The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Information

Goodreads: The Cloisters
Series: None
Age Category: Adult
Source: Gift
Published: November 2022

Official Summary

When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.

Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.

A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a gripping debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Review

Set at the Cloisters with a focus on medieval and Renaissance art and a hint of the occult, I was hooked on the premise of this book from the start. I was hoping for a read that would plunge me into feeling as if I lived in New York City and made me revisit my memories of my own previous trip to the Cloisters. While the book did generally get me into a world where the characters are all passionate about research and art, I didn’t get immersed in the actual setting as much as I would have liked.

The book did keep me turning the pages, which is a huge point in its favor. Even while I was thinking to myself I didn’t feel 100% invested in the characters and the plot, I found myself picking up The Cloisters whenever I had a free moment, scanning the pages to see if the characters would find the the tarot deck that would bind all their research together — and how exactly they would betray each other in the process.

Because although the book description leans on the idea that The Cloisters is about the occult, it’s really not. There are a couple readings and a suggestion some of the characters once did a séance (completely off-page), there’s no true sense that any of this divination stuff might be real. The curator at the Cloisters professes he believes it, but, perhaps because he’s not main character, it always sounded just like something he was saying to me, not something he really believed. And while protagonist Ann repeatedly claims to have become a believer, that seems like a lie, one she tells herself to excuse every bad decision she has ever made. She could not help it. Nothing she could have done would have changed things. It was simply fate.

So the real darkness here is how awful academia can be. There is passion and euphoria, certainly, the highs that come from being paid to research your interests, to have nothing you need to do besides spend hours in an atmospheric library poring over old texts. But then reality hits home. It’s publish or perish in academia. The other characters are secure enough, but they always need more, a big discovery to keep their career going, to get a degree, funding, tenure, whatever. And Ann was not accepted into grad school right out of undergrad, so she needs something to make her next round of applications stand out. And thus the backstabbing begins. Hiding work from each other. Stealing work from each other. Throwing other people under the bus. Whatever the characters need to do to make their names in their field. This is the darkness of the book, even more chilling because it’s real.

When it comes to the book as a mystery/thriller, I found it hit-or-miss. I knew who committed the main crime, and why, immediately, but there were a couple twists near the end of the book I hadn’t seen coming, and those were a pleasant surprise.

The Cloisters is a compelling read or someone looking for a book with dark academia vibes that’s contemporary fiction rather than fantasy. It won’t be one of my favorite books of 2023, but it was fun while I was reading it.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Information

Goodreads: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Series: None
Age Category: Adult
Source: Gift
Published: June 13, 2017

Official Summary

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

Review

I have incredibly mixed feelings about a book that is obviously a bestseller and popular with tends of thousands of other readers. I struggled with the writing itself, which is a bit flat doesn’t always do justice to the glamour of the plot, and as someone who isn’t a big celebrity-watcher, I didn’t really connect with all the fawning over Evelyn Hugo, the idea that people were obsessed with her hair, her eyebrows, her breasts and would say with complete sincerity things like all woman want to look her and no one’s hair looks as blonde as hers in comparison or whatever. The opening of the book was just rocky for me. As the book progressed, I did become intrigued with where it was going, why Evelyn married so many men and how she would get out of all the marriages to get into the next one. And yet the core of the plot seemed reductive to me. So essentially I fluctuated between being interested and simply unimpressed.

Evelyn herself is a fascinating character and is ultimately what holds the book together. I certainly didn’t find Monique that interesting, even as the book builds up the mystery of why Evelyn wants Monique to write her biography and Monique tries to take lessons from Evelyn in being ruthless to get what you want out of life. So Evelyn really is the core. I still think all the blathering about her earth-shattering beauty and how everyone on the planet desired her was over-the-top, but whatever. The real meat of her personality is the things she was willing to do, endure, sacrifice to claw herself into fame and make sure she stayed there. You know she’s willing to go to crazy measures because all the other movie stars think she’s over-the-top, too.

