City of God

Point blank, I think i'm too simple-minded for City of God by E.L. Doctorow. There are so many points of view and it was impossible for me to keep track of any storyline for more than a few "chapters" and I'm honestly surprised it was able to make it as a bestseller because though it contains a lot of beautiful thoughts and reflections, I can't imagine it holding the attention of an average reader.

The portions regarding the Holocaust are heartbreaking and engaging. The bit about the man hunting ex-Nazis and killing them by accident was amusing and sort of charming. But the portions written as stage performances? What were those?  

There's a lot of that in this book.  "That" as in, I wasn't following and I had not a clue about what was happening. It's a collection of musings, sketches, and ideas with a lack of clear cut story which in pieces were often beautiful but in the end, wasn't (for me), particularly enjoyable. I'm glad I did it—there will probably be some snippets that I will remember and reflect on as I see beautiful things in everyday life—but I'm glad it's over, too.

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."

Rabbit Angstrom

3 out of 4 of John Updike's Rabbit novels are on the list, which is strange—why not all? I bought the full tetralogy in order to knock them all out together. Updike's writing style is painterly and breathes so much beauty and emotion into the most mundane scene. Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom's story is the epitome of the everyman with nothing extraordinary left to him but the glory of his youth.  I imagine this is the life that most of the "popular" kids in my high school are living now and this collection of writings is an homage to the of the average American in a gorgeous way.

#457. Rabbit, Run (4/1/20): 258 pages about a man on the run, literally.  Full of regret, unable to commit to anything, and clinging to his past, Harry is a pathetic adult who throws away every positive opportunity and morsel of forgiveness that is thrown his way.  If you met him in real life, he would be an unremarkable person you would either forget immediately, or pity in a contemptuous way. Yet under Updike's artful mastery of prose, it's all beautiful to read and you don't mind following him around for a while.
The end changes dramatically based on the idea of Rabbit, Run as a one-off book on its own vs one that's part of a continued story. The open end of his potential "choice" between two women/two futures (which ultimately, essentially, are the same thing) has an ominous yet freeing feeling to it, which quickly gets stifled in knowing that there's more to come. Knowing that Updike wrote the books with years in between, I imagine he didn't know for sure that there would be more to each story—and thus the reader at the time would have only felt the former—but I honestly don't know. '

----

#361. (6/1/20) Rabbit Redux is, simply put, devastating. Compared to Run, there is a violent level of tragedy and heartbreak in comparison to the sudden, jarring event in the first book.  Harry (and maybe Janice, too) is growing as a person, yet he and Janice stay ever the same, stuck where they are in perpetuity despite whatever chances they get.  It's the American ethos that's everywhere and anywhere, though far from the American dream.  It's what people really live (ok, maybe a tad more dramatic for the sake effect, but you see what I mean) and it comes down to one's motivations and choices and beliefs.

When I first started reading Redux, the characters seemed out of date in this day and age and at times, so hard to deal with due to Rabbit's initial southern/confederate racism and Janice's frequent misogynistic remarks about women.  Laughably out of touch from what I perceived the world to be now—kind of like in that one episode of Mad Men where Betty throws all her garbage from her picnic blanket onto the grass in the park and walks away leaving a heap of trash in the middle of pretty nature. So absurd, like a joke, but also just so cringey and rage-inducing that you can't laugh.

But then, I realized that Rabbit actually isn't as "republican" as he seemed. He's open to experiences, and people of every race, and is simply looking for sincere relationships.  Yes, he often speaks using incredibly offensive words and ideology, but you see that that's not him, deep down at the core of it...and maybe it's just a reflection of the times.  He just needs his mind changed; he's open to it,  if you have the patience to teach him.   It's incredibly relevant now, amid Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. It's coming to light that things haven't changed all that much since the '60s, after all (heck, we just launched men into space again this week so I guess we truly are in the same place).

In the final pages, Harry remarks on a black bachelorette on The Dating Game choosing between a white, black, and asian man hidden behind a screen, pointing out that she can't see their skin colors and would have to distinguish them by voice, if she wanted. He seems curious, and open, and as if he's just discovered something. The moment passes quickly with Janice's dismissal, but it's powerful and beautiful, and really made me pause.

----

#281. (8/29/20) Rabbit is Rich has so. much. sex. It's practically impossible to get through 8 pages without hitting some softcore sex scene, whether it be actual or imagined.  Still, it maintains the quiet elegance of un-elegant people, just as the past 2 books did. 

Rabbit is now older, and in a settled comfortable life. He has money, friends, and time to spare, and the social standing to pass judgment on others.  He's settled into an easy, successful life that contrasts so starkly from the chaotic tragedies of the past books that the memory of all those incidents feel like they belong to someone else.  Even when there is a jarring incident that affects a pregnant Pru in Rich, it ends in no harm done and one can go along with a sigh of confused relief, having expected the worst after the last two books.

What struck me the most in this round—especially echoing the current climate of America around me as I read it—was the idea that society don't change, no matter how many years pass. There's a conversation between Rabbit and Charlie that's absolutely true, yet still could be spoken today in the same exact way:

"The oil companies made us do it," Charlie says. "They said, Go ahead, burn it up like madmen, all these highways, the shopping malls, everything. People won't believe it in a hundred years, the sloppy way we lived."

We know our vices, but it's so difficult to change them. Why does it take so long to bring change? Why are people always making excuses for roadblocks, instead of moving toward the positive futures we know to be the right path? It's so American. Or maybe, it's just human nature in general.

The End of the Affair

Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is only 160 pages, yet manages to pack in such complexity and believable emotion that it makes me wonder if the author actually lived through some failed affair himself.

Though the main character, Bendrix, describes his story as one of hate, every action is so steeped in love that it's incredibly easy to relate. He and his situation become so real that it's like reading someone close's diary while he in turn is reading someone else's (at times. See, it's like intricate weaving). His relationship to God too, is something I can relate to.  And it's not only him but to every character presented that you get attached to. Everyone is so tragic and real and likable, which I honestly wasn't expecting. It's a timeless yet modern work that's definitely worth a try.

From a more current reading list, I've also recently finished reading The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I'd never read her previous book, but after seeing a random review of this new one, I was interested and bought it immediately. It's a fairy tale for adults, and Morgenstern creates gorgeous imagery with skill, without losing control of the plot. Her style reminded me of my writing in college, so it was definitely up my alley. It was a change of pace to read something that leant more on the entertaining side without having to stretch my brain—the pages flew by and I enjoyed it all the way.