Two Dozen from 2011 (Pt. 2)

African American and Civil Rights history seemed to form a theme in some of my 2011 reading, but the underlying theme here was economics. (Also fitting into this category was Five Miles Away, A World Apart by UVA professor James E. Ryan, the story of how Richmond's Freeman and TJ high schools were -- or weren't -- integrated. Though a worthy volume, it didn't make the list mostly because of its dryer tone and legalistic focus.)

5 In American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare, journalist Jason DeParle finely balances the personal work and life stories of three "ordinary" women with historical background and 20th Century politics. He goes back to the origins of welfare legislation (originally intended mainly for widowed (white) mothers) in the 1930s and charts how welfare programs grew during and post WWII, "exploding" by the mid-1960s. At the same time, DeParle describes the hardships facing ex-slaves in the South and African Americans' eventual great northern migration, interviewing stalwart Hattie Mae Crenshaw, born to Mississippi sharecroppers in 1937, who traveled north, eventually settling in Chicago. As DeParle chronicles "welfare reform" and "welfare-to-work" programs of the 1990s, he interweaves the stories of Hattie Mae's descendents, Jewell, Opal, and Angie, three mothers who move to Milwaukee in search of better government benefits and find themselves trying to make ends meet despite legislative upheavals. Crucially, DeParle makes the point that "no one survived on welfare alone." For the women DeParle profiles, welfare becomes one resource among others, like (unreported) minimum wage jobs of various stripes and (unreported) earnest or mercenary relationships with men with (legal or illegal) sources of income. Importantly, DeParle also takes a look at the government and social worker's perspective, spending considerable time profiling a caseworker. While DeParle find evidence of many well-meaning official representatives, and even a few that are marginally competent, overall he paints an entirely fact-based picture of hideously incompetent and corrupt buerocracies. DeParle's overall story is nuanced and thought-provoking: challenging readers to think critically and seriously about social justice and public policy and on par with Carol Stack's All Our Kin in making understandable an urban, African American way of living that might seem incomprehensible to outsiders. Even if the particular legislative battles described are no longer making headlines, American Dream is still a book I'd recommend.

6 Although nonfiction, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc reads like a soap opera. At times, I had to shamefacedly ask myself whether I was getting too much enjoyment out of the salacious details of who was who's baby's daddy and who was going to jail next. However, this book is really a remarkably detailed, sympathetic but far from rose-coloured profile of Americans with limited options trying to find success and meaning in their lives. Jessica, the proud girlfriend of a rich drug kingpin; Cesar, her ambitious younger brother; and Cesar's sometimes girlfriend, family-minded Coco, form the central cast; before the book is done, two of the three spend time in prison. Intergenerational violence and addiction have their place alongside individual hopes and passions. LeBlanc lets her characters (her subjects) speak and act for themselves.

7 The voice of preacher's son Timothy B. Tyson in Blood Done Sign My Name rings authentic and familiar. Writing a white perspective of the Civil Rights Movement (even a small part of it) can be tricky, but Tyson fully acknowledges the awkwardness and ambiguity of his position. He writes meaningfully of white, Southern churches divided, churches actively promoting white supremacism, and churches trying to do the right thing (perhaps largely ineffectively) by promoting desegregation and racial cooperation through peaceful means; as he introduces the character of black freedom fighter Ben Chavis, whose positions and actions are far more radical than those of Rev. Tyson, the younger Tyson questions whether equal rights could have been achieved without violence. Tyson gives his childhood impressions alongside adult research and reflections as he chronicles the 1970 killing of black veteran Henry Marrow and the trial and events that followed. Especially in a region that prides itself on remembering its history, the story of riots in Oxford and mobs in Wilmington, North Carolina, is one that should be much more well known. (I'm looking forward to seeing the movie, which just arrived from Netflix, and finding out what viewpoint it takes!)

8 The Help by Kathryn Stockett is another entry in the ambivalent field of white writers taking on the African American experience -- though Stockett's novel is really about the not-so-parallel experiences of her white characters as well as their black "help." It may be problematic that these black women speak in dialect, while Stockett's white middle class and society ladies use only the occasional Southernism, but Stockett's afterword explaining her choices shows at least that she's not thoughtlessly appropriating others' experiences. However well Stockett succeeds in her task of representing a black point of view, she definitely tells an enjoyable story. Stockett's strength is in telling the details of everyday life, from table decor to Junior League intrigue, and the small indignities (think: bathrooms) and larger injustices of servitude. The heart of the story is the friendship that develops between spoiled-but-not-rotten would-be-writer Skeeter and the maid Aibilene (but the most enjoyable characters are Minny and Celia). Though violence is not entirely ignored, Stockett probably underplays the real danger; if she gives us a story that is more inspirational tale and tribute to domestic help than realistic depiction of the Civil Rights movement, you'll want to read it nevertheless (even if just to find out what's in that cake).