Hugo is humanized, of course. One sees that even as she uses other people, they’re willing to use her, too. And, of course, because she’s beautiful, there’s that aspect of people wanting her to sleep with them in order to give her what she wants, a very dark side of fame and Hollywood. But I love that the author never really makes her likable. Hugo’s always out for herself, in the end, and the reader knows that. Monique suspects it, too, bringing back the mystery of why Hugo seems to be doing something nice for her and what she must really want in the frame narrative.

I did get through this quickly, which is a point in favor of the book. I was intrigued enough to keep turning the pages to see what bizarre thing Hugo would do next. I don’t know that I’d read more by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but this was entertaining, at least.

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

Information

Goodreads: The Queen’s Gambit
Series: None
Source: Purchased
Published: 1983

Official Summary

When she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers two ways to escape her surroundings, albeit fleetingly: playing chess and taking the little green pills given to her and the other children to keep them subdued. Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent, and as she progresses to the top of the US chess rankings she is able to forge a new life for herself. But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there’s more at stake than merely winning and losing. 

Review

It seems as if everyone has seen the Netflix adaptation of The Queen’s Gambit (even though it’s not everyone; Krysta hasn’t seen it!), and the miniseries is so brilliant and charming and engaging that I find it impossible not to compare the book to it in this review. The short version is: The book and the adaptation are astonishingly close – there’s practically nothing in the novel that isn’t in the miniseries – but I actually prefer the show. The screenwriters smartly streamlined the story in a couple places, and the actors brought the story to life in a way that made reading the book a better experience for me.

As I was reading, I was reminded strongly of the time I attempted to read Pride & Prejudice after watching the BBC miniseries about three times in a row; the stories seemed so close that I could recognize the word-for-word dialogue pulled from the pages for the show. Unlike with Pride & Prejudice, however, I did not abandon reading The Queen’s Gambit because of this but, rather, plodded steadily on, enjoying seeing the characters I’d become so invested in once again. There were only a few places that I recognized the show deviated from the book, and by and large I approve of the changes. For instances, the show eliminates a few minor characters and replaces them with major ones. The boy who yells profanities in the orphanage in the book becomes Jolene in the show, for instance, while a random man discussing chess at a tournament becomes Benny.

The book also has a few sexual scenes in the orphanage that were eliminated in the show, and I cannot emphasize how strongly I think removing these was a great decision. I was extremely uncomfortable watching Jolene make advances to Beth and imply that she had a relationship with a teacher at the school and later watching Beth masturbate by herself. I don’t know what the author was going for here, if he thought this would happen at an orphanage and was “realistic” or if he thought it was “artsy” or what, but it added absolutely nothing to the plot or character development.

The book was also full of chess, which means practically nothing to me. I had a friend explain some of the games that were narrated more in-depth, but understanding the chess was not necessary, nor did I feel that it was so confusing that it detracted from the book.

Mostly, however, I appreciate the actors’ interpretations of the characters in the show. Alma came across a bit flat to me in the book, but in the show one gets more of a sense that she did try her best to be a decent mother and that Beth was attached to her. Similarly, I think Beth’s and Jolene’s relationship comes across more clearly in the show; reading the book alone, it wouldn’t be clear to me why Beth might want to call her years after leaving the orphanage.

So is the book worth reading? Yes and no. It’s a good story, but it’s also so close to the adaptation that I think watching the show is “enough.”

Taipei by Tao Lin

Information

Goodreads: Taipei
Series: None
Source: Library
Publication Date: 2013

SummarY

Lacking meaning and direction, Paul goes through the motions of life, failing at relationships, taking increasingly large amounts of drugs, and filming all his interactions in an attempt to make them real.

Review

Taipei is a very modern book, the type of modern book that assumes that the current generation can all be lumped together into one disillusioned mass.  Life is meaningless, depression universal, and ennui the only constant.  Writing about these things makes your book deep.  This book is perhaps the quintessential “literary fiction,” if the excruciating (yet experimental) prose style does not disqualify it from that label.

