the reading rampage
I intended to write short reviews of (almost) every book I'm reading in 2020. I was largely going to leave out fiction books as they are so subjective - one person (my friend the Moose) loves a John Grisham and probably wouldn't pick up the Ocean Vuong I devoured in January.
Neither of us are right or wrong. I like to take a Ye-like high/low approach to culture and see the denigration of one or the other as somewhat idiotic. There's a great skill in creating something that's simple and compelling, just as there's great intellectual effort brought to bear on 'great' or complex material.
This month I've done a bit of both. I've really rattled out a few different books and so am going to collate some here.
If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin
This was selected for our book club - we read books of 300 pages or less that offer us a different or challenging perspective. As a group of privately educated white people from the UK, James Baldwin is quite a distance from our experience.
That doesn't mean that we've got nothing to say about his work! I agree with Lionel Shriver in her review of Douglas Murray's The Madness of Crowds,
we are now to understand that unless you are a member of a group you have no right to any opinions about that group
This obviously falls down when you see how 'straight, white man' has become a pejorative term. Any rational debate involves stepping outside your own zone of identification - the problem comes when these exchanges lack respect or any willingness to admit some sort of narrow perspective.
Anyway, enough of justifying our selection. I thought it was a fine book. Not great.
One interesting discussion revolved around the blinkered perspective of the narrator - whether the crime has really been perpetrated by Fonny was thought to be unclear, given the overly faithful tone of Tish's narration.
What was clear was the violence endemic in their existence, the perpetual threat of it whether walking down the street or perhaps most strikingly, in conversations between women. Baldwin's depiction of women being as capable of violence against each other as men are seems more balanced and modern than a lot of present day work. The fact that the whole novel didn't seem like an unlikely premise today was an obvious yet still depressing conclusion.
All in all, I'd call it worth a read, but not something I'm going to pick up again in a hurry.
A Could Read
Related Works
An American Marriage - Tayari Jones - I found this similar premise a far more compulsive read. In fact, I thought it was brilliant and that you should probably read this instead.
Passing - Nella Larsen - we read this at university and it depicts how pale enough black people could 'pass' as white in early 1900s New York. The constant threat of discovery and 'outing' as black gives the novel an ever present sense of menace and dovetails nicely with Baldwin's portrayal of the peril involved in merely walking down Beale Street.
The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley
I hammered through this in 24 hours. Not high art but completely compelling with well drawn explorations of interpersonal relationships amongst old friends, how their desires and resentments build up and fester over years.
I love unreliable narrators and this flips between times and characters to build a constantly shifting tapestry of evidence. It's a good fun whodunnit in the Scottish Highlands and definitely worth a go.
A Should Read
Related Works
Girl on a Train - it reminded me of this - unreliable narration and different perspectives interweaving to create a constantly revealing mystery which keeps twisting until the end.
The Secret History - the slightly cloistered, overprivileged cast all with capacity for physical and emotional violence reminded me of the undergraduates of Donna Tarrt's first novel.
The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman
I'm a huge His Dark Materials fan and have been waiting to read this since before Christmas. I've got to say I was a little disappointed.
Splitting Lyra and Pantalaimon is a brave choice but it doesn't really sustain itself over the course of quite a lengthy book. Maybe their pairing helped to disguise how some of the characters in the original trilogy were thinly drawn as here, the people Lyra meets are very placeholder, filling a gap and teaching her something or providing plot ammunition asa she keeps moving eastwards.
I love the world, the characters and the author but this left me feeling a bit underwhelmed.
Could Read (if you're a fan)
related works
His Dark Materials - it's not worth reading The Secret Commonwealth without reading the originals.