Ursula reads some things, part 2

I meant to continue my thread before my last review but I forgot, so here I am now.



This is Budapest, where I spent a very short time this month.

Currently Reading:

READ IN 2022

January (Ocak)
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The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Wild Palms by William Faulkner ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Walking on the Ceiling by Ayşegül Savaş ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Red Clocks by Leni Zumas ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara ⭐️⭐️⭐️

February (Şubat)
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The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

March (Mart)
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The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib ⭐️⭐️1/2
The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Funeral Rites by Jean Genet ⭐️⭐️⭐️
What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We Wrote in Symbols edited by Selma Dabbagh ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

April (Nisan)
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Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Beirut Hellfire Society by Rawi Hage ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi ⭐️⭐️1/2

May (Mayıs)
—————————
The City & the City by China Miéville ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fear and Trembling by Amélie Nothomb ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw ⭐️⭐️1/2
People Want to Live by Farah Ali ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami ⭐️⭐️1/2

June (Haziran)
—————————
Read Dangerously by Azar Nafisi ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Miracle and Wonder by Malcolm Gladwell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman ⭐️⭐️⭐️
We Had to Remove this Post by Hanna Bervoets ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Abandoned
Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison by Daniel Genis
Above Us the Milky Way by Fowzia Karimi

July (Temmuz)
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Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Denver Noir by Cynthia Swanson, ed. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

August (Ağustos)
—————————
Palestine +100 by Basma Ghalayini, ed. ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
On the Road by Jack Kerouac ⭐️⭐️1/2

September (Eylül)
—————————
You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Book of Salt by Monique Truong ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez ⭐️⭐️⭐️

October (Ekim)
—————————
Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oe ⭐️⭐️
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson ⭐️⭐️1/2
Blood Feast by Malika Moustadraf ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Oroonoko by Aphra Behn ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

November (Kasım)
From Hell by Alan Moore ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Jawbone by Monica Ojeda ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgård ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Scattered All over the Earth by Yoko Tawada ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dare to Disappoint by Özge Samancı ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

December (Aralık)
Little Eve by Catriona Ward ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This Is What It Sounds Like by Susan Rogers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
King Jesus by Robert Graves ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Saint Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa ⭐️⭐️

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

I'm back! I finished this book a while ago (in May, in fact), but updates have been sparse here since then.

First line: My birthday's the fourth of January, 1951.

This book of lost love and partially-recovered love was just okay for me. It doesn't have any of the sort of oddball magical realism that is in some of Murakami's books; it's a pretty straightforward story. For me, that's probably a minus. I don't have a ton to say about it, although I did read some comments by other people on it after I finished that suggested there was a more nuanced reading possible.

Quote: If it hadn't rained then, if I had taken an umbrella (which was entirely possible, since I seriously debated doing so before I left the hotel), I would never have met her. And if I hadn't met her, I'd still be plugging away at the textbook company, still leaning against the wall in my apartment at night, alone, drinking, and babbling to myself. Makes me realize how limited our possibilities ever are.

I've just had a look at the work page for Above Us the Milky Way, and it's a book bullet for me. Looking forward to your review.

Read Dangerously by Azar Nafisi

In letters written to her deceased father, Nafisi talks about Iran, the United States, literature, and the necessity of reading things that challenge society. A lot of what she was talking about was interesting - James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Margaret Atwood. The actual subject matter and analysis were interesting but the framing device of letters didn't work at all for me. There's a lot of love for this book everywhere, so I'm in a definite minority and you should probably read it if it interests you.

Happy new thread! Two good reviews, even if they weren't favorites.

Happy new thread, Ursula. I liked Read Dangerously more than you did although you have a good point about the framing. She could have just written essays about the books...

I'm looking forward to your comments on We Had to Remove This Post. I keep picking it up at the library and putting it down again. You're going to decide for me.

I hope Budapest was wonderful!

>8 labfs39: Thanks! Luckily they also weren't totally terrible reads. I ended up with more to think about with the Murakami after reading other people's comments, and I got a lot out of the content of the Nafisi. I find that middling books are the hardest to write anything about for me.

>9 BLBera: She could have just written essays about the books...
Yeah, I guess she felt like it made it less dry? I don't know, but I'd be getting into an essay and then thrown out of it by "Baba, you remember how you used to say" or something along those lines. But you are one of many who enjoyed it more than I did!

>10 RidgewayGirl: I am drunk with power! I see that the ratings are not great for it. (I chose the book at semi-random from Libby.) I'm about 1/3 in since it's short and I'm enjoying it reasonably well.

Budapest was a whirlwind, we were only there for about 36 hours. We've been before, so it was fine. I do enjoy the city!

>6 Dilara86: I realized I missed you, oops! I have been moving slowly through it for a bunch of different reasons, but it’s an interesting book.

Miracle and Wonder by Malcolm Gladwell

Another one I finished a bit ago. An audio "book" but really, as the subtitle says, conversations more than a book. I'm a huge fan of Paul Simon and it was really fun to listen to him reminisce and talk about various aspects of his music, life and career. Not a lot to say beyond that; it's just good stuff.

I'm also a Paul Simon fan, and this sounds like a good one to listen to. I'll check it out.

>13 ursula: That looks like fun. I'm also a huge fan of Simon's work. As I understand it, he can be extremely prickly, even unpleasant, but I never expect artists to be nice folk, though it's a bonus when they are. "Rhythm of the Saints" is one of my desert island records.

>14 BLBera: I enjoyed the thoughts Gladwell had about Simon's particular type of creativity as well.

>15 rocketjk: I am not surprised. In this, he came across pretty well, but it was kind of funny that it started off with a discussion about which guitar he was going to use to play while they were talking and when Gladwell asked him what he thought the difference between them was. Simon responded, "Well I know the difference, what do you think the difference is?"

I loved Rhythm of the Saints when it came out, but I admit I haven't listened to it enough in intervening years.

>16 ursula: As I understand it, there was some sort of kerfuffle between Simon and the band Los Lobos, who played on the song "If I Was Your Mother" on Graceland. There was some question about the band getting enough credit (and/or payment) for lyrics or maybe just arrangements that they felt they'd provided. As I recall the story, the episode ended with Simon telling them, "Go ahead and sue me. See what happens." Regardless, he is a superb musician.

>17 rocketjk: I do remember hearing about that as well. He's had some issues before that as well with properly crediting songs. I know it came up with the particular arrangements he used in some of his covers of traditional songs.

>2 ursula: Curious about your response to Above us the Milky Way. It sounds good, but I know I'd have high expectations for it as well.

Returning to updating ...


Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman

First line: They were barefoot when they were sent home, their dripping feet leaving prints that evaporated almost instantly, as if they had never been there at all.

Look, I'm not going to write a lot about these books I've read recently because either there's not a lot to say about them or it's been a while, or both. Two 11-year-old girls are asked to leave a birthday party. On the way home they happen upon a baby in a stroller that they take, and the baby ends up dead. The story begins when the two of them turn 18 and are released back to their hometown.

Typical what-really-happened sort of story. Fine, but nothing to write home about.


We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets

First line: "So what kinds of things did you see?"

This is a novella about content moderators for a social media site. As would be expected, there are brief descriptions of things no one should ever have to see, and the extremely cold criteria by which they decide whether to take it down or leave it up. The main character attempts to have a life outside of that, although not completely outside since she is dating one of her coworkers.

I feel like this could have been really interesting, but it was just too short. And it ended like a short story might have - abruptly and in the middle of the action. I don't mind still having questions but I felt like the author literally stopped when she ran out of ideas.

Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon

First line: The first time it happens it's October, and I'm driving through Utah with this young Filipino guy named Liandro.

This is apparently my 4th book by Chaon (I feel like I might have read one or two others, I'm really not sure). It's a near-future dystopia where the main character is working for some shadowy people doing shadowy things. He has a whole passel of identities and burner phones to make this possible, and he mostly takes various types of cargo (often the breathing kind) and drives it to other places, accompanied by his dog Flip. But one day his covers seem to be blown, as he's contacted by someone who knows entirely too much information about him and events spin out from there.

This book gets seriously weird. If you like that, go for it. I dug it, though I also read it through Covid and had the loan run out and had to wait a bit to get it back. This may be responsible for me feeling like it went on a little too long/got somewhat disjointed. It might be just me (I still liked it a lot).

>21 ursula: I just finished this. It was a bit disjointed by its nature, I think—kind of an episodic shaggy dog story—but I really enjoyed it. I think you're right, reading it in slices might not show the book to its best advantage. I read straight through and thought it was a lot of fun, kind of a sympathetically strange-but-sweet noir. I like Chaon's writing in general, though.

The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike

First line: When they got up that first morning, the little white finch was dead.

This is the story of a haunted house, or rather a haunted building. Misao, her husband Teppei, their daughter Tamao and their dog Cookie got a great deal on an apartment not too far away from Teppei's work. It's in a recently-built, half-filled apartment building that is surrounded on three sides by a graveyard, a temple, and a crematorium. They decided not to be superstitious about it and moved in. As the first line says, their bird dies immediately. Then Tamao starts talking about being visited by the dead bird, and the TV starts acting weird. Something is clearly going on in the basement, but not so clearly that they don't feel silly with their intuition that something is wrong.

You know how these things go, generally, so you can imagine the build-up to the ultimate conclusion. I felt like ... it was reasonably well written and the story moved along the way it should have, but there was something missing. It lacked that complete sense of dread that something like The Haunting of Hill House manages to communicate even when absolutely nothing dreadful is happening. So, it was fine but it didn't make me shiver.

>22 lisapeet: Absolutely, I think in large part it was a stylistic choice. I liked it quite a bit, and I've liked his previous books as well so I do think it was a case of "it's not you, it's me" causing the somewhat tempered enjoyment.

Oops, skipped a book.



Denver Noir

This is a collection of short stories set in Denver, by various authors. They're obviously all kind of set in the underbelly of the city. I think it's said in the introduction, something like "even a city with 300 sunny days a year has a dark side", but that's kind of the feeling I had after living in Denver for a number of years. It seems like there are no secrets because it's so bright and flat but obviously it's a city like any other.