One does not read Taipei for the plot, because it barely has one.  Rather, one reads Taipei to feel part of the cultured avant garde.  Perhaps writing about characters who wander around aimlessly having sex and taking increasingly large amounts of drugs is overdone.  But that apparently does not preclude a book from being “deep” and “edgy.”   If it does, Tao Lin chooses to distinguish his book by writing it in a prose style that can perhaps only politely be called “unique.”

If Lin were not a published author, it would be tempting to call his prose “amateur.”  Like many a new writer, he over-describes everything, adding as many adjectives as possible as he goes into excruciating detail about mundane moments.  This is, however, deliberate.  His adjectives tend to be overly clinical and sometimes a little bizarre; he makes the reader feel the weirdness of life, much like his main character Paul.  He even adds everyone’s age after their name (as in Michelle, 21, walked toward Chelsea”) as if writing a movie script.  This gives the reader a sense of removal, of alienation–they are observing life from afar, trying to piece it all together.

The clinical over-descriptions are paired with sentences that run on for ages, usually with clauses modifying nothing else in the sentence.  Rereading the paragraph does nothing to help the reader make sense of it all, because there is no sense.  Again, this seems to mirror Paul’s understanding of life.  He is trying to communicate, trying to find meaning, but there is no meaning for him to find.  He is going through the motions of life and he does not even know why.

The ending of the book might redeem it for some, as it tries to lift Paul out of his depression and give him something to hope for.  Personally, however, I found this to be cheap after a couple hundred pages of watching Paul get high and sabotage every single one of his relationships.  If a book is going to be about the meaningless of it all, I want it to have the guts to maintain that outlook through the end.

Taipei is your typical modern book about characters lacking direction and meaning in life, and turning to substance abuse in an attempt to escape their terrible reality.  Readers who find that sort of thing deep may want to pick up Taipei.  However, I tend to think joy and wonder are more difficult to write than despair–I’ve read too many college pieces on drug usage to be impressed–and I do not relate or subscribe to the idea that life is meaningless.  As a result, I was mainly frustrated by Paul and bored by the book.  I don’t intend to read another Tao Lin book, if I can help it.

We Are Here Forever by Michelle Gish (ARC Review)

Information

Goodreads: We Are Here Forever
Source: BookCon
Series: None
Publication Date: July 30, 2019

Official Summary

A hilarious graphic novel in which the human race has been supplanted by a sweeter, kinder, happier species…but are they as innocent as they seem? In this post-apocalyptic comedy, it’s survival of the cutest!

After the most adorable apocalypse ever, the human race has vanished from the earth, replaced cute, innocent, playful purple creatures called the Puramus. In this hilarious and epic graphic novel, short interlocking stories follow the purple pals as they explore their new home, form a mini-monarchy, and develop a modern society on par with 21st-century humans. A final act pulls us across time and space in the search for clues to the origins of the Puramus. Along the way, humor and intrigue abound: Can King defend his village when nobody understands what war is? Will Jingle work up the nerve to read her poetry at open mic night? Will Puff Puff ever stop floating? Based on the viral Tumblr comic that gained 18,000 followers in just one year, We Are Here Forever is for fans of post-apocalyptic sci-fi blended with dry comedy and undeniable cuteness. Colorful and cartoony art will you rooting for these cute critters through their absurd adventures. But where did they come from, and what happened to all the humans?

Review

We Are Here Forever is a cute collection of comics about an alien species called the Puramus who inhabit Earth after humans are gone (though the story suggests there was at least a brief period where humans and the Puramus lived together).  The book’s target audience will likely be fans of the web comic (which I have not read and had never heard of before receiving an ARC), but it is completely accessible to readers who have not read the comic before and is worth checking out if you would like a quick, cute read with a subtle undertone of darkness.

“Cute” is definitely going to be the selling point here, as the Puramus are adorable purple creatures who just don’t *quite* understand the world as humans left it.  They clearly speak English but don’t understand a lot of technology or have English words for every object.  They also have a penchant for directly stating their emotions, which is kind of charming, and like to do fun things like make Puramus stacks and go on quests.

