Tag: reading

My (Very) Impressionistic Take on 2024’s Booker

Although it was touch and go to finish those last two novels (*Wandering Stars* & *Headsho*t, respectively twelfth and thirteenth on my list), for the first time in many years I actually read all the Booker nominees. My thoughts on the novels? Well . . . .

My heavens, dear Readers, can it really have been eighteen months or so since I last posted anything? I can’t imagine that anyone’s still checking the blog, after so prolonged an absence, but if I’m wrong many thanks for your patience/optimism! Despite intending otherwise, my teeny little break from blogging somehow morphed into a very prolonged absence. There were many reasons, positive and not, for this shift in plans. On the plus side, I had an interesting trip or two; on the minus, I suffered through a prolonged & rather aggravating home construction project, followed by the angst & dislocation of three (!!!) hurricanes in little over a year (admittedly, one of these was mostly a bad rain storm by the time it reached my little town; two, unfortunately, were much more). And then, of course, there’s the anxiety and anger that comes from reading the current political news and surviving an election that was something of a nightmare, even by U.S. standards.

And books do help us survive, don’t they? Along with the arts in general, combined, perhaps, with a judicious limitation on internet usage. I recently stumbled upon a very interesting NYRB essay on a phenomenon Russians term “vnutrennaya emigratsia,” defined as “internal immigration” or “internal exile.” (You can read a far more sophisticated explanation at https://www.nybooks.com/online/2019/02/11/a-refuge-from-reality-a-la-russe/ as I believe the paywall allows a free click or two.) This self-exile involves the creation of an internal space facilitating observation and thought; the concept has morphed from describing what was literally a geographic exile into the idea that one mentally relocates by forging an internal space apart from the prevailing cultural norms. The internal exile’s mental relocation facilitates survival and sanity by focusing on the arts & avoiding anything connected to politics or public life. Although cultural self-exile may become nihilistic or counter-productive (too much disengagement may permit real evil to thrive–think Hitler), what other choice is available in times such as these, dominated as they are by political and cultural ideas that one regards as sheer anathema? Rather than tuning in to the latest “bro” podcast or having hateful political screeds raise my blood pressure to dangerous heights, I’ll self-exile to my shelves of fiction, or to the haven of the nearest art museum (well, maybe not the nearest! I find its paintings to be a little dull and I’m willing to travel to see some more interesting stuff). As I’m sure you can surmise, the 2024 Booker long list has also provided a welcome distraction from the current political cycle.

This was particularly true as I found this year’s long list much more interesting than I have for some time. Aside from being a welcome distraction, it solved my paralysis about how to fill my reading schedule and was a handy way to re-acquaint myself with contemporary fiction, which I’ve been somewhat neglecting this year. To be candid (and I’m nothing, if not candid, dear Readers, it’s a professional survival from my legal career) it helped that the list included Harvey’s Orbital, which I’d just finished reading and that several of the nominees looked reasonably short. I quickly discovered, however, that several were actually what my British friends call chunksters (my own term is “doorstops”), at which point I gave myself permission to take breaks at will or to abandon the project altogether if I felt like it. Despite some temptation to stop, I did finally stumble through all thirteen novels, having finished Headshot and Wandering Stars about a week ago. As my title indicates, the remainder of this post is a mosaic of the impressions I gained from my reading. Please do remember that these are impressions rather than reviews; by their nature they’re a bit shallow, quickly formed and highly subjective. Your own judgments may well differ from mine; in fact, I hope they do so and that you’ll share your reaction! I’ve followed my bookish talk with a brief account (accompanied by a few photos) of some of my activities since my last post. Not to worry, however, as I separated it with bold-face type, making it easy for you to skip if you so desire!

My Overall Impression of the List:

I thought on the whole it was a pretty good, if not overwhelming, assortment of novels. (I won’t speak to the mix of gender, ethnicity and nationality, or the number of debut vs. well-established authors, as there’s already been plenty of comment on these subjects.) Necessarily I liked some of the nominees much more than others, but I didn’t regret the time I spent reading any of them. Only one novel, Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, blew me away but, on the other hand, none aroused my active dislike. (This hasn’t always been true in the past. I detested Richard Flanagan’s Narrow Road to the Deep North as well as George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, winners, respectively, in 2014 & 2017.) Although I don’t go so far as to claim this year’s nominees demonstrated any particular linkages or themes, it did seem to me at least that several of them revolved around characters who were cultural outliers, either by birth (Everette’s enslaved James & Orange’s disinherited indigenous Americans in Wandering Stars); by circumstance (the Libyan exiles of Matar’s My Friends or the prickly doyenne of van der Wouden’s Safekeep) or choice (check out the female rogue intelligence agent in Kushner’s Creation Lake). Sarah Perry’s two protagonists lead fairly mainstream lives but are spiritually estranged from the religious community which has shaped their values (one is a single and very independent woman while the other is a closeted homosexual). Given the number of women authors who made the short list, it’s hardly surprising that so many of the novels contain strong female characters who make unusual or unconventional life choices, such as Bullwinkel’s girl boxers (Headshot); Harvey’s female astronauts (Orbital) or Wood’s contemplative solitaire (Stone Yard Devotion). Respecting stylistic approaches, the list seemed mildly tilted towards experimental or at least non-traditional narration, most notably in Orbital and Anne Michael’s Held.