Like with all anthologies, it's somewhat uneven. "Noir" encompasses detectives and mysteries, dark and gritty stories of crime, and the supernatural, so it's a mixed bag. I liked a decent number of them, but maybe surprisingly one of my least favorites was by Peter Heller (The Dog Stars). The ones I liked best were by Mathangi Subramanian, the editor, Cynthia Swanson, and maybe Mario Acevedo. I've never read books by any of those authors, but I see that Acevedo writes an urban fantasy series featuring a vampire private investigator with ridiculous titles. Not for me!

Anyway, I guess this is part of a series of books with <City Name> Noir titles, you may want to check out one for a city you're familiar with.

When we moved to Florida (Tampa Bay Area) I read Tampa Bay Noir, thinking it would help familiarize me with my new home. It just made me feel like the whole area was peopled with thieves, murderers, and assorted low-lives.

>26 arubabookwoman: Haha yeah maybe not the impression of the place you were looking for! I feel like if I had read this when we first moved to Denver, I would have struggled with it because I didn't know the places they were talking about.

Everything I Need I Get from You by Kaitlyn Tiffany

I hate overblown nonfiction subtitles.

Anyway, this is written by a woman who was part of the One Direction fandom, although she makes it clear that she isn't writing a book about 1D, but rather about the connection of fans to their favorite acts, their behavior, and how they've changed the landscape of the internet.

One interesting thing I learned is that back when you had to pay to access certain BBS systems online, at least one was primarily supported by Grateful Dead fans who were essentially doing all the things the fandoms do online today (except writing slash fiction (probably)).

As for the phenomenon of fandom online, especially on Twitter and Tumblr, it was enlightening to see what it looks like from inside. She talked a lot about how the ridiculous inside jokes or minutiae are not really the important part - the important part is that because you understand the jokes and know the minutiae, you mark yourself as a full member of a community. It isn't different in that respect from people who are really into Marvel superhero movies and discussing the detailed interconnections there - the main difference is often age and gender of the fans.

There is talk of harnessing the power of such a large, always-online group for good (K-pop stans flooding racist hashtags with images and videos of their favorite bands until they become unusable), and for bad (harassment of One Direction girlfriends, for instance). It was good that she covered the fun and lighthearted as well as the worrisome and sometimes downright alarming.

>28 ursula: This is a topic I've become more interested in as I've become more aware of the issues, particularly in S Korea where I follow some musicians and actors. Fans there can be particularly intense.

>29 labfs39: Yes, there could definitely be a whole book on the topic of kpop fans. The cycle of media -> fans -> management -> image is brutal. I don't know that boy/girl bands in the US experience even a fraction of that. But I guess that's sort of a different tangent I'm getting off on here. Basically, the 1D fandom coopted a lot of the techniques of kpop fans. Also interesting was when the normally rival fandoms worked together to take down anti-BLM hashtags, etc.

Palestine +100 by Basma Ghalayini, editor

Another collection of short stories - unusual for me, as it's not my favorite format! But it was hard to resist the premise - writers take on a setting of Palestine in 2048, 100 years after the Nakba. What does that look like? The answers are varied, but all of them are permeated with separation and unfulfilled dreams. I have trouble retaining the details of each story (I should learn to take notes), but while I enjoyed some of them less than others, overall if this sounds like something you might find interesting, I'd recommend it.

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

First line: In Siberia, the thawing ground was a ceiling on the verge of collapse, sodden with ice melt and the mammoth detritus of prehistory.

Finished this one. Um, wow. I had no idea this would be the most depressing book in the world. Plague, euthanasia, animal testing, a body farm, death death and more death.

I mean, it was good. Each chapter follows a different character, but they're all connected even though the stories span millennia and light years. And you know it's good because some of those chapters will tear your heart right out of your chest and stomp it to a pulp in front of you. Others, thankfully, not so much.

>32 ursula: Hmm... I was looking forward, if that's the right term, to this one. But animal testing might be a no-go for me.

>33 lisapeet: I don't know what to say to clarify; there's not exactly a lot of detail on the testing done on the animals, and it's done for good reason. But it's both better and worse than "animal testing" implies.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Sigh.

First line: I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.

I have avoided and avoided this book. I tried to start it a couple of times in the distant past but I've just always had an aversion to it. In the past 3-4 years I read The Dharma Bums and The Subterraneans as a sort of way to acclimate myself to Kerouac, with mixed results.

The whole plot is in the title, and everyone knows this book, so I'm just going to talk about my reactions to it. If anyone is inspired by this book, they don't have two brain cells to rub together. This is a sad book about sad people. Even they occasionally realize their lives are pathetic when they stop drinking long enough to think. Traveling the country and down into Mexico isn't really that glamorous (or interesting) when all you do is the same stupid shit you do in your hometown, with the same stupid people. When I was done with the book and putting it into my spreadsheet, I commented to my husband that I wish I could double-fail it on the Bechdel test and we had the following exchange:

Morgan: Is there one female character in the book who couldn't be replaced by a blow-up doll?
Me: His aunt cooks.

There are some good passages in there, and I kind of get what he was going for and can admire that, but overall this is not good.

>35 ursula: an interesting reaction because I think it is a novel of its time and the fact that you say about the characters when all you do is the same stupid shit you do in your hometown is very apt. In 1957 when the novel was published it might have seemed a whole lot different. It has become a sort of historical piece now and perhaps we can look back on it and say "that was then"

>36 baswood: Definitely of its time, and I can understand people in that era reading it a certain way. I'm confused by people who read it in the present era and feel inspired to go untether themselves from society and emulate his wastrel lifestyle. But then, I don't understand people who were inspired by Into the Wild, either.

>36 baswood: & >37 ursula: I agree that On the Road is a book that was of its time. America in the 50s and early 60s was a place where conformity was all and the culture was stultifying. I even have a quote I read recently from Adlai Stephenson, no less, who warned that America was in danger of beginning to turn out robots rather than people with imaginations.* The philosophy of On the Road was a pushback against that, which I think is why it resonated so strongly at the time.

* "Indeed, it seems that at mid-twentieth century, mass manipulation is a greater danger to the individual than was economic exploitation in the nineteenth century; that we are in greater danger of becoming robots than slaves. Surely it is part of the challenge of this next quarter-century that industry and government and the society they both support must find new and better ways of restoring scope to that strange eccentric, the individual."

And, you know, Stephenson was no Alan Ginsberg.

I don't think, though, that very many people who read On the Road and were inspired thereby to go out and explore themselves and the country and spend some time just having fun were expecting or desiring to do that for the rest of their lives. Much later, I was one of those people who didn't have two brain cells to rub together and after graduating college in 1977, inspired in part by On the Road but also by many other things, spent a couple of years living in different places in the country, and driving and even hitchhiking back and forth as well, because I'd grown up in a rather protected suburban environment and knew that there was a heck of a lot about life and the country that I knew nothing about. Along the way I bussed tables, washed dishes and finally waited tables for a while before finally having enough after a couple of years and settling down to work in public radio in New Orleans.

Kerouac certainly doesn't look very good from this remove of time, and particularly the sexism is entirely unattractive. I haven't read the book in a long time. Friends of mine who tried picking it up for old times sake to give it a go these many years later tell me that it now seems tedious to them. But I don't know that I think that American society is so different now that a teenager or person in their early 20s might not see and be moved by the sense of adventure and exploration in OTR, assuming the person could put his or her cell phone down for a minute!

I'll tell you one more personal story. My father was a very good man but a very straight-laced fellow. He was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who came up during the Depression. He was an FDR Democrat through and through and as such very much a believer in the nose-to-the-grindstone, keep your head down American Dream. After I graduated college he and my mother were so appalled by my plans to travel the country instead of starting a career that they offered to pay for grad school--any school, any area of study--if I would change my mind and go back into the classroom. I appreciated the offer (I knew it was made out of love and fear more than out of disapproval, though disapprove they did), but turned it down. Throughout my days living in San Diego and Seattle and New Orleans and visiting points in between my father would always ask me when I was going to settle down and join "the real world." And that was the very crux of the matter, really. To him, and to those he emulated and worked with, the workaday 9-5 world was the only "real" one. I used to tell him, "Dad, if I go into a grocery store here and I don't have any money, they don't give me any food. Really, this is the real world, too." Anyway, there was never anything like a break between us over this, and wherever I was, I called them every Sunday. Years later, I recall sitting in a hotel room with my dad. I think my parents were visiting me in San Francisco after I finally did wrap up a Masters Degree, and the subject of those traveling, dishwashing years of mine came up. He said, "Remember what a hard time I gave you about that?" I said, "You weren't so bad about it, Dad." And then my father, for whom the approval of his peers was one of the most important things in life, said, "When you were doing that, whenever my coworkers or my clients asked me about my kids and I told them what you were doing, they always said the same thing. They always said, 'I wish I'd done that.'"

I think that Kerouac, as a writer and as a person, lacked a developed level of maturity and so it doesn't surprise me at all that people coming to him later in life will have trouble sussing out where the attraction would be. But he can also be at looked within the context of the Beat movement as a whole, of which he was certainly a part. The Beats were trying to do different things with language than was the expected norm of the time. They certainly had their failures, but they had their successes, too. I've read it said that Kerouac never wrote a brilliant novel, though there are stretches of brilliance in every book he wrote. During my high school and, especially, college years, I ripped through every Kerouac novel in print. The one I thought was consistently the best, in terms of characters, storyline and writing, was a short one called The Subterraneans about a man in love with a beautiful women who loves him back. He is jealous, however, and though he is perfectly aware that his jealousy is killing her affection for him, he can't stop himself. It seems to me now that this theme might well be an allegory for the very lifestyle he was writing about, but it's been several decades since I read the book. At any rate, yeah, On the Road is a period piece.

Hope you don't mind the long post. I do get carried away sometimes!