The darkness of the book is related to its promise that it will reveal hints about the origins of the Puramus and how they came to live on Earth.  That’s the readers’ perspective.  The mystery from the Puramus point of view is where the humans went.  (This is a bit odd since they seemed to have lived *with* humans briefly, so there are times I think the logic of the comic doesn’t quite come together.  Perhaps it makes more sense in the context of the fuller web comic.)  At any rate, there are some things about the Puramus that are not quite cute that add a bit of edge to the story.

Overall, a quick read I recommend.

The Circle by Dave Eggers

Information

Goodreads: The Circle
Series: None
Source: Library
Published: 2013

Official Summary

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world–even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.

What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge

Review

I was initially intrigued by this book because it was mentioned in The Bestseller Code: The Anatomy of a Blockbuster Novel as, well, a prime example of a bestselling novel.  Apparently, it gets a lot of ingredients right to get people buying it and reading it, everything from focusing on the popular topic of “technology” to having a captivating pace.  Notably, its success  earned it a movie deal in 2017.  Thus, it was with some surprise I found that I didn’t like this novel at all.

Although the novel was published only six years ago and even though the setting seems as if it’s meant to be near-ish future from 2013, parts of the premise and execution feel dated.  Our society is still facing concerns related to the two main ones raised — invasion of privacy and the threat of a single company (Amazon?) becoming an all-powerful monopoly — yet reading a novel fear-mongering about these these seems almost cliche in 2019.  The message also seemed heavy-handed; this is a novel about an idea, a warning that Big Tech and loss of privacy are bad.  Characterization, plot, setting, etc. are all secondary to the message.  So when the message seems like old news?  The book becomes boring.

The heavy-handedness also makes many of the characters irritating (at least to me).  Sure, Eggers strives to give some of them layers, particularly protagonist Mae, but the reality is that most of them are just representing something, almost like a modern-day allegory.  Mae, although she likes kayaking and has a few other interests to make her “real,” is basically the representation of the “average” person; she likes technology but initially doesn’t start out photographing, “zinging” about, or otherwise “sharing” literally every single thing she does.  Then there are the people working at the Circle who want *everything* recorded, the character who hates technology and wants to go off-grid, etc.  And they all make speeches explaining their points of view.  Some write letters.  It’s almost like reading a George Orwell novel with all the monologues about idealogy.  Except more annoying because people keep repeating the idealogy.

Plot-wise, there may be something to the theory that the pacing keeps readers turning pages because I didn’t like the book, but I did finish it–albeit by skimming here and there.  Awkward sex scenes interrupted the pacing rather than helping it (and the asides about characters “ample chests” made me think of all those Twitter and Reddit threads about “men writing women”).  The end is also predictable because, well, the book has one point and one point only to make about the badness of technology developing in this specific way.

So, do I recommend this?  No.  It was a bestseller, but the ratings on Goodreads actually aren’t that generous, and the movie adaptation didn’t fare much better.  The public might interested in technological dystopians and the loss of privacy, and that’s enough to get people to buy the book or pick it up, but the execution just isn’t here.  This book isn’t that good.

 

Park Avenue Summer by Renee Rosen (ARC Review)

INformation

Goodreads: Park Avenue Summer
Series: None
Source: Giveaway
Publication Date: April 30,2019

Official Summary

Mad Men meets The Devil Wears Prada as Renée Rosen draws readers into the glamour of 1965 New York City and Cosmopolitan Magazine, where a brazen new Editor-in-Chief–Helen Gurley Brown–shocks America by daring to talk to women about all things off limits…

New York City is filled with opportunities for single girls like Alice Weiss who leaves her small Midwestern town to chase her big city dreams and unexpectedly lands the job of a lifetime working for Helen Gurley Brown, the first female Editor-in-Chief of a then failing Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Nothing could have prepared Alice for the world she enters as editors and writers resign on the spot, refusing to work for the woman who wrote the scandalous bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl. While confidential memos, article ideas, and cover designs keep finding their way into the wrong hands, someone tries to pull Alice into this scheme to sabotage her boss. But Alice remains loyal and becomes all the more determined to help Helen succeed. As pressure mounts at the magazine and Alice struggles to make her way in New York, she quickly learns that in Helen Gurley Brown’s world, a woman can demand to have it all.

