Let's get June rolling with a few thoughts on a couple of recent reads.
Severance by Ling Ma (April 2022)
This novel follows a millennial (!) living in NYC as an epic pandemic (!!) slowly grinds modern society to a halt. Ling Ma's fictional world gripped by "Shen Fever" bears some resemblance to the reality we all know as COVID-19 (there are quite a few prescient moments in this 2018 release) but their version of The New Normal holds much more of a post-apocalyptic meaning relative to our own. For the most part I enjoyed reading Severance, though I would have preferred if the structure had placed greater emphasis on detailing the experience of living through the pandemic.
Some may suspect that I choose this book solely for the plot's resemblance to the post-2020 reality, which may be true but seems unlikely (I haven't sought out any other fiction set in a pandemic). Others might associate Severance to the otherwise unrelated television show of the same name, which I mention because I happen to know one of the show's stars, but I don't think this is why I read the book, either. (In fact, I have no idea how I ended up reading the book.) All that said, I did notice a shared feature of both book and show - despite enjoying the experience of consuming each, I didn't get the sense that my most urgent questions were always front of mind for the creators of these works. As mentioned, with the book I was left wondering about the pandemic itself; with the show my main question was why a company existed such that it required its employees to undergo the procedure. I don't bring these up as criticisms (or maybe I don't want to admit that I am being critical) but I do think both products would improve with a slight shift of emphasis in these directions. I think it's worth reinforcing a specific point as I speak of these examples - the hardest thing for a creator is understanding what makes their work interesting to someone else, and I suspect a lot of good work never reaches its full potential because the creator is either unwilling or unable to make the necessary concessions to acknowledge an audience's interest.
Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li (February 2022)
Li collects a series of essays written during a period of her life when she battled suicidal depression, a struggle which included at least one hospitalization. There are some searing moments in Dear Friend, but there are also passages told from a certain distance, which left me with the impression that Li pulled this book together as a way to continue progressing on her journey. My notes are a mix of mundane observations seemingly unrelated to this book (such as how travelers always leave home hoping to return as a different person) and insights that hint at rough drafts of a thesis statement (such as her question of why we hide from the unanswerable like 'what makes us forget the good things in life?'). There is also plenty here that reflects on the meaning of writing, including an observation that one specific virtue of the craft is the way it necessarily challenges an author's tendency toward self-protection. What I will remember from this compelling read are all the brief moments where I felt like I had glimpsed a hint of a hard-earned wisdom - that a person who isn't living for others doesn't necessarily live for the self, since such a thing is a particular skill; that the understanding between people always threatens a break, for understanding enables the worst form of silence; that the moment we feel like we know a person is the moment we lose them, since we throw away our desire to learn more about another.