>35 ursula:

"boy's own adventure"

>38 rocketjk: I appreciate you responding at length!

Along the way I bussed tables, washed dishes and finally waited tables for a while before finally having enough after a couple of years and settling down to work in public radio in New Orleans.

Kerouac, on the other hand, never worked a day in that entire book. He was always "going to" get a job, or had heard of a job, but he didn't work. Oh wait, I take that back - he picked cotton for a while, with his girlfriend and her child doing 90% of the work since he was hopeless at it. But mostly he ended up leaving town before he ever worked.

Also this: the sense of adventure and exploration in OTR - this is actually my major problem with it. There is no sense of adventure and exploration. I mean, he talks about it, but he goes places with the same people he knows, or he meets up with the same people he knows. They get drunk, sleep with some women, and leave. He says a few times that he really wants to talk to/get to know everyone in a place and says all the right words about being curious, but his actions don't bear it out at all. Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady comes much closer to that, but he also just keeps marrying and impregnating women and going back and forth between the same places and people. The main difference there is that he always wants an audience to listen to him talk so he needs new victims.

As I mentioned, I read The Subterraneans. I think that was problematic for a whole bunch of other reasons. The book I probably liked best was The Dharma Bums; there was some decent writing about nature, and he had flashes of self-awareness of his drinking problem.

>39 LolaWalser: Yeah. It was interesting to me because like I said, I'd been dragging my feet on this but I finally went into it with an open mind and my notes to myself during reading started out positive and spiraled down and down and down from there.

In talking about this with my husband, he added this thought:

I have so many friends who were inspired by Kerouac in the other way, they just drank and assumed it would make them some sort of artist, and hatched empty plans to travel and write and be a Kerouac/Bukowski like character. But instead they never went anywhere, never wrote or created anything, and still elevated themselves onto some pedestal like their drinking made them a genius.

>40 ursula: "Kerouac, on the other hand, never worked a day in that entire book. He was always "going to" get a job, or had heard of a job, but he didn't work. Oh wait, I take that back - he picked cotton for a while, with his girlfriend and her child doing 90% of the work since he was hopeless at it. But mostly he ended up leaving town before he ever worked."

Sure, I get what you're saying. I was responding, though, to what I took to be your question of how somebody could be inspired by the book, as I was, as opposed to wanting to replicate Kerouac/Paradise's experience exactly. Even if, as you say, Kerouac/Paradise and pals didn't follow through on their "say{ing} all the right words about being curious," OTR still helped make me curious. Whether or not there was much, or anything, admirable about their behavior (especially when appraised with a more critical eye, and at a different time of life), that book did help light a fire under me to throw myself out into the world, to go to places and talk with and get to know people that I was pretty sure I'd never come in contact with if I immediately entered the career world that I'd been groomed for.

"he goes places with the same people he knows, or he meets up with the same people he knows."

Still, they were in places where they didn't know anybody else, surrounded otherwise by strangers. If you get injured or sick or arrested, there's nobody else to call. Certainly if none of your two or three friends have any dough, there's nobody to bail you out of the clink. If you run into a policeman or a bunch of guys in a bar who don't like strangers, you're the stranger. So it's not exactly like staying home. Also, I think to a significant extent, it was the movement itself, the expending of kinetic energy in the traveling, that was also the point. For better or worse, that factor resonated with a lot of people, as well.

"I have so many friends who were inspired by Kerouac in the other way, they just drank and assumed it would make them some sort of artist, and hatched empty plans to travel and write and be a Kerouac/Bukowski like character. But instead they never went anywhere, never wrote or created anything, and still elevated themselves onto some pedestal like their drinking made them a genius."

Surely that's on them, though, not on Kerouac.

As I mentioned in my previous post, none of my friends who have reread OTR in relatively recent years (as I have not) remained entranced with the book upon that later reading. So I'm certainly not trying to talk you out of any of your perceptions about the book. I'm reacting more to your statement about inspiration and brain cells, which made me laugh. Despite my comment in my previous post, I actually do give myself credit for having had more than two brain cells to rub together. I don't know, let's say I had five. :)

I feel like we're at cross-purposes here, or otherwise misunderstanding each other.

>43 ursula: I just think we're looking at the book from significantly different perspectives. I understand* and sympathize with your experience with OTR at this point in its history, and from your own current point of view. And, certainly, you might have had the exact same reaction if you had read the book 30 or 40 years ago. I'm not disagreeing with that at all, but only trying to provide a glimpse into what my experience with the book was, as perhaps somewhat representative of others who had the same sort of reaction, at a very different point in life. Cheers!

* Or at least I think I do!

>44 rocketjk:

Er, consider maybe that you got that bass-ackwards? WE understand YOUR point of view, not least because it's been shoved down our throats our entire existences, whereas YOU are proving yet again ridiculously refractory to the notion that there is no special value in something (or there is something less-than-praiseworthy) just because generations of fanboys swooned in dick-worship. Dare think that Kerouac and his ilk are actually... not cool. This is not to attack whatever nice things you undertook under this influence--but others did the same for x other reasons...

Why don't you reread On the road? See how that bit where he wishes he were Negro and thus naturally "happy" strikes you now.

>41 ursula:

That's typical, and only got worse with the cluster of wannabes around Burroughs and Ginsberg. But there is a worse side to this particular cult and it's tied into what the fanboys call "nonconformism", and what stems from Kerouac's et al. admiration of black masculinity. As they perceived it--this can't be stressed enough. Unfortunately, as Kerouac's casual "benevolent" racism shows, they simply weren't perceiving deeply enough, but only insofar it served them to act "nonconformingly". The fact of systemic racism, of stringent and ubiquitous marginalization of black people, chronic economic instability and exclusion from power--all that flew over their heads. What they saw were these hip swinging black daddies, happily blowing their horns and taking no nonsense from them bitches or The Man. A totally self-serving reading of the condition of black men.

So these two "colourblind" Beat Beavis and Butthead set across America to be as free as the happy Negroes, at a time when black people had to plan trips with the care of interstellar travel and a smallest infraction could lead to prison or death (never a threat to those two pretty white boys), but it all peters out into nothing (insert crack about the looming craze of Western Buddhism), since whatever bedevilled white masculinity postwar, wasn't curable with escapism.

Remained the cult. And that's bad enough. It created generations of insufferable hipsters pushing the likes of Kerouac, Bukowski etc., on threat of being deemed square. It fed misogyny and male supremacism and is one of the sources of today's alt-right (even the fedoras survived as the mark of the beast, just as the cynical, nihilistic humour reached its climax in the abomination of 4chan "edgelords").

>45 LolaWalser: "YOU are proving yet again ridiculously refractory to the notion that there is no special value in something (or there is something less-than-praiseworthy) just because generations of fanboys swooned in dick-worship. Dare think that Kerouac and his ilk are actually... not cool."

As I said in my first post, above, "Kerouac certainly doesn't look very good from this remove of time, and particularly the sexism is entirely unattractive." That seems pretty straightforward to me. I could certainly have added racism, though I think (based on memory) that sexism is the more dominant trait all in all. You wouldn't have needed to read On the Road to be a sexist male in the 50s, 60s and 70s, that's for sure. However, I agree that there were plenty of blockheads who would have taken Kerouac's attitudes as permission for and encouragement of their own.

Otherwise, I was relating my personal experience of being inspired by the book, as an example of how one could be so inspired even if one actually did have more than two brain cells to rub together (I believe I've laid claim to five) and that it had an overall positive effect on my life and on the lives of many of my friends, despite its (especially in retrospect) obvious faults. If the sense of adventure I got from the book seems fraudulent, or even if you think it should have seemed fraudulent to me then, all I can say is mea culpa. It didn't. It also didn't occur to me until much later that everything I got to do during those days of travel, etc., was made easier and safer by my white male privilege. There was a lot I did learn that made me a better human, but that realization, unfortunately, took longer.

I'm sure that if I were to reread OTR, I would find all the faults that Ursula did, and for much the same reasons. Again, I tried to make that clear in my posts, but obviously I didn't try hard enough. What I was getting at was an explanation of why I (and others I knew) found the book moving when I was much younger, brought up as I was in a world that expected me to never step out of line.

"Others did the same for x other reasons . . . "

I personally never met anyone whose idea was to recreate Kerouac's experiences exactly, including all the problematic aspects of those experiences that Ursula has so well described. More generally, we might consider the possibility that people who set out to travel for "x other reasons," whatever those might have been, even if loaded down with misconceptions they got from reading OTR, might along the way have gotten doses of reality and/or learning experiences that did them some good. If, for example, someone walked into a jazz club who normally wouldn't have because of a passage they read in OTR, in whatever wrong-headed way Kerouac would have expressed it, he or she just might have come away from that experience having gained something positive that stayed with them.

>46 rocketjk:

I don't want to speak for Ursula, but I think you latched too hard on her "two brain cells" remark. There are different types of stupidity, it needn't be a reflection on anyone's "IQ". What I see as Kerouac's failure is due to his egotism, his inability to notice how his supposedly "emancipatory" view privileged people like himself. Despite his feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, outsiderism, he was still leagues ahead in what he was able to do and conceive of doing compared to other men (let's not even talk about women). If you can for a moment imagine yourself into the position of someone NOT a handsome young white dude in 1940/50's America, you'll get closer to what some of us find "stupid" or derisory about On the road. But that doesn't negate its romantic charm for others.

If, for example, someone walked into a jazz club who normally wouldn't have because of a passage they read in OTR, in whatever wrong-headed way Kerouac would have expressed it, he or she just might have come away from that experience having gained something positive that stayed with them.

As another white jazz and blues lover, I'm naturally going to agree with this because it's very pleasant to us white jazz and blues lovers, and also pays respect to the power of music. But being also an insufferable nag, I have to add--by all means let us white folks walk into jazz clubs, real and metaphorical, but let us do so with open eyes, not just ears, and questioning consciences. The Beats loved jazz--but why is the Beat culture all white people? There is a serious problem here that goes to the heart of the unease I discovered in the US. Loving jazz is no guarantee against racism, and indeed this is shown in many ways. (And guess what, black people always knew this and complained about it but who listened?)