9 Colson Whitehead is a delightful wordsmith, and in Apex Hides the Hurt, he finds a story that encourages wordplay. Our protagonist is a "nomenclature consultant," a namer of names who despite such career successes as the title slogan (Apex being the brand name for a Band-Aid rival that comes in shades reflecting ethnically diverse skintones) is going through a rough patch. He is challenged to choose a name for the small town now known as Winthrop after the industrialist family that founded its once-thriving barbed wire factory, but originally known as Freedom, a haven for former slaves. If the local millionaire entrepreneur has his way, Freedom/Winthrop will become New Prospera. Whitehead's meditation on market forces, multiculturalism, and "political" correctness is smart, sarcastic, funny, and all too honest in its appraisal of the challenges and absurdities of modern life.

Two Dozen from 2011 (Pt. 1)

The winter issue of Poets & Writers highlighted Maine writer Joshua Bodwell's annual annotated "Baker's Dozen" list of top reads for the year. In challenging myself to put together my own Top 13, I found myself struggling to pare it down below 14 -- so I decided to expand instead. Based on a quick perusal of my Goodreads account, this list comprises about one quarter of my 2011 reading. While I re-read and enjoyed some favorite series (by Jim Butcher and Diana Gabaldon) in 2011, the titles that made it to the list were all new reads. In not-quite-but-almost random order:

1 & 2 To address my own pet interests first, I'll list David Damrosch's The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh and Theodore Ziolkowski's Gilgamesh Among Us. The Buried Book was a Christmas present I'd been saving, and it turned out to be a highly readable account of the epic's discovery and translation by George Smith; its excavation and the discovery of Ninevah's palace library by Hormuzd Rassam, the assembling of the library by Ashurbanipal, and the epic's beginnings in ancient Sumer. To mimic an archaeological excavation, Damrosch begins in the mid-19th century and moves back 3,000 years toward what can be surmised of the historical Gilgamesh. Damrosch paints both Smith and Rassam as underdogs in conflict with the British elite; while this approach probably made for good storytelling, I was ridden with sympathetic angst while reading of some of the academic, political, and even legal battles! I was familiar with most of the names, but the book helped put them in context (especially the 19th century Brits Layard, Rawlinson, Smith, Rassam, and Budge). While much of the information about the sources and interpretation of the epic itself can be found in other places, Damrosch brings together insights from experts in various disciplines, and his epilogue on Gilgamesh in the context of the second Gulf War provides a thoughtful conclusion. (It also kind of makes me want to read Saddam Hussein's novel Zabibah and the King, now apparently available in German translation.)

Ziolkowski picks up where Damrosch leaves off, writing a "reception history" of Gilgamesh in literature and popular culture, from its early translation through to the 21st Century. I'm still in first chapters, but it seems that, while the earliest interest in Gilgamesh was based on the flood account and how it reinforced or undermined Biblical authority, later interest was motivated in part by the epic's position outside of (and prior to) Christian tradition in all its Western interpretations. Although Gilgamesh influenced early modernist writers including Rilke and earned a place in Jung's Symbols of Transformation, it has perhaps been brought to the fore more by postmodernists than modernists, due in part to its existential themes, opportunities for exploring issues of gender and sexuality, and fragmentary nature. We'll see how Ziolkowski's argument develops: the highlight is sure to begin on p. 164, where Ziolkoski notes "American poet Hillary Major's 'Gilgamesh Remembers a Dream' (2000)" as a "proud entry" in the tradition of lyric poems inspired by Gilgamesh. After quoting from the poem, Ziolkowski gives a summary analysis: "The poem appears to take the homosexuality for granted--as well as the shortness of human memory--but leaves it open to speculation whether the plant of eternal youth--and by extension the entire visit to Utnapishtim--was real or simply a dream."

