Borderlands / La Frontera : The New Mestiza (Anzaldua)

This was a challenging book and not just because I don’t read Spanish. Alzaldua writes from the intersection of so many elements I’m unfamiliar with – cultures, the land, history – that I think I grasped her ideas conceptually and probably superficially without ever getting to the heart of them. Sometimes, I wish I could go back to when a book first emerged so I could see the reaction it elicited when it first came out. That the book has a 25th Anniversary cover and a Fourth Edition suggests something about its enduring power, but I am not aware enough of the ‘field’ to know how this changed it or how this influenced those who came aftewards. I have been accepted to a pretty cool summer program for teachers –

http://borderlandsnarratives.utep.edu/

and I am looking forward to discussing it there.

Columbus and the Great Flood of 1913 (Hinds)

There’s absolutely no narrative drive in this book. In fact, there is little concern with the lives of individuals. Are there just no sources? Or did Hinds elect to ignore them? His few attempts to tell stories about the experience of individuals during the flood do liven things up a bit and make you realize how much they are missed elsewhere. There is too much of Hinds the expert and he skips around the topics like he never really had a plan or an outline.

I don’t tend to expect great writing when it comes to local histories, but Hinds’ prose is even below average in this genre (and his comparison between the number of people who died in floods and the number who died in the “Jewish holocaust” shows an obtuseness that pops up on a few other occasions in less extreme ways). In general, his tone resides somewhere between neutral and obnxious.

With some editing and, if possible, some efforts to humanize the story, this could make for an interesting narrative history. The elements are present, but Hinds makes an absolute mess of them.

The Yellow Wind (Grossman)

The conflict between Israel and Palestine or Palestine and Israel is a hot button issue for many. Perhaps, though, if we could stop seeing it as an issue and see it instead, as Grossman does here, as something that involves human beings, we might be able to renew our commitment to the dialogue necessary to, however slowly, make the needed changes in the region. Grossman is an astute writer and a sensitive observer. These stories may not change your mind right away, but they will change your heart.

Deacon King Kong (McBride)

Deacon Cuffy Lambkin of Five Ends Baptist Church became a walking dead man on a cloudy September afternoon in 1969. That’s the day the old deacon, known as Sportcoat to his friends, marched out to the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects in South Brooklyn, stuck an ancient .38 Colt in the face of a nineteen-year-old drug dealer named Deems Clemens, and pulled the trigger.

With those two remarkable sentences – try reading them out loud – McBride begins one of the best stories I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s funny, romantic, tightly plotted and, in the end (and despite that beginning) remarkably hopeful. It will remind you of the fundamental decency of indivuduals and the endless possibilities of community. McBride’s sentences are pure music and his pacing is perfect. It’s incredible how he’s able to create and sustain such an ensemble of vivid characters. And it’s incredible how he’s able to take these often far from flawless characters and generate such strong feelings of hope and love.

I haven’t been overwhelmed by some of McBride’s earlier works, but this one joins the list of my all-time favorites.

Winter (Smith)

Is this a circumstance in which knowing too much about how a book was written has influenced me too much? My understanding of Smith’s project with her quartet of seasonal novels is that she wrote them quickly, each in the season that their name bears. Would this have come off to me as rushed otherwise? Am I too forgiving of it because of this?

In any event, I thought it was really good. Smith’s prose pops off the page and her unconventional narrative (unconventional in both form and content) is remarkably engaging. I don’t think this one held together as well as Autumn did. If Autumn was a kind of a punch, this one comes off as more of a series of jabs, some of which seem to miss their mark – for example, the whole business with the head.

Looking forward in all ways (as I stare at the April snow outside my window) to Spring.

Where the Water Goes: Life and Death along the Colorado River (Owen)

Water is complicated. That’s mainly what I got from this. I admit I had to skim some of the more technical explanations, but they aren’t too common, Owen is an easygoing host and this part-travelogue/ part-history/part-current events analysis is fairly easy to follow. I think he’s right to conclude that we’ve made such a tangled and layered mess of water issues that stem from the Colorado River that starting over is not a possibility. He does see some hopeful signs and avoids giving too much air time to the doom and gloom-ers. The final, “What is to be done?” section contains no easy or uncontroversial steps. So we can only hope that the progress Owen notes expands to other areas before our, to borrow the phrase Scientific American is apparently now using, climate emergency makes the conflicts over water any more intense than they are at present.

Slow Horses (Herron)

I’d heard him trumpeted as the best spy novelist of our generation and the new le Carre, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Plus, there was a 10th anniversary edition of his book being released, so it must have been some kind of big deal. Herron does a lot of things well, including create suspense. His characters, though there are perhaps too many, are well-drawn and his dialogue is excellent. I just thought (and I am going to avoid spoilers here) that it was a strange choice for a plot for what is apparently a CWA Gold and Steel Dagger-Winning Series. But it moved along at a good pace. One of the supporting characters might be a bit too stereotypical, but it’s forgivable for now.

When I used to review movies, I’d suggest some movies were worth seeing in the theatre, others were worth renting (remember that?) and others were only worth watching if other people rented them. I will, not with any urgency, probably read Herron again, but he’s definitely been downgraded from ‘buy new’ to ‘buy used.’

Klara and the Sun (Ishiguro)

I know a lot of people swear by Never Let Me Go, but I am a Remains of the Day fan. (And I might be one of the few people you know who has read The Unconsoled.) So I saw this novel through the lens of Remains and the struggles we have to recognize and exhibit emotions, and it’s a powerful and addictive read. I do have a few questions about Ishiguro’s world building that I am eager to discuss with my book club as soon as we’ve finished disussing The Phantom Tollbooth. I am comfortable with ambiguity, but less so with vagueness. In addition, one or two times, I sensed that part of a dialogue had been edited, but a reference to it later in the conversation had not been removed. It’s a very vivid book, but I can’t see a movie being made of it; there’s just not enough action. For someone who is such a master of the quiet moment, my favorite scene had to be the chaos and tension Ishiguro builds while they are waiting for Vance.

The Painted Drum (Erdrich)

Louise Erdrich never ceases to amaze me. This book, like all of her others, makes me want to devour her entire catalogue as quickly as I can. She sketches characters, settings and situations with such telling details and rhythm that I found myself surprised by how many pages I’d read in one sitting. If I didn’t always follow the relationship between the different voices, I can live with that. I am sure I could piece it together if I needed to. The constant is the drum, and Erdrich’s invitation to understand the power in its construction and use is generous and profound.

The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)

Sometimes, when you return to a classic you loved as a child, it doesn’t hold up. This one certainly does. In fact, it seems like one of the most perfect books I’ve encountered. There’s not a wasted moment. Each interaction is meaningful and each character is necessary. If I didn’t always agree with the life advice, well. . . I think there’s also something to be said for the implications that the book has for education.

Jules Feiffer’s illustrations are amazing.