As it happens, just today The Guardian published this article:

Not a wonderful world: Louis Armstrong tapes reveal how racism scarred his life and career

That's probably the best coda to the digression from my side. Apologies for taking so much space in your thread, Ursula.

>47 LolaWalser: I think you latched too hard on her "two brain cells" remark.'

Oh, sure. I was mainly having fun with it (>42 rocketjk: "which made me laugh"), but also using is as an entry to talk about how somebody who was younger and less experienced with/aware of all the societal/cultural/gender/casteism factors we've been discussing here would have been charmed, as you put it, at the time by OTR and even been influenced by it positively, as I was.

"{H}e was still leagues ahead in what he was able to do and conceive of doing compared to other men (let's not even talk about women). If you can for a moment imagine yourself into the position of someone NOT a handsome young white dude in 1940/50's America you'll get closer to what some of us find "stupid" or derisory about On the road."

All of this I have acknowledged and commented on in my previous posts, so I'll just let those comments stand.

"Loving jazz is no guarantee against racism, and indeed this is shown in many ways."

Agreed. I've been closely involved in the jazz world as a radio producer/music writer in New Orleans and as a journalist in San Francisco and I've seen it firsthand many times. Not to mention the history of the ways in which Jim Crow so often cast its net determinedly over Black jazz musicians, no matter how famous, and not just in the South, either. This is history I'm familiar with, as well.

In my view, the best way for people to get over seeing people blindly as part of a group, with all one's preconceived notions of what the people in that group are like, is to have some exposure to members of that group as individuals. Lots of white people will walk into a jazz club even now and see the black musicians merely as talented members of the subordinate caste (VSA*: I'm, coincidentally, just past the halfway point of Isabel Wilkerson's brilliant book, Caste.), no matter how good, or even famous, those players might be. But some folks are reachable, and for them, a jazz club might be a good place to begin the process. Anyway, as I think we're agreed, it couldn't hurt!

All the best!

* Virtue Signaling Alert!

LolaWalser, you have a talent for the type of thought-out, eloquent statements that escape me these days. I snickered at Beavis & Butthead while also thinking "yes, that's it exactly!". I appreciate your comments in response to my husband's remark, you understood what we were getting at with that. The cult of the romantic addict who is living outside the confines of society, refusing to play by The Man's rules, etc. Escapism fueled by privilege (absolutely right that Burroughs is the epitome of that one).

Rocketjk, the main reason I said I thought we were at cross purposes or misunderstanding each other is because I feel like this: people who were/are inspired by On the Road are inspired by a very superficial reading of it, or a reading driven by being in similar circumstances to Kerouac.

Anyway, an interesting read and no problem taking up space here, I am glad to have a discussion happen!

You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe

First line: It was the hour of twilight on a soft spring day toward the end of April in the year of Our Lord 1929, and George Webber leaned his elbows on the sill of his back window and looked out at what he could see of New York.

Morgan picked this one up last year, started it and said "nope", so I approached it with some trepidation. But he has less tolerance for a certain kind of writing, a certain kind of novel (he also hated Babbitt). So I think it's just the detailed description and the interiority of it that turned him off. Anyway, George Webber from that opening sentence is an aspiring writer, and has some success with his first novel. However, it all seems a little too close to events and people in the town where he grew up and he gets a lot of hate over it. Then he has a crisis or two as he tries to write his second novel.

Some other stuff happens, kind of. Look, this is a writer writing about being a writer and although things happen, there's not much in the way of actual plot. It's most notable for its descriptions of Americans and American life, and I was struck by how much of it is still true. I enjoyed most of it, although it was a loooong book and it could have been shorter.

Quote: Suddenly we realize that America has turned into something ugly - and vicious - and corroded at the heart of its power with easy wealth and graft and special privilege ... And the worst of it is the intellectual dishonesty which all this corruption has bred. People are afraid to think straight - afraid to face themselves - afraid to look at things and see them as they are. We've become like a nation of advertising men, all hiding behind catch phrases like 'prosperity' and 'rugged individualism' and 'the American way.' And the real things like freedom, and equal opportunity, and the integrity and worth of the individual - things that have belonged to the American dream since the beginning - they have become just words, too.

Oh hey, so I should probably give a small life update here.

Last Friday the 9th I got SUPER sick overnight, endless vomiting and stomach pain. The next day, I was feverish and the stomach pain was essentially unbearable. We went to a hospital but were told they wanted a ridiculous amount of money to treat me even though we have insurance that is good at the group of hospitals it belongs to. So we went back home and the next day, went to our usual hospital. This was a Sunday and they said they needed an ultrasound to diagnose the problem - but they didn't have a radiologist there that day.

...

So they suggested we try another hospital belonging to the same group. What if we went all the way out there and they also didn't have a radiologist? Were we better off waiting for Monday and going then? They said, "no, no, she has a fever, which means there is an infection. For her health, you shouldn't wait." Okay, great, can you call and see if there is a radiologist there before we take another hour-long cab ride? They did, and then said "okay, we made an appointment for her for tomorrow afternoon."

So much for it being a problem for my health. Anyway, we went back on Monday and the doctor diagnosed a (large) gallstone and (serious) infection and sent me over to talk to a surgeon. The surgeon decided not to operate that day and instead admitted me to the hospital for a course of antibiotics and fluids. I was in the hospital for 5 days, then they released me on Saturday and I'm going back on Wednesday for surgery.

That's the short version - there was a LOT that happened in going to the various hospitals etc. I'm nervous about the surgery, but I also know it's a pretty routine thing. The surgeon inspires confidence, and has done every test known to man to make sure he knows everything he needs to going in, so it should be fine.

Anyway, I finished a book.


The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

First line: Of that day I have two photographs and, of course, my memories.

Picked up blind, as are many of my reads. Turns out this story is narrated by a Vietnamese cook who is in Paris working in the household of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.

I'm not even going to bother really writing a review - I had read about half of this when my gall bladder attacked, and then I was semi-conscious for days before I felt well enough to even consider reading again, and so it was a disjointed experience and I don't think I can fairly judge the book. It was fine.

Quote: For a traveler, it is sometimes necessary to make the world small on purpose. It is the only way to stop migrating and find a new home.

I'm considering finally tackling the Gertrude Stein I have here next, but it may not be the right time for it what with surgery and all. Or maybe it's the perfect time, haha.

Good luck with your surgery, Ursula.

I've had the Wolfe on my shelf for years; your comments make me want to read. I like that sort of thing. :)

>52 ursula: Good luck with your surgery, Ursula. That all sounds awful but it will be good to be on the other side of it all.

Yuck, pain, hospitals, surgery! Good luck and best wishes for quick recovery. Maybe pick a lighter Stein (ha)? Tender buttons, say, or Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, assuming you can get those.

Goodness! That sounds horrid. Take care of yourself, and good luck with the surgery.

>53 BLBera: Thanks for the well wishes. As for the Wolfe, I'd say give it a shot.

>54 rocketjk: Thanks, it's been pretty awful, I won't lie! But the surgery should make everything better.

>55 LolaWalser: Yeah, lots of not-fun around here recently. I have a "selected writings" of Stein, and it includes both of those so maybe I'll try them.

>56 labfs39: Horrid is a good word! Thanks for the well wishes, by tomorrow afternoon things should be better (aside from recovery time).

Oh wow, that sounds awful, compounded by crappy hospital treatment. Hope the surgery is easy, and that you feel orders of magnitude better after.

My gosh, that is an awful hospital experience, even based on the short version that you shared! I hope the surgery goes well and you have a quick recovery!

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

It was fine overall, but had some truly terrible clunkers in the writing.

>58 lisapeet:, >59 japaul22: It was okay once we got to the right place. Aside from totally destroying my veins - my arms were bruised and I was stuck I don't know how many times as they tried to find anywhere to get blood from or place a functioning IV. My veins have always been great, and I was spoiled. This sucked.

But the surgery was able to be done laparoscopically in spite of the hugely swollen gall bladder and gigantic stone inside it. I have been doing okay at home since; went back Thursday and got my stitches out and now just trying to reintroduce foods and keep up my activity level to regain some stamina after spending so long essentially bedridden.

>61 ursula: That's great that they could do the surgery laparoscopically - hope you have a quick recovery now.

Speedy recovery, Ursula.

The worst is oveeer! All the best for quick recovery.

I just found your thread. Hope you heal quickly! I have a friend who said her gallstone was significantly more painful than childbirth. So you have all my compassion

>62 japaul22: Yeah I was surprised, honestly, all things considered. But yay that he managed it.

>63 BLBera: Thanks, working on it!

>64 LolaWalser: Definitely! I feel like I'm on the upswing now, actually. Finally.

>65 Nickelini: Hi there! I didn't have any issues with it although it must have been there for a while, until I was just in a world of pain and infection. I don't really know all the mechanics of what it was doing before all this, but it was a 23mm stone and it blocked the duct. I do know that having to leave and come back to the house and try to get seen at hospitals was incredibly painful. We live on the 4th floor and being in pain and unable to stand upright is not very compatible with going down and especially up 4 flights of stairs. I literally had to crawl up them twice.

>66 ursula: That's so awful! I'm sorry you had to go through that but it sounds like it's behind you now

Thank goodness

Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oe

I picked this one up because Oe is a Nobel prize winner whose work I have not read, and the library didn't have Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, which is on the 1001 books list. I have read it steadily (aside from the gall bladder incident) since August and it was slow going. I guess that Oe's books are pretty autobiographical, and this is about his author alter ego trying to write his last book, so maybe this wasn't the place to start. Nevertheless, it was repetitive and really underwhelming on just about every level.

>67 Nickelini: Yes, behind me now. As I told my mom, I can check "have surgery" off my bucket list and hopefully never do that again!

