December, 2020 Readings: "On cold December fragrant chaplets blow/And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow." (A. Pope)

As mentioned on our "Personal Notices" board, I'll be off most of December, recuperating from hip surgery.

Thought I'd supply this month's reading thread on the way out the door.

Keep reading, folks!

Finished Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. Tokarczuk is clearly a superior writer with a very poetic sensibility and a quirky view of the world. There were passages in the book that were close to being prose poetry. The novel though is kind of a mess. There is very little dramatic tension, or evolution. The plot. Just. Doesn't. Move. It all felt like a big preamble. The narrator, likeable at first, was getting on my nerves towards the end.

There are some very good elements in the book. I will probably try my luck another Tokarczuk in the future. This one I can't recommend.

Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn
5***** and a ❤

On a fictitious island nation off the coast of South Carolina, the people pride themselves on their literacy and writing. Their founder, Nevin Nollop, is credited with writing "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." A sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet, and which is memorialized in the town square. But when a letter tile falls from the monument, the Council takes that as a "sign" from above, and decrees that they should no longer use THAT letter. The far-reaching ramifications of this, and subsequent, decrees (as more letters fall from the monument) test the imagination, strength and patience of the residents.

The novel is told in epistolary form, and their missives adhere to the ever more restrictive rules as the book progresses. From finding synonyms to creative substitute spellings and even use of numbers, Ella and her friends and family try valiantly to maintain communication. You wouldn’t think the loss of one letter of the alphabet would have much impact. But what if you lost “V” and could no longer express your love? Or “H” and could no longer worship? More importantly, as residents flee the restrictions (or are forced out due to violating the laws), the entire society begins to crumble. Still, Ella and a handful of family and friends fight against the edicts and with the hope of returning their beloved island nation to a place where literacy is once again appreciated.

I had read this before and had a lovely discussion about it with my college roommate’s daughter. A few years ago she gave me the special illustrated gift edition, which has been sitting patiently on my shelves along with other “special” books. I’m so glad I took it off the shelf and read it at this time. This is a wonderful little satire on the use/abuse of power, but it is also a love letter to all of us who love and cherish words.

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First read in 2005 and updated 02Dec14 on rereading it.

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THIRD read: 08Sep20
I read this again and am horrified to recognize behavior in our current government's leaders that mimic the behavior of the leaders of this island nation. I didn't find it so funny this time around.

The Island of Sea Women – Lisa See
Digital audiobook narrated by Jennifer Lim
4****

See’s work of historical fiction is set on the Korean island of Jeju, and follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from different backgrounds who become friends. Both begin to apprentice to the women of the island in their unique all-female diving collective. The novel follows these two through several decades – from Japanese colonialism in the 1930s through WWII, the Korean War, and into modern times.

I really liked this work, particularly for what I learned about the haenyeo’s unique semi-matriarchal society. The women form a collective and dive to harvest mollusks, seaweed, and other marine life from the ocean surrounding their island. Theirs was the primary commercial endeavor on the island for centuries. Meanwhile many of the men care for the children and tend their homes.

Focusing her work on the relationship between these two women allowed the reader to view the changes that war, occupation, tourism and technology brought to this island. Where once the women wore simple cotton swimsuits, they now use wetsuits, allowing them to stay in the water for longer periods of time without risking hypothermia.

I am reminded of See’s first breakout hit novel - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. As in that work, here we have a story of a deep friendship, virtually a sister-bond, that goes awry and virtually completely collapses due to a misunderstanding, and the two women’s inability to share the truth and to forgive one another. The pain caused by this seemingly irreparable rift is heart-breaking.

Jennifer Lim does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. There are a lot of female characters and she managed to make clear who was speaking, so that I was rarely confused.

Finished My Struggle: Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgard. This one deals with the period when Knausgard moved to a fisherman's village in the far north of Norway to work as a school teacher. He was only 18, fresh out of high school and with no teacher training. Apparently you could do that in 80's Norway. Most of the book is about his sexual frustrations. The reviewer at the NYTimes called it the fleetest and funniest book in the series. He also called it the airiest. Sounds about right. It's not terribly funny but does some have lighter moments. Not as good as books 1 and 2 but definitely more enjoyable than book 3.

Last year was pretty "meh". This year was actually really good. Here's the "Best of 2020":

5 stars:
The Door Magda Szabó
Grant Ron Chernow
Pereira Maintains Antonio Tabucchi
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World Andrea Wulf
Inadvertent Karl Ove Knausgård
Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1) Marcel Proust
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Isabel Wilkerson
Selected Translations: 1948-2011 W.S. Merwin
A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems Fernando Pessoa
Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke Rainer Maria Rilke (Robert Bly's translations)
Down the Street Lynda Barry

4 stars:
Nocturno de Chile Roberto Bolaño
Slightly out of Focus Robert Capa
Dancing in the Dark (My Struggle, #4) Karl Ove Knausgård
La invención de Morel Adolfo Bioy Casares
Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018 Peter Schjeldahl
Educated Tara Westover
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West Cormac McCarthy
The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead
A Little History of the World E.H Gombrich
If on a winter's night a traveler Italo Calvino
Potentes, prepotentes e impotentes Quino
Gente en su sitio Quino
Macanudo 1 Liniers
Macanudo 2 Liniers

Honorable mention:
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk

Wrapping up my year end reading:

CULT OF GLORY: THE BOLD AND BRUTAL HISTORY OF THE TEXAS RANGERS by Doug J. Swanson (Excellent, dispelling myths and bullshit, telling the real ugly story)
THE SILENCE by Don DeLillo (Unfocussed and emotionless, a disappointment)
NOTES FROM THE SICK ROOM BY STEVE FINBOW (Interesting look at how artists deal with chronic pain and terminal illness)
THE GLASS HOTEL by Emily St. John Mandel (Interlocking storylines, well-delineated characters)
A CHILDREN'S BIBLE by Lydia Millett (A combination of LORD OF THE FLIES and J.G. Ballard's RUNNING WILD)
IN TRUTH: A HISTORY OF LIES by Matthew Fraser (Guess what, Trump didn't invent falsehoods and fake news; they've been around a loooong time)

Got a pile of great reading lined up for 2021--see you in the new year.