3 I was fully prepared to hate The Magicians by Lev Grossman, expecting a satiric exploitation of the fantasy genre with the oh-so-common "postmodern" cast of universally unlikable characters. Instead, I loved it, probably because Grossman's love for his subject (fantasy, yes, most specifically Narnia with a dollop of Hogwarts) shone through so clearly. Grossman undercuts the conventions of the coming-of-age fantasy while also embracing them. Instead of the usual underdog protagonist, Quentin is a privileged nerd; if less time is spent battling evil than exploring (and usually bungling) interpersonal relationships with his fellow magicians, that doesn't mean the stakes are low. The question of what magic is, and of what to do with it in a world where dark lords and evil queens may be hard to find, turns out to be epic worthy.

4 We Don't Know We Don't Know begins with epigraphs from Pliny the Elder and Donald Rumsfeld. Nick Lantz manages to give us timely, socially conscious, intellectually challenging and emotionally engaging poetry that doesn't lose track of the musicality of language itself. He makes us question the nature of knowledge, the role of science, and language's communicative power and purposes. Most of all though, he writes poems that can be read and enjoyed.

Race, Politics, & Underwater Caves

Recently, I've been reading my way through the fiction of Barbara Kingsolver. I enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible in high school, but though I was curious about her other books, I put off reading them at the time. In the back of my mind, I think I was suspicious they'd be "too girly" (and, then, I might have found them so). I'm glad I went back. Homeland reminded me that short stories can be satisfying. The Bean Trees and later novels entertained, made me think, and presented pleasantly complex female characters.

I started with an old box set that included Homeland, The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, and Animal Dreams. I went to on to re-read Poisonwood Bible, then bought and read Prodigal Summer. When I got to The Lacuna, however, I hesitated. The title alone sounded unpleasantly postmodern. I'm a Frida Kahlo fan, but I've read plenty of books that sacrificed soul to documentary accuracy when they tried to mix in historical figures. Plus, books (and movies) about McCarthyism tend to leave me feeling ineffectually angry rather than roused, motivated, or edified. The Lacuna, in other words looked like an ambitious, possible "important" book -- one that seemed likely to be worth reading but didn't promise much pleasure along the way.

So, I decided to take a break. The Native American themes in Kingsolver reminded me of another writer who had been, for me, a one hit wonder. Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony was the highlight of my required reading list at about the time Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible came out, but I had never read any of her other books. In fact, I didn't know she had written other books until a few years ago, when a friend who had studied her oeuvre in a college course suggested some of her other books might blow my mind. I appreciated the various feminist mythologies that played into Gardens in the Dunes, but at times I felt disengaged, the distance between the characters and the reader too great. Silko's massive Almanac of the Dead, one the other hand, became a labrious read: It's hard to fault an author for expressing anger or for describing distasteful realities (or almost-realities); still, Almanac struck me as a book that seemed to take more from the reader than it gave. Moreover, after more than 700 pages of reader investment, the ending seemed anticlimactic. [True, I'm not one to pick up on numerical subtleties, and calendars run through; maybe someday I'll do some background reading that will help me appreciate some of the extra layers to Silko's tale.] There is heart and soul to Almanac (heart and soul that I think inhabit very much the same place they do in Silko's powerful Ceremony), but it's deeply buried.

I worried that Lacuna, too, might prove more effort than entertainment. I couldn't have been more wrong. The book drew me in right away. The first chapter has some beautiful prose and introduces the intriguing characters of Salome and Leandro, but the story really picks up when the diary entries start. (And, for a reader who generally prefers third to first person, that's saying something.) The narrator (one of Kingsolver's rare male protagonists) is likable, and there's a subtle tension in his desires to reveal as well as conceal.

There's a danger in beginning with a fourteen-year-old protagonist, but Kingsolver makes the narrator's youth both interesting and integral to the unfolding story. She also avoids the potential solipsism of a novel about a writer. True, the most vibrant passages describe the narrator's Mexican cooking, not his writing. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo add color and energy; they spring to life just as I'd imagined them. (If there's a fault to their portrayal, perhaps it's that they're too much as one might imagine, too likable despite their faults.) Trotsky -- though portrayed even more sympathetically -- comes off less larger-than-life. The historical figures are tied into action as well as theme; they don't come off as mere decoration, and they don't steal the scene either.

Though the reader has a pretty good idea of where things are going, there's enough mystery to keep the pages turning. Kingsolver's creation, Harrison William Shepherd, is a protagonist well worth getting to know.