Glad you are doing better after your gall bladder surgery. I had mine removed years ago after an attack which, though painful, was no where near as intense as yours was. And I didn't have to traipse around to various hospitals and up and down stairs.
I hope you can get a copy of Nip the Buds Shoot the Kids. It was a 5 star read for me, and not slow, repetitive or underwhelming at all. It's been compared to Lord of the Flies, but I think it was better. I haven't read anything else by Oe, but feel I should (I have several of his other books on the shelf).

Catching up on your thread and really enjoying your reviews. I'm sure that How High We Go in the Dark is fantastic, but I'm going to have to wait to read it for myself for when I want my heart blown to pieces.

As for On the Road, I think that if you don't read it at the exact peak of your teenage rebellion, it will not resonate at all. You have to be wearing a black turtleneck and smoking those annoying clove cigarettes to appreciate it. Fully agree that it's misogynistic, even by the standards of its time.

And I'm so glad you're on the recovery side of your medical ordeal. I had mine out when I was in my twenties; it was all scheduled weeks in advance and then I turned yellow, so they moved it up. I hope your healing process will be quick and unremarkable and you'll never have to deal with that specific kind of pain again. I admire your ability to continue to tackle books of substance during times of physical discomfort -- I run to escapist lit as soon as I have a hangnail.

>70 arubabookwoman: Thank you! Ha, I am definitely glad you didn't have to go through the same experiences I did.

Yeah, I'd like to check that one out but I'm limited by what the libraries I have access to have in their digital collections. I'll keep an eye out though.

>71 RidgewayGirl: Re: How High We Go in the Dark, this is definitely the potential downside of my tendency to go in without knowing anything about a book. I didn't know what I was getting into!

I agree there are books that have a "best time" to read them (Catcher in the Rye being a great example), but I think that On the Road read unexamined is kind of like reading a Wikipedia summary of it or something.

Another gall bladder-less person! Luckily I didn't get jaundice on top of everything else. He definitely didn't want to operate until the infection was more under control. Healing is going well, I'm finally mostly rid of the "stitch in my side" feeling that has persisted even a couple of weeks after the surgery. As for continuing to tackle books of substance ... I don't know, it's just how I'm wired. In stressful times I can't seem to just do light/silly shows or books, they don't seem to work in distracting me.

Catching up. So sorry about all you have been through with your gallbladder and the treatment. Glad you’re past the worst of it.

Enjoyed your reviews and the On the Road post and conversation (and Jerry’s stories of his 5-brain-cell peripatetic life).

>73 dchaikin: Thanks! I'm looking forward to the rest of my gallbladder-free life!

Yes, On the Road sparked some interesting conversation, that's always good. :)

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

Why did I check this out? I don't even remember. I love cursing and tolerate self-help? I don't know. Anyway, it's kind of the Buddhist "life is suffering" philosophy filtered into f words - you can and should choose how you suffer, what you suffer for, what you give a fuck about. Valid. Less valid is that it really reads a lot like The Alchemist in all the ways I hated - it's so simple to just choose to be poor and vagrant in the pursuit of your ideals. This guy talked about how he got out of college and it was a terrible job market so he just tried starting his own things, since he was a "failure" anyway. He coasted around sleeping on friends' couches, used spare change to get McDonald's etc. I mean, that's great if you can do it but it's not like this is an option for everyone (or safe for everyone).

Also he made a lot of comments alluding to people wanting to cast themselves as victims, but in the context of being upset about "a college professor saying maybe some Halloween costumes really aren't that offensive", or similar situations. I found those comments uncomfortably close to the right-wing "snowflake" statements.

Anyway, my advice is to read something else on the topic of figuring out how to let the small stuff go and how to live with being uncomfortable in general, but especially in pursuit of the things you care about.

>75 ursula: I've wondered if this was a book worth reading, or giving to someone. But your review says "Absolutely NOT". Now that I think about it, I remember my 22 yr old daughter taking this out of the library last summer (or the summer before?) and reading it in 30 minutes and giving it a solid "ehh" rating.

Any hoo, I loved your review and will never wonder about this book again

Blood Feast by Malika Moustadraf

This is a collection of short stories by a feminist Moroccan writer. They are all quite short, and depict various aspects of living as a woman in a repressive society mostly, although one story is about a trans or intersex (it's not clear from the writing) character as well. There was a translator's note at the end that I really wish I had read first, because it provided autobiographical details that really filled in a lot of information about the circumstances of Moustadraf's life and also information about plays on words and slang that provided extra context. On the other hand, obviously it summarizes the stories it's talking about in a few sentences, so maybe I should have just taken the information there and re-read the stories in question.

Anyway, Moustadraf is dead (died in 2006 at age 37), and this was published posthumously. In her lifetime she had a hard time getting published because of her outspoken views, and this is the first English translation of any of her work. I'm not much of a short story person, but the added context from the translator made me glad I read these.

>76 Nickelini: Yeah, I can at least be glad it was a fast read! Also happy to put your wonderings to rest. :)

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn

From the 1001 Books list. Published in 1688, this is a book about a prince, Oroonoko, and how he ends up enslaved in Surinam and what happens to him (and the love of his life) there. Spoiler: nothing good.

I was kind of surprised how easy this was to read. I was definitely apprehensive just because of the 1688 date, but honestly it was pretty easy reading. This was kind of equal parts "noble savage" and "white people suck", which is much better than I would have expected for the time.

Interesting. And great review.

>80 dchaikin: Thanks! I don't do real reviews - although I appreciate people who do. I just try to give my reactions, I figure there are a lot of places to get plot summaries. Although before starting a book I don't read professionally-written synopses etc myself because they always turn me completely off a book. They're either spoiler-filled or very boilerplate like movie trailers starting with "in a world where" and make everything sound boring and awful.

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

First line: My grandfather used to tell me he was a werewolf.

Our narrator is a teenager in a family of werewolves. He lives with his uncle and his aunt, who both change form regularly. Not in that movie sort of way, he assures us - there's no connection to the moon, not a lot of howling, etc. He's waiting for his first change, which is probably coming soon - or maybe not. Just because you have the blood doesn't mean you will definitely be a werewolf. Sometimes people just never change, and live out their lives as a human.

His mother is dead, his father is unknown, so his models for what his life could be are his uncle and aunt, though they don't have any real models for their lives either. Eventually they meet another werewolf who is more connected to their history and can shed more light on things. Somewhere around the first third of this book, I turned to my husband and said "I think it's a metaphor for being Native American". This is an obvious statement in a lot of ways, but I admit that I read about 90% for story and very little for metaphor and symbolism, so it always surprises me when I feel compelled to say that.

This is my second book by Stephen Graham Jones, and my second book by him this year, a truly rare event. I didn't like this one as well as The Only Good Indians, but I also feel like it's a more nuanced book. Maybe I'm just not that into werewolves.

>81 ursula: that’s funny because I hesitated on the word review. What i wanted to say was “great post”. But on Litsy that’s a full review, so I didn’t want to undervalue your post. I’m such a goof. Anyway, whatever it is, I’m now very interested in Oroonoko, which I think I had not heard of before.

>83 dchaikin: Oh good, we were on the same wavelength! I sometimes feel self-conscious in this group because people tend to do more long-form, detailed reviewing. But it's usually not my style. I'm glad you are interested in Oroonoko! Aphra Behn seems to have been an interesting character, and the book was definitely more modern than I expected in terms of subject matter (sex and violence, besides the attitudes toward slave holders).

>84 ursula: I prefer to write them longer but to read the shorter reviews/posts. 🙂 It’s no fun being self conscious. I think our group generally does a good job of avoiding that, but I guess it’s a little inevitable. But we all enjoy whatever. Even random lists. Just fun to make reading communal.

>79 ursula:

I really should get to that. I'm amazed that Behn apparently managed to have a career in the 17th century that didn't involve prostituting herself.

>85 dchaikin: Makes sense! I agree that the group is fine, it's expectations I put on myself. We do love to compare ourselves to others!

>86 LolaWalser: Small victories! From Wikipedia: "This succession of box-office successes led to frequent attacks on Behn. She was attacked for her private life, the morality of her plays was questioned and she was accused of plagiarising The Rover." It's great that women have come so far, now they don't get their private lives attacked or have baseless accusations leveled at them when they achieve success. Oh wait.

>79 ursula: It sounds really interesting, and it's a classic I have never heard about before.
Making a note for a future read.

My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura

First line: A cramped room in a rundown mountain lodge, and on the desk a manuscript, left open to page one, as if it had been waiting here for ages to be read.

I thought this was going to be a horror novel, and maybe in a way it was, but it was also sort of a mystery or a thriller. As you can see from the first line, you're thrown right in without any information. You shortly find out that the narrator is planning to assume the identity of the person who wrote the manuscript. Why, we don't know. Who the writer is, we find out by reading the manuscript.

After finishing this, I was really pretty confused so I went looking to see what other people had to say about it, and it's pretty mixed. The highly positive reviews seem to share one trait: they read it in one sitting. I think that could definitely help; I found it pretty difficult to follow the ins and outs of the admittedly few characters in the book. It's one of those where you keep having to re-evaluate information you've received in light of new information as it is revealed.

I didn't enjoy it that much (I rated it 3 stars - which is "it was fine"), but I would read something else by the author because there were interesting ideas here.

>88 raton-liseur: I hope you find it enjoyable if/when you get to it!

>89 ursula: I've read a couple of books by Nakamura which were more "conventional" (in a Japanese way) mysteries than this one sounds to be. I'm interested in this one and will look for it.

>89 ursula: I have quite a few Nakamura books now, I think I to will start with another to test the waters before getting to this one.

>91 arubabookwoman: What have you read? My library has The Kingdom, The Gun, The Thief, and Last Winter We Parted available.

>92 stretch: Interesting! I'd never heard of him (but I don't keep up).

