lisapeet 2021: Containing multitudes

Half the year down, time for another thread.

The image is Prelude to a Civilization by Victor Brauner, 1954, encaustic and ink on masonite, 51 x 79 3/4 in. (129.5 x 202.6 cm). It's on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a place I really need to get back to sooner than later. I'm not sure I've ever gone two years without visiting since I was in my mid-teens.

Anyway, this is how I feel these days... a lot of stuff in me, but still very self-contained. Not the worst state of being, but here's to letting at least a little of all that out into the world the next six months. I'm only a good introvert if I can be an extrovert sometimes.

Happy new thread, Lisa. I love the art. I totally agree about being an introvert - it's nice to have people around sometimes.

I'm only a good introvert if I can be an extrovert sometimes.

YES.

Ariadne is a solidly entertaining retelling of the Theseus myth from the point of view of Ariadne, who helped him defeat the Minotaur and betrayed her family in the process, and her sister Phaedra. Saint has a really nice bright visual sense, animating the scenes and people well, and centering Ariadne—a minor but pivotal character in the original myth—was a good choice. I don't think there's any point in comparing her to Madeline Miller just because they're both retellings from a woman's POV—there isn't the same absolute control of pacing and mood as Circe, but I don't think it's intended to be the same kind of book. Ariadne is very vivid, engaging recasting of a myth and didn't need to be anything more than that—I liked it a lot just the way it is.

>4 lisapeet: I don't think there's any point in comparing her to Madeline Miller just because they're both retellings from a woman's POV

It's sad that the women's POV is so rare that people leap to the comparison; if it were another male POV retelling, I think it would have a better chance of standing on its own without an immediate default comparison.

>5 labfs39: Exactly. I'm glad to see the recent spate of them... it's not like the world needs more male POV stories. (Nothing against them, either, just that it's good to see writers plumbing such a rich vein.)

>2 BLBera: >3 kidzdoc: Yeah... I'm really happy left to my own devices, reading and writing and making stuff, but I miss being out in the world. I never thought I'd be nostalgic for those big library conferences but I absolutely am—the schmoozing, the giant convention centers, the hotel lobbies, the endless saying hi to everyone. I wonder if they'll come back the way they were. But I'd settle for a regular social life, too—and that will come back, I'm sure. But most of the folks I know are being cautious, and so am I, so it's all very gradual.

I've had a very good reading month so far, even though I feel like I spent more time falling asleep than turning pages. Ah well, sleep.



I read Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, which was a fascinating and fun exploration of the world of fungi, and if you're the kind of person attracted to that idea then this is absolutely the book for you: there's science, lore, investigation, and potential uses, truffles and psilocybin and crazy interdependences (and maze-solving slime molds, can't forget them). Sheldrake is so deeply engaged in his subject, and such a generous guide, that the book hit just the right tone of scholarly and entertaining—I refer you to "Queer theory for lichens" and the following: "A truffle's fragrance and an orchid bee's perfume may circulate beyond the flesh of each organism, but these fields of odor make up a part of their chemical bodies that overlap with one another like ghosts at a disco." Highly recommended if you like reading about the natural world and learning lots of odd things.



Also a book of poetry that REALLY knocked me for a loop, Fiona Benson's Vertigo & Ghost, which was both amazing and totally harrowing. The first half is like the dark side of all those great Greek myth retellings—a cycle of poems about Zeus in which he is (as he was), a rapist and predator who eventually meets his own violent fate. The second half is presumably autobiographical, about sadness and the natural world and childbirth and the terrible places the mind goes when you pay attention to what's going on in the world when you have small children in your care. There's a good amount of violence against women and children and even some animals here—none of it gratuitous, it's all appropriate to what she's got to say—and it's hard reading. But also often beautiful, and incredibly rewarding if you can handle it. She's a fantastic poet. "Fly" is one of those things where a poem fits my skin absolutely and precisely at this moment, and I am copying it out at least twice (my copy is a library book).

Next up I'm reading Shruti Swamy's A House is a Body and Elise Engler's A Diary of the Plague Year.

Not sure about fungi, but I'm making a note of the Benson poetry collection.

Entangled life is definitely on my list.

>8 lisapeet: Opposite of >9 BLBera: here and going for the fungi. I saw it in a bookstore last week and wish I'd read your thoughts last week! Congratulations on a good reading month.

>8 lisapeet: I don't eat mushrooms after a bad incident with some canned ones, but I visited La Cave des Roches in Saumur, France, and if you've never been to a living mushroom museum, you should not forego the opportunity. What fascinating organisms. I must say "queer theory for lichens" is an intriguing phrase.

I'm only a good introvert if I can be an extrovert sometimes. I can relate to that.

>7 lisapeet: It would be interesting to know how many here on CR are introverts. A majority, I suspect.

>8 lisapeet: Intriguing. I appreciate the review of the poetry volume, there are so few done. These days, poetry for me is not a study, it's really connection I seek and that connection is much harder to communicate in a review. I have two volumes to review and I've been avoiding it.

>13 avaland: I'm only a good introvert if I can be an extrovert sometimes. I can relate to that.

This is so me!! I am definitely an introvert, and am very uncomfortable in large groups of people who I don't know. But in smaller groups with friends and family, oh yeah the extrovert comes out in me. My whole life has been a balancing act between them, trying to be comfortable with people, and knowing when I need to withdraw. It works for me.

Since being on social media I find myself becoming very comfortable interacting with others, which in turn is helping me do so out in public.

>15 cindydavid4: Yeah, the introvert / extrovert thing is interesting. I would describe myself as an extroverted introvert. I'm quite happy chatting with most people, but definitely am not so keen in large groups unless I already know the people quite well.

Now I think about it, I'm not sure if the big groups aversion is an introvert thing or more that I just don't like being around certain kinds of people. The bigger the group the more likely that one or two of the types that rub me up the wrong way are likely to pop up (e.g. the conversation hoggers and the adults stuck in high school mentality who feel the need to quickly establish a clique safe zone - the school gates are great for watching that in operation). I'm never convinced I get to see the real person when people are in a group (as strangers) either - I'd rather have a one-to-one conversation and properly make a connection.