My Personal Short List (doesn’t coincide with the judges):

I know, I know — I only list five novels (and four of them already rejected!), while the real list has six, all of which are of course still in the running. Fantasy lists, however, are meant to be self indulgent! Besides, this way you get to supply your own nominee! I almost limited my personal short list to four, as *Playground* survived my scrutiny only by a whisker. I’m not a big Powers’ fan, as I usually find his work a little too cerebral, an opinion that still stood after reading his latest. *Playground* was also burdened IMO by being a bit too baggy in its plot and a little too prone to preachy information dumps about ecology and artificial intelligence. But Powers’ ideas *are* fascinating and his descriptions of undersea life sheer magic. Since Matar, like Powers, isn’t one of my favorite novelists, I was surprised to discover how much I liked and respected *My Friends.* It opened my eyes both to a history that’s been largely ignored and to the practical difficulties of living as a political exile, which has also been largely ignored (my observations in these regards, dear Readers, pertain only to what we in the southern U.S. refer to as “our neck of the woods”). I usually have somewhat mixed feelings regarding Messud’s novels (I’ve read about half of them), but found her saga of lives disrupted by historical forces her best work yet. I almost skipped Rita Bullwinkel’s *Headshot,* the story of eight teenage girl boxers who are each determined to prove she’s the best, but am so glad I didn’t. It’s funny, it’s compassionate and it’s very, very realistic in depicting a gritty, physical and ruthless competition that isn’t usually associated with teenage girls. Bullwinkel’s innovative technique (a narration structured on the tournament’s rounds, with the girls’ past & future told in brief chronological shifts) serves her unusual subject well. As for her next novel — sign me up already!

My Personal Winner:

This was an absolutely fabulous novel, one of the best I’ve read in a very long time. It’s about forgiveness, both of one’s self and of others; about facing the dreadful consequences of how humankind has treated the earth; and about living a life that’s both unknown and unknowable to others. “Midway in life’s journey” Wood’s unnamed protagonist found herself “in a dark wood;” the story of how she searched for the path out of it will stay with me for a very long time. Who cares if the plot is unconventional (unlike many, I actually think quite a bit happens, but it occurs mostly on an interior plane)? Or that much of the novel’s middle section is dominated by the physical necessity of dealing with a huge mouse infestation? Disgusting though it is, the mouse plague reinforces Wood’s theme of how human depredations have destroyed the earth’s natural balance (the protagonist is an environmental activist who has given up her work in despair, while the mice are trying to escape bad weather & dwindling food supplies). It occurred to me that the mouse plague also serves a symbolic function of providing the protagonist, a modern day hermit, with a desert trial comparable to those faced by the the early eremites. This is a short novel, but its reverberations are huge.

The Novel I’d Least Like to Win (from the real short list):

A tie, for opposite reasons, between Yael van der Wouden’s *The Safekeep* & Anne Michael’s *Held*. Although I found *Safekeep’s* historical background compelling, and its depiction of the prickly and unconventional Isabelle skillfully done (at least in the earlier portions), I thought the novel as a whole became something of a potboiler, with an easy and unconvincing resolution of the central dilemma. If *Safekeep* struck me as an airport type read, Michaels’ *Held* was at the opposite end of the spectrum. Admittedly, my preference for traditional narrative structures may have unfairly prejudiced me against *Held’s* highly fragmented style, which at times I found quite distracting. The author obviously has loads of talent, the writing is poetic and beautiful and some of the individual sections are very moving. But those constant time shifts, combined with extremely tenuous (and sometimes extremely artificial) connections among the characters became too frustrating for me by the end. Perhaps I’d have coped better if Michaels had simply labeled her work a short story collection.

The Novels I’d Be o.k. with Winning (assuming, of course, that Stone Yard doesn’t):

*James* was my first novel by Percy Everett (about time, wouldn’t you say?). It’s extremely well written and quite tender in spots; it also says things that desperately need to be said. Despite all this good stuff, I didn’t quite warm to *James*. I’ve always detested the Huckleberry Finn strain in American writing, even when it’s been as cleverly subverted as it’s been done here. *Orbital* was very beautifully written, an icon of words designed to invite contemplation but . . . although I’m not unduly demanding in this regard, I just needed something in the way of a plot. As for *Creation Lake*, it was quirky and interesting, and I’m sure I’ll understand what Kushner was doing with it as soon as I finish reading The New Yorker’s very clever review. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/creation-lake-rachel-kushner-book-review

My Own Prediction About the Winner:

Who knows? Certainly not the Booker Frog.

Non-Sequiturs & Stray Observations:

Two of these novels (*History* & *Friends*) made my own, if not the judges’, short list!

To begin with a total non-sequitur, I found it interesting that both Messud’s Strange History & Matar’s My Friends dealt with the post-colonial effects of European expansion, but from entirely different perspectives. Messud’s Cassar family (strongly modeled on her own grandparents) are French-Algerian settlers who lose their home and cultural identity after that country’s bloody war of independence. Scorned and rejected as Pied-Noirs by their French countrymen, they are forced to forge new lives in cultures whose language & customs are alien to them. Matar’s protagonist Khaled, by contrast, is a Muslim native of a Libya that has ejected its colonial overlords; after doing so, however, it forces its dissidents into an exile that requires them to build lives that are largely the opposite of those they would otherwise have experienced. Different perspectives in the two novels — European colonizers and native colonized — but the lives of both equally twisted and bent by the force of European expansion from the shapes they would otherwise have possessed.

In closing I’d like to offer a few observations on three other novels that didn’t make the short list. From the positive side of the street, I’d like to put in a brief word of praise for Colin Barrett. I wasn’t surprised that his Wild Houses didn’t make the short list, but its believable characters, great dialogue and unsuspected depths put Barrett on my “novelists to watch out for” list. On a negative note, I was a little disappointed by both Orange’s Wandering Stars as well as Perry’s Enlightenment. I love Tommy Orange’s work (I went to a great deal of trouble to get an autographed copy of his debut novel, There, There) but somehow I didn’t connect nearly as well with Stars. I think it covered so much historical ground, along with so very many of the problems created by the historical injustices inflicted on its characters, that I began seeing them less as individuals and more as avatars of various societal ills to be checked off the author’s historical list. That being said, Stars remains a very good novel, with a spot on and touching portrayal of how a family deals with generational trauma, whether it be caused by alcohol, drugs or an unexpected stray bullet. As for Perry, she’s less of a favorite of mine than Orange, although I did enjoy Melmoth, her shivery gothic from a few years back. Enlightenment had some really good stuff, most notably its misfit main characters and its depiction of the outlier religious community that shaped their lives (I believe a few reviewers have hinted that Perry was drawing on her own background for this aspect of her novel). Despite these strengths, however, a number of reasons prevented me from really connecting with the novel. I found the unrequited love to be just a bit too unrequited; the friendship between the main characters a little too unlikely and the reappearing ghost far too prone to provide helpful hints at key points in the plot.

