A few thoughts today on some recent(ish) (re)reading that I won't put into a full review.
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran (January 2020)
I've written plenty on TOA about Gibran's 1923 classic, with my 2018 reading review being the comprehensive precursor to my 2019 blurb. My notes from last January include a remark that I reread "On Giving", though of course I obviously saw fit to reread the whole book. The thought that a wrongdoer speaks for the ills of the community as much as for the individual has stayed with me since I first read The Prophet, blessing me with a perspective regarding our structural issues that informed the way I responded to events of the past year.
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli (April 2019)
It occurred to me as I reviewed my 2019 reading list that it has now been two full years since I last saw this book, which I've read six times since 2010. Unlike last year, however, I don't feel any sense of having missed my annual April rereading - it seems that the tradition was more closely tied to Marathon Monday than it was to the spring season. I guess the theory will soon be put to the test - the next edition of the race is rescheduled for October. In the meantime, we can carry on with one of the enduring lessons of the book - routines can provide just enough stability to guide us through our difficult times.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (December 2019)
This is one of those books that I should have written about right away because its combination of length, symbolism, and surreal elements make it a challenging work to review eighteen months after the fact. I only half-recommend Kafka on the Shore for I am unlikely to reread it again, but I do sense this is a partly unfair comment as I am comparing it against some of Murakami's other work, which I prefer; this book written by an otherwise unknown author might gain higher approval from me. The role of imagination in helping us move forward from the past is an important idea that drifts through this work, for our sense of responsibility is almost always an imaginative act; reclaiming responsibility for our own lives is the greatest imaginative act of all. Otherwise, we may be doomed once we pass life's point of no return, doomed to live out the remainder of our time trying to fit the broken shards back into the framework of the past.