I've read The Thief and Evil and the Mask, and I have The Kingdom on my Kindle as yet unread. My review (on LT) of The Thief ended on the following:
"This book is almost a character study, rather than a crime book. It is a look at a man living on the edge of society, and a young boy who will probably end up there. There's also a lot of information about how to pick pockets."
I didn't review Evil and the Mask, and don't remember any details. I rated both 3 stars, which for me indicates a good solid read, B+, nothing really wrong with it, just not a book I think will be around forever. I think I remember liking The Thief more.

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

First line: Nothing moved except the mirage.

This is a short book (144 pages), divided into two sections. The first one takes place in 1949, in the Negev desert. An Israeli patrol is securing the Israeli/Egyptian border. The commanding officer is bitten by an unknown creature in his tent, and afterwards, the patrol finds a Bedouin girl. What happens from there is not good for anyone. The second section takes place much later, and a Palestinian woman who was born 25 years after those events in the desert would like to find out more information about what happened. She has no real reason for needing to know, but she's become obsessed with it. She doesn't have the appropriate ID to be able to travel to other parts of the country; how she circumvents this problem, and the stress that engenders, take up most of the second story.

I found this book sort of fascinating. The first half is told in the most matter-of-fact, repetitive and sparse way possible. The symbolism of the commanding officer's wound is clear, and it was interesting to me how we're kept at a complete distance from any sign of his internal life. The second half reminded me so much of my classmate here telling me "when you're living in Palestine, it seems normal, but when you leave you realize how crazy it is."

Quote: He replies that everything he has is there in the article. I add that, even so, I would like to look at them myself, and he says that if that's what I'd like, I can go and look for them myself. Where? I ask him. In museums and archives of the Israeli military and Zionist movements from the period, and those specializing in the area where the incident occurred. And where are they? He replies, in a tone betraying that his patience has nearly expired, that they're in Tel Aviv and in the northwest Negev. Then I ask him if, as a Palestinian, I can enter these museums and archives? And he responds, before putting down the receiver, that he doesn't see what would prevent me. And I don't see what would prevent me either, except for my identity card.

>94 arubabookwoman: Thanks! I may check out The Thief, or The Gun. Eventually!

>95 ursula: This looks really interesting. Onto the wishlist it goes.

>97 labfs39: It was really interesting. I had a little difficulty with it at first because it was quite mundane and repetitive, but it served the author's purpose.

>95 ursula: Good review. A book I like much better in retrospect than when I was reading it.

>99 ELiz_M: Thanks, and that makes sense. I liked the first half much better after finishing it, too.

>95 ursula: It's also going into my wishlist!

>101 Dilara86: I hope you enjoy it when you get there!

From Hell by Alan Moore

Long, involved graphic novel about Jack the Ripper. I saw the movie with Johnny Depp a million years ago and clearly remembered nothing about it because I was rather surprised when the supernatural entered into this story.

There is a lot of stuff here about Dionysian cults, Freemasonry, and why women are destroying society. Like, a lot. Eventually it pays off, I suppose, but one entire volume of the original series must have been just that: the main character, Dr. William Gull, lecturing his coachman Netley on those topics. The art style by Eddie Campbell works really well with the chaotic nature of Gull's mind, and London in general in that era. The downside is that sometimes it can be difficult to discern exactly what we're seeing.

Also, this is a graphic novel in the other sense of the word "graphic." I think it was page 2 when the first sex scenes happened, and obviously the murders are also pretty vivid.

I'm not sorry I read it but it's certainly not a favorite experience.

Jawbone by Monica Ojeda

First line: She fluttered her eyes open, and in rushed all the shadows of the breaking day.

The author is Ecuadorian, and in my (somewhat limited) experience with horror stories from South America, they are generally Weird with a capital W. This is no exception. We have a teacher at a girl's school (high-school-for-girls, as it's always said in the text), Miss Clara, who has a strange obsession with her dead mother and a traumatic experience in her recent past. We have a group of teenage friends at the school who play weird games together in an abandoned building. They tell stories based on "creepypasta" from the internet, do rituals, tempt fate by walking on ledges, hurt each other and dare each other to push their limits. The ringleaders, Annelise and Fernanda, push things farther than the rest.

This book grew on me as I read it, although it was always a little bit of an odd read and difficult in some ways. I read the translator's note at the end, and she definitely had some challenges, but I think she handled them well.

Teenage girls are a perfect subject for horror; it is an age with intrusive thoughts, inexplicable feelings, and physical changes that lend themselves to body horror. This book definitely doesn't shy away from any of that.

>103 ursula: I keep trying this but never get very far, perhaps I'll just give it up. Doesn't sound like it would be worth pushing through. So many other stories to get back to.

>104 ursula: Need to get to this one sooner rather than later so many good rviews.

>104 ursula: I have that on the virtual pile, and am looking forward to it. Again, my one disappointment with having an ebook is that I won't get to look at that crazy cover whenever I pick it up.

>105 stretch: Yeah, I'd probably say you could safely give up. The beginning was harder to get through than the rest, but I never had the "oh I can't wait to get back to that" feeling.

I hadn't heard anything about it at all, picked it up at random from the library (on the Libby app). I'd love to hear your thoughts when you get there!

>106 lisapeet: I ... felt like I didn't need to see the cover more often, haha. It's a cool cover, and it's representative of the book, but I guess the farther I got into the book the more unsettling the cover felt.

In personal news, we will be leaving Istanbul in the next few months. My husband has accepted a position in Germany.

Are you excited about the move? Good luck with the logistics et al.

>108 ursula: Oh, wow! Where in Germany?

>109 LolaWalser: I'm sad to be leaving Istanbul. If the economic situation (and the work situation at his university) had been better, we would have liked to stay. But it wasn't in the cards. Germany is not a place I would have chosen, but like everywhere we've moved, I'm going into it with an open mind.

>110 Nickelini: We'll be living in Kaiserslautern.

>108 ursula: How long were you in Istanbul? Have you been to/lived in Germany before?

>112 labfs39: We've been in Istanbul since August 2020, so by the time we leave it'll be just about 2 and a half years here.

I've visited Germany twice, the most recent time in 2013. Never been anywhere near where we're going.

What a big move... but it sounds interesting, too. I hope it all goes smoothly.

A move! How exciting. I hope it all goes well.

>104 ursula: Great comments but I am not sure about this one.

I'm sorry you have to leave Istanbul if you're sad about it. I hope everything goes well with your move and your new life. Personally I'd love to go live in Germany for a while, so I will continue to live vicariously through you ;-)

>108 ursula: Have fun with the move. At least Germany has a big enough Turkish population to make it possible to find most of the food you are used to in Istanbul.

Maybe Germany will grow on you? :)

Good luck with your next move. You've country hopped a fair bit over the years - does it remain exciting, or are you itching to put down roots?

(I hope that doesn't sound rude - I've only ever lived in 1 other country and that was still withing the UK, so I'm interested in your experience).

>114 lisapeet: It's not the biggest move we've undertaken. :) Luckily because there's a lot of Turkish immigration to Germany, there are plenty of moving companies to choose from that specialize in exactly that route.

>115 BLBera: Thanks! The next couple of months are going to involve a lot of figuring out logistics, but it's exciting.

If you're not sure about the book, I'd definitely say to skip it.

>116 Nickelini: Istanbul has its share of annoyances, but I have really enjoyed it here. I will definitely share about our life in Germany once we get there!

>117 AnnieMod: It's true that the food will be there. Too bad I can't take the atmosphere with me. ;) It is entirely possible Germany will grow on me - there hasn't been anywhere we've lived that I ended up disliking (except for 2 places in California).

>118 AlisonY: It's not rude at all! I've never been a person who felt any roots to start with. I don't have a sense of "hometown" or anything like that. We moved a fair bit when I was a kid, although even with that I spent something like half my school years in the same general school system. But I don't feel any attachment to that place. The longest I've lived anywhere (again, a general area not a specific house or city) was 15 years in the Silicon Valley ... which I also don't have any real attachment to. I'm a Californian by birth and by length of tenure (I think - I might be edging up on tipping the balance away from that, I'd have to do some math), but the state is so big and varied that quite a lot of it doesn't even feel vaguely familiar to me.

When we moved from Michigan to Fresno, people asked if it felt good to be back "home" - but I'd never even been to that part of the state and it was quite different from places I'd lived. Oh, and I hated it.

So, to finally get around to your question about country-hopping, it can be uncomfortable because you really don't know how anything works. And having figured things out in another country generally doesn't help you much in the next one. And it's simple things - what things are carried in pharmacies, how your bills get paid, what trash collection is like, etc. It's exciting in that there are always things to learn, but some of that is stuff like "how tolerant people are of your bad <insert local language here>" or "how people really feel about Americans". And of course there are fun aspects - you really get to know a place and see all kinds of things you miss out on as a tourist.

In the end though, we go where the job is, so we haven't really chosen any of these places in a traditional sense. Either the current job was time-limited (Belgium, Italy, Michigan), or it was unbearable to stay for one reason or another (Antioch, Fresno, Istanbul). The German job is hiring in the "off-season" for academia - turning it down would mean that we'd be here until the end of next summer in a best-case scenario, and applying for jobs endlessly over this winter (stress!). The economic situation has only deteriorated, and it's unclear what the election will do for it, but either way it's a long, long time with prices rising every day.

Whew, that turned into a long answer. Hope you don't regret asking!

>120 ursula: That's so interesting. I definitely don't regret asking! I imagine it takes a lot of mental energy moving around - not just getting to grips with how things work but establishing new connections /friendships. Germany is such an efficient place I expect it will be much quicker to get up the curve on household admin things compared with some other countries.

>120 ursula: I think you'll be near the Ramstein Base, right, Ursula? My mom's good friend from school lived on the base with her husband in the 70s, and we visited her, so I've been in the area albeit 50 years ago.

>122 AlisonY: It's funny, one of the things Morgan's mom has said is that she understands that we are perfect to do this together - Morgan and I are a very self-contained unit. We make connections, but we don't really need anything outside of us.

>123 BLBera: Yes, it's very close to Ramstein. Cool that you've been there! My aunt and her husband were stationed in Germany for a while in the 70s? 60s? I wonder if it was there (I guess it probably was).