PART II: WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST YEAR (See — It’s Easy to Skip This Part)

. . . a little bit (never enough) of interesting travel. I finally made it to Berlin & Dresden, where I spent a lot of time in their fabulous art museums.

. . . a little bit of wildlife viewing, including this bald eagle with its chick (thanks to Mr. J., his camera & a spring birding trip to western Ohio)

. . . a little bit of home remodeling (this is a photo of my once and future bedroom, temporarily converted into a construction site). Fortunately, I could camp out elsewhere in the house.

. . . surviving hurricanes (one last year and two this fall). This tree belongs to my next door neighbor. Although Mr. J & I, along with house and cats, escaped untouched, my area suffered a great deal of damage, particularly on the barrier islands.

. . . staying off Percy’s favorite rug. Despite a truly frightening set of fangs, I wasn’t deceived! Percy was simply yawning after a nice morning nap!

That’s it for 2024’s Booker list and various assorted matters! (and aren’t you glad?) I’m not going to embarrass myself again by predicting the timing of my next post, but I have been reading some very interesting things lately . . .

Midweek Miscellany: Reading Roundup

Job_Lot_Cheap_William_Michael_Harnett_1878.jpeg.jpeg — Does your book collection resemble this jumble as much as mine does? The painting (“Odd Lot Cheap,” 1878) is the work of the late 19th century American artist William Harnett (1848-1892). Although it’s been suggested that Harnett’s illusionistic paintings are devoid of inner meaning, don’t you find this one an implicit comment on the transience of all things, including our beloved books?

Although I’ve been blogging very little in this our year of the plague, I have (as I noted in my last post) been reading fairly steadily since 2020 rolled around. Because there wasn’t a dud book in the bunch (isn’t it gratifying, dear reader, when one is on a streak of reading good books?) I thought I’d share a quick recap of some of the excellent works of fiction that have come my way in this year. What I’m offering are quick impressionistic snapshots rather than in-depth reviews (Janakay is not by nature profound, and constant handwashing and unpacking make it so very difficult to concentrate right now). In making my list I noticed the emergence of a monthly sort-of pattern to my reading. One month was heavy on thrillers & science fiction while another tended towards “serious” novels; one month tilted to the classics and another to the contemporary, and every month included a comfort read, which generally coincided with a stressful key moment in my long-distance move! Have you, dear reader, in your great journey through the universe of literature, noted any similar tendencies or patterns in your own seasonal reading? Do you read classics when it’s cold and drippy outside or eagerly head towards light bubbly froth for those delightful days of lying on the beach? Or do you, like Janakay, indulge in counter-programing, saving all those serious literary chunksters for your lazy summer afternoons? Well, enough with the philosophical musings and on to my list!

As befitting a month associated with endings and beginnings, my January reading contained both old and new, as well as one of Janakay’s own very special little rituals. Are any of you, dear readers of mine, superstitious about books? (If so, don’t be embarrassed — do share your little kink. Janakay won’t tell!) I’m quite superstititious myself, especially about the first book I start in any new year (books I’m finishing don’t count). I regard my first new book in January as an omen for the upcoming year; if it’s a really good book, well, the gods have spoken, haven’t they? They have promised I’ll have a great year of reading ahead of me!

To increase my chances that my January ritual will have a favorable outcome I tend to go with a classic when a new year rolls around or, gasp, even reread something I’ve loved in the past (Janakay regards this as a prudent precaution rather than a cheat. Honestly, don’t we all load the dice, when we can?) This year, however, I decided to gamble a bit on Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House, a modern fairy tale of two siblings, a wicked stepmother and the enchanted house they all longed to possess. I really like Ann Patchett’s work (I think I’ve read almost all of her novels) and I’d had my eye on this one since I read the advance notices. I’m happy to report that my gamble paid off; the novel was every bit as good as it was reported to be.

From contemporary I went to classic, spending the latter half of January with Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them. I had tried many years ago to read Corner, but had given it up after less than fifty of its three hundred plus pages; to put it mildly I had been totally unimpressed. How that Warner woman could dribble on! Had she no editor? Why was this book so different from her delightful Lolly Willowes? Whatever was Warner up to in this yawn-inducing tome? Was Corner a history or was it a novel? Either way, it was BORING and Janakay loathes being bored. Back on the shelf it went, to gather many layers of dust. Given my strong negative reaction, I naturally selected Corner for the “Abandoned Classic” category in the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Books and Chocolate. And — please note, dear readers, Janakay conceals nothing from you, no matter how embarrassing — her initial reaction to Warner’s novel was quite mistaken! In fact, you might say that Janakay missed the boat on this one or, if you were being particularly unkind, conclude that she even fell off the pier! Oh, my good gracious me, how the years can alter one’s judgment! Even in my callow youth, however could I have abandoned this wonderful novel? The Corner that Held Them really is a masterpiece and absolutely one of the best things Janakay has read in years — she was absolutely glued to the pages and bereft when the story ended. Hopefully, I’ll be posting a review later on, before all the details have totally faded but . . . the weather is so very nice right now, Janakay’s new house has its very own hammock and there are a great many interesting new books to read (Janakay adores novelty) ….