I think the longer I'm away from people due to COVID restrictions the more I get set in my introvert ways which probably isn't a great thing.

I'd say I'm really an extrovert, all things considered—I love a party, and I'm an excellent networker/people person who's good at reading signals. But I need plenty of time to myself to putter around and be quiet. I don't know, maybe that's everyone on the extrovert spectrum.

But definitely like >16 AlisonY:, I find myself more settled into introvert ways since the pandemic... can't say whether it's good or bad because I haven't really had a choice, and I kind of always considered it good because at least I was enjoying the enforced solitude. As things lift up a bit, though, I find myself realizing how sorely I've missed the company of my friends during that time. Now that folks (myself included) are feeling OK about doing indoor things and traveling by subway, I've been consciously making friend dates, which has been a lifesaver.

In the last couple of month I've eaten out a few times, gone to the movies in an actual (very uncrowded) theater once (the Bill T. Jones documentary—if you have any interest in dance, the '80s and '90s cultural scene, or just a good documentary about making art, I highly recommend), caught the Alice Neel portrait show at the Met before it closed (excellent!), cruised around MoMA with friends I hadn't seen in many years, and spent a day each at Wave Hill, a botanical/cultural center near me) and the NY Botanical Gardens with a friend yesterday, a rare-for-this-hot/wet-summer gorgeous July day. It's been so good to get out and see both the people in my life and some art and nature. I probably won't get a real vacation this year, so I can at least take mini-vacations for my head and my heart.

Finished Shruti Swamy's short story collection A House Is a Body, which was terrific. She has a really wonderful touch, blending realism with abstraction, internal and external life. The Indian women (and a couple of men, and one god) in these stories are moving through lives that weren't what they were led to expect, in many ways—fire, loss, abandonment, abuse, disappointment. Yet for all that darkness her characters are lovely and resolute, and this is not a sad book in the least. It's a fabulous debut, and I'm so sorry I missed it for last year's LJ Best Short Stories, because I would have pinned it up at the top. Definitely a favorite for the year—thank you, Lauren!—and I'm looking forward to her upcoming novel, The Archer.

I'm still reading A Diary of the Plague Year: An Illustrated Chronicle of 2020, and just started The Talented Mr. Ripley on a whim, because the guys on So Many Damn Books were talking about it and I've never read it.

>18 lisapeet: Although I rarely listen to podcasts anymore (my most listened to was Books on the Nightstand), So Many Damn Books tempts me to dust off my podcast queue.

P.S. Do you know the name of the podcast that was two British guys, one named Simon? I liked that one too

>18 lisapeet: I enjoyed this collection, especially the variety of it.

I used to listen to So Many Damn Books, but got out of the habit of it.

A House Is a Body sounds great. I'll look for it. I love short stories, but I let months go by without picking up a collection. I'm listening to The Secret Lives of Church Ladies right now, which you mentioned, and am enjoying it. The reader is really good. And it helps me get through the painting I'm doing.

>19 labfs39: I don't know a podcast with a guy named Simon—I think the only British podcasts I listen to are Backlisted, with two blokes named John and Andy, and sometimes the London Review of Books podcast when it's got someone on that I'm interested in.

There are a bunch of reasons that I shouldn't like So Many Damn Books—the silly musical interludes, the very Millennial vibe—but I really enjoy it. I think they have great taste in books, and talk about what they're reading and buying in a way that's very contagious. They've hand-sold me on a lot of stuff. And I like their guests and topics a lot.

The Talented Mr. Ripley is both awful and fun. He's like this big baby of a psychopath.

Looking forward to your review of The Talented Mr. Ripley. It's one of those books that I seem to have forgotten to ever put on a wish list but probably should have.

>19 labfs39: I bet you're thinking of Simon Savage? He doesn't seem to have a podcast at the moment (maybe has one lined up on BBC for the fall?), but has moved over to booktube and has a facebook bookclub:
https://linktr.ee/SavidgeReads

>22 lisapeet: The two hosts are regulars in the Tournament of Books comments section and they always have interesting things to say but, yeah, the musical interruptions drive me nuts. I will listen when the guest is an author I'm interested in. The Maris Review and Book Fight are my favorite book podcasts.

>22 lisapeet: Backlisted is always fun and interesting.

>24 ELiz_M: Yes, Simon Savidge. Thank you!

I like The Maris Review too, and also out of that LitHub stable Thresholds, First Draft, and Fiction/Non/Fiction (I walk every morning and I have a good variety of non-serial podcasts queued up at any given moment).

Finished The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was thoroughly entertaining, more of a noir than what I'd call a thriller. It isn't about the suspense, really, since you know Highsmith wrote four more Ripley novels, so he obviously survives to do more dark deeds in the world. Rather, the fun is all in watching Ripley—as I said earlier, a big baby of a psychopath, gallivanting around the mid-'50s Mediterranean—twist in distress and then brighten up again, over and over, as he thinks his gig is up and then turns out to have fooled everyone yet again… which essentially gives the reader a little taste of the joys of psychopathy, for what it's worth. And I have no quibble with that. I did pause at the fact that his bad behavior is framed—at least somewhat—as the outcome of not-very-arguably closeted homosexuality, but Highsmith is out to punish everyone here, no matter whether their impulses are decent or dark. Like poor docile Marge—I don't know anything about the other Ripley books, but I kind of hope she shows up out of the blue later on and TAKES HIM DOWN. I'm not sure I'll read further into the series, but I might—Ripley is a good guilty pleasure.

Now I'm motoring through a string of not-yet-published novels for another one of those work panels—the first one is Jonathan Evison's Small World, which is touted as a sweeping American train saga, and that sounds perfectly agreeable to me.

