Good morning,
My review of what I finished up in October is below.
As a note- I forgot to include my thoughts on one book from October (The Five Love Languages, finished 10/21). I'll include that as part of my post for November.
*Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (10/1)
Like many of Murakami's novels, this one saw two parallel storylines (described in alternating chapters) slowly converge as the narrative progressed. Unlike some of his work that I read in the past, this convergence was not obvious at the start. I found it notable the way Murakami adjusted his writing technique to bring out the tone of the two environments depicted in each storyline.
The danger in writing about novels here is always the possibility of becoming the unwanted spoiler (this is part of the reason why I skip writing about Eureka Street, below). So, to put it as vaguely I am able, I felt one storyline explored how our consciousness responds and interprets the external forces acting on it. The other, I thought, delved into the reaction of the consciousness to the pressure placed on it from internal forces.
The balance created by this storytelling method results in a thorough examination of the struggle to understand the forces that direct our lives. To complicate matters, it always seems that these forces lie just beyond our control. Of the many symbols and metaphors that supported this analysis, I found the idea of one's 'shadow' both the most memorable and most insightful. The shadow is always there, in one sense, and yet we have no control over when it is cast or how it realizes its full shape. (1)
*Drown by Junot Diaz (10/4)
I came around to this book after Chuck Klosterman's But What If We're Wrong cited Diaz as an example of the type of author that might slide under mainstream notice today yet end up being considered a major influential literary figure in a century's time.
It is hard for me to judge a particular writer's mainstream appeal. But I did not initially agree with this thought- from my occasional wanderings through bookstores, I knew Diaz as one of those writers whose new releases automatically make the front display case. Still, I had never read anything from him so I thought the time might be right.
I finished Drown with no original insights or reflections. If you enjoy short fiction, you'll enjoy Drown. But do you really need me to tell you that? I do think I saw what the fuss was about, so to speak, but this collection did not resonate with me in the way others have done of late.
*Nine Gates: Entering The Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirschfield (10/7)
This book of essays explored various aspects of poetry. The two essays I enjoyed most were 'Poetry as a Vessel of Remembrance' and 'Writing and the Threshold Life' but there was something to discover in each of this book's essays. (2)
Like many of the books I've read recently, there is much reflection on the process of writing. To write about one's experience, says Hirschfield, is to allow what is thought of once to be examined twice. Each piece of writing is potentially a building block upon which to build foundations for previously unseen or unconsidered relationships among one's experiences.
The fear of self-revelation is identified as an obstacle which impedes originality. Hirschfield saw this fear as particularly problematic, I suspect, because she sees original thinking as the default outcome for anyone actively seeking the truth.
*Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch (10/10)
This book collected the writing and web comics from the blog of the same name. This was a fun read and the drawings were funny. I enjoyed the way Brosch's voice came through in many of the chapters here.
One memorable chapter detailed a letter she wrote to herself as a young child. (Mostly, it was about dogs.) Getting a letter from yourself is an interesting idea. I suppose the feeling would be similar to what I feel now when I re-read books that I have not opened in several years.
Not all of the chapters were about funny or playful topics. Her chapters about depression were very good. Sadly, it seems to me that though there is nothing logical about the condition, the temptation to explain its causes is too significant to prevent some from trying. Like any prescription of logical medicine to treat emotional hurt, such explanations can wound as much as soothe those in pain.
*Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin (10/14)
This 1961 essay collection covered a wide variety of topics in a style perhaps familiar to Baldwin's readers (up until this book, a group I was not a part of). I suspect it is a follow up of sorts to his more widely known collection Notes of a Native Son.
Like many writers who explore the murky world of unspoken assumptions and half-ignored truths, Baldwin devotes significant time and effort in his writing to simply state what we today consider as given. This leaves less time than I am sure he would have preferred to examine the consequences of these truths. Still, I feel the simple act of acknowledging was a great service to many readers of his time and, unfortunately, many of his observations about this country's racial, sexual, and class distinctions ring forcefully true nearly six decades after this collection's publication.