Review

Park Avenue Summer is an interesting fictionalized account of the first months that Helen Gurley Brown took over a dying Cosmopolitan magazine and, against the wishes of Hearst executives, turned it from a women’s magazine about the home into one about sex and relationships.  The protagonist is actually Alice, Helen’s new secretary who is completely unqualified for the position but gets it through personal connections (such is the world of publishing, I supposed).  However, though the book does deal with Alice’s personal life including her friendships, sexual flings as she tries being a modern girl who has sex without ties just for fun, and her family secrets, the book really does revolve all around Gurley Brown and her vision for Cosmopolitan, and readers get a sense of how Alice is sucked into a mentality of “work and the magazine before all else,” trapped in the cult of Helen Gurley Brown, a bit like in The Devil Wears Prada.

My personal issue with the main tension of the book being “Will the new, sexy magazine succeed?” is that I didn’t really care either way.  Rosen does a fantastic job of portraying Helen as the underdog fighting an entire executive board, even an entire industry to launch a “modern” magazine for “her girls” that will touch on topics that are rather taboo.  When readers see how far people (mostly men) go to sabotage her, her career, and the magazine (which Hearst actually wants to fold, not revive, as they stated when they hired Gurley Brown), they won’t be able to help rooting for her.  However, beyond the “I like when underdogs win” feeling, I wasn’t invested in either Gurley Brown or her vision.

Alice talks about Gurley Brown as if she’s a force of nature, strong-willed and able to get her way even when people don’t want to give it to her.  However, those moment are represented rarely in the book.  Instead we see her crying (fair, considering what people are doing to her), calling other female employees things like “pussycat” (which seems the opposite of empowering), and, worst of all, frequently calling her husband to bail her out.  She got the job through her husband’s influence, then she calls him every time something goes wrong. She leaves the office to spend time with him so he can calm her down.  He is at every restaurant she hosts an important meeting at, ready to bail her out.  He writes parts of the magazine and solves her problems for her.  There’s nothing wrong with relying on a spouse for support, but I don’t know how much Gurley Brown was a strong, insightful woman with a vision. vs. a woman with a powerful, confident husband who did half her work for her.

I also balked at really rooting for the vision of the magazine.  Gurley Brown talks a lot about the modern, career-oriented woman and how she wants to help them (ok, “her girls”) succeed, but none of the stories she pitches are ever about careers or general empowerment. She tells Hearst executives that she’s going to write about how to touch a woman’s breasts, how to best masturbate, how to have an affair with a married man, etc.  Every other word out of her mouth was about having sex and sexual pleasure.  Being sex positive is one thing, but I could kind of see why the other magazine employees thought she was crazy and incredibly vulgar.  She seems more sex-obsessed than interested in actual female empowerment.

The fact I didn’t personally like Helen Gurley Brown or her vision for Cosmopolitan doesn’t mean the book was bad, of course.  I don’t need to find characters likable or relatable.  However, I do think the book struggled with the balance of focusing on Gurley Brown vs. focusing on the actual protagonist.  Alice herself is, frankly, a bit dull.  She gets all of her big breaks from nepotism, which is irritating, but, worse than that, she’s a bit dull.  Things seem to happen to her or at her, rather than because she herself took any action.  If she weren’t working for Gurley Brown and getting dragged into things bigger than herself because of luck and personal connections, she’d be incredibly uninteresting.

So, as a story, I think Park Avenue Summer is a bit dry. As an account of an interesting period in the magazine industry and the history of Cosmopolitan in particular, it’s worth a read if you don’t know much about this topic.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Information

Goodreads: State of Wonder
Series: None
Source: Gift
Published: June 7, 2011

Official Summary

As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle. Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness.