>29 lisapeet: I'm tempted by The Talented Mr. Ripley, Lisa. I saw the movie version many years ago. Despite an a-list cast (Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett), it was not memorable. Yet the premise sounds interesting. Have you seen the movie?

>30 labfs39: The movie was awful. I almost didn’t read the book after seeing it, but a friend strongly recommended it. It’s wonderfully creepy and highly entertaining.

I haven't seen the movie, though I think Matt Damon was probably really well cast—at least physically, since I have no idea how he did in the role.

Just out of curiosity, besides the Evison, what other books are you reading for your panel?

So far the other books are: When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East by Quan Barry, A Lullaby for Witches by Hester Fox, and Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. A good batch. I hope if a fifth is added—there are usually five—it's not too long. And good, obviously. The Evison is a big 'un at almost 500 pages but it's engaging and easy so far.

>34 lisapeet: Ooh, new books by Quan Barry and Emily St. John Mandel. So much for reading the books I already own.

I've read all the Ripley books, and loved them. They're quick reads, so I recommend following through if you liked the first.
I actually had never heard of Ripley or even Highsmith when I first read my first Ripley book, in the early 1980's I think, when it was first published, and my "first" Ripley was actually the last of the series. More recently, around the time of the movie, I read them all in order. The movie adapts from more than one of the series.
The thing about Ripley is that he's such an awful psychopath, but Highsmith makes his actions seem, at least at the time he takes them, reasonable, and makes Ripley seem even likable.

Wow, a new one by Emily St. John Mandel! I'll look for that one. As for the others, I'll watch for your comments. Enjoy, Lisa.

Small World was a big sprawler, more wide than deep, but definitely engaging. The novel follows a cast of strivers from the mid-19th century—Irish immigrant twins who make their way from New York to Chicago and points west, a Chinese immigrant who lands in San Francisco in search of gold, an escaped slave, and a Miwok girl in search of a life away from the Methodists who took her in after the Native massacre at Sutter's Mill—and their descendants in 2019. They're linked in ways large and small, most notably, and literally, by the railroad—expanding across the country in the 1850s, hurtling up the west coast in the 21st century. It's a fun shaggy tale that picks up—excuse me—steam as it goes, and while Evison doesn't tie up all the ends perfectly (maybe for the better), it's a satisfying, panoramic read.

Next in my panel reading is Hester Fox's A Lullaby for Witches. I get a little itchy when a book has witches in the title, but I've been happily surprised before. And anyway it's for work, so I'm absolved of any power of choice, which is kind of fun.

Interesting reading, as ever. I particularly like the sound of the Swamy stories. You’ve also almost made me want to revisit Ripley - I read The Talented Mr Ripley years ago, but I think I was way too young and just didn’t get it. I wonder what I’d make of him now…?

“I’m only a good introvert if I can be an extrovert sometimes” - absolutely!

You got me on the Ripley book too. It's one of those books I can't figure why it's never occurred to me to read it before. I enjoyed the film, and it's not necessarily my kind of genre.

The thing that got me with the Ripley book, which I don't see mentioned much if at all, is how young he was—I think 22? Which wouldn't have seemed young to me if I'd read it in my 20s, because of course I was all grown up, but now that sounds like such a child. And he really was—so resentful of the things that others had that he didn't, of when their attention wandered away from him... psychopath as sullen post-teen. Does he grow up at all in the later books?

I had the same reaction when I read A Moveable Feast for the first time as an adult. They may have been through the war and be gallivanting around Europe, but they were also all of what, 22? With Hemingway it showed more in his very youthful exuberance, which was really a wonderfully fresh drink of water that didn't impress me so much when I read it in my 20s.

>41 lisapeet: The later books follow Ripley over the years. The final book Ripley Under Water has him in very late middle age/young old age--not sure since I was in my 30's when I read it. Funny how your perception of a character's age varies as you age.

>38 lisapeet: I read Evison's novel West of Here a few years back and enjoyed it very much. I'll keep an eye out for Small World. Thanks for the review.

>42 arubabookwoman: Hmm, that might be fun to read through the series to see how Ripley ages—if he ends up a less petulant psychopath.

>43 rocketjk: I remember the good buzz for West of Here, and I have a copy on my shelves but haven't read it. I did read his The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, which was sort of wistful/quirky... I liked this last one better.

A Lullaby for Witches was a quick, fun read—supernatural doings in an old Massachusetts town, a historic house and archives, and a little romance. I'm the kind of reader who gets more excited by archives than romance, but the book was propulsive and enjoyable, even if it didn't spook me as much as I think it meant to.

Now reading Elizabeth Taylor's The Soul of Kindness for my book group later in September... I run the risk of not remembering enough about it by the time we meet, but this is my available moment before I have to do more work reading, so here goes. I'll take a lot of notes.

Hoping you and yours are OK after the storm this week, Lisa.

>46 AlisonY: Thanks for asking, Alison. We're OK, but it got hairy—we have a two-family house and the tenants’ apartment, which is at grade level, flooded badly during the most severe part of the storm. We swept water out of the door with brooms for something like three hours just to keep up with it, then brought them and their tiny dog upstairs to sleep in our guest bedroom. Our boiler room had water come in through a little hole in the stone wall too—I've never seen anything like it.

The next day Jeff went up to Lowe’s early to buy a wet-vac so we could get the rest of the water out of their bathroom (in the back of the apartment—we didn't want to sweep MORE water through the place) and it took him more than 4 hours to get home, for what is usually a 20 minute trip (if you Google "flooding Major Deegan," that's the exit just below the one we use to go north, which is why he was able to drive up so easily but not back down.

Anyway he made it home, water was sucked up, insurance claims filed, I got calls out to contractors, and the tenants are back in. I want a professional water mitigation contractor to come in and see if the sheetrock got wet and if so, if it's a mold risk—that will make my insurance claim very different from replacing the interior doors, which all swelled up. But it could have been plenty worse. Our house is OK, and the tenants got everything off the floor and didn't lose much, I don't think. We've gone out of our way to help them as much as we can, but now I'm just waiting for a contractor—which right now in NYC is like going to the emergency room with a cut finger: we're very low on the triage list. Which is as it should be, but I'll keep pushing.

