The Glass Key

Detective/gangster novel The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett was next up on this journey. It's got Perry Mason combined with Mare of Easttown combined with Law & Order vibes, with ballsy, sharp-witted Ned Beaumont charmin' his way toward the end of a murder mystery.

Though the central story centers around the death of a senator's son, the biggest mystery at any point of this novel is what Ned will do next. Not only are characters constantly getting the rug pulled out from under them, but the reader too, is often blindsided by relationships that Ned has made—shrewdly omitted from the narrative until the vital moment it deemed fit to be revealed.

It's exciting, sure. But also playful and blasé at the same time (because it's Ned we're following around the entire time, after all). I'm not sure I would have ever picked this book up on my own, but it's sure got character, and never edged on boring. Try it, or whatever. Ned Beaumont couldn't care less—no matter what kind of loyalties were held in the past. 

In the Forest

The development of a "wayward" child (was it the child who was "wrong", or the people who made him)...society's fear of "different"...a caring mother still full of sexuality...the confusing workings of a madman's mental state. Edna O'Brien's In the Forest touches on a lot, but doesn't exactly hit any one directly on the head. The imagery is beautiful, quiet (reflective of the scenery), and captivating; and it's easy to fluidly move from feelings of sympathy to disgust for O'Kane—an artful manipulation on the complex workings of human/societal emotions. However, chapters written in random perspectives across so many characters made it hard for the reader (at least me) to develop any real attachment to them. 

I guess the success of this work isn't so much in the narrative as much as in the thoughts and emotions it draws out. You get fragments of "truth" out of order through quick exchanges by characters ingeniously presented like an afterthought. You feel the rage of the women in the woods, yet also perhaps understand the forgiving-ness of the doctor. With all of these things adding together, the memory of the real-yet-fictional Eily and Maddie hang like a ghost in your memory before the book even ends, and probably will longer still.

The Old Man and the Sea

 

I read this famous Hemingway short in one sitting during downtime work hours (shhh) and I honestly, it's lovely.  It seeps love for the sea, and for Havana, and I can only imagine that the author harbored so much warm affection for this place and its people.

The old man's dedication to his craft and the emotions that he attaches to the fish and creatures he comes to know are moving, and are such a valiant depiction of what I wish modern fishing (and hunting) would be. Recently, I've personally been conflicted with global trends in overfishing and the questionable practices in the general food industry; what are the consequences of my dietary choices? Who am I to take this food that I did nothing to earn? If fish (and all food) still came from such strenuous work, maybe we wouldn't have lost sight of the value of it. There's honor in the amount of effort the old man puts into his battle with his catch—and though I'm sure this kind of fishing still happens, I wish we could step back to basics a bit more and feel this sort of respect for our food.

Maybe the old man's persistence touches on the human need to prove his superiority to nature, but it certainly didn't feel cocky to me.  It's thoughtful and natural and very kind.  In fact, pretty much every character in this entire story is innately kind. The boy, obviously, but even the sharks, who come to attack, are not written to be some sort of evil characters as they usually are, but merely as other beings trying to survive just like everyone else.  The townspeople, too, are almost unrealistically sympathetic when the old man returns and it doesn't feel as though the adventure happened in vain. After all, the old man still has his life, his dreams, and his community.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 I bought I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in anticipation of Black History Month, but was working through Murakami's 1Q84 at the time and became delayed by a month. It's Asian American & Pacific Islander Month now, but hey, I'm asian anyway, so let me pass this moment on to another minority. Seems fair.

Based on the title, I had always ignorantly pictured the content of this book to be painful and dark, and for the writing to be sing-songy like a plantation song. It didn't appeal to me before because of these baseless assumptions, but of course as soon as I started reading, I realized it's not.

The tone is easy and approachable, upbeat and inviting. It's written in the cool voice of an adolescent without hefty cares, and even the most devastating section in which Angelou recounts child rape soon passes like a distant memory and is again replaced with the daily joys and confusions of a young girl just growing up in an adult world. 

The jarringly abrupt ending felt strange to me, but hopeful. I wanted more, but I suppose that's what the end of childhood is.

In the end, one excerpt really stood out to me, and felt poignantly relevant to the conversations happening recently:
    "The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
    The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance."