April 2020 Books
It may just be my imagination but I feel like a lot more of my books are hitting the mark this year than last. There are fewer lows and more highs, and it feels like I'm getting much better at not just putting down books I won't like, but only picking up those that I will. Long may it continue!
Highs
Lent by Jo Walton
Sometimes there are books that come right out of the blue and surprise you by how much you enjoy them. This was one of those. Its protagonist is Girolamo Savonarola, a fifteenth century monk from Florence. He was a real historical figure that was widely renowned at the time for his prophecies, for briefly holding the whole of Florence under his sway, his 'bonfire of the vanities', and his own trial by fire. To this colourful history Walton brings an element of magical realism or mysticism by giving Savonarola full powers; he can see and banish demons, and his prophecies are entirely accurate. This is something rarely done with Christian theology (compared with other religions and cultures), and the combination is unique, surprising and highly enjoyable as a result.
Walton draws the lines of renaissance Florence beautifully through the eyes of Savonarola, who is a deeply sympathetic character (his treatment sort of reminds me of Hilary Mantel's rehabilitation of Thomas Cromwell). The prose is unfussy and carries you along with ease, even if you are less familiar with the history and ideology of the time period, and the theology is handled delicately and thoughtfully. I don't want to spoil too much, but suffice it to say that there is a bit of a twist about halfway through this novel that leads to Savonarola living the same period of his life over and over again (that's not the twist, don't worry). Walton's handling of the issue of time and history is excellent in this regard, and those more fantastical elements are perfectly balanced with the historical. All in all, I loved it and will no doubt continue to think about it for a long while to come. And if you have any favourite Jo Walton let me know because I'll certainly be reading more of her novels in the future.
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
Borne is another weird, wonderful and unsettling book from Jeff VanderMeer, and unsurprisingly made it into my highlights of the month. In this first book of a new series (the second and most recent of which has just been published recently in Dead Astronauts), we are in a post-apocalyptic ruined city. It's ruined because 'the Company' used it as a base to conduct ethically dubious bioengineering projects, leading to an internal collapse and the reign of a giant intelligent bear named Mord (who can fly, of course) who now essentially holds the city under his dominion. Our protagonist Rachel finds a small sea creaturely thing in Mord's fur (yes, whilst he sleeps people scavenge his enormous body) and brings it home much to the annoyance of her partner Wick, who - wary of the Company's experiments - considers it a threat. Nonetheless Rachel raises the creature, whom she calls Borne, and as he grows she and he debate what it means to be a person, and though their bond grows stronger, it is clear Borne's instincts are worryingly violent.
Like his other novels, this one is complex and rewards a slower, closer reading than you might expect. The novel covers both familiar and unfamiliar themes for VanderMeer; the boundary (or lack thereof) between human and nonhuman life, the ethics of biogenetic manipulation, the question of how far our relationships inform or dampen our individual identities, the impossibility of an objective point of view. And those are just a few of its ideas, because there is a lot packed in here. Plus the world is gorgeously surreal and unique, and the tension of the unknown runs strong throughout this work as in his others. I'm very much looking forward to reading the next instalment.
The Book of Kane and Margaret: A Novel by Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi
And whilst we're speaking of VanderMeer, here's a book I discovered through following his Twitter. It's about Kane and Margaret, two people living in a Japanese internment camp in the US during World War II. Although it's called a 'novel' in its title, this book plays with the genre; it has two protagonists that we follow over its course but each chapter works as a different iteration of their camp lives. Sometimes they are a young newlywed couple, sometimes just courting, sometimes elderly. Sometimes the chapter focuses on one or the other, as they are variously musicians, local athletes or even insects. And sometimes Kane sprouts wings. In each iteration, the two serve to disrupt the boundary of the internment camp and undermine its power. The prose is polished and clean but funny, playful and poignant by turns. It often has a sense of whimsy, whilst still managing to show how the inhumanity of the camp is overwhelmed by the humanity it contains, in all its small mundanities and big loves. Because the chapters are relatively short and almost self-contained, I think it would be a lovely book for right now when our attention spans are short but we are still in need of something to beautiful and thought-provoking to read.
Lows
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
I found it difficult to assess this novel, which may be part of its objective? I'm not sure. It is set in a Mexican village and centres around the murder of a local transgender woman known as the 'Witch'. Melchor variously inhabits the voices of members of the community, showing the brutality of poverty and the toxicity of this environment for any woman or person struggling with their gender expression or sexuality. I appreciated Melchor's knack for the voices and small details of each of her characters, and also appreciated what she was trying to get across.