The Lacuna is much more than a political statement, but politics has an unabashed part to play. In the author interview following the novel, Kingsolver reveals that one of the inspirations for the book was a question: "Why is the relationship between art and politics such an uneasy one in the U.S.? Most people in other places tend to view these as inseparable."

I've seen and read plenty of works deploring the censorship and persecutions of the McCarthy era. The Lacuna is the only one that's made me wonder: What happened to bring the McCarthy era to the end?

That said, don't let worries about politics or postmodernism keep you away from The Lacuna. It is, first and foremost, an engaging story.

A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor

I very much enjoyed this selection of poems by contemporary poet Maram Al-Massri. Al-Massri was born in Syria and lives in France; she writes in Arabic.

Her poems are short; they make use of simple but evocative diction. They are passionate, erotic, complex.

In fact, the poems appear so deceptively simple that part of me wondered why I liked them so much. Was I responding to the fact of their being translations with a hint of exoticism, imagining the poet as some kind of modern-day odalisque? But as I read further, swept along in Al-Massri's complicated, questioning, and daring search for fulfillment and for herself, I knew I could let myself off the hook: there's meat to these brief, intense lyrics and the sequences they constitute.

One certainly feels that Al-Massri is in dialogue with a long tradition of Arabic poetry; this is sensed in the themes and images of love, and in the ways in which the individual poems are like episodes that reflect, challenge, open up, and refract each other and Al-Massri's themes. Al-Massri speaks, however, with a distinct and vibrant, modern voice.

Here are two selections from the series A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor, originally published in 1997:

2

How foolish:
Whenever my heart
hears a knocking
it opens its doors.

64

She set out
to offer him
her pores
and her nails
adorned with cherries
which he ate
ravenously.

She left
with the basket
of her heart
emptied out.


And here the ending of I Look to You, originally published in 2000:

99

Whenever a man
leaves me
my beauty increases.

100

Increases...


Both sequences explore themes of love and betrayal, power, freedom, abandonment. I admit to preferring the earlier Red Cherry, which includes more moments of innocence and awakening; more poems in the later sequence reflect on burdens, dissatisfaction, and disillusionment. Despite this, I found the entire volume a pleasure to read. Al-Massri speaks with energy, authority, and honesty.

Although I confess that the Arabic text of this bilingual edition was Greek to me, translator Khaled Mattawa (a poet in his own right) continues to impress me.

This volume was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2004.

Copper Canyon's Give and Get

Take advantage now of Copper Canyon Press' Give and Get promotion:
http://www.coppercanyonpress.org/giveandget/

For a donation of just $5 (though you're welcome to give more), Copper Canyon will send you the book of your choice from a list of 8 of their outstanding collections of contemporary poetry and translations.

Of course, when they send you the Copper Canyon catalogue along with your give & get title, you may find you're shelling out a bit more cash. Here are my suggestions for where to start:

All-American Poem by Matthew Dickman
(The samples will give you an idea of this young poet's deep poeticism, but the rich humour will be a suprise when you check out the book.)

Taha Muhammad Ali's So What, translated by Gabriel Levin and Peter Cole
(There's a deceptive simplicity to this Palestinian's poet's work, which nevertheless grapples with the complexities of living -- and of living in the modern Middle East.)

Big Fat Supernatural Summer Fun

Yikes! Has it been a year since I posted to the old book blog? Y'all just can't see all those unfinished "saved" posts (sorry, Murakami, Moaveni, & the rest of you...) hiding back in Blogger's edit view.

But what better way to get back on track than to jot a few notes about a couple of light-hearted summer reads? Most weddings have the potential to become horror stories, but few embrace the fact so thoroughly as the special days (& nights) chronicled in two short story collections, My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding and My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon, both edited by P. N. Elrod.

These are just pure entertainment -- and though some of the stories aren't really "good," they're all good for a grin. I enjoyed spending a laid-back river weekend with these anthologies for company. Though some of the stories in the "Honeymoon" volume were quite well crafted, overall "Wedding" was my favorite; it was perhaps a little lighter, the stories centered a bit closely around the theme. The stories are all complete in themselves (though some are written as episodes taken from a larger series), the unified them give one the feeling that these authors are collaborating, and having a blast doing it. St. Martin's, if you keep putting these collections out, I'll keep reading them (though I wish they were released in cheaper mass market instead of trade paperback editions).