Review

State of Wonder isn’t a usual type of read for me, but a friend picked it up for me as a birthday gift, and I was excited to jump in, since I’ve never read anything by Ann Patchett before. I was delighted to find a subtle book that combines a narrative about the protagonist’s personal development with a plot about essential medical research being hidden in the depths of the Amazon, putting both the protagonist and the reader into the titular “state of wonder.”

This is probably a book that, if read in a school class, students would criticize for not being “relateable.”  It’s not about a middle-aged white man, but it is about a middle-aged white woman, working in a lab and covertly dating her boss, thinking about her career and the what-ifs of maybe settling down and having a family before it’s “too late.”  And, honestly, while this stage of life doesn’t apply to be either, I think it’s the first thing I found refreshing about the book.  I’ve been reading a lot of YA lately, and I found it nice to read about someone with wildly different life concerns and perspectives on things.

I was also impressed by the prose, which is sophisticated and subtle.  Patchett doesn’t tell you everything about the protagonist or the plot, but she gives you enough information to figure it out.  A lot happens in the book that characters are aware of but never directly mention (things in their personal lives like romantic jealousy, or things related to the medical project being done in the Amazon that the scientists don’t want the media to jump on).  I also enjoyed this sort of oblique writing about things that are visible just under the surface

And, finally, I also enjoyed the plot.  It unravels slowly, as the protagonist leaves the US, spends some time in a city in Brazil, and then finally makes it to uncharted territory in the Amazon.  Each setting in vividly described, and I felt as if Patchett must have visited the places she was writing about (I have no idea whether she actually did).  The explanation of what exact research is being done and why people are being secretive about it unfolds slowly to these backdrops, but the pacing is just right to tantalize readers and leave them wanting to know more.

I did feel that the ending came a bit out of left field, but I think I understand the author’s reasoning for it.  Things could not have ended with a picture perfect tied bow because, as is the theme of the book, the Amazon just doesn’t work like that.  I think the ending also highlights that, as much as these researches respect the Amazon and some of them even seem to fit into it, they still value each other over the native inhabitants, and it’s a jolt to be reminded of it at the very end.

I really liked this one, and I recommend it, but I do think it will be a tough sell to readers who normally prefer the fact-paced action-packed plots of YA novels.

 

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Information

Goodreads: The Buried Giant
Series: None
Source: Purchased
Published: March 3, 2015

Official Summary

“You’ve long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it’s time now to think on it anew. There’s a journey we must go on, and no more delay…”

The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years.

Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.

Review

I’ve read The Buried Giant twice now, and enjoyed it both times, but it’s taken me a while to sit down and write a review for it.  It’s a unique book, and though I know I like it, my thoughts are still a bit muddled–yet perhaps that’s part of the point.

The book follows an elderly Anglo-Saxon couple, Beatrice and Axl–who are setting out on a long-postponed journey to visit their son.  The problem? There’s a “fog” surrounding them and apparently the entire country; they find it hard to remember things, important things about themselves, their family, or the history of Britain itself.  The book is complicated because it intertwines the personal and the national.  It about both Axl and Beatrice AND the entire British identity.  As Axl and Beatrice travel, they meet a variety of people, including Sir Gawain, who raise questions about King Arthur and war and what horrors Britain experience or may experience in the future. The novel is about individual memory (and a friend of mine nicely noted that this is in large part a novel about dementia), but it is also about national memory. And these things do not always cleanly intersect into a coherent whole.

On top of this, the novel is also about love.  That’s partially connected to the personal memories of Axl and Beatrice, and there are questions about whether remembering or not remembering things can influence your love.  (Can you prove or know you really love someone if  you cannot remember your whole life together with them?)  And while this is fascinating, it often seems to be like it’s own separate theme and thread in the story.

Yet I like the book in spite of (because of?) this murkiness.  It’s unusual, unique.  First, books about elderly people are not entirely common. Second, books imagining the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain are not common.  Third, the Anglo-Saxon books that do exist focus on knights and royalty and those sorts of people.  While Beatrice and Axl meet knights, they themselves are perfectly ordinary peasants.  It’s interesting.