I got the impression that part of his desire to seek out, expose, and describe the hidden truths that govern life's larger forces grows from personal experience. He details the difficulty of conversation without self-revelation. If a given topic of discussion is off-limits, the ability to converse freely is stunted by the fear of accidentally stumbling into the taboo topic. I thought that was a brilliant insight into how patterns of communication develop among even the closest groups of people.
Baldwin's writing is particularly powerful when he observes the world through the lens of another. He muses about how locals in places known as 'refuges' view passport-wielding tourists. Do the locals regard their home with the same sense of respite? He wonders about how children in segregated schools think about their environment. Surely, learning in a divided school implies that education is preparation for how to live in a divided adult world?
Like Anne Truitt, Baldwin is a strong believer that the act of clear writing requires an embrace of the necessary solitude in the act. Yet with enforced solitude comes loneliness. I sense he thought less of talented writers who turned away from this reality to pursue more 'social' projects (specifically in his comments about Norman Mailer and his burgeoning interest in politics) but this is merely speculation on my part as a reader.
I snuck one of the lines I liked from this book into a previous post- 'The future is like heaven- every exalts it but no one wants to go there now.' I obviously liked the line despite my general impatience for incremental progress.
*Crash by Jerry Spinelli (10/15)
Long-time readers of the blog (though apparently not my SPELL CHECKER) will recognize Spinelli as the author of my favorite book, Maniac Magee. Each book is about a boy of middle school age who also is a terrific athlete (the surface similarities end right around there).
Crash is about the difficult journey from seeking external validation to cultivating internal worth. Crash Coogan, the title character, makes this transformation over the course of a year marked by personal difficulties for him and his family.
Overall, it remains a kid's book (young adult, if you stretch) but still one I found reading again as an adult a worthwhile project. There is always wisdom in the ways people try to become the best versions of themselves.
*Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson (10/17)
I'm very grateful to have read this book. Interestingly, I cannot recall how I ended up stumbling across it. Usually this information is irrelevant to me but for this one, I would like to know.
I'm not quite ready to write in full about this one at the moment. It will have to wait for another time, either in next month's reading review or in its one individual post.
*Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (10/19)
I read Good Omens... on a recommendation and, though not my usual type of reading, enjoyed it very much.
One memorable quip from the book- beware the light at the end of the tunnel for you never know if it is actually an oncoming train.
*What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (10/28)
I read this book once before in my early twenties and finished up with no intention of reading it again. When I saw it at a bookstore, though, I picked it up and flipped through it. I noted a few passages were about the author's writing process, something I did not remember about the book from the first reading, and thought it might be a good idea to try it again.
I found the first half of the book superior to the second. It is more about Murakami's journey as a writer with running as the backdrop. The latter half focused more on his running (and cycling, and swimming- Murakami does triathlons fairly regularly) and I found this portion less aligned with what I am currently seeking out in my pseudo-memoir reading. (3)
I liked his insights into the nature of long-term projects. These projects, Murakami observes, require rhythm. To keep the flywheel spinning, so to speak, is like keeping a planet in orbit- it means pushing ourselves to our own limits without extending beyond them. To do so is dangerous for it may cause instability and hinder the momentum of the project. This is the shared element, for Murakami, of long-distance running and writing novels.
*Prospect by Anne Truitt (10/29)
The third of Truitt's personal reflections. Prospect was written in her seventieth year and tied up the life experiences she detailed in her first two books. As a result, though the focus often was the happenings in her life as she wrote, the book explored a much broader range as Truitt examined her place in the world, the art community, and her family.
Naturally, I found many comments about art throughout. Looking back on her life and career, Truitt considers the sources of the creative spirit and carefully compares her conclusions against the wisdom accumulated from decades of experience.
She comments that art, though intensely personal as a process, is perhaps on a general level the most generic of human pursuits. Artwork created for the creator is rarely necessary, she notes, and too much of it can kill off the creative spirit. She implies with these remarks the critical role the public eye plays in the creative process- art deemed deficient in a public context implies the failure of the artist to fully excavate and process their own experiences.