I will absolutely, positively get around to writing my review . . . .

and, for particularly low energy days, an overwhelming temptation to browse in that most addictive of sources . . .

This is an old edition of a very popular work. Do you have a copy?

But, despite these considerable temptations, Janakay will heroically summon her energy and get busy writing a serious review! (at some point)

Before leaving January entirely, the month’s comfort read deserves a mention, being an early novel by Rumer Godden, The Lady and the Unicorn. Any Rumer Godden readers out there? Godden is one of Janakay’s favorites for those times when she’s in the mood for a well-written novel, an exotic setting and at least one psychologically interesting character. Godden’s technique is traditional (which is fine with Janakay) and she can be surprisingly perceptive on issues of class and race, an important trait when writing about the British Raj, which Godden so very frequently does. The Lady and the Unicorn centers on the three daughters of an Anglo-Indian family and their struggle to establish themselves in a world that regarded them as neither British nor Indian. Although the novel’s strong supernatural element distracted a bit from Godden’s sharp social observations, the ghost story was fun and was skillfully incorporated into the main story line. All in all, The Lady and the Unicorn was a great way to pass an afternoon and a welcome distraction from packing boxes.

Maxi says “Finish packing those boxes or you’ll never get moved!”

February was a discovery month, bringing several new and wonderful novels in translation, thanks largely to Dolce Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge 13. This was especially gratifying as Janakay is just the teeniest bit parochial in her reading, mostly sticking as she does to anglophone writers. Participating in Doce Bellezza’s challenge, however, demonstrated just how much Janakay has been missing in her rather narrow approach. What treasures are contained in even the sketchiest sample of Japanese writing! Looking for a terse and elegant story of doomed love, set in one of the most poetic and deeply atmospheric novels I’ve ever read? Try Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country. More into a contemporary tale of the ultimate non-conformist? You couldn’t do better than Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, a chronicle of the deeply weird life and times of a very contented employee in one of Tokyo’s many “Smile Marts.” (I’d been intending to read this one for over a year. I’m happy to report it was definitely worth the wait). I also spent a few pleasant hours in which I finally got around to reading Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen, which I had come to regard as a permanent resident on my TBR list; while a little sentimental for my taste it was definitely worth the time I spent reading it.

A wonderful cover, n’est pas? You can almost feel the cold. This is one of those rare cases in which the cover art so beautifully conveys the mood of the novel

Another wonderful case of cover matching content!

71My7NN+yCL._AC_UY218_.jpg — A fun read; rather western in style & approach but providing plenty of insight (IMO at least) into young Tokyo life

And then, of course, there was Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters, another book I had tried but abandoned several years ago. What a loss that would have been, never to have read it, especially since I had the added benefit of DB’s wonderful commentary. All of these great novels deserve far more than my brief nods, and Janakay was fully intending to share her thoughts and opinions with you, but, well, life intervened. Movers were a’ comin’ and she simply had to clean out her basement (a word of unsolicited advice, dear readers! Never, ever go twenty-eight years without cleaning out your basement!)

To a lesser extent, February was also short story month. Although I do respect the genre I ordinarily tend to avoid actually reading short stories, as I regard them as a bit of a tease — just when I’m getting interested, poof! They’re over! This year, however, I began seeking them out, as they seemed to lend themselves to my currently fractured attention span (so difficult to concentrate, don’t you find, with all this constant hand washing and disinfecting?). One of my rewards was re-discovering Daphne DuMaurier’s fantastic novella Don’t Look Now. Have any of you read it? If not, why are you wasting time on my blog? Click off instantly and read it now. Afterwards, settle in for a wonderfully creepy afternoon of watching Nicholas Roeg’s 1974 film version, with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland making their doomed way through a darkly beautiful and sinister Venice.

v1.bTsxMTIyNzEwNTtqOzE4NDg5OzEyMDA7MTQ1ODsxOTQ0.jpeg

If February was short stories & Japanese novels, March was packing boxes and saying good-byes; physically it was a long distance move and literature-wise a much quicker journey to some fun and distracting reads. I was particularly happy to (finally) sample the work of the very talented sci-fi writer N.K. Jemisin. Behind the curve as usual I had totally missed her acclaimed Broken Earth series, so I was particularly happy to read The City We Became, the first book in a new trilogy. Aside from being an unusual and gripping story, City’s view that cultural and ethnic diversity are necessary for our very survival made Janakay positively weep with gratitude, being such a refreshing respite from the jingoistic blather that seems so omnipresent these days. If you’d prefer an interior journey through a dark and twisted psyche to humanity’s struggle against an alien threat, I can happily recommend Flynn Berry’s A Double Life, loosely based on Britain’s Lord Lucan murder scandal. For a noir thriller with an interesting take on class, race and gender, check out Christopher Bollen’s A Beautiful Crime, an elegant tale of intrigue set mostly in Venice, (Janakay adores Venice, even though it’s been years and years since she visited). I also dipped a toe into some grimly funny Scandinavian fare, with Helene Tursten’s An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good (Janakay was looking for inspiration and did find it there, although — reluctantly — she draws the line at offing those annoying neighbors of hers). As a bonus, it has an absolutely wonderful cover:

In April, it was back to more serious, albeit still contemporary, fare. As you may surmise from my most recent post, I’m a big fan of Emily St. John Mandel. Do any of you share my enthusiasm? After it became sadly evident that our current pandemic was not, suddenly, just going to “disappear” (and Janakay absolutely draws the line at injecting herself with bleach or swallowing light beams or whatever), I seriously considered re-reading Mandel’s Station Eleven, one of my highlight books from a few years ago. I decided, however, that until we see how Covid-19 plays out, I couldn’t emotionally handle Mandel’s story of a vicious, highly contagious disease that ended current civilization (isn’t it spooky, how great writers have their fingers on the zeitgeist?). I settled instead on Mandel’s latest, The Glass Hotel, published at the end of March. Somewhat to my surprise (Mandel’s incredibly talented, but how many great books can anyone, even Hilary Mantel, produce in one lifetime?) Glass Hotel was very nearly as good as its immediate predecessor. Admittedly, the novel has no feel-good characters (it’s based loosely on Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme), so if you want warm and fuzzy, you’ll need to look elsewhere. What it does have is beautiful writing, a wonderfully complex structure that uses shifts in time and point of view to reinforce and enrich the story, and an utterly believable, complicated and heartbreaking cast of characters, all of whom are, morally, some shade of grey. I was hooked in from the beginning and absolutely couldn’t put it down for the two days or so it took me to read. The only downside was that I had to wait for its impact to fade a bit before I could start another novel, because I knew that nothing I could read would be anywhere nearly as good. Have any of you read Glass Hotel? Or any other Mandel novel, for that matter? If so, I’d love to hear your opinions. I’d also be interested in hearing how you handle that period of time after you’ve read a novel that just blows you away. Do you read non-fiction? Play solitaire? Immediately go on to the next novel on your list? Do share your secret of survival!

After a few days of absorbing Glass Hotel and letting its impact fade, I settled in to enjoy another contemporary novel, this time by Lily King. Although I’d avoided reading Euphoria, King’s highly touted previous novel (I believe it was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), I was curious about her work and decided to give her latest novel, Writers and Lovers, a try. Writers’ ostensible subject is the story of Casey, a thirty-something wannabe writer and part-time waitress; dealing with grief over her mother’s death, Casey struggles with her novel, works in a restaurant and becomes entangled with two very different men. Writers‘ real subject (IMO at least, don’t know if the critics would agree) is the creative process and the demands that it places on its devotees. I enjoyed the novel, without being overwhelmed by it; I was particularly taken with Casey’s criteria for determining a real bookstore and picked up several useful titles to add to my TBR list! (Knut Hamsun’s Hunger; Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters and, what I’m far more likely to actually read, Shirley Hazzard’s The Evening of the Holiday.) Prompted by an excellent review, I then sneaked in a quickie read of Camilla Bruce’s You Let Me In, a debut novel accurately described by The Guardian as a “smart, creepy fairy story” with a twist. If you, like Janakay, love Gothic horror and ambivalent endings, not to mention nasty malevolent fairies with a taste for human blood (not to mention hearts), then waste no time, dear reader! This is your book! Janakay’s one regret is that she didn’t save it for Halloween.

Well, that’s it for my round-up! What about yours? I’d love to compare lists!

2020 Back to the Classics Challenge

Although this young lady is working in a bookstore, her activity isn’t entirely dissimilar from ours when we compile our lists, is it? Do you love this contemporary painting (“Old Books” by David Carson Taylor) as much as I do?

Janakay loves a bookish challenge, don’t you? She was incredibly excited to learn (several weeks after the rest of the world, but then, Janakay has always moved at her own pace!) that Karen’s Back to the Classics Challenge would be offered again this year. Undeterred by last year’s results (being just a teensy bit better at reading novels than writing reviews, I, alas, didn’t complete quite all of my challenge books), I immediately began the happy task of compiling a book list for the 2020 Classics Challenge. I adore lists in general; they’re fun to make and give such a sense of accomplishment, don’t you think? In fact, Janakay was so satisfied with her list that she had to remind herself to stop basking in the glory of her accomplishment and to begin actually reading all those lovely books! And this year, they’re all going to be read! What’s a Challenge for, if not to set one’s expectations sky high?

And of all the lists on all the subjects in the universe, what list could possibly be better than a list of books that one intends to read? Making the list is a perfect excuse to leave the dishes in the sink (not that I need an excuse for this, exactly, but I’m sure you understand what I mean) to do what I like best, which is to to “ooh” and “ah” over all my wonderful unread treasures (there was one downside to this, as it did set off my dust allergy! Despite my “big sort,” some of my treasures haven’t been ooh’ed and ah’ed over in quite some time!). No matter how many times January rolls around I always find it a time of wonderful possibilities, particularly when it comes to reading. I think what makes a January book list particularly exciting is that it embodies in a very special way the hope that this year I’ll meet a wonderful new author, or find that rare book I’ll add to my “I’ll read it again” list (told you! I love lists!) or even simply pick up a new idea or new way of looking at a familiar subject, literary or not (Have any of you read Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea? After I finished it, I could never think about Jane Eyre in quite the same way). For all its fun, however, compiling my Challenge list was also demanding. A book list bears a dual aspect (so fitting for a month named for a god who has two faces) as it both embodies and limits possibilities. For each book I placed on my list, I rejected two or three others. And Janakay just hates rejecting books, even temporarily! Will I read some of the novels that didn’t make my 2020 list? Absolutely! But it’s far less likely that I’ll do so, particularly in 2020. The list, once made, sets the priorities!

In compiling my own list this month I’ve very much enjoyed peeking just a bit at the 2020 Challenge lists of some of my bookish friends and admiring many of their oh-so-enticing and ingenious choices. It’s been particularly fun this year, since many of the Classic Challenge’s categories are in the nature of open-ended and imaginative prompts, which require some effort to satisfy (“Hmmm, what can I read that has nature in the title? Does a waterfall count?”). It was quite interesting to discover (as Silvia noted in her own list) that so many titles actually fit multiple categories. These cases raise the additional question of which category to use? Oh, such delightful dilemmas!

Without any more blather (please feel free to skip the first two paragraphs of this post; Janakay doesn’t mind!) here are my choices for the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge.

