay in a child’s voice, but Kelman largely succeeds. Then there’s the pigeon English. What I love is that Kelman doesn’t translate, but you will get it after a short while. This is largely an authentic voice. But there’s another layer to the ‘pigeon’ that I thought was incredibly artful and well-integrated.

This novel does fit part of the definition of picaresque, though. It is certainly episodic. At times, it read more like a slice-of-life story than anything else. I would have been okay with that, but there’s this (and I’m not spoiling anything here – Kelman introduces it on p. 3) dead body that keeps floating in and out of the plot.

Kelman brings it together and the remarkable ending (which I don’t want to spoil) is definitely earned. I was surprised but not shocked and applaud Kelman for playing with conventions.

My one other criticism – aside from the periodic lack of momentum that resulted from the structure – is that Kelman sometimes wrote one sentence too many. It took some restraint for me not to physically cross out these sentences. I wanted to say to him, “We got it. You don’t need to spell it out for us. You’ve engaged us. Let us do the work.” Maybe he included those sentences for younger readers? I don’t know. They just brought me out of the story in ways I did not welcome.

While you may have read similar stories, you haven’t heard this voice. And you should.

Light in the Crevice Never Seen (Trask)

Our son got me this book for my 50th birthday – a book focused on the 50th state for my 50th birthday. He also bought it for me because, in his words, it deals with “sociopolitical issues,” which he describes as an interest of mine. And he’s right. (He’s also 12 and never ceases to amaze me with his insights and his vocabulary.)

And he’s certainly right. In beautifully crafted and fierce poems, Trask dissects the way haole (white people – there’s a glossary) annexed and occupied Hawai’i+. This is more than just a complaint about tourists, though that’s present as well. The native Hawaiian people want their islands back. I had no idea. I need to think about why I had no idea. Trask is generous enough to provide notes to some of her poems that allowed me to understand them better.

I don’t want you to think that this is just some political screed. This a tribute to the land and its original people, elements, and traditions. I was and remain just blown away.

+ Here and throughout, I’ve tried my best to get the words right. Please feel free to correct me.