Here are my thoughts on the stories themselves:

My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

"Spellbound" by L. A. Banks: In a genre-bending collection, this story unabashedly follows the romance formula. Though not the best written, this tale was one of the most fun (feuding families, backwoods voodoo, no-nonsense grandmas, and young lovers cursed with celibacy). That said, it was hard to ignore the history that tells me the Hatfields and McCoys were West Virginia crackers and accept the author's premise that these rival clans are South Carolinian African-Americans.

"Something Borrowed" by Jim Butcher: One of my favorites; I simply enjoy the return to the world of the Dresden Files. There's plenty of action, a suitably creepy villainess, and a wicked step-mother-in-law just for a bonus.

"Dead Man's Chest" by Rachel Caine: The author of the Weather Wardens series here strikes out in a different direction with this stand-along story. I found it well-done -- certainly in-debted to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but Caine's tongue-in-cheeck approach makes her borrowing more like an homage.

"'All Shook Up'" by P.N. Elrod: Elvis is always entertaining, although this story was rather light on plot.

"The Wedding of Wylda Serene" by Esther M. Friesner: The first person narration of an Ivy League insider makes this story distinctive. I'm not sure I'd want to spend much longer in this bloke's point-of-view, but it works for the story, which also features a unique use of Greek myth.

"Charmed by the Moon" by Lori Handeland: I found this nearly-wed couple to be endearing. The story seemed a little flat (perhaps the lack of a clear villain contributed), but it left me curious about the larger series.

"Tacky" by Charlaine Harris: I'm a big fan of the Sookie Stackhouse books, so this story was a bit of a disappointment. I couldn't totally buy into the point-of-view of the vampire protagonist, but my real problem was with the relatively easy happy ending and resolution of the vampire-werewolf conflicts.

"A Hard Day's Night-Searcher" by Sherilyn Kenyon: This story seemed to be longer; I needed more to feel really satisfied. On the upside, there's plenty of action and it follows the crowd-pleasing formula of the classic short stoyr.

"'...Or Forever Hold Your Peace'" by Susan Krinard: I was more interested in the world of this story, an alternate Victorian England where magical gifts are "entailed" and passed down through families, than in the story itself, but I enjoyed my trip from London to the Welsh Border with Krinard's amateur detective duo.

My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon

"Stalked" by Kelly Armstrong: I'm afraid I just couldn't get into the point-of-view of the male werewolf narrator.

"Heorot" by Jim Butcher: I think this story, which includes mead, the mob, and Beowulf, is even better than Butcher's showing in the "Wedding" volume. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

"Roman Holiday, or SPQ-arrrrrr" by Rachel Caine: This story is a sequel to "Dead Man's Chest" in the earlier volume and also quite enjoyable. The diversity of haunted seafaring vessels is impressive.

"Her Mother's Daughter" by P. N. Elrod: This short mystery, investigated by Elrod's vampire PI, Jack Fleming, was complete and completely entertaining. The whodunit may not have been terribly complex, but the details of character (sometimes humorous) kept my attention.

"Newlydeads" by Caitlyn Kittredge: This wasn't a perfect story, but I loved these characters and the gritty, dangerous Britain that Kittredge creates. Pete (as we discover, short for "Petunia," a London cop who's just learned about the Black, a dark magical realm that encroaches on the ordinary world) and Jack (her longtime friend, a former junkie, seer, and generally unreliable character) pretend to be newlyweds in order to score a better deal at a rather fishy Blackpool hotel. I'd be happy to spend a novel with these two.

"Where the Heart Lives" by Margorie M. Liu: This fairy tale is certainly magical; I found it a bit dull, however. It's a distant prequel to a larger series by Liu, and I wonder if the modern world isn't where her heart truly lies.

"Cat Got Your Tongue?" by Katie MacAlister: This story has an amusing set of ghostly characters, but overall it was not one of my favorites.

"Half of Being Married" by Lilith Saintcrow: Like Kittredge's story, Saintcrow's made me want to read the larger series. Full of action, this tale tells its story while providing tantalizing details as to how the supernatural works in Saintcrow's version of reality. A vampire hunter and werewolf find their secret identites revealed to their partners during the honeymoon -- and then must solve a nearly fatal mystery.

"A Wulf in Groom's Clothing" by Rhonda Thompson: This light-hearted romance fits the collection's mood and theme.

Royal Escape

Well, remember my inaugural entry and that book review I was putting off? Well, I finally got around to it, and it's now online: http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/royal-escape-a-review-of-a-georgette-heyer-historical-novel/

Don't pout if you find it better written than the meanderings on this page.