I haven’t read anything else by Ishiguro, but other people I’ve talked to have said that his writing style in The Buried Giant is similar to his other writing.  I personally don’t think the book sounds “old” or that he was necessarily trying to make it sound old.  He avoids anachronism (and I’ve had it pointed out to me that this is in itself difficult, which I concede), but the voice seems like a generic modern one to me, unobtrusive.  So if you like reading about older time periods but can’t deal with people walking around yelling, “Hark!” and “What aileth thee, goodman?” then this is a good choice for you.

I’m not about to prance off and read another Ishiguro book because what really drew me to this one was the setting and the plot. However, I do highly recommend The Buried Giant for a thoughtful story and imaginative book.

Note: You may have heard of the minor controversy around the book’s release when Ishiguro made a statement that many fantasy fans and authors (notably Ursual K. Le Guin) interpreted as a dig at fantasy.  After reading the book twice, I don’t think Ishiguro was actually trying to insult fantasy or to claim his book is not fantasy because he looks down on the genre (i.e. He wasn’t saying “Fantasy is garbage and my book is not garbage; therefore, I refuse to call it fantasy”).  I think he was actually just trying to grapple with a generic characterization of a book that has fantasy elements but also feels like history, memoir, magic realism, etc.

In the Beginning by Chaim Potok

Information

Goodreads: In the Beginning
Series: None
Source: Purchased
Published: 1975

Official Summary

David Lurie learns that all beginnings are hard. He must fight for his place against the bullies in his Depression-shadowed Bronx neighborhood and his own frail health. As a young man, he must start anew and define his own path of personal belief that diverges sharply with his devout father and everything he has been taught…

Review

“All beginnings are hard.”

In the Beginning differs from some of Potok’s other novels in that the narration switches seamlessly between past and present, smearing together time. This is a literary style I do not always like, as I think it is often unnecessary and therefore can come across as pretentious, but Potok makes it work. It fits the story, as David attempts to explain the origins of his people and his beliefs, how his past is so strongly connected to his present and his future.  In the Beginning, then, though different in style from many Potok books, exudes the same heart and understanding of human nature that make Potok a true master.

David starts the novel as a sickly child, weak and often afraid, particularly of that which he does not understand.  His voice, to me, sometimes comes across as odd: too adult and yet so naïve at once.  He’ll frequently tell others (close to him) about his emotions, that he’s afraid or that “It was a really bad feeling.”  David, however, is supposed to be a bit of an oddball character, a child with a big brain he does not necessarily know how to use.  Adults credit him with understanding more than he lets on.  So, while young David is a bit strange, he grows throughout the novel, slowly coming into his own—and slowly losing his openness when he learns what it can cost him.

The book will draw to mind, a little, My Name Is Asher Lev, as David also struggles with wanting to learn and do and understand things his community thinks best not to be understood.  The theme here is more educational and intellectual attainment, rather than art, and it’s perhaps less at the forefront.  The protagonist’s struggles are comparable, however.  Strangely, though I love Potok’s works, I have never done biographical research on him.  Yet In the Beginning strikes me as clearly autobiographical, and I think I begin to understand some of what Potok must have lost—and gained—while pursuing his own writing career and his own search for truth.

Potok’s works, in general, are quite readable to those readers without much knowledge of Judaism, though I think In the Beginning gives somewhat fewer context clues for terms than Potok’s other novels.  It’s nothing a quick Google search will not be able to readily resolve for a reader, however.  This story also relies a bit on the reader’s knowledge of history, but only in very broad terms.  David lives through the Great Depression, though the term is never used and child Davis is only vaguely aware that many families have money problems; readers have to fill in the gaps.  A bit of the same ambiguity is applied to the description of WWII, though the novel gets gradually more explicit (which, admittedly, is historically accurate; David’s family is shocked by what the newspapers reveal at the war’s end).

Potok’s work is always deeply personal while also offering profound insight into humanity at large.  Others of Potok’s novels are closer to my heart, but In the Beginning is certainly a masterpiece in its own right and well worth the read.  I’m sorry I took this long to get around to it.