After a stretch of successfully churning out a reading review within three or four months of finishing a book, I've encountered a bit of a rut recently that's left some of my early reads from 2021 on a gradually expanding backburner. This happens to me from time to time, with the obvious reason being length - there's too much in the book to easily compress into a review. I offer this reasoning, for example, to explain why Thinking Without a Banister has sat on my to-do list for over six months - Hannah Arendt's essay collection is listed at 608 pages. If I could do it, it would be done, right? The problem is that this explanation demonstrates a common reasoning flaw as it relates to backlogs. If you think about it, all I'm doing by pointing out the length is describing an aspect of my process that should be accounted for in my turnaround time. After all, if I set three or four months as the deadline, it suggests that I've done so after factoring in the impact of long books.
The real explanation may have revealed itself over the weekend, when I tried to make progress on two such books - Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong and Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. Both collections share a certain feature in the possibility that I might be better placed to relate to the work than the average reader - my experience as an Asian American could be reflected in Hong's work while Tolentino's age and background suggest I have more in common with her than I do any other writer on my 2021 reading list (so far). The issue that became so obvious over the weekend was the realization that although I wasn't necessarily wrong with my hunch, I definitely didn't get what I expected from these books, and perhaps I need to reset my thinking so that I can look at these books without the influence of my expectations before I can finish the posts.
One moment that sticks out when I think back a few days was the way a note from Trick Mirror seemed to be a better fit for my thinking about Minor Feelings - specifically, that the innocent question of "who would play you in a movie?" is a bit of a challenge given the lack of actors who look like me. I don't want to go back and dig out my "TOA Leadership Bias Test", but I think the same logic applies - if you put one minute on a timer and name as many actors as you can, I bet you won't have many Asians on that list. This example seemed to apply in reverse, as well - I felt that the basic theme of Tolentino's collection is scamming, and the way scams define the millennial experience of the system that dictates modern life, but when I look at the notes I took from Hong's work I understand that a book about race, the biggest scam of all-time, will have much more to say about the matter than a few essays with a broader focus.
It's perhaps somewhat appropriate that I took a break from all of this on Saturday night to catch a movie. I worked hard all day, you know, trying to write these reading reviews, so it was time for a rest. This was the first time I recall seeing a film in close to a decade, which I suppose is a relevant detail given my earlier complaint - I stand by my quiz about Asian actors, but the fact is that I can't name many actors of any race. The thought occurred to me during a quiet moment of the movie, when I briefly reflected on my self-imposed exile - did I stay away from the cinema simply because there was never any representation of me in these scenes? The movies, so often aspiring to become enduring portraits of this American life, are perhaps just another scam, its mission made impossible without Asians. But maybe that was Tolentino's point, or was it Hong's? I guess for now it's mine, my point being that I walked away from movies ten years ago for no explainable reason, and that I'm now considering whether this had something to do with the people asked to star in these films.
I didn't linger on this thought, returning to it only just now, because I had to focus on the film, a spy thriller from a franchise I'd once followed with devotion. The movie turned out fine but it wasn't quite good enough to crack my long-forgotten top ten list. Wasn't there a movie called The Prestige on it? I think I did like The Shawshank Redemption, though maybe I'm just confused, having read the story. I do know for sure I loved The Last Samurai since I rewatched a few favorite scenes during those dark days of the pandemic, though the several Asian actors starring in the movie would throw a wrench into my snarky little quiz. But why worry? I have my answer for that stupid question, and besides I'd be stunned if anyone could name more than the star of the film. Wasn't he in a spy film, too, or did I just dream it? He doesn't exactly look like me, either, but hey, it's all a scam anyway, right, the movies, race, all of this? If he can at least speak some English and Japanese, then I say it's all you need to play the role, it's all I'm doing now, it's all I ever do, just go on long enough until the audience, all of us, are convinced I'm fit for the part, though we do have to go on longer than most. But anyway, the guy can play a samurai or some agent or even a secret agent, he can probably play me, I mean he has played me, he's played us all, but who can blame him since he's only being asked, since I'm asking? It's his mission if he wants it, should he choose to accept it.