Exhausting couple of days, but we're all fine.

>47 lisapeet: Ugh - that kind of hassle nobody needs. I'm glad everyone is OK, but I can imagine the pain of dealing with insurers and builders. It really feels like the world has just spun off into crazy mode now, doesn't it?

>48 AlisonY: So much. Life keeps throwing it at us. I hope you're keeping well, or as well as can be expected.

I read Elizabeth Taylor's The Soul of Kindness for my book group that's meeting later this month, since I was in between work reading. It was one of those deceptively breezy books that have a lot going on under the surface, a comedy of manners and sort of field study of the various ways an utter lack of self-awareness can trickle through relationships—in this case, among the mid-1960s British middle class. Taylor has very little sentiment—but is not without compassion—for her misguided, smug, and often lonely cast of characters. She paints them wonderfully with a few brushstrokes, and you get a strong feeling of them going on to live their lives busily off the page, leaving the reader to sit and think about them while they move on.

Now back to galleys for work: Quan Barry's upcoming novel When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East, set in Mongolia and narrated by a Buddhist monk, all of which is very OK by me.

I STILL haven't got to anything by Elizabeth Taylor. Note to self....

Glad to hear your flooding wasn't TOO bad, Lisa, although it sounds like there will be work to be done. I was watching tennis and the water pouring into the court was staggering to watch.

I must read Elizabeth Taylor; The Soul of Kindness sounds like one I would like. Your Buddhist one sounds good as well.

>32 lisapeet:

I dislike Ripley profoundly (am not much of a Highsmith fan in general), but it may be worth checking out the 1960 Plein soleil with Alain Delon. Not, perhaps, a better adaptation of the book as far as characters go, but definitely a much better movie altogether.

>53 LolaWalser: Ahhh, Alain Delon. I'll have to take a look.

>51 AlisonY: >52 BLBera: I had thought Elizabeth Taylor might not be my cuppa—English novels of manners can leave me cold—but she's sly and compassionate at the same time, and really gets her characters. I'm definitely looking for more of hers.

I very much liked Quan Barry's When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East. It was different from anything I’ve read in a while, and I don’t mean that at all as faint praise. It’s the story of a Mongolian novice Buddhist monk who joins the search for the next young reincarnation of a great lama, along with two other monks, a (Buddhist) nun, and his twin brother, who has left the order after years in the monastery as a child recognized as a reincarnation himself. In addition to being the tale of a quest, with a lot of interesting background on Mongolia and its distinct sect of Buddhism, the narrator is struggling with his faith, and his feelings about his twin’s loss of faith—the tension between religion and secularism is a subject that always interests me, and the fact that this isn’t framed in a Judeo-Christian context makes it especially interesting. It might help to have at least a passing interest in Buddhism to enjoy this one (I have more than a passing interest, and was really captured by the descriptions of the practices), but maybe not.

Now reading Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility, which I've been looking forward to.

I'll look for the Barry, Lisa. It sounds fascinating, and different is good. I'm currently reading Ariadne, which is starting out great. I love the voice of Ariadne. I am jealous that you get to read Mandel's new one.

>56 BLBera: I enjoyed Ariadne—not super deep, but a good, entertaining retelling. I'll always have a soft spot for mythology recast if it's done well.

Finished Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility, which I really liked. It's a smart, twisty, propulsive, and ultimately very humane novel about time travel, pandemics, and questions about the nature of reality, and I just gulped it down. It's a very sweet book at heart, but complex and very thoughtful at the same time. I see I'm going to have to read The Glass Hotel now. But this was a fun ride.

And because something like four people I know mentioned it to me this summer as something I'd like, I'm about to start Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass.

Sea of Tranquility sounds like a winner. I can't wait! I loved The Glass Hotel, but Station Eleven is still my favorite of hers.

>45 lisapeet: "...propulsive..." I love that!

Sorry to hear about your flooding; I'm glad it was fixable. We all just deal with these things (whatever life throws at us), don't we?

>60 avaland: We most certainly do. I was writing to a friend in a letter that I'm not sure if I'm pushing the boulder up the hill or running at top speed down the hill with the boulder after me, or a little of both.

State Farm won't cover any of the water penetration into the tenant apartment or boiler room—only the slight water damage in the attic that came from the roof, which was minimal—and I'll have to go to FEMA for the rest, if indeed there is a rest. I'm still trying to get hold of a water mitigation contractor to check the walls in the apartment to see if they soaked up any water and are a mold danger. If not, all I really have to do is replace the two interior doors, which isn't a big ticket item. But ugh, just the cumbersome thought of FEMA... anyone ever dealt with them?

So sorry, Lisa. Sounds really stressful. Wish you well with Fema and hope your walls are ok.

>62 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. I don't mean to complain so much... people around here were displaced, had their homes inundated, their stuff destroyed. I'm not losing rent, and the kids aren't out of their apartment, so I'll count my blessings. And I needed a new roof anyway—maybe State Farm will throw me a couple of bucks.

Hi Lisa - Best laid plans. I was teaching for most of the panels yesterday, and then I found out that a student I had met with two days before has COVID, so I had to run and get tested (it was negative), so I will have to watch the streaming sessions, maybe this weekend.

How did it go?

>64 BLBera: Oh no worries—I think a lot of people are watching different panels from the day on-demand and at their leisure.

I thought it went well, though I'm probably not a great judge of that. I had a good time, and even though Emily St. John Mandel had to cancel because of a family emergency—I was so looking forward to talking to her about Sea of Tranquility—everyone else was great, and having only three panelists meant a little more time for back-and-forth and a bit more looseness. I can never tell how these things might look to outside viewers, and I'm not much of a self-critic... if I have fun and don't mess up too awfully, I'm fine with that and ready to just go on to the next thing. Let me know what you think if you do get to watch it!