She also looks at her own dwindling physical capabilities and writes philosophically about the challenges they present in her daily life. For Truitt, constant improvisation in meeting these challenges was the gentlest suggestion at the need for a permanent solution. To ignore fatigue or push on against it meant tapping into reserves of energy, the depths of these reserves almost always unknown until the moment they fully emptied.
The most interesting thoughts came through whenever she looked at how life worked out for those closest to her. For some, she writes, success served only to reveal a wound that success alone could not heal. For others, a failure to value genuine or general quality with an eye to the long run turned out, in the long run, to manifest as regret.
The surest route to compassion, she saw over and over again, was personal failure. Perhaps it is the case that the conflict in acknowledging the value of failure as learning device with the fear of failure itself presents the biggest obstacle for many in learning life's lessons in empathy.
*Conamara Blues by John O'Donohue (10/30)
Longtime readers here may recognize O'Donohue as the author of several books I read earlier this year. Conamara Blues is a collection of his poetry.
Overall, I did not find much here to get excited about. I did note a couple of poems I liked ('Thought Work' in particular) and I've shared them below. (4)
I found interesting in this collection how much of what he wrote in those books I read earlier this year came through in the form of the poetry here. Though the form of expression is different, the thoughts and feelings that run invisibly between the lines evidently spring from the same place in O'Donohue's soul.
This poem, 'Thought Work', resonated with me on many levels. Sometimes we rebuild with recycled debris, others times we seek branches from trees long forgotten.
'Thought Work' by John O'Donohue
Off course from the frail music sought by words
And the path that always claims the journey,
In the pursuit of a more oblique rhythm,
Creating mostly its own geography,
The mind is an old crow
Who knows only to gather dead twigs,
Then take them back to vacancy
Between the branches of the parent tree
And entwine them around the emptiness
With silence and unfailing patience
Until what has fallen, withered and lost
Is now set to fill with dreams as a nest.
That's all for today. I have no choice- I did not read any other books!
My next post is going to be on Thursday- doing the usual holiday thing. Post will go up before 6am. Don't expect anything significant for this one, though.
Thanks as always for reading. Have a nice weekend.
Tim
Foontotes / imagined complaints
1. You liked a Murakami book? Stunning...
I really enjoyed the latter half of it in particular and finished up with the impression that I missed some important ideas. In fact, it was this lingering feeling from reading this book that prompted a prior blog post about 'note taking' for fiction. I intend to read this book once more someday.
It is true that I've enjoyed much of his work over the past couple of years. I suspect part of this includes how strongly I relate to the protagonists- generally male, late twenties to early thirties, somewhat of a loner, vaguely drifting through life, irrelevantly Japanese, and unfussed about all these facts.
2. You can take the poem out of the poet, but...
I liked this poem the most of the few featured in the book.
'Hidden Things' by Constantin Cavafy
From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there that changed the pattern
of my actions and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was often there
to stop me when I'd begin to speak.
From my unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing-
from these alone I will be understood.
But maybe it isn't worth so much concern,
so much effort to discover who I really am.
Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely.
3. Speaking of triathlons...
I commented a month ago about my surprise to learn that the Olympic triathlon did not include a full marathon. I guess my surprise reveals my failure a few years ago to read this book carefully because Murakami describes the event in full, I suppose for ill-informed readers like me.
4. And the other poem I promised...
'Double Exposure' by John O'Donohue
Sometimes you see us
Run into each other in a place
Where we cannot simply pass,
Say at a party, and you overhear
Our breath quiveringly collect
To shape a voice sure enough
To play out some pleasantry;
Something humorous is preferable,
It covers perfectly and shows
That everything is as it should be.
As smoothly as possible
We allow ourselves to be waylaid
By some other conversation and escape.
Though we move around the room,
We always know where we stand,
Still strangely bound to each other
In this intermittent dance
Between the music, each careful
To hold up the other side of all
We were to each other before
It stopped, and let nothing slip
From the invisible ruin
We carry between us
