Hi reader, happy current year! Hope all is well in 2023 so far.
Here are some notes on my reading from June 2022.
The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada
Longtime readers may recall that I previously wrote about Oyamada's The Factory, placing that work on my 2021 books of the year shortlist. I didn't feel as strongly about The Hole, which won the Akutagawa Prize in 2013 (for those unfamiliar with Japanese literature, this is a prize that I believe is named after an Akutagawa, much like how the Nobel Peace Prize is named after a Peace). My recollection of this book is the expert way Oyamada sets the mood for the reader, leaving me fully immersed in the protagonist's feeling of being trapped by circumstance in her strange new surroundings. For those wondering about my recommendation, I suggest giving it an initial try - it's a short book, so if you can manage its strangeness then getting to the end of this decorated work should be no issue.
Who Says? by Lisa Zeidner
In this thorough work, Zeidner guides the reader through point of view in fiction. It was a solid book but perhaps too technical for me, which could just as much be a reflection on me as on the book (I suspect this book is best suited for fiction writers, either beginners or those who need to brush up on their fundamentals). However, I did feel that reading Who Says? made me a marginally better reader, particularly in the ways it helped me recognize specific structural techniques that mark strong writing. A helpful example is in one of my notes from the book - scene compression, which is implied by the extent to which an author reveals background information through exposition, is one of the ways great writers differ from good writers.
There were two details regarding the book's topic that jumped out to me during my notes review. First, for details such as rolled eyes a writer should ask - does the reader need to see this? - then consider whether rewriting away from default omniscience is an appropriate objective for revision. Zeidner also comments that the third-person perspective operates best when the desired effect is like that of a reveal, helping limit the exhibitionist feeling that might emerge were this done in the first-person. Who Says? also made a few interesting remarks that had nothing to do with point of view. As one example, Zeidner points out that the difference in literary and commercial fiction is the extent to which details resembling stage instructions appear in the work, likely a result of how literary fiction strikes anything that isn't valuable to the story. She also remarks that fiction is superior to a movie whenever the story must break into a character's mind, making a book the preferred way to tell stories about mood or motive.
What Are the Chances? by Barbara Blatchley
Blatchley's book promises to explain why people believe in luck, which she does by focusing mainly on history and brain science. These two areas are not exactly among my main interests, so for me What Are the Chances? wasn't the greatest reading experience. (It also probably didn't help that I brought some familiarity on the topic of luck with me to the reading.) The main premise of the book is that human minds are deeply ingrained with the idea that events have causes, so we naturally seek explanations for what happens in our lives. This may lead us to fear the unknown, a category in which Blatchley also includes randomness, so our ability to see false patterns or conjure up unlikely explanations is partly a result of trying to control this fear.
One note caught my eye while reviewing - the Clever Hans effect. This refers to a sensational story from the early 1900s about a horse who seemed capable of performing arithmetic. Eventually, researchers determined that the horse was reading the body language of the trainer, who was subtly giving off cues regarding the correct answer. I believe it's included in this book as an example of why we should remain skeptical of unlikely explanations, but I think there is a lot more to be said about it due to the possible applications in all kinds of fields. For today, I'll note that this story rings true to me from those instances when a household pet seemed to intuit that I was about to leave despite my not having made any indication of an imminent departure.
The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman
Longtime TOA readers will know that I count Klosterman among my favorite authors. Those familiar with his work will assume, rightfully so, that he brings a necessary balance to my favorites list, with his presence contrasting with those of the more rigorous or literary authors (perhaps best exemplified by The Nineties being listed on the Goodreads "2022 Best Humor" nominee list). However, Klosterman has a unique approach to his writing that I see as its own form of seriousness, even if the results won't seem very serious to the average observer. I suppose what I mean is that regardless of whether the topic itself is serious, he always seems to approach those topics seriously, and I think this style leads to his writing being more interesting than logic would dictate. The Nineties, about the 1990s, is a good example of this in action - he didn't set out to write a comprehensive hindsight analysis of the decade, as perhaps a serious historian would, but rather tried to capture how it felt to live through it at the time, which to me seems like a goal that would require its own brand of serious thinking.
It's not a perfect style and the book did have some flaws but I could forgive some of the shortcomings due to his refreshing approach toward the subject. For me, it was interesting to encounter lifestyle details that I'm sure are on the verge of being lost to common memory, with a notable example being the way landlines controlled their owners. I wouldn't go so far as to say it resembled an addiction, but at a time where so many worry about smartphone dependency it makes for a pleasant diversion to think about the complicated relationship we've always had with our phones. I also had never considered the way audio formats influenced records for album sales - many longtime music fans repurchased vinyl favorites for use with their CD players. The note that the rise of rap made it possible for people to hold an anti-police perspective even if they'd never had a meaningful interaction with police themselves made some sense to me from experience - the music was popular among my teenaged peers, with whom I grew up in the type of town entirely unacknowledged by the genre. However, I am left wondering if an aside expanding on the idea could have been the best part of the book given how this specific trend has only accelerated in the ensuing decades. To close with a comment on an occasional TOA topic, I thought it was fascinating that some Gallup polls regarding the 2000 election didn't include climate change among its top sixteen issues.