What exciting news! I am German, but I have never been to Kaiserslautern and don't know much about it. The state of Rhineland-Palatine has a lot of beautiful places (cities and scenery), though, and there is a lot to explore in day trip vicinity for when you have the time and energy to do so. And yes, the Turkish community in Germany is huge and you should not have any problems visiting Turkish restaurants, shops and supermarkets to find products that you have become used to.
If you have any questions, especially about every day life, that I might be able to help with, feel free to send me a message!
I live in the north of Germany and some things are different from state to state (for example trash collection), but others are the same everywhere.

>125 MissBrangwen: Thank you! We were just doing some looking at the rental market (it's too early to really be looking, but we just wanted to see what the situation looked like) and ran across Warmmiete and Kaltmiete and had to do some googling since the English didn't help us much - did we want a warm rental or a cold one? Haha.

I am hopeful the Turkish ties will mean I can also keep up my Turkish language to some degree, although it's going to have to take a backseat in general to trying to learn German. I am hoping to get into classes immediately - in Turkey the pandemic derailed our ability to do that (and the classes themselves are astronomically expensive for some reason, so luckily we were able to take them for free through Morgan's university), while in Italy the government ran classes but they had long waiting lists and the whole system was hopelessly managed.

I really do appreciate knowing you are there as a possible resource in my future confusion!

In case anyone has seen it - yes, there was an explosion this afternoon on İstiklal Street, which is about 7 minutes' walk from my house. I was at home when it happened, so I'm fine, and Morgan is currently in Belgium. I believe 6 people were killed and 81 people injured. I don't know more about it than that...

Especially because access to all social media sites was shut down about an hour after that happened - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube all became inaccessible and it seems that now, 3 hours later, they are still intermittent at best.

I'm glad you are okay. Scary. From what I've seen so far no one has claimed responsibility, but Erdogan is saying it smells of terrorism.

Terrible.

How frightening - that's very close. Glad you are OK.

Oh, that's scary. Glad you're OK, but what a terrible thing for anyone there, or who had loved ones hurt.

Ugh, Erdoğan. I can't say what I think about his (and his cronies') comments.

It's close by, yes - we live very near İstiklal and Taksim. I could hear the sirens of ambulances and fire trucks going there, watch the police helicopters circlng. I'm sitting at my desk and looking at the minarets of the Taksim Mosque over the buildings. We walk İstiklal a fair amount to get places, although we try to minimize time there because it is very commercial, crowded, and annoying.

It is, like all similar events, tragic and alarming. Security will be heightened at all tourist attractions, I'm sure. There's always quite a police presence on İstiklal anyway (a number of enclosures with groups of police watching everything, and police patrolling the street in pairs, all in tactical gear and carrying rifles at the ready), but it is a long and busy street. Just talking about that though reminds me of when Morgan's mom was here and we were going through the entrance to Topkapı Palace. Morgan and I put our bags on the metal detector and entered, then turned around to wait for his mom. She said in a low voice "oh my goodness, that officer with the gun there, is there something going on?" Morgan and I hadn't even noticed the police officer on any conscious level - there's one at every entrance to attractions, banks, malls, etc. We just said "What? Oh, that. That's fine."

I'm glad you are OK, Ursula. Regarding police/military presence, when I first lived in the Dominican Republic, I also was very aware of lots of patrolling military and guns.

I was thinking of you this morning when I opened Orhan Pamuk's new book Nights of Plague. :)

>133 BLBera: I was mostly only aware of the ones patrolling İstiklal because it bothers me that they don't carry their guns barrel down.

Ah yeah, I've seen that one in the bookstores here. I mean Veba Geceleri, I don't know if I've seen it in English. :)

Are you still taking Turkish lessons? How are they going?

>135 BLBera: No, I was in the final (C1) Turkish class in July, came down with covid 2 weeks in, and quit. I hope to keep my Turkish up but now it's time to focus on German.

Sehr gut!

Ugh. German.

Sorry, I admit to not being terribly excited about the prospect of attempting to speak German.

One thing about Germany is that in my experience, when I've tried to speak German, people almost always answer me in English. Or they correct my German. :)

>139 BLBera: After you see the same people in the same places for a while (3-4 months), they do start to wonder why you haven't learned much of the language. (That was my experience in Belgium, where people also would switch to English often when you attempted Dutch.)

In any event though, there are always situations where you run into people who don't speak, or don't want to speak English. In Gent, the butcher spoke only Dutch, and his wife spoke French, passable Mandarin and Russian, but very little English! And I remember wandering a cemetery and running into a gentleman who asked if I spoke French when I said my Dutch wasn't very good ... when I said no, he responded "German?" but he ended up having to make do by speaking slow Dutch.

It'll be fine. :)

Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgård

I didn't realize this was nonfiction, small essays really, often written about the most banal things in life. He's inspired to write about what the world is like before his daughter's birth. He describes things like what it was like when the only way to communicate over distances was via the landline in his childhood home, he talks about various ordinary objects like tin cans, and experiences like your child having lice. Some are interesting, some are boring, some are pretentious (unsurprisingly). It was fast to get through, but if the others in the seasonal quartet are like this I probably won't continue.

Quote: "So much of life and living has to do with sound, from the patter of children's feet running across the floor, their crying and their shrieks of joy, to their regular breathing at night. But the literature about life and living is more closely related to nothing and lifelessness, night and silence, than we imagine it to be. Letters are nothing but dead signs, and books are their coffins. Not a sound has issues from this text while you have been reading it."

Can't stand him. No sound issued from the words I read, only a mental image of an extremely punchable mug.

Eh, German will seem so easy after Turkish.

>142 LolaWalser: Haha yeah I'm not surprised. I liked the 3 My Struggle volumes I read, but I definitely get the other side.

I believe that the grammar, etc will be easy in German now. The pronunciation is a challenge. Turkish taught me the ö and ü, but that German 'r' is tough to do consistently/naturally.

Scattered All over the Earth by Yoko Tawada

First line: I spent that afternoon lying on the sofa, hugging a cushion, watching TV with the volume turned down.

This is a novel about language, and communication. It takes place in a few different locations in Europe, starting off in Copenhagen where a linguist, Knut, decides he must meet a woman who speaks her own invented Scandinavian language, Panska. Her name is Hiruko, and she is from a country that no longer exists - the land of sushi. Eventually there is a group of people who end up traveling together in search of another person from the land of sushi who speaks Hiruko's native language.

If you are expecting a plot that resolves itself, or a plot that goes along a clear path, or perhaps even a plot at all, this probably is one to skip. Things happen, people go places, characters are introduced, but really it's all about the ways we communicate with each other, or don't. I previously read this author's book The Emissary and that was also an odd one. I think I liked this one better, although I didn't dislike The Emissary.

Quote:

The menu was new: it still had a list of different kinds of fish, but now each had from one to five stars beside it. I called a waiter over to ask him about it.
"What do these stars mean?"
"They indicate degrees of pain."
"Degrees of pain?"
"How much pain each species felt while it was dying after being caught. Fish caught in a big net die slowly, writhing and struggling. Those caught one at a time are immediately euthanized by more compassionate fishermen with a bang on the head. Our customers are free to choose."

>144 ursula: I'm intrigued! I'll see if I can get it from the library...

>144 ursula: Interesting! I have chosen a short story (or maybe rather an essay) by this author, "Eine leere Flasche", for one of the German Literature courses I teach this year. We will discuss it next week. I also think it is an odd one, but I want to steer away from reading the same short stories year after year, and try to find new texts for my lessons that might be of more interest to my students and touch more topics that are important to them. "Eine leere Flasche" is told from a genderfluid or nonbinary perspective.

>145 Dilara86: I'd be curious to see what other people think! I know it ended up on NPR's year-end list.

>146 MissBrangwen: I remember from the last book I read that she is multinational and writes in both Japanese and German. The title of that story means "An Empty Bottle"? It's good that you make the effort to bring in many different perspectives, and nonbinary/genderfluid is an important one!

>147 ursula: Yes, the empty bottle is a metaphor because it is not filled with anything, like an empty canvas. The starting point for this metaphor in the story is Ich bin (=I am) because apparently bin means bottle in Japanese.
I am increasingly fed up with much of the syllabus as I have to teach it, and try to use other texts and topics as much as I can!
And I would like to read more of Tadawa in the future. Thank you for bringing her to my attention a bit more through your review.

>144 ursula: This one does sound interesting, Ursula. I don't need a plot.

Dare to Disappoint by Özge Samancı

This short graphic novel describes the author's experiences growing up in Turkey in the '80s and '90s. The art style is charmingly simple and the book is overall somewhat text-heavy. I didn't learn a whole lot from it, but I can imagine it would be informative to a lot of people.



This page reminded me of a conversation I recently had with someone, where they were saying "but Turkey is 99.6% Muslim!" and I said "yes, on paper." One thing I learned quickly from my classmates in Turkish classes who were from Muslim countries - they did not find Turkey to be comparably Muslim to their home countries. There was much discussion about things they thought were haram which are not considered such here.

A lot of things have changed in the country since the time this book describes ... and a lot of things haven't. Like anywhere else, I suppose.

>148 MissBrangwen: Makes sense as a metaphor, definitely. I can imagine that the syllabus gets tiring pretty quickly and doesn't move quickly enough to keep up with the times.

>149 BLBera: I don't need a plot.

I love that. :)

>150 ursula:

That little man on the cover looks like the Little Prince. Does Samanci mention Exupéry anywhere? I imagine that the episode with the Turkish astronomer would resonate strongly with a Turkish reader (to recap, the Little Prince's asteroid was discovered by a Turkish astronomer who presented his findings dressed traditionally and got laughed at until he showed up dressed in European fashion).

The haram/halal debates are the most depressing crap on this earth. One thing Christianity generally does better than Islam is leaving the "sinners" to god.