Nevertheless, I found this novel to be intensely, overwhelmingly violent and vulgar. This is definitely a book that has the potential to be highly triggering for violence of all kinds, so please be aware of that before you read. And whilst this is a stylistic choice that obviously Melchor adopts purposefully, it felt like perhaps it would come to undermine some of her work and did a disservice both to her characters and the real people on whom her characters are based (at least in my view). There is also no light and shade in this book to my memory, and I think sometimes you need that to prevent a book from becoming two-dimensional and monotone, as it often numbs the reader to the violence to the detriment of its message. And I didn't appreciate the fact that we never get to hear from 'the Witch's' perspective, or any perspective really that explored how it feels to be discriminated against, as each character was instead shown perpetuating the violence instead of reacting to it. I can't say I'd recommend this one at all despite the hype it's been afforded.
Everything in Between
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (audio)
This novel follows the lineages of two half sisters born in eighteenth-century Ghana, one of whom is sold as a slave and the other who is married off to a white man. The rest of the novel covers the next three hundred years, as the sisters' descendants variously cover many of the most important events in black history across the diaspora, with each chapter switching back and forth from the two lineages and between generations. This is Gyasi's debut novel and the prose is very accomplished, with just the right balance of lyricism and simplicity of storytelling. I particularly enjoyed (if enjoyed is quite the right word) the first section of the book set in Ghana and Gyasi's exploration of the difficult entanglements of the Asante and Fante people's encounters and relations with the white colonialists. Because of the sheer scope of this book, I think it would make a great introduction to black diasporic life, as it covers a huge amount of history in a relatively small page count. From there, you could easily dive into those parts of that history that you are less familiar with, or want to learn more about. However, this scope is also part of why I couldn't love this book.
I listened to this novel, and I think I would have better placed to actually read it instead, because the switching of perspective with each chapter was possibly even more jarring whilst unable to see paragraph and chapter breaks as clearly. Plus the family tree provided at the beginning of the book would have been useful! Essentially with each chapter you follow a completely different story, and each one addresses a particular place and time in Ghanaian or African-American history, meaning it can feel a little too fragmentary, and indeed some of the depth and nuance of these historical settings is lost in the sheer pace of the novel. Naturally there are also stories you want to stay longer with and others you are less gripped by, as each chapter must essentially stand alone. And many of the chapters were clearly written for the purpose of explicating the history rather than the charisma of its cast, which in a book that follows a particular family lineage can leave a little to be desired. I found Isabel Wilkerson's review of the novel in The New York Times also quite helpful in putting into words how I felt about some of the chapters, particularly those set in the US. However, I'll definitely be reading Gyasi's work in the future because this book showed a lot of promise.
Some Luck and Early Warning and Golden Age by Jane Smiley
During the latter half of April I read Jane Smiley's The Last Hundred Years Trilogy, which covers one hundred years in the lives of the Langdons, starting as a farming family in Iowa in 1920 and ending with them variously stretched across the US in 2019. With the final novel published in 2015, this requires a little bit of probing the future by Smiley. And it turned out in many ways to be exactly what I needed; it drew me out of daily life and into a different world and gave me characters to love and hate. Like many of Smiley's books these are slow and quiet - particularly that first one where the family are still centralised on the farm - and for that reason won't be for everyone. But if you are willing to be carried along at her pace she will reward you with beautiful moments. Her characterisation and observation is excellent; the characters jump off the page and the whole arc of their lives feels believable. I particularly enjoyed the middle book because she hits just the right blend of political and historical observations and family life. Unfortunately I found the third and final novel to be my least favourite and a little disappointing for various reasons but the most important being that the balance of politics and family felt off in favour of the former. It was less about the world through the viewpoint of the Langdons and more about the Langdons through the viewpoint of the world. But either way I found these novels to be a comfort and beautifully written.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (audio)
Patchett's latest novel is narrated from the point of view of Danny Conroy, whose father becomes a real estate mogul in the aftermath of World War II and ends up buying the Dutch House, a gorgeous property in the suburbs of Philadelphia. It examines his close relationship to his sister and their obsession with the house, which is snatched from under them by their stepmother after their father's death. It is a story therefore that relies on some classic tropes (the evil stepmother, the stolen inheritance) to delicately draw a picture of life in Philadelphia in twentieth century. This is not a challenging read, but it is an enjoyable one. I actually listened to it read by Tom Hanks and I have to say I found his reading to be quite bizarre in its tone and intonation (even though I love Tom Hanks!), so would definitely recommend reading it instead.
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
This nonfiction book looks to the Galvins, a family who - in the aftermath of World War II - had twelve children, six of whom ended up developing schizophrenia. Having contributed much to the study of the disease (including the nature vs. nurture debate and the question of how to medicate), this book serves as a contemporary history of its research as well as being the story of the family itself. As I often find with books like this, however, it didn't go quite far enough for me (it only briefly touches on the role of pharmaceutical companies and neurodiversity arguments for example), but it will definitely interest many.
How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
Orphaned by the recent death of their father (or Ba), two children of Chinese immigrants make their way across the American West during the nineteenth century. The prose is striking and poetic, and there are elements of the fantastical as some Chinese mythology creeps into their world. However I felt this novel did a little more with its writing and nods to the literary than it did with its plot and characterisation (though the fraught relationship between older child Lucy and her Ba was definitely a highlight).