I thought it went well, Lisa. You had good questions, and now I want to read all the books -- though witches are not usually my thing. The Berry book, besides, of course, Mandel's, looks the most interesting to me. I was trying to read the titles of the books on the shelf behind you. :)

I loved the conversation about dialog; I think that was my favorite part. I didn't spot any mess-ups.

>66 BLBera: >67 BLBera: Thanks, Beth (totally belatedly)! I almost always have fun with these panels. So far all the authors I've interviewed have been into it, too... no jerks. And I know they're out there (hiiii Jonathan Franzen!).

Soooo many folks who know me pretty well recommended Braiding Sweetgrass to me this summer, so I was predisposed to like it, and I did. Kimmerer has a very nice touch when it comes to layering Indigenous practices and mythology with the natural sciences, and what she has to say never felt preachy or hyperbolic—not an easy task, I think, when it comes to talking about deeply held beliefs and the need to be better stewards of the earth and its denizens. There was a lot here, and some of the essays were slower-paced than others—I spent a while with this book—but altogether it was thought-provoking and of value, even in my urban day-to-day (which does include raccoons, possums, and skunks, so maybe that's not so far-fetched).

Caribbean Fragoza's Eat the Mouth that Feeds You was a really impressive debut, especially the first three or four stories in the collection. There were a few in the middle that felt a bit more like good ideas than fully realized, plotted pieces, but maybe that's just in contrast to the strongest work. Minor quibbles, though. These stories are full of energy and I'll absolutely read whatever Fragoza writes next.

Hi Lisa -
>68 lisapeet: Yes, it looks like Franzen would be a nightmare interview.

>69 lisapeet: I have Braiding Sweetgrass on my shelf and hope to get to it soon. I'm teaching an intro to lit class focused on Indigenous work, and think an essay from this collection might be a good fit. But first, of course, I have to read it.

The Fragoza collection sounds great; I will check my library right now.

I really enjoyed Stephanie Gangi's brand-new novel Carry the Dog, and I ended up interviewing her for Bloom. But there's also a little backstory about my picking up the book, which is that I was scrolling through the list of e-galleys and saw this title and immediately flashed on the months at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, when I was carrying my dear 60-pound hound dog Dorrie up and down our back steps in her last days. I'm generally a sucker for dogs in titles so of course I was going to read that one. And there on the first page, the dog in the book (which isn't the dog being carried in the title but never mind) is named Dory. So that was kismet for sure, and then the publicist cold-emailed Bloom to see if anyone wanted to interview the author and I was 100% all in.

It's a good book, too. It starts out feeling like it might be one of those NYC comedies of manners, which I like anyway, but then it gets really interesting and a little dark-while-still-being-fun about a lot of big subjects, among them aging and sexuality, agency and consent, and who gets to say what, exactly, gets to happen in the name of art. Gangi does a very good job of navigating all of that without giving it short shrift, and at the same time offering a really engaging, fun read. Recommended to anyone who thinks sounds like a good time, and absolutely if you identify as an aging hipster.

I also read Gangi's first novel, The Next, which was entertaining but also a bit vehement for my mood—probably more about me than the book—and it didn't spark my love the way Carry the Dog did.

I started reading the NYRB reissue of Edith Wharton's Ghosts over the Halloween weekend—sent to me by Daniel from Readerville, for those who remember him—and am about to dig into Samar Yazbek's Planet of Clay. I barely started Ruth Franklin's Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life but had too many other books going and my library checkout is about to run out, so I'll have to renew it—the first few pages, at least, were very good.

>72 lisapeet: sometimes a book feels made written just for you.

I’m really curious about the Shirley Jackson bio. I’m noting that down.

>73 lisapeet: sent to me by Daniel from Readerville

oh my yes; met up with him in Cambridge a few decades ago (along with stenhammer) How is he doing?

>73 lisapeet: >75 cindydavid4: I missed that Ghosts is by Edith Wharton. Never heard of it. Definitely curious what you find there.

>75 cindydavid4: Daniel's well. We correspond pretty regularly, and I saw him a few years ago when I was in Boston for a conference. He remains one of my favorite people.

Finished Planet of Clay, a short, strange, sad novel in translation about a young girl in the middle of the war in Syria who is in some way on the autism spectrum, though it's not explicitly stated anywhere—she doesn’t speak (but can sing the Qur'an), walks compulsively, and narrates her story in a strange and disjointed, but also affecting, way. It’s an odd book. I felt like it spun out a bit during the girl Rima's free associations—she's obsessed with The Little Prince, a sort of synesthetic philosophy of colors in her drawings, and Hassan, a friend of her brother's who rescues her from a chemical attack. But Rima's disassociated, often on the surface inappropriate worldview also worked as an apt commentary on war—how can anyone on the ground, caught in the middle of it, really make sense of it? What would actually be an "appropriate" reaction? Sometimes that kind of metaphor seems forced, but I thought it worked even when the style didn't always cohere.

Back to Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, which is looong, and dipping in and out of Ghosts.

Oh and somewhere in there I also finished Elise Engler's A Diary of the Plague Year, which is coming out next month—I interviewed the artist for Bloom, which should also go up next month. I thought it was awesome, though I realize a book about 2020 may not be for everyone (cf the most recent Questions for the Avid Reader thread). Engler sat down every morning and made a small painting about the day's headlines for something like five years, as part of a bigger project, but a publisher saw her work online and suggested she turn 2020 (or rather 2020 plus 20 days, to end with the inauguration) into a book. I really like her painting style, but it was also fascinating to see the year presented in one visual block like this—the element of interpretation, but also the confirmation that yes, that year was just as horrible as I remember. I found myself glued to it, turning the pages to see what happened next, even though I KNEW what happened next. The presentation was everything, and it was moving in ways that a straight-up collection of headlines wouldn't have been.