>144 ursula: I don't necessarily need a plot. Or rather, I tend to ignore the plot because I can't follow it, as I have difficulties remembering who's who and what happened before. I guess you could say I am plot-challenged, but this has never stopped me enjoying a book. This one could be for me, if I ever get out of my current cheap romance phase.

>144 ursula: I think your review has solidified it for me. I think I will skip this one, I didn't enjoy the Emissary very much, her writing was fine but I was frustrated by the lack of direction. I thought it would have been better with a more solid plot, Scattered all over the Earth I've read is better by a lot of reviewers I trust, but I don't think I can go through a plotless story that sounds like it might leave me in the same place as the Emissary.

>152 LolaWalser: No, she doesn't mention Exupéry. The person on the cover is her as a child. :)

As for Christianity leaving sinners to god, if only. But it's true that they don't debate about whether dogs are forbidden.

>153 FlorenceArt: I am a little like that as well - I have a hard time reciting a plot when I finish a book. I just kind of coast through it, following where it takes me, but it doesn't seem to make that much of an impression on my memory banks.

>154 stretch: Probably a good choice. For example, it's mentioned frequently that the land of sushi no longer exists, but why or for how long or what that means exactly? Unclear.

Little Eve by Catriona Ward

First line: My heart is a dark passage, lined with ranks of gleaming jars.

Let's see, we've got an island off the coast of Scotland accessible at low tide by a causeway. On that island is a rundown castle, occupied by a man who is called Uncle by his companions - Nora, Alice, Dinah, Abel and Evelyn. He spins tales of the end times, during which a snake will come from the sea and devour everyone. There are rituals and strict rules and punishments. Along with the requisite storms, this novel is about as gothic horror as it gets.

The chapters are narrated mostly by Eve(lyn) and Dinah, separated by years, so right off the bat you know how things go awry, or at least the end result of it. The story is unraveled between the two of them, with a few chapters narrated by another character.

Sometimes when Morgan and I listen to music, we'll say something like "I mean, they're not exactly inventing anything here but it's a good execution of the standard." This novel was like that for me. As I said, it had all the expected ingredients, and it put them together in pretty much the expected way, but I enjoyed it. Most of it - I didn't really like the wrapping things up part at the end, but it is also a pretty standard ingredient so I can't complain too much.

Quote: How I burned for freedom once. Now I hold it in my hands, useless - like wanting a kitten and being given its corpse.

A hardcore Goth would play with the dead kitten.

>157 LolaWalser: So true! "Just what I always wanted!"

This Is What It Sounds Like by Susan Rogers

The subtitle of this book is kind of overblown, like a lot of non-fiction books: What the Music You Love Says about You. That's not really what this book is about. It's about figuring out your own "listener profile" by helping you figure out where you stand in a variety of different categories. It's not a personality test in a book, it's just a way to quantify why some music pushes certain buttons for you. The author is a former audio engineer and producer who got a degree in neuroscience and now teaches at Berklee.

The categories she covers are as follows ...

Styles:
Below-the-Neck / Above-the-Neck
Realistic / Abstract
Familiar / Novel

Musical characteristics: (each of these has several ways to measure it but the things in parentheses are one aspect)
Melody (Narrow / Wide)
Lyrics (Personal / General)
Rhythm (Straight / Syncopated)
Timbre (Acoustic / Electronic)

It was really interesting to discuss the various subjects with Morgan and see how his feelings differed from mine, or didn't. We have discovered that our tastes overlap a fair amount, but there are definitely things that hit the sweet spot for one of us and completely turns the other one off. And those things are not always what either of us might expect. The author gives some songs to listen to in each section to help you understand where you might fall on a continuum - for example, in the first section her suggested songs are by The Shaggs and then by Bach. In another section, the songs were by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Daft Punk.

Also it was fun to think that it's just encoded in my brain somewhere that the most appealing singing voice for me is a high-pitched man's voice.

Quote: Though your appetite for novelty can vary dramatically across contexts and life stages, your personal playlist can reflect a deep-seated preference for well-traveled musical boulevards or for unmarked back alleys twisting along the edge of town. Some of us feel magnetically drawn to artists whose odd, intriguing names we heard only in passing, while others think of our music libraries as old companions we enjoy visiting and revisiting throughout our lives.

>156 ursula: Ward has a thing for cats that aren't real.

She's a good atmospheric writer, but I really haven't geled with her stories yet. Maybe I'll try her gothic horror.

>159 ursula: You've hit me with a book bullet - for after the holidays I think.

>159 ursula: Intriguing. I'm tempted to add it to my teetering pile. If I had it to hand this minute I would dive in.

>160 stretch: There was no cat in this one! I haven't read anything else by her before.

>161 markon: That seems like a nice time to settle down with this one, honestly.

>162 labfs39: Cool! In the last few years I've been listening to a lot more music, and a wider range of music. This gave me a lot to think about when figuring out why something works for me, or doesn't.

>163 ursula: gave me a lot to think about when figuring out why something works for me, or doesn't

I was also thinking it might lead me to other types of music that I haven't heard yet but that I would like given my proclivities.

>164 labfs39: Maybe! She does talk about how different types of music fall in at least some of the categories.

My husband and I started a project some years ago, gathering the "best albums" lists from as many sites as we could find and listening through them together. It's expanded both our horizons and also meant that we're at least glancingly familiar with a lot of what's out there. We also sometimes share "homework" songs - we send each other a song that has caught our ear for whatever reason. That's pretty fun too.

I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti

The poet Mourid Barghouti was born in a village near Ramallah, a few years before the Nakba of 1948, after which his family went to Jordan and scattered from there. This is his story of returning to Ramallah for the first time in many years. But really it's about the experience of displacement and what that does to a person, a family, a people.

He was a poet (I didn't realize it, but he died in 2021), and so the writing is often beautiful. I saved a lot of quotes from this one.

Quote: The Occupation forced us to remain with the old. That is its crime. It did not deprive us of the clay ovens of yesterday, but of the mystery of what we would invent tomorrow.... I used to long for the past in Deir Ghassanah as a child longs for precious, lost things. But when I saw that the past was still there, squatting in the sunshine in the village square, like a dog forgotten by its owners - or like a toy dog - I wanted to take hold of it, to kick it forward, to its coming days, to a better future, to tell it: "Run."

>166 ursula: Onto the wishlist with that one.

King Jesus by Robert Graves

I finished this yesterday. I had picked it up on the $5/bag day of the Friends of the Library sale in Fresno one year, and finally got around to reading it now. It was fine.

I mean, I guess that someone at some point around when this was written was probably outraged by the way Graves made Jesus's miracles into sort of comedy bits, like Jesus had people pretend they'd eaten some of the loaves and fishes until everyone said they were full, and so it got around that he'd literally fed everyone, etc. And of course the human parentage and all of that. But anyway, the main thing I was worried about as a godless heathen was that I wouldn't be able to follow the story well enough to really get it, but I didn't have to worry.

Also I guess there's maybe a lot of historical inaccuracy? I have no clue, this is not my area either. So I'll just say it was a fine, not difficult read as a story and leave it at that.

>167 labfs39: I hope you find it as affecting as I did.

Saint Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber

First line: After reading the email from Schmidt I knew I would have to fly to see Schmidt on his deathbed in Berlin.

This is a story about two art critics and their relationship with each other, but mostly their relationship with their favorite painting in the world, Saint Sebastian's Abyss. Their intense adoration of the painting Saint Sebastian's Abyss has been their single-minded purpose in life. Each of them has written multiple books about Saint Sebastian's Abyss, and it has created a bond as well as a rivalry between them.

Yes, the book is written a bit like that. It takes a minute to get used to, but it fits quite well - these two are the most pedantic academics you can imagine (or you don't have to imagine, if you've spent any time around academics).

My daughter read this from a lithub list, so I decided to read it as well. It was a super-quick read, sometimes laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

Quote: Whenever Schmidt and I argued, invariably about art and more specifically about Saint Sebastian's Abyss, he would resort to calling the United States a second-rate nation and explain that, having been born and raised in the United States, unequivocally a second-rate nation, a lethargic infant of a society, a babbling baby of a drive-through culture, my opinions could only be infantile too, indulgent and crass and, like the United States, requiring centuries, perhaps epochs, to mature.

>170 ursula: I love that last quote. I actually snorted.

>171 labfs39: There are plenty more where that came from. ;) I'm actually giggling to myself thinking about some of the other things in there.

>170 ursula: this sounds fun. Thanks for the introduction

>173 Nickelini: It was fun, and super quick to read.

>170 ursula: Noted! When I was four or five, being dragged around the great museums by my parents, I got obsessed with St. Sebastian. Lord knows why... that weird little kid fascination with violence and myth, I guess, or maybe I was just a weird child. But every cultural institution we visited, my parents had to find out if there were paintings of St. Sebastian and let me get an eyeful.

>175 lisapeet: Aw, you were an awesome child!

>175 lisapeet: I have been super into depictions of St. Sebastian for a number of years now so 1. I love your weird child self and 2. Maybe I’m just a weird adult.

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

First line: First things first, Grandpa's gone.

Last book of the year. Not a good one! It seems like it would be cute and maybe entertaining - the main character, Rintaro, is a high school student. He is also a hikikomori, a voluntary shut-in. He spends most of his time at his grandfather's bookstore. But as the first line tells us, his grandfather has just died. A mysterious cat appears and says he requires Rintaro's help with something and ... honestly I'm bored writing this. It's a cloying, simplistic tale that some people have the patience for (I'm not judging, I'm just saying), but I don't really.

Quote: It's not true that the more you read, the more you see of the world. No matter how much knowledge you cram into your head unless you think with your own mind, walk with your own feet, the knowledge you acquare will never be anything more than empty and borrowed.

>178 ursula: Oh well. On to the next books of 2023!

>179 lisapeet: ❤️

>178 ursula: I tried this one, but it was too sickly sweet for me at the time, by the sounds of it doesn't get better. I'll put this in the skip pile.

Good choice. I had the feeling it was too cloying for me but I soldiered on. Better to have quit when I had the first inkling!