19th Century Classic: To my surprise, this was one of my toughest categories to fill this year, due to a combination of a picky, impossible-to-please mood and the desire to read someone other than Dickens, Trollope, Thackeray, Austen, Hardy, Brontes (any and all), James, Gissing, Gaskell and Meredith! I considered reading Disraeli’s Sybille, which the Guardian lists as one the great novels in English, but these days I just don’t want to read anything associated with a politician! I finally settled on Emily Eden’s Semi-Detached House (1859); my copy is a Virago Modern Edition that also contains Eden’s other well-known novel, The Semi-Attached Couple (depending on time and interest, I may read this as well).

In all candor, dear readers (and Janakay is usually candid, despite her former profession as an attorney), I was attracted to this novel because of its author, one of those fascinating and influential 19th century women whom we (or at least I) are always surprised to discover. Born into a politically active family of Whig aristocrats, Eden was a prominent political hostess and in 1835 accompanied her brother to India, where for several years he served as Governor-General. The diaries she kept during these years inspired Susannah Moore’s One Last Look, a great contemporary novel I read a few years back. (Side note & utterly irrelevant to the Classics Challenge: I love Susannah Moore and would really recommend her when you, dear reader, want something “modern”!) When I discovered my yellowing copy of Eden’s own novels in a box retrieved last week from my basement, I felt (quite irrationally, I’ll admit) like I was encountering an old friend! My choice was made!

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20th Century Classic (originally published between 1900 and 1970): Something by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Although I haven’t visited dear Ivy, metaphorically, in quite some time, I love her work. In fact, I placed her on my 2019 Classics Challenge list, saved her for December as a special little treat and my own personal antidote to the fake cheer of the holiday season (Ms Compton-Burnett is not a writer you turn to for cheer, fake or otherwise) then ran out of time and missed my read! This year, I will do better! My current candidates are Manservant and Maidservant (1947); A House & its Head (1935); or Pastors and Masters (probably this one!).

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Classic by a Woman Author: I appear to be the only person in the blogosphere who hasn’t read Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means (1963). 2020 will be the year Janakay joins the crowd! On the (extremely) off chance that I can’t get into it, I’ll probably substitue Spark’s The Mandelbaum Gate for my novel in this category.

Classic in Translation: My acquaintance with German literature is slight, being mostly limited to a few novels by Thomas Mann. The Classics Challenge is a perfect opportunity to finally get around to Theodor Fontane’s Effie Briest (pub. 1895), languishing unread on my shelves since 2010.

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Classic by a POC: A couple of years ago, I audited a course on the Harlem Renaissance, that flowering of African-American art, literature and culture that occurred in New York City’s Harlem in the 1920s. It was a wonderful introduction to a group of artists and intellectuals who were long denied the recognition that should have been theirs. One of the most interesting of these figures to me was Nella Larsen, the biracial daughter of a Danish immigrant mother and a father of mixed African and European ancestry. Larsen, who trained as a nurse, published two novels and was regarded by her contemporaries as a talented writer. By the early 1930s, however, she disappeared from the literary scene and her work was out of print until a revival of interest in the late 1990s. I read and admired her second novel, Passing, as part of my course work, finding it a fascinating study of racial and sexual identity. Despite my good intentions, however, I never got around to reading Quicksand, her earlier and more autobiographical work. Thanks to the Classics Challenge, 2020 will be my year! (P.S. the book cover below is based on a very beautiful painting by Archibald Motley, a major artist of the Harlem Renaissance and contemporary of Larsen’s).

A Genre Classic: I grew up reading sci-fi and fantasy, which I lumped in with fairy tales, mythology and novels about life outside my small southern town. So . . . picking a book from this genre was a natural choice. But which book? That’s a bit of a problem. Although I’m quite fond of much of the early stuff, I’ll be the first to admit that its language, style and character development are less appealing to me than in days of yore. (I still love the cover art, however, particularly when it involves aliens or space babes! Does that make Janakay sexist?). I finally settled on Walter M. Miller’s 1959 A Canticle for Leibowitz, which was discussed in an undergraduate “History in Science Fiction” class, which I took many years ago; it was cited as the very embodiment of the cyclical theory of history, i.e., the notion that history is simply a series of repeating cycles or events. I can’t even remember whether I actually read Canticle at the time; if so, it certainly didn’t leave much of an impression on me! Still, it’s considered a foundational work in the field and I’m now curious to see and share my current opinion of it.

Classic with a Person’s Name in the Title: Despite a plethora of possibilities, I instantly settled on Elizabeth Bowen’s Eva Trout (pub. 1968), which I’ve wanted to read for quite some time. (I’ve had a copy, unread, since 2011. My bad!) As I’ve noted before, I have a very ambivalent attitude towards Bowen’s fiction, which at times is a bit too rarefied for me; when I want rarefied, I generally head for Henry James if my energy level is high. Bowen, however, is a beautiful stylist, can be very funny at times, and convincingly portrays mid-20th century upper class English life, a world I find incredibly exotic. Besides, at this point I’ve read seven of her ten novels, and I have to complete my list!

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Classic with a Place in the Title: Has anyone read the Hungarian novelist Magda Szabo (1917-2007)? She was largely unknown in the U.S. until a few years ago, when the New York Review of Books (NYRB) reissued her great novel, The Door. I read it on a whim and it blew me away; I thought it was easily one of the best things I had read in years. The Door‘s success (France’s Prix Femina Étrabger; one of the New York Time’s 10 best books of 2015) has led to other NYRB reissues of Katalin Street as well as several other Szabo novels. The tale of three Budapest families during WWII, Katalin Street was originally published in Hungarian in 1969; it just squeaks in under the Classics Challenge’s 1970 cutoff date. My alternative selection (which I may read instead) is Glenway Wescott’s 1945 Apartment in Athens, another NYRB reissue.