Great review of A Diary of the Plague Year, Lisa. I'll be on the lookout for it.

Me too, although maybe not immediately.

>79 lisapeet: This looks amazing, but maybe better to let some time go by first.

>78 lisapeet: & >79 lisapeet: Intrigued by Planet of clay, which I'll probably need to buy to read, and by Diary of the plague year, which I expect my library will purchase.

Hi, Lisa--just saw your remark about Knausgaard in Rachel's thread and wanted to tell you... YANA. :)

Unfortunately I don't have the books I criticised with me anymore and don't remember where I posted about them so wouldn't dare to try to reconstruct what I said; suffice it to say that my then relatively mildly-negative reaction (at the time more or less limited to bemusement that such trite writing was garnering so much attention) "levelled up" to straight hatred with the resolution of what his coquetry with Hitler amounted to.

In between this it also didn't help that I learned (from Siri Hustvedt in Knausgaard Writes Like a Woman) of his contempt for women writers.

>84 LolaWalser: Yeah, his sensibility just doesn't appeal to me (and I missed that Hustvedt article... I'll check it out, because I like her essays). I don't mind that variety of solipsism in smaller doses, but six volumes just feels like a long-term relationship. And I'm already married, so I'm good.

Finished Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower, which was an odd one, but I liked it. The novel is ostensibly a fictionalization of the life of Friedrich von Hardenberg, the romantic poet who wrote under the pseudonym Novalis. But it's more a tragicomedy of manners, painting a fascinating little portrait of the 18th-century German aristocratic intelligentsia—Goethe makes a cameo—with a really delightfully arch tone. You just can't beat period snark, and Fitzgerald pulls it off coupled with plenty of sympathy for her characters—many of whom are hapless, doomed, or both. What there is of plot kind of knuckles under to the very precise details of the day and the language... it reminded me a bit of Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them in that regard. Anyway, a strange little book but a fun one.

I have a couple of day's reading in Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life before the library sucks it back in and I have to reserve it again, and I've also got a library copy of A Psalm for the Wild-Built that just came in. And then, I swear, some books off my shelves (at least until the next library hold pops its head up).

And to reward those of you still bearing with my thread, here is a photo of two teeny kittens who were born in my basement a couple of weeks ago. I'm working on finding a foster for the mama and them together, but in the meantime they're providing me with many eeeeeeeee moments.

>87 lisapeet: Aw that's adorable, and I'm not even a cat person. :-)

>87 lisapeet: Oh, no. That is an overload of cute.

They are so cute when they're little!

The kittens are adorable, Lisa, although my nose is itching.

awwwwww!

>84 LolaWalser: noting the Hustvedt article.

>87 lisapeet: cute!

And that will be my abiding memory of those babies, since I just now sent them, with their mama, off with a rescue organization. They'll get veterinary care, and the mama will be spayed, and they'll get adopted out to good, screened homes. But gee, I'll miss them. She is a lovely, sweet cat—in her favor 100% in terms of getting adopted—but I was really fond of her.

>86 lisapeet: I loved The Blue Flower too - much more than I expected too. I read some of Novalis' work afterwards, which was a nice way to finish with it. He was certainly drama llama when it came to love and infatuation.

I preordered A Diary of the Plague Year when I first heard about it several months ago (preordering is something I rarely do), and since then I've received several messages delaying the delivery date (I assume because of publication delays?). Latest email says I should get it in mid-January. Glad to here it's good.

>96 arubabookwoman: Yes, they've been having all sorts of publishing delays on that one. Not sure if that's because it's an art-heavy book and the printing process and/or production values are more time or resource intensive or what. But the poor publicist kept emailing to tell me that they were pushing the pub date back again and again... at this point I think January 18 is it, though. I'm glad you ordered a copy! They've promised me one, and though I don't fuss over a hard copy when I have a digital galley, I'd love to have one to hold in hand. Plus she's invited me to come over and see the original art in her studio. Perks! I don't get many, but that will be a really nice one.

>97 lisapeet: That is a nice perk, Lisa.

>98 BLBera: Well, we'll see how much visiting any of us are doing in the next few weeks—omicron's spiking hard in NYC, and no one knows exactly how scared to be. It seems less severe but more transmissible, and the thought of spreading it to someone whose health is compromised is almost worse than the idea of getting it (for me, as a vaccinated, boostered, congenitally healthy person).

I went to a friend's new apartment for brunch yesterday and we both tested the day before, and I guess that's going to be the new normal for a while. But at least in this neighborhood, that favors those who are physically able to stand on line for 45 minutes or who can afford $12-a-pop home tests, neither of which is in the least equitable.

Some books are put on this earth to make us feel better about being here too, and I mean that with zero disrespect. A Psalm for the Wild-Built is one of those, which I also say with no faint praise intended. This is a lovely tale of person meeting robot in a future where justice and eco-awareness have won out, yet the human condition of discontent, self-doubt, and questioning the value of one’s existence has—unsurprisingly, if you think about it—persisted. The book’s two sole characters are engaging, and there’s some lovely world-building here. Plus enough casual profanity to remind the reader that, no matter how sweet it is, this is a book for grownups and teens (OK, maybe middle schoolers… I certainly swore plenty back then). Also, even though I was reading an ebook, I went to the publisher’s site and looked at the cover a few times just to hold it in my head, because it’s very nice. I’m looking forward to the next one in the series.

>100 lisapeet: I also enjoyed the 1st Monk & Robot series Lisa.

On the Covid front, my family has decided to ask everyone to get a Covid test before they come, so now I have to try to find one. They can't keep them in the stores here, and they sell them in two packs, so as I single person I'm going to have to buy two. No one else in the family needs my "extra."

>101 markon: A friend of mine was saying she felt that it was her duty, as the hostess, to provide the Covid test. But doesn't that mean that people have to be in your house to take it, unless they live close enough for you to drop one off? Emily Post is spinning in her grave over this one.

Finally finished Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, after a couple of library holds expired while I was in the middle. It was good but not gripping—she was an interesting character, and I'm always game for reading about that mid-century literary milieu, because I think of it as my parents' (at least in terms of cultural influences), even though they were 10 years younger than Jackson and her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman. Jackson and Hyman also wrote for The New Leader, where I worked for a few years in its last days in the early 2000s. Hyman's intellectual mansplaininess was grating, and I'm not sure I ever got the chemistry between them, but I don't doubt it existed. I sympathized with Jackson's balancing act between the expectations of being a 1950s/'60s mother and housewife and a novelist, but I didn't quite feel it... then again Ruth Franklin's documenting Jackson's story from her correspondence and journals—to which Jackson added her own spin—and other people's accounts, so that takes away a bit of the immediacy. So: interesting but not a must-read, unless you're a Jackson fanatic (I'm not).

Now reading Lewis Shiner's Glimpses, which is—if I have this right—a 1990s rock'n'roll time travel novel, sent to me by rocketjk.

>103 lisapeet: Oh, good. Glad you're reading Glimpses. Can't wait to find out whether you like it.

>102 lisapeet: thats very thoughtfull of her. Butif they have to be in her house to take it and its positive, the thought of asking them to leave....mmmmm Yes Emily Post lived in a much simpler time

Congrats on finishing the Shirley Jackson bio, Lisa.

The Chambers sounds like one I would like I read her first one, and though I don't read a lot of SF, I really enjoyed it.

Right now it feels like we'll never be done with COVID. I'm having a small family get-together for Christmas, only those who are vaccinated, and people are testing the day before. I agree that this whole thing has emphasized the inequities in our society.

>99 lisapeet: $12 for an at-home test is very steep! They are free in the UK so a lot of people are testing very regularly, before they go out to do anything. There has been a run on them lately after one particular government statement about omicron, but before that you could order a pack of seven every day, and in many places pick them up from pharmacies etc. (not in my town but I think they got soaked up quickly by students wanting to be able to go out).

>105 cindydavid4: I did see a tweet about someone taking a test *while travelling on public transport* which the tweeter said added a certain amount of excitement to the rest of the journey...

>100 lisapeet: I hadn't heard of A Psalm for the Wild-Built before but I do like Becky Chambers, it's nice to have non-dystopic views of the future sometimes!

Maybe the mud room Covid testing area will be the new upper middle class renovation add-on next year… the 2022 version of the dog shower.

>107 wandering_star: In-home tests are not free in the US, and they are hard to find where I live. I tried five different chains yesterday and couldn't get one. I need to have one before I visit family next week. Very frustrating.

>109 markon: Ours came from the dreaded Amazon. Not sure how fast the turnaround time for delivery is, but we were able to stock up on a half dozen boxes. Not super cheap, either, but I'd rather have them in the house than not.

I've not been able to find a rapid test anywhere for the last week, either. I'm surprised you found some on amazon - I'll look again.

The US really never got rolling with asymptomatic testing, at least that I've seen, so the sudden surge from omicron plus holiday gatherings/travel created a huge ramp-up in demand for rapid tests that we were not prepared to meet. In my region, PCR testing sites are booked til late January also.

>110 lisapeet: We have three boxes in the house (they are free here) as Mr SandDune needs to test twice weekly for school. But everyone is pretty much encouraged to test before meeting people and they have been ramping up supply. Apparently about 900,000 test kits a day are now being sent out, after a shortage last week.

We had to use one this morning as my son was unwell, but it came up negative and we're hoping his symptoms are from receiving his booster jab yesterday.

Rapid tests are not a thing here in Vancouver. Maybe that will change over the next few months. In other testing news, my PCR test in Switzerland wasn’t a nasal swab, so it would be great if we could transition to the Swiss PCR method too

We're lucky in that my husband was able to pick up a stack of home testing kits while he was in Germany, where they are easily and freely available. We'll use them before visiting relatives this Christmas.

Hopefully another month or two from now we'll look back on all this scrambling for home tests and shake our heads, like we did with masks. But just now it's really a drag for so many people, especially with the holidays and people wanting to see each other.

I'm surprised they're not freely available in the US. My son gets a pack of 7 free home from school each week, and although I don't make him do tests all the time it's super useful being able to test anyone at home if you get the sniffles just to be sure it's not COVID.

>100 lisapeet: Ooh I didn't realise she had another book out (I'm still waiting for The Galaxy and the Ground Within to come out in paperback). Becky Chambers is an auto-purchase for me, though it is good to know that this is worth reading.

>100 lisapeet: I've gotten sstuck with this one. Enjoyed the opening chapters but the robot is not my favorite so far, your review makes me want to push through and finish this one soon.

>118 stretch: The robot is definitely a bit talky. But I was really in the mood for that kind of story and it kind of just loped along, so that worked for me.

rocketjk sent me his copy of Glimpses, which I devoured in a few days—it was like eating cookies. It's a shaggy-dog rock’n’roll time travel fantasy, with appearances by Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles (briefly), so—right there you can probably figure out if it’s your jam or not, and though I had some quibbles, it was definitely enough my kind of thing to be fun. The plotting was all over the place, and looks like it was set up to include as many elements of the author’s autobiography as he could cram in—and for all his characterizations of their various neuroses and challenges, the novel’s women are all pretty much two-dimensional fantasy projections, plus one slightly complex difficult WIFE, ahem. OK, the protagonist is a bit of a dick. But despite those criticisms, to overuse an overused phrase, it is what it is—an enjoyable music-geeky tale, the kind of book you would have picked up on the wire rack of the candy/smoke shop on the corner in 1995 and definitely have gotten your $7.95 worth.

If anyone wants to try it, I'm happy to pass it along—it didn't fall apart on me, Jerry, so I think it can grace a few more sets of hands before it goes to book heaven.