Classic with Nature in the Title: This category had me stumped for a day or so; then the titles starting flooding through my mind, so to speak. I was all set to go with Olivia Manning’s The Rain Forest (has anyone read Olivia Manning? She’s a wonderful novelist who IMO is sadly neglected) until I checked its publication date — 1974, four years over the Challenge’s 1970 cutoff date! Shucky darn, that one’s out! I finally settled on The Alien Sky (1953), an early novel by Paul Scott, the author of the Raj Quartet. I loved the Quartet (its treatment of the human and political consequences of British colonialism rivals J.G. Farrell’s) and am very curious to see how a stand alone work compares to it. My alternative, if Alien Sky disappoints, is Stella Gibbon’s Nightingale Wood or Margaret Drabble’s A Summer Bird-Cage.

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Classic about a Family or with Family Members in the Title: Although my compulsion to re-read Jane Austen is gaining momentum by the day, I firmly rejected Mansfield Park in favor of Daphne du Mauier’s Parasites, a semi-autobiographical tale of three slacker siblings from a notable theatrical family. With its lack of gothic and romantic trappings, I don’t think it’s very representative of du Maurier’s better known works, which is fine. I’m fascinated by tales of dysfunctional families (like Tolstoy said, they’re all different; it’s the happy folks who are boring) and I’ve been intending to read this one for many, many years.

Abandoned Classic: Janakay was so excited to see this category because it gives her so very much to choose from! Most of Dickens! All of Hardy (except for Tess, which wasn’t so bad)! A Brontë or three (or four) — Janakay’s last attempt at Shirley didn’t go well! Should she risk drowning (again) in Ms Woolf’s Waves or getting stomped for the third or fourth time by that nasty moocow thing? (my apologies to you lovers of Joyce. I concede his greatness but even his Portrait of the Artist is a mountain I’ve yet to climb. Don’t even mention Ulysses! Janakay would rather not think about it). No! No! No! Janakay just can’t read any of those things this year — she has to pack boxes and move! Allowances must be made! Luckily, I finally remembered Sylvia Townsend Warner, one of those erudite and interesting British women novelists who always turn up on my list of favorites. Many years ago, I attempted The Corner that Held Them (1948), considered by many to be Warner’s greatest novel; I was quite disappointed in it, however, and gave up the slog about halfway through (it’s long). In retrospect, I think my disappointment was due to timing; I attempted Corner immediately after reading Lolly Willowes and on some level expected the former to be largely the same. In the years since my initial disappointment, however, I’ve read Warner’s Summer Will Show (a tremendous novel); Mr. Fortune’s Maggot (so delightfully malicious! Janakay loved it) and several of her short stories and no longer expect a Warner novel to be a repetition of anything, including an earlier Warner novel (STW is an original writer). With my expectations tempered and under control, I’m now ready to re-evaluate The Corner that Held Them. (P.S.: I’ve already started reading it! It’s wonderful!).

Classic Adaptation: This is a difficult category simply because there are so many great choices! I opted against several tempting ones (Rebecca West’s Return of the Soldier; Forster’s Passage to India) in favor of something by Richard Yates, a writer I’ve been intending to sample for quite some time. Published in 1962, Revolutionary Road meets the Challenge’s pre-1970 cutoff date, which Easter Parade does not. Road was also adapted for a 2008 film directed by Sam Mendes that reunited Leonard DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Kathy Bates, all of whom starred in the movie “Titanic.” I missed the film, so it will be fun to compare my initial impressions of it after reading the original source material.

Well, dear readers, that’s it for my post. As you can see, I have an exciting year of Challenge reading ahead of me!

Midweek Miscellany: Percy Murdered My Library (apologies to Linda Grant!)

Have you found, dear reader, that there has come a time in your life when you’re forced to cull your beloved treasures? Have you ever realized that it’s time to say “adieu” to your yellowing edition of Catcher in the Rye, once read so eagerly but untouched since age fifteen, or your grubby copy of Catch 22, replete with (traumatic) memories of boot camp and bearing an almost illegible name tag and serial number? That perhaps you don’t need all three copies of Wings of the Dove, acquired because each has a different cover illustation, or that your ten Georgette Heyer novels are now available (and easier to read) on kindle and no longer need shelf room?

0-2 — Here’s Percy, caught red-pawed in the act of novelicide (actually, I’m being a bit unfair. His role was more that of an extremely willing accomplice!)

Propelled by the possibility of a long-distance move, Janakay is now in that time of reevaluation and has spent a harrowing few weeks deciding who (so to speak) lives and dies in her book collection. Fortunately, as you can see from my photo, I have not been without assistance!

Percy supervising Pooh Bear in box assembly.

0-1 — Maxine at work on the upstairs trove. Percy isn’t the only cat in the house who doesn’t see the point of all these things on the shelves.

0-16 — … and yet more … Maxine’s going to be a busy cat!

0-11 — Back to downstairs and Percy’s domain . . . he’s a particularly dedicated ornithologist, so many of these birding books are right up his alley!

0-7 — Not sure who should handle art books, Henry James and Mr. Janakay’s military history . . . this might be a job for Pooh Bear, who by nature is a very serious cat . . .

0-20 — Speaking of serious, who best to tackle all these non-fiction books, including Runciman’s History of the Crusades and a three-volume history of Byzantium? Do any of the cats speak Greek?

0-19 — Who best to tackle (more) art books and museum guides?

Short stories, bibliographies and memoirs (to the right) and poetry (to the left) . . . hmmm . . . who’s the most poetical cat?

0-5 — (Yet) more art books, Persephone editions and literary criticism. Someone’s been investigating these areas, to judge by the cat toy on the top of the book case (it’s the little yellow striped thing to the left of the towering pile).