>120 lisapeet: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I had a feeling it was two novels started separately and then jammed together into one, but as you say it is fun, the drawbacks you so accurately listed notwithstanding. The time-travel music episodes were worth the price of admission, all in all. I hope someone takes you up on your pass it along offer. Cheers!

>121 rocketjk: Agreed on the two-novels-in-one point. I wish I hadn't read his biography on his website, which is why I feel pretty confident saying the book was also a convenient vehicle for his life story... but it was still fun. I really liked the Brian Wilson segment, and now I wonder if he's read it. He must have.

I also read a lovely e-galley of Paul Madonna's You Know Exactly, the Third Collection of All Over Coffee. Madonna is an artist whose work I really, really like. It feels corny to say, but it's definitely an inspiration for me; I love his style and approach to his art equally. This is a wonderful book, both a visual treat and a good exploration into his craft—not so much the making of the work as his editorial decisions around the All Over Coffee series, his books, and other projects. I discovered him at City Lights Bookstore when I was in San Francisco in 2015, and just fell in love with his work—time for me to own more of it in paper-and-board format, I think. I had a professor in my undergrad years who said that every piece of art you make should have beauty and mystery, and Madonna's work satisfies that craving for me in a big way. It also makes me run to my sketchbook and draw, which is a good thing.

I've got some blessed time off between Christmas and New Year's, which I really, really needed. I love my job but it's also A LOT. I've been reading and baking and watching movies, mostly, since NYC feels a bit like a petri dish right now. We did go see the Joel Coen Macbeth with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, which was terrific, in a theater. Other than that and visiting mechanics (two 22-year-old cars that won't pass inspection without some help, and jeez nobody in our neighborhood wants to work on them, so we finally went with our out-of-the-way guy who loves old cars and is friendly and honest but who's a pain in the ass to use), we've been sitting pretty tight.

We do have a good movie-watching setup at home, though, so it's not that bad. So far we've seen Being the Ricardos, which had too much plot shoehorned into one movie but was still totally entertaining—Nicole Kidman does a fantastic job inhabiting Lucille Ball without impersonating her, and I thought the four I Love Lucy actors were great. Also Don't Look Up, which I know a few folks have panned, but I thought it did what it wanted to do, and did it well. I just read an article in Current Affairs saying the film is "not about Americans being dumb sheep, but about how billionaires manipulate us into trusting them, how the reckless pursuit of profit can have catastrophic consequences, and the need to come together to fight those who prevent us from solving our problems." And seriously, if people need an article to point the latter part of that statement out to them, then it really IS about Americans being dumb sheep.

But I digress.

I'm still reading, on and off, Creative Acts for Curious People, because I'm interested in that kind of creative jump-starty kind of thing lately, and though the exercises here probably aren't going to be anything I can use in any of the situations I'm looking to solve problems for, you never know. It's not particularly linear so doesn't suffer from me dropping in and out.

And I started two books this week: a galley of my friend Katharine Weber's Jane of Hearts and Other Stories, which is super good storytelling and very fun, and Patrick Radden Keefe's Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, which is good storytelling but I don't think I would call it exactly FUN. But absolutely interesting.

>124 lisapeet: hamlet or macbeth? I was planning to see the latter, but maybe Im wrong? Will be seeing the new West Side Story but david isn't going He never saw the original film so we watched it last night. Dont think he realized this was a romeo and juliet story....But I'll have fun. also looking forward to Cyrano.

We watched Don't Look Up last evening. Amazing cast. I found it just okay. I get what they were trying to do, and I think they were successful, but my anxiety levels have been really high this month, so the whole comet-crashing-into-earth metaphor just caused an increase in my anxiety and trouble sleeping last night. I know the creators meant it to stand in for climate change, and the whole thing can be a metaphor for all anti-science. But my anxiety doesn't get metaphor. I've been trying to find some escapist fun on Netflix, but most things I"ve tried have been cringy or boring.

>125 cindydavid4: Yes, Macbeth! I was just talking about a production of Hamlet with a friend, and you know... two syllables, Shakespeare. Thanks for the catch.

>126 Nickelini: It was most definitely not an escapist film. I was feeling kind of cold-blooded when I was watching, and it didn't get under my skin. But I can see how it would have at another time.

>124 lisapeet: I read "We did go see the Joel Coen Macbeth with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, which was terrific, in a theater." as meaning that you saw them perform live and I was all set to be extremely jealous and regretful that I didn't live in NYC :-).

>128 rhian_of_oz: Heh, posting while cooking dinner may not be the best idea. Imagine seeing them live! But no, just a film in a real theater, which is daring enough right now in NYC. A bunch of theaters have already shut down, at least temporarily—a really bad time for the business to go dark, though I'm sure there are also a lot fewer tourists this winter. The entertainment business was just beginning to bounce back from the initial COVID shutdown, too.

>129 lisapeet: My wife and I were very lucky in that the timing of our month's stay in NY/NJ was between Covid waves. We were able to see two Broadway plays: the Tina Turner Musical and Thoughts of a Colored Man. Both were marvelous. We pulled out of town just as Omicron was getting going, drove through Arkansas and Kentucky a day and a half before the deadly tornadoes, and got home a day before the heavy rains we've been having in Northern California got going. All in all, a charmed journey.

>131 ELiz_M: Or one could look at the trail of havoc you've left behind and worry about your potential other-worldly traits....

>124 lisapeet: I'm glad you have some downtime this week, Lisa. I've been tired all week and wishing I had more than a three day weekend.

>130 rocketjk: >131 ELiz_M: LOL

>131 ELiz_M: Possibly you're onto something. We did get a call from Dr. Fauci asking us to stay the heck home from now on. On the other hand, we are in a drought here in northern California, so the rains are welcome, to put it mildly.

>130 rocketjk: On the other hand, I hope you played Lotto when you got home...

>134 lisapeet: Well, I kind of thought my luck had been expended for the year. :)

And with that, my reading year is finished. New thread for the beginning of 2022 here.