If you’ve visited my blog in the past, when I did occasionally manage to stay somewhat current, I’m sure by now you understand why I haven’t been posting for — my goodness, gracious me — can it be almost five weeks now? No posts since Halloween? Of course, I haven’t been sorting books for the entire last five weeks — there were some minor academic matters to wrap up, some lovely light reading to do (Louis Auchincloss is always good for this) and movies to see (if you’re a Scorsese fan you can’t miss “The Irishman;” “Parasite” is great and “Knives Out” isn’t bad but I’d advise you to skip “The Lighthouse”). Also, after I decided to at least consider a move, I fell into a period of near-catatonia, triggered by the very notion of discarding any of my beloved book collection (at the risk of sounding heartless, I can say that I’ve experienced the death of blood relations — well, some of them anyway — with less emotion!)

But amusements and psychological trauma aside, the past month or so has seen a great deal of bookish exertion on my part, with rivers of books (so to speak) flowing up and down my house’s too many stairs. I did (briefly) consider keeping everything, but quickly discarded that notion — there are just too many multiple copies and books that I no longer need (do those twenty odd books on Vermeer, Rubens and van Dyck deserve shelf room, now that I’ve finished my class work on Baroque art?); that I’ve read and enjoyed but don’t plan on revisiting (Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings, for example, a fabulous novel but not one on my re-read list ) or that I’ve outgrown along with the hobby or activity that prompted their acquisition.

It’s been an emotional process, no doubt about it, saying good-bye to certain old friends, many of which are associated with very specific periods in my life (yes, I did read that copy of Catch 22 when I was not otherwise occupied in surviving boot camp and that battered old copy of Alice in Wonderland is still sticky with the adhesive tape a nine-year-old me used to repair it). There’s also the angst involved in acknowledging that most of my unread books will stay unread, at least by me, and facing up to the lost opportunities for pleasure and enrichment those books represent, of accepting that one is a finite creature who will spend her allotted time to read with other companions. And, of course, there’s always a certain chagrin in facing one’s mistakes . . . the “why did I buy that book” combined with the “why ever haven’t I gotten rid of it before now” moments! Have any of you ever faced such moments of truth or had to confront such bookish vulnerabilities? If so, how did you handle it?

Janakay, however, doesn’t want to be a weepy rain cloud here and mire us all in gloom, doom and desolation. Honesty compels me to admit that the sorting out process does have a positive aspect. In the broadest sense, I had to answer some very basic questions concerning why I read, as well as why I’d bother to have my very own personal library. What purpose does it serve? Home decor? Self-improvement? Laziness? (It’s easier to let the books breed in corners than adopt them out to good homes.) The desire to impress the neighbors with my two different translations of Rembrance of Things Past? None of the above?

Along the same lines, I necessarily had to formulate some standards (much harder to do than you might suppose) in order to decide what to keep or to discard. Should I, for example, toss classics by great writers such as Dostoevsky and Dickens (neither are big favorites of mine) to leave space for beloved fun reads by Georgette Heyer or Joe Abercrombie? (If you haven’t met Logan Nine-Fingers, you should. He’s one of the great anti-heroes of fantasy literature.) Should I keep a book I might read at some unspecified time if it means discarding something I’ve read and loved, but which is now out of print or otherwise unavailable? Is it better to keep an author’s “best” novel that I’ve read or her most obscure, which I haven’t?

Yes, dear reader, I’ve had a month of heavy thinking about basic aspects of reading and retaining books, activities that have occupied most of my energy since I first grasped that those little black squiggles on white paper actually meant something. On a lighter note, it’s been a lot of fun to read or skim big chunks of things I hadn’t thought about in years and to research authors as I’ve made my decisions (electronic availability for discards was an important factor). And, shameful though it is to admit, there’s also a Christmas morning element to the process, as I discovered some great stuff that I had totally forgotten about (that light green blob at the back of a shelf turned out to be a(n unopened) box set of Penguin Modern novellas!)

So how does Linda Grant, a British writer I admire more than I’ve read (some of her books were rather difficult “keep or toss” decisions) come into all this? In the middle of my winnowing process I was lucky enough to stumble across her essay, “I Murdered My Library,” published as a kindle single and worth every penny of its $2.99 (U.S.) price. Around 2013 Grant was forced to downsize her huge personal library (the product of a lifetime of reading) when she moved into a relatively small flat. All my emotions and thoughts — the grief, the guilt, the difficulty of choosing, the (yes) relief at imposing some type of order on an overwhelming number of physical objects — are there, expressed far, far more eloquently that I ever could. These are interspaced with Grant’s love of literature and reading, her thoughts on independent book stores and the effect of e-books on conventional print, and a great deal of humor and wry acceptance of the fact that we, as readers, are as finite as the texts that we love. Grant’s essay is a treasure for anyone who likes to read about books; if you’re downsizing or reevaluating your own book stash, it’s a necessity. I was so impressed by it, in short, I immediately moved two of Grant’s unread novels from my “discard” to my “keep” pile! (and, yes, I am aware of the irony of my action!).

After recounting her “crime” of book homicide, Grant ends her essay with the cry of “What have I done?” Since it’s time for me to sign off, I’ll end my little tale by showing you a visual of my very recent response to my own act of murder . . . . .

0-18 — My latest acquisitions! A newly published read (Evaristo’s Booker co-winner); a vintage find (Pamela Frankau, an interesting mid-century writer) and a haul of nine new books from an NYRB Classics flash sale that I couldn’t be expected to pass up (the books were HALF-PRICE, with FREE shipping!). There’s also a wonderful Pushkin Press translation of Isolde (it’s all Kaggsy’s fault for recommending it so highly) and I have a vintage Sackville-West that I haven’t yet read on its way and . . . . . . .

What’s that old saw, about the “more things change, the more